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Not perfect, but a good starting point. Day One edition, had since launch day, so judging it on about a month of regular use:
Kinect can use some more software tweaks, and there a few bugs, but I absolutely love voice control/app switching the 75-85% of the time that it works. you very quickly learn how to get Kinect to work most effectively and use the voice properly. There is a small learning curve, just as there is a with a controller or any other interface, and once you get it down it works well. There are a few bugs I expect to get worked out with software updates eventually, like when it will stop reading voice until restart once a week or so, in my case. But virtually any Mac/PC/console that gets left on in standby mode needs a hard restart from time to time. So that's not unique to the One.
The controller is fine, but I find the sticks a little loose after using the 360 controller forever. I already find myself adjusting to them, but I did like the slightly firmer give to the 360 version. I still personally like the placement of buttons and triggers and especially offset sticks over the PlayStation versions, but that's personal preference in anyone's opinion.
Games are fun so far, and I love the quick switching between TV and games and the like. Faves so far are Dead Rising 3 and Peggle 2. Battlefield 4 too, when it works (not an Xbox issue, but a Battlefield issue across all platforms.)
TV integration is great if you watch Live TV, and I do, quite a bit. The voice commands are quite useful, again when you know how to optimize them. Works great for core channels, but more obscure channels or HBO versus HBOW or ESPN vs. ESPNU or something can get confused. But it's nice to get to those channels quickly in, say, your onscreen guide and then just flip to the neighboring channel easily. It remembers your favorites and last channels and pulls them up too, so most people can easily navigate after the first few days of flipping around. I use the media functions daily and more frequently than gaming at the moment because I've had a lot of TV on during football season and while I am working at home. It's very useful and functional. Only wish list item here is being able to control your DVR, but that ain't happening. But this is minor and the DVR still works fine with your regular remote.
Love things like wanting to watch a Netflix/Amazon/Hulu show and saying "Bing Star Trek" and it well show you all the options of carriers for the program. Same with a movie. It will show all the places you can watch it/rent it/buy it from instantly. Pretty great if you use multiple apps. You don't have to turn on Netflix then amazon then.... to find the movie. One search to rule them all.
If you don't use the TV/media features, there's not really a pressing need to upgrade to either this or PS4 at launch. I have both in the home and the gaming on both is ok, but not "NEED to upgrade NOW!" great at this point. But if you will use the other functions, it's well worth the investment in the One, in my opinion. I am enjoying it. My only complaint is I haven't had more time off from working in order to spend more hours with it!
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video-games_xbox
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New Features but there's Still Something Lacking NO SPOILERS. Overview: The majority of the stars are lost because the campaigns story was lacking. This was never going to be an "Excellent" 5-star game but it is only slightly better than the last few CODs that have come out. Online play is only slightly improved but doesn't have any extra "wow" to it. If anything extra could be given, this would be a 3.5 star game for the new mechanics and CoOp Online mode having potential.
First, the Story Mode (Single Player) Campaign:
- This is still not a COD capable of CoOp Campaign although almost every mission could have been utilized as such considering there was a team of at least two people per mission. Very disappointing but it is something that it doesn't look like they're going to change anytime soon.
- With the talent that they had, they slaughtered the story. The themes were tasteless and you could see each "twist" coming two missions ahead of time. Spacey is in it A LOT more than they led consumers to believe and I think that is where much of my disappointment comes from. They did not use him in any other way aside from a trophy actor to play the character.
Second, Online and Multiplayer Modes:
- This is only a slight improvement over previous CODs. The new abilities gained with the exo-suit are the shifting feature in this game as it adds an extra "something" to the appeal of running around aimlessly and tormenting people with you twitch reflexes.
- If you liked to melee before, prepare to hate it. The mechanics of this are supremely disappointing (especially coming off of Destiny) anytime you aim and punch. There is extra disappointment because of the exo abilities and how much potential there was to make melee a go to instead of pulling out your secondary or running away.
- There are too many limits on where you can go in the maps. With the exo-suits, the limits are very constricting. I can jump towards the roof I want to be on only to bump into invisible limits trying to get there. They really need to open up the maps because as of current, there is not enough benefit to the exo's jump abilities to make it worth while.
Apology:
Sorry that there is only the negative feedback in my review. If you just simply like COD you are still going to like this, don't worry about that, enough has changed that the game is enjoyable. I've seen/read too many reviews that glance over these faults in the game for the sake of only hyping up COD. Should you buy it, yes. Right now? Ehh if you can wait, wait. Until you see the next map packs come out to see if it excites you still or until you are pressured into getting it from friends you don't need to rush to pick up your overpriced copy today.
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video-games_xbox
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Quick first impressions. Well I'm a huge fan of Ninja Gaiden and felt that they redeemed the debacle that was the third entry with Razor's Edge, the tweaked mea culpa re-release of that game. I pre-ordered Yaiba, knowing full well that it was being developed by Spark Unlimited, a studio that does not have a good reputation. I picked it up this morning after reading the negative reviews from numerous outlets, including Edge's 2/10 and GameSpot's 4/10 scores, and must say after that after a couple of hours in that I simply cannot see why this game wasn't scored at least "average."
First of all, I want to say that if you're the kind of person who expects 100 hours of gameplay from every game you play, who thinks that only games like GTA and Skyrim deserve your full $60, then don't buy this game, because those 4/10 and 2/10 scores are written for people with your taste and criteria in game purchases. I respect people who crave value for their hard-earned money; at the same time, I vow to support the dying category of AA, mid-tier, single player games because those are the games I grew up with. I have no problem paying $60 for a game that fits my tastes, regardless of playtime.
I love the Ninja Gaiden series and hack and slash games in general. Some find them repetitive and that's understandable; however, I personally love the feeling of mastering an action game, figuring out enemy attack patterns, and conquering it on different difficulty levels. The best games in the Ninja Gaiden series stand toe to toe with God of War, Devil May Cry, and Bayonetta. Yaiba is a spin-off and doesn't quite reach those heights, but I'm finding this game to be a really fun experience so far. The graphics have a gorgeous, neon comic book style, the action is fast and fluid, and the game is pretty challenging. On normal, I've died many times already on my way to memorizing attack patterns and figuring out elemental weaknesses. If you can imagine a game that plays like 40% Ninja Gaiden and 60% Dynasty Warriors, you'll get the feel of this game perfectly. The platforming sections have an Uncharted feel and are really fun and thrilling to look at, and the gory animations are striking and fun to watch. Maybe the thing I like most about the game so far is its presentation, which pays tribute to b-movie horror schlock and is very stylish and fun. It's in the Suda51 wheelhouse but with less emphasis on being clever or ironic and more a straight tribute. Each enemy is introduced with a small cutscene and splash screen that might be a zombie wedding scene or a "mad scientist" scene where they are being experimented on while laid out on a stretcher. Unfortunately, I do find the music a little lacking so far, as in I wish there was more of it. Some scenes seem to be accompanied by little to no music at all, which reminds me of a gripe I have with another recent release, South Park: The Stick of Truth. Not a deal-breaker, but maybe developers are trying to get away from saturating every moment with the score. If this is a new trend in games, I don't like it.
On the numerous criticisms leveled at the game, I will agree with one: I wish the camera wasn't fixed. For many, that's a deal breaker, and I can certainly understand why. If you played the underrated Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, you'll have an idea of what Yaiba has in store.
Many of the other criticisms, however, are typical mainstream game review malarkey. Any who claims that you can simply sail through Yaiba by mindlessly mashing is flat-out lying. You can die quickly in this game even on Easy if you're not paying attention to the elemental weaknesses and enemy attack patterns. GameSpot's review claimed that all weapons are the same and that the reviewer preferred the flail, which is inaccurate information: the flail is a weak area attack that is used for things like dissipating electric shields and you cannot progress through this game mashing that attack alone. Also, a common criticism in many reviews is the tired, white-knighting pseudo-point that the misogyny present in Yaiba, namely through the Miss Monday character, is off-putting, reprehensible, deplorable, etc.
Look, I know there should be more and better representations of women in games. You probably know that too. What disappoints me is that the mainstream press purposely cherry picks games like Yaiba and Dragon's Crown as if this industry-wide problem is solely caused by these specific games and not a symptom of the industry in general. Yaiba is clearly a jerk and Miss Monday is clearly not interested. Yes she's styled like a busty secretary but honestly her design is standard fare for video games and comic books. I'm not saying it couldn't have been improved; I'm saying that this problem doesn't start or end with Yaiba and there are games out there who are far more guilty of trying to sell sex.
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video-games_xbox
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It's called CRACKdown for a reason. This games is called CRACKdown for a reason - you will quickly become obsessed with finding agility orbs all over Pacific City! This game will consume you. One minute you're on your way to wipe out a mob boss. . . but wait. . . what's that up there on that rooftop? An agility orb? Up up and away! Before you know it, you're scaling a building. . . bounding to a precipitous ledge to get the glowing green agility orb (the crack in crackdown!). But wait! What do your wondering eyes behold? ANOTHER AGILITY ORB three rooftops away. . . and then another. . .and another! The rooftops become fields of beckoning orbs. Soon you forget about the citizens crawling along on the ground below you as you leap from building to building. But you're not free from the bad guys. Not by a long shot! A well placed rocket can knock you off your rooftop quest and send you falling, flaming to the asphalt below! And so it is in the game of crackdown.
I bought this game solely for the Halo 3 beta invite. I didn't really expect this game to be nearly as fun as it is. I thought I might enjoy it, but now I can highly recommend the game solely on it's own merits. There are a lot of achievements in this game that you can get through normal gameplay, however, there are some that require you devote time solely to them. The rooftop races are an example. Throughout each gang area of Pacific City, there are things known as rooftop races that require you to race from one location to the next. This is almost like slalom racing in skiing. You will have a starting point and there may be 30 or so green gateways that your agent must pass through in a set time period. A lot of these races will show you locations of orbs you haven't yet discovered and locations of crime bosses you've not yet brought to justice.
Crackdown is a much better game than I'd ever expected or hoped for. It's well worth the $60.00 and I don't say that lightly! The language in the game is NOT appropriate for children. There are several of the major, spicy cuss words peppered throughout this game (read that as the "S" word and the "F" word). Usually these cuss words are uttered by many of the henchmen as you are infiltrating their stronghold. The violence isn't anything beyond what you'd see in a rated T for Teen game like COD2 or Halo 2. The coarse language is what prevented me from buying a copy of the game for my son.
Perhaps the only weakspot I found in the game (aside from coarse language) is the lack of a multiplayer option. If two people want to play the game at the same time, they need to have two Xbox 360s. In other words, you can only put the smackdown on crime with your best buddy if you have two 360's system linked or if you hook up via XBL. That's kinda silly. Although I'm a fan of splitscreen gaming, but it does need to at least be an option.
In short, don't think of this as purchasing a Halo 3 beta invite with a free version of crackdown. Think of this as a great game worthy of purchasing all by itself! You won't be sorry!
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video-games_xbox
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Shows promise, but far from great. Another year, another Madden that thousands of football fans will mindlessly run out and buy. This is what EA Sports counts on every year, and this is what I did...again.
First off, let me ask you - is it just me, or do these games actually get WORSE ever year? I enjoyed Madden 05, but not as much as 04. And when I bought 08, it was decidedly worse than 05.
The worst aspects of this game are by far the presentation. The sound is basically non-existent. You get a tinny, anonymous radio announcer giving a half-assed play-by-play. No John Madden or Al Michaels, or any other recognizable sports voice. Just some dude. It's horrible and unavoidable, so your best bet is to turn down the sound or just work on ignoring it.
Secondly, the menus, and display settings are apparently configured for those people that have a TV no smaller than 3 yards across, because I can barely see anything on my 27" Sony. It's like looking at 4pt font on a 30" computer screen from 10 feet away.
The wide receivers frequently run off the screen on out routes, so it's virtually impossible to tell whether they're covered or not unless you are eyeballing them from the start of the play. For the love of God, Tecmo Super Bowl solved this problem 20 years ago!
Oh, and then there's really basic stuff the geniuses at EA Sports never thought about. Like, say...finding out how many timeouts the other team has. Apparently this is top-secret information because there's nowhere I've found that displays this information. Your best bet is to listen to the announcer say "The defense calls a timeout...they have one timeout remaining." But if you miss that, you're on your own.
Superstar mode is a joke - barely worth playing. It takes genetics into effect, but unless you start with a RB who had Jackie Joyner Kerse and Michael Jordan as his parents, you're in for a long, tough, boring road to mediocrity. Honestly, the game would be better off without this mode at all.
Then there's the classic Catch 22 dilemma of play difficulty. You can go with Pro (where you can easily outscore your opponent 55-3) or All Pro, where you will be pummeled, beat up, abused, and insulted while your QB and RBs will have a competition between themselves to see who can have the most number of turnovers. I'm all for 'realistic' game play, but that shouldn't mean you have 5-6 turnover before the half. Unless your players are wide open (and I mean WIDE open like your WR has bird flu / deadly body odor) your passes are going to consistently fall short or (more likely) into the CB/safety's hands for a pick.
If you can get around these issues, the game isn't terrible and it IS football, so it's still fun in a pinch. But when you think of how long the Madden franchise has been around, it's amazing they could put so little effort into upholding their legacy. Nope...better to just cut the development budgets, release a lukewarm (at best) game, and sit back with confidence that people will rush out to buy it, even if it does suck. Shame on them, but shame on me too for buying this game on the assumption that it was going to be good.
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video-games_xbox
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Okay-ish for family with a younger child. Relative to what's available, a must-rent for them. For everyone else, avoid. I'm not understanding the love here, I was debating between 2 and 3 stars. The *only* reason it gets that much of a pass is:
1: That it is, indeed, a kid-focused game (on xbox-one!).
2: Peanuts/Snoopy. For the parts that are actually "Peanuts", they mostly nailed the look of the movie, mixing 2D stuff on the 3D. A few nice/cute touches here and there.
3: Supports second-player "helper" playing as Woodstock, that can knock out enemies and activate some parts of levels. Perfect for helping kids focus on just the platforming, or for them to "help" while the grown-up plays.
For these reasons, I'm glad we were able to rent it and enjoy it with our 3 1/2 year old. I just wish it could have been finished/polished. I want to see/play the game that could have been.
The rest:
It's obviously a rushed, probably low-budget affair pushed out to tie in with the movie. Most of the level theming is rather tenuous at best, it very well may have originally been a completely different game that was redirected to be "Peanuts" halfway through production.
Un-optimized, and ugly: Even on an xbone, some parts of levels (especially the first series of jungle levels) have very bad slowdown, enough to make me nauseous trying to play/watch. Keep in mind this is with very simplistic lighting (default Unity?), geometry, shader materials, etc.
Game structure is very vague, much is never explained, and it appears most of the collection elements (Jellybeans, giant "bonus beans" on a timer, lost bird scouts, etc.) do absolutely nothing in-game, other than make the numbers go up. Ultimately I think it's trying to be a simplified metroidvania, but it's very...clunky.
If you *do* want to collect all the jellybeans in one level, better get it all the first time: Go back and the ones you already collected will show up again. At first I thought they were all one color, but that's not true. It appears they *might* be semi-translucent, but the value is wrong, so the only way to tell is to go ahead and collect it and watch if the number goes up or not...
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video-games_xbox
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What a way to get everyone to Just Dance. Full disclosure: I did some musical theater when I was a teenager, my husband and I were swing dancers back in the days of Big Bad VooDoo Daddy and he and I have taken classes in latin, hip hop, ballroom and line dancing over the years. We have a fair amount of dance experience. Our 8-year-old son, who has ADHD, is one of those kids who is loath to do most kinds of physical activity unless he calls the shots (in other words, 3rd grade P.E. is a painful experience for all involved). I'd tried in the past to get him interested in getting off the computer or away from comic books but to no avail.
Then my mom gave our son an Xbox (with Kinect) for Christmas.
The three of us took a trip to the local big-box store a few weeks later to look for some games to play on the system. The boys picked out Lego Indiana Jones and I chose this. I told them it was for *me*.
I opened the packaging, popped in the disc and began dancing. It wasn't long before my husband was poking his head around the corner to ask me just what I was doing (and could he try playing as well). Not much longer after that, my physical activity-averse son was interested as well.
The game has a decent mix of songs. My husband (late 40s) likes the Sugarhill Gang's "Apache (Jump On It)". I'm a 30-something alternative rock fan and loved that the Scissor Sisters' "I Don't Feel Like Dancing" was included. My son loves "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz. Between the three of us are many old favorites as well as new favorites we've been introduced to via the game.
Are the dance moves challenging? You bet! As other reviewers have stated, they aren't broken down as they would be in a dance class. By the same token, they're not so difficult that kids or self-proclaimed non-dancers can't catch on. And unlike other performance-based games (such as Rockband) there's no need to put the game on "no fail" mode. You just do the best you can, and you improve every time you dance! In fact, there's something for everyone here - experienced dancers will enjoy the game as will those who claim to have two left feet. I learn something every time I unlock a new song.
The game has several ways to reward you - points, sweat points (for those who play in lieu of going to the gym) and mojo which means new unlocked songs. It's motivating to see "Perfect" and "Yeah!" flash across the screen when you nail a particular move or to see your points and your mojo stack up quickly. The best part? I've dropped a couple of pounds without really trying.
Just Dance has made two converts out of my little family of computer geeks. Neither my husband nor my son will necessarily put the game on themselves but both will readily join me if I'm already playing and lots of smiles and laughter ensue every time.
If there's only one criticism I have for the game, it's that the songs have the potential to turn into everlasting earworms. I'll often find myself at work, trying to write code or draft an email to a vice president, and I'll catch myself humming "She's Got Me Dancing". And this game does have me dancing!
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video-games_xbox
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A Well-Done, Much Deserved Update. It's really easy to make Nazis the bad guys in a game--but after all the Call of Dutys and Medal of Honors, what's hard is making a game that centers around Nazis and can still make the bad guys seem original and new. I'm someone who's played every incarnation of the "Castle Wolfenstein" games, even a very strange kiosk that you could pay-to-play the older 486 PC version using a joystick and a VR headset. Having recently re-played the "Return to Castle Wolfenstein", it was a real experience to pick up this newest entry in the series.
"Wolfenstein: the New Order" is a great update to this classic series. First-Person Shooters have changed a lot in the many years this series has been around, and the updates here really give a classic concept the feel of the latest & greatest that FPS games have to offer. There is a good storyline, complete with top-drawer voice talent and the return of our hero B. J. Blascowicz. We have weapon choices that include dual-wield, fast action with many a melee opportunity, and the same feel of collecting medkits and armor and occasionally overcharging your health for an upcoming rampage that made all of The New Order's predecessors so much fun. Probably the best nod to the more recent games is the fact that there's more than one way to complete a level: this isn't just a matter of being able to navigate the map through different paths, it's also that you can make choices that let you vary between stealth and run-and-gun. FPS games don't often have the ability to view the map these days, so that makes for a nice bonus that is carried over from the earliest days of the Wolfenstein series.
What makes the story fresh is that we are playing to an alternate history: after an opening mission in 1946, our hero is out of commission until 1960, and it's a world where the Nazis won the war, all has been lost, and now B.J. is left to try to pick up the pieces entirely on his own. Each level is a movie-quality step towards saving the world, and each level has a purpose that advances the main story. The alternate 1960 is a mix of technologies that has a fairly believable look and feel, and some of the 'newer' technology mirrors the strangeness we saw in the depths of 'Return to Castle Wolfenstein' and the occult-driven more recent entry that was just called 'Wolfenstein'.
As much fun as the game is, there are a few drawbacks. I've had times where climbing a ladder is still the bane of Our Hero's existence and I spend time bobbling around looking for the grip point. Switching weapons isn't a fast way to keep the firepower flowing when the bullets are low--sometimes it's just a trip to a quick death. Changing ammo with the radial wheel can be clumsy. I have a real problem with grenades: sometimes I bump the shoulder button to throw (hold down means you want to select weapons) and nothing happens. I won't spoil the story for you, but there is one particular mission that sounds like a great squad-based opportunity but by the time you reach the end you find yourself wondering what the point was.
Still, "Wolfenstein: the New Order" is a great title, and I think with time I'll come to love it as much as its predecessors, some of which I still play today.
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video-games_xbox
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What a Shame. Playing Brutal Legend saddened me. I honestly wish the game was complete garbage so I could sweep it out of my memory. Unfortunately, the game is a bit of a paradox. It has so much going for it (the story, the soundtrack, the voice acting and writing, the cameos, and some of the gameplay) that the major faults of the game become ever more present in your mind the longer you play it. You can feel the love of the developers have for "metal culture," and that love remains apparent throughout. The story was actually pretty good, and it hints at something running much deeper, although I doubt we will see a sequel in the next decade, if ever. Even before I had gotten far into the story (2 or 3 missions) I was already questioning the decision to make Brutal Legend an open world game. It was fun to drive around for a while, but the thrill of running over creatures and finding "artifacts" to unlock songs, stat increases, etc. wears off quickly. Very quickly. All of the "side quest" type activities are repetitive brawls, turret defense, hunting missions, and races. These are largely mindless and leave you unsatisfied.
The game really loses steam and never recovers when you're introduced to your first stage battle. These stage battles are boring, simple, and repetitive (there's that word again...). I played on Brutal difficulty, and I only "lost" one, which I then restarted and won in about ten minutes. I don't even see how hardcore RTS fans could enjoy these. Every one is almost identical in terms of strategy and tactics, even when you're facing different "factions." After sitting through a couple of these stage battles I would audibly groan when the scaffolding would start shooting up and the stage lights would come on. I didn't bother trying the multiplayer (a rarity for me) as I had no desire to do stage battles online.
If you grew up watching Headbanger's Ball or are otherwise in love with metal, you should check the game out simply because it will really bring back some good memories. For everybody else, Brutal Legend is cheap enough that you won't be taking a great risk trying it for yourself. Just expect to be left wanting in the end.
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video-games_xbox
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I really don't know how this rates 4+ stars. Hiya,
I've been looking at this game for a while. I wasn't worried about being an early adopter, as the multiplayer was a dud. I tried it, and only once found enough people playing to get into a game. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
SINGULARITY is a military-based first person shooter set in a sci-fi background. There's a time-travely story revolving around an "incident". Your character is basically running around to fix things. There are some inventive weapons, as well as the more-common handgun, assault rifle, shotgun, and sniper rifle. The graphics are decent. Visually, it reminds of Bioshock; the environment is predominantly dark and rusty. Also, similarly, you use your left hand for certain special abilities.
These abilities are what make the game more enjoyable, as you can alter time in certain ways, very locally, which makes for some fun kills. The baddies generally fall into two camps: soldiers with a few different weapon load outs, and mutated creatures, humanoid and not, with various abilities and attack styles.
Here's what kills the game:
No saves/limited checkpoints: There's no option to save anywhere. If you die, you get sent back to your last checkpoint. I reloaded a couple times to try and loot certain areas. Even upon completing the game, you cannot replay any chapters, except your last checkpoint. The one time you can replay is the ending. So, you can play all the endings.
Extremely linear game: which seems a little ironic for a time-travel storyline. In any chapter, you're going from point A to point B. Open doors shut behind you, preventing you from back-tracking. There are some very small side trips or rooms to looting options, which are dead ends. You'll walk miles of hallways with endless doors,but the only one that opens in the one that leads to point B. I missed at least one upgrade because I couldn't go back. Also, your special abilities are given at certain chapters, which seems limiting. There are some upgrade options along the way, though.
Special Abilities: Your character has this wacky Time Manipulation Device for most of the game. It can affect creatures/soldiers, and objects. But only some objects, and in the context of the game, not very many. Bummer.
The Multiplayer: Seems like it might be fun, as you can play as human, or mutated thing with abilities. But no one's playing it, so it's hard to say. But half the achievements (for Xbox, anyhow) are locked in multi, which stinks if you care about 'cheevos.
Length: I didn't clock my hours, but I was done with thing in three sittings. Too bloody short.
On the plus side, I got it for ten bucks, and I satisfied my curiousity about this game. But, really, don't bother. Save your time and money for better games.
Thanks for reading.
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video-games_xbox
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Just getting to your first game in MyPlayer can be derailed by 2k Server instability. This is a preliminary review, but there is enough to say at this point for a write up.
Face scanning DOES work, but it's pretty touchy and a bit buggy. It's not perfect, but once you get a good scan and tweak it a little after the fact, it's far and away better than any generic head is going to be. My friend and I both own the game and were both able to get a pretty decent looking head.
Lighting conditions and shadows can create odd looks and an uneven scan can make you look absolutely grotesque. Having said that, as long as you turn your head slowly (I've gotten better results every time I turned my neck at a snail's pace) and you don't allow any up and down motion as you turn for your scan, it will give you a good chance of getting something worth keeping.
The problem I'm having (and to me it's a big one) is that I've had to do the face scan about 10+ times now. Each scan and processing take a nice little chunk of time. The first 4 or 5 were mostly me learning what and what not to do - and being pick. The second half were the result of continued disconnects and resets from the 2k server.
I also had to go through the initial team placement game three times now and still am not done with that because the server keeps saying my existing file can't be retrieved. The most recent time, I was purchasing an animation for my player, which couldn't be processed because of some disconnect. I was redirected to the main screen and when I got there, my myplayer file wouldn't load and my face scan was yet again reset to some default garbage.
I've basically spent 3-4 hours over the course of the latter half of my day unsuccessfully trying to just get my player made and get on a team. I'll be starting the process all over again in the morning because I've had it for the night.
Once I can actually get further into the additional game features I'll update my star count if warranted, but honestly for my experience so far, I'm being kind with the three stars.
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video-games_xbox
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A very solid shooter that doesn't get enough credit. It is inevitable that every review of Medal of Honor will compare the game to either the Call of Duty franchise or Bad Company 2, which both arguably serve as parent material for EA's underappreciated reboot of the MOH franchise. The main similarity between these games is the very familiar control scheme employed by Medal of Honor, along with the short campaign (nearly trademarked by the Call of Duty games), and a multiplayer experience that borrows killstreaks from the COD franchise.
While the game feels like other shooters, there's enough differences to set it apart and offer a different gaming experience.
Campaign: Both the COD and BFBC franchises are known for their over-the-top action. In both of the aforementioned games I felt like Rambo, running out in the open absorbing bullets and fragging enemies until the damage became too great and I hid behind something to heal. I'm certainly not saying MOH is a harder game, its not, but there is a certain level of realism that is lacking in COD of BFBC2. Death can come easily in MOH, and the Rambo tactics of COD's campaign just don't work (especially on harder difficulties). This puts more emphasis on the need to use cover and precision, which in my opinion, is much more fun than the typical "action-movie" style gameplay we've grown to expect from FPS games. The controls may be similar to the COD/BF games, but the action is like an easier (but faster paced) Rainbow Six, at least in my opinion.
The campaign falls short (not just in length- about 3-4 hours) due to its story, which isn't all that compelling compared to the giants of the industry (Black Ops, BFBC2). I have to say, I love the COD campaign modes because the story is always so over the top. They're fun- but the gameplay from MOH is much more my cup of tea. The short campaign and Tier 1 difficulty mode demand multiple playthroughs, though, which is something that I rarely do for any game.
Multiplayer: This is where MOH shines. It's not without its short comings, but the MOH multiplayer experience is very, very fun. I currently have 15 hours logged in online play for MOH, and will continue to play. Game modes include the standard deathmatch (Team Assault), as well as Sector Control, Objective Raid, and Combat Mission. A hardcore mode is incorporated as well, which throws a mix of game types at the player.
While most of the game types are pretty rudimentary, Combat Mission is a great strategic break from the tedium of standard deathmatch style gameplay. One team attacks a set of five consecutive objectives, one team defends. The attacking team has five minutes to capture each objective. The timer resets when they take one, and if they fail to take a single objective in five minutes the game ends. These matches can take the better part of half an hour at times, and require a great deal of teamwork. It's certainly not the same, but I haven't had this much fun playing a multiplayer game since control points on SOCOM 3/CA.
The maps are generally good. There are no maps on the game that I groan to see pop up, though a few gripes can be made about the map system. Sometimes you end up playing the same maps several times in a row. A little more variety would be better. There's also only a limited number of maps, and while playing different game types on these maps breaks up the tedium, it would be refreshing to see a few more. The maps are small to average sized, but set up well to play as any of the three classes availalbe- special ops (submachine gunner), rifleman (assault), or sniper. I personally play as a sniper, something I've done on SOCOM, MAG, BFBC2, and Resistance but could never get a feel for on the COD games. The maps are well tuned for snipers, and while a sniper can hunker down and take shots through wide open areas or down relatively narrow corridors, they are never truly safe, as there are ways to get in and knife a sniper in the back in every situation. Interestingly, each of the three classes level up differently. The top cap for each is currently level 15, and levelling up unlocks class-specific goodies for your loadout.
There is a killstreak system in place, but it's not as obnoxious as that on the COD games. Gone are the super-overpowered helicopters and attack dogs. In their place are universal killstreaks. At different increments (50 pts, 100 pts, so on) you have the option to call in an offensive or defensive reward. For instance, at 50 pts you can call in a mortar strike or UAV, at 100 a missile strike, etc. There is some variation available, and while the offensive attacks can be absolutely devastating when placed correctly, they must be aimed well and are never obnoxious, which is a complaint I had with many of the killstreaks on the COD games.
