Cube_of_MooN's GameSpot Friend's Reviews Cube_of_MooN's GameSpot Friend's Reviews Cube_of_MooN's GameSpot Friend's Reviews en-us Copyright (c)1995-2013 CBS Interactive. All rights reserved. http://www.gamespot.com 20 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:34:14 -0700 GameSpot Cube_of_MooN's GameSpot Friend's Reviews http://img.gamespot.com/gamespot/shared/promos/misc/gs_logo.gif http://www.gamespot.com 135 40 Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:01:39 -0700 gbrading reviewed Black Mesa for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/black-mesa/user-reviews/809984/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

When Half-Life: Source arrived, without much fanfare in June 2004, many people were disappointed. Half-Life is of course one of the most cherished and revered games in video game history, but people had expected that when Valve ported the game to their new Source engine, they would get something that looked a lot closer to Half-Life 2. Instead, Half-Life: Source was a straight port of the original game, using the same textures, guns and sound effects. The only noticeable improvements that were made were the introduction of more realistic water effects and a 3D skybox to replace the old 16-bit bitmap images. Half-Life: Source was Half-Life: No more, no less. This lead some plucky, aspiring mod developers to wonder what Half-Life would look like if it was rebuilt from the ground up in the new Source engine, taking advantage of all the benefits it would bring, to recreate the a familiar but truly new experience. Now, 8 years later, Black Mesa is the sum of this great endeavour. For many years, rumours circulated that Black Mesa was merely vapourware: The promise which could never live up to expectation; the dream which would never be realised. It is with a certain delight it can be said that the naysayers were wrong: Black Mesa is, without doubt one of the finest modifications ever created, being both a faithful adaptation of Half-Life, but introducing enough original content to make you feel like you're playing something brand new. The mistakes it makes are minor in comparison to the triumph of creating a free first-person shooter which could easily be sold as a retail product.

For the 0.5% of people out there who don't know the plot of Half-Life, allow me to give you the condensed highlights. You are Dr. Gordon Freeman, a bespectacled, bearded research associate at the Black Mesa Research Facility: A giant underground complex in New Mexico of offices, laboratories and test chambers where experiments of dubious ethical and scientific value are carried out. Freeman has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from MIT and appears to be just your average scientist, until the fateful day arrived when everything was thrown out of the frying pan. At the beginning of the game, you take part in an experiment which results in a terrible disaster befouling the Black Mesa Research Facility: Massive damage is sustained and portals to an alternative alien dimension open up across the complex, with all manner of dangerous animal life stampeding through, wreaking havoc. Most of the game is comprised of your attempts to escape the facility and also to avoid the marines of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, who have been sent in by the US Government to "liquidate" the situation, including all Black Mesa personnel. Black Mesa doesn't alter any of the story beats of the original game, and includes line-by-line many sequences from the original game. However it does often extend dialogue and conversations by adding in additional flavour text and incidental chit-chat, all of which feels true to the spirit of the first game. As of the time of writing, Black Mesa does not currently offer a complete recreation of the original game: The levels which take place in the alien world of Xen are still to be completed. Nonetheless, this is still a lengthy game which will take approximately 10-12 hours to finish, feeling very one-to-one in terms of length with the original Half-Life.

Gameplay itself hasn't been drastically altered from the original. Freeman has access to the same arsenal of weapons, from his trusty crowbar to the MP5 submachine gun and several more experimental weapons later in the game. The enemies you meet along the rollercoaster journey are just as varied, ranging from the ubiquitous headcrabs to the HECU Marines. The shooting of Black Mesa feels comparable to the original game, but certain weapons feel either slightly more powerful or less so. For example the crowbar now has less reach and takes several hits to dispatch a headcrab, whilst the shotgun can bring down a marine or vortigaunt with a single shot at close range. All of the memorable set pieces from the original game make a return, normally with a new spin on a familiar theme, or introducing a new physics puzzle into the mix, similar to those encountered in Half-Life 2. An example for this might be you need to turn off the valve where gas is escaping in order to extinguish the flames. In the original, you'd just turn the handle and be done with it, but in Black Mesa the handle is actually missing, necessitating a brief search before you can reunite handle with lever.

Graphically is naturally where most of the time and effort of crafting Black Mesa has been invested. The game is similar in detail to the original Half-Life 2 and borrows many lighting effects from Episodes One and Two. By and large, it looks great. It's not going to win any awards for graphical prowess, but if the objective of Black Mesa was to bring Half-Life up to the standard of its sequel, then it definitely succeeded. The amount of custom geometry, taken for granted in any retail game, is very impressive, with an absolute minimum of props being imported from the standard Source list, ala Garry's Mod. There are many gorgeous high-resolution textures which have been finely constructed (my personal favourite being the health kits) and all of the character models look as good as anything Valve put into Half-Life 2. Black Mesa uses a rather sophisticated face creation system which generates semi-randomized character faces, which means you're unlikely to see the same character twice. Level design is by and large a straight up-rezzing and improvement on the original layouts, but many areas have been altered and extended for the sake of continuity. For example, there used to be a very sudden jump between the laboratory areas of Sector C to the more industrial ones, but now this change happens more gradually. Nonetheless, every room, corridor and outdoor vista feels true to form, and you will recognise many famous areas including the Hydro-electric Dam, the lobby of the Biodome complex and of course the Lambda reactor core. There are many highlights to the experience, but my personal favourite was Questionable Ethics chapter, which raises the game in terms of atmosphere by posing many questions about whether the Black Mesa scientists are as innocent as they appear, given the highly controversial experiments.

Black Mesa really excels in the audio department. The game has been fully re-voiced by a volunteer cast, all of it recorded professionally and delivered flawlessly. Some lines are a word-for-word repeat of the dialogue from the original game, but many character interaction moments have been elongated or changed to include further chatter and ambient conversations. Pressing the E key on any character will normally yield another line or two of flavour dialogue, often unique to that character. In a conscious effort to secure continuity with Half-Life 2, the named characters of Dr. Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance feature in the game, as does security guard Barney Calhoun in the most fleeting of cameos. The musical score has also been completely redone, drawing a heavy influence from the original music but delivering something with feels completely fresh. Valve games have never been particularly acclaimed for their music, but the soundtrack to Black Mesa provides a suitable backdrop to the various hectic goings-on at the research facility.

Black Mesa does make one or two relatively minor mis-steps, the biggest of which may be the overreliance on the oft-fabled crouch-jump. In Half-Life original, you might have had to use the crouch-jump manoeuvre (jumping and crouching at the same time in order to achieve a higher or longer jump) maybe once or twice throughout the campaign. In Black Mesa, crouch-jumping is an essential skill you must master early on if you want to jump into vents, or cross gaps which are impassable using the normal jump. This can lead to occasionally frustrating sections where you make multiple attempts at the same jump, quicksaving and reloading after each try and inevitable plummet to your death. The epicentre of this frustration is definitely the trip-wire mined room in the Surface Tension chapter, which was maddening enough in the original game but is even more so here given the fact that you must crouch-jump over a laser line which you have no idea if you will hit or not because Gordon isn't body-aware (when you look down, you can't see his feet). There are also infrequent technical glitches including long loading screens and crashes to the desktop, but no doubt when Black Mesa is officially released on Steam via the Greenlight initiative, these will have hopefully been patched out.

When it comes down to it, the most amazing thing about Black Mesa is the fact that it exist at all. After 8 years of intrigue, disappointment, excitement and regret, it is incredible that a team of volunteers, paid nothing and doing all coding, designing and building off their own backs, sitting through years of whinging, moaning and apathy from the Internet, managed to create a game in the first place, let along create a game which is a great experience. Although that experience is still not truly complete, it is certainly worthy of your time, especially given the incredibly low barrier to entry. Black Mesa reminds us of everything which made Half-Life great, and yet it is also an education in what aspects of it weren't so great. Games have moved on a lot since 1998, but the core appeal of a shooter has not changed. Half-Life raised the bar for storytelling, atmosphere and action; Black Mesa can be proud to say that it can jump just as high. Now you can experience an updated version of one of video gaming's most historic titles, and it won't cost you a nickel.

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"gbrading reviewed Black Mesa for the PC..." was posted by gbrading on Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:01:39 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/black-mesa/user-reviews/809984/platform/pc/ Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:28:43 -0800 jim_shorts reviewed Halo: Reach for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/halo-reach/user-reviews/803174/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

I may be a little late to the party, but I'd like to give my honest opinion either way.

Halo Reach is a surprising return to form for Bungie and the Halo franchise. Bungie knew it would be their last entry and it shows. The campaign is the best since the original Halo and the set pieces are impressive. Many slight improvements were made that I enjoyed in particular, such as giving the Elites and Grunts their alien languages back. I felt that this makes them much more menacing and alien in their presentation. The game is polished to a high level both graphically and aesthetically. The game just looks really good. As for the gameplay itself, I'll divide that between campaign and multiplayer.

The campaign was surprisingly good, save for a few weak segments. You know the ending from the beginning, but it's very well executed. A constant theme of the game is sacrifice, and one sees this play out among their squadmates and the planet as a whole. Fighting the Covenant across the planet is immensely satisfying and the game has a bit of a Combat Evolved feel to it. Most players will miss the Battle Rifle, but for me the DMR is just as serviceable. The reticule bloom is a bit of an annoyance at times, but it's not overly crippling. In truth the new Needle Rifle is a better all around weapon. The vehicle segments leave something to be desired, especially the space battle. It seemed unnecessary and shoe horned in. Probably because it was unnecessary and shoe horned in. Overall the campaign is quite good however.

Everyone seems to play these games for the multiplayer though, so let's look at that. Competitively speaking, this game is a step down from Halo 3. The reticule bloom adds an element of randomness that rewards spamming as often as it punishes it. Couple that with the much maligned armor lock and jetpack and you have yourself a pretty broken multiplayer from a competitive standpoint. Later playlists would fix a lot of these issues, but those playlists are always less populated. If you aren't a competitive sort, there's plenty of fun to be had here. All the beloved playlists make a return. Snipers, SWAT, and even Zombies are all as fun as ever. The new maps aren't the best though. The best maps in the game are remakes of the Halo 2 maps. Countdown is among the worst the franchise has to offer, along with The Cage.

All in all, Halo: Reach is a very satisfying addition to the Halo franchise and a fine last entry for Bungie. It's not without its flaws or infuriating moments like every Halo has, but it's good enough to be one of my favorites in the series.

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"jim_shorts reviewed Halo: Reach for the Xbox 360..." was posted by jim_shorts on Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:28:43 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/halo-reach/user-reviews/803174/platform/xbox360/ Sun, 04 Nov 2012 11:07:31 -0800 jim_shorts reviewed NCAA Football 13 for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/ncaa-football-13/user-reviews/802541/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 4.0.

Where do I begin with NCAA 13? This game fails on just about every level. The game is essentially the same as the previous installment, but with a few "improvements" that are primarily cosmetic and don't address the fundamental flaws in the gameplay. What are these flaws you ask? Well, pretty much every aspect of the actual football.

The AI defense is psychic and knows what play you audible to. If you start out with a run play, the safeties will come in to stop it. Audible to a pass play and they drop back to stop the pass. It's this kind of cheap difficulty that defines this game. Furthermore, turnovers are extremely prevalent to a point where it gets ridiculous. I've fumbled numerous times even when holding the "cradle the ball" button. AI Linebackers are still superhuman demigods who can sense where the ball is being passed without looking, leap 43 inches into the air, spin 180 degrees and make an interception.

Conversely, Your offense's AI is abysmal in every aspect. Don't even try to run a screen pass, because your blockers will just run past the people they're supposed to block. Your offensive line can't pick up blitzes either. Often two or three linemen will be occupied by a single pass rusher, letting two or three have their way with your quarterback. Punt coverage is similarly broken. Receivers barely even make a play for the ball. They prefer to stand still and let the ball come to them. Couple this with the superhuman linebackers and that leads to lots of interceptions. The game isn't difficult though, it's easy to overcome these flaws even on harder difficulties. Players should not have to deal with these glaring flaws however.

There are many sequences that cut from the game and break your rhythm and concentration. Periodically the screen will cut to the score of another game with some contrived dribble from Kirk Herbstreit. It is incredibly annoying and it grows tiresome after the 57th time. It baffles me that anyone thought this would be a good idea.

If the game has one thing going for it, it's the recruiting system in Dynasty mode. It's a fun thing to recruit players to build a great team, even if it does get a little tedious at times. I would even argue that the only legitimately fun part of the game can be found in the recruiting.

NCAA 13 adds to the recent drop in quality of the franchise. It saddens me that the franchise hasn't produced a good game since Mark Ingram was on the cover.

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"jim_shorts reviewed NCAA Football 13 for the Xbox 360..." was posted by jim_shorts on Sun, 04 Nov 2012 11:07:31 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/ncaa-football-13/user-reviews/802541/platform/xbox360/ Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:28:35 -0700 Gen_Warbuff reviewed F1 2012 for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/f1-2012/user-reviews/800395/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

It might be just me, but it seems they finally got the difficulty right in this game. No longer do you get penalized for just looking at another driver the wrong way. Seriously, I feel like I now have a chance at not just finishing a race, but also wining them. Controls feel just right, sense of speed and the rush of close racing is perfect. Rain effects are fantastic and make races feel very different due to the difficulty of seeing the track. If you are looking for a challenge, something you will need to work at to get better, this is the game for you.

