Valiant Hearts - The Great War

Valiant Hearts - The Great War [Ubisoft Montpellier, Ubisoft, 2014]

Valiant Hearts - The Great Game

This game was a truly unique experience. At what is usually a down time for games as developers and distributors gear up for Christmas, Ubisoft dropped this wonderful gaming experience in our laps. Available on Xbox Live, the Xbox One, and the Playstation Network, it is downloadable only at a well-worth-it cost of $14.99. On its face, this is an old-school platformer with puzzle elements. However, it turned out to be much more than that when played. Set during World War I, it is a heartwarming story about four characters from different backgrounds whose paths are wholly intertwined. 

The Actors

Karl

Karl is a German living in France. He is married to Emily and they have just had a son, Victor, when the war breaks out after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. As Germany and France declare war against one another, many German citizens are deported from France, including Karl. Like so many others, he is drafted into the German army against his will. Throughout the game, his greatest wish is to return home to his wife and young child. 

Emile

Emile is Karl's father-in-law. More importantly, he's a Frenchman. Even though he is fairly old, he is also drafted into the army, but on the French side. During the war, he sharers Karl's worries about Emily and Victor. Both he and Karl are able to share their experiences with their daughter/wife through letters. It was one of the only ways to communicate during the Great War. 

Freddie

Freddie is an American soldier that has enlisted in the French army. He is out to kill the infamous German military commander, Baron Von Dorf. Von Dorf led a bombing campaign that killed Freddie's wife and he is out for revenge, no matter the cost. He befriends Emile in the process as they both share the same target, since Karl has become Baron Von Dorf's zeppelin pilot. They are both joined by a dog who is used to solve many of the game's puzzles. 

Anna

From Belgium, Anna joins the war effort as a nurse in the Red Cross. Her starry-eyed optimism is soon dashed as the horrors of war take their toll on her dreams of healing and helpfulness. Even though the massive death toll is overwhelming, Anna does her best to help all the soldiers she can, one injury at a time. In her travels, she saves Karl, Emile, and Freddie at various points throughout the game. 

Historical Facts

Not only does the game have a heartwarming story, it is full of facts about World War I. For example:

The Debacle of 1914

In the early fighting the German army made swift progress. After invading Belgium, they marched on Paris in late August. French troops retreated en masse and units were outflanked and repelled, taken prisoner, or killed. The months of August to September 1914 marked the bloodiest period of the war with over 180,000 French casualties alone. The French authorities described the debacle as an organized retreat; the war to win over public opinion had begun. 

These facts were paired with real pictures from the period, giving them particular depth of meaning. The "War to End All Wars" was one of, if not the most, pointless and bloody protracted stalemates in modern times. Trench warfare paired with technology to kill more humans for less ground than at any other time in recorded human history. 

Music

The soundtrack is by a group of composers that were unknown to me. Most of it is classical with the majority being played on a piano, although a few contained full orchestration. All of it was amazing. I've never played a game and immediately gone to iTunes to buy they soundtrack before, but I'm listening to it as I type this even now. I've never played a game before in which the music was so good as to almost be another character. Even if you don't buy the game, take a listen to the soundtrack. 

While this game isn't as long or as graphically stunning as many of the RPGs available today, it is just as touching. Experientially, it was like playing a graphic novel with the depth of feeling of Maus. I cannot recommend this game enough. You won't be disappointed. As many of our regular readers will know, I like a story-driven game more than one with mind-blowing graphics, which is probably the reason this game hit me so hard. Not only is it fun to play without being overly difficult, as some platformers can be, the plot is second-to-none. If you give this game a chance, I suspect you will be as taken in by it as I was, falling for the character development and enjoying a quality history lesson at the same time. If you're just sitting around playing another round of Titanfall, give yourself a break and try Valiant Hearts. It may not be in the same league graphically, but what it lacks in pixels per square inch, it more than makes up for in emotion.

Baseline Assessment: 9/10

Penalties: -1 for being slightly repetitive in the puzzles. It never became truly annoying, but some of the puzzles were a bit overused, particularly Anna's.

Bonuses: +1 for the best story line I've played on the Xbox One, bar none.

Nerd Coefficient: 9/10. Very high quality/Standout in its category.

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley--Video game addict who recognizes that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.

Titanfall

[Titanfall, Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, 2014]

Can it save the Xbox One?

