This week we have special guest, stand up comedian and runner of Ask A Capper, Chuck Bittner. We talk about the Call of Duty XP event, Halo 4, whether Deus Ex: HR is racist and then discuss who would we dress as and who we would dress our worst enemy as during a live televised event.
Cast: Alexis Ayala, Matt Vella, Luke Halliday and Special Guest Chuck Bittner
It is certainly a good year to be a Dragon Quest fan. Of course we already told you news about Dragon Quest X’s big reveal recently, but there is yet another title coming to the Wii that is sure to press some nostalgic buttons for some. Dragon Quest Anniversary Collection is set to release just nine days from today in Japan (September 15th for those of you bad at math), and will bring together the Erdwick trilogy in one snazzy package. Not only will players receive Dragon Quest 1, 2, and 3, but also included on the disc will be the Game Boy Color ports of Dragon Quest 1&2, and Dragon Quest 3 (also known as Dragon Warrior during the original western release).
To add in those last elements of spice, fans can also expect to find a mini-medal replica made famous by the series along with a reprinted Shinken NES strategy guide for the original trio of titles on the disc. Quite a nice package indeed. You can watch the official trailer for the compilation below, and once we hear any word of localization, we will be sure to inform you all so stay tuned!
With the release of Bit.Trip Complete for the Nintendo Wii just around the corner, the team over at Aksys Games has been kind enough to release a new trailer. This is the very same trailer that had its debut on Tiny Cartidge just a few short days ago, which has been made available to public world wide. We here at Capsule Computers are proud to present the brand new trailer for Bit.Trip Complete, which along with Bit.Trip Saga for the 3DS will be released September 13. Bit. Trip Complete will contain 120 new challenges, as well as all six games from the WiiWare series. Check out the trailer and let us know what you think.
The Arkedo Series, published by Sanuk Games is returning to the European Playstation Store with their second installment SWAP! The puzzle game will be available from the 21st of September. A price has also been set: €1.99. For those in the United Kingdom, expect to pay £1.59.
SWAP!, the second of the collection of three games from Arkedo Studio, is a four match puzzle game. You are King Kat, who must find his way back to the castle after going out on an all-nighter and pulling off a milk binge. Yes, that is the story. You can check the screenshots of the game below.
The Arkedo Series is made up of three downloadable titles: JUMP!, SWAP! and PIXEL!. JUMP! is now available on the Playstation Store and PIXEL! will have a release date soon.
You know what’s awesome about Capsule Computers? We have a review of JUMP! right now. Want to know if it is worth it? Well… what are you waiting for? We will have a review of SWAP! as well, so watch out for that one.
Dead Island Developer: Techland Publisher: Deep Silver Platforms: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, PC Release Date: September 6, 2011 Price: $59.99 – Buy now!
Overview:
Zombies and video games are like peas in a pod. You will rarely have to look more than a few months in the future or in the past and not find a game that has zombies in it in some form or another. But what about a zombie game that is actually open world? Sure we’ve seen zombies that attacked in malls and had the semblance of freedom, and we’ve also seen games that had players follow a linear path through preset stages.
But Dead Island is something quite different than anything we’ve seen before. The game was dark for many years until it was brought to a hyper frenzy thanks to the emotionally packed CGI trailer that announced that the game would be released in September. Now that it is time for Dead Island to hit shelves, does it’s four player co-op and open world zombie survival on a tropical island create a zombie survivalist’s dream?
Story:
It seemed like a normal day on the island of Banoi. People were partying and having a wonderful time on their vacation to the tropical island. But their wonderful time was not going to last long, as a sudden zombie outbreak has occurred and they have quickly overrun the island, killing and devouring everyone in their hungry paths.
Players must take on the role of one of the four survivors which somehow have immunity to the zombie infection and with this immunity; you must not only try and escape the island with your life but also find out what the world has started this outbreak in the first place. Along the way there are numerous survivors which you can encounter, many which can help point you in the right direction of both freedom and knowledge.
The survivors’ names are Purna an ex-police officer turned bodyguard, Logan Carter a man who used to be a star football player until his career was ended in a car crash, Sam B a one-hit wonder rapper and Xian Mei, a Chinese Special Forces operative sent to spy on wealthy people visiting the island. While the player’s backgrounds may not play heavily into the story itself, their skills, which I will address later, do.
