CrysisFPS's GameSpot Friend's Reviews CrysisFPS's GameSpot Friend's Reviews CrysisFPS's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Wed, 22 May 2013 05:18:11 -0700 GameSpot CrysisFPS's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:33:33 -0800 ChristianKiss reviewed Hexxagon for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/hexxagon/user-reviews/752323/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

1993... definitely a year to be remembered for the old-school PC gamers, especially due to the releases of id Software's DOOM and Westwood's Dune II. Meanwhile a very small group of developers made a quiet title called Hexxagon.

This is a board / turn-based game developed by Argo Games and published by Software Creations. I guess that the main objective on creating Hexxagon was to present a new Artificial Intelligence engine called Craniac (which is later featured in their second game, Hexxagon II), although the game allows player vs. player matches without including the computer as an opponent.

The game is rather simple: you play on a hexed board with a few precious gems, against a computer or a human player that also has its own gems. The objective is to fill up each single hex of the board with generated or captured gems. When it becomes impossible to move or summon more pieces, the game is over and the winner is the player with most gems on the board.

The pieces interact in the game in two ways: 1. On adjacent hexes, your gem can summon another gem; 2. One hex further an adjacent position will make your piece jump instead of creating another one. No matter what was your action -summoning or jumping-, the gem in the hex that just got occupied will convert for you any enemy adjacent gems around it.

So, in Hexxagon, you basically move and summon pieces to capture the ones of your adversary. This will slowly but surely filling up the entire board, until there're no more legal moves left. As I said before, at this point, you'll have to own the majority of the board's hexes to win.

The strategy behind Hexxagon is far from being complex, although a little attention and movement prediction comes handy. You have to imagine what your opponent can do if you move or summon a specific gem. When doing your moves, you have to think how to capture as most as possible enemy gems while preventing him to do the same in the next move.

Generally, jumping with pieces will let gaps in your gem structure and will allow the enemy to infiltrate there and capture several pieces at once. This doesn't mean that you'll always skip the jumping moves and only use your turns to summon more gems. Sometimes a jump will remove a gem from a useless position and capture a lot of enemy pieces simultaneously.

These strategies are almost everything that the game holds, except that you can change the difficulty level of the AI or play against a friend in a hot-seat match. Personally I defeated the hardest level three times and then I stopped playing Hexxagon. I didn't even try the board editor feature too much, which allows you to personalize the default board with different starting positions and obstacles.

As a shareware MS-DOS board game, I must admit that Hexxagon kept me interested for a few hours. Considering that you can download it for free and run under DOSBox emulator, there is nothing to lose on trying this game out.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Hexxagon for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 18:33:33 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/hexxagon/user-reviews/752323/platform/pc/ Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:12:14 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed The King of Dragons for the Arcade Games... http://www.gamespot.com/the-king-of-dragons/user-reviews/714297/platform/arcade/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

The Beat-'Em-Up genre was so popular in the 90s that a lot of similar games were released for the arcade machines. Most of them have so much in common that you'll keep asking to yourself if the developers didn't have creativeness to create something different. However, back then, if you were lucky enough to find a machine running The King of Dragons (1991, Capcom), you probably enjoyed a game that looks exactly like any other of the genre, but with a peculiar feel that makes it unique among the masses.

Capcom probably was inspired in the Dungeons 'n Dragons series when they idealized The King of Dragons, because the setting is pretty much the same. You can choose between five characters to venture in a medieval/fantasy world: Elf, Wizard, Fighter, Cleric and Dwarf. They all have their pros and cons; although I suspect that the Wizard is the best one to pick up. The melee classes can count with a shield to block incoming attacks, but the Fighter and the Dwarf blocks have a huge delay and it's hard to master the tempo. The Cleric blocks much faster but his ability to jump so low and to swing slow attacks are his main drawbacks. The Elf is a ranged character that doesn't have the possibility to defend incoming attacks, but his arrows almost traverse the edge of the screen so it's relatively easy to overcome his lack of defense capabilities by keeping the enemies far away. Lastly, the Wizard is the weakest character when taking damage, and he also can't block opponent's attacks, however his powerful staff can take down bosses and tough enemies quite fast when at close range. If you get used with the timing to dodge incoming attacks, the Wizard is probably the best choice due to the huge amount of damage he deals.

The maps and enemies in The King of the Dragons are stereotypes from the Forgotten Realms' world. You'll be killing lizard warriors, skeletons, orcs, minotaurs, sorcerers and, of course, dragons in medieval environments such as castles, open fields and catacombs. The graphics are okay considering the year of release, and the enemies are smart enough to give you trouble until you understand their behavior. Like in any Beat-'Em-Up game, after lots of retries you'll get the correct timing to dodge, block and attack your enemies without being hit. The bosses work in a similar fashion: they all have their predictable twitches, although sometimes you must be extremely fast to avoid their cheating attacks. Even worse, some bosses can go off the visible area of the screen, so it's impossible to tell their next move.

In general, I found killing bosses with the Cleric quite easier than with any other character, because of his fast recovery after blocking attacks. The Wizard, on the other hand, may take down the bad***** amazingly fast if you manage to avoid their attacks properly. The Fighter is okay as well because his sword swings very fast, so it's relatively easy to attack and block at the same time when fighting against nimble bosses.

Since we're talking about a Beat-'Em-Up game inspired in a paper-and-pen RPG, you can bet that The King of Dragons has a leveling system to give you the sense of character progression. And it's indeed effective because, in certain points of the campaign, you'll find upgrades for your defense and attacking abilities. For instance, the Cleric will upgrade his tiny mace to a huge hammer and, instead of using a buckler he will get a huge tower shield that is amazing when fighting against the crowds of monsters. Not only this, your characters also level up their personal stats, which consists in a crucial boost in their maximum health to endure the cruel battles towards the end.

The gameplay in this game is simple: attack enemies as fast as possible while taking care to not get hit meanwhile. But that's just the basic principle to reach the end of the campaign. Like in Knights of the Round (1992, Capcom), a bit of strategy comes handy. For instance, blocking attacks makes a huge difference when playing with the melee classes; and no one can say it's easy to use this feature. You have to push your controller moments before an incoming attack, so you have literally to predict the correct time of your enemy's attacks. When you're playing with a ranged character, since blocking isn't possible, you must use the desperation moves to avoid getting hit. This ability is available to all characters, but it's essential for the ranged ones. This special move drops your health a little and makes your hero invincible for a few seconds, and it also casts a powerful spell that damages multiple monsters in the screen.

The soundtrack in The King of Dragons is fine, and effective enough to give a good dose of adrenaline to the player when battling against the bosses. The music is especially captivating in the final encounter if you're playing the U.S. version. Indeed, oddly enough, there're some noticeable differences between the European and North-American version of The King of Dragons. The game flows faster in the U.S. release, and there're more enemies which increases slightly the difficulty in the game. The first time I played was the Euro version, but you'll never want to play it again after trying the North-American one.

No matter the version in question, The King of Dragons is definitely a game that you'll want to try with some friends. You can play with two buddies at your side, and it is fun to combine, for example, the powerful attack of the Wizard with the amazing blocking ability of the Cleric. On the other hand you may try mixing the Dwarf, the Fighter and the Elf to keep the opponents distant while the melee brutes protect the fragile archer from getting hit. However, even with strong combinations like these you can't avoid the cheap deaths in this game. Sadly, there're some unfair circumstances in The King of Dragons that will let your nervous system uncontrollable. You'll want to hit the arcade stick (or keyboard, as the case may be) repeatedly when someone attacks you from the outside of the screen. It's definitely a dishonest game sometimes, especially at the hardest setting, but the sweet taste of victory will certainly make you waiting for more.

It is quite unfortunate the fact that you can't find any arcade machines around running this game, so you'll have to rely on emulators and roms that are hard to get a license on-line. If you manage to get one, though, you'll enjoy one of the best Beat-'Em-Up games ever released by Capcom.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed The King of Dragons for the Arcade Games..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:12:14 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-king-of-dragons/user-reviews/714297/platform/arcade/ Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:39:55 -0800 ChristianKiss reviewed Death Kings of the Dark Citadel for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/death-kings-of-the-dark-citadel/user-reviews/709454/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Death Kings of the Dark Citadel (1996, Raven Software) is an expansion to HeXen, a medieval First-Person Shooter with a creepy fantastic setting built on the old DOOM engine, released by id Software back in 1993 along with the eternal DOOM game. Raven Software didn't want to reinvent the wheel with this add-on, because there is literally nothing new for HeXen fans except for the addition of a lengthy campaign and, most importantly, the difficulty boost.

Like the original game, in Death Kings of the Dark Citadel you start the game by choosing one of three available classes: the Fighter, fast and strong; the Mage, a powerful spell caster; and the Cleric, which mixes muscle and magic for a more versatile option. There isn't really a bad choice aside from the fact that you'll find the Cleric a bit weak during your first moments in the campaign. The Fighter will crush the enemies quickly; however you'll have to be a little defter due to the constant exposure during the melee combats. Finally, the Mage is by far the best choice if you aren't a hardcore player, because his first weapon is ranged and unlimited, even though the magician doesn't deal too much damage until you get the real powerful stuff.

