XCOM: Enemy Within Game Review (PC)

The XCOM franchise was rebooted to brilliant success in 2012; it not only updated the classic formula for a modern audience but also made plenty of steps forward to stand on its own. Flash forward one year and the game’s sole expansion pack, Enemy Within does a fine job of building on a successful reboot.

XCOM: Enemy Within utilises the same structure and story as Enemy Unknown and remains predominantly the same in terms of structure; it’s all about the management of your base and its resources as well as directing your troops on the ground. It differs from the original in the way it introduces two major components; the Meld substance and Exalt, a pro-alien human splinter group. Meld is contained in canisters on certain missions and you’ll need it to build both genetic implants and MEC suits for your soldiers; it adds a new risk/reward element to the tactical combat, do you charge in to collect the precious substance or do you hang back at the risk of losing it? While it is possible to play through the game without making use of the new upgrades, you may find yourself at a considerable disadvantage when the more aggressive enemies arrive in the later stages of the game. The Exalt faction adds both new enemies and new missions to the mix; often you’ll be scanning the globe and a covert operation mission will pop up. You’ll send one soldier to disrupt Exalt forces in the area who will eventually have to be extracted in a mission that involves either hacking relays or protecting key targets. With Exalt troops sporting their own augmentations and abilities, you’ll have to employ different tactics than you would for the aliens. The final feature of the expansion is a few select missions that you won’t find in the base game including an inevitable assault on Exalt’s base of operations, a very challenging base invasion scenario (finally!) and a battle across a crumbling dam. These are good additions but they don’t really shake up the formula too much, keeping the game relatively familiar to both XCOM veterans and newcomers to the series.

Of course the new meld mechanic wouldn’t be a worthy addition if it didn’t add to the gameplay and it undoubtedly does; the genetic implants can grant your soldiers all kinds of benefits depending on the body part you choose to enhance. Enhanced legs can allow soldiers to quickly access elevated positions for a better shot, the heart can be upgraded to extend the time before a soldier bleeds out and the skin can be built to sense enemy presence or even blend in with full cover. On the other side of the coin, the MEC suits come in different flavours depending on the class they had before; some are focused on combat, launching grenades and proximity mines while others are support based with healing gas and a stun charge. As the MEC troopers are upgraded, they gain more health and tactics to use. You’ll be using meld sparingly for both types of soldier throughout the game and it’s a blast to see your specialised squad demolish the moral of your enemies. The only real issue the new mechanics bring is that the game can become ever so slightly unbalanced; once you have a fully upgraded and promoted squad with both implants and MEC suits installed, it becomes slightly less stressful to deal with the aliens because you have a greater level of firepower at your disposal. New enemies, such as the cloaked Seeker which can choke your soldiers early on become easy pickings as a result. If there had been enemies who were actively focused on countering your upgraded units then that would have added more tension to the proceedings. While the game does continue the trend of throwing more difficult foes at you, if you’re fairly familiar with the game’s mechanics you won’t lose soldiers nearly as much as you would in Enemy Unknown. This is less true of the new Mechtoid unit, a formidable mechanised opponent that can inflict heavy damage on your squad. The expansion’s slight unbalance doesn’t diminish XCOM’s intense tactical gameplay one bit; you’ll still find yourself outnumbered and sometimes outgunned by the aliens, particularly in the early stages and careful base management is essential if you want to avoid countries withdrawing their support from the council. There’s still no other strategy game quite like it on the market and it continues to do what it does with flying colours.

Enemy Within shares the same presentational style as its base counterpart; once again running on the Unreal Engine, the game’s cell-shaded art style and tense soundtrack are a strong backdrop to the proceedings, and the expansion’s distinctive use of orange brilliantly compliments the new meld mechanic. While the game’s art style is still a pleasure to the eyes, Enemy Within’s technical presentation has unfortunately taken a hit, at least for me personally. There’s a fair bit of inconsistency with dialogue taking a few seconds to catch up with the action whenever a mission begins as well as a few annoying game crashes that can send you back a fair bit if you don’t save often. This may be less true depending on the power of the rig used, but ultimately the expansion feels slightly less polished than the original game. The game also comes with the same issues that plagued the original such as awkward facial animations and a few glitches when it comes to moving soldiers in combat. The crashes aren’t frequent enough to spoil the gameplay but it’s a little disappointing that the expansion doesn’t run nearly as well as Enemy Unknown.

Aside from some technical issues and a tinge of unbalance in the gameplay, XCOM: Enemy Within is a very engaging and deep expansion to what was already a brilliant strategy game. The new MEC troopers and genetic implants are great fun to experiment with while also adding a greater level of versatility to the game’s tactical scenarios. If you enjoyed the 2012 XCOM reboot, there’s little reason not to pick up Enemy Within (Though I do recommend that you get it at a discounted price!).

Rating: 8.5/10

Post-Viewing: Who should take the blame for Chappie’s failure?