The player must make their way through the main story and travel between various locations, ranging from the beach resort, to the middle of a downtown area and even into a jungle. The main story is separated from side quests in the quest journal and is easy to avoid doing if you so please, which you will often find yourself doing.
There is a sense of adventure to every mission you are given and the side quests are not only wide-ranging in variety but can also be extremely emotional. There are your standard fetch quests of course, but alongside these are those that pull on your heart strings because the man just asked you to murder his zombified friend or deliver a memento to their loved ones because they won’t be making it back.
While the story does a great job of showing that the survivors are truly surviving against the odds and has plenty of emotion thrown in, it also can be quite confusing at times, and at other times completely random. There are many times that certain storyline related quests will pop up or happen without much explanation whatsoever and when there is a bit of explanation they make little sense.
Graphics:
The island of Banoi is a beautiful place. The first place players are dropped is right on the beach where you can stand and stare at the wonderful looking ocean, only to see the blood of a half eaten woman laying just a few feet away. The zombies in the game are absolutely amazing to see and are well varied. There are plenty of character models for each zombie in each area, plus enemies will usually show damage that they receive either with limbs becoming exceptionally damaged or even broken from blunt weapons or a badly burnt body from being set on fire.
While the zombies are great looking and the overall world of the island of Banoi is spectacular, there is a heavy feeling that the game is missing some polish. There is a very large amount of texture pop in which can be extremely noticeable, especially with some weapons looking absolutely terrible until the textures pop. Cutscenes also have a problem with pop-up and distance, as a few cutscenes failed to render anything in the background for the entire scene which immediately takes away from the experience.
Audio:
There is something to be said when you are walking through a city street or deserted looking cabana only to hear the moan of a nearby zombie and start to panic slightly. Dead Island has absolutely wonderful sounding zombies and you will often be keeping not only your eyes open as you make your way through the world but also your ears. The snarl of a nearby zombie or scream of an infected can quickly escalate any situation into a fight or flight for your life.
The characters themselves are well voiced and there should be no complaints here. A number of the characters have Australian sounding accents, which will either come as an amusement to the player or something to simply pass off. I however did run the accent past one of our Australian editors and it apparently is rather spot-on.
Gameplay:
At its very core, Dead Island is an open world survival game where players must make their way from place to place and finish missions for other survivors while doing battle against any undead that they come across. They will do this primarily through melee combat and occasional ranged combat and accumulate experience points along the way that can be used to customize their characters skills.
Past that however is an amazing experience. As I mentioned before, the quests are extremely diverse and this expands past the side quests as well. This keeps not only the main quests interesting but also helps keep the player interested in seeing what they will need to do for every survivor they come across. Plus side quests don’t always come from random survivors in safe areas, you can occasionally stumble upon trapped survivors about to be eaten by a zombie horde or hear a radio transmission about a survivor somewhere in the world that can be tracked down.
This is another highlight of Dead Island, the massive explorable island. If the player decides to simply forgo doing any quests and feels like venturing around the island than they are more than welcome to do so at any given time with zero time restrictions keeping them locked in place. There are collectibles to discover as well as weapon modifications off the beaten trail but there is also plenty to see and do, so much so that those simply running from mission to mission will miss quite a lot of content.
Of course while you are exploring you are going to be accosted by quite a large number of zombies. Fighting against the undead is mostly focused entirely on melee combat which provides quite a visceral experience thanks to the way that the game’s zombies react to receiving damage. There is quite a large variety in weapons that can be used, ranging from a broken plank or a paddle to a sledgehammer or cleaver and then some. Swinging these weapons around is tiresome however and players can grow tired, as shown by their stamina gauge, which will leave them unable to use their weapon for a short period of time.
The weapons are broken into two categories, edged weapons and blunt weapons. Blunt weapons are great for knocking enemies down and breaking their limbs as well as shattering skulls while edged weapons can neatly slice off an arm of a zombie or even chop their head right off of their body in one chop. Slicing a zombie’s arms off and watching it attempt to still bite you with its head is quite a unique experience, especially as you kick it down a flight of stairs.
Now while combat is mostly melee focused, players will be doing some ranged fighting as well. Melee weapons can be thrown at enemies to help stall them or, in the case of an exploding enemy, to safely kill it from a distance. Also players will stumble upon guns of various kinds as they play through the game. Guns are quite scarce on the island, though become less so when you encounter human survivors which have turned into looters and thieves.