Talking about the arsenal, you still have only four weapons per character in Dark Citadel. The fourth one is divided in three pieces which you'll have to find in the dungeons you explore. The good news is that you have much more mana spread in the maps than HeXen ever had, so you can spend as much as you want and still have a huge energy reserve to use your weapons even more.

That's particularly important because this expansion boosts the difficulty too much. There're less weak monsters and more of the tough ones, so you'll find yourself dodging their projectiles and depleting your mana reserve quite often during each struggle. The combat sequences are usually lengthy, and eventually enjoyable if you liked the brutal gameplay of the original HeXen. Most enemies don't die with a single hit, so you'll repeatedly bash one monster until it goes down.

However your challenge isn't only the creepy bestiary present in the mazes of Dark Citadel. In this add-on you still have to solve puzzles and pay attention to hidden switches and doors. For instance, if you forget to activate a particular button, you'll keep going in the levels until you become stuck in a door or something; it's sometimes quite hard to track your way back to push or activate something. That's not only because the maps are literally labyrinths with tiny corridors, but also due to the fact that you'll have to travel between different levels where monsters usually respawn (and there is no reward on killing them, except to clear your path again).

But that's precisely what old-schooling is made of. The classic formula used in games such as Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Caster and DOOM is reused in Death Kings of the Dark Citadel nicely. You'll be accessing the automap often to find a way out, and you'll have to remember where you first spotted a locked door now that you have the proper key to open it. If this isn't your thing then don't believe that this expansion will satisfy you, because it follows the old-school formula of HeXen faithfully.

The final encounter of Dark Citadel isn't any harder than its original game, but if you play in the hardest difficulty level you'll find that the minions of the final bosses are quite punishing. Luckily this add-on rewards the player with all the necessary artifacts to help in the battles. The Icon of Defender, an item that makes you invincible for a few moments, appears more often than ever in Dark of Citadel. You'll also find a greater use to summon the Dark Servant or to keep your Armor Class high with the Dragonskin Bracers, so you can absorb more damage when surrounded by ranged enemies. Additionally, the Boots of Speed is much more useful now, since dodging powerful projectiles is essential especially when fighting against specters in the cemetery part.

The new campaign takes more than 10 hours to beat, which is enough for an expansion. If you consider that you can replay the game with the other two available characters in a higher difficulty or, even better, in multiplayer up to four players in cooperative mode, you'll find that Dark Citadel is far from being a thin add-on. It would be nice if Raven Software decided to put new weapons and enemies, but it's a very good expansion in the way it is.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Death Kings of the Dark Citadel for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:39:55 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/death-kings-of-the-dark-citadel/user-reviews/709454/platform/pc/ Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:10:15 -0800 ChristianKiss reviewed Fate for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/fate/user-reviews/706301/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.5.

A lot of titles tried to mimic the hack 'n slash formula from Diablo (1996, Blizzard), but what most developers can't understand is that games aren't made only of frantic gameplay, since story and engaging atmosphere are indispensable for a good experience. Someone should say this to WildTangent, the creators of Fate (2005), an obvious tribute to Blizzard's hellish RPG Action.

The idea behind this game is nothing different from what we've seen during all these years: you start the game by choosing a boy or gal (yes, kids) and then you can customize their looking. Personally I made a boy with a big mustache and beard (!), and, honestly, I kinda liked the way he looked, especially because I had already decided to develop a spell caster.

And this is where the game differentiates a bit from the great majority of the RPG Action titles: Like in Titan Quest and some others, in Fate you develop your character based on how you distribute your experience points. There aren't pre-made templates to choose from, so you can personalize your hero as much as you want. Keep in mind that this high level of customization may produce some very weak characters, but experienced RPG players will be satisfied to find that this system is quite flexible.

Although this may upset more serious players, when you start a campaign you're forced to pick up either a cat or a dog to follow you in your journey. My future mage made the feline choice, but both animals are used to attack, collect and hold items for you and even sell them at the town automatically. This makes the game more dynamic, but honestly I prefer to do things all by myself, alone. At least the pets can be upgraded to more horrific and powerful creatures (thankfully, because after the third or fourth "mew", you'll want to slaughter the little kitty in no time).

But the interesting stuff ends here. You start the game in the cartoonish town of Groove, and a NPC tells you to kill a random high-level monster (a tiger, a dragon, a goblin... it doesn't really matter), which creeps around in the deepest levels of a cursed dungeon. Feeling familiar already? You'll basically venture further and further in this dungeon until you find and kill the marked monster, so you can retire your character and pass his/her items to the heir. Alternatively, you may continue playing with your hero until you get tired, because the dungeon levels are limitless; actually, according to the official forums of WildTangent, the game crashes after you advance to the 2,147,483,648th level. =)

Excluding the town, everything in the game is randomized: loot, monsters, dungeon levels, side quests and, as I said above, even the main quest. The game feels generic in that way and, from my point of view, it's necessary to put a few unique moments to make a game interesting. In the same level you faced a dragon, you may cross paths with the walking dead, goblins, tigers, yetis... it's really a fuss. And the environments aren't as varied as they should be, considering the bizarre menagerie that this dungeon holds.

At least the game rewards you nicely; so nicely that it becomes easy even at the hardest level ("Legend" difficulty). For instance, my special staff had exactly 13 magic properties. This is because, in addition to the powerful artifacts that you can easily find, the town of Groove is blessed with a blacksmith that can upgrade your items to unbelievable levels. It's an expensive resource, but if you explore the dungeon maps fully, you can accumulate literally millions of gold in no time.

Aside from the demigod smith, the town is the place to go if you want to buy and sell stuff, as well as upgrade them with sockets (which you can find in the dungeon or buy at vendors). The side quests are given from regular town folks; these fellas must be either bloodthirsty butchers or absentminded people suffering from amnesia, because they are always asking you to kill someone or to find a specific lost item.

But let's not bash Fate too much. There're some few shining concepts which I couldn't forget to write about. First of all there is this bard in the town that upgrades your fame level for a price. You gain fame levels and their respective titles when you kill special tough monsters or accomplish missions; however boosting the experience bar with the bard will make your character advance more quickly (plus you'll find a use for your endless gold reserve). When you level up by acquiring fame you'll gain four skill points. And, as in any RPG game, your hero also levels up by the regular method: by killing monsters. In the traditional way you'll receive both attribute and skill points to spare.

As I said earlier, this is where Fate definitely shines. Since there aren't predefined classes to choose from, you're able to design your own class by boosting the attributes and skills that you prefer. If you want a true melee brute, feel free to spend all your points in strength and vitality. If you prefer to mix might and magic, you may increase both strength and magic regularly, so you can combine the defensive spells with a good close-combat weapon. Or, my favorite, if you're going to develop a wizard, why not spend your experience points into your spell caster's capabilities?

The skills are varied in functionality but pretty limited in amount. You may upgrade your ability to better swing a particular type of weapon or to block incoming attacks with a shield. If you're into the spell casting stuff, there're three types of magic in Fate: Charm (AKA summoning), Attack (offensive spells) and Defense (healing and protection in general). Personally I upgraded only my Attack Magic skill, so I could trample my enemies as fast as possible. But I reckon that the other categories of spells are all useful. This is because there're enemies, at least in "Legend" difficulty, that are immune to all kind of magic.

The gameplay in Fate is as good as in any other quality RPG Action title. The controls are responsive and it's easy to combine the spells to cast them in the correct time. If you're playing with a melee fighter, you'll also find handy to quickly switch between your weapon slots, so you can damage the enemies with different sources of damage without any problem. A bit of strategy is eventually necessary, but the fast-paced action isn't that punishing to not allow you to think wisely during the combats.

WildTangent tried to make a fun game rather than a serious one, but the dull missions, over-the-top randomization system and lack of multiplayer aren't appealing for everyone. The action sequences (repetitive yet frenetic) and character customization are really the nice concepts that save this game from a mediocre score. If you look at Fate simply as a cool game, then you'll manage to overlook the issues and enjoy the dungeon crawling for at least a few days.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Fate for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:10:15 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/fate/user-reviews/706301/platform/pc/ Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:19:18 -0800 60spaure reviewed Theseus for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/theseus/user-reviews/702965/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Theseus is a good logic game, but the developers could had put more effort in it's presentation to keep things interesting.

If I compare it to Mummy Maze Deluxe, for example purposes, Mummy Maze is more interesting to play.

Not because the levels are harder, but because of the immersive graphics and soundtrack. You feel like you're the threasure hunter in the pyramid trying to find the threasures.

Theseus isn't anywhere near bad, but it could had been way better. The controls work well, the game isn't choppy, the graphics look great but... I would had liked the developers to make it a bit more interesting to play and make it less repetitive after you've played a while.

If you want a logic game to kill the time, take it without looking back. But if you want a very interesting adventure game, look for the secrets of the mysterious island or myst for the iPhone.

----rating----
Presentation: 6.0
Gameplay/controls: 8.5
Lenght/repetition: 7.5
Value for the price: 7
------------
Overall: 7.25

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"60spaure reviewed Theseus for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by 60spaure on Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:19:18 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/theseus/user-reviews/702965/platform/iphone/ Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:48:43 -0800 60spaure reviewed Crazy Machines for the iPhone/iPod... http://www.gamespot.com/crazy-machines/user-reviews/702842/platform/iphone/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

Description: The goal of Crazy Machines consists of elaborating odd mechanisms in order to achieve goals fixed by a excentric professor. In the editor, use your imagination to create incredible contraptions. For example, you can throw a bowling ball that will fall on a explosif and blow a wall.

