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Forza, Where Dreams Are Driven Via Microtransactions. The Forza series was my favorite game series out there (key word: was - as in, past tense).
It's a shame it has come to this. Micro-transactions. Come on. We pay $60 for your game and you want us to pay more real money to get cars we want? Come on, Turn 10.
You CAN play this game without paying real money to get the cars you want, but you'll just have to waste countless hours earning credits in order to do so.
I don't have several hours a day to put into a game anymore. I play casually. I play(ed) with all assists off on the highest difficulty as I always have, and I earned next to nothing compared to previous Forzas. It takes way too long to earn credits to get anything half decent. In fact, the only way I was able to afford something decent was by not playing for weeks and my ghost earned me credits...
Some degree of difficulty (progress/earning credits) is good in games, but they focused way too much on microtransactions to the point where it's no fun.
Also, what exactly was the thought process behind forcing us to do race after race after race??? What happened to doing 1 race and going back to the menus? Now I complete a race and instantly get put into another one? What if I wanted to change cars? Change events? Go paint a car instead? Nope sorry, you have to wait for the next race to load (against your will) and then exit to the menu afterwards. What's up with that? Again, I don't have time to do consecutive races, especially when I have no choice. I used to love doing a race and then upgrading/tuning afterwards, switching cars, and doing a new event. Not in this Forza. Oh, and the free ride mode where you used to be able to use any car at all... That's gone. You have to rent the cars now. And it's only select vehicles. What a joke. I literally laughed when I saw that and instantly turned my Xbox One off.
I had high hopes, but I was let down and basically lost $20 doing so. Better than getting nothing back for it. The graphics are great, controls are the same and are fine, driving is fun, races seemed a little more difficult which is good. But throw all that out the window. Microtransactions and greed have ruined this franchise. I won't be buying another Forza title, unfortunately. It's a shame. | video-games_xbox |
A Disappointing Jaunt Through Neo-Noir Chicago. Though an admirable concept for a game, Watch_Dogs for the Xbox 360 is riddled with problems and frustrationts, ranging from performance to the end product's writing. I would advise you not to buy this game.
The game follows Aiden Pierce, a hacker and vigilante for hire, in his journey to get revenge for the death of his niece. This journey takes Aiden through the streets of Chicago and drags him down into a Neo-Noir thriller. Unfortunately, this journey is marred by the presence of disinteresting characters; with the exception of Jordi Chin, most of the individuals Aiden encounters are characters, facades of real characters. Aiden himself is bland protagonist, being at best dull and at worst an inadvertently psychopathic character.
The story was disappointing as well. Watch_Dogs suffers from a lack of focus. Though our narrative through-line is the death of Aiden's niece, her death barely factors into the over all narrative, and large chunks of the story fail to connect with the larger narrative. The frustration of the writing at large meets it's climax at the end of the game, with a conclusion so lazily conceived that it ruined what might have otherwise been a "enjoyably mediocre" experience.
A final note about writing: the elephant in the room with this game is its treatment of women. Whether Watch_Dogs is outright misogynist or inadvertently sexist, the game handles its female cast poorly, objectifying them into mere motivation for Aiden's actions.
The mechanics and inner systems of the game work...decently. Considering how the game looks on current-gen hardware, the 360 port is decent. However, closer examination reveals cracks in the armor. Watch_Dogs suffers from pop-in, which can distract from the playability of the title and may be a hindrance to play in worse situations. Similarly, the "TARDIS"-like nature of the buildings around Chicago and the underwhelming reflections are immersion breaking.
On the surface, the hacking mechanics of the game are extremely entertaining, allowing the player to interact with the city of Chicago in a variety of interesting ways. However, the appeal soon wears off and reveals the hacking mechanics to be little more than a modifier for the typical play of a third person sandbox game. Similarly, the sandbox play is underwhelming, with slow AI and wonky driving mechanics. (The physics in the game, especially driving are unrealistic to the point of damaging play.) The only saving grace of the game is the stealth mechanics, which work well and hold together the bulk of Watch_Dogs. However, with the release of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the stealth in Watch_Dogs now appears underwhelming.
There's a bulk of content in the game, with numerous side missions and optional objectives. The story alone will take around 10 hours to complete. Sadly though, the variety between missions is scarce, and what begins as a variety of charmingly diverse quests quickly devolves into repetitive drudgery.
Ultimately, Watch_Dogs has many interesting ideas. The use of hacking in game is an intriguing idea, and the subject matter of information theft and surveillance is interesting. However, the end package is severely lacking and left this player underwhelmed and disappointed. | video-games_xbox |
Xbox 360 Limited Edition Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Excellent. This is my second Elite console (the firts MW2 250gb) but my four 360. I have a launch 360 that is still kicking and I'll be using it for comparison.
If you've seen any of the youtube videos then you know about the sounds and the gorgeous looks, so I'll skip that and go into what they don't show off. The first thing I noticed after a short period is the noise, or the complete lack there of. My old Xbox sounds like a jet, kind of like a Dreamcast if you remember those. This new elite console ONLY makes the noises that it's supposed to which are the Halo 4 sounds programmed in. It is, however, slightly brighter than the old 360 since it is a translucent case. Nothing intrusive by far, but subtle if you occasionally glance at it's beauty. It will not get in the way of playing but may be noticeable watching movies on a smaller TV.
Now as for the controllers, they are the much improved wireless with the new rotating D-pads. The best way to describe the feel is a slick plastic top and a slightly gritty lower half. Grip is fantastic where it needs to be. Even the joysticks have a gritty feel and even after playing 16 hours straight after launch, sweaty thumbs were never a problem.
Now if your looking for a review of the game from me you won't find it here. Too much can be said and I would sound completely MW3. Is this the best one? well to me it is by far, but if your looking at a mw3 Xbox I doubt you haven't decided to get the game yet. If you want a review that sums up my feelings perfectly go to IGN and watch their video review.
So to sum up my feelings about the console this isn't something Microsoft threw together for the holidays so people could spend their money on a rehashed Xbox with new stickers. This IS the MW3 xbox and the best value for anyone looking to either buy their first Xbox console or replace an older model. To parents who read this and are trying to decide whether or not this is for their child or children , you get two IDENTICAL controllers and WIFI built in so no cords to the router. It's just a huge plus that it's so quiet that they don't have to yell over the console or turn up the volume on the TV, or both. You only get the one headset but it IS a standard Xbox headset you can by anywhere. Hope this helps you decide either way but I'm enjoying mine and have no doubts any Halo fan would. | video-games_xbox |
A decidedly average shooter. Homefront has something of a troubled past; from well-documented development woes to a sorely inept open Beta test, it has seen its share of ups and downs. I was amongst the few critics that seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed the original Homefront released last generation. It was tough, unforgiving, and followed a line of thought that I think has touched nearly every American at some point; "What would happen if we were invaded?" One of my favorite movies growing up was Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen's "Red Dawn" and Homefront had a storyline VERY similar to it.
Sure, the campaign was brutal, short, and if you did not take the time to read the various newspaper clippings found throughout the game as collectibles, then the story seemed to take weird jumps or twists. Homefront: The Revolution tries to rewrite some of that history and in some ways, succeeds, other ways, fails. Despite its troubled history, there is the workings of a solid game at the core of Homefront: The Revolution; you just need to sift through a handful of problems to find it.
It is not often that someone tries to redefine, or change, the FPS genre as it is a fairly straightforward experience. Homefront: The Revolution does not try to completely change or redefine, but rather incorporate open world gameplay features found in games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt or Grand Theft Auto V, weapon customization that is a near copy of that found in the Crysis series (which is perfect IMO, and it has been made better here) with brutal FPS combat found in games like the original Homefront or Medal of Honor: Warfighter. Taking inspiration from other games is a perfectly acceptable method to developing a game, however bringing very little that is original to the table is a big mistake that many games make, and it is one that Homefront: The Revolution certainly makes.
Throughout the 8-10 hours' worth of a campaign (that is deceptively fun), Homefront struggles with its identity. Open world games let you move at your own pace, yet Homefront works hard to push you along the story; it's VERY easy to blow past a lot of the more interesting side quests as the game does not give you the moment to breath and take in your surroundings. The pacing is further disrupted by the abysmal "stealth" mechanics in the game. Early on you can work to blend into the subdued populace, which makes for some interesting events, but all too quickly the game strips away the perceived anonymity and says "well, you are too popular so you can't blend anymore, so it's up to you to just destroy everything without being seen." Had they not removed your anonymity so soon, there could have been far more to the whole "hit-and-run" guerilla-style combat that they were claiming you could do.
The actual gunplay is great; firearms are clunky at best, which fits in perfectly for the world that Homefront is set into. Weapons are makeshift and deeply customizable. I am an avid shooter, a loving and staunch supporter of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Of America; I love me some good ol' boom-sticks so when I see weapon take-downs that are realistic a small part of me just giggles with glee. Customizing firearms in Homefront is one of, if not the most, enjoyable things I have seen in a first person shooter in years, if not a decade or more. The takedown action, reloading, or remodding actions are gorgeously animated and I would find myself just staring as I, on-the-fly, converted my pistol to an SMG and back again; it was mesmerizing.
There are a few other moments that are like that, especially when you grab some other recruitable Resistance fighters and make your way to a strike point or stronghold. Though the recruits tend to die quickly, they do act as decoys but do not last all that long; a shame too, because it is really something to watch as your four recruits run up in the dead of night and work to flank the enemies. Truthfully it would be nice to have the recruits along in all aspects of the game, but the pitiable "stealth" sections are horrible, and the biggest benefit of the recruits is to draw fire. This is especially important when APCs are in the area, since their view and threat distances are ... farther than the Xbox One's draw distance. This is especially irksome during the "stealth" sections (where you wander around in populated areas trying to sabotage the KPA) since an APC will see you before you even see it (thus exponentially increasing the difficulty of the mission).
Even through a hell-hole ridden development cycle, and not without its serious technical faults (seriously, 20-30 seconds to close out of shops, looting bodies is a joke, horrible draw distances), Homefront: The Revolution is actually fun. It tries to add an open-world concept to a typically on-rails experience and for the most part, succeeds. There has been mention, a few times, that the developers are working towards a patch so improve framerates and various technical issues, but at the pace they are moving things, it may be too late to save this diamond-in-the-rough. | video-games_xbox |
Addictive, intense and fun. Of all the games that have ever spun off a movie, Enter the Matrix is definitely one of the best I've played in quite some time. Although the game was a bit over-hyped, it is in no way a bad game. In fact, its one of the most addictive and entertaining games I've played in a while.
First off, one of the most interesting parts is the fact that the game was actually produced and supervised by the Wachowski Brothers. With movie footage shot exclusively for the game using the real actors, the game's story is conveyed clearly and with excellent production values. The story is actually a side-story to the Matrix Reloaded, so everything that occurs during this game does in fact affect the plot of the movie. While you won't necessarily have to play the game to understand the movie, the game does help to explain alot of things from the film.
You get to play as either Niobe(Jada Pinkett) or Ghost(Anthony Wong), the crew of the Logos. Each character has a different path through the game, with different levels and cut-scenes exclusive to the character, making for some high replay value. As the game progresses, you learn more of your character's backstory and their relationships with other characters, which is an interesting aspect. Other characters, such as The Merovingian, the Twins, Cain and Able, Persephone and even Trinity and the rest of the crew make an appearence.
As for the game itself, the action is intense. If you see it done in the movie, you can do it in the game, everything from rebounding off the wall to deliver a roundhouse to your victim's face to cartwheeling around bullets while firing your guns to kicking your fallen enemy about 20 feet away from you, sending them sliding across the floor. Using the 'Focus' button slows down time(ala 'Bullet Time' from Max Payne), allowing you to perform more lethal martial arts moves and throws, perform greater leaps and acrobatics, and giving you a distinct advantage in gunplay and other combat situations. The hand-to-hand combat is arguably the game's strongest point...I had so much fun on certain levels that I replayed them several times over. The amount of interaction with the surrounding environment is very high, and makes the more intense hand to hand fights (such as boss fights or the Merovingian's chateau) much more enjoyable. I can honestly say I had more fun with the hand-to-hand combat in this game than I have in any fighting game that's come out in the last few years, and that's saying alot!
Other modes of gameplay involve driving. These segments are not quite as fun as the regular action game, since they can be pretty frustrating. The physics on the cars are pretty bad. Depending on which character you choose, you will be either shooting or driving, though sometimes the roles will be reversed. The 'flying' portion of the game, in which you get to pilot the Logos, is somewhat more enjoyable than the car driving scenarios, but can still be pretty frustrating at times. Depending on which character you choose, you will either be piloting(Niobe) or manning the guns(Ghost).
A great extra feature is the 'Hacking' mini-game, which allows you to unlock more features in the game, such as secret levels, more mini-games, cinematics, cheats, and other features such as allowing you to drop weapons into certain levels to use. It takes a little while to learn but that's the fun of it. Once you become good at it you'll find yourself unlocking tons of new things.
Save points are frequent...while the game is not easy you will never end up making tons of progress only to have yourself killed in one of those typical overwhelming moments and losing all your progress. It doesn't make the game easier, but it sure does beat the frustration factor down. No need to worry about losing anything!
Despite all the game's good elements, there are a few problems. The graphics, especially for an XBox game, could be better. They aren't bad at all, but they definitely don't push the power of the system. Its not that big of a problem, but nitpickers will notice. The game is a tad glitchy and the control is sometimes unresponsive, which can lead to frustrating accidental deaths. The camera is a bit touchy as well. It has a tendency to whip around suddenly or focus in an awkward position. This is particularly annoying when you are trying to focus on a particular enemy, or when you want to watch the opponent you just kicked go flying out a window and it ends up focusing at a bizarre angle. Other problems include just plain bad animation. One particular example is in one of the earlier levels, where the objective is to shoot out the wheels of plane. The animation is so blocky that it looks like it was done on the Nintendo 64 or PSOne. The graphics during the car chase scenes also leave alot to be desired.
Aside from that, the game itself is really alot of fun. I see many complain that the game didn't live up to expectations...unfortunately people just hold too high of criteria for games lately. Just because the game is based of the Matrix doesn't mean its going to be the Messiah of video games. It's a very fun and addictive game, and that's all that matters to me. So if you are a fan of the Matrix, get this game...the story alone is worth the price of admission, and I gaurantee you that you will have a good time playing. Go into this game expecting the game of the year, and you'll be disappointed. Go into this game expecting to have fun, and you'll be satisfied. | video-games_xbox |
Enjoying the Game So Far. Good
1) sneaking around killing nazis.
2) Atmosphere.
3) Enjoyable to play (so far)
4) Based, very very loosely on a real person
Bad
1) cannot skip cut scenes, which would be helpful after dying and seeing the cut scene 5 or 6 times.
2) Pistal does not handle well. Sometimes I point right at the guy and whistle, as he approaches I shoot him 3 times to kill him.
3) Morphine is cool, not really sure its place, Gives you speed and the ability to stab from front. Why can't I do that all the time? Just silly.
4) Sometimes your seen, and sometimes your not even if you are hidden in a similar spot.
5) If I whistle from a distance, and hide, the idiot runs right to where I am hiding. How is that possible?
6) You peak through a key hole (which is fun). I see a guy a little ways off. I open the door and you can hear the door open and see the light (sometimes the door stays open). But the bad guy doesn't notice. Hows this possible?
7) Thought graphics would be better. Playable for sure, but it is not adequate to good at best.
8) From what I have seen very linear.
9) Voice acting and what the NPCs say is pretty lame, but funny.
I haven't even come across any major glitches yet, as others have encountered, but I haven't gone to far into the game. There is something about it that is fun. It is a very arcade type of game. I do like the ww2 setting and the french resistance, similar to the Sabetuer which is also very loosely based on a real person. If you played sniper elite v2, or The Sabatuer, it is simple not in their league. They are better made games with at least some depth. I guess the velvet Assasin can be compared slightly to Sniper Elite v2, as both are linear and very arcade. But so far, I am enjoying sneaking around and have yet to tire of replayings sections. The game is very puzzle like, but at the same time very unrealistic (hence arcade). The person the game is loosely based on was captured at a road checkpoint on her second mission, interigated,locked up, tortured and executed. And her first mission wasn't that exciting either. However, I agree she was fearless and was definetly up for the challange, and a real spirited lady.
I will do an update when I have (if I) finish the game. Unless I find it broken, I doubt it will go down from the 3 stars I have given it. | video-games_xbox |
What Happened. Star Wars The Force Unleashed, or TFU, after a long time in development has finally been released with all the polish and solid presentation that should be expected with a Lucasarts as well as the Euphoria, DMM and Havoc engines, as it should be, considering that Star Wars is what brought Lucasarts to the dance. The story is solid, the player takes the role of Starkiller, the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, a Sith who's charged with killing the last of th Jedi, but there is an underlying reason for why Starkiller is the secret apprentice mostly to do with the whole rule of two that the Sith have. As Starkiller the player must run, jump and knock the crap out of the same baddies and a strange kind of robot that pops out of nowhere, by using your trusty lightsaber, which can be upgraded but not at the level as KOTOR, the force powers as well as the lightsaber skill can be also upgraded, all to make Starkiller the powerhouse that he is, which both makes the game great, but also hinders the franchise at the same time.
The story is strong and original, however, it is uneven with the prequels and the original movies, an example of this is that the first level the player has control of the Dark Lord himself, Darth "head cold" Vader, the breathing thing that Vader has really started to get annoying, but asides that the power that Vader has does not match up with anything that was seen in the original movies. The same applies to Starkiller, he becomes really strong and all the force powers look impressive, but the powers he has were never seen on the scale as brought forth in TFU. Yes it is amazing to basically dominate the same enemies with massive force attacks or glide in superfast and lay down the hurt. Any other game with the obvious laziness in enemy design as well as level design would be destroyed in reviews, but this is Star Wars. The levels are essentially just corridors and arenas, sure there is that Star Wars aesthetic and gloss applied, also the levels are linear in construction no free roaming Starkiller can only go the path that is readily available with some environmental manipulation. This game is very much a God of War clone in some respects with a great deal of button mashing and those mini-bosses and Jedi with those specific button presses needed to finish the guy off, and not in that weird massage parlor sense. Actually, the finish move sequence is actually well implemented with a change in perspective and some great attacks getting done, but much like the force powers these are one of those moments where I wondered about how this works with the franchise, even though it looks great.
Now the camera, and targetting, one would think that with a great deal of development behind it that the cinematic camera would be really refined, but much like Too Human the camera is very difficult to work with. The platforming aspects to TFU suffers greatly from the bizarre camera angles, I found myself dying a great deal because the camera took a position right behind Starkiller making the jumping process a little difficult especially when attempting to gauge the jump it might be too short or too long, and by the time it is figured out that the jump was done wrong Starkiller is dead. The targetting is another problem with this game, and since the use of the force successfully strongly hinges on the progression the less than ideal targetting system makes for some problematic situations. An example of this is with the force grip, essentially and ideally the player can more or less grab any item and use it as a throwing weapon, even some enemies are subject to this, however, sometimes the targetting isn't the strongest there were many a time I would lift the wrong thing also when using the grip and lift Starkiller becomes completely stationary making him the perfect target, and when hit Starkiller will lose concentration and drop the object bringing the player back to square one. I wished I has more fingers to help with the constant button presses and re-adjusting of the camera, I ran out of fingers, this is a button mashing game that requires both hands to actually be able to execute parts of it.
The controls to the game are good enough, the ease of pick and play is there, it's fairly easy to just grab a controller and start your path on the darkside. But still in the back of my mind I would've enjoyed hacking and slashing with the right analog stick, but how would the force grip work since moving an object up and down is determined by the right stick, also the camera is adjusted with the right analog stick when not using force grip. The left analog stick is used for the force grip and its movement left, right, front and back.
Now the meat of the game, and not that charded coctail weenie that Vader has, the graphical presentation is top notch, but with some noticeable technical problems like clipping, and a weird bubbling sometimes that I have never seen before. The characters look solid, except for Juno, who looks like a rabbit with those huge front teeth and the cleavage, not very good cleavage either. The audio is solid, with John Williams supplying the rich orchestral music, but sometimes the music gets way too loud for in game dialogue like Juno or Proxy, the murderous andriod, giving obvious hints and tips on where to go next, which is an odd choice considering that the game only has one path. The voice-acting is decent but nothing that hasn't been heard before in Star Wars it's the usual melo-dramatic jabber.
Overall, TFU is a good game, which is worthy of the title Star Wars, but with a good amount of glitches and some camera issues, to be honest I think this game was done in response to the growing criticism of Lucasarts not putting out good titles since KOTOR. And let's not forget the worst part of this game, and this is one of the worst sequences I have ever played in any game, the dreaded Star Destroyer on Raxus Prime. The boss fight on Raxus Prime is an Imperial Star Destroyer, which sounds amazing, Starkiller has to bring a the massive ship down using his force powers, however instead of actually doing an amazing sequence of moves as they did before with other bosses, this sequence is basically stand on a platform force grip the ship and slowly, and by slowly I mean torture slowly haul down the Star Destroyer, one problem is the constantly re-spawning TIE Fighters that are sent in to protect the ship, allow for the Star Destroyer to reposition itself somewhat only to repeat this sequence again and again, always being attacked by the TIE Fighters. This sequence is the perfect example of how the development team for TFU just stopped building on this game, rather than getting the Star Destroyer close enough and having Starkiller jump from TIE Fighter to TIE Fighter getting closer to put that final strike to the Star Destroyer, the player must deal with this horrible redundant gameplay, also the recycling of the levels is another indication that the development team for this game just rested on their laurels, which is a shame this game could've been amazing. So what's the final verdict on this game? The story is a good one, but it's peppered with laziness, presentationally it's solid, but with glitches, audio has always been a strong suit with Lucasarts, but the music being too loud during some points of the game is an annoyance. The camera along with the targetting isn't the best. But to be honest, regardless of what is written or seen in review for TFU fans of the franchise will clamour for this game. As a fan I felt this game was 'OK', but I think the best Star Wars games have all been done, and with TFU, Lucasarts played it very safe with the subject matter opting for an all too familiar storyline, also it is pretty easy to figure out how this game will end before even playing it which is another problem, why wouldn't the development team put some effort and imagination into producing a new Star Wars property instead of the all too familiar formula, the success of KOTOR proves that an alternative Star Wars timeline and storyline can be popular both commercially and critically.
Asides all that I am still enjoying the game, it has some pretty fun elements to it, but for all the hype around this game, maybe everyone was expecting a little too much from the beligered Lucasarts. Also Lucasarts is mostly to blame for this as well, hype aside, Star Wars is already a popular franchise and for the development team to produce a game that lacks so much and is basically a clone of better games, and this is supposed to be a part of the franchise that has made Lucasarts, where's the pride, or is it just a huge cash grab? | video-games_xbox |
Simply amazing. This has turned out to be one of my best purchases in years. I am extremely glad I chose this console over its competitor. I am very excited about the potential for this system- although the games right now are lacking, there is plenty of fun to be had, online and off, and it has turned my HDTV into an extremely capable, voice activated, internet and app friendly, entertainment center. The system has become the life of the party, with its ability to multitask, the kinnects' ability to recognize voice and easily put commands through to change the current TV station, pause/record on television, DVR (the same pause record process, which is incredible) whichever game I am playing, not to mention its extreme processing and graphics capability which has set a new standard for my already very high expectations for any console play. The games have turned out to be a blast. -I was not much of an online player on the 360, nor the ps2/3, however the 360 has changed that; not by force or guidelines, but by the level of excitement online to expect, and to have, has fundamentally changed for the better. Long gone are the days of simple names, avatars, and stats - online videos of game-play, sharing, extreme levels of multi-player capability and interaction between everyone have become seamlessly integrated to a level of speed unprecidented and overall general technological aptitude uniquely accessible for everyone. The voice command module of the Kinnect has proven to be invaluable -girls/people at parties all shouting out which song they want to hear in drunken glee, rather than moodily explanation demanding and controller and console explanations. The Kinnect simply just does what they ask. I am extremely glad that this has been integrated so well with the system, along with another invaluable aspect, the HDMI-in port, where the DCT (your digital cable box / DVR box) can go, or whatever other device you chose. This not only puts an on-screen guide, but allows for voice navigation between channels, the Xbox One home screen, and the actual game- the days where launching games over and over again to a restart/save point are gone here. When you want to play, you simply just state so and you're back to the game- Want to check the scores/replays from the playoffs? Simply ask the Kinnect and it will do as you say. Guy or girl, accent, degree of intoxication, etc. -all do not matter when the connect is preforming its voice recognition task. Such a simple pleasure as saying "Xbox on" to turn on both your television and Xbox, when you perhaps, due to last nights festivities, you may not really want to move. When you do get up from your couch, if it hasn't already, your Xbox will greet you with a hello and log you in as your kinnect recognizes you better than most of your actual friends. In summary, the high technology, the promise of future expansion, and the games that are out right now, and the games to come, all make the Xbox not only a wise purchase, but a better choice over its cheaper, sloppier, competitor. To my knowledge, to get the intrepid level of entertainment the Xbox One Console will get you, you would have to end up spending much more with the other console, only to get short changed when it comes down to the software / online capability that Xbox Live has been producing, and still currently produces. In an era where everyone carries a smart device or two at all times, this has become immensely popular at my apartment with all demographics that come in, and never fails to impress, as they're simply able to digitally link any device they might have to Xbox One itself. In conclusion, Xbox One dwarfs the competitor (to be forthcoming in this review, I actually had my mind set on the PS4, yet changed it once I realized the immense capabilities, and things I could really use on a daily basis, and get it all in one package, rather than disappoint myself) when it comes to nearly every aspect of interface. The controller is ergonomically light, mobile and sleek. The Console itself is the crown jewel of my electronic devices, and I am sure will continue to stay that way for the next decade, like its predecessor. | video-games_xbox |
A big let down. With the departure of Infinity Ward from the Call of Duty franchise, I have been looking for the next great franchise. Unfortunately I fed into the media blitz put on for this game. Big mistake!
The story is visceral and engaging but not for the faint of heart. Much of the imagery is disturbing and gruesome. What was there was pretty well done for an initial release, but there just wasn't much there. I was just getting the feel for the game when the campaign/single player ended. I was in shock as it was only my second session with the game, meaning I finished it in under 5 hours.
At this point I moved on to the online campaign. After selecting XBox Live I was prompted for to purchase or redeem an online code. What?! I just bought the game why would I need a code. Its not a PC, its a console, this is odd. But sure enough I found in my game case the required online access code. Without this code you can only play up to level 5 in multiplayer.
So with a 5 hour campaign and a required code to play online this game is going to be a real bummer for anyone who buys it used. They will have to pay to be able to play it online. If there are multiple people in your house with different Live accounts, they will each have to buy their own code. This is the most absurd thing I have ever seen with a console game. With all the compromises that I deal with for console gaming, the one thing I expect is a level of trust that I am not stealing the game, but apparently that is now gone too.
A couple of other pet peeves with this game. The game would have been even shorter if I had not had to sit and wait seemingly forever for the NPCs to open a door and walk through it, at times right after a checkpoint so that you get to enjoy it multiple times if you die. That is even if you know exactly where to go and what to do, you have to wait for the NPC to open the door and saunter through it, and then the next NPC to follow before you can then walk through the door. If you try to go earlier you just get in the way, are not allowed to proceed and slow the progress of the NPC, and ultimately your own progress. Another annoyance was points of infinite spawns in the game where if you attempted to pre-clear an area you would never finish, had I just moved up at first try the game would have been even shorter and I would have had more ammo. Finally, there is a sniper mission where you must wait for the NPC to identify the target, and finally give you the OK to fire. If you shoot anytime before the final OK, you will have to restart the mission. While this might be OK, it is not made clear until you drop the first target. | video-games_xbox |
Better then GR2 but not by much. GRAW was originally released in early 2006 and, from what I remember, was hailed as having great graphics and gameplay. I played all of 10 minutes of the game and then put it down and walked away. I literally had no desire to pick it up again. About a month ago I went through my stack of 360 games and realized I haven't played the game through and decided to give it another try. In 06, I immediately did not like the game but this time though I decided to push on. GRAW stays true to the Tactical FPS genre, if you run and gun you will get cut to ribbons quickly. It looks and sounds great the controls and A.I. leave a lot to be desired. Even with the tutorial the controls still feel awkward and take some time getting used to, I found that I had to replay the tutorial mission a few times to get the controls down. You quickly find that taking a few bullet hits is very bad for your characters health and your overall enjoyment of the game. Youll also find out fast that the A.I. teammates are completely dumb and only work when you micromanage everything they do in a firefight including any tanks or helicopters you need to direct as well. Overall it just grates your nerves. The story however is good and actually makes want to keep playing to see how the story unfolds.
Pros:
Graphics and sound
Story
Firefights can be fun as long as you don't have to micromanage your team and assets
Cons:
Controls
A.I. Teammates are dumb and need to be micromanaged
Enemies can be very intelligent and very good at absorbing bullets
Intelligent enemies wouldnt be so bad if your teammates had some more intelligence as well. GRAW isn't horrible but it isn't great either. The sounds and looks have held up great considering this game is almost 11 years old and the story is told well and makes you want to continue playing. The downfall of this game is really the controls, A.I. teammates and the enemys ability to absorb bullets. While challenging and occasionally fun this game offers a low replay value. | video-games_xbox |
Buyer Beware. This was the first truly expensive headset I've bought that wasn't an audiophile pair of headphones. I did some research and found that these were the best deal. So I decided why the hell not?
First thing I noticed off the bat was that these headphones are very loud. They're so loud that it's clearly over amplified. The small drivers in the headset can't really handle the output the tiny amp pushes to them so they're are extremely crackly at around 50% volume level. At near to 100% it's unbearably loud. I could hear them sitting on the table in my living room from OUTSIDE they were so loud. I had trouble with this headset early - one of the channels was giving off a constant static crackling at any volume level. I figured out it was the center channel on the left ear bud so I just turned down the center channel really low. Yes it was annoying to not be able to hear the center channel but I paid a lot for these so I figured I'd just put up with it and keep using them.
Secondly, They EXTREMELY uncomfortable. They squeeze your head so tight that they gave me headaches and made me have to walk away from the computer a lot of the time.
Third, The non-noise cancelling mic ended up seriously bothering my friends who I spoke with on voip programs. It picked up everything and sometimes even Echo'ed sound like speakers because the headset is so loud. The mic doesn't cancel ANYTHING and is VERY loud so it literally hears everything.
In the end, I purchased these at a local retail store early July. By August 7th, they broke. They snapped in half while I was sitting at my desk in August. Yes, you read that correctly. They LITERALLY broke while sitting on my head in use. 34 days after purchase. It seems to be a stress fracture that broke the connecting plastic to the left ear piece. The RMA service has been a nightmare already... They don't have a phone number to call and as a result require you to fill out an annoying online form.
I have a feeling these people will try to copout on their responsibility and claim I damaged these headphones. I work a lot and they sat on a desk, undisturbed most of the month that I owned them. I have no roommates, pets or strange circumstances that could've led to their doom. They were just built that shoddy. I would recommend someone buy anything other than these headphones. They're not worth the money at all and they were clearly not built with good materials. DON'T BUY THIS POS SET OF HEADPHONES. SERIOUSLY. | video-games_xbox |
20/20/20 Review. First 20 Minutes:
Pros: PDP constructed the packaging well. The headset looks great, and it had all applicable wires for the various systems/gaming platforms. There was a small one-page advertisement highlighting a case, an extra wire, etc. for miscellaneous items that would accompany the headset. They came with a partial charge, therefore no need to charge prior to trying them out. Then, I turned them on. The lights are great. They are blue, similar to other Afterglow products. Very cool look. Easy installation.
Cons: None.
First 20 Hours:
Pros: Great sound, great length of battery life, and fantastic functions. The quality of sound of the three functions are subjective, but for games and movies, I only use the "green", or 3D sound function. The music sounded strange at first until I realized there is a specific way to play music from a mobile device (included in the simple-to-use instruction manual). The sound is fine, if not outstanding. After quite a few hours of game play, a tone will identify a low battery. The tone is easily distinguishable from other game sounds. Additionally, when the battery is low, the lights on the headphones go dark to save power. The long USB cord to recharge is wonderful and easily allows continued game play while charging the headset. I do not have a decent connection for online gaming where I am currently located; therefore, I was unable to test the microphone.
Cons: Discomfort during extended game play. After about two hours, my ears felt a little discomfort, but nothing major. As time passes, the discomfort lessons, and eventually, and I can only imagine it will go away entirely. They do require some breaking in. It takes some practice to learn the lights for sounds, as well what to do in the event you want to listen to music on an I-Pod, or similar device.
