tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86940070121643989492024-02-07T20:56:44.403-08:00GamezelotGamezelot offers brutally honest no-holds-barred video game reviews for all major platforms including Xbox 360, PS3, Playstation and Wii.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-28378283817864636052011-07-05T23:27:00.000-07:002011-07-05T23:50:16.084-07:002011 Holiday Must Have Games<span style="font-size:180%;"><b><span style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);" class="Apple-style-span">Holiday </span><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);" class="Apple-style-span">Must </span><span style="color: rgb(204, 153, 51);" class="Apple-style-span">Haves </span></b></span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Gamezelot</span><br /><br />If you're like me, there are always several games around the holidays on my must have list. Well, this season is no different. There are a several titles heading to the stores this holiday season and here are the Gamezelot picks (in order of expected lowest to highest ratings).<div><ul><li>Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception</li><li>Darksiders II</li><li>Star Wars: The Old Republic (MMO)</li><li>Batman: Arkham City</li><li>Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3</li><li>The Darkness II</li><li>Bioshock: Infinite</li><li>Mass Effect 3</li><li>Gears of War 3</li><li>Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword</li><li>Assassin's Creed Revelations</li><li>The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim</li></ul><div>Of all of the most anticipated games for the 2011 Holiday season, I expect Skyrim to be not only the best game, but may even win Game of the Year. Many of these games are offering special editions, so if you want the extra chachke included, then you'll want to reserve your special editions now.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>In addition, here are a few games to watch. These are not here as must-haves, but are simply here in that they are new or revamped franchises and may become sleeper hits.</div><div><div><ul><li>Deus Ex: Human Revolution</li><li>Rage</li><li>Tomb Raider</li></ul><div>Enjoy and reserve early if you want the special editions.</div></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-51383981350784569822011-07-03T17:11:00.000-07:002011-07-04T01:31:38.694-07:00Xbox 360 - F.3.A.R<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);font-size:180%;" >F.<span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">3</span>.A.R</span><span style="font-size:180%;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:78%;" >by WBGames / Day 1 Studios</span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Type</span>: First Person Shooter<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Save Type</span>: Checkpoint<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIVt9pL5DvUZp-umERS9GkaMenvVHAoQlH6S4vi3vyDEyuAkprbGdvf9kqr05KgbatUR1f50LsGwnAf5oV64GUvVzW1W9C0HSbk4OuDYrxd-5nS5X1C55eymb5zmR9tQsaU4t8tU82Kgx/s1600/F3AR-s.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwIVt9pL5DvUZp-umERS9GkaMenvVHAoQlH6S4vi3vyDEyuAkprbGdvf9kqr05KgbatUR1f50LsGwnAf5oV64GUvVzW1W9C0HSbk4OuDYrxd-5nS5X1C55eymb5zmR9tQsaU4t8tU82Kgx/s200/F3AR-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625294201397202082" border="0" /></a>Even though this game (and franchise) is named FEAR, there's really nothing very scary in this game. Yes, there are things that occasionally jump out at you. Most of what is 'scary' here is more the gore factor. There's lots of simulated blood, guts and dead bodies. I have found games like <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2008/04/darkness-game-review.html">The Darkness</a>, <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2008/12/xbox-360-dead-space.html">Dead Space 1</a>, Dead Space 2, <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2009/04/xbox-360-chronicles-of-riddick-dark.html">Chronicles of Riddick</a> and <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/06/xbox-360-alan-wake.html">Alan Wake</a> to be more creepy and scary than F.3.A.R (especially Dead Space 2).<br /><br />F.3.A.R (aka. Fear 3) is a first person shooter that's pretty straightforward. Although this game pulls in some things from <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2009/02/xbox-360-fear-2-project-origin.html">F.E.A.R. 2</a>, it doesn't really do it quite as well. At least the game isn't coming from EA, which I know would have ruined the franchise. That said, this franchise is really on its last legs anyway. How many times can you pull the let's-chase-Alma-all-over-hell's-half-acre gameplay?<div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">F.3.A.R starts you off as one of two brothers. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that you killed your brother and he's trying to help you get through the game (even in spite of the fact that your character killed him). Yeah, I didn't quite get this part either. While it appears he seems to know what's going on, he doesn't really help you through the game as he only appears during Cinematics and through an occasional voiceover. </span></b></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b></div><div>You start out roaming each level in search of what's ultimately going on. At first, you're trying to escape a prison. So, you're trying to get out before it explodes and, at the same time, avoid the guards trying to kill you.</div><div><br /></div><div>Later, you run into various types of zombies that also try to kill you. Some zombies have bombs attached to themselves and they get close and explode, other zombies carry hammers, tire irons or other melee weapons and still others lob projectiles from a distance. Further on, you run into both guards and zombies at the same time.<br /><br />Finally, there's this creature thing that appears and occasionally sucks you into an alternative reality that shows you things like kids playground rides, baby carriages and other kid related visuals. When the monster presents, you see a halo of black webbing around the edge of the screen. Of course, the game wouldn't be complete without an alternative reality at play. After all, Alma is a ghost.<br /></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">The gameplay is about standard for a first person shooter. Nothing outstanding or out of the ordinary here. The controller is mapped appropriately (for the most part). The only thing that's troublesome is when you press B for cover. Two problems with cover. First, when you press B to move into cover, the game moves you into a position that can be seen (so you immediately start taking gunfire hits). Second, you can't kneel and be in cover at the same time. Both of these problems reduce the benefits of cover.</span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Most of the game revolves around protecting yourself from being killed, finding weapons and ammo, finding psychic links on dead bodies, locating Alma dolls and progressing from level to level. </span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In F.3.A.R, they haven't improved the graphics over F.E.A.R 2. That's not to say the graphics look bad. They look slightly above average for this type of game. But, there's nothing new to add wow factor to this game.</span></b></span></b></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Audio</span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">There are some audio issues here. Some of the cinematics volumes are very low requiring you to turn the volume up to hear it. Then, when the game starts up again it just about blasts you out of the room. This may have been in purpose, but it's really a bad bad design. </span></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div>This game is fairly one-tracked much like F.E.A.R. 2. Although, when you do get to use the power armor, it's a really small trek and there's not much to it. Rather disappointing actually. The small arms weapons are also straightforward. Ammo is reasonably abundant on levels where you don't need it, but becomes kind of scarce when you do need it. There are also several types of grenades.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>One of the main problems I have with this game is that enemies have <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt.html#perfectaim">perfect vision</a> and <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt.html#perfectaim">perfect aim</a>. This means that they'll hit you immediately when they 'see' you and, worse, they will sometimes see you when you can't even see them. So, this game could have done with some work here. Overall, there's nothing outstanding in F.3.A.R. It's an average first person shooter with an okay story. The atmosphere in the game works, but the tricks to try and scare you are way too cliche at this point.</div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Score</span><ul style="font-weight: normal;"><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span>: 4/10 (sound problems)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span>: 7/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span>: 6/10 (enemies have perfect vision and perfect aim)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span>: 6/10 (been there, done that)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bugginess</span>: N/A</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span>: 8/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bang-to-buck</span>: 1/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play Value</span>: $4</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span>: 5/10 (nothing outstanding, no wow factor, nothing new)</li></ul></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-23172443750389542662011-06-25T04:11:00.000-07:002011-06-28T01:40:34.996-07:00Xbox 360 - The First Templar<span style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">The First Templar</span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153);"> </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:78%;" >by Kalypso</span><br /><br />Type: Third Person Sword Combat<br />Save Type: Checkpoint<br /><br /><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PMVWx_B1aCjbfEi3JQXwwAUk0jYxEg1n5UKEjez8jQD6rhRNvThFZpqxoAZ6fhoObExwbbEWks2FeBG-PxyetbTPMuo3Xr-z557uHHqzMcYS3s2cSlx6HAmQ8xhBeC4Z9t6Cf9004p2s/s1600/firstTemplarS.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PMVWx_B1aCjbfEi3JQXwwAUk0jYxEg1n5UKEjez8jQD6rhRNvThFZpqxoAZ6fhoObExwbbEWks2FeBG-PxyetbTPMuo3Xr-z557uHHqzMcYS3s2cSlx6HAmQ8xhBeC4Z9t6Cf9004p2s/s200/firstTemplarS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623186434683916754" border="0" /></a></div><div>I've been torn about writing a review for this game. I tend to write reviews based on at least some redeeming quality. Unfortunately, I haven't really been able to find many redeeming qualities in The First Templar. I will say that based on the title, this game may appear related to Assassin's Creed. It has nothing to do with Assassin's Creed in any form at all. That said, here's the review.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Actually, I'm really pretty lost with the story here. Basically, you're two Templar Knights (at least in the beginning) wandering the countryside in search of something. I haven't yet determined what that 'something' is nor am I curious enough to really go find out.</div><div><br /></div><div>As a story author, you really need to make it clear what your player characters are all about and what their motivations are. Just as any good story, this setup is crucial to making a compelling story and a compelling game. Otherwise, the gamer will simply skip all of the setup just to jump into the gaming (as I did with this game).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You're a team of two. You can switch between the characters at will (bumper button). Each character has his/her own health bar, experience, armor, weapons and power ups. So, you get to level up your characters separately.</div><div><br /></div><div>The game tries to be a dungeon crawler, but doesn't really do much of this. Most of the game is pointless little diversions. For example, you have to mount a trebuchet and lob rocks at the enemy. You do this several times. In fact, this part gets a little tedious after the third time. It was actually kind of fun the first time. But, not after the third time. Or, you might be tasked to break down doors and rescue the inhabitants from being burned to death.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Fighting</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Mostly, however, this is a fighting game. You just go in with your sword and use combos to kick butt and take names later. The game likes to throw wave after wave of enemy soldiers at you, so you need to make sure to spend those eXPerience points to expand your health capacity and get better combos.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Leveling Up</i></div><div><br /></div><div>To level up, you click the back button and this opens up the level up screen. You can level up your player character right from this screen. There is a very large amount of things you can buy to level up your characters. So, there was a fair amount of thought put into this part of the game. Unfortunately, the rest of the game doesn't really support this level up detail. It's rare that a game company can get all of the pieces of a game to work together cohesively. So far, Bethesda is about the only company who has been able to accomplish it with both Fallout 3 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls are a bit on the overly sensitive side (specifically the camera). However, this doesn't really hamper the game from working once you're used to it. The control mapping is okay, but I would have preferred something a little more standard.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Sound</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The audio works, but not outstanding. The voiceovers aren't bad, but the facial animation is rather weak. The music works, but isn't enough that I would run out and buy the soundtrack. At times, the music can be a little repetitive.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Average. The designers decided to use in-game rather than pre-rendered cinematics (by moving the camera close to the game characters) for the transition scenes. While this can sometimes work, it doesn't work for this game. And, unfortunately, it doesn't help make this game any better. The oddness here, additionally, is that the designers decided to overuse the left and right sound effects. So, the voices come out almost entirely left or right when the characters are speaking. Again, while this can sometimes work, it's just odd here.</div><div><br /></div><div>The textures, lighting and environments are mostly underwhelming. The only exception to this are the Templar outfits. They are actually well done and very detailed. Some of the environments look good, but even as good as they look in places there's so few things that you can interact with in-world that it's mostly a waste.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Some of this game can be fun. However, most of it is tedious. After you've done the Trebuchet twice, you're kind of tired of it. So, you really don't relish the thought of doing it again. Yet, you do. This game could have been far better if it had tried to do more with the characters and turned it more into an exploring game rather than a fighting game. Rent this one.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Score</span><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span>: 7/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span>: 5/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span>: 5/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span>: 4/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bugginess</span>: N/A</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span>: 5/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bang-to-buck</span>: 1/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play Value</span>: $5</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span>: 4.5/10</li></ul></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-59886846369271658462011-06-13T00:17:00.000-07:002011-06-13T00:33:05.370-07:00Coming Holiday 2012If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth? Without further ado...<br /><br /><object style="height: 244px; width: 400px" width="400" height="244"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MuCry_fTNKU?version=3"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MuCry_fTNKU?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="244"></embed></object>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-59567770564057773352011-06-01T21:47:00.000-07:002011-06-03T00:25:56.305-07:00Xbox 360 - Hunted: The Demon's Forge<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 51, 0);font-size:180%;">Hunted: <span style="font-size:78%;"><sup>The</sup> </span>Demon's Forge</span> <span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:78%;">by Bethesda</span><div><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:85%;"><br />Type: Third Person Co-Op Shooter<br />Save Type: Checkpoint</span><br /><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDySTh7f7QWvWgaLjTe8LxvPF7EiHgxM2lQOmx4tDOD9q0dG5VACewPvpSWmUmWawzX5KYgo5aZ07QxYUvKGG9PRFnwG8SCTMdKS6JTSlEJ8pcdAezekPgscEJmTtwFmMlZ-F70lXXfLM/s1600/Hunted-s.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVDySTh7f7QWvWgaLjTe8LxvPF7EiHgxM2lQOmx4tDOD9q0dG5VACewPvpSWmUmWawzX5KYgo5aZ07QxYUvKGG9PRFnwG8SCTMdKS6JTSlEJ8pcdAezekPgscEJmTtwFmMlZ-F70lXXfLM/s200/Hunted-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613486441847856322" border="0" /></a>Hunted: The Demon's Forge is a third person co-op campaign shooter with the second player character played by AI. You can switch between the characters only when you reach certain portals. This is a checkpoint save based game. The trouble with this game isn't the AI or the game itself, it's the graphics. In a word, horrible. If you like game throwbacks to the late 90's (ala Xbox original quality), then you'll probably like this game. If not, you should probably rent this first.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Story</div><div><br /></div><div>You are a team of two (a human man and an elf.. at least, I think she's an elf). Anyway, you're roaming the countryside when you come upon a woman who appears out of a time distortion portal. She tells you you need to collect death stones and give them to her to gain the power to defeat the enemy. Well, you can see where this is heading. So, you give her the stones and you're taken to a level up menu to equip yourself better (both in spells and in combat).</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</div><div><br /></div><div>The controls are a bit overly sensitive, so the tiniest camera movement moves the screen around almost instantly. Other than the sensitivity issue, HDF plays pretty much like any other action third person shooter. You roam the level, kill lots of creatures (skeletons and other dead-ish looking creatures) and collect gold and crystals to buy upgrades. In addition to the standard fare of killing the undead, you are given a bow to shoot at ropes and chains to free people or smash things. As you smash things, like doors, you can enter rooms to gain new weapons or other goodies.</div><div><br /></div><div>The downside to this game is there's very little to do other than kill, smash and collect. So, don't go into this game thinking you're going to get a very deep gaming experience. No, treat this game as it is, light gaming fare. </div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</div><div><br /></div><div>This is where this game gets its absolute lowest marks. The graphics look no better than a Wii game (and, in some cases) worse. Specifically, the environments look okay, but the characters look amazingly bad. The textures are low res, the movements are strange and the mouths might as well not move at all. The weapons work well enough, but there's just not much here to brag about with the graphics. If you want a much higher res gaming experience, then get Gears of War, Halo 2 or Modern Warfare. These are high quality games given the professional graphics touch. Hunted: The Demon's Forge is so poorly done graphically, I'm surprised Bethesda would even want to release this thing.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Audio</div><div><br /></div><div>Even though one of the main voice overs is Lucy Lawless, this game doesn't benefit from her work here. The graphics rendering quality is so bad on the characters, even the voice overs don't help.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</div><div><br /></div><div>This game needs a lot more development time to polish the graphics. In fact, this game looks even worse than <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2011/02/xbox-360-two-worlds-ii.html">Two Worlds and Two Worlds II</a>. Yes, it looks <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>bad. The game plays better than Two Worlds, though.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, this is another disappointing title from Bethesda. It's unusual for Bethesda Softworks to release such underwhelming titles as Brink and now Hunted: The Demon's Forge. However, if you like throwbacks to the 90's, you might enjoy this style of game (ignoring the poor quality graphics, of course). I'm personally not thrilled with AI based forced co-op play. So, this play style doesn't get high marks from me.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is not a title you're going to play for a long time anyway. So, I'd recommend renting over buying this one. Stick with Redbox or Gamefly to find this game. Don't spend full price.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Score<br /><ul style="font-weight: normal;"><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span>: 6/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span>: 3.5/10 (amazingly bad character graphics)<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span>: 7/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span>: 6/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bugginess</span>: N/A</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span>: 8.5/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bang-to-buck</span>: 1/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play Value</span>: $5 (rent this one)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span>: 4/10 (too much of a throwback, game too straightforward, poor graphics)</li></ul></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-80789910201543251652011-05-18T22:11:00.000-07:002011-06-25T04:03:56.092-07:00Xbox 360 - L.A. Noire<span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 0);font-size:180%;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">L.A. Noire</span></b></span> <span class="Apple-style-span"><span style="font-size:78%;">by Rockstar</span><br /><br /></span><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRBLkFQFuIYBhWKuaYoJcjknjtlXwoE6QWUgEVXsILhXehewY4zsb3hhG4Ma-gEyV_A5BKhoShhV4PYMyVH_sNDqfNPoyU_8xNEKT2tLfOR7Flo4dLJawpZP4vlYy_b0-J5cfZdUust_z/s1600/LANoire-s.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoRBLkFQFuIYBhWKuaYoJcjknjtlXwoE6QWUgEVXsILhXehewY4zsb3hhG4Ma-gEyV_A5BKhoShhV4PYMyVH_sNDqfNPoyU_8xNEKT2tLfOR7Flo4dLJawpZP4vlYy_b0-J5cfZdUust_z/s200/LANoire-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5612606126292093346" border="0" /></a></div><div>I usually like Rockstar games that are even somewhat based on the Grand Theft Auto engine. However, in L.A. Noire's case, I need to make an exception.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You're a soldier turned beat cop in Los Angeles (Cole Phelps) who must solve crimes to move up through the police force ranks (i.e. Beat Cop then Rookie Detective to Detective.. etc). So, as you solve more crimes, you progress through through the ranks of the police force.<br /><br />At first, you think the story is leading somewhere because you are progressing through the ranks of detective. Yet, your player character (beat cop turned detective) makes an unexpected choice about 3/4 of the way through the game which you have no control over. At first, I thought the choice was something you could control. But, you can't. Worse, it's a questionable moral (and career breaking) choice that just makes no sense. I'm guessing they included this part to put you onto the Arson desk (which is apparently a demotion).<br /><br />At first, I thought the the choice was part of a bigger cover to entrap the dirty cops in the department into revealing their identities. No, it isn't. Then, at the very end, your player character inexplicably dies.<br /><br />Before Cole Phelps dies, though, your player character basically enrolls a former army buddy turned life insurance investigator unknowingly into playing detective (though he's not a cop). This puts his life in danger while you now play the game as this character. Which is odd that Rockstar decided to switch your player character here. Anyway, after that, thew new character loses his job from the life insurance company and is courted by the DA to become investigator to uncover all the dirty cops. So, all the way through the game, you're playing as Cole Phelps, but now you are inexplicably playing as a new character.<br /><br />Also, all throughout the game between each level, you see flashbacks of military actions that have nothing to do with the actual gameplay. It was inevitable that they would roll it together at the end, and they somewhat did in the final scenes of the game. But, there were so many dirty cops left that the ending felt hollow and unsatisfying, especially considering the outcome of Cole Phelps.<br /><br />Basically, the story is convoluted and disjointed. The ending wraps up one thing, but not the entire game. It also doesn't exonerate Cole Phelps in any way.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Witness Interviews and Interrogations</i></div><div><br />Here's where the game has failed on two fronts. First, the interview process. As you work through clues while interviewing your witnesses, you have three selections to choose during the interview: Accept the statement as Truth (A), Doubt what they are saying (B) and Tell them they are lying (C). If you decide they are lying, then you have to substantiate it with a piece of evidence. Once you make a choice, you don't know if you have chosen correctly until you finish the interview.</div><div><br /></div><div>And here's where the first failure lies. If you choose a wrong answer type to the witness statements and you want to try to get all of the answers perfect, you have to completely restart the entire assignment from scratch if you choose 'restart'. That could mean playing another 20 minutes gathering clues, visiting other places, etc to get to the point where the witness line of questioning is. The checkpoints are too far between when you start a level and line of questions. This is, at best, frustrating. I should be able to start over just the line of questioning, not the whole level.