annson

New Domain Created!

2010-10-31T22:56:00.000-07:00

Finally created my own domain and now have my own website! If you enjoy reading my reviews and random posts about new tech please go check it out thanks! Check it out at http://badcritics.com/

Spider-man Shattered Dimensions Review: More is Better?

2010-10-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

This time Activision's time to attempt at making a good super-hero game. Following the steps of the huge success that Batman Arkham Asylum had. Will they pull through? This time there will be multiple Spider-mans to play with different abilities and powers. Hit the jump to read the review

Synopsis
The story starts off with you playing as the Amazing Spider-man, and you shattering a tablet into a bunch of pieces. Each piece of the tablet contains mystical powers within them that shouldn't be in the hands of evil. The goal of the game is to play through the game as different Spider-men from different dimensions to reassemble this tablet. In the end it's a cheap plot device that allows the developers to tie all the different Spider-man universes together.

You get to play as the Amazing Spider-man which focuses on agility, Noir Spider-man which focuses on stealth, Spider-man 2099 which focuses on speed and Ultimate Spider-man which focuses on Power. Also Amazing, Ultimate and 2099 feel pretty same...

Gameplay
The gameplay of Shattered Dimensions was designed around the fact that you would get to play as four different Spider-men. Also like I said before three of the four of these Spider-men are pretty much the same, there are slight differences in each character (apart from their clothes obviously...) that only a die-hard Spider-man fan will truly care about.

Each and every single level is pretty much identical with the exception of one mission. You start a level meeting/encouter the villian for that level, then you follow path where you'll need to do side missions to move on, like saving hostages or taking out guys etc. Once you get to the end you fight the boss and level is over.

Navigation and Movement
Movement for all the Spider-men are the same... swing, and zipping around feels the same... the only real difference is that you are performing these same actions in different environments. Spider-man 2099 changes things up a little bit and you get to perform chases where your just falling down and your are zipping through the air. Camera angles also screw up when you are wall crawling from a wall to a ceiling or just around an edge. How can you possibily screw up something like wall crawling for a superhero game whose nickname is THE WALL CRAWLER? Blows my mind.

Fighting
I am going to talk about Noir Spider-man last, when playing as Amazing, Ultimate or 2099 the game feels very much the same... there's a boss to defeat, there are waves and waves of enemies to kill, and really just like the general gameplay the only bit that is really different is the surroundings of where you are fighting. There is a different key ability for each spiderman though, for 2099 the fighting changes because you fly through the sky and you get the ability to slow down time. In Ultimate Spider-man the rage mode is fun to play for a bit before it is mind numbing because you get to deal out a lot more damage.

Noir's gameplay is the only one that is truely different from others. Noir, like all superheroes who aren't bulletproof, is weak against opponents that use guns and you game forces you to take down all your opponents by hiding from line of sight and staying in the shadows. It made the game bearable to be honest...

Leveling
Every emblem you pick up, every enemy you kill and every achievement (or challenge as the game calls it...) will give you experience, the more achievements you unlock the more upgrades will be avaliable to you to purchase for your Spider-men, the upgrades and enhancements range from more health, better skills, alternate costumes and more. Its a fairly simple system, but the problem I find with games like these is that the longer you play the game the lazier you will get and you get stuck with your own play/fighting style when taking on enemies. What this means is that you will usually try out new moves/techniques once or twice but if for instance the inputs are too much trouble or not even worth getting then you won't even need to upgrade from the basic moves you used at lower levels. Fortunely there are other things to spend your experience on, like alternate costumes.

Presentation
Overall Spider-man Shattered Dimensions has a great look environments are nice and come in a large variety, from jungles, oil rigs, futuristic skyscrapers and even an old carnival. Also the visual aren't spectacularly stunning it works and gives the 1990s cartoon series vibe to it.

There is some great voice acting in the game as well, though i have to say there were times where it felt to me that the words weren't in sync with the lips. Overall it was a great cast Neil Patrick Harris as Amazing, Dan Gilvezan as 2099 who also did the voice of Spider-man in Spider-man and His Amazing Friends back in the 1980s. There is also so many things that each Spider-man says in each level that you never really get tired of the voice acting until you get to the end or if you start dying alot. Which is great in my mind because Spider-man does trash talk a lot to his enemies.

Overall
This game showed a lot of potential to become one of the first good Spider-man games out there, but it failed to deliever due to the lack of gameplay variety. It was noted in press conference after press conference they said they wanted to stress the different gameplay mechanics. The fact is 3 out of 4 are the exact same and don't deviate from each other that much. The only one was different was Noir, but that was almost a total rip off other stealth games like Splinter Cell Conviction and Batman Arkham Aslyum. Anyone who is a fan of Spider-man should definelty check out this game, but since the game can be completed in less than 10 hours a rental will probably be sufficent. Maybe I was expecting too much out of this game, after seeing the success of Batman Arkham Aslyum I thought that superhero games would actually get better. Well it is, but just not a whole much better. Good try Activision and Beenox, but its just at the level this Marvel superhero deserves.

Oh yeah another thing that I wanted to point out, the game shipped with a "secret code" to get a free Negative Spider-man costume, but it wasn't something thats a code where you redeem it was just something that could of been included in the game from the start. There hasn't been any downloadable content for the game yet as of right now but lets hope there are episodic levels for different Spider-men or something along those lines.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 Review: Blowing things up is fun

2010-04-03T16:44:00.000-07:00

Battlefield has finally come back to the PC and with dedicated servers for the PC market as well as destructible environments how will this game deliever? I got this game through Stream through their 4-Pack special which is/was going on. Of course this game is available on the PS3 and Xbox360 as well since it's launch date on March 2, 2010.

Story
The story is exactly what you would expect from any shooter game where it's main focus is in the multiplayer, its cheesy, simple, and predictable. I don't mean that in a bad way. In Bad Company 2 you play as Marlowe whose squd, composed of Sarge, Haggs and Sweets, was sent on a simple recon mission where they dragged into a fight that they didn`t want to be in and have to end up saving the world. The plot is simple and even the twists in the story make it pretty predictable to know how it`s all going to end.

Gameplay
I guess the only real way to talk about this is to compare it to shooters that are out today (Call of Duty, Halo). You shot, you kill. The biggest difference in this game is that you have destructible environments, meaning that you can`t hide and you can`t camp. Vehicles make it even harder for you to stay in 1 spot because there is almost no hiding from a tank that has you in it`s sights.

Combat
There is a wide variety in guns in this game, and you unlock then as you play by picking them up. In single player mode there are cargo boxes that you have access to so that you can reload on ammunition or swap out any guns you want with the ones you have already unlocked. The AI does a really good job at shooting at the enemies but almost never actually killing them. You pretty much have to kill everyone yourself while your team is just shooting runs around enemies. One thing I found really annoying is that when you are inside a building it is really hard to tell where someone is shooting you from because their bullets can penetrate through the walls and there is almost no point in hiding when someone is shooting at you with a RPG or a tank. This did cause a lot of frustration but I guess like all FPS games you can easily get over it by just memorizing the enemies locations and spawn points.

Vehicles
This game isn`t really that diverse when it comes to the number of vehicles you can use. There are your stands, jeeps, tanks, helicopters, ATVs and UAVs. It doesn`t compare to amount of vehicles you would get in other Battlefield games but using them is a lot easier as well. I remember in the old Battlefields it felt like you actually need to know how to pilot a plane before u can fly it properly, but this one the controls are very intuitive.

Environment
The environments are exactly what you would think they are, breathtaking. With large environments for you to run around in (with or without a vehicle. It doesn't make you feel that you are stuck on a linear path (Final Fantasy XIII). The environments keeps you busy by giving you a large environment to play around in. You can knock down trees, buildings, vehicles, and just about any other thing you think would blow up.

Multiplayer
If you take Valve's Team Fortress 2 and Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2, and throw in vehicles and destructible environments, you will get Bad Company 2. The class system works similarily to the one in Team Fortress 2, where assiting your teammates and doing your job (as your class) will allow you do get a much better score than if you were to just Rambo it. Weapons are unlocked by leveling up your rank or unlcoking them by picking them up in single player mode.

What makes me sad is that the game is not actually part of Steam, you get it from Steam but everything is handled by in-game stores and the whole EA Account stuff. Doesn't EA own Valve? Why wouldn't you want to place your good FPS games on a single platform and instead merge Bad Company 2 with the sports category games? The only games I can think that use the EA Account thing system are the Need for Speed titles and all the sports games that EA has. Maybe Valve said no? Who knows.

Players can choose between 4 classes: Assault (Where players can help bring ammunition to teammates), Engineer (Where players can help repair vehicles), Recon (Where players play as snipers), and Medic (Where players can revive teammates that are dead). It doesn't seem like a lot but take into the factor that you can customize whatever weapons you want to carry as well changing even the type of body armour that you wear it becomes clear that a well balanced team will cam easily be success with online matches.