My opinion: I think that this is a great game for those who like logic puzzles. It is the game that I play the most on my iPod Touch (I also have Sims 3 and Theseus right now) and it is very enjoyable. When you'll get far into the game, you'll have to think a lot in order to solve the different contraptions. The game is quite long and isn't cheaply made like the other contraption game available from the App Store.

I am enjoying the experience of playing this game. The game is interesting and the controls, flawless. Even if the game is in 2D, it looks great and is esthetically appealing.

*Note: There is another version named Crazy Machines Action which is more recent (and it's the same price). It looks like it has all of the features of Crazy Machines (and some new ones), but I am not sure. So check it out!

So I'm going to let you go with this:
GET IT!

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"60spaure reviewed Crazy Machines for the iPhone/iPod..." was posted by 60spaure on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:48:43 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/crazy-machines/user-reviews/702842/platform/iphone/ Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:56:11 -0800 ChristianKiss reviewed One Must Fall: 2097 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/one-must-fall-2097/user-reviews/699648/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

The era of MS-DOS games was blessed with great titles such as DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Command and Conquer, but the list isn't as quite as large when it comes to Fighting games. Someone may argue that FX Fighter and Super Street Fighter II Turbo were the best of their genre, although PC aficionados will fondly remember about Sango Fighter 2 (AKA "Fighter in China 2") and Ultimate Body Blows. However, for fans of the genre, I guess there is nothing like One Must Fall 2097.

Developed by Epic Games and released back in 1995, the idea behind this awesome 2D Fighting game is to bring something new, instead of simply putting two gladiators fighting to the death in an arena. One Must Fall 2097 is about competitors that fight each other in tournaments with their customized giant robots. No blood and gratuitous violence, it's true, but guaranteed entertainment.

The formula used in One Must Fall 2097 is so innovative that not even today it's easy to find something similar. Here the player has the traditional options to play the Arcade or the Versus mode, which consists in simply picking up a pilot and a bot to fight against the computer or a friend. You can choose between 10 robots, which are all quite different from each other; some have ranged attacks while others are melee brutes, so every player will find their favorite bot after trying them all.

There are only a few special moves assigned to each robot, but successfully mixing them in a combo is the real challenge. It's easy to learn the special moves because One Must Fall 2097 has only the usual keys for movement (jump, right, left and duck), the key for punches and another one for kicks. It's also possible to assign keys to jump or duck to a specific direction, so you can spare the effort in trying to hit a lot of keys simultaneously.

Before choosing the robot, it's necessary to pick up a pilot, and each one of the 10 personalities available has his/her own attributes; roughly speaking: some are fast, strong or resistant, even though a balanced combination of these qualities is also present. Naturally, combining a melee robot with a strong pilot means lots of damage against your opponent, however you must live with the fact that you'll probably either be quite slow or will receive huge amounts of damage. Note that the choice of your pilot will not influence the type of special moves of your robot; it will merely make them either faster or stronger.

Right now someone may say that there is nothing particularly special about One Must Fall 2097, when comparing it with other games of the Fighting genre. In truth, until now I kept in secret the main reason that made this game a total hit even by today's standards. Aside from the usual game modes, the player can choose the Career mode and start a single player campaign to improve the abilities of his/her pilot as well as improving robots or acquiring better ones. Choosing a pilot isn't a dramatic choice in this mode, because it consists only in a cosmetic decision to judge what avatar is the prettier one. Their abilities aren't prefixed as in the Arcade mode; you must improve them by spending your money in training sessions, so you can make him/her faster, stronger or more resistant.

If the customization of your pilot wasn't enough, in the Career mode is also possible (and necessary) to update your robots capabilities. You can improve the speed and power of your arms and legs, not to mention the damage absorption and stun resistance. Each one of these categories has several levels that vary depending on the bot of your choice. For instance, the Katana robot, which is my favorite, has high levels of arms speed, but its power isn't that much. As you can see, combining the abilities of your pilot and the capabilities of your bot is quite important to survive the tournaments in the Career mode.

In the campaign, you may choose between four tournaments. The first ones are for beginners, but the competitors' level increases as you sign your pilot in the last tournaments. The harder your enemy is, the bigger your reward will be. After earning the cash by winning a match, your manager automatically spend the necessary money to fix your bot. Naturally, if can finish off your enemy without getting hit, the reward will be entirely for you to improve your pilot skills or your robot capabilities. By losing a match you'll have to pay your opponent, and the game will automatically sell parts of your robot if you don't have the necessary cash to do so. It sounds punishing, but you can keep earning money with the easy competitors and, when you have upgraded enough your pilot and robot, you may finally stand a chance against the toughest ones. Of course, it's a good idea to set the difficulty level to the easiest one when you start the Career mode, instead of putting the hardest level right away.

During the fights you'll feel that your opponent is intelligent enough to predict some obvious moves without being a cheater. The Artificial Intelligence uses all the available robots quite nicely, even those ones that every human player in the world avoids. The great enemy AI isn't the only thing that makes this game interesting; each match is placed in five different arenas that have particular hazards, so you can use them tactically against your opponent. For instance, one of the possible arenas contains several spikes that pop-ups randomly from the dark to hit one unlucky competitor. There're arenas with electric fences, machine-gunning airplanes and even fireballs, so the gameplay slightly varies depending on which place the game generated the match.

Technically speaking, One Must Fall 2097 is quite an advanced game considering the year it was released. The graphics are as good as a 2D game could possibly be back in 1995, with nice special effects and animations; however, the best thing is obviously the design of the robots, with shining surfaces and creative models. The sound effects and music are top notch as well, and they fit perfectly when you're smashing the head of your opponent's bot.

All this great content is now free of charge, since One Must Fall 2097 became freeware back in 1999. Even better, the game runs perfectly fine under DOSBox, and you can play it either with the keyboard or with modern joysticks that wouldn't be compatible with the old MS-DOS. As you can see, One Must Fall 2097 is one of those games that will never age; so if you never tried this game before, what are you waiting for to download one of the best 2D Fighting games for the PC?

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"ChristianKiss reviewed One Must Fall: 2097 for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:56:11 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/one-must-fall-2097/user-reviews/699648/platform/pc/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:19:25 -0800 ChristianKiss reviewed Zombie Shooter for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/zombie-shooter/user-reviews/693425/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Sigma Team released several years ago Alien Shooter (2005), which is a well-known game for Arcade/Action fans that are looking only for some intense slaughtering. Following the steps of classics such as Gauntlet (NES, 1987) and Operation Carnage (PC, 1996, by Midnight Synergy), Sigma Team successfully idealized a modern game for old-schoolers that all you must do is to shoot legions of aliens with overpowered guns.

Two years after Alien Shooter came his big brother, Zombie Shooter (2007), by the same company. Instead of killing aliens, you'll go through endless hordes of flesh eaters' stereotypes from those gory Horror flicks, known best as the undead. Naturally, there is a good variety of living dead that isn't limited to transformed humans, as you'll fight against mutated dogs, rats and huge abominations with heavy arsenal.

If you're into the zombie stuff, you'll notice that Zombie Shooter doesn't try to set the player in a real zombie apocalypse. In this Isometric Action game, you just visit several places overrun by the undead and blast them with the most powerful gun available. It's exactly like Gauntlet with a different setting. There is no survival tactics such as camping in a safe house and blocking entrances; you just need to be quick enough to take down the zombies before they kill your character.

But don't thing that Zombie Shooter sucks. In truth, it's quite a fun game that, even being short and pretty easy, you'll find that your money was well spent. In this single player-only game, you have several gameplay options to enjoy. First of all, you'll want to start in the campaign mode, which is a sequence of levels that become harder and harder as you progress towards the end. You can choose between a male and a female character and give a name for your avatar. Playing with the guy will give you extra health and weight capacity, so you can carry more ammunition for your weapons. Although the male character sounds appealing, my choice was the female one, which gives an important advantage in damage dealt and movement speed.

These starting attributes may be upgraded during the game, as you kill more monsters and level up after beating a map. At the end of each level you'll be able to buy new weapons and equipment with the money your earned. After acquiring your favorite weapon, you can stick with it by upgrading its power up to three times as well buying new guns that suit better in a given situation. The rule "the bigger, the better" applies in most situations, although the last two guns aren't exactly as devastating as someone would presume. Personally I liked the upgraded laser gun, so my efforts since the beginning of the game were to buy it later on. If you spend too much money with every weapon in sight, you may find yourself weak in the later maps because you can't upgrade the real powerful stuff.

The equipment is actually three types of armor and some miscellaneous items such as medkits, night vision and flying support bots. Naturally your best friend is the protection, so you may want to spend some cash on heavy armor when there're too many ranged enemies in a level. If you die you'll spawn somewhere near your body and lose a life, which can be bought for a price or acquired during the fights.

As you can see the game gives a little sense of freedom by allowing the player to upgrade weapons and attributes of his/her character without a particular order. At the end you'll either finish the game with a fast and accurate marksmen or a brute avatar that can take the hardest blows and keep moving. This encourages the player to replay the game and try different character builds.

