61 Frames Per Second

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• The 61FPS Review: Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X.

  Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. Tom Clancy’s H.A.W.X. is a fun game. Flying a state-of-the-art combat jet over satellite-rendered landscapes in a game halfway between simulation and twitch thrills just works. The control is simple, the goals basic. But let’s be honest here. You don’t play game about flying a killer plane and look for a reflective experience. You play it for the rush of speed and vertigo, narrow escapes and quick action. H.A.W.X. provides that. Just not enough of it. Read More... Posted Apr 09 2009, 08:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: ubisoft, 61fps review, Adam Rosenberg, h.a.w.x., tom clancy, ghost recon advance warfighter, endwar, hawx, graw

• The 61FPS Review: Killzone 2

  NOTE: The following review and the grade attached to it are based entirely on Killzone 2’s single player campaign. Stay tuned to 61FPS for a follow-up, post-release examination of the game’s considerable multiplayer component. Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. There may be hundreds of them, but first-person shooters can really be broken down into two categories. The first type of FPS is marked by a strong balance between play, narrative, difficulty and pacing. If that balance is good enough, the game warrants a full playthrough. The other type is competent and even entertaining, but it’s just one more game with a gun. For one reason or another, maybe the challenge isn’t engaging enough to keep me going, maybe it’s the story, this type loses my interest long before the credits roll. Guerilla Games’ Killzone 2 almost falls into the latter camp for me. Had it not been for the demands of this review, I never would have finished the game. I’m glad I stuck it out though. Killzone 2 stumbles in its first half. Unwieldy controls, awkward combat dynamics and an unfocused, impersonal narrative are a lethal combination. But during the game’s back half, everything gels. It just takes some time to get Read More... Posted Feb 27 2009, 03:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: playstation 3, killzone, sony, call of duty, 61fps review, gears of war, call of duty 4, killzone 2, Adam Rosenberg, guerilla games, killzone liberation

• Weight of History: Velvet Assassin and National Identity in Game Design

  Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. Velvet Assassin is an anomaly. For one, it’s a Hard Stealth game. Not “hard” in the challenging sense — though expect the finished product to be difficult — but rather it stays true to its roots. Sneaking isn’t just one possible route to success in Velvet Assassin; it’s the only one. Show yourself even once, and get a face full of bullets for your troubles. I can’t even remember the last video game that focused solely on striking from the shadows. Then there’s the premise and its real life inspiration. The game’s protagonist is Violette Summer. She works as an MI6 spy behind enemy lines during World War II. The game unfolds as a flashback, with Violette recounting her wartime experiences from a hospital ward. Violette Szabo is the real life velvet assassin. After her husband Etienne was killed in action at the Battle of Battle of El Amain, the twenty-two year-old Szabo joined Britain’s Special Operations Executive as a spy. She completed one successful mission in 1944, but was captured following an attempt to sabotage German communications prior to the Normandy invasion. After enduring months of torture and hardship while confined in a Nazi concentration camp, Szabo was executed in 1945. The Nazis are the undisputed “bad guys” in the game — how could they not be? — but it’s interesting how nationality informs Assassin’s design. Its creators are Hamburg-based Replay Studios, and the context of their German heritage colors even a brief session with the game. For example, Violette frequently comes across personal effects belonging to one soldier or another. During my hands-on, I came across a love letter addressed to the sweetheart of a German soldier. Perhaps even the one whose throat I’d just viciously slashed open. In moments like these, it’s tangible how national perspective has affected the game’s development. Read More... Posted Feb 20 2009, 07:00 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: Adam Rosenberg, velvet assassin, tenchu, splinter cell, gamecock, southpeak interactive, replay studios

• Returning to the Return of the Castle Wolfenstein Returned: This Time It’s Just Plain Ol’ Wolfenstein

  Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg covers games from his secret lair in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, typing, reading and playing the days away as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. There must be a considerable amount of tension around Raven Software’s offices as they prepare Wolfenstein, the latest sequel to the id Software’s grand-pappy of all first-person shooters. After all, the once-cool practice of gunning down Nazis with a beefy chain gun isn’t the uncommon gaming experience it once was. Then there’s Raven, whose talent is eclipsed not only by their recent history of releasing numerous interchangeable genre titles, but also living in the shadow of id themselves. That isn’t necessarily bad news for Wolfenstein, but it does have the effect of keeping expectations firmly in check. Seeing it at Activision’s New York City preview party certainly didn’t raise those expectations. A few minutes of watching Wolfenstein gave a bad impression: another generic World War II shooter with less-than-stellar graphics and straightforward action. It’s when I stuck around for a few more minutes that things started to get odd. For example, there were suddenly Nazis flying through the air in slow motion. Turned out to be anti-gravity. That’s kind of weird. Then there was B.J. Blazkowicz using a magical amulet to “see” Nazis on the other side of a wall. And then shoot them. Not so conventional anymore. Read More... Posted Feb 19 2009, 09:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: activision, id, wolfenstein, tron, far cry 2, Adam Rosenberg, return to castle wolfenstein, id software, raven software, jedi knight, wolfenstein 3d

• Cross-Atlantic Buzz!

  Guest contributor Adam Rosenberg resides in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where he slaves away daily as a contributing editor for UGO’s Gamesblog as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. Relentless Software’s Buzz games are multi-stage quiz challenges modeled after television game shows, right down to the snarky announcer. Players compete for points in multiple rounds, each one revolving around a different gimmick for rewarding or punishing correct and incorrect answers. The thing about Buzz is that it’s always been big in Europe, but not so much over here in the States. The series debuted in the UK back in October 2005 with Buzz!: The Music Quiz and it saw three sequels before hitting North America in October 2007. The PS3 debut, Buzz! Quiz TV, featuring both user-created quizzes and online play, is Sony’s most focused attempt to establish the series in America. When I approached the new American Culture Quiz Pack expansion, I wondered: how does the ‘American angle’ come out in a game so firmly rooted in its British origins? Is American trivia the key to Buzz’s potential cross-continental success? The allure of a game show is, after all, rooted in the American Pop Dream. When television first proliferated as an entertainment medium during the 1950s, quiz shows were some of the biggest attention-grabbers. All of a sudden, Joey Everyman could stand in front of a camera, answer some trivia questions and go home several thousand dollars richer. Fame and fortune; just what every American wants. Read More... Posted Jan 30 2009, 04:30 PM by John Constantine with | with no comments Filed under: playstation 3, nintendo, wii, sony, scea, wii play, Adam Rosenberg, buzz, are you smarter than a fifth grader, jeopardy

• The 61FPS Review: Prince of Persia

  Guest reviewer Adam Rosenberg resides in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, where he slaves away daily as a contributing editor for UGO’s Gamesblog as his dog Loki looks on in bewilderment. In addition to the noble pursuit of video games, Adam enjoys spending time with fine film, finer food and his fine fiancée Bekah. I’m not really sure the title “Prince of Persia” is relevant anymore. After all, in Ubisoft’s latest – a reboot of the trilogy started with Sands of Time – you play a wandering scoundrel: two parts Han Solo, two parts le Parkour founder David Belle and one part Indiana Jones. You could argue that the open-world, Middle Eastern-flavored surroundings might be situated in an ancient, fantasy-world version of Persia, but it just as easily might not be. But hey, that’s brand recognition for you. Prince of Persia is a streamlined spectacle, lighter on challenge than previous series entries but also more visually appealing by several orders of magnitude, thanks to the face-lifted, cel-shaded art design. Meanwhile, the gameplay remains fundamentally unchanged; as the titular (not-)Prince, you’ll still be wall-running, column-groping and bar-swinging, all of it supplemented by increasingly frequent dalliances with magic. But to be honest, there’s not much in the way of "game" in Prince of Persia. It is essentially a massive, player-guided Quick Time Event broken up by occasional displays of QTE-fueled swordplay. Read More... Posted Dec 19 2008, 02:30 PM by John Constantine with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: prince of persia, ubisoft, 61fps review, jake gyllenhaal, sands of time, Adam Rosenberg