Split (3)

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FANS OF THE SERIES...PLEASE DO NOT BUY . THE AC FRANCHISE "WAS" MY FAVORITE GAME SERIES UNTIL NOW... ALTHOUGH FLAWED IN WAYS I LOVED MY COLLECTION AND LOOKED FORWARD TO WHERE THE SERIES WAS HEADING... LITTLE DID I KNOW IT WAS THE TOILET... BEN FRANKLIN AND GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD BE DISGRACED BY THIS... FANS OF HISTORY WOULD NOT EVEN BE ABLE TO APPRECIATE THE MESS THEY HAVE MADE OF THIS TERRIBLY BORING GAME... TO BE HONEST THEY SHOULD HAVE NAMED THIS GAME SOMETHING ELSE ALL TOGETHER SO "REAL" FANS OF AC WOULD NOT HAVE AN EXPECTATION AND BE LET DOWN... I HAVE BEEN STABBED BY THE HIDDEN BLADE !!! THEY SHOULD HAVE LET IT DIE WITH EZIO IF THIS IS WHAT IT HAS COME TO... THEY CHANGED EVERYTHING, I GET THAT THERE HAS TO BE PROGRESSION AND I ACCEPT THAT BUT IT SEEMS THEY TRIED TOO HARD TO FIX THINGS THAT WERE NOT BROKEN TO MAKE THAT NEW FEELING... THERE IS NO FLOW TO THE GAME WHATSOEVER... ITS SUCH A MESS I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START: THE MENUS, THE FIGHTING, NO LOCK ON TARGET, CONTROLL LAYOUT, ETC... FROM THE BEGINNING I FELT SOMETHING WAS OFF WHEN I WASN'T PLAYING THE CHARACTER ON THE COVER THAT EVERYONE BOUGHT THE GAME TO PLAY... WHICH I CAUGHT ON IT WAS FOR TUTORIAL PURPOSES WITH A BACKSTORY... CLEVER IDEA BUT IT FAILED MISERABLY... IT WAS WAY TOO LONG AND IT JUST PISSES YOU OFF AFTER AWHILE...TO BE HONEST I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED A CUTSCENE ON ALL OF THAT... BUT SEVERAL HOURS OF THAT UNTIL THE MAIN CHARACTER IS EVEN INTRODUCED AND YOU STILL DON'T GET THE ENJOYMENT OR FULFILLMENT OR SATISFACTION OF GETTING PAST ALL OF THAT BECAUSE YOU GET TO PLAY "HIDE AND SEEK"...WTF... I GET THE POINT WAS TO TEACH YOU HOW TO TRACK... BUT C'MON GUYS... REALLY??? I FELT STUPID PLAYING IT... THE IDEA HAD SO MUCH POTENTIAL EVERYTHING WAS JUST EXECUTED POORLY AND COULD HAVE BEEN A MAGNIFICENT ADDITION TO THE STORY IF THEY DIDN'T DRAG IT OUT THE WAY THEY DID... LOOKS LIKE I WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT BECOMES OF DESMOND AND THE APPLE BECAUSE I REFUSE TO BE A PART OF THIS GAME... IT HAS DISGRACED THE ASSASSIN'S CREED LOGO!!!	video-games_xbox
A Poor Conclusion to the Series. *SPOILERS* Let me begin by saying that I have bought and played both Halo C.E. and Halo 2 for more than my fair share of hours, and I endeavor to explain Halo 3 to someone who is familiar with the previous games. Like other reviews have stated, the first Halo set a high bar for the series, and it is hard to recapture the feeling the player gets when first experiencing a new world like that of Halo. That said, it doesn't mean that any kind of sequel that follows will automatically suck, but it is harder to impress an audience a second time. In a similar fashion, the original Matrix was an impressive and unique film , but that did not in turn ensure a crappy conclusion to the trilogy--the filmmakers just didn't put the thought or work into the later movies, which is very much what seems to have happened with Halo 3. The multiplayer element in Halo 3 seems to be the emphasis, and while I do enjoy it, I feel the campaign is laughable compared to the previous games, primarily as a result of 1) a bad, empty script, 2) too little planning or thought, and 3) nothing new and interesting, despite some vehicles and weapons as well as a power-up feature that seems unnecessary. Allow me to get in to specifics. In Halo C.E., every mission in the campaign was set in a completely different environment (save for a few maps that were reused later in the campaign, but those were still altered by either changes of weather or enemies involved--like adding the Flood/Covenant battles in Two Betrayals). It keeps the gameplay fresh in Halo when your missions go from expansive, grassy hills and rivers to canyons at night, to on a Covenant ship, to a snowy Control Room, to a mysterious swamp. Bungie completely loses their momentum in level design by Halo 2, which, aside from Outskirts and a couple of other good maps, has nothing new to offer. On top of all this, they 'stretch' some missions so you end up playing two missions when you thought you just finished one (Outskirts/Metropolis a prime example). Also, the first "mission" isn't even a mission--it's a cutscene introduction! They put it in there to make it look like the campaign was longer--and they've done the exact same thing in Halo 3 with the first cinematic mission: The Arrival. The story from the first Halo is great, and although sometimes you can get lost in the missions, you have a general idea of what you're working toward or trying to accomplish. Halo 2 had a good story as well, but most of all a great script and great voice acting. The difference between Halo 2 and Halo 3 is I'll actually WATCH the cutscenes from Halo 2, because they're actually worth seeing. Halo 3 seems to put all the characters you know in dull situations and you end up not caring about what happens to anybody. I also don't like that they got a new voice actor for the Prophet of Truth, who sounds nothing like the same character from Halo 2. During the entire campaign in Halo 3, I was never sure what I was actually trying to do, and if I did, I didn't really know why--the story really just seems like a lame cop-out by the developers. The fact that the final boss in Halo 3 is the monitor from the first game is completely predictable, and aside from being a stupid "fight" where you shoot him 4 times with a laser, it doesn't make sense that 343 Guilty Spark (the monitor) sided with Master Chief in the first place--he actually says in Halo 3 that he has one primary function--to "help you, as I always should have done." ...... WHAT?! Are you kidding me? This moment, like most others from the campaign, are completely inconceivable for the characters involved. And why can't you play as the Arbiter anymore? There aren't too many games out there that downgrade their features for the sequels. I also hated that you don't get to kill the Prophet of Truth in Halo 3, whom you have been following since the middle of Halo 2--very disappointing, Bungie. Now I'd like to talk about the Flood. I know most Halo fans hate or complain about the Flood, but I have always welcomed them as an additional race of aliens to refresh the Halo gameplay. But the differences between the Flood from the first and third Halo is staggering. In Halo 3, brute, elite, and human forms of the Flood all attack and jump in a similar fashion to the previous games. In this game, however, when they approach the Master Chief, you can melee with any gun, and not only do they die, but they usually disintegrate as well.... In Halo 2, the Brute Shot and Energy Sword were the ONLY weapons that could make quick work of Flood via melee, but now, any old kid with a plasma pistol can pimp slap a charging brute, Flood version or not--even on Legendary difficulty. This is a terrible change, as it makes close combat with Flood not only too easy, but encouraged by the overpowered melee. The previous Halo games required a shoot and run strategy, which makes more sense when fighting zombies.... What I loved about the first game was the resilience of the Flood--I dare anyone to try to melee a Flood to death in Halo C.E. -- you'll receive one heck of a rebuttal. Also, you could melee a downed flood 3 times in Halo 1 and it would still get back up to kick you around. Fighting Flood in Halo took strategy, for instance shooting off their limbs, like Dead Space has since streamlined. Now it's not scary fighting Flood anymore because it feels like you're at batting practice with some dusty dolls. To wrap up, I find Halo C.E. superior, and Halo 2 an acceptable sequel. If you're looking for a stunning and coherent conclusion to a great game series, you will, like me, be sorely disappointed.	video-games_xbox
An A-Game that doubles as a B-Movie. Everybody knows those movies. The fun, campy action/horror classics filled with action, one-liners, and enjoyment. They are not particularly artful, but they are a blast to watch. Valve has created something truly artful, however, in Left 4 Dead- capturing the essence of these movies, and preserving it in a game. When you play through the solo campaign, you'll have some fun, but you won't really see why you paid sixty dollars for the game. Then you switch to the cooperative multiplayer... and what a switch. The game is wonderfully designed, both as a gameplay experience... and as a social experience. Control is never taken away from you, and you'll find you and your friends laughing at every turn, even as you all die. It is a rare game that can even make failure deeply enjoyable. Shall I be more specific? The game consists of you and three other survivors of a zombie apocalypse attempting to escape from various locations, depending on which of four levels you pick. These levels are multi-staged, so they're definitely not short- the demo isn't even of a full level- but that's not what makes them so enjoyable to replay. The level itself is basically a blank canvas, used by something called the Director AI to make the game a blast. The Director AI is basically a really complicated program dedicated to making sure that every time you play, the zombies are in different places, different numbers, act differently, look differently... so that no two playthroughs are ever the same. This is a hard idea to get used to for most gamers, and this has enjoyable results. The first time I played online, I found myself warning my teammates of dangers that were around the next corner last time I played... and finding nothing there. Beyond just capturing the fun of randomness and careful dramatic timing, Left 4 Dead shows you how much fun you can have by trying your darndest and failing. Here's my recommendation, if you're on the fence. Download the demo, and play the single player, on easy or normal. Then, go online with three friends, or just three random players with microphones that don't seem like jerks, and play on Expert difficulty. If you're not convinced, then the game probably isn't for you. But if you don't have fun doing that... I worry about you.	video-games_xbox
Probably my most favorite game...EVER. How do I begin? This is one of the best games I've ever played. This game is huge! The vastness is not really apparent at first. During the first chapter you experience life as a vault dweller in a series of short mini-quests. These little appetizers cleverly integrate the character creation process with the larger story. By providing subtle clues to the back story they connect you to events in the recent past that lead up to your eventual escape from Vault 101. So, pay close attention to what's said during your formative years. Some of that stuff becomes more interesting later in the game. Thankfully, circumstances soon force you out of the comfort and security of Vault 101. As you emerge from the vault you are temporarily blinded by the blazing sun that bakes the Capital Wasteland. Soon, your vision clears and the scale really hits home. There is a sense of infinity as you look down upon the remnants of civilization. Everywhere you look there is evidence of those that came before and let their world be destroyed. Burned out buildings rusted lumps of metal vehicles and the charred black bones of those lucky enough to die in the initial blast surround you as you descend the crumbling remnants of a paved road. Beyond the rubble, stretching as far as you can see, is an endless expanse of brown sand, rocks and blackened trees. A sense of utter isolation falls over you as the wind whistles and you hear the creaking and groaning of the ruined buildings and dead power pylons. Everywhere you look there are reminders of what once was. But don't let that feeling of isolation fool you. Hidden among the fossils of civilization and buried beneath the irradiated sands, are the decedents of the survivors in their many forms. Some are friendly enough, but most would be happy to paint the rocks with your internal organs. It's a dog eat man world out here. Every mutant for himself. The main plot is engaging. It's fairly typical and not too hard to complete. If you just want to get right down to it and "beat the game" you can probably do it in a few hours. I really love a game with a good story and this game delivers. As you emerge from the vault, you can start walking in any direction and quickly stumble into any number of side quests. Most of which have nothing to do with the main plot. That's the real meat of this game. The side quests kept me glued to the screen looking for the next clue or juicy piece of prewar technology to lug around. There are so many that you don't really need the main plot to have a good time. The world is ridiculously engaging. The more you play, the closer you get to near total immersion. Now, I get a little nervous when I see a real-life over pass and wonder what's really going on with that antenna tower up on the hill. I was so wrapped up in side quests, that I actually completed the main quest by accident the first time I played. Which brings me to the only negative thing I can really say about the game. The ending surprised me a little and left me feeling a bit disappointed. Without giving too much away the game ends with the conclusion of the main quest and left me wanting more. I enjoyed the game enough to play it again. This time I avoided as much of the main quest and just explored. The bugs that plague the PC version do not seem to be present on the XBox 360 version. However, the game would freeze up now and then forcing me to restart the console. I lost a significant amount of progress the first time. It's not hard recognize the symptoms of an impending lock-up in time to save the game and reboot the machine. I don't remember having any real issues other than that. After literally hundreds of hours of sneaking around dark corners and peering down bloody metal stairwells, I can honestly say this game is has a lot to offer if you're the type of person who enjoys escaping into a great story and exploring an alternate view of reality. Just make sure you have plenty of time to get lost in the bleakness because you will literally loose days of your life if your not careful. Except for the ending. I can't recommend this game highly enough. A game this big deserves an ending that leaves you free to explore all of the nooks and crannies as the Capital Wasteland's only tourist from Vault 101. - Chris	video-games_xbox
Namco has severely stripped down the single player experience in favor of online multiplayer. I'll be discussing various parts of the game in this review. ARCADE MODE After enjoying all previous titles in the series, I was excited to get my hands on this one. I fired up Arcade mode from the Offline Play menu, selected a character, played through 6 battles, and...no character ending? What?! That's right. There are no character endings in the game. Period. The only "ending" is in Story mode. There's a few more offline play modes but they're just standard variations like Quick Battles, Training Mode, and Vs Mode. STORY MODE Story mode can be beaten in 3-4 hours. You start off playing as Sophitia's son, Patroklos, and then you will use 2 more characters as the story progresses through 20 battles. Cutscenes consists of still black and white drawings. The acting is overly dramatic and the story itself is full of terrible writing, forced character archetypes, and illogical decisions and actions made by characters. It also gives the impression that a lot of the story is happening off screen. New characters are introduced but none of their background is ever explained. NEW CHARACTERS These new characters are near carbon copies of characters from the previous games such as Taki, Kilik, etc. They have only slight variations to their movesets. ONLINE PLAY I'm not going to go into much detail with Online mode. The netcode is much better than it was in SC4 so you can actually play online against others and it won't be a laggy mess. CREATE A SOUL Create A Soul returns once again but doesn't have as much content and variety. It's fun creating your own characters and unlocking items for them as you play, but you can only unlock them by gaining levels. So you end up just picking one character and repeatedly hack and slash your way through battles to get XP points to level them up. All the CaS parts will be unlocked at level 52. It doesn't take nearly as long as you think. At level 53 you unlock joke weapons and after that it's stickers and thumbnails. There's no optional Tower of Lost Souls or achieving X amount of rewards to unlock all the parts. OVERALL THOUGHTS It's clear that this game was rushed. It's pretty bare bones and has much more focus on online play this time around. I'd highly recommend waiting for it to be at least $15 or just renting it.	video-games_xbox
It's what I expected. It appears that Astro products can only be purchased through Astro Gaming either directly on the Astro website, here on Amazon, on EBAY and likely elsewhere. In all cases, Astro is the seller. I bought this for my gaming-addicted teenage son, because hardcore gaming presents challenges to the gamer and their family. My son plays first-person shooter games on XBOX 360. The best way to enjoy this type of game is to play "live" with your friends online. To be competitive in your gaming, you need to be able to hear the game sound, the voices or your friends (a/k/a game chat) and to also be able to talk to your friends. When you purchase an XBOX 360 it comes with an included headset. This included headset allows you to have two-way communication with your team mates during an XBOX live session. If you play with this setup, the game sound must be played through the TV or home theatre system. You can not hear the game sound through the headset. If your teenager is anything like ours, the entire household will be inundated with the sound of loud explosions and gunfire coming from wherever they are playing the game. So, you and your addicted gamer will quickly be looking for a solution to all this noise. You will begin look for a better headset ... one that wraps game sound and game chat all into one. Mostly likely you will try one of the Turtle Beach EarForce products. Since you're already spending tons on the console and the games, you'll probably try to spend as little as possible on an upgraded headset. My son and his friends collectively have been enough Turtle Beach headsets to fill a moderate size landfill. The Turtle Beaches totally serve the purpose, they are nice and comfortable, but they simply are not long-lasting products. So, finally, you'll tire of spending $30, $50 or even $100 on something that is broke in no time and continue to look for a solution to this gaming dilemma. That is where this MixAmp Pro from Astro Gaming comes into play. Astro is regard as being top notch gaming gear. This piece of hardware contains some circuitry (perhaps a sound card) that takes the sound produced by the XBOX 360 game and converts it to 5.1/7.1 surround sound that you can hear in any ordinary set of headphones. The connection is as follows: connect a optical cable from the XBOX to an input on the MixAmp, connect any headphone to the headphone jack and you will get the game sound in full surround, connect a wire from the controller jack on the MixAmp to the chat jack on the XBOX controller and now you have incoming game chat, add a inexpensive mic to your headphone cable and plug that into an input on the MixAmp and your voice can be heard by your team mates to complete the entire gaming experience in full surround sound. With this device you can hear directional sound. You can tell which direction shots are coming from. You can hear footsteps as they get near you. The real beauty of this thing is your choice of headphones that can be connected to the MixAmp hardware. You're not tied down to all the crappy headsets from Turtle Beach, Tritton, etc. You can get well made headphones aimed at the audio crowd ... stuff made by Sennheiser, Audio-Technica, Shure, etc. Your son can plug his Beats by Dre into it. There are plenty choice for the mic, too. We haven't had the MixAmp long so I can not be sure it will be durable, but it does seem like a well-made device. It is slightly larger than a deck of cards. We have played using a pair of Beats bt Dre Studio model headphones and also Sennheiser 280 pro and the sound is terrific through both sets of headphones. The MixAmp has a big dial that controls the overall volume and it has a smaller dial that controls the mix of game sound and game chat sounds. This option does present your user with a lot of wires, though. We've already tried several wireless options and it becomes a real issue with buying expensive rechargeable batteries and you still have wires ... just less of them. My son is old enough to deal with the wires. Astro has the product packaged very impressively to go with the very impressive price tag. The packaging is similar to how Apple products are packaged. Overall, it's seems like a well thought out device that serves it's intended purpose. All the cables you will need are included. You will have to purchase the mic separately. So despite a price tag that seem excessive, like so many items in the gaming world, we are quite happy with it's usefullness.	video-games_xbox
Game of the Year Material. Call of Duty has been a World War II shooter series made by Infinity Ward. Their series have won multiple awards in their 1st and 2nd series. But ever since the 3rd installment released, many have wondered what Infinity Ward would do to change the series. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a the newest, and hopefully not the last, installment of the COD series. This time the developers have brought a whole new world of military shooters to gamers. This time the game is based on Modern Military combat rather than World War II combat. The game features Single Player and Multiplayer game modes. The single player campaign is simply amazing. Right off the bat you will realize how amazing the levels look. The story revolves around the S.A.S. Military group and the U.S. Marines. The campaign is no doubt stunning and fun, but sometimes you will find yourself lost and looking for direction. Yes, there is a given compass to "guide" you to your objective, but a black strip with a yellow dot only goes so far. This is a minor problem but it will sometimes cause frustration. The online multiplayer is great as well. If you are looking for a great online shooter, look no further. The online multiplayer for COD4 brings aspects from the single player together into a fun social package. The online multiplayer features Classes. (Assault, Spec-Ops, Sniper etc.) But perhaps even better than the given classes is the Create-a-Class feature. Where you can specialize in special perks(skills). RPG aspects brought to a shooter is something few companies have done. But COD4 is praised for this. Call of Duty 4 is Game of the Year material. If you are a fan of military simulation, shooters or just have a Xbox 360, COD4 is a must have game. OVERVIEW PROS - Stunning Visuals - Thrilling - Refreshing style of gameplay - Great Multiplayer CONS - Lack of Direction in some parts	video-games_xbox
Frustrating to install. First off if you are gonna go through an upgrade like this you have to ask yourself first is it worth it? If your Xbox is still under warranty then no it is not worth it unless you enjoy tinkering around with projects like this. Second, if you are not familiar with opening an Xbox 360 and the internal parts then you need to sit down first and Google this stuff and get a good competent background and orientation so you have a good idea of what is involved. This project will take probably 2 to 3 hours depending on numerous different factors. As for my experience with installation, it was pretty frustrating. Now I'm not sure if there would be an easier way to install these parts and I don't have any better ideas but certain aspects of the installation really annoyed and frustrated me. It is very tedious and you need to have a lot of patience. I followed the instructions which didn't even come with the product (it had a sheet with a website where I had to go to for the instructions) perfectly. After all was said and done I got everything put back together and when I turned on my newly upgraded Xbox, I unfortunately got the 3rrod. Took every back apart to adjust the uniclamp a little because supposedly from what I have read, the trick to getting the uniclamp to work is you have to have equal pressure all across the clamp which is very frustrating regardless of technique. I tweaked and tested till I got it to boot up without a hitch and then after I put back everything once more I booted it back up only to find 3rrod again. After 3 more days of tweaking and testing and trying every possible way I could think of, I could not get it to boot up properly again after that one time. In fact I even got 3 different 3rrod codes throughout this installation process. Eventually I gave up and luckily they were having a black friday sale on Xbox 360 slims so I went ahead and just purchased one of those for pretty darn cheap. In short mine could just have been a problem waiting to happen regardless, can't really say now but if you have an Xbox that is out of warranty and has 3rrod I would suggest re-flowing the chips if you are familiar with that and then trying this kit out to see if you can get it going again. Good Luck.	video-games_xbox
Had me engaged for the time I played it. I had read some pretty negative reviews about Bullet Witch and for a time I had an ongoing conflict with myself about whether or not to buy it (this was last year, as of maybe Oct 2011). Eventually I bought it at around $8 with shipping assuming even if it was as terrible as everybody said it was, I wouldn't be at too severe of a loss at all. I was pleasantly surprised with the actual game and I personally don't believe it should be bashed at all. As a standalone title it's a perfectly good game and I can say without shame that I spent a good 15-20 hours on it, taking time to do all the playthroughs and max out the upgrades. The environments are impressive for the type of game it is, in that they are very large, spacious, and might I say even scenic at times, especially the one stage which takes place on a mountain during sunset. The entire game felt very open in a strange sort of way though the actual narrative is very linear and leaves no room for decisions or anything like that. The graphics of the environments are pretty good for the largeness of the stages, though nothing remarkable by any standards, especially when compared to some larger-budget titles such as Oblivion. All the setpieces (buildings, boxes on the ground, aeroplanes in the airfield level, garbage bags, etc) are all fully destructible and can provide temporary cover as well as serving as improvised weapons with the Will Power skill. The game runs on an independently-developed physics engine which is actually very impressive and is probably on par with the Havok and Quake engines. All the set pieces react to bullets and explosions from both Alicia, the character you control and the protagonist, as well as the enemies and the magic you cast. However, as the other reviews mentioned, there are some clipping issues but personally I didn't feel that really affected my experience at all (then again, I often play games like Skyrim and such which are generally rife with issues so I'm used to much more glitched games). The story of the game is nothing particularly remarkable and honestly, I can't tell you what the game is about anymore, even after nearly a month spent on it alone last year. It's pretty generic and definitely won't win any awards soon. The voice acting is bland but if I wanted to play a game that featured a high-quality story and great animations I would've gone for LA Noire or something alongst that type of game. Atari understands what it's going for here and doesn't try to outdo itself. The character models are as expected for a game like this: generally low-quality, wooden facial animations, stiff movements, etc. But as mentioned previously, coming from games like Skyrim, this isn't really much of a concern. Surprisingly though Alicia is very well-animated and her dress moves accordingly to her actions. Also, the dodge animations are very nice to look at. The soundtrack is great, and serves to enhance the action. Though stereotypical video-game music it can get pretty epic at times and nicely fits the atmosphere of what's happening. For example, during one scene at the end meteors are raining from the sky and the city's on fire, and the music swells to a chaotic, discordant din of scratching violins, and during the trainyard level, which is basked with radiant sunlight, the music is more gentle and evokes a sense of exploration. The soundtrack is pretty epic. In terms of gameplay, Bullet Witch is a decent shooter. The AI is pretty good, and reacts accordingly to your patterns of combat. They can rush you, flank you, perform strafing actions and organise relatively-sensible group attacks. On higher levels though, this can be the end of you, and many a time I found myself on the Hell difficulty constantly getting killed by a group of three foot soldiers that have set up a crossfire near the exit of a sewer. It can get pretty cheap sometimes but it adds a little to the challenge. Combat is much better than what people have been complaining about. Someone compared it to taking the gun of a first person shooter and pointing it to the sky but in reality it's actually pretty good. I'd say it's about the same as the view when you wield a minigun on any standard TPS with the exception you can run much faster and do acrobatic dodges. The controls are free-aim and there's no autolock or even a softlock, which may disappoint some people. My experiences with Bullet Witch were generally positive and I enjoyed it. As a B title, it's a very good game and outlives a lot of its competitors, such as <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/X-Blades/dp/B0014QAO4Q/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">X-Blades</a>, which, incidentally, I did not enjoy at all, and <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Velvet-Assassin/dp/B001BC948U/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Velvet Assassin</a>, which was very good but only if you fell into its extremely limited audience. Bullet Witch is an enjoyable game if you accept it as exactly what it is and not as an AAA title. I personally have revisited it on numerous occasions to just waste some time and have a little fun, and so long as you don't think of it too seriously, you should have fun with it too. For its price and entertainment value I'm giving it five stars, because it not only fulfilled but also exceeded my expectations. At ten dollars max, it's definitely worth a buy if you just need something to fill up a little space in your downtime.	video-games_xbox
An Essential for you Xbox 360. First of all, when i had the original Xbox i never tried LIVE because i didn't have a good net connection at the time(sbc yahoo dsl ewww) ..then came along Comcast's high speed internet service, then i got hooked up.. finally great net . it made me think of xbox live more. then came the xbox360 launch, like millions of people who got a unit. i FINALLY tried the xbox live service..and man was i hooked! try playing halo 2 and 3 on this, same with gears of war 1 and 2...you won't regret it! want to do a beat down ? try playing dead or alive 4 or street fighter online...its a great stress reliever. just watch out for that guy(or Girl) that spend their whole day on line you.ll get your rear handed to you on a platter...but thats part of the fun to a point ..think of it as your own arcade. remember those back in the day? (80s kid here) Microsoft gives you numerous options to try out their xbox Live service. for me i tried the 3 month plan(but i know ill get the yearly membership now!) i reccoment getting the gold membership, because not only do you get the option to play against people online ,you also get the option to download bonus game content for live enabled games such as weapons, maps(game backgrounds etc) or even characters, and lots more. ... you also can download arcade and classic games such as castlevania, pac man, Street fighter and my fav the original TMNT 1989 arcade game. these are done with microsoft points you get 400 included in this pack(game money think of it like that) i know some people gripe about this but hey thats a part of life, and its not that bad. also included is the headset to chat up and trash talk your opponants...its well built, but the sound echos a bit. personally i prefer not using the headset its distracting sometimes, but its there is you want it. sure sony, and nintendo have online services (im also a sony online member for my ps3 ) i hear that the Nintendo wii service is a joke...then again so is the wii.(nintendo USED to make great systems) Microsoft has the best layout of all the online services i was up in running in less than five minutes...it adds SO MUCH dimension to your xbox 360 experience..its worth checking out.	video-games_xbox
bioshocks are good. skyrim is meh. so bioshock is cool and all, but i have some complaining to do about skyrim... my complaints are mainly two: -the combat system: there is no locking on, no slowing down of the screen as your view passes over an enemy, which makes it rather difficult to keep your focus on a specific badguy in combat. i got used to this, but it never felt right to not have any way to 'focus' on an enemy. also, you can sneak right up to a bad guy, literally be standing right next to them with the crosshairs right on them, and the game will not identify them to you. is this really a bad guy, or am i about to slay a friendly merchant or mercenary just walking down the road? your choices are two: slay them and risk that they weren't bad, or alert them to your presence, at which point your sneak attacks are worthless, but at least they will then be a red dot on the screen, and you know they are bad. -scaling: pretty much every apponent in the game is scaled to you. some aren't, but by the time you are a third of the way through, it doesn't matter, 'cause they are no problem to kill anyway. this means that every quest you get and baddie you encounter will be of more or less the same level of difficulty. it also means the loot they drop is scaled. it also means that when you level up it means absolutely nothing, because every adversary just leveled up, too. oh wait, i forgot about money! every merchant has a limited supply of cash. good in theory.... but the practical effect is that you get so much stuff out questing, that you then have to waste 10 minutes travelling around to sell your wares to 10 different merchants, and remember "this guy only buys weapons... that one only buys potions and reagents...this one gems and jewelry". annoying. seriously the last half of the game was just a chore with no challenge at all, and only the storyline to keep me minorly interested. all just to get to 'the end' and find that their is really no finite end to the game, and the final boss fight spoiler alert is a dragon, and is exactly the same fight as the 3 dozen other dragons i had killed in the game up to that point. sadface. if you've got time to kill, skyrim is for you. if you want to feel accomplishment, excitement, rewarded for progression.... go with something else. how was this game such a big thing? i have no idea...	video-games_xbox
My thoughts on Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. The other day I was reading an interview with a game developer who said he wanted to work on a game with sensibilities that echoed the movie <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Heat-Blu-ray/dp/B0017HRJ04/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Heat [Blu-ray</a>], because no one had done it yet. First things first. When people fantasize about a "Heat"-esque game, I'm sure there's only one thing that comes to mind: epic street-level shootouts involving scads of ammo, automatic weapons, cops, shattering glass, screaming pedestrians and duffel bags slung over the shoulder. I'm pretty confident no one wants to play a "Heat" game that revolves around your ruined relationship with your wife and stepdaughter, or meetings in diners with arch-rivals. If we can agree on that, then I'm here to tell you that Kane & Lynch 2 is as close as you're going to get to a Heat-esque experience in the gaming medium. The entire single player story is one brutally violent street-level shootout after another, while the multiplayer modes masterfully evoke the tense feeling of being in a gang of like-minded criminals who will do anything to go home with a bigger cut - including killing their teammates in cold blood. Kane & Lynch 2 also inhabits its own game space with the kind of confidence few games can manage. That is to say, everything is of a piece and seems the result of a singularity of vision so rare in these times when games seem content to come to you, when it should be the other way around. So few games challenge players to really accept things on the game's level - also see <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Dead-Rising/dp/B000F3AADE/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Dead Rising</a>,<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Bioshock/dp/B000MKA60W/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Bioshock</a> and <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Demon-s-Souls-Greatest-Hits/dp/B002AB7TX8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Demon's Souls Greatest Hits</a>. Because of this, many people have criticized elements of the game as flaws that are actually deliberate design decisions - including the woefully inaccurate weapons you start the game with, the briefness of the story mode, and the nausea-inducing camera. That's not to say the game isn't without its flaws. It's loaded with them. But if you can get past them, you'll enjoy it for what it is, not what you want it to be. Two caveats: One - I did not pay full retail for this game. It's been out for nearly 8 months, so I picked it up on the cheap. This may color my opinion somewhat. Two - online communities are notorious rovers, and due to the fact that this game underperformed at retail, it's kind of difficult to find a lively online game with any consistency at this point. Still an enjoyable experience though.	video-games_xbox
Wheres the Rock. The first MTV Music Generator for the PS1 was a good tool for putting together original music in just about any musical style. You could choose from rock, techno, I think industrial, as well as quite a few others. Its only limitation was the wee little memory cards that were used with the PS1. So after the XBox came out with its 6 gig hard drive, I traded both my PS1 and PS2 for a bag of magic beans and haven't really looked back since. (Because of the memory limitations of the first, I never tried the MTV MG2 for the PS2.) Where the MG1 had many styles to choose from, the MG3 has 10 bands to choose from. Snoop Dogg. OutKast. Sean Paul. Carl Cox. Fabolous. The Ones. DJ Marky. Mike Koglin. Krafty Kuts. R4. (Who ARE these people???) This program kind of comes across as a big advertisement for these bands. You can remix their songs and create your own songs based on their style of music. All I really wanted was to just have some rock/metal drum tracks to accompany my guitar. But since MTV has tried its best over the past decade to kill rock and metal in favor of the flavor of the month product, it should come as no surprise that the hard stuff was omitted from this program. So if you like any of the "artists" I listed, then this might be the program for you. The MG3 is only $30 and does have some decent tools like an editor and "beat box", which is nice as I will probably just end up using it as a cheap drum machine anyway. This product might be right for the exposed boxer-shorts crowd, but it wasn't right for me. I would have rather picked up a cheap used PS1 with a bunch of memory cards and fired up the old MTV Music Generator 1. I actually find it funny that MTV would make a music generator, so it doesn't surprise me that they would put their name on a flawed one. I did half expect to pop the disk in and have it actually be a MTV Reality TV Generator.	video-games_xbox
4 stars is generous. There is a lot to like about this game, but to me it has some tragic flaws. PROS: The story is unique, intriguing, the world of 2084, the characters, amazing artwork, "big brother", the memory buying/selling/altering you can really believe in the future. The memory remixing is amazing and really believable and controllable. This is so unique and fun. Voice acting is "ok" but suffers by comparison to many of today's games. There are a lot of unique control systems, where you can customize your fighting, or shoot unique "guns"...though they are certainly not guns per-se. CONS: The game is poisoned by some significant cons. The fighting is unnecessary at times, and you are continually "thrown in" an arena. No way to avoid fighting, no way to hide behind cover, or even prepare yourself. You have to be pushed into the center of the fighting arena, and kill everything before you are allowed to leave...and you can't even touch the boss-like guy in the fighting area until you have killed all the others, or he will simply attack with no way for you to defend. After playing about half the game on "Normal" fighting difficulty, I had to change it to "Easy" level. It's not that I couldn't master the controls, or come out ahead after some effort. It's that they put you in these ridiculous fighting scenarios, an arena with no doors or things to climb or stand on, throw 6 guys at you while 2 or 3 flying creatures pelt you from above. And the cool powers they give you are continually disabled by some sort of stun-gun like thing. After about 30 or 40 replays, I had no idea why I was doing this. What point does it serve to the story or the game? Unfortunately, "Easy" mode is embarrassingly easy. I couldn't imagine losing any battle at all at this level. The Lara-croft like game play is antiquated here. I played the latest Tomb Raider and it was like soft butter. Remember Me is sticky and "on rails". You can't really choose where to go and you're not in any danger of falling off or not jumping right. The character animation isn't quite polished here either, by that I mean it's not as believable and reminds me of games from some years ago. The memory remixing feature, which is astoundingly good, seems to be so rarely used. Every person has this thing on their neck that you access their memory by, but it looks to me like a fried egg...orange in the center with white around. It is like they poisoned the best and most unique feature of the game with fighting, which is so common in today's games. I wanted an "adventure game" and got a "fighting game with some adventure" The pros are so unique and significant, that I'm going to give this game the benefit of 4 stars. But I can't honesty imagine anyone thinking it is better than that.	video-games_xbox
Crackdown 2 (or Return of the Orbs. A lot of reviews for the game are mainly talking about one thing: how unchanged it is from the original. That new developer Ruffian Games, taking over for Realtime Worlds, has left the original largely intact and added a couple of different elements and the notion of "it ain't broke so don't fix it" is not only the thought here, it's practically the mission statement. Well I'm going to preface with one thing: I've never played the original Crackdown. Having not owned an Xbox 360 since late 2008 with Crackdown being frustratingly unavailable in our town, the game never seemed within my reach so the nearer the sequel got, I figured "eh, I'll save my experience for that game instead" so what you're getting is a viewpoint on the game strictly based on the game's merits and troubles and not me constantly going "oh it's worse than before" or "this is still the same". So with that being said, how is Crackdown 2? Well I admit the hunt for orbs is a seductive mistress indeed but the gameplay is fun yet there's so much about it that seriously needs a tweak or 2. Story: <snore....> oh, yeah, the story, I'm supposed to say something here right? Um, well you're an Agent part of the Agency, an organization specializing in training soldiers with enhancements to keep the peace in Pacific City. But mutated beings called "Freaks" (nice) are coming out at night to mess around with the townsfolk and cause havoc and it's up to you with optional 4 player co-op to set things right, and collect some delicious orbs while you're at it. Graphics: When the demo was first released and having played it, I personally thought the game just looked too dim and the lighting and detail just seemed incredibly small but in the full game I brought the brightness up which did make it look better but this isn't a "holy crap!"-inducing game as some screen tearing, somewhat lack of detail and in frequent cases, some pervasive slowdown didn't help things. But the draw distance is really impressive and the fact I barely ran into a load screen is quite cool as well. Sound/Music: If there's one thing I can say about the aural parts of the game is that the word "serviceable". The main form of voice acting comes from the narrator talking about your progress and my god can he be annoying. From telling you about things he already mentioned to berating you about killing your own men even though it was their own fault and even him mentioning how awesome achievements are (as in Xbox kind) makes me glad I can switch him off. Music is barely there and in a couple of cases it pops up and it kind of sounds cool but it's so intermittent and so scattered when you actually get a chance to hear it that you just kind of forget it cause you don't hear it that often. On the other hand, I love that radar-esque "ping" when you collect an orb. Gameplay: Honestly, this game should've just been Orb Collector: the Game as that is arguably the best part of it. There is that kind of addicting quality that builds to it as collecting agility orbs allows you to jump higher, further and run faster with every level gained and I finally see why people loved this part in Crackdown 1. It's like "oh yeah, I got stuff to do? Oh well it can wait, I see some green things over there I need to collect". You can also develop additional skills such as Firearms and Driving (which unlocks better guns and faster cars), Strength (which increases melee damage and adds new moves such as a Infamous-esque ground pound) to Explosives such as using grenade/rocket launchers and thrown grenades. You can also develop each skill through different races and events so at least there's always something to strive for. As far as the non-orb collecting parts, it's okay but it's not the highlight. The targeting is still awful from the demo so if I'm jumping towards someone, I expect my lock-on to go towards the guy I'm jumping to, not the innocent gas can that's 50 feet behind him. Not to mention the game structure can get extremely repetitive and the way it works is on every island, there's zones you have to clear of enemies to allow as resupplies and re-fitting your character. There's Project Sunburst antennas that shoot a beam of light and turning on a certain number will have the beams intersect, to which you go towards that area, jump down the hole and fight off waves of freaks as a beacon charges up which clears the area of freaks. Got all that? Good now do it a total of 9 times. That's right, it's Assassin's Creed all over again and while this game offers more side stuff to do than those damn flags, as far as story progression goes, that's it and the game might as well say "get used to it, kid, cause you're going to be doing it a lot". But my biggest gripe is the building design and I don't mean on an architectural level. I mean as a parkour, climb-up-the-walls level. Assassin's Creed and Infamous did this right, have the buildings be easily climbable regardless of what side it was but in this game since the majority of your time will be on rooftops (chasing those tasty orbs, doing rooftop races or activating beacons), having a wall have a massive gap with no ledge to grab onto is stupid and not to mention having overhangs which your character bumps his head on and I guarantee you more than once you'll wonder why the hell this building was designed this way and I bet anytime you look at a building, your analog stick will be aimed directly towards the sky because you want to actually make sure you can climb to the top. At times it felt like Ruffian just made the game and any complaints that were made fell on deaf ears so now that the sequel is out it's like "oh no, you didn't like that? Well why didn't you say that before?" The game does support to 4 players in co-op and there's apparently a competitive multiplayer on the game but I wouldn't touch it. As a Canadian, we often have games priced at rather bizarre levels and for us, Crackdown 2 is priced at 69.99. Yes, that's right, nearly 80 bucks for a game many say is exactly like the original which you can find for 20 and under (and apparently looks better too). Is the game worth a playthrough? Sure, especially if you have OCD as the amount of collectables will drive you insane (there's 500 agility orbs and that's not counting the on-foot races, vehicle races, renegade orbs, freak breaches, hidden orbs...) but is the game worth the high price? No.	video-games_xbox