First 20 Days: Still loving them. I use these every day. I have become adapted to the various functions, and can manipulate the headset without looking at the buttons. There are no cons at 20 days other than what I have already presented. The minor ear discomfort is still present, but again lessons daily.
Overall, these are great headphones. I am new to gaming headphones; however, I read everything tech-related. Game Informer , Game Stop's official magazine rated them fifth place out of five headsets tested, but they were the cheapest by at least 70 dollars. All in all, three of the five headsets were over two hundred dollars, and one was just shy of three hundred. These headphones possess the ability to compete with headsets that are clearly more expensive and better known, an impressive feat for any product. I highly recommend this headset for anyone who games at a moderate level. I feel that extreme gamers may find this headset a little too uncomfortable for game-play extending past four, or five hours. | video-games_xbox |
Suffers from lots of audio bugs. I purchased these direct from Turtle Beach. The packaging and build seem to be high quality, but then it starts to go a little down hill from there.
These are my first Turtle Beach headsets. I have used Logitech G35 wired headsets on my PC and like them more.
Pros:
High Build Quality
Truly wireless chat for XBOX One. Turtle Beach is apparently the only company that can do this for some reason.
Decent on-ear controls
Bluetooth
sound profiles to accentuate different frequencies for better environmental awareness, or movie watching.
Smartphone app for duplicating most of the on-ear controls and ability to adjust some of the various audio levels (Requires Bluetooth to be on)
No Boom (I like that, but with the mic quality issues, would have probably preferred at last a small boom)
Standard audio jack for wired stereo connection
Nice magnetic charging base (also transceiver)
headset and base is firmware upgrade-able with PC
Cons:
Pretty expensive at $300
Charging cradle doubles as wireless receiver and must be connected to the XBOX USB port. So limited in where it can be placed
Website registration is painful. Multiple pages and have to enter the same info over and over again.
With noise cancellation there is significant hiss. Without noise cancellation, the hiss is noticeable but tolerable (should be imperceptible for a $300 headset)
Other players report sound muffled and far away (new firmware MAY have fixed this. Waiting to see)
Ear cups are a little smaller than what I am used to on Logitech G35. Puts uncomfortable pressure on my ears. Not suitable for long play sessions.
Voice feedback for settings adjustable in smartphone app but lowest setting is still kinda loud
Audio queue (beeps) feedback is very loud and cannot be set. It is not painfully loud but uncomfortable and jarring.
Even though it has bluetooth, not made to work with PS3/4. For $300 seems it should work with just about anything.
This feels like something that should have cost about half the price. The mic and audio, which are the key things for a high end headset seem mediocre to me and the key features for a gaming headset.
I am hoping some of the things that detract from the headset can be solved in firmware. The mic issue hopefully already has. I would really like to adjust the volume on the voice feedback more and the audio queues at all. Maybe the hissing can also be fixed, but frankly think that is just a factor of the engineering. I am not an audiophile, this just seems to be sort of mediocre sound to me.
UPDATE:
I have been going back and forth with support on the audio issues with this headset for about a month or so. Audio volume still resets every time the headset is powered on. I have to manually lower volumes as it does not save. This is uncomfortably loud in chat and very irritating. Feels like volume is maxed out and I have to quickly lower the volume. In some cases, chat can be loud even at the lowest setting. The only lower volume is 0, so my choice is an uncomfortably loud chat or nothing.
These headsets are way to expensive to be having this sort of issue. for $300 I expect high quality and attention to detail with none of these 'bugs' in the design.
I strongly recommend any other headset manufacturer. I wanted something truly wireless and Turtle Beach is my only option. I may have to just suffer with a wired solution for now since these headsets do not seem to work very well.
UPDATE 2:
I received the RMA headset and once updated to the newest firmware, the issues still persist. At this point I have to conclude that these are design flaws, and not an anomaly. I am back to using my cheap Plantronics phone headset with the plug in adapter. It is wired, and I wanted something truly wireless, but only Turtle Beach makes truly wireless headsets for XBOX One. I will have to just make do. I am pretty frustrated with Turtle Beach's quality, but they do have good customer service. They have been working with me to try and solve this. At this point, I will be looking for a refund.
I highly recommend anyone interested in these headsets try them somewhere first. The audio quality is so-so and I would not consider myself an audiophile. With all the bugs and annoyances, it is definitely not worth $300
UPDATE 3: 3/16/2016
Bugs with volume resetting to extreme loud until I mess with volume to reset to normal levels still persists. Not sure if it is ENTIRELY Turtle Beach's issue, but occasionally the xbox does not see the headset mic or does not 'assign' the peripheral to a user so you cannot use the mic. Only way to fix some of these issues is to reboot the xbox then things work fine for a while.
Again, unless you NEED a truly wireless headset, Turtle Beach is you only option. I would recommend the cheaper ones with actual volume knobs and a boom mic and if you can try them before you buy them. I feel like I wasted $300 on these. | video-games_xbox |
Weakuel or Super Expansion Pack: You make the call. Personally, I thought the first game was fun, but it was hindered by low production values. The Art was simplistic. There was a serious lack of cutscenes. All of the campaigns were identical and short. The weapon selection was extremely limited... Left 4 Dead 2 improves upon Left 4 Dead in almost every way, but is it enough for this game to be considered a true sequel?
Concept: 10/10
Four new Strangers must band together to fight off thousands of crazed zombies and survive the zombie apocalypse. This time, the survivors can use melee weapons ranging from a frying pan to a chainsaw. A variety of multiplayer modes and mission objectives extend the gameplay.
Gameplay: 9/10
The gameplay is similar to the original: Shoot undead and aim for the head. The 4 survivors must fend off hordes of bloodthirsty, brain-hungry zombies and the AI Director randomly spawns power ups, weapons, and enemies. Among the hordes of undead are special infected that can incapacitate a survivor; so teamwork is necessary. All of the old creeps are back: The bile puking Boomer, the strangling Smoker, the pouncing Hunter, the Tank, and the PMS Witch. L4D2 has added three new villains. The Jockey, a short fast undead that jumps on your back and steers you into fire, acid, or other bad places. The Spitter, a trailer park princess who spits pools of acid that damage survivors over time. The Charger, a fast tackling monster with the defensive rating of Ray Lewis.
In order to combat these monstrosities, the survivors have more than twice as many guns in this game (14) including a Grenade Launcher and an AK-47. The survivors can also find laser sites to improve accuracy, explosive rounds that knock back enemies, and incendiary rounds that cause undead to burst into flame. Molotov cocktails, pipe bombs, and bile jars (which cause zombies to attack each other) can also be thrown to neutralize a zombie rush.
The Survivor AI is pretty good most of the time, especially if you make an effort to slow down just a bit and stay with the group. If you run off on your own, you're asking for trouble. Once in a long while, the AI doesn't save you when you are incapacitated, causing you to die. It feels more like a random bug, than bad design. 98% of the time, the AI is pretty good.
Campaign: 8/10
L4D had 4 campaigns that all had identical structure. L4D2 has 5 campaigns composed of 4 or 5 levels with different mission objectives. Collect objects and bring them somewhere, defend an area, or battle through an area. In some levels, the AI director also causes rainstorms (Hard Rain) or changes the level layout just a bit (The Parish) to throw you off. The variety of mission objectives really make each campaign feel unique. Also, the storyline continues through all 5 Campaigns, making this feel more like a game, than a bunch of random maps.
Multiplayer: 9/10
L4D2 offers 2 Player Split Screen Coop Action, and 4 Player XBox Live Action for all of the Campaigns. There's also a Versus mode, where 4 Survivors battle through a Campaign and 4 other players Spawn every 30 seconds and control Special Infected to try and exterminate the survivors. This is GREAT FUN! The Survival Mode is also back where Survivors hold out as long as they can against waves of undead. There's a NEW Scavenger mode where survivors must collect Gas Cans and bring them to a designated area. A NEW "Realism" difficulty mode makes the game even harder. In this mode, friendly characters and objects are not highlighted and are much harder to see... also, the only way to bring a character to life is with a defibrillator. So, good luck with that!
Graphics: 7/10
Like Nicole Kidman, the Source engine may have been super hot a while back, but it's starting to show its age just a bit. This is especially true if you're one of the millions who have played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which is the Megan Fox of graphics engines right now.
Sound: 9/10
The music is eerie and fun at the same time. The growls and shrieks of the undead are unsettling, and the gunfire and explosions punctuate the action. The characters' voice overs also have much more personality and add humor to break the tension.
Maturity: Swearing, Horror, Violence, and Gore... You should probably be in High School or live in a tough neighborhood in order to play this game.
Overall: 8/10
Left 4 Dead 2 is a very fun game, with a great deal of improvements over the original. For me, the original Left 4 Dead felt like 75% of a game. It was a great idea, but the lack of production values and options really hindered the experience. Left 4 Dead 2 feels like it should have been released as the original title because there's enough enjoyment in it to last a month... or more. The new zombies, special infected, campaigns, weapons, modes make this a good standalone game, especially at a $40 price point that you can find pretty easily. So, it's a good game for the price of an expansion... what's not to like?
Buy it if you love killing zombies and you never tried the Original Left 4 Dead.
Buy it if you will play online with your friends in the Campaigns, Versus, Scavenger, or Survival Modes.
Rent it if you want to kill zombies for a week and aren't into multiplayer games.
Rent it if you had your fill of zombie killing in Left 4 Dead 1. There might not be enough here to warrant a full purchase.
Avoid it if you didn't care for the first game. It's not unique enough to stand alone.
Avoid it if you are a graphics snob.
If you enjoyed Left 4 Dead 2, don't buy Left 4 Dead 1 unless you're an obsessive collector. Left 4 Dead 1 is a pretty big step backwards from 2. | video-games_xbox |
Not quite the original, but still great. For those that have played the first RB6 Vegas and are wondering if this one stacks up to the original, the answer is yes. While there are some problems with this sequel, the game stays true to the original and adds some additional features as well. If you haven't played the original then pay attention anyways.
For the sequel you can now play co-op story mode via split screen from the same console, but unfortunately you can't play a 4 player co-op on Live which sucks. Not sure why this was taken out, but you do get two useless computer characters to help you out if you want. The guns load faster, when using assault rifles the bullets don't "run" on you, and shooting and throwing grenades sound and look much more realistic. You also have the ability to run as in COD4, which is nice. The reward system (called ACES) is also an improvement as you can rank up through all the modes, whether you're on Live or not. Some of the levels were taken from previous RB6 games which to some will feel like a sham, but are actually quite nice and fitting to play on Live. The terrorist hunt this time around provides you with the ability to "respawn" twice. If you don't have Live, the single player mode still provides the Terrorist Hunt and gives you the option to play alone or with computerized teammates. There is also a new difficulty setting called "Casual" and the realistic difficulty certainly seems harder than the first game.
Now for the gripes: The graphics are not improved over the first game, and if you're used to playing Call of Duty you will be dissappointed with this. It truly doesn't feel like an HD game. Sometimes while having a close gunfight, the framerate will become VERY slow and the screen gets extremely pixelated.
To me this sequel feels like a sequel and does NOT feel like an expansion pack. You do get to finish the Vegas story, which does feel quite short, and the multiplayer is as good as any game I've played (with the exception of the graphics). Many choose to compare RB6 Vegas to Call of Duty, but they truly are two different games. Vegas is a game that utilizes "teamwork" and communication to your other teammates is very key a lot of the time which is just plain "cool". Overall this game delivers and is worth the purchase for the online play alone. | video-games_xbox |
Great game BUT bitter complaints about game crashing (as my friend found out. My review is a bit different in that one can easily google (try IGN's review) reviews of the game ... I personally enjoyed the PC version quite a bit though I will warn you that it is a LOT like Saint's Row the third to the point where one may feel "cheated" if they buy this at full price ... I'd strongly recommend the Steam PC version during Steam's winter or Autumn sale and look for the version with all the DLC which you can get at a significant discount.
This is of course assuming your computer is powerful enough to handle the game (which admittedly is an older one so there are a lot of PC's out there that can handle it - but not all ! Google the game's requirements accordingly before purchasing it) ... I liked the game so much that I wanted to give it as a gift to a friend - but the friend's primary mode of gaming is an Xbox 360 ... I went for the "national treasure" edition since, to me, the game just wouldn't feel the same without all the DLC that comes with it which to me is what really makes the game rock (the Christmas themed DLC and mission is one I find to be particularly hilarious ) ....
There have been reports online about the game "hiccuping" when you first run it off the CD , which my friend found out to the friend's dismay.. it worked EVENTUALLY after a few tries but be aware that you evidently have to have a solid internet connection (at least according to the complaints I've seen online)... make sure you hang onto the box, the packaging, EVERYTHING that came with the game, make sure it's a "fulfilled by amazon" order to avoid a hassle free return, and if you have problems cross your fingers and hope that when you exchange it for another game (or hopefully amazon will just give you a refund if it doesn't work - ask for a supervisor, beg for mercy and make sure you contact them immediately after receiving the game or as soon as possible afterwards) that the replacement game works. There have also been some bitter complaints about the game freezing even when installed to the hard drive (which I would strongly recommend) ... on the other hand others report no problems at all with the game.
Oddly enough, one person reported no issues when they had a fan blowing on their Xbox 360 which makes me wonder if the game is overtaxing the Xbox 360 to the point where overheating is a problem... Xbox 360's are notorious for overheating to begin with - I never ran my Xbox 360 (back when I had one) on anything less than a solid.. and I mean solid, all aluminum, thick slab of aluminum at that, laptop cooler with fans... sounds crazy but it works ! :) (the aluminum acts as a big "heat sink", sucking up heat from the xbox) ... Combine this with a nyko cooler for the Xbox 360 and this will go a long way towards stopping the hard drive from overheating.
Interestingly enough, on my PC I had no crashes at all when playing the game but my PC definitely met the hardware requirements for playing the game.... so, again, if your PC is powerful enough to run this definitely get the PC version and wait for Steam's autumn or winter sale. | video-games_xbox |
Tired Of Trending Game Mechanics Problems. It makes me sad to give a game that has so much effort and good programming only 3 stars, but at some point people who expect real progress with the latest "good" and "hyped" games have to take a stand and this is it. This game is a "modern" first person tactical shooter gameplay ripoff, while trying to smash-combine Halo and Mechwarrior into a single game, and letting it go live with extremely flawed multiplayer mechanics.
Here is the good:
1. Nice graphics, explosions, eye candy lighting
2. Smooth mechanics for movement (except observed AI)
List Of Major Downfalls:
1. Completely broken spawning system. Seriously, do not buy this game unless you REALLY enjoy spending countless hours spawning, running, and getting shot in the back repeatedly. The spot you just got shot from might be a dead end, and you might have just checked it when clearing a room, but this game will STILL spawn someone there as SOON AS YOU LOOK AWAY. The only requirement is that nobody is looking at that spot for the algorithm? Seriously, I started to record numbers and at least 90% of every single death that I have in this game, when on foot, is from getting shot in the back from a very recent spawn.
2. Lack of Campaign: Sure, it "had" a campaign. I tore through it in like 6 hours if that. What a joke. I thought it was the tutorial and played through it the first time on hard. The lack of campaign content makes me think they got done with the graphics and smooth mechanical game play and the WRONG executive saw the product and put the "ready for production" premature label on it. Bad choice, game was not finished in almost every way.
3. Tiny maps in relation to scale: This game has some really impressive scale going on with the Titans. However, with the size of the maps and how close quarter combat naturally ends up being (see next point) it usually turns into a severe cluster problem. You will spend your fights in/out of Titan trying not to run into things, failing to do so, and making quick jerky heavily-assisted-aiming-fire-burst. If you are in a large titan fight you will spend your time running into things struggling to do what you want, when you need it.
4. There is NO tactical game play in this game outside of whatever you want to call the Titan combat (stalemate slug fest while awaiting tiny people ambushes?). They never took the time to really balance weapons at all, or even consider effective range, so it feels like every single weapon is shooting .50 caliber rounds. With that kind of power might as well just stick with the assault rifle and go at it, which is what everyone seems to do. With this combined with #1 above, you get EXTREMELY brief combat encounters, lots of spray and pray, and basically zero cover taking or tactical play at all. People just run as fast as they can in as weird and wall-dodgy ways as possible, usually in large circles, hoping to catch people entering the territory. Either that or they try to post up and hold a corner but the spawning algorithm seems intent on never letting that happen because it is usually only seconds and it will spawn someone behind you, seemingly looking right at you.
5. Broken aim assisting. The FPS aim assisting is probably the most infuriating in this game that I have ever encountered. Yes I changed the settings to get as comfortable as I can. All I can say is they butchered it. This game will assist you greatly on your first aim-look with a weapon, but after that it will be too slow/fast, or just too twitchy due to the initial assist. In the moment of excitement when I realize I might get a kill instead of getting shot in the back, I usually overshoot or aim too long and undershoot. Then I get shot in the back after missing. | video-games_xbox |
If you want to pay money for a headache, this is the headset for you. Since Amazon was out of stock of these for so long, I ended up ordering them from another store.
My current headset is a Turtle Beach XP510, which has been working great. I wanted to upgrade to something completely wireless, and noise cancellation seemed like a huge plus.
After I got the headset, I let it charge overnight, then upgraded the firmware of the transmitter and headset before trying them out. Within 5 minutes, I was instantly regretting the decision of buying them. While most wireless headsets have a slight hiss to them when there's no noise, the Elite 800X has the worst hiss out of ANY wireless headset I've ever used. On my XP510s, I can't hear any hissing, but the Elite 800X was extremely loud.
To give people an idea of how loud the hiss is, I had paired the headset with my iPhone and played various music at 60% volume (no eq settings or anything on the phone). During every song, I could hear the hiss over the music.
I also played two rounds of Big Team Battle in Halo: MCC, and the hiss was audible through the majority of both games, with the game volume at 100% (it seems like game sound is quieter than bluetooth for some reason?). After two rounds of Big Team Battle, I got a headache and had to quit using this headset.
Noise cancellation worked great at blocking the sound of my AC, but just made the hiss louder.
I had read some of the other reviews regarding the mic volume, I can't give any input on that since I didn't bother trying to use the mic after hearing the noise these were making. To be honest, if I could wear the headset without getting a headache, I would most likely have kept the headset.
This supposedly comes with a dedicated toll-free concierge line, but you won't find that number in any of the documentation that comes with the headset. They include a piece of paper that says there's a toll free line without giving you the number.
Since my XP510s have been working great and I haven't had any major issues with them, I figured the more expensive turtle beaches would at least be on the same level of quality.
If this was a $150-$200 headset, I would probably give this a 3/5. Given the fact these cost almost as much as the consoles they were designed for, they should be almost flawless, but Turtle Beach really messed up on these. I'm returning them back to the store I bought them from. | video-games_xbox |
A great experience, if you accept it for what it is (A J-RPG. I was a big fan of j-rpgs in my youth. In recent years however I have become a bit melancholy. This is not because J-rpgs have gotten worse. Put simply it is akin to loving a flavor of ice cream but getting sick of it after eating too much.
So when I say Star Ocean Last Hope is a great game and addicting to play that is a testament of quality. In truth I dreaded getting this game. I was afraid I'd get tired of it after playing it a mere 3 hours and put it on my shelf where it would hence forth collect the dusts of obscurity. Imagine my glee when this mishap did not happen!
Before I go into how great star ocean last hope is I figure I will take time to warn you of its' shortcomings first. This game is guilty of having a blond idealistic youth as its' main protagonist. Almost every stereotype you can think of that inhabits sci fi japanese anime settings makes an appearance. The voice acting at times is grating. Not because the voice actors/actresses are bad but because of the lines they are made to read.
If you disdain playfully rambuncious cute nekos , adorable little girls that wave magic wands, big breasted pointy eared milfs, stoic self sacrificing cyborg scientists, the typical childhood girl friend next door, naive feather winged angel babes that come along with the baggage of prophetic nightmares, long haired brooding scythe wielding bishi-boys, and the usual sibling rivalry established between two best friends avoid last hope at all costs. It is not trying to be radically different from other J-rpgs. If anything it is proud of being what it is. Still reading? Still think Last Hope holds merit? Good, because the worst it has to throw at you ends with this paragraph!
The most rewarding aspect of star ocean is its' combat engine. When you wade into battle with enemies after charging them head first it's go time! You will be running around the battle field, jumping, side stepping attacks, stringing together combos, and strategically taking cover so you can fire off your spells without being interrupted. The fights are very much in "real time" and to me the system is much like the Tales series. (Though fans of the Tales games claim it's battle system is still better).
For a guy such as me tired of heroes getting in a perfect line to match their enemies on the other end of the court as if everyone is about to engage in a poetry slam fest or dance off this is a huge ray of sun shine. Combat is last hope is fast, furious, and in your face. It's easy to switch off + take control of each character and whether you like long range attacks or up close attacks you'll find someone that fits your style of play.
"Beats" are styles that give each protagonist different tactics and bonuses when facing their foes. You can also reconfigure everyone's battle ai if a certain series of actions are making you come up short handed. Nothing about this is truly original but it works well and getting a varied number of "battle trophies" makes you feel a sense of accomplishment.
The story in Last Hope is engaging. It will keep you playing to see what happens next BUT also be aware it is not trying to be high-brow literature. Think about any favorite Sci Fi series you have watched. Not every episode blew your mind. Not every character stuck out as memorable. However you tolerated a few lags or annoyances knowing the series would "pick up" in season two or be handed off to a better writer. Last hope is this same roller coaster. The plummeting dips are worth tolerating to get to the exhilarating high points!
To get the most out of last hope there are a few things I'd advise.
1# When you get Bacchus immediatly go to Aeos + Lemuria to mine: Mining is essential for collecting gems and metals to make good stuff when you communicate with Welch who helps you from earth. It can be a pain to neglect this and have to back track later. It may even require switching cds. The moment I got Bacchus I re-visited Aeos and Lemuria to drill for resources.
2# Have Reimi harvest: Whenever you get a chance have Reimi harvest plants and vegetables. Whereas mining is essential to create weapons and armor "plants" are used in recipes to make awesome potions and foods that replenish magic,restore health, and cure ailments.
3# Be balanced upgrading your skills: Do not just pump your combat abilities. Occasionally put points into things such as cooking,alchemy, artistry, robotics, and smithing. These trades aid you when creating new artifacts. Sometimes what you make is better than the merchandise offered in stores.
4# Switch out characters in your idea groups: When you talk to Welch you create teams to invent. Try switching off people in each team until the ideas keep flowing.
5# Do not sleep through a whole voyage...Socialize!: Right before you go to a new planet you have "free time" on your ship. Instead of sleeping until arrival see if your friends and crew mates have interesting things to say. These events sometimes occur after you take a short nap. Depending on how you respond to people will gradually effect the story.
6# It's a Japanese RPG....embrace it, don't be hating!: Lymle says "kay" a lot and some angst ridden people hate her for that reason alone. I find this ridiculous considering she has a decent back story, lovable personality, and is a useful magic user. Look, even in real life our friends have little annoying habits or weird quirks. It's true J-Rpgs capitalize on "cute" "odd" or "sexy time" at every opportunity. While these exaggerations of certain themes can be awkward also remember such things were done in our favorite J-rpgs in the past too. (Even Chrono trigger had it's dose of perverted erotic innuendo + annoying hero habits) If you knit pick enough you'll find "the bad" in every thing. Instead, weigh everything fairly and acknowledge the good as well.
Pros and cons
+Engaging story set after World War 3 in which mankind is forced to reach out to the stars.
+Is the prequel to the first Star Ocean. Fans of the series will get a lot of service!
+Fun exciting combat
+ Environments are interesting to explore. Area puzzles are not too hard to figure out. (For the most part)
+Crafting system is easy to understand.
+Good music
+Characters become more and more likable as you learn about them.
+Socializing is encouraged between planet jumping
+Boss fights are challenging but rarely escalate to being frustrating.
Cons
-Every anime stereotype you can imagine rears its' head screaming. Nothing is subtle. This IS a J-RPG.
- At first many of the protagonists seem to come from cookie cutter character molds and they sometimes speak annoying dialogue.
-It's nice to be able to "dash around" enemies the only problem is there are so many of them in certain scenarios "escape" is not always an option.
-Expect to level grind....a lot.
-If you want to make the best objects and do certain side quests back tracking and cd switching become annoying obstacles.
Pro or con?
+/- Overall the graphics look beautiful but the faces of some of the characters look as if the designers struggled between "anime" and "semi realism" to such a large degree the end results appear a bit off somehow.
+/- Edge Maverick is a bright eyed optimist towards the beginning of the story but a mishap that happens in an alternate dimension makes him mopey for awhile. At least he eventually gets the spring back in his step later on. Personally for me it was nice to see a main protagonist express a large range of emotions. Edge is definetely a cut deeper than Cloud or the typical "silent hero" types. I suppose I can forgive him for being "emo". If I felt responsible for screwing up a whole civilization I would likely act much the same. (And hey, he does move on)
+/- Some have said "blind siding" is difficult. This is a combat manuever in which you charge up, jump towards an enemy's weak spot, and do more damage by exploiting their vulnerability. I am actually able to do it once or twice per battle but admittedly when you are charging up it leaves you open to attacks. Perhaps this aspect of combat could have been done better but considering all variables it's still a nice feature.
Rent/buy? This is up to you. If you love J-rpgs and don't mind some lighthearted Saturday morning cartoon fluff mixed with a dash of melodrama and over epic cheese you should bite into this juicy morsel asap. However if you are not big on the whole "Japanese RPG" phenomenon give it a pass and conserve your cash. | video-games_xbox |
Harmoniq's Review : Sentey Vs GameCom. Hi, my name is Bob. Weird intro? I know, ok now let's get into the meat of this review. First thing I'd like to say when I ordered this headset is the actual build quality of this headset. I use to own, and still do own a Panasonic 780 gaming headset, and when I am comparing these two build wise I find that the Sentry's come out on top with a very sturdy feel to them. The reason why I do say this is because my Panasonic headset broke. The part that did break was the headband that went under a lot of stress when a friend by accident stretched the plastic headband part causing the plastic to break. I can say that if this headset went under the same stress testing it would probably still be in a better condition. So, to sum up, this section the durability is top notch.
The second thing I'd like to say about this headset is the sound quality. I don't know what to really make of it, besides the fact that it sounds about the same. When I say the same I am talking about the sound quality of Gamescom 780 vs Harmonic's. I am noticing a difference in the surround sound software so maybe that is it. Other than that it is excellent, and if it boils down to it, it is rather me being nit-picky. There is an enabled 7.1 surround sound option for those who are worried, of which I highly suggest you enable within the software for this particular headset.
The third feature I'd like to cover is the microphone quality. For one, the microphone is capable of actually bending which is a very neat feature. I've always used the Gamescom since 2011, and I can't seem to notice too big of a difference by human eat standards. All I can say is that the mic is very crisp and clear.
The ear pads... The ear pads feel very nice, but a flaw that is being shown day 1 is the fact that it gets's humid rather. I think I can get used to that, but I think that bothers me enough to rate 4 stars.
The cable quality, in the long run, will matter a lot for those who don't quite appreciate it yet. My Gamescom's cable portion have deteriorated extremely bad. | video-games_xbox |
Great Game With a Couple of Notable Flaws. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Assassin's Creed 2. If Amazon allowed half-star ratings, It would be a 4.5 out of 5. But I can't quite bring myself for giving it a 5 for a handful of reasons:
First of all, the free-running, while lots of fun, needs just a tiny bit of work. There were more times than I could count where I was intending to leap to some pole or post or wire or other relatively small object and instead went plummeting to the ground because my aim was off by just a degree or two, often because the camera had pulled in too close and/or I was trying to get it under control. Over time, I learned how to deal with this, but having to consciously worry not about my path, but about how I would manipulate the camera to make sure I could follow that path, pulled me out of the game during what started as the most enjoyable, engrossing part of it.
Second, and more notable to me, is the direction the plot took in the last half hour or so. The backstory to this game, with "The Ones Who Came Before" is absolutely ridiculous. It's the sort of thing that a young nerd writes before he or she has written enough to understand that more is not always better. It's basically the stuff Scientology is made of. As I uncovered some of it through certain optional quests, I was content to deal with it as long as it remained in the background. It didn't. At the very end, they try to force it into the open in some sort of huge twist that absolutely falls on its face. Miles' reaction of "what the ****?" was mine, too; and not in a good way.
Similarly, while the historical context of the game is fun most of the time, the creators tried to take it a bit too far, assigning roles in the conflict to random historical figures who had no bearing on the plot as either Assassins or Templars. Most of these made absolutely no sense, especially on the Assassin side. My favorite (in terms of absolute uselessness) occurs in the last half hour or so that I mentioned before. Very mild spoiler ahead:
You meet up with a bunch of characters you've met before who turn out to be part of the Assassin order. No real surprise for any of them. Among them is a guy you've never seen before, who proclaims himself to be Machiavelli. Why? What does having a guy show up at the very end of the game and say, "Oh, hi, I'm Machiavelli, and I'm an Assassin" add? Absolutely nothing. It sounds like he shows up in one of the DLC sequences, but you know what, Ubisoft? If his only important role comes in the DLC, leave him in the DLC.
When the game does things like this, it's distracting and annoying. It's poor writing, looking to grab your attention, even at the cost of your interest, and it really hurt the game for me. Like I said, though, most of it is relegated to the background, and it's only really forced on you in the last leg of the adventure, leaving the vast bulk of the game untarnished. If you're willing to just plug your ears in the last act and focus on the tasks at hand, it probably won't bug you too much, but it certainly bugged me.
All that said, I definitely recommend this game. The game world is beautiful and fun to explore. The tools you are provided give you plenty of ways to accomplish most of the tasks assigned to you, creating a very customizable experience. The beginnings of the story, particularly until you finish your work in Tuscany, are fairly engaging. And running around the cityscapes never really gets old, especially with the occasional break to brutalize some guards. But, if I were to ever play it again, I think I'd just quit after memory sequence 9 or 10. | video-games_xbox |
I love this game; But I had some trouble. I am a all-game gamer, and The Sims is one of those games I grew up on. I played the first two on the PC, and one on the PS2. I was more than excited to hear it'd be for the 360 too. Beforehand though, I did have doubt though from all the trouble I had with the PS2 version, since the first day after buying it new it lagged, graphics failed to load, characters would refuse to move, etc. Now, the Sims 3 on the X-box does not fail to fix all of these problems.
I am still playing this game, and have not run out of things to do because of how limitless life really is inside of a Sims game. They have crystal graphics on characters that slow a bit to load when going into new environments, they have a wide variety of traits for just about anyone, and you can make your character be entirely free-willed or a mindless puppet.
When you first load the game, after logging in about an hour, you'll notice that loading, movement, etc. all begin to slow and lag a bit. Thanks to the 360, the problem is easily fixed once you Install the game to the hard-drive.
Now, for some problems I have had personally with the game. I maybe have one small scratch on the disk because of another person mistreating it, and because of that now my game has a random spasm which causes it to freeze-up. I have other games where they look like they've been to Hell and back three times, and run like they are brand new. The Sims 3 is one of those games where the disk needs to be perfection or you may experience trouble. Another problem, once you log to many hours in at once (ie. I logged in 12 hours in a day from having a day off from everything) the game has a partial freeze (from what I guess to be the system itself to be heating up, which could be cured from a cooling system) where your characters moves, loses energy, talks, all that good stuff but refuses to walk or do anything from that matter. He sat at the table refusing to eat, use the bathroom, take a shower, or go to bed as he bitched that he needed to do it, ordered himself to, still never did even when I told him to. Also, playing with six characters is Hell to keep up with, unless you make them mindless puppets, but where is the fun in that?
But all in all, this game comes with more fun then problems you'll ever notice. If you look at this game and consider, it's a good buy. You'll have fun playing, and watching your characters grow up, fall in love, and just live life. Not only is it fun to play, it's also fun to watch others play as well! (:
Thanks for reading! | video-games_xbox |
Microsoft has terrible customer support for the failures surrounding the hardware. I'll update this review as my experience improves - the rating is accurate for the manufacturers handling of the product. Before the fanboi's eschew the 2 star rating... please know that I'm a huge Microsoft proponent, but the rating reflects the support of issues surrounding the product. As time progresses, I'll update to add more detail and perhaps modify my rating.
I'm one of those lucky ones that did get a defective Xbox one. The Kinect was DOA and the actual console would shutdown any time any app or game was loaded... much joy. I signed up for the Advanced Exchange replacement on Sunday... authorizing my CC for five hundred and change to cover the swing incase I do not return the defective Xbox as the program states.