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have found that instead of using 'Restart' on the menu, that you should quit the game right where you are. Don't use restart, just quit to the main menu. When you restart, it will start from the most recent game save and you don't have to restart the entire level. Instead, Rockstar should have made it so that if you choose 'restart' that it goes back to the last save rather than the beginning of the entire assignment. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Driving</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The second failure is driving around the city. Clearly in Grand Theft Auto, driving around is a big part playing the game. In L.A. Noire, there is absolutely no point to driving at all, unless you count the pointless street crimes which are mostly worthless. Worse, in most cases, when you hit vehicles, things or people, the game basically penalizes you for doing so. So, there's really no fun in driving inside this game. That said, they do offer to let your companion drive which skips the tedious driving scenes. The only real need to drive is for the side missions (when a call comes in over the radio). Otherwise, it's rather pointless to drive.<br /><br />After the game ends, you can free roam on each level to gather what amounts of small things there are left to get. Frankly, there's really no fun in it. It's much more fun to take diversions during the stories to get things. Doing it all after the game is over is really no fun. Once I've played the story element all the way through, I don't really feel that I want to explore the rest of the game.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Investigating</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">crime scenes</span><br /><br />At crime scenes, you are tasked to locate clues. Unfortunately, the game directs you to the clues using queued music and controller shaking. So, when you're on top of a clue it shakes the controller and plays a piano ditty. On top of this, there's an overall music score that plays as long as clues are available. Unfortunately, this part is so directed that you basically can't miss any clues... especially if you use intuition points. Also, the only thing that clues help you is to nail lies during the evidence phase of catching people in a lie.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Locating suspects</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Yet another gameplay problem ends up as chasing suspects (either in a car or on foot). Inevitably, one of the two outcomes after finding a suspect is that they run either by car or on foot. So, you're tasked to chase them down. The main problem I have with this part of LA Noire is that it seems to do it with EVERY suspect. Not only is it just unrealistic, it's just stupid to think that every suspect would run. Worse, it seems that the suspects can run far faster than Phelps in every instance (including the fat ones). Catching running suspects is just an exercise in futility. I'd rather just shoot them and be done with it. Worse, though, it only takes two shots (or in some cases one shot) to kill the suspect. So, you can't do that.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you're doing a car chase, again, their car is far faster than yours. So, you're always just one step behind. Trying to push the car off the road is near impossible. Trying to ram the car doesn't work and while you're driving you can't shoot. So, you just have to chase them until they run themselves off the road (which they will eventually do).</div><div><br /></div><div>The chases are incredibly stupid, not fun and border on the edge of tedium.. especially after having done it more than twice. If there were an easy way to push the suspect off the road fast, I'd be all over this part. But, there isn't. Instead, the game would have been far more fun to just skip past the chase scenes from the outset and get right to the capture of the suspect which is going to happy anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The one thing that is the most stunning of this game is the facial animations. Rockstar has raised the bar with facial graphics animation. So, instead of trying to animate a mesh by stilted mechanics, they capture facial motions using cameras and apply it right to the mesh. I think I understand what they used to accomplish how it looks, and it is mostly amazing. The trouble isn't the facial features, it's the stilted body movements that make the character animation weak. Part of the reason is that they captured the facial animations separately from the body motions. So, when putting these separate elements together, the walking and talking animations still seem stilted and unnatural.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Sound</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing spectacular here as for music or voiceover work. It's definitely serviceable. The soundtracks are mostly from the 40s, though. As far as other incidental music, there's not much. Worse, you can't even change the radio station when driving around in the vehicles. Note that what makes the voiceovers work is not the voiceover itself, it's the facial animation.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I was hoping for more from this game, but the two failures mentioned above dampened me about this game. Even though they do allow you to skip the driving (most times) by having the partner drive, it's still doesn't really resolve the driving issues. When you do have to drive, it's just wasted.<br /><br />The cases are ok, but mostly boring. Examining the scenes for clues is almost exactly the same in each case. There's nothing surprising. It would have been more fun to find clues randomly at later parts of the game. Someone throws a gun into a bay and in a later crime you happen to find the gun from a previous case, as an example. The cases are far too cut and dried.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The game is somewhat fun to play. But, playing as a cop has major hurdles that Rockstar wasn't able to overcome. That is, being able to run over pedestrians and things. The cases are far too directed with no free roaming aspects until AFTER the game has completed.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 6/10</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 9.5/10</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 6/10</li><li><b>Story</b>: 6/10</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 8.5/10</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 4/10</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $12 (not as fun as GTA)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 6/10 (some good parts, not nearly as fun as GTA, too directed, too many chases)</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-85676965354373711862011-05-15T13:22:00.000-07:002011-05-15T16:43:44.825-07:00Xbox 360 - Portal 2<span style="color: rgb(255, 204, 51); font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">Portal</span> <span style="color: rgb(204, 153, 51);">2</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:78%;">by Valve<br /><br /></span><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgprP6JHK3Mkt0Akud5pvItwaAunS3g4tMCosAVR1kRIJ4NKHTd3R6RzoU9X617gzM_nfrdqWfLpx9G-_tK7o2CP6CmqdOni7glJw9DGx_opVQmmmQyMeiaAj_VlyCuXTDQ02eTwc8V0-/s1600/Portal2s.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEgprP6JHK3Mkt0Akud5pvItwaAunS3g4tMCosAVR1kRIJ4NKHTd3R6RzoU9X617gzM_nfrdqWfLpx9G-_tK7o2CP6CmqdOni7glJw9DGx_opVQmmmQyMeiaAj_VlyCuXTDQ02eTwc8V0-/s200/Portal2s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607048994339765890" border="0" /></a></div><div>Portal 2 is the follow up to Portal. Portal is available through the Orange Box game set or via download on Xbox Live. Obviously, it's also available on other platforms (both Portal 1 and Portal 2).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Portal</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Mini-review. Portal starts as a unique and fresh take on a shooter. Instead of being a straight first person shooter, it turns the gun into a portal creation device. So, you run around in 'test' chambers creating portals and then running through them to get to other places in the room without walking. So, you can create an orange and blue portal. This creates two doors linked together.</div><div><br /></div><div>Portals are like mini-rifts in the time fabric that let you walk through the portal and enter one place and exit wherever the other doorway is. Portals can be created on floors, ceilings, walls or wherever a portal surface is. Portals can only be created on special surfaces. Some surfaces cannot create portals (like metal).</div><div><br /></div><div>In the first Portal, you were a test subject thrown into a series of test rooms to test out the portals and whether you could solve the puzzles using the portal guns. In among all of the tests there are motion sensing shooting robots, a quirky and somewhat insane robotic female computer along with other traps that could kill or maim you. At the end of Portal, your character ends up shutting down the main insane female computer to prevent it from becoming more insane (and, of course, to escape).</div><div><br /></div><div>To solve many of the puzzles, you are tasked with dropping down long drops into created portals to fling yourself across the room using momentum.</div><div><br /></div><div>Score for Portal: 8.5/10.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Portal 2 -- story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Portal started this whole new genre of puzzle shooters. This is a unique game with an odd twist on a shooter. It's fresh and unique and sits in its own unique place in the gaming world. Hello other developers, you might want to take notice.</div><div><br /></div><div>Portal 2 continues with where Portal ended. It's not exactly clear how you get there, but you are now many years in the future. So, you start off with a somewhat odd flying eye bot with a male British or Aussie accent. This bot leads you back into the test chambers again where, eventually, you awaken the insane female robot computer from the first Portal. Now that she's awake, she begins testing you again with various rooms and new trials. Except, now this eye bot is helping you along and the female computer is now seeking revenge (even though she says she isn't). So, you meet up with the insane female robot computer again and things take a turn when you disconnect her and connect up the eye bot to the mainframe. So, now the eye bot is in charge and the insane female robot computer gets shoved into a potato.</div><div><br /></div><div>As you carry the potato around, she talks to you trying to devise a way to get herself back into the mainframe and get the eye bot out. Worse, the eye bot doesn't seem to understand the system at all and is now leading the entire test facility towards destruction.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, you are now tasked to work your way back up from the very earliest levels of the facility to the most recent and to the chamber with the eye bot. And, there are some new things you need to do along the way.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Liquid blobs and flinging</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As you progress, you will run into holes dropping various colored paint blobs. These liquids do various things. The orange liquid is very slick and makes you slide. The blue liquid makes you bounce. The white liquid lets you 'paint' surfaces to create portals. The clear liquid washes any of it off. The liquids can also be dropped onto things to disturb them (like robots).</div><div><br /></div><div>Now instead of just trying to figure out how to get out of the room with portals and momentum, you have to use the liquids creatively to coat surfaces. This allows you to create speed and momentum to jump through portals to fling yourself across the room onto a ledge or some other surface. You are tasked with figuring out which surfaces to coat.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The story is mostly reasonable. It takes place many years after the first incident. But, the robot says she doesn't hold a grudge, although it's quite clear she does. Note that the insane female robot computer has some of the best lines in this game (including Portal) and they all happen during the first few test chambers. After she becomes a potato, the one-line zingers basically stop.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Humor</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game relies almost entirely on humor to carry it. While the puzzles can be challenging, it's really the female robotic computer voice that makes this game. Unfortunately, the eye bot is not so much that way. His British or Australian accent is annoying and his lines aren't funny at all. It's a good thing that he disappears for a good bit of this game, otherwise this game wouldn't be nearly as much fun to play.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a good follow-up to Portal. The game is nearly as fun as the first. Portal 2 is a unique game much in the same way as Portal. The only one downside is that I was expecting the campaign to be a lot longer. Instead, the game requires co-op play to get more fun out of it. When you play co-op, though, you play as two robots rather than as the female in the first Portal.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would also have preferred a completely different character and a different approach to the Portal gun. I was hoping to see more than the test facility, but that's where we're still stuck.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 9/10</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8/10</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 7/10</li><li><b>Story</b>: 9/10</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 9/10</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 5/10</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $30 (if you like puzzle games, worth buying)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 8.5/10 (a good follow up to Portal)</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-67234971211027237902011-05-14T23:51:00.000-07:002011-05-15T13:21:54.267-07:00Xbox 360 - Brink<span style="color: rgb(51, 204, 255);font-size:180%;">Brink </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by id / Bethesda Softworks</span><div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBk75XLIGWndmK3xfTRaleBMhARsVNal96wuNqIgcgtFI7i2CJ7o_umyMor9uIpqwSgWyjX12QvnPTDE7AakRUN4Z0n3pqQx_eAjpDWhZhbC-PIiPSgTRnjTV0UdKKIbvMC80hqVQ-ZxCs/s1600/BrinkS.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBk75XLIGWndmK3xfTRaleBMhARsVNal96wuNqIgcgtFI7i2CJ7o_umyMor9uIpqwSgWyjX12QvnPTDE7AakRUN4Z0n3pqQx_eAjpDWhZhbC-PIiPSgTRnjTV0UdKKIbvMC80hqVQ-ZxCs/s200/BrinkS.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606841680114024146" border="0" /></a></div> I used to like most Bethesda titles, that is until Bethesda bought id. Now, I'm not so thrilled by the Bethesda's new id games. Unfortunately, this game is not what it could have been. It's really mostly a waste and definitely not worth the $60 that it costs.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because this game is not very compelling and definitely not something you'd want to play over and over for a long gaming experience, I'll make this review short and to the point.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">id games</div><div><br /></div><div>Way back when, Doom was all the rage. It had some cool new things that hadn't been done in gaming before. Now, it's all been-there-done-that. With Brink, unfortunately , it's all too familiar.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Clone</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, Brink is just a clone of Quake Wars. Quake Wars is a team based objective play first person shooter. Brink is just a rehash of that. If you enjoyed Enemy Territory, you might enjoy Brink assuming you like to play games you've already played before. Otherwise, it's a been-there-done-that moment. Frankly, the campaign part is not very exciting. If you enjoy games where you're constantly being shot and killed by random enemies from all over the place while trying to accomplish a task, then this is the game for you.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, if you're looking for something deeper and fresh with a real story involved, this isn't it. It's far too much like other team oriented objective play games. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Enemies</b></div><div><br /></div><div>In Brink, it's actually quite hard to distinguish the enemies from the friendlies. So, you're constantly shooting at the wrong people. Worse, you can't even tell that you're doing it. So, it's really badly designed from this perspective.</div><div><br /></div><div>And it gets worse. There's an annoying Jamaican announcer who's constantly blurting useless information out throughout the entire level. That useless information being constant updates on things that don't even matter to what you're currently trying to do. It's like, "shut-the-f-up. I'm trying to play here."</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Guns</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Well, once again a game developer decides to break the rules with the controller. See '<a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt_07.html#messing">Messing with a good thing</a>'. Anyway, they mapped reloading the weapon to the left stick button press. Looking at any other first person shooter, who does this? Get with the program id.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Armor</b></div><div><br /></div><div>What armor? The only thing you get is basically nothing. Two shots and you're incapacitated and you have to spawn again. Worse, all of the XP you gain only gets you cosmetic appearance armor. It doesn't give you any real armor to help increase how many shots you can take. No, you have to get other 'points' to buy armor. Worthless system.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>A disappointing romp not worthy of the $60. Perhaps if you enjoy lots of multiplayer action and being constantly shot at while trying to obtain your objectives, you might like this. Instead, for team based play, I'd prefer something like Star Wars: Republic Commando where you actually direct your team members to actual strategic locations and use their skills to handle specific tasks along the way. That's what I want to play.</div><div><br /></div><div>What I don't want to play are clones of previous games that weren't really very good the first time around. Oh well, maybe id will get their next game right. Maybe not. Although, I won't be buying into many of these id titles unless they are a lot stronger than Brink.</div><div><br /></div><div>Do yourself a favor, rent Brink first. If, after you've rented it, you actually like the title, then you might consider buying it. But, you can probably get through the game long before the rental period is over. However, if you've already played Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, then you've already played Brink. So, do yourself (and your wallet) a favor and skip this wannabe clone.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 8/10</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 7/10</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 4/10 (average shooter)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 4/10</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 6/10</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 1/10</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $5 (rent first, then buy)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 4.5/10 (poor gameplay, average graphics, poor characters)</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-26186675648331302762011-03-24T05:37:00.000-07:002011-03-28T01:49:41.780-07:00Xbox 360 - Crysis 2<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Crysis 2</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Crytek / EA</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Format</span>: First Person Shooter<br /><b><span>Save </span>Type</b>: Checkpoint only<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Rating</span>: Mature<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGc9InkbVnyDh_oduNCjvNQ5zASNEqdhYKjp9YyhERxF-aPPHTaFkTMS7SbXeoBIJ0hnrpoS80_0LkQ8opIfsSx6i5zJZNyZKhEdZ54pli6b6fabafvJGiGeYCOVzM57ia-tdHpof0Eo6f/s1600/crysis-2-small.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGc9InkbVnyDh_oduNCjvNQ5zASNEqdhYKjp9YyhERxF-aPPHTaFkTMS7SbXeoBIJ0hnrpoS80_0LkQ8opIfsSx6i5zJZNyZKhEdZ54pli6b6fabafvJGiGeYCOVzM57ia-tdHpof0Eo6f/s200/crysis-2-small.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5587857583799545922" border="0" /></a>Ever since I'd heard about the Cryengine 3's 'fabulous' rendering capabilities, I'd been anxious to play a game that actually uses this engine on a console. Well, Crysis 2 is finally here. Unfortunately, it's not everything it's cracked up to be. Oh, it's definitely better than many game engines, but I'd say that it's not that much better than the engine driving Halo 3, Gears of War or even what is driving Bioshock.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span><br /><br />Ok, so let's start out with the best part first. The graphics are very very good, but are by no means perfect. I was actually expecting a lot more out of Cryengine 3. The shadows of objects on the ground is fairly well done. The edges are 'softer' by using very small dots rather than big block to create the shadows. So, while the shadows are better than what's in Halo 3, it's not that much better because the shadows are kind of flickery. Specularity is good, but not great. Sunlight color appears natural.<br /><br />Although, there are some other problems with the shadow system, too. A big feature of the Nanosuit is that it can be cloaked. However, even though the suit is cloaked, the shadow is still fully dark on the ground. If light were truly penetrating through a transparent surface, the shadow would also become much more faint. This is an issue that should have been addressed and wasn't. So, either the Cryengine 3 doesn't manage this properly or the coders didn't write it correctly. Either way, the shadow needs to reflect the cloaking. Seriously, if there was a solid shadow on the ground moving around, you'd definitely know something was cloaked.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; ">Story</span><br /><br />The person operating a Nanosuit (armored biosuit), Prophet, is just about spent due to the suit's symbiotic relationship. So, just as he is about to die, a wounded soldier (you) happens upon him. He takes the opportunity to shed the suit onto you and then he kills himself to sever the link to the symbiote so the suit will accept you as the new host. That's where the story begins.<br /><br />As you progress, the suit gains strength (and points) from the hard-to-kill alien DNA. As you kill more aliens, you gain more DNA from them. So, it enhances the suit's capabilities.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Physics</span><br /><br />This game's physics system is a bit on the weak side. When you kill an enemy, the enemy falls to the ground and stops in an unnatural way... sometimes with their arms or legs straight up in the air. Also, when bullets penetrate a surface, it does nothing to the surface (it doesn't leave a mark, yet the bullets sometimes do hit you). If you're going to spend this much time on realism, please add these small details that really make it seem real. Basically, the physics system should have been tested better.<br /><br /><i>Bugs as a result of physics</i><br /><br />There are times as you are playing where the enemies will randomly kill themselves. I've seen this happen several times. In one case, it was an enemy soldier. He was jumping through a window. The move seemed to work going through the window once. On return jump through the window, the character seemed to get caught on the window frame and then he becomes a projectile who then flies across the room and dies.<br /><br />The second time I had this happen with a soldier, it was on a level where you are tasked to sneak across an island and disable the power grid. In this case, there is a round staircase that leads to a lookout post. Under certain specific timing conditions, the soldier at the top will do something and then die as a result of some physics glitch. The issue with this particular glitch is that it will trigger your presence if this soldier doesn't respond to a request for status. If he doesn't respond, then the soldiers become alerted to your presence even though you had nothing to do with that soldier's death.<br /><br />I've also seen this physics bug manifest with the Seth aliens as well, but not as a show stopper as above.<b><br /></b><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span><br /><br />The gameplay is about standard for a first person shooter. You have mostly one-handed weapons that fire a variety of projectiles (bullets, missiles) as well as grenades and C4 explosives. Nothing spectacular here with regards to these weapons. I was hoping for more, but no. The weapons don't even have much in the way of cool factor. But, that goes back to another issue which I'll discuss further down in this review.<br /><br />As you progress through the levels, you find alien DNA (as you kill each alien) that acts as points to buy upgrades.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Environments</span><br /><br />Crysis 2 heavily borrows its look and layouts of some interior and exterior environments from games such as Enslaved, Half Life, Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, The Darkness, Fallout 3 and F.E.A.R. On the one hand, the environments are familiar, on the other it's a bit too familiar. Whether this was intended as an ode to these games or simply cutting corners is not known. What is certain, I would have preferred to see more original layouts.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bosses</span><br /><br />Repetition here is the key. Once you see the bosses, this is what you have to beat over and over. The AT-ST style walker, which is a nod to Star Wars, is a bit annoying once you understand what you need to do. It's also highly annoying that the bosses always 'see' you whether or not you're cloaked. However, if you get far enough out of their sight box, they will then focus on other threats and leave you alone. That is, until you fire a single bullet. Then they 'see' you again and immediately come after you. So, killing the bosses takes far too long to do as mostly you're just trying to avoid being shot up. This is not challenging, but it is frustrating.