One thing that I don't really like is the minimum race length seems "to long". It's not horrible, but I would have liked to do 10 lap races, compared to a minimum of 15.

Season mode is fun, as you get better, your car gets better, you get offered contracts to move up in the ranks.

I also would have liked more control during replays, but again, that's a small thing to worry about.


Graphics = 9
Sound = 10
Controls = 9

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"Gen_Warbuff reviewed F1 2012 for the Xbox 360..." was posted by Gen_Warbuff on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:28:35 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/f1-2012/user-reviews/800395/platform/xbox360/ Sun, 29 Jul 2012 12:52:58 -0700 gbrading reviewed L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/l-a-noire-the-complete-edition/user-reviews/797958/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

The late 1940's are such a fascinating period of modern history. The Second World War was over and most of the soldiers who survived the horrors of the conflict had returned home to their families, but there was still unease in the air, not least because the Cold War was just beginning to hot up. The Second Red Scare in the form of McCarthyism was taking root; with the trial of possible Soviet spy Alger Hiss in 1948 and the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating alleged Communist subversion in the Hollywood. In 1949, the Soviet Union would test their first atomic bomb, plunging it and the United States into both the Arms Race and the Space Race. But alongside these weighty political and worldly affairs, the late 40's were also a time of great prosperity in America. After being the centre of the Allied arms manufacturing during the war the American economy was booming. For the first time, families could afford to buy a house, a car and even a refrigerator. In particular, the growth of the automobile shot up after the war. The car, alongside television, is certainly one of the most important inventions of the last 150 years. It stands for personal mobility and independence: The ability to drive wherever you like whenever you want, with the world at your feet. Advertisements on radio, television and newspapers showed Norman Rockwell-esque wholesome images of well-fed, healthy people driving down neat streets with white-picket fences, fully embracing the long-sought after American Dream. It is directly into this heady, interesting and dynamic world you are plunged within L.A. Noire, an adventure game with action elements from Team Bondi, published by Grand Theft Auto makers Rockstar Games. L.A. Noire is unlike any game you have ever played before, and I would go so far as to say you are unlikely to play a game quite like it ever again. While there are several elements which occasionally hamper your immersion and enjoyment, overall this is one of the finest narratives video gaming has ever produced and you owe it to yourself to experience what L.A. Noire has on offer.

The setup is interesting enough. You play as Cole Phelps; a former US Marine turned Police Detective who was awarded the Silver Star during the war for his heroism during the Battle of Okinawa. Returning from active combat he got a job as a Police Officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, and most of the game consists of following Cole's progression up through the ranks of the LAPD policing the mean streets of L.A. You start on Patrol and are soon promoted to Detective, working your way across several different crime desks covering everything from Traffic cases to Homicide and Arson. Phelps is a straight man who plays everything by the book and whilst he believes firmly in the rule of law, that doesn't mean he isn't willing to bend a few rules if it means getting to the truth. Indeed, this is partly what makes him such an interesting character. Throughout your journey you encounter an absolutely huge cast of supporting characters, the size of which wouldn't be out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster, all of whom are interesting and unique in their own right. The plot if L.A. Noire is certainly its biggest strength, feeling richly detailed and defined. The way the game progresses is in episode format, so each individual case is self-contained but forms part of the over-arching narrative which spans all case desks. This means that it is a game which can be played in bite-size chunks, but can also be played over longer periods if desired and thus has quite an addictive nature about it. The acting from every front is superb and thanks to the second-to-none facial animations, you can actually see the emotion in the actor themselves, and not simply hear it in their voice as in most video games. My only criticism with the plot would be that the very, very end of the game is rather anti-climactic and doesn't resolve things properly, but the path leading there is immensely enjoyable. Truly, if you value story in a video game it doesn't get much better than this.

Gameplay mainly consists of police procedural work. You will normally be given a case and then need to drive out to the crime scene with your partner to investigate. The crime scene will usually have a number of clues scattered around which you must look at and manipulate, which Cole will then respond to. This will help to fill in different aspects of the crime committed and allow you to start to piece together what happened. When examining a clue, you often have to physically manipulate it by moving your mouse around until the view zooms it to examine a part of the object, to which Cole will then make an observation. It's a simple technique but a surprisingly good one, which helps to put you in Cole's shoes and make it feel like you are examining the evidence yourself, rather than just accepting what is given at face value. After gathering preliminary evidence and, if there is a dead body, listening to what Coroner Malcolm Carruthers has to say, it's time to interview the witnesses. During interviews you have a list of questions to ask the suspect, to which you then must ascertain whether they are telling the truth or if they are lying. Thanks to the incredible facial animations, it is normally quite easy to guess when something is lying due to their facial mannerisms or the way their eyes move, although as you progress through the game people will get progressively more adept at lying or planting false leads.

Alongside the interviewing, crime scene investigations and clue examining, there are also the Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games staples of driving and shooting. Both of these are executed in a very similar manner to GTA, but the emphasis rests in different places. Most notably, here you are on the right side of the law, so doing anything illegal will detract from your case rating and may stop the investigation all together. So although you can drive like a maniac around Los Angeles smashing into everything you can see and trying to run over the pedestrians, it isn't advisable if you want to get a good score. Similarly, most of the time when walking around the city, Cole doesn't have any weaponry and doesn't pull out his gun unless the situation calls for it. If you shoot a civilian or fellow police officer it's game over and you'll need to restart from the last checkpoint. GTA this is not. Shooting sequences are satisfying and the period weaponry Phelps has access to packs quite a punch. Getting into and out of cover is handled in the same way as in GTA IV, so you stick to the side of cars and can shimmy around before firing out around the side or over the top. Driving also feels similar to GTA IV in that most cars have quite floaty handling, but this means you can do some very impressive cornering during a high speed chase. Possibly the most interesting thing about the shooting and driving sections of the game is that if you fail them a couple of times, you're given the option to skip them entirely. This is a great option to have included, which means that people who just want to see the story through but aren't good at shooting can enjoy the game as well.

The Los Angeles of 1947 is easily, by and far the most detailed digital representation of a city ever created in a video game. For one thing, the area covered is vast, covering eight square miles and ranging from Downtown LA in the east to the glitzy realm of Hollywood in the west. The attention to detail in the recreation of period Los Angeles is obsessive almost to the extreme. A perfect example is Union Station, where the entire interior concourse has been fastidiously recreated, yet you visit it perhaps only once in the game. Whole other buildings with interiors are lurking in the city which you may never go inside during the course of your playthrough and as far as I can tell, the whole district of Chinatown isn't visited at all. Almost all landmark buildings which were standing in 1947 have been incorporated (including many of which are not labelled on the map, such as the Hall of Justice or the LA Stock Exchange), and the street plans accurately mirror those of real life LA. Hundreds of other buildings have their own unique signage and advertisements, which you wouldn't notice unless you drove by slowly or wandered around on foot. Aside from one or two inaccuracies taken for the sake of artistic license (for example, the set of D.W. Griffiths' 1916 silent epic "Intolerance" was actually torn down in 1919, but in the game it is still standing), LA feels like a living and vibrant city where it is a joy simply to drive around admiring the scenery.

When it comes to sound, on the voice acting front I would be the first to recommend L.A. Noire for an Academy Award. Considering the complicated facial capture that when into creating emotive and believable faces for all the characters, this can perhaps be considered the first game where the actors haven't simply voice-acted, but acted in person. Kudos must naturally go to Aaron Staton for his portrayal of Phelps, as well as many of his fellow cast members from the TV show Mad Men. There are only one or two minor characters who can't quite act as convincingly, but generally speaking you can see the emotion in the character's eyes when one is told that his wife was murdered for example. Solidifying the sense of presence the game establishes so masterfully is the horn-laden orchestral score, which sounds right out of a James Cagney film, and the in-game radio station KTI. Unlike the GTA games, L.A. Noire only has one radio station, and its content is not overtly humorous. Instead, it intersperses genuine radio programmes of the era (such as the sitcom The Bickersons or The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show), as well as news bulletins featuring clips from stories which were hitting the headlines at the time (including a speech from President Truman). Although the announcer and KTI itself was created for the game, the old-time sound quality merges seamlessly with the genuine radio elements, and the faux adverts for products like Cola King and Alaco Gasoline could easily be believed to be real. Throw in some period songs and you have a typical authentic 40's era radio station, and that is utterly marvellous.

If I had to level criticisms at L.A. Noire, they would be incredibly minor ones. Considering there is a functioning Pacific Electric Tramway system operating around virtual LA, it's a disappointment that you can't actually use it. The same can also be said of the complicated bus system, which have a number of terminals dotted around the city and which you go to in a couple of missions. This is merely me talking as a role-player though, only because I want to feel like I'm in Phelps shoes. There is also a big narrative jump in pacing between the Homicide and Vice desks, but that may be because the integral plot of the Homicide desk is so strong that it's difficult for Vice and the cases following it to live up to expectations. When you consider that two whole investigation desks (Burglary and Bunco) were removed from the game when development time was running out, you can see that Team Bondi originally planned the game to be even longer, and this is already an epic length game to begin with. In terms of the quality of the PC port, there are no problems to speak of. The game runs smoothly aside from a couple of hiccups here and there, and there is a plethora of options to either tune up or tone down the graphical settings to your whim.

When it all comes to it, the thing which really makes me adore L.A. Noire is its fastidious attention to detail. A perfect example is that during one case, Phelps is on his way to interview a witness and is in the car chatting to his current partner, Rusty Galloway. Rusty casually mentions to Phelps whether he has heard the news of what's happening in the China: The Chinese have been selling off the food aid the US has been sending. Phelps says he has, and that the Chinese are selling the food aid because they're trying to fund the war against the Communists. Phelps mentions that armies still need food to fight wars though, and remarks that he thinks the Communists will win because the ordinary people going hungry will turn against the government. This indeed does happen in 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party overthrew the Kuomintang and forced the nationalists to flee to Taiwan. This small conversation, which happens just once during the game, perfectly encapsulates the central issue of the Chinese Civil War whilst also being a character-building moment for Rusty and Phelps. L.A. Noire is stuffed full of such moments, and this is a big part of what makes it such a joy to play through. There probably will never be another game quite like L.A. Noire, but goodness knows I sure hope there will be.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"gbrading reviewed L.A. Noire: The Complete Edition for the PC..." was posted by gbrading on Sun, 29 Jul 2012 12:52:58 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/l-a-noire-the-complete-edition/user-reviews/797958/platform/pc/ Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:47:54 -0700 biggest_loser reviewed Max Payne 3 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/max-payne-3/user-reviews/797162/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 7.0.

"When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, time slows down," Max Payne once said. But time has not stopped for the Max Payne series. In the nine year ceasefire between the second Max Payne game (2003) and this latest entry, many changes in the gaming industry and this iconic franchise have taken place. With the departure of the original creators Remedy, who chose to develop Alan Wake instead, Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar took over this much anticipated and equally troubled project. Rockstar was originally a publisher on the first two games and share a basic understanding of the series. Max's poetic language is more overwrought and colourful than ever before and the slow-motion gunplay, complete with violence amped up to sickening levels, is intense over the game's minor duration.

However, despite the efficiency of the combat model, this is the weakest entry in the series. The game is lacking the moral complexity of its predecessor's narrative and bizarrely omits any pop or literary references, integral to strengthening the themes of the narrative. Instead, someone at Rockstar decided that Max Payne needed a sunny, overtly military-themed setting in Brazil, some speedboat chases, car chases, rail sequences and a lot more gore. The idiosyncratic feeling of the original games is missing, along with the series' unique stylistic identity. The old bloke is inches away from calling in a UAV but a long way from New York City.

From the start, the game's narrative attains a visceral charge and some interesting formal choices, but it gradually deteriorates under its own convoluted labyrinth. Maturely, the previous titles are fixated on the failure of the American Dream. Max is a symbol of American accomplishment, a person so dogged and determined in the face of overwhelming odds. Yet for all the bloodshed and any scarce resolutions he finds, Max remains a tragic figure, tortured and isolated by his past. His bravery to fight the underworld, like an unstoppable winter blizzard over a city, is more of a symptom of madness and revenge, than righteous justice. He is like a classic Noir detective, modernised as man who is pushed one step too far. However, this compelling internal conflict is largely resolved at the end of the second game, The Fall of Max Payne. The follow-up offers little means of adjoining or reference the second game and its resolutions in any detail. Did Max not say that his dreams no longer haunted him?

Neglecting Max's development means that his sudden reliance on booze and pills again offers the game a convenient dark edge, rather than a plausible sense of continuity between the games and the protagonist. Additionally, this is the first game in the series not to use a graphic novel to tell its story. There are now frequent cutscenes to tell the story, seamlessly interwoven between the game play, but it also means that Max is detached from his roots in pulp fiction. It's strange how a developer like Rockstar, so attuned to pop culture and satire, would fail to address either Max's Film Noir or comic book symmetry, refusing to include in-jokes, film references, or just the graphic novel itself, favouring a supposed gritty realism, with speedboat chases.

The game's visceral nature is at times overcharged but often quite affecting too. The story opens gratuitously in Brazil, with a dismembered torso on the ground, not a sight I ever want to relive, but more intense is the raid on the party. Having left America and the police force, Max is now a bodyguard for a private company, protecting a spoilt family. The reasons for this are revealed in scarce flashbacks to New York. While Max is boozing at a party he is meant to be overseeing, the place is raided scarily by armed thugs who kidnap one of the girls in the family. What is problematic about this opening is that little time is taken to establish the side characters beyond caricatures of spoilt brats, before the bullets start to fly. There is also little identification with the villains, even when they are revealed late in the game, which means that their inevitable demise at the hands of Max is far less powerful and meaningful than it was in the other games.