The problem with the AE program is.. while I received an immediate confirmation that my card was authorized and that I'd get a follow up email after my replacement shipped... I've not heard or seen anything from Microsoft for 5 business days.
Looking at the online myservice-dot-xbox-dot-com order status just shows "Order in Progress"... no confirmation of shipping or tracking information. I've called and chatted daily with Microsoft support and none have been able to give me any status except "open". They've breached their 2 day shipping SLA without notice and without any commitment to when I will have an accurate status of my exchange. I can formally escalate on Monday as to the terrible support through their escalation processes and I have a callback scheduled to do so.
So the real issue is ... Microsoft has a five hundred dollar authorization on my CC while they blow their shipping SLA's without any new commitment, I cannot spend the money they have locked up in authorization.
Beyond that, its terrible customer service to take a customer that received a day one preorder DOA and then make additional commitments to resolving the issue without follow-up or any ability of the customer to get a real status of the situation. I've burned at least 10 hours waiting in call or chat queues to find out what is going on with my order.. to fail completely in getting any useful status. Microsoft is compounding a defect issue with real customer support issues - making something that wasn't good, terrible. | video-games_xbox |
Wha? What? Was that a woman crying. Single Player*:
Doom 3 is avant garde in the sound and lighting department. The strange sounds you hear bouncing along the piped walls seem to get more frequent the more time you take. You have no idea if they are in the distance, if they are right in front hiding in some unlit place. Hell, you hear them. A rattling corpes falls , dangling from the ceiling, it was this the rattling noise, nothing more, nothing less. Next noise and you might not be so lucky, cause the service lights of the complex just went out. Should you hold your favorite artillery in the dark or hold your flashlight to see your way through? Balance it out, perhaps, switching mindlessly between light source and twitching trigger finger.
This is Doom 3 and it's a perfect upgrade of what I'd expect the Doom 2 classic to be today. The graphics and mood are built with as much realism I've ever seen in a game. Things pop out from dark corners and lunge through opened doors, making you jump back more than once.
The controls in the game utilize the XBox R-type controller perfectly. The D-pad allows you to assign direction (^V<>) to your favorite lead/plasma/rocket/soul stocked wrist cronies. This allows for quick access. The concept of quick access is driven further with the incessant need to switch flashlight/artillery.
The single player story is told through dead people's PDAs. Pick em up (they're not using 'em anymore) and find access codes and tales of their experiences in their UAC Depts. It's an interesting way of telling a story that's been told before. I enjoyed this medium.
Online Co-Op*:
This is a great addition to the game, one that any XBliver will be very happy to have. Grab a buddy and go through the game together. I haven't solved the game in this mode, but the levels for Online Co-Op seem to be a little fewer and/or peared down from the single player game. It's a fun experience especially with a friend.
In closing, Doom 3 is a great dark masterpiece. It's very reminiscent of the old Doom games you remember from PC, seeing upgrades of your enemies and all that. You'll also remember that the enemies will come right at you, head-on, in a rather dumb sort of fashion, meaning they lack state of the art AI. That's a reason I chainsawed a star away from being a 5 star title. Don't expect flanking or running and hiding on the vermin's part. They come right at you. Many times this makes you jump back.
*The reason I structured this way is because I found the Single Player game the best experience of Doom 3. Don't cheat. Single Player meaning no spectators in the room and lights out. Stereo sound if you have it. The game is less atmospheric if you are talking to someone in the room or joking with your XBox live buddy at how fat his ex-girfriend is. | video-games_xbox |
A fun sequel with more fast paced shooting. The Good: Same good Doom 3 action, new weapons keep things fresh
The Bad: Toss away story, Doom 3 engine looks dated, no one is playing online, Xbox 360 compatibility issues
I remember when Doom 3 came out for the PC on 2004 and it looked astounding. Compared to today it's a bit ugly, but it did shine on the Xbox. While, even on the Xbox, it looks dated the game keeps a constant focus on the action. Through the whole 5-6 hours it takes you to beat the game you'll be on your edge and jumpy.
The graphics engine is exactly the same as Doom 3, even the way it plays. The only additions are a few new enemies such as a big burly guy who has two giant cannons on his arms and head, Vulgar who is a bat looking thing that can teleport at you, the Hazmat worker, just to name a few. You also get some new weapons like the Ionized Plama Rifle (Think: Gravity Gun Half-Life 2), Double-Barrel Shotgun, and a new Heart Artifact that lets you slow down time. These essentially help the game with its extreme difficulty in many ways. You now get a flashlight on a gun! Except it's on your pistol so it still doesn't make a difference, but at least you can defend yourself now. You now have to defeat the bosses using the Heart and it also gets you out of a pinch.
The "Gravity Gun" lets you throw back energy balls and what not and this is good to preserve ammo. The story has you playing as a clean up crew for what happened on Site 1 two years ago. You discover the Heart and you have to return it to Hell. While there are very little cut scenes in the game and the PDA files aren't as interesting as in Doom 3 you'll mainly just play for the action. Another note is that NO ONE is playing this online. I tried connecting three days in a row and not one person was playing. So if you just want a great fun single player game then pick this up. I also should mention the game has backward compatibility issues with the Xbox 360 such as movies in the beginning not skipping and some slowdown. | video-games_xbox |
Start Judging COD by it's Cover. Title says it all...I will go over campaign, multiplayer and Modern Warfare Remastered in this review. SKIP TO BOTTOM IF YOU DONT WANNA READ. The graphics are very good, and the gameplay is fluid in terms of the halo jumping and flying crap that is getting too damn old. You can tell Infinity Ward (IW) played it safe as this title is basically blacks ops 3.2 but with crap MP maps and lag compensation worse than black ops 2. I will say IW was always my favorite COD creator because of their story telling and multiplayer; More importantly the simple fact that Modern Warfare 1-3 were my favorite COD games. I am also the type of person that enjoyed ghosts. So coming into this title I was certainly stoked that it was IW turn again. so let's dive in!
Campaign
The campaign is incredible. Great story, gameplay is effing awesome, cutscenes are perfect. The graphics continue to get progressively better. The characters are likeable. The campaign lets you decide what you will do and where you will go next in terms of missions. I find the jackel jet fighting very fun. You can customize your load out and jackel per mission. Hats off IW you made the boring and old exo suit, halo wannabe jumping COD mantra very fun.
Multiplayer
Ehhh...I will try not to make this sound like a red rant, sorry in advance. The multiplayer is a pure pile of garbage. LAG COMPENSATION LAG COMPENSATION LAG COMPENSATION. you can turn the corner, unload a magazine into someone, get shot once and your dead? Infinite Warfare has taken the new LAG compensation throne. The maps are horrible. 8 way into a standard room, no choke points, and the surroundings just suck. No thought was put into these maps. You get matched up against level 1-2 prestiges when your at a noob level (how do u have time to be second prestige already?!).The customization as usual is on point, but at a cost of the rest of the multiplayer. Spawns are garbage, and it is impossible for me to get above a 1 KD. my KD for all previous call of duty titles have hovered around 1.2 to 1.8. (Modern Warfare series I was always above a 2 KD). I know I'm getting older and my reflexes are starting to slow down, but I find this game very hard to get a kill with the...LAG COMPENSATION.
Modern Warfare: Remastered
The reason at least half of us upper 20s lower 30s bought this title...I'll let you know how it is once it finishes downloading 8 hours in 23% at 8.8-9.5 MB/S. seriously?
I have not touched the zombies as I feel COD titles have made it too complex. Return to the basics on zombies and I will return to it.
Summary
Infinity Ward has lost its roots. The incredible campaign is over shadowed by a disastrous multiplayer and a so far unplayable modern warfare remastered. A once favorite title creator has fallen in line to the sub machine gun toting, no scoping COD multiplayer. With games like battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, Rainbow Six: Siege, This title is going to have a tough time competing for my time. Call of Duty needs to go back to its roots with classic FPS if it wants to survive. I would give this title 2.5 stars if I could, however for Infinity Ward nostalgia, you get 3. As one great review on here said, this game was made to be a cash cow, and boy did it achieve. You got 80 from me... it's time to start judging COD by it's cover.
Bottom Line
Great campaign
Great graphics
Good customization
Absolute horrible MP
Same COD jumping wall running crap | video-games_xbox |
A great experience. I purchased an Xbox One Day One edition and deleted my original review after discovering I had a defective unit. My unit worked well enough to play games, but left me thinking it was a poorly designed glitch ridden machine. Fortunately, Amazon.com was fantastic and had a unit in stock to replace my original unit. This review will focus on my experience with Xbox one thus far and the problems I encountered with the first unit.
Packaging: I think the packaging for the Xbox one is terrific. It is well thought out and everything is placed carefully to protect the unit and minimize trash. I was also easily able to repack my original Xbox one for shipment back to amazon so the design is simple too. The Xbox one day one packaging comes in black packaging that is really slick. The Standard Xbox comes in an identical box which is Xbox green. My only complaint about the packaging is the tightly taped plastic bags over the power source cords. They are a bit of a challenge to remove without cutting them and you have to be careful not to cut the cords.
Set Up: This is pretty easy if you have ever set up a console and really takes very little time. Simply plug in the power supply, the Kinect Sensor, and Ethernet (if you aren't using wireless). HDMI is the most unusual since you plug your cable box to HDMI In and then take the included HDMI cord from HDMI Out to your TV. Then boot up the unit by pressing the silver xbox symbol on the console.
Initial Power UP: The unit will power on then ask you to push the Xbox button on your included controller. Next, it invites you to update. This occurs very quickly and when it boots up you will get a green xbox screen that is fast, but at the same time a bit too long when you are anxious to see the xbox in action. At this point. it will ask you to log in or create a new account. If you use windows 8, you already have an account. It will adjust the kinect and then you get a video and are delivered to the home screen. It is pretty straightforward and you click on various icons and it will tell you what to do. I do feel it lacks an optimal tutorial, but you can find everything you need with practice. It is helpful to go to settings by pressing the little button with three horizontal lines under the xbox button on your controller. There is a nice optimization tool for adjusting your HDTV here too which is nice and actually achieved settings very similar to my Disney Wow Blueray HDTV optimization disk. I felt the colors were a bit off when I did the pass through so I appreciated this tool.
User Interface: This is quite simple and really mirrors windows 8. I do miss the Xbox 360 avatar cartoons, but the xbox one interface is simple and responds very quickly. My Xbox Day One edition seemed to have Kinect issues and voice commands worked quite randomly. I thought this was just due to a new device and hated it. It worked about 30% of the time. The replacement xbox is much better. I would say it works about 80% of the time. It is not like Siri. It is more like voice control for a car navigation. You have to use a predetermined set of commands and it works pretty well. Unfortunately if other people in the room are talking, it doesn't work quite as well.
Gaming: I played through Ryse and Call of Duty Ghosts and the gameplay was flawless. The graphics on Ryse were phenomenal. To my surprise however, the load times were quite long. Hopefully this will improve over time. Sadly, the new console has not made me a better player.
Controller: I personally find the Xbox One controller slightly less comfortable than the Xbox 360. It is slightly narrower and the older controller fit my hands better. It is certainly more comfortable than the PS3. I can't say that I noticed a big difference with the rest of the controller. It does have vibration feedback in the triggers, which I found a bit unpleasant. I suppose it adds to realism however.
HDMI Pass through: This works very well now. This is another area that I had trouble on my Xbox Day one edition. I was having strange pauses and jumping of the picture. At times it would freeze altogether. I contacted Microsoft and they had me do a reset, but said I may have to replace the box if it continued. Unfortunately it continued to happen from time to time. On the replacement box I wouldn't even know the xbox is one while watching TV. The voice control is actually very helpful here. Unfortunately it does not give access to my DVR, but does control the basic channel functions and provides its own guide function.
Customer Support: I was very happy with Microsoft customer support. I contacted them via chat on three occasions. I did not have to wait long for an agent. They were very polite and tried to help me as much as possible. On the third encounter the agent said if I continued to have problems I would need to replace the box which he said they could do. However, when we discovered that the Kinect feature on my xbox one didn't work I contacted amazon.com and was pleasantly surprised they replaced the box in two days.
Overall, this is a great device. I am excited to see what Microsoft does with this technology. | video-games_xbox |
Caffeine for your XBOX. I love the Burnout series, and it just seems to get better with each new reincarnation, Revenge is no exception. Instead of calling it Burnout 4, the name "Revenge" is implimented with the idea to get revenge on the other drivers if they take you down. It's a great new addition to an already fantastic series.
The game is faster, a lot faster. I can't believe the sense of speed in Burnout Revenge. Running at a blazing 60 frames per second at 200MPH is certainly a site to behold. No popup, no slowdown, just smooth blazing fast speed.
The most enticing new aspect is the ability to slam cars going in the same direction as you. One reviewer in here says it takes away the "charm" stating "to me the biggest rush in burnout 3 was going 200mph flying in between cars and knowing that one little mess up was going to send me flipping and slamming wildly into the wall." That's a good point, but you can still have that feeling when you choose to go in the opposite lane as on-coming traffic still can take you out just the same.
This trash every car idea was even turned into a full fledged mode called "Traffic Attack" that is strictly for smashing up cars. The goal is basically to destroy as many cars as possible within the alloted time. You get precious seconds added the more cars you smash consecutively. It's very fun mind you, but it's actually quite easy to get gold in this mode.
Opponents are very aggresive in Revenge. Cars will sideswipe you around like there is no tomorrow especially if you just sit there without defending yourself. If you get taken out directly be an opponent, you can acquire added bonuses for taking revenge on the car that knocked you out. The more revenge bonuses you get, the more goodies you'll tally up in the process.
Expect a lot more tracks in Revenge. While a few seem to be reminiscent of past Burnout games, most of these tracks are new and made from scratch. The game looks a bit darker this time around, and the tracks are longer and more grueling than ever. Still expect to attack downtown traffic infested cities, desolate crowded freeways, streets of Roman sites, wintery interstates and isolated country scenes. I still would have liked to see the "weather" factor return for Revenge and the ability to change the time of day, but that' just a little nitpick.
All the modes are back, Road Rage, single player, crash, and the new traffic attack which really adds some fun. Full multiplayer between 2-6 players is impliments online with all the modes offers. I haven't got a chance to play online yet, but you can bet your boots this game is just as fun playing online as it with yourself, and probably even more so for other gamers. If you have XBOX Live, you defintely should take the game online to rule the streets. The cars are still not authentic licensed vehicles, no Beamers, no Corvettes or Porshes. But the "creative" copies of actual cars look fantastic and they all look so cool, you wish they were actual cars. Licensed cars would have great with all the brand names, but most have a problem with trashing them in a video game, so this is how they go around it, they make up their own. And thanks to this being an "EA" game, if you have a Madden 06 save on your XBOX, you automatically get the "Madden Van" at the beginning of the game. E.A., always thinking of one more way to advertise their gridiron monster.
Burnout Revenge is better than all the Burnouts in the past. More modes, more cars, more tracks, more speed, more frenzied racing. It's the fastest racer you'll ever play and anyone, even non-gamers would probably have a blast with Burnout Revenge. A must have for XBOX owners. | video-games_xbox |
Dissapointing when inevitably comparing it with the original. The original is one of my favorites ever. When I beat this I couldn't help feel disappointed. It just lacks on so many levels. First off the story is no where near as good as the first, but its not terribly bad. They probably could have made it better but it is often confusing and not all that interesting.
This one is much darker than the first which might please people. Everything else though isn't an improvement over the first though. The graphics are actually worse than the first. The game was rushed for the holidays though, still there's no excuse for the weak graphics and glitches this game has.
The characters, while pretty good just don't compare to the original. My main issue with the characters though is one character, which shouldn't even be in the game is GOTO. He doesn't offer anything to the game and is useless. It could have been better but they didn't do anything with him. Another character HK you can barely use until midway through the game, and that's if your lucky, I didn't get to use him at all. You have to spend the whole game getting parts to fix him. The rest of the characters are decent though.
Another issue is you don't get your lightsaber until about half way through the game. You spend too much time getting out of problems the story gets you into. For instance, probably the worst start to any game I have ever played is you start off on a mining station called Peragus. It takes a while until you get off and it's really frustrating. Then when you think your out you get blamed for the destruction of it, so you become under house arrest and it takes too long for the game to get going.
While this game may be more challenging overall than the first, the sith lords aren't even difficult or challenging. The game builds up for nothing. The other huge problem is the ending. I won't ruin the details but nothing happens. It's an extremely disappointing ending. You think that since you put so much time and effort into the game they would give you a decent ending but they don't. So play the original and don't buy this unless it is decently priced, it doesn't end up being worth 40 or 50 bucks. | video-games_xbox |
Johnny cage the game: it has concrete boobs and lots guys getting kicked in the balls. Cons first
1. Doesn't get full rating because of abuse of dlc.
2. The story had a little too much teen drama feel, with the new crew. Though takeda looked badass.
3. The gay character being mentioned that he was gay, didn't really add to the story, if they are going to have the tokin gay character, make it matter, and for all we know there are other gay characters, but they don't need to go around just saying they are gay for no reason, I mean who does that.
4. I don't mind dlc, but not when its nickel and diming you.
5. Games don't have to have doa level jiggle physics, but damn these ladies don't have any movement, they be packing concrete chests. This is the case probably because of all the recent so-called feminist out cry about the "sexism" in games, how about the sexism this game shows toward men, the multiple times they show female characters punching or kicking men in the balls. So they get rid of boobs and add balls. My point here is you will never please everyone , mk never backed down to all the critics when it came to the violence, but they all get scared when they hear the word sexist, quick hide the boobs. " but they make the female characters more real without the jiggle" since when has mk been real, gods demons robots , magic. The unrealism of mk is why people play, otherwise they'd play sims. My advise, bring in a little jiggle, not too much, but just enough, or at least have the option like doa 5 does.
6. A lot of the favorite characters are not playable, baraka, sindel,kabal, sheva,shang tsung, rain, all the cyborgs, noob, smoke, the list goes on, but we get new characters that aren't too unique, jax's daughter was more or less a female jax, cassie is a mix of sonja, Johnny cage, and Stryker, though I did like her character personality.
7. They didn't need to kill of any core characters in the story, because they will just have to keep coming up with ideas on bringing them back to life for the next game, again.
Pros
1. Game looks great besides a few little things, like arm length and concrete boobs,lol
2. Story was okay, it flowed great, but the cage family being the main focus, was a missed opportunity, why not subzero or scorpion, my fav parts were the out world politics and war, koala kahn , now that's a focus character. It could have being longer, but there are rumors about more story via dlc, of course, which is fine unless they just took it out of the game to have more dlc. Needed more netherrealm.
3. Krypton was actually fun
4. Three play styles, this is both a pro and con, I like the variety but playing some old characters was a little difficult because the moves weren't the same. | video-games_xbox |
still the bar to which all future rpgs will be measured. simply put, this game is amazing. it will consume you. it will own you. i finished the main campaign, and theres still TONS to do. even without the extra content, there are 4 guilds you can join, each with their own massive quest line. with the extra content, you're looking at 200+ hours of gameplay. im about 90 hours in now, and still feel like ive barely scratched the surface. everything is nearly perfect. the world is huge. its filled with many cities and smaller villages. countless caves and dungeons are scattered throughout the land for you to explore.
you could spend 50 hours playing this game and not even touch the main quest. when you emerge from the initial sewer area, the gloves are off. you are free to go anywhere and do anything. the world is simply beautifful, with an amazing view from some spots spanning half the continent.
there are thousands of different non-player-characters. unfortunately they only got a handful of voice actors. Patrick Steward is perfect as the emperor, they couldn't have chosen anyone better.
the graphics, while not on par with the likes of Gears of War, are still fantastic 2 years after its initial release. especially if you take the size into consideration. this is one of the biggest console games ever made, maybe second only to Morrowind. to me, Oblivion is like a slightly streamlined, much more well made version of that.
gameplay is vastly improved from Oblivion. left trigger activates shield, right trigger swings sword. there are countless magicka spells from standard fire balls and summoning monsters to invisibility and nightvision.
honestly, i cant say all that needs to be said in a single review. this is the most epic, beautiful, fully realized role playing game on the console market today. its the best game on the 360, and the plateau set by this game is not likely to be matched any time soon. | video-games_xbox |
Not the classics but some fun songs. Just Dance has been a favorite in our house over the last several years. Not only does it encourage your children and sometimes adults to get up off the couch but they can dance along with their friends and even through come competition into the mix by seeing who can get the moves down correctly.
Our 9 year old daughter enjoyed the Just Dance Disney Party 2 on the songs that she knew. Sadly, there are many songs that she did not know in the beginning. I think that if she had watched more of the movies and television shows, she would have enjoyed the dances more but she was so focused on learning the words she forgot to dance, at least for the songs she did not know before playing.
She recently had a sleep over where they watched Descendants, again. Afterwards we put in the Just Dance game and off they went. Her favorites were the songs from the movie Descendants and luckily there were five on this game. There were also five move from the Teen Beach Movie 2. The rest of the songs were from the following shows and movies with the number of songs from each after the name: Austin & Aly (4), Live & Maddie (3), Teen Beach Movie (1), Violetta (2), Girl vs. Monster (1), K.C. Undercover (1), Girl meets World (1), I didn't do it (1), and finally Zapped (1).
If your looking for something that is for the Disney fan who watches the Disney Channel as well as the movies this is for you, if you are expecting classic songs from Disney, I would skip this game.
We did not have any issues with getting this game to work. It picked up our 9 year old and her two friends that joined her to try it out. They spent a lot of time laughing, giggling, and moving to the dances so over all it was a hit as long as your expectations were not for the classics. Some of the dance moves were 'crazy' and they messed up on some of those, but that was okay because they all messed up on them and still had fun.
1. A Billion Hits by Ross Lynch (from Austin & Ally)
2. Be Our Guest by Cast of Descendants (from Descendants)
3. Better in Stereo by Dove Cameron (from Liv & Maddie)
4. Can You Feel It by Ross Lynch (from Austin & Ally)
5. Chasin the Beat of My Heart by Ross Lynch (from Austin & Ally)
6. Cruisin for a Bruisin by Ross Lynch, Jason Evigan & Grace Phipps (from Teen Beach Movie)
7. Did I Mention by Jeff Lewis (from Descendants)
8. En Mi Mundo by Martina Stoessel (from Violetta)
9. Evil Like Me by Kristin Chenoweth and Dove Cameron (from Descendants)
10. Falling For Ya by Jordan Fisher & Chrissie Fit (from Teen Beach 2)
11. Gotta Be Me by Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, Garrett Clayton, Grace Phipps, John DeLuca & Jordan Fisher (from Teen Beach 2)
12. Had Me @ Hello by Olivia Holt (from Girl vs. Monster)
13. Hoy Somos Mas by the entire cast of Violetta
14. Keep It Undercover by Zendaya (from K.C. Undercover)
15. Me & You by Laura Marano (from Austin & Ally)
16. Right Where I Want To Be by Garrett Clayton & Grace Phipps (from Teen Beach 2)
17. Rotten to the Core by Dove Cameron, Cameron Boyce, Booboo Stewart & Sofia Carson (from Descendants)
18. Set It Off by the entire cast of Descendants
19. Take on the World by Rowan Blanchard & Sabrina Carpenter (from Girl Meets World)
20. Thats How We Do by Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, Garrett Clayton & Grace Phipps (from Teen Beach 2)
21. Time of Our Lives by Olivia Holt (from I Didnt Do It)
22. Too Much by Zendaya (from Zapped)
23. Twist Your Frown Upside Down by Ross Lynch, Maia Mitchell, Garrett Clayton & Grace Phipps (from Teen Beach 2)
24. What A Girl Is by Dove Cameron (from Liv & Maddie)
25. You, Me & the Beat by Dove Cameron (from Liv & Maddie) | video-games_xbox |
My worst nightmare comes true. As another reviewer stated, Scary as hell. Absolutely right. Also by another reviewer, based on a true story sticks in the back of your mind while playing. Also right.
Story: I won't go much into this but if you want to read the story, see the review by E. Conforti. You travel through a mansion trying to track down your brother.
Gameplay: Let me start by saying I had to stop playing this game for weeks at a time because it scared the you know what out of me. I don't mind zombies, I don't mind demons, vampires, etc. but I don't like creepy ghosts that are out for vengeance and I especially didn't like reading that this game was based on a true story. If they hadn't stated that on the game, I probably would have gotten through the game sooner. Playing games based on fiction is one thing, but as your playing, that does stick in your mind and your fantasy world is ruined by the shock that this game could actually be based on true events. As you try and find the fate of your brother, you are confronted by numerous ghosts. Your only weapon is a camera. some of the ghosts you see don't attack you but it's more of a side quest to try and get a photo of them before they vanish. For the ghosts that do attack you, aim the camera at them and try and keep them in the middle of the camera view for as long as you can. Your camera builds up power for keeping the ghost in sight and your photo will be stronger. Once you take the ghosts power down, you will eventually capture the ghost in the film. Your camera is also upgraded by stronger film. Basically take the concept of a harmless Luigi's mansion game for GameCube and put it on massive steroids and you have this game.
I also own Fatal Frame 2, and even though it is not based off a true story like this one, the thought is still there and I don't dare to play it. I am waiting for the day where I will have enough courage to try it.
The game is not that long, but like I said, it took me a long time (months) to complete it. I thing the game is maybe 6-8 hours long, but I could be off.
Get this if you must, and maybe you won't be as scared as I was but it is a very unique game and one that I will not ever forget. | video-games_xbox |
Far short of expectations, a very weak wrestling game. After months of hype, the game was finally released far lower than expectations. There is no story mode (Road to Wrestlemania), instead there are championship modes where you need to go through 12 wrestlers to get a title shot. The Raw arena is the ONLY arena and there are no backstage areas. Nor is there any real hardcore action, because even though there are 1000s of weapons, these weapons are helmets, tutus, jack-o-lanterns, chairs, bandanas and so on. The wrestlers do not bleed at all, not even with a code! There is a pretty deep create-a-wrestler feature, however you can only create 16 wrestlers! So you have to go out and buy memory cards to hold 16 more wrestlers (rip-off). There is no RVD, DDP, Booker T and so on, however there is Rhyno, Spike and Haku. There are very few modes, exhibition and the king of the ring tournament. There are no table matches, ironman matches, or 6 man tag matches (even though the game lets 6 wrestlers in the ring at the same time). All of the titles are not even in the game! The only belts are the World, Intercontinental, European, Light-Heavyweight and the Women's title. The play is very unbalanced, such as the Rock and the Undertaker can undoubtedly beat up K-Kwik and X-Pac, so there is no chance raising a new star! Another detail to the game is the new stamina bar, where your wrestler will get "winded" the more he runs and does power moves. So Rhyno cannot do gore after gore, because he would get tired. With there being a stamina bar, there is also a "voltage" bar, which is basically one long bar that determines who is winning and when you can do finishing maneuvers. The controls are unique, where you have an attack, grapple, block and action button. The attack button is capable of several attacks, such as hold up and press the attack button will do a dropkick, hold down and press the attack it will be a kick or a punch. It's the same with the grapple button. The action button can do anything from perform a taunt, pin an opponent, pick up weapons, put on clothes and climb the turnbuckle. The graphics and sound are amazing, but what fun is the game if there are no modes to keep you interested in? | video-games_xbox |
Amazing! One of the best console RPG's ever. Ok, I got this game a few months ago, and refrained myself from reviewing it until I beat at least one path. Here's the scoop:
Pros:
-choose your path
-no button mashing
-incredible gameplay
-loveable characters
-great, and I mean great, immersive plot
Cons:
-the graphics were nothing to drool about
-music is only ok, nothing special
-interface confusing at times
-barely any tutorial (I got used to everything very easily though, so no biggie)
For those of you who want a step by step breakdown, read on:
Gameplay- 98/100
Incredible. To put it simply, this game is easy to play, yet hard to master. You can choose the shortcut, or the hard way. The interface is the only thing that isn't amazing, however I was quickly able to figure out it's controls. As far as combat goes, I loved it. If you want to perform each punch with the press of a button, do not count on this to be your game, because it is automatic, turn based fighting. This makes it easier on you to heal yourself without being repeatedly hurt. Ok, enough explaining. On to graphics.
Graphics- 87/100
Good, but not "ooh," "ahhh," standard. If I saw anyone who wasn't from the stone age googling over these graphics, I would wonder about them. However, this does not hinder the gameplay. Nothing is slurred or choppy. The people and environments are nicely crafted, but nothing special.
Sound- 80/100
One word. Repetitive. Not that it isn't interesting the first few times, but after a whole game, I was still hearing some of the same music from the very beginning. As far as the ones that don't get stuck in your head for years because of repetition, they are great.
Plot- 99.5/100
The .5 is because of the incredibly small amount of cheesiness. The rest is amazing. Purely amazing. You need to wonder if the writer was a genius. The end is predictable, but very well scripted. Each world has turns that you definitely wouldn't expect. I absolutely loved the story, and its characters. Oh yes, did I mention the characters? I've grown to love a few special of them. Take 6 or 7. First, there's Mission Vao the T'wilek and Zaalbaar the Wookie. Then there's HK-47, the loveable assassin droid. There are countless others that I could list but for fear of ruining the story.
Difficulty- 99/100
This game is great as far as difficulty. I had one problem, which was shortly remedied. Not saying that the game is wimpy, it's just not going to make me pull out my hair out of anguish. Overall, the game is easy to learn, hard to master.
OK. THE VERDICT: Average those out, you should get 92.7. Add my fun factor (7 pts), and you get 99.7. This game is great. Absolutely great. | video-games_xbox |
the most deranged and evil game ever. i just want people to know that there is a level in this game where the object is to slaughter unbaptized babies while touring hell.
that being said,this is the most disturbing video game ever.and whats worse is this whole baby killing thing is all too common in entertainment today.stephen kings book "it" is all about child murderers.movies depict dead children all the time.on tv the crime shows let kids die a lot.on wrestling there was a real life pedophile who got busted and no one made a big deal about it.there was a wrestler who emulated john wayne gacey and the crowd loved him.john wayne gacey raped and murdered 179 young boys and is americas most prolific serial killer.
and it is all too common in video games as well.in all of these games a kid is killed or can be.......la noire,assassins creed 2,red dead redemption,dragon age origins,dragon age 2,fable,fable 2,and even lego star wars.
and who makes a game about hell anyway?you ever hear of this guy nieztchie?hardcore german philosopher who said[im paraphrasing].whenever you look into the abyss,the abyss looks into you.
and,i bet the people playing the game are guys with thier marilyn manson make up on,pretending to be evil and worshipping bands like korn and tool and otep who make music about child abuse.
this is why there is communism.because people say that they are protected by the first ammendment.people who run other countries are tired of letting people abuse thier rights to free speech.they are right in the same boat with the klan,neo nazis,al queda and the taliban.is this what george washington,john adams and thomas jefferson had in mind when they came up with freedom of expression?one day people will be able to outwardly fantasize about being child muderers?i don't think so.
so heres the real deal.there are thousands of games out there.if you specifcly set out to a video game store to purchase this game there is something seriously freaking wrong with you! see a priest! and a psyciatrist while you are at it.
i gave this game 1 star but only because i couldn't give it a negative infinity. | video-games_xbox |
Not for everyone, but I like it very much. As a long-time Final Fantasy fan, I should start off by saying that my favorites in the series are Final Fantasy VIII, IX, and mostly X. X-2 was all right, but not my favorite. Given that information, you could probably glean some of my points of reference and personal taste.
Now, the style of FF XIII was a bit of a departure in some areas. The battle system is one area that some people seem to hate. At first, I thought I wasn't going to like it much. I mean, it's really based around "Auto-Battle" (or Auto-Heal/Auto-[insert role here]); true, you can choose your abilities specifically, but only for the party leader. Still, it's really not based upon choosing every action, in my opinion. At first I though, "Okay, that's dumb. I *WANT* to be a part of these battles!" This stems from misunderstanding the intent of the new Paradigm Shift battle model. In fact, the battles are really based around changing paradigms from a customized list which, in turn, changes the party members' roles on the fly. For instance, you might enter battle with a Relentless Assault paradigm active for full offense, but quickly switch to a Diversity to heal up a little while still attacking. That's just one example, and the choices are pretty diverse once you get into the game a bit. The battles also tend to be a sort of race to the finish, throughout the game. You'll try to push yourself to "Stagger" an enemy for increased damaged potential and to possibly make your enemy less dangerous, for a quick finish. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but don't expect a Final Fantasy X style of turn-based battles with chess-like strategy. It's a bit more like speed-chess, and you sit on a razor's edge balancing damage and defense while trying to defeat your enemies in an optimum time frame.
