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Agony, so why do I keep playing. Too Human is, to be quite frank, a disappointment. I enjoyed the demo released to xbox live enough to decide to purchase the full game. Oh, how deceptive that demo was. Simply put, I have no idea how this game made it past play-testers. A gamer of average to moderately high skill in third person hack and slash action will find themselves dying upwards of 10, 20, 30 times or more per level simply because the game wants you to be able to pick your targets so as to interrupt them at range, but gives you no reliable avenue to do so. If you attempt to play as the ranged class, you find yourself soft and squishy, which would be fine, except you also find yourself with no way to kite (gaming term for running away from the enemy while attacking them from range, usually while slowing their movement speed in some fashion) since the enemies are either as fast, or faster than you. For the enemies who do use range, you will find that they A) have an endless rate of fire B) Have a range that makes yours looks like a joke and C) there are 5 times as many of them as you, giving you a first hand look at what suppressive fire is. The in-game tips suggest you should shoot them to make them stop shooting. This works for about 2 seconds, at which point the AI decides it likes laying down a stream of fire that you can't avoid easily, and definitely can't soak. The melee classes have it a little bit better vs the ranged, being able to dodge around just long enough to close and take one or two out. However due to the nature of melee combat, you will usually close to a cluster, target one and start knocking that one back to the point where the rest will be just far enough that they opt to use ranged attacks once more instead of chasing you down to melee. This tears through your health at a rapid pace. These ranged characters are often paired with a large spider creature whose favorite attack is a ground slam. By the time you run across the first of these, you've been used to another large enemy with a similar attack that can be avoided by jumping. No dice here. At one stage I had the stats for air juggle height pushed to the point that the enemy I was juggling had to be about 20' in the air, putting me at about the same height. I was still knocked down by the ground attack. So the physics interactions within the game leave a lot to be desired even with it comes to the range of some attacks. It's hard to believe that this is the product of a decade of work. Now despite all of this, there is something that keeps me from heading back to the xbox dashboard after each death. When it's not being agonizing to deal with a horde of monsters who decimate you from texas, the game is very fun to play. I am disappointed that the major motivation to use combo levels for ruiners is so you do not lose them when you inevitably die, but the game definitely has its point of enjoyability. The story also seems to be very compelling. I love the mythos they've created for this game. I've had to put completing it on hold for the time being as my wife, who has selected a commando as her play type and found herself unable to advance without dying every step fo the way due to the poor management of ranged combat in Too Human, wants to see if it will be a more enjoyable experience for her in co-op mode. So when I find a chance to grab a cheap copy of the game, I'll be able to explore it more. The bottom line is, if you frustrate easily, stay well clear of this game. But if you're willing to put up with some bad mechanics to get a good story, it's worth picking up a used copy if you can find it cheap. | video-games_xbox |
Bad design with the bottom triggers. I will say that the controller feels really solid, but in terms of comfort it is terrible. The triggers on the bottom are in a very unnatural place that will make it hard to adjust to the controller, and even then does not feel like a very great fit. On top of that, you will be trying to configure your muscle memory to realize that the bottom triggers are different from the front triggers, as I commonly would press the bottom when wanted the front or vice versa.
The extra bumper buttons are also in a very unnatural spot and require you to stretch your fingers to reach them.
I bought this controller for For Honor because they bind far too many important and time critical keys on the ABXY keys when your right thumb is already busy on the right joystick to determine your guard direction. When you have a quarter of a second to respond to an attack, your thumb does not have the reasonable time to move from the joystick to the appropriate button.
I was hoping to use this controller to sharpen my reaction times, but have found that this controller is simply not what I expected, as I wish I had paddles instead of triggers on the bottom, or a button instead. As for the extra bumper keys on the front, I rarely use them.
However, with those shortcomings, I will say I love the reassign on the fly feature and really wish more controllers had this. I also love how the controller feels when you grab it like it was a normal controller.
If this controller would have gone for a Paddle or button design on the bottom instead of a trigger, as well has made the extra front bumpers easier to reach, I would have given this controller a 5 star rating easily. I'll give it a 3 because there rest of the features are actually incredibly nice and that alone would make this controller worth $60-$70 alone, but the poor design choice on the triggers just stop me from thinking its worth $100. | video-games_xbox |
Don't get all of the hype. This is by no means a bad game, but it's just not for everyone.
The graphics are beautiful, and it's not your typical sword slashing RPG with a nameless, faceless hero that you can spend hours customizing.
The story also features several choices outside of just typical the good and evil options, which I imagine makes for high replay value.
However, I just couldn't get into the characters enough to keep my interest going long enough to get to that point where you're evolved far enough in battle. By far enough, I mean that it doesn't involve running in circles trying to pick off a crowd of opponents hit by hit. I have played countless other games where hour after hour was spent leveling up and fighting, so it's not that I'm lazy or simple. I just didn't find the characters to be likable.
Another huge problem I had was all of the nudity and sex scenes. The first nude scene is a female prisoner, a snooty royal in a dungeon. Even if she hadn't had 2 twins with her older SON that she was passing off as King's children, she wouldn't be a sympathetic character. She also isn't dirty, and they don't really even lay a finger on her. She's immaculately clean and bad-tempered. This scene felt like a cheap tactic to get men interested in playing the game. Who would actually get excited about animated pixels you ask? See the trailer online and read the comments after it...
The game continues on to have graphic sex scenes with prostitutes, the characters own (and let me say very very naive) girlfriend, and various other random woman who want to "thank" him. Does a game with amazing graphics, an in-depth story, magic and sword battle, and reasonable difficulty really need that? If I wanted to watch porn, I definitely know where to find it - or where to find the real thing instead of the fantasy thank you very much- I don't want to have to skip through it in my video games while trying to get into (or not) a story. At least in GTA, it was not graphic, more implied.
I think I will stick to Dragon Age or Assassins Creed in the future.
Players who love RPGs or anything with amazing graphics will probably love this by default, and it also seems like people are socially required to love this game. I found this more interesting than the Skyrim/Oblivion series- which bored me to tears- but I have met very few humans who didn't love that one as well...so if you liked that and don't object to some over-the-top nudity...this is for you.
I gave this game an extra star for the gorgeous graphics. | video-games_xbox |
My Best Game Ever. Excellent Game.. I love it.. My Best Game Ever.. I have many games on my xbox 360.. but when I play it.. the rest (games) don't like it when I choose him almost every time..haha. When I play this game I really have a nice time by grabbing my M4 with ACOG sight, M17 pistol, and Parachute Suit.... it is just Wonderful.. Love the Graphics too.. they are not the best of the best but i think they are pretty good and pretty decent when Frostbite make his launch.
So Why this game make my day every day when i play it? Because Depending on this:
1. Game Mode... mines are Capture The Flag & TCT Group(16vs16) & Close Quarters
2. Map... Many Maps I don't remember lol,
3. 4 Different Classes to Pick on...
4. WeaponS+Accessories Config
5. Actual Match Status. Ex: If Your Team is Losing.. Cool Now you're up to forcing u to Win Haha. If they are Winning.. U can take a nice spot with your Sniper rifle to overwatch if anyone hostile enemy is trying to desert. LoL.
So... 5 Things... 5 "Variables" that make EVERY MATCH DIFFERENT.... Sometimes I just want to kill and run.. like COD... lol, so I grab TCT mode + Noshair Canals Map (close combat map, fast respawn) + assault or support class + M4A1 or a M249 for example... this match would be really different If i had taken a TCT mode + recon Class + a nice bolt Sniper + To show on the sniper in your inner self (overwatch, kill other snipers, alert about Vehicle or soldiers incomming, to take your UAV and help the team leader scanning the area for possible hostiles)... So you see... This is wonderful... playing in your unique Style.. And if you r tired... u can always can change someone of the one "variables" and its other game.
I have already many unlocks from weapons -not enought yet lol- vehicles and accessories, so im gonna wait till B4 get better stable servers, EA launch some patches then I migrate to the new one. Hey! , Sorry for my English if any mistakes.
See U on the Battlefield
DeltaTeam Leader Out..! | video-games_xbox |
Godzilla sized fun. Think of the classic Japanese feature film Godzilla and gamers aren't likely to remember a spooky, nuclear-enlarged beast which wreaked havoc on Tokyo, but rather a man dressed in a rubber monster suit who clumsily destroyed a model city. Over the years countless Godzilla movie remakes and sequels have surfaced, going from black and white to color, and later from rubber suits to digital effects, but for the most part that "cheese factor" -- the element which has taught us to expect latex costumes and helicopters on wires -- has remained as much a part of the Godzilla franchise as hot dogs have a baseball game.
Now, publisher Infogrames has teamed with talented developer Pipeworks to deliver Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee for GameCube owners, a 3D brawler that triumphantly captures the universe of the Godzilla movies. It's a game that has enough detailed monsters and cities to warrant a long, hard look. And if enthusiasts factor in the title's extremely addictive and enjoyable multiplayer mode -- far better realized than its sometimes-unbalanced single-player offerings -- there is enough replay value in place here to fill even Godzilla's giant belly.
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee is a 3D fighter in the style of the classic Neo Geo arcade game King of the Monsters, but on a much grander scale. There is an intentional campy feel to the brawler that is complemented nicely by an obviously over-the-top throwback to the Godzilla movies. Aliens have invaded Earth and unleashed a gargantuan gang of genetically mutated monstrosities upon its inhabitants. The beasts, ferocious and unstoppable, have taken to several crowded cities across the planet without care of their occupants, and it's up to players -- as a monster of their choice -- to do battle with the rest and ultimately send the alien invasion away. It's hard to hold in a smile as some of the opening cut-scenes in Godzilla highlight over-baked aliens and their hammed voiceovers complete with eerie, 50s-styled background music. The story isn't deep or engaging -- and then again, what fighting background is? -- but it's enough to set up the action that follows in a colorful manner that adheres to the license.
There are five gameplay modes in Godzilla: Adventure (the basic single-player game); Destruction, (a mode in which players destroy the cities for points); Melee (a two-to-four-player battle in which monsters respawn; the fighter with the most points at the end wins); Survival, in which gamers use only one health to try and KO as many enemy brawlers as possible; and Team Battle, in which players are separated into teams to fight. Compared to a traditionalist's offering such as Capcom vs. SNK 2: EO, the modes are limited, but there is enough in place to doubly satisfy most gamers.
Godzilla, as a single-player experience, is a mix of good and bad. The title's 11 playable monsters, from Godzilla 90s and 2000 to Megalon, Anguirus, King Ghidorah, Gigan, Rodan, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Destroyah and Mechagodzilla, is commendable. Unfortunately, only a mere four of these titans are available to start -- the rest must be unlocked. Equally impressive is the number of cities to battle in, a selection that includes Tokyo, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and England -- and who hasn't wanted to demolish one of these locales at one time or another? Gamers making their way through the single-player game will enjoy the wealth of moves available, the decidedly slow, but nonetheless very mobile characters, and will likewise find the controls very intuitive for this type of fighter. Indeed, there are more moves and monster styles available than gamers might suspect -- the brawling system is fairly deep, a fact that came as something of a surprise for us. Beyond all of this is the level of environmental interaction -- the way in which buildings shake and crumble in the wake of fights, an addition that is supremely well done. After extensive play, gamers will begin to notice the little details that go so far; for instance, the fact that throwing an enemy opponent into buildings will cause the human characters -- the flying helicopters and military patrol -- to go after it with their missiles and gunfire. | video-games_xbox |
Disappointing. Having played Heroes of the Pacific for the XBOX over the holidays, I looked forward to snagging my XBOX360 and a copy of Blazing Angels. I finished Blazing Angels, but could only reminisce about how much I missed Heroes of the Pacific. Don't get me wrong: Blazing Angels has better graphics and some of the environments will suck you right in, but it fell short in so many areas that I hope someone else will try a good WW2 flight simulator for the 360.
Consider the historical context first: Blazing Angels has you flying as an American in the Battle of Britain, North Africa, Pearl Harbor, Midway (in scenarios that bear no relation so the battle itself), Paris, and Berlin. Even Jimmy Doolittle, who flew in quite a few different theaters, didn't have that much experience. In any event, you never "own" the campaign because so much of it feels random. There's an argument to be made for suspending a sense of reality in order to faciliate good gameplaying, but Blazing Angels doesn't make it.
Next, consider those awesome graphics. They were truly beautiful, but generally ahistorical. The Guadalcanal campaign, for instance, had me bombing Yamato-class battleships that the game insisted were cruisers, and which never ventured into the Solomons. Hard mistake to excuse when the designers went to so much trouble building those beautful landscapes.
Third--and another reviewer makes this point--your choice of aircraft for any given mission is non-existent. What's the point of a flight sim advertising multiple aircraft types if you can't actually fly them? (I'll confess that I haven't tried on-line gameplay, which may address this problem. Truth be told, I was so disappointed in the game that I don't plan to try it on-line.)
Finally, the scenarios are schizophrenic. One day I'm flying relatively "realistic" ground support missions in Normandy....the next I'm doing the trench run from Star Wars through Norweigian fjords trying bomb a heavy water plant. I kept waiting for someone to call out "they came from...behind" just before going down in a ball of flames. It's as if the designers were trying to make Call of Duty in the air one day and Crimson Skies with WW2 aircraft the next.
In the end, Blazing Angels can't decide what it wants to be and that's too bad. At $60 a pop, we have a right to expect more. If you want a good WW2 flight sim, keep that XBOX and stick with Heroes of the Pacific. | video-games_xbox |
A Fantastic Deal for 2 Great Games. I loved Metro: Last Light, but when I played Metro 2033 on Xbox 360, it was ... eh, less than stellar, but mostly due to unrefined game mechanics. As much as I didn't want to essentially buy these 2 games again to have them on the Xbox One, I had read reviews about how improved Metro 2033 was in the Redux version. I'm happy to report that the reviews are true.
In fact, it appears that, recognizing that Last Light had a much friendlier GUI and resource management system, the developers essentially retconned Metro 2033 to have the exact same GUI has Last Light. This is fantastic, as the original GUI and interaction systems for 2033 were terrible, and a source of frustration for me. It seemed that, in the original Xbox 360 version of the game, all of the controls were backwards and non-sensical compared to those in Last Light (which I happened to play before the first game). More generally, though, they just weren't helpful, with small context indicators / icons, and illogical control schemes. Also, if memory servces, Metro 2033 had issues with knowing when to swap out breathing filters; this is not longer an issue, as there is a control to specifically look at the watch, which is show in clear detail, with a red hand that counts down to when the filter will be dead.
Additionally, the texture quality, animation, frame rate, and in general, the mechanics of the game have been vastly improved. Other than some glitchy (read: not motion captured) animations here and there, this game looks no more than a year or two old. Lighting and shadows have been improved significantly as well, as I don't remember things like nosalises and Watchmen looking nearly as detailed in this game as they are; you can see individual wrinkles, pimples, scars, and drool on these monsters.
Sure, this game still suffers from a few problems inherent to the game itself: a few missions have unclear objectives, or specific event triggers that are bizarrely specific (IE, one of the first missions with Bourbon involving an enemy encampment; I kept getting auto-killed after trying to go through a door until I figured out I had to knock-out or kill EVERYONE in the area).
Also, the game adds several new ways to play it: first, there's a Spartan or a Stealth mode (basically, guns blazing, or the original stealthy, resource management version). Then you can select among 4 types of difficulties: Regular, Hard, Ranger, or Ranger Hard. I tried Ranger ... but ... frankly, I wouldn't recommend it, as, due to the inherent low-light of most levels and the rather small size of most pick-ups, Ranger mode (which removes most of the HUD) makes it very hard to be aware of what items can be retrieved, or what levers can or can't be pulled, that type of thing. In some games, limiting the HUD is fine, and even a welcome challenge, but it usually compensates by having auto-pickups, or leaving the pop-up icons for things like weapon swaps, or environment interaction; that is not the case here, where the game removes everything but the item and weapon selection menus; it won't even give weapon swap pop-ups.
Still, I would definitely recommend picking up this game ESPECIALLY if you haven't ever played one or both of these games. For the price, this is a fantastic deal. For those who have played Metro 2033 and didn't like it, most of all of the mechanical short-comings of the game have been fixed and aligned with the style of Last Light. They even retconned Artyom's voice actor from Last Light! (which is great, seeing as how they had an old man voicing him before) | video-games_xbox |
Horribly Exacuted . Well, what can one say about this game.
I guess your here wanting to know whether this game is any good or not ?
Answer : By far it is a sub average game with VERY tedious gameplay and poorly exucuted story fragments and cutscenes. The whole game is a bit of a mish mash of CGI footage and actual movie footage which really makes the game feel like it is cut and pasted.
The CGI is pretty good though a bit foggy looking like the beginning of Resident Evil Remake for Nintendo ( meaning there is a slight blur to it all). The movie scenes are good but just seemed un-nesccary and really didn't add anything to the game (if i wanted to see the film id get that).
The controls are relatively easy and don't take much time to pick up. Probabely because you will be doing the same thing over and over again. The AI in the game respawn in certain areas and you will be contiunally shooting those damn flying machines forever thinking " im getting bored of this". The developers just throws AI at you with the occasional mission directive (like find Sarah Connors coffin)and think they have this new sensational game. No they don't !!!!!!
Don't be fooled either by there campaign that they have the REAL man himself and that this makes the game better than any other. Arnold really doesn't have alot to do with this game. Basically all Arnold had to do for this game was go in a sound booth for a minute say 10 words like " excellent" " reloaded" and so forth and here we have the result. A game that really is repeative in every way and has no real distinction over other Terminators games for having the big fella involved.
The environments are mostly from the future setting with black charcol skys and burnt building and out of 22 levels about 18 of these are all like this. Boring, Dull and just too similar for anyone to care.
And this whole first person shooter cross bred with fist fighting ????? Yer, it works and i didn't mind the bouts with the T-X. I even get the lack of fluidity with the controls as these are machines fighting not kung-fu max payne rip offs. But still, it nuthin revoultionary or really adds a great deal for the game play. Though this was my favourite part of the game and trust me thats not saying much.
I played the whole thing through even though i got bored after the first 4 levels. The whole thing is a un-insipring mess that is not the NEXT big thing in gaming nor a decent add on to the Terminator mythos.
Conclusion: A big commerical mess that does not deliver on any of it's promises. RENT DONT BUY - even if your a fan !!!! | video-games_xbox |
Among the best in sound quality; Feature set is lacking; Condemnable non-disclosure about compatibility. This headset has amongst the best sound qualities among wireless headsets. You'll find this theme recurring among various reviews online, and I do agree. Astro got the basics right. But feature set is lacking and considering this, Astro needs to lower the price of the A50.
A few Pro's and Con's -
Pros -
1. Excellent sound quality. There are three presets available. Only one of them is really worth listening to. The other two are so bad that this really reduces the effective preset options to really just one (at least for me). However, at that setting the headset sounds so good compared to competition that the lack of presets won't bother most people much. The sound is very clear. The bass is bit heavy but many people, except for the most picky audiophiles would not mind. If you are looking for a true signature, these won't provide them. It is very clear that these are built for a very specific purpose they excel at that application.
2. Build quality is very good.
3. Very comfortable headsets.
Cons -
1. It's a small peeve but feel Astro should be ashamed for making their product differentiation of the 2nd gen Astro headsets so confusing (misleading really). The various versions are exactly the same except for the small chat dongle for XBox one. Otherwise, each of the versions are exactly the same in functionality except for color. Astro is up front about this on their own forums (when asked), but I fear the common consumer will not bother hunting down this information on forums. The documentation on the XBox version product and the corresponding webpage says nothing about PS4 compatibility. The word PS4 is not even mentioned even though they are 100% compatible.
I can imagine that they don't want to state Xbox compatibility on the PS4 version due to the missing dongle. But it makes no sense why they won't state PS4 compatibility on the XBox version. Are they trying to get uninformed users with both systems to buy two different headsets? Sounds implausible, but I cannot find one good reason for this. Others may disagree, but simply stated it amounts to 'lying by omission', and Astro should be called out for this.
Similarly on the PS4 version's documentation and webpage they state nothing of XBox compatibility. At least Turtle Beach is upfront about this on their offerings. Even for their PS4 versions they state that are compatible with XBox One if used with a Microsoft chat adapter.
Furthermore, the chat dongle that comes with the Astro A50 for the XBox is a really cheap part with no buttons (like in the Microsoft adapter). It's barely worth a few dollars. At this headset's price, they should have just thrown that in for every version, regardless of color. If the price points were different it would have made some sense. But that's not the case. At the very least they should be upfront about compatibility for users so that they know their options.
PS4 users - If you don't care about the headset's color, or prefer the green color to blue, just get the Astro A50 Xbox version. It's exactly the same as the so called 'PS4 version' in every respect. You get an extra adapter that you won't need, but might make it easier for you to sell your unit if you ever decide to do so.
BTW, the 'PC' version is also the same but comes with a USB sound-card. If your PC sound card support Dolby output via optical you don't really need the 'PC' version. Save the $40.
2. The headset is exactly the same feature wise as the previous gen. On their forums they are very vague about what the updates really are. But it seems like the firmware and the physical headphone drivers are exactly the same. They say chat has been 'optimized' but by many accounts it is quite bad on this gen (not sure how they compare to previous gens). By most accounts this seems to be a cosmetic refresh only. This would not have been a 'con' by itself were it not for the competition's offerings. The price point of the A50's has remained high for way too long. If they had to keep the headset exactly the same, they ought to have reduced the price. Or for the same price point, they should have added more features.
a) No bluetooth. Many Turtle Beach offerings have it. At this price point they should have had it too.
b) No noise cancellation.
c) Number of presets are too low.
d) No voice feedback of various settings.
e) Charging via microUSB seems clunky compared to Elite 800's.
In the end, I don't think the price proposition is very good. No product exists in vacuum and one needs to consider competitor's offerings when reviewing any product. Compared to Turtle Beach Elite 800's the feature gap from Astro A50's is significant. (Unfortunately, the Elite 800's has problems of its own. But if your competition screwed something up, it doesn't mean you don't need to fix your own problems). | video-games_xbox |
Worth the wait. Bioshock Infinite has been in the pipeline for some time now. The first trailer was truly awe-inspiring with its stunning visuals. Then it got put back and we had to wait. The nagging doubts started creeping in at that point. 'Was the gameplay as good as the cut scenes we have seen', 'will the dark feel of Bioshock transfer well to this setting'. Now its here they can be answered with a yes. Its beautiful to look at, fun to play, has the mechanics that draw you in and keep you going. In short its a hell of a game.
The set-up is simple. Go and find a girl and return her to clear you debts. The you in question is Booker DeWitt and the girl is Elizabeth. In the early scenes you are transported into a steampunk version of heaven. The first thing that becomes clear is people...there are a lot more of them about than in previous incarnations of the franchise. You can't interact with them very much though...so its not a GTA style city you explore here in terms of its mechanics and openness. It could do with a map though as navigating around can be a little confusing. Having said that a neat little feature is to press down on the D Pad and it will give you a direction to head towards for your next objective. Once you have arrived you need to find the girl and take her home. Simple?? Well, I think we all know its not that straightforward or indeed as clear cut as that.
The controls are easy to get used to. The attacks you unlock are easily accessible. The only niggle I have here is that I stumble around a little trying to find the right special attack. You are given a lot of different options in combat which is great and as you go on this becomes increasingly more important. One thing I was fearing from the trailers was a huge amount of cut-scenes to break up the gameplay but they are not that regular and you can skip anything. If I were to compare this to another game in its feel and gameplay then it would probably be Batman: Arkham Asylum/City. It has the same kind of mechanics and works just as well. Thats a real achievement in itself. The zip lines are very easy to use and navigating via
them is easy done. You even have a special dismount attack from the zip lines.
I haven't finished it yet. So I'll be updating this as I go along. For now it has totally grabbed me...it has that one more go feature that most great games have. It doesn't have multiplayer or online. But why would it need to when it does everything so well. Its an original FPS (hurrah for that alone these days) and moves the series along nicely. Bioshock Infinite is a lot of fun and hugely addictive. Its well worth the wait and your money in this reviewers opinion.
Update: As a game Bioshock Infinite is a great achievement. The final reveal takes a long time and the end game is difficult but I cannot remember a game that will have you thinking as much after you have finished it. The narrative and RPG elements are a bit linear. The choices you have do seem to have little relevance to the actual outcomes. Put those minor issues aside and you have a fantastic game that pushes the boundaries of gaming at times and really is rewarding in its endgame and reveal. Truly memorable and fantastic | video-games_xbox |
Survival Horror... with plenty of ammo. Note: This review only covers the Single Player campaign. I did not get a chance to play any of the multiplayer options. Left 4 Dead is a game that clearly encourages multiplayer play, but can be enjoyed alone. That is the perspective this review was written from. Remember that when reading this review, if you still feel like reading it now.
Second Note: Left 4 Dead is not a traditional survival horror game like the first Resident Evil games. I'm using the phrase "survival horror" very loosely here. Left 4 Dead doesn't try to be scary. It just puts a gun in your hand, shows you some charging zombies, and hopes you can make the connection.
Anyway, Left 4 Dead starts with an amazing intro. I mean, so amazing that the Resident Evil movies would be jealous. But any similarities with other popular titles in the FPS genre end with a good opening hook.
You make up just one of four Survivors (the AI takes control of the other three) treading amongst the undead in the game's various moody environments. These environments do have the occasional creepy feel to them, especially when the sobs of a distant Witch can be heard, but for the most part it's all about action. The environments lend themselves well to creating feelings of the former and the latter depending on whether you're traversing the claustrophobic hallways of a building or running around in wide open areas that encourage running and gunning. This running and gunning, however, will only last you around five hours throughout the entirety of all four campaigns.
Like some other first-person shooters, Left 4 Dead only allows you to carry two weapons at a time. The list of weapons is pretty short, only including a sub-machine gun, two kinds of shotgun, assault rifle, hunting rifle (the only weapon with a scope) and pistol. The nice thing about the pistol is that it has unlimited ammo and you can pick up a second one for dual wielding. The not nice thing about the pistol is that is always stays as your second weapon, so you can only have one of the other weapons at a time. You also get to hold on to one of either a pipe bomb or Molotov cocktail, each with their own distinction: a pipe bomb attracts zombies to it, so a charging horde can be easily distracted (and blown up), and a Molotov creates a lasting flame, briefly acting as a barrier the zombies won't cross.
About the zombies, I'm just going to put this succinctly: the zombies are fun to shoot. That's really the backbone of this game, the shooting. And that's not a criticism because games are about gameplay and Left 4 Dead focuses on solid gameplay through solid gunplay. When a horde of zombies is charging at you, there's nothing like furiously squeezing the trigger with your dual pistols, laying into the undead masses with shotgun blasts, or just equipping your assault rifle or sub-machine gun and holding down the trigger while letting out a movie-like continuous yell. I know that last example sounds crazy, but when a game can bring this kind of thing out of you, you know it's a good one.
Speaking of shooting zombies, the classic "Shoot them in the head" rule does not apply here. Headshots will kill them quicker, but shoot the undead anywhere and they will die... again. Believe me, when you see a charging horde, you'll be glad that's one rule you don't have to follow. The bad news about the charging horde, though, is that if they reach you, you simply won't be able to move while they're damaging you. And pushing them all off is as easy as tapping the melee button. Then again, if they killed you instantly after having overwhelmed you, that wouldn't be any fun, would it?
There are four campaigns and each campaign is divided into five chapters. In the Game Of The Year Edition, all of the campaigns are unlocked from the start, so you get to choose the level you wish to dive into first. Don't worry about the story, as the story is so non-existent that you probably won't even notice any kind of progression anyway. The first chapter of a campaign begins at a starting point out in the open and ends when you close the door of a safe house. Each successive level simply has you starting in one safe house and ending in another until the last level when you board a rescue helicopter.
That would be the most obvious weak point of Left 4 Dead; the fact that it foregoes any kind of storytelling in favor of mindless shooting. Seriously, there is no story whatsoever. It's just: here are the guns, there are the zombies, shoot them. In that sense, Left 4 Dead feels less like games made for today's audience, games that attempt to tell a story, and more like something you would have experienced at an arcade (any kids reading this might want to hit up Wikipedia to find out what an arcade was.) Be that as it may, what makes Left 4 Dead a great game is that it doesn't try to do too much; it does what it does and it does it very well. What it does, though, isn't very compelling past the enjoyment of shooting up hordes of zombies. So if you're looking for anything more, you'll have to look elsewhere.
But if you're looking to have a quick, mindless blast with multiplayer, Left 4 Dead is a game you might want to consider, especially if you can get a few friends together to play it with you. The game is just a solid and fun experience, even if you play by yourself. As has been said, the AI takes control of the other three Survivors, allowing even lone gamers such as myself to take on the horror with a little help.
And that's basically what the Left 4 Dead experience is about: survival horror... with plenty of ammo... the way it should be. | video-games_xbox |
Worth playing, includes some cool new cars, gets a little bit repetitive. I put about 10 hours into each of the cop and racer careers, which was just enough to 1000/1000 the game's achievements. It was my first Xbox One game and it was a pretty decent one to start with, but far from the best racing game I've played.
DLC:
This version includes the same game disc, and a download code for all the DLC packs. Unfortunately the DLC doesn't add anything super amazing, like new story/career missions or game modes. Just new cars. The new cars are definitely cool, and have some awesome stats, but don't get *too* excited over the DLC bonus.
After playing and completing the story, here are my thoughts on Need for Speed Rivals:
[+] The graphics are really cool, but only barely noticeably better than racing games I have on my Xbox 360. Have we plateaued with car graphics?
[+] The careers give you lots of short-term objectives to work towards which make it a lot easier to keep playing for longer than you expect. It is addictive at times when you are always so close to meeting another goal.
[+] I really like being able to drive around in a large open world with other racers, though you can also play offline if you wish.
[+] Vehicle "pursuit tech" and upgrades are not a new feature or idea, but they are nonetheless fun ways to be rewarded for playing and earning points
[-] The 3-4 different types of events for each "faction" get repetitive and don't offer too much variety.
[-] I found the racer career significantly less fun and more annoying than the cop career, since you almost always have people chasing you even when you're not really doing anything "wrong". It gets annoying to not be able to take a breath for awhile in peace. The cop career obviously doesn't have this problem since you are the law so you can do whatever the #*!$ you want with no repercussions, much like in real life
[-] Loading times are excessive for a game installed to your hard drive, especially when you are just going to your "hideout" which just loads a menu. There should NEVER be loading times just to get to a menu screen! There are also too many disconnects in online public games, which really interfere with enjoying the game.
So overall, probably not the best purchase at full price, but it did provide me with many hours of entertainment that I could certainly recommend at bargain bin prices. | video-games_xbox |
An unbiased Halo 5 Review... WELCOMED CHANGE that works. Halo 1 came out when i was 11 and I have been playing every since. I am also a huge Call of Duty fan. I am a verteran of both series and do not consider mylsef a "fanboy" of either.
People get upset with change. It is never a welcomed thing with halo fans for some reason... Halo has been around for 15 years, people have forgotten how much halo has changed game to game.
When we look back, the changes from halo 1 to 2 don't seem like such a big deal, but at the time it was revolutionary. They shut down time square for a video game (halo2) and the game was all over the major news channels... this kind of thing had NEVER happened before. Being able to hold two guns and just play online was like the second coming of Jesus.
Halo 3 brought about balanced online gaming perfection and a 4 PLAYER online coop campaign ... this was UNHEARD OF and to top it off Halo 3 was was on the 360. I remember sitting in literal AWE of the first cut scene with three other of my friends from school losing our minds over what was on our TVs right in front of us... it was once again Amazing.
Halo 4 brought about a great campaign story that was waaaay too short. Me and my same group of friends beat the campaign on legendary on release night in 5 -6 hours. The multiplayer in fact did kill the halo professional scene it was so bad. I said the multiplayer was bad, yes it was fun, yes i did put a couple of days into it. But halo 4s multiplayer was NOT halo... random drops in every game type... it was just weird.
Now onto halo 5, 343i steps up to bat again and delivered a very difficult campaign experience (On Legendary difficultly with 4 players it will take you anywhere from 10-15 hours of playing time), that both story format and difficultly hark back to Halo 2 days. The story jumps between two characters, and their journeys. In my opinion Halo 2s campaign seemed a liiitle more orderly in how the missions switched between the chief and the arbiter. Halo 5 was a little scatter brained while switching between Chief and Locke and didn't really lead up the the character switches well. The story was very solid if you new were is was coming from which for some was difficult. Halo 5s spartan experience (play style) was new and refreshing. Just like in the halo 2 and 3 days, the changes made were balanced and just, down right done well. You have the old school halo games types and play style, with weapons ON MAP in ARENA. Along with another multiplayer format called WARZONE, which is a super fun experience. The biggest downside to Halo 5s multiplayer is the lack of Warzone maps. There were only THREE at release. Thank god for Warzones scale because it would get rather repetitive otherwise. Also the arena maps some are great but the first dlc was very forgeish. the maps just weren't pretty.