Guns are unfortunately quite weak despite how rare they are. While human survivors can be dropped in a single headshot, zombies will be able to shrug off five or six rounds and still continue forward without blinking. When compared to even a mid-rate melee weapon their damage is quite low and begs the question as to why a player would carry a lot of guns at all. This is unfortunately poor balance as something as rare as a gun should be more powerful, especially with most zombie lore saying a headshot is an instant kill.
Guns aside, melee combat does have a few small problems of its own. Your attacks are interruptible which, while understandable, can make it difficult at times to do battle against the zombies. A quicker zombie (less rotted) can easily make it very difficult to even swing your weapon once when they get on top of you, making it so difficult that poor timing can easily result in your death.
Player death is something that will actually happen quite often as facing down the undead is something that is not an easy task in Dead Island. A lone shuffling zombie may not pose much of a threat but a group of three or more can quickly become a dangerous situation. Though falling to the zombie threat isn’t too horrible of an experience as you will usually only lose a chunk of your money and a re-spawn nearby. The spawn system is a bit poor however; there were a number of times that I was spawned right next to the zombie mob that just ended my life. Other times it was 30 meters away in a different direction.
Money is a powerful thing, even in a zombie apocalypse. Beyond buying weapons from other survivors, money is also used to repair your found weaponry. Both money and weapons can be found all over the island in a large number of containers which makes Dead Island a loot lover’s dream. As you fight with weapons they degrade over time and will cost money to repair and become effective again, but you can also make some weapon modifications as well.
As you venture through the island you may find some blueprints that will make use of pieces of wire, batteries and all kinds of knick-knacks found around the island. These blueprints can turn even the simplest of weapons into a deadly masterpiece made specifically for killing zombies with lightning, fire, poison and anything else. The modification items have infinite inventory spots which is useful, however weapon/medkit carrying space is limited so choose wisely.
As I mentioned before, each character has skills that are exclusive to them. As players earn XP from completing quests and killing zombies they will level up and allow them a skill point to place in one of three skill trees. These trees are either Rage Mode, General Combat or Survival and are varied between each character and usually focus on their specialty. For example I played as Xian Mei and her abilities focused on edged weapons and making them more powerful and deadly, as well as a quick and powerful knife wielding rage mode.
Now while killing zombie after zombie by yourself is fun, doing it with a group is always better. While the game unfortunately does not have local co-op, which is a disappointment, it does feature quite a seamless multiplayer mode. Players can either choose to search for an open game of someone with the same or less progression in the story as them or join a friend. The game will even pop up a little notification in the right corner if you are nearby another player in the story and at the tap of a button you can join their game for co-op zombie killing.
That isn’t to say that Dead Island isn’t without its faults however. Allied AI is unfortunately quite stupid. There are a few quests which involve escorting characters to a certain destination. However these allies seem to usually follow a set path, caring little for their own safety or even attempting to fight against zombies attacking them. Plus they care little for your own actions, often running right past a number of zombies attacking you and getting killed on their own. Plus they tend to walk right into thrown Molotov fires, so watch it.
Also there seems to occasionally be a problem with invisible walls at places. Playing as Xian Mei, she is one of the smallest characters, however I often experienced myself becoming stuck trying to walk through a door or a small roofed area. This was resolved by crouching through but looking at a standard sized opening large enough to fit a large person through and becoming stuck isn’t a good thing.
Overall:
Dead Island is an expansive game that deserves a look no matter what type of gamer you may be. The game could be sprinted through in around 10 hours but players doing so would be doing themselves a huge disservice by skipping content. Exploring and completing side missions can easily place length at over forty hours of single player gaming, and that doesn’t even count the time you will spend with friends and simply walking around murdering zombies with your fancy new electric machete or flaming tonfa.
Dead Island may not be a perfect game, as its story, while emotional, is a bland and unexplained for the most part and it has a number of annoying bugs and texture pop, it is a fun game. Facing down the undead has never been more enjoyable and challenging. Sure it may be frustrating at times when you die multiple times, but the challenge is all part of the fun. Join up with your friends or with random players and face down the horrors on the once beautiful island of Banoi and you will find yourself losing hours simply chopping and smashing the undead.
With games like Famville raking in the cash and time online casual gamers, the Time Management genre has earned itself a large fanbase across the world. So now, G5 Entertainment brings us an iOS game from World-Loom, original creators of the chart-topping game for the PC, which was well received by games portals across the web.
