THE SECRET WORLD, DEADLIGHT
THE SECRET WORLD PC
Electronic Arts/Funcom Ever wish MMORPGs such as
World of Warcraft had more horror content, as well as more puzzles and challenging quests, and less of the same old hack-and-slash button- mashing? Then allow me to invite you to The Secret World.
This massively multi-player online game sees three disparate
playable groups (the Illuminati, the Templars and the Dragon) wag- ing war against a monstrous threat, as well as with one another. The Secret World is set on a version of Earth much like our own but ravaged by roaming packs of zombies, evil cultists, oversized mutant beasts that have emerged from the sea and myriad other baddies. To defend yourself, you can specialize in two weapons from any of three different categories (range, melee and magic). But it’ll take more than fighting to save the planet. Quests fre- quently require extensive puzzle-solving, calculated, stealthy gameplay, and even online research (they’ve built a web browser directly into the game for that) to complete. If you’re looking for a mind-numbing title to breeze through, this is not it. The classic numerical levelling system has been jettisoned for
one that uses distributable SP (skill points) and AP (ability points) – gained from quests and monster kills – to boost your charac- ter’s combat ability and wearable talismans (which replace ar- mour here), as well as to purchase special weapon attacks and upgrades. Instead of quests being level-specific, they are ranked
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by difficulty. Still, you are more or less forced to move through the game and the world in a linear fashion or risk stumbling into an area where you are grossly outmatched. Like WoW, there are also multi-man dun-
geons, player vs. player areas, and cabals (a.k.a. guilds) to join, but as with other MMORPGs, how you choose to play and how much time you spend gaming with friends or strangers is ultimately up to you. Though The Secret World was buggy at launch, regular updates have fixed some of
HEADSHOTS: TONS OF QUESTS, HUGE IMMERSIVE WORLD AND STORY TO EXPLORE MISFIRES: OCCASIONAL BUGS AND GLITCHES, REAL-MONEY SYSTEM TO BUY MORE IN-GAME GOODS
DEADLIGHT Xbox Live
Tequila Works Zombies remain horror gaming’s
favourite go-to monster, even for alternate history period pieces. Such is the case with Deadlight, a side-scrolling action arcade puzzle game set in the
great Apocalypse of 1986 where “Shadows” (zombies rebranded, essentially) are freakin’ everywhere. You play Randall Wayne, a for- est ranger from Hope, British Columbia, who’s searching Seattle for his friends and family. From the title screen to the heavily stylized animation to the
melancholic soundtrack, Deadlight oozes atmosphere. The graph- ics utilize colour and shadow exceedingly well to bring an addi- tional element of dark realism to the rotter-infested world you now
0000 HEADSHOTS: GREAT ATMOSPHERE AND GRAPHICS; EASY CONTROLS MISFIRES: SOME LEVEL PUZZLES ARE ANNOYINGLY DIFFICULT RM68
the bigger issues and graphics glitches. Oc- casionally, certain quests still go wonky and become incompletable, and some of the lore that is scattered throughout the game, which fills in the back story of the world and its various factions, is oddly written and dif- ficult to digest. All in all, though, it’s a good- looking genre entry with plenty of occult and monster intrigue. But with the somewhat hefty $14.99 USD monthly subscription fee, it’ll be interesting to see how many visitors to The Secret World take up permanent res- idence there.
MONICA S. KUEBLER
face. The gameplay is similar to 1980s old-school favourite Pitfall, as you jump Randall over gaping holes, cling to ledges and spring deadly traps on unsuspecting Shadows. There is a weapon element, however bullets are at a premium and the old axe, while satisfyingly reliable, doesn’t kill quickly. Deadlight really succeeds in the little touches: as you play through,
you find pages to Randall’s diary that help flesh out the story of your character; all the levels are named after songs popular in the ’70s and early ’80s; and the Shadows are rem- iniscent of the classic Romero-style zombies. There is a richness to these details that helps keep you invested in the story and in Randall’s drive to find his family, and also gives this budget-priced Xbox Live Arcade title an epic feel. Deadlight is revisionist retro-rotter fare done right. BRENTON BENTZ
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