To sum it up I personally DO NOT believe a game series should stay the EXACTLY the same until it dies. That just is not fun... like at all...
change should always be welcome, as long as the change works within the games mythos.
.
Is halo 5 worth 50 bucks? In my opinion Absolutely.
If you are a halo fan buy this game.
PROS:
All DLC for halo 5 is FREE
Difficult campaign
Dedicated servers for online play.
The distinct separation between multiplayer experiences.
CONS:
Campain is a little scatter brained.
Only three warzone maps | video-games_xbox |
Great, but too expensive. I love the Rock Band series and it's one of the most fun games to play with a group of friends. When I first heard about The Beatles Rock Band, I was excited because now no one will get "stuck" as the singer. It's much more fun to sing when you can sing as The Beatles.
The gameplay is awesome, the graphics are great and I think the game captures the essence of Beatlemania. There are a few missing features from the other incarnations of the Rock Band series (like you can only change timing lag for one instrument during a session, so if the guitar player fixes the lag for himself, it may be off for the preferences of the drummer, with no way to fix it. If the timing is off for one player, it can amount to a LOT of missed notes.)
The main disappointment comes with there only being 45 songs, and therefore only about 2-3 hours of truly unique gameplay (sure, you can change the difficulty, but you can really only play a song so many time before it gets predictable and boring). I understand that getting the rights to those 45 songs was probably difficult and extremely expensive for the developers; however I feel like the game being released (software-only) at $60 is a LOT to ask for 45 songs. What is equally frustrating is that they plan to release future albums via downloadable content... for a price. It just seems a bit shady to me. I don't want to complain too much, because I should be glad that they are at least releasing downloadable content, rather than just leaving us high and dry. It would be nice if at least a few of the to-be-released songs would be free.
The songs included with the game are awesome; however there are many (MANY) hits missing. I guess it's just a case of me not reading the description well enough, but it also feels like with a game that LOOKS so good, they missed the mark with the songs.
In all, the game is fun and the visuals are great, but the price point is a bit high for what you actually receive. Overall, if you are a huge Beatles fan, get it. If you like The Beatles and like Rock Band, wait until it gets a little cheaper before shelling out the cash.
Overall, I gave the game 4-stars for gameplay because it IS fun, but only 3-stars for the game as a whole because of the factors described above. | video-games_xbox |
Started off well, but there just isn't a game here. If you had asked me when I first bought it, I would have given it a 4-5. After playing for a number of months,I'll give it a 2 but its not far off from a 3.
I love Bungie, and everything they did with the Halo franchise, except Reach at which point I think they were just burned out, but I digress.
Destiny has A LOT of promise. The potential story and Universe is excellent, the problem is that it wasn't fully incorporated into the game. I don't know if that is because of what the rumors say or what, but your introduction to each mission is some text on the screen and some random voice. You go from mission to mission with only a brief understanding of why you are doing each. They try to make up for it with grimore cards, but I'm not a fan of having to research a story. When the game ended I was still pretty lost. There are barely any cut scenes helping you along as well.
The gameplay is fun, but you end up in the same area doing roughly the same thing over and over. The online play is also quite repetitive with few vehicles and little variety in the maps.
I buy games often based on their story potential, and this one had it, but lost me. The gameplay is fun but if my friends weren't playing it neither would I. I will not be playing it as soon as the Master Chief collection comes out. If Bungie made the DLC free (at least the first one) to make up for the lack of story, or at least cheaper maybe I would continue playing.
One final point against Destiny, which is personal in nature, is that the game includes some DLC content already on the disk that you can't access. I understand the need/use for DLC, but if some of the content is already ready, I am thoroughly put off by any developer who waits 3 months and then charges you 1/3 the game to play it.
Overall, I was disappointed that Bungie put out this product and seemed to fail so much on the story. | video-games_xbox |
Game of the Year. I am 32 years old and consider myself a huge fan of the first two Skylander games and now the 3rd release "Swap Force".
I enjoy the playing the games with my kids, they also love it and it has been enjoyable to do something together as a family.
I will gear my review toward veteran players of the Skylander series.
So far so good, at first I was slightly disapointed because I put Flameslinger (series 2) on the portal and the Xbox controller buttons are different from Giants. Now that there is the ability to Jump (A), they reconfigured all the buttons. Instead they could have just just utilized (Y) for jump since it was not used in Giants. My gripe is that Flameslinger's Wow Pow speed boost has to be used by pressing my index (X) and middle finger (B), hardly manageable. On Giants I could just use my thumb (X,A) for speed boost. I imagine this same issue will reoccur with older figures, especially ones with abilities that require multiple button pressing. It is a minor quibble but slightly frusrating since Flameslinger is my character of choice.
**update**Problem somewhat solved: The right upper trigger button will work for speed, then I hold (X) for super speed.
There are a few other disapointments and I'll get those out of the way.
- No more Heroic Challenges. But this is also kind of good considering I don't have to go through 32 heroic challenges to ugrade my character's stats any more. Which makes resetting my character to change alternate "paths" easier, or less painful.
**update** There are similar challenges to Heroic Challenges called "bonus missions" which are fun and very challenging. The main difference is you do not have to purchase more characters to unlock these, you only have to earn them in the game by completing "Swap Zone" challenges and other side missions.
- No areas for swimming for water element characters or fire areas that require a fire element character (lava world), like we saw on a few levels in Spyro's Adventure (as I have played so far). I was hoping Swap Force would return to and expand upon this!
- Old Adventure Packs (Dragon's Peak, Empire of Ice etc.) will not give you an extra level like they did before, only can be used as a majic item. I am not sure yet if they will give you an extra battle arena or not either, I don't think they do.
- Graphics/ resolution seemed fuzzy at first. So I purchased a 6$ HDMI cable from Amazon, problem solved.
Now for the positives-
- Excellent resolution, lighting, graphics with my new HDMI cable.
-Tons of variety and new gamplay. Every level so far there has been a "WOW" moment. The levels are a lot longer than Giants, like at least twice as long.
-Multiple difficulty levels and some more challenging content for older gamers.
- New stuff includes: fishing; new mini games, river rafting, really cool side-scrolling bonus areas.
-Tons of elemental zones, brand new Swap Zones for Swap Force characters only- such as climbing, flying, and racing, and secret areas a plenty.
- New survival mode battles - they are kind of like the arena battles in "Giants" but longer and more challenging.
- The new characters are AWESOME! In particular LightCore Smolderdash- She looks great as a figure, you set her on the portal and her eyes and fire hair glow red. In the game she's even more awesome, she powers up by catching on fire which then makes all of her other attacks more devastaing (whip attack, firey explosions etc.). She has short downtime after powering up, where she then "Smolders", in which the flame dims and smoke rolls off her dark figure, very cool. My kids also love the new ability to swap halves to make new characters.
In Summary: It's hard to imagine that Activision can continually come up with new and unique characters that differ from the many others already made but they continually do just that, it's amazing. Overall, Swap Force is a beautifully mastered work of art with stunning visuals, breathtaking landscapes, a great soundtrack bending from new age classical to a bit darker edgey electronica. It's gameplay is witty, challenging and addictive, which makes me conclude it should be the Game of the Year if not Game of the Century!
Enjoy, Portal Masters! | video-games_xbox |
A Hot Mess. * UPDATE 3/2/15 *
So Team Ninja rolled out an update over the weekend for this game. Version 1.01A seems to fix a few things, like the issues with freezing during throwdowns and ranked matches. However, even on their official site, it says the freezing/crashing "should happen less frequently". So this doesn't exactly boost my confidence. However, they did make an update so you can unlock all costumes, story mode, and movies with a click of a few buttons in the options screen. Seems this is their apology for people (like me) who got their save-data deleted from the DOA5U update. BUT - I am still having issues with paid DLC transfer. SOME of the costumes I paid for were available for free on the Xbox One store, however about half were not. I originally had the "Pop Idols" from when I preordered DOA5U in 2013, and I cannot download them for free as promised. I was able to download come costumes for Marie Rose and Phase 4 that I had originally paid for. So beware! This game has been patched, but it is still not completely fixed.
My original review:
First I want to say I am a big DOA fan. I've followed the series since DOA2 on the Dreamcast. I was really anticipating the latest installment, but there are some issues with DOA5LR that are difficult to forgive. This review is not to inform you of what's new and what's great about this game. For complete details, check out the official DOA5LR website. This review covers my own experience on the problems with this game, so for any of you that are thinking about buying this game, don't say I didn't warn you. This is regarding the Xbox One version of this game.
My first example of Team Ninja's incompetence is the update on the Xbox 360 version of DOA5U. You'll see warnings on the game about how to properly update the game so your save file doesn't get deleted. However, if you were like me and downloaded the update directly from the Xbox Marketplace before booting the game up, your save file was lost. The idea was to upload the save file from DOA5U to use for DOA5LR on Xbox One. But, mine got deleted so I had to start a fresh new save file (not that big of a deal, I'll get over it). However, these next two issues with DOA5LR are the most frustrating.
Team Ninja advertises that you can "carry over your paid DLC!" to DOA5LR. Now, I didn't buy every single costume pack from DOA5U on Xbox 360, but I bought a few. For example, I have Pop Idols Team O and Marie Rose with all her extra costumes that I paid for. According to the official website, you have to re-download this content from the same Microsoft account that the content was originally purchased for, and the Xbox Marketplace will not charge you again.
Guess what? This doesn't work. I've tried several methods to get this to work, like reinstalling the game, downloading them again on the 360, and it doesn't work. The content I originally paid for on DOA5U does not transfer to DOA5LR for free.
Next, the game has some horrible freezing issues. Online matchmaking is an absolute mess. Each time I try to search for a ranked or player match, the game freezes up and crashes, forcing me to the Xbox One dashboard. It's bad. It also does this when you activate "throwdowns" when you are in training mode. The game locks up and forces you to reboot.
Now, according to Team Ninja's Facebook page, they are "aware" of some issues and they "appreciate" our patience while they figure this out. But in my opinion, this is just unacceptable. I paid $40 for a game I can't play online with features that were promised and not delivered. I imagine the freezing issues will get fixed soon, but who knows about the DLC issues. I've emailed Tecmo and Team Ninja and complained, but I doubt I'll see a reply or any compensation. So this is a fair warning to the rest of you who are thinking about buying this game. | video-games_xbox |
Best in the series, one of the best on 360. Okay, when you read this review, you need to keep in mind that I'm 25% of the way through the game, so I haven't seen everything it has to offer. However, I figured it'd be a good idea to get a solid review on Amazon for all of you who, like myself, were lucky enough to score a 360 on launch day and need to know what to buy. Since this was the first game I bought, it's only appropriate that it's the first one I review. On to the actual review...
I've been a fan of the NFS games since NFS: Hot Pursuit back in the day, and I think it safe to say that this is the best game in the series thus far. It strikes an almost perfect balance between Hot Pursuit 2 and the Underground games- You have a wide open world to explore, but can jump from event to event if you so choose. Police will chase you, whether you're in a race or just out for a drive. Cars range from a Chevy Cobalt SS to a Porsche Carerra GT, so you've got a nice mix of tuners (Supra, RX 7 and 8, but sadly no R34 Skyline), Muscle (well, really just the Mustang... but it's pretty sweet), and of course high end (various Porsche, Lambo Gallardo, etc.).... It seems like EA really paid attention to what people loved about the older games (good car selection, police chases, nitrous, modification) and ditched a few things that were really bothersome, i.e. having to drive from race to race in Underground 2. Oh, and the graphics are amazing. It looks respectable on Xbox, but this version is just mind-blowing.
The gameplay itself is very solid. You switch between standard fare races and taking on the "Blacklist" of 15 racers, the top one of whom has a personal vendetta against you. This also makes for a solid, interesting story line- MUCH better than in NFS:U2. The core gameplay will be familiar- take a combination of races from Underground and Hot Pursuit 2, and throw in some better cops, and you have this game. I know it probably sounds like this game is nothing more than a rehash, but there are some new features. 1. Nitrous recharges with time, so you can get several good full nitrous blasts out in a race. 2. Racebreakers. Think bullet time, but for cars. Allows for better handling for an approximately 10 second period. 3. Chasebreakers. Allow you to destroy property and either incapacitate cops, or distract them. -All these features come together to create a game that, while not the most inventive thing ever, provides enough innovation and new material to keep you interested.
In summary, I would have to say that although I've not played PGR3 or Ridge RAcer 6, this game is a safe buy. You know what you're getting, and chances are, you love it. This is up there with Underground 1 and Hot Pursuit 2 for my favorite NFS game, likely because it takes so much from those two. I recommend this game for anyone who has ever enjoyed a Need for Speed game before, anyone with any interest in racing games or tuning, and for anyone who needs something to play on their 360 right now. Out of the games I've played- Call of Duty 2, Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo, and this- this can hang with the best of them. It's my personal favorite of the games I have (just this and PD right now), and has spent the majority of the past few days in my system. In fact, it may've already caused me to lose as much sleep as sitting in a line at Best Buy for 13 hours :-P
So, if you want to race, buy this game.
Enjoy! :-) | video-games_xbox |
ENJOYABLE. Let me just start off by saying Atsuma is NAAASTY in terms of how strong he can get towards the end of the game. I'm about 80% done with the game and this guy is flat out amazing. I was skeptical about buying this game at first b/c of all the bad reviews but i took a chance and bought it. Boy am i happy that I did b/c this game should NOT be overlooked. I found it pretty funny that the beginning of the game has a lot of Naruto similarities. Atsuma vs. Toya, Naruto vs. Saske, all the girls r in love with Toya and Atsuma gets angry over it haha. There are other comparisons but i won't get too much into it.
Some of the stuff that I don't like about the game is that it's too linear meaning everything is pretty much straight forward. There isn't much exploring to do and the traditional world map is non-existant. A lot of the players will like the fact that there isn't much exploring to do b/c a lot of players hate seeing 5 different doors that they have to go thru in order not to miss out on anything important. Furthermore, the game's dialogue is a bit tedious; I didn't like millions and millions of small reactions such as "ahhh", "nooo" over and over in one converation, it beocmes a drag after awhile. DO NOT PLAY this game in English dialogue!!! just a warning b/c Makoto will make u NOT want to play this game early on haha. This guy just sounds ridiculously gaaay. OMG...he got on my nerves haha. He sounds much better in Japanese and rest of the characters do too. I didn't really like the music either. I love when I enter a battle and music kicks in; that's hardly the case for E.A. Music was dull and a little boring i must admit. Think of FF7 and how pumped up you would get entering a battle...AHH...haha, I wish there was a way of substituting music, at least the battle music from games to games.
I was really hooked on the battle system. Creating new golems, weapons and what not was really awesome and still is haha. Strategizing on the grid and doing the combos is fresh and "fawk yeah" worthy. Once you see all 4 of your characters connect on the combo can be truely viscious. I'm curious what's the highest damage others have gotten on their combos, I WANNA COMPARE!! haha.
Well I hope my review was somewhat helpful, if you have any other questions...feel free to email me at Ned006@aol.com and I'll be more than happy to answer. | video-games_xbox |
An excellent marriage of NFS and BurnOut. Since it's original release, I've had a good bit of time to really sink my teeth into this game. Overall, I enjoy it but I've noticed a few possible hang ups that should be addressed by EA.
1) Disconnection from Autolog. This is a rare situation but it does happen. Nothing sucks more than winning a match, making first place, getting around 15,000 points for it, unlocking new stuff only to be told you've been disconnected from Autolog and all that work in that one match went flush. Again, it's a rare situation but can be really offsetting when it does happen.
2) "Auto Balancing Teams". In two words: It doesn't. Case in point: Yesterday me and a friend were playing in the Sports area of NFS. I'm a level 11 cop and level 13 racer. He is a level 13 cop and level 12 racer. Everyone else in the lobby was around levels 3-4 on average. Time runs down and the match begins its auto balance. My friend and I end up on the same team, meaning two level 11+ racers and the most they had was a level 7 cop, the rest of the cops were level 1, 3, and 4. While levels may not make a huge difference, it does on useage of equipment (spike strips, heli's, and road blocks). Needless to say we won most of the matches for the next 2 hours.
3) Map selection in public lobbies. While it doesn't happen all the time, it does happen with frequency. The map selection needs to be tweeked. It's unfair to one team continuously throughout their time in that lobby. What I mean by this is one Racer team gets a 7-8 mile run map and when things switch, the other side gets a 12-16 mile map, and it continues like this on and on making it unfair to one side trying to survive as a Racer.
4) Lobby Lockup. Extremely rare but it's happened twice in all the matches I've played through. What happens is the lobby will lock up while "auto balancing" teams and nothing further will happen, essentially forcing everyone to exit that lobby in order to get back into the game.
But don't let all the above things steer you away from this excellent game. It is definitely a fun mixture of Need For Speed and the Burn Out series. Where NFS comes in is the licensed cars, merged with the arcade race/rampage of BurnOut.
Where this game is funnest is online. You can do this right out the gate and best of all, whether you win or lose matches your "Racer" and "Cop" will each gain experience (depending on which one you drove during that match up). This will, in turn, unlock better attacks and more vehicles.
I hope in the coming weeks or months that EA sees such issues and is able to address them. This is an excellent game and would love to see it excel even more. | video-games_xbox |
It doesn't have all the buttons you need to fully replace the controller. A: It will if the app doesn't require X, Y, A, B, although the left arrow and back button work similar to the B. As of today Hulu requires the X button, for example, so I need to use the controller when confronted with that option. This, IMHO, is a serious failure in planning and design. The controller buttons should all be mirrored on the remote because app developers are going to design functionality based on the controller, first. Developers change app functionality all the time and for non-game apps they COULD consider the functionality of the remote, that would be nice. I only bought the remote, and I was happy to find it, because the buttons are so touchy on the controller and it takes a while to auto shutoff, when I set it down next to me on the couch to watch and then end up bumping a button that fast forwards the show I'm watching, for example. The controller is actually better, faster, smoother, at navigating the screen and the flat, tactileless remote is hard to use without looking at it, regardless of the back light. And while I'm on a roll, I think the rubber skin feels icky. It's more flash than substance as far as I'm concerned. I'm glad I only spent $16 at Fred Meyer and I can't believe Amazon is selling the same thing for $33. I'm going to resell it and get the other one with more buttons. If I really wanted to be happy with my set up I'd go with Roku or TiVo but I've chosen fewer devices by doing more with my Xbox. It's not one of the major platforms for streaming media, and it shows. I accept this level of mediocrity but that doesn't mean it's limitations are lost on me. I'm also confused why reviewers are saying it does everything just great with streaming media apps (Netflix, Hulu) when it obviously can't without the X, Y, A, B buttons, why are they lying? Once you buy the blighted thing you'll quickly figure out what's lacking, right? | video-games_xbox |
A Wonderful Restart for the Tomb Raider series. This game kills two birds with one stone. Basically it's cool being retro these days, the team at Edios redressed the whole game improving Lara, the physics, the levels, the graphics, and detailing the story. Plus this games grants Edios the chance to start from scratch with Lara and the series. It was also a cool way to give something neat back to the fans: especially after the backlash from fans over "Angel of Darkness". Anyway, The graphics and the story are awesome and do Lady Croft and the scenery justice.
I enjoy when a developer respects it's audience by staying true to the character it created while still improving, expanding, and evolving that characters development. The developers thoughtfully intertwine the plot to suit "Tomb Raider: Underworld" (which in-turn resolved both the stories from this game and "Legend"). The reintroduction of Natla's character also helps to explain to fans what happened prior to "Underworld". While "Anniversary" can stand on it's own as a cool game, it does set up the other two games. Though all the games were released out of order: Legend in 2005, Anniversary in 2006, and Underworld in 2008. Anniversary does create a time line that is respectful to the fans that appreciate continuity.
The Tomb Raider series is not for kids and this game is no exception. Tomb Raider: Anniversary is a reintroduction of Lara and a spring board for new story lines and a way to introduce new fans to a classic game and story. As a fan of the series it's nice to be able to play the original Tomb Raider on today's graphic superior platforms. I don't know how they do it but each adaptation of Lara Croft and her abilities is stunning in every game and this game does not disappoint. I might add that the ability to earn and wear different outfits (introduced in "Legend") is included in this game as well the added fun of finding artifacts, relics, completing time trials and the use of the grappling-hook.
All in all, I recommend this game to new and old fans alike. It's the old game with improved graphics, physics, clothing, and abilities. It is joy to play and experience time and again. | video-games_xbox |
Awesome. I ordered this game around a few months back when it did not have the back to karkano included. however lets get to some of the good things about this game.#1 is that the graphics are amazing! The detail in the landscape is really nice and the detail in the players are amazing.
#2 The campgain I'd say 4 stars because its nothing really new. *SPOILER ALERT* A nuke gets stolen and you have to retrieve it. But i will say the game has some nice twists in it. Another great thing is that you are able to see a perspcetive from both sides of the conflict. From the russian side and the American side.
#3 The multiplayeer is really the main reason why i bought ths game because of the huge maps and vehicle range from tanks to jets you will not be disapointed. The maps are the biggest i have ever seen in a multiplayer online game. The thing about multiplayer is that you and your squad really depend on eachother. Like if one team just runs into the fray they will be instantly gunned downed by opposing troops. same with vehicles like if a tank gos into a urban enviorment it will be trapped instantly within the streets if it does not have support like a engineer and a sniper. The whole game focus on team work like how the support gunner like be zeroed in by a sniper then killed. its the medics job to revieve him so the gunner can lay down supperesive fire for the rest of the team to advance. Each class has a certain job to do and if played well you have a pretty good team. Then there is those game changing moments like if the defending team on rush has a really good defence it makes the attacking team either choose stealth or a full frontal aussault on the base.
#4 The vehicles can change the way a game is played. The air vehicles(jets, helicopters)are hardder to control but are lethal if used right. It is the way a team attacks. Do I Bombard the enemys with bombs, mortars, and tank fire? or do I go for a speed attack withe jeeps and scout helicopters and amphibous tanks?It all depends on your playing style. which is what I love about this game .
#5 The weapon choices are really good. There are a ton of choices of guns and attachments you can pick because unlike COD you can put 3 atttahments on your gun at any time. The on thing I don't like though is how you can buy a entire classes weapons for microsoft points which is unfair because why should a noob be able to get on really good gun when a veteran player only has a Ok gun.
The Downs
#1 some people just don't get how you play the game they run into crossfire over and over and then yell though there microphone swear words and usally these people are smaller kids like at age 7 or 10. Where are there Parents?I Dont really see alot of these kids but when i do it messes up my game.
#2 Like I said above the campgain seems a bit old because of the story line but it defenity is a intense game.
#3 In the multiplayer see some of the "I am better than you" type stuff but i believe that if you give a noob a jet over and over again he will eventully get the controls and become good at it. Again I rarely see this.
Overall: a great game and none of the downs should change your mind about this game.
(sorry for any misspelled words) | video-games_xbox |
This is THE best racing game for ANY system to date. Rallisport Challenge gives me all I've ever wanted in a racing game. This is the most fun I've had racing since Top Gear came out for the Super Nintendo.
I played Gran Turismo and GT2 before, but truthfully, I really never got into them as much as other people. I just wanted to race. I didn't want to have to earn a stupid license just so I could qualify to enter several races before having to earn another stupid license all over again. Here is what makes Rallisport Challenge such a joy to play:
GRAPHICS - RSC is right at the top when it comes to great graphics on the Xbox. Dead or Alive 3 and Halo are the only games that come close to Rallisport in terms of graphics. The cars, courses, people, animals ... you name it, and it looks wonderful!
SOUND - While some reviews I've read have knocked on the sound of Rallisport, I like it a lot. All the cars have different sounds for their engines, and they are sound very realistic. The British guy who informs you of upcoming obstacles has yet to get on my nerves, and the whole "him talking through the radio" concept comes across very authentically. Also, I happen to like the music that plays while you're racing, but if you don't really like it, you can always opt to play your own tunes.
GAMEPLAY - This is really where Rallisport Challenge shines. It comes across as a perfect mix between simulation and arcade. You can't go 190MPH through curves, and the "sliding" looks and feels natural. RSC captures the essence of rally racing like no other game before it. You'll swear you're watching it on ESPN. Thankfully though, it doesn't play exactly like real-life. Who would want to take a turn to sharp, wreck, and then not be able to even finish the race? I know I wouldn't. When you wreck, actual damage will show up on your car, but it won't affect how your car handles or anything like that. It even has a reset button that will place your car back on the track if you wreck. To balance out the way it deals with wrecking, you get bonus points at the end of the race if your car doesn't have much damage. These points help you unlock more cars and more tracks.
Rallisport Challenge is by far the best racing game I have ever played. In fact, it has made me become a fan of racing games once again. | video-games_xbox |
A Difficult Game To Review. Halo is a tricky game to review. On one hand, it's an FPS on a console, which any gamer knows is typically a bad combination. On the other hand, the production value of the game is very high.
That said, I give the game 3 stars for "fun" and 4 stars "overall". If it weren't for the incredible attention to detail (great cinematics, sound, story, etc), the gameplay alone would certainly not warrant 4 stars.
I am a HUGE fan of FPS games. Aside from ESPN's football series and a few other miscellaneous titles, I don't even use my Xbox much because I spend my "game time" on my PC. That's not to say that PCs are better than consoles, blah blah blah... I'm saying that PCs and consoles lend themselves well to certain TYPES of games. For instance, you'll never see me playing Madden or Tiger Woods on my computer. Likewise, you'll RARELY see me playing an FPS game on my console.
Halo almost succeeded where most have miserably failed: creating an FPS that is viable on the console. What impresses me most about Halo is not the graphics: it's the fact that it's the first FPS game I've played on the console that is actually easy to control. Unfortunately, "easy to control" doesn't always equate to "fun". I know I'm going against the tide, but I just didn't get attached to Halo the way some people seem to. The graphics may have been great a few years ago when the Xbox launched, but today, I don't see any level of detail that can't be found in other games. In some respects, they're even a little sub-par. Now, with limited RAM and a limited GPU (by today's standards), one could very easily argue that these graphical limitations are the result of hardware limitations. For instance, to its praise, Halo offers expansive environments with a lot happening on-screen all at once. Obviously that's resource intensive, and other games that look better (Def Jam's Fight For NY and ESPN's NFL come to mind) were probably able to achieve better graphical quality because the environments were significantly smaller. So, understand that I'm not placing my disappointment in the graphics on the shoulders of the developers, but rather on the shoulders of hardware that doesn't permit superior graphical quality AND wide open environments all at once.
This is one reason why I believe FPS games are better suited for the PC. I've been spoiled by PC FPS games that have had far superior graphics, such as Rainbow Six Raven Shield and UT2004. The developers of these games were able to take advantage of a much larger pool of memory, CPU, and much more advanced GPUs.
So I've been harping on the graphics a bit... but we all know that gameplay is perceived as the bottom-line (though I would argue that good graphics lend themselves to better gameplay since they help you to immerse yourself in the experience). I mentioned that the controls were easy to handle (VERY easy, in fact). Well, I found the gameplay a little boring. I can't quite put my finger on why I felt that way - especially since the game's gameplay mechanics have been praised so much by others - but I think it's based on the fact that it's almost *too easy* to target your enemies (very large hitboxes). The problem goes back to this being an FPS on a console: you can't make targeting too difficult (by shrinking the hitboxes), because aiming your crosshair with a thumbstick is inherently awkward to begin with. It's a catch-22, and in my opinion, is a big reason why consoles just don't lend themselves well to FPS.
I'm sure this is going to be seen as some sort of "insult" to consoles and console gamers, but you folks will just have to get over that. It's not an insult; it's an observation. Like I said earlier: I own a PC and I own a console. Each has its own job to do. The PC runs the shooters, and the console runs the sports, driving, and fighting games.
That's what each does best. | video-games_xbox |
Best. Headset. EVER. Well... Let me start off with saying that I have been gaming my whole life, I have owned everything from PS2's to Xbox originals, to the latest Xbox 360. When the Xbox 360 launched it was created to be the leader in console gaming both for hardcore and casual gamers.
I am a Hardcore gamer, I game A LOT! I know my way around when it comes to consoles, and I know my hardware and Accessories...
So, I purchased this headset a couple months back, and from the date I purchased this I have not put it down! The Sound quality is amazing! and I really have not noticed a SINGLE problem with it!
I will list some pros that I haven't seen posted on here thus far:
Pros:
- The Headsets Sound quality is amazing, I play a lot of shooter games (CoD4, Halo , BF-BC etc) and I have never been able to hear what I hear when I am wearing this Unit! The Things you hear are - rain, Footsteps, long distance firing, and much more
- with the recent Music games that have started to dominate the video game market (rockband / Guitar Hero) I play in my living room and my family gets very annoyed to hear the "annoying" songs that I play in those games broadcast through the house and these headphones have completely eliminated that FOREVER!!!!
- WIRELESS - I have used several Wireless headsets that cause "Fuzz" and "Distortion" but I have NO problem with these at all! :)
- You can change anything, if the volume of the game is to loud you can turn it down, or if you need more chat volume you can turn that up, it is a very easy method right on the headphones themselves!
- Overall I find NO real problem with these headsets... I love them to death, I tried to go back to a garbage MS mic after I got the Turtle Beach X3 just to see how different it was... and I could not stand it! These Headsets are by far the best I have ever used! and I have used a lot!!!
Cons:
- The only con that I find in this item is that they don't come with rechargeable batteries... (they come with batteries but not rechargeable ones) so I went to best but, and bought a 4pack of rechargeable batteries ($5.00) and everything from there on out has been perfect!!!
Overall I would rate this Item with a 10/10! I have used it for awhile now, and have had no problems, and the quality is incredible!
I always go by the saying "you get what you pay for" well that is the case here, I had 3 Microsoft Mics break on me last year alone, that's $60.00 a year, at that rate... so I invested in this and have had no problems for about 7-8months!!!
I would suggest this item to anyone looking to get a good quality, superbly designed headset, and get the best bang for your buck!
**Update**
This product is still working just as it is supposed to, In fact, I even watch TV with this at night to avoid waking family members! This is truly a great product! much recommended! | video-games_xbox |
Among the best console racers ever made. Stuff youve read elsewhere that Ill reinforce: graphics are incredible, rain is wow, nice selection of cars.
The first thing thats important to me in a console racer is accessibility. Meaning, the game has to be easy to pick up and put down with little effort, and for me that means being able to use a gamepad instead of having to drag a wheel/pedal stand out of the closet. In this aspect, Forza may well be the very best console racer of all time. The developers have managed to allow for each cars unique characteristics to shine through, even while using a gamepad. For reference, I drive with ABS on & the normal steering setting, other aids are switched off. The steering is dialed in as well as Ive experienced for a gamepad and I never want to play another racer without the trigger rumble again. In fact, the throttle and brake control with a gamepad are probably better than you're likely to experience with an actual pedal setup.
Years ago I had a 2004 Subaru STi. I had a fair amount of seat time at track days as well as dozens of autocross events over the years. Amazingly, the STi in Forza. feels like an STi. It understeers a bit coming out of corners at part throttle, then at full throttle as the three differentials lock up it gets sideways and goes into an easy to control four wheel drift. I can get nit-picky and go on about the details that aren't perfect, but the fact that its as close as it is kind of amazes me.
Another thing that I look for out of a console racer is for it to convey a sense of speed, and this is another area where Forza excels. I believe this is in large part to the excellent sound built into the game. Going back to the STi thing it sounds like an STi. The sound is as close as Ive ever heard any game get to feeling like you're in a real car, I cant think of another game that does it better. In my mind, the only games Ive felt a better sense of speed would be the old Colin McRae Rally games, which were excellent. The best track to experience this in Forza is the Nurburgring, a track which is modeled on a number of other games. The real Nurburgring has some pretty extreme elevation changes, something that most other titles don't seem to accurately convey to the player. Forza nails it, I have never had more fun trying to figure out how to get around this track while dealing with traffic.
Forza isn't the game you go to when you want a serious, authentic racing experience, nor is it the title you go to when you want a goofy fun arcade feel to your drive. Its somewhere in between, theres just enough sim mixed in, while removing some of the more tedious aspects of the more genuine simulations that are out there. It provides a great balance thats easy to get into for the casual gamer, but still satisfying for those whose tastes lean towards the hard core, who just want to get in a quick and easy fix instead of the hours it can take to practice and prepare for something like a high level iRacing session.