A part of this anonymity in Brazil is deliberate. One of the most successful ideas of the game is Max's sense of disorientation and isolation. The game uses a number of clever techniques, smartly including native Brazilian dialect with no subtitles (a beautiful touch), copious amounts of screen blurring and superimposing key words, so that Max's senses are diluted. There is a fantastic scene early in the game where Max enters a club to protect the family. The amplification of the music and the blurring is tremendously effective in sharing Max's dislocation with the player. Yet true to the lack of development in Max's story, these techniques eventually feel overused. Right up to the final moments in the game, the blurring is still in effect, which weakens its stylistic meaning. Rockstar has not reigned in Max's narration either. The amount of voice-over, self-loathing, swearing and poetic language ("I'd killed more cops than cholesterol") seem to be working in overdrive but not with any purpose. Sometimes Max's quips are achingly blunt and funny but by the end it's forced so heavily and frequently onto the player, trying to convince you of Max's damaged soul, that it feels like he's become a parody of his own cynicism, rather than someone who is selectively witty.

What is also integral to a crime story, painfully missing here, is a plausible motive. If Max is so dispirited, what drives him to keep pursuing these baddies when things become really messy? If it is guilt, I think some dream sequences could have neatly asserted that emotion but they have also been removed too, which means that Max's actions of mowing down cops (or are they?) seems baseless. The overall trajectory of the plot is also a shambles. With two mysterious gangs to fight, an unnecessary subplot about selling organs, characters randomly showing up to explain plot points and scarcely defined personalities, I could not make any sense of the story. This is coupled with awkward jumps in the narrative's timeframe. Max and the family decide to put together money for a ransom payout and in the next scene they've already got the bag in the middle of a stadium. Similarly, a flashback to New York is abruptly dumped right in the middle of an important transition period in Brazil and feels unresolved.

For many of the weaknesses in the narrative though, Max Payne 3 is most successful and fun as a pure shooter. It retains the original bullet time game play but now Max is more fragile than ever: he can die in just a few shots and you must rely strictly on a checkpoint system. As with many modern games now, you also have a cover system to protect yourself from bullets. To play the game at exciting levels though it is best to forget the cover and dive into the action, using shootdodging and bullet time collectively. You can spectacularly dodge bullets and move in slow motion, watch individual rounds wiz straight past you as you return fire. I found this was the game at its most thrilling, with many intense and incredibly exciting gun battles. The downside is your fragility because it removes a lot of the elegance and the transcendent beauty from the original games. The previous games allowed you choreograph your own Matrix-like gunfights, as you waded across environments in slow motion, with superhuman grace. Now you can only sporadically use bullet time, which does force you to be more strategic, but some of the fun is lost.

There are a few handy touches, including being able to stay prone on the ground and keep firing and also a final kill move, which gives you a brief period of time to make a last ditch effort to kill an attacker before you die, restoring some of your health too. This removes a lot of the frustration from your limited pain threshold. There's also a wide variety of locations, such as warehouses, factories, rooftops, apartment blocks, city streets and glimpses of New York. All of these levels rely on a checkpoint system: you can't save your game individually anymore, which is challenging but not overly so. Only in the final stages of an airport, including a ridiculous boss battle, does it become very frustrating. Many of these environments are well detailed, with appropriate levels of graffiti, debris and ample panes of glass to shoot through, but the atmosphere and the feel of the game seems remote for this series.

Setting the game anywhere but America, especially sunburnt Brazil, away from the ice and snow of New York, was always going to be problematic. Brazil is colourful, vibrant, noisy and alive. As a series, Max Payne is not. Where is the sense of cold dread, the slums of an icy city, alit through short bursts of gunfire? This sequel offers a different sense of isolation, successful in its own right, but not as haunting as the brooding Noir universe we once knew. Returning briefly to New York, I rejoiced in seeing the dark shadows, the thick layers of snow and the deliciously morbid gothic architecture, all hallmarks of the series. Also deterring from the Noir atmosphere is the reliance on gimmicks like rail sequences. There are moments Max will attach himself to a cable line, or flying fox, and drift across the top of a room in slow-motion, firing bullets on baddies below. These aren't very challenging but provide a harmless diversion.

That is also where I draw the line. But Max is required to man turrets on the back of a speedboat, gunning down baddies along a river, or lean out of a train window to blast gangsters parallel to him. Even more ridiculous is a late sequence where he leans out of a bus to take aim, followed most stupidly by an end chase where he fires a grenade launcher off at various speeding jeeps. It detracts sharply from the classic Noir feel of the original games, if only so that Max Payne can now resemble recent military shooters.

Max Payne 3 features solid and sometimes exhilarating bullet time game play but it is not a true sequel to The Fall of Max Payne. The convoluted story lacks the same ambition and creativity as its predecessors, failing to assert Max as a character who is more than just a killing machine. Also, in spite of the quality of the gunplay, there are too many moments and design choices that feel misplaced. Brazil is a miscalculated setting, too far removed from 'Noir York City', and the games reliance on big set pieces, is detached from the contained mood and isolation of the rest of the series. This game had plenty of fun action moments for me but it feels like Rockstar was preparing for Grand Theft Auto V, instead of making a true Max Payne game. I felt this was a missed opportunity to build on the foundations of an outstanding series and I worry that Max's time might have finally run out.

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"biggest_loser reviewed Max Payne 3 for the PC..." was posted by biggest_loser on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:47:54 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/max-payne-3/user-reviews/797162/platform/pc/ Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:18:37 -0800 GAMECAMILLER reviewed Half-Minute Hero for the PSP... http://www.gamespot.com/half-minute-hero/user-reviews/786739/platform/psp/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Half-Minute Hero is a game that's built around completing a task 30 seconds. Whether that be defeating a boss via a RPG, shooting your way to find a flower, or preventing you Sage from being attacked, Half-Minute Hero is what it is, trying to be a "hero" in 30 seconds of less.

(Note this review does give away what modes are unlocked after the third mode is completed. Other then that, nothing else is revealed/spoiled about the game's story."

The game itself is broken up into 5 modes. The first being Hero 30, which are 30 levels of mini RPGness. The game includes everything you would see in a RPG: towns, items to buys, leveling up, grinding, money earning, and of course Boss fights. The object is to defeat the Boss of each level in 30 seconds or less. Sometimes you need more time then 30 seconds; You can turn back time by7 praying to the statue goddess... which really means paying money, that doubles each time you sue it in a level. Overall, I really liked the game play of those levels, and everything seemed to work out very smoothly.

The second is Evil Lord 30, which is a Real Time Strategy game (in 30 seconds) across 30 levels. i didn't like this mode so much as the others. You have access to three monsters; Brutes which are great against speed type enemies, Nimbles, which are great against shooting enemies, and Shooters, which can take down brute types. Your aura around you dictates how strong your summons are, and how many you can summon at a time. If you are hit, you summon level takes a hit, making it harder to complete a stage. Luckily you can, like in Hero mode, for a price, use the golden barrels that house the goddess to not only turn back time, but return your summon stats to maximum. Sometimes the levels get a bit too intense to summon and this mode, out of all 5, seemed to be a hassle at times. Luckily ti doesn't last as long as Hero 30

Third, is Princess 30, which is a 30 second shooter. I liked this mainly for the change of pace in the game at this point, albeit it was a bit too easy for me. You as a Princess progress across 30 levels with your knights trying to complete quests, all while getting back before 30 seconds are up. The red carpets across the level allow you to turn back time, for some coins.

Fourth, is the Knight 30 mode, which is an action game that you try to keep the Sage safe for 30 seconds while it charges it's spell to end the level and send the monsters packing. This has 30 levels as well. It was a nice change on the 30 second concept since the sage has to go untouched for 30 seconds nonstop. You can guide the Sage around the level to protect it, set traps, use weapons (that break very easily) or try to use your own body to protect the sage. You'll die a lot, but luckily the game doesn't end as if you guide your spirit back tot he sage, you can live to protect the sage again. So in other words, whatever it takes in this mode, PROTECT THE SAGE!

Finally. the story ends with a 5th mode, which is 1 level that ties all the previous mode's stories together in an RPG in 3 minutes.

There's also a bonus mode which is a single level you try to beat in 3 seconds. Yes, THREE SECONDS. Thank god it's not part of the main game. It's insane.

The graphics for the game are pixeled backgrounds and characters to give the game a fitting 8-bit retro look, while the cut scenes (or cut scene screenshots) are detail artwork images.

As for the music and sound, the game sounds fantastic with fitting RPG tunes. It brings out the nostalgia of the old games it's inspired by.

Overall, I liked the game's neat concepts, though Hero 30 is the best out of them all. I give this an 8.0 out of ten. Solid game, very neat concepts, worth checking out.

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"GAMECAMILLER reviewed Half-Minute Hero for the PSP..." was posted by GAMECAMILLER on Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:18:37 -0800
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/half-minute-hero/user-reviews/786739/platform/psp/ Thu, 24 Nov 2011 18:58:16 -0800 btaylor2404 reviewed Assassin's Creed: Revelations for the PlayStation 3... http://www.gamespot.com/assassins-creed-revelations/user-reviews/781384/platform/ps3/ ...and gave it a 9.5!

AC: Revelations, after Ubisoft putting out one nearly every year it seemed that this version would be just AC 2.75. But it is flat amazing to me. Constantinople is a welcome change from the Italian versions of the past. It's beautiful, has slums, high end parts, and the temples are better than ever.
As to gameplay, there is a lot to love. The hookblade and bomb making are great and come in handy. The missions and side missions are varied in difficulty. And the Assassin recruitment is not just an add on this time around. You have to plan, and see an actual progression in your Assassin's this time.
The best part of AC: Revelations, to me, is the story. It's best if you've played the previous versions, actually needed. But AC:R has by far the best story IMO. Ezio seems like he's thinking out things and situations instead of just going 90 to nothing thru the game and has an end goal in mind. Desmond isn't clueless this time around. And most importantly Altair ties it all together. In AC Altair had no voice and you just played. Here he ties all three: Altair, Ezio & Desmond together, as well as having his own fantastic full story.
In closing if you even remotely liked any of the AC series, this game is a must own.

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]]> http://www.gamespot.com/assassins-creed-revelations/user-reviews/781384/platform/ps3/ Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:46:51 -0700 gbrading reviewed Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/deus-ex-human-revolution/user-reviews/777664/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 8.5.

It has been over a decade since the first Deus Ex rolled onto our computer screens and made us think long and hard about the way we approach player choice in video games. Before and since then, only a few games have managed to come close to giving the player the illusion of free choice (namely the likes of BioShock and Fallout 3), but almost none have successfully delivered an experience where your decisions display a marked and dramatic effect on both characters and the gameplay. The first Deus Ex game may look ugly and play relatively poorly by today's high standards, but it continues to be one of the best examples of how creative problem-solving can change the flow of a game's experience. Its first sequel, Invisible War, was plagued with a myriad of problems; everything from small environments to long loading screens and the bizarre design decision to use a method of universal ammunition for all weapons. Thus, Invisible War was a disappointment in many people's eyes and for a long while, the Deus Ex series sank back into semi-obscurity. Thankfully, today it is back, alive and almost fully reinvigorated. Human Revolution treads the path of player freedom which much of the same care and attention to detail which was given in the original game and thankfully does not suffer from the various problems which held Invisible War back. Although it is not without its own problems such as a slightly confusing story, patchy voice-acting and the awful boss fights, in the grand scheme of things Human Revolution is a great Deus Ex game filled with secrets, collusion and conspiracy, and that alone is worth considerable celebration.

Human Revolution is a prequel to the original game, set in the still reasonably futuristic year of 2027. In the first game, Agent J.C. Denton works for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition (UNATCO) based out of Liberty Island, New York, and some of the events of Human Revolution lay the foundation for the establishment of that organisation. Our hero here is Adam Jensen, head of security for Detroit-based biotech corporation Sarif Industries. Headed by David Sarif, the company is primarily involved in the development of mechanical augmentations, which allow people to access super-human abilities such as night-vision, super strength and so on. Sarif Industries is making major strides towards allowing mechanical augmentations to be used by anyone who can afford it, potentially creating a new class division between those who with augmentations and those without. In the game's prologue, the Sarif headquarters are supposedly attacked by anti-augmentation activists, who steal vital research and leave Adam barely clinging to life, whilst killing Adam's former love interest, Dr. Megan Reed. In order to save Jensen's life, the Sarif doctors decide to perform invasive and complex augmentation operations, thereby turning Adam overnight into one of the most augmented people in the world. From here, the plot takes numerous twists and turns, nothing of which is overly unexpected but which is certainly interesting and true to the mysterious ethos of Deus Ex. The plot is not as engaging as the original game, partly because the conspiracy is not made as overtly obvious as it is in the original, despite visiting locales depicting facilities owned by such suspicious organisations as FEMA and the World Health Organization. However, the ethical considerations of augmentation vs. purity are explored more thoroughly here than ever before, and present a number of philosophical questions with no simple answers.

