Multiplayer-focused games are a tough animal to “review” since the experiences are so intertwined with the playerbases. At the same time, you can usually tell within the first 30 minutes or so if a game is going to be fun for you or not.
I had a chance to spend a couple of hours with Monday Night Combat today and I’m here to tell you it’s something worth looking into.
In a nutshell, Monday Night Combat is a 3rd person class-based multiplayer action game. You can choose to be one of various classes (such as a sniper, support, assassin etc.), each of which has its own unique powers, weapons, and playstyle. Additionally, anyone can build or upgrade turrets around the map. Think Team Fortress 2 meets <insert your favorite tower defense game here>. There’s two modes of play: Blitz and Crossfire.
It wasn’t due to deficient game playing skills on my part or any bugs or faults with the game’s programming. No, I had a tough time playing through Limbo because I was genuinely unsettled by the hauntingly melancholy game atmosphere with its grainy black and white visuals and sparse, yet disturbing ambient sounds and audio cues.
You may think I’m talking about a new survival horror game, but I’m not. Limbo is a 2D platforming puzzle game.
“How is this possible?” you may ask. Just watch this short trailer:
I found it appropriate that the protagonist of the game is a young boy because a lot of what disturbed me in Limbo scared me as a child. I have a ghastly fear of spiders, insects, and man eating plants that crystallized in my youth somewhere between the piranha plants in Super Mario Bros. and the insects in Daikatana.
Death in Limbo is also an infinitely more powerful on screen event because it is happening to a little boy. My first death happened via running into a bear trap on the ground. The trap chomped my boy into an aerial concerto of bloody body parts which then collapsed limply to the ground. It quickly became obvious that I wasn’t going to be playing Rayman.
One particular scene early in the game has you walk by a white butterfly on the ground who flies off towards a tree that is clearly harboring a giant black spider lurking in the branches above. I must have spent a good five minutes sitting in my chair, paralyzed. I saw no obvious route around the tree, yet there was no fucking way I wanted to walk under three giant spider legs. Given that the game had established a precedent for grisly deaths by that point, I especially did not want to see what this spider was going to do to the little boy.
Eventually, I excruciatingly faced my fears and found a way past the spider situation. The game may “just” be in black and white, but the realistic animations of the boy and the world combine with the game’s desolate atmosphere to create a completely immersive experience.
Who are you? Why are you here? Where are you?
These are questions Danish developer Playdead want you to wonder about while playing through Limbo. And they did, in fact, linger in the back of my mind throughout the game’s first half, especially with the appearance of other humanoids (dead and alive). However, as the game progressed, I found myself caring less and less about these things and just focusing on what my next destination was and how to reach it. In other words, gameplay became the driving motivational force, not the search for greater meaning in the story.
A word about the gameplay: much of it is based on a “die first, figure out why after you respawn” paradigm. During your first playthrough you should expect to die often and die unexpectedly. This may sound like a frustrating nightmare, but for the most part isn’t, because there are bountiful checkpoints that place you close to your place of death. However, there are a couple of places in the game where I repeatedly yelled “Come on!” at my screen because I could not discern a certain goal and the death checkpoint forced me to play through a previous section before I could take a crack at it again.
Comparisons to Jonathan Blow’s breakthrough “indie” game, Braid, are bound to pop up due to both games belonging to a similar genre. I’ll take a shot at declaring a “winner” by saying that Limbo doesn’t quite reach Braid from both a gameplay and narrative standpoint. Overall, Limbo’s puzzles aren’t as elegantly designed as Braid’s. Many of the more difficult ones require precision timing and button pressing dexterity to solve problems, rather than imaginative and cereberal solutions. That’s not to say Limbo is poorly designed – there are some wonderfully devious puzzles that give a real sense of fulfillment once you figure them out. It just doesn’t feel as naturally rewarding as Braid did.
Braid’s narrative benefited from the use of prose in its introductory and ending sequences. These words really tugged at me emotionally and provided context for the story it was trying to get across. Limbo, on the other hand, does not have one word of text within the game. It relies solely on its greatest strength, its visual and audio atmosphere, to convey its message. Limbo starts off strong in this regard, but the sense of uneasy wonderment slowly peters out until the ending is reached. It’s an ending which I feel tries to capture the same level of existential meaningfulness as Braid, but ultimately falls short.
Having said all of this, Limbo still comes highly recommended if you enjoy playing puzzle platformers and/or delight in immersive and unique art styles. It’s unquestionably the best downloadable game I have played in 2010 thus far. Just be warned if you have qualms about viewing gruesome child deaths or have fear of giant insects.
One final tip: Don’t read the game’s description on Xbox Live Marketplace if you can avoid doing so. I think the game’s ultimate meaning is far more interesting and thought provoking were I not to have read the short premise on the description. For me, it was a throwaway fact that served to only narrow the possibilities of the game’s conclusion.