Microsoft is banking on Titanfall, big time. This is the first truly fresh release on their new flagship console with expectations that couldn't be higher. Forza 5, Call of Duty, and Assassin's Creed are all either ports from the 360 versions and/or extensions of existing series. The next Halo won't be out until Christmas and Gears of War is at least two years out. The Xbox One has been lagging in sales compared to the PS4 of late and the kids at Bill Gates' house are REALLY hoping this game turns things around. It may not be the complete game-changer that Microsoft is looking for, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. 

What it gets right, it gets very right!

This game is REALLY fun. Don't get me wrong. I've been completely addicted to it despite some drawbacks. The gameplay is totally new, and that's tough to do in today's world of a plethora of developers and distribution companies. Everybody is looking for the next big thing...and Microsoft found it. The standard FPS portion is a bit like Call of Duty mixed with Halo and given a healthy dose of steroids. Your character's ability to wall-walk combined with his or her mini-jetpack help create entirely ways to move around the map. Add to that the Titans and this is clearly different from anything that has come before it. 

For the uninitiated, Titanfall is a first-person shooter that takes place in the future. The IMC is the government entity being challenged by rebels called the Militia. First, you play through the campaign from the side of the IMC. There are nine maps. Once you've finished those, you switch and play the same nine maps from the Militia side. The only real difference between the "campaign" and "classic" multiplayer game types are voiceovers that precede each mission and some short cutscenes. As an IMC pilot, you are fighting for Vice Admiral Graves. He's your standard military man looking to put down the rebellion whose control is taken over early on in the game by former IMC mutineer James MacAllen. He and Graves used to fight side-by-side before he went rogue. There really wasn't much to the story, to be honest. That's pretty much it. They had little bylines for each map, like taking down a fuel depot or destroying a spaceship while it was in dock, but the gist of the plot line can be summed up in a few sentences.

Gameplay

The best part of Titanfall is easy to identify...it's the gameplay. Movement is like a combination of parkour with jetpacks. You can run on walls, jump off, land and run on opposing walls, then fly through the air using your booster pack to get 30-40 feet up in the air. It's an entirely new type of mechanic unlike anything I've ever played before. Then there are the Titans... 

There are three types: the Atlas being a middle-of-the-road mech, the Stryder that is more nimble but can take less damage, and the Ogre that serves as a tank with massive protection. Every three minutes you are blessed from above with one of these giant killing machines, literally. The are deployed from space and come falling down from the sky, thus the game's name. You can climb into the huge robot and take personal control or choose "follow" or "guard" mode where AI takes over for the Titan and it will either follow and protect you or engage the enemy on its own, garnering you substantial XP as long as it survives. Personally, I've played about half the game each way. Sometimes I'm on a hot streak with my pilot and I just let my Titan wander off on its own to kill at will. Other times I prefer to climb in and put my personal touch on the giant's attacks. 

There are some missing components

My main complaint with Titanfall is the lack of a single player campaign. I guess I'm stuck expecting the standard format like Call of Duty and Mass Effect 3 where there are both single player campaign and multiplayer choices for the gamer. Here, there's not much difference between the two except for the voiceovers before you start a mission. The voiceovers could have used a little help from Bioware because they leave a lot to be desired. They aren't terrible, but they aren't as good as they should be, especially considering the relatively small number required for the so-called "campaign" mode. 

Not only that, but your success or failure in a mission has no bearing on the outcome of the game. Win or lose the match, the game continues on with the missions as if you were successful. I guess that taking into account the fact that the whole campaign is just a modified multiplayer game this makes sense because it could take a while to finish the campaign if you were dependent upon your teammates' abilities to clear a level, but it draws away from the sense of accomplishment you get when normally finishing a level.

Break it on down!

Despite my complaints, this really is a treat to play. I tend to lean toward story-driven games so the bare bones campaign left me feeling somewhat empty, but the fantastic mechanics and graphics more than make up for it. I hope that this, like many series before it, grow into a full-fledged, multiple-game epic in the same vein as Halo or Metal Gear. I absolutely love playing it. I was just looking for a bit more, to be honest. Maybe all of the hype and buildup led me to believe this would be the next Gears (or God) of War. It certainly has the potential to become everything those games are and more, but it needs a bigger, better backstory. One of the reasons Halo has been so successful is the completeness of the universe. I hope that Titanfall 2 builds on the skeleton of a plot that this game provides. It already has the gameplay down perfectly. Now it just needs a universe to inhabit. 

The Math

Objective Score: 8/10. It would've been a 9 if it just had even the most slightly serviceable story. 

Bonuses: +1 for the biggest improvement in unique and fluid gameplay mechanics I've seen since Nintendo went from a two-button layout to the six-button SNES controller.

