Serious Sam 3: BFE

Having finally caught the Covid-19 infection, I have been in home isolation for the past few days, and after I got over the initial hump of fever, I felt sufficiently alright to do some PC gaming. After the idylls of GRIS I thought I would get into some mindless shooting of some alien bastards with 2012's Serious Sam 3: BFE. I had played a bit of SS3 after getting it at the time of release, but an early challenge area where I kept dying (I admit I have no skillz) made me put it back on the digital shelf. This time I started afresh, managed to get over that hump and move ahead. The first two Serious Sam games, imaginatively called First Encounter and Second Encounter, are among the most fun I've had in first-person shooters (FPS), with gorgeous wide open environments, kooky physics, silly wisecracks, chunky weaponry and a massive and varied bestiary to use it against. After the overly cartoony and gimmicky Serious Sam 2, this was supposed to be a return to roots for Sam Stone, Croteam's iconic weapon juggling parody of machismo. 

But I feel they went a little too far in dialing back the humor and color. SS3's first third is primarily set in a modern day battle-torn Egypt, which looks more like a Call of Duty environment with its bombed out buildings and razed streets (Later your character moves towards older ruins and eventually opens the timelock transporting him into the ancient Egypt setting of the first Sam game). More concerning is the introduction of weaponry with reloading and iron sights. Anyone that has played a Sam game before knows that the USP is to relentlessly blast one's way through large hordes of colorful enemies rushing towards you. Having to reload pistol and shotgun every 10 rounds, and the assault rifle every 20, is an onerous task in this type of game. Still worse, till more than 2/3rds into the game, ammo is scarce for weapons bigger than the shotgun(s) and the assault rifle. This means that for a long time, SS3 is more effectively played as a shooter in which the player hides behind cover and fires in short bursts. That's not inherently bad, but it makes the game feel more like a Serious Sam character mod for a Call of Duty game; even the trademark hilarious beheaded kamikaze bombers carry a more melancholic connotation in the warzone setting.

That said the more 'realistic' vibe did grow on me, and it helps that the technical aspects of the game are fine, and hold up well for a game that's nearly a decade old now. While I missed the more colorful vibe of previous games, especially Second Encounter's Aztec jungle shrines, Mesopotamian minarets and European hamlets, the art direction and the graphics of Serious Engine 3.5, at least on Ultra settings, have a consistent palpable quality that are a major step-up from previous versions of the game engine, including the one that powered HD remakes of the first two games. The particle effects from smoke and explosions are intense (so much so sometimes you can't see what you're shooting at, but hey, that's war). SS3 realizes that it is hard to make out pick-up items against the debris-littered background and helpfully borders them with color-coded glows (red for health, blue for armor, green for weapon and yellow for ammo).

It is mainly in the last third, after your character opens the timelock, that SS3 becomes *relatively* more free-handed with ammunition for the big guns (even here, the laser gun and the big cannon are underfed, and you rely mostly on the minigun, rocket launcher and remote explosives) and allows you the feel of the vintage Sam games. But the challenge ramps up all too quickly in comparison. While Sam has never shied away from an adrenaline pushing fight, the odds here are staggering. Add to that a greater number of enemies that can fire accurately from a large distance, while dodging your rockets, and two classes of airborne foes that are both hard-to-kill bastards - one of them is a Half-Life 2 helicopter inspired flying mutant who only responds to explosive damage, and the other is a tele-porting witch that can slow down Sam and deflect his aim while doing damage. When you have to deal with them in the middle of a showdown with a hundred other critters, it's a daunting prospect.

With regards to the last level, I will state here that could not complete it. I did not even reach the end-boss because the sheer volume of enemies in the way, combined with insufficient ammo for the ultimate weapons, made it  outright impossible to get past without dying. Coming from someone who completed the previous Sam games, and found them fair even when tough, I have to wonder if this was play-tested for anyone below godlike shooter reflexes. It's sad, since the atmosphere of the game was brilliant at that point, with glorious combat music serenading as sun-rays flooded the massive canyon Sam is running through raising mayhem in the final leg. Checking on the net, I find that game reviewers (who normally are veterans that relish a challenge) are recommending to play this on Easy difficulty. Heck, for this last level, I dropped down to the so-called Tourist mode, which regenerates player health when not taking damage, and  I still could not clear a way past the literal army of thousands beating down on me. It's a bitter pill to reach this far in a game and not be able to complete it, but fuck that, I have better things to do with the last dregs of my isolation period than beat my head against this (Sam) stone.