Things I wish were here.
A series configuration tool. Such as, if I wanted to create my own hot hatch series, setting the performance value of each car, setting points values for each finishing position, setting the number of races/laps, setting the order each track is run, etc.
In the absence of this, something like Gran Turismo has, where they push different events for people to participate that you can access online. Something, anything to better extend the replay value for after youve gone through the career mode.
Something to make the career mode races a bit more dynamic, like being able to set the desired race length. I understand that the developers didn't want this to be a slog, but two lap races on some tracks are. just not enough. When I feel like I have to jam my car through the first couple of corners on the first lap to pick up 4-5 spots to have a shot at actually winning the race, its just not long enough.
A look through the corner view. As in, having the view shift slightly to allow you to see all the way through a curve as you drive through it.
Overall though, I love it. Id recommend it for anyone who enjoys racing games. | video-games_xbox |
Best RPG game ever made, 100% genius. Best RPG game ever made, 100% genius.
I don't really know how to define Shenmue 2. I'll just say it's a fighting/adventure game with RPG elements. Shenmue 2, however, is a game that defies categorization. Sure, it incorporates fighting, but that's only a fourth or third of the game. The rest you spend exploring Hong Kong. Although Shenmue 2 does not fit into a particular game genre, it is still a very good game.
Shenmue 2 is (pretty obviously) a sequel to Shenmue. Luckily for those who haven't played Shenmue 1, there is a movie that consists of most of the first game's cut scenes so new players will not be confused. It's not the most exciting or entertaining movie, but it gets the job done. The main story of Shenmue 2 is that you play Ryo Hazuki, a Japanese teenager whose father was killed by a mysterious martial arts master named Lan Di. Ryo must travel to China to avenge his father's death. The story is not just one of revenge, but also of a boy growing into a man. As Shenmue 2 is just a part in a series of games, Ryo does not avenge his father's death in this game, instead you must settle for defeating some of the killer's associates.
Presentation(Story and Design): 10/10
Every square foot of Shenmue 2 is crammed with detail. You can look at and pick up anything, and talk to anyone. The game has a good story, and good settings for the gameplay. The game is set first in the Wan Chai district of Hong Kong, then in Kowloon, and finally in the Chinese countryside. Everything looks right in the game. Tenements look grimy and desolate, and market streets look busy and vibrant. There are also tons of mini games in the form of street fights and arcade games. These are fun to play, and trying to find all of them adds another dimension to the game. The whole game is very well designed, it looks great and adds to the gameplay. The only problem I had was the game's story towards the end. It was a bit too mystical for me, and while the ending wasn't a total cliffhanger, it was a sequel setup that left me wanting more but slightly disappointed.
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Gameplay can be divided into four main sections: Free Quest, Free Battle, Quick Timer Events(QTEs for short), and various mini games. First, the Free Quest. You spend most of the game in this mode, wandering around and playing detective by looking for people. Even this is a joy, as you can just wander into shops, and buy random things from vending machines and street stalls. The only problem with this is that Ryo's control is kind of jerky, even on the thumb pad. However, that's not all there is to the game. There are also Free Battles, in which you battle one or many opponents. The fighting engine is based on the Virtua Fighter engine, and usually works well. There are a multitude of moves to use, and more that you learn throughout the game. You are able to punch, throw, kick, and dodge, all of which you will need to do. The moves vary in power and speed, and also vary in how difficult they are to execute. The QTEs test your reflexes, by making you press the right button in the right amount of time. These are usually activated for chases or fights. There are also Command QTEs, in which you must do a button combination in the right amount of time. I didn't like the Command QTEs very much, as I found it hard to understand just what the command I was supposed to do was. Finally, there are mandatory and optional mini games. You must make some money in the game, and you can do so by selling things at pawnshops, carrying crates, running a stand, or gambling. Carrying crates and running a stand are both tedious and pretty boring activities, like in real life. The gambling games, usually involving dice, are fun but risky. There are also optional arcade games and street fighting mini games, as well as ones incorporated into the ordinary gameplay. The arcade games are actual arcade games from the eighties, all were designed by Yu Suzuki, who designed this game. The street fights mostly focus on an aspect of the fighting engine, and you will have to do things like avoid a wrestler for thirty seconds, or knock a man out in five moves. The game is almost devoid of action for the first few hours, and then speeds up considerably for the middle, and then gets very slow at the end. While the beginning isn't action packed, it is still fun, which I can't say for the end. After fighting and dealing with gangsters and thieves for hours, you suddenly find yourself walking through fields with no purpose. It is like a dull epilogue for a mostly great and exciting game.
Graphics: 9/10
The graphics for the Xbox version are slightly improved over the original Dreamcast version, and while not the best looking Xbox game, Shenmue 2 sure doesn't put the system to shame. The texturing is great, and the cities look gorgeous. All the background areas are practically flawless. Most of the character models look very good and detailed, but a few just look very odd and unnatural. All of the characters that look like that are minor ones, and if you can ignore them, the game looks very good.
Sound: 7/10
Shenmue 2 has an excellent score, but horrible voice acting. The score is great, with the music perfectly fitting the scenario. The music tense when the scenario is tense, and sounds like bar music when you enter a bar. Shenmue 2's soundtrack is superb. The voice acting, however, is not. Apart from Ryo, all the voice actors sound horrible. In the Japanese version, when an old man spoke, it sounded like an old man. Here, it sounds like a teenager doing a bad imitation of an old man. Unfortunately, you must play with the horrific dubbed English voices.
Longevity: 10/10
This game should at least last you 40 hours. And that's not counting all the hidden mini games and other secrets you can unlock. You can beat this game after a few days of intense playing, but it will still take you awhile.
Overall: 10/10
An almost flawless game, with strong gameplay and a world bursting with detail. | video-games_xbox |
Badassery - Redefined. I have waited for this game since the end credits to Max Payne 2 which stated that Max's journey into the night would continue. I didn't think I'd have to wait over 9 years for the third installment, but I can say that it was definately worth the wait.
Everything gamers have known and loved about the first two Max Payne games is alive and well. Bullet time is still king and Max is still responsible for sending more bodies into "the cold dark depths of the grave" than any other badass in video game history. Slow motion effects are done exceptionally well as there are several moments Max is either jumping through the air or swinging from a cable and time slows down allowing you to peg bad guys in the head. From Sao Palo gang-bangers, to paramilitary forces, to corrupt police special tactics squads, no one is safe from the man called Payne once he is in full swing.
I did notice that the usual 'Graphic Novel' sequence that was used to tell the story of the first two games is missing in this one in favor of full motion video with James McCaffery narrating in Max's usuall dark, sarcastic voice. I actually found it a welcome change which blended very well into the game's flavor.
The music for the game is AWESOME! From the first moment the piano started playing the usual Max Payne theme I knew I was back in familiar territory. But when Max is moving from fight to fight, the music pics up with several fast-paced songs which gets the adrenalin pumping in a phenominal way.
However this game is NOT for everyone. It is extremely violent. Bullet holes realistically tear people apart and there are a couple of scenes in the game that acutally made me a bit uncomfortable. So if you are a parent thinking about this game for a young teen - you may wish to pass on this one.
*** SPOILER ALERT BELOW! ***
The game splits between two story lines. One - where Max is working as a private security guard for Rodrigo Bronco, a rich Brazilian businessman whose spouse gets kidnapped and Max is sent on a rescue mission. Two - follows Max's recent past from almost six months ago where he dons the familiar leather jacket and players find out what he has been up to since the events of Max Payne 2.
I felt these worked out well, but the only grip I had (and it is a very minor one) is that there was no actual resolution to Max's time in New Jersey. I expected him to kill the head of the crime family that wanted him dead, but that resolution never presented itself.
All in all, I give major kudos to Rockstar for delivering a MUST-HAVE for true Max Payne fans around the world. This was a very well done piece of work. I had originally thought that Mass Effect 3 was going to be my "Must Have" game this year, but after Bioware dropped the ball, I am glad Rockstar didn't. This game was near perfect from beginning to end which had me firmly engrossed in Max's story from the first pain-popping pill to the very last and I am actually pleased for the ending Rockstar gave Max this time around. A man can only suffer so much before he had to decide whether he has it in him to actually 'live' and it seems he is heading in that direction. | video-games_xbox |
The true gearhead's simulator. Why?
1) The car simulation is very true to life. Different car designs play true to their characteristics. And if you invest in better stuff, it shows. And then there is the car's set up. Still not convinced? Try doing donuts in a 330 Ferrari from 1967! OMG. Convinced that lots of power is all you need? Try wrestling a Lingerfelter Vette in New York!
2) The crash modelling is just a killer app and sets it apart from GT4. No more pinball racing! You crash and you spin and you burn! Just try simulation setting, and you will be limping around the track with bent suspention or even a dying engine that will spew smoke out the pipes! So much so, that you wonder how the pro's can manage to finish a race with all the rubbing going on! Or you can go out and play Crash Derby and watch what it's like to hit a Enzo doing 180!
3) The tracks, although lacking in variety (I really miss Monaco!) are very well modelled, including detail like differentiated behaviour as you hit sand traps, gravel traps, or spin your tyres on grass or dirt. Amazing. The Sebring track even has the irregular pattern of the concrete slabs, and tyres actually sound different over them and the car behaves like a pool with wheels.
4) The opposing AI is just fiendishly realistic. Set it in hard and they will go out to get you! If you rub someone off track, you better keep ahead or else he will come at you and push you out at the nearest curve.
5) The car hop up program is similar to GT but takes it a step further. There is more detail, and you can even do engine swaps with models that allow it (not all of them)
6)The controls are great as the triggers offer ample modulation. I am still struggling with my GT habit of all ON or OFF.
7) Finally, if all this is not enough, you can get artistic and pimp your ride with an incredible array of art. A game inside the game.
And did I mention that you just plug in your MP3 to the Xbox and listen to your fev tracks. | video-games_xbox |
Great game for the busy gamer. If you love gaming, work all the time, don't have time for games needing hours of investment then this is the game for you!
I watched a video of a developer playing the game quite a while back and had forgotten about Just Cause 2 until the demo was released on Xbox Live for Gold members. All those memories of amazement while watching that video came flooding back into my head. The game is just plain fun from the moment you put the disc in. Only have 30 minutes to spare? Put the disc in your Xbox and you can roam free around the entire 35 square mile world and pretty much do whatever you want to whomever you want instantly. No time for completing a mission? No problem! Go grapple onto a chopper, shoot the gunner,throw the pilot out and steal that joker! Perform your own Shock and Awe campaign for those precious 30 minutes of gaming you have.
The game is totally unrealistic but I do not want to play "Real Life Simulator" as I do that everyday. The controls of the game can be a bit tricky at first but you will get the hang of it; especially if you do some tweaking to the X and Y sensitivity settings in the options menu. The camera however can be a bit frustrating at times. The camera will sometimes recenter itself when you do not want it to and there is no way to turn auto centering on/off. The camera only has these issues when you get really, realy close to a building/cliff or while controlling a vehicle. I have trained myself not to touch the right stick while controlling a vehicle and that has helped a lot. If you read the manual it tells you that while using your parachute to steer with the left stick and only make minor corrections with the right stick. That information should be in the game because it is very important to getting very skilled at parasailing. The minor camera and control issues are why I took off one star from the overall game rating.
If you have any doubts about this game then I highly recommend checking out the demo on Xbox Live if you are a Gold member. If the demo does not sell you on the game then do not buy it. For those of you with a PC that has a decent graphics card you may want to purchase the PC version of this game instead, since the Xbox version does not offer any multiplayer features. The controls would probably be much better with a computer.
-Striker777 | video-games_xbox |
nitpicking the nitpickers. sure the graphics are disappointing. sure the levels are kind of underpopulated. yeah a club can block a lightsaber, and yeah the voice acting is kind of poor. but this game still ranks somewhere on my top 20. the game itself is extremely fun. the ability to have complete control over your lightsaber is something no other SW game has ever offered (and to this day, it still is not a feature, though Jedi Academy will hopefully take that fun feature into account), plus the combos you can learn with your trusty blue blade, and the neat force powers that include slowing down time to make the game seem like a cool star warsie spin off of the matrix, plus if you get bored you can go civilian hunting and get away with it. a person who can enjoy a game for it's gameplay will tell you that most of the effort went to supporting all of the games multiple features (c'mon now lucasarts was just getting started on the box with this one), plus the game is quite long. deep thinkers will tell you that the levels are unpopulated because the hangouts of a crime syndicate like the Jin-Ha would be just that. who wants to hang around with some ... ninjas that even jedi have a tough time bustin out on. star wars geeks will tell you that certain types of metals exist in the star wars galaxy capable of countering a lightsaber (cortosis and corsica, to name two). sympathisers will tell you that lucasarts was at the time using the good actors (mcgreggor and portman and such) in ep. 2, and dragging them away from a major movie for a game wouuld be somewhat moronic (...), plus, all you need to do obi-wan and qui gon are people with at least slightly real sounding oldie british accents, for maul you just find a low voiced guy a shove a frog or something less clecheid down his throat, and for padme you just need a damsel in distress. thus, i wasn't bothered by the voice acting. i, in fact, was very impressed with this game, especially the side story where padme was kidnapped by tuskens and lucasarts finally reveals the existance of a tusken chief. i also enjoyed the Jin-Ha bit, though the whole lightsaber resistant armor deelie started to pop some veins after awhile. all in all, this game attempts to slightly recover a bit of what sw lost with the unholy mess that was ep. 1, but if you really need to nitpick like all of the reviews i've read of this game, i suggest you invest an extra couplea bucks in knights of the old republic, which is phenomenal in its own respect, but lacks the constant action of obi-wan. i gave this game four stars because no one seems to have a middle ground. ... | video-games_xbox |
Buying guide for Xbox One bundles. I wanted to create a guide to help those interested in purchasing an Xbox One, since there are so many bundles, and offers change constantly. I'll attempt to keep this up to date as the bundles change. This is NOT a comparison to Playstation 4 or Wii U.
Amazon is running a promotion through November 21st, I think, to get a free (non-preorder) game with purchase of a (non-preorder) X1 bundle, and a few bundles with an extra unchangeable free game, which aren't eligible for the promotional free game. Seems redundant to me. Anyway...
A short list of features that may interest you, shared by all Xbox Ones (more details can be found in product descriptions and Microsoft sites) -
HDMI pass through. You can hook up an HDMI device to the back of an Xbox One to view the content from that device without changing inputs or leaving the X1 interface. This allows for split screen viewing and if a cable box or the official TV tuner, you can view the channel guide, watch TV, and set recordings.
It is backwards compatible with some Xbox 360 games. This is great for those with backlogs (like me...) or those who want to revisit finished games without having another console plugged into the wall/TV. In the fall, owners of publisher approved disc or digital 360 games will be able to play them emulated on the X1. Some X1 games also include their 360 precursors with purchase for play on the X1 in case you missed them. Gears or War Ultimate Edition includes all 4 Xbox 360 Gears games and Fallout 4 includes Fallout 3, for example. List of games and other info here -[...]
It will stream content to Windows 10 devices.
Xbox Live Gold now applies to households instead of individuals; meaning that multiple accounts on the same console can have access to the same features but have differing account restrictions (I.E. parental controls). So you can let your kids play Garden Warfare online, but not Gears of War.
External USB 3.0 storage. This is great because, 1) you don't need to open the console and replace a hard disc to add storage, just plug in and the X1 will format the drive, 2) even disc-based games have compulsory installs and can be upwards of 50GB each, eating storage space quickly, 3) external drives can be spacious and cheap, and last but not least, 4) USB 3.0 is actually faster than the internal hard disc interface. This means that a game on an external drive will load faster than one on the internal drive, usually by a significant amount.
The bundles-
The bundles can be split into 3 different groups based on time of release. The upcoming and current bundles include a newer controller that has a standard 3.5mm audio jack built in and output both game and chat audio through it (excepting the new Kinect bundles). Legacy consoles include an older controller without the standard audio jack (excepting the Forza 6 bundle) and shouldnt be expected to be widely available at the suggested price (and some I haven't included, due to their rarity at this point). There are no other functional differences. All bundles include a controller, HDMI cable, chat headset (with exceptions), and a 14 day Xbox Live Gold trial membership (paid $60/year service to play online and download the Games with Gold, a monthly rotation of full games you're free to download and keep (forever for 360 games and as long as you have Live Gold in active subscription for X1 games).
Upcoming bundles (with rating based on what you get for the money. Star and letter ratings are intended for the suggested price listed next to the bundle, not whatever current prices are.) -
Xbox One Elite 1TB bundle. $499. Includes a console with a 1TB hybrid SSD and hard disc for quicker load times for the items you access the most and the Elite controller, which has replaceable/customizable sticks, buttons, and triggers for the professionals or tinkerers. While the internal storage on this will be better than the standard HDDs in other X1s, the performance increase PROBABLY won't match external USB3.0 drives, due to the continued use of the SATA interface. There's little information about the size of the SSD partition and many hybrid drives don't allow you to choose what content is on which partition. The elite controller isn't yet available, but will retail for $150 (about triple the price of a regular controller). If you want the best/most storage and best controller out of the box, this is the bundle for you, but you won't get any games with it, or a headset, from the looks of it. B rating. Also note that this version releases earlier if purchased from the Microsoft Store or Gamestop.
Current bundles -
Fallout 4 1TB bundle - $399. Includes 1TB console, Fallout 4 game confirmed to be a disc (!), a download of the Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3, and a chat headset. B+ rating. Two open-world RPGs for grownups.
Rise of the Tomb Raider 1TB bundle - $399. Includes 1TB console, downloads of Rise of the Tomb Raider, DLC, and its predecessor, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, and doesn't appear to include a headset. Releases November 3rd. B+ rating. The Tomb Raider reboot from 2013 was pretty good and I expect the sequel will be even better. Great for adults who love action adventure. Amazon won't be stocking this one, unfortunately...
Kinect 500GB Bundle - $399. Includes 500GB console, the Kinect camera, a chat headset, the old model controller, and three Kinect-focused game downloads: Dance Central Spotlight, Kinect Sports Rivals and Zoo Tycoon. Finally another Kinect bundle! The X1 UI is made better and more easily navigable with the Kinect, and there are fun, energetic games to be played with it. A rating. Great for those who want to move and enjoy motion and voice controls, but it has little storage.
Holiday 1TB Bundle - $399. Includes 1TB console, Gears of War Ultimate Edition disc (as well as all 360 Gears games as downloads if you play online before the end of the year), Rare Replay disc, and Ori and the Blind Forest game download, the new controller, and doesn't appear to include a headset. Releases October 27th. A rating. Something(s) for everyone in this bundle, with 36 games included.
Halo 5 Limited Edition 1TB bundle. $499. Includes custom console with Halo sounds, and custom controller, with the Halo 5 Limited Edition (steelcase, guardian figure, game download and add-on content). Why a limited edition would come without a physical game is beyond me... It may not bother some, but it will upset many. This is a higher premium than the Forza 6 bundle (charging an extra $100 for an extra $40 package). For Halo aficionados/console collectors only.
Lego Movie 500GB bundle - $349. Includes 500GB console and the Lego Movie Videogame and no headset, apparently. C+ rating. Game is a cheap one and good for kids, but little value in this bundle compared to others.
FIFA and Madden 16 1TB bundles. $399. I'm grouping these together because other than the type of football you prefer, they are the same. Both include either the latest Madden NFL or FIFA soccer game download and a year of EA access, a paid ($30/yr) service which allows Xbox One users early access to EA releases, extended demos with progress that can be saved if a full game is purchased, discounts on EA games, and free access to the Vault, currently 14 full games. Great if you like EA's games. A- for each. With the live Gold card and Forza Horizon 2 download (separate product pages) A rating.
Gears of War 500GB bundle. $349. Includes Gears of War Ultimate Edition download (as well as all 360 Gears games if you play online before the end of the year). This 500GB model includes the new controller, but does not include a headset. B+ rating. With the live Gold card and Forza Horizon 2 download (separate product pages) A rating.
Legacy bundles-
Forza 6 1TB Bundle. $399. Custom Forza-inspired console with racing sounds and custom (new, with 3.5mm audio jack) controller, and download code for Forza 6 and extra content, and a chat headset. A- rating, though some may not like the custom design and sounds.
Halo Master Chief Collection 1TB bundle. $399. Looks like this being phased out. Standard console, plus download code for the Master Chief Collection (the four numbered Halo games in a single package). B rating.
Halo Master Chief 500GB bundle. $349. If you can get it at the retail price, I'd consider it an A-, since the cost to upgrade storage to 1TB or greater is around or less than the $50 to get the 1TB model, and it'll perform better.
Keep in mind that the lowest prices and best bundles tend to happen around the winter holiday season, so unless you really want to get one now, you're probably best served waiting till around Black Friday, when multiple stores will be trying to entice you with lower prices and more pack-ins. This is especially true since Sony recently cut the price of the Playstation 4.
At this point, I think the best offer for the holidays for an X1 bundle will be for $50 off current price point, plus an extra game and second controller (Dell at least, will offer such a deal). The risk is availability and whether the bundle or extra game would be one you'd want. | video-games_xbox |
Addicting. You remember the old games like Contra for SNES, where all you had to do was push forward and shoot anything that stands in your way? Well, "Black" stands on similiar ground, except with 21 century style.
I will speak first of the levels. There are only 8, but they are BIG interactive levels. What I mean by interactive is, there is not a single object in this game that dose not react to your gunfire or the gunfire of the enemies that shoot at you. If you take cover behind the column of a building, that column will eventually crumble after absorbing so much impact. And if it is holding up a roof, that roof just may bury you. Or, if the third, second and fourth floor of a building is manned by people shooting down at you, and you just so happen to come across a RPG, you can just shoot the building, watch all the windows blow out, fire erupt and listen to people scream inside as they burn. You can pop the tires of trucks, blow up cars, and send whole cities to hell if you have the right equipment. I think creating destruction (if you can make sense of that) was the sincere intent of the game's producers. Gas stations, crates of explosives, and large vehicles all seem to be purposely stationed near buildings or other such objects that could blow up. I understood perfectly just what kind of game this was meant to be when I finally realized that in order to open doors there is no "action" button you need to press. You just simply have to arm yourself with a Spaz shotgun and blow the frigging thing off its hinges.
There is a story to the game and a reason to the chaos. I guess what disappointed people was the lack of attention given to your character and the enemies he chases. You read these taglines on the internet that seem to suggest that you will travel around the world and assassinate individual targets, kind of what you get with Hitman. All this IS misleading, and it comes with no surprise. What little story that dose exist is somewhat hard to follow, and perhaps a bit uninteresting. This game, really...is all about the guns.
Remingtons, Spaz, Uzis, Mac 10s, MP5s, G36s. P90s (my favorite) M249s, AK 47s, and M16s. The one honest tagline I did agree with was that this game is like "Gun Porn." The guns you hold are so detailed and shiny, you can actually see scratches where you eject and load the magazines. They make all those wonderful clicks whenever you pop in a new clip, pull back the charging handles and select your fire mode. Each gun has its own unique rate of fire and sounds, giving them different characters.
Unfortunately, they do not do what they ought to do when you fire at a person. I remember unloading an entire clip on one guy at point blank range and it just made him fall to one knee. I could not believe it. Blood should have covered the wall behind him. Also, when you blow up stuff like gas tanks, the people standing next to them ought to be in pieces. Dose not happen. They just simply keel over and die. I wish they had spent as much attention to the details of shooting a person up, as they did on shooting a city up.
With that said, I believe there is room here for a squeal and perhaps even a more kick ass "Black" in the future. | video-games_xbox |
Much better than I expected. When I first heard this game was coming out, I didn't pay much attention to it. I thought it would be an OK game considering the plethera of mediocre and flat out bad XBOX games that have been coming out recently. Boy was I ever wrong!!
Eventhough I have been a fan of the ninja gaiden series since the old NES days, I wasn't planning to buy this game. However I just been fortunate enough to have my cousin lend me his copy.
The first thing you will notice in this game are the breathtaking graphics, each level was done with amazing detail and it seems so lifelike, no glitches or grainy graphics. Even the features on characters in the game have been done with amazing detail!
The sound in this game is way above average, the music always fits the level and the sound effects are very believable.
The gameplay is 2nd only to the graphics, your character can do nearly everything and performing his moves are nearly effortless. Anothing thing to add is that the characters moves are so fluid there is really no way you can do anything wrong. You will not be laboring trying to do a move because they are so easy to do.
The two things I did not like about this game are: awkard camera angles, high degree of difficulty.
Camera angles:
Because Ninja Gaiden is a 3D game, you have to deal with a different camera point of view. While the camera angles are not bad in themselves, your enemies are in a lot of cases as fast as you are and you will be spending a lot of time switching the angle to see what enemies you are fighting! It is very frustrating getting attacked by someone you can't see.
Difficulty:
After defeating the first boss, I got an early taste of how hard this game is And it doesnt get any easier after the first level. There are a lot of cheap enemies for example, there is the spider ninja clan that constantly throw exploding shruikens that stick to you and blow up, once they stick to you, then you can't get them off. You can block them, but when you block you can't attack and as soon as you attack they through one at you. To top it all off they are faster than you and surround you so you can't just stand there and block because you will just get attacked from behind. It is very frustrating not to mention cheesy.
There are also a few jumping areas which is even more difficult because the camera angle is so awkward.
The difficulty of this game is very frustrating, but thankfully you can always go back and save your progress after you get past a difficult part so you don't have to do it again. I really like the fact that you can save whenever you want. (providing you find a save statue) The difficulty of this game hurt my rating on it.
As hard has this game is, so far it hasn't been so frustratngly difficult that I just don't want to play it anymore (ie. PGR). Yes, the game is hard, but its is also very fun and addictive. Whenever I play this game I end up playing for 3 and 4 hours at a time. I finally completed the game in a few weeks and was rewarded with a very nice ending. Would I play this game again? Definetely.
In closing if you can get over the difficulty, then you will enjoy this game very much. A lot of time has been spent on this game and it really shows. Maybe other game developers should take note from this game instead of trying to rush games out when they are not completely polished. | video-games_xbox |
Great Local Co-op. For some reason this game has gotten a lot of bad press. I don't know what I am missing but I loved this game. Here are a few reasons:
-First of all, there is actual strategy involved when you play in either single player or co-op, unlike many other shooters out there. There are a ton of different weapons and mech suits to use, each with its advantages and disadvantages, that you need to switch between in order to successfully complete each mission.
-Second the game has a large variety of environments, from outer space, to frozen tundra, to thick jungle. The level design within each of these environments is great. The grappling hook ability ( la Bionic Commando) gives the game a more open and free roaming feel than many tunnel vision shooters since you don't always need to follow a single path to get through a level.
-Third, awesome boss battles, which for me is a crucial part to any good game.
-Fourth, and most important to me, the game is one of the best when it comes to couch co-op. There is a great amount of strategizing to be done between players, which is so much more fun when your talking to a real person sitting next to you. This is especially evident when contrasted to the Gears of War games which can best be summed up as "crouch behind something and then hold x to shoot until everything is dead" without any need to talk to or strategize with your partner. Lost Planet 2 far outshines that franchise and just about any other shooter I have played.
Now for the Cons:
-No intelligble story. I didn't play the first game so I might be missing something there.
-Sometimes it's hard to know what to do to get through a level. I only list this because other people have complained about it. For me this is what makes a game challenging and thus rewarding, rather than just following detailed instructions. Plus if you ever really get stuck there are guides readily available on line.
-The controls take a little getting used to, but become pretty intuitive after a few missions
If your looking for a good third person shooter and you like to play video games with an actual friend by your side rather than online, this is an awesome game. I hope they decide to make a Lost Planet 3 | video-games_xbox |
Don't pass this one up. There are already tons of other great reviews out there so I'll keep this short. I've played this game all the way through and I have to say this was a darn good game. Not one of my favorites in my vast collection, but it was a purchase I don't regret making. I wasn't even considering this game at first. I was 'Halo'ed out so to speak. The last ODST game didn't interest me, and my friends told me to stay away. So I did. Halo 3 was great, but it wasn't amazing or anything either. Multi-player was its saving grace for me. Halo Wars was interesting at best. So I figured this latest installment would be another ho-hum game, but then a store I stepped into had it at a special $20 discount for the game if you bought it on opening week. So I figured, "Sure. What the heck?". Boy was I glad I made that purchase.
This Halo is the prequel to all things Halo, and the story line doesn't disappoint. I like how they made this game more grittier and less flashy than any other Halo I've played. It kind of had that Call of Duty/Medal of Honor/Killzone kind of feel to it. What I mean by that, is that this Halo focused more on the gritty ambiance of war, and the characters around you that help you along the way accomplish your missions throughout the game. Those games did that, as you would follow a character along the way, develop relationships to a mild extent, and you could be drawn into the story. This Halo did that.
AI is good at times and really bad at others. Your own folks sometimes will be great shots, and at other times allow themselves to be slaughtered in the open. Don't even think about letting them drive the vehicles for you.
Graphics are great obviously.
I found the controls to be very fine tuned as well. No issues here. That's saying something, because I'm a keyboard and mouse guy. However, there are games on these consoles that are worth playing regardless of how bad I or you may suck at these games with a controller. I found this game to be an easy quick learn with the controller, and I had very few issues mowing down the bad guys in this one.
Overall, I really do recommend this game. You may want to wait until it comes down in price in the 30s to 40s area. For some reason this game just didn't have the epic feel of a Gears of War, or a Metal Gear Solid, or a Mass Effect, or another blockbuster game like those mentioned. Hence, the reason I wouldn't plop the 60 bones down for this one. However, it's still a great game to play if you're itching to see how the story began, or just have some fun in a sci-fi action shooter that is among the "Very Goods" in that department. | video-games_xbox |
A woman's review of this game and my top problems. I have just finished the campaign mode of this game and I've decided to trade it back in to Amazon since it was probably the worst purchase I've ever made. I'm going to make this quick, but I will explain my top three problems with this game, so people can understand why I consider this a horrible game.
1. I am a woman. I was beyond excited to see a gender option in this game, seeing as I never played a Call of Duty game with a female character. But, alas, the story was VERY obviously intended for a male to play, which made me angry because why would they even give you that option if it's like you're still playing as a guy!? It's obvious the writers intended a romantic relationship without directly showing it. This became very clear to me when Hendricks, a male character in the game, accused me, a female character, that I have feelings for another female character, Kane. Unless every woman playing this is a lesbian, that would make sense. In another instance, Hendricks punched my character so hard in the face I flew across the room. Now, I'm no expert on how women are treated in the military, but I highly doubt male soldiers are smacking fellow female soldiers around and getting away with it. The story was lazy and added no diversity for women at all considering the option given.
2. REPETITION! Oh my God, don't even get me started on the missions! Every. Single. Mission. Has a robot fight in it. A giant robot that needs to be taken down with a rocket launcher (provided if you can find it and remember how to equip it). I wanted to throw my game out of the window whenever I saw another stupid robot come near me. It was exciting and difficult the first time, but after the 10th mission, I became exasperated by it. I get that the whole story of the game is pretty much a warning about how much technology is too much, but it's just ridiculous.
3. And finally, the story. *Sighs* I was expecting much more. The story was over-complicated and confusing to say the least. It was boring. The characters just made me angry with their decisions. The whole "technology controlling your mind" concept was just ridiculous. I MUCH preferred Advanced Warfare to this game. It just felt like Activision didn't put much effort into making a complete and satisfying story. I almost quit the second they brought zombies into the campaign, like they're plugging the add-on to the game I'm playing! The comradery of the other Call of Duty games is one of the main reasons I love this series, but they just took that concept and threw it out the door in this game. I won't spoil anything, but let's just say you can't trust anyone, even the people you work with.
Alright, I think I'm done complaining. I guess the only things I liked were the weapon customization within the campaign and the soundtrack. I'm sure the experience of this game is much different from a man's perspective, but this is a woman's. I hope this helps! | video-games_xbox |
A masterpiece. This game hooked me from the very beginning and didn't let go , even after I completed it. Now let me tell you why, but I want to tell you I played this on my Xbox One but tried it out first on my 360 with a rental from redbox before making the 60 buck purchase.
Story - despite what some have said , this game has a very , very good story . Since the story gripped me the way it did I didn't do to many side missions because I really wanted to see what each new chapter and twist and turn would bring. There are things that happen in this game that I never saw coming but were very welcome surprises and just kept me pulled in and immersed.
