Passing on the Season Pass

It's surprising that the concept of downloadable content (DLC) has been around for 10 years now. Starting with the launch titles for the Xbox 360, DLC has become a major part of the industry as it gives the player more things to do in the game and keeps them from trading it in for something else. This need to keep gamers from trading in their old games has forced every major AAA title nowadays to have a plan for DLC or risk fading away into obscurity. With the industry's dependence on DLC, packaging all the DLC together in one purchase called a season pass has become a standard practice for every game big and small. What first started as a great deal has more commonly become a money gouging strategy by publishers.

The two most recent season pass offenders are Star Wars: Battlefront and Rainbow Six: Siege.

It has become common knowledge that Battlefront has great gameplay, but DICE clearly skimped out when it came to the content. Looking to make up for the short-sight, or what I like to call, "We need to get this game out now, better add this stuff later," DICE has provided 20 weapons, 16 maps, four playable heroes and villains, four new game modes, and an exclusive emote that players can buy in a season pass. The content seems reasonable until you look at its 70 dollar price tag. Seriously, 70 dollars! What does EA think they will achieve? They're scaring people away, rather than enticing them to pay for extra content. EA may be arrogant enough to believe severely overpricing their season passes is an acceptable practice, but it will come back to haunt them when gamers skip on the initial release of their games to wait for the inevitable Game of the Year version.

If you though Battlefront's season pass is bad, well the season pass for Rainbow Six: Siege is on a new level of exploitation. Spending 30 dollars on this season pass nets you seven day early access and instant unlock of eight new operators (which you can unlock free of charge by playing the game), weapon skins, 600 credits for additional in-game purchases, five per cent Renown boost, and two more challenges a day. I can't think of a worse way to spend 30 dollars. Outside of the minor boosts and cosmetic additions, everything contained in this season pass can be unlocked through regular play, meaning this pass only exists to gouge money out of Rainbow Six fans. Is Siege a AAA title or a freemium game, Ubisoft? Because how you treating it with this abomination of a season pass and the addition of unnecessary microtransactions are telling me otherwise.

Not all season passes are bad. Witcher III's expansion pass and the Mario Kart 8 DLC bundle price are two examples of great season passes. Just most of the recent offerings have been giving this option to buying DLC in bulk a bad name. Making new content for a game, no matter its size, can be costly especially with the ever-rising price of video game development, but that doesn't give publishers justification to gouge money out of the consumer that already pays close to 100 dollars for one title. Instead of enticing more people to buy more content for their games, these underhanded practices are good ways to keep people from buying DLC altogether.

First Byte: Fan Expo 2015 Gauntlet

Early September, I went to Fan Expo Canada for a day. Aside from exploring the massive show floor and buying a few cool items on sale, I spent the majority of my time playing upcoming games. Actually, it was more like standing in line to play said games. Much like last year. there were well over 30 games at Fan Expo for all to play from big AAA titles such as Assassin's Creed: Syndicate to smaller titles like Cuphead. I always go in dreaming to play every game on the show floor, but I can only get in a quarter at best. This year, I played 10 games in total.

This time around I'm changing up the structure of the Fan Expo Gauntlet. Instead of taking two parts to outline every game I played, I'm going to highlight three titles. These are the titles that I got more time to play and can dissect for your pleasure. With how poorly some demos were managed by volunteers, I just couldn't extract enough from them to fill a paragraph. For example, I played Transformers: Devastation for only enough time to say the combat is exactly the same as Bayonetta just with some third-person gunplay thrown in the mix.

Yo-Kai Watch
To my surprise, Nintendo had a lot more games at their booth than the three games advertised (Splatoon, Super Mario Maker and Yoshi's Wooly World). One of the titles available to play on 3DS was the newest sensation out of Japan, Yo-Kai Watch. The demo I played gave me a good impression on the game's combat system, which is pretty different from most JRPGs on the market.

There are no random encounters in Yo-Kai Watch, you literally chase down wild yo-kai by keeping your cursor over them. Once the yo-kai are caught, you engage in combat. Combat consists of spinning a wheel on the touch screen to alternate between the six yo-kai on your team and activating special touch screen specific activities in order to unleash special attacks. Outside of lining up the correct elements to maximize damage and special attacks, normal attacks automatically occur at regular intervals.

For the 15 to 20 minute demo, I found the combat really fun and engaging alternative to the traditional RPG combat systems, but I can see it getting tedious over the course of a 40 hour playthrough if this is all Yo-Kai Watch offers.

Star Wars Battlefront
Ever since EA and DICE released the first slew of information on the new Star Wars Battlefront at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, people have been tirelessly debating over the game's content or lack thereof and its similarities to Battlefield. The gameplay footage revealed at E3 did quite a bit to fan the flames, but there were still some doubters. I will say this: you will have no doubts when you get your hands on the game. My friends and I walked away from the demo at Fan Expo astounded at how amazing it was.

The only mode available to play was Survival. It is Battlefront's version of Horde mode as you and a teammate are tasked with battling through waves upon waves of Imperial forces on Tatooine. The first few waves consist of just Stormtroopers, but as the waves go on, the difficulty goes up at a gradual yet challenging pace by throwing AT-ATs and shocktroopers your way. For somebody who can't hold their own in contemporary shooters, Battlefront made me feel like an all-star. The controls felt perfectly tuned to deal with everything that was being thrown my way. There were a couple waves where I was the last man standing and the tight controls were the only thing that allowed me to pull through.

Although the demo consisted of only one mode, the superb controls and the game's ability to accurately emulate the world of Star Wars has me highly anticipating playing Battlefront later this year.

Star Fox Zero
Most games I played at Fan Expo left me feeling optimistic about their final release. Sadly, I can't say the same for Star Fox Zero. While I will still buy this game early next year, I have a bad feeling that the game is going to alienate a lot of people because of its unique control scheme, much like Kid Icarus: Uprising before it.

Star Fox Zero has you using the analog sticks to control the Arwing and the motion controls in the Wii U gamepad to aim your weapons. This control set-up works during the on-rail segments. but completely falls apart when you enter all-range mode. The reason for this occurrence comes from the all-range mode's reliance on pinpoint accuracy to dispatch enemies. If you played Splatoon, you would already know that this control scheme is no where near accurate and Star Fox's focus on it feels counter-productive. Transforming into the walker did alleviate some of the targeting problems with particular enemies, but the walker's controls felt rough around the edges as will.