Certainly, the battle system isn't for everyone, and I do feel that it gets a bit tedious as you go through the harder zones. Some battles drag on and on if you're using the Paradigms that you prefer (you have some freedom of choice here, but there are certain set-ups that would probably get you through battles faster--that is, if you happen to have your party set up that way before you encounter the enemy). And of course, you feel obligated to slog through the battles so that your Crystarium (the way you level up, sort of like the Sphere Grid of FF X) isn't too far behind, which would gimp you for the battles to come. Overall, I like the battle system, but certainly don't LOVE it. I can see they tried something new here. As a side note: I don't care for the summoning system in this Final Fantasy. It somehow feels weaker and more limited than ever before; I mean, you only have one character who can summon in FF X, and yet you have much more freedom and power in that summoning set-up.
The graphics hardly need mentioning, I feel. They're excellent; certainly the pinnacle of Final Fantasy graphics thus far, as should be expected. I can't think of too much to critique on this issue, but perhaps some spell effects get lost and unappreciated given the fast-paced battles.
The music is decent, I'd say on par with FF XII, but not as good as some others in the series. A couple of tracks were mediocre, at best, and even seemed to clash with the environment/tone of the chapter.
The storyline and gameplay are very, very linear up until about...25-30 hours into the game, as you might have heard. This can be a huge downside to many "Western" gamers. Frankly, I did find it off-putting in some cases. Still, it does make for a very compelling storytelling experience, but the constant cut-scenes and CG movies can be grating. For what it's worth, I do enjoy the story, and there were a couple of unpredictable "No way!" moments, which I feel are hard to achieve (I can always see things coming a mile off). Those moments are very satisfying to me.
I've tried not to give anything away in this review, I like to make them bare-bones. Given the VERY low price of the game nowadays, I wouldn't hesitate to pick up a copy and give it a try if you're a Final Fantasy fan, or (again, the cheap-o price) even if you want to try a new type of game. If you like it, they have even released a much less linear sequel to continue the story! | video-games_xbox |
The nitty gritty truth... this is the best sports game I've ever played. First off I'll try to make this short and sweet.
This game is superior to Round 3 in EVERY way... it's also superior to all MMA games I've played including UFC undisputed 2009 AND 2010 which I own and have barely touched after getting this game. It's made me understand why boxing's called THE SWEET SCIENCE, literally... it's rekindled my love of boxing... which had gone to MMA the last 15 years.
Once you start to master this game, which takes observation, intunition and ability... it is incredibly rewarding!!!.. and the game is totally fair in that as you improve you will see the result... you will be the one bringing the hammer of the gods on just one punch to ANYONE, Ali, Tyson, Leonard, Robinson, etc... perfect punching, perfect timing... in facts It's improved my hand eye coordination.
THE SHORT FACTS ARE:
-Character creation is great... you can REALLY make your guy for the way you wanna fight.
-Licensed characters are plenty AND awesome, the likeness is AMAZING! both in look and in fight style.
-Interfase Is the best I've ever seen in a sports game (that's including Madden, MLB 2K, NBA live and UFC Undisputed series) it's super intuitive and comfortable.
-Legacy mode is well thought out, challenging and exciting... I've retired twice as the GOAT, with two different fighters because I enjoyed going through it so much.
-VS. mode is better than anything out there... great fun and WAAAY WAY better than any fighting genre game (which I am a fan of, including DOA, Tekken, MK and Soul Calibur series), if you like fighting games, MAN!
-Graphic are WAY up there with the best I've ever seen in any genre.
-This is one of those games that will NEVER tire you... trust me on this I have a lot of games on my 360 and this one has been inside or near the console for MONTHS now.
If you like either: Action games, Fighting games OR Sports games you owe it to yourself to check this out... EA outdid themselves on this one... it's my favourite game of the last year and in my top 5 of all time... and that's including when I played 2600, NES, SNES and PS!!! | video-games_xbox |
Please play Mass Effect 1 first, AMAZING game series. Ever since I played through the original Mass Effect, I have been waiting for Mass Effect 2 like a prisoner waits for a conjugal visit. I LOVED the first game, and I LOVE the second one even MORE. The first game introduced us to our galaxy more than 150 years in the future. Exploring the citadel, meeting new species, shooting aliens and robots, were all great but the thing that makes this game stand with the best games of all time (Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7) are two things: Characters and story. Few other video games are able to utilize these two elements to make a game a thoroughly emotionally experience like Mass Effect 2 and it's predecessor.
There are some key places where ME2 trumps ME1, and where they do, they turned a great experience into an absolutely outstanding experience. That being said, DO NOT make the mistake of ignoring ME1. The whole Mass Effect experience will be compromised if you play these games out of order, as the ME1 decisions do have a substantial effect on your in game experience.
Gameplay: Playing through ME1 was fun, but there were a number of aspects that were annoying, bordering on infuriating. Driving the Mako (Which does NOT make a return in ME2), buying/selling equipment late in the game, sometimes ridiculously dumb AI all spoiled what was otherwise a great game in ME1. ME2 fixes these issues (you will still find dumb AI from time to time, but not nearly as often as the first game) and makes the game play as crisp and satisfying as its storytelling and character/relationship building. Endless supplies of ammunition balanced by overheating is now remade into a more traditional clip/ammunition system, which forces you to conserve ammunition. But not once (on the second hardest setting) did I ever completely run out of ammo with my soldier. The Mako is replaced by a shuttle system, which is easy to use. Your Shepard character is highly customizable and now you can chose from a variety of colors for your characters armor from the very first battle. You can now order squad mates to move to areas individually and once your are high enough in level, your powers become more customizable and specialized. New game plus is back in two forms, but I won't get into that because I don't want to spoil that aspect for people.
Story: Outstanding. I won't go into great detail, but there were a number of times that the game made me laugh out loud, smile with a sense of revenge, feel sad and even get chills. The great part about this is, there are a LOT of different outcomes for the side stories as you are given a lot of control over the decisions being made. Ending got me COMPLETELY pumped for ME3.
Characters: All of them have different personalities and there will absolutely be some you like and others you don't. But that is the beauty of this game. You get to use who you want, when you want. Again, I don't want to say too much because you need to get to know them for yourself.
Graphics: Not THE best, but still VERY good. Gone is the slow loading textures of ME1, instead textures load almost instantly and facial expressions look convincing and lips move pretty realistically with what is being said. Special abilities look cool, especially the biotic abilities.
Sound: Again ME2 has some of the best, if not THE best voice acting of any video game ever made. Go online and look at the cast that was used to voice act. EA spared no expense. The music is appropriate for the game but for some reason I preferred the music in the first game. Not that the new music is bad, I just prefer the first game's music.
Some things I would like addressed in the third game:
Unnecessary profanity: There are times in a game when the foul language felt natural and added to the mood. But there were more times than I liked where the cursing was just adolescent, unneeded and actually took away from the experience.
Overused battle shouts: I loved having Grunt in my squad, but I REALLY could have done without hearing "I AM KROGAN!" over and over again. Do we really need to hear commentary from the other characters every 10 seconds during a battle? Use it more sparingly and make it less cliche.
Multiplayer: I know that it would be tough to do, but having co-op in this game would be AWESOME. At least during missions. Or better yet, find a way to do a multiplayer area style like Borderlands. Not a requirement, but it would be WAY cool to have biotic battles with friends.
Bottom line: I LOVED this game. If you like FPS but could care less about story and characters, you will want to make sure going into it that you know you will be spending a lot of time just talking to people. If you like RPG but don't care for FPS, you may or may not like the gameplay, but you will still probably LOVE the story. If you are a fan of both: stop reading, make sure you have played ME1 first and then go get ME2. You Will not regret it. I will be playing through the game again and again like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7. Mass Effect 3 cant get here soon enough. | video-games_xbox |
Greatest XBOX 360 RPG. While the original XBOX was known for some great cult hit RPGs, the 360 has been vastly lacking in exclusives. We've had Oblivion, which ran much smoother on PS3 and PC, Fallout 3, which suffered a similar fate, and Fable 2, which wasn't nearly as good as everyone had hoped. Let me make one thing clear: Lost Odyssey is the best adult RPG on the XBOX 360.
The games graphics were incredible, I know it sounds cliched, but within the first half hour alone their were two times that I didn't know I was supposed to start playing after a cutscene. I just stared at the screen waiting for more. The graphics are really that good.
The sound is incredible, from every step Kaim takes to the sound of a sword slicing through flesh to the tiny clank of mail rubbing against each other, the sound is incredible. The soundtrack also has a reminiscent feel to it, really taking you to they're world.
Gameplay, which people argue is its weakest point, in my opinion is its best. This game was developed by the original designer of Final Fantasy. It plays like every turn based RPG should. Anyone who complains about this is an idiot; its not the games fault, its yours. Don't buy a turn based RPG if you don't LIKE turn based RPGs! Regardless, I have to legitimately say, this game is the best turn based RPG ever. Ive played every kind, from Final Fantasy, to Wild Arms, to .Hack, Ive played them all. This is the epitome of the genre.
Story wise, don't even try. Ive played alot of good games, some which I really do believe are better than this. But as a grown man, I am not ashamed to say this: This game made me cry. I won't go any further. Thats all you need to know. It really is that good.
If you have a 360, do yourself a favor and buy this game. It is so cheap nowadays, and it is the only multi-disc game on 360, which must say something. Its huge. Your fifteen bucks will keep you entertained for months. | video-games_xbox |
One of the worst gaming experiences. This is a review I wrote for Gamespot.com:
The Harry Potter series of films and books are masterpieces. The films not so much as the books but the films are the best adaptations of them. The books are amazing, the films are almost at the same level. I love both and I've played and owned every Harry Potter game and loved them, with the exception of "The Goblet of Fire" and now this piece of trash, "The Deathly Hallows Part One".
The game is based on the movie of the same name. The film is flat-out fantastic but the game suffers from many problems. On a good note it has pretty graphics and does a good job of adapting the film. On many bad notes:
*Gameplay is repetitive and sucks
*Enemies are all the same and die fast
*There's no replay value
*The game has no direction
*Most of the spells and potions are unnecessary
*Voice acting is bad
*Game has too many glitches
*And much more!
So the gameplay is repetitive. All you do is cast the same spell over and over again at enemies. There's no exploring, no platforming or obstacles to pass, just casting the same spell to defeat bad guys. It takes the basic premise of a shooter and makes it into a wand fight. Seriously, you do nothing else but cast the same spell at bad guys, which pop up everywhere. Every now and then you have to drink a potion or cast one different spell but for the most part it's all the same.
Every so often you have these annoying challenges where you have to save Muggle-borns. Did this ever happen in the movies or books? Nope. But they are stupid and annoying. Some have you fending off against Inferi (skeleton zombie things). You can't kill them but if they knock you down you just watch yourself slowly die. There's nothing you can do. If you have to walk pass a Whomping Willow there's a 99% chance it'll hit you at least once or twice, which is not helpful when there's bad guys around.
There's some Kinect gameplay, just the challenges from the single player and you just move your arm around like an idiot. It's tiring and serves no fun. I wanted to like it but couldn't.
All in all there's not a lot to be said about this game. It's repetitive, annoying, hard, and short. It's one of the most displeasure-able games I've ever played and I thanked the powers that be that I had the will to finish it before I traded it in. Don't bother with this. As a die-hard Potter fan since it first published here in the states, I say pass on this game. You'll thank me for it. Seriously. | video-games_xbox |
Wouldn't recommend. I have to start by saying that I prefer wired controllers. I would rather not have to use batteries or chargers and I like the full vibration only wired controllers produce. I needed a new wired controller and I love Call of Duty so this controller was very intriguing. I will first start with the cons.
CONS: The ergonomics. If you have big hands as I do, you will find it hard to comfortably reach the triggers. I use the FN FAL in Black Ops and which is a semi-automatic weapon so I have to pump the right trigger many times during the night. I recent developed a pain in both of my index knuckles. I find myself holding the controller in awkward angle so I can reach the triggers and the thumbsticks comfortably. I thought I was playing too much and then I thought of Halo Reach. I can't use this controller for Halo (I get to that later) so I use the standard controller. I use the DMR a lot in Reach, it is also semi-auto and I have never had a problem with my hands.
I also own a Turtle Beach Ear Force Headset (X31). The sound is fine, the problem is when the controller vibrates if sends feed back to the other players even when the mic is muted. This is very frustrating to my party and they have voiced their opinions loudly.
The D-pad feels very cheap and plastic.
The buttons in the rear are poorly placed and have had absolutely no use for me.
The thumbsticks stick are very slick and slippery. I find myself wiping off my thumbs every time I die.
Lastly. This controller doesn't work very well in some games and not all in others. As I said before I can't use this controller for any of titles in the Halo series. Bungie created those games with standard controller in mind and this controller feels rigid and unresponsive.
I tired to use this controller for Mass Effect 2 and Splinter Cell Conviction and it was a complete mess. Nothing worked and if it did it happened by mistake.
PROS: There are some. The Thumbsticks are responsive and the click-in function(R3/L3)is well implemented.
The controller has a nice feel overall and the grips on the side were a nice touch. I wished they did the same for the thumbsticks.
Looks nice.
Conclusion:
The ergonomics alone should turn anyone away. Especially if you play for two or more hours at a time. I have played many games have never had a problems with my hands or knuckles. The pros are almost all cosmetic. It is a good controller to keep around if you have some friends over but as a core unit, stick with the standard.
Thanks for reading. | video-games_xbox |
Great dancing but interface could use help. I'm going to start out by saying I've only played Just Dance 4 and this, the Ultimate Hip Hop Dance Experience. This review will compare the two of them.
I bought this because I love hip hop and used to be a much better dancer in my high school days. I felt getting this would be a throw back and help me get my dance moves back up, geeky though that idea may be. As for the dance moves, this is a lot of fun. Nothing is all that hard as long as you keep the beat and can keep up with the dancer. There are some advanced moves and it can get tough if you want it to. This gets 4 stars BECAUSE the dancing is awesome and not boy-band-ish like Just Dance.
I can't give this a 5 star because I think a few things suck about this game.
1) I didn't see any way you can download more songs like you can with Ubi Soft's other games like the Just Dance series.
2) The navigation between menus, etc., was really lacking. Frankly, the Just Dance series has a GREAT UI for navigating around. It's intuitive overall and takes advantage of the Kinect capabilities. This UI was less so and it was easier to use the controller for menu navigations
3) Comparing to Just Dance, this game lacks some of the level up functionality that makes Just Dance fun. Give me the capability of getting new gear or unlocking new modes, and I'll be dancing all day long.
4) I really wish there was a LOT more music for this game. It's got a great selection, but there are are so many great jams they did not get on here. Honestly, how can you if you're limited to what you can fit on disc?
All the negatives aside, I LOVE this game. My kids and I have been playing the Just Dance and it's got it's cool things, but their dances make me want to shoot myself. The JD boy-band nod-my-head-like-I'm-cool-as-a-dance-move thing drives me nuts. What's awesome is that this has some really great moves without the lame pointing everywhere that you get with JD. I will grant that this isn't full on pop-locking or head-spinning either, but realistically, HOW many people can actually bust one of those out? This is certainly geared for those who enjoy hip-hop and have a decent amount of rhythm.
There are certainly some things they an improve, but this is SUCH a relief from the sugary sweet Just Dance thing that I'm excited about this. | video-games_xbox |
Hours Play, Less Freedom. Dragon Age 2 is one of those games where you can easily log 60+ hours questing, looting, and discovering the histories of a deep fantasy world. For disclosure, I played the first Dragon Age (Awakening & Origins, as well as the other DLC) and enjoyed them. I just completed my first playthrough of Dragon Age 2 (I chose the Mage class). Playing through with different classes and making different choices make DA2 a decent value. However, if you loved the first Dragon Age and you were hoping for MORE Dragon Age you might be disappointed: DA2 has "streamlined" (aka limited) choices to make it maybe more friendly to non-RPG gamers.
There are many fun tid-bits that carry over from the first Dragon Age if you play the 2nd Dragon Age, but really the first Dragon Age is not essential for enjoying Dragon Age 2.
The loot management system has been streamlined. You will constantly by hunting for armor, rings, amulets, belts, and weapons for your own character. Your companions' armor is pre-set; however, you will need to upgrade their weapons, belts, amulets, and rings as the game progresses. You will also have to hunt high and low to find the various upgrades for your companion armor.
The strength of the Dragon Age is game is the constant upgrading of attributes and abilities. By the time you reach the level cap you will have a character that is pretty powerful. There are many quests, side quests, and decisions to make.
I was completely absorbed in the fictional world of Dragon Age. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. You will probably want to use a strategy guide or walkthrough if you want to find all the secret locations.
A few things make DA2 a bit of weaker offering than its predecessor. First, the limited armor/weapon management for your companions I felt was a step backwards. Second, Your companions are all over the place (no DA1 "campground"): to talk to them you must travel throughout the city of kirkwall (and there are load screens between each part of town you want to visit), so you tend to spend a lot of time at load screens. I also feel that "hiding" your companions armor upgrades is a bit annoying. I would rather have their armor level up if you use them in your party, or after certain accomplishments.
The BIGGEST problem with DA2 is dungeon maps. Unfortunately, entering different dungeons/caves gives you a feeling of deja vu. This sensation comes from the fact that the maps for dungeons are recycled...looks and feels like a cheap shortcut.
Overall, Dragon Age 2 is a game you can lose yourself in. You can spend days playing each class and there is plenty of replay value (make friends, have different romances, be a nice guy or a real bad dude). I liked it. I hope they get back to the DA1 roots with any new release. | video-games_xbox |
I thought it was awesome. I do not see why there are people knocking this game. Why people are saying the graphics are not good. I think they are AMAZING. I have an HD TV and I am viewing them on there and I love the graphics. I have been one who has played the EA versions of football, both NCAA and Madden. I love EA football, BUT, after playing this, I must commend 2k for making a relistic football game. I have not played Madden 08 yet, but from what I have played, since 2000 with Madden, was really no change in graphics or gameplay. Players walking through each other, getting called for stupid penalties, players making unrelistic moves. I loved NCAA football this year, BUT I missed the classic teams, AND also, it is pretty cheezy to leave refs out of the game. If you want realistic gameplay, leaving out refs is not the way to go there.
I felt the realism in 2K was amazing. I did not get the chance to play 2k5, and I know so many felt that was the better football game. And it is probably why EA was granted the NFL license because the NFL could not handle anyone else being better than those they were contracted with. Do I care that there are different non NFL teams???? No. Actually, the NFL is starting to suck big time and I have turned my back so much in wanting to support it. I would love to have a game that has a whole new league. I think 2K should make a USFL game. THAT would be so awesome. There are some USFL fans out there, and it would be a big hit.
I think too many people out there are just spoiled by the greedy NFL and cant appreciate anything less than that. If you cant appreciate the gameplay and the graphics of this game, then you cant appreciate the quality of any game. If this game is so much like NFL 2K5, and people felt that was the best game ever, why cry over how this game is similar to it?? Wouldnt you WANT the game to be similar to what they had before?? If it were different, then THAT would be a disppointment right?? I commend them on keeping the features in the games that people obviously enjoyed. Granted, it would be cool if they made some changes, like adding a franchise mode, giving you more teams to choose from, more legend players, and giving you more options to create uniforms and stadiums.
Give 2k credit. People complaining left and right, is not going to make these people come out with another game and improve anything. It will just make them give you whiners the big finger, and you will all lose out and end up with the same repetitve EA games that have not changed since they were created. I say, be thankful with this game, and appreciate it for what it is. A fantastically fun game, that does not consist of the NFL greed that has plagued sports so greatly today.
I say Kudos to 2K sports for coming out with a NON NFL game. Gives those who are tired of the NFL greed something to enjoy for once without seeing the ruined league gain more money to fix more games for classless cheating teams and players. I enjoyed this game. It was mega fun, and very much worth the money. I would rather put money in the pockets of retired NFL veterans, than the current overpaid cry babies who have no clue what the game is about, and what it means. | video-games_xbox |
Warriors Orochi at its finest. I have to admit, I went out and bought this game the day it came out which is typically something I do not do with games being priced at $60 a pop. However, I am a huge fan of the Warriors Orochi (as well as Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors too of course) series, so getting this game was a no-brainer to me.
The first level was pretty intense to me. You start out with 3 characters, which you can switch between anytime by pressing LT or RT, and are trying to kill a MASSIVE eight-headed dragon. That's right. In the past games you fought an enemy general as the main boss, in this game the main boss is a gargantuan dragon. During the first level, you'll be dodging the dragon's fireballs (so you constantly have to keep moving), trying to find ways to hurt it, and meeting an old enemy in the process. I don't want to spoil any of the story or the characters you start out with, so I'll leave it at that. After that you go to a town where you can buy weapons, go on the Xbox Live multiplayer, and talk with other soldiers. The town feeling was great since in past games this did not exist and did everything simply from a text-based menu.
If you've played the past Warriors Orochi games, the enemies are instantly recognizable. You have the typical weak snake fighters, medium snake generals, and huge snake brutes. You also find weapons as well as things to restore your health and musou on the battlefield. You are also able to call your horse by press the Back button. However, Koei has made combat even smoother and made musou attacks more intense in the process. I felt like a supreme warrior destroying hundreds of enemies and I love that type of button-masher game. I KO'd close to 2000 enemies without even trying on the first level. On the bad side, sometimes there would be so many enemies on screen that the game wouldn't even load them until I was right up on them.
One important thing to note is that the game has NO English voice acting. The game is completely voiced in Japanese with English subtitles. I personally found this more enjoyable but if this is something that annoys you, you might want to think twice since there's no way around it without muting your TV.
Overall, this is the supreme Warriors Orochi/Dynasty Warriors/Samurai Warriors game out at the moment. Koei did an excellent job with the combat, characters, and improving the general feel of the game. This game won't be for everyone but if you're a Warriors Orochi fan it's a must have. | video-games_xbox |
Perfection for an RPG. This is worth buying for any RPG player (they have first and third, but first is better). Biggest map I've seen on any RPG ever. For the people who give this bad reviews because the combat system is bad, the sound is bad, it's buggy, bad graphics, bad dialogue, "...fable is soooooooooooooooo much better.", and that you need to read, they all suck. They're all lazy. They're lazy because: "Oh no! Reading? In a video game? I'd rather die!" I am not a reader; I play video games, or an instrument or something. But that doesn't matter! If you're squinting, adjust the picture. The screen I play on is somewhere around 17"-20", and it's not high-def, flat-screen, or anything, and I see fine.
"The graphics aren't good." The graphics are great for two reasons: It hard to make an open-ended RPG have amazing graphics (take WoW, Everquest 1 or 2, Guild Wars, etc.), and because it came out in 2002 for the Xbox. The PC version came out first, and they didn't change the graphics.
"It's too buggy." See above (it's a large, open-ended RPG, or it could be your Xbox).
"The dialogue is bad." So? Deal. It's not that bad when you don't listen to it.
"The sound is repetitive and bad." Are you kidding? The music is awesome! I play in the school orchestra, and I know how hard it is to make something sound good. Also, the music isn't supposed to be in-your-face, and blaring (which is one of the problems in Far Cry: Instincts). I do agree that some of the sound effects can get annoying, but you get used to it if you'd TRY.
"I can't hit anything!" I will agree that the combat system doesn't make sense, that you should be able to hit people every time if you're aiming at them, and that you should be able to have a block button, but they've fixed that in TES IV: Oblivion. Again, TRY it for longer than 10 minutes, or two hours; try it for a couple days.
"fable is soooooooooooooooo much better." ...?
Are you insane?! Fable is not anywhere close to Morrowind, especially GOTY edition. Fable is good, but it's too comical, linear, not enough weapons, armor and items, and an impossible amount of what stuff you can carry. I mean, you can carry an infinite number of items, but you can only carry one of the same weapon or piece of armor? Oh, and if you say KOTOR is better, don't make me laugh. I stopped playing because the combat system is the worst I've seen in any game. Apparentely they changed it in KOTOR 2.
To summarize: It rocks, whiners suck, it's better than KOTOR and Fable.
Flame on, whiners. | video-games_xbox |
One of the best games to play. There are few first Person games that encompass role playing and and shooting as well as this title does. Yes this one offers the same sorts of things that games like the latest Fall Out games have. But in this game you portray the part of what is called a Vault Hunter. You go to a far off world to hunt down rumors of this Vault which is believed to be a cache of possible alien technology, or treasure or something even better. A company int he game supposedly had found one once before and used the technology to make itself into one of the biggest companies around. It has to be understood the game takes place inthe far future, meaning the ability to clone or even create items out of pure energy is entirely possible. But it isn't an exact science and so its seams only a few people have that technology and are very stingy with it. Anywise, the game runs very well onthe xbox 360, the resolutiona nd graphics are excellent, however maybe due to how a PC can show much more visual detail on the 360 version there are points when you look real far away and the game blurs the images or fades them....i don't personaly think they needed to do that...but they did anywise....its anot a big issue. The controller for the 360 works almost exactly the same way a controller for the PC version works....but better....as in onthe 360 you can move the map with the thumb stick...cant do that on the PC. Game play is first person shooter-esque. With some places in the game having hidden boxes and such that might require a little more Mario-esque jumping skills. Its alot of action...there is no turn based any thing in this one. This i also would say is veryu adult in nature...with some of the htings the enmies or Non-player characters say very adult oriented. But also there is some very interesting humor. This game is very easy to play. And if you have never played it before or anything similar you should be able to start playing immediatly and have fun. There are alot of extras put into this game as well...like for example there are not only the typical xbox achievements but there are in game achievements that reward alot of experience points.
Ah forgot to mention the game is a level based game....you might if you read the instructions get baffled...from one thing....and thats the skill points.....they don't start giving them to you until you reach a level of 5...fairly easy to do....but i admit i was alarmed that i wasn't able to use my class skill until that point. I have played all the characters....i prefered the Berserker the most becasue wlel i loved how he punches....heals and does tons of damage and can take alot of damage....my second favorite was the ex-soldier....becasue i found after a while he couldn't run out of ammunition...siren was third....as she is fast but well....alot of people like to play her...so maybe just my choice...hunter was last choice....go figure...i just liked playing a alrge screaming punching tank more....so the others didn't get played as much.
I could go on and on onthis game....its has alot of replay value to it...and downloadable content....hughest level inthe base game is 41...downloadable content raises that to 63...
So I highly recommend this game. | video-games_xbox |
Anticipation mostly realized. When TDU was announced a year ago, I followed it closely, reading every piece of news and preview articles on it. The idea of driving around a fully open environment like Oahu was a thrilling concept. Well, TDU is here and for the most part it is a thrilling joyride. Of course, like many titles, it isn't perfect. It IS a fantastic journey in it's own right mind you.
THE PLUS's
INTRO TO OAHU AND CHARACTERS
As you may know, the island of Oahu is fully rendered and accessible right from the start. Yes, it's said from some that most major streets and highways are in tact and in the game, as well as some of the islands landmarks. I can't dispute this, as I've never been to Oahu. I can say though, that the island is enormous. This being the case, you have the opportunity to begin driving the entire island very early in the game. The way you are introduced to the island is a nice touch. Not simply pick a character and a car. Instead you arrive at an airport and are standing in line with a host of characters. You can pick either a male or female. If you don't particularly like the way they look or the clothes there are wearing no problem, you can modify your character as soon as you buy a home. After picking a character you then head to the rental car place to get a car. There are a few choices ranging from Chevy to Audi to Lotus (this is just a vague listing of the various companies cars you can rent). After renting a car for a few minutes (no, you can't keep the care for more than about 20 minutes or so -- for a cost), you can drive to a car dealership of your choice. Since you only have a few hundred grand, you can only pick from certain classes right off the bat. Don't worry; there are some decent machines out there. To name a few: Audi, Alfa Romeo and a bunch of others. After you get the ride of your choice, you then head to the real estate agency closest to you and pick a house. Since you have a limited budget, you only have a choice of 2 homes. They are both nice, considering the prices. If you like the whole urban yuppie thing, you might want to buy a condo in the city. If you like scenic drives in the country, then the single family home may be your choice. In either case, they are decent establishments with 4 garages apiece. This may seem suitable early in the game, but as you progress and buy different classes of cars, you see that another home with more garage space is needed.
As stated earlier, you can change the appearance of your avatar. The things you can change about yourself are amazing. If you have the time and patience, you can most likely modify your character to at least "resemble" your real world image, which is cool, but time consuming. The trick to this is picking a character at the airport that sports many of your current physical facial features. You shouldn't worry if they are not the same race as you, as you can change skin color quite easily. You can also change your clothes (Street clothes or motorcycle clothing) in your dressing room. The only thing is that you have to first by more shirts, pants, jackets, glasses, sneakers/shoes/boots and gloves from the various boutiques throughout the island. The only way you can do this is by either dropping Top Models off at certain designations or giving hitchhikers rides. After you have achieved your objectives, they give you "markers" to redeem at boutiques. After you have spent some time shopping, the articles of clothing you buy will show up in the dressing room.
THE ISLAND AND NAVIGATION
TDU does a great job at making the island of Oahu easily accessible. If you are familiar with some of the other open world driving games, particularly The Need For Speed: Most Wanted, then the navigation in TDU is a snap.. Since the island is so huge, you will want to get to the heart of races and challenges quickly. You can do so by simply pressing left on the D-Pad (as long as you aren't in a race or mission). When you do so, the view will automatically zoom from your car straight up to an overview of the area you are in. When in this view, you can see either 1) the challenges, missions and races open to you at the time 2) places of interest, such as Car Dealerships, properties for sale, Real Estate Agencies, Motorcycle shops, MOD shops for specific cars or boutiques/clothing stores or 3) Bookmarked areas that you'd like to visit on a regular basis. This can all be done with the shoulder triggers and buttons. When you see a location you'd like to visit, move the curser over the area and an information screen will pop up telling you the specifics of that particular race, building, etc. The info screen also provides you with how much money can be won or markers received by taking the challenge. In an effort to make the game more accessible, you can instantly ward from location to location...for the most part. I'll explain: Many people have complained that it's tedious to drive the island looking for races, etc. Well this is the case part of the time. Let's say you are downtown and a race opens up in the mountains. You mark the race in the mountains for instant transport; however, you'll receive a message saying basically that if this is your first time to said location you'll have to drive. No problem. Set the GPS and drive out there. Now this is where the usefulness comes in. By driving to that location from the city, you have in effect opened up challenges that pop up along the way. These can then be instantly accessed via the navigational system, without all the driving. You won't have to drive to that particular mountain location in the future anymore either, as now it is basically locked in for instant transport. Also by doing a bit of driving, you receive "achievement" for sightseeing certain miles, etc. So it pays a little to drive around.
THE OFFLINE CHALLENGES
I think TDU did a great job with these. Races are broken into various classes (G - A) and car types. In the beginning you'll find you'll need to have a class F car to do most of the available races. As you progress through the game more, other classes will open up progressively working down from G to A. Of course other classes are thrown in at varying times, but for explanation purposes we'll keep it simple and say classes G - A. The races are broken between standard races with up to about 8 cars, radar-like best time trials, beat the clock, "get 170 mph in traffic", etc. Nothing special or out of the ordinary here. The missions include "get the super model or hitchhiker from here to there". These individuals have their own criteria such as the make and model of car they'll be seen in, along with how many seats. These missions are actually interesting as you have to pay attention to certain conditions, such as a countdown timer, not hitting too many cars or running off the road. The rewards are decent, all helping you acquire new clothes. When you want to net loads of cash, look for transport missions. These one try events are great. They are one try if you succeed in winning them. If you lose, you can try again. The money you gain is huge. In the few I won, I netted 40 thousand and 80 thousand dollars respectively. They are also a great way to experience using another type of car that you may not have the funds to afford as of yet, such as the Enzo Ferrari mission where you have to deliver the car to point B without scratching it. Or perhaps the other Ferrari mission where you have to deliver a rental back to the dealer a) with minimal damage and b) with a strict time limit. Considering the game has only been out 3 days, I'm sure there will be tons of other cool missions to find.
