Going the hard way with BioShock Infinite

If you're anything like me, you may have been left wanting for challenge if you played BioShock Infinite on the default difficulty setting. Death may have cost a few bucks and your enemies may have regained a wee bit of health, but that hardly seemed like penalty enough to warrant a change in tactics. Further to that, every man and his dog seemed to be packing enough fruit (and other health recovery items) to open a greengrocer. Every secret of Columbia can be accessed without encountering a lick of trouble, but to get any real sense of satisfaction from the myriad of combat situations you'll encounter over the course of the game, I recommend a second playthrough with 1999 Mode. 

1999 Mode is unlocked by completing the game using any difficulty or, according to IGN, by entering the Konami code while in the main menu. It's the highest difficulty level and it offers reduced spawn points, enemies that deal greater damage, a more fragile Booker DeWitt, and if you don't have enough money to cover the cost of a respawn, it's game over (don't worry though, you'll be able to reload your last save if you're bankrupted). It's not for the faint of heart, but it's far from insurmountable.

While I'll mainly be detailing general strategies, know that some battles are addressed specifically. In other words, spoilers ahead!

Money matters

Coming in a few bucks short at the register might mean that you need to wait a little while longer to experiment with gun and Vigor upgrades on lower difficulties. In 1999 Mode, budgeting can mean the difference between success and losing big chunks of progress. With this in mind, the following strategies should guide your approach to play:

·         Pick and stick with two Vigors: I know it's hard to show restraint with the breadth of visually spectacular abilities available, but there are going to be times where money is tight. Vigors are key to success in combat, but bottom line, you're going to have trouble beating most anything without lead in the equation. For my run, I chose Shock Jockey and Possession and upgraded them completely. Possession was the bedrock of my combat plans as, if nothing else, it leads to a guaranteed kill on standard infantry - including deadly troopers equipped with rocket launchers, flak cannons and sniper rifles. It also serves to slow down Motorised Patriots, Firemen and Zealots, so you can move out of harm's way. Be sure to pick up the "Possession for less" upgrade as soon as possible to make the most of your Salts. Perhaps most importantly of all, Possession allows you to make a few quick bucks when used on any vending machine; if you've got any means of refreshing your salts nearby, you simply have to take the time to steal some Silver Eagles. Shock Jockey offers an effective means of crowd control, particularly when fully upgraded. While it may not do much to slow down Handymen, it can set up a "1-2 punch" against other heavy hitters if you have a shotgun, hand cannon or crank gun at your disposal. It's also a cost effective Vigor which offers a solid trap option for more open battles.

·         The Lara Flynn Boyle Gun Rack: Pardon the Wayne's World reference, but the point is don't go purchasing upgrades for every gun. Pick a few to switch between to suit your situation, don't be a jack of all trades and a master of none. That being said, you're best off picking guns which deal big damage and have a big ammo count. A fully-upgraded carbine is the best pound-for-pound gun in the game, but you'll be well served by the shotgun, the sniper rifle, the RPG, and the hand cannon. I'd also recommend picking up a crank gun whenever you get the chance - be it from a downed Patriot, or an opportunistic tear.

·         Manage your gear: There are very few stretches of gameplay that require micromanagement of gear, but be mindful of what you're wearing if you run into trouble. For those of you who bought the Collector's Edition, make sure you have Extra! Extra! equipped when you find a Voxophone; much like possessing vending machines, you won't get much for your trouble, but it's in the bank all the same. Urgent Care is easily the most indispensable piece of kit that you'll find as it doubles the efficiency of your shield, but other pieces like Bullet Boon and Overkill are also worth searching high and low for.

·         Nooks and crannies: Keep an eye out for Vox Codes and lock picks so you have every chance of collecting Infusions and pieces of gear. My strategy of maxing out the shield before addressing Salts and then health worked extremely well. The value of the shield can easily be underestimated until you encounter your first sniper. Locked doors and secret rooms are also likely to house money as well as health and salt recovery items, so take your time and leave no desk untouched.

·         I’m not supposed to go on sprees: Be sure to have enough coin saved for at least three respawns at all times. It might be tempting to buy those upgrades before you walk into a big battle, but odds are, you won’t be walking out of there alive if you do.  

The heat of battle

Without addressing any specific firefights, patience and cover are key to any successful strategy. There's no shame in running back behind that wall if you cop a few choice shots. Better still, very few times was I pursued if I retreated through two or more doorways. Make sure that your shield is at full charge before you emerge from your carefully-selected sanctuary as well: you'll want as much between Booker and your enemies' bullets as you can afford. Finally, check your ammo count before you wander into the next battle; swap to another favoured firearm if you're running low on bullets for the guns you've equipped.