Death comes quickly in MOH's multiplayer, which I find to be a good thing. Unlike COD, where many deaths come from the terrible spawn system or killstreaks (spawning in front of enemies, enemies spawning behind you, helicopters killing you in spawn repeatedly), a bullet or two could spell your doom in MOH. Cover and a reasonable amount of stealth are necessary to survive. While camping could be an issue in Team Assault, the objective based games (Combat Mission FTW) keep the action focused, and enemies and allies alike will scramble to the objectives, eliminating some of the threat of cheap-ass campers.
Speaking of the spawn system, MOH employs a great spawn system, at least in some game types. In team assault you typically just spawn in "base". On the objective missions, particularly Combat Mission, you have the option to spawn where your squad is or in base. Spawning with the squad is both beneficial and extremely dangerous, especially if your team is close to an objective, but the constant influx of new soldiers allows your team to stand a chance even if defensive snipers and machine gunners are mowing down your troops. If the battle gets too intense, just spawn in base. Like the old SOCOM games, I have faced a few really cheap spawn campers, but typically that's limited to Team Assault on one or two of the smaller maps.
All in all, Medal of Honor is a great shooter. Sure, the campaign is short and the story uninspired, but the multiplayer more than makes up for it, especially for the gamers among us that prefer a more tactical, realistic experience. With the price point at $30 and under on Amazon, now is the time to give MOH a try. There's a dedicated multiplayer community on MOH, and we're waiting for you to join the action!
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video-games_xbox
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Worthy of your money if you can't afford Skyrim. I never played Oblivion until this year, so this is a perspective of 2011, not 2006. However, I'm about 100 hours in and I think I would give this game 4 stars regardless of the year. If you plan on getting Skyrim (and haven't played Oblivion), it'll be difficult for you to enjoy Oblivion if you decide to get it later on. The graphics, gameplay, and UI will appear very dated by comparison. I recommend you playing this first if you plan on buying both.
At first, I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this game. I was a few minutes in, and already over-encumbered. Yes, that can happen in real life, but not knowing what you'll need in a game, you tend to grab everything around you. I like how in Fallout, you slow down instead of stopping altogether. It would be great if you slowed down a little with each item, based on strength ... and not so abruptly with one more book, as an example. If you're obsessive compulsive, this game will drive you crazy. There are so many drawers, cabinets, chests, barrels, bags for you to look inside that looking through them all is quite the task. You can literally play around for hours without accomplishing anything, which is why I think many people give poor reviews. Once you know what you are supposed to do and actually go on missions, then you can like it a lot more. If you just go around town, trying to convince people to like you, then it can be very boring.
And getting people to like you simply by pressing a button in the right order is not fun at all. They should like/hate you based on the deeds you do, not for telling a joke or being mean from dialogue you never hear. The lock-picking was also kind of tedious. It was fun for the first couple times, but after that (although there is some skilled involved), it's mainly based on luck. Lock-picking in Fallout was much better. I think that has been improved in Skyrim. The inventory menu can be quite long, especially with keys and potions you create. It was very annoying going through a long list of keys in order to select a torch. Yes, you can hotlink items, but it was still quite an issue. Mixing food/plants together got annoying too. There are just way too many outcomes. An invisibility potion that lasts 19 seconds and one that last 18 seconds just makes for a chaotic inventory. This could all be solved with better menu UI, and I think Skyrim will help with a lot of that, but we'll see.
The best of Oblivion has to be the environments. Like World of Warcraft, just going around discovering new areas is half the fun. The whole world is beautiful even for a five year old game. Yes, there are pauses to load more map areas, but it doesn't detract from the game that much. I have had the game crash when going too fast in largely detailed areas, however. The dungeons are dark and creepy and dangerous. Even the plants aren't just placed around haphazardly. The fighting is fun although sometimes the enemies are quite stupid. You climb a rock and they just stay below so that you can shoot them with arrows constantly. With warping, it does make you go faster from one area to the next, but I would prefer to have warping portals that you must locate and map in each area or you must perform a spell of some sort.
Overall, it's a fun game. Like I've said, I've played about 100 hours and I've still not done most of what's in here. If I played Skyrim, I don't think I could play this again. It's not like an older Zelda game to me because the story just isn't that deep in Oblivion. There are missions, yeah ... but not enough compelling characters or storyline that would get me back to play again. Some actors are better than others, but a lot of the dialogue can be a bit cheesy. Fallout had better storyline and characters. Hopefully, that is improved with Skyrim. They did seem to improve how you interact with them. They aren't just closeups of people staring into your soul, they are actually working while talking and that is great.
I do recommend Oblivion, but with the potential of what Skyrim seems to be ... it's hard not to want to get that instead. My advice is that if you don't have the money to buy Skyrim now, go for Oblivion and have patience. Just know that Skyrim uses a new engine, so this can't compare to Oblivion in the same way Fallout: New Vegas compares to Fallout 3. It's going to be a much bigger change.
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video-games_xbox
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PARADISE LOST. As a huge fan of the Burnout series, I regret to say that I am extremely disappointed with this new installment. What is truly sad though, is to think of how good this game COULD have been. The visuals are outstanding, the speed is amazing, and all the while the frame-rate is as smooth as butter. Paradise also boasts smooth controls and a pretty good soundtrack. But if you loved the previous Burnout titles be prepared for a major shock... or several, as a matter of fact. Here are my biggest complaints:
1) No Crash Mode. Here's an idea: Lets take one of the series' most memorable and beloved features and give it the axe. Yes its totally nixed. Why? Who knows.
2) No "Retry" option. Yes you heard me correctly. If you screw up you CAN'T RESTART THE RACE! Which leads me to my next complaint...
3) Backtracking. Just lose a race? Oh well, you'll just have to drive the five miles back to the starting point. What? You can't find the starting point again?
4) Awful navigation. It is way too easy to get lost, and there is no way to instantly "Jump To" an event or location. Furthermore, the mini map is fixed. Anyone who plays open-world racers knows it is much easier to have the map orient itself to the direction of the car.
5) No "Quit Race" option. Oops, I didn't want to play THIS race. I guess I'll just have to meander about until the timer runs down.
NOTE TO THE DEVELOPER: Thanks for taking a perfectly good series and screwing it up. You were so busy trying to jump on the "open-world" BANDWAGON that you forgot why fans really loved the Burnout franchise to begin with. If gamers want to play "open-world" racing, they play Midnight Club, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, Test Drive Unlimited, or one of the many others out there. If they want fast paced arcade style action, and the ability to quickly browse through events they play Burnout... or used to anyway.
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video-games_xbox
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Great Headset with a few shortcomings. I use use the headphones mainly at night after my girlfriend goes to sleep to play games with friends living in different parts of the country, hey you have to find ways to keep in touch. I have used these with my PS3 and Mac Pro Tower to play games, conference with the office, and watch movies. The only other headset I can compare it to was is the ax 720's before I returned it I did a side by side comparison.
I have been looking for a set of wireless surround headphones to use and was going to pull the trigger on the turtle beach px5 but i didn't like any of the wireless offerings available at the time of purchase so I went with the 720's being a little cheaper than the Pro's. Two days after the 720's arrived the AX Pro's were on a gold box deal for 122.86 making them cheaper than the 720's so i had to get them. I had tried the 720's which were good but I didn't like the audio quality and the simulated surround had a few gaps in the surround coverage.
The Ax Pros came in and I set them up right before we went to bed, any review that says installation is complicated you might need a helmet for that soft spot. It takes 2 min and there are 6 things to connect, its not elegant comparatively to other options but I just keep it tucked away. The inline remote lit up and i heard the PS3 chime indicating it was working I met up with my buddies in a pre lobby and everyone commented on how clear the voice was compared to the PS3 bluetooth earpiece. We played zombies and immediately the headset came into its own. I did the test where you spin around, close your eyes and try to zero in on the sound source. Each time I was easily able to zero in on the sound of the zombies groaning and I could hear them shifting from L to R. In multiplayer footsteps were clear and I could easily zero in on the source of the gun fire and eliminate my targets with extreme prejudice. Voice communication is clear and game audio come in clearly but I get these pops every once in a while I have tried 2 different optical cables but the pops still persists.
The 720's didn't do it for me it sounded like a regular pair of headphones but the 720's fit my huge noggin much better. I have a big head, my motorcycle helmet is a XXL in AGV and I don't wear hats because I cant find ones that fit properly. The ax pros are a little tight for me but my girlfriend has a normal dome and she watched half a movie the other night while I was asleep and loves em. The voice chat function is equally clear on both headsets but the AX Pros surpass the 720's on sound quality and surround abilities.
I have also used these with my Mac pro Tower running snow leopard and they worked great. I had a chat conference with 18 other people and everyone heard me perfectly. I've watched a movie while getting some work done and it works great. I recommend these to anyone looking for a great set of headphones or wants to avoid waking the other person in bed or your neighbors, because playing games with the sound on low just blows.
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video-games_xbox
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Pretty good, probably worth it, at least on XBOX 360. I started this game just after completing COD4, so I was a little disappointed in that this game is slower. The background graphics are good, but I was spoiled by COD4's superrealistic AI and character graphics, which now sets the bar. The game was overall a lot of fun but very frustrating at times- save points were very far between and you would often, very often, have to restart from the beginning after making it very far into the scene. Especially frustrating after successfully strategically placing your men and carrying on a successful "mini-assault" which could take several minutes only to bite it with a stray shot and having to start all over again. The pace was fairly quick in the beginning and this was not so much a problem for the first third of the game. Then things would really bog down and that frustration would set in. They could have installed a LOT more save points. Also, as conservative as I was with deploying my men, by about a half way point I found mysef more often than not having the men hold and I would go solo. This was due to the fact that even as cautious as I was, the guys would constantly be shot down and then I would eat it while trying to rescue and heal them, got pretty annoying many times. An occasional time or two was okay, but it got too repetitive and annoying. I found too that it would move things along to have them make the tactical entry, and then I would quickly have them fall back. I almost only gave this one a 3 star, but in all fairness it kept my interest level and did entertain.
There were a couple glitches, one being that a few times while throwing a grenade through a window, the grenade would stop and freeze in the opening (usually not going off either). Once it go off after I had completed my mission and returned to check on it. What was up with that??? Also, on the xbox 360 controller, while switching between weapons on the buttons, many times my night vision would activate as well, without touching the right button. That seemed to happen quite a bit at the most inopportune times. They could have lightened up on the profanity and the use of the "F" word by the opponents was inappropriate altogether.
As for pluses, I found the camera snake very handy and marking opponents for priority killing was cool. The incendiary grenade made for some "special" kills too and seemed to have more impact than the frag grenade.
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video-games_xbox
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Don't let this one FLY under your Radar. Crimson Skies- High Road To Revenge
Before I start this review, I would like to say that I hate most flying games. Okay. This is one of the best games I've played. I didn't think much of it, as it was a gift, but this game proved me wrong. Aviation games are usually not something I even look at. This game blew me away with its graphics, gameplay, storyline, and sound. I fully recommend this to every one. On a side note, this comes with a demo of <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Voodoo-Vince/dp/B00009YFU3/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Voodoo Vince</a> and some videos.
Graphics- 9.5/10
The only thing you can complain about is that the CG between the action isn't perfect. It is very well done CG though. Everything else is perfect by X-Box standards. The level design of this game is some of the best I've ever seen. You will love exploring the incredible world they give you. Whether it is: canyons, islands, underground cities, or above ground metropolises, you will love it all. You travel to many different worlds to play in, so it's not repetitive either. The final couple stages are put together so well, it's mind blowing. You planes are very well designed and all look very interesting.
Story- 8.5/10
You are Nathan Zachary of The Fortune Hunters. You live in an alternate 1930s; a world in which The Great Depression tore apart the United States. The United States has turned into many different self-governing states. Many have taken to the skies to steal and control. The game starts off with you having a gambling problem. You have lost your zeppelin and your plane. You take your plane back and work to getting your zeppelin back. As time goes on, you are asked to keep Dr. Fassenbiender's plans for a weathering machine safe. The machine could be used for many great things...or it could be used to create F-5 Tornados. Of course, someone knows about the weathering machine and you are on a chase to figure out who it is. Your story leads to many turns and twists and is very well thought out.
Sound- 8.5/10
The music will always match the mood of what you are doing. If you are exploring canyons, you will have quiet, mysterious music playing. If you are engaging in air warfare, you will have fast paced music that gets your heart beating. The voice acting is done very well by most of the characters. Some of the characters just sound too unrealistic though. Weapon and plane sounds are done to perfection.
Gameplay- 9.5/10
This is an arcade aviation game. Does that mean it's only worth a quarter to play? No. It has arcade physics. This mean you won't have you do everything perfect and the game can create some tight squeezes for you too escape. You start in Sea Haven doing missions to try to find Big John. He is the only person that knows how to fly your Zeppelin. You are in a free environment. Much like <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Grand-Theft-Auto-III/dp/B00005O0I2/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Grand Theft Auto III</a>, you can do whatever mission you want and in whatever order you like. You will have missions where you: attack planes, use turrets, race, navigate, steal planes, and much more. You ability to use turrets or planes in most missions keeps the game interesting. Also, the variety in missions keeps the game very fun. The bosses on this game are incredible and are some of the most well thought out even compared to <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/God-of-War/dp/B0002XL3BA/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">God of War</a>. Unlike GOW though, there are many bosses in this game for you destroying pleasure. The Multi-Player in this game is pretty fun, but not really a major focus of the game. There is a game called Wild Chicken that is extremely fun though. You try to catch a chicken and return it to your base for points. Yeah, it's crazy, but its very fun. I haven't played online as I don't have X-Box Live.
Difficulty- 10/10 (Note- This is how much I like the difficulty)
Even on Easy you have a have some challenge. That's the way it should be. If you think that's too easy, you can try any of the other three harder difficulties. Some of the final stages are very hard and you will really feel like you accomplished something. The game is really short, and can probably be beaten in around a day of good gaming. The game will still leave you satisfied after playing it though, and that makes the game perfect.
Overall- 9.5/10
This is one of the best games I've played in a long time. Don't just avoid it because it's an aviation game; buy it now! Really, the game is just that much fun. The single player is one of the best I've played in a long time, and the multiplayer is good fun once you're done. I recommend this to everyone.
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video-games_xbox
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Im in the minority, but i like this game. Despite what some may say, this game is not near as bad as its made out to be. Its really alot like the first Sacred. I've read some complaints about the graphics, but im not as picky i guess, i really liked them. The environments are varied and there is really a lot of detail in each setting. There are six characters to choose from covering the usual warrior, mage, archer, battle-mage types. I've only played with the Inquistor and the Shadow Warrior, the warrior being my favorite so far. He is a warrior summoner hybrid and is great fun to play with, my only gripe is the horrible voice actor they chose for him, the Inquistor is much better. There is no shortage of quests in this game, you can't go 2 feet without getting another quest, so at any given time you will have 20+ quests. Thankfully they are easy to find by following the directional arrow and there is no time limit so you can do them anytime.
One of my biggest complaints about this title is the inventory and character stat interface, im not sure they could have made it any worse. I also don't care for the way you acquire abilities, you have to find them on the corpses of enemies instead of just choosing them when you level. You do get to customize your character with different skills that enhance your abilities at each level. There are socketed weapons that can be enhanced by visiting a blacksmith. Learning what the different weapon and armor modifiers mean is kinda a chore as well. Some weapons will be worth more gold but the stats seem weaker than other cheaper items its weird. Sacred 2 is a grindfest at its heart, so make sure you are in the mood for it.
The game world is flippin huge, i've been playing around 20 hours between 2 characters and i've covered about 6 percent of the game world, wowzers! I wasn't too impressed with the mounts this game offers, they don't seem all that fast compared to just running, but you can attack and gallop around on your horse if thats your thing. There several teleporters scattered throughout the realm making it easy to get around. You can join a friend or two online and quest together, good stuff. Sacred 2 is far from perfect, but its definately worth trying out if you like a dungeon crawling grindfest. I feel it translated pretty well into the console realm. Its tiding me over till Diablo III comes out anyway.
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video-games_xbox
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Very, very good. I've held off a long time on my review because I wanted to include a fair amount of Live play in my review as that seems to be a big selling point for this game.
But Singleplay first:
Call of Duty 4 is a very, very good game. Hands down this is one of the best games I've played on Xbox 360 and ranks right up there with Bioshock for sheer fun and quality. CoD4 has a good story and decent voice acting but not to the degree that you find in games like Bioshock. But at its core CoD4 is a first-person shooter and Bioshock wasn't your typical shooter (not a bad thing mind you). If you dwell too long on the story of CoD4 you may find faults with it so I don't stress it as a game selling point - it is good, but not great. With CoD4 it is all about the action. Unlike many of the first-person shooters I've struggled with in the past the graphic quality of this one is amazing and that makes it a lot less frustrating to play - anyone who has struggled to discern the snipers blending into the pixel nightmare of early shooter games will know what I mean. In CoD4 the graphics are pristine and smooth and very realistic. There is a fair amount of texture recycling and the like and if you've seen a couple maps you've seen the extent of what you are likely to see terrain/clutter wise, but man, they are sure pretty. The forests and skies, as well as the closeup detail on uniforms and weapons is exceptional. Even ground clutter like grass and foliage is better than I have seen before and you can and move and discern targets from the graphics with ease allowing you to focus on firefights and not on trying to find a target to shoot at before they see you. You may still struggle to find them at times though, as the shadows and ground clutter congestion are also very good - especially in multiplayer.
Multiplayer:
So how is the multiplayer? I think it is very good. I was much more impressed with CoD4 online than say any of the Halo series. I think the weapon damage is much more realistic in CoD4 with less emphasis on how weak one weapon is vs. how powerful another weapon is (think the pistol and the sniper rifle in Halo vs. the assault rifle). In CoD4 I found it matters less what weapon one was using and more on how they are using the weapon. Usually situational awareness and accuracy will save the day regardless of the weapon you are using. Also, each play style, and some maps, call for specific weapons. You don't want a weapon with slow reloads or small magazines in close quarters combat, nor do you want an inaccurate submachine gun on open maps where your gun will be much less effective at range.
I also found that there was less of a disparity among those who play all the time and the casual player than many other multiplayer games. Unfortunately, I think this has to do with CoD4's nature of rewarding "camping" players, that is players who set up ambush points and wait forever for someone to cross their paths instead of mixing it up in the firefights. CoD4 has a lot of potential choke points where a single sniper or someone with a great submachine gun and some mad skills can stave off countless attackers. That can be really frustrating, but as the maps are open and spawning appears somewhat random the tables can be easily turned on your opponent if you choose to do the same - although rewarded for doing this in the game mechanics this makes for slow, painful and often upsetting matches.
CoD4 offers players "perks" that can be equipped and more are available for unlocking when certain levels or skill challenges are unlocked. While they don't turn the tide of the game often they do come in handy or exceptionally frustrating depending upon the situation. At first I found these fun, but as time went on I found they would get more and more annoying as certain perks can make it harder to setup certain traps on opposing forces or make the enemy much harder to spot and kill in certain circumstances. Sometimes the perks you equip will give you an edge, but also having the wrong perk at the wrong time can be frustrating.
For players with enough skills to rack up a number of enemy kills without dying (3/5/7 in a row) there are additional perks in the form of radar, air strikes and air support (attack helicopter) that benefit the whole team. While it is frustrating not to be able to call these in yourself because you may not be the best player out there it is nice that they are an asset that the whole team can share in.
All in all the multiplayer was fast and frantic most of the time with intense firefights and fast respawns and was a real blast even if I'm not very good at it. If you have a team that likes to work together and take their time you can also enjoy team tactics setting up choke points, assaults and defensive scenarios, etc. where everyone can work together to accomplish a goal. I found that when a team was willing to work together than they could really decimate the competition but most of the time it is more free-for-all - still good and intense if a bit less effective and less rewarding.
I have had a moment or two of lag but have not had the scenarios that other people have complained of where constant lag is upsetting the game play. Perhaps they have internet problems or they just play so much they see it and I don't. If I had any complaints it is that players aren't evenly matched up, often a new player is pitted against people with a disparative skill level and that makes play frustrating and people aren't very forgiving to players of lesser skill. I guess for some people they can't understand that this is just a game and any "reward" is only what you take away from your time playing.
EDIT: In regards to the online play I wanted to add an additional update. As others have said (and I originally dismissed) there are some quirks with the online play. Call it "lag" for lack of a better term. I've noticed situations where I've fired my weapon (especially noticeable with sniper weapons) and nothing happens, the bullet never appears and never strikes the target. It is bizarre. Also, when you view the 'kill cam' showing you being gunned down you can see that what you were seeing and what the opposing player was seeing are not the same. For example, I've fired into an approaching opponent and been killed only to watch the kill cam and notice that it doesn't show me shooting at all. Genuinely weird and more than a little annoying.
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video-games_xbox
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Uhh...What happened to the easy mode. I suppose this is what you call a 'hardcore' fighting game because it doesn't have an easy mode. It's too cool for all that easy mode jazz. Come to think of it, Soulcalibur 3 didn't either, whats up with that? Anyway, It's not actually that bad once you get some practice with fighting at a not so easy level. Once you finally defeat the evil jello mold kasumi clone after the twentieth time you will feel so tough that you didn't wimp out and set the game to easy (because you couldn't) that it makes the whole journey that much funner.
Seriously, though, do they expect the average gamer to unlock even half the achievements on this mother? This series has always been rough but now you don't even have the option to wimp out. I play fighting games to take out my aggression. How am I going to take out my aggression when I'm getting my head kicked in like a special olympics equipment manager that picked a fight with Jet Li. I'll tell you how, I aint. At least not with Tina. I have to play as friggin' Ein if I want to do any good in survival mode. I didn't buy this game to play as a guy, sheesh. Also, is it just me or does Kasumi suck now? She used to be my go to girl but now I can barely do anything with her. I could barely get a bronze medal in the survival mode and I about darn near broke my hand doing it. I have a better chance of unlocking all of rumble roses achievements and that's saying something because that game is tedious. But I digress...
On the plus side there are some great graphics but that goes without saying as this is a next generation system. There are also some interesting features like being able to take snapshots of computer controlled fighters. It's a fun diversion from getting pounded but 90% of my pictures are as blurry as all get out. I must not make a good video game photographer. As with Doa 3 Aerosmith music abounds in this game. Well, maybe not abounds per se but it is in there. If you beat the game with Helena. The ending credits have a nice Aerosmith song. The endings for the characters make no sense whatsoever but that's nothing new. I like Kasumi's little mermaid esque finale. It's so randomly silly that I liked it.
Anyway, the game is a solid fighting game that gives you plenty of action. Just don't expect it to be a cakewalk or any other sort of walk involving pastries. Pick a fighter, spend hours learning all his moves and go forward young warrior to unlock the achievements and gain glory. But don't expect me to be at the finish line with you. I'll be playing oblivion.
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video-games_xbox
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A Move for the Better. After watching numerous videos, comments, and previews, I decided to give this latest addition a chance. I was initially hesitant about picking up Assault Horizon; as a fan of previous Ace Combat titles (4, 5, and 6), the large amount of mixed feedback had me worried. When I finally popped in the game and sat with it for a few hours, I'm happy to say that all my fears were quelled. Here are my thoughts so far:
Story:
I haven't finished the campaign yet, but what I've seen so far is pretty good. Granted it's not a story of epic proportion like Mass Effect, but it gets the job done. The plot revolves around an insurgency in Africa, and NATO is sent in to stop it. However, they soon discover that this insurgent group is being aided by Russian rebel forces, making them more dangerous than originally anticipated. I'll update this once I finish it, but to sum it up, the story is far more realistic than its predecessors. It takes place in the actual world, with recognizable groups (ie. USAF Air Combat Command) and believable ships/weapons (no more massive airships, submarines, or floating battle stations; a move for the better). Being in the Air Force myself, I personally find the story very interesting since it's more authentic and revolves around a feasible scenario.
Controls/Gameplay:
Control-wise, it plays EXACTLY like Ace Combat 6, with a few tweaks. Veterans of previous games have the option to revert back to classic settings, which gives it a more familiar feel. You can also have it at an "optimum" setting, which is more friendly for new players. All in all, there's a choice for everyone here. As for gameplay, there's a good mix of jet, helicopter, and gunner missions, which do a good job of adding variety and throwing new things to the table. The door gunner and AC-130 missions feel very similar to COD, but that doesn't automatically make them a rip-off like some claim. You can only get SO different with an AC-130 gun camera, and it plays very well (COD's version was exceptional, so why complain if it's modeled after something that did it right?). The helicopter missions are really fun as well; lots and lots of shooting. The controls were somewhat tricky at first and the camera is a little sluggish, but you get used to it. Most of the missions have you flying a variety of fighters, including one that involves bombers. Of course there are a few things which take away authenticity. Do actual jets carry 150+ missiles and unlimited machine gun ammo? No. Do actual jets automatically regenerate their "health"? No. When it comes down to it, this is Ace Combat; it's an arcade-styled flight sim. It's all about providing a flying experience with a few variables to make things entertaining for a wider audience. If you're here strictly for realism, then I recommend looking elsewhere.
Perhaps the biggest new feature is Dog Fight Mode. When you get close enough to an enemy fighter, you can initiate DFM, in which the camera will dramatically zoom in, and a sort of minigame begins where you try to gun down your opponent at close range. One word to describe this? Intense. I can't even describe what it's like chasing your enemy, screaming past buildings, under bridges, or through explosions. There's also the possibility for the hunter to become the hunted, as targets can perform evasive maneuvers and get behind you ("hit the brakes and he'll fly right by!"). A lot of people have complained that DFM takes away the challenge found in previous Ace Combat titles. I actually found it to be more challenging, since it can be countered and you're completely vulnerable to other aircraft the entire time. My only gripe is that when you're being chased, the counter-maneuver doesn't always work (or it could just be me; it's all based on timing). If you don't like DFM, you don't even need to use it, though you'll be missing out on a feature that really adds intensity and excitement to combat.
Graphics:
The Ace Combat series has never failed in the visual department, and Assault Horizon exceeds in every way. I absolutely love how aircraft rip to shreds when blowing up; the metal stripping away in slow motion is amazing. Environments looks superb, and the amount of detail put into buildings and vehicles is an impressive feat. Best of all, the aircraft themselves look just as authentic as their real-life counterparts.
Multiplayer:
Assault Horizon allows you to jump online with 15 other players and participate in a variety of modes. You have your standard Deathmatch and Domination games, but what really stands out the most is Capital Conquest. This mode pits two teams of eight against each other, in which the goal is to destroy the enemy's HQ. When their HQ has taken enough damage, players have the option to select bombers (like the B1 or B2) and perform a bombing run. This mode is awesome since players have the freedom to pick whatever role they want. Some can be helicopters to take out ground targets, while others can be bombers to take out fortified positions. Remaining players can be fighters to take out hostile aircraft and protect friendly bombers. There's many possibilities here. Capital Conquest fosters a lot of teamwork, and it's extremely satisfying when your team succeeds. There is also a "perk" system in which you gain experience points after matches. As you progress, you gain access to features which will enhance your aircraft, such as increased machine gun firing rate or expanding missile capacity. Sure, it borrows some stuff found in COD or BF, but it works. You also have a co-op mode in which you can team up with a few others and take on missions together.
The Bottom Line:
In the wake of a gaming market saturated with shooters, Assault Horizon is a nice change that has a lot of replay value. I definitely recommend picking it up and giving it a chance. For fans of the series, you'll either like it or hate it. Personally, I found the changes to be for the better, and in no way does it take away from the experience found in past games. Like the reviewer above me, disregard Gamespot's review of a 5.5. It's not a perfect game, but the review was totally biased (he sounded more like an offended fanboy). Assault Horizon is a great game. You can't deny the fact that there's a pilot in all of us.
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video-games_xbox
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xbox core console. I had recently purchased an original xbox core system with the help of Amazon.com and the experience of recieving my original xbox was great by todays standards of not being able to find one out there at my local videogame store's or friend's and neighbor's. The delivery of the consol was not a short period to wait for and the company that sent it to me said that they paid for the shipping and upgraded it for free, I still paid the price that I was quotted online when I made the order, and to top of my day I opened the box that it was shipped in and there was no original remote controller so that I could use it and be very very happy the way that I thought I would be.
I really expected more from the purchasing power that I was given by amazon.com, being the third party member, but I guess my expectations of online shopping was a third correct. I say this only because I belived at one point that if I could see it in a store window than that means that I could purchase it in that condition, in that state, and certainly anything that came with it. I have owned a lot of gaming consols in my life time nintendo was the first, and sony, as well as xbox, but I never had as much fun as I did with my first xbox system. The graphics, sound processing, the look's and styling, as well as the feature's. Each of my consol's have their own pro's and con's and I play with them to relax and have a good time. Unfortunenatly my old xbox's hard drive failed and I had no money to get another or fix it, so I gave the left over's to my friend's brother and now that I need the controller no one has one. I found that having to find one at the store is difficult and they cost about $15.00 (USD) if not more. Why should I have to pay that much more money when I have already paid for the core system that was supposed to have it in the first place. The company that send it to me reviewed my comment's about them and asked my once for a post of five stars, and I did and they said thanks, and that they will send a contoller a.s.a.p., but I think that it's been over a month now and I don't think that I will be getting that at any time soon. I am very dissapointed about this entire thing and having to go through all this for a paper wait that I still have in the box. I miss playing the old games like tron killer apt 2.0 and other's that don't respond on the new system and well thank's to all the event's that have transpired and the circumstance's, I will probably never get to.