What seems to be lacking is the number of modes that are offered online. There are 4 modes: Rush, Conquest, Squad Deathmatch, Squrad Rush. Rush is where a team of up to 12 players has to defend or destroy these M-COM stations on the map. In Conquest it is similar to the typical Capture the Flag game but the players must hold the flag for as long as they can. Squad Deathmatch is where players team up in parties of 4 and just kill as many other squads as possible. In Squad Rush it's pretty much the same a Rush except with less players.

Presentation
Graphics
As I have said before, this game looks great and has a fairly decent amount of detail in it. Sure there are parts of the game where textures don't seem to load as fast as you want them to. But overall the games visuals, really helps bring out the epic-ness of the game. You will find yourself in a wide range of environtments, from the snowy mountain tops to the sandy deserts to the wild jungles (okay I couldn't think of a good adjective). The game takes you around the world and that isn't only the single player, the multiplayer maps have this diversity as well.

Sounds
Explosions, check. Guns, check. Vehicles, check. Falling buildings, check. Fall trees, check. Cheesy stereotypical American accents and speak? check. This game has it all. Sure the lines they say are really cheesy and stupid and fall perfectly in the American loving yankee soldier but I like it, it puts a smile on my face.

Conclusion
Overall, this is an incredibly addicting game. The single player campaign only lasts about 7 hours and will give you an extendsive tutorial for what's to come in the multiplayer part of the game. Even with the lack of modes (and hopefully more to come) what the came comes packed with is really addicting, you will find youself wanting to play game quite a bit because blowing things up is just that much fun. If you still have debates about this game, you are missing out on some great multiplayer fun.

Lady Gaga >> President Obama According to Time Readers

2010-04-03T07:14:00.000-07:00

I don't really understand how you can do a "Top 100" of a year that's only 3 months in but apparently Time can do it check out Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People in the World of 2010 but I guess congratulation to Lady Gaga? Wow there are a lot of people that beat Obama, including his wife and NPH. Woot!

One Piece Strong World Collection

2010-04-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't know, I am a huge One Piece fan.

So for those of you who don't know, to celebrate One Piece's 10 Year anniversary for being on the air that long in Japan, they have released a manga AND movie that talks about events that have happened in the past of the storyline. And obviously there is a line of models that comes with it and here'e the one that I got. They were all individually boxes and I wasn't sure if I'd get the full set but luckily I did and that makes me happy. : D

Final Fantasy XIII Review: Finally to HD

2010-03-26T08:02:00.000-07:00

At first this was suppose to be something that I wrote at the 10 hour make of the game just to share my thoughts with you guys. Then it just go delayed and stuff so there. The game was out on March 9, 2010 in North America on the PS3 and the Xbox 360. At first I just amazing at the graphics of this game, there is no doubt about it, this is one of the greatest looking games on the next generation consoles TO DATE. But as you play more and more of the game you will start to reveals what it's amazing visuals are really distracting you from and there's quite a bit. Hit the jump for the review.

Story:

The story of this game is very very confusing and explaining it to other people only makes matters worse. Even if you've all played the game. Everyone seems to get something different out of it here is the gist of it.

The game takes place on a planet/world called PULSE. Around world are these mechanical beings with god-like powers called the fal'Cie which the humans and pretty much any living being on the planet the resources to survive. The fal'Cies all have crystal within them which holds all this power and they will choose humans to be choose as l'Cie. These people will be branded by a mark will have to carry out their Focus, which is a task they must perform by interpreting these visions they get from the fal'Cie. If the l'Cie fail to complete their task within the set amount of time given by the fal'Cie, then they will be transformed into Cie'th which are zombie like creatures. If they do complete their Focus, they will be permanently transformed into a crystal and for that being a l'Cie is seen as a curse to everyone.

The story revolves around 6 characters who were mainly from the country of Cocoon, who have been choose to be l'Cie and the game takes them all on a roller coaster of feelings and excitement. They all come from different backgrounds and as the plot twists and turns you will begin to learn more and more about their background and history and their reasons for fighting.

The pacing of the story is horrible and the cut scences, although they look great and all, lack a lot of content. Playig this after playing Uncharted 2 real shows how poorly SquareEnix has done in this department. Majority of the cutscenes last about 1 minute where all that is said is just minor chit chat that BARELY moves the story forward or reveals any sort of history about the characters. Most of that talking could of been implement into the game like what was done in Uncharted, on the fly conversations where players were still able to move around.

Gameplay:

Firstly as I have mentioned above the pacing is terrible, all you do in this game is walk/run down a very linear and straight path to a point (which is marked on your map) watch a very short and almost pointly cutscene and then repeat. The battle system is toned down for casual players making it so that you can only controller one character at any given time and the crafting system to level your weapons is very slow and once you get an upgrade your previous weapon will almost be useless. The only thing I found that was done decently well was the leveling system of how you level your characters.

There also isn't any mini-games or side quests that are traditionally found in all of the other Final Fantasy titles. Which means that the game doesn't reall give much when it comes to replaying it. Not only that there are no towns to enter into and you can't really talk to anyone in them making it all just an illusion.

Leveling
After every battle/encouter all characters (in your party or not) will gain Crystalium Points in a new Crystalium Leveling System. Each character has 3 roles that can level up as: Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Synestist, Saboteur, Medic. Every class has various tiers to unlock various skills, extra equipment slots and so on. It is pretty similar to the system seen from Final Fantasy X with the spheres but this time is is more refined make people focus on leveling specific roles as apposed to leveling a little bit of everywhere and getting nowhere.

Combat

Final Fantasy XIII's combat system is based off of the Gambit system which was used in Final Fantasy X but slimmed down and dumbed down for casual players. At any time of the game players will only ever control one character. All party members are controlled by AI and will act accordingly based on the Paradigm you are in. You can shift your Paradigm on the go which will allow you to heal party members quickly should something happen. Sounds pretty interesting but again it is really easy to use because almost all the time all you will be doing is pressing the "X" button (Don't know what it is on Xbox "A" I'm guessing?) all the time because there is a auto-battle button where the AI will choose what the best line of attack is for you. I don't really understad why they didn't allow you to control all party members, even if it were to complicate things for the player they could of added a switch to turn on the AI or not.

Item Crafting

Item crafting is simple, you pickup or buy parts and you upgrade a particular weapon you want to upgrade. What sucks is that if you spend all your money upgrading one weapon you will face quite the dilemma when you pick up a weapon with a better ability associated with it. Making all upgrading you've practially useless. Yes you can sell and dismantle the weapon but it feels like you spent all your time upgrading it for nothing and after a few times I just gave up upgrading my weapons until near the end of the game.

Presentation

Graphics
As usual for any game that SquareEnix makes the visuals are always amazing with more polygons in every model as well as beautiful environments. Sometimes it is hard to tell between what is rendered by the game engine and what was CG. Environments are very rich in colour and since there is almost no back tracking in the game you will always be surprised about how amazing the environments look. There really isn't much to say, its a Final Fantasy game you'd expect only awesome from SquareEnix in this category.

Sound

As cheesy as most of the lines are, the voice acting for the game are surprisingly good for a SquareEnix game. From minor characters to the most annoying characters in your party (Hope and Vannile), you can get a sense of emotion in the acting which is rare to see in Final Fantasy games that are dubbed into English.

Overall
With a very typical and boring storyline, mixed with bad delivery on the pacing and a battle system that is meant for five year olds, the game does really poorly for a Final Fantasy title. I don't even mind that the game is very linear but the fact that there isn't sort of mini-game section or side quests makes this game hardly a Final Fantasy game to begin with. Even though the presentation of the game is amazing you can't really buy a game based solely on that. For all those fanboys, it doesn't really matter what I say you are getting it anyways but for those who have never played Final Fantasy before this is a very slow pace game and the game will only keep you on the hook with its amazing visuals.

Uncharted 2 Review: 10 Years of Gaming in 1 Game

2010-03-20T03:21:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I know it`s been out for like 5 months now but I think it deserves a review because I think it is that good and I want to write about it as well as me wanting to get back into writing game reviews. I loved this game and I just sad that with an amazing game like this the sales didn't match up so if you haven't played this game and own a PS3 believe me when I say that YOU SHOULD OWN THIS GAME to support the developers. This game has been out for the PS3 in North America since October 17, 2009 and the game was developed by Naughty Dog. Hit the jump for the full review.

Story:
Once again you play as Nathan Drake, whose job is to seek out long lost treasures and artefacts. What started out as a simple task as a favour for old friend Flynn and old spark Chloe, lead into an adventure and race for the Cintamani stone and Shambhala against a crazy Russian guy, Lazarevic who wanted to take over the world, so ultimately your goal was to save the world. While bringing back old cast members Elena and Sully back into the game the game introduces a love triangle between Drake, Elena and Chloe.

Gameplay:
Since we didn't do a review of the first Uncharted I guess I should fill in that gap. The gameplay for Uncharted is basically a Tomb Raider meshed with Gears of Wars. It is a combination of platform hoping and killing hordes of various different types of enemies while doing random quick time events as well. So I'm going to split this section into those 3 sections.

