Gotham City Impostors [SPECIAL]

This week my "mini" review is going to be slightly different. 

This week I am going to tell you a story. 

It's a wonderful adventure, with early excitement, community spirit, communication with game developers and deep, painful heartache.

I will begin at the beginning, for where better to begin a story which starts at the beginning?

How It All Began

About 2 months ago, as part of the Playstation Plus membership, Monolith and WB Games released their beta version of Gotham City Impostors. For non-gaming-geeks out there, this means a near-complete test version that is released for players to try out and then the developers can identify any problems in order to get them fixed before the full release.

The game itself was incredible - the idea here being that Batman and the Joker have fled Gotham and in their place thousands of wannabe superheroes and villains have leapt into action and are now battling it out for supremacy on Gotham's streets. They aren't the real deal however, so the well-fitting Batman costume and the tailor-made Joker outfit aren't present - instead there's bat symbols on cardboard cut-outs and purple tank tops serving as Joker gear. 

As a game, this works like a multiplayer first person shooter - you have other players on your team and you go round shooting the opposing team to win points which will help you win the match. You are randomly put in the Bats or Jokers team, and this doesn't make a difference as you don't have any loyalty to either - you're just a wannabe who wants to fight injustice/cause mayhem (whatever's on offer that day). Before battle, you select the set of weapons, skills, equipment, character types and outfits which suit your play style - and there are plenty of play styles to choose from:

• You can be a thin, stealthy sniper who uses ninja gas to turn invisible. 
• You can be a nimble rollerskater, leaping around the place at top speed and greeting enemies with a sudden shotgun handshake. 
• You can be an enormous brute stalking the town with body armour and a rocket launcher. 
• Or if you like you can be a healer, shouting into a megaphone to revive team players and turn the tables of battle. 

And the best part of it all? You can do it wearing nothing but underpants.

By completing battles you earn experience points, costume points and loadout unlocks. Experience gains you levels and earns you more loadout unlocks, which means more customisable weapons, gadgets and skills. Costume points are spent to gain new items of clothing to kit your Bats and Jokers out with.

There are also a whole bunch of challenges, like killing 50 enemies with the shotgun, or rollerskating for 10 kilometres. These have massive experience boosts associated with them, so it really is worth spending hours razzing around the map like a squirrel.

Email Number 1

So after spending around 10 hours playing the beta version, I go to the main menu to be greeted with a message:

"Profile Corrupt - Save Data may be Invalid"

Huh. Okay.... so what does that mean? It meant that all of my progress was wiped out. All the experience, all the costumes, all the hours put in were lost for no good reason.

So I decided to do the right thing and emailed the support team to let them know of the issue - this is a beta after all so they need to be informed in order to get it sorted. I didn't hear back from them so carried on playing for a while - the game was still great fun, so once they got the profile reset issue sorted then it'd be plain sailing.

Email Number 2

While playing the beta version some more, a few more serious issues started to present themselves: 

• Matches would be vastly unbalanced - like 2 low-level Bats against 6 elite Jokers. These matches would be over within minutes and were fairly boring - if you were a Bat you'd be pwned within seconds of respawning, and as a Joker it was likely that someone else had killed off all the Bats before you got there.
• Matchmaking (finding other players to play matches with) was taking longer and longer too. When I first started playing you could be in a match within 2 minutes - now it takes 5 minutes just to find a match to join.
• Every few matches, there would be some sort of connection problem where it would kick you out of a match you were playing. Again, this happened more as time went on until virtually every other match ended suddenly (and without any experience earned).

So basically, things weren't looking good. As it had been over a week since my first email, and I still had heard nothing, I decided to send another one to let them know that there were some pretty serious issues in Impostors that really needed addressing. But hey, this is the beta - they'll get this sorted out....right?