I love the xbox and even if it is old it still has a lot to offer anyone who has the old xbox day dreams or a first timer just trying to get used to the whole gaming network. It is much better than the rest of its generation and you will absolutetly love it. I just that no one has to go through the same thing that I have for it or at the very least have something prepared for these kind of problems.
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video-games_xbox
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Pretty standard Zombie hack and slash, with some problems. Overall:
Mostly pros for this game, but some problems that detract from the experience.
Pros:
Great graphics, nteresting story, open world, somewhat versatile gaming experience due to large number of items. And who doesn't like running around smashing zombies?
Cons:
Some design flaws, both in design philosophy and in gameplay, and some bugs. I'll give some detail on the problems:
First off, gaining experience is tedious. I've played through nearly to the end, and have absolutely no desire to start over with a new character. Therefore I will never know if it would have been more interesting or fun with a different character.
The second annoying problem is experience based weapons. A "dangerous hammer" requires a higher level than I have yet obtained? Seriously? It's a hammer. No level of experience is required beyond that a child attains after playing with his toys. All weapons in the game should be accessible to all players at all levels. Now if you want to include skill in the handling of weapons, you can impliment that in a much better way - increase the accuracy and damage as a player's level rises.
The third annoying design problem is the target zone. There are times when you've got multiple zombies right in front of you, and when you swing your sledge hammer sideways, they should all be hit, but only the one in the target is. Admittedly this gets a little better when they are closer - but they have to be pretty much right in your face for that to work right. The swing radius is just too short, and that presents a problem when you're surrounded by zombies and your sweeping attack only takes down one of them.
Another problem, though fairly minor, is visibility while driving - you really lose all peripheral vision and you have a hard time seeing where you are going. If I had to describe it to someone I would say it feels like a very large man stuck in a very small (clown?) car. Also, there is no reverse mirror or the ability to look back while driving in reverse.
Finally I did notice one actual bug. If you quit the game, but then start playing again, you don't always start where you left off. I'd finished several Laboratory missions, then quit playing but then changed my mind. When I started up again I was in the Market with no exit but the sewers. Luckly for me the bug seemed to work both ways. I quit again and started again and was back in the Lab.
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video-games_xbox
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Missed it bbyyyyy " ALOT " that much. I will try and be quick. the CONCEPT of this game is EXCELLENT. aannndd thats about it
The car selection is HORRIBLE. For Starters 2 MAJOR things are missing CORVETTES and LAMBORGHINI'S!! Honestly how can you make a FUN racing game with not Corvettes or Lamborghini's let alone leaving both of them out. BUT OOOHHH god they have an Alpha Romeo MiTo, yup thats at the top of every car enthusiats list. the Classics are a joke.. out of all the mustangs they chose a 289 with a THREE SPEED!?!??? what?? and the ONLY corvette is a 1st generation.. really atarti...REALLY???!!
The Graphics are eh, not to bad but nothing amazing, it gets the job done. BUT i will say that they did a very good job with the "in Car" mapping and graphics. good job Atari well done, pretty cool to see a company out-do the big time GT.
VERY VERY VERY GLITCHY. Atari spent over 4 years making this aaaannndd this is what we get a game thats full of glitches and i can't drive "america's sports car"???
BUT OH MY GOD YOU CAN CUSTOMIZE THE WAY YOUR HOUSE LOOKS ITS SO COOL...not. yes you can change the couch, the chairs, hell even the wall paper AND THE COLOR OF IT WOW!!! but again.. no corvette or lambo's, bo.
Now lets talk about the voice acting; yes, atari thought it would be cool to try and make more or less a story with the game...aaannnddd they failed..horribly. the cut sceens are a joke the voice over is TEEEERRRRRRIIIBBBLLEEE. I've have watched better acting at my little counsins 2nd grade Christmas play.
Ok, Nooww lets talk about the super cool off road racing and how awesome it is, "..................." ".............." ok now lets talk about how much it was a waste of time and money on atari's part and the fact that they should've just left it out and GAVE ME A CORVETTE!!!! wait i just did. and seroiusly WHY DO I WANT TO DRIVE A HUMMER H3 IN HAWAII OR IBIZA.
As far as the car handling goes it STILL isn't very good, while its not HORRIBLE *COUGH* NEED FOR SPEED *COUGH* its not VERY satisfying. I'm not saying i was expecting Forza or GT material, but i did expect to be able to drift a little bit. what else,well the fact you can have a removable hard top is a pretty sweet add-on. some of the shots while driving are cool with the lighting.
Also, the "clothing" aspect of the game is a joke as well, no matter WHAT you wear you look like a homosexual. now i don't have anything against gay men, i just don't want to dress like a gay man, and neither should my gaming avatar.
Cons-
Voice acting
Car selection
very glitchy
car sound effects
inability to sell cars that you purchased
off-road racing
car handling
clothing
Pros-
The fact that i can drive a virtual Audi R8 at 150 in Hawaii after having 4 Drinks AND not getting an DWI (driving while intoxicated) is pretty cool
Convertibles
the Sunsets and Sunrises are nice I guess.
In Car View
sooo would i recommend someone pay 50 dollars on this. my answer would be..no.. seeing as how the handling still isn't there, the amount of glitches, and the fact that theres NO CORVETTES!!! i wouldn't reccomend this game.
HOWEVER I do love driving my Audi R8 at 200MPH after tossing back a few. and thats about it
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video-games_xbox
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The Best AC Game Since Bloodlines. Seeing that there are so many reviews for this title already having been released in 2014, I will be brief.
I loved this game. I got it in a package with my new XBox One along with Black Flag. I thought I would like Black Flag better. Its an awesome game and I loved the pirate period and activities. At first I thought I would not like Unity, but once I got into the game I liked it a lot. The art work and scenes are gorgeously rendered and accurate. I do wonder why there were so many people out in the streets though. I only experienced one lock up. I was trying to complete an investigation mission and accused the chauffeur and because I had already made two false accusations, this game bugged out and I could do nothing with Arno except walk and he was REAL slow. I has to power down the XBox to get things reset. It kept my progress thankfully so no harm done. Control of Arno was improved and his climbing ability was much better although he still wanted to jump onto and grab random items without me toggling RB. Running across rooftops was now a breeze and running down the streets without hitting people, even with all of the people on the streets, was also a snap.
I was not overwhelmed by dozens of different weapons being in the que at once. I found it frustrating to have to see a merchant to equip a different weapon though. In the end I just upgraded my outfits for the best combination of health, stealth etc and equipped the biggest most lethal gun I could unlock. This kept me out of trouble for the most part. Other tricks were limited and I didn't even unlock two of them. The Cherry Bombs are useful as lures so you can get guards into positions for assassination. The Smoke Bombs are invaluable in helping confuse guards when your over whelmed giving you time to take a few out easing your battle. Always upgrade your slots and keep them full.
This game is chock full of things to do. You have pubs to restore and missions to do for your friend in the Cafe. You have murder investigation missions which have you running all over trying to gather clues and make a decision as to who committed the crime. There are assassins missions all over. Most of these, even the 5 star ones are easily manageable. There are Co-Op missions which I did not do. There are chests everywhere. These will gain you money to buy upgrades for your outfit and weapons. White, Blue, and Gold chests can be approached and opened without lock picking. Some of the chests you will need to complete some of the assassins missions to get parts to gain access to where the chests are. Red chests are always guarded. Some are locked in a room, you'll need to pick the lock to get in. All Red chests must be lock picked to get the loot.
As you upgrade and complete missions, the game gets easier. If you made the right upgrade choices, you should not have too much difficulty completing the story missions. Your biggest obstacle will be strategy and planning along with patience. Some places are crawling with guards. You need to be good to get them out or past them and get to your target. Some missions have optional missions which will get you assistance with your main goal. Not all of these are helpful so be careful. 100% Sync is difficult and takes a good bit of time to complete every little thing needed to achieve that status.
Over all, there are very few cons to this game. The ability to gain or earn Assassin points other than by completing story missions would have been nice. A lot of the bigger upgrades require these and there are far too few of them. I never did figure out what the Pub earnings were to be used for. The inability to switch to a pistol or other weapon while in a mission without going to a merchant was annoying.
UPDATE: 7/25/2016
I've gone about as far as I can go in the game. Still love it and got hooked on playing it. I did discover that you can play the Co-Op missions by yourself, but some of the 5 star ones are just ridiculous, even with a ton of upgrades. It was frustrating to only get to 56% sync in the game and I had completed a ton of stuff. I left a few Co-Op missions and what ever was associated with this Companion App junk. What a stupid idea. You can get the chests and some other items without playing the Companion App which is a free download to a hand held device. But you still have to play the levels and rest of the missions on the hand held device to complete 3 levels or you cannot get 100% of the chests and artifacts. As I said this was really stupid. You will also not be able to complete the artifacts in the Helix Rift levels because they will not show up until you play the Companion App and unlock them. If you don't really care about the 100% Sync, this game is well worth the money and is a ton of fun to play. Once you get your upgrades you can get bolder and take out guards and other mission obstacles with ease.
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video-games_xbox
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A more serious Just Cause 2. I loved Just Cause 2. When I saw Far Cry 3 trailers and reviews, it looked like a game that could bring me back into it's troubled island like Just Cause 2 did. I am happy to say that it did.
Far Cry 3 is set in a more sober, darker island world than Just Cause 2, yet the island is still very rich and vibrant with life and colors. The world is very large and is super fun to explore, there are many different vehicles to enjoy, animals to hunt, treasures to discover and mini games to waste time with.
I really enjoy the campaign. I like the premis of the story, the gameplay has few glitches and hiccups so that you barely notice it, which in my opnion is how gameplay should be. I really like the multiple different takedowns that can be unlocked and I enjoy the skill progression, much like Borderlands skill tree. (Except in FC3 you can actually unlock all the skills.) The stealth system is sweet. While not as in depth as say, Splinter Cell Conviction, it is cool to be able to throw rocks to distract enemies. I know people think it gets annoying but c'mon. Throwing rocks is a lot of fun. The AI are challenging. The game is more difficult in the beginning when the player has limited items/health/weapons but that is easily remedied by hunting for animals, crafting items, finding loot (marked on the map) or unscrambling radio towers (which affords you free weapons at the gunstore)
One of the reviews I read complains about the animals being fast and small (and getting killed by them). I thought they were pretty lifelike in that regard. You can paint them though with your camera (by pushing up on the D pad) and that helps alot, as painting/tagging animals and enemies helps the player track them, even if they are behind a wall.
Bottom line: I think the story is entertaining and well told, I like the main character's progression through the story line. The game-play is smooth and the wealth of things to do on the island keeps the game interesting, all the while not being so overwhelming and bogging down the game like Ubisofts Assassin's Creed 3.
Co-op is fun, it's nice to have dedicated story missions away from the solo-story line. The co-op narrative is a lot weaker but hey, we aren't playing co-op for the story are we?
I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but I will update my review once I get to it. I just want to finish the campaign first!<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Ubisoft-Far-Cry-3/dp/B00AII24A8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Ubisoft Far Cry 3</a>
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video-games_xbox
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Still not better. "we listened to the fans" Whether you see that as a positive or negative thing depends on how much you hated DA 2. I hated it a lot, so I guess they must have listened to me, or something.
Unlike DA 2, DAI consists of many open environments for you to explore and a bunch of small side missions to make it a "sand box game." Gaining control of those areas gets you "power" you use to advance the main storylines of the game and unlock new areas/mission. This makes the game massive, as the areas you can explore cover a great deal of real estate.
With that said, the side missions are trash.
I think we have Blizzard to thank for this, but running around a field collecting metal, flowers, and leather as well as discovering caches and making camp sites IS NOT GAMEPLAY. It's called grinding. It's not like the side missions are exciting like assassinations, escort missions, clearing enemies out of a dungeon, or playing many different factions against each other... you're just told by some wonk to get some widgets, then you wander around for a while and bring them back. Some actually involve fighting, like closing a rift, luring demons, or hunting dragons--but those are few and far between the grinding.
The core/story missions are interesting and well-plotted, but they are the same linear gameplay people criticized DA 2 about... and it's not as if there are different ways to complete a mission (you can side with one faction, but that's not really the same).
There's item crafting. The recipes are either available for sale or scattered around the map, they're often hard to find and raw materials have to be farmed from a variety of places on the map--adding to the tedium, this also makes you detract from the main quest and run around picking rocks out of the landscape for some yet to be built suit of armor or sword. Enemies don't drop weapons frequently, which would make the most sense in a game like this, to adapt and repair the armor and arms of the enemy.
There are lots of characters. You can either adapt your gameplay to hack and slash and just control your character, or you can micro manage the battles to your heart's content. Most of what they do is based on their class, so to some extent they're interchangeable. The problem is that if you want to swap between characters and limited good armor and weapons, you have to undress every piece of armor/weapon/accessory prior to load out, which is a pain. There is no "strip all armor and accessories" button, which would add a lot of convenience to swapping party members.
Your own character can be picked from different races and the two genders. There aren't really any unique gameplay or dialog options available to races or classes, and your character is really what decisions you make. The dialog wheel is back, and you can make decisions to please, annoy, or leave your friends/lovers/allies indifferent. Romances are back, you essentially bug the person you're interested in and hope whatever you say doesn't piss them off too much. I think the talking to and making sure your allies are happy or romantically interested in you part of the game is a huge time sink, and forces you to run around and talk to EVERYONE between missions and either be a) say what you want them to hear b) be consistent c) be honest. Like other Bioware games, there's usually little world changing consequence of these interactions, and they're more for exposition.
It's on a next gen console, but the graphics don't look that crisp or polished and sometimes characters will mysteriously teleport in and out conversations and your Inquisitor will start to flail their limbs while talking to someone. Some of the environments are truly beautiful and full of ruins and angry seas and whatnot, but you're mostly wandering around some featureless fields and forests.
In short, this game is more tedious than fun.
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video-games_xbox
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Good Presentation Shouldn't Excuse Poor Gameplay. While I wasn't a fan who waited years for the game to be released, I bought Alan Wake on the strength of the majority of most reviews for the title, reviews that emphasized the novelty of the game's story and presentation. The game does have a story that is good for a video game, although self-referential Steven King-style horror is nothing new. The in-game graphics are good, but not great, and the game suffers from a serious case of the uncanny valley, especially in cut-scenes. The voice work is good, but not particularly memorable.
The problem is, the game has serious gameplay flaws that were ignored by most game reviewers. Each level is completely linear, with almost no variation at all, and each one of the hundreds of encounters you have will follow a slight variation of the exact same formula: shine flashlight, shoot, rinse, repeat. The game has been called "survival horror" and calls itself a "psychological thriller," but neither title is particularly true. You never run out of ammo unless you go out of your way to avoid picking it up, so survival is never really an issue. And don't bother trying to not kill every single thing that blunders into you in the woods: the game provides a "sprint" button but literally every enemy is faster than you and Wake gets winded after about 30 feet, making me wonder why he isn't chain smoking in every cut-scene. Because you fight the same enemies dozens of times, with enough ammo for each confrontation, "horror" isn't really an applicable word. And while the story has psychological elements this never interferes with the dull, straightforward gameplay. The story itself is almost entirely revealed through cut-scenes, making it seem like a reward for your hours of wandering around shooting shadow guys. Some games integrate their story into the gameplay, but the closest Alan Wake comes to this is finding pieces of a novel that predict upcoming events that leads to a twist so obvious the game might as well be directed by M. Night.
My biggest problem with Wake is that it's just not fun. I didn't enjoy the repetitive combat or the mindlessly simple puzzle solving elements. When I compare it to a game like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (a 7 year old game with arguably better presentation but suffering from equally repetitive combat), the difference is that game was actually fun to play. Your avatar could perform complex and impressive feats that felt satisfying. I never once got that same feeling from shining flashlights on guys and then shooting them.
Alan Wake isn't a terrible game, but it is flawed in a number of ways that identify it as a game that was largely designed 4 years ago. While it has a better than average story, it is also short and suffers from poor gameplay mechanics that make it somewhat of a grind to play. While I'm sure it's fun for gamers willing to put up with flawed mechanics for a good story or big fans of the horror genre in general, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who plays games for fun or doesn't enjoy constant repetition.
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video-games_xbox
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Surprised how accurate the negative reviews were. I'll preface this by saying I am a HUGE Rock Band fan. It is one of my favorite activities ever! I've bought literally hundreds of songs. So the prospect of a new Rock Band on this generation of system was obviously extremely exciting. Normally I would have pre-ordered this game, but I was kind of holding out hope that a friend would get it for me for my birthday because it was around the same time as the game was released. Unfortunately that didn't happen, so about a week and a half later I went on Amazon to buy it. I couldn't help but notice multiple negative reviews for the game and was pretty surprised. How could anyone not love a Rock band game? What could possibly be wrong with it?? I read them all, but didn't think about them much and played the game with a clean slate. Every issue that I read everyone report on this game, I found to be accurate. Here were my main problems:
-This has been discussed a lot, but if you have bought download songs (like most people who have ever played Rock Band have), you will have to go one by one and re-download them all individually, a process that took me several hours. That's fine, still worth it. However even then, the system does not seem to be functioning properly. Most of the songs that I had already bought show as "PURCHASED", however some of them didn't, and I had to click on the song as if I was going to buy it and then it would give me an "install" option. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you've downloaded hundreds of songs, you don't inherently have that library in your head, so I had to click on almost every song available to see if I had purchased it. Even worse, is that the system did not recognize songs that I DID buy, and actually wanted me to buy them again. I own every Doors song that has been released. However, for some reason, it is not recognizing that I have purchased ANY Doors song, and it wants me to buy them all again. Same with some No Doubt songs, and other songs I have already purchased. So I have not been able to play music that I have purchased, and is available, for reasons unknown to me. Additionally, not all DLC songs have been transferred over to this game, and it is missing a LOT of songs. There are SOME White Stripes songs, but not all of them. Same with The Shins, and many other songs that are no longer available with no explanation. What happened to the other 100+ songs that I bought, and I don't mean the on-disc songs from Rock Bands 1-3 + Lego/Beatles Rock Band (which inexplicably won't be available until the holidays, if at all). I am playing with about 1/4 of the song library that I would otherwise have if I were playing Rock Band 3 on my Xbox 360. So why even bother playing this one? Just the fact that it wants me to re-buy songs I've already bought is extremely frustrating.
-There is a troubling issue with vocal lag that I've never experienced in any other Rock Band game which a large number of other players have confirmed as well. Our system was perfectly calibrated for the other instruments (we used the game's built-in auto calibration). One of my friends was so bothered by it she didn't even want to sing anymore.
-I bought the version with the legacy adapter so I could play with my existing Rock Band equipment. Unfortunately it seems to pick and choose which equipment it wants to work with (specifically ONLY wireless instruments apparently, although NOT wireless mics?). My Beatles guitar and drums work fine, however I went out and bought a wired Rock Band 2 guitar (licensed, came with the original game) to complete my set, but this guitar does not work with Rock Band 4. Wish I had known that, waste of $40.
-When you drop out an instrument, it also seems to drop out the sound that instrument makes from the song track. We were playing random set-lists, and got to a song none of us wanted to sing, so we merely dropped the mic 'player' out. Well, then when playing the song, we couldn't hear the vocal track at all. We noticed this happening with other instruments like the guitar as well- if we dropped the guitar out, we couldn't hear the guitar on the track. Even worse, I played a Santana song on guitar, and for some reason even while playing, my guitar track was silenced for about 80% of the song. Why would I play a Santana song if not to hear the guitar? Why is this even part of the game?? It was not my TV or system. I literally was playing on a brand new TV. It is the game, and I'm not sure if it's a glitch or a setting (and if it's a setting, I don't know how to change it), but either way it is an unacceptable part of a release. This is a music game, and not being able to hear the music is kind of a deal-breaker.
-I won't get into them much because it seems like all other reviews have been complaining about it, but the character and band customizing options are severely watered down. Want to change the body type of your character? Too bad, you either get to be "skinny boy" or "skinny girl". Not only are there less options than the wonderful Rock Band 3, but the customizing is worse than even Rock Band 1. How can this be? How can a new-gen game be worse and have fewer options than its first incarnation from 8 years ago?
-I know this depends on each person's individual music taste, but to me this is by far the weakest on-disc song selection of any Rock Band game, including Lego Rock Band and the Nintendo DS Rock Band games. There are really only about 4 songs on the disc that we were excited to play, so that can get old pretty fast unless you already have a large library of purchased songs. Oh that's right, they butchered that.
-The large array of music from different genres is nice, however there are some songs or genres that people will never play and are... irritating to even hear. For me personally, that would be death metal. This wouldn't be a problem, except the game constantly plays a random song in the background while navigating the menu or doing literally anything other than playing a song. I don't want to hear Satan screaming at me as I'm changing options or customizing something or just idle in the menu. This may sound dumb but it happened frequently and became EXTREMELY obnoxious. There needs to be an option to turn off particular songs that you NEVER want to hear or play, or change what songs are randomly played in the background.
It's not all bad. Despite all of the listed disappointments and issues, we still did have fun playing for the most part. There is a new free-form guitar solo option where you can make up your own solos within existing songs, which is a fun addition, but it can also cause you to feel like you're ruining the song if your random button pressing doesn't pan out. Luckily though, it can be turned off. I still love playing Rock Band, but essentially I'm having trouble wondering why I would play this version over the Xbox 360 version that I already have? I'm trading literally HUNDREDS of songs, that I have paid money for, for a small handful of new on-disc songs, along with frustrating bugs and less overall production value. I can't help but feel that Rock Band 4 is another game following the troubling trend of being launched onto the market unfinished, on the assumption that later patches and updates will complete the experience. This boggles my mind, because why would consumers buy a game after it has gotten horrible reviews, in the hopes it will be fixed? This isn't a terrible game on its own necessarily, and you may have fun playing it, but when taking everything into consideration, it's an embarrassing release from Harmonix. I'm not giving up on this game because I love Rock Band, but I sincerely hope they address and fix the myriad of issues quickly.
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video-games_xbox
|
Best value of the 360's. Ok, in response to the two negative reviews...yes, there is the possibility of the RRoD. For the record, PS3 is also experiencing the high temp failure. I, however, am now on my second Xbox 360. The first one I got on launch day, 11/22/05 and sold it recently after facing exactly ZERO problems with it. Keep your Xbox in an area that is well venelated (needs lots of airflow to keep the system cool). I have a friend that has been using the Nyko Intercooler on 2 of his 3 Xbox 360's and he's had ZERO problems with all three. If you get the intercooler make sure you pick up the EX model as the plug has been redesigned to avoid the melting issue.
As for this system itself. Easiest way to do this is to consider that if you buy a Pro or Halo edition, you will then need to spend $50 on the HDMI cable (if you are going to use it). You'd save $50 if you bought the Pro, but you'd be lacking the 120gb hard drive (only has 20gb). Big deal? Lots of good downloads from themes to gamertag pics to movies (in SD and HD)so the room is very nice. If you bought the Halo console you'd be even price wise, but you'd lose out on the two games (no Holiday bundle with Halo console) and you'd still only have a 20gb hard drive.
This system seems to run cooler and quieter than my launch system. I play Halo online for up to 6 hours at a time (with 5 minute breaks every hour or so) and it is still only luke warm for me. Mine is in an entertainment center behind a glass door...so I leave the door open when I play to allow airflow.
The games are full versions, not trials or demos. Online play is possible and quite fun. Only comes with one controller so pick up at least one extra and I would HIGHLY recommend the rechargable battery packs (since I have gone through 3 sets of batteries in 2 weeks). Now I just recharge my battery pack every few days and I'm set.
The only reason I gave this only 4 stars is because some retailers are repackaging older Elites that didn't sell (like mine is). This means no chance of a Falcon chipped Elite. The Falcon chipped units use less power supposedly, although the 360's won't really run cool until the 65nm GPU's are put into use (supposedly mid-2008).
Just to follow up on this since it is in the comments, but thought I would add it here. Regarding the PS3 heat vs 360...my PS3 runs WAY hotter than my 360, but since it usually sits (along with the Wii) I don't worry too much. I actually know more people that have had to have their PS3 replaced than 360's with RRoD. And considering I know 5x the number of 360 owners...well, you come to the conclusion.
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video-games_xbox
|
Targeting system is terrible, have to skip through talking just to level a character, no way to compare equipment before buying. I will start with the most frustrating part of this game and nitpick from there.
While playing, my character will battle groups of enemies. Often the camera will decide to start spinning itself into an awkward view. As you attempt to correct this view, since the same button for moving the camera is the switch target button, my character will spin completely around and target archers, trolls, random npcs in the distance instead of the enemies hitting me in the face at that very moment. Also, when I actually manage to kill one of the enemies in these groups that I am locked onto, my character will not unlock on the target until he is finished laying down half the time, even though the enemy is dead. This leads to my character leaning over and smacking the floor a couple times, placing the back of my neck in perfect position for the other enemy's axe cleave. Since the execution style beheading appears to line up so perfect, so many times, I am unsure whether this was actually unintentional. The game is not so much hard as having the controls a jumble of madness that can't be edited. Perhaps on PC, the game would be better since you could hopefully edit this. I've found the best way to actually defeat groups of enemies is just run off, and the ones at the back of the group will decide to abandon their brave leader to run back to their spawn locations.
When you have an enemy locked on and said enemy falls down, a minigame begins that attempts to see how close your character can swing his blade at the enemy without actually hitting them, kind of like the knife game from Aliens.
When you spend all the time to gather souls, it is then time to level up. Each time you want to level your character, you have to teleport back to the main camp, speak to a certain character, that lacks a short term memory. Therefore each time you must have to button through 4 lines of delayed dialog, to get to a menu to level up. Sometimes this character decides that their spiel is not long enough and decides to be sitting down. This would not be a problem if the character rose up faster than the old lady at the front of the airplane.
Do you like having an easy way to compare the equipment you might buy to the equipment you are currently using? So do I! I hear it might be available as a DLC.
Do you like opening chests? Good luck being able to with the 5 messages in front of it saying chest.
This game appears to confuse being hard with frustrating.
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video-games_xbox
|
Black Arrow continues in the vein of Rainbow Six 3. If you like first person shooter (FPS) games, then you should appreciate this one. Black Arrow is simply another chapter of Rainbow Six 3, and uses the same mechanics and even the same characters like Ding Chavez, Eddie Price, and so on. The graphics and sounds are really good, and the weapons are realistic too. The game is challenging, and enemies must be killed with head shots (or chest shots, at least).
My biggest complaint with the mechaics of the game is its sluggish feel. Sometimes, it feels as if your character is running in sand, especially when the enemies are firing on you. You can walk off ledges and "jump down", usually at the expense of a life bar, but you still cannot leap up onto anything. I would like to see this aspect added to later versions of the Rainbow Six 3 line since this is possible in many other FPS games. Additionally, your character often gets hung-up on objects in the environment. That means that you can get stuck on a chair that you are trying to walk past, or your gun barrel can block you from passing through a doorway. Also, it takes too long to throw a grenade as you must stop, select it from a weapon menu, and then throw it. All these steps are too tedious and clunky in the heat of battle.
However, this game shines on XBOX Live. I admit that I am a complete addict and have spent far too many hours online gaming into the wee hours of the morning. The maturity level of many of the players online leaves something to be desired, and I have been more than irritated at the occasional foul-mouthed junior high kid talking trash to anyone within earshot, but one quickly learns to build up a thick skin to these minor detractions. The XBOX Live version is so fun because it is challenging and exciting. The game keeps score and posts the results of the match in the "lobbby" at the end. It is very competitive and entertaining to see how one did when the dust settles. It even tracks players' cumulative statistics and ranks them. I honed my skills on Sharpshooter, a free-for-all where everyone is against everyone else. It took a while for me to realize that a head shot is the best way to eliminate a target; speed is important but does not always determine who wins. I then learned to appreciate the other matches such as Total Conquest and Retrieval. You can even create your own team, or clan or crew, as it is sometimes referred to as, and you can design a logo, motto, and brief description. A player's crew is designated by a four letter word or group of symbols in front of the name, and you can set up and challenge other clans by going to a website called "TeamCompete.com" or by just inviting another crew to a match.
In short, while not perfect mechanically, this game rocks! It is extremely challenging, and is a blast to play on XBOX Live. Go out and buy or rent a copy today; you won't be disappointed.
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video-games_xbox
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Great Item, but beware of Sellers. Ordered a Kinect from this seller with 3 games: Gunstringer, Fruit Ninja, & Kinect adventures. When the "box" arrived, it was made of 6 cut-out cardboard pcs that had been taped together. The Kinect box inside had obviously been opened, and the flaps had tear marks. Everything looked new, but when we attempted to install it, an error message said the Kinect couldn't calibrate, and that something must be blocking the sensor. It was on a flat surface with nothing touching it, but we moved the table runner away and tried once more. Same error message. Followed troubleshooting instructions, and the message popped up again. We reset the Kinect a total of four times, only to see the same error message....over and over and over. XBox support advised us that the Kinect was defective, and to return it to the seller.