THE CARS
Although the cars may not look as good as some in PGR3, they sure are fantastic. A close connection is made between you and the car of your dreams because of the addition of being able to view the interior of the car. Yes, it's nice to buy a 600K car and speed it around the streets, but it's even nicer when you can almost feel like it's real, due to viewing the seats, radio, nav system (in select models), carbon fiber, brushed aluminum or wood interiors, etc. from inside the car. I personally like to drive in bumper view when racing, but when just cruising around the streets, it's nice to drive in the interior view and be able to look up-down-left and right, just like in any other car in the real world. Because of the detail, pricing, options and appeal of these cars, people just WANT to attain them. It's great to race all day and finally be able to drop a load of hard earned cash on that rare Noble M12 GTO-3R or Aston Martin or Lamborghini or whatever your heart desires...just to show it off in the on-line world. Speaking of which, if you spent a lot of time making your avatar closely resemble yourself, you might want to show it off in an expensive convertible. You know, so everyone will see you.
The handling of the cars feel very good as well. Unlike NFS:MW, where all of the cars could be broken down into feeling like just 4 differing groups, most of the cars in TDU have a very different feel and reaction to the driving conditions. You really have to take this into account when driving in certain areas such as on straight-aways or curvy winding roads or single laned highways. The strategies and approaches are endless.
THE MINUS's
While only a few, I thought I'd list them here.
POLICE
Firstly, the voice acting is outrageous, in a bad way. With the superb voice acting found in NFS:MW, playing TDU and hearing theirs is such a shame. It sounds like they got a few people off the street to read cue cards, without any note of realism, or varying phrases. The cops in the game are a sorry addition. Not only are their verbal phrases annoying, they hamper a great driving experience. Ever get charged $16,000 for slightly rubbing2 cars? You will here if you don't high-tail it from the accident. You're probably saying "well, you should out run the cops anyway". Well, yes you should, but the whole cop theme is so unbalanced, that after tapping just 3 cars, you can be looking at an astronomical fine. Tap one car, the cops come out, if you don't out run them for some reason (to much traffic or you bump them by accident) and you scrape another car, they'll really become aggressive. Hit a third and they send masses of cops. As they come for you, you'll most like tap more cars. You may also hit a few of the police while avoiding their road blocks. After they inevitably catch you (by slamming into you), you'll have such a high fine, all the work it took for you to gain x amount of dollars would have been in vain. It would be better for you to just shut down and restart the console then to try to out run the cops after a 3 shield level.
RACERS AI
This may only be my own gripe, but it's amazing how easily the AI will do a pit maneuver on you and win a race, but you can't do one on them. For instance I had an all wheel drive, highly modified Audi and was pitted by a cheap, low end, Mustang. I figured "ok, no prob, I'll get him back". Well, low and behold, I tried to pit him in a twisty section of the race, did he spin out? No. Did he slow down? Of course not. Not only that, but after my feeble attempts at pitting him were unsuccessful, he accelerated to eventually win the race. Mind you, his top speed could be no more than 150ish. My Audi can do 167 easy. I could and had sped past him all day long. We were only a few feet apart in distance when I was trying to pit him. Should he theoretically have won? Of course this is just one area where I've seen miraculous actions by the AI. When you get online, this "cheating" shouldn't be a problem.
Well, there you have it, a high level review of a game that was well worth the wait. With the online content to come out in the future (downloads, etc.),I think this game will have a very long console life. | video-games_xbox |
Better sound than X12, but not better build quality. My previous gaming headset of choice was the Turtle Beach X12. I bought a pair of X12 about two years ago and have not once regretted them. I just got tired of the cord getting in the way, and I wanted to see what else TB had to offer.
After carefully reading many of the reviews on Amazon and other sites, I decided on the X42. It seemed like a step up in every way: X12 are wired stereo, X42 are wireless surround sound. The X42 are double the price, but I was willing to swing it.
Upon first unboxing the X42, I was a little overwhelmed. Since I have no experience with surround sound, it seemed like there was a lot to learn. The manual is definitely helpful here. Also, make sure you consult online instructions to pair your TBs, because the in-box directions are actually incorrect.
Continually, anyone moving up from the X12 will notice that the X42 ear cups are circular, rather than oblong, which means your ears probably won't fit quite so neatly. I have a rather massive head and it took some time for me to find an adjustment I liked, especially because of my glasses and long hair, which also complicated the fitting process.
Once my X42 was powered-up and paired, I popped in Fallout 3 on PS3 for a test run (the X42 will work as surround sound headphones for any console with an optical audio output). The difference is quite astounding, but then again I have sensitive ears. If you're the kind of person who cant tell a 128 kbps song from a 1,280 kbps song, the X42 will probably do nothing for you.
The X42 are definitely a step up in sound quality. Mine needed some burn-in time before they sounded quite right. After an hour or two, the sound was punchy and sharp, with responsive highs, lows, and mids. Since my gaming room is right next to my laundry room, which also houses my furnace, it's imperative that I have gaming headphones to block out the extra sound. The X42 mask background noise quite nicely. I had fun messing around with the surround angles and the sound equalizers (Bass Boost, Treble Boost, Bass + Treble Boost).
Trench warfare with yellow Super Mutants never sounded so good. I began to notice things I had never caught before certain subtleties in the audio mixing. For instance, I noticed that firing my Assault Rifle sent shells showering to the ground. Computer Terminals emit a certain hum when accessed. I could also hear enemies sneaking up on me from behind.
On the other hand, while the X42 are an improvement in sound quality, the build quality is roughly the same as the X12. In fact, as far as form is concerned, I actually prefer the shape and comfort of the X12 to that of the X42. The volume adjustment knob on the X12 is more convenient, and the headphones are just easier to adjust. There is also less hassle for setup. Also, do yourself a favor and pick up some rechargeable AAA batteries. You will definitely need them.
If you're looking for a solid headset, buy the X12. They will do you no wrong as a step above the standard headset. If you really want the most out of your game sound, I would recommend X42 or even a pricier model. They really bring the audio to life. Truth be told, most plebs won't be able to tell the difference between enhanced stereo and 5.1 surround sound, so start small and work your way up if you aren't sure, or maybe demo them in-store if possible. | video-games_xbox |
nostalgia improved. how many of us remember playing bond for the first time...on that ol' n64? ...gives a lot of us warm and fuzzy feelings plugging the mean, nasty, couldn't possibly have a family that loves them nazis full of all the punishment we saw fit. a whole revolution spawned off of that game, and all the clones came in...and two games from the developers: perfect dark and time splitters.
enter time splitters 2. see, perfect dark was better than the first time splitters...it had a cool story, and the multiplayer edged out ahead, so for ts2, the developers had to make some improvements.
did they succeed? i'll start with the bad first.
the story is a nonsensical journey into confusion. you have no idea who your character is at that moment, let alone why you are where you are. when you choose your mission, the camera operator takes a dive into a portal and you're whisked away to what is, in a sense, a mini movie. you take on a role, whether it be a cyber punk from neo-tokyo, a cowboy in the wild west, a robot...and many others, and play lead until you find a time crystal which furthers your confusion. it's very much like quantum leap, but if you give in to the fun had at doing this, you'll find the huge variety of the stages.
with all that said, the good...
all games do not have to have a major motion picture story...the idea is to have fun, and should you have friends, invite them over and fun you shall have! the multiplayer is phenomenal! it keeps stats on all players, and the options will keep you coming back to improve them. there are more than 120 characters for the choosing, and going through all the tasks to unlock them is a game in itself...and each character has his/her own individual stats. some are crazy...some are right on target...it's fun experimenting with them all, and the different and varied modes to unlock will have you doing just that. you will find all the options from the bond/pd/ts games, and a hugely intricate mapmaker that allows you to make your own story stage, or use it as a fragfest funhouse. the replayability is where ts2 shines.
graphics are awesome, and all the effects and animation will further plaster the smile on your face.
music and sound are amazing...music gets a hats off for all of the work setting moods. the wild west has the whistling guitar sounds you'd expect, the notre dame cathedral has a gregorian chant goin' on...very well done. and the sounds effects are inspired to say the least. the robots sound like the guys that stole r2d2's oil money, and monkeys taunt with gleeful chimp sounds...and of course the guns scream and hollar, and there are a lot of em'
playability can depend on the system. while i play it on the xbox, i've heard that the ps2 controls very well and the gc can take a little getting used to, but not too shabby. that said, the xbox version handles like a dream. you can set it up anyway you want, so if you want a halo style, it's very easy to do. the play engine is very reminiscent of bond/pd/ts, full of animations and awesome collision detection, and the interactivity of the environments is amazing! depending on the accuracy of your weapon, targeting is dead on too...if you're pushing daisies, it's your own fault.
so, if you've read this far, you at least have an interest...try it out! it has more options for this genre than you'll find. and with the only drawback being that you can't play it online (just play unreal or halflife, etc. for that), you won't believe how much fun you can have with this...unless you've played the bond/pd/ts games before. and if you have, well...get ready for some nostalgia...improved. | video-games_xbox |
Amazing level design, great dialogue and story. I bought this thinking it would be a mindless action game. I was surprised at how engaging I found the story, and especially at how fantastic the voice acting was. Seriously! I don't normally care about the voice acting, but this really made the game for me. Anime fans will immediately recognize Steven Jay Blum (Spike from Cowboy Bebop); the rest of the cast is top-notch as well. Even better, the voice actors actually had interesting, frequently funny things to say. I was shocked.
The story is unique and mostly unpredictable. There's a twist at the end that a lot of people have complained about; I thought it was pretty neat, personally. The only thing I didn't like about the story (which extends to the game as a whole) is that it felt like it ended somewhat abruptly. It gives you the feeling that it's building up into some epic tale with a bunch of interesting characters, and then it suddenly wraps things up sort of half-heartedly. It felt like the designers ran out of money and gave up on the second half of the plot.
As for gameplay, I think this is a lot of fun, but it's definitely not perfect. It's amazingly fun to swing through an environment once you get the hang of it, but there's seldom enough space to indulge that impulse for long. The combat is fun, but the boss fights include some pretty egregious cheap shots.
Besides the voice acting, I think the biggest strength of this game is the level design (apart from the lack of swinging space, I mean). Some of the later environments are downright beautiful, and they're all laid out in ways that are actively interesting. A lot of people complain that it's not a sandbox and that the radiation will kill you if you leave the path, but I don't mind linearity in games if the levels are well-designed, and I really didn't have much trouble with the radiation. I thought the radiation was a clever move on the designers' part, as well -- it doesn't break immersion nearly as much as invisible walls do. The designers had a lot of clever ideas like that. One of my favorites is the communication relay. You get a lot of information about enemy weak spots and your character's back story by intercepting enemy communications instead of just having an ally tell you things like in most action games.
All in all, I think this game is better than most reviewers give it credit for. It has some genuinely frustrating elements (like the "challenges" system -- most of the rewards aren't worth the effort), but I think its originality and attention to details other games skimp on make it worth playing. | video-games_xbox |
A North Dakota Yankee in Jonah Lomu's Rugby Court. I'll be the first to admit that I know as much about Rugby as I know how to speak Swahili, that being none at all. I always thought Rubgy was the hoity-toity version of football albeit with the pads played by frat-boys in polo shirts. I couldn't have been more wrong as the game if far more complicated and physically demanding than I ever thought possible.
Jonah Lomu's Rugby Challenge certainly helped disprove my false preconceptions about the game with a short intro video and several tutorials on how to control the player in the game. Here I learned many concepts behind rugby from scrim to passing. What I did not get was a sense of how the penalties work beyond, "if the move has no advantage." This makes no sense to me as aren't all moves supposed to have an advantage as how is passing backgrounds not have an disadvantage? The penalties could have been explained a whole lot better. Granted, American sports games (IE: baseball, football, basketball, etc.) don't always properly explain the rules but, if you're going to market a foreign game to a foreign market, EXPLAIN THE RULES BETTER.
Fortunately, while playing online, I met up with some very nice Australian gamers that were more than happy to explain the rules by thoroughly whooping my proverbial backside into submission whilst sounding like true cultural stereotypes (they even used the word "mate" and "barbie"). Playing online certainly was a hoot as I met more people from around the world than I did playing Halo: Reach. It certainly is a different audience than the screaming 12-year-olds calling me names that even they don't quite understand.
The gameplay is solid... as solid as a sports game can be. It is easy to familiarize oneself with the controls as I had no problems punting the ball and passing, but coordinating a full-blown assault to get an attempt was just baffling to say the least. Perhaps it is because I'm used to the MLB 2K series, but the tutorials just didn't properly prepare me for playing even on the "very easy" difficulty setting.
That was the other thing that irritated me was just how insane the AI can get if you're not careful, even on the easiest setting. It seemed as though the AI just took enough steroids to make Charlie Sheen blush and cranked up the Chuck Norris roundhouse kick difficulty into full gear thus turning me into a cursing machine.
All in all, the game is as solid as a sports game can get albeit they need to more carefully market this game to foreign audiences with better tutorials so us Yankees can figure them out. | video-games_xbox |
SONIC IS FAST!!!... (at going downhill. EVERY TIME TEAM SONIC COMES CLOSE TO CREATING SOMETHING SPECIAL, THEY SCREW IT UP WITH STUPID IDEAS THAT MAKE NO SENSE WHATSOEVER! A WEREHOG? WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY A SONIC GAME THINKING," YOU KNOW WHAT? THIS SONIC GAME IS GOOD, BUT WHAT WOULD REALLY MAKE IT GREAT IS IF SONIC GETS TURNED INTO AN UNBELIEVABLY SLOW TRODDING HAIRBALL THAT DRAGS ON LIKE STORIES FROM A SENILE OLD GRANDMA WHO DOESN'T GET ANY ATTENTION. IF THEY WOULD HAVE JUST KEPT THE FORMULA THAT MADE SONIC A SUCCESS, FAST SCROLLING 2-D LEVELS. LEVEL AFTER LEVEL OF 2-D SPEED AND ADRENALINE PUMPED ACTION. THE ORIGINAL SONIC WAS RATED WITH 9'S AND 10'S, SONIC FOR THE NEO POCKET RECEIVED 9'S AND 10'S AND SONIC RUSH RECEIVED 9'S AND 10'S. EVERY OTHER GAME NEVER MADE ANYTHING ABOVE A 6! WHY? BECAUSE TEAM SONIC CLUTTERS THE GAMES WITH STUPID TOWNS AND POINTLESS CONVERSATIONS WITH RETARDED TOWNSFOLK ABOUT FREAKING ICE CREAM BEFORE YOU CAN ADVANCE TO A SLOW TRODDING STAGE WITH A DUMB IDEA (WEREHOG) THAT DOESN'T BELONG IN A GAME THAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE BASED ON SPEED! GET RID OF SILVER, SHADOW, AMY AND ANYONE WHO ISN'T SONIC OR TALES. GET RID OF ANYTHING THAT IS NOT A SCREAMING, RAGING ROLLERCOASTER SPEEDFEST AND YOU'LL HAVE A WINNER JUST LIKE THE GOLDEN RELEASE OF SONIC 1&2. TEAM SONIC. GIVE US SIDE SCROLLER BOARDS WITH LOOPS AND BREAK-NECK SPEED AND STOP YOUR IMAGINATION RIGHT THERE! IF THIS GAME HAD NO TOWNS OR PEOPLE AND HAD 40 MORE SIDE SCROLLER BOARDS AND NO NIGHT-TIME CRAWLERS WITH THAT DUMB WEREHOG AND THIS GAME WOULD HAVE BEEN A 10. INSTEAD, I HAVE TO GIVE IT A 2. GET TEAM SONIC TO BUILD THE LEVELS AND TEAM MARIO TO FIX THE FREAKING CAMERA AND THEN YOU'LL GET A 10. ALL YOU DID WAS JUST MAKE SONIC FANS ANGRY AND I SWEAR I WILL NEVER TAKE ANOTHER LOOK AT A SONIC GAME EVER AGAIN.
-UPDATE 11-7-10-
I STILL HAVE NOT LOOKED AT ANOTHER SONIC GAME SINCE I WROTE THIS REVIEW. UP YOURS SONIC!!! | video-games_xbox |
The game that saved Michael Ironside's career. PROS:
- Unreal Engine
- No forced grab cover as with many new games.
- SAVE ANYWHERE!
- Excellent main character voice acting, especially Michael Ironside. It really helps.
- Excellent music. This really helps too.
- Complicated story with interesting morality. I never understood irrational "ends-justify-the-means" ethics, which this game obviously employs, but it's certainly realistic to our ultra-nationalistic, ultra-militaristic government, so using it as a plot device in this game makes perfect sense. The enemy is mostly domestic so no one can claim anti-Arab, anti-Muslim or racism. Branching storylines and alternate endings as in a special edition DVD.
- Very very interesting psychological training levels (although this is far too brief and actually doesn't really train newbies on most weapons and gadgets).
- Sammy gotta girlfriend. Aww[...]
- Map - don't know where to go? Look at the map.
- I never once had to consult the internet due to bad design, didn't know where to go, what to do, glitches, etc. Double-plus good on that.
CONS:
- Deplorable recycled enemy voice acting during combat. Your enemies will even switch from new voice actors to completely different (old) voice actors if you enter combat. They'll say things like "let's try something different, fall back!" and other various quotes from older Splinter Cell games (Chaos Theory). Tons of them are from the exact same voice actor, which again is from older games and there is not even an attempt to make him sound like a different guy each time. How much effort could it take to get some voice actors into a studio to some new lines. You could get a bum off the street to do this.
- infinite health nonsense like in Call of Duty 2, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas, etc. no med kits, health packs, etc. I don't get this with the new games. It's a revolt against the old Doom health/armor tradition. Logically, it only makes sense if you have some sort of Halo character with a recharging shield or something similar. Sam ain't got that, WWII soldiers certainly didn't, neither do characters in other games - you might be able to give Gears of War a pass because they are wearing some sort of goofy suit in the future, but they really should either explain it (or explain it away) for this and other games. Infinite health changes the context of gameplay. There is no urgency to get to a health kit or be more careful if your health is down. Get shot a bunch of times? Just duck down for a couple of seconds, no prob.
- too many timed missions (entire levels are timed in this game in which you must complete complicated tasks and aren't even able to run - you're forced to walk). It's annoying.
- they took away the light and sound meters in favor of a lame traffic-light Homeland Security style color system. I miss the light and sound meters, they were cool. The color system is also redundant (they have it permanently on screen in 2 different places) -- why not have only 1 color alert (on his shoulder strap) and the light/sound meters for flavor. The light meter allowed you to see when you were APPROACHING vulnerability of exposure. Now they just have a yellow light which indicates only the exact moment of vulnerability, not when you are getting close. The sound meter similarly allowed you to see when you were able to surprise enemies more easily due to loud ambient noise.
- grenade throwing system downgrade. They used to show you an exact arc of where the grenade would land - this was realistic because throwing stuff into an exact location is fairly easy in real life. Even children can do it, so I gather an expert military veteran can do it. Not anymore because it's gone. Why?
Still an excellent game and I'm sure they'll give it a sequel. Chaos Theory was a little better IMO. | video-games_xbox |
Couch coop, husband/wife team. BACKSTORY:I bought this game because my wife and I really enjoy playing cooperative games together. Our previous games were Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 for Xbox, as well as some of the Halo games and Gears of War 3. We were looking for the next great hack N slash action/rpg. I looked into other more complex ARPG's like Titan Quest (which I love) and Grim Dawn etc, or even going back to my roots with Diablo II. What made this decision for me was not having to spend so much freaking time analyzing items and we can stay in the action as long as we want. Gone are the days that I want to juggle strength, dexterity and intelligence in order to be able to wear gear and use items, I really just want to play and if I need to level up a few times before I can use something or if I pick an item that is class specific I can handle that. I just don't wanna spend half my time in game menus crunching stat #s like some freaking bean counter. The balance is that crafting items can be very fun and I'm glad that you can do that as well as providing a jeweler for filling socketed items, but if you just play through the first couple difficulties then neither of those things are mandatory anyway, so if you don't even want to do that then you don't have to. This game feels like it offers a great deal of freedom to different types of players and I tip my hat to Blizzard for all the effort they put into balancing the gameplay aspects.
CLASSES: All the classes are fun and while I lean more toward casters typically, I am having a blast with the monk right now (super fast devastating hand to hand combat) while my wife is the Wizard (her elemental abilities are awesome and visually spectacular). The Barb is amazingly fun too although the fact that you have to get into a fight first to regen rage to use your special abilities makes it tough to solo some bosses. The Demon Hunter is probably my second favorite right now with a large variety of really fun and versatile abilities (rapid fire while dual wielding crossbows, backflip out of the way and then fire explosive bola shots and repeat). Surprisingly I'm not enjoying the Witchdoctor as much as I thought I would but I just don't think I've opened up enough of his more devastating and fun abilities (giant zombie, wall of undead).
WEAPONS: They weapons are fun and visually represent any magical abilities the might have. Weapons with life leach glow red and drip blood, weapons that deal cold damage are bluish/white at the ends and has a cloudy frost coming off of them. I personally think that crafting new weapons is a blast and have used many more crafted weapons than weapons I've just found killing enemies even bosses. We pretty much just play for a while then sell or breakdown items, make sure we enough health potions then go craft items specific to what we want to use at the moment. As the Monk I craft short swords and brass knuckles while my wife's wizard uses a staff/orb or sword/shield combo depending on the situation.
ENVIRONMENT: It all looks great, when it's bright it's not too cartoony and when it's dark it still holds visual appeal. No complaints here.
ENEMIES: There is enough variety so that you won't feel the they reskinned the same enemy 10 times throughout the game. Also, you'll quickly find out which enemies your character can take head on and which ones that you'll need to handle with care and that adds to the challenge. No complaint here either.
CONCLUSION: Blizzard did a fantastic job with this game and in my opinion managed to do the impossible and that is to make a game that is more enjoyable than Diablo II. No more town portal scrolls, identify scrolls or having to click on every gold piece to pick it up. So much has been streamlined and I think it's for the better. D2 will always hold a special place in my heart, but being older now and wanting to spend less time with weapon stats and more time in-game this just feels like the right fit and is so much fun to play and what's even better is that my wife agrees : ) | video-games_xbox |
Forza Motorsport 5 = GREED. Do NOT buy this game! Yes, it looks great. BUT, this time around, it's all about microtransactions. All those cars that are listed that you're going to get for an extra $20 as part of the limited edition...you can't touch them until you BUY them in-game. Remember how in FM4 you could just hop into any car in Free Play and blast it around the track? That feature is gone.
So how do you "buy" them in-game? Two ways:
1) You win races and earn credits. However, they have severely tweaked the payouts from previous titles in the series. Most races will net you 3,000-5,000 credits. That shiny Lotus F1 car you want to drive? It cost 6,000,000 in-game credits. At that price, you'll have to drive 1200 races to be able to afford just that car!
Or
2) You buy them with "tokens." How do you get tokens? You buy them. With real money. So sure. You can just buy that F1 car right? Yup. For 10,000 tokens. No problem, you say, the LCE comes with 1250 tokens! And, it says right there on the amazon page that people (suckers) who buy the LCE will get "1,250 car tokens (a $9.99 value) that will allow Limited Edition owners instant access to any car in the game." Well, turns out that that is a COMPLETE LIE. As you can deduce, spending 1250 tokens on a car that costs 10,000 tokens leaves me OVER 8,000 tokens short. Gosh, stop whining, you say. Just buy the extra tokens so you can buy your silly F1 car. Price for those 8,000 in-game tokens in real world dollars? $99.
Yup. You read that right. $99 for 8,000 tokens. But wait, there's more!
You said the car costs 10,000 tokens, right? Sure did. Well, I'm no mathematician, but 1,250 tokens ("free" with LCE) + 8,000 (for $99) STILL leaves me 750 tokens short of the 10,000 required for that car! So how do we square this circle? Well, you can't buy tokens in 750 increments. You can buy 575. Or you can buy another 1250. For. An. Additional. $19.99!!!
Which brings the TOTAL for your shiny new F1 car to $120 (on top of the original $80 you spend on the game, not to mention the $499 console).
Or! Just play the darn game and earn the credits. 1200 races will take months. And it's a grind. For casual racers who just want to hop in a sweet ride and blast around the 'Ring, forget it. Oh, that reminds me, the 'Ring ISN'T EVEN IN THE GAME!
Forza Motorsport 5 is about one thing and one thing only: greed.
Stay away. | video-games_xbox |
WOW. First off let me start by saying that I have never really been a big fan of survival horror games. They never really held my attention, they weren't "scarey". I don't get scared when I watch horror movies. I happened to come across Fatal Frame 2 in Blockbuster Saturday and I was bored and decided to try it out. I heard the first was really scarey and the second was supoposed to be even better. I thought okay, I'll rent this, take it home and play it for a little while, not get scared at all, get bored and I'll return it like all other survival horror games I've played(resident evil, clock tower, silent hill). I could NEVER have been more wrong. This game SUCKS YOU IN! I was shocked, I mean I was actually scared while playing this game. THIS GAME IS GREAT! Now there is a difference between scared and startled. Some peopkle confuse these two. Like for example something jumps out of the bushes and yells boo! That's startled. This game starts off with a addictive story and little by little you flesh begins to crawl and the hair on the back of your neck begins to prick up. This is just from the enviroments(beautiful, play in first person for the best effect), the story(genius), the graphics(awesome) and the sound effects and vibrations(believe me, have the controller vibration on, and the sounds are perfect, no too much but just enough to make you think "what was that"?). All this and the ghosts haven't even come out to play yet! When the ghosts come out(around 20 minutes after you start the game) That's really when the scariness begins. they come without warning sometimes, and othertimes you just barely hear them sneaking up on you or you see them out of the corner of your eye. Now to kill/exorcise these ghosts you have a enchanted camera(gee, can't exactly shoot them or neat them can you?) which you can upgrade by finding parts, "spirit orbs" and the points you get from exorcising these ghosts. You also get a "spirit radio" which allows you to put stones in it that were dropped by the dead and you can put in the radio and get some clues or story points from them from beyond the grave. It also saves up to 100 of the photos you take in the game so you can save the cool or scarey ones and delete the not so good ones.
I must say that I am EXTREMELY HAPPY that there is finally a game out there that can scare the heck out of me! Everything about this game is great: graphics, story, puzzles, effects, sounds, control, everything! So if you want a really awesome survival horror game, try Fatal Frame 2. Me, I bought this plus i ordered the first one without even playing it. I'M HOOKED! | video-games_xbox |
Respawn is the developer, respawning is all you will be doing for hours on end. Unfortunately, like many of the multi-player online oriented games these days, this one is also developed for today's zero attention span youth. Basically, this is another run around shoot, die, respawn, repeat every 20 seconds. Respawn is the perfect name for the studio that created this game, as that's what you spend all your time doing.
I was really hoping for something a little closer to Mechwarrior of the PC days, but this game doesn't quite have the same level of depth, in terms of combat that lasts more than five seconds. The maps are too small for the number of players included in the matches and I found there is little balance in terms of assigning you to a game. While I was trying to work my way up to a meager level seven, my matches were full of people with levels 25+. This sucks for those starting out, because each level you move up, you get better weapons and more options, so you are getting absolutely destroyed repeatedly by players far better equipped than you. The game seems to count on the fact that you will just be content with respawn die, respawn die, respawn die for hours on end because even if you don't really accomplish anything, you get rewarded and advance for finishing rounds. If you are content to serve as some 14 year old's pinata for about 30 hours, you might advance far enough in gear and weapons that you can last a sufficient amount of time for the game to be fun, but my time is valuable to me and I'm sure I want to spent much more of it playing this game.
I'm no newbie to FPS games, but I really miss the days of games like Unreal Tournament where a match could last a half hour and you might get killed about a dozen times in a half hour. The gameplay was such that you actually had to use strategy and the maps large enough to need it. (Old guy sighs and thinks about nickel ice cream cones). In this game, you die about every 30 seconds, depending on how crappy your luck is in where you respawn. Sometimes you get in your Titan and (there is a three or four second animation each time you do) your shields are already down to almost nothing because some other player was pumping shots into you while the animation was running and there is nothing you can do. Die, respawn, repeat.
I'm sure this would be an excellent game if you were unemployed and had all day to devote to leveling up and pefecting your skills but I play games like this just to unwind at the end of the day instead of TV and I found it far more frustrating than fun. There is too much emphasis on pleasing the Ritalin/Adderol generation who need to get an "accomplishment" (i.e. new weapons or upgrades) every level vs. balancing the game so that it's actually fun for new players. Weapons are too powerful so that when running through the map, you are killed by someone you never even saw, and the instant replay shows a sequence that looked like your opponent pumping about seven shots into you and you only heard one before you were dead.
I'm sure this review will have many disagreeing and saying that if I was just better at the game, it would be more fun. That is true to a point, but I've played enough FPS games to know that this game is really not well balanced. They got my $ for this round, but they won't be getting it for Titanfall 2. | video-games_xbox |
Interesting - finally a straight up Star Trek "shooter. First off, I have to tell you that I am a big "shooter" fan.
That's what I "grew up" on videogame wise. Think of classic arcade shooters like Tempest, Gyruss, Vanguard etc... (yeah, I know, I'm really dating myself).
Jump to the 21st century and it seems that straight-up shooters are at a premium on the current gen consoles. The two best ones that I've seen so far are Rez and Panzer Dragoon Orta (PS2 and xbox, respectively and also both done by Sega)
Being still a fan of Star Trek, it is shocking to me that there hasn't been a straight-up, seat of your pants flying around in space shooter that was Trek based. The only one I can think of was the Sega Star Trek Strategic Operation Simulator arcade game from the early/mid '80's (Hmnnn, Sega again - why do they keep coming to mind - LOL).
I've played Elite Force, and I do think it's very cool. The reviews that I have read of it pretty much indicate it's probably the best Trek videogame done yet.
The premise of Shattered Universe relies upon the "mirror" universe that was introduced in the original series and followed up on in Deep Space 9. You're basically trapped in the mirror universe and have to fight the ISS (Imperial Federation - our favorite characters gone bad) in deep space arcade style combat to get back to the "regular" universe/dimension/whatever.
From what I've read, the major Trek species are in here, but I am dying to know if they've included the Borg. In my opinion, no Trek arcade style game would be complete without them.
I've given this a rating of 3 stars due to the preview footage I've seen of it at the website for the game. I expect this game to be gorgeous graphically speaking and FAST. (on the xbox, it better be!!!!!!!!!!)
Speaking of which, this will be the first Trek game available for the xbox as well, and with regards to other shooters, the mark it has to either match or beat has been set by Panzer Dragoon Orta (DROOL!!!!!!!!). If you haven't played PDO, please do, especially if your considering Shattered Universe. | video-games_xbox |
Top Gear. PROS:
- Top Gear. fantastic.
- Playing Forza 5 while snapping Top Gear UK on Netflix is epic
- visuals are beautiful
- voice-overs are excellent
- music is taken seriously, excellent. a far cry better than the usual wussy fake rock that you have to suffer through in most racers
- turning off the assists and racing in the opposite direction is good for some laughs.
- the fit and finish, shimmer and sheen of the game is glorious.
NEUTRAL:
- fairly long loading times
- you don't race real life racers, you race your offline friend's avatars. okay I guess, that's fine...
- your avatar wins credits racing against other people while you are not playing which is sort of neat, but the amount of credits earned isn't worth much.
- if you don't know who the Top Gear folks are, the jokes, the insults back and forth, the Stig, none of this will make any sense whatsoever and in fact might be annoying. Not Everyone is a fan of the BBC...I'd personally like to see an entire Top Gear game from Turn 10 where I get to race insane nonsense creations against the hosts...
CONS:
- limited number of tracks. some are beautiful (Prague, etc) but you'll repeat them ad infinitum.
- limited number of everything else, there are no weather effects, day/night, etc
- although there are a decent amount of cars, there is no way to own a lot of them without playing this game every day for the rest of your life. earning credits takes too long so you will be required to pay real money to get them faster. spend a million credits on a car you don't like? tough luck. I even got 300,000 free by logging into the Forza website, but it doesn't matter. I'll need to race 30 races to get enough to buy a high performance car...I don't have that kind of time...
- even if you come in every race 1st, you always start near last. there are no qualifying runs. starting near last means the guy in front doesn't have to contend with all the bumper car-style traffic nonsense that can knock you out of control...and you feel dirty hitting the Y button to correct it...
- the game pointlessly uses 2 methods of purchasing power, credits and tokens. they do the same thing so why use 2?
- the game sort of cheats from time to time. I played using the default settings. In a few races, I lost because the game AI assists would continuously break even though I was on a straightaway with nothing but a sea of blue arrows...I have NO IDEA what was going on there but it was NOT fun to see my car breaking for NO reason while cars sail on by...
- I played beyond level 50, nearly all of the series, and yet I still don't think I "figured out the trick to the game" -- Do I pick speed? Acceleration? Speed, acceleration and handling? A good mix? Just pick the one they recommend? I could pick a car with all 10s and still spin out of control. Pick a different car with average stats and get through multiple series without hitting the REWIND button even once, never spinning out of control, not even when someone else hit me, or me them...After all this time, racing the same tracks over and over and over ad nauseum, I just don't "get" this game...
