Unearthed: Trail of Ibn Battuta – PC Game Review

I am just going to come out and say it: Unearthed is an Uncharted/Tomb Raider clone. It’s basically a generic version of uncharted targeted toward the budget PC game market. The game makes no attempt to mask this at all! In fact, they seem to take pride in the fact that they are a cheap knock-off.

Still, as far as knock-offs go, the story isn’t half bad! It’s an episodic game, and has a decent plotline that could evolve into an interesting story. Though, it seems as if we will never really know for certain, since Episode 1 came out in 2014, and no episode 2 has ever followed! Will one eventually pop up? Possibly, though I wouldn’t hold my breath for it! The first episode ends in a cliff hanger too! So, if you are someone who really enjoyed the game? Too bad! No ending for you!

The game is made by Semaphore, but a part of me has to wonder if this is the gaming branch of Asylum films. It’s just insane how much of a blatant knock-off this game is. Still, that doesn’t bother me much! I actually don’t mind cheap knock-offs! In fact if I am being completely honest, it being a knock-off of Uncharted was the main reason for buying it. (That and it was on sale for only 99 cents!)

Anyway, like I said! The game is an Uncharted knock off, which means it features many of the same elements from Uncharted. Stealth kills, rooftop chases, driving, riding passenger while firing guns at pursuing enemies…Everything you would expect from an uncharted game, just in a miniature format. Everything is shorter.

So, how is the game? Well, it starts out ok! everything seems to be textured nicely. Unfortunately, while the textures used were fantastic, a lot of people had a shine to it. This made people, and their clothes occasionally look like plastic! It’s not present in everything, but the few times it occurs is a bit of a distraction.

As far as the acting goes, I wasn’t that impressed. The voice acting wasn’t that great at all! In fact, it was some pretty poor voice acting! Maybe some of the worst that I have heard in a video game. They really should have just went with no voice over! That would have been an improvement!

As I start actually playing the game, the first thing I notice is the poor animation! Still, this is an indie game, and I am sure the company isn’t set up with motion captioning studios. I have seen worse in Indie games…Hell, I have seen worse in some AAA titles too! So, the characters move stiffly and nothing feels smooth! It’s about on par with what you would expect from a 5 dollar game in terms of animation.

What isn’t on par with what you would expect is the amount of glitches! Seriously, was this thing even beta tested? I was killed by invisible enemies, detected and shot through walls(Which kinda defeats the purpose of taking cover really), Died from fall damage while going down some steps and even jumped THROUGH a pillar and off a ledge instead of jumping onto the pillar! All that was just what I encountered during one play through! I can only imagine the bugs that I haven’t yet encountered!

The game is 100% Xbox 360 gamepad compatible, but the controls are also very shoddy! You can use them, but everything feels clunky, and I just can’t seem to move exactly the way I want or need to! This makes it especially annoying when trying to maneuver across thin walkways above a deep chasm.

The “Puzzles” are also very simple. There’s no way you will have trouble solving any of the puzzles in this game, but apparently it has a hint feature just in case! I am kind of curious if anyone has actually used it, but I am assuming they haven’t, and if they did I doubt they would ever admit it.

Lastly, the game is SHORT! I mean, obviously you expect it to be short, but it’s REALLY short. The game can be complete in an hour and a half! Most of that isn’t even real gaming either! A good portion of that is just walking down a street, driving around repeating roads and “Fist fighting” foes!

Is it worth picking up? I suppose if you get it on a 99 cent sale like I did, and you enjoy cheap knock-offs and the chuckles they can bring..then sure. Otherwise, 5 bucks is asking way too much for what the game provides.

PROS

• cheap!
• Good textures!
• Rips off Uncharted!
• Nice Variety of levels
• Gamepad support

CONS

• Low asking price is STILL too expensive.
• Poor animations.
• Poor voice acting.
• Incredibly glitchy
• Flawed controls.
• Simple Puzzles
• Incredibly short.
• Incomplete game that ends in a cliffhanger.

Overall rating: 2.5/10

Wil Wheaton – The Boy Wonder?

Image by Heather F via Flickr

I just discovered that Richard William Wheaton III, or as he is more commonly known as, Wil Wheaton, has a voice appearance in the soon to be released game DC Universe Online, and for those keeping track the release date for the game has been moved up, and is now due out january 11th.

Wil Wheaton, who is better known for his role as Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, is not unfamiliar with voice acting in games. He has lent his voice to many of the grand theft auto games, Fallout: New Vegas and has even voiced characters in EverQuest II. So, it’s not hugely surprising to see him voicing a character in yet another SOE MMORPG.

What I do find amusing is the character that he is voicing. Robin, the annoying kid sidekick of Batman. I find it Ironic, that the actor who portrayed the annoying kid sidekick on ST:TNG is no trading in his pips for a cape, but retaining the annoying kid sidekick role. I had thought him above that!

To be fair, his newer roles are usually anything but annoying kid sidekicks. In fact, he tends to portray a villain these days, and he does it quite well! In the series Leverage, he plays a villainous hacker, and in The Big Bang Theory he plays — Well, he plays himself but an viler version of himself. In The Guild he plays Fawkes which actually reminds me of his same character on Big Bang.

All that considering, I find it surprising he is playing Robin. My first choice for him would have been The Blue Beetle, since that was his role on the Series Batman: The Brave and the Bold. However, my second choice for him would have been The Calculator, villainous and Geeky. Nothing says modern-day Wil Wheaton better than that!

Voice acting

When I was younger I wanted to be a mobster or a police officer….but then after I grew out of that, I decided I wanted to be an actor. I ended up taking drama classes and even TV broadcasting once I was in high school. I enjoyed both classes, they were fun and involved with what I so desperately wanted to do once I got out of school. I never pursued that however, mainly because the realisation was…I wasn’t an actor, I had no contacts in the field and I had no idea where to even start. So, I let that slip away.

That dream has sorta passed. However not totally, maybe I should say it’s “Evolved”? I still would kill to get into acting, but not in the conventional sense. I think it would be fantastic to be a voice actor, like for commercials or video games(Especially video games!). I would do anything for a chance like that.

You have to admire people who can do voice acting in a video game. I mean, they have to convey emotion strictly through words, they have to act without their visuals…I think that requires a lot more talent than someone in a movie or television. In fact, one of the GREATEST Voice Actors(Or Actors in general) is: Raphael Sbarge. He’s done voice acting in a buttload of Star Wars games(Though probablly most famous for doing the voice of Carth Onasi in the Knights of the Old Republic RPG). He’s also done voice work in Everquest II and more recently “Mass Effect”(Another kick ass Sci-Fi RP that might even rival Kotor, but that’s for another blog entry)..And that’s just to name a few. He’s also done a crapload of other voice works for commercials, Cartoons, promo stuff and documentary type stuff.

The guy basically is the best voice actor available and can project emotion through his voice like nobodies business. He also has a very unique voice that stands out, but not so much as to be “Wow, that voice is weird”. It was actually Raphael who originally made me want to get into voice acting when I played a game he did a voice in ages ago..I think it was Grim Flandango or something? Don’t quote me..was a while ago…but this guy has been doing voice work for so long..is it any wonder he’s so good at it?