The Darkness 2 - The Shining Light of Over-the-top shooters?

It's time for another guest post. This time coming in from Dani, who has jutted down his thoughts on the latest entry in the "FPS with crazy snake/eel arms" genre (it's a pretty narrow genre, I'll admit).
Take it away, Dani:

The first Darkness game was an enjoyable over-the-top shooter with a strong focus on gameplay as opposed to an engrossing plot or realistic graphics. It told the story of Jackie Estacado, a young mafia hitman involved in an attempted assassination, hiding in a cemetery when an ancient demonic force called the Darkness contacts him and kills his assailants.

The game then becomes a fairly standard first person shooter with the added powers of The Darkness, which form tendrils at your side. Throughout the course of the game, Jackie also visits the otherworld to further develop the plot and sees his powers grow. One of the strongest gameplay features allow for dual-wielding of weapons whilst also using the Darkness powers, in a mechanic unofficially called ‘quad-wielding’.

Despite favourable reviews hovering around the 7.5-8 region, The Darkness was never deemed that much of a hit; however has sold a million copies and warranted enough demand for a sequel.

The Darkness 2, one of the latest game releases, continues the story of Jackie Estacado who has risen to the top rank of the mafia and now wants rid of the Darkness. I won’t explain the full details of the plot; however it is safe to say that they have really upped the stakes in the storytelling department.

Featuring an updatable ability tree that can be progressed with by collecting the hearts of the victims, as well as a stronger focus on the Darkness, particularly the Darkling. This feature allows Jackie to kill enemies from greater distances, interact with environments and access otherwise unreachable areas and paths.

A clear improvement over the original, the Darkness 2 has really found its feet and established it’s placed in the shooter genre; however unfortunately still suffers from a relatively short single-player campaign and continued issues in multiplayer (which was also one of the biggest complaints of the original).

Suspend your beliefs, crank up the sound system and immerse yourself in the comic-book world of Jackie Estacado – however, if you’re after another Modern Warfare or Battlefield-style playstation 3 games, you’re looking in the wrong place. For one of the best gameplay experiences of the year, as well as a ludicrous yet enjoyable story, packaged in an unconventional yet satisfying game, you can’t go far wrong with the Darkness 2.

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New Syndicate Trailer - Unlock the power of "Breach Apps"

The Syndicate trailers are coming in hard and fast as we close in on the February 21 release date of this FPS that is a festival of gun violence and pulling the brain chips out of other people's head.

This one sheds even more light on the co-op mode of Syndicate and also goes into further details about the "breach apps", which will let you disarm enemies, heal friends and other handy stuff (maybe jailbreak an Iphone?)

I like the "Dart overlay" feature, even if it does feel like it's been ripped straight from Batman's "detective mode".

The ability to be able to customize your character as you gain levels seems potentially interesting as well.
As a gamer that has long since given up on the ninja reflexes required to be fighting for top spots in FPS battles, I'd be interested in tailoring my character to be able to support my more competent fighting allies from behind the lines.




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New Syndicate trailer brainwashes us with 4 player co-op details

This Syndicate trailer was posted just before Christmas, but it got lost among the piles of merriment and X-mas spirit, so I just saw it yesterday and thought I'd share it with you guys.

The video feeds us some more details about how the co-op gameplay of Syndicate will function, including a brief look at the four different agents that you will be taking the role as.

It's interesting that you'll be playing as four distinct agents and while I'm sure it'll add some flavor to the multiplayer experience, I feel that it does detract a little bit from the dystopian and drab vibe that is associated with the Syndicate universe.

In any case, it looks like we'll get to have fun kicking people in the balls and shooting them with large guns in the co-op multiplayer so there is always that, I suppose!



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New Syndicate trailer features more eye stabbing goodness

I just saw that EA has put up a new trailer for the upcoming Syndicate FPS game. This trailer explains how the special chip implanted in your brain is going to make your life a whole lot easier.

Syndicate should be out in February, so it won't be long until we can force people to commit gory suicide by hacking into their brain embedded hardware. I'm sure no parent organizations will have any problems with this at all!



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Merits of the Modern Warfare 3 campaign - Michael Bay would be proud

The latest installment in the Call of Duty series, Modern Warfare 3, offers a great and polished multiplayer experience in line with its predecessors, and it is sure to become an incredibly popular internet pastime for the digital war loving masses.
But how about the single player component of Modern Warfare 3? Has the series become so focused on its incredible multiplayer success that the single player campaign has become a dried up vestigial appendage devoid of gaming juices?

Green fonts lets you know it's modern!

Explosions to the right, explosions to the left, straight ahead, above and below. Big explosions, small explosions and explosions that make the big explosions look like small explosions.
That is a pretty good description of the single player campaign of Modern Warfare 3. There is more crap blowing up over the course of the 6-8 hours of modern warfaring, than in a full season of Mythbusters.

This should not necessarily be taken as criticism of the campaign, but you should understand right from the start that there is absolutely not a shred of intellectual cleverness or morsel of subtlety in Modern Warfare 3's campaign. It's as underplayed as a bright pink rhino on top of a burning monster truck.
But hey, pink rhinos and burning monster trucks are kinda awesome too, you know!

