” Even with all the issues I have with this next-gen beat-em up, I can’t help but still place it alongside the best of the best on the downloadable market “  (A-)  -  Jeffrey d 

 - Matt H.

P.S.-In case you were wondering, the version I played was the PSP Minis version.

Ron Gilbert does no wrong!  He proves it time and time again with every project he puts his hands on.  DeathSpank is Diablo meets Monkey Island in the best of ways.  That alone is all that needs to be said in this Microview.  Not only will you stumble upon loads of hilariously named loot, you’re also going to run into tons of hilarity — period.  With little to no complaints in my first 4 hours of play, I’d expect nothing but a roaring review from QB.    Full review coming soon! 

Developer: Obsidian
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Spy-RPG
Platforms: PS3 / X360
If you like: Mass Effect, Hitman: Blood Money, Splinter Cell: Double Agent

Not every game is created equal. We as gamers should understand that. Sometimes you just need to lower your standards for a video game to break you in. Alpha Protocol is one of those titles. You let the dated graphics, poor animations, un-inventive UI, and clumsy cover system slide, and everything left is great. OK, great is a bit strong. How’s good for a term?

The comparisons have been made. And much like Mass Effect, the bad comes with some good. The strongest off that “good list” being AP’s conversation system. Unlike Bioware’s space opera, this system keeps the conversations moving naturally with the helping hand of a timer bar. Decisions will be made regardless of your button press, so keeping focus is a must. Every choice you make twists the story branches, at every corner, and slowly this became my main motivation to finish Obsidian’s Spy-RPG. Character interactions begin to bleed into each other and every action you make seems to effect someone, somewhere, somehow.

It’s not that I didn’t have fun with Alpha Protocol, because I did. The constant gaining of perks and stat upgrades keeps the game progressing nicely and the entertainment value up. The real problem comes during the late game, where my ability to overlook most of AP’s problems began to fade into frustration and a cry for a finale. Lock-picking and keypad bypassing start off a neat mini-game for an extra 25 XP, but later become a frustratingly impossible task; which doesn’t make sense considering for the last 20 hours I must have picked 200 locks and bypassed 100 keypads. Boredom also builds up from the mission structure and it’s repetitive nature. If the game was only 5 hours shorter…

I commend Obsidian for being optimistic. But most of the time, games that are overly-optimistic fall far short from the standards set in the “big leagues”. It’s going to take a gamer with some low standards to fall head over heels for Alpha Protocol. Those who do, will undoubtedly have a great time throwing Mr. Thorton into sticky situations, e-mailing contacts, and slicing the throats of evil weapons dealers. The real question is “ how long will that enjoyment last?”

In my first 12 hours of Alpha Protocol I was as good as a spy could be and loving the banter that came out of M. Thorton’s mouth. A few hours later, I realized he was no “Bond”. He was nothing more than a cliché with an arsenal of weapons and a few good perks up his sleeve. If the game had only ended there at that moment, I wouldn’t have felt the wrath of a poor cover system under stressful situations. Or witnessed one of the lamest endings of 2010. If only every game were created equal. (B)

 - Jeffrey d

Two of RJG Staff members chose to fight the everlasting battle between Alien vs. Predator. Which side did they choose, and how did the fight turn out, find out more after the break.

Developer: Rebellion
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Sci-Fi Firs-Person Action
# of players: 1 player offline,2-18 online
Price: $59.99
Consoles: PS3, 360, and PC

B4′s Opinion:

I’m not too knowledgeable of the Aliens vs. Predator franchise, and have not played too many of the video games based on it. I’ve seen the one okay movie(AVP), and the one terrible movie (requiem), and played the arcade game, but that’s about it. What I felt like this series was missing was a storyline that actually brought you in,and made you care about what was going on. I’m sad to report that AVP has not faired much better in this regard whatsoever. That, tied in with the glitchy controls, bland level design, and lack of polish in the MP modes makes AVP an afterthought in my opinion.

I’m not saying that the concept here isn’t intriguing at all, it’s just not very well thought out. The idea of splitting the story into three different sections (Alien, Predator, and Marine) is a nice concept if, and only if it actually keeps the storyline consistent amongst all three campaigns. All you need to know is that the Marine Campaign requires you to escape from the fight between Alien and Predator, the Alien campaign requires you to destroy the predator, and vice versa for the Predator campaign, that’s about it. Argue it with me all you want, but it was the best way I could put it all together for you.

The variety as to what you can do with each of the three different characters did make the gameplay unique to a certain extent, but each one faulters in one area or another, making the experience more tedious than fun most of the time. It was fun to be able to jump from the top of buildings, and do stealth kills as the predator, but the melee attacks were awful, and wouldn’t respond half of the time, especially when you were fighting the aliens. This was also a major problem when you were playing as the Alien.