Out of Beta

After the beta trials ended, a "trial" version went up onto the Playstation Network (PSN). This was a full demonstration version of the game that was free to play for 30 minutes. I downloaded this and starting playing my free 30 minutes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found that I had to start a new profile (again). "OK", I thought, "It was a beta version and now it's a trial version so I can't expect to keep the same profile". So I played through those 30 minutes and once again loved it. See, this is the crucial point - the game itself is absolutely brilliant. It's fun, frantic, accessible, enjoyable, customisable - everything you want from an online FPS.

So.... I bought the full game. Yes, I know it was a risk but I gave Impostors the benefit of the doubt. £11.99 from my already dwindling bank account for a game that really should offer me weeks of fun.

Email Number 3

As the more astute of you may have gathered from the heading, buying the game only caused more trouble.

On purchasing the full game unlock, I opened the game to find an error message reading:

"Do you want to cancel your full game progress and go back to trial mode?"

Why on Earth would I (or anyone else for that matter) want to cancel a £12 purchase and go back to a time-limited trial? So I selected "NO!", at which point it took me to the Playstation Store to ask me to purchase the game again. I cancelled this and restarted the game. The game then loaded up fine and allowed me to play a few matches. "Phew!", I thought, "Thank goodness that's all over now!". Oh how wrong I was.

The next time I turned the game on, I was greeted by my old friend: 

"Profile Corrupt - Save Data may be Invalid"

Bugger. That's not good news. I'm getting tired of getting through the first few levels just so that I can unlock the basic customisation settings. This will be the third time! 


You must be able to work out that this must be a pretty good game for me to put up with this sort of crap, and when you get to play it, Gotham City Impostors really is a bloody good game. The maps are diverse and unique, each with little hiding places and open areas that are fun to explore. Due to the large range of characters and gadgets available, there is always someone to flush out the snipers, someone else who takes down big brutish demolition units well, and others who zoom around the map so fast that no-one can take them down (me - speedy body type, speed bonuses and rollerskates.... boo yah). 


So I sent the third email, to say that the issues I was facing in the beta are present in the full game. And that I was not impressed.

Other Lovely Error Messages

Other than just having corrupt data, the game has thrown back some great reasons for not letting me play the game I have paid for. Here are a few of my faves:

• Simply searching endlessly for players - the spinning "loading" icon just swirls hypnotically forever, and even refuses to let you exit sometimes.
• Better than that, the match countdown gets to "Match starts in 1 seconds" and then sits there for what feels like an eternity before it kicks you back out to the main menu.
• "No Gamespy Connection Detected - You Will Not Be Able To Play Online Games". So what part of this exclusively online multiplayer game am I meant to be playing? The offline challenge section? OK. Well that lasted all of 5 minutes. What now?
• "Connection with the server has timed out". The classic. Its use here borders on over overkill.

Now you might ask if there is some problem with my connection or hardware here - well I can say that I've had no problem with any other online multiplayer game on the PS3 and next heading bit will explain more - so read on.

Acceptance, Patch and Beyond

Warner Brothers Games and Monolith have accepted that there are some pretty serious issues going on here now - Gotham City Impostors Patch & Updates Info

In fact, I think I have installed the patch. Yes, it's only that I think it's installed the patch - my game version still shows up as v1.01 (whereas the messiah patch is due to be v1.05) however it found and installed a new update this week so I can only assume it was this newest one. I have still not received any of my coins and experience back, instead the game seems to recognise a "shadow" of my former profile - for example when displaying my progress in challenges the game will now display:

"Matches Completed Challenge #3: 63 matches out of 100"

right before displaying

"Matches Completed Challenge #3: 78 matches out of 100"

So..... it's still screwed. There might be a proper fix on the way, but it feels a loooong way off.

What's even more insulting is that there is hundreds of messages declaring the upcoming downloadable content with extra maps, weapons and unlocks.... even though we can't even use the current content at the moment! For goodness' sake - sort the game out before chucking more crap into this faulty mess of a game!

As should be obvious, I've put a lot of time and effort into Impostors and it is for that very reason that I feel so let down. There is an awesome game in here - I just don't get to play it much.