GRIS

Un-kvlt has become so much a movie opinions blog it is shocking to even myself when I add other content. But I have previously done game impressions so this is not entirely unheard of.

GRIS is one of the few video games where the end is a sad place to reach because you feel you could have stayed on a lot longer in the gorgeous world. You could take a screenshot just about anywhere in this surreal 2D platformer with light puzzle elements and it'd look like a frame-worthy work of art. The soundtrack is minimalist but very soothing and emotional in parts. Add to that a VERY forgiving learning curve - no dying, no hard boss fights, no requirement of super-fast reflexes and generally very intuitive puzzles - and I would recommend EVERYONE to try this out, even people who do not normally play video games.

More experienced gamers might deride this as a pretty but casual walking (with some jumping and swimming) simulator with barely any test of thumb dexterity, but I was certainly not complaining. The only place where I had a spot of trouble navigating was in an extended underwater labyrinth level where the visuals would sometimes zoom out so much I had to look for where my character was. But even there, taking a break for some time and then trying again, I was back on track.

Check out these screenshots I randomly took while playing to get an idea of how incredibly ravishing it looks. In motion it is even prettier when objects light up or make subtle motions in response to your actions. Moving your character around and discovering further wondrous areas of the game-world is a joy that transcends hitting the game goals or the acquisition of achievement trinkets.

Duke Nukem Forever

I haven’t played the earliest versions of Duke Nukem but Duke Nukem 3D (DN3D), I totally tripped over. The initial appeal of course was the setting of the shareware version. In those days when internet connections and access to “naughty content” were largely restricted, DN3D with its racy imagery of adult movie posters, magazine covers and video clips, and even live strippers that’d obligingly flash you when you “used” a currency bill on them was a juvenile dream come true; suddenly Doom’s visions of Hell weren’t that arresting. If DN3D had been just a few dollops of sizzle with substandard gameplay, the fascination with pixilated boobies wouldn’t have lasted long. But it was a game with legs: long, sturdy, sexy legs. Crafted with the BUILD engine, the toolset that produced some of computer gaming’s kvlt-est shooters, DN3D packed a triple whammy of eye-popping level design, an innovative fun arsenal, and an iconic wisecracking lead character that would make PC gamers everywhere prick up their ears when they heard his name.

That was in 1996. From then on until a few months ago, the development of the sequel Duke Nukem Forever (DNF), examined in detail elsewhere, has been the most bloated (like a latter day Elvis, hail to the King, baby!) and tortuous saga in video game history, one that alienated all but a handful of the most dedicated fanboys that plugged their senses against the humongous wave of negativity that had risen amongst the gamer press and public. In this while the shooter genre went places. Half-Life came out in 1998 and, for better or worse, dictated the design document of most blockbuster action games that would follow. Story-based action, dialog-spewing characters, scripted sequences...everyone wanted to make the next “cinematic experience”. Single-player shooter level design became a straight line dotted with cutscenes and mission objective screens, rarely allowing, let along rewarding exploration of alternate routes. Another thing I hugely missed was the humor and sense of goofy fun from older games: Gordon Freeman was fine for the game he starred in, but now almost every action game lead is a dour silent entity with zero character appeal.

Which is why when I saw the surprise videos of Gearbox's revival of DNF, I had a pleasant feeling. I certainly did not expect the game to be anything like the revolution that it was touted to be. I expected graphics that would be a mish-mash of older and newer work. I expected rough edges all around. What I wanted was from DNF was precisely what most gamers feared it would be, a retread of a genre no longer in fashion. If it could have just captured the feeling of being a Duke game with a shinier graphical palette than its predecessor I would have been quite satisfied. So how did it fare?

