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Launch Console Impressions. I'll start by saying that Xbox One is a console that has a lot of potential, and little of it is ready yet. I bought the standard edition on release night. I also bought Call of Duty Ghosts to go with it. I'll break my review down a little bit to talk about the good and bad things that I have noticed so far:
Kinect:
My first impression is that it is much larger than the original Kinect. The picture quality seems on par with my Samsung Smart TV camera, although it's nice that I can be much closer to the TV and still be seen. At first it wouldn't work with any games (for gestures). I had to go into the configuration settings several times before it finally pointed out that it couldn't identify my floor (I have very dark carpet). It allowed me to adjust where my floor was (by raising and lowering a virtual floor image) and then it worked. Movement is working ok at this point. Voice control is very hit and miss. I usually have to speak commands at least twice to get it to respond to my voice (and I speak and enunciate very clearly, and I don't have any sort of accent). It does not understand my wife at all no matter what. It's also pretty buggy as far as recognizing the people that are in the room. It will usually sign me in, and it sometimes will recognize my three-year-old daughter, but it never recognizes my wife. I always have to manually sign her in if we are switching profiles. My last gripe is that there is really no way to currently mount the new Kinect on top of the TV set as it's pictured in most advertisements. There is no official peripheral from Microsoft, and the only potential solution that may work is coming from PDP and is not yet released. I had to actually use tape to hold it on top of the TV (didn't want it below the TV because my kids would get at it).
Controller:
The new controller is also a little bit disappointing. It connects and responds just fine. It feels a little smaller in my hands than the 360 controller did. It definitely feels cheaper as well. The plastic that makes up the body of the controller is noticeably thinner and feels much less substantial. I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't take much to completely break it if someone accidentally stepped on it or dropped it on a hard floor (which I've done with my 360 controller with no adverse affects). The sticks themselves are noticeably smaller and have much less surface area than on the 360. I do like that there is more grip on the top of the stick, but I don't like that only half of my thumb fits on it when I'm using it (I have average sized medium hands). The sticks were much more comfortable on my 360 controller. The D-Pad is definitely more responsive, but has a loud annoying click when you press the buttons (which is intentional according to a recent developer video). I'd rather have a quiet controller, but this is my personal preference. Other than that, it works as expected.
Performance:
I'd have to say at this point that I'm really not getting a "next-gen" vibe from this console. Yes, the interface is different, but they could have done this with an update to the existing 360. They used a standard 5400 RPM hard drive inside, so loading times are just as long as they were on the 360. It switches Apps quickly, but then has to sit and load each one for a decent amount of time. It would have cost them about the same amount of money to put a 60 GB SSD in the console and then allow you to buy an external HD of your choice for larger games. This would have made the whole console a lot more responsive and would have felt a lot better. The only games that I've been able to play so far are Call of Duty Ghosts, Kinect Sports, and Killer Instinct. Call of Duty Ghosts looks identical to it's 360 counterpart. There is nothing that looks graphically better about it. I've seen other reviews that confirm that I am not the only one that feels this way about this particular game. In the same vein, Kinect Sports and Killer Instinct also look like they could run at the same quality on an existing Xbox 360. I am very much aware of the hardware that is inside of this console (I built a computer for a friend earlier this year that had similar components), so I have an idea of what it could potentially do. I also remember the first launch titles for the Xbox 360 and how bad they looked. I know that games will begin to look better on Xbox One as developers learn to get the most from the new hardware, however they haven't done much with it yet. And I also realize that I have not had a chance to test any of the other titles for the new console. I'll talk about that next.
Content:
This is the real subject that is upsetting me about the Xbox One. There is hardly any content to really jump into with this console. Yes, there are around 15 launch games, 90% of which will set you back at least $65. If you're a normal hard-working family man like me, there is no way that you can buy more than one or two of them in addition to the console's $500 price tag. They could have easily offset this problem in two ways. One is that they could have released some $10-$15 arcade titles to go with the console on launch day. There are zero arcade/indie type games on the Xbox One. There isn't even a section for them on the dashboard or in the store. Even Sony at least threw a couple of these in the mix with the new PS4. So it's really just crazy expensive games or nothing at this moment. It's a little bit hard to swallow after enjoying the pricing on Steam and on my iOS devices for the last few years. The second fix could have been with releasing a few demos of the new games to help get people excited about the potential better graphics and game diversity. There are ZERO demos on the Xbox One. In addition to the lack of content to play, there are only a small selection of Apps to try out on the console. We're talking about 30% of what is currently on the Xbox 360. This I don't understand at all. I realize that it takes a little bit of effort to build these Apps, but why weren't they here for Launch day? We're seeing that developers can make huge games in time for launch, but that other developers can't build a simple App? Essential Apps like HBO Go are nowhere to be found (although they are advertised as coming at some point). So instead of the Xbox One becoming the center of my entertainment experience, I constantly have to switch back to another device to enjoy content that should be on the Xbox One. What this basically boils down to is that I am mostly left twiddling my thumbs without much to do on my new console (and that's after a $600 investment to get a game and the system).
TV: TV is actually working ok. It was very easy to get the Xbox One to recognize my Samsung Smart TV and my Directv HD DVR receiver. I can easily pull up the guide and switch between content. You cannot currently control anything that has to do with DVR content, which I hope will be enhanced at some point.
Bottom Line:
The Bottom Line is that this console was clearly rushed out before it was ready. There is very little content, and essential content is not there. There are no little inexpensive games to fill the gaps. There are no demos to get a better idea of what this console can really do. The Kinect has yet to prove that its vastly superior to the original Kinect, and the controller feels a bit like a step back compared to the 360 controller.
With all of that said, these are mostly launch-window sorts of gripes. There is obviously more content coming, and hopefully some of it won't set me back $65 per purchase. I am also sure that some of these short-comings will be fixed with future updates. My review is mostly based on the lack of things to do with my new beauty and I'm sure that I'll be much happier with it in 6 months when I can do more with it. | video-games_xbox |
This game is a sleeper for sure. When I first saw the trailer of this game I knew I was in for a ride. this GAME IS AMAZING. I play it on my xbox and I have nothing bad to say about this. The game is smooth with such a style of game play that almost leaves you holding your very breath, This is a must have for anyone who enjoys games like bioshock or any assassins creed games. I got my copy at game stop but what really matters is how awesome the game plays. The creepy mixed with the vivid make it a game that you can play over and over again. I enjoy playing it without killing anyone. I beat the game, and now I am doing going to kill everyone and see what happens. It's just so amazing the way the games course changes and I knew when I pre-ordered it I was in for a sweet ride in the rat infested city with all the cool new steam punk theme mixed with a Satanic vibe. fps/AC feel to it makes for a game I will never get rid of. If you enjoy creepy games mixed with a lot of thinking this is the one. The gore is cranked up to 11 on this Rats that you can summon and just awesome kills in the most creative ways possible.
I told all my friends about this while they are all playing borderlands 2, as am I cause that game is awesome as well. If you enjoy hide and seek style combat along with the chance to kill everything via supernatural and man made methods this is the game. The fact that you can get into places by possession of a rat or fish or human stop time in order to kill people with a razor wire trap, means this list of ways to kill is ridiculousness. I have never played a game like this before really nothing can you for it and the play through I have seen are not the whole game. If you play it you will understand. Gamestop has the 7 days to play or you can get rid of it for something else. No game can compare to this. I hope this helps you all and enjoy. It is something You will never forget.
If you are sick of the run and Gun games this will have you on the edge of your seat. | video-games_xbox |
wwe raw. I must say having waited so long for this game and paying top dollar, and being misled by all the hype, WWE Raw on the Xbox is the worst wrestling game I have ever played.
First - the crowd - when your the Rock (the most popular wrestler) and your taking on William Regal (one of the most hated), the crowd is heared cheering on William Regal more than the people's champ - this would not happen at all - NO REALISM! (do these guys watch wrestling?)
Second - controlling the wrestler is not crisp or sharp it's like you are fighting the controller and your opponent - first you grapple (A) then you have to do a move this causes a lot of fustration as you are always pressing the A button a number of times until you grapple your opponment.
The game speed is very slow the wrestlers act like robots, the control system does not match up to Smackdown on PS2, you also do not know when it is time to do a finisher move, when you press the finisher combination button (Y)+(B) nine times out of ten you don't see the finisher move.
The wrestler's seem to have very few moves about four moves each and some moves are clearly given to the wrong wrestler (the Rock doing the figure four?), you also get little Spike Dudley throwing one punch to cause the 7-foot Big Show to go down immediatley - NO REALISM!
The developers should not have bothered putting in the create a wrestler-mode as this is the worst I have ever seen, it does not compare to WWF Attitude by Acclaim on the PSX or Samckdown KYR on the PSX - Raw gives you NO FREEDOM TO CREATE!
It's a shame that the most powerful games console on the planet does not to this day have a top notch wrestling game on it - this game does not do justice to the Xbox.
I bet Mr Playstation is having a good laugh because from what I've seen Smackdown SYM on PS2 looks awsome and more important has 90% better gameplay than RAW.
In WWE RAW there's No fighting in the crowd, No cage matches, No TLC, No Hell in a Cell, No I quit, No three stages of hell, No Royal Rumble, No Referee, No Blood, No season mode, No PPV, No commentators and last of all NO ACTION! - yet all these are on the PSX and PS2.
XBOX should realise that wrestling is very popular indeed and any wrestling game is going to be one of the flag ship games on any console, and Xbox has missed the chance to make a statement.
What can XBOX owners expect from RAW2?
XBOX needs to make sure that WWE RAW2 is the best wrestling game yet... if not people will stick to PS2.
Daniel Henry | video-games_xbox |
Decent Story, Large World, Uninspired Gameplay. I was expecting something along the lines of Shadow of Mordor meets Skyrim. What I got was a game that requires just as much of a time commitment but leaves you feeling unfulfilled.
Let's start with the pros, because with all these high profile reviewers calling it game of the year, there have to be some right? There are, thankfully, many things to love in this VAST story and world. One of which being that the world is just that big. It's made up if many large open world areas, not a single continent as in skyrim but areas you can unlock and visit via your map. I won't overrate these worlds, because they somehow all still felt generic to me, but there are different landscapes and feels to all of them. Maybe generic isn't the right word, but each of them felt more like a large multiplayer map with all the necessary bits rather than a truly immersive world. It would be hard for me to describe more than one or two of these worlds as "beautiful".
The story is actually pretty solid, I think, for this kind of game. No profound themes or dialog here but you shouldn't be expecting that. There are themes and special moments, of course, but nothing game changing. Still I'd say it's well written and surprisingly well acted.
There are tons of weapons and armor to collect and/or make. Up to 9 different people you can recruit to your little squad to take on missions.
So what's the main reason I can't give this game such high praise? GAMEPLAY. Story and choice and open worlds are nice, but only if you're having fun. Travel and combat were rarely fun for me. You feel dramatically underpowered throughout most of the game, holding LT to slash enemies or shoot weak spells from a distance for as long as it takes for enemies' health to die. You level up and gain abilities that never seem to do much more damage. A small amount of health that doesn't regenerate doesn't make for much of a good time either.
Monotonous combat might be excusable if along the way I FELT I was getting stronger, more powerful, acquiring amazing unique gear that mattered, or was given a character with more personality. None of these things are there. Nothing in the game feels special or meaningful to me.
You trudge along with your bland character fighting bland battles to acquire bland abilities and gear. It's not what I wanted, not what I expected, and not worth the money. The story makes some things tolerable, but for only so long... | video-games_xbox |
Not just a name, also a descriptor. You may notice that Overdos3 gives a lot of 2's and 3's from our 3 star scale. This is because we are average consumers whom are not given games to play for free, therefore we tend to buy games, DVDs and see movies that we are pretty sure we will like. It is a nice surprise, then, when a windfall trade in of older games from our parents house allows us to try out something we hope would be good, but would never buy with our hard earned cash in a million years.
With hope in my heart that the reviews were wrong, I bought a copy of Damnation.
They are not.
On paper Damnation could be a great game. It seeks to marry Gears of War style cover based third-person shooting with Tomb Raider's platforming. I am pretty sure a good game could have come out of the Damnation design document, but ham filled voice work, stiff control, some of the worst AI in recent memory and weak visuals drag this game down to the depths of hell.
While most of these aspects can be chalked up to a low budget, the art failing is probably the area that is saddest to me because the cool steampunk syle art is completely lost in the low resolution mess that ended up on the screen.
The control works, but never feels fluid or natural, and the button placement is more than a bit awkward. To make matters worse the control gets complicated by the developers seeming to be 100% unwilling to use context sensitivity to stream line their control scheme. Add into this movement which allows for very little finesse, and you will find yourself constantly thinking about the controller and button placement rather than just having fun and playing the game
You could criticize the story of Damnation, but any shooter can get by with a weak story if the voice acting is bombastic yet believable enough to enjoy. The voice work in Damnation sounds like it is sample tracks created by the developers and then left in the game once the budget had dried to a point past being able to hire professional voice actors.
What makes Damnation even that much more frustrating is that the path finding can be so broken. There are times where the game is pretty clear about where you need to go, but then others where indicators of your destination are sparse or simply not there, and this adds an element of frustration that is the final straw which earns this game it's 1 star.
I might have never bought Damnation if it wasn't for a pile of NES accessories and games from my parents house, but after playing it I almost feel like I would have been better holding onto a junk heap rather than taking this waste of a few hours home with me.
From [...] | video-games_xbox |
A Serious Sniping Simulator with Frequently Frustrating Flaws. I always enjoy finding a game that offers a realistic, challenging combat experience, great graphics, co-op, and unique gameplay. There is no other game out there that makes me feel more like a long range, merciless 'Angel of Death' wreaking havoc within the ranks of everyone's favorite bullet magnets: the Nazis. There are, however, quite a few fundamental design flaws to go with the extremely gratifying, entertaining gameplay.
Gameplay is challenging, yet rewarding. I highly recommend setting the difficulty to 'Sniper Elite,' which enables "Realistic bullet ballistics." Playing at this level ensures that the maximum possible satisfaction is be gained from adjusting for wind/bullet drop before firing that perfect shot. Also, if you do ever want to upgrade your difficulty to 'Sniper Elite' on your next play through, you won't have to re-train yourself to overcome poor marksman practices learned at lower difficulty levels.
The graphics are also both intense and satisfying. Fans of the series know how good it feels to adjust your aim for gravity and wind shear before firing the perfect head shot from an insanely long distance. Few, if any, current gaming experiences rival observing a expertly-aimed, slow-motion bullet travel 300+ yards through high wind before devastating your target's brain, spine, heart, or other organs. These graphic, grisly slow-motion moments of bullet impact are vastly improved over the first Sniper Elite and much more satisfying. These aren't just generic cut scenes, either. Each close-up is unique (as far as I can tell), showing the correct path from entrance to exit. Somehow, these slow-motion moments continue to gratify my experience after weeks of (occasional) playing.
Now lets get to the 'cons.' The developers did miss a golden opportunity to make this very good game truly great with a few major design flaws. First of all, there are numerous missions where you have to avoid or counter-snipe several enemy snipers. This sounds like fun, but was poorly executed. In most cases, the other snipers spawn in set locations after you advance past a set point. It is extremely frustrating to spend 10+ minutes scanning/clearing every window of an apartment building only to be shot in the back a short time later from the very windows that you spent so much time meticulously inspecting.
Also, the eyesight and aim of enemy soldiers often approaches superhuman. Somehow, I am regularly noticed/shot by regular (non-sniping) soldiers mere moments after stepping out from behind cover.
Next, the story line is weak to say the least. I honestly don't think that they even tried to give the back story any intelligent time or consideration. In many other titles, I would be more upset about the lack of engaging story line. In this case, I know that the developers were likely saving the time/resources in order to continue improving the sniping mechanic, which is the primary reason anyone would buy this game in the first place.
Finally, though the sniping mechanic has performed admirably, I have experienced several cases of broken graphics and other glitches in the general gameplay. These were rarely, if ever, game-ending issues, yet they continue to be exceedingly successful in breaking up my immersion in an otherwise engrossing and realistic game.
Bottom line: if you enjoyed the first Sniper Elite game, you can expect an updated title which includes many improvements on the same general format. I recommend that any serious fan of 3rd person shooters checks out Sniper Elite V2. Despite the shortcomings, this title does a great job of walking the line between realistic challenge and satisfying reward. | video-games_xbox |
Unplayable. I play these games every year in hopes that they will get better, but they only get worse. In light of that, I will give this game a fair two part review, but I had to give it one star to make up for the fan boy inflation. This game is undeserving of 3.5 stars. 2 is realistic and that's only because a semi-dark toned campaign saved it from a one.
The single player. Good controls, no real bugs or issues. The story is ok, very predictable. They did a great job with casting Kevin spacey, the rest of the characters I could care less for. You can run through it in about 6 hours and it's semi-enjoyable. The problem is, it's so repetitive. Is no one else tired of tapping x to do some stupid sequence? Or following the character around, but the character is walking too slow? The jets controls are also awful, battle field definitely has that on lock down. Running around in beast mode with the Eco suit is cool. Like I said earlier, this campaign is nothing new, but it's this game's saving grace.
The multiplayer...I mean what can I say? Ever since CoD4 it has been eroding. Same old engine, same crappy graphics. What I mean by crappy graphics is that they have the same stupid guns, just with different names and skins. The lag compensation is still there, so if you have fiber optics or stable internet you're punished. Shooting half a round into someone will result in your death. The maps are pretty bad. Not entirely bad, the majority of them are awful. If you're a sniper don't even try unless your whole team is guarding you. If you like shotguns you better get sneaky if you move around because there's a 5 year old camping in every corner worried about his k/d. I played through one prestige and found it the most frustrating cod ever because of the lag compensation. (Anything but an assault rifle on core and you probably won't do well) they have three studios churning these out yearly so they can make a quick Q4 billion.
I really wanted this to be a good game, but sledgehammer is worse than treyarch, at least in the past there was solace in a modern warfare re-hash, but infinity ward is all but gone now.
Don't waste your $60. | video-games_xbox |
A good wireless headset that is easy to use but it has issues. I have used a number of wired gaming headsets over the years from Turtle Beach as well as other companies like Logitech, but I've avoided wireless gaming headsets prior to this because I've read many complaints online about older wireless gaming headsets. Namely, the audio tends to "drop out" for a few seconds at random times when the older wireless headsets lose their connection. Still, I wanted to give the Turtle Beach Ear Force Stealth 500X a try.
I hoped to avoid trouble with the Stealth 500X, so I connected the included transmitter and the headset to my Windows 8.1 desktop and installed the latest firmware from the Turtle Beach website. After the firmware update I tried connecting the 500X transmitter to my Xbox to get started testing.
One good thing about the 500X is that the wireless headset and the transmitter are already paired, so you won't have to go through the a frustrating process of pressing extra buttons and typing in a Bluetooth pairing code just to get the transmitter and the headset to start working.
Audio quality is pretty good both in terms of the earphone speakers and the quality of the audio picked up by the microphone. Games sounded as clear to me using the 500X as they did when I was using a wired headset, and other gamers heard my voice loud and clear. My only major complaint in terms of audio is that -- as a few other reviewers have mentioned -- the maximum volume setting on the Stealth 500X isn't as high as the Logitech headset that I typically use. I usually have the Stealth 500X set at or near maximum volume just so I can hear the more subtle sound effects in a game ... and I have pretty sensitive hearing.
One other item of note is that the "surround sound" modes on the Stealth 500X feel a little more like a marketing gimmick than a useful audio setting. I felt like the standard stereo mode gave the best audio quality.
Speaking of "surround sound" ... the earphone cups don't do a very good job of isolating sound from spilling outside the headphones. In other words, if I'm sitting on the couch using the Stealth 500X and my wife is sitting next to me she will still be able to hear much of what is going on. It's not that the headphones are too loud, it's as if they are projecting sound both toward the person wearing the heaset and out around the user. That sort of defeats the purpose of wearing headphones.
The headset itself was pretty comfortable on my head and ears, although I found the microphone moves out of position a little too easy.
I never had the wireless single drop off during use, but if I started using it after it had been idle for a day or two sometimes the microphone wouldn't work unless I reset the transmitter and the headset. It's not a huge problem as long as you remember to do it before you start playing.
The bottom line is that this wireless headset is "pretty good" but I don't know that I would be willing to pay the full retail price of around $230 for this headset given all the "minor annoyances" it has. Turtle Beach might be able to fix a few issues via firmware, but I wouldn't buy this at full MSRP unless you absolutely cannot stand using a better headset because of the wired connection. | video-games_xbox |
Class Action Lawsuit . . . And EA Sports, Google it, it explains a lot. Game is great! until it freezes in the middle of a game. Even after you follow EA SPORTS reccommendations.
Ok, so that statement seems simple enough. But lets REALLY think about what your paying for when you shell out excess cash for this game each year or even every other year or even every third year. Its the cusp of the NFL season, and your paying for the feling of participating with YOUR TEAMS potential for success during the upcoming year, by becoming a player, a coach ,or the GM.
Ok, so Now, lets say, hypothetically, you were about to set the world record for Tertris or about to remove your first girl friends bra or you just crushed a drive down the fairway on your way on your way to break par for the first time ever and the power goes out, or the girls friends father interupts, or the grounds keeper picks up your golf ball.
only here, ITS MADDEN ( MAD - IN - IN) because here, its the middle of a Packers - Bears ( pr dallas giants or seatle - SF or wash - however) match-up and you, well you just got done throwing a long TD PASS to a Rookie wide out that you had Fleeced off you arch nemesis. AND right after this incredibly exciting moment, a moment you can't recreate or isn't worth recreating or you don't have time to recreate . . . The game freezes.
Now lets say this happens 6-7 during the first week you own the game, and you follow EA SPORTS crack, super on top of it all guidance to solve this glitch, which shouldnt even be there.
Then well . . That's when you think to yourself . . .yup, its another year of Madden , football season has started, I don't have as much free time as I thought, and you decide to return the game and buy it 12 months from now once EA Sports has fixed it, only for $40 less.
You Dad shows up with your first bicycle; its beautiful, except the tires are flat and it doesn't have a chain.
Sept 16-,Update to my review.. I've now had the game for two weeks, it still freezes, EA Doesn't give a damn, and the consumer continues to get screwed | video-games_xbox |
The Halo Series. Ok I honestly see the points that some of you made about the game sucking towards the end of the game. Well to tell most of the people that have never read the books, you should. Most people are still having a problem with the idea that there is more than just 1 Halo ring. Well if you actually watch Halo: Combat Evolved cinematic sequence with 343 Guilty Spark, and listen, he will actually tell you that there is more than just 1 Halo ring. And If you are still wondering how the Master Chief got back to Earth then your going to have too read the 3 books that that tells the story that leads up to Halo 2. The first book explains who the Master Chief is; the second book is a re-cap of Halo: Combat Evolved with some extra stories with the NPC (Non Playable Characters) like the ODST's - A.K.A Helljumpers, the Marines and Covenant. Book three tells how Master Chief got back home and the battles he went through to get home. And If you actually say that you are a true Halo fan, truly your really not. If you want to know the whole story to the games then you have to read the books so you won't be left hanging there wondering why or how Halo 2's story is somewhat different.
Halo: Combat Evolved - I give both thumbs straight up and loads of stars.
Halo: Three Book Series - I give the authors thumbs up and loads of stars.
Halo 2 - Well, what can you say about a game that has all the hype right now. Not much... the ending was shallow but it does lead you to the next and probably last installment of the video game series. The story line is above most any game and that actually links with the book series (It kind of reminded me of the Enter the Matrix video game, with the mix and match movie sequences that link with the real movie). Halo online is some of the best fun I have had in years. Even though some of the maps are similar to Halo: Combat Evolved multiplayer maps; who cares there still fun to play. Yes the game was more revolved around the multiplayer aspect but the story still consists around saving the universe. The idea that you can play an Elite during campaign levels is actually thrilling and it gives the Covenant's side of the story. So to all the people that actually hated the game, due to lack of story short game play, well that the life of a video game. Some are the best in the world and some actually become the fallen. Who cares as long as the story is good (meaning that you READ the books) and the idea that Halo is online I say that it is worth the money. | video-games_xbox |
Dark Souls Experience. After reading numerous positive reviews and watching a few gameplay videos, I rented Dark Souls to get my own perspective. The game concept has promise, but I didn't enjoy the experience nearly enough to consider a purchase. With that being said, here's some context for my review:
-I only have a few hours logged with the game
-I didn't follow the game prior to release
-I haven't played Demon Souls, the game's predecessor
-I prefer story and depth over action and challenge
And here are my general observations for Dark Souls:
-The story line is compelling, but dialogue is mediocre with limited player involvement
-The graphics are satisfactory, but subpar when compared to games like Rage or Mass Effect 2
-Gameplay is straightforward, moving from one combat event to another with a focus on trial and error
-Game interface and character controls are clunky, almost archaic in their lack of finesse and customization
The main issue I have with Dark Souls is when your character dies all the creatures will respawn and any unspent souls/xp gained up to that point are lost. I hate repetition like this in games and I hate losing what I earned. There is a system to regain the lost souls/xp, but it is not always feasible as it requires going back to where your character died - if your character dies again before reaching this spot then the souls/xp are lost permanently. I really liked the difficulty and experience of close combat, but this mechanic was too much for me.
On a more positive note, close combat is the heart of this game and it is pretty fun. Blocking and dodging are essential, which is a great way to feel out opponents. Parrying with a riposte is an option, but I found it too high risk versus normal blocking most of the time. I avoided the strong vertical attack as it is slow to execute, leaves the character open for too long, shifts the characters position forward, and is hard to line up at times. The horizontal slash is faster and can strike multiple opponents more easily. None of this helps when surprised or surrounded and it takes only a few hits to health before dying. That's where healing comes in, but it requires time to use items and this can be a problem in the heat of combat. Stamina also needs to be managed as most actions, including blocking and attacking, deplete the character's supply - fortunately, it replenishes rather quickly.
I would sum Dark Souls up by saying it isn't a role playing game, it's an action puzzle game where the player is expected to die and revisit events over and over again. There will be times where skill and fast reflexes won't save your character and the consequences of dying can reverse much of your progress. Repetition is a given. Close combat is dynamic and challenging, but the learning curve is steep and punishing. It's truly a niche game and I'm glad it was only a rental. | video-games_xbox |
The best Batman game out there. I give this game 5/5 stars for the following reasons:
-PROS:
Story: Excellent. The Joker hi-jacks the famous Arkham Asylum as a mastermind plan to destroy Batman and, ultimately, dominate Gotham City(what else is he after, right?). Of course, then, it's up to Batman to stop him, which places you, as Batman, pretty much all alone in the nuthouse to take care of all the crazies and Joker's thugs. And there's plenty of crazies to meet, as you'll run into some famous villians throughout the game(I won't tell who, for spoiler reasons).
Graphics: Great. Stylistic and memorable, the conceptual art captures the essence of the Batman universe.
Gameplay: Perhaps the best thing about this game is the gameplay. Every aspect of this game is totally fun to play. They really did an excellent job putting you in the role of Batman. Things you'll be doing include: Gliding around with your cape, sneaking around thugs and silently taking them out to avoid gunfire, awesome fight sequences(utilizing agility, combos, timing, and patience), using Batman's arsenal of gadgets for navigation, puzzle solving, or weaponary, crime scene investigation(using Batman's state-of-the-art "super vision" to look for clues and follow scents), collecting objects as trophies, and solving the Riddle's fun little puzzles scattered throughout the facility. They did such a wonderful job mixing it up with the gameplay, giving you all kinds of different things to do, that it kept the play fresh and interesting every step of the way. With every aspect of the game being fun, you'll want to make sure to complete 100% of the game(they keep track of how much you have completed, which is nice). Plus, going after the extra secrets unlocks trophies and, my favorite, challenges, which are unrelated to the actually story but are provided as sidequests that can be done just for fun, or for practice to bring your skills up a level(and it really works, by the end of trying the hard ones I was way better at fighting and stealthy activity). So, to sum up gameplay: EXCELLENT.
Sound: Great sound and voice acting. I was wanting to hear some of the old, Danny Elfman Batman themes, but to no avail. However, the score is still good and effective.
Replayability: High. In fact, by the end of the game I was almost ready to start a new one all over again, it was so fun the first time. So, I can definately see myself replaying this game down the road, it's just that fun. Plus, the challenges provide some fun things to do after you've beat the game, and even after you've beated all of them they're still fun to try. In fact, you can get creative if you want and make up your own different kinds of challenges within those challenges. In other words, this is the kind of game that can be played over and over again, which is always a plus.
So, to sum up, this is a fantastic game that is definately worth getting. I don't think I had anything negative to say about it by the time I finished it, which is rare! I usually find something in a game that I might have done differently, or that I thought didn't work very well. Perhaps I'm really picky, but I can't help it. But I had nothing to criticize with this one. So, great game. Get it. | video-games_xbox |
One of the best open world games EVER...with tons of playability. Huge fun. Literally a masterpiece. I love this game. It is incredibly well done. There is so much to keep you busy...I have spent more than 30 hours playing and have only dented what can be done.
What I want to emphasize is that this is more than a driving game. Granted the driving is beautifully done, the cars look amazing, and the difficulty and tuning options offer a literally limitless replayability. But Forza is also a hide and seek game with hundreds of things to find including nearly 500 different roads, 16 secret car finds (as of now), and the option to seek out unlimited rivals all over the map. There is also an auction system that allows you to bid on and sell custom cars. Again, a really great feature.
Then there are hundreds of challenges including, speed traps, long jumps, drift zones and more. But one of the most innovative and appealing features is the blue print challenge which allows you to select any car and choose from several types of challenges, set the bar, and the challenge the world. It is such a neat idea. You can take a Lamborghini and jump it off a cliff or take a 3 wheeled cart and challenge your friends to a speed challenge.
The online play is huge fun. You can run challenge races against your friends, try to match their challenges, or join their team and try to co-op you way around Australia. It is extremely fun and easy to join and host.
I finally, after nearly 2 complete days of playing, took the game out of the Xbox. Not because I am tired of it in any way, but because I want to save some challenges and races for the winter months. And the DLC, adding dozens of routes and dozens of cars makes me put this gem in my back pocket for a later day. But I will never let go of this game. It will be fun forever.
One thing to note is the car DLC that is present from minute one. There are many great cars that require a dollar or two to open. I hate this because even in the auctions, if you bid on a car, you have to have already downloaded that car...which costs real money. That being said, there are more than 400 cars included without additional cost. So there is plenty of fun to be had
This is an excellent game. One of the best, more involved, and overall fun games I have played in awhile. For me, this is a game that makes Xbox worth owning all by itself. | video-games_xbox |
better gameplay, better scoring, better mikes than singstar. What can I say, I loved me some singstar back in the day. But having played with LIPS extensively, I feel it is really hard to go back to my PS2 (I can't afford a PS3). The tough part is that LIPS adds on top of Singstar's gameplay with a star-mode like in Guitar Hero. It is unlocked by singing well and by your physical performance with one of the two motion sensitive wireless microphones that LIPS provides. Once you get used to having it, singing with Singstar just feels weird to me somehow as if something is missing.
The scoring mechanic in LIPS has been discussed in reviews and while some liked it other critics described it as "too easy". In my testing of the game, I can state an opinion that LIPS scoring system is hands down superior to Singstar's. One it doesn't ask the player to choose between 3 levels of difficulty. It doesn't have to. It has a single mode that is robust enough to accomodate poor singers and karaoke experts alike. And no matter what you don't "fail" out of the song and regardless every singer ends up with a score that makes you feel good. Who knew that "Solar System" is kind of a mediocre score? It sounds like you are a superstar. As far as I have figured out "Infinity" is the highest score you can get. One reviewer who said the game was too easy mistakenly reported that "Big Bang" was the highest score - which goes to show you someone didn't bother to do their job. :)
The mikes feel great, have weird funky multi-colored lights so you don't misplace them at parties. The women especially seem to gravitate to this feature. And it is Xbox so you know a ton more downloadable content is sure to come (including Christmas songs in December!).
One quick mention of the mini-games. LIPS comes with 3 fun mini-games which you can play instead of singing to the original music video. They are Kiss, Timebomb, and Vocal Fighters. Kiss is so cool and weird - it is set up as some kind of compatibility test where both singers have to earn a gesture on screen and perform the gesture with their microphones at the same time to make their avatars kiss else the scene ends with a hilarious slap. Timebomb is pretty self-explanatory, a bomb has a lighted fuse and you and your partner can save yourselves only by singing well and repeatedly putting out the fuse by tilting the mike - pretty fun. Vocal Fighters is where whoever is scoring the best while singing gets their avatar to ham it up in front of a virtual crowd while the audience throws rotten food at the loser.
The game seems to lack leaderboards currently and it is kind of mysterious why there is no true online simultaneous play (just asynchronous challenges which are better than nothing) but I kind of figure this will get added to LIPS over time.
Long review but hopefully useful to you - if you like to sing and your looking for a dedicated singing party game you really cannot do better than LIPS. Singstar was the only game in town for a while but now I look at that as a game I probably won't be going back to very often. | video-games_xbox |
good shooter, but needs Alot of work, even more since the updates. Due to recent updates I have lowered my rating from 3 too 2
Every 10 games or so the game will do an entire reset, you loose all cards used, and is annoying to say the least.
They really need to fix their servers!
You get dropped more than you seem to play!
Boo Titanfall!
I'm sure everyone has seen the hype on this and the "selected footage" but there is a lot of work still needed. You can't compare this to black ops, since that is far better as far as player control, and game play.
So here are my pros and cons to this game
Pro
YOUR A ROBOT how cool!
good choice of weapons
you level up fast to unlock weapons, perks, and burn cards
Cons
Long load times for games and you need at least 4 people (revised now 2 on each team) on each team to play campaign games
If someone leaves the timer will reset to 90 seconds once there are enough people to play (I have waited up to 5 min for a game)
it is only online so there is no single player game
Only one person can play (no duel screen)
too many bot players in the game
The camo perk is worthless and can be easily seen and seem to die more with camo on than off
Too many players take snipe positions and make the game less fun
You cant put grenades on titans once you "rodeo" them
You can shoot another player with a full clip and you seem to die after 2 shots
You don't know you killed someone since there is a lag on the death and you shoot another 20 shots after they are dead you need to look at the score notice
The game resets often
You get bumped from 2 out of 6 games while playing, Says "Reconnecting to server" and you NEVER rejoin, this is the biggest pet peeve (My Ping is 42 and my friends is 16 we seem to get bumped a lot)
You always seem to die within seconds of using a burn card, is there a bulls eye over a players head?
The Campaign is really just multi player games with a vague story line
It is a nice start and I hope that the 2nd is a lot better and make it a 1 player game as well, since once it looses popularity there will be no one to play online, being an online only game.
There have been updates and the game is better, but there is still a lot of work to be done.
If you have ever seen Futurama this game is like Slurm, you know it is nasty, but you still play it and are hooked. | video-games_xbox |
Excellent value for the bundle. Well, a week or so before Halo: Reach came out, my 360 decided it would be a great time to start freezing up for no reason, and I wasn't going to pay to get it fixed when I got a replacement refurbished console just 9 months ago (finally got RROD'd but fell under the seemingly unlimited extended warranty for the 3 flashing lights). So I decided to go ahead and get the Halo: Reach bundle as a replacement. I fixed the old console anyway (unsurprisingly, the shoddy X-Clamps were the culprit), but figured it would be a nice upgrade to have regardless since my old one is the original model.
The bundle is pretty nice for the $400 price tag. You get two controllers, a copy of Reach (with some extras thrown in for good measure) and of course, the console itself. Being an owner of an original Xbox 360, it's easy to notice the advantages the 360 S has over the old model. The biggest improvement is ventilation; you'll notice a lot of hot air coming out of the console and might worry it's overheating as a result, but it's actually doing a better job of pushing more air out (unlike the old console, which had terrible overheating problems). I haven't cracked open the console itself to see what they changed on the inside since I just got it and don't feel like voiding my brand new warranty (here's to hoping they got rid of the horribly cheap X-Clamps in the old model and replaced them with actual screws this time) but overall it seems like it does a much better job of dissipating heat so it seems like everything inside should work fine. There's numerous other improvements as well; built in Wireless N (which works great and takes almost no time to set up), touch sensitive buttons (which make cool Halo noises when used), and a sleeker, more angular design than the original 360 model. Oh, and one of the best parts of the new design? The console no longer sounds like a freight train! I wouldn't say it's "whisper quiet" like it's advertised as, but it is definitely quieter. The disc drive no longer makes your console sound like your Xbox is blasting off into space when in use. And if you install your games (which you should, with 250g of space to spare) it's even quieter. It still makes some noise, but at least it doesn't sound like your Xbox is trying to calculate the true value of Pi anymore. As for the design of the console, the console in this package is Halo-themed; it's silver and has the ONI logo on it and is labeled as an "Archive Reader." The Silver finish is great looking, so it will fit in well with the rest of your electronics so you won't have to be embarrassed to have it in your entertainment center.