We contacted the seller and filed a claim. The seller replied that we should send it back and they would see IF it was defective. I clarified that XBox support stated that it was defective. That we followed all of the suggested installation requirements. That we are familiar with game equipment (we are typically the family members who install our friends' and families' gaming systems, and Man of the House builds and repairs computers. He's quite familiar with the components involved), and that we were specifically told by XBox support that the item should be returned.
We sent the item on Tuesday via UPS and were advised that it would reach the seller on Thursday or Friday. We still have not heard from them or been refunded the $25 for shipping, or the $128 I initially paid for this item.
Moral of the story? BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU PURCHASE ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT ON AMAZON. PRICE CHECK IN PERSON AT LOCAL SELLERS FIRST. At least then, if the item you buy is broken, you won't have to spend more of your money to ship it back to a vendor who may or may not decide that their product is junk.
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video-games_xbox
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Really Microsoft. Uhmm... I don't know what to say. I love XBOX I always have. I prefer it over any other console. I don't trust Microsoft's pricing or their brilliant "ideas" with marketing but I will say this, they CAN make a d*mn fine gaming console. But out of 100 brand new fresh out the factor consoles 10-20 of them will be broken within a couple months. Can't help it? Or some conspiracy of making you buy and repair over and over to keep cash flow... I don't know. Until now I have never been on the unlucky side. Until now... I just a bought a brand new console directly FROM Amazon. See you people don't understand when you buy a "New" console from a random seller on this website, you should expect it to be broken or damaged because these things need to be taken care of in shipping and storage. They are like computers, if you shake a laptop enough I don't care how good it is something will come loose and break off. So don't blame Microsoft for a bad console because you bought from someone named Xx_isellbrokeproducts_xX
However I bought a BRAND NEW Xbox 360 4gb slim FROM Amazon, the only store on here I trust. And within 5 minutes of it being on it make a high pitch noise, crackled the audio, and crashed. Froze? No it crashed. Freezing means it just gets stuck, crashing means it makes a death scream and freezes in dramatic fashion. Don't know what happened, maybe it was damaged during shipping, maybe I was unlucky and got the bad egg, but I know I treated it like a new born baby when I taking it out of the package. Even wiped down the hard wood floor to make a nice happy place for it sit with no dust. Anyways I turned it off waited and turned it on and I got the Red Ring of Death. I hate this new area of crap. I could throw an N64 at a wall use a gaming cartridge as a T off for a golf swing and thing would still work. You so much as breath on anything built in these days it's dead. I don't blame Amazon, maybe Microsoft, maybe the shipping... but I sure as hell can blame "innovation".
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video-games_xbox
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Do NOT Buy (Worst madden yet) I regret even spending over $10 on this. This game is absolutely horrible. Its Ok but its not worth $20, $40, or $60. It should be exactly like it is on IOS free. M.U.T is littered with micro-transactions. its not pay-to-play though, its worse. Its Pay-To-Win. Next ive seen more players trip in 4 drives than i see players trip in 10 years in real life. Next, If you throw the ball expect a 75% drop-rate on any wide-receiver. They receivers drop it like theirs no tomorrow. Next, They tried so much to improve the physics that they completely ruined the games in its running style. If you hit a blocker you trip and fall. If you break a tackle you trip and fall. If you spin move and hit someone you trip and fall. Next, Say your in I-Formation on the goal line and you want to do a pass. Their is a 60% chance if your HB is not running backwards, that he will tackle you. BTW colliding with teammates is basically an automatic down. Next, If your a QB and you try running or your playing as a RB or WR that trys to run past a friendly blocking, They literally step out of the way and allow the defense to tackle you. Next, REFFS do not even through flags unless they are against you. Just saying. Now the multiplayer. Basically their is none. 19 people is the average playing, now lets say im in a party with friends and we want to play. Ok so we want to do a 3v3 and theirs 6 or 7 people in the party. After ONE person accepts the invite it forces EVERYONE to dashboard even if they aren't even playing madden. 95% of the time it won't even say your in a party to allow you to invite your friends. and on MUT they give you a rank 67 team to versus rank 92 teams just to get better players. BTW every issue mentioned above affects you also in mut. So basically what im saying is this game is so broke its more of a P2W game forcing you to either play offline alone, or pay $30+ just to do good. So honestly this is my first madden purchase since madden 09 and all i can say is I fully regret my desicion. As i rather pay $60 for Madden 09 than the $48 i spent on this crap. I honestly would say Buy Call of Duty: Ghost instead of this, And i hate call of duty.
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video-games_xbox
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Good graphics, but many problems...co-op is certainly lacking. I love video games. I also prefer video games that you can play with other person over single player games. I loved the co-op in gears of war and halo; I bought fable 2 hoping to finally have a non-third person shooter that had an expansive co-op experience.
When I first started playing Fable 2, I was completely blown away by the graphics. The bird in the first scene was, by far, the most realistic looking computer generated image I have ever seen. If I did not know I was watching a video game, I would have thought the first four second shot of just the bird was real. Sadly though, that first video clip was the high point of my Fable 2 experience.
The combat in the game is extremely simple -- to a fault. The combat system becomes ultimately boils down to button mashing whatever skill type you choose to specialize in (melee, range or magic). Even in the end game, there is very little actually skill needed survive battles. The expression/reputation system is also very simply and repeatative. I enjoyed finding new expressions for a little bit (and having my dog learn to do them with me), but the expression system quickly turned into dance, whistle, thumbs up and repeat in order to get a discount before buying an item from any vender. The whole npc's falling in love with you aspect of the game was also fairly annoying. I would use my expressions to get a discount from a vender and, next thing i knew, I would have a whole group of npcs in love with me following me around in love with me (both same sex and not). While the relationship ascept of the game is interesting i suppose, I did not buy Fable 2 for that part of the game. However, I found that aspect continually thrown in my face. I could not walk through town without getting propositioned by a prostitute, dig without getting a condom or get discount from vendors without having groups of people fall in love with me.
Finally, the part I was most dissappointed with -- the co-op experience. Its horrible. Its so bad that, a couple of hours of trying, I dreaded even attempting to play co-op with another person, especially on the same machine. First, playing co-op is worthless 70% of the time because the majority of the game is single player. A henchman can not help with anything but killing monsters. If you play same system co-op, the henchman basically walks around with you while you do the storyline for 20 minutes, then fights for 2, then does nothing again for another 20 minutes. Secondly, the actual play and camera angles (local-link speaking) with a henchman are so bad that having a henchman makes the game more difficult. The camera follows the henchmen with the main player able to reset it to their view at any time. Trying to move around any dungeon (which is where the majority of the fighting takes place) with a second player is near impossible. If the two character spread out at all, it basically locks the camera in place. You end up simply mashing the shoot button while attacking monsters off screen because you can not get the camera to look at them. The sharing exp/gold is worthless too. Since the henchman does not get any game progression from co-op play, giving them exp simply hurts the main player. Despite what Fable 2 developers claim, the game's story is somewhat linear, with a certain level of experience/developement needed to progress further and complete new tasks. The game also ensures you kill enough monsters just doing the normal quests to be able to continue in the story progression without having to grind on monsters. By giving your henchmen gold/exp, you are taking away from this normal progression, making the main character fall behind where he/she should be. They then have to go get a job (which may be the most worthless/boring/tedious part of the game...it makes grinding in a normal rpg look fun) or wander around looking for bandits to get the money/exp you lost doing co-op back.
Overall, the cut-scene graphics are cool, but the rest of the game is far from what I was anticipating. Other than more expansive relationship potential, the game felt and, for the most part, looked just like Elder Scroll did three years ago. Again, I was really disappointed, particularly in the co-op play, and would not recommend buying the game (especially the LE version...what a complete rip-off). If you are still interested, just rent fable 2. I promise you that you can get everything out of this game that you would want within the span of two rentals, saving you almost 50 bucks in the process.
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video-games_xbox
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Good Game but Flawed. I loved the original Dragon Age: Origins, so I look forward to this sequel for a while. I finally got it two weeks ago, and I did enjoy it but it fell short of expectations. The game's combat has a faster feel to it which is a great improvement. It just didn't feel like it had the same depth as Origins. Still the battles were fun and made you feel powerful. Sometimes the battles did feel a bit easy, but that was easily remedied by increasing the difficulty.
The story of the game is played out in three acts. I did enjoy the story of your character's rise to become Champion of Kirkwall told by easily my favorite character in the game, Varric. Each act had it's own exciting conclusion with a different antagonist each time. Throughout the three acts you deal with the underlying theme/problem of the game, Templars vs Mages. It provides a very interesting predicament for the players when choosing a side cause there really is no right or wrong answer or side. Most of the quests you do and choices you make do affect the story in some way and choices made in the last game add small changes to the background story. I won't get into the actual story too much as to not ruin it for those who haven't played. It is however, pretty well told and I rather enjoyed it. The ending, however, wasn't exactly a satisfying conclusion to the whole story for me. That's the only real complaint I have there.
There are dozens of hours of entertainment in this game. A lot of sidequests and missions for your companions. The companion sidequests didn't feel as thought out as the ones in origin, but I did enjoy learning about these new allies. Your allies in the first game were much more likeable, but there are certainly some great characters in this game such as Isabella and Varric. Most however fall short, in my opinion.
One major problem I had with the game is that it mostly took place in one city, Kirkwall. The game didn't allow you to explore a wide variety of areas as the first game did. Which actually hurt the game in two ways. The first and obvious way is that it made the areas you explored feel tedious and overused. They also reused many dungeon layouts which did not help that problem. The second way is that it doesn't allow you to explore the backgrounds of the different races as Origins did. That, however, is a small complaint as this game is meant to be played after you have played Origins. There also some technical flaws with the game, including major slow downs during hectic battles and long loads between areas and sometimes during conversations. These are also minor complaints as they do not deter too much from the enjoyment of the game.
Overall Dragon Age 2 is a good game, with some flaws. The overall gameplay while sometimes oversimplified is enjoyable and provides a fast pace. The story is nicely told through a three act structure. Sometimes the story does have some inconsistent pacing it does provide a nice conclusion at the end of each act and is tied together by a relatively strong underlying theme. However, the theme does occasionally get a little lost in the game. I know it probably sounds like my review is a little negative, but this is still a good game that if not for a few flaws would've been great. Still, I can't help but compare this game to the original and I would rather be playing Origins.
Gameplay 7.5/10
Story 8/10
Graphics 8.5/10
Fun Factor 8/10
Replay Value 7/10 (at least worth a second playthrough)
Overall 7.5/10
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video-games_xbox
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Maybe not what you think it is. A lot of people are talking about DTR as though it was a Max Payne clone. Aside from the issue of "bullet-time", or the slow-motion diving-while-shooting, DTR and Max share virtually nothing in common. Ok, so both are stories about ex-cops out for revenge, but that's where the similarities end.
Dead to Rights has a lot more built-in diversity in gameplay than Max Payne does. The character can fight unarmed, have his sidekick dog attack enemies, disarm enemies and steal their guns, and hide against walls and kill people stealthily. That's not to mention the plethora of minigames, which take most of their gameplay from the venerable Track and Field series of button-mashing to some specified parameters.
DTR doesn't have half the atmosphere that Max Payne does, and that's largely due to the art direction and cinematography, rather than anything else. A lot of the cutscenes are done in-engine, and while DTR's not ugly, it's not pretty, either. Visually, it's about half-way between Halo and a Dreamcast game.
The most important thing to consider, however, when trying to decide whether to purchase DTR, is that it's staggeringly difficult. The biggest problem with DTR is that the difficulty comes not from a legitimate, skill-based challenge, but from a lousy camera, and poor auto-targetting.
At times, you will dive at a person with a shotgun, who is standing not far in front of you. You might be armed with a shotgun as well, so range would be an important consideration, since you'll do more damage to something closer to you. But rather than targetting the guy in front of you, where one hit would kill him, you end up targetting someone off-camera, to your left, who's behind a truck. Of course, after flying through the air like an idiot, you land at this guy's feet, where he kills you with one close-range shotgun blast.
The problem with DTR is that it's so full of potential, and so full of neat ideas, and they're mired in this half-baked mess, where you can't DO any of the things that you *want* to do.
It's a neat game, on paper - full of potential, full of excellent ideas. But as it stands, it's frustrating not because of a legitimate challenge, but because every couple of minutes, you'll be killed by something you couldn't possibly avoid.
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video-games_xbox
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Has glitches, impossible text, but decent gameplay. Having loved DA1 and pretty much hating DA2, I wasn't sure what to expect with this one. I've now played for about 40 hours, I'm happy to say it's been a better experience than DA2, and I'll probably keep playing to the end. That said, it's a long way from the immersive gameplay of the original.
1. The combat system continues to feel clunky, even after lots of time invested. Tactical combat targeting is frustrating, and I get tired of having to continually remind my tanks to actually defend my caster when attacked (if the attacker is out of range, the tanks just stand there, waiting for you to tell them to do something). The old system allowed for a range of pre-determined combat orders, and the AI did a great job of actually attacking who and when it was supposed to. This is gone.
2. Character generation is fairly rudimentary, with stripped-down voice and feature choices, and zero body choices (other than male/female). As others have noted, you also can't change your stats at all.
3. Quests are fairly engaging, and I haven't yet encountered any of the bugs others have run across.
4. Crafting does produce better gear than I've found or bought, but the system isn't especially interesting to use. I found the skill-based system of Skyrim a lot more fun to play with.
5. Your party members have very distinct personalities, and the voice acting is strong. Mixing up party members has a noticeable effect on both combat and incidental dialogue, so that's a nice plus.
6. That said, DA3 has completely stripped the approval/disapproval system that made DA1's party members so engaging. Sure, you can engage in romance, but... who cares? It doesn't seem to have any direct effect on... well.. anything. DA1 made approval/disapproval important for the character buffs, but those are gone in DA3. In fact, I haven't found any way to actually know how much any given party member approves/disapproves of my character, even though I'll get "Solas strongly approves" or whatever during dialogue. Without that, or any known effect of his approval, who cares if he likes what I do/say?
7. Incidental dialogue among party members has been reduced A LOT. I really enjoyed the bantering among party members in DA1, but this game has many fewer interactions. Those interactions are actually pretty funny, but lots of times comments are just repetitive (For example, Varric's, "I'm really at the ass-end of nowhere now" comment happens every time he's in my party. Over and over and over and...)
8. The camera action is decent, although I've had several situations where my view was blocked by a tree or wall or something that *seems* the camera should have recognized. But overall the camera follows smoothly and gives a good view of the action.
9. But oh, don't get me started on the font. The game's text is almost completely unreadable, even three feet away from a 42" TV. I've read others who are playing on much bigger screens, who have the same experience. This is the single worst aspect of this game, since pretty much everything you pick up, craft, or interact with requires to read something. I'm docking one star just for this, since it's a HUGE problem.
10. As I've been playing, I've started encountering significant problems with sound, especially dialogue. Speeches will come out stuttered, or entire battles will be silent. Given that on screen subtitles are completely unreadable, this is mainly an irritant unless the dialogue is about a key plot point.
11. The game has frozen completely twice now. I had to turn the Xbox off and back on to get things moving. In both cases, the game was loading cut scenes during dialogue, so it didn't impact anything significant (other than having to re-do the dialogue with fingers crossed it'd actually work).
Overall, this feels like a seriously stripped-down version of the original. You can't interact with party members outside town, fewer interactions are available, load screens are just blackness (and SLOW), combat orders for party members are very limited, etc. It's better than DA2, and better than the other RPGs currently out there, so by comparison it's probably 4 stars given the glitches and text. But compared to the first game, it's still a disappointment.
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video-games_xbox
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A single patch by the developer could make this a 5 star. I've never reviewed a product before, but with this one I had to let others know of the content in case it wasn't clear enough in the title description or from the reviews available on the Internet.
Just some background information: I've never seen the Afro Samurai animated series and I've never read the graphic novels.
The Graphics:
Absolutely top notch. Very few games can boast about their respective visuals as this game can. The animations are extremely fluid and never choppy (e.g. when having Afro change directions the character actually animates towards the direction he's directed to... he doesn't just instantly appear facing another direction without a nicely rendered animation. The same goes for standing after getting knocked down or any swing of the sword). All of the animations are beautiful and nearly flawless.
The Controls:
The X-axis on the camera control (the right thumb stick) is inverted and cannot be changed in the options menu. This means that if you would like to look left you would move the stick to the right and vice versa. It can be somewhat disorienting during a fight with a large number of enemies but, with a little time, I adjusted to it all the same.
The Gameplay:
I'm not going to add anything to what can already be seen with the videos available online as well as what can be read in the reviews on the game sites. One thing I didn't notice in any review or demo was the fact after a short time in the Daimyo's temple Afro has to fight and hack apart extremely detailed/animated women with very little, if any, clothes on. Personally, I've never played a game where hacking apart women was a part of the "entertainment" (irregardless of the fact that these women are prostitues). As a hardened Emergency Room nurse, and one subjected to the escalating violence towards women every working day, I have to admit, I was more than a little disturbed. The game is about honor and family and the defending of the same, but hacking apart women is hardly necessary for boosting game sales, let alone is it entertaining.
Language:
If it matters to you at all, the F-word probably rears its head every minute or so. The voices can be turned off in the options menu, but all of the voices will be removed and the story will probably become impossible to follow and you'll miss all the humorous quips from Afro's sidekick, Ninja Ninja. Subtitles are also available.
That pretty much concludes my review. Anything regarding gameplay, story, etcetera, that I did not cover is available elsewhere in a "professional" review. The above mentioned items of interest are only for those people who want to know the finer details missing in a mainstream game review.
As far as the game goes... in general, the game is gorgeous and is lot of fun to play. The developer, in my opinion, needs to allow an option to remove the hacking of women from the story and allow the inverted X-axis to be changed then I would give this a five star rating. Until then, three stars is all it will be getting.
Edit: After having played through the game a couple of times, I have to say that this is a very deeply emotional gaming experience. I think the developers went out on a limb to capture their vision to the fullest, while knowingly alienating a large portion of the gaming world. The game is a brilliant example of dedication and quality craftmanship and is the perfect specimen of gaming art and independence which bucks the currently established, static game formula and props up innovation in its place.
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video-games_xbox
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Project Gotham vs. Grand Turismo 3. Ok, for those of you out there that have been fortunate enough to either own, or play several different systems, or are hard-core enough to know what's hot or what's not, you probably know that the biggest baddest racing game on the market is GT3, for PS2 which is the newest installment of the Grand Turismo series. While I wasn't as addicted to GT3 as some get, I've got to admit that it deserves almost all of the hype it's received. When buying Project Gotham, there could be only one comparison, one game to beat: GT3.
While far superior in some aspects (I like to knock out complaints early), my biggest complaint about Gotham, especially compared to GT3, is the lack of cars, especially in the beginning. You only start with three cars, none of which are uber-cool or exciting. There should at least be more cars for multiplayer as it's a drag to pull the game out of the box all hyped to play with friends and have to choose from a mini-cooper and a MR5. With GT3, there was a huge selection of cars right out of the package for arcade or multiplayer games. I was so annoyed by this that I'm almost tempted to knock Gotham down a star, but the good things are so revolutionary that it survives well.
Some people will be annoyed with the lack of a "campaign" style game where you can buy and customize cars. I didn't find this too disheartening, as that's really a GT3 thing, and not something I expect with every racing game I buy. Gotham is much more of an arcade style game than a simulator. It's easy to overlook this one.
Ok, what's good about Project Gotham? Everything Else. If this is an example of things to come, we can expect some incredible racing games for the Xbox in the future. What PGR lacks in cars, it makes up for in some of the most detailed circuits imaginable. The incredible RAM and video RAM capacity of the Xbox means all the tracks consist of 3D models, with 3D statues hurling by at an impressive frame-rate. Buildings boast real signs and posters, and landmarks down to the barest details. GT3's cardboard cut out people and environments sometimes bordered on cheesy. Living in Japan I've been to Asakusa, Shibuya and Shinjuku and they've captured the landmarks and buildings perfectly. All that RAM also allows PGR to do something that always bothered me about GT3: show damage to the cars. That was always irritating. Winner: PGR.
The Dolby Digital sound is incredible. I only recently got the advanced A/V hook-ups, and this game roars on my surround sound system. While it has an impressive song collection already on the disk, PGR is the first Xbox game I've owned that allows you to use your own music copied onto the hard-drive. For another cool twist, you can choose to listen to the radio pre-sets, which include authentic radio stations from the various cities including real DJ's. Super cool. PGR has it all over GT3 in the sound category.
Fun. This game is extremely fun and addictive. The game play is strong for any racer, but the addition of a Kudos system: rewarding players for cool skids, two wheels, overtaking racers etc. adds a new dimension. While I thought it was cheesy at first, the arcade game, which allows you to run through a track solo strictly to collect Kudos, is a lot of fun. Trying to do outrageous turns and combos becomes addictive. I don't think I can honestly say that PGR is more fun than GT3, but I can say it's at least AS fun.
In the end, while I really wanted to be able to declare one the undisputed victor over the other, I really can't. PGR is far more sophisticated which is to be expected. GT3 has a depth and garage that PGR lacks. They're both a LOT of fun. If you can afford it, there's only one true solution: buy them both. If not, I'm a big fan of better, faster, stronger so I'd have to go with Project Gotham. With new features and advancements not seen in other racing games, Project Gotham has set a new standard that will certainly improve all games in the years to come.
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video-games_xbox
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Stunning. The title says it all, BioShock is simply stunning. The graphics are great, the story is unique, and the gameplay is some of the most addictive you'll ever run into.
Visually, BioShock is in a league of its own. Every texture seems perfect and every area of the game seems realistic enough, not to mention I ran into almost no screen tearing while playing it. The water effects are what really grabbed me on my first play-through... Walk through a broken pipe and the screen will collect minute droplets of water, just one of the many subtle features of BioShock that just make you say wow.
Based on the philoshpy of the author Ayn Rand, the story is definitely unique to BioShock, something that other recent FPSs don't have to offer... You play as an un-named character in the 1940's, whose plane crashes, leaving him stranded in the bizarre world of "Rapture". Though I don't want to spoil the entire story for you, I will say that you have to make moral decisions that decide the ending of the story.
Another selling point for BioShock is the gameplay... Simply un-matched. Though you do have to make your trek through the story with out-dated, 1940's guns, you gain the ability to electrocute, burn, freeze, or throw boxes and such at your enemies, giving the game something else unique about it. Because of the wide array of interesting weapons, and the terrific AI of the enemies, you'll never play this game the same way twice, just as advertised.
Everything sounds perfect so far, so why did I give it 4 stars? While being unique works for the rest of the game, the decision to not have multi-player in this game is a HUGE negative... It's a staple of most good FPSs and it seems they could have easily included one. Another thing-this is probably not an issue for most, but for me, the game had no replay ability... after 7 hours my 1st run through I'd had just about enough of BioShock.
So what does that all add up to? A pretty dang good game. One of the best of 07 for sure, and is good enough for a 9.2 out of 10 on my list.
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video-games_xbox
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Good set of heaphones, branded for XBox, but can be used for other systems. I have a dirty little secret: I don't own an XBox One. We are in the market for an XBox, but these headphones came up first, and I didn't want to lose the chance to try them. Regardless, I was looking for a decent set of "gaming" headphones that could also be used with other devices, so I took a chance on these figuring that headphones are, more or less, headphones. And, for the most part, I was correct. So, the following review will be a general review of the headphones, as well as a discussion of their use in other devices just in case, like me, you are looking for something that can be used for something other than just a XBox.
Firstly, the headphones consist of five parts:
#1 The headset itself which has the earphones and the microphone: This contains a rechargable battery, has a power switch, a microphone volume switch, and "pre-set" buttons which only work with the XBoxOne (to my knowledge)
#2 A small black box with a USB connector, a TOSLINK digital input, and a standard headphone port (Intended for plugging in your cell phone, but has other uses)
#3 A standard "short" microphone cord cord for "wired" with two identical male connectors: This is intended to be used to connect your phone to the wireless box.
#4 a longer three foot headset connecter with a standard headphone connector on one end and a smaller headset specific connecter on the other, and a small black box with a USB connector (which is intended to be plugged into the XBox)
#5 A charger cable for the headphones.
Firstly, these headphones can be used as standard wired headphones will all devices with a standard headphone jack including ipads, computers, ipods, and cellular telephones. However, that is hardly very exciting. You don't buy a $250 set of "wireless" headphones to use them "wired".
So, let's discuss the "wireless" aspect. These are not bluetooth headphones, in that they do not communicate directly with the device. They are also not "XBox" specific, in that they are not geared to communicate "wirelessly" drectly with the XBox. What makes these headphones "wireless" is the small black box that plugs into the device you want to hear communicate with. The box has a headset jack, a TOSLINK DTs port, and a USB cord. The purpose of the microphone jack is so that you can attach your cell phone to the black box so you can hear phone calls while you are gaming, but this can also be used to attach the black box to any device with a standard microphone jack.
The headphones CAN be used wirelessly with any device that allows a USB connection which means the wireless capacity can be used with any computer or laptop, and any gaming system that allows a USB connection. In other words, although these are branded as "XBox One" headphones, they will work on any computer or any standard gaming system! Of course, there are specific programs that allow certain functionality with the XBox system itself. However, the headphones still work, and perhaps just as well, with only a few missing features. Incedentally, the "digital" connection has TOSLINK connector that attaches to the XBoxOne. This takes the place of the HDMI connector on older XBox consoles, and other gaming systems. You probably also have a HDMI input on your computer and your home theater system. Luckily, for about $10, you can buy a TOSLINK to HDMI adapter which allows you to use these with older XBox systems, and other systems that take a HDMI cable.
You can also use the headphones wirelessly with ANY device, if you find a way to externally power the black box. For example, I used a USB charging station to connect to the box, then connected my phone to the headphone connector, and was able to use the headphones with my cell phone. I did the same thing with my iPad and my iPod and the wireless function worked seamlessly. Of course, the extra added of trouble, for example having to have both the black box and the power source, makes these useless. You might as well invest in a good bluetooth set for your ipod, ipad, and phone. Still, its nice to know that they CAN be used, even "wirelessly" if you so desire.
As far as heaphones: They are very bulky and do not fold up at all. They obviously are not intended to be taken from place to place, but rather stay with a gaming console or a computer. But, the headset is well padded and comfortable, and holds up well to extended use. The sound is excellent, and the phones are very insulated from outside noise, which means that you can't really hear anything at all when wearing them, even though they are not noise cancelling. However, they are very "loud" which means someone standing or sitting close to you can hear nearly everything that happens on the phones even when the headset volume is not turned up very loudly at all. The mike is set up to pick up your own voice which is an advantage in that you can hear yourself speak, something that is not always possible in other well insulated headsets. You can also control the microphone, and the headset volume separately, something which isn't always possible on other sets. The headset itself is powered by a rechargable battery that plugs into a standard charger.
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video-games_xbox
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The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. By way of background, I played 2 FF games on the SNES, 2 on the PS1, and 1 on the PS2.
The Good:
Excellent graphics: The game looks very impressive on the 360, using an HDMI cable connected to my 42" Toshiba LCD. The characters are quite good if you like the Japanese-animation style, and the scenery is gorgeous to look at. Square really puts the color palettes to good use.
Interesting battle system: It's sort of a hybrid between turn-based and real-time. You don't control every character in the party, you just assign your companion characters roles uding the "Paradigm" system. Can be a bit frustrating at times, like when you change someone's role to healer and they heal other party members instead of reviving the one who's been KO'd, but for the most part, it works. This is especially true when you get to the later stages of the game and must change paradigms multiple times throughout a battle if you expect to win.
Great open world level: Once you get out of the corridor stages and into the open world, the game changes dramatically for the better. You suddenly find yourself on a vast plain populated by a large variety of creatures, just as you did in traditional FF games. If the entire game were comprised of levels like this one, the game would probably be receiving much more acclaim.
The value: I bought it new for $30, played through it, and received $32 in credit when I swapped it in. Including sales tax, the entire experience cost me 19 cents.
The Bad:
Terrible corridor levels: In order to get to previously mentioned open-world level, you'll have to slog through about 20-30 hours of linear corridors. I hesitate to say it was worth it. The only "exploring" on these levels involves turning around every once in a while to make sure you didn't pass up a floating "treasure ball".
Weird upgrade/monetary system: There are some new weapons to be found throughout the game, but powering up is mostly done through upgrades. There really didn't seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason behind this, just add stuff to weapons and bam, they get stronger. The money system in the game is almost useless, since you'll find just about everything you need along the way, or win it from opponents. I think I bought a few potions and Phoenix Downs, and very late in the game, spent most of my gil on buying components to upgrade my weapons and accessories. Also, the character customization screens were needlessly complex, with massive 3D structures that you filled up and you gained experience. I appreciate that you can spend your experience points on the attributes and classes that you wanted to improve, but it seems like the designers just fell in love with needless complexity and hi-def graphics.
The Ugly:
I will probably take heat for this, but....the story. I guess I shouldn't expect too much, but I did. As pretty as the cutscenes were to look at, they were excruciating to have to sit through. This game often felt like a series of cutscenes broken up by moments of gameplay. There were times when I just quit watching a cutscene halfway through and skipped ahead so I could get on with it.