In retrospect, there were three situations where some advice wouldn't have gone astray:

·         The second encounter with the Siren: By far the hardest single fight in the game, duelling with Lady Comstock in the bank withdrew hundreds from my savings account. Rushing the Siren is not an option - her close range attacks do big damage, and her entourage of revive-able cronies will be more than willing to finish what she started. Worse still, there's plenty of places for the ethereal enemy to hide and weave between. My winning run didn't involve any acts of valour, rather I exploited the unwillingness of my foes to follow me through the vault door. Crouched, with my sights creeping just above the threshold, I unloaded an entire cache of sniper rifle rounds plus a few carbine shots to emerge victorious. Keep in mind that if you fall, Lady Comstock will heal completely from any unsuccessful assault.

·         The final battle with Lady Comstock: Yes, it's her again. After charging to the hidden corner of the forecourt that houses three vending machines, patience and a sniper rifle are your best friends. If you're having trouble with this fight, be sure to possess the vending machines to refill your wallet. Getting close to the Siren and her posse is, once again, a recipe for certain death.

·         Any fucking fight that involves a fucking Handyman: Sweet mother of Zeus, do I hate Handymen. They're deceptively fast, they're able to cover huge distances with a single bound and they can kill you in two hits - and that's with a fully-upgraded shield! The only advice I can give is to create as much distance between you and the big bastards as humanly possible. I know they say "Aim for the heart," but this is 1999, man! Nobody's taking a fall. When planning your escape from an onslaught, don't rely too heavily on Skylines either, as Handymen can electrify them for a big hurt. I should also probably mention that those of you who dabbled in the pre-order exclusive, Industrial Revolution should have access to and as a result, equip Handyman Nemesis - a piece of gear that will increase the damage you deal to these colossi by fifty percent.

We shall scrimp and save

For those looking for an even greater challenge, try going for the "Scavenger Hunt" achievement (or trophy, depending on your preferred system) on your 1999 run, which forbids you from buying anything from a Dollar Bill machine. Forbidding yourself from buying ammo and health does put you in some awkward situations; as an example, my first unsuccessful tilt at the second Siren fight had me exhausting all ammo for all available weapons. It is, however, entirely doable. Please note that possessing Dollar Bill machines for extra cash does not disqualify you from earning this achievement.

The conditions may seem daunting, but be rest-assured that 1999 Mode can be conquered with patience and sound strategy. Making the most of your money, guns and gear, are simple matters of budgeting and sound administration. Beating some of the more brutal opponents, however, requires a strong constitution and an eye for detail. Are we playing shooters, or going for a job interview?

If you have any hints that I've missed, please feel free to share them in the comments below. If you want to see more of my adventures on higher difficulty levels, here's my account of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on Hard. 

The Hard Way with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Note: This post contains spoilers for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

When I finished DmC: Devil May Cry a few weeks ago, the first thing I did was dive into a "Son of Sparda" run - which presented vastly more difficult enemy configurations and a reworked damage model. I put on a brave face for the first mission, but before long, I was up against Butchers as well as Ghost and Blood Rages that broke me and any chance of conquering a greater challenge. I don't think I've ever completed a "Hard" playthrough of any 3D brawler, now that I think about it. I've started quite a few -- even came close to finishing the original Devil May Cry -- but never quite had the resolve or the wits to rise above Normal in anything from Maximo to Bayonetta. 

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

Despite reading that Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was beyond brutal via the likes of Kotaku and my Twitter feed, I thought I handled its bombastic brand of butchery with aplomb. Sure, I may have only attained a C ranking for my Normal playthrough, but Platinum seemed to be quite punitive with regards to their grading schema. I could only see one C grade on my entire report card (displayed upon completing the campaign) but all of those As and Bs weren't enough to earn me more than a pass overall. Regardless of the mediocre ranking, I felt that post Blade Wolf, I was rarely troubled by the Winds of Destruction or even the monstrous new iteration of Metal Gear that awaited me in the final stage. 

With regards to difficulty, Revengeance plateaus after the duel with the carbon canine on the default setting; which falls roughly half way through the second level or about an hour of play. There are some small spikes in the level of challenge that you'll encounter, but if you can tough out that first real obstacle, then I have faith that you're up to the task of completing the game on Normal.

I found that the flow changed slightly when I ascended the scale for a New Game Plus playthrough. The plateau still hits really early -- earlier in fact -- but so long as you as you parry often and make the most of both Blade and Ripper modes to reap as many spines as possible, you'll survive. Those sword upgrades and an expanded move list help a great deal as well, but you'll need to endure some pain to access the fruits of your lower difficulty labours. What I'm trying to say is, New Game Plus doesn't start until you finish the prologue. "No sweat," you reply, but can your confidence withstand a stronger, more durable Metal Gear Ray? I used the majority of fourteen continues in the first stage of that boss fight. The plasma cannon attack is just shy of an instakill for Raiden without the extra cyborg upgrades, so be sure to avoid Ray's wide, deadly... erm... ray. I learned that the surest way to survive the first two parts of the fight is to slice incoming missiles for repair units. It's tough going, but YouTube, as always, offers a wealth of strategies and revelations if you need them (example: you can parry the immense machine's stomp attacks!).

