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The latest game in the Batman superhero franchise, Batman: Arkham Asylum, was released on the Xbox360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC on the Aug. 25 and Sept. 15 respectively.

Developed by London based game studio RockSteady, Batman: Arkham Asylum is an action-adventure game with a hint of stealth mixed into it.

The game takes place from a third-person over the shoulder perspective and is based on a completely original storyline written by Paul Dini.

Arkham Asylum features Batman investigating Joker’s sinister plot at the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane, a fictional psychiatric hospital.

The story, while original, offers nothing exceptionally interesting and it isn’t the main attraction of the game either.

Joker, once again up to mischief, gets himself arrested and sent to the Arkham Asylum before he breaks out and take control of the Asylum.

As Batman was the one escorting Joker to the Asylum, he takes it upon himself to capture Joker and to foil Joker’s sinister plans.

What makes Arkham Asylum a winner for Batman fans would be how true the game is to the Batman lore.

Various villains make appearances in the game, ranging from Bane to Harvey Dent (more commonly known as Two-Face), RockSteady pulled out all the stops when it came to Arkham Asylum.

Arkham Asylum is a mini-sandbox game, granting players free roam throughout the psychiatric hospital and its various grounds and gardens.

A secret batcave is also offered on the island.

Scattered throughout the game are riddles by The Riddler as well as hidden bonuses that reveal more of the history of the hospital.

Recorded psychiatric sessions between different psychiatrists and villains such as iller Croc, Zsazz and Joker can be found as well.

Fans of button-mashing action games will be disappointed with this game howeve as it focuses on careful timing and smart usage of the large inventory of gadgets that Batman possesses.

The faithful batarang and batcable (grapple gun) makes an important appearance in the game. Additional gadgets and upgrades can be unlocked as the game progresses.

The game mixes elements of action adventure with elements of investigative games as players will often find themselves in positions where they have to use the many detective skills and equipments that Batman possesses to progress the story.

The “detective mode” is an alternate vision mode offered in-game that allows players to scan for nearby enemies, detect traces of fingerprints and even scan the heart-rate of nearby enemies to see if they’re aware of Batman’s presence.

The combat system of the game is a fairly simple system consisting of three main attacks and a counter-attack move. Successful and effective combos grant players more experience which can then be used to unlock more moves or gadgets from Batman’s arsenals.

As an added bonus to boost replay value, a challenge mode is offered where playes can attempt different tasks, most of it revolving around beating up the bad guys. It gets progressively harder as some challenges require the enemies to be eliminated with stealth or other additional conditions.

The villains of the game stay true to the comics. The in-game Joker is as creepy as, if not creepier, the Joker from the 2008 blockbuster film The Dark Knight. Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow and the other many foes of Batman all appear as sinister as they should be.

Batman, while a formidable hero in the game, is far from the undefeatable superhero that he often appears as in other games. Players are forced to consider tactics carefully and make good use of the environments in the game.

Arkham Asylum is without a doubt one of the best DC Comics superhero game to be released for a long time now.

Batman: Arkham Asylum retails for $49.99 for the PC version and $59.99 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 versions.

Now, author Kai may have a few qualms and whatnot about the game, but I’m going to be talking about the music.

Ah, music — Any FF fan who does not know who on earth Nobuo Uematsu is needs to have serious remedial lessons on every Final Fantasy ever.  And then lessons in worshipping this god of music. And then only he or she can be truly recognized as a hardcore fan of Final Fantasy. In Dissidia’s OST, however, Uematsu does not make a comeback; here it is Takeharu Ishimoto, well-known for his compositions for Kingdom Hearts II and the recent Crisis Core.

Playtime in total is about 2 and a half hours; with 74 tracks plus 1 bonus track. The original compositions no doubt belong to Nobuo Uematsu, but just as with Crisis Core, Takeharu Ishimoto manages to rearranges the pieces nicely and make it more outstanding, as the previous tunes from the good old days were nothing more than itsy-bitsy MIDI files. In this OST, fans will be able to recognize songs from the olden times in a newer and much more dramatic way — and it’s easy to tell if the song has been arranged or left in its original form — it’s stated in the OST list.

I’ve only played a handful of the Final Fantasy series — VII, VIII and IX, so quite a number of the songs here are new to me.

Now…

From what I gather, they took three songs from each Final Fantasy, one to act as the menu/battlefield for said FF protagonist (this is usually the Main Theme), and then one battle song, and one boss song.