The reviews here don't give this game justice. Although the game does not come without it's faults, this is one of the best shooters I have ever played. I bought this game a couple of weeks from release, loved it then and nothing has changed, if anything the game is in a much better place now then it was then. The game is almost a Siege 2.0 at this point. There are many reviews saying this game lacks a lot because of no singleplayer campain or that the game was 60$ at release with basically only multiplayer but those reviews are not truly taking the game for what it is. This is a tactical shooter built around team synchronization using "Operators" which each have their own gadgets and abilities to either defend or attack the objective. Many operators synchronize perfectly with other operators and there are a lot of counters and rock,paper,scissors types of balancing. The matches are exciting, challenging and no game has made my heart race as much as this one. People who brush off this game as shallow without seeing what it is is not right, this game is well worth 60$ and at the price point it's at now, it is a no-brainer to buy if you like shooters. There is nothing like it on the market besides maybe CSGO and that's reaching. This game has so much more depth to it than almost anything on the market, the replayability is insane. Like I said, I've had it since release and still have yet to get bored of it. With Ubisoft adding operators and maps every couple of months, it never gets old. Operators shake the meta to the point where it feels like you're playing a different game. It does come with it's faults but it's not enough to me personally for it to lose a star. The servers are nearly garbage half the time, especially on PS4 but Ubi is looking to improve it soon. It also has a high learning curve and is not friendly to noobies. It basically requires you to use a headset as well, since communication and hearing noises in this game is extremely important. I've never played an FPS in my life that is so unique, fresh and has as much replayability as this game. If you like shooters, do yourself a favor and try it out, do not brush it off after learning for yourself how high the learning curve is. Practice is rewarded in this game and there's nothing like getting a good team together and winning ranked matches. This is UBI's Magnum Opus	video-games_xbox
Five Stars you say? Let me tell you why - oh and yes, DRM included. Hello there, So you are unsure whether to buy Red Alert 3? Well, I hope this review will help you make your mind up, one way or the other. Firstly let me say, giving this game 5 stars is sure to get me shot at by other Amazon reviewers, this is due to the on-going and totally fair DRM discussion. I agree that it is a major problem and must stop. In fact I am a suporter of hurting EA greatly in order to change their minsd, but this review is about the game and I will mention the problems as well - a review has both pros and cons, and this is no exception. There are sections to this review, so you can pick and choose, if you read it through fully, have a cup of tea ready, it is a long review, other wise just dive in where you please. 1. THE GAME AND TALK ABOUT GAME, COOL FEATUERS, PROS, CONS AND SOME THINGS YOU MIGHT NOT FIND EASILY BY SEARCHING ONLINE FOR INFORMATION. 2. A WORD FOR GIFT BUYERS! SO OFTEN NEGLECTED, THIS IS FOR PEOPLE BUYING FOR LOVERS, FRIENDS OR PARENTS BUYING FOR THEIR KIDS ALIKE. IT'S JUST SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE GAME, ADVICE ABOUT IT, AND MOSTLY JUST PUTTING YOUR FEARS AT REST AND NOTING SOME FEATURES YOU MAY FIND PLEASING IF YOU ARE NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT BUT THE GIVER OF THE GAME. 3. INFORMATION ABOUT DRM AND ALL THAT EA STUFF, IT IS WORD, BUT IT IS AT THE END SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO. We'll get started shall we? I hope you have a cup of tea or coffee on hand. -THE GAME- Pro's (in short): * Astonishing graphics, simply incredible for a relatively low-end spec ask. * Clever yet simple changes in gameplay have elevated it above any other RTS currently on the market. * Love them or loath them ... EA has done to an extent the impossible in two ways with this game. A) They have solved one of the age old problems that afflict all popular 'series' games - namely the problem being "how do we keep the game that made people fall in love with it, but change it so it is not just a 'upgraded' version?". They did this well. This feels like Red Alert in everywhere, yet it is profoundly different. We are talking about gameply here of course. B) They have somehow managed to alienate potentially the best game of the decade with a schoolboy error like the introduction of DRM. * Great actors, some famous names include Tim Curry, George Takei and Gina Carano. Usual loveable OTT camp acting is maintained and it is all so fantastically 'tongue-in-cheek'. * The game is vivid and keeps its 'cartoony' look and didn't bow down to temptation to make it too realistic, yet it remains beautiful including the best water effects you'll see in an RTS anywhere. * Simply immense fun, unlike many on this review, I have bought and played this game a lot. It is fun and the co-operative commander makes for epic battles - though on occassions you can feel very safe, when you shouldn't (however i've not played hard mode yet). * The whole thing is beautifully put together, it does not feel rushed. It feels professional and there seem virtually no bugs - I haven't encountered any. It feels very polished. From the fantastic almost 'retro' main screen, to the seemless video-communications during battles and fast load times it never once feels jumpy or like anything didn't have simply hours poured over its design. It feels like every inch of this game was given the royal treatment and it really really shows. * Massive campaign - this will add good longevity to the game. Also playing with a friend on co-op will be a totaaly different experience from playing with the AI commander so you'll have no issues doing the campaign twice at the very least. * The introduction of a third opponent has usually been a disaster in 'two-sided' RTS's yet it feels 'just right' in this game it really does. The storyline and plot to integrate them is also well thought out and enjoyable - and very VERY 'Red Alert'. * The game is unapologetic in its 'rough and raunchy' attitude and execution which is bold and daring for a modern game (with all the 'concerned mothers' nonesense straggling good adult games) EA has been gutsy in this release. It is also very 'un-politically correct'. From the cultural stereo-types to the fantastic 'eye-candy', 'one type for everyone' women brimming with sexuality which are a pleasing addition to say the least. If you are sensitive about anything like this - simply don't play it, you'll probably just wind yourself up. But it is meant to be fun and very tongue-in-cheek, if you want a comparison - think 'James Bond' films. I state again, this is all a positive, its a light-hearted relief from games that are smothered by political correctness - and before anyone thinks it, i'm actually a feminist and highly left-wing liberal - I find this enjoyable. It is important to mention this because a games atmosphere can make or break it, and this will keep you entertained and laughing out loud constantly, making you smile as you hear bizarre quips whilst crushing units with overwhelming firepower, go through the well thought out and amusing tutorial, and as you watch the simply brilliant smoothly integrated movie cutscenes, which are nicely numerous, they did not skimp on this. * Anything else? I'm sure there is more but you'll find it out yourself I think - however one last point on the pros side. The gameplay has been altered that as such, as of today, as of you if you choose to buy this game and istall it -... 'Tank Rushing' is dead! This should be incredible news to fans of RTS. You CANNOT rush enemies in this game, you'll get cut to ribbons. You have to guide your troops look after them well, and make diverse armies. Follow the tutorial, seriously, don't just think you know it - if you go online against someone having not done the tutorial you'll die. You'll also need to use the keyboard a lot - so I hope like me, you can touch type. If not learn fast. Knowing your way around the keyboard (whilst being able to view the screen) is really essential to be any good at this game. It may seem daunting but its really not, its worth doing. This is because the F key is your 'one-stop-shop' to your units vital 'second abilities'. Unit squads assigned by numbers are also vital. Setting differing unit stances during intense battles is also key and you need the keys for this too. In fact roughly half the keyboard will be used by your 'not-my-mouse' hand. Interesting things such as where abouts on a unit a shot hits is also brilliant for the gameplay and again unexepected and again knowing the key commands will be ...key (please don't mark my review as unhelpful just for that awful pun!). For example you can hit a key which tells your unit to 'reverse' course to a location in order to keep its frontal armour facing the enemy units. If you just retreat you'll probably get shot up badly as your back armour on most units is very weak, however frontal armour is strong, plus the unit can continue to fire on the enemy this way. Extras like this are simply oustanding and lead to immensely intense gameplay. Also ore fields are gone and 'ore depots' are in. You pretty much get 'one-per-starting-position'. This means your income is limited and steady, meaning no five minute battles - thank goodness for that! This previously along with tank rush ruined all RTS's - and Red Alert has circumvented this brilliantly. If you want more money, you'll have to expand, and fast. Even then, the way the game is balanced, its hard to just 'rush people'. So prepare for some intense, long fights where strategy will be really key. Phew! That was a long 'last point'. So so much for the pros, no how about the cons? Don't worry this is not a long read in comparison. -Cons: Firstly, my copy of the game and many many others shipped with only 19 serial key numbers, not 20. Now if your not very 'tech-savvy' you may not see the amusing and yet glaringly awful error here. The serial key should be 20 numbers and is ESSENTIAL for install. It is a rookie error of epic proportions. How could someone miss this on a game that is otherwise so perfectly fine tuned and detailed? Anyway, if this happens to you, just guess your last number or go on EA's website and request your last digit. I guessed mine in like 10 minutes, its only one number, so you have the alphabet and 0-9 to go through, not hard. But still, how embarrassing for EA. * Okay, now that is out of the way. DRM will come later, so this first 'game-point' is about the AI and the pathfinding. The pathfinding is not great, but most games have this issue and it'll probably be fixed in a minor patch - its not a big deal, its just minor inconvenience. To anyone not familiar with the term, it just means that occassionally units get stuck or don't quite end up where you told them to go. This almost only ever happens in heated combat or confusing situations and where there AI confusion. It only happened to me once in six missions it should be noted - but I need to mention it. The AI is also not astounding, and seems rather unaggressive on campaign, however it will defend itself to the teeth. This is a minor shame because I think everyone is awaiting that 'quantum-leap' in RTS AI intelligence but it hasn't come yet i'm afraid. I've not played Skirmish yet (a first for me, i'm not ususally a campaign person) so I can't say if its good in that mode. However there are plenty of styles of fighting to choose from and levels of difficulty. Playing in skirmish will be harder than campaign by far I think - and just wait until you go onilne - human to human play will be the mega-feature of this game, if you don't like that it is okay, i'm not a fan either overly but this game will still be for you. So no quantum-leap in AI intelligence (like we've seen in shooters) and the pathfinding can be sketchy. * Perhaps not the 'mega-change' from the past games some people might have hoped for. I'm impossible usually to please - I have given good reviews but I often keep only to writing reviews of games that deserve them and are actually any good - negative review bashing isn't my cup of tea - it just bores me. Its hard to be balanced with an awful game. So I myself expected this game to somehow have ... well like most people who want something 'incredible' to happen in a game, I'm not sure what I wanted. This is an RTS - plain and simple, you can't go wanting it to be what it is not. So it'll play like Red Alert 2 for example - ish very ish. But my point here is that don't expect what you can't quantify or explain, and this game will be great for you. * There is STILL no fully 3d camera like you find in games like THQ and Relics mega 'Dawn of War' series. This is sadly missing. Dawn of War didn't have anywhere as near beautiful scenery (In fact it always looked plastic compared to the incredible animated units) and so for EA not to take advantage of this attribute is rubbish really. I'm sure someone will create a patch for this, I can't see it being difficult to rotate the camera - but sometimes honestly you'll wnat to be able to zoom out further or in closer or simple rotate it more. My point is it rotates 360 degrees, but when you zoom it it doesn't 'just zoom' it goes in at a peculiar angle and it just annoys me and many other I know. It should just zoom in and then you can flip it straight up so you can see things totall perpendicular to the ground. But this is not here, and this is a long winded gripe over seomthing fairly trivial, but it is a pet peeve. * And that is honestly it. It could have more units I suppose and buildings etc. However i'm sure an expansion will fix this. One word on the new and very welcome 'support powers'. These are in the negative simply because its convenient and they are both good and bad. The support powers are gained not through necessarily 'achieving' things or purchasing them, they are obtained through the new 'threat metre' (very cool by the way) which detects how much trouble you are in, what the threat to you is, etc etc, how many units of your and theris have died, enemy movements near your base etc, it is just very clever. When you are in trouble this metre raises, and losing of troops adds up too until you gain points you can use to buy support powers. This is a similar but much much much better function than the one we saw in C&C Generals. Much better. It can seriously turn the tide of battle - perhaps too much..? You basically become a God and a Commander. These support powers are just horrible to go against. You use satellite weaponry, orbital attacks, storms or any number of other imaginative features to wreck havoc on your opponent. There are also powers that will upgrade things like money in take, and weaponry power etc. These powers can also be used in conjuction with each other. For example you can use a power which acts very much like a suction storm, it magneticaly grabs all units in a selected error and sucks them into orbit! This can be super-heavy mech units or simple troops (not buildings though). This 'tornado' styled weapon can then be complimented by using an 'orbital strike' style weapon which throws objects from space down to earth. On its own this throws down space trash and meteors, but if used soon after the tornado suction weapon all the units sucked up will plummet back down to wrecking enormous damage. There are simply too many combinations and subtletees of weapons like these (and standard) to be listed here - after all this is a 'cons' section not a 'info' section. However the negative of this is that the powers could be more diverse. So the suction weapon as I see it pretty much sucks up anything (it can be moved in use too) and yet the upgrade seems similar - perhaps it is just slightly longer lasting - but it can feel a little annoying. However there are 15 unique powers for each race and so you won't run out. The fact that also such a tier system exists taking ages to reach the top weapons shows just how long these battles can rage. So that is it! I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it helpful. Below is a comment on the DRM, EA and the whole fiasco - it is worth reading and is important in relation to this game. Don't just dismiss what others have said about this game and hitting EA where it hurts in the bank and giving them poor sales for games like Spore and Red Alert 3 which should have given them record revenues is not short of a worthy cause, if it changes the way things are done then all power to the protesters. I myeslf do protest, but I bought this game and have not looked back. I would suggest you do the same, I honsetly would. I gave it five stars by the way because the game is in itself fantastic - it truly is in many respects faultess. I will not mark it down on the external issues but by mentioning it, and allowing you to read it, I am doing my bit to bring much needed attention to it. Plus the amusing host of 1 stars given to this game I think have already done the damage and made the crippling point on the DRM issue - this game currently has an abysmal 2 stars - enough said I think for a game that should really be five. ADVICE ON DECISION IF BUYER: BUY THE GAME, READ UP ON THE ISSUES ADVICE FOR GIFT BUYER: BUY IT, IT'S A GOOD PURCHASE FOR EVERYONE CONCERNED - A TOP GIFT I THINK. (But read below for the full story.) ====================== A NOTE TO GIFT BUYERS! READ BELOW FIRST IF YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE PERCEIVED RISKS OF GETTING THE GAME: If you are a parent - I know it must seem sometimes like people only write these reviews for gamers etc, (i'm not a parent and don't intend to be by the way) - but I acknowledge some people will be buying this game for someone, whether you be a friend, lover or relative. You may be more worried about this 'spyware' etc than anything else. I think you should put your mind at rest, it won't scan your PC, steal your identity, monitor and report your pornography collection(!), check what you are doing, or start talking to you from the PC asking for your money or else. It will not harm your friends, lover or childs identity nor will it cause any problems to you. This is really a personal choice. I would recomment buying this for someone as a gift anyday if you think they like this kind of thing and they will be ecstatic, they really will, I am a young man just out of University and a friend nearly bought this for me (an advanced copy) but didn't when they found out my fiance had already got it me - I had myself already bought it too! And so had to return one copy but the point is I couldn't have been more pleased, and i'm hard to buy gifts for. This honestly makes an excellent present for girls and guys alike, younger and older (best for over 23+ really for the backstory and so on) and is a safe bet if they are gamers, they should love it. So I hope this 'mini-review-comment' was useful to you, the often neglected 'gift' or 'parent' buyer. Oh and if you are one of the afore mentioend 'concerned mothers' i'm not sorry for my comment, we clearly have differing ideologies, but just in case you'll be glad to know, it really isn't that violent, it has not got the squelching squish or pained scream sounds of previous titles and it isn't actually strangely that addictive. Because it is so intense your child is likely to actually ask for a break! Honestly - I had a problem as a teenager with being very obsessed with games and it almost (wisened up and stopped playing them all that much in time) caused me problems with my education. And it is true that addictivity of computer games is under-acknowledged really - my parents felt your pain, So take it from me, this game is not addictive. And I think addictive games are out really and will begin to fade away just because the playing style will be less repetitive and more complex meaning that people will want breaks and take the games in plunges rather than constant lengths. The game can also be saved at ANY moment and 'objectives' in the game are short and clearly concise allowing you to save and quit at any point, so there will be no excuses for 'not right now, i just have to....x, y and az'. So I hope that puts your mind at rest, also for those buying for lovers, this applies to you too, you will see your girl/guy - they won't retreat for six months and return sallow and twitchy. I hope once again this helps and puts your mind at rest. ==================================== THE DRM/LIMITED INSTALL/SPYWARE ISSUE: EA DISCUSSION AND COMMENTS. If you are wondering what DRM is and the Limited Install debates... where have you been?! But seriously, Google it, or read what others have said on here about it. It in short is a form of 'anti-piracy' protection that basically hits legitimate consumers hard whilst letting pirates of the hook. However a lot of hysteria is also present with this issue, and games like Spore were not anywhere near as bad as the 'scare-reviews' given about it. It should also be noted that on the limited installations issue (Spore gave you 3 installs) EA is perfectly capable of changing this at any time with a patch, and they did so for Spore from 3 to 5. This is not a great improvement but nevertheless it shows that with a simple patch they could even remove it totally if enough objection was raised - thought how much as to be raised and how many millions of dollars EA has to lose before doing this is questionable. As for discussing the EA execs, don't worry I won't too much. I do not like the CEO at all to say the least and many of the execs are equally as guilty of their almost delusion obsession with piracy and their unquenchable greed. However, it is a discussion for another place and if EA keep this up, the result will be simple: they will lose their status in the gaming world, and this feeling of invincibility they clearly have disappear quickly. Do not under-estimate the damage the community can do and the result of one bad game - it also works conversely. Giant companies and publishers such as THQ, Sierra, Relic, 2K Games and Blizzard Entertainment will simply take over and become more powerful - it appears EA have forgotten that there is competition. Once they lose sales to these companies they will change. So I do not believe the future is as bleak as many make out - and i'm a sceptic. The DRM (Digital Rights Management) limited install thing is a pest and a pain and should really be illegal. It is amazing they can do this it really is. It would be like purchasing a book and being told you could only read it twice - before it bursts into flames. The whole thing is an outrage but i'm not going to get wound up by it myself, plenty of people are doing this for me. I have bought both Spore and Red Alert 3 and have had more fun with games than I have had in years. Put it this way, in nearly 6 years i've only bought the Dawn of War series, the Civilizition IV series and the two afore mentioned games. And I would consider myself a hardcore-gamer (or used to be) - the point is games have been so bad in recent years they haven't been worth purchasing. However both Spore and Red Alert 3 have put my faith back in games. Okay both of them appear to have some content missing (don't get me started on Spore) from the origianl look, no doubt with Spore done so they can 'spoon feed' us the content that should have been there - this is wrong, deceitful and just ridiculous, but its being done. The Sims gave them the idea for this, YET it may also end this trend. Sims 2 was not doing well in the expansions in the end and piracy increased as a result because people for the first time saw piracy as legitimate who had previously objected to it: after all it is not worth paying $20 for a new outfit and some small featuers - unless you have the money or are say a parent and can afford it; my fiance bought Sims exp-packs for her 12 year old sister and it was warmly welcomed and I don't think a waste - but it is still extortion really. However IF Sims 3 tries this on too, I think consumers will not take it any longer, and you'll see its downfall and EA's painful bump back to reality. The fact that after just the second series of games based on this (Sims 2) people were fed up and angry about it says an awful lot and Spore has caused an outcry so great it has torn a gaping hole in EA's wallet. Things will change. Or the CEO will eventually be ousted, either way, the gamers win. It is an irony that the very thing EA set up to combat piracy has probably increased it tenfold. The limited install is rubbish. However it has not been a problem to me with Spore nor Red Alert. Also a point of interset, the install is only registered if you log onto the internet - it tries to force you to do this when you install, however my Spore install on my laptop messed up badly at the end by accident, the game got installed but the installation was not taken off my 'installs remaining' count. Interesting. However I noticed nothing go wrong with Red Alert and noticed no obvious 'installation registered' action and so it may be different for RA3. Again it is bad, but i'm not sure it is a deal breaker. As for 'spyware', i'm sorry but on this one I actually draw the line slightly. Companies may be being more subversive but the way people are talking about it you'd think it was some sort of 'world take-over' attempt. It isn't. It is plain and simple, its about advertising and generating valuable info on people for sales purposes. This is awful in itself and companies selling your personal details should be illegal but they circumvent this by asking your permission (buried deep, deep, deep in legal nonesense - which is itself treading a thin legal line) and you'll never find it - you of course can't use the game without out it. So really the bigger demand should be to be able to use the game without having to sign such an insidious contract. Perhaps a compromise of offering incentives and extras for users who'd eccept to have spyware etc on their computer. The game could be cheaper and say be a 'premium' or 'EA Loyalist' (a little joke for you) pack with lots of goodies. That way you can choose. After all you can sign up to many things and download much for free and that is bceause it has advertising etc, you pay for premium quality, 'don't shove that in my face and don't spy on me' privileges when we pay good money for something professonal, or at least we used to. A sad trend is simply this, you pay more these days, you get less THAT YOU ACTUALLY WANT. That is a fact and again needs to change. Perhaps this economic global downturn may give companies like EA something to think about if they don't want to suffer, they are after all selling a 'luxury' item and they are often crippled in global recessions - this will be no different. If you read this I hope it helped clarify things - I would still buy the game. Awful as it is to say this, but there are plenty of people fighting out there on your behalf and you should thank them tacitly for this, but to some extent their 'sacrifice' on not buying games like this mean you can. It isn't the best outlook, but if you want this game, buy it, if you feel passionately the other way, by all means reader, rebel. And good luck! ==================== NOTE TO GIFT BUYERS! (mentioned above too): If you are a parent - I know it must seem sometimes like people only write these reviews for gamers etc, but I acknowledge some people will be buying this game for someone, whether you be a friend, lover or relative. You may be more worried about this 'spyware' etc than anything else. I think you should put your mind at rest, it won't scan your PC, steal your identity, monitor and report your pornography collection(!), check what you are doing, or start talking to you from the PC asking for your money or else. It will not harm your friends, lover or childs identity nor will it cause any problems to you. This is really a personal choice. I would recomment buying this for someone as a gift anyday if you think they like this kind of thing and they will be ecstatic, they really will, I am a young man just out of University and a friend nearly bought this for me (an advanced copy) but didn't when they found out my fiance had already got it me - I had myself already bought it too! And so had to return one copy but the point is I couldn't have been more pleased, and i'm hard to buy gifts for. This honestly makes an excellent present for girls and guys alike, younger and older (best for over 23+ really for the backstory and so on) and is a safe bet if they are gamers, they should love it. So I hope this 'mini-review-comment' was useful to you, the often neglected 'gift' or 'parent' buyer.	video-games_xbox
Multiple deal breakers. Before you randomly rate this review please just give it a look. Did this game have potential? Absolutely. It had massive potential. The characters look nice and cartoon-like, there are more than 8, and you could play online at one point. But what is a game if the game play is less than sub-par? The amount of content in this game is extremely lacking. You can win a few new characters but that's about it. There is a challenge mode but you must beat 22 people in 250 seconds. Those 2 things are your main things you can do in this game. As far as characters, you start out with Ken, Ryu, Bison, Sagat, Zangief, and Balrog... I mean who else does anyone care about in the SF universe enough to buy a game just to play them? The fighting is somewhat fun but it has so many flaws it is ridiculous. The CPU you fight has what I like to term Metaknowledge where you can be inputting your Haduken buttons and already the computer is lifting up, coming down with an attack to dodge your fire ball and hit you in a combo that takes half of your life. When you jump to kick someone, they can break from anything they are doing (anything) no matter how complex and stop to hit you out of the air because their timing is so precise you can't walk up to them, you can't jump to them and come down with an attack, and out of the blue if you are able to get in an attack from jumping it will be blocked, the bottom kick will be blocked, and you will be countered with a grab. Metaknowledge in video games irks me to no end. The AI can hit you no matter what you are doing but they will dodge and block anything you do. Not only that, they will counter you with a 5 hit combo and top it off with their special move which they seem to charge up much faster than you. Pretty much 15 seconds and you're toast. My main beef with the game is if you can get past all of the metaknowledge the game has, the last boss battle is against a creature named Seth. He is pretty much like the wooden guy from Tekken in that he is a mix of all characters in one. He can teleport, he can stretch his limbs out, he can shoot things at you, he can and will combo you like crazy. He will do the thing where he stands there until you are JUST at the nanosecond of standing up and he will attack you mercilessly to knock you down in which the cycle will repeat itself. He will counter any inch of a move you make and hit you with about 5-10 hits in each counter. Even on "Very Easy" he is still a struggle. So much so that there are videos online showing how you can turn the game on the easiest mode just to beat him. Is that really how you want to remember a street fighter game? Where God willing you make it to the last boss you need to have it on the easiest mode you can have it on just to be able to stand a chance? So you have unenjoyable and frustrating fighting, a major lack of content, and a lack of reason to play as you will just be trolled like some bad joke the developers threw in for a final boss fight no matter what character you are playing with. Virtually, with the lack of content and horrid game play, the only thing I commend this game on is its graphics...which is not enough to get me to play it because I'm here for game play. So with a lack of will wanting to play it, how can I give it anything but 1 star?	video-games_xbox
If you like frustration, this is your game. Having played Fracture through to completion, I walked away from the game with very mixed feelings. On one hand, Fracture is a very competent FPS with rich graphics, strong character designs and fun, fully deformable environments. From a functionality standpoint-there is little to complain about. The controls are spot on and intuitive, the camera is unnoticeable, and it seems to be glitch-free. Everything runs as smoothly and as properly as you would expect from a game of this caliber-and the polish that was put into this game is evident. Fracture is a beautiful game. It can also be fun deforming the environment with your weapon and your grenades and this feature provides a lot of opportunity for creative strategy. What gripes me about Fracture however-is that the game is just damn frustrating. If nonstop aggravation, frustration and the urge to lob your controller through the tv are your idea of fun in a video game-then by all means Fracture is the perfect game for you. Enemies miles off in the distance (that you can't reach with your own measly gun) will blast you to pieces in seconds, enemies will also suddenly appear from thin air in a room that you just spent ten minutes clearing-and promptly kill you by shooting you in the back, it's not uncommon either for you to spend a good 20 to 30 minutes getting through an area just to be killed and have to start clear back from the beginning. I cannot count the number of times I must have shouted out loud, "are you bleeping kidding me??" These sorts of things, a fun game do not make-and Fracture can be an exercise in sheer video game patience. The game's length is decent, but I suspect part of that comes from an artificial lengthening due to the amount of times you die and must restart. (Trust me you will die A LOT in this game.) There were sections of Fracture where I felt I must have spent more time dying than playing. And for the coup-de-grace of gripes with Fracture-the final battle is hands down the most frustrating-make you want to rip the hair out of your head, punch a whole in the wall and smash a beer bottle over a chair, cheap boss battles I have ever fought. If it weren't for an insane need to finish the games that I start I wouldn't have bothered. I can't tell you how many times I had to play this same segment, over and over and over again. Fracture is definitely worth a rental-or a purchase if you can it for cheap-but be warned, your language will not improve while playing this game-nor will your mental health.	video-games_xbox
It's OK, I expected better with the "Gothic" name. This game isn't bad, it's just not great. Not as great as the other Gothic games, and not as great as Risen. I love types of games, I try to play as many of them as I can. But it takes a while for some to make their way to the US from Germany, and most of the time it is worth the wait. This time it was not. Story: The story of this game is fairly generic. I don't want to go into too many details, but it's a pretty throw away story that has the Hero needing to get to an area, but every time he gets into a new area there is something blocking his way. It's the typical "I'll do this for you, but you must do this first." So basically the majority of quests aren't even related to the main story. There are some side quests, and a couple of these have been pretty entertaining, most are just go to point A and get this item for me, bring it back and I'll give you an item or gold. Combat/controls: The combat in this game isn't bad at all. You can use ranged (Bow, crossbow), Magic (lightning, fire, ect) and weapons (sheild + one handed weapon, or two handed weapon). The only problem I found with this is, the majority of enemies charge you. Some sit back and either shoot arrow or magic at you, but they are almost always with a couple enemies that will charge you. So either way you need to prepare yourself for close combat. Or just shoot arrows/magic and run like hell, but how is that fun? It comes with the typical lock on button, but sometimes it goes haywire when you are in close range. Graphics: The game doesn't look that bad, but it doesn't look that great either. It can have some really cool effects with the water (when it rains water runs down the rocks and trees) but the developers were so proud of this it seems to rain almost every day in the game! The character models are pretty bad, but not enough to make me not want to play it. The enemy design is pretty good. But every enemy of the same type looks the same. Sound: Soundtrack is actually pretty good. Nice mood setting, nice background music. Effects are also pretty good. Swords sound like swords, arrows hitting sounds like arrows hitting. The voice acting is terrible. To think someone got paid to "act" makes me think about changing careers. I don't expect the Godfather of voice acting in my games, but a little emotion and emphasis would be welcome over just reading a script like it's a book report. Difficulty: The game is insanely hard on Gothic difficultly, almost to the point of wanting to break the disc. It's not because it's challenging, it's because even when you are attacking the enemies they seem to hit you unless you stun them with lightning. I didn't have a hard time with 1v1 or even 1v2 fights. But anything with more than 3 enemies I had to be cheap otherwise they would swarm me. It also pisses me off that I build my character like a tank, and the enemies sill kill me in 2 or 3 hits. This is extremely frustrating since it almost forces you to build a long range character and use the games many glitches against it. Oh, did I mention that this game has a TON of glitches? Glitches: You pretty much have to glitch the enemies on Gothic difficulty. Either by going up on a rock/tree (although this has caused the enemies to shoot straight up in the air on multiple occasions) or if you run far enough away, the enemies will retreat back to their spawn/wait point. So your only option in some cases of large groups is to range attack, run. Range attack, run. Repeat 20 times and you beat them. Also there is an achievement which 90% of the people have not been able to get because it is glitched. This actually causes you to miss 2 achievements because one achievement is for getting all other achievements. Overall I don't think it's a terrible game, but do your self the favor of playing it on a lower difficulty and you may have more fun with it. It is pretty linear, but it's worth it if you like these types of game. Just don't expect a Gothic game, or even a Risen, just treat it as it's own.	video-games_xbox
Just Like You Would Expect - A Fun Game With A Group. There is something magically addicting about watching a game show on television. Tension and excitement build when there are big prizes at stake, and nothing spells tension like having a $1 million prize on the line. Minute to Win It is one of these game shows that feature high stakes, quick thinking, and lots of action. With the abilities of the Kinect for Xbox 360, such a game might be a nice translation. The game show itself, Minute to Win It, has been on American television since March, 2010. The premise of the show is to have increasingly difficult challenges which contestants must complete to win the big bucks. There are a total of ten increasingly difficult challenges offering the ultimate payout of $1 million. The first, and easiest of the challenges, starts off with a reward of $1,000. Each subsequent challenge increases the payout along with the complexity of the challenge. Contestants are asked if they would like to walk away with their current earnings or to stay and possibly win more. The caveat is the possibility of losing all their winnings if they fail their next challenge. As the title of the show would suggest, each challenge must be completed in a nerve-wracking 60 seconds. Audience enthusiasm and tension is orchestrated by celebrity host, Guy Fieri. As for the game, Minute to Win It, is available on several different video game platforms, but is made most interesting by the Kinect through full body tracking. For people who have ever played the game 1 vs 100 on Xbox Live, the feeling is very similar here. The audience, host, and players all appear as Xbox Avatars. A word to the wise, how you dressed your Avatar, will be how they show up in the game. My Avatar was donning a tux and pig helmet, which seemed proper for a high-stakes game show. Guy Fieri makes his appearance as the host. Mr. Fieri's voice acting felt natural, but I'm still not totally comfortable with his Avatar. Perhaps I would favor a different look, but admittedly this is just a small personal nitpick. After all, I'm the one showing up with a pig helmet. The entire game is very straight forward. P ick how many players you want (one, one vs. one, or up to four taking turns) and then pick your mode. There is the game show mode, a time challenge mode, and a practice mode. I found it strange that there is no online mode for leaderboards or competitive play, but I am reviewing an early build of the game and the developers could have added it before retail launch. The game show mode is really the bread and butter of this game and where you'll be spending a majority of your time. The crowd of cheering Avatars is quite fun and you certainly feel a bit of the game show buzz when your Avatar appears in the spotlight. The challenges are surprisingly varied and as close to realistic as you can get. While I haven't performed all the challenges in real life, I would certainly imagine real life challenges to be more difficult than the Kinect counterparts. For instance, rolling an egg by flapping a pizza box seems like it would take a lot more effort in person versus the arm flapping I did in front of my television set. Some challenges are a bit silly, such as pulling out tissues and having to wipe away stray tissues from my face, but everything is done in fun and meant for a good laugh. Each challenge comes with their own blueprint, just like the television show. The show is broken up by make-believe commercials, which you act out as your Avatar. A video clip is available for laughter and ridicule after each challenge is complete. Sadly, I didn't see a way to share these hilarious videos online. The Kinect tracking seems very natural and the challenges feel solid enough where they don't seem to cheapen the experience. When a virtual $1 million is on the line, bad controls can totally ruin the enjoyment. Thankfully everything seems to track very well, from rolling ping-pong balls to shaking pedometers. Albeit some tasks seem almost too easy, such as bouncing balls into cups, and some challenges seem pretty difficult, like rolling an orange with a banana between your legs. While the challenges do get tricky, there is a harder difficulty option for those daring enough to try. Overall, you'll have to let your imagination just run away with the show and just have fun. In reviewing games, I look for the five F's: fitness, fun, functionality, family, and firsts. There are some games, such as Wipeout 2 that are naturally built for fitness; Minute to Win It is not billed as such. You will however be moving your arms and various body parts a lot, but nothing that will work up an incredible sweat. As for fun, the 20 challenges are wacky enough to keep you entertained. Being in the spotlight and watching after-event videos adds some solid enjoyment to the game. Mix in more participants and you'll have a blast. The functionality of the game is fairly solid, despite some of the challenges feeling a little dumbed down compared to their real life counterparts and other challenges being a bit difficult to master. If you are looking for a family friendly game, you've come to the right spot because everything in the game is clean and tasteful fun with just a hint of innuendo. With that said, several of the challenges may be a bit challenging for young kids to try on their own. As for firsts, Minute to Win It doesn't set any records for creating a new or unique experience. What it does, it does well. However, you have probably played something like this before or else already have an understanding of what the game is before ever playing it. There are a surprisingly decent amount of challenges to explore and have fun with. The title also supports downloadable content, which opens the door for future challenge add-ons. I really would have liked to see competitive online modes or leaderboards, but again maybe that is just missing from the preview copy. For players that either host a lot of parties or otherwise have multiple bodies around, this game can be a lot of fun. As far as the single player experience, once the show is over (there are ten shows) there isn't a lot to keep you coming back for more. In summary, if you are a fan of the show, looking for a game show fix, or have people to play with, then Minute to Win It could be the party title you are looking for. If you don't fall into these categories, then this title might not be the perfect fit for your gaming dollars.	video-games_xbox
