Phantomsmedia

The Phantomsmedia Website!

2012-01-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

Welcome!
Phantomsmedia has been moved to it's new website: www.phantomsmedia.com
All new reviews will be uploaded here, so bookmark the new site! Thanks to all the fans who have followed Phantomsmedia for the years it has been up and running, you aren't forgotten.
Jay

Battlefield 3

2011-12-18T20:06:00.001-08:00

Whilst the Call of Duty fans frolic unknowing in their drunken stupor created by playing Modern Warfare 3 other members of the gaming community waste hours battling through much more detailed, much more tactical skirmishes. If you haven't guessed by now, I'm talking about Battlefield 3, the newest game in the battlefield franchise by DICE and EA. Battlefield 3 brings to the table what all Call of Duty games don't but still falls short on several planes. Does this make this interesting and uniquely fresh shooter another item on this years Christmas list, or is it yet another "unique" shooter?

Set in a fictional world of 2014, a war between the US and the People's Liberation and Resistance (PLR), Battlefield 3 contains a campaign which throws you into several locations all over the world. Only taking a few hours to complete (It took me two play sessions of about four hours each) the campaign does fall short of length, yet most FPS aren't known to have massive gameplay time. The story is shown in a series of flashbacks while you're being interrogated. Sound like Black Ops to you? That's what I thought too. Moving on, the interrogators are interested in your connection to nuclear weapons which the story is centered around. The ending if fairly climactic, though it seems almost a perfect place for a sequel. Most of the weapons in the multiplayer can be found in BF3's singleplayer. Obviously you can't customize any weapons during campaign, but are left to scavenge dead bodies for weapons and ammo. There is no co-op built in with the singleplayer. Co-op is provided in a separate cooperative mode which plants players in missions where they complete objectives and earn weapons to use in standard multiplayer. Battlefield 3's singleplayer is something they fail to ace. It feels a bit cliché and run-of-the-mill, still, it's a time waster, and a damned good one.

Multiplayer brings the epic battle to the massive scale. No game has felt this much like a real war since... Since... I really can't remember. The PC version allows for up to 64 (32 on Consoles) players to wreak havoc with a multitude of drivable vehicles, from jets to helicopters and from tanks to jeeps. There is a progressive level system with unlocks along the way. Four balanced classes help even out the battle, the assault class gains the medic's equipment and the support gets a light MG and ammo. Recons get sniper rifles and equipment to aid in intelligence gathering and spawning. Engineers blow up tanks and repair them, 'nuff said. Battlefield 3's maps are built with architecture in mind. No item is left untouched. The forests in the map, Caspian Border are rich and filled with great choke points as an example. Multiplayer never felt this natural, this good, since Team Fortress 2. Man, those were the good old days.

Battlefield 3 is the best looking game on the market in my educated opinion. Skyrim may have the environment and models down pat, but when a helicopter screams overhead, blocking out the sun while you're sprinting through the jungle, nothing can beat Battlefield 3, yet. The xbox actually doesn't run on the full graphical settings unless you download the HD textures. If you don't download them, this game looks like crap. It's not Battlefield's fault, it's yours. From what I've heard (Don't play on the PS3) the PS3 has the textures downloaded by default. Water textures look nice, the sun glares realistically. Character and vehicles models are sharp and beautiful. Explosions shake your screen and cloud it, making your experience all the more amazing. You can't compare this game to the COD series. The graphics are just too good in BF3, just too... Epic. Just remember, install those HD textures Xboxers.

Many games can have a sound engine. Mostly, that means it's bug free and runs the way it needs to. Battlefield 3 has more bugs than the other big brand shooter on the market today, but to me, it doesn't matter. All I can say is, "Frostbite 2 (drool), Destruction 3.0 (drool)". It's just that good. A new engine, Frostbite 2, the predecessor to Bad Company's engine allows BF3 to take the next flying leap into the gaming world. Destruction 3.0 allows that leap, making Battlefield 3 have a major difference compared to other shooters. Example:
Bob: "Damn! Those campers are sitting in that building the whole match! No one can touch them!"
Joe: "Hmmm... I have this RPG! I'll just make a hole."
(Massive explosion, then gunfire)
Bob: "We showed them noobs! Oh, crap! The building is coming down!"
If you gained the general message from the garbled text above, almost anything in Battlefield 3 may be torn and blown apart. This leads to door camping being useless. C4 gains meaning and jets can actually provide ground support. The Battlefield engine not only provides a support for the gameplay, the graphics but it changes the gameplay itself. Gamers be warned, bugs are plentiful, but it's a fine price to pay for such a great engine.

Overall, Battlefield 3 is far superior than any shooter on the market at this date. That is part of the reason I denies myself the act of reviewing Modern Warfare 3, it's just not different than MW2. Graphics, engine, multiplayer are amazing. Singleplayer, though fun and not missing the, "Oh! Shit!" moments everyone loves, is not that great. Then again, who ever bought a Battlefield game for the singleplayer. PC players be warned, if you're looking for a Steam friendly game, looking away. BF3 is only available as direct download from Origin, EA's new online store.

Overall Score: 9.5

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

2011-12-01T17:13:00.000-08:00

Vast mountains, beautiful rivers and swishing trees? Yep. Skyrim. If you ever read my review of Oblivion which was posted a year or so ago, you'll realize that these sort of games, open world RPGs are my overall favorite. Many people may feel that games of this scape are too large, and don't allow for a good story (What? Really? No.), but I strongly disagree. Now, this game is nothing like the Fable games, or anything like a game of that class. Skyrim has more finesse and is filled with a LOT more epic moments and places. Skyrim also allows you to build your own story, look, everything. Your destiny is yours to control. Want to be a nameless, evil assassin, kill of kings? A gallant warrior rooting out all things evil? Or possibly a sneaky thief with tricks up his sleeves? You can be all that and more.

(My first dragon battle and eventual kill)

The first thing to realize about Skyrim is that the game is not centered around the main quest. There are what seem like hundreds of side quests and that's not including the random miscellaneous quests that are given by NPCs. If you're not a quest guy, this game still holds miles of terrain for you to explore. The geography switches smoothly, from harsh, snow whipped plains and mountains to open grasslands and forests. Then from the snow and grass to rough hotspring landscape that is bleak and barren. No matter where you travel, the amazing graphics draw you to some new place. I found myself on an important quest when I saw a random windmill. The next thing I knew, I was miles away and battling for my life against some evil bandits. How I got there and where six hours went, I don't know.

Things have been fairly evened out from previous games. I no longer am struggling against seemingly weak enemies at the highest level, as in Oblivion. Skyrim does scale some foes to your level, but others are capped at different points (Ex. You're level 49, enemy is 30.). The scaling did lead to me falling dead many times with giants at a low level. They instantly scale to a super high level and I do believe they stay there (Pro Tip: Don't mess with a sleeping giant. Unless you are above level 20.)

The combat has been upgraded to a more realistic and useful setup. You may now dual wield swords (Oh. Yeah. Awesome.), or mix it up, with a spell in one hand and a sword in the other. Any combo works well and in battle, seems right. Sure, it still feels like you're swinging a Nerf sword, but the magic system is much better. Dual weilding spells makes you feel like a Badass. Archery feels the same, but a bit smoother overall. Back to the swords, they do feel like Nerf swords. Hitting enemies doesn't really stagger then and in real life, blood would be EVERYWHERE. Still, the kill animation added to Skyrim do hold up for this flaw, making you forget the sad battle beforehand as you skewer your enemy.