Characters drone on, and on, and on, AND ON. I get it. You're consumed by angst/guilt/remorse/sadness. Get over it and fight already. It's not particularly "deep" as it is overwrought and annoying. Square writers could use a lesson in "Show more, tell less." I realize previous versions also overtold the stories, but I am a quick reader, and could breeze through the written cutscenes easily enough. Now that it's all in video, the cutscenes tend to take way too long...as in go to the kitchen, make a sandwich, and finish it before the character's angst and/or sadness have even been halfway explored.
I give it three out of five. Hopefully future versions of FF will include more of the open-world levels, move away from linearity and offer more side quests, and bring back some of the character and weapon management of previous games. Oh, and having towns would be nice. THe idea of shopping at save points is just kinda strange.
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video-games_xbox
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One of the best Co-op games around. When I bought Crackdown, it was on sale for 2 dollars when Hollywood Video went kaputz. I bought two, one for me, and one for my brother-in-law, who I have always been close friends with. We've always loved co-op gaming together, and if there's one universal truth about Crackdown, it's that its awesomeness is made even more so by co-op, but what is Crackdown? Essentially, it is Grand Theft Auto where you are the cops instead of the robber. Set in Pacific City, you play as an agent, a story-mechanic hybrid of super-hero meets epic, cheesy sci-fi clone. There is crime in Pacific City, you are unleashed upon it. That's pretty much it.
The massive, open-world city is divided between three boroughs, and each has its own distinctive environment. There's the Mexican gang, the Russian gang, and the evil Asian run corporation crime syndicate. Gameplay comprises of collecting orbs that enhances your character's powers, beating up criminals, cruising around the city in cool cars, and pretty much anything else you would want to do in a Grand Theft Auto game. One of the original creators of GTA worked heavily on this game, so it makes sense. The more you use certain attributes, the more points that automatically go to leveling your character up. Shoot enemies, they drop orbs that enhance your marksmen category. Beat up enemies, your strength goes up. Run and jump around getting collectable orbs, your speed and jumping increases. It's simple, but very effective and cool to watch your agent level up to a true super-hero.
The graphics are really neat. They have a decidedly more realistic, cell-shaded quality to them that screams comic book. In fact, a lot of the design in this game feels like a super-hero comic book. There's lots of humor in the writing, and the main announcer is hilarious and dynamic all at once. It's a great direction that really relies on humor more than seriousness, and its all the better for it.
All of this is fantastic, but the multiplayer layout makes it even better. You and one other person can play together in the same world. You both get to keep the progress you make while playing together, avoiding the frustration of losing much progress you make while playing in other people's game world like other games have (*cough* Fable II *cough*). It's an absolute blast tackling the enemies and bosses with a friend.
Crackdown has been out for a long time. In fact, <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/a-less-than-stellar-sequel/dp/B002BRZ8BQ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">a less than stellar sequel</a> has come and gone. I just figured I would review it now, as it really is a great game that deserves praise. It's not perfect: the melee system is flawed, the platforming isn't as refined as most open-world games and is sometimes almost broken even, the camera can be glitchy, etc. These problems are overshadowed by the sheer amounts of FUN this game has to offer, especially if you play it with a friend. Buy it, enjoy it with a pal, and let the good times roll.
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video-games_xbox
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Solid Remake. With the new generation of consoles, re-releases are something that have become all too common. For the most part, all of these old games being released again have been rather annoying and don't really bring anything new to the table. Some of the games that are released again were not even out for a whole two years before being released again on the new consoles. There are some rare exceptions for games being released again however. Games like The Master Chief Collection where all the games are put onto one disk, which is nice because you can't even play the first 2 online anymore, they also made it even better by remastering parts of the game.
When Gears of War was originally released back in 2006, it was one of those games where you wanted to show everyone that came over how great the game looked and the top notch gameplay that accompanied it. Something else that this game really brought to light along with Halo was co-op gameplay. Other games of course had cooperative gameplay, but none really made you feel like part of team like Gears of War did back in the day.
When The Gears of War Ultimate edition was announced everyone figured that it would be more along the lines of the Master Chief collection with all three of the Gears of War games being released in one complete package, with the first Gears of War being completely remastered, and the rest being included. Unfortunately this was not the case, the game was released with only the first Gears of War being remastered, and the promise of access to the other three GOW later in the year when Microsoft launches backwards compatibility for the Xbox one.
The campaign is great, it might be something that you would see and think that it looks a little over the top because of the gigantic soldiers and dialog. That being said though, the game knows what it is, and does not try to differ from that in anyway. The story is a good one, and does not try to do too many things at once. It simply tells a story, and does not try to dig too deep into the characters and how they all got to where they are. It is short and to the point, which quite frankly is a nice and refreshing for me because we seem to be in a time where people don't think a game can be good unless it has 100+ hours worth of story.
The multiplayer is just as great as it was back in 2006, and now that it comes with all the maps, it makes it even more enjoyable and easier to get lost in for hours at a time. That being said however, I don't like the fact that in order to get some of the coolest skins for your weapons and new characters to play as in multiplayer, you have to purchase different packs from the marketplace. It would be nice if I was able to just unlock these different items by playing the multiplayer, completing challenges, and leveling up, instead of having to purchase them.
The GOW Ultimate edition was everything that I loved about the first game. It is enhanced by the new visuals, thanks to the power of the Xbox One. playing through the story made me reminiscent of the time in my life when I played the game back when it was a originally released. It makes it even more enjoyable if you are ale to play it with the same people that you did back in the day.
That being said, it does't really bring anything new to the table. If you are expecting to buy the game and find something new that wasn't there when it was originally released, you might want to pass this up. On the other hand, if for whatever reason you decided to pass it up, or didn't have the chance to play the original you have to take advantage of this amazing deal and play the game that defined the cover-based, 3rd person shooter genre.
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video-games_xbox
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Would You Kindly Buy This Game. Bioshock tells the story of a man who finds the underwater city of Rapture after his plane crashes in the middle of the ocean. Rapture was built to be a utopia, separated from the outside world. The only problem with Rapture is that its come to civil war and is infested by the zombie-like Splicers, who've all had a few too many DNA altercations... Altercations you have to use to survive and make it back to the surface.
This game is definitely one of my all time favorites. The controls are easy to learn and use, which is a welcomed plus. The graphics, for the time it was made, are absolutely beautiful. I mean, it's like you can see all of the love and care the creators put into the game, carefully molding and sculpting the world of Rapture. And the voice acting! It makes the characters come to life even more. I doubt I've heard better voice acting in a video game.
The plot is my favorite part, though. I can't really say much without giving it all away, however, I can tell you not everything is as it seems. Beware the plot twists. They will have you wide-eyed and with a dropped jaw. And you can't say they didn't warn you - upon replaying the game you will see all sorts of foreshadowing.
There is also a major replay value - multiple endings. There are only two in this one, though, a Good End and an Evil End. That's my only bone to pick with this game. I wish there were more. But I won't tell you how to get them :) The second game has six, but this version of the game doesn't come with both.
I can't explain in words how awesome this game is. All of the characters are unique and it isn't likely that you'll forget them any time soon. Of course, the world of Rapture is full to the brim with crazies, so there is a plethora of colorful characters. You can listen to audio diaries by the people of the city when you find them and it expands the game's history.
Also, since this is a survival horror game, expect jump scares. The game is plenty creepy enough, but the well done jump scares are enough to make you pause the game and sit for a while to gather your wits.
Buy the game, you know, if you want to... I would definitely recommend this!
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video-games_xbox
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Best used with XBox gaming system, decent sound and nice bass boost but not so comfortable to wear. This headset is custom made for XBox and the amplifier features can be best used with an XBox. However, it works as a regular headset with all other devices like Tablets, PS3, Wii etc. It can also be used with a gaming PC with some amplified features. The sound quality is decent for gaming, it amplifies the thumps and thuds when linked to XBox. Although it can be used without the amplification features as a regular headset with mic, but it sounds ordinary without the amplifier and I would not use it for prolonged periods of time due to its weight.
The earpads are not too comfortable for me or my daughter and start burning my ears unlike 2 other gaming headsets I've tried, but those were memory foam with soft leather casing. The blue fabric on these is fairly soft and durable and good for kids. The headband also feels pretty tight to me due to it's shape but is probably ok for a kid. It may have been designed more with boys in mind who don't necessarily mind the weight. Turtle Beach also has the XO4 model for a similar price that is geared toward adults and has a softer leather headband, which may be more comfortable.
The Marvel decals for the earpieces are a nice touch to personalize them based on your favorite character.
The headphone cord comes attached and does not come off like in some more expensive headsets, so if it breaks the whole set will need to be replaced. The amplifier cable can be bought separately, and attaches on to the main headphone cord. It provides Bass Boost control, Mic control and Gaming Control. The headset also comes with an RCA splitter cable and a XBox Chat Cable.
The Mic is also not detachable unlike the XO4 model from Turtle Beach, maybe because kids are more likely to keep trying to detach and attach the mic and may break it or lose it. However, it was nice to be able to remove it if not needed. It is very flexible though and can be swiveled or bent in any direction.
Overall in terms of price, value and comfort I will give it 3 out of 5 stars. Buy it if you have kids who love Marvel characters and also have an XBox as all the amplified sound and other controls can only be used with that console.
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video-games_xbox
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BF Veteran disappointed. Pro's, con's, and BUGS. Normally I love the battlefield games. Buy and play then on every release, purchase the premium passes, ect. This game is a frustrating mess, and the bugs make it unplayable (for multiplayer). Don't do like I did and make this your only launch title or you will be upset. Game would be made much better if people ptfo and they limit the amount of each class (Snipers, and in that case make a seperate class for recon) on the battlefield or did something so players HAVE to contribute to the team. Think the game would improve over all if players couldn't see the k/d and only saw points.
Pro's:
Maps feel fleshed out, not as much sniper fest; more action.
Graphics are much better (duh)
Con's:
Game either cannot connect to servers or will be "dashboard/reset" in the middle of a mp match (only happens on mp). This happens repeatedly, makes it very frustrating. GAME BREAKING BUG.
Cannot join others through battlelog
No Squad system like in previous bf games
Cannot customize loadouts from main menu (Can only be done in game or through battlelog on pc or mobile)
When in a Xbox party with other it will automatically send invites when a player in the party joins a game and creates a pop-up on your screen. Super annoying and is accepted with a push of the "A" button and rejected with "B".
Reviving teammates is glitchy at best, can only be done limited amounts of times, people bleed out faster (have to get there quicker to revive, and only get revived with 20% health. This has in turn effectively reduced the amount of assault troops and their effectiveness. Now most players are playing either recon or engineer.
Lots of spawn and die moments.
Carbines are OP. LMGs are unusable. Snipers (not battle rifles) fire way to fast with pull bolt.
Maps are fun, but don't really feel that different from another (minus each little different levolution event). Locker only map for infantry.
Having said all of that, I still find it to be a somewhat fun game when it is playable. Not as good as bf3 or bc2 in my opinion though. Still seems like too many players coming over from COD (i hear ghosts is pretty bad, but I havent/wont play COD). Not enough people ptfo.
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video-games_xbox
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DO NOT BUY!!! Terrible Quality and Customer Service. Bought these headphones on Feb 5th. By April 10th, they were broken. The front channel on the headphone amp kept making strange noises then blew out and would no longer make any sound out of the right can. Turtle Beach has no telephone support line. Only email. Got jerked around by tech support to determine that the set was indeed bad then got transferred to their RMA department to get an RMA number. All via email. Took Days. Total unnecessary time consuming hassle. THEN I had to ship them back at my expense to get them repaired. And I had to hand write a note and place it inside the box with the RMA number written all over it. Unorganized company. Simply rediculous.
But wait, it gets better.
After they received the headphones, I didn't hear from them for weeks. Then in "MAY" I shot them an email asking what the status was. They shipped it same day. Coincidence? Maybe. But when I received the headphones and plugged them back in, I had the exact same problem as the last. So really, did they even fix it? Or just pretend to fix it and send the exact same broken pair back to me? Either way, I'm not happy and I wish I could just return these damn things to Amazon because they're a total waste of money. I will never purchase Turtle Beach products ever again in my lifetime and may I suggest you all do the same.
Update: 6-10-2011
Tried to contact Turtle Beach to get another RMA number and to ask them to pay for shipping to return the headphones for a 2nd repair. No response. Ended up emailing every Turtle Beach email address I could find on the web and finally their RMA team sends me another RMA number insisting I pay to send them back again. I responded and pleaded my case about them sending me a broken set on the last RMA. They actually agreed and provided a pre-paid Fed-ex ground label! I was totally shocked to say the least. I was going to throw them away if I had to pay to ship them back again.
A month went by and still no repaired headphones in the mail. I sent them another email with the RMA clearly listed in it and they asked that I provide the tracking number for the pre-paid label they provided me in the first place. The tracking information clearly showed that they received and signed for the package. I shot this information to them in an email then, no response. Few days go by. I send them another email. No response. These guys are the WORST I've ever had to deal with. And that's no exaggeration. To be continued...
Update: 6-27-2011
OK so I still haven't been able to use my headset since I originally sent it our for repair back on April 10th. It is now the 27th of June. I have sent the headphones back for repair twice and both times was sent back a broken unit. Same issue. In-line headphone amplifier. I have once again sent them an email stating that they sent me another broken set. It's been two days since I sent them that email and still no response. But I'm used to this already. They won't respond unless I email everyone in the company. Aside from the amplifier issue, this last headphone pair they sent me is all scratched up and has a slight tear in the leather around the cups. Nothing anywhere near the mint condition of tthe original I sent them. Turtle Beach is the worst company on the planet and anyone who orders their products is in for a real treat if they have any issues. I hope they go completely broke and fold. I'm ready to contact the BBB and file a formal complaint against them but I truly wonder if it will do any good. I'm thinking I'm going to just cut my losses at this time and get the Logitech G930. I really liked this set at first. Such a shame.
Update 7-2-11
I've given up. After repeated unanswered emails to support asking for another RMA, I have decided to whip this sucker in the trash and get the Logitech G930. WoW! what a difference! The G930 is an amazing headset! I'll never own a Turtle Beach device again as long as I live. I swear it. I will never forget this Turtle Beach. You guys are a horrible company. I'm acutally having a hard time trying to find words for how bad they made this entire experience for me. I'd use fowl language but then my review would get removed. This company could care less about you. They got my money and I feel totally ripped off. It's the last dime they'll ever smell from me.
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video-games_xbox
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an amazing/must own game. Dying Light (a 9 outta 10) is an AMAZING game, and i consider it a MUST BUY for most Xbox One owners. I had it pre-ordered but cancelled my pre-order because after doing some internet research i was afraid it was nothing but fetch quests and decided to wait until it was out for a bit. I LOVE zombie games, but i don't like the arcade-y ones (house of the dead, anyone?), i enjoy the more realistic ones focused more on survival (7 Days To Die, H1Z1, State of Decay, and the like...). If you enjoyed Dead Island then you WILL enjoy this game. I was one of those who bought Dead Island and HATED it (crowbars broke as easily as broomsticks, and they forced you to go around collecting money to PAY YOURSELF when you used a workbench) because so many minor things broke that game. THIS game, however, should be considered a masterpiece. It's not perfect, but it's pretty d@mn close.
The graphics are excellent, and though it's not as focused on survival as i'd like (that changed with the addition of Hard Mode) i simply cannot stop playing it. Even after you beat the main quest there is still a massive world with constant random things happening and there are an endless amount of things to occupy you. BE WARNED: the final "fight" with the boss is a QTE (quick time event) which means it's pretty much you hitting certain buttons at certain times. This is NOT a spoiler, but i'm the kind of person who likes to know these things going in. the final QTE removes some of the satisfaction from the "ending" but the missions beforehand more than make up for it.
I WISH they had focused more on making it as realistic as possible, and they do to a certain extent-but if you're like me and are wary about buying this because you want to experience more of a realistic zombie threat than simply rushing through it Halo-style with guns a'blazing, then TRY HARD MODE. Every enemy is stronger and tougher, night lasts twice as long, your stamina is lower, weapons break more quickly, when you use a medkit it doesn't heal you instantly but slower over time, your inventory screen no longer pauses the game, and the hard bosses that creep around at night are NOT on your radar anymore. I LOVE THE HARD MODE!!!!!
I would have given this game a perfect score (my "5 star review is really 4.5 stars) BUT i chopped off a few points because i wanted to be thrown into a world where survival was the main point and you can build your own base anywhere and horde supplies and do whatever you want. HOPEULLY they'll add a sandbox mode of that sort to the game, but for now you're left with what you can do as to that with your imagination after beating the main quest or juts ignoring it and playing it how you want.
I DON'T like some of the sillier weapons you can make (flaming and electrical swords and whatnot) as it takes away from the realism for me, and i'd rather be left with bats and sticks and hammers and basic stuff, but that was expected before i bought it. The thing i don't get is why they can't just make a game like this and put you into a big infested city and fill it with random quests but leave the "main story" up to you ala Minecraft. I mean, i get the point of having a main quest, but i'm one of those guys who bought Dead Rising for the sandbox mode and never once played any of the story missions because i just didn't care-i wanted to run around a mall keeling zombies while doing my own thing, so i know i'm in the minority.
This game is one of the funnest games i have ever played, it's creepy (ESPECIALLY on hard mode) and it WILL get your heart pumping. The parkour is excellent (i was worried about it being glitchy and buggy but i've had no problems with it at all so far, and i've played through the main quest once and am now playing again on hard mode and having even more fun) and if you ignore the story (i did, and i usually do anyways because if i wanted a story i'd read a book or watch a movie, i buy games to PLAY them. NO ONE buys the game to care WHY you're killing the zombies, you buy it to KILL the zombies. Period.) you'll have hours and hours of fun. Play the main story, of course, so you can unlock skill perks that make playing the game even more fun, but if you're like me you can simply skip through all of the cut scenes and it doesn't ruin any missions you play.
I'll put it this way: if this game had ZERO missions and all you did was run around helping and/or fighting other survivors while fighting off zombies and you just collected stuff to survive so you can live another day just to keep fighting, i'd STILL buy it and play it and i'd do so happily. I'm sure there are those who won't like this game because of the gore, but they already know they won't enjoy this game before buying it, and this review is not for them. it's for everyone else. So if you're on the fence about this game then take my advice and BUY THIS GAME! It's one of the most enjoyable games i've ever played. Like i said, it's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close.
Just a caution though: hard mode is VERY hard. Its not one of those hard modes meant for the more than casual fps games, it's literally VERY VERY hard. before you try it i'd suggest spending a few hours playing Dying Light on normal first, just to get your bearings.
If you want it short and sweet, playing Dying Light feels just like playing Far Cry 3, but instead of liberating outposts you go around securing safe houses, and there's zombies everywhere.
The funny thing is, what p*sses me off the most about this game is that i had it pre-ordered then cancelled it because i was afraid it would be just a Dead Island clone (which, thank god, it's not) thus depriving myself of such an excellent game for over a moth until i finally broke own and bought it. Don't be like me. BUY THIS GAME. You will NOT be disappointed =-)
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video-games_xbox
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Budget Title. You get what you pay for. Its true for almost everything in this world. You buy a $10 new game, chances are there is a reason its $10 and not $50. So, when you look at a "budget title" like many from the Adventure Company, you need to understand that things aren't going to be at the same grand scale of say Halo 2 or Final Fantasy.
Before I get onto my review, a reader mentioned the game ends in a cliff hanger. Its true. There is a third game that was planned to finish off this series (the game started with Post Mortem) but now that the studio responsible for this game was bought by Ubisoft, who knows if it will come to be. Here's hoping it will!
Games like Still Life don't have many fans on the consoles. Adventure games (Still Life, Post Mortem, The Longest Journey, Sierra et al) thrive on the PC market but you rarely see these games cross over onto the Console. Myst and Monkey Island are two of the better known ones, but you'd be hard pressed to find many more above and beyond them. I think this is probably why there are some bad reviews here; most console players don't know exactly what they are getting themselves into.
I happen to like most adventure games that are logical. I couldn't get into Monkey island because I never did figure out why I was connecting the old sock, the string cheese and the hook to make a contraption to escape my situation. True, Still Life has its own share of silly riddles and puzzles (why Vodka would be the code for the morgue is beyond me) but its not to the degree others have been.
Games that are like Still Life get my mind going. A mix of Seven, CSI and adventure game, Still Life is a sequel of sorts to Post Mortem. You play as Vic MacPherson, a field agent, who is investigating a series of murdered young women. The crime eventually starts to draw parallels with an earlier string of murders commited 75 years ago. Is it a copy cat? Or is something more malicious going on?
The best thing about adventure games, for me, is that they usually are very story focused. The stories are usually very good and well thought out. Still Life is no different. It's a dark story that earns the M rating in the first few scenes. Bad languange, partial nudity, violence and gore abound, but hover around the range of, say, Seven.
Going back to my budget comment, the FMVs aren't of the best quality. In fact, some of them look worse than those on the first Playstation. But the graphics in game are stunning, really. Beautiful pre-rended backgrounds lend an air of creepiness and fit the theme. The first building, dilapidated and severely gross is a good indication of the rest of the game. The character models are lacking, though. Particularly when Vic runs. She walks okay, even though she walks like a super model, but running is both slow and clunky. There are also a ton of quick loads. The camera is presented in a cinematic way (ala Resident Evil) and sometimes moving between camera frame to camera frame there is a quick 1 second or so load. Annoying because it breaks the pacing but not detrimental.
The dialogue is hit or miss. Sometimes Vic's voice is spot on and other times its silly and sounds like a high schooler with no acting experience reading the lines. Other voices range from great to bad. I like that the game gives you an option of sticking just to the facts when talking or asking about every day things. By pressing the R or L trigger, you can discuss facts pertinent to the investigation or about the weather. I do kind of wish there were dialogue trees. It takes out the investigative nature of the game if you simply choose to pull L to continue the story.
Surprisingly, for a budget game, the game is presented in 720p which is awesome considering not many Xbox games are presented in it. It also has 5.1 surround sound in game and is Live Aware. Not bad for a 20 buck game!
All of these complaints aside, you get what you pay for. In this case, you get more. For every bad quibble I have with the game, there's something good. And, it really boils down to the game cost me $19.99 new. You can't hold it to the same standard of a game that costs almost 3 times as much. If you like murder mysteries and don't mind the format of an adventure game, you can't go wrong with Still Life. If you like adventure games and only own an Xbox, you will enjoy Still Life.
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video-games_xbox
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Do Not Buy This Game. The title of this post should pretty much say it all: This is a BAD GAME. Many reviewers are noticing the rampant glitches in this year's version--many more than were in MLB 2K8, which wasn't all that smoothly done in the first place--and what they are reporting is accurate if, perhaps, understated. In terms of its programming, this game is a disaster. And the baseball action (fielding mechanics, pitching, etc) make it seem like there probably isn't a single actual baseball fan employed in the 2K studios. Had a chance to check out The Show 09 on my buddies PS3, far--far--better.
So my solution is simple--don't buy this game. If you did buy it, return it to the store immediately. It'll be disappointing not having a new baseball game this year, but maybe if everyone leaves this dog on the shelf either MLB properties will reconsider and send the license back to EA, or 2K will fire their entire design team and start over. At this point, either solution would likely result in a major improvement.
EDIT
I've talked this over with a number of friends, and we all agree--the enforced yearly output for sports video game franchises is killing the quality of the games. There is, literally, no time for major innovation, good quality control, etc. We've all agreed the following solution would work and hope you agree: Put out a new title once every two or even three years--offering downloadable ($) roster and rating updates for each new season between generations of the game. Giving these studios more time to focus on quality and innovation would probably lead to increased game sales. I did not purchase MLB 2K9 this year, choosing to rent it first instead since I was disappointed with the last two or three iterations of the franchise . And, needless to say, won't be buying it. I will be doing the same thing with Madden as well. Use the power of your pocketbook, rent these games for a few days before u purchase them. It will save u both money and time, and maybe the sports game companies will wake up and smell the new century.
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video-games_xbox
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Clicking in headset. Update 02/02/2016
After some research I discovered the reason why the clicking was occurring was because of interference coming from my ASUS RT-AC68U wireless router while connected to my bedroom AppleTV which is the only device I run wirelessly. The reason why the clicking started is because my surge protector was loosely plugged into the outlet. Since the plug had slightly fallen out of the outlet it was causing grounding issues which was making interference between the router and Astro A50 headset. I'm not exactly sure how that works but any time I would push the plug all of the way in the outlet the interference would stop and when I slightly unplugged it the interference would start again. Other than that I haven't had any issues with the headset. It's been working exactly how it should. I have gotten used to the button locations on the headset and haven't had an issues with that as well. I highly recommend this headset for anyone looking for a wireless headset. The only issue I do have is the fact that you need a wired cable to chat with the Xbox one controller and the headset, but I don't chat too often so it doesn't bother me that much. Having to connect the cable does prevent me from wanting to chat though.
I ordered my Astro A50 headset 12/18/2015 and received it 12/28/2015 and have used it everyday since I opened it. I also own the Astro A40 headset which I have been very impressed with. The reason why I decided to buy the A50s is because I have 2 children at home with me and every time I want to use the headset I have to get out all of the cords and mix amp. I always store everything back in my entertainment center when I'm done so the kids don't trip over anything which is kind of annoying, but I guess that's the compromise for having the quality of a hard lined headset. My wife also likes using the A40 and I figured having another set would make it easier for us to play without sharing. Also the A50s come with everything needed to connect to the Xbox one which I was lacking with my A40s. I decided to do some side by side comparison with the A40s and A50s. Personally the A50s have been nothing but impressive. It's very hard to tell much of a difference between quality and responsiveness and the A50s have been everything I have expected. The location of all of the buttons, switches, and volume nob could probably use better locations, but it's something I can get used to, so no big deal. I have noticed I accidentally bump the voice/game rocker switch on the right ear quite a bit from the cushion on my couch or if I have the headset around my neck with my shoulder or chin, but it's just something I'm going to have to pay more attention to. Every time I lift the headset off of my head I have to think of where I grab it so I don't turn the power off by accident, but thats just another thing I'll need to get used to. No bid deal. On 01/02/2016 the headset started making a clicking noise. It has been making a clicking noise almost like the sound is turning on and off rapidly. It has been doing it very inconsistently and even does it when the fiber optic cable is disconnected. While the clicking was happening I had everything disconnected except the power cable to see if anything specific was causing the issue. I even moved around the mix amp to see if there was any interference coming from my speakers/tv/xbox and nothing changed. When I first got the headset I knew that there was a firmware that needed to be updated so I got on to the Astro website and downloaded the firmware for the headset and the mix amp before using the headset. After the clicking started I decided to see if it needed any additional firmware or if the firmware got installed incorrectly, so I downloaded the firmware again and it didn't change anything. I tried syncing the headset again and that didn't change anything. I plan on rewriting this review and adjusting the rating accordingly once Astro and Amazon get back to me on how to resolve this issue.
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video-games_xbox
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Not Quite as Unleashed, but pretty close. The long anticipated game from LucasArts has finally arrived, and there is a lot to be said about this game, both good and mediocre.
Let's start with the story...it's very short. I'm a completionist, so I look for all the hidden objects etc in the levels, and it only took me around 15 hours to do EVERYTHING in the game. The story you follow as Darth Vader's secret apprentice is actually pretty cool, but we don't really get to dive into it nearly as much as any real Star Wars fan would hope. I finished the game with a "Oh, ok that makes sense", but I wished there was a lot more depth. If you have played games like KOTOR and KOTOR II, this game doesn't even COMPARE in terms of story.
Gameplay is pretty solid, and keeps you using the force in the way the game intended. From hurling random barrels pulling pieces of metal off the wall, throwing your lightsaber into the chest of a stormtrooper, and all the other plethera of attacks, lightsaber, and force combos alike; Force Unleashed delivers with the combat system. It's smooth, innovative, and players will find that they will need to purchase the more expensive combos to do real damage in the later levels of the game, as the difficulty spikes in significant directions once you reach about the 5th level. The leveling system that the game uses is very nice, although I was a little annoyed with the wait times you have to endure for each and every menu transition (going from force power customization...wait...lightsaber customization...wait...resume game, etc). The other problem I have with this game is that it is VERY repetitive. In order to progress in the game, you usually have to clear all the enemies out of an area to continue, and in some cases, this will mean you have to kill a ton of guys that are immune to 95% of your abilities, meanwhile you're being killed from range, or being stomped on by enemies impurvious to lightning and your push abilities. There were a number of times that I was frustrated having to redo a portion of the game when the last guy of 50 from a save point killed me. LucasArts definitely looks at your Jedi as a true one-man army, capable of withstanding any and all odds, no matter how ridiculous. The game does however let you decide how to play, with the customization of force powers, combos, and talents (such as life, force energy, defense, etc) If you're a completionist like me though, you will probably level up enough times to completely beef up your apprentice before reaching the final level.
One other annoyance I have, is if you decide to replay a level, you must rewatch the cutscenes at the beginning, which are sometimes up to 4-5 mins in length.
Overall though, LucasArts was definitely on the right track with the DMM, Havok and Euphoria technologies for next-gen consoles. Gamers will find this very fun and you will feel more like a Jedi than any other game has allowed, but some of the limitations of the gameplay, and the incomplete story will leave the hardcore gamers and fans thirsty for more. The sound quality is tremendous, and the graphics are just beautiful, especially on an HDTV.