I realize this is going to be long, so I shall wrap this up into a few categories :-

Old Favourites : -
- Those Who Fight Further - One may argue that I am biased towards FFVII, but then again they ARE the darling of the series. If not for them, the FF series as a whole would have died off.  This song is definitely one of the catchier tunes in the OST.
- Don’t be Afraid FFVIII - The battle theme song for FFVIII, in a more rock style way. Sweet drum rolls, sweet guitars, a bit lacking in the bass, but overall my favourite remix so far.
- Battle Theme FFIX - This song has a more ethereal feeling to it, which makes it nicer than the sharper tones of the original song. Two thumbs up for me.
- One-Winged Angel FFVII – Who can resist not commenting about this song? Love it or loath it, it is the ultimate song ever and is considered Nobuo Uematsu’s greatest composition for the series. (Also, Sephiroth is one badass boss, and everyone knows it, and thus you end up with a song worshipping his very name.)  In this one, however, it comes close to sounding like the one from Advent Children, except with the original lyrics. Still my favourite.

New Favourites :-
- The Opening song for the kickass opening scene. Needless to say, the opening song is kickass as well.
- Clash on the Big Bridge and Battle 1 from FFV. It’s catchy and fast paced and makes me want to dance.
- The Decisive Battle from FFVI – This song has been stuck in my head for the past 10 minutes. It is a good thing, I assure you.
- Preparation for Battle – This has a nice military patriotic “get ready to fight for your country” kind of style which gives me goosebumps all the way. I’m in love with it.
- A Moment of Rest and The Order that must be Protected – Sadly, the only two original piano compositions of Takeharu Ishimoto. Both, however, are extremely well done and moves me to the point of near-tears.

Usuals : -
What is Final Fantasy without its traditions? There is the Prelude theme, present in almost every Final Fantasy, in the opening screen usually, and this one seems to be a bit overdone. Too much reverb effects in my opinion.  The Victory Fanfare, also present in every Final Fantasy and other games like the Chocobo series, is split into two themes this time, the Cosmos side and the Chaos side.  The Cosmos Victory is more recognisable than the Chaos one, which employs the use of electric guitar and violin. The tone is slightly mellower, as though unsure it should be a victory fanfare or not.

And there is also the Mambo de Chocobo theme, which makes me laugh because I picture chocobos in coconut leaves and dancing in Hawaii. Listen to it, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me; it is delightfully fun. Finally, the Final Fantasy, the MAIN theme of all Final Fantasies, usually present at the ending of the game sync-ed in with the main theme of said game, was shorter than usual, clocking it at a little over 2 minutes. Masterfully done, but not quite the best yet.

And there are the ickys :-
FFX To Zanarkand, renamed Sprouting - I don’t know why they renamed it that way, because it didn’t seem like Sprouting to me. Only a slight addition of strings, a bit of the reverb effect, nothing overly special.
FFI Battle Theme 2 – Weird cut-off at 1.08, for some reason.
Blue Fields FFVIII – Ick. No. Not well done at all. The original is way better. This is the only song I don’t like in this whole OST.
FFX Otherworld – I got a shock of my life when I heard this song. This is okay up till the part the vocal does a weird Chester Bennington imitation and scares the crap out of me.
Cosmos and Chaos – Two vocal songs. I don’t particularly like it, but their voices are good. The melody seems to be rather simple, though. And it’s in English. It’s not supposed to be in English!!

My other qualm is that they seemed to have gotten lazy toward the end of the soundtrack. There’s like 8 original songs here from FFXI and FFXII. The Extreme from FFVIII and the Boss Battle theme from FFIX also makes a comeback, untouched at all, which may or may not have been for the best. Personally I’d have liked to hear something different and yet familiar all at once, like the previous songs mentioned.

Overall? I’d give it an 8 out of 10. I may be biased, but there you go.

Note by admin (Kai): Give a warm welcome to Yunyun. This is her first post on Ink-Cafe.

Valve’s latest game, Left 4 Dead, debuts the much publicized AI called the Director AI. Instead of having fixed spawn-points, the AI Director places enemies of varying amounts at different places each time depending on the current players in the game. Depending on the skill and play-style of the current match’s players, the AI Director would adjust accordingly.

Left 4 Dead is in every way, a real survivor horror game.

