The Post-Game - Lost Planet 3

Lost Planet 3 has a good story, decent action, and some great graphics (for its time). Unfortunately, it takes about fours hours of gameplay before things get interesting, which I think is why there are so many reviews stating the game is boring and slow. This delayed arrival of the “good stuff” means you won't be able to really judge the merits of the game without going past Steam's 2-hour refund limit. If being stuck on an ice-planet with a giant mech and aliens sounds like fun, go ahead and grab Lost Planet 3 when it's on sale.
Total installation size on my hard-drive (with all DLC and HD cutscenes pack): 27 GB.

Jim Peyton is just your ordinary guy out to earn some money for his family back on Earth by taking mining contracts for the NEVEC corporation on a frozen ice-world. This expedition by NEVEC is supposed to be the first to ever set foot on this world, but as Jim finds out, his bosses have been less than truthful about many aspects of the operation. There are several elements that you might expect: strange alien creatures, a frenemy that becomes a friend, a stoic person of wisdom, a cold and windy setting. After about four hours of gameplay, Jim is out on a mission for NEVEC when Lost Planet 3 suddenly goes all Dead Space; he finds himself exploring decrepit structures while strange creatures pop out and attack without warning. Apparent betrayal, a mad scientist, and an evil corporation round out the cast, and while you've probably seen it all before, Lost Planet 3 implements these elements well. Few things about the story surprise, but it is told effectively, and the voice acting is top-notch.

For much of the game, you climb into your giant mech (called the “rig”) and go out into the frozen wastes doing missions for the NEVEC corporation. Some upgrades can be purchased for the rig, but it's not customizeable in the traditional sense. The weapons Jim can wield have decent punch and there are about a dozen to choose from. I stuck mostly to the simple assault rifle; decent damage and a large magazine made up for the twitchy iron sights (which hurts the effectiveness of the sniper rifles). No real weapon customization, just bespoke upgrades that can be purchased at the stores.

Enemies come in two varieties: human and alien. The humans are your standard gun-wielding soldiers who hide behind cover or charge your position with shotguns. Most of the time, though, you'll be fighting the alien Akrid. There is a good variety of Akrid; my favorites were the weird six-legged ones that dive behind cover and just barely peep out at you, before rearing up like a cobra and spitting volleys. In the early part of the game, the boss battles involve fighting several of the larger, tougher Akrid all at once (when in doubt, shoot the glowy bits). Later on, there are some individually unique (and enormous) bosses (still shoot the glowy bits, though). Some of the “lesser” bosses are re-used a few times. The battles are not over quickly, and offer a fair bit of variation and challenge. Be alert for QTEs; they don't form the core of the battles, but they are important for the finishers.

The graphics are Unreal 3, and except for some strangely low-res clouds, are great (I recommend disabling Motion Blur in the Options menu, though). The backdrops are large, ice glistens, and snow blows convincingly. There is a free DLC of the cutscenes in HD (the DLC is a 7.5 GB download), so those also look excellent. The soundtrack (by Jack Wall) is great; instead of going for a big orchestral score, Lost Planet 3 instead goes for a quiet, reflective approach for story moments, and scratchy, screechy strings in the horror moments. Once you're out in the rig looking for resources, though, the mood changes to catchy folk tunes.

A number the reviews of Lost Planet 3 are outright negative, and if you don't play the game for more than four hours, you'll probably agree with them. I stuck with it and was rewarded with a good game that in retrospect has been treated unfairly (perhaps because it was too different from Lost Planet 1 and 2? I haven't played those games at the time of this review). Recommended on sale if fighting aliens on an ice-planet (with real boss battles) sounds like your cup of tea – “on sale” because a truly great game doesn't require “sticking with it.”

Notes:
- Multiplayer is dead. Don't plan on getting 100% of the game's achievements unless you can get some people together to help you out.
- There is a technical issue with the mechanical claw of the Rig. Left mouse-button attaches it to an object; if that object needs to be rotated, the screen prompt is “tap WASD to turn the claw.” THIS IS WRONG. The correct way to turn the claw is to repeatedly tap the F key. This is a common enough issue that a quick forum search revealed the answer, but how the heck does that slip by the QA testing?
- A more minor problem: there is no message if you do not yet have the attachment your rig needs for a specific action. I thought the game was broken at one point, but as it turns out the winch needed an upgrade to throw the grapple further and hit what I wanted it to; the game never flashed a message like, “rig upgrade required for this action.” Just be sure you've got the upgrades you need.

