"He's back to what he does best, kill bad guys and drive fast cars. Join Vin Diesel for another explosive adventure."


Vin Diesel has been going through a rough patch of sorts in recent
times. His past few movies have failed to make a significant impact at the
box office and his last movie, Babylon A.D was panned as an abject failure
in which he actually cried in the movie (what next? Starring role in a romantic
comedy?). Obviously that didn’t go down with his fans who’re used to seeing
this man disembowel aliens with ease. Thankfully, we now have the new Fast
and the Furious movie to look forward to in which Vin seems like himself
again. But Vin Diesel also loves making games. In fact his first collaboration
with Starbreeze Studios based on the character, Riddick was a phenomenal
success. He’s looking to recreate that magic with Wheelman, a game that was
to be based on the movie of the same name. The movie’s MIA at the moment
but the game’s here and that ladies and gentleman is what this review is about.





In Wheelman, Vin Diesel is an undercover cop who fi nds himself
embroiled with the shady criminal underbelly of Barcelona. As him, you’ll
interact with some shady characters, pit a few factions against each other, play
the errand boy many times and kill all of them by the end of the game. The
funny part over here is that nothing is explained to you so you don’t really know
who you’re working for. How are you in this situation in the first place? And how
in God’s name did your cover get blown so fast? The plot’s clichéd, boring and
downright confusing, so don’t bother. Voice acting is hammy and not even
Diesel’s supreme coolness can salvage the script. But once you get past the
weak plot, the game’s actually fun to play. Since the name of the game is The
Wheelman, you’ll be driving around... a lot. In fact, we would say you’ll be
behind the wheel for nearly 65-70% of the game. The rest of the time
you’ll indulge in some gunplay that’s as basic and uninspiring as it gets.




Lock onto targets with your left trigger and spray them with bullets until they
die. Release left trigger, lock onto new target and repeat same procedure till all
enemies are dead. You can’t jump in the game and the cover system isn’t what
you’d expect in an action game today. Once you’re back in your ride, things
do spice up a notch as your car in this game, is actually your weapon. You can
use it to slam enemy cars and then obliterate them in the form of slow
motion takedowns. As you progress through the game you’ll encounter
tougher vehicles that have to be smashed many times before they can
be taken out. Sometimes vehicles will be full of gun wielding thugs whose
constant barrage of bullets permit you from getting too close. In such cases
you can use two of the game’s super moves – Cyclone and Aimed shot. The
Cyclone can only be performed on vehicles behind you and in this move Vin
Diesel stylishly jacks his ride around in a 180 degree turn in slow motion while
you individually target various parts of the vehicle be it windows, the hood or
the petrol tank. Shoot the petrol tank and the vehicle bursts into a huge ball of
fl ames. Too many people present in the car? Shoot the driver and watch the car
spiral out of control. It’s an interesting mechanic that you’ll use a lot not only
because it looks cool but because it’s a great option to have during some of the
tougher stages.




In Aimed shot, time slows down once again but this time the vehicle stays
straight and the camera zooms in over Vin Diesel’s shoulder so you can pick off
enemies in front of you and at the side peacefully. It isn’t as cool as Cyclone
but it’s perfect for getting through those pesky, explosive barrel laden barricades.
Of course, you won’t have an unlimited supply of cool moves at your disposal;
you’ll have to drive like a maniac, indulge in some jumps, and take sharp turns
and so on to earn them. The fi nal super move available right from the start is Air
Jacking and it allows Diesel to leap from one car to another while both are in
motion in a cinematic sort of way. It’s not original and not realistic from any angle
but then again neither is pretty much anything in this game. It aspires to be an over
-the-top action game and it does deliver to a certain extent but sadly it’s also bogged
down by tons of issues.

Terminator Salvation is not a nice game. In fact it’s a downright horrible game. It had tons of potential no doubt but none of that gets realized during the course of the game. It’s like someone literally put a gun to developer Evolved Games' head and said "Make a crappy game for me or I’ll blow your brains out on the table." And guess what, they obliged.





Loosely based on the motion picture of the same name, Terminator Salvation puts you in the boots of John Connor as you strive to liberate what’s left of Los Angeles from Skynet and their nefarious robots. The story unfolds via some horribly compressed cut-scenes, awkward animations, terrible lip synching and voice acting by actors who were terribly bored or just plain talentless. If that wasn’t bad enough, you’re subjected to one of these ghastly cinematics after nearly every enemy encounter so it’s like five minutes of gameplay followed by another minute of terrible cut-scene. Cinematic? No! Annoying? Yes!





