Saturday, 22 December 2012
Deep Dive: Audi’s 2017 R20 Supercar Plans Revealed
Bugatti has the Veyron. Bentley recently unveiled the Continental GT3. Lamborghini is laying the finishing touches on the Aventador Superveloce. Porsche will soon release the 918 Spyder. And what does Audi have? It was supposed to have the R8 e-tron, but that car is either half-dead or barely alive, depending on your source. An ailing halo car is not what the new R&D chief Wolfgang Dürheimer expected when he recently moved over from Bentley. Instead, the ex-BMW and Porsche top manager is pushing for a new, even more ambitious sports car project known as R20.
While the chairman of the board Rupert Stadler has not yet abandoned the zero-emissions R8 e-tron, Wolfgang Dürheimer seems to favor a street-legal LeMans racer as the most suitable means to burnish the marque’s reputation. At a glance, this approach may appear overly ambitious, but then the gestation of such a car is not rocket science. What helps is that all current LeMans contenders are in essence two-seaters with the passenger seat removed, so the packaging is already there. Although one could easily fuse the hardcore engineering concept with a relatively conventional supercar body style, Audi’s high-performance squad decided to model the road car after the racecar.
The trouble is that, for obvious reasons, all LeMans entries look more or less the same. To break the mold, Audi plans to equip the R20 with the trademark full-length tailfin of an R18 LeMans racer. Other design features are said to include a downsized, singleframe grille; stacked LED headlights; ventilated front and rear wings; an adjustable tail spoiler (which may double as an air brake); and a relatively narrow canopy-style cockpit accessed through gullwing doors. An important engineering element is the active aerodynamics system, which can distribute the downforce between the front and rear axles for optimum stability in the critical 100-200 mph range. The proportions are those of a pure racecar: long, wide, low, and very butch. This is to be a wild animal, a driving machine conceived by experts for real pros.
The interior of the R20 is as extreme and purposeful as the exterior. Expect a dynamic mode selector, a multi-functional black panel center display instead of conventional instruments, active-contour seats with integrated four-point belts, a multi-segment high-intensity windshield wiper and a camera-based surround-view package that renders door mirrors superfluous.
Insiders expect Audi to opt for the diesel-hybrid powertrain, with the proven twin-turbo V-6. The power output of the road car engine should be in the area of 550 hp. Add to this the lightweight body and the two 75 hp motors than drive the front wheels (Audi’s e-quattro), and it’s easy to picture a compelling power-to-weight ratio as well as excellent performance figures. The e-quattro layout not only yields an extra 150 hp, it also adds torque vectoring, some zero-emissions capability, ultimate traction, an on-demand boost effect, and a beefed up torque curve. Furthermore, the hybrid technology makes provisions for staggered brake energy recuperation, high-speed coasting, and a broader start-stop application. At this point, there are no acceleration, top speed, or consumption figures available.
With Audi on target to reach its goal and sell 1.5 million vehicles by 2015, the R20 will likely be unveiled at the Pebble Beach event that year to celebrate the achievement. Production would commence in the spring of 2016. The output will be restricted, but it is at this point not clear to how many. It may be as few as 100 to 250 units.
True, the R20 is a costly enterprise, and it is not risk-free. But Audi is rich enough to reinvest into the brand. This is exactly what the new supercar does. After all, it embodies key values like lightweight architecture, superior efficiency, and outstanding dynamics. In a nutshell, it reconfirms the Vorsprung durch Technik commitment.
Driven: 2013 Maserati GranTurismo Sport
Maserati has always been the sultry vixen who stops traffic. But when long-term commitments are made, most buyers in the luxury-performance market opt for a gleaming German hausfrau (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche), a stylish British aristocrat (Aston Martin, Bentley, Jaguar), or an even hotter Italian trophy wife (Ferrari, Lamborghini).
Ever since North American sales bottomed out in 2009 at fewer than 100 cars a month, Maserati has been retooling its brand to focus on the very un-Maserati-like qualities of reliability and practicality. Sales have doubled over the past three years, and executives have announced plans to broaden their product lineup with Maserati's first sport-utility vehicle and a sedan that will slot in below the Quattroporte. As Rob Allan, director of product planning, puts it, "We're no longer a toy-car company."