Platforming
As like any platform jumping game, there is always a door or level you just can't reach where you, the main character, has to climb and hope up to (or climb down) so that you and/or your party can continue onto with the story. This part is usually the most interesting parts of the game as climbing into new places reveals some excellent sceneries of the environment you are in and with Uncharted 2's visuals they are worth the effort. Of course once you are finished with it you'll wish to never have to have to backtrack and redo it again, which the game does an excellent job at keeping to a minimum, unlike some other games (Prince of Persia).

Combat
Similar to its predecessor, the combat is fairly the same as you would expect in games like Gears of War, there is a working cover system and a simple combat system. The places that you wouldn`t expect a full level out of is something that has been new for me. One very memorable moment in the game is where you have to fight on a train where the environment almost forces you to time your shot as the train bends around corners, as well there`s a part of the game where you do a lot of truck hoping which was a mix of platforming, combat and vehicle combat. Another thing that was added was destructible covers. The enemies will blow up your over by throwing grenades or shooting rockets at you. This will force you to keep moving around and pressing forward in a battle instead of camping in one stop for 20 minutes until the enemies all die. What is also nice is that the game gives you various things to kills your enemies with, such as a heavy gatling gun.

Presentation:
The first Uncharted was considered one of the best visually looking games on the next generation consoles. The second Uncharted only tops it, with better graphics, richer environments and an amazing bunch of actors/actresses; once again the guys from Naughty Dogs have once again pushed the power of the PS3 to another level.

Graphics
The first game it was all about water. How amazing the lakes and ponds looked when Drake jumps into them and how his cloths change colour and draw off. This game has that as well of course but easily a feature that tops that is snow and how Drake's character deals with the heat and cold around him. The way the snow just moves around your feet when you run around when how Drake will cover and react to hot spots like fire.

Sound
Echoing what I said about the graphics for this game, it is the same in the sound department, from the cracks you hear from fires, to the sound of packing snow from your footsteps, this game has a very rich library of sound effects from everything around you and interact with.

Acting
I spend most of my cash from the achievements to unlock all the behind-the-scenes stuff in for the game. I did not expect them to do all the motion capture and voice acting all before actually doing the game. Of course it's not as extreme as Avatar but for a game to be produced like this is probably a first. With all that together to get fluid movement in all the characters and an amazing voice acting performance. I think the parts that I enjoyed the most were the some chit chat conversations that the characters had between themselves when you are playing.

Multiplayer:
Usually for games that focus so much on the single player experience, only have a tacked on multiplayer component. Instead Uncharted 2 has a very interesting multiplayer side to it. Players can choose from a few modes. There's coop, where players can replay certain sections of the games with friends. There's a Deathmatch and a capture-the-flag spin-off game. As well as a horde mode where similar to Gears of War where you and a couple of buddies defeat a point while fighting off waves and waves of enemies. These game modes we`ve all seen in other games so it isn`t anything special or new about them. What is surprising is that it actually very fun to play and the mode a surprising balances and polished. This is something that most would not expect for a game that has such an emphasis on their single player side.

Overall:
Hopefully I did a good enough job into describing to you one of the best games on the PS3 console that has been released and although the game doesn't really introduce anything new to the video game industry, it is a very polished game and borrows elements from other games from the past decade or so. This is probably the only downside to this game. There isn't anything we haven't seen from other games but once you start playing it, you'll find that it will be very very hard to put down. It's just that good.

Pros:
- Everything about its presentation is amazing and spot on from its jaw dropping environments to some of its amazing acting work.
- Gameplay is something most players have seen or experience so based on that the game performs how you want and is very polished.
- Multiplayer is surprisingly quite fun and is on par with a lot of multiplayer focused games.

Cons:
- Doesn't really have a single element that the game can call it its own.

Neither:
- Story wasn`t anything special if you`ve watch any Indiana Jones film (not the latest one)

World of Warcraft Review: Triple Experience is HaX

2009-07-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

So thanks to chan and jeffizzle, I entered THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT. I linked accounts with chan and we began to abuse the triple experience system. It's so fast that as soon as you kill the first boar you're already level 2. So getting the first level litterally takes like 5 seconds. I didn't really have any idea what I was doing, I just taking intructions from chan. I even took all his addons that he had as well, like Carbonite, TBag, MoneyFu, XPerl and Bartender. I didn't what they were call at the time, all I knew that it was a much better looking interface that the original one. Well Carbonite helped a lot, I didn't have to read anything, just had to follow directions that's it, so simple, made leveling quicker I suppose.

But then we just pretty much got runs through instances from level 10 to about level 50. So I didn't really know much about questing to about level 50. So I really only quested in the original World of Warcraft for like 8 levels, the first 10 don't count seeing how it takes in total of 5 minutes to get it. So to all those people who hate questing or doing instances in the old world, I'm sorry, I do not share you pain. Like I even got a summon to Scarlet Monastery from Stormwind, so I didn't even have to run. Only thing I didn't enjoy was leveling my mining profession, since I was doing the triple experience, it was very hard for me to make money, because I was constantly buying skills. So mining was really a pain when I was at the levels where I had to find the rare ores, like gold, truesilver and thorium. So I ended up farming a crap load of mithril and since I was enchanting, I had no use for any of the ores, so I sold them all, and so before I hit Outlands I already had 1000 gold or so.

Once 58 hit, I was in Outlands and was leveling. By this time chan was too busy with his main so I was left alone. But thanks to Carbonite, I knew what to do. So I quickly ditched the character that chan was leveling with and made him switch to another character to level with me. Leveling in Outlands was pretty easy thanks to Carbonite and also it made things quite efficient because I was able to easily group my quests together.

When level 68 came, I was gone and headed for Northrend, by this time I had been playing for about 6 days or so. Northrend questing pretty easy as well, like Outlands all the quests were grouped together so it really helped make things easier and quicker. At first I was still leveling with chan but once again, I left him in the dust and by day 9, I hit level 80. My mining was at 450, which is MAX and my enchanting was around 370 or so.

So there you go, so easy to level a character, not only that the linked account lasts for 3 months. So you can make plenty of new character and level them to 60 since that's when the triple experience looks its effect. Also another thing I forgot to mention is that the person who is new to game, gets to grant free levels to the person who recuited them, as long as the character is higher level. So once I hit 80, I gave chan's druid a free 30 levels. I don't really have much to say about the game, other than the triple experience is broken, and I made a level 80 Draenei Shaman with almost all epic gear in just 10 days.

*Also to put it all into perspective actual played time when he hit 80 was just under 24 hours of in game time and 30 druid was created in just over 2 minutes.... yup 2 minutes... - chan

Prototype Review: Helicopter Kicking Awesomeness

2009-06-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

So I just finished Prototype and boy is it a lot of fun. So Radical Entertainment (A Canadian Game Developer Company - Represent!) has finally completed their game and it was on store shelves on June 9, 2009 on the PC, PS3 and the Xbox 360. Published by Activision this game had a lot of hype going around it before the release and many people thought it probably wouldn't have lived up to the hype. But let me tell you know, that it did.

Story:

You play as Alex Mercer, who wakes up in a morgue an has ammesia, who has the military hunting him, and a dangerous virus has broken out across New York City. You are always against 2 sides, the infected and military and you have to always have to fend yourself from both sides. It gets hectic at times but thanks to the overwhelming amount of skills you can pull off, it isn't that bad. The story isn't that much, but it's got a nice twist at the end.

Web of Intrigues:

Because the goal of the game is to regain your memories you have absorb people to get their memories and when you do the game plays a seizure giving video that lasts about 30 seconds about some random event that may or may not relate to you depending when acquire that memory. At the end they all fit together as a giant puzzle but when you watch the at first it's hard to know how it actually ties in.

Gameplay:

Gameplay is amazing. Radical Entertainment used the Titanium engine that was used in the Incredible Hulk game (Which apparently, wasn't so bad) and they made some serious modifcations to it. To sum up the gameplay, it's kind of like Grand Theft Auto 4, mixed with Spider-man: Web of Shadows. Another words, Niko Bellic with super powers.

Combat:

There are WAY too many moves for you to learn, and the more you upgrade the more ridiculous it gets.

You have 5 different weapons you can use (6 if you count bare fist), which they ALL have distinctive moves that you can pull off. ON TOP OF that there are a shit load of other moves that you can do with different kinds of dives, shockwaves, throws, grabs, it just goes on. You can unlock devastator moves that take out a city block's worth of people. AND ON TOP OF THAT, you can take pick up weapons from the military like rocket launchers, rifles, grenade launchers, and more. THEN you can take control of the vehicles that the military uses, different types of tanks and helicopters. You also ask for an air strike to bomb a target. With so many skills it gets confusing to pull them off sometimes because there are just so many different combinations you can and most of them require you to hold down 2 buttons.

Here's a VERY short list of things you can use to kill someone:

- Arm Blade

- Hammer Arms

- Body Armor

- Tank

- Helicopter

- Absorbtion

- Body Surf

The only problem I had was the clunky wheel system that was used for selecting the different abilities. Gameplay slows down, almost like pausing the game and you have select which ability you wanted to used. Every time the mission started, you'd have to set up which abilities to use again. Also you can only select one at a time, so if you wanted to pull out the blade and the armor, for example, you'd have to go into that wheel system twice. It's nothing big but it takes the pacing out of game. But with so many abilities you can pull off you feel more like a super being than in most superhero games.