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span><br /><br />There are times where the controls and collision detection severely lag. It is especially bad when you're in a battle doing melee hits. So, you know that you've hit and killed the enemy (it has fallen to the ground dead), yet the enemy manages to get one last damage hit into you long after it has hit the ground dead. So, you're standing over the dead alien body and you're being hit by some phantom projectile. In one case, it was enough to kill my character. This is extremely frustrating and enough for me to put this game down. But, I'll work my way through it only because I'm about halfway through this so far.<br /><br />The first time this phantom projectile happened to me, I thought there was another alien somewhere close hitting me. Yet, I've looked around and there wasn't another on the level. So, the game is definitely glitchy here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span><br /><br />The sound is average. Nothing spectacular here, but noting horribly wrong either.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span><br /><br />The upside to this game is that the environments are mostly very polished and look great. The 3D look appears solid and has a realistic feel, until you get up close. Then everything breaks down. This game does not use levels of detail for up close viewing. So, if you get close to a sign, everything is extremely pixelated and barely legible. So, this is a disappointment in what should arguably be one of the best looking game engines out there.<br /><br />The fact that Crytek chose this game to be a first person shooter makes the whole idea of the superb graphics combined with the Nanosuit a frustrating experience. Here you are in this cool looking Nanosuit, yet you get to see only one arm in the view window the entire game. The game never pans away from the suit so you can see the whole suit from a different vantage point. It doesn't even do this in cinematics. This is very disappointing. Since the game is all about the suit, this game should have been a third person shooter (or toggle between first and third) so you get to see the suit.<br /><br />Unfortunately, this is a drab and uninspired first person shooter wrapped in a nice looking package. The problem is, the developers spent so much time making the graphics engine look good, they forgot all about the gameplay, the physics and the motion capture. So, the characters move in odd stilted ways and the physics of the game is, at times, bad (weights are off, characters don't fall down dead believably, etc). Crytek now needs to take time to mature the physics and collision detection engines. They need to spend as much time on these as they have on the rendering engine. Only then will this game engine rival those of other game campanies.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Score</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span>: 8/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</span>: 9.5/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</span>: 5/10 (average shooter)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span>: 6/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bugginess</span>: N/A</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span>: 6/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bang-to-buck</span>: 2/10</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play Value</span>: $20 (rent first, then buy)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span>: 5.5/10 (average gameplay overshadows excellent graphics)</li></ul>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-38144839968403449462011-03-09T16:12:00.000-08:002011-03-24T20:54:02.802-07:00Xbox 360 - Dragon Age II<span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dragon Age II </span></span>by Bioware / EA<div><span style="font-size:78%;"><br /></span></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHu8QZwqfPuQk_UTdPozAyvwp1MwblFtf0MPqfkq44pChM5WOr1kZYxSIZeSII4qRFVTSso0CAwiVehUDkMLJJgK_pG36hma2CjugxjU3l9TqQeVYJh1yuKFHU8bXDz59MaQ2rwl7k1828/s1600/DragonAgeII-s.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHu8QZwqfPuQk_UTdPozAyvwp1MwblFtf0MPqfkq44pChM5WOr1kZYxSIZeSII4qRFVTSso0CAwiVehUDkMLJJgK_pG36hma2CjugxjU3l9TqQeVYJh1yuKFHU8bXDz59MaQ2rwl7k1828/s200/DragonAgeII-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582254550158707010" border="0" /></a></div>In November 2009, Gamezelot reviewed <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2009/11/xbox-360-dragon-age-origins.html">Dragon Age Origins</a> (DAO). Gamezelot gave this game a 6.5 out of 10 rating. It was, by no means, a perfect game. It has its moments, but it also has it share of problems. Fast forward to today. Dragon Age II is now out.. so how is it?<div><br /></div><div><b>Starting out</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The game starts out by allowing you to choose your character's class. While you are stuck being human, you can choose to be a mage, warrior or rogue class (male or female). After choosing the class, you can then choose your cosmetic appearance (mostly facial features). You can't choose a body shape, though. Also, even though there are Dalish, Dwarves and Elves in the game, you cannot choose one of these as your race. You are stuck as human only.<br /><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The story picks up pretty much where Dragon Age Origins leaves off. So, you're still running around killing Darkspawn. It almost seems, though, that they ignored the story in Awakenings, but that was more of a side game anyway. So, after battling a bunch of Darkspawn and confronting a Dragon, you're out of Ferelden and off to another city by boat.</div><div>The beginning of the story is a bit convoluted and starts out twice, actually. Once, it starts as a fanciful tale and then the person listening doesn't like what she hears and asks the storyteller to tell her the 'real' story. So, he backtracks and tells it all over again. During the storytelling phase, you get to play the game in certain parts to get you familiar with the gameplay as a small tutorial. Unfortunately, that really fails for new users. You really must be familiar with Dragon Age Origins already to understand the controls and the game play. So, if you're new to this game, you might want to read the manual first.</div><div><br /></div><div>When you arrive at the city gates, your envoy is kept out of the city because there are already too many people trying to immigrate there. So, your first quests are one of two different and you can choose which one to do. The first quest choice is to kill someone as a favor. They will then get you into the city. The second choice is to retrieve money from a local shopkeeper. Either one you choose, you'll get into the city. The easier one, of course, is the one that doesn't involve combat. I'm not sure exactly how it shapes your character overall, but the choices may change how the story progresses. I do know that you will receive individual Xbox achievements for doing each of them. So, save your game right before you choose. You can then do one, get your achievement, save, then load and then do the second and receive that achievement. When you find quests that allow you to do one of two things, save and attempt both because you'll likely get Xbox achievements.</div><div><br /></div><div>Once in the city, you get access to the map and you can roam the city looking for battles and loot, primarily loot.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Menu System</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The interface to the system is still lackluster. To get to the journal (your quest list), you need to press the Start button on the controller. This lea ds to the main menu. Unfortunately, this menu is the wrong place for the the journal. The system needs its own place that's separate for this task and single button press that brings up the top level inventory (to change armor or weapons) rather than multiple button presses Start->Controller Right->A Button. Then B twice t o back out of it all. No, it should be a simple one click in and one click out. When will game designers learn this?</div><div><br /></div><div>When you click the left trigger controller, it does bring up the fast select menu so you can get to consumables and spells easier. But, you still have to go through the main menu to get to everything else.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, you can map the potion to an easy access key, but getting to them through the main menu method is slow, tedious, interrupting.. and is an incredibly bad design. The only way to get to the journal (and the quests) is through the main menu even though the right trigger allows for easier access to some things. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The gameplay hasn't improved much over DAO. That said, the graphics have improved by a lot. In fact, it looks like the designers have used the Mass Effect 2 engine to drive Dragon Age II. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn't always work in all cases. For example, the menu system above. Also, the talking system is jus t as annoying as Mass Effect II. That is, you have no idea which response will lead to a positive or negative outcome. However, the skin surface textures on the characters are much better than DAO. So, there's pluses and minuses.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, even though the graphics have changed by a lot, the gameplay itself hasn't. The problems that plagued DAO still plague this title. Na mely, that your main character is extremely weak against opponents. Not so much individual opponents, but that the game constantly throws many opponents at you all at once. However, unlike DAO, where you start with yourself and add characters along the way, Dragon Age II gives you four people in your group right up front. So, your group is a lot stronger than when you start out in DAO. Even still, that doesn't resolve the issue. The game throws exceedingly strong characters at the group which makes it difficult to complete a battle with all four of your team still standing. In fact, you usually have one character left and you have to run them all over the game board just to keep from being pounded to death (and give enough time to drink potions).</div><div><br /></div><div>This also means, save early and save often. If you don't and all characters in your party die, the game is over. </div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Battles</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a sore spot with me here. The battles are all real-time, although that isn't the issue. The issue, as mentioned above, the game throws a large number of mid to higher level opponents at you at a time when they should be far easier than they are. Yes, I could move the mode to 'Casual', but in the beginning, the game shouldn't se nd this high level opponents at you anyway.. and especially at 3-4 times the amount in your party. Worse, it keeps spawning them over and over with more and more.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>But, here's the stupid part. Running around the city, people and guards are standing around. So, you are battling right in front of a city guard who stands there motionless. Seriously bad. Every other game would have had the guards join right in and either help you or help the opponent. Either way, the guards need to join in and bystanders need to run away. Where was the thought and design behind this?</div><div> </div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="font-weight: normal;"><b>Questing</b></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: normal;">The questing is much the same as DAO. It's improved slightly, but not much. The quests names appear briefly on the screen and then go into your 'Journal'. Although, the journal is more easily laid out from DAO, it's still hard to determine where you need to be to complete a quest. Unlike Fallout 3 that lets you pick the location where <div> </div>you need to be next, Dragon Age II still doesn't seem do this easily.</div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div>Sparse Cities and Loot</div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: normal;">While wandering around the cities, you'll notice there are tons of buildings and lots of doors. Yet, none of the doors can be opened. In fact, when you wander the cities in search of treasure, there's very little anywhere. Even after a battle in DAO<b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b>, there would be a lot of dead bodies with loot (probably at least half or more of the enemies). In DA2, you might kill 20 enemies and end up with 2 bodies with loot.</div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-weight: normal;">For creating such a detailed environment, there's really very little to do in them. It's sad that game developers are producing such detailed environments and so drastically under use them. I just don't get this part of game development. If you add a door to a building, plan to allow the gamer to use it. Don't create buildings with doors that don't open.</div></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div><b>Map</b><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>The map is pretty much worthless. In fact, it's not really a map at all. It's more a poster on the wall with destination points. So, you really have no idea the relationship between one city and another. I'd rather have a real map that shows me the landscape, terrain and where I'm traveling. Fallout 3 at least has a real terrain map that corresponds one to one to a real place in the environment. Dragon Age II doesn't.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm disappointed in this title. It should have been a drastic improvement over DAO, but isn't. They used the Mass Effect 2 engine, but pulled out the VATS-type targeting system that made ME2 a much better game. Without some kind of targeting system, the real-time battles just end up worthless. Why even have four people in the group? It's easier just to run around avoiding them until you can do them in one at a time. </div><div><br /></div><div>Granted, some longer ranged weapons do offer targeting, but usually blanket targeting rather than individual targeting or, more specifically, limbs, head or torso. It's these little missing things that make this game less than what it should be. It's these attentions to detail that Bethesda seems to never miss, but Bioware seems to<b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b> ignore these details in most of their newer games. That is, especially now that EA owns them.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Qunari segment ending is complete garbage. Not so much from the story, although that is fairly lame. No, the gameplay is just plain frustrating and lame. Note that I am playing this on 'Casual' mode at this point. First, they throw a small wave at you that's easily defeated. Then they throw a wave of 20-30 enemies at you that en<b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b>ds up killing your entire group in less than 2 minutes. The spells they throw at you, you have no defense against (not even the mages). The Qunari commander has a fatality move that there is no way out of. Worse, there is no way to know what Qunari has in store to prepare before you get to this part. Even lamer, targeting is near perfect on you by the enemies. So, if you're standing behind a pole on the level, they can still manage to hit you fully (either spells or melee). Even if you're running away or on the other side of the room, they can still manage to fully stab or hit you with their melee weapon. Was this game even play tested? </div><div><br /></div><div>This is also yet another game that cheats. This lack of t<b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b>hought to the combat is complete garbage. Bioware has completely lost its edge. What's left is a hollow shell of a company. At this point, the only major game companies left are THQ, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Valve and Rockstar. Pretty much every other company has either lost their edge by being gobbled up by larger companies like EA or Atari or they just can't produce solid games anymore. Oh well, this is probably the last Bioware<b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div> </div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b> game that I'll review here on Gamezelot.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note, I haven't completely finished this game yet. But, I don't have to complete the game to already know the frustrating aspects of Dragon Age II.<br /><br />And last but not least... at least they could proof the copy<br /><br /><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span"> <div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLUbLcwvraM0syOrh9s_6AgdQ20H-FtsF5obdVbvm_cVx_rc6b-Cr1R3G8wl7je9U0BluA3XmwoU6uuBywWpkyy5vpu69C-H_MqExPgpSAyex5J0Op4kH6OTu9uUcgahYGCCXwC_w8DJ6V/s1600/DAFail.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 387px; height: 217px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLUbLcwvraM0syOrh9s_6AgdQ20H-FtsF5obdVbvm_cVx_rc6b-Cr1R3G8wl7je9U0BluA3XmwoU6uuBywWpkyy5vpu69C-H_MqExPgpSAyex5J0Op4kH6OTu9uUcgahYGCCXwC_w8DJ6V/s400/DAFail.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5584594372933799554" border="0" /></a></div> </span></b></span></b></span></b></span></b><br /></div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><div><ul><li>Sound: 8/10</li><li>Graphics: 8.5/10</li><li>Gameplay: 6/10 (still many fundamental problems)</li><li>Story: 6.5/10</li><li>Bugginess: N/A</li><li>Controls: 8.5/10</li><li>Bang-to-buck: 2/10</li><li>Play Value: $15 (rent first, then buy)</li><li>Overall: 5.5/10 (graphics improvement, gameplay is worse)</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-76130723953547581132011-02-05T15:10:00.001-08:002011-05-15T12:47:50.884-07:00Xbox 360 - Two Worlds II<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Two Worlds II<span style="font-size:78%;"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size:78%;">by South Peak Games<br /><br /></span><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pF-3L7sIeE7ptPI-ChvnzYDhLaDuclJRSuT47pMu4Hpw057uzTZFtN1b1keRpFuxLNY-oTOLWBkYXfbXVUJg2nr1WoLVYzSTxD-i9f2V0pjzE8pvugmRUsjqonYE018x_lSCpEi01-8w/s1600/twoworlds.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pF-3L7sIeE7ptPI-ChvnzYDhLaDuclJRSuT47pMu4Hpw057uzTZFtN1b1keRpFuxLNY-oTOLWBkYXfbXVUJg2nr1WoLVYzSTxD-i9f2V0pjzE8pvugmRUsjqonYE018x_lSCpEi01-8w/s200/twoworlds.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570384591700766242" border="0" /></a></div>While I played but never reviewed Two Worlds, I also thought it was unfair to review Two Worlds as it was so unfinished and buggy. In fact, the game was so unfinished, I wasn't even able to complete the game. To be fair, though, I should have at least reviewed that part of Two Worlds here on Gamezelot. So, here's your mini-review of Two Worlds. Overall, Two Worlds is rated 2/10 (Very poor game, very buggy and very unfinished). <div><br /></div><div>With that out of the way, we get to the heart of this review of Two Worlds II, the sequel to Two Worlds.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Story</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, frankly I haven't been able to make heads or tails of the story. It's a mix-mash of a bunch of RPG ideas, but it's not really that cohesive. Something is definitely going on, but the dialog and voice acting are so bad, I couldn't really keep up nor was it compelling me to watch it. So, while there is a story there of some kind, I really lost interest in finding out what it was. As a storyteller, you have one shot to draw in your audience, Two Worlds II fails miserably at this.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">RPG System</div><div><br /></div><div>So, while Two Worlds failed at just about every aspect of being an RPG game, Two Worlds II has much improved the gaming aspect quite a bit over Two Worlds. That said, the improvements made don't make this a grade A title. No, it's still firmly a grade C game. In fact, the designers should have just skipped the whole lead-in story completely and dropped the gamer right into the character generator. Basically, after the arduous story, you end up in the character builder.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, once in the character builder, the player character is limited to being human (as is nearly every other character in the game, with the exception of the enemies and creatures you can summon). As far as the player character, he's always human and, from what I remember, always male. You can modify your character's looks within limits including height, broad shoulders, and facial features. In fact, most of the alterations deal with facial features and hair and beard shapes and colors. For an RPG, it's really very limited. That is to say, compared with the Elder Scrolls series (Oblivion specifically).</div><div><br /></div><div>After you create your character, the game begins.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Gameplay</div><div><br /></div><div>Once the game starts, you will notice several things. First, the controller mapping is completely wonky (see <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt_07.html#messing">messing with a good thing</a>). South Peak should have looked at other RPGs and decided on a more cohesive button layout. That said, the designers do allow you to remap nearly anything in your inventory to RB, LB, X, Y, A and B buttons. Helpful, but not overly useful. I'd still prefer to have a standard layout with the action keys on the A, B, X and Y buttons rather than using the trigger controllers. Triggers are for cars and guns, not swinging swords and melee weapons. I might accept firing arrows from a trigger, but that's inconsistent when you're already using A or B for melee.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics</div><div><br /></div><div>To pull no punches here, the graphics are downright awful. But, it's not just the texture mapping that's at issue. Some objects are textured mapped well enough, others textures just don't work at all. It's the inconsistency that's at issue here. For a game to work, all objects have to be consistently texture mapped. For example, you would never use a 1024x1024 texture map for a large surfaced area like the ground. On the other hand, it's pointless to use 4096x4096 pixel maps on tiny objects like vials. Designers need to be cognizant of the when and where to use the right sized maps. Worse, though, is that the ground surface maps look like photographs of real surfaces just plopped onto the ground surface. That doesn't work alone. It takes supporting bump maps to make a surface look realistic. Yet, no bump mapping is here.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, there is no use of specularity maps here. Since I don't know the engine that South Park decided to use for Two Worlds II, I do not know if it's capable of specularity. However, most game engines do support some level of specularity (i.e., shininess vs dullness). Most objects in the game have a single level of dullness that leads the game to look flat and lifeless. We need to see levels of specularity to make the objects appear 3 dimensional.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Programming Issues</span><br /><br />Most console games hold the game in a loading screen until everything has been completely loaded and ready to go. Not Two Worlds II. When you teleport, for example, as soon as you appear in the destination teleport, you see the whole world load. That is, building, textures, plants, trees, etc... everything pops up right on the screen. This is a bad technique. A 'loading' screen should be present until the world has fully and completely loaded.<br /><br />In addition to the popup issue, which I could live with, there is this 'freezing' thing that happens. It doesn't hang the Xbox, instead this appears to be a conscious programming decision. For example, when you land on the destination teleport, the game is frozen. You can see your character, but you can't move. You're stuck until the game decides to finally let the game start. When you're frozen, so are all of the other characters in the world. It's like you pressed the pause button on a remote control, yet the game is not paused. This issue needs to be addressed a lot more elegantly going forward. Most well designed games think this aspect through.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Lighting</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, to be blunt, the lighting is horrible. The daylight lighting overdoes (and overexposes) the scenes so it's actually hard to see much of the terrain when the sun is blinding the player character. So much of the outdoors scenes are overexposed. Sunlight needs to look realistic, yes. But, it doesn't need to blind the player so they can't see the environment. Basically, the sunlight effects are way overdone and need to be toned way back.</div><div><br /></div><div>On the flip side, in the dark areas it's too dark. Yes, there is a torch, but as a designer you still need to add key lighting in places (shafts of light from holes in caves) to add mood and give depth to the scene. In most caves, it's just not moody enough, just dark. Caves need dark places and need light places to create a mood, provide a realistic environment and reinforce a convincing 3D aspect of the game experience.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Questing</div><div><br /></div><div>The lack of a story leads to a convoluted and confusing questing experience. There is a quest log, yes. The quest log does lead the player through where they need to be to get the quest completed, but the quests are trivially easy to complete. For example, there's a follow-someone quest where they tell you not to follow too close. In fact, there is no need for this at all. You can follow as close as you want as there is nothing to 'notice' that you followed them at all. The only aspect here is that you need to hide behind barrels to allow the meeting to take place. Ultimately, though, you still have to fight and kill the meeting people anyway. So, why bother hiding? Just go in with the sword drawn and get it over with. It's not that it's that hard to kill the opponents anyway.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic;">Leveling up</div><div><br /></div><div>Gaining experience is strange at best. You have no idea how much XP you're gaining by doing any specific thing. Sometimes you'll see '1 XP gained', but other times you see nothing. In fact, most times you see nothing. So, there's no way to quantify how much XP you'll get by doing any specific thing. This part of the game needs a lot of work.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, leveling up is a mixed bag here. Not so much for the player character, but more for the enemies around you. Meaning, you have no idea what level opponent you're about to fight. You only see their health bar, but not their level. With any long-form RPG game, the game needs to level opponents up at near the same rate as the player character. Don't throw level 30 enemies at level 2 player characters. This is completely unfair and unnecessary. The level 30 enemy will simply pummel the player character in one hit of the sword. Not fair and not necessary. Designers need to understand this aspect.