The GranTurismo Sport, a revamped version of the curvaceous coupe that debuted in 2007, follows the road that Maserati hopes to take to world domination of the really-expensive-but-not-quite-decadent segment of the market. Inspired by the hot-rod GranTurismo MC, the new car features aggressive styling cues -- a sleeker front fascia, slick headlights and taillights, twenty-inch wheels, and more -- grafted onto what was already a drop-dead-gorgeous shape. Can you say bella macchina?
The GranTurismo Sport also benefits from engine upgrades. Thanks to tweaks made by Maserati's engineers, the Ferrari-built 4.7-liter V-8 now produces 454 hp and 384 lb-ft of torque. According to Maserati, this translates to a top speed of 185 mph and allows the car to scamper from 0 to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. And when you hit the Sport button to reroute exhaust gases through the dual chrome tailpipes, you hear the most glorious Italian sounds since Pavarotti crooned "Nessun Dorma."
Numbers notwithstanding, the Maserati doesn't pretend to be a sports car. Although it handled the tight, sun-dappled twisties near Sonoma Raceway with aplomb, there was no disguising the heft of the GT Sport's 4145 admittedly statuesque pounds. But with the car's dimensions come an unexpected benefit: the plush, opulently appointed interior contains rear seats with enough legroom to accommodate two full-size adults in reasonable comfort.
Another surprise, in this day of dual-clutch and racing-style semiautomatic transmissions, is that the GT Sport comes only with a six-speed ZF automatic featuring a conventional torque converter and planetary gearsets. This is no 1960s-era slushbox, and it's tricked out with bells and whistles ranging from carbon-fiber shift paddles to throttle blips on downshifts. Still, it's telling that Maserati doesn't even bother paying lip service to tradition by offering a manual gearbox.
With a base price of nearly $130,000, the GranTurismo Sport isn't going to be commandeered for carpool duty or many grocery-store runs. But despite its supermodel looks and gaudy performance numbers, the car is quiet, comfortable, and practical enough to work as an everyday driver. Sounds like the marrying kind after all.
The Specs
On Sale: Now
Price: $129,500
Engine: 4.7L V-8, 454 hp, 384 lb-ft
Drive: Rear-wheel
EPA mileage: 13/21 mpg
On Sale: Now
Price: $129,500
Engine: 4.7L V-8, 454 hp, 384 lb-ft
Drive: Rear-wheel
EPA mileage: 13/21 mpg
Hotline Miami Review
Hotline Miami is a top-down shooter where you murder everybody you see. You require nothing more than an answering machine message and an address to butcher each and every soul within the game's pixelated, 2D walls. But you're never given a reason for your psychotic actions--the focus is on the joy of murder, and though Hotline Miami can be frustrating at times, its frantic gameplay and slick presentation make for some gloriously satisfying bloodshed.
The game opens with the nameless protagonist standing in a room. And, mysteriously, there are three men wearing animal masks making cryptic comments about your identity and actions. Is this real, or some drug-induced fever dream? You're not given much time to contemplate it. The screen fades to black, and you awake in a filthy apartment in April 1989. A bloodstained shirt lies in the hall as an answering machine light blinks on and off. This is the setup for most of the 19 chapters that make up Hotline Miami. A short message asks you to "clean up" or "visit" a certain address, which is followed by a trip to a building full of supposed criminals that you must slaughter floor by floor.
You move around using the keyboard, while the mouse controls the direction you face and where you shoot. You can expand your viewing radius to spy further into the levels--an important factor, given that even a single distant gunshot can kill you. If you’re trying to be stealthy, you can opt to throw your weapon, allowing you to knock over and disarm an enemy. You can then stand over your downed foe with a tap of the spacebar and several clicks of the mouse will finish them off to brutal and nauseating effect. It's a clever system that lets you react quickly to the twitchy gameplay, which is just as well considering Hotline Miami currently doesn't support a gamepad.
Before the start of each level, you choose from a selection of animal masks, most of which have useful perks. For instance, if you wear the Tony the Tiger mask, you have faster executions, while George the Giraffe allows you to see farther. They're a neat companion to the combat system, which initially sees you taking down enemies with your fists and with a selection of melee weapons that you pick up, such as baseball bats, iron bars, knives, and swords. Enemies die with a single blow, as do you, so not being overrun by a group of bloodthirsty malcontents is key to making it through a level alive. Mixing up the weapons you use and the order in which you move through the rooms is just as important, as is getting into a close position for a brutal takedown. The environment plays its part too. Doors can be used to knock over enemies, while certain walls can be shot through. This variety ensures the action is consistently engaging over the course of the game.