Penalties: -1 for a nearly complete lack of plot. I almost would have preferred they simply leave out the Graves/MacAllen story and just include a few more multiplayer modes. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention. 

Forza Motorsport 5

Forza Motorsport 5 [Turn 10, Microsoft Studios, 2013]

I did a short blurb about Forza Motorsport 5 in my Xbox One post, but I've enjoyed the game so much I felt it deserved its own review.  Forza is one of those games that hasn't changed much from version to version. I can understand why. You don't want to mess with success. There are a few minor changes from 4 to 5 that I didn't especially care for, but plenty of positives that make this game clearly the best of the series. 

Pros

Let's get right to it. This game is beautiful! The graphics are gorgeous. Turn 10 really put forth some effort to get everything to look right. Even the reflections of buildings on the cars is spot-on. Several times I found myself mesmerized by the reflection in the rear window or trunk, only to find my car sliding off onto the dirt track. It is just as easy to get lost in the surroundings. I had a friend who went to the Indianapolis 500 and said the experience was re-created down to the last detail. My uncle raced at Sebring and was shocked at the accuracy of the job they did at building the race track in virtual space. 

My only knock on that part of the game was the seemingly small amount of tracks. While you were required to tackle each track in a number of different ways, both in direction and layout, there were only twelve original tracks in the game. Thirteen if you count the Top Gear Test Track, which was used for game-like challenges that included knocking over a certain number of bowling pins or navigating between barrels. There are 587 races (If I did my addition correctly), and you don't need a mathematician to tell you that you've got to stretch twelve tracks pretty far to cover that much ground. However, it was a nice round number that allowed you to learn all the tracks, backwards and forwards. 

Among the many aspects of realism in Forza 5 that I liked was the fact that they no longer just give you cars as a reward for leveling up. In Forzas 2 and 4, you were given a new ride each time your driver level was raised. Not so in Forza 5. In this game, you have to earn your cars. You could do this by either winning races, leveling up, or completing "series." There are six groups of races with between three and six series per group and around eight races in each series. Completing a race nabs you between three and ten thousand dollars, depending on the race and your finishing spot. If you finish a series, you get twelve grand and some bonus tracks. A new level gets you thirty-five thousand dollars. This may sound like a lot of money, but when you're trying to buy a million-dollar Ferrari, it takes some time to put together a big enough nest egg to purchase that dream car.

Drivatars

One of the welcome new additions to the Forza line-up are the Drivatars. These are, as I'm sure you've surmised, driving avatars. The game takes three races to learn your personal style, then refines that style over the remainder of your career. Any time one of your friends races, your Drivatar takes part in their race. The game keeps track of when you make a "Good Turn" and a "Perfect Turn" in order to allow your avatar to perform to a similar level in the same situation. Not only is it fun to pretend you're playing against your friends and, in a way, you are, but your Drivatar makes money when it takes part in other races. I don't have a ton of friends with this game, but I still get daily updates with regard to my Drivatar's earnings. 

Cons

There was very little about this game I didn't like, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention a few things. The first is the tendency for Drivatars and online gamers to treat an Audi R8 like a bumper car. The multiplayer was especially bad, although the problem existed in single player, as well. Let's be honest, nobody is going to enter a race with their $4 million Bugatti Veyron Super Sport and act like they're in a demolition derby. I was as guilty as the rest in single player, but I tried to show a little respect when playing against other live gamers. They weren't offering the same olive branch, unfortunately. 

Aside from the opposing players' attempts to painfully crush you, there was very little else that bothered me about this game. Although at times this had more in common with Burnout than Gran Turismo, I suppose it isn't up to Microsoft to decide how you use their simulator. They were tasked with making a believable physics engine with realistic sound and response, which they did quite well. At first I didn't care for the removal of the "Car Ahead" and "Car Behind" times that were frequently flashed across the screen in Forza 4, but I eventually got used to the new style of play and simply kept an eye on my mini-map to ensure I was keeping other players at a safe distance. 

Did you know it's pronounced like "Pizza?" Fort-za. 

I didn't until I watched some reviews of Forza 4. We established in my last choral performance that Italian is not one of my stronger languages. Anyway, I got this game on Day One and I've been playing it ever since. I only have six series to go out of forty-one, so I'm not doing too badly. If you're a fan of racing simulators, you can't go wrong with Forza 5, especially since Gran Turismo 7 isn't coming out for another year-and-a-half. It's the perfect mix of enough tuning and upgrades to satisfy a gear-head while not turning off a know-nothing like myself. Heck, any game you can play almost daily for nearly three months without starting over or losing pathetically is a quality title. 