Gameplay is a mixture of several elements, the main ones being stealth, shooting and talking. Deus Ex is remembered for always giving you several different methods and paths to approach a given scenario (such as in the oft-quoted Liberty Island level), and Human Revolution works hard to try and give the same freedom here. In the introductory mission Jensen is tasked with infiltrating a Sarif factory which has been overrun by terrorists, and he can either sneak in over the roof, dodge around the guards on the ground, or go for an all guns blazing frontal attack. The choice is left entirely to the player and depending on your choice, characters may interact with you differently or the flow of the plot may subtly shift. Whilst in the original game stealth was somewhat clunky, here it is much more refined and polished. Thanks to a context-sensitive cover system, Jensen can stick to objects in the environment and shimmy along behind them, popping up to either shoot bad guys or to jump-roll from one piece of cover to the next. Although the game is played primarily in first person, the camera pulls out to a third person, Gears of War/Uncharted-esque angle whenever you take cover, which makes shooting from cover a lot easier because you can see much more of what is going on. You also have augmentations which can help you get around silently, such as a cloaking device which can obscure you from potential enemies.

The shooting is perfectly solid, but not great. It feels kind of like Mass Effect 2 but has none of the precision and finesse which that game pulls off so well. You are given a variety of both lethal and non-lethal methods of taking down opponents, and ammunition for both can often be quite scarce. Sometimes the less aggressive approach can yield better results, but inevitably there will come a time when the guards are alerted to your presence, and mowing down the enemy normally isn't too much trouble, partly because their AI can be pretty patchy in some places. Adam also has melee takedowns which he can give to characters if he is close enough, of both the lethal and non-lethal kind. These always look cool even after multiple uses, and can easily diffuse a tense situation where a guard wasn't happy about you sneaking into that air vent.

The complicated inventory and character upgrade system of the first game has been toned down slightly, but is still here to a degree which is appropriate. There is still limited space in your inventory which means you must play a little game of Tetris to get everything to fit correctly (although you can have it auto-sorted for you), and the augmentation system has been streamlined for the better. Now you purchase Praxis points to unlock new augmentations and abilities, which are earned either by gaining 5,000XP or by buying them using Credits from LIMB Clinics placed around the world. The variety of augmentations and skills is down on that of the first game (nothing devoted purely to Swimming here), but almost every one feels useful in its own right, from the speech upgrade which will let you charm characters into giving you useful information, to hacking upgrades which will allow you to break into more complicated computer systems. Speaking of hacking, the mini-game used in Human Revolution is simple, clever and efficient, and very reminiscent of the Introversion Software game Uplink. You jump from node to node towards the computer core, but if the anti-virus software detects your intrusion a timer will click down showing the amount of time left before you are detected and kicked from the system.

Graphically Human Revolution is an extremely pretty game. The colour scheme often has a de-saturated black and gold look to it and most locations have a realistic looking feel to them which nonetheless is appropriately futuristic. Lower Hengsha especially looks great with the flashing neon lights and the upper city towering above it, shrouding the neighbourhood in permanent night time. Close up some of the textures can occasionally look rather blurry, but this is easily overlooked. Characters animate in a convincing way (although the lip syncing sometimes lets the side down), and the attention to detail in some of the environments is very impressive (I especially enjoyed the poster in Pritchard's tech lab). When examining the sound, Human Revolution stands up well. The orchestral soundtrack doesn't have the same punch as the original Deus Ex theme, but it works very well given the setting and subject matter. Incidental sound effects and noises are similarly effective. Voice acting is something of a mixed bag, with some stand out greats alongside downright failures. Whilst Hugh Darrow and William Taggart come across with a great deal of gravitas, David Sarif sounds rather like a used car salesman, which may or may not influence your opinion of him. Adam Jensen himself is fine and in keeping with the Deus Ex history, because he sounds exactly like JC Denton: Gravelly and emotionless, just the way we like it.

Easily Human Revolution's worst crime however, is the boss fights. There are four of these dropped throughout the game, and they totally break flow with what Deus Ex is all about: Player choice. During the boss fights, you have to kill the enemy you are faced against, and there is no other way to get round it. In the original game, if you were inventive there were ways to get around situations where it seemed like you had to kill someone, but not so here. They are so out of place that even the achievement for getting through the whole game without killing anyone has to meekly admit this excludes the boss fights. What is even more astonishing is that these sequences were outsourced from Edios Montreal to a studio who had never before even heard of Deus Ex before being invited in. I have nothing against outsourcing (indeed, the PC version was optimised by Nixxes Entertainment, who did a great job by the way), but when it is done at the cost of sacrificing a core tenet of what a game stands for, it is inexcusable. That said, if you just grit your teeth and bear it you can push through these boss fights pretty easily, but it's just a shame they are there at all. This is especially true given the fact that to counter-point these fights there are a number of critical verbal exchanges where Adam must convince a character to do or not to do something, and these are among the best sequences in the game.

If you look past the boss battles, Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a lot to love. It still has the mystery, conspiracy and intrigue which has always been at the series core, but it now supports that with a much stronger gameplay aspect in the form of the stealth mechanics. Coupled with plenty of dialogue, computers to hack and emails to read, it creates an interestingly detailed world which keeps the player engaged. If, in the next Deus Ex game (which I both hope for and know there will be) they cut the boss encounters and improve the shooting, I think Deus Ex will have truly entered a new renaissance.

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"gbrading reviewed Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the PC..." was posted by gbrading on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:46:51 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/deus-ex-human-revolution/user-reviews/777664/platform/pc/ Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:56:36 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed Assassin's Creed for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/assassins-creed/user-reviews/776190/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

Assassin's Creed (retrospective)
Platform: Xbox 360
Released: November 13, 2007

.:::Preamble:::.

Assassin's Creed has become one of the most well-received and commercially successful new IP's of this current console generation. I first played the game shortly after buying my Xbox 360 in July 2008 (probably August or September 2008). I remember my first experience with the game to be breath-taking, and being thoroughly impressed with every aspect of it.

Now, 4 years later, looking back, and another two iterations in the series under my belt... I feel the need to give this game the review it deserves. Granted, I've gone back to this game a few times and replayed it, and despite still enjoying it, discovered what others have criticized it for. Mostly repetitive elements and no variety.

.:::Gameplay:::.

This game focuses mostly around the idea of being an assassin in broad daylight. When we normally think of assassinations, we think of skulking in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, and then disappearing without a trace. The type of assassin introduced in this game, for the series, is quite the opposite. The point of the assassin in Altair's world, is to make the killings very public, and make those who knew the victim well aware that there is a reason for them to being targeted.

The basic gameplay revolves around three major sequences. 1) The "travel" phase, where Altair travels to his destination (usually on horseback). 2) The "setup" phase where Altair scouts the area around where the target is, finding out side paths, guard locations and hiding spots. And 3) the "attack" phase where Altair carries out the assassination of the target, and subsequent escape.

During the "attack" phase, after killing the target, the player has to escape, which usually involves lots of running, or if the player feels up to it, fighting. The combat in this game is pretty straight forward. Either the player uses the "block-counter" strategy, or risks the "offensive" strategy. The latter is usually used to break a line and escape, while the former tends to be the most used.

"Social stealth" is another important elements within this game (and series). As mentioned, these assassinations take place during the day, and hiding in the shadows isn't possible. So Ubisoft attempted to come up with a way of allowing the player to "blend" with the crowd, either by hiding amongst a group of monks or sitting on a bench. Now, in the first game, it brings mixed results. The idea is extremely innovative and adds a whole new depth to the stealth-action genre, but the way in which it was executed, and how little it is actually used, is somewhat disappointing (they make up for it in later games mind you).

"Free-running" is the staple for movement in this game. A more "pragmatic" form of parkour (the art of moving over/under/around objects with little-to-no-resistance), it gives the player the ability to climb any surface with an edge jutting out about an inch. Walls, towers and roofs are no problem for Altair. Which is one of my main complaints for the entire series. As much as I understand that this is a "game," I don't like the fact that no matter how high I climb, or how long, the protagonist never loses his footing/grip (except in later games when being bombarded by stones by guards). It definitely would be a balance/difficulty problem, but it is an oversight I think reduces the immersive quality of the game (series).

Criticisms can be laid against the gameplay only in that it doesn't have much variety and there are some aspects that could use some significant polish and fleshing out. It is good, but could be much better.

.:::Controls:::.

I remember Jade Raymond discussing the controls at E3 2007, and was intrigued by how they simplified the inputs to mostly three elements. The left stick for movement control, the right trigger for "high/low profile" toggling and the face buttons controlling the four aspects of the body (A for feet, X/B for hands and Y for head). This intuitive step is one I applaud because I've played many games where certain elements of gameplay are mapped to any button, whether it works or not.

.:::Graphics (technical):::.

For its time, it definitely was one of the best looking games available. The engine itself is extremely impressive given the scale of the cities and how there is no loading times between any areas. Today, we take things like this for granted, but really, back then, this was all new for the "next-gen" platforms, at this level of fidelity. I can't remember any specific instances of any severe performance issues.

.:::Graphics (artistic):::.

The E3 trailers set the tone perfectly for this game, and despite it taking a "realistic" approach to rendering the world, there is definitely some art design in it as well. The "future" sections at Abstergo having that cold, technological ambiance, while the past is full of colour and brightness, really contrasts well between the two timelines. Altair himself wears a (now) iconic outfit that definitely sets him apart from others in the action-adventure genre.

.:::Sound/Music:::.

I can't really remember having any issues with either. The themes are somewhat memorable, but nothing iconic at this point (the sequel brings some very iconic tracks however). The sound design works for what it was intended, and the ambient crowd really sells the "living city" feel.

.:::Atmosphere/Immersion:::.

Overall, the world Ubisoft created with this game is very immersive. Perhaps not for everyone, but the design of the engine, combined with the sound and gameplay is top-shelf. A part of me can't help but feel like there is something in the first AC game that just didn't translate to the Ezio trilogy so far. Perhaps it is the Middle Eastern setting, or just something about the pacing, but there is something unique about this game, despite its faults. It definitely makes it worth playing first.

.:::Story/Characters:::.

Very straight forward with a giant twist right at the end (which becomes the standard for the series). I generally don't discuss a story in any sort of detail (I hate spoilers) so I will just say that I enjoy the story in AC, and the rest of the series. Its mix of sci-fi and historical fiction is extremely intriguing.

The characters are pretty bland and generic, but they get the job done. There is an ambiguity/mystery surrounding Altair that I like, and Desmond's confused nature reflects a lot of what the player experiences their first time through. The others are mostly forgettable until the end.

.:::Content/Variety:::.

There really isn't much of either to talk about here. There is a basic structure as discussed in previous sections, but unlike its successor, AC does little to build on any of it, and it ends before basically everything in the game is even developed enough. It feels like a long tech demo, but it introduces the player to an ever-improving series in a way that works well enough.

.:::Value:::.

I would pay no more than $40 for this experience had I known what I was getting into (fortunately, that is about as much as I did pay for it). There isn't much replay value at all (beyond experiencing the same thing again out of sheer enjoyment) and the total length of the game (barring gathering all the flags and achievements) isn't that long.

.:::Difficulty:::.

Easy. I remember several deaths were due to glitches as well. It isn't a cakewalk, but it isn't really that challenging either. Its repetitive pacing will get on some people's nerves, but overall, it is very easy to get into, and to finish.

.:::Conclusion:::.

As far as I'm concerned, AC and the series as a whole, are quickly becoming one of my favourite of the generation. The over-arching narrative, twists and development of the characters and world really grabs onto me and has sold now, three games (soon four) over the course of 5 years. I have encountered numerous people who dislike either this game, or the series as a whole, so it definitely isn't for everyone. That said, I would recommend it to anyone who is deep into the mainstream action-adventure genre.

As far as scoring is concerned, as much as I liked it the first time through, the glaring issues are hard to ignore looking back. It is a solid game, but there was just so much potential. Ask me in late 2008 how much I enjoyed the game and I probably would have given it a 9+... but now, after its two sequels, I find it very difficult to even give it a 7.5. There is just so many things that could have been better in the game, and while the sequels did improve them, they just aren't in this game.

.:::Quick Stats:::.

Score: 7.5/10
Recommendation: Action-Adventure fans
Value: $40 or less

-----

NOTE: All statements expressed in this review are the opinion of the writer. They in no way reflect an objective analysis of the game's content, and any bad purchases made on behalf of this review are not the writer's fault. We all have our own unique preferences, so try before you buy.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"foxhound_fox reviewed Assassin's Creed for the Xbox 360..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 07:56:36 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/assassins-creed/user-reviews/776190/platform/xbox360/ Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:21:11 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed Driver: San Francisco for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/driver-san-francisco/user-reviews/774597/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

*DISCLAIMER*

This review is by no means an objective analysis of the games inherent quality, or a representation of anything other than the reviewer's personal experiences with the game. Any recommendations given out are based merely on the preferences of the writer and are by no means a guide for the reader to warrant purchases. Any reader should take this review with a grain of salt and if they are unsure as to whether the game will please them, to try it out before buying, as we all have our own personal preferences.

-REVIEW-

Driver is back. And better than ever.

When I first tried the demo for this game, I was apathetic. It seemed weirdly ridiculous and odd. Then after some coaxing, I tried it again, and instead of playing the demo, I just fooled around with the "Shift" mechanic, and discovered what made the game shine. And does it shine.

--

Gameplay

The game revolves entirely around the "Shift" mechanics, which allows the protagonist, John Tanner (recurring since the beginning of the series) to instantly "leave" a car, and jump into another. It removes walking, which was the bane of both Driver 2 and the horrid DRIV3R. This speeding up of down time between missions, activities and just moving from one place to the next, increases the fun-to-time ratio beyond what any other driving or racing game has done in the past. It really is an exceptionally innovative and ingenious creation, that despite requiring significant suspension of disbelief, works incredibly well.