The Post-Game: Red Faction II

Red Faction II is the sequel that fans of the Red Faction franchise would rather forget. Decent graphics for the time, trouble free gameplay (no crashes & full 1080p), multiple environments (some levels are completed on foot, others in planes, others in tanks, others in power armor), and great voice acting (Lance Henriksen and Jason Statham).

So what are the drawbacks?

Red Faction II contains little or nothing that made the first Red Faction game a classic. The game is linear as hell. So was the first game, you might say; but even within the levels, there often were multiple ways to progress. Not so in Red Faction II. What about Geomod and destructible terrain? Well, that's still here, kind of. There's plenty of stuff that is destructible. But instead of unlocking different routes, Geomod's role is reduced to the only path. One level begins with Alias in an alley with both ends blocked off. There's no way to progress forward. Oh, wait, shoot those barrels. Boom! The wall explodes and (realistically) crumbles, opening a hole to walk through. There's your Geomod.

Also missing is the Everyman character. Parker (Red Faction), Alec Mason (Red Faction Guerrilla), and Darius Mason (Red Faction Armageddon) were all ordinary joes called upon to be heroes. In Red Faction II, we play as a Nano-agumented super soldier who is already special. The plot might look fine on paper – super soldiers attempt to overthrow a despot – but the execution isn't even up B-movie standards (maybe C-movie standards). And while the voice acting is good, there's no emotional attachment with Alias (your character), even when he is betrayed and has to fight an entirely new enemy about half-way through the game.

Red Faction II is also short for a fps. A complete run-through clocked in around 5 hours. The enemies are generic and repetitive (even the “zombies” of later levels present little challenge). If you're good at getting head-shots, you'll be able to coast through this one. The boss battles do present a decent challenge; the final boss is insanely hard / old school at first. Then I realized his pattern (from which he never deviates), and beat him in 90 seconds. There was one boss that had a charged electrical field for protection; if he got too close, and you became electrocuted, all of your controls become inverted (left is right, down is up). That was fun and a great challenge.

But one unique and fun boss isn't enough to save a game, and unfortunately Red Faction II has little else of interest. Skip it unless you can get it REALLY cheap.

Of note: If battling bots is something you like, you might be interested in Red Faction II's highly customizeable Bot-Match mode. There are quite a few maps and a great variety of weapons. Though why wouldn't you just play Quake 3 or Classic Nexuiz if that's what you're after?

The Post-Game: Bulletstorm

First, let's get the Games for Windows Live (GFWL) thing out of the way. When I started the game, I was asked to login to GFWL (I already have a profile I have used for other games). I logged in, and GFWL downloaded an update that required me to restart the game. Restarted, and was able to login and play without issue.

On to the review:
Bulletstorm is a superb shooter, with some unique mechanics, SUPER colorful environments and great weapons. I would even say that it is worth the asking price, except the multiplayer is barely populated, making the single-player campaign the primary draw.

+ The kick and slide mechanics are first rate, and easy to execute. You'll be sliding around in no time.
+ The "leash" mechanic is also fun, though Red Faction Armageddon does the same thing better and with more variety
+ The assortment of weapons is great, each requiring different methods to execute kills. My favorite was the homing sniper rifle; fire a shot, and you control the bullet with the mouse, guiding it around cover to kill enemies!
+ The level design is good if linear. Don't be expecting alternate routes to go anywhere - there aren't any - but the path twists and turns enough so that directionality becomes confused.
+ Though there are plenty of check-points, the game can be very hard if you want it to be.
+ Plenty of variety in the enemies you fight, with lots of mini-bosses even on Normal difficulty.
+ The graphics are COLORFUL. The opening levels happen aboard a ship, and feel confined, but once you get out into the countryside and city, the vibrant color will hit you in the face. Detail and design of the graphics is great too. Some of the enviroments reminded me of a sun-lit Bioshock.
+ Bulletstorm is easy on system resources, making this game playable on a lot of machines. I never saw more than 500MB of video memory used; most of the time it hovered around 250-375MB
+ People probably don't buy shooters for the voice-acting, but it is very good, especially the always-excellent Jennifer Hale.
+ The single-player story embraces an entire genre of B-movie action stereotypes. Everyone fully commits, and the game succeeds well at it.

