Xbox 360 - Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage

Fallout 3 - Operation Anchorage DLC

Operation Anchorage is downloadable content to be used with Fallout 3. You download this content from Xbox Live Marketplace. The cost is around 800 credits, that I remember paying. Of course, the cost of these packages may change from time to time, so you should check before you buy.

Gameplay

This expansion effectively adds about 2-4 hours worth of play (one quest worth of play) to Fallout 3. So, it may not be worth the extra money... unless you need armor and weapons. Effectively, this addon gives you reasonably strong armor and a good assortment of heavy weapons. So, if you're early into the game and the only thing you have is the vault jumpsuit and that weak pistol, this expansion is worth the play value early on.

Story

You must hop into a virtual reality simulator and defeat the 'commies' in a simulation of the takeover of Anchorage. Once you defeat them and complete the mission, you will be rewarded with a cache of weapons and armor.

Overall

This is a reasonably short addition to Fallout 3. It may be worth the money if you need the extra weapons and armor. I have personally found the armor to come in quite handy in finishing up other quests. But, your mileage may vary.

Score

Because this is just an expansion, you will need to read Gamezelot's Fallout 3 review to get the full score for Fallout 3.

• Expansion Score: 6/10 (not long enough, limited benefit)

Xbox 360 - Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil 5 by Capcom

While I really wanted to like this game, I don't. Because there are so many problems with this game, I will make this one short and sweet. I loved Resident Evil 4. RE4 is not a 10 star game, but easily a 9 and easily one of the best shooters of its time. On the other hand, Resident Evil 5 is awful. This has to be one of the WORST shooters I've played in months.

Partner

Why they ever added a partner to this game, I'll never know. However, when your partner dies, so does your game. This aspect is HIGHLY annoying. Get rid of the partner. It is not necessary and only serves as another means for your game play to end prematurely. It's hard enough to keep your own character alive without having to constantly baby another AI character at the same time. At least give the gamer the choice to or not to have the partner. BTW, for this same reason, I hated the multi-character system in Left 4 Dead.

Controls

While you're running around trying to avoid being zombie food, the game makes you to pick up health manually (press a button) and then expects you to run through a myriad of MENUS to get to the point where you can even APPLY health to your character. Stupid, stupid stupid. Who designed this game? At least PAUSE the game to allow the gamer to go through a ton of menus. Since when do people run through a series of menus to drink (or spray?) anything in Real Life?

Note, you can assign health to a 'hot key', but by the time you're in the thick of the game, you can't easily do this. Remember, the menu system is real-time. So, if you pause for even couple seconds to run through the menus, the zombies are on top of you. You simply do not have time to do this. Worse, there are only about 3 health pickups on the level with the 100 zombies.

At least with ammo, your character will reload IF you attempt to fire your gun, your gun has run out and you have ammo in inventory.

The menu system is horrible. Absolutely rotten. Why is it even there? You're trying to play the game, but the game forces you to stop what you are doing, fumble through a series of menus to get to your health spray and then to apply it. Inevitably, you end up giving it to your partner or something else stupid before it does as you want. Worse, if you're in a menu and a zombie grabs you, it takes you OUT of the menu so they can maul you. It's not like this is the first time a shooter has ever offered health pickups as part of the game. So, what was the point of burying the health down about 3 levels of menus? Either apply the health immediately when you pick it up or pause the game so you can fumble through the menus to get to it. Keeping the game live while trying to fumble through a series of menus is completely assinine design.

Frustration

This game is so completely frustrating, backward and stupid, I don't know what to say other than don't waste your money. Unless you actually like being frustrated constantly, this is not the game for you. There are so many better shooters (F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin) out there, don't bother spending $60 for this.

Capcom Take Note

Whomever you hired to make this game, you need to find someone else. The gaming system presented in this game is completely worthless. You needed to take it back to the drawing board and start over. Note to other developers, if you want a game to NOT model your shooter after.. this game is it.

Inconsistent Franchise

Clearly, Resident Evil 4 is an abnormality in the RE series. It took a completely different approach at gaming than any other RE games. Prior to RE4, the RE games had static camera placement with lots of sequence style button pressing to get you through the level (think of Umbrella Chronicles, which is newer than RE4). I never liked the static camera games.

Resident Evil 5 tries to make nice between the old school RE games and RE4. So, it appears the designers tried to compromise by combining both old and new styles of play together into RE5. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Instead of being solve-a-mystery game with a play style that forces the gamer to actually think strategically to get through each level within RE4, Resident Evil 5 is a straightforward run-in-with-gunz-a-blazin' game. No strategy, no thinking involved. It's just you against the zombies and no way to stop and think about it. In fact, they don't want you to stop and think about it. Think of Dead Rising and you get the idea.

If there was ever a franchise of games that can't keep things together, Resident Evil is it. With each new game, the designers seem compelled to reinvent the wheel. Instead of actually improving upon an existing wheel, like Resident Evil 4, they recreate it. For this reason alone, this franchise needs desperate help. Considering the last Resident Evil movie, it shouldn't surprise me at all with this game.