If you choose to go in with guns blazing, there are lots of shotguns, automatic rifles, machine guns, and silenced pistols on offer. Gunshots attract the attention of nearby enemies, who quickly come to investigate the disturbance. And while you often find yourself shooting wide of targets, your enemies have fast trigger fingers and always hit their mark. Despite that, enemy actions are largely dumb and predictable, but this works in the game’s favour, With death always a second away, manipulating and herding baddies into your gunfire is very enjoyable. It may also seem odd that dead bodies often go unnoticed, and they sometimes stand so close to your character that they can't hit him. But the action is so frenetic and entertaining that you barely have time to notice.
One thing is guaranteed: you will die a lot. Thankfully a single button press gets you back into the action quickly, and a checkpoint system ensures you're not starting from the very beginning of a level once you've killed everyone on a floor and have progressed to the next. This encourages you to trust your instincts and play fast, rather than approach each floor methodically. Hotline Miami feels like Super Meat Boy in this respect. You frequently play one floor 20 or 30 times before you finally reach a checkpoint, but it rarely feels cruel. When you die, it's due to your own poor execution, and the run-and-gun action is so downright entertaining that replaying sections is enjoyable.
The few times Hotline Miami does get it wrong, though, are deeply frustrating. For instance, one floor starts with a few lines of dialogue that you must click through. This means that every time you restart the floor, you're forced to click through the same four lines of dialogue before getting to the action. Issues also arise in boss fights where you can't just shoot the boss dead like other enemies. Instead, you die and then respawn back to the start of the fight with little clue as to how to defeat the boss. And once you figure out some of the convoluted attack patterns through trial and error, you feel relief rather than satisfaction.
However, even the roughest parts of Hotline Miami are softened by its outstanding soundtrack and entrancing visuals. The music is a mixture of down-tempo psychedelic grooves and fast-paced electro that feels right at home with the intense visuals. The levels sway and pulsate as your character moves around the environment. Scan lines sweep across the screen while the background flashes matte colours with every kill. Death animations are absolutely brutal, with your character clubbing skulls and bisecting torsos with ease. By the end of each level, the floor is flooded with the blood and detached limbs of your victims.
The entire experience feels like a psychotic cocaine-fueled rampage, an homage to slasher movies and the drug culture of the '80s. And like most cocaine-fueled rampages, it's short-lived but memorable; you can complete Hotline Miami in two to three hours. Each level gives you a point tally and grade, so aiming for a top score is a great excuse to replay levels. You can also have fun returning to older chapters with your newly unlocked masks and their resulting perks.
It's a shame that Hotline Miami suffers from infrequent crashes, but neither these, nor the vague and unsatisfying ending, should stop you from enjoying this wonderful barrage of the senses. Hotline Miami is a discotheque of death that's very hard to walk away from, and a fantastic twitch shooter with a confident sense of style. Many games attempt to use story to explain away the massacre of outrageous numbers of victims. Hotline Miami bathes in the thrill of murder, and cares little about justifying its actions.
Forza Horizon Review
There's something oddly romantic about Forza Horizon. Gone are the real-life circuits of Motorsport, replaced by a gorgeous stretch of the American West. Sweeping praries and looming peaks set a grand stage, and a persistent sense of competition keeps the vast expanse from feeling lonely. Add in Forza's famously stellar driving physics, and you have a game that makes it a joy to hit the asphalt and roam wherever the road takes you. The experience isn't as refined as its predecessors, but Horizon is an exciting and adventurous spinoff just the same.
Horizon's setting is a fictional interpretation of the Colorado countryside, with the Rockies on one end of the map and an imposing desert on the other. In between is a rolling mesh of highways, dirt roads, and small towns. It's a beautiful landscape, where varied geography and a full day-night cycle combine to create some impressive vistas. Moments like cresting a hill at 150mph just as the sun begins to rise are a frequent occurrence, leading you to throw your car around one corner after another in a fit of automotive wanderlust.