First things first, DNF is nowhere the disaster Daikatana was. Given its multiple technology makeovers it has a reasonably consistent circa 2004 look. I didn't encounter aren't any blatant game-killing bugs, and while the enemy AI is dumb it at least doesn't do things like stand calmly while getting shredded by the player. Given the incredible mess of code that must be the DNF engine, I'd say that's something of an achievement. There are moments when the game is likable if you don't have exacting standards. A fight with Duke holding siege in a trailer against a horde of pigs (not cops anymore), while they pummel and break through it brings pleasant memories of pipe-bomb fragging. Duke's casino level occasionally has pretty sights. The weapons are hefty and satisfying to use in combat – the shotgun still packs a punch, the ripper is still good for firing at enemies en masse, the rocket launcher still has a suitably chunky feel, the shrink ray...you get the drift. DNF does a good job of making you feel like a badass in most combat situations. There's also a decent variety. Apart from standard FPS firefighting, there are vehicle driving missions (where you can run over enemies), bits where Duke gets shrunk and must run obstacle courses to get ahead, turret-manning missions...no wait, those turret missions really sucked. There's nothing more boring than for the player to sit in one place while enemies/spacecraft move towards him and all he has to do is keep the fire button pressed. If I wanted this shit, I'd have got Beachhead 2000. Although most of Duke's new lines aren't particularly memorable (no new Evil Dead films to rip from, that's why), Jon St Jon injects an agreeable machismo into his role and it's nice to have a chatty hero again in an FPS.

On the uglier side, DNF leans too heavily on the Half-Life school of design. The game is so linear, most of the time it's like being in a corridor with different wallpapers to suggest different settings. Boss fights can be particularly egregious, forcing you to fight either perched on a narrow platform, or constantly bumping into level geometry. Consolification or whatever else, there are other design decisions that take Duke several steps behind his earlier avatar. Early in the game you can make Duke do dumbbell curls but they don't seem to do him any good since he can carry only two weapons at a time a la Halo (pipe bombs and trip-mines thankfully don't count here). A patch put out after I had gone through more than 2/3rds of the game increased this carrying capacity to four, grrr. Medkit? No, there's regenerating health, sorry EGO. Scuba Gear? Natch, Duke has to go searching for streams of air bubbles when he's underwater. Compromises like these detract significantly from the gameplay and have no place in what should have been a resolutely old-fashioned shooter. The save system is another major disappointment. You can't have any saves other than the automated checkpoints, which makes some of the jumping puzzles annoying, and woe if you try to replay a mission before completing the game because you'll lose your current check point. That's right folks, while DN3D allowed you to save or quicksave whenever you wanted, DNF gives you a grand total of one automated save for all your needs.

In these days where all manner of gonzo porn lies a couple of clicks away, Duke's raciness is no longer a huge selling point. It also doesn't help that all the female models in this game have an undead-like appearance and gait, which makes you wonder what the fuck 3D Realms was doing with its in-house motion capture studio unless they were aiming for Zombie Strippers. There's one level midway in the game where Duke enters a strip club. Instead of pulling out money for favors he has to do a Leisure Suit Larry quest to get a lapdance. When did Duke get so pussy-whipped as to do errands for a titty flash? The situational humor is very forced. The entire prologue about Duke being this guy that everyone aspires to kiss the ass of, is one of the singularly most dull and unfunny experiences to play through. Like another reviewer said, it'd have been better to have a scenario where Duke has to re-earn the respect he has lost over the years. Sadly this game doesn't do that.

Since it was available for very cheap in India and I didn't have any significant expectations, I don't regret picking it up. But yeah it provides only a few moments of fun in what is for most part a bland and rote experience. DNF is certainly done, but well-done is another matter.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

While I haven't finished the game (yes, it's not a comic book, but read on even if you're not a hardcore gamer) as yet, I've played a fair deal of it and these are my impressions of it thus far. To put it in a nutshell, Batman: Arkham Asylum is not a great action game, great platformer or great adventure game; what it does however is to borrow enough good elements from all of these genres to make a great Batman game. As the title suggests, the setting is Arkham asylum where Batman's most memorable enemies (perhaps all of them, even) end up. The story begins with Batman wheeling the Joker in for an extended stay; only there's something fishy about the homicidal prankster's easy surrender. It's not long before Batman realizes it's a setup. Joker and his muscle-bound goons take over the asylum, and ol' Bats must catch the clown prince of evil before he unleashes his dastardly scheme of...you find out, suffice to say it involves a few other Batman villains.

