This isn't how I normally review games; I almost play them through games on all difficulties several times and try to pick up the nuances that I might have missed the first couple of times. For my Crysis review I played that game ?end to end? four times. I found many flaws with the design of Crysis but in the end was able to understand the vision of its creators, blurry or not. The difference between that game and Fall of Liberty is that Crysis was at its core is a good game, even though it sometimes failed to impress me as unique. I was able to overlook weak plot developments and poor acting talent because Crysis had an interesting set of core game-play mechanics. Fall of Liberty however rates about the same in the writing and acting departments and fails miserably in almost every other category. Looking at the box, one can only assume that this is a jolly romp through the rubble of every famous landmark ever created. That really kind of sounds fun to me, but the execution was poorly done. What you do get is a game that stays well within what most people consider to be the ?safe zone? for FPS games, but also with gimmicky vistas and cardboard villains. Perhaps Codemasters were playing it a little too safe. I simply cannot tell you because I had to give this game back to the store after only three or four hours of play.
Before I start on any sort of proper review I want to share a quick story. After shelling the game from its shiny new cellophane wrapper, I installed it to my home computer. Under the extras menu I noticed something, all the extras were greyed-out and there was a place to enter a ?bonus code for cheats.? Since I had not received any of these bonus codes with my game I wondered where I might find this information. What I discovered next caused me to gag a little. There was a 1-900 number to unlock the codes, 2.99 a minute. For those of you who don?t know how 1-900 numbers work, you connect to the number and they charge your phone for ?services rendered? generally after they have put you on hold for ten minutes. Most 1-900 numbers are phone sex, astrology, and other scams used to lure in people with low self esteem to spend outrageous amounts of money talking to someone who?s last job was cleaning out the deep fryer at McDonalds.
I realize that I?ve just wasted about twenty seconds of your life with this information. Most of you won?t care one iota about the newest in ?in-game advertising scams? but to me the sleaziness of it all just made me pause for a moment and wonder what sort of dick would charge you an upwards of 15-20 dollars for cheat codes when even the least internet savvy people know it?s about as hard to find a cheat for any game as it is to check your email.
Despite the game already being somewhat soiled in my eyes, I plowed into the game like the supple flesh of a nubile college freshman, her flesh quivering at my finger caressed the mouse button, then she moaned as I held her shift button down firmly. We started out slow in a training level the roar of Nazi planes flying overhead. Alas, our love was not meant to be, for no sooner than had I reached the bottom of her curvaceous first level our love-affair then did end.
You know that feeling? The one you feel when you thought everything was right but then she speaks and for the first time you realize you?re humping the female Woody Allen? The feeling that the game is like an unskilled lover, trying to give you a hand-job while wearing oven mitts. There is no subtlety to any element of the game, and it chafes badly. From the lack of cover system, to conveniently handy red exploding barrels, this game takes every cliché ever written into a game and tries to pass it off as good sex. Your health regenerates extremely quickly, puzzles tend to be ?try to find the ladder up? and NPCs are no better than pinball bumpers trying to push you in some direction for no apparent reason. I would digress, but there?s one last cliché that really just fucks me off. In all of their infinite glory Codemasters decided that this game would be centered on that almost ignorant self-righteous American patriotism that has sprung up around our media since the World Trade Center fell in New York City. I find it insulting that I don?t rate higher than a game about revenge for Nazi?s destroying the statue of Lincoln?s dog ?Mojo.? However I forgive Codemasters. Being English they probably think that everyone who plays FPS games are gun-toting-nutjobs who pray nightly that a 747 will crash into Osama?s evil lair located somewhere under a volcano in Iraq.
I think that the thing that gets me the most is the message that the Nazi?s in this games aren?t human. They wear gas masks, say things in angry voices, burn American flags, and wear armbands. I think it?s a way we like to think about people who commit very heinous acts, but it?s just not accurate. Every soldier is someone?s husband, father, or brother. It?s much easier to kill them when you don?t think that way, but also means that you are trivializing a very important story-telling tool. If you look at the most recent Call of Duty game, you will see that the writers did put thought into the human aspect of that game?s story, helping the player understand why the violence is happening. In the end it?s the duality of that violence that both destroys the things you care about, and at the same brings about some sort of closure to that loss. Company of Heroes is more of a tale about the human spirit than most games in the genre and yet remains fun and thoughtful. The Germans don?t fight forever, they die, they surrender and you finally realize that everything that all the violence that?s been inflicted on you has been mutual. Things like that get people to think about war.