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Penalties: -1 for taking away the "Car Behind" notification. I relied heavily on that to know where the competition was in relation to my vehicle.

Bonuses: +1 for the most realistic driving game I've ever played. The graphics, sound, and controls are superb!

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention.

See here for our scoring system. 

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley - Guy who REALLY wants a Bugatti Super Sport. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012. 

Call of Duty: Ghosts - Multiplayer

Call of Duty: Ghosts [Infiniti Ward, Activision, 2013]

Another One? How many of these are they going to make?

Yes, it's another Call of Duty game. I know it seems like every time you turn around there's a new one, but that's probably because three of the top ten selling games of all time come from this franchise. For the purposes of this review, I've decided to focus on the multiplayer aspects and leave the campaign for another day. When it comes to online play, I'm something of a loner. 90% of the time I play with friends online or I don't play at all. The last game that got me to spend a significant amount of time playing online with strangers was Mass Effect 3, and it came out in March of 2012. I'm not exactly the world's biggest multiplayer buff, so that's why it's something of an event when a game rolls around that grabs me like this one has. 

There are three types of online play in Ghosts. The third is called Extinction and only allows one or two player games. Infiniti Ward and Activision have planned four downloadable content packages. Each will come with one of four parts of the Extinction campaign. I gave the online portion a try, both alone and with a friend, and was summarily annihilated. I may give the campaign a shot if I decide to purchase the Season Pass, which gives access to all multiplayer maps along with the Extinction story line, but for now this game is simply above my head and won't get much attention here. Sorry. 

Instead, I've decided to focus on the two main multiplayer modes, regular and squads. The regular multiplayer mode includes thirteen game types. I will cover each in detail and let you know how I fared. New to the franchise is Squads, a game mode that motivates players to create multiple playable characters instead of focusing on a single multiplayer avatar. First, I'll go through the multiplayer game modes and then get to Squads. Suffice it to say I believe Squads is a fantastic addition to an already full multiplayer palette. 

Multiplayer

Dogs

Let's just get this one out of the way here. There have been a lot of people online complaining about the addition of dogs to the multiplayer games. If you get a killstreak of five (or four with the right perk) you get a canine companion. The dog warns you of nearby enemies with a fearsome growl. It can take out bad guys that are in your vicinity who are focused on you, to the detriment of their throats. It can even avenge your death by killing your murderer after you die. I can't argue that it unbalances the game a bit, making the player with a dog much more dangerous than one without. That said, it's no more random than the helicopter or missile strike, raining down death from on high without so much as a button mash from the player who earned the killstreak. 

If you don't like it, shoot the dog first. The owner may get you, but at least that smelly mutt won't be there to save him the next time you meet. In short, I like the dogs. They're the first killstreak reward that I've felt has a real impact on the game. They may not be 100% fair, but what in life is? Get used to it and earn your own puppy if they irk you so much. You'll find life is a lot easier with a dog around. 

Team Deathmatch

Ah, the old classic. This game pits between eight and twelve players against one another in a team competition. Each team is placed on opposing sides of the map and you do your best to end up with the most kills. For anyone that has played Call of Duty multiplayer before, this one doesn't require much explanation. If memory serves, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was the first to feature online multiplayer and Team Deathmatch was included in the game types. 

Gun Game

Gun game is a recent addition to the list of multiplayer options along with Hunted: Free-for-All. In it, you are rewarded for each weapon kill with a gun upgrade. Each melee kill will earn you a gun demotion. What I particularly liked about this game mode was that you don't lose your promotion once earned. I was killed within milliseconds of offing an enemy and retained the shotgun I'd earned before death after re-spawning. I fully expected to be returned to the handgun I'd started the game using, but luckily someone at Infiniti Ward had their thinking cap on and I held onto the twelve gauge. Like its fellow new game, this mode is a free-for-all fight where everyone is your enemy. No team play here. It supports between four and eight players.

Cranked

This is one of the more heart-pounding games included in the multiplayer oeuvre. Cranked is essentially Team Deathmatch with a twist. Teams of four to six players are pitted against each other, but once you achieve a kill you have thirty seconds to get another one or you will explode. Once you've killed an opponent, you are blessed with various perks including faster reloads and movement. What you end up with is a bunch of people covering the map at a dead sprint trying to find someone else to off before they detonate. Initially I found this game mode to be a bit annoying, especially when I was unable to find anyone to shoot at, but once I got used to it I felt it was the best way to get your heart rate up that I can think of while remaining firmly planted with your butt on the couch.