The driving is what this game focuses on, so it should be good. Fortunately, it isn't good, it is great. It finds the perfect medium between "arcade" physics and "masochistic simulation" physics. I tend to define it as "Hollywood-style action driving," or more simply "stunt driving." It is over-the-top, but still feels like a real vehicle (the 140+ licensed vehicles also add a nice touch).

There are hundreds of things to do in this game, and it forces you at points to go out and try something new. Races (on- and off-road), chases, tailings, takedowns, stunts, risky dares, checkpoint runs, movie-based challenges, armored-car defense and adrenaline pumping maniac-driving runs sum up just the basic set of mission types in this game. There is never a point where the player could get bored unless they hate driving/racing games. The variety is a selling point of this game, and it has it in spades.

Everything the player does accumulates "Willpower Points" a form of currency used to buy new cars and upgrades (that include a boost, ram, token finder and income multiplier). The riskier the things you do, the more you make. It is a nice way of letting the player choose how to unlock things.

Sound/Music

Muscle cars grunt, semi horns blast, tries SCREECH and everything sounds great. The soundtrack has a wide variety of tunes, mostly from the 1970's, but thankfully, one can switch the track at anytime with the d-pad.

Technical Design/Graphics

60 fps. Sixty frames per second. Something the modern video game industry should have as a standard for every game. The smooth locked framerate makes everything feel incredibly visceral and the almost complete lack of slowdown (only with TOO much stuff going on in very late missions) perfects the experience. This is exactly what a gameplay-focused game should be like.

The graphics themselves are not the best the generation has to offer, but the 200+ square miles of road with no loading times, the above-mentioned framerate and the hundreds of cars on the road at any one time are a good excuse for the lack of high-fidelity graphics.

There is some minor pop-in every once in a while when a car appears close by without any notice, but I have only noticed it a handful of times. Overall, no serious problems with the graphics (for the 360 version at least).

Art Design

Yellow lines, sepia filter and tire smoke sum up this game's art style. It isn't the most original, but its consistency and context within the story sell the world quite well and set it apart from other driving/racing games out there going for the "realistic" look.

Story

It is ridiculous. Silly even. But it works. The CG cutscenes mixed in with game graphics add a great level of detail for the conversations. The ending fits, but it is kind of a let down how quickly it turns up, and how easy it is to beat.

Content/Value

As of the writing of this review, I estimate that I put at least 35-40 hours into the game (and 10+ into the demo). I have finished half the dares, 3/4 of the activities and all the story. I'm missing about 30% of the cars (some of which cost hundreds of thousands of WP points). There is a lot more I need to do and there is a "New Game Plus" feature that lets you start the story over again with your current unlocks. Not to mention a whole multiplayer portion with 19 different game modes that I haven't even touched yet. If one is a fan of cars and driving, this game will not disappoint in terms of content.

Difficulty

The game is pretty easy for a veteran of the series (who is used to missions that required 25-30 tries to beat) and probably would be pretty easy for anyone used to playing driving or racing games. The driving mechanics are very forgiving and accessible, and while the difficulty steadily increases over the course of the game, nothing is really unfair (like Driver 2's final mission).

--

-Overall-

There are a few gripes I had.

- The lack of a day/night cycle ~ they even have the engine coded for time of day (I've had dusk and dawn missions) and different weather... but it cannot be accessed in Free Drive. It annoys me.
- The citizenry are a bunch of brainless boobs ~ at least they TRY to stop and get out of the way when I'm in oncoming traffic, but they usually just stop right in my way.
- The head-on-stop ~ when you head on a car, be it police, enemy or citizen, it just stops and pushes you, making it necessary to back off and turn around them. I found this out the hard way a few times.
- The difficulty ~ more accurately, the lack thereof. The Driver games are known for their crippling difficulty, but I've barely failed a mission due to anything other than personal error.
- The lack of trams ~ THIS IS SAN FRANCISCO! And there are tram rails everywhere. Even the original Driver in its highly-pixelated goodness had a couple trams rolling around the city... where are they?

But aside from these issues, the game is extremely well-made, with a high amount of passion for getting it right. There are a bunch of things that could be polished up a little more, or added in (the day/night cycle especially) to make it better. But as a driving game, it is easily one of the best this generation of gaming has seen, and definitely would be worth playing for anyone who is a fan of the old Driver's, car-chase movies and just driving in general. This is the true sequel to Driver (PS) that gaming has been waiting for. Welcome the Wheelman back, because he's not going away this time!

Verdict: 9.0/10

Note on score: The way I score games does not in any way reflect its content or quality. This score is merely a quantification of how much I enjoyed playing the game, and how "good" of a game it is to me. As the reader, you may disagree entirely, but this is how I felt about the game, and not how I think others *should* feel about it. Go and try it for yourself before you decide whether or not its worth your time and money. I am merely writing this review for my own benefit. If you get something from it, that's great.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"foxhound_fox reviewed Driver: San Francisco for the Xbox 360..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:21:11 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/driver-san-francisco/user-reviews/774597/platform/xbox360/ Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:02:10 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed DRIV3R for the PlayStation 2... http://www.gamespot.com/driv3r/user-reviews/773471/platform/ps2/ ...and gave it a 1.5.

*DISCLAIMER*

This review is by no means an objective analysis of the games inherent quality, or a representation of anything other than the reviewer's personal experiences with the game. Any recommendations given out are based merely on the preferences of the writer and are by no means a guide for the reader to warrant purchases. Any reader should take this review with a grain of salt and if they are unsure as to whether the game will please them, to try it out before buying, as we all have our own personal preferences.

-REVIEW-

This is one of those few occasions where I can say very easily that I "hate" a game. There is just so much wrong with this game that trying to sift out the good is just a test in patience rather than one of enjoyment. Everything is mired with technical problems, poor implementation or is just downright stupid.

Being a huge fan of the original two Driver's on the PS, this was pretty much the biggest disappointment I've ever had in my entire gaming lifetime.

--

Gameplay

All of the elements from the original games are here, but the attempt on behalf of Reflections to integrate GTA elements alongside of them just left all of them drowning in a sea of filth. The controls work moderately well in a vehicle, but the way in which they control Tanner on -foot is just embarrassing. The gunplay is awful, unintuitive and completely unnecessary.

The biggest issue in the single player portion of the game is that the missions don't focus on driving, many of them focus on shooting and running around, combining poor design with horrible controls just causes a lot of problems and severe frustration.

There are a few moments where some enjoyable things shine through the mountain of manure, but they are few and far between, and its hard to enjoy them due to the lingering smell.

Sound/Music

Generic tracks and sound effects. Nothing horrible but nothing good.

Technical Design/Graphics

Framerate drops are everywhere. The engine definitely exceeds the capabilities of the hardware, and the drops get to the point where the action on-screen almost comes to a complete stop. Had this game been released on more powerful hardware, with better polish, this wouldn't have been a problem... but "reach far exceeding grasp" comes heavily into play here.

Art Design

Not much art in this game. It was clearly designed to look "realistic" and it is all mostly bland and extremely underwhelming visually.

Story

Considering I could not even force myself to go beyond Miami (The Gator's mission finished me), I cannot really comment on the story. However, it seems unfocused and all over the place from what I gathered. This was another problem the series faced in the previous iteration (Driver 2). Jumping from city to city required some ridiculous reasons to get the characters to move, and they usually just undermine the whole story.

Content/Value

There is definitely a lot of content here, but when most of it is either broken, unenjoyable or just boring, it really makes for a game that really isn't worth playing, at any price. I paid $15 for a mint-condition copy of the game, and feel like I was completely ripped off. This game is not worth anyone's time or money. It is an embarrassment to the series and the developers, and denying its existence can only help Reflections in their future efforts.

Difficulty

It can be all over the place, from laughably easy, to downright impossible, and the cop AI that seems to always be faster than the player just makes this game cheap and frustrating. Not challenging or fun.

--

-Overall-

There is barely anything in this game worth commenting positively on. There was a lot of potential for it to be a great game, but the attempt on behalf of Reflections to turn it from a driving-focused game into Grand Theft Auto caused a lack of focus and ended up ruining the entire effort. It really is a shame considering how promising Driver: San Francisco is and how this game's poor execution and infamous reputation will keep people from enjoying an effort that did everything right when this did everything wrong.

Don't play it. Get Driver on the PS or San Francisco on PS3/360/PC and avoid this game like the plague. It isn't worth it. Even to see "how bad" it really is.

Verdict: 1.5/10

Note on score: The way I score games does not in any way reflect its content or quality. This score is merely a quantification of how much I enjoyed playing the game, and how "good" of a game it is to me. As the reader, you may disagree entirely, but this is how I felt about the game, and not how I think others *should* feel about it. Go and try it for yourself before you decide whether or not its worth your time and money. I am merely writing this review for my own benefit. If you get something from it, that's great.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"foxhound_fox reviewed DRIV3R for the PlayStation 2..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:02:10 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/driv3r/user-reviews/773471/platform/ps2/ Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:52:03 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed Bayonetta for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/bayonetta/user-reviews/772418/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 10.0!!!

*DISCLAIMER*

This review is by no means an objective analysis of the games inherent quality, or a representation of anything other than the reviewer's personal experiences with the game. Any recommendations given out are based merely on the preferences of the writer and are by no means a guide for the reader to warrant purchases. Any reader should take this review with a grain of salt and if they are unsure as to whether the game will please them, to try it out before buying, as we all have our own personal preferences.

-REVIEW-

"Evolution of the genre" is what I believe describes this game best. With Ninja Gaiden, Devil May Cry and God of War, action games might be getting bigger budgets but they are not innovating the genre, and pushing boundaries of what is possible. They live by the mantra "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Enter Bayonetta, a game that for all intents and purposes, if not made by Platinum Games and Hideki Kamiya, would have just been another tree in the forest. But since it is made by P* and Kamiya, the man who basically invented the modern action genre, it is the next big step for it moving forwards.

--

Gameplay

Gratuitous sexuality aside, this is where the game absolutely shines. It flows seamlessly, it is brutal and it can be punishing if one is not willing to learn how to actually BE Bayonetta (i.e. take full advantage of Witch Time). It is faster than DMC and more action-packed than almost anything I have ever played (other than possibly Vanquish). The combo structure is based on two buttons, but combined with the weapon selection has almost infinite possibilities.

Sound/Music

The music is not something I would listen to on its own, but it fits the style of the game perfectly. The voice acting is good, not the greatest, but for a localized game, it is great.

Technical Design/Graphics

60fps with moderate slow downs during massive sequences, but overall smooth as butter (and rightly so). From a distance everything looks fantastic, but up close, one can see a lack of texture detail. Overall it is nothing detrimental.

Art Design

Unlike anything else. It is somewhat reminiscent of Devil May Cry 4, but goes way out there in terms of ridiculousness. Colourful, vibrant and it shows that those who made it were passionate about making something new and special.

Story

A pretty straight-forward story that makes its twists extremely obvious, but overall sells the universe quite well. Comparisons to DMC abound, it sets itself apart with the conflict between the Umbra Witches and Lumen Sages, which if developed into a franchise, could be fantastic.

Content/Value

About 10-15 hours long (first time) spread over multiple difficulties, with tons of extra unlockable content and a combo system that allows for infinite combinations makes "replay value" seem cheap for any other game.

Difficulty

Normal is actually pretty accessible and challenging but fair. Hard and Infinite Climax are, well, hard as f***. Like DMC, they will provide a lasting, and almost insurmountable challenge for those willing to invest the time and energy into surpassing them. The controls are pretty basic and well displayed when new concepts are introduced.

--

-Overall-

I think this game has made the traditional action game defunct. There is a level of action here that can barely be appreciated in a single playthrough and goes well beyond even the Devil May Cry series (aside from DMC3SE).

Verdict: 10/10

Note on score: The way I score games does not in any way reflect its content or quality. This score is merely a quantification of how much I enjoyed playing the game, and how "good" of a game it is to me. As the reader, you may disagree entirely, but this is how I felt about the game, and not how I think others *should* feel about it. Go and try it for yourself before you decide whether or not its worth your time and money. I am merely writing this review for my own benefit. If you get something from it, that's great.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"foxhound_fox reviewed Bayonetta for the Xbox 360..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:52:03 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/bayonetta/user-reviews/772418/platform/xbox360/ Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:17:31 -0700 GAMECAMILLER reviewed FlingSmash for the Wii... http://www.gamespot.com/flingsmash/user-reviews/767111/platform/wii/ ...and gave it a 4.0.

FlingSmash is the pack in game for the Wii's new and improved controller, the Wii Remote Plus, that features a Wii motion plus built in. As a pack in title, FlingSmash gets a lot of things right, but fails the most important part - the controls.

FlingSmash puts you in control of Zip or Pip, the guardians of the island under attack by dark forces. They have the power to bounce and well...smash things. Using the Wii Remote Plus or a Wii remote with a motion plus attachment, you have to smash Zip or Pip around like a tennis ball to earn points and destroy everything in your path. Your main objective is to earn 3 coins in each stage to unlock the pearl at the end to advance to the next stage.

There's 3 stages and 1 boss in each of the 8 worlds, with unlockable bonus minigames and 1 or 2 player gameplay.

