Review: Carrion

 As gamers we spend so much time going on a power fantasy where we save the helpless, mow down hundreds of lesser enemies and ultimately defeat the big bad at the end to save the world/planet/galaxy/universe that it can become somewhat rote. It’s rare that a game lets you be that big bad and rarer still where there isn’t some reconciliation at the end. Enter Carrion, where the developers decided to let you play as that big bad. 

Carrion puts you in control of a blood drenched tentacle monster with a taste for human flesh, and sets you lose in a facility full of said walking food. It is a joy to play up to a point and doesn’t out stay its welcome with a relatively short run time, but I have never encountered a game that screams for one of the most used video game mechanics in history and never gets it. 

Simply moving the monster around the map is an absolute joy, it just feels amazing to get around and the only times you can’t get to a particular spot is because you haven’t found the required upgrade yet. Yes, this is a metroidvania style game so upgrades come at a decent pace and allow you to get around easier or survive combat encounters better. 

Speaking of, the combat is slightly weird. The majority of the NPC’s are fodder, literally, and are used to replenish biomass which serves as your health. There is a morbid satisfaction to entering a room full of unarmed scientists and ripping them all apart, sometimes rolling over the scene and covering it in blood. It harks of those horror movie scenes where the monster annihilates an supposedly ‘elite’ squad of soldiers and provides some of the games coolest moments. 

As you progress, however, those NPC’s get guns. This starts with some obviously overly ambitious security guards and office workers grabbing weapons and thinking they are brave and they don’t pose too much of a threat, but eventually you get the actual soldiers and without considered use of the environment and a deft hand on the controller can prove a problem due to the forward shields they carry. These guys upgrade to flame throwing wielding annoyances and the ultimate enemy, the mech. Again though, through ability use, knowledge of the room/level and agile thumbs they don’t pose a huge problem. 

It means the game is, for the most part, a breeze to play through. As I said at the beginning it is a joy to control and it’s at its best when it goes all in on the overpowered monster loose in an underground facility trope that is the games main selling point. Unfortunately, it isn’t without its problems which is a shame because with just a bit of tweaking Carrion could be one of the year's best games. 

I said it’s great to control which is true, however, as the creature gets bigger it can get in its own way and make it difficult to move vertically. I am not exactly sure how this can be rectified, and it is a relatively small issue but it can be frustrating. Same goes for moving around in water as it can be hard to track which bit is the ‘front’ so you can end up moving in circles to get through a section. 

This size issue can cause problems with a certain type of defense system the facility has as well. This is a mine, i guess, that sticks to the biomass and is an instant kill when it goes off after a couple of seconds. They appear at set locations and while there is an upgrade that stops them killing you, it is possible to accidentally drift into their reaction zone and get killed when you don’t have the energy needed to stop it. Again, like all but one issue in Carrion, it's an annoyance more than anything. 

The main issue, and one that I don’t think any long time gamer would be able to understand why it isn’t included, is that this game needs a map. Desperately. It is ridiculous that it isn’t included given the lack of any other on screen direction other than your ability and health indicators, and given that the game is a metroidvania style game which inherently means a lot of backtracking and returning to old areas for upgrades, it is a glaring omission.

It is insane that one of the most used, and some would argue, basic video game mechanics is completely not in the game. Moreover, this was a deliberate design decision by the developers and speaks to an age old problem of “Well I can finish it without one so so can they.” I mean, to be fair you can, but not without an immense amount of moving through areas multiple times for no reason whatsoever. 

The lack of a map is Carrion’s most frustrating and disappointing aspects and I hope the developers learn from this mistake and have more respect for their audience's time in the future as the despite that one massive issue and a few niggles, it is a great playing and fun game that genuinely offers something different to the usual power fantasy. I do recommend Carrion, just be aware that it will hugely frustrate you by the end.

Review: Crackdown 3

I remember, back in the day, playing the very first Crackdown. It had its problems, but it was so fun to power up to point where you can leap tall buildings in a single bound, blast generic bad guys in the face and have a good time. It was an original IP for the Xbox 360 and a brilliantly fun, turn off your brain time. 

Fast forward twelve years and we have Crackdown 3, released for Xbox and PC earlier this year. Unfortunately, while the same basic formula applies, and this time features loveable tough man Terry Crews, the magic hasn’t translated because games have evolved over the last few years leaving the third game feeling stuck in the past. 

That’s not to say it doesn’t do what it says on the tin: Crackdown 3 is very much a Crackdown game, but that is kind of the problem. Rather than evolving the formula in any significant way, a few half baked ideas from other games have been added, then the same method of progression has been kept in while a lock on mechanic makes the shooting a little too easy and formulaic. This results in a competent game, but one that isn’t overly exciting and can quickly devolve into boredom. 