The level of challenge flatlines once Raiden gets a hold of his new body. The first Blade Wolf can be worn down in seconds, and the encounter with Mistral was a breeze (though I should note that it's just as visually arresting the second time around). I didn't find a need for repair paste for a couple of hours - something I'd have found hard to believe whilst initially coming to grips with Revengeance's fast-paced combat system. 

Monsoon marked the first bump in the road of my Hard run. One of the few boss fights that requires parries from beginning to end, he whittled down my stock of healing items before I cut him into one hundred tiny slivers. He still couldn't take my life though; nor could the doppelgangers, nor could Sundowner. Sam was just as delicate, if not, more so on Normal. All but the final stage was cause for any real concern. Sure, there were some instances where I had to swallow my pride: the minigun turrets couldn't survive the defense of World Mashall's lobby, I Ninja Ran to my death while traversing the rooftops of Denver, the cargo elevator fight knocked me around a bit, and I generally lost a lot more life than I should have when dealing with Mastiffs... at any time.

Metal Gear Excelsus and Senator Armstrong were the only other challenges encountered. Much like the first time I dueled with the screen-hogging mech, the seemingly-open nature of this particular battle caught me unawares and claimed my life a few times. There's a sense of intimacy that goes with battling the Winds of Destruction that is absent here: even though Raiden's still confined to a relatively small area, the vastly greater dimensions of this opponent again proved both disorienting and daunting. It was by luck that I managed to avoid some of Excelsus's more damaging attacks by performing a Zandatsu on one of the Gekkos that are thrown into the field about halfway through the fight. Blade energy and vitality restored, I managed to sneak through to the final showdown with one precious serving of repair paste.

The battle, that is to say the actual fighting against Armstrong, was surprisingly easy. The dodge attack was more effective here than in any other scenario: dealing relatively high amounts of damage and conveniently sidestepping pretty much anything in the muscle-bound politician's repertoire. It did, however, take a few attempts to cut through various parts of Metal Gear Excelsus that were hurled towards me. Having to use both sticks to line up the required angle without prematurely slicing was no small feat as I'd long grown accustomed to mashing square and triangle in Blade Mode without much care for accuracy. A few precise cuts later though and Revengeance came to a spectacularly violent close once again.

What did I earn from my victory? Not a great deal other than some pride and a few trophies that could otherwise have been earned on any other difficulty. I attained the same overall ranking, the same titles and a new skin.

I may not have attained many tangible rewards from this endeavour, but I did find enough confidence to venture into Very Hard. Two Blade Wolves and a Gekko before you even reach the first checkpoint, with no upgrades and no dodge attack. No thanks, Platinum. No thanks.

How do you like your brawlers? Do you prefer the default difficulty setting, or do you thirst for a true challenge? 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance Review (PS3): A Cut Above

Note: A copy of the game was provided by Mindscape Asia Pacific for the purpose of this review.

I think it's fair to say that Kojima Productions wasn't quite sure what the Metal Gear universe would look like between the events of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (MGS4); and to be fair, neither did I. I think it's also pretty apt to say that they didn't quite know how to successfully merge stealth and swordplay, as Metal Gear Rising had languished in development hell since 2009. Perhaps realising that they were in over their head, development duties were handed over to Platinum Games -- of Bayonetta fame -- in late 2011. Further to that, the decision was made to set what was Metal Gear Rising after MGS4 and add a subtitle: Revengeance. With a powerfully-silly new name and a fresh set of hands at the wheel, Raiden's passage through Vapourware Limbo was assured, though I must admit some trepidation upon first catching the reveal trailer. My doubts have finally been proven unfounded, however, as Revengeance is one of the finest brawlers that I've ever played.  

A word of warning to start, the game does its best to break you in its first hour, with a woefully-steep learning curve and some difficult boss encounters that are sure to slow your progress out of the gate. I must admit that if it weren't for the fact that I had played the demo, the duel with Blade Wolf may have affected my overwhelmingly-positive overall impression. Still, it must be said -- and it has been, well for that matter by Kotaku's Evan Narcisse, Kirk Hamilton and Chris Person -- that Platinum does a terrible job of showing you the ropes. 

I found the decision to lock (as in you'll need to "un") the dodge attack to be a huge oversight as, for games of this ilk, the ability to dance around enemy attacks is nothing shy of essential. Considering how cheap it is, it's almost criminal that it's not available from the get go. The odds are stacked against you, and early, but allow me to drop this hint: equip your repair paste (press left on the d-pad to bring up the equipment menu) ASAP and unlock the dodge attack once you earn the requisite BP; your experience with Revengeance will be all the better for it. 