In terms of graphics, FlingSmash is colorful, in classic Nintendo fashion, featuring a decent upbeat music score. Up to this point it seems FlingSmash has the makings of being a great pack in title.

The problem is, that FlingSmash fails miserably when it comes to controls. Swinging the Wii remote often sends Zip or Pip in a direction you didn't intend to go. Many times did I swing left, the character wen right. Swing up, he went down instead. Even recalibrating the remote many times did not help. I even tried the new remote on other Wii games, which worked fine. The Conclusion? FlingSmash just is not made to properly read the remote's reactions.

This leads to numerous frustrations, retrying of levels needlessly, and just no fun in the end and makes the game fall apart.

It's a shame. FlingSmash had the makings of a great pack in title, as it did everything right, but the controls. Which when it comes to the new Wii Remote Plus, is a double shame - as the pack in doesn't not showcase how great the new controller is.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"GAMECAMILLER reviewed FlingSmash for the Wii..." was posted by GAMECAMILLER on Sat, 11 Jun 2011 01:17:31 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/flingsmash/user-reviews/767111/platform/wii/ Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:26:55 -0700 GabuEx reviewed L.A. Noire for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/l-a-noire/user-reviews/766411/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 7.5.

I know people are already preparing their flamethrowers in response to the above score, so let me say up front that this was a very painful score to give. I really, really wanted to love L.A. Noire. The extent to which its creators gave it their time, their care, their dedication, and their all shine through like the noon sun on a cloudless sky. This game has all the makings of greatness. Yet, I would be lying to my readers if I didn't say that I found it to ultimately fall short in terms of emotional engagement and interest, or rather, its lack thereof. I still like it. But I can't bring myself to love it.

Before I go any further, though, let's back up a bit and go over the factual specifics about the game. In L.A. Noire, you play as Cole Phelps, a World War II veteran who made his mark in the Pacific campaign and earned the Silver Star there, and then joined the police force upon his return home. He begins the game as a patrolman, but after a series of successes (which also double as the game's tutorial missions), he is promoted to detective, at which point the real meat of the game begins.

Over the course of the game, which is fairly lengthy - it spans 3 discs on the Xbox 360 and took me a considerable amount of time to finish, well into the double-digits of hours - Phelps will go through four different desks on the force, those being traffic, homicide, vice, and arson. During his stay in each desk, he'll be tasked with solving crimes within that field. For example, while working traffic, he gets a case of two people found unconscious in a car that slammed into a sign, with ample evidence of foul play; on the other hand, while working homicide, he gets a case of a woman strangled to death and then left in the middle of a park. Many of these cases have a unifying theme between them that links some of them together, as Phelps comes to realize that the crimes are related.

There are four different modes of gameplay in the game, and any given case can easily transition between all four before it's solved. First, there's investigation - this involves combing through a scene of a crime or a scene of interest (such as a suspect's house), looking for any clues pertinent to the case. When Phelps comes across something of interest, the controller vibrates and a chime sounds, alerting you to the fact that you might have found something. Second, there's interrogation - this involves asking a person a series of questions. Each time the person responds, you have the option of either believing the person and asking for further detail, of casting doubt on what the person said, or of accusing the person of lying and presenting evidence indicating as much. Choosing correctly allows Phelps to gain additional clues and insight into the case. Third, there are chases - these typically involve chasing a fleeing suspect through the streets of L.A., either in a car on on foot, trying to make the suspect stop so he or she can be apprehended. Fourth, there are gunfights - these are basically what it says on the tin: you have a number of bad guys with guns trying to kill you and your job is to kill them all.

To be sure, L.A. Noire has a lot going for it, and I'm sure that someone who places more emphasis on that would give this game a very different score than I've given it. For starters, the game is a very good showcase for Rockstar's new facial capture technology, which combines the reading from several cameras around the person to get a 3D model of the person's face. Although the technology still has a ways to go - they really need to figure out how to better synchronize the face with the body - it goes a long way just as they claimed it would towards closing the so-called "uncanny valley", that being the situation where 3D models look very realistic, but don't "act human", making the viewer well aware that they're not looking at a real human being.

The attention to detail in the game, as well, is just jaw-dropping. The game has hundreds and hundreds of blocks of 1940s Los Angeles, all rendered in an extremely faithful form - the people, the cars, the buildings, the billboards, the prices, the phone numbers, the products: everything feels just like it's actually from the 1940s. The crimes, as well, are in fact also authentic, insofar as they're inspired by actual crimes that occurred in Los Angeles in the 1940s, although they have of course been sufficiently fictionalized in order to fit the video game. The extent to which Team Bondi went to create a real, 1940s Los Angeles experience, is truly commendable.

Unfortunately, however, the excellent parts of the game are largely aesthetic in nature, while the more negative parts of the game are more integral. For starters, I found the story in the game to be, unfortunately, just not that interesting when all was said and done. Despite threads tying them together and attempting to make them a unified whole, the cases in the game were largely overly segregated and felt too episodic in nature. There were repeat offenders between cases, for sure, but that was far in the background, and the immediate facts in each case presented basically a brand new selection of suspects, victims, witnesses, and so forth, never really giving the game a chance to go very deep into any train of thought. Furthermore, because every case saw brand new faces, there was actually very little bona fide character development or intra-character chemistry in the game at all. The few situations where there were recurring characters who did interact with each other multiple times, it never failed to feel superficial, either - by the end of the game, I really didn't feel as though I knew any of the characters much better than when they were first introduced. There were a few glimmerings of character development in the course of the game, but they were fleeting.

Two of the four game modes enumerated above also were, in my evaluation, not done very well at all. The investigation portions of the game was one of them. There's no real obvious indicator regarding what's a clue and what's just part of the background, so investigations often degrade into just wandering around aimlessly, hoping to feel your controller vibrate in response to something that you may not even be able to see, and then just repeating that until the location is crossed off in the pause screen, indicating that you've found everything. This can get very tedious and boring, and really does not advance anything in the game much. You can use "intuition points", which you pick up by doing well in the game, in order to reveal all of the clues hidden in an area - but then that's basically just cheating.

The other mode in the game that wasn't done very well was the interrogations. These were supposed to be the prime showcase of the game's facial capture technology, since you're supposed to need to watch the subject and try to tell whether or not they're being truthful, but the very simplistic and arbitrary nature of much of these portions of the game more or less kill any engagement that they might otherwise have contained. For starters, to determine whether the person is being truthful or not, there's basically just three signs to look for: does the person respond in a very abrupt manner, does the person's eyes dart around like they've got a contact lens caught in them, and does the person visibly swallow repeatedly? If any of those are true, the person's probably not being truthful.

Even if you know that this is the case, though, the difference between the three options is not very well-established, either. As it happens, "Truth" is basically only selected when the person is giving you the 100%, swear-to-God, whole, full truth; if the person is even just not mentioning something on the side, you may need to pick "Doubt" or "Lie" even if what they said was probably true. And even if you know it's "Doubt" or "Lie", it's often not at all obvious which is correct, since the meaning behind each clue is not always immediately apparent. As such, interrogations would often boil down to just a plain old coin flip for me, with no obvious indicators telling me one way or another. Needless to say, this does not make for very interesting gameplay.

I should give kudos where it's due, though: the chases and gunfights were significantly better and more exciting than these two modes.

The game also has very little replay value once it's done, as well. Unlike GTA, you play as a cop in this game, so there isn't much sandbox fun to be had at citizens' expense. There are "street crimes" that you can attend to if you so choose, which are basically side missions not related to the main case, but these tend to be short, and have nothing at all to do with the main story, as far as I could tell, so these don't make for very interesting adventures, and by the end of the game I was just completely ignoring requests the game prompted me with to deal with street crime.

The soundtrack in the game wasn't remarkable, but at the same time that's kind of to be expected - the soundtrack was definitely faithful both to the 1940s and to the film noir genre, so I can't fault them too much for that.

All in all, L.A. Noire is a very polarized game. What it does well, it does really, really well. What it doesn't do well, however, it does quite poorly indeed. Its aesthetics and attention to detail are absolutely top-notch, but its story, characters, and gameplay leave much to be desired. What one concludes about the worth of L.A. Noire will thus depend very heavily on what one values. As I value story and characters very highly, the game's lack of creativity and interest in those areas killed it for me. One who doesn't care so much about those aspects could quite easily like the game significantly more.

The bottom line I'd give is that if you want to check out Rockstar's new facial capture technology, or if you want to experience a game that very faithfully recreates Los Angeles as it was in the 1940s, then you should definitely check out L.A. Noire. If on the other hand you're looking for an engaging detective story with great characters and a gripping narrative, then you might want to look elsewhere.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"GabuEx reviewed L.A. Noire for the Xbox 360..." was posted by GabuEx on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 01:26:55 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/l-a-noire/user-reviews/766411/platform/xbox360/ Sun, 22 May 2011 11:56:58 -0700 gbrading reviewed Fallout: New Vegas for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/fallout-new-vegas/user-reviews/765420/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

The post-apocalypse is such a contradiction in terms. The very idea of there being a post-apocalypse should be nonsense, since the apocalypse it meant to be "the end of things". However, over the past few decades a rich seem of post-apocalyptic fiction has grown and matured, and the Fallout series has been leading the way in terms of video games in this field. In 2008, Fallout 3 brought the much-loved role-playing franchise into the new world, updating the classic gameplay to suit a more modern audience. While Bethesda Softworks' game borrowed many traits from Oblivion, was rather buggy and wasn't particularly beautiful, it was nonetheless a richly detailed and immersive game, which took you to the ruins of a retro-futuristic Washington D.C. and let you wander about as you saw fit. There were many locations to explore, characters to talk with and quests to be solved. All in all, it was a spectacular experience. New Vegas on the other hand may at first glance look like something of an anomaly: Not a fully-fledged sequel, but more of a spin-off. However, this is a game which is keen to point out that looks can be deceiving. Fallout: New Vegas is far better written, less buggy and more true to the series roots of Fallout that its predecessor, and in many places manages to overcome the aging graphics engine which holds it together. Although it occasionally suffers from a lack of originality, there is more than enough new and exciting content to make your stay in the Post-Apocalyptic Mojave Wasteland a very enjoyable one.

If you've played Fallout 3 or any of the Fallout series prior, you will know that the game takes place in an alternative, retro-futuristic future. The split from our timeline is thought to have occurred sometime in the 1950s, with society stagnating and many social norms and ideals remaining relatively stable for the next hundred years. This Brave New World is one which we imagined might be possible in the 50s, and which Fallout brings to life. Although the transistor was never invented, great leaps forward in science and engineering have been made so that by the mid 2050s, robots were commonplace and everyone drove cars with mini nuclear-cores. However, the world was not a stable place, with a series of Resource Wars between the United States and Communist China growing ever deadlier, including an attempted Chinese takeover of Alaska. Finally, things came to ahead on 22nd October 2077, when all-out nuclear war was declared. The bombs fell, and most of humanity was erased from existence. However, it was not the end which many had predicted, to borrow a phrase. In the US, many citizens hid in vast underground bunkers called Vaults, built by Vault-Tec to protect the general public in the event of a nuclear catastrophe (or at least, this is what Vault-Tec let everyone to believe). Those not protected by the Vaults were killed, mutated or eventually devolved into murderous raiders. The United States of America as a functioning country has ceased to exist, and instead smaller factions have established a hold over various areas. The game takes place 204 years after this war, 4 years after the events of Fallout 3. For the most part, references to Fallout 3 are extremely minimal, and I am prone to thinking that this was a wise decision.

For the first time in the series you are not actually a Vault-Dweller, but instead are a Courier who has grown up outside in the Mojave Wasteland: An area comprising parts of the former states of Nevada, California and Arizona. At the heart of the Mojave is New Vegas: the former city of Las Vegas which was not directly hit by a nuclear missile when the Great War raged, and thus much of the infrastructure remains relatively in-tact. At the beginning of the game, you are shot in the head and left in a shallow grave by Benny, a guy in a chequered suit who talks like he's Sammy Davis Jr. All you know is that Benny wanted the package you were taking to New Vegas: a platinum casino chip. However, you are rescued and dug up by a robotic cowboy called Victor, who takes you to Doc Mitchell in Goodsprings for you to be stitched back together. Upon regaining the use of you legs, you step out of Mitchell's front door into the wide world, and from there the game can go almost whichever way you please. If you so desire, you can ignore the main questline and just set off to explore, seeking your fortune wherever it may be. Like Fallout 3, the Wasteland is one massive expanse which you can trek across, peppered with interesting towns, abandoned buildings, caves and other monuments. The main plotline of New Vegas is certainly better than that of Fallout 3, both being longer and more complicated. The inclusion of factions into the game, such as the New California Republic and the brutal Caesar's Legion mean that the ending of the game can differ substantially depending on which faction you sided with, which can make multiple playthroughs rewarding. While not all of it makes sense there are a number of memorable characters which make the journey worthwhile, such as the enigmatic Mr. House, CEO of RobCo Industries who maintains control over the New Vegas Strip thanks to his army of robot Securitons. There is also a very large cast of more minor characters, and the voice acting has improved to the extent that you will be very hard pushed to think of two people who are voiced by the same person.