Gameplay - This is a stealth game at its finest and was meant to be nothing else. If you can't handle playing slowly , planning various ways of attack to accomplish your goals and watching your enemies patterns to time your movements precisely then this may not be the game for you , because there is no way to play fast as it will result in a quick death, but if you are this type of player you shouldn't hesitate and just go pick this game up.
Graphics - This is a beautiful game and one that makes you stop and just look around at all the detail. Now as I mentioned before I played through this game on my Xbox One but tried it out on my 360. The graphics are better on the Xbox One , there is no doubt about that , but the game was still gorgeous on the Xbox 360. So if you have yet to purchase an Xbox One don't hesitate to get this for your 360 , but if you do have a choice pick it up for your Xbox One.
DLC - The bank heist - this was the first thing I did after completing the story and for 4.99 it was a great deal. I'm not sure how much new play time it added but it was enjoyable and only lead me to want to play more.
Extended play after completion - After you have completed the story you have the option to continue to play and complete all the side quests that you missed. More games should have this feature and to many do not and this is just one more thing that makes me love this game so much.
Well , since I have completed the game , I decided to start the game again on master difficulty , except this time I will be completing every side mission I can find along with the challenge that comes along with master difficulty and I can tell you this , I thought I played through slowly before , but master difficulty is going to make me plan my strategy a lot more carefully. This may be to much for some but is nothing short of pure enjoyment for me because this will stretch my romp through thief much farther and let me really take in this wonderful game the way the developers intended.
Solid 5 out of 5.. | video-games_xbox |
It is time to save the universe--AGAIN. If I had to evaluate Halo3 just on Campaign mode then it would be 2 stars. I don't think anyone buys games anymore for how well they do single player play. Now it is all about multiplayer.
Halo3, multiplayer, introduces so many awesome new things that it is really difficult to list them all. The standard gameplay if you just jump into matchmaking has not, so far, been completely dominated by the sniper rifle. I don't think I've been sniped more than a few times in several hours of gameplay. That is a HUGE departure from Halo2 where you could be virtually guaranteed getting sniped several times per game.
Personally i think it is too easy to shoot players off the mongoose but I suppose everyone has their own preference. I'm just glad that the sniper rifle seems to have been leveled out--it had completely overwhelmed nearly every map on Halo2.
The addition of the Forge and of Theater are almost too good to believe. Theater, with some practice, lets you make VERY high quality movies of the action in your past several games. You can do all kinds of neat tricks with this. The main limitation is that I don't currently see a way to export video off Live and on to the computer. I know people can do it but it isn't a built-in function.
Overall, really impressed. Nice work Bungie.
Edit: After some more experience with multiplayer I've found that as you level up the sniping returns as a constant disruption of gameplay. They've also introduced the spartan laser which is as bad as the sniper rifle. They have powered down the rockets since you can no longer "lock on" to a target. Overall I wish they would completely turn off autoaim.
Also, I can't understand why multiplayer teams don't self-balance. Inevitably people will quit from one side and when that occurs the matchmaking system should be smart enough to balance out the teams. MOST multiplayer games end up being 2 or 3 players on one side and 8 on the other (in big team).
Finally, Bungie still has not implemented "sign markers". For people who want to actually use the mic it is VERY hard to make any kind of plan because it is hard to call out markers on the map. Each map should have clearly marked territory signs (like Sector A2, A3, A4). That would make it possible to call out a plan and warnings, etc. Multiplayer is very much about point and shoot regardless of the game type (like having snipers on their own side of the map sniping even if their team is down 2-0 in CTF). Bungie could change that and really make the strategy gametypes about strategy. Strategy maps should have signposts and no sniper rifles or lasers and autoaim should be disabled. | video-games_xbox |
It's a neccessity, not an accessory. I love chatpads. The chatpad makes my life so much easier! I would never want to go without it. I was dismayed at how long it took for Microsoft to decelop a chatpad for the Xbox One controllers when the console came out. I was used to using one with the 360, and it was wonderful. I was very excited when it finally came out...I had tried several other brands of chatpad while waiting and none of them worked.
However, I have been somewhat disappointed with the newer chatpads. The 360 version was much better in my opinion; it was easier to use, it was more stable, it was more reliable. I still use the 360 on occasion, and that chatpad still works as well as the day I got it, perfectly. The Xbox One version has a bit smaller interface and the buttons and sligtly smaller and closer together, which makes them harder to use and produces more typos. Also, the keys are starting to develop the annoying tendency to stickkkkkkkkk randomly. Weirdly, the d key has been sticky since I got it, especially when trying to type a word where d is followed by o; "do" becomes "dd," "don't" becomes "ddn't," etc. I have heard others say they have this same exact problem so it seems to be a manufacturing defect.
The most challenging thing is that, as others have noted, the audio connection seems to degrade over time and be somewhat unreliable. Gotta love going through a new 4-player dungeon in ESO for the first time upon its release and randomly losing your ability to hear or speak to your teammates when they are in the middle of explaining the mechanics of the boss battle, then the actual battle itself happens and you have no idea what's going on and you get your party wiped. Guess it's time to buy a new one. These things shouldn't be disposable.
I hope they have improved the quality of the chatpad since I bought mine about a year ago. For the price, it is still well worth having, especially if you play mmo or multiplayer games...but even just for entering searches on Netflix or promo codes etc. It even makes the controller more comfortable to hold, in my opinion. It extends the grip and gives your fingers a place to rest. The whole thing together feels nice and solid to me. Despite the flaws, I absolutely love the chatpad. I wish a keyboard was an integral part of the controller. I never take it off unless I have to. To me, it is less of an accessory and more of a necessity. I hope I never have to go without one... I just hope Microsoft can improve this version of it just that bit extra to get it to a full 5 stars. | video-games_xbox |
Bad accents and western cliches hooooo. I have a soft spot for westerns and so when I came across this I ordered it to try it out. The game was pretty enjoyable the first play through but I doubt It would be any better in the second. The story for the most part is pretty gimicky in a Western/Treasure Hunt kind of way full of love triangles, betrayals, violence, and greed. Almost none of the characters are likable and the dialogue can get very cheesy. It'd be better weren't it for the subpar voice acting which can sound like nails on a chalk board after awhile. One of the brothers you play as has an over the top Southern accent and the other sounds like he's talking with food in his mouth. The visuals are actually very good though but that is still disappointing given that the areas the game is based in look very little like they do in the game. As a side note I had no idea that Navajos lived in tipis or that Apaches decorated their villages with totem poles.
The gameplay is a mixed bag. One of the most frustrating aspects to it are the quick draw boss sequences. I can see what the designers were going for but it feels broken. Guaranteed you'll die a lot and maybe end up not playing the game anymore. It was tough for me but I kept at it, though I'll admit I got more than just steamed by it. Another odd bit of the gameplay are the free roaming missions. While these can be fun they don't offer much in gameplay as you'll find yourself roaming around an empty space with random bandit attacks spawning at you from nowhere. Still the game was pretty good, and the cover mechanics worked very well despite it being a first person shooter. You can also save up what money you loot or earn in bounties/odd jobs and upgrade your arsenal. While I didn't take the game very seriously it was still fun in an over the top Western sense. Still if you want a really good western game you should stick with Red Dead Redemption, otherwise you can pass the time or go achievement hunting with Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. | video-games_xbox |
A sad step toward the destruction of the single player campaign and local co-operative play and my last Halo game. I am done with Halo after this game. The series has been sliding down hill but it done plunged off of a cliff. I am beyond annoyed at the lack of split-screen co-op. This game makes enough money that for the developer to cry about limited resources in not developing split screen is just a load of bull. It's probably more about them wanting to squeeze some people into paying for Xbox Live Gold and 2 copies of the game at our expense. The story is not relevant to anything you do in the game. It's just an annoyance actually and very superficial. For some reason, they have almost totally gotten into making almost all of the enemies promethians who are just freaking boring, with much less covenant and absolutely none of my favorite, the Flood. I know I am old, but my favorite Halo level is still the Library from Halo:Combat Evolved. Those Flood dudes with their heads half fallen off and the alien looking things on their faces were creepy. And they just came in droves and flew out of everywhere. And then the little Flood buggers were annoying in a fun way. The worlds were so much more open. They get more linear with every Halo release. Vehicles are barely used and when they are it is almost for show so they can just say they are there. Theres nothing like driving around trying to find and rescue the stranded Marines in the first Halo.
This just feels like yet another step in the steady progression of video games away from a decent single player campaign and total abandonment of local co-op play so that they can get us all online. I'm sure the next Halo will add microtransactions. Isn't that the way this is all heading? Kind of like how GTA has now abandoned any additional single player campaign material for the very shallow GTA online world where for whatever reason apparently people spend real money to get the latest release of purple pin-striped pajamas to wear while they do the same missions over and over again.
It just makes me sad. Video games used to be fun. | video-games_xbox |
Ugh. Please don't be fooled by the reviews before me like I was. The graphics are okay, good for the PS2 but below average for the Xbox. The storyline is flat, the dubbing is horrendous! (and you can't skip the VErY frequent and LENGTHY scenes) Half of the game is doing menial tasks (working at a dock and lifting boxes for minimal money at length so that you can afford your hotel, and carrying stacks of books outside for a temple library for hlaf of the "day" quite a few times) The fighting is infrequent and subpar and many moves only give you one shot to learn or you will never have another chance. There are certain figures you can collect that will taek you some time to get but they don't unlock any secrets, they just give you the satisfaction of having them I guess. The only good part about this game was the button reflex sequences (can't remember the official name) because it was fun to test your reflexes and see what you did if you got it right. But, those BRS's didn't make u for the... MOVEMENT! OMFG! It was like trying to fire and egg on a block of ice in -20 degree temperatures. It became a game (a very horrible game) in itself just trying to get in doors. If you walked to far you would have to turn, but no, you can't just turn left or right, you have to turn full around. Then you have to try and make a perfect arch into the doorway or you'll be their for another 5 minutes dancing in circles. After playing this game I hoped that the free movie that came with it would be good and would make me less angry. Let me tell you something. This movie was not anime, it was not even what I would consider 3D graphics. It was like playing FF7 with slightly better graphics, a much worse storyline, and their was no gameplay. Nothing made up for the little effort put into everything about this game. I give this game a 1. Please, save your money for Fable if you really need a good RPG/Fighter, I'm sure waiting for Fable to be released will be more fun than actually playing this game. | video-games_xbox |
buy this while it's on sale! These are not compatible with Xbox 360E you must purchase a Turtle Beach adapter(39$) -1 star. I purchased this on boxing day for the similar price amazon has it on sale for 140$ First the quality of these headphones are top notch. I found my brand new Xbox 360E 250Gb(sold since July 2013 and part of the holiday bundles) was not compatible with these, even though they are official xbox headphones which were released well AFTER the 360E. Polk had terrible customer service, there isn't anything else to say about them. I had to contact turtle beach who had the foresight to produce a hdmi adapter for these new xbox 360E's which don't have a optical input (this is the only method of connecting these headphones to the xbox) They are worth 140$ on sale, because new Xbox's require an additional 50$ for the adapter.
Sound Quality - Really decent for the price. The Dolby Digital and Dolby surround is alright, the sound stage is limited, but the quality of the sounds these give you are quite impressive for the price. Explosions are felt, bullets zing past you, and voices are clear. The discreet mic is beautiful, letting you take these headphones out in public to play music, which is a treat. I asked players on COD black ops 2 how I sounded, and everyone said I was clear. Voices incoming were also easy to hear and I could lower/raise chat volume very easily.
sound Volume - the volume max's on these in some games that will leave you wanting a few more Db's
Audio Mixer - This is quite a beautiful piece of hardware. It plugs in to the bottom of the controller, and lets you adjust volume/chat.
Wires - One bendy and thick wire(quality) runs to the mixer at your controller, and a built in skinny wire runs up to plug into the headphones. Controlling the xbox while your not playing is kind of a hassle with the mixer plugged in. I recommend a 2nd controller or use the xbox smartglass app
Bottom line, 139$ is a bargain for these, and if you register they will send you an adapter for the xbox one whenever you buy it! | video-games_xbox |
A fresher Dynasty Warriors style game, but missing Three Kingdoms saga. Bladestorm is not just Dynasty Warriors in Europe with a attempt to be a hybrid of third person action and real-time strategy, but perhaps it would be better if it was...
It looks like Dynasty Warriors and you control a central figure who leads the troops into battle, but from there the two series diverge somewhat.
The game focuses on the famous war between England and France, but you'll play a custom-created mercenary who can fight for either side.
On the battlefield, your performance (and that of the troops under your command) is reflected in real-time morale of both sides. You'll be able to control a variety of different unit types'from cavalry and basic sword-wielding grunts, to archers, and more advanced strike units.
You can't run around attacking at will by yourself'your character does the same attacks you issue your troops to do. While the action is fast-paced, the gameplay isn't twitch-based. Once you get used to this odd style of gameplay the game makes sense, but unfortunately, it's still not very interesting. The battles quickly start to feel repetitive, and the sides aren't very different. The biggest problem, however, is the poor AI of both sides. Like most Dynasty Warrior games, the challenge is in overwhelming numbers and most of the action just feels mindless.
The visuals are decent, though again, it looks only slightly better than Omega Force's other titles. Characters are remarkably well detailed, but the locations are rather bland. The English voice acting is often laughably bad and the soundtrack is mostly forgettable.
Really feel that this pretty much just a recycling of their old games, combining kessen strategy with dynasty warriors action, and sticking a new (and rather uninspiring) surface of england vs france. This time they've just thrown away the storyline of Three Kingdoms and The Greatest of Heroes (DW Three Kingdoms) which is probably half responsible for the love from the millions of DW fans in the first place.
Good Luck to Koei if they're going to keep coming up with such unoriginal games, but it is an improvement. | video-games_xbox |
The best console machine on the market at the moment. I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600 and Intellivision days. I also owned the first Nintendo, a Sega Genesis, and a Dreamcast (which is still one of my favorite console video game machines I ever purchased. Unfortunately you cannot purchase a new Dreamcast machine or new games in the stores). I have owned an XBox for about two months now. This is a very complete video game machine with all the bells and whistles like a hard drive, ethernet, Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound, support for High Definition TV, etc.
Pros: XBox has the best graphics, sound, and the most features of all the consoles. It supports up to four controllers unlike the PS2 which has only two built in ports. If you really want to get into online console gaming and you have a high speed internet connection then XBox is the one to get. As of the last year or two most of the games for the other consoles are now being released on the XBox.
Cons: The XBox is much larger and heavier than the others which makes it more difficult to transport. In addition to you having a high speed broadband internet connection an annual "XBox Live" subscription (currently costs about $50) must be purchased before you can use the system's online gaming features. PS2 has many more games ( including the older PS1 games if you own any of those) and although the graphics on the PS2 are not quite as good as XBox it is still a fun and popular console. Your PS2 games will be supported by the future PS3 machine which protects your PS2 and PS1 game investment while the XBox2 may not support the older XBox games.
I like the XBox console and most of the games are great. If you are really into video games then for $150 I would recommend an XBox purchase. If you have a PS2 or Gamecube then XBox is still a good addition. If you don't own another console then XBox might be the best way to go since it is the most advanced console and you can always buy a PS2 or Gamecube later if you want. I plan on purchasing a PS2 in the near future just to have it for a few of those older PS1 and PS2 games that were not released for XBox.
If you are into PC based gaming don't expect the XBox to be better than your $1500 Windows XP computer with a good graphics card. The PC CPU power, graphics, and internet gaming is going to be superior to any of the current gaming consoles. XBox is simply the the best console you can hook up to your TV. Consoles are much better for relaxing on the couch or with multiple game players. If you want to best your PC machine then wait for XBox2 or PS3.
The best XBox sports games are ESPN NFL2K5 , ESPN NHL2K5 and Madden NFL 2005. Halo 1 and 2 are fantastic theme based shooter games as I am sure you have already heard. I personally like some of the older retro-games like Sonic for XBox and Atari Anthology, as well as the newer retros available for XBox like the Crash Bandicoot, the Silent Hill horror series, and the Metal Gear Solid and Tom Clancy theme spy games.
The bottom line: If you don't mind spending the money now for this four year old technology then an XBox is highly recommended and it is the best choice of all the current consoles. If you don't mind waiting then look forward to the state of the art PS3 and XBox2 to be released in late 2005 or early 2006. | video-games_xbox |
Good Value for Your Gaming-Dollar. Let's face it ... even if you're a Trek fan, you'd have to admit that the franchise's run on console systems has been pretty rocky. Knowing its track record, I was a little apprehensive when I found out that 'Legacy' was in production. However, most of the still-shots in the game's advertising ended-up looking pretty good, so eventually this wound-up being a title on my "buy" list.
I'm about three-quarters of the way through it now and I can say honestly that I don't regret having picked it up. There's more "good" here then "bad", no question about it. In terms of the games graphics, in my opinion, I thought it was a real beauty. I thought the ships in the various fleets were beautifully designed and the damage animations were all terrific. I'll touch on the actual explosions later.
The voice acting was all top-notch. Bethesda managed to get most of the grade-A talent (Bakula/ Shatner/ Stewart/ etc) to come back and reprise their roles for the game. With Trek having been off the radar for a while now, it was a real treat getting to hear some of these guys back in the saddle again. Furthermore, the sound F/X and background score were average. Nothing that stands out, but I wouldn't say either detracted from the game's play at all.
The story-line, while it's (admittedly) not going to win any awards, was competent enough to accomplish the task of tying the three generations of The Enterprise together without being ridiculous. If it was a cross-over then was done on television, I'd probably have watched and enjoyed it. It is pretty short though. I'd say the game-play clocks-in at about six to eight hours at the most. On the `ensign' level (easy), you can probably finish this REALLY quickly.
Although the game does get a thumbs-up from me, it does suffer from a few HUGE issues and several annoying minor ones. The worst, for me, was the inability to command the other vessels in your fleet. Other then a basic "form-up" command, if you want these ships to do anything more complex, you have to take command of them yourself and pilot them manually. I was stunned at the lack of basic "guard this", "escort that", and "stay" directions. To illustrate, there's a mission in the beginning of the game where the goal is to protect a small convoy of medical transports. Stupidly, of course, they all go shooting off in different directions. In order to accomplish the task of making sure those transports survive, you have to take control of one of your ships and send it off blindly in one direction while you go in another. The hope is if that vessel bumps into something, seemingly on the transport's route, you can jump over quickly and take care of the obstacle.
I've read several criticisms of the maneuverability of the ships themselves. I didn't have that big of an issue with this. These are big, lumbering vessels that pilot like ... big, lumbering vessels. For the most part, I was of the thinking that they shouldn't be able just turn on a dime. Because it's space (a 360 degree environment) it's true that the camera controls can become a little tricky, but no worse then a lot of other games out there. Where my issue came in was the control of the ships themselves. First, the button-layout is pretty awkward and there aren't any other combinations that might make it easier. This is something that the PC version may have as an advantage. Using a keyboard and a mouse would probably go a long way toward making this a bit easier. The other issue that drove me stone-crazy was the speed-controls. There's 'Stop/ Impulse/ and Warp' ... that's it. Although the option exists to divert your ship's power around, there's no degree of anything and no 'reverse'. For the life of me, I can't figure out how this was overlooked. There's one or two missions whose degree-of-difficulty is increased ten-fold, just because I wasn't able to back-up or fine-tune my acceleration.
Although I do like the graphics, I would have loved it if the "explosion" animations were a little cleaner. Anything I destroy seems to just fall apart into varying-shaped polygons with a light-effect behind it. There's no real "effect." If there's one thing that I know Star trek fans absolutely love it's a good sense of scale. These ships are big. We want them to look big, control big, and (most importantly) blow-up big. Sadly, it just doesn't deliever.
Another odd thing about the controls, you have the option of 'self-destructing' your ship. This is strange because if you do this with the Enterprise, it's 'game-over.' The Enterprise (or the "lead" vessel) always has to survive; having said that, to even make "self-destruct" an option is pretty ridiculous. For the remaining fleet, if your ship is damaged badly enough, that ship will blow up and be destroyed. If I'm to the point where I'm considering blowing the thing myself, what's the difference if I pull the trigger or if it's destroyed? Either way, the thing blows and I'm down a vessel to command. Who pulls the final trigger doesn't seem to have any strategic advantage one way or the other.
Not so much a criticism, but a missed opportunity, might have been the ability to customize some of the different models of ships you can purchase. Being able to adjust the speed/ shields/ or weapons systems would have been a cool way to increase the games replay value. As it stands now, it's a take-it-or-leave-it situation with each model and class. There was something else I wanted to put on the wish-list of features, and admittedly this is probably a double-edged sword since the controls are tricky, but I'd have loved to have been able to "ram" another ship. As it is, if you're going to collide with an object, you're just bumped around whatever the obstacle is. It would have been outrageously cool to be out of torpedoes, low on phaser-power, and diverted power to the shields and just smashed whatever was in your way.
Lastly, unless I'm REALLY missing something, you can only have one save file for the game! As it stands now, for example, if I want to load up the game I'm playing, I start right where I left off. Doesn't sound like a big deal right? It's aggravating as hell though, for a 360 owner who wants to replay a previous mission for a gaming-achievement they may have missed. Again, unless I'm COMPLETELY overlooking something, the only time you have the ability to replay a certain part of the game is immediately after you finish it.
I know this sounds like a lot, so I do feel obligated to (again) point-out that, over-all, I did like it. This is certainly the cream-of the-crop so far for its home gaming run. At around fifteen-dollars, if you're looking for something different to give you a break from playing GTA IV, Star Trek: Legacy is capable of adequately filling the void.
Note: I believe a free-demo is still available on xBox Live. | video-games_xbox |
Insert golf clap here. Last year's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 launched with the Xbox 360 in a good fashion, standing among the best of the launch's numerous sports titles. Last year I concluded my review of Tiger 06 saying, "I hope next year's version of Tiger is fleshed out and features more while continuing to improve on the great gameplay." Well, Tiger 07 is just that game I hoped for. It's a fleshed-out and well-done edition of a fine sports franchise, and now stands near the top of the Xbox 360's stack of sports titles.
Tiger 06 initially whipped me. It beat me into shape and forced me to learn the subtle things about golf, the things that make the ball roll just a little closer or land at a better spot on the course. It, however, could eventually become the easiest video game around. Tiger 07 looks to change this, forcing even more realistic difficulty into the gameplay. The core mechanics remain mostly unchanged-you still swing dynamically with the left analog stick, pulling back to backswing and pushing forward to foreswing. However, this year's game has a little twist; rather than Tiger 06's arrow that showed you where exactly your ball should land, Tiger 07 features a wide aiming area on each shot. This circular area represents where your ball can possibly land. Unless the golfer makes perfect contact and accurately judges the lie, the wind, and the spin on the ball, it is entirely possible for the ball to end up yards away from where it was intended to land.
Fortunately it's as simple as ever to take a shot and after practice it's quite easy to learn all of Tiger's tricks. Things like the wind and the lie only require a little time to get a feel for. I noticed that hitting the ball off of the side of a hill now has a very dramatic effect on where it will go in the air, and it feels almost like backspin and topspin on the ball no longer send the ball flying in the intended direction when it lands. Though the game is noticeably tougher and definitely punishing, Tiger 07 is difficult to put down.
You'll start Tiger 07 by creating your golfer with the deep Game Face system. My golfer looked so much like me that it was almost scary to look at him on the course. Following that, the game offers a long and engaging career mode; one that sends you week after week playing through tournaments at familiar courses like Riviera, Pinehurst, and Pebble Beach as well as Bandon Dunes, Carnoustie, Firestone Country Club, and more. The amount of courses I just rambled off is equal to last year's puny list of six, and Tiger 07 features even more. Similar to real life, getting better in your career can only be done by playing more. At first, this is difficult; your golfer's initially a total chump on the course. By performing golfing drills, competing in golfing games, and most simply, playing, your golfer's stats will raise and your on-the-course performance will improve. All of the stat changes are dynamic. By hitting a lot of lucky shots, your Luck stat will increase. Getting close on approach shots will improve your overall Approach stat, and using the game's Power Boost ability (jam a button to increase the power of a shot in mid-swing), you'll benefit from a bigger Power Boost stat. Tiger 07 doesn't give you a lot of freebies; to get better at the game you just have to play more. After a while you'll be blasting the ball down the fairway and having no trouble with that aiming area.
Tiger 06 looked great on the Xbox 360, and somehow Tiger 07's added even more detail to the beautiful courses. EA's Universal Capture technology looks great on Tiger Woods but all of the other characters animate well and swing animations look great. The fans that crowd the course are a little too numerous but it's interesting and cool to see them walk towards your ball and follow you around the course. The commentary, done by the same two fellows from Tiger 06, isn't much different. It's very appropriate to golf, and it's fun to hear them mock each other from time to time. I especially like when one of them calls my shot incorrectly and the other says, "What are you talking about? That was a great shot " Every virtual golfer needs a confidence boost from time to time.
Tiger 07 plays better than any Tiger before it, it looks beautiful, it sounds great, it comes chock-full of modes...the list goes on and on; EA Redwood did a fantastic job. As a result, the second next-gen golf title is a winner. Though it's a little tough at first, Tiger 07 has few flaws and it's one of the better next-gen sports titles. Virtual golfers should definitely check it out. | video-games_xbox |
Is Nothing Sacred. Let me add to the richly deserved pile of negative reviews this abysmal game has amassed. I played all the previous Sacred games, and thought they were flawed but enjoyable clones of better games. But I have always liked action RPGs, so I had high hopes that this game would be, at the very least, fun. Sadly, it is nothing of the sort. You are given six characters to choose from, but they all fall into the basic archetypes of melee and ranged, and you are given scores of enemies to fight. So far, so good.
The enemies show little variety, and are reused constantly throughout the 10 to 12 hour playing time. You are only given two basic attacks, and almost no variety in weapons. You have to slog through tons of tedious battles and advance your character beyond level 30 for your first weapon "upgrade" and even that is random and may be useless to you depending on your play style. There is no gear or loot to speak of other than gold and resource globes. There is no inventory, character sheet, or status screen. There are no shops or towns, and nothing to buy but health potions and one shot power ups. There are no NPCs except for a handful that pop in to annoy you with very puerile dialogue. The story is so paper-thin as to be non-existent, and the path is linear with no side missions except for the occasional forced sequence where you fight through a gauntlet or dodge obstacles to reach a checkpoint. There is absolutely nothing to hold the interest of either an RPG fan or an action RPG fan. There is zero customization of anything, and you can't even name your character.
The game annoys on a technical level as well. There are no manual saves, so you are left at the mercy of checkpoints which force you to restart and suffer a gold loss every time you fail to beat a boss monster. And you will do this often, as the bosses are horribly over tuned compared to all the other enemies in the game. Melee classes in particular will find them punishing, as even the first boss takes less than 5% of his health in damage from the player's best special attacks, while hitting the player for massive damage and stunning him non-stop with outrageously long stuns. There is no control over the camera, but the fixed angle is usually adequate. Perhaps the worst offense is that your game is always open and posted on the Internet. I constantly had to deal with random players dropping into my game, snagging my limited gold and power ups and buffing all the enemies in the process. You can always go to the party roster and kick them out, but that's not the point. A single player option should have been built in from the start. If you do want co-op play, the box says this is a game for "up to four players," then states elsewhere that you can have only two at a time. On the plus side, the controller can be remapped, which is a lesson Blizzard needs to learn.
Ascaron had nothing to do with this game; it was outsourced to Keen Games by publisher Deep Silver. A Deep Silver developer publicly apologized for the game's quality, and blamed the marketing department for changing the course of the game's design and development. In short, this game plays like a stripped-down mobile title that somehow made it to PC and consoles. The graphics are pleasant enough, but the game play is a total failure in every possible aspect, managing to disappoint and alienate RPG and action RPG fans alike. Even as a bargain bin purchase, this game should be avoided. There are far batter games to spend your time and money on. | video-games_xbox |
Good but really 'buggy. UPDATE:
I wrote the last review in a rush. So I'll try to be a bit more indepth.
I played the old Fable and enjoyed that.
This game is great. I love the musical score and the whole family theme. I like the addition of the dog.
Some don't like the controls. I do. I have no issue with pressing the button to collect all mana or charging up my spells. If they made it any differently the game just might be TOO easy.
I didn't care for the story line. It started off fine, but the ending was just so...anti-climactic (?) It was too easy. It was just like, "Eh..."
I wish this game were longer and had more territory/regions to cover.
There is one major flaw: This game is so 'buggy'!
I hate to give such a low amount of stars but this is not only annoying but it can seriously disrupt game-play.
It freezes on me.
I (my character) have been stuck in doors.
My children randomly 'disappear'.
My spouse just disappeared for days and my child stared at the wall...
He came back. Eventually.
So I started the game over...because I elected the self-sacrifice option and I had no way to finish up my quests because I couldn't find anything without the dog---and the damn dog was dead! LOL I went online to see how I could handle the situation.
Ppl say that the golden trail leads you to dig-spots and such but my trail has a habit of 'disappearing' and leading me off into different directions, sometimes. I won't trust it.
So...again--I started the game over.
I got married and gave my spouse a ring to be nice to him. I moved my family to a better home in Bowerstone Market...once I did this the game played the marital scene again which means that I have 2 spouses.
I couldn't sell the caravan (in the gypsy area) either.
So my hard-to-please husband left me but the baby stayed in the room.
I remarried had other kids...when I came back from the 10 yr quest my child (a daughter) was still in the house.
She aged but she's totally unresponsive. Meanwhile I'd moved tenants into the home.
I tried to coax her to come out and move to my other household w/my other family but she just stares. LOL
So for now I just call her my 'special-needs' child! LOL. I still give her presents, though.
...and it is a good game to play. I like the theme, but--I feel that this game was rushed. They need to take more time with these games.
Or give it to us at a discount.
Or include more save options so that I don't have to start a brand new game because the old game was acting screwy
Oblivion is better and way longer! | video-games_xbox |
Good game, but way overhyped. There seem to be two types of Assassin's Creed reviews, The "Couldn't hate it more if it bit my mother to death" and the "Greatest thing since the zipper" review. I probably fall somewhere in the middle for reasons I hope to elaborate on.
First off, I seem to be finding lately that if I hear about a game more than three months before a release date, it fails to live up to any hype. This happened with Fable and Bioshock for example. Both good games and worth the time and effort to play, but after all of the hype I almost expected them to cure cancer or something. Assassin's Creed is very much the same.
Pro's:
The game looks amazing. Given, it was made for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 as well as for pc sometime next year, but even so the smooth endless landscape looks phenomenal. Every game released recently has blown my mind graphics wise, and this game does not disappoint in that regard.
Freedom is an interesting event for this game as well, causing me to give it both good and bad marks. As for the good side, it is cool to just climb nearly anything, jump anywhere and go practically anywhere. I found it to work very much like Prince of Persia with an expanded world. The first few times you climb to the top of a tower and swan dive off are very impressive.
The control for this game also worked well. This has been another mixed review for people. Some hate the one button combat system, but then again I couldn't stand the "Dance Dance Revolution" combo timing button mashfest of God of War (Don't you have enough to keep track of in a battle?). The combat of Assassin's Creed works more on timing strikes and counters and less on the pattern of buttons. Given, battles in this game become boring beyond all redemption throughout the game, but I hesitate to blame the controls for that one.
The "Free running" system works well too. Instead of having to deal with worrying about climbing surfaces and moving over objects, you hold a button and simply move where you want. This simplifies things immensely and immediately moves you away from the annoying wall running, jumping and timed daggerstabs of Prince of Persia.
Sadly, that was about it for the pro's on this game. Let's see how many con's I can jam in here.
First, lets talk about the gameplay itself. When I heard of this game, I really expected to play a game where you immerse yourself in a world of darkness, intrigue, and cold hearted death from the shadows. In reality, you have about a baker's dozen of prominent people to kill and a bunch of worthless stuff to do. I would say I actually spent less than 6% of my playtime killing people. Most of the time is spent putzing about stealing things, questioning people or sitting on a bench. Seriously, sitting on a bench. You even have to hold down a button to overhear a conversation while you are sitting there. As if I really believed that there was interactivity at this point.
Several times you are forced into what I like to call "interactive DVD" sequences. PS2 games were well known for this. Essentially, you start the game, grab the controller and watch a movie. After about an hour or so you ask whether you bought a game or the latest movie release out there. The storyline for this game is developed and revealed through conversation, not action. Before starting a mission, you sit through way too much conversation. After killing someone you sit through yet again way too much talking with no way to skip out of it (believe me I tried really hard to make them talk faster at least).