Travelling:

You would think that running around the city going to each mission starting postion would become a chore to do after awhile right? Not in Prototype, the free running is smooth and the gliding mechanism was implemented really nicely. You'll never get tired of skyscraper hopping and of course there is always upgrades you can acquire to makes things easier. Of course if you want to arrive in style there is always other forms as well, like using the helicopter and the tank.

Difficulty:

So the game doesn't really have that much depth to it, you just go to your mission start location, go to your mission, do it and repeat. The game itself isn't really that hard to beat if you just grind up enough money to buy all the upgrades as they come out. But on hard mode it gets pretty hard though. The pacing of them game is really quick, you are constantly under attack and you have watch out for senors that can call on helicopters and an army against you, so if you want to stay alive, you'll have to retreat, A LOT. It takes away from the fun and madness a times, but if you do don't do it correctly, you'll find yourself repeating stages of the missions, a lot.

Replay Value:

After beating the game I didn't really want to start again but I did however want to continue in Free Roam mode and just beat the crap out of everyone I see and cause as much destruction as I can. Its surprising really fun and it really does satisfy the murderer within me. On top of that there is always all the mini-games you can complete as well, they can get addictive thanks to a medal system and the rewards for completing them are always appreciated.

Presentation:

Looks:

The cut scences look really nice and the memory flashbacks are seizure giving but acceptable. The character models in the game are are that great compared to other games and there isn't a lot of variation between most of the units. However, the enviorment does look a lot like New York City, with a few noticable landmarks (Empire State building and others) but I did notice a lot of repeating building. Over all the graphics do lack a little but the gameplay makes up for it big time. Also there's is A LOT of blood.

Sounds:

The dubbing was done pretty nicely and it overall I didn't have a problem with the sound. The alarm sound gets repeative because you are always in combat but it's nice.

Conclusion:

Likes:

- So many skills to learn

- Everything is a weapon

- Sick moves you can pull off

Dislikes:

- Wheel system to select abilities

- Complex controls

- Lack of building environments

There are a lot of things you can pick at about this game, but none of them really take away from FUN element from the player. If you are looking for a game to play after a long day work, Prototype is your game because you can literally beat the shit out of everything in the game. And you have so many superpowers that move of them feel like overkill.

Resident Evil 5 Review: RE4 + CoOp + Next Gen Graphics

2009-03-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

So finally, after 3 year's of waiting for the next installment of Resident Evil, gamers are finally given it's latest, Resident Evil 5. This game has a lot of live up to coming right after what most people say the best Resident Evil, with it major new addition as adding a coop mode. This highly anticipated survivor horror game is only available on the PS3 and the xBox 360. The game will roughly take most players around 12 hours to complete.

Story:

In Resident Evil 4, Leon Kennedy was sent to Spain to rescue the President's daughter, Ashley. It also just so happened that the T-Virus was breaking out there as well. This time in Resident Evil 5, you play Chris Redfield, who is part of the BSAA and sent to Kijuju, Africa to invested a breakout of a similar virus to the T-Virus from Resident Evil 4. You are partnered up with Sheva Alomar and you have to figure out who is trying to use the T-Virus as a bio-weapon.

Unlike all of the previous Resident Evils, this one's main focus is on the miliary and the use of bio-weapons. You are part of the army, and you have stop and "unknown" force from spreading the virus, and taking over the world.

For those of you who want to know more about the story behind the Resident Evil series, please watch the Retrospectives, brought to you by Gametrailers.com.

Gameplay:

How you play the game is very simple, when you see an enemy here are the follow steps:

1) Run back to give yourself some distance

2) Shoot them until the get close to you

3) Repeat Steps 1 to 2 until enemy is defeated

Now I know that it very very simple but having to have run from them keeps the tension and the pace of the game high.

Combat:

Having perfected the Over-the-shoulder shooting from Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil 5 sticks to it's roots, forcing you to stand still want shooting. This brings a lot of the issues that were seen in Resident Evil 4. You have a swarm of enemies that come running at you, only to have them slow down and crawl the last few steps, and even though this unrealistic it would make the game impossible if this was implement.

There a lot of quick-time events in the game, but not as much as in Resident Evil 4, so a lot of times they will catch you off guard and you'll have to repeat that portion of the game.

Coop:

There are 3 ways of playing this game, play with a friend, play with a friend online, or play with a computer. The first 2 choices would be the optimal solution, because you have to play a completely different way when playing with a computer. First of all, she's shoots as many times as she breaths. So you'll find yourself constantly needing to give her ammunition. The next thing is that she has no idea how to manage her inventory. So YOU have to organize for her. If you're wondering why referring to Sheva all the time is because in single player mode you HAVE to play as Chris. Unless you beat the game, then you can play as Sheva.

So playing with a friend is obviously, but playing on the same TV still isn't all that great. If you are on a widescreen TV, the game doesn't really know how to make use of it. I guess it's to keep the high scores fair, because the screen do seem like they are in the correct aspect ratio. But it will be quite difficult for those who do not have a big enough screen because that laser on that gun just isn't bright enough and if you are still on an old cathode tube tv, then you be able to see a thing. It's not that the game CAN play up to 720p, it's that you NEED to be playing at that resolution before you can actually see things properly.

Replay Value:

There are 3 modes you can play this game at: Amateur, Normal, Veteran. If you have played the demo and this isn't your first shooter, than Veteran is good level to start at. Because the game does lean to the easy side on the difficulty scale. Upon beating the game you will unlock The Mercenaries. Its a bonus game that can be played in both single or coop, and the mission is to simply kill as many zombies as possible. The only problem is that its timed. I think I have enjoyed it more if it were endless. This way you can compare to other games like Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Call of Duty World at War (Nazi Zombie Killing Mode). Your scores will be posted online into the competitive community. It's a great way to sharpen your skills but I'm disappoint that there is not other mini games, like in RE4 where you can play as Ada. It would of been nice to be able to play as the Delta team or something, maybe they are saving that for Download Content. Those bastards. You can also replay the game as Sheva if you want, there isn't really anything interesting about that, and of course like in ALL Capcom games there are unlockable costumes for your characters.

Presentation:

Looks:

Resident Evil 5 is a graphically stunning game. The amount of detail that has been put in is amazing. The dust clouds, the reflections, the shadows, and even all the facial expressions that the characters make. All puts together an amazing looking game. Resident Evil 4 is 4 years old and it is still a really good looking game. And I'm sure four years from now, Resident Evil 5 will still stand four years from now as well.

Not only the small details but the monsters that you face look amazing as well no matter if it's small or gigantic.

Even the cinematics that were prerecoreded by the game's in-game engine look amazing and the fight scene choreography are top notch and be compared with a lot of good action movies. Click on the video to watch the HD version of the video at Youtube.

Sounds:

Okay the dubbing, is a bit over the top some times, but you can't blame the voice actors for that, it's the script. The music and sound effects sound great when they come up alerting you about enemies. The soundtrack was key to helping the game keep its high pace and tension.

Conclusion:

Likes:

- The graphics for this game really are next gen, and everything in the game looks amazing and the developers really paid close attention to all the little details.

- Finally closure to many of the series' loose ends.

Dislikes:

- Small split screens in coop mode.

- Nothing new and innovative compared to RE4

- Not enough extra mini games compared to RE4

Resident Evil 5 is a solid looking game, and years from now it will still be known to be a great game. Some might say that it isn't worth buying. But if you are into the series or love this genre of games, then this is a good investment. I can't say it's as fun as Left 4 Dead, but it definely can give you the thrill that all Resident Evils have given. I'm pretty sure that they are going to release some DLC over the next few months, let's just hope that it's worth downloading.

2008-12-13T15:39:00.000-08:00

First of all I have to say that this year was an amazing year for the gaming community, everyone and I do mean EVERYONE should be have at least one game that they just HAD to buy, and I do mean HAD TO. Every console had its own exclusive titles and they ALL delivered well, minus a few that could have done better but never the less it was all amazing. For those you are looking for Christmas gift ideas in the games department, hopefully this list can help you narrow down those choices. Hit the jump to start reading.

Where do I begin and how am I going to do this? Let's just do exclusives first.

Lets start with the Wii. There are WAY too many games that came out of the Wii this year, a lot were bad, but if you want quanity it's got it, here are a few exclusives that come to the top of my head:

Super Smash Brother Brawl - Probably the fighting game of the year, I think it beats Soul Calibur 4 and Mortal Combat Vs DC. I mean Tekkan 6 has just been annouced for next year and Street Fighter 4 is only in arcades right now. SSBB delivers to the hardcore Nintendo fan boys but I felt that it didn't appeal enough to the rest of the world, just because of the online functions, were absolutely TERRIBLE.

Mario Kart Wii - Another Nintendo fan boy game, game has now been changed from a 8 player game to a 12 player online game. They took our the 2 players per Kart thing that they did in Double Dash, and they tried to make an online community to get more people to play online. But with 12 players playing, the items get way to imbalanced and it feels like winning is by luck only, because your opponents couldn't get a blue shell to hit you in time.