In Fix-it-up: Kate’s Adventure, you’ll be helping Kate manage her folks’ Auto Repair business in the hopes of bringing them out of a slump. The main idea is to buy and sell cars, fixing them up, giving them a clean and tuning them to sell them for more. Once you’ve got the hang of that, you can start building up your empire by spreading from Nevada to Hollywood.And of course, it has all the trimmings of a good casual game with achievements and social network tie-ins abound.
It’s set for release on the iPhone and iPad on September 22nd, 2011.
Sony Computers Rob Dyer, Senior President of publisher relations has spoken out about Microsofts Content Submission and Release Policy, accusing them of imposing unreasonable restrictions on publishers. In a document obtained by Eurogamer, it was revealed that “Titles for Xbox 360 must ship at least simultaneoulsy with other video game platforms and must have at least content and parity on-disc with the other video game platform versions in all regions where the title is available.” In any situation where these conditions are not met, Microsoft actually can block that title from release on their console.
Speaing to Industrygamers, Dyer goes even further, claiming Sony has known about the policy for a while, and believing it was only put in place to assist Microsoft from protecting an “inferior technology.” “I think they want to dumb it down and keep it as pedestrian as possible so that if you want to do anything for Blu-ray or you have extra content above 9 gigs or you want to do anything of that nature, you’d better sure as heck remember that Microsoft can’t handle that,” he said.
While Sony belive Microsoft are stifling and limiting the industry through this policy, they are insistent that their own way of tackling the issue, through their Pubfund and support of indie and smaller studios, without demanding a plethora of requirements is the only way to go.
“So potentially any time we’ve gone out and negotiated exclusive content of things that we’ve announced at things like DPS or E3, publishers are getting the living crap kicked out of them by Microsoft because they are doing something for the consumer that is better on our platform than it might be perceived on theirs.”
“So from a creativity standpoint and what we are doing to try to make it better for the consumer, our view is Microsoft’s doing everything they can to eliminate that because they have an inferior technology.”
Sony and Microsoft rarely have anything nice to say about each other so its no surprise to hear these kind of “fighting words” come from some of the top executives within the console giants ranks. This is big business and anytime one or the other feels threatened or limited by the other they will always have something to say on the issue. While I dont side either way as I dont have enough in depth knowledge on the issue I would say if it was me i would have minimal restrictions for publishers and developers for my platform in the hope of discovering the next Pokemon or Angry birds.
Tell us what you think; Are Microsoft limiting publishers and developers or are Sony just feeling hard done by and have many issues of their own that need addressing before deciding to accuse others.
The day many of us Dragon Quest fans have been waiting for has finally come as Square-Enix have finally came out and announced Dragon Quest X at the 25th Anniversary Dragon Quest New Production Announcement Event (go figure..). Instead of the portable route the series has taken in recent years, Dragon Quest X will be headed to the Nintendo Wii in 2012 for Japan, with a later release planned for the Wii U.
Quests for Dragon Quest X will work exactly the same as Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies, with new quests being distributed to the player. Seasonal Events will also take place that will enable special items to be obtained. A form of 3DS interactivity was also confirmed, which is looking to be the “Tag Mode” that DQIX originally presented. This Wii entry will also feature support for the Remote + Nunchuck, Classic Controller, Classic Controller PRO, or USB Keyboard and will also be bundled with a USB memory device.
The most interesting news surrounding this new title though is the name as well as the details surrounding it. The 10th Dragon Quest adventure is set to be called “Dragon Quest X: Waking of the Five Tribes Online”. Yes, this is an online RPG, where players will have to have an internet connection to progress. While this does add the potential for a ton of interactivity for other players, it also marks a large leap for the series that could be deemed a bit controversial for fans without the proper set-up to actually play the game.
Personally, I feel that the online feature is definitely a plus as the series has been cookie-cutter for 25 years now, so this kind of risk might be just what Dragon Quest needs to reboot itself. You can visit the new website for Dragon Quest X here (which is currently seeking Beta Testers), and once more details emerge we will be sure to bring you an update.
Hot off the heels of the Call of Duty XP event comes more details of Activision’s dedicated online service. Call of Duty Elite has been built especially for the franchise and will go live on the same day as Modern Warfare 3. Come November 8 players will be able to choose from a Free or Premium membership to get access to the service, which will also be backwards compatible with Black Ops.