Skyrim's engine seems to be holding up well for such a big game. I haven't found any game breaking flaws, except for the one quest... Where the quest item literally fell through the floor. With to way to get it back, the quest is forever in my quest log. The NPC's haven't crashed on me, the game hasn't made enemies disappear. My items haven't gone missing, but my face has... The Arch-mages robes and masks don't mix. Bugs wise, I haven't seen much. The new 1.2 patch did add reverse flying dragons, which was an obvious bug, but I have full satisfaction that this will be fixed within the near future.

The game's story (Main, side, lore, everything) is fully fleshed out. There are no inconsistencies that I have seen. The plots are scripted with beauty and the lore written with love. If you are even wanting to know more about the Elder Scrolls universe, you can dive into the mounds of in-game books! The only problem with the storyline, was that all of the faction quests seemed to be very short. The dark brotherhood left me with loneliness. *SPOILER* The entire guild died. Except for two people, leaving me to be leader of a small shadow of the real brotherhood. Happy? Nope. Oblivion's ending was much better. At least I had a much cooler base of operations there. The mages guild also looked to be really short. I found it strange that a newcomer to the guild stepped up to be the Arch-mage just after being with the guild for a short while. There were other, more high ranking people there. I didn't really do anything that epic either, just kill some Thalmor dude and avert some unknown danger... The most promising storyline was actually not the main, which is extremely short (At least in the time I played.). The best, seems to be the thieves storyline. It has a totally unexpected traitor, where as in the brotherhood's case I had a feeling that someone would rebel.

Overall, Skyrim is a exceptional game. It blends the deep experience of a... For the lack of a better word, a simulator and the levels and content of an RPG into one sweet, soft, cute, fierce and powerful package. This is probably MY game of the year. Yeah. I just went there and it's not even the end of December. Skyrim is worth it's price, for all the time I've put in it, I've at least doubled what I usually play with a game.
Overall Score: 10.0
For more awesome Skyrim screenshots directly from me, go here!

Minecraft

2011-11-23T12:59:00.001-08:00

I visited Minecraft months ago, when it was in it's stages of Beta. Back then, this game was rated 9.0, in an unofficial state, since the game wasn't truly released. Now, with Minecraft released I'm revisiting it.(Well, I never stopped playing. This is an amazing game.)

Minecraft is an indie game built from the ground up and it couldn't have done better. Over the course of several builds launched before release the public was allowed to play Minecraft. This let the devs add content and fix bugs with community input. Going into this review, I won't touch upon graphics, or this games engine much, as both are unique to this game. The graphics wouldn't live up to current standards, but they're not supposed too. The engine has bugs, but the devs have them fixed within weeks.

When you normally jump into a game world, the first thing you see in front of you, is your end goal. Minecraft takes a different approach, dropping you into a world where you can build, destroy and do anything. There is no real end goal, unless you count defeating the final "Boss". With so much content added before release, Minecraft turned into a shining game. No longer can I compare another video game with Minecraft. It's on a planet of its own, in a great way.

Minecraft works off a basic system, break blocks, which you can then place, with some exceptions. At first, this is all it offered, then it came out with Survival mode, adding tools and weapons to help survive against creatures which spawn every night. Not only did this add more play time to Minecraft, it made it a challenge, what every real gamer wants. With each update, there were bugs, but at the next update, they were always removed or at least hidden.

With hundreds of items and blocks, Minecraft is in no way limited by content. Recently Notch, the main dev and creator of Minecraft, released The End. The End acts as a realm to combat the final boss, the Enderdragon (OMG. Yes. This game has a dragon in it!) Another realm, the Nether, a hellish zone with appropriate land forms and terrain was also added a while back. NPCs and their villages added a new spice to the game and of course... Multiplayer.

Multiplayer for Minecraft is an experience totally it's own. Building castles and towns with friends is something that you can't beat in any other game. Though it contains more bugs than singleplayer, multiplayer is much for entertaining. Though setting up a server may be a hassle for some, it pays off. There are plenty of third-party mods which also boost your multiplayer experience, but do detract from the feeling of vanilla Minecraft. So if you're a gamer who can't live without his friends to play with, do not fear.

Overall, Minecraft is a game for almost everyone. The engine, graphics and gameplay lead it to be a game that can't be compared to another and make it stand out with a gleaming shine. Bugs don't mean much in this game, as the devs are great about repairing any problems. Minecraft does have one of the biggest, or THE biggest community for a single game. Just buy it.

Overall Score: 9.75
Yes. It's almost the best game ever created.

Dead Space 2

2011-11-15T14:59:00.001-08:00

Guest Reviewer: Luke T.

Dead Space 2 is the sci fi, horror sequel to Dead Space. Dead Space 2 takes place on a space station where Isaac (the main character) is being held in a mental hospital after the events of Dead Space. You are awoken right around the time the shit hits the fan, necromorphs are overrunning the space station and once again Isaac is called to battle with these monsters. I don’t want to spoil the the story for you but trust me, it is awesome and from start to finish Dead Space 2 keeps you on the edge of your seat. Some people don’t think they can be scared by a video game but if any game can scare you this one will. The thing that scared me the most was the feeling of vulnerability as I walked down the dark halls, you never know when a necromorph is going to burst through the wall or ceiling, or when one of the mutilated bodies on the ground comes to life and attacks you.

The graphics in Dead Space 2 are not amazing but very good. Whether it be the excessive gore or some of the epic views the game holds I was never disappointed when it came to the graphics. The graphics for character models are extremely well built. For example, the necromorphs disfigured bodies are very detailed, and the bloodied carcasses of the inhabitants of the city are quite realistic.

The combat in Dead Space 2 is intense and satisfying. One thing I loved was that there was no HUD, your health display is a row of bars on your back and your ammo is displayed right above your weapon. When you bring up your inventory it doesnt pause your game instead it projects it directly in front of you and leaves you vulnerable to enemy attack, I think this adds a nice bit of realism to the game. Almost all of the weapons in the game have a primary and secondary use, for example the line gun can fire a wide powerful shot or it can place a mine on the ground, things like this make it so you have many different ways to approach a battle.

Overall I think this game is definitely worth its price and it is as fun as it is scary. It has a deep and very interesting story, it has very fun game play, and last but not least the graphics are awesome. So if your looking for a great scare or some fun get this game, once you start to play you wont be able to stop until the game is finished then you’ll have to play it through again.

Overall Score: 8.5

Killing Floor

2011-11-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Now, before I start this review, I'd like to hint that I have something really, really, REALLY awesome coming up. Oh. How I love dragons. ;)

Killing Floor, a Left 4 Dead rip off, you might say? Not really. Just because it's a horror, and has things that look like zombies, it's not based off Left 4 Dead. This game is an interesting build from the people (Tripwire interactive) who have now created the new Red Orchestra game.

Killing Floor is, for one, a game that does not really include zombies... or, the normal kind. These are mostly referred to as Specimens. Though server Specimens seem to echo the Left 4 Dead zombies, like the Bloat, a huge, fat, and bile spewing Specimen, you can't really mark this game down. Take Dead Island for example, it ALSO had a fat, exploding guy of sorts. Moving on. The game also does not run the same. Killing Floor lets you select one map and then battle out against waves of Specimen which increase in number and difficulty. There is NO really storyline for this game, unless you want to look on the Main Data Base for all things Killing Floor. Killing Floor also allows you to go to a trader between waves, who will let you buy and sell weapons. You will not really find weapons around the map, but a few do spawn, though rarely.