Wii Fit - What can I say about this? It another game with another peripheral for the Wii, that targets another kind of audience. Even though the exercise that they make you do doesn't really help you lose weight by much it certainly tries to make you think it does.

Animal Crossing - This was Nintendo's fan boy game for the Christmas holiday, they tried to introduce once again, ANOTHER peripheral for the Wii, the Wii Speak. As you can guess, Nintendo is making you spend $30 for a MIC so that you can attach it to your Wii and talk to people while playing Animcal Crossing. No comment on the game though, not a huge fan.

Tales of Symphonia II - This game looked exciting, I still haven't beat the first one yet, so hopefully I'll beat that one first before I start this one.

Next Up, PS3. It was one amazing year for the PS3, with a lot of great exclusive titles, probably one of Sony's best years for software.

Gran Turismo Prologue - Gran Tusimo has always been the KING of drivng simulation games. I'm pretty sure that if you turn your car to the way you have it in the game, you'd have a really good shot of getting those lap times as well, provided that you can get over the fear of crashing and burning.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots - Kojima has done it again, with (what he says is) the final chapter of this Metal Gear Solid EPIC franchaise (c'mon we know thats not true) I think that Kojima had WAY too many ideas for this game, and as great as it was for me, I was only playing it for the story, there really isn't much when it comes to the gameplay. I think they could have split this game into two and it would have been JUST as amazing.

Little Big Planet - This game was Sony's prized game. They say that this game is the first game to fully use the PS3's capabilities. If you like level creation and stickers, mixed in with a platforming game then you will love this. There is just simply an endless supply of things you can create in this game.

Valkyria Chronicles - A beautiful game with a classic story. The artwork from this game looks like it comes straight out of a watercolour sketchbook. They changed how turn based strategy games work, and I think that it really works well and that they did an amazing job, just, take out half the cutscenes.

Fallout 3 - Bringing an old franchise back from the dead and modernizing the game so that it appeals to a lot of people. They say that the amount of things you can do are just almost endless, people are still finding new monsters and weapons in the game AFTER they've beaten it. The game kind of does what Modern Warfare did for the Call of Dutyfranchise.

xBox 360. A lot of people were doubting if Gears 2 would even make it this year but it did and the xBox community is very happy. That and the new "more casual" interface with Avatars (Another Mii gimmick) I don't have an xBox so most of these comments things that I have heard and read from other people.

Gears of War 2 - Same story, just more. Introducing a new stuff to the cover system (using a body as a shield, now that's awesome!) and bring the world EPIC into the franchise. Everything is just more and bigger, definitely one of the best looking games on the xBox 360.

Fable 2 - Introduced in this installment players get a pet dog as their companion, the dog helps you with quests and gives you tips and hints that things need to get done. Thought there has been word that the game was overhyped and might not do as well as everyone is saying it will.

Ninja Gaiden 2 - With this second installment of the game there are now MORE ways for you to get your hands and pretty much your entire body drenched with the blood of our enemies. Slicing up people is always fun to do.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts - I don't know much about this game other than you have build everything you use. There is also word out there (chan) that says that the game is very buggy and even feels unfinished.

Castle Crashers - Four player side scrolling game. Lots of fun for a group of friends to play. Brings back memories of those old arcade machines with like X-Men side scrollers that are four players. Fun times.

On to PC, some people say that the PC gaming world is dying, I don't think so, I think it had a pretty good run this year, with a great variety of games that came out.

Left 4 Dead - I know this isn't an exclusive, but knowing Valve, the additional content that they will provide will only be on the PC (Just like Team Fortress 2). An amazing game to play with 3 other friends, survival horror games are always loads of fun.

World of Warcraft: Wraith of the Lich King - With the 3.0.8 patch coming out so that Death Knights can be made on any server and not just ones with a level 55+ on, Wraith of the Lich King will definelty carry on the torch that was lit from Burning Crusade and even through it doesn't do much to draw more people into the community, the game has grown so much from the day it first came out.

Audiosurf - Developed by BestGameEver, these guys were able to generate levels of gameplay by using MP3 that you choose. You use a plane of some sort (Kind of like F-Zero) and you collect times as you "ride" your music.

Spore - Another take on the Sims, where users can make their own race from a single uni-cell organism. The game goes from microscopic to planetary size. By the end of the uses will be able to use their race to attack other countries or even fend from space invasion, a very interesting concept.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - After the long wait, EA is finally bringing this franchaise back from the dead, with pretty famous cast acting for them, the cutscenes are great fun to watch. This game is also on the xBox 360 and PS3 but I don't think people will want to play a RTS on a console.

Multi-platform Games:

Guitar Hero World Tour - Activision's first wack at genre with the band, the game was a good first attempt, it had some good features that they added in, but also had its own flaws.

Rock Band 2 - If you have Rock Band, then this game is pretty much a must have, since your able to import pretty much all your songs from the first 1 for an extra $5, this avalible tracks to play is this game is reach 200 by now at least, probably even more.

Grand Theft Auto 4 - A great sandbox game, if you like to shoot people or drive or just goof around, this is your game, it has a little bit of everything for everyone to enjoy. With download content coming to the xBox 360 soon and the PC version that was just release, this game has a huge potienal of being the game of the year.

Call of Duty: World at War - With the game going BACK to World War 2, the game is pretty much the same as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, just that it takes places about 60 years ago. Nothing new just more content, I suppose.

Mirror's Edge - The first parkour game ever, developed by the guys at DICE, this game takes a stab at the first first-person parkour game. The parkour part is fun and great, but the combat system is broken and definetly needs to be worked on.

Prince of Persia - Ubisoft's first next-gen Prince of Persia is here! The artwork looks amazing and beautiful and the combat says is very flashy and nice when pulling off combos with Elika.

And I think that pretty much sums up most of it, there's a large variety of GREAT games that came out this year and choosing only one or two maybe quite difficult. If your NOT a gamer, then this year would have been a great time to start. The gaming industry is evolving, companies are not willing to spend more money on games and more time, the process is finally being looked at like movies and having people reconize this fact will mean that the quality of games should increase, unless everyone is just making them for the casual market, in that case they will turn out to be all trash.

happy holidays!

-annson

Dead Space Review: Meh, it was alright

2008-12-11T13:38:00.000-08:00

I had this sitting game installed on my desktop for a while now but I never got a chance to play it until last weekend. So the developers from EA Redwood Shores in California, have made this 3rd person survival horror action game that was release back in October on the 14th (20th for PC) for the PS3 and xBox360. Apparently there's a comic for the game as well which acts as a prequel to the game. Also apparently there's an animated movie coming out which is also a prequel to the event of the game. Anyways, hit the jump to read more.

Story:

You play as Issac Clarke who is part of a rescue and maintenance squad deployed after receiving a distress signal from a mining/drilling colony on some planet. Anyways, your girlfriend who you have not been in contact with much, is on that ship and you run around the ship trying to find her but all you get are these video logs all around the ship.

Gameplay:

The gameplay is quite an interesting concept. The game has NO heads up display, meaning the only thing you see on the screen is literally, your character and the environment. How do you know your health and ammunition? Well on back back of Issac's suit is this circle that tell you how much health he has and as for ammunition, you can see it off the gun itself, which is pretty neat.

Combat System:

Well like any 3rd person shooter, the shooting is probably one of the most interesting things they did to this game. The monsters/zombies and things you have to kill, can only be killed by dismemberment, meaning that you have shoot off all its limbs. Head shots are NOT one hit kills anymore which is nice to see and an interesting change from typical games. So the shooting part was pretty cool and a nice touch but the melee combat system is broken. I can't do anything with it, can't kill anything because I don't know how to aim it and then even if it does hit the monster it just stuns it for a bit and I STILL have to use my gun to kill it. Kind of bad when ammunition doesn't come by often or when your running out of ammo and just want to get back to the store thing to buy some.

Zero G Movement:

So being called "Dead Space" there are part of the game where the player has to go through environments that have no gravity. I'm just going to be honest about it, it sucks. When you jump from one wall to another it feels like a zip line and you can't do anything while your in the air pretty much your stuck watching it. So it does NOT feel like your in space but visually it looks good, I'll talk about this later.

Presentation:

I think that everyone spends the most time here in a lot of the games nowadays. The looks of the game look really amazing, especially when your are outside in space. The effects they put did were really nice and the sound effects and music went really well with it as well. Like the first time you go out into space, you really get that "Wow" effect. You can hear all the air get sucked out and then nothing but silence and the sunlight with things just floating around, it was done really really nicely and then when you go back in you hear air rushing backing to re-pressure the environment. It feels very real.

Character design was probably a bit medicore, Issac's suit was a smart design because it goes well with the game because there's no HUD, which give a difference vibe to the game. The monsters on the other hand, there isn't a lot of variation in the designs. Like I think 2 or 3 of the monsters look pretty much the same but they do different things. Now if that was intended then I take it back but it not then yeah, not much variation.

Summary:

Aside from the nice graphics, and the sound effects, the game does not really stand out as a horror action game. Like, there's not a lot of new things here.