While watching Chappie, an interesting thought popped into my head; just how much can creative control affect a product depending on where it is placed? If a studio has a majority of creative control over a project then it can drastically affect a director’s vision and Sony Pictures has been no stranger to controversy over the years. The recent release of The Interview and the cyber-attack were large fiascos for Sony and now it’s even rumoured that the latest Bond film, Spectre, is has an unnecessarily high budget. Could they have had a part in Chappie’s frustratingly butchered inception?

A similar case occurred with The Amazing Spiderman 2 last year; some who found fault with the webslinger’s most recent adventure believed that Sony (who has complete creative control over the character) forced too many components into the film that didn’t work from product placement to dubstep music and false advertising for the Rhino (who only appeared in the film for around two minutes or less). Can we assume that the same kind of thing occurred with Chappie? It could be possible; at one point in the film Chappie uses connected PlayStation 4 consoles to wire an artificial intelligence network and on several occasions the human characters are sporting Sony VAIO laptops. Product placement is never a good idea, especially when you want to create a compelling world; District 9 had none of this, allowing its creative world and scenarios to shine through. Sony may have also contributed to the hiring of Die Antwoord in that they may have been shooting for the most popular music in an effort to gain as a wide a market appeal as possible.

Or could Chappie’s failure be pinned on Blomkamp himself? Even the best directors suffer missteps once in a while as proven by the likes of George Lucas and Ridley Scott. Blomkamp’s South African heritage may have compelled him to bring on Die Antwoord in a bid to bring more attention to the Zef counter culture movement in the country. But really, what kind of decision was this? Having two rappers who practically played themselves in the film and contributed nothing to the world that Blomkamp created? Any whimsical or sympathetic tone the film was trying to put across was completely undermined by the both of them. Whilst Chappie may have been attempting to set itself apart from District as a side story in a similar universe, relying on clichés didn’t result in an engaging film and perhaps in this sense the film went too far in the wrong direction. Maybe if the film had gotten rid of Die Antwoord and shown Chappie learning gradually of his own accord then it could have been more effective.

It’s a shame that Chappie didn’t turn out too well, but ultimately creative control is a large factor in deciding just how a film will turn out when it is finally released to the general public. It will be interesting to see what Blomkamp will do with the Alien franchise; will 20^th Century Fox take a similar attitude to Sony or will they give him full rein over the project? Either way I'm hoping that Neil Blomkamp can bounce back; he's a director with great potential and he should be able to fully realise it with time.

Chappie Movie Review

Original Article on CultNoise: http://www.cultnoise.com/film-review-chappie/

Neil Blomkamp is quite the rising star in science fiction; after making the brilliant District 9, the director has gained a solid cult following. His newest film however is quite the misfire, dragging him away from the heights of the best science fiction visionaries in the film industry.

Set once again in Johannesburg, Chappie is the tale of Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), a young inventor who creates the first artificial consciousness. He plants it inside a broken down police robot and after a few run-ins with local gangs, aims to teach the childlike Chappie (Sharlto Copley) the difference between right and wrong. Despite taking place in a similar universe to District 9, Chappie is barely recognisable as something to be associated with the sleeper hit that came before; gone are the thought-provoking themes and creative scenarios that defined Blomkamp’s debut. In their place is a poorly devised mix of painfully annoying learning scenes juxtaposed against a scant few action scenes ripped straight from Blomkamp’s previous efforts. While the scenes with Chappie and the gangsters are irritating, the action sequences don’t have an original bone in their body. The mech sequence towards the end of the film is especially guilty of this, borrowing liberally from Robocop. I can see how the film was trying to make the audience care for Chappie and his innocence, but with such one-note dialogue and excessive clichés you’ll have a hard time caring throughout the film.

Characters were kept strong but simple in Blomkamp’s other films so surely we can expect that trend to continue in District 9? Rather than progress forward with characterisation, Chappie instead devolves its cast into one of two categories; paper-thin or frustratingly clichéd. Patel really isn’t very interesting as Deon Wilson as the film never bothers to examine the ethics of artificial intelligence in any real way. The relationship between him and Chappie isn’t very good either, failing to create a proper bond between the two. I can sum up the antagonists of Chappie in three simple words; “They want money”, there’s simply no blunter way of putting it. Underdeveloped villains were already a minor issue in District 9, but here it’s even worse; I’ve never seen gangster characters as clichéd as those played by rapping duo Die Antwoord in Chappie. Hugh Jackman is similarly miscast as Deon’s rival Vincent Moore, designer of the MOOSE mech; he’s the same old villain who wants to undermine his co-workers for his own personal gain with no depth or complexity whatsoever. As for Sigourney Weaver, her role is a laughable one, regulated to a soulless CEO who is just as miniscule as Samuel L. Jackson in the 2014 Robocop remake. The characters of Chappie really don’t have anything going for them, making it impossible for the film to put across any kind of whimsical or heartfelt tone.