The two wireless controllers are also themed in a similar fashion to the console (again, a nice silver finish with black used for the shoulder buttons and the bottom part). Everything else about the controllers is the same, they just look cooler.
The new Xbox also comes with a smaller power brick (albeit, there still is one). No, it isn't Reach themed (that would be sort of weird anyway) but it's smaller and the console itself uses less power overall.
There are a few disappointments with the system (specifically related to all Xbox 360S'es, not the Halo: Reach one in particular since they're the same anyway). There's no memory card slot, so if you overpaid for one of those years ago (like I did) so you could carry your profile to your friend's house, well, you can basically throw it out since now you'll have to use USB drives. Also, the package doesn't come with an HDMI cable or a component HD AV cable, even though they had no issues packing one in with the Pro models almost 5 years ago. Guess Microsoft is trying to squeeze a few extra dollars out of purchasers. I had a spare HDMI cable anyway, so it didn't matter to me, but make sure you get some sort of HD capable cable if you buy this bundle and have an HDTV because otherwise you're stuck with standard def (and don't go and buy MS's overpriced cables, you can get an HDMI cable that's just as good for way less here on Amazon).
I won't review Halo: Reach in depth here since there's already a ton of reviews about the game, but it is a potential Game of the Year candidate. It can definitely keep you entertained until the next generation of consoles, and probably even longer (after all, Halo 2 was more popular than any Xbox 360 game till Gears of War came out about a year later). It's worth buying a 360 for in my opinion, or more specifically, this bundle.
In addition to Halo: Reach, you get some extras as well. You get a code for a Recon helmet variant (normally in any pre-order or launch day copy), a code for the Elite Officer armor permutation (Limited/Legendary edition normally), a Falcon for your Avatar (better than nothing I guess, although if you really like Avatars, I guess it's cool) and an episode of Halo: Legends. Some nice extras that certainly aren't going to make or break the package, but are nice extras nonetheless.
Overall, you get a great value here. If you don't own a 360 but are interested in getting one so you can play Reach, this bundle is excellent and sports some cool looking controllers and a sexy console. If you're looking to upgrade and have the cash to spare, it's also worth the price (can always sell any extra stuff you don't need anyway). Aside from a few complaints about the console (complaints which apply to all 360 S consoles, not just the Reach one) the package is excellent. | video-games_xbox |
Still playing it even though I beat it days ago. Just finished this three days ago and I got to say that I loved it! I enjoyed it so much that I actually want to try and get all of the achievements, which is going to take me forever. The battles are so much fun. You only have to characters to fight with through the whole game, Serah and Noel. Serah has the ability to summon monsters that she kills so that will give you another party member to fight with. Ciaus is one of the best villains I've seen in a video game in a long time (behind Sephiroth and the Joker of course). He's one of very few villains that I truly felt sorry for. I loved learning about his past and how he became what he is now.
The main theme of Final Fantasy XIII-2 is Time Travel. This was at little over my head at first because I'm not use to playing games with it. "If you change the future, you change the past" is said quite a bit in this game. The ending also ends with a very big cliffhanger saying "to be continued..." at the end. Not sure if this is hinting at another game or if the ending will be extended with DLC. Not really sure yet. There are several more endings called paradox endings that you can get after you bet the game but they don't really answer your questions you may have, they just and more.
Final Fantasy XIII-2 retains the Synergy Battle and Paradigm Shift systems from it's predecessor and the battle system is a more evolved form of Final Fantasy XIII's battle system. One new gameplay element, called the Mog Clock, has been added, where the player must attack monsters on the field before the time is up to get the upper hand in the battle.
Another new feature is the Paradigm Tune, which enables you to customize how the AI-controlled party members use their abilities in battle. You have control of the Party Leader in battle, which can be switched to the other human player at anytime. When the Party Leader dies, the other human player will become the new Party Leader. If both die then you get a Game Over. This is a great improvement over Final Fantasy XIII. If your Party Leader died in that game you automatically got a Game Over no matter how many characters you still had alive.
Characters grow via a revamped Crystarium System, and they have levels unlike the previous game. There is no cap for how many levels a character can gain at any given time. Final Fantasy XIII-2 also has difficulty levels, Normal and Easy, that can be changed at anytime. | video-games_xbox |
Next Generation polish, Dated Gameplay. Having just beaten the single-player portion of GTA IV, I am having a hard time sorting out my feelings for the game. On one hand, it's a blast to play, and you can easily lose 30-60 hours of your life to the streets of liberty city. On the other hand, there really isn't anything here that you haven't seen before.
PROS: Terrific graphics, awesome "sandbox" (I'm starting to hate that term) gameplay, the most realistic city ever rendered. Tons of game content, great voice acting and production values, tons of cool music to listen to, and the deepest and most mature GTA game yet.
CONS: Underneath the next-gen looks... it's the same game. The control, which had supposedly been revamped, still stinks. You spend tons of time battling the camera (especially in close-quarters combat and when driving). The new aiming system works pretty well, though it's not foolproof. The biggest problem I had, however, was the canned, cliched and repetitive mission formats. Virtually all of the missions follow one of three structures: 1)Nikko must kill someone. Drive to where they are, shoot them. 2)Nikko must chase someone, THEN kill them. Get in your car, get really frustrated at the unrealistic physics, kill the target. 3)Nikko must recover drugs/guns/etc from bad guy. The chase scenes are particularly annoying, as run-of-the-mill cars will suddenly outrun your high-end sports car. The new car physics model is a case of overcompensation- in trying to make it less arcady, the developers have made it unrealistically floaty.
The interpersonal relationships is another gimmick (much like altering your body type in San Andreas) which gets old really quick. There are no properties to buy, meaning you can expect to do a lot of driving between safehouses the game gives you. There are no checkpoints, meaning that many longer missions will have you throwing the controller at the wall when you fail and have to repeat them from the very beginning (though Roman's taxi service does help a bit).
Conclusion: I still had a lot of fun with this GTA, but it also became readily apparent how the core gameplay has NOT evolved since GTA III. Rockstar adds little tweaks, which is great, but the missions feel like deja vu. Why is it so hard to make a character control scheme that doesn't have the character feel like he's on rails? | video-games_xbox |
Quantum Break is definitely a reason I bought an Xbox One. Quantum Break is definitely a reason I bought an Xbox One.
To get it out of the way, Quantum Break is based of time, more specifically Chronon. Chronon are the particles that make 'time'. In a nutshell you take control of Jack Joyce and after a series of events in the opening portion of the game, begin to fight this entity known as Monarch, a super secret corporation with lots of interesting shady back story to read about. The end of time is coming and they seem to have an agenda, Jack finds himself on the opposing end as his friend Paul goes from ally to enemy in a flash.
First thing I noticed when I took control of Jack is it definitely looked like a Remedy game. The graphics were excellent and the settings were interesting and dark. The opening level of the game also had a bunch of stuff to read and look at. When you meet Jacks best friend Paul and they begin reminiscing of their past together laughing and prodding at one another, you really felt like they knew each other. The acting talent and writing in this game is exceptional, having Sam Ashmore(Main Character Jack), Aidan Gillen as Paul(bad guy?) and Dominic Monaghan as Will(Jacks brother) has a huge affect on this games cinematic impact.
Another thing that blew me away is even as the characters are walking and talking, their faces were all motion captured even for simple dialogue between characters. When it comes to the cut scenes, the motion capture, vocal delivery and graphics can confuse you into thinking you're watching a live action show, Yes it looks that good!
So how does the game play, some reviewers disliked the movement and cover system, but for me it was not a problem. Jack is not a professional soldier and what really gives him a leg up is his awesome time powers. Though the gun play to me isn't bad, freezing enemies and flashing around the battle field is the star of the fighting. Your time powers are upgradable and once you really start to get a hang of the time powers, you feel like a beast rampaging around the battle field. Another great thing is that there are things littered all over the place to blow up and otherwise cause destruction. The weapon choice is nice, you have your choice of several pistols, heavy weapons(shotguns or light machine guns) and assault rifles, all shoot differently and handle differently and I enjoyed the shooting aspect of this game.
When it comes to your time powers, the detail put into how the enemies and environment react to your time powers are also pretty fun to play with. I once shot a fire barrel and right before it exploded next to an enemy, used my freezing power(or super slow mo) and watched in slow motion as the explosion erupted from the barrel and the enemy was taken off his feet before the bubble disappeared and he flew off the cat walk at standard speed.
The big star of the game is time and it is as much your enemy as any of the humans raising guns at you. As time has fractured in this game, you spend quiet some time roaming in broken 'stuttering' time fragments. Not only are graphical and design choices in these segments awesome to look at and watch, some of the stuff happening in the environment is crazy to see. You will find yourself doing some light platforming around frozen environments and using your time powers to navigate.
This game is also richly built up in lore. It's staggering at the amount of history they created between characters and events. There is a part with Paul near the end of the game that is pretty incredible to look over as well. This is where one of my only gripes come in with this game. Yes the backstory is awesome, but I chose staggering for a reason. It is of course optional, but if you want to really understand everything that is happening, reading computer logs becomes as frequent as pulling a trigger. Most of the stuff you read is interesting, but can be impressively long. I felt almost half my time in game was reading computer logs. Again it's all interesting, but it can really break up the flow of the game. I feel it was a lost opportunity to get these great actors and characters to at least do a lot of audio logs. Alas it is mostly text. The only other thing in this game that aggravates me is that when you have to do light platforming Jack moves fine, however trying to jump stuff that maybe he isn't supposed to jump, it comes off as a bit clumsy.
The second half of the game is the live action episodes. I really enjoyed these, as with the in game cut scenes, the acting in these segments are, I thought, excellent. I enjoyed the production. The live action episodes give you a chance to see what is happening on the other side of things, showing Monarch personnel and events happening during the game. I always enjoyed watching each episode and almost wished there was more of it. That leads me to a very good point, the game is so interesting, story so deep it leaves you wishing the adventure wasn't over and that you could deeper explore this universe. Though it took me 18 hours to finish the game(I read a lot of the logs in my first play through) I still felt like there was so much here to uncover and explore that it honestly left me wanting more. The games ending is pretty good. Hopefully with news that it is doing well on the sale side, we'll see more Quantum Break in the near future.
My final thoughts are; Quantum Break is an excellent blend of terrific story telling, wonderful acting and fun game play. The way the actors gel together and Remedy's meticulous motion capture really bring these characters to life. As an Xbox One exclusive, it looks and sounds fantastic and I would recommend anyone who enjoys a fun game with deep story to pick this up. Support Remedy and if we're lucky we'll get a Quantum Break 2 and Alan Wake 2 in the future. | video-games_xbox |
Enjoyable but not without problems. I spent a solid few hours playing this game and enjoyed every second of it. When I read the various reviews for it, I couldn't quite understand all the hate it was receiving. It seemed like people were judging it more for what they wanted it to be than what it was.
The story borrows liberally from the actual myth of Jason and the quest for the Golden Fleece and throws in a rather who's who of Greek mythology. It threw me off at first but I went with it, because I honestly felt that knowing what each twist and turn held in store by following the original source material verbatim would have been boring. I rather enjoyed having some of the big names from mythology on my side, rather than adhering strictly to the (incredibly long) list of actual argonauts. I'll take Achilles and Pan over Talaus and Zetes pretty much any day of the week. It made things feel a bit more epic, if slightly deviating from what the title might suggest.
The combat was by no means inadequate, it just wasn't anything particularly groundbreaking. Hack and slash from the moment you pull your weapon to the moment you put it away. I felt it was very reminiscent of the game Jade Empire in that you had multiple ways of approaching an opponent, some more effective on a given opponent than others, and ways to evade what they threw at you. Simple and effective, but by no means innovative.
The voice acting was suspect at times, particularly among the civilian extras. It didn't detract from the overall story though, and I think the story was actually very intriguing once you put aside the fact this wasn't the tale of the Golden Fleece you were immediately familiar with. I found some of it formulaic, but other bits did actually give me moments of surprise.
For those who felt there was far too much dialog, I can see your point to a limited degree but it IS a role playing game after all, what exactly did you expect? If all you want is to butcher things in a pseudo Greek mythological world with the occasional bit of story added in, the God of War series is that way -->.
Also to those of you who want to negatively hold this up to Mass Effect (one of my own personal favorite games of all time), I'd say you need to take a closer look at what Mass Effect really did that was incredibly innovative. And to that I would say: Not much. Mass Effect just did it better than others had before it. If you want to call quality "innovative", then that says more about the state of gaming than anything else.
To run the list:
1) Neither game had a particularly awesome combat setup. FPS was hardly something ME did first, nor best. Just like hack and slash melee wasn't a new trick RotA was attempting. Don't tell me that pointing targeting reticule at target was in anyway different than the other FPS games that came before. The biotics with the guns was no different than using a blaster and Force powers in Jedi Academy.
2) The visuals in both were less than stellar. ME made up for ridiculous looking humans with more well-done aliens, but I also though that Pan was particularly well done in RotA. Backgrounds and such I'll give the nod to Mass Effect.
3) As far as story, ME's was very enjoyable and I think THIS particular area was where RotA showed its flaws. Very little of what you say has any major impact in the outcome of the story. You can periodically choose to kill or not kill someone, to take or not take an item, but at the end of the day the destination remains the same whether you chose all Ares answers or all Apollo answers, and I think it could have been a lot better with more open choices, rather than 4 ways of saying the same thing to achieve the same outcome. ME beats it here, but I also thought the Knights of the Old Republic game did this better than even ME unfortunately. Both had lengthy dialog parts, the difference is that ME was (if you did the optional quests) just plain a longer game, so the talking seems more broken up.
I did like the fact that you had to actually remember (or properly guess) things said to you in order to make some of the dialog scenes go more smoothly. (The debate of the Golden Fleece, specifically) It gave everything a bit more cerebral tone than just having the right and wrong answers colored in blue and red. Gave you reason to pay attention to the dialog anyway.
Rise of the Argonauts is more like Jade Empire than it is Mass Effect. If you enjoyed Jade Empire, give this a look. You'll find a lot of it very familiar and it's a good way to kill a few evenings of casual play or 1-2 days at most of power-gaming through it.
Despite its faults, I found it to be an enjoyable game to sit through and it gave a unique new spin to material that had been beaten into the ground repeatedly by books, films and other games. A fun twist on classical material. | video-games_xbox |
Solid 4.7 Star Rating! Excellent Value. Solid 4.7 stars on these headphones! I purchased these directly from Turtle Beach and have now used them for 3 days and I love them!
I preordered from Amazon but on release day they said out of stock so I canceled and ordered from turtle beach with their 10% discount which was awesome!
Quality: These headphones feel very solid compared to other models of Turtle Beach Headsets. They are not super light and they are not heavy by any means either which makes them feel like good quality. Time will tell how long the build will last.
Functionality: Very ease to set up and use! Like many others said, simply plug in the USB directly into the Xbox One and then you are done! Mine came paired out of the box with a full charge so set up took less than 3 minutes. All the function buttons and dials are on the right ear cup which makes it very easy to use. The left ear cup just has the mic input. The headset itself is adjustable and for me is just the right size. The button on the right ear cup on the outside is the power on/off button and glows a steady green when powered on and glows a solid red when charging. The instructions state that when headphones are fully charged the red LED will turn to green, however my LED goes from red to off when charged.
Battery: For the past three days, each day the headset has been fully charged and I used the headphones for an average of 7-9 hours and there was no warning of low battery so the 15 hour mark they claim is still to be determined. Charging doesn't take very long at all, however I am unsure exactly how long a charge will take from a completely drained battery at this time. Charging is very simple, simply use the USB charge cable!
Comfort: These are surprisingly quite comfortable given they chose to use a synthetic like leather for the ear pads. For the 7-9 continuous hours I used them, I only had to reposition the headset a couple times. My ears did get a little warm but not sweaty. The headset does expand to fit many sized heads so fit should not be much a problem.
Mic: These headphones come with a high sensitivity mic that picks up your voice very well. One downfall for the mic is that it can not be swiveled up to either mute the mic or just get it out of your way. Sound quality is very good from what other people told me in party chat. Be careful tho, heavy breathing shows up easily with this mic. My advise is to keep the mic below your mouth near your chin and it will work perfect.
Features: This headset has 4 preset modes: Natural, Vocal, Bass Boost and Bass + Treble Boost. For me personally I only use the Bass + Treble Boost for all things on Xbox One from playing all different games, Netflix, music, tv etc. I tried all the other presets and for me the Bass + Treble Boost sounded the best. There is a separate main volume wheel and a separate chat volume wheel which makes getting the right volume set up a breeze. The mute button works as it should on/off for chat. Whenever you power on/off the headset, change modes or mute/unmute the mic, a very nice convincing lady tells you through the headset what you are doing, this is a very nice feature to have. The wire that connects your headset to your phone I have not used yet so I cannot comment on that yet.
Volume Level: The volume goes plenty loud enough playing games. For movies, it seems to go loud enough on most movies I watched. For music (using Xbox Music) the volume was ok for older songs, but went plenty loud for newer music. The headphones did not distort at anytime even at full volume on Bass + Treble Mode.
Sound Quality: Now this can be debated by many so I will give just my honest opinion. I went through many other headsets for instance: Astro A50's, Turtle Beach 500x, Sennheiser Game Zero with Mixamp, Turtle Beach 500xp and some others. These 420x headphones came in second out of all the others I tried as far as sound quality goes. The Sennheiser Game Zero's were number one but I just couldn't deal with all the wires! The sound quality on these 420x headphones are VERY good in my opinion.
Wireless Connection: For the 3 days I have used these so far, only once has the headphones disconnected. I went into my garage with the headphones on and they disconnected. The headphones still played but no functions would work like the volume or modes. I simply had to just turn them off and then back on to reconnect. It is great not having any wires whatsoever when playing! These are truly 100% wireless!
Price: For around $160.00 including tax, these are well worth the money so far. I can not think of any other headset in this price range that has the features and sound quality of these headphones.
So there is my review of these headphones so far! Are there any improvements to make this headset even better? Of course there is! But this is a great starting point that they should build on for future wireless headsets for the Xbox One. The one thing I like the most about this headset is the fact that it is so easy to use and not having to go through 20 different modes and presets for each thing I choose to do on the Xbox One. I will list the Pros, Nit Picks and Cons of this headset now!
PROS: Great Price!
Comfortable
Sound Quality is Very Good
Easy to Use and Connect!
Mic Sounds Very Good
Mic Feedback through Headset
Built in Battery
Nit Picks: Mic is Very Sensitive (I prefer the foam end mics)
No stand for headset
The mute button is slightly awkward to use since the mute button is located on the front part of the right ear cup
Charging cable needs to be longer
No Bluetooth (to be expected on a lower priced headset)
CONS: Mic does not swivel up and away from your face (you can simply unplug the mic but I don't like to keep on doing that)
No customized hub yet for sound tweaking (not sure if turtle beach will have this available)
Hope this review helps! Any questions? Please feel free to ask in the comments! All feedback is welcome! Please remember this is my opinion so far of these headphones. Time will tell the whole story! | video-games_xbox |
Do you like star wars? do you like rpgs? if so you need this game. Star wars Knights of the old republic or Star Wars KOTOR is a game that was released during the time of when the best star wars games were ever released (among a few stinkers). You had battlefront 1-2, the jedi knight games, and republic commando. However this game is the greatest of them all and it came out on the original Xbox and PC/Mac. The good part is if you own a xbox 360 and is a backwards compatible version this game will work in your 360 it looks a little stretched out if you play on full screen but it is definitely playable.
Threw out the years I never really was to big on Rpgs its not that I didn't like them I just never had the time or patience to really sit down and play them all that much. With the exception of this, any other bioware game and Final Fantasy IV-X. However I was a huge star wars fan growing up (original and prequel trilogy included) I had to pick this up. I won't go into to much details about the story, for those that haven't played it but it is single handily the best story in a video game and in my opinion rivals the movies. Bioware did a excellent job with this and is probably the closest were ever gonna get to a star wars movie without a skywalker or a solo in it.
The game has different modes for difficultly if your like me and don't play to many RPGs or just playing for the story theirs the standard mode and a hard mode. The hard mode is pretty much for a hardcore RPG player and it can be very challenging. All together it should take about anywhere between 25-40 hours to complete the game depending on how many side quests and how you play. The combat system in the game is good for a rpg it does get a little repetitive after awhile but there are plenty of puzzles to shake things up every now and agian. So if you don't like puzzles you will be spending a lot of time reading/watching walkthroughs.
As for the graphics it hasn't really aged all that well but there still good for its time. However graphics are not whats really important about this game anyway. The soundtrack is done right as well. While it may not be John Williams score the guy that made the music should be noted for making a great soundtrack. In fact of John Williams is ever not available to make music for the movies then the should hire this guy. It doesn't try to mimic John Williams this guy kinda does his own thing and it paid off. I do believe there are a few moments with the classic soundtrack as well here and there.
Anyway if you own a xbox, backwards compatible 360, or windows xp and you like star wars and I believe RPG fans themselves will have a great time with this game. Then you all should defiantly pick this game up along with its sequel (which isn't quite as good but still enjoyable) which the pc version is available in a bundle with both games. | video-games_xbox |
Incredible effort from 343. When it was announce that Bungie was leaving the Halo franchise in the hands of newcomer 343, some were worried about Halo's future. I, for one, wasn't really that hyped for Halo 4, and wasn't awaiting it's release with any real anticipation. Now that it's out, however, I've had a chance to get my hands on the game, and I can honestly say it's an amazing first effort from 343, and one of the best games of 2012.
GAMEPLAY
In my mind (and I hope the minds of many Halo fans) what makes Halo so great is the solid gameplay. When I think of Halo, I think of precise, responsive controls. It's been this way since Halo 1, and Halo 4 is no exception. The first thing I noticed about Halo 4 was that it "felt" like a Halo game. Movement, jumping, aiming, shooting and driving all feel perfect.
Like previous Halo games, Halo 4's campaign has a good amount of variety to keep the shooting from getting stale. The weapons, enemies, and armor abilities all keep the game interesting, and just when it feels like the shooting is about to get monotonous, the game will throw a driving section to change it up.
The Covenant return for Halo 4, and they act just like in previous games. Their presence keeps Halo 4 "feeling" like a Halo game, but to keep it from feeling old, Halo 4 also introduces a new enemy, the Prometheans. They act different than the Covenant, and will require you to change your battlefield tactics. They are a very welcome addition and prevent Halo 4 from feeling like a rehash of the same old game.
GRAPHICS
Halo 4 looks great. Some have said it's the best looking Xbox 360 game yet, but I don't know if I'd agree with that. I will say it is the best looking Halo game yet, and certainly stands among the top tier of 360 games. Geometry is higher than ever, textures looks crisp (with some super rare exceptions), and the lighting is better than ever. They've added lens flare and bloom lighting (which I'm sure some gamers will complain about) and a whole bunch of new effect that make the game look more real than ever. The animation (especially for faces) is also more detailed than ever and is really impressive.
The look of the game has been tweaked somewhat. The UNSC ships and uniforms have been redesigned and look a little less military and a little more sci-fi. The Covenant troops and ships have been redesigned as well, and it's a bit odd at first. It doesn't hurt the game in any way, but for those long time fans (such as myself) who are used to the look of previous Halo games, it takes some getting used to. The new Promethean enemies and architecture look great and are very well designed, and fit well into the Halo universe. Overall, I like the aesthetic changes to Halo 4, as it helps the new game (and the new studio) distinguish itself.
SOUND
The music for Halo 4 is a big departure from the previous games. It's great music, but it's quite different. The music is still orchestral, but the Halo theme music we've all grown to love is absent. The new music works well with the new game, but so far it hasn't been memorable like the soundtrack for Halo 3.
Sound effects have also been completely re-done. The new sound effects are great, they have a very full sound to them and every weapon and blast sounds devastating. Enemies sound ferocious and intimidating, and vehicles sound powerful. Although everything sounds different, it still sounds appropriate and works well in the new game.
STORY
Halo 4's campaign has a good story. Some have hailed it as the best Halo story yet, but I wouldn't agree with that. The story (like the previous games) often feels like Cortana telling you to go here and there, and you follow waypoints until another cutscene plays. Most cutscenes consist of characters telling you they're under attack and then you have to go kill things. Toward the end more important story points are revealed, but for the majority of the game it's pretty basic. It's not bad, just nothing really complex or intriguing.
MULTIPLAYER
Halo 4 has changed multiplayer in several ways, most notably the new perks system. You can tell it was inspired by Call of Duty, but fortunately it doesn't feel out of place. The thing that makes Halo different from CoD is the pacing. CoD is frantic and chaotic, but Halo has a tactical feel. What weapons you choose and what armor abilities you use are will have a big impact on how you play, and taking into account your shields and your enemies' shields is key. I'm not a huge fan of multiplayer (in Halo or any game), but I've played enough of it to know that Halo 4 does not feel like CoD as some reviewers on here have claimed. Halo 4's multiplayer still feels like a Halo game through and through.
CLOSING
Halo 4 has changed in a lot of ways. The enemies are different, the aesthetics have been re-designed, and the music has a different vibe. But Halo 4 keep intact the areas that matter most: The gameplay and the feel. As a longtime fan of Halo who was getting burnt out on Halo games after Reach, I am impressed with the way 343 has breathed new life into the franchise. And most importantly, the whole time I was playing I was having a great time. | video-games_xbox |
A game with flaws, but one of a kind. To be fair, this game has flaws, lots of them. The combat is bad, especially at first when you don't have enough XP to level up your gun accuracy. The graphics are strange, being really high resolution, yet primitive at the same time. Many cant overlook these problems... but here's the kicker
This game is amazing. The story starts off interestingly enough, but it keeps getting better and better. Your main character is a spy, never before has your dialogue choices felt soooo meaningful. This game puts Bioware games to shame in regards to dialogue and there consequences of your actions. Friends can become enemies, enemies friends! You can talk people into betraying the main bad guy, you can JOIN the main bad guy. Making someone like you, is NOT always the best option, sometimes you might want someone to hate you, to have a personal vendetta against you so he fights you to his last, allowing you to kill him, otherwise he'll run away.
The RPG aspect is also very cool, leveling up hand to hand, stealth, guns, gadgets and technical skills, mechanical skills, and 3 different types of armor you can buy and upgrade giving you 3 unique play style options. You can make your guy super sneaky, give him the top tier sneak armor and level up hand to hand and make him play like... Bat Man, punching and choking people out. OR say eff it, and grab heavy armor, going in loud and proud, only changing your assault strategy to beating them senseless when you want to avoid casualties (my favorite way to play)
Which brings up ANOTHER issue... the game takes note of who you kill and DONT kill. If you do a mission racking up bodies, make sure you want to be seen as an opperative that kills those types of people. Are they Islamic extremists literally no one in the game would care about? Are they a rogue intelligence operation who you actually want to get on your side? Mercenaries? Russian thugs? A BOSS character who would return several times in the story even be called upon to save your ass at times? Chose wisely who to kill and who to spare, because the game takes note. | video-games_xbox |
Zombies...I Love Zombies. I'll be honest. If I were a game reviewer professionally I couldn't give this game very high marks. There are a lot of things wrong with this title that would be unforgivable in the "true reviewer's" eyes. That being said, this is still a really cool game.
You're either a Romero fan or you're not. I love zombie films, zombie games, zombie dolls, and zombie brains. I think it's safe to say that I love zombies. Romero is the Zombie King, bar none. Road to Fiddler's Green lets me be the zombie killer. I love that. I get to live in Romero's dark and twisted world for a while. There aren't a ton of weapons and ammo. You fight with what you can find. The zombies are creepy and it's fun to blow their heads off. The game is plenty challenging and will keep you entertained for quite some time. These are some of the good things. Unfortunately, I'm forced to talk about some of the bad things because you should know about them before you buy this game.
The targeting system is laughable. God, it's terrible. There is one level that this is so frustrating it made me want to put the game down. The accuracy is really wrong. There were times that I fired and knew I missed but the Zombie's head blew apart. There were other times that I would be trying to get a clean shot and the reticule would go really slow and then jump across the screen. It got to the point of stupidity at times that you needed accuracy and speed.
The gameplay is very linear. You can't go the wrong way. For some people this is not a problem but I would have liked some free-roam within the levels. There are times that you'll get a little confused and turned around but you'll recover quickly. The levels are not complicated you should be able to navigate them quickly. It's the zombies that will slow you down.
Over-all this is a good game because it lets you play in the world that Romero created. I'm a Romero fan so this is a great title for me. This isn't a game for children, it's gory, violent, and depraived but that's what makes it great. If you love Romero's work then you'll enjoy this game for what it is. | video-games_xbox |
Terrific Premise But Fails Where It Counts--Gameplay. Within minutes of starting Eat Lead you will learn that Matt Hazzard was a big celebrity back in the 80s where he starred in a string of very successful video games. Since then he has unfortunately plummeted off the charts (due to making a Mario Kart type game) and been out of work. Destined for a comeback he is commissioned by "Wally" Wellesley to star in a new, next-generation video game. But not all is as well as it seems--Wally really wants to destroy him.
Allow me to explain: When Wally was a kid he bested every video game he played except for one--Matt Hazzards. Taken as a whole it is actually an intriguing idea for a video game as it leads to an unusual take on breaking the 4th wall.
For instance kicking off the voluntary tutorial leads to Matt Hazzard exclaiming, "Great--an in-game tutorial. God I hate these things!" and "Yeah Yeah! I know how to shoot a damn gun!"
During the beginning of one particular level--in habitual third-person/first-person fashion--the objectives start to appear in the upper right-hand corner. As they pile on they begin to cover the protagonist making him exclaim "Ok! Ok! Can we summarize this or something?" This prompts the list to be consolidated to "Shoot stuff that moves".
It gets even more clever.
In one particular instance Matt Hazzard has to fight some of the enemies from his first game and they are literally 2-D sprites running around shooting at you. The real clever part is they purposefully become more difficult to hit by turning to their sides, thinning themselves.
But all this great material is simply overshadowed by the real issue--the gameplay. Though it replicates Gears of War in this regard, it fails to be engaging. The weapons have little-to-no kickback and lack any sort of originality. The AI is nonexistent and possibly inferior to the PB&J sandwich I had for lunch today. The quick-time events are slow and far too crude to be entertaining. The game is so unbalanced I completed 75% of a level using melee attacks that--when performed at the right moment--seemingly render you invincible.
It would be a bit trite for me to even mention to the readers of this blog that most video games expect you to slip into the boots of their protagonist. But in Eat Lead it's just too difficult to do because the games foundation is so weak. It leaves Matt Hazzard to be possibly the most apologetic video game character ever. He consistently looks back at you winking and nudging his way through the levels in hopes that he will distract you from the real issues at hand.
No More Heroes is a similar game in that it's self-aware (but to a much more mild extent). One of the glaring differences is the protagonist--Travis Touchdown. He is self-assured, hilarious and backed by an extremely robust gameplay model. In contrast I imagine Matt Hazzard would rather crawl out from the TV, sit next to you on the couch and entertain you with his knee-slapping humor. It ultimately makes for an awkward gaming experience that eventually falls prey to the same ridiculous paradigms it sets out to mocks.
[...] | video-games_xbox |
From now on, this is how you make a game. Bioshock Infinite is the game of the year, and the new benchmark for what games should be from this point on. I have beaten the game on Hard, and am just about done on 1999 mode, and the experience is even better the second time around. Let me say this though, while this game is incredible, game changing, and other positive twenty dollar words, it does have problems. These problems in no way stop it from being the best thing out there, but they are there.
You play as Booker Dewitt, an former soldier and ex Pinkerton. To pay off his gambling debts he has been told to "Bring us the girl, wipe away the debt". Unfortunately for Mr. Dewitt, "the girl" is in the floating city of Columbia, under lock and key. I won't be spoiling anything when I tell you that you do get the girl, Elizabeth, and she is one of the best video game character ever. She is everything a character should be: engaging, likeable, sympathetic, strong, and real. Of course getting to her was easy; the hard part will be getting her out.
Bioshock Infinite's story is jaw dropping. It is intelligent, touching, and absolutely heart breaking. it touches on everything from race, class, family, religion, and destiny, without ever being preachy. I won't dare ruin it for you, because now that this game exists it should become mandatory playing for anyone who is even thinking of taking up story telling in a video game. The ending is incredibly powerful, and in a first for me, actually enhances repeat playthroughs.
The visuals are gob-smacking for two reasons. Firstly, the game is absolutely gorgeous. I played it on the 360 and apparently the graphics are even better on PC, which I can hardly imagine. Secondly, the art design is breathtaking. Everything in this world is alive. Columbia is an amazing city, full of amazing architecture, that has a style all its own, instead of aping known design. I spent half the game gazing at the incredible detail that went into creating this world. From the posters to the people, everything is bursting with character.
The sound design is so amazing, I am actually mentioning the sound design. The music in Bioshock Infinite is perfect, and if you got the Ultimate Songbird Edition you will be able to enjoy it anytime thanks to the digital download. The music perfectly captures the feel of the 1912 setting, with some very cool surprise songs for those who explore.
The first Bioshock, while excellent, had very real gameplay issues. Switching between weapons and plasmids was an unnecessary complication, and the unnecessary animation attached to refilling said plasmids was a problem. Bioshock 2 fixed one of these problems by introducing dual wielding, and Bioshock Infinite takes it a step further by eliminating the superfluous "refill" animation, perfectly fixing what was broken, with the combat, from the first game.
Gameplay in Bioshock Infinite is fast, fluid, and fun. I have to say, I wish the weapons were a little more exciting, but the Vigors more than make up for the rather standard array of armaments. The vigors, Bioshock Infinite's equivalent to plasmids, are wonderfully designed and an absolute blast to use. "Bucking Bronco" lifts your foes off the ground, leaving them helpless to your next attack, while "Charge" is a wind powered tackle that can send even the heartiest enemy flying. Even better is the fact that you can combine the effects of certain vigors for even more spectacular effects.
Throughout the game you will come across containers that hold a random item of clothing, or "gear", that enhances Booker in some way. My personal favorites are "Storm" which allows you to chain the effects of your vigors, making the combos especially devastating, and "Urgent Care" which lowers the recharge time on your shield and hastens the charge time. For those that get the Songbird Edition, you will receive three exclusive pieces of gear: "Bull Rush" makes your melee attacks send your foes flying through the air and ideally right off the stage, "Extra Extra" gives you cash every time you pick up a voxaphone (Bioshock Infinite's version of audio diaries), and "Betrayer" which makes it so the possessed enemies you kill explode damaging those around them. If you purchase the season pass now, you will also receive extra gear, best of which, in my opinion, are the "Burning Halo" gear which grants your melee a 70% chance of lighting your opponent on fire, and "Ammo Advantage" which allows you to carry 75% more ammo in every one of your weapons clip.
Now for the less that perfect parts of the game. The enemy A.I. is, in a word, dumb. The majority of the time they will simply charge you with no concern for their safety. While this certainly makes using your various vigor combinations on them far more enjoyable, I would have preferred more of a challenge. Ironically enough, the other problem is that there a a couple of parts in the game where the difficulty spikes, needlessly. Well into the game, you will have to fight a boss, three separate times. Now, anyone who played through the first Bioshock knows that the final boss there was boring, and unnecessary. Unfortunately the boss in Bioshock Infinite raises the stakes by being equal parts unenjoyable and very frustrating, especially on the higher difficulties.
Had this been a single unenjoyable encounter, that would have been an annoyance, and nothing more. The problem lies in the fact that you have to face this boss three separate times, with each encounter becoming more difficult. I have beaten it on hard and 1999 mode, so my complaint isn't that it's too hard, but that it is unnecessary. That brings me right to my biggest problem with the game, which is the final conflict.
After the terrible sequence of boss fights, the game kicks into high gear, and delivers one of the most gut tearing, soul wrenching sequences I have ever experienced. The connection that you form with the characters makes the climb to the top of the tower excruciating, but amazing. After all is said and done, you have stormed the enemy fort, so to speak, and are victorious. All that is left is to get the answers that the game has been dangling in front of you like water to a man in the desert. Just as the answers you have been seeking for so long are just in reach, you are forced into a totally unnecessary conflict that has LITERALLY not story value. It happens, out of the blue, and feels very forced. To make it worse, said conflict is, like the boss fight, unnecessarily difficult and in no way enjoyable.