- There's the no HUD which is nice because it pulls the player into the game more

- The way to kill monsters is a something different and not offered in other games

I think they did a good job in trying to pull themselves apart from other horror games but they didn't fully explored the things they could of done.

- Monsters lack in variety

- Melee combat system is broken

- Zero gravity rooms need some work with, the physics of it mainly

-annson

Prince of Persia Review: Very Pretty

2008-12-03T20:30:00.000-08:00

That's right BigWok, I HAVE BEAT PRINCE OF PERSIA, it took me 11 hours but I DID IT. So I guess you all can tell how much I liked the game seeing how the release date was December 2, 2008 on all platforms (except PC, that's on the 9th ). First and for most I loved the graphics in the game. I loved the new art direction and the graphics were spot on. I have never seen a game with cell shading done this well. (Valkyrie Chronicles is good but I liked this more) Okay so I should start a format so that things start looking the same or so, so hit the jump for the details:

Story:

The story of the game is fairly typical. A mystic dark force has been locked up for thousands of years until someone tries to free it. And now as the darkness spreads the a Prince falls out of the sky and together with the countries Princess saves the country and the world from falling into the hands of this dark force. The game also lets you decide how much detail you want to go through in the story because there are lots of avoidable dialogues that don't even have to be heard.

Gameplay:

How you play the game is as follows. There are 5 Bosses you fight in the game, the Hunter, the Alchemist, the Concubine (spelling?) and the Warrior. You play as the Prince who is accompanied by Elika, you need to take her to the fertile lands to restore the light in the land. There is a mini puzzle or two in each area and it takes a lot of skillful running to get around places as well. I'm going to explain most of the other stuff in sections because there's just so much.

Combat System:

How this is very different from the previous is that it is based very heavily on 2 things. Counters and Combos. If you have the timing down for the attacks you counter you will never get hit and if you can nail long combos with Elika, then you do a lot of damage as well. So how well you do the two will determine how fast each fight is going to be. One thing I found the game was lacking was combat. There wasn't a lot of variation in the fighting. You pretty much fight all the bosses the same way except for the Warrior and the final boss. Also it feels like you are ONLY fighting those people and I should make note that the fights are always two vs one (You and Elika vs enemy). Oh yeah I forgot the mention that the fighting is VERY flashy and it looks pretty bad ass, and the feeling you get when you pull off a nice looking combo is very good. Check out the video from Gametrailers (Hosted by Youtube):

Heath Bar and Death:

So how have they changed how you die now that they are completely removing the Sand of Time? Well whenever your about to die Elika will save you at the last section bringing you back to where you fell or knocking back the enemy and restoring a chuck of the enemy's health. I liked how they did this because the worst thing about playing the previous Prince of Persia's is that whenever I died it does "No, no, no that's not how it happened" and I have to watch the Game Over screen come up, wait for the level to reload and start again. With this new system in place, I just simply restart to the last platform I was one instantly.

The game also does not have a health bar anymore (Sorry jeffizzle, no more water for you) Instead its identical to what a lot of first person shooter games are doing like Call of Duty, where the edge of the screen does red. I would say in 3 hits consecutively you die and have to have Elika save your butt. But similar to the Call of Duty your health restores over time as long as you don't accumulate more damage.

Replay Value:

So after you restore each area, the area turns green and there are 45 light orbs (or something I don't remember the name already) and you have collect these, there are over 1000 in the entire game but you only are required to get 540 to get the necessary upgrades to complete the game. So for those people who like to spend time collecting there you go. But I do believe that if you collect them all there are achievements/trophies and even special unlocks in the game (Most likely costumes and artwork)

Acrobatic System:

They've added some new acrobatic stuff into the game that have to done preformed with Elika, you get a second jump for those distances that are just a bit too far, and of course there are upgrades that you get for Elika as you progress the game as I have mentioned before. These upgrades allow you springboard, run on walls, fly, and swing to new areas. Like the springboard, swing and running on walls one but the flying one just didn't click with me. It just too weird, its not like its broken on anything just a weird idea in my option.

Presentation:

As I have mentioned before, I really really love this new art direction they took. Thank goodness that Penny-Arcade had a work in the art direction, I think Gabe is awesome! The environments look beautiful in full 1080P and that image of when Elika restores an area for the first time just never leaves your mind. I think the character designs look awesome! I'll admit that the Prince as more of an asian/ninja style but I think its very cool.

Dubbing, this was a huge factor to some people because the voice acting made the characters not seem like they were Persian at all. I on the other hand didn't really care about that. As for the script, the lines were cheesy and corny at times but it was similar to what the Prince would say in the previous games as well. They also made some reference to the previous game as well. Also the bring in previous names as well like Farah is the Prince's donkey and he also makes reference to Babylon (Town in Sands of Time) as well.

Aside from the dubbing, the music in the game was a really nice touch as well, something that you would hear in a like a big budget film. I didn't really notice it until the credits were rolling but I guess they did a good job then?

Summary/Conclusion:

Things I liked:

- The Cell shading in the game (everything) looks spot on and I have never seen something look at good (MGS looks good but that like close to CG work sorta the same but I think of it as different)

- New art direction looks great

- Introducing Elika was a great idea and the companion/combo system works reall well

- Taking away the heath bar and having Elika save you was a good idea to save time and frustration

- The fact that you don't have to sit there and watch dialogue after dialogue, you control how much you want to hear aside from the mandatory stuff about your objectives.

- I found that the game was really easy to pick up and play, especially with Elika's "Never Die" system added in

Things I didn't like:

- Lack of combat and the lack of variation in the combat, you pretty much fight the same people over and over again, it gets boring and also its always 2 vs 1 (You being the two)

- Thought the flying acrobatics was a bit weird

- I had a few hiccups in the sound department when in combat and sometimes the game play jumps in combat but this is very very rare.

Overall I think this was a great game, there's plenty of content (seeing how it took me 11 hours or so). Even though it was nice to be able to skip dialogue, I wish you could just enable it to play everything. I highly recommend getting this game if not at least renting it because this is the new Prince of Persia and I'm pretty sure its how Ubisoft is going to stick with it. (Woo to my longest post ever)
-annson

*EDIT: I forgot to mention this but if anyone knows if there's an alternate ending to the game do tell me. Because I know they did that for some of the previous Prince of Persia's, so if any of you readers know do tell me! Thanks! Otherwise I'll just keep checking on Gamefaqs.com =_=

Call of Duty World at War Review: Another WWII Game? C'mon Already

2008-11-27T21:59:00.000-08:00

Activision has released the next Call of Duty a few weeks ago. November 11 (Remembrance Day) 2008 on all platforms. I only played the PC version so I don't really know whats the difference between the platforms besides the Wii version which you can use the Wii Zapper (not required) to play.

So as you can probably tell from the picture the game ONCE AGAIN takes place during World War 2. My first thought was "WHY? Do we really need THAT many WWII games?" Like the event was tragic and blah blah blah. But that's in the past I'm sick of using the Thompson and all those other old shitty guns. I want to use modern weapons, its something I could relate to better. Which is why Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was such an awesome game.

The developers for this game are Treyarch, these are NOT the guys who did CoD4 (Infinity Wards). The game uses the same engine though so pretty much the only thing that's going to be different is the storyline.

And guess what? It is. The mechanics as all the same. You still have to run around the map and now instead of shooting terrorists you get to shoot those Nazis, Wooo? You still have to watch for the grenade icon to come up and chuck the damn thing back at the enemy before the thing blows up in your face. The only thing I didn't like that much was the fact that I felt like I had to conserve my ammunition a lot. Like doesn't that kind of take the fun away when I want to just spray Nazi's with lead? What they have feelings now? And that I should only shoot them once? Stupid.
On the plus side, I guess with a lot of zombies games that were coming out (Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5) these guys at Treyarch felt like there was a need to put in a zombie game mode in the game. Which is kind of cool? This is how it goes, you and 3 other people (Computers or People Online) are stuck in this shitty house and Nazi Zombies are just flooding in from all directions and the goal is to simply see how long you can last. The developers said they got to Level 23? Sounds pretty intense. You can board up windows with planks of wood that are laying around to stop them from coming (temporarily) from certain windows and of course when all players die then its game over. And THAT'S pretty much the ONLY difference in the game. The voice acting, the game mechanics, ALL THE SAME just that the game takes place 60 years ago.

So there's not much to say about this game for a person who's played (The better and more Innovative when it came out) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. This game is NOT worth your money if you really like Call of Duty 4 but if you happen to love World War (1/2/3?) games then you'll probably enjoy this one. There's just nothing that really pulls people into it. I really hope Infinity Wards got the contract to make the next Call of Duty because, in my opinion, the franchise needs them to put something that makes people who usually don't play Call of Duty (Like me) to go and get it and play and enjoy it. A short blog for a game that I didn't joy very much and didn't expect much of.

Guitar Hero World Tour

2008-11-21T11:08:00.000-08:00

Where do you even begin to start with this game? So Activision has decided to join into the "full band" experience so that they can stay in the game with Rock Band doing so well and having a sequel. The game and its instrument bundles came out on all platforms on October 26, 2008. With rock band doing so well in the race is there even hope of guitar hero catching up?

