By now, you've seen the excellent 15 minutes of Bioshock Infinite. There's no need to beat around the bush; it looks stunning, and you know it. After all, Rapture was such a hauntingly unique experience. Why would Columbia fail to be? Well, look beyond the Bioshock title and there's surprisingly little to connect the two worlds. What's different to the frightening shadows of Rapture in this new, floating dystopia?

While Rapture was a sodden, dank and murky-blue mess of rust, Columbia is unmistakably beautiful. Classic American architecture gently baked in soft sunlight, surrounded by clear blue skies; you wouldn't expect Infinite to be scary. But rather than mysterious shadows and sudden sounds, Bioshock Infinite takes a new direction; the frightful nature of Columbia comes from the fact there's blood in the streets, dead bodies piling up, and all in what looks to be a perfect holiday resort. That juxtaposition - combined with the explicit, in-your-face fear from the crazed Vox Populi - create an entirely new mood for Bioshock; Columbia was built to fanfare and celebration, rather than pieced together underground. Now, the dream is going wrong before your very eyes.

The original Bioshock was a solitary game. Fleeting accompaniment from friendly robots couldn't do much to stave off the heavy weight of loneliness; the sole survivor of a plane crash, you creep in the shadows as a lone wolf, with only the dulcet Irish tones of Atlus to guide you. It created tension, an eerie atmosphere, and meant you immediately formed a strong bond with your only friend. Which is why it hurt so much when he betrayed you.


Infinite is the polar opposite. Elizabeth is a constant companion, able to both shout out help and magic up some cover whilst in combat. Booker himself spouts more than a few lines of dialogue, acting as a narrator whilst also channelling the feelings and opinions of the player, be that "let's help the horse" or "LEMME SHOOT IT IN THE EYE". The increased human interaction in all forms, from saving distressed postmen to staring down a Vox Populi henchman, means Columbia feels more alive and vibrant, but even more terrifying to most; a crazy lady sweeping up leaves next to a burning building is a far more haunting image than a Splicer in a dark corridor.

Combat in Bioshock was always chaotic and messy. Even with the many steps forward in Bioshock 2, allowing you to handle both guns and plasmids, you'd spray your Tommy Gun fire all over the room and lay down a constant stream of zaps in the hope of pinning the agile Splicers. Enemies took quite a bit of damage, and thus needed a good beating in order to put to rest for good.

Maybe it's the thin air up in Columbia, but these enemies are far more susceptible to lead. The gunplay is now more tactical and finely-tuned; headshots produce grim blobs of brain matter, while a single shotgun blast is enough to send someone flying. Plasmids also seem to have undergone a silent overhaul; in the past, electricity and fire flew freely around the battlefield. Now, plasmids are sparingly used to great effect, and Elizabeth can alter the environment to your advantage. The Murder of Crows is thrown into a crowd as a distraction for a quick escape, alongside a new ability that seems to lift the Vox Populi and leave them hanging in the air for an easy headshot.


Do you want to save some slightly creepy little girls, or shoot them right in their ugly little faces? That was pretty much the only choice you had in Bioshock, and you had to make it about fifteen times over. If you'd chosen one way, you'd probably choose that same way throughout the whole game, unless you wanted to forgo a happy/evil ending and an achievement or two. As far as choices in games go, it was bog-standard.

Put an animal out of its misery, or attempt to save it? Stop an innocent man getting lynched, or let fate play out? Do you want some cover, more weapons, or a quick escape while being attacked? Every minute, it seems, you have a decision to make in Infinite, whether it be minor or major. The effect of this is not only a unique experience that allows you more space for personal play, but also distracts from a clear good/bad ending or rewards. Infinite wants you to make quick decisions that truly reflect how you want to play.

Why was Just Cause 2 an absolute pleasure to jump in to? Was it the outrageous destruction, the mental physics or the beautiful tropical setting? Those certainly helped, but the key reason for the smile on your face was the fact that it was so easy to get around. You zip from mountain to valley in a matter of seconds, blissfully free-falling as you go. It's just fun.