The programmers had too many HITZ . Hitz is a game you turn on, pick a team, and ten have fun dragging your best friend up and down the ice! It's about big hits and bigger scores. So why all the changes? Hitz 2003 is more like any old standard hockey game. I have many gripes for this one and I'm writing this review only two days after it was released. First off, Where is the screen where you can input codes like "win fights for goals", "no puck out of play", and my all time favorite, "unlimited turbo"? Yeah, some of them can be accessed through the options menu but not the good ones which I've come to love...and the game blows without them. Secondly, I started playing a francise mode game. Played a few. Won a few. And, you guessed it...lost a few too. After a while, like any other normal human being, you get a little weary of playing. So, the million dollar question...What do you do?? Very good, you save the game. The next day I decide to go and have another shot at the game, to see if I like it any better than my first impression. NOPE. I come to find that my game never saved properly and had to start fresh all over again. Nice, huh? Third, the gameplay isn't as fast, or good for that matter. It isn't as easy to score, the big plays that should don't, and the ones that shouldn't do. The puck, cpu players, and even your own player don't react as well as the did in 2002. Next, the game crashed on me a couple of times already. Not just that, it's slow as hell loading, not as it's booting up, just when you're fooling around with jersey colors or checking out some of the rinks and things of that nature. I could probably go on and on about my dislikes of the game here but I think most of you will get my point. In my opinion, THIS GAME [is not good]! Most games following in a series try to take a couple of steps forward with each new installment. This one fell back about ten miles....or more. If you happen to be a really big fan of the series (which I am or was at least) RENT IT FIRST. Trust me! You are not going to be pleased. Otherwise Stick to 2002. It's a far better game.	video-games_xbox
An esoteric sci-fi dungeon crawler. Too Human is a spiritual successor to Phantasy Star Online- there are 4 large 'zones', lots of items and rare loot, online co-op (only 2 players here instead of PSO's 4)... but there is a lot more meat on the bones here. 5 distinct character classes, a much larger variety of weapons and armor, and a customizable skill tree that you can re-spec anytime. The way you go from enemy to enemy, launching and juggling them in the air, shooting lasers and grenades all over the place... it's the most hectic (and rewarding) action gameplay in any dungeon crawler yet. It can be fairly difficult, but the challenge pushes you to discover the deep game mechanics and strategies with the unusual (and initially awkward) control scheme Silicon Knights has cleverly crafted here. Armor and weapons have many varieties of status effect and skill buffs, and they can be customized. By planning out which kind of effects you want your gear to have, you can re-spec your skill tree accordingly to create specialized, powerful characters. If you just found a sweet new laser rifle, you can re-spec your skill tree (for a cost) to maximize laser damage, rifle damage, and increased ammunition as well as customize your gear with runes (inserting a +5% laser damage rune on your rifle, for example) to optimize your effectiveness with the laser rifle. Too Human has great graphics but with some rough edges (mostly in the character models) and overall it doesn't quite live up to the extremely high expectations we have with the current crop of games on the 360. The audio though is truly spectacular with lots of deep sub-bass and some excellent sound effects. The menus are a bit sluggish and cumbersome, and the auto-camera can sometimes be a pain- but they aren't dealbreakers. The flaws are overshadowed by the unique fun that Too Human offers. edit: After playing it more, bump it to 5 stars. This game is paranormally deep. You can legitimately obsess over it- honing your skills with the game, learning all of the techniques and when to use them- if you have the patience, it's as rewarding as a video game can get.	video-games_xbox
You get what you pay for. Not speaking in terms of value, but in that you are getting a 6-7 hour linear campaign in the vein of the Call of Duty moniker. To think it would be otherwise is basically naivete on the part of the consumer. It's always the populist mindset to root against the 800 pound gorilla in room...Yankees, Patriots, Lakers...and in video games, Call of Duty. But the product they put out is usually pretty consistent and predictable, albeit, they're basically blueprints of prior iterations. I'll just give you some of my perspective of Infinity Ward's versions starting from COD4. I only play single player so I'll give a review on the campaign only. I know, it's shocking to think people still play a game for the single player so to all those who say games like these should solely put out a multiplayer product, they would lose the revenue stream from players like myself. COD4, in my opinion, was and maybe still is the best fps single-player on the market. It revolutionized the genre when it came out. It was short and linear, but was memorable due to its set-pieces (first time you fell out of the helicopter, the death of a protagonist from a nuclear explosion, the final shot at the end) and innovative missions (sniper, AC-130 and the extra spec op mission). Most games these days, you forget about entirely once you eject the disc. COD4's staying power is due to the fact the game stayed with you long after playing it. MW2's campaign was a not unexpectedly a flaming turd. It was impossible to surpass its predecessor so they basically tried to shock you by bringing the war to U.S. soil and adding the stupid "No Russian" scene. They killed off so many protagonists that it became laughable and the scene from the Rock was just over the top. Unfortunately, shock value is not lasting and this game was instantly forgettable. So what to do with the end of the trilogy? Of course you return to what brought you here and that's exactly what this feels like--COD4 re-imagined with parts of MW2. You get some sniper missions, an AC-130 mission, killed off another protagonist, dropped the Eiffel tower (rather flippantly too). Then they peppered in some parts from MW2 like the seal team mission, breaching rooms and the scene from Rio, but it's in another 3rd world country this time. And tried to shock you with civilian casualties again. This sounds like a lot of content within a short time-frame and it really is. I enjoyed it quite a lot and would say if you play a lot of single player games, then this one is right up there. This is probably a better game than COD4, but since it came 4 years after, I docked it a star for lack of originality. It's a shame that all the 10 year old fanboys came out to review MW3 and Battlefield 3, thus skewing the overall score for each. If you're deciding between the two campaigns, this is the far superior one. (Didn't realize how long this got. Sorry for the length.)	video-games_xbox
Great product....minimalism compared to last generation. I bought this piece 3 weeks ago when it was available pre-launch. This thing works GREAT to secure my kinect to my television set at the top. It has a sturdy construction and an extraordinarily easy way to get it on. Basically you lower the kinect on to the mount, and then there is a large plastic wheel to turn the flat screw to go into the kinect with its' already prepared female hold for the screw to go in to. I am VERY impressed with this mount over the mount I used with the 360 kinect. Well done PDP. I was looking at the old kinect mount, and I think there are some things I might want to bring to your attention. The old mount had legs that would go literally three feet or so. I mean these things just simply got in THE WAY! Aggravating! This is no longer the case. Of course my application may be different than yours. That being said my application is a 55" LCD tv. So it's not too thin. I would imagine that an LED would play with this mount even better, but my LCD did great. The only thing that is maybe a little disconcerting about this mount is the way that you adjust it to fit snugly on your television. It has those resistance gears, where you have to kind of push and pull the thing into place, and when it moves a gear it sounds like it has broken. That's unpleasant and scary at first, because you think you are going to break the thing. But fear not, it's just how they've designed it. I understand why they designed it this way: to make it more simple so people couldn't mess up and drop their very expensive Kinect. The difference between the new school and the old school is that the new (this one) offers a much higher point of pressure for where it puts the weight, rather htan using those long long arms to redistribute the weight throughout the entire length of your tv. I also like the cover for the camera that is provided if I choose to, you know, play checkers in the same room as the kinect! Xbox, Record that. :)	video-games_xbox
Best Game of 2008, So Far. Burnout Paradise, for me, was the best game of 2008, and if you haven't had a chance to play it yet, it's not to late. Now is your chance to play this incredibly fun and addicting arcade racing game. If you don't like racing games or like sim racing games, then it will be obvious that you won't like this game. So why exactly did I name this the best game of 2008 for me? I'm a fan of the Burnout series in general (the mechanics are what makes the game so appealing), and I personally love racing games, for the most part of my life. This game is just so addicting. With gobs of modes. Burnout's AI seems less rubberband that it has in the past, which makes the game more easier. The physics engine is a wonder, something about the sastifying crunch of watching cars explode makes the game so fun. And the sense of air and jumps is great too, and it makes those races more action packed. Plus, being open roaded, all of those races can end up anyway you want. The controls are amazing and intiutive, as you will have no trouble powersliding and controlling your car. They are perfect at control, you must give the game that. And racing through Paradise City is a blast. Paradise City really is a paradise. Lush forests. And there's hardly a repeat building, as, like a real city, you won't see much of the same buildings (look at the excellent Test Drive Unlimited's map and you'll see what I mean). The graphics are gorgeous, the damage is awesome to watch, the game runs as smooth as butter, and the lighting is amazing. The sound is great as well, I like the start up sounds, the roaring of the car, the works. To confirm other people's woes, yes, there is no crash mode, which is kind of a disappointment. While this certainly is a loss (especially with the highly tuned , I personally was too busy playing races, unlocking cars, and playing the aforementioned crash mode. I also found the stunt mode to be a little hard, especially because, as a non-creative person, it's kind of hard for me to chain combos together. It's not much of a mode for me, and it's the only pair of race events I haven't won yet. Other than that, I was very pleased with what the game gave us in terms of events. If you were one of those people that loved crashing matchbox cars together in the schoolyard, then this game will be a delight. This is the game that hotwheel launching kids have been waiting for. There's no reason for expensive hot Wheels playsets when you have this videogame. It's not quite the best game of 2008 yet (since Midnight Club is yet to be released), but this is the game that I have been waiting for. You may not like it as much as I did, but it still is a must play game, especially if your the aforementioned car crashing kid inside.	video-games_xbox
Petty Gimmickry at its finest. This review is mostly regarding the product, not the actual game play for anyone wondering. First of all, yes, the game works fine. You get what you pay for, a Spyro adventure across the fantasy land (the kids will really like it). Now here is where the gimmick starts... 1: You need to pay a ridiculous amount of money for each new 'character' in the game. The rare characters can cost easily over 20$, with the basic ones being around 10$ on average (a quick Amazon search will confirm this). But no, this isn't really my issue... 2: Very important to note, yes, the portal of power does in fact use batteries. And yes, it DID come with batteries... 'Duracell' batteries as a matter of fact. THIS is where the issue of my review really begins, and why I gave the 'product' and not the game, a 2 star. 3: The portal of power does not recognize generic batteries... seriously? After the Duracell batteries were spent, I tried using a few Rayovak batteries to replace them. Big surprise, they never worked. I tried again and again with new batteries, and nothing worked. So after a while, I tried some spare Duracell batteries I had lying around, and guess what...? Yeah, the new batteries worked this time. Now, in retrospect, batteries (especially rechargeable ones) aren't really that expensive, however they DO add up. A pack of 4 rechargeable batteries will cost you around 10$, add that to the cost of this game (currently at 60$) and that's already 70$. Now factor in that your child, younger relative, or whomever will want more characters when they get further into the game, or has gotten bored playing with a certain character. With an additional 3 characters, that is roughly 100$ in total with the other 'issues' I mentioned earlier. So in conclusion, Activision, or whoever was in charge of this game must be really proud of themselves. Because they not only succeeded in making a very generic video game, but they also found a new gimmick to bleed the money out of your pockets. Buy this game if you are prepared to spend 70+$ minimum, otherwise, go buy another game that doesn't require batteries to play on a console. ***Now to be fair with this review, I'll give the game a 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's nothing special, but it does entertain the people playing it while it lasts.	video-games_xbox
Poor graphics. The voice acting is the primary selling point of this game. The story is well written and with the voice acting and somewhat fair character animation it adds a movie quality to the game. There must be hours and even days of voice recordings for this game. Almost everything is spoken though out the story. High points aside there are many shortfalls in this game. Not the least of which is that less than 30 minutes in to the game they are already trying to sell you an add-on mission. While this is a interesting business model , I was displease to say the least with the idea of having just paid 60 dollars for the game only to find out 30 minutes in that I have to pay more(7-14 dollars per mission) to continue on and play certain missions. The graphics engine looks like something written back in 2001. There are tons of jagged edges on everything. From squareish looking barrels to tree branches that grow at right angles there is little to impress in the graphics department in this game. The different break points for the load screens are also poorly engineered. Any time you go in to any building at any point expect a one minute load screen. A well written graphics engine could easily dynamically load data on demand to virtual eliminate 90 percent of the load screens in this game. Instead you will find yourself running in to load screen every 5-15 minutes of game play. The engine for this thing is a relic. The save system lacks a little to be desired as well it would be better it the autosave had several versions going back. It is easy to walk down a one way path in the story line with no way back. The game allows your main character at several different points to make a choice between a Homosexual relationship and a Heterosexual relationship. There is also a lot of animation blood violence and blood magic in the game. As the rating suggest I would not recommend this game for anyone that is impressionable. For that matter I would not recommend this game to anyone that does not want to continually shell out cash for add-ons and poor graphics.	video-games_xbox
the massive fantasy action rpg that consoles have been needing. Not since Oblivion have i been so locked into a console rpg. the map is simply huge. it is literally at least 2 times the size of oblivion. the easiest way to explain the gameplay: Diablo II style loot grind set in one of the largest open fantasy worlds on home console. you're almost constantly rewarded with new armor, weapons, and skills. controls are simple and everything from combat to item management is extremely user friendly. from your menu you can hotkey items and skills to the face buttons and use them by simply holding the corresponding face button. you can take the quest online in 2-4 player online co op, and the co op is so fantastic, the best co op in a console rpg. forget what fable 2 did, keeping you within 10 feet of eachother. you can travel to opposite ends of the map if choose, and everything runs generally smooth. ive experience some noticeable slow down at times when playing online, but nothing that breaks this epic game offering hundreds of hours of rpg goodness. for thirsty fans of the genre, this game is a total blast thats going to take over 99% of your free time over the next few months. graphics are colorful and inviting. considering this is a relatively up and comming developer im impressed by the level of detail and attention paid throughout the world: fish swim through the rivers, cows fill the fields near farms, you find deer in the woods, ect. you're constantly finding new sites. the exploration element is fantastic. a few technical flaws hold it back from perfection, the draw distance leaves a lot to be desired with heavy fog effects within 100 feet and there is semi frequent pop up. the only other complaints i have are the voice acting (not the worst but pretty mediocre) the fact that the story is pretty run of the mill, and some mild slowdown/freezing issues occassionally, but i cant say enough to encourage rpg fans to purchase this game. to summarize, this game offers one of the biggest game worlds in the history of console gaming with 6 races to choose from and hundreds of hours worth of quests set in 2 campaigns (Light/Dark) - aka - console rpg heaven.	video-games_xbox
Clever,creative and fun,Blood Money is easily the best in the Hitman series. I think everyone could see Hit man as a franchise starting to fall apart after playing a game like Contracts which did not contribute really well to the series. Hit man needed some serious changes or some kind of expansive boost. Blood Money gave it a major boost while nothing has really changed all that much from the other Hit man games. You play as the bald headed Agent 47 who is hired to hit bad guys silently and quick. The game gives you a lot of ways to complete your mission. There are many ways to kill your marked criminal. From setting strippers on fire to adding poison to a cops donuts,there are many ways to hunt and kill your mark. There is also a ton of pedestrians you have to look out for and make sure they do not see you doing your dirty work as they will report your to cops and the FBI.Some levels will require you to take someone out and steal there outfit so you can get access to the next area of your mission. The outsiders are snoopy though and will keep their eyes on our bar coded man. So if you have to dispose of them,using fiber wire would be the best choice as it takes them out fast and silently. If your a run and gun type of gamer this game may not appeal to you as you have to plan a strategy to take out a selected few. It can take a while to finally figure something out but it will give you a sense of satisfaction when you do. Although you can guns a blaze all over the level,you will probably die considering you will most certainly be overwhelmed bye cops who for the most part are pretty stupid,they do not run for cover but their impressive accuracy will leave you running. It takes 47 a long time to reload his guns,so that will give the AI even more time to come get you. There are a lot of memorable moments to be found while playing Blood Money. There is one mission were you have to set up and Opera rehearsal bye switching a prop gun with a real gun. Ya,you could only imagine what happens on the set. And then to take out the other mark you need to think nasty and plant a bomb on the ceiling and wait tell your mark gets in the right position and detonate the bomb to watch a chandelier fall on his head. That kind of stuff takes time to pull off and do but it's funner than simply killing them with guns. Variety is a big thing that is missing from most current games these days. Rehash after rehash,with game play and level design that does not change while getting further in a game. Well Blood Money saves the day yet again. There are around twelve missions in the game and they're all something new to look forward to. You will see Heaven and Hell hotels,Las Vegas Casinos,Porno Suburbs,Detox Labs and a level that looks like a city from the Sims or something of that nature. There is so much to see and do in each level that you can't help but be immersed into all the different settings. The game looks superb. The environments look lush and well detailed. There is a lot of color to them and each environment looks new and fresh from the last. You will walk bye huge crowds which looks pretty awesome and it runs at a superior frame. The crowd has a lot of recycled people and they look grainy but its still a very nice looking game overall. Blood Money sounds great,and disturbing. The sound of strangling someone will never leave your mind. You will hear a lot of Opera music in the game and I do not really know if that's a good thing or bad thing,but it did kind of get annoying to me after a while. When there is no multiplayer Blood Money sure does a great job of adding value to the package. Each level has so many ways of completing your mission;that you will have the urge to explore every nook and cranny you possibly can to see how many ways you can kill your target. The game also has a ranking system,which is great if your into on line leader boards. Overall, Hit man Blood Money is easily the best in the Hit man series and has a lot to offer the sick side of your mind. It's a pretty easy game and if your not sure you want to pay the full 50$,give it a rent it will be the best 7$ you will spend in a long time to come.	video-games_xbox
A Solid Game that is Utterly Enjoyable, But Lacking Definition. This game was fun, enjoyable, and I kept playing it from start to finish and it really was a good journey all the way through. The story was great, the combat is really fluid, and the atmosphere is great. The nemesis system was interesting as well. The combat is stripped from the Batman Arkham games, but that is not a bad thing. So many games with swords have terrible combat systems, but this was well done and fun. The upgrade-able attacks are great as well, I particularly like one called "brutalize enemy", which means if you get behind an orc and then you stab him a bunch and the other orcs run from you because they don't want that to happen to them. The story was just exactly what it should be and the acting in this game is really really good. Seriously, the ring-wraith that shares a body with you is a great addition, and it is so cool when he takes over. My favorite line of his is when he grabs an orc and goes pulls information from him, he says "I see you!" Which is a line that Sauron has in the movies, but Sauron whispers it while this guy shouts it. I thought it was cool. Overall the game is just really easy to put into your Xbox and just enjoy. Now for the bad. The production values. The production values of this game are just plain, terrible. The graphics some how go from being good to being straight Playstation 2 era. When you're climbing up wooden scaffolding, there is no detail on the wood at all, they are just brown planks that look blobby and ugly. This game is just plain ugly at times. Really, it sucks. And the load times are sometimes so long that you can read the LOTR books and complete them just as the game finishes loading. I realize that this game is a next-gen game and was scaled down for 360, but still, that's not really a good excuse, I mean, it's still the developers responsibility to release a quality product. I even have an Xbox One now, but I didn't when I bought this, and I am NOT going to buy the same game twice. Overall, this is a fun game and if you like Lord of the Rings and Batman Arkham, get this. But if you have an Xbox One, definitely get it on that and NOT on 360.	video-games_xbox
Worst blister pack I've ever encountered. I am slouched in my computer chair as I type this... bloody, winded, and defeated. A mere shadow of my former, confident self. I have long known that it is folly to wrestle with a blister pack without the benefit of scissors, but just as I always feared... they've finally built a better blister pack. I cut the top edge. Thinking the fell packaging bested like so many that preceded it, I laid down my scissors, placed my fingers into its open wound, and pulled apart with great force, barely suppressing an animalistic victory cry... It is a good thing I supressed that victory cry, friends, for had I not I would have looked very foolish (in addition to stressing my intercostal cartilage) when the package refused to yield, and laughed off my efforts. "Alright", I thought. "I've some more tricks up my sleeve." I reclaimed the scissors and set to work removing the left seam of the package. An unholy snap! My scissors lay broken, and my arm (not my hand, ladies and gentlemen, but my ARM) was slowly welling up dark, rich blood in the deep gouge left, presumably, by the flying bit of brittle plastic which the package had flung at me, to protect itself against my insistent slicing. I retreated to the bathroom, treated and dressed my wound, and crept back, warily, to the field of battle. The package lay on my bed, looking quite battered, yet smug and very self-satisfied. I live alone. Today, there will be no reinforcements. Knowing that all the hopes of my discharged Xbox 360 controller batteries depended on my efforts and my efforts alone, I crawled to the scissors on the floor, and fell back immediately to a safe distance to plan my next attack. I decided that where guile had failed, boldness might succeed. I would cut directly down the center of the front side of the package: straight through the heart of the renegade guardian of my Quick Charge Kit. I did so, with speed and precision comparable to that of a feline ninja... or at least a fat guy with a serious grudge against a plastic shell. The gash was glorious. No fewer than 4 inches long, and terminating below the product within, so that even if the package proves unusually hardy, I will almost certainly pry the fault apart far enough to retrieve the device within. I placed one hand on the right seam, and the other near the bottom of the new gash, of which I'd made a gift to my adversary, and pull will all my strength. My ribs glow white hot, filling the room with excruciating brightness and my consciousness with a pain the likes of which I hope never to know again. I drop the package onto the bed, and stumble back to my chair, falling backward into it. As I lay here, maybe dying, I reflect on that final sequence of mistakes... which ONE, if any, could have saved my life and sanity, had I only not made it... Was it my choice to use scissors instead of fire? Was it my hubris-fueled insistence upon opening the package with my own efforts, just because I am 25 and an adult who should be able to fend for himself, where I might have simply left it aside until I next visited my parents four states away, and then, tail tucked firmly betwixt my thights, I could have asked mommy to do it. Was it my decision to buy this product in the first place? Who can say, for certain? My musing continues... if I recover from my injuries, how will I respond? Do I launch another assault on the dread unopenable package? Do I crown it the prince of my home, swear eternal fealty, and begin designing a new flag to represent the sheer dominance and magnificence of this mighty blister pack? But one thing, gentle reader, is certain: you can learn from my experience. Just say no to inaccessibly-packaged consumer goods! It's not too late. cough cough Avenge... me...	video-games_xbox
The return of Raikoh. Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors - Circa 2005 GOOD: - Good/tight controls (slightly different from the original) - Uniquely stylized world and environments - Lot's of weapons/magic to buy and find - Every stage can be utterly demolished - Really great use of surround sound - Play as six different characters (including Raikoh) - Level up and customize each character (even equip different weapons and magic spells) - Game loses the weapon-sharpening option, which was in original (an annoying effect where you had to spend gold to re-sharpen your weapons after so many uses) - Forest of havoc mini-game/bonus levels, which really test your skills and abilities BAD: - Not much different from the original (game play wise) - Simplistic game play - Liner level design, or small arena type levels - Sparse and cryptic story, although as meager as original story - Not having ability to play entire game with only one character, certain characters have to be used on certain levels making it necessary for you to level up all your characters or levels will feel very unbalanced IF IT FITS YOUR TASTE: - Game is broken down into small stages each with a slightly different look and feel - Exceptionally stylized world feels like and ancient Japanese paintings come to life - Game music and sound has old-time Japanese Shinto shrine feel to it - Game play is easy to master - Environments can (and often will) be completely destroyed, entire buildings will be torn down and hitting enemies into structures obliterates both the enemy and the structure - Play as six different characters each with a very Unique look and slightly feel GAME ITS MOST ASSOCATED TOO: - Otogi: Myth of Demons - Shinobi (PS2) ADDITIONAL NOTES: - This game is based on ancient Japanese mythology; actually this game is loosely based on the legend of the legendary samurai Raikoh and the members of his crew - The creators of this franchise are known for the Armored Core series (on Playstation and Playstation 2), note that the special sword (which can be bought for a high amount of gold) called the Moonlight works similar and has the same name of a popular energy sword in the Armored Core franchise	video-games_xbox
A Satisfying Conclusion to Assassin's Creed II. Assassin's Creed Revelations refines existing gameplay mechanics and adds a handful of new features. Some are really good, others... not so much. Concept: 8/10 The conclusion of the Ezio and Altair storylines with new Multiplayer features. If you've been following the Assassin's Creed Series, this is a must play. If you're new to the series, you'll need to play Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood to get the full benefit of Revelations. Story: 8/10 A more mature Ezio heads to Constantinople to find the hidden tomb of his predecessor Altair. Once he arrives, he gets drawn into a conflict between rival princes who both want the throne. As the story progresses, Ezio finds memory disks that unlock memories (missions) from Altair's past. The story is full of action, suspense, intrigue, a hint of romance, and a satisfying conclusion to the Assassin's Creed II Storyline. Gameplay: 8/10 Assassin's Creed Revelations features six different types of gameplay: Combat, Navigation, Den Defense, Assassin Management, Puzzles, and Multiplayer. Combat: 8.5/10 Similar to the previous games, when Ezio arouses too much suspicion he gets chased by guards. When they catch him, they surround him and take turns attacking. Different enemy types require you to use different tactics on each of them. Regular Guards are easy to kill. Armored Guards require you to kick them to break their stance, then finish them off with quick strikes. Fast enemies will block and evade most of your attacks, but you can grab them. Elite enemies are really tough. They are really hard to counter, take quite a beating, you can't grab them, and they do quite a bit of damage. Eventually, you can wear them down, or use a weapon: bomb, poison dart, pistol, crossbow, call on your allies. Ezio also has bombs this time around and they're a nice addition to his arsenal. The bombs can be broken down into three categories. Lethal, Tactical, and Diversion. The bombs have 3 main components. A shell, gunpowder, and fillings. There are 4 basic shells for bombs: Impact (blows up on contact), Fuse (bounces off of walls and blows up in 3 seconds), Tripwire (this is like a mine), and Sticky (throw it at a guard and it sticks to them, blowing up shortly after). Once you pick a shell, you pick the type of powder. There are 3 types, the better the powder, the greater the explosion. The bombs can be filled with shrapnel for damage, toxins to create poison gas, coal dust for a concussive blast, skunk oil or smoke to incapacitate enemies, or phosphorus and sulfur to cause a distraction. Bombs are simple to use. Use a Diversionary bomb to lure enemies into a trap or away from something that they are guarding. Use a tactical bomb to stun them for a few seconds so you can get away or kill them. Use a lethal bomb to take out 4 guys at a time. Navigation: 9/10 Ezio now has a hook blade which allows him to climb much faster and use zip lines. There are also "fast travel" sewers that basically allow you to teleport to different parts of the city. Ezio can also use parachutes to glide to objectives. (horses are gone from this game) The good news is that there are enemies and vendors all over the city, so you never really have to go out of your way to restock your supplies. Almost every guard you kill has bomb ingredients, medicine, poison darts, bullets, etc... Den Defense: 4/10 This is a simple RTS style game where you accrue morale points, then use them to place NPC assassins in an area while squads of Templars attack. It's got a steep learning curve and the camera and controls are clunky. Thankfully, you can skip this part of the game. Assassin Management: 8/10 This is similar to AC Brotherhood. You can recruit and assassins and promote them by giving them text base missions. You can assign one to five assassins for each mission and they will split the XP. As they get promoted, you can increase their armor or weapons. This is a simple game that operates like a facebook game. The real benefit is that the assassins that you upgrade are more powerful when you call them for assistance during missions. Puzzles: 6/10 Desmond has 5 special levels that you can unlock by finding collectibles. It's basically a 3D platforming game that allows you to navigate through it by placing blocks. You can summon rectangles (walkways) or triangles (ramps). Desmond navigates through levels as he tells his own story. It feels a bit like the original Portal. Multiplayer: 9/10 The Multiplayer in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood was great. It relied on stealth and trickery, to insta kill your enemies. You are always hunting someone and someone is always hunting you in crowds of NPC's. You are awarded a score on how well you killed your opponent. Did you stalk them for while? Did you stand next to them for 6 seconds before you killed them? Did you jump down from a rooftop? Did you poison them? All of these things add to your score. You can also stun enemy assassins who are trying to take you out. If you press B before they attack, you stun them, get points, and escape. At times, multiple assassins are after the same target. In ACB, it was frustrating to tail an enemy only to have some yahoo jump down from a roof right in front of your eyes. In ACR, you can stomp on them for 50 points as a constellation prize if you get to their body fast enough. It takes some of the pain away from kill steals. Another addition to ACR is the Contested Kill. If the attacker attacks and the defender attempts to stun at the same time, the defender gets in a punch before they get killed. The attacker's score is halved and the defender gets 100 points. ACR features new multiplayer modes. In Deathmatch, you hunt down and kill your enemies in a small arena. Their portrait glows when they are nearby. In Assassination, you get a compass that points you in the direction of your enemies and you can choose who you target. Once you target them, you hunt them down and kill them. Corruption is a zombie tag - sort of assassination game where you infect other players and they join your side. There's also an objective based game called steal the relic... and a few team based games. These games are rarely populated and it's really difficult to find a match. Unfortunately, the UbiSoft servers have been down quite a bit lately... which has been frustrating. When the servers are working fine you'll notice that matchmaking is much better this time around and it's easy to get into a game. When you kill enemies or escape from enemies, you gain XP. When you gain enough points, you go up in level. This unlocks a few new abilities, weapons, perks, character customization, etc... But it's a little more complicated than that. Unlocking something doesn't mean you get it. Instead, you have to play the game to earn Abstergo points to buy the item after it is unlocked. You can never buy everything that you just unlocked, so you need to choose. This feels a bit tedious. It would have been better to let the players equip what they unlock and skip the Abstergo currency altogether. But this does add to the replay value of the game because even after you hit level 50, you can keep playing to unlock extra costume parts, other perks and abilities. Graphics: 8.5/10 The graphics of the Assassin's Creed Series have been excellent. However, Constantinople doesn't look as good as Italy in the previous games. Sound: 7/10 The soundtrack isn't as good as the other games either. It's just sorta there to provide some atmosphere. There are plenty of sound effects to spice up the action and lots of funny or immersive dialogue from the townspeople as you play. Maturity: Teens - Don't worry about the M rating on the box. Yeah, you kill guys with medieval weapons. Yeah, there is blood that you can turn off in the options menu. There is some swearing in Greek, but none in English. There's no nudity or sex. Replay Value: 8/10 There really isn't any reason to play the 30 hour campaign over again, but you can get hooked on the multiplayer and all of the different games. Overall: 8.5/10 Assassin's Creed is a really good conclusion to the Ezio story. Unfortunately, this game was made by 5 or 6 different Ubisoft Studios and it shows. While the core of the game is excellent, the Den Defense, Secret Island Level, Puzzle Levels, etc... aren't up to par and it hurts the game a bit. But these are all optional things and they are minor. If you've been following this series, this is a very good game. (and it's cheap now, too!) Buy it if you like the Assassin's Creed Series! Rent it if you have 20-30 hours to get through the campaign. Mutliplayer does require a separate Ubi-Passport and if you get the game used, you'll have to buy one to play online. Avoid it if the Assassin's Creed series just doesn't do anything for you.	video-games_xbox
Two Words: XBOX ON. Simply put... This system has far exceeded my expectations. I did quite a bit of research into both the PS4 as well as the Xbox1 before purchase. I own both the PS3 and the Xbox360 and my preference between the two I will admit is the PS3. However, upon reading the vast features this system came with, I decided it was worth forking over an extra $100 for and it's a decision I do not regret! I won't discount the PS4 system in defense of my review, as I have no idea how well or not well that system's play is. I will simply address my opinion and experiences with the Xbox1 thus far. I have noticed many people complain about the added features and what good they are when you're a hardcore gamer and want a system that is solely for gaming but I'll tell ya... Having these added features adds a whole new level of convenience and interactivity I never thought possible. The ability to control your system as well as your TV merely with voice command and/or hand gestures completely blew my mind after I got this sucker plugged in and fired up. To walk into the room and simply say, "Xbox On" not only does my console start up but so does my DirecTV box as well as my TV, man it's so sick! I control volume, channel, pause/play/ff/rw, all without touching a single remote or controller. Some may call this laziness but you just won't understand until you actually own one and try it out for yourself. This wonderful feature also cancels out another slight inconvenience gamers experience, switching over inputs when you're done playing and want to watch some TV. Again, some might call this laziness but you just won't understand until you own the ability to NOT have to do that. The interface is beautiful--set up and graphics are awesome! Syncing it with my iPhone and iPad were seamless and make app switching quick and smooth when my controller is out of reach. Memory has not been a problem as of yet, sizable game downloads and updates as well as purchasing more games may change that soon. Which brings me to another selling point--the games available. I couldn't give up the chance to play Dead Rising 3 and Ryse; both are great games! Also, Xbox exclusives such as Xbox Fitness (which kicks my butt!) offer free content for those who are seeking out the option of using their console for more than just a gaming box but motivation to turn off the game and try to get into shape. There are some downfalls to this system no doubt, as there will be with any system or any kind of technology for that matter. Sometimes Xbox does not want to turn on when you yell "XBOX ON!" Sometimes it's shy or perhaps it just doesn't want to listen, whatever the case is... It is not flawless but that does not take away from the greatness of this console. This system can certainly be for hardcore gamers and casual ones alike because of the vast array of features that can successfully keep both equally captivated and entertained. I will certainly be picking up the PS4 sometime in the near future but for now, I must say I am loving my Xbox1 and all of the features that come with it!	video-games_xbox
NCAA Football 11 is worth playing. I really have enjoyed playing NCAA Football 11. The controls are quick to pick up and intuitive, the game play is pretty smooth and doesn't take long to get a hang of. I love the Dynasty mode - lets you be the coach for a school, do recruiting, set schedule, customize the game plan of the team and you can either play the games or sim them. I think some sort of interaction with the team off the field would have been a cool feature, like building team unity or morale. The Road to Glory (RTG) mode is alright. You create a custom player and start the mode by playing your last games in high school. Depending on how you play in those games, decide which scouts watch you from colleges. You only ever control your player, and the games simulate until you are on the field. During the week, you can practice to increase your player skills and your position on the depth chart. The other events during the week are all simulations and there is no way to participate. Seems like it could have been simple and fun for the players to have added mini games for those events, studying at the library (because you have to keep your grade up or you won't be allowed to play), working out at the gym or visiting the trainer. There is also, again, no option to hang out with the team or interact with them. So RTG is interesting but so far I have preferred Dynasty. I got an HDMI cable shortly after having this game. It looks really good in HD. If you don't have an HD cable or tv, don't worry - the game still looks pretty good. The stadiums all look really good. There is always good game noise: player sounds, crowds, stadium announcers. The commentators are pretty good, but repeat themselves a lot which can get annoying. I still haven't found a good balance to put penalties on. Sometimes no penalties are called when they should, or the refs call everything. You can tweak how often the penalties are called but until you play through some games it is hard to figure out where you want it to be. There are various degrees of difficulty that the game can be played on and even a really simple single button mode to make playing with amateur players easy and enjoyable. All in all, I really like this game - probably better than my Madden 11. There are some things I think they didn't add but should have but overall this is definitely a game that I would recommend for anyone looking to get/play a football game.	video-games_xbox