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic;">Guilds</div><div><br /></div><div>Like Oblivion, there are guilds. Unfortunately, this is yet another haphazard element. It's there, but not explained. As you play and finish quests, you will gain points toward guilds. Some of the quests are defined as guild quests, while others aren't. I'm not even sure what happens once you gain favor with a guild (note that I haven't gotten that far yet). Still, even though I haven't gotten far enough to get through obtaining guild favor, I'm not sure that it will even give me much when I do.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic;">Combat</div><div><br /></div><div>The combat system is about standard. Swing swords or fire arrows. Once you get the hang of where to be, how to stand, how to corner the enemy and all of the other tricks, you can easily defeat just about any enemy in the game.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Game Maps and Travel</div><div><br /></div><div>The maps seem very large. So, there's lots of running to be had. However, there is also a teleport system. This system allows you to teleport (fast travel) to any other teleport that you've found on the map. As long as you are outdoors (clear sky above), you can teleport. Inside buildings, dungeons and caves, this is not possible. So, exit to outdoors to travel. Horses are also available, like Oblivion, to move from place to place faster. To be honest, I haven't found a horse yet, so I can't speak to how well this part works.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</div><div><br /></div><div>This game is a mess. However, to its credit I have yet to run into any show-stopper bugs. You know, the kind that lead you into a room that you realize you can't get out of and you have no save to revert back to (so you're stuck having to start over). That's not to say I won't discover one about 75% through the game, but so far I haven't. In Two Worlds, I found bugs (not stuck bugs), but the kind that crash the game dead regularly. Thankfully, Two Worlds II at least doesn't hang the XBox.</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, the game is designed as though there were multiple teams all completing separate aspects to the game never coming together to create a cohesive whole game. Worse, so many corners were cut to produce the game, the game is missing a cohesive whole story element that draws you in and makes you want to play. So, the lighting guys, texturing guys, coding guys and story guys never seemed to sit in a room and say, "Hey, we want a high quality game". They just all seemed to do their work independently, then put it all together, beta test and then release. Little quality control on the end result seemed to happen.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, the game's quests are many and take a while to complete, even though they are trivially easy. If you're willing to overlook all of the negative aspects mentioned above, you might find some kind of enjoyable experience from Two Worlds II. That is, if you like to just blindly quest without thought to the story. Granted, I do find myself blindly questing much of the time even in Oblivion. So, in this way, I find myself doing the same thing in Two Worlds II.<br /><br />Play this game only if you like blind questing. Since there is a drought of major RPG titles, this one will do until Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is released in the fall of 2011. This game is not likely to win Game of the Year from Gamezelot (or any other review site), but it is much better than Two Worlds. I recommend this game only if you are desperate for an RPG and you need something to play. I also only recommend it as a 'buy used'. It's a bit to expensive at $60 with all of its flaws.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Score</span><br /><ul><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sound</span>: 4/10 (works ok, but needs help, bad voice acting)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Graphics </span>3.5/10 (bad quality 3D work, textures, lighting, etc)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story</span>: 2/10 (not engaging)<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bugginess</span>: N/A (no hang bugs found yet, surprisingly)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Controls</span>: 7/10 (reasonable, but could have been better)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bang-To-Buck</span>: 2/10 (Not really wanting to revisit this world)</li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Play Value</span>: $5 (play once, but too long to rent, buy used)<br /></li><li><span style="font-weight: bold;">Overall</span>: 4/10 (improved from TW, but not great)</li></ul>Definitely not the quality you would expect from an RPG<br /></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-19728539474535458502011-01-02T00:14:00.000-08:002011-01-02T18:47:34.317-08:00Xbox 360 - Fallout: New Vegas<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;">Fallout: New Vegas</span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-size:78%;">by Obsidian<br /><br /></span><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Q6DgXPWFUFCZuD2TLMdnCi8kjYazzGrzW2CuE_QY0f_CEr2gnW6ZkVC1NkzV0odn1Z55firOEWo62nJTle7OH_ENbmvhUOl5AJiH6GTgvnFT3hUyvLL8EvuyjQMMKgViqaYuNPQwQ5uL/s1600/FalloutNewVegas-s.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 149px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2Q6DgXPWFUFCZuD2TLMdnCi8kjYazzGrzW2CuE_QY0f_CEr2gnW6ZkVC1NkzV0odn1Z55firOEWo62nJTle7OH_ENbmvhUOl5AJiH6GTgvnFT3hUyvLL8EvuyjQMMKgViqaYuNPQwQ5uL/s200/FalloutNewVegas-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5557503928575450770" border="0" /></a></div><div>I would love to say this game is perfect. In general, I like Bethesda games, even if they do come from Obsidian. However, even though Fallout: New Vegas is very similar to <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2008/10/xbox-360-fallout-3.html">Fallout 3</a>, it's just different enough that I'm still not overly thrilled. Since Fallout New Vegas is basically an expansion to Fallout 3, I will treat it as such and not go into depth about the entire game. If you're looking for a more in-depth review, please read my <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2008/10/xbox-360-fallout-3.html">Fallout 3 review</a> here on Gamezelot.</div><div><br /></div><div style="font-weight: bold;">Story</div><div><br /></div><div>Fallout New Vegas starts with a completely new character. This time, you don't start out in a vault as a baby (a good thing). Instead, you wake up after having been knocked out from some mostly unexplained event. You come to find out that you're basically a delivery boy delivering a package when you're beaten within an inch of your life. A doctor intervenes and saves you.</div><div><br /></div><div>This is where your character begins. From here, you choose your character's look and attire. After this, it's much the same as Fallout 3, other than you're hoping to find your attackers and the reason you were attacked. So then, you are hopelessly roaming the countryside in search of and completing quests in and around 'New Vegas' (a post apocalyptic version of Las Vegas). Every ounce of power generated is sent to New Vegas, so you will find quests related to power generation.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The same as Fallout which is also the same as Oblivion. The scenery has changed, but the game play and controls are identical. Not that this is bad, but I was at least hoping for an updated look and feel. No such luck.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Quests</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As with RPGs like this, the quests are many and varied. Some you get right away, some you pick up by talking to people, others just fall in your lap as part of other quests. Overall, the questing system is near the same as Fallout 3.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Pip Boy</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The pip boy is still here and is your interface to your character's health, armor and items. Basically, anything and everything dealing with your character is available through the pip boy. I'm still not overly impressed by this in-game device. I would have preferred a different interface system, but it works for what it is.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Leveling up and Perks</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This aspect has changed just slightly from Fallout 3. Instead of getting perks each time you level, you only get perks every other time you level. So, you have to go through two level ups to get more perks. This also means that perks are slow to come. So, don't expect to get a lot of perks throughout this game.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I like Fallout New Vegas well enough, but the story isn't any more compelling than Fallout 3. The premise is ok, but it's far too much the same as Fallout 3. This is a rather long RPG game. This is definitely a buy if you are into RPGs as the game is quite long. You won't be able to rent this and get through very much before you return it.</div><div><br /></div><div>At this point, I think Bethesda is beating a dead horse with this title. It's not that it's bad, but it's a 'been there done that' title. Meaning, if you've played Fallout 3, you've pretty much already played Fallout New Vegas. I'm much more anxious and excited to play Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim than to play another Fallout at this point.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li>Sound: 8/10 (workable, but gets annoying after a while)</li><li>Graphics 8.5/10 (a bit glitchy like Oblivion... this wasn't fixed in Fallout New Vegas)</li><li>Bugginess: N/A (no hang bugs found yet, surprisingly)</li><li>Controls: 8.5/10 (reasonable, but could have been enhanced)</li><li>Bang-To-Buck: 2/10 (Not really wanting to revisit this world)</li><li>Overall: 8.7/10 (not an improvement over Fallout 3)</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-22666035687451208262010-12-17T19:00:00.000-08:002010-12-23T19:22:27.016-08:00Xbox 360 - Tron Evolution<span style="color: rgb(51, 153, 153);font-size:180%;"><b>Tron Evolution</b></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 102);"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Propaganda Games</span><div><br /></div><div><b>Format</b>: Third person shooter / racing / climbing / fighting</div><div><b>Type</b>: Movie Tie-In</div><div><b>Rated</b>: Violence<br /><br /><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdimYWINoPgK6svBRG40cobEdJ2yc-2wTMau_ZbNCc0-vTXVh0kXiPRfh8BsAYG_EG6vpt1zz5oFJ-G1F-vRBfGGqe0SyRqEsXyCPErH3iiQKJVSbDPA4B0HAIqID6PwI6Vzn-18988QJk/s1600/tronevolution-s.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdimYWINoPgK6svBRG40cobEdJ2yc-2wTMau_ZbNCc0-vTXVh0kXiPRfh8BsAYG_EG6vpt1zz5oFJ-G1F-vRBfGGqe0SyRqEsXyCPErH3iiQKJVSbDPA4B0HAIqID6PwI6Vzn-18988QJk/s200/tronevolution-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551879223304088866" border="0" /></a></div><div>Tron Evolution is a sequel to the original film Tron and a prequel to the film <a href="http://randosity.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/movie-dissection-tron-legacy/">Tron Legacy</a>. The story in this game fills in the gap between these two films. You play as the 'System Monitor' program (another type of Tron-like program). As the 'System Monitor' you are designed to seek out rogue code and destroy it. Note, while this game borrows heavily on concepts introduced in Tron 2.0, this game has nothing to do with Tron 2.0 or Tron Killer App.</div><div><br /></div><div>Because this game is a movie-tie in, it really has 'crap' written all over it. Surprisingly, it's better than I expected for a tie-in. However, it is by no means perfect. If this game had had another year for development, this game could have been as good as any top-end game. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. It's too bad that movie studios don't insist on better quality games for tie-ins.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You are System Monitor and are the nemesis of CLU and Abraxas. CLU and Abraxas have teamed up to wipe out the ISOs. You are there to stop this process as System Monitor. CLU has effectively turned rogue and you have to stop CLU and Abraxas from fulfilling their nefarious plans. Along the way you meet Quorra who occasionally helps you out.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The game play starts as you run around looking to do specific tasks. It starts with a small tutorial that leads into the larger game play. The trouble with this game is two-fold. The camera and the controls (both problems are really interlinked).</div></div><div><br /></div><div>In many situations, the camera is way too active, moving around randomly and, by effect, causing control problems. Because the controls are based on the direction the camera is looking, it's easy to jump in the wrong direction. Combine this with way overly sensitive controls, and you end up derezzing over and over because System Monitor decides to jump off of a cliff or double jump into an abyss.</div><div><br /></div><div>The style of many of the levels is to lock you into a space until you kill every enemy in the space. At that point, the blocking shield falls and you can move on.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Grid and Games</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, I was expecting a lot more from the grid games and the game didn't deliver. I was hoping for actual grid gaming matches as part of the story. Instead, you're pretty much just fighting your way through each level on your own rather than on the game grid. The lightcycles part of this game is way too sparse. The few times you do get to use the lightcycle, it's unwieldy and uncontrollable. I was hoping for better here. The best part of this game is the tank. Once you finally get into the tank, you can start taking out Recognizers. Then the game almost takes on a feel like Flynn's very own fictional game 'Space Paranoids'. A game that we've never gotten to play, until Tron Evolution. So, once in the tank vehicle, the game feels like it would have to play 'Space Paranoids'.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Music</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The music is probably the best part of this game (and, in fact, a great part of the film as well). Daft Punk put together a very strong soundtrack that makes this game work quite well. Unfortunately, the camera really holds back the quality of this game even as good as the music is.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The graphics in this game are very good. I was hoping for slightly better graphics, but it still looks very good for what it is. That said, the cinematics are done with the Xbox 360 game engine rather than using pre-rendered animated cinematics. The game suffers graphically from this. While the Xbox 360 engine is good for gaming purposes, it's not outstanding for cinematics. I think Propaganda Games has made a bad design decision for not producing standalone cinematics to link the segments together.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Multiplayer</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The multiplayer aspects are similar to most multiplayer games. There are some team games and there are individual games. On some levels, you play only with throwing the disc. On other levels, you can do both disc and vehicles (tank, lightcycle, etc).</div><div><br /></div><div>I wasn't that impressed with the multiplayer aspect mostly because you either have to run the server on your Xbox 360 or you play it on someone else's 360. If that person shuts off their 360, then the game goes away. So, it's probably better to host the game yourself so that it hangs around as long as you continue to play.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The story is short and the gameplay can be, at times, tedious. This game suffers from lack of control and an extremely unwieldy camera. Part of the camera problems stem from being too far back behind the player. So, it's constantly trying to avoid bumping into things. Because they have tied the direction of movement to the camera view, it's difficult to control where the character ends up.</div><div><br /></div><div>The multiplayer aspects are ok, but not great either. The levels are very expansive, depending on the map, so you there's a lot of space to roam. The multiplayer aspects just didn't grab me and make me think it was something great.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you are a Tron gaming fan, this one is a buy. Otherwise, I recommend renting. The game is very short, so any price above $20 is too much for this game considering its major shortcomings and the overall length of the story. However, if you are looking to fill in the gaps between Tron and Tron Legacy, then you should get Tron Evolution for the story alone.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 9/10 (excellent soundtrack, effects are good)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8.5/10 (characters look good)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 7/10 (somewhat repetitive)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 8.5/10 (story is better than movie story)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A (no bugs found)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 4/10 (hard to control at times)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 2/10 (definitely a rent)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $20 (If fan, buy. If not, rent)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 7/10 (camera makes controls frustrating).</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-39210654776005595902010-11-29T08:19:00.000-08:002010-12-08T18:38:02.412-08:00Xbox 360 - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood<span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" class="Apple-style-span">Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Ubisoft<br /><br /></span><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKrZeWHngPK4vHUBIxeDhfo3gEsTMPX98CFamXAHQNxxPCGMRKaFCfuUA0xs_Gm0ibfekYK2sdA3UBZuL9N732-C5-qjcvuHicsr8pP49kHXWMih-voZvTu8u0lEs-TkcKkUEkt0fZYM8R/s1600/acb.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKrZeWHngPK4vHUBIxeDhfo3gEsTMPX98CFamXAHQNxxPCGMRKaFCfuUA0xs_Gm0ibfekYK2sdA3UBZuL9N732-C5-qjcvuHicsr8pP49kHXWMih-voZvTu8u0lEs-TkcKkUEkt0fZYM8R/s200/acb.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5545026657795276706" border="0" /></a></div><div>Lightning doesn't always strike twice with games and Brotherhood is definitely a miss for Ubisoft. Bear with me as this is a reasonably long review. Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, while adding some interesting things to the Assassin's Creed franchise, fails on far too many occasions.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You're still playing as Ezio (in Italy) from Assassin's Creed II (and, of course, Desmond). All of the climbing, jumping and acrobatics are still in Brotherhood. The controls are identical to that of Assassin's Creed II. The trouble isn't with the controls (or, at least, I should say, they are no worse than the previous games). The climbing controls have not, however, improved either. Nearly all of the same problems that plague episode 1 and 2 are still present in Brotherhood. I do wish Ubisoft would actually fix some of the issues that affect Ezio's climbing abilities. Some of the problems stem from the fact that Ubisoft overloads each buttons' function based on current mode. For example, when climbing, the B button lets you drop. However, if you are using the high reach glove, the B button becomes grasp (for a few seconds). Immediately after, it goes back to drop. So, if you don't time everything perfectly, you'll drop off of whatever you are climbing instead of actually grasping the next ledge. This is completely frustrating and needs to be fixed.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, I do not even know why you have to press the B button to grasp when you use the high jump in the first place. Ezio should auto-grasp high ledges without having to do anything. </div><div><br /></div><div>Another issue is with jumping. There are many times where I am jumping along on bars and stop, yet Ezio keeps going and jumps right off and to the ground. At times, that can mean lost health or guard detection (if in a quest). Again, frustrating. These are just a few of the 'little things' that tend to plague Brotherhood.</div><div><br /></div><div>In fact, in this game, there isn't really one single consistent story. There are many stories (like Grand Theft Auto). Each quest leads you to a different story. So, the stories change as the game progresses.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Quests</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There is the main quest (those with a ! icon) and there are side quests (those with other icons). As you progress, the game opens up side quests as you play through the main quest. So, just be patient and the quests will all open to you. The same goes for the map areas (we'll come to this issue shortly).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Brotherhood</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Further, as you progress, one of the quests opens up the ability to recruit assassin trainees into your ranks. So, the more Borgia towers you burn, the more assassins you will have in your ranks. But first, you must send them on missions to train them, level them up, give them armor and weapons and then they eventually become rank Assassino.</div><div><br /></div><div>What does the assassin brotherhood do for you? Well, other than bringing in a small amount of money that you won't need once you own all of the property on the map, they add a way to have non-detection kills during detection quests (at least, some quests). So, when you go into the 'Don't be detected' quests, just make sure you have enough assassin signals to handle the guards so you can move through the level without being detected.</div><div><br /></div><div>Other than that, the assassin brotherhood is rather pointless.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Desmond and the Present</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The present amounts to little more than wandering around trying to locate a handful of artifacts, talking to Lucy, Rebecca and Shaun (which is pretty pointless), read pointless emails and entering the Animus. You do get to wander around the town and hop from roof to roof, but you're limited to 10 minute stints (there's a countdown timer). Not that there's much out to do when you're running around as this part of the game is intentionally limited. I'd have really expected more from the 'Present' at this point than there is. There's still no combat, nothing really to do. I haven't personally waited past the 10 minute countdown to 'see what happens', but I probably should. It might actually be interesting.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly, the present is intended to be solely a stepping stone to get you into the Animus and into Ezio's shoes where everything frustrating and repetitive happens.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Map</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The map is about as big as the previous game, Assassin's Creed II. The trouble is, there isn't really a whole lot to do besides the quests, finding loot, locating the four Leonardo war machines, restoring businesses and training assassins. The game is pretty much one-tracked. By that I mean, there's nothing surprising here. It's much the same as the last game. The quests are the same throughout (we'll get to the problems with the quests shortly). Sure, you get better weapons, armor and assassin robe dyes, but that's what you'd expect based on Assassin's Creed II. Beyond that, the weapons, armor and dyes really don't add much to the intrinsic play value of this game. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Music</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Ok, but repetitive. After you've played the game for a while, the soundtracks become exceedingly old. You might want to think about cranking up some Xbox tunes instead.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Problems that plague Brotherhood</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Sync Challenges</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Let's start by saying, there are many problems with this game. Specifically the quests. Instead of different hardness levels, which Ubisoft should have supported, the game developers lumped it all together in one game. When questing, for example, Ubisoft lumped two challenges together into each quest. The first challenge is to get through the quest from beginning to end (Ezio's story). The second challenge is to get a 100% sync for the memory (Desmond's story). To get 100% sync, you might have to avoid detection or use your assassins or do the challenge within X minutes. Whatever the challenge is, it tells you up front.</div><div><br /></div><div>I would have preferred the sync challenges be enabled only on hardness level Intermediate. Perhaps even 'Hard'. There should have been an 'Easy' hardness that did not have the sync challenges at all. In fact, you should get 100% sync just by doing whatever the quest requires. The sync challenges don't really matter to the overall game. Nevertheless, having them there is annoying and frustrating. One of many problems with this game.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Slow Moving</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The game is also very slow moving. By that I mean, there are many many main quests you have to do before you even get most of the map open. This is frustrating if you just want to explore the area. Instead, there are large parts of the map that remain locked out until some time way later into the game. Frustrating.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Too Many Detection Challenges</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The one constant part of the questing that simply drives me absolutely batsh*t nuts is detection challenges which are seemingly endless. Seems every later quest requires you not being detected. The problem with being detected is that the game is way overly sensitive to detection. You can be climbing around minding your own business and then you're 'detected' and the whole quest starts over (and you wait while the game reloads). You can't even see what detected you. There are times where you assassinate a guard and just as he's hitting the ground, the game says 'detected' and, again, you're starting over. It's these kinds of problems that lead me to believe this game was not play tested.