Reference city.

Triple threat for today, but not much to say on two of 'em.

F.E.A.R. - First Encounter Assault Recon
Achievements: 47 (25 offline for 685gs, 22 online for 315gs)

Oh man. Fuck this game, too. I thought F.E.A.R. Files might've just been ground out quickly for a fast buck, but now I see the pedigree is pretty shitty, too. It looks a little better visually when it comes to character designs, but the environments are definitely more limited, and the gameplay is just as crap.

To make things simple, I got to the third Iteration, and two or three times into the water treatment plant, I figured I was done, only to learn the game was loading another section of the same damn area. Thanks. Eventually, you get to a point where the guy you're tracking drops some mines and disappears again, and if you shoot the mines (since, if you don't, you splodey), they blow out this electrical box on the wall, sending electricity shooting across the hallway. I imagine you're supposed to use your slo-mo powers to get by it, which I tried about a dozen different ways unsuccessfully before I stopped trying to pretend I gave a shit.

They also nickel and dime you something fierce when it comes to some of these achievements, especially the online kills with different weapons and anything that isn't the basic clearing of the game with a decent difficulty setting. You guys could've afforded to spread some points around and made more ten-pointers out of the pile of fivers.

I imagine I'll be saying, "Fuck this game," to the sequel as well, so look forward to it!


CSI: Hard Evidence
Achievements: 5 (all offline, 1000gs)

Totally phoned in, as all your achievements come from just beating the five cases with any grade. They couldn't even make a few for finding all the insect easter eggs in each level, or stackables for certain grades. Thanks. On the plus side, that leaves this game an easy full-perfect run, if a tedious and moderately long one. Wouldn't take more than two or three days, though, so it's perfect for even a brick and mortar rental.

I've watched all of one episode of CSI, and I think it was Miami and the sound was turned down so I can't say I have much background in the series, but the game basically pits you as a new recruit getting partnered with different investigators on the different cases, for a delightful point-and-click-to-find-shit adventure. The writing isn't bad, but there's a bit too much attempt to insert wit at weak places, and almost all of the characters, main and suspect, look like they were pulled out of a session of Poser 101. Poser as in the 3D imaging program that a depressing number of people seem to use for porn.

The thing that really bugs me is that I don't think they resolve some of the less consequential evidence, especially this one fingerprint you find in the fourth mission that places one person at the scene of the crime, who ends up never having been there at all, if I remember correctly. That, and another person gets tied there but they never explain why he was kind enough to vaccuum a key piece of evidence before he ran back out, terrified. I dunno.

Get your points and forget this game ever existed.

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway
Achievements: 43 (36 offline for 1000gs, 7 online for 0gs)

That's right, the online achievements don't get you any gamerscore. Clearly, online play was tacked on at the last minute. Still, that doesn't make the main game any worse.

Another damn WWII game. Great. At least in this one, Gearbox took the time to focus more on the guys you're working with rather than the situation, and the story they crafted is pretty solid. On the downside, there are a great many references to the previous Brothers In Arms titles, and in some cases character faces aren't that distinct from one another, so those new to the franchise are bound to be confused, but other than that, things are all right.

Hell's Highway, set against the backdrop of the massive botch that was Operation Market Garden, is a squad tactics FPS, in that you command other groups of soldiers, often with special abilities like a crew with a bazooka or heavy machine gun, to help you work your way around enemy emplacements and lay down fire so you can get in there and clean up. Run-and-gun is not the name of the game here, but the squad command controls are simple and intuitive while still being somewhat robust, so the pace of the game doesn't drag often.

The achievement spread is decent, too. You're rewarded for each completed chapter, in increasing amounts as you get closer to the end of the game, and most of the other achievements come from stuff you'd inevitably end up doing or trying to do as the story progresses, so even the secret achievements aren't tough to acquire. There are a couple of easter egg hunts with the recon points, which reward you with brief cutscenes as well as more info on your map, and the Kilroys, which mostly aren't hidden anywhere too obscure and are a fun real-life reference to a trend from the war itself.

You might groan, however, upon noticing the three constant play achievements. You get points for playing every day for a week, once a week for three months straight, and every day for one hundred days. Nice way to get people to buy instead of renting, guys! Too bad you didn't account for Gamefly in that equation! So yeah, it looks like I'm going to be hanging onto this one for a bit. Thankfully, the game counts "playing" as merely loading things up and going into a menu or two, so once I'm done with the story and possibly trying to get some of the online stuff, I can just pop the game in for a minute during breakfast or what have you until sometime in February.

There's also an achievement for playing the game on September 17th, which is kind of dick since the game came out a week after that, but the optimist in me makes me think they originally aimed for an earlier release. Not all developers are evil, right? For that one, I'm just going to put it back in the queue sometime next summer.

All in all, it's not a disappointing game, and even if you're not invested in the series thus far, it's worth checking out.