Silver Bit @ Fan Expo 2014

On Friday, August 29th, yours truly made the trek down to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in the heart of Canada's largest city for this year's Fan Expo Canada.  Fan Expo Canada is a multi-day event annually held at the very August.  Originally the convention was made to bring together fans of multiple genres, mainly comic books, science fiction, fantasy and film, Fan Expo has gone on to include a vast range of popular media such as video games, anime, manga and horror.  Over the years, the convention has grown to fill four whole days with panels, workshops, special screenings, tournaments, meet and greets, after parties, signings and photo ops among a plethora of other attractions.  Fan Expo Canada is easily the largest convention in all of Canada as it fills both buildings of the Toronto Convention Centre to capacity.

It has been four long years since I last went to Fan Expo Canada and a whole lot has changed since then.  I was astounded on how the convention has grown in size especially video game portion of the convention.  Back in 2010, the entire convention was held in the North Building of the Toronto Convention Centre with less than five percent of that space being dedicated to video games.  This year, the video game portion of the convention took up a whole quarter of the South Building and a large area of the North Building.  The video game industry was more than well represented at Fan Expo 2014 and a lot of the thanks has to go to EB Games Canada and their Gamer Zone.  EB Games Canada brought in the likes of Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft, Bethesda, Disney, WB Games and 2K Games to demo some of the most anticipated games coming out in the next year.  There were well over 30 games on the show floor to demo including Evolve, Destiny, Far Cry 4, Sunset Overdrive, The Evil Within, Mortal Kombat X and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.  Personally, I spent the majority of my time in this section playing all the upcoming games I could get my hands on.  Considering I went for the one day, I only got to play about a third of the games available, but it was well worth all the kilometres traveled and the time spent waiting in lines.  I look forward to sharing my impressions on the demos I played in the coming weeks.  So stay tuned.

I did not spend my entire Friday in the video game section of Fan Expo.  There were tons of vendors selling video games, comics, art books, t-shirts, framed artwork, action figures, plush toys and anything you can think of.  Out of thousands of items available to buy, I picked up two Official Nintendo Legend of Zelda shirts for 40 dollars.  A lot of time outside of the games section was spent taking pictures of all the incredible statues set up on the floor such as giant Lego statues of the Shedder and Lord Business, and life-sized models of Prowl from Transfromers G1 and the Batmobile from Batman: Arkham Knight.  I also got to watch the very first episode of Star Wars: Rebels, the new Star Wars animated TV show set between Episodes III and IV, in the John Bassett Theatre with tons of excited fans both young and old.  It was a completely different experience watching a show with hundreds of other people as you got to hear live reactions from everybody in the audience, not just yourself.  While Rebels is geared towards a young audience, I found it to be very enjoyable for Star Wars fans of all ages.  It will definitely worth a viewing when it premieres on Disney XD this October.

Last but not least, I got to meet the cast of Reviews on the Run and Electric Playground along with famous video game composer and founder of Video Games Live, Tommy Tallarico.  Even though I met most of these gaming celebrities before, I was incredibly starstruck in front of all of them.  Some people idolize athletes, film stars or musicians, I idolize people in the video games industry including the developers, journalists and game analysts.  While I may have awkwardly stumbled over my words while talking to them, they all made me feel welcomed and appreciated.  I would like to thank Victor Lucas, Ben Silverman, Jose Sanchez, Marissa Roberto, Steve Tilley, Raju Mudhar and Tommy Tallarico for making a great Fan Expo even more special for me.  It was an excellent day and I cannot wait to go again next year.

BioShock Infinite Review

Irrational Games’ sequel to the revolutionary BioShock, BioShock Infinite, has been one of the most highly anticipated games in years.  With such a great amount of anticipation, there was a lot of pressure on Infinite to be as good as or better than the original BioShock.  Living up to that pressure seems like an unenviable task, but BioShock Infinite does not falter under the pressure for the most part.  As much as BioShock Infinite succeeds at creating an excellent world, very satisfying combat and a compelling AI companion, there are a good number of areas that hold this game back from being one of the premier first-person experiences of this generation.

“Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt.”  A simple sentence that is muttered at the very beginning of BioShock Infinite reverberates throughout the entire story.  A story which follows Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent, as he is sent on a mission to free a young girl by the name of Elizabeth in order to wipe away a debt as it seems.  Booker’s mission will not be without hardship as this hired gun gets caught up in a conflict between warring factions and chased by a mechanized creature known as the Songbird.  While Infinite’s story is what motivates gamers throughout the game, it is the setting of Columbia that will keep gamers engrossed in the world of BioShock Infinite.  It is evident that Irrational Games put a lot of time and care into creating Columbia.  From the silent movies to the 1920 covers of hit 80s pop songs hidden throughout the game, Columbia is rich with American culture.  So much culture in fact that the setting becomes a character of its own.  Columbia represents American culture taken to the utmost extremes.  The traits that Columbia takes on, while very twisted and demented, compel the gamer to move forward and discover the history behind this dystopia.