Loved:

1. The Director AI
2. The Co-Op campaigns
3. Multiplayer
4. Zombie Hordes

Hated:

1. Almost non-existent storyline

The AI Director, aka Director AI, plays a huge role in the game’s replay factor. Many have complained that the game seems too short, with only four chapters and five scenes in each chapter. However, I’ve logged a minimum of 30 hours with the game and the Director AI makes each playthrough surprising and thrilling. You can never predict properly where zombies will come from, and how many they will appear in. I’ve gotten hurt a fair amount of times simply rushing into what was an empty room in the previous match only to be attacked by hordes of zombies.

The campaign itself is fairly short. Each chapter is about an hour long on normal difficulty. However, the winning aspect of this game is that it is truly CO-OPERATIVE. In other games, it’s not uncommon to hear the word Co-Op just to find out that the two roles played are distinctly different. However, in Left 4 Dead, each player is given the same access to the same types of guns and other than the skin looking different, they’re absolutely the same.

However, this game really does focuses on multiplayer. A single player leaving the group behind and venturing forth alone is a guaranteed death. This makes the game fresh with each playthrough because the players will have to adjust accordingly to the situation and really work together. The versus mode twists the game around even more, as it pits four survivors against four special infected against each other. The results can be frustrating, funny, exciting or all at once!

Multiplayer, is where this game is worth its heavy price tag of 49.99USD.

One more thing about Left 4 Dead that’s loved? The zombies. Zombies that lumber around are nothing when compared with the zombies in Left 4 Dead that sprints like an Olympic champion. A single zombie sprinting at you is a simple matter of quick reflexes, but multiply that by hundreds and you have Left 4 Dead.

While I understand that Left 4 Dead revolves around multiplayer. Nonetheless, I somehow feel a little bit turned off by the lack of a proper storyline. Each chapter begins with a small cutscene and the survivors saying they need to get somewhere to be evacuated. The next chapter begins the same way save for a different setting. A simple explanation of how they ended up re-evacuating again would have been satisfactory I believe.

Well, if you’re interested in good clean multiplayer goodness this is definitely a game you should consider. If you’re looking for a solid storyline with an engaging plot and hours of singleplayer gameplay, you might want to consider Resident Evil 4 instead.

Loved:

1. The sheer size of the game
2. Side quests
3. Non-essential side characters
4. Galaxy News Radio
5. V.A.T.S

Disliked:

1. V.A.T.S
2. Overly simple difficulty nearing the end
3. Level-Cap

I’ve been taking my time, exploring and enjoying Fallout 3 ever since I got it. The game definitely lives up to my expectations and more. Fallout 3 uses the same engine as Oblivion and before it was released many was afraid that it would just be Oblivion with a fresh coat of paint. Well, if you’ve played Oblivion you’ll definitely notice similarities with Fallout 3 as well. For example, there’s the floaty-steps that your character takes and the keys are generally the same.

Fortunately, that’s about as far as the similarities lie. The world of Fallout 3 is much smaller than Oblivion, but in a good way. It’s now large without being overwhelming. One of the main issues I had when I was playing Oblivion was that the world was just too large, and the characters usually utter the same few phrases. In Fallout 3 however, the world IS large but I can travel from one end to the other without being bored. The sheer amount of things to do coupled with the unique NPCs make it very entertaining.

If you were to ignore the side-quests and just dive into the main quest, I believe it’s possible to finish the game within a day. However, by doing so you wouldn’t have enjoyed what Fallout 3 really offers. The side-quests in the games are numerous and they’re never too tough to achieve. With a little bit of planning before hand, most side quests can be attempted by beginners. The side quests range from delivering a letter, to speaking to an underground cult to free a prisoner. Some side quests may seem simple at first, but develops into a very long and involving story as you progress along it.

The number of ways to approach a quest is also one of the attractive points of FO3. For example the quest with the underground cult, I was tasked to save a person from them. I could have rushed in and gunned down all of them, but I could also talk them into letting me in. If I talked them into letting me in, I could either talk the boy into leaving, or leave the boy to his own fate. If I chose to talk the boy into leaving, I could convince the captors to have a truce, or I could just decide to gun them all down once more!

The best part of all that is that you actually make a difference in the game. The game features a “radio” feature where you can tune in to different channels being broadcast in the wasteland. Without giving spoilers, I can tell you that one of the main radio channels being broadcast is called the Galaxy News Radio, which is run by a person called Three Dog. As Fallout 3 is based on the idea that the Steampunk era never died off, many of the songs played by Galaxy News Radio reflects that era and its music. In between the songs, Three Dog would update the player on the happenings in Capital Wasteland and more often than not you’ll hear your achievements being praised by Three Dog. Most side-quests will net you some extra air-time on his radio.