The enemies in Zombie Shooter are, as you would expect, mindless and dangerous. You can't simply throw yourself in a group of flesh eaters and kick their ***es like Rambo. It's mostly a good idea to keep your avatar distant enough and fire against them in a safe place, especially because there're a lot of melee zombies in the bestiary. But be prepared for mutated monsters that uses laser rifles and explosive guns, and they usually use their allies as shields while you try to blast them out. However, since your weapons are really overpowered, it's possible to take down an entire horde of zombies with just a few shots. Although it's quite easy to do so, you'll probably find entertaining when every zombie in the screen explodes and spread the blood all over the place.

When I say "horde", I mean that you'll be fighting against more than fifty monsters at the same time. Each level has an objective that, after triggered, summons a lot of zombies simultaneously. Your job is to take down them all and find the exit door. It's that simple. Unfortunately the levels end pretty quickly and the game becomes incredibly easy after getting an upgraded heavy gun. If that wasn't enough, you'll sometimes find power-ups that make your character invincible for a short period of time. Some other power-ups are dropped from your slain enemies, which will upgrade one of your guns, give you a medkit or even a heavy armor! Considering these bonuses you'll find that even your money will accumulate as there isn't anything to spend cash on anymore.

After beating the campaign two or three times and trying the hardest difficulty setting, you may want to try some other gameplay mode. You can play a very arcade-like game called Gun Stand, which you must control a powerful mechanic gun and kill all the incoming zombies, and the difficulty increases as the time passes. There is no victory in sight, you just take down as many zombies as you can until they destroy your turret, so your name will appear in the high score screen. A similar yet better mode is the Survival, which puts the player in the middle of a large open arena, killing all the enemies that spawn at the edge of the screen. The difficulty progresses until it gets impossible and you die hopelessly, also to set your score amongst the best players.

As you can see it's a thin content for a solo-only game, but Sigma Team didn't want to make a big release like Shadowgrounds Survival (2007, Frozenbyte). You may face Zombie Shooter as a house game, just for fun. The 2D graphics and sound fit perfectly well and, if the game was a bit longer and harder, it would be considered a major release. But it's very good in the way it is and will certainly entertain the player looking for some nice mindless zombie slaughtering.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Zombie Shooter for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:19:25 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/zombie-shooter/user-reviews/693425/platform/pc/ Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:52:15 -0800 60spaure reviewed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/uncharted-2-among-thieves/user-reviews/690355/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

Uncharted 2 is a great game that offers a unique experience, as its a fast-paced action game, its got breathtaking visuals and a dedicated soundtrack.

The Single Player campaign is incredibly fun to play. Youre playing as Nathan Drake, a threasure hunter following the steps of Marco Polo in the goal of finding the missing Chintamani stone.

The story is packed with incredible twists, and it always seem as if Nathan is in deep s****. Suffice it to say that the campaign has tons of surprises for you, and youre going to be immersed in the games universe. Youll get to run on a train, jump from car to car in a fight as well as encounter many likable characters through the game.

The only weak point is that the single player story is pretty short (I stayed 10 hours on it on normal difficulty). Even if the cinematics arent a weak aspect of the game, they could have been made better and more realistically (as in MGS4).

The multiplayer portion of the game will surprise you with its many online modes, as cooperation, deathmatch and many others. Its enjoyable to play online, and you dont need to wait very long to get online.

Overall, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a solid package, but you keep wondering why Naughty Dog didnt made a longer game. In fact, I think that 10 hours spent on a game is a joke nowadays. So its an incredible piece of software and is a unique experience with breath-taking visuals (when played on an HDTV).

Head over to my profile page for more game reviews.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"60spaure reviewed Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the PlayStation 3..." was posted by 60spaure on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:52:15 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/uncharted-2-among-thieves/user-reviews/690355/platform/ps3/ Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:58:25 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Sango Fighter 2 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/sango-fighter-2/user-reviews/689082/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

With so many Fighting games shining back in the 90s, it isn't hard to understand why Sango Fighter 2 (1995, Panda Entertainment) wasn't noticed by PC gamers. Back in those times, titles such as Super Street Fighter II Turbo (1995, GameTek), One Must Fall 2097 (1995, Epic Games) and even Ultimate Body Blows (1994, Team 17) were so darn popular that a Chinese 2D Fighting game would naturally pass unnoticed. Sadly this is what happened to Sango Fighter 2, even though I consider it one of the best games in its genre to hit the PC.

Maybe the biggest problem with Panda's title is that the only language available for it is Chinese, so Americans and Europeans alike will obviously have a hard time trying to figure out how to configure the game and make it run. I found this strange because the first Sango Fighter (1993) had an English version as well, and the sequel is without a doubt by far superior. Once you manage to start a battle, it doesn't matter the language, though.

You may spend around ten minutes to figure out what each option does in the main menu. From the left to the right side of the screen, your first option is to quit the game. The second choice is the configuration menu, to set game speed, sound card and the controller type. There're two options following the configuration settings, probably to see your high scores and load a saved game. The last two choices allow you to enter in the Arcade and Career modes.

From my point of view, the Arcade mode is where the game really shines. Since Sango Fighter is based in the popular "Romance of Three Kingdoms", by Luo GuanZhong, the choices you have for your character is based on personalities from that novel. After entering in the Arcade mode, you can choose between sixteen avatars. My choice was Chao Yun (Romanized name for Zhao Yun), a guy dressed in blue that wields a vorpal sword. The Artificial Intelligence will also pick up a character randomly, and the match starts in the stage level of your enemy. Each opponent has a different stage, and they all look amazing.

The Chinese warriors vary from skilled melee fighters to powerful magicians, or even a combination of these two. There is certainly a character that will suit perfectly for you; just remember to try them all before sticking with the best looking one. I didn't like the fact that there aren't female choices, but it actually makes sense because the Chinese heroes where mainly soldiers and generals from the different kingdoms. For instance, you'll have the choice to play with remarkable personalities from the Ancient China, such as the feudal lord Liu Bu, the hero Chang Fei and even Guan Yu (AKA Kwan Kung), one of the greatest warriors, known for being the crafter of the powerful Guan dao (the general's blade).

The computer plays quite well with all the available characters, although after some hours you'll begin to predict his moves. This doesn't mean that Sango Fighter 2 will become easy, because you need skill to perform the special attacks quick enough and to avoid the movement glitches; yes, unfortunately Panda Entertainment failed to deliver smooth movement for their characters. Sometimes it's cumbersome to issue simple commands such as a jumping attack or a retaliation after a successful block. Since the AI is merciless, every bug during the fight counts negatively to the player. But it's just a matter of time to get used with these problems, and suddenly you'll even take advantage of the movement's glitches limitation to perform some cool combinations.

Each character has three special moves, along with the common attacks that may vary depending on how far you're from your enemy. Since the movement is a bit unresponsive, don't except lengthy combos as the ones seen in the Street Fighter series. Aside from your life bar, Sango Fighter 2 also features a power bar that fills up during the battle. When the bar is maxed out, you can deliver one special move with increased damage. For example, Chao Yun may use his sword to cast a tiny projectile against his opponent, but when you fill up the power bar, the same projectile becomes faster and more powerful. After releasing the special attack, the power bar resets to zero and will gradually fills up again during the fight.

The graphics in Sango Fighter 2 are actually pretty good for a 1995 game. I found them even better than in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, especially when talking about the scenarios. You'll be fighting in battlefields, small villages, beautiful natural environments and more, much more. If that wasn't enough, the characters and their special moves all look great. I found the graphics quite impressive. The same can be said about the sound effects and music, which fits perfectly well for the Chinese theme of Sango Fighter 2.

The Arcade mode ends when you beat all the sixteen characters that the AI randomly picks up. Then a simple ending scene appears, which is different for each hero, of course. You can also play this game against a friend, although the keyboard lags a bit when both players are issuing complex commands. It's a good idea to use a joystick in the two player mode. The last game mode is the Conquer China, or the Career mode, if you prefer. This one allows you to attack the most important regions in China; holding them all grants you victory. When the Career begins, you can choose between five different characters (from the Arcade mode), and each one has its peculiarities. When attacking a region, you may choose how many soldiers will siege along with your king. The battle begins with your troops against the enemy's defending forces, and your last opponent will be the main general himself. The common soldiers vary from archers, pikemans and swordsmen; understand that the siege plays like exactly a random Arcade fight, except that you have to beat more than one character to achieve victory.

It's a fun mode, but the music doesn't ever change during the Career mode and it gets a bit repetitive after an hour or so. There're also some cool strategy concepts thrown in, such as the troop management between your controlled regions and how you'll plan your next decisions, because you can't simply siege all the possible enemy regions in sight without the necessary amount of soldiers. The problem is that all the text in Chinese, so the only way to understand how the Conquer Chine mode really works is to experiment all the buttons available and to compare the results.