The first Bioshock had these same exact problems, so it makes no sense that they should be repeated here. The string of fights against that same boss, and the final conflict both break the flow of the narrative, and only serve to pad the gameplay. If you cut them out of the game, the experience would be stronger for it.
Now, for those who purchased the Ultimate Songbird Edition, the selling point was the Songbird Statue that comes with it. On that front, it is well worth it. The statue is beautifully crafted and comes in a well designed box the perfectly showcases it. The add on gear and avatar outfits are nice, the digital soundtrack is well worth it, though a certain song by a quartet in the game is conspicuously absent, the art book is nice, and all the other knick knacks are equally cool. Honestly, if you aren't interested in the statue, I would suggest just getting the regular version of the game.
As intensely as I dislike those conflicts, in the end, they are but two very small parts of an otherwise marvelous game. In no way do they change the fact that this is one of, if not the, best game I have ever had the pleasure of playing. Bioshock Infinite is the game of the year. It is a leap forward in gaming, and should serve as the blueprint for developers to follow going forward. It is proof that not only can games stand shoulder to shoulder with television, movies, and books but, when executed as masterfully as Bioshock Infinite, they can deliver an experience that no other genre could hope to replicate. I can't say enough wonderful things about Bioshock Infinite. It is a masterpiece and an absolute buy. | video-games_xbox |
Perfectly Balanced, Inredibly Fun, Room for Expansion but No Gambreaking Issues. Score: 9.5 based on fun, mobility, balance, scope, but lack of modes.
Titanfall is easily the most hyped-up game Ive ever picked up on day one. The awards at E3, the fantastic beta with accolades raining down from 95% of the sources, stories of how this game would decide the Xbox Ones fate. It was a maelstrom of blissful anticipation and angst. And it was doomed to fail. I mean, come on, hyped games always fall flat. Its simply the nature of the beast: you cant live up to marketing.
I am happy to say that in this case, for once, the hype storm has not wrecked the impression of the final product. Titanfall truly shines as a shooter, albeit one that builds on current ideas rather than innovates into the future. But before I get into the nitty-gritty details, one thing needs to be said: this game is unbelievably fun to play. No really, it is shocking. It has been a long while, back to Halo: Reach, since a FPS mechanics (rather than story or the thrill of unlocking things) made the game enjoyable, and that in and of itself is a huge feat in my book. If you enjoy multiplayer FPS and want to skip the read and grab the game, you probably won't be dissapointed. So, what makes this thing so fun?
1) Style/Graphics
I need to start by saying that I am no videophile. I cant tell the difference between upscaled 1080p and native 1080p, but I know many can. If it matters to you, be aware that Titanfall runs native at 792p. Yep: 792p. Theres a weird one that doesnt come up very often.
What I can attest to is that this game is beautiful. Like, my wife will actually sit and watch me play for more than 30 seconds beautiful. The maps are drab enough to look real, but there is definitely color enough to be found. The design of the maps is impeccable, and this flows over into how they look architecturally. I don't think any two maps are really similar at all. Each has unique structures and different styles.
The titans look awesome, and are different enough in their appearance so that you are able to recognize the specific type and morph your tactics based on what you are fighting. The detail on the pilot and grunt design is nice enough out of the match; in-game, its good enough to not be noticeably good or bad (I never had a chance to look closer than that without dying). Also, its nice Respawn used of the same color palette for the peeps and the world. While I wouldnt recommend camping, character models blend in rather nicely to the environment to the point where moving slowly and hiding becomes a viable tactic once in a while.
What makes this game really stand out graphically is the animations. Moving, wallrunning, mantling, aiming, and (I think everyones favorite) getting grabbed midair by a giant robot and placed gently into its gut, all come off with beautiful fluidity. Sometimes if you watch from a 3rd person perspective you notice some hiccups when a player works the system inelegantly (read: using the expanded parkour kit to do triple vertical wall jumps), but other than these oddities all the actions still seem very real. The best compliment I can give is that watching a titan battle is a brutal ballet rather than two robots quasi-floating over the ground. Yeah, the footwork is that good.
Lest I forget, I need to give a shout out to the water. I literally stopped dead still in a match when I jumped in a puddle and the stuff moved like, you know, water!
2) Story/Storytelling
I doubt Im going to have time to finish the campaign before I want to post this. That said, Ive heard that it is still total multiplayer with snippets of story.
3) Gameplay
If you expected Titanfall to be anything less than gameplay-centric, you were kidding yourself. Respawn didn't want to make the prettiest game, it didn't want to create a sweeping epic; it wanted to revolutionize the shooting genre. And Well, not quite. The final product is more of a perfect polishing of current ideas rather than a complete revolution, but as a revitalization Titanfall truly shines. If you want a rough take on the gameplay, think COD as a pilot, then Halo as a titan. That really doesnt do it justice, however. There are three things that really make gameplay stand out: mobility, balance, and size.
It is strange that many FPS often underemphasize mobility. Soldiers run daily for a reason, the cavalry was so important for a reason, the English navy wrested the seas from the Spanish for a reason: mobility is essential in combat. Titanfall grabs this idea and shoves it to the forefront. If you don't move in this game, you're dead. If you don't exercise discretion in how you move, you're dead (I sometimes wonder why I am running through an open field where a giant robots sits, waiting to shoot at me). If you don't embrace verticality, you're dead. Even the Ogre, the biggest and slowest titan, has a short lived speed boost and moves at a good clip normally. This newfound love of the battle of positioning is extremely refreshing. Fortunately, the maps do not have clear stand here and win locations, forcing you to constantly evaluate where you are and who is near you. More than anything else, Titanfalls speed and movement make it a blast to play.
Balance is the next greatest feature of this game. Everything in this game appears to balanced beautifully. Smart pistol that locks on for insta-headshots? Three second lock-on time for pilots. Suppressor that hides your location on the minimap? Noticeably less damage. Giant robots that squish you as a pilot? Innumerable hiding spots, powerful anti-titan weapons, and you get to hop on their heads and blow their robo-brains out. Its a great feeling to not get completely owned in a map because the other team got the sniper rifle/tank/uber-death robot first. The balance really emphasizes skill over tech, and who doesnt appreciate that?
Lastly, the scope of each battle really stands out. Yes, Titanfall is only 6v6, so how does this indicate the scope is impressive? Two reasons: AI and titans. The AI is cannon fodder to be sure, but in a beautifully distracting sort of way. For one, you are constantly doing something: shooting them, snapping their necks, hacking the specters, wondering whether this human is on your side, etc. As an extension of that, all the character models look roughly the same, meaning you never immediately know whether you're shooting at a pilot or a grunt. And that, dear reader, is the point of uniforms. Embrace it. Back to scope, however, the AI grunts make you feel like you're actually in a war. Not a battle between two elite units, an all-out war between two sides with grunts and heroes. Its a neat fusion of competitive multiplayer and a horde mode.
Second, titans are impressively massive as a pilot. Anything other than 6v6 with titans would be infreakingsane, and not in a good way. The maps are perfectly sculpted to make your dinky little pilot feel minute, leading to a feeling of emptiness at times. But you fill these babies up with four, five, six titans per side and it gets real crowded, real fast. As a pilot, trying to figure out a way to fight off 3 titans while your timer slowly ticks down really reinforces how miniscule you are. Its a dichotomy not often realized in most games and really emphasizes how different the scope of the game is depending on who you are playing as.
Outside of those three big features, there are a few pros relative to the gameplay that certainly deserve mentioning:
1) Tactically, the maps are incredible. You have buildings, roofs, alleys, auto-turrets, hills, you name it. On top of that, Respawn went out of their way to ensure the maps played to both titans and pilots, as well as the mobility of both.
2) I don't if this belongs, but its so shocking I have put it in. I am not constantly staring at my minimap. I don't know whether it is a function of better graphics or map placement or what, but without even thinking about it I am no longer spending the whole game looking at my map a la Halo.
3) The unlocks in this game are fun, especially burn cards. I hate play-to-win multiplayer games. Play-to-be-good for a few rounds is kind of neat, though, especially since you get bonus points for killing folks who use the burn cards. Also, the weapons add variety without being overpowered.
4) The AI on the titans is surprisingly good. They have a good grasp of when to block and when to shoot. The dodging needs work, though. Id love to see a tech-demo where the AI for titans and grunts is bumped up to the max.
5) The different modes are varied enough to keep them fresh and force you to switch up your playstyle.
6) The fact that there is no single player. Gasp! This is a pro?!? What is this madness? Come on, folks. Do you really think Titanfall would be so balanced if there was a single player component? Do you really think the maps would be as good? Im a huge fan of single player games, but focus is not necessarily a bad thing. This game still has enough content to be worth $60, and I am glad Respawn chose to focus on one part of the game to make it great.
All this fanboy raving aside, there are some cons to the game:
1) Theres no single player. Alright, fine, you win, I want more backstory to this awesome universe! Standalone campaign, perhaps?
2) There are only five multiplayer modes: Attrition (every kill counts), Last Titan Standing (kill all enemy Titans, multi-round), Pilot Hunter (pilot kills count), CTF (with a side switch at halftime), and Hardpoint (multi-hill king of the hill style). Now, as stated, these are actually quite varied in their playstyle to the point where each are fun and unique, but a free-for-all is definitely lacking. An asymmetrical defend/attack mode would also be nice. Hopefully these get bumped in a few weeks or so, but for now there are definitely some missing features.
3) Titanfall is locked at 6v6. Okay, I know I applauded this in the section on scope, but it would be nice if they made a giant desert world playground for a 12v12 match.
4) Server issues. Someday this won't be talked about. HA!
Titanfall has not met my ridiculously high expectations, but it is still an exceptional game. It is surprisingly fun, fresh, and fast. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but it does stick you in the driver seat of one hell of a ride. All the pros of this game are vital (especially balance), while all the cons easily fixable with updates. Definitely grab this game if you like FPS. If you are a single player person, give it a try. Titanfall is different enough that you might find yourself surprised. | video-games_xbox |
Awesome for the Price. First of all, any review written about this headset must take into consideration one basic fact: it's a truly wireless headset for $100 or less (depending on deal or source). With that in mind, let's begin!
The Good
The sound from the earphones is a real highlight for the price. When I mention sound, I'm referring to their primary function: gaming. While they come with a standard audio cable for your phone, MP3 player, etc., they will not compete with a set of cans in the same general price range. I don't expect them to, since the resources that go into them at this price point include the wireless and voice chat technology required to serve that aforementioned primary function. The sound, for gaming, is exceptional for the price.
The headset's "Mode" button switches between what PDP refers to as "pure" sound and a bass-boosted sound. For my taste, the bass boost works best. My main game of choice on Xbox One is World of Tanks, and the guns, explosions as well as engine rumble really come alive. The pure sound is fine, but I doubt I'll ever turn the bass boost off now.
Some will complain that the AG9 is a stereo headset as opposed to (simulated) 7.1 surround. Again, let me emphasize, this is a truly wireless headset for $100 or less. To be honest, the stereo works really well, and does give a general sense of surround sound. Case in point, when a tank rolls behind mine, it sounds like it's behind me. This has as much to do with sound mixing by the software developers as it does the headset, but I have no complaints whatsoever for the price.
So with sound established, let's move to the wireless capability. So far it's been flawless. Once synced with the USB dongle (which should already be paired out of the box, by the way - mine were), it's really as simple as pressing and holding the center button on the left ear cup to turn the set on. A tone will let you know they're on, as well as the green light on the USB dongle. The ear cups also light up green, but you won't see that if you're wearing them! I actually tested these by going downstairs to grab a drink while chatting to a friend in my Xbox party, and there was no difference from being in the room with the Xbox.
The Bad
There is one thing I would classify as bad on this headset: the mic. I have not found it to be as bad as others have, but it needs improvement. Some have stated that the mic isn't flexible, or that they can't flex it much because they're afraid to break it. It's true that the flexibility is limited. That is to say, it takes more effort to conform it to your preference than it should. However, the only threat of breaking it is if you try forcing a bend with the mic plugged into the left ear cup (it is removable). I simply unplug it before bending it, then plug it back in. This is not an effort to dismiss the design - it is flawed - but it is a note to those who presently own or are considering this headset: if in doubt about the stress at the mic's connection, unplug it and make your adjustment.
The flexibility, though, is actually a secondary issue. The primary issue with the mic is its sensitivity and sound quality. My friends say they have to turn me up to hear me properly. Moreover, the sound is said to be "tinny". The included (in my set, anyway - I've read others who say the set didn't come with one) foam mic cover helps with the noise cancellation, but doesn't completely solve the sensitivity issue. Perhaps a firmware update will address this like they did with the AG7 before it.
In my opinion, the mic is where the compromise rests for the price. It isn't terrible, it does the job, but it could really be improved. That's where the headset loses a star.
The Rest
The headset glows green from the ear cups, which may or may not be your thing. You can disable this feature if you prefer, which is a considerate touch. Personally I let them glow their little hearts out. Those same lights, conversely, are your indication of charge. When charging, they pulsate. When fully charged, they glow steadily.
The comfort level of the headset is moderate. They have a fair amount of padding and I've worn them a few hours at a time so far. I haven't experienced fatigue or soreness. I have noticed that my ears begin to get hot around the 2 hour mark, and a short break alleviates that. As a closed set of phones, this is not much of a surprise.
The build quality is good for the price. I have no worries about breaking anything on it, but I'm also not particularly rough with my electronics in the first place. All my headphones are treated respectfully and this headset is no different.
I hope this review is helpful. For the price I have no problem recommending them. | video-games_xbox |
An okay game.....but I would rent it first if I were you. I love Bethesda. That is what prompted me to buy the game. Survival Horror is sweet as well. So together I figured it would rock. I have barely played any of the game. I got tired of clunky camera angles. That's not all either. Graphics seem a little dated for a next gen system. Almost like I am playing on the Xbox 360 again. Limited ammo and weapons are great, but to have an ax break after one use is lame. Also, I put a round straight into a creatures head, taking half of it off. It still kept coming. Then you need to throw a match on these suckers to make sure they don't resurrect. Cause they will. Burning the corpse is the only way to make sure. Matches are limited as well. All of the sneaking around might be fun for some, but it gets too tedious. You pretty much have to sneak everywhere. I found that out when I shot the creature in the head and it didn't die. I then had to beat it as to not waste ammo. I was practically gone when I finally dropped it. Then it started to get up. Here comes the message to burn the bodies. Thanks for nothing. Got the survivor kit. Still hasn't shown up in my gear yet. Figure it might be further into the game that I get it, but I am not sure if I will make it that far.
The game has not even had me frightened one bit like Res E. I was scared to go into another room with Resident Evil. This just makes me glad that I am in another room. Really hard to get into the story. Pretty much figured out what is going down, just don't care. The characters are not ones that you embrace either. I played an hour of it and stopped. Story was just mind numbing. Started playing Shadow of Mordor. Will review that one as well.
Long story short. The game has a lot of potential, but comes up short of pleasing this gamer. Rent it first to see if it is something you would want in your library. Clunky camera, horrible control, and several other issues really made me unhappy with my purchase. I do not see why people are comparing this to Resident Evil, not even close. Similar, because of the town and the odd mutations, but not the same at all. Now it has the same graphics as Res 4. Not what I want to see on a next gen console. Try it before you buy it. I may have just expected more out of this game. I like a good story at least. Seems like games are being released with no substance anymore. | video-games_xbox |
Immersive and unsettling...gotta love it. Most video games, especially those of the action/adventure genre, have you playing as some larger than life character. Some sort of secret-agent-ninja-commando-death-squad-special-forces-assassin type thing. Not Silent Hill 2. In this one, you are James Sunderland, an average person without special skills or training.
And you know what? It's a really welcome change from the norm, and it really helps the atmosphere of the game to not have that kind of action-movie nonsense infiltrating what it supposed to be a horror experience.
It begins with our protaganist inside a rest-stop on the outskirts of Silent Hill. He's contemplating the letter that he just received from Mary, his wife who he'd thought was dead for the past three years. He must venture into Silent Hill to get the answers behind that letter.
Not a bad opening storyline, and games like this rely most heavily upon story. Actually, calling this one a "game" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer--it feels more like an interactive experience. You *experience* Silent Hill 2 more than play it.
But, the gameplay aspect is there as well, in the form of monster battles and puzzles. One of the greatest things about this title is that it allows you to vary the difficulty of either of these aspects. You can set the puzzles from ultra-easy to ultra hard, and you can set the monster battles in the same way, or even set it so that you won't get attacked at all--just enjoy the atmosphere and storyline. You can really customize the game to your tastes this way.
The atmosphere is great. I like to play it at night, or on a gloomy winter day, with all of the lights off. Just make sure that nobody can sneak up on you, or you'll likely have a heart attack! Games like this are actually perhaps scarier than a horror movie or novel; the interactive aspect making immersion more of a factor.
This game actually isn't perfect. The interface is a bit clunky and, on normal setting, at least, the puzzles can be rather obscure. This can lead to puzzle-frustration, the Achille's heel of adventure games. You'll likely find yourself wandering around the same places over and over again, saying "what the hell?" when you have no idea what you're looking for or are supposed to do. But, when you finally do figure it out, it's a satisfying experience. Also, combat is pretty awkward, but, like I said, James Sunderland is just an average guy, so this makes some sense.
With these minor flaws, my real score is about a 4.5, so it gets five stars by default.
This game is available for both PS2 and Xbox. Either version is worth playing, but the Xbox version has slightly enhanced graphics and a side quest, which adds some game time and makes it the better version.
Silent Hill 2 is highly recommended to anyone age seventeen or older. | video-games_xbox |
The makers of this game should be embarrassed to release a game in 2008 that looks and feels this bad. I finished Saints Row 1 ("SR1") with 92% completion and I enjoyed it very much while waiting for GTA IV to be released. I thought that SR1 introduced several new features for the sand-box genre and that it looked very good at the time. Now, having finished GTA IV three times (twice with 100% completion) and while I wait for the downloadable content, I decided to buy Saints Row 2 ("SR2") in hopes of having as much fun as I did with SR1 and more, since I assumed the game would improve from SR1....
After 3 painful hours of looking at SR2, I needed relief fast, so I popped in GTA IV and just drove around Liberty City so that I can cleanse myself of the nightmare of SR2. I came to realize yet again what a game released in 2008 for the 360 SHOULD look like, or resemble at the very least. I sold SR2 back to GameStop the very next day.
Pros:
Lots of features, side missions to earn respect and customizations, including vehicle customizations
Difficulty Levels
Cruise Control is a cool new feature
Improved combat system over SR1 but still, you can't take cover, other than via "human shield"
Cons:
Cartoonish-style, non-polished, choppy and stiff graphics with very little fluidity or smoothness.
Lots of bugs, including cars despawning from the streets constantly (turn your character 360 degrees and chances are the car(s) driving down the street have already disappeared).
Sometimes when a cop-car approaches you, the cops warp/teleport out of their car as opposed to actually opening the door and coming out.
While surrounded by cops with 3-4 star cop-notoriety, I was able to beat down 7-10 cops using only a nightstick and saw my health go down by 10%, at the most, despite getting shot at by cops with a shotgun at point-blank range. And this was on "normal" difficulty mode. I assume on "hardcore" mode, it's possible to lose half of your health, at most, but then watch it regenerate back up again - wow, how realistic and how challenging is that?
Driving looks and feels absolutely horrible. Cars are big and bulky with loose, unrealistic handling. When you hit any object with your car, whether it's another car, tree or pole, you simply bounce off like a pinball and just keep on going.
No secondary camera angles. While on foot or in a car, you can not zoom out to see more of the world, leaving you with just one camera angle with a close and intimate look at the atrocious graphics, considering an October 2008 release for the 360 console.
SR2 is a poorly made game and the makers should be ashamed to release it in late 2008 and compare it to or compete with the quality and the realistic feel of GTA IV, which is not perfect, of course, but it is still the best. The open-world sandbox genre will always belong to GTA. Yes, SR2 has many features and customization options but what is the point when the game looks and feels so terrible? Again, I finished SR1 and liked it a lot but SR2 is one of the worst looking games I have seen in a very long time. | video-games_xbox |
Underrated in my opinion. As a person who has played all of the army of two games multiple times over with friends and by myself I have to say I may be biased to the series. I thought about getting this game for awhile after its release back in march and held off. I saw countless reviews online that stated the game was terrible.
My thoughts initially playing the game were "ok so this is another generic shooter and I'm not all too pleased" but as I played through the story actually wasn't too bad. I even found some memorable moments in the campaign. I don't want to give anything away for those who plan on playing through. With the reduced rice to $40 now I say this is worth it. I feel as though people expect too much from games these days and don't enjoy them enough.
To address the issue of alpha and bravo, yeah they appear like drones inserted into the game initially and there are plenty of new members of T.W.O. who you won't care about, but I felt as the game went on that they characters develop a relationship similar to that was present in game 1 between Rios and Salem. They share the same foil type nature as the initial duo as well. alpha is more protocol based (rios) and bravo is more kick butt and ask questions later (Salem). It was funny during one of the later missions in the game when Bravo even says to Alpha "Better watch it, I think you're developing a personality."
Also, this game feels like a transition in the series. I feel as though they wanted to introduce new plot points and advance it further and the end of the game actually made me hope they will continue it because it was a bit of a cliffhanger.
Visceral games brought a lot to it visually and the addition of Overkill is nice. My only true gripe is I want my Aggro meter back. That was a crucial component and should have been kept, but I think it's cool they took a leap with the series style. The first army of two is still my favorite hands down because I felt like it was a real game changer to the shooter genre.
Overall I'd give this game a solid 8/10 because its visually gorgeous, a hell of a good adrenaline rush if anything and if you're looking for a harder gaming experience crank it up to insane and you will be challenged. In the end its come to your impression of the game but I say its worth your time to at play through once. One really nice addition is you do not have to baby sit the AI partner when playing alone, the computer is actually pretty helpful and if you use the command tool it's pretty responsive. So go for it and hope people enjoy this game. | video-games_xbox |
Locks up CONSTANTLY. Obsessed with cutscenes of coaches. ***LOCK UP UPDATE - 9/17/16***: Something interesting about the lock ups: if you are signed in to EA they happen far less often. Doesn't make sense, but a workaround if you are experiencing them. Also, taking a few seconds before making your selection when trying to save seems to cause lock ups far less often. (I found this suggestion on a message board and it works well.) For example, if you want to save press the button to start the save, move the cursor to the save file you want, then wait a second or two before pressing the button to initiate the save. It's cumbersome, but better than having to restart the game and watch the Gronkowski animation for the 1,000th time.
***GAME PLAY UPDATE - 9/17/16***: I mentioned the endless sideline camera shots in my original review, and after going through eleven weeks so far in my initial franchise season I have to say they are much more annoying than the lock ups. The problem lies in the fact that Madden can't decide what it wants to be: a teacher of football, or a game that simulates a football broadcast.
In franchise mode before every week you have the option to train your team. During training you will learn the strategy behind the play on which you are training. On offense, you will learn how to read the defense to get the most out of the play. On defense you will learn the philosophy behind the formation and how exactly that philosophy will be implemented to stop the offense. In theory, this is GREAT. The key to utilizing what you've learned, however, lies in being able to see how the opposition is lined up. And this is Madden's biggest problem.
If the game wants to teach me how to read a defense or an offense, and it teaches me this from an All-22 camera angle (end zone cam), then it needs to allow me to get to that angle as quickly as possible so I can make reads and adjustments. Madden, however, is borderline obsessive when it comes to showing the coach after almost every single play. And if not the coach, then a cut scene. Or anything, for that matter, that takes away from your ability to get to the play-calling screen as quickly as possible.
Then after you call your play, there is a good chance you will be forced to see the coach again, or the view of the field from the coaches point of view. All of this takes away valuable seconds during which you could be reading the opposition's formation, but instead wind up frantically pushing a button, trying to end the cut scene ASAP. Bottom line: Madden wants to teach you, but it doesn't want you to be able to utilize what you've learned. Or it wants to give you as little time as possible to implement it.
An option to turn off cutscenes would fix this. You can disable pop-ups and drive goals. Just let me disable the coach-obsessed camera, too, and I would gladly bump this up a star.
***********************************************************************
***ORIGINAL REVIEW***
Headline says it all. Trying to save? Locks up. Navigating menus? Locks up. It even locks up during games (which, for some reason, you still can't save in game). I did a quick search and found out I am far from the only one experiencing this issue, so it's not my system. (FWIW, the game locks up when I am trying to create a save point far more than any other time.)
When I can actually play the game, it is pretty good. The biggest problem with in-game play is EAs insistence on including as many cutscenes as possible. There is a particular fixation on the head coach. After almost every play, you will see your coach doing something on the sideline. Just hit the button and skip it, right? Therein lies another problem: hitting a button won't automatically bring up the play call menu. You have to hit the button several times, and then there is a temporary delay between when you hit the button and when the button press is implemented. Because of this, you will wind up calling the play assigned to whatever button you press (for me it is A) far too often.
The most obnoxious cutscenes and graphics displays, however, occur when time is running out in the half or game. At the worst possible moments the game will feel the need to display a graphic or cutscene when you are trying to get the next play off. I realize there is a hurry-up button, but you don't need to run a no-huddle all the time during your two-minute drills. You should be able to go right to the playbook. But you can't, and the 3 - 5 seconds you lose because of the latest cutscene EA feels it must show adds up quickly, sometimes forcing you to call a timeout when it otherwise wouldn't have been necessary. Very frustrating.
There are positives: the XP system seems well designed, franchise mode has been streamlined, giving you the option to only play parts of games instead of the entire game, and the fantasy draft (my favorite part) is still a franchise option, as well.
But all of these positives are moot since you never know if the game will freeze. If, upon entering the game, I wasn't wondering how much I could play before it froze, I might enjoy it much more. Then the constant cutscenes MIGHT be tolerable. (Bottom line is there should be an option to remove cutscenes all together. Maybe there is and I just haven't found it. If so, I'll update the review.)
As for a recommendation, I'd hold off on getting Madden until the lock-up issue is fixed. If it gets fixed. | video-games_xbox |
Halo: Combat Evolved-----A Great Game ! ! . Halo is a great game. It is easily the best game made for the Xbox. The game is rather short, but you get a lot of action and a lot fun in this short gameplay time. You also get a lot for your money. It is well worth it! I would say that if you are an experienced gamer, the gameplay time from start to finish would be about 8 hours. The game has the best story of any game. There are 4 vehicles to master. 2 for land, and 2 for that fly. (The flying ones are sooo awesome!, but the land ones are amazingly fun too!) All are very fun. Also, the graphics, sound, etc. are absolutely amazing. I bought this game as soon as I got my Xbox, and I have no regrets. I have showed it to all my friends, and they love it too. Also, multiplayer is very fun. There are around 30 multiplayer games to play, and when Microsoft goes online with this game, you can play it online. The controls are a little awkward at first, but amazingly easy to get used to. There is mild language in the game, and a good bit of blood (it is very realistic), but other than that, the game is not too bad. I would recommend it for ages 9 and up. You do have to use your head in this game, but it is the funnest game ever.
Pros:
--- Amazing graphics, sound ect.....
--- Super easy controls once you get the hang of them (I would say they take about 15 minutes to get used to).
--- Very, very fun.
--- The best storyline ever!
--- The sound and graphics make you feel as though you are really there, and the gentle to hard rumble of the Xbox controller add to this amazing experience.
--- the game allows you to choose your skill level (EASY--and when they say easy, they mean easy....this skill level is super easy. NORMAL--this level is a little easy and a little hard. This is the funnest skill level. HEROIC--this level is pretty dang hard. LEGENDARY--this is super, super hard. Monsters are fast and take many bullets to die.
--- The game saves automatically about once every 30 seconds at checkpoints, and it also saves when you exit (This way you will never loose your game).
--- Saving automatically does not interfere with your game.
--- Saving, gameplay, and loading are fast and super smooth.
Cons:
--- the game is almost too short, but if you are inexperienced, or just want to sit back and enjoy the amazing scenery this may be a good thing, because this game could turn long if you take your time.
--- (I can't think of any more Cons:!!!)
(on a scale from 1 to 10)
Controls: 9.5
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Tilt: 10
Gameplay: 9.5
Value: 10
Overall: 10
Recommendations:
1) A Pelican S-Video/AV Cable w/ 24 karat gold connectors: This slightly improves the graphics, but improves the already perfect sound by 100%! Amazing!
2) System Link Cable (if you plan on playing with more than 4 people).: This allows you to get up to 16 players on this game by hooking 4 Xboxes together and hooking each of them to a different TV!
3) If you plan on taking your game to a friends house to play, and don't want to take the whole Xbox console, get a memory unit (Xbox memory card).
If you plan on getting an Xbox, do yourself a favor and get Halo: Combat Evolved. It's by the most respected company...Microsoft!!! | video-games_xbox |
A Bit Too Expensive, Bulky, and Complicated. Pros: The battery life is nice, and convenient if you use rechargeable batteries. There's a female voice prompt that reacts when you press buttons so you halfway know what you're doing. There are a lot of features on the base, including a hanger for the headset to rest on elegantly, a button to switch between surround sound and stereo, a port and volume control for an extra (plain) headset, and optical and RCA audio inputs. The USB power feature is nice since the Xbox has extra ports on the back. The audio in general is fairly high quality, though the surround aspect always sounded a bit off, like you were standing in a room with a very slight echo. During silence, there's no hum which is great (many wireless headsets have a hum). The earcups cover your ears completely and are cool and breathable, compared to vinyl or leather.
Cons: The headset is heavy and hurts my temples as a glasses-wearer after an hour or so. It pushes a bit too hard against the sides of your head. The controls are numerous and very confusing, and the factory EQ presets aren't very different. I had a hard time getting it to pair with the included wireless Xbox controller dongle so people could hear me. And in wireless chat mode, your voice is muddier than with a cable (which is not included with this model). For custom presets you need to hook it to a Windows-based computer and do a bunch of tedious tweaking. I felt like I had to do a lot of adjusting to get just the right frequency mix, which is something that should be offered out of the box.
Overall: Definitely not worth the price tag, and not a very big step up from cheaper models which I owned previously. I would go with a cheaper Turtle Beach option like their current stereo wireless set (X32), which still offers virtual surround and different EQ presets. Any wireless gaming headset over $200 should really be perfect in every way. Turtle Beach also offers a cheap stand-alone surround processor-slash-EQ (the DSS2) that you can use with any headset you want (even stereo), so you can keep the same audio quality and controls, while choosing a headset that's much more cheap, simple, light, and comfortable. That's what I chose to do after trading in my XP500. | video-games_xbox |
First time user of Xbox 360. Well i can tell you that i had not done much console playing since i had the ps2 slim a while back. I was more into pc gaming every now and then. i was looking into getting a new console, but i was not sure which one to get (ps3 xbox 360 or wii). i did not want to really spend that much money too...nevertheless i did some research and i was sure that i wanted to get a console that could play music games and movies, so i did not go for the wii. it got down to the ps3 and xbox 360, i look online for the best console and that did not help, it was too much battle of the consoles to see which one was the better console, and at the end of all i did not really care i just wanted to play. Also i was very worry on all this stuff about over heating ( red ring of death). also it did not help that both systems were at 300 dollars each. I decided to look into what type of games i liked and the fact that i did not owned any blue ray movies, so i went for the xbox 360 for the halo games, and in the end i wanted to give it try since the xbox 360 slim was re-designed.
So at the end i got my xbox 360 slim from amazon, it arrived a week later, it was in excellent condition. the first thing i notice was that i was very small in height and not too fat. I liked that it came with a wireless controller so that was a plus. It came with 250 GB, chating headphones, standard definition cables red white and yellow ,it did not came with HDMI so i just bought one here at amazon for 2 dollars and the image was amazing in my hdtv, i was very surprised that i did not pay too much for a good HDMI. so in overall i spend 302 dollars for the console and hdmi, then i got halo 3 and some movies. I can tell you that this thing is very quiet i could not even hear the disc loading(ps2 slim makes a lot of sound), no fan noise at all, i even dare to say never, i played for like 3 hours and placed my hand next to the console and it was not that hot at all, so i was very happy about that. Also i watched movies and it was the same quiet and cool. also i loaded my music into it, and same thing. I also connected the xbox slim to my network it was fast and easy, no signal issues. overall i have used the xbox 360 slim regularly and no problems yet. i am very happy with xbox interface and how you have to navigate through the menu system, straight forward. also the power button and the disc tray have sensors instead of mechanical buttons. also i think the 250 GB is sufficient for me. overall i am very happy with my decision, very happy with the console, and with the decision to buy the console through amazon. best buy really wanted to cash me out, i am glad i did not buy there!!!
if had more cash and time to spend, i would try other consoles, for me it was a bit more limited. So if you never owned a newer generation console like me (ps3 xbox 360 or wii) i would recommend to just look at type of gaming you like, because at the end it all about playing and chilling. now if you ask me do i recommend this product? the answer is yes. i like it maybe you will like it too, if not look into something else. The important thing is to not be paranoid and take a calm decision and choose your console. a gamer is a gamer and there is no such thing as a better console (nothing is perfect). I can't give you any negative comments about the xbox slim 360 because its doing what its supposed to be doing, also just because it does not have blue ray it does not mean its junk, if i wanted that i would just get the ps3. maybe the only bad thing about it is that you have to pay online service, but then again it is only 56 dollars per year which is not bad.
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update DEC 30 2010
Xbox 360 slim working like a champ after 6 months with it....
using a air dust blower, i clean my xbox to prevent any heating issues, so far its great quiet and cool...
i love xbox live it is really worth it, no lag in games while playing online, can use a lot of other services like movies, music, games, chat, facebook on it, news....
connect most usb keyboards to xbox 360 and you can use facebook!!!
i bought the xbox live here in amazon for 47 dollar after shipping....
i love netflix on the xbox 360 i use it a lot., the netflix app is very good,
i like how i can connect xbox 360 to my windows 7 and share files...
i played modern warfare 2 for hours(8 hours the max i have played) and no problems, i have overall enjoyed good games for this console.
(optional) i wish there was a youtube app for the xbox 360
and a web browser
for me then it would be a complete system.
after having this system for a while i would highly recommend it to new gamers, kids and college students, and who ever enjoys a good game every now and then.
games i liked, modern warfare 2, call of duty 4, gears of war 1 and 2, splintercell conviction, halo 1 2 3, batman arkham asylum, mass effect 2 just to name a few. | video-games_xbox |
A different pace for the Battlefield series. It could be better, but why did people dislike it? I bought this game for $22 dollars (w/ Premium) on Xbox Live, and to me It was worth it.
For one, the Single Player was kinda meh. It has some twists and plots that were kinda known during some points of the cut-scenes and you could already predict what could happen next. The single player experience was more on the lines of Battlefield: Bad Company style. The acting/cast was decent and it even had some humor parts. At the end of the single player campaign, it leads you with a plot twist, which they will probably pick the story back up in Battlefield: Hardline 2. The campaign achievements are somewhat easy to get, you can get one for every mission/episode you complete (there are 10 episodes/missions). The best part about this game is that you can either run and gun throughout the game or you can stealth this whole game and arrest everyone you see (I tried to do this) and feel accomplished. The single player could have been longer and it could have even setup a better way to start Battlefield: Hardline 2 (if they are even making it in the future).
Multiplayer in this game like with other Battlefield games, the servers are stable More stable than other DICE/EA games to be completely honest. The game modes normally fit in within the whole Robber Vs. Cop theme, you have Blood Money, Heist, Bounty Hunter, Rescue, Crosshair, Hotwire and a few other Battlefield game modes. Basically the same game modes you see in other Battlefield games and a few new ones here and there. The maps are pretty large, destructible, and diverse ranging from the Everglades in Florida (w/ air boats) to the streets of downtown LA (w/ building to building action).
To me the game is worth the $22 dollars (w/ Premium), but it was not worth $60 for those who purchased it for that amount. You are basically buying a reskinned Battlefield 4 game, but with a Robber Vs. Cop theme which they could easily introduced it into Battlefield 4 as new DLC or a standalone game that works with Battlefield 4 in the background for about $30 or so dollars. | video-games_xbox |
Fans of Bushido Blade May Have Some Fun. The Deadliest Warrior games are a perfect example of what to expect from a company that started out as an independent studio. They have made a small list of games since 2000 but most of them have been properties belonging to other companies. The first Deadliest Warrior game, based on the Spike TV show that was cancelled after three seasons on January 2012, was probably made on a modest budget. The sequal had more environments, features, and modes, though it largly plays the same. Sure, the combat isn't the most balanced, the visuals are very basic for what to expect on Xbox Live Arcade, and the audio is often absent or sounds like a bunch of stock sound effects -- but you can still have some fun when playing with friends.