Which believe me, is a very pleasurable experience. It makes you feel as if your actions actually matter in the game, which is something most games aim for but fail terribly.

Previous Fallout installments, save for Brotherhood of Steel for the PS2, were turn based games. To avoid having Fallout 3 classed as a shooter, the developers implemented a system called V.A.T.S, short for Vault-Tek Assisted Targeting System. Basically, depending on your stats, you’re given Action Points and when you enter VATS mode the game pauses to a standstill. You’re then given the ability to pick and choose the parts of the enemy that you wish to inflict damage upon, each with a corresponding percentage of hit chance, and after you’ve made your choice you’re given a slow-motion video of the attack.

When I first heard about it I thought it would be quite a boring idea that people would get bored of after awhile. After all, there is the option of shooting at the enemy real time ala shooter style. However, when you realize that the targeting in real time is REALLY bad and that the animations in VATS mode are pretty awesome, you’ll begin to love VATS. I never get bored of seeing my female character land a headshot resulting into an explosion of brain matter all over the place.

But the VATS system isn’t perfect. Far from it in fact. It’s only useful if you’re facing small amounts of enemies. Due to the fact that the Action Points regenerate very slowly, firefights with large groups can be quite tough at times. You’ll end up finding yourself using VATS, hiding, using VATS again, run and hide again repetitively until all of your enemies are scattered around the place in blood and gore. It’s good, but far from perfect unfortunately.

The game starts of challenging, and as you progress it gets easier and easier. If you’ve attempted many side quests, you’ll find that as you near the level cap of 20 the game begins to get unbelievably easy. The “perks” in the game, also known as passive special abilities, are tremendously powerful near the end. Making the game easier and easier as you near the maximum level.

That being said, getting to level 20 can be pretty fast if you spent your time exploring the Wasteland. And when you get to level 20 and there’s nothing else waiting for you on the other side… It can get a little bit discouraging. Coupled with the fact that by then you can probably take down a whole battalion of Enclave Power Armors singlehandedly.

But hey, the game outshines whatever minor flaws it may have. It’s definitely worth the price tag of 49.99 USD if you can afford it. I’ve read that there are some people that face severe bugs and such but in both my playthroughs I’ve not encountered any bug worth mentioning.

But I got myself a copy of Far Cry 2 anyway. I liked the premise that they built this game on. You don’t get many games that revolves around Africa, and even less that revolves around a civil war. The story of the game intrigues me as a few months ago I did a research paper regarding the Rwandan Genocide. To me, the story of this game is actually quite plausible.

I installed the game, powered it up and was blown away…

The Good:

•Stunning visuals
•Easy on the PC
•Action oriented gameplay
•Intriguing storyline
•Challenging but not frustrating
•Buddy system

The Bad:

•Traveling can become a hassle
•NPC respawns too quickly
•“Save” spammable
•Malaria annoyance

Crysis delivered absolutely gorgeous visuals and physics, but at the cost of a computer that the majority of gamers can’t afford. Far Cry 2 on the other hand manages to balance its stunning visuals while maintaining a relatively low PC requirement. The visuals of Far Cry 2 are really beautiful. Explosions are realistic, with debris flying everywhere, sun beams are beautiful, reflections are detailed and realistic, the blinding bloom of the sun shining on the desert sand is also executed very well. Coupled with the 24 hour day system, engaging a firefight with the sun just rising in the horizon is a moment hard to forget.

Hint: Try lighting a tree on fire in the middle of the night, and watch the flames spread up to the sky in a beautiful display of “tree-on-fire”!

And while I’ve stated before I won’t comment on the performance factor, I’ll make an exception today. I’m running games on a Vostro 1500 with a 8600GT 512mb and a 2GB memory stick. Well, the game chugs steadily at about 30 FPS with medium-high settings.

When you first start the game, you’ll be a little surprised by the lack of a crosshair on screen. FPS games usually have a crosshair to assist with the run and gun style, but in this case it’s the total opposite. You’re not given a crosshair (you can turn it on, but it’s really better without) and you can only aim by right clicking. Which brings forth the iron sights or the scope. What the game is telling you is that you should plan a little beforehand and be ready to duck and cover while trying to assault enemy areas. Which I think is a really good aspect. You spend less time running into the base acting like rambo (that’s what I did on Crysis, my reflexes ain’t bad) and more time acting like how a mercenary might. Scout, plan, assault. Oh, and in Far Cry 2 you can pretty much cancel out stealthing around. The machete draws attention, and the silenced weapons are few and unreliable to say the least. You’re better off with a Kalashnikov.