Of course, it's not all free-form exploration. Horizon's story--yes, this is a Forza game with a storyline--revolves around the titular Horizon Festival, an event that attracts 250 gearheads to compete in a slew of events spread throughout Horizon's version of Colorado. The story unfolds through cinematics depicting your rise through the ranks of the competition, hitting a few awkward notes along the way by focusing on a cast of desperately hip 20-something drivers and their penchant for forced trash-talking. Awkward though it is, the story never becomes invasive or obnoxious; it's merely forgettable fluff that serves to explain your place in Horizon's collection of events.
The structure of these events should feel familiar to anyone who has played a Forza game. Races largely fall into themed categories with performance caps that scale according to your progression. You might begin the game by facing off against C-class muscle cars before eventually moving on to a competition against S-class Italian sports cars. Horizon has inherited the smooth difficulty curve of previous games, so building up your skills from one tier to the next remains a nice, gradual process. It's unfortunate that so many of these cars are carryovers from previous games, and the overall selection isn't quite as expansive as Forza 4's, but the process of working your way up the performance index remains as enthralling as ever.
Where Horizon deviates from Forza's past is in its mixed-surface events and point-to-point races that take advantage of the expansive, sprawling terrain. This version of Colorado isn't all asphalt; you often find yourself tearing through winding dirt roads on your quest for victory. These surfaces don't feel as chunky and volatile as a rally racer in the vein of Dirt, but adjusting your driving style to handle varied terrain is a refreshing challenge. Events like these, as well as endurance runs that send you clear across the road map through constantly shifting geographical terrain, help to set Horizon apart from its circuit-based predecessors.
One of Horizon's great strengths is that, even outside of organized events, the sense of competition is all around you. At any point you can pull up behind other festival drivers (distinguishable from regular traffic by the name above their car) and challenge them to a race on the spot. Speed trap cameras are placed on just about every road, capturing your high speed as you pass through them, registering your pace on a leaderboard and, if you're good enough, sending a message straight to your Xbox Live friends that they've been outperformed.
Throughout all this is a real-time feedback system that functions as a natural extension of the one found in Forza 4. Only here it's not just stylish drifting that's rewarded, but also narrowly avoiding head-on collisions, knocking down stop signs, and catching the occasional bit of air. The rewards aren't massive--you're granted credits when you perform such-and-such number of dangerous maneuvers--but they function as a persistent form of positive feedback, letting you feel like you're never wasting your time by just driving around at your own leisure.
Despite Horizon's newfound focus on style and flash, sim enthusiasts need not be alarmed: this is no arcade racer. Like in previous entries in the franchise, vehicle handling is determined by a modular collection of driving assists, such as traction control, that let you fine-tune the experience to your liking. With all the assists enabled, Horizon is an accessible racer that doesn't command expert-level driving skills. But disable all those assists, and the cars are short of lively and demanding. You need to be wary of the Hennessy Viper's penchant for skidding around like mad when you've hit the throttle too hard in the low gears, just as you need to respect the Ford F-150's habit of flipping over on fast corners like a dog who wants its belly rubbed. But, as in previous Forzas, taming these beasts is a deeply rewarding endeavor.
You'll want to invest some time in your driving skills, too, because the AI competition has done its homework. Whereas Forza 4 suffered from an issue where opposing drivers would frequently overshoot sharp corners almost at random, there are very few of those mistakes in Horizon. The Forza AI's occasional aggressive streak remains intact--which you can have fun exploiting on the highway by luring anyone drafting you into oncoming traffic--but overall, the competition's intelligence feels somewhat improved.
Car customization is one area where Forza veterans may find themselves disappointed. You can still combine your own vinyl decals with new paint to create custom liveries, as well as upgrade your stock parts to become more competitive at higher racing tiers. But these systems are virtually identical to those found in the last few outings, and beyond that, Forza 4's advanced tuning system (where you could tweak tire pressure or brake bias, for instance) is a complete no-show in Horizon. On the plus side, the process of photographing your car and sharing your artwork is far more rewarding here than it has ever been thanks to the natural beauty and varied lighting of Horizon's virtual Colorado.
Those who invest time in designing their own vinyls and liveries will be happy to hear that the online storefront makes its return in Horizon (where you can import and sell your old vinyls), as do the vehicle-sharing car clubs introduced in Forza 4. Of course, Horizon's online offerings also extend to competitive multiplayer, where you can easily jump into a match using an intuitive and relatively effortless matchmaking lobby system.