In the end, I think MS needed some good launch titles fast and Turn10 churns out good products, so this is the result. With the limited number of tracks, etc, it feels unfinished. With the Top Gear guys, it feels glorious. It's a mix, just like the Xbox One itself... | video-games_xbox |
First Fable Finally Fulfills! Again. I'm a long time fan of the series, starting back with the original. I really like 2 but I hated 3. So far, Anniversary is exactly what expected, and IT IS GLORIOUS!
Except for one problem. In my 2 hour playing session, the game froze 3 times. Twice I restarted the console, but on the third time I called it a night. If this problem persists, it will be too frustrating to play.
I'll edit my review to be 5 stars if this issue is resolved for me at any point. Other than the freezing, I recommend this to anyone who loved the original Fable. I never got to play TLC, so I'm looking forward to finally playing that, too.
Edit 1, Feb. 5, 2014: There's good activity on the Lionhead user forums regarding the freezing issue. Lionhead seems engaged in resolving this. I'm optimistic about getting the freezing fixed and bumping my review to the 5 stars this game deserves.
Edit 2, Feb. 7, 2014: Based on info from the Lionhead forum I have had great success with the following steps: install game to hard drive, clear system cache and reinstall title update, wait 5 minutes on the Start screen to let the game cache before playing. In my most recent 4-hour session the game didn't lag or freeze once! So, here we go! Rating upgrade to the full 5 stars!
Here's a little more about why this game is so great and why you should buy it if you haven't already:
Expectations have always been infamously high going into a new Fable game. This time, my hopes were set on revitalized graphics, a better save system, better menus, and the Fable II control scheme. Fable Anniversary delivers on those completely!
Fable holds a special, nostalgic place in my heart for the time I spent playing this in my younger days. You can never play a game for the first time more than once, no matter how much you loved the first time. Even time doesn't make that possible. Coming back after so many years can make the original game more disappointing than magical.
With FA, though, Lionhead has breathed the life back into this game for me. It feels more how I remember it than ever, even though it's looks different and uses some different mechanics. Games are always about the experience for me, so I'm less interested in the purity of the original form than I am in the similarity of the original experience. FA is the closest I've been able to get to the gameplay that I fell in love with back in the day.
Great job, Lionhead! Thanks for bringing back that wonderful experience.
To anyone thinking about buying this game: If you loved or even liked the original Fable you have to get this game. | video-games_xbox |
Grand Theft Spidey. They say if it ain't broke, then don't fix it. I loved the first Spider-Man game. The graphics were crisp and detailed, the story was deep and involving, and the controls were precise and tight. Then Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out, which completely re-wrote the video game genre. Games like True Crime and The Getaway were released that practically copied the GTA formula: Free roaming cities, mini-missions, mayhem and violence, etc. Add Spider-Man 2 to the list with mediocre results.
I admit that I was initially excited when I heard that Spider-Man could now swing freely through the city and bust bad guys on the streets below. Though the former is exhilirating and excellently implemented, the latter is dull and repititious. Like GTA, there is a mini-map of the city in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Whenever there is trouble, a green icon will appear in the location where a crime is taking place. Unfortunately, there is a lack of variety in these missions. You will either have to prevent a robber from getting away, take an injured civilian to the hospital, catch a civilian from falling to his or her death, or save people from a sinking boat. After a few of these, you'll begin wishing that the game would just get on with the story. Solving these missions contribute to your "Hero Points" which allow you to purchase moves and combos from a Spidey Store. Since when did Spidey have to buy his own moves and combos? Strange...
Unfortunately, due to the heavy reliance on memory and processing power to produce the massive scope of the game, the graphics are the first to suffer. In most instances, the game resembled a Playstation 1 game. Spidey generally looks good, but the other characters in the game look like spray-painted cardboard boxes. I would have preferred a much scaled-down city in order to boost the quality of the graphics because quite frankly, Spider-Man 2 is an ugly game.
Fans of the first game will most likely be disappointed with the sequel. Though the ability to explore the city by swinging from building to building is a treat, the gameplay and graphics truly suffer. This one is definately a rental. | video-games_xbox |
A great game and loads of fun. Halo wars is an RTS game. With this in mind, do not expect to be playing the normal halo games. Although halo wars may share some of the lore from previous halo games, it is not to be mixed up as a cheesy spinoff of the Halo franchise.
- The graphics are good... for how old this game is. There is nothing that makes you just stare in awe of how realistic or appreciate the amount of intricacy in the models.
- The story is very interesting and made me want to play just one more mission, just one more mission, just one more... the cycle repeats. Although, a friend of mine stated the story felt 'on rails'.
The player is allowed to build any unit he wants and approach the enemy any way he wants, but the game may "guide" him sometimes. An example of this would be (sometimes this happens, not all the time) when the mission starts and the player doesn't have a base, he just directs his units around to capture a base.
- Multiplayer for this game is very fun if you have a teammate or two to play with. Playing online by yourself will not be a great experience as most teammates (like every game) are very bad.
- The balancing of this game is not fantastic. Most multiplayer matches end up with one side making scorpions ( tanks ) and the other side mirroring it. There are some blatantly overpowered units and some extremely under powered units. Sometimes it is very fun to win with under powered units though.
-The sounds are perfect and everything has its own audio queue. All units have 4-5 different lines they say when directed.
-The path finding for this game is below average however. Path finding is the way a unit travels from one direction to the other. Sometimes I will direct a warthog to a spot and he will not even move. Other times he becomes stuck behind a pack of units instead of finding a different way around.
Overall this game is a 4 star game. It is not anywhere near perfect, that is for sure, but is one great game and will give you loads of fun when playing. | video-games_xbox |
Nice software, good hardware, Kinect is useless. I received my Xbox One a few weeks ago and overall I'm pretty happy with it. Neither it or the PS4 presently have any very worthwhile games, but the first year it seems like the One will be getting better titles.
The system is quiet, but it isn't as silent as most reviews say it is. You can definitely hear the hard drive spinning in there. Not very audible if you sit far away but if it's right next to you and you're using it on a computer monitor then you can hear it. MUCH quieter than the Xbox 360 was.
The OS/dashboard is very nice, though it definitely could use some polish. For instance, it can not play music in the background which the 360 could on launch. You'll need to have the music app in the foreground, either full screen or snapped to the side. A little disappointing really. I'm sure they'll improve the OS with updates. Both consoles seem incomplete software-wise.
Controller is quite awesome but come on, Microsoft, this should have included a rechargeable battery! It at least uses MicroUSB for connection instead of a proprietary plug like on the 360, but AA is just pathetic, especially with the 4 vibration motors in this thing. Going to suck the batteries dry. The DPAD is VASTLY improved over the 360's which was nearly unusable. You can actually use it to navigate 2D interfaces perfectly and it makes a very distinct click every time you press it.
Kinect. Well Kinect is just as useless as ever. I'm quite disappointed that Microsoft made me pay ~$150 of the $500 for this useless piece of hardware. I don't care about motion gaming and won't be purchasing any game that requires me to flail my arms around. The voice commands for the Kinect don't work so well either. It'll understand what I'm saying about 80% of the time but it really should be 100% because you can ONLY say commands exactly one way. It has no natural language recognition. Not only that, but the voice commands artificially require Kinect. There's no reason they wouldn't be able to work over a headset plugged into the controller. I really wish they had offered a $350 system without Kinect. That would have gone a long way to appease gamers and maybe even take the lead over Sony this generation, but it seems like Sony is going to win at least in the beginning. In the end, I unplugged the Kinect and put it back in the box. It's just dumb. And yeah, system works just fine without it. | video-games_xbox |
Where Rocksmith succeeded and Rock Band 3 failed (and why this game is worth the purchase if you want to play guitar. In reading the reviews written about Rocksmith so far, I can see a little of myself in almost every reviewer. I was the guy who bought an all-in-one guitar starter kit in his early 20s because he thought he could learn to play from a DVD. I'm also the typical Guitar Hero/Rock Band-turned-real guitarist. I've taken lessons from both self-taught and accredited instructors and have been playing about 2.5 years now. I figured if I could go from failing the easiest song in Guitar Hero I to playing almost every song at 90+% Expert in Rock Band 3, I could learn to play a real guitar if I was willing to dedicate the same amount of time to that as I did a video game. I was really excited when Rock Band 3 announced it would have pro mode. Not only to be able to play a real guitar along with the game, but just to have accurate tabs for some of my favorite songs (accurate in the sense that if I learned the chords and notes, I could play the song--I understand there will always be debates about how some published tabs aren't written the same way the original artist plays a song). Of course you can buy tab books, but why pay $20-30 for each one when you really only care about a few of the songs? I tried to jump right in to RB3 pro mode, only to find it much more difficult than I anticipated. Granted, I started in Expert mode right away, with the idea that I would play along with the chords I knew, fumble through the trickier licks and flub the solos to get through the songs. Here are the main reasons why Rocksmith was such a welcome sight:
1) Horizontal charts. Think about it: sheet music is written horizontally. Tablature is written horizontally. When holiding a guitar, the instrument and your hands are horizontal. By not changing the layout of its pro note charts, Rock Band 3 forces players' brains to have to mentally rotate the frets they're reading 90 degrees in order to interpret them. Who has the ability to do that and play along in real time except established guitarists who are already familiar with a song? The tutorials even show horizontal hand and guitar neck placement when guiding gamers in training mode, so they acknowledge that's the easiest way to learn to play, but didn't think to change the game accordingly. Rocksmith's horiztonal, hologram/3D imagery is much more intuitive, and the notes/chords act as an overlay to your fretboard as the song plays. To me, this makes it much easier to try to line up your hand with what you see on the screen--in terms of finding frets as well as the correct string with your picking hand (something else that is more difficult to do with a vertical layout). In addition, the fretboard on the screen is numbered to coincide with the neck of the guitar the player is holding. That sure beats trying to read the little numbers for each string you need to fret to form a chord or the blue "hill" design of notes relative to the root of a chord in RB3. It also helps anticipate where the next note/chord will be, since the fretboard is what remains constant as the notes change.
2) The use of your own guitar. I applaud Mad Catz and Fender for the designs of the pro guitars they introduced for Rock Band 3. I've owned them both and can't think of any way they could be better, but each one has its flaws. The plastic Mad Catz Mustang doesn't give you a realistic feel, since each row of buttons representing the strings is the same size, eliminating the tactile response of feeling string gauge to know which one you're playing. It also hinders visual response, since all you can see is a sea of identical plastic buttons when you look down to try to find your place. In addition, the coated strings don't vibrate or "give" as much as real strings because they're short and anchored down at each end. I felt like I had to be extra careful not to break it. I've gone through enough standard Rock Band guitar controllers; at $150, I wouldn't want to replace the Mustang anytime soon. The Fender Squier is a remarkable idea in its design for the game, but it's a terrible guitar for standalone playing. That's where Rocksmith really excels. I don't know how well the guitar included in the bundle is designed, but for anyone who already owns a guitar they're comfortable with, it's a great headstart in playing the game over being forced to struggle with an instrument that doesn't feel good in your hands. Guitars are like shoes--you have to find what fits you best and feels the most comfortable or you'll be miserable.
3) "Freestyle" playing within a song/user feedback (this may be the most important difference from all previous rhythm games). When playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, you only have one chance to get the note right. If you miss it, no sound will come from the game to tell you if the note was played correctly or incorrectly, albeit at the wrong time. After playing Rocksmith awhile, it's obvious the game determines accuracy by the output of your guitar, not which fret you played. That is, if your guitar is out of tune, the game will fault you because it's not using electronics in the fretboard to detect which note was played, it's using the signal sent from your guitar through the cable (just llike an amp would). This is great because you still get feedback from the game that you hit the right note, even if it was late. You still hear the tone from the speakers, not the "chukka-chink" noise of a missed note. This is very rewarding feedback because even if you don't hit the note at the right time and get any points, at least you're hearing what you played and learning the hand/eye coordination and muscle memory necessary to playing guitar. Remember when you learned to read and your teacher hounded you to take the time to sound out a word you didn't know instead of just skipping over it? The same concept applies here. You can't just bypass notes and move on if you expect to learn how to play guitar. You have to force yourself to do it the right way. Having the opportunity to play the note again and hear the way it's supposed to sound allows your brain to associate hand position with the corresponding sound. The audio feedback also makes the game as real as it gets--a guitar doesn't care if you play a note late or wrong, it's still going to make a sound. You'll know immediately if you hit a sour note because the tone of your guitar won't match the song. That makes it incredibly easy to make adjustments without having to look at the screen/guitar/screen/guitar to figure out what you're doing wrong. If the note you played sounds flat, you know to move your finger up a fret; if it sounds sharp, slide it down a fret.
4) The game addresses alternate tuning. As I mentioned in point 3, Rocksmith uses the signal sent from your guitar to determine if you played the correct note/chord. It's the most pure way to communicate with the game. Harmonix should be ashamed of itself for not thinking of such an obvious approach when designing RB3 pro mode, and instead creating cheap replica guitars to be used with the game. I've only seen one alternate tuning in Rocksmith so far (drop D), but making it a point to have players tune their guitar relative to the song being played is a key instructional tool that was overlooked in RB3. I've even read comments on YouTube about how someone trying to learn through that game wouldn't be able to play the song in real life because they wouldn't be aware of the alternate tuning.
I'm relieved to see that the general first impression of the game is a favorable one. As one reviewer said, playing Rocksmith makes you forget you're perfoming a task and takes those familiar with the original Guitar Hero back to the day they first picked up a red plastic SG. Personally, I'm already looking forward to downloadable content so that I can start building my library and stop relying on sites with poorly written tablature to learn a new song. There aren't many things that are a bigger waste of time than memorizing a song just to find out you learned it wrong. | video-games_xbox |
Looking for relief from sweaty hands, this might be your answer. This product was more than I hoped for. I am 20 and i love playing games when i have the chance to, but i always am wiping sweat off my hands while playing. this can be annoying and not to mention gross from the person you are handing the controller off to. Who wants to be handling a moist controller? Not me, so why do it to other people
So i decided that i was going to invest in the Air Flo Controller (the price may seem high for a wired controller, but go ahead and look for any other controller, they all cost a lot, i got this when it was on sale for $25.00 sounded good to me) glad i did.
I have not gotten to use it while playing a game yet, but since it has a USB i plugged it into my computer to try it out. I plugged it in and turned on the fan, barely did anything, so i switched to the 2nd setting, i could hardly feel anything, i was kinda bummed, i thought maybe it was either broken or the cold weather got to it (winter here in the north east). However, i turned on the LED switch and the shined a very bright and strong green. I gave the fan another chance. I turned it on its second setting and waited. I did not have to wait long before it roared to life, i was actually very surprised at the power of this little fan, i was not expecting the "air flo" that it produced. I am not going to lie, a smile definitely appeared on my face.
Now enough about my experience here is a little bit about the controller:
---Size
the controller when first held seemed a little awkward to me, i play with a wireless Xbox 360 controller which is slightly more bulky. This controller is slightly smaller, i do not know by how much, but enough that you will notice the difference. now this is not a big deal for me, but it might be for other people out there so, i wanted to let y'all know.
---Grips
The grips are a rubber/ silicone soft grip, which I find to be comfortable, you do kinda feel the plastic vents (very little) but i really had to pay attention to notice. I am also sure that you won't notice when you are trying to defend your self against the flood in halo, or taking a corner in Forza, or even throwing fire balls in Skyrim.
---LED Lights
What can i say, I love the controller without them, but since it does have awesome green LED's might as well turn them on and enjoy them. Playing in a dark room would, your controller would definitely stand out. the LED's light up 4 out of the 6 air vents on the controller, as well as the Y,X,A, and B button each with their corresponding color (aka Y= Yellow, X= Blue and so on)
---Air Flo
I won't dwell on the Air Flo fans, but they are quite remarkable. For such a little device they really do output a lot of air into the palm of your hands on both setting (right where you need it). Again, I had to be patient and wait for the fans to warm up the first time i plugged it in, but after that they can on fast and strong each time with no waiting. in other words, don't jump the gun like i did! ( there is also a "dual rumble system" in the handles of the controller )
---Buttons
The buttons are very well constructed, at least with my controller. They are not lose, and have the right amount of give. Its not to hard to push them down, but not so easy that you might accidentally throw a grenade when you don't want to, or shoot a teammate in the back who's in front of you. (Not that i have done that before *insert shy smile here*)
--- Cord
The cord is ten feet long, three meters to our friends in Europe (I love you metric system, we should have adopted it when we had the chance decades ago, but we wanted to be different i guess). the controller has an "inline release", which I am confused about its function. I am guessing they have to so that you can leave the six inch USB segment plugged in at all times and still disconnect the controller. Or for wanderers who will forget the controller is plugged in and leave with it?
---Chat Port
I have heard that sometimes this port may not work? i am not sure and may never be sure of it seeing how i do not chat with people online while playing games. This might be true, but it may not be?
Ok, well I am sure i have missed something, but I did not mean to type nearly this much. I hope that whoever might be considering buying this controller reads this and then buys it. Great product and shipped in perfect condition. | video-games_xbox |
Simply the best console yet. The XBOX 360 is hands-down the best console to date. I have owned and played on every platform for the last twenty years and nothing can compare to this machine. It has the most power, best software, and the best multiplayer; and nobody argues those facts!
THE HARDWARE:
Pre-PS3, everyone thought Sony would re-revolutionize gaming. Once the system was out, it was clear that had not happened. Time and money cut all of the well-hyped power out of the PS3, and left a cumbersome, feeble machine. The Cell does not process the raw information that games need and the memory bandwith is far too little for next-gen games. The 360 has the greatest processor on the market: 6 threads at 3.2Ghz! Plus the 512MB of unified memory puts bandwidth where it is needed and the 10MB embedded video memory creates an unstoppable graphical experience with superfast processing. Read up elsewhere and you will see this is true. I have had the 'ring of death.' Within a week, Microsoft had shipped me a new console which has worked flawlessly for the last year. They offer the best warranty in the business (3 years) and continue to improve the hardware with 120 gig HD and HDMI. Blu-ray? Maybe they win and your PS3 is still useful, maybe they loose and it was all a waste. Or maybe it doesn't matter and in 2 years everything is either downloadable or we have a new, higher definition disc to buy. 90% of consumers are avoiding high-def movies because they don't see the difference between 480 and 1080 being worth a new player and all new software. Most people still do not have an HDTV. This is a home-media center, that is why HD-DVD is an option, but if you want to play games, why base your decision on that fact?
THE SOFTWARE:
Imagine the Wii and PS3 actually have games, and compare to the 360. Wii does not have the space or the desire to create engrossing, enveloping worlds to play in. PS3, without any market share, is loosing its best designers to Microsoft. PS3 will have Metal Gear and Final Fantasy, both way past their hayday. What happened to Killzone 2 that looked so good at the PS3 unvieling three years ago? On the 360 you've got great new franchises like Halo, Forza Motorsport, and Fable. My favorite, and soon to be a franchise, Gears of War, remains the best looking game on any platform. Everything else is cross-platform. On the family-friendly end, Wii has the publicity, and it is fun, no doubt, but XBOX Live Arcade has dozens of great, simple, fun games to play, and most at $10 apiece!
THE MULTIPLAYER:
XBOX Live is well-regarded as the best online community. Charging for this service ensures hardware exists to support the system that 8 million people play on. $4 a month? Skip a cup of coffee. Again, the games are the best available for multiplayer, and now you can play with PC users as well! If you have a competetive spirit, you will never tire of bettering your performance against others while incorporating that multiplayer into the storyline of the game, in many cases.
The other great benefits are as a home-media center with downloadable movies and (someday) internet-based tv. Plus stream everything from your PC to the 360, even your iPod! What's not to love? | video-games_xbox |
Fun for two, not for all. I'll just get to each gameplay mode the game offers and share my thoughts. I never played the first game in the series, so I can not compare this sequel to the original.
The campaign of Army of Two: TFD can be played either in solo mode or cooperatively via split screen or online. Solo mode is acceptable and functional but on the bland side, you really need to play this game on coop to have fun. Idealy you would want to play with a friend since there are so many hysterical moments to be had during all of the intense action but you can also enjoy yourself quite a bit if you can find a stranger online who is decent at the game and willing to work as a team. The game is centered around team work relying on a simplistic but rewarding formula of distract and flank. You have an "aggro meter" shown at the top of the screen for each character (Salem and Rios) which fills up when you fire at the enemy. The louder the gun, the quicker the aggro bar fills up and the more attention you get. The key is to manage these aggro bars effectively so the enemy's attention is on one of you while the other flanks them from one side, effectively surrounding them with only two of you. It works pretty well and even though it sounds simplistic in nature, you are put in some pretty tight binds where some serious thought is needed to get through alive. You can also lower your weapon aggro with silencers allowing one of you to quietly take out the enemy forces one by one as they rain fire on your buddy. If things get too hot for your partner, you can remove the silencer with a simple button press and call some of the attention off him.
Aside from the aggro system the coop moments are pretty basic and limited, but still fun. There are only two instances where you are separated and must work your way to a particular checkpoint to reunite. One of these was done quite brilliantly, I thought, where you must remain in constant communication with one another to point out where the enemy is in your path and hoping your partner can get in a position to provide some cover fire or clear your path. Otherwise the teamwork mostly consists of step jumps, combining your strength to open a door, latching onto your partner while he carries a riot shield and two odd segments in the game where you must fight back to back and fire at surrounding enemies. The first of these back to back segments is pretty cool, you really have no where else to go and have to stand back to back but the second made no sense as you are out in the open but are forced to stand there in one spot and just fire at enemies while exposed. You also have a countdown to coop snipe or can mock a surrender and quickdraw your pistols together but it's nothing we haven't done in other games without it being touted as a game mechanic.
The campaign is pretty short and not very difficult, though on Contractor mode some of the crescendo moments can prove quite frustrating. Still, I mainly got stuck due to my partner's lack of skill than game difficulty. The game has a cover system, use it! You will be amazed what a little brick wall can shield you from. I thought the cover system worked well enough and the controls took some getting used to but nothing I found myself wrestling with past the first level. The only real issue I had with the controls is partner revival. When your partner goes down, you have to wait a second or two for the game to prompt you to either tap button 'a' to grab your friend to drag him or hold 'a' to heal him. As you can probably imagine, waiting for this second or so is not ideal when you are being sprayed with bullets, especially when your partner was downed out in the open away from the safety of cover. I often found myself hitting button 'a' too soon which caused me to sprint away from my partner, and into certain death or to vault over an object exposing myself. These cheap deaths were quite frustrating but other than reviving my partner the controls were just fine, they just had somewhat of a rough feel which isn't surprising as the entire game feels and looks a little rough around the edges, the budget for this one was clearly cut compared to other EA games.
The best multiplayer mode by far is Extraction which is basically Ao2's version of Gears of War's Horde mode or Halo: ODST's Firefight mode. It is not as good as the modes offered in those games but it is still pretty fun and definitely looks and feels more polished than the other MP modes this game offers. There is a 50 point achievement to beat all 16 rounds of Extraction and though the difficulty certainly ramps up, it is doable. I nailed it on my 3rd try, almost got there on my first. You will find yourself camping in certain spots to escape death and notice that the A.I. is pretty stupid at times with enemies running right by you because they seem dead set on going after your friend instead, but this can be overlooked for the most part. Having the achievement already, I'd be more than willing to hop in to help others get the achievement.
The other modes offered in MP are Co-op Deathmatch where you and a partner take on other duos (you can also be your own one man team), Control where your team and an enemy team fight for a designated control point and Warzone which is a 5 round match of varying obectives from stealing intelligence, to protecting targets to arming bombs, pitting two teams of 4 against one another. These MP modes suffer from lag, disconnects, freezes and just odd little glitches too frequently not to be mentioned. The matchmaking is terrible where you can join a game and you are out numbered 4 to 2 but then 2 more prople join and the game adds them to the opposing team leading you to be outnumbered 6 to 2! It happens all the time. You also can't host your own public matches. The game modes themselves are not all that fun either, the graphics take a serious downgrade and it feels clunky and tacked on. There is an achievement where you have to win on every map (6 in total) in all three game modes but I can't seem to unlock the achievement. This is a common problem, nobody is really sure why it happens, but I feel as if I am laboring through these matches just to get the achievement. It is not worth it. I have won everything on every map, but with the constant disconnects and host disconnects, getting a win to count seems like a crapshoot.
So in short, Campaign mode on co-op is a lot of fun and it plays decent while looking pretty good too. I wish there was some form of interaction with the environment but slapping your friend on the buttocks or punching him in the kidneys is a nice little touch. Extraction may not be the best horde mode out there, but it is still a pleasant experience, if not rough around the edges while the rest of MP is just a big mess. I don't see this game having much longevity and with the low budget feel I don't see it as worth full price. Slash off 20 bucks or more and it's worth a look, definitely a rental.
As a letter grade I would give this game a "C". | video-games_xbox |
I was happy but it just wasn't what I was expecting. Now before I say anything I want to make it clear I am a hardcore DOA fan. I've played and own every DOA (even the volleyball ones!) except the 2nd one and I will eventually get it just to make the collection complete. So as expected I was super hype for this game. I even got the collector's edition and went to Gamestop for the midnight release, so this review is based on the collector's edition version of the game.
The games comes in a cool aluminum DOA5, complete with an art book, soundtrack to the game, a poster, and a code for all the bathing suits costumes for all female characters, and a code for Kasumi's moves and a breakdown on the character. Everything was around 80 bucks which I think, if you are a real DOA fan, a good deal.
Visuals: Superb!! The characters sweat and get dirty as they are tossed and flung around! The graphics are way more realistic and every character has been fine tuned. I can tell that most characters were given a more thicker and muscular look, but I think that adds to the realism. The bathing suits look so pretty and the costumes look so real and fit the characters a lot better. Some levels are really cool and have multiple parts to it that can lead to streets, and lower areas of the stage. They also have cliffhanger moves in some stages that give each character a cool new move to try out and they really are cool. Try them out!
Game play: Pretty much the same thing as DOA4 except for the new cliffhanger moves, sidestepping moves and "Power Moves". When your health is in the red, you can try to land the "Power Move" an extra powerful move, kind of like a finisher that doesn't finish, that takes 25 percent of the opponent's health. The move sets off a movie sequence and kinda looks cool but isn't anything special and I wouldn't care if it wasn't in the game. I play mostly with Christie and Helena and I will say both player's moves have greatly improved and Helena is much easier and faster to use in this game.
Online: Now this was a big problem for me. The online has drastically changed from DOA4. First off, no more avatars or character lobbies, probably because it created so much lag. It seems now it has taken more of a mature approach, following in the footsteps of Street Fighter 4. Now it is split into 3 options: Ranked, Simple, And Lobby. Now here's the issue: you can only Rank up in a ranked match. I know that some people used to cheat in DOA4 and get their friends to lose matches and give them points but so what? I want to play in lobbies with my friends and rank up at the same time. So now you're telling me I can only rank up by playing a random stranger? That just takes the fun out of it. And who's gonna play simple match when you can battle it out in a lobby amongst friends or have to play ranked to raise your grade? It just seems like a dumb addition. They also took out online tag team!! So disappointed in Tecmo for taking that option out! It was fun to tag up with an online friend :(.
*Edit* I was told Tecmo has addressed the lag and released some free DLCs for the game so I will have to update on this.
The lag situation has still not been addressed. Games freeze up a lot and everyone in the room gets stuck on a black screen. At least they added a message box where you can type throughout the battle, but they do censor what you write so be careful! I DO like that they give you an option to leave the room after each battle. In DOA4 you would be stuck battling until the host went back to the lobby.
Music: I didn't like it. The song playing in the background in online mode is so repetitive! I honestly felt they did exactly like SF4 with some dude singing some kind of rap or song in the background as I am navigating thru the lobby. I am a big fan of original video game music and LOVED the DOA themes for every character and the menu and character selection music. It was brilliant. Now they want to be hardcore and add these gritty themes that just seem to fall flat. I guess it goes with the overall feel of the game but I just wasn't a fan.
Story: If any of you have played DOA: Dimensions then you can see the similarities in which both story modes were executed. Now you play through chapters with each character instead of playing story mode separately with each one. I honestly enjoyed the new story mode and it was really cool to see the whole story through each character's eyes, and be able to play with each one. And in every chapter they have a bonus mission to unlock new tags and such, which have also been added to the game. It gives you an extra push to do the chapters again. The ending was awesome and the cut scenes, even though fights made no sense, were still fun to play and watch. Good going Tecmo!
Overall I'm happy I bought the game but I do miss the old DOA a bit. But this is where fighting games are going so I've accepted it all. If you are a DOA this a definite must by, but others might weary. | video-games_xbox |
Best Racing Game I've Ever Played. Project Gotham Racing 3 is easily the best racing game I've ever played - period! I've been a lukewarm fan of racing games until this game came along. Until PGR 3, my favorite racing game was the Need For Speed franchise. However, I hated NFS Underground. There was just too much stuff that interfered with actually getting to race for my liking. Perhaps it shows my age, but I wasn't all that interested in tricking out my car. To me, it felt like NFS lost a great deal in the transition from Hot Pursuit to Underground. I enjoyed Hot Pursuit but one of my biggest gripes was the sheer amount of time it took before I could purchase/unlock the game's pinnacle vehicle: the McClaren F1. By the time I got to that point, all the fun had been sucked out of the game and replaced with the single-minded purpose of just "racking up points" in order to unlock that car. Once achieved, I felt less than enthusiastic about continuing to play the game. Of course, my son came along and wiped all the saved data off the memory chip for the Gamecube (the console we played on prior to the Xbox 360) and after that, I've not played the game since.
When considering whether or not to purchase the Xbox 360, I saw the exotic car porn that was the trailer for the PGR 3 game on a 360 kiosk. Like everyone who saw the trailer, I was mesmerized by the sheer graphic rendering of the vehicles. It was very impressive! I wondered if, like so many movies, the best of what I'd seen was simply that from the trailer. How many times have you been to a movie only to discover that the best parts of the movie were the parts cut and used for the trailer? Not so with this game. In fact, you can't really begin to access the best features of PGR 3 until you buy the game.
Unlike every other racing game I've ever played, you start the game with an impressive array of cars available. These cars are ones you would normally have to work up to in other racing games. You start out with amazing cars. PGR 3 got this part right! You get to hit the ground running in this game!
After you select your first car and put it in your garage, you can start a number of races almost immediately. You can begin your solo career, go online or even system link with other 360 consoles. This is a very welcome feature to me. I don't like to have to go through a bunch of screens and jump through a bunch of hoops just to race. Sometimes I just want to pop the game in and burn rubber. PGR 3 lets you do just that, if you so desire. Of course, you can take as much time as you like before you begin a race.
One really great feature to this game is the availability to "test drive" any car. On other games, you may be able to see a ghost image of a car that will be available once you achieve a set number of points, but you can never really see any details about those cars. Not so on PGR 3. You can see every car that the game has to offer with the exception of concept cars that only become available after a set number of kudos points have been awarded. Sure you may start with 85,000 credits, but you can look at the Ferrari F50 GT and even test drive it! Yep, that's right! You can test drive any car on the test track - even if you don't have nearly enough points to buy it! It can let you know what you might want to work your way up towards. Nice feature! Smart design!
When you play the game online, you have instant access to all the cars right then and there. Sure you may only have an NSX in your solo career, but race online and you can jump behind the wheel of a McClaren! That's a sweet touch! The online feature is fun beyond belief, too. It is fun to race against total strangers and there is a staggering number of types of races (street race, capture the track, elimination, team, etc.) to choose from. There are also an equally impressive number of race venues to choose from (New York, Las Vegas, Japan, etc.). The person who creates the race can also control certain aspects of that race for participants who log on. You can set the conditions to Day, Night, Overcast, force the racers to have the "in car" view, control the number of AI racers, etc.
One aspect that blew me away and that also reminded me of the kiosk trailer was the replay feature of this game. Once you complete a race, you have the option to continue on to the next race or to watch a replay of the race you just completed. If you're not in a hurry, watch the replay. Trust me on this. It is absolutely unbelievable! First of all, you can save the replay to watch again anytime you wish. This in and of itself is a really cool feature. If you have an unreal race and you want to show off, you can save the race and watch it ad nauseum! During that replay, you can also take a picture. This is just too cool! You can forward, reverse, pause or restart the replay, but once it is playing you can toggle to switch the camera angle and freeze the frame. From there, if you select to take a picture, you can literally zoom your camera in on the scene from every angle imaginable. The precise detail is jaw-dropping. It really is! You can do all kinds of things with this picture, too. The game provides you with several Photoshop-esque special effects. For instance, you can adjust the aperture of your picture and thereby produce blur to give the effect of high speed movement. You can change the color and take the picture anywhere from black and white to over-the-top vibrant. You can adjust the focus, the lighting, the brightness, the contrast, etc. Once you get the angle, the effect and the subject framed as you like it, you can take the picture and save it. Again, like the race replay, you can view it at any time.