While helping out greatly in adding dimension to this game, the freedom of adventure is also a falling point. Yes, you have the ability to go nearly anywhere, climb anything and look all over the place, there is just very little need to. I referred to the Prince of Persia games earlier so forgive this next metaphor. If the PoP games were non-linear, would the game have changed? Answer, no. Since you would have to go down that hallway, hit that button and jump that pit it wouldn't matter how much freedom you have. In the end you are trapped in a linear game. This game is very much like that. You travel from town to town, performing ridiculous tasks to further the plot, and though you have the psuedo-freedom to do anything, there is no reason to.
While I felt the combat system worked for this game, I at times questioned the purpose. In many sequences of the game, it is nearly impossible to avoid fighting. I recall several of my key plot kills happening while I was surrounded by guards and thus accidentally landing a killing blow. Not all that assassinesh if you ask me. The last few sequences of the game actually give up on the pretense of assassination altogether and simply threw you into a huge melee of a few dozen guards. It almost seemed like the developers simply didn't want to finish making this game, and thus didn't want you to finish so they simply launched everything at you.
While Assassin's Creed suffers in terms of gameplay and the ability to hold my interest for more than a few hours at a time, it does succeed in being unique and amusing as far as gaming goes. While a decent game in it own right, it fails to live up to expectations and hype, thus causing a bit of a letdown. I would say it is worth a play, but not a full price. | video-games_xbox |
The Best Deal, Even If XBox Live Customer Service is Rotten. I've had an Xbox 360 since launch day. I won my first one, a launch console, and enjoyed it a lot. I never had a Red Ring of Death or any problems with it, but it did have a very loud optical drive that drove me crazy whenever I'd play a game like Oblivion. It always sounded like the fantasy realm of Tamriel was near a major airport.
I sold the original console, and picked up a newer model later; One that had the BenQ optical drive. This did cut down on the drive noise quite a bit. Not long after that, though, I decided to give it as a gift to my nephews, who enjoy it to this day. I replaced it with an Arcade model (I hung on to my own hard drive) and was happy with that one for a while, too. I never had any technical problems with the Xbox 360.
Then, a dark day came when Xbox Live customer service treated me VERY badly (they were billing an old bank account, causing overdrafts, and wouldn't remove that account number from my records no matter how much I explained that they'd never get any money out of it, and that it was just costing me 35 bucks each time they tried. The outsourced CSR's response: "Oh well. You need to just deal with it." and other very rude things.) After this bad experience with their customer service department, I was just fed up, and so I sold my Xbox 360 and all my games, and bought a PS3.
For a few months, I enjoyed the PS3. It's not the devil, like so many 360 gamers say. It's just another console choice. I can't say there was anything wrong with it. However, there were some things wrong with the games on the PS3... Fewer downloadable add-ons. I'm a big fan of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and on the PS3 you can't get most of the optional content. Damn it! I need my Wizard's Tower and Mehrune's Razor!
So eventually my attitude toward MS customer service softened, and combined with the desire for the Arcade games I'd already purchases, and the DLC I already had, I switched back to the Xbox 360.
This time, instead of using a debit/credit card, I will only use Xbox Live Marketplace cards sold at retail, and Xbox Live Gold subscription cards sold at retail. I WILL NOT trust the idiots at the foreign-soil, barely-speaking-English, outsourced customer service centers with my credit cards or bank cards anymore. They abused it, and never offered an apology or compensation for their erroneous charges or the backlash they caused. (In the end, I reported the card stolen due to unauthorized charges, in fact.)
With a year of Live Gold paid for, and all my games purchased or traded second-hand, I'm finding the Xbox 360 gets a lot more use than the PS3 ever did. System exclusives like GTA IV: The Lost & the Damned are making it a fun experience.
As for the hardware: It's better now. The NXE (new dashboard) is an improvement, most notably in the area of allowing games to be played from the hard drive. Now I don't have to hear that loud optical drive when playing a game! That makes up for a lot, in my book. The system does seem to run cooler than my Falcon chipset Arcade model did, but not remarkably so.
And the pack-ins: Well, I played them for about half an hour, and grew bored with them. The LEGO Indiana Jones is better than Kung-Fu Panda, but frankly, these two games are nowhere near as fun as the Marvel Ultimate Alliance pack-in from previous models. Really, I'm not overjoyed with the pack-in titles, and would rather they just include a coupon for $30 off a game. I wouldn't have bought either of these games myself if I had the option.
In summary, I grudgingly admit that the Xbox 360 is the better console when it comes to game selection, arcade titles, and DLC. It suffers a bit in that it has fewer actual multimedia features, and no web browser. It has the better controllers, but the accessories are usually more expensive and everything for the MS offering is proprietary; WiFi adapter, wireless controllers, hard drive, etc. -- You pay more for them because MS is jacking the price and making it difficult or impossible to use 3rd party accessories. Personally, I think that sucks, because there's no way I can justify the price they're asking for a bigger hard drive when I know that the actual hardware, without MS's proprietary software on it, can be had for a fraction of what they're asking.
If only we could combine the Xbox 360 and PS3 into one perfect console... but then what would the fanboys have to complain about? | video-games_xbox |
God of War with T & A. Sorry. If you're a fan of God of War and God of War clones, don't bother listening to my review. If you're apathetic or ambivalent, then listen, I suppose.
I'm no expert of this game style at all, having only played a few levels of God of War II and Conan (another GOW clone) and I can say this one was in absolutely no way remarkable in terms of gameplay. It's the exact same thing---run around rapidly, completely defy physics, and use a messy mix of magic and swords and such, button-mash X or Y to kill everything in your path, button-mash things in concert to do combos and the like.
Rather than compare it to God of War, which would take up pages and pages, I'll point out where it's different.
There's a woman as the lead character. She walks around on a very odd angle where her back is slightly arched, giving her butt lots of perk. This serves only the purpose of fanservice. Sure, some sexitude in games is fun, but when it's quite literally thrust at us like it's the main selling point of the game, then it's really easy to hate the game trying to substitute PG-13 porn for actual quality.
What makes this game unplayable for me is the visuals. It's always a good idea to be creative with visuals, adding as many stylish flairs and colors as is tastefully possible. This goes way overboard in terms of visuals, to a point where there's so many colors, lights, and random stuff flying off the girl as she strikes enemies, that I cannot see the enemies. It's not a case of me being a befuddled old twit who can't handle colors or lights beyond the red, green, pink, and yellow of Pac-Man, this is a true catastrophic mess of flair. It's like that jerkbag in Office Space who wears a bunch of flair on his outfit. It's like an outfit made of flair.
It's just too much. But honestly, it wouldn't even make a difference---just buttonmash and they'll go away eventually.
One good thing I can and should say, though---the enemies die with great style, where flesh falls off from bone the more you hack at them, until they fully die.
But hey---if you like the style, and you've never played God of War, definitely try it out!
Or just wait for <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/God-of-War-III/dp/B000ZK9QCS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">God of War III</a>! Good God, the timing could not be worse.
Rather than whine about these other games, let me list off some other God of War clones upcoming:
Dante's Inferno
Lord of the Rings: Conquest
Darksiders | video-games_xbox |
Don't Feed the Crooks and Scalpers. Activision has made the Light and Dark expansion packs more or less necessary with the Skylander #4 game, Trap Team. In previous Spyro, Giants and Swap Force versions, the expansion packs were cool but not really a must. Right up front in Chapter 1 of Trap Team, you'll have 4 different Element Trap Master games to play (Water, LIfe, Unknown, Tech) in order to get the Magic Hats, etc The "Unknown" Element gates throughout the game can require either a Light or Dark Trap Master. The expansion pack pieces are nicely done, the Light moreso than the Dark. However, do not pay more than the $29 manufacturer price.
Plan accordingly on how much you want to spend to play this game. ;-) For this reason, I give the Dark Expansion Pack and the White one a 4-star, instead of 5. Ethically, I can't give a effusive rating to a corporation that so obviously has begun to gouge parents over a kid's toy, knowing that 3rd party sellers will stick it to the parents again. While we bought most of the traps and trap masters here on Amazon, there's no way I'm spending more than $29 for this Sunscraper Spire Expansion Pack.
By the time you purchase the starter game/portal, essential element traps, and essential Trap Masters, you'll spend at least $200, which is about the same as previous Skylander versions. But with the two Dark/Light expansions, it's $260 minimum in order to gather all the points and play the full game to the max. I've always refused to pay a king's ransom for Skylander expansion packs, waiting till they were available at original retail price. As usual with Skylanders stuff, don't count on the Big Box brick 'n' mortar retailers to do much of anything to curtail the scalpers. Our turn-to is a small out of the way neighborhood Gamestop that always has a lot of Skylander products and, indeed, had both the Light and Dark Expansion Packs at the retail cost of $29 each. | video-games_xbox |
Not My Cup of Tea. I purchased the Day One edition of the Xbox One because I still and have owned an Xbox 360 for the past 4-5 years now and have been enjoying it thoroughly. I booted up the console first time on Day One, got the update and was immediately met with the first thing I hate about this console, the OS/user interface. It is based off of Windows 8 architecture so in general it's just hard to navigate and find things. They did update it every now in again but it stayed mostly the same, so, annoying and hard to navigate. Then we have the controller, that MS supposedly spent "millions of dollars" researching. Let me just tell you right now, if you have big thumbs this controller is not for you. The thumb sticks are smaller but longer for precision aiming and this can be fixed by purchasing some stick grip covers but it's more or less a nuisance. The games are alright, more will most definitely be released but the fact that I had to pay 500 dollars more for games that look less impressive than on the competitions system left a bad taste in my mouth. Speaking of the extra 100 dollars over the Playstation 4, the Kinect is an atrocious piece of software, and nothing but wasted potential and resources on Microsoft's part. It never picks up my voice, hand recognitions or signs me in when I stand in from of it at a reasonable distance so, just buy it Kinectless if you still want to buy one after reading my review. This is more off topic, but after not using the Xbox One for a few months and if turned on was used as a Blu Ray player, it began to have disc errors. I forgot this however and went to trade it in, to fund my gaming rig. Turns out the disc drive was completely inoperable, after little to no usage, so be warned this may have just been a random fluke, but take this anecdote with a grain of salt. When it comes down to it if you want to play Naughty Dog games for a change, go to PlayStation. If you enjoy Halo, Forza and perhaps still Titanfall, head to Xbox, so basically personal preference. The Xbox One was a major step down from the 360 in my opinion, graphics have improved, a lot, but the interface, the higher price tag, Kinect, and somewhat inferior hardware, leave a lot to be desired, 3/5 | video-games_xbox |
Great Instalment In The GOW Franchise. The "Gears of War" franchise is one of Microsoft's successful game series, but do they deliver with the third installment? The answer is a plain yes, well it may be not as good as its successor, but still pretty darn good.
***WARNING, THERE ARE SPOILERS***
PROS:
+ The graphics and audio are certainly a step up from GOW2 and those still look pretty good today. The many locations in this game look fabulous, I haven't seen such a good looking game in awhile. The score is pretty much the same from the first two games and it doesn't disappoint.
+ The multiplayer is as fun and easy to use as ever, there are your normal game types like team death match, and capture the flag. My favorite new mode is defenilty "Best Mode" in which you play as the locust and try to take down humans.
+ Horde makes a return and is now nicknamed "Horde 2.0". It features some new changes in it though. Now players can upgrade and add barriers, turrets, and buy new guns with "credits" they earn by killing locust. I have mixed feelings for Horde 2.0 but I like how Epic tried to step it up with Horde.
+ There are plenty of collectables to find in campaign mode, they aren't too easy to find but at the same time they aren't too hard to find either.
+ The campaign introduces some new interesting characters, and we learn some back story on some of the characters we have grown to love.
+ The game ends on a satisfying conclusion.
CONS:
- The plot unfortunately is full of plot holes and cardboard characters which don't certainly help the plot at all.
- The GOW franchise is known to be very dark and depressing, well at least in the first two games. About 3/4 of this game takes place in very bright places and most of the multiplayer maps are very bright as well. Shouldn't they be at night and very dark because of the mood of the story? This game definitely has the darkest story of all three, so it doesn't really make sense why its so bright.
- While Horde 2.0 is a cool concept, I think that the buying of upgrades and such takes away from some of the fun.
Final Score: 4/5 | video-games_xbox |
Could have been great, the authors got greedy and ruined it. First the good news: Beautiful shooter game, the plants especially are very funny and well rendered (the zombies are pretty repetitive but hey they are zombies...) The fact that the shooters are plants and the shots are bites, balls of goo, etc makes this game come across as much milder than typical shooting games. I didn't hesitate letting my small boys (5 and 6) play this, wouldn't do that with aggressive shooter games.
Now for the fatal news: After letting me play some "preamble" version of the game single user for a couple sessions shooting zombies around a neighborhood (with lots of fun I might add), the game now asks me for an xbox Gold account and won't play without it (in any mode.) I don't have a Gold account and don't plan to buy one; I don't play networked games and don't plan to ever do so. In my view there is no rationale for asking a console owner to have for a Gold account to use a game in single user game (or in multiplayer mode with all players inside your home.) I am sure the marketers will disagree, but that's the expectation of this user, and it's supported by the behavior of standard bearing games like Minecraft.
So I just spent $ 20.00 to play a couple rounds of the free preamble game (and sadly I can't seem to bring it back to play some more.) A ripoff if you ask me. I know xbox Gold is listed in the Amazon game description as a requirement but no typical ADD gamer reads that anyway.
THERE IS A RAY OF HOPE: version 2 comes out in February 2016 and it doesn't list xbox gold as a requirement. (The bad news: it is priced at $ 49.95. What are these folks thinking? These games are impulse purchases, price them beyond $ 25.00 and folks will hesitate forever before buying them. They should be priced like music CDs; they last about the same before the buyer gets bored of them and moves on.)
Update 2015-12-22: All is not lost - I found a way to play the game without Gold membership, by choosing the "Split Screen" mode of the game. I now have my two boys playing split screen and having lots of fun. Originally I was trying to play in "Single Player" mode which brought up the frustrating alert that my xbox live account did not qualify. (It also brought up several alerts telling me the game was contacting the EA servers. That is highly confusing - why don't they route all remote traffic through the xbox live servers and spare me the cacophony of alerts?.) Anyway, I am upping the score from 1 to 3 stars given that I got more than a empty demo for my money. | video-games_xbox |
More educational than most games. Rocksmith tops the music games in my book because it actually teaches you to play. Not only does it teach you to play, but it does so with real instruments. That said, unlike other games you need to have an electric guitar to be able to use it. Fortunately for us, we have quite a few. (My husband is a musician of some repute). Being self-taught, however, he was uncomfortable teaching our kids to play. When I got this game he tried it out first before handing it to our son. I have to admit to having fun watching, particularly as he crashed the game on the first chord ;) (To be fair he was not playing as your average novice might).
He felt like it was quirky, synched poorly with the kinect and used a somewhat unnatural method of teaching. It may well be that the kinect would work better for most, as being a performing musician he plays standing up and moves more than the average student.
As one who learned more traditionally but never reached those lofty heights, I actually confer. The games teaches chords moving up the bridge rather than in groups on the lower frets where it is easier to learn good hand positioning. Some chords are easier to form/ hold than others, and that was how I was taught. His method was similar, and neither resembled the method used by Rocksmith.
Our son, who has grown up with video games, has very little trouble with it. However the selection of songs was not something that inspired him and so he did not stay with it for very long. In truth it is an odd jumble. It is hard to imagine many if any people liking all of it. I guess they were trying to touch a lot of bases but the result is that little of it will appeal to anyone. It might have been better to offer different editions or modules and I plan to look into what else is out there because I'd like to see our son learn and know that anyone does best with material they enjoy and find inspirational.
The game was easy to set up, taking only a few minutes, but there were some quirks related to the kinect. It sometimes jumped chapters as a result of movement, and seemed not as interactive, not as responsive to the efforts of the individual as one might want, certainly not as much as a teacher would be. That might be a little much to expect from a game, but we can expect it to progress smoothly without jumping all over in response to movement in a game design to be used with a motion detector.
I gave the game 4 stars because it is still more useful, more educational than most of what is out there, to include other games focused on music education of one sort or another. We found the game play none too smooth, the progression somewhat awkward and the selection of songs varied but suited to none. I am hoping there are modules available which cater more directly to certain tastes, allowing one to choose classic rock, metal, folk, classical... and that we can find one which engages our son for longer than this did. | video-games_xbox |
Rent this one, to see if you like it first. Madden 12 is so-so. I see it like this:
The football.
The football is okay. It isn't great, but it is good, and on par with recent releases of Madden. There are things which are interesting, and things that will drive you nuts. I got tired of the run-off that happened before each play, outside of the final two minutes of the half(s).
Player Modelling.
I don't know who decided it would be funny to make all the big men - O-line, D-line - look like overstuffed water balloons, but I didn't care for it. It looks retarded.
The Franchise.
For many of us, this is the reason we buy Madden. The Franchise is lackluster in this incarnation of Madden. There are a few neat ideas, but they have been executed poorly. There are expanded pre-season rosters, and cut days, but they are very arbitrary. You can make the cuts, then go sign a F/A and you don't need to cut again. Also the menu is not really to my taste, I like having it up instead of needing to call it up, but that is a personal preference.
I think it is a GREAT idea to have the overall player rating uncertain, but basic measurables that remain a mystery? I guarantee, every team knows how fast each player on the team is, for example. This needs some tweaking. There are measureables that make sense to keep unsure - awareness, ZCV MCV, etc... But speed, strength, jumping? These are quantites teams know.
Scouting within the franchise is also broken. 4 weeks of scouting over a whole season? And all you get is +big hit, +stiff arm?
That isn't a feature, that is BROKEN. Why am I paying a scouting agency to tell me things I could find out by watching college football for 20 minutes some Saturday? You pay scouts for in-depth research on players.
The game as a whole.
I have one of them new fancy black x-box with built in wi-fi and hundreds of gigs of storage. So I install all games I play. This game still likes to hang coming in and out of menus, and weird places that you would think aren't particularly intensive. They will probly fix this with a patch eventually, but how do you drop the ball like this and ask for 60 bucks to have the honor of gold testing a game?
The overall.
If you haven't bought a Madden in several years, you might like this, it may be the jump forward you have been hoping for. But be smart, rent this on first, because odds are REALLY good you might think this won't be worth the 15 dollars you will be able to get it for used in a few weeks. | video-games_xbox |
Sound is good but mic issue is a deal breaker. I pre-ordered the 4 Shot from Gamestop and picked them up last Friday, 3/7. Unfortunately my excitement on release day was quickly dampened by early comments regarding a mic issue. By late afternoon I saw the tweet regarding the official statement from Polk acknowledging that there was indeed an issue with the mic. I was a little hesitant to keep them when I picked them up, but I figured I would at least give them a test drive on COD Ghosts and hopefully Polk/Microsoft would release a fix before Titanfall launched.
Over the weekend I played some Ghosts and the headphones sounded really good. I'm not sure I would say they are fantastic, but given the fact that they are not running 5.1 or 7.1 true surround sound I think this is as about as good as it's going to get for any brand headphone. My last pair of gaming headphones were the Tritton Black Ops 7.1 edition so those are pretty hard to beat. Regardless, I really liked the 4 Shot as it sounded good enough and I didn't have to lay cabling across the floor and plug a power adapter into the wall. They were also really comfy on my head and there is no boomtastic mic sticking right in your face. So far, so good.
However, when the Titanfall launch came and went with no updated patch from Polk/Microsoft I knew this could be trouble. Sure enough, when gaming with my buddies yesterday they all noted that my voice was really low and muffled. We all joked about it as we were aware of the issue. It had been a long and ongoing debate within our community of older gamers as to what headphones everybody would be using. Many of them stuck with their old units awaiting the MS adapter, while some of us purchased new sets. One of the other guys in our lobby last night was also using the 4 Shot and yes, he too sounded muffled. Meanwhile, one of the other guys who went with the Turtle Beach XO Seven sounded just fine. He was going to pick up the 4 Shot, but the mic issue was not something he wanted to deal with. Needless to say he validated his purchase decision last night.
As for me, I thought I had 30 days to return them for a refund to Gamestop so I was willing to maybe wait a little longer on a patch. However, upon further investigation on my part regarding their return policy I only have 7 days to return for a refund. The 30 days is for replacing the same product. So waiting and hoping for a patch beyond 7 days would lock me in to these fairly expensive headphones. And while I'm guessing they will eventually get it all sorted out, I am not going to wait around and hope they do.
I have waited four months for a good pair of headphones so that I can game AND chat with my buddies. How and why there is a mic issue is irrelevant for most of us here. If every pair of headphones were having issues I would understand, but the fact that only the 4 Shot seems to have the problem is a showstopper. If anything, these Polks should have worked correctly and every other brand should have had an issue. Considering they were designed hand in hand with MS is what makes this whole mess rather head scratching. If nothing else I would have at least expected a quick and swift response with a patch. However, I am currently on day 5 of 7 for returning them for a refund and no patch is in sight.
So they have been packaged up neatly in their box with the receipt and I will be returning them today. Regardless of who is to blame for this SNAFU, Polk missed a great opportunity to capture some new market share. Even if/when this issue is resolved I know there are many of us that will probably not be coming back.
==== Update =====
I was able to swap my 4 Shot for a pair of Turtle Beach XO Seven's and they work fantastic. In fact, they are a little bit louder and more comfortable that the 4 Shot. I also like the braided cable that runs between the headphones and the controller more than the flimsy plastic cord on the Polk. As for those that ride this out, I hope they patch it. But even then you aren't guaranteed a fix. I highly recommend those of you still holding on to your 4 Shot take a good look at when you return policy ends. It is probably in your best interest to return them and get your money back if they don't patch soon. Good luck.
And yes... I updated my controller but it made no difference.
=== Final Update 3/25/14 ===
After pre-ordering the 4 Shot, returning them because of the mic issue, trading for the XO7, returning them because Polk said they would ship a boom mic as temporary fix, and then buying the 4 Shot for a second time... I returned the 4 Shot yet again. Why? Because I was simply disappointed with the glorified stereo and no real surround sound. When I pre-ordered the 4 Shot last year I never imagined that they would not have 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound. Combine that with the overall low volume and I knew I just couldn't keep either the Polk's or the TB's.
The fact that Xbone has gone backwards in so many regards is extremely frustrating and deserves it's own thread, but taking such a huge step backwards in audio quality was the last straw for me. So I kicked in the extra $100 and pulled the trigger on the Astro A40. I have been wanting these since I first tried them out at the COD XP event down in LA back in 2011. So I have been eyeballing these bad boys for some time now.
So how are they?
They fricken rock! Easily the most comfortable headset I have ever owned and the sound is amazing! There was a noticeable difference compared to both the 4Shot and the XO7 as soon as I started navigating the dashboard. As for playing Titanfall, it was like a whole new game as I could hear things coming from their proper directions as well as awesome sound overall. And the volume levels.... BAM! Both the 4Shot and XO7 have such weak volume compared to these cans! That's expected of course since they are only receiving their power/volume from the controller but the power of the mixamp is even louder than my old Tritton Black Ops headset.
I also think there is measurable benefit to the true surround sound as my overall K/D made a significant turn upward over the course of the night. I don't recall any specific instance where I heard a directional sound that helped me get a kill, but it must be working as my numbers were positive all night. They weren't out of this world stats, but at least they didn't suck either.
So are the Astro A40's worth the extra $100 over the 4Shot and XO7? Without a doubt, yes by a mile! The reality is that both the 4Shot and XO7 should be priced in the $80 dollar range as the $159 is a rip off IMHO. The only downside to the A40's are the cables I have to lay across the floor, but that's a small price to pay for such awesome sound. On the positive side, they plug into the Xbone via USB for power instead of having to plug an adapter into an outlet like I did with my Trittons.
So it took me the three different returns to GameStop, but the fourth time was a charm. The Astro A40's are the bomb and I'm keeping them. Good luck to the rest of you on your audio quest and I hope you find the headset you like best. | video-games_xbox |
ITS NOT A BAD GAME AT ALL . Honestly, from a gamer who has been playing every game on the xbox this is a classic. First of all the game play is immersive and gets your blood going. The 'focus' and combo moves are easy to use and though i can't work out why they didn't use the left trigger to fire as per usual, i can't complain. The controls take a little time to get the hang off, (but then don't most new game controls), and the system is brillant at being able to make up for your mistakes at times when using focus. Meaning that at times when i leapt of a wall and went to hit a guard but knew that i had missed the control goes on auto and smacks him anyway providing some brillant moves that you can't help but go 'WOW, DID I DO THAT'? at.
The graphics are good, they certainly aren't as bAd as some players go on about and i love graphics over gameplay. For me the best games are the ones that are graphically enhanced and keep my visual stimulte going. I mean if i just wanted games for excellent gameplay and not graphics id buy a PS2. At times it can get a bit 'blocky' but overall the graphics are excellent and i thought the whole atmosphere complimented the overall feeling of the two movies.
As others have mentioned the cut scenes are top notch and really show how these games should be made. It was enthralling to get every bit of story and it really is the best i can think of to actually watching a movie and playing in it.
So, gameplay was good, graphics excellent and cut scenes brillant,(if not the only way these games should go with telling storylines).
However, with the good there is bad and these are few and far between for me. First of the car sequence was terrible. It really was shocking and will go down in history as the worse driving play ever. I played as both characters and had the chance to both drive or shoot, (if u play one character , Niobe, your driving, the other, Ghost. you shooting), and for me shooting was too simple and driving too hard, (but thats just me). it ....really seems like a quick add on to the game. It also interupts your motion with the shooting, focus, combo parts. I just started getting use to the system and they shove in a car sequence, ( and a really bad one at that), that breaks the momentum.
The AI are a bit weak and all the gamers that go on about them are right but once again this didn't distract me from the overall enjoyment of the game. Some levels seem impossible, some are so easy its just a matter of getting from here to there. Once you get use to the controls your set.
Finally one last piece of advice. U SEE A AGENT...RUN!
Buy the game , its good, it looks fine and its not that hard to play ......
Enter the Matrix! | video-games_xbox |
From an FPS junkie, this game is fantastic. Crysis 2 is in a tough spot. It's a beloved product that nerds everywhere spent thousands to play on PC (Does it run Crysis?) and now they went ahead and released a new version on consoles. The bad press and geek tantrums to follow have not been good for the game, but word of mouth (like my mouth) have popularized Crysis and will likely make new versions appear on consoles in the near future. So get over it, guys :)
So what do I have to say about this game? It is wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Shooters are my favorite genre and I haven't had an experience this fresh in years, although I recognize there are bugs and rough spots that can sometimes be annoying. More on those later.
Crysis 2 is a game featuring an accidental supersoldier (you), who is a marine that has been resurrected from near death by a dude in a nanosuit named Prophet. Octopus aliens have invaded (you heard that right) and they've used biological weapons to infect most of the population of New York. Unfortunately, Prophet was not immune, and his sacrifice means that you need to take on his role. Plus the suit holds all your leaking vital organs together.
Crysis takes every feature every first person shooter has ever had and throws it together in a delicious stew. There are upgradeable RPG elements (your skills and guns), tons of guns to pick up, customize, and play with, a cover mechanic, stamina, stealth combat, climbing, dashing, sliding, swimming, special abilities, remote mines, crazy swarm missile launchers, infared mode, detachable turrets, vehicles...
Although the cover mechanic is kind of wonky. It's not really necessary but it's there.
But with so much availability in gameplay, one would worry that the levels would be too linear to ever enjoy it. Or the AI would be too stupid to make any of it worth taking seriously. My friends, neither of these things is the case. Most of the levels are open and incredibly vertical, meaning that you can approach from a ton of different angles and do missions completely differently each time. Not to mention that they are absolutely beautiful.
The AI is the best I have ever seen (when it works). I have had aliens stalk me in a very convincing, clever, creepy way. Humans call for backup and work as a team to make your life miserable. Aliens have a completely different AI from humans and can... also make your life miserable. Just differently.
Unfortunately the AI is only a genius most of the time and can occasionally become tired and retarded. I've found that you have to completely quit and restart the game to resolve this, but with everything else that I love about the game I have forgiven Crytek for having a bug here and there.
The style of FPS gameplay is smarter than most you'll play. Instead of being an invincible supersoldier, you clearly have your limits and need to fight with hit and run tactics. A mistake on hard mode will mean that you're probably going to die, and I appreciate that. You can only hold two guns at a time and ammo can get sparse. And as I mentioned earlier, enemies call for backup, so if you're going to play rambo you'd better be prepared for reinforcements.
Your tactics generally involve your two main abilities: armor mode and stealth mode. Armor mode lets you take a beating until your energy runs out, so you can jump into a fight and try to slug it out before becoming vulnerable again. Stealth mode makes you mostly invisible, although enemies can hear your footsteps or if you bump into them, knock into something, etc. Everything drains energy so you have to really think about your escape route before trying to be a hero.
I admittedly have not tried multiplayer. The single-player campaign lasted me more than 12 hours because I played in hard and wanted to relish certain parts of the game. I started replaying in super-soldier difficulty as soon as I finished :) | video-games_xbox |
The Right Mindset is Essential to Enjoy this Game. Let me start off right away by saying that if you think the best games are ones that punish you for anything less than a perfect performance, games that have constant risk, or games that elicit unhealthy amounts of adrenaline release during play, then Prince of Persia is not for you. When I first played this game, it was a rental back in 2010, and my experience with it was really soured by the fact that I was trying to play through the game before it was due. When playing the game like that, it becomes repetitive and grating. This is not a game you play with the goal of the ending constantly in mind. No, rather, this game is an "experience" that you're supposed to immerse yourself into and take your time in. You really must get yourself in the proper mindset to enjoy it. I've recently bought the game again, and changed my attitude from when I first played it, and I enjoyed it immensely.
It's evident as soon as you boot up the game, that the developers put a lot of love and labor into this game, and that fact becomes only more evident as you play through the game. The environments are absolutely gorgeous and imaginative. If you've ever desired to play a game that reminded you of childhood fairy tales with a child's massive imagination, then Prince of Persia will be very pleasing to you. The graphics are crisp, the colors are vibrant, and the design is superb. That is PoP's biggest strength. The story is not particularly unique or groundbreaking, but the writing and voice acting is so good and compelling, that the story is actually very well done. I found myself fascinated by the different environments of this mysterious land I was exploring. I was very compelled by the various bosses' stories. The banter between Eleka, your constant companion, and the Prince is believable and enjoyable. You really grow to like the characters over the course of the game. The sound and music is also very well designed. These are without a doubt PoP's strengths.
As far as gameplay goes, it's about what you'd expect from a Prince of Persia game. Crazy, cool acrobatics are the name of the game here, with lots of wall-running and gravity defying moves. Combat has been revamped to be more combo and flow oriented with focus on fighting one enemy at a time instead of the frantic hack n' slash frenzy of past Prince games. For what its worth, it works very well. Eleka gets access to various special powers that are pretty neat to use. Each boss requires different strategy to beat, and they're all very fun because of that. You'll end up fighting each boss several times though, so it may get repetitive to you.
One big thing that's different about this entry in the Prince of Persia franchise is that much of the difficulty and challenge of past entries is largely gone. Eleka will always save you from death. You cannot die in this game, as many gamers complain about far too loudly. The game holds your hand a lot, making it obvious when double-jumps, or dodges in combat, or anything else you could imagine, are needed. Is this a bad thing? It really depends on your perspective. A lot of people complain about the lack of challenge, but to me, I think it's obvious that wasn't Ubisoft's priority in crafting this game. It's obvious that it is meant to be absorbed as a work of beautiful art, rather than a game you play for bragging rights because of the difficulty. Satisfaction comes from taking in the beauty and learning about the world and characters of the game, not beating a super difficult boss, or pulling off a large sequence of acrobatic moves in a row (although you'll do that a lot in this game).
Is Prince of Persia for you? It really depends on your attitude and desire for what video games should deliver. Personally, I absolutely love the <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Sands-of-Time/dp/B004J6I0YO/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Sands of Time</a> games in the Prince of Persia series. In my opinion, <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Prince-of-Persia-The-Sands-of-Time/dp/B00009ZVHU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time</a> just simply can't be beat in terms of best Prince of Persia game. However, if you enjoy imaginative games that focus more on a beautiful experience than a challenging one, you'll be rewarded for picking this game up. Too often, people play games expecting the game to spoil them and live up to what THEY want from the game, rather than understand the game's focus and mold their perspective and expectations accordingly to really enjoy the game the way its supposed to be enjoyed. The gaming community has really fallen in that much of it is now comprised of spoiled brats who complain if they don't get exactly what they want at any given moment from the games they play. What happened to the open-minded gratefulness that used to be so prevalent in gamers' minds? It makes me sad. Anyway, Prince of Persia is pretty cheap now, too, so it's not like you're losing out on too much. Buy it, take it all in, and appreciate it for the right reasons. | video-games_xbox |
Will not disappoint! I've waited so long, worth it. I've put in about 30 hours of gameplay since the release 2 days ago and let me say this: I'm impressed. I've been waiting too long for this game since its announcement and it really delivered!