After playing Star Fox Zero, I am happy that Nintendo delayed the game until early 2016 because it gives Nintendo more time to refine the controls for the game. While Star Fox Zero has the potential to breathe new life into this struggling franchise, a polarizing control scheme might just ground the Star Fox team for good.

E3 2015: EA Press Conference Impressions

Aside from recent releases like Dragon Age: Inquisition and Battlefield: Hardline, EA hasn't had the best few years.  Buggy launches, poor customer support and selling certain titles without being feature complete are a few examples of EA's sins over the past few years.  Last year's EA press conference didn't make things any better as they put on possibly the worst press conference I ever had the dishonour of watching.  There is no way that EA could put on two bad performances in a row, right?

Let us start with the good news, EA's press conference was better than last year's showing.  The bad news is that isn't saying much.  In all honesty, EA has a great lineup of games under their umbrella; they just can't seem to translate that quality to the stage.  When a conference with Mass Effect, Mirror's Edge and Star Wars almost puts you to sleep, there is something wrong.

The reason that EA had problems in translating quality to their stage performance was that they spent too much time telling instead of showing.  The actual game demos showed at the conference combined for a run time of maybe 20 minutes.  For a 90 minute press conference, that's unacceptable.  Also whoever thought splitting EA Sports into four excruciatingly boring and unnecessarily long segments to fill time should be fired along with the person who thought having an interview with soccer legend Pele was a good use of time.

Out of all the bad, there were a couple of diamonds in the rough.  Star Wars Battlefront had a phenomenal demo that expertly replicated the scale and grandeur of the Battle for Hoth from Empire Strikes Back.  In five minutes, DICE showed first and third-person perspectives, vehicle combat (which includes controlling AT-ATs) and playable hero characters all to a great amount of fanfare.  Other than Battlefront, the only other game to truly impress was Unravel, a puzzle platformer with unique mechanics revolving around yarn.  While I have a feeling Unravel will be a smaller title in EA's lineup, it has the potential of stacking up their with other great mascot platformers like LittleBigPlanet and Mario.

If it wasn't for Star Wars Battlefront and Unravel, EA's 2015 press conference would have served as a good time for a nap or a bathroom break.  EA seems to bark to the heavens that they understand their fans, but they are so out of touch that it's hilarious.  Gamers don't watch your E3 press conference to hear about your onslaught of yearly sports games, we want the Battlefronts, Mass Effects, Mirror's Edges and Unravels to be the focus of your show.  Until EA understands that fact, they will suffer the same negative reaction year-in and year-out.

Grade:  D+

E3 2014: EA Press Conference Impressions

2013 was not a year Electronic Arts wants to remember.  Everything under the sun seemed to go wrong for the gaming giant in 2013 starting with the mess that was SimCity and concluding with the severe online problems of Battlefield 4.  Hoping to turn their fortunes around, EA should bring out all the stops with their conference this year.  In a few short moments, you will hear if EA can turn around their fortunes from their unlucky 2013 or continue their downward spiral.

Well EA's misfortunes continue with easily their worst performance at E3 to date.  Words cannot describe how mindbogglingly bad EA's conference was.  Things seemed to be going in the right direction with Andrew Wilson's description of the structure for the conference which would see first looks at projects early in development along with demos for soon to be released games.  Sadly, none of the initial promise led to anything worthwhile.  EA showed footage and images so far in advance for games such as the next Mass Effect, BioWare's new IP, Star Wars Battlefront and Criterion's extreme racing game that it did nothing to build hype or excitement.  Everything just fell flat and EA could never build any sort of excitement or momentum.  The most boring moments of EA's conference came from the onslaught of EA Sports titles.  It may be nice for some to see hyper realistic graphics that they will never see in the actual game but that is misleading advertising not quality marketing.  EA use to be able to move through the sports presentation at a smooth clip, but it just went on forever this year.  The only sports game that appeared to be remotely fun was the new EA Sports PGA Tour that looks to mix traditional golf courses with crazy fantasy courses however that one trailer could do nothing to save this show.  If the monotonous sports game presentation was not enough, the Battlefield Hardline main event just emphasized how mind numbing this press conference was.  Nothing in the full multiplayer reveal of Hardline stood out.  It was exactly the same as every other Battlefield multiplayer demo EA has done at previous E3s just with instant grappling hooks and zip lines.  Nevertheless like everything else on this show, Battlefield Hardline was nothing impressive as it felt very derivative in its design and execution.

E3 has seen no shortage of bad press conferences.  EA's offerings this year rank among the worst to ever grace this stage.  Bringing the audience into the developer's studios and seeing upcoming projects in progress was a neat idea, but the execution did nothing to elicit any sense of joy or excitement.  Barely anytime was spent on the games that people wanted to see like Star Wars Battlefront, Dragon Age: Inquisition and Mirror's Edge.  All-in-all, EA's E3 2014 Press Conference was a complete waste of sixty minutes and never worth revisiting again.

Grade:  F

E3 2013: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

Aside from their consistent problems finding a suitable host for their conferences, Ubisoft has had some of the best showings at E3 the last two years.  With games like Rayman Legends, Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV in their corner, many were looking forward to what Ubisoft would show off this year at E3.

Well to sum things up, Ubisoft knows how to end a press conference.  Sadly, they do not know how to do much else because this conference was a definite step back from years past.  It was not good or bad, it just was right in the middle.  Only a few things Ubisoft showed really stuck.  The rest went in one ear and out the other.  Maybe these reactions were due to the lack of actual gameplay demos or the continued presence of Aisha Tyler, which was a black hole that sucked plenty of good out of this conference.  Also Ubisoft's conference was significantly hurt by the exclusion of Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV demos in favour of showing them at the Sony Press Conference.  There is no point in having your own conference if you are not going to showcase your own games especially the two biggest titles in your 2013 line-up.  As much as Ubisoft under delivered, it was not as bad as the EA conference.  There were a couple of good points.  The demo for Reflections newest driving game, The Crew was really good.  The inter connectivity of the world and the instantaneous multiplayer were impressive.  There are a few questions this writer has for The Crew, but personally I am intrigued.  The game that saved this conference was the newest Tom Clancy game known as The Division.  The Division had a similar set-up to Watch Dogs' set-up a year before.  Ubisoft had the audience at the conference and at home on the edge of their seat trying to decipher what it was.  The Division is an open-world third-person shooter with RPG elements.  It is set in a world that has spiraled into to complete and utter chaos after the collapse of the stock market and society as we know it.  Set with the task of surviving, the player teams up with others in this persistent massively multiplayer world scavenging items, collecting upgrades and gadgets and fighting off threats to your survival.  While I personally would have loved to see more about Rainbow Six: Patriots, The Division looks like a great new extension of the Tom Clancy universe and another great game in Ubisoft's huge library of games.