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Skipping Cinematics</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Skipping long cinematics is a complete chore. Instead of one button skipping, how most other games handle this, Ubisoft decided to skip cinematics by using a main menu selection. So, you have to open the main menu, select 'Skip Cinematic' in the menu, then answer a 'Yes' or 'No' confirmation question. Seriously, 5 or so button presses compared to a single button press. After you do this, the game takes at least 30-45 seconds to skip the cinematic. That is, the game clears the screen, goes back to the blank Ezio loading screen (you can make him run around), you wait and then the game redraws the screen and places Ezio is in some 'new' location. In some cases, it takes way longer to skip the cinematic than it does to watch it. Worse, in some cases, Ezio will end up starting in some way distant location or on top of a very tall structure (not where you were when you skipped). This can be highly frustrating and puts Ezio at an extreme disadvantage if the quest happens to be a 'chase' quest. The thing is, if you don't skip the cinematic, Ezio starts on the ground where he was standing before the cinematic started. Why the game has to relocate Ezio when you skip the cinematic, I simply have no idea. But, it's frustrating and annoying. It almost seems like Ubisoft intentionally penalizes those gamers who choose to skip cinematics.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>War Machine Handling</i></div><div><br /></div><div>All of Leonardo's War Machines are a pain to manage, but the flying war machine is near impossible to control. At the same time, with the flying machine, you are tasked to fly around with this near-impossible-to-control flying machine and bomb a very tiny guy on a horse. The flying machine only works by shooting fire at the ground to create heat pockets to make the machine rise into the air. Expect to start this level over about 20 times at least. Again, I say, this game was not play tested.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Continual Button Controller Reassignment</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Other frustrations include continual controller button reassignment. Basically, Ubisoft decided to overload the controller buttons with different actions depending on proximity to certain things in the game. For example, if you're in a crowd of people and there are bodies on the ground that you want to loot, if a horse stops and stands on the body, the game remaps the key to 'Hijack' instead of 'Loot'. So, now you're pulling the person off of the horse and not looting the body. If you want to use the high jump glove, the game remaps B to Grasp while the high jump is in action. As soon as the high jump is over (or at least, the game thinks the action is over), the game changes it back to 'Drop'. These controller remapping issues need to be desperately addressed. The game needs a way to stay focused on a specific object (even if it's a non-combatant). The remapping isn't intelligently designed either. For example, placing 'grasp' temporarily on top of the same button as 'drop' almost seems like a cruel joke played on the gamers.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Random Weapon Changes</i></div><div><br /></div><div>In combat situations, you'll find your weapon changes based on the game's mood. You'll be going along fine with the sword in your hand. The next thing you know the game has switched you to fists for no apparent reason. So now you have to fumble to get back to your sword. Sometimes, you lose your sword for no apparent reason. I'm assuming one of the soldiers disarmed me, but there was no warning of this. I don't remember this problem in Assassin's Creed II at all. This appears to be something new in Brotherhood.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Random Finishing Moves</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Smoke bombs are also frustrating. You throw a smoke bomb and all of the guards start coughing. So, you choose the sword and try to swing it. Instead, the game chooses to do some kind of fist punch and a back breaking thing. If I had wanted to punch the guards with my fists, I would have selected the fist weapon. Why is the game, then, choosing this fist finishing move INSTEAD of using the weapon I've chosen (i.e., the sword or the assassin blade)? It's these little annoying things that just continue to mount making this game less and less enjoyable and more and more frustrating. Use the weapon I select and use it when I tell you to. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Lose-No-Health-Square Challenges, Guards and Running</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Further into the game, Brotherhood starts throwing 'Lose no health square' challenges at you. However, instead of making this challenge just progress normally, the game continually throws excessive numbers of guard after guard after guard at you while you're trying to make your way across the map. If this is supposed to be some kind of 'challenge' it isn't. This is a disaster and definitely indicates bad game design. The trouble is, if any guard connects with you, you end up falling on the ground and rolling around. This rolling maneuver kills time and lets other guards catch up. Worse, the guards can actually run faster than Ezio. This is wrong. Ezio is supposed to be a well trained Assassin and in peak athletic form. In order to scale buildings in the way that Ezio does, he would have to be extremely athletic and should be able to outrun anybody when sprinting. Yet, the guards are about 2 times faster than Ezio and the guards are usually oufitted in full body armor. Does anyone really think this stuff through?<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Camera Problems</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Later into the game, Camera problems also begin to surface. So, you do something like loot a body and then the camera decides to rotate around to a different view. Then, the game proceeds to leave the newly placed camera in the new position. That is, instead of returning the camera to the position before the looting started. Worse, when in close proximity to wall surfaces, the camera can get wonky. It will begin to act erratically and attempt to move into a position that's optimal. Instead, it ends up continually moving around completely disorienting the gamer. Again, this makes the game frustrating to play as the gamer now has to spend time reorienting to where the camera has decided it wants to be. When this happens during a quest (and it will), you lose time and, sometimes, lose the quest.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Countdown Timers and Chase Quests</i></div><div><br /></div><div>Countdown timers should not even be used in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood or, indeed, in any Assassin's Creed game. The game is about being an assassin. An assassin who carefully, slowly and meticulously plans kills and then the means of escape without people seeing what happened. Instead, the game throws in 2-3 minute countdown timers to get from point A to B. So, instead of being able to plan the kill, you're racing to get to where the game wants you to be no matter how many guards it throws at you. Worse, when the developers combine chase/follow-me quests with countdown timers, it's the worst of all possibilities. When you're following someone, if the tail gets out of sight, a 25 second countdown timer starts. So, you have to 'see' your tail every so often to reset this timer. By 'see', I mean the camera has to see the person you are following. Ezio can remain hidden inside a bail of hay or some other hiding place. </div><div><br /></div><div>Chases use a different mechanism. When you're chasing someone, the trouble is that person doesn't even have to get very far head and the game will say 'target lost'. Seriously, you can still see the target on the screen in front of you and the game still says 'target lost'. Bad bad bad. Again, no play testing.</div><div><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Lack of Achievements</span><br /><br />Yes, you'll get a 20G achievement at the completion of every quest (100% sync or not). These kinds of a achievements tend to annoy me. By that I mean, you have to complete the quest to move the game forward anyway, so how is that really an achievement? Yet, once you purchase all tailor shops, blacksmith shops, stables, or indeed purchase every single thing on the map, no achievement. That makes no sense. If you've spent the time and effort to scour the entire map and completely rebuild Rome, isn't that worthy of an achievement or at least Uplay points? How is it that the game developers don't see this? Yet, you get neither an achievement or uplay points. Again, bad design and more proof that this game was not play tested.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Ultimately, you end up fighting with so many problematic character controlling, unexpected button remapping, combat glitching and lack of play testing issues (that, in many cases, force you to restart over and over) that you really can't enjoy the game as it should be enjoyed. Instead, you end up fighting with the controls and stupid game design issues rather than actually playing the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that these are only a sampling of problems. There are many other small issues that drive me nuts about this game.<br /><br /></div><div><b>Glitchy Bug Problems</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game is reasonably buggy in places... especially the PS3 version. The Xbox 360 version seems much more stable overall than the PS3 version. Apparently, the PS3 version has issues with the tunnel system and various other showstopper bugs. The major PS3 showstopper bug that angers so many people is that people have played through the entire game and only received a handful of Trophies. So, if you decide to give this game a try, be wary of the PS3 version until these issues are resolved.</div><div><br /></div><div>One additional bug I ran into was with parachutes. At a later time in the game, actually too late in the game really, you'll obtain the parachute from Leonardo. I think he gives you initially 3 or so. If you want more, you have to visit the tailor and buy more Parachutes. So, I visit the tailor and fill up my parachute slots to a max of 15. I go on a flag hunting spree and find one that needs a parachute to obtain the flag. I use about 3-4 parachutes to get to this flag. That's the last time I needed a parachute for a while. That also means I should have had 11 or 12 parachutes left. Yet, several hours later when I tried using the parachute again, I had no parachutes at all. I know that I hadn't used them up. So, somewhere along the way, the game removed all of the parachutes from my inventory. I was able to refill my supply by visiting a tailor, though. This is serious bug that needs to be fixed and a bug that indicates limited or no beta or play testing.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game could have been great, but was released way too early in the development cycle. Instead it's a mediocre game with no real need for it in the Assassin's Creed lineup.<br /><br />The Assassin Brotherhood part of this game feels like a last minute add-on rather than the main reason behind the game's creation. Even worse, at the times when you need the Brotherhood to assist you the most in the final main quests, the game inexplicably prevents you from using your carefully trained assassins. I'm at a loss here. Why would you spend all of that time and effort to create an Assassin Brotherhood only to prevent its use in the final quests? Seriously, the assassins that you've spent loads of time sending on contracts and leveling up should have been intrinsic to the final battles of the game, not completely ignored. Bad game design.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The game was seriously not play tested to any large degree. If it had been play tested, all of the frustrating problems would have been addressed long before this game hit the shelves. I can say, though, that I understand why this game hit the shelves early. Ubisoft wanted a title for the 2010 Holiday season. But, putting crap games out doesn't make people want to buy your games. Ubisoft would do well to take heed of that.</div><div><br /></div><div>I can't recommend this game in its present state. It's too glitchy and problematic at this point. If you enjoy a high levels of frustration in a game, give this a try. If you, like me, don't like frustrating games (i.e., you're fighting with the game more than playing it), then you should avoid this game or rent it. Note, however, there is so much repetitive stuff to do that it will take you at least a week or two to get through the entire game start to finish (including all side quests). So, be wary of the time it takes to play through if you decide to rent. You might do better to buy it used from Gamestop and return it within the 7 day return period.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note, I'm being a little generous with a score of 5 out of 10. In fact, this game really deserves less score, but because of high quality look of the characters, I'm rating it higher.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Frankly, I would have preferred that Ubisoft devote their efforts to finishing Assassin's Creed III rather than putting this weak and unnecessary game out. </div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 5/10 (repetitive verging on annoying)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 9/10 (characters look good)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 5/10 (climbing and jumping are not yet perfected after 3 games)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 4/10 (disjointed story)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: 5/10 (glitchy problematic issues)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 6/10 (overloading needs to stop)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 1/10 (definitely a rent)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $4 (rent it)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 5/10 (repetitive, one-tracked, nothing new here, frustrating).</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-83737652423487981872010-11-08T00:55:00.000-08:002010-11-08T01:53:32.589-08:00Xbox 360 - Enslaved: Odyssey to the West<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);font-size:180%;">Enslaved: </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);font-size:100%;">Odyssey to the West </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Namco</span><br /><div><br /></div><div><b>Type</b>: Platform, Fighting, Climbing, Third Person</div><div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd5DcoaNnLaaLg_7TwlSmFjyKeYbMm9_3W6OxtjQYdgcO5kCnxMU7SF7G7_1t9XDORBnVBhqfgESbSgSUOYwAqC5tq4iC29QvQ9AiOUAepyqFEVoVT_vVXGTtDzJCi3yKeiQ5etTw3emBf/s1600/Enslaved-s.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 143px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd5DcoaNnLaaLg_7TwlSmFjyKeYbMm9_3W6OxtjQYdgcO5kCnxMU7SF7G7_1t9XDORBnVBhqfgESbSgSUOYwAqC5tq4iC29QvQ9AiOUAepyqFEVoVT_vVXGTtDzJCi3yKeiQ5etTw3emBf/s200/Enslaved-s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5537110602963814162" border="0" /></a></div>This is a pretty limited functionality third person shooter/platformer. Three basic modes are platforming, climbing and fighting. The story is weak and the gameplay is even weaker made problematic by the unresponsive controls and unpredictable camera tracking. On top of that, the game is exceedingly short. On the plus side, the characters look great, not so great for the environments, though. Cinematics are way too long.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You're a nameless guy who's been nicknamed 'Monkey' (most likely because you kind of look and act like one while climbing). While escaping from a prison ship, you cling to the last remaining escape pod containing a girl you were chasing through the prison ship as it disintegrates. When you wake up, you're 'Enslaved' to the girl, 'Trip', because she has put a slave headband on you.</div><div><br /></div><div>From here you platform and fight your way through the rest of the game with Trip as your companion.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>With the aid of Trip, the headband and your climbing skills (ahem), you work your way through each level avoiding such things as mines, 'Mechs' and turrets. The game works reasonably well, but each level is near identical to the last. With the exception of 'The Cloud' levels (surfing on a disc), everything is near identical level to level. Once you understand the types of mechs that attack you, you can devise a strategy that works.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Weapons</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You have a staff that you can melee your enemy. The staff doubles as a gun and can shoot explosive or stunning rounds. You have automatic shields that protect you for a limited time. The shields also automatically recharge after no fire. You also have a blocking mode that can take limited amounts of hits before it is ineffective.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Leveling Up</b></div><div><br /></div><div>To level up in this game, you have to collect orbs scattered around the levels and also that pop out of downed enemies. As you collect more and more orbs, you get 'money' to spend to buy upgrades. Upgrades include health extension, health regeneration, weapons enhancements, shield enhancements, etc. So, save the orbs and buy stuff that keeps you alive longer.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Playability</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls on this game work in 80-90% of the game. There are times where the gun is not accurate at all even when aiming perfectly. There are also times where you can't tell where the game wants you to go (like the cloud levels that require you to chase something).</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Other issues include jumping. You try to get him to jump and he'll do everything but jump. This includes rolling, jumping in the wrong direction, or nothing. The controls on this game just really don't work properly in many cases.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is the absolute weakest part of this game. There are so many hypocritical elements in this game, much of it is completely absurd. For example, when you enter Pig's area, you go through a door that's supposed to scan for mechs. Trip says that this detector prevents mechs from getting through. Alright then, I naturally assumed (incorrectly, of course) that there should be no mechs in this area. Yet, the place was swarming with them. So, if the mechs couldn't get through that doorway without being detected, how did they get in there? This is just some of the silliness in this game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Game designers need to think through these elements to make sure their games at least follow through with rules they themselves have established. Also, at the end, and I don't want to give too much away here, Monkey doesn't remove his headband after it's all over. This is what I was waiting to see the whole game through and it doesn't happen. Note, this doesn't give away the ending at all, but it does give away this one visual that doesn't happen.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The game is exceedingly short. You can play through the level on 'Normal' hardness in probably 4-6 hours of straight play. Perhaps less if you don't focus on collecting the orbs. The story is weak and convoluted. The only constant are the mechs that use the same strategy to attack you each time. So you can easily devise a counter that works each time. The only difficulty is that instead of throwing three mechs at you, they might throw 6 or 8 or more. The dog mech boss and the bull mech boss are the only two mechs that really require a different thought strategy. I don't really consider the scorpion at the end a 'boss', mostly because you don't really fight it. You just damage it. This one is worth a day's rent, but definitely not worth paying $60.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 6/10 (average)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 7.5/10 (characters look good, environments look bad)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 6/10 (bad controller handling, bad camera handling)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 4/10 (weak story, no resolution, more questions than answers)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A (no bugs, yay!)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 5/10 (needs work)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 2/10 (definitely a rent)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $4 (What I paid Redbox to rent it)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 4/10 (overly short, bad story, bad controls, bad environments).</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-54128345650020389452010-09-17T17:07:00.000-07:002010-09-20T16:42:20.231-07:00Xbox 360 - Halo Reach<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-large; color: #2CA02C"><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Halo Reach</span></b></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">by Bungie</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIIVDvnra3EawN9nUwFot-vBHu7znTapX-fi_x3SYwvGj0ftg8teYK0tQcyce-yq5n7TvRrszSPu7nf_69-t3vtI-t2Ib8pkVnOqcgsSWYRGO7YgDhI0JUjG-VujHvKOF-Wlbb4j2TAgB/s200/HaloReach1.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 197px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5519112972205436722" /></span><div>Halo Reach is the prequel to the Halo Trilogy and, as far as I know, the final Bungie based Halo game. That doesn't mean there won't be more Halo games, but apparently not from Bungie. The story begins on the planet Reach where a team of Spartans is sent, at first, to locate a beacon. Along the way, it is determined to be a Covenant incursion and is a lot bigger than first thought. Further along, it is revealed to the Spartans that there is an important item to recover. An item that plays an important part in all 3 Halo games, although, not in ODST.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Campaign Mode</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This review covers the campaign mode of Halo Reach. As with most recent Bungie Halo releases, the campaign mode portions are exceedingly short. Compared to, for example, Valve's Half Life series, the Halo Reach story is thin and the levels are tiny. Even comparing Halo Reach to Halo 3, the story is thin and the levels are tiny. By short, I mean, you can blow through a level in about 45 minutes or less and there are only 10 levels or so. From the beginning to end of each level, the levels are linear and the maps are tiny. This explains why you can blow through the levels in short order.</div><div><br /></div><div>It looks like Bungie spent the majority of the development time on the multiplayer aspects of Halo Reach rather than campaign. Each successive game has spent more time on the multiplayer (and other alternative modes) and less on campaign mode. I don't know about you, but I really don't relish the thought of playing the same game levels 3, 4 or 5 times only with slightly different modes. I did that in Halo 3 and found the subsequent playthroughs to be rather tedious and boring. I'd rather spend time playing a new game than the same levels over and over.</div><div><br /></div><div>Perhaps the 13-19 aged gamers like this repetitive game play, but it doesn't really do it for me. I'd rather be doing something new that I haven't done before. This is why I prefer to play RPG games where there's always a new quest.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Armory and Challenges</b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>In Halo Reach, Bungie expects you to play the game through multiple times so you can obtain all of the challenges and achievements. With Halo Reach, Bungie introduces 'challenges'. A challenge is similar to an achievement, except you receive no achievement points. Instead, you receive credits that you can put towards buying armor and outfitting your Spartan better. Presumably, these better outfits help you out in multiplayer combat mode, although that's really questionable.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>When you enter the Armory, you can now modify your armor to add things like shoulder pads, knee pads, chest plates, helmets, etc. So, as you receive more and more credits, you can spend these credits on items to make your Spartan or Elite better.</div><div><br /></div><div>Frankly, as I've said, this is really not my bag. Playing the same game multiple times just to receive credits to outfit a soldier, not a great idea. If there was some way to use your newly and better outfitted character in some kind of MMO world, I might be more inclined to play. However, the multiplayer modes in Reach are the same as Halo 3. Effectively, running around on a level with a bunch of 13-18 year olds in free-for-all combat. No thinking, just constant killing. It's like Spore, they give you an excellent character creator, but how the character is ultimately used is pointless.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Covenant</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game specifically and only deals with a Covenant incursion. The flood is not part of this game, which is unfortunate. However, there are some new Covenant creatures that are in here that we've not seen before. They're not any tougher than what we've seen, but they're here.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The story is overly weak. I was expecting a solid beginning, middle and end. What we get is a reasonable beginning and a very solid middle with no ending. It ends, but nothing is wrapped up. Your character is left behind and who knows what really happened.</div><div><br /></div><div>There were also portions that were completely ignored. Twice you run into a scarab and twice the only thing you can do is avoid it. One of those times it gets destroyed. This is wrong. In this story, we should now be able to commandeer one of those Scarabs and use it as a vehicle or commandeer a Phantom an use it. There were so many wasted instances where the story could have taken a huge leap forward and.. nothing. Bungie took the safe approach and didn't do anything new or amazing to Reach. It's definitely a 'safe' game, but there's not a whole lot here to say 'WOW' over.