Blitz

This is essentially capture the flag with guns. Each team has an orange flag circle like the one pictured above. It's near the spawn point for the team. After you've captured the flag (reached the orange circle) eight times, the teams switch sides. You have to start from the opposite side of the map and capture the flag that used to be yours. This is a pretty basic game, but still one of my favorites. It deters camping. Campers are people who find a single spot on the map and don't move, usually sniping enemies without being detectable due to their out-of-the-way positions. They are among the most despised of multiplayer gamers.

Octane

Search and Rescue

In this game mode, two teams of four to six players are pitted against each other in a battle to either protect or destroy a target. One team member picks up a bomb and must carry it to the target, place it, then wait thirty seconds for it to detonate. If the bomb carrier is killed or the bomb is defused, the destroying team loses and the protectors win. If the bomb goes off, the protectors lose and the destroyers win. If a team member is killed, they may be revived by other team members. Dog tags appear where you died and can be retrieved by your teammates in order to bring on your re-spawn. If the opposing team gets to them first, you have to wait until the next round before re-joining the game. Whichever team wins the best five out of eight rounds wins the game.

Search and Destroy

This game mode is the same as Search and Rescue without the option to re-spawn. Once you've been killed, you have to wait for the next round to start before you can play again. This is definitely an interesting game mode. I didn't spend a ton of time on it, but what I did was enjoyable. You also either play as the destroyers or the defenders in a best of eight matchup. There are two bombs on the map. As destroyers, your job is to find and destroy one of these bombs with a small explosive device before it can be disarmed by the other team. Defenders/protectors must try their darndest to keep the bombs from going off. The one problem I found with this game is that nobody uses their headsets and it requires coordination. You need to protect the bomb once it's been armed, but some guys just took off like they were in a plain, old deathmatch. When that happened, we lost. When my team worked together and all guarded the target, we won. This is definitely one of the games that requires more strategy than the rest.

Infected

This was one of the more fascinating game types. A team of up to 16 players all starts together. One player is chosen at random to become "The Infected." It is their job to infect other players, who then become infected and take on the remaining Ghost soldiers. The game ends when either all the infected are killed or all of the soldiers are infected. It's certainly morbid, but was a blast to play. The only game with more suspense was Cranked. Hiding from infected soldiers is one thing. Knowing you're about to explode is a bit more stress-inducing.

Kill Confirmed

This was my favorite new game type. Two teams of four to six players face off in a team deathmatch, but again, with a twist. Once you kill an enemy, dog tags appear above their corpse. You only get half of the points for killing the enemy. You gain the other half by picking up the dog tags before anyone else can. When you (or a teammate) pick up the dog tags, you get an extra +50 points and an infinitely pleasing, "Kill Confirmed," message. If you are killed before you can get the tags or if an enemy player picks them up first, you miss out on the fifty XP and are informed that you've had your "Kill Denied." I don't know if it was the endorphin rush I got from having my kill confirmed or just the extra spin on the old standard deathmatch, but this was easily my favorite of the game modes.

Overlord

Domination

Blitz is fairly similar to this game mode, but instead of having a single flag for each team to protect, there are three flags (see map above) and neither team can claim ownership of any of them without a little work. Flags A, B, and C have to be earned by standing within a few feet of them for ten seconds without getting killed. Possession can change hands multiple times during the game. The team that racks up the most time of possession eventually wins, but not before a plethora of carnage and death-dealing takes place. 

Hunted: Free-for-All

This game mode is exactly the same as its original "free-for-all" namesake, with a minor alteration. Instead of choosing your loadout, you're forced to start with a pistol and work your way up to more sophisticated weapons, either by catching them in weapon drops or taking them off the corpses of your enemies. This makes for a frightening first few seconds as you wait for a decent gun to fall from the sky, pray you can take out a better-prepared foe, or accept death's cold embrace. As the name suggests, it's every man (or woman) for himself. This game mode was added after the release along with Gun Game and I, for one, am REALLY glad that it was.

Free for All

This is one of the original game types and the name says it all. Up to eight players at a time are dropped into a map and the one that racks up the most kills wins. It sounds simple enough, and it is probably the easiest of the game modes to master. Even in Team Deathmatch I often find myself firing off a few rounds at a teammate from time to time before I realize they're an ally. In Free for All, if it moves, kill it! Thankfully they've made it so people can't come into this game in a party. In earlier versions people could turn this game into Team Deathmatch by bringing their pre-generated party into the game, giving those who were playing on their own a severe disadvantage.