In the game, you play a mercenary toying with both sides of the war to get what you want: the death of the arms dealer “The Jackal”. The storyline has its fair share of betrayals and intrigue, mostly in the form of buddy missions and recordings found randomly. The story of the game isn’t something you can enjoy by blindly following the main missions, it’s something you can only appreciate if you spend your time finding Jackal tapes or your predecessor’s tapes (there was someone before you that tried to take Jackal out). Buddy missions are predictable, but they provide an interesting alternate method to attempt the main missions as well. By the way, did I mention that you get paid in diamonds? As in, blood diamonds? That’s a winner for me.

The game missions are challenging, with you always being outnumbered (well… you play alone so…) and such. But on the whole, it isn’t frustrating. With a little bit (and I really mean a little bit) of planning beforehand, every mission can be achieved without a restart. The enemy AI isn’t the smartest, and in a sense that’s good because the game’s already quite challenging. Particularly when one is still getting to the absence of a crosshair. Later on in the game, with better weapons and such, it can get a little bit to the easy side though. But the game never gets too easy either.

Far Cry 2 boasts of 50 kilometres square of land for you to travel on. Nice idea right? Yeah… That is until you realize that you spend most of your time driving around than anything else. The game doesn’t lack in cars, but it’s so huge that you have to spend a lot of time driving around and checking the map. The map isn’t too friendly with you when you’re driving either as it takes up quite a portion of the screen (rightly so too). Getting from Point A to Point B might result in a number of unexpected encounters (random enemies driving around or checkpoints) and if you’re a sniper user, don’t be too surprised if you don’t have enough ammo for your mission later on. There are however Bus Stops that allows you to “fast travel” around, but the points are limited and it isn’t all too useful at the end.

One of my complaints about the original STALKER was that the NPCs almost never respawns. I’m happy that isn’t the case with Far Cry 2. I am however slightly annoyed by the overly frequent respawns. The NPC in the game respawns very quickly, too quickly even. Leave a checkpoint for some distance, wait a number of minutes, turn back and voila! New Mobs on the Block!

The game has save houses and blue colored “save boxes” for you to save your game at. Save houses have to be unlocked by killing the militants occupying it, and can be upgraded throughout the game. They’re actually Safe Houses, but let’s just call it save houses shall we?. Save boxes are only found in a handful of places. It’s actually a very good idea to have save points in the game so that the player feels that in-game death is much more daunting, but the PC version allows the game to be quick saved or saved ANYWHERE at ANYTIME. To me that really ruined a large part of the game. The consequences of acting like a fool is much lighter if you can spam the quicksave anytime, and it also does in a way remove the whole point of  having “save boxes” or save houses. It’s true that Save Houses can provide you with weapon ammunition later on, but it does make it somewhat more unimportant thanks to the save system.

One last thing about the game that beefs me up. The Malaria attacks. While I do understand logically why it might attack any time, nonetheless it annoys me when I’m in a gunfight. Bang bang bang urgh…..

Overall, I believe Far Cry 2 is THE definitive FPS game of the year. That’s quite a praise coming from a general non-fps gamer.

This year? Well it’s right about now actually.

Let’s take a look at games that just came out recently or are about to come out in the close future shall we?

• Spore
• Far Cry 2
• Crysis Warhead
• Left 4 Dead
• CnC Red Alert 3
• Fallout 3
• Dead Space
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
• Need for Speed: Undercover
• Grand Theft Auto 4
• Mirror’s Edge

And these are just the PC-related titles. If I were to add console related games… Woa. But I won’t because I don’t own a console so I don’t keep up to date with console games.

I’m not really interested in all of the games. I definitely won’t be getting all of it, I’m not made out of money after all. But even the few that I’m interested in would probably kill me. Let’s list them out in order shall we?

1. Fallout 3 (I’ve waited for this ever since Fallout 2!)
2. Grand Theft Auto 4 (I’ve hoped for this ever since I heard they were making it)
3. Left 4 Dead (Zombies. You can never go wrong with zombies)
4. Mirror’s Edge (Ever wanted to be a free runner from Yamakasi or Les Fils du Vent?)
5. Need for Speed Undercover (Maggie Q! Hubba hubba hubba…)

Man… These games are games I REALLY want. I’m a big fan of the Fallout and GTA series so it’s only natural that I’m so eager for them to be released. Oh, correction, Fallout 3 was released yesterday. I’ve yet to save up enough money to get myself a copy of Fallout 3.

