2003-10-23 - 6:16 p.m.

Master Biscuit

I have just been informed that the PC version of Halo does not include a multiplayer co-operative mode. At this point I would like to pretty much damn the Midwestern United States to hell, for no apparent reason.

Take THAT, Great Plains.

Long-winded and otherwise an insomniac, I failed to state in my first post that this website will be updated multiple times a week, at least twice, depending on the availability of games/news to review (which utterly comes down to personal funding or online discovery), the availability of time, and the growth of our fanbase. If anyone has anything interesting to share with us, contact us through the website link. It will be checked once a day. Also, don't forget to check out the "Stale" link for any entries you may have missed. If Ria has something to add on the same date as one of my posts, his will be added at the bottom of my original post, so scroll down! Otherwise, it will be a new entry, new page. That being said, on to our first review.

For those of you who are not familiar with the past works of IO Interactive, they have brought us the captivating Hitman franchise, which began with the original PC version, moved over to the Consoles with Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, and which will return again soon with a third installment, currently titled Hitman 3: Contracts. Hitman is truly an amazing game absolutely packed with interactivity and a wonderful enemy A.I. system that brings out the inner homicidal maniac in all of us. While the game focuses on stealth, and your highest ranking would be the phenomenal "Silent Assassin," my overall ranking was somewhere between "Mass Murderer" and "Psychopath." I ran laughing like a schoolgirl with an AK-47 through pretty much every level, killing everything I saw. One time I snuck through the entire level, only to beat my target to death with a fireman's axe at the end, at which point I was uncontrollably compelled to run back up into the building and kill everyone I'd snuck past.

It was great.

Naturally, with such homicidal inspiration under my wing, I threatened the register biscuits at Rhino Games with a small piece of glass I found in the parking lot...plus two of my old games for a nice, even trade to pick up IO's newest piece of work: Freedom Fighters.

Allow me to grace you with some quotes from IO's website:

Freedom Fighters a third person action adventure for the PC, PS2 and the X-Box [and Gamecube, which they left out, because like me, they're ashamed to admit it]. The games protagonist is an American civilian, who becomes a freedom fighter, forced to action by the Soviet invasion of the United States in present time.

Players take on the role of a mild-mannered, blue-collar worker Christopher Stone, who evolves into a charismatic and fearless freedom fighter obsessed with finding and freeing his brother [Level, what...2, I think?], who has been taken hostage along with other New Yorkers by the Soviets.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a passion for Russian language and culture. It's one of my two majors. A hitman-esque game where Russians take over NY? How could it possibly be bad?!

Here's how, broken down very carefully to elaborate just how bad this game really was. "Players take on the role of mild-mannered, blue-collar worker..." You're a god damn plumber. You're not Superman. This is not the Daily Planet. The only thing mild-mannered about the game is the tranquility of the pot-smoking writing staff who came up with this impenetrable plotline. There's no mention of military experience, yet you wield a gun (pretty much any kind of weapon, including bazookas) with carnal instinct. To get through the game, I essentially ignored the entire introductory movie. If you just pretend Chris Stone is in the military, then it's far more tolerable. Ignore any future comments by the Soviet media, stating you're a plumber. Obviously, the KGB just didn't do their homework.

Why people choose to follow you is unclear. In fact, the only reason they possibly could be following you is because they don't believe a plumber can be a sharpshooter, and they want to see you shot down. Shooting you down is pretty difficult, too. Unless you have the steroid-pumped Siberian labor whore with the 300-round "machine gun," you're probably not going to die. This is, mind you, on the hardest setting. Perhaps I should have lowered the difficulty to obtain some form of realism. While on easy mode, Chris would have been virtually indestructible, complete with a Super Saiyan transformation when angered, the Russians might have been killed with less than 15 bullets. While I appreciate the fact that automatic weapons deplete their rounds quite rapidly, even switching to a sidearm would not do the trick, and suffice it to say, it should not fucking take 15 bullets to put down a Russian. They're skinny and hungry. It's the Soviet Union, for fuck's sake.

The game progressed laughably, with zero storyline, and no apparent direction. "Take out this building... there are Russians inside. We're fighting the Russians, in case that was unclear." Eventually, you gain "charisma" by giving up your precious health packs to wounded civilians, thus prompting even more New Yorkers to wonder when you're going to get shot and follow you around. They'll even storm ahead and fight all your battles for you. And why not? If they get hurt, they just watched you hand over all your health packs to complete strangers, so you're definitely going to heal them, too. I could go on and on about this game, so I will, even more.

The ending made me want to shoot MYSELF. Fuck Chris Stone. I won't spoil it, for those of you who get pleasure out of driving nails through your genitals and really want to play this game. But suffice it to say, he SHITS all over your parade.

"Sure, we won... but they'll just be back tomorrow with bigger guns and bigger numbers."

"But, Chris, we won!"

"No we didn't, you stupid whore."

Roll credits.

This game had so much potential. With an actual story, it could have gone very far. Character development. Perhaps some level of...difficulty. Personal struggle. More than just "shoot the guy yelling in a foreign language." If I want to shoot people screaming at me, I'll go play Max Payne 2, and it will at least look WAY cooler than this non-Matrix-modified shitstain of a videogame.

Music: The only good part.

Control: Annoying.

Graphics: Hitman was way better.

Story: ... story?

Replay value: You can play any level after you beat it! OH BOY!

Overall: If you really liked this, go play State of Emergency. You'll love it. Me? I�ve been reminded I need to go play Max Payne 2. See you at 3:00, when my eyes fall out.

End rant.

- Don