(Yup. That's a Christmas themed event. They also have Halloween. :D)

Killing Floor's graphics look great for a horror survival game. The tone seems gritty, which is totally awesome. While you are dead, your spectator cam looks as if it came from the early model of recorders, with old style effects everywhere. The models of guns and equipment look fine, but the character model's animation looks the same. Not a bad thing... but come on, maybe the guys with gas masks can move the mask around when the player stands still. There are numerous weapons, and seven classes to go with them including: Firebug (Pyro), Commando, Sharpshooter, and Field Medic. The classes gain boosts with their class weapons, and discounts from the trader. It really seems like a solid system and when you get bored of one class, you still have six more to play.

Killing Floor is a great game to play with friends. Alone, it gets boring, but it's not called a co-op survival for nothing... The game has perfect atmosphere, and the totally British survivors calling for money, heals and spouting jokes is aways funny. The graphics are great for this sort of a game, not for a COD game of course. The engine I didn't talk much about, but it's quite solid also. The Specimen are coded nicely. Don't buy this game if you are easily scared. It's a horror after all.

Overall Score: 7.5

Arma II

2011-10-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tired of Call of Duty arcady gameplay? Do you hate the little eleven year old kids screaming over microphones and mucking up teamplay? Maybe you should look into Arma II... Gunships scream over the battlefield, snipers position on hill tops as ground forces attack strategic locations. But, though the gameplay seems to be interesting, different and invigorating, as shall be shown, do the graphics and engine work and look well?

Arma II is probably one of the most realistic shooters created to date, with some flaws in it's intricate design. The gameplay is a lot more tactical and focuses almost totally on teamplay. With so many vehicles, weapons and two maps, one of which is about 225sq km, this game seems to have everything. That's obviously not all, Arma II contains a useful, powerful and amazing mission editor. This is definitely not a normal editor such as Halo: Reach's, this editor has the power to create scripted events, actions and enemy tactics.
Gunships screaming over battlefields? I wasn't kidding, this game has beautiful sounds and makes the atmosphere seem totally real. The sniper rifles have a normal amount of drop, which makes sniping at 2km from the battlefield actually challenging. The gun sounds sound a bit dull though, ever shot sounding the same, no matter what. Then again, most gamers don't care about sounds that much.

Graphics in this game are almost realistic. The option to be able to free-look and yet walk forward is great, and maximizes the amount of enjoyment you can get from the world. Sitting in one of the trucks in a convoy and looking all around you makes this game seem super realistic. The weapons are shiny and detailed, yet small things could have been changed: Weapon dirt, better muzzle flash, reloading animations. The helicopters are modeled quite well, but have strange hit boxes that don't match their shape. Dust and grime are kicked up from helicopter blades and from fast moving trucks. Worried that your budget computer doesn't have the power to hold up to such a game? The graphics can be altered easily and don't take away from the overall gameplay. At full graphics and maximum fog distance, the environment is beautiful, with grass and bushes. The view distance is truly insane, allowing you to spot and fire at targets from crazy ranges. Water is animated without flaw and looks great. Can an engine handle this?

The Arma II engine actually holds up such a game without too many problems. The game renders as fast as your computer lets it, FPS is definitely not a problem (:D Max graphics and I think I'm still at 60FPS atleast.) The main issue with this game is the bugs. A few times I've found myself wondering why my character had invisible hands. Or... was frozen to the ground... Or died after he got out of an unmoving helo that was in my own base. There are problems, but that is NOT a reason to skip out on this realistic game. Bugs though, in about five hours of straight gameplay, maybe show up once. They aren't that major, not gamebreaking at all.

Overall Score: 9.0

Fallout: New Vegas

2011-10-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

*My greatest thanks for almost 20,000 views!*

Set in the aftereffects of a Globa Nuclear war fallout, Fallout: New Vegas is something different for most gamers. Fallout brings the classic RPG elements to the abandoned Vegas Strip. Now, the question many Fallout veterans may ask... Is this just a drawn out add-on that costs too much? Read on fellow wastelander, for this question and many others will be answered.

Fallout: New Vegas has almost the exact same graphics and engine as the previous Fallout. There are minor tweaks, such as a better combat system that is more streamlined with aiming down the sights of your weapons (Finally!) and a not so over powered VATS. The engine runs smoothly and despite the rumors of the game being as buggy as the rear end of a zebra, I found only a few glitches and bugs. These few bugs were hardly anything to get annoyed with and I was greatly satisfied with the quality. Not to say I never found myself wondering why a certain important character had not appeared in my game... In the end I used console commands to port the man in. But compared to the amount of bugs in a game like Dead Island, Fallout: NV is perfect.

*Yes, that is a Barret. Yes. You may kill things with it.*

Moving on from bugs, and onto a quick topic, the graphics are the same. The new weapons have textures that may look higher resolution, but are essentially not. So, all in all, this game has the same look of Fallout 3.
The gameplay of Fallout: New Vegas is unique. Instead of hunting out enemies to kill, or money, you really want to be hunter for people to converse with. New Vegas really strains the fact that you are alone, except in highly populated areas like The Strip. The sense of accomplishment, or wonderment when you find a random NPC who, for example, is a cannible is great. It actually seemed like there were too many quests to complete and you'll need to play through the game multiple times to side with different faction for full playing quality. Fallout: NV does a great job of adding weird and interesting characters as always and of course, new problems to overcome. Oh! Did I forget to metion that you can modify your weapons with silencers, clip extenders and all that good stuff? Yeah, it's like ducktaping a scope to a magnum. It works and the result is awesome.

Wrapping this up, Fallout does have some flaws. Of course, the small bugs and possibly how easy it is for you to get caps (The ingame currency). The main thing that makes Fallout: NV piss me off, is the invisible walls that FORCE you to use the road that is totally overrun with really high level bastards... Now, I don't remember Elder Scrolls: Oblivion doing this, and that game was perfect. Take out the stupid invisible walls and other minor things and I would be very content.
So, do you buy Fallout, or is just a glorified add-on that costs $20 (At the date of this being written)? Yes, though the engine and graphics haven't changed, the addition of SO much stuff is tempting. This is certainly something that will destroy many hours of your long awaited weekends.

Overall Score: 8.5

Halo: Reach

2011-07-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

This review was quite late, due to the fact that this game was so awesome I completely forgot to review it. Here it is. Halo: Reach, in it's amazing glory and epicness.

Halo: Reach is a fusion of great multiplayer and equally great singleplayer. Starting with singleplayer, the Bungie team has edited some things. The most noticeable of which, is the story is set on Reach. This lets the player take in the dieing human life on the planet, instead of seeing it from the perspective of indestructible John, Spartan-117 from Halo 3. The graphics have been upped immensely and now look easily better than any COD game, explosions and bullet trails look beautiful. At one point, the game lets you take control of a space craft and you proceed to battle baddies in the final frontier. The AI has been upgraded, as usual in every Halo game. Pushing towards the main idea here, all this and a driven storyline filled with moments worthy of "Wows", the singleplayer is awesome. Over the course of ten missions you follow the path of Noble 6, a Spartan whose appearance will actually change with your multiplayer/singleplay character. The voice acting is perfect, with accents being flawless and not too over the top. The story is moving in it's own way and at the end, I really felt sorry for those digital souls who lost their lives fighting a losing battle. The singleplayer is definitely top notch.