You should know that despite having a different title, "Deadliest Warrior: Anceint Combat" is actually just a collection of the first two seperate games, "Deadliest Warrior: The Game" and "Deadliest Warrior: Legends." This is what happens when you have a independent developer that deosn't seem to understand how to lable arcade collections. Many thought with the different name it would actually incorperate all the fighters into one game, but thats not the case. This disc version does have a few extras, like 6 full episodes of the Spike TV show (1 from season one, 3 from season two, and 2 from season three) on a seperate DVD. You also get two new items for the sequal, 30 additional weapons for the warriors (two for each class), and the new Graveyard stage. If you buy the game used, you may not get the 6 episodes, so be aware.
PROBLEM LOADING GAME:
First is the way this game plays off the disc, which I've noticed some people having problems. If you try to play the disc it simply says, "No Game on Disc," and then tells you to go to the Store. It turns out you NEED to have online access in order to download the demos for both "Deadliest Warrior: The Game" and "Deadliest Warrior: Legends." Now, whenever you have the "Deadliest Warrior: Ancient Combat" disc in the Xbox 360, the listing for each game will change from Play Demo to Play Now. I know, other games don't work like this, but this is what you have to do to play the game. Also, when the disc is in the console, go to game details and "install" the game. This ONLY installs the DLC for both titles, not the games themselves, but you need to do this beforhand as well. [Note: You can alo play the games by finding their locations on the Marketplace and selecting Play Now, but its just easier having the demo downloaded]
DEADLIEST WARRIOR: THE GAME
The first game has often been compare to the niche fight game series know as Bushido Blade on the PS1 in 1997. This comparison is mostly due to the nature of the one-hit-kills that are possible if the player lands a fatal blow to the other fighter. You could also incapacitate limbs if they took to much damage, leaving frantic battles were one player would need to defend himself with only one arm, or have limited mobility with one injured leg. Not many games have had this feature, especially fighting games in the past.
You get the main game and the DLC Pack (normally 400 points), which adds three more warriors, the Rajput, the Zande, and the Shaolin Monk. This also includes the new Skirmish Mode, replays, titles, and new taunts. You'll see a lot of low-scoring reviews for the first game (like 6-out-of-10), and sadley it mostly deserves it. Even with the DLC there's only 11 fighters and 5 environments total, the combat can seem cheap and unbalanced, and the AI can be downright infurrating. If you have a few friends over, try this game for some laughs at a nija fighting a pirate, and where the computer-controlled AI isn't a factor.
DEADLIEST WARRIOR: LEGENDS
You get the main game and the Joan of Arc DLC (normally 240 points), which added the Joan of Arc character, and Mac (modeled after third-season host Richard "Mac" Machowicz), though he's not really a new fighter since he randomly is dressed as one of the existing warriors before each fight. New to the game overall is the Generals Campain for each warrior (including Joan of Arc with the DLC), which acts like a simplified version of Risk. Each land is divided into numerous areas with a hadful of Castles spread across. You earn more reinforcments, which you can divide amound you current properties. Your "number" of reinforcments battle the enemy's number of reinforcments, and you take the territory if you win. You only engage in an actual 1-on-1 warrior fights when you try to take the Castles -- take the home Castle to win. Its simple, but each character's is slightly different, which will give you at least a few hours of enjoyment.
The combat has been changed slightly for the sequal. The "unblockable" special move is now gone, but in its place is two new moves that still can't be blocked, the push, and the grapple. The push simply moves your opponent 2-3 paces away, given you some room if you're being rushed. The game now also has "ring outs," so depending upon there location you can now push them out of bounds. The grapple works like a game of rock-paper-sissors. Once you grapple them, both players must choose between three button presses, one for the head, one for the arm, and one for the legs. If both players pick the same button/location, the it cancels out. But if the attacker picks a location, and the defender picks a different location, then the attacker wins an immobilizes that limb. Oh, but if the attacker picks head, and you pick arm -- then the attacker get an instant-kill. Any successful grapple attacks to the head result in instant death, which means you'll always want to defend your head, even though you'll alway risk loosing an arm or leg. Thankfully the right Anolog Stick is used to dodge, and is very useful in moving out of the way of a grapple, but this move is still rather irratating.
The life bar has been removed, but its still there in the background. This means a match can still end by someone kicking an opponet that has very little life left. The throwing weapons have been modified so that you can't get a headshot right at the moment players take control, which is a releaf. You can still get one-hit-kills, but the mechanics just behave slightly different now if you plan on aiming them.
FINAL VERDICT:
Despite all the bad reviews, the first game had some interesing gameplay elements that never really delivered a product that was accepted by most consumers. I never would have tried it if it hadn't been slashed down to 200 Microsoft points at one point. Its flawed, but still can be fun if you're playing with friends, since that levels the playing field of cheap tactics. The sequal has that feeling of "two steps forward, one step back." While it tries to improve apon the criticisims of the first, it still plays largly like the original but with only a few things changed or missing. The quality and polish may not be there, but cosidering you can get both games and all the DLC for around $10-12, along with 6 episodes of the TV show (at least if the extra disc is included) thats not too bad. Invite some friends over and have some laughs as you both try to figure the combat out, and decide if Willam Wallace would win in a fight with Vlad The Impailer. | video-games_xbox |
Good idea, bad execution(xbox. After watching Angry Joe's review of this game, and spurred on by the fact that I didn't have any games for my Xbox 360, I took the plunge and purchased this title in May 2012.
Background: I was new to the Xbox and to consoles in general, having always been a PC gamer before 2012.
Pros:
The idea was interesting, especially since I had played warrior mages in MMPORGs and role playing(pen and paper) games before.
I found the breadth and depth of the story fascinating, and the cutscene videos were entertaining.
The number and variety of side missions give you plenty to do in addition to the main story.
Cons:
Controls are not for the faint of heart. You'll find yourself browsing menu wheels, potions trees, skill trees, spell trees more often than you'd like.
Fighting goes like this. Save game. Check out your enemy. Leave. Make a plan of attack. Create and drink the appropriate potions. Create and apply the appropriate oils to the appropriate sword. Select the appropriate spell as your default, and memorize the 2nd and 3rd spell's location on the spell wheel. Save again(for good measure), attack. Why 2 saves? the 1st save is if you didn't get the spells, oils, potions, weapon etc right the first time. After you fail to kill the enemy 5 or 6 times, you might want to change your plan. The second save is if you want to try again with the same setup. <- If this is your idea of fun , then this game is for you.
Lopsided difficulty - side quests and even battles have a very uneven difficulty level. I did an arm-wrestling quest and beat all of my opponents easily before challenging the current champion. Even if he was 2-3 times as good as the 2nd place opponent, I could take him. I didn't stand a chance. After 20-30 tries, I gave up. Battles are similar, you'll be breezing through your opponents and then hit an unbreakable wall the defies your unstoppable force. Impass.
Graphics are so-so, late 90's early 2000's level.
Spell Names - The are written in a foreign tongue. I cannot look at the spell and know what it does. The shield spell "Quen" should be named, oh, I don't know, "shield?" The fireball spell could be called..um..."Fireball?" Orb of fire? Flaming ball? Any of these would better than "Igni".
Summary
There is a lot to like here. Variety of missions and opponents. Deep lore. Fun things to do like beat up peasants and rob them. But the non-intuitive controls , the overly complicated menus, obtuse combat system, and lack of consistency in difficulty led me to put this game on Craigslist. I feel sorry for whomever buys it.
As a side note, I think that this game would be a lot more enjoyable on PC, as long as they replace the menu wheels with hotkeys. | video-games_xbox |
The Rock is still asking if you smell what he's cooking. I hadn't played a wrestling game since SD vs. Raw 2010. I also haven't followed wrestling for awhile. My son watches a few of the programs each week, but most of what I saw wasn't very interesting. I grew up with the 80s Saturday night wrestling shows with Gordon Solie as announcer, Sunday was WWF/E and even rented the VHS of Wrestlemania I just a few months after it originally happened. I really loved wrestling. Our son is back and forth with it. So there's really not been a reason to buy the games. I hadn't realized 2K had taken over the WWE series until a few weeks ago. That, if nothing else, made me interested in the game since I believe 2K still has developed the best NFL game ever ... in NFL 2K5. And I've enjoyed several of the more current NBA 2K games.
The roster had very little impact on my choice of which WWE game to get. Despite being a fan during the 80s and through the Attitude Era, I'm not really into using the wrestlers from those eras, especially those who've passed away. I was more interested in having a fun game. Everything I read on wrestling games forums said 2K14 is better than 2K15, so I ordered a used version, not knowing I would need to buy an online pass since the one included was used by the previous owner.
So, I ended up paying ten more dollars for an online pass. Then ended up buying the Season Pass which was another twenty dollars. I really didn't mind the price since I figured it would be enough to last my wrestling game interest for a few years. The game is good, but it's really not that different than I remember the THQ WWE games being. It's a reversal-fest. I ended up lowering the reversal slider all the way down to just one level of it. It was pretty annoying to hit a finisher, pick the guy up and have him reverse your next move. There's plenty of match types to play. And though the roster didn't matter much to me in the beginning, it started to matter once I played the game. I ended up going to the community creations and downloading roughly 90 created wrestlers since there's a lot of active wrestlers not in this game. I would think most notably for current WWE fans, The Wyatt Family. There's some really great created wrestlers in the community creations.
We played it off and on for a week or so, but the roster, even with added created wrestlers, just isn't very good. The best created wrestlers don't look much better than the worst default characters. I would rate this higher, but I turned around and bought a new copy of WWE 2K15 for the 360 and liked it quite a bit better. I wouldn't rate either one a five star. There's problems in these games that were around back in 2010. From collision detection, floating wrestlers, a very ambitious "create a finisher" that ends up making you think they really don't put much time into it. Create a Story isn't any better than I remember it being. It more or less reminds me of most sports video games. They update the roster, throw a few new animations in and say it's a new game. I'm also going to review 2K15 as well. A quick ending piece of advice. Only buy used if you're willing to pay the money for the online access which you have to have to download created wrestlers. You also have to have Xbox Gold. I tried a free trial week to the online access only to find out it wouldn't let me download any created wrestlers during the trial. If you buy a new copy it will come with the online access code. One last warning on this one. The server has been having problems for the last 2 weeks. I spent a week trying to download a Great Muta created wrestler only to receive this message, "The WWE 2K14 service is not available. Try again later." From what I've read they'll most likely shut the server down in the next few months anyway. | video-games_xbox |
Suprisingly well made, story infuriates me on some levels. I loved the first two army of two games. i loved tyson and rios as characters they were people who enjoyed their work and while yeah they're not gonna win any awards they are certainly fun games and alot of games these days are good but not fun. this game is alot of fun. it's not a hard game but everything explodes and you almost never run out of grenades, the overkill mode rocks and it fills up incredibly fast, more so when you play with a person. the AI of the parter is conciderably better this time. the gun customization is back and still great. it's a little less open in that there is a "best" configuration for each gun whereas in previous games it was more about building the gun to your playstyle. now thats not exactly a bad thing because certain guns are dedicated to certain playstyles. so it balances out. the cover system is a little tricky and i miss the shotgun bayonette to no end but the knife kills are fairly brutal.
now for the story. as someone who loves the original pair i am mad as hell at the story arc. the new characters alpha and bravo are ok, not really that interesting, some of the banter is actually really good but alpha in particular comes off as rather bland. now i won't spoil any of the story but salem and rios are really ruined by this game. sufice to say it's fairly unnesicary too, they could have easily kept salem and rios as the main characters and brought back clyde or invented a new good villain as aposed to what they did. now i do have to admit the cartel leader. hands down one of the most fun villains in a game in some time. love him. but it doesn't really excuse the other stuff they do.
overall i have to recomend this one fairly highly because gameplay wise it's everything to like about an army of two game. it even manages to avoid the incredibly bleak and dark tone of the 40th day while still being a serious and heavy story. it's a great game. i just want the old salem and rios back. | video-games_xbox |
Prepare to get lost in Cyrodill. I came into this series in time for Morrowind, and I got hooked. At first I couldn't get the hang of it, but I finally managed to figure it out and the end result was plenty of entertainment. The world--both in Morrowind and here in Oblivion--is huge, and there are hundreds of places to visit and explore. I especially liked the inclusion of random hamlets and houses in the wilderness. They add a touch of realism.
And the world itself it beautiful. I'll be playing and be struck by the view or a particularly tranquil-looking meadow. There's nothing quite like cresting a hill in Oblivion, too. You come up over the rise and a valley is laid out in front of you--you can see all the way across a mountain range. No backdrop palettes here. If you see a mountain off in the distance, you can climb it.
Even after you complete the main questline, you'll only have scratched the surface of the content. There are hundreds of odd jobs to be done in each of the towns, and they aren't the mindless cut-and-paste quests you get in other games. My favorite so far is one for the Dark Brotherhood where they lock you in a house with several other people, and you must assassinate them one at a time without the rest catching on and attacking you. Another fun one was tracking down a man who said he was a vampire hunter, only to learn he's little more than a thief and a murderer. Everything's heavy on story and cutscenes, which is good! You'll get sucked in. The atmosphere is quality.
Each player will have things they like to do. Some like the combat aspect, others like making their own spells and practicing sorcery, and others like to search for rare plants to put into potions. Any pursuit will give you hours and hours of gameplay. The money problem in Morrowind has been fixed (it was notoriously easy in that game so quickly earn thousands upon thousands of gold, and be able to afford anything offered). You'll make more gold as you level up, but you won't find whole suits of ebony armor worth 100,000 gold lying around on each enemy like in Morrowind. Expensive, quality items are nice and rare, and you appreciate them more because of it.
If you do build up a surplus of gold, you can always buy a house or two or five. There's one for sale in pretty much every town, and they range in price from 5,000 gold to 25,000 or so. The furnishings for these houses (many come unfurnished) are another 1,500 apiece. You really don't need to buy a house (as the game recommends repeatedly on the many loading screens), because you'll never have much use for it. The only thing in your houses that's useful is the bed, and it's almost always easier to just use an inn or fast travel to a campsite. Still, they are fun to have, and they're great later on when you need a place to store items you've saved up.
Negatives? Just two little ones. After you play for a while, the game seems to slow down, which can prove to be a headache when you need to access the menus. Sometimes it locks up completely for a minute or so. And the loading screens--lordy, the screens!--sometimes there are multiple loading screens for the interior of a house. Castles will be divided into several loading zones. Passing from indoors to out or vice-versa requires a load. So does leaving or entering a town, sewer, cave, mine, shrine, ruin, cellar, attic, tower, or in some cases, room. This can become frustrating.
Other than that, this game is virtually flawless. It can give you dozens of hours of playtime if you get into the guild quests and professions, and probably twice that if you decide you want to explore and find all the locations on the map.
This is probably the best all-around lazy Sunday game on the 360 so far, the kind of thing you could spend an afternoon messing about with and feel like you did something semi-useful when you finally save and quit. | video-games_xbox |
best plot in years. Yeah, that's right. I said it. Best plot in years! Anyone who's played the original, well, the gameplay has remained mostly the same, what with the stealth and all that. You basically play the game as Solid Snake or Raiden, covert ops specialists working for an independant anti-terrorist organization. Gameplay involves you going around and, well, sneaking around guards and cameras as you progress through the game. Much like Splinter Cell, using stealth tactics is optimum for your survival. An all-out gunfight usually (though not always,) ends up in your death, so climbing, crawling, and swimming are prime tactics. Not to say that there aren't a fair number of firefights either, something I thought games like Splinter Cell were missing. The gameplay is tight and offers a whole slew of interesting and intense moments, which are interspersed with truly original boss fights. (Although, perhaps, not as original as MGS 1's...) Of course, between these moments of intensity, you are led down a winding path that is called the 'plot'. Now, having played MGS 1, I was totally spyched up for some strange and beautiful story, which I must say was not lacking. READ: anyone new to the series or even those not interested in reading or watching long cutscenes should stay away. Even I thought some of the cutscenes were very long, but if you have the patience as I did, you will not be disappointed. Okay, so some of the instances were a little hokey, such as Solidus' involvement, or even the whole 'Lady Luck' premise. Also, Hideo Kojima seems thrilled to have every single character involved in the plot have some unique and crazy back-story to tell. And they will tell it, like it or not. I'm one of those crazy nuts who wants to know everything, so I wasn't disappointed, but not everyone may be as thrilled as myself or Hideo. There are more than enough plot twists to keep you hooked, if you make it that far, and never have I felt so compelled to finish a game for the story alone. The end sequence is a little overdrawn and preachy, but so was the ending in MGS 1. What I'm getting at is that if you liked the first game, you'll like this one two. And, call me nuts, but the very end sequence, after the credits have finshed rolling, have gotten me so worked up for an MGS 3 that I can't wait until Hideo delves into his warped mind and makes a sequel. | video-games_xbox |
Fantastic Collection. A few small issues. An excellent value. A great collection of Rare's best work. There are some games missing due to licensing issues (Goldeneye, Donkey Kong Country, Diddy Kong Racing, etc), but they did manage to include some of Rare's most iconic games. I have strong nostalgia for many of the titles here. They did an excellent job of copying the original versions of many of these games.
There are some missed opportunities to improve the experience, such as controller remapping. A game like Jet Force Gemini uses inverted aim controls (move the stick towards you to aim up) and there is no way to change it. I appreciate that they chose to keep the experience of these old games pure, but it just make it hard to jump into some of these games without a more modern control scheme. I played these games as a kid before I became accustomed to more user friendly control, and it's difficult (but not impossible) to go back.
The other thing that should be noted (especially if you have slow internet) is that the XBox 360 games in this collection (9 in total) aren't actually on the disc. They must be downloaded from XBox Live. The total download size for these 9 games is about 36GB, if I recall correctly. The plus side to having the largest games of the collection as a separate download is that you can uninstall the ones you don't want and save some space.
Back to the positives. There are videos showing the making of these games, behind the scenes footage, etc. These videos are unlocked by playing the games and getting achievements. The older games allow you to save at any time, which is great for the difficult arcade games. You simply hold the start button for a few seconds and you bring up a menu that allows you to save or load. You can turn on filters and boarders. Playing the arcade games with a CRT filter is pretty sweet. It's one of the better CRT filters that I've seen.
There is a challenge mode for 16 of the older games that give you certain tasks to complete in game, which have leaderboards so that you can compare scores between friends and globally. These challenges range from collecting stars scattered on the track in RC Pro-AM to killing 15 rats in Battletoads as quickly as possible. All of these challenges award stamps that level you up and unlock more videos.
Multiplayer works as intended. You can play local split screen on games like Perfect Dark. Perfect Dark Zero has online multiplayer. I believe that's the only one here that does.
Overall this is an amazing collection of many of Rare's best games. An awesome value at essentially $1 per game. I purchased this for a few specific games, and I've found enjoyment in almost all of them. Some of the games don't hold up as well as others, but I believe there is something here for everyone. Rare has been around long enough that gamers of any age will find some nostalgia here. For me (a 29 year old), it's the N64 games. Blast Corps, Perfect Dark, Conker... they all make me warm and fuzzy. | video-games_xbox |
What Forza 2 Should Have Been. Forza was a great game. Forza 2 was a good one that should have been great. It had amazing graphics and physics, no arguing against that. But it made the same mistake Ferrari F355 Challenge on the Dreamcast did. It was too dang hard. The thing about simulations is that while they are interesting for exploring the possibilities in the real world without real-world consequences (wrecking cars that cost millions isn't something you can do any day of the week for real), they also tend to be a bit low on the fun factor once the novelty of the realism wears off (unless you are just an incurable realism fanatic). Thankfully, the creators of Forza learned their lesson and made this more than just a great sim, but a great game.
If there is one thing Microsoft does well, it is stealing. Added to the already formidable Gran Turismo-ish simulation physics and real-world feel and the in-cockpit views borrowed from Project Gotham, we now have the rewind ability from the amazing GRID. When you take the variable difficulty of Forza, correct the ridiculous braking of Forza 2 (with brakes turned to 200% I still regularly slammed into walls), and add in some brightly colored graphics and brief exciting tracks (maybe a suggestion from GRID and need for Speed Shift) to replace the drab boring tracks from Forza 2. The rewinds go a loooong way to ease the irritation of crashing at the end of the final lap I experienced so many, many times in Forza 2.
I can't say anything about the online features of the game, as I don't have an Internet connection at home. The garage and upgrade features are largely unchanged, but I am deeply grateful for the automatic upgrade/downgrade option so that I don't have to tweak a car endlessly to qualify for a race. As in the second Forza it's nice to be able to hire a driver to do the races you don't like, and the experience system for cars and drivers goes a long way to keep you playing. The new Touge events and other new styles are nice, but once again it feels like Forza is just playing catch-up to GRID (I saw the EXACT same Touge track in that game, though it is nice to see it in a more real-world light).
In yet another move to copy GRID (and a very welcome one), the A.I. cars no longer race in perfect lines, but actually overshoot corners and spin-out and wreck from time-to-time. It goes a long way to making the game feel more like a race event and less like a cold calculating simulation.
The presentation side of the game is a trade-off. While the menu interface is lovely, bright, and colorful, it also takes longer for menus, races, and events to load than any other racing game I have ever seen. I kid you not, there is actually a "Menu Loading" screen that you will see every couple of minutes. While the graphics are truly outstanding, the extensive loading is the price that you pay, and especially when you are racing a lot of short events, they can start to seem a bit much.
The game requires a very large install, so make sure you have room on your hard drive (it even comes with a second DVD full of content you need to load the first time you play). And if, like me, you don't have Internet....you are going to be irritated to find that there are track and car packs included that are download only. That right. In a move doubtless designed to highly discourage buying the game used, instead of coming with a disc loaded with extra cars and tracks, the game comes with download codes for the content.
This is a beautiful game. And you can tell by the demo that it has a much more colorful and generally fun atmosphere than the last Forza. If you like your realism, but don't like it to be punishing you will probably enjoy this game. If you enjoyed Forza and Forza 2 it's a must-buy. It is in my opinion, the best racing simulation in the world today...until Gran Turismo 5 comes out at least. | video-games_xbox |
Well Meaning but Just Not Fun. Crash - Mind Over Mutant is the latest in the Crash Bandicoot series, a platformer which can be played by one or two players. I really had high hopes for this game, as I generally love platformers. Unfortunately, it just does not hold up.
It's sort of hard to put your finger exactly on why the game isn't fun to play. The graphics are nice enough, a good balance between realistic movement and cartooney shininess. The characters are cute, optimistic, and have the usual collection of bouncing, climbing, spinning and other movements.
There are monsters you encounter that you can take control of. Each monster has special abilities that you can use to solve puzzles. For example you run into an ice monster and can use him to freeze water.
There was a fair amount of potential here, but the gameplay really feels tedious and boring. The dialogue is painful. I realize this is for kids - we play a LOT of games meant for kids and they are generally quite fun! I had several people try this one and usually you have to pry the controller away from people that are playing a platformer. With this one, they would slog through an area or two and then want to stop playing.
Digging aimlessly through underground areas looking for a shiny object or two? Slashing away at giant dandelions? These are only the first few fun tasks you take on in your duties.
There are so many other great platformers out there that are incredibly fun to play and replay - the Ratchet & Clank series, the Jak & Daxter series. We would spend weeks and weeks playing those games and enjoying every moment of it. That we had to force ourselves to play through this one was really a key indicator that it just wasn't right. We love platforming - we are this game's target audience. It just wasn't well done.
If you really want to give it a try, rent it from your local game rental store or website. That way you can test it out first. If it happens to match your particular gaming style, then by all means by it - but I'm afraid most platforming fans will find it lacking. | video-games_xbox |
The Dragon Knight Saga: an RPG well worth playing. Divine Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga is an RPG made by the indie developer Larian Studios.
I waited on writing this review until I completed the game.
The story:
You are about to become a dragon slayer when your initiation ceremony gets postponed due to the call of the hunt... In a twist of fate you (no spoiler here) become the last Dragon Knight- a warrior who can transform into a dragon, and on a mission to save the world from Damian "The Damned One" (a reference to 'the Omen'?). When the first chapter ends (Ego Draconis) I was rather enraged, and glad there was a part two (then I discovered the ending of part one was comically foreshadowed). The second chapter (Flames of Vengeance) continues where the last chapter left off and ends in a way that made me yell "YES! Now that's a proper ending."
Content:
This is a content rich RPG. Lots of people to meet and places to see. You feel like you've stepped into an actual world. It's hard to describe how intricate and well thought out the writer were. The dialogue is witty, some books you find will make you laugh. Make no mistake, this game will keep you entertained! The number of quests as well as their variety is great. Another thing that got me excited to play was the humor! The antics of a character named Bellegar alone is worth seeing. Each time I popped the disc in I wondered what new funny or Easter egg I would see (this game is packed to the gills with references to various books, movies, internet memes and other video-games). Some of these references include but are not limited to: the Omen, Monte Python, Tomb Raider, and the Lord of the Rings.
This game balanced both a dark side while at times doesn't take itself too seriously. It strongly came across as the makers had an excessive amount of fun making this game.
The Gameplay:
It can be best described as a Sandbox-RPG. The game makes a huge focus on allowing the player to choose how to play. There are often multiple solutions to quests. After a certain point in the game you get a "battle Tower" (which acts like the "Heroe's guild" in the game Fable) it's a place to store your booty, make potions, enchant armor and/or weapons, and improve your skills (or redistribute them) - yes, you can start as a warrior and halfway through decide to be a necromancer instead! You may also change your appearance if you wish. The creature you can summon is definitely a good help, this customizable ghoul can save you from a tight spot. The mind reading skill is a neat concept which can be used to progress through a quest or offer some comic relief.
The fighting mechanics is descent, (melee, ranged, magic) nothing groundbreaking but not bad either. The game allows you to roam free in a huge play area, (Not as big as Oblivion or Skyrim, but definitely bigger and more open then Fable 2).
Graphics & Technical:
Not the prettiest game around, I'd rate it as passable. The art design in my opinion was better then most games I've seen.
It is still a huge improvement from Ego Draconis (so I've heard). V-sync issues is minimal, slowdowns are gone, the frame-rate remains smooth and only rarely hiccups. The shadows and lighting are decent. On the technical side most bugs I've encountered were fairly minimal with only two of which are serious (and I had to try hard to get them). People complained about the original game crashing a lot, in this remake, I was only able to crash the game in a very specific situation (hopping like mad in the necromancer's cave in the beginning of the game, and even then it only happened to me twice).
Audio:
The music is crisp and catchy, I loved the tune which played while climbing up Lovis's Tower, very empowering. All the NPC's are "Talkies" which is a big plus (and some inanimate objects too), the voice actors become repetitive after a while but they often employ different accents and mannerisms that it didn't bother me at all.
In conclusion, this game is aimed for hardcore RPG players, and is somewhat approachable for RPG novices, (check the forums and Divinity Wiki if you get stuck). It offers alot of replay value and is definitely one of the most amusing games I've played.
one final note: I've noticed that this game is hard to find in stores. | video-games_xbox |
so fortunately I don't have to deal with the issues that . The only reason I play this game is so my wife doesn't get upset for buying it as a gift for me.
I only care for the career mode, so fortunately I don't have to deal with the issues that EA is having with their servers and other online bugs. I bought this game expecting it to be a golf simulator. This game is more accurately an arcade game. When you start playing the career, you need to find the option to actually play full rounds - a feature that should be on by default. Switching to upgraded clubs and changing out clubs in your bag is very rough. Changing clothes for the 4 days is very plain. Making your golfer does not really give you the chance of customizing a lot of features on a person.
The big problem with the game is the bugs. The commentators make more mistakes than correct statements. I've had dropped shots after hitting in the water not even incur a penalty stroke! The player celebrates when he should be humble. The player has raging fits when he is in first place and makes par on an up and down. There are just major problems with this game.
Then you see the golfer celebrations - this is ridiculous. It's like EA spends all their time getting these celebrations to work instead of making a fun game. Besides that, maybe 1/10 celebrations are practical. If you make a bogey, prepare to look like a complete jerk that would carry 0 fan-base. If you make a good shot, prepare to see your golfer start tumbling his putter like he's in the high-school rifle guard.
I'm just really curious what EA modeled this golf game after because these golfers don't act like golfers. These commentators are constantly inaccurate. The gameplay has a lot of fun potential, but it's surrounded with bugs.
I'm extremely disappointed with this because I anticipate EA's golf games so much because of the hours of entertainment that Tiger Wood's has brought me.
I really wish it were possible to file a class action law-suit against EA to refund our money for this game. This game is not a finished product and shouldn't be sold as one. I'm really curious if this is possible at all because software shouldn't be released with so many obvious problems.
As a developer, this makes me angry. As a golf fan, this makes me disappointed. As an owner of dozens of EA's products, I'm continuously more and more disappointed. Shame on EA Sports. | video-games_xbox |
More like SuperDud than Superman. Oh how I looked forward to this game. I followed through screen shots and trailers that were released. I also accepted the delay when EA said they were tightening up the game quality. Man I would have hated to see it before they "tightened up the quality". Like another reveiwer said, there is great potential for this game that EA failed to find. For one, yes, the game is terribly short. That may be good or bad, depending on how you feel about the game in general. You can beat this game within 6 hours. The game was fun for the first hour or so, and I still enjoyed playing it just for the feel of flying around. EA caught that pretty good. If you ever played the Spiderman games just to feel the sensation of swinging through the city, you may have more tolerance for this Superman game. I bought this the day it came out before the reviews came out. Had I waited, I would have only rented this game.
The game loosely, and I mean loosely, follows the plot line of the movie. One of the coolest moments in the movie was when Superman had to rescue the jet liner. I would have thought for sure this could have made it into the game but alas, it wasn't to be. I would have been happier if EA could have followed the movie plot more than just throwing in repetitive boss fights that happen again and again and again and again. I hope you see the point in reiterating again and again. You can't even really just enjoy flying around the city without a fight beginning. I don't even consider the graphics to be worthy of a second generation game for the 360, not with titles like Gears or War or the incredible Rainbow Six Vegas.
If you are a true hardcore fan of Superman, then I recommend a rental and if you could care less about Superman, just plain stay away from this game. I play it still just to have the freedom to fly around but I normally switch to another game as soon as the fights start up.
I have never been a huge EA fan. I felt that Need for Speed Most Wanted was a great game. Aside from that, EA has always been a mid quality publisher and developer. I consider the top games to come from UbiSoft. Just look at Madden, when EA got the exclusive contact with the NFL, there went the competition and Madden is now the only NFL licensed game out there and the lack of competition means you get the same pitiful game year after year now. I think EA has gotten to big for the pants and should focus more on game quality than just shipping out game after game. Hey, it works for UbiSoft. Also, if you want to see how EA is only interested in making the money, just check out Battlefield 2142. LOL.
As for Superman, there is a great game hidden under the trash that EA made available. Maybe next time someone other than EA can have the chance to make a great Superman game. | video-games_xbox |
A Good Horror Role Playing Game. Ok, this is my first review on any console game and the reason i feel compelled to write anything is because i can not get this game out of my head. I have only had an x box for about 3 motnhs and besides Halo and Harry Potter, i haven't found much i liked in the way of x box game. I start out by saying i am a beginner with console game so my review relects this.
It was only after reading a vague review in the X Box Mag that i found an interest in this game. So one Friday night at my video libray i saw it and rent it. I entered this world called Silent Hill and didn't come out of it till the Sunday. Now here are the facts:
1)This game is not an action game - its a interactive horror movie.
2) Find a walkthrough or cheats on the net cause at times the puzzles can be frustrating.
3) Play this in the dark with sound up - this is a must!!!!!
4) Don't expect a happy ending that wraps everything up - but hell, it will make you think for days to come.
5) Unless you scare easily or are under 12 this game shouldn't scare you but it does give of a vibe of unease.
6) Expect to take your time with this game - you could easily finish this game in just under 10 hours, but u will not want to finish once yah into it so u will need the time to get there and 10 hours in one sitting is still alot of time.
7) Yes there is fog over everything but it help towards the mood of the game and to be frank, the graphics at times though a bit grainy add to the horror element. It really is like watching some old episode from the Twlight Zone but creeppppy.
8)The cut scenes are almost dvd quality and really add to the movie feel of the game.
9) All characters and voices are spot on and you really end up engaging with the storyline much easier because of this.
10) It will play on your mind for days after would.
The only negative is, as most have said, the controls. But try to stick with it. After an hour you really will get the knack of it.
Basically, i loved this game. It offered everything i expected and more as a horror fan. I was actually interested in the storyline and was able to get creeped out a few times.
If u want a horror interactive experience buy this. If u want straight up action avoid it.
And if you see Maria, tell her im looking for her :P
*NOTE: In Australia this game is called Silent Hill 2: INNER FEARS (have no idea why) | video-games_xbox |
Not the Most Ultimate Spiderman. I was looking forward to this game! I was dissapointed! Ultimate Spiderman from the looks of things looks really cool, and would be if it weren't for the Spider-Man 2 movie game.
CONNECTION TO THE COMIC: Launched five years ago, the Ultimate Spiderman comic put the wall crawler back to his roots. Once again, Peter Parker's a high school kid who becomes The Spiderman. Treyarch decided to make the next SM game in the style of this comic, and does a good job at that also. It has all the things that the comic has, including the revamped super-villains, one of the most changed characters is the Green Goblin, who really looks like the Hulk with horns. As a comic book game this game is great, but not exelent.
THE GRAPHICS: One of USM's high pints is the graphics and the style of the cut-scenes. The game focuses on a cell-shaded style of graphics which really makes the game look like a comic. The cut-scenes are one of the best parts of the game, which i always looked forward to. Its hard to explain the cut-scenes in words but the trailer for the game is a good example.
CHARACTER 1, SPIDERMAN: Playing as Spiderman is fun but not as fun as in Spiderman 2 the game. You can only use your web to swing around the city and to tie up your enemies. The combat system is not based on combinations, but on a hit-quick-and-back-off method of fighting, which is actually more fun than it seems. Swinging around the city is fun, but not as fun as it was in SM2. The sense of speed is lost, even with all the upgrades achieved through racing against the Jonny Storm.
CARACTER 2, VENOM: Playing as Venom sound cool? Not really. If you know Venom, you know that he's supposed to be able to swing around on his own type web. Does he? No. You might also know that his costume is supposed to have a spider on it. One of the cool points of venom is the ability to take any human you like and feed on them to gain helth. Fighting as Veom seems fun at first, but gets repetitive. As I mentioned before, you can not swing like Venom should. Instead you jump. Really high. Fun, but once again sets repetitive. You can not free-roam until the game is complete.
STORY: A great sttory if you ask me, but just when you think it started, the game is over. This game is way, way to short. But what you get is good. The main story follows Venom and his suit. It includes little side apearences from super-villains that have nothing to do with the story, like Rhino. The Boss fights are the good old patern style fights (Villan is invincible, gets stuck in a wall, vincible.).
ENDING THOUGHTS: The Ultimate Spiderman is overall a great game, even with its many flaws it is woth picking up or at least renting. | video-games_xbox |
343 Couldnt care less that you cant play split screen with your family/friends. I am a 15 year Halo veteran - I don't consider myself a pro gamer or the biggest Halo fan in the universe, but I am indeed a big fan. I am deeply concerned of where 343 Studios is taking the Halo franchise. Artistically, they have great artist talent on the team, but the higher ups making the decisions are doing a seriously poor job in terms of deviating severely from the original story line, and the multiplayer that we all loved so much during the Bungie era.
Josh Holmes, the Creative Director at 343 came out with an article months ago about with their decision to completely disregard the implementation split screen multiplayer into Halo 5 in favor of graphics performance due to the size of the worlds etc etc - and was really not happy about it. The idea of sacrificing a major feature in favor of maintaining more than adequate performance is not a good one. All Halo games, including H4, had split screen online multiplayer and had no issues whatsoever. Yes - there is might be some slight FPS dip during chaotic moments or some grass missing here or there, and LOD in the distance was lower, but honestly - who cares?? We are all too busy having a great time playing the game. A logical person understands there must be some sort of optimization that has to happen in order to have 4 simultaneous views on one console. The more discerning, serious gamer might notice it - and if they care enough - won't play split screen. It seems like 343 doesnt give a crap about all the people that utilize split screen multiplayer and are, instead, making sure the game will satisfy the pro-gamer that demands 60FPS. Which, by the way, they are down-resing from 1080p in certain instances in order to maintain it! I don't get it. Why not make it 1080p with variable 48-60 frame rate? Heck, take it down to 30FPS for people who want to play split-screen. I could care less for 60FPS and I see it mostly as a luxury, not a necessity, and i'm sure many people feel the same way; people do it everyday playing older Halo games. People were able to be "pro" back then without 60FPS... I understand 343 has serious time constraints and sacrifices must be made, but never in my wildest imagination did I think they would just kill off split screen. There is no doubt in my mind that they can implement split screen for online multiplayer and co-op campaign (NOT JUST LOCAL). Since games files no longer exist on a CD and instead exists in a file system on a HDD, I see no reason not to include this 'should be standard' feature to the game, sometime soon after release, in an update.