Xbox 360 - An Unbiased Review. This review is being written by a 27yr old who hasn't owned a console since the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo (Super NES). Genesis was -by far- my favorite system, with a soft spot for the Turbo-Grafix 16. I loved how the Genesis was simple, fast, and simply breathtaking the day I opened it up and felt tingly all over. I soon after bought the Super Nintendo but never quite captured the same feeling I had for the years I owned the Sega Genesis. This is until I purchased the Xbox 360. First, a little history on why I bought an XBOX 360, and why we chose it over the Playstation 3. My g/f and I recently bought a 42" Samsung Plasma HDTV at Sam's Club. It has a fantastic picture and really looks great when coupled with HD cable service. The only pity was that the HDMI cable was about $16. :-( Part of the arrangement that we made together was to get either an XBOX 360 or a Playstation 3 for when we have family over. Since I had not played a video game console (PC games only) in such a long time, we started to research which one to get. The Playstation 3 had my eye simply because it looked to be the newest and sleekest thing on the market. Playstation, Sony--what's not to like, right? Well, we took a look at what games it had and the initial cost of the machine and were floored. $650 for the console at Sam's Club. Needless to say, we weighed our options carefully. One thing my g/f and I are good at doing is researching our big-ticket purchases. We ask a LOT of questions, check reviews, and read a lot of Consumer Reports. Our friends and families are also a good source of information. We did some research on the Xbox 360 as well as the PS3 and it each everything we were looking for, and the games looked really great on both systems. However, we decided to go to a game store and check both out consoles before we made a final buying decision. We decided to check out the Gamestop at the Long Beach Town Center. The walls were filled with games for Playstation 2, Xbox, and Xbox 360, followed by a huge bargain bin of used games for as low as $3.99. I was really excited by this because I could get a bundle of older games to play, providing the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 would play them. I decided to confer with one of the geeks behind the counter about what console is best, and why. We spoke w/ a super-courteous young lady who really seemed to know both consoles in-and-out. We never mentioned that we had done our homework, but wanted to see which system she would recommend. After a short exchange about what we would like to play (Gears of War came up once or twice) and what sort of system we have at home, she recommended the Xbox 360 because of the sheer amount of games it had and the price point. After all, $600 for the PS3 did give us a bit of sticker shock, as did $400 for the Xbox 360, but my g/f had said it best, "I'd rather spend $600 if we at least got some games with it." Good point. We left, and after a short shopping trip at the LB Town Center, we headed home. Later, on a trip to WalMart for some last things, I noticed they had a PS3 and an Xbox 360 on display. Feeling like a HUGE kid, I decided to try them both out. I was immediately impressed with the PS3's appearance. It looked like a Porsche compared to the Xbox 360, which at first looked more like a kitchen appliance to me. Wow. Sleek, beautiful lines--I was almost completely sold based on how it looked. I walked over to try it and noticed there was no controller, but it was simply a demo box. ::sigh:: I went over to the Xbox and noticed there was a small line gathered behind it. An older teenager was playing it and I asked him, "Which one should I get?" "The Xbox, definitely. The PS3 is too expensive and doesn't have Xbox live." I knew of Xbox live, but didn't know it was such a hot commodity. I admit, I thought the graphics on the Xbox 360 were pretty stellar--in fact, they almost seemed a little more "crisp" to me than the PS3. Each were on Samsung LCD displays, but I noticed that the colors seemed a little more vibrant on the Xbox 360 than on the PS3. This is the first difference I noticed between the two.... After a few days, we decided it was time to buy our system. We knew the PS3 was hard to come by, but we were very patient and figured we would just put in a pre-order for one if it was hard to come by. After some careful thought, we ended up getting the Xbox 360, and in the past 3 weeks of ownership, we have not been disappointed. We purchased the Xbox 360 Premium Bundle at Sam's Club for $450. Sam's Club maintained that if we had any problems with the unit, just return it and they will exchange it for up to two years for me (thx to my plus membership), so that gave me peace-of-mind and not have to worry about how long it will last. It came with two wireless controllers, one rechargable battery pack, Xbox Live Headset, 20GB Hard Drive, etc. In other words, this is what one would call the "Works Package." I also managed to pick up Project Gotham Racing 3, Call of Duty 3, and Gears of War upon the advice of a helpful associate at Sam's Club. Walking to the car with all this garb, I noticed it was particularly heavy...at least 10lbs or more. I started to think, "What's in this thing, and why is it so heavy?" Upon arriving home with this heavy thing, I started to feel a sense of "Coolness" associated with owning the Xbox 360. I was telling my g/f that we now had the "must have" accessory for our living room. When I finally got around to opening the box, I was surprised at how different it looked from the glass case I saw a few days earlier at WalMart. The console is a tall, bone-shaped rectangle that seems to have an "inhale" sort of style to it. It was not heavy at all and seemed to have a pleasing look to it--certainly a difference from how I felt looking at it through the fingerprint-covered glass at WalMart. I began to pull out the accessories and cables and piece them out on the livingroom carpet. First thing you will notice is the AC Adapter is HUGE*. I don't mean just big, but it's the size of a red brick and seems ominous the first time you pull it out of the box. The controllers were neatly packaged, but seperately since it was a bundle. I was pleased to see that it came with a sort of "hybrid" cable for HD and non-HD televisions. It was beyond-simple to hook up to our television and even had a digital-out for audio systems that support it. I was impressed and there were a few "Hey hun, come look at this..." in my amazement at how easy it was to hook up. I decided to place it on its side since it would fit in our TV cabinet and would be within viewing range of the wireless controllers. Upon the advice of a few ppl I spoke with at Sam's Club about the Xbox 360, I was told it should have plenty of clearance around it if I were to put it in a cabinet. No problem. I managed to string a temporary Ethernet cable from our DSL router to the Xbox to see how everything worked, and was not disappointed at all. Firing up the Xbox the first time was very impressive, both graphically and how it all seemed to just fit together. The controllers are able to power on the Xbox, and later I found out, able to turn it off. A for some simplicity in my book. A small update downloaded, installed, and rebooted within a minute or two. Initial setup was a breeze and I even got it configured for 1080i on our widescreen plasma. So far, no problems, but let's try a game. After a few minutes of figuring out the controls, I had already died 4-5 times at Gears of War, but was just astonished at how the graphics looked. At times, we found ourselves with our mouths open at the sheer detail and "intensity" of the game. Simply "Wow" was the only thing that came to mind with how intense the game was, and at the ferocity of the missions you are put on. It really seemed more like a movie to us at times than a video game. The controllers have a nice, solid feel to them. The controls are pressure-sensitive, especially when playing Project Gotham Racing. Want to go full throttle? Mash the trigger back with your finger. Slow down? Simply let off the trigger a little bit. I really liked this a lot because it's not "all or nothing" but sensitive to the player's feedback. The motion sticks are the same way and very easy to get used to. I've found that setting their sensitivity in Gears of War to "Low" has made aiming a LOT easier. The rechargeable battery pack has not been recharged in nearly a week and seems to still have 1/2 a charge left in it. There is a battery indicator in the Dashboard (the OS of the 360) which is nice so you may know how much of a charge you have. Upon changing the discs, I began to notice a slight blowing noise coming from the cabinet, and found out it was the fan. The fan sucks in air from the bottom (or right side if it's laying down) and blows hot air out the back. It's nothing to worry about and certainly not noticeable when you're playing games. I'm sure that they couldn't have something this powerful (?) without keeping it cool, and I'm glad that it's at the very least, working. In the past 3 weeks, we managed to pick up some of the "bargain bin" original Xbox games at Gamespot for $3.99 and above.. Unfortunately, we had come to find out that not all of the original Xbox games worked and some had to be returned. Microsoft posts on their website a list of games that will currently run on the 360, so it was the first place we should have looked. I was happy to see that Doom 3 runs well on the 360 and in fact is resized for our widescreen. This was something I came across while reading up on the 360--the ability to resize original Xbox games for high definition. Granted they're not "high def" in detail, but it makes good use of the screen real estate. This is something we found that the PS3 does not do for older PS2 games. We didn't get the 360 to play original Xbox games, but it was nice to find some older games to play for $4. :-) Here is a list of some of the Xbox 360 games we have managed to purchase in the past 3 weeks... Oblivion (Great game... 4hrs on your bum will fly by. Graphics are top-notch) Gears of War (Very intense...) Call of Duty 3 (Really fun with the Xbox Live) Blazing Angels - Squadrans of WWII (Great flying game...cheezy commentary during gameplay but very fun) Madden '07 (My g/f loves football games so she plays this 99% of the time...she loves it) Project Gotham Racing 3 - (Love this game too...) The games run very fast and you almost hesitate to blink while playing. I must confess that Gears of War just simply is amazing and I've never seen anything like it before. The sheer intensity of the game will just captivate you. Do I regret not getting the PS3? No, not at all. In fact, I must say that I'm glad we didn't because with the Xbox 360, we are able to upgrade as our needs change. We can get an HD DVD drive for the 360 for $180 through Sam's and use it with our Plasma for a lot cheaper than buying a stand-alone player. Having read a lot about HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, I have to say that I was always a little more partial to HD-DVD. Our console decision was separate of this, but I was happy to find out later about the add-on HD-DVD player.	video-games_xbox
The Xbox 360 Arcade is scam, please buy the Pro model. The Xbox 360 is a powerful console that can play a lot of really good games. They have reliability issues but Microsoft has finally relented and has extended their warranty on the most common types of failures to 3 years. They also seem to have improved their hardware so that newer models are not as likely to fail. I highly suggest spending 10 minutes on Google doing a little research to find out how to make sure that you are getting the newest Xbox 360 hardware, as they still mix older ones and you could get screwed. While Microsoft caved and extended their warranty to 3 years after months of intense pressure in the gaming media, the Xbox 360 Arcade bundle is a much more subtle and malicious scam that Microsoft still perpetrates against young children and their innocent parents who don't know everything about video game consoles. For $100 difference between the Arcade and Pro packages, you get an ethernet cable, a voice-chat headset, an upgrade to HD-capable video cables, and an upgrade from a 256MB flash card to a 60GB hard drive. You can live without the headset, and you can buy a generic ethernet cable for a couple bucks, but where they really get you is with the cables and the memory card. If you have an HDTV, you need the HD-capable "component video" cables in order for the picture to look good on your TV. They come with the Pro and Elite packages, but with the Core package you will be stuck buying them in the future for $39.99! Yes, thats the price even Amazon has them at! Then there's the memory card: for the Xbox 360, 256MB of storage is worthless and Microsoft knows it. You need more space than that just for game saves and updates, but your kids will be wanting to download games off Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace, demos, videos, and more. You need several GB of storage and the 256MB memory card doesn't come close to cutting it. If just one game releases a large "patch" (a downloadable update that fixes flaws in the game) then your memory card is full. You can buy more memory cards at $30 each, or more likely you will just end up spending $100+ for an Xbox hard drive. The 60GB and 120GB models currently sell for $100 and $150 respectively. To sum it up, I strongly believe that the Xbox 360 Arcade package is designed to target unwitting parents into thinking that they can get their kids a full system for $199, but the reality is that you NEED the hard drive in order to really use the Xbox 360 because game updates, game saves, and game expansion packs alone will quickly burn through several of the expensive memory cards. Buy the Xbox 360 Pro package now and save money in the long run, plus you get a better all-around experience because with the hard drive you can play original Xbox games, download videos and game demos, and generally use the Xbox 360 as intended.	video-games_xbox
born to be wild. this is a chance for people to live out thier inner fantasy of being a biker.think about it.kids when they are little want to be astronauts or cowboys.latrer on,its wrestlers and rockstars.there are games for 3 out of those four.even the biggest geeks wanna be bikers though.and heres you're big chance! cuz its as close as you're gonna get! this is a gta side game about bikers! one obnoxious thing about this game is they say the word "brother" a lot.its like a 10 hour long hulk hogan interview."hey brother!""whats up my brother""nothing my brother"wanna take down some dead beats brother".you get the idea. a politician gets naked in this game.and no its not a chick.and yes they show it all.and there are no girl parts.whose freakin idea was that?the video game industry is outselling the movie industry every year.movies really went south when "nudity" no longer meant head lights but guy's rears.now the video game people are making the same fatal mistake.girls don't even get worked up about nudity like guys do.it was just a nasty and stupid move.a biker game with no nasty?thats unreal! these bikers sure do cuss a lot too.i think this video game had the most bad words and phrases per capita of any game i ever played.so if you're one of those sensitive types,maybe you should buy "viva pinata". once again,i think the overall concept is uninspired.nearly all games start off with "a government agent is blackmailing or forcing you to do thier will".come on! who hasn't seen that scenario played out a million times?would the idea "there are a gang of bikers selling drugs,watching girls on stripper poles and kicking ass because thats what hell raising bikers do" be so far fetched?i don't think so! i also spotted a mistake in the story[SPOILER ALERT].the drug deal gone bad/shootout happened long after the kid napping of roman bellic but was backwards in this game. HOWEVER!THese are details.the game is awesome just not perfect.it has all the epic shootouts you'd expect from a gta game.it is also a sandbox game so there is tons of high adventure all over liberty city.	video-games_xbox
Very impressive, I wrote a paper on it. This is going to be a fairly objective review, since I played the guitar for several years until I had some major medical problems come up that caused me to put my guitar down. It's almost ten years later and I'm able and ready to pick up the guitar and realize that 1) both my hands are completely out of shape for playing, 2) I've forgotten A LOT of what I used to know, and 3) I'm I freaking beginner again! Ok, so after weighing all my options I figured I would try RockSmith. Previously I had lessons from teachers, books, the internet, DVD's, CD's, pretty much anything I could find because there was always something missing or I was bored with what I was doing. Now that I have RockSmith, this is very impressive software. Several years ago I wrote a research paper on using video games as learning tools since they are designed to adapt and challenge the players and to keep them involved. This is the exact thing I wrote about! This game uses a fairly advanced AI (admittedly it's not a real AI, but it is a video game "AI") to make sure that the player is involved and pushed along through lessons and songs and games. The game is constantly adjusting itself to your abilities so that you are not getting bored by going over the same thing every time. Getting started in the game does take a bit of time, the interface is just like Rock Bank or Guitar Hero, so if you are familiar with either one of those you are good to go, otherwise you need to figure out the interface. Once that is hashed out, everything is pretty easy. The songs are all good song choices from 60's though current (as current as possible), and playing the songs is really fun. Every time I go through the same song it's different. The system has increased the difficultly on the parts that I have gotten correct and left the ones that I had problems with alone. And once you are tired of the songs, there are lessons that teach you the different elements of the songs. After you have done everything you can and your fingers are burning, there are games you can play that reinforce almost every element of the lessons, songs, and guitar basics, plus there are some games that only require your picking hand so you can rest that poor bruised hand that you've been beating on the strings with. All in all, I would say that this "game" is as good or better in some areas than an actual teacher, in that it is available any time of day or night, it does not get tired of hearing you screw up missing that note EVERY time. But with that said, is this a replacement for a guitar teacher? NO. If you know the guitar or know someone that can help you with some of the more personal things, then this could be all you need to get up and running. If you have never picked up a guitar before then I would suggest a human teacher if for nothing else than to get some of the personal things out of the way, holding the guitar, the neck, the pick, how to best manipulate your hands, things that a "game" cannot do. But honestly, after that stuff is out of the way, I don't see why this software could not take over for an actual teacher. Good luck, and yes it is supposed to hurt that bad. LOL	video-games_xbox
An expected letdown. After all the problems that Infinity Ward was having prior to this, I really wasn't expecting a whole lot and I got what I expected. Single Player - There's nothing really new or exciting here. A play through on veteran will take you roughly 5-8 hours depending on how much you fool around or look for stuff. They try to put something unique for you to use on each board like a strafe run or assault drone but it's usually just annoying because it lasts for 30 seconds or so and then you never use it again. There is a segment where you get to gun from the AC-130 but it's no where nearly as fun as it was in COD4. It's also nearly pointless as you can just sit there and watch 8 tanks roll up on the squad you're supposed to be protecting and the tanks will never kill them. Why'd they even bother putting this in the game if it doesn't matter what the player does? The best part of the campaign comes on the last board and it's actually pretty fun. They toss you in a juggernaut suit for half the board and let you blast through the enemies. You actually feel beastly as you mow down enemy after enemy while shrugging off round after round. Overall recent series campaign rankings MW>MW2>MW3>Ops>W@W. Special Ops - There's two choices, missions or survial. There are only 16 missions in this one which is a let down. Two of them are just obstacle courses so it's more like 14 total. A couple of them are fun and have some interesting game play additions (One person controls a bunch of turrets while covering his partner who is running through the board, tossing you in a juggernaut suit) but then there are some lemons that don't really have anything unique happening and it's just like you're playing the campaign with another person. The big problem is there aren't a lot of unique and fun missions like MW2 had. Where is another board like Estate Takedown or some challenging boards where they throw a bunch of juggernauts at you? Survival mode is interesting for a little while but after the third game or so it's not that fun anymore. It's main problems are that you can only play with up to 2 players and enemy helicopters kind of ruin the fun. The helicopters show up and they will fairly quickly destroy all your turrets and friendly troops unless you have them hidden in a windowless building. So eventually every board turns into a 'camp a windowless building until you eventually get overwhelmed by helicopters and troops and die'. This game goes faster then Nazi Zombies does, usually less than an hour even if you do well, with only 30 seconds in between rounds to re-arm or buy killstreaks or other such helpful things. Multiplayer - I'll start with some pros. The gameplay is still mostly the same. If you can ignore all the terrible things they did to this game then it's still fun. It hasn't turned into a head shot contest yet and people usually die in 3-4 well placed shots. The ability to turn into a juggernaut during games can be fun. The support streaks which continue going after you've died are nice. Most of them aren't that powerful but using the recon drone to spot enemy troops or being in control of a sentry gun are fun. They fixed up the riot shield a little bit. It's still pretty glitchy (enemies stabbing you through the shield, bullets that go right through it, 2-3 rounds to your toes kill you while other enemies will survive 4 shots through the chest) but it is usable thanks to the support streaks and it blocks bullets a little better then it did in MW2. The hit detection is still pretty good. I've yet to toss a throwing knife through a person and not get a kill which would often happen in Black Ops with the tomohawk. I've yet to toss a knife 3 feet to the right of someone, have it do a 90 degree turn in mid-air and magnetically attach itself to a person like the tomahawk would in Black Ops. Pro/Con - Explosive weapons do less damage. This is kind of good as you don't very often see games degrade into tube matches like MW2 had sometimes. However, it also seems like grenades and semtex that land next to enemies tend to only wound instead of kill far to frequently. Now the cons. I'll start with the biggest problem which is they did what Black Ops did and purposely injected lag into the game. Some games you'll be an unstoppable monster where you actually see every round that hits you. Other games there isn't a whole lot you can do. You'll fire 4-6 rounds at an enemy but then take one round(if you're lucky it'll show you two rounds hitting you) and then you'll die. You'll watch the killcam and see the guy put about 6 rounds into you and you didn't fire at all. The lag has improved a little since launch and is no where near as bad as Black Ops is though and doesn't suffer from the terrible hit detection that Black Ops also had. I don't mind getting killed or killing others due to my connection, but when the game forces lag onto you or your opponents, it is very annoying. Maps - The maps are almost all awful. There are only 3 semi-decent boards, every other board is just terrible. I don't understand how this happened. Clearly they peaked in MW2 which had 4 great maps and most of the rest were all very good. The maps in this game are even worse then the ones in Black Ops. In this game almost every map feels like you're playing Scrapyard from MW2. They're all really small and there's almost always 4+ ways you can get to any spot while moving. I don't mind the multiple ways to spots but because the boards are so small, you're constantly having people popping out of places beside you or behind you. There are almost no wide open spaces to move around in and the ones that do exist are full of clutter. Almost everywhere you go in this game is a choke point. Where MW and MW2 had a lot of open areas and long/medium/short ranged firefights, this game is almost always short range firefights. Because the boards are so small, the spawns are awful. Expect to get spawn killed or spawn right behind an enemy a lot. They didn't even bother to toss in a large sniper map like Wasteland or Derail to break up the monotony every once in a while. Another huge problem is there are very few describable areas in the game. In MW2, there were distinguishable things all over the place so you could tell teammates where an enemy or their team was with 3-4 quick words on every map. Now, you're lucky if there's 2 things on each board you can describe that quick. Most of the time you'll just sound like an idiot. For example, here's Bakara. "Well, they're in the camp building", (There's 5 of them) "Uh, they're in the two story one" (There's still 5 of them) "Ummmm, they're in the one with only one staircase up to it." (That's still 2 of them) "It's the one located by the minigun." This is literally how it'll go for every board in the game and you'll be lucky if it even comes close to as well as my example. Weapons- It seems like they decided to go the way of Black Ops and have 1 weapon in each class have some recoil but every other weapon in the class have none. Every weapon seems to deliver shots to the same spot even at full auto. Some LMGs, I'm looking at you MG36, act weird as their initial shot will have a huge recoil but if you continue firing full auto, it won't have anymore. So they actually penalize you in this game for being smart and firing your LMGs in bursts instead of full auto. Actually, they've pretty much rended LMGs useless in this game. They tossed in some kind of hybrid 4 round magazine grenade launcher, it's fairly annoying when people run around using it as their primary weapon. The Machine pistols in this game might as well just be SMGs since they all seem to have 30+ round magazines. Equipment - This game continues the bad trend of helping no skill/camper players. The heartbeat sensor is still there for the skilless. I don't mind it when someone has it on their sniper rifle but it's just annoying that some people toss it on assault rifles or LMGs, especially when they just sit in an obnoxious corner with it. They've tossed in a bouncing betty to go with the claymore. Campers love the trophy system which destroys two projectiles (grenades or rockets) that come into it's range, usually wherever they're hiding at. They also added the portable radar that Black Ops had. You'll see some games where your teammates drop 2 or 3 of these things around the map so you can constantly see where enemies are at. Sniping/Autoaim - If you have no skill and enjoy the game aiming for you then you'll enjoy sniping in this game. For some reason they decided to bring back quick scoping. So once again you have people running around acting like they're good when all they're doing is allowing the game to aim for them and pull the trigger. What was the problem in MW2 where you had to actually pull your scope up and use some skill and aim at the person you're going to shoot? I really can't understand why they can't get rid of auto-aim in this game or at least get rid of it completely for sniper rifles. Another big problem is that this game basically forces you to camp if you want to do actual sniping. In MW2 the maps were big so you could move around with your sniper rifle and go around corners and other such things with your scope up. In this game you can't, almost every corner you go around results in a wall, fence or building 10 feet in front of you. If you want to move around, you're forced to pull out your backup weapon or be an annoying quick scoper. The open areas, of which there are few, are almost always cluttered with random nonsense making it nearly impossible to snipe anyone in the area. You're pretty much forced to sit in one spot and kill enemies as they enter the choke point you're watching until one of them decides to come around back and kill you. Shotguns - I guess they decided that since the maps are so small that they would make shotguns primary weapons again. They're still complete randomizers when it comes to damage. Sometimes you'll shoot a guy from one foot away in the back and he'll live and other times you'll shoot him from 10 feet away and he'll die. Other times it'll take 3-5 shells to put a guy down. This makes most of the shotguns fairly useless as they just don't kill people well enough which is why they should be secondaries. Of course, that all changes when you get to the Striker. They turned this thing into a death machine in this game. It now fires as fast as you can press the button which for a lot of people is as fast as the automatic shotgun. However, it holds 4 more rounds and fires alot farther then the auto shotty so it becomes the best shotgun mainly because it's so unbalanced and overpowered. There is really no reason to use any other shotgun once you get it. It also amazingly has no recoil. Normally firing 5-6 shotgun shells in less than a second you'd expect the aim to go flying all around, but not with this shotgun. Also, even if you're hitting someone using this thing, it doesn't seem to affect their aim at all. If they're within range of you they'll normally hit you with one round which throws your aim off and now you're dead. There are a lot of other bad things like getting rid of harriers, chopper gunner, emergency airdrop killstreaks or making the pavelow a now useless 12 kill streak since it still takes two stingers shots to bring down. Hardcore Team Deathmatch - I loved playing this in MW2 but they've ruined it in this one. All the hard core game types are now ricochet. I understand that there are annoying people who would go into games and just team kill but there were ways around this. As long as there weren't multiple people doing it, the time out penalty in MW2 was good enough. I could understand for search and destroy where you don't get to respawn but why all the other ones? This destroys the entire point of playing hardcore. Now if you toss a flash bang or concussion grenades into an area, if a teammate decides to run there, nothing happens to them and you get flashed or concussed. If you throw an explosive grenade and a teammate gets hit by it, you now die instead of them. If you're blasting at an enemy and one of your idiot teammates decides he wants to run right in front of you while you're firing full auto, he lives and you now get hit killed. It used to be in MW2 that I would hold my fire if a teammate was next to an enemy because I didn't want to risk hitting him. Now I'm afraid to fire anytime a teammate is near an enemy because then I'll die. You used to be able to make the choice of whether to risk killing your teammate or not but now that choice has been taken from you. Also annoying is that you can no longer kill campers on your team so they can just sit in obnoxious spots now with no consequence and make the game terrible for everyone. Got a stealth bomber? Well, you might as well just kill yourself because there's a 90% chance you'll hit a teammate with it. It used to be that I'd run inside a building when I heard a friendly stealth bomber coming in. Now I hear one coming in and don't care if it hits me or not since he'll die instead of me. Overall the game is still fun but you really have to ignore all the terrible things they've done to the game. If you can't do that then you'll probably end up very annoyed due to all the lag and other issues. It's still a better game than Black Ops but I'd much rather just play MW2 or MW.	video-games_xbox
Rare Replay is 6 games shy of the greatest collection ever, but it's still good nevertheless. I've loved Rare since the Donkey Kong Country series and Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie are still my two favorite games of all time! Buying this was a no-brainer for me. At the same time though, this collection actually saddens me. Sifting through the beautiful game gallery not only reminds me of why Rare was the behemoth it was during particular years, but it's also missing 6 games that, to me, are easily some of biggest identifiers to the developer's success. No fault of Rare's of course, the 3 Donkey Kong Country games, Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64 are owned exclusively to Nintendo and Goldeneye (just saying it disheartens me) will forever be stuck in an ownership struggle between Activision, Microsoft and Nintendo (whom is also the reason why it will not be released). Those are HUGE games. Even Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge would've been interesting to play for the first time. I know I shouldn't fret on what could be done and instead enjoy what I have, but seriously.... WHY GOLDENEYE?! On another grim note, a good number of the earlier titles in this list are really not all that desirable to play. It's sort of interesting to see the team's inception within the video games industry, but to play some of them all the way through deems somewhat of a chore. Those 6 or 7 games I just mentioned could've easily eliminated all the crap that was in here. I suppose if you don't walk away with the notion that you're paying $30 for 30 games, then you should fine because most people will likely play just a certain number of the games anyway; and that's totally fine. Sorry for sounding a bit harsh, but it's the truth. Something else that I was slightly irritated with is the fact that the XBOX 360 titles are basically just ports of the 360 variations. Instead of being experiences exclusive to Rare Replay, they're actually part of the list of backwards compatible games, making Grabbed By The Ghoulies a better looking game now than Perfect Dark Zero. I was hoping Rare would've atleast cleaned up some of the visuals from the likes of Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero and the Viva Pinata series. Simple things like increasing anti-aliasing and improving the frame-rate would've made each of them that much more valuable to this collection. Last but not least, Rare Replay features Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which ironically is a game I will NEVER replay! On the brighter side, Rare Replay is a real work of art in itself! Everything from the quirky intro song to the theatrical layout, and finally the overwhelming amount of insight into the developer's projects (both released and cancelled), all sum up to a grand celebration of 30 years. $30 for a bunch of games that you would've otherwise spent hours looking for a number of consoles for and hooking them up, is almost worth it just as a convenience factor. Not to mention, almost all the games here look better and run smoother than any of their older counterparts, with the exception of Nuts & Bolts, which I've heard has some frame-rate issues. Again, no loss there. Extra Stuff: In the meantime, if you've never heard of Playtonic Games, check them out. Comprised of ex-Rare veterans, these guys have been working on a new project called Yooka-Laylee, which is a spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie. The game is already shaping up beautifully! Also, the Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra is a guy who loves to bring video game music back to life and has redone the entire first soundtrack to Banjo-Kazooie. It's pretty spectacular to say the least. Warm to the heart and a smile to the face. :)	video-games_xbox
AMAZING - MUST READ. Hey, Hello, did my Headline get your interest? Well good, as you are here now anyway, why not stay a while and read this review? I can promise you something here and now today. When you have finished reading this review. You will have learned 3 new things. Stay with me for this, ok? Here we go: Now, without further ado, straight to the review: Today: CTA Carrying Case for Xbox One I usually tend not to carry my XBOX One around. Why would you? It usually is nice where it is, close to your TV. But now I have a move coming up and instead of just packing my Xbox in a moving box I wanted something better. The CTA Carrying Case does an amazing job and gives you enough room for the consol and the cables but tends to not leave you with a lot of room for any of the controllers. If you want to transport the controllers safely aswell, you should use this: (please also check out my review) <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/LTGEM-EVA-Hard-Case-Travel-Carrying-Portable-Storage-Bag-for-Xbox-One-Controller-with-Mesh-pocket-Fits-Plug-Cables/dp/B01MCQC13K/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">LTGEM EVA Hard Case Travel Carrying Portable Storage Bag for Xbox One Controller with Mesh pocket Fits Plug & Cables</a> This really is all you need, but keep in mind this carrying case does not offer a lot of padding. It is ok, it does the job but there are a little better ones out there, but also more expensive. If you don't plan anything special this is all you need and great. Definitely a recommendation from my side As I promised you will learn 3 new things today, first the product review, and here are 2 amazing facts more: - Every Year on August 5th, the Mars Curiosity Rover celebrates the anniversary of its arrival by singing the Happy Birthday Song. To Itself. All alone. On Mars. - Queen Cleopatra was alive closer to the invention of the IPHONE than the construction of the Great Pyramid. Think about that... "Reviewing a better world. One product at a time" Follow me on AMAZON SPARK for honest reviews and product features. #NotSponsored #NoBias	video-games_xbox
Not bad, kind of repetitive. I'm reviewing this game after putting in about 30 hours so far into it. I'm also reviewing from the perspective of someone who has not played the previous installments in the series, so my comments will be based mostly on the merits of the WOTS3 alone. I bought the game based on the mostly positive reviews I saw here on Amazon (the decent price point also helped). I too did not see this game in any of my local video game stores or big box retailers so it was nice, being able to find it here. As for the gameplay - you start off as a samurai who wakes up in a village and over the course of the game you can opt to choose to help one (or both, or none) of 2 major samurai factions/clans, or choose to help the village you woke up in, or pretty much do whatever you want and help nobody as well. One great aspect of the game has been the freedom to choose your destiny, and one of the big selling points of this game is the fact there are so many different endings you can choose from. It is helpful to note that after you achieve one ending, you can carry over your stats and weapons into a new save, so that you don't have to start all over again in terms of accumulating items. Given the deep weapons creation system in this game and the huge number and variety of weapons you can make or choose from, it makes sense that you carry over items in each incarnation of the game you subsequently start. Gameplay is relatively fun, with the combat mechanics being very deep and fulfilling. You can learn many different moves and combined that with the variety of weapons and stances you choose from, it definitely caters to both the experts who like deep combat, or even button mashers who like to hit X 100 times a minute to slog through a fight. In this respect I give the game props. How you finish the game is up to you, with all sorts of storylines and decisions presented to the player at many stages of the game. It is nice to see how your choices really do ultimately affect your outcome. In short, the game plays relatively well and the variety of endings is also very good. But there are also several shortcomings to the game that I noticed as well. First, even though the game is technically 'open ended', there is a very limited amount of places you can actually go in the game. You're pretty much cycling through all sorts of jobs and tasks and event driven things in those same areas. Mercifully there is a quick hop option you can select to each area, otherwise you'll notice that you're pretty much running around the same stages over, and over and over again. Also animations in the game are at times stiff and clunky. Someone above mentioned it was a characteristic of previous games as well and has been improved for the current gen version. However, given how far we are in the current gen, the characters shouldn't be moving around this poorly. The graphics also look relatively weak. It isn't as bad as a late stage PS2 game, but it does come pretty close. The animated scenes do look good, and facial models there are decent. The sound effects are not bad, though I recommend you use the Japanese voices with English subtitles. The English voices sound dorky and some of those guys sound like people in a Chinese restaurant. You're better off using Japanese to stay true to the 'feel' of the game. One last note, much of how you gain favor in the game is related to the jobs that you are entrusted with by whatever faction you choose to serve. Keep in mind a lot of these missions repeat, and some of them can be frustrating or boring (like those 'find and fetch' or 'hide and seek' kind of missions, which get old after the 10th try if you're playing a prolonged session). Not all of them are bad. In fact some of them are pretty fun and exciting to play. But there is just enough repetition that I'm not sure every player will be devoted enough to try and get all of those 20 or 30 or whatever endings in the game. That said, it's not a terrible game by any means. The cool storyline, exotic setting and fun combat is definitely a major pro. I just think there are other games out there that provide more action and less repetition than this. But if you're into samurai or ninja style games, or if you are too overwhelmed by the chaos of Dynasty Warriors or turned off by the overly deep strategy sessions of Nobunaga's Ambition ... this game might be a good middle ground for people like you. Just be ready to do a lot of jobs, like fetching underwear or apologizing to townspeople who kick you in the head a lot.	video-games_xbox
Horrible Next-Gen Game. First of all, I played through and beat the original Far Cry for the first X-Box and loved it. The game was very fun and had some new cool new ideas for the very-populated FPS crowd. This new version just doesn't have the same effect. In this new era of console gaming, games must go the extra step to survive and the 2nd Far Cry just doesn't. From the minute I plugged the disc into my machine, things turned ugly. Someone at Ubisoft had the genius idea to block the Far Cry: Evolutions story-line (the sequel game) until you beat the Far Cry: Instincts story-line (the original). That is horrible news to any and all of us that have already beaten the original and want to know what happens next in the life of Jack Carver. Fortunately, this problem can be corrected by going on-line and finding the appropriate cheat code. But still, a cheat code shouldn't be needed to unlock the game you just bought. The next disappointment I noticed were the graphics. They are, for the 360 console, bland and subpar. Although improved, they don't standout. Compared to the X-Box version, the graphics are greatly improved and shine but once they are compared with other 360 games, they obviously fall short of the mark. I was greatly sadened by this, especially after hearing and reading all the hype surrounding the game and it's "awesome graphics." The last pit-fall I found in the game is actual gameplay. The story-lines are both very short and can be beaten in only a day or two. And beyond this, the actual handling of the charcter feels somewhat sloppy, almost sluggish. Jack doesn't handle on-screen with precision like 360 gamers have come to be used too; instead movements all feel delayed a split-second, leading to very frustrating enemy encounters where that split-second means life or death. Overall, I was extremely disappointed with this next step in the Far Cry world. The graphics aren't anyhere near 360 standards, the gameplay is sluggish and short, and, even if you've beaten the original before, you hafta beat Instincts again to play the new Far Cry game. This one is a rental, at best, for hard-core FPS fans.	video-games_xbox
Finally, a good Batman game. Want great graphics with a smooth, combo-laden fighting style that slows down in bullet time so you can really watch your enemies suffer? Want sick combos with crisp sound? Want to play a damn good Batman game for once? Then you should seriously consider trying "Batman: Arkham Asylum", the new game for the X-Box 360. You are, of course, Batman, (voiced by Kevin Conroy, the same guy who voiced Batman in the long-running animated series), and you have just captured the Joker, (voiced by the incredible Mark Hamil, whose voice seems raspier than his animated Joker days, which seems to make the Joker even better), and have transported him back to Gotham's Arkham Asylum where he belongs. Although, it seems a bit too good to be true, a bit too easy of a capture. Before long, you realize that the Joker has had this planned all along and you've been roped in yet again. He has set the inmates of Arkham free and have trapped you inside, crowning himself the new warden. Will you be able to capture the Joker and maintain your sanity? Especially when pit against villains like Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy, among others? The beginning of the game starts out with you following behind as guards are dragging the Joker into Arkham, the tiny credits rolling on the side of the screen discreetly. You even get a quick glimpse of Killer Croc, who kind of reminds you of the huge monster from Resident Evil 4, only with scaly skin and mean mouth full of teeth. Soon enough, Joker breaks free of the guards' grasp and your adventure begins. Now you can finally try out some of those awesome features you've been hearing about, listening to the Joker prodding you along on the televisions and speakers scattered throughout Arkham. You can zoom in and even go into "Detective Mode", which outlines everything around you and highlights objects with which you can interact. It also turns humans into literally skeletons, so you can easily stakeout a situation before pinning yourself up against a suicidal onslaught. You can move while in a crouched position, which also aids in successful stealth and the angles taken on certain actions make it all the more interesting. If you pry a grate off of the wall, you get a close-up of the bolts popping free and the metal in the grate bending. When you crawl through the tunnel that lies beyond the gate, the perspective takes on first person and reminds you a bit of crawling through the tunnels in "The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker". The fighting in this game is most definitely a highlight, along with the crisp graphics and plentiful areas of exploration. The better the combo, the more experience you gain which leads to some pretty sexy upgrades, known as "Wayne Tech Upgrades", such as combo throw, critical combo strikes, military armor upgrades, to name a bare minimum. Inverted Takedown is pretty sweet, since you can hang upside down from ledges, plan your attack and land on the unsuspecting victim. You can also glide down with your cape, use it to stun your enemies and plant your feet square in the victim's chest. The grappling hook also makes for a quick escape in a tight situation. You can also use the back button to access the Map/Objectives, which shows you where you are and where you need to be, also a la Resident Evil. Later in the game, the Riddler himself shows up in the form of various minigames, leaving you plenty of riddles to try and figure out to prove that you are the superior intelligence. Plus, the voices on the televisions and speakers, as well as the music, grow louder as you get closer to your goal, which helps to lead you when you are faced with rooms that have tons of nooks and crannies to explore. The only two things that seem to be against it so far after two hours of play is that the lips don't always match up with the words, especially Batman's, and that there was one small glitch, but the game auto-saves so you won't lose much of your progress if you need to re-load the game. Also, no confirmation on this yet, but it looks like it could end up being a rather short game, since it is all supposed to take place over the course of one evening. But more gameplay needs to execute before that can be affirmed. All-in-all, this is definitely a game you should consider if you want a decent Batman game with a sweet fighting style. Plus, it really does help when you have convincing, enjoyable voice acting like Mark Hamil's and Kevin Conroy's.	video-games_xbox
