Also in the last issue of the Georgia Straight are my reviews of Bastion, Child of Eden, and Shadows of the Damned.

The July 26 issue of the Georgia Straight includes my reviews — and comparisons — of two recently-released games.

I love a good dungeon crawler, the kind of action game in which characters do battle by swinging swords, firing arrows, or casting spells, and the objective is to kill as many evil enemies as possible and take their stuff. Dungeon Siege III and Hunted: The Demon’s Forge are two good examples.

Alice: Madness Returns
(Electronic Arts; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature)

While most people think of Lewis Carroll’s stories about Alice as full of childhood wonder, game designer American McGee sees them as bursting with nightmares. His Alice is on the brink of insanity, and in this game, a sequel to the 2000 PC game, she’s a young woman haunted by memory and doing everything she can to forget.

The objective of this action platformer is to uncover Alice’s memories so she can discover what’s at the root of her madness. The Victorian London in which the game is set is also full of nightmares—full of prostitutes and criminals, chimneys belching soot into the sky, casting a constant red hue over the city—but it’s when Alice descends into Wonderland, becoming a young girl once again, that Carroll’s bizarre creatures really come to life.

Guided by the Cheshire Cat, Alice meets most of the expected characters as she travels through the dreamlike environments. Equipped with such weapons as a vorpal blade (from Jabberwocky) and a pepper grinder for ranged attacks, she battles things like slithering ruins (wriggling slugs), bolterflies, and madcaps (miniature Mad Hatters armed with cutlery). Alice can jump and float, and she can shrink to access tunnels and secret areas. While small, Alice can see things she wouldn’t otherwise.

The controls and mechanics work fine but the platforming and combat play become a bit tedious after a while. This is a long game that could have been better edited and paced. But with a superb script, some fantastic voice acting, and brilliant art direction, Alice: Madness Returns is a chilling and compelling journey through the looking glass.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

F.E.A.R. 3
(Warner Bros.; PC, PS3, Xbox 360; rated mature)

Some may think of the F.E.A.R. games as survival horror, but they really are more first-person shooters than anything, and that’s especially true of the third game in the franchise. Developed by Day 1 Studios, F.E.A.R. 3 is a tight shooter experience with good controls and a standard, if not outstanding, cover mechanism.

You play as Point Man, the protagonist of the first game, and in the opening sequence you are rescued from captivity by the spirit of Paxton Fettel, the brother you killed at the end of that first game. While Point Man uses guns and grenades to fight, Fettel is equipped with telekinesis and the ability to possess enemies, using their weapons against them or even blasting them apart from the inside. The brothers make for an interesting variation on two-player co-op in a FPS game, with each character having a different combat strategy than the other.

If you’re playing by yourself, after you’ve completed a level in the game you can play it again as Fettel, who can use telekinesis and possess enemies, which at least doubles the replayability of the game. You cannot switch back and forth between the two brothers in the middle of the game, however.

Opposing the brothers in F.E.A.R. 3 are soldiers bent on a cover-up, cultists caught up in the wave of paranormal activity in the city of Fairport, and creatures borne of the twisted psyche of the powerful psychic, Alma Wade, the mother of the two brothers and the woman whose tragic story is at the heart of the franchise.

Despite the horrific set-up, though, there aren’t any skillful scares here. It’s mostly just cheap shadow jumps. Shooter geeks who are desperate for something to play will be satisfied with F.E.A.R. 3, but for others there’s just not enough to make it stand out from the crowd.

Cross-posted at the Georgia Straight

In the July 13 edition of the Georgia Straight is my feature look at Captain America: Super Soldier, the action adventure game developed in Vancouver at Next Level Games.

The video game Captain America: Super Soldier is technically a movie tie-in for the summer blockbuster film Captain America: The First Avenger, which opens in theatres on July 22. But aside from being released at the same time, there is little connecting the two properties.

I also take a peek at what’s been going on inside the top secret bunker at Next Level, where games for Nintendo are developed.

In the middle of one of the floors occupied by Next Level Games in downtown Vancouver is a bunker. It’s a walled garden within the studio, complete with its own security access and network connections.