- Few people in multiplayer. Get some friends together, and I'm told it will still work. But don't purchase Bulletstorm thinking you'll be able to join random online matches. I wasn't able to find any.
- With the multiplayer a dead end, the single-player campaign needs to carry the game's appeal. And it is very appealing, but it is too short. My first play-through clocked in at 8.9 hours. Replayability appeal relies on upping the difficulty and "restricting" yourself to specific weapons.
- No manual save system. The entire game is saved via checkpoints.
- The final boss is a series of QuickTime events. Always knock a point off for that. There are several non-QTE bosses in the game; I guess this is just how the developers wanted the game to end.

Not everyone has the GFWL issue; I suppose I was one of the lucky ones. As a shooter, Bulletstorm carries my highest recommendation. But get it on sale just in case GFWL screws you over; then you won't have wasted much money.*

*Early reports indicate that users on Windows 10 no longer have the GFWL issue. I'm on Windows 7 x64.

The Post-Game - Deadfall Adventures (Spoilers)

Platforms: Windows, Linux, Xbox 360, Playstation 3

Deadfall Adventures has been sitting in my game library for a while now. It was always a game I meant to play, but somehow never had time to. Well, I took the time - 12 hours to be exact - and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It's a fun mix of shooter, puzzler, and B-movie Indiana Jones-style setting / action / dialogue. If that sounds appealing, the game is worth picking up when on sale for around $10.

Note that I only played the single player campaign. I will evaluate the multiplayer at some point in the future.
That is if I feel motivated to try it out before needing the hard-drive space for other games.
And that's if there is anyone in the multi-player lobbies to even play multi-player with.

Gameplay

+ Decent gun-play. Different weapons feel different. 

+ Well-designed levels. Though linear overall, the levels tend to be large with plenty of cover and opportunities for flanking. 

+ Destructible cover. Not all cover is destructible, but plenty is.

+ Environment kills. Shoot explosive barrels, generators and gas cans to trigger explosions. Or, even better: those Mayan traps you just spent five minutes avoiding? Trigger them to kill the enemies coming after you.

+ Great puzzle design. These are the kinds of puzzles that I wish were in the new Tomb Raider (2013). Mirror puzzles, the "tile" puzzles on the floor (put a foot wrong and you die), going up and down on a platform, trying to pull levers in the correct order - all are core elements of Deadfall Adventures, and are required to progress in the story. None of the puzzles are greatly proliferated, either - some are variants on a theme (I counted three bounce-the-light-on-the-mirrors puzzles). Helps keep things fresh and interesting.

+ Fighting non-human enemies is reminiscent of Alan Wake's "fight with light" technique. Shine a flashlight (or other light-source - there are environment triggers for this as well), heat them up, and they start to burn. Once the burn effect begins, shooting them will have an effect. 

+ / - No cover system. Crouch behind cover, but no "snap-to" cover system. Not an outright negative because it can be argued that the game doesn't need it.
+ / - Same for dodging. Not in the game, but Deadfall Adventures is not built around melee combat anyway.
+ / - Not too short. A short campaign is one of the primary criticisms of the game. I got 12 hours out of a single playthrough, taking my time with puzzles and looking for treasure. Speedsters can complete the game in a third of that time, but atmosphere and environment is one of the points of the game. If you don't take time to savor either, and play the entire game with a game-guide providing all the puzzle solutions, expect to be disappointed by Deadfall Adventures.

- Low replayability. Once you've played it, no reason to revisit it except for achievement grinding.

- Some levels are pure corridor shooters. Boring. Thankfully, there are not many of these.
- No manual saving of the game. Checkpoints are fairly frequent, but still annoying.

- The loot system. It is completely tied into the upgrade system. Find treasure, and use it to upgrade Quartermain's skills. Treasure is only found by exploring every nook and cranny of the (generally linear) levels. Taking time out of the main quest is something I like to do for fun if I am enjoying the game; don't force me to do it as a condition of upgrading my character's skills. Finding treasure became a chore. I missed out on several upgrades just because I couldn't be bothered to complete the puzzle to uncover the treasure. Completionists will thrive here, but those looking to maintain momentum in their game won't want to take time out to find all the treasure. Which will preclude them from fully upgrading Quartermain.

- Reflexes required. Not always, but there are a few puzzles that rely on a player's reflexes to pass through them. Something to keep in mind if you're playing with an old keyboard + mouse and have issues with input lag.

- Puzzles may have great design, but sometimes there is simply no indication how to solve them. The in-game notebook that Quartermain consults when faced with a puzzle is usually helpful, but there are several occasions where it was not - and one occasion where the notebook was wrong. 