Columbia's big. And it's sprawling. And it's so beautiful you want to see as much of it as possible. The new Skylines allow for rapid movement in between towering American architecture, giving combat a sense a scale not usually seen, least of all in linear FPSs.

Do the meanacing streets of Bioshock Infinite make your blood run cold, or would you rather be stuck under the sea? Put your comments below and make sure to follow our Twitter for all the latest.

Labels: 2011, 360, Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Microsoft Windows, PC, PlayStation 3, PS3, Xbox 360

With the market for free, massively-multiplayer online games booming, competition is huge and the market becoming increasingly saturated. Jacques Hulme reviews just one of the MMOs taking a stab at success in the difficult industry. Reviewed on Microsoft Windows PC.

Grabbing a bargain is great. Getting a freebie is even better, and the free-to-play games market is constantly expanding, with new titles entering the fray on a regular basis. Many incorporate themselves into the highly successful MMO genre, with fluctuating success. As the selection of titles has grown, competition has become more and more fierce, and for newcomers to the market it can be difficult to grab the attention of gamers, partly due to the oversaturated market and partly thanks to the increased quality in both graphics and game writing displayed by such titles.

World of Tanks, from Wargaming.net, offers a fresh experience to players, one which focusses on something slightly different than the usual offering of swords and shields. The game allows players to face enemy heavy armour, armed to the teeth with one of a selection of World War tanks. It's a new idea, pitting two teams of tanks against each other over a surprisingly large selection of maps. At the moment, tanks from the Russian, German and American armies are offered right from the outset, where you are given a light tank from each country to earn experience point with. As you gain XP, you are able to buy tank upgrades or entirely new tanks altogether. The amount of variety offered, considering World of Tanks is a free game, is tremendous; each country has a 'tech tree' of tanks, with all shapes and sizes of vehicles, and you even have the ability to select tanks which are suited to specific battle situations, be that wide and open terrain (best-suited to artillery and heavy tanks) or smaller maps in built-up areas (where light and medium armour tends to work best).


The level of detail boasted by World of Tanks is extremely impressive. From the design of the tanks to the damage system, it's clear that the title has every ability to compete with 'proper' retail games. Damage dealt to your tanks comes in a variety of areas, you can lose crew members, you can experience damage to you armour or even be unable to drive altogether, if a shot is lucky enough to land on your engine or tracks. Not only is the damage mechanic substantial, but you are also able to control where, and at what angle, a shell strikes its target, allowing you to become more and more adept with your vehicle as you move through the game. Of course, it's also important to utilise the cover spots offered by each map, as most boulders are able to withstand the impact force of an enemy shell much more adeptly than a tank can.

Of course, there are elements of World of Tanks which are exclusive only to premium members. For example, it is impossible to join friends in the same game unless you have the party feature, which is unlocked through the premium subscription. This also gives you the chance to earn more experience and cash from each battle than you normally would, meaning progression can be made much faster through the usage of a premium account. There are even a few premium tanks that one can purchase, which are unavailable to free players and can offer a big advantage to any battle. Perhaps these enhancements can be seen as unfair in some situations, but if you're willing to pay out hard-earnt cash, surely you should get something extra?


It is extremely difficult to find any reason why you shouldn't give World of Tanks a go. It's free, for a start, and offers a wide variety of options to players without asking for anything but your time. Whether you prefer sitting at the back of a map to shell foes using longer range vehicles, or move through small streets taking short, sharp shots, World of Tanks covers all the different avenues and caters for every sort of player type. There are more planned features which seem to be very interesting, such as the European clan battles, for example, which take place over many countries and aim to see hundreds of different clans playing against one another. If you're bored of war games focussed solely on action between footsoldiers, and want to get behind the wheel of something a little more meaty, World of Tanks would be a perfect place to start.

7/10 [?]

