When Valve originally announced their plans to deliver the next part of the Half-Life story in episodic form everyone was pretty excited. Instead of waiting years for a full sequel, fans expected to get episode sized pieces every six months or so. Unfortunately, things didn't go exactly as planned. Episode 1 ended up getting delayed, and when it did come out it was a bit disappointing.
Episode 1 ended up feeling like more of the same. There were no new weapons or vehicles, and the game even took place in the same locations you visited the first time around. This really gave the game a sense of déjà vu while you were fighting the same enemies (except for one) with the same weapons in the same location. Add to that the fact that not much really happened in Episode 1 to move the plot along, and what you end up with is a game that, while fun, was ultimately disappointing.
Luckily, Episode 2 fixes a lot of the problems that Episode 1 had, making it a truly enjoyable game without any reservations. While Episode 1's weakest point was the plot, the opposite is true this time around. Episode 2 starts where you left off, with Gordon Freeman and Alyx the run from the Combine. Your goal is to make it across the countryside surrounding the outskirts of City 17 and deliver the data packet that you stole to a resistance base called White Forest. The Combine know that you took it, and will be stalking you relentlessly the entire way, making your journey (which should take between 4-5 hours) pretty exciting. Along the way you will meet quite a few new characters, engage in some pretty cool combat, and learn quite a bit of backstory. Of course actually getting there is easier said then done, and you won't believe some of the places that you end up at along the way.
These new locations mark a big change from the typical linear urban and industrial environments of the previous games, opening the game up to some new gameplay possibilities. Many of the environments are a lot more open ended then those in the previous games, giving you much more freedom this time around. A new vehicle is introduced, and you will end up keeping it for quite a long time (while getting upgrades). This vehicle adds new gameplay elements that work great with the open environments. For example, at one point in the game you will be racing around to different locations in order to protect them from a huge strider and hunter attack. To say this segment is frantic would be an understatement.
Besides new locations and gameplay, the game also features a few new enemy types. The biggest of which is the Hunter. These flechette shooting creatures usually appear in packs, and can be pretty lethal if you don't work fast to take them out. There are also two new forms of Antlions. The first is the Worker Antlion that likes to keep its distance and lob acid at you. They can also fly; making them pretty fast and mobile. Lastly, there are the Antlion Grubs. These pretty much function as health kits and light up the underground tunnels.
There really isn't much in the way of new weapons. There is the "Magnusson Device", a sticky bomb of sorts that you attack to striders by launching it with the gravity gun. Still, the Half-Life arsenal already had pretty much every weapon category covered, so the lack of new content here is not much of an issue.
The only category that Episode 2 does disappoint a bit is graphics. The Source Engine is starting to show its age. But Valve did make some new enhancements to it that should help it last a bit longer. The most impressive addition is the cinematic physics system which supports very large interactions that blend physics events with key frame animation. Examples include a house exploding or a bridge collapsing. There is also a new dynamic lighting and shadowing system, which allows the player's flashlight to cast dynamic shadows. Lastly, there is an updated particle system as well as new effects such as motion blur.
Overall, Episode 2 is a good game. It addresses all of Episode 1's shortcomings, and actually surpasses Half-Life 2 in some aspects. After Episode 1, I was a bit worried that the rest of the episodes wouldn't live up to my expectations. But Episode 2 has renewed my faith in Valve, and is absolutely worth a purchase.
After The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion's release last year, Bethesda Softworks has been slowly releasing little nuggets of new content via Xbox Live Marketplace. Most of this content, while cheap, didn't add much to the game. Unlike the previous downloads, the Shivering Isles is an expansion pack filled with content, adding roughly 20-40 hours of new gameplay for those still running around Cyrodiil.
The expansion begins when you hear news about a strange island that has sprouted up in the middle of Niben Bay. Upon inspecting the island, you are greeted by a soldier standing guard outside of a strange doorway. Apparently everyone that has entered the portal has either come back out insane, or has simply not come back at all. Being the brave adventurer you are, you enter to find that you have arrived at the Shivering Isles, the realm of Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness. He has put a call out for a champion to help him stop the Greymarch; a sort of cleaning that happens at the end of every era.
The world of the Shivering Isles is divided into two regions: Mania to the Northeast and Dementia to the Southwest. Both areas are visually stunning and look absolutely nothing like anything that you have seen in Cyrodiil. Mania is very bright, vibrant, and oversaturated with plants like tall trees and large colorful mushrooms. On the other hand, Dementia is a very dark, foggy, and washed out swampland. The main city, New Sheoth, is also divided into two sections called Bliss and Crucible. The entire size of the Isles is about a quarter of the size of Cyrodiil, and is packed with tons of stuff to explore.
The main quest is pretty epic in scope and is easily on par with the one in the main game. The quests, of which many are memorable, will take you all over the Shivering Isles to complete various tasks. Your first job upon entering the realm of Sheogorath is to defeat the Gatekeeper. He is an extremely large and powerful enemy that is guarding the Gates of Madness, which is the only exit from the Fringe (a holding area of sorts that prevents those unworthy from entering the actual Isles). You can face him as is, but innovative players will find ways to tip the battle in their favor.
Another one of the early quests involves you reactivating Xedilian, which is an old dungeon that was used to deal with unwanted adventurers before the Gatekeeper was created. Once activated, the dungeon magically draws any visitors to it, at which point you can either kill or play tricks on the NPCs that find their way into its chambers.