Terminator Salvation plays out like your standard third person shooter fare with a cover system inspired by Gears of War. Unlike Gears where you could press the cover key even if you were a few inches away from cover, in this game you have to be close enough to kiss it and only then will Connor slap to the surface. Once you’re latched onto cover you can move in any direction via some pretty slick and fluid sliding animations. From behind your cover you can blind fire or look up, squeeze a few rounds and duck back into cover again. For some incomprehensible reason this is the first game in which blind fire seemed more effective than aiming and shooting at enemies.

Who doesn’t like blowing stuff up? I think there’s a demo man in each and every one of us who loves watching things go BOOM. That guy is in for a real treat as developers Volition have taken the term environmental destruction to the next level with their latest game, Red Faction Guerilla (RFG). As you might have heard or seen by now, the Red Faction series has now made the transition to third person as opposed to the first person shooters the first two games were. The reason is so that players can experience the true power of their Geo-Mod 2.0 engine. But before we talk about blowing stuff up, let’s take a quick look at the game’s plot.

In RFG you play as Alec Mason, a miner who’s come to Mars to earn an honest living. Upon arrival you find out that the Earth Defense Force (EDF) aren’t the good guys they once used to be and they’re now using their power and resources to oppress the locals. Fighting this oppression is an organization called the Red Faction and your brother just so happens to be a part of it. He persuades you to join his noble cause but you politely decline at first and it’s only once he ruthlessly gets gunned down that you pick up your sledgehammer in revenge.

If you’ve played the Saint’s Row series, gameplay in Red Faction will seem vaguely familiar. Unlike the linear corridor shooters the first two games were, RFG has now gone the open-ended way which means you’re given a free reign as far as progression is concerned. Of course like the Saint’s Row series you’ll have to undertake and successfully complete a certain number of side quests to unlock story-based missions. During both, side quests and main missions, there are two things you have to keep an eye out for—EDF presence in a particular area, and the morale of the locals there. To recruit more people or have them fight by your side you’ll have to increase their morale by driving out the EDF presence in their locality. You can do so by destroying random EDF structures (denoted in red on your map) or by undertaking Guerilla missions. Reduce EDF presence to zero and a story-based mission pops up that allows you to liberate the entire sector once and for all. But Mars is a huge planet and you’ll have to liberate five distinct sectors in this way. The big problem here is that liberating every sector is pretty much the same experience. You have a handful of Guerilla missions such as rescuing hostages or driving vehicles back to your base within a certain amount of time that get repeated all the time. As you progress, enemies become tougher and they’ll wield more powerful weapons but gameplay essentially stays the same.



Story-based missions are variations of the side quests (or vice versa) so you’ll be craving variety by the time you hit the halfway mark. This comes as a bit of a disappointment since Volition’s last game, Saint’s Row 2, offered a tremendous amount of variety. But then again, the game does such an awesome job of letting you blow everything up with reckless abandon, you might just about excuse it. Each and every structure, be it a building, bridge, tower or garage can be blown up in this game and how you go about doing that is up to you. You can either drive your vehicle into a structure taking out all its supporting beams in the process or you can run around planting sticky mines on all four sides. If you prefer taking a more direct approach, roll up and just blow it to kingdom come with your rocket launcher. If you’re really bored, it’s possible to take it down using nothing but your sledgehammer—time consuming, but satisfying as hell!

The way each and every structure crumbles in the game is a sight to behold; slabs of concrete fly all over the place, glass shatters violently, walls start crumbling in real time and once you damage a structure enough you’ll hear it creaking and groaning while your controller vibrates. This is an indication to get out of there before the roof quite literally comes down on your head. Certain structures like billboards crumble in a scripted way no doubt, but all said and done no other game has done environmental destruction this well, so some serious props go out for that.

Besides blowing stuff up you can melee objects/people with your sledgehammer or use a plethora of rifles, shotguns and rocket launchers. The more stuff you destroy, the more scrap you earn, which can be used to buy armor and weapons or even upgrade existing ones. On the flip side gunplay is a tad weak and customization is limited.