Fun Factor: 5.0
Sound: 5.0
Gameplay: 4.0
Replay Value: 4.0
Story: 3.0
Overall: 4.0
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video-games_xbox
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Finally a poker game worth playing. ***EDIT***
LET ME REPLY TO THOSE WHO SAY THIS GAME IS TERRIBLE, THE FACT IS POKER IS NOT AN EASY GAME, FOR YEARS VIDEO GAMES HAVE MADE IT TO SEEM LIKE IT WAS, THIS GAME IS TOUGH, AND IS TRUE TO HOW POKER TOURNAMENTS ARE PLAYED. IF YOU SAY THAT EVERYONE HAS STRAIGHTS, FLUSHES ON EVERY HAND YOU ARE PROBABLY PLAYING LIMIT HOLD'EM WHICH IN FACT HAS A VERY HIGH PERCENTAGE OF PLAYERS GETTING STRAIGHTS FLUSHES ON EVERY HAND BECAUSE PLAYERS ARE LIMITED TO HOW MUCH THEY CAN BET, AND MORE PLAYERS PLAY EVERY HAND THAN ON A TYPICAL NO LIMIT EVENT, SO IF YOU ARE HOLDING 5, 9 OFF SUIT AND THE FLOP COMES OUT 7,A,10 MOST PEOPLE WOULD FOLD, BUT ON LIMIT HOLD'EM MOST PLAYERS WILL PAY TO SEE THE TURN AND THE RIVER AND A LOT OF TIMES MAKE THAT STRAIGHT OR FLUSH. IN NO LIMIT YOU CAN BET HIGHER AMOUNTS AND MAKE PLAYERS FOLD THEIR HANDS BEFORE THE TURN AND THE RIVER, GIVING YOU A BETTER CHANCE TO WIN, POCKET ACES MAY BE A GREAT HAND IN NO LIMIT, BUT MAY NOT BE THAT GOOD IN LIMIT HOLD'EM. THIS GAME REALLY PUTS YOUR SKILLS TO THE TEST AND BY DOING SO MAKES YOU A BETTER PLAYER
I had to live with the fact that this game kept getting delayed, I bought world championship poker and decided to wait, but now the wait is over and.... the game is incredible, I was falling asleep with wcp but this game has so much more to offer, granted graphics are nothing to go crazy about, but the atmosphere, and the listening to those familiar voices from the tv show really add to the experience, plus the fact that you can play agains the tv stars is awesome, how many of you wish you could go heads up against Men the master and shut him up, or take your chances at beating Jesus on a bluff. well here is your chance. the AI is a lot better than on wcp, on that game the AI would have full houses or flushes and not bet, this AI really knows how to milk you for your cash. so be ready and have fun, specially with the online feature and see ya in x-box live, who knows we might be on the same table together one day.
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video-games_xbox
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Critics too harsh on this one. It is simply sad how some folks have given this game one star simply because they either don't like Capcom or other personal reasons. I personally despise Capcom for the cheap tactics they have used in the past. Therefore, I bought this game only after it got a bit cheaper. Now that I have played it, I have to say it is nowhere near as bad as people describe. On the contrary, it is a great game.
**********************To start with pros.**********************
-Decent Graphics and Great Character Design (for most part): Not much to say here. You must have seen trailers etc., as far as I can say the game looks great and most character other than Ada are very nicely design.
-Four Different Campaigns and Seven Different Characters: To me this was pretty impressive. There are 3 different campaigns that you play with a pair of characters (Leon and Halena; Chris and Piers; Jake and Sherry) and Ada gets her own campaign. In each campaign, both characters have different personalities and moves. Their weapons are also slightly different and at times they travel using different paths. I personally loved this. This adds so much replayability to the game.
-Very Personal Stories: There are 4 different stories of 4 campaigns that intersect at many points. Stories in each campaign are very personal to characters of those campaigns and honestly made me sad for those characters especially for Chris. Finishing the 4 campaigns will give basic idea, but if you want to learn about the events in more details you can collect the blue medallions to unlock files that have detailed description of events.
-Believable Voice Acting: I like the voice acting in this game. Definitely makes the story more dramatic and personal.
-Great Variety in Campaigns: In this game there will be parts where bullets will be scarce and you will be surviving hordes of Zombie attacks and other parts where you will have plenty of explosives and you will be fighting hoards of zombies, huge monster and/or bosses. In addition, you also have some vehicle gameplay in some levels which for most part is very entertaining.
-Awesome Melee Combos and Quick Shots: I strongly suggest that player learn this early in the game as the game does not necessarily teaches you. This are fun to you and will make your experience much more enjoyable.
-Nicely Designed Bosses: This is a must for me, especially in Resident Evil games. I loved the creation of main bosses in this game. Each campaign has multiple bosses, but the final bosses for each campaigns are the best. Personally loved the main boss for Leon/Halena . Very creative design.
-Fun Online Modes: OK online gameplay is no Halo or COD, but still is quite fun. Like RE5, you can play story mode with a friend or do the same with Mercenary mode (You and a friend surviving hoards). Agent Hunk mode is interesting as you can invade other player's game (with their consent) as a creature.
-Great Length and Replayability: I like to explore each level rather than just run through the story so it took me well >25 hrs to finish the game. At least on the normal mode, you can't rush through the campaign. Enemies and Quicktime events will punish you if you do so. And as I describe above due to number and variability of characters, this game has great replayability. Also campaign is interesting enough to make you play again.
RPG element: Not necessary but is good to have. If you shoot enough enemies and search enough you acquire skill point with which you can get different perks making game easier and fun as you play along.
Cut Scene Gallery: If you don't want to play the whole game again and just want to watch cutscenes. You have that option. LOVE IT and I hope more games have such cutscene replay options.
**********************Now the Cons.**********************
Too Dark at Points: I get it that this game is supposed to be creepy/scary but it is just way too dark at few points (especially Leon's campaign). At least after the enemy surprises me I should be able to see it. I tried adjusting brightness et., but no use.
Too many Quicktime Events: I loved the quick time events in Resident Evil 4, but think this game has way too many of them. And some quick time events are punishment to your hands and controller. They should ease up on these in future games. Seriously. Fortunately, there are a few ways to turn some off them off (Amateur level and a skill I believe).
Ada Wong: I have liked Ada in previous RE games and movies, but they have COMPLETELY MESSED UP her character design in this game. The voice acting and dialogues are also very poor. Her campaign is short which is fine as it is supposed to be complementary anyways, but her final boss and endings are very disappointing.
**********************Conclusion**********************
Contrary to the cons I described, this is a great game overall and is an experience you probably don't want to miss. Now that it is cheaper than before, I would definitely buy it and give it a shot.
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video-games_xbox
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Flawless Xbox action/RPG. I was expecting this game to be good, but WOW! Rivals Knights of the Old Republic as THE must-have xbox role-playing game. First off, it looks absolutely gorgeous, killer graphics, easily on par with anything I've seen from the Final Fantasy series. All of the dialogue is voiced rather than just subtitled. The voice-acting is great with each character (even NPC's) having a distinct accent and tone. The music is perfect, and did I mention the killer graphics?
Second, the real-time combat is absolutely flawless. Two characters with mad melee skills that attack with killer combos Return of the King-style, and two ranged attackers that fight in first-person shooter style like Halo. You can switch between all four as waves of enemies pour in. This is too much fun for words. The skill strikes are especially ass-kicking attacks that must be seen to be believed (they often send blood and pieces of enemies flying everywhere). Easily the high point of this game.
Third, the story (though not on par with it's FF brethren) is very cool and the characters are very likeable. There's Tal the swordsman whose commanding officer, his father, verbally beats him down mercilessly. He is also good for moving blocks and such. Then there's Ailish the sorceress (and a princess to boot) who loves a good adventure and uses her magic to break magical barriers hiding valuable items. Buki, the animalistic claw-bearing warrior who scoffs at Tal's immense weapon ("Humans always hide behind their swords. I like to smell my enemies' sweat and fear"). She can also scale walls. Lastly, there's Elco the scientist who has a rocket pack and fights with guns. You use various combinations of these four warrirs as you travel the land looking for asses to kick in search of powerful crystals (a la FF2) in other kingdoms for use in a defensive device Elco is working on. From there, who knows what could happen?
The only weakpoint to this game is it's lack of depth. The characters are established, but then aren't completely developed and the ending is horrendously unfulfilling. I couldn't even spoil it for you if I wanted to because NOTHING HAPPENS. After I'd beaten the game, I knew I'd done everything I could possibly do and felt no need to play it again as I did when I beat KOTR. More customisation and a deeper storyline would have been great. Also, the world is tiny compared to other RPG's. You don't even really even need alternate transportation sources. Still, my bigest complaint is simply that I want more, more, MORE!
Overall, this is what xbox RPG fans have been waiting for. I was hoping for a game to tide me over until Fable drops, and I got an incredible game that combines many of the aspects of Halo, Return of the King, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, and Chrono Trigger that made those games so awesome. Hopefully, it's lack of depth will be fixed in future sequels. Buy it now!
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video-games_xbox
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One step forward, Two steps back, as always. I've been a long time WWE fan, as well as a lifelong Gaming fan, and I have limitless creativity and imagination. So naturally, a WWE video game would be my ideal gaming choice. However, the thing that sucks in our reality is that THQ, a subpar gaming developer that literally only cares about money and nothing else like gaming quality or anything like that, is the exclusive developer of the modern day WWE video game series. What this means is, if you want to play a modern WWE video game, you HAVE to play a THQ wrestling video game or literally nothing else. There have been three legendary WWE video games that have existed so far. The best being WWF No Mercy (2000-2001), WWE SmackDown!: Here Comes The Pain (2003) and WWE SmackDown vs RAW 2006 (2005). All of these oddly enough, were made by THQ, but since then, us gamers and WWE fans have been given garbage, with only SmackDown vs RAW 2010 showing a small glimmer of hope (mostly just due to the debut of Story Designer, which lets you create your own WWE cutscenes and storylines).
The biggest problem with the SmackDown vs RAW series, now known as the 'WWE' series (which is a incredibly stupid name for their games to begin with) is that they usually self-sabotage their own games and purposely give us less each year to either add in new, terrible features no one asked for or wanted, or to simply charge the customer for all the stuff they left out via Downloadable Content (which like, half of all gamers don't even have access to). Yes, THQ is this greedy and shady of a company and "WWE '12" (again, really stupid name) is no different.
Here, you'll be given some of the stuff previously seen in the SmackDown vs RAW series, like some match types, game features, and the usually-good Create a Superstar/Diva mode. But as always, it's the addition of one good new thing, and several others taken out completely. This year, that one new good thing is Create an Arena. It really just allows you to create a ring, rather than an entire sports arena's interior, including the set and rampway and Titantron, etc., but it comes one step closer to allowing you to create your own brand. (Now if they'd only bring back the Create A Belt option... then you could actually create your own wrestling federation from scratch.) Also, the Create an Entrance Video has been greatly improved, this time actually having pre-set animations and video footage in it, so you can make a far more accurate Entrance Video rather than just importing your Highlight Reel footage into a wrestler's entrance. While it's good, it is mostly limited to preset animations and cutscenes, most of which kind of imitate other more gimmicky wrestlers' entrance videos (like Kane, Undertaker, the Hurricane, etc.) And now that we've gotten all the positives out of the way...
Let's start with controls. They have been changed. Yet, not reverted back to the SmackDown vs RAW 2006 and prior controls. But rather, a simplified version of the 'Grapple with the control stick' mechanics. You use the A button now, but it's still mostly the same thing. Of course, they change this now after it took gamers four years to get used to the control stick style, which they initially introduced back in SvR2007. Why did they change it? Simple. To appeal to little kids who they thought might've found the old style too complex or hard to learn. Of course, it's both insulting to us who have just now gotten used to the old way, as well as little kids who are too 'dumb' to learn how to pick up the control scheme. Of course, they also would want to appeal to the casual gamer, but not too many casual gamers would really play this series, because it's never been good enough to have that kind of appeal. WWE fans are WWE fans, so trying to make a game for the non-WWE fans, while alienating all of them is just stupid. But that's THQ and Cory Ledesma, for you.
I will say, for the first time in years, it looks like they at least tried to make an effort with this game. But it's still simply bad for all the same reasons as before. They only like to make these games *their* way and their way alone, never bothering to appeal to fans and customers. They're control freaks, that way. Things like not letting females wrestle against males (a rule that does not even exist in the real WWE) as well as not giving you any real control over anything in WWE Universe Mode and having you try to play around randomly-set-up AI matches are things I mean when I say THQ only wants you to play by their style, as opposed to however you like. This extends to the "meat and potatoes" of the game, the Story Mode, known as "Road to Wrestlemania." Since its debut in the 2009 game, it's always been a few select main eventers getting their own 12-week story that leads up to Wrestlemania. In these, you have to simply play as the Superstar, whether you like them or not, in order to unlock many things in the game. In this game, it continues to an extent and you get Sheamus and Triple H now that you must play as. No epic "Here Comes The Pain" year-long story with multiple paths and characters, and no "No Mercy" style storyline with a pyramid of alternate paths leading up to Wrestlemania or any other Pay Per View.
Other features in the game, like I said, are the Create modes, and they truly are the only real fun that come out of these titles. Except for a limited number of Caucasian Male hairstyles and female clothing, you can make just about any human being to some extent. You then can customize their own moves, finishers, and entrances. For the creative, like me, making your own characters and unleashing them in Story Designer, or Universe Mode if you can set it up and have patience, is the where the true joy comes from and the only real positives about these games. Had they been taken out, there would be truly no reason to ever play these games from SmackDown vs RAW 2007 up to WWE '12.
The gameplay is... bleh. You're either simply love it cause it's something new for a change, or you'll hate it because it's simply broken. The AI is improved now, but as before, the countering responses are still broken. Because you may be using a "less experienced" Superstar or whatever, the game won't let you counter or reverse moves that you KNOW you countered or reversed. The new match system tries to allow for limb-targeted damage, which has always existed in the games, but here, they make it so specific and put such emphasis on it, it's ridiculous. Even real life doesn't work this way. I know jiu-jitsu and can tell you you don't have to repeatedly beat down a body part in order to get someone to tap out. Nor does Alberto Del Rio need to strike the arm for twenty minutes to get someone to tap out to a Cross Armbar. Yes, this may make for good ring psychology on TV, but these are far from real WWE matches. This is a video game, and trying to imitate reality not only doesn't make for a fun experience, but THQ isn't a competent enough company to even pull it off, if they could.
So, let's see... the create modes are still around, but the game suffers from a new learning curve of the new control scheme, while continuing to take out essential moves and strikes from the moveset pool, resulting in gameplay that is both repetitive, but also frustrating. This game might be fun for a week or less, especially if you're young, but keep in mind, this game costs sixty to seventy dollars new and is supposed to keep you entertained for at least a year. Story Mode is weak, but at least they tried to add in one where you can use a Created Superstar and have him get involved in the matches. As for other features, the same THQ limitations apply: No female-on-male and vice versa violence, no playing Universe Mode however you like (though you can now change the show brands and PPV dates), no real options or freedom for Road to Wrestlemania, and not even an option to change back the control scheme to the SmackDown vs RAW 2007-2011 format. Add in a roster that is missing half of the current WWE Superstars, as well as containing the lamest Legends ever in it, and throw in the fact that THQ does this crap purposely in order to charge us more for it via Downloadable Content (which like I said, screws over half of its customers, regardless), and then have the gull to charge sixty dollars for this? No. Just no.
Had this been a new release, it'd be a 3 out of 5. Maybe if this was just how it was released, it could be forgiven and be a 3 out of 5. But considering that THQ does all this stuff *intentionally* and has the nerve to charge ten to fifteen dollars more than most games out there... that drops it down by two stars in my view. Not to mention, there are GLITCHES in the game! Yes. The only company you'll ever have that would release a sixty dollar game that is half-complete, but filled with glitches, is THQ.
So, if you're a hardcore WWE fan, or under 13, you'll buy this no matter what, as long as you have a console to play it on. But if you've been disappointed with any of the WWE games from the past five years, then don't expect anything better here just because they changed the name and that's it. "WWE '12" is still garbage, but at least, THQ wants to give you the impression that they "tried" this time around. Of course, they left out a bunch of Superstars/Divas/Legends, and took out so much more stuff, and limited the gameplay and Road to Wrestlemania. But hey. As long as they say they "tried" and wanted us to have a "Bigger, Badder, Better" experience (which is not true), then it's okay to gyp the customers and blind them with bogus ads and hype, right?
I feel like I'm in a courtroom, trying to give you my closing arguments, here. Bottom line, don't even THINK about paying for this game without giving a good hour or more to play, first. Either in a store or as a rental. Because there are so much better -and cheaper- games out there. This coming from a huge WWE and Video Gaming fan. I've played every major WWE game since No Mercy, and I've bought every Smack own vs RAW game up until 2008. Then I started just renting them. I rented this and wouldn't pay full price for it even if I was rich. There's nothing worse than supporting poor quality merchandise like these poor WWE games. Sadly, until WWE gives other developers the rights to make their games (which doesn't seem like it'll be anytime soon, since the games are now sponsoring actual WWE events now), we'll be stuck with this garbage THQ likes to put a shiny ribbon on. All we can do as customers is tell them are disapproval and not give them our hard-earned money.
Like I said, don't spend a dime on this without playing it first. if you must have a WWE game for 2012, wait until the price drops under 35 dollars. And if you're on the fence about this game, just continue to play SvR 2010.
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video-games_xbox
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Great headphones. Hi, my name is Levi. I got these as a gift from my parents. I have used them for a good 8-10 hours, they about 2-3 weeks ago. So first, here are some basic specs about the headphones.
- 15Hz to 20Khz ( I tested them myself ).
-7.1 surround sound.
-Soft earpads and headband ( I forgot what material they were ).
-Constructed out of plastic.
-Microphone and side of headphones glow.
-Warranty, and drivers included.
- Golden USB port.
-40mm drivers.
-Subwoofers.
In my opinion, these are the best sounding headphones I've ever owned. Incredible for video games that require precise sound. Games like first person shooters, roll playing games, racing games, etc. Amazing for movies and music too! I have never heard some of the sounds that I've heard in music. Movies are the same way. I can hear every single detail in movies, it is AMAZING!
I used to own Ozone Rage St. headphones, they were $40. The Sentey Vibros were $30. And the Vibros destroyed those things.
The Rage St. didn't even have surround sound. But the Rage St. had very nice earpads. I definitely prefer these over any Ozone Rage headphones. The Sentey headphones are 1/5 the price of any headphones!
Earpads feel amazing! Sometimes, I would even forget they were even on my ears. Along with the great sound, these are now my favorite headphones.
But, there is only ONE problem with these things. The headband adjustment part is WAY too loose! It can get very annoying when I'm playing games like Battlefield 4. You're in the middle of a game and ALL of a sudden, the headphones decide to move the adjustment part around. This is very annoying.
Overall, amazing sound, incredibly comfortable, and 7.1 surround sound for $30. Who doesn't want that! My dad got some bluetooth headphones from you guys, they are also great! Loose headband though. Overall rating is 9.5 out of 10. I would definitely buy from you more often. Hope this review helped!
P.S. My mom threw away the drivers on accident. Could you guys send me the drivers again please?
*UPDATE* I just looked at your website, these headphones come with a wallpaper, a carrying case, and some other things. I don't know if I was shipped the wrong model or it didn't come in the box. Either way I will be taking down the rating to four stars.
*Another update* I had an issue with the purchase, the customer service was GREAT! They were quick and helpful! The product itself is still working! Definitely worth the price!
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video-games_xbox
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You KNOW you want a hot dog. After all these years of ignoring GTA (thanks to being completely turned off by GTA3 a decade ago) I'm just recently finally playing the series. I started about two months ago and I've been powering through the games in order since then. I'm not finished with GTA4 yet, I'm probably at around 80% of the mandatory missions. Barring any sudden bizarre shifts in the fundamentals of the game, I think it's safe to say my current opinion will stand: GTA4 rules.
(EDIT Aug 1, 2011: I completed GTA4 last night, and my opinion does indeed stand, in fact it's stronger now.)
Even though I was never interested in GTA before, I was acutely aware that when GTA4 was released three years ago, a very large chunk of the fan base (or maybe they were a small but very vocal chunk) was extremely disappointed and there was a major backlash. In fact I was actually considering stopping after San Andreas and not even bothering with GTA4 due to all of the nay-saying I'd heard. After discussing it with a co-worker/friend who is a long time fan, apparently the consensus was that the series had steadily ramped its way up to the high water mark that was 2004's San Andreas, and that GTA4 was a big step backward. Granted- there is literally a lot less ground to cover in GTA4 than there was in San Andreas. There are no extended rural highway treks through forests or deserts. Like GTA3, everything takes place within Liberty City. That said, I'm pretty sure this version of the city is much larger than the GTA3 version from 10 years ago. And I've gotta say, as someone who has spent some time in NYC: they really freaking nailed it. It's a spot-on simulation of being there. The architecture, the ambient life, the weather system, everything is far beyond what was in the previous entries. This makes the PS2 GTAs seem like "LEGO Grand Theft Auto". At first I was taken aback by the new car physics; they seemed too realistic for their own good, getting in the way of the fun. But after a few hours of practice, I got the hang of it. I think the real issue is that they went out of their way to give some cars poor handling simply for the sake of game play variety. One thing that bothered me when I started playing was the lead character. You play as Niko Bellic, an immigrant from Serbia. At first, I seriously wondered what the hell they were thinking. His accent and nasal voice seemed over the top, so it was hard to take him seriously. Eventually, he grew on me and I've really come to like him... and his cousin Roman, their rasta friend Little Jacob, and several other characters along the way. There is actually some excellent character development in this one. Some of the best stuff comes out after going on drinking dates. In vino bonus.
Which leads me to one thing I can agree with the fans is a genuine flaw: the GTA4 Social Network.
Several of the NPCs in the game will become Niko's friends or love interests. In order to maintain these relationships, you need to take time out from the missions and jobs to instead do stuff with them. Go out to eat, get drunk, go bowling, play darts, etc. After you build up a strong enough relationship, you will get a "benefit" out the friendship. They will send you a car whenever you need one, sell you weapons at a discount, take you to any location via helicopter, remove your wanted level, etc. If you don't maintain the friendship, you lose the benefits. You build up quite a stable of friends early on, so if you want to maintain the benefits you will be juggling a lot of dates, to the point where it feels like that aspect takes up the majority of your time. You have to make time for missions in between keeping your friends happy. Thankfully none of the friendship benefits are all that crucial, and some of them are downright useless. So you won't be losing much if you let friends slide. Rockstar went out of their way to make most of these NPCs obnoxious in one way or another, as if to ask the player "How badly do you want this idiot's friendship benefit?" I think this aspect is a cool idea for a game that strives to be a "life simulation", but it probably should have been dialed back a bit. It's not a huge problem for me, but then again I'm the sort of person who never skipped traveling in Red Dead Redemption (i.e. "Press A to skip to destination") because that would pull me out of the game. No matter how long the journey was, I would ride my horse the whole way there. That's just how I roll. I have a high tolerance or even appreciation for things that many other gamers deem boring or annoying.
(EDIT: Since writing this review, I learned that there's a way to maintain friendship benefits once they've been acquired without having to actually continue socializing with the friend. Nice.)
Speaking of Red Dead Redemption, that game was one of the main reasons I finally decided to try GTA after avoiding it for so many years. I loved RDR, and heard it said many times that "it's just GTA set in the Old West". I saw a lot of general similarities between RDR and the PS2 era GTAs, but with GTA4, it's an almost literal 1 to 1 comparison. Nearly every aspect of GTA4 was used in RDR. The only exception that comes to mind is the social network. So from my point of view, considering the order I played them in, it's almost as if GTA4 is a futuristic version of RDR.
In the end all I really want to say is, the massive wave of anti-hype against this game is big pile of bulls***. Backlashes are inevitable when you're dealing with huge groups of fanboys with overly emotional attachments to previous entries in a franchise. I have the benefit of a fresh perspective with no baggage or expectations. And it is with this unclouded view that I say GTA4 is a more than worthy entry in the franchise. It's a bit darker and grittier than the previous games, and definitely more down to earth and straight forward than the wild and crazy PS2 era GTAs. But it's still as AAA a game as there can be, far more refined and richer than any previous game in the series. The cynical view is that Rockstar shrunk the sandbox and took away some of the toys. My view is that Rockstar did away with some useless cruft... stripped GTA down to its bare essence. The decrease in scope is well worth the trade in increased focus and overall intensity of the experience. I recently heard an analogy that sounds pretty elitist but I more or less agree with: San Andreas was like a Michael Bay movie; GTA4 is more like a Scorsese film.
EDIT: Another flaw I will acknowledge is that this game does lack mission variety compared to previous GTAs. The vast majority of the missions boil down to "Go to this location, acquire the target, and escape." Usually this means literally killing one or more people. Occasionally it involves merely threatening them or destroying their property. This goes for most of the story missions, and all of the police computer missions. Then there are Brucie's and Stevie's "steal this car for me" missions... which obviously don't stray far from standard "Grand Theft Auto" game play. I can't say I really noticed how one-note the game is as I played through it. It was only afterward when I noticed other players complaining about it... and I can't say they're wrong. Personally, I think that GTA4's overall game play design is so polished and strong that the lack of variety in the missions isn't much of a problem. They're still fun, because the pillars supporting the entire game are fun.
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video-games_xbox
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Conker: Live and Cut. Give Nintendo credit, they may not be number 1 in sales, but they do start trends that everyone and their dog copies, whether it's analogue controls, or complete, and groundbreaking remakes of yester-generation's groundbreaking titles.
While the not-so-big-N was spending time getting remakes of Resident Evil, and the absolutely incredible Metal Gear Solid Microsoft decided to utilize their purchase of former Nintendo 2nd party Rare to make a remake of a ground breaking and revolutionary entry to the N64 era.
Conker's Bad Fur day was not a hit. It came out too late in the N64's lifecycle for it to be, most people were already looking toward the next generation. Those that were interested in the game tended to ask for "The squirrel game on the Playstation"; ever ignorant to the fact that Nintendo DOES target adults from time to time. Microsoft's theory was that Conker failed because it was on a Nintendo system.
It's little irony that this incarnation of the game isn't faring much better, but there's a substantially more explainable reason this time... Rare made some changes that just don't really work, or improve the game.
Graphically the game is a mixed bag. Though the polygon models, fur rendering and overall detail has been significantly improved over the original (It's beautiful) the game still has the usually 30 frames per second frame rate and somewhat choppy animation of the original. While this was fine during the N64 era, it's disappointing now that they didn't improve the animation at all. Overall, however, this is a vibrant and beautiful game, and one of the best looking games over all this generation. Rare definitely deserves some kudos for the amazing amount of detail this game contains.
Game play wise the avoid combat or solve puzzles to kill enemy tactic of the original (Minus the Spooky and saving Private Rodent sequence) was replaced with a choppy dual analogue with baseball bat combat engine that just didn't really work all that well. The combat was sloppy, repetitive and boring, even frustrating at points as the dual analogue system does not make for easy retreats, and I found myself impaled by the imps more often than not, or falling off of high places trying to get away after attacking because of the sluggish, and sloppy combat system. In the end, Rare should have left well enough alone. The Dual analogue control of the Saving Private Rodent scene was overly complex and made for a more frustrating experience than what the original offered, however, it did help the Spooky sequence, making it possible to aim much easier than I remember it being in the original. I'm not sure how or why it worked out that way for me, but it's did. Spooky benefited from the new combat engine, the rest of the game was made more frustrating.
Content wise the Xbox version suffers from severe censorship. I mean severe. Nintendo let Rare get a way with a lot more than Microsoft did, ironic, considering the market perceptions of the two. The sunflower now wears clothing, language is almost all bleeped out, and oddly, instead of the Tediz bleeding stuffing like in the original, they just bleed. The Electric Eel minigames is gone, as is the manned turret in Saving Private Rodent, but the most frustrating elements of the original (The race with the cavemen, in all it's cheap accidental death glory remains... stupid dinosaur getting in the way) as does the turret tower-tank segment, where you have a clear shot of the last pole, but can't peg it unless you're in a very specific, next to impossible to reach spot.
The original title was "Conker: Live and Uncut", with the loss of content, the irritating new combat engine, and all the censorship that took place Rare took a great game and made it mediocre. Little wonder it's not a blockbuster on this system. A note to Microsoft, take a cue from Nintendo, if you do a remake of a previous generation game, don't ruin it! Enhance it!
As far as the online player mode, it's really not much to speak of. It's disappointingly scarce in original content, again it suffers from a sluggish dual analogue control scheme, and has little to do besides running around killing, and being killed. Not much of an improvement over the multi-player games of the N64 original.
I hate to say it, but the stigmatism that remakes are seldom better than the original holds true here. In typical Hollywood fashion more eye candy does not mean better. The N64 original remains a classic, while this remains a cash cow.