Conclusions
All in all, this is a really terrific game that has been let down by some pretty major design flaws - I mean, just take a look at the gameplay video above!

This has the potential to be online FPS of the year -

but at present it is virtually unplayable. 

However, if you get a kick out of loading screens and error messages 

then this may be the game for you!

If WB Games would just respond to my emails 

(or offer a bloody refund) then I might consider recalling the deadly ninja monkeys.
Oh well... here goes email number 4....

UPDATE! : On signing into Impostors this morning (3rd March) a message appeared telling me that I have gained 2500 costume coins and jumped 14 experience levels.

It appears they have finally restored my profile to the level it should be - over 3 weeks after first informing them of the issue. 

That said, I've been waiting to get into a match for ten minutes now - so the matchmaking problems are still ongoing. A minor victory?

Videos in this review are from Youtube and are kindly provided by: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/Iitten and http://www.youtube.com/user/coinoptv

Videos are subject to relevant copyrights.

F.3.A.R. [PS3]

The third official title in the F.E.A.R. horror franchise is similar to earlier titles, only now you've got your dead psychic psycho brother with you at every step of the journey. 

Don't you just love getting the chance to bond with your evil, psychic little brother?

A Bit of Background.

If you hadn't worked it out yet, this is the third FEAR game, although you'd be excused as putting the number in the word is just stupid.


OK, I should start by saying that I'll be judging this title fairly critically as I'm a massive fan of the first 3 F.E.A.R. releases (the original F.E.A.R., Perseus Mandate and Extraction Point) but less so of F.E.A.R. 2. Really as they've got the high-definition consoles to test out, this should be an absolute roller-coaster. It *should* be.


These games generally involve you spending half your time shooting clever AI enemies and the other half walking down corridors where the walls start to bleed. Horror-Shooter. Get it? 


The themes are pretty dark here, the back story being so yucky that I'm not even going to go into it, sufficed to say that the freaky girl on all the cover art is totally justified in going all kill-rampage-y. If you're that perverse/curious then go play the first game. Then read the guide to the story. Grossed out sufficiently? Good. I shall continue.

Why The City Blew Up.
The story this time round is that you have now got to team up with your dead, psychic brother to go and save/kill your mother. She's about to give birth to another evil, psychic baby (who will probably cause Armageddon at some point) so the best thing to do would be to go and kill her. Pretty sure this was exactly what we've been up to the past 5 games... but whatever.


Your brother is actually trying to save your mother 'cause he loves the whole psychic murderer vibe. In the end, either you will kill your mother, your brother and the evil sprog, or alternatively your brother will kill you and save her and the baby. Win-win, right?

This is the cloud gathering as Alma prepares to blow up the city.....again.

It's Bullet Time.
The actual action is the same as in the older games (and now pretty much every FPS in existence) - you find cover, shoot a bit, run, duck, shoot, blow something up, run etc. etc. etc.


The "unique" selling points are the bullet time - wow a game where you can slow time down(!) - and the scary sections (which I'll come on to in a little while). 


The bullet time is now pretty redundant as most enemies move so slowly that you almost want the option to speed them up! Adding to the problem is that now enemies are now thick as pig shit, standing like squishy targets for you to carefully line up your aim and making minimal effort to hunt you down or flush you out of cover.


The environments have all been seen before too - ooh a subway, ooh an office, ooh a street - and so this gets pretty repetitive and dull very quickly, as well as being thoroughly dull and repetitive.

They swarm around you menacingly, and then wait to be killed like lemmings.

Horror? Don't Worry, You Have Nothing To F.3.A.R.

Tickets please.... no?.... then I will be forced to eat your head.

As you may have guessed from the pun in the heading, the horror sections aren't even scary any more. In previous games, these sections appeared out of nowhere and featured some unsettling psychological trickery - in one level you open a door that disappears in front of you, then a door appears in the floor, then your vision blurs as a little girl walks across the ceiling. It played upon your human side, confusing you and having things in the corner of the screen make you doubt you saw anything at all. It was frikkin' freaky - trust me.