Note: This is not an in-game vehicle. This is user created material in the photo.

There are two modes which are different than the normal multiplayer versus competition. Forge mode allows you to build anything imaginable, from fortresses in the sky, to space ships. Ever wanted to make your own map that makes it on the online game modes? Now you can. Reach's forge mode was boosted to a higher level than Halo 3's, which lacked some thought. This forge mode is easier to use, more fun and a lot more creative. Even if you're not the best builder, forge is fun. The next game mode is firefight. This mode can be played in ranked lobbies in Xbox Live but focuses on team work to destroy limited waves of enemy forces. It is a mix between multiplayer-campaign than is welcomed by most. It gives Halo a new way to play, if anything starts to get boring.

The normal multiplayer consists of several playlists with different gametypes for all styles of gaming. The gaming is amazing, with a perfect armor customization feature. This feature lets you customized all aspects of your spartan, from chest, to visor color. Even down to knee pads. The only downside to multiplayer is the slow leveling at higher levels, though this seems to be the way that Bungie compromised for having no prestige option.

Overall Score: 9.5

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

2011-07-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

The third installment of the Assassin's Creed series, not counting the online game, Project Legacy. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood brought something to the table that none of the other Creed's contained, Multiplayer. It had a short storyline as usual and took Ezio to Rome. "This was bound to be a great game", I thought, but was I correct?

Singleplayer will be touched upon first. There are a few new combat implications, the crossbow, which is probably the coolest long range weapon of stealth ever. The development team also created the use of the hidden gun while using swords and hammers seen in the picture above. The poison blade has gained the ability of long ranged poison, which is pretty awesome, but overshadowed by the more powerful and quicker weapon of destruction, the crossbow. The base combat has been upgraded to be faster and a lot more awesome. This sometimes makes combat too easy, making it feel like your swatting a group of flys instead of elite guards. Assassinations stay in the same basic concept, though you dont start out with your hidden blade from Assassin's Creed II, you have to buy it from Leo. The additons of the Assassin recuits lets you train them and use them to battle foes on the field. After training them long enough, they can become full fledged assassins, which are almost invincible. The game gains a lot from these awesome assassins.

As every Assassin's Creed game has been for me, once you finish the story mode and complete any side quests, it becomes boring. The same is true for Brotherhood. Though the storymode is amazing and gives you a feel of living Ezio's deadly life, it is extremely short, as mentioned before. There are more side quests than in Assassin's Creed II, but in an overall feel, Brotherhood seems like the same game. The only differences between Brotherhood and #2 seem to be a slight graphics upgrade, multiplayer and a different story, combined with a few new weapons and a different combat setup. It is still worth it's cost for the singleplayer if you're a fan of the series.

The multiplayer has a few modes, Wanted, Manhunt and Alliance. If you get the free DLC you also gain Chest Capture mode. There are variations of a few modes, resulting in a hardcore mode. Multiplayer though is a lot more enjoyable than singleplayer. Duking it out with serveral friends, or participating in a ranked match against battle hardened foes who are constantly owning you give Brotherhood a new edge. There is a normal level up system with perks, abilities, death and killstreak rewards and character customization that are unlocked at various levels. This leads players to have a reason to play, if not for just plain old fun. The graphics, if it's not just me, seem to be better on the character models in multiplayer. This is probably because lots of Brotherhood singleplayer models were salvaged from #2.

Overall Score: 8.0

More E3 Coverage: Battlefield 3

2011-06-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

I've got something special yet again, some Battlefield 3 gameplay. This game is the one thing I'm counting on to drown MW3 in it's dust. Battlefield 3 is probably one of the games I really cant wait to have it come out. Here is a link to over 15 Battlefield 3 gameplay videos. Awesome huh?

Battlefield 3 Gameplay E3 2011

Battlefield Bad Company 2

2011-06-09T20:55:00.000-07:00

Battlefield Bad Company 2 is one of the most visually stunning games of it's time. The visuals pop out of the screen, the characters have perfectly created models, and crisp looks. This game takes what Modern Warfare 2 has given the community, fast paced destructive action, and makes it way better. Bad Company 2 makes it so much better, I hate to say it, but it was far greater in value and awesomeness than any Call of Duty game.

The destruction of scenery in this game is beautiful. It should be way better in Battlefield 3, which is coming out this year though. Anyway, the destruction is amazing. Blowing a building to bits with C4, or a 'nade launcher can't be more fun. Each weapon has different amounts of terrain destruction power, but the tanks and helicopters seem to have a lot less explosive power than they should. A tank round should be able to tear through a house and do major damage. In Bad Company 2 it does around the same damage as a grenade launcher. Helicopters NEED to have more destructive power, as their missiles are very deadly. Yet the less potent rounds seem to be Dice's way of trying to balance vehicle warfare between on foot warfare. I could find this is be done a lot easier if they would have just added something like more powerful rounds, but then give a more powerful rocket launcher that could possibly lock-on without tracer darts.

Moving on to one of the less important issues of this game. Singleplayer is pretty cool. The storyline is not anything amazing, Russians have a super weapon, bla bla bla. The AI aren't that smart, and building destruction isn't important. Singleplayer turns into a small shootem up game with a bland story. There are a mild assortment of different locations, and enemy types and every once in awhile you come across a different objective other than, "Move up and kill stuff,".It's nothing I would recommend as a must buy, luckily multiplayer picks up the game and makes it superb.

Multiplayer consists of Conquest (A capture the point style of play), Rush (Blow up a bomb and move to the next bomb), Squad Rush (Rush with less people per team), and Squad TDM (Team deathmatch). With a large assortment of maps, and the different modes to play on, it makes the replayability high. On different consoles the player count changes, on Xbox the player cap is 12 per team, for a max of 24 players a match. As I only own the game for Xbox, that's what I play at. Though I believe the max cap for PC is at 64 in a match. Which is completely awesome and makes the frantic action in this game almost 3 times more epic. Multiplayer lets you play with all the guns you could need, and scopes, perks, equipment, and secondary weapons. My main annoyance in this picture in this equation is that the scopes are only usable is you let go of one perk. All the vehicles in the singleplayer are in multiplayer, and are extremely fun to use against real opponents. In truth, Multiplayer is this game's only hold on it's good reputation. I loath the singleplayer.

Overall Score: 8.5

Assassins Creed Revelations

2011-06-08T08:16:00.000-07:00

Hello again!

Just wanted to throw out a few amazing Revelations trailers and gameplay from E3 2011. Have fun! This seems to be an amazing game, and I will be waiting for the realease of this great title!

Assassins Creed Revelations Trailer, E3 2011

And guess what will be returning form brotherhood... Multiplayer! Oh yeaah!

Assassins Creed Multiplayer Gameplay (Cam), E3 2011

Some more trailers:

Assassins Creed Revelations Intro and Gameplay E3 2011

Assassins Creed Revelations Ezio's Journey Interview E3 2011

Grand Theft Auto 4: The Ballad Of Gay Tony

2011-03-07T12:54:00.000-08:00

Are you tired of blowing stuff up on normal Grand Theft Auto IV? Do you want more rockets? New weapons? New cars? More awesomeness? You need look no more. For $20, this game is just about the perfect GTA add-on.