As much as The Crew and The Division captured our imaginations, those two games were not able to save Ubisoft's conference from mediocrity.  The absence of the Watch Dogs and Assassin's Creed IV demos and the lack of demos for a slew of trailers beat Ubisoft into one of their most lackluster showings.  At least, this year's press conference was not even close to their infamous 2010 conference. 

Grade:  C-

E3 2013: EA Press Conference Impressions

One of the few constants at E3 has been Electronic Arts.  There conferences have been consistently watchable as they have provided a lot of good information on the great amounts of projects they publish.  As we head face first into the next generation of consoles, will EA soar to brand new heights or continue to falter?

To answer that question right off the bat, EA will continue their abysmal year after such a weak conference.  There was a good number of quality games on display just EA only spent fifteen to twenty minutes of their conference covering them.  Right at the beginning, EA blew off the door with an incredible trailer for Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare that parodied EA's own Battlefield trailers.  Following the trailer, EA gave us an incredible demo for Garden Warfare that easily convinced me of PopCap's newest venture with the Plants vs. Zombies series.  There was the announcement of Peggle 2, but nobody seemed to care because what follow was easily the surprise of EA's conference.  That surprise was... wait for it... Star Wars Battlefront!  Eight years following the release of Battlefront 2, we are finally getting a sequel to one of the best Star Wars games out there.  Also the multiplayer shooter specialists at DICE are handling the next Battlefront so it should be good.  Disappointing enough after the Battlefront reveal, EA's conference took a turn for the worse.  There were still some good stuff in this conference such as Dragon Age Inquisition, Battlefield 4 multiplayer and another reveal that we will get to in a bit, but not enough to keep the absolutely horrible from sucking the life from this conference.  The horrible started when EA moved onto Need For Speed.  The new Need For Speed Rivals looked interesting, but felt too derivative of the past Criterion Need For Speed games.  Then EA decided to make a venture into the realm of movies by showing us a trailer for the Need For Speed movie (we all know how this movie will turn out).  EA's time in Hollywood was not the lowest point of the conference that honour goes to EA Sports, which drove this conference straight into the ground and kept on digging deeper.  From random rapping to nonsensical celebrity appearances to Dana White repeating the same sentence over and over again, EA made a complete and utter joke of their entire sports division.  None of the gameplay shown for these sports games looked anything close to the target video that EA put on a pedestal at the Xbox One reveal.  Even with all the crap EA put us through, there was a light shining at the end of the dark tunnel.  That light was the long awaited reveal of Mirror's Edge 2.  The short trailer was enough to send gamers home happy.  Just not enough to save a conference that was already six feet under.

EA's press conference started out great, but it was all downhill after the Battlefront reveal.  EA tried to bring the conference back to life multiple times but no avail.  There were a few good moments, nothing that could make me personally recommend watching past the first 15 minutes of the conference.

Grade:  D+

First Byte: Xbox One

It has been well over a year since the first and funny enough last edition of First Byte.  Originally starting out as a reoccurring demo impressions article, it is time to evolve First Byte.  It is hard to keep demo impressions coming at a steady pace when you do not play many demos.  Now First Byte will be a first impressions article.  No need to wait for demos, it will cover my first impressions on a game, console or anything video game related.  What a better way to kick off the new direction of First Byte by giving my first impressions on the recently revealed Xbox One, Microsoft’s next generation gaming machine.  There has been a full week of news about the Xbox One so everybody and their mother has an opinion on the third Xbox console.  Without any further ado, let us get down to business.

To get right to the point, Microsoft has not made many happy with the reveal of the Xbox One, this writer included.  The reveal was an absolute mess, but the news that has come out over the past week has not given many a positive outlook over the system.  This negative buzz surrounding the Xbox One has come from Microsoft’s plans for online, new games and used games (three things Microsoft conviently did not touch on during the Xbox One reveal).  First, the Xbox One will not require you to be connected to the Internet at all times.  The one exception being that you have to connect to the Internet at least once a day.  If you do not have an Internet connection whatsoever or your Internet goes down for a day, you cannot use the Xbox One at all.  So Microsoft stays away from the negative connotations of the "Always On" buzz word, but still finds to screw the consumer.  Not everybody has access to or the money to afford the Internet, but they may be able to buy a game system.  While Microsoft has found a way around repeating the same always-online disasters that were Diablo III and SimCity, they are extremely limiting the appeal of the Xbox One with this strategy for online.  Second, new games will require a one-time activation and mandatory installation to the hard drive.  Once the activation has been used, you must buy another activation to use the game on another Xbox One.  No longer can you share games with your friends or use game rental services such as GameFly with the Xbox One.  What a great way to undermine one of the many reasons that people buy home consoles and destroy the camaraderie and free advertisement built from sharing games with others.  Right now, you may be thinking that this activation with new games will kill used games on the Xbox One.  Well that thought leads right into the last point.  Microsoft is working with certain retailers to create a new used game market.  You will be able to trade in used games at the retailers that Microsoft specifies at a later date.  Microsoft and the publishers will be getting a cut of the used sales from these retailers.  The whole debate surrounding the used game market has been well documented.  Personally, I believe that the sharing of new and used revenue between publishers and companies such as Gamestop should have happened years ago.  While this partnership is a step in the right direction, it will be interesting to see how it will impact the amount of trade-in credit a customer receives or the price of used Xbox One games. 

Microsoft can put in all the cool multimedia features, push Kinect as an integral part of the system and create an all-in-one entertainment suite, but the fact of the matter is the Xbox One is first and foremost a video game console.  People do not want all these other features; they just want to play games without any interruption or unnecessary badgering from the manufacturers and publishers.  The Xbox One is the culmination of Microsoft's new direction.  This new direction may seem like an excellent idea in Microsoft's world.  In actuality, it is the complete and utter opposite.  At this point in time, Xbox One looks to be a major step in the wrong direction for the industry.  Instead of finding a happy medium between pleasing both the game publishers and consumers, Microsoft looks to be creating a machine that completely alienates their consumers in favour of appeasing the giant third-party publishers such as Activision, EA and Ubisoft.  It is hard to tell if the Xbox One will be Microsoft's downfall only a week after the reveal, but this system will definitely have an uphill battle in the months and years ahead.