The best thing about BAA is how accessible it is to the non-hardcore player. Considering the sort of acrobatic moves people would expect Batman to perform, this could have well been one of those keyboard murdering nightmares only staunch fighting game fans would go for. As it turns out, the makers at Rocksteady studios have designed the Batman character to perform his trademark ownage maneuvers with very simple inputs from the player. It's a game for Batman fans, not just gamers that happen to like Batman. The scraps with Joker's henchmen at the beginning of the game can be won by mere random button-mashing (what I did), and the game is very ready with hints and suggestions if you're downed in a fight.

It's later on when you go up against a dozen or more thugs at a time that you begin to appreciate the range of Batman's acrobatic moves and apply them to your advantage in combat. But even in these cases you never have to press any impossible combination of keys, it's more about getting into the flow of the combat. Again the game is very helpful, with onscreen displays of which attacker is likely to strike and which keys to press for instant takedowns. In a laudatory move, the game is also very forgiving in the platforming aspect. A single key-press has Batman sending out a grappling hook and swinging himself on top of an edifice, and so long as there's ground beneath you, the game never causes you to die of even huge drops. Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia fans may scoff at all this hand-holding but better this than have Batman fans fear to undertake the very moves they see their hero performing.

There are several memorable setpieces in the game: Batman's refusal to pick up a gun is a design conceit that works brilliantly in the game's context making every encounter with machine-gun toting goons a delightful cat-and-mouse experience. The intelligence level of Batman's enemies is low but that works fine here too, because it means you can predict how the poltroons are going to react to whatever cockamamie scheme you're planning to take them down. Setting up a non-lethal explosive gel trap and luring enemies to it using one of their downed colleagues or a sonic batarang is a gas. One of my favorite set-pieces is when Batman faces off against a small battalion of electric prod-wielding thugs on a series of platforms which are randomly electrified by Harley Quinn  - leaping from platform to platform to avoid getting shocked, all the while laying down barrels of trademark Bat-whoop-ass upon the bad guys was a thrill I thoroughly relished.

BAA also incorporates some light detective work for the Darknight Detective with a player-activated objective mode in which Batman tracks down clues like cigar ash or fingerprints or even DNA traces (no deduction here, it's a follow the arrow mechanic). Objective mode also improbably allows Batman to have X-ray vision in which he can see enemies through walls and gauge how many are carrying firearms. It's a nice addition, but my only gripe is that it should come with some penalty on Batman's reflexes to restrict the player being permanently in X-ray vision mode. As of now the eye-strain of this mode is the only deterrent from keeping it always on. Apart from the aforementioned grappling hook, Batman gets a score of other useful devices including the trusty batarang, explosive gel aerosol, electronic lock decrypter etc.

The plotline isn't all that (Joker's scheme, at least so far as I have got, is disappointingly mundane), but the writing by Bruce Timm (who helmed the much-loved animated series) superbly evokes the Batman comics I loved as a kid (late 70's stuff) - y'know, serious but not mopey/psychotic. Even the obligatory “Batman relives the episode where his parents got killed” bit is handled with finesse. Throw in voice acting from series regulars Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker and you have major league goodness happening.

BAA also succeeds in being restrained in the use of Batman villains. The Scarecrow I have so far encountered only in dream levels where the game beautifully transforms itself into a side-scrolling stealth platformer where Batman must make his way over an obstacle course, avoiding the gaze of a giant Scarecrow till he reaches and manipulates the Bat-signal to dissolve the fearful phantasm. The Riddler from what I know is not actually seen in the game but his presence is conveyed in the form of riddles and collectible artifacts spread throughout the Arkham premises. Solving these little puzzles gives Batman experience points which he can use to upgrade his abilities or gadgets None of this is ground-breaking, but the implementation is impeccable and adds greatly to the fun of the game.

So if you're a Batman fan and own a reasonably recent computer with a decent video card you owe it to yourself to try this game out. The sequel Arkham City has already been announced and features Hugo Strange (mmmmm...). My wishlist for the sequel would include a little time for Bruce Wayne. Wayne himself was a bit of a badass as written in the Julius Schwartz era and the limitation of not being able to use all of Batman's tricks would add some spice. And yeah, tone down X-ray mode a bit.