Limbo costs 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) as a downloadable title from the Xbox Live Marketplace. There is a trial version that encompasses the first two game chapters.
Sup biddies. I dove into the Halo Reach beta for a few hours over the weekend and fumbled my way through the new gametypes, maps, powers, and weapons. I’m here to distill what I’ve learned into a short guide on what to expect when you fire up the beta with an emphasis on what’s changed from Halo 3. One thing to keep in mind is that the auto-aim assist has been turned way down – you’re going to have to earn those headshots now, son.
Protip: If you want to keep the controls similar to Halo 3, switch to the Recon control scheme. Otherwise, be prepared to use RB as your melee attack, X as your reload/weapon pickup, and B as your grenade type changer.
Armor Abilities:
The biggest change is the addition of special armor abilities that you can pick from each time you spawn via a loadout selection menu. Loadout options will change based on the gametype you get in matchmaking. These abilities are not consumable and will recharge if you do not use them for a bit. You can see your ability status on the bottom left corner of your screen via a circular meter around the icon. The default button to use your ability is LB and you can deactivate the power up at any time by pressing LB again to conserve energy.
Spartan(common loadouts listed):
Sprint – (Scout Loadout) Makes you run faster – you can use it in bursts or all at once. Especially fun if you have the sword or hammer.
Active Camouflage – (Stalker Loadout) Like the old powerup, it makes you invisible. You will also act like a mobile radar jammer, filling all radar screens around you (including your own) with red dots, so don’t rely on it to find enemies.
Jetpack – (Airborne Loadout) Makes you fly! Keep in mind, the rules of physics will still apply. If you’re falling like a rock, it’ll take more juice to keep you afloat. Think Tribes more than Duke Nukem.
Armor Lock – (Guardian Loadout) As long as you hold down LB, you will be invincible and immobile. It also acts like an EMP, draining the shields of anyone next to you. Very useful for defending an area as you basically become an attention grabber, buying valuable time for your teammates to help. (MMO Tank!)
Covenant:
Evade – (Both Loadouts) As a Covenant Elite, your armor ability makes you do an evasive roll in the direction you are moving. Use it to avoid bad things. On a fully charged meter, you will be able to evade twice before having to recharge. Keep this in mind if you get into a skirmish with someone.
New Gametypes:
There are two new gametypes currently available, Stockpile and Headhunter.
Stockpile – You’ll see this in the Grab Bag playlist. Basically there are two bases on the map, indicated by giant colored columns. Neutral flags will spawn randomly across the map. Your goal is to bring and drop those flags into your team’s colored area. BEWARE: the marker colors for the bases on your HUD are not necessarily the colors of the bases. Make sure you are going to the right team’s base! A timer at your base will count down every 60 seconds. When it reaches zero, the game will reset the flags and give each team a point for each flag inside their base. First team to 10 points wins. Remember that you can screw with the other team by removing the flags from their base. Even if the flags are a little outside the cylinder they will not count.
Headhunter – This one appears in FFA. Each time someone kills someone, a flaming skull will drop. The goal is to collect these skulls and bring them to the designated drop off area. First one to 25 dropped off skulls wins. Or, if you drop off 10 skulls at once, you’ll get a skullamanjaro and win instantly no matter what the score is. You just have to run over a skull to pick it up. If you die, you will drop all of the skulls you were carrying, Sonic The Hedgehog style. The game will put markers on people, indicating the number of skulls they are carrying so you can prioritize your kills. Also, be mindful that the drop off areas will move periodically.
Covy Team Slayer – Not really a new gametype, it’s just Team Slayer with everyone playing as Covenant.
New Weapons:
DMR – It looks like a Battle Rifle, with the key difference being that it’s single fire action. Use it as you would the BR, aim for the head at medium-long range.
Needle Rifle – The covenant version of the DMR, it looks kinda like a long Needler. Needles will still explode dudes if you stick them with enough. Same usage scenarios as the DMR.
Focus Rifle – Think of it like Quake’s Lightning Gun. It’ll fire a constant beam that you’ll have to train on an enemy. Has surprisingly long range and you can zoom in twice. Looks kind of like the Beam Rifle did in Halo 3.
Plasma Repeater – Unlike the plasma rifle in previous Halos, this one consumes ammo. Think Covenant version of the assault rifle.
Grenade Launcher – It’s not as easy to use as the rocket launcher is, but just as powerful. If you’re good with it you can bounce it places for the win.
Plasma Launcher – Use it like you would the Spartan Laser. When you’re ready to fire, hold down the RT to start charging it and paint your targets. Watch your crosshairs – it will fire after 4 dots have lit up at the corners no matter what. When you let go, plasma balls will home and seek your target, even if you die right after they fire.
This should sum up what you need to know before heading into Matchmaking. If you want more detailed info, read Bungie’s Official Beta Guide.
(Updated on 5/3 with stuff I learned playing this more over the weekend.)
