• 10Oct 08

  Moving: Part One

  The big move is over, well, almost over. We (my family and I) moved all of our stuff to our new apartment. However, our apartment was not ready so we had to put our stuff in the garage. The only bad things are, we're only halfway done with actually moving stuff, as soon as the apartment is ready we have to take all of the stuff out of the garage and move it into the apartment. The second part is we're staying with my grandparents, and chances are things are not going to turn out to well, but hey, I could be wrong. As of now things are good, but it's only day two. Now that were are pretty much done moving I can look for a job, hopefully I can find one. If I cannot find one then I'm pretty much screwed, and I'll have to work in the family business. Not that it's bad, but I just want to do my own thing. Anyway that is part one of my blog, later.

  • Posted Oct 10, 2008 3:56 am PT
  • Category: General
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• 4Oct 08

  Monthly Blog: Number Three

  Though I wanted to see Eagle Eye, I got stuck watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua, and it was pretty funny. It was nothing bad, but nothing special. If I were to rate it I'd give it a 3 out of 5, which is worth watching. Well, the big move is in 6 days, and along with the move I pretty much received a car. The good things about it are it gets me from A to B, and it was free. The bad thing about it is it's in terrible condition. Oh yeah, and I was never taught how to drive. Did I mention that I am 19? However, I'll learn how to drive eventually, and my grandfather is going to fix up the car. Anyway, I found out recently that my family and I are spending Christmas with the rest of my family that live in New Jersey. SNOW, yeah that's right snow. I haven't seen snow since I was 6 maybe 7, so it's been a while. We're supposed to go snowboarding so I'm looking forward to that, and I love cold weather so regardless of what we are doing, I will probably enjoy it.
  
  

  
  Onto gaming. I'll start with Hell's Highway, it's great, haha. I've also been playing Pure, Braid, and Castle Crashers. Braid and Castle Crashers are great games, but I've been having more fun with Pure. I'm still debating if I want to buy, rent, or not even get Silent Hill: Homecoming. If any of you have played it, let me know if it's any good. Also, my Xbox LIVE membership has ended, so I need a new one. Other than that, I'm waiting for Gears of War 2, and the Fall update. Well that's it for now, later.

  • Posted Oct 4, 2008 7:53 pm PT
  • Category: General
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• 26Sep 08

  Brothers In Arms: HH Review

  Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway -- 8.5
  
  Difficulty: Hard
  Time Spent: 20 to 40 Hours
  The Bottom Line: "Solid"
  
  GameSpot's Written Review | GameSpot's Video Review
  
  
  
  
  Brothers In Arms has always been known to have a great story that was complimented by satisfying gameplay. In Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway it's not different. In Hell's Highway you take on the role as Staff Sargent Matt Baker. His mission, complete Operation Market-Garden, too bad things don't always turn out the way you plan. Throughout Baker's hellish journey, he will encounter many tasks, whether it is trying to become a great soldier, finding Kilroy, or even deciding how to eliminate an enemy. On your first play through the game (whether you are playing on casual or veteran) can take up to about 8 to 20 hours.
  
  Hell's Highway has a great story, and that has to do with the focus being about the characters. There are a lot of interesting characters, but I'll only list a few. The main being Staff Sargent Matt Baker. Previously in Road to Hill 30, Baker lost half of his original squad in Normandy. The deaths of his squad weigh heavily on him, so he is determined to not let another man die under his command. Staff Sargent Joe "Red" Hartsock, a man that understands that war doesn't make any damn sense, and is prepared to make the tough decisions ahead. Private Frank Laroche, a supposed 19 year-old who lied about his age to get into the military. Franky is the only soldier without any real experience. But made the squad do to an amazing job in training, such as hitting a quarter from a really far distance, and his natural skills with most firearms.
  
  
  Other than the story being about the characters, what is there? Combat. During combat you will have at least one team by your side, you may have more depending on the mission. There are three types of teams the Fire Team, which is equipped with longer range weapons, the Assault Team, equipped with lighter and shorter ranged weapons, and the Special Weapons Team, equipped with either a Bazooka or a Machine gun, depending upon the situation. So you have a squad, a large environment, all you need are enemies, and you get them, a lot of them. The enemies are smart, for the most part. They will react upon how you act, but there are some flaws. For example, sometimes they will run around for a few minutes trying to get on cover. Speaking of cover, Hell's Highway has a pretty decent cover system. Pressing LB (Left Bumper) near a cover will put you on that cover (I don't literally on it, I mean behind it). Be careful though, because in Hell's Highway one of the new additions are destructible cover. In time the cover can be destroyed and if you stay on one too long you may become hurt. But there is a glitch that I came across, sometimes when you enter cover you may levitate on top of it, and could become injured. Which brings me to the health system, there isn't one. So how do you get injured or die? Well, you can die. How this works is if you stay in the open or not on cover for too long, your screen will little by little become more and more red. Eventually your whole screen will become red and you will be shot. To have the redness go away, all you have to do is get on cover.
  
  Weapons, there are a lot of them, and by the end of the game you will have used most of them if not all of them. The weapons vary from rifles, to machine guns, to grenades, to the bazooka, and the list does not stop there. Though there are a lot of weapons you only carry four. You carry a rifle, a machine gun, a pistol, and grenades. However, you are able to replace the rifle or machine gun with a different weapon, such as the bazooka. Which is great to use on a group of enemies for two reasons, one, it kills them, and two, most of the time it goes into the action camera view. When it enters the action camera view, it zooms in to where the enemies die (while it's happening) then it enters slow motion so you can see all of the effects, such as the satisfying gore system tear apart enemies limb from limb. Another way to take out enemies is the tank. The tank is like the icing on the cake. You can run over enemies, shoot them with the machine gun on the top, or blow them to bits with the rockets. The are some problems while in the tank, while driving the tank the game may become laggy or even freeze causing you to restart you Xbox 360.
  
  There is sort of a scavenger hunt in Hell's Highway, consisting of two things, the first being, finding all of the Recon Points, and the second being, Finding Kilroy. There are two Recon points in each chapter, and three Kilroy's in each chapter. Replay value, there isn't much except after you beat the game once you unlock the Authentic difficulty which is the hardest. On Authentic all HUD elements are disabled, you won't have the crosshair to assist your aim, and the enemies are amazingly accurate. Which brings me to online. There are Ranked and Player matches. But the online is nothing special, but that doesn't mean that it is terrible. The are many maps to play on, you can play as the American's or the German's. There are up to 20 players all together. You can customize your character, but only a little. It's somewhat like Grand Theft Auto IV's customization.
  
  
  Graphically, Hell's Highway is amazing. The environments all have a beautiful and unique look to them. The weapons are all great looking, such as the pistol used by Baker that has Brothers In Arms written on it. The characters look awesome from head to toe, and all of them are unique looking. Some things stand out, such as the letter R over the heart on Bakers helmet, or Franky's name written on the back of his uniform. However, there are some noticeable time frame rate issues, but very little. The sounds of Hell's Highway are just wonderful, whether it's the sound of the weapons firing, the terrific voice acting or even the dramatic music that draws you more and more into the battle. Everything is on point.
  
  All in all Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway has a great story, with really fun combat and proved to be a worthy addition to the series. Though there were a few problems here and there, they can easily be overlooked. If you are a fan of the Brothers In Arms games, or a fan of historic shooters then you should consider buying this game, if not, a rental at the least. For those of you who are interested about the game, there may be a little bit of a surprise at the end, but you have to play and beat the game to see it.

  • Posted Sep 26, 2008 12:45 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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