Besides the main quest, the game offers a lot of interesting side quests, many of which are just as crazy as the people who reside in the Isles. One of the citizens of Bliss will explain to you that while he has perfected getting boats to float on the water, he has had less success in forcing the water to fly through air. Logically, a boat carried by flying water becomes a Skyboat. So he tasks you with searching everywhere for calipers and tongs to achieve the effect of keeping water airborne, and pays you gold for each caliper or tong you bring him. Another resident is afraid to sleep inside because he believes the walls will fall on top of him. So he asks you to find a safe place for him to sleep outside.
In addition to the new quests, the expansion also includes new weapons and armor, some of which you can craft from raw materials found in various dungeons throughout the Shivering Isles. Players will also get some new spells along the way, the most interesting of which are a few summons. Also, those who like to create their own potions will find a huge amount of new ingredients to experiment with.
Overall, the Shivering Isles is pretty good. It features all of the stuff that you would expect from an expansion pack: an interesting plot, a good amount of quests, new weapons, armor, ect. Not to mention that this expansion offers more hours of gameplay then other full priced retail games, making the Shivering Isles a convincing reason to revisit an already excellent game.
You start the game off as Captain Archer in the NX-01 before moving on to the Enterprise, Defiant, and so on. The ships are modeled pretty accurately, and behave as you would expect. The combat offers a good amount of depth without getting absurdly complicated like the Starfleet Command games. The starship combat revolves around maneuvering your ships, either together as one task force or individually, into position to get your enemy into the firing arcs of your weapons, while trying to stay out of theirs.
Most ships have both phasers and torpedoes. Phasers are good against shields and they run off of energy which recharges after firing. The amount of damage they do increases over time, so allowing them to fully charge before firing again is a good tactic. Torpedoes are good against the hull of a ship and they do a constant amount of damage. However, you have a limited number of them, so you will want to make sure you have a good lock on the target before firing. The strength of your weapons lock depends on your position and distance from your target. And if you are able to get in close enough you have the option of targeting specific subsystems in the enemy ship such as weapons or engines.
You can also manage your speed. Besides going to warp, you can run at full, ½ or ¼ impulse. Slowing down allows you to turn faster, but also makes you an easier target to hit. In addition to changing speed, you also have control over your power systems. Rerouting power can give you a boost to the system (engines, shields, weapons) that you need the most at any specific moment. For example, you can take power from your shields and route it to weapons for faster recharge and longer range at the cost of defense. Lastly, you can issue repairs on certain ship systems, but repairing will drain energy, making your ship less effective in battle while the repairs are underway.
There are of course other tactics that you can take advantage of such as hiding ships in nebulas and beaming away teams to space stations once the shields are down to capture it, but these are more mission specific and you wont find yourself doing them very often.
As you complete each mission, you are given points that you can spend on buying new ships for your task force. You can have up to four ships directly under your control at one time. Ships fall into different ****s such as cruisers and destroyers, and it’s up to you to decide how many ships you actually need and of what type. These points carry over from one mission to another, so it’s a good idea to try to save as many credits as you can or you may find yourself facing heavy opposition with not enough points to buy more powerful ships to even the odds.
The missions offer a pretty good variety of things to do. They are not all “go here and kill everything” missions that you might expect. While some will task you with doing just that, there are also missions where you will be evacuating people from poisoned planets, sneaking across enemy lines in a cloaked ship to conduct hit and run attacks, and defending Deep Space 9 from the Borg. The game is at its best when it throws you into these huge battles. Seeing these beautiful ships fill the screen and explode is pretty exciting.
However, the game also has some low points. This is mainly the result of your inability to save during the missions. So if you fail, you are suck restarting the mission from the beginning. With some missions lasting nearly an hour, this is really unacceptable. At the very least the game should offer a mid-level checkpoint. Sometimes mission objectives are not completely clear, leaving you trying to figure out what it is that you are supposed to be doing. One mission where you save planets from falling interstellar debris proved especially annoying because of a rather narrow margin of error. Luckily this is the exception rather then the rule. I only had to restart one mission the entire time, although it did take three or four tries until I finally got it. But for the most part the mission design is fine.
The storyline is actually surprisingly good. It tells the story of a Vulcan scientist that discovers the remains of a Borg ship during the early days of the Federation, and figures out a way to become their queen. It’s a pretty good plot device that ties all of the eras together, that is if you can follow it. If you find yourself feeling like the story is missing something, that’s because it is. A few missions were cut, particularly from the end, of the game in order to get it out in time. You still get the gist of what is going on, but it’s not as clear as it could have been.
While the storyline is pretty cool, the way it is presented is not. Missions often open up with long winded narrative by one of the captains while the camera just circles around the ship. This is a pretty boring way to tell the story, and it’s surprising that they could not find a more interesting way to tell it. However, the voice acting is pretty good for the most part, and having all of the captains voice their lines makes these sequences bearable.
Online, the game doesn’t have much going for it. There are only two modes of play available. The first is a deathmatch game where you simply try to destroy your opponents either by yourself of in teams. The second is a co-op survival game where you and your teammates try to survive wave after wave of enemy ships. Both can be fun for a while, but it’s not something that will hold most people’s attention for more then a few games.
Overall, Star Trek: Legacy is a good game. The starship combat is fun and has a good amount of depth to it, while the missions offer enough variety to keep you playing for a while. There is also a good mix of achievements that give some incentive to go back and play certain missions over again. Although it is a little disappointing to think about how much better this game could have been if they spent a little more time on it and added a few more features like checkpoints and more multiplayer options. Let’s hope Mad Doc Software gets a shot at a squeal, and are given the time they need to make it amazing.
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