Again, I think people who play 2-4 player split screen multiplayer would expect graphical optimizations to be made and won't go home crying because they couldn't see certain details. I grew up playing Halo with my friends and most importantly, my family. Sure, some of them are in different states now - but multiple times a week we meet online to play Halo Reach or 4. There are thousands of families out there that play together and now you have the gall to complete give up on a feature thats been in the game since the beginning, and instead tell us - sorry you cant play online multiplayer together anymore and have to use 2 consoles, 2 xbox live subscriptions, 2 games, and 2 tvs - in the same house, in order to all play together. 95% of my gameplay is with my family. I don't usually play unless im playing with them because its more enjoyable. Not including split screen is a ballsy move and sets a dangerous precedent for the future... and unfortunately this has caused me to consider hanging up my Halo cap for good but maybe thats what Josh Holmes and the people running 343 intended by moving Halo's gameplay forward - for a new generation of gamers that prefer FPS over features
In short: The higher ups at 343 doesnt give flying a crap about what the people playing outside of the studio think, only what their testers think. People have been begging for split screen to be re-implemented after the crappy decision came out to not even try to support it, and instead ignore all of those who are unhappy and pretend they don't exist. But hey if the game already went gold why even try to do anything at all? They got their money, their work is done. Shame. | video-games_xbox |
Fun Magic System - Engaging Combat - Addicting Gameplay. It was only recently that I knew about Two Worlds series, and I am glad I did. Initially, Two Worlds II did not impress me the way Oblivion did. For some reasons, the developer went crazy with the bloom effect, causing the game to look blurry, compound to that is the blur motion effect which makes the game difficult and annoying to look at, much less play for hours. Even after turning off both effects, the game still looks blurry, thankfully there is an in-game command line (engine.hdr=0) that allows you to turn it off, albeit you have to enter the command-line every time you load the game, but I don't mind. Even though the game doesn't break any new grounds in terms of graphics and story, but it still provides many hours of fun explorations and addicting gameplay in a very immersive, beautiful fantasy world. The combat system is more engaging than Oblivion, you get several powerful attacks to assist you in mele combat, and it's fun to see your character employs a one-strike blow to end the fight. The game utilizes a complex magic system, maybe too complex for some to avoid it altogether, but it's very rewarding once you understand the basic of it. Utilizing magic could mean the difference between a hard fight and an easy fight. The system is based on the use of combinations of spellcards. The different combinations allow for the creation of different spells, the stacking of the cards creates more powerful spells. If you like to play as a mage, you will spend a lot of time experimenting with the magic system just to see the effect it produces. I played the game on hard mode, a combo of warrior-mage, so initially it was hard, but as my character got stronger, the game got much easier. You could play a combination of warrior and mage, and still do well on both. The game does surfer from occasional bugs that exists in many other RPG games, but no freezing, no crashes and no save-game issues. If you like RPG or like countless hours of exploring beautiful, fantastical world, get it. | video-games_xbox |
Still an Excellent Game. I got the stand-alone version of this game the day that it came out. In fact, I actually pre-ordered and went to the a midnight opening of a store to buy it. I had always thought that it would have been cool to own the premium edition but could never justify the steep price. Well, today, when I was playing my old drum set broke so I went to the store to replace and to my surprise I saw the premium edition of this for $[...], considering it was only about $[...] more than a new drum set would have cost me, I jumped all over it (that is, I bought it).
Anyway, I realize that this review is coming a year late, but when I was playing it tonight I realized that I never wrote a review for the game and I have some thoughts about it.
Music - This is The Beatles Rock Band, that being said, I was really glad that they didn't go the route of the Guitar Hero franchise (ie GH:Metallica, GH:Van Halen) and stick on a bunch of bands that I didn't care about on the disc. I wanted The Beatles and that is what was delivered. The variety of songs is very well spread throughout their career and many of my favorites were included. My opinion on this doesn't really matter, however, considering tastes are subjective. You can look at the list and see for yourself if you are happy with the selections or not. The one thing that I would like to note, however, is that it is obvious that George Harrison's son had a lot to do with this. I say this because, nearly every George Harrison song is here. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing because George really had some great songs, but I think in some cases a better song could have been included from certain albums (I'm looking at you "Within Without You"). People have complained about the fact that you can't export the songs from The Beatles Rock Band to play in other Rock Band games, but honestly this doesn't bother me at all. When I play Beatles Rock Band, I like just playing The Beatles. If I want to play something else, I just switch the games, no big deal. I really don't see what is so hard about this and why others just skipped this game because of that.
DLC - This is also rather subjective but three of my favorite albums (Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road) as well as "All You Need is Love" were all released as additional content that can be ordered to beef up the playlist. I have to admit, however, that this is one of the areas that frustrated me most about the game...I really wish that they could have included more dlc; I know that I, as well as many others, would have bought it. What was really irritating about this is how Harmonix has been tight lipped about rather or not there will ever be any more dlc. I have given up on it, but it would really be nice if they could use the keyboard peripheral that is coming with RB3 and add some of the piano heavy songs (specifically Hey Jude).
Gameplay - If you have played any other Rock Band\Guitar Hero game you get the idea. If not, you are basically pretending to play instruments. The sweet addition to the Beatles Rockband was the ability to have up to three mics to sing harmonies. This feature seems to work rather well, though I have only ever done this with two mics. Another thing to note is that The Beatles Rockband seems to be somewhat easier than some of the other plastic instrument games. Generally I can only successfully play medium guitar on most of the games, but with this game I can play hard guitar on most songs with very little trouble. Also, I generally do miserable on vocals, but on this game I can also play on hard with very little trouble. Of course, I am a huge Beatles fan and know every song by heart so this may play into that. I can't comment on drums, however, because I am just as terrible here as I am on other version of these type games.
Graphics\Interface - All I can say is "Wow" on this. There was obviously a lot of love that went into the making of this game. The art overall fits in well with the Beatles style and the movies between the different sets of music while playing the main story were really done well. It is really cool to watch the transition from one period in the life of the Beatles to the next. Also every once in awhile, usually when singing only, I can watch the animations while playing and the different dreamscapes fit perfectly with every song. There was also plenty of unlockable video\audio that added to the game.
Packaging - This really only pertains to the Premium edition of the game, but as I said earlier, the price is coming down so it is really worth looking into now. This includes a mic stand which is nice since with this game, I have no issue with playing guitar and singing at the same time. The included Hofner Bass is also really, really beautiful and looks exactly like the one made famous by Paul. What I have noticed while playing with it, is that neck is a little longer than the guitars that I have used in the past so it is taking me a little time to get used to it, but for some reason it seems to feel a lot more comfortable while playing bass as opposed to playing guitar. I haven't assembled the drum set yet, so I can't comment on it, but it is wireless so that should be nice.
Overall I would say this was a very nice purchase. Since it is over a year old the prices have plummeted. I have seen the core game now for as little as $[...], it is definitely worth that even if you not as big a Beatles fan as myself. If you don't have any instruments yet or you need to add one or two to you collection, I would recommend looking around for the premium edition since the price has come down considerably from the original $[...] price tag. I thought that the original price was insane and I would say as nice as the set is it wasn't worth that. If, however, you can find it for $119, like myself, this is not a bad price considering that to get these peripherals individually would cost you at least $[...] | video-games_xbox |
More bugs than MLB 2K5, but great fun. I have owned both this World Series Edition game and the Original version on my X Box. I ended up selling my used copy of the former here at Amazon.com. I could see that this game took the place of my original purchase.
This game is one of the best baseball videogames I've ever played! I'll say it again, ONE OF THE BEST! My brother came over to my house, and played this game with me after I had purchased it! I'm in my 40's and he's in his upper 30's! I'm the big gamer of the family, and he rarely plays! HE COULD NOT PUT THIS GAME DOWN! He said: "This game is awesome!!!"
Well, I have to say I am a bit shallow when it comes to games, but I'll tell you my feelings and feel free to choose helpful or unhelpful, depending on your feelings! I will make it as good as can! Because I really love this game!!! All ratings are out of 5 stars.
GAMEPLAY: 4.5 stars
Many great options here. I'm pretty lousy at baseball, and I enjoy controlling the sliders to my liking, and giving the disadvantage to the opposing team! I love how you can advance the runner, and take control. It is not perfect, but it is lots of fun, and nice to take a different angel. I'd love to see taking control of the catcher, perhaps in future editions, thought I don't think it made it to the 2K6 version. Maybe 2K7?
MINIGAMES: 3.5 stars
This is where this version stands out! It's addition of "Great World Series Moments " Pennant Fever Mode makes for stellar gameplay. Homerun King is also fun! Not its highest effort, but still great!
SKYBOX MODE: 4 stars
Love this mode, and its fun to purchase options to include in your gameplay. Nice videos and excellent interplay options.
MUSIC OPTIONS: 4.0 stars
Despite what other games say, this was, to the best of my knowledge, the first baseball sports game which allows you to choose the music in many game play options within the game. Not just the beginning, not just the end. But throughout the game! At bats; Base hits; strikeouts; Pitcher entries; etc. When you go through the menu screens, you get an opportunity to customize all of your tunes. They let you choose music for the Home Team hitters as they approach the plate. They even let you choose music for specific stadiums. It is the most awesome feature in any sports videogame I have ever owned!
One less star than earlier mode, due to Hometeam glitch in playing up to bat music. I'm pretty sure it is a glitch that causes the system to default to same song for all batters. Can't seem to fix it.
GREAT WORLD SERIES MOMENTS DVD
This is a nice treat! I have watched this DVD several times. I would say you have to be a baseball junkie like me to really get into it, but its a nice little bonus!
Over all, I have to give this one 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. It is truly an awesome game!
MC White said: CHECK IT OUT!!! TWO ENTHUSIASTIC GAMER THUMBS UP!!! | video-games_xbox |
Wing Commander meets Rogue Squadron. With the Tom Clancy trademark attached to this game one should fairly think that this was going to have some level of realism - that's why I bought it, thinking that it would offer some of the realism that this symbol entailed. To be fair Tom Clancy games (and novels for that matter) have never been the epitome of realism, however there is usually enough contact with reality for the game to have some level of believability. Not true for HAWX. Though there is an attempt to link this game in to the Ghost recon series this game never really gets past being a kids game. There are about three buttons to push, hundreds of missiles, and a game that is reminiscent of "Wing commander meets Rogue Squadron". Now I loved Rogue Squadron but that was a star wars game not a flight sim. That HAWX is a kids game is fine in itself, not everyone wants to play a complex flight simulator, and an arcade sci-fi space shooter is a fine concept in itself. Given that this game is not a simulation and has nothing to do with flying then it would be in error to review it as a flight sim, but rather as a sci-fi space shooter such as Wing Commander, Rogue Squadron and perhaps some of the prop driven WWII games that have come out recently. Even though it has Clancy's name on it this can only be fairly reviewed a s space shootemup and that's what I'll judge it on. The closest game to this is Wing Commander and given that both Wing Commander and Rouge Squadron are better games in the genre than HAWX, then it is hard to recommend this one, or suggest that HAWX has added much to this game type.
Stability: No crashes or technical problems encountered other than SLI. On release it did not work too well on SLI however this is not too much of a drama as maxed out at 1680x1050 on a single GPU it ran at about 150FPS. Smooth and problem free from my experience. The game is simple and uses a simple engine that we be stress free for all but the oldest computers. Joystick support was impressive, it handled both the XBOX360 controller and my Saitek X45 no problem.
Graphics: The GPS data rendering the earth is actually pretty effective, however for the most part the graphics are pretty underwhelming. If you are used to impressive cockpits, detailed textures for the skinned aircraft and realistic mechanical animations then you won't find that here. Cockpits are relatively low resolution and the aircraft skins themselves are the weak point. There are some good animations such as missile trails and the like, but given how much time you spend looking at the aircraft itself or the cockpit graphic this can only be considered underwhelming, best described as workman-like, passable but none-the-less workman-like.
Sound: Sound is also relatively workman-like. Nothing special, for the aircraft sounds and the voice acting is the usual cheesy GI Joe type military characters, who you would expect to see on a childrens cartoon. Ok, if you are in to that kind of thing, but a different approach to Ghost Recon and other Tom Clancy titles.
Gameplay & Story: The story is typical Clancy, an over the top techno romp that has little do with reality and since it is broken up in the missions so much, there is no reason to follow it. I finished the game in about 4 hours and cannot tell you what the story was about. It wasn't interesting and didn't matter in the gameplay much in the sameway that this is almost always true in Clancy games. The game was really fun for about an hour and then it becomes repetitive and simplistic. Even on the hardest level the game is stupendously easy, you are basically an invincible flying space-tank with more firepower than the 3rd Airforce. Levels are more or less the same and lack anything particularly challenging to do. Fly here and press a couple of buttons, move over there and press a couple of buttons and so on. The game might be good for kids who are just getting into gaming but otherwise there is not much to challenge a teenager or adult who isn't so challenged in the dexterity department.
Replayability: By making progress in the game you can earn up to 50 new aircraft to fly, most of which resemble modern jet fighters but also include the odd extra-terrestrial vehicle. This would seem to add a bit of depth and replayability except that they all move (I almost said fly) the same with only minor and inconsequential differences. In lasted a few days on my harddrive before making way for better offerings.
Verdict: A weak offering that promised much more. Difficult to recommend as there are better prop-driven WWII games similar to this that are better than this available. This is a dumbed down Clancy offering that should appeal to those who like explosions or only play for 15 minutes a day. I hope they don't do this to the whole Clancy franchise as I couldn't bear a (more) dumbed down Rainbow Six.
Better than: Doing homework
Worse than: Wing Commander | video-games_xbox |
Mass Effect 2 is good. Mass Effect 2 for the PS3 and Xox360 is a very good game. Here is my review for it, I hope you enjoy.
Plot and Squad Characters: (minor spoilers) you are Commander Sheppard who is flying around in your ship called the Normandy. After searching for Geth (rouge robots created by the Quarrians another race in the ME universe) you get attacked by a giant dreadnaught ship that looks like a giant termite hill. After saving what and who you could from your ship, you get ejected out from the final attack of the attackers ship and sent into space plummeting to your death on the nearby planet. Fast forward 2 years later (this is where in the game you can choose what Shepard looks like, what class of fighter they are and their mini background story) where the base you wake up is under attack from mechs aka security droids that were hacked. You are contacted by Maranda Lawson who helps you escape along with Jacob Taylor to a facility where everything can be explained. In this new facility, you meet the man in charge who is named The Illusive Man, He explains his company known as Cerberus. Cerberus is known in the ME world as a Humans come first, human advancement in the universe comes 2nd and anything else other than humans comes dead last. The Illusive Man tells you entire colonies of human are being abducted without a trace of them every being there. The Illusive Man tells you to start gathering a team together so that you can find out who is kidnapping entire human colonies and to stop the Reapers from Invading.
Characters: Commander Shepard, you can choose whether to be male or female and only human, sorry cant choose which race you want to be. The classes you can choose to be in the game are The Soldier: who has the most health out of all the classes. The Infiltrator: who is a stealth based class who is better at fighting long range. The Vanguard who is best at close and person fights. The Sentinel who is a mid-range fighter with the best shields out of all the classes. The Adept who is the best at using biotic powers to fights. Last is The Engineer: who is best at fighting synthetics aka robot and other characters who use shields and barriers most of the time. During the game, you can choose whether to be Paragon (aka good/hero) or Renegade (aka evil/bad ass) by the decisions you make and threw the conversations you have with others.
Maranda Lawson: she is the Illusive Mans right-hand girl and pretty much the 2nd in command of Cerberus. She is a biotic who can use her powers during combat. She is a more by the book kind of person. You can have a romance relationship with Maranda, Male only. When asking for upgrades she could give she can help you upgrade planet mining scanner to move fast if you want.
Jacob Taylor: he is a member of Cerberus and serves under Maranda Lawson. He is a good soldier with a minor in biotics. He is probably the easiest going and laid-back member of the team. He can help you upgrade the ships armor if you want him to. If you choose you can have a romantic relationship with Jacob. Only female Shepard
Garrus: Returning from ME 1, He is found on Omega going under the name Archangel. He is a sniper at heart and is a very good shot. He loves working with weapons and can help you upgrade your ships main weapon when he comes aboard it and if you want him to. Garrus can have a romantic relationship with female Shepard only
Jack: Jack aka Subject Zero is a biotic fighter. She is known as the biotic train who can use her biotic powers to cause a lot of damage to enemies. She is known for swearing more than anyone else on the team. Really great in combat with tons of enemies, she is great at crowd control. Her upgrades are making her biotic powers even stronger. Jack can have a romantic relationship with Shepard, male only.
Grunt: Grunt is the perfect Krogan. By that meaning he is genetically perfect, he is genophage resistant. In your squad, he has more health than anyone and the best shields. He works best at close range because his upgrade choice is a shotgun called the M-900 claymore, which is the strongest shotgun in the entire game (DLC included). You cannot romance with Grunt.
Mordin: aka Professor Mordin Solus aka Dr. Mordin aka Dr. Solus. He is salarian genius. The game calls him more hyper then a hamster on coffee. His strengths more or less help in the story line more than combat situations. His upgrade for the game is making his tech skills better. He is great in conversation and he is my personal favorite out of all team members. You cannot romance with Mordin.
Tali Zorah vas Neema: Returning from ME 1, she is a Quiaren engineer and hacker. She is really good at fighting Geth opponents. She can summon up holographic combat droids to fight with. She can have a romantic relationship with male Shepard. Tali can upgrade the ships shields if you wish,
Samara: She is a Justiscar. A Justiscar is an Asari version of a specter which pretty much means shes a cop who can deal justice by any actions they deem necessary. She is a biotic fighter too so her powers are useful in combat. She can have a romantic relationship with either male or female Shepard. Her ship upgrade is increase fuel for the ship.
Morinth: Morinth is choice character. (Minor spoiler) In Samaras loyalty mission you can choose whether to help Samara kill Morinth or help Morinth kill Samara. If you choose Morinth, she is pretty much the same as Samara in every way except she has one new biotic power call dominate, which used can make organic enemies attack other enemies temporally. She can have a relationship with both male and female Shepard.
Thane: Thane is a Drell assassin. Because he is a Drell, like all drell he has perfect memory and can remember everything he has ever done with perfect detail. He is best at long range fighting because he is a sniper in your party. He is also a minor biotic. He can have a romance with female Shepard. His upgrade is upgrade the number of planet searching probes from 30 to 60.
Legion: Legion is a Geth fighter acquired late in the game. He is a hacker like Tali. He is good at mid rage and long-range fighting. Legion and Tali have a tough history because Quarrians created the Geth and the Geth rebelled driving the Quarrians from the homework and taking it over. His upgrade is a sniper riffle called the X-98 Widow which is the best sniper riffle in the game (DLC included)
Katsumi Goto: (can only get if you have the DLC called Katsumis Stolen Memory) she is called the best thief in the galaxy. You can acquire her when you get to the citadel for the 1st time. Her combat is alright, not someone you put on the front lines. She has no upgrades to give and you cannot romance her. Without the DLC, Cerberus is unable to find her and cannot hire her for your big mission. Her DLC mission Ill review that later in the main review.
Zaeed Masani: (can only get if you have the DLC called Zaeeds Price of Revenge) he is a mercenary/thug/bounty hunter for hire. He is best used in combat for crowd control. He has no upgrades to give and you cannot romance him. His DLC mission Ill review later.
Liara Tsoni: (is temporary and only can be used in the DLC called Lair of the Shadow Broker) she returns from ME 1. She an Asari biotic user. After ME 1 she became an information broker trying to find the Shadow Broker. Her combat skills are good for the 1 and only mission you can use her in.
Weapons: depending on what class you are you can have 4 weapons but there are 5 in total. 6 but the 6th is a technicality, you can have the pistol, shotgun, sniper riffle, sub machine gun and assault rifles and last is the heavy weapon. Heavy weapons require special ammo and once its all used up you need to find more, its not common but not rare. Heavy weapons are the strongest out of all the weapons.
DLC aka Down Loadable Content, Im going to focus on the mission DLCs and not the guns and outfits DLC.
Cerberus Network: is a free DLC which you can download to get some other DLC.
Zaeeds Price of Revenge: this is where you can get the character Zaeed Masani (mentioned above) and his loyalty missions. This is an interesting mission where you hunt down someone who wronged Zaeed and he wants his revenge on him. This is about a 15 to 30-minute DLC depending on fast you play threw it.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? No, it won't impact it in any way possible
How much does this cost? Free, its a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network
Is it worth it? well because its a free DLC I would say yes only because it cost you nothing and it gives you extra time to play and some experience to collect in the ME2 universe also its nice to have a new character in your squad to bring along for the main missions but it won't take away from the overall story line
Normandy Crash Site: this is a single mission with NO enemies shooting you or nothing bad happening. You visit a planet where the 1st Normandy ship crashed and you only objective is to collect dog tags from fallen people from the ship and anything else you want to collect off the planet.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? None what so ever, its just a nice yet sad memory of seeing the old Normandy destroyed and all people who died during the collector attack at the very beginning of the game.
How much does this cost? Free, its a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network
Is it worth it? well because its a free DLC I would say yes only because it cost you nothing and it gives you extra time to play and some experience to collect in the ME2 universe
Firewalker pack DLC: This is where you get 5 missions in a floating tank like vehicle. You can do these missions for experience and extra game play
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? No, honestly, I find this the most pointless DLC in the whole game, sure you can collect elements for upgrades and other stuff for experience, this DLC is totally skippable and no one would care if you played this or not.
How much does this cost? Free, its a 100% free DLC because of the Cerberus network
Is it worth it? well because its a free DLC I would say yes but its a dumb DLC, Im just happy its free
Mass Effect: Genesis DLC: this is a comic book story, it enables when you don't have the first ME game saved, this gives you a small recap of what happened in the first game and you can make some choice in Genesis comic book that could impact the story in ME2 a bit, not much over all but a bit.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? Only a little bit for story purposes but you don't need it over all
How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 320 BioWare Points or $3.99 USD
Is it worth it? For the PS3, unless you get the ME trilogy where you can play all 3 games yes, but for Xbox360 NO because you can buy each game separately and get the stuff downloaded/uploaded to ME2 without needing this
Kasumi - Stolen Memory DLC: this is where you go on a mission with Kasumi the thief companion in your squad and steal back a valuable object she once had that was stolen from her. Its an alright story line, very short DLC, some people say only its only an hour-long game play, my personal best is 25 minutes without speed skipping.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? Nope, its nice to have a new character in your squad to bring along for the main missions but it won't take away from the overall story line
How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD
Is it worth it? For the PS3 since it comes free why not, but for Xbox 360 I would say no only because you are not getting much story for about 7 dollars.
Project Overlord DLC: you get a message from Cerberus saying they have a problem with a rouge VI taking over a compound and they need you to fix it. When you go down onto the planet you find out that there is one scientist left alive trying to survive and he wants to help you shut down project overlord.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? Not in ME2, only a very small part in ME3 will it affect the game play but not the overall story.
How much does this cost? Free on PS3 but for Xbox 360 you need 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD
Is it worth it? For the PS3 since it comes free why not, but for Xbox 360 I would say yes because its a good DLC with a lot of combat and a good side story line to follow. I like it to be honest.
Arrival DLC: this DLC is the side story of Admiral Hackett calling Shepard (aka you) to save Dr. Amanda Kensen from Batarian space, when you save the doctor you go back to an asteroid where she tells you that the reapers are coming in 2 days, when you go with her you find out that the entire asteroid except you are reaper indoctrinated and want the reapers to kill the entire galaxy. So, its up to you to stop the reapers from invading the universe.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? No, if you don't play this it will very minorly change a tiny part of the story in ME3, otherwise you will never notice the difference in the 3rd game if you don't play this DLC
How much does this cost? Both for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 it cost 560 BioWare Points or $6.99 USD. This is the first and only mission DLC for the PS3 you need to pay for.
Is it worth it? Its a very good story line which I like, good action to fight threw, gain experience, I like this DLC. I feel like for the PS3 this should be free and the next DLC Im going to talk about for the PS3 should be paid for.
Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC: When you meet Liara on planet Illium, she is an information broker where she is searching for the illustrious and mysterious Shadow Broker. The Shadow Broker is a person who has ALL the information in the galaxy and is very power. He will buy, sell and use information as they want to how they want the galaxy shaped. Liara wants to find her friend who is held captive by the Shadow Broker. So, you, Liara and someone else in your group go after the Shadow Broker and stop their reign of terror.
If I don't get this will it impact they story line? No, but in ME3 it explains a few minor things when you meet Liara in the 3rd game, depending on if you play this or not is how it will affect the 3rd ME game
How much does this cost? For the PS3 free, but for Xbox 360 it will cost you 800 BioWare Points or $9.99 USD.
Is it worth it? Yes, defiantly yes. To me (only) this is my favorite DLC in the entire game, it is the longest, most action and has the most story out of all the DLC missions you can download and play. I believe that for the PS3 it should cost $9.99 aka 10 dollars because of how good this DLC is, it is the longest DLC out of all the ME2 DLC out there. Plus, once you're done with the DLC you can go back to Liara and get other upgrades and planets to visit and search.
Overall: this is very great game. I have this both for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It is the best out of all 3 ME game. I would say BUY THIS GAME!!!!! | video-games_xbox |
Family game time. My son is a pretty adept gamer for eight years old. That being said, it can be a challenge to add games to our family's collection that satisfy our wishes: his need for novelty, the ability for cooperative play, kid-friendliness, and still be entertaining and keep the attention of the adults so we can experience cooperative play as a mom-kid or dad-kid team.
Spyro's Skylanders satisfies those requirements.
Sure, it's "Spyro" branded, though not as much (in my opinion) as previous Spyro game incarnations. Sure, Spyro (at least as far as we have gotten in the game at the time of this review) is a character in it, but he is not a main character and instead falls back in the ranks with the other characters.
The look is kid friendly. When playing, you can't run off the edge and fall (infinitely?) to your digital death. That's pretty big, especially when playing a co-op game with an eight year old. His video game dexterity is fantastic, and thankfully he has patience for his old mama while she learns the ropes.
It's very much like a high resolution/gorgeous version of the Gauntlet series, as far as game play goes.
The one thing that bothered me somewhat is that the game is a combo of puzzle solving and battle. Battle is violent. Maybe I'm considered overprotective, but I wasn't thrilled that the cartoon-y characters have some reality-based weapons... I can deal with throwing lightning bolts and streams of bruising, high pressure water, but some of the characters have large firearms. Still, it's more cartoon-y type violence, and I did talk to my kid about the weaponry and the battling, but I would hesitate in trying this game with a younger child or a child not quite as rule-based as my son. I do wish that the focus was more on problem solving to eradicate the continual threat of the bad guys... Maybe in an ideal world.
The game play is easy to learn. The puzzles and boss challenges are fun to take on as a duo.
The figures are pretty cool and we have started our own collection of them. They are hard to find at regular retail pricing, but occasionally you can find them at local stores, here on Amazon from Marketplace sellers, and on ebay. There are also adventure packs which give you a new character, a new location, and two magic items. You can play quite a bit with this starter pack, but I'm aiming at having at least one character of every "element" so that we can enter more element specific areas in the game than we can with the starter 3 figures. I do like that there is the three-dimensional/tactile aspect of this in that you have to place a figure on the portal to have them active in the game and you have to remove them when you would like to switch or you exhaust that figures "energy" and they need to "rest".
With all of this being said, I absolutely adore this game. I'm not a gamer (though I have played plenty of games over the years) but my kid is and this is accessible and enjoyable to both of us. I do wish that they handled the violence/battling with more intelligence and problem solving, but I am thankful that it is cartoon violence instead of a POV bloodbath (there are sheep wandering around and you can shoot them and the fire characters can ignite them and they turn to charcoal briquettes). My son is pretty diligent about not watching anything PG-13 or above (and PG only with one of us present), and things like excessive violence and bad language send him into a tailspin. This game, though, doesn't offend him. And really, it's not that much more violent than the Super Mario series (and not as graphically cartoon violent as Raging Rabbids).. | video-games_xbox |
Review for Turtle Beach Call of Duty: MW3 Ear Force Bravo Limited Edition Programmable Wireless Universal Gaming Headset. I just purchased these last night, Nov 1st, to use while playing BattleField 3 for xbox 360. These are my first headsets for online gaming and so far they are just OK...I don't think they are worth the $179 price...they seem to be basic wireless headsets with some built-in dsp (digital signal processing) presets..think equilizer for your stereo. Now for the Fun Stuff . From their website:
"The EFB also comes with a "Field Supplies" card, featuring a unique code to unlock access to an exclusive Turtle Beach / CoD: MW3 mini-site where you will find:
* Access to exclusive downloadable artwork
* Discounts on Turtle Beach swag
* Exclusive offers from Turtle Beach and partner companies for deals on MW3 content and other items that you can't get anywhere else
* ...and much more!"
I went to their website and accessed the MW3 "special" area. " [...] " and looked at the "exclusive" content. The only items that are on that page are
* Ear Force Bravo Enhanced Audio Preset Manager Software theres EarForce Delta also, but thats it)
* Additional Call of Duty: MW3 Enhanced Audio Presets for the Ear Force Delta
* Turtle Beach Apparel Promo Code
* Turtle Beach Call of Duty: MW3 PC Wallpaper / Screensavers
With the product description about programmable presets, I was thinking I would be able to customize the presets...WRONG... I install the software, but the "Additional" presets I downloaded are the SAME as the ones already installed with the Manager software..nothing programmable at all. Where is all the "Exclusive" content? Wallpapers of the headsets and discounts for buying clothing?? There are no additional presets like the PX3 has. All that can be done is cycle through the presets.
Pros:
* wireless
* flexible boom mike
* clear speech with no background hiss and decent game sound, but it can get a little muddled when a lot is going on where you cannot tell where even a helicopter is.
* separate Chat and Game sound volume controls
* rechargable lithium-polymer battery
* lightweight
* the headband has a springsteel band (not sure how far it goes into the earcup legs)
Cons:
* Overpriced - nearly $80-90 more compared to a wired version. Probably about $50 more than a wired dolby 5.1 version.
* lightweight feels kind of cheap for the price
* fabric earcup material is a little irritating
* Lackluster "Exclusive" content
* rechargable lithium-polymer battery pack does not appear to be replaceable.
* Programmable "Pre-sets" are just presets...nothing programmable about them. You can cycle through the presets by pressing the preset button on the headset...that is it. I was unable to use any of the other headset presets I downloaded from Turtle Beach.
* Seems to be only simulated surround sound, as the wireless transmitter uses the standard Red/White RCA jacks for the input. They are NOT dolby 5.1/7.1, that requires their DSS accessory for an additional $89!
* For being wireless, there are a LOT of cables -
* USB charging cable for headset
* USB cable for powering the transmitter
* audio splitter cable from source to transmitter (RCA to 3.5mm jack)
* xbox306 talkback audio cable from headset to controller so you can talk.
Result? You may want to consider the Xbox 360 Wireless Headset X41 by Voyetra/Turtle Beach with Dolby Headphone 7.1 Surround Sound instead...its $20 cheaper and is true 7.1 DSS. | video-games_xbox |
OMG BOBBY BROWN SINGS THE SONG FROM GHOSTBUSTERS 2 ON THE RADIO NOW. Ok, so I bought this little gem last year. It was good on the 360. Rockstar was all like, shhhh, it's ok, we aren't putting it on next gen because we spent so much time on it and it looks as close to next gen as you can get. Then like a little boy at bible camp again, they got me when I wasn't paying attention. Shortly there after not only did they announce they were putting it out on next gen, I found it hard to sit. I wasn't even gonna touch it cuz I'm like, "Oi! You money hungry yogurt eating hippies haven't even released heists! You promised that snizt ORIGINALLY!" So I was not the happiest little camper on the reservation. Then they released all the cool new guns and I was like meh. Then they were like "You can be your old self and look new!" and I like meh. More marketing dust to confuse us poor people to buy something we already had. Then they were like, "Call of Battledoody!" And I was like what? FP (first person to the more high brow intellectuals slumming it in the Amazon crowd), well this could be interesting. I thought maybe it was a gimmick, and let me tell you what. It is. But it's fun. Frankly with the 800 hours I put into the game on the 360, I felt like they should pay me to play it more. However here I am, lost in the STD, Plastic t**s and d-bags of Los Santos. It's a great place to hang out and it is still just as much fun the second time around. Only cooler because not only does everything look better, which is good for the ADD people like myself that are distracted by shiny, the world comes alive even more than it did before. It's hard to explain, but the world does feel more alive this time around. You really do feel like you are just another John Harry Richard cruising the streets, looking for a little "back-alley health" if ya know what I mean and I think you do. It is a worthwhile purchase, even if Online isn't fun alone. People suck. Then again they suck everywhere and you know this, you spend time outside. If not you spend time inside, like me, and meet people through the internets; where everyone is racist and doing your mother. All in all, it is definitely worth the double dip to be square. | video-games_xbox |
Stormblade Looks Awesome. The figurine I received is good. Looks a lot like the image provided in the Amazon posting (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Skylanders-SuperChargers-Drivers-Stormblade-Character-Pack/dp/B013HJ7ACQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Skylanders SuperChargers: Drivers Stormblade Character Pack</a>) and I do like it. 4 Stars for sure but, not quite 5 Stars for a few silly reasons.
1st reason is, the paint on the posting image is glossy and reflects light in highlights from the eyes, beak and blades. The paint on the shipped product is matte or "flat" and does not show these highlights... it's like the "life" is not in this one.
2nd reason is in the colors. I recognize that a computer monitor may relay different hews and shades of color and is an emission device (emits light) while a figurine is a reflective surface that reflects the light of the sources it is viewed under but... the colors are different. Just saying, they look different enough to me. People in my family photos look "ok" to me but none of them are birds so I can't relay precisely what the difference is.
3rd, the model has numerous slight differences in it's form from the image on Amazon's posting. The uniform the character is wearing has a different "cut" with more "fabric" covering more "feathers". The knee pads are shaped slightly different and the helmet lacks the detail of the posted image. Also, and this may cross the line someplace, some of the characters feminine shape is "lost" in the production model. Hate me a little but this is a female character and there is no reason to play-down this when it's obvious. A female form is fantastic in the truest sense of the word and deserves to be recognized and admired. Yes, kid's toy but still worth noting.
Look, I know I critiquing a child's toy here and I still would have bought this thing had the image been of an "as shipped" model but I would really liked to have had a figurine of the quality shown.
Overall, Stormblade is the most interesting of the characters (my opinion, yes) and I am quite happy to hold an example of this fun and fascinating toy! Bravo Activision and please pass my compliments on to the person who prepared your product sample, it's some really awesome model building/painting! | video-games_xbox |
Tomb Raider Anniversary for IMac Computer. I have a IMac 20" with standard features including the Leopard 10.5.5 OS, a 2.66 GHz Intel Duo Core 2 processor, 2 GB of Ram, and a ATI HD 2600 Pro graphics card. This seems sufficient to run the game okay. Every so often, you will find the screen will freeze as the computer takes more data from the game disc. It's a slight annoyance but nothing major. By the way, the game disc must remain in the computer for the game to be played. Also be sure you purchase the game that is compatible for MAC computers as the others won't work.
I have not completed the game but am pleased with the playability and graphics so far. It runs pretty smooth for the most part. With about 8 hours of play into the game, it has froze up twice, requiring the computer to be turned off and restarted. When that happens, the game resumes at the last check point you have reached. Fortunately you don't have to start from the very beginning of the game.
I am not a kid and have not played any of the Lara Croft Tomb Raider games before. I found it very beneficial to play the Lara Croft Manor section first before choosing the regular game. Playing the Manor section first teaches you how to use the various moves you will come across when playing the main game. The Manor section is actually quite challenging in itself.
There is no way I could complete this game without some walkthrough help. When I get to a point and can't figure out how to proceed, I simply quit the game. It will auto save at various points or you can manually save the game at any time you wish. Then go onto the Internet and Google Lara Croft Tomb Raider Anniversary Walkthrough. You can choose from any number of walkthroughs that are available. They will explain what to do to complete each level. Then go back to the game and proceed.
I am not a heavy gamer. I bought this game because it had a very good rating from other players. I have found a lot of good entertainment for the money spent on this game. Besides all the running, jumping, swimming, shooting, etc, there are puzzles to solve and hidden items to find. Good fun all around. | video-games_xbox |
I actually bought this system just a week or two back and it's not bad. However. UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM.