Remember, this isn't a new game. It's still Grand Theft Auto. Nothing has been changed drastically except that new things have been added. There are some new character animations which I prefer over the normal GTA and which look a lot more realistic. Blowing stuff up is still the main idea, and what better to add to GTA than a APC. Exactly what the community has been waiting for since The old GTA titles. And if you think that's awesome already, then think again, because the Buzzard has been added. A light attack helicopter with chainguns, and (OMG) Fully automatic rocket launchers attached to it. This helicopter would probably be the reason I bought the add-on.

The Buzzard

There is, of course, a new story mode. But it's fairly short compaired to the original GTA4's story line, and is not that interesting. The characters are funny, and most of them want to kill you as usual. You cross paths with most of the main GTA4 characters including Niko, Roman, etc. This leads to cutscenes that are interesting to watch, since you are from a different view point than you were with Niko.

More vehicles have been added, which is completely awesome. And also more weapons, including the SAW, P90 submachine gun, the C4, and much more. For a $20 value though, I wouldn't buy this unless I really would want to play with the new items and vehicles, or am a huge GTA fan. The amount you get is a bit little. Yet the quality is good enough to warrent a still ok score.

Score: 7.0

Gears of War 2

2011-02-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

Want blood? Lots of blood? Epic gore? Cutting out gigantic worm's hearts? Cutting people in half? CUTTING? You need Gears of War 2, or medical help. But get Gears, for it has all the killing you can ever get in a video game. Oh, yeah, and I forgot, you can blow shit up.

As mentioned above, this game is totally filled with gore, and it's awesome! Though the graphics aren't the best, they somehow help portray the action, and make the game look very fast paced. Blood splatters are realistic, but the blood doesn't catch on armor, unless the scene calls for it to (Like when you cut open a bunch of hearts inside a huge worm, and practically dissect the thing, from inside!!). The graphics on character animations are smooth, but I always feel that the characters are like big moving blocks, and way too bulky. Sure, the guys are covered in armor and equipment, but they still seem like huge blocks. The third person prospective is quite nice, and let's you see much more of the map at once. If it were a game like Halo, I wouldn't like it, but Gears makes third person look awesome.

Extreme GORE!

The AI is not great, and not bad. It's just ok, enemies will react to what you do, move around the battlefield, accurately fire upon you, dodge grenades. They don't know when to retreat, though many games don't know how to do that either. Your team mates are also pretty good, they'll follow you around and do the objectives, I've yet to see anytime when my partner got stuck on a lamp post and I had to restart my console. Another great thing about the AI is that it doesn't glitch.

Multiplayer is provided, but didn't work for me, I tried connecting for about 30min, but it didn't let me through. May be a problem with my internet, or the multiplayer may not even be active anymore.

There are weapons, but I would hope for a few more than are provided, yet the weapons function nicely, and I find them very fun to shoot stuff with.

Also, a firefight style, hoard mode gameplay type is playable. This lets you fight multiple waves of enemies, that are increasingly harder. Very fun to play with friends, or alone, after you have beaten the singleplayer.

Overall, the story is actually really great, graphics suppliment the game's focus (GORE!!) and help the player feel a sence of action and drama. Game dynamics are pretty cool. Hoard mode add to the value of the game greatly. Multiplayer not working, or is it? And not many weapons, lower this games rating, but not by too much. It's still something I would buy.

Overall Score: 7.5

Minecraft Beta

2011-02-24T13:39:00.000-08:00

Feel like building an empire? A Roman city? Even something like the Empire State Building? Well, you can do that in minecraft, from scratch, from the very earth itself. Live in a city, out in the wilderness, in a cave, on a floating island. The options are endless.

As stated above, the gamer can do anything. The gamer starts with nothing, survives his first night, build a small base, and hopefully starts to create a huge empire. The game is huge. People say it can randomly generate (Yes, the whole game is randomly generated) enough land to cover the surface of the earth 8 times. But someone would need a huge computer, for it uses your computers memory when it generates the new land. This game lets the player build up, as high as the clouds, or down to the bedrock of the earth, encountering several useful materials along the way.

Another amazing feature is crafting, you can build crafting tables to let you make axes, swords, armor, blocks of ore, buckets, and many, many others. The only way to survive in this game is crafting.

Anyway, kind of off topic up there, (I'm kind of ranting about how great the game is...) onto the more important things. Multiplayer is supported in this game, but it is quite hard (If you're not a tech geek) to set up a mulitplayer server, yet you can still play in other people's servers. Singleplayer is really fun, and if you really want to you can hack it with downloaded materials from other sites. Updates come very often to this game, sometimes monthy, or weekly, and the developers and very good about repairing the game. Graphics are old school, but thats not important. This game isn't about graphics, it's about creativity, and fun. Texture packs can be downloaded to your computer to modify the games textures, and make it look better(Or in some cases, worse).

Another very, very major issue is bugs. This game is riddled with them. Game crashes, game glitches, etc, this game has it. Of course, the developers are trying to fight them off, and have almost completely rid the singleplayer of them. Multiplayer though isn't free of the occational crash, and glitch. This doesn't really make the game any worse, (And I will say this again) since it is very clear that the developers are not going to let it go on, the bugs will stop.

Below are some pictures of the game... Oh man, I love this game... xD Check it.

A cityscape. Urban life.

Life in the Wilderness... I think this one is on a texture pack.

Is that a floating island? This one is on a texture pack.

A small, but pretty cool forest castle.

Overall Score: 9.0

And that's it guys, I'll be back sometime this weekend or sometime soon for another review, possibly an old game known as Gears of War 2 shall be reviewed.

Jay

Borderlands

2010-08-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

Borderlands is an interesting game. A mix of FPS and RPG, this game is full of burning people, and blowing people's heads off. (Yes... There is a lot of blood, though the graphics are rendered in a cartoony style) Many things, other than the FPS/RPG setup make this game different from others. One thing is certain, don't expect anything realistic in this game.
Borderlands is a game with huge variety. Enemies have several different types among species, there are lots of diverse areas to explore, and many, many, MANY guns. Starting off with the weapons, some sources claim that there are enough weapons in the game to number in the double digit millions, while others claim that the game contains 10,000-20,000 (Possibly more) weapons. No matter which source is correct, one thing is true. Borderlands has a HUGE amount of firearms. There are also several different types of species that serve as your enemies, humans (Of course), spiderants (A cross between spiders and ants), and strange bird-bats creatures, and many more. There are certain specialization's inside the species like a spiderant "King" or a spiderant "Soldier" making the available enemies in the game count up to 50+ types. Borderlands comes with a lot of area that you can explore. Desert/wastelands maps are the most frequent, but the main thing that nags at me is the one major problem borderlands has. That problem is the similarity of the maps. Everything looks kind of the same in a desert wasteland. There are no trees, no real life (Except in cities) and all the terrain looks very alike. Tan sand in every direction with the scattering of bandits.

The enemies... what makes, and what ultimately can break a game. In Borderlands the enemies are funny (yelling random stuff at you while fighting), powerful (Later on into the game), and yet... very, very dumb. If standing beside a solid piece of cover, a bandit that is almost dead will probably not duck into cover. Most of the time they just stand in one place, and sometimes duck to the left or right. If some more thought would have been put into the AI smarts, the game would be much better in terms of combat. Still on the topic of AI's and enemies, I'm going to move to just characters. All the AI characters look completely a like except for the main characters. The people walking around town can be easily mistaken for each other, and it makes the game feel a little bit small. The cartoony art style works very well for a game like borderlands, but... The character graphics (Their faces, textures, and other graphical elements) look strangely out dated for a game of Borderlands release date, even if the graphics are cartoony in style.

