Edwin Evans-Thirlwell

Posts by Edwin:

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Review

EA DICE is out to level the playing field a second time. FPS Gamer hunkers down in the woods with an Xbox 360 build.

There’s something suspect about the phrase with which the Bad Company sub-franchise is often associated, ‘tactical destruction’. It’s the ‘tactical’ bit, basically. ‘Tactical’ lends ‘destruction’ a veneer of complexity we’re not entirely sure it deserves. Being able to explode cars in people’s faces, or shoot fist-sized lumps out of concrete tank barriers, or level houses from the kitchen windows upwards is undoubtedly a thrill, but there’s not a whole lot of nuance to be extracted.

Talking up the first Bad Company, EA DICE explained to a baying public that its patented Frostbite engine would give players ‘total freedom to be daring and innovative, adapting to and tackling challenges in unexpected Battlefield-style ways’. A less sensational way of wording this – and thus of approaching the highly similar sequel – might be that players have ‘total freedom to blow up stuff to kill people or make them easier to shoot’.
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Will Future Soldier dumb down Ghost Recon?

A few fast and loose thoughts on the press release.

The future's bright?

After teasing the internet rotten last week, Ubisoft’s whisked the dustsheets off a new Ghost Recon game. Specifics on Future Soldier are in short supply right now, with naught but a press release to chew on, but the mere thought of a third tour of duty for Scott Mitchell (assuming he hasn’t fielded a desk job) and co is enough to make us wet the bed.

So what do we know about the title, right now? Well, we know it’ll offer “cutting-edge technology, prototype high-tech weaponry, and state-of-the-art single-player and multiplayer modes” – standard issue features for the battleworn tactical shooter series. But we’re also told that it’ll “go beyond the core Ghost Recon franchise and deliver a fresh gameplay experience, with an unparalleled level of quality that will excite long-time fans and newcomers alike”.

Good news? Sure. The last Ghost Recon was more of a refinement than a reinvention of its predecessor, and it’s high time Ubisoft started pushing some boundaries. But here’s a speculative caveat: the mention of “going beyond the core” and “newcomers” makes it sound a little like the publisher is courting the mainstream market.

We’re pretty down with the mainstream – hey, we review Wii games – but we’re fond of Ghost Recon’s more authentic, less accessible approach to urban warfare, and we wouldn’t want it to go soft. Financial realities presumably dictate that the Future Soldier team branch out from the franchise’s tightly wound fanbase; we just hope they’re able to create a truly scalable product, one which won’t skimp on intricacy and challenge for the layman’s sake.

This is the game soldiers relax with between trips to the Middle East, Ubi. Don’t turn it into Ravin Rabbids.

Press release over the leaf. UPDATE: You can find the announcement trailer on VGTV.
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Halo: Reach – what’s hot, what’s not and what’s in between

What we like and what we don’t like about Bungie’s recent info blowout.

Halo: Reach factoids have been popping up all over the place like decloaking Elites, thanks chiefly to the chaps at Edge and Game Informer but also, somewhat less officially, to EB Games, who let slip a few gameplay screenshots on Wednesday morning. You know what this means, readers? It means Whining Season has officially commenced.

We’ve had a good old gander at the material, and we’re ready to throw down a gauntlet or two. Brace yourselves for some serious subheadings.
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New Perfect Dark XBLA/original comparison shots

N64 classic cleans up a treat in high resolution, hopes to clean up on release day too.

So we weren’t planning on posting screenshots today, but when Rare’s community lead Mike Wilson popped up with side-by-side comparison snaps of Perfect Dark on Xbox Live Arcade and the original game, we couldn’t say no. Wilson would have pulled his Sad Face if we had. I’ve never actually seen Wilson’s Sad Face, but he’s from Rare, so I’m guessing it resembles Gruntilda off Banjo Kazooie. Ugh.

Joanna Dark isn’t currently wearing a Sad Face. She’s quite the alluring one in fact, thanks to the Xbox 360’s graphical chutzpah. That PVC-trimmed physique no longer looks like it’s been hacked from foam packaging blocks with a pair of half-melted plastic scissors.
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