So game modes let’s start from there. The modes are pretty much the same as what there was in Activision's last guitar hero, there's career, quick play, online, versus battles. But they also added a some new ones like the new custom track mixer thing and on the Wii version only to Mii freestyle. Also something new that they added in was character creation. which can have a lot of variations in it because you can adjust everything little detail on the dude's/gal's body everything from like the size of their eyes brows to like the width of their chin. And that goes for the guitars as well, being able to customize every section of it. I’ll skip over most of the modes since they are very similar to the old ones and I’ll talk about the game play in the next section. so the new track mixer sounds like a brilliant idea right? to try and get user content up and essential having the public make songs to share with everyone. WRONG the mixer only makes MIDI like songs, so there's no singing and you can only work with a set amount of sounds so all this will come to is just crazy guitar solos and crazy drum solos. It’ll be hard for those who looking for a challenge. But for those who wanted to make a remix version of Flo Rida - Low well. Let’s just say that it’s not going to be possible. Why did they do this? Well it’s simple. Activision didn’t want to get their pants sued off them. so that's all we can get, custom tracks that sound like ringtones... which sucks... I don’t know much about the Wii's Mii freestyle. But it sounds like a gimmick so yeah.. Not much to say.

Game play. So what’s changed after introducing a set of new drums and mic to the game? Nothing much. But you can't save band members if they decide to play a difficulty level that they can’t handle, so once they fail its game over and you'll have to restart the song. The good news is that the star power gauge is shared between the entire band so if anyone needs to save themselves can just use it at any time of the game. And I mean anytime. Unlike in rock band where the mic and drums can only activate their "overdrive" in certain sections of the section, in guitar hero world tour every player can activate star power anytime they want. I’m still fuzzy on how to activate star power on the mic, maybe I just yell into it? I don’t know. But I like how they did it for drums. You simply just smash the two symbols (yellow and orange) together at the same time anywhere in the song to start it, even if you hit star power when there's a note to play, the game will ignore it so that you can keep up your combo which is a nice feature. Another interesting thing that I noticed them do is that whenever the game is paused for some reason and you want to unpause it, the game does a countdown for everyone so that they can continue playing at the same time without screwing up the first 5 notes, a very nice touch I must say indeed. Another thing that should be noted is the g-slide function thing on the new guitar. Similar to rock band for the solo keys, the g-slide is touching sensitive so that you can just move your finger to play. This is clearly just a gimmick to try to copy rock band because it doesn’t work that well. And it’s not very clear when you can use it for not. So this one’s a no good Activision. The new instruments feel great to play when they work properly. As always the buttons on the guitar feel good to press and the new strum bar is a mix of the clicky old one and rock band's mushy one. The drums free great to play, especially when activating star power, something about smashing those symbols just makes it all free good. But it seems like I’m not the only person having issues with it too. The symbols need to be constantly tightened so that they register the notes properly, but when everything is working properly, it’s hard to tell the difference between guitar hero and its competitor rock band.

As far as tracks go, all the songs that comes with guitar hero world tour (the 85 or so) are all master tracks from the original artists, so no covers which is always good to hear. And that means that the sound quality is at its best, less can be said about the tracks that can be made with the mixer. I’m sure there will be songs that will be interesting to in the custom section but it won’t me making them because the mixer is probably one of the hardest things to use on a console ever. And the tutorials they have are as annoying as the ones I had to sit through on Little Big Planet. It might be fun to use... if I could understand it and it actually liked better...

so how does this fair up to rock band and rock band 2? For Activision's first attempt I think they did quite well for a first attempt. There nearly isn’t enough tracks compared to the rock band franchise but at least the track mixer will soften the blow, a little. Also without a "no fail" mode it'll hard for the casual market to hope on and play, seeing as there's no way to save your band members. The instruments need some work on seeing how the drums are having issues.

With only selling half the amount of units guitar hero 3 did in the first week, this game might not do so well but nobody will know if they can make or not until they make a second one to fix up all the issues.

I don’t know why chan is making me do this but. The game is available on all consoles and you can play up to 4 players locally or online.

Tiny Enormous Planet

2008-11-20T22:58:00.000-08:00

Today--well I guess it's yesterday now--I finally beat PS3's most prized game, Little Big Planet by developers Media Molecule. Some say that this is the first game that actually FULLY utilizes the PS3. The game was released on October 28, 2008 worldwide. The main character in this game is a cute and lovable sack bag boy/girl that players use to journey through Little Big Planet. This 3D side-scrolling platformer is probably one of the most anticipated games for the PS3, or games in general... Maybe aside from Wrath of the Lich King. The game contains a number of modes that players and choose from their pods.

In story mode, the game is essentially identical to Super Mario World. The only major difference is that you need to use your head at times to solve mini puzzles and races to get stickers that are hidden or behind objects. Other than that, it's all the same. You run around the map collecting these clear glass balls that have this gas in them or something, sort of like the coins in Mario. You don't have to get them all but it'd be nice if you did. At the end, your points are tallied and that is the score you obtain. I found that the difficulty of the levels do NOT get progressively harder. Maybe harder in general but there are some that were a breeze but there were some that were very very VERY and I mean VERY frustrating. Like the one with the fire and mines =__= Holy shit crap the mines gahh. So hard. So hard. ... chan knows what I'm talking about. .. gah...

EDIT: "OMG THE FLAMES?!??! WHY DO THEY BURN?!??!! OMGOMGOMGOMG!!!1111" Was all that went through my head while playing that level... - Chan

Anyways after completing the story mode the first time, it'd probably be very useful to redo all the levels again at least once, because there are certain parts of each level that require more than one player to unlock, or they need a certain stickers to unlock more stickers, and come on--who doesn't like stickers?!

So with all the stickers, costumes, materials and decorations that you collect, you can have your sack... err... person put on the stuff that you find, like an assortment of weird hats, clothes and shoes (they could be pants?!), whereas all the other stuff can be used to decorate your pod, or make your own levels. All the levels that are in the story mode can be created using the level creator. It's just that it takes a very very long time, figuring out how to setup triggers and doing this and that, which...would probably take up quite a fair amount of time. The thing I didn't like about the level creator was that there was an endless round of tutorials that I had to sit there and watch and endure. At least you get an achievement if you watch them all?! Only problem is achievements are worth NOTHING!!! So I know now that the only way to find peace is... To just make random levels that nobody can ever win. MUHAHAHAHA..hahaha. *cough*

Of course you can always play levels that other people create which are always fun. There are an assortment of levels like one based off of Mirror's Edge, which are fun to see (snatch them up quick though because there is apparently a "kill switch" for maps based off of other company's IP) and then there are others which just help you get all the achievements which are nice as well.

Another great feature is the sheer amount of customization. Like I mentioned before you can dress your sack-person, and for those of you who don't like the costumes that come with the game, you can always buy new ones from the PlayStation Store for around $1 - $2. $1 for the ones that seem to be generic (shark, frog, etc...) and $2 for the "special" ones, like SEPHIROTH and OLD SNAKE. The special ones aren't out yet but I'm waiting for the day it does and user generated content arrives for them. Haha maybe someone will make a Shadow Moses map and you can fight Metal Gear Rex. I think that'd be pretty EPIC. Until then let's just hope that those people with too much time on their hands can be kept busy with the content that the game comes with, but it seems like they plan on releasing new DLC every week, so it will probably get the Rock Band-like DLC treatment lol.

Anyways to sum it all up, Little Big Planet is a great party game to play with friends. Although it is definitely challenging and frustrating at times because you can't pass a certain parts of the game (REMEMBER THE BOMBS AND THE CART ANSON...), but the game is lots of fun when playing with friends, and it's always fun to share the frustration and anger with friends...Right? This is a game that definitely worth picking up for all those PS3 owners out there that haven't already got a copy.

This game is playable online and offline with up to four people and is available exclusively on the PS3.

Four People Left 4 Dead

2008-11-19T00:57:00.000-08:00

So after playing about 5 hours of the new Left 4 Dead on my PC, here are a few things that come to mind.

The gameplay is EXACTLY the same as what those of you who have played the demo saw and experienced. It's just that when you buy the game each of the levels are actually about twice as long as the demo. You get to play the campaign mode with people online, or play in single player, and of course you can play versus mode as well, which I must add is very cool.

I haven't completed the 5 or was it 6 levels that the game comes with so I don't know if there are any to unlock or not. I know 5 or 6 seems very little but trust of as of right now you'll probably have lots of fun them until Valve releases new maps to download which hopefully in keeping with Valve tradition will be FREE DLC. Plus the levels are very long so I HIGHLY doubt you'd want to play more 2 levels from beginning to end back-to-back.

Single player campaign mode is exactly the same as the online campaign mode just that your stuck with retarded computer AI's. They don't pick up any grenades or anything and they don't know how to use such as the mounted machine guns, so they just end up kind of standing around you and use up all their primary weapon's ammo.