Year in Review 2012: Game of the Year

When I thought of doing this set of Year in Review articles, I did not think it would have taken me this long to complete it all.  It seems work, school and life just gets in the way.  One great result from this set of articles taking so long has been that I have gotten back into the swing of things.  It has gotten to the point that I have deemed Sunday evenings as my time to sit back and just write.  So I am hoping posts will be much more frequent this school term.  Hopefully once a week, but things might change middle to late February when I start my annual Road to WrestleMania series of posts on my wrestling blog.

Some may have noticed that while I did list my Top Games of 2012 last week, there was no game specified as Game of the Year.  Was there no games in 2012 that were worthy enough to garner this prestigious award?  Did I just missed out on what could have easily been my favourite game of 2012?  If you have been following this blog for a while now, you know the answers to both of these questions, which is no.  Out of all the great games I have listed over the past few articles, there is one game that made 2012 for yours truly.  The one game that I booked the day off work to play when it launched, the one game that I could not stop talking about for the first few months of 2012, the one game that I dedicated an entire week of blog posts to.  My Game of the Year for 2012 is none other than Mass Effect 3.

In Mass Effect 3, your main goal is to amass an intergalactic army to take on the Reapers and take back Earth.  With the stakes set incredibly high, you take your Commander Shepard (either new or imported from the previous games) through easily the strongest story in the entire trilogy.  The story twists and turns as you make some of the toughest choices in the series.  Choices so immense that they can determine the fate of entire civilizations.  Mass Effect 3's story you make you think, reflect, laugh, cry, smile and hate.  It is very easy to get emotionally attached to these characters and thinking about all the possible outcomes of your one decision will circle in your head for days.  The entire Mass Effect trilogy has been an experience like no other in the video game industry.  Seeing my Shepard evolve and my decisions reverberate throughout the annals of these games has been spectacular.  Mass Effect 3 serves as an excellent finale to this grand trilogy of games.

No matter all the supposed controversy with the ending that many jaded gamers got so hung up (an ending that I had no problem with), Mass Effect 3 is the one game that I had the most fun with in 2012. Be it spending 30+ hours completing all the side and story missions, slaying waves of enemies in multi-player in order to boost my Galactic Readiness Rating or continuing the story through some of the DLC released later in the year, BioWare's finale to their epic space opera was the only game that captivated me this much.  In my opinion, Mass Effect is my favourite game of 2012 bar none.  Agree or disagree with me, I hope you all enjoyed these Year in Review articles and would like to hear your favourite games of 2012.

On the Download: August 26-September 1

Well it is the last weekly edition of On the Download for a while.  It has been a lot of fun to put the spotlight on all these unique and incredibly interesting downloadable titles that release weekly and even daily for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, 3DS, iDevices and PC.  Downloadable games have made their mark in the video game industry these past few years by standing toe-to-toe with even the biggest of triple A console or PC titles.  Some of the most innovative and inventive experiences in video games today come from these smaller downloadable titles.  I have really enjoyed writing On the Download on a regular basis and giving a spotlight to these games that many gamers overlook.  It has been one of my favourite weekly posts to write here on Silver Bit and I hope you all enjoyed reading it.

Now that I am done with the little farewell for now speech, let us get down to business.  Got a packed week of downloadable games to talk about.  Two games I want to talk about quickly here in the intro and the other two I will get into more detail below.  First, this week Telltale Games released the third episode in their Walking Dead adventure series called The Long Road Ahead.  Decisions from the earlier episodes affect the events of The Long Road Ahead and pave a way for new long-lasting decisions that will affect future episodes in the series.  The third episode of Telltale's The Walking Dead game is available on PSN, XBLA and PC for 5 dollars.  The second game I want to mention here is the iOS port of Bastion.  Coming completely out of right field, Supergiant Games announced the game earlier in the week only to release it for iOS this past Thursday.  Easily one of the best downloadable games of 2011 has been re-imagined to work on the iPad.  Bastion only works on iPad 2 or higher and costs 5 dollars.  If you missed out on this remarkable game last year and own one of the newer iPad models, Bastion is a no-brainer.  Download it right now!  It is that good.

For a while there it looked like Rock Band and much of the rhythm game genre was dead, thanks to an over saturation of Rock Band and Guitar Hero games from EA and Activision.  With games like Audiosurf and Symphony trying to revitalize this genre through the downloadable game space, Harmonix has decided to bring Rock Band to the downloadable space with Rock Band Blitz.  Unlike the core Rock Band games for console, Rock Band Blitz does not use special peripherals to play the game. In Rock Band Blitz, you will use the regular controller to switch between each instrument lane and match notes in one of the game's 25 songs, which is very similar to Harmonix's older rhythm games such as Frequency and Amplitude.  Rock Band Blitz offer the same Rock Band gameplay, now all just for single-player.  Without much of a campaign, the main drive to play Rock Band Blitz is due to the online leaderboards,which tracks your top scores on each song.  In addition to the 25 songs that come with Rock Band Blitz, gamers are able to import any song they have for Rock Band 3.  Rock Band Blitz is now available for PSN and XBLA for 15 dollars or 1200 Microsoft Points.

Mass Effect is a huge series with one of the most expansive universes in video game history.  To extend the life of their RPG epic and provide more insight into the rich mythology of this universe, BioWare has developed the Leviathan DLC for Mass Effect 3.  The Leviathan DLC takes place before the final mission on Earth and dives into the dark history of the Reapers.  Commander Shepard hears reports of something lurking in the dark corners of space.  That something being powerful enough to single-handedly slay a Reaper.  What is this powerful being, this leviathan of sorts and is it friend or foe?  It is up to Shepard and his crew of the Normandy to find that out.  Leviathan expands on the events of Mass Effect 3 and provides new characters to interact with, new pieces of information on the mythology to chew on and new weapons and upgrades to play with.  For those not ignorant enough to abandon Mass Effect 3 because of the polarizing ending and want to dive back into this incredible game, you can pick Leviathan for PC, PSN and XLBA for 10 dollars or 800 Microsoft Points.

