Spyborgs

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Bionic Games
Genre: 2.5D side Scrolling Beat'Em Up
Platform: Wii
ERSB Rating: T for Teen
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Premise:
The premise of the game is to assume one of the three roles of a cyber soldier. The goal is to prevent the evil villain, Jackal, plans for world domination

Characters:
Within Spyborgs, there are three different characters the player can control and team up with in combat. The characters are: Clandestine, Bouncer, and Stinger. Each Spyborg has their own unique advantages and disadvantages. Clandestine is a speedy and agile ninja, Bouncer is a slow, lumbering tank and Stinger is the average soldier but armed gun projectiles.

Play:
The games pacing is very hard. Right from the start of the game, even on the normal or easy setting, this game is challenging. The 2.5D environment sends squads of enemies able to inflict high damage towards the player. The player must defeat them before moving onto the next level within the environment. There are no puzzles within the game, just fighting. The controls for the game feel great, because there are two settings to choose from: buttons, or motion controls. The buttons are simple, A button is the weak attack, B button for strong attack, C button to jump, Z button to block, and Z+A to initiate a special attack. The motion controls moving the button mashing to wii waggling.

Engagement:
The game would be more engaging but for some serious flaws. The story is reminiscent of an action packed Saturday morning cartoons. Although, the cut scenes had a great detail of polish(that is very uncommon for a wii game), the dialogue is corny and cheap, causing the "wow, that was incredibly stupid moments". The gameplay is basic and simple which makes it monotonous and repetitive, forcing the players to hit the same buttons over and over, performing the same actions.

Story:
The story behind Spyborgs can be fun at times or it can be the most generic and completely unoriginal thing ever played. The story starts out with the team leader named Stinger who wakes up from a coma caused by his last mission. His other team members, Clandestine and Bouncer were waiting for him to recover so that they can tell him what happened on the last mission. As they are briefing him, the base is attacked. The Spyborgs team up and battle the attacking enemy robots. After defeating the robots, the teams realizes that one of their own, Jackal, has gone rogue. The Spyborgs set out on a mission to stop Jackals plans for world domination..

Behaviors:
The characters behavior in the game are created by the game designers and are not influenced by the player. Behaviors include: walking, running, shooting and, melee attacks. Since there is such a range of behaviors available, the progression of the game should be much less predictable in its outcome and gameplay. But due to the linear gameplay, and 2 button combo system, the repetitive behaviors bring the game down and make it generic.

Resources:
The resources within the game are extremely manageable. The player has to watch their health bar, and their team combo bar. In order for players to restore their health bar, they need to find red orbs. To find red orbs, the player can kill enemies using a special combo or destroy the plethora of crates within the level. The same thing applies to finding the yellow special orbs, which allows you to uses a team combo.

Challenge:
The challenge in this game varies because there are 6 difficulty modes to play on: very easy, easy, normal, hard, hardcore, Spyborg Extreme. On the easiest setting, despite the restricted combat system detailed above, this game can be challenging . The challenge arises from having to use the limited tools to achieve a winning outcome. However, the game does allow you to bring a computer controlled ally of your choice and this does make a little easier. But, the player will need to save the computer instead of fighting his own enemies so it a limited assist. The enemies do massive amounts of damage to the player, so blocking is a necessity to make it through the game. Also, the option of choosing what character you want to play can change the challenge for the game. If the player chooses Bouncer, the player can easily defeat enemies and take the most damage. However, if the player is not careful, and just mindlessly mashes buttons, and does not block, they will die very quickly. When a player dies, he has to start at the very beginning of the level, having to re-fight the same enemies. This lack of check points means any mistakes make for a steep penalty: restart from the beginning.

Time Splitters: Future Perfect

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: EA Games
Developer: Free Radical Design
Genre: First Person Shooter
Platform: Gamecube, Playstation 2, Xbox
ERSB Rating: M for Mature
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Premise:
The premise for the player is to battle against Time Splitters while traveling to different points in time to find the Time Crystals

Character:
The player takes control of the character, Sgt. Cortez, who is an officer in the Space Marines.

Play:
The games pacing is easy because it is focused on basic gun play. Besides the gun play, there are small, simple puzzles which are inserted only to break up the gun play. The game progresses in a linear fashion and rarely involves back tracking for the player. It is easy for a player to just go through the motions that the game requires and still enjoy it. This game was made during the last gen era, so it does not support the wii mote abilities. The play rests solely on the gamecube controller set up which means that all the actions in the game are mapped to the physical buttons on the controller.