In it’s defence, Crackdown 3 fails to fall into the trap a lot of open world games do - over filling the map. There is plenty to do, but not so much that it becomes a slog to get through and the overall game becomes nothing more than a checklist. The developers at Sumo Digital managed to get the balance just right, with enough things to do to keep you playing but not so much that its overwhelming. It’s just a shame that this is the best thing the game does. 

Shooting enemies becomes rote quickly, and despite there being the ability to target individual body parts when getting close to bad guys, you rarely need to do it, plus how this is implemented is strange. I played on PC, so to target an enemy is a click of the right mouse button, fire the left, but when I got closer I could do a quick little movement of the mouse to target the head or arms. It was a weird way to do it because it feels counter intuitive to move the mouse in such a way. More than that though, I didn’t need to do it, I could kill the guy only slightly quicker with headshots than I could just targeting them normally. 

Once I gave up on trying to do headshots, the combat got better but so easy that the only times I died were down to poor positioning on my part. The variety of weapons, I must admit, were pretty cool, nothing spectacular apart from a couple of the bigger rocket launchers, but I always had the right tool for the job. Getting better over time with them helped a lot too, but again this added to the ‘this is a crackdown ass crackdown game’ feel. 

As for the other main part of the gameplay - running around the city, that again does the job but I wouldn’t call it Mario levels of precision, far from it. The jumping is just a little too floaty for the number of platforming puzzles available to you, and while this is compensated for as you level up your agility skill by grabbing glowing agility orbs dotted around the world, the over reliance on platforming challenges in the form of towers you have to climb to get rid of the bad guys propaganda leads to frustration as its all too easy to jump over the platform. 

What is that propaganda replaced with? Terry Crews. The setup for the story is that the agency (the ‘good guys’) sent a team to the city of New Providence as the source of a global power outage had been traced there. The opening cut-scene sees the transport shot down, and thus the only agent left is you (unless playing co-op). There are several agent models to pick from, but let's be honest, play as Terry Crews, he is the biggest draw here. Unfortunately he is also massively underused. 

Cutscenes don’t feature any lines from him, apart from the opening one, and while jumping around the world and getting into fights gives you little quips it's not enough. The biggest thing is that when you complete a tower, the giant red hologram of the games big bad is replaced with a giant blue hologram of Mr Crews, spouting lines about how the bad guys are bad. Which you don’t really hear unless stood directly underneath a tower. 

It’s a shame because he is a funny guy and has a singular brand of angry, so any previous experience of his work makes his use here disappointing at best and outright terrible at worst. The marketing all surrounded him, but don’t be fooled, you can play as any other character and get just as good results, but still, play as Terry Crews cause you might as well. 

The term ‘It’s a shame’ pretty much sums up the whole experience. Keeping the essence of Crackdown is possible while still evolving the game, but that didn’t happen here. Even the more modern aspects are a let down. There is a very lite version of the Nemesis system from the Shadow of Mordor games here, but it's just not what you want from such a thing. Where in that game if you took out a nemesis they are replaced by an upcoming orc, here you are given basically the same screen but when you take one out, that's it, they are done and you move onto the next. Once they kill them all you get to take on the head of the organisation they work for. 

Speaking of that big bad, while I appreciate that I put the game on easy, that final boss battle was one of the easiest battles I have ever played. I honestly had more trouble with the lower level bosses than I did the last one. In part this was because I was at a much higher level, part because I had probably the best explosive weapon in the game, but mainly it really is just that easy and it left me feeling unsatisfied with the end game. 

I did try the Wrecking Zone multiplayer mode, which was actually kinda cool. Jumping all over the map blowing it up as you hunt down the other team was cool, but there was so little skill involved it became boring quick. The same lock on system is here, so it's not a challenge to take someone down, and the environmental destruction, while cool adds little to the experience. So few people were playing I got into three matches with the same set of people then the last one took longer than five minutes to match make so I gave up. 

Again, it’s a shame, a bit more thought and wrecking zone could have been really ace but at present it feels like a tacked on afterthought that has had half the resources thrown at it that it really needs. This is especially bad considering that when the game was first announced a huge deal was made of this mode and how it used the cloud to power its destructive environments. It might still do that, but the cloud isn’t a substitute for good game design and ultimately this is where the mode falls down. 

Overall,  Crackdown 3 is a game of missed potential, a game who's core essence could have been kept while taking on more modern elements that would have given it a fresh feel. It could have used its celebrity protagonist in so many better ways that it feels like the money spent should have been used on improving the game and had it followed through on its promise of cloud powered multiplayer become one of the best games of the year. 

Unfortunately, my reaction by the end of my time with it was a definitive ‘meh’. It is a half decent way to while away a few hours but nothing that will stick with you and a game that is easily outshined by more modern takes on open world games. It's on Xbox Game Pass, so to be fair if you have that then it is worth a play, but don’t be fooled, even then it is outclassed by other games on the same service. It’s a shame.