Tremor

Team Tactical

This game mode is designed for small groups of up to four friends to play together. You can play nearly any of the other game modes with your party including Blitz, Domination, Kill Confirmed, and both Search games. If you aren't allowed to play a game type with your party in normal mode, then this is the place to do it. 

Ground War

Large matches are the name of the game in Ground War. Teams of between six and nine players each take part in various game modes in much larger battles. The maps are still the same, so expect a lot of death in this somewhat cramped mode. A full game consists of eighteen players where most are limited to twelve, so things can get a bit tight. However, if non-stop action is what you're looking for, then look no further. I got a bit annoyed at the fact that none of my lives seemed to last more than ten seconds, but on the flip side, I certainly didn't lack for targets or enemies. With that many people populating a map you don't have to wander very far to find someone to kill, or that wants to kill you. 

Squads

The Squads game modes are a new addition to the Call of Duty franchise and probably my favorite part of the entire game. Whereas previous CoD games rewarded focus on a single multiplayer character, giving bonuses to those who "prestige" or maximize one character's XP, Squads mode encourages building multiple character types and learning how to play in different ways. You create your own squad of up to ten different players. It would behoove you to create varying types, e.g. a tank, a sniper, a stealth fighter, etc. That way, when your squad is facing off against another, you don't have six of the same exact character. 

The thing is, you have to actually play with each of the character types in order to level them up. It does you little good to have a level 60 badass if the rest of your squad are lowly level ones. I usually play a run-and-gun style where my action of choice is to spray-and-pray. This works best with a tank or a well-rounded character with an accurate automatic rifle. Due to the need for a sniper and a stealthish fighter, I had to expand my personal style of play to build a decent squad. In the past, I never really learned any of the maps well enough to know the good sniping spots. In Squads mode, I didn't have a choice. If I wanted a halfway decent sniper on my team, I had to create one myself. 

Once you've created a respectable squad, you can take it online and face off against friends or other random online adversaries to test your mettle. This is when having a complete and well-rounded team is vital. If you have nothing but tanks, a team with a quality sniper will lay waste to your tough guys one after the other as they cross the map in a vain attempt to reach a target. While you can only control one of your squad members at a time, Infiniti Ward has done a fantastic job with the artificial intelligence, making Squads mode the most enjoyable experience of all the CoD: Ghosts offerings. 

Squad Assault

This mode can be played alone or with friends. You take your squad (and as many as five friends if they want to join) up against the squad of another online player. Any remaining slots are filled out with AI. The game modes vary and can include Team Deathmatch, Cranked, Blitz, Kill Confirmed, and Domination. As was stated above, the more complete your squad, the better you'll do. If you've been focusing on a single character in multiplayer you probably won't stand a chance. If, however, you've got five or six characters with decent levels, you might just win this thing. 

Squad vs. Squad

As the name implies, this game mode is a single player's squad versus another's. You take your squad up against another player's squad and may the best person win. As mentioned before, you'll want a well-rounded squad to counter what the other guy is going to throw at you. Filling up your team with only snipers or tanks is the surest way to guarantee a loss. 

Safeguard

Horde mode from Gears of War is the closest thing I can think of to Safeguard. Hordes of increasing size and difficulty are sent at your squad until they manage to kill off all six members in a single round. You can choose to play 20, 40, or an infinite number of rounds. I was only able to make it to Round 9 when I tried this mode, but that was pretty good, in my opinion. Once they busted out the riot shields and dogs I didn't stand much of a chance. Of course, I played this before I'd built up much of a squad. I'd like to try it again now that five of my six characters are leveled in the double digits. 

Wargame

And finally, there's Wargame. This teams the character of your choice up with five other gamers against a team of six AI. You are able to vary the difficulty, which is good for an old fart like myself who seems to run into nothing but ninjas and actual Spec Ops warriors when he plays regular multiplayer. On Recruit level the AI will actually run right by you on occasion. It was a bit too easy, even for me. However, Regular level presented a decent challenge without my dying every four seconds and always ending up at the bottom of the leaderboard. It's a nice way to hone your skills in a cooperative environment without having to learn to swim by simply being dropped into the deep end of the pool. I highly recommend that anyone new to Call of Duty multiplayer start here for a bit of practice before venturing out into the real world of Team Deathmatch or Free-for-All. 

So, In Summation...

