UFF Site - News: Square Enix Fans Review Round-Up

Square Enix Fans Review Round-Up AP \| April 12, 2010 Yes, yes, we know what you’re thinking. This is UFFSite, dedicated to Final Fantasy – why on Earth would we ever review a PC Real Time Strategy game made by a Western development team? What about an open-world, over-the-top shooter? There can only be one answer – it’s published by Square Enix! With Square Enix expanding out into new and exciting fields with their acquisition of Eidos, we think it’s only right that we do the same and begin to cover some of their western titles to hopefully entice some of you Final Fantasy and Square Enix fans to give these different games a go. They might be a far cry from Final Fantasy, but the first two Square Enix fans reviews we’ve got for you are both for games that, in quality, give FF13 a run for its money... Supreme Commander 2 is a game that is almost as steeped in gaming history as Final Fantasy itself. It comes from Chris Taylor, the man responsible for the Total Annihilation RTS series which was the first RTS to feature 3D units and terrain. Supreme Commander 1 was essentially the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, and Supreme Commander 2 now aims to refine that formula and make what was a pretty daunting, hardcore RTS title more approachable – in short, this game has a real pedigree. That pedigree shows in the quality of the RTS experience on offer here. There are less units and buildings to worry about than in the first title, with skills that previously required several different units squeezed down into one more variable and versatile unit. Unlocking new units in a battle is now handled via research points, which are accrued and spent throughout a battle much like upgrading a character in an RPG. Research points are spent on a tech-tree that resembles a branching character development board in an RPG pretty closely. Throughout each battle you’ll have to make choices about if you’re going to upgrade your Land, Sea, Air or Base forces and in what manner, and you’re also given the option of upgrading your ACU, your avatar on the battlefield. The ACU acts as the hub of all activity – it can construct buildings faster than other units and when upgraded can become a very capable fighter – but lose it in a battle and it’s as good as game over. Balancing using your ACU offensively and protecting it is an important part of the Supreme Commander 2 metagame. In terms of the actual gameplay outside of base building and upgrading units, it’s all about destroying the enemy. How you do it is up to you – you could command a mixed force of tanks and planes backed up by some gigantic ships that can bombard the enemy emplacements from the sea, or you could merely mass ground-forces. Or you could wait – hold back and develop your forces – until you’ve enough resources to build and launch a nuclear warhead at their base and hope they have no anti-nuke defences – the choice is yours. The combat looks great zoomed in close and the detailed-but-cartoony style really suits the universe of giant mechanized armour that the Supreme Commander has built up. Battles look as exciting and fast paced as they are, and clever thinking is always rewarded – it’s less about who has the most units and more about who is using them better. The interesting thing about Supreme Commander 2 is that despite simplifying the game’s formula it still has an astonishingly impressive amount of depth. It’s easy to pick up but incredibly difficult to properly master, and in this respect Chris Taylor and the team at Gas Powered Games have achieved one of the most difficult things in gaming, simultaneously making a game for the hardcore and the casual gamer. If you’re a Final Fantasy or RPG fan with little RTS experience, Supreme Commander 2 may well be the ideal game to introduce you to the genre, with a fairly interesting single-player story, a ton of multiplayer features and a depth that would make many RPG titles blush. If you’re looking for something different once you’ve finished FF13, Supreme Commander 2 is about as different – and awesome – as you can get. 9/10 Supreme Commander 2 is available for the PC and Xbox 360 and is Developed by Gas Powered Games and Published by Square Enix. Version Tested: PC If Final Fantasy XIII’s linearity bothered you, the perfect medicine might be Just Cause 2, the first major release from Eidos since they were absorbed and became part of the growing entity that is Square Enix. Just Cause 2 dumps players into a massive, beautiful open-world via parachute and literally asks you to cause as much Chaos as humanly possible by blowing stuff up. There’s more to the plot – it’s all about helping rebels to overthrow an evil, corrupt government – but the plot here is merely window dressing for the exciting action that drives the game. It’s because of that it’s easy to look past the positively terrible voice acting and largely ropey plot – none of it really matters. Just Cause 2 is instead all about the world and almost overwhelming number of things you can do in it – the antithesis of Square Enix’s recent big Japanese-developed blockbuster. While you have a few allies in the storyline, your key allies in the game are your grappling hook, parachute and weapons. Real world physics only lightly apply in this world, and saving yourself from an unfortunate fall from a helicopter is as simple as grappling yourself towards the ground when you’re close enough to it – yes, the game is really that crazy. The grapple allows you to pull yourself towards items or alternatively grapple two things together – like an enemy to the back of a car so you can drag them around – while the parachute, unsurprisingly, functions mostly like they do in the real world, but with crazy physics added. Weapons range greatly from six-shooters to massive weapons as well as the usual selection of ever useful grenades, and they’ll be your go-to for blowing up many of the government installations you’re directed to throughout the game. There’s a massive selection of vehicles too, ranging from trucks and cars to fighter jets – and all of them can be jumped out of at will at any time, no matter what you’re doing or where you are. Want to deploy your parachute while in the car and get dragged out of the door into the air? No problem. Just Cause 2 allows you to just enjoy the simple fun of blowing stuff up pretty mindlessly in one of the purest forms I’ve seen. There’s no strings attached, and that slightly nasty, evil undertone found when you’re running down innocents in the Grand Theft Auto games is gone thanks to the over-the-top, bad 80’s action movie vibe the game constantly exudes. There’s a ton of vehicles to steal, weapons to use, locations to explore and even more stuff that is just there to be engulfed in one of the game’s many impressive-looking explosions – and the camera is often clever enough to know when something cool is going to happen, twisting itself so that you get to see the explosion you’re legging it from. The island of Panau – where the game is set – is packed with stuff to do, be it side missions, extra, optional stuff to blow up, hidden items to collect – all the stuff that makes an open-world game an awesome nightmare for the obsessive compulsive part of your brain. Everything’s quite, quite pretty, and while the game suffers from graphical glitches here and there that can largely be forgiven based on just how massive this truly open-world is. That’s the story of Just Cause 2 overall – it feels a little messy, a little rough around the edges and very, very cheesy and unrealistic – but in the end all those flaws only add to the overall charm of the game. It truly is the sum of its parts, as individually many of those parts are a bit ropey but when they’re all blended together it becomes something special, diverse, gripping and above all else almost infinitely exciting moment-to-moment. Definitely check this one out. 8/10 Just Cause 2 is available for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 and is Developed by Avalanche Studios for Eidos and Published by Square Enix. Version Tested: PS3

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Untitled

Anonymous | April 17, 2010

must get both!!

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