Considering that you can get used with the unresponsive controls, Sango Fighter 2 is without a doubt an amazing 2D Fighting game. Don't get frustrated if you can't run it in Windows, because you can always use DOSBox to run MS-DOS based games. The emulator works perfectly fine and you'll enjoy playing it as you would back in 1995. You just need good fortune to find a copy of Sango Fighter 2; however if you manage to get one around, I suggest you to keep it as a hidden gem.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Sango Fighter 2 for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:58:25 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/sango-fighter-2/user-reviews/689082/platform/pc/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:57:03 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Zombie Shooter 2 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/zombie-shooter-2/user-reviews/688952/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

Sigma Team is known by their intentionally over-the-top action games, especially after the release of the first Zombie Shooter (2007) and the Alien Shooter series (2005, 2007 and 2009). Since the development team got a considerable number of sales with their isometric Shoot-'Em-Up titles, it's quite natural they want to hear from their fans and release improved sequels. Sigma's last installment is Zombie Shooter 2 (2009), which is a proper sequel to the original game, except to several dull moments that are quite disappointing.

The new Isometric Action game uses the same engine featured in Alien Shooter: Vengeance, with some extra eye candy effects that long-time fans will probably enjoy. In Zombie Shooter 2, you can set your video configurations to make the game look nightmarish, like a Horror/Cult movie from the 80s; personally I found this new option quite nice. It's also easy to notice the improvement on special effects, such as blood pools, explosions, gibbed bodies and so. There isn't really anything to complain about the graphics. The same goes to the sound effects, although I would like to emphasize the great soundtrack, which suits well while facing the hordes of living dead.

What really matters in a game like Zombie Shooter 2 is the action, and unfortunately there're some boring sequences along in your path. I'm referring to exactly what Sigma Team was so proud to introduce to the series: the vehicles. Although both the military jeep and the tank are quite powerful, the areas where you must drive them are so full of though zombies that will make you spend a lot of your time. Maybe I got the wrong impression because I decided to set the highest difficulty level, which didn't make the game as impossible as it was suggested. From what I could notice, the enemies are stronger and more resistant, but it's quite easy to exploit their dumb AI and pass through the maps without too much trouble.

The bestiary in Zombie Shooter 2 consists mostly in different types of living dead humanoids, although you may find sometimes a pack of rats charging at you in the underground areas. The zombies range from melee tanks to ranged shooters, although you'll probably keep using the same survival techniques to beat them all, no matter what. It's so frustrating to get a game where your avatar must survive a zombie apocalypse, but there is no need to use any of your instincts to keep yourself alive. You just keep your character in a small room or camping in a corner, to finally "surprise" each zombie that comes blindly after you.

The lack of the struggle for survival could have been fixed if Sigma Team put a few concepts from the zombie Horror movies out there. I mean, when the world is overrun by the living dead, would you pick up your gun and go blast every flesh-eater in sight or use your head to set outposts and beat the enemy strategically? For example, there're several scripted moments where lots of zombies attack you from every side; wouldn't be it a good idea to lock yourself in a house, blocking all the possible entrances and setting traps to take advantage? None of this is possible in Zombie Shooter 2; your best answer to any wave of monsters is simply grabbing your most powerful gun and take them all down.

A strong aspect in this game is the replay value... as long as you can stand the fact that you'll have to face the boring vehicles sequences again. Sigma Team put several classes to choose from while customizing your avatar. Picking up a class isn't a very dramatic choice, although it may change substantially your gameplay experience. For instance, one class can boost your experience to make your character level up faster; or you may prefer to choose a melee tank, to take advantage while using your fists against the undead; there is even a class with a special power that grants constant health regeneration.

After choosing a class you can boost your attributes with the initial points the game gives to the player as a bonus. If you increase your strength, you may carry more ammunition and will extend your maximum health; adding points to accuracy gives additional damage for all your weapons; boosting your speed grants you a great mobility, which is particularly important during your battles. As far as I could notice, there aren't any useless attributes to choose from, although it's always a good idea to plan ahead your character and keep upgrading only a few ones. For example, my survivalist girl was specialized in getting more experience per kill, and I decided to boost her speed and accuracy so I could dodge the projectiles easier and deal greater damage to my enemies. There're a lot of nice combos, therefore experimentation is the key. Zombie Shooter 2 may keep you busy for a few weeks if you're interested to try some character builds.

Your arsenal consists in pistols, shotguns, machine guns, rifles, laser guns and all that explosive stuff we are familiar. Personally I kept using a powerful Gatling gun, which has several advanced versions that appears throughout the game. The same rule applies to any other type of weapon. For instance, if you like energy-based guns, you can keep using them as soon as they're available in the on-line shop; all you need is to upgrade periodically to a better laser weapon when you have money to do so. Don't be afraid to try new weapons, since the game is kind enough to keep your cash reserve high; just remember to use the good sense and spend it wisely!

There're several different types of items other than guns: implants are like those magical necklaces in Fantasy RPGs; they boost one or more attributes of your hero. Medkits and armors ensure that your character can take some bites and still stand on foot; do never attempt to rush through zombies without protection, for their attacks may be too much to take depending on the difficulty level. A few other cool items also make their appearance: improved flash lights, night vision goggles and even flying bots to support you during your troubles.

The replay value in Zombie Shooter 2 isn't only about repeating the main campaign. There're a few cool modes that will give an extra breath to this game before you uninstall it. One you must control a powerful turret in the middle of a zombie invasion; each level allows you to upgrade a given property to help you survive the next attack, which gets tougher as the time passes. There is also a very arcade-based mode called 'Survival', which there is no victory in sight; you just keep killing a lot of flesh-eaters until it gets impossible enough to make you give up. It's really just to set your best score, nothing else. However, don't get disappointed already because I didn't talk about my favorite one yet. The 'Survival Career' is somewhat similar to the regular 'Survival' mode, except that you can upgrade your character like in the campaign mode. And the game actually gives you a level progression, instead of making you stay in the same large arena until you're outnumbered enough to die.

There isn't anything extremely wrong in Zombie Shooter 2; it's just that Sigma Team was a bit lazy to put a few more interesting features (a multiplayer component wouldn't hurt) and to design the campaign levels more carefully. I kept my expectations high because I simply loved the first game, so I thought it would be nice to experience everything again with better graphics and gameplay mechanics. I hope Sigma achieves a better zombie apocalypse game in the next Zombie Shooter installment.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Zombie Shooter 2 for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:57:03 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/zombie-shooter-2/user-reviews/688952/platform/pc/ Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:14:29 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-nukem-3d-atomic-edition/user-reviews/684959/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

Every game in this world becomes obsolete after a few years, but some games don't seem to be affected by the ages even a decade after their release. Here I'm talking about legendary titles such as DOOM, Quake and, naturally, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition. Released by 3D Realms back in 1996, Duke Nukem 3D is simply an amazing First-Person Shooter game, although it features nothing more than run-and-gun sequences, a macho hero, overpowered weapons and a comical, simple background story.

We have seem all this countless times already, but not in the way that Duke Nukem 3D manages to show. First of all, the most notable feature in this game is the gameplay. 3D Realms' excuse to make you go through a lot of different places, killing hundreds of monsters, is that the world is being attacked by aliens that want to kidnap all the women and reproduce themselves to conquer the Earth. Of course, for every lame action story there's a bad*** hero, who is called here by the name Duke Nukem. He got his ship attacked by the aliens when he was returning to our planet, and after saying the line I quoted in the review deck, the American hero is going to stop the alien invasion all by himself.

How the gameplay can be so innovative in such game? Well, Duke not only moves around as the DOOM marine does, but he can also jump obstacles, crouch, explode cracked walls, swim and use items stored in his inventory. This may sound common because every game today may feature those things, but back in 1996 it was kinda revolutionary. It's true that we had similar concepts with Shadow Caster (1993) and HeXen (1995), both games by Raven Software; however Duke Nukem 3D brought everything together in a sharp and unique form, thus delivering a mighty blow on the gaming world.

The controls are all quite responsive, making easy what would be otherwise a cumbersome task, such as jumping over obstacles or ducking quick enough to hide from enemy projectiles. This is important because Duke Nukem 3D is very fast-paced, so if something goes wrong you can only blame yourself for not being as fast as necessary, and never due to unresponsive commands you issued.

Duke Nukem 3D features visceral gameplay and great graphics thanks to the amazing engine this game was built on. 3D Realms called it Build Engine, which was used in popular titles back in 1997, such as Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage and Blood. The most relevant innovation in this engine was the design of the levels, which allowed fairly complex maps that couldn't be crafted in the old DOOM engine. If that wasn't enough, the developers were kind enough to release the Duke Nukem 3D with the Build Editor along with all the necessary documentation, so fans were able to design their own maps without too much trouble.

By featuring four chapters and more than 30 levels to beat, you may spend 10 or 15 hours to finish this game in the regular difficulty level; take notice that the forth chapter is only available in the Atomic Edition version. Your gameplay time may vary greatly depending on how much you want to explore each level, which is usually filled with secret passages and some cool Easter eggs. Each episode has a secret level, so if you want to beat all the maps in Duke Nukem 3D, it's a good idea to look for all the secrets before hitting the exit button.

Your objective in this game is clear: Duke must find the Nuke button in each level in order to advance to the next stage. To do so, you'll have to kill dozens of aliens and find a few keycards to open locked doors. Do this repeatedly until you reach the last map of the episode, where you must finish off a big alien boss in an arena-like room. Simple and good as ever; raising the difficulty level is always a good reason to replay an episode, especially because the number of monsters per map increases.

