GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #10

Intro

Hey gamers! Welcome to the tenth episode of the GF! Weekly Wrap-Up, a summary of all things GamesFirst! for the week ending November 4, 2005. This week we’ve got reviews of Far Cry: Instincts for Xbox and Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 for PlayS tation 2, as well as a preview of Project Offset, a breathtaking new fantasy FPS coming to PC and next-gen consoles. And I promise all of that will be real cool, but first your News.

News

Official Playstation Magazine has reported that Sony’s PlayStation 3 will utilize the same style of online gameplay as the current generation PlayStation 2. That means Sony will not create a consolidated online gaming service in the style of Xbox Live or Nintendo’s upcoming Wi-Fi Connect. The positive take on the PlayStation online strategy is that developers will have complete freedom to include whatever features they want to support and can do so however they like. The negative take is that PlayStation 2 games have largely had much less success online than the same games released for Xbox utilizing Xbox Live. Although some PS2 titles are noted for their online components (mainly SOCOM: US Navy Seals and various sports franchises), online PS2 titles have experienced much more cheating and hacking. Providing a comfortable, consistent online gaming environment is, apparently, not in Sony’s plans for the next generation. Quite frankly, this is bad news, and creates yet another area of next-gen gaming where Ni ntendo shows potential to pull ahead of Sony with its future plans.

More bad news in the news: Infinium Labs, the company developing the Phantom videogame console, is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, who have questions about the company’s payroll and tax records. According to the SEC, Infi nium Labs owes over 1.2 million dollars in fees and interest. Infinium has been plagued with problems since the company’s creation: In 2003 the website Hard OCP published an investigative article questioning whether the console even existed and whether Inf inium Labs wasn’t just a scam dreamed up by company founder Tim Roberts, whose history is spotty at best. Current CEO of Infinium, Kevin Bachus claims the SEC investigation does not jeopardize the development or release of the Phantom console. But after re viewing the Phantom’s features list and Infinium’s planned subscription-gaming model, it’s probably just as good for gamers if the Phantom lives up to its name.

Finally, a little good news: Fed up with all the debate about the Nintendo Revolution controller, a creative gamer known as Site-is-in [NOTE: read it all as one word; phonetic spelling] has assembled a makeshift controller setup to emulate the Revolution' s wand controller. He has released a video of him using the controller on his PC while playing Half-Life 2 deathmatch, and he doesn’t do half bad with it. In fact, he writes that the controls were tricky at first, but once he got used to them he understood the beauty of the system. We figure Nintendo’s baby will be even better to play with, which makes us very excited to get hold of the Revolution. In the meantime, we gotta give props to Site-is-in for his DIY gaming efforts.

And that’s your news, gamers. Now, the reviews.

Reviews

First up, Chris Martin took a look at Far Cry: Instincts on Xbox for us, and he came back all smelly like he rolled in something. Far Cry: Instincts is not a port of the popular PC game Far Cry. Rather, it is a whole new game, with a brand new single-play er storyline. You return to the role of Jack Carver, who arrives on a mysterious island full of, umm, mystery. The story includes elements like the PC version, so you’ll be using Carver’s skills to stay hidden until the right time, and then all hell breaks loose in some fantastic firefights. Instincts is more linear than the PC version, although there are still free-form elements which allow players to approach obstacles from several different angles with radically different outcomes.

A new addition to Instincts is the inclusion of Feral abilities, which grant Carver greater strength, increased speed and improved vision and leaping ability. Probably the best of these new feral abilities is the feral attack which is allows Carver to r ush and kill enemies with cat-like skills. In the gameplay, this skill feels very much like Halo 2’s sword-charge attack, which is not a fault in our book.

Instincts is not all good news, though. The enemy AI is kind of dumb, which is a real disappointment after Ubisoft’s promise of super-smart AI. And vehicles are a bit touchy, making them not as much fun to use. But these are relatively minor complaints. T he online gameplay is very well-done and makes up for the doofus AI in the single-player mode.

After spending some quality time getting in touch with our animal selves, we have to follow our noses and give Far Cry: Instincts a victorious four out of five stars.

Moving from our animal instincts to our devilish side, newcomer Amanda Bateman dropped us a review of Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 2 for PlayStation 2. Digital Devil Saga 2 is the sequel and conclusion to Atlus games’ anime [ah-nee-may] RPG, kno wn for its sci-fi fantasy/horror storyline. Picking up right where the original Digital Devil Saga ended, we join Serph, the protagonist, in what he thinks is Nirvana, the paradise that he and his friends dreamed of reaching in the first game. However, all is not well in paradise, and from there the demon-eating RPG action begins.

Overall, Digital Devil Saga 2 is bigger and better in all ways. Gamers who have played the original (and we have to recommend that you play the games in order) will have no problem picking up and playing the sequel. In fact, Digital Devil Saga 2 gives a w ide variety of bonuses and abilities if you import data from a completed save file from the original game. Fan favorites, like the Hee-Ho Quiz, are back, but combat has been a bit altered to include some new modes, such as the excellent Berserk Mode.

On the down side, the dungeons in Digital Devil Saga 2 can be tedious and the old random battle issues remain. The sound during battles is also very, very bad, which has the bonus of muting the sometimes annoying battle sound effects, but also makes it di fficult to hear the lines spoken by your cohorts during battle sequences.

Digital Devil Saga 2 is definitely an RPG built to satisfy serious anime fans, and satisfy it does. Although you really need to experience the first game before playing Digital Devil Saga 2, if you enjoyed the original, you will almost certainly be very s atisfied with the conclusion. We give Digital Devil Saga 2 a four out of five stars.

Preview

Moving from the games of today to the games of tomorrow, Shawn came up with a preview of Offset’s latest effort, Project: Offset. Inspired to create the game they always wanted to play, the three members of Offset, an independent development group, have s et out to build a really great fantasy-based First Person Shooter. Project: Offset will feature gameplay built on the model of other FPS games such as Battlefield where players choose a character from a set of classes that give certain abilities. Success i n a multiplayer campaign will depend on having players representing all of the classes on your team so you can properly fight the fantasy battle. Classes include a human warrior, a dwarven builder and an elven marksman. Wizards and healers are also planned . It’s easy to see how these classes are analogous to the typical infantry, engineer and sniper classes we’ve seen in other FPS titles.

Battle types in the multiplayer mode will include Castle Siege and Voyage, both of which require players to cooperate to achieve specific goals. Players will use vehicles such as horses, catapults, battle ships, giant trolls and dragons. There is also a cooperative mode planned for the story-based element of Project: Offset, but not much is known about the storyline yet.

To build Project: Offset, the small group has created one of the most visually impressive game engines we have ever seen. Featuring all of the high-end rendering techniques we have seen in the upcoming Unreal 3 or fully-tweaked Source and Doom 3 engines, the Offset team’s early screens and movies display breathtaking graphics that must be seen to be believed. It is clear that Project: Offset will not have any problem getting noticed, even among gorgeous games on next-gen consoles and high end PCs.

So far Project: Offset is without a publisher, and the members of Offset hope the recent coverage of their game will help them seal a deal. We hope so, too. Keep an eye on GamesFirst for more about Project: Offset.

Conclusion

And that does it for me, my gaming friends. Remember, the Weekly Wrap-Up comes out every week, and you can always get more on these articles, as well as daily updates, online at GamesFirst.com. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and I’m off to spend so me quality time with my PS2. I’ll catch you next week.