In Games Worth Playing I take a look at noteworthy games released during the previous month. It contains both a list of worthwhile new games and coverage of the most highly anticipated releases of the month.
Of course I can’t play every game that’s released in a month, but I’ll do my best to get a good sampling in. If I haven’t played a game and still list it, then that fact will be mentioned and the guiding commentary will be based off of reviews and player comments.
So if you’re looking for something new to play, then check back in at GameDrone every month for a list of games you might want to give a go.
In June we actually saw a lot of interesting new releases and with this month looking even better it certainly seems like there will be no such thing as a summer lull this year. There can be only one Game of the Month however and this time we actually have a great singleplayer shooter serving in that role: Singularity.
Read on for the good stuff.
Game of the Month
Singularity – no hands-on experience (yet)
Raven Software delivers an excellent first person shooter experience with this mildly futuristic game with a time-driven twist. The players gets to use a “TMD” which allows him to accelerate and decelerate time, amongst a few other useful powers. This not only influences your many enemies, but also the environment. You can reassemble worn down stone columns to create cover or accelerate time for your enemies and turn them into ashes.
This is all well and good, but apparently the story is interesting as well. It’s a decidedly on-rails linear experience, but that can be a good thing as Singularity proves. It’s also a reasonably lengthy shooter by modern standards with 8-10 hours of gameplay and provides constant fast-paced action interspersed with interesting puzzles. It’s being compared heavily to BioShock, with similar surprising gameplay experiences and wondrous discoveries during the singleplayer plot, but more varied gameplay.
It also contains a multiplayer component which centres around soldier versus creature combat. Both sides have different classes and there are two game modes with Team DeathMatch and an assault-and-defend game mode. Neither is groundbreaking, but they’re reportedly quite fun to play around with. There is some weapon and perk selection to customize your soldier or creature with, but there’s reportedly no real player progression system in place. So while it seems decent, I doubt it’ll gather much attention in the wake of the upcoming Medal of Honor.
It definitely sounds like a shooter well worth playing and I can’t wait for my copy to arrive, hopefully on Monday. It should also serve well to tide you over until Medal of Honor launches on October 15th.
Singularity's graphics may not be the best, but it has good gameplay in spades
Worthwhile Games
Counter Strike: Source Patch
It may not be a new game, but with the amount of new features it introduces it might as well be.
The new Counter Strike: Source patch introduces a lot of modern gaming staples such as achievements, player statistics, a domination and nemesis system, etc. It also unifies the game under a single tickrate which, while controversial, does seem like a good decision. Newcomers will have an easier time of it with all the base gameplay mechanics no longer changing from server to server.
The update doesn’t really add any new content, so it probably won’t attract anyone who didn’t like it before. But players who left it for newer titles or newcomers to the genre might do well to check it out. Also be certain to read my review for the full story.
Defense Grid: Resurgence Map Packs
Defense Grid: The Awakening is one of the most popular singleplayer tower defense games and with good reason: building turret mazes to blast aliens off the field is good fun. So it’s good to see Hidden Path Entertainment release four map packs for the game in June, consisting of 2 maps each.
It costs just 3,56 euro to buy all four map packs on Steam, which adds eight new maps and accompanying achievements to your game. That’s decent value if you like Defense Grid, which practically everyone does.
Hearts of Iron III: Semper Fi – no hands-on experience
An expansion pack to one of the better World War 2 grand strategy games: Hearts of Iron III. If you don’t know what that means: think of a big RISK-like map with turn-based gameplay and grand-scale strategy spanning entire continents.
Semper Fi introduces a lot of new features such as new map modes, 32-player multiplayer, improved AI, new scenarios, new events, etc. It also fixes a lot of Hearts of Iron III’s many bugs and isssues, although a fair amount has still been left untouched. It’s a definite sale for HoI3 players and could be worth a look if you think grand strategy is your thing. It’s not stand-alone so it does require the original game to play!
Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers
This new Magic video game is an accessible and casual take on the popular card game. It doesn’t quite follow the rules to the letter, nor does it allow for some advanced features that Magic users might be used to from other games, like full deck building. Yet to newcomers it’s arguably the best way to get acquainted with the card game’s complex mechanics and it’s surprisingly addictive once you get into it.
So what’s it about really? It’s a virtual card game that offers a bunch of singleplayer opponents in a ‘campaign’ that’s really nothing more than a succession of opponents with no backstory whatsoever. It’s also fairly fast-paced with most games lasting for no more than 10 minutes and it features some nice head-to-head multiplayer modes. All-in-all it makes for fairly good value for your money with the low price point of this game at just 9 euro.
But there are numerous flaws to be noted. Most importantly the pre-launch advertising was blatantly misleading, professing online co-op gameplay when in actuality you can only play local co-op on the same machine with a controller attached to your PC! That makes for a fairly uses co-op mode, but there are more multiplayer issues such as the lack of text chat and inter-region play. It automatically matches you up with opponents, but will never do so outside of your region, which is crazy because a turn-based card game can easily be played with high latency!
It’s also a blatant port of the Xbox Live Arcade version that doesn’t really introduce anything new at all. The system requirements are also abnormally high for a game that does nothing more than display a few cards with some very basic effects. It seems like they did only the bare minimum to get it working on the PC, which is strange because it took them a full year to port this!
Still it’s an enjoyable game that offers quick and straightforward card matches.