Xbox needs to give up on RPGs. I'm sorry to say this, but this game is pathetic, and the level of fame that developer BioWare has gained over it really saddens me. Now, I'll admit that I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan (read: I saw one movie when I was eight), but I am a huge RPG fan, and this game plummets far below my expectations. I will describe my experience with the game, and hopefully you will choose to pass it by and skip the agony I went through. At the start of the game, I was asked to choose my character's appearance, skill point allocation, and basic moveset. Sounds fun and cool, right? That's what I thought, too. Until I realized that every character model was blocky and pseudo-realistic (you know, that weird, pale, supposed-to-look-human-but-really-doesn't look), the skill-point system was convoluted and confusing to anyone who isn't a hardcore Dungeons and Dragons player, and choosing my moves was so difficult and frustrating that in the end, I didn't even know which ones I had. Creating the character took an hour, and I didn't feel at all satisfied after I finished. Once I started the actual game, things only got worse. I headed to my first battle, expecting a standard turn-based system at the least, and an innovative action/RPG blend at the most. I got neither. Instead, I was greeted a bizarre mess. In fact, this combat system was so strange and awkward that I don't think I could even describe it. All I know is that, first off, my character was somehow moving on its own, and second, the commands I entered didn't seem to effect what happened onscreen at all. After making my way through several battles, by way of random button mashing and liberal use of medpacks (that was the easiest way to do it, and seemed to have the same result as trying to concentrate and strategize), I met my first party member. What happened after that just plain scared me. First, the voiceovers made me want to both laugh and scream. Secondly, while the horrendous voice is grating your ears, you have to look at a disturbing close-up of the character's face as he's talking. And finally, THE FACE DOESN'T CHANGE. His expression stayed exactly the same throughout the entire conversation, and this happened with every single other character I talked to. Freaky. The final part of the game that I played through was the first city. It was big, with lots of people walking around, going about their lives. This would be cool, if I had known where to go in this massive maze. But did I? Nope. Although my horribly-voiced partner apparently knew the city well, I recieved no guidance from him. Instead, he followed me around, giving me no hints but the instruction to "find Bastilla". By the way, I knew nothing about what Bastilla looked like or where she might be. After twenty minutes of running around in the maze, talking to random, badly-voiced people, most of whom had mean things to say, I gave up. Maybe people who like Star Wars and D&D will appreciate this, but I just can't. BioWare, quit pretending you're the next great RPG maker and go back to putting your characters in MTV music videos.	video-games_xbox
madden10 reaches for the sky but falls far too short. Let me start off by saying that I was never that big of a fan of madden, but i loved the 2k series before EA bought the exclusive license to have the NFL teams and Players. So with that being said it has taken a long time for me to give a madden game what i would consider a fair shot. I actually had quite high hopes for this year's madden and it ended up dashing most of those. Let me start off with the positives...the actually game play is great. Now on to the bad. The game is hampered by its horrible presentation. If a five year old last generation game could do a competent halftime show with competent play calling then how is it that EA puts out this garbage. The halftime and postgame show offers no highlights and the voice over work is atrocious. I also couldn't find an option for turning it off and to skip it you have to skip like 5 things...which wouldn't be that bad but you have to listen to the voice over work each time and it is hard not to laugh...because if this is EA trying then we football fans are in trouble. The play by play is also uninspired as it gets repetitive fast. The actual play by play guy fails to convey any emotion whatsoever and chris collinsworth does his best but after hearing him say the same sayings over and over again I was ready for him to shut up as well. Another thing that is highly irratating is the the constant measuring for first downs that is unskippable and that uses the one of 2 preset graphics over and over...so in other words you can tell if you got it by which angle the camera is at but yet you still have to watch the same exact thing you just watched on the last first down play. The stupid ref scenes continue with Touchdowns...again there are 2 set scenes. One would not think presentation would not be that big of a factor...heck the graphics for the most part are fantastic although some of the coaches look deformed, but the other stuff is just too hard to take after playing a superior quality title that came out years ago. The game felt like an unfinished product. Madden has felt that way to me for sometime as they add new things and take out other things(such as the drills...which i enjoyed) the game keeps running in place. They need to just improve upon what they have and they could make a great football game but then again....people wouldn't keep buying it year after year if it didn't steadily improve each season. Although NCAA football sells great and it is by far a superior game just because it seems more finished and refined...maybe because they leave it the heck alone. I lasted about 3 seasons in my franchise and I couldn't take anymore. The game became frustrating because i wasn't able to turn off or skip a lot of the junk in the game. Another thing that didn't help was the imported draft classes didn't include my players from UAB (I like a challenge so i build up the bad teams on NCAA football) even though i had 2 heisman winners in 2 seasons, it also had random stats for the players that were imported so it kind of makes importing worthless. The online play was good but not great. The other thing is the EA money grab of dlc which btw i have no problem with as long as its the type "cheating" stuff like heal an injured player...you know things that some people may want but are not necessary...to make people buy the game to have an online franchise or pay 10bucks extra if they have a roommate that wants to play one on their own gamer tag is just bad in my opinion. I bought the game but have several friends who rent for blockbuster or gamefly and refused to pay to have an online franchise(which is unfinished as well btw as the trade system is really screwed up) which meant that no online franchise with my friends which really sucks. Regardless if you want an up to date football game with real rosters and teams this is what we are STUCK with. Like i said it could be worse the gameplay was great for the most part but everything else makes MADDEN10 a lackluster experience.	video-games_xbox
good fun with some small flaws. First of all, I love Ryse just for being set in the time of Roman Empire, there aren't many good games with this theme. The game play is similar to the Batman Arkham series, albeit a bit more simple. You mainly block and dodge a lot while looking for your openings to start combos. Ryse has a quick perk system that allows you to swap between four bonus perks on the fly, it is crucial that you learn which perk to swap to very fast in certain situations, especially on Legendary difficulty. Now my flaws are small but important, the game lacks a double counter which is very problematic in my opinion. In Batman, you can counter when two enemies swing at once, but you can't do this in Ryse and it creates a lot of problems when you fight a lot of guys at once, your muscle memory dictates well timed counters, but if another bad guy decides to swing in along with his buddy after you e hit counter, he WILL hit you and you're helpless to stop it. In Batman you would simply double conter in this scenario. Secondly, the game lacks weapons, you stick with a sword and shield the whole time, while I know this simplifies the combat, more weapons would be cool. Third, your only other weapon, the pilum, are woefully slow to aim at long distances, this is a huge flaw because you need these to fiht archers up on walls, but the archers in the game will fire rapidly and fast and often make it nearly impossible to tale the time to aim the pilum accurately, I found myself doing a lot of inaccurate quick throws and just trying for luck shots. You can dodge and deflect their arrows, but your animations are painfully slow and often a second or third arrow finds a way to tag you during. Or after your animation. But these issues aside, I loved this game a lot, it is short and simple, but gorgeous, fun and has a great historical setting with a classic story. I hope Crytek makes a sequel and addresses some of the flaws I mentioned, as well as adds. better multiplayer and coop. This has the potential to rival the god of war and darksiders games, but only of they improve on the game with great sequels.	video-games_xbox
Xbox One Bundle Comparison. There are now several Xbox One bundles to choose from over the holidays, and this Assassin's Creed bundle is one of the better options in my opinion. But just in case another one will be a better match for you, here is a comparison with holiday price drops: Xbox One, no Kinect: $349 - Barebones, nothing extra, not a great deal, don't get this one. Xbox One with Kinect: $449 - Same as above, but includes Kinect. No other bonuses, don't get this bundle. Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle, no Kinect: $349 - This includes both Assassin's Creed black flag (digital version), which is playable immediately after download, and Assassin's Creed Unity, which you can pre-download, but it is not playable until release date, which is still 1-2 weeks away (UPDATE: Available now!). As you can see, this is the same price as the barebones XBO, but includes 2 free games, making it a pretty sweet deal if you don't care about the Kinect. Xbox One Assassin's Creed Bundle, with Kinect: $449 - Same as other AC bundle above, but also includes Kinect. It also includes a free Kinect game: Dance Central Spotlight. The Kinect sells separately alone for $149 MSRP, so this is an extremely good bundle. The standard MSRP prices would put this value at $399 console + $149 Kinect + $30 AC Black Flag + $60 AC Unity + $20 Dance Central Spotlight = about $650 total. Even if you believe the separate prices are kind of inflated, or they go down further over time, still a great deal. Xbox One Sunset Overdrive Bundle: $349 - This bundle does not include a Kinect, but includes the new Sunset Overdrive game for the same price as the barebones bundle. But what makes this one stand out is that both the console and controller are white, which is pretty cool. Color preferences are subjective, so you'll need to look at it and decide if this bundle is right for you, or if SO is the type of game you'll like. It is currently the only way to get a white XBO. If you really want the Kinect, you'll have to buy it separately for $149, which makes the deal less awesome. But if you don't care about Kinect and like the look of white, this is a great choice. Xbox One Call of Duty Advanced Warfare Bundle: $449 - This bundle is priced the same as the normal Kinect bundle, but this one does not actually include the Kinect. Instead, that $100 premium gets you Call of Duty Advanced Warfare (digital version, not physical), a custom Call of Duty themed console and controller design, and a 1TB hard drive. This is the only way to currently get a 1TB hard drive, which to me is the biggest selling point of all. But again, if you want the Kinect, you'll have to buy it separately for $149 which makes it not as great of a deal. But that 1TB is great, and with how large full games are, will quickly become necessary. I'm hoping 1TB becomes a standard hard drive size very soon for this console, but for now, you'll have to get this bundle to get that extra space (or get a separate external drive). Since this review is on the AC bundle, which I actually did purchase, I will specify in a little more detail what it includes. The design you see in the product description picture is a cardboard sleeve over the normal green Xbox One box. Inside that box, is completely identical to the normal Xbox One + Kinect bundle, except for those extra cards with download codes for the two AC games. There are no actual physical games or discs included in the bundle. The console is the standard black with the standard 500GB hard drive. Prepare to spend a few hours waiting for the games to download and install. Xbox Live definitely does not utilize my full 50 megabit connection, it seemed to download at around 10mbps consistently, which meant a long wait to actually play, since these game files are HUGE. After the last few system updates, the Xbox One has become an even better gaming/media device that I am still using and enjoying just about every day. So pick the bundle that works best for you and you won't be disappointed!	video-games_xbox
Hear EVERYTHING. Okay, first off, the only reason this didn't earn 5 stars is because of one simple issue: If you're playing with other people who are on headsets, chances are you're going to sound way too loud over voice chat. Turtle Beach even lists this as an issue on their site, saying there's going to be a firmware update to correct this. -Given how long this headset has been out, I don't think that's going to happen. A simple volume control for the microphone would have been sufficient, but that wasn't in the design. HOWEVER, you can do as Turtle Beach suggests: just move the microphone away from your mouth. I find that if I have it sticking straight out, I don't overmodulate on my friends' headsets. That's all that kept this from a full 5 stars. On to the good: as I said, you hear EVERYTHING. Great for any game (especially if you want crisp audio without waking everyone in your house), but if you're looking at a headset like this, you're probably into playing First Person Shooter (FPS) games. I can honestly say I've seen an improvement in my gameplay from using a headset. No, it won't magically help you shoot/aim better, but you're going to be infinitely more aware of your surroundings. Someone shoots a gun, you can hear the direction it came from, and move toward the shooter. Someone is running past you behind a wall? You can clearly hear their footsteps, especially if you use the 'Footsteps' built-in audio preset. I've gotten plenty of kills in COD by tracking an opponent's movements just from the sounds of their footsteps, and being prepared the second they come around a corner or over a wall. Other benefits: You have 12 built-in presets. Depending on what you want to do, you can enhance the sounds of explosions (in case you want to get your fix of Schwarzeneggar movies without waking the neighbors) enemy footsteps in games, etc. There are separate volume controls for game audio and team chat audio, so you can dial down team speak if your buddy just can't seem to keep his voice down, and not lose any audio from the game itself. Rechargeable battery: I cannot express how good this feature is. Your gameplay doesn't have to end just because you're out of AA batteries, and have already pirated the last batteries from your TV's remote control. Simply plug in the included recharge cable (which is PLENTY long, so there's no need to give up your seating position) and you can play and charge at the same time. My brother-in-law has the X-41 headset from Turtle Beach, and his batteries die with pretty much no warning. Not so with this headset. It will begin to beep at you once a minute when your battery level is getting low. Simply put, if you're thinking of getting a headset and are looking at this one, you won't be disappointed. -Just remember to move the mic away from your mouth. :)	video-games_xbox
Review from a hardcore/competitive Guitar Hero fan. I will start by saying that I have been a huge Guitar Hero fan ever since the first game on PS2. I was very involved in local tournaments and played GH competitively for years. I was very excited to see the franchise get a re-boot. Out of the box I was initially disappointed to see that the wireless guitar uses a dongle for the Xbox. However, I cant knock the game for this since it is really Microsoft not allowing them to use the Xboxs wireless technology. But it is worth noting that you will need a USB port for the dongle. This does matter for someone like me that has an external drive and headset already using up 2 of the 3 ports on the Xbox. If I want to play 2-player then it takes some rearranging to get it setup. More on that later. Gameplay Impressions After getting through the worthless tutorial you get to jump into your first show. Im not going to go into the overall cheesy presentation as that has been covered by several other reviewers. The gameplay itself is actually very fun. I love the new 6 button layout. It makes the game new and very challenging even for GH veterans. Some of the solo/hammer on sections are very satisfying to play through. However, there are several sections that just don't seem to match the soundtrack that is being played. This gets extremely frustrating because you will start to have mystery misses that kill your note streak. Game Modes The game is divided into two game types: GH Live and GHTV. GH Live is the single player campaign. There are 42 songs on disc for this mode. Most of those songs are locked at the start, which is pretty standard for GH games. You select a setlist and play through a 3 -5 songs for each. Finishing a set will unlock those songs in quickplay. This isn't too exciting but GH veterans will feel very comfortable in this mode. You can play these 42 songs at your will once they are unlocked. This is also where you will play the multiplayer. This is not like other GH games. The multiplayer consists of two players playing the same note pattern. No rhythm guitar, lead 2 guitar, nothing. This is very disappointing, especially for people like me that dropped $150 on the two guitar set. That second guitar is a great paper weight. Now we come to the part that I love and hate, GHTV. This is where I have spent the vast majority of my time with the game. You get to select from different music channels (There are 2 channels available at launch) that are running music videos 24 hours per day. You can jump in or out of the action any time that you want. This mode has 200+ songs on day one. This mode is very addictive and you might find yourself playing a channel for hours, especially if you have friends over. Its so easy to play one more song. I find myself playing one more song about 10 times. Now for the bad news. You are stuck with whatever song that the channel gives you. Yes, you can select a song to play through an on demand option. However, this does have a cost built into it. In order to select a song you must have some in game currency which comes in the form of plays. So if there is a song that you like or a really hard solo that you want to practice you must use one of your plays every time to want to play the song. To be fair, you can earn plays by just playing the game normally. However, the rate at which you earn plays is nowhere near enough to really practice songs. From my experience, the rate that the game gives away plays drops dramatically as you play more. You will find yourself eating up those plays quickly if there is a particular song that you want to practice. This forces you to eventually pay real money for plays. Yes, you get to pay more money to play a game that you already paid $100 or $150 for. You can pay $6 to unlock the full game for a 24 hour period. That adds up to $180 per month to have access to a game you already paid for. This is really where I think they lost me. I would love nothing more than to play the game and have a fun time but the obvious attempts to nickel and dime their customers makes me want to return the game and move on. This is really too bad because I would love to have more time with the new controller. It is really fun. Why not have an option to buy songs? Or, if you are so hell bent on getting more money from people, maybe have a monthly subscription in the $10 range. I could see something like that working but at $6 per day you can have your game back. Postives New guitar controller GHTV is great for parties Negatives No practice mode Cheesy presentation GHTV WILL cost you money Multiplayer is pretty much non-existent Very low value out of the box (42 songs) No option to buy or permanently unlock songs	video-games_xbox
Good, but not quite what I was hoping for. The X-Men have been getting robbed of a truly excellent X-men title over the course of the last few years with the last truly great game to feature Marvel's Merry Mutants was Marvel Vs Capcom 2on the Dreamcast, (Recently ported to PS2 and Xbox.) Even in the Playstation/N64/Dreamcast era the X-men were not used outside of fighter games at all. This is the first non-fighter X-men game for a major console for a very long time, and it looked very good, and was very well advertised as well. I rarely get so X-cited about a game that I preorder it, but I did preorder this one. Mark Hammel (Luke Skywalker) doing the voice of Wolverine... I had to see this! And he was good! Very good! The voice-overs of this game are fantastic, as is the storyline. However this is the best part of the game, and the rest really needs work, and bad. While this game is light years better than X-men: Next Dimension it still lacks a great deal of polish that a delay of a month or so could have addressed. My biggest complaint being clipping. Clipping is when people and objects fall through walls, and things like that. To me, it's irritating, and an eye sore. The other major complaint I have is the unresponsive buttons, but that may be the fault of the Xbox controller itself. It seems that I have to hit buttons much harder on games that do not implement pressure sensitivity into the game play mechanics to get the characters to do anything. The animation could have also been better; it's pretty choppy, even though the frame rate seems fairly steady for the most part. The cut scenes are very hard for me to watch because the animation is so bad at times. On the plus side, the camera is almost 100% controlled by the player, and that makes it easy to position just where I want it. The music is very event oriented and works well, and if you don't like it there's custom tracks. The game is still very fun though; it's just that I wish that Activision had taken more time to polish this title up. Improving the enemy AI, improving the stealth functionality, and button responsiveness, and eliminating the clipping would have helped this game immensely. It has five stars potential, but in my opinion wasn't quite ready for shipment when it shipped. Hopefully there will be a sequel where they will address the issues that this installment has. As with most of the cross platform games the Xbox version is the best, with GameCube second best (Frame rate issues), and Playstation 2 (Aliasing or jagged edges on top of the clipping problem) looking the worst, but despite its poor animation the character models for this game are actually pretty good, so the differences between the three versions are minimal.	video-games_xbox
Not a magic bullet. I'm a PC gamer of the last 20 years and have been playing FPS games almost exclusivly during that time. I'll give you an honest review and not tell you whether you should or should not buy one for yourself. It comes preprogramed but you'll want to customize this. It doesn't take long. Hit a program button on the device, press the button on the controller you want to map to the keyboard or mouse and then press the button on the KB or mouse. Easy. It takes about 1 minute to set up after you've done it a couple times. Just be aware that if you change the controller layout in the game menu after you set up the keymapping, it will mess you up. The KB and mouse will have to be programed every time you switch games. Although, if you're playing a game and turn off the XBox and come back later, the MaxShooter will hold its program for you and you won't have to reprogram it. As for what it's like to use this in game, it has it's good points and bad. It's not a perfect 1 to 1 translation from controller to KB and mouse. Thumbsticks don't offer the kind of sensitivity that a mouse offers. You get "dead zones" as you move the mouse around, and from time to time, movement looks kind of jagged. Fortunately, there are "mouse sensitivity" adjustments on the device that can help with that. UNfortunately, the perfect setting is different for each game, and the wheels you use to adjust the sensitivity are not marked in any way. So you just have to play with it to get it right. For the good there is in this device, aiming is now supper accurate and very tight. Buttons map to the keyboard and mouse as asvertised. Even the pressure sensitive buttons work just fine. For example, the croutch/prone button for CoD works just fine. You just hold the croutch button down on the keyboard a bit longer and you go prone. On a personal level here, for me its the thumbsticks that mess up my good time while playing a FPS on a console. This device works just fine to get me through. I don't think this device will have a poor player suddenly ripping up the competition. My kill rate in CoDMW3 went from .7 to about 1.5 on average. Although I would rather play FPS games on my PC, some games, like HALO Reach for example, are only available on the 360. Anyway, this device does two things for me... 1)It makes my FPS game experience on a console more enjoyable and 2)It makes me want to turn my computer on and play BlackOps, Left4Dead, ModernWarfare, and CounterStrike with the fantastic frame rates and smooth action that a good gaming PC offers. I hope that Microsoft and Sony see the desire players have for using a KB and mouse to play some games and offer the opption to use these as input devices on later consoles. In most of my PC games they have an option to use a 360 controller instead of a KB/mouse setup. Same options should be offered for consoles... after all in essence, they are input devices too, same as a computer.	video-games_xbox
DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!! KNOWN LOADING ISSUE WHICH UBISOFT REFUSES TO FIX. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!! KNOWN LOADING ISSUE WHICH UBISOFT REFUSES TO FIX!!! For any persons who have purchased this game and have been stuck in the loading/Animus screen at any point in the game please email SueUbiSoft@gmail.com with as much of the following information as you're comfortable with to add your name to the list of potential claimants. (Note: I will not share your information with anyone besides any attorneys I contact and I make no promises in regards to a lawsuit coming to fruition, nor to any potential payouts from said lawsuit.) Information: Full Name UbiSoft Username Approximate Date and Place of Purchase A transcript of any current or past UbiSoft support tickets regarding the issue A good contact email address Phone Number DOCUMENTATION DOCUMENTATION DOCUMENTATION, because if it isn't written and/or documented it didn't happen. We need proof of negligence and a wilful intent by UbiSoft to defraud their customers. That, with the amount of people involved is what will give this issue class-action status. No matter if the lawsuit is successful or not, their brand will have the stain of the incident published throughout the gaming community by every magazine and website out their and subsequently their stock will take a loss. It's a domino effect and the only thing these big companies understand is when money is being taken out of their wallet. Let's crack the whip on them guys! The following forum has detailed information on the loading issue: [...] UbiSoft's Response to My Support Ticket Regarding This Issue Chat Reference Number: 03373578 I purchased Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on May 29th 2016 from WalMart. When trying to fast travel to Nassau I became stuck in the Animus loading screen. Now my game will only load the Animus screen and I can do nothing else with it. I've tried the quitting from the animus screen and then uninstalling and reinstalling Black Flag probably 7 times and it has not worked for me. I've deleted my save file and redownloaded it from the UbiSoft server. I've cleared my game cache. And I've tried using a different brand new copy of the game disc. Nothing has worked, however, and I am still stuck in the Animus loading screen. I have even left the screen sitting for over an hour to see if the game would load, but it did not. I've looked on approximately 5 different forum posts about this same issue on several different sites and I've even read comments on YouTube videos concerning this issue and everyone is saying the same thing, Nassau doesn't load and UbiSoft won't fix it. The only thing I haven't tried yet is downloading a copy from the XBox Live Store to see if that would work. That's why I'm writing today, to see if you would be so kind as to provide me with a download code for my game so that I can give that option a try as a last resort. Thank you. Emily B: Thank you for contacting Ubisoft Live Support. Please give me a moment to read your question, and I'll be with you shortly. Emily B: Good afternoon Me: Good Morning Emily Emily B: I'm sorry to hear you've been having issues with Nassau. We actually do have some instructions on how to fix that. Emily B: They're rather long though, so I'll need to email them to you once the chat closes Emily B: If you still experience issues, you can update your ticket or just hop into chat again Me: Okay Me: Can you email them to me now so I can read over them to see if it's something I haven't already tried? Emily B: Sure Me: Thanks Emily B: I just sent that email out Me: Thanks Body of Email Below: Hello GiJoeSchmoe69, Recently you requested personal assistance from Ubisoft Support. Below is a summary of your request and our response. If you require further assistance, please click on the link below to update your ticket. Please do not reply directly to this email. We will assume your issue has been resolved if we do not hear from you within 4 days. You may reopen and update this ticket at any time by clicking on the link below. Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. Kind regards, Ubisoft Support Does the response below address your concern? YES - MY ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED. NO - I NEED FURTHER ASSISTANCE. COMMUNICATION HISTORY Emily @Ubisoft Support Jun 13, 2016 at 12:11 PM EDT Thank you for contacting Ubisoft Support. If you are having trouble loading into Nassau during the Sequence 3, Memory 2 story mission, please follow the steps below to resolve the issue: 1. Make sure your console is connected to the internet and you are connected to Xbox Live with an Xbox Gold or Silver account. 2. Insert the game disc and launch the game as you normally would to play it. 3. After the game has been launched, quit the game and eject the disc. -The icon for the game should still show up in the Recently Played tiles below the large tile on the home screen. -If the icon does not appear, you may need to launch another App on the Xbox (such as the Xbox store) and then use the home button in the middle of the controller to leave the opened App. Doing this a couple of times should make the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag icon eventually appear. 4. Scroll down to recently playede and highlight the Black Flag Tile. 5. In the Manage Game screen, select the game icon, press the Menu button again, and select Uninstall. 6. Once the game is uninstalled, press the Xbox Home button in the middle of the controller. -You should still Black Flag in the Recently Played area, but now dimmed. 7. Highlight Black Flag in recently played and presst menu button. You should then see an option to install the game. -This will begin downloading the game from Xbox Live. Note: If there is not an install choice in that menu, try launching the game, and one of the options in the dialog that appears may be Install. 8. Once the game is fully installed, put the disc back in the console and launch the game. You should now be able to continue playing and load into Nassau without issue. You wrote Jun 13, 2016 at 12:05 PM EDT I purchased Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag on May 29th 2016 from WalMart. When trying to fast travel to Nassau I became stuck in the Animus loading screen. Now my game will only load the Animus screen and I can do nothing else with it. I've tried the quitting from the animus screen and then uninstalling and reinstalling Black Flag probably 7 times and it has not worked for me. I've deleted my save file and redownloaded it from the UbiSoft server. I've cleared my game cache. And I've tried using a different brand new copy of the game disc. Nothing has worked, however, and I am still stuck in the Animus loading screen. I have even left the screen sitting for over an hour to see if the game would load, but it did not. I've looked on approximately 5 different forum posts about this same issue on several different sites and I've even read comments on YouTube videos concerning this issue and everyone is saying the same thing, Nassau doesn't load and UbiSoft won't fix it. The only thing I haven't tried yet is downloading a copy from the XBox Live Store to see if that would work. That's why I'm writing today, to see if you would be so kind as to provide me with a download code for my game so that I can give that option a try as a last resort. Thank you. Does the response above address your concern? YES - MY ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED. NO - I NEED FURTHER ASSISTANCE. End Email Body. Me: On step 6 Me: "6. Once the game is uninstalled, press the Xbox Home button in the middle of the controller. -You should still Black Flag in the Recently Played area, but now dimmed." Me: This is no longer true as the only item available in the recently played area is the manage game utility Me: Can you please provide updated instructions? Emily B: I'll need to look into it since these are the only instructions provided Me: I'll wait if you would like. Emily B: I will ask and see if I get a quick enough response Me: Thank you Emily B: I apologize for sending the instructions Emily B: It seems we are now doing replacements for those discs Me: Is it the "You send us $20 for shipping and handling" replacements that I've read about online? And even if it isn't why would I need a replacement disc for a game that was bought two weeks ago? Have there been reprints since that timeframe? Emily B: You wouldn't need to pay the $20 since it is still within the 90-day warranty, if you bought it two weeks ago Me: I do not have my receipt, will that affect anything? Emily B: Yes, you'd need the receipt for that Me: And this is where the train comes off the tracks. I did not keep my receipt because I assumed in good faith that the UbiSoft game that I was purchasing would be free from any manufacturer's defect and, as such, I did not feel it necessary to keep my receipt. Emily B: I really do apologize, but I cannot change the replacement procedure Me: Are you telling me that I should have assumed there would be a defect with the game? Me: And if so, wouldn't that imply that UbiSoft is aware of the problem with these recently printed game discs and therefore would be knowingly and fraudulently selling said discs to the public? Me: I'm really wanting to clarify this before I go and talk to some attorneys, on behalf of all the defrauded persons whom purchased this UbiSoft game, so that we can understand if this needs to be a class-action matter or not. Emily B: We are unable assist with legal issues. If you do not have any technical questions, I cannot provide any further assistance. I do apologize for the frustration for the situation Me: Thank you Emily. My lawyer will be contacting your company shortly. Emily B: I hope you have a good week.	video-games_xbox
A brilliantly creative and wonderfully humorous game. Tim Schafer is not a name to take lightly in the gaming industry. Getting his start as a writer on the popular and equally funny Monkey Island series and later having a lead designing role on Manic Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, he continued to put out fantastic games with LucasArts until he left to found Double Fine Productions, which would soon create its first game in the form of Psychonauts. Psychonauts embodies everything that makes Tim Schafer such an excellent man in the industry: it is imaginative and creative in ways few games can match, has a great sense of humor and brilliant writing, and is just a joy to play. Psychonauts follows the young Razputin, a psychic boy who ran away from life in the circus to join Whispering Rock Summer Camp, a training camp for psychics. The ultimate goal of this camp is becoming a Psychonaut, a psychic agent that would fit nicely in a comic-book series (and in fact does, in-universe). However, Raz only has a day to master all he can before his father arrives to get him, and as this day unfolds, some strange happenings begin to happen at the camp. It is left up to Raz to save the day and become a Psychonaut! If this plot sounds kind of silly to you, then good, because that's the appeal of the game. Psychonauts' story and characters never take themselves too seriously, making for a truly enjoyable and humorous narrative. You'll enter many characters' minds along the way, and through them you'll see a disco and dancing paradise, a giant strategy game between a man and his other personality (who happens to be Napolean Bonaparte), uncover the Milkman conspiracy, and so much more. This game is filled to the brim with creative moments and levels, keeping the game constantly fresh, exciting, and actually engaging. None of this would work, though, if not for the ensemble cast of unique and likable (or hatable for all the right reasons) characters. Whispering Rock Camp has around twenty different campers combined with even more characters on top of that, all of whom have their own quirks and personalities, and each and every one has piles of hidden dialogue. This dialogue is the true gem of the game, requiring the player to explore and uncover this dialogue, through using various items and powers on characters or finding them throughout different points in the story. Psychonauts is a game that encourages and even rewards constant experimentation and exploration, and its likely that multiple playthroughs are required just to see everything (in fact, some players will discover dialogue and moments only accessible through cheats, something only recommended for replays). Gameplay-wise, Psychonauts is a platformer, and a pretty simple one at that. Being an acrobat from the circus, Raz can easily jump, climb poles, and skate across rails. However, the creativity and style of the game exists here as well. Being a psychic, Raz has a variety of powers he can use, from his Psi Blasts for combat, to Levitation for exploration. Even those are the simplest of his arsenal, and gems like Clairvoyance and Pyrokinesis provide for a delight when used in the right situations and prove their importance throughout the game. Increasing the player's Rank will also give the player new powers as well as upgrades to those powers (and a secret, and great, movie for getting to 100). Platforming is pretty fun in this game, and it does provide several nice challenges throughout the game that keep it from being too dry (the last level especially utilizing all of Raz's platforming and combat skills). Psychonauts also provides for a pretty deep collect-a-thon. Players are tasked with collecting Psi Cards (which when combined with Psi Challenge Markers, increase Rank) and searching for sixteen different Scavengers Hunt items (which provide four Ranks for every eight items), while in minds there are collectible vaults, figments, cobwebs, and emotional baggage, all of which provide more ranks for Raz as well as unlockable reels (which show either concept art or back story for the various minds). Psychonauts is a completionist's dream, and all of it keeps the game's charm and personality intact and never feels cheap and unrewarding. The visuals and sound are also top-notch here. The game is just plain pretty to look at. The game holds up well technically, with some stellar animations, but the game's art design fits its personality well, and the way the art changes between the various locations (in the real world and in minds) always keeps consistent with the tone of the area and often provides for some great environments (the specifically artistic level, Black Velvetopia, is an artistic delight). Meanwhile, the audio provides a combination of excellent voice-acting and a fun soundtrack. Every character is complemented by emotive and all-around great voice-acting (fans of Invader Zim may note that Raz is played by Zim himself, Richard Steven Horowitz). The voice-acting is part of why the characters feel so organic and interesting. The soundtrack is also excellent, with a large variety of tunes that go excellently with their scenes and levels. "Whispering Rock Summer Camp" makes roaming around camp fun, for example, and "Taking on Black Velvetopia's Worst" is perfectly fitting for the luchador matches. Psychonauts is a true gem, deserving of its cult following. It is always imaginative, contains strong writing and humor, has a large and lovable cast, is full to the brim with memorable and creative moments, and has some truly fun gameplay. Everything in this game creates a truly charming and creative piece of art, one that cannot be underestimated. Psychonauts is a truly amazing and wonderful game.	video-games_xbox
The Best RPG Game I've Played by Far. I don't think there has ever been a video game that combines blazing action and a compelling storyline as well as Mass Effect 2. On a shooting level, the game is nearly as good as many of the actual combat-centered games out there. As Commander Shephard, you direct a team of two other squad members in various missions that sometimes involve shootouts and sometimes stealth. Throughout the game, you get access to about ten other potential teammates, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, some who are experts with assault weapons, some with sniper rifles and some with "biotics," which are essentially magic-like abilities. However, it is with the story and roleplaying aspects that this game really shines. Like with the first Mass Effect game, you actually make choices that affect the future of the game, including the upcoming Mass Effect 3, which will complete the trilogy. Choices range from heroic "Paragon" choices to outlaw "Renegade" choices, so you can actually decide what type of character that you want to be. In essence, you feel like you are the main character in an excellent science fiction story. It's about as close to simulating reality that I've seen in a video roleplaying game. Mass Effect 2 is best played after playing the first Mass Effect, as your choices in the first game affect many of the storylines in Mass Effect 2. You're also able to pursue romances with a greater number of characters in this game than in the first Mass Effect, or you can continue the romantic relationship that you established in the first game. To me, the greatest aspect of ME2 is the work the writers and designers have put into making the other characters and alien species seem completely real. Nobody is a stereotype in the Mass Effect universe like a few other science fiction franchises that I can think of. Ultimately, Mass Effect 2 is utterly addictive, and the game's creators promise more downloadable missions in the future even after you get through the initial 40+ hours of gameplay. If you want a fully immersive video game experience that will leave you hungering for more, I strongly recommend this game.	video-games_xbox
Beautiful but seriously flawed. 'Forza 6' is easily one of the most beautifully presented console racing games I have seen, but it is not without it's flaws. Yes, the tracks are well laid out and the cars are rendered almost to perfection. There is no doubting that the graphics and game-play physics are outstanding. It is indeed a fun game to play and look at, and with twenty four cars on the track, night racing, and rain, what could possibly go wrong? Sadly a lot, if you bought this game to enjoy a single player racing simulation experience. Where should I begin? Ah yes... DRIVATARS: A great concept in theory, but flawed in it's execution. It's like Turn 10 decided that "If you don't want to race online, we'll bring online racing to you". Just as with 'Forza 5', you are stuck competing with Drivatars from various skill levels, which sadly means you are competing with people who chose to crate their Drivatar using full on arcade settings. For those of us who choose to race with all handicaps off, it puts at a disadvantage at times. The arcade mode Drivatars cling to the track like slot cars while your fighting through each turn hanging on for dear life. Even when you tune your car's handling, it can often times become impossible to hang with them. The game is in dire need of settings or options that allow you to add or delete certain drivers/Drivatars, as well a force all Drivatars to use the same setting you are using. Sadly I am being forced to race with friend's Drivatars who do not play racing games, but took the time to create Drivatars with full arcade settings. It has turned most of the racing into a smash up derby fest which has completely ruined career mode, and speaking of career mode... CAREER MODE: 'Forza 6' is supposed to be a racing simulator to a certain extent, so one would expect "Career Mode" to simulate an actual racing career, where one rises through the ranks from the bottom to the top via seasons, qualifying laps, and point standings. Sadly that isn't the case here. Instead we get a pathetic grind that is more of an achievement mode than it is a career mode. It's an awful concept, where you can't advance unless you finish in the top three in each race. This can become a grind if you like to play with a competitive difficulty setting. You can find yourself growing frustrated as you are forced to play the same track over and over again. This leads to the temptation of lowering the difficulty level just so you can advance to the next track. Whoever came up with this concept should be shown the door, as they have ruined career mode which is one of the main reasons most play racing simulators in single player mode. It's supposed to be the heart and soul of games like this, but sadly 'Forza 6' had it's heart ripped right out and replaced with a flawed pile of cow manure. Mind you, that it is advisable to tune your car, which is a bummer for those who like to race in stock right off the showroom floor cars. Still, if you want to advance, I advise that you tune the handling on your cars before you start throwing more power under the hood. If your car can't handle perfectly through the turns, all the power won't matter and you will not advance in "Career" Mode. of course there is the alternative Free Play... FREE PLAY: This is the possible savior for those disappointed by the poorly executed "career" mode (or lack there of). They did a few things right here by allowing you to pick the number of laps and the track you wish to play, as well as automatically advancing to other tracks after you finish your race. Sadly there are some serious flaws as well. No practice laps before you race, just in case you want to tweak your tuning and try it out. Then there the lack of Drivatar options. Instead of being able to individually pick the cars of cars you wish to race against, your only option is picking the vehicle class and their drive train options. This creates unrealistically odd situations like heading into turn one at Watkins Glen in your Mercedes side by side with an SUV while passing a car that belongs in the Smithsonian. Want to create a race with only American muscle cars? Nope, sorry buddy, not going to happen here. Turn 10 doesn't think you need the freedom to do as such. It is truly a shame that nobody thought it wise to add such options in order to make Free Play truly free. With that out of the way, yes, the game is still a lot of fun to play in short bursts, but due to the above stated, there is really nothing to strive for other than collecting cars, tuning them, and pushing them to their limits (or getting in wreck fests online). With no real career mode, a flawed free play mode, and the poorly executed drivatar concept, Turn 10 have taken what was the best console racing game to date two giant steps in the wrong direction. Had I known what I know now, I would not have bought this on release day and instead waited for it to hit the bargain bin. I suggest anyone reading this do the same.	video-games_xbox