Labels: 2011, Free-to-play, Jacques Hulme, Microsoft Windows, MMO, PC, Review, Wargaming.net, World of Tanks

Windows Solitaire, often called the 'Game of the Year All Years', may be the most horrible game ever made.

Base gameplay, lazy graphics, no storyline, disturbing sound effects, infuriating 'tips' and no online community to speak of all combine to form this digital Antichrist. When Bill Gates is inevitably slain and feasted on by thousands of his mutinous employees at the Ragnarok, his soul will be sent by Hades to the pit of Tartarus, where he will be forced to play Solitaire in a spiked chamber without food, rest, or water until the end of time.

To understand the extent to which this game is evil, one must look first to its history, and then to its design.

In 1989, Microsoft was working on the famous Windows 3.0. Scared that normal, god-fearing citizens would shy away from the black magic of graphical user interfaces, the company asked its employees to find a way to "sooth people intimidated by the operating system." An intern, Wes Cherry, took up the hero's call, developing a game which would not only relax users to the point of a Prozac overdose, but also familiarise them with the point-and-click functionality of a mouse. In 1990 this application was unleashed on the public, and found its way into homes and offices everywhere. The game we know as Solitaire was born.

Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Solitaire is love.

It is a date that will live in infamy.

Since that time, Solitaire has claimed the lives of millions, and proudly boasts that it is likely the most-played game in the history of gaming. It's the definition of big.

Early concept art of "Captain Solitaire," proposed cameo character for Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Now that you know how Solitaire was allowed to happen, let's discuss how exactly is works.

Windows Solitaire was modelled after "Klondike," a solo card game played mostly by seniors, librarians, cat ladies and other lonely people. It uses a standard 52-card deck, arranged into a row of four cards at the top right of the playing table, a seven-card row just below it, and a shuffled deck at the top left. Once the table is set, players attempt to line up cards in a sequential order while following these rules.

Designing a video game based on Klondike is like writing a screenplay about the life and times of a clump of soil.

Note the soothing forest green backdrop, relaxing blue-pattern art, and the "it's all going be okay" scenic snowy-road sketch on kings and other face cards.

The gameplay in Windows Solitaire is about as close to legalised soma as I've experienced playing a game. First of all, the colours, aesthetics, and sounds are all designed to calm you down after a tense day at work/day with the kids/day burying bodies/day digging up bodies/day of protesting/other stressful experience (delete as applicable). Cute boinks! and card-shuffling motions! can be heard when you do just about anything, and the visuals play on colours that anyone who has taken a basic theatre costuming class can tell you will instantaneously inspire trust and relaxation in an audience. While plaing Solitaire you may feel the sensation of Bill Gates reassuringly petting you from behind an invisible wall.

If you can shake off the feeling that Windows Solitaire may be trying to seduce you, you'll soon find yourself angry at the chance-based nature of the game. Without using the secret [CTRL + SHIFT + ALT + CLICK] draw cheat, a player will likely lose one out of every four games he or she begins.

...goddammit.

Because of this ridiculous loss-to-win ratio, every man, woman, and child who has ever played Solitaire craves its fabled waterfall win screen, to the point where they will call in all nearby living creatures at this point, here...

Mom! Dad! Uncle Frank! Wolfie! Mailman! Aged derelict who smells of wine/urine, steals bottles from our recycling can, and I will now refer to as "Ole Toothy!" Come quick!!

... just so everyone can experience this moment, here:

We did it... We finally did it, Ole Toothy! Oh god, after so much!

Taken as a whole, Windows Solitaire is nothing more than another attempt by Bill Gates and Microsoft to dumb us down, beating us with the cushy hammer of cuteness so that we don't notice him breaking into our home, stealing our wallets, and grab-assing our daughters. It was founded as a tool to stupefy us, as Windows users, to a point where we smilingly accept whatever they feed us. It may seem fun at first, but you know what else seems fun?

Communism.

Never play Solitaire again.

2/10 [?]

Labels: 2011, Greg Mengel, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, PC, Review, Solitaire