Mass Effect 2: Overlord - no hands-on experience (yet)
Overlord is yet more downloadable content for Mass Effect 2 and comes in at about 2 hours of playtime for a little under 5 euro. It introduces an interesting new sidequest in which a rogue VI has taken over a Cerberus outpost and Shepard is called in to put a stop to things. The production values are reportedly higher than those of the average Mass Effect 2 sidequest, which is pretty damn good.
It also intoduces the Hammerhead vehicle, which actually controls a lot better than the Mako in Mass Effect. It certainly seems like a must-have for Mass Effect 2 fans, as the best DLC pack thus far.
Sniper: Ghost Warrior – no hands-on experience (yet)
The role of sniper is one of the most popular positions in online shooters, yet there are only a few games that really prominently feature this playstyle at their cores. Sniper: Ghost Warrior is one such game, offering extensive single- and multiplayer sniping gameplay that tries to be a fairly realistic simulation of the real thing while it’s at it.
You need to take gravity, time, wind and breathing into account before making your shot, but it’s also important to see if you can line up a perfect double kill shot and to have an easy escape route in case you’re spotted. This actually works very well and I’ve heard a lot of positive talk regarding this game, although I should note that multiplayer isn’t very popular just yet.
Be sure to give the demo a go if you think that you’re up for some solid sniping action.
Duels of the Planeswalkers is an enjoyable little distraction from the big games in your collection
Highly Anticipated Games
All Points Bulletin
Take Grand Theft Auto and add in a few hundred players in two opposing factions. That sounds like a great idea and it probably would be, unfortunately APB’s gameplay comes nowhere near the standard of the GTA series. Instead it features shoddy driving mechanics, so-so shooting with poor controls, limited environments and highly repetitive gameplay.
So what you actually end up getting is a poor abstraction of a MMOG that gets boring in just a matter of days. So if you truly want a MMOG with solid vehicular combat, then you’d best look into Star Trek Online.
Don’t waste your money on this.
ArmA II: Operation Arrowhead – no hands-on experience
A stand-alone expansion for ArmA II that’s easily the most accessible version in this hardcore open-world first-person warfare simulator. It’s not an easier game by any stretch of the imagination, but it does add a few good tutorials to explain all the game systems. That certainly comes in handy with a massive and varied game like ArmA II, where you can take control over just about any vehicle you might imagine participating in modern armed conflicts.
Operation Arrowhead introduces a few new campaign missions, vehicles and weaponry. Most of all it’s more of the same that ArmA II offered, which should be music to the ears of ArmA fans. Definitely a wortwhile purchase if you loved ArmA II, but it also serves as a good entry into the franchise if you’re interested in a highly realistic take on modern warfare.
There’s also a Combined Operations pack which includes both this expansion pack and ArmA II at a reduced price, so you might want to look into that if it’s your first foray into the ArmA series.
Blur - no hands-on experience
This arcade racing game was actually released in late May, but I forgot to include it in last month’s Games Worth Playing! Ridiculous, I know, because this is one game that a lot of people have been waiting for.
At it’s core Blur is an arcade racer similar to Mario Kart. You acquire power-ups, blast opponents of the road and race at breakneck speeds. It also adds in some modern gaming flavor with unlocks, multiplayer leveling and a wide variety of cars and tracks. This is dragged down a bit by sub-standard graphics and unpredictable A.I. that’s easy to beat one moment and absolutely destroys you on the next track. But that only slightly mars the experience.
It is important to note that at practically the same time there was another long-awaited arcade racer that hit the market: Split/Second: Velocity. Neither game is really dominating in the reviews, although S/S:V is interestingly ahead in user ratings. The basic difference is that Blur is a tad more competitive and clean, whereas Split/Second: Velocity has the full sensory overload with stunning visuals, destructible environments and a solid soundtrack.
Both are great games if you’re into the arcade racing scene and the choice between the two is really down to personal preference. Blur is a bit more varied (more tracks and cars) and competitive, whereas S/S:V offers a more intense racing experience.
LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 – no hands-on experience
The LEGO games finally step into the Harry Potter universe and this first venture into the popular fantasy franchise comes out quite favorably. It really expands on the other LEGO franchise games, with a formula that’s much more exploration and platforming heavy than previous iterations. This is a good thing, because combat was never a strong point of these games.
There are a few minor flaws to note, such as a fair amount of backtracking and relatively simple puzzles, but otherwise it’s just another solid LEGO game. Certainly worth a look if you’re big on Harry Potter or simply enjoy a good platform game.
Do keep in mind that there’s no online co-op this time around, but it’s sort-of compensated by utilizing LEGO Indiana Jones 2′s local split-screen functionality which allows for players to explore separately.
Transformers: War for Cybertron – no hands-on experience
A third person shooter made with Unreal Engine 3 that’s based on a major entertainment franchise. That’s only ever worked for Batman: Arkham’s Asylum so this will probably suck, right?
Surprisingly… no! War for Cybertron is actually a very solid third person shooter which sticks well with the Transformers lore and has the atmosphere of the recent movies down pat. So it offers a lot of giant robots blasting each other to bits with a fairly up-to-date engine, decent voicework and a good soundtrack.
It’s certainly no Arkham’s Asylum however, because it’s a fairly linear corridor shooter with rather drab environments and poor console-quality textures. The port isn’t especially good either, with strange design decisions for the PC version like a framerate capped at just 30 FPS.
Still, it doesn’t suck! So it’s definitely a game you’ll want to give a go if you love Transformers. If not, then you may want to watch some gameplay videos, like TotalHalibut’s video review.
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