In terms of gameplay, New Vegas improves on Fallout 3 in a number of minor, but nonetheless important ways. Slight changes to the way combat works mean that the game now feels a bit more like a first-person shooter, thanks to the ability to be able to look down the iron-sights of a gun. Melee weapons are more useful than they were in Fallout 3 and now also have their own special moves. V.A.T.S. (the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System) makes a happy return, and it is still just as enjoyable to watch a fiend's head go soaring into the air after pulverising him with a hailstorm of bullets. A dynamic kill-cam is also introduced to show you when you kill the last enemy in a group, although I personally found this feature rather irritating and turned it off after a while. Weapons can now be equipped with mods to make them better and can also hold different types of ammunition, which can change the amount of damage inflicted upon enemies. Character companions, who were mostly useless in Fallout 3 thanks to their propensity to die, are a lot more dependable here. In normal mode, when travelling as your companion they are tagged as essential and therefore only are knocked unconscious when killed, similar to the method which Mass Effect uses. The companion wheel allows you to issue various orders, such as telling them to wait, open their inventory and so on. Each of these companions also has an accompanying side quest or two and are much more fully-realised characters whom you will enjoy having along in your team. Karma is still a factor, although it has been almost entirely supplanted by Reputation, which will affect how the members of various factions (NCR, Freeside etc.) view you, depending on how you have treated them in the past. It is also possible to play the game in hardcore mode, which among other things makes dying of dehydration a possibility and adds another layer of depth to the game. Generally speaking, these small but significant changes help to keep most of the gameplay in New Vegas feeling fresh and approachable.

Graphically, New Vegas isn't a particularly great looking game. The creaking Gamebryo engine is definitely showing its age because it's been around since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and the quality of the animations, character movement and other aspects lead to New Vegas certainly not being the prettiest game in terms of graphical fidelity. Nonetheless, despite the occasional bugs the game is able to convey an excellent sense of scale through the use of its open world, and the atmosphere this creates is superb. The Mojave is vast and crumbling, much like the Capital Wasteland, but the colour palette here is brighter and hotter than it was in DC. New Vegas, with its glitzy casinos and weathered outer slums, trying vainly to hold onto some of that Pre-War glamour is the ultimate symbol of vice and corruption, and much of the mood of the game is mirrored by the surroundings. While there are occasionally huge, impassable mountain ranges which you must navigate around, the entire game feels just as wide-open as before and due to the fact that there are a lot more NPC's around to chat to, the area also feels more alive. Although talking with characters still consists of them turning to face you and stiffly locking eye contact, there is a lot more emotion here than there ever was in Fallout 3, and many geo-political issues concerning race and culture are drawn into the mix a way down the line as well. Despite the limitations the aging software powering New Vegas imposes, the game nonetheless is extremely proficient in drawing you into this exciting world, and when you are in its grasp it will be tough to escape.

The sound has evolved slightly from Fallout 3. Enclave Radio and President Eden are gone, but Radio New Vegas is here, and broadcasts a variety of Vegas-themed music, such as Frank Sinatra's "Blue Moon". All of this licensed music is superb, from the mournful "Stars of the Midnight Range" to the upbeat "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" by Dean Martin. The DJ, Mr. New Vegas (wonderfully portrayed by Vegas star Wayne Newton) is great, and just makes you wish there was more DJ chatter and more songs for him to talk about. Aside from Radio New Vegas, there is also the hilarious Black Mountain Radio, broadcast by the disturbed Super-Mutant Tabitha and her sidekick, Rhonda. Their on-air chats concerning how great the State of Utobitha is are some of the funniest lines in the game. The orchestral score itself has one or two inspiring pieces of music including the main theme and the incidental tunes which play whilst you wander over the wastes are more varied than Fallout 3, recalling some pieces of music originally used in Fallout 1 & 2. As mentioned previously, voice acting is very good across the board and general sound effects, gunshots, ambient noises and other effects pass off cleanly without any incident.

Generally speaking, I would not feel particularly uncomfortable in dubbing Fallout: New Vegas "The real Fallout 3". Whilst Fallout 3 occasionally felt rather sombre and lost much of the black humour which was a series staple in the original games, New Vegas brings it back and incorporates it into the storyline. The game isn't a revolution, but an evolution based upon the major strengths of its predecessors. To date, it is probably one of the purest Fallout games there has been, with a huge game world, interesting characters, various factions competing for survival and extremely satisfying gameplay tying it all together. Although you can criticise it for walking over the same ground which Fallout 3 did, it fills the same shoes with different feet. Fallout: New Vegas is a highly addictive game and for those who are already enamoured with the Wasteland, this presents the perfect opportunity to get back out there. Because we all know deep down that Fallout, like war, never really changes.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"gbrading reviewed Fallout: New Vegas for the PC..." was posted by gbrading on Sun, 22 May 2011 11:56:58 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/fallout-new-vegas/user-reviews/765420/platform/pc/ Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:31:52 -0700 GabuEx reviewed Portal 2 for the PC... http://www.gamespot.com/portal-2/user-reviews/762979/platform/pc/ ...and gave it a 10.0!!!

(WARNING: Spoilers for the original Portal follow. Stop reading if you haven't played the original Portal and don't want it spoiled.)

I think, in order to give context for what I'm about to say, I should first give a little background. I've been playing video games for twenty-one years now. Between all the games I've bought since I moved out and the games I rented when I was living at home, I've probably played over a thousand video games by now. In addition to that, for fifteen years I've held the SNES RPG Earthbound as the greatest game ever, thinking it utterly incomprehensible that any game could ever surpass its greatness.

That day has now arrived. And the game is Portal 2. Portal 2 is now the greatest game I've ever played. A 10 just wouldn't do it justice. This one goes to 11. Or at least it would, if GameSpot didn't cruelly cap the possible scores at 10.

Before I open the floodgates and start talking about what this game did right, let me bring you up to speed if you're unacquainted with it or its predecessor. The main gameplay mechanic in the original Portal, which obviously returns in this game, was a portal gun that opened a blue portal and an orange portal on white walls. The two portals directly connect the two walls on which they appear: walking through one will cause you to emerge from the location of the other, and vice versa. The portals are treated just as holes in the wall: travelling through a portal with considerable momentum (such as from a fall) will give you the same momentum in the direction the other portal is pointing, as though you had just fallen through the floor into another room. This opens the game up to considerable physics-based puzzles, employing such mechanics as putting a portal at the bottom of a pit and another at the top of a wall and then falling through the former to launch yourself in the direction of the former, thereby clearing a pit in the middle of the room. The game also contained certain other objects that you needed to interact with via portals, such as boxes and turrets, which added to the puzzle potential.

That all returns in full force in Portal 2, but it's not alone: it carries with it several other newly introduced mechanics, such as a "hard light bridge", which is a beam of light that can be walked on, and "repulsion gel", which makes the floor very bouncy. All of this can, of course, be put through portals just like anything else. By the time you're putting a lot of this together, puzzles can and do get very complicated - which is all the better for one who likes a good brain-cruncher.

The story in the original Portal was largely very rudimentary. You played the part of Chell, a lone survivor in Aperture Laboratories, who is put through a series of tests by GlaDOS, a sentient artificial intelligence in charge of the entire facility, and one that has a rather sadistic streak. At what was to be the final puzzle, Chell finds herself heading towards an incinerator, but escapes, finds her way to GlaDOS' chamber, and destroys the machine, escaping in the process.

Portal 2 jumps into the future, where Chell has been taken back into the laboratory - but, due to malfunctions, the laboratory starts falling apart with her in the middle of it. A friendly, if twitchy, personality core named Wheatley comes to bust her out of there and escape. They very nearly make it out, but, thanks to Wheatley's incompetence, instead manage to reboot GlaDOS, who promptly begins to test Chell again. Thus Chell's second journey to escape from Aperture Laboratories begins.

That's the game in a nutshell. So, what does it do right? Well, um, everything.

For starters, the puzzles are easily just as good as in the first one. All of the aspects that meshed so well from the first one are back, and are augmented with several new ones. As with any game that relies on the precise balance and synergy between its composite elements, adding new things to the equation is always tricky business. Will one of the new elements end up breaking the game? Will one dominate the puzzles, leaving little room for the other mechanics? Will one end up too specific and be seen as a one-time gimmick? These are all very important questions a designer has to ask when considering adding something new to a formula that worked, and it's obvious that Valve thought of these questions, as the answer to each of them in Portal 2 is "no". Everything Valve added in Portal 2 has a purpose, meshes and interacts well with the already-existing mechanics, and feels like it fits perfectly. In that respect, Portal 2 is exactly what a sequel should be in terms of gameplay: augmented, yet familiar; fresh and new, yet retaining the winning aspects of the old.

The story is also leaps and bounds beyond the original Portal. Of course, considering the meagre nature of the story in the original Portal, an actual existant story would've already been an improvement, but Valve pulled out all the stops.

First, there are now two characters who directly interact with the player - that being Wheatley and GlaDOS - and several other more minor brushes against sentience or other life occur during the game as well. The chemistry between the characters in the game is absolutely perfect. Whereas in the first game GlaDOS was little more than a detached voice for much of the game who provided comic relief, Wheatley and GlaDOS directly interact both with the player and with each other, to great effect, GlaDOS being the calm, sadistic evil one and Wheatley being the bumbling, excitable, friendly one. The two combine to give the player very real purpose within the game, which was something that was not present in the original Portal, in which one went through the tests at least initially more or less because they were there.

Second, the narrative, as well, is miles ahead of the original Portal. While the first game did have the single plot twist in the form of GlaDOS trying to kill you halfway through, it didn't have much of interest in the story beyond that, and any narrative was more or less just an afterthought that served to tie the game together rather than being anything central. This has completely changed in Portal 2, whose story is genuinely interesting, genuinely engaging, and genuinely... well, genuine. Over the course of the game, you'll find out about Wheatley, about GlaDOS, about Aperture Laboratories, and even about things that in the first game were just purely arbitrary rules for the sake of gameplay, such as why portals could only open on white walls.

Of course, a much stronger story would be a case of one step forward, two steps back if the increase in exposition resulted in a decrease in gameplay quality. Thus, I'm happy to report that that isn't the case. In fact, Portal 2 has the single most immersive form of storytelling that I've ever seen in a game. With two extremely minor exceptions, there are no cutscenes in the game; every single little bit of story that the game tells happens exactly as you would experience it if you were there. Characters will talk to you as you're walking by something, or after something happens, or while you're doing something, all while you still have free reign over your movements and actions.

A lot of the story, as well, is entirely optional. If you don't care about the story, you're welcome to ignore almost everything that the characters actually say, and it won't affect the actual gameplay. If you do care about the story, however, there is plenty to be both heard and seen - a good portion of the story is implied in scenery that you go by rather than being beaten over the head with it by characters vocalizing it. This made the progression of the story an immensely satisfying and engaging experience, as I really felt like I was a part of it as it unfolded, as opposed to being merely an observer watching it happen.

The atmosphere in the game is also incredible. As an interesting nod to the first game, the first few areas you go through are directly from the first game - except, given the length of time that's elapsed, they're all very dilapidated and overgrown. When I first came across GlaDOS' lair and found her inactive on the ground, and when I looked around the room and into the distance, I couldn't help but have a certain feeling of awe come over me, despite the logical portion of my brain telling me that it was just a game. Throughout the game, you'll find yourself in old places, new places, polished places, run-down places, high places, low places, and everything in between; the game is a marvel of level and atmospheric design.

The clever and dry writing from the first game is also back in full effect. GlaDOS is the same as ever, and Wheatley provides an absolutely perfect foil to her demeanor. In addition, prerecorded announcements at the beginning let the player know exactly what kind of game they were about to play ("This next test applies the principles of momentum to portals. If the laws of physics no longer apply in the future, God help you."). The game is funny at times, serious at others, in between at even further points, but one thing remains the same: it is always, always pitch-perfect. It's not so funny that the more detailed narrative becomes a bore, yet it's also not so serious that some charm from the first game is lost. It in short blends intrigue with laughter to wonderful effect.

If there were one place where I'd imagine people might find fault in the game, that would probably be its length. The single-player mode can probably be completed in a matter of about eight hours. However, there are a ton of secret things to find in the game; there is a co-op multiplayer mode that is excellent fun with a friend that takes about the same length of time to complete; and, hell, I almost already want to play the game a second time. As such, I really can't fault the game for its length. It did exactly what it wanted to do in the time it allotted for itself, and in my view, it neither outstayed its welcome nor left me hanging after ending too soon. And even if it had been genuinely only eight hours in length, it would've still been the greatest eight hours I'd ever played.

The environment in the game is complimented, as well, by the game's soundtrack. The music in the game is very much atmospheric as opposed to prominent and driving (with one exception, in which a driving song really works), but it's very moody, and sets the stage very well, conjuring up just the right emotion of ominousness, uncertainty, or apprehension, to serve as a perfect counterbalance to the humorous quirks of the characters involved.

There isn't really much more I can say about this game. I've already given the summary: Portal 2 is the greatest game I've ever played. If you enjoyed Portal, for God's sake get this game right this instant. If you didn't enjoy Portal, Portal 2 might just convince you to like it (although it might not, of course). If you haven't played Portal yet, you should try it out if it at all interests you before coming to this game - but don't spend too long playing the original, as every minute spent playing the first is a minute you're depriving yourself of the second.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"GabuEx reviewed Portal 2 for the PC..." was posted by GabuEx on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:31:52 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/portal-2/user-reviews/762979/platform/pc/ Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:39:51 -0700 GabuEx reviewed Okamiden for the DS... http://www.gamespot.com/okamiden/user-reviews/762285/platform/ds/ ...and gave it a 8.0.