Battlefield 3 Multiplayer Class And Weapons Guide

I'm very happy to present to you my first guest post here on Light Speed Gaming.
This one comes in from Mike Derges from stinkyink.com, who gives us the low down on the various classes and unlocks in Battlefield 3

A question many gamers ask when they first play a class based shooter is “What class is for me?” this is almost always followed by “Which gun is good?” The purpose of this post is to give new players an overview of what each class offers and a look at some of the top gear for each.

Assault

The Medic class. By default Assault players spawn with either an M16A4 or the AK-74M and their tool of the trade a Medkit.

This allows Assaults to begin their careers as medics, throwing a medkit at your wounded teammates feet cases them to heal rapidly and you to gain points. The ability to keep your team alive is bolstered by the classes first unlock the Defibrillator.

The defibrillator has no kind of ammo supply and can be used without any kind of cool down other than it’s animation. Once hit a player will be given the option of pressing “A” (or “X” for our PS3 friends) to be revived. As well as getting them up and letting them get back into the action revives earn the medic equivalent points to a kill and negate the deaths impact on respawn tickets. For veterans it’s worth noting that unlike in some previous games de-fibbing an opponent does not damage him.

As for weapons the Assault class uses Assault rifles, while still deadly at close range ARs are geared to mid to long range combat and most come able to fire fully Auto or single shot. Key weapons to watch out for are the F2000 which is locked until the player gains 124000 points in the class and the M26 Mass under-slung which adds a shotgun attachment to the under-slung rails provided by most of the assault rifles.

New X-COM game delayed - UFO's on galactic detour

Those of you looking forward to the new FPS reboot of X-COM that 2K Marin is currently waiting on. are going to have to keep watching the skies for longer than first anticipated.

You'll have to postpone those monolith shooting activities to sometime well into 2012, at the earliest

In the fiscal Q2 2012 earnings report the X-COM publisher, Take-Two, have announced that they are now expecting the game to ship in "fiscal 2013", meaning somewhere between April 2012 to March 2013.
This is bumped back from the previously announced March 2012 release date.

I am actually really sad to hear this news. While I was initially (very) skeptical about a FPS X-COM game, the last showing of the game at E3 managed to impress me quite a lot, and I was looking forward to playing in this 50's Americana setting.
Especially the increased focus on research and management of your men has piqued my interest and provide a clearer connection to the X-COM games of old (the original of which has been kicking my ass).

E3 2011 X-COM mission play through:

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Modern Warfare 3 Review Round Up

Modern Warfare 3 reviews are exploding onto the internet, bursting at the seams with the low down on the latest entry in the mega blockbuster FPS series.

A few people have been looking forward quite a bit to this game, I'm told.

It seems that the reviews are generally very positive overall. Here are the verdicts from some of my favorite sites:

Gamespot Review (8.5/10)
IGN Review (9.0/10)
Joystiq Review (4.5/5)
Giant Bomb (4/5)

It seems that the game breaks down in much the same way that I found in my review of Battlefield 3, in that the singleplayer campaign is a bit on the "meh" side, but a really enjoyable multiplayer makes up for it.
It does seem though that the campaign is of a quality that is better than what you had in Battlefield 3 (so you won't want to actively stab yourself in the neck while playing), and actually manages to provide satisfying closure to the story of the main characters in the Modern Warfare series.

On the multiplayer side, minor changes have been made to the competitive modes, which makes for a more interesting experience.
However, the part that I am personally interested in the most are the two co-op modes. Spec Ops makes a return, with missions that are apparently more fleshed out and feel better put together. A new entry in the co-op multiplayer is the new Survival mode, which lets you and a friend defend against waves of increasingly difficult enemies.
I always enjoy competent co-op gameplay, so these will probably be the two modes I'll find most entertaining, if I get into MW3 multiplayer.

Still, I think I will be sticking mostly to Battlefield 3 for my modern military multiplayer shooter antics, as I just prefer the pacing and the vehicular mayhem that the Battlefield games provide.



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New Syndicate trailer shows off 4 player co-op gameplay

A new Syndicate trailer has just been released.
This time we're treated to some high quality murder entertainment courtesy of the games 4 player mode:

I continue to be cautiously optimistic for this game.

Also, I really dig that remix of the old Syndicate soundtrack!



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Battlefield 3 Review - Stop Playing With Yourself

Battlefield 3 is the last in the long line of modern day military shooters, which was popularized by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
It's been hyped as the new king of the hill, and EA has very deliberately positioned it up against Call of Duty, with the marketing tagline being "Go beyond the call" (Subtle, guys. Real subtle).

It's here!

Now the game is here, ready to impress us with gorgeous graphics, a compelling campaign and orgasmic multiplayer madness.
Or that is what the hype would have you believe at least. Read on to find out if Battlefield 3 is going to leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling of delight, or the unpleasant buzz of frustration.