Hump Day Video: Remember Me

For the past few years, Germany's Gamescom has become one of the big video game conventions of the year.  While it may not be as popular as E3, there are quite a few big announcements saved for this August convention.  With EA, Capcom and Sony having their big press conferences at the event yesterday, there is already quite a bit palpable gaming news from the event such as release dates for upcoming games and announcements for a slew of Vita and PSN games.  Even companies like Activision and Microsoft are showing off some new stuff for their big games this holiday as both Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Halo 4 are getting their full multi-player reveals at Gamescom.  There is even a rumour floating around that the next Half-Life game will be revealed at Gamescom.

Out of all the stuff revealed these first couple of days at Gamescom, it is a new IP from Capcom that has caught the eyes of many gamers including yours truly.  Published by Capcom and developed by a French studio known as Dontnod Entertainment, Remember Me is an action game set in a futuristic Paris.  In this future, everybody has brain implants that control and store their memories.  While these implants are used to govern a person's memories, they can in turn be hacked by outside forces.  The protagonist of Remember Me, Nilin is a former memory hunter that has been betrayed by her former employer and left with no memories whatsoever.  Remember Me has a very interesting premise that has futuristic Mirror's Edge/Deus Ex vibe to it.  I cannot wait to see more of Remember Me in the months leading up to its May 2013 release for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.  Right now, I got the announcement trailer and first gameplay footage of Remember Me so you guys can see why you should be excited for Remember Me.

Off the Newsstand: Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 255

One issue removed from EGM's huge red-design, it is time to see if the magazine still feels fresh or fun to read like the first issue of the re-design was.  Mostly, it feels very fresh and very easy to read.  For a while when EGM first came back, it took me a while to read through the 82 pages that made up the new EGM.  It was not an easy magazine to read back then.  Over the past year, it got a little better until now I can breeze through it in a week like I do with Nintendo Power and Game Informer.

Sometimes you can read a good cover story about a game and it does nothing to change your opinion on said game.  The cover story for Medal of Honor: Warfighter was well-done and very informative, but I still do not care for the game itself.  While it is based entirely around the personal stories of these Tier 1 soldiers instead of a globe-trotting Michael Bay style campaign found in most military shooter, Danger Close has to do a little more to get this gamer's attention.  In line with the cover story, the rest of the issue had a few articles about military shooters.  The EGM Interview picked the brain of Tommy Jacob, a lead designer on the Ghost Recon games.  It was a very interesting interview that gives you an inside look at how Red Storm approaches the Ghost Recon series and their style of shooter.  Easily one of the best articles in this issue alongside the EGM Roundtable discussion on Violence in Video Games, another great read.  Issue 255 of EGM serves up the same quality Top 10s, Previews, Reviews and Commentary pieces that you have come to know and love.  All around a solid issue of EGM.

It did not blow me away like the issue before it, but Issue 255 of EGM was a solid read.  Unless you are a huge fan of military shooters, you can easily skip this issue and not miss much.  I do say that gamers should go out of their way to at least read the EGM Interview with Tommy Jacob and the EGM Roundtable on Video Game Violence.  Two excellent articles that deserved to be read by all.

Hump Day Video: Downloadable Cast

Yesterday was an incredibly slow day for the video game industry.  Yes, it was new release day, but other than Theatrhythm Final Fantasy for the 3DS no other new game was noteworthy.  Most of the gaming community did not care for The Secret World, EA and Funcom's new MMORPG, and Test Drive: Ferrari Racing Legends, the newest entry in Atari's Test Drive series.  With no big release and no real motivation to do I post, I decided to put out two posts today.  Two posts that should help you get over the hump that is Wednesday.  First up is the Hump Day Video that you are reading followed by Hump Day Music just a little later.

Jirard Khalil is The Completionist.  As The Completionist, Jirard reviews games in a different way.  Giving games a rating of if somebody should take the time to actually complete the game or not.  You can catch Jirard's content on his Youtube page, ThatOneVideoGamer or on Screwattack.  It was actually through Screwattack that I started to watch Jirard's videos and subscribe to his Youtube page.  One of Jirard's newest projects is a weekly video podcast called the Downloadable Cast (DLC for short).  During this weekly podcast, which is recorded live in front of a live audience on Twitch TV, Jirard and a co-host, be it his partner in crime Greg Wilmot or a special guest, discuss big topics in the gaming industry.  Out of the three podcasts so far, my favourite has to be the lastest one as they discuss the future of Nintendo.  While you may not agree with each opinion, I know I have not always, it is a great one hour discussion that really hit some great points about Nintendo's immediate future.  If you have the time, watch the video provided below.  If you enjoy this video, watch all of Jirard's other videos and possibly subscribe to his Youtube page to show you support from great original content.

E3 2012 Wrap-Up

The doors at the LA Convention Center closed for the final time on E3 2012.  Today marked the final day  of the video game industry's biggest show of the year.  Now it is a time for everybody to look back at the events of this week and in my case try and watch all the big demos between work, work and more work.  Right here, right now, I want to share some of my observations over what I have watched and followed these last four days.

At the end of the day, E3 2012 did not live up to all the hype, all the media coverage and all the anticipation.  It will not be a memorable event in the annals of video game history.  It was an event that emphasized a lot of the problems in this generation of consoles and showed that the video game industry needs an injection of creativity and fast.  My friend and coworker, who I chatted with throughout all the press conferences, summed up E3 2012 in one word, safe.  A lot of the big games highlighted at E3 2012 were either sequels and/or reboots of established franchises.  Some sequels such as Rayman Legends, Pikmin 3 and Tomb Raider are fine and reasonable, but sequels to God of War, Gears of War, Forza and Dead Space are all unneeded and cause for over saturation in the industry.  With the huge development costs this generation and the evident fear of failure in this industry, publishers and many developers have lost their edge and it was shown at this year's E3.  At the end of last generation, we got the some of the most original games of that generation such as God of War, Okami and Shadow of Colossus.  At the end of this generation, we are going to get an onslaught of sequels and more of the same.  The other big problem was the lack of focus from the console developers.  Microsoft and Sony were the main offenders, but Nintendo is also at fault, which pushed a stupid Nintendo Video series on their 3DS Showcase.  Gamers tune into E3 to see games, not applications and entertainment options.  The fact that I wasted two minutes of my life listening to a Microsoft exec talk about and demo that the 360's Bing Search can now search by genre is ridiculous and unacceptable.  Also the fact Sony did not mention the 25, yes I said 25, Vita games at their press conference to give more time to Wonderbook is beyond stupid and extremely infuriating.  Save this stuff for other venues or have a whole other conference dedicated to these options like Nintendo did for the 3DS.  Putting this stuff on these hugely important conference just causes things to drag and interest to plummet fast.  If Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo want to be the talk of E3, they need to focus on the games, both retail and downloadable.  My final problem with E3 2012 was the incredible lack of surprises.  Most games were either announced or leaked before the show, so there was rarely anything unexpected.  The only real surprises were Watch Dogs, which was amazing, and Nintendo Land, which was just okay at best.  While did cheer when Splinter Cell: Blacklist was revealed at the Microsoft Conference, we all knew it was coming at some point.  Video game developers and publishers need to learn that they need to guard these games close to their chest as the media today will snatch every rumour, every little slip up like vultures.  We need more than two surprises at E3 for this event to be worth remembering.