Wow! That was a long post, wasn't it? Sorry about that. I had to cover all 17 game types so I won't bore you further with a huge summary. Let's just say I'm hooked. For all the complaining that fanboys have done about the addition of dogs to the multiplayer, I'm loving this iteration of Call of Duty. I normally stick to the campaign, but this multiplayer is so good I haven't even finished it yet. I usually get massacred when I put my toe into the pool of CoD or Halo multiplayer matches, but with the ability to practice in Squad mode I've managed to get good enough to actually live longer than ten seconds on occasion. If you, like me, have mostly avoided online multiplayer because those darn eight-year-olds are just too good, maybe it's time to give them another try. With so many options, you're bound to find something you like here in Call of Duty: Ghosts. 

Baseline Assessment: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for the addition of Squads mode. Not only does it encourage learning multiple types of gameplay strategies, but it allows us old timers to catch up to the young'uns if we're willing to put in the time to build a decent squad. 

Penalties: -1 for making me spend half as much again as the game costs for all the multiplayer maps and Extinction. I'm glad they've added a new story line to the DLC, but it irks me that I have to spend close to $100 in order to get the entire game. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention. 

See here for our scoring system. 

POSTED BY: Brad Epperley--Video game addict who recognizes that the first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012. 

Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time

mobile fun for free!

Finally, the sequel to the wildly popular mobile favorite Plants vs. Zombies has come out. I think this solidifies PopCap as THE makers of the best mobile games available. Between Bejeweled, Peggle, and PvZ, they've made some of my favorite mobile titles and they definitely have more depth and better programming than 98% of the mobile games out there. While I've enjoyed Hill Climb Racer, Angry Birds, and Army of Darkness, no single developer has come up with as many quality games as PopCap. 

levels

There are three main levels in the game. The first is Ancient Egypt. Here the zombies are also mummies. If you're unfamiliar, you have to protect the home base, in this case a pyramid, from the oncoming undead. You choose the plants you're going to use in order to do so, then do your best to keep the mummy/zombies from making it into your pyramid to eat your brain. Each section has ten levels, starting with the Ancient Egyptian plane. Once you've completed the ten levels, you have to go back and win ten stars to move on to the next level, Pirate Bay, by re-playing enough of the first ten levels to win stars. Once you've collected ten stars, you can use a stargate to transport through time and space to the next plane and fight zombie pirates. 

The second level is Pirate Bay. As you can see, the zombies in this group of levels is made up of pirates (Didn't see that one coming, did you?). Unlike the previous levels, the planting grid isn't complete. There are planks that allow zombies to walk up to your plants. They also attack by swinging from ropes or being shot out of cannons across the water areas. They are easily repelled using something akin to jumping beans. These plants are shown here second to the bottom on the left with a cost of 50 sun points. They're very handy when repelling water-crossing enemies, but they quickly fall asleep after doing so and are extremely easy to eat. 

Finally, there's the Wild West group of levels. Along with upgraded plants that you earn along the way, these levels have train tracks that allow to you move a single, or sometimes multiple plants up and down the screen. This allows you to take care of different levels of zombie outlaws as they come along instead of being stuck in a single grid square watching those darn undead walk right past your three-headed pod shooter. This level also brings with it a new slew of enemies, including one old timer who clearly worked in a mine in his living years. This piece of maddening programming genius jumps the entire board, then returns to eat your precious plants from behind. I know he's why they created the two-headed plant, but the plant was  generally just so ineffective that I essentially chalked his kills up as a loss and shot the bastard from behind after he started to move back to their side of the board. 

the perfect segue

That's the perfect lead-in to discuss the various characters in this mobile masterpiece. First, we'll start with the plants. 

the plants

The plants are your friends. These are all that is stopping those blood-thirsty undead from chowing down on your medulla oblongata. Each has a special form of attack and their own advantages and disadvantages. They start out at a low price and you are able to open up more as you go along. For example, the first of the three plants above costs 150 sun points (you either collect these as they fall from the sky or make your own using sunflowers) and can punch zombies both in front and behind. However, he is limited to the single blocks on either side. The next plant fires boomerangs, or at least what appear to be boomerangs. It costs 175 sun points and doesn't pack much punch, but his attacks can reach enemies completely across the board. Finally, the coconut cannon is a whopping 400 sun points, but his attack will wipe just about anything it hits on the board. 