Feel free to leave comments and questions for me, I am not a fanboy, just a gamer who wants to present both sides.
Let me first preface this as, I own a PS4 and a Wii U as well as this system. I actually bought this system just a week or two back and it's not bad. However, I'm a little disappointed by the value included in the pack. When I bought the PS4 I paid the same price and received the Destiny Bundle with the physical game included as well as a white console that most people didn't have. However, with this pack you're stuck with downloading almost 70gbs to get the MCC and given the same color scheme that everyone already has (Nothing special to make this a "Halo" Xbox One). Now the downloading may become a good thing if Windows 10 rolls out and has some kind of Remote Play function, in which case, this will be a positive. But, for now even on a 90MBps internet connection, I still had to wait several hours before getting to test out the Halo Multiplayer. Yes, the campaigns were ready to go sooner, but I don't play Halo campaigns much these days, I've done them enough times to recite the lines. I play for the Multiplayer. So far Multiplayer seems to be better than where it used to be (from what I hear), I don't have to many issues joining games and haven't seen any major game breaking issues so far.
That all said. If you have a PS4 I wouldn't recommend purchasing an Xbox One just yet. I personally purchased one as I play Destiny on 360 as well as PS4 and saw friends jumping to the One from the 360 for it. So for me, this system works out nicely and allows me to pick right up where I left off on the 360 version. I was disappointed to see that the promotion to upgrade from Destiny 360 to the Xbox one edition was no longer running, I was luckily still able to grab the expansion pass since I already had it on 360.
I personally like the 360 controller better than the Ps3 controller, but like the Ps4 better than the One controller. It really comes down to the shoulder buttons on the One controller being way to stiff for my liking. I also dislike that the One decided to make it so the headsets were pretty much limited to stereo through the controllers. This is annoying as I have the Stealth 500p headset for the PS4 and only spent $100. Meanwhile the Xbox One would cost me anywhere from $200+ for a similar headset due to this discrepancy.
Game-wise if you already have a PS4 you're not going to find much in the way of exclusives just yet. Sunset Overdrive is good, Ryse is... Ryse (also on pc), Dead Rising 3 isn't bad (I have it for pc already though...), have not gotten to try out D4 just yet though. So game-wise the systems pretty much share the same exact library right this second, less of Halo and a couple of games. Ideally we'll get TR:Rise at the end of this year, which was another reason I grabbed this system.
Final Verdict: Compared to the Playstation 4 Destiny Bundle, you're left with a 70GB download and the same old Xbox One Color Scheme everyone already has. The controller shoulder buttons are stiff compared to the Ps4 controller and it still requires a kit or rechargeable batteries. Headsets are priced even crazier than the Playstation headsets. All in all, I give it a 3/5. I'll ignore the fact that it can only do 900p on most games, as most gamers play on a 40" 15 feet away with no idea what they're talking about when it comes to resolutions. Visually, I see no real difference and I play on a few different setups: a 46" Samsung (I play on this like 2-3 feet away), a HMZ-T2, a Optima 1080p Projector, 55" Toshiba and a 28" Razor LED Vizio.
If you're only going to grab one next gen system, grab the Playstation 4 simply because it has more exclusives so far and more on the way. If you're going to get both, both are great systems, just pick the one which has more of the games you like (either coming out or already out), then wait till the other is a good enough deal to make it worth it.
Update: Couple more weeks with the Xbox one and I still feel my rating is about the same. Something that I did find on the Xbox One to be pretty awesome was the Snap App feature. With Snap App you can add a small sidebar to whatever you are doing. Within that sidebar you can have Netflix, Messaging, Skype, Youtube, Live Cable, etc... running while you're gaming. Pretty awesome stuff when you're playing a game like Destiny and grinding away. That or playing Multiplayer Halo and just want some background noise.
However... I've also come to find out that Destiny on Xbox one tends to be much more buggy than its playstation 4 counterpart. I tend to run into more invisible loading walls, get disconnected more and due to the recent xbox live downage, issues with services. That said, the grind has become pretty unbearable for me with Destiny (Already have pretty much everything there is to get on the PS4 copy), so this system has pretty much just become a Halo and Sunset Overdrive system in the mean time. Hopefully with E3 right around the corner we'll see some more exclusives, like work on GoW etc... | video-games_xbox |
So far so good. My fingers hurt, which is a good sign, as it indicates that I've picked up my guitar and spent a few hours with it. So far, I like what I've seen. From the first little tutorial where they had me feebly pick a riff, I felt like this would be a good tool. Whether it helps me learn guitar in the long term remains to be seen, but it's certainly a good thing in that it has me trying. I figured, if I can sink hours of time into grinding achievements, maybe I can learn something while I'm at it.
As far as issues with lag go, I started off playing through my HDMI cable against the instructions, and it worked well enough (at least on the difficulties where it's okay to be feeble), but I think switching to the component cables did help a little.
Update:
I've been putting more time into the game, and I feel like it shows. My fingers are toughening up, and while they still hurt a little after a few playthroughs of a few songs, it's getting better. This past weekend I made a push and unlocked "master" mode for a song, 'Next Girl' by the Black Keys. What that means is that I have the option to play the song without the benefit of the interface. Having played the song a few times now, I feel some sense of accomplishment, actually playing through a song without little colored blocks telling me how. Other than that, I've been slowly progressing through the songs. Most of them are new to me, and while some I like, there are some I'm just humoring/suffering through to meet the minimum points.
Final word of caution for this update: if you start playing a song that you are familiar with or like, it will sound worse than most of the other songs, just because you have higher expectations. At least that was my experience. I downloaded 20th Century Boy as DLC because of a manga series, and will eventually get some more points on my account to download more tracks. I can't wait to hear how bad I am at Freebird | video-games_xbox |
The Return of the King for Xbox The BIG review. First Impressions
As soon as you put the CD in the Xbox it starts the game. You have to sit through almost 2 minutes of inescapable logos and stuff until you get to a kind of prologue bit. Then your stuffed right into the middle of a battle as Gandalf! This adds to the sudden excitement of the game.
Graphics
The graphics are state of the art and they surpass even Xbox's usual brilliance, EA Games has another award winner here. Everything is just so realistic! The settings match the film perfectly, Helms Deep, Osgiliath, Minas Tirith to name but a few! The characters are amazingly exact and you really feel like you are the person! There are small commentaries before each level read by Gandalf over the top of real footage from various parts of the three films, then you are lead into the game by means of the film kind of merging into the game graphics, the join is unnoticeable, honestly!
Game play
The game play is even better than the graphics, if at all possible. There are three different "paths". Path of the wizard using Gandalf; Path of the King using Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli; path of the Hobbits using Frodo and Sam. You basically fight your way through Orcs, Uruk-Hai, The Dead, Spiders, Easterlings, Cave Trolls and various other evil creatures to complete your goal. You can interact with items around you as well; spears, ladders, rocks, catapults, levers, ropes...etc. You get to fight Bosses such as Shelob, the king of the dead, Sauron's messenger and even the Ringwraiths themselves. Of course you get to battle the evil Gollum on the very edge of Mount Doom. There are also levels that your characters can aim for, you start at level one and then can go as far as level twenty. As you're battling you are earning yourself experience points. The more points you have the more combo moves you get and the better you can be. There are four different ways of killing a foe, fair, good, excellent and perfect. You get more experience points the better you kill someone. Then you can play a co-op game with your friends and try to get more kill points than them, which is very fun!
Storyline/Plot
The story line is filled in in-between levels by the use of scenes from the actual film, a voice over provided by Gandalf tells you the story so far. This is the only storyline/plot element, but it works well because it does not interfere with the game play and it adds to the realism of game and film.
Sound/Music
The voices for all the characters were done by their counterpart actors from the film, making it very, very realistic! Also the original musical score from the film is in the game too, so it really does feel like you are part of the film! All done excellently, all sound fits together perfectly and the music is in all the correct places for top dramatic affect!
Things that have been done really well
Graphics - Settings are beautiful
Sound - All music and voices are exquisite
Game play - Endless fun, lots of variety
Things that have been done really badly
Combo moves - can be tricky to pull off
Beginning Titles - cannot be skipped
Conclusion
An overall excellent game! There is absolutely nothing that I can fault with it! It really feels like you are there fighting alongside your companions at the Black gate or trying to find a way into the tower of Crith Ungol to rescue Frodo from the Orcs! The graphics, game play and perfect sounds all fit together to make up this award winning game, which you will never tire playing. | video-games_xbox |
One of the year's best. Dead Rising presents an interesting game play concept. You get about 72-96 hours in game to complete everything. This translate to roughly 8-9 hours in real life. I was at first turned off by this and sort of felt I had to try to rush everything. Basically everything is on the clock. You have to get things done by a certain time, or you won't get the complete story/game. I learned to love this system and felt like it definitely fit the game.
I personally love the zombie franchise and this is one of few games I felt that got the right atmosphere with the whole zombie theme. In this game you play a character named Chuck who is trying to save his daughter who was bitten by a zombie.
The flow of the game is rather simple. You have 72 (or about 84~96) hours until military comes to rescue you and whoever else. You are staying at this safe house, and you venture out into a very large area of a fictional Vegas. The game is split up in two ways: cases and missions. Cases are what drives the main story and they are given at a set time. For example, you have to give your daughter Zombrex - which prevents her from becoming a zombie - at 7am. A case might appear later at 9am which then drives the story more. You can miss a case if you're not in the area at the time the case is suppose to start. In that case you can still continue but you won't ever know what happens.
Besides cases, you also get missions. Usually you get this in a form of a radio call. Missions are usually given after some timeframe between a case. Usually you attempt to save survivors or you might fight a psycho who can't handle the zombie outbreak.
Some thoughts about the game:
Combo system ~ You can develop your own custom weapon in this game. In DR1 you can use anything as a weapon. DR2 still offers this but now you can combine weapons to earn extra points to level up. What you can combine is fairly large, and there are set rules to what you can combine. You can tell an item can be combined by the fact that you see a blue icon above the item. You have to take it to one of the many work benches you find in the game to combine into a combo weapon. The bread and butter item I think that you'll most use is the spiked bat which is taking a box of nails and a baseball bat. It's powerful, and you can make one early in the game. Each combo weapon has two forms of attacks: regular and power (where you hold down the attack button for a second). You earn points to level up as you use combo weapons and some offer more than other. Also if you own a combo card - which explains how to combine the weapon though it isn't required to do so - then you earn more points to level up than if you didn't have the card. It's interesting and some are rather good to use. However, some combo weapons feel rather bothersome to use on a regular basis. For example, there is one where you can combine a metal pipe and fire rockets with. You can easily clear a lot of zombies at once, and it's rather fun to shoot. However, you can easily drop it if you select another weapon or a zombie attacks you and you have to pick it up again.
Psychos ~ What made DR1 so fun was the psychos, in my opinion. In DR2 they return, and they're rather crazy. You get some good ones like Slappy who is a deranged toy story mascot. He was fairly funny. All of the psycho usually end with Chuck saying a one liner. Sometimes it's funny. For example, there is one where a rather large man was marrying this woman and at the end, Chuck was like, "You may now kiss the bride" as he's being devoured by a previous bride he slain but turned to a zombie. Overall very good though I felt they could polish up some of the psycho moves. It seems like all of them are rather the same in how you fight: wait for them to do a move, run up smack them with a spiked bat, then run away until they do it again. It seems like you don't fight much of a different psycho each time, just the same thing but different behavior.
Survivors ~ When I played DR1, I had the hardest time saving survivors. Most of the time, they die rather horrendously at the hands of zombies. In DR2, they took the AI and made it smarter than ever. No longer do you have to micromanage your survivors and having large groups of survivors easy to handle. Some of the psycho battles offer survivors but before that you can sometimes bring in survivors to help you with fighting the boss and adding a little bit of damage. In this version, on my first playthrough, I only lost 1 survivor but that was due to me and lugging that survivor around too long.
Story ~ I won't spoil it but I think the story is taken depending on what you liked. In DR1, you played as a reporter who is trying to uncover the story. In DR2, it's a more personal game. You play Chuck who is trying to save his daughter and you might feel more at home with this story. For me personally I liked the story of DR1 since it feels so related to the zombie outbreak. This one it's like the zombies are just an inconvenience to you rather than you actually going in and trying to figure out what is going on.
Cars ~ I don't recall any sort of cars in DR1. I think you get a motorcycle and a jeep. In DR2 you get a motorcycle and you can even customize it with items. For example, you can have a motorcycle, and attach chainsaws to it making it really deadly. This is really helpful in later parts of the game when you have to navigate through heavily infested areas.
Graphics ~ I felt that DR2 is a bit sluggish comparing to DR1. I felt there were a few frame rate issues here and there especially in the outside area. For example, in one situation, I was talking to a survivor up on a stand and more zombies came to the area and the game slowed down to a near turtle speed. Overall it felt a little jerky in some parts.
Clothes ~ I'm unsure if anyone else agrees, but I find that the amount of women clothing you can wear is rather disturbing. It feels like every story you get to has women clothing that Chuck can wear. I like it where I use Chuck's default outfit, but when I get an itch to try on other clothes, I find it rather depressing that there isn't much men clothes you can wear and they look rather horrible compared to Chuck's original.
Overall I loved the game. I played it over and over and felt like I can play it for years to come. I still play the original DR1 heavily and that was out for nearly four years already. It's a totally nice game and each time you get so many things. The time limit might seem burdensome, but it really isn't and free roaming isn't all that great of an idea in this game. The time limit is just great but I would imagine for some people it would be a huge turn off.
I think any zombie fan should pick up this title. It's flat out awesome. | video-games_xbox |
A solid space-shooter with some minor hiccups. Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception will probably be one of the most under-appreciated Xbox 360 titles released this year. It came out in Japan about a year ago, but didn't release here in the states until the week of the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo. With the gaming community's attention at E3, Project Sylpheed's arrival has tragically gone overlooked.
An arcade-style action/shooter, PS:AoD takes place throughout several human-inhabitated solar systems during the 26th (or was it 27th?) century. To be honest, the details of the story aren't that memorable. The game opens with a surprise attack from rebel forces who have banded together to overthrow the supposedly tyrannical government that controls all but four of the human-settled planets in the galaxy. Katana Faraway is on a training mission in a prototype spacecraft called the Delta Saber when he and his squadron are overtaken by a swarm of enemies on their way to attack a major settlement. The story thus follows Katana and the two flights of Delta Sabers from the outset of war to its dramatic conclusion above Earth itself.
The story, which is fleshed out through over an hour of very well-done cutscenes, mostly just serves as a backdrop for the epic space battles that ensue. Each mission usually has two or three parts, and typically has you destroying a certain number of fighters or sinking an enemy flagship. There are also a number of hidden objectives in each mission (normally at least three or four), and are given to you through audio cues or just plain guesswork (i.e. destroy the enemy destroyer that's so far away you can barely see it). Overall the missions don't have much variety, especially when compared to great space-combat games like Colony Wars, but they do get progressively more difficult and often culminate in some exciting moments. Shooting down your first super battleship with nothing more than some well-placed rockets is truly remarkable and results in some of the best explosions see in any game to date.
Speaking of, the graphics in the game are actually pretty spectacular, especially considering the game is technically already a year old. As evident in the in-game cutscenes, there are some excellent lighting effects at work and the whole game seems to be rendered with some really subtle cell-shading (sort of like Zone of the Enders 2). The special effects really make this game shine: vibrant contrails, massive ships, motion blur, and some incredible explosions from the later super-weapons you can acquire (just wait til you kill a carrier in one hit from a maelstrom bomb). However, there's one aspect of the graphics that is also the game's biggest downfall: the HUD. Besides the fact that all your ship's information takes up the complete bottom third of your screen (even on a 16:9 TV), there's just so much other stuff going on at any given time that you'll often be disoriented and overwhelmed. Every single ship onscreen has some sort of reticule and amplifying information attached to it. Multiply this by twenty to thirty fighters on the screen at once, plus multiple targets on the bigger ships, and you can really see how this could detract from the experience. There were several times I crashed head-on into my own carrier to attempt a resupply just because I couldn't tell where the ship was because of all the other HUD information in the way.
The controls on the other hand really do well to augment the experience. You can configure them however you please, and there's also an option to switch between professional and novice flight controls (the professional option has separate buttons for yaw, while the novice option integrates both roll and yaw into the left stick). By default, the right and left triggers control your thrust, and the right and left bumpers control your nose weapon and main weapons (up to 3) respectively. Various manipulation of the triggers allows you to do pretty cool moves and really lets players develop their own dogfighting techniques. For instance, if you're in the middle of a huge furball of fighters, you can double-tap the right trigger to activate an extremely powerful boost to gain some distance. Then if you slam on the brakes with the left trigger, hold B (the manuever button), and hit up on the left stick you'll do an instant 180. With your ship facing the huge mass of enemies, you can hold the left bumper to start acquiring missile locks (up to 60 locks for certain missiles). For an extra touch of style, you can slam on the afterburners with the right-trigger (while still holding the left bumper to keep obtaining locks), and when you've flown back through the mass of enemies, double-tap the left trigger to cut all power to your engines, pull the nose of your fighter back around to the enemies so that you're floating backwards, and let loose with a ton of missiles from a perfectly safe distance. The super-boost and power cut moves are also extremely useful when battling the many huge battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and carriers you'll encounter too.
All in all, Project Sylpheed: Arc of Deception is one of the best games to be released this summer. However, that's not saying very much considering how completely lackluster the last several months have been for gaming. If you loved games like Descent: Freespace and Colony Wars, then Project Sylpheed is right up your alley. Otherwise, it could just be a forty dollar diversion to hold you over til something bigger and better comes around.
GOOD:
-Epic battles
-Tight controls
-Gorgeous special effects
BAD:
-Obtrusive HUD
-Uninspired story
WEIRD:
-Not once is the term "Sylpheed" ever mentioned... | video-games_xbox |
Best Racing Experience on Consoles Yet. I'm a Forza 4 addict and this game is the reason I bought Xbox One. So hopefully that helps you know where I'm coming from.
The Cars:
Amazing. Simply amazing. By far the most detail I've seen from a console game. Every car can also now be ogled in ForzaVista which had me playing with my Mazda MX-5 for quite some time opening doors, retracting the roof, revving the engine, an flipping the headlights on and off. The selection is indeed a giant step down from FM4 in terms of quantity, but I can forgive that given the insane level of detail and the fact that despite a limited selection, they made pretty good choices on what to put in. It is not a glut of supercars, but is instead the typical Forza mix of everyday cars, supercars, hypercars, racing cars, and classics. There are a few omissions that I found rather glaring right off the bat, for example no Lancia Stratos and no MK6 or 7 VW GTI. These can be forgiven though given such tasteful additions as an Ariel Atom V8 and (finally) a North American 2013 MX-5, and other cool cars like the insane Renault Clio V6.
Driving: Forza veterans will feel at home here, sort of. All the assists except rewind can be turned off as I prefer, and the manual w/clutch option is still there. However the difficulty of driving without assists (or as the Topgear crew might say "the electronic nannies") has been dramatically increased. Between the tighter feeling tracks and the larger number of opponents and the fact that my MX-5 was very hard to control with the assists turned off, there was a good and satisfying amount of tension in the races, despite the presence of the rewind safety net. Fortunately, with the increased difficulty, the money prizes were reworked and now as long as you net a podium finish (3rd or above) you will get the maximum money prize. Damage does not detract from your winnings now, but using the rewind feature does. The rumble triggers also really enhance the experience, I can feel when I am about to break traction, the thrum of the engine as I shift, and the pulsating as I lock up my brakes. It all adds up to make a thrilling, and challenging but fair driving experience, especially from the vastly improved cockpit view.
Upgrades: Nothing has really changed here except they are no longer free if you get affinity level 4 on a particular make of car. You still have your basic options of Quick Upgrade, Engine, Platform & Handling, Drivetrain, Tires & Rims, Aero & Appearance, and of course my favorite Conversion.
Paint: Here is where some long desired changes have finally been implemented. You can finally paint stock wheels. And finally matte is an option (yay for matte white wheels!). There is the usual huge selection of vinyls, and now you can fit 3000 shapes on each side except front and rear bumper which are limited to 1000. Additionally, there is just a huge number of paint options. Gloss, matte, metal flake, two tone polish, two tone semigloss, two tone matte, carbon fiber, camos, wood, chrome, polished aluminum, gold, the number of options is simply fantastic, and I can't wait to see what people create.
Money and Misc Stuff: A few changes here. First the vehicle performance index has been changed slightly. Not a huge deal, but the ratings don't seem to translate to previous Forzas. Money is earned by racing, and if you put something up on storefront from what I understand, but now it is also earned by your Drivatar, a representation of you that is based off your driving habits and earns money when you are not in game. Money is also earned when you increase your driver level as before. The affinity system has been reworked though, and now for example when I race a Mazda and level up Mazda's affinity, I will get a percentage based affinity bonus of cash with every race I finish in a Mazda.
Menu and interface: It took a few minutes to get sorted on this, but the new cleaner and quicker menu system is a VAST improvement over previous efforts.
Conclusion: As a long time Forza fan I found a lot to love about Forza 5 just from my few hours playing. I will be back with updates if my opinion changes on anything, but I can honestly say this is the most impressive Forza game yet. Above all else it is the driving experience and the cars beauty both audio and visual that truly floors me here. If you are obsessed with cars as I am I can't recommend this game enough!
Update: I found a few things that bug me. Number one as others have mentioned is microtransactions. I have never liked the token system, and sadly now they're available to use on everything that you use in game CR for. It's easy enough to ignore, but if you are impatient and want the million dollar cars immediately you won't be happy, and you'll probably be tempted to buy tokens, please I ask that you don't as that will only lead to more microtransactions down the road.
The second thing that bugs me is that aside from the nice steel book and a small number of exclusive cars (that will undoubtedly become available to everyone later) there is zero reason to get the Limited Edition. VIP membership is nice I guess, but it doesn't seem to have a huge benifit yet other than being gifted a few cars.
Thirdly, ForzaVista is not quite as fleshed out as I would have liked. On a lot of the low end cars you can't even pop the hood or the trunk, or even the rear passenger doors, and yet on some you can. There isn't the nice full body of narration either like there was in Forza 4, and Clarkson no longer talks about each car. Instead you get one blurb for each car by a random woman. Still great that every car can be looked at, just wish they'd added more narration.
Fourth, the cockpit view when racing is only visible in the forward quarter again. I was really hoping that since they had to model every interior of every car for ForzaVista that they would make the cockpit view so that when you look behind you would see the rear windscreen, rear seats/interior, but instead you look behind and it's a bumper camera which really damges the immersiveness of driving with the cockpit view.
Fifth, there is no storefront or auction. When I think back I remember hearing about this, but I guess I forgot about it and didn't realize how much I'd miss it. I used to make some awesome custom camo vinyl groups in FM4 and now I no longer have a storefront to show them off. These were two features that really should have been kept (regardless of the money glitching), and it's baffling to me that they ditched these staples of the online Forza community.
Sixth, and final point, despite clearly having the ability to render headlights switched on, and seeing some cars race with running lights on, there is no option to turn them on/off while racing. L3 and R3 are even unbound and free to do this. This is a pretty minor point, but there are some tracks, like Bathurst which is set at dusk, where racing with headlights on would look really cool.
A couple of other good things to report however. First is money is real easy to come by. Race payouts aren't any higher, but I seem to level up quicker, and after roughly 15-20 hours I have 1.5 million CR in the bank and roughly 1 million CR worth of car in the garage (not counting gifted cars). Secondly, they brought back and improved the rivals system slightly. Even in regular racing you are always kept aprised of who's time you beat, and who's time is up next. Thirdly, the Grand Prix and F1 cars are great and, based on what I know about them, accurate. You have to keep your speed high to maintain grip (just like the real thing, speed is needed to keep the tires hot and sticky and the downforce high) and while they don't disintegrate if you crash they are extrememly fragile and even a moderate impact can seriously impact the vehicle's performance. Fourth, I am just really enjoying savoring each car I buy. Despite this game's flaws (some of which are quite serious), I cannot help but enjoy it. This is why I plan to keep my rating at five stars. Yes there are six things which I listed that would make this experience near perfect, but I am someone genuinely obsessed with cars, and this game itches that scratch better than any other game in recent memory. | video-games_xbox |
XO Four vs. Microsoft Stereo Headset. Overall, these are a nice gaming headset. Originally I purchased the Xbox One Stereo Headset from Microsoft, but after less than 6 months the mic decided to go out on me and I chose to replace that set with these. For anyone trying to decide if its worth the extra money for these Turtle Beach's, my answer would be yes. Some comparisons:
- The Turtle Beach's are more comfortable to wear, especially over long multi-hour sessions. They do a better job, at least for me, sitting around my ear, not on top of it. They also sit much closer to my head and face. If you look at pictures of people wearing these headsets, you'll see the MS ones stretch out pretty wide across the head. I think this makes a big difference both in how they feel on your head and also how they look.
- The headset adapter that's included with the XO Four's actually has more features on it than the one Microsoft is selling for $25 and that's included in the MS stereo headset. You've got the standard volume up/down, mic mute on/off, and game/chat mix control on both, but the XO's adapter also includes a 3 level bass adjuster (does make a noticeable difference) as well as mic monitoring (being able to hear yourself while wearing the headset) controls. This makes a huge difference for me. The MS set doesn't have this feature and it kinda feels like you're talking under water wearing them. If you don't like the mic monitoring, the XO's also have the option to turn it on or off.
- The sound quality is pretty good on both sets as far as games, music, and movies, but the XO's take this one too. They have a little more bass so maybe that's why, but I feel like the sound is richer on these than the MS ones. Bass boost has 3 settings, off, low, and high. Playing something like Call of Duty: AW, you'll definitely notice the difference between the 3 modes. The big difference for me, however, is the chat mix controls. Lets say you have a scale 0-10 for chat/game mix (i.e. if you're at a 9 for game volume, you're at a 1 for chat volume). The XO's actually produce this with more subtlety than the MS set. On my old MS set, when I set my chat mix all the way up so there was no game sound, then clicked the game sound just one time it was too loud depending on the game (looking at you at again COD). The XO's give you better options for chat/game mix basically. They also seem to have a greater volume range from soft to loud, but maybe that's just me.
- Small thing, but the plug in that goes from the headset to the controller is angled at 90 degrees on the XO's. I usually sit with my controller on my lap so on the MS set I'd noticeably feel a poke from the plug in, it also probably isn't so good for the cord itself. Basically with the MS set you're looking at about and inch sticking down from the controller, with the XO's it's maybe 1/4 inch coming out. Another small thing, but the headset's ear pieces swivel which does two things in my opinion. 1st, it provides a more comfortable feel, 2nd when you take them off and set them around your neck they lie flat. Probably not a defining selling point, but a nice touch. Lastly, the XO's plug in pretty snug, so if you accidentally drop your controller, the headset usually doesn't unplug.
- The mic on the XO's plugs into the headset and is detachable. Actually this is probably the one thing I liked better about the MS set. That mic just folded indiscreetly into the headphone's headband. Also when you plug the mic back in, it only fits in one particular spot, so you'll need some light to see where the crease is to insert it. The mic does flex and hold its shape well. My friends all said the sound quality was really good, no problems picking anything up or crackling or anything like that.
So whether these upgrades are worth double your money or so is up to you. I guess I'm a bit biased since my Microsoft headset crapped out on me after such a short time, but after using both, the XO's would easily be worth the extra cash so long as they hold up. Aesthetically speaking, the difference is night and day between the two. The build quality on the XO's feels much better and little touches like a stitched leather headband is nice. Throw in better sound and more control options to better suit whatever it is your doing while wearing them and I feel its worth the investment if you plan on using these with any regularity. | video-games_xbox |
The Good and The Bad. PLUS TIPS. Recently got this game at LameStop for 4.99. With a price like that, it's basically a steal especially for this game. I'm going to go straight to the critiques:
PRO:
- Pretty decent graphics.
- Had some scary moments or moments that put me on the edge of my seat, running for my life.
- I like monster related games, that's why I chose this game. It delivers somewhat even though the variety of monsters was lacking.
- Entertained me for a good number of hours.
CONS:
- Beating the game does not unlock anything. You cannot carry over any weapons, monster, etc. All weapons will remain locked when you plan to play brutality.
- Even though I managed to get the best rifle, shotgun, and handgun in the game, I couldn't really get started until stage 7 (end stage is 9 and the last two are relatively short). I got the best shotgun earlier (Protecta stage 4 end), but I didn't like it much because I usually prefer keeping my distance from the enemy and taking them out from afar. Another problem was not only when it was available, but also money. Money is a bit rare to accumulate, I was able to afford the shotgun and rifle both at the beginning of stage 7 by selling pretty much all the upgrades that I found thus far.
- That said, I find that most of the time you are stuck with the pea shooter (your starter gun), saving up money for the best guns, which surprising remains moderately effective even on the last stage, but is not advised. You can buy slightly better guns, but you run the chance of not having enough money for THE gun that you'd eventually want to get. Your gun sells back at about half price and you lose all the upgrades placed in it...which does hurt.
- You cannot take out and move upgrades around. Once you put an upgrade into a gun, it is stuck there permanently.
- You can probably beat the whole game with one main gun...
- Not much of a variety in terms of opponents and monsters. I was more disappointed with the variety of monsters/mutants. It's really a very small handful and leaves a lot to be desired.
- The story/plot of the game.....suuuuucks.
- The cinematic are not memorable and noteworthy.
- The bosses are a little too easy and the end boss got me a little irritated....Bosses are mainly easy because their attacks are quite easily avoided.
TIPS:
1. Make sure to always check around for those upgrade suitcases. They're good for upgrades and for selling. Some may be higher up so remember to search thoroughly. One thing that's neat is that the game doesn't really try to hide the upgrades in really hard areas so as long as your attentive, you should be able to see them. No worries though, at the last level, I was selling extra upgrades left and right.
2. Every new stage grants you 4 grenades, you can use them, but I find them not super useful and so sell them for money. They're 450 each I believe? Times 4.
3. Some of the most useful upgrades I find are stopping power, fire rate, fire rate, and enferon. Emphasis on enferon. Some of the most useless upgrade or upgrades I never touch are puncture, reload speed, and accuracy. Accuracy, however, put a question mark on that. Of course upgrade slot upgrade is useful, you can have a max of 4 upgrade slots per gun. My favorite gun was the kortov, which is the best rifle. My upgrade was stopping power, stopping power, enferon, and fire power. I question the usefulness of fire power mainly due to the fact that it increased the damage by 25%, but the gun wasn't high on fire power for it to change much. Anyway, two stopping power causes your opponent to be knocked down 25%x2=50% per hit. Enferon is a gradually acting poison. What I usually do is snipe the enemy from afar with one or two rounds, hide somewhere, and let the poison just kill them, especially if they're knocked down which lets the poison work on them longer. What I'd do is run down and as soon as I hear some enemies, run back up to a higher or more secure area. The enemies will be standing around and sometimes if your far enough, they won't attack you and you can snipe away and basically kill all of them without them laying a single finger on you. One or two burst and just stand and wait for them to die, this works throughout the game. I find load speed, puncture, and accuracy not so useful because loading for me happens while I move or wait for an opponent. I ALWAYS keep my gun fully loaded when there's no enemies and you don't usually have a huge horde of enemies going your way anyhow.....so reloading isn't an issue. Puncture works when enemies stand in a line, but I find it rare therefore not worth it. Accuracy I didn't find it worth the upgraded, especially with the kortov, where I can snipe pretty much anything and hit targets dead on even when they're pretty far away. | video-games_xbox |
Great Sounding Headphones TERRIBLE Design Flaw. I made the mistake of getting these headphones despite some of the negative reviews. My initial impression was that the sound was incredible. I was surprised how much better these headphones made stereo music sound because of the speaker and amplifier setup.
I used these VERY CAREFULLY as I read the negative reviews about the set failing. I made sure to set them in a safe place when not in use, they were never dropped, and I would put them on and take them off cautiously as well.
There are a couple of bad design choices, one irritating, the other catastrophic.
The BAD design choice is that the amplifier is close enough to the headphones that it either has to dangle (which it's weight is annoyingly heavy) or rest at your lap etc (where the buttons can be turned just from body movement). Because they didn't use any set feature or something to "lock" the amplifier settings this is something I have to check often, like every hour of use or so, to make sure the dials haven't changed.
The CATASTROPHIC design flaw is that stupid coupler used to "detach" the headset from the amplifier. Whoever they have manufacturing it, cheaped out on its production. After 2 months of having purchased this set, the sounds began to cut out at times, after a while the sound in the left ear cut out, and a crackling sound grew louder and louder with use.
I DMAed the set (and the return policy is not friendly... no warrantee if you bought these from ebay... etc etc, if they aren't clean, they could be returned unrepaired etc) and was actually sent a NEW set, sealed box and all. Other than the amplifier feeling a little lighter than I remember the old one, it was identical. Unfortunately, that dratted coupler was ALSO identical, and after 2 months, the left ear has again failed.
I am not DMAing it again only to have the same problem yet again, because of the cost of continuing to ship it back, so I'm switching to another brand and advise other people to look elsewhere for headphones.
These are really great sounding headphones that someone(s) royally messed up on in design and execution. It'd figure that the $20 pair these replaced lasted more than 4 years. Sad. | video-games_xbox |
Great Game with Room for Improvement. Overall I have to say that I love this game. It's easily the best boxing game I've ever played. That doesn't mean that there's not things that could be better.
Pros: The graphics are very well done. The motions of the boxers are great and the venues look good. The sound is well done with some very realistic punching and crowd sounds. I personally like the total punch control, but for those who don't like it (see other reviews) there are several other controller options to choose from. The fighters in the game use different tactics that can vary depending on how the fight is going, so there is no set formula to winning.
Cons: I like the fact that the fighters show damage, but it's too uniform. First your eyes get red, then you get a cut around your eye. That's it. There could have been much more variation. Bloody or swollen noses and lips would be more realistic.
Once some opponents start to lose they begin to walk backwards around the ring, moving just as quickly backwards as you do forwards. All this while they're on the verge of going down. This can mean that you'll be chasing an opponent around for most of a round trying to land a punch or two.
Pretty much all fighters will get up on the count of 6 or 7 on the first knockdown. I've fought over 50 matches so far and have yet to see a boxer KO'd on the first or second knockdown, they always get up. A bit more realism would be nice. If you're caught with an especially powerful shot, it should be a little more difficult to get up. I've had fights where I've knocked my opponent down 7 different times before he stayed down.
Finally I think it's unfortunate that your boxer in career mode automatically retires after 20 years while still at the top of his game. Perhaps your skills could diminish as you get older making it necessary to keep training to stay in the game? Then you could decide when to retire your boxer. Go out while still on top or take a chance of losing your title? As it is now you max out your skills after a while making it pointless to keep training.
Overall this is a great game that is worth buying. Hopefully next years title will be even better with some of these problems fixed. | video-games_xbox |
Zombies in the '50s make for one awesome game. Stubbs the Zombie, like the title says, takes place in the 1950's with their vision of the present (or future to them) that looks a lot like the Jetsons complete with hovercars and stuff. Anyway,the game takes place in the city called Punch Bowl where Stubbs was murdered a few years earlier. Our boy Stubbs rises and wants revenge, so he goes around slaughtering people, eating their brains, and making an undead army. However, as the game progresses, Stubbs falls in love with this beautiful woman who is really famous and is being protected by a bunch of lethal Barber Shop Singers (wtf? lol). Will he get the girl?
The game plays really smooth with only a few flaws. The basic idea behind Rebel Without a Pulse is to run around grabbing citizens, eating their brains, and turning them into zombies to help you..well..eat more brains. As you reach later stages you acquire Stubbs' weird moves of Toxic Farts, using his hand to possess people, throwing his liver and having it explode like a grenade, and finally rolling his head like a bowling ball. Stubbs can jump, and sort of run - it actually looks like he is stumbling faster, thats it. You can also play Co-Op which was A LOT of fun and made the game a bit easier.
There are only 3 really obvious flaws with the first being your allies AI. When you get a bunch of zombies on your side, half of the time most of them will just stand there as you "whistle" for their attention. Secondly, once you begin fighting the hillbillies with shotguns and the army you will notice that if you want to do a full frontal assault on their lines with your undead army it is basically the hardest thing ever. This is because not only do they mow them down like fat kids in dodge ball, but once you get near the enemies they begin running backwards and shooting you. Finally, the game is painfully short and the ending was just flat out bad.