There is a lot on offer here, and Activision really do want this game to take over the world – the service is even accessible on smartphones and tablets! Below are the details from Activision themselves, with free and premium services listed alike.
CONNECT: A true, franchise-exclusive social gaming platform, Call of Duty Elite gives players unprecedented control and flexibility over their multiplayer experience. Members can join and create Groups based on their hometown, gameplay style or favorite sports team, and then discover players who share that same Group in-game, encouraging Call of Duty MW3 gamers to play and compete with others of similar interests or affinities. Elite users can also create and manage a private Clan, as the platform enables players the ability to track their Clan mates from virtually anywhere, including in-game. The Connect features also include the Elite Theater service, which allows players to upload and share HD video directly from the game.
COMPETE: Multiplayer competition forms the core of the Call of Duty Elite feature set. The service hosts community-wide events and Operations for players of all skill levels. Casual and hardcore Call of Duty fans alike can battle for bragging rights, trophies and real-world prizes like iPads, LCD TVs, even a custom Call of Duty Jeep! Multiplayer competition and exclusive event programming will be available and managed by a live service team 24/7, year-round. Elite is built from the ground up to thrill the multiplayer combat seeker.
IMPROVE: Call of Duty Elite is a stat-freak’s dream, dynamically tracking a vast array of performance statistics at the individual, friend/clan network and community-wide levels. Players can enlist this comprehensive, always-on cache of data to improve their gameplay, target and outmatch the accomplishments of friends or put their skills to the test in numerous Elite Operations and events. Players will also have access to exclusive expert video strategies and detailed map and weapon breakdowns to help hone their Call of Duty skills even further. And, after studying these expert advice and strategies, players can configure and sync customized load-outs via the web or Elite apps for iPhone, iPad and Android directly to MW3, and changes will be ready in-game the moment they boot up their console.
Free membership gets you access to leaderboards and some group and clan functions, as well as use of the COD theatre (for uploading/browsing HD gameplay videos). With Elite accessible on smartphones and tablets as well as consoles, there is of course Facebook and app integration, with a friend finding match maker for the social network and a custom class creator app.
The Premium service comes in at $50 a year, and looks to follow the new trend of pre purchasing DLC that we’ve already seen from Gears of War 3. Fork out the cash and this is just some of what you can expect:
DLC for Modern Warfare 3: Everything apart from the map packs will be yours as it is released over MW3’s nine month ‘DLC season’, and yours to keep. Activision have 20 pieces of new content at the ready!
More Theater access: Upload more videos and get 8 times more HD video capacity than normal users.
Exclusive content: Access to COD TV episodes featuring content from Ridley and Tony Scott, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman.
Daily prizes: Compete for real-world prizes including iPads, LCD TVs and Jeeps in competitions exclusive to premium users.
So that’s a game, a console, a headset, an app, Facebook integration, TV episodes, a multi million dollar pre-launch party – what else is left for the juggernaut that is Call of Duty?
Driver: San Francisco Developer:Ubisoft Revelations Publisher:Ubisoft Platforms: Playstation 3 (reviewed), Xbox 360, Wii, PC, Mac OS Availability: Out Now Price:AU$108.00/US$59.99 (Available Here)
The Driver series has been around for quite some time, back in 1999 for the original Playstation. Since then, there have been three releases in the main series and a few spinoffs. Driver: San Francisco is the latest in the main series. I’ll sum up my opinion in one sentence: this game is a must buy. The story is well-written, the gameplay is absolutely amazing and the visuals are stunning. The music is alright, but the sound effects will make your inner car lover smile. If there is one thing that drags it in the mud, however, it would have to be the multiplayer.
Story
The story starts off with Charles Jericho, a convicted felon from the previous Driver games, being transported to court for his sentencing hearing. John Tanner, an undercover cop with his partner Tobias Jones, travel to a nearby overpass to see the police convoy take Jericho to the court, making sure nothing goes wrong. It was Tanner who put Jericho behind bars, so there is a bit of personal history between them. Flying above, a news chopper follows the convoy; however, the newswoman kills the cameraman and holds the pilot hostage. With an RPG, she destroys the convoy, giving Jericho enough time to escape his shackles and hijack the police van. Tanner and Jones are swept into action, going on a wild goose chase throughout San Francisco, only for Tanner and Jones to get involve in a hellacious car accident with a semi-trailer. I have given you a basic rundown of the prologue to the game. It is action packed, full of explosions and asks questions that will hook you into the game, like the central question: Are they going to get Jericho?