Fall of Liberty has none of the qualities of these other games I have mentioned. There is nothing here to rescue the game from the abyss of weak narrative and shallow characters. Fall of Liberty feels like a step in the wrong direction for games to me. This is very disappointing because I would like to believe in Codemasters; after all they did make Flashpoint, which was a piece of art in its own right.
Before I start on any sort of proper review I want to share a quick story. After shelling the game from its shiny new cellophane wrapper, I installed it to my home computer. Under the extras menu I noticed something, all the extras were greyed-out and there was a place to enter a ?bonus code for cheats.? Since I had not received any of these bonus codes with my game I wondered where I might find this information. What I discovered next caused me to gag a little. There was a 1-900 number to unlock the codes, 2.99 a minute. For those of you who don?t know how 1-900 numbers work, you connect to the number and they charge your phone for ?services rendered? generally after they have put you on hold for ten minutes. Most 1-900 numbers are phone sex, astrology, and other scams used to lure in people with low self esteem to spend outrageous amounts of money talking to someone who?s last job was cleaning out the deep fryer at McDonalds.
I realize that I?ve just wasted about twenty seconds of your life with this information. Most of you won?t care one iota about the newest in ?in-game advertising scams? but to me the sleaziness of it all just made me pause for a moment and wonder what sort of dick would charge you an upwards of 15-20 dollars for cheat codes when even the least internet savvy people know it?s about as hard to find a cheat for any game as it is to check your email.
Despite the game already being somewhat soiled in my eyes, I plowed into the game like the supple flesh of a nubile college freshman, her flesh quivering at my finger caressed the mouse button, then she moaned as I held her shift button down firmly. We started out slow in a training level the roar of Nazi planes flying overhead. Alas, our love was not meant to be, for no sooner than had I reached the bottom of her curvaceous first level our love-affair then did end.
You know that feeling? The one you feel when you thought everything was right but then she speaks and for the first time you realize you?re humping the female Woody Allen? The feeling that the game is like an unskilled lover, trying to give you a hand-job while wearing oven mitts. There is no subtlety to any element of the game, and it chafes badly. From the lack of cover system, to conveniently handy red exploding barrels, this game takes every cliché ever written into a game and tries to pass it off as good sex. Your health regenerates extremely quickly, puzzles tend to be ?try to find the ladder up? and NPCs are no better than pinball bumpers trying to push you in some direction for no apparent reason. I would digress, but there?s one last cliché that really just fucks me off. In all of their infinite glory Codemasters decided that this game would be centered on that almost ignorant self-righteous American patriotism that has sprung up around our media since the World Trade Center fell in New York City. I find it insulting that I don?t rate higher than a game about revenge for Nazi?s destroying the statue of Lincoln?s dog ?Mojo.? However I forgive Codemasters. Being English they probably think that everyone who plays FPS games are gun-toting-nutjobs who pray nightly that a 747 will crash into Osama?s evil lair located somewhere under a volcano in Iraq.
I think that the thing that gets me the most is the message that the Nazi?s in this games aren?t human. They wear gas masks, say things in angry voices, burn American flags, and wear armbands. I think it?s a way we like to think about people who commit very heinous acts, but it?s just not accurate. Every soldier is someone?s husband, father, or brother. It?s much easier to kill them when you don?t think that way, but also means that you are trivializing a very important story-telling tool. If you look at the most recent Call of Duty game, you will see that the writers did put thought into the human aspect of that game?s story, helping the player understand why the violence is happening. In the end it?s the duality of that violence that both destroys the things you care about, and at the same brings about some sort of closure to that loss. Company of Heroes is more of a tale about the human spirit than most games in the genre and yet remains fun and thoughtful. The Germans don?t fight forever, they die, they surrender and you finally realize that everything that all the violence that?s been inflicted on you has been mutual. Things like that get people to think about war.
Fall of Liberty has none of the qualities of these other games I have mentioned. There is nothing here to rescue the game from the abyss of weak narrative and shallow characters. Fall of Liberty feels like a step in the wrong direction for games to me. This is very disappointing because I would like to believe in Codemasters; after all they did make Flashpoint, which was a piece of art in its own right.