Throughout the game you will be able to interact with some vehicles, and use some weapons. The vehicles include a tractor with a cow catcher on the front that youcan use to impale people on & some hovercraft that shoots this black, oil looking stuff that explodes. When I say you can use weapons, I mean when you possess someone with a weapon. These guns can be anything from a musket, to a shotgun, to an M16.
The graphics in this title were suprisingly good, but I guess thats expected from the people who created Halo: Combat Evolved. The cities are really big and detailed, and the characteres look really well crafted and detailed. For instance there is fat detectives wearing suspenders, military men with bandannas..etc.
The music is awesome. Its really just a goofy take on the music of the '50s, mixed with a bit of rock, clown music and techno. The screams are awesome and VERY satisfying... for a bit. It gets old however, because Wideload just recycled the screams over and over and over. Oh well.
To finish this re-written review, I'm going to say that Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse is quite possibly one of the best games of 2005, not to mention one of the more fun and entertaining games on the X-Box. I highly reccomend it if you can find it. | video-games_xbox |
Extremely buggy headset. Do not recommend. I have had this headset for a few years. And I've been dealing with its problems for just as long. First of all, the way the headset comes together makes it very tight on your head. You may think this is fine, but wearing them for about an hour will start to cause discomfort because they are so tight. I have had to take them off for a few minutes occasionally because the area around my ears would start to hurt.
Now on to the much more major problems. I am using them on PC by the way. I have had so many different problems over the years but I'll try and remember them all. One of the most common issues is that they constantly lose connection to the wireless transmitter. It will happen multiple times throughout the day that i'm using it. Every time it only disconnects for a second before reconnecting, but it often does it multiple times over the course of a few seconds before going back to normal. I am usually only 3 feet away from the transmitter when it does this too, so it is not an issue of being too far away. Now, sometimes there is an even more annoying way that it will lose and regain connection. Rather than the single or multiple quick "beeps" that it does when disconnecting, it will occasionally stop playing audio then a second later will start a long beep that lasts about 3-4 seconds then it will beep and make the sound it makes when it turns on. This doesn't happen as often as the previous issue, but it still is the second most common issue I have with the headset and happens sometimes once or twice a day.
The least common, but most severe product breaking issues I have with the headset is that it will just stop working altogether. It may make some clicking sounds from the speakers, it may make a single tone beep sound that won't stop or it will just be completely silent. The lights on it will be dim when any of these issues occur. The worst part is that the logical solution is to turn it off and back on again. However when it has this problem, the button on the headset will not work. The usual way to turn off the headset is to hold the button on the headset down for a couple seconds, but when the light dims and it doesn't work like this, the button does not work and the headset will not turn off. The only solution is to either wait for the battery to drain or to take off the pad, unscrew a few screws and disconnect the battery then put it back together again. Once it loses power, it will turn on fine and work again for a few weeks before it does it again. And if you wait for the battery to drain, one of the few good things about this headset will be one of the worst. The battery can last hours meaning hours before you can use it again unless you want to disassemble the headset. This would not be so much of an issue if they included a reset button on the headset. But they didn't so its a major issue that completely ruins the product.
To recap, The afterglow universal headset is uncomfortable, it has constant connection issues to the transmitter even if you're right in front of the transmitter, and occasionally just stops working mid use and won't be usable again until the battery drains. I do not recommend the afterglow headset and suggest finding another surround sound product that is more reliable and more comfortable. | video-games_xbox |
Ninja Gaiden II. Ninja Gaiden II is a sequel to Ninja Gaiden, and was released exclusively for the XBOX 360, and was developed by Team Ninja and published by Microsoft Game Studios. In this installment you play as Ryu Hyabusa once again to restore honor to his Dragon Clan lineage. The storyline seems fairly uninteresting, with some rather shallow characters whose attire and appearance looks better than their personality does. From the beginning of the game, the main character is set on saving and building a small relationship with a perfectly attractive woman who looks strikingly similar to Rachel from Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX. Ryu is back again with an even more expansive arsenal of weapons and attacks. The Dragon Sword is once again the starting default weapon; some old weapons have made a pleasant return, along with some rather odd ones that come in handy with Ninja Gaiden II is a sequel to Ninja Gaiden, and was released exclusively for the XBOX 360, and was developed by Team Ninja and published by Microsoft Game Studios. In this installment you play as Ryu Hyabusa once again to restore honor to his Dragon Clan lineage. The storyline seems fairly uninteresting, with some rather shallow characters whose attire and appearance looks better than their personality does. From the beginning of the game, the main character is set on saving and building a small relationship with a perfectly attractive woman who looks strikingly similar to Rachel from Ninja Gaiden on the XBOX. Some characters make multiple appearances, and basically any enemy you see, will be fought some time in the game, some more than once.
Ryu is back again with an even more expansive arsenal of weapons and attacks. The Dragon Sword is once again the starting default weapon; some old weapons have made a pleasant return, along with some rather odd ones that come in handy with certain enemies and super fiends. Unsurprisingly enough, Ryu manages to be quick and nimble with any weapon in hand regardless of the weapon's weight. The attack lists for all weapons go on and on, and discovering or achieving new attacks is a very invigorating experience. This time around, Team Ninja, from the start, included two difficulty levels. From the average player's perspective, (Acolyte), is normal mode, and evidently, (Warrior), is hard mode. The Acolyte mode is hard mode masquerading as normal mode. The expectancy of Normal feeling like Hard is apparent here. Acolyte packs much of a punch, and the difficulty of the AI is very inconsistent.
Throughout the first three chapters in the game, gameplay seems like a complete cakewalk combined with a peaceful walk through the park. Shortly after, the AI abruptly increases in the skill the department, making the game nearly unbearable. It's asinine that all of these fiends and humans are out for this one Class A ninja. The game expects the player to bask in failure, and precisely dodge, evade, and counter every little significant bullet and weapon slash. With the difficultly level this way, there is no excuse for the camera to be faulty. The bogusness of camera is beyond comprehension. Often times in play through, a player will have to cautiously dash and block repeatedly before walking around corners of through doors, because you might have some cheap enemies waiting patiently for you behind that door or surface.
You will have to predict enemy presences because sometimes there is a lack of sound effects or movement to signify their presence. As soon as you slip up slightly the enemy(s) will knock you into submission, then you will have to wait until their combo is over to retaliate. Their mannerisms are rather sporadic and uncertain. Mastering keen predicting skills can be a pain. If you stand in one spot and block, the enemies will either grab you or attack randomly as possible to make you let go of your block because you think you see an opening. Some situations seem impossible or unbelievably laid out. With the screwy camera in action, (that sways itself further away from Ryu, and slightly skewed to the bottom of the screen), and multiple enemies wailing on you with untold amounts of attacks, the enemies can be more difficult than boss fights.
The enemies stop at no line to kill you. They all bombard you with attacks with weapons, explosive shurikens, missiles, grenade launchers, bullets and whatever else. Sometimes you will be required to stand against a weapon party and it isn't your birthday. Blocking cannot block everything, you will spend more time trying to dodge opposing forces, than trying to kill enemies. Cutting off an enemy's head right after they drowned you with annoying bullets is very rewarding, but that empty health bar gained afterward isn't. Instead of your health just simply going down, the health bar goes down from a point, and from that point where health is lost, there is a red spot, which lets you know, how much your health will automatically heal afterwords. It's similar to Tekken Tag's health system.
Explosive jellyfish are reasonably placed within water, sometimes you will have to battle three men with grenade launchers that shoot two to three grenades at a time, while running on water, trying to avoid touching an explosive jellyfish at the same time. It's hard to do correctly without some type of slow motion vision. Anywho, this brand new obliterating technique is very helpful. After slicing at least one limb from your enemy's body, you will be able to press Y once, (while close to them), and then Ryu will unleash this very brutal and gruesome type fatality that is a blast to watch and never gets old. If you discover the convenience of this attack, watching it will never get old, it's a great savior in itself. Platforming seems a little easier this time, in combination with automatic jumping animations and solid ninja wall to wall maneuvers, platforming seems lesser of a hassle from the second game. Some platforms refuse to allow you to fall off of them, which in some ways take some pressure off of your jumping precision. All weapons can be upgraded three times. If one takes the time to scour a stage for items and cash, you will be rewarded with being able to max out some weapons before the third chapter.
The same orbs are still present. (Red), filling in Ninpo slots, (Blue), replenishing health, and (Yellow), giving you cash. Also, instead of having to pause to use items or change weapons, there is a quick tool used by pressing up and down in the D-Pad, a subsidiary that allows you to quickly choose a weapon, item, or Ninpo scroll, but can seem redundant because the time it takes to load that small box at the bottom of the screen takes just as long as it does to get to the pause menu. The Pause Menu's activation is also delayed if you are grabbed by an enemy or boss. You will have to wait until their attack is said and done before accessing it. When the enemies grab you, you can tap buttons rapidly to escape their hold. The ultimate attack is back and better. Instead of an enemy being able to knock you out of deep chakra concentration, your toughness has been increased, and now you are able to charge your weapon while getting attacked. All of the ultimate techniques for each weapon are brilliantly animated and are well done. They come in handy with bosses especially, and with hordes of fiends.
In mid-stage you are able to take the Test of Valor which is a circular room filled with only so many enemies. If all enemies are defeated without dieing, you will be rewarded with some handy items. Often times (Life of the Gods), or other items that increase your Ninpo slot capacity, money, or orbs that increase the level of your Ninpo power. These come in and handy and they can be taken over and over until completed. Some boss fights are complete jokes and some seem despicably tricky. It also doesn't help that some bosses explode, and they take you with them. To defeat a boss and then die in their explosion is maddening. Some realistic features in the game are undesirable. You even lose health if near a robot that explodes. The new save points may appear to be helpful but further down the road they seem illogically placed. They replenish your health after one use and only can be used when no enemies are around. The same goes for buying items and using the blacksmith. The music is good, but it isn't overpowering. The sound effects are there, the graphics seem very average, per say. The environments don't look very impressive and the models, seem, rather average as well, all sharing the same action figure type qualities. The controls are extra responsive, making way for spectacular skill development.
The game is a steal at $25 or less. It's a great gameplay experience with an agonizing experience upon difficulty. However, the game doesn't seem superior to its predecessor, in fact, its predecessor is superior. Nonetheless, for the hack and slasher fans, Ninja Gaiden II is a game worth playing. It's flaws can be forgiven, when it has smooth animations and intriguing gameplay elements. | video-games_xbox |
Luke Warm. Peter Molyneux has created arguably some of the best games of all time. Naturaly, when news of his latest brainchild Fable was released, a lot of people sat on the edge of their seats. Although most people complain that Fable did not live up to Molyneux's hype, they forget as a game designer its also his job to hype whatever product he's working on. Fable falls short of best RPG ever but introduces molyneux's "god" characteristics into a stable and imaginative game.
From the very beginning, Fable offers great graphics. The player will be pulled into an imaginative world of good and bad. Everything is well designed to resemble fairy tales and -fables. Particle effects are very well executed and animations are smooth and rarely choppy.
The musical score of Fable offers an authentic fairy tale atmosphere. Different places give you different tunes based on the moods whether its a creepy little graveyard or a quaint old town. Sound effects all sound good and the voice acting is great.
The gameplay is based on a cross between a fairy tale story and a molyneux "god game." Players will experience the life of a young boy to an adolecent and onward to adulthood. Fable's combat system offers a pretty standard hack and slash feel, but falls short of using a good control scheme. During the thick of battle it is easy to accidentally use the wrong spell or switch spells you want for spells you don't need. Another problem of the combat system is the lock feature. At times the lock finds an enemy way off in the middle of nowhere, leaving the player at the mercy of enemies in front of them. Once an enemy is killed, the lock remains on the corpse for some reason, instead of grabbing onto the nearest live enemy.
Aside from minor combat problems that cause big irritations, Fable is a good world to explore. There is always something to do even after beating the main missions. Players can continually change their avatar's appearence,even weight and build. Properties can be baught and sold or rented out, people are still roaming around and waiting for interaction and so on. Although I don't consider Fable to have good replay value, it has continual play value. Even after beating the main missions, my character is collecting tons of rent and making money day in day out. As well as exploring towns and talking to NPCs. Between sociallizing with NPC's, managing properitary ownerships and trading after the main missions, Fable is a worth while buy.
With the features and let downs tallied, Fable puts forth a worthy effort to muscle its way into the RPG scene. It may not be the greatest of all time but stands tall among the rest. | video-games_xbox |
Great way to jump in to next-gen. A fantastic value! I was already planning on getting an Xbox One for Titanfall, and I almost ordered just the console the day before this bundle was announced. I promptly ordered this bundle instead.
This machine runs ultra-quiet, especially compared to the Xbox 360. It's very noticeable to me because I watch a lot of Netflix, so now I can have my volume a little lower (and not disturb my neighbors).
Took me a day to get used to the new dashboard and interface, but I'm accustomed to it now. It doesn't seem to be any faster in loading the friends list and guide compared to the 360, but that's not a major gripe. It makes up for it by being able to be in low-power when you turn it off so it can instantly boot up by saying "Xbox, on" to the Kinect.
I didn't think I would really get much use out of the Kinect, but I use it all of the time for Netflix. You can pause, play, rewind, and fast-forward with voice-commands. So I don't need to turn on the controller to do those things. Very handy. My wife is wanting a dancing game, so we'll use it for that too.
The wireless controller is basically unchanged from the 360, except that now the battery doesn't "stick out" from the back of the controller. I always used a wired 360 controller because the battery on the wireless left little room for my fingers. The One's controller feels great in my hands. I recommend the play and charge kit or rechargable AA batteries, since the batteries that come with it will die pretty quick.
As for Titanfall itself, I'm having a blast with this game. The game supports 6 vs 6 online with human players, but on each team there are tons of "Grunt" soldiers that are AI-controlled and are easier to kill than most human players. So even if you're no-good at FPS, you can still contribute points by racking up AI kills (although they are worth less points than killing players).
Every player in the game gets to call down their own Titan for use every few minutes, and that time is reduced by getting kills while you don't have a Titan. The game promotes teamwork a lot when trying to take down enemy Titans because the engagements can last over a minute in TItan vs Titan, unlike the few seconds in soldier vs soldier.
I love the game. I've always been a big Halo fanboy, but Titanfall is a serious competitor for that special place in my heart now.
I can't say that anything about this purchase has disappointed me. When the Xbox One's price was first announced, I thought "I sure wish they didn't ship them with the Kinect and would drop the price by $100," but getting Titanfall for free with this bundle has more than halfway met the price difference that I desired.
Again, it is a fantastic value. If you've been waiting for a good time to pick up an Xbox One, I strongly recommend this bundle now. | video-games_xbox |
Best Xbox Exclusive Game. Halo 2 is the best xbox exclusive game by far. In fact, I bought an Xbox just to play this game along with its predecessor. I feel contrary to popular belief this is a better "game" than halo : combat evolved. Allow me to explain:
Halo 2 has a very strong single player component. However it is far from perfect. The first time you play through the game, it is a very enjoyable experience at least from the outset. However, about 2/3rds of the way through the game i tended to just want to finish the game instead of enjoy the experience. While Halo 2 starts out strong with a beautifully rendered space station with awesome panoramic views of the universe, it slowly but surely loses steam as the game progresses. Soon after the space station, u are fighting through the urban decay that is earth which is quite thrilling. But soon after that the game takes a diversion, it seems at first. This diversion it turns out is the remainder of the game. You end up alternating characters and often battle on similar looking alien outposts and planets. Then the game comes to an end. Literally. The ending is so abrupt, you may not believe it is actually over until about halfway through the credits. This is in contrast to the near perfection of the single player campaign of the original. This game slowly built steam and never looked back. It maintained your attention and enraptured you in the action. The best example of this difference is the last two levels of each game. While in Halo Combat Evolved, these final levels were the most intense and thrilling ones of the entire game. However, in Halo 2, the last 2 levels pale in comparison. They are not very compelling or even the best in the game. They seem like they belong in the middle of a videogame not the climax. But in fact maybe there is a reason behind these unastounding levels they are in a game without an ending.
However i will still support my argument above. Halo 2 is the better "game". I put game in quotes for a reason. Is the Halo 1 single player campaign better than the one in Halo 2? definitely.
Wouldn't that make it a better "game"? NO Why?
2 words
Online Multiplayer
This aspect of the game in fact is the game. To me at least. This is by far the most addictive multiplayer experience ever created. It is amazing. Between Slayer, Team Slayer, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, and Assault you will not be doing as much sleeping as u are used to. The addictiveness lies in the competitive nature of the most teenage to 29 year old males. To say that u are better than someone else or ur team was better than the other is just endlessly rewarding. The fast paced action gets ur adrenaline pumping and is a field day for ur testosterone. Ok maybe I am delving into this subject to deeply after all this is amazon.com. where some reviews consist of five lines of either HALO SUXXX>>>! its the worerst gaaame evereer. 23 go Playstatiohn.!@! OR HALO 2 is the bomb. Because i says it is.... i pwn at it.... ya.
Anyway this game is amazing u will probably come for the hype and stay for the online. However i don't reccommend buying this game unless u have online and/or a readily available group of videogame saavy friends. If u have neither i reccommend only renting it because i see the single player replay value at nil. Anyway go buy this game and ill see u online. | video-games_xbox |
Tested for PC not Xbox One, does a nice job with what's mapped to the game, drivers are a bit of a tough one to find and load. FYI: I got this for Windows 7 and not for Xbox One, if you are looking for those results try other reviews, thank you. I almost made this 3 stars, but it depends on how much hassle you can take I guess. My normal update for Windows would not find the drivers, so I had to go there manually, and download them. I then tried some free download games because I don't have any of the compatible ones in the pay variety. I might get the signature game later and will update this if I do, but for now it is what it is. First pass none of the games that supposedly used a controller worked the controller said the driver was OK but it acted dead.
I rebooted the machine and it became active. I was even able to feel the dual shock motors when it powered up, nice. The game I had downloaded and installed was called Zombie Apocalypse, and the parts that were configured worked fine the right trigger was mapped for the gun, and the lower left joystick for movement. It would take some getting used to, the keyboard was better for moving till I got used to the joystick which was a little fast. A problem I perceive is a lack of reconfiguration software, but that may be a game by game issue. The instructions are weak with this thing, so I was confused on how to use the remapping wheels underneath, but maybe that would become clear with a more comprehensive game to use all the controls. I couldn't find one in the free stuff so that will have to wait.
The controller itself was well built, Nice feel to the buttons, the free games did not use a microphone or headset, but although no other control works that functionality and the little mode button on the bottom right of the right joystick worked with Starcraft 2 when it was loaded. I guess voice and sound are the only thing configured with SC2. Like most newer controllers this is very very designed for control, your thumbs will reach nearly everything on top, the long fingers the wheels and button below, and your two index fingers the four front trigger controls. most everything has a good feel to it. The dual shocks will give you decent feedback as to their intensity, although how much I'm not sure I could only test this on boot up without a compatible game. The skin it comes with is attractive in a military sort of way, and you can apparently get any number of skins for the themes you want to play.
My main complaint is about that configuration tool they don't have, I was hoping the driver would load with one. I'd like to see a current mapping and a set of test vectors to maybe move a test object or test the shock motors, sound and menu keys. I still give it a recommend as there are not too many good quality PC controls these days that you don't pay a boatload of cash to get. | video-games_xbox |
MLB 2K6. I did not buy this game when it first came out. I waited until I found on the internet for a very low price, and I'm glad I did. I've really tried to talk myself into this game by trying to think of the positives, but the truth is that this game is just really sad.
To me, the first thing that I notice about any game is the graphics. This game, compared to the MVP games, is just really sad to look at. The players really just do not look real at all. At times it almost reminds me of MLB 2002 for my PS1. When two players collide (which happens far too often) they just fall straight to the ground and bounce back up.
Just like a lot of the reviews on here point out, the rosters are not up-to-date at all. I'm a Cardinals and a Red Sox fan. They left Crisp and Pena off of the Sox and if I'm pretty sure those moves happened pretty early in the year. The Cardinals roster was a complete disaster. John Rodriguez and Brad Thompson, the Cardinals top two rookies from 05, are not on the game at all and neither is Wainwright who debuted last year. Jason Marquis' best pitch is a power sinker and he doesn't even have one on here. Obviously these are not huge problems and not ones that I cannot fix. The problem is that every roster is off. And I really don't want to buy a new sports game and have to spend hours trying to get the roster right.
There are so many problems with this game. The baserunning is very difficult with multiple baserunners, the fielders all throw lasers around the field, it's almost impossible to dive, and the players look like they're tripping over their own feet while they run.
The thing that made me dislike this game the most is the fact the the new Busch Stadium is not on it. I know this is its first year, but there have been drawings and models of that thing for atleast two years now.
My suggestion to the 2K people is that they need get some people who really know baseball in there to help make next year's game. These problems need to be fixed and they absolutely need to do something major to improve these graphics.
I am a little confused on why EA doesn't have a MLB game this year. I've heard that 2K has the rights and all of that, but their were two other baseball games out this year. I know one had Papi on the cover and the other had five or six different players on the cover. No matter what the reason is, I hope EA Sports is allowed to make a game for the 07 season. MVP and Madden is about all the video games I play so I hope we'll see a new MVP next year. Until then, just try to keep your MVP rosters undated and do not waste your money on this game. | video-games_xbox |
So much fun and one of the few Xbox One games I feel is worth every penny I paid. "It's good. . . but it's not $60 good." This is a phrase my friends and family often use when joking about a video game we're only partially satisfied with. Fortunately this statement doesn't apply to the Year One Survival Edition of State of Decay for the the Xbox One. This game isn't perfect, but it is hordes of fun and a great value! The only reason I didn't rate this 5 stars is because it has some glitches, bugs and minor annoyances.
I originally purchased State of Decay on sale as a digital download for PC. Unfortunately my aging PC just couldn't play the thing smoothly enough for my liking. I was able to lag my way through enough of it to see the potential. Although I downloaded and played the demo for the Xbox 360, I decided to pass on the Xbox 360 version and wait for the Xbox One Version. When I learned the Day One State of Decay Year One Survival Edition for Xbox One would contain the DLC and be priced under $30.00 I didn't hesitate to pick it up. I'm so glad I did! This game isn't perfect but it's a great value and is so much fun!
Basic premise of the game: You and a few scattered survivors must work together to remain alive. You'll need to establish a base, raid and loot for supplies and constantly react to your environment to stay alive, all while completing main and side story missions.
The open world concept is very fun and I love being able to go pretty much anywhere. I just wish the world was a little larger and you had more free time to scavenge and explore.
I've been playing this game more than Dying Light and it has been a load of fun!
*
*
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PROS:
- Your purchase gets you a physical disk copy of the standard game along with the Lifeline and Breakdown DLC add-on packs
- The Day One edition also includes a code to download the folding axe weapon, the SKS firearm and the Prepper SUV which were nice bonuses accessible after the first introductory level in the game
- Vehicles: I like the fact that you can use vehicles to your advantage and they're an integral part of strategy at times. Sure they draw attention but this can work to your advantage. Vehicles can work well to easily and quickly clear out an infestation. Pull up to the infested building blast the horn and watch them come running. If you're lucky even the screamers will come outside and you can run them over too.
- Character Death is permanent: A very cool feature that keeps things interesting when you've got some significant time developing a playable character's skills and abilities.
- Open World Environment
- Just the right difficulty. Pretty easy at times but you can make things more difficult by how you approach a situation.
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CONS:
- Not really a negative aspect of the game but I want this to be local couch co-op so badly! How much fun would it be to play this with friends and family?
- The fully remastered 1080p graphics aren't quite as stunning as they'd like you to believe. That doesn't bother me much but if you're repurchasing this expecting to be blown away by the ability of the Xbox One's graphics capabilities, you'll be disappointed
- Not enough time to just explore and do your own thing. As others have said, many of the missions need to be completed on a timeframe. Miss the deadline and you fail the mission and your chance to complete it in this play through is gone. Many of these missions are the same old thing but the deadlines get annoying. You find yourself constantly bouncing from mission to mission with little time to just go out and explore and scavenge on your own.
- Still has some quirks and glitches. Zombies glitch through walls but they're typically easily dealt with. I find the curious quirk of seeing inside characters a little more annoying and troublesome. Change your point of view angle when a character is close and you'll often see inside their head and view floating teeth etc. I noticed this with Ed within the first few minutes of game play and it happens quite often throughout the game.
- There's also an issue if you or a zombie etc are behind an object. Crouch and slip into the bushes and if you engage a zombie there you'll be largely flying blind because you can't see what is going on. You have no idea where you are at, where the zombie is at or who is winning the battle. It turns to good old fashioned button mashing at that point.
I've also encountered the above issue when entering a home or room with a zombie behind the door. You'll see the door, nothing or a mix of objects as the camera angle tries to change to a suitable view and fails. Just be careful. I've almost died because of this a couple times.
- You can take other characters with you on a mission but they can sometimes be more trouble than their worth. I've had my AI companion abandon me at the worst possible moment on several occasions. You'll be in the heat of battle and they'll suddenly just say something to the effect of, "Well. . . time to go home" and they'll leave you on the spot. This seems to be after an extended period of time or if you try to be smart and multi task by going out and taking the AI character on multiple missions. When the game decides that AI character's time is done, they just drop everything they're doing and head home.
- Needing to rescue less skilled AI characters is also pretty common to keep them from dying. Don't get me wrong. They can also be an invaluable tool and help save your rear on many occasions. Determining whether or not you should take help along and deciding which character to take is a big part of the challenge and fun.
- As others have mentioned the AI characters rarely close a door or gate. If you climb a wall instead of going through a gate they'll typically do the same but they're always leaving doors open. Sometimes the door automatically closes on it's own. . . sometimes it doesn't. I learned the hard way once and I always close the door from now on!
The negative aspects of this game are minor annoyances and don't take away from the fun of it for me. I just figured I'd mention the good and bad. This game has been a lot of fun. While I wish the campaign/story was a little longer I won't complain for the reasonable price tag. This is one of the few brand new Xbox One games I'm left feeling is worth the price! | video-games_xbox |
Best of FPS offerings in terms of gameplay. You can get a pretty good idea of what Halo Reach generally has to offer from reviews by both customers and professional critics available, but I'd like to focus this review on certain aspect of Reach that I found particularly worthy of praise, namely the combat. For me, Bungies Halo series (not counting Ensemble's still excellent Halo Wars) have always had distinctive, varied and free flowing combat I love, but Reach is really the pinnacle of that Bungie unique brand of FPS combat. It's hard to find faults in a system that Bungie invented and perfected through almost two decades of developing FPS.
In a lot of other FPSs, there's usually couple of selected weapons I tend to gravitate toward after familiarizing myself with what's available in the game. However, players would be hard pressed to find such "Swiss Army knife" of guns in Reach. The weapons library and availability are well balanced; the perfect weapon is very much dependent on the various elements of any given situation and environment. While the basic combination of energy arms to wear the shield down and kinetic ones to kill still provide the basis of your weapon selection consideration, increase in variety of open and close environments and types of enemy encountered add complicity and weightier consequences to decisions made on what firearms to bring into the next battle. This by no means strictly limits each weapon into specific categories of engagements. On the contrary I found most weapons to be flexible enough to serve in all situation but choosing the right ones to match your skill sets and circumstances is absolutely critical in surviving higher difficulties in the game.
The levels themselves are excellently designed and provide the perfect backdrops to both small and large scale battles. Placement of enemy troops seems to be pre-scripted limiting battles to specific locale on the map, but the movement of those enemies are not as restricted and helps to retain dynamic flow of the battle. While the maps are fairly linear, the areas of each encounter are open (horizontally and vertically, I might add) and offer great amount of flexibility in tactical approaches and executions, especially with other live players. During a coop campaign mission, I found myself going back to a perch from an earlier point in the game that overlook the area we were suppose to defend and provided effective stand off support from a distance for my teammates.
Speaking of teammates, AI of your computer controlled allies have not changed all that much from the previous games, which isn't necessary a bad thing. I like the fact that Halo friendly AI can act independent of players' action. In combat, they are not hiding behind the player character expecting he/her to push the front line forward like other FPS (CoD). But some sense of self preservation in friendly teammates like Covenant grunts often display would go a long way to immerse the player. On the other hand, enemy AI have improved drastically. Players no longer have their sole attention like I've seen in many other FPS. Covenant troops seem to react to other Spartans or human soldiers as well, depending on the level of threat they present at that instant. Since player is never alone in any mission, this effectively makes flanking a viable and necessary tactic in SP campaign. When I drop back to recharge shield, it's an opportunity to approach the enemy from the side while they are focused on my teammates. It isn't an sure fire technique as enemy AI sometimes will utilize their advantage and pursue when when you're recharging especially if you are overly aggressive and advance too far behind the line. Enemy AI will now recognize and use force multiplier in field like turrets (even gun turrets on abandoned warhogs which was something I didn't see them doing in previous games) and unoccupied vehicles. Overall, they seem "smarter" than before at gauging the situation and player intent then reacting accordingly; for example they throw grenades to flush out players in defensible positions, move to a safe distance before firing explosive weapon when players are close, deploy armor lock-down when players try to run them over, disable player vehicle with plasma overcharge to counter zoom and boom tactic etc.
The only real complaint I have is the fact that drop ship deployment are almost instantaneous and in static locations often invulnerable to fire from ground. The instant enemy reinforcement really work against my usual tactics of wearing the enemy strength down from medium and long range then seizing the momentum and charging at the weaken remaining troops. In Reach such combination of tactics would get me sandwiched between the remaining enemies and fresh reinforcement dropping behind me. But that's more of a personal preference than a legitimate gripe toward the game. | video-games_xbox |
Very entertaining despite its minor flaws; Definitely a good sequel. I've played this for about 8 hours now and have not completed the game yet so this is an early impression. Overall a good game, especially if you enjoyed the first one, but it's a bit more awkward. That could be because I played the first one when it was older and most likely patched quite a bit. It is a good stealth game with lots of different ways to get somewhere or accomplish your tasks. You get a lot of options on how you wish to increase your skill. A lot more options than the first game. You can play as Corvo or the Empress. I can see how this game would have a lot of replayability. The problem seems to stem from them attempting to make the game harder than the first one. In the first one, Dark Vision gave you a constant view of their sightlines. In this one, it pulses instead. Also, they sometimes see me before they are even in range of my Dark Vision. Also, I went inside a 5-story building yet the stairs only leads up to the 3rd floor. That's because they want you to find an alternate way to get to the top. That's ok. But, they blocked the stairs with debris or made it broken in the first game, which made more sense. Even on the first scene, it doesn't give you an objective at first. Why is that? Those criticisms are minor though. This is still a very entertaining game, which is the purpose of games after all. I'm normally a FPS or racing game player myself such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Forza, or even Tekken. Dishonored really caught me by surprise on how good it was to play and Dishonored 2 so far lives up to that expectation for the most part. This is purely a campaign only game with no co-op either. The good part is that you don't have to deal with lag issues or cheaters. I highly recommend this game.
Update: It took me 23 hrs of gameplay to finish the campaign the first time. I took my time since I wanted to get all the runes and all the bones. I also took the low chaos way out which meant finding alternate ways to "neutralize" targets. Now, I'm going to try playing it as the Empress. My advice: do 2 game saves each level; 1 at the beginning of the level and 1 as you progress through it. | video-games_xbox |
Foundation for future flight sims. There are many pro's versus cons with this game. For starters, if you have ever played IL-2 Bird's of Prey, you'll find instantly you're not out of the comfort zone with Birds of Steel. The main menu interface is nearly identical but with better music. The game focus' on a wonderful portrayal of simulation and arcade mixed. It has an arcade appearance with a simulation feel. Too many people expect so much but the honest truth is if you really want a full out simulator experience then I suggest you pick up combat flight simulator by Microsoft...any of them CFS1,2 or 3. They may be old simulators and for PC only but they get close enough to full out simulator as they can with practically no arcade feel whatsoever.
Birds of Steel is different, the graphics are wonderful. If you have ever watched the tv show Dogfights, the graphics and feel is about the same as that show. The graphics are detailed and cleaned up since IL-2. A big notice, for example, from IL-2 and Birds of Steel is the contrails that form when firing the guns, you would see long streams of white following after each round. Birds of Steel cleaned it up a lot and now it is not as thick and actually zig zags a bit as it streams through the air. Relatively realistic.
Birds of Steel has a lot of features and aircraft to fly, the game's campaign is in medium length meaning it won't take you too long to beat the game and some of the missions get repetitive.
The only thing a little off about the game is the radio communication during combat, there isn't much variety of dialect between your wingmen. It's like they say the same stuff all the time and can seem unrealistic and annoying or so I found it to be.
Overall, to understand fully you have to try the game out, I know x-box you can download the demo for free, and I'm sure it is the same with every other platform. So try out the demo and give it some thought. For a demo, you really have nothing to lose but time. | video-games_xbox |
NCAA Football 13 Plays it Safe to Mixed Results. EA Sports played it safe with NCAA Football 13 by addressing some legacy issues while adding a highly marketable mode with the Heisman Challenge. Unfortunately for veterans of the series the game will feel all too familiar and those tempted primarily by the allure of legends may find themselves somewhat unsatisfied with the path they're being led down. NCAA Football 13 is a product as rich in content as it is uninspired in its execution.
What follows will act as more of an overview than a detailed review - that is still to come. As a whole the game could be best described as mediocre and inoffensive while still offering a respectable amount of depth and variety in modes. Fans of the series will not find much new - unless Heisman Challenge mode provides intrigue - while the lack of advancement elsewhere is immediately evident. Dynasty does come through with some worthwhile additions but the reach there becomes more limited.
Aspects like play action, pass trajectories, screen passes, and non-psychic defensive backs provide the improvement on the field. They represent significant advancements but at the same time it's hard to get all that excited about those things which should have been addressed long ago. Issues with the gameplay however were quickly identified. Poor safety play might be the most glaring of the bunch but at times deficient offensive line blocking along with the CPU being inept running the option and out of shotgun also stand out. User swatting or pick attempts with defensive backs appears to be terribly unresponsive allowing for some passes to be completed without any contesting of the ball. The CPU has also demonstrated some poor clock management and SuperSim is still busted.
Otherwise the game plays fairly clean with solid balance between offense and defense.
Recognizing just how many problems there are none really will be all that startling to those used to the NCAA series. They can at least be somewhat overlooked, especially considering the actual improvements that are present, but will understandably create some frustration as well. More though should be expected of the game than just being adequate.
There seems to be no point to the addition of motion blur other than to make the graphics somewhat worse and to act as a constant slight annoyance. Visually the game is still spectacular despite that. Presentation is less effective with a mishmash of broadcast style shots with replays and post-play scenes that come from cameras on the field that don't exist. Even though there is a disconnect in the post-play scenes - reaction shots often come from a totally different part of the field than when the play ended - at least it's not as utterly embarrassing as what was on display last year. Players still can't seem to walk around without bumping into each other but at least the focus isn't consistently on those interactions.
The additions to Dynasty mode are worthwhile. In particular the ESPN Studio Updates and Bottom Line Ticker are effective in making the games within Dynasty feel more important and connected to the other results around the country. However the updates become bland with audio sometimes poorly stitched together and when in the process of playing actually glancing down at the ticker could act as a distraction. More time will have to be spent recruiting but thus far the dynamic pitches, enhanced phone calls, and new scouting have added some much needed spice to the process.
Where the NCAA series has failed the most in recent years - and continues to do so with the latest iteration - is in providing a true representation of the college football experience. This is particularly the case in the audio area where crowd noise is often flat and in general doesn't have the effect that one would expect. The lead devs were at the Notre Dame vs Michigan game last year and still couldn't translate that experience to the game which is disheartening. Player reaction scenes are still weak and more often than not feel disconnected from what had just taken place. It's unbelievable how many teams have their uniforms omitted or incorrect. Commentary has grown stale but with the departure of Erin Andrews maybe EA will have the motivation to revamp it in the booth and not limit it just to the sideline.
Certainly an argument can be made that the resources spent on Heisman Challenge could have been put to better use elsewhere. Regardless it should be judged for what it is rather than what could have or even should have been. Heisman Challenge is a fairly inoffensive mode that lacks a compelling hook unless there is emotional attachment to one or more of the players. Even then once inside the mode it becomes a simple game of racking up obscene stats with players that aren't true replications of their past selves and that ultimately overshadows the worthwhile attempt from EA at paying them their due respects.
Online Play for NCAA Football 13 can be defined as a strength while still being indicative of the larger problem being faced by the series. Though the game performance is solid, and Online Dynasty remains extremely impressive, the suite of features feels more stale than ever due to a lack variety now having gone five years deep once NCAA 14 is reached without any notable additions.