Even so you’ll find your arsenal more than sufficient to bring the whole of Mars down, but there's not much else that’ll grab you. The plot’s horribly clichéd, voice acting is bad and AI—both friendly and enemy—is downright braindead. Thanks to retarded AI, even simple tasks like hostage rescues become exercises in frustration.

Once you’re done decimating Mars to your heart’s content, hop online for a number of entertaining multiplayer modes that benefit from all the environmental destruction of the single player campaign. Before you go online you’ll have an offline mode to choose from called Wrecking Crew that basically hands you the weapon of your choice with unlimited ammo and encourages you to blow up all the buildings in a level within a set period of time. Up to four players can share a console making it one awesomely destructive party game.

As far as online modes are concerned, you have Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Damage Control (a variant of King of the Hill) and Siege modes. In Siege one team has to destroy the other team’s structures while defending their own. Every team member is fitted with a device called a reconstructor (for some reason this device is available in multiplayer only) that can repair broken structures. With the ability to destroy entire buildings in multiplayer, things do get pretty intense online but thankfully frame rates stays rock solid 90 percent of the time. It's in the single player version; frame dipped only when unleashing some serious vengeance on a bunch of structures at the same time.



Mars on the whole looks a bit bland and after a while you’ll get sick of the shades of red and brown all over. Granted, it isn’t the most picturesque of planets to begin with, but it still wouldn’t have hurt to put in a bit of variety. So even though it gets a bit boring in the middle, Red Faction Guerilla is visceral, satisfying and is one awesome stress buster. Mission structures get repetitive but play the game in short bursts and you’ll learn to love it. You even have a healthy multiplayer component to increase longevity. It’s no Modern Warfare but you’ll stick to it for a while since it’s always fun to bring an entire building down on your friends. If you like blowing stuff up; Red Faction Guerrilla deserves a spot in your collection.

Amongst the torrent of real-time strategy games that have surged through recently (Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, Tom Clancy's EndWar, World in Conflict: Soviet Assault), Halo Wars seems like the most straight-forward and traditional of the lot. In this case that's in no way a bad thing, considering that its developers—Ensemble Studios—have re-engineered a franchise to accommodate an entirely different genre. The transition from first person shooter to real-time strategy happens rather smoothly as Halo Wars captures the Halo universe and all the alien-on-marine action you've craved, while keeping things as true to the series as humanly (or even Forerunnerly) possible. The game takes place roughly 20 years before the events of the franchise's first game—Halo: Combat Evolved, in the year 2531. The game starts off with a conflict between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant (for those of you who are slacking off—the Covenant's a military alliance of alien races with misled religious zeal) on a colonized human world—Harvest—that's seen almost six years of bitter conflict between both sides. It's your job in the game, to help the UNSC discover why on earth these are aliens so interested in this unassuming world?



The game starts off with an easy-to-understand and short tutorial that shows you the ropes where controls are concerned; which brings us to the most relevant question concerning console RTS games—do the controls suck? Simply put,no, they do not. The controls are simple and intuitively designed; the A button handles all your unit selection needs—hover over a unit using your fixed reticule and tap A to select it, or double tap to select all units of the same time on the screen. Alternately, you can press and hold the A button to drag-select units. To help select all units across the screen, you can tap the left bumper button. Alternatively, the right shoulder button lets you select units across the map. A word of warning: pressing either one of these buttons plays an unenthused voice recording that says either "All units" or "Local units". Keep spamming the keys and you're sure to drive yourself and those around you insane! Getting back to the controls, the X button controls all actions such as move or attack, while the Y button controls special attacks/functions—such as flinging grenades at enemy buildings/vehicles with your infantry, or running over enemy grunts with your Warthog. That's basically all there is to the controls in Halo Wars—no flashy game mechanics to get a hang of, no eccentric ways to control your army, just straight-forward, intuitive controls that work as a solid base for a good RTS experience. Base building is pretty straight forward too—there are predefined places where you can place your headquarters. Placing one gives you access to three building slots around it, each of which can house a barracks, a power plant or a supply depot. To place these structures, simply press and hold the action button with your reticule over the slot to conjure an easy-to-use radial menu with all the options. You can queue up unit creation or upgrades in the same manner—which is by hovering your reticule over the building that researches/builds the unit in question, hold the action button and pick what you want out of the radial menu. To gain more slots to lay down buildings, you can either upgrade your headquarters or capture expansions. This allows you to lay down another headquarter, to which you can add more structures such as power-nodes and supply depots. Scrolling through the screen repeatedly can be a real pain using the controller, especially while switching between bases. Thankfully though, Ensemble has given you the ability to cycle between bases using the down arrow on the D-pad, which can be a real time saver.