Considering that Duke's main activity is butchering his enemies around, you'll need overpowered weapons to go through all the four chapters. Thankfully Duke Nukem 3D has a great arsenal that isn't only devastating, but also innovative and bizarre. Naturally, you'll find here the standard stuff, such as the pistol, the machine gun, the RPG and, my all-time favorite, the shotgun. However be prepared for some surprises as well. There aren't too many games around which allows you to shoot ice and freeze your opponent, so you can kick him and shatter his body all over the place. Duke Nukem 3D has such weapon, and much more: you can shrink your enemies to smash them with your foot, set explosive traps with a laser detector and, with the Atomic Edition version, you can use a mod of the shrink gun to expand your enemies enough to make them explode!

However, my favorite surprise in this game was the pipe bomb. Don't ask me why, but I suck with thrown weapons in every FPS title. For some reason I found the pipe bomb in Duke Nukem 3D one of the best weapons I ever used in any game of the genre. You just throw Duke's "little friend" in the middle of a group of aliens, wait a bit when they're close enough, hit the trigger button and enjoy their pieces flying everywhere! Let's not forget the boss-killer weapon, which is called "Devastator" for a reason. If you keep the fire button pressed for a few seconds, this amazing toy of destruction launches a bunch of mini-rockets that can finish off almost every monster in the game. And, finally, your melee weapon is Duke's kick, which can be activated either by the respective weapon number or by a shortcut, which allows you to wield a gun while kicking your enemies or breaking objects.

Your enemies in Duke Nukem 3D are varied enough to keep the game interesting, and the Atomic Edition release comes with new aliens exclusively for the last episode. The menagerie brings the standard alien trooper armed with a laser pistol, the pigcop equipped with a shotgun, the flying alien commander (my favorite) and its powerful rocket launcher, a psychic monster that is usually creeping under the water, and a few more. The Atomic Edition brings a tall alien, which can shoot a shrink ray to turn Duke into a miniature, and a pigcop driving a powerful tank armed with machine guns. The AI isn't very sophisticated, and if you're into the speedrun thing and likes to beat time records, you'll notice that isn't too difficult to jump over their heads and pass through hordes of aliens... if you're skilled and knows the map, of course.

The sound in this game is what you should expect from any good First-Person Shooter. When Duke is noticed by nearby aliens, you'll hear their angry groans from the distance. Depending on what you're shooting at, you can effectively hear objects breaking, the monsters screaming and dying, cracked walls exploding and so. However, the most noticeable sounds are Duke's lines, which made him the unique character he is today. His voice fits perfectly when he says: "Hail to the king, baby!", "This really ****es me off.", "Come get some!", "Yeah, piece of cake!" and, naturally, "Die, you son of a *****!", a well-known line when he kills an alien boss.

Now, as with most great old-school games, Duke Nukem 3D wouldn't be the same without a multiplayer component. Fortunately it has one, and it's not by-the-numbers as it happens with the great majority of games released today. Up to eight players can connect in a cooperative or competitive match, and both modes are perfect. If you wanna play this game on-line, it's a good idea to try Dukester X, so you can find servers quite easily. It's possible to play in Local Area Network as well, even by using MS-DOS emulators such as DOSBox and VDMSound.

Since Duke Nukem 3D is an old game, the aged graphics may not appeal for newcomers. Personally, I love the scenario and the design of the monsters; but if you want to improve them, you can try the High Resolution Pack, which replaces the 2D sprites with detailed 3D models, adds special effects and improves the textures by using your graphics card's resources. Considering the gameplay isn't affected, you can apply the High Resolution Pack and still experience the same feel you would back in 1996.

I think the biggest problem with Duke Nukem 3D is that there're few options to expand your single player experience. Most of the innumerous expansions released are quite lame, so you basically rely only in the official Atomic Edition version, although the add-ons Nuclear Winter and Duke It Out in D.C. aren't bad. However, with or without expansions, the game speaks for itself nicely. Since the gaming world won't probably be blessed with a sequel, you can replay the original game once more, maybe on a higher difficulty setting, trying to beat the time scores or finding all the secrets. That's only possible because precious gems like Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition never gets old, and considering the activity of the on-line community, it will rarely die someday.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:14:29 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-nukem-3d-atomic-edition/user-reviews/684959/platform/pc/ Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:29:32 -0700 60spaure reviewed Half-Life 2 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/half-life-2/user-reviews/683858/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 10.0!!!

If I'd have to keep only one videogame, it'd have to be Half-Life 2. This is the best FPS of all time. Why? Keep reading...

When I first played Half-Life 2 (back in 2008), I was very impressed with the 3D graphics. The water in the game looks really great, as well as the explosions. The 3D models are greatly detailed and the textures, in high resolution. I must say that this is the game that looks the best without asking the most out of your computer.

The game's controls are very responsive and you really feel part of the action. There is no invisible walls, no glitches, no nothing. Also, the physics system is pretty good. There are lots of weapons to choose from, as a gravity gun that lets you move objects around and the classic crowbar. The level design in Half-Life 2 is top-notch, as each level has a different feel to it and they are not repetitive at all. You are never doing the same thing over and over again, and you are probably going to find some levels that you like way more than others.

In the game, you'll fight your way through City 17, fight zombies in Ravenholm as well as drive a buggy on the coast in order to stop Dr. Breen from releasing his evil plan.

The story is pretty important, and there is no cinematics were you are disconnected from the first person view. This means that you can move around the talking characters and that you are always free to move.

Another thing I especially like about Half-Life 2 is that it comes with the Source SDK (under the tools tab of steam) that lets you create your own singleplayer maps. I'm actually learning how to use it, and it's pretty awesome compared to other editors for two reasons:
- It's very intuitive and it has a great interface
-There are lots of online tutorials in order to get you started. By the way, I really appreciate it when people make tutorials. It lets lots of people the chance to learn how to make their own maps. The tutorials aren't released by Valve, but by the Valve Community(persons like you and me).

Because it lets me a chance to learn how to make maps (one of my biggest dream) as well as to enjoy an awesome campaign, I do think that Half-Life 2 deserves a 10 out of 10. It's my favorite game of all times and even with newer titles coming out, Half-Life 2 is my favorite one.

So I really recommend you getting it, or you'd be losing something really special. Anyway, I hope this wasn't too long for you to read... xD

*You should get "The Orange Box" which includes the game and four other games which are as great as Half-Life 2.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"60spaure reviewed Half-Life 2 for the PC..." was posted by 60spaure on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:29:32 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/half-life-2/user-reviews/683858/platform/pc/ Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:32:47 -0700 60spaure reviewed The Operative: No One Lives Forever for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/the-operative-no-one-lives-forever/user-reviews/682215/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

I've played No One Lives Forever roughly two years ago, and even now I must say that it's one of my favorite games ever! Why? Read the following review...

The graphics in No One Lives Forever may shock you because they are not well detailed at all. The characters look blocky, but the 60s style compensates for it. There are also snow effects and for a game of that time, it's quite amazing. The game actually doesn't good bad at all when you're playing it on a 22inch LCD like me. The game supports big resolutions such as 1600x1200, 1280x1024, etc. so it doesn't look pixelated.

The gameplay in No One Lives Forever is quite good. Moving around is done easily and there are no invisible walls at all. Although there isn't some custom movements as taking somebody's bullets: you just walk up to them. But hey, in the year 2000 that wasn't in any game.

The variety of levels is excelent. In some levels you're in a secret base in space, in some others in an exotic jungle or falling off a plane. The game's diversity is just so much amazing, and you'll want to play the game atleast twice. All of the levels look different, the 3D models and textures aren't repetitive.

The story in the game makes you care for the characters, along with a little bit of comedy along the way. It's pretty well told, although the cinematics are quite long. I didn't skipped one of them and I recommend you to do the same.

Bottom-line: Even today, No One Lives Forever is a good game to play. It doesn't keep up to today's games at all, but it's still a good game that can be enjoyed. There are lots of amazing games and this one is no exception.

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"60spaure reviewed The Operative: No One Lives Forever for the PC..." was posted by 60spaure on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:32:47 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/the-operative-no-one-lives-forever/user-reviews/682215/platform/pc/ Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:51:42 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke: Nuclear Winter for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-nuclear-winter/user-reviews/682058/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

3D Realms maybe didn't know that Duke Nukem 3D would cause so much impact when they released it back in 1996. And it did! This amazing First-Person Shooter is a classic in its genre, and not too many titles shake the gaming world in the way Duke Nukem 3D managed to do. Nine months after the original release, 3D Realms brought the Atomic Edition version with an extra episode to the first game; and, during two years, innumerous unofficial add-ons were released.

Naturally, it isn't because you're adding stuff to a great game that your add-on will be good as well. Too many lame expansions were released in 1996 and especially in 1997, such as Duke Xtreme and Duke!Zone II, but at the end of that year came the redeeming Duke: Nuclear Winter. Developed by Simply Silly Software and published by WizardWorks, this add-on puts Duke against the alien bastards once again, this time to rescue Santa Claws. The add-on starts with a snowman talking that the good old man got captured and brainwashed by aliens, and they're using him to conquer the world. Obviously the American hero isn't going to allow that, so he receives a letter asking for his intervention once again.