Calm impressions of Rage

Having gotten the 360 version of Rage in the mail yesterday I have now had a chance to spend some time with it.

The game does look really really good (if you can disregard the rather pronounced texture pop-in that happens every time you do a quick 180 turn) and while the setting does make you instantly think of Fallout and Borderlands, it actually manages to have a distinct enough vibe to make it stand apart from these two post-apocalyptic romps.

You can't say Rage doesn't look great

I really did not care much for the driving bits.
The driving physics do not feel very good and this is definitely not something I'd play to enjoy some 4 wheeled wasteland madness.
As it turns, out the driving sections are pretty much only there to carry you from one linear shooting level to the next anyway, so if you don't like it then at least the game doesn't force you into it too much.

Battlefield 3 Beta on PC opens for Caspian Border map (Vehicles!!!)

So if you remember back to my piece on my initial impressions on the Battlefield 3 multiplayer beta, then you know that the thing that I was really missing from the beta was vehicles.

It was therefore with great delight and gleeful schoolgirl screaming that I found out that this weekend Dice has opened up the Caspian Border map for PC players in the beta.

This map features a ton of vehicles, including jets, choppers, jeeps and tanks.

I've taken it for a spin and I can only say that *this* is the Battlefield I was looking for!

Got jets? Got f**king jets!

Climbing a rolling hill, watching a jet dogfight in the skies above.

Shouldering your RPG and taking a potshot at the passing enemy tank down on the road, praying it will not spot you and turn you into a red splotch on the grass.

This is the mayhem and large scale battle that I was looking for.

I grabbed a few mins of footage of me playing, sitting in the machine gun of a tank and also taking on an enemy APC on foot with an RPG.

Rage review embargo ends. Internet goes "meh, not too bad"

The reviews for ID's new shooter "Rage", which is releasing this week, are now up on the internet.

It seems like my skepticism was mostly well founded.

The overall impression seems to be that Rage is a great looking game and a competent shooter.

However it is also rather shallow and the open world vibe that ID has been trying to push is pretty much only skin deep.

Rage: You shoot people and it's not terrible

I will try to get my hands on a rented copy of the game and check it out for myself.

Although, as I am not a very big FPS fan I don't expect I will be all too entertained.

In the mean time I've rounded up some of the reviews out there for your perusal:

Joystiq Rage review (3/5 stars)

Gamespot Rage review (8/10)

IGN Rage review (8.5/10)

Also there is a one hour long Quick Look up at Giant Bomb here

New and final Rage trailer online

For those of you foaming at the mouth to delve into "Rage" (the video game, not the feeling you get when someone takes the last blue M&M), the last trailer before the game is released on Tuesday the 4th, is now online.

I myself am still rather ambivalent about this game.

The graphics are definitely very impressive, but all the gameplay I've seen so far makes it look very generic.

There's nothing in this trailer that really makes me stop and go "holy shit, that was amazing" and so if I bother with this game at all I think it will be a rental.

Syndicate trailer hits the web

A trailer for the new Syndicate FPS game is now online on YouTube:

Okay, so this actually does look kinda cool. 

Deus Ex may have prepped the market and left us all wanting a little more dystopian sci-fi FPS.

Let's just hope the shooting mechanics are better than Deus Ex, because I don't think the RPG part will be as prominent.

I still hope that someone will eventually make a real Syndicate remake, though.

Battlefield 3 beta impressions -"Shiny!"

The Battlefield 3 beta for multiplayer started up yesterday for people that have preordered the game.

As I happen to be one of these select few couple of million individuals with more money than sense, who were willing to put down money up front for a game that has not even been published yet, I am now part of this beta.

Commuters are getting more and more aggressive these days

I have only had time to play for a few hours but I think that I have a good feel of the basics of the game, within the confines that are set in the beta (i.e. only one map and one multiplayer mode)

Below I'll share the good and bad points that have stuck with me so far:

Battlefield 3 early beta access starting tomorrow. Start polishing your guns!

I do not normally play a lot of FPS games.

Although I have played first person shooters ever since Wolfenstein 3D, I must admit that as I have gotten older I find them less and less appealing, except for ones that feature heavy story and RPG elements (like Deus Ex).

But Battlefield 1942 really grabbed me when it came out, with its vehicular carnage that gave you a feeling of being in the middle of a scene from Saving Private Ryan (sans the silly brotherhood bonding parts, of course).

Don't look now, Johnny, but half of your torso is on fire again

Therefore I am actually really looking forward to Battlefield 3 in a way that I have not looked forward to a military FPS in a long time.
And I have even installed the misshapen abortion that is Origins onto my computer and placed a preorder.

That means that I will be able to start playing the multiplayer beta with a massive two (yes, 2!) day head start on the rest of the world. Schmocks!

Anyway, should you also be interested in trying out the multiplayer war glorifying phenomenon that is Battlefield 3, then you can place your preorder and start playing tomorrow.
Or, if you have near infinite amounts of patience, you can wait until Thursday and nab it without the obligation of such preorderingness.

For more info on the beta you can check out EA's official page on it here

See you in the warzone!