Overall

This game is horrible. The design of it is not anything like Resident Evil 4. So don't even think of it in the same way. Resident Evil 5 forces you to use an AI partner that you constantly have to baby, who takes ammo away from you and who is constantly in your way as you walk. Then, combine that silliness with a menu system that is completely frustrating. All of these issues compound to make this game problematic right from the start. I could tell that without even getting into the first level.

Once you actually get into the game and start killing zombies, it's not fun and it's not satisfying. It takes at least 4 bullets to kill each zombie (even with head shots) and there are hundreds that you need to kill with about 4 clips you find around the level. In other words, there is not enough ammo. So, all you end up doing is running around the level trying to avoid being killed. There is nothing challenging, fun or exciting in this. Once the zombie boss appears that has the huge swing axe, all you can do is run. Neither bullets nor the knife will kill this thing.

This game is basically the complete opposite of Resident Evil 4. Capcom completely botched this game into an extremely poor quality shooter that doesn't even deserve the name Resident Evil.

Score:

• Sound: 3/10 (average)
• Graphics: 8/10 (looks reasonably good and textures are well done)
• Gameplay: 2/10 (horrible game play)
• Story: 5/10 (average)
• Controls: 1/10 (even though the button placement is ok, the menu system is torturous when combined with the gameplay)
• Bang-to-buck: 0/10 (I don't even want to play it through once)
• Play Value: $5 (buy it on clearance or rent)
• Overall: 3/10 (and I'm being generous)
  

This is easily a contender for Gamezelot's 2009 worst game of the year award.

Gamezelot Ratings Explained

So, you're reading through a Gamezelot review and you reach the Score at the end. So, you think, "What's this score thing all about?" That's what this article intends to explain.

A review is enough to discuss the good and the bad of a game. But, as most review sites offer, I've also decided to use a scoring system. Note, scores are subjective things that really don't encapsulate the total good/bad of a game. It's a numeric value that someone can see at-a-glance to know if they might like it. However, that said, you should probably read each review fully to find out if a specific game is something you might want to own or play before you jump to the score.

Scoring breakdown

No, the scores aren't broken. This section is intended to discuss what's in the scoring section of a Gamezelot review.

So, here's a typical score:

Score

• Sound: 8/10
  
• Graphics: 8/10
  
• Bugginess: 10/10 (Amazingly, no bugs or crashes)
  
• Controls: 7/10
  
• Bang-To-Buck: 1/10
  
• Play Value: $15
• Overall: 8/10 (no special gameplay, story was best part)

Let's break it all down.

Sound

Sound describes sound effects and musical elements. Basically, anything where the game makes any audible noises. The scale is from 1 to 10 points. A 10 indicates perfection in sound quality within the game. The minimum score is 1. A 1 indicates poor quality sound or sound effects. Everything in above 1 is better than 1, but not perfect. It is rare to find any Gamezelot game approaching a 10 in sound quality.

Most games overuse samples, audio clips and music. Since games tend to run long (days into weeks), sound can be come very tedious and unlistenable after a while. Game developers need to work on minimizing ear fatigue by producing more dynamic sounds.

Graphics

The graphics category has a minimum point value of 1 and a maximum of 10. This category encompasses anything to do with graphics including texture map quality, 3D mesh quality, graphics motion, fludity and may include controller to graphics synchronization. A 1 encompases such things as low quality graphics, clunky motion, lags, breakup, low res textures and bad 3D models. A 10 would be perfect graphics with perfect motion. A perfect 10 is very rare.

Bugginess

With the expansiveness of today's 3D RPG and Shooter games combined with the complexities of making it all work with licensed technologies, bugs tend to creep in whether developers like it or not. Some developers work hard to remove bugs from games. Others, work hard to get the game out the door at all costs.

So, a 1 indicates major bugs that lock the game up, lose game progress or otherwise cause the gamer time to catch-up with areas that have been played due to a crash. A 10 indicates completion of a game without any lockups, bugs, crashes or other glitchy or problematic behavior.

Controls

The controls score defines how the controller and the game interact. A 1 indicates the game loses sync to the controller, has major lags between the controller and when something appears on the screen or if the game just doesn't respond well enough. A 10 indicates a perfect control system free from lag and provides a completely fluid and seemless control system... this is rare.

Bang-To-Buck

This score indicates how much bang you get for each dollar you spend. A 1 indicates that the gameplay (and other factors) don't warrant a high price for this game. A 10 indicates that this game is worth every buck you spend. This goes hand-in-hand with Play Value.

Play Value

This score is based on a dollar amount. This dollar amount is what the game is actually worth in dollars vs what it cost you to purchase it. While a game may cost you $60 in the store, this value is what this game is actually worth based on game play (time, bugginess, story, controls, etc).

Overall

The overall score is a semi-averaged and semi-subjective numerical value from 1 to 10. A 1 indicates a poor game with little play value and you should probably avoid it. A 10 indicates a perfect game in all aspects including every category above. A game will never get a 10 if any of the sub-categories above are less than perfect.

Subnotes

After some scores, you may see a (subnote) in parentheses. These subnotes are indicators to describe the key reasons how the score was derived. You should refer to the whole review to determine the context of the subnotes.