Come to think of it, I can probably live without shooting zombies, leaping over people’s heads or driving off ramps. Well, whatever it is I’m going to get myself a copy of both FO3 and GTA4 for sure.

I’ve already gotten my mittens on a copy of Far Cry 2 and it’s a very good game. Look forward to my upcoming Far Cry 2 review!

Stalker: Clear Sky is a prequel to the original game, Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. The game is set in Chernobyl and is based upon the nuclear reactor meltdown incident. However, the game is set in a fictional version of Chernobyl in which not only one meltdown occurred but two. Following the second meltdown, anomalies began to appear and Chernobyl was turned into a hostile area in which people call The Zone.

At a glance, these are the goods and bads of Clear Sky.

The Good:

-Much closer to the original idea of STALKER
-Realistic weapons
-Faction wars offer a different experience
-Mood and ambiance is very good

The Bad:

-Traveling still a hassle
-Loading kills the mood
-Some missions are bugged
-Faction wars feels unpolished
-Grenade-spams

Clear Sky delivers on many aspects that the original did not. This time it included many things that many people were looking forward to in the original such as fast traveling, emissions and weapon repairs/upgrades. When I played the original Stalker I felt disappointed that many ideas were pulled out, and am pleasantly surprised to find them reimplemented in the prequel. The A-Life (artificial intelligence/life) for Clear Sky has also been improved. It’s not uncommon to see Mutants or the other NPCs traveling around anymore.

Clear Sky also offers very realistic gunplay. While the name of the weapons have been changed, the weapons still work quite realistically. One of the key factors is the bullet-drop factor. Firing over a long distance is much harder due to that factor. Also weapons can now be repaired and upgraded to a certain extent. There are of course certain unreal weapons such as the Gauss Rifle, but this is after all a game. The weapon play is quite satisfying, though having your Kalashnikov jam up during a firefight can be a terrible experience.

The newly included faction wars also makes the game quite interesting. Depending on which faction you join, certain missions can be easier or harder. It also offers the player a chance to do something else other than blindly following the main storyline.

Now, the new fast travel option is actually a very good idea except that it should have been there at the very beginning. If this game had some form of transportation (dirt bikes? LOL!) it wouldn’t have been such a big deal but as the whole game revolves around traveling on foot, the implementation of a fast travel system was a very good idea. However, traveling in the game is still a hassle as the fast travel system can be quite buggy at times. A lot of time will still be spent running from Point A to Point B and the short stamina doesn’t make things any better either.

Clear Sky’s loading can take quite some time, and it’s a terrible experience when you’re rushing a quest and you’re forced to wait a few long minutes before you get from one map to the other. It probably couldn’t be avoided, but it does dampen the mood of the game somehow.

As far along in the game as I am, I’ve not encountered any major bugs that would impede the storyline. Unfortunately, the faction wars missions/quests can sometimes be quite buggy. I noticed that the quests that are most prone to being buggy are the ones where you’re supposed to hold a spot until reinforcements arrive. Don’t be surprised if they don’t arrive, ever. It’s entirely possible for them to be ambushed and killed halfway, or they just stand still somewhere and not go anywhere. It’s also not unusual for those “rescue” or “attack point A” missions to be accomplished before you reach the area.

Now, faction wars is a very good idea. But I can’t seem to shrug off the feeling that it wasn’t polished up enough. I joined Duty, and wiped out Freedom (two different factions) and that was it. I wasn’t promoted to a certain rank (I wouldn’t mind if it didn’t do anything) or given some special weapon whatsoever. Joining a faction does make some missions slightly easier, and weapons sometimes cheaper, but that’s about it. There’s no special congratulatory message when I wipe out a faction or anything like that. That was a little bit disappointing for me.

The last dissatisfaction that I have is actually pretty small. The AI likes to spam grenades. WHen you’re engaged in a firefight, be prepared to run for your life. It’s not unusual for the AI to spam a few grenades continuously and trust me, you want to be far far away when a grenade blows up.

Overall, I feel that Clear Sky’s a pretty awesome game. A little lacking in certain aspects, but it’s still a very memorable game. It took a different approach to the very well worn FPS genre and while it may not be as critically acclaimed as Crysis is, it’s definitely a good game.