Now playing online would obviously solve this problem, but the problem is there's always those players that are utterly useless, who play this game and think they are the best in game etc. Those players generally will just make a dash for the safehouse and ignore the rest of the "TEAM", or they talk you into "playing" (if you can call it playing anymore) the level EXACTLY the way they want to. Kinda drags the online experience down sometimes. The good thing is that if any of those bastards drop or leave the game they are immediately swapped with a computer. Another thing I like that they made is, that you can make maps that ONLY your friends can join. I haven't had much luck with the online part yet because I haven't been able to create a game on a dedicated server and have been hosting locally, which kinda sucks. so I'll have to get back to you on that later... maybe...

The really cool part of the game is versus mode, where its the zombies versus the survivors. At first I thought it'd be just a lot of zombie running around. but its actually a portion of a campaign map where 2 teams (4 vs 4) take turns playing as the humans and the zombies. the objectives of each side should be obvious. Humans need to get to safehouse, and the zombies need to kill them before they do... So the human part is pretty much exactly the same as the regular campaign but the zombie side is where things get interesting. Each player randomly (or maybe its different on servers) becomes one of the 4 types of zombies: Boomer (big fat thing that explodes), Hunter (crawls around and jumps and rapes the human), Smoker (shoots its tongue to drag the human away from the group)and the Tank (big ugly hulk looking thing). Unfortunately the Witch is not available to be played. I also thought it sucked when I spawned as a smoker... It's kind of unbalanced because its a 1 shot kill for them on me. So I had to wait 20 seconds to spawn as a fat thing just to be shot at once before I have to wait again. But then again there's probably supposed to be a fair amount of sneaking around to do the most damage first, but I usually just ended up charging right in which probably isn't a great idea.

I think I've covered most of the modes and the pros and cons. Overall, I think it's a good game, who wouldn't like to join up with 3 other friends and shoot at a city full of zombies right?. It would have been cool if there were other modes or if it were possible to infect the people and almost make it a game of tag. and i guess more maps would be nice too. hopefully these are things that will be added in later on but I think in my opinion as it stands now I honestly don't think the game is worth $40 YET, I think if Valve introduces more content into the game then this game would be worth your money, kinda like Team Fortress 2 where they added more stuff after the game was released, lets hope they do that for Left 4 Dead as well.

This game is playable online and offline with up to four people and is currently available on PC and XBOX 360

EDIT: Thanks for the copy of L4D Anson - Chan

Uncovering the Need for Speed

2008-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

So Need for Speed Undercover came out in North America on all platforms today. And I’m just going to be straight up honest about this game. It’s a very lazy game… Okay I guess I should back up a little bit. The game play is quite similar to one of the games predecessors, Need for Speed Most Wanted. The story goes, that you’re working for the FBI to help put bad guys in jail, you know just like 2 Fast 2 Furious… Anyways, so you have to go around town and getting reputation and blah blah and to do that you have to win races.

The new thing that they added in now is that you don't have to be at an intersection to start a race anymore (kinda like Burnout Paradise) you just have to be in like a 3 block radius. Honestly, all you have to do is press the Tab button when you’re in the area and the race starts. So if you didn’t catch that, this is pretty much how you play the game:

1) Press "tab" to start a race
2) Win the race and end up in another part of town which has a race
3) Repeat

Oh and sometimes there's a cut scene with Maggie Q in it.

She's hot so it’s definitely worth watching, but the cut scenes with her in it only last about TEN SECONDS. Seriously what the heLL!? Can you even call that a cut scene?! Dammit, and then some other random people talk you but they aren’t Maggie Q so they don’t matter...

So it’s another Need for Speed and with it comes music and at least the soundtrack is good… like they usually are? Right? WRONG. I don’t know why but this version seems to be lacking in the music department... After playing it for about an hour straight, I didn't hear anything that made me want to drive faster. Where is YOUR RAGE EA? WHERE IS YOUR ANGER!? Yeah, pretty boring music = “Slow Driving”.

So how does this game stack up to the last entry into Need for Speed franchise Need for Speed Pornstreet, (I mean Prostreet but the cars are so sexy…) it’s definitely better than Prostreet. It’s not all that much better but it’s definitely good to see that they got scriptwriters on this one. In the end it’s just lots of racing to grind up rep and then you win. Which is the same basic principle as all the other games in the NFS franchise, so in my mind this is how I would order the Need for Speed(s) from Great to CRAP, Most Wanted, Underground (1 & 2), Carbon, Undercover, Prostreet.

Now, back to some Left 4 Dead… This game is hard on single player.

Need for Speed is currently available on most major consoles and supports online and offline play.

EDIT: I forgot to mention how PAINFULLY easy the game is, and there's no option to change the difficulty either.

Red Alert 3

2008-11-18T15:18:00.000-08:00

Left 4 Dead is installing... I realized that I was running out of room on my computer so I had to uninstall Red Alert 3 and since the_chan seems to be bothered by me not using proper capitalization in my blogs I decided to type more so that he can read this and have the need to fix it.

Anyways, so EA has released a new Command & Conquer Red Alert, the release date was on October 28 for PC and November 11 for the 360 and PS3 is still TBA. So here's what I have to say about this game mind you, I don't really remember the gameplay of the original games or even the previous one. The only thing I'm basing this review on is the game's competitors, Starcraft and Warcraft 3, of which I know the gameplay.

First thing that I noticed right from the start, (besides the cutscenes which are quite good, get to that later) is the speed of the game. The pace of the game is really really slow compared to Warcraft 3. Most of the time I felt like I should be pressing buttons or clicking something to make me feel like I'm still actually playing the game. Usually this point could be countered by saying that the gameplay requires strategic planning and all that stuff, but the fact is, it doesn't. The game revolves around 2 things, making money and pumping out units. No creeping, or leveling up heroes (which they have included now) or anything like that. All you have to do is sit there for about 20 - 30 minutes to farm up enough gold and build enough units to just demolish the opposing forces and then you complete the mission. So pretty much every game I played was just me sitting there putting up my defenses until I have (what I thought to be) a large enough army to just walk through the enemy's base, and boy do they move slow. So much so that each campaign game took almost an hour for me. it literally took me 8-9 hours just to beat the first of the three campaigns.

So aside from the boring gameplay, the cut scenes were the only thing that kept me going. The cast was, filled with relatively famous, actors like Peter Stormare ("vee-dub in da house" dude), J.K. Simmons (Jameson from Spiderman), and George Takei (Hiro's father from Heroes) and hot actresses like Jesse McCarthy, Kelly Hu and Gemma Atkinson. the scenes were very hot and sexy and it kept things interesting. Other than that, I guess the only other good thing about it was that the campaigns are co-op now, so that was something new for me. But only thing is EVERYONE in the industry is making EVERYTHING co-op, so I guess it's not really that new, just that its the first RTS that's done it? meh?

Now it's time for me to play Left 4 Dead.

EDIT: Love you to Anson....Jerk...lol...kinda...

Living on the Edge's Mirror

2008-11-17T14:42:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished playing Mirror's Edge on the PS3. and right now I can't really sum up a verdict on it in one word. There's are lots of good parts and points to it but at the same time some bad stuff too. So lets start with the bad?

First thing is, and I mean this is major one, the combat system was VERY weak. My first impressions of this game when I saw the trailer for the first time AND when I played the demo that was released was that it as a game of running and stealth, sorta like Metal Gear Solid. Where combat should be avoided if possible. Though while playing the game, Faith gets trapped in a room with 20 guys that are ALL SWAT and have like ridiculous arsenal against you, and you can't really do what you have to do to escape until to knock them all out or kill them all. So much for being stealth... So why not just disarm all of them you say? Well, for the police and security guards disarming them is actually cool, you do a cool knee to the groin and the guy falls down and you take his gun. The problem comes when you need to deal with the SWAT teams, the timing to disarming them needs to be so precise that its just too painful to do. Using the slow motion thing (whatever it was called) helps but you can only use it like once every 5 minutes. Which is not a great idea when 20 other people are shooting at you.

The second thing I didn't like about it was the fact that the it's very hard for you to gauge how much room you have left before you need to jump. I found myself falling a lot because I jumped too early or because I jumped too late. If I screwed up I needed to redo all the acrobatics that I did to get to the same point to just fall again... very frustrating.

I like the game on the note that it was something unique and something new. The parkour-ing part of the game was really fun I must say. Jumping off rooftops and just the whole free-running idea was very nice. I found that most of the time it was quite easy to navigate around and know exactly where I'm suppose to run to but getting there was entirely up to me. Almost. I say almost because your still use the same areas to get to point A to B but it was up to me to decide which was the fastest route to go.

I also liked the fact that the game put an emphasis on using momentum. Building up momentum was key if you wanted to make a long jump, or... Well, that's pretty much it. I'm not sure if running faster helped me dodge bullets better (maybe?) but I found that once I had the speed, it was very easy to do what I wanted to do in the parkour environment.

So in the end the game was good (using momentum and parkouring). but it had it flaws (combat system and the amount of combat in the game). I thought it'd be more like Eyeshield 21 where I had to run and dodge, but as it turned out the game was almost like half a shooter game.