The combat system is satisfying, and not just because you can rip the spines out of your enemies and cut them into as many as two hundred and fifty-three pieces (my record, it was a helicopter). Swordplay works because finesse is rewarded and there are obvious cues to prompt the player to the use the game's key mechanics. That and it looks ridiculous. Via judicious use of Blade Mode -- which allows Raiden to deal massive damage through precision strikes -- and parries, players are able to cut through most battles with a minimum of both time and fuss. If your sword strikes are sufficiently accurate, you can then pull off the Zandatsu technique, which allows Raiden to rip the repair unit (looks suspiciously like a spinal chord) out of pretty much any enemy combatant to replenish life and blade energy. There's a lot to take in and not every fight will go according to plan, but when it does, the feeling of exhilaration and raw power that you'll feel is unmatched. 

If you're having trouble with timing your counters or miss cues to enter Blade Mode against vulnerable enemies, you can still grind your way through most battles by using standard attacks and combos which will have Raiden breakdancing foes to their knees, perhaps even removing them in the process. Your garden variety cyborgs can be filleted without much ceremony, but the larger foes -- and believe me, they're as numerous as they are diverse -- usually require a bit of a warm up before the optimum conditions for surgery are met. There's also unlockable melee weapons and secondary weapons -- including various forms of grenades and launchers -- that require just a little bit too much effort to use, but all things considered, there's plenty of ways to cut through swaths of enemy combatants. 

Boss fights and the narrative context surrounding them evoke thoughts of Old West showdowns, Might Morphin Power Rangers' level ceremony and Dragon Ball Z-esque speed and scale. There's only one real disappointment, though on the whole, these encounters are a great fit as there are almost no cheap hits, plenty of forgiving quick-time events and some truly spectacular visual sequences on offer. Combat rules apply to boss fights as well, so you can parry the majority of their attacks, but, as with most other encounters, you can combo your way to a win without need of precise counters. In another nod to its developer's progeny (Bayonetta and Devil May Cry), some fights repeat, but the fields in which they take place can vary, meaning that the tactics required are different. These large scale bouts are a real highlight and some even stand amongst the best I've seen in brawlers past. 

Camera quirks and unresponsive context-sensitive commands do spoil the party somewhat, but with a bit of patience safe passage is all but assured. Camera position is key to successful parries as you need to meet your opponent's strike with a directed light attack. Whenever there's any distance between Raiden and an opponent, the player's view of the battlefield will most often be obscured; in that you'll either lose sight of your intended target or, perhaps more troubling, lose sight of the healing items or collectibles for which you had decided to put yourself in harm's way. Ninja Kills (read: stealth kills) are stomach-churningly brutal, but managing to wrestle the camera and position required to perform them are often not worth your while. In the grand scheme of things, these are minor quibbles, but know that frustration is unavoidable when seeking revenge with a vengeance. 

I should also note that movement is a disorienting joy thanks to the magic of the Ninja Run command. By holding the R1 (or presumably, Right Bumper) button, players can traverse obstacles and deflect gunfire. My favourite game mechanic since Dishonored's "Blink" also allows for Raiden to attack on the move and proves invaluable in some of the game's more difficult battles. Camera issues plagued most every run I went for, but an obscured view never caused me to die. Frustrating and fun in equal measure. 

In terms of presentation, Revengeance is an unrelenting force, assaulting the senses with jarring contradictions in tone, generation-leading visuals and hilaribad (hilariously-bad) hair metal to score the affair. At its core, this is supposed to be the harrowing tale of a grown child soldier coming to grips with the ethical malaise of the war economy; but in terms of execution, it's an absolute clusterfuck comprised of disturbing imagery and awkward humour. To give you an example of what's in store: following on from a reference to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze is a disturbing revelation regarding the nature of Raiden's enemies. Memories of Vanilla Ice tainted by the thought that I may have been battling with what are essentially child soldiers... sometimes it's a little too much to compute. 

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is a Metal Gear game for lovers of 3D brawlers that are synonymous with Platinum Games and its origins. A playthough will only last five hours, but multiple difficulty levels and a slew of VR Missions should serve to keep the disc spinning in your console of choice. Those looking for tense stealth action and gunplay need not apply, as these elements are a mere afterthought in this package. The camera and some control quirks provided frequent frustration, but I found myself enjoying Revegeance more than the games that it apes. It's a gloriously-violent, brutally-difficult, fast paced and off-puttingly hilarious spin on the storied franchise that simply demands your time and money. 

A cut above the rest.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is set to be released in Australia and New Zealand on February 26; although, if my shopping trip is anything to go by, you should be able to buy it now from your retailer of choice. If you want to be my best friend in the universe, feel free to buy me the Collector's Edition which comes with a Play Arts Kai Raiden action figure.