At its best, Horizon's multiplayer is either incredibly intense (like gunning toward the finish line at night in a 20-mile point-to-point race) or ridiculously goofy (like eight cars careening around a golf course all trying to smash into one driver in the king-of-the-hill mode), but it's terrific fun throughout. And in a very nice touch, there's a slot machine system that rewards you with a random car or pile of credits every time you level up in multiplayer (which happens fast and often in the early goings).
While Horizon's competitive multiplayer is entertaining, its cooperative free-roam system feels like a missed opportunity. This is where you can get a bunch of players together in the same world and either wander around on your own or band together to complete co-op challenges such as combining for 100 near misses or having four players pass through the same speed trap at 200mph within five seconds of each other. Some of these challenges can be wonderfully entertaining, but the way they're communicated to players is clunky and obtuse. Only the host can select a challenge, and by default the game fails to tell you where a specific speed trap is located on the map. On top of that, you constantly have to pull up and scroll through a lengthy menu to remind yourself of the details of each challenge, sending your car coasting down the road without a driver to steer it.
It's a shame that outside of rivals mode challenges, which let you race your friends' ghosts after each festival event, single-player and multiplayer are kept at arm's length in Horizon. You have to exit out of the former to get to the latter, because there's no way for a friend to simply drop into your world for some free-roaming fun while you're taking part in festival events. With some tighter integration between single-player and multiplayer, and the sorts of customization opportunities found in car modification (there's no way to create your own race by selecting waypoints on the map, for instance), the free-roaming could have been an absolute blast. As it stands, though, it's fun for a little while, but that novelty wears out quickly.
Horizon may not be as socially capable as some open-world games, but it's still a terrific racer. It's hard to overstate just how beautiful the world is that Playground Games has created. From the foothills of the Rockies to the winding roads that scale desert cliffs, it's an absolute delight to put your car through its paces as you explore every last inch of asphalt. Horizon's occasional missteps may clash with the machinelike precision of the Motorsport games that preceded it, but its ambition and untethered road map more than make up for those faults. This is a game that understands the thrill of the open road, and in delivering that thrill it's an unqualified success.
Halo 4:Xbox360
Halo 4 is the fourth installment in the Halo series where Master Chief returns to battle an ancient evil bent on vengeance and annihilation.
Halo is in new hands. After chronicling humanity's defeat in Halo: Reach, developer and series creator Bungie passed the reins to 343 Industries, who has charted a new course for the iconic Spartan and his AI companion, Cortana. In Halo 4, the duo confronts a fresh new threat to the human race and grapples with mortality in a way the series never has before. The result is the most compelling story a Halo game has ever told, conveyed through a campaign that combines the excellent combat, pacing, and environmental design that have long been hallmarks of the series. The intriguing new cooperative mode feels flimsy, but the competitive multiplayer reasserts itself as one of the most exciting offerings in the genre. Halo 4 doesn't just take the franchise baton in stride; it sprints out confidently to keep Master Chief and company at the head of the pack.
At the end of Halo 3, Master Chief and Cortana were adrift on a derelict ship, having just struck the final blow to bring an end to the Covenant's devastating campaign against the human race. Chief then entered cryo-sleep for the next four years, while humanity poured its energies into fortifying its defenses and expanding its galactic presence. A captivating opening cutscene shows this new initiative taking a critical look at the past, foreshadowing some interesting tension later in the game. Meanwhile, Chief and Cortana are roused when they stumble upon a dire threat to humanity's existence. This foe provides the series with its first proper villain, one whose roots in previously-vague Forerunner mythology soon come into frightening focus.
These galactic machinations are dramatic and intriguing, and they are brought to life vividly by Halo 4's stunning technical prowess. From sweeping panoramic vistas to claustrophobic jungle clearings, the environments are rich with detail enhanced by thoughtful lighting and sharp textures. The excellent artistic design that makes human, Covenant, and Forerunner architecture so instantly recognizable is on display once more, helping to create a cohesive sci-fi world. Expressive facial animations bring characters to life, imbuing the cutscenes with extra emotional weight and making the story that much more engaging. It's all tied together with an amazing soundtrack that complements every aspect of the game. Alien environments ring with eerie strains, characters' emotions are reflected in plangent chords, and the intense action is driven along by urgent orchestrations.