The game is seamless, there are virtually ZERO loading screens, with the exception of entering and sometimes exiting matchmaking. This can really keep you in the zone for several uninterrupted hours if you really want. The Armor and Weapon development keeps you checking your inventory constantly, as loot drops quite often. The story is a little lackluster, but the gameplay gets so intense, I didn't mind it too much.
Additionally, Ubisoft has redefined cover-based shooters in my opinion. The environment and your own gear gives you so many options to work with, it really makes the game compatible with any play type or strategy. Flanking maneuvers? Getting the High Ground? Run and Gun up the middle? Sniping from a distance? All viable options and all possible!
Bosses only have more health and armor, which is a bummer. With only human enemies, there isn't a whole lot you can do there, so I'll let it slide this time. What they do to account for this is to make the boss fights locations unique. I have yet to find 2 identical shootout areas in the game, which is incredible!
While I didn't play much multiplayer, the Dark Zone (PvP area of the map) has a much higher level of "difficulty". I say this because not only will you need to battle much stronger bots with your friends and/or strangers, but you also have to be able to trust these same friends/strangers not to shoot you in the back and steal your stuff. Very stressful, very fun regardless.
Bits of the game actually reminded me of Watch Dogs, another game released by Ubisoft.
My only problems overall:
-Very steep learning curve. Don't give up in the beginning when they refuse to give you a tutorial. Stick it out, it's not bad.
-Matchmaking loading is slow, but it's a new game. It happens, it'll fix itself soon enough.
-Fast travel is meager. There's only fast travel options to safe houses and main missions you've already done, which are extremely far apart. You'll spend lots of time running around.
-I wish there was a way to pause the game. I walk away for 30 seconds, come back, close the menu, see myself dead on the ground, and have to respawn half a mile away. | video-games_xbox |
Better than Wii, but hope you like ads. Let me be clear: I love the Xbox with Kinect. What I don't love is Xbox Live, and the menus that are littered with all kinds of goodies, all of which require a Gold membership to use. For instance, Netflix -- I already pay them for a membership, and Wii and Android let me access it free. Not Microsoft. They apparently don't have enough money yet. (Also what no one mentions is that playing online with friends also requires Gold. This was a feature I was excited about but didn't realize this until hooking it up.)
But the console itself is so much fun. Using a handheld controller seems so 20th century, as well as navigating menus by pushing buttons now that I've discovered the voice command feature (my girlfriend, who couldn't care less about video games, said wryly, "you only like it because you've found someone who listens to you.")
I made the mistake of asking some co-workers who are hardcore gamers for suggestions for the Xbox, specifically the Kinect. They both grimaced disdainfully and insisted there were no good games for the Kinect. But further questioning revealed that they also aren't fans of getting off the couch while playing, so that was the problem. The Wii has spoiled me in terms of moving around and getting a bit sweaty, and I don't want to go back to couch potato/button masher status.
I'm a casual gamer, and for that the Xbox seems perfect. It's like a more sophisticated Wii. I only have a few games so far (Child of Eden and Adventures), but they're so fun I don't even want to play Wii anymore (for now). The thrill of not using a controller hasn't worn off yet.
What's best about the 360 is all the gamers who are over it and looking at Xbox One or PS4 are selling their games as cheaply as Wii stuff. Works well for me. Send them my way!
UPDATE: I started the Gold trial membership, and I have to say with it the Xbox becomes a full-featured entertainment center: Game demos, streaming music/video, Netflix, the works. Very impressive, if not for the fact that it costs extra. The console might be worth full retail to have all this included. But to charge extra on top of hundreds of dollars just for the console is absurd.
I also got a chance to play with my friend (actual, not virtual) this weekend. 1) The <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Zoom-for-Kinect-Xbox-360/dp/B0050SYS5A/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Zoom for Kinect - Xbox 360</a> is essential for this, particularly if using a small space. 2) It is so simple for players to jump into or out of games without stopping the action. This is a big plus, especially if you might be playing with kids who wander off. | video-games_xbox |
simply awesome. So to qualify my rating, I must say that action/ action-rpgs are, by far, my favorite genre of games. If you liked God of War or Darksiders, you should definitely pick up Bayonetta.
You play as Bayonetta, a sexy and witty umbran witch who has a bone to pick with the Lumen Sages, the witches mortal enemies. You come equipped with 4 guns (2 in each hand, and 2 strapped to her heals). through out the game you can pick up more weapons from a sword to shotguns to even ice skates. On top of that you can preform torture attacks which are very fun to watch. They vary depending on the enemy but it allows you to summon devices such as iron maiden or guillotines to destroy your your opponent I have to say that this game probably has the best combat system I have ever played. the movement is fluid and the combos you can preform seem endless. I have to add that this is definitly a "button masher". You don't do a whole lot in this game other than beating the crap out of foes. Granted there are different artifacts that you can collect throughout the game, but don't expect much puzzle solving or interaction with other characters.
Despite that, the combat always seems fresh. You will encounter waves of different types of enemies with different fighting styles and abilities, none of which are controller smashing difficult but enough to keep you on your toes.
There are only a few cons to this game, none of which are a deal breaker. As for graphics, they are top of the line, however you will notice some screen tearing occasionally . Like most action games, the story lacks depth....in fact theres not much of one at all. But lets face it, you buy action games to beat the crap out of CGI, so not a big deal. Second, the cut scenes leave much to be desired. the majority of them are done in this filmstrip style way as opposed to full motion graphics. Finally the music is repetitive, you'll hear the same handful of songs throughout the game. By the end you will have "in other words, i love you" stuck in your head for days.
Overall, awesome game and now that its in the $20 price range, there's really no excuse to pick it up | video-games_xbox |
Fight Night Round 4 Full Review. First and foremost, let me say this, Fight Night Round 4 is NOT a FIGHTING GAME. It is a Sports Simulation. SO people shouldn't be refering to it as such. This game is Geared towards the HARDCORE BOXING FAN, just as Madden is Geared toward the HARDCORE FOOTBALL FAN. And so on and so fourth.
I have noticed that alot of people are rating this game with low stars simply because of the "Anti-Button Mashing" that EA is bringing out. That's not a true assesment of the ENTIRE GAME. If you are paying attention, EA has been using the right stick on all of it's sports titles. It creates for more options on the fly, it also gives you much more control over the person you are using. The problem people have with the TPC is that they cannot simply "Pick it up and be good" at the game. This is a game that takes pratice, some skill actually. There is no instant gratification. Hardcore boxing fans, such as myself, understand that boxing is not a slugfest. Any man in the streets can throw a punch, but boxers make it a science! Now on with the review..
GAMEPLAY:
The gameplay is by far the smoothest FN to date, the boxers punch and use proper hip/head movement that emulates the sport well. Glancing blows, arms becomming tangled, and Inside fighting even add to the realism of the game. I am more satisfied with the damage ratio per punch. IN FN3 i could win any fight v's the computer in a 1 to 3 rd KO. in RD4 im seeing more and more fights go the distance so Power fighters will actually be power fighters and have to fight with a fury in order to score the KO. while conservative fighters would most likely get a 10 rd decision. In the ring the action is very lifelike and it's sped up to a very quick 60 frames per second. The punches are thrown at lightning quick speeds. Very enjoyable experience for the Hardcore Boxing fan.
GRAPHICS:
Usually not very important to me, but the graphics in FN4 are purely amazing. Sweat, blood, and swelling look true to life and the muscles flex them fighters throw a punch. Very good coloring and lighting as well and the venue's in the background emerses you into the world of boxing. Punches make contact with virtually no clipping.
PRESENTATION:
Presentation for this game is decent at best. The commentary does get repetive but it's fun to here Joe get excited when you land a big punch. The Menu's are easy to read and very straight to the point. Very average in this catagory.
SOUND:
Very nice Soundtrack in FN4 and you can even upload your own music into the game. ALso the sounds of the punches are dead on. This is 1 of the Strong points of FN4.
GAME MODES:
Between Legacy and World Championship Online Mode, I don't see what's not to like. The Legacy mode is the best career mode in a Sports game to date (other than NHL09's Be a Pro). Not everyone can become the greatest of all time, will you? you start off as a bum and work your way through the ranks as a fighter. I love they way you can schedule your own fights. So not only do you feel like the fighter, you also feel like the promoter. One thing I was dissappointed about in RD3 was the lack of stat tracking. It's here in Round 4 and then some. I have never seen such extensive stat tracking in my life. Madden's stat tracking dosent even come close to the detail. It'll even show the percentage of straight right hands you have made throughout your career in round number 8. Now thats detailed!
World championship online mode is the next big thing! everyone starts out on a level playing field and you can build up your boxer as you win more and more fights. It cant get any better than that.
REVIEW:
Overall this is a must grab for the HARDCORE BOXING FAN or even the medeocer boxing fan. this game is not for Casual gamers because of the TPC and the learning curve.
I hope you enjoyed this. If you have any questions on boxing or FNR4, just leave a comment. I check this on the regular. - Juce SK3 | video-games_xbox |
EA Making Football games is a Joke. Madden football games have become a joke.
Not much distinguishes Madden NFL 25 from last year's Madden 13. The game has not been refined at all, but I never buy a madden game two years back to back and Im sorry I did it this time as well. I will not buy M14 for the PS4, I learned my lesson from xbox360 lonch back in 2006
This years game presentation is poor. Whith the Infinity engine the game is the same as years past.
Madden still lags behind 2k sport games, EA Sports series like NHL and FIFA when it comes to visual and audio impact. The interface is awkward and slow. It takes too many button presses to reach many frequently accessed functions, and the game pauses with fairly lengthy loads whenever you move from one menu window to another. There isn't much glitz or attention to fine detail, either. Players and coaches often look nothing like their real-life counterparts. Stadiums are sterile and lifeless, with static graphics, jaggy architecture, and generic jack-in-the-box fans who look like cardboard cutouts mounted on springs.
Further contributing to the visual inconsistencies are animations that are repeated over and over again, like the trainer squirting water into a player's mouth as he comes off the field when a time-out is called. Touchdown celebrations are constantly reused, too. There is also an overall softness to everything after snaps. It's as if the game is just slightly out of focus as you're playing, which is frustrating since the zoomed-in replays shown between plays are typically sharp.
EA has taken out on field sound effects such as the sound of tackling, players talking to one another, and the sound of kicking the football is terrible and you cannot even hear it.
The music is very dated and primitive sounding for an EA Sports game. All you hear are old stadium tracks like the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" and Joe Satriani's "Crowd Chant," along with the odd bit of classic rock like AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" and Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle." The booth duo of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms is atrocious. They offer nothing but inanities, generic observations about the "offense" and the "defense" that rarely refer to players by name, and loads of those obnoxious "I'll tell you what" tics that make Simms so insufferable. Neither of them is watching the game that you're playing. They constantly contradict one another and make mistakes like saying how strong the pass protection has been today just after a QB has been sacked for the fourth time. if you are using a low rated QB, they always say negative things about that QB even when he is playing good.
I always turn them off or mute their terrible in game comments. I wish I can mute the live in game comments as well.
I will wait until next year or 2016 to buy a football for the PS4.
Don't waste your time. Gamespot Gave Madden 14 a 6.0 which is bad because M13 erned a 7.5. by that rating along it shows the Madden 14 is going backwards in the designs of this game.
You better take it back before you want get any of your money back for this game.
I got rid of this game.. | video-games_xbox |
Boring game ever played. I am fairly new to the xbox domain but i had played a lot of pc games earlier. I had played games like tomb raider ,max payne recoil to name a few earlier and then decided to jump into xbox since i got a job recently and i could afforf it. But once i started the game i just cudnt stick with it for long. I was bored right from the day one. I couldnot retain any damn interst. Its so damn boring. the main problems are:
The combat is very boring. The demons or whatever are way to easy to kill. Just keep hitting the A button and some where they will die for sure. No strategies nothing.
The story is kinda boring. I never got into its long verbose dialogues. You won't believe me but the dialogues run for almost like 5-7 mins and then a short combat scene and another 5-7 mins of dialogues. I m not a big fan of listening to the story when i am ther to play.
No strategies or planning required unlike many other games. When u compare it with games like Tomb Raider and Max Payne you will realise what i am talking about. You need some skill to clear the levels in those games. In this you just need patience to sit and keep listening to the dumbass crap spoken by the characters.
Fighting styles etc are no big deal. You can kill the enemy with just one or two default styles and since you get used to it from the begining of the game you don't feel like switching to the other new styles which have no better effect.
As I said earlier the game is way tooo easy for some looking for some action to play. Moreover the verbose conversation literally SUCKS!!!
ITS BY FAR THE MOST OVERRATED AND HYPED GAME OF THIS YEAR.
I bought GTA and Ghost Recon and i ended up playing the same map again and again in it. Thats the kind of interest it generated.
GHOST RECON rocks seriosuly! but if only we had more maps in it. Otherwise its awesome!
In a nutshell. If you are looking for some action better not go with this game. It sucks big time. Go for some real action packed games like medal of honor, halo etc..but definetely not jade empire ! | video-games_xbox |
Its All about the T&A. Overal-4 ****
Rumble of Roses is a average wrestling game although it has some of the best graphics than any other wrestling game to date. You have pleny of Character choices all with multiple alter ego(ie. Superstar, heel, and babyface). This is a decently fun game with an easy to understand gameplay, which can get boring after a while but still be fun.
Graphics-5 *****
The Graphics in this game is totally amazing. The Ladies of Rumble of Roses practically come to life. Even though the visuals are for the Mature gamers, not for younger kids. There are times when the videos get a little choppy but nothing that takes away from it. This game uses the power of the 360 to its most. The physics of the wrestlers bodies are well lets say like DOA 4.
Sounds-4 ****
Sound in this game is also a plus the entrance music for the wrestlers match perfectly. The voice work are always synchronized with their mouths. Everything with the crunching of the bones and smack of their fist against the skull is great. No ring announcers are present which isn't a bad thing as they can repeat themselves a lot. During the matches the music seems to stop and you are left with a gap before it starts again.
Controls-3 ***
The control seem confusing at first but you get used to it and it becomes fairly easy to control your wrestler. Pulling of your moves are easy but it seems that there aren't very many for your character. All the wrestlers control very differently from the power players to the speedy ones. Pulling of you Finishing moves are very easy with just pressing the left bumper. You get quite a few finishers and tag team moves, that are also very easy to pull off.
Gameplay-3.5
There is no real story mode present at all. Also don't expect any ladder matches, first blood, casket matches. But you do have your normal tag matches, 3 way matches, There is also a Steet fight in where you have a life bar in which you lose when you bar hits 0. An intresting match is the Queens match in which the loser of the match must perfrom some humiliating event ranging from doing the hula hoop to getting squirted with a water pistol. There is a lot to unlock from new character. Also trying to unlock wrestlers alter ego's and getting their superstar modes by increasing thier popularity. I was disapointed that you can't change over the belt in exhibition modes. Multiplayer with you friends can get a little hectic as focusing on different wrestlers if diffictult.
Personal notes: If your looking for a great wrestling sim wait till smackdown comes in. But if your looking for a game with some T&A that has a decent wrestlign engine this is the game for you. If your looking for a game that will game you panty shots and butt shots close up get this game now!!! | video-games_xbox |
First Time Borderlands player. Before getting into the details of why this game deserves 5 stars, it's important to note that I bought this game having never played borderlands on Xbox 360. I refrained from getting into the borderlands series primarily due to the different style of graphics and visuals. Once I did purchase this game, about an hour into it I deeply regretted not getting into this series earlier.
This game is fantastic. I will be reviewing based on the following criteria: Story, Graphics, Guns, Gameplay, Replay value, and affordability.
Story - 5/5 - I care more about gameplay than I do about the story in most games. This game has a very gripping story, and even knowing some spoilers before playing I had a fantastic time working through the campaign. No demerits based on this category.
Graphics - 4/5 - Takes getting used to if you're used to more traditional graphics like I am. That being said, I quickly became more comfortable with the different graphics, and liked them more and more moving through the game. I am annoyed at myself for not purchasing this series sooner for this reason. Additionally - per the other reviews on Amazon, the graphics on the xbox one are much crisper than those on the 360. I cannot concur with this, but the graphics do not leave anything to be desired on the xbox one.
Guns - 5/5 - TONS of guns, ranked in a cool way. This game really makes you get excited when you get some of the more rare blue, purple, or legendary items. If I could give more than 5 stars in any category... it would be this one. Absolutely phenomenal. This game makes it a very very fun experience to go through and loot enemies.
Gameplay - 5/5 - This is the category that I care most about. I get very annoyed when I purchase a game and it lags, or it takes forever to load... This game played very very smoothly and has never lagged for me. The load times are remarkable, especially when considering how extensive the maps are.
Replay Value - 5/5 - Yet another fantastic category - Once you play the games, you will find yourself going back through your favorite levels to face some of the best enemies again. You get cool loot nonstop, you can play with different characters, with different special abilities... There is no downside with this.
Affordability - $60 is not cheap. I am cheap - This was another reason why I waited as long as I did to buy this package... That being said - I was an idiot not to purchase this sooner. Think of this purchase as a PACKAGE - You get two games and all of the downloadable content in this package. Each game is worth the full $60. You will get far more than $60 worth of fun out of this package.
Concluding comments - This is a remarkable game. I got incredibly hooked on Borderlands 2, especially. The bosses are tough, the story is gripping, the leveling is addictive, the skill trees are neat, and the ability to change the skills later is even cooler... The loot is awesome and plentiful, and the multiplayer is very smooth and provides for even more (often times better) loot. I hope this review provides the information that someone needs to make this purchase... You will not regret it. | video-games_xbox |
Least favorite in the series so far. So, Desmond doesn't look like Desmond, and Ezio is an old guy. That's a weird choice
The first part of this review is after about 3 hours of gameplay:
Already this game has annoyed me to the point of nearly wanting to stop playing. I've seen more graphical glitches than ever before. I've already had to make the decision that, for the first time in any of these games, I will not try to get 100% synchronization on each of the DNA Sequences (missions). The reason for this is because the creators have decided that (at least for the first few missions) you must play through an entire mission before you can re-start it. In Brotherhood, if I made a mistake, I could immediately stop & re-try. In Revelations first few missions this doesn't seem to be the case, you must complete the mission (which could take 20 minutes depending) before you can try it again. The later missions, though, return to a normal re-playablity. Not sure why they did this. Considering to re-start a DNA sequence I have to basically exit out to the animus, and then re-enter the game, each of which requires it's own loading screen, this is frustrating
Another drawback is the many sequences of loading screens/cut-scenes. I feel that it's poor programming to have me sit through a loading screen, show a few seconds of a cut-scene, then another loading screen followed by yet another cut-scene. Sometimes they make you run forward 3 steps and a whole new loading/cut-scene chain starts again. The cut scenes could have been much more smoothly integrated.
I know the beginning requires a lot of exposition on the story, but in the first few hours, about half of it I was sitting around waiting (including time spent following someone while they talked to me to spell out the story). It's really waaaay too much.
So far, most of the changes I've seen are completely cosmetic and don't improve the game. It's like they had to make it different just for the sake of being different. i.e. Was it really necessary to change the looting timer from a circle to a square? And I guess having two separate weapon wheels is a nice addition, because you can have a primary & secondary weapon simultaneously, but it makes selecting your weapons a bit trickier as you have to bounce between two wheels and it's kind of twitchy.
I look forward to experiencing the unique aspects of this new chapter like bomb-making, as I've already picked up dozens of ingredients which are currently no use to me. The graphics are good (as usual), and once you get through the laborious first memory which is entirely dark and rainy, the coloration looks great.
Review update/addition:
Bomb-making is neat, like others have said, but really tangential and unnecessary. You can have fun with it, but it is kind of complicated, as you don't have ready access to all the ingredients you might want for the various kinds of bombs.
Also, now that I've collected several "Animus segments" you have the option of going back to the island and playing some first-person maze bullcrap to get Desmond's back-story. This part of the game is sooooo excruciatingly boring I can't imagine why they thought anyone would want to do it. I got through the first one and figured that I must be missing something, so I did the second one (labelled training) as I thought it would be more interesting. I couldn't even make it through without getting so frustrated I had to quit. You get about 60 seconds of total dialogue spread out in tiny tid-bits as you advance through the maze. It's really uninteresting and it's all in first-person, which I happen to dislike, thats why I'm playing AC, because it's 3rd person!!! Also, the story line sounds like something a 12 year old made up. It shouldnt be too much of a spoiler to say that Desmond realizes he was raised as an assassin from a young boy, but somehow even though he 'recovers' memories of when he was 10 years old, he has gone this far in life not remembering any of that? He spends time saying how he hated it, then he says he loved it, which is it?
The more I play this chapter of the series, the more I'm sure this will be the last one that I play. I am perfectly ok with "more of the same" in a new city, it's still fun for me, but all of the things they have added to make this game 'new' really detract from my experience instead of the other way around. | video-games_xbox |
Best headset on the market, BY FAR!!! Just put em next to the competition n watch em out-do every one. I WINDOW SHOPPED till I all but dropped before committing to forking over this kind-of doe on a headset, and after just shy of a MONTH, I had it narrowed down to these Afterglow Dolby 5.1's, and the (not even sure after ALL THE READING UP, just WHO/WHAT company (name/title) coincides with the ever popular, supposed 'mac-daddy' A-40 n A-50 (with the inline eq/mixer control... which, after some CAREFUL READING n attention 2 detail, I came to find, aside from clever marketing tactics coining the feature with a neat title, was really nothing that wasn't an included feature with the Afterglow's headset just the same, just a simple difference in the placement of said feature's controls within each system's design... A-40/50-the feature/sound/mixer/eq/stereo or dolby surround "personalization control/s" are fitted within their own, all-together seperate, not so little, self-contained unit/structure within the whole of their system's design (which, after a little contemplation, I saw ABSOLUTELY NO BENEFIT, NOR REASON PERIOD, for their having been designed in such a way, aside from said marketing tactics, and the ability therein, to coin the unit with a name and paint it some fancy-dancy one of a kind feature that "affords a user much more personilization capability than that of any competitor's set within the same range"... When, in actuality, its just a set of controls which could just as easily been incorporated right into the headset or docking/signal station, like, say, THE AFTERGLOW'S much more readily accessible, no matter what situation one might find themselves wanting to give their sound a little tweak here or tweak there... And when we get down to the knitty-gritty.... The Afterglow Dolby Prismatic matches, and then SURPASSES this self-proclaimed "personilation/customization-station", with an ADDITIONAL MODE BUTTON, affording the user the ability to, with the press of a button (CONVENIENTLY LOCATED RIGHT ON THE SET ITSELF..... whilst those with the A-40/50's are left to fumble for their "awesome mix-box", just to come up short on this option.... hope u saved ur game before getting slain! Whoops!) ....again.... with the press of a button, switch thru NOT TWO, BUT THREE, YES THREE, PRESET SOUND MODES (with the ability to "fine-tune" whichever mode they prefer, post selection....whats MORE!?... a handy led fixed to the mic casing (mic is also FULLY retractable, and able to be, with a little push, stowed neatly INSIDE THE SET, not just flipped or bent up, over, or whereever, out of the way, but completely out of sight n out of mind, all but the handy dandy led tip which affords the user a color coordinated, indefinite means of SEEING AND KNOWING exactly which sound mode they have activated at any given time.... clean n clear(blue), xtra bass(red), or the precise motion/location to sound extra-attentive "SUPER-surround" mode(purple), which gives a nice middleground bass/hi-wise and super attentive focus to surroundsound based on environment, movement, n directional presence within the game itself... MY PERSONAL FAVORITE..... AND THEN.... JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN SOLD... IT COULDNT POSSIBLY GET ANY BETTER, and you have decided upon the Afterglows by far..... Well, then, just for a little "because we can"... and "because, well, it's SUPER GNARLY TOO!!"..... They throw in prismatic, full color spectrum selection, for the KICK-ASS AFTERGLOW signiature backlit "cans"!! Which just takes "yea, they're handsdown, the best choice, and climbs one more ladder to take a final stance far above n beyond ANY OF THE COMPETITION (in MY OWN COMPLETELY PERSONAL OPINION, of course..... which, in this case, just happens to be spot-on absolutely right on the money!)
I wouldnt trade these for a whole actual theatre surround system.... ive got all that sound n more, n NEVER have to worry about fuss from my wife, OR the neighbors!!
Great Job PDP Afterglow Team, on a set WELL-DESIGNED and crafted!! | video-games_xbox |
I should have read and followed all the really really small fine print. Bought this for my kids for Christmas and learned today that I do not have access to the Xbox 360 Gears of War games 3 or 4 of them as plastered all over the box. As of today these game downloads are still being touted as a selling feature of this bundle on Microsoft's own website. I called Microsoft multiple times to try to work this out but they told me there was nothing they could do.
I opened the console up before Christmas and installed all the games so we wouldn't have to deal with lengthy install times on Christmas morning. Apparently, I didn't follow the fine print in order to have access to the Xbox 360 games. I was supposed to PLAY Gears of War Ultimate Edition by 12/31/2015. I played the game on January 1, 2016.
Why would Microsoft create a console bundle to sell at Christmas with only a 7 day time window to get the extra free games. It's absolutely shameful.
What's even more shameful is the way I was treated by Microsoft's customer support. They were condescending and downright rude to me about this issue. It's not like they can't tell that I purchased this particular bundle and that I activated it a couple days before Christmas.
I can't in good conscience recommend the Xbox One after this. I can't wait to find out what else I did wrong.
The console itself has been fun but it suffers from all the weird errors that all Microsoft products have had such as: you can't play Madden 2016 multiplayer local while the usb stick for Guitar Hero Live is plugged into the back of the console. (I discovered this fix on my own as I couldn't find anyone else online that knew that this stick was causing the issue of only 1 controller showing up while trying to play head to head games. 2 hrs) Also after 1 week somehow the console corrupted all my saved game data for 4 different games. After learning way more then I wanted to know about this issue I got my game saves back (2 hours).
Nintendo never treated me this way. And no I'm not a troll. Why couldn't Microsoft just give me access to the game downloads to make this right. I'm new to Xbox and It's not like I'm asking for the downloads 6 months after they expired. This really makes me feel like a sucker. Bad Bad move Microsoft.
Update on 1/15/16 I called Microsoft 2 more times to ask if there was anything they could do to help me with my issue. I did this in a calm level headed manner. I really can't believe I'm writing this but both times the customer service rep hung up on me. I guess I better let this go before I somehow get banned. | video-games_xbox |
This IS Dead Space ---4.7 out of 5 stars (Updated) - Awakened DLC is a mind-bending horror show. This is the best looking Dead Space yet. I'm playing the single-player campaign first. I'll update this review later once I get a chance to try the co-op campaign.
Dead Space has evolved. The original was the scariest game I've ever played. The second moved on to a larger environment, updated graphics, and gave us more Zero-G along with more outdoor space time, and the third installment gives us an even bigger environment, more Zero-G space time, and a planet to explore all to a full orchestral score.
Dead Space 3 is bigger than the first two games combined. It has a new weapon crafting system and upgrading weapons is different than the past two titles in the series. A rover bot is added to the mix that is hand-held and used like a scanner to find resources. When the signal is strongest, just set it down and it goes searching. The bots are used to get resources that Isaac can't see or retrieve himself.
The single-player campaign is just that. There is no A. I. character that follows you around. I know this was a big concern for a lot of people. Co-op was added so we can play with a friend. There are more powerful enemies and better loot. It's really like a second game. Co-op offers additional things that you won't see in the single-player version.
The graphics are about the best there is for this generation. It runs native 1080 and everything looks amazing. Visceral did a great job putting detail into every little thing. I appreciate the fine details.
We have some new necromorphs that look awesome. They are no longer a mashed up looking clump of flesh like in past games. Some of these necromorphs are extremely fast so expect fairly frequent use of stasis. You'll recognize similarities between some of these necromorphs and some from past games.
A large part of the game is in outer space where you get plenty of air time to explore. There's a graveyard of space ships and space stations to explore with plenty of creepy moments reminiscent of Dead Space 1.
The ice planet looks awesome and the weather effects are nothing short of spectacular. Even outdoors, you'll get a lot of scares. Necromorphs pop up out of the snow or come from holes in the cliff's walls. They might even climb over the edge of the cliff to get at you.
There are many blueprints unlocked from the beginning, but you can't use them until you collect enough resources; that's where the rover bots come in. Start using them early. You have 2 weapon slots and most weapons use an over/under system ala Alt-Fire. I have a carbine with a shotgun attachment and a line gun with a force gun attachment. You can craft your own weapon from scratch with tons of choices. You can even add attachments that add shock or acid damage to your rounds, for example.
There is a story and it doesn't suck; it just doesn't make you care for the other characters so much. It tries to at times, but doesn't quite do it for me. The story for this game is one of self discovery. Rather than being character driven, it unfolds through your actions. The more text logs you read, audio logs you listen to, and the more you explore away from your waypoints, the more the story is revealed. You get certain parts of the story from the characters, usually through objectives. Isaac's mind has healed a lot since Dead Space 2. He still has episodes, but not near as frequently. He can decipher the marker's symbols to discover hidden messages now. Maybe since Visceral has mastered graphics and combat they will focus more on this issue for the next Dead Space title.
Combat is dead on, not much more to say about it. The combat is solid. I even liked scaling the icy mountainside while avoiding falling boulders and fighting necromorphs along the way.
I think this is by far the best game in the series. It's not constant stress and fear like the first Dead Space, but there is still plenty of it. Visceral did a good job of giving us some breathers between shots of intensity. A good series should evolve and not be exactly like its predecessors. Dead Space 3 does it well, while still keeping to its roots.
I have to recommend Dead Space 3. If you haven't played the previous two titles in the series (I highly recommend them) you will still have a lot of fun with this one. With side missions and some extra exploration you can easily pull 25-30 hours out of this game and that doesn't even count co-op. It has high replay value because of game+ mode, which allows you to keep your tricked out gear for another play through.
If you're not sure about a purchase, at least rent it, but try this game out. It's unique.
Oh, and one last thing--when you finish the game--let the credits roll to the end because this is one of those games that has a little something after the credits are over.
Update: Co-Op Review:
I spent some time on the co-op campaign. You can run through the entire campaign this way if you like, but there are only a few extra areas that you cannot explore in single-player. I was curious to see these additional areas and find out more about the story. I spent four hours in co-op and we got to Chapter 5. I got to see inside a space ship that was unavailable in single-player. I wish all areas were available in single-player.
It's fun playing with a friend and the new area that I explored was interesting. It seemed similar to the other ships that you get to explore in the game, but there are new artifacts, voice messages, and text messages that add to the storyline. Puzzles that you could do by yourself in single-player are now designed for two people. There are times when some puzzles can be solved with one person while the other defends the area from attacks. I played with my nephew and he seemed to get his kicks by not telling me when a necromorph was standing right behind me. There were also several occasions when some necromorphs ran right past me to go after him, but there were more that came for me anyway.
In co-op, necromorphs are more numerous. I understand that they are supposed to be harder to kill, but since I was playing game+ on normal difficulty they didn't seem any stronger to me. Perhaps if I started a new game from scratch then I would notice the increased strength of the enemies.
I recommend turning on the "player locate" and "player rescue" features. I may have misnamed those two things, but you'll see what I mean when you check the menu.
I still have two other co-op only areas to explore, but having had a taste, I can say that the game is fun in both modes, single-player and co-op.
Awakened (DLC)
Wow! I was not expecting this. Awakened picks up right where Dead Space 3 leaves off. Things take a bizarre twist as we make a major discovery regarding the origins and purpose of the necromorphs. The moon has crashed into the planet causing a catastrophic end-of-world scenario and you need to find a way out.
There are some new gruesome necromorphs to deal with and a cult of Unitologists who are severely twisted. They mutilate their bodies to make themselves look like necromorphs. It is a horrific sight. The origins of the necromorphs are stronger than ever and reaks havoc on Issac's mind. He has episodes and visions where the world he sees becomes veiled in red, almost like colored smoke enveloping the area, which seems to indicate that different dimensions in time and space are merging at that moment. Enemies appear from thin air. Issac's visions focus on the original source of the necromorph outbreak revealing a hefty story line. This is one mind-bending horror show.