Again, Borderlands brings something else that boosts it's gameplay value. It has one vehicle that you are able to use in the game. Though it would have been better to supply more than one vehicle, a car. Borderlands still does a good job on the vehicles, letting you either use rockets, or machine guns that are mounted on the car.
Lastly, Borderlands gives you four character classes to play with. The Hunter, the Gunner, the Siren, and the... Brick. Each lets you level up special skills unique to the class you're using. They all have weapon preferences that, for example, make the Hunter better with the sniper rifle. Each class looks different, has different animations, sound effects, and speech.

All in all, Borderlands is a game that is perfect for a FPS, RPG fanatic. The funny, random, and sometimes very addictive gameplay is great, and will please for a long time after the game is bought IF you are ready to sit through hordes of enemies, and loot. Even though the AI is utterly (Sometimes) worthless it is still entertaining to battle them, and is still a challenge if you don't get overpowered. For some people, this is the game to get, for others... Not so much.

Overall Score: 7.75

Mirror's Edge

2010-08-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

Leaping across skyscrapers, vaulting cliffs, dodging cops and bullets. This is Mirror's Edge. This game is an action packed, adrenaline filled, and very quick paced game. You fly through obstacle courses while being attacked by cops or "Blues" in the game. If you slow up even for a bit you'll be pocked full of bullet holes in seconds. Mirror's Edge is also a very unique game in many different ways.

Mirror's Edge is a game that I actually enjoy watching my friends play. And coming from me, that counts as a lot, I always like to play the games, not watch. The game is so action packed, so basically awesome, that it could probably be a movie, and a good one at that. Most of the time you're either being shot at while leaping over pipes, fences, and small buildings. The rest of the time you're flying over roof tops really quickly, trying to make it to the next big firefight. It's no wonder this game was given the "Best of E3" 2008 award by ign.com, and GamePro.

Mirror's Edge's graphics are truly amazing for it's time. I mean... Seeing a helicopter hover next to you and shoot at you while you're sliding down the side of a building can be truly epic with awesome graphics. Edge really nails this, letting you sway when doing certain movements. It even makes you feel like you're really rolling across the ground when you are on the game. Characters look great, the scenery is funny (Some buildings are completely blue, some red, some green.), the only thing I didn't like was the look of blood when you get shot. It looks slightly cartoony. The game isn't cartoony, only some of the cutscenes. Overall, the graphics are really awesome, and perfect for this style of game.

The Controls of Edge are great. Everything responds perfectly, except the main character movement. If you try to do a turn too quickly your character has a slightly delayed reaction. Though it makes it more realistic, making you pivot instead of magically spinning around and running. Still, wallrunning, rushing along buildings, jumping them, climbing fences and walls, and using zip lines are all perfectly under control. If these things wouldn't be, the game just could never work. But yet again, Mirror's Edge does a great job!

All in all, Edge is a great game. It is one of the most fun games to play, and is surprisingly tense. The controls are perfect, the graphics equally as good. Though it may be hard to learn how to play, it is certainly worth it in the end. Mirror's Edge is one game that you surely should not miss next time you drop by the store!

Overall Score: 7.75

Fable 2

2010-07-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Are you on the light side, or the dark side? Now, I'm not talking about Starwars here, I'm talking about Fable 2. This game is one of the most interesting games I've played this year. Growing horns from your head, or gaining a halo around your head. Turning corrupt from jacking up your rent prices, or becoming pure from being kind to all sorts of people. Fable 2 is probably the one RPG game where I really feel like I can customize my character to my standards.

Fable 2 lets you explore the land of Albion, lets you set off on a multitude of quests, and lets you control your characters social behavior along the way. That's the thing I like about Fable 2. It's a humorous game, you can kill anyone, people will say funny things, and your social expressions that you can preform are just awesome. Moving on though, the land of Albion is quite large, though I can argue with many friends that other RPG's (Namely Elderscrolls IV, Oblivion) have a far greater landscape. The quests you encounter in fable 2 are fun, very easy to solve quests that usually let you decide between being good, or evil. An example would be: A group of slaves has been captured, you can either free them, or let them be taken my bandits. Each choice effects you and the people around you in someway. Your choices can even destroy towns, or rebuild them, let them flourish, or make them a pit of desperation.

Your companion in this game is a faithful dog. He will tromp around, find treasure, sniff out buried items, and alert you to enemies. He can be taught how to do tricks, and how to get better at fighting and find items. He will be virtually everywhere with you, except on certain quests and at the end of the game, if you make a difficult choice. His appearance changes with yours, be evil and he will look truly fearsome, be neutral and he will look like any normal dog, be kind and good and he will look as shown in the picture above (Golden and dashing). After playing this game, I really do hope that a dog, any dog, will be your pet in Fable 3!

Magic looks awesome on the screen, and swordplay and archery are totally cool. The third person view fits perfectly for fighting tons of enemies. Yet if Fable 2 were to have been made in a first person mode, then you could never have been able to fight the quantity of enemies that come at you at one time on this game. The team that made this game understood that, so they made the wise decision to make fable 2 a third person game. Battles on Fable 2 start out as mere skirmishes, but later on into the game, they turn into large, very destructive, clashes. You get xp from every kill, and you can use that xp to buy new abilities, like being able to shoot people in the head or groin with a rifle.

Fable 2 is a great game. It lets you customize your character to the greatest you can. It makes you the head of an impossible, and epic adventure. It brings the best out of a third person RPG. And almost everything Fable 2 lets you do, it lets you do it perfectly. Yet, sometimes I found myself wondering how many times I could hit a bandit on the head with a HUGE hammer without him dieing, it seems the answer is "many...many times".

Overall Score: 8.25

X-com UFO Defense (A "Classic")

2010-07-17T11:01:00.000-07:00

Shuffling through the field in the dark of night, fearing each sound, losing your squad in seconds. Freezing in the arctic, blasting aliens to shreds with plasma weapons and getting pushed into a position where you are 1 vs. 5. Quickly flying ships around the world, spending hours pouring over statistics, spending days working on a base or squad layout. These are all examples of X-com UFO Defense, a great, very deep and interesting turn based strategy game. This game was made in 1993, and for standards back then this game was probably a pretty cool game. Now, in 2010, with games that are breaking the barrier of anything video entertainment has ever seen before, X-com UFO Defense is still an amazing game. Sometimes X-com UFO Defense can be one of the most frustrating games known to the universe, but for some reason that makes it very, very, VERY fun!

X-com UFO Defense has can NOT compete with modern day graphics. This is no matter, though it usually is in most games. X-com UFO makes graphics not matter. Everything is rendered clearly, so I wouldn't really care if it had better graphics. The gameplay isn't hindered by the graphics, ships look normal, people too (Though everyone looks the kinda the same), and aliens fit their role. The landscape is destructible and looks perfect. Cities have gas pumps, soda racks, food racks, cash machines, houses, warehouses, and many more. Fields have grass that can be burnt and fences and tress that can be destroyed. The world view, or "Geoscape" looks like a jumble of not impressive colors and textures. The Geoscape is still a great addition to the game, it would be really boring to just click, "Send ___ ship on patrol to (Insert a list of all the major cities in the world here)".