Fails on almost every level. First the good...........The soundtrack is awesome. Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica) does an excellent job of creating music to kill by. Waypoints in this game are also done right. The Vehicles are also pretty cool. That is all the good. The Bad........ Buggy as all get out. Bugs in the game 5 months ago are still in the game. Some so game breaking that not only does it crash the game it can also crash your console. Enemy AI ignore walls and and the natural law of physics. Despite there being and enormous amount of bugs from the original game, Trion still manages to induct even more with their very first DLC of the game. And they are slow to fix them. This is due to a complete lack of business sense and Trion biting off more than they can chew, firing nearly all of the staff while the game went live and moving the rest to a new location. It almost feels like the game was only half finished at the date of release. What MMO? Despite being advertised as an MMO, it is very much a single player game. You actually get punished for grouping with others playing the game. The 3rd person shooting aspect is ok at best, with a complete lack of a cover system, it is difficult to set up your tactics without being shot. PvP is a joke. There are plenty of people using cheats and bugs to their advantage, yet Trion does nothing about it even when over 75% of the PvP community sends in tickets and proof of it. A very large part of the PvP community has stopped PvPing, thus creating even longer queues. The playing field is incredibly small for an MMO. A person can walk to entire game field in 30 minutes. Put it this way, Defiance's map is smaller than most single player games. Serious lack of content and story. Once the single player aspect of the game is finished (in about 40 hours) the story stops there. And if that wasn't bad enough, they actually took story content out. Even so, once the story is done, all that is left are broken and bugged arkfalls (which could be fun if they weren't so 1 dimensional), sieges that bug out constantly, and emergencies that have no real sense of accomplishment, but tend to get in the way of the other things you try to do. For a company that brought you RIFT, an above standard MMORPG, they really drop the ball on Defiance. The game had so much potential, but it feels like they are driving it into the ground on purpose. Since release nearly 60% of the player base has quit, the world seems empty, only having contact with other players randomly and at sieges or arkfalls. Servers are nearly empty on th ePS3 and the EU servers. Xbox servers seem to be the only ones with a decent population. In conclusion, Defiance really isn't worth the money. There are plenty other games out there that get it right that are worth your time.	video-games_xbox
Could have been a contender. This game COULD be great, but LOTS of problems hold it back. Here we go-I'll try to be brief. Problem#1: The bugs...I emailed CIGAMES support this morning because LotF keeps freezing on me. I noticed it several times earlier in the game and overlooked it. Now I'm near the end and I cannot get through a particular boss fight without the game freezing. THIS IS NOT AN ISOLATED ISSUE. Search 'Lords of the Fallen Freezing'- you'll see. And I don't think it's just a 'one system' issue- I've read about it happening on PS4, XBOne, and PC. Beyond the freezing there's just ridiculous things you'll notice that I suppose are forgivable bugs. Example: When you kill an enemy, many times their sword/shield will either hover in midair or violently bounce up and down for awhile. Might not bug others too much, but it's slightly annoying to me. Problem#2: The camera. This game places you in lots of tight spaces, and in some cases you have to fight in those areas. Keeping the enemy and yourself on the screen is a chore. Sometimes you're near a cliff, but you can't see it while running from an enemy in those tight spaces. Problem#3(minor issue): I could be wrong on this one, and please correct me if I am, but I don't think there's a side quest log. So you'll get a side quest, and then you just have to remember it. I mean you'll have quest items in your inventory, but a log, reminding you what to do with them, or who wanted them would have been nice. Those are my gripes. I call LotF a 'poor man's Bloodborne'. Looks great (not quite as good as BB, but close). Character controls aren't as smooth as BB. And it's much 'buggier' than BB. Having said all that though, the game is BEAUTIFUL (the lighting effects are phenomenal), and I'm enjoying it very much. Cool main character, interesting( though barely detailed) story, neat weapons/characters upgrades. Graphics/character designs remind me of Darksiders, music reminds me of Diablo3, gameplay is VERY Bloodborne-ish ; if you like those games, you'll probably like LotF...if you can get past all the freezing.	video-games_xbox
Hoops Too Late? Or Too Soon. I am rather baffled at the moment: here it is mid-January and March Madness shows up two to three months late. It should have been released in November -- at the beginning of the college basketball season. I figured EA had something special, someting 2K7 bunker buster -- a dagger in the heart, a slow, painful death to its competition. No can do. March Madness again falls, sinks, skids, and does not even come close to its counterpart, College Hoops. And I was not fond of College Hoops to begin with. Don't need to explain why since this review isn't about College Hoops 2K7, but we gamers love to compare and contrast similar simulations. MM has some nice things, don't get me wrong. I like the Intensity Control; the Dynasty mode and School Pride is great as well. The front-end menu and load screens are the best, out-doing anything 2K could present. The graphics, as always, shines, and probably to a degree, are a two-month-ahead better than CH 2K7's. What about MM's gameplay? There shouldn't be excuses. EA had plenty of time, right? I guess not enough time. Honestly, the gameplay is pretty bad. Seriously. At first it may seem fine, it may seem cool, on the edge of innovation, and then the game does some interesting stuff, ala stupid programming errors -- stuff. These are glitches that should not be in a next-gen game. I mean, here we have people shelling out $500 or more for "next-gen" consoles and $60 a pop for a game and all we get is an annoying glitchy basketball sim. Come on! I'm not going to rant and complain. There will be a few of you out there who will do a fine job at that after playing MM a few times. I tried to give this game a chance, I really did. I spent most of the day playing it, and maybe I'm rushing it a bit, but whenever your edited player suddenly disappears (AWOL from the bench), no where to be found in the lineup when you want to substitute him back in, then something is terribly wrong. This happened twice to me. I will also add that you'd better not dribble within three feet along the baseline without it calling you out of bounds. Add that in and along with some horrible foul calling. The players simply react like current-gen instead of next-gen. Finally, I really wanted to like this game, something I was delusional about with NBA Live 07, but with all its glitchy gameplay, I just can't. Sorry EA, but you let me down again. Hopefully when the Ps4 and the next Xbox are out in five years we will see a true "next-gen" basketball simulation.	video-games_xbox
Outstanding. To be perfectly honest I didn't know what to expect from this game. I just didn't know how the sandbox GTA style game play would mesh with the Wild West but I have to admit that this game is everything people were hoping it would be and then some. Its nothing short of brilliant and Rockstar truly are the masters of the sandbox. The Wild West really winds up being absolutely perfect for this style of game play. In fact I think I actually prefer this setting to the GTA cities. Dont get me wrong, I am a big GTA fan and love the cars and the cities but there is just something far more immersive about a sandbox style game taking place in this type of setting. Maybe its because people automatically associate that time period with freedom and the ability to go anywhere and do anything. One of the things I was worried about the most was how traveling would be handled, in particular the horse riding. Lets face it these types of games are massive thus its imperative that the traveling aspect of the game be not only extremely enjoyable but also deep enough to where it doesn't get repetitive. Imagine if driving sucked in GTA. It would have a seriously negative impact on the entire game. Its no different with Red Dead. Had the horse riding been mundane, it would have had a very negative effect on the game. Thankfully, like driving with GTA, the horseback riding in Red Dead is outstanding. Its incredibly organic and intuitive. IMO its easily the best horse riding in the entire history of videogames. They just really nailed it and this is a very good thing as this game is absolutely massive. I have seen a lot of negative comments in regards to this game. A lot of people are saying that this is basically just GTA on a horse. Well in all honesty that isn't too far from the truth but what I don't understand is how that becomes a bad thing. GTA is an amazing series so if they are able to take the GTA game play and adapt it to different time periods like the wild west then again how is that a bad thing. I for one consider that to be a great thing especially when Rockstar are able to adapt the game so well and create such an amazing experience. It makes the game feel completely fresh even tho its basically the same type of sandbox game. When you stop and think about it, almost every aspect to the wild west lends itself perfectly to not only this style of sandbox game but also the type of violent kinds of games that Rockstar creates. Overall I think they have succeeded with flying colors. If your enjoy GTA or sandbox games in general then this should be the top of your to play list. Its absolutely outstanding!! 5 Stars!!	video-games_xbox
Fallout 3 is by far one of the best games of 2008. Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277 in an alternate time line resembling our own. The world has been devastated by nuclear holocaust following the "Great War". Your character is born inside what's called a Vault, an underground fallout shelter from which no one ever enters and no one ever leaves for 200 years. You start the game quite literally by being born. You can then customize your character and begin your journey into the Fallout 3 world. After leaving the Vault to find your father who has escaped, you emerge into the wastelands of what used to be Washington D.C. Where you go from there and how you act, be it a hero or a villain, is up to you. Fallout 3 takes place in a massive world. The map on which you can pretty much freely roam around is about 16 square miles, making it near impossible to ever see everything or tread on every bit of ground that is available. This is not to mention that there are also vast underground metro systems and huge buildings to explore. The same goes with the choices you can make as you trek the bombed out world and meet its many various inhabitants. This means on multiple play-thru's you could potentially see and experience the game completely differently every time. The game is primarily RPG (role-playing game) style with elements thrown in from 1st person shooters and action games. You level up your character by gaining experience points through 20 potential levels; each granting more skills and special perks to further customize your gaming experience and character creation. Your character will face many dangerous creatures and adversaries while traveling the wastes, but luckily you are equipped with a Pip-Boy 3000. Your Pip-Boy, a device mounted on your arm, displays vital information about your character, your equipment, skills, radiation levels, even a radio. Most importantly is it's assisted targeting system, called V.A.T.S., which allows you to freeze time and specifically target which parts of your enemy to aim for when firing your weapon. And there are weapons-a-plenty in Fallout 3. You will have to find, repair and scavenge for not only your firearms, but ammo for them and other beneficial items such as food or stat modifying items. You can even collect assorted junk to trade to other scavengers or use to build custom weapons and items. Overall Fallout 3 is an amazing in-depth experience that will keep you playing for many, many hours. At times you will feel so drawn in to the experience, you may suddenly find yourself feeling lonely while traveling the vast wastes, scared while running from a pack of Ghouls or Super Mutants, heroic as you free detained slaves from evil slavers, or evil as you destroy an entire town (and all it's inhabitants) with the flip of a nuclear bomb's switch. The choice is always yours. The game manages to drag you in to the story and make you feel like you are a living, breathing inhabitant of this world, not so very far different from our own.	video-games_xbox
Start Your Xbox Engines. I seem to really know at times what a good racing game is really all about. Is it about the cars? Is It about the music? It happens to be all about the fun. Yet, at times it is hard to find a good racing game fun. That has definitely been the case with Electronic Arts, and their popular Need For Speed franchise. While the Underground series has showcased fairly well to all gamers, there are just some who feel that they are just missing some of the madness of the hot pursuit series that ended a couple of years ago. For all those racers, this might be your return to be fast & furious. Need For Speed: Most Wanted for the Xbox is a wild and outrageous racing game that will surely knock you right off your fett. The object for you is to ride your automobiles, so you can become the most lethal speed demon alive. The game however fairs the similarity the Underground era had, where it all is showcased in one major city, and you can earn points to unlock improved engines and decals to customize your cars, and great cars like the Ford Mustang, the Porsche Carerra, Subaru Impreza WRX, and a Lambourghini as well. The graphics on the game are highly showcased well, with a lot of detail in the gameplay, while the music is deep and very well driven for the musical madman in you. The control is very easy to pick up at times, but you can easily adjust with each car you receive, and each track you unlock. Still, like most video games, there are a few disadvantages to Need For Speed: Most Wanted for Xbox owners. One of the big ones is the career mode. At times, you'd have to play the same courses that were done before, and it shows that it is annoying. Also, the game is set in one big location, rather than a arrangement of areas, something for which fans of the Underground series know all too well. Nevertheless, Need For Speed: Most Wanted for the Xbox is a great game for anybody who misses the hot pursuit era, or is just a big fan of driving games, than this is a must buy for you. Graphics: B Sound: B 1/2- Control: B 1/2+ Fun & Enjoyment: B Overall: B	video-games_xbox
A honest opinion from a devoted fan. Let me start off by saying that I buy only one video game a year on release day and that is my yearly MLB 2K game. I prefer to wait and read reviews. However, I can't wait to unwrap 2K's baseball bad boy and see whats changed. I'm sorry to say that this year's edition is lacking! First, the graphics are at times awesome. Stadium detail and environmental factors are wonderful. Spring training looks crisp with large rolling clouds and Florida palms. However, player development, appearances, and signatures come off on the lazy side. Batting stances and pitching deliveries look very similar if not identical to last year. As a devoted fan, I'm offended by this! I want more accurate appearances, tweaks, and signatures. I do not want a "new" $60 roster update. Secondly, The camera angles and fluidity of motion in gameplay is patchy. Sometimes it comes off flawless. However, the next time the camera will sometimes jerk and give unnatural pauses. Its almost like the visuals can't catch up to the gameplay. I have since installed this game to my hard drive and it runs a lot better. This may not be an option for you depending on your drive size. I'd give this a poor overall score of 2 out of 5. The gameplay is solid. I have found the controls that 2K uses feel more natural and balanced compared to games like The Show. I felt last year's game had issues with analog movement and pitch recognition. This year's game seems to recognize this much better. I've found that holding the analog stick in place after delivering your pitch motion seems to help. I also like that the pitching is more accurate with ball to strike ratio. However, the umpires literally give you no corner strikes. The A.I. on the game will seriously test your patience. You can be up 0-2 on a hitter only to watch him pass on 4 straight pitches on the black. If you have a quick temper, you might want to take a few breathers. The A.I. batters will literally single your pitcher to death sometimes. The fielding controls seem to be fluid but highly sensitive. Its very easy to make simple mistakes by not adjusting your position or timing and release. You also have very little time to nail speedy baserunners. The batting remains mostly unchanged from last year and sufficient. Overall, I would rate the gameplay at a 3.5/5. The intangibles of the game leave me pretty disappointed. My favorite gameplay is franchise mode and little has been done to improve this feature. Forget accurate waiver, F/A signings, or customization. I don't know who comes up with player contract information, but I have found several errors. For instance, Brian McCann starts a franchise in a walk year. In reality, McCann signed a six year contract in 2007 with a team option for a seventh. It would really awesome if somehow option contracts could make there way into the game. However, I would settle on 2k just getting the basics down first! Secondly, I've had several games where I've hit a homerun only to have the computer scale the wall for a catch. This is fine, but it ends up counting as a homerun and an out. Finally, one of the biggest complaints I have is in instant replay. This might just sound picky but the home plate umpire disappears. At first, I thought this was a glitch. However, every instant replay outside of swing analysis lacks the presence of a home plate umpire. Where does he go? 1.5/5. I'll continue to play MLB 2K11 and hope for some patches to fix the flaws. However, I don't think they can't patch out all of the "lazy" efforts in the game. My numbers average out to 2.3, but I'm rounding up on the hope that 2K improves the game in the next few weeks. In conclusion, I truely believe if The Show was marketed to Xbox, 2K sports would up their efforts!	video-games_xbox
Best of any Lego games I've ever played. I've played some of the Lego games including Indiana Jones and Harry Potter. Even though those games were fun, I never got into the whole Lego series. But with this game, it blew me away. This one made me enjoy every minute of it! The story of course follows the adventures of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I'm a big fan of the series. I also noticed that there were some parts of the books they added to the game (if you read the books, you may had noticed too.) As for the cut scenes, I did enjoy them. I wasn't upset or anything about the game having the dialogue from the movies. In fact, I think if they didn't have the dialogue, this game would be a bit boring (like the HP Lego game having no dialogue; though it was good, it made me bored as I continued to play.)And every time I've played the Lego Lord of the Rings in front of my younger siblings, they always cracked up at the jokes in the cutscenes, especially when Boromir died. Even I enjoyed and laughed at those scenes, too. I was already impressed by the beautiful of the whole landscape in the previews and reviews of the game. The makers really put their best into this game. I also like it how you can explore Middle Earth with your characters before continuing on with the story. You could unlock other characters, collect blocks, or go on quests from other NPC. Giving the player a chance to take a break and just explore was a good thing to have. Being a Lego game, I did find some parts easy. They point out how much wood you need, how many enemies you need to defeat, etc. I actually find that good since there will be children that will be playing this game. However, even though I'm an adult, I've found myself either stuck or in constant groan when my character dies. Not that it's bad or anything, I find it more of a challenge, making me more excited as the fight presses on. Overall, if your kid or even yourself are a fan of Lord of the Rings, this game is by far one of the best in the last few years. Enjoy!	video-games_xbox
Forza 4 is better than 3 in every way. I'm a big car fan, and a big Forza fan. Have played 3 for several years, and recently picked up Forza 4. I read a bunch of previews for it, and it sounded worth my while. From the second you start playing, the game is head and shoulders better. The cars are modeled more accurately (better graphics, and more photorealism), the physics are more realistic, and yet the game is more fun. You can dial up the realism for a challenge, or leave many of the helpful assists on so that you can have fun. The menus are easier to navigate, things load faster, and there's a sense that they listened to players to help decide what to change. Little things like the rewind button working quicker, the snappiness of the controls, etc.. make the game a total joy. One of the things I like the best is the updated physics engine. Pirelli shared their entire stable of tire R&D statistics and testing with Turn10 to help them accurately model the way tires grip. This makes for a huge improvement in the way the cars handle. In Forza 3, if you came around a corner too fast, the car would frequently just spin out of control. In Forza4, you can feel the grip starting to slip, and you can coax the car around with some oversteer (depending on the car), and maintain control even at the limits of traction. The long and short of it is that if you know what you're doing, you can powerslide just about any car around, and it handles like the real thing. You can feel the difference between AWD/FWD/RWD and it makes a big difference. Sure, there's still a bazillion cars, infinite customization of colors, performance parts and tuning, but underneath it all is just a seriously fun game. One of the best modes is a race against a comparable car with lots of slow traffic in the way. If you're a car person, this game will entertain you endlessly. If you are looking for a fun racing game with a lot of different types of races, this is still your game. The best part is that you can make the game what you want of it. If right off the bat you want to just do laps solo on the Nurburgring, you can. If you want to work your way up with a junky car, and slowly earn money to upgrade, you can. The world is your oyster, and this game brings it all right to you. I can't wait for my Thrustmaster Ferrari 458 Italia wheel to come in in about a week!	video-games_xbox
Great sequel but needs some tweaking. This is a great follow up overall and although I still have a few hours to play, I think its safe to write a review. All the usual upgrades are there, better graphics, added squad commands, smoother combat system, so that's all nice. I won't waste time with mentioning all of that since its been covered nicely. There are a couple of areas that needs tweaking though.... First, the inventory system. In the first game it was terrible and needed fixin. But I think BioWare went too far with their "Fix." Essentially they got rid of inventory altogether. I think the fans just wanted a system for sorting that made more sense, they didn't want it taken away. I actually like the new system, aside from one big problem, which brings me to the next point.... The resource management system needs work. I'm ready for my assault on the Collector base. I've done EVERY mission I can so I've earned close to the maximum amount of money. Even though I've maxed all my uprades with research, there are still a few that can only be purchased at the stores. The problem is I don't have any money and there is NO way for me to make more. To maker matters worse, I'm sitting on nearly a million units of resources that I can't do anyting with. If you could trade them or sell them then you'd have a pretty nice economic system, but the way it is doesn't make a lot of sense. Here I am working for Cerberus, who can afford to drop 4 billion to bring me back from the dead, but I can't scrounge up enough money for a couple of 90k upgrades for the final fight. All in all a great game. I love the characters and I love that you don't ALWAYS have to have a certain type of character with you, like you did in the first game--techs. If you didn't have someone with tech ability, you were screwed, and there weren't many people with that skill. Grab the game and get ready for some fun. It is shaping up to be about a 40 hour game, and I had hoped for a bit more after some of the other fantastic RPG's have upped the anty, but that is a relatively minor complaint.	video-games_xbox
With A Few Improvements This Could Have Been Big. In November 2005 the XBOX 360 was launched and "Perfect Dark Zero" was one of the first games released for the console. Its certainly not perfect or one of the better XBOX 360 games but its a good game to say the least. This sequel to the original Perfect Dark video game "Perfect Dark 64" is as good but this second Perfect Dark is pretty much on its own. The game suffers from some major gameplay flaws but still manages to be entertaining. I think the first point to discuss has to be the changes made to Joanna Dark,talk about a character getting physical changes,she`s been redesigned kind of like Lara Croft from Tom Raider,whatever they did they changed her a lot. I can only suppose they changed her physical appearance for male gamers,yet this has to be one of the most incredible changes made for one character. You play as Joanna Dark,a special agent born in 2000 living in a futuristic world. Evil is everywhere you need to destroy it,a kind of comon storyline for today`s types of video games and one that frankly isn`t terrible. Still you can`t define a game by its storyline! What you do is basicly:follow the arrows,kill the bad guys,press this and that,go here,go there,do this and that,shoot this and that...way too repetitive,with few exceptions however as some times you will have to play your special agent role at full capacity,not to be seen and such tasks. The gameplay is like the average FPS shooter,with few exceptions. The controls really screw up this game it would have been way better had the publisher taken the time to really make the most of out the controls,wich unfortunatly isn`t the case here. You can`t jump,and that sucks! Your character or any other characters,moves too slow,you actually run but you know that it could have been faster,so it makes a slower gamer that is a great pain. Besides that the controls are pretty average,shoot,reload,pick up a weapon,move,cover,climb are controls that are much like other games and there is no surprise on the gameplay. The scope you have with some guns is very effective and convenient to use the way it was set up. The visuals are really good,even after a few years they still look beautifull after all that time. Its not the prettiest game ever but i think anyone should be satisfied with the graphics. The explosions,guns,characters and enviroments were are greatly designed,that is one thing they did very well for this game. Really good visuals. Story mode is not exactly great,its below average actually,as repetitive as it gets for a game. The tasks they want you to complete are not any fun,theyre just kind of a pain and really boring. It will take a few hours but not more than 10 hours to complete,when its over you will be glad,be assured! Perfect Dark Zero online is really good and fun,as it is normaly is for each mindless FPS.Its always a great deal of satisfaction to kill someone online,the game is better recomended its online and multiplayer modes than the story mode. Its classic you just pick your favourite map and guns sets and from there you can adjust teams,the number of bots,the modes and everything to your liking. A great thing about PDZ is the amount of guns and weapons you can choose from,there a lot and each has uniques abilities and second uses,one gun can make a clone of you,the other can shoot bombs,its nice and different to see such secondary uses in a game. Overral its not one of the better XBOX 360 games but everyone should at least try it once,some will like the game a lot and will buy. It really depends of your style of games and how you deal with the lower points of the games such as the gameplay,but everyone should like it online and multiplayer,wich are the best parts of the game. Had the controls and gameplay been changed for more convenient ones,this game would have killed.	video-games_xbox
The Most Over-Hyped Game for Teenagers - EVER. I say this game is for kids 18 and under because you have to be one of those kids in order to compete on line with some success. It's the same nonsense as Halo 2. If you are 30 years or older with a life other than playing Halo 2 or Gears of War 10 hours a day after school, then this game is not for you. I have yet to play with anyone who sounded like they were out of high school yet. Therefore, as the old man that I am, I enter these live matches immediately dying from kids who have spent 100s of hours memorizing the maps and perfecting headshots. It's a completely different experience like say, entering a racing game (i,e.-PGR2) where you can be a "noob" and still have some fun. As far as the single player mode - one of the most OVERHYPED and OVERATED games ever. I respect what EPIC is doing and their UNREAL engine is phenomenal. No one can question that this may be the most graphically intense game for any console to date. However, that and great sound quality are the only things the game has going for it. Here are all the cons: * Save-points are a joke. I can't believe in today's day and age you can't save at any point. Elder Scrolls IV, though a totally different type of game, allows you to save at any point so you are not doing the same thing over 40 times until you get it right. To boot, I haven't found a way to skip the cut scenes. Inexcusable! * Levels of difficulty are poorly designed. You can either play IQ-50-easy to ridiculously hard. Therefore, accessibility is limited to the hardcore player (ironically most 12 to 18 year olds). If you are a casual player, forget it. Although, there is actually a "Casual" mode which my 4 year old can play. There is no "in-between" for normal adults who have some skill and a life outside of video games. * Controls are clunky at best and have a huge learning curve. The A button is used for everything from jumping, running, and wall cover/sticking. Therefore, if you are running from an ememy in the single player or a 12 year old on-line and you run by a wall, you can kiss it goodbye. You inadvertently stick to the wall and get blown away by said 12 year old who is more than happy to also stomp on your head for additional humor. Also, the camera view when running (a.k.a. - roadie view) makes it very hard to see where you are actually going. Yeah, that's real fun. I like the third person over the shoulder view that was stolen from Resident Evil 4. However, for the single player mode, this game is falls way short of the greatness of RE4 in ever single aspect, save the graphics. Bottom line -If you are still in high school and don't have a girlfriend/boyfriend and have no ambitions besides living at home with your parents for the rest of your life, then this game is for you. All others save your money for much better XBOX 360 titles.	video-games_xbox
Not bungie's halo. I have been waiting in gitty anticipation for this game for a long time. I bought the origonal Halo when it first came out and have been a diehard fan of the franchise ever since. This was not what I was expecting. Let me say that graphicaly this game is realy nice and parts of it are fantastic. I realy love getting to delve deeper into the character's of Cortana and Master Chiefe. But these things were not enough to save the game's shorcomings in my eyes. SPOILER ALERT------------------------------------------------------------ From the getgo when you start the game something feels wrong. the new soundtrack does not jive with the old Halo spirit. It instead is somber with exotic wailing voices. It doesnt speak "here comes the invincible hero to save us all" it screams "lets all cry". getting into the game things look up. MC has a new look I don't realy like all that much but it isn't enough to spoil how beautiful the game looks. Immediatly I was impressed with the new cortana. You can realy feel her emotions and humanity just pours from her. Almost immediatly you are thrust into a fight with a splinter of the covenant that didn't get the memo. This just all feels wrong, the voices of the various creatures are messed up and while their tactics are similar I just couldn't shake the feeling that the flow of combat was completely off. Grunts have wierd buzzy voices that sound like some sort of swarming insect and the elietes barely make sounds other than growling. What happened to "wort wort wort" and "die devil!". Most noticable as well grenades seem powered down, almost useless against anything but grunts. Continuing on eventualy hou have to fight the prometeans. At first I was exited but then you quickly figure out that fighting the prometheans realy doesnt differ much at all from fighting the covenant. The big guys behave almost identicaly to elietes other than they can telleport and the little ones are like fast moving grunts that crawl on the walls. Further promethean weapons just act like human weapons with new visuals. Fortunatly with incredible writing was enough to keep driving me through the game. The story unfortunatly takes a turn for the worse. While we get to find out loads more about the MC and Cortana (like that they were both planned creations by an ancient forerunner called the librarian), and while we learn all sorts of interesting things about the forerunners and ancient human ancestors all this is spoiled in my eyes when they decided to write the death of the most beloved character from the Halo franchise. As many would know one of the major plot points of the game is that Cortana is going rampant "basicaly breaking down" and MC is trying to get her some help. Hope is always on the horizon in this game, hell they even find an artifact that can turn information into physical reality. But the end of the games sees Cortana sacrifice herself so MC can get home (So the librarian put a seed in humanity that would lead to the cration of MC and an AI who would who would be driven torturously insane and have to become a scfifical lamb, kinda screwed up and n my eyes the reason she couldn't go with MC was a copout). Cortana has always been MC's human side and I think 343 is trying to kill her off so they can humanise MC. Whatever the reason I was left feeling sour and kinda pissed. But still I held on hope thinking "maybe they will show us she is still alive after the credits" because halo always has a legendary ending. So I waited till the credits rolled and I was greeted with a scene of MC taking off his armor and seeing a glimpse of his face.... thats it... I don't care about his stinking face I want Cortana! Without Cortana there is no Halo franchise. End Spoilers---------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, great graphics, mostly awsome visuals, great writing with a terrible ending, strange new voices for the covenant and a horrible soundtrack.	video-games_xbox
Definitely worth the $59 investment as an upgrade - a must buy if you don't already have the game. GTA V was already the best video game ever made for its shear size and detail, but the real question for me was whether this port to NextGen consoles was worth buying a NextGen console and investing $60 in the game. The answer is a resounding "yes." There are two things that make this port completely worthwhile: 1) The improved graphics. I lived in LA for four years, and one of the things I hated about it was the constant smog. With the XBox 360, the haze was there, but it looked more like fog. The detail now in the weather change is absolutely amazing. The smog is really smog. The smoke that comes out of the chimney stacks looks like a video, not generated by a computer game. The draw distance is truly amazing. It literally feels like you are in a real world city. I own Forza Motorsport 5 and Forza Horizon 2 and they look like amature cartoons compared to GTA V for XBox One. 2) First Person perspective. This completely changes the game. Not only do the graphics contribute to a sense of realism, but FPM makes you feel like you are the person experiencing the world around you. From walking around and causing mayhem, to driving a car, flying a plane or heli, or diving in the sub, the whole experience is now completely immersive. The story is so different played in First Person that you really feel like you are part of a different story. I have heard that a lot of people had a tough time porting their online characters. I did not. It worked first time and everything worked afterwards. No lost cars. No lost money. Online hasn't really changed other than the 30 person lobbies (which I frankly think are too big anyway) and the additional equipment you have available to you. The new Dodo seaplane is awesome fun to fly, and the submarine makes for some really good fun exploring the ocean depths. All in all, I found FPM makes my driving and flying much better, and the improved graphics make some stuff easier and other stuff much harder. Some of the missions I used to play play as my go-to money earners are much harder now because of the effect weather can have on your visibility.	video-games_xbox
All it's cracked up to be. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is the third game in the Ghost Recon series. Each of the games has improved over the original, and this one is no different. With new gameplay mechanics like the Cross-Com, a much improved cover system, and breathtaking graphics, Advanced Warfighter is a worthy sequel and a true next generation game. The story takes place in modern day Mexico City. In the game you play as a man by the name of Scott Mitchell who is the captain of an elite light infantry unit called the Ghosts. You are there to provide security during a meeting between the leaders of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It is during this time that some Mexican insurgents decide to attack the meeting in an attempt to come to power. They kill the Canadian prime minister and the US and Mexican presidents disappear. Your job, among other things, is to locate and rescue the US and Mexican presidents. You won't be fighting alone for most of the campaign. You will have three teammates which you can order around for the majority of the missions. You can order them to attack, fall back to you, and move into certain positions. While the way you command them is not exactly deep or provides a lot of control, you can still be pretty effective with your squad. Your Cross-Com allows you to see what one of your teammates sees, allowing you to get multiple perspectives of the battlefield. Unfortunately, the squad AI can give you a bit of a headache sometimes. While they are usually pretty good at shooting enemies, it's not too uncommon to find your teammates exposing themselves too much instead of properly using cover. For the most part they do try to use cover whenever possible though. Besides your three teammates, some missions give you other assets to control. One of which is a UAV which you can order around the level. The UAV can detect enemy troops and mark them on your HUD. Since you can die pretty fast in this game, knowing where the enemies are and planning your next move is essential, and having a working UAV helps greatly. Occasionally you will also have a tank or helicopter gunship. The tank can not only be used to attack enemies but it can also be used as cover while it moves. The helicopter is also pretty good and moving and striking targets on the ground quickly. During a few sequences in the game, you will actually get to fly around in the helicopter and use the machine gun on the side to take out huge groups of enemies. While these sequences are not too challenging, they are a lot of fun. Because a single good shot can kill you in Advanced Warfighter, the game has a slower pace and more tactical feel then other action games. That is not to say that the game is dull; it is filled with fierce fire fights and big explosions, but it does require more thinking then some other games. You always want to lean around corners before going walking out in the open, and always fight from behind cover. Since the levels are pretty large (many city blocks for each level), there are usually multiple ways to get to each objective. Most of the time just taking a different route will end up in a totally different experience. Enemies roam the map, also making sure the game never plays exactly the same way twice. The amazing graphics are probably the first thing you will notice when you load up this game. The amount of detail in objects and the size of the city are staggering. During the game's many helicopter rides, the city buildings and streets stretch out for mines in every direction. Sometimes you can see areas filled with fire or smoke from all of the fighting that has been going on. These sequences do a great job of making you feel that you are in a real city fighting in a real conflict. Mexico City just looks absolutely beautiful. Advanced Warfighter is easily the best looking game on the Xbox 360 console. The HDR lighting is used to great effect in all of the games missions, which range from early morning, afternoon, and dusk. During some of the afternoon missions, the sunlight can get so bright that it actually makes it hard to see. The character models are some of the best that I have seen. They are all extremely detailed and look very realistic. They also animate in a very believable way. The only negative thing you can say about the graphics is that things will sometimes "pop" into view when leaning around the corners. This does not happen often, but can take you out of the game for a moment when it does happen. The audio in the game is also great. All of the guns sound different and extremely clear. Explosions and tank and rocket fire sound great as well. The game also muffles the sound when explosions go off around you. The music in the game is also pretty good and comes in at the right moments. The voice acting, while not amazing, is convincing. While the single player game is great, the multiplayer is what's going to keep people playing. The game features three ways to play multiplayer: local play, system link, and over Xbox live. There is a large selection of game types to choose from. First, there are the excellent co-op missions which are a blast to play with your friends. Then there are the more standard game types you are used to like capture the flag and deathmatch. Besides those default settings, the game allows you to customize your game to play the way you want to. The multiplayer experience is extremely addictive and plays very well. I definitely expect people to be hooked on this game for a very long time. Overall, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is a great game. Offering an intense single player campaign and multiplayer matches which will remain fun for hours at time, Advanced Warfighter is a great complete package and sets the bar pretty high for the inevitable sequel.	video-games_xbox