Overall, I will have to say E3 2012 was the most disappointing E3 in a while.  I am a little more underwhelmed this year than usual.  It is because other than a select handful of games, which I will be highlight in my Top 5 or 10 (still haven't decided) Games of E3, no other game got me excited to play it.  Nothing changed about a number of games I was already excited for like New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, my opinions fell on a few games that had weak showings this year such as Halo 4 and Resident Evil 6 and some even improved like Assassin's Creed III and The Last of Us.  Did I enjoy most of time following E3 this year?  Most certainly yes.  Did I expect more than we got?  Yes I did.

E3 2012: EA Press Conference Impressions

E3 2012 had a very bumpy start with a disappointing conference from Microsoft.  As the second conference of the big show, it was Electronic Arts turn to show us their next wave of big games releasing this Fall and early 2013.

Each year EA's Press Conference is one of the most focused out of the bunch.  They get straight to the point and they do not deviate.  This year much like the last two years before, EA showcased 10 games from 10 different developers under the EA banner.  They were all concise and to the point.  It made the conference go by fast and barely drag.  The only thing wrong with EA's conference was that nothing stood out.  No game they showcased really made an impact in my opinion.  It all kind of all blended together.  Dead Space 3 seemed to have an identity crisis as it was more third-person shooter than survival horror.  Madden NFL 13 and FIFA 13 were both a boring list of new features.  Star Wars: The Old Republic had some cool news such as going free-to-play up to level 15.  Medal of Honor: Warfighter was a decent demo of another generic FPS.  Battlefield 3's answer to Call of Duty Elite was revealed in Battlefield 3 Premium, which was less than impressive.  The only things I found really interesting was Need for Speed: Most Wanted demo, which proves why Criterion should only be working on the Need for Speed series and EA's new partnership with UFC (funny how Dana White jumps to the company he said he would never work with when THQ hits hard times).  Also Crysis 3 did have a good little demo to give a satisfying end to the conference.  I believe there were a few missed opportunities such as unveiling the first story-based DLC for Mass Effect 3, giving first gameplay of Overstrike or even unveiling whatever Respawn Entertainment is working on (Riccitiello pointed out both Zampella and West in the crowd, why not reveal something?).

Overall, EA's E3 2012 Press Conference was just okay.  All their games had a good showing and the focus, which Microsoft lacked, was definitely there, but not much that was shown stood out of the humongous crowd of shooters and sports games.

Grade:  C-

Mass Effect 3 Review

Nowadays it seems that every popular game franchise makes it to a third game.  Few go onto outshine their predecessors.  Well the final act in BioWare’s sci-fi trilogy Mass Effect 3 has arrived and may I dare say it is the best entry in the series and quite possibly frontrunner for my 2012 Game of the Year.  Mass Effect 3 refines all the mechanics from the previous two games in the series to perfectly blend the combat of a third-person shooter with the character building and storytelling of a RPG.

Your sole purpose in Mass Effect 3 is to take back Earth, the human home world which was invaded by the Reapers during the game’s stunning opening.  Every mission you complete, every decision you make, every asset you find from scanning planets contribute to building your army to take on the Reapers in the final mission.  It makes every mission, story or side, mean something to the game’s end result.  You feel the need to explore every corner of the Mass Effect universe taking in everything it has to offer.  Mass Effect 3’s story is among the strongest in the series as it twists and turns and offers choices that make you think, make you cry and make you furious.  You will get emotionally attached to these characters and thinking about the other possible outcomes will circle in your head for days.

While the decisions and story are what you will cling onto, the superb combat keeps you engaged in the game’s various missions.  Just like in the story, there are many different ways of approaching combat.  You are able to run and gun bouncing from different pieces of cover to avoid enemy fire or you can be more strategic, use different biotic, tech or combat powers to take down enemies or use a combination of those approaches.  You can also add upgrades to your weapons at workbenches throughout the game and switch your armour to improve different stats.  The missions in Mass Effect 3 are great.  Some standout over others, but each one offers a lot of variety, which keeps things from getting tedious and repetitive like in other games.  Mass Effect 3’s art direction is absolutely stunning as it brings each locale to life from the wastelands of Tuchanka to the slick, metallic innards of a Geth Dreadnought.  The biggest feature added with Mass Effect 3 is the online co-op multi-player.  While I am not a fan of the multi-player being online only, it is very fun addition to the series.  Mass Effect 3’s multi-player pulls from the game’s great combat to create a fun co-operative experience much like Gears of War’s Horde Mode, but with much more strategy needed to last all 11 waves.  Personally there are a few games that I enjoy playing online, Mass Effect 3 is one of them.

No game is perfect.  Even the best have a couple little blemishes.  In Mass Effect 3’s case, it comes in the way of graphical glitches that happen every once in a while.  It ranges from pop-in to talking to invisible characters.  It can be annoying, but it does not happen enough to consider these glitches as a big problem.  With a game as big as Mass Effect 3, the developers cannot catch every little thing.

At the end of the day no matter all the controversy surrounding it, Mass Effect 3 is one of the best RPGs of this console generation.  Mass Effect 3 improves on the shortcomings of its predecessors and creates an experience unlike any other game out there, a full-on RPG with a real-time combat system of a third person shooter.  It is a game well-worth its 60 dollar price point and the 30+ hours you will spend playing it.  It is Mass Effect 3, quite possibly the best game of 2012 and the best RPG from this side of the world.