Yet for all the excitement and emotion of the main plot, the most engrossing drama of Halo 4 takes place between Master Chief and Cortana. Everyone's favorite artificial intelligence is nearing her expiration date, forcing these two all-but-invincible characters to face the prospect of death in a way they never have. This delicate, degenerative process is handled eloquently, and great voice acting, animation, and writing combine for some poignant moments. 343 Industries delivers a compelling narrative on both an intimate and a grand scale, with a satisfying conclusion that will make you excited for what's to come.
Halo 4 is a striking step up in storytelling for the series, but when it comes to the action, things are more familiar. Halo has always been a shooter built on clear gameplay systems that combine in complex and gratifying ways. The crafty and aggressive enemy AI squads work together, adjusting their tactics as you assault their ranks. Your four-pronged arsenal of guns, grenades, melee attacks, and armor abilities fuels a variety of different battlefield strategies. And the environments both large and small provide enough space to maneuver creatively, occasionally furnishing a vehicle or two for your driving enjoyment.
These systems are a through line in the series and they continue to hold up well in Halo 4, right down to the Covenant enemies that you fight at various points throughout the campaign (apparently not everyone knows the war is over). They still make great foes, but the new Promethean enemies offer a fresh combat challenge. Canine crawlers fire from a distance or swarm up close, while hovering watchers flit back and forth, offering maddening support to their allies. The hulking knights look fearsome and put up a mean fight, teleporting both defensively and offensively to make killing them from a distance a tricky proposition. New enemies come with new weapons too, and though these guns fit familiar niches, neat tweaks like the boltshot's shotgun-esque alternate fire and the scattershot's ricocheting bullets make them feel distinct.
As you balance aggression and restraint, you see your enemies doing the same thing, and this tactical interplay makes the core combat eminently engaging and replayable. The campaign is well paced and often challenging, and though some Forerunner areas flirt with repetition, the whole endeavor is exciting for the 8 to 10 hours it takes to finish it. Playing with up to three other players is a blast, and Halo 4's campaign thrives in cooperative play. More Spartans means more freedom for you to employ team tactics, put vehicles to good use, play around with the various game-tweaking skulls, or simply have fun horsing around.
You can also flex your cooperative muscle in a new mode called Spartan Ops. Planned as a regular series, each free, downloadable episode of Spartan Ops comes with a CG-animated short depicting life among the Spartans, as well as a number of brief playable combat scenarios. The first video features a lively cast and some enjoyably dramatic scenes, with animation quality comparable to the cutscenes from the campaign. Though the commanding officer from the video lends some voice-over supervision to the individual scenarios, the missions themselves feel fragmented and disconnected from each other. Though they can be played solo or with up to three others, these skirmishes are over in a matter of minutes, and this brevity makes them feel inconsequential and unsatisfying. Still, it's a flexible and novel way to deliver fresh postrelease content, and it will be interesting to see how the Spartan Ops story builds in the coming weeks and months.
Back on more familiar ground, War Games is the new name for the vaunted competitive multiplayer action that has been a genre standout for more than a decade. The classic deathmatch and objective-based game types return in free-for-all and team varieties, with only a few tweaks and additions. Infection has been renamed Flood, casting the "zombie" characters as Flood-mutated humans with super speed and a giant spike arm that behaves like an energy sword. Regicide is a new free-for-all game type that puts a bounty on the player with the highest score and occasionally grants him or her an overshield or other perk for remaining on top. Invasion is gone, and in its place is Dominion, a team contest focused on capturing and maintaining control of three bases. Bonuses for holding them include spawnable vehicles, automatic turrets, and weapon drops, making for some feisty back-and-forth struggles.
(An important logistical note: To play these modes, you need 2GB of storage space to install War Games, and 1.5GB per episode of Spartan Ops. It's unclear how much space Spartan Ops will demand in the future, but suffice it to say, a memory card won't cut it.)