Nuclear Winter may be a bit short, but at least it's well-worked. The 7 new levels all look convincing with the addition of textures and objects that compose a genuine Christmas setting. Each map is fairly detailed, and considering that Simply Silly's expansion brings new enemies, music and sounds, this is a must-have for Duke fans. The developers modified a few original monsters and added several unique opponents as well. For example, the alien commander now fires ice bolts instead of rockets, and all the original enemies use Christmas dresses in this add-on. However the really new additions are the goblins and the evil snowmans. The goblins are green monsters that use standard firepower, and some of them may drop a surprise gift that contains a random item for Duke. The snowmans may appear on foot, throwing small balls of ice at you, or driving a deadly snowblower similar to the pig cop tank from the Atomic Edition.

There is no way to enjoy Duke Nukem 3D without good maps, and fortunately Nuclear Winter is filled with high quality ones. Each level is very detailed and there aren't useless or empty places like in most add-ons. Some maps you'll see small crystals of snow slowly falling on the ground, which gives a good sense that Duke is really facing the aliens in a winter setting. Considering the eye candy stuff present in this expansion, it is quite fun to take your time and explore each level in Nuclear Winter, especially because Simply Silly designed the maps with several secret places. Some of them may be hard-to-find, but the content in rewarding enough especially on high difficulty settings.

The multiplayer option wasn't left behind in this expansion. Along with your mates, you can still play the new levels cooperatively or use them for deathmatch battles. Nuclear Winter even allows the player to add bots in the multiplayer mode, although they aren't smart enough to simulate a good competitive match.

I may be alone when I say this is the best expansion released for Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, because most hardcore fans prefer Duke It Out In D.C. or Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach. From my point of view, Nuclear Winter would come close to perfection if Simply Silly designed more single player maps and modified the original weapons to better fit the Christmas setting. Nonetheless, Nuclear Winter is a nice expansion in the way it is and, even though it isn't a fan-favorite add-on in general, it's unquestionably a must-have for serious Duke players.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke: Nuclear Winter for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:51:42 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-nuclear-winter/user-reviews/682058/platform/pc/ Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:56:51 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Xtreme for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-xtreme/user-reviews/681908/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 2.5.

I thought the only way someone could mess up with Duke Nukem 3D (1996, 3D Realms) was to design bad maps for it and group them into an expansion. But WizardWorks did much more with Duke Xtreme (1997), a terrible add-on for the popular First-Person Shooter by 3D Realms. If the lame new levels weren't enough, the developers also added several "features" that definitely didn't improve the original game in any way.

At the first moment you'll notice the lack of effort put in this expansion, because there isn't a custom main menu to browse the new maps and play them in a logical order. It seems that WizardWorks just downloaded from the Internet the worst homemade levels for Duke Nukem 3D to create this add-on. The 25 single player maps aren't divided in episodes; you just pick up one of them, beat the level and choose another one from the list (this is only if you're using a Win32 port such as JFDuke3D or EDuke32, otherwise you'll have to add specific parameters in the prompt command). There is no progress in the game, so you have to start each map without the weapons and items you acquired in the last level you played. At least each map is self-contained, but I didn't find the lack of continuity appealing.

So I decided to play Duke Xtreme by beating each level in alphabetical order. The first map of the list coincidentally introduces you all the new stuff this expansion brings. The most obvious change is the auto-pistol, which became silent and incredibly powerful. It's even stronger than the machine gun and, seriously, a full clip may cause more damage than a RPG rocket. In less than a minute you'll encounter one of the new monsters, a serpent that fires laser shots and spreads poison if you're too close. This addition to the Duke Nukem menagerie takes about three shotgun shots to kill, and its rapid retaliations make it a dangerous enemy in close distances.

Not so after the snake encounter you'll find a boss-like creature that launches explosives like a gatling gun. Even though this new alien is big, you can finish it pretty easy if you keep it in constant fire. This is pretty much the most relevant stuff that Duke Xtreme adds to the original game, although you'll still notice minor changes: now the Steroids not only increases Duke's movement speed, but also makes him invincible during the adrenaline rush. And the American hero now uses a tiny knife for melee fights instead of his kick; oddly enough, he also uses the same knife to smash shrinked opponents.

The machine gunner alien from the first Duke Nukem 3D is a bit stronger in this expansion. He deals much more damage and a group of three of them firing simultaneously at you means certain death. Strangely, those flying mechanized traps now explode with a single bullet, although in the original game they could take more than a full pistol clip and still fly towards the player.

As you can see, the changes are thin and the only way to redeem this add-on would be a good pack of new maps. Well, if "good" means "amount", them the objective was achieved in Duke Xtreme, which features 25 solo maps and another 25 competitive levels. But if you're looking for quality, then this is the worst choice you can pick up. I never played bad levels like these in any other FPS game, even in Duke!Zone II and those underground expansions.

The maps in Duke Xtreme are full of dead ends and huge empty places. They lack in detail and complexity; you just wander around killing packs of aliens (and serpents) in lame environments, just to find a few keycards or switches to reach the exit. Each level ends up pretty fast, even at high difficulty settings. I think the Razzie Winner is a map called "Dirge", which resumes in finding two keycards, kill around a dozen enemies and hit the nuke button to finish the level. It isn't only ridiculously easy, but also quite uninspired and not fun at all.

The only above-average map in this expansion is the last one, called "YDTC", where Duke visits his training center that looks like a nice club, with a large pool, a snack bar, treadmills etc. Really a cool map... actually the only interesting one. The lack of good sense is even more evident in "Toys", a level where everything in huge, giving the impression that you and your enemies are toys in a colossal house. In this map, Duke passes under doors and swims through lengthy pipes to access sinks in bathrooms and kitchens. Personally I never played before such an absurd level like this.

What about the 25 deathmatch maps? They are mostly arenas with a few weapons and items thrown in. It's very strange to play a level without anything special to make it look more unique. Some of the multiplayer maps don't have a single button or switch to trigger interesting events; only a few random obstacles to take cover and that's it. Words fail to describe how terrible Duke Xtreme is. WizardWorks certainly don't understand what a good expansion is made of.

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"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Xtreme for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:56:51 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-xtreme/user-reviews/681908/platform/pc/ Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:18:01 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke!ZONE II for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-zone-ii/user-reviews/681750/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 3.5.

Back in 1997, WizardWorks had a hard job: to gather the worst kind of Duke Nukem 3D maps and make a compilation with them. This pack of uninspired levels they called Duke!Zone II, an add-on to the popular First-Person Shooter from 3D Realms, Duke Nukem 3D (1996).

This expansion doesn't add sound effects, music or textures; only 18 single player levels (being three secret ones) divided in three campaigns. If the maps were actually well-crafted, then it would be easy to forgive the lack of new content. However WizardWorks' Duke!Zone II is a joke for serious players, especially because it's evident that every level in this add-on was made by inexperienced Build designers.

If there was something I enjoyed in this map pack, it was the relatively large amount of enemies per map. This is an approach that hardcore Duke players always enjoy in almost every level, even if it's bad crafted. Killing lots of tough aliens with overpowered weapons never gets dull, but it hurts the eyes to look at empty huge areas and asymmetric rooms too often.

Every map in Duke!Zone II feels in some sort of an unfinished stage. Enemies and objects are positioned in odd locations, like they were put in there randomly. Water surfaces mostly seem to be a hard concrete when you're walking on them, due to the lack of careful programming. In the Build editor, you can't just put a water texture on the floor and say that's a river until you define the correct tag. And, trust me, you don't waste more than 10 seconds to do so.

Each episode can be completed in less than 40 minutes, and the maps don't have a logical order, neither a background story. To be honest, not even the levels themselves make any sense. Sometimes the environments vary without following a coherent pattern; even worse, it's quite common to not know where Duke really are, because the artwork and the decorative objects used in most maps don't mix well.

Perhaps the problem with Duke!Zone II is that the original levels from 3D Realms are incredibly well-done, so it's hard to play an expansion with so many uninspired ones. I can remember one or two good maps, while the rest was just rubbish. If there was something to enjoy here, it was the difficulty and the generous amount of ammo spread in each map. I didn't mind to waste my RPG and Devastator rockets to explode the hordes of aliens, because I was completely sure that I would find much more ammunition later on.

What makes WizardWorks' add-on so disappointing, aside from the disastrous selection of maps, is the fact that it's quite hard to find a copy of Duke!Zone II and to make it work on modern computers. As with most non-official Duke expansions, it's necessary to unpack the original add-on files and group them in a recognizable extension, so those Win32 ports can run them on newer hardware and Windows versions. The expansion ran fine on JFDuke3D and EDuke32, although it didn't work with DOSBox and VDMSound.

Considering the complex way to make Duke!Zone II work and the much better choices available for expanding your Duke Nukem experience, there is little reason to bother with this lame expansion. You can try Duke It Out In D.C., Nucler Winter or even replay the original game, but don't trust in this lazy map compilation by WizardWorks.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke!ZONE II for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 21:18:01 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-zone-ii/user-reviews/681750/platform/pc/ Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:33:08 -0700 60spaure reviewed Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/ratchet-and-clank-future-tools-of-destruction/user-reviews/680933/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

A couple of days ago, I went to my favorite Walmart store (well, the only one which I live by) to see what PS3 games they had. I started looking at the PS3 games on the other side of the glass and looked at the prices. Appart from Bioshock falling of 10$ there wasn't anything new there since the last time I checked (and I don't check often).