Engagement:
This game is very engaging for players due to its solid gameplay, comedy, and its incredibly well written time traveling story. The story is humorous because it makes fun of other first person shooters, and movies. For example, during the first level one of the NPC soldiers sees a mass gathering of Time Splitters. He then references a line from the movie Alien: "Oh God they’re everywhere, they’re coming out from the walls". Other humorous moments occur when one of the characters breaks entertainment’s 4th wall by saying something like: "oh man, that would be a horrible idea for a video game." To move on, the gameplay is all done in First Person view (except for the cut scenes) so you are only able to see what your character can see. This makes sense because there are a lot of little Easter eggs to notice within a level. Due to the time traveling part of the story, players are teleported to different eras in human history ranging from the future to the prehistoric age, and Cortez can partner with many different characters ranging from: a 60's spy hippie, a super robot, and a conformist teenager. This range of characters makes the game particularly entertaining because they all speak with their own unique dialogue. In addition, the gameplay is reminiscent of 007 Golden Eye, which has been rated as the top FPS shooter in history. Timesplitters gun fights work just the same, making for interesting interaction.

Story:
The game starts where the second game ends: Cortez in his current time period of 2401,and the space station he is at is being attacked by Timesplitters. Timesplitters are aliens that have waged a war on the human race. They travel in time and disrupt human history. In Timesplitters: Future Perfect, the game begins the opening scene with Sergeant Cortez escaping the space station that is being attacked by the Timesplitters. During his escape he crashes into Earth, and finds out that the Timesplitters have followed him there. Cortez then fights his way through the timesplitter army and reaches the base where he is informed of his mission. Cortez has to find the remaining time crystals before the Timesplitters do. During the missions in time, Cortez teams up with people from that time period, and himself due to time warp holes. Cortez finds out that the timesplitters were created by an evil villain named Crow. The last segments of the story deal with Cortez chasing Crow through a different future that he warped.

Behaviors:
The behavior for the character has already been created by the game designers, this includes: walking, running, shooting, talking, melee attacks, using items, and swimming. Since the range of behaviors available, the progression of the game should be much less predictable in its outcome and gameplay, however, since the levels are linear it detracts from the second play through.

Resources:
The resources within this game are typical of a first person shooter. The player needs to manage their health, ammo, bullet proof armor, and grenades. If the player runs out of ammo, the weapon becomes useless until more ammo is found. The rule is the same for grenades, health, and bullet proof armor. The resources in the game are easily found because most enemies drop ammo and health for the player to recover.

Challenge:
The challenge for Timesplitters is what grabs players right into the game. When starting the single player campaign, there are 3 challenge levels the player can choose: easy, medium, and hard. One challenge that was a little to hard was battling the Timesplitters. Timesplitters turn invisible when they fight the player, and the only time they are visible is when attacking this makes them extremely hard to hit. Their are also a few physical puzzles scattered throughout the game, but they are extremely simple, so they present little challenge to the player. Other than that, Timesplitters: Future Perfect boasts a great challenge that any gamer type can enjoy. In addition to the single player, Timesplitters has over 150 characters to unlock, along with over 300 trophies to collect. Along with the characters and trophies there are arcade style missions that are quick and fun, but hard to get a high score on. So this game will keep any player occupied for a while, if they pursue the game to completion.

Dead Space Extraction

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: EA
Developer: Visceral Games
Genre: On Rails Shooter

Platform: Wii

ERSB Rating: M for Mature

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Premise:

The Premise of the game is to survive the Necromorph infestation on the Mining ship and the Aegis VII colony.

Character:

The player takes control of 4 different characters: Gabriel Weller, Nathan Mcneill, Lexine Murdoch, and Warren Eckhardt. The game play does not change when the game forces you to assume these characters, but their personalities are completely different from one another making the experience different. 

Play:

 The play in the game centers on using the wii-mote and nun chuck set up. The Wii Mote acts as the gun while the nun-chuck serves many purposes: swinging it activates the melee attacks, moving the control stick changes weapons, the C button activates the stasis, and the Z button reloads.