Games that are made during this decade seem to wear off after a month or two, then you MIGHT pick then up at some later date to play with a friend. That is the main reason I keep buying more games... X-com UFO Defense is a completely different story, though it might not be for some people. Let's get this straight before I proceed with the "Gameplay" section, X-com UFO Defense is a hardcore game. Not for the casual gamer, or someone who might sit down every few days to play an hour or two. To fully experience this game you need to have patience, time, and... more patience. Spending minutes deciding how many scientists to assign to a project, then realizing you need to do another project and spending even MORE time considering which project to proceed with. Spending thirty minutes to an hour on just one terror mission, spending an average of 10-30min on a large spaceship crash recovery, this game takes a while. Just today I spent maybe, an hour to an hour and a half on my first terror mission. I was fully equipped, had a lot of high quality soldiers, and yet I got completely dominated. After I went in with my full party of 10 soldiers, I came out with 2. Even with me saving after each turn, and cautiously proceeding. I learned a valuable lesson with the mission. Even if you have the best squad, the best weapons, the best plan, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. The main point I'm trying to get through with this is: X-com UFO Defense can last a LONG time. If I'm reviewing it 17 years after launch, then that is solid proof. Hours of base planning, even more hours of strategic combat, and long periods of thinking. Several re-plays are recommended once you beat the game on the easiest setting.

Sounds in X-com UFO Defense aren't anything special, a man's scream always sounds the same. An alien's plasma weapon has the same zapping sound. The footsteps of a soldier on metal are identical. The only thing that makes me a little mad at the X-com sounds is that they sometimes lag slightly. (Remember this IS a 1993 game.)

X-com UFO Defense is one of the best strategy games I've ever played. It's a ton of fun to play, and will only get boring if you lose patience. I only recommend this for a hardcore gamer who has a ton of time on his hands. It is available on Steam for a meager price. Pick it up today before it gets snatched from your hands by an alien humanoid!
Overall Score: 9.0

Team Fortress 2 PC review

2010-07-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

This game is probably one of the multiplayer games that I can truly say that I've had a HUGE amount of fun playing. I mean, lighting fat guys carrying huge machine guns on fire with flame-throwers, building large defensive turrets that completely blow the opposition into pieces (Literally), and stabbing quickly jumping Scouts in the back with a knife can't be more fun. The different classes offer tons of fun, sneaking around as a spy, camping in a dark corner as a sniper, and blowing crap up as the demoman!

Moving on to the first topic I'm going to cover, which is gameplay. As described above, the gameplay is full of fun, and excitement. The maps that you can play in this game are well rounded in my perspective, the classes perfectly matched, and the hats you unlock for your characters are just plain old awesome! The maps are very fun to play, have a great setup, and can be played many times over again without getting tired of. Set in the desert, grassland, urban environments, the maps aren't all the same. It's not like you're going to play through the game only encountering snow or desert battlegrounds. The character classes, nine of them in total, are evenly matched so you aren't going to have one class that can completely beat all others. Though a lot of people like the power they can get from playing that "all powerful" class, it's not a good thing. For if it would be the case that Team Fortress 2 had that "all powerful" class, then all it's other classes would be useless. This would reduce the playability of this game drastically, since there would be absolutely no point in using the other eight classes. Luckily this isn't the question. TF2 has perfect classes that match each other.

Next up is the graphics. Over all, they are great. To me, they match video games that are out now, though TF2's graphics are all cartoony. Blood is great, models are awesome, and the maps are equally awesome. The cartoony art style fits TF2's mood down to the tiny molecule, and supplements the game by making it so obscenely fun to play. The FPS heads up display also fits the game and adds another (yes, yes, there is A LOT of cartoony art in this game. The whole game is a cartoon!) cartoony addition to the game by making your bullet count appear in bubbly, lopsided text. (I'm not going to describe the whole HUD.) The bullets that streak across the map are just yellow lines, and the muzzle flash is a yellow cone. Yet these graphics are soooo appealing. A small touch I have found that I like tremendously is the sun glare off of the weapons and the gloves of some characters. The final verdict on the graphics of TF2 is that though they are completely cartoony, they match they game and give a special, fun feeling to it.

The last topic I'm going to cover is sound (Give me a bit of credit, I usually don't). The burst from a gun, turret, or rocket launcher, doesn't sound the BEST it sounds ok. But the sound in this game is the best because of one defining factor that "only multiplayer" games hardly ever use, letting the character have a personality. The voice acting (Well... more like small sentences) is top notch. The spy, in his formidable accent, says that he surely doesn't want to get blood on HIS suit. The heavy gunner does more laughing than talking, but it still gives him a personality. The pyro is probably one of the best voice characters in the game. I haven't yet heard of a multiplayer game (Please inform me if there is one or two) that thought of MUFFLING a voice if it inside a gasmask! The scout acts like an ignorant little bugger as he taunts his opponents. This list could go on for all nine characters, for the voice/sound for each of them is great, and there are multiple examples.

Team Fortress 2 would be one of the games that I will never get tired of. The gameplay is top notch, graphics are entertaining, and funny, and the sound is intriguing. Experimenting with the different classes is amazingly fun, and the aspect that makes any multiplayer class based game worthless if it's not included, is perfectly even classes. Luckily TF2 has this feature. I would put this one your wishlist, for it's one of the best multiplayer games out there.

Overall Score: 9.5

Iron Grip: Warlord

2010-06-01T20:38:00.000-07:00

Iron Grip: Warlord is a action/indie great game. Even though I only have the demo, I found it very fun and surprisingly addictive. Demos are usually not so great (Not that all demos are bad, some just don't help convince me to buy the game much) , limiting your options for play. But this game handled that nicely, letting you use a lot of weapons and fight numerous enemies. Though you are only able to use one map it's still fun. The basic idea is that you have to defend against huge swarms of enemies. Once you deplete their moral, you win.

The story seems sound, though one thing I don't get is that: You are fighting the Confederates (This game IS fictional, I know...) and you are the Atelians. Ok... The word confederate doesn't mean that "The guys in the south during the civil war". But then why do they make a civil war reference by making a RIFLE that shoots one bullet, and then has to reload, AND also looks like a civil war weapon. You also have tanks, floating airships, rapid fire machine guns, AND rocket launchers. I am REALLY sure that those weren't used in the civil war. It kind of seems like the developers wanted to make a civil war game, but then didn't have enough time so they made a fictional sci-fi game. That much doesn't really make any sense.

Yet despite the shabby science and story idea, the game is a wonderful time passer. You can play multiplayer, with other people helping you fight back the mobs of hostiles that come at you, or play single player, in which case you have a team of AI squad mates helping you out. One thing that made this game so absolutely fun is that you can upgrade your health, bullet damage, you can buy a medic kit, and many different guns (Including a flame thrower, shotgun, Machine gun). The weapons seem really overpowered on some difficulty modes, though on others it's kind of like trying to blow up a city with a toothpick, it doesn't work. You can sometimes pump a huge amount of bullets into an enemy and they might not die. The medic kit on the other hand is like cheating, you have an infinite number of heals with it. You can just jump from battle to battle healing in between, and if you play carefully that makes you invincible.