Just like the controls, the resource structure is quite straight forward. The way to collect resources in the game is either finding the scattered supplies sitting around the map, or building more supply depots, which are your only steady source of income. So where economy is concerned, the game boils down to territorial control in both the single and multiplayer modes. The person with the most resources and the most units generally wins. Unit upgrades are a little underwhelming though. Most of them usually focus on one aspect of one kind of unit, making it rather tiresome and time consuming to upgrade each and every unit you wish to bolster your forces with. Strategically, there are a few upgrades that are useful—such as the grenade launcher upgrade for the Warthogs—which tie in pretty well when you wish to build a force for hit and run tactics. Other than that though, the upgrade system doesn't do much for the gameplay and feels tacked on, since most of them are either pointless or far too weak to make an impact on battle.



In multiplayer bouts too, quantity takes precedent over quality, at least when it comes to upgraded units versus more units. The stronger units though, such as the Covenants Scarabs or the UNSC's Spartans can be a significant part of an army when used strategically. For instance, the Spartan's special ability is to capture an enemy vehicle, making them really lethal against the Covenant's expensive tanks. As an added disadvantage, most Covenant players usually suffer quite a bit initially, since they lack the experience UNSC players have. Blame this on the fact that you can only play as the UNSC throughout the campaign; so if you wish to give the Covenant a shot in multiplayer, expect to get slaughtered the first few times. Halo Wars is pretty much a well-rounded package with enough to satiate most RTS fans. It's well balanced, has an engaging single player campaign (albeit, with its share of frustrating moments), competitive multiplayer, and to top it off, has really good visuals (no framerate issues) and boasts of pretty high production values. If you're looking for a good RTS on the Xbox 360, Halo Wars certainly fits the bill.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood (BiB) is a sequel that actually serves as a prequel to 2007’s Call of Juarez. It tells the tale of two brothers Ray and Thomas McCall on the run from the law after they abandon the Confederate army to protect their family. Of course their General treats this as an act of treason and is hell bent on wiping them off of the face of the earth. During this period they happen to meet up with a Mexican outlaw called Juarez who appeals to their greedy side with stories of the legendary God of Juarez. If greed wasn’t bad enough you even have lust coming into the picture with the arrival of Juarez’s girlfriend who somehow appeals to both Thomas and Ray causing a rift between two brothers. Finding himself in the middle of all this depravity is Thomas and Ray’s younger brother, a man of God who believes in non violence and the path of righteousness. This plot unfolds really well thanks to some stellar voice acting by all the lead characters.



Gameplay in BiB is pretty much your standard first person shooter fare with a bit of variety sprinkled in as both characters have their distinctive play styles. Ray is the more aggressive one of the lot so his segments mainly involve killing everything that can pretty much move. He can also absorb more damage and carry heavy weapons making him an ideal choice for your first play through. Thomas on the other hand relies on stealth to a certain extent and is equipped with throwing knives and a bow and arrow (among other weapons) that help him kill silently. He’s also a better shot than Ray and that allows him to wield scoped rifles.







Both characters even have their own versions of special moves that can be activated after killing a certain number of enemies in succession. During Ray’s Concentration Mode all you have to do is paint your targets by moving the mouse over them, after which you can sit back and watch in glee as he cuts them down with a hailstorm of bullets. For Thomas it’s a bit different as you’ll have to activate Bullet Time and then move your mouse (or analogue stick) up and down to mimic the action of a pistol’s hammer.



In between certain levels you’ll be granted a bit of free roaming, which actually comes as a breath of fresh air from all the on-rails shooting. During this time you can earn money by apprehending outlaws or by, umm... herding cattle. Money earned by completing such missions can be used to purchase faster and more powerful weapons. The game also has a few boss fights scattered around the place and since this is the Wild West you can only take them out in a fair duel. The dueling system has been vastly improved from the first one and is sure to test your reflexes since it takes only one shot to kill or be killed in this mode.