Engagement:

The player is totally immersed when playing this game. The in-game cut scenes and dialogue is so well written it’s like being inside an terribly familiar horror movie. Even though some of the plot points are a little cliché, the player will still feel deeply for the 4 main characters But story aside, this game plays like a typical rail shooter with some unique twists: story driven, original weapons, and interesting dismemberment system. Rail Shooter games are always played in First Person View and this game is no exception. First Person View means that the player sees out of the person he is controlling. The game developers did this on purpose so they could add little nuances that will cause the player to ask themselves: did that really happen, or is my character going crazy?

Story:

The story in Dead Space is not for the faint of heart. The story begins on a distant planet far from the colony. Lexine Murdoch, a surveyor for a mining companyy, has a boy friend who goes crazy when he mines an artifact called a "Marker". The character Nathan Mcneill determines that he has to kill the boyfriend as the boyfriend was clearly out of his mind, and had murdered too many other miners. There was no saving him . Two weeks later, weird cases of murder and suicide started to appear outside the mining area in the Colony. So Nathan along with Gabriel who is another security guard go and investigate. They go to the morgue and notice that all the bodies are gone and know that something is not right. For some unexplained reason, the Marker causes everyone on the Aegis VII colony to start killing themselves and attacking others (Eventually the civilians on the colony start to turn into an enemy called Necromorph). The Necromorphs first appear in the morgue and all hell breaks lose. Nathan and Gabriel try to find an escape pod to the mother ship. Along their journey, they find the egocentric, VIP Warren Eckardt , and the strong willed do-gooder Lexine Murdoch. So now, the 4 of them try to escape. They eventually do and once aboard the mother ship they realize that the Necromorphs are onboard too. From there, the new goal is to make it back to the escape pod in order to send for help. But since the second game is already out, players know that the 4 heroes meet a tragic fate. 

Resources:

The resources in the game are very manageable, because of a piece of equipment called RIG. The RIG (which is basically the HUD) displays the characters health, current ammo, and stasis energy. Other than that, the resources in this game are typical of most rail shooters. The player has to maintain health, ammo, and stasis energy by finding hidden ammo pack and health packs. The stasis energy, however, recovers over time, if it’s not used for a while.
Challenge:

The first challenge that lies within this game is the weapons. The weapons (like previous Dead Space games) are all futuristic mining tools, with the exception of the few weapons like the battle rifle. Mining tools are used to cut rocks apart, and this concept carries over to how the player kills Necromorphs. The only way the Necromorphs can be killed is to strategically dismember their body parts, so getting the classic head shot won’t save you in this game. Besides the tools helping you in combat, you have an item called the stasis. The stasis freezes enemies to a slow crawl to help you dismember them. Another challenge is managing the in game inventory. The player can only carry 3 different weapons out of 10. Each weapon has its own unique qualities and disadvantages. For example the battle rifle has a lot of ammo, but it is very poor at cutting of the enemies body parts. Another challenge is the games puzzles. While they are simple, they are fun because you have to hack into a terminal while Necromorphs are coming to attack you. So if the player does not solve the puzzle in time, he will have to deal with a horde of angry Necromorphs. Another puzzle the game gives to the player are called “Zero Gravity”. Zero Gravity is when the gravity inside the space ship is gone and everything is floating. The player has to point and click on the safe areas to land or risk being torn apart by enemies or getting sucked out into space from holes in the ship. While the challenge in some of the puzzles is lacking, its still fun because it fits with the atmosphere of the previous Dead Space game. Also while the enemies are numerous and difficult, most of them attack in the same way. This is one of the biggest flaws because once the player figures how certain enemies attack, its easier to manage who to shoot first. All in all the game does not get difficult until the last two chapters where the main characters are trying to escape from the mothership and every single Necromorph is coming after them. In the horror movie genre it’s called their "Last Stand" The last and optional challenge this game has is called "Challenge Mode". This mode plays like an arcade style House of the Dead shooter where the player is trying to acquire as much points as possible. This mode is probably the hardest thing in the game because it never ends, and the enemies keep coming.

Where They Got Their Ideas For The Game:

The game designers are the same team who developed Dead Space Extraction’s sequel called “Dead Space” In an interview, the designers said that they wanted to create a wii specific, innovative horror game that pushed the limits. In my view, they did that. Having played the previous Dead Space, the dialogue, combat, and atmosphere is completely the same: eerie and out of this world.