The game’s story is set out in chapters, focusing on finding Jericho and dismantling his criminal organisation. In order to keep his progress and try to link everything, he keeps a small board, showing what he has discovered over the course of the game. When you finish a story mission, Tanner will always return to this board to link new information in Tanner’s investigation. It’s like finding the next jigsaw piece for that puzzle that takes forever to compete. Story missions are not the only time you can access it. Choosing ‘Investigation’ in the pause menu and you will return there to remind yourself of what you know.
On the character side, I do see myself rooting for Tanner. He is your classic action hero, a cocky badass with witty one-liners. Jones acts in a similar way, but both are quite funny and fit the whole game. Jericho is rarely seen, but you could always feel his presence in the events of the game. The minor characters in the various missions offer a fresh side-story as a counter balance to the main story. A particular favourite of mine is Jun, a Chinese-American who participates in street races for money to fund his cousin’s college dreams. The interaction between Tanner and the cousin is quite funny to hear as you race for first place. Overall, the story and characters are well-developed.
Gameplay
The game’s core mechanic is, as the title suggests, focused on driving. All of the missions, both story and side, will take place in a car. You steer with the analogue stick while using R2/RB to accelerate and L2/LB to break and reverse. Pressing O activates the handbrake. Pressing the select button changes the camera angles within the car. The angles consist of behind the car, driver’s seat, bonnet and the grill. I often switched between full view and the driver’s seat. Within the driver’s seat, you may notice the speedometer and RPM meters actually move as you drive. I found this quite impressive, to be honest. It felt like I was driving a car. The driving in the game aims for a realistic approach, but also for a high octane, action packed stunt driver. You are rewarded for being a fast, reckless man (or woman) behind the wheel. Drifting is quite awesome and rewarding if done right. The thrill of going down the straight, passing other cars is present. It is a great feel, one that is done perfectly. Now, they need to patch it with support for steering wheels.
There is a variety of missions as Tanner tries to find Jericho after his escape. These vary from races to stopping a getaway. All of these missions are quite fun to do. One mission I found hilarious early in the game was a mission where Tanner takes control of a student driver. The objective of the mission is to scare the teacher out of his wits, indicated by a heart rate monitor at the top left corner of the screen. This allows you to become the craziest driver you can possibly be. Crashing into cars, speeding down the straight and driving on the wrong side of the road ensured me that I was doing it right. After every mission, it unlocks progress to the story mission and rewards the player with Willpower Points, used to buy new cars for the garage, instead of actual money.
An interesting and unique feature of this game is Shift. No, it doesn’t refer to manual shifting in a car. I refer to the ability to switch cars on the fly. Back when the first Driver was released on the Playstation, the ability to get out of the car was not present. Although other games introduced this feature, it was removed from the game to give it an unique flavour from other games of the same genre. Shift is activated with the X/A button and it allows you to travel throughout San Francisco. Once you see a car you want, pressing X/A allows you to possess the body. This is how you activate missions. I’m actually glad they did travel down this route. It opens a new gameplay avenue rarely seen in the sandbox genre. For example, you are taught to shift to cars heading in the opposite direction in order to conduct a head on collision. Rapid Shift is also available, but is only available when there is a partner car involve. Finding yourself trailing behind a getaway car but you AI partner close by? Hit R1/RT and you’ll shift into that car. It is also useful to return to the car you are currently using. Shift is a deep system of changing cars. It is also quite fun to use.
There are two other features that I should note, which are unlocked very early in the game. First off is the ram ability. Ram is the ability to line any car and unleash a devastating attack upon another vehicle on the road. In order to use the ability, hold L1/LT then release when you feel it is right. It is a necessity for mission which involves heaping destruction on another car or catching a car during a getaway mission. The second will help you catch up to runaway cars or give you an edge in the race. Tanner can boost any car he drives by pulling the left analogue stick up. No nitrous oxide (NO2), this is Tanner given the ability to boost any car he drives. These abilities are upgradeable at the garage.