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Easter Eggs</b></div><div><br /></div><div>What easter eggs? There may be some, but there are definitely no skulls. The skulls are received after completing the game on Normal automatically. The fun is in finding and obtaining the skulls, not simply just getting them at the end. I understand why, though, as other than New Alexandria, most of the environments are rather sparse. So, there's not a lot of cubbyholes to hide things. Unfortunate, because the secondary fun on Halo 3 was exploring and finding all of the cool hidden things. Even with Halo 3, I really wanted a lot more of this, but instead Bungie is giving us less and less of it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b><br /><br /></div><div>The game plays much the same as Halo ODST and Halo 3. The exception is that they've added the nightvision mode and a couple of new weapons, but overall the game is much the same as the previous. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The graphics haven't tremendously improved, mostly because it appears Bungie is still using the same game engine as in Halo 3. I'd rather see them abandon whatever engine they are using for something like the Cryengine 3. Much of the texture mapping, specifically the ground surfaces, are of a very low resolution. There are definitely better and faster engines out there. So, I'm not sure why they have chosen to stick with that engine.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Sound</b></div><div><br /></div><div>On par with previous games. Nothing special or outstanding.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I liked the campaign mode, for what there was. The campaign mode is entirely too short and not involved enough. There should have been far more firefights than there were. Once you get the package, everyone treats you like kid gloves and the levels become laughably easy. Unfortunately, it appears Bungie spent the most time filling out the multiplayer aspects and not enough on a long detailed campaign. The campaign mode almost feels like an add-on. Like it was there only to appease those who like campaigns, but no real long term development went into this part of the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you like multiplayer games, this is probably a good game. But, if you're looking for a long involved TPS/FPS, this isn't it. It's probably worth a play if you're really into the Halo series or if you intend to play the multiplayer parts. However, I would not recommend this game if you only intend to play the campaign. It's way too short and it's far too much like Halo 1, 2 and 3 and ODST. For campaign only play, you should probably skip this game and go get something like Singularity which is much more involved (even though it's mostly a clone of Bioshock).</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 7/10 (average)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 9/10 (random low and high res textures)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 7/10 (standard for Halo)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 5/10 (story not finished, lacking, shallow)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A (no bugs, yay!)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 8/10 (same as Halo 3)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 5/10 (still working through multiplayer)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $10 (it's worth more if you are like multiplayer, if not, less)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 7/10 (overly short campaign mode, not enough story, lacking fights).</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-26253376611138178992010-06-08T15:13:00.000-07:002010-06-10T04:26:20.597-07:00Xbox 360 - Alpha Protocol<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC33;">Alpha Protocol</span></span></b> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#666666;">by Obsidian / Sega</span></span><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhemHNAuSEz6nrThRJwUtbTCLLWw_B6p6Kl1ffQ20Z5_3KMjw1xHHOif2lFEdAqXHM3Tov-vBQ8A2RZXYtqotZd16_WJIzbK7wzTstxP583d5Eak_E27Vry7TsKtoRElSPh1SGhex7W7bnc/s200/ap.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 142px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480537722617634674" /><div>Here is a self-purported RPG. It gets a GZ of 2/10. In actuality, this game really isn't an RPG. It has some RPG aspects to it, but it is no where near a true Role Playing Game.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Character Creation</b></div><div><br /></div><div>First, there isn't such a thing. You are who you are and you can't change that. You can change the appearance, but very limited. In a true RPG, you can choose to be male or female. You can choose classes and you can choose your outfit. There is very little of that in Alpha Protocol. You can find other outfits along the way to increase your armor, though. But these are whole outfits, not single pieces (i.e., gloves, shoes, pants, shirt, etc).</div><div><br /></div><div>With the character creator in AP, you can change the hair to about 6 different styles. You cannot change the hair color. You can change the skin color, but again limited. You can't change the look of the face (i.e., cheeks, nose, mouth, chin, etc). You can add features like limited beards.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The gameplay is actually very limited. Most of the time you are sneaking around places trying not to be seen. You can go in gunz-a-blazin', but this is really counter to the missions and who knows what kind of things the game may change later as a result.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Leveling up</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You do get to level up through Action Points (AP). But, you get so few it takes ages to actually level your character up in any real way.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls are strange choosing to put lots of different things on LT, RT, LB, RB, back and start buttons. After a while, I guess you'd get used to it, but it's really mapped in a strange way. Definitely not intuitive.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Save Points</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Ok, so here is one of the major problems with this game (not that this is the only problem). Instead of a save-anywhere system, which any RPG worth its weight in salt should have, Sega opted to offer a 'Save Checkpoint' option. So, basically, you can save your current checkpoint and go back to that specific checkpoint. You can't save anywhere. This means you will have to lose a lot of things to restart a checkpoint. This is frustrating, time consuming and overly stupid. Bad decision Obsidian.</div><div><br /></div><div>Effectively, this game only supports checkpoint saves and the saving of checkpoints can be done only after the current checkpoint is reached. If you forget to save a checkpoint, you lose the ability to go back to that checkpoint later. This is not an intuitive save system.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Quests</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Well, frankly, there aren't any. You get missions and that's that. Whatever missions they give you, you do. You don't get any new missions until you complete the few current outstanding missions. In a true RPG, you should be able to find and start missions at any time. As I said, this isn't a true RPG.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Bugs</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game is completely bugged. This aspect alone was enough for me to stop playing it. In fact, there is a mission to retrieve data from a computer. Once I had completed this task, the game locked me into an area that had no exit. So, my character (and my game) was completely trapped in this space. I had no choice but to stop playing there. It is quite clear that this game was not play tested at all. From this point alone, I would recommend not playing Alpha Protocol.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>For what it is, this game's graphics are incredibly bad. The characters look low res. The levels look low res and the textures are weak. This looks like it could have been ported from a Nintendo 64 and probably would have run on an N64 also.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>My recommendation is to avoid this game. It is currently far too buggy to recommend playing.. unless you like hitting bugs that prevent you from continuing the game. The game itself needs a lot of work and appears to have been released in the beta stage. Frankly, they should have saved this game until sometime in 2011 giving time to work out the bugs and increase the texture quality.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 7/10 (not outstanding)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8/10 (bad textures, low res)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 5/10 (average, but also repetitive)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 5/10 (no real story that I could see, just missions)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: 1/10 (show stopper bug, prevents game progression)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 5/10 (needs work)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: N/A (not completed, probably not)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $5 (wait till clearance, by then they might have a patch)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 2/10 (poor save system, bad gameplay, show stopper bugs).</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-9837780573384134692010-06-08T14:31:00.000-07:002010-06-08T19:47:37.705-07:00Xbox 360 - Alan Wake<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000066;">Alan Wake</span></b></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">by Remedy</span><div><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih-CE0gGuS7TlkKJV6kzUGJjYVQvF9apHJslU4hJEkhbzIMoNQ5W2KMsNqcwZo4hMa-wwvY1on_OfixL3Indzqgagz_3QNG3-zAvSMy2F_Ny6K7ry72pNUsqdhMM_bnJebdW9L3SQwkfL_/s200/AlanWake.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 140px; height: 200px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480537246243263410" /><div>Starting with this review, I will give the overall score right up front.</div><div>This game is a 4/10. Why? This is one game I really wanted to like, but.... Let's get started.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You play as Alan Wake, a novelist. In this game, however, instead of writing a novel, Alan Wake becomes part of his own novel and must unravel the pieces before it's too late and everything is lost. </div><div><br /></div><div>The game begins with Alan Wake and wife taking a vacation to a quaint cabin in the woods (cliche). It soon becomes apparent that there's something not quite right about the whole deal. When he visits the person to obtain the keys, he has a strange encounter that starts the whole deal of what follows.</div><div><br /></div><div>Alan's wife disappears into the lake (along with the cabin, that supposedly hadn't existed in the lake since the 70s) and Alan must find a way to free her.</div><div><br /></div><div>The story has a reasonably Stephen King like feel, but is marred by the unnecessarily repetitive game play. This is one game I was hoping would marry gameplay and story better than most, but unfortunately, it didn't.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game is a standard third person shooter. It's not particularly inspired, but it does become both repetitive and annoying. It's repetitive because each level is nearly identical: running around in the woods trying to avoid the 'Taken' (spirits that manifest to kill you) and you must seek the next street light (that makes them go away). It's annoying because of the way the game spawns the 'Taken' to kill you (i.e., intentionally out of the camera and usually behind you). Unfortunately, each and every level is basically the same. There are a few exceptions to this when you have to avoid possessed objects instead of people, but even that becomes repetitive.</div><div><br /></div><div>The weapons are mostly standard including a pistol and shotgun. Because the 'Taken' avoid light and seek darkness, you also have light weapons including a flashlight, flares and flashbang grenades. Unfortunately, the flashlight only removes the Taken invincibility and lets you finally kill them. You can temporarily increase the brightness of the flashlight to make it work faster (at the cost of using up the battery). The battery recharges, but very slowly.</div><div><br /></div><div>At some points in the game, you get access to other light sources like search lights and construction lights, but these really do no better than your own flashlight. In reality, it's far simpler to run to the next street light checkpoint. And yes, the street lamps are generally checkpoints. So, it's actually far more beneficial to keep moving than to stop and try to defeat the Taken in each encounter.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Enemies</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The enemies you encounter include the Taken. These are dark spirits that manifest and try to kill you by throwing hatchets, chopping you or hitting you. They are primo at ganging up on you and, worse, the game loves to make them appear inches behind you out of the sight of the camera. For this reason alone, I am downrating this game. Using the lack of camera sight to throw enemies at you is a no-no. Never ever do this. If, as a game designer, you think this is some kind of challenge, it isn't. It's an unfair tactic to the gamer. If you want to design this kind of enemy, then offer a HUD where you can see them as a dot around you. So, you may not be able to see them standing just out of the camera, you can at least see them on the HUD.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls are pretty standard. There was nothing horribly wrong with the way the controls are mapped or how they work.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Episodes</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The game is broken down into distinct episodes or chapters, but this really wasn't necessary. So, you play for a short time and that segment ends (like a TV show). The next episode starts up and recaps what you did previously (like a TV show). You then move into the game play segment again.</div><div><br /></div><div>The ending was a bit on the cliche side, but left you hanging enough that they can create an Alan Wake 2. It didn't really end as I expected it to, but the ending didn't really end either.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br />This game tried to be unique, but really ended up as a mediocre third person shooter. It's reasonably bug free, but it's still not perfect. It was also reasonably short as I was able to get through it in about a day of play.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 8/10 (eerie at times, but not that cinematic)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8/10 (not bad, but shaders could have been better)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 4/10 (boring and repetitive)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 4/10 (episodic format was not necessary, ending weak)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 8/10 (average, nothing new)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 1/10 (no replay value)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $10 (story is really better than gameplay, not by much)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 4/10 (could have used more work).</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-68346864166586393052010-05-24T05:30:00.000-07:002010-06-04T17:53:54.080-07:00Xbox 360 - Red Dead Redemption<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxUikiDftZV3ANDf2mS6XbGE6k4GamAxUHQ7L5nns9tt53I8zj5sLE6DGqrmxa_Jw3XLSf-Cl4eZyBCwle__IEqX0ocg0dGxJ0r-Wpc9ilA8LnbXicpYZ3n_jGDZELf3XMevymD5-uyIW/s1600/RedDead.jpg"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Red Dead Redemption</b></span></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:78%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">by Rockstar</span></span></span></a><div><br /></div><div><b>Parental Rating</b>: Mature Themes, Violence, Gore</div><div><br /></div><div>Plain and simple, this is Grand Theft Auto<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxUikiDftZV3ANDf2mS6XbGE6k4GamAxUHQ7L5nns9tt53I8zj5sLE6DGqrmxa_Jw3XLSf-Cl4eZyBCwle__IEqX0ocg0dGxJ0r-Wpc9ilA8LnbXicpYZ3n_jGDZELf3XMevymD5-uyIW/s1600/RedDead.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAxUikiDftZV3ANDf2mS6XbGE6k4GamAxUHQ7L5nns9tt53I8zj5sLE6DGqrmxa_Jw3XLSf-Cl4eZyBCwle__IEqX0ocg0dGxJ0r-Wpc9ilA8LnbXicpYZ3n_jGDZELf3XMevymD5-uyIW/s200/RedDead.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475061493992342466" border="0" /></a> with a new setting in the old west. Nearly all of GTA4 is in Red Dead Redemption (RDR), with exception of a few omissions (swimming, modern vehicles, modern weapons). Instead of jacking cars, you can jack stage coaches, trains and horseman. You have all of the old weapons. Your character is Jack Marsten.</div><div><br /></div><div>While Rockstar did a reasonable job converting GTA4 to an old west setting, there are a number of problems that plague this game.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls could be better. For example, the 'Dead Eye' mode is nearly impossible to activate on the right stick controller. If you press or wiggle the right stick enough times, you might just activate this mode at the last minute and make it work. Then again, you might not. This mode could be great if it would reliably activate. Yes, I realize there is a 'dead eye' meter, but even when it's full it doesn't always want to activate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Walking through doorways can be an immense chore. Instead of walking through the doorway, he straddles the door frame, first on one side, then on the other. No, I'm not talking about the right button (RB) that activates Jack in cover mode. I'm talking about in free walking mode. I spent the better part of about 2 minutes maneuvering him to walk through a friggin door. Seriously, this part is exceedingly bad. This is also obviously something new for this engine. I'd never had issues controlling a character through a doorway in GTA4. I have no idea why he's that hard to control in RDR, but he is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Breaking broncos can be a chore when you're near cacti or cliffs. When the camera gets anywhere close to a tall object or cactus, it focuses so tightly on Jack, you can't see what you're doing and the game will ultimately throw you from the horse. If you want to break horses, do it in open areas, not close to cliffs or cacti.</div><div><br /></div><div>Jumping onto a train (or between train cars) can be near impossible at times. Other times, it can work perfectly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Controlling a horse can be near impossible at times. When you move the camera to view the character from the front, pushing backwards on the controller should turn the horse around. It doesn't. Instead, the horse keeps going in the forward direction. You have to actually use the stick and swing (rotate) the stick so that the horse also swings and turns. This is very annoying.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that nearly every problem with the control system is because of the sluggish controls on Jack. Rockstar pulled the highly annoying slow-to-respond controls from GTA 4 into RDR and this system makes this game suffer and suffer badly.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The gameplay is reasonable, but nowhere near perfect. The problematic controls prevent this game from being anywhere near perfect. It's probably too late to re-engineer the controls for this game, but hopefully Rockstar can fix the control problem with RDR2.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You are Jack Marsten. You are an outlaw who has decided to track down an old friend-turned-enemy. Since Jack is a clean slate, how you choose to handle where you are is entirely up to you. So, if you want to become an outlaw, the game gives you that option. If you want to be a good guy, the game also gives you this option. As you progress, you make choices that add or remove honor and fame. The more honor you have, the better people like you. The less you have, the less they like you. If your honor goes negative, then you're an outlaw.</div><div><br /></div><div>So, as you progress, you learn new things and get new items and weapons. The missions run much like GTA4 in that they begin and end. You must complete some kind of task and you get a reward. If you complete the task successfully, you may get additional General Store items or new game features.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's actually hard to tell what's the main story and what's a side story. So, you'll just have to play the game to determine that for yourself or read through the Game Guide.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Weapons</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Various weapons become available as you progress. These include a pistol, a shotgun, a repeater, a lasso, a knife and your fists (among others you can find).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Game Map Sections</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Just like GTA4, as you progress through the game, other parts of the map open. So, completion of key missions will unlock more map areas. Until then, the bridges prevent you from visiting those other areas.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Game Saves</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There are two ways to save games. This has improved over GTA4, but is still not optimal for this game. If you purchase a house in a town, you can save your game by sleeping (just like GTA4). Secondarily, if you get far enough out of a town you can set up a campsite and save your game at the campsite. Once you save, the game's clock will advance by 6 hours. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Accidental Mission Starts</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, there are far too many times in RDR where proximity missions start accidentally and, if you want the reward, you have to see them through to completion. But, there are times where you haven't even finished a previous mission and a new one starts simply by reaching a certain area. So, when this happens, you have to make the choice to abandon the new mission to complete the other one. It's also unclear if you abandon a specific mission whether it is restartable later. Note that the main missions start with a yellow X that Marsten must get close to. But, bandit camps are activated merely by proximity (and not close proximity at that).</div><div><br /></div><div>So as a tip, once you complete a mission, always immediately save before doing anything else. Because saving is so cumbersome in RDR, this part of saving is a chore. This is where RDR fails with game saves. Anyway, to save that means traveling to a house or setting up a campsite. If you don't do this, you will end up redoing missions over and over. Note that some missions (like duels), Marsten can end up dead several times before you figure out how to duel. So, save often.</div><div><br /></div><div>As I said earlier, the save methods in this game are problematic because of this one issue described above. This game desperately needs a save anywhere system. Because it's so easy to trigger something by accident, RDR needs to allow the gamer to save anywhere at any time. Honestly, there is no real reason why you can't do this either. Without saving, you will end up redoing missions several times using trial and error gameplay to avoid the pitfalls.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Fast Travel</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Note, you can fast travel to any destination on the map (including custom way points) when you are at a campsite. So, if you want to fast travel, leave the town you are in just far enough to set up a campsite, then select your destination and travel. Note that time will elapse the same during fast travel. So, if it would take you 3 hours to do it on a horse manually, when you fast travel it will also add 3 hours to the clock.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Accidental Death and Unknown Circumstances</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Be prepared for accidental death by saving often. Because there are so many different ways to die in RDR (duels, falling off cliffs, falling into water, getting into accidental gunfights) or even simply just triggering things that shouldn't be triggered, Marsten could die, accidentally kill someone or end up with a hefty bounty. You might even botch a mission that might kill you or reduce your honor. So, save early and save often. There are too many times where the game triggered something that should never have been triggered. </div><div><br /></div><div>For example, after I obtained the ability to break broncos, I activated a job by stopping on the yellow X and proceeded to hop into the coral. I drew my lasso and was trying to lasso the horse. In this process, the game said I had assaulted the ranch hand (who was outside of the coral) and the job ended. This is one perfect example where I had to reload a previous save to start this mission over again.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Failure and Game Loading</b></div><div><br /></div><div>If you fail at doing something or die, the game reloads from the last save. Except, the game keeps state information from the last thing you attempted and won't let you do it again from that modified game load. So, that means you cannot attempt the last task again from the automatic load. This means you need to reload the game again from disk to reset everything so you can try that task again. Why the game has to modify the load to prevent redoing the last task again, I don't know, but it's annoying has sh**.</div><div><br /></div><div>And further, the game load times are incredibly long. It takes at least 30 seconds to 1 minute to load a saved game. This is way too long. To reload the level where you are should take no more than 5-10 seconds.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics and Sound</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The graphics are reasonably well done, but surprisingly there is some screen tearing that happens. The audio is reasonable enough, but it's not cinematic by any degree.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Red Dead Redemption could have been a much better game if the designers had thought through the design to accommodate the mission design. Instead, the game designers decided to pull in GTA4 almost completely and simply change the scenery without thinking through the way things work. Further, it doesn't really appear the game was truly play tested as these issues should have presented during play testing. Unfortunately, Red Dead Redemption suffers as a result of the lack of proper design.