This game is only $10 which makes it just great. The demo is utterly free, and you can get it easily on Steam. The game isn't even that bloody, except for the bloody explosions when you throw an explosion into a mass of troops. If you have some money laying around, this may be something you'll want to spend it on!

Overall Score: 7.25

Grand Theft Auto 4 Xbox 360

2010-05-26T10:26:00.000-07:00

In all ways Grand Theft Auto 4 is a really neat, and great game. With some great story telling, multiple interesting characters, and as always, you're able to steal any vehicle (Not that Boeing 747!) and that freedom is always awesome

Grand Theft Auto is a beautiful game! The graphics haven't really lagged up unless I'm going 190mph down a street, then the game has problems loading as fast as I'm traversing the area. The variety of vehicles are awesome. You can only find some one or two of the 3 islands, but something I've noticed in this GTA game makes me kind of mad. When you jack a car, or just get one of yours all the other cars on the map seem to be the exact same model. It's not that big of an issue, just gets annoying when you steal a limo and everyone else has one :) . A few things I really wish the designers would have brought to GTA 4. First, I was hoping for a parachute (now available in the expansion packs), second, I wish they would have brought back the tank from GTA Vice city! I just love that tank for some reason. Third, and probably the biggest problem for me is not having a country side area like in SA. I just loved driving around in the country and desert.

Grand Theft Auto has a wonderful story line. As i progressed through it I never expected some of the twist and turns it had in store for me. The weapons are a big part of the game (who would have guessed...) and neatly made. The targeting system is better than in GTA SA. The ability to crouch behind cars, dumpsters, walls, etc. means that you have much more cover. It's one of the best installments. The cops actually seem smarter, they try to pen you in with their cars, they even use cover to their advantage.

The biggest improvement is the cars, I was blow away (literally when my head smashed through the windshield, and the rest of my body followed over a hundred foot drop to the concrete) by the physics, which excel with cars. I just love driving cars around aimlessly for 2hrs. Doing nothing but getting cops to come after me and them launching myself off a cliff to make them follow. Each car has a different type of speed, breaks, drift, acceleration, E-brake, collision power, and collision damage. (example: The fire truck is slow, has bad brakes, worse acceleration, but the power behind that thing is crazy. And the damage isn't that big) Sports cars break really easily, but are so fast it's easy to cross all three islands in about a minute (I'll post a map at the bottom to show how big the game is) .

Now, GTA 4 wouldn't be complete without cheats. Cheats are a huge part of this game, and the ability to store them so you don't have to type them in again is ingenious! I'm just a gamer who likes to mess around on GTA 4, so cheats are my thing, but in my opinion (hey, isn't that what this whole blog is about?) they make the game shine =]. I'm a bit peeved about the annihilator helicopter though. If my memory is correct, the heli in GTA SA had aiming crosshairs, this heli doesn't. Also since you can't use rockets (until you beat the game 100% or something like that) the machine guns are practically useless. If ANYONE has tips about how to even aim in that thing COMMENT and tell me! xD

Overall Score: 8.75

Battlefield Heroes PC

2010-02-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Get Battlefield Heroes HERE

Since I'm still going to need more feedback until I make a final decision about my layout, I'll try a new approach. Send me a comment if you like this, or don't. Now, back to the main idea here! This is a fun game, believe it or not.
This is a very fun game... Really, believe it or not. The sad, cartoony graphics make this game seem childish though, and if this would be a more realistic game it would be much, much better. The gameplay runs smoothly, but you have no control over what map you are going into, and the matches seem to run very quickly, too quickly.
You have a choice between a gunner who uses heavy weapons, a soldier, who can heal troops and is not that powerful, and a sniper/knifer, who uses a knife at close range and sniper rifle at long. Different abilities come with each class, like medic packs, power upgrades, and accuracy upgrades.
Sometime you feel depressed when you are playing with your gunner class, and the other team is full of snipers, and that's not the worst, it is a LONG RANGE MAP! Now you can either get your butt kicked, or switch classes by (this is the whole point of this paragraph) logging off the map, going back to the character selection page, pick a sniper (long range), and log back in. That's not the worst, guess what, the stupid sever picked a close range map this time, and now you have to repeat the whole process. This is what I completely hate about this game, luckily, not much else about this game is bad.
A nifty (Haters don't hate on me for saying that) points system keeps track of your XP. If you log out of the match before it ends your XP still saves! Every time you hit an enemy person, vehicle, or capture a flag, you gain XP and it gives you a strange sense of accomplishment. Even if you died while trying to kill the person, or vehicle you still get the XP and it makes you feel less pissed off when you die.
The long range maps are so sprawling that you feel kind of mad when you can't find a vehicle and have to trudge across the whole map for a full ten minutes or so.
All in all this game is worth the low price (FREE!!!!!), and is a lot of fun if you are ready to leap some obstacles. It is also the least gory, bloody, and just plain sick I've ever seen that is fun at all. With no blood, or gore this is a great family friendly game!

Overall Score: 7.25

Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2

2010-01-25T18:15:00.000-08:00

Intro: Wow... All I can say is wow. This game is everything I would be looking for in a video game, except for some minor flaws. Modern Warfare 2 is a game that is very enjoyable to play, alone, or with your buddies. One of the best games of the year, no doubt. This is one game that is worth reading about, check it out!

Pros: The story line consists of short, fun missions. In total it has 18 missions that are played in three acts, sort of like sagas. The graphical animation on this game is stunning. The soldiers sway slightly when sprinting, like real life. The reloading, and crouching animations are better than most games. The "Down the barrel" aiming is a great addition, making this game even more realistic. The player can unlock weapons, scopes, silencers, abilities, and others. The maps are fun, easy to get used to, and they look very real. The kill streak equipment, like Predator Missile, Pave Low, Chopper Gunner, Air Drop, and more are one of the best assets to the game. Xbox Live is really fun on this game, and is probably one of the best games to play on Live. The action is very intense, with bullets flying past you at any angle. Move about Live is posted below in the "Cons" section. All in all this game is one of the must enjoyable games you can find

Cons: The game may be not suited for people who aren't fans of FPS games, this is purely an FPS. It might be too hard for some people, though starting out on a lower difficulty level can make it way easier. The story line might not be as self explanatory as most people might want, unless they have played Modern Warfare 1. This video game isn't the best for the feint of heart either. There is no character development, unless you think characters changing sides in the story is real development. The "down the barrel" aiming style might be hard for some to catch on, though it is moderately easy. It also seems that almost all the scenes out of this game are either from the show "24", or some other action packed film. If you don't pay attention to the cut scenes of the game the player might start wondering, "why is a character doing this?" Or, "How did I end up here?" The gameplay moves around the world, so paying attention to cut scenes is necessary. Xbox Live does have it's worse days though, the weapon "Akimbo Model 1887" is so over powered it's like holding two mini sniper rifles that have auto aiming and a one hit kill, and MANY people tend to use it. When someone enters a Live match they might encounter glitchers, and hackers regularly. I tend to play on Local Xbox instead of Live, because I don't want my K/D messed up by hackers and glitchers.

Overall: This game is one of the best games I have come upon in a long time. Probably better than Halo 3, and others. The perfect game to play with your friends on a weekend.

Overall Score: 9.5

I will follow up with guides, and possibly another review for this game!

Check out Machinima on Youtube for Modern Warfare 2 tips by awesome players like Hutch and Seananners!