Perhaps it might be time to rename Nippon the Land of the Setting Sun - only nine months after all the lands were plunged into darkness by the forces of evil, the evil forces are at work once again. Amaterasu vanquished and banished the evil forces of Yami, but now they're back in full effect - and now it's up to her son, Chibiterasu, to save the day once again and save Nippon from its fate, this time from a brand new threat.

The story, at least initially, bears a lot of resemblance to the original Okami. When I say the world is plunged into darkness again, I mean that quite literally - Chibiterasu must reprise his mother's role in making the guardian saplings in the world bloom once more in order to banish evil from the lands and release the people of the land from darkness. Along the course of his journey, he'll team up with several different partners, visit lands both familiar and new, and ultimately confront a new ultimate evil.

The story in Okamiden is significantly more character-driven than it was in Okami. Characters in Okami were more or less one-dimensional and did not experience any significant character development (with a few exceptions - e.g., Issun), whereas Okamiden fleshes out quite a lot of things from Okami and develops its new characters quite a bit more than Okami. A few things in Okami are explained in Okamiden in a rather clever fashion, as well, such as how the Goryeo sank and why the magic mallet was present in its cargo, which is something that I quite enjoyed seeing. Overall, I felt the story in Okamiden was improved a fair bit over Okami - but, even so, it still was not really the main attraction. I will say, though, that it got significantly better as the game progressed, which was good to see.

The gameplay in Okamiden is very similar to that in Okami. As Chibiterasu, you travel across Nippon, interacting with the denizens therein and solving their problems with brush powers - abilities that have you draw on a canvas overlain on top of your view of the world, and which create different effects within that world depending on the shape drawn on the canvas. For example, drawing a straight line on the canvas will slice through anything the line intersects, while drawing a bomb shape (a circle plus a line) will cause a bomb to magically appear in the field. You also encounter enemies along the way, which trigger entry into a battle scene, in which Chibi can either hack and slash away at the enemy with his Divine Instruments (mirrors, beads, or swords), or use his brush skills to attack them. Chibi can't use unlimited brush skills, though - they drain his ink pots, which can be refilled by either using inventory items or by picking up ink pots from breaking jars in the field - so brush skills shouldn't be just spammed like crazy. One very notable difference between Okami and Okamiden as well is that the ink pots don't refill automatically anymore, so using them sparingly is even more important.

Those who have played Okami will probably remember the praise system from that game - restoring trees and cursed areas and helping out creatures generated praise for Amaterasu, which could then be spent to augment Amaterasu's abilities (e.g., increasing her health and ink pot capacity, increasing her wallet size, and so forth). That system is back in Okamiden, but it's been quite considerably streamlined from the first - now, instead of spending praise, the game just has a "praise meter" that fills up as Chibi gets praise, and when it gets completely full, Chibi automatically gets either another unit of health (or solar energy) or ink pot. The other upgrades from Okami are basically already in effect - as far as I can tell, the wallet Chibi starts with is already bottomless - so this wasn't a big deal, although I do have to admit I liked the freedom to choose how to upgrade from the first game.

Much as in the original Okami, Chibi acquires his brush skills from brush gods - deities that are much like Chibi in appearance - white animals with red markings. Even if the player already knows what a brush skill looks like, it's not until Chibi actually meets with the brush god that that skill can actually be used. All of the brush skills from Okami reprise their roles, along with two new brush skills as well, the most significant of which being the ability to control one's partner - if Chibi's with a partner, he can have that partner dismount and can then make that partner walk in the field by drawing a line from that partner to where he'd like him or her to go. I have to admit that I was actually a bit disappointed by what I felt was an overreliance on gameplay from Okami here, though - rediscovering all of the brush skills that we had already seen from Okami was lacking in the mystery and intrigue that the original had when each brush skill was new and fresh. Still, it manages to keep it interesting by having Chibi learn the brush skills not from the original brush gods from Okami, but by their children - children which are, much like Chibi, SO ****ING CUTE.

The music and graphics are also definitely in full effect from the original, too. The leap from the Wii to the DS definitely incurred some logistical hurdles - the distance you can go between having to load new areas is much, much smaller, and Shinshu field (for example) now has to be divided into three parts instead of being one big expanse - but the style heavily infused with traditional Japanese art is still very much intact both aurally and visually, and is very much still the treat that it was in the original Okami.

All in all, Okamiden's biggest flaw is, in my opinion, the fact that it borrows too much from its predecessor - the vast majority of the brush skills you acquire are those already seen in the first one; the gameplay is quite similar to the first one; the premise is quite similar to the first one; about half of the settings in the game are from the first one; and overall the game feels as though it could have differentiated itself from its predecessor much more than it did, and could have further built upon the world of Nippon much more than it did. Still, though, taken unto itself, its story is good; its gameplay is solid (the brush skills feel more natural than ever before on the DS); it's a treat for the senses; and it's an all-around good time. If you enjoyed Okami and wanted more, you should do yourself a favor and check it out. If you didn't enjoy Okami, on the other hand, it's not going to offer anything more to win you over. If you haven't played Okami, then it'd probably be best to start there - this game is a direct sequel, after all, and a lot of things in it will be better understood by those who have played the original.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"GabuEx reviewed Okamiden for the DS..." was posted by GabuEx on Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:39:51 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/okamiden/user-reviews/762285/platform/ds/ Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:05:25 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed Vanquish for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/vanquish/user-reviews/761591/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

*DISCLAIMER*

This review is by no means an objective analysis of the games inherent quality, or a representation of anything other than the reviewer's personal experiences with the game. Any recommendations given out are based merely on the preferences of the writer and are by no means a guide for the reader to warrant purchases. Any reader should take this review with a grain of salt and if they are unsure as to whether the game will please them, to try it out before buying, as we all have our own personal preferences.

-REVIEW-

This is the shooter I've been waiting this entire generation for. It takes many cues from the Gamecube's P.N.03 and inspiration from Gears of War and mixes it all together into a fantastic package that just screams "fast-paced action."

--

Gameplay

What really shines in Vanquish compared to its competitors is its complete lack of "realism." Most shooters these days are trying to focus on bringing "realism" to the console platform, when honestly, it hardly calls for it, especially with action games and shooters.

The gameplay is almost a direct copy of the quite successful Gears of War franchise (which I also found enjoyable) with one major improvement: Boosting. It is like an arcade racer meets shooter, and opens up whole new ways of approaching a firefight... and makes it sometimes TOO intense.

Not to mention the whole "bullet hell" concept being taken to the extreme through the means of the Argus mini-bosses... it just makes Gears seem tame and slow by comparison.

The controls work how they should, the action is intense and very fast, and despite the shortness of the game, it really mixes things up all the way through until the end. The enemy designs are quite unique for this type of game, and are very satisfying to take down with complex strings of shooting, boosting and melee attacks.

Sound/Music

Pretty straight forward here. Sounds, music and voices are all pretty average and acceptable. The voice-acting is cheesy, but no one should play this game for the dialogue. Its an action-movie, not a drama.

Technical Design/Graphics

A very pretty and detailed game. The overall colour palate can get bland at times, but it fits in with the "sci-fi" aspect quite well. The framerate almost never drops and is very smooth throughout.

Art Design

Not really much to talk about here. Feels like a mix between P.N.03 and Zone of the Enders, with a lot more mess lying around everywhere.

Story

Laughable, but it gets its job done.

Content/Value

The singleplayer is short, but very replayable. The extra content is pretty slim. And for those who love to complain, there is no multiplayer. But in the end, this isn't the game that really needs it. For the $45 I spent on it, and seeing myself being able to pick it up again down the road seems quite reasonable. I doubt I could have justified $60 though. That would be stretching it.

Difficulty

It offers a wide variety of difficulty levels, but normal is pretty hard for a first time through. The suit function and boost take some getting used to, but overall there is a challenge here that some might be turned off by. If that's a problem, there is a "Casual Auto" mode to drop down to. Beating the game once unlocks "God Hard" mode, which doesn't allow weapon upgrades and the enemies do a significant amount more damage. It doesn't even take hyperbole to express how hard it is.

--

-Overall-

In the end, the game is very solid and very fun to play. Its overall package feels lacking (in P.N.03 you had incentive to play more to unlock things) but the variety of the gameplay and the replayability of the game itself gives it the value it needs. It is definitely one of those "evolutionary" games that has made a pretty big step forward for the genre, but I highly doubt it will remain very popular and end up as a cult hit down the road.

Worth playing for any shooter fan, but not necessarily worth owning for someone who "needs" a multiplayer fix.

Verdict: 9/10

Note on score: The way I score games does not in any way reflect its content or quality. This score is merely a quantification of how much I enjoyed playing the game, and how "good" of a game it is to me. As the reader, you may disagree entirely, but this is how I felt about the game, and not how I think others *should* feel about it. Go and try it for yourself before you decide whether or not its worth your time and money. I am merely writing this review for my own benefit. If you get something from it, that's great.

Get the full article at GameSpot

"foxhound_fox reviewed Vanquish for the Xbox 360..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 13:05:25 -0700
]]> http://www.gamespot.com/vanquish/user-reviews/761591/platform/xbox360/ Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:49:43 -0700 foxhound_fox reviewed Far Cry 2 for the Xbox 360... http://www.gamespot.com/far-cry-2/user-reviews/758598/platform/xbox360/ ...and gave it a 9.0!

Far Cry 2 (Revised Review)
Platform: Xbox 360
Released: 21 October 2008

.:::Preamble:::.

I do not believe I gave this game a fair chance on my first attempt at playing it. While I approached it objectively, I do not think I was in "the mood" for a first person shooter. On second look, this game does a lot more than the majority of mainstream FPS games this generation, and offers a unique approach to delivering content to the player.

The game definitely could have been executed better, and with more balance (the respawn times for enemy checkpoints is ridiculous). Though, the basic groundwork is good and solid.

.:::Gameplay:::.

Very few "open world" games can get the player to "focus" on something. This is an inherent problem with the genre, and really cannot be considered a detriment when taking a game at face value. My first attempt at this game was probably driven by the desire for a focused, linear shooter that allowed for a lot less freedom.

The gunplay is good, if a little wimpy. The guns do feel like they have "heft" and the jamming/misfiring mechanics add some depth and tension to wandering in the wilderness. The fire physics are incredible, and can create some really hectic situations.

The driving leaves a lot to be desired, but gets the job done as transportation (this isn't a driving/racing game of course). The repair mechanics are pretty tedious, but add to that "survival" aspect I think the developers were aiming for.

The malaria, "wound" and "buddy" systems are all very welcome changes to the typical, run-n-gun regenerating health shooters we see all too much of these days, and really makes gun fights fun (it also inspires tactics and stealth in many situations).

Overall, there is a pretty good shooter here, even if it takes some getting used to the lack of focus.

.:::Controls:::.

Basic, moderately intuitive and straightforward. There really isn't much to complain about, nor sing praises about.

.:::Graphics (technical):::.

A fantastic looking game. The brush is thick and hides enemies (and the player) very easily. The textures can be blurry or muddy in some locations, and there are a lot of repeated elements, but overall it is an exceptional looking game from a technical perspective.

.:::Graphics (artistic):::.

"Brown" predominates just about everything. Given the setting (sub-Saharan Africa) this is to be expected. But it leaves little room for any sort of creative design, something I look for, even in games with a "realistic" approach.

.:::Sound/Music:::.

The gun sounds are very "poppy" and don't carry much "kick." The cars sound dull. The environmental sounds are nice, but don't really offer much variety. The sound design is pretty mediocre in this game, but it does get the job done.

.:::Atmosphere/Immersion:::.

Definitely a believable world, and getting lost while exploring doesn't necessarily become frustrating. The gun sounds and sound design do cause a little detriment to the overall atmosphere, but not significantly so.

.:::Story/Characters:::.

Very straightforward plot and very forgettable characters. Not that I come to a shooter expecting these things, it would just hurt the game less if there was more than "exploration" driving the player to go and do things.

.:::Content/Variety:::.

Lots of things to do and find and unlock. Is it really worth it? Probably not, but I can see this game being fun for short periods of time when a competent "shooter" is called for. The open-world aspect lets the player mess around and discover some new things around each corner. The map editor is also a welcome addition that is almost too complex for its own good.

.:::Difficulty:::.

A very difficult game that requires keen reflexes and great eyesight (to spot the brown enemies among the brown environment). The respawning checkpoints are excessive in every sense of the word, but are only a mild hindrance

.:::Conclusion:::.

This game isn't for everyone. It really wasn't even for me until I got more in the mood for a first-person shooter. It offers a lot to do with very little focus, and gives a great sandbox to play around in. There are a lot of elements that could either have been fleshed out more (such as the weapon upgrade/customization), improved (the sound effects are very mediocre) or balanced better (the respawning checkpoints and aiming ability of the AI is very unfair at times).

My first score for this game was a big, fat 5/10. Revisiting the game, I have increased that score to 9/10 and added some more insightful comments about it. For the $15 I paid for the game, I think it was a fair price.

.:::Quick Stats:::.

Score: 9/10
Recommendation: FPS and "open-world" fans
Value: $30 or less

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NOTE: All statements expressed in this review are the opinion of the writer. They in no way reflect an objective analysis of the game's content, and any bad purchases made on behalf of this review are not the writer's fault. We all have our own unique preferences, so try before you buy.

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"foxhound_fox reviewed Far Cry 2 for the Xbox 360..." was posted by foxhound_fox on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 14:49:43 -0700
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