Grand Theft Auto V is a game that does not get off on the right foot at all. The intro tutorial is a complete mess.

Remember how in Grand Theft Auto IV, the protagonist was introduced in a cutscene during the opening credits? We learn about his personality and motivations, and why he is coming to America. Then you get off the boat, gameplay begins, and you are immediately given a simple driving tutorial in which you taxi your drunk cousin two blocks to his shithole apartment, all the while learning more about the characters and the game world itself. Then you do some simple taxi missions that let you practice driving while simultaneously letting you learn the layout of the city and soak in the environment. Then you start getting asked to beat people up and throw bricks through store windows and get tutorialized on how to fight, shoot, and do other advanced mechanics. And during all this time, the game slowly builds up a hatred and distrust for the criminals that you are working for while simultaneously laying the foundations of the game's depressing-but-exceptionally-introspective plot.

Remember all that? Remember how well that game was paced? Remember how the tutorials always showed up at appropriate times, explained a mechanic during non-interactive cutscenes so that you can pay attention to the instructions, then lets you practice the mechanic while it's fresh in your memory? Remember how well it slowly built up the important mechanics one at a time - as they became relevant - while also immersing you in the game world and building up its story to a climactic closing of the first act? Yeah, that was great game design, wasn't it?

Well, GTA V has none of that.

An almost unbearable tutorial.

The intro tutorial literally throws the player into the middle of a bank robbery in progress. You have no idea who your character is, why he's robbing a bank, who your companions are, or what the "plan" that everybody keeps telling you to "stick to" is. Then it puts an assault rifle in your hands, and a tiny little box pops up in the corner of the screen with 6-point font telling you what to do while you're trying to do the thing that it's telling you to do - and hopefully not doing the wrong thing. And then they stick you in the middle of a gunfight with an entire small army of police, and these barely-visible text popups try to tell you how to use the cover mechanics, switch weapons, and trigger super powers - all while you're being shot at. Then you go for hours before using many of these mechanics again, so you forget them all because you had zero time to practice and remember them, and they were all thrown at you at once.

Table of contents

• What happened to pacing?
  • In median res: the good, the bad, and the ugly
• Crime by committee
  • A party-based single-player action game
  • [Poorly] Time-sharing the player's attention
• Lots to do, not much reason to do it
  • Ownership without responsibility
  • Ownership with responsibility: the property paradox
• A brighter, more colorful Grand Theft Auto
  • The Archipelago States of America: a pet peeve
• In the shadows of a masterpiece

Ladies, perhaps you can help me:

Is Lollipop Chainsaw a smart, funny commentary of the sexist treatment of women in video games? Or is it a stupid, offensive piece of sexual exploitation? I honestly can't tell, and based on the lack of maturity in the humor and visual styles of both Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw, I'm leaning more towards "stupid". I can say, however, that if you are a 13-year-old boy, then you shouldn't bother reading any more of this review, because this game has a hot, blonde cheerleader in it that kills zombies with a chainsaw, and you will love it! But don't get too excited: despite the notice for "partial nudity" in the ESRB ratings label on the box, you won't see anything that you couldn't see on a pixelated beach.

As for me, a ditzy, busty, blonde cheerleader isn't going to be able to overrule my discriminating tastes and single-handedly carry the game alone on her well-endowed chest. If the gameplay doesn't hold up, then even the best character design and cleverest wit won't save the game from a mediocre review.

Table of Contents

• "Plot": Blonde Cheerleader kills zombies with "sparkle power" chainsaw
  • Juliet Starling is bound to become a popular Rule 34 subject
  • Other characters are uninspired and annoying
• Hack and slash zombie action with girly "sparkle" power
  • Basic combat is sound, but conflicted
  • Advanced moves are also clumsy and tedious
  • And it's a "quarter-eater"
• Gameplay problems aside, production values are pretty high
  • Boring villains, but interesting themed levels
  • Excellent casting
• If you're not a 13-year-old boy, try it first, and make sure it's a game for you

I didn’t have high hopes for Silent Hill Downpour. As such, I didn’t buy it new. I waited two weeks, bought it used off ebay, and finished it over a weekend. Sadly, pretty much all of my pre-release expectations turned out to be true.

Upon booting up the game, I was immediately given mixed opinions about the game. There was a mandatory install, which fortunately only took a few minutes, but which is always an annoying thing to sit through (except for Metal Gear Solid 4, which managed to make it somewhat amusing). After the install though, I was treated to a stylish title screen with new composer Daniel Licht’s enjoyable title track.

Then the game starts, and the very first thing you do as the new main character, prison inmate Murphy Pendleton, is murder a defenseless fellow inmate during a combat tutorial that takes place in the prison showers. Murphy clearly has some beef with this fellow inmate (named Napier), and it seems like Napier probably deserved it, but murdering a defenseless person in cold blood is hardly what I’d expect from a Silent Hill game.

Table of Contents

• Combat so clumsy, it makes Silent Hill 2 look like Soul Caliber
  • Fighting (or running) for survival
• Weather the storm
  • Pointless side quests
  • Almost useless map
• A good protagonist doesn’t save a derivative story
  • Spoilers for Downpour and other Silent Hill games.
• Downpour ends up being a very sloppy game
  • Visual improvements over Homecoming are stifled by technical issues
  • Unnecessary darkness
• Trying to fix the things Climax and Double Helix did wrong
• Breaking itself with underwhelming design
  • Monsters and Otherworld are uninteresting
  • It just isn’t scary
  • And it’s not a Silent Hill game

Years ago, when the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 were brand-spanking new, I was debating about whether I should get a 360 or stick with Sony and get a PS3. I had a lot of built-up loyalty to the PlayStation and the game franchises that had been exclusive to that console: Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Ace Combat, Devil May Cry, Grand Theft Auto, God of War, Gran Turismo, and so on. But as time went one, more and more of these game franchises jumped to being multi-platform, chipping away at my justification for saving up for a PS3 instead of the cheaper 360. But when it all came down to it, I knew I would still be able to get all those games on the PS3, and there would still be a few of them that would remain exclusives (Metal Gear Solid ended up being the only one on the list that stayed exclusive and is worth a damn any more). But there wasn’t anything on the 360 that specifically jumped out at me. I kind of wanted Ace Combat 6 and Forza, and Star Trek Legacy looked interesting. But neither one wowed me enough to buy a whole console. I wasn’t into Halo or Gears of War, or Fable, so none of the big-name Xbox exclusives really pushed me over the top.

But there was one game that kept the thought of purchasing an Xbox 360 at the back of my mind. That game was Alan Wake. I tracked it on the internet for years, waiting for its release. Its gorgeous, scenic visuals and promise of a psychological horror story set in a small, mountain town had me captivated. But the game kept getting delayed. The fact that it was supposed to be on PC, and the lack of a firm release date, eventually caused me to give up on purchasing an Xbox. Eventually, the game was released to critical acclaim, but I missed it, since I was waiting for the PC port that eventually got canceled.

Well, I recently bought an Xbox 360 for my sister’s birthday, and one of the things I picked up for it was Alan Wake. I finally got a chance to play this game that I’ve been wanting to play for over four years.

So is it worth the wait?