</div><div><br /></div><div>If anything should be taken from Red Dead Redemption, it should demonstrates that merely pulling a game engine forward from a previous game is not enough to accommodate a major game paradigm change. In the case of RDR, this game would have been far better served with a save anywhere design, with much more clearly defined missions (always used Xs to denote the start) and a far better control system. The sluggish GTA4 controls need to go away in lieu of controls more like what's in Saint's Row. The character's sluggish control (on or off of a horse) is just too problematic to make the game truly fun. A game's controls should easily become second nature. When you're fighting with the controls instead of playing the game, the game has failed the controller, the game and, ultimately, the gamer.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 7/10 (not outstanding)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8/10 (good, but not great, lighting works, skin surfaces flat)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 6.5/10 (needs some help, accidental mission starts)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 6.5/10 (could be better, but works)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: 4/10 (three lockups, one during at the first boss battle)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 5/10 (needs work)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 2/10 (might replay)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $10 (story and mission length will make this title)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 6.5/10 (needs better save system, needs better design).</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-14741972441335026272010-05-15T06:54:00.000-07:002010-05-24T21:46:49.837-07:00Xbox 360 - Ironman 2<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Ironman 2</span></b></span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">by Sega</span></div><div><br /></div>Against my better judgement, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjMU9HfMkwWGhNk2ULR1u5E2XvuLBoVDaLJodi-tduqQrl0hfLOYGgPZbYIlsoA9oArbBo3R5trhNZ2gnfiZgvtyZEI8uFLkwg6_HunXKjzEVqP4XEeDGnBPkyytEP4YDR5rCsL3AZVzI/s1600/Ironman2.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJjMU9HfMkwWGhNk2ULR1u5E2XvuLBoVDaLJodi-tduqQrl0hfLOYGgPZbYIlsoA9oArbBo3R5trhNZ2gnfiZgvtyZEI8uFLkwg6_HunXKjzEVqP4XEeDGnBPkyytEP4YDR5rCsL3AZVzI/s200/Ironman2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5475064402988344386" border="0" /></a>I decided to buy this game. I knew that it was a movie tie-in, but I had heard they made the suit controls better. Ok, so this game started out like it might actually have a chance to be something unique. It's unique alright. It's unique trash. This game is no better than its predecessor. The suit is still completely uncontrollable, especially War Machine. Effectively, this game is crap on a stick.<div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Based on the movie. So, this is effectively a movie tie-in. Nuff said about that.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>At least Sega could have tried. But, this feels very much like a game that was written in a weekend. Literally. They couldn't have made a worse game if they had actually tried.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>So many problems with this, it's not even funny. Where to start. The weapons are weak, the weapon cool down is too slow, the rate of fire is minimal, you're constantly out of ammo, the suit is uncontrollable (especially when you're hit). I mean, there is so much wrong with this game, I don't think there's really one thing that Sega managed to get right.</div><div><br /></div><div>And when it comes to War Machine, the game is simply pathetic. Not only is War Machine about a quarter of the strength of Ironman, he has crappy weapons and effectively no defenses. Yet, the game throws about twice as many enemies at you as it does Ironman. It's effectively impossible to win the higher levels when playing War Machine... especially the carrier levels (where the game forces you to play as War Machine).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Levels</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The main problem in playing each of the mission levels is that the suit is completely uncontrollable. You're constantly being thrown in random directions. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are these basic enemies:</div><div><ul><li>Ground crawlers: Big boss sized enemies that end the level when dead. </li><li>Suited attackers: Their attack style is to just constantly melee you. Their attack style does nothing but kill the suit shield and eventually kill you. They gang up on you and attack you en masse to intentionally kill your shield. </li><li>Drones: Drones fire laserbeams from a distance and use distance attacks against you. These are usually teamed up against you with Suited Attackers</li><li>Ground Suited attackers: These guys are bigger and fire missiles at you from a distance.</li></ul></div><div>Combining all of this with War Machine's incredibly lame suit which you are FORCED to use on some missions means that you are destined for frustration.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Frustration Central</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The attack styles of the flying suited attackers is completely frustrating. All that they do is get close and melee your suit about 10 times with a super fast melee attack. It not only stuns you, but it prevents you from any kind of retaliatory attack while they are doing this. Worse, they throw at least four of these enemies at you at once on top of the six or so other type enemies on the level also targeting you. Ultimately, the suited attackers are the most single frustrating enemy in the game. They're not hard to kill, they just like to hide behind you so you can't see them and also gang up on you so you can't defend yourself and you ultimately lose health. The only defense from these attacks is running away, and even that's only temporary because they follow you at the same speed your suit can fly.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second most frustrating thing is that when you're hit with a missile, the suit drops downward. When you're defending the flying carrier, it ends up throwing you below the carrier. Once you're down there, it's a b*tch to fly back up because the suit is uncontrollable.</div><div><br /></div><div>The most problematic part of this game is that the Ironman suit should be able to fly supersonic. Yet, when you turn the jets on full, you're flying about as fast as a person walking. So stupid and unrealistic. If you turn on the jets on that suit, you should not only fly exceedingly fast, you should be able to control the speed to go well faster than anything else around you. Unfortunately, you can't use the jets to evade flying attackers. They just hang right behind you at the same speed. So, when you stop, they're right there attacking you again. So stupid.</div><div><br /></div><div>There was even one time when, for whatever inexplicable reason, the suit decided to careen downward away from the carrier which ended the mission because it said that I had 'abandoned the carrier'. For whatever reason, the game didn't return control of the suit to me so I couldn't even control the suit to make it fly back up. Again, stupid.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Upgrades and Research</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Sega wasted this part of this game. To include such a detailed upgrade system in a game containing such incredibly poor gameplay is immeasurably stupid and an insane waste of time. Because even though you get points to research upgrades, the upgrades do nothing to improve the suit at all... especially not War Machine. Worse, there is only one (1) War Machine suit to Ironman's 10 suits. Yet, at two levels of the first 6 levels force you to use War Machine negating the use of Ironman. This is supposed to be Ironman 2, not War Machine. Let me choose the character and suit I want to play. Don't force me to use a weak character!</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>For such a cool suit, the textures are too low res. The game feels rushed and incomplete graphically (and in all other ways too).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a bad game with basically no redeeming value. If you like wasting money, feel free. But, if you feel you really must play, then you should only consider a rental or buying it on clearance for about $5 (or less).</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 7/10 (average)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 5/10 (poor, cutscenes best part)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 2/10 (weak, suits too weak, ammo too weak)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 6.5/10 (watch the movie)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 1/10 (uncontrollable)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck:</b> 1/10 (no replay value)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $2 (recommend renting)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 2/10 (Absolute garbage. Nothing redeeming here).</li></ul><div>Sega, with this game, you've failed. This is probably one of the last Sega games I'll ever buy.</div></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-71900515671071903892010-04-03T07:24:00.000-07:002011-05-15T13:13:04.795-07:00Game design from a gamer's perspective Pt. 5<span style="font-weight:bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Game Design from a Gamer's Perspective Part V</span></span><br /><br /><b>Patronizing Behaviors - No!</b><br /><br />Do not insert patronizing sounds or suggestions. In this case, for example, Dante's Inferno suggested that I should move to an easier difficulty after starting a boss battle over about 5 times. Here is another design no-no. Don't do this. Never patronize your gamer. Never. Patronizing the gamer is not only a way to cause the gamer to get mad, it's not going to help the gamer get past the level (no, not even if they change difficulties). You have to understand that changing difficulties may have other game ramifications. Secondarily, don't lower or alter the difficulty of the level because the gamer has started over multiple times. If you want to allow modification to the hardness level, then allow it as an option on the main menu that the gamer can turn on. Do not turn it on by default. Always design helpful hints into the game, but let the gamer decide if they want to see the helpful hints.<br /><br /><b>Boss Battles revisited</b><br /><br />Even though bosses are discussed in <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective.html">part 1</a>, another issue has cropped up regarding bosses that needs discussion. In this case, the issue is that you are thrown into a boss battle without any idea of what to do. You don't know the boss's tactic, so you're fighting blind. You are forced to trial-and-error your way through the battle to figure out what to do. Here is the perfect opportunity to offer an in-game tutorial to help defeat this boss. This tutorial should only be executed if the gamer requests, but a simple pause request going into this battle the first time only isn't patronizing. It gives the gamer a way to size up the boss and cut some time off of the battle. Some gamers like the challenge of not knowing anything. Others would at least like some kind of clue what to do and what to avoid.<br /><br /><i>Wave after wave plus enemies with no way to kill them</i><br /><br />Here's a boss tactic to avoid, at least early in the game. Dante's Inferno is yet another example of bad design in this regard. The first major and real boss battle throws wave after wave after wave of enemies at you. Just about the time you think you're done, you start completely over again with an entirely new wave of enemies. Again, the problem with Dante's Inferno is lack of health. Always give enough health on a level! During many battles in Dante's Inferno, there is entirely no way to get any health. No health wells, no potions, nothing. So, you have to do the entire boss level on one single health bar. Worse, you're doing it against an enemy where you have no defense (tentacles shoot up from the ground). You just have to move out of the way and hope the next tentacle doesn't hit you. If you could at least target the tentacles and stop the attack, that would be one thing. But, you can't. This harkens back to another game, <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/01/xbox-360-batman-arkham-asylum.html">Batman Arkham Asylum</a> that would put up enemies that you cannot kill. Again, reinforcing another part of the this very guide: never put enemies into the playfield that cannot be wounded, defeated or harmed! Never.<br /><br />Adding undamagable enemies only serves to take player health and make the player avoid being hit during this useless period. It doesn't make the game any harder, it just makes it frustrating. Let the player use the health he/she has to defeat actually killable enemies. For some reason, a lot of game designers seem to think that reducing the health of the player is somehow challenging. It isn't. Again, it's frustrating and time wasting. This goes back to... don't waste the players time (see <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective.html">part 1</a> and <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt.html">part 2</a> of this guide).<br /><br /><b>Story vs Gameplay</b><br /><br />I think a lot of game developers wrestle with this issue when designing a game. So, I'm here to definitively answer this question. If you have a story in your game, then single most important thing in your game is that story. Period. There is no more important aspect than getting through the story to the end. The game play enables the story to work, but the story leads you through. The story is what is most compelling and what drives most gamers to play. If you're setting up a story at all, then it has to be the single most important thing in the game.<br /><br />What does that mean for your game? This means that all gaming elements must revolve around the story. That also means that should you put any kind of battles or elements in the game that prevent completion of the story, then your design has put a gaming element ahead of the story and you have failed your game and your story. There should never be any gaming element including boss battles, other stories or puzzles that prevent the gamer from moving forward. If a boss battle cannot be completed, then allow it to be skipped entirely. The gamer can come back and play it later. Patronizing the gamer by suggesting a lesser difficulty is not the answer. Letting the gamer skip the level, see the outcome and move-on is not patronizing, It also lets the gamer move the story forward which then means you value the story more than the gaming element... and that's as it should be.<br /><br />Far too many gaming companies put in impossible roadblock levels that prevent the game and, ultimately, the story from moving forward. If the gamer can never get past the level, then you have failed. Yes, you may have made your $60 from that game purchase, but I can guarantee you that the gamer will think twice before buying another title from your company. This leaves your next game with sales issues.<br /><br /><b>Future Sales</b><br /><br />Always consider your present game as a resume for your next game. That means that the gamer who is playing your current game will judge whether or not to buy future titles from your company based on the present game they are playing. A failure game is a failure for future sales. You don't want this. Make your games a success for the gamer and the gamer will come back to purchase more later. This means you should always think about the gamer when designing your game. Never design the game for your convenience.<br /><br />Parts: <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective.html" target="_blank">1</a> | <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt.html" target="_blank">2</a> | <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt_07.html" target="_blank">3</a> | <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt_28.html" target="_blank">4</a> | 5Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-117860718665847712010-04-02T19:06:00.000-07:002011-06-25T03:57:42.416-07:00Xbox 360 - Dante's Inferno<span style="font-size:180%;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Dante's Inferno</span></span></b> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">by Visceral / EA</span><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nvwN_d-y0BNRy99oiQq_w_EXKNtXFy4NuDPaehmhpOfxo3Lyi1QekYHybsyU7t-WbqdiLUhSYND3DzJzSc7p8JhdOV5K6iSGPy2pnfDQxYVg99EZfdPkbwaPYUsxG08a3ukU9Sju05u3/s1600/Dante.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 195px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4nvwN_d-y0BNRy99oiQq_w_EXKNtXFy4NuDPaehmhpOfxo3Lyi1QekYHybsyU7t-WbqdiLUhSYND3DzJzSc7p8JhdOV5K6iSGPy2pnfDQxYVg99EZfdPkbwaPYUsxG08a3ukU9Sju05u3/s200/Dante.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5455737884028620034" border="0" /></a></div>Ok, so while I was very suitably impressed by the graphics on this game, the gameplay is poor to average at best. Let's explore.<div><br /></div><div><b>Poor design ideas</b></div><div><br /></div><div>First, here's a game that is a complete waste. A throw-away title. The sad thing is, it could have been so much more than it is. By tying down this game as an average third person fighting game, it limits the overall quality of this title. But, that's EA for you. They're a churn factory of average games and Dante's Inferno is no exception.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Basically, the story to this game is lame. I do understand its origins. It originated as a book and then a film. So, in effect, this is a media tie-in game. This fact almost assures mediocrity and EA certainly doesn't disappoint in that.</div><div><br /></div><div>You play a knight who is thrust into hell to find his love. The setup of this story was actually quite confusing overall. While the visuals were quite stunning, the story is muddled and lost in the mix.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a standard third person fighter intertwined with a number of cuts scenes. The problem with the cut scenes in this game is that they are cartoons, they are also repetitive. So, you might see a certain scene several times in progression. Not a great idea, actually.</div><div><br /></div><div>The interweaving of the cut scenes works ok, but not spectacular. That's not the real problem, though. The real problem is in the controls and gameplay. Worse, if you end up replaying a level over and over (3 maybe 4 times), the game patronizes you by suggesting a lesser difficulty level. No. Don't do this. Let the gamer muddle through the level on their own. Don't suggest level difficulties and don't decrease the difficulty unless the player requests it. Here is yet another faux pas that will end up in the <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective.html">Game Design from a Gamer's Perspective</a>. Again, DO NOT suggest or alter level difficulties.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div>But, this isn't the real problem. The real problem with the level isn't the difficulty. The real problem is that you're thrown in without any semblance of what to do or how to defeat a given boss. You HAVE to muddle through it. If the game at least gave you some kind of hint or gave something familiar from a previous fight, then you might even have a clue. But, you're going to end up starting a boss over at least 4-5 times before you get the right combination. So, patronizing the player by suggesting difficulty levels is HIGHLY annoying. Again, DO NOT DO THIS when designing your game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Further, the problem with the bosses is that you have no idea their strength, their weaknesses or how to cut the whole thing short, if there is even a way to do this. Worse, the boss battles do not give any hiding spaces, ways of taking a break or in any way getting out of the fight. So, you're stuck for the duration (or you press pause). The last problem with the boss levels is, like <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/01/xbox-360-batman-arkham-asylum.html">Batman Arkham Asylum</a>, it throws wave after wave after wave at you. By the time you get to the last wave, and you're not even sure if it is the last wave, you're down to basically no health at all. In other words, the whole point to the boss levels in this game ends up trying to retain as much health as you possibly can. The boss's goal, then, is to whittle down as much health as they can. Overall, there is no fun or pleasure in that. It's just stupid design. The point to any game isn't to make the boss level impossible, it's to make the game FUN. Note that impossible does not equal fun! Fun is making the game enjoyable to play all throughout (including the boss levels) and to keep your story going. Forcing the gamer to stop your story by waging impossible battles means that you value the gameplay over the story. Wrong. You should always value the story over the game. Always.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note that I'm not playing on the 'easy' level. I'm playing on the second level, which shouldn't be easy, but it shouldn't be impossible. Impossible should be reserved for the final difficulty level. Basically, this game has their difficulty levels set up wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Save Points</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Here's another game that does both obelisk saves and memory based checkpoint saves. So for memory saves, if you lose a battle, the game is kind enough to start you back at the beginning of the battle. Bad thing is, you lose any skills you've purchased. After starting over again, you have to stop what you are doing, visit the shop and purchase everything again. Frustrating. The least it could do is remember the things you've purchased. Note that memory saves are gone once you quit out of the game and start over later. So, you'll have to start again from a real save (see obelisk saves below). That means you will also lose your progress and have to backtrack to a disk save.</div><div><br /></div><div>With obelisk saves, you stop by a specific statue and by pressing RB, you can activate the save point and save your game for real. The trouble, once again, is that like the health wells there are not enough save points throughout the game.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, this is a bad design. There is no reason why a limit is placed on the number of save points in a game. In fact, why even use save obelisks when you can put save onto the top menu? If the gaming industry would get rid of this obelisk save idea, it would be too soon.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Health</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There is simply not enough health to be had in this game. You find health as wells that you destroy to get health from. The problem, though, is that you can travel an entire level and find only one health increase. Yes, that's right, one. You have no health potions, nothing you can carry with you, so you are entirely reliant on the game to provide you with a health well. When you do find one, it's when you don't need one or at a time when you can't use it (during a fight).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Absolve or Punish</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is an anomaly in this game. It stands out like a sore thumb. You can scoop up an enemy during battle and absolve or punish them. If you absolve, you get light side points. If you punish, you get dark side points. So, while you are absolving or punishing, the battle grinds to a halt, all enemies back away and let you do the deed. Like, huh? If you're going to do this for absolve or punish, then do the same thing with health wells. While I'm trying to get health from a well, all enemies should back off until I'm done. But, the designers didn't do this. So, the game does this for Absolve or Punish, but not when getting health. So, you can't get health from a well during a battle because an enemy will hit you and stop you. Again, wrong design. </div><div><br /></div><div>Again, the point of a game is to be fun, not frustrating.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Hodge Podge</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This game uses a mix mash of ideas all thrown into this game. You have the standard fight areas, you have Absolve or Punish, you have the wells, the doors you attack to open them and several other things I will let you discover if you choose to play. A lot of discordant ideas put together that don't really work as a cohesive whole.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Graphics</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is the only place where this game shines. And shines does it ever. This game is absolutely gorgeous and stunning. The graphics completely hold up even under the most intense and fastest moving scenes. No chop, not tearing, nothing. Someone put a lot of work into making sure the graphics were as fluid as you could make them. On top of the fluid graphics, the texture maps are perfect, the lighting is perfect and the motion capture and lip movements have to be some of the best I've seen. This game easily gets a 10 in graphics. If every game looked and was as smooth as Dante's Inferno, it'd at least make the game somewhat more palatable. Dante's Inferno raises the bar in graphics on the Xbox 360. I haven't seen graphics look this good on the Xbox 360 ever. In fact, it looks so good, I'd swear it was on the PS3.</div><div><br /></div><div>The smoke and fire effects are amazingly well done. I have to applaud the designers for the effort put into the graphics. It's too bad the graphics design team basically wasted their effort on such a mediocre title.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Sound</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The voiceovers are reasonably well done. It definitely sounds like hired actors. The music is good, but not inspiring. I've heard much better music in games than here.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The controls work, but are odd in places. I would have preferred a more standard control layout, but the way it is set up works ok for this game. The controls are reasonably responsive, but overall it doesn't really help the gameplay much. The one place where there is an issue is when the RB flag appears on the screen. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So, when you expect an RB symbol to appear, it doesn't.</div><div><br /></div><div>Note, the default layout puts a darting move on the right stick instead of camera movement. While I would call Visceral on '<a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt_07.html#messing">Messing with a good thing</a>', it seems to work ok in this game. I would have preferred a camera control on this stick, but the way that it is seems to work well enough.