OK, so some of the abilities sound a little supernatural for a game about cars, criminals and realistic location. I am not bothered with it. It is a breath of fresh air to see a game with some unique ideas being put in. The best thing about it is that it actually works and is fun to use in the process. The Shift ability allows you to see all of San Francisco and it is smooth when in transition. Boosting and ramming is also quite fun to use. Overall, the gameplay will keep you on the game for a long time. It is well-designed and fun to play with.
Visuals
I’ll sum up the visuals of the game in one sentence: these are the one of, if not the best, visuals you will ever see in any seventh generation game. I’ll start off with the meat of the graphical department: San Francisco itself. It is a great recreation. I haven’t been to the city itself, but the designs are realistic, almost life like. The character models in the game are simply gorgeous. Tanner and Jones are well-detailed during cutscenes, as well as the other characters. Even during gameplay, when two characters are interacting with each other on the top of the screen, the models looked closer to real life. It is quite amazing. Also a neat idea was the “Previously…” scenes, where the action of the previous chapter is re-told in a short amount of time. This is where the graphics shine. The style reminds me of an 80’s buddy cop drama on television with the use of multi-frames. It kept you up to speed, but the character models are simply stunning.
The vehicles are also divine. Car lovers will fall in love with the amount of detail put in building the authentic cars in the game. Gamers and car lovers would notice the abundance of real life car manufactures. For example, expect to see Dodge, Nissan, Audi and Ford. These are a few of the manufacturers. Ubisoft Reflections have done a wonderful job with the cars. They have recreated the bodies, interiors and other features perfectly. Overall, the visual capabilities are some of the best you will see in this generation.
Music
The music is top notch in Driver: San Francisco. From the moment you open up the main menu, you are greeted with an action packed main theme. It captures the style of both the story and the game. So do the various themes through the game. One piece of music I like is the piece when the “Previously…” scenes are shown, adding to the action. Within the cars themselves, there are no radio stations available. Instead, there are a pre-selection of tracks. To be quite honest, I have never heard of all of the artists that have a track in the game. I also didn’t notice the track playing in the background, taken over by the engines of each car I drove. They really hit the nail on the head with the sound effects. The engines roar like proper engines. Metal crashing into each other is music to my ears. It is heaven for anyone with a car loving bone in their body. Overall the music complements the style of the game, thus a perfect fit.
Multiplayer
For the first time in the series, Driver: San Francisco has online multiplayer. So, how does it fare up? Quite well, actually, gameplay wise. There was no noticeable lag and it was quite fun. Too bad I have to be Negative Nancy about it. The multiplayer is a mess, and here is why.
First off, assuming you don’t have an Uplay account, you have to create one, which takes about a few minutes. Once that is done, you have to enter a passcode to unlock these features. Now, I am not a fan of this method. If you bought the game with the intent of playing with friends or strangers online, you should have that right. I don’t care if it is bought used. Instead of locking out players, why not offer discounted DLC or exclusive DLC for those who buy it brand new. Much better than those codes. So that will take about another few minutes. So that is about five minutes to access online multiplayer.
But that is just the beginning. Once you have finally entered the multiplayer mode, you might notice that you are in Tanner’s Dodge Challenger, which is the multiplayer menu. When you enter the mode menu, you will see quite a few choices of modes. These range from races, takedowns, Capture The Flag and so on. There is one problem: you have to be at a specific level to play them. You heard me right. Which means you can only play one mode in online multiplayer, Free For All. Words can not describe the utter disappointment I felt when I saw this. Imagine that you could only play Free For All on Call of Duty until you gained more prestige. Abilities and other little things are fine, but not modes of gameplay.
Of course, there is split screen offline multiplayer. The modes are divided between co-op and competitive. Unfortunately, spilt screen is limited to two players. Overall, the multiplayer is fun, particularly online, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you decide to stick with the single player story.
Overall
What a game Driver: San Francisco is. On the gameplay side, the unique features keep the game fresh while the driving aspect of the game is fast and furious (yeah, I’m going there). The story is interesting, alongside its cast of characters. The visuals are absolutely stunning, one of the best in the seventh generation, including the attention to detail to the authenticity of each and every car. The music is also put together, but the in-car tracks are barley noticeable as you race through the streets. However, it is not the perfect game, as multiplayer is a muddled up mess If you are a fan for driving games, open world games or just excellent, well built games, then Driver: San Francisco is a must for anyone’s Playstation 3 or Xbox 360 collection.