The best feature of PGR 3 is the amount of control the game gives you right from the start. The graphics are amazing and, arguably, the best graphics during the game are had when racing from the in car view. There are several camera views you can choose from. Two from behind the car, one from inside the car, and two from the perspective of a camera that would be mounted on the front bumper of the car. I might have missed one or two, but you get the point. I prefer the in car view and I sometimes toggle to the behind the car view when I have to thread the needle between cones or archways. I wasn't the biggest fan of racing games because of all the roadblocks to enjoying the game that seemed to be part of the genre. PRG 3 has completely redefined this genre of game for me and has far exceeded my wildest expectations for what I thought this game would be. It is so much better than I had even hoped for! | video-games_xbox |
NHL 12 Review -- Hold Up For Next Year. Over the years, EA Sports provided the best Hockey game to play on your respected platform. With little competition from 2K Sports, as the NHL 2k series is taking a break to reinvigorate the franchise. So once again EA Sports has returned to hit the ice once again in NHL 12. Coming off critically acclaimed NHL 11. Coming off the critically acclaimed NHL 11, the bar was already set high for this year's version. So does it live up to expectations?
NHL 12 can be summed up in one word ... refinement. Over 300 gameplay improvements have made the game more balanced and making the game more appealing to new comers of the franchise. One of the many new improvements in this years version is the goaltending play. For far to long, goaltenders were a soulless defender on defense. Even though in hockey, goaltenders are the last stand against opposing offenses. They do so much behind the scenes that previous NHL games have failed to capture. But in NHL 12, the many gameplay tweaks reinvigorates goaltending position in the NHL series.
No longer will defense not move in unison but as a defense unit. Often the goaltender will get in on the action and "accidentally" trip a forward who comes across his crease. But even the goaltenders at time can get scuffled at times. For the first time goalies now aren't permanent fixtures. Before, even if you crashed into a goaltender, they still wouldn't move or be fatigued. Now players on a breakaway can crash into a goaltender with it possibly sending the net off of it pegs. It's these little things that many hockey fans will enjoy and help bring its game closer to its routs.
Another one of many things is the screen game. Players jockeying in front of the net for position has been in previous NHL games but players now react more realistically to each other. A big, defenseman like Chris Pronger will physically dominate the positional game in front of his own net while dealing with a smaller forward. But a forward like cover athlete Steven Stamkos, can use his agility to squirm free and deficit pucks into the net. It's this improvement of the screen game that gives players more options on offense then just driving the puck down the goalies throat. The physics engine is back for another round. It has received few tweaks to bring more of realistic feel but it has remained mostly the same. I was never a fan of hitting mechanic and it still misses just shy of what it wants to achieve. Sure it provides that thrill of timing your check and knocking somebody out but I was looking for more arcade feel.
Just like most new sports games this year. Improvements to the presentation front have been made to bring the fan closer. The game takes cues from Versus and TSN presentation in games. Fans will finally see their individual home team intros. I got chills when I saw the San Jose Sharks running out onto the ice through the shark head. It's nice addition but for the most part but for the most part it's not noticeable. It's not as appealing as Madden or NCAA's presentation. Even with the presentation improvements the commentators haven't been updated and still behind the pack of most sports games. Bill Clement and Craig Simpson return and pairing is one of the best sports pairing in a sports game but the problem is they don't have anything to work with. Far to often you hear the same lines over and over again and some are even out dated. It serious degrades the presentation values in the game and hurt the product itself.
NHL 12 has your various modes that offer different indivisible experience. Be-a-GM, Be-a-Pro, Franchise, EA Sports Hockey League and Ultimate Team. But my biggest complaint with the game is these modes have remained untouched for sometime now and this year version isn't anything different. Be a GM allows players to fully control their favorite NHL team. This mode is a good addition but it hasn't seen any improvements of any kind. GM's will still trade their star player away without having you to sacrifice any key player on your team. Be a Pro mode is another example of this. Yes the mode has received minor improvements but it has overall remained the same. Legends mode, the newest mode for NHL 12, which allows players to play as nine NHL Legends. This mode comes off the success NBA 2k11's Jordan Challenge and is just a cut and pasted version Be a Pro. But anyone looking to play as Wayne Gretzky when he was with the Edmonton Oilers will sadly be disappointed.
For the first time in a Sports game, good gameplay can't save NHL 12. With a lack of new ideas brought to the table in this years version. Many will feel this is a super charged version of NHL 11 and rightfully so. This year's version is for the die-hard hockey fan that deeply loves the sport. With lack of competition from 2k sports, it appears NHL 12 let off the gas and stumped onto the ice.
Score: 7.8 out of 10 | video-games_xbox |
Viking: Great graphics and good gameplay, but nothing else to offer. MY PERSONAL OPINION: Despite outstanding graphics, decent gameplay, and easy achievements, this game falls very short as far as story, variety, customization, and originality.
PROS:
-Graphics are truthfully on the level of Assassin's Creed. Need I say more?
-Gameplay was one of the better features, but it was still a pretty simple and dumbed down hack n slash game. True you can dismember enemies, but that offers little more than graphic pleasure. It would have been much more entertaining if maybe you could disarm enemies or even cut an arm off and have them keep fighting. I thought the bosses were pretty easy as well; all you have to do really is dodge and wait for a certain button to pop up and press it.
In truth, all you have to do to defeat the majority of enemies is mash one or two buttons again and again till they go down. Also, whenever your attacks land you gain energy for your charge attacks, which reminded me of the musou attacks from Dynasty Warriors.
-Looting is fine but nothing out of the ordinary. All you have to do is run over items that your enemies drop, like health potions, to obtain the. Except for chests, then you have to either hold or tap a button.
CONS:
- The story is about a resurrected Viking who goes on a campaign to seek vengeance and reclaim his homeland from an evil Greek Goddess. Sound a little like God of War? Also, the main character doesn't say one word and so you get no character development. There are also no plot twists, notable supporting characters, factions. Nada.
-One of the things that I was super disappointed with is that you can never upgrade nor change your weapons. Your three main weapons are your sword, axe, and throwing axes. Also, there is no armor or repairing in the game.
-The only thing you can really do with the money you earn is buy health items or new combos (which don't really change the game all that much).
-You can't customize your character at all. No clothes, haircuts, or tattoos - nothing.
-You're always on foot. It would have been nice if you could have had the option to buy a horse or have been able to ride your dragons so you don't have to walk everywhere all the time.
-The missions themselves are very repetitive and lack variety. You rescue other Vikings, kill some traitor, or kill a group of enemies to clear a location.
-The enemies themselves aren't anything special either, there are about eight different types of enemies and each class of unit all look exactly the same as the next. The enemies you typically encounter don't have much to distinguish themselves as far as difficulty other than the fact that they have a shield or you have to hit them more times before they finally go down.
-What most critics are saying that is so great about this game is the huge battles. In reality, there are only 3 or 4 of them and if you try to fight the whole army you'll die over and over again. The point is to take out the groups of sorcerers to stop the spawning of new troops. So, it's really a trick to make you think it's going to be awesome when really it's like Dynasty Warriors in the sense that all you have is take out the leaders and you win automatically.
Specifically, all you have to do is rush towards and kill the sorcerers manually or use your tokens to get your dragon to kill them for you. You get these tokens for doing things like killing all the archers or killing a giant.
Also, the objectives for these big battles never change; the only thing that separates each battle from the next is the scenario and landscape.
LAST NOTE: Viking is worth the cheap price it is now on Amazon of less than ten dollars, but it became a real bore, almost a chore, to finish after few hours of playing. | video-games_xbox |
sheer amount of content available in this package is amazing. The fact that they put 4 games in . The sheer amount of content available in this package is amazing. The fact that they put 4 games in one is an incredible feat and and such an exciting product for a Halo franchise fan. UNFORTUNATELY this product was shipped barely playable, and even with recent patches I have had no increase in successful play.
Single player this product is -okay- at best, with some flaws still present. Single player campaign has issues with saves being lost and the game not recognizing you finishing levels. Plus other I have not encountered but have been listed elsewhere. The single player player vs player did increase for me with the most recent patch, it still takes several minutes to find matches at points and even longer to find a match that will actually start (rarely with even or balanced teams, but I guess finding any match at all I should be happy).
Multiplayer, in my opinion the bread and butter of the franchise, is nearly unplayable. CO-OP campaign I have found the non-host players will end up with significant input lag, causing gameplay to feel delayed and muddy. Player vs Player multiplayer I have found almost completely broken. Trying to build a party with friends has taken me 10+ minutes and a little luck to actually get every player to stick in a single party, once in a party unfortunately I have been only successful in finding 2-3 games to date with them. After 30-45 minutes of attempting to find a match repeatedly with a group we usually switch to custom games with just us. Once in custom matches we still have major issues getting the party to stick together and getting everyone in it, otherwise the matches start and play with much more ease.
Overall a lackluster and disappointing product. I generally make it a point to not buy games upon release, but as a huge Halo franchise fan I couldn't help myself, this product just contained so much amazing content. Sadly the ball was dropped, and as a huge fan, I feel burnt and soured by this whole ordeal. It reinforces my idea of not early adopting a product, and causes me to not want to support future Halo products.
I hope 343 and Microsoft make this right, but I'm not holding my breath. | video-games_xbox |
Worth the wait, mic fix is on the way. I was contemplating what headset to go for once everything was announced and these were the ones that caught my eye.
For one they are the only company for the One that were previously an audio company. Another reason was the design. They looked very modern and well built but didn't scream look at me! Like the other flashy companies out there
Now with that being said the headset feels very mature if that makes sense. I'm not a pro gamer by any means but I'm an adult gamer who takes it very seriously. And with this headset I get a lot of use out of it seeing that I can still use it while I'm out without looking like a goof.
Build quality is superb! Compared to other companies out there these things are extremely sturdy. I have no doubt that these will definitely last. They are extremely comfortable and I had no issues wearing them after a few hours. I have a fairly large head and wear glasses none of which caused comfort issues.
Sound quality is very very nice. I feel immersed while playing the game, meaning I can hear footsteps ahead and behind me. The One does an awesome job of processing the sound. So far I've played BF4 and Forza 5. The headset gives me a huge advantage while playing BF and it has definitely improved my KD ratio. With both games there are so many more sounds that I previously could not hear with my speaker setup.
The audio may not be loud enough for everyone but it was plenty fine for me. There were times where I had myself turning them down. Noise canceling is also a huge plus for some. For me especially since I had multiple people in my room attempting to speak to me but I had no clue thanks to these bad boys.
Now I understand certain people are having issues with the mic which both Microsoft and Polk are well aware of. I haven't had issues since I usually speak very loud. The issue has been found and will be fixed in the coming weeks so I wouldn't let that deter your decision to purchase.
All in all I'm really glad to finally have these in person and highly recommend them. If you have any questions let me know. | video-games_xbox |
Finally here. When I first rented Baldur's Gate 1, I stayed up all night with my sister and we destroyed the game, loving every second of it. We beat all the settings, the gauntlet and extreme mode. After that, we were left to wait, wondering if a Baldur's Gate 2 would be coming. Our wait is now over. And it was well worth it.
Gameplay hasn't been changed much from the first one. Its still the go kill every one set up. This time, however, there is a vast quantity of new spells and feats to mess around with. Kromlech (the dwarven fighter from number 1) had, like, two feats he could use. Niether were very effective. On the other hand, Dorn, the massive barbarian, has just as many fighting feats as Ysuarn, the elven necromancer, has spells. Very cool.
The story line by itself is only fair. Its when you know what happened in number one can you fully realize and appreciate what's going on. There is finally some depth in character for our heros, all of them prompting NPC's to say different things if different people talk to them.
The biggest addition to number two is the weapons creation system. The possibilaties are endless. Add six rune stones, four aquamarine stones and four jet rocks and you get the
+5 Mighty Cleaving Axe of Cold Fire. Insanely cool (or hot?).
Yes, there are now five playable characters. A barbarian, necromancer, cleric, rogue and monk. They all have special abilities only they can get, meaning you have to play the game five times through to get full experience. And, if you have a friend to play with, you can fool around with different combinations of characters that will make you adapt to eachothers style of fighting.
The artificial intelligence is way better than it used to be. The archers and spear throwers will actually go to a strategic location, such as raised ground or behind a partially broken wall. Some enemies will attack you in certain formations, making it harder for you to maunuver. There are some old enemies, but alot more new ones.
If you liked the first Baldur's Gate, the second is the same thing, only its on fire going 100 miles per hour through a cave with all manner of monsters jumping out at you. This game is perfect for any fan of the series or hack and slash games in general. | video-games_xbox |
I played this game last year. Me purchasing an annual sports title from EA is about as certain as death and taxes. Regardless of how much I swear off buying future releases due to the flaming pile of disappointment I feel from the current entry, I just can't seem to help it. I need my gaming and sports fix.
When it comes to NCAA football, I don't care much about the bells and whistles that are added to each incarnation so that the developers can claim that they're being innovative. Just give me good gameplay dammit! And as I played my first dynasty game, I couldn't help but feel deflated by halftime. Everything had an almost familiar feel to it-as if I'd never traded in my copy of NCAA 12 and it had magically reappeared in my Xbox360 disc drive. Granted, they've added better tackling and DB/WR animations, but boy oh boy, it just feels too much the same as the previous title. The lone bright spot is the revamped passing mechanic, which gives you total control of the trajectory and the angle of your passes. It took me a little bit to get used to only because I was so used to the same outdated mechanic for years, but it's satisfying to thread a pass between two defenders and know it's totally because of you and not some predermined programming logic.
I have dabbled in the Heisman challenge option which allows you to relive one of a dozen or so past trophy winners from their first game of their greatest college season to their last. Along the way, you can attempt to mirror or exceed their statistics for that year. This is good in concept but poor in execution. For instance, I chose Andre Ware and instead of allowing you the option to play the entire game, you are limited to only when the player is on the field. This is fine, but give us the option to play the whole game otherwise I'm simming half the time. Also, there is no dynamic commentary. They don't give us for example, any background information of the player or the particular game whether it's trivia or statiscs. Instead, it's the same wooden commentary you can hear in the exhibition or dynasty games. Also, the players are way overpowered. There's no way from what I can see that allows you to change the difficulty settings so if you're Barry Sanders, prepare to run as if you're playing Tecmo Bowl, scoring touchdowns or running twenty or more yard runs on almost every play. I did enjoy the interview videos with each Heisman winner that you could unlock after progressing through the season. You get insights on the mindset of each past winner and little tidbits like rivalries and funny stories.
So after playing a dozen or so games just to see if my opinion could be swayed, I instead came away more and more depressed. Playing NCAA used to be a great way to kill a couple of hours for a football fanatic as me, but instead this year's title feels pretty arbitrary and lifeless. | video-games_xbox |
A welcome addition to my xbox360 collection. Gun for Xbox 360, while not outstanding, is a solid game that delivers a well-written story, memorable characters, and addictive gameplay.
The story, which is full of betrayal, revenge, and Wild West panache and style, will motivate you to play through to the end. In it, you are Colton White, son of Ned White, a hunter and trapper with a secret he needs to tell you. But before he can, he is mortally wounded in a ferryboat massacre; as he dies, he bequeaths to you a mysterious token and instructions to present it to a person he knows in another town. The ferryboat is about to explode, and with his last ounce of strength he pushes you off the side into the river. As you call out to your father right before you lose consciousness, his last words to you are, "Damn it, I'm not your father."
The voice-acting is top notch, featuring Thomas Jane, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman, and Lance Hendricksen. The in-game cutscenes show off this talent well with excellent motion capture, and you really feel emotion from the characters, who at times seem uncanny.
The game is set up as a GTA-style open sandbox world with story missions that move you through the game, and side missions you can take to improve your stats and have fun. The only problem with this is the size of the world, which is commensurate with the short length of the main story(maybe seven or eight hours). There aren't as many things to do in the world as it seems there should be.
The gameplay is third-person shooting with a nice variety of weapons, very similar to that in Red Dead Revolver by Rockstar, and quite fun. The horse riding mechanic is easy and fun, as well.
Neversoft has the basics down really well, but missed a few details here and there (for example, poor animation of the wild animals in the game world). And the graphics, while superior to other console versions, do not fully utilize the resources the 360 makes available. Overall, this is a good game that, given more development time to polish things up more and a larger scope, could have been truly great. | video-games_xbox |
Poor Player and Stadium Models, Controls Took a Turn for the Worst & Ultimate Team didn't transfer. Let me start by saying that this review comes after having owned the Xbox 360 version and investing countless hours in Ultimate Team since it's release. Overall, the 360 version of madden 25 had poor, blurry graphics but the controls and overall gameplay was excellent in my opinion. I was excited to be able to get madden on 360 with the option to upgrade to the xbox one version for only $15 upon its release. Unfortunately, I ended up having to sell my xbox 360 copy on eBay due to Best Buy only running the promotion until October (before xbox one release). I felt jipped, but I went ahead and bought the xbox one version from Amazon (it was $10 cheaper here).
Madden 25 on Xbox One - After reading many of the positive reviews on Amazon, I was very excited to get the game on the One; however, shortly after popping it in, I couldn't help to notice how glaringly bad the graphics were. As mentioned above, the 360 version exhibited poor and often blurry player and stadium models. In the Xbox One version, everything is much sharper; however, character models look like LEGOS. I also immediately noticed that the gameplay was sped up ridiculously fast (even changing it to slow did not feel natural compared to the 360 version). Also, the controls are horrible in comparision to the 360 version. You can no longer make sharp cuts and there seems to be a delay from the time you move the control stick to the time you actually begin to move in the other direction. It just doesn't feel right.
I was unable to get my ultimate team to transfer to the xbox one version; however, I may have been doing something wrong. I do not intend to repurchase the 360 version and I have already returned my copy of the xbox one version.
Also, I experienced a few instances where Madden 25 would cause a black screen on my Xbox One and effectively locked it up (this doesn't occur on any of my other XB1 games.) Also, there was a few times when the disk was not recognized (again, this doesn't occur on nba 2k14, forza or BF4).
Overall, if you want an excellent football game with excellent controls, gameplay features and graphics, you won't find one due to the exclusivity of EA; however, if you want the best available, I would reccomend Madden 25 on 360 or maybe even wait until next years version of Madden on Xbox One. Hopefully they will get it right next year. | video-games_xbox |
Madden Takes A Chance, And Succeeds. For Madden NFL 13, EA SPORTS took two risky chances to improve Madden for the future. The first was Connected Careers. While some may think that Franchise mode has been completely removed from the game, that is far from the truth. You can play as an existing or created coach or an existing or created player. Using the new Photo GameFace feature, I created myself as the head coach of Da Bears. Outside of my hair looking like a shade of the Joker's, it's really cool seeing it in the game. There are so many directions you can go with Connected Careers, and once you're tired of where you're at, instead of starting over, you can retire and pick up as another coach or player. Trying to constantly chase the glory of legends, and then trying to then try to beat your first feats with another player or coach really adds a cool dimension that Franchise didn't have before.
The second risky chance Madden took was the use of the Infinity Engine; which is a physics based engine. I didn't come in fully expecting the engine to be 100% smooth, and it isn't. There are definitely tweaks that are going to be needed, but overall it makes the look and feel of the game look fresh. It even creates a lot of unintentional comedy in the game post-play. Unintentional comedy isn't a bad thing if it isn't affecting gameplay. Once the engine is cleaned up a bit, it make the gameplay even more realistic.
As for other aspects of the game, I really like the addition of Gridiron Club; which rewards you for your past history with the Madden NFL franchise. The interface of Madden Ultimate Team is MUCH MUCH better than in Madden NFL 12. The addition of having a reserve pile to hold up to 1000 cards is the best thing they could have done. It makes collecting cards much easier. As for the commentary, Madden does a great job in year one of having Phil Simms and Jim Nantz. It's light years ahead of the first year we had Gus Johnson in the game where there would be a lot of dead air. While it can definitely be improved, this duo out of the box does a great job.
Overall, I am enjoying Madden more now than I have in the past several years. While not everything we want is available to us right now, what we have is great, and will only be improved upon in the future. | video-games_xbox |
better than some reviews give it credit for. I enjoyed the biggest loser on the wii, but found it frustrating. If the controller was low on batteries or if you didn't pass it in front of the sensor just the right way, or if you punched too hard it wouldn't register and no matter how hard you actually worked, you'd get a low score for your work out. It was also hard when they wanted you to put the controller in your pocket for certian work outs, and I didn't have pockets in the pants I wore to work out.
So when they came up with the game for the kinect... I was excited. I like that you can see yourself in the corner and see how you're doing the move, and what you can do to improve on the move, I liked the body scan thing. Someone reviewed that they're 5'7 but was told they were 4 foot something, and their neck size was 200 some "... that reviewer probaby did something wrong.
I'm right at about 5'7". (in fact, my doctor last said I came in at just under 5'7" but he rounded it up.) and the game registered me at 5'6". no matter my actual height, that's nearly right one. The scan also got my neck and hip inches right on the mark. (I measured myself and yes, they were right on.) So the scan does work. At least it did for me.
The game itself is pretty good too. Push yourself and you can work up a really good sweat. I also like the fact that every so often they ask you to record a video diary. It helps you keep tabs on how you're doing. Seeing yourself on camera, being as honest as possible puts things into perspective for you.
In game it will ask you how you're feeling and will give you usually three options. you don't have to stop what you're doing to use the controller to answer, you just need to say one of the options out loud as you continue what you're doing. if things are too hard, it adjusts accordingly.
this is not to say it doesn't have it's glitches.
When it asks you to jog in place... it's nearly impossible to do it in the exact rythem as the trainer, so you get a low score... same with the punch jab steps. It will always tell you to extend your punches even though you've gone as far as you can go...
but the glitches themselves are relatively minor compared to the glitches I always got playing Biggest Loser on the Wii.
I give this game an A-/B+
I get a good workout, I love the motivational tips, I love the video tips, I love the fact I can see myself actually doing the workouts in the corner so I can keep an eye on my own movements, I love the video diary function, and hands free gives you a much better workout than when you have to worry about not letting the controller fly out of your hand. | video-games_xbox |
Warning: This game is so bad it is dangerous. This is, in my opinion, the worst driving game I have ever played on any platform. I downloaded it free with the XBOX LIVE GOLD membership and I still feel cheated that this turd of a video game polluted my hard drive. I knew things were a bit off with this game in the opening scene of the game where you find your self racing away from several dozen cop cars (to get to a race), eventually I was near a farm and I could see horses running across a field and then THROUGH a fence (not over, or around, but through the fence). Eventually I had to cross river and I missed the jump I think. No problem, just drive across the water, there's no physics in this worlds, you won't sink...heck, you won't even slow down. Apparently I was driving Jesus's car.
PROS: You can easily delete it from your hard drive.
CONS:
- The real world physics of the game are non-existent. You can drive across and through almost anything without damaging your car or even slowing you down. Even when you run into something you can't smash through you still won't damage the car.
- The cars drive terribly. Any other XBOX One driving game will give you better driving experience.
- The graphics are strange. The cars looks great, but the rest not so much.
- The voice acting is horrible, but that could be due to the lousy dialog. It's hard to tell. The story is crap, and you get dropped into it as a character without any backstory, so they make it as simple as possible to follow along, but it all plain sucks. Why did they make this story? Perhaps a trap to get you to drive across this strange miniaturization of the United States. The country is strangely tiny. I really don't get it.
I've never posted a review of an XBOX game on Amazon before. This game was so bad that after playing it I felt bad about myself and life in general. I worry that if I play this game any more I might want to harm myself. For this reason I felt I had to warn others that it could be detrimental to your health. | video-games_xbox |
OK, but not quite the "Madden-killer" many were expecting. I have to admit that this game didn't exactly blow me away, but it's still good fun. After you boot the game up, you immediately have to create a team. I am a Cowboys fan from back in the day, so naturally I chose Aikman, Emmitt Smith, and Darryl "The Moose" Johnston. Unfortunately they didn't put Michael Irvin in the game, so I chose Alvin Harper as my WR. I just played an exhibition game to warm up.
The controls are practically identical to 2K5, but they added a few new moves and animations (like the reach tackle) that open things up a bit. The game plays a little more sluggish than 2K5, but it still feels realistic. I have seen some nasty hits and some great gang tackles. I also have noticed a couple of weird animations and glitches (for example, on one play my RB crashed to the ground about 1/2 second before the LB tackled him).
The graphics are just okay. I'll just say that is looks slightly upgraded from 2K5, but not a huge jump. I would definitely say Madden looks better. The customization is great. You have to choose a team name (more selections would have been nice) and stick with their assigned team logo, but then you can customize the entire uniform, including colors for helmets, jerseys, shoes, gloves, elbow pads, etc, etc. My team (Dallas Cougars) definitely looks like the Cowboys.
Another thing to note is that the star players do not necessarily dominate the field. I made some good runs and catches with my generic players. The star players do have some cool animations and abilities, though.
Overall, this is not a huge improvement over 2K5, so some fans might be disappointed. But, this is a good alternative to Madden or NFL-licensed football games. You just have to approach this with an open mind. If you love football and don't really care about playing as current NFL stars, then you'll like this game. The on-field gameplay is solid enough to keep football fans coming back for more. I'll probably hold onto this one just for the nostalgic appeal. | video-games_xbox |
So promising, yet so bland. I first got to know about Oblivion because of all the hype that surrounded it. Being a gamer since the long gone days of the Atari 2600, I don't tend to get caught up in the usual hype. But the more I learned about Oblivion, the more it seemed like the perfect RPG.
When you start off, it really feels like that perfect game. The world, even if the map size isn't exactly impressive, seems so huge and open to possibilities. NPCs feel alive, going about their daily routines, and remaining forever dead if you kill them. I avoided the main quest for a while, and experimented with the side quests. In time, you begin to notice quite a few disappointing problems. Some side quests are really interesting, but the overwhelming majority of them is nothing but go-there-and-fetch-me-that as one reviewer already mentioned. It feels empty, after a while.
So I moved to the guilds. The quests are usually a bit better, but there's absolutely no space for role playing. If you finish a certain guild's quests and become their leader, all you get is a few advantages and that's it. It certainly doesn't feel like you're a powerful leader. There's nothing else to the guilds but getting to their top. It's very frustrating.
My biggest disappointment, however, had to be the main quest. Apart from making you close the same four or five "Oblivion Gates" all over the map, there's nearly nothing else to it. Go there. Get this. Fight this. Go there. You beat the game. There's no effort at all for you to actually care for the (few) characters involved.
It's that overall feeling of blandness that killed the game to me. You can play for a decade (in game) and Kvatch - the city that is destroyed at the very beginning - won't be rebuilt, even if you rid it of its troubles. Its inhabitants will remain camped outside the city forever. After hours of gameplay, you begin to realize how little effects your actual choices have over the game world. There's just no real meaningful choices to be made in Oblivion. It's very disappointing.
And then there's the levelling system. Being somewhat of a "power gamer", I wanted to level up as perfectly as possible. Well, unfortunately, it ultimately involves choosing as "major" skills the ones you don't use much. And still, you have to keep track of how many times you improved each skill to be sure. Having to walk around jumping and healing gets boring after a while, too. The scaled world is also really annoying, as there are no tougher and easier places. It's just bland.
One thing can be said in favour of Oblivion: its world is beautifully designed and carefully detailed. As many reviewers have said, sometimes you'll just stop to watch the world. Not many games can do that. It's just a shame that the amazing amount of genuine effort put into it ended up creating a generic, bland game. A game that's beautiful, very promising at first, but very disappointing in the end. I'd still recommend it, I had some fun with it, but rest assured you won't be playing this game around this time next year. | video-games_xbox |
It's good! For those of you who like this sort of thing. Dark Souls is a very hard game. In fact, one of the hardest games this console generation. The game's difficulty is, actually, the funnest aspect of the game. Those, who where fans of the Demon Souls, will enjoy this game. XBOX 360 PLAYERS WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE PARTY CHAT WITH THIS GAME.
Dark Souls sheds fancy, fast, stylish combat, for a more realistic and slow approach. People, who try to rush through the game, will die often. When buying the game, keep in mind that each battle may last 5 minutes or 30 minutes. This goes for enemies you may have already fought in a previous level. The game plays much like a slower Oblivion but you take a lot more damage. Since you can die so quickly, this brings me to the next point, souls. Those who have played Demon Souls already know. When you die, you drop all your humanities and souls (Souls are the game's currency for merchants as well as trading them to level up you character). You can obtain your lost souls and humanities by reaching the spot in which you died BEFORE you die again. This brings a risk-reward aspect to the game that gives the player a ton of tension.
The online component to the game is limited to Player Vs. Player (which only works some of the time), Co-op (Good luck playing with your friends as it does not give you a choice. Most of the time, you will spend hours standing around and waiting for another player to "summon" you to Co-op), and a series of written messages in the form of hints or misleads (best part of the online experience).
The open world aspect to the game will have you scratching your head for hours wondering where to go. Eventually, you find the right way through numerous deaths. The lack of direction makes me think that it is just a ploy to get you to buy the strategy guide. Be prepared to brush-up on your google-fu.
Pros:
+ Difficulty and all around hardcore feel
+ Customization of stats and amour combinations
+ The game is as fun as you make it
+ enemy placement
Cons:
- Questionable/poor design choices (IE: The Gravelord covenant with broken PVP with a usable item that will disappear if matchmaking fails)
- Glitchy
- Competitive multiplayer is broken
- Lack of direction
- No party chat support for xbox players (There is no reason to take it away) | video-games_xbox |
Amazon reviewers are being too harsh. I think my title explains my opinion already. I've had this game for a few days and so far, I'm loving every minute of it. Could the controls be a bit tighter? Yeah, I guess so. Does it hinder the gameplay? NO! Not nearly as badly as everyone is saying it does.
I bought Web of Shadows this summer in anticipation for this game. I played all the way through it (did everything, got every single achievement, etc.) and Web of Shadows was probably one of the glitchiest games I've ever played on the 360, hands down. It was a huge sandbox title, and that was great. However, the last 1/3 of the game got so hectic that the whole game engine seemed like it was about to implode on itself. The game wasn't able to maintain 20-25 FPS, which I think is absolutely ridiculous for something released in past 4-5 years. It is especially ridiculous for a non-port console game on the 360, which developers always say is the easiest console to code games for.
Shattered Dimensions runs smooth the entire time. I haven't seen it stutter once since I bought it. The whole game is vibrant and beautiful, and it plays out like one giant comic book. I don't want to say the game is cel-shaded (although on the Amazing and Ultimate levels, it's awful close), but it's definitely something in between normal and cel-shaded. It's perfect for this type of comic-book game.
Did I mention the voice-acting? The voice-acting in this game is INCREDIBLE. (The voice-acting in Web of Shadows was horrendous, so this gets huge marks in my book.) I liked that Stan Lee was brought in for the intro. Another nice surprise was that they brought in Neil Patrick Harris to voice Amazing Spider-Man, which was a great idea and he is probably the coolest Spider-Man voice actor that I've heard in a long time. I'm also really glad that they brought in Christopher Daniel Barnes to voice Noir, because he is my absolute favorite voice-actor for Spider-Man period. Barnes was the voice of Spider-Man in the early '90s Fox Kids cartoon, and he is the voice of Spider-Man that I always hear in my head when I read the comics; the game automatically gains my approval just because he was a part of it.
So I don't mind that the controls aren't as perfect as they could be, because if Beenox did anything right with this game, it was the voice-acting and the art style. Oh, and the storyline? If you have any fond childhood memories of the Fox Kids Spider-Man cartoon from the early '90s, you will go crazy for this game. I can't say enough how much they hit the nail on the head with the story-telling in the cutscenes. It tapped right into all the nostalgia I had from being 7 or 8 years old on a Saturday morning. Totally awesome.