Unlike the previous game, you can actually select which brother to play as before every mission begins. Unfortunately the game does not support co-operative play so when you play as Ray or Thomas, you’re left with the enemy AI controlling the other one. Friendly AI isn’t too bright but it doesn’t get on your nerves either. The only stupid aspect over here is that you can’t stray too far away from your brother or the mission gets terminated immediately. Thankfully the excessive amount of platforming that plagued the first game has been cut down drastically and unless you’re playing as Thomas, you have nothing to worry about here. Visually the game is very impressive and even though Techland axed DirectX 10 support from BiB, you never really miss it. The game packs in a ton of detail and variety into existing locales. Enemy models tend to get a bit repetitive but both Thomas and Ray are well detailed. Weapon detail is pretty stunning as well and if you’re a fan of American history or weapons in general you’ll appreciate the effort put into them.



Like I mentioned earlier, voice acting is pretty stellar and I really like the chemistry between Thomas and Ray. They love each other like brothers should but at the same time they also rag on each other like two brothers would. The banter exchanged between them during the game is also pretty entertaining.




Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood is a marked improvement over the first game. Techland has fine tuned many gameplay aspects to make this game thoroughly entertaining. They’ve axed the annoying bits and replaced it with high production values and balls to the wall gunplay. Its a solid shooter backed by solid production values, high octane gameplay, stellar voice acting and an interesting plot. Buy it now!

Batman: Arkham Asylum may share its title from a number of Batman graphic novels, but the story you get in the game is not from any of them.

The game starts with Batman bringing Joker to Arkham Asylum, but something doesn't seem right; the Joker seems to be giving in way too easily. The Joker breaks free from the guards the moment he's brought in, and unleashes his master plan of taking control of Arkham Asylum. No doubt, the plot is quite predictable, but what makes the story brilliant is its pacing and narration.

There are a lot of references to some of the past Batman experiences in comics and even a slight homage every now and then to some epic scenes in the Batman films. But not once does the game seem like the type that only a Batman fan will understand. You could have any other bad-ass vigilante replacing Batman and any other psychotic bad guy play Joker and the game's narration would be just as good.

While the plot may seem simple, every supervillain and recognizable character from the comic books is spot-on. Joker relies on elaborate plots to drive Batman insane, Poison Ivy couldn't care less about anything but her plants and Bane is a venom-poisoned rampaging brute whose only drive is to break the Batman. Some other supervillains (and some not so super) make their appearances in the game, but I wouldn't want to accidentally let out a spoiler... just remember, there's nothing wrong with your game disc.




Game-play

As I mentioned earlier, Batman has the rep of being the World's Greatest Detective, and that's exactly what the focus here is. To achieve this, Arkham Asylum gives you a good mix of action, exploration, puzzles, stealth and even platforming; without any one of these aspects overpowering the other.
In detective mode Batman gets an x-ray view of his surroundings with which he can spot clues, locate destructible objects and hidden openings, and even see through walls to get a headcount of the bad-guys waiting around the next turn. The detective mode also plays a major part in knowing where the bad guys are looking for you when playing in stealth mode. At first it seems like the detective mode makes the game a bit too easy, but you have to keep in mind that it's the only possible way of getting the same level of surrounding analysis done, that would do justice to a character like Batman.



In-game fighting too fits the Batman bill. There are no elaborate moves and fancy jump maneuvers here. Batman is quick and precise with his hits, and gets the job done with minimum effort. Of course, a lot of that changes with different types of mutated baddies and supervillains, but the thing is, not once does Batman come across as flashy or overtly heroic, which I much appreciate.
Batman will avoid getting into direct conflicts as far as possible and prefer to take the bad guys out one by one from the darkness. The silent predator mode in Arkham Asylum allows you to do just that. Batman can perch on gargoyles, wait in floor grates, or even stay behind walls and strike when the moment is right. My favorite move of the lot was the inverted takedown. Nothing feels more like Batman than hanging upside down from a gargoyle and swooping down on an unsuspecting punk.
This game has its fair share of over-the-top boss battles that may seem overwhelming but are in no way frustratingly impossible.
You start off the game with only your faithful batarangs, and as you progress you get better equipment to help you get past some upcoming challenges. As you keep leveling up, you can power-up your gear to perform gratifyingly better.
The only negative aspect of the game is that once you finish the game you cannot play through it again with all your power-ups.