The DLC is worth every bit of the ten dollar price tag. It doesn't take very long to complete. You can easily run through this in under three hours, but the additional story is monumental to the series. I can't wait to see what happens next with this franchise. And if you feel like it was missing something once you play through it, don't be quick to judge. It's better the second time through. You will notice things that you missed on the first run. I highly recommend Dead Space 3: Awakened. | video-games_xbox |
Forza Motorsport puts new wheels on new tread, forcing old methods to take a pit stop . Tiring days of 'wouldn't it be great to have a game that combines the realism, tuning, gameplay and massive car selection of Gran Turismo with all the aftermarket parts, body kits, decal customizations, and mods of Need for Speed Underground' have finally seen a dawn of new morning. A new day that will not settle quickly like many of the other overdone street, arcade, and simulated racers on the market. Setting this game apart is a simple concept yet ungrasped by all in it's genre. One that should have been taken care of with the 3rd or 4th series of Gran Turismo. Reasons for glory:
1) Well over 200 cars to choose from. Plus X amount of downloadable cars.
2) Manufacturers from all over the spectrum, all over the globe have made themselves available in Forza Motorsport. BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche, Chevy, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Acura, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Ferrari, Ashton martin, Bentley, Mazda, Chrysler, Pontiac, and Lancia to only name a few.
3) Upgrades. Upgrades. Upgrades. Throw in 3 or more levels of upgrades of aftermarket parts from performance tweaking: engine tuning, turbos, superchargers, air intakes, exhaust, cambers shmambers, brakes, cam shafts, throws, suspension, intercoolers, rims, and tires etc.. to body kits: hoods, hood scoops, front bumpers, side skirts, rear bumpers, spoilers, and window tint to skin visuals: custom paint jobs and an endless array of decals to slap on. One hundred layers of decals can be applied to each section (top; roof, hood trunk, sides, and bumpers) of the car. Many shapes, designs, and aftermarket logos can be re-sized, colorized, tilted, or spun to give your mod car endless potential.
4) The gameplay of Forza is a cross between "Gran Turismo" and "RalliSport"., leaning more towards the "RalliSport" side of the house, which translates to head-pinning ultra driving realism. Don't like the car's handling? Upgrade the suspension, brakes, or tires or tweak them using the tuning mode. Each and every car handles, drives and sounds the way it should. This game offers solid control and a realistic simulated driving experience. Difficulty level can be set to many different degrees of variation to tweak the game for a challenge that fits each individual. Harder difficulties will award the driver more credits after each victory. One does not have to be in first place to earn credits. All places except for last will be rewarded credits. Ofcourse, the higher place finishes will earn you more credits. Credits will be subtracted from the total earned for damage penalties. Yes, I said "Damage penalties". Days of ramming into walls and other cars at maximum speeds with no worries of damage or hindered performance have been washed out with the tide. This game offers one of the most realistic programmed damage engines I've seen to date. Not only do you see damage done to your car but the damage done is different each time depending on where you are hit and how hard. Ie Bumpers hanging off, dents, scrapes, dirt, mud, smashed tail lights, broken windows, hoods on the verge of falling off, doors smashed in, side mirrors broken off etc.. I have even seen spoilers fly off of cars in this game from the impact of rear collisions. These types of collisions can be fun to watch to say the least, especially if you are the car who charged from behind. Not so fun if you are driving the car that took damage. Damage done to your car will also hinder it's performance. Ie the car pulls to the right or left or there will be a decrease in acceleration and speed. A diagram will also flash showing where on the car that body and internal damage has been taken. This includes wheel well, tires, steering, and surface damage.
5) Events of all types will keep this game's tires burning pavement. Events that are offered are based on Class, Horsepower, Region, AWD, RWD, FWD, Weight, Rivals such as the EVO Vs. STI, Car type, Special events, and events that become unlocked as you reach certain levels. Your car must meet the specifications of that race to enter. For instance, the "American Muscle" events only include cars that were made prior to 1975, obviously made in America and must have over X amount of HP and torque such as the Camaro SS, Corvette Stingray, and Dodge Challenger. These type of events add a whole lot to the game in that it gives you an excuse to take out "Classic" cars or other specialty cars that you would normally not use in a regular event. I've seen other games make classic cars like this unlockable, however you never get to use them because they serve no purpose for the upcoming events. But not in Forza. Win or buy a MUSCLE CAR and you'll have plenty of reasons to use it, which just adds to the excitement. Like the Corvette Stingray for example, this is a great car to use in a muscle car drag event or when racing other muscle cars but cannot handle sport compact events at tracks with a lot of bends. In Forza, you can just take out the Stingray and match it with other cars of that category and genre, where it belongs. More tracks become available as your LEVEL increases. LEVELS increase as more credits are earned. Credits are earned after each event. These credits can be used to buy cars or upgrades. After winning an entire event (an event consist of multiple races), you win a car that relates to that type of event. Thus the stamina of replay value for this game remains strong. In other words, addicting to the point of life consumption.
6) The graphics in this game will blow your mind's transmission. The car models in this game are nearly flawless. You literally have to plant your face next to or on the TV to notice any pixelation. The reflective skin of each freshly painted car render perfectly. Microsoft is more of a master of landscapes than they are of architecture and it shows. Their rendered "landscape" environments are refreshing and beautiful. The rolling hills, mountains, trees, and area surfaces are some of the best I've seen. The landscapes in FORZA come off more realistic than say "Need for Speed Underground II". Although NFSU2 is beautifully rendered, it feels more "plastic" than real. Which is not necessarily a "bad thing" considering it is a video game after all. The cityscapes and buildings in FORZA are not as perfect in that they seem too organic and soft as if something out of a dream. Can you say overdone anti-alias. This doesn't affect it's score too much as you will be flying past them and thus the whole soft anti-alias thing will at times seem applicable. Don't get me wrong, they are well done. Just not up to par with Need for Speed Underground II and Gran Turismo. Riding through New York City was dead-on with actuality in placement. Each block, street, building, billboard were depicted almost seamless to what you would see if for some reason Time Square was actually blocked off for you to ride through it. I think I even saw Robert Deniro trying to catch a cab. This nearly dead-on placement accuracy is the case with most cities, areas, and actual race tracks in the game. And you will be more than satisfied with the diversity and amount of tracks there are to choose from.
To be continued..
Buy this game now!! | video-games_xbox |
I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid. I was pretty disappointed with this one after a bit of anticipation. The previews made it seem like we might finally be given a worthy Alien game and based on the fact Gearbox was taking it on gave me more hope after their recent successes with the Borderlands franchise... well I was wrong.
The graphics and game play were my main gripe, seemingly amateurish and outdated. The bullet detection made it really frustrating when battling enemies because there basically was none! In a normal FPS, when you shoot an enemy they give you some sort of reaction based on where you hit them, for example if you plug a guy in the knee cap they should fall down for a second and then continue fighting or at least do something to give you a sense that you hit them. In this game, you can unload a clip and have no clue if you've hurt a guy or not until they magically fall down dead. The entire time you are shooting at someone, they have the ability to shoot right back without flinching! And forget about long range combat, the scopes suck (blocking most of your vision) and the recoil and general breathing movement is way too much to make it even enjoyable to try. You'll wind up using the shotguns most the game, which is ok since you can't see the enemies until they are right up on you anyway. Why can't they make part of this game well lit? I understand having a few dark/suspenseful levels but don't make the entire game a black abyss! The best gun to choose from is the waist mounted "SmartGun", which has some nice auto aiming ability, but you are only able to use this a few times throughout the entire game!! And to rub it in even more, the AI marine that travels around with you the whole time is just firing away with infinite ammo with this thing, basically a slap in the face.
The story and cut scenes were ok, I didn't really mind that too much, but I feel bad for the big name actors that are forever linked with this. The sound effects were pretty well done as well, can't complain about that, but I went to play some good old fashion horde mode after my bad experience with the single player...guess what? NOPE! They didn't even include a survival style horde mode with this release. (It might be released as a add on that you'll need to pay more money for) This just added to how much I didn't like this game, this seems like the perfect style game for something like this and they just left it out, what a shame.
My advice would be to rent this if you're an Aliens fan, see what you think and go from there. I will be trying to sell my disc ASAP. | video-games_xbox |
One of my top games of all time. I have been a fan of the Max Payne franchise since the first one hit. With the gritty atmosphere and complex metaphors and wordplay.
As soon as I heard about this third entry, I was intrigued. But once I finally tried it, I realized how I loved the tone and story.
A mix of action movie, gritty noir thriller, and tragic hero story, Max Payne has always had a twist on reality that draws me in.
Things never turn out good for Max, and it brings a bit of humanity back into the action hero character for me to see that he can't always save the day. Or not in the way you would hope.
The story is top notch, and though not immediately connected to the revenge stories of the first two, greatly expand the universe and build on the character of Max Payne.
The voice acting is superb. James McCaffrey is excellent, once again, as Max. He really puts emotion and realism into the role.
The supporting cast is fantastic as well, from Julian Dean as Passos to Stephen Girasuolo as office DeSilva, there are few if any weak spots in the cast.
The graphics are great, aged a bit by some of the latest games but immerse you very well. Clothes wrinkle and facial expressions match the dialogue well. The atmosphere is done very well, from the slums to the yachts.
Gameplay is familiar with some tweaks. Bullet time is back, along with the painkiller system. Some new elements are involved, like a cover system and 360 view/firing availability even while prone. Once you get the hang of controls, everything flows smoothly.
The only gripe I have is the multiplayer. It didn't need it and it felt tacked on to me. Max Payne has always been a story driven experience, and the tone and atmosphere don't lend itself to a social format for me. But it is there for some added content if you crave that sort of thing (though multiplayer achievements will always be the bane of my existence)
Overall, an amazing experience ranking in the top of my all time greats. The stylized format, the great voice acting, fun combat, and entertaining story (though long, 2 discs worth!) make it a high recommendation from me. If your looking for a moody neo-noir shooter, this is your game | video-games_xbox |
Worst thing I've ever spent money on. This has got to be the worst Call of Duty ever, aside from the pretty good campaign. I swear on my life that the sole purpose for this game was to give me a brain tumor from all the bull**** this game has forced on me. When you play multiplayer with the new exo movements you are going to be bombarded with a bunch of ridiculous crap that mostly involve you getting flanked nearly 24/7 and the matchmaking that constantly forces you into games where every other person is either just as trigger happy as you are, or the more common try hards that keep wailing on you as soon as they look at you. In comparison to the older Call of Duty games where it was less balanced and more enjoyable, now it just feel like I'm a complete idiot whenever I put the disc in. The scorestreaks are almost impossible to earn but even if you do manage to get one, the grind is never worth it because most of the streaks (excluding the paladin) lack both the punch and the armor of the previous streaks. The gun balancing is decent as the developer Sledgehammer makes regular updates to fine tune everything. I have never yelled out *censored* to my tv screen as loud as any other Call of Duty game in my entire lifetime so far. One time it got so bad my voice nearly went out for a few days. Exo Survival is hardly even worth mentioning because it feels so tacked on at the last minute, it just feels like a boring chore. The campaign though is pretty good this year with really good visuals and an all around great performance by Kevin Spacey and the other actors for this story. But really it's only worth an extra star because if you really wanted to see it, you could've just looked up the playthrough on Youtube. So overall, I cannot stand this game because the multiplayer (the face of the franchise) for this game is so unbearable and disgusting. Sometimes I even contemplate doing the world in favor and breaking the disc in half. So please for the love of everything, save yourself the money and the trouble and don't buy this game. I just hope Black Ops 3 can save this franchise. | video-games_xbox |
Many Hockey Games in one. Some good. Some Very Good. Not quite great yet. EA has long been the 500 pound gorilla in Sports Simulations. They do a good job overall and seem to be continually improving in every sport with every year's release. I hadn't played their Hockey game before and what with the NHL Lockout this seemed a good year to get my Hockey fix by getting the cutting edge video release and overall I haven't been disappointed. As a native Canadian, albeit in the US now, Hockey is more than a game to me. I enjoy it and enter into the experience when I watch or play.
Upon opening it and placing it into my Xbox 360, the opening screen belies the many different options that you have. This is many hockey games. You can play the computer and control an entire team or just one player. You can play as a Hockey legend and create your own career as you progress through any level of regular season and playoff seasons and tournaments. You can enter into the Hockey Server provided through Xbox live and engage in the same types of scenarios only with human counterparts instead of artificial intelligence.
The graphics are overall pretty good. There are instances where there are some jerky sequences. At time's you see sticks go "into" the boards or players shift change through the boards instead of jumping over. But for 10 players being controlled by real time or AI it's a remarkably real feeling game and I have found it easy to enter into the experience even with the occasional glitch or obvious disconnect.
All of that said however, I have some concerns and the educated buyer should have some as well and to that end I hope this will help to prepare the potential buyer and player.
With so much to offer, and after playing this game for over a month rather than just the initial overwhelming first impression, I've found some things that concern me. EA is obviously moving in the direction of an overall long term experience rather than just a stand-alone video game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it's definitely something of which to be aware. There's been a great deal of attention and effort put into the interactive elements of this game. When you receive the video game as new, you'll find in the package an online code which gives you access to the EA servers which you need (along with Xbox Live) in order to play interactively. That's where a lot of people want to be and to participate in the leagues and games that are to be found. The thing to remember is that if you buy this game used the code can only be used by one user. Once it's been used, a purchaser of the used game will have to buy a new license to them in addition to the price of the used game.
On the other hand, my one month's experience has also taught me that because this is the obvious thrust of EA for reasons that should be self-evident (it creates continued dependence and additional revenue by making the resold version quite limited in what you can do) it's also obvious the the stand-alone elements of the game haven't received the same level of attention as the online ones.
I learned this the hard way by playing one of the options knows a "Be a Pro" in which I created my own player and entered as a 16 year old into the OHL Sudbury wolves, by playing entire seasons (each game took about 20 minutes and there were 68 games so you do the math for each season). As a 17 year old I was drafted into the NHL (first pick!) by the Florida Panthers and told I had to play 4 pre-season games for evaluations. I did OK but was then told I hadn't made the cut and needed another season with the Wolves. C'est la vie! So I went ahead and played another season with Sudbury and let me tell you, I tore up the league. I had 3 times as many points as the next highest player in the lead and lead them to the Memorial cup and now it was time again to try for the Panthers. After 2 games, the coach comes on lets me know I'm guaranteed a position and things are just ducky but then, after the 3rd game all of sudden I'm told again that it is unfortunate that I need further seasoning in Sudbury (not even the AHL franchise). Quite disappointing so I take to internet to see if others have had this problem and indeed many have. Apparently it's been a longstanding glitch from previous versions that hasn't been fixed yet despite being known (look for it yourself if you wish to confirm this) for quite some time?
Why? Apparently the stand alone elements as they don't require a license or membership are a lower priority. That's disappointing in a game that is priced as it is. It seems to me that the stand-alone elements need to be worth the price of the purchase for those who either can't or won't enter into the more community based elements which foster continued expense for them and revenue for the company.
So, in view of that while I echo many of the raves about the game, for example, the skating is great and realistic and the commentary isn't really that bad even though you memorize most of it through several seasons of play, but that's to be expected, I have to knock off a star and alert potential buyers that there are glitches and problems here and if you buy the game used, be prepared to pay for the license and factor that into your pricing analysis because a used game may end up costing you more than a new one!
4 stars. If you're going to provide stand-alone elements EA then support them and fix them with the same attention that you give to the other elements of your game or else remove them until you can.
bart breen | video-games_xbox |
HALO -SETS A NEW STANDARD FOR FIRST PERSON SHOOTERS. You are the ultimate commando - a cybernetically enhanced soldier representing the peak of human military evolution. You are efficient, skilled, and dangerous. A sci-fi shooter that takes place on a mysterious alien ring-world, Halo will have you battling through amazing indoor and outdoor environments, in vehicles, and on foot with the largest arsenal of futuristic weapons, vehicles, and combat roles of any shooter ever. Your situation: In a desperate attempt to keep a conquering alien race called the Covenant from finding Earth, you and a ragtag group of Marines flee to a distant uncharted system where you unexpectedly stumble across Halo, an enormous alien artifact in orbit between a gas giant and its moon.
Your objective: Uncover Halo's horrible secret, and destroy mankind's nemesis - the Covenant.
Here it is, the system seller. Halo lets you infiltrate enemy bases, either with computer AI or with a friend. And not only on foot, but you can also jump in and out of military vehicles on the fly with no load times or pauses. Add to that an incredibly atmospheric and dynamic Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, and you have a must buy war fps/vehicular combat game.
Its true that a keyboard and mouse is best for games like these, but if you get used to playing with a gamepad, you will find the game more fun. At first when I played Quake 3 on ps2, it was hard, but after I got used to the controlling, it was easy. Everything seems hard at first, but give it some time and practice and you will see results. If you still cant play with a gamepad then wait till they come out with a keyboard and mouse for xbox. If you seen the movies for this game, you know that its really not only the graphics that make this game good, its the real life physics, animation, sound, story, and A.I. that makes this game so good.
* Huge Weapon Variety - Vanquish your enemies with a vast array of Human or Covenant weaponry ranging from the stealthy (semi-automatic pistols and needler guns) to the fierce (rocket launchers and flame throwers).
* Vehicle and Foot-Based Action - Tackle missions anyway you choose - be it storming an enemy base or taking the wheel or gunnery position of a variety of powerful vehicles. Vehicles range from stolen Covenant flyers to Human buggies and more.
* Indoor and Outdoor Combat - Fight seamlessly in Halo's ultra-realistic indoor and outdoor environments as you hunt the Covenant in a variety of single player missions and multiplayer battles.
* Intense Multiplayer Shoot-outs - Form a team, choose a role, and fight cooperatively with your friends, battle it out Deathmatch style via intense split screen, LAN-play or fight co-op with a friend through the single player missions.
* Incredible Mission Variety - Fight the Covenant in a variety of missions as you uncover the dark secrets of halo. Among your many objectives - attack enemy outposts, raid underground labs for advanced technology, rescue fallen comrades, steal alien vehicles and weaponry and snipe enemy forces.
* Reality Bending Special Effects - Halo features the most advanced graphic system on the most advanced gaming platform in the world. Gunfire rips off the screen, explosions light up a living room, and environments blur the line between your couch and fantasy.
* Rich Sci-Fi Experience - Halo transports gamers into a science fiction universe fresh out of a Hollywood movie. With a detailed twisting story line, complex characters and cunning enemies, Halo will fulfill every sci-fi enthusiastis | video-games_xbox |
So so game compare to GTA San Andreas. In general, the game is more realistic and it a lot more difficult to play than GTA San Andreas.
These are the things that I don't like about this game. I've finished about 25% so far.
Gameplay:
1. No turf fighting? -> more difficult to get weapons and money.
2. No difficulty setting.
3. No skip trip in the mission. You can take a taxi to skip trip, but you need to pay.
4. It's hard to tell which door can be opened. In GTA SA there's a big triangle for entrance.
5. Enemy got shoot at can fall down and come back up. Making it very difficult to kill.
6. You can't tell if a random person has a weapon. So you can't ambush someone to steal his weapon.
7. Weapon swapping is difficult. I can't quickly put the gun away and fight with fist/knife.
8. Swapping takes time during a fight. It's true in real life, but it's no necessary in a game.
Character:
1. Walking is super slow.
2. Character properties (HP/Stamina/etc) cannot not improve by training.
3. No double stun rewards? What's the point of doing jumps?
4. Cannot swim under water.
5. Will die instantly when catch with fire.
6. Cannot sit on someone's pick up truck as it moves.
Cellphone:
1. Why using a grey background and black text. It's very hard to read the text.
Map:
1. I have a 42 inch EDTV, and map is too still small to read in a distance.
2. No floor plan map when you're inside a structure. Even in a mission.
Cops and crime:
1. Cops now shoot at you even if you have one star and not holding a weapon.
2. When you shoot a cop, you can get 3 stars.
3. Cannot drive around in the airport, you'll get 4 stars.
4. Cannot remove wanted level by buying new clothes in the store.
5. Cops now carry shot guns, which has a lot more damage than hand gun.
6. No stars to pick up on the street to reduce wanted level.
7. I can run over as many people as I like without getting wanted level, except running over cops.
Vehicles
1. No tanks
2. No planes
3. Vehicles skids like driving on ice.
4. No gas tank door to shoot.
Shops
1. Cannot remove wanted level when cops sees you. It's real but it makes it harder to get rid of the cops.
2. To few pay-n-spray and gun shops
3. No gym.
4. No tatoo shop nor hair salon.
5. Cannot get into police office to take weapon/armor.
Safehouse
1. No safehouse for purchase??
2. Only one safehouse?
Control
1. Autoaim sucks. I cannot unlock the aim to other non-target objects.
2. Fist fight damage is too little to enemy.
3. Can't learn more fighting styles in GYM.
4. It's hard fight with a gun in very close range with enemy without guns.
5. Take cover feature sucks. When you shoot while you're taking cover, the aim will move (when auto aim is off). How am I suppose to aim?
Money
1. No casino, where can I get rich? | video-games_xbox |
Great Game, but There Are a Few Issues. There are some pros and cons to the game, but I decided that the pros outweigh the cons enough for me to give it five stars.
PROS:
The gameplay is great. Parkour in the game is seamless and easy to master. The controls are simple and make total sense. Any Call of Duty player will feel right at home in this game. It is currently my favorite game right now and has that great multiplayer experience that COD has been known for for so long (of course, the fact that a few COD developers were involved in the design helps). Titans are basically weighed-down versions of the pilot himself, and added a whole new sense of action to the game, which I loved. The weapons in the game are almost all really well done (see the cons) and seem balanced enough. There is enough of a variety for me to enjoy. A lot of people don't like the AI controlled minions, but I like them. While they are a little too easy, they do add some life to the multiplayer, and it is kind of fun to just burst into a room without any fear of dying and just take them all out. Of course, the real challenge in Titanfall comes in the titans and pilots.
CONS:
The game takes a hard drive in order to run it. At first, I thought 1GB of Xbox storage would be okay, but it requires an actual hard drive, which was a first in any game I've tried. It also tends to kick me out of servers with a little more frequency than I'd like due to excessive lag and too much going on in the game at one (i.e. multiple titans exploding at once). With better internet connection, this could be resolved, but for slower connections, this could be a problem. The sniping in this game is not good, but that's because pilots move so quickly, meaning that you are stuck shooting at AI characters for points. Finally, a multiplayer campaign was not a good idea. No one likes to play campaign apparently, except for me. Because it's multiplayer, I have to find other people, but no one ever wants to play, meaning I'm stuck without the ability to play (however, Titanfall's multiplayer more than makes up for this.)
Although I did list a lot of cons to the game, I highly recommend this game for any COD fan or someone who just likes the fast-paced thrill of great FPS games. | video-games_xbox |
Like a One-Armed Zombie, this Game Feels Incomplete. Left 4 Dead is the best zombie apocalypse game to date. It borrows heavily from movies like 28 Days Later and Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. By borrowing heavily, I mean that if they changed the title screen and the name of the game to "28 Days Later", it would be a really good movie game. The city is overrun with fast zombies and a band of four Survivors must brave the zombie infested areas to reach a Safe House. The Xbox Live Modes are really fun, but the Single Player Campaign is repetitive and only 4 hours long.
Gameplay: 8/10
You must battle your way through the hordes of zombies as a team. Each Character carries a pistol with unlimited ammo and one of the following; a machine gun, shotgun, or rifle. Pipe Bombs, Molotov Cocktails, and Exploding Canisters can be found if you explore the levels. Characters also carry a Health Pack that can be used to heal yourself or a wounded ally. Some Zombies can quickly incapacitate a Survivor and their teammates must rush to their rescue. Without teamwork, you're pretty much dead.
Every time you play a level, the zombies and the massive 100 zombie rushes are in different areas. As a team, you must quickly find the best defensible position and survive the onslaught. You've really got to use your environment to your advantage. Defending a hallway is much easier than an open area. Closing doors also helps you because it takes the zombies a few seconds to break them down. Shooting destructible fuel canisters explode into a wall of fire. Working as a team to survive the frantic zombie ambushes is the best part of this game.
Single Player: 4/10
The Entire Single Player Campaign is made up of 4 Missions composed of 5 Levels each. Each Level can be finished in 10-15 minutes. You can finish everything in 4 hours. What hurts the Campaign is that all of the Mission Objectives, Weapons, Enemies, and Gameplay Mechanics are identical. If you've played one Campaign, you've played them all. The only difference in the Campaigns is the level layout and the art. In every Mission, you play along 3 AI Controlled Allies, but even after 2 hours, the game already starts to feel repetitive.
Multi-Player: 8/10
In Multi-Player, you can form your group of Survivors with 1-3 friends and play the game. This plays exactly like the Single Player Mode, but it's more frantic because you really need to coordinate your efforts when the zombies attack. 4 Players can also play as the Special Infected: There's a Boomer that vomits zombie attracting barf on party members, a Hunter that pounces on victims, a Smoker that has a 50 foot tongue and can drag Survivors away from the group, and a TANK, which is a hulk-like behemoth with a lot of Hit Points and Damage. Scrambling to safety as a team is a blast and ambushing the Survivors is also great fun. When the Survivors reach their destination, the teams switch and the level repeats. Although this mode is great, there are some drawbacks. The game only keeps score of the Survivors, so if you play as the Infected, you have no idea how you did. Also, when you spawn as an Infected, the game chooses which creature you must be. You don't get to select this. If you are killed, you take a "time out" for about 15 seconds before you can respawn again. Hopefully, they'll add more types of Infected and allow you to choose in the sequel.
Art: 6/10
The art isn't going to win any beauty contests here. The game was made with the Counterstrike Source Engine and looks outdated. The Cutscenes are lacking and the load screens are generic. The Production Value just isn't here.
Sound: 8/10
The music is creepy and the sound effects really add to the atmosphere. Hearing what lurks around the corner really keeps you on edge.
Overall: 6/10
The weak Single Player Campaign and limited Online Modes prevent this game from reaching it's full potential. The game is arguably the best 'zombie apocalypse' game to date, but it feels limited. With only 6 weapons, 6 enemy types, and cookie cutter level design Left 4 Dead feels like half a game.
The game is rated Mature for Language, Violence, and Gore.
Buy it if you want a fun Cooperative Xbox Live Game or you're dying to play a game that feels like 28 Days Later.
Rent it if you want to blow through the Single Player Campaign in 4 hours, and try out the Xbox Live Gameplay.
Avoid it if you don't intend to play it on Xbox Live.
If you like this game, check out Resident Evil 5! | video-games_xbox |
A Martial Odyssey. After creating the 2003 game of the year, what would you expect from Bioware? Well it's not what I saw coming, passing up the chance to make the sequel to KOTOR they decided to finally make a game that they've imagined for nearly a decade, an RPG in an ancient-China like land with plenty of kung-fu elements.
Jade Empire is not your standard RPG, it's far from it, but with it's improvements on the genre it very well may become the standard. The first noticeable difference in the gameplay is the innovative fighting style allowing you to fight in real time, but it's a change for the better. It's truly new feel is based around the d-pad, setting a different fighting style to each direction so that while in battle it is simple to change between them. This allows for many moves with various twists making it easier to navigate attacks. Bioware was correct in saying that for the player to be a kung-fu master they must feel like one as well, this is what the system of fighting does over a turn-based so common to RPGs.
I will not ruin the story, but it leads for action-packed sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat. You will easily find your self immersed in the story of this world. If you have played "Knight's of the Old Republic" you will know that Bioware's storytelling is top-notch and they only improve with Jade Empire's plot. The scenes have been pondered and perfected, the mythology is in-depth and brings an incredible realism to the world, and the architecture and newly-developed language are the icing on the cake.
On your quest there is plenty of customization available, mini quests to go upon, and lands to explore, all the while your choices having consequences leading you down the path of The Open Palm or The Closed Fist. You also constantly upgrade your character with the experience you gain over time, mastering different ways of fighting.
I have not enjoyed a game this much in a long while, and even if your are not a fan of the RPG genre this game can draw you in. It is an almost certain for RPG of the Year and a definite contender for Game of the Year.
Bioware's attention to detail, the over 320 minor characters have full voice-overs, and superb gameplay earn Jade Empire
A Bliss of 9 | video-games_xbox |
A Few Memory Bytes from a 5-Star Game. I'm entirely new to the Pinata "universe." I've seen the colorful boxes on store shelves, and kept thinking, "That game looks way too girlish for a 30-year-old man such as myself..." But last week I picked up Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, loved it, and learned that this title was from the same developer. I decided to give it a try.
You probably understand the premise of this game by now from other reviews - you have a garden, which you can easily reduce to a flat piece of dirt if you'd like, or turn it into a lush environment with trees and flowers and rivers, all while little pinata animals run amuck. The instruction manual tells you how to handle the major chores, like getting pinatas to live in your garden, or getting them to mate, but it never really tells you WHY, or how to get started. So for the first few hours, I zipped around aimlessly, trying to figure things out. I'm still unsure on a lot of things, such as how to become a "Master Romancer" of a certain species of Pinata.
But the game is very colorful, it's "cute," though doesn't make me laugh quite like Nuts & Bolts does. It's challenging, and it does certainly whittle away the REAL hours of your life. I've spent way too many "work nights" up until 12am!! There's always "one more thing I gotta do," or something else suddenly pops up that you have to tend to - I can admit it has a LOT more value off the shelf than games like Animal Crossing, which can quickly get repetitive.
But I have one, significant pet-pinata-peeve with VP:TIP. SPACE. (The final frontier...) My garden has a pond at one corner, with a river that stems from it and runs "west to east." I have a few trees, two small areas for planting soil-only seeds, a patch of sand to attract crustaceans, and then a general fenced area where I pen up the pinatas I'm trying to "romance," protect, or hide so as not to scare off other pinatas. I have MAYBE 14 pinatas total - most of which are two-of-one-species. I keep trying to manage my space - selling off one pinata home so that I can build another. But I often end up having to sell EVERY structure (homes and fences) just so that the game will let me build ONE house... It's ridiculous! There's no way that a baker's dozen of animals and a few stationary trees can tax the computing power of the Xbox 360 to the point that the game decides I can't fit any more "stuff." It becomes so frustrating because you end up having to sell off pinatas that you NEED to continue your food chain just so that you can build a house to romance a different species (of which you've been trying to meet the romance requirements for over an hour...)
This quickly - and I mean QUICKLY - spins VP:TIP into an "almost good" category. So bad in fact that it lost a star simply based on this issue. The Xbox could easily handle twice as much space with twice as much going on - look at those humongous sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto...
VP:TIP is a deep and engaging game that quickly punishes it's players with an unnecessary build cap. In an industry that could really use some creative insight, VP:TIP builds us up just to let us down. | video-games_xbox |
Without Question, the single best racing game I have ever played. I am a bit late to the game with Forza 3 Horizon. I purchased it this last Black Friday, but just haven't gotten around to playing it until this last week. One of the reasons I finally got motivated to play it was the Hot Wheels addition was coming out within the week and it looked absolutely amazing. Its important to note that I'm a professional photographer (architectural photographer) and taking screenshots has become one of my favorite aspects of modern gaming. The reason I mention this is because Forza Horizon 3 has the single best photo mode I have seen to date in a videogame. I run a few screenshot clubs on XBox, and belong to many more, and I kept seeing all these amazing screenshots coming out of Forza 3 Horizon that had nothing to do with racing. Architectural shots, people shots, animal shots and most importantly, stunning landscape shots. I didn't understand how such a wide range of screenshots were being taken in what was ultimately a racing game...until I finally played it. Once in photo mode you can literally travel 50-60 car lengths away from the car in any direction, which gives one the ability to take screenshots of just about any content that is in the game. You can adjust the color (I love desaturated color shots), shoot B&W, and it even has a sepia option. You can tilt in any direction including left and right, and it even lists the numeric value for the level of tiliting. You can adjust the shutter rate, aperture, and can zoom in and out to a significant degree. Zooming all the way out gives one a super wide angle look and the amount you can zoom in is pretty stunning. And everything retains the amazing detail no matter how far you zoom in or out. I would estimate that its equivalent to a roughy 24mm to well over 300mm lens. You combine all of these different abilities with an amazing Austrailian landscape that includes both the outback and cities and the possibilities for amazing screenshots is really endless. And you can enter photo mode at any point in time by pressing a button. Honestly, given how much I love taking screenshots, I could literally spend months playing this game doing nothing but taking screenshots.
Of course, that is just one small aspect of the game and thankfully, every other aspect of the game is equal in quality to the photo mode. The racing is amazing, the online racing options are amazing, the number of cars and the choices of cars is mind blowing, the grahics are the best racing graphics I have seen to date on consoles, the landscape is brilliantly designed, and best of all its an open world racer which means you can literally drive anywhere. Your not just stuck to the roads or certain area's. Its all one big wide open racing world.