Halo's competitive multiplayer modes have always dictated the weapons available to players in a given match, creating a level playing field from the get-go. But now, in a move reflective of modern shooter trends, Halo 4 introduces loadouts. These consist of familiar categories like primary and secondary weapons, grenades, and armor abilities, as well as two new attributes that grant small bonuses, like quicker weapon switching, bigger grenade explosions, and broader motion sensor range. You unlock extra loadout slots and the ability to equip these bonuses as you level up, and you must also pay to unlock individual loadout items with points you earn with each rank. It can feel a bit limiting at first, but regardless of your rank, there are always a few fully stocked predetermined loadouts to choose from, so you're never at a disadvantage for being low-level.
Not knowing the map is also less of a disadvantage now, because weapons spawned on the battlefield are clearly marked. Furthermore, players who do well can call in their own ordnance drop mid-match. Familiar weapons like needlers, shotguns, and swords are accessible only through such drops, as are new entries like an explosive railgun and a light machine gun. There are even boosts to shields, movement speed, and damage output. Picking one of the three random options in your personal ordnance reward is an interesting strategic decision that affects how you proceed and adds another defensive consideration for your opponents.
New abilities can help you deal with these variables; Promethean Vision lets you see your enemies' silhouettes and identify which weapons they're holding, while a hardlight shield can save you from an imminent explosion. The online battlefields of Halo 4 are more varied than their predecessors, but none of the changes or additions are powerful enough to destabilize the core balance. This plays like a richer version of the competitive Halo that many have come to love over the years, and the new tweaks add a welcome freshness to the action.
If you want to avoid or embrace any given element, you can always fire up a Custom Game and tinker with the battlefield conditions to your heart's content. Options are as robust as ever and are exponentially expandable once you dip into the still-incredibly-powerful Forge level editor. Though it can be daunting, some changes to Forge have made placing objects easier and the whole experience generally more user-friendly. Play around with friends, tweak existing levels to your liking, craft something using the new tools, or simply download the fruits of other people's labor--Forge remains an impressive platform for creative play and thoughtful design.
Halo 4 is every bit the massive shooter package that its predecessors were, and it holds the series' standard high. The thrilling and emotional return of Master Chief and Cortana is the highlight, and the campaign breaks new ground in narrative quality for the franchise. The top-notch competitive multiplayer picks up where Halo: Reach left off, infusing the action with some mainstream elements while still remaining undeniably unique. Spartan Ops may stay a mere sideshow or prove its worth in the weeks to come, but there's no doubting that the next planned Halo trilogy is off to a great start. 343 Industries should be proud of what it has accomplished, and you should be excited to experience it for yourself.
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
Assassin's Creed III: Liberation is a game for the PlayStation Vita that will feature the first female protagonist in the series
Aveline de Grandpre is a fascinating character. Not only is the heroine of Assassin's Creed III: Liberation the series' first female protagonist, but her backstory deals with one of the darkest periods in American history. This is a woman born from the romance between a wealthy father and a slave mother, someone who has overcome her uncertain upbringing to find a new life in the Assassin Brotherhood. She's the sort of figure capable of anchoring a truly special game--making it all the more disappointing that Liberation, taken as a whole, is a bit dull.
It's not that Liberation lacks for new ideas. In fact, this Vita spin-off introduces a number of intriguing concepts. Rather than one of Desmond Miles' trips through the Animus, the narrative in Liberation is framed as a piece of historical entertainment delivered by Abstergo Industries, the illusive corporation that serves as the series' overarching antagonist. It is, in other words, a story about Assassins as told by Templars.
There's great potential here for the type of storytelling unique to an unreliable narrator, yet Liberation takes little advantage of its own narrative format. Though the story deals with such heavy themes as slavery and the cultural identity of a city transitioning from French to Spanish rule, it's a largely aimless and hastily delivered plot that sees Aveline bounce around like a pinball from one enemy to the next for the bulk of the game. There are occasional flashes of excitement when a mysterious hacker infiltrates Abstergo's narrative to offer you the "truth" about these events, but they amount to little more than a handful of extended cutscenes back-loaded toward the end of the game.
The greatest casualty of Liberation's muddled storytelling is Aveline herself. She's introduced as an intriguing and strong-willed character, but Aveline's personality is hardly explored beyond that initial introduction. Her recruitment into the Assassin Brotherhood is quickly glossed over, while her gender and mixed ethnicity only occasionally factor into the story. These are interesting traits that you wish the game would explore in more detail, but it's more concerned with a dizzying roster of villains and side characters than spending much time on the heroine at its center.