The one thing Chappie can cling to for support is its visuals; Blomkamp’s gritty and dusty setting is once again an engaging backdrop, even if the action that takes place this around isn’t worth getting invested in. There’s plenty of run-down settings which highlight the criminal presence in the area and the motion capture effects on Chappie himself are very well done and believable. While the visual effects on the titular robot are just as detailed as the prawns that came before, the editing is fairly basic by comparison. The guerrilla, pseudo-realistic style of filmmaking featured in Blomkamp’s previous films can never make an impression here because it is quickly shoved to the side after the film’s opening moments. The sound design is loud and pulse-pounding which certainly works well to matching the hard hitting futuristic weapons but truth be told, this cannot serve a substitute for unoriginal action sequences. Chappie’s technical presentation mostly sticks with what works but it does little to make up for its numerous shortcomings.

Chappie is an enormous step backwards from District 9 in every way imaginable; I expected so much better from Neil Blomkamp. There’s nothing thoughtful, little that’s engaging and the film as a whole is just clumsily put together. It’s a rather suspicious case of how creative control can bring down a cinematic vision if placed in the wrong hands. My advice? Watch Blomkamp’s vastly superior works and steer clear of this lazy imitation.

Rating: 1.5/5 Stars 

5 Niggling Things: Fallout New Vegas

Last time on "5 Niggling Things" I looked at Skyrim, now it's time to look at Bethesda's other major RPG franchise. I've been playing Fallout: New Vegas a great deal recently with mods enabled and have a few issues that I didn't mention in my review. Let's get started... (and fingers crossed for Fallout 4 this year!)

1. A lack of clarity in gun customisation

Given how the titular city and its surrounding wasteland was mostly untouched by the nuclear bombs, New Vegas brought in a much deeper weapon system, complete with customisable parts for a majority of weapons. It was a solid system that added much more variation to that seen in Fallout 3. The customisable arsenal was not without its drawbacks though; when purchasing weapon mods, there was no indication of which specific weapon model the part could be fitted to. This was exacerbated by both the Gun Runner’s Arsenal pack and the rare toys you could find off the beaten path; neither of these could be customised in the slightest. This led to a fair bit of repetition and some wasted caps as you bought, sold and rebought items just to find the right one for your chosen armament. Better vendor menus that clearly displayed the corresponding weapon for each mod would be much appreciated next time.

2. A heavily unbalanced play-through when choosing Caesar’s Legion

Reputation in Fallout New Vegas made a very welcome comeback to the series; with several different factions to assist or hinder, players had to be especially careful about some of their choices throughout the game. However in future instalments, this system could use a fair bit of tuning to ensure each faction is balanced. In Fallout New Vegas, Caesar’s Legion definitely drew the short straw; not only do you get fewer side quests than you would when working for the NCR, but you also get plenty of bad karma for your trouble, putting you at a heavy disadvantage when attempting to interact with many other major NPCs in the Mojave Wasteland. If there had been more factions that would support an evil courier (plus a surplus of side quests to match the NCR), being a villain of the wastes in FNV would have been far more desirable.

3. Static locations and items

As mentioned previously, Fallout New Vegas’s reputation system added much more depth to the game, granting a great deal of dynamic replayability to players who assisted or hindered different factions on each playthrough. The same consistency does not apply to the locations the courier travels to however. What I mean by this is that once you clear an area of enemies, the area could read “cleared” of all enemies and the environment should change along with it. Items which would once give bad karma for stealing could change to normal and bed which could not be used because they were owned could also change to affect the “cleared” status. This would make the world feel more dynamic and would subtly convey the player’s impact on the wasteland, improving immersion in the process.

4. Restricting lock-picking and hacking based on level

The levelling system in the Fallout system is incredibly deep and addictive, with the perks in particular offering benefits that often go far beyond simple skill buffs. But one area which I feel has always been archaic are the lock picking and hacking skills. Rather than allowing any character of any level to open any lock, players are instead greeted with a “You must be level … to hack/pick” message, making some rare items completely inaccessible. As seen in Bethesda’s other major franchise The Elder Scrolls, lock picking is completely free of boundaries, with a low lock pick level making the task itself more difficult to pull off. If the same mechanic was applied to Fallout, it would definitely alleviate the frustrations of players who wish to pump points into other skills whilst also snapping up all the loot they can.

5. Vague quests and other lacking pointers

Fallout New Vegas contains far more quests than Fallout 3, drastically increasing the replay value and just giving players more things to do along their adventure. But despite bugs being mostly stamped out in the Ultimate Edition, some quests still suffer from continuity issues. The most notable instance of this happened on Boone’s quest (I forget to remember to forget); to access the main stage of the quest in which you take Boone to Bitter Springs you have to acquire 5 history points, which are earned by completing certain NCR quests with Boone at your side. Unfortunately if you complete these quests without Boone then the history points will be lost and you will be unable to complete his quest. Luckily on PC you can use the console to automatically complete the quest but for players who don’t know what they’re doing, this is an exercise in frustration. The same applies to random unmarked quests, such as when the Brotherhood of Steel vendor asks the player to find a missing plasma pistol outside the hidden valley bunker. Because the quest isn’t marked, most players will completely forget to do it and move on to other things instead of reaping the rewards. The next Fallout should take a cue from Skyrim and include any details and minor quests under a miscellaneous tab so that players don’t lose track of them over the course of the game.