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I can't really recommend this game. It's an average game that feels like a movie tie-in. It doesn't feel as rushed as most movie tie-ins (mostly because of the graphics subsystem). But, the game play is frustrating as are the boss levels. This is yet another in the endless stream of irritating boss battle games. Overall, I'm getting rather tired of this genre because it's basically the same things rehashed. There has to be some other way to play a game that doesn't involve boss battles to progress. In fact, I'd prefer puzzles to boss battles. Puzzles at least challenge the mind and make you think. Boss battles are mindless chopping, jumping and using combos. Give me something that challenges the mind over mindless gaming any day.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 8/10 (slightly better than average)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 10/10 (easily the best I've seen for this genre)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 5/10 (average, weak in places)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 6.5/10 (too much glitz, not enough story)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 7/10 (odd movement control on the right stick)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 1/10 (no replay value)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $5 (recommend renting)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 5.5/10 (nothing new here, even as perfect as the graphics are).</li></ul></div></div><div><br /></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-47570003098458127252010-03-29T04:43:00.000-07:002010-03-30T08:01:06.351-07:00Xbox 360 - Bioshock 2<div><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 102, 0);">Bioshock 2</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:78%;">by 2K Games<br /><br /></span></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbY4CvD9MAdlU0q8NzvOy3z7FwKRcTAxcJnHg9dMGM9ot6jDH_tc9U4Q_JUdupkqqCxmlNydJNMsbZ58_1tTnJcIpdVSMyaI38Wd3QpEZnsXHh_SBGqIDCA4k97AFXaHIbo5aRffo9dIAi/s1600/bioshock2.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbY4CvD9MAdlU0q8NzvOy3z7FwKRcTAxcJnHg9dMGM9ot6jDH_tc9U4Q_JUdupkqqCxmlNydJNMsbZ58_1tTnJcIpdVSMyaI38Wd3QpEZnsXHh_SBGqIDCA4k97AFXaHIbo5aRffo9dIAi/s200/bioshock2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454035715109179378" border="0" /></a></div>This is the sequel to Bioshock. While I was hoping for a lot of out of this title, it really doesn't deliver more than the original. That's not to say that that's a bad thing if you've never played Bioshock, but if you have you'll quickly realize a been-there-done-that moment.<div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The story is similar to the original Bioshock. You're tasked to wander around Rapture (an underwater city) and gather Adam from Little Sisters. As you gather Adam (a form of plasmid currency), you level up your skills. As you add and strengthen your skills, you can defeat bigger and bigger bosses. The point to each level is to ultimately progress to meet Eleanor Lamb (the voice who taunts you all along the way).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Gameplay</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Effectively, you are a Big Daddy in this game. But, you also have the ability to use plasmids (a biotech system that adds such abilities as electric shock, fire and telekinesis to you). So, in addition to the arms you find (shotguns, spear guns and what not), you can use your bio abilities to help subdue your enemies. Not that the bio abilities are not generally strong enough to kill on their own, so you are forced to use a combination of bioweapons and guns to defeat opponents.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Bioshock 2, the designers added trap rivets and mini-turrets. Trap rivets are only set off once someone gets in close proximity. So, now you can trap an area against splicers (and other enemies). This is important because of the way you must gather Adam now. In B2, you gather Adam by first killing the little sister's Big Daddy. Then you adopt the little sister. You then use the little sister to locate corpses that contain Adam and then have her harvest the Adam from that corpse. That would be great if it stopped there. Unfortunately, the game designers felt that simply gathering Adam was too easy. So all the while the little sister is gathering Adam, splicers start coming out of nowhere and attacking you and the little sister. So, this is why traps and mini-turrets are important. In fact, its better when you can find the corpses near turrets or security cameras that you've hacked. I could really have done without this constant attacking exercise, but whatever. If there were rhyme or reason to this exercise, I'd have probably enjoyed the attacks more. But, they're mostly pointless. Worse, many of the splicers tend to come up from behind you. So, you're constantly having to turn around.</div><div><br /></div><div>You can only do 2 Adam gathers per sister. Once that's done, you can either harvest the little sister at a vent or you can let her go home. If you harvest, you get the most amount of Adam. If you let her go, you get less (about half). So, if you want to progress in the game faster, you really need to harvest.</div><div><br /></div><div>After you've either harvested or let the little sister go into the vent, a big sister may or may not come for you. Now, the point in the big sister is pointless. Just an exercise to drain health and eve (what fuels your bioweapons). Big sisters don't always seem to come, but when they do they are relentless until you kill them. Frankly, they're easy to kill. Since you can regenerate, just keep hammering on her until she dies. You may end up in a regeneration chamber 5-10 times, but you can kill her without using any Eve, without firing a single shot or without losing any health packs. You'll lose about half of your current health when you regenerate, but find a health machine and you can boost again for 9 credits (or find booze or food).</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, I have found the big sister battles to be mostly pointless. What they give you after you search them isn't worth the kill. It's just a way to waste time (and health) instead of focusing on the story. Frankly, you can continue forward on your level ignoring the big sister. She'll keep coming, but you can still search and move forward. You will need to eventually kill her, but it's not really that important overall. The one thing, though, is that a big sister gives you a little bit of Adam (around 20-40). So, it's worth it just to get the Adam, but it's not really enough to make it worthwhile losing that much health and eve. So, use the Vita Chambers to kill the big sister and avoid using up health.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Trap Rivets</b></div><div><br /></div><div>While setting up traps can help you score Adam gathers, note one important bug in this system. There is a limit on the total number of traps that can be on the playfield. After you exceed that number, the oldest placed traps disappear without warning and, after they begin disappearing, you are wasting traps. Note, however, that the game doesn't warn you of this fact. They just disappear. So, be wary when placing a lot of trap rivets on the playfield. I believe the number is around 15 or so. I haven't counted the maximum number exactly, but that's about what I could eye in the area where i was playing.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Purchasing</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You have the ability to purchase weapons, health and plasmids. Weapons and health require money. You find money on dead bodies, chests, cash registers, etc. To buy plasmids, you need Adam. This you obtain by harvesting little sisters (and killing big sisters). You can also find Adam on some underwater levels, so keep your eyes open.</div><div><br /></div><div>Bigger and bigger weapons are found around the levels. You can't buy these. Some plasmids are unlocked by research (using the camera) or by finding them on levels. The major plasmids can be purchased.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The game quality is similar to Bioshock. But, the gameplay isn't different enough and the levels aren't different enough to make it a new unique experience. I felt that the game developers played it too safe and tried to create Bioshock too exactly. Instead, they should have taken a risk and tried something new. Like, for example, add brand new and unique plasmids. Make this underwater station clean and bright. Something, anything different would have made it a unique experience. It was just a too much been-there-done-that experience for me to say that it was really a great game experience.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you haven't played Bioshock, by all means play this one. If you have already played Bioshock, then this won't be anything new for you. If you're looking for a new gaming experience, this isn't really it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 7/10 (average, but splicer voices can be annoying)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 8.5/10 (good, could see texture loading in-game)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 7.5/10 (reasonable controls and action)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 6.5/10 (slightly better than average, but too much like Bioshock)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: 7/10 (traps disappear after unspecified number on playfield)</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 8.5/10 (worked well in most cases, camera made it hard at times)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 2/10 (might replay for release instead of harvest)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $10 (recommend renting first, buying if you haven't played Bioshock)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 6.5/10 (been-there-done-that for B1 players).</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-53320208528707276322010-03-17T02:33:00.000-07:002010-03-18T00:19:55.357-07:00Xbox 360 - Darksiders<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-curvijN8zG_cTIP1kvXcNr6qn7_olinZ2TnMJubu74uN4IqAor7lmebgvWNE4jnkTTgtnvXOMVj5l9JO6m71EQLtvtlMNIkfOG7T0VVqdTY5iMDbpXay_NIiqUHjZ6q0nclfWNXmZuU/s1600-h/Darksiders.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO-curvijN8zG_cTIP1kvXcNr6qn7_olinZ2TnMJubu74uN4IqAor7lmebgvWNE4jnkTTgtnvXOMVj5l9JO6m71EQLtvtlMNIkfOG7T0VVqdTY5iMDbpXay_NIiqUHjZ6q0nclfWNXmZuU/s200/Darksiders.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449544565073556930" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#FFCC00;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">Darksiders</span></b></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"> </span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">by THQ / Vigil</span><div><br /></div><div>Here's another throwback to the late-90's / early-00s. This is your standard third person shooter with semi-irritating boss battles. You probably would have even found this game in an arcade or two in the late 90s. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>Controls</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Nothing spectacular here. Typical controls for a third person shooter. There is one control, however, that was completely done wrong. When you finally get the chain to swing from floating hook areas, the chain controls are badly done. First, you target the item to chain. Then you press the fire chain control (right trigger). That's ok, so far. But, instead of releasing the RT button to release the chain, you have to press the A button. If you release the RT button, you stop swinging. It's like, huh? Who thought this controller design up? It's far more intuitive to release the RT button to release the chain itself. Duh.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>You're one of the four horsemen who are there to prevent heaven and hell from starting a battle on the Earth. Well, it happened anyway and they blame your character (one of the four horsemen). Ok, so the premise is weak, but it at least gets you motivation for what you're doing (or about to do).</div><div><br /></div><div>So anyway, you'll find there's lots of hacking, slashing, chopping and stomping going on here. Not particularly exciting if you ask me. For a late 90s type game, it'd probably have been a hit back then. With gaming engines and stories that have long progressed beyond this level of hack and slash, it's really old hat at this point.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Level Ups & Combos</b></div><div><br /></div><div>They did add the ability to level your weapons up by adding enhancements and obtaining upgrades. You can buy combos from Vulgrim (the local merchant). As you progress through the game, you find a Vulgrim merchant location in each of the map areas (with the exception of the Iron Canopy area). So, you can make your character somewhat stronger by finding (or paying for) new weapons, features and upgrades. You find items by digging through chests, but mainly by paying Vulgrim. </div><div><br /></div><div>To pay Vulgrim, you obtain blue 'souls'. These souls pop out of things and enemies you destroy. There are blue souls (money), yellow souls (action points) and green souls (health) in various sizes. There are also healing spells that you can buy from Vulgrim when you can't find health on the level (and yes, there will be times).</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Bosses</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Most of the bosses are quite easy, with the exception of Silitha (a large teleporting spider). It appears that THQ made this specific battle extremely difficult to complete. Not sure why unless they just like raising frustration levels. Simply search at Google for 'Defeat Silitha' and you'll find many many gamers looking for the answer to this battle.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Irritation</b></div><div><br /></div><div>As with many games of this style, the developers decided to add some quite irritating things to this game. When you're just about out of health, you have to listen to a heart beating until you find more health. Hello.. I can SEE the meter on the screen, I don't have to be reminded with an irritating heartbeat noise every second.</div><div><br /></div><div>When you're trying to beat Silitha, about every 2 seconds she says, "Hold still little one" or some other such drivel. It became so irritating, I had to turn the voice volume all the way down.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next, I play with Y inverted. Unfortunately, Darksiders doesn't remember that once you've restarted the game the next time. So, I have to constantly remember to go into the options and invert the Y setting. This should be saved to the game save.</div><div><br /></div><div>The controls do not always respond well. So, when you're battling enemies, you seem to sometimes get stunned for no reason and that allows enemies to pound on you. It's almost like the game is doing this on purpose. In fact, it might actually be doing that.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Vulgrim Tunnel Travel</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This part of the game was completely pointless. Yes, you do travel from one area to another reasonably fast. The part that is pointless is that you have to run around this track from point A to point B. There's no fighting, no quests and no treasures there. Frankly, I would have preferred to enter the portal and exit it with nothing in between. If you're going to make the gamer do something, then make it worth their while... here's another tip to go into the <a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective.html">Game Design from a Gamer's Perspective manual</a>. Although, it's really already there as '<a href="http://gamezelot.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-design-from-gamers-perspective-pt.html">Don't waste the gamer player's time</a>'.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>This is a tired, old and worn out gaming style. I understand a lot of gamers still like to play them, but for an RPG gamer, this play system just doesn't really work. If you're the kind of gamer that likes to roam through levels, figure out puzzles and battle silly creatures, then you might like this.</div><div><br /></div><div>The best part of this game.. well, there is no real best part. This is an average/mediocre third person shooter with nothing overly special. If you simply must play everything on the Xbox 360, go for it. If you're looking for a quality, longer and more thought provoking game that's compelling, Darksiders isn't it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Sound</b>: 6/10 (irritating voices)</li><li><b>Graphics</b>: 6/10 (good, but missing too many details)</li><li><b>Gameplay</b>: 7/10 (mostly workable)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 7/10 (weak plot wrapped with lots of hacking and slashing)</li><li><b>Bugginess</b>: N/A</li><li><b>Controls</b>: 6/10 (bad chain control. otherwise workable)</li><li><b>Bang-to-buck</b>: 1/10 (definitely no replay value)</li><li><b>Play Value</b>: $5 (limited play value, repetitive, boring in places, rent)</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 5.5/10 (I definitely recommend renting this title. Not worth $60).</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8694007012164398949.post-57128004048452810122010-03-07T03:46:00.000-08:002010-03-11T20:11:28.533-08:00Big Screen - Avatar<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#33CC00;">Avatar </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">by James Cameron</span><div><br /></div><div>While I know there is a video game for this movie (which Gamezelot may eventually review), this review is about the film itself. You're probably asking yourself, "Why is Gamezelot reviewing movies?" Well, I'll tell you. Essentially, Avatar is a nearly 3 hour video game romp. It is effectively one big cutscene from a video game. Because of this fact, I have decided to review this movie here.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Story</b></div><div><br /></div><div>It's actually 3 stories in one. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy betrays girl, boy wins girl back. Ok, so much for the love story. The second story is for the battle over Pandora, the planet the Navi inhabit. Humans need 'Unobtanium' and to get it, they must displace the locals (the Navi) on the planet Pandora. The third story is of sacrifice and courage by those chosen to become Avatars.</div><div><br /></div><div>Essentially, there are two factions towards domination of Pandora. The Sigourney Weaver character camp that believes that understanding the natives is the answer. She does this by creating the Avatars (lifelike representations of Navi bodies that humans can remote control). So, her intent is to blend in with the Navi and become one with them using these Avatars. This tactic doesn't work until a handicapped marine signs on to run an Avatar.</div><div><br /></div><div>The second camp is the military commander. He wants decisive action to get the job done. If that means destroying the Navi to get the Unobtanium, he'll do it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Navi are the indigenous peoples of Pandora. Ok, so that's the setup.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the 3 hours that unfold, lots of visual effects are used and some cool and amazing things are done. This is, to date, the best live action video game yet. When we can finally get consoles that can produce graphics that look like Avatar, then we'll be onto something.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Premise</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The premise behind the film is sound, but the basic stories have been dumbed down to fit into the nearly 3 hour framework. In fact, this movie would have been better served as an actual video game where you could spend hours and hours playing it and get a truly in-depth experience. But, of course, the graphics wouldn't have been anywhere near as stunning.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, ignoring the graphics work, which is outstanding, the stories are actually fairly weak with lots of holes. The writer(s) could have done much better at sewing up the details of Pandora and the Humans, but failed to do so. So, there are a number of rather cliche and trite things about the way this movie unfolds. While you haven't seen a movie that looks like this one visually, you have seen this film before. Effectively, Cameron has taken stories that are old and tired (and somewhat politically correct) and wrapped them in a shiny new huggable CG ribbon.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Caricatures</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, the characters in this film were all basically cartoons of real humans. From the unfeeling G.I. Joe to the Smoking Doctor. There's nothing very realistic about any of the characters. Even the attempt at sympathy for the handicapped marine really falls quite flat. Because his human role in the movie basically consists of entering and exiting the Avatar control pod, you get very little real emotional time with the human part of this character. The only emotional time you get with Jack Sully (the handicapped marine) is him as the Avatar which, with as well as it was done, just doesn't cut it. So, Jack Sully's character is flat and underdeveloped.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Human vs Avatar</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, as well, there was very little struggle for any of the characters learning to control the avatars. For example, there have to be long term exposure effects of some kind. Whether that's nosebleeds or convulsions, there needs to be some negative consequences to using the avatar chamber. Something that tells the human body that it's not a good thing. That never happens. Without this element, it leaves the human world flat and emotionless. It makes the story feel all too perfect. Without this element, this leaves the story without a human antagonist that prevents the avatar from working perfectly. And, throughout this film, the avatars perform flawlessly.</div><div><br /></div><div>Without something that ties the the audience to the cause of the humans, it leaves the audience emotionless towards any of it. It's hard to feel for the Navi fully because you realize they are simply CG characters. Worse, they are CG characters which are caricatures of real tribal cultures. You want to feel for the humans trying to do good for the Navi, but you can't because there's not enough screen time given to these elements. You can't feel for the bad-guy soldiers, so the whole affair ends up mostly unemotional.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Contradictory points</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The characters tend to contradict themselves during parts of the film. For example, the tribe leader's daughter who first meets up with Jack Sully (as an Avatar), gets a sign from Eywa (aka Gaia) for her invite him in to her tribe. She doesn't understand why, but she does it. She chastises Sully for killing these dog creatures as 'unnecessary' and him being a child. Yet, later he kills an animal without remorse and it's all ok. There are other times as well where the film steps on itself with the tribal culture. So, this makes the tribal aspects not very well conceived.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>High points</b></div><div><br /></div><div>There are high points, but they are all there to manipulate the audience into feeling good about the situation. Like when Sully is able to pull off getting his flying creature or when he swoops from the sky and takes control of the much bigger and more revered flying creature. Hello, if it were as easy as he made it out to be, then the entire tribe would have done it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Manipulating these feel-good points to make the audience feel happy almost seems a bit contrived. It works for the moment, but when you reflect on it you really understand how Cameron manipulated the situation for the audience rather than for the story.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Audio</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The music score is fairly intense, but typical for this kind of blockbuster. There's lots of swelling orchestral movements throughout. Too many, in fact. The score is loud, but that may be partly because of the theater. In most parts the score works, but it's also quite cliche. There's nothing new here. Even though the graphics excel, the music score is standard.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Overall</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The movie was good, but not perfect. If the movie had grounded the human parts in a more solid reality with more human character development, the Navi parts would have been much more believable. The struggles between the G.I. Joes and the Navi were really there to provide a battle environment... an Ewok vs Stormtrooper moment, if you will. This is the Star Wars for a new millennium, but even Star Wars kept the humanistic aspects to keep the audience grounded (at least for the first 3 movies). The later three movies felt much more like Avatar.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm at a loss why CG and human drama can't work. Avatar definitely shows that it is possible to do it with film (even though Avatar itself didn't succeed), but it doesn't have to be feel-good fluff. Unfortunately, Cameron took us on this journey, but primarily as a cartoon than as a real human drama. Perhaps he felt that the CG would play better if it felt more cartoony than as human drama. I don't know, but this film opens doors to the next evolution of film making. I would say that District 9 was probably closer to human drama vs CG than any film to date including Avatar.</div><div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, Cameron has already set the tone with Avatar. So, Avatar 2 is off the table for moving back towards real human drama. I don't fully understand the cartoonistic approach to Avatar. Cameron would have done Avatar far better and more satisfying by making all of the characters more real (from character development side) from the beginning... and also truly studying tribal cultures to ensure the approach was consistent throughout.</div><div><br /></div><div>Oh well, there's always next time.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Score</b></div><div><ul><li><b>Graphics</b>: 10/10</li><li><b>Audio</b>: 9/10 (in parts, too loud and abrasive)</li><li><b>Story</b>: 4/10</li><li><b>Overall</b>: 7/10 (too cartoonistic and simplistic)</li></ul></div></div>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01163810019375458904noreply@blogger.com0