Where Liberation shines brightest is its re-creation of the city Aveline calls home. This is a brilliant version of 18th-century New Orleans, one that beautifully reflects the diverse cultural ambience formed over years of operating as a French trading port. You often venture outside the city too, spending time with smugglers in the bayou as well as journeying to a couple more locations well beyond Louisiana (though to name them would be spoiling things). These locales look terrific, easily rivaling the rich vistas of Liberation's console counterparts. It's enough to make you stop and soak up the atmosphere during those moments you're scaling a church tower to synchronize the world map.
Unfortunately, you really do have to stop to appreciate the world around you because when things get moving, the Vita hardware tends to struggle under the weight of Ubisoft's graphical ambitions. The frame rate drops precipitously when you hit a dead sprint, and large-scale fights against more than four or five enemies will make things chug as well. It's too bad, because these frame rate issues severely impact the fluid and freewheeling style of urban parkour that has long been the greatest strength of this franchise. Likewise, these visual hiccups don't do any favors to an otherwise refined combat system, which disposes of manual lock-on in favor of a more flexible and intuitive approach to swordfights.
It's a good thing, then, that Liberation offers you plenty of opportunities to slow things down and take out enemies one by one. There are occasional bombastic set pieces, but much of the mission design harks back to older Assassin's Creed games, where stalking your targets from the rooftops or silently following them to their hideouts took precedence over vehicular chases and scripted chaos.
Indeed, Aveline is every bit the capable assassin Ezio and Altair were. And in many ways, she's got even more tricks up her sleeve. Liberation introduces a multiple-identity system that allows Aveline to dress in slave garb, ladies' formal wear, or stylish assassin gear. Each guise carries its own strengths and weaknesses, while notoriety levels are split across three separate pools. It's an interesting system in the game's early goings, allowing you to do things like charm your way past guards as a well-dressed lady or infiltrate plantations as a slave. But any strategic depth this identity system offers is eclipsed by its limitations: the slave persona is useful only in extremely specific story moments, while the formal wear prohibits her from sprinting and platforming; she's forced to navigate the sprawling city at a light jog. By the end of the game, you find yourself defaulting to the tried-and-true assassin's attire at nearly every opportunity.
It's especially odd that Liberation would take away your ability to freely dart about the world, because, frame rate issues aside, the platforming is more exciting than it has ever been. As in Assassin's Creed III, you're no longer limited to climbing buildings and man-made structures; you can now dash up trees, scale cliffs, and leap effortlessly from branch to branch. These traversal enhancements are especially highlighted in Liberation's swampy, imposing version of the Louisiana bayou, where fallen trees and endless swamps dominate the scenery.
If only there were more going on out there. Aside from the occasional alligator encounter, there's almost nothing to do in the wilderness. There's no hunting, no cabin in the woods to build up--it's almost entirely navigating from one story mission to the next. That's less of an issue in the city portion of the gameworld, where there is a decent collection of side quests and optional distractions; still, Liberation's New Orleans isn't nearly as rich with content as the cities Ezio explored.
Which is not to say that Liberation is free of secondary content. As the story unfolds, Aveline becomes involved in her father's business empire. This allows you to invest your money in the purchase of ships and various goods (coffee, fruit, leather, and so on) and send those vessels along trade routes all over the Atlantic in an effort to gain the maximum return on your investments. Like managing assassins in previous games, it's an oddly compelling strategy minigame that serves as a nice change of pace from the action surrounding it.
Even more interesting (though perhaps not as well executed) is the online multiplayer, which pits Assassins against Templars in a map-based battle for worldwide domination. It's essentially a card game where you collect assassins of various statistical abilities and then send them into fights across the world in an effort to capture those cities for your chosen side. There's a strange allure in the way it feels like a science-fiction-tinged cross between Pokemon and Risk, but it's hard to imagine this feature has the staying power of the console multiplayer experience.
And yet, such fun diversions are more the exception than the rule. Though Assassin's Creed III: Liberation toys around with intriguing concepts and centers its story around a character you desperately want to know more about, none of it comes together especially well. Liberation often excels, but it stumbles just as much. The result is a game that fails to bear the standard of quality that has defined this series for years.
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