Worthy addition to the Halo Series & "Game of the Year. ** BACKGROUND For those that do not know, Halo 4 is the fourth entry into the Halo series. Halo is a first person shooter that has become a staple of the Microsoft world with its main character, Master Chief, being a mascot for the Xbox gaming system as Mario is to Nintendo or Sonic is to Sega. The original three titles in the series were designed by Bungie Studios. The latest addition was designed by 343 studios and is considered the start of a new trilogy to the Halo series. Prior to start on Halo 4, 343 studios gained experience with the Halo series by re-visiting and re-doing Halo: Combat evolved, the first game in the series released on the original Xbox console, as Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for the current Xbox 360 console. With the switch in developers, many have wondered if this title would live up to the reputation established in previous games. To put it mildly, yes, Halo 4 is a worthy entry into the beautiful world that is Halo 4. ++ <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Halo-Combat-Evolved-Original/dp/B00005NZ1G/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Halo: Combat Evolved (Original)</a> ++ <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Halo-2/dp/B00008J7NZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Halo 2</a> ++ <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Halo-3/dp/B000FRU0NU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Halo 3</a> ++ <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Halo-3-ODST/dp/B001HWB68K/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Halo 3: ODST</a> ++ <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Halo-Combat-Evolved-Anniversary/dp/B0050SYY5E/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary</a> STORY The Halo gaming series is known for deep involving story lines through each entry. Halo 4 is no exception. The Halo story lines are one of the many key aspects that make these games as great as they are. The story picks up five years after the end of Halo 3 with Master Chief, the protagonist of the game, adrift aboard the wreckage of the UNSC frigate with the AI Cortana who is operating past her natural life span. I do not want to give away key plot points but the game is not a straight forward shooter as previous entries could tend to be. The story of Halo 4 attempts to be more exploratory and mysterious in the events as they unfold. The game does set it up to be the first in a three game story arch as it does not quite answer some of the questions are you left with after Halo 3 leaving you hoping that those questions are addressed in future titles. One thing to note is that the story line is not slow paced. You will be up and shooting at the Covenant, the antagonists of the game, in no time. GAMEPLAY & COMBAT The game has some of the most polished controls I have played on the game never encountering frustrating moments like I have experienced on games part of other series. Your character has the usual assortment of "right gun for the right situation" and ability to carry two at a time, a long established rule of thumb in First Person Shooters for some time now as well as selection of vehicles to of try out. The levels do not feel as constrained or paint by the numbers but feel a little more open ended. They also flow naturally from running on foot to the inclusion of vehicles to operate. The enemies, as I wrote under CHALLENGE, have some of the best AI programming I have seen in a game series. As you set the difficulty on different higher levels you can see how the addition of IQ points to the enemy GRAPHICS & PRESENTATION The cutscene CG graphics are breathtaking showing that, even though the game system is six years old, there is still limits in which the console can yet still be pushed. This continues onto the actual gameplay itself. This is a must as the Halo series are considered the staple of the Xbox and is what other games should measure up to and strive to be. The game series is a representation of the Xbox and its potential. I have the game hooked up to a 5.1 Home Theater and the sound is incredible. The composed score really creates an atmosphere that draws you into the game. The sound of weapons being fired, explosions, and the chants of the Covenant had my two labradors on the edge of the couch wondering what was going on the entire game time. CHALLENGE Truthfully, I am not the greatest gamer in the world. I love games, I never claim to be good at them. I played Halo on the Normal difficulty and it gave me a run for my money while still leaving me with the Heroic and Legendary levels to tackle. The enemies still display some of the best AI I have seen. Sometimes fighting the enemy I feel as if I am connected to Xbox Live and am playing against a human opponent who truly is thinking on the fly and not some preprogrammed act/react code. The enemies are that challenging on single player campaign. I never did encounter those moments where you feel like tossing the remote at against the wall. MULTIPLAYER Online multiplayer was not utilized at this time as I am having issues with my Xbox Live account. My nephew, who is sixteen, picked up the controller prior to taking off for school. For cooperative play, you can have two players sharing a split screen. If we were able to connect to Xbox Live, we could have up to four players playing at one time. CONCLUSION ** This game is a worthy addition to the Halo series. This title is a definite "MUST HAVE" for the holiday season and any Xbox 360 console owner who enjoys First Person Shooters or needs a game to show off the potential of what their game machine is capable of. I would even go as far as saying this is in the running for my "Game of the Year."	video-games_xbox
great game with frustrating parts. I first rented this game to test it out as I've been leary of Ubisoft with some of their policies which I will not get into. I own the other three installments of the game and absolutely loved Brotherhood. I'm glad they kept a lot of the game mechanics from Brotherhood which really made the game enjoyable. In my opinion, the issue with this game is that someone had a great idea to add a tower defense type mini-game to AC:R and the developer decided that it was such a great idea, they were going to force players to play it. If you didn't play it, then they added a punishment system. At first, I was floored by the defense game. I thought it was an awesome addition to the game. After the first tutorial defense game, I was begging for more. Then the second game came, and it was very frustrating. Try to picture a defense game where they added flying mobs, but you are not giving an adequate air-defense tower yet. It was like fighting an uphill battle. The third battle went a little easier because they ended up giving the so called next "tower" that allowed a better match up. They changed the notoriety system to where it is easier to gain notoriety and harder to get rid of it. Picture GTA where you get a police star everytime you hit every other car while driving and you can no longer outrun cops as an option to get rid of it (leaving only paint shops to remove stars); it would become tedious dealing with stars or watching your driving instead of being able to play the game. To get rid of notoriety you have to either bribe someone or find and assassinate the inquisitor discreetly. You can assassinate him openly, but it will only delay the inevitable defense game. If you fail the defense game, then you lose your shops and ability to recruit additional assassins. Sometimes the defense game gets so frustrating you just end up letting the computer win so you can just get it back by assasinating the head templar of the region. The only way around it is to level up your assassins to lvl 15 so they can defend themselves, but by then you are about done with the game. So my recomendation is to do your exploring and collecting at the end when you have some protection against being punished from running on roofs or running into guards. Even assasinations have taken on an additional air of difficulty. Before you tended to have some leeway if you were poor at stealth or just wanted to quickly dispatch someone. They would give you multiple options and paths to get to your prey. Now, I feel as though I'm limited to one or two paths of attack. Crowds that you can blend with end up only going in one direction, so when i get to an intersection everyone in the crowd will go one way, and no one goes the other. So I end up spending time going against the flow looking for the intersection where crowds are going in different directions. This causes assassinations to consume a lot of time otherwise the target may end up fleeing and not be available again till the next day. I love the new hookblade. It is available at the beginning of the game, and allows you to reach almost anyplace you need as well as provide some protection from an accidental fall. Also I like the subway system is now free and fully available which sort of makes up for being unable to freely run the rooftops. Overall, the storyline is great, which is one of my favorite parts of the AC series. I still enjoy playing the game, mostly because a lot of the mechanics from the previous series are still present. Hopefully the next installment of the game will fix a lot of the frustrating parts of this game such as building a player friendly defense game sans the punishment system. As you can see by my reviwer tag, I did end up buying the game. Although I spent a lot of time talking about negative aspects of the game, it is still a great game especially the game mechanics that stick to previous versions. If you ever played any of the other games in the series, then more than likely your decision is limited to either rent or buy. If you never played AC, in my opinion you should start with the last game AC:Brotherhood as it was the best in the series in my humble opinion. My three star rating is due to the fact that I am unable to play the game for any long period of time due to above mentioned frustrations.	video-games_xbox
Fun Times To Be Had, Go With Your Gut Feeling. First off, Ill supply some background information about myself. I love Western role playing games, especially those that require my active participation. I lost hours upon hours to the RPG heavy hitters of the last console generation. I purchased Defiance for less than $10, simply on the hunch that I would enjoy the game despite all the lukewarm reviews, and I am happy I did. Defiance combines the elements of a Gearboxs Borderlands and Bethesdas Fallout games. Ill explain the similarities in my review. Rest assured, if you enjoy customizing a personal character, shooting and looting, and sharing that experience with friends, give Defiance a chance. I will commend Trion for how ambitious many of Defiances concepts are, in that the game allows me to play exactly how I wish. Theres a large selection of options, I can stick to the story mode, tackle some cooperative challenges, as well as take part in some dynamic worldwide events. Theres competitive matchmaking, if thats your thing, as well just the general milling about discovering random side quests. The random side quests may not be amazing, but the episodic ones are worth a go and lead to some interesting places story-wise. I have never had to deal with the patching process that PC gamers often do, mainly because Im not overly fond of PC gaming in general. Defiance on the X-Box 360 employs a process akin to the PC in that patches will often take a great deal of time to download and be installed. When I first purchased the game, I went through the patch process which took about two hours, and have not had to do any patches since. During the two hours I went and did other things (GASP!), which included a movie with my significant other. Id recommend doing the same. The game relies heavily on a Borderlands-influenced loot system, meaning the rarity/power of equipment is recognized in the color. For example: White = Common, Green = Uncommon, Blue = Rare, Purple = Ultra-Rare, and Orange = Legendary. Equipment is looted from Enemies, Quests, as well Lockboxes, which can be earned through standard gameplay via Keycodes. The more Keycodes one earns, the more Lockboxes can be opened, thus the higher the chance there is to obtain more powerful weapons. Lockboxes contain random equipment items, and always have a higher chance to award random Legendary weapons and shields. There is some Fallout-style exploration, as youll often discover enemy encampments, hostages that need saving, and general world mayhem, but the real rewards come from completing quests, in their various degrees of importance. It would be a lie to say the exploration in Defiance was extremely rewarding, it can distract for a short amount of time, but thats about it. The world of Defiance is busy, but not teaming with secrets, so unlike The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, there are no hidden dungeons with oodles of loot. Although, if oodles of loot is what you're searching for, Id recommend tackling the co-op maps, as a single run through can yield a fair amount of rewards. Defiance does have microtransactions, which I believe is an important detail to share to any all newcomers. The premium currency system is called Bits, and can be used to unlock character outfits, experience/currency boosts, weapon lockboxes, additional inventory slots, among a myriad of other helpful but nonessential things. Ive purchased outfits as well as inventory space, but have never felt like the game itself was cheapening me out of content. So, good on Trion. One of the shortcomings of Defiance is that the game does not look very pretty, at all. I cannot express this any other way. Also, if you're unfamiliar with the television show, some of the events and history related to the world of Defiance is definitely lost on anyone starting out with the game first. Ive never seen the show, yet I find the overall gameplay loop (Explore, Shoot, Kill, and Loot) to be satisfying enough to keep me playing. Also, the mission design, go here, kill stuff, can be a bit repetitive, but I ask what else can realistically be done with a third-person shooter. Overall, I found Defiance to be exponentially more enjoyable than any reviewer gave it credit for, and I had fun exploring its world, despite how lacking the main story might be. One game everyone is waiting for, Destiny, sounds like Defiance 2.0, yet I cant help but give credit to Trion for doing it first, and in my opinion, doing so under the radar. Either way, Defiance has more than earned its way into my daily game rotation, which is no small feat, any gamer with a huge backlog can understand what kind of accomplishment that is.	video-games_xbox
Don't Play Without A SmartJoy Frag. This game is tough. Even on the easy setting. There are no cheat codes to the XBox version of the game. I am not one of those people online who you can never touch in a DM or any other type of online match. In fact, I usually end up with the highest number of deaths before the round is over. I don't have good reflexes and being able to properly aim at someone moving and jumping around in a microsecond is near impossible for me. Shoot, I have a hard enough time as it is with the VC in this game who stand still and take a few rounds from me. Although there are checkpoints in certain levels of the game, you cannot save your progress. When you turn your XBox console off after having saved a checkpoint in the game, you will have to restart the entire level all over again. This is annoying, and it can cause a novice player such as myself to become frustrated and give up easily. Sometimes you have to sit through an in-game video before you can play. But at least you can move your mouse to look around when the in-game video is playing, and it doesn't take away from the gameplay since most of the vids don't really last that long. The key word for this game is patience. I have to make sure I drink plenty of water and have enough protein in me before playing this game so I don't get frustrated with myself when I run out of respawns and have to start the level over from the beginning (the maximum number of times you can respawn your character from the most recent saved checkpoint is 12, so don't die too quickly if it can be helped). This game is hard, but it's worth trudging through. I also like the weapons. The storyline alone is worth it, not to mention the laugh-fest I have when I hear the things the Viet Cong yells out to me and my virtual squadmates. At first, I had to put the game on pause so I wouldn't get shot while laughing. I have been playing computer games using a keyboard and mouse since 1997 with the release of Quake II, so I'm not at all accustomed to using a controller which is rather foreign to me. That being said, it is a lot easier (for me, anyway) to play Men of Valor with a PS/2 (Not Playstation 2) keyboard and mouse combo, which is where the SmartJoy Frag comes in. I am not an experienced console gamer, so when I use the SmartJoy Frag for the XBox, I actually forget that I'm playing this game on a console rather than a PC, and I spend my energy taking the enemy down and enjoying the game instead of re-training my brain to use a five year old controller that I have never wanted or needed in the first place. I'm sure that by this time most of the people who have an XBox are quite accustomed to using the XBox controller, even for first person shooter games like Men of Valor, but I am not one of those people, and I would not have been able to get through the first level were it not for the SJF. Just make sure your keyboard and mouse are both PS2, not USB. I will never go back to using a standard console controller (wired of wireless) for an FPS.	video-games_xbox
It's the Tough Mudder of Video Games. Dark Souls 2 is the toughest challenge of 2014 for console gamers. In a time where most game designers assist the player as much as they can so they can feel heroic, the Dark Souls series does everything it can to murder you. Although there are many improvements over Dark Souls, this game feels unpolished. Story: 8/10 In a dark medieval world, you die and your cursed soul is compelled to journey to the ruins of Drangleic Castle. As you journey through the countryside, your memory fades until getting to Drangleic is the only thing that matters. Once there, you plunge into an abyss of horrific fantasy. It's a dark, twisted world, inhabited by undead who have lost their humanity and gone hollow. A hollow creature is a pitiful sight, reduced to a mindless undead who viciously attacks anything with a soul. The world is also full of demonic bosses who block your way. Aided by other lost souls, you must battle your way through the world and claim the throne. Gameplay: 8/10 Dark Souls 2 is a fairly open ended world where regions are connected by branching paths. These paths are defended by deadly creatures and guarded by gigantic bosses. You spawn at a Bonfire checkpoint and battle your way to the next one. Everything you kill has a "soul" value. Souls are used as a currency to buy or upgrade gear and experience to improve your character. When you die, you respawn at the last checkpoint and you drop your souls! In order to reclaim them, you must get back to where you dropped them without dying. If you die along the way, all of the souls you dropped are lost forever. When you find enough souls, you can purchase new gear, swords, armor, rings, helmets, spells, and consumable items from friendly NPC's. OR you can talk to the Emerald Herald in Mejula, and spend your souls to level up a character stat. You can slightly improve your hit points, your stamina bar, your magic powers, your damage with weapons, your resistances to all of the damage types... Leveling up, doesn't require many souls, but the improvements to your character are slight. Resting at a bonfire also allows you to set which magic spells you are carrying, and it refills your estrus flasks. These are refillable healing potions. This also sets this bonfire as your new "respawn" point. But, it also respawns all of the enemies in the world! So, the game plays like this. You start at a bonfire, battle your way through enemies, and if you find that you have taken too much damage or used up all of your flasks, you can travel back to the last bonfire and try again. If you kill an enemy 10 times, they stop respawning. So, if you have patience, you can fight your way to the boss 10 times, and clear a path to the boss. On the 11th time, all of the enemies will be gone and you can fight the boss at full health with all of your flasks. If you're really good, you can slay all of the undead on the way to the boss, and take it on your first try. But be wary, if you die at the boss, you will drop your souls and have to fight through all of the undead minions along the way to reclaim your souls. Combat: 8/10 Dark Souls 2 is a finesse game. You need to take everything into account when you fight enemies. The arc of your swing, the area where you are fighting, how many enemies you are fighting, how long it takes for you to swing and recover, how long it takes for the enemies to swing and recover, the length of the weapons... You have a health bar, a stamina bar, spells and items. When your health bar hits 0, you die, drop your souls, and respawn at the last checkpoint. Your stamina bar depletes when you attack, block with a shield, run, evade, or cast a spell. But don't worry, it quickly replenishes, unless you are holding up your shield to receive another block. So, the combat works like this. Engage an enemy, raise your shield, use a target lock to strafe around it. Evade an enemy attack, close the distance, counterattack, back away, lower your shield, so your stamina can recharge, and reengage. The combat also works like this: Get mobbed by 2 or more enemies, you raise your shield to block, they pound on it until your stamina runs out, then they stab you to death and you die. Try to fight enemies one on one! Rush a powerful enemy, use up all of your stamina attacking it, then get hit by a powerful counterattack that almost kills you, pull out your health potion and slowly drink it, and get hit and die. Always pay close attention to your stamina bar and keep your shield up! Fight a tough spear enemy in a narrow corridor when you have a large sword that does slow arcing attacks. He jabs you with his spear, you swing your sword and it bounces off of a wall, as you recoil, the spear enemy kills you. You should fight spear guys in open areas where you have an advantage! Fight an enemy on a cliffside, evade one of his attacks with a diving roll, and roll off of the cliff and die. Know your environment! Rush a weak enemy and fall into a trap and die. Always use caution! Another player invades your game and stabs you in the back while you are in a tough fight. Good luck with that! So, the average player dies hundreds of times while playing this game. But when you finally kill a boss and are rewarded with a massive soul dump, you'll raise your fist in the air and Praise the Sun! Graphics: 5/10 The concepts for the world and the enemies are really good, but the textures are low res and the game looks muddy. As a result, it looks like you are watching a good game through a dirty beer glass. Sound: 5/10 The music is atmospheric and the voice acting is fair, but there are quite a few sound glitches in combat and when NPC's are speaking. It's pretty distracting. Multi-Player: 8/10 Dark Souls 2 has cooperative and PVP combat. So, if you're having trouble with a level or a boss, you can summon a helpful player to aid you. The two of you can fight together and battle your way to the next bonfire! Coop play is pretty seamless and it helps quite a bit. Just take note that bosses do get more HP when you fight it with another player. After all, this is a Dark Souls game, there's always a catch! PVP is also fun. You can join PVP guilds in the game and battle other players or invade the games of the "guilty." The guilty are guys who invade the games of innocent players and murder them. You can also be one of the guilty and invade the games of other gamers, stabbing them in the back while they're fighting monsters. It's actually kind of fun to be a jerk, but invading in Dark Souls 2 is a double edged sword. Once you start invading, you can expect to be invaded by players who specialize in killing other players. Replay Value: 8/10 The game is over 60 hours long and over 100 if you want to do everything! There is also a New Game+ feature where you can finish the game, keep your gear, and play through it again on a tougher difficulty. The variety of the character builds does make this game worth playing again, too. Play once as a quick fighter, a mage, a character with a massive sword, a dual wielding rogue, a sorcerer... Play it again as something else! The game also tracks your time and total number of deaths, so you can also replay it and try and improve your stats. Overall: 8/10 The multi-player and ability to stop enemies from respawning are good additions to the series. However, the lack of an instruction manual really hurts. It takes lots of trial and error to understand how things work and the complexity of the game's world and combat will have you rushing to the internet for advice. If you want to join the Blue PVP Covenant, you can't. Why? You don't know. So, you go to the wiki, and read that you need to assist someone in coop play first. Then you do that. Then you can speak to the leader of the covenant, then you can join. The complete lack of information really hurts this game. Also, there are lots of gameplay bugs, too. The poor graphics and sound bugs hurt, but the gameplay bugs get you killed. There are instances when you swing a giant sword and it passes through the enemy without doing damage. The enemy stabs you in the face and you die. Or you are on a ledge, your character skips an animation blend, rigidly pops to a standing position, this pushes you against the wall and off of the cliff. There were a few instances when I ran over a piece of debris and it launched my character 50 feet into the air and I died. An unforgiving game like Dark Souls 2 needs to be fair. I do believe that the latest patch (end of July 2014) fixed many of the weapon's collision issues. So, buy it if you want a challenge! Buy it if you like PVP or Cooperative play in a combat RPG! Buy it if you like the series. I'm not sure if you should rent Dark Souls 2 because it will take you about 50 hours to rush through it. Avoid it if you need great graphics. Avoid it if you are a casual gamer. Avoid it if you hate dying in games. If you liked this game, definitely check out The Witcher 2 for great atmposphere, Dragon's Dogma for great gameplay, and Skyrim for great exploration!	video-games_xbox
Classic Series, New Console. This is one of my first fps for the 360 and i still play it some today. I have been a fan of all Medal Of Honor since The first ones on ps1. Since then they really have not changed much but i like they way they are so that doesnt bother me. This is a great game with an alright campagin. I mean, there are only like five missions/operations but each one is quite long. There are three modes to play on, casual, normal, or expert each giving you achievements if you beat it. Expert is pretty hard to do though. But the graphics in this game are outstanding for 2007. Medal of honor never had the best graphics but they really did take a huge step now. If you were a fan of the ps2 MOH games then you should get this one. It is not like the older ones though. The older ones are straight forward basicly the whole time and you just run shoot, and do objectives while this one is parachuting in at the begining of each operation and landing where ever you want in the battlefield. Pretty cool. There are skill drop locations in each one too that are pretty hard to get to. So i guess wherever you want to land is where ever you start. Just get to the closest green smoke and your objective will be shown. You get to upgrade each and every weapon and each time you upgrade them it gets better. To upgrade you just kill people with it, headshots and killing lots of people with one grenade racks the meter up quite a bit. The campagin should keep you busy for quite a long time depending on diffuculty and it is worth playing all the way throgh. Great graphics and story. The only thing is that the person that you play as like never talks and its like a silent trip through the whole game. Not many cutscenes at all and its like you are a different guy every time you play unlike Call of Duty. The multiplayer is quite fun and half of achievements come from it. The only thing is there is like no maps at all but it is a good one. If you are a MOH fan, then get it.	video-games_xbox
I won't waste your time. That's right: I'm not going to waste your time talking vividly about how incredibly hyper-seamless this game is. After 500 some reviews, you get the point. Of course, I would like to point out a few majorly decisive factors that led me to writting this review... Remember the old days when video games could never get a certain visual affect quite right? you know, the explosions were too dense or the affect of darkness appeared fairly rigidly or...well, you get the point. That has all been abolished in Halo,making it certainly the best first person shooter game ever made. Now, in speaking about these visual breakthroughs, I suppose I should cite a few. The first, and perhaps one of the best affects that impress me was the "charred metal affect"-the visual expression of what happens when something dense explodes onto metal walls. This is trully amazing. I've never seen this type of thing tackled by game designers before, and hopefully I won't for a while, lest I go insane and black out. Second are the explosions. The explosions in this game are perfect-just the right blend of density and lack of density. Remembering the old days of Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, I can vaguely see myself saying "explosions are not like that" and indeed they weren't as rigid and contianed as those. Then, in later days, I saw other explosions, none of which I thought were visually pleasing. There were some that were too erratic, some too fiery, and of course the infamous "photo-explosion" where a two dimensional, almost photographic explosion is placed over an object you've destroyed as the computer frantically tries to get rid of the object as you're not looking. Very poor. Yet, Halo surpasses all of that. From the particle affects to the core of the blast, the explosions here lack absolutely nothing. Third...Well, you get the point, I'm sure. And if you are still not grasping how good a game Halo is, than stop reading this. If you have heard enough about how good Halo is and are interested... Then get out and buy it already!!!	video-games_xbox
Disappointed Given All the Hype Surrounding This Title. Have to say I was disappointed. With such rave reviews across the board I expected this to be a mind-blowing gaming experience. Sadly there are many aspects to this game that make it impossible to give more than an 'average' rating. First, the graphics are atrocious. The cut scenes are laughable in most parts; terrible character animations, woefully bad texturing, stunted dialogue and characters that just don't resonate. I am shocked that so few people critique the game, or cull a star from their ratings for this alone. In 2016/2017, to have a game look this poor on next gen consoles is a total letdown. Next, there are few, if any instructions... I found the game controls ponderous and counter-intuitive... Almost like they decided to do the opposite of what was intuitive and natural to make the game stand out... E.g. top button is jump, right button inventory... Why!? Most people will intuitively go to bottom button to jump, inventory should be one of the shoulder buttons or directional pad. The story was ok, but nothing revolutionary that I could see. Granted I played about 8 hrs into the game, but found it largely unentertaining, bland and laborsome to navigate the world, or really care for the protagonist. It felt very much like a 'game', not an immersive experience. The plentiful guns you tend to lift naturally are a pain... Duplication and management of inventory becomes tedious and time consuming. Compare this to a game like Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn and the opposites that 'supposedly' make this game sit on its' own are frustrating and a major turn off. I can't recommend this game to anyone but a hardened gamer who knows/likes the Fallout series. I find it hard to believe any newcomer will find much to enjoy within this game, let alone anything redeeming to keep them playing to the end. Some of the gameplay is fun, granted, and there is a nice sense of foreboding and risk. That this is all I can say in favor of the game is testament to its' lacking in all other major areas, however.	video-games_xbox
Buy it used, and don't expect the novelty to last long. My girlfriend and I bought this game to play together. She enjoys games that require more thinking, and are less action-focused, so we purchased this used along with Heavy Rain (also used). After being disappointed with Heavy Rain, and finding it to have fallen short on its promises of real consequences, we turned to L.A. Noire. Well, let's just say I'm glad we got it used and didn't pay too much for it. It followed the familiar pattern for Rockstar games - very enjoyable at first, with seemingly a lot to do, followed by too much repetition and frustration with the mechanics until you never want to put the disc in again. Unfortunately, L.A. Noire came to the latter state much sooner than GTA or Red Dead. I'm sure the L.A. Noire defenders will claim that I just didn't like the game because I didn't "get it", and it was too much of a "thinking man's game" to really have mass appeal. Quite the contrary. The action sequences in the game are by far the least enjoyable parts. It seems like in every case, there's at least one suspect who you end up chasing - either on foot or in your car. It quickly becomes obnoxious, because your character is far slower than any of the suspects, for some reason. Why a young cop with military experience can't outrun an overweight 60-year-old man is beyond me. Similarly, the car chases are not fun either, because the suspect inevitably speeds off, then slows just enough for you to get close, and then seemingly jumps into warp drive, and takes a corner perfectly at unreasonable speeds. And anyone who is familiar with Rockstar games knows that pretty much every vehicle you drive handles like a tank, so both these chase sequences seem to just degenerate to "hold the right trigger until the predetermined area where you catch the suspect is reached". Yawn. Gun fights and fist fights aren't much better, though less frequent. So if the action sequences aren't great, the game really has to rely on the other aspects of the game - exploring the city, and solving crimes. Well, exploring the city can be easily summed up: don't do it - there's no point. Other Rockstar games at least have some minigames and other things to do when you wander around. Not L.A. Noire. All you get to do is discover landmarks, drive in new cars you discover, and help with street crimes. The first two are pointless except for completionists, and the third follows basically the same formula every time: Respond to call, chase suspect, shoot suspect before he can kill the hostage he has taken (even though there was no reason to take that hostage, because, as mentioned before, your character couldn't catch a cold). Well then, what about solving crimes? It's a thinking man's game after all, with impressive facial motion capture technology, so you can use your brilliant sleuthing skills and watch for tics in the suspect's face to pin them with their crimes! Well, yes and no. The facial movements are very impressive, and the first couple of cases were enjoyable enough. But that may be simply because you still had the illusion that your choices mattered, and you still felt some sense of achievement for putting the pieces together. Later on, you'll likely realize that the game holds your hand entirely too much, and the choices you make will ultimately not matter much. When investigating a crime scene, music plays until you've found all the clues you were supposed to, and you're guided along by the rumbling that presumably represents your fine sense of intuition sensing a nearby clue. There's hardly any sense of accomplishment in that. It doesn't take much of a thinking man to wander around and press A when their controller shakes until the music stops. The interrogation scenes could have saved this game, and I really wish they had, but they, too, ultimately fall short. While interviewing someone, you're guided along by the set of questions you're given, and asked to judge whether the suspect responded truthfully, outright lied, or is not telling you all they know. Ideally, you're supposed to pick up which of these by investigating their body movements. The problem is that every lie is a blatant one, and there's really no reliable way to choose between the "Truth" and "Doubt" options. For example, the suspect may respond truthfully, giving you an answer you know to be correct, and you'd assume that the game intends you to recognize this as true. But occasionally, that truth was intended to be "Doubtful", because the suspect knows a bit more than they're letting on, but they give no facial indication that this is the case. It seems that every answer a suspect gives is accompanied by shifting eyes, which would ordinarily be interpreted as lying. You'll quickly realize that despite the great motion capture technology, you're still limited by the ability of the actors to convey the feeling they're supposed to. One example of the blurry line between when to say truth and when to say doubt (hopefully about spoilers) involves a question you ask of a paroled suspect about their employment. The suspect responds that they were employed, but they're now looking for something new. Pressing "Doubt", which is the "correct" answer, leads you to ask where that previous employment was, and the suspect responds with a name. Pressing "Truth" is the incorrect response, even though the suspect's response was entirely accurate, and the followup question asked when Doubting could've just as easily been asked while believing the response. Yet, one is correct, and the other is penalized - drastically. Furthermore, you can't control how your character expresses doubtfulness about the suspect's answer - it varies from gentle prodding to yelling that they're lying and accusing them of murder. Naturally, this unpredictably can lead to failed interrogations, because your character interpreted "Doubt" to mean "shoot on sight" (figuratively). In short, I like the idea of this game, but I don't like the execution. I'd prefer a game with more consequential choices, and the ability to have more control over my character's thoughts and actions. The degree of control I imagine is probably well outside what current technology can offer, and games like L.A. Noire and Heavy Rain are nice steps in that direction, but leave a lot to be desired. Rent this one first, and buy used if you can.	video-games_xbox
Not fun at all... and I like this genre (usually. This was South Peak's last chance with me. After the travesty that was Two Worlds I was skeptical of even this purchase. I will admit the cover caught my attention. While not the best illustration in existence, the concept of playing a scantily clad female wielding two devastating gun blades heavily appeals to me. So, with some reservations, I made my purchase. I figured it was a hack and slash, a very simplistic game concept, so how could South Peak really screw that up. Oh my, let me tell you how! Pros: +Beautiful levels +Scantily clad female with dual wielding gunblades +Excellent magical abilities +Awesome combos +Well developed booklet +Leveling up mechanic is interesting Cons: -PLAYING THROUGH THE GAME TWICE!!!! -Levels are the size of my room -Bosses are really easy to beat -Items are incredibly easy to locate (because there is only one room!) -Ayumi's in game figure looks weird -Lame story line -Bad voice acting -LEVELS ARE THE SIZE OF MY ROOM! Details on the above list: Actually, I'll start off with the good aspects first. The levels look beautiful. The texturing is quite impressive. Aside from some "too bright" lighting on the outdoor levels, I really had no issues with this part of the game. I did like their level up system quite a bit. You basically kill a bunch of creatures and you get soul points then you spend these soul points to get upgrades. The upgrades were really cool. You can get fire burst, ice, earthquake, and lightning magic. You then bind these to a button on the controller and when you get enough rage from hitting your enemies you can execute these special magical attacks. I actually did like this mechanic throughout game play. You can also upgrade your gun blades to get different kinds of firing options. These were pretty decent also. No machine gun option though... would have been cool, but very unrealistic. One aspect that some people may be divided on is the way you heal. You heal by spending your soul points or hitting green crystals distributed throughout the levels. Maybe being able to essentially heal whenever you want seems like a cop out to some people, but if you run out of souls, you're screwed, so I actually liked this mechanic in the end. Plus the game has a built in element where it gets more expensive every time you use that feature, so I think this balances it out. I opted to save up my points and go for the regeneration feature. Of course you can always double back and replay levels you know you can beat and collect millions of souls to activate all the upgrades before the end of the game, if one is so inclined. The booklet for this game is incredibly comprehensive. It gives you a full background on what your character is doing there and so forth. It gives you a run down of all the enemies and a few tips on beating them. If you're really getting into trouble there's a strategy guide section that you can read for tips on how to beat certain bosses. It also has all the normal stuff that goes over spells, upgrades and user controls. All of that sounds like it should be a fun game shouldn't it? Yeah, I thought so too until I actually started playing through this game! Okay, I know I haven't mentioned it yet, you play as a girl named Ayumi. She's supposed to be a treasure hunter; yeah I thought there might be a Tomb Raider influence as well. Anyway this story is outright lame. I know my low rating might not make sense in context of my good review for Onechanbara (which also was recently released and is a hack n' slash). Let me try to explain, they both have fairly stupid story lines. I wasn't expecting anything incredible from X-blades, but I was expecting a little bit more from them. I mean, this company attempted to write an RPG and failed miserably, but I figured they'd try to at least learn from their mistakes. If you read the introduction in the booklet you already get annoyed with Ayumi. We're clearly engaging in a fantastical world and she's complaining about her parents wanting her to be a pharmacist! Seriously, read the booklet if you don't believe me. Luckily none of that makes its way into the game. Okay, so the story is bad, but the script is even worse. Coupled with terrible voice acting, once again (just like in Two Worlds), makes the cut scenes atrocious. Okay, the voice acting is a little better than two worlds, but any time Ayumi talks it just doesn't feel like the voice actress fits with her. I can't really put my finger on why, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I know it's a minor quibble. But then they introduce Jay, whom you can also read about in the booklet. He's apparently supposed to be some sort of "love interest"? Worst execution of this I have ever come across. There is ZERO character development in this and that's what I had a huge problem with. At least Onechanbara attempts to have character development and they do a better job of it compared to this. I was expecting Ayumi's figure to be a bit different. They boasted something about the combination of Anime and this video game. They're trying something new and I'm not really docking them harshly for trying out something different (read below to find out why I'm actually giving this a low rating). But I think people should be aware that Ayumi's figure (the one you control) in game and in the animated sequences does not look like something you would normally expect from the average video game. They don't appear to have used the usual rendering techniques on these main character types and her skin texture looks really bizarre to me. It's tough to explain and I don't know what they did on a technical level, just thought other buyers should know that it is not what you'd normally encounter. Alright, onto what playing the game is actually like. Now, I don't do game reviews unless I successfully beat the game or at least get to the final boss. I beat this game. I suffered through every single level. Here's where X-blades does a face plant in the world of hack n' slash. The levels are incredibly small. Beautiful looking elements, as I said above, but I'm seriously playing on a level the size of my room! Here's how this game works. You enter into a level; it's mostly a gigantic room. Lots of monsters spawn, you kill ALL of them, and then you get a screen that says level complete! Are you kidding me?! This is ALL I have to do. There's nothing to explore, there's no hidden passages. Nothing! You can walk around within the one room and break jars or coffins to get items that give you souls, but that is IT. There is then a door on the opposite side from where you came in and you go through that and you get a stats screen showing your accomplishments. You are then brought into another room to repeat this process over and over again. There are a couple one room levels where you simply have to make it across something like spinning blades, but there are only three levels like that and they're both incredibly lame and very un-puzzle like. I'd rather be in the one room killing hordes... at least I get to do something semi-interesting. I know, that sounds incredibly boring. At first cutting down tons of monsters is quite a lot of fun. As you encounter new monsters they get put into your bestiary (accessed when you hit start) and if you're having trouble the bestiary will tell you how to beat that monster. The bosses are less than challenging. Consulting the bestiary and learning the exact method to beat them puts their life span at about five minutes. The only one that took me a little while to beat was The Dark in one section, but that's because some wind weapon he used kept blowing me back so I'd have to walk back up and get close again. Other than that they're all incredibly easy to beat. The small levels are by far NOT the worst part. If that's not bad enough you have to play through this game TWICE. It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever encountered. I know doubling back in some games for a level is one thing, but seriously... an outright replay! You make it to one side of the map you beat The Dark there and THEN you have to go ALL the way back. You go through all the same exact levels again! Sure they have different bosses and slightly tougher enemies, but you still see the same exact level design over and over. What a waste of time! What lazy design! I still can't believe someone managed to mess up one of the easiest game concepts in existence. I'm seriously giving up on this developer. Maybe someday they will produce a stellar game, but I will no longer be purchasing their items on release day. This was far from a good game and there are far superior games out there. If they could only capture some of the cooler mechanics they had and harness them into a well written game they'd have quite a gem on their hands.	video-games_xbox
The best RPG of 2002 shines on Xbox. This game is amazing. The Elder Scrolls series is a famous for being incredibly open-ended, and Morrowind truly delivers for this. You play a character (of your creation) who was mysteriously removed from prison. You are brought to the land of Vvardenfall, where all you are given is the name of a contact in the town of Balmora. Throughout the game you make your mark on the world, live a life there, and fulfill a destiny that reveals itself as you go on. It's a programming marvel how they pulled it off. The game starts out with you on the boat to Vvardenfall. There you enter your characters name. You arrive at the docks and choose your race. You then choose what skills your character will excel in. You're given the contact's name, and sent out completely on your own. People will ask for your assistance. Guilds will hire you out. You can kill and mug people for a living. It's all up to you. The graphics in this game are incredible. The towns are detailed, and every person and creature has insane detail. But to truly get the idea of these graphics, you have to see the water. It was a cloudy but bright mid-day when it started raining. I looked into the river. It's rare when graphics literally make me stop and take a moment to absorb it. This was one of these instances. The control is spot on. Those used to Halo will almost immediately get the hang of what they're doing. The sounds are wonderful. It has a beautiful musical score, and great voice-acting. The sounds of the creatures are nice, and you can hear the Cliff Racers screeching in the distance. It's enough to make you spin around, checking to see if you're about to come under attack. The combat system often comes under harsh scrutiny. You play Halo style, aiming at your opponent and slashing away. Your accuracy depends on your stats and your proficiency with your weapon. Same with your defense, how proficient you are with your armor. The more you use them, the better you use them. The fighting does get old when constantly fighting Rats and Cliff Racers, but it's always fun to butcher civilians or go into an epic battle. All in all, Morrowind has incredible graphics, amazing gameplay, perfect play-control, and a deep, involving story. I'll give you a fair warning, it does start out sort of slow, but get sucked in, and you won't be able to get back out.	video-games_xbox