Mass Effect: Infiltrator Review

The biggest game release of the month and possibly the first quarter of 2012 was Mass Effect 3.  To coincide with the release of BioWare’s science fiction epic, EA released Mass Effect:  Infiltrator for the iOS. As a companion game to Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect: Infiltrator serves as a portable Mass Effect fix for fans of the series.

Mass Effect:  Infiltrator is a side-story in the expansive narrative of the Mass Effect universe.  You play as Randall Enzo.  Randall is employed by Cerberus, a pro-human organization in the Mass Effect universe, to hunt down and capture aliens for experiments at a secret Cerberus facility.  When the Director of the facility goes too far and starts performing experiments on other Cerberus employees, Randall vows to bring down Cerberus.  

Developed by IronMonkey Studio, the team behind the critically acclaimed Dead Space iOS game, Infiltrator is unlike the console entries in the Mass Effect series.  Instead of a RPG, Mass Effect:  Infiltrator is a cover-based shooter.  Infiltrator implores a control scheme that works to the strengths of Apple’s iDevices.   You move Randall with your left thumb and control the camera with your right thumb.  You shoot at enemies by pressing on a blue reticle over them and can switch between different weapons and biotic powers on the fly.  These controls are both easy to use and allow players to fluidly chain together kills.  After each battle, you gain credits and can collect intel from fallen enemies.  You can use credits to buy new weapons, abilities, biotic powers and armour or upgrade the weapons, abilities, biotic powers and armour you already have.  You can use the intel to boost your Galactic Readiness Rating, which affects Mass Effect 3’s ending, or trade it in for credits.  Other than the fluid controls and combat, Mass Effect:  Infiltrator’s strength is its incredibly fluid frame rate.  The game only crashed once or twice and that was my fault as I had over a dozen apps running in the background. 

The campaign will take about 6 hours as you complete all 9 levels in the game, which includes two boss fights.  For those looking to get the best rating at each checkpoint or to boost their Galactic Readiness Rating, Infiltrator offers tons of replay value as you find new more efficient ways to dispatch enemies.  If you are not into that stuff, Infiltrator will not hold you long after completing the campaign even with the New Game+ option.  Infiltrator is great to play in short bursts while waiting for the bus or sitting in the back seat of the car, but will get very repetitive if you play for hours at a time.  When the battles get a little too hectic or up-close and personal, the controls can sometimes get in the way of making fast precise decisions, which can get a little frustrating when the controls get in the way of dispatching a lethal shotgun-wielding krogan.  While the stories in iOS games are never that strong, you expect a little more from a game set in the narrative-heavy universe of Mass Effect.  Other than a look into the atrocities that Cerberus commits, Infiltrator’s story does not add much to the Mass Effect universe as a whole.  Also the paragon and renegade decisions in the game are completely pointless as they don’t do anything to affect the game’s story like in the main entries in the series.

For 7 dollars, Mass Effect:  Infiltrator might be a steep price for those not already invested in the Mass Effect universe.  For those that can look past the price point, Mass Effect:  Infiltrator is a good iOS game that offers a great control scheme which perfectly works around the limitations of the iOS’ touch controls, a fluid frame rate and a good amount of replay value.  While not a must-own for iDevice owners, Mass Effect:  Infiltrator is a good time sink for those looking for a solid third-person shooter for their iDevice.

On the Download: Mass Effect: Infiltrator

Need to a little catch-up today.  Will be putting up two posts today.  On the Download right now and a special look at the Mass Effect series much later tonight.  So without further ado, let us get into this week's On the Download.

The biggest game to release this week was BioWare's final entry in their Mass Effect series, Mass Effect 3. Coinciding with the release of BioWare's epic sci-fi RPG, EA released Mass Effect: Infiltrator, a side story in the Mass Effect universe, for the iOS.  Mass Effect: Infiltrator follows Randall Enzo, a veteran Cerberus agent who captures aliens for experiments at a secret Cerberus facility.  When the Director of the facility goes to far, Randall vows to bring down Cerberus.  Mass Effect: Infiltrator is made by IronMonkey Studios, the developers of the critically acclaimed Dead Space game for iOS, so it is much similar to that game than the Mass Effect games for the console.  Mass Effect: Infiltrator is a cover-based shooter.  You move Randall with your left thumb and control the camera with your right thumb.  You shoot at enemies by pressing on a blue reticle over them and can switch between different weapons and biotic powers on the fly.  After each battle, you gain credits and can collect intel.  You can use credits to buy new weapons, abilities, biotic powers or armour and also upgrade everything listed above.  You can use the intel to boost your Galactic Readiness Rating, which plays into Mass Effect 3, or trade it in for credits.

Since Tuesday, I have been bouncing back and forth between Mass Effect 3 and Infiltrator.  It is amazing that by playing Infiltrator I can influence Mass Effect 3 on the Xbox 360.  So far I have been very impressed with Mass Effect: Infiltrator.  It perfectly creates a third-person cover-based shooter around the limitations of the iDevice's touch controls.  Also it runs beautifully.  In the few hours I played it, it only crashed once.  Sometimes the controls get in the way of making fast precise decisions when battles get too hectic and up-close and personal, but it never got to the point of frustration.  Overall, I am enjoying my time with Mass Effect: Infiltrator and hopefully will have a review of it up in the coming weeks.  If your a Mass Effect fan and have an iDevice, make sure to pick this game up it is worth the 7 dollar price tag.

Launch Station: Mass Effect 3

Here we are close to seven years since BioWare announced they were planning a trilogy of RPGs for the Xbox 360.  An announcement that was extremely ricky considering nobody knew how the game would turn out and that planned gaming trilogies such as Advent Rising plummeted before even reaching the second game.  This day is a testament to incredible men and women who work at BioWare be it in their Edmonton, Montreal or Austin studio who over the past seven years took one unique intellectual property and made it one of if not the greatest stories told in this medium that we love.  From the first time we stepped foot on Eden Prime to choosing to save either Kaiden or Ashley to all the crew mates that we may have lost in the suicide mission on the Collector's Ship to our inevitable final stand against the Reapers, it will be our personal story as our personal Commander Shepard.  There has never been a game that has done this before and there will never be a game that will ever re-create it.  Come this day, March 6th, 2012, we do not just end the fictional character Commander Shepard's journey, we end for some their five year journey with these characters and this universe.  It is the day the Earth will fall and we will fight to take it back.  It is the day the greatest trilogy in gaming comes to an end.