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video-games_xbox
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Dead Space delivers again...albeit differently. If you enjoyed the first and second installment of DS, its pretty likely youll enjoy this third one as well. My quick rundown:
Play style is identical to the first games, more like 2 than 1 though. There is added movement but it does little to add to the game play. Weapons are the same nearly, if for the change you can make your own. (I found myself at the bench more than going through the story). Its a nice add on but later in the game, it can be boring and even tedious at times trying to find what gun you want that is also effective on later enemies.
The enemies are not very varied from the first games either, very little changes overall and that was a bit disappointing. Youll recognize nearly everything you have to fight.
The co-op part is what really makes the game worthy to play. The various side missions and extra dialogue are what make the game better in my opinion. Playing alone would have been a bit more dull as DS 3 brings little new innovation to the table.
There are parts that are also rather rinse and repeat - even downright boring. Some of the optional side missions feel identical other than the vague plot bit getting you to go on them. Even the ladders, hallways and rooms feel recyclede, that for me was the most drab part of the game.
However, there are some nice redeeming qualities as well: The game does expand through some various environments, although not enough, its nice to explore derelict ships, space stations, the artic planet and various caves and ice shelters/compounds.
The voice acting is good and the plot, I found, to be dead space themed and interesting. The ending as well was far better than I thought it would be.
Overall I cant give it 5 stars because it does have its holes and lacking bits, but if you want to romp through killing everything in a shower of gore with a buddy, it can be a lot of fun at times and is worth a play through at least.
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video-games_xbox
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Best overall game console this generation. I have owned the Xbox 360 since its launch. I have also owned the PS3 for over a year. I now feel I have had enough experience with both consoles to do a fair comparison of their relative strengths and weaknesses. What follows is my review of the Xbox 360.
Pros: price, game selection, graphics, online support, controller, multi-media functionality, user interface, backwards compatibility.
Cons: expensive hard drives, reliability issues.
Price:
With the recent price drop, the Xbox 360 is now the most affordable next-gen console on the market. The arcade bundle is only $199, which means it costs $50 less than the Wii. This is amazing because the Wii doesn't offer nearly the same performance or features as the 360. As a game console, the 360 is the best value out there at the moment.
Game library:
The Xbox 360 has an unparalleled line-up of exclusives and multi-platform games. There are more than 600 games available for the Xbox 360, while only around 180 for the PS3 and 275 for the Wii (according to the Oct. 08 issue of GamePro). This means that the 360 has substantially more games than the other two consoles combined. What's more, the 360 continues to get more third-party exclusives than the PS3; games like Left 4 Dead, Velvet Assassin, Ninja Blade, and a number of Japanese RPGs continue to find an exclusive home on the Xbox 360. Game consoles are first and foremost designed for playing games, and in this area the 360 really excels.
The Xbox 360 also shows several clear advantages when it comes to multi-platform games. Most notably, multi-platform games still tend to look and/or perform better on the 360. Many people claim that the PS3 versions of multi-platform games are finally starting to catch up to their 360 counterparts, but that hasn't been my experience. I have compared dozens of recent multi-platform games on the two consoles (one of my geeky little hobbies), and in the majority of cases the 360 versions performed better. Even in the worst cases, the 360 versions at least equaled the PS3 versions. It's also worth pointing out that every multi-platform game on the 360 supports achievements and custom soundtracks, while only a few on the PS3 do.
Performance and graphics:
Many people have been misled into believing that the PS3 is the more powerful console, but this simply isn't true. The Xbox 360 has a more powerful and flexible GPU, better memory configuration, fewer bottlenecks, faster disc read speed, a more efficient (for actual game code) general purpose tri-core CPU, and better tool support. It is effectively the most powerful console, plain and simple. Developers know this, and so does anybody else with enough technical background to understand what the comparisons are. Leading software gurus like John Carmack have said as much, yet the myth that the PS3 is the more powerful console continues to live on in the minds of many people.
Online Support:
Simply put, Xbox 360 offers the best online service available on any console. Sure, Xbox LIVE might require a subscription fee, but in this case you truly get what you pay for. PSN covers most of the basics, but LIVE offers many additional features that really do make the online experience that much better. You can get a 13 month subscription card here on Amazon for $39 (that's 3 dollars a month), and that gives you access to what nearly everyone agrees is the standard-setter for online gaming.
Controller:
This category in particular is going to come down to personal preference. I really like the PS3 controller, but I do feel that the 360 has the better controller overall. The buttons are responsive, the rumble is strong, the analogue sticks are precise, and the ergonomic design makes the controller the most comfortable I have ever used.
Multi-media functionality:
This is one area where I feel the PS3, with its Blu-ray capabilities, has an edge. That said, the Xbox 360 is a very capable multi-media device in its own right. Both consoles allow you to listen to music, view photos, and watch videos and movies. The Xbox 360's video download service offers a larger selection of movies and tv shows than the PS3's service at the moment, but the flip side is that the PS3 is the only console that can play Blu-ray movies. Next month, however, the 360 is getting Netflix integration, which will allow us to stream thousands of movies directly to our TVs. All things considered, the PS3 wins this category, but not by as wide a margin as some might imagine.
User interface:
The Xbox 360 dashboard is feature rich and easy to navigate. However, the current interface is going to be replaced next month by a completely redesigned and more feature-laden interface. New features include avatars, full game installs, 8 person parties, community games, and a nicer looking, more intuitive dashboard. The PS3 is also due to get an upgrade next month in the form of `Home', but that isn't specifically an upgrade of the user interface (XMB), so it isn't directly comparable. For now, I will say that I think both consoles have very nice user interfaces, but I prefer the 360's interface a little more.
Backwards compatibility:
The Xbox 360 plays hundreds of original Xbox games. On the other hand, none of the current PS3 models offer backwards compatibility with PS2 games. They do, however, play PS1 games. I would have never expected this, but the way things have turned out the Xbox 360 actually offers better backwards compatibility with last generation games than the currently available PS3s.
Cost of hard drives:
There are no two ways about it, the 360 hard drives are expensive. Microsoft decided to go with proprietary hard drives presumably in order to have them work with the slim design of the 360, but this also makes producing them more costly. The standard 2.5" drives the PS3 uses are much more affordable. That said, if you search around, you can get a 20GB Xbox 360 drive for about $30. So in the bigger picture this isn't too big of a deal.
Reliability issues:
Much has been made of the dreaded RROD that has affected a number of Xbox 360s. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get down to the solid facts of the matter. The problem absolutely is real, but at the same time it has almost certainly been greatly exaggerated by dishonest people who wish to hurt the reputation of the console. My console did experience the RROD, but many of my friends have had no problems whatsoever. Furthermore, I think Microsoft has handled the problem pretty well by offering a three year warranty to cover any possible hardware failures.
Remember, also, that the PS2 suffered similar hardware failures due to faulty disc drive lasers. That time, though, Sony had to be sued before they would acknowledge and take care of the problem. This generation there have, likewise, been reports of bricked PS3s, disc drive failures, and other PS3 hardware problems. I am sure these problems aren't as common, but they are happening. Not only does Microsoft offer a 3 year warranty to cover any hardware failures you might experience, but they have also taken measures to prevent newer models from having those problems in the first place. By all accounts, the newer chipsets are smaller, quieter, cooler, and much more reliable.
Conclusion:
I am very impressed by how many things Microsoft has done right with the Xbox 360 this generation. Sure, the hardware issue that some of us have experienced is a bit of a downer, but weighed against the overwhelmingly large number of positives, it doesn't come close to souring the experience. The Xbox 360 is not only the most affordable console, but it is also the most powerful, has the largest and most varied game library, the best online service, and the best looking multi-platform games. What I have learned about these consoles I have learned from my personal experience with them, and I am telling you sincerely that you can't go wrong with the Xbox 360.
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video-games_xbox
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A new experience for a known franchise. Halo 3: ODST often receives alot of hate due to it being originally planned as a mere expansion to the Halo 3 experience. However what Bungie has done here is the first time I feel I can give the company some legitimate praise without feeling like I'm jumping on the band wagon.
I'll start with my usual take on things. I've never been a huge fan of the Halo series. I found the first one to be unimpressive, with multiplayer that was decent but nothing to write home about. The second was a step in the right direction in my eyes, but still not getting the job done for me. I skipped over the first 2 for the most part, never played through the story, and pretty much spent maybe a total of 10 hours on multiplayer between the 2.
Halo 3 was the first Halo game I purchased, and it was strictly for multiplayer since everyone I worked with played. It was an ok experience for the most part, though the multiplayer was were I spent the bulk of time. I couldn't stand Master Chief and honestly could have cared less about the story or any of the characters. It just didn't draw me in.
Then Halo 3: ODST comes along and catches me by surprise. Offering a level of gameplay that truly brought me into the single player experience and out of the multiplayer side of things. You play as a rookie ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, basically a special forces member) who crash lands in a city after it is overtaken by enemy forces. Lost and alone, you set out into the city to attempt to find your lost team members.
ODST has you wandering through the dark city streets attempting to find your way to different areas to piece together where your team mates are. The city itself is an open sandbox, allowing you to go anywhere you want, which is definitely a change from the usual linear routes you are forced to take through in previous entries in the series.
In the dark of the night you are left alone, and are forced to figure things out for yourself. Armed only with a silenced sub machine gun and a pistol, it is you against the world. Covenant forces patrol the streets and stealth definitely plays a role here. You are no longer the Master Chief capable of running in guns blazing and always coming out on top. You take fall damage now, you have a health bar, you can't jump as high, or do nearly as much. In this game the Covenant truly feel like a force to be reckoned with and if you don't plan your moves carefully, you can easily find yourself laying dead on the side of the road.
Along with the above changes, the ODST have a new ability that Master Chief never had, or rather a new item. The ODST have a light enhancer that almost acts as a night vision without turning everything green. Instead the screen brightens slightly and most things suddenly have an outline around them. The background items like walls and such are outlined in yellow, while items you can use have blue outline, and enemies are outlined in red. Its an effective tool that is truly useful and a welcome addition while also being a nice departure from the traditional flash light.
Playing as the Rookie you main objective is to locate beacons left behind by team mates which appear on your map. How you get to them is up to you and often you'll find more than one signal at a time. Once you make your way across the city and locate one of the beacons, you get a flash back where you play the part of the team mate's beacon you just discovered.
These sections provide the bulk of the action and are truly a blast to play through. From fire fights, to holding out until rescue arrives, to vehicle segments, this is where you are laying waste to hordes of the Covenant and fighting for your life. Each beacon gives you another piece of the story and gets you a step closer to finding out just what you are doing there and where your team is and who is still left alive.
This provides an excellent level of pacing from sneaking around the streets, carefully ambushing patrols or just avoiding them, to the flash back portions which have you running and gunning.
Single player is definitely a blast but you can also have up to 3 other friends join in for some fun co-op. Though this does tend to ruin the Rookie segments abit by destroying the feeling of being completely alone, it truly brings together the flash back pieces as you and your friends work together to overcome the Covenant and make it out alive.
At no point do you find yourself playing as an overpowered Spartan though. You are always in the shoes of an ODST and it really makes the game feel unique yet familiar enough that you never feel out of place.
Bungie did a great job by offering a stamina meter which is where you initially take damage. This meter has the ability to regenerate but once its gone your health bar starts to drop. Yes there are health kits in this game and I couldn't have been happier with this. This removes the whole jump out and go balls to the wall then find for a few seconds and you are back to full health. This really has you taking your moves carefully and never leaving yourself too open.
This is truly the first Halo game I really enjoyed the single player campaign and one I definitely intend to play through again. I've already beaten the game by myself on Heroic and again with co-op, but I will be revisiting it again to beat it on Legendary.
Beyond the single player campaign ODST offers a new mode called Fire Fight which is truly a blast. It takes the same formula for Horde mode on Gears of War 2 and puts it into the Halo universe.
Again you are playing as an ODST holding out against wave after wave of Covenant forces with limited ammo and health packs. After each round your supplies are replenished and the difficulty goes up. To makes matter abit more challenging, each round after the first one has a new skull being activated which changes the gameplay drastically and keeps players from using one tactic to last as long as they can.
From all enemies having shields to having to butt stroke enemies to replenish health, most of the skulls from Halo 3 can be found here and you have no control over if they are on or off. Plus they are stack-able which definitely creates a unique experience and keeps each round feeling fresh.
On top of all that, you have limited lives, though you can earn extra lives in bonus rounds. Also everyone shares the same pool of lives, so you truly want to watch each others' backs.
Medals also make an appearance here as well in the single player campaign, which is a great way to provide some competition between you and your friends. Points are awarded and totaled up at the end of the round and everyone is ranked against one another. Definitely a great addition to an already great mode.
The only draw back to this mode is that it doesn't support match making, which means you are stuck playing with your friends only. Beyond that though, Fire Fight is a great addition to the series and can offer hours upon hours of excitement.
The multiplayer is the same exact multiplayer you find in Halo 3. In fact it comes on a separate disk and you are able to play with those who are still using the Halo 3 disk. Some find this to be lazy on Bungie's part but personally I was rather happy with this. It means the community doesn't change so the community doesn't suddenly find itself split between 2 games, plus with ODST you get early access to a new map pack for free that Halo 3 users just recently got access to and had to buy it.
Overall Halo 3: ODST was a great experience, though it was abit short on the single player campaign side. I have very few complaints about the game and truly found this to be a great job on Bungie's part. The gameplay was spot on, the sound was amazing, and only the graphics felt slightly dated since it was using the same engine as Halo 3, though they are still rather good but starting to show some age.
I'm not usually a fan of the Halo universe, but this one definitely changed my opinion and brought me on board. I doubt I'll ever care for the first 3, but this one I felt all around delivered and offers up alot in one package.
If you found yourself not enjoying the first 3 Halo games, then this one might be what you are looking for. Any 360 owner should at least pick this up and give it a try. From start to finish I had a blast and beyond a slightly short campaign, I can't come up with much to complain about.
I give Halo 3: ODST a 9 out of 10.
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video-games_xbox
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Realistic Review. Okay Okay...
I wanted to look at the reviews to see how people felt about this particular game. I do own it, and plan on playing it again on a higher difficulty. I must say, this game is AWESOME!!! Good graphics, GREAT storyline, challenging enough but not unbeatable and FUN to control the Horseman especially when fighting your enemies (like the large worm) The game itself gets even better once you upgrade your weapons and get more upgrades from Vulgrim which is a very well detailed character that has the perfect voice to go along with his personality, reminded me of the Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt, lol. I see the lowest rated people mentioned the controls sucking, the graphics not so good, or it has bosses that are unbeatable. The controls DO NOT suck, you have to play a bit to get a feel of how to control the Horseman, having to use multiple controls to throw bombs or what have you only add to the challenge!! The graphics are great, at times I felt as if I were there, honestly not bad and I never witnessed any item being there one second and not the next. The bosses, yes they can be quite a pain, I admit.
You just have to figure out what steps to take in order to do damage because using only your sword may not be enough. There is always a way to beat a mini boss such as the jailer, I died about 5 times before I finally took him down. I did this by throwing my crossblade toward all of the yellow points which of course represent his weak points but you have to this them all by targeting them all first. Once you do this, he will fall to his knees then you can attack the puppetmaster once you do this a few times, he will eventually fall for good. This game isn't only about FIGHTING but greatly involves strategy, sort of like Laura Croft Tomb Raider, the older Playstation games. The only negative point in my opinion is how at times the Horseman jumps and no matter how many times I press the button, his shadow wings do not appear, it's as if he picks and chooses when he wants to fly. There are boards that require strategy with little bloodshed, but it makes the game that more interesting, because your progress isn't given to you, you have to think things through to get far in this game.
Five stars in my book, finally a game that gives you a challenge, is fun, has a great storyline to accompany the good graphics, isn't too easy to beat, and the character realistically progresses in experience including weapons and skill. This is one game that had me playing for hours at a time, thinking "I will stop once I get to this point but then I end up playing another hour or so without realizing it! I will NOT be selling once I beat it a few more times, I will want to play it again in time. COME ON DARKSIDERS 2, I'm waiting for it!!!!!!!!!!!
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video-games_xbox
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A 5 star set for the COD fans. Compatible with the PS3, PS4, xBox 360 and PC/Mac. <div id="video-block-RCCTOG9W8FA1X" class="a-section a-spacing-small a-spacing-top-mini video-block"></div><input type="hidden" name="" value="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1jhg4s0uOS.mp4" class="video-url"><input type="hidden" name="" value="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/610TTjqs7bS.png" class="video-slate-img-url"> *Update*
The PS4 launched a few days ago and after getting mine I had on pre-order through Amazon, I found that these do work with the PlayStation 4. However the instructions on the Turtle Beach website on how to connect them to the PS4 were not working for me (perhaps how they will work after future PS4 updates?). It appears there are a few sets of instructions floating around out there for connecting these Spectres to the PS4, and the instructions that have you using the headset connected to the wires that go to the PlayStation 4 is not the correct one (at the moment, may change after future updates). You need to use the included cable that connects your headset to a wire that has a 3.5mm audio headphone jack on the end. Then plug this jack into the bottom of your PlayStation 4 controller. Also make sure you have the PlayStation update 1.5 done first. I have included two photos in the video to show the configuration that did not work for me, and the one that did.
~Original review~
Like most people checking out this headset, I'm a Call of Duty player. I've been playing on-line multi-player since Modern Warfare 2. And like many, I like the series so much that I've predigested my way online through MW2, BO, MW3, and BO2. So with Ghosts out now, I'm playing it on my PS3, and doing so with this new Turtle Beach COD Ghosts Specter headset.
This Ghosts Spectre set is one of several Turtle Beach sets I've owned over the past few years, so I have had a few to compare this one to. My first set was a pair of Turtle Beach Call of Duty: MW3 Ear Force Bravos that I bought in 2011. Headsets have come a long way since I used those. I've also have used brands like TRITTON and Corsair, but Turtle Beach has always been my favorite. I've set up the headsets on different several systems (PS3, xBox 360 and PC). Some of my sets have been budget sets, others have been top of the line. The Ghosts Spectre set is one of the nicest ones, coming in second only to the wireless Turtle Beach Ear Force XP510.
Looks:
The appearance of this set is awesome. The white, black and grey contrast is sharp, and stands out from the traditional black/green, all black, black/blue or black/red headsets you typically see TB making. The top of the headset is a textured faux-leather, different from every other TB set I've owned. The Ghosts logo on the sides of the ear cups are glossy and really stand out. It's one of the best looking headsets I've seen, and is by far the best looking Call of Duty headset I've seen Turtle Beach design.
Comfort:
This is one of the tightest headsets I've worn. You may not notice it for the first hour you're playing. But get into a long gaming session and eventually you'll probably start to feel the pressure from this set on your head (if you're an adult). It's not just a tight squeeze coming from the ear cups, but also the top head band portion of the set feels a little harder on my head than previous headsets. There is cushioning in the band, but it doesn't feel as though there's as much as some other sets. So the top of your head tends to get sore after wearing it for a long time. I adjust the set a bit as I wear it to help alleviate this, but then I'm still feeling the pressure from the tightness of the sides of the set as well. I'm hoping over the next few months the headpiece will loosen up a bit and my head won't feel like it's been stuck in a vice, after a few hours of gaming.
While this set might be tight on my head, it may not be an issue for everyone. These sets are also used by younger players, and the tighter fit is probably necessary so that it can fit snugly on everyone's heads.
Sound:
The sound quality from this Ghosts set is good. I find it similar to other Turtle Beach sets that are about the same price. The best sound I've heard from a TB set, and the most comfortable set for long gaming sessions is the <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Turtle-Beach-Ear-Force-XP510-Premium-Wireless-Dolby-Digital-Gaming-Headset/dp/B00B3PDHBU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Turtle Beach Ear Force XP510 Premium Wireless Dolby Digital Gaming Headset</a>. But the price is different (more) and it's a wireless set Dolby set. If you're looking for a wireless headset with good sound and at a cheaper price, the <a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Turtle-Beach-Ear-Force-XP300-Wireless-Gaming-Headset/dp/B006W41W82/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Turtle Beach Ear Force XP300 Wireless Gaming Headset</a> is really nice. The XP300 has a lot of bang for your buck and has the same Dynamic Chat Boost technology as this Ghosts set and the top of the line XP510 set.
Turtle Beach's Dynamic Chat Boost is awesome for first person shooter games like COD. You can really hear it working, it's not just a made up term to make their headset sound more technical. The volume of your teammates talking into their mics during the game is automatically increased as the other sound effects in the game gets louder. So when someone is yelling that the other team is headed to "B", but there's a VTOL Warship showering everyone with a hail of bullets, the people talking in chat aren't drowned out by the loud game sounds. This volume adjustment is all done automatically through the headset. It's nothing you need to adjust yourself.
The mic piece is detachable, so you can use this set just for listening to the game play and not actually chatting. Others can hear you well without and background buzzing or static, which is to be expected of a set in this price range. The mic is bendable, so you can adjust it to different angles to fit your preference.
Since this is a wired headset, there no need to power it with batteries or recharge it. It draws all the power it needs from the gaming console (PS3/xBox/PC). The cable that runs from the console to the headset is long, so you can sit almost across a room from the system and still wear the headset. On this power cable is a settings box that you adjust your game sounds with. There are individual setting for treble and bass, for game volume and chat volume and you can change the settings so you can use this headset for talking on your cell phone.
For me, having an auxiliary port as an included feature is important for any headset, and this Ghosts Spectre set has one built into the volume controller. You can connect your MP3 player/iPod/iPhone/Smartphone to the controller using an included 3.5mm cable and listen to music (or even take phone calls) all while playing the game. I've attach one end of the cable to my iPhone and the other to the headset controller, and I'm able to listen to my iTunes music right though my headset while I'm also hearing everyone else in the game chatting and hearing all the in-game sounds going on. Then if I get a call, with the flip of a switch on the controller it mutes the in-game sounds, chat sounds, and my music, and also mutes my mic so people can't hear me talk. I can then answer my phone and chat right through the headset so I don't have to put down the controller to pick up the phone to talk.
Conclusion:
So if you're a fan of Call of Duty or are looking to get this for a COD fan, this set is a great choice. For an adult, it can feel a little snug after a long gaming session. But it's nothing a 10 minute snack/bathroom break can't fix. Then you're ready to get back into the game. It's one of best looking (if not the best) headsets I've used. The advantage to a corded set like this over a wireless is the battery will never die on you, and it's much easier to set up and use. Especially if you're buying the headset set for kids. There's no need to try over and over to pair wireless Bluetooth. Once the set has been hooked up once, every time you turn on your system it's connected and ready to go.
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video-games_xbox
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A long slog. First of all, I live in Colorado, so this game hits a little too close to home. North Korea has invaded and now occupies America, and even remote Montrose, CO has become a huge prison death camp. You, as a player, take the role of a member of the resistance, and fight various skirmishes to help kick out Kim Jong Un's army. My wife and I always talked about how we'd escape into the far western Rockies if the U.S. was ever invaded, because there are a million places to disappear. Montrose is out on the western plains, though, in Colorado's wine country, so it's wide open. Dumb place to hide.
Anyway, this game has great potential, and it's a good idea, but it somehow manages to be a boring slog punctuated by brief bouts of violence and sickening imagery. (At one point, to hide from the occupiers, you must dive in and hide among rotting corpses in a mass grave). And it's incredibly depressing. Perhaps it's the realism. War is hell, after all, but this game really emphasizes Man's inhumanity to Man. The KPA (Korean People's Army) rounds up, tortures and slaughters American men, women and children and bull-dozes the corpses into mass graves throughout Colorado. It's disgusting. It's almost like replaying those horrific Nazi death camp videos you saw as a kid back in school. Our generation is so far removed from the horrors of the Holocaust 60 years ago, that maybe games like this come as a slap in the face.
This ain't exactly Halo. It's not addictive, escapist fun. Homefront is not about stylized violence with blue-blooded aliens and funny little quips. You scrounge what weapons you can, kill as many Korean Army soldiers as you can, and try to stay alive while dodging the rotting corpses of women and children shot through the head. We play games to escape reality. Not so here. If nothing else, this game offers a cautionary tale about the horrible realities of war. It sure isn't fun.
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video-games_xbox
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Mass Effect 3 Collector's Edition: What A Cluster. I am usually one to bypass collector's editions of games. Most of the time they're overpriced, full of total useless crap, and take up eight games' worth of space on my shelf. I was fully prepared to pick up a nice standard copy of Mass Effect 3 when it releases on March 6.
Recently, the "From Ashes" day one DLC info leaked and was later confirmed. It sounds like it'll be an important mission and feature a new squad member. This will cost $10, unlike the free Cerberus Network content all new game buyers received with Mass Effect 2. Now BioWare and EA are saying that this will be free with all copies of the collector's edition, which is $80 instead of $60. Okay, I want the DLC so I guess I'll get the fancy version for an extra ten bucks.
Nope.
I'm not the only one to discover that pre-orders for the collector's edition on Xbox 360 are sold out everywhere, and have been since November. As of now, PS3 and PC collector's editions pre-orders are still out there (PC has an infinitely available downloadable version) so get on it if that's your platform of choice or risk getting screwed like the rest of us. I played multiple characters on my 360 copies of Mass Effect 1 and 2 and I'm not about to dump them now for a different platform.
All descriptions of the bonus content included on this thing have heavily downplayed the bonus mission and character. Let's take a look at what EA has chosen to focus on for this thing: metal case, art book, comic book, N7 patch, lithographic print, digital soundtrack, Normany avatar prop. So far all I'd be interested in is the soundtrack, which I can probably get from iTunes. What about the digital add-on content? You'll get some guns, new squad outfits, a faithful robodog buddy on your ship, and a stylish hoodie for Shepard to chill in. Sure, this stuff is cute, but it's not meaningful in-game content. Take a look at the banner for the collector's edition.
No wonder people missed the mission and character content. It's completely buried. More importantly, it's not mentioned at all in the breakdown text below this image on the site and that was what was reposted all across the Internet. Now that real DLC information is up front and out there, it changes everything. Many Mass Effect fans are out in the cold because EA wasn't clear about what was included in the collector's edition. What did EA gain from all this? A bitter sector of the fanbase. Missed $80 premium sales. Lost trust for future collector's edition packages. The only people winning here are ebay sellers who are commanding upwards of $100 for 360 collector's editions.
If EA came out of the gates with all of the collector's edition content clearly described and I just missed the boat due to laziness this would be a completely different story. Put the game content in the main billing, and be sure to make enough copies of your damn game for people who want to give you money for them.
I leave you with the promo video which also pushes the DLC mention way to the back and only flashes on the screen for an instant.
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video-games_xbox
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Looks good and is fun, but is entirely too short. Tomb Raider: Underworld is another decent -- if not outstanding -- installment of the Lara Croft series. The game picks up sometime after the events of Legend, and makes an attempt to tie-up the story. The developers have made an attempt to make this the first Tomb Raider game for the current generation of consoles, and for the most part, they have delivered.
As a Tomb Raider experience, this showing is similar to past games. All of Lara's classic moves are in the game, and the controls are relatively familiar. There are some new moves, such as the adrenaline headshot, which requires you to build-up adrenaline through combat before executing the move. It is effective against humans and animals, but not so much against other enemies you encounter later in the game. There is also a new "adrenaline moment" move, in which the on-screen action slows and you must decide how you want to handle the situation -- there's no sequence of buttons to press, and no right or wrong way of doing things. However, I found that these moves were scattered widely throughout the game, and weren't as plentiful or as exciting as the developers had hyped them. The wall climb is another new move, which is well designed and makes you think a little more about how to get to higher ground -- you don't necessarily need to look for ledges. In fact, Lara can now climb rock faces as well, so this game tends to mix-it-up for long-time fans. Additionally, in order to find treasures, Lara must break open clay jars -- which is somewhat new but also counter-intuitive if Lara values artifacts. Lara's movements are a little more acrobatic, and sometimes her stance just doesn't seem right.
The camera remains the biggest problem in this game, as it had been in both Legend and Anniversary. You simply learn to cope with it, and fortunately it is never a game-breaker. There are "invisible walls", which are areas of a map that Lara can't pass. There are moments when Lara can get stuck in a corner, or simply stuck in the scenery -- I encountered several issues where her feet were apparently caught on a rock or a plant. By contrast, although enemies are persistent in this game when you kill them (bodies don't disappear), Lara's feet pass right through them -- as if they're vapor. Enemies have no physics at all once they are dead. From an A.I. perspective, the enemies are fairly non-responsive and very easy to defeat.
The game shines in level design. Each level is huge. There are no annoying loading screens or loading delays -- everything is loaded in the background, so play is non-stop. The game offers a sonar map on Lara's PDA, which I found totally useless since it did not provide points of interest or way-points. There are many puzzles -- sometimes you'll be faced with 2 or 3 puzzles within a level. Puzzles are well-designed but not incredibly difficult. There are no bosses in this game, which is odd and disappointing, considering the number of bosses that appeared in Legend. In a way, however, the puzzles have become bosses because of the skill associated with them (Southern Mexico, as an example).
In addition to the graphics, the sound is superb. The musical score is present at the right moments, but can get extremely repetitive sometimes if you're stuck in a sequence trying to figure something out. CGI animations are smooth, with excellent voice-acting.