As I was about to leave, I saw a PS3 game named "Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" in the Nintendo DS section. I wasn't sure I was willing to get this game, but I happened to watch a trailer of the game the exact same day and I had heard many people say that Ratchet and Clank was one of the best PS3 games there was.

I finally decided to take it home and to insert the game into my PlayStation 3 (the big fat one, I hate the slim). And surprise: I was very impressed. The game is pretty great for a platformer! It has so much content that you're never doing the same thing again and again. There are always some interesting new thing to do! And the graphics are great for a platformer.

So let me divide this review into paragraphs. Each one is talking about a particular aspect of the game.

Gameplay: The gameplay in Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction is excellent. The controls are very responsive, the characters move really well and there are some awesome levels were you control Clank. By the way, those levels are my favorite ones! Though it's worth mentionning that the game is easy, it doesn't ruin the experience at all.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack in the game is OK, but could have been better.The sound effects are also very good and each weapon has a very distinct sound efect.

Story: This game isn't just about gameplay. There is also a good story told through the game which makes you like the characters more and more. It's also packed with little advertisments videos, but I won't talk about them now. I want you to discover them yourself.

Graphics: Lots of people say that this is the most stunning PS3 game, but I am NOT sharing their opinion. Ratchet and Clank looks really great as the worlds look awesome and it has it's own style, but it's nothing like Far Cry 2 in terms of graphics. So it looks great, but some games look better.

Multiplayer: A multiplayer would had been really cool, but sadly it doesn't have any. That's mostly why it didn't got a 10 out of 10 rating.

Bottom-line: I falled in love with Ratchet and Clank (yeah, both of 'em): Tools of destruction. This is an amazing game that every platformer fan should play and will enjoy very much. I even bought a PS2 last week in order to play the older R&C games I've been missing out. So go ahead and buy it, and don't forget to get your crack in time copy too.xD

Get the full article at GameSpot

]]> http://www.gamespot.com/ratchet-and-clank-future-tools-of-destruction/user-reviews/680933/platform/ps3/ Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:16:32 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke It Out in D.C. for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-it-out-in-d-c/user-reviews/680626/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 6.0.

After the release of Duke Nukem 3D (1996, 3D Realms), a lot of add-ons and map packs were released for this amazing First-Person Shooter. That's quite natural, considering it's not difficult to design levels for this game by using the awesome Build editor, which comes in the original game with a deep learning content. However, it doesn't mean that it's easy to craft good maps; that's why Duke It Out In D.C. (1997, Sunstorm Interactive) is an important yet short expansion that appeals for every Duke fan.

Why am I saying this? Because there're some ridiculously huge map packs around for Duke Nukem 3D, but the great majority of these levels is poorly designed and you'll probably stop playing after an hour or so. For example, Duke!Zone features more than 500 fan-made maps; to be honest, that's perfectly fine because Duke Assault has over 1500 custom levels. Understand that we're talking about 500 plus 500 plus 500 maps! The problem is that they're almost all quite unbalanced and not fun at all, so this massive number can be reduced to only a dozen well-crafted levels.

The purpose with Duke It Out In D.C. is to bring only those gems that will really feature some good action sequences and satisfy the player. In this add-on, Sunstorm wants you to control the American hero, Duke Nukem, in order to save Bill Clinton from the aliens. Since there is a simple background story, the maps in this expansion are played in a logical order, starting at the White House and getting through the Smithsonian museum, the Washington Monument and some other known places of Washington, D.C.

There are ten levels in this add-on and that's it. Sunstorm did draw a few themed textures and sprites, but there aren't new enemies, sound effects, music or weapons. The content of Duke It Out In D.C. is very thin, and there is literally nothing else to do here after finishing the new campaign. At least the levels are cool and more hardcore-focused than the original maps from Duke Nukem 3D. You start the game with little ammo and a few basic weapons, yet you have to kill a lot of enemies simultaneously. This may sound punishing for newcomers, however Duke veterans will find this particularly captivating.

The campaign to save Bill Clinton is pretty short, though. It's true that you'll spend some extra time killing the relatively large amount of enemies per map and searching for keys, switches and secret passages; however all this stuff can be done in a single day at the hardest difficulty level without too much trouble. But I'm happy already to play some great levels that Sunstorm carefully crafted with lots of attention to detail.

Actually, the only real problem you'll have with Duke It Out In D.C. is to install and run it on modern PCs. The well-known programs to run MS-DOS games, such as DOSBox and VDMSound, won't do the job, as far as I'm concerned. I had to spend some hours of my free time to understand how I should proceed to run the expansion along with the Win32 ports (personally I used JFDuke3D), which consisted in unpacking the original Sunstorm files and re-creating them with a common file extension. It wasn't a walk in the park, as you may already noticed.

Installation issues and derivative content aside, Duke It Out In D.C. is a must-have expansion for die-hard fans. If you don't want to wait for Duke Nukem Forever anymore yet your old-schooler blood needs some extra "Nuking", then the campaign to rescue Clinton is a good reason to incorporate Duke once more and do some nice alien butchering sessions.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke It Out in D.C. for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:16:32 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-it-out-in-d-c/user-reviews/680626/platform/pc/ Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:21:34 -0700 ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/duke-caribbean-lifes-a-beach/user-reviews/680581/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 5.0.

Released by Sunstorm back in 1997, Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach is just a cool yet mediocre expansion to 3D Realms' First-Person Shooter classic, Duke Nukem 3D (1996). Duke, one of the greatest heroes of the gaming world is relaxing and enjoying his vacation, just to discover that aliens are there also having fun in their own sadistic way. Your objective, naturally, is to kick their ***es and save the babies (read: hot girls) from the alien onslaught once again.

Story never was a shining point in any of the Duke Nukem games, so no one can blame Duke Caribbean for lacking in this. The bad thing about this add-on is the low production values. From ugly new graphics to lame level designs, Sunstorm just proved that gameplay isn't enough to make a game worth. Make no mistake: if you enjoyed the action sequences in the original Duke Nukem 3D, then you'll still love to shoot aliens in the Caribbean environments of this add-on. However, it's impossible to overlook the bad quality of the new textures and sprites, as well the confusing maps and the uninspired new content.

First of all, the most noticeable problem in Duke Caribbean is the weapons. You have exactly the same arsenal featured in the original game, except to the boring sound effects and their new horrible looking. For instance, you throw pineapples as pipe bombs and use a magical voodoo ring to shrink your opponents. Water pistols and poisoned dart launchers make their appearance as well, not to mention that my favorite weapon, the shotgun, became literally a squirt gun in this expansion. They all sound so shy that, at the first moments, I thought there was something wrong with the sound effects.

To make things worse, every new sprite in Duke Caribbean was poorly designed. I can stand the fact that Duke now eats bananas instead of using medkits when he's hurt, however Sunstorm should put a little more effort to draw the new healing items. The same goes to the ammo boxes and most of the new textures. The scenario, instead of giving you the impression that Duke is in a Caribbean paradise, you'll think the hero is in a nightmare where every place looks confusing and not beautiful at all. Fortunately, you can turn off the music so you'll not have a headache early on while trying to find the way out. The soundtrack is mostly irritating, although I kinda liked the final stage music and a few other ones.

Aside from eight maps, there isn't really any new content, except to a particular annoying enemy: a pig cop flying on a buoy, which fires ludicrously fast explosives. Although you can kill him with a single squirt gun shot, it's very hard to dodge his projectiles because he'll attack Duke right in the moment you spotted him. This uninspired enemy probably replaced the flying pig cop from the original game, which I remember to be a fun opponent to fight against.

The new episode features eight maps, which are a bit confusing sometimes and not nearly as good as the original ones. However, there're three maps in peculiar that was worth of my time: "Lost Dagoon", "Voodoo Caves" and "The Alien Remains". By their names you may have already noticed they don't have too much in common with the Caribbean setting, although these three levels are well-designed and one of the few good points in this expansion.

The enemies from the original game are here, but wearing some cool vacation dresses. Sunstorm actually did a good job to design the pig cop with sunglasses, shirt and sandals, as well the rest of the well-known aliens. There're also a few new girls, but one of them is so thin that doesn't look as hot as she's supposed to be. The developers also recorded new voices for the babies and Duke himself (featuring the same actor, Jon St. John), which is indeed a nice touch.

Sadly, today is quite tricky to make Duke Caribbean run in the Windows. DOSBox, a MS-DOS emulator that works perfectly fine with almost every old game, doesn't seem to install this add-on properly. The only way I managed to run Duke Caribbean was using a Win32 port (such as JonoF's JFDuke or eDuke32), but I had to use a program to unpack the expansion's *.SSI files and convert them to a compatible extension. I'm saying this because, if you're lucky enough to find a copy of Duke Caribbean, you may come across with these installation issues; you'll probably spend more time googling websites to find a solution than actually playing the game.

A few good maps and some cool-looking enemies aren't enough to make Sunstorm's add-on worth. Duke Caribbean would be a good addition to the series with more and better crafted maps, well-designed new textures and sprites and a better soundtrack. Unfortunately this is just a lazy and uninspired expansion that isn't as much fun as would be to replay the original game one more time.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"ChristianKiss reviewed Duke Caribbean: Life's A Beach for the PC..." was posted by ChristianKiss on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:21:34 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/duke-caribbean-lifes-a-beach/user-reviews/680581/platform/pc/