Mastermind Of Body. With all the things that Microsoft has been able to prove with the Kinnect for the Xbox 360, the one thing that they have honestly needed to make is really great games. There have been so many that have delivered nicely for the Kinnect, but there have been others that there have been a lack of. Since the Kinnect came out, only a few games have delivered nicely with the Kinnect add-on. I haven't seen that many games that have stood out that made the Kinnect worth while to match what Nintendo had already done with the Wii since 2006. Well, I have heard about Deepak Chopra's Leela and I was blown away with it for the Nintendo Wii, and very skeptical about how it was for the 360. Well, here is my result of it. Deepak Chopra's Leela for the Xbox 360 handles well, as you climb and unlock 7 levels of relaxation and meditation that improve your balance and mind. The body controls are more than what was simple with the Nintendo Wii. The game features 40 levels of gameplay, with mini-games that remain simple and easy to play. The graphics are simple and elequent, while the music ranges form nimble mind-blowing moods from celestial sonnets, to rhythmic relaxing tones. But it is the control of the game that stands out. The control of your body really stands well, and tests you in the fun. The game really puts you to the test in control, but the game is very simple to challenge yourself. I like how the game has been developed, but I overall was hoping for more mini-games that test you, and a few more extras in Leela. But, overall I like the experience. Despite a few flaws, Deepak Chopra's Leela is a great alternative game. I like how it flexes your muscles and tests your mind. It really is definitely a great game to own for the Xbox 360 and the Kinnect add-on. It definitely is a great game to relax with, and holds up well for a third-party game. While many people have looked at other mind-testing exercise games, this one is worth its money. While it doesn't cost much, I love Deepak Chopra's Leela and it is mostly worth playing around with. Too bad, there isn't any multiplayer action with it,but it does hold up in testing the mind, body and spirit. Graphics: B Sound: B+ Control: B- Fun & Enjoyment: B Overall: B	video-games_xbox
style-over-substance hack-n-slash button masher. My first Xbox One game and review... Pros: - strong visuals and cinematics, even the menus are stylish - good enough story and good enough use of a small subset of the Roman mythos that is usually ignored, not focused on...the invasion of Brittan, Nemesis, Damocles aren't well covered. I don't recall these elements in a game before... - I enjoyed the epic "Saving Private Ryan" moments (the one they showed at E3). marching ahead with your army, blocking a hail of arrows and then returning fire was quite fantastic. - some good boss battles - good non-intrusive way to use quick time events by highlighting the enemy in a specific color rather than an obnoxious gigantic A or B or X or Y on the screen... Neutral: - the non-myth part of the story and reality is that Rome was a rather brutal imperialist (obviously) force. thus you're kind of playing the bad guy here. asking an audience to sympathize with the Roman Empire is a little weird. but hey, I haven't seen the Romans in a game or entertainment product in awhile, so why not. Cons: - button mashing. you can get through the game hitting little more than X or Y. shoulder buttons, triggers, others largely unused, indicating a rather simple game. in fact, if you removed the blood/gore, it could possibly be a child's game. it reminded me more of a fighter than a 3rd-person action title. you can miss half the quick-time events without any consequences. you will hit the same damn buttons over and over and over and over again. you will quickly tire of this... - repetitive looking enemies - I can't remember any game that mapped shield to the A button. most games use a trigger for this (e.g. left trigger block, right trigger attack - that's fairly intuitive). it was difficult to get my brain to unlearn that A generally means Action/Advance/Activate, etc. - The game needed more epic army moments and strategy. Instead, thousands of enemies to button mash...not enough variety - not much to upgrade...one weapon, one armor, one etc....More/better RPG elements could have helped kill the monotony and kept the player invested, but it's largely not there...just health, some executions, etc. i barely noticed or appreciated the effects of whatever I upgraded... - Once you advance over an obstacle or through a door, you can't go back, so your missed collectible is gone. Restart the game I guess...I hate that. Overall, it was well worth the price I paid, $39.99 new. It's possible for Crytek to improve upon what they've done here. Obviously they have a premier gaming engine that fuels Crysis and others...I wouldn't give up. Less button-mashing, more variety, more character investment, more RPG elements and they might have something here...They could keep the Roman Empire theme and try to build a new franchise. There simply has to be more for the player to do though...	video-games_xbox
OK for some cheap fun, get the newer versions. Bought the bundled game and pad: Game: The game has a new user mode, good for newbies who need training. It was not clear that you could only play 2 players if you had two pads (or the handheld controller), otherwise you must log in/out of your xbox to switch XBox live accounts between songs if you want to save your game. There seem to be very few hits / radio songs with many being similar versions of the same old beats. The animations are rather simplistic and graphics appear almost pixillated on a big screen HDTV. Would have tried playing against others on XBox Live, but could never find any matching dance partner. I think most others have already given up on this one. The quest mode is a pain in the behind because many of the quests require you to do things that most of the random songs do not have, so even when completing a song with high marks, you still fail. Pad: The pad sucks. My size 10 1/2 feet do not have any room to spare in the boxes on the pad, so I am constantly setting off one of the adjacent controls. My wife does fine with her womens size 7s. Doubly frustrating is that the pad slides all over the floor, and forget using it on carpet. This throws off the sensors so you don't get a consistent contact. I thought about gluing it to some plywood. I image this may be alleviated in non-carpet situations and sliding would be limited by the rubber-ish backing. Altogether this makes executing many of the combos rather difficult. This despite the fact that I do well on the arcade offerings, and am an ok dancer in general. Overall, This game was a bit disappointing after what I remember playing so many a time at the arcade. I wish I had read the other product reviews prior to buying. Looking now, I should have paid a little extra for Universe 2 or 3. However, the game is ok for a cheap starter and my wife and I have had hours of fun playing. Any game that gets you off your seat is a plus. This one will make you sweat, so dress appropriately.	video-games_xbox
Professional Looking, but probably only for the really hardcore RB3 gamers. I gave this product 4 stars because I don't think I'm qualified to give any more; perhaps when I've learned how to use it on the "Pro" setting... I bought this guitar because I was looking for a replacement after one of my standard guitars started to have problems with the fret buttons not responding... I actually wanted a standard replacement, but the price of those has shot through the roof, many costing more that the original complete set! At about $60 (at time of writing), this was a viable alternative. The Pros: The guitar looks great, very realistic with actual strings to pick and a multitude of buttons on the frets (that look like strings.) It opens up "Pro Guitar" and "Pro Bass" play options in Rock Band 3 which is cool as it extends the game-play that much further and can (supposedly) teach you to play an actual guitar! If you're a budding musician, there's also a MIDI jack, so you can jam out with your favorite MIDI applications (I've got no experience in this area - but it sounds cool.) The Cons: It's a "Pro" guitar, so if you're planning on using it on the standard Guitar or Bass settings, be warned, it's a much different experience trying to play this than a standard Rock Band guitar... I'm pretty good and I am currently having a very hard time using this guitar on the standard settings (I'm sure I'll get used to it eventually.) There's no whammy bar and so far I don't know of an equivalent way to perform the whammy action - so this can make it hard to get the max out of overdrive and to get some achievements. The guitar is NOT compatible with Rock Band 1 or 2, just Rock Band 3 and any later editions that may come out. Conclusion: Overall, it's a really nice, well made product and I would highly recommend it for those people looking to take the next step in the Rock Band experience. But if you're just looking to replace a defective standard guitar, you may want to give this a miss.	video-games_xbox
Some Major Shortcomings, Still Amazing Game. I love gaming and consider myself a gamer but I actually only have experience with a small number of games. WoW, Halo, Mario Bros. That's pretty much it, so going into this game I didn't have a lot to compare it to. Pros: -The game is absolutely beautiful. Characters are detailed, landscapes are vast, attention to detail in pure aesthetics is definitely there. -Mechanics are smooth and fluid and in general also very good. If you're at all familiar with Halo you'll be a fast study on this game as much of the controls are similar, as I imagine most FPSs are. -The world is vast and diverse and there is ALWAYS something to do. - Love the customization of my character and the abilities that I'm able to unlock. The three classes all look amazing together and have very different strengths and weaknesses. Very similar to WoW in this aspect. I play a warlock which is your typical Ranged Magic DPS/or Support if you choose Sunsinger Ability tree; then there's Titans who are the Melee DPS/or Tank; then Hunters who are the quick/stealthy Rogue types Cons: -Story(campaign) mode is seriously lacking. I only played Halo in solo campaign mode and was excited for a similarly engaging and addictive story and I can say after finishing the initial story mode and reaching level 20 I had no idea what was going on in this game 90% of the time. Also the missions became very repetitive and boring, where with Halo I would easily play 8 hours straight because I was so engrossed in the story, this game I would play a couple missions and get bored. -Related to this, once you reach level 20 it almost becomes a completely different game, you still have over 10 levels to go before maxing out and are given no direction in game as to how to do this. Also the leveling system itself changes from just gaining XP to having to acquire a certain amount of "Light" to reach the next level, which you get by acquiring better armor. -Just generally there's a big lack of communication on many aspects of this game. There are multiple forms of currency, reputation, etc that are not explained in the game at all. I had to research all over the internet to figure out what was going on. So those are my major concerns with this game, in some ways the game seems absolutely perfect, in others it almost seems unfinished, like there were two competing departments working on separate pieces of the game and one finished and the other wasn't able to... Overall though, even with the big shortcomings this game is addictive and super fun to play. I love the mix of MMORPG and FPS, just like a merger of WoW and Halo. I like being able to level up my character and customize them which is seen in more typical RPGs. I'm looking forward to further expansions and maxing out my character to start trying out the Raids that are available. This game has the potential be amazing, I think right now it's just in a weird limbo state. EDIT After playing this game now for over 9 months I can say my initial read was spot on. I still love it, the raids and crucible are by far the most enjoyable aspects. Unfortunately I've heard of many people getting bored with lack of things to do. Honestly, this game is what you make of it. Find a big group to play with on the100.io and you'll never be bored. It's definitely worth the effort to make friends and participate in the multiplayer aspects of the game.	video-games_xbox
A RPG Masterpiece. Many people are comparing TW2 with Skyrim because they are both sword & sorcery RPGs released last year. I think this is a crass mistake as both games are very different, both being excellent in their own RPG niche, they differ too much to be compared in reasonable terms in my opinion. TW2 is a linear game with a pre-defined character which has a tightly paced driven storyline with branching paths depending on your personal choices. Whereas in Skyrim there is no pre-defined character, you shape it at your whim as you play. Besides, Skyrim's world is truly an open-world. Whatever you see, you can travel to. In TW2 you have plenty of different sand boxes (very well done scenarios) in which to get lost in. The closest resemblance, if you really feel compelled to compare it to another RPG, would be to Dragon Age: Origins. If you enjoyed BioWare's 2009 masterpiece you will love TW2 as it shares multiple aspects. TW2 is what DA2 should have been. The only thing it may lack is perhaps such a compelling plot and the companion's banter. In TW2 you may occasionally team up with other characters - always optional, btw, in true RPG fashion - to perform specific tasks or quests. You may also choose to do them solo. In TW2 the story revolves around Geralt of Rivia and there is no staple "group" as in DA:O I purchased it last year to play it on my high-end rig. After having viewed graphic comparisons between the PC and the X360 (such as this one: [...] I honestly didn't have high hopes. Thing is these comparisons do not do it justice. I was very pleasantly surprised when I fired up my X360 and started playing it. Truly, you are hard pressed to see any differences between both versions. Sure, shaders and texture resolutions may be better on a PC, but the X360 version looks completely amazing rivalling in graphics any other game in the XBOX catalogue, including Skyrim. At no time did it feel I was playing a PC port. Needless to say the PC version is superior (after all the Xbox lags six years behind in technology) to the xbox one, but you really have to nit-pick to appreciate the non-apparent differences. CD Projekt Red have graphically achieved a technical feat with the X360 version drastically reducing the chasm between PC and Xbox version. My review is based playing on the Dark mode. I recommend you play at this difficulty to appreciate the game thoroughly (besides the exclusive goodies you only get playing at this difficulty level). Pros * Beautiful graphics, rivalling those of a high-end PC rig * Dark, rich, immersive story. The game grows on you. * Interesting plot devices such as flashbacks. * Fantastic combat mechanics - when you finally do learn to master them. Combat has a satisfying learning curve that will make you feel self-accomplished on taking down difficult enemies on Dark mode. Reminiscent of Demons/Dark Souls in a way. No potion gulping in the middle of a fight as in Skyrim. * No Fed-ex mindless quests. You will not feel like a fool in Kirkwall running stupid errands. No repetitive fetch quests here. * Beautiful rendered scenarios such as La Valette castle and the lush forest surrounding Flotsam. * Transitions between dawn, noon, dusk and midnight are very well achieved drastically changing surroundings and scenery. * Sounds engineering is excellent and contributes to create an immersive atmosphere. * NPC routines are very well achieved. Flotsam feels organic, almost alive. There's a guy whose sole purpose is to go around at dusk lighting torches in the village. * The developers have a high artistic sensitivity which is reflected throughout the whole game with a myriad details. * Thumbs up to an adult RPG which does not cower to show lewd scenes such as madams `consoling' - literally - their female protges. Adult themes galore i.e. sex scenes * Plenty of Easter eggs and references to classic games and books on the genre such as the dead Assassins Creed character at La Valette castle in the game prologue (during the assault in a corner in the patio/yard next to the ballista). * The game handsomely rewards you for outsmarting your enemies devising suitable strategies to counter and overcome their strengths by detecting and exploiting weaknesses. It's more about using your wits than brainless button-mashing a la Dragon Age 2. Clever use of magic signs is engrossing. Diversity of possible strategies to tackle any given situation. * Dark mode unlocks unique armour and weaponry unavailable at other difficulty levels. * Hardly any asset recycling unlike Dragon Age 2. * Multiple endings (you hear that ME3?) * Plenty of unique and memorable moments. Cons * Awkward movement with a D-pad. The transition between walking and running is so feeble you run when you want to walk. It even makes you dizzy at the beginning and takes time to settle in. * Overuse of swearing. To the point it puts you off. Don't get me wrong, this is an adult game, I'm ok with that. But having NPCs swearing every 2 minutes quickly becomes tiresome and detracts from overall fun. It is completely unnecessary to characterise an NPC. * Voice acting. Main NPC voices are delivered in a credible manner. However, secondary NPCs seemed to be voiced by the same three actors and are always swearing (very vulgar). Particularly annoying is the prologue where all soldiers seem to be voiced by the same actor. Even worse than Oblivion's repetitive voice cast. * Combat can be extremely taxing for a noob. The game rewards you thinking before a fight. Following a suitable strategy tailored to each foe is a must. Rushing in with a sword at hand surrounded by enemies is the best way to get killed in a few seconds. I would strongly advise anyone starting a game to first spend three hours playing on Arena mode to get to grips with combat. It takes time to get the hang of it, but once you do it becomes addictive. * Inventory navigation can feel awkward at times using a D-pad. Could have been streamlined more like in Skyrim without losing complexity. * Knife-throwing is very badly implemented in the Xbox version. Plays great in a PC but unfortunately they've done a poor job on translating it to the xbox. * Lack of fast-travelling forces you to travel on foot from one end to the other of the map (even if you've previously discovered the location). This should be revised as it adds nothing and bugs a lot. * Difficult to locate quests at times. In-game mini-map could do with some heavy tweaking to make it more user-friendly. Feels like playing Morrowind - in a bad way - at times as it is so cumbersome. Could take tips from Bethesda. * Playing dice is horribly difficult. Conclusion Truly TW2 represents the coming of age for CD Projekt Red who can no longer be regarded as some obscure Eastern European upstart studio. This game has catapulted them to the Big player's league along the likes of venerable Bethesda and decadent Bioware. Kudos to them. A fantastic game along the lines of Dragon Age: Origins. A must-have game for any true fan of WRPGs. If Mass Effect 3 left you a bitter aftertaste, and you're looking for a good RPG to fill the void, look no further; TW2 is your game. Buy and play this game, you are in for a treat. PS. I must praise CD Projekt Red's approach to gamers and gaming in general. From leading by giving example to others with their DRM-free games to their GOG initiative to counter STEAM's monopoly. Unlike EA and BioWare, who cut out characters and whole plots from the main game charging them as day-one DLCs (i.e. The Exiled Prince in DA2 and From Ashes in ME3), CD Projekt Red give them away in the PC version as free updates. Truly EA - and particularly BioWare - could learn a thing or two from this Polish developer on how to treat your customer fanbase, you know, us the little guys who pay developer mortgages and lavish lifestyles (or so I hope). Drakan	video-games_xbox
Xbox One - at least games work. Welllll..... Let's just say I own both Xbox One and PS4 and I finally got time over the last two days to hook up my Xbox (never owned an Xbox before). The setup was a bit of a hassle because since it is a "media" device and you can hook your tv stuff into it, it's a lot more complicated out of the box setup than the ps4. I put it all together, put my dishnetwork HDMI into it and went through the tutorial. Off the bat, didn't work with my tv remote, off the bat didn't work with my dish setup. Got frustrated and turned it off. A day later I attempted it again, this time I managed to get both working and I actually got it to switch channels, once........Maybe it is a dish network dvr problem, maybe it is an xbox programming problem... I dunno, but one of the MAJOR features they tout and it doesn't work that well. I go online and it seems I'm not the only one having this problem and there doesn't seem to be a solution yet. One person says disabling the voice commands for kinect fixes the problem with working with the DVR for dish.... but doesn't that defeat the ENTIRE purpose of this system? That being said, games are nice on it... I picked up dead rising 3 and have messed around a bit and it is an adequate gaming system, can I say it is better than the PS4? Well honestly I can't say because on ps4 I got marvel lego and Injustice Ultimate. Games not even related graphics wise and I barely use my ps4 because all the games I do want come out in 2014. At least the xbox has Ryse and Dead Rising... I'll have to pickup Ryse very soon. Overall I give it 3 stars for now because the TV features aren't working properly... they get it fixed and it will be great. I didn't have any drive issues luckly and my PS4 didn't have the blue light problem, so I'm double lucky on both systems. The voice commands do work very nicely within the system itself and navigation... I do find the UI to be a confusing horrible mess, I suppose I need to just get used to it. UPDATE 3/16/14 Still doesn't work properly with tv, having wondered what is going on and suspecting it was my TV, I switched it to a different room/tv and it still did the same thing. Comes on, works fine, will work fine for hours.... the moment you turn it off and back on black screen for TV signal. You can unplug, replug, power cycle reset everything... doesn't work. Then magically a few days later it works again, it has to be something with Dish and Xbox compatibility and it is set up properly.	video-games_xbox
Really...Really Want to Like This Game. I've played about a day's worth so far. I really like the idea of a console- MMO like this (and Destiny when it comes out). I think this genre is going to dominate the next-gen console market. This is basically the first one, so it's not perfect. At first I loved this game. The gameplay was a lot of fun, I liked seeing other people do quests with me, and there seemed like a lot to do. I liked getting new weapons and modding them and riding around in my little quad thing. It plays well and the guns are cool. I played for hours enjoying the nice-looking world... ...then I kept playing. The story became so boring that I skip every single cut-scene now. It's so dull that I don't want to even pretend to care. The gameplay is still fun, but there is no cover... I understand MMOs are not made with cover in mind but third person shooters really need it. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of enemies can show up at once and completely destroy you because you have nowhere to go. The graphics are bad. Let's face it. I don't care, though, because I'm not a stickler on that. But yes, compared to ANY other xbox 360 game you have, this is crap. I mentioned the enemies and how they clusterf*** you randomly. Well not only that, but there are literally like 3 different kind of enemies. Raiders (basically a copy/paste of the enemies in Borderlands) and then some spider-looking things. For real, no design necessary, I guess. The bugs pop up out of nowhere in swarms of 100 or there's some sort of "defend the house against the raiders." No matter what you do, whether it's a deliver-this or kill-this mission, you're going to be attacked by one of these two enemies and they will sometimes kill you within seconds. You won't even have time to react or know you're in a fight. The gun modding system is bad. You go into the mod screen but can't see what mods you have there. Here you can only see what guns you CAN mod. So then you go back to your inventory to see what you got-and now you're all confused.	video-games_xbox
Best WWE game for this Gen ? yes! Best Ever? Not quite. I will start my review by saying this is not a Smackdown vs Raw game with a different name. If are a fan of SDVR you might not even like this game. For others this will be a good thing that the action is different. The menus are very similar to the last years game with alot of the same match options. WWE Universe seems to be a little deeper this year and you can customize what titles, arena , and brand name you use for you show. For instance I put WCW instead of Smackdown. There is a ton of title belts and arenas in the game as well as the option to make your own arena. Problem being that the arenas are glitchy, about 50% of the time half the ring canvas is blacked out. The new game engine has it's pluses and minuses I start with the positives The wrestlers move much smoother than in SD games the match pacing is more realistic, you don't win a match in 2 minutes. The moves seem to be more dramatic and just look way better in general. The game just moves better and everything is more fluid. I really like the new submission system alot better. The negatives that I found in the actual wrestling in game is that I don't really care for the control layout ( I believe this can be altered and I have not checked into any others yet so this may be moot). There seems to be less moves overall that your wrestler has at their disposal and I seem to pull off alot of the same moves over and over again. Especially early on in the match before you opponent gets groggy and are able to execute the bigger slams. Pin system seem hit and miss. Sometimes i hit the meter dead on and it still counts on me. Then there are somethings that are good and bad like the AI seem to be smarter and actually attacks appropriate to the situation for the most part. They still don't do a wide variety of things and the reversals are out of control this year. There is alot more that can be said but I just wanted to weigh in objectively for people who have not played the game because there is not many reviews up for it at this time and they one of them I saw was a 9/10 IGN and Game Informer gave it a very low score like 5.5/ 10. I myself would give it a 8.5 out of 10. It is alot of fun and the new predator system is a step in the right direction IMO but the game also has it's fair share of glitches , none game breaking but some are pretty significant. It is different enough from the last smackdown game that if you are on the fence about buying it you may want to rent it first. I think some people may not like it do to the fact it is slower paced and more difficult. (update) I reloaded the game and haven't had any more issues with the ring shading and tearing problems.	video-games_xbox
Quite entertaining despite that it is R rated. First off, I owned this game for free from XBOX live. Microsoft offers this for free as of Jan 1, 2014 until Jan 15. This game is not for everyone. If you are into deep story lines or more variation game play, you would not enjoy the entire game. I personally like it very much because of its variation from my other games. I've never played GTA or any of those role-playing games, so I can't compare it with those games. Story Line You play as an undercover copy in the triad in Hong Kong. I find the story line engaging without overkill. Following the story is easy enough and the side quests are not overwhelming. If you decide to just stick with the story line, I would imagine finishing the game relatively quickly. If you want to do some side quest, you can have fun with it. Gameplay The controls are easy enough. The fighting is quite repetitive and challenging at first. Without knowing some of the combos, fighting thugs can be quite frustrating. Sometimes the gange of thugs will go at you 2 or 3 at a time. Once I know the combos, beating the thugs is relatively easy. You have most of Hong Kong to play with. While not all buildings can be played, I find that I have freedom to go where I want to go. The game is non-linear. I wished there is more way to engage the public than to just accidently bumped them. Graphic The graphic is actually quite good consider that this is done in a 360. Some of the people are well rendered. This is a plus because instead of talking to robots, you feel more engaged (note: love Tiffany :) Vehicles One of the best things to play with in the game is the available vehicles. While the controls are easy and fun enough, there is lack of reality to it. For example, there is no way to know how fast I'm driving. Hitting anything would not have any negative impact. I've killed several innocent bystanders and it has no impact on my standing. Voiceover I'm Cantonese and I'm surprised of the authenticity of the voiceovers. The actors doing the voiceovers are really good. I coud tell that actors from Hong Kong are used. This is a plus. This is a well built game. I'm surprised how fast it drops in value consider that this game is only a year old. It is fun for adults who want to play something different. This game is not recommened for kids due to its foul language and blood and gore. If I knew this game is that much fun, I would be willing to pay for it months ago. Not that it is being offered free by Microsoft, there is no reason not to get it.	video-games_xbox
Wows on a Widescreen HDMI input - yawns on a 4:3 regular input. I've played multiple EA football games from 2003's NCAA to various Madden to the NCAA 09. This was my first XBOX 360 game I picked up this month after I had Ku-Fu Panda and Lego Indy from the Pro-gamepack. I started off with an 4:3 720p HDTV but didn't use the HD mode - just the regular video inputs. If you play this way, you're missing the boat. EA clearly designed this for a high-end widescreen 1080p tv. When I switched over to my new unit, the game emerged from a foggy cloud and became truly awesome. Being designed for the bigger TV's you can clearly see more routes, execute better jukes, etc. My Madden rating went from a 430 to a 515 in one game with the switch - this indicates a transition from a ok player to a good player. The field is just much much easier to see and the overall game play experience jumped tremendously. Example: I went from only scoring 17 points (Steelers (me) vs. Cardinals) for my high to 42 the first game (I played Broncos (me) vs. Patriots). I haven't seen any of the bugs people have been complaining about. Upon signing into XBOX Live - I was pushed a patch and I haven't seen any problems. I have seen a much improved commentary, a very neat "BackTrack" feature where you can see where you should have passed if you flub up. And there's the interesting "replay" feature for those that want a mulligan - for those instants where your best player gets laid out and potentially injured or when you just screw up on a key 3rd down. Some weird things - I've played NCAA 09 on the PS3 and noted that there aren't any momentum aspects to Madden 09 like in that game (at least they're not overt that I can tell). Also I'm not sure about the pump fake just yet, it's not the same joystick R3 control so I still have a bit of investigating to do. I will say that the adaptive game play is a different experience and I look forward to seeing how they make do with it. The simulator - training does help you, but it's not realistic per the game. When doing runs you don't have those kinds of lanes (but hey it's training). This is much much better at least from my perspective than trying to run a practice offense vs. a practice defense to work on those skills. Some of the player challenges such as training routines for like the bench press and sprint aren't exactly thrilling but the skill drills are a good learning experience.	video-games_xbox
Dragon Age: endless options. Dragon Age is a masterful RPG. Unlike any other games I've played this semester, Dragon Age boasts maximum customization. At the beginning of the game, you are able to choose your character; however, choose is an understatement. The game allows you to fully create your player, letting you choose anything from tattoos to voice. I really liked this aspect of the game because character customization enables the player to personally connect with the character. For instance, I am attached to my character because I created him; I am playing vicariously through my player. Dragon Age has created a vast world full of quests you can adventure through. By having these choices, the game empowers the player. As I was playing through the game, I liked how the game experience was unique to me. With the decisions I make and how I choose my character to interact with other characters affects my relationships with the members of my party. This game is a good test of moral decision making. From the beginning, each quest poses a moral dilemma which you must solve. In the quest "Nature of the Beast", you find out that the Dalish Elves are being destroyed by a virulent disease which is turning them all into werewolves. The clan keeper, Zathrian, asks for your assistance in ridding them of the curse. He requests that you find the first werewolf, Witherfang, and return with his heart to end the curse destroying his people. The quest takes you through the Brecilian Forest to track down the lead werewolf. The moral obstacles here is that the Werewolves you are asked to destroy are innocent people cursed by Zathrian. Zathrian's family was murdered by a couple people and was cursed to becoming the beasts they actually were. Since then, the werewolves have attacked the town, creating more werewolves from innocent people. I picked to help the town because of the background of my character. Because my character was an Elf, I felt an allegiance towards the Danish Elves. This is a perfect example of how the players liberty to create a background and personality for his character can affect his decision making. Another thing that I noticed and really liked about the game was that each character has its own back story, so even when you beat the game, you can still go back and replay with another character with a different story. Also, you can create a personality with you character by choosing what to say. Different things you choose your character to say(personality) affects how the story unfolds. By talking to the spirit of Valor, you have the opportunity to acquire a weapon, however if you decided not to talk to him you will have missed out on an opportunity to get the weapon. This aspect of game allows you to have a personalized story. Based on how you want your character to interact with other characters in the game, the plot can be substantially different. I give this game 4.5/5 stars for its rich background story combined with countless options to personalize your own DragonAge plot.	video-games_xbox
A game entirely in its own league - Not for everybody but a classic for me ! ! . L.A Noire is a world apart from any other game Rockstar have produced, instead of mindlessly tearing up towns, destroying vehicles and seducing the odd prostitute. In fact Rockstar has gone in entirely the opposite direction. In L.A Noire your good cop who is on a path of righteousness amongst the stagnant corrupt police force and society you work for. Set in the 1940's this production certainly creates a new feel to the free roam style games that we all know and love. Your character is a rookie, to start off with, named 'Cole Phelps'. He is a Los Angeles detective and his role's as you would expect do involve car chases, Gun fights and the odd apprehension of a pervert or a thief, but the body of the game is what sets the pace as a slow, methodical, detailed attention sapping game. Chapter after chapter your job is to interview witnesses and suspects alike, pay great attention to the facial expressions and body language as their dialogue, as you would expect is bound to be misleading. You must provide evidence if you declare someone a liar and be careful when doubting someone who is telling the truth. Despite the accuracy and attention span needed to spot every lie and truth, you will still stumble inevitably through the game regardless of how good your detective skills are. As this game isn't rated on how good of a shooter you are or how fast you can drive across the city in an explosive car without taking any damage, the game demanded to be aesthetically pleasing and challenging and it is most definitely both of the above. In true Rockstar style there are lots of the little side missions for you to get stuck into, Hidden Classic Cars from the 40's and random items scattered around the city for you to hunt down and the odd attire customization. Although a lot of people may have felt that this was going to be the next GTA, they will be pleasantly disappointed. The free roam option gives those gamers a little blast from the past but like i said at the start, L.A Noire is in a class of its own, it finds a sweet mid-point between the complexity of crime scene clues from CSI and the free flowing action that Rockstar is famous for. To conclude, the storyline and the interweaving of the cases make for a strong storyline, the graphical cinematic aesthetic quality and the originality (Like intuition points to help you separate the lies from the truth) could make this game a perfect buy for the right type of gamer. I can't help feel that even those gamers who love a slow paced puzzle crime solver will get bored of the repetitiveness that arises as the game goes on. Either way I was not disappointed although I like many others thought it was going to be more like GTA.	video-games_xbox
Thoughts so far. So, I bought in. I have an Xbox 360 that rarely gets used anymore except for the kids Disney Infinity and Kinect Sesame Street. I'm mostly a PC gamer, as well as my 5 year old (he loves the lego games and portal). I have a library of over 200 games in steam. With that said, I'm not comparing a console to a PC - at least specification wise. It's just not fair. I wanted something more casual for the living room to replace our 360 that is on its last legs (its a 6 year old model). I was going to wait until steam machines came out, but when I saw the price drop on the Titan bundle, I pulled the trigger. I paid $449 for the bundle and bought an extra controller with a charge kit. Also added in an Xbox Live 1 year card - my total with tax was $661. Probably cheaper than the steam machine I will buy around Christmas time. After a rather long update (but nothing compared to the Wii U update I endured when that console first came out) - I had to futz around with getting Xbox Live Gold to work. Seems Microsoft had some service issues going on. I finally got in, and one thing I noticed right away is how much more accurate the Kinect Sensor is. In both motion detection and voice recognition. Not perfect, but better. I loaded my usual apps - Vudu and Netflix - and both seem no worse or better on the other platforms I use them on. I was a little shocked that I had to load apps for Skype and the Blu-ray player (shouldn't they be installed by default - especially being touted as features of the Xbox One). With that said, both worked well and installed without a hitch. I went ahead and purchased Forza - but was a little dissapointed in the game catalog so far. Very little for kids, very little variety of anything really. I understand the console is still fairly new, but I expected more in 5+ months since release. I do like the fact that games are fully downloadable, and for a guy with kids that like to destroy things (like discs) this is welcomed. Nothing really new but it's nice that I don't have to rely on physical media. Downloading the games is taking forever however. The system seems very responsive. Startup is very quick. Navigation is smooth. The interface, while different from the 360 isn't that far from it. I've done little of the so called multitasking up to this point, so won't comment on it. The controller is top of the line. It's comfortable and accessible. It feels even better than the 360 Controller. I've used the 360 Controller for both Xbox and PC gaming for years - I am right at home here. However, the cheap headset I will need to replace. This thing is absolute garbage, and only fits on my head if I tilt it. Very uncomfortable and it feels like I'm cheapening the controller by plugging it in. A very big miss in the attention to details department at MS. Graphics are fine. They are about what was available 4 years ago on the PC. I wasn't expecting to be wowed - but the frame rates are steady and it's a marked improvement over the 360. I guess the only question is how much developers will get to unlock the potential here. The 360 had some pretty specialized ATI Graphics that were developed just for the console. This is more a stock GPU that's been found in hardware for a few years now. Time will tell. For now the system specs are adequate. Just not mind blowing. These consoles should be considered current gen, not next gen. Other system specs - microsoft has a way of putting a premium on hard drive space. Remember when a 120GB HD cost 4 times as much for the 360 than if you got one for anything else? Well, the 500GB drive will not be enough with the size of "next gen" titles. Considering how long the downloads take - microsoft should have at least doubled this space. I'm going to be hard pressed to keep swapping games out considering the time it will take. I know I have a negative slant here. But I'm giving the console 4 stars - mostly based on potential and based on how the 360 turned out over the years. But this is not my go to system. It's a diversion and may at some point be more of a media device than a gaming mecca for me. Hopefully the kids titles start coming soon - because that will at least get my children off of my gaming PC.	video-games_xbox
I was hoping for so much more. Im really trying to like this game but cant. Because Im so disappointed and don't want to waste any more time on it Ill be short. The story line wasn't engaging at all and within the first 30 minutes of game play I found myself not really interested in what the objective was. A good video game should spark my interest and keep me interested but this game did not. There was just too much going on at the start. Within the first 15 minutes of the game your character meets three other characters and all of a sudden the gamer is thrown into a relationship with these other characters of which none of them are interesting. The game was overly designed multiplayer as opposed to a single player. This design makes the game clunky for lack of a better term. Speaking of clunky, the flow of combat is miserable. Not only has the gamer acquired three more characters you don't know but you now have to coordinate their actions in combat. Lame. Nothing quite as boring as foraging for loot and having constant breaks in combat action. If this is your style of gameplay this game is for you but if you like flowing action and smooth combat this isn't it. The open world isn't bad but when I play this game I feel like Im playing a Skyrim game that isn't as cool as Skyrim - or as well thought out. The graphics aren't bad but at times I feel like Im playing on the Xbox 360. The controls don't flow at all. Overall this game just feels like yet again another mass produced game that tried to entice us with a pot of gold at the end rainbow. But when you get to the end of the rainbow its just another bland game with no escape into another world. I wish I had my $70 back. On the pro side though if you like massively beautiful worlds and like to wonder aimlessly looking for stuff there's plenty of that. I just didn't get that connection between the character, storyline, and the world within like I do with other games of the genre. Along with the chopped up combat I'm leaving this game disappointed.	video-games_xbox
If you like endless possibilities and wandering around a lot you will . Writing this after some 36 hours of game play. The basic features of the game itself are excellently done - graphics, characters, etc. If you like endless possibilities and wandering around a lot you will really like this game. I am getting a bit bored/frustrated with it at this point since it seems there is no end in sight. I don't mind going here and there to gather clues and having umpteen possible ways of solving the task or quests given, but it seems that you don't get anywhere or just as you are about to get somewhere you are stymied and thrown off into something else. Go somewhere to find a clue, meet someone, they'll help you if you help them, so go somewhere else to help them, find another person or group, they'll help you if you help them, so go somewhere else ad infinitum - it seems like being stuck in a parenthetical sentence 12 levels deep so far with no way out. Now there is nothing wrong with that per se. Lots of folks love this, but I am a very goal oriented person - give me a set of tasks to accomplish leading toward an end, but don't keep pushing the end further and further away. I compare this to Dishonored and Dishonored 2 where you go through a set series of chapters within which you have dozens and dozens of ways to accomplish the task, but once done you are led onto the next task with an eventual ending. A very artistic right brained type young lady recommended this to me and said she loves it because she just likes to explore, she doesn't care about accomplishing the tasks at all, she'd rather just wander around to see what's in each house or building and evade or confront and kill whatever people or creatures she comes across. So again, not knocking this game as is, just be aware of what kind of person you are - totally free form or a more linear thinker - if you are totally free form you will love this, if more left brained and goal oriented maybe not so much.	video-games_xbox

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