The Aliens had an excellent sense of speed to them, but the mechanic of climbing up walls could often leave you feeling disoriented. The Marine Campaign did have solid first-person shooter controls, and was very helpful in telling you where to go next because of the straight-up hud system that it had, but the flashlight would only illuminate a short distance in front of you, and the gameplay itself was just lacking any sense of excitement, until the end at least, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

The overall design wasn’t bad, but it was bland and repetitive. I would have like to have seen a campaign that spanned across three different, but what I got instead was the same levels from a different characters point of view. The character models of the different creatures looked really good up-close, and the voice acting was decent, but very cheesy. The music was tense, dark, and moody, and really played into the idea of making you feel scared. I won’t go into too much detail about the multiplayer modes, but I will say that they are very fun to play, but using your xp just to unlock skins instead of actual character upgrades did piss me off a little bit.

To sum it all up, AVP was a somewhat fun and unique game that to a certain extent captures the style of the franchise. What it lacks in polish, it makes up for in some fun first-person action and creative ideas. (C+)

- Matt H.

X3R0′s Opinion:

If you’re looking for a game that does a decent job combining all the aspects of the Alien vs. Predator series, then this game is something to look at. If you’re looking for a new game to play, then this game isn’t for you. Yes, the 2010 release of Aliens vs. Predator is, in my opinion, the best in the series, but it falls short at becoming a game that everybody will rant and rave about. Aliens vs. Predator is filled with issues, beginning with occasional glitches, poor combat mechanics, and an overall simplistic storyline, but it does have some qualities that makes this game stand out.

The overall story of AvP encompasses all three arcs into a cliché story. As I mentioned before, the story is short and simple, either run to safety, escape, or hunt…that’s it! There seemed to be potential of this game having a very good solid storyline if there was more time spent with it. It was exciting to see the story split up amongst the different characters, but the shortness of the overall story took away from getting connected with the characters.

Besides the story being short, the overall combat system wasn’t the greatest. The Marine combat is by far the closest to a straightforward shooter while the others are based on stealth and melee, and the melee isn’t anything to right home about. As the Predator you’re able to jump around from tree top to roof top utilizing the Predator equipment found in the movies. You first start off with just the basic, wrist blades on each hand and a laser. As you progress through the Predator missions, you begin to pick up more weapons that make the game more enjoyable, but you’ll still be utilizing the wrist blades more for attacks, which was a burden majority of the time. The burden comes from encountering some glitches and unresponsiveness while I was battling the Aliens and it felt like you were playing a bad boxing game…punch, block, punch-punch, block, rinse and repeat.

As you played the Aliens, you have the opportunity to move about practically anywhere you want to via the walls, ceilings, or floor. Your enemies stand out a lot more than the other two characters as the alien recognizes living beings based off of pheromones. The alien utilizes no weapons other than melee, but the speed and openness makes up for that. Between the speed and the open exploration, you’ll end up disorientated quite a bit.

The biggest complaint I have about the game is the sense of direction. If you don’t pay close attention to what is going on, you will end up not knowing where you have to go and spend countless minutes figuring it out. The Marine’s radar had an arrow showing you which way to go, the downside to that is, it floats all over the place. It seemed too sensitive to location. The Predator uses a beacon design, only showing you the end location, so it is up to you to figure out how to get there. Playing the alien has the worst direction help I have ever seen in a game. I simply doesn’t have anything.

It may seem that this game was a complete failure, but there are quite a few things that make this game unique. The way the story is separated and kind-of interweaved into the other story arcs is very interesting. As you play the different characters you’ll see subtle events that either happened or hasn’t happened yet in other story arcs. The graphics of the Predator and Alien looked sharp! There were a few times between the sounds and the visual effects, I thought I might have been watching a Predator or an Alien film. There were many sound effects that seemed they were taken from the films, i.e. radars blips, sounds of the Aliens and Predators, the gush of air when the Predator takes his face mask off, and the transition between the sight modes.

The multiplayer is probably the most exciting part of the game! With its seven different modes, you’ll have no reason to say there’s nothing there for you. Game variants range from Death Matches to Domination, with dash of a “Horde” and “Zombie” modes. The only complaint that I see about the multiplayer is the lack of encouragement to keep on playing. The experience you gain won’t benefit your online characters, except in looks. That’s right, the only thing I noticed that my experience got me was more character skins.

Although AvP gives a decent video game nod to the franchise, it needs more substance than how many ways can you kill an enemy. The game is very creative giving you the three sides of a basic story, but it lacks at drawing you in, leaving you with no emotional connection to the characters. The multiplayer experience is fun, but with no perks, other than character skins, you’ll soon be shelving this title for one of the many other games coming out this spring. (B-)

- Mike K.