That mostly wraps up how I feel, except for one last point; I'm tired of hearing that people are knocking this game for not being a sandbox title. The reason why this game wouldn't work as a sandbox is because it deals with parallel universes (which was a great plot device by the way - don't believe the naysayers) and there's no way the game would have run smoothly if there were 4 different, completely functional NYC's coded onto the disc. I really could care less that Spider-Man isn't swinging around freely from building to building in NYC, because we got something in return for that sacrifice - richer, more detailed levels in a variety of locations. Honestly, in pretty much every Spider-Man game so far that offers web slinging in a sandbox environment (Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, Web of Shadows, etc.) it's been mostly a gimmick anyway. Were any of the locales really any different that you would swing to? No. Are the locales different in this game? Absolutely - every level I've played so far has been completely unique! So stop blaming Beenox for "ruining" Spider-Man. All they did was just try something different, and I think they definitely need more recognition for a job well done! This game is really, really good!
Don't listen to anyone who says this game is a rental / bargain-bin option only. Like I said, if you're a true Spider-Man fan who appreciates quality over quantity and can get over less-than-perfect controls, you should buy this game. Don't hesitate; just buy it. You won't regret it. | video-games_xbox |
A good game, maybe even a really good game, but is it a great game. This game is an experiment I believe. It's not a pure racer like past Forza titles but not a purely open world street racer, a la Need For Speed Most Wanted, Burnout Paradise or Test Drive: Unlimited either. Instead, what we get is a hybrid effort, think of it as the love child between NFS: Most Wanted (2012) and Forza 4.
Unfortunately that leaves us... somewhere in between. It's not quite deserving of 4 stars somewhere past 3 and a half as well.
It certainly can look like Forza 4, the race line is there, the cockpits are there, the visuals are excellent, but it plays like NFS:MW - without cops. And that's bad.
You'll drift like NFS, you'll survive head-on collisions at 130 MPH; someone will talk to you in a bluetoothy sounding voice as you do things that would kill everyone on the road including you. But it's never quite as ridiculous as Most Wanted, and that's good.
Well, good to an extent. There's some charm to the ridiculous.
Anyway. The point of the game is that you're in an open world that you can explore as long as you stay on the road, and you enter into the "Horizon Festival" in Colorado. Of course, this is all fictional, even the Colorado part. Fortunately, the cars are real enough and there are some great one to be had here. Everywhere you go you will be greeted by the excessive. It's like everyone who plays Call of Duty in collage has the month off and all made it down to this massive, state wide party. There's concert stages in the background, nightly fireworks and though there are never any beer can's on the ground, the whole thing reeks of the "dude, bro" lifestyle.
There are plenty of different race types to try and keep things interesting and a lot of hidden items to find, but it never really keeps itself from getting stale - but that's fairly common with most racers. Granted, they do try hard; you'll find yourself in challenges against hot air balloons, biplanes, WWII fighter planes and helicopters - which is a neat ideal and works decently, though I never have figured out how they determine who wins those races. It is exciting though, so there's that.
The Rally expansion is an excellent addition and does a lot to refresh the game. If you like RallySport Challenge you'll want to pick up that DLC.
The soundtrack, by the way, is touted as some big deal but I will tell you this - I think it's pure rubbish and after several tries to just get used to it, finally turned it off completely.
So should you buy this game? Well, if you like racers, yes. If you like Need For Speed, yes. If you like Simulations then no. However if you like terrible indie pop electro music and cars then yes.
It's a good game, and it does a lot of things well, it's just not a particularly great game. It's like when you date someone and you like them well enough but for some reason you still find yourself looking at porn afterwards. Yeah, I guess it's somewhat like that. | video-games_xbox |
The First Blockbuster of New-Gen Consoles. I played Beta for dozens of hours, and I knew immediately that this would be a game for the new generation to shine. The Ghost edition is spectacular. The ghost in this edition seems to be kind of small for the extra price. It's about 4 inches tall, lights up, and plays audio from the game (I've heard him say only 3 different phrases). It comes with a charger and instruction manual. Doesn't take batteries, just charges up via micro-USB. The Ghost edition also comes with the Arms and Armaments guide, which shows different types of guns & attachments, with notes written in. It's neat to flip through, but would have rather had an art book with art from the game. The gun art book comes in a nice little book case, with the postcards in a pocket on the inside cover of the case. You also get an 'antique' star chart (like a little poster, looks slightly distressed, not sure what it's made of but feels like cloth, super durable), steelbook case, season pass that includes the first 2 expansions (which are priced at $20 each on their own), and the CE exclusive ship, ghost skin, and emblem. As far as I can tell these are the same digital goodies that came with the Limited Editions.
Anyway. Since the game is enormous and it's only just released, I wouldn't want to comment on gameplay or story much. So far, the game feels a lot like Borderlands with Halo graphics. That is certainly not something I could complain about! The story is somewhat lackluster because they don't go into much detail. Gameplay is very solid, but with gear upgrades being almost entirely RNG, the game can get stale quite fast if it doesn't work in your favor. With the content that's out now, you could be satisfied for anywhere from 50 hours to 200 hours of gameplay. All this said, I would definitely recommend this product. I think this is a beginning to a new franchise of the decade. To each their own, though. | video-games_xbox |
WET Review. You get to become Rubi a deadly assassin who loves to kick ass and doesn't mind being out numbered. You are a gun for hire and it is one of your jobs that gets you in the mess that you find yourself in. Looks like you should have checked references on the last job you took, but now you get to come back with a vengeance and show everyone you're no one to be mess with.
Graphically this looks like a very good game. the projector effect, however, will leave you slightly motion sick after a while. You don't to get to see too much of it unless you're about to die and then its as if the movie is about to come of the reel. The added commercials for the concession stand were an interesting touch to the game, but had me rolling my eyes about halfway through. What I want to know was there someone on the development team who had a screw loose and decided to go old school with frozen pickles and such? You will notice that apparently all the enemies that stand in your way have all the same parents, that's the only way I can think of why everyone is basically a clone of one another.
The music was a fun surprise, a punk alt-rock type of vibe kept me from wanting to turn down the volume. The voice acting was impressive by names alone, sure some of the sections were very muffled, and thankfully there was sub-titles so you actual could figure out what was being said.
The controls were pretty crisp for the most part, the d-pad to change weapons, right trigger to shoot, x for your sword, A to jump, and B to slide. Utilizing these buttons will basically see you through the game.
This was an interesting game, I wish there was a bit more to it, or perhaps that there was going to be a sequel to it. There were a lot of good things about this game, especially the main character, a very good looking chick whose skills could put anyone down. The combat sections got very repetitive short into the game. You're going to find yourself, at least once a level, having to close these spawn doors, and defeat all the enemies. You'll also have sections called Rage Mode, which is where everything goes a kind of Sin City color mode and your main mission is to rack up back to back to back kills until there's no one left standing. To be honest this game kind of felt a little Kill Bill-esque. It really did fit that mold, but like I said there wasn't very much variety in combat.
You'll start the game off with your pistols and a sword, and as the game progresses you'll all of a sudden have a flash back to remind yourself that you're actually holding more weapons, and upon completing an obstacle course you can use that weapon in the next section. You'll find that you have mini-guns, shotguns, and crossbows. You'll get plenty of time to use those weapons when you jump in the air, slide, or do a wall run, shooting while doing one of those activities will slow down the game and will allow you to mow through your opponent.
Though I found this game a bit short, and repetitive I was still glued to my seat to get through it to know what happens. So I have to give this game a 7.3 out of 10. | video-games_xbox |
Not So Bad. Like another reviewer, I was warned about this game when I went in to pick up my pre-ordered copy, and the on-line reviews didn't look good, either. But I bought it anyway-call me a crazy optimist. Some caveats about my review: I'm only seven hours into the game, so I haven't seen everything yet, or even the ending. And I don't bother with multiplayer, so I can't say if "Two Worlds" is good or bad in that respect.
Cons: 1. Horrible voice acting and writing. It sounds like the creators of "Two Worlds" rounded up a bunch of random people at a bus stop and asked them if they'd like to make some quick cash as voice actors. And the faux-medieval script makes me think the writer has perhaps spent too much time at a Renaissance Faire; did people in olden times REALLY say 'perchance' that often? 2. Graphics are NOT up to par for a next-gen game. I've seen reviews comparing them to PS1 graphics, but I'd say they'd look fine on a PS2. The gamemakers boasted about how much effort they went to in motion-capturing everything for the game, but it looks to me like they went out of their way to find especially spastic examples of each species to motion-capture. And the character models are particularly unrealistic--apparently, the artists got lost on the way to the Uncanny Valley and refused to ask for directions. 3. The main plot offers nothing original, and rips off "Fable" quite a bit: hero-saving-his-sister-while-discovering-his-family's-secrets, standard-issue Video Game Plot #011. 4. In general, the creators of "Two Worlds" made a game that would have done very nicely as an RPG in the last generation of video games, but falls below everyone's expectations for what should be possible on the Xbox 360, particularly after "Oblivion", and ESPECIALLY since it costs $60. "Oblivion" set the bar fairly high, "Two Worlds" doesn't come close to reaching that bar, and seems content to limbo merrily beneath it.
Pros: Yes, I do believe there are some. 1. The alchemy system is fun, and reminds me of the system in "Oblivion" and "Morrowind" in the range of things you can make with it. I really enjoy making traps and using them on Antaloor's wildlife. 2. Stackable weapons is a great idea, and one that I wish more games would use--my character has one really good short sword instead of fifteen crappy ones, thanks to this feature. And the weapons can be customized, too, by setting various jewels into sockets on them. 3. Spells are also customizable, and the magic system functions perfectly well. 4. Unlike "Oblivion", the world doesn't level with you, a feature I hated in that game and am profoundly glad to see excluded from this one.
I intend to continue playing "Two Worlds", but, as you can probably tell by reading the other reviews here, it definitely isn't everyone's cup of tea. If, like me, you enjoy last-gen RPGs that let you wander the countryside on horseback setting traps for unsuspecting NPCs and hunting mushrooms to use in your alchemy experiments, go ahead and buy "Two Worlds"--but buy a used copy! There are certainly plenty of them available ;) But if you're looking for a successor to "Oblivion", hang onto your cash and get ready to be patient--Bethesda will probably have TES5 out by 2012 or so... | video-games_xbox |
Wickedly Fast, Incredibly Brutal. Burnout 3 is the best arcade racer I have ever played, and quite possibly, the best 'traditional' racer likewise.
With realistic racing sims flooding the video game market (Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport) it is nice to see a racing game this simple, and this accessible. This game is about fast cars, and brain-rattling car crashes.
Burnout 3's racing is very straight forward, and rewards you for driving dangerously. Racing towards oncoming traffic, narrowly avoiding traffic (think Crazy Taxi) and drifting around corners gives you boost, which you can use to increase your speed even further (emphasized by a nice blur effect). But driving aggressively and taking out your opponents is also rewarded: knock them into the side of the track or oncoming traffic, take them out, and your boost bar wil increase in size and fill up completely. Crash again, and your boost bar decreases, bringing a nice balance to the gameplay.
The racing is ridiculously fast, and drifting around corners and weaving through traffic is addicting. Better still, it's made more intense by a huge sense of danger... one crash could lose you the race.
The crashes, as in past Burnout games, are out of control. The cartoony graphics don't make them any less horrifying. That's the series' claim to fame, and it shows. Glass shatters, metal crumples, tires fly, cars roll out of control, grinding against pavement, smashing into anything in their path... It's something to see.
Best yet, it isn't just a racer. In World Tour mode, you'll see all kinds of events (many that you can play on their own any time you want.) These run from time trials, to Eliminator races (last car to pass the finish line each lap is eliminated until only one is left), road rage (see how many Takedowns you can achieve against three opponents until either the time runs out or your car is destroyed) to Crash mode.
Crash mode is where the debris really flies. Pick a car and barrel towards a busy intersection (with one hundred to unlock and choose from) and see how much destruction you can cause. Once enough cars block the streets its almost disturbing watching the speeding traffic barrel into the pile-up. Once a certain number of crashes have occurred, use the Crashbreaker, which causes your car to explode, causing more chaos, and allowing you to steer what remains of your car in slow motion towards power ups and money multipliers.
Best of all, this game has a wealth of unlockables. It keeps track of points you earn for driving well in races, monetary damage caused during crashes, takedowns achieved, and rewards you with cars, new courses, etc. for reaching certain goals. This not only gives you great incentive to go back and play some more, it is a satisfying way to work for unlockables.
This game, especially at its new lower price point, is highly recommended. | video-games_xbox |
Hated Campaign; Loved the Multiplayer. Aside from a SF title, a Zelda title, or Snatcher, I would have to say that the original Halo is one of my most favorite games. It was just so well done - fun, engaging, and it set a great mood. Even with the newer titles these days, I still pop in CE occasionally for a quick run through The Library, Two Betrayals, or The Maw.
With that said, I hated Halo 2's campaign mode. That's not to say that Bungie didn't work SUPER hard on it, or that they didn't do a fantastic job - they did. The levels, the AI, the music - all top-notch.
But I think what turned me off about Halo 2's campaign was the mood or atmosphere that it set. Namely, there was too much interference. Whether it was from Cortana, or supporting forces, or other characters, there was just way too much 'help' and 'presence' in the game for my liking.
I think that's what I liked so much about the first Halo - you were left alone for a very large chunk of the game. Your Marines were always quick to get killed off if they arrived at all, and you didn't have any "partners" you were expected to work with. It was just you, and this massive, lonely terrain you had to trudge through. Well, Cortana was there, but I wouldn't call her presence intrusive. She was more intel than anything else.
But in Halo 2, you have all these people you're involved with now, telling you what to do and where to go, and the game felt much more linear because of that. It went from dead silence in Halo 1, to sometimes constant commentary by other characters on what was going on around you in this game. Didn't need it, didn't like it. It felt dumbed down, and obvious became the name of the game, a trend I'm starting to notice with a lot of sequels and games being released recently. What gives?
Thankfully, multiplayer more than made up for that. And here, it *was* enjoyable to play with and strategize with other people. So despite my dislike for the crowded, overly simplistic campaign, this is still a 5-star and highly recommended game for the online play alone. | video-games_xbox |
Titanfall COD or Halo with extra bonuses. When I received Titanfall I was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the DLC was at the time FREE!!!!
This game is so fun,it has all of the action of a 1st person shooter with multiplayer mode but then add in the Titans and it just takes the game to a different level of blissful chaos.
Wall running and hanging as a pilot or double jumping from rooftop to rooftop you find your pilot as a more advanced and agile version of what you wold expect from a Call of Duty character, that is not a knock on COD I am a day one adopter of COD as an avid player of every COD game even from before the days of multiplayer game play.
Simply put Titanfall takes all the things you love about COD or Halo and then takes it up a notch with the use of your Titan and other perks like burn cards that put an extra ability for your pilot at your fingertips after each time you get taken out in a match, only 3 burn cards per match though so make sure you don't die often.
The maps are massive and the environments are majorly interactive, zip lines and tunnels all over the place.
Campaign mode is also multiplayer a spin on things but I like it, the weapons are cool and you get a chance to know them all because in order to REGENERATE , or PRESTIGE as we are used to it being called, you must pass several challenges with different pilot and Titan weapons.
As you progress you earn different Titan insignia as well as the ability to purchase different packs of burn cards as well as different voices for your OS in your Titan,my favorite is Sid.
There are plenty of different game modes I find in order to level up the quickest Frontier Defense is the way to go but in order to REGENERATE you will have to play a different mode because requirements always include a number of pilot kills with different weapons.
Titanfall is a great game and I look forward to future editions to what is sure to become a popular multiplayer 1st person shooter the likes of COD or Halo | video-games_xbox |
May not be perfect but still a lot of fun. Bound By Flame probably won't make a lasting impression in the RPG world like Dragon Age or Witcher but for an indie game made on a budget it's pretty good and worth playing.
The story while kind of generic is still decent enough where you don't lose interest as you progress. The graphics may not be comparable to some of the big budget games out now but is still good and I really like the art style of the characters and monsters. The voice acting is ok but the lip syncing is off. I've seen enough foreign films with english dubbing that, that didn't bother me at all haha. The thing I like most about RPG's is the character and equipment customization. When it comes to the character itself all you really have to choose from is gender and about 5 different faces and hairstyles. The equipment customization on the other hand is really cool. You occasionally find a piece of equipment here and there throughout the map but you mainly loot material which you not only use to make potions, traps, and crossbow arrows from, you also use them to form enchancements for your armor and weapons which will increase damage, resistance, etc., and also change it cosmetically as well.
The combat in the game is really fun. It took me a little to get used to it but once I did I really liked it. You have 2 stances. A warrior stance and ranger stance. Warrior stance will let you wield either a sword, ax, or hammer and allow you to kick enemies to break their guard. The ranger stance will allow you wield daggers which are weaker but faster, and your kick is replaced with a backwards dodge. It was fun getting into battles where there would be a few enemy types and I would switch between my daggers and sword. With enemies in the distance you can switch to a stealth mode which will boost your damage to enemies if they don't see you. It seemed though with multiple enemies you hit one in stealth and they all become aware of you. Would have been cool if you could keep sneaking around taking them out (maybe it does, I didn't play around with the stealth too much as I got further in the game). Your character is also possessed with a demon which grants you pyromancy (hurl fire balls, add flame damage to weapons, etc.). I tried to not use much pyromancy in my playthrough because I wanted to keep human form but I heard that with the more pyromancy you use the more your character makes a Fable-esq change into a demon growing horns and getting a firey aura that affects which armor you can use. On top of all that you also have access to explosive traps that you can set during fights like in Witcher. The only thing that really gave me trouble in the combat was the lock on. You can lock on an enemy sort of like in Dark Souls by clicking the R3 joystick and you're supposed to be able to cycle through the enemies on screen but that didn't always work for me. There were a few times where I couldn't change the enemy I was locked on to so I had to click the R3 stick to disengage the lock on, position myself better to the enemy I wanted to fight, and lock on again.
There are also companions that you'll get in the game. The typical RPG bunch. Mage, warrior, archer, healer. You can talk to them when you're in town and form relationships with them. Not as deep as something like Mass Effect though. You can also take one of them out with you when ever you leave the little hub area. Unfortunately (in my opinion) they aren't that helpful at all. Even when I would tell them to defend more they would get taken out quickly and once they're down they're down until the fight is over. You can't revive them. When the fight is over they pop back up with full health again. So, more or less they're just cannon fodder.
I didn't come across to many hiccups in the game. Once in the beginning I was fighting and both allies and monsters vanished from the screen for a few seconds before they popped back in. When I was in a town I looted a crate in a corner and a npc walked up behind me trapping me against the wall for a minute until he walked off again. And once or twice I went up to talk to a npc and I'd hold a conversation with him/her standing awkwardly on the other side of the room with my back towards them staring at a wall as I talked. Besides those few things I didn't experience any freezing or any other glitches.
All in all Bound By Flame is a good game for the price. It may not be the best RPG but it's definitely a fun one. There's also different endings which make playing it again worth while. Replayability is always a plus in my book. | video-games_xbox |
Fantastic and fun game. Anyone can play it, and enjoy it. Race on. I am a massive fan of both this game and its predecessor. After putting in around 400 hours in this game and 300 in the first, I can say that both are fantastic value. While objectively I believe I have to say the first game outshines the second, subjectively I will say I have enjoyed playing this game more. Forza Horizon's multiplayer was revolutionary in the racing game world. Its "Playground" games were new, exciting and endlessly fun. If Forza Horizon 2 lacks anything from the first game, it is the multiplayer. Playground games are hard to access, and the map itself is not exactly perfect for free roam with many other players as it is simply too big. Regardless, the multiplayer is still solid enough, featuring a voting system where players choose a championship that is 4 random events, which could be Playground games (King of the Hill or Infected) or races, or a combination. The game's graphics are simply stunning. Every tiny detail in mind boggling. Interiors of obscure cars are perfect down to every nook and cranny. (My favorite small detail of Horizon 2 is that your windshield wipers turn off when driving through a tunnel!) The car selection is fantastic and has something for lovers of all kinds of cars, from your hypercars of the 2015s to your classics of the mid 20th century. The player progression system is fair enough, but very simple, if you could consider that a downside, so be it. A player "ranks" up through experience, which is gained from races, events and skill combos. As is with the Forza Horizon franchise, the vinyl creator is weak compared to the Forza Motorsport series. The garage you detail cars in has strange lighting effects, making the shapes you are applying hard to see at times. Forza Horizon 2's difficulty settings are just as fantastic and diverse as the first game's, allowing the newest player or the most elite Forza veteran to enjoy the game their way. The age-old argument against this series is that it is too arcade-racer-esque. That is about as subjective as an opinion gets, I cannot convince you to play it if you enjoy racing simulators more.
Overall, out of a 10 scale, I give both this game and its predecessor a 9. | video-games_xbox |
Why I Love Halo. I was so excited when I heard Halo Reach was coming out that I checked the release date on Amazon many times. But what was so funny about doing that was that I forgot about Halo Reach until it came to me in September "this is the month Halo Reach is coming out." I finally went to my local store to get Reach.
Might be some Spoilers ahead.
I first played Campaign on easy so that I could enjoy the story and not feel frustrated by having a hard time on a mission. The graphics are very well done and sometimes I need to stop and appreciate the hard work that was put into the design of games. There are many different environments in campaign and each environment is very different from the rest. I really like all of the missions except two of then. One of them where you are in space in I believe to be a Sabre and have to shot attacking ememies, at first I thought this mission was a breath of fresh air which it is but it seemed to go on longer than I would like. The second one that seemed boring to me was when having to pilot a Falcon around a city filled with skyscrapers and having to do certain tasks. Again I liked the idea and was fun but seemed to last longer than I wanted. The variety of the missions was fabulous and I never got bored of the game. Even with those two missions that didn't excite me like the rest, I still was motivated to finish the game.
There is also armor abilities that make the game more interesting and add more variety with your plans in campaign and online play. The abilities are Jet Pack, Sprint, Holographic Decoy, Active Camouflage, Drop Shield, Armor Lock, and Evade. Jet Pack is very nice for wanting to fly around or to get to high places, but this ability isn't my favorite because in online play I seem to die pretty fast up in air with no protection. Sprint is what I use a lot to get to places quickly or to sneak up on people fast but sprint can be heard by the opponent. Holographic Decoy gives you the ability to project an imagine of yourself to where you point it to go. This can be pretty easy to tell which is real or decoy but can still be fooling. Active Camouflage is my favorite, you can "camouflage" into your environment. This is a fooling ability which can work pretty well if still but when moving you have a higher chance of being spot. Once someone sees you and reacts with bullets your camouflage becomes even easier to spot. Drop Shield is a shield that protects you from bullets while healing but ememies can walk right through it. Armor Lock gives you the ability to heal but while healing you can't move. I don't use it much because your opponent then prepares for the kill. Evade is much like sprint but is more like a rapid slide to where you want to go, I find this very hard to control then sprint.
There is also a wide selection of guns and I mostly prefer the UNSC weapons than the Covenant. My favorite UNSC weapon is the Shotgun, I seem to be most effective with it and when I have to use Covenant weapons I use the Needler for fast kills. Also other great weapons are the Covenant's Energy Sword and Gravity Hammer, both are great for fast kills but the spree can be over fast. There are also wide selections of vehicles for both UNSC and Covenant. And there is 8 different species of Covenant.
The controls are very comfortable to me and I also like how the controls are realistic. For instance, when needing to crouch you press down "L". This first seemed annoying to me but it does add more realism to your actions.
Now enough of the specifics, my favorite thing to do and most spent with is the Halo Reach Xbox Live. Xbox Live does cost but is so worth it when playing Slayer online. Halo Reach online has many different games to keep me interested and is something I do everyday, no kidding. Paying the $50 a year is something that doesn't annoy me because Xbox Live is where you get the most of your game. You can also play multiple player online, which is really fun but when having 4 players and even a 50 inch TV, I still want my screen to be bigger.
The 5 star rating is really for the online play because without it, I wouldn't be so crazy about the game. I find myself changing my armor, getting new upgrades, and wanting to get a higher ranking.
Halo Reach is what I want in a video game, it is what makes a ranking for a great game, and it is why I am writing this review right now. | video-games_xbox |
Just OK when poor coding and defective disks don't stop you from playing. First and foremost, it should be apparent to anyone that plays this game that EA spent very little money developing this title other than paying out for the NFL exclusive license. The overall presentation is lacking and pales in comparison to the current generation games for the Xbox and PS2 and is not even in the same ballpark as the, now defunct, 2k series. Absolutely no effort went in to making you feel like your watching an NFL game on Sunday. The announcer makes me miss the mindless ramblings of John Madden, which in itself is a bad sign of things to come. The popular franchise mode is as deep as the first Playstation One (NOT PS2) versions of the franchise. All of this is very sad considering EA has a licensing agreement with ESPN.
Gameplay wise, I must admit I did enjoy myself. The game plays a little more open than its current generation cousins, allowing a few more big plays here and there. Controls are responsive and intuitive after a small learning curve. Play selection does not seem as robust as current gen offerings but not a big issue.
Now for my biggest complaint: disk and code quality. Bottom line this game is unstable at best. The game will regularly crash and freeze right in the middle of games or even menus. I have gone through 4 copies which I have tried on multiple XBOX 360 systems (that play all other games normally with no issues) and have met with the same frustrating results. EA contends that this is a system issue but sadly, that doesn't add up. On my fourth copy, received directly from EA, I received a 'disk error' message the first time I put the disk in. When asked for a refund EA refused and only offered me another copy of the same inferior product.
On a positive note, AMAZON. COM replaced my first disk with such speed that I had a new copy of the game before my old copy was even mailed back to them. Great service on Amazon's part.
Bottom line: it is a sad day when you feel like you've accomplished something by making it through one single game without having to hard reset your XBOX 360 system because a game crash or freeze. I will never by another EA product again. I also have expressed as much to the NFL and hope the rest of you do as well. | video-games_xbox |
Simply Fun and Exciting. I was new to the Splinter Cell universe upon playing this game, though I have gone back to play Double Agent and am playing through that currently. My newness to the series is probably what allowed me to enjoy it so much. If you are looking for the old style of gameplay, you may well be disappointed, but if so you are only preventing yourself from enjoying an amazing game. Conviction is far more focused on killing than Double Agent and I am assuming other titles in the series, which emphasized nonlethal takedowns and complete evasion. The Mark and Execute feature both facilitates and demonstrates this new emphasis. It also fits within the storyline. Ultimately, this makes the game more of an action title than Splinter Cell titles used to be, but what an action title it is. And don't get me wrong - stealth is still an incredibly important part of the gameplay, it is simply that you will have to effectively mix stealth and gunplay. You will still go down quickly if you try to take on several enemies, but now you can easily take on one or two. Many comparisons have been made to Batman: Arkham Asylum in this regard, and in regard to the combat in general, and this is accurate - you will enter an area with a number of enemies and, just as you had gargoyles, multiple entrances, and multiple levels in Batman: AA, you will have pipes, walls, ceilings, entrances, levels, etc to play with in Splinter Cell: Conviction. You also similarly get many gadgets to play with. These are awesome. In my first playthrough through the main campaign I didn't use them much, but they are actually thoughtfully implemented and there are limitless ways to use them. The EMP is a favorite, as is the very cool sticky camera, which you can get extremely creative with. This game seriously rewards multiple playthroughs, and each one will be completely different from the others if you approach situations differently, which is possible in almost every area.
A lot of fuss has been made about this game's length. The main game is somewhere between 6-8 hours long, which isn't much, but as I said, the game begs for multiple playthroughs. I actually enjoyed it more the second time around, on the hardest difficulty setting (the various difficulty settings dramatically change the way the game plays too). Everyone also needs to understand that the co-op gameplay is an entirely new storyline with entirely new locations and characters. It is basically another entire game. This is easily another 4-5 hours and I actually liked it better than the main campaign. The areas in the co-op story can also be played in the various Deniable Ops modes, of which Hunter is the best. So, if you don't have a buddy to play along, you can still see the rest of the game this way - though I seriously recommend playing with someone on XBox Live - it is an amazing experience. The Hunter mode is all about tactical prowess, planning, and stealth though, and this is where I have spent most of my time after completing the main campaign and co-op campaign. I must have put 10-20 hours into this mode, and I have finally finished all of the extremely cool challenges the game has in store (called PEC challenges, they are something like the more complex challenges in CoD: MW2, but in my opinion more creative and varied, i.e. they aren't all 'kill something this way with this thing' or 'run this far,'). They offer a feeling of real accomplishment and many of them will actually give you ideas about how to effectively sneak around and whack baddies ('kick down a door to eliminate the enemy on the other side,' etc.) Some also take serious skill, like getting through an entire level with no detections. All in all, the single player and co-op stories may only add up to about 12 hours, but you will easily get 30+ gameplay hours out of this title (It certainly helps that Ubisoft is currently offering free weekly DLC for this title too). And every one of those hours will be incredibly fun.
And that is what really matters - how much fun this game is. Call out whatever flaws you will, but like Borderlands six months ago - another outrageously fun title that nevertheless was picked apart - this game's few flaws are impossible to notice while you are busy grinning ear to ear with the gameplay situations and possibilities Splinter Cell: Conviction offers. I haven't enjoyed sitting down to my XBox this much in a quite some time. Definitely pick it up. | video-games_xbox |
Great Game--Tired of Killing as the Only Solution. Great game. Beautiful scenery. The idea of a floating city-marvelous. The tongue in cheek comments about our society and religion- priceless. The concept of multiple timelines and dimensions was awesome. But shame they didn't incorporate at least one without violence. If you are the average gamer you will likely love this game. If you have grown tired of games that use killing as the only solution to everything and are looking to do more than combine various weapon to kill more and better it will perhaps lead you to ask a few questions.
I enjoyed the jabs at political and social engineering propaganda. I even appreciated the fact that it showed political change as just another bloody power lust and the rather mystical ending. The people who put this game together seem to be both politically and socially aware. I just wish they would have spent a bit more time exploring the positive side of that mystical element and not fall prey to shooting everything in sight...like 90% of the games available for the XBOX.
Isnt it time that gaming embrace more than dumb puzzles and gunplay. I wanted to finish the game so I could write this review, and it had a good ending, but I really had to force myself to keep killing everything in sight. Arent we over killing yet?? The folks who did this game are obviously very bright. How about a sequel where the fight for freedom ends in a society where we don't buy into a choice between two types of violence and imprisonment. Can we visit a lighthouse that looks more like Frescos Venus Project??? Can we combine political intrigue with plots to liberate free energy from corporations and end with a better world? No one is writing games that show the real struggle of going from a consumer society where most people live in poverty to one where our basic needs are REALLY provided for without trying to dominate others. How about it folks? Perhaps a combination world of the early Fable series with some quantum physics and positive social engineering. And if you accept the challenge please make it run on the 360 platform. I am not going to do the Xbox One. There simply aren't enough unique games to hold my interest anymore. Im tired of killing and solving dumb puzzles. | video-games_xbox |
First Impression: Its more Bioshock than Oblivion. I've only got a few hours in the game so far but I just wanted to give a quick rundown for people who were thinking of purchasing it
Basically, this game is bioshock. Steam punk + fantasy super powers, the art style is very similar (more cartoonish than Oblivion or Fallout), and the lighting is similar as well. You carry a melee weapon in your right hand and a ranged weapon in your left, and have the option of setting traps or casting "spells" or using special powers. Basically a less colorful less claustrophobic version of Bioshock. So far its very linear, not open world, so that's a minus and although it allows for stealth or for you to distract enemies, i haven't found anyone too tough to just run straight at and kill toe to toe yet so that aspect is somewhat superfluous
The back story is interesting enough but (so far) seems to be just window dressing and not deeply tied to your actions in the game. The controls are not the best; for instance when you want to jump up on a ledge or grab a chain it can often take you 2 or 3 tries to find the exact spot you need to stand in in order to get the "push A to climb" message, or whatever it is.
Voice acting and dialogue are not horrible but not great either. The character models are frequently weird looking, like a person with a too-small head or too-big arms or too-small legs. Seems like they were assembled from stock body parts and sometimes are obviously mis-matched
Not to be all negative or anything but so far (and obviously it could get better) I'm not really impressed with this title over all. It seems like a bargain quality game, like a knock off of bioshock or two worlds, and I wish I hadn't spent $60 on it
The #1 most important thing for you to realize when you are deciding whether or not to buy this is that Bethesda did not make this game, they published it after someone else made it. Don't expect that oblivion level of quality, don't expect that level of polish, don't expect those graphics, don't expect a deep game that you can play for 200 hours. Go into this thinking Risen, the first one, and you're probably gonna be closer to the mark. Very derivative and not anything special or innovative, but solid enough if you just want something to play for awhile
I'll be happy to update the review as I move through the game, but as of today that's my impression of it. Hope that helps you | video-games_xbox |
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