The world of Columbia is just one of BioShock Infinite’s strengths.  Another one of these strengths is the combat.  The combat revolves entirely around experimentation.  The player is given a ton of options to deal with the seemingly overwhelming enemy forces from guns to vigors (Infinite’s version of plasmids) to flying around the environment on Columbia’s skylines.  While guns and vigors are familiar to BioShock and FPS vets, the skylines are a brand new mechanic in the BioShock series.  By using the Sky Hook, the player is able to traverse each environment at breakneck speeds.  The Sky Hook and skylines open up new ways to approach combat as it offers a quick escape when firefights get too out of hand or the ability to reach areas and items that the player cannot easily access. A few hours into Infinite, the player meets up with Elizabeth.  While Elizabeth plays a central role in the story of BioShock Infinite, she also serves as your constant AI companion.  Unlike many AI companions in other games, Elizabeth does not need to be tirelessly babysat by the player.  Elizabeth is able take care of herself and the player.  Elizabeth will toss weapons, ammo, health and other useful items in the thick of battle and she is able to open tears in the fabric of time which offer more options in combat such as cover, turrets and extra weapons to gain an advantage.  From her character to her uses during combat, Elizabeth is easily the crown jewel of BioShock Infinite’s gameplay.

While there is a lot to praise BioShock Infinite for, there is a good amount of flaws that hold it back from achieving the moniker of greatest first-person shooter of this generation.  The biggest flaw with Infinite is the last three or so hours of the game.  Instead of focusing on the experimentation and freedom that the combat was built on, the last three hours of BioShock Infinite devolve into nothing more than any other generic first-person shooter.  The inherent strategy found in the combat gets lost for just shooting everything and anything that moves.  The late of additions of two new enemy types, the Boys of Silence and Sirens, feel absolutely unnecessary considering both only show up on three separate occasions and become more annoyance than a pleasure to fight.  Along with the Boys of Silence, Irrational tries to shoehorn stealth into BioShock Infinite in order to offer some new gameplay, but this attempt ultimately fails due to a control scheme that is designed for a fast-paced FPS, not a slow-paced stealth game.  Other flaws that hold BioShock Infinite back from being the masterpiece it could have been are the lack of penalty for death, the lack of an actual final boss (seriously getting sick and tired of developers trying to pass waves of enemies as final boss encounters), the confusingly convoluted ending and the excruciatingly horrible underuse of the Songbird.

All-in-all, BioShock Infinite is a great game.  The excellently crafted world of Columbia, largely experimental combat and incredibly useful AI companion Elizabeth are the highlights of this game.  Sadly in trying to appeal to a larger audience during the most crucial hours of the game, BioShock Infinite forgets the freedom and experimentation that separates it from the plethora of first-person shooters that permeate the industry nowadays.  This devolution in those last few hours along with some other considerable flaws really holds BioShiock Infinite back from standing out in the overcrowded FPS genre.  No matter the flaws, BioShock Infinite is a game worth experiencing at some point.  Just do not go in expecting a revolution.

Launch Station: Spec Ops: The Line

In an incredibly crowded genre like the first/third person shooter genre, games like Spec Ops: The Line can easily fall under the shadows of genre heavyweights like Call of Duty and Battlefield.  Sometimes this happens for good reason.  Sometimes it causes gamers to overlook what was a pretty good game.  If Spec Ops: The Line falls under the former or the latter, you will just have to try the demo or pick up the game, which just released today.

In Spec Ops: The Line, you play as Captain Martin Walker, accompanied by a Delta Force bravo team,  on a mission to rescue a U.S. Army Colonel by the name of John Konrad trapped in the sandstorm ravaged city of Dubai.  This is not your standard search-and-rescue mission as Walker and company must battle unknown enemies and the forces of nature.  Spec Ops: The Line really focuses on using the natural sandstorms of Dubai to change the game.  Spec Ops' engine randomizes when and where sandstorms start, which makes the game very unpredictable and the environment very dynamic.  Sandstorms can unlock or close off different areas of Dubai or can be used to change the tide of battle.  Spec Ops: The Line's other big selling point is its' mature story that dives into the dark side of war.  To reinforce the mature story, there are realistic choices interspersed throughout the game where there is no defined good or bad choice like in other games.  All the choices fall under different shades of grey.  For those to take the Spec Ops experience online, The Line also features a class-based multiplayer mode.

Honestly, I am not a huge shooter fan so Spec Ops: The Line has not done much to excite me.  For shooter fans, Spec Ops: The Line looks like an interesting shooter that does enough to differentiate itself from the giants of the genre.  It should keep shooter fans busy until the next big shooter hits the market.  If you are a big shooter fan or really enjoyed the demo, Spec Ops: The Line should definitely be the shooter to pick up this summer.