This next crop of plants was probably the most useful. The first is a fire breathing cousin of the venus flytrap. His fireballs spread three blocks wide and traveled two blocks ahead, giving his damaging flames a wide swath of destruction. The second is an artistic rendering of the pod shooters. These came in four forms. The first shoots a single pod, the second two, the third three, and the fourth fires a single pod in both directions, in front and behind. The third plant is obviously a corn cob. He fires a randomly selected piece of corn or pad of butter. The butter was particularly useful as it causes the zombies to pause for a brief moment until all of the butter has melted from their faces. It cost 100 sun points. The fire breather was 150. The pod shooters cost 100 points per pod, so the double-shooter cost 200, the triple shooter 300, and so forth. There are other plants available including a land mine and the aforementioned sunflower, but this gives you a general idea of what's out there. 

the zombies

Just like the plants, the zombies come in many forms. The first pictured above is the standard mummy, easy to kill and fairly slow on the approach. The one pictured next was the bane of my existence in the Ancient Egyptian levels. He uses his wand to suck up sun points as they fall from the sky or are created by your sunflowers. He starts sucking sun as soon as he steps on the board so it was necessary to have a long distance weapon like the pod shooter or corn cob to take him out quickly before he could steal too many of your precious sun points (which were used to buy more flowers). The next two come from the Pirate Bay level. The first wasn't so annoying on his own, but he was able to send out his pet parrot to eat your plants without so much as a "thank you." Again, it is useful to have a long distance plant to take this annoying fellow out as quickly as possible before his bird could do too much damage to the carefully constructed plant formation you have been creating. Although the punching plant (as I called it) is able to destroy the bird, not much else can stop it from chowing down on your sunflowers or other vital plant friends. Finally, there's the standard pirate zombie. He is the Pirate Bay equivalent to the first mummy. Slow and fairly weak, although when attacking in groups he and his cohorts could be quite annoying. 

The Wild West zombies presents its own set of issues, but I think Pirate Bay was probably my favorite level. At one point, cannons come out and fire midget zombies at your side of the map. Those little guys made the funniest noise and, although they were extremely annoying, they were also a source of never-ending laughter for yours truly. 

special gameplay

Not only were there the standard levels described above, but you could access special areas by collecting (or buying) keys. These would open up entirely new areas of the maps that had levels with specific requirements. For example, one level chooses which of the plants you could use by bringing them up a conveyer belt system on the left-hand side of the screen. You are normally allowed to pick six plants for each level, but in these special levels you had to take what you were given. Sometimes this proved to be quite useful, while others it gave the gamer a challenge that bordered on headache. 

  

The player moves from level to level via stargates. You can clearly see the star here that took you from Ancient Egypt to Pirate Bay. While I wouldn't exactly call it replay-ability, you were pretty much forced to go back and replay levels in order to earn stars and open the stargates. I found this mildly annoying at points because certain requirements were laid down before a level was begun. If you failed to meet these requirements (kill 15 zombies in 30 seconds or only use 12 plants), you failed to earn the subsequent star. While I don't necessarily care for linear games, being forced to go back and replay nearly every level in order to progress was a bit of an annoyance. If there was one drawback to the game, this was it. I would have preferred to have the game move in a linear fashion and offer bonuses for replaying certain levels. Don't get me wrong, you were richly rewarded for completing the levels while following the requirements. Still, forced replay isn't really my cup of tea. I like to have the option to replay a particularly fun level rather than being forced to do so in order to progress. However, it is what it is and I managed to amass enough stars to make it through all three levels without paying for the pleasure. 

closing arguments

PopCap has done it again. They managed to create a game that is fun for all ages, addictive, and original. If you are looking for the next gaming app to add to your handheld device or iPad, this is it. While they didn't really break any new ground as there are a plethora of tower defense games out there (the format seems to work well on controller-less devices), this is definitely one of the best. If you're as tired of Angry Birds as I am and Peggle is wearing thin after your thousandth hour, give this one a look. It's free both in the iTunes store and on Android phones, so you won't blow your load on a game that doesn't turn out to be all that you'd hoped. Instead, they operate on the much maligned pay-to-play system where the game is beatable without spending money, but there are plenty of opportunities for you to make it easier on yourself by dropping a buck or two on keys, stars, or special plants. I refuse to take part in this game structure for the most part, just on general principle. That said, there were lots of times I REALLY wanted to throw a few bucks at it in order to make the game easier. However, it isn't necessary to complete the game and you can play it successfully either way. All in all, Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time was a joy to play and just challenging enough to keep me coming back. I highly recommend you give it a shot and see if it's up your alley. 

the math

Objective Score: 8/10

Bonuses: +1 for the leveling system that kept me coming back for more. It makes you want to keep playing to open up new and more powerful flowers with which to dispatch the undead.

Penalties: -1 for forced replay of completed levels. Once I've beaten a level I'm ready to move on. I don't want to have to go back and beat the same level again, this time with more stipulations on how I finish the task. 

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10. Well worth your time and attention.