In F.3.A.R., they use advanced horror techniques that may be a bit difficult to explain - things jump out at you. Er... OK that was pretty simple to explain, and about as scary as a chocolate eclair. They don't even make any effort to add some suspense into proceedings - move from the bright sunshine indoors to a grimy apartment block and surprise surprise a monster appears.


Two Sides To Every Story.

Hold the phone though! 

There's another part to the gameplay that I haven't touched upon yet - playing as your brother (who is evil and psychic, did I mention that already?).


This basically involves sending out evil psychic mind-talons to grab enemies and suspend them in mid-air. You can then blow them up with your brain, or allow your brother to take them out for you. And that's it. 

Wow. A real game-changer there. 

The depressing thing is that as you play through as the shooty brother, you are unlocking the levels so that you can go back and play them through again as the psychic brother. Why on Earth anyone would want to subject themselves to that, I do not know.


Even worse is that the game is marketed as a "co-op" title, implying that you should bring a friend along to star in the role of useless brother. A friend who you are trying to hint at to go home and never call again, perhaps.

The awesome might of your brother's air guitar impression has caused this guy's leg to fall off.

God mode to Pwnd mode.

These guys spawn out of walls. Clever AI isn't needed when you can just appear out of thin air.

Although the enemies all stand around like plonkers, the game still manages to be ridiculously difficult in places. Not throughout - so that you might consider turning the difficulty setting to "easy" - but instead just for one or two fights in the whole game.


You can run and gun through the entire level, only to be killed repeatedly by one awkward enemy who hides on a rooftop with a sniper rifle. Because of the way the checkpoint and ammo works, you can often find yourself with thousands of rounds of pistol ammo but with nothing useful like a simple rocket launcher. Not much to ask, surely?


Then to top it off, there's the buggers in the picture above - teleporty spawny armoured gits. Whenever you start to get a few hits in they run off and portal through a wall, appearing directly behind you. When there are TWO OF THEM jumping out of walls right behind you and blowing you up, only to run away through the wall again when you manage to turn round to face them, you can imagine that these sections go on for a while.


So basically, the developers thought that a few obnoxiously annoying sections would suffice to balance the difficult level out. They were so, so wrong. What is left is an unbalanced mess, where I played the majority of the game at the hardest difficulty and only turned it down for the rare levels where the teleport twins would appear.


The Climax
With all the destruction in the build-up, you would expect something pretty spectacular for the ending, wouldn't you? 


So what do you find when you finally confront dear mother? Is it:

• A giant, final boss fight?
• A freaky horror section so gruesome that run away screaming?
• A nuclear detonation levelling half of America?

No. A walkthrough section where you see a few cutscenes and then it ends. It totals up who has been the most evil brother to decide the winner and therefore the ending, and if you have been playing in single-player then this section is totally redundant as you will always be the winner.

So the child lives or dies, as does the mother, as does your brother.... urgh. I'm getting bored of this now. If you are too, DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME. It's pretty much just 10 hours of this crap.

What am I doing? I'm dying. Great.

And if you hadn't had enough in the main story, there's an online multiplayer section too. It plays out something like a barricade defence game, boarding up windows of your building to prevent hordes of baddies from getting in and eating you. 

Now either I didn't get the point, or I was playing with some players who have recently undergone a lobotomy, but basically after 10 minutes it was impossible to hold off the waves of nasties on my own. So... Dead. Bored. Switch off.

Conclusions.

There's games that deserve praise for what they bring to gaming in general. There are other games that are carried by the sentimentality that you feel towards their predecessors. 

F.3.A.R. is neither - it is a bland shooter that defiles the brilliance that was the earlier F.E.A.R. titles both shamelessly and carelessly.

I am having real difficulty thinking of anyone I could recommend this to - OK - if you like all 400 Jason  films, you might like this game. 

Though, let's face it - that's pretty unlikely.