Mass Effect 3 is the culmination of all the storylines and decisions players have made in the two preceding games.  You play as Commander Shepard, the captain of the Normandy and the first human Spectre.  Beginning immediately after the events of Mass Effect 2's Arrival DLC, Shepard has been stripped of his rank and awaiting trial on Earth.  During Shepard's trial, the Reapers, an all-powerful race of machines that's sole purpose is to wipe all sentient life off of the face of the galaxy every million years or so, invade Earth.  Caught in all the turmoil, Sheppard flees Earth in order to seek the support of all the alien civilizations in the universe to make a final stand to take back the human home world.  BioWare has added three ways to play the story, Action mode (more focused on the combat than story and RPG elements), Story mode (emphasizes story over combat and RPG elements) and RPG mode (the regular way of playing Mass Effect).  These three ways opens up the series to more gamers than just RPG fans.  For Mass Effect 3, BioWare has put an emphasis on improving the third-person combat.  There are more options for moving around the battlefield as you can easily move through cover, climb ladders, jump over gaps, sprint for short periods of time and evade enemy fire by rolling.  The edition of the omni-blade for a devastating melee attack allows you to get up close and personal with your enemies.  For the first time in the Mass Effect series, a Mass Effect game features multi-player.  This co-op multi-player is called Galaxy at War and affects your Galactic Readiness Rating, which will affect the ending of the single-player game.  The co-op multiplayer is wave defense much like Gear's of War's Horde mode with a few additions. You and up to three others have to survive 10 waves against increasingly difficult computer-controlled enemies.  During certain waves, you have to complete a special task in order to collect credits that can be used to buy other races, weapons and powers.  At the end of 10 waves, you must defend the extraction point needed to win the complete your mission.  No matter if you win or lose, you gain experience to level up your character and all the credits earned during the mission.  The multi-player is sadly online only so you cannot play split-screen with a buddy.  For Kinect owners, Mass Effect 3 allows you to issue voice commands and pick dialogue choices by reciting your line of choice.

If you have been following this blog for the last few months then you know how excited I am for Mass Effect 3.  It is my favourite franchise of this console generation and I would go as far to say it is one of the greatest pieces of Science Fiction of this generation.  My Tuesday will be dominated in my Shepard's  quest to take back Earth and indulging in all the goodness packed in the Collector's Edition of the game. If you are a hardcore gamer, I cannot recommend this game and franchise enough.  Go out pick up Mass Effect 3 and show the world that gaming is not just about shooters and sports games.

Hump Day Music: Mass Effect Theme

It has been a couple of weeks since we had a new edition of Hump Day Music.  With the launch of the PlayStation Vita, the last two Wednesdays were dedicated to previewing the most interesting games in the Vita's launch line-up from both first and third-party developers than getting over the hump with some video game music.  Hump Day Music came at the right time as it is almost the day I have been waiting months for, Mass Effect 3 launch day.  I will fully explain my love for the series next week, which I have deemed Mass Effect week here on Silver Bit, but to keep things short for right now Mass Effect is my Star Wars in a way.  To get everybody ready for all the Mass Effect loving that will be going on next week with the Mass Effect Theme.

Not as synonymous as the Legend of Zelda Theme or the Super Mario Bros. Theme or even the Halo Theme, the Main Theme music for Mass Effect is just as great.  Those who have played either games in the series will immediately recognize it and the subtle more ambient tone of the piece.  My favourite part of the piece starts at the 20 second mark as things start the ramp up.  The electronic vibration sound just starts to get louder and louder and more lively until the boom of the percussion where all the other instruments come and the piece really comes alive.  It is a great piece of music that I did not fully respect until I heard it played by the Video Games Live orchestra.  It is at least worth a listen considering Mass Effect 3 is less than a week away.

Launch Station: Syndicate

Yesterday, we took a look at one of the underdogs that release today, Asura's Wrath.  Today, we take a look at the other underdog.  Published by EA Games and developed by Starbreeze (the developers who made Escape for Butcher Bay and the Darkness), Syndicate has talent behind it, but has not made much of a smash among the gaming community.  Maybe it is that the cyberpunk setting is not as familiar with shooter fans or that hardcore gamers just sick and tired of first-person shooters.  It is sad considering Syndicate looks to be a very unique first-person shooter.

Starbreeze's Syndicate is a reboot of the 1993 strategy game of the same name.  In the year 2069, the world as we know it is no more.  Governments and politicians have become a thing of the past as mega-corporations known as syndicates have taken over and divided the world up as they pleased.  As greed and power have now become the main goal among these syndicates, business has become war.  You take control of Miles Kilos, EuroCorp's super-agent.  Equipped with EuroCorp's new DART 6 chip, Miles embarks on an adventure filled with corruption and revenge.  Syndicate offers players a more visceral first-person shooter experience as you are not limited to just guns.  You can take down foes with some brutal takedowns.  Through the DART 6 chip implanted in the player, you can manipulate the world in different ways.  You can slow down time, see through walls and other solid objects and hack computers, terminals, turrets and even other "chipped" humans (friend or foe).  The idea that you can hack into a "chipped" individual and either persuade them to join your side or take out others before committing suicide is crazy yet extremely dark.  Syndicate also offers online co-op for up to four people.  In the online co-op, you and up to three other people join forces to complete one of nine missions.  Earn experience points through killing enemies, healing squad mates and completing mission objectives, collect new weapons from fallen enemies and acquire research points that can be used to upgrade weapons and enhance your Agent's powers.

Ever since EA released the first trailer for the Syndicate reboot, I personally have been excited to play this unique first-person shooter.  The first-person shooter genre is filled to the brim with mindlessly shallow experiences like Call of Duty that focus on more grander set pieces and bigger explosions with each sequel than push the genre forward like a Half-Life or a Bioshock that I do not get that excited for FPS games.  The guys and gals at Starbreeze look to add a something new to this genre with Syndicate and I commend them for that.  From what I played of the co-op demo, I am very impressed.  It focuses more on actual strategy than twitch-based run-and-spray tactics that a usual Call of Duty game devolves into.  While I do not think gamers will jump to Syndicate like they would a Call of Duty or Battlefield game, those who actually give Syndicate a try they will be in for a much different and unique experience unlike your average first-person shooter.