Racing games have been one of my favorite genre's of games for a very long time and Xbox has always had quality racing series, not to mention the quality 3rd party racers that we see get released on a regular basis. I was always a huge Burnout fan. Burnout Revenge remains to this day one of my all time favorite racers. I also loved Project Gotham Racing and am very sad that series was ultimately cancelled. I love the Dirt series, the Need for Speed series, etc. There have been very few racers released over the years that I didn't enjoy. That being said, Forza Horizon 3 is without question the single best racing game I have ever played. Its the perfect balance between a serious simulation racer and an arcade racer. Turn 10 studios has raised the bar so high with this game that it makes all of the other next gen racers seem inferior by comparison and I highly enjoyed many of those other racers. Its just when compared to Forza Horizon 3....well, there just is no comparison. And I love that Turn 10 has both the original Forza line for more serious simulation style racing and Fora Horizon which again has the perfect amount of arcade racer thrown in. The 2 series compliment each other perfectly. In all honesty, one could buy from just those 2 series and they would really have no need for the other racing games on the market. The police aspect to Need for Speed is really the only thing missing from the Forza line. I would like to see them add some sort of police option in future games as those modes can be a lot of fun, but its definitely not required. Forza is so amazing even without any sort of police mode that the last thing your going to be doing is thinking about things that are missing when playing this game. You will instead be in an almost constant state of amazement at just what a STUNNING job Turn 10 and MS did developing this game.
As for the Hot Wheel's expansion I mentioned at the beginning of this review, its absolutey mind blowing and is one of the best pieces of DLC I have ever purchased. I put it right up there with DLC like Mass Effect 2's Lair of the Shadow Broker. It takes everything that makes Forza 3 Horizon great and simply adds in race tracks that are absolutely insane and car designs that have Hot Wheel's written all over them. I spent about 6 hours playing the Hot Wheels DLC and can't wait to play some more. Its basically Forza Horizon 3 combined with everything that makes Hot Wheels great. And unlike Blizzard Mountain, you do not have to reach a certain aspect in the game in order to play it. You can jump right into the Hot Wheels expansion no matter what level your at in the game. If your a fan of Fora Horizon 3, the Hot WHeels DLC should be your very next purchase. Trust me, you won't regret it for a second. Its absolutely superb.
Bottom line, I could give tons of different reasons on why Forza Horizon 3 is so amazing. Wether ts the mid blowing photo mode, the amazing racing mechanics, the HUGELY entertaining online modes, the brilliant graphics and so on and so forth, but its ultimately a combination of all the amazing aspects of Forza Horizon 3 that really knocks it out of the ballpark. Honestly, I enjoy racers so much and Turn 10 has done such a stunning job with both Forza 6 and Forza Horizon 2 & 3 that I would literally buy an Xbox console just to have access to those games alone. I really cannot give enough praise to the job Turn 10 has done with the Forza series. This is a case where words simply can't accurately portray just how amazing this game really is. If you own an Xbox and are a fan of racing games, it would literally be criminal not to buy this game. Its raised the racing bar to a whole new level.
5 Stars and then some!!!! | video-games_xbox |
Hours and Hours of Action Game nonsense. Edit: This review is probably too long, and a little childish in my opinion, but here is a link to the best video I have seen addressing some of my problems. [...] Watch the others videos about this on youtube to see what I mean, and go play Mafia 1, then Mafia 2, and don't bother with 3 until they do some major work to it.
Original Review:
Compared to the other Mafia games, this one sucks. The game is horrible in my opinion overall. The city is big and nice, but the graphics are not even that great, reflections are horrible, and there's glitches like too bright, too dark, bad reflections, etc...
What I liked about Mafia 1 and 2 are that they put you in a "real" persons shoes, and the game felt more realistic overall. The stories of both games were great, and had me going back to play them again. The missions had much better variety with more to do compared to Mafia 3. The story flowed throughout Mafia 1 and 2, and you felt like a real person with friends and enemies along the way, making your way to the end of the game. The way Mafia 2 connected back to Mafia 1 was great, and the characters you played as in both games, you could really relate to and have some feelings for.
Now to the empty sandbox that Mafia 3 is... They put you in Lincoln Clay's perspective, this hulk of a human with extraterrestrial power and senses. Basically, the WHOLE game consists of clearing buildings of enemies, not much else. The AI is all retarded, they follow you to your little whistles you call them out with, and then when they get close, press B button to proceed to kill them, and repeat. When you do manage to get into a gun fight, the enemies are still easy enough to kill, standing behind the same obstacle and coming out to shoot at you predictably. I played the game on hard mode, and once I learned how the system works, you are stuck doing the same thing throughout the whole game! There is no variety in this game, you are basically either picking up the hundreds of chips scattered throughout the city so you can tap phone lines and see enemies through walls, or you are clearing out the buildings of enemies which gets very easy after you learn the system, which takes an hour or 2 of gameplay.
The story aspect of Mafia 3 sucks as well. What I liked so much in Mafia 1 and 2 is now replaced by an overflow of s***. The game probably took me between 10 and 20 hours to complete (spread over a couple weeks). I tried to give the game a chance, but after the first 3 or so hours of gameplay, the cutscenes are just overflowing with the most pointless information and I skip them all. The story is so stupid, just a bunch of people talking about Lincoln Clay, it is pointless. It was nice to see Vito in this game but after the first time you meet him, he turns into a soul-less character just like all the others in this game.
The type of gameplay that this whole game consists of would be nice if it was like 10% of the game, but no, 100% of the game is you going around clearing rooms of people. No variety such as trying to steal something, racing cars, being strategic in a sense other than killing the dumb enemies, etc.
The game is a redundant pos that takes too long to beat. And once you beat it, and choose basically one of 3 endings, you are left with a pointless cutscene just like the others. To get the other endings you would have to play through the whole game again. If someone lost a bet against me, a good punishment would be making them beat this game, but I'd only do that to the worst of person. | video-games_xbox |
A definite winner. I own a few headsets. I have some for many different uses, ranging from ear-buds to large around the ears headphones.
Up to now, I have never been convinced by the quality of gaming headsets. I have previously reviewed one that I eventually returned because I thought that the sound quality was definitely not worth the price. Usually, a normal headphone with an external mic is my preferred solution.
Anyway, I was given a chance to review this one: Afterglow Universal Wireless Headset - Blue.
I was firstly impressed by the packaging. The box is huge and the set has lots of accessories. Most of them being different cables to adapt to whatever uses you destine your headset for. The advertised uses are for pretty much anything, ranging from Wii, Xbox and PS3 to PC, phones and TV...
The package contains the cables to plug to a gaming console (Xbox cable provided), to a TV, computer (for charging via USB), to an Iphone or any normal stereo system and also contains the USB wireless transmitter.
Soundwise, this set is also delivering very nicely. I like a good neutral sound and this unit gave me a good feel while listening to some songs. I could not really fault it. I have to be fair by saying that I did not spend a very long time testing it because the unit would be mostly used for gaming and doing skype.
It has 3 settings that can be toggled by the press of a button on the headset but which apparently only work with the wireless device. In the same way, when connecting the unit by cables, the volume control is also deactivated.
A very nice feature I think is the possibility to balance the sound between the game sounds and the other people to chat with.
A feature youngsters may enjoy is the nice blue glow effect. I tried it in the absolute darkness and only the headset could be seen. Fun... Useful? Not that sure...
Using it with Skype, the headset was immediately recognized and works perfectly well. The sound quality is excellent for chatting and the wireless feature allows people to walk around the house while chatting.
To recapitulate:
Pros:
- Very nice packaging and accessories.
- Very good sound quality overall.
- Nice set of options.
- Compatible with pretty much everything.
- Came already charged.
Cons:
- A bit bulky
- Not meant for outdoor uses
- No power level I could see (No idea when the headset will run out of battery)
In conclusion, I think this set is definitely worth five stars.
Edit 02/20/13
I am sorry to report that the headset's mic eventually failed after about one month or use for Skype. Nothing I could try brought it back. I do not have any receipt for it so I think I can forget about it. Down to two stars only.
Edit 06/26/13
I decided to give a try calling the customer service and explain my issue. They told me to return the one I have and they will send me another one at their expense... That is a 5 stars customer service too... | video-games_xbox |
Amazing technology - geared for beginners but fun for experienced. My review perspective is building on 25 years of playing and repairing stringed instruments. While this product is geared for beginners from a design perspective, I am enjoying it a great deal. The incredible technology and thoughtfulness of design make it a product for everyone. I am particularly impressed at how fast the product can translate an analog signal from a guitar into digital input without a MIDI pickup. While there is a bit of lag, it is still an impressive feat from a technological perspective. Plug in an electro-acoustic, and you get a digital signal that can be processed for note detection and shaped into different tones. Again, no MIDI pickup needed.
While on the subject of lag, it is noted many times in the program that some TV combinations (mostly those using an HDMI cable for the video and audio) produce a game-breaking lag. This is true - I have one of those setups. I had to buy a converter cable to run the audio into a set of headphones since I do not have a separate audio component to my entertainment center - just a TV and a 360. So buyer be warned: after the heavy price tag, you MAY need to buy an exta cable if you have such a system. I got mine right here on amazon: search for "RCA Audio Cable Adapter for Xbox 360" and several options should come up for you.
As for the playability, again, I am approaching this after years of experience and I am still amazed by the product. The "guitarcade" arcade games are very clever - you play arcade games using the guitar as a controller. Learning, practicing and playing the songs is also a good bit of fun. The tones that are available are varied and accurate - even when playing through an acoustic. The quality of sound is not quite studio quality (mainly due to the slight delay for tracking), but you esentially have the equivalent of a TV borne POD modeler - you can model many different amp and effect combinations and tweak to your hearts content.
There are a few features that I would like to see, possibly in addon packs: like a jam session, where you can improvise over backing tracks for working on lead guitar. Perhaps this can be made to be a multiplayer component as well. Likewise, I am sure that there will be song packs in the near future.
Ubisoft has been responsible for such a wide range of quality, from triumphs like the Your Shape Fitness Evolved to absolute rubbish like Fighters Uncaged. I am always a bit nervous when going to purchace a title from that studio. Thankfully, this is a quality product and I am looking for more along the same lines from them. | video-games_xbox |
Great ending to a great series. It is rare that a game comes along with such a great single-player and multi-player. This games does both very well and is the one of the best games I have ever played. For the extra 20 bucks I payed for the Collectors Edition, it was worth it. The in game and DLC stuff is nice and the physical objects are a nice bonus for any mass effect fan. It's nice that they did not go all out like Halo or COD and make a crazy expensive collectors version. The book, comic, lithograph and patch are all very nicely done.
As for the game itself, the game play has this very natural feel to it. The shooting feels better than the old games and everything just flows smoothly. The plot is straightforward, but has enough plot twists to keep you going until the end. They have removed most of the hacking and planet scanning that are such a pain in first 2 which makes it enjoyable to play the whole time. The characters are as well developed as ever and the RPG aspect has been streamlined in order to create a more cinematic ending to the series. One option I think is nice is the "Narrative" difficulty setting that allows you to play for the story and not for the combat. The combat is very easy, however still quite fun. Its a good way to play though the game the first time, and to learn the story without worrying about constantly getting killed.
The multi-player is really fun as well; the setup is really well done and the leveling system is one of the best. It is also nice that you can play the MP in order to help your character in single player.
As for cons, my biggest thing is that it is on 2 disks (Xbox 360), which I know is not the biggest deal, but is sometimes a bit of a nuance.
**SPOILER**
I have read a few reviews about the end of the game and that there is not a "happy" ending; however, considering what happens thought the game and series I say the ending I chose (jumping into the beam) was a great ending, and I can't wait to play it again and try the other endings. | video-games_xbox |
A solid game. I've played a lot of games in my life and this is the first game I've actually felt compelled to write a review for. I am going to write this as objectively as I can in case anyone else is like me, wondering if the purchase was worth it.
Initially I was going to get this game no questions, then came all the reviews from the game sites and most were not flattering. It pushed it for me, from a must have to a maybe. Most complaints from the reviews, and yes I completely read at least 6 different "professional" reviews, were because of the repetition etc. One review even said that if he had to pay for the game he would have been upset. This was very concerning to me. Since I already had purchased 4 other games I decided to get it anyways and if it sucks, oh well I have other games.
First let me say because of the reviews from gaming sites I never played this game on any settings except the hardest. I do not know what the experience is like in the lower settings. I figured that ratcheting the difficulty up would eleviate some of the repetitiveness, I've played some great games that when set too easy became boring and repetitive (button mashing god mode etc). In addition help out with the playing time (another complaint from many reviews).
With that in mind, I have enjoyed playing this game and can't understand why more than the occasional reviewer would give it a bad score. I understand everyone has a different like, but this game is solid. When you have 3 and 4 different people attacking and your trying to attack, break their defense, block and roll out of the way (can't block certain types of attacks) all at the same time, it is anything but boring. Plenty of times I was focusing on one or two guys too much and ended up dead.
Many are saying the QTEs (executions) are pointless, that they just die anyways:
1st - I guess I look at it like, once they are to that point the enemy is dead anyways, this is just a way to gain bonus items.
2nd - I don't claim to be the best video game player, but I'm competent. At this level taking damage is a regular thing. I find it entertaining jumping back and forth from health to focus to xp bonus etc right before executions.
3rd - Yes there are not enough executions, however instead of waiting for the color to flash (woopie) I find it more entertaining to actually try and guess the color based on the action. While I'm not always 100% correct I find it more entertaining guessing the action before the color prompt. Perhaps this makes it feel more engaged during the executions.
Is the game perfect? To me, no it is not perfect. I would have love to have it take more of an RPG style. It is short, but not so short it is offensive. I wish there was a way to disable the color prompts during the execution. I wish there were more execution styles. I wish there were more figures (to many enemies look the same). With as gory as this game is, it really should have a lot more blood (I know nit picking here, but its true).
However this game to me was totally entertaining and worth it. The plot was basic but the game told a story that I enjoyed. The sounds are spot on and of course the graphics are good. I found it worth the money and would encorage any of my friends, or strangers to give it a shot. This game is not for everyone, just like not everyone likes and FPS or a racing sim, but in general I'm glad I purchased the game.
Quick side note, I have not yet played any MP, co-op. I like to always play through SP first, so I can't comment on MP or co-op function. | video-games_xbox |
The Good,the Bad, and a Final Opinion. After logging in just over 100 hours of playtime to completely finish the game (getting all achievements), I decided to write this review being as unbiased as possible. Some things you might want to know immediately about this game is that it takes a minimum of two playthroughs to fully unlock and play the game to its optimal experience. This game was pretty much made to force people to buy the strategy guide or force searching online for a walkthrough so that players can be prepared for harder content in the game. There are heavy religious references throughout the entirety of the game; I would advise passing this title if you do not tolerate games that make a lot of religious references. So, lets check out the good and the bad:
The Good:
-A totally new combat system different from the previous FF:XIII games
( I do not know about you, but I never understood how the combat system of the prior games work from just looking at gameplay video. This game essentially is just pressing buttons that have actions assigned to them)
-Nice soundtrack
(The soundtrack is well suited for all areas of the game, I do not remember there being any one area I hated being in because the soundtrack was excellently executed throughout the entirety of the game)
-Time is on your side
(I say this because rushing through the game on my first playthrough pretty much screwed me over near the end, so I will say this: there is no need to rush through the game. Yes, I have seen a lot of people say the 13 day time limit is bad, but you would be shocked by how fast you can make it through doing all the main quests in this game. Each minute in game is about 2 seconds in real time, so you have around 2880 seconds for each in-game day, or in other words 48 minutes per each in-game day. Note, the game gives you the ability to freeze time which can extend the 48 minutes per day into something much longer; I myself have been able to extend simply one day into over 6 hours of real time, and it can go longer than that if you need it too.
-Hard mode is extremely challenging
(The difficulty spikes are humongous once you get to hard mode, this keeps the game interesting since everything will not able able to be stomped over as can be done in normal mode. It requires having a keen understanding of the system from normal mode and there exist many different playstyles to make it through this difficulty mode. Overall, you are bound to have to look through every single feature/ability that exists for the combat system if you get stuck at a particular point of the game where you are fighting a boss that is too tough or enemies that are too high level to be killed)
-Tons of character customization
(There exists many different garbs and items that can customize the appearance of Lightning to look practically anyway you desire: each garb can be customized to have up to three different color palettes in addition to the original, as well as an item [adornments] which further customizes the look. You can show off any of these custom looks for all cutscenes and through the entire playthrough of the game by setting the scheme look that you want as default in the schema menu)
The Bad:
-Confusing player improvement system
(unlike traditional RPG's that feature a leveling system which plays a huge role in determining your character's power, this game completely did away with that idea. Now, you improve your character's health and other stats through doing quests. That bit is straight forward, but it becomes confusing once you get into more advanced parts of the game that actually require you to have good abilities equipped. In a nutshell, the level of an ability determines how much damage you do to enemies; your stats no matter how high or low, does not dictate how much damage you do but rather gives you an estimate of how much damage you can dish out. For example, if I had 800 STR for one of my stats and used a mid-level Attack ability [lvl 3] then I would deal around 2000 - 2500 dmg to an enemy; adversely if I used a Attack ability [lvl 1] I would deal around 800 - 1000 dmg to an enemy. The notion of acquiring good abilities essentially requires you to look up how to acquire stronger abilities in the strategy guide or online. The final piece of player improvement are the items you use. These mainly influence your stats by boosting them, which feeds into that system of having a good ability. Using the same example above, if you equip a weapon that gives 400 STR then your Attack ability [lvl 3] would do more damage now - 1200 STR deals 3000 - 3600 dmg. There is also other equipment available granting various effect besides boosting combat stats or resistances such as modifying how you many attacks you do with abilities. For example, there is one item that increases the number of attacks you do in a combo by 1. So if we used our Attack example that does 3000 dmg per attack, instead of doing 9000 dmg because Attack does a 3-hit combo we would now do 12000 dmg since it would become a 4-hit combo. There are tons of other little oddities that can be discussed to increase combat effectiveness, but I leave that for you to find out. These three features [stats, abilities, and items] are the main things that dictate player improvement)
-Poor color scheme made for the Ability Synthesis Shop
(I cannot stress enough that the color palette, and the oversaturation of fluorescent lighting when abilities are synthesized will hurt you eyes if you spend too long trying to improve abilities and clear out space from your abilities list)
-Too many abilities
(I list this as something that is bad because it becomes a chore to go through your ability list and sell ones you do not need, while being careful not to accidentally sell the good abilities you have, when sometimes you will have the max of 400 abilities at once to go through)
-Poor framerates in certain areas of game
(I do not know if this problem is specific to the Xbox 360 version since it is not as powerful - hardware wise - as the PS3, but I have found that certain areas cause the framerate to drop significantly while playing; this happens mainly when fighting a specific enemy in the desert area, and occasionally when traveling into different areas of the world)
-Most DLC items are not worth getting
(Honestly, I would say the only DLC items that are useful into the latter parts of the game [on hard mode] are the Buster Sword and Summoner's Shield. I'll say the Summoner's Garb and Soldier First Class Garb are honorable mentions that make normal mode feel quite easy to get through. The rest of the DLC items are there because they look aethestically pleasing, unlike a lot of the other garbs acquired as you progress through playing the game. I myself had the pre-order bonus to get both the Yuna and Cloud garbs/equipment for free, but by the time I finished the game on hard mode I was using all garbs and equipment acquired from playing with the exception being the Buster Sword and Summoner's Shield)
Final Opinion:
It is a much improved game over the last two games of the XIII series, and features a great deal of replayability. On top of that, I never played the initial FFXIII games and it was pretty simple to understand what was going on because there is enough recap along with the youtube retro video that sums up the two earlier games. You would definitely enjoy this game if you like figuring stuff out yourself from the hints you get from NPCs. I recommend this to anyone looking for an interesting console RPG, as I have not seen any other notable ones lately. | video-games_xbox |
Parents: Rent it or wait for a $14.99 price drop. Snoopy's Grand Adventure is honestly not in my age demo
But, i was able to get it free from Red Box so why not
I grew up on Platformers they hold a special place in my heart!
Plus I also grew up on the Charlie Brown specials
Controls: Are a little to simple you only use the (A) button to jump plus the analog stick or the d pad (to move)
which isn't horrible! Some of the platforming itself is off (Activision rushed this out in time for the movie release I'm sure)
but, at least the game is playable and enjoyable unlike the last Activision Tony Hawk game
Gameplay: Is average mostly due to lack of anything you go from the left side of the screen to the right to find Snoopy's Dog house you can collect the jelly beans (you'll get one achievement for getting all in one level) or collecting 5 beagle scouts (you get the 5 Scouts in the level absolutely nothing!) you also collect different costumes for Snoopy (1/2 are useless) every costume you get pops a achievement which is a nice A+ offering
the game borrows from Rayman Legends/Origins but, it's lacking the style and substance those two games have!
You might be thinking Jesus you're attacking a kids game no not really it should've never be released with a $49.99 price tag
Most levels have cool concepts overall but, you never fully get a good payoff
One huge plus each level ends with a boss battle (But, these are thrown at you with no real explanation how to defeat the boss the first boss was a cool concept idea using seesaws and balls against the boss very original but, i doubt any kid will even know what these retired playground toys even are...... Lord i'm old
One level that had limitless possibility was Snoopy on his dog house flying in France (great concept but, in some areas very cheap!)
The biggest problem with this game is lack of originality one level with the Beethoven statues was cool but, it like every level repeats itself too much
Graphics I'm sure the XBOne version and the 360 version are one and the same this is a straight-up port
some of the animation looks good but, nothing will blow you away
Sometime when i feel like killing a few hrs. I'll rent the 360 version
Sound/Audio is horrible the score will drive anyone insane! I turned off the music cause it repeats itself
you get the kid who did The Peanuts movie who v/o Charlie Brown (a little)
Story: ???? This was pretty much a licensing deal due to the film's national release there is no real story (Even the ending was lazy)
The bottom line rent this title i did a 2hr. speed run and got 48/50 Achievements (i wasn't even trying to do a speed run i just wanted to beat the game to move onto Fallout 4 btw Snoopy's Grand Adventure more fun then Fallout 4! That's my truth
If you must get this game wait until it get's the 14.99 price drop! I'm pretty sure my 7 year old niece would play maybe 20 minutes of this and get board and tap out! Kids have more distractions now between IPads, etc.
This game also gave me Nam Flashbacks to the days of the NES and 16bit consoles renting a title i thought would be awesome (Example Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Back to the Future II&III, The Three Stooges, Friday the 13th (NES) This title is nowhere near terrible as far as a movie tie-in Licensing game but, it's very lazy with a beloved property ....... 7.5/10
Trust me wait until it's cheap then snag a copy it's a title that will get a one time play through then get shelved never to be seen again | video-games_xbox |
One of the best co-op adventures. Wildlands is a fun, addicting, action game that brings the series to a post Division Ubisoft. To not draw comparisons between this and The Division would be insane. Where Wildlands drops the MMO perspective of The Division, it gains a more fleshed out environment and story.
===Story===
Thrusting the Ghosts in a fictional Bolivia, while simultaneously looking and feeling realistic is the name of the game. You are the Ghosts, an elite group of soldiers that do not exist. Tackling Missions with up to 3 other friends or 3 Allies and trying to rid the country of a terrible person. While the story SOUNDS lackluster, I have been enjoying the banter between characters and the story. I have been more interested in the story than past open world military games.
===Game play===
Gun play, is where it feels most like The Division. Running between cover and precise Third person (or first person) controls feel great. Guns feel different, and being able to find new ones in the world is great. The game feels responsive and you can't blame shoddy controls for your deaths. Driving feels, a little less precise, but fun. I'll take that compromise and being able to plow down mountains is always fun! Helicopters are something that you definitely need to get used to though, it's no GTA.
Now I will say this, I can't play this game without a buddy. I do not want to deal with the AI and something about having a human on the other side of the game makes it a lot more fun. This is the same problem with The Division that plagues this. This game shines Co-op, if you play it Solo I wouldn't bother.
===Graphics and Audio===
The game both SOUNDS and LOOKS quite spectacular. Guns sound weighty and the landscapes in Wildlands are phenomenal. I have caught myself plenty of times just staring off into the mountains or flying a helicopter around.
===Summary===
If you have friends to play it with, this is a must-buy game. It is a great game, but it is meant to play with a buddy. | video-games_xbox |
Perfect Adventure game for casual gamer. Let me start off by saying I owned and played the original Darksiders, and as much fun as that game was it had flaws and had moments where I would force myself to continue playing because of how bored I was while playing. When I bought Darksiders 2 I figured it would give me the same thrills with an improved combat system, I was very wrong. In my eyes this is what the original Darksiders wanted to be but was unable to become for whatever reasons. I love RPG's and Action adventure games, I love stories that take my places and I want to keep playing because I am into the world, characters and exploring. Darksiders 2 has enough depth to make the RPG fan happy with loot drops that remind me of Diablo, fighting that is straight out of the God of War series (which is a must own RPG for anyone with a Playstation), and the adventure and spirit of The Legend of Zelda games. As soon as you put the disc in and start playing right away controls feel natural and the way Death moves on screen feels so fluid that you feel like he is one with you. The prince of persia type platforming moving is very fun to watch on screen when pulled off smoothly, I have felt like a super ninja plenty of times. The story is good, it isn't great but its entertaining, I would say its like a summer blockbuster you go to see just because you want to enjoy a fun time. There is nothing grounding breaking in this game, it won't change your life or how you play games but for the price it will give you many hours of fun, I would recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of Zelda games, you'll enjoy it once you start feeling the "Zelda Spirit" in the game, if you want a simple action adventure title that you can enjoy. Just buy this title don't think about it you won't regret this purchase. One thing that you will have to be warned is the frame-rate can be annoying at times while walking and exploring but I haven't noticed it during crazy battles which is surprising, as well while fighting the camera can get awkward just kept evading and attacking and you'll be just fine. | video-games_xbox |
Review for Non-Gamers. I'm not a gamer, just a regular 30something who wants an easy way to take out my frustrations. This review is probably most helpful to middle aged men like me, not hardcore gamers.
I have tried many other games but Halo is the only one that doesn't tax me too much with choices and complicated controller requirements. I give the Halo franchise 5 stars because it is so simple, one mission, kill everything in sight. You don't need to investigate, open your pouch, choose between a million weapons, read maps, or think for even a second. It's the only game I've found which I can stand for more than 5 minutes and which is completely uncomplicated. And you can skip the story and all that nonsense by just hitting the main button.
As compared to other Halos: I'm not crazy about the weaponry. The needlers run out of ammo and the other guns don't do much. You also need to press a button to reload some weapons, it seems, whereas before they would reload if you walked over the same kind of weapon. THere are 3 kinds of grenades, which is unnecessary and just harder to switch between. You can also only carry 2 of each instead of 4. Since the new grenades stick like the plasmas, they don't add much and just add another layer of choice and button-pushing. Too complicated. Also, the little bonus things like flares and landmines are gimmicky and add too much comlpication. Again, advanced gamers probably love it, but I'm too old to learn all this new stuff. Just give me a gun and some grenades.
In previous games you'd come across more types of things to do, like a lot of sniper rifles so you could sit on a hilltop picking off aliens or use other strategy. In this game you don't find a lot of useful weapons, so there's a lot more direct hand to hand, on the ground type combat. I've also found that it's easier to kill things and easier in general to solve the levels. Also, it uses the "follow me" arrow and the voice gives you suggestions if you seem to be missing the point, which I like, since in previous Halos I've spent hours wandering around wondering what I'm supposed to be doing. No such problems here. They've sufficiently dumbed it down.
I've had a few graphic glitches in this one, which has never happened before. I've also gotten stuck and unable to get out of things twice. THe sound and graphics are great, of course. I've never paid any attention to the story, unless it required me to, so I can't comment on that. Kusdos to Bungie for making it easy to skip over.
Overall, this is the same experience as the others, though it seems easier than Halo2. As little thought as that required, this one requires less. I've not had to think at all about weapon choice, strategy, or anything, Just pull the trigger and kill! I wish there were more FPS games like this -- fast-paced, completely intuitive hand controls, easy storyline, simple mission, and FUN. | video-games_xbox |
A cynical shell of a game. The latest iteration of Eastman and Laird's reptile martial artists on Nickelodeon is a fun and spirited take on the franchise. The heroes remain true to type, though Splinter is not a wizened old rodent so much as he is simply wise. The CG animation design works very well for the Ninja Turtles themselves, and the show is respectful and knowing in relation to the original cartoon from the '80s. This attention to detail is followed through on with Activision's latest TMNT game, the second to hit this year (though the first based on the Nickelodeon franchise), but not where it counts. The dialogue and characterization is all spot-on, indicating a very close knowledge of the show, and there are even some gameplay elements that call out to the old arcade game, but the actual experience of playing the game is a total letdown. Instead of putting the same skill and love into the game that the show has received, this game is a cynical cash-in aimed at the children (including those at heart) who would be most interested in it.
It should come as no surprise that TMNT is yet another brawler, and as mentioned before it owes a great debt to the old TMNT arcade game, even allowing players to throw enemies at the screen, where they squeak down the frame after being flattened on the imaginary fourth wall. Unfortunately, the comparisons stop there. The graphics are very simple, even for a translation from CG animation to a game; there are obvious and glaring jagged edges everywhere. There isn't much going on to look at, either. Animations are simple and choppy, and while there may be several Turtles and foes on screen at once, it never looks very impressive.
The audio is even worse, unfortunately. The music is tinny, quiet, and repetitive, adding nothing to the game. The voice acting, while in line with the show, was recorded terribly, and often sounds clipped and distorted, displaying a shocking lack of quality control. I can't remember the last time recorded vocals sounded like they were being shouted into an old telephone before now.
If the gameplay held up its end of the bargain, the simplistic visuals and lackluster sound might be forgiven. Unfortunately, while the skeleton of a brawler is there, the muscles aren't. Nothing has any weight of impact; if it wasn't for combo counters and point pop-ups showing you've connected, you'd rarely know if you'd hit your opponents. Special moves use a fun, short cutscene, but they obscure the actual move itself, so the end result isn't very impressive. There are only a few different types of enemies, and the same strategy prevails throughout the entire game; mash X until an enemy is dazed and a yellow "Y" appears above their head, mash "Y" with a directional input, and toss the enemy. Rinse and repeat. For bosses, or a large amout of foes, hit "B" occasionally. The boss fights might seem more interesting at first, but since no bosses have any change to their pattern, despite multiple in-fight cutscenes, they grow tired long before they end as well.
The most disappointing aspect of this game is how well the developers obviously know the franchise; none of the game rings false when it relates to the show. Unfortunately, the game itself is all shell, no turtle, and only young fans will be able to look past the undercooked gameplay experience to enjoy what little remains. If your son, like mine, MUST play it, rent it. Play it for the four hours it takes and return it. And then add your voice to let Activision and Nickelodeon know that this franchise deserves far better than this. | video-games_xbox |
Great game but repetitive. At first I really didn't like this game. It was very childish and very repetitive. It was also really simple gameplay too. But, after awhile, I started to like it...maybe towards the beginning of disc 3. I guess it got to me after the one million battle and hours of hearing that battle music. The story was okay.
(I just finished watching the anime of Blue Dragon the whole series. The anime has a pretty good story, but I actually preferred the video game story, so I will change my mind from okay game story to great story!)
I thought the fight battles was very bad in terms of the game difficulty. It was just too simple and too many. After I beat the game, I played hard mode, which I felt was much closer to what normal mode should had been like. Many people talked about how easy the game was and I believe what the game makers should had done was made "hard mode", the "REAL normal mode". Also, I thought "Impossible Mode" was really tough, and super rewarding once I beat it.
Most of the boss battle are very easy and they don't really require much strategy. On the other hand, if you fight the optional bosses, those required strategies and preparation to beat. And NO, going in the battles to fight with level 99 characters without any strategies wouldn't win the fights. You actually have to plan and think about what you need to do.
Furthermore, I love fighting the 5 dragons, King Boo, and Gold Mecha. It took awhile to figured out a way to beat them without dying over and over again...especially on impossible mode! No, it's not just level up till the max, I beat them at the lowest levels for a true challenge. And, leveling up takes forever too! And you still need some sort of strategy to beat them, you can't just go all gong-ho with these bosses! lol
I think all RPG fans should give this game a chance. It's not so bad after disc 2 at least. Worth a buy for $10 and below. And, would give you 40+ hours of fun if you make it past the first 2 discs that is. lol | video-games_xbox |
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