- Sometimes there are no clues on how to progress. Not always a problem, but it comes up at a few crucial points. The easiest example is the final boss. (minor SPOILER) At the second stage of the fight, with lava being shot everywhere, the boss is invincible. I ran around in circles for fifteen minutes, shooting at the boss and his minions, unsure if I was actually damaging him with gunfire, or whether by shooting his minions he was taking damage, or maybe I had to kill several waves of minions for him to take damage... Nope, none of that. Finally, I looked up a game-play guide and learned that, upon entering that stage of the battle, I was supposed to shoot out some support columns high in the air to collapse the ceiling on him. Maybe I would have figured it out after a while, but things like this happened several times throughout the game. That's not poor design - the design works well enough - that's poor implementation.

- Minimal upgrade tree. There are five upgrade paths, each of four levels. Not enough variety.

The entire upgrade screen.

- No in-game indicator of how to proceed through a level. Not looking to have my hand held, no. I wanted to finish an area, then go back and search for treasure. Sometimes I would be digging around, exploring some passageways, and trigger the next area - which locked me out of the previous one. Bye-bye upgrades.

Characters

+ If you can accept Deadfall Adventures as a B-movie kind of experience, Quartermain is snarky and sarcastic, his side-kick Jen is hot but capable, and the villain is a real scumbag who gets what is coming to him. Quartermain is your strong alpha-male type who prefers guns and bullets to puzzles and finesse (at one point he actually says, "I hate pushing buttons!" Except I had him push the wrong one, so he died instantly!). Jennifer Goodwin is smart and savvy, who provides the sense to complement Quartermain's direct simplicity. Aside from the villains, there aren't really any other characters in the game worth mentioning.

- If you can't accept the game as a B-movie kind of experience, you'll notice that Quartermain's voice actor is not that good, Jennifer Goodwin sounds like a cheap rip-off of Rachel Weisz in The Mummy, and the villains do absolutely everything you expect them to do. How many male-stereotypes have been seen in movies or in games that prefer bullets and explosions over any other approach? And how many times have we seen the woman thrust into a complimentary role to the alpha-male, balancing him and supporting him on his journey? Both are over-played tropes that rear their heads here once again. 

Narrative

+ / - You've heard the story before. Nazis are after some secret artifact that will give them power over the world. If plays out pretty much as you would expect it to: initial exploration, discovery of more pieces of the puzzle, betrayal, follow the villain to the next important piece, he gets there first, girl gets captured once or twice, rescue girl, get the artifact, kill the Nazis, save the world. Deadfall Adventures uses the story as an excuse to visit some exotic locations, and these locations are wonderfully detailed, but don't expect original story-telling.

Graphics Etc.

+ Environment graphics are superb. The Arctic looks cold, with great water / ice effects and blowing snow. The jungles are densely populated with lots of foliage, and the numerous ruins we explore are perfectly rendered with that aged, moss-covered look. 

+ Weapon models are well designed and detailed.

+ Except for the fact that Jennifer Goodwin's clothes look a little tight, they are at least practical and fit within the story. 

+ The game was very stable, not a single crash in the entire play-through.

+ / - Heavy on system resources. I was surprised to find that Deadfall Adventures stressed my system as much as The Witcher 2 (60% CPU, 100% GPU load)(A10 6800k + R7 260X). The game does look amazing, though, so I suppose that is not a surprise.

+ / - Voice acting is hit-or-miss. Quartermain's voice flip-flops between "I'm bored but I'm awesome anyway..." to "Hell yeah! look how big that explosion was!" Blech. The main villain's voice actor hits all the right notes, though, and Jen's voice actress comes off well enough.
+ / - Soundtrack is good, but not enough variety. Some tracks get repetitive, depending on how much time you spend in a location.

- Character models are disappointing. Stiff and low-res.
- Over-priced. I thought Deadfall Adventures was fun, but $50 for the Deluxe Edition? even at 75% off ($12.50), that is still more than the game is worth. Drop the Deluxe Edition to $7.50-$10 at 75% off, and the game becomes a must-buy when on sale.
- At the time of writing, there is no option to upgrade to the Deluxe Edition in the Steam store. I liked the game, why not provide a Deluxe Edition Upgrade option? As a result, I'm missing out on some DLC, multiplayer skins, behind-the-scenes extras, and soundtrack. I can't get the Deluxe Edition by purchasing it - Steam says I already own the game. So... I guess there is no legitimate way to get those extra materials.