I do not own the copyright to the images in this review. They are all copyright of WB Games and can be found here - http://www.fear3.co.uk/image-gallery.html

Batman: Arkham City [PS3]

A truly brilliant game with lots to do and see. Took Arkham Asylum, cranked it up to 11 and squirted it out over a city.


Sandbox full of toys
This is how I feel a sandbox should work. There is a huge area to explore with an absolutely massive array of goodies to find within it. Some areas are unavailable until you have gone further in the game and will take a particular gadget upgrade to get to. There is as many bad guys as you want as target practice - and there is a massive number of ways to take them down (stealth, combat, gadgets, batarang to the crotch).

A bit of a challenge
It's also not a walk in the park - the difficulty level is fairly well-balanced, offering challenge if you try to press ahead too quickly but not stagnating if you just want to mess around. This is the difficulty level that I like to play at. Some of my friends (Psykomotor in particular) like to feel invincible and breeze through a game for the cinematic value and for pure fun. I prefer the challenge - to perfect the mastery of the control system and feel that great sense of achievement while watching the end credits roll.

Infinite scope for custom fun
This is pretty much GTA Gotham and it WORKS. It's dark and moody in the streets, colourful and bright when villains hit the town and there is so much scope for hilarity. Get a friend round to try out some of these excellent Pass-And-Play games:

• Drinking Combat Challenges - no shots if you get a perfect round - one shot for each round not achieved.
• Drinking Predator Challenges - no shots for stealth round - one shot for each time detected.
• "Who can throw the funniest remote batarang?"
• "50 points for hitting a thug's crotch and making him fall down a flight of stairs".
• Take out groups of enemies with challenges - no gadgets, no punching/kicking 
• Really, the possibilities are limitless.

It's fun - more fun than most stuff around at the moment (by the way, I'm writing this a week before Saint's Row 3 is released so currently my comment is valid - and I hope things are changing for the better). What it really needs is some on-line multi-player involvement, even if just watching someone else take their turn while trying out some of the games listed above.


Baddies go bye-bye
The involvement of some of the baddies in the game is a bit pants - several villains are attacking Batman one minute viciously, then pausing and smiling and asking Batman oh-so-softly if he'll just go and do something for them - which Batman accepts and trots off happily to do (only to be stabbed in the spine the second he spins around) *Freeze in particular. Others show off some top-quality superpowers but when it actually comes to the showdown with Batman they are locked up within seconds *Deadshot, Bane. I suppose this is the "comic book effect" - when you have a dozen baddies coming at you from all angles, some of them will be taken down instantly just so you have time to reach the cliffhanger at the end of this week's issue.

Side missions everywhere
Although there is a massive variety of side missions, with each requiring a slightly different use of gadgets, detective work and acrobatic skill, some side missions are stupidly awkward to find. I suppose you could say traipsing round the whole city and its little alleyways looking for the next piece in the puzzle adds to the immersion. But only slightly. A bit. Annoyingly. Sometimes I wonder whether you are playing the role of an elite detective or just a guy who spends a little too long in alleyways and accidentally solves some murders along the way.

Time dilation and it's negative consequences for street brawls
My third criticism is that the new bad guys thrown into combat can upset the flow of battles somewhat. You take down guys in fights by either hitting them or countering their attacks. These counters need to be carried out during a particular interval (while the enemy has a symbol over their head). Guys with knives need to be countered thusly three times with an instant takedown available if you hold the counter button between attacks. Now my issue is that some of the upgrades and special attacks cause time to slow down suddendly (after 15 consecutive hits or something) and this distorts when you need to counter mid-flow! Then Mr. Knifey gives you a big, friendly hug. Several of those and the game lets you repeat the experience of meeting Mr. Knifey all over again. Yay! *Massive sarcasm*

Conclusion
Textbook gaming. A real masterclass in ingenuity and variety. The scope of the city and it's baddies lets the game down at points but this is made up for by having enough here to keep you going for many, many hours. With Arkham City's secrets slowly being revealed to you through story unlocks, side missions and gadget upgrades, you really get under the skin of this giant criminal playground - and it can really get under yours.