There's value to be had with NCAA Football 13 - there remains a rich array of content and commendable depth to Dynasty mode. However those who play NCAA every year may struggle to identify what exactly would make it a must-have product. | video-games_xbox |
Here comes freedom. If you've played <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/OBLIVION/dp/B000TG72PG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">OBLIVION</a>, maybe you remember leaving the prison for the first time, being met with this awesome and vast world, and slowly realizing that if you wanted to, right now, you could walk over to that mountain in the distance, search that forest, break into that home, punch that bear, etc. That you were free to do ANYTHING that you wanted to do for as long as you cared to, and no one was even forcing you to keep the main storyline going. JUST CAUSE 2 takes that experience and magnifies it in every way. The world is huge, the visuals are crisp and very beautiful, and the action is as over the top as it can get. I'd be lying if I said the writing and the missions were amazing, but even if you set all of that aside, you'll still have one of the best sandbox games on the market.
Take these comparisons to OBLIVION lightly. JUST CAUSE 2 doesn't even try to have any kind of depth when it comes to the story, the missions, and the sidequests. This is a game for people who like to explore, cause mayhem (chaos), and test boundaries. The people who made it their life's mission to get to the airplane in GTA 3 without unlocking the third island. If you try to dig any deeper than that, you might find yourself disappointed. If you enjoy JC2 for what it is, you'll have yourself a game you can come back to again and again.
Like I said, the story is a flimsy one that would probably be better suited for a '90s Steven Segal flick. You play as Rico Rodriguez, a special agent who's been sent to the (fictional) Southeast Asian island of Panau to track down another agent who has recently gone rogue. To find this rogue agent, you have to gain the trust of the three major gangs on the island. To do this, you have to cause "chaos". To cause chaos, you have to, more or less, cause as much damage to the island as you can.
There are several ways to cause "chaos". One is to destroy military bases; another is to destroy military-owned structures; another is to blow everything else up: cars, planes, gas stations, broadcast towers, water towers, propaganda trailers, surface-to-air missile sites... the list goes on.
But to get back to the island of Panau - which was the main selling point for me - this place is HUGE, and I do not use the word lightly. To walk from one end to the other will certainly take hours, and even traveling by plane takes at least fifteen minutes. You'll have over 400 square miles to work with, which is 25x larger than OBLIVION, and 5x larger than WORLD OF WARCRAFT, making it one of the largest video game worlds ever created. And it's not just empty space. The developers put a lot of time into making sure that they reward people for exploring every nook and cranny of the game with plenty of easter eggs and vistas that you'll just want to stare at for hours. From lush jungles and beaches to cities and mountaintop villages, there are plenty of unique places to discover on the island.
And just to drive home the "over-the-topness" this game allows, you're equipped with a personal grappling hook, and you can do almost anything you can imagine with it. Hook an enemy to the back of your car, tether to an enemy chopper and hijack it in the air, use it to scale mountains or buildings. You're also given a parachute that you can deploy at any time, so if you want to fly as high as you can go, jump out, and land harmlessly: go for it. The game really goes out of its way to make sure that you have a fun time messing around in Panau.
If none of that sounds appealing enough to warrant a purchase, then look elsewhere. Outside the massive world, the dozens of unique vehicles, the spectacular graphics, and the ability to go anywhere and do whatever you want, there's not much else. There's the story, achievements, and a lot of collecting to do, but I definitely wouldn't say they're the game's redeeming features. It's everything else, and there's a lot of it. | video-games_xbox |
Unbelievable. This is the best sports game I have ever played. I've only played this year's versions of All Star Baseball and this game (Don't play games w/o franchise) and this game is so much better than WSB. I was scared to buy this game at first because I had never played it and I played and enjoyed ASB but I decided to buy WSB based on the reviews. If you're in a simular situation, I'd go with WSB because it's leaps and bounds better.
The gameplay is a little frustrating but once you get the hang of it, the game is a blast. I'm a big fan of Franchise mode in sports and this franchise mode is unbelievable, even better than Madden's franchise mode. Unlike any other game, you have an unlimited number of season to work with. You also have to hire managers, batting coaches, etc. and that's part of your budget. The budget system varies (You can choose to have the current budgets of the real life teams or have the budget off alltogether). What's also great about the budget system, you can gain more budget points depending on your team's success and W/L. There is also a player draft after each season where you draft new players for future use (Very cool!).
The point system for players is better than ASB and doesn't use the annoying A/B/C system, instead using a numerical system that goes up to 100. The system is very realistic as well, because unlike madden and other sports franchise games, if you have a great year with an average player like Kip Wells, his ratings will boost the next year and he'll be one of the best players in the league.
There are so many other things that make this game so great and realistic (GMs of bad teams getting frustrated and willing to trade a proven high priced players for some younger and cheaper talent) so buy the game!!
Oh by the way, that's just franchise mode. There's other features in the game, but franchise is so good it could carry this game alone. | video-games_xbox |
The single player mode is really just multiplayer with bots. It must be in style to make games with no story lines these days. I really don't like deathmatch only games, but this game really didn't say anything about it being like that. Anyway, this game plays very similar to Unreal Tournament or Quake III. I'm really not very partial to these games. I thought maybe Warpath would have a single player story-line, but I was completely wrong. I'm not saying multiplayer games are bad, it's just not really my thing and I much prefer a story line to get into. I just wish they would advertise that fact a little better so I know more about what I'm buying!
The single player sequence is very similar to a multiplayer sequence, only you're fighting against bots. For the amount of time I was playing this game it didn't seem like there were a huge amount of maps. I really do wish they had a real story mode to go with this game because the character concepts are actually really cool! Even though they are a bit cliché, I still liked them. Like Quake III and Unreal Tournament this is a sci-fi based game and you can play as any of the three races, one of which is human, the others are the Ohm, a cybernetic race, and the Kovos who are a warrior race and actually rule the territory. The single player sequence does seem somewhat unique where you get to choose the battlefield and then you have to defend against the opposing forces depending on which race you are. This is all mapped out on a small grid and when you control the whole thing you win. Of course you have to do this multiple times on different maps for that grid. Unfortunately because this game strictly plays like a multiplayer game that relies solely on "who can get the most kills" and "capture flag" scenarios it gets rather tiring after a while. Seriously, those are like the only two scenarios they had me go through. The difficulty level varies and some sections were more difficult than others, but still they were all the same format.
The weapons you get to choose from are a little less than exciting. When you start out you can only choose one weapon in single player, then you have to beat levels and you can eventually choose a different one. It appears you can only choose from three main weapons and three secondary weapons. This was kind of disappointing and it seems like this game was thrown together rather quickly just to cash in on Unreal Tournament fans... without it being Unreal Tournament. I don't know, I'm pretty disappointed in this purchase. If you're a really huge fan of multiplayer styled games then this game probably isn't too bad. I mean it even has vehicles you can drive around, but I didn't play on any maps that were big enough to really take advantage of this. The one map I was on that did have a vehicle was pretty small and I didn't see the point in having a vehicle. If you're into Unreal Tournament, you should probably stick with those, because from what I've played that system has a much better design and a bit smoother play. Also, this is the first review on Amazon for this game and since it came out quite some time ago, I wouldn't expect there to be a lot of people on Xbox live playing this. So unless you really like being challenged by bots in your multiplayer game, I'd say this is something to skip. | video-games_xbox |
The War of The Consoles. When you think next gen you think flashy graphics and stellar gameplay when look no futher though we've just entered the age of not bitching about how bad the graphics are now it just about the story and how the developers put there creation in effect well with all that this is the first game i've gotten the 360 i own and im surely not disappointed i was with perfect dark no get that game good looks bad gameplay and story buy it when its 35.00 then it worth it... the cod2 is the finest shooter and came be for many years to come with expansions hint hint developers the lobby for online play needs a little help and should learn for halo2 multiplayer...story is the main header and all compainies in need of a hit look at cod 2 for help and reference also stop making these ww2 games i think with this game there should no need for anymore and that the truth. the ai is awesome smart and don't stand in the way you like all other games *cough* Rainbow Six ......the guns feel geuniune and need to all be picked up and shot with.. sound is off the chain with the rattatta of machine guns and motar shell exploding every and there is no need for health packs thank god but they should have at least a medic helping out you instead of just running into the fray... sniping rocks and if you snip there are great level like the russian campain .. the english campain is the best it has it all... plus those brits are hillarious the commander and his right hand man mcgregor should have there own game... d-day is cool but and i don't say this often what about the blood in the water hello saw it in saving private ryan and the bodies were floating in the water just the little things that erk me and so should you i mean the game is 60.00 it should fully loaded with extras and offers but it was a little stale ...the game should be better with add-ons and hopefully the multiplayer gets better 9.8 out of 10... thats not freaking bad in my eyes and itching trigger finger... also my name on live is "LOGANX360"....GAME ON!!!!!!!!!!! | video-games_xbox |
Perfect? No. Still fun? Yep. I'm surprised I'm giving this a positive review, because my initial experience was a nightmare. Due to shortages of the adapter, my shipment was delayed by a full week despite preordering seven weeks before release. But after 10 days of hands-on time with the game, I'm really warming up to it.
Keep in mind, if you're still playing RB3 after all these years, this isn't for you. In my experience, I jumped from the 360 to the One about a year and a half ago, but have kept instruments around for occasional parties with other friends with 360s. Once you get past the extra cost of the adapter, and the flaws in development - mainly by realizing that the alternative would be the forever-death of the Rock Band franchise, and considering Harmonix doesn't have major studio support anymore, the fact they were able to jury-rig solutions for legacy instruments and DLC is pretty astonishing - it's a lot easier to warm up to the game.
Now, there are flaws, but they're often evened out by successes.
-The licensing budget for songs was smaller on this one, so there are a lot more stinkers on the setlist than usual and there's a smaller selection. At the same time, when the songs selected hit the target, like with The Protomen and St. Vincent, the game gets up to the fun of the old days. Still, there's no denying it's a step down from RB2 and RB3. Those willing to shell out for DLC, those who can wait for exports, or those with back catalogs of songs downloaded from older games, will be a lot happier, especially if they can navigate the store and find everything they need. (It's a time-consuming process finding and downloading hundreds of individual RB songs, but each update is easing the situation. As for the lack of organization, blame Microsoft's XBone Store for it, not Harmonix.)
-The legacy adapter isn't 100 percent perfect, as I've had issues controlling the console before, during and after the game. It's required a few restarts and hard reboots. But I haven't had any problems once I get in-game, and I've logged more than 15 hours so far (and that's a conservative estimate). For reference, I'm using RB3 wireless drums, GH3 Les Pauls and a RB1 microphone, all from the 360.
-The game's modes and new features? Not so hot. I put on Freestyle Solos when I just want to futz around in-game, but they don't compare to the real thing. Tour mode here is pretty repetitive and mediocre with no real features to play with. There's no stats for how you're performing post-song and Quickplay is annoying. There are bright spots, though - the voting system is cool, and it gets awesome with multiple people - and future updates will further improve things, hopefully eventually bringing us back to the glory days of 2010.
-I was sad they killed the keyboard, but my keyboard broke anyway, and only about 5 percent of all owners had it in the first place, so while it sucks, maybe think about the bigger financial picture.
So RB4 isn't RB3. It might be comparable to RB2. If you're still on 360/PS3, stay away, with the custom scene RB3 is still king over this one. If you went from 360 to PS4, or PS3 to XBone, these hoes ain't loyal, and you don't get to complain about DLC and instrument compatibility. But if you went next-gen a while ago and want to get the band back together, and you have old plastic instruments lying around, don't hesitate to make the purchase. | video-games_xbox |
The Fall of Max Payne. This review may contain minor spoilers. It was written specifically to those who have played the first game and are interested in the sequel.
Max Payne 2 is a third person action shooter. Obviously, this title is the sequel to Remedy's Max Payne--but as a sequel, it seems forced, as if Remedy and Rockstar were cashing in on the success of the first game, or simply felt obligated to make another title with Max. The storyline is not nearly as compelling as the first game, and as unrealistic as Max Payne was, Max Payne 2 is downright ridiculous at parts. No longer directly motivated by the death of his family, or by the fact that he is a framed cop on his own, the game had to provide a reason to keep the relative feel and gameplay of the original. Max has, apparently been authorized to kill, as, though now officially once more a law enforcement officer, he is still killing mobsters rather than arresting them. Motivation for continuation of the game now comes from Mona Sax, who was shot in the first game but was hinted at surviving. Very quickly, Max falls in love with Mona for no reason at all, other than she's an attractive woman. The relationship between Max and Mona has no substance to it, and at times I wondered if I was playing a "cut" version of the game that didn't feature some more backstory to how Max had been dealing with his family's death over the years, or some scenes actually adding depth to Max and Mona's relationship. The gang war is a lot less compelling than the one in the original. The removal of the drug elements also serve to reduce the mature, dark elements of the original, which are replaced with the more common themes seen on modern games, such as language and sexual themes. Throughout the game, Max experiences mortal wounds which he somehow recovers from, such as being crushed by scaffolding, getting shot in the back, getting shot in the head, and being trapped for an extended period of time in a burning building. This game also lacks a lot of consistency from the first game. All of the actors in the graphic novel panels have been replaced, and everyone's voice actor was replaced except for James McCaffery. The graphic novel panels in general are also not as effective this time around--panels are used multiple, multiple times, and the game is shown from a sort of "flashback" perspective that is presented ineffectively.
However, Max Payne 2 does beat out Max Payne in terms of game play and graphic. Bullet time is more enjoyable this time around, and there are a lot more weapons that can be used to take out the bad guys. Overall, would I recommend this game now, in 2011? Well, I decided to go back and play the Max Payne series after enjoying Remedy's Alan Wake and seeing that Max Payne 3 was on the horizon. If you're just looking to try out classic Xbox titles, I would recommend Max Payne, but not Max Payne 2. Additionally, if you enjoyed Alan Wake, you'll likely enjoy Max Payne 1 a lot more than Max Payne 2, due to the similar themes of being motivated by a lost wife. BUT, if you're looking to try the Max Payne series in preparation for Max Payne 3, I would recommend giving this title a quick run through. | video-games_xbox |
Great game, but poort planning for delivery. The single player side of the game is great. A full fledged campaign was sorely missing form the original Titanfall, so it fulfilled a much needed aspect of the game. The personality given you the player's Titan made for an enjoyable character. My only real complaints about the game itself would be that the campaign felt short and somewhat rushed towards the end, and that the need to zoom from the FPS point of view to a little boss cinematic for every Mercenary pilot made the event feel overused and served to remind me that I was playing a game rather than piloting a massive walking tanking into a war zone. It's odd that little things like that can kill your emersion, but it did jack things up for me from time to time.
As for the Vanguard edition specifics, the helmet is incredibly detailed. The light features really tie the package together. that being said, this thing is massive. I typically wear a 2XL motorcycle helmet, and this thing seems even larger. Expect to look a little like a kid wearing his dad's hat when looking at yourself in a mirror. The breathability in the helmet also suffers. The lens fogs up easily as ventilation is minimal. The collar of the helmet only serves to trap the hot air and the stiffness of the fabric makes for a little bit of discomfort any time it moves over your face. Finally, the suspension of the helmet is a standard hardhat style adjustable system. It works, but is hardly the most comfortable it could have been. All in all, I guess I was hoping for something a bit more padded inside. This thing is very much a prop, not meant for extended wear, but it sure does look good. And the necessary batteries are all included with the helmet, so all 4 light features are usable as long as you have a small screwdriver to pop open the covers. I hate it when I need to go back out and buy batteries, so this is a great thing to me.
The shemagh, on the other hand, is made form a very soft polyester. It's way more comfortable and I could easily wear it for days. I'm not sure how much protection it'd offer from the sun, but I'm fine with that. The morale patches are printed rather than woven, so I don't know how well they will hold up, but they doo look good up close. The notebook has a simple pad of paper inside the metal case, so it should be easy enough to replace if you run out of paper.
The only major fault here was the delivery. Amazon did not know how many units of the Vanguard edition they would have to sell, and none were apparently in stock on release day. This left me waiting a week to get my physical copy. While offering me a digital download did help to compensate, better preparation could have prevented the massive frustration over release of the game in the first place, and a more pro-active step on Amazon's part about why the problem occurred, rather than needing to piece together the full story via snippets of multiple people's experiences with customer service, could have done much to alleviate the ongoing tension. As a result of that, I can't give this 5 stars. | video-games_xbox |
One of the best video games of all times. I'll start by saying this is one of the best games I have ever played. From the opening scene in the game, I was hooked.
Story: Set in an alternate reality, Andrew Ryan builds an underwater city called Rapture. He wanted a city to be free from the laws of the land and to push the scientific boundaries without ethical interference, so he builds the city on the ocean floor in the Atlantic using geothermal power from underwater volcanoes. One scientist discovers stem cells from a slug could be used to create "Adam," a plasmid that alters DNA and grants the user special power. All of the citizens of Rapture become crazy and hooked on Adam and the plasmids and want more. In order to create enough Adam, these slugs were injected into the stomachs of little girls (called little sisters) to produce large quantities of Adam. A plasmid industry was then created to sell plasmids to citizens. Soon a war broke out between Andrew Ryan and a gangster named Frank Fontaine who wanted control of Rapture. Andrew Ryan appears to defeat Fontaine and seizes control of the plasmid industry. Fontaine's soldiers (called Splicers) continue to attack the little sisters so Ryan creates plasmid-enhanced super soldiers called Big Daddies in order to protect the little sisters.
Gameplay: First-person shooter. You are Jack, a plane crash survivor in the ocean, and you seek shelter in a lighthouse. You find out the lighthouse is actually a bathysphere that transports you down to the underwater city of Rapture. You are guided through the city by Radio from a guy named Atlas. He teaches you how to survive and instructs you to inject a plasmid into yourself. You then battle through Rapture killing the Splicers along the way to your goals. You have multiple weapons to use including a wrench, pistol, machine gun, shotgun, grenade launcher, etc. and multiple plasmids that let you use fire, ice, electricity, telekinesis, insects, etc. to damage opponents. As you make your way through Rapture, there are multiple vending machines used to purchase ammunition, health and equipment, create items, adjust plasmids, etc. There are cameras in some areas that scan and try and spot you. If you are spotted, bots are released that can shoot bullets at you. In order to get past cameras, you can hack them or destroy them. Hacking is a big part of the game. Every electronic in the game can be hacked such as the vending machines, health stations, safes, cameras, bots, and automated turrets. Hacking cameras, bots and automated turrets changes them to your side where they will attack enemies for you. Hacking health stations and vending machines lowers the price of items and add new ones. When you hack something, you play a short mini game similar to Pipe Mania, where you try and get the flow of the liquid from the start point to the end point without setting off alarms. Several items make hacking easier, such as slowing the liquid, less alarm tiles, etc. As you make your way through Rapture, you will need to acquire more Adam in order to buy more plasmids or upgrade them. You get Adam via the little sisters but you have to kill their big daddy first. Big daddies are tougher to kill than Splicers. Once they are gone, you can harvest Adam from the little sisters. You have the option to be good and save the little sisters (keep them alive and free them from the slug) or kill them and harvest every bit of Adam from them down to the slug. Your ending depends on your choices with the little sisters. You get more Adam by killing them but you get bonus presents from the little sisters for every 3 that you save. It adds up to be about the same either way. Another item in the game is the research camera and film. You can take photos of each enemy, exposing weak points. Once you take enough photos of each enemy type, you will get the maximum benefit and they will be easier to kill. It takes several of each enemy to get enough photos. This works on big daddies, cameras, bots, turrets, etc.
Graphics: Amazing views of the ocean and ocean life. The details are incredible and the animations look very vivid and life-like.
Sound: The game is set in the 60's so you often hear 60's music and sound. The voice acting is good and the sound effects are realistic for every weapon and plasmid.
Conclusion: All of the game play aspects add up to an amazing experience. I have played through the game multiple times and it is still a blast to play. Definitely one of the most defining games of the seventh generation of video game consoles and one of my favorite games of all times. | video-games_xbox |
Not what I expected. Been a while since I wrote a review but this version of Bioshock came as a ...shock? Yeah cheesy opener and even cheesier game. Yes I said it. I played through the first two and felt robbed by this version. Let me explain after getting to the end there was no reason to even go back and do anything that I felt I missed. In the first two you felt you had to get every bit of ammo cause it was scarce, plasmids were fun but help with the gameplay, they gave the gunfights depths, and the GUNS were amazing you could plant a person and then fry them with fire or lighting or send a swarm of bees after them. Yes this is something different maybe to DIFFERENT. It almost got away from being called Bioshock except for one tid bit that came at the end. Speaking of the end, it has got to be the worse explaination for a whole world or reason you have gone to that world to begin with. Don't get me wrong I'm not knocking the game as a whole compared to its siblings it can hold its own but its lacking that something that made the other Bioshocks have you going back for more. All I can say is that its a pretty (visual-wise) game, a loose but good storyline (one that is easily forgettable once finished) along with some guns and powers and that is it. Its just lacking whatever it was that had me going back to the first two games even almost years later.
Sidenote: there are combos in the game just like the first two but unlike the first two these combos invole ONLY your vigors. Where there is very little to no environmental stuff. So if you want to set the world on fire literally you barely can do it. Where in the first two with water all around they still managed to set the place ablaze if you wanted too. Look I'm not saying there isn't a oilspill, a puddle of water, or even a barrel full of fireworks to set off. Just not enough of it to warrent a look for something like that. Don't bother with powering up your guns to much cause the power ups are not that effective, vigors are tap or trap. Which bring me to something I almost forgot, possesion which is a new one I like the most but again not alot of situations to use it at first then you can posses people which doesn't last to long but this is something that they should really have looked into more along with the others which are not bad just not really worth using when a shotgun blast can damn-near clear a room.
So with that said overall the game is not bad just doesn't warrent a $60 buy. Plus the replay value is not there. I beat the first two many times and love them. This just feels like a cheap movie that you saw in the theater when you could have waited for it to come out on Blu-Ray. | video-games_xbox |
Mixed bag of tricks. This game boasts some of the most spectacular 360 achievements so far.
Visuals are nothing short of humbling; rustic buildings, citywide overlooks, moving clouds - just awesome.
Maps are exorbitantly huge with virtually no pop-in or framerate issues whatsoever, unless the player is running at full speed through sparse areas. Merely considering the sheer number and consistent responsiveness of NPC's, this is a mighty achievement. Glitches can be numbered on one hand, and the physics are almost faultless.
As a veteran gamer, I appreciate the multitude of options.
Numerous skills/preferences are applicable. There is no "one way" to achieve any particular objective. Blending in with a crowd is just as viable as figuring out a way to climb to a rooftop and leap over your potential opponents. Enjoy engaging foes outrightly ? The fighting mechanic is relatively deep and rewarding, if not flawless. Throw in a graduating format of skipping unnecessary riding sequences and a fair amount of subtle humor, and you've got an A-List title, right ?
Well...not exactly.
If the mighty Halo has taught us anything, it's that playability and replayability are what matter in this generation of console gaming.
After a few missions, this game devolves into the dreaded "R" word - Repetition.
Finding the same informer and accomplishing his same task, finding and pickpocketing the same type target for important information...even the "same" citizens rescued spout the same dialogue. All in the same format of climbing the (yes - the same looking) highpoints before such objectives are even made possible. As much as the game attempts to keep things fresh, I honestly got a headache walking around, trying to figure out my (absolutely unprompted) next move at times. For all of its diversity, many of Assassin's Creed's later kills devolve into a tedium of rinse & repeat action. This said, as much as I saw every "plot twist" long before it happened, the ride was not entirely without reward. The "futuristic" aspect was well explained, completely viable, and further added to the story in my opinion.
Overall I liked the game, but could not recommend it sans caveat. As much as I marveled, I also felt frustrated and constrained. The "One button to rule them all" problem came into effect, and I found myself cursing out loud as I repeated sequences over and over again.
Almost. | video-games_xbox |
A poo-blackened, shining example of "childish" done wrong. "Nene tries to use his power to make others do whatever he wants them to. People like that are no good!" exclaims some character at some point of this story. It's hard to tell which character, because any of them could have said that. Instead of differentiating the characters subtly, Sakaguchi and Toriyama have designed a game with characters whose personalities are differentiated according to nothing but personal quirks: Shu and Maro are overzealous, Zola is sultry, etc. Blue Dragon has somehow managed to achieve a T rating while employing a form of storytelling that would insult the intelligence of players far below the recommended age range for the game. It is often said that in order to appreciate Blue Dragon, one must be familiar with "old-school" JRPGs. I am, but that doesn't make the story or characters any more interesting.
In terms of gameplay conventions, Blue Dragon is anything but old-school, and that is one of the game's huge pluses. Enemies can be avoided on the field screen, your party can fight multi-round battles by challenging several enemies simultaneously, and items are mostly scavenged for rather than being irrationally dropped by defeated monsters. All of the characters can use all of the abilities in battle, once trained properly, and there are several action sequences mixed into the gameplay. None of these elements suggest that Blue Dragon's design is anything other than hyper-modern, and the "old school" pretense seems to be nothing other than an excuse for consistently employing sloppy, dull narrative.
Blue Dragon is quite fun to play. The graphics are consistently excellent, and although there is no noticeable slowdown per se, the entire game seems to run about 20% slower than it would if the motions depicted in the animations were animated fluidly. This seems to suggest that the developers decided to slow down the entire game, to keep the slowdown created by technically-demanding areas from becoming noticeable. The fun gameplay of Blue Dragon would be all the more enjoyable if everything was sped up by 20%, with a proportionate framerate increase, rather than frame-skipping, to preserve the fluidity of the motions. The XBox 360 was clearly designed to be able to polygon-push more than fast enough to achieve this.
Nobuo Uematsu's score for this game is surprisingly good, and the piano track played at ruined Talta Village, for example, exceeds the quality of most of his work for the Final Fantasy series. I don't care much for the musica machina motif that runs throughout this game's score, but it is appropriate for the large number of metal complexes and robot fight scenes. It's hard to recommend a game like this entirely for its soundtrack, when it's so easy to get the music seperately, and when during the play of the game, 10% of the music fills up 90% of the playtime. The vocal tracks are great, especially the epic final battle theme, which subtly pays homage to a similar track from Final Fantasy VII.
This is basically the best-looking JRPG ever, by virtue of the fact that it's the first large-budget JRPG to appear on a current-gen console. But even this honor can seem underwhelming at times, since the degree of graphical improvement this game offers over some of the better-looking PS2 RPGs is nowhere near the degree of graphical improvement historically offered several times by Squaresoft, whenever it bested its previously most graphically-advanced JRPG. The art design for some of Blue Dragon's locations, such as Pachess Town and Wither Village, is incredibly beautiful, while the remainder of the locations appear to be heavily copied and pasted together.
I would give this game 2.5 stars really, but I've rounded up to 3, because of Uematsu's great musical contribution. For an example of a good video game featuring blatantly childish design, check out Lunar: Silver Star Story. That game comes from the Blue Dragon school of design, but adds a lot of flavor to the formula, and would certainly be remake-worthy on a current-gen console. | video-games_xbox |
one of the best games I've ever played. Is it "technically impressive"? No. It's not Skyrim, Mortal Kombat, Uncharted 3, Modern Warfare 3. It's Kengo: Legend of the 9. Got it at Gamestop for $4. Best game ever.
Graphics and presentation: Not the best. It doesn't attempt to wow you. It's just "good enough."
Gameplay: Great. You have your standard vertical attack, horizontal attack, block button, but the really cool button is X. X allows you to clash swords with someone (Or "grapple"/grab them), but depending on how you flick the left stick or which buttons you press, you can roll them around, drive them around, kick them on the floor, or they can counter-grab you or counterattack. It's really exciting ...
Most samurai games are hack-and-slack. Attack. Dodge. Attack. Dodge. Block. Kill 100s of other people like that. This is not the case here. You have two bars: HEALTH and STAMINA. THERE ARE NO HEALTH POTIONS (for you to heal, your STAMINA has to recharge to full and YOU CAN'T MOVE -- how cool is that?). You have a stamina bar that runs out if you don't use your energy wisely (you can do what I do and turn all the gauges off for real immersion; of course, this means you got to gauge your health and stamina with psychic powers or intuition, if you're into that kind of thing, but it's pretty awesome to play a samurai game with no interface, just you, the graphics, and the controller). Sure, you can go around slashing everything, but once they block and attack you (maybe 4-5 times), you're dead and have to restart the level. This means you have to smart. You can't just barge into a battle. If it's you versus 10 guys, run until you can get one guy on your own or can safely attack him without someone sneaking up behind you to attack you (doesn't happen often but the point is you can only block the person IN FRONT OF YOU, which is easily done with the targeting feature, but can be painful just like in real life when you're got people surrounding you: strategy: run away until you can corner one). In most everyone versus you battles, you'll be fine, but when it's one-on-one (boss battles), you better be careful because he'll be more likely to block or attack you. This isn't because the AI cheats; it's basic psychology. You have to take it seriously. One mistake (like getting hit 4-5 times in a row ... even though to kill non-boss characters, you have to hit them 1-3 times -- which is how it's done in real life in case you didn't know) and you'll have to restart the level. Each level is basically the same: attack lots of people (fend off people trying to kill you) and finally an end boss (the hard part, because the boss will be smarter; your best bet is to grab them ... grab = X button = 2 swords clash and you have to push or pull ... you know, like in Bleach or Rurouni Kenshin when 2 swords stick to each other and the characters are talking, except here, you'll be thinking about how to not get killed versus making heroic speeches).
Game modes: combat (fighting game so the health bars are longer, but you can go on up to 9 rounds), online (haven't tried that yet), main story (you versus lots of foes; note these are historical figures so you can't create your own character but you can allocate experience points, etc.), options (very few), customize characters (from story mode).
Japanese audio; English subtitles.
Combat mode: This is the coolest mode ever. Don't like fighting off 20 guys and then losing to a boss battle (in story mode). Combat mode is where ALL the characters in the game are already unlocked (except maybe 1 or 0; not sure) and you can play 1-2-3-4-5 match rounds, just you and the AI, like a fighting game, but as with the story mode, you can turn off the interface and just fight. It's like a real samurai fight.
As I've said, best game ever. Let me know if you have questions. I just want to give this game the credit it deserves because it really is the best game I've ever played. The graphics aren't Uncharted 3, the menus aren't streamlined like in Skyrim, it's got Japanese audio, but the fighting gameplay mechanics are really fun and special. I've never played a game like this. Granted, if you're a completitionist or if you don't like losing, you might not like this game, but if you want to try something new, if you're into playing games because you want to have fun, then definitely give this game a try (I would say ... BUY). Remember: not all samurai fights end in victory; fight for your life. Once you develop your own style, you'll have a lot of fun with this game.
Weird note: Sometimes when an AI character swings his sword, he hurts the men around him. Kind of funny to watch (doesn't happen enough), but the point is there's a bit of strategy involved. If there are 10 guys around you, you could try and hack and slash away, but ... you could also try and run away, turn around and see who managed to catch up to you and kill him before the others catch up.
Settings: Japanese places like downtown Edo, temple, grassy knoll, a camp, autumn leaves (really pretty), etc. Definitely a must-buy if you're into Japanese landscapes and history.
On a more technical note, each character has three stances (three difference styles to hold the sword) and there is 1 female character. The others are historical figures like Musashi, Okita, Kojiro, etc. | video-games_xbox |
Good game love the Statue even more, just slightly. An amazing game! But I'm gonna talk about the extras that come with the box more than the game. The game is very good. If you played the other Batman Arkham games its on the sames lines as those games. Some of the gadgets are upgraded, the fighting system is a bit harder in my oppion because some of the power ups like destory an enemies weapon in previous versons of games was automatic as I remember but in here you need to get enough points to upgrade to get it.
here is the rest of my review
The box it self: when I got the box as a gift for x-mas I was amazed at how big it was compared to the Batman Arkham City Collectors Edition. It's about 10 times the size of it, probley because of all the extra's that came with it.
Game disk it self: it comes with 2 disks, first disk is the single player story mode, the second disk is for the online play if you want to get your scores from the challenges posted online you need this disk I guess. I never had internet connection with my xbox-360 so I never got play online.
Game it self: The game is amazing! the world of BA-O (batman arkham origins) is like 10 times the size of BA-C and 20 times the size of BA-A. Its a super game over all.
Story of the game: (minimum spoilers) Batman is first starting his whole crusade to stop crime in the crime ridden city of Gotham. On December 24th Batman starts out at Blackgate prision where he sees the warden getting attacked by a prisoner and Batman saves him, unknowing about Batman he tries to attack and Batman easily dodges his single attack and tells him he is the new savior of Gotham. After a bit of tutorial how to fighting, Batman sees Gotham's most powerful villian Black Mask aka Roman Sionis making his escape with Killer Croc. After stopping Croc but failing to catch Sionis, Batman learns that he has eight, thats right he learns 8 assassins are trying to kill him tonight. The assassins are, Venom loving muscle man Bane. The greatest gun shooting marksman Deadshot. The poisonious Copperhead. The famous mercenary Death Stroke The Terminator aka Slade to those origional Teen Titans show fans. Master Martial Arts fighter and League of Assassins member Shiva. The pyromanic and explosion loving Firefly. The electric loving not so smart Electrocutioner, and last but not least the canibal man eating Killer Croc. Batman must stop them all from trying to kill him on X-Mas eve and X-Mas day (the game crosses into it mid way threw it) while trying to stop Black Mask from his scheme and doing other missions to make Gotham city a safer place.
Extra stuff in the collectors edition: the part I have been waiting for. You get wanted posters of all the assassins that are trying to kill Batman. A wanted poster of Batman. A DVD of of DC comic best villians. Batwing prototype drawings. An 80 page art book. Death Stoke character unlock DLC. Last but not least my fave part of the collectors edition a statue of The Joker stabbing a wanted poster with 13 mini LED tv's that when turned on shows all the assassins faces that are trying to kill Batman. Also in the back are two secret storage areas where keeps the LED tv switch to turn on and off the tv's, and a bag contianing a secret that when you beat the game you can set up on the main statue it self (no spoiler ;) )
Pros: I love the whole set, it is amazing over all. It is a super gift or present for anyone you give. The game rules!! Everything else that comes along in the collectors box is amazing and a must have for super die hard Batman fans.
Cons: The only con I had with this set is the statue, the switch to turn the LED tv's on and off was broken, by broken I mean it was Broken ON, so I couldn't turn off the little screens they were on untill I either took the batteries out or let batteries die out. I replaced the cheep batteries for better ones and it took 3 days for the screens to go out. Not to bright but even in a dark dark room its kinda hard to see who is who on the screens but over all even without the LED screens the statue rocks!
Over All Final Thoughts: I love this series!! I cant wait till Batman Arkham Knight comes out. Buy this set!!! | video-games_xbox |
not so great. the only conclusion that i can come to is that some of the rave reviews of this game were written by those who have a vested interest in you buying Brute Force. this game is nothing special. i swear.
the graphics are ok. they're not at the level of Halo, Splinter Cell, or Orta (or Ghost Recon, or Tides of War, or... ok, most x-box games). i would say that this game looked pretty good if it was on the PS2 (which isn't really saying much). the environments are kinda bland and the particle effects (gun fire, explosions, items shattering, etc.) are barely there. the only time i thought the game looked good was using the rifle zoom and during the intro to each level. the character movement is smooth, but they look like knuckleheads and the enemies are just goofy. you've seen better, much better.
the gameplay is about as straightforward as it gets. it's a third-person shooter so the rules are simple = if it moves, shoot it. the path before you is totally linear, which means you'll be running along from point A to point B to point C without being able to deviate and explore the environment (which looks weak, so i guess that's not so bad). you have objectives to complete, but those are to either to reach a checkpoint or blow something up. sound familiar?
all four characters have special abilities, but they only use them when you're in control of the character. so, if you're playing as the guy who gets extra adrenaline to kick some tail (which is the lizard-looking creature), the character that can cloak herself to sneak around is getting shot up because you have to switch to her to use the invisibility cloak.... and when you switch, the lizard guy will stop using his boosted strength to kill because you switched characters. in other words, the special abilities are ok when you're facing only a few enemies, but when attacked by many, they become useless. this became one of my biggest issues with the game because the special abilities could have been much more useful.
another thing that drove me nuts was that the position of the character on the screen (the one you're controlling) is all wrong. if you're shooting at someone above or below you, the camera angle is ok.... but if the enemy is straight ahead? you character's body gets in the way and you can't see what's coming. sometimes you have to run to the left or right just to see what's in front of you = poor game design.
the rest of the game is about as mediocre as what's already been mentioned. the weapons fire and voice acting are ok. the weapons offered are nothing new (the rifle zoom and targeting reticule are taken directly from Halo). nothing about this game is really inspiring and i found myself wanting to sell it about half way through as nothing new was coming along.
... | video-games_xbox |
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