The game is fun to play, and the story is tightly-woven and entertaining. If you've played Legend, you'll be satisfied with the one or two twists thrown your way to close that storyline. However, if you didn't play Legend or Anniversary, you might not understand this story at all. I don't think the developers did a good job at making this a stand-alone game. The ending seems very final -- there's nothing left to anticipate. I also thought that the game was entirely too short -- much shorter than Legend while also much easier to complete. The only replay value is in the "achievements", many of which will be unlocked in the first play-through. It's a good game and worthy of play by fans, but certainly does not trump the previous games.
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video-games_xbox
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Not much new ground broken, but plenty of bones. While I will concur with the sentiment that Tao Feng is a pretty average game on the whole its just as far from being horrible as it is from being exceptional.
The limb damage system seems like an idea that was either tacked on at the last second or quickly reworked in a more simple context than originally intended. I've yet to see anything besides arms be broken and the conditions that cause damage seem to be simply "punishing mid-section attacks" rather than "targeted shots" as eluded to in the game's description. If nothing else, it gimps people who like to block too much and is funny to watch when a fighter is hobbling around with limp arms.
Amusement factor is definitely where this game shines. A decent stereo system combined with the fluid and downright punishing graphic effects makes for a rather giggle-infested ride. Anyone with an appreciation for excessive violence will likely cackle in glee to the tune of bouncing an opponent off walls and into floors while plaster, glass and other assorted building materials are thrown up in chunks.
The ability to actually use the evironment in fights is probably the most notable aspect of the game and certainly something unique to typical fighting games.
In my experience the game's pace moves fairly quickly contrary to some other reviews. Given that your fighters are pretty quick on their feet and feature a number of moves that cover alot of ground really quick.
The graphics and sound are quite nice overall with a few low points to be had in the former category. Notably the times when an opponent is "popped up" into the air or when one of the fighters execute a "corkscrew" manuver really look very cheesy and out of place in a game that otherwise boasts very nice fluid graphics.
Not a bad buy if you're looking for something to kick around with friends since the fighting system is admitedly not as technically-inclined as some others. Just good old-fashioned beatdown fun.
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video-games_xbox
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Four! - Watch Out for A Poor Golf Game. Not sure where to start. This game is a mess. EA took last year off to rebuild their golf game. They should have taken at least one more. This game is just not fun and the putting is terrible.
To start with, this is as about bare bones as a golf game could be. Check out some of the more in-depth reviews if you want a full break down on what this game does (and does not) have. But just for examples sake, during create a mode, I was in and had my character created in about 45 seconds. This process in slimmed down create a character modes in other games still usually takes me a good 5 to 10 minutes. There was just nothing to do here. They would have been better off just giving you a generic character to play. The simplicity and lack of options just demonstrates how poor the game is.
The play styles are the only highlight of the game. They offer a classic 3-click mode, a pro mode that tracks your swing motion on the thumb stick, and a arcade mode that lets you flick away on the thumb stick with a generous margin for error. Just about any player with any skill level can pick the game up and play.
I had heard that the game was beautiful and there were no load times between holes. This isn't quite true. The game does not have any loading specific screens, but the leader board was shown in between each hole during my play through, and there was a delay in between when I could advance to the next hole. I have to imagine while these are not technically labeled load screens, there is some loading going on in the background. As far as being beautiful... well, not so much. Much of the color looked washed out. There was a hilarious amount of "popping" as elements suddenly appeared on screen that were not there before. During the opening intro cinematic, the camera pans across a field of grass and random flowers just start popping into the picture in the middle of the grass. All things considered, there is not the leap I would expect between the graphics on the last EA golf game and this, the first one on next gen hardware.
Unless you are desperate for a golf game on console, I would stay away. Or go pick up Mario Golf on the DS, at least the putting works there. Give EA another year to refine the game and flesh it out more. There are things that may be good about this game, they are just hard to focus or even recognize with so much missing from it. Maybe EA can flip that come next year's game.
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video-games_xbox
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Xbox-One...is it for you. Consoles always come out of the starting gate the weakest they will ever be. Very limited library of games, glitchy software, and so on. That being said the Xbox-One comes out of the gate a bit dusty but strong. Here is what I mean by that...
First of all I got the Day One Edition from the Microsoft:
Upon opening the box you will find very high quality, stylized components all the way down to the HDMI cable. Everything is finished to look like the main consoles glossy/matte aesthetic and it is a very nice "Next-Gen" feeling. However this behemoth of a console still comes with a power brick; no matter how stylized a power brick is its still a guy who nobody invited to the party that decided to turn up anyway. However if you don't plan on moving the console that much just push the brick behind your entertainment center and you'll never notice it again.
The new controller and microphone packaged with the console are a dream come true. The controller when first held is going to give you a lot to think about. First, the controllers analog sticks are going to feel smaller compared to the 360's, yet more precise. Second the absence of a large protruding battery pack is something that was long overdue, it feels amazing and very natural. Third, their are no screws anywhere visible on the controller, this creates a seamless mesh and once again it feels great. The Microphone comes with higher quality sound and buttons directly attached to the controller if you choose to use it, very convenient!
Now lets get to the belly of the beast...
Kinect-After setting up the Kinect (which was painless by the way, even for cable boxes) I was brought through a tutorial on what I could say to the Kinect in order for it to do my biding.(muahahaa) The Kinect works about 93% of the time for me and telling the Kinect to go to certain apps rather then clicking on them is much faster and convenient then traditional controllers. Also the ability to have the Kinect recognize you when you walk into a room is outstanding and long loading times of passwords and signing in are gone. One of my favorite features is having the ability to say "Xbox watch History" or "Spike TV" and watching the channels change. This is the future and avery nice feature of the Xbox-one and I can't wait to use it for years.
Overall the software as of 12-9-13 is a little glitchy and bare compared to the 360's dashboard but that will change as time goes on. I deducted a star due to the glitchy software but overall this thing will be a masterpiece in the coming years. I love mine.
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video-games_xbox
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Most Feature-packed FPS made/Best Halo. I received the game through the limited edition reach xbox 360 and, after spending a full 12 hours with the game, I can honestly say that Halo Reach is the most feature-packed FPS ever created and it is THE BEST HALO to date period. Many reviewers out there really just bring the score down for minutely small details and flaws such as taking too many shots to kill enemies or comparing it to Modern Warfare 2. However, with this sort of game, you really have to look at the big picture, admiring the package as a whole and how carefully polished each aspect of the game is even though some parts of the game may be slightly imperfect.
The campaign is the second best of the series, following the masterpiece story that was excellently told in Halo: CE. The third best would be that of Halo 3: ODST for personal reasons despite the second and third games' epic scales. While friendly A.I. are helpful on grounded missions, they become utterly atrocious behind the wheel just as with all other halo games. Fortunately, the enemy A.I., especially the Elites, are absolutely nightmarish to deal with on heroic/legendary. Their complex and unpredictable behavior and the sandbox qualities of each level adds tons of replay value to the campaign.
If the campaign isn't enough for you, head on over to the bread-and-butter of Bungie's excellent series, the multi-player, now including tons of customization,options, and a plethora of modes to choose from. A beefed up forge, firefight, huge maps, and the inclusion of armor abilities add a whole layer of fresh to the series.
When starting the game up, I noticed the menu layout was especially striking and sleek. This amount of polish and care is carried over to all parts of the game. Imagine that!
While Bungie has always been super artistic with all of their games, the art, design, and visuals in this game are the best of the series and make you stop in your steps and drool at the amazingly detailed and believable background vistas and back-drops. It's truly a sight to behold and gives the planet Reach its own character. In addition, wildlife makes its first appearance in this game, which is a definite plus in my book.
In the end, Halo Reach is absolutely stunning in every aspect and delivers on all fronts despite few, if any, flaws and poor design choices. If you're a Halo fan and you want to witness a satisfying conclusion to the Halo series by Bungie, don't even think one second and pick this game up ASAP even if you're a newcomer to the Halo series. There's something in this game for everyone! I'd even hand over more than $60 for a game like Halo Reach. Seriously, it's that great.
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video-games_xbox
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Lunges and/or back kicks on almost every adventure, except the first. I recently bought this title with free prime shipping for under ten dollars. I said to myself "what the heck". I figured I could return it and not lose much money. This thing is honestly a train wreck. First, the game recognized me, but I couldn't go further into the game. The point and swipe motion is flawed from what I can tell. Usually there is just a swipe, but this requires you point at the camera. When the game started, I heard Jillian and some loud bongo music playing. She was encouraging to listen to, and I listened. The game starts off with coin collecting. The game doesn't require you actually run in place. To be perfectly honest, a game that tracked well and required you to walk while picking up coins in the forest and possibly the beach would be a 5 star game. This wasn't that. In this game, the character moves by itself, and requires you to hold out your arms at the right point (on-rails) while the coins were green. Intermittently the coins would turn red. Then your character would stop, and you'd have to do exercises. I thought the jumping jacks were awesome, and registered well. There was another exercise in which you would have to squat as if you were picking up a bucket. This was also okay and registered . Then we got into exercises which just do NOT work with the Kinect, in my opinion. KICKING? your first kicks were kicking to the back. LUNGES? On the second easiest workout, you'd have to perform lunging and kicking on the same exercise. I would have just enjoyed running in place picking up coins, and doing occasional jumping jacks, and maybe some punching. The problem I find with these Kinect exercise games is that they require you to do too much. What about a "Walk it Out" type of title? Even walking in place would have been nice, but when you have a game that requires you to do a full lunge for the game to register is just too much for a beginner who just wants to do a half an hour to 45 minutes a day. Next time a company puts out a game, please don't include lunges that only registers full lunges. Some people cannot perform this motion, and cannot get past this obstacle.
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video-games_xbox
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A Filler, but Possibly not Worth the Time. DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS
For a video game that seems to hark on time and how important it is, I found myself utterly astounded that I dedicated so much time to the game itself. Now, don't get me wrong, I found the game to be, at the very least, entertaining. However, there are several things that I found about this creation that is in serious need of a face lift.
Kaim Argonar, our angst-ridden protagonist is about as likable as an emo kid bewailing his musical escapades with a dull razor. Thankfully, however, there is reason to believe that Kaim has a meaningful explanation to be the way he is. He's 'immortal' and has seen the full scope of far too many lives, the pains of war, and how capitalism drives societies to their ends. Not too far off from our world, which is a plus. Kaim, however, becomes rather likable after a while, simply by his dedication to continue to fight for something that will inevitably pass on in his lifetime.
The other immortals, however, seem strangely above this condition and continue to be rather chipper throughout the story. Seth, being a prime example. Even though she has her quirks towards Kaim-emoness, she is rather likable and just does what she needs to and calls it a day. The most expression we get from her is in regards to her son, Sed, who resembles a 70 year old man in comparison to the 20 year old looking Seth. The end, however, is hardly capable of swallowing. Seth becomes a sacrificial hero which doesn't seem to sit well in my hands. I just never built up enough for her to care since Kaim, despite his bewailing, is the main pusher and puller of the story.
The White Boa...needs to be at the bottom of the ocean. It's as useless as the Nautilus' ability to fly. True, it can smash through ice and, therefore, progress some of the story and complete some of the missions, but it is the slowest thing around. I used it as little as possible. Whoever said this would be a great idea ought to have a talk with me. Just equip the jack-of-all-trades Nautilus with a blow dryer on the front and all will be well.
The story itself isn't bad. We'll talk more about that later. However, it seemed rather slapdash. It certainly had the potential for greatness but fell short and hit a few steps on the way down. I think the best part of the story that I enjoyed was Cooke and Mack's mother, Kaim and Sarah's daughter, who seems to piece the entire story together with her infinite love and compassion. It is, unfortunately, not the focus of the story. A sound mind will realize that Gongora is the antithesis to Lirum's passionate zest for life, as short as it might have been, but the story also tries to slide towards the world domination category with Gongora. Compassion seems to be the side thought to a much greater evil, when it should have been emphasized more in both regards. Of course, who wants a sappy story about a dead woman?
As hinted out before, the character development is strangely lacking. Sure, I laughed at some of Jansen's jokes and got a twinge in my eye from Cooke and Mack or some of the 'memory' stories that are unlocked throughout the game, but I certainly was not particularly moved by life-or-death scenarios. Sarah and Sed were probably the least interesting even though I felt like they could have been if they had a little bit more stage time.
While on the subject of characters. The way they level up is bothersome. It is strangely effective in new areas where your leveling up becomes a kind of steroid power without ever having much difficulty behind battling anything you encounter. Because of this, each area will level you up to a certain number where it feels comfortable that you can continue and then it becomes a terribly slow ordeal that refuses to give you even so much as a point, if that. No wonder Kaim is whining. Regardless, it is somewhat effective, but then you never have that exciting pleasure of whether you think you are strong enough to battle the next boss. Bosses, therefore, become rather easy, even if some were positively infuriating. The most difficult battle in the entire game is the last battle of the Backyard, a kind of battle arena. All others should be a cake walk if you find yourselves slow on the leveling up category.
Okay, okay, so not everything is bad. A lot is good! The music, for one, is fantastic. Why? Because it's composed by the notorious Nobuo Uematsu. I would spend a good deal of time 'leveling up' just so I could listen to some of his music. Unfortunately, the leveling up part was hardly enjoyable from other RPGs.
Being clearly sarcastic myself, Jansen really kept the story rolling for me. He started the story going, flitted along sarcastically along the way, and wound up helping a great deal in the end. The writers should be complimented with some of his comments, even if the other characters lacked much vocabulary. Speaking of writers, the little memory stories were sometimes corny and other times strangely linked up with the reality us humans live in. It certainly helps for us to care about what is being said. I recommend reading them, even if they aren't required.
Despite the leveling up fiasco that occurs in each area, the fight sequence is stable and often times fun. There is also a variety of interesting critters to fight, even if some are painfully repeated in other areas. I did not find myself frustrated with any of the game play, and the ability to hit perfects being in your control is a wonderful concept.
Not to be long winded, but I chewed up the game enough to begin with. The story, as mentioned, was almost there. The potential was great but somehow slacked off and became negligible. Regardless, there is a deal to like, such as Lirum, mentioned earlier. She is truly, regardless of never actually feeling like she was important, presents the antithesis to Gongora who cannot love even though he feels he is giving into the virus of emotions. Nobody ever explained that one. There are also Lirum's kids, who, despite being irritating at first, are just as beneficial to the party as Kaim is. I expected them to be more like Tolten, in other words, useless, but they came through in the end.
There are also a decent amount of side missions that can be completed for loads of goodies, and they aren't particularly maddening. I don't think I could have dealt with another maddening boss, such as the last fight in the Backyard. The dedication to the game just isn't there, so I was happy with mediocre difficulty being faced in the dark places of the planet.
So, all in all, it's not bad. Sure, there are problems, but it wasn't as miserable as I expected it to be. I feel like if the producers just spent a bit more time fiddling they would have had a fantastic game. Unfortunately, they didn't. So I won't be returning to Kaim's world anytime soon. I wouldn't swear it completely off, but I certainly don't recommend spending as much time on it as I did. 80 hours.
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video-games_xbox
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Significant improvement over Rocksmith and better than my son's teacher. My son (13yo) used the original since it came out so I purchased the update for him. We have all the packs and songs in the original and hope that there are many updates for the new version. We did have a couple of packs we purchased in the original that are not showing up in the store. Blink-182 being one that is missing. We have had some lockups as others are saying but over 4 days of playing for 3-5 hours a day, we've probably locked up about 7-8 times. Tuning the last two strings is more difficult but if you keep plucking they do tune. You do have to purchase a $9.99 license to get the original Rocksmith songs. The leaderboards are not always accurate, sometimes only showing you as a ranking player. The 60 day challenge on UPlay\UBISoft's website is currently experiencing issues but are excited about it's future. There are other little bugs that should be cleaned up in the coming updates.
Online I can see he's played through 84 songs, completed 29 lessons, scored 7,000,000 on guitarcade, completed 42 missions. While I don't know the granular detail of what this means it's nice to be able to check online at his progress. As stated earlier, this site will only get better.
The difficulty starts at an elementary level but can quickly ramp up and it's smart enough not to start you off at the easier levels on new songs after you've played a couple of songs. My son is a Jazz Pianist for his school jazz band and has been learning the guitar over the last couple of years. He jumped straight to the Lesson 'Jazz Chords 401' and quickly learned that this game has a lot to teach him.
Even with all the issues, there is no way I could knock this down a star as my son loves play the 'learn a song', complete the 'lessons' and play the 'guitarcade'. My son has been upstairs using it since 10:00am today and it's 3:30 now. I'm going to have to stop him, that's the kind of problem I want to have. If you have a young kid that wants to play the guitar and loves video games, this may just be what you have been looking for.
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video-games_xbox
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Who put dudes in my DOA. Im not going to lie, I picked this game up because it was dirt cheap and looked mildly amusing. I play a lot of fighting games and did like DOA2 when it originally came out. But it seemed shallow and simple so I saw no reason to really spend much time with it.
This game thoughwell this game kicks butt, major butt. For the original Xbox, the game is simply gorgeous. The girls look amazing and the environments look even better. A wide array of outfits to unlock, like over 20 per character. Ranging from long dresses to bikinis. The environments are multi-level and highly interactive. Nothing is more fun that kicking a friend off a mountaintop and watch them tumble all the way down. Glass breaks, things explode. All sorts of crazy action. And its strategic too, as these thing do extra damage.
Gameplay is best described as super fast. All sorts of things have been added since DOA2. I would list them, but in all honestly I really don't remember what is new and what isnt. But what is there now is just a blast. Matches blow by so fast. Blink and you die. I found it very challenging to keep up with the pace and still maintain a winning strategy. The fast is better than the strong more often than not. Just a ton of throws, hits, and parries to work with.
I would advise you to not even open the manual for a while. Just experiment with what you need to do to survive. Then build your tactics around that. I don't claim to be a real badass yet, but I am having a blast learning. Its actually a pretty deep in its own way.
So yes, Xbox Live died a long time ago, but this game is a blast in single player. The AI is amazing, provided me with a excellent level of challenge. And you unlock outfits as you play the AI on different difficulties, so its a must. And you can always still scare up a friend to fight in the real world. Help them out a little and they will kick your butt in no time. Very easy to pick up and play.
Bottom line: This game is all about fun. And girls. Leave your fighting game snobbery at the door and you will have a blast. Or better yet, take it with you. You may be surprised how deep it can get.
The good
Easily one of the best looking games on the Xbox
Fast and fun gameplay
Gorgeous multi-level environments
Tons of outfits to unlock
Pretty girls
Great AI
The bad
No online nothing since Xbox Live died
Rather loud in the DVD drive
Who put dudes in my DOA game!?!?
You will barely play DOA1
The DOA2 story makes little sense
Oh yeah, forgot to mention all you get in the package deal. Real nice packaging, manuals for DOA1 and 2. Did I forget to mention DOA1? Yup, and you will most likely play it as much as you play the male characters in DOA2. 99% of your time will be spent with DOA2 Ultimate girly girls. But I guess more is better. And DOA1 is pretty cool in a retro kind of way.
Oh and DOA2 made a lot of noise when I played it in the DVD drive. I don't know why. I think its has something to do with my system, but I have no idea. I have a modified Xbox and copied it to the hard drive and it plays like a dream. But just thought I should mention it.
Update: Went back and played DOA1 and was rather shocked how much fun it was. You can unlock many costumes like DOA2, and I may even like the gameplay a little better. So this was a really good purchase for me.
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video-games_xbox
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Unlimited potential, clunky execution. I will start off by saying I was a big fan of the first Test Drive Unlimited because it had a huge open world environment to drive around in, a big selection of cars, and good driving physics that were somewhere between arcade and simulation. The graphics in TDU weren't great but it was just plain fun to play.
Now we finally have the long awaited sequel and sadly it is not an improvement over the first TDU. Like the first game it's not intended to be a simulation racing game. I understand this and didn't expect it to be. What I did expect though was that they would have at least delivered the same if not a better experience. Unfortunately this is not the case. I feel it is fair to compare it to the first game because this is a sequel after all.
DRIVING PHYSICS:
This is my biggest issue with the game. In the first TDU each car had unique characteristics of speed, acceleration, braking, cornering ability, and an overall feeling of weight. It was not super realistic but it wasn't silly either, for example you couldn't make 90 degree turns at top speeds. It gave the feeling of speed but still you had to make sure not to go faster than the car could handle. This is simply not the case in TDU2. Most of the cars handle pretty much the same, poorly. There seems to be only a difference of speed, acceleration and braking between cars but they all handle about the same, and there is no feeling of weight. Among different cars in the same class they all corner about the same. Also doing almost anything can make your car spin out, even while traveling on a straight road. If you turn just a little too much you can lose control of the car. If you slightly graze anything you can lose control of the car. Sometimes though you can hit a wall at a sharper angle and it pops you right off it sending you on your merry way the direction you started. It's also hard to regain control of your car even if you fishtail a little, with each steering correction you make actually making it worse. I don't know why they did this to the driving physics and didn't just build upon what they had from the first TDU, or even just reuse it for this game unchanged.
GRAPHICS:
There is some better news in this department. The scenery and character graphics are actually improved over the first game. The islands really look nice and that makes it fun to explore. Your character looks a little better than the first game also although it's not stellar. The cars on the other hand look a little bland and flat. The cars don't really pop or look very shiny even when they are clean. Your cars now also accumulate dirt, dings and scratches too, which can be fixed by going to a car wash where some scantily clad ladies come out and wash your car by hand. Also you can just put your car in the garage or start an event it it pops back to pristine condition as if by magic. Overall for just driving around and exploring I would say the graphics are an improvement over the first TDU.
SOUND:
The sound is also a letdown. The engine sounds are certainly louder than the first game, maybe too loud. The car engines don't sound very realistic. You could drive a certain car in Forza than drive the same exact one if it's available in this game and easily tell the difference. Also when you run into things it just sounds like taking a metal trash can lid and smashing it against something, no matter what you run into. The off-road sounds aren't much better. Sometimes it reminds me of the sound of chewing on Grape Nuts cereal. The radio is kind of limited like the first game and the music is not particularly thrilling to me but that's a matter of taste. It's not like the first game had great sound either but this is not an improvement.
GAME PLAY:
This game concentrates much more on your character and other social aspects than the first game did. Besides being able to buy houses and clothing for you character you can now also visit a hair salon and get cosmetic surgery so you can completely change your look. Many of the same features from the first game are back such as races against other player in set spots around the island or instant challenges against people you meet in the game world by just flashing your headlights at them. Also there are clubs to form or join and club events just like the first game, as well as custom events you can set up.
The biggest change to the game though is the addition of off-road events and vehicles. This is the area of the game that I feel was the best change. These events can be fun and give you the ability to easily explore the countryside. You can purchase off-road vehicles like Hummers or Land Rovers. They handle differently off-road than on asphalt, which makes sense but once again they all handle pretty much the same compared to each other. The only real difference between the off-road vehicles is their speed, acceleration and braking.
As for the world itself it's pretty much the same as the first game. You can drive pretty much anywhere you want to and explore all you want. This was the charm of the first game in my opinion and why I liked it so much. TDU2 though now has two islands to explore, Hawaii again and now Ibiza. As for the events it's handled differently than the first game. Instead of unlocking events and then picking and choosing which ones you want to do in any order this game has a more linear feel to it. You have championship events that consist of a series of smaller events worth points, finish in first place in the end and you will unlock more. Also there are random events like the first game, such as picking up someone and driving them somewhere within a time limit. These events aren't permanent though and have a time limit on how long they are available, which can be seen in the map, before they disappear and new ones pop up elsewhere. This can be annoying if you haven't previously explored that part of the map because you won't be able to instantly start it, you'll have to drive there and may not get to it in time. Also your contacts will frequently call you, telling you to go somewhere or do something. Overall the game seems to want to hold you hand through the whole process.
BUGS:
Sadly, at least as of the date this review is posted, this game is pretty buggy. There have been some issues with the servers although that can be excused, at least for now, since a lot of games have this same issue at first. I have had issues with the leaderboards not working properly. When I first log in I will do an event and my name and position on the leaderboards will show. Then every event after that it won't work. My name and position do not show properly and if I scroll manually to the position where I should be my name isn't listed at all. I've also noticed issues with sound going out occasionally. This especially seems to be the case when going from off-road to asphalt and hitting some objects. The sounds will go out for a few seconds then come back. I have read there are also issues with trying to form or join a club, causing the game to lock up but I haven't experimented with this myself. Players are reporting other issues also, which you can read about yourself if you go to the game website's forums.
CONCLUSION:
Compared to the first TDU I'd have to say this game is a disappointment. It is better in some aspects, such as the scenery graphics and the addition of off-road content, but it is a big let down in the department of sound, bugs, and most importantly driving physics. The game is named Test DRIVE Unlimited 2 after all, with the main focus being on driving. Making the driving physics worse really takes a lot away from the game. It can be fun exploring the huge world, buying nice cars, houses and clothing (if you're into that), but just getting through events can be annoying with the clunky handling the cars have. You will have to retry events a number of times because your car so easily loses control. Overall it's not a worthy sequel and I had more fun with the first TDU, which is a superior game. If you loved the first game this one may really make you mad, so you may want to rent it before you buy. Unfortunately there is no demo as of yet on Xbox Live. If you've never played the first game and want a fun, open world driving game, find a copy of the first TDU instead of buying this one.
I gave the game 2 stars because of the horrible driving physics and bugs. They may fix these issues in patches someday but I have to rate the game in the condition it is now, not how it might be in the future.
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video-games_xbox
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A wonderful little wheel. I purchased this wheel last night to go along with my new purchase of Forza 4, which I bought at 8AM on the day of it's release. I played Forza 3 since release, and have been a huge competitive player of Forza for some time now, spending much of my time on my Xbox tuning, upgrading and making cars specialized for certain tracks, and most of my lap times are in the top 1%, albeit at the wrong end of it. I'm not trying to brag here, I'll explain in the next paragraph.
All of the reviews I read about this wheel said that it's for "casual" gamers and wouldn't really suit the needs of anyone who's competitive or plays on the Simulation steering selection
Many reviews, including CNET and IGN and others, really made it sound like this wheel isn't for anyone who is serious about forza, and rather illuminated it as if it's a neat little toy for someone who wants to get someone into the game and doesn't race very often, or plays Wii a lot. I want it to make this VERY clear;
THIS IS NOT THE CASE.
This wheel is fantastic, it simply takes some getting used to. The movement of the wheel is 1-to-1 on the screen, meaning that in "cockpit view" in Forza 4, your wheel will turn at the precise time, precise angle, and in the exact velocity that you turn the Speed Wheel.
My first race using it, I wrecked all over the place. I tried to dive right into an un-assisted A-Class race in a '69 Fairlady Z, and it became apparent to me after a few attempts that I'm going to have to re-learn how to play this game. I proceeded to start a hot lap on Infineon Raceway (Sears Point, screw you infineon) in a A class '65 Mustang that loves to drift, and practiced for about an hour. Soon enough my laps got within 2 or 3 seconds of the top in the game. Later, I posted a 1:45.8-- on "Star in a reasonably priced car" Top Gear Challenge, faster than several times of my competitive friends who race with controllers. No assists on anything I did.
Conclusion; it's a great wheel, a lot of fun, and makes for some fantastic drifting experiences, throwing the wheel from left to right and back to correct and re-correct... incredibly accurate, fast, and fun. The people who reviewed it didn't spend enough time to get good with it. They played for a few minutes and came to an inaccurate conclusion that didn't reflect the true potential of this fun little controller that makes the Wii Wheel look, and feel, like a joke.
Downside: No left/right bumpers or a slot for your wired microphone. The former is annoying because not all the menus in Forza can be navigated without the LR bumpers, mainly in the Community section and decals/paints. However, I can understand the omission of the wired microphone slot, I can see myself getting frustrated and tangled in the wire of the headset while throwing the wheel around.
Pick it up if you play Forza, practice for a bit, and you'll have a blast.
Race with me! TM SlinkyBlue
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video-games_xbox
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Tons of fun and value... when it works. The good:
- Used games/equipment market is booming, making it possible to have a full-featured HD gaming system for significantly less than a desktop computer and even PS3.
- Inexpensive entry-level model (the "Arcade") is great to get started with, but you WILL want to get a hard-drive soon and the wireless adapter if your XBOX isn't near your router.
- Moderately priced XBOX Live Gold subscription with frequent deals that make maintaining it even less expensive
- Full-featured demo downloads available on XBOX Live as well as cheap XBOX Arcade and Indy games continue to add value to the console
- If you already subscribe to Netflix, getting XBOX Live Gold is completely worth it to be able to stream movies straight to your TV
The bad:
- New accessories and games are outrageously expensive ($60 for a game? Are you serious?)
- Short life: bought the newer HDMI Falcon (not the Jasper) model about two years ago and just recently got the three red lights (a.k.a. the "red ring of death").
- Microsoft tries to cheat you out of your warranty online by claiming it's expired when you may have quite a few months left. Customer service is terrible and unhelpful, insisting you pay $100 and wait up to four weeks to have your unit "repaired", with no guarantee it won't happen again within the next few months.
Summary:
Don't buy the XBOX 360 unless you're comfortable with opening computer cases and replacing hardware. There are websites where you can buy kits to repair your red-ringed XBOX for $30 or less, and some even offer aftermarket replacements for things like the internal fans to keep the problem from happening again.
If you want better than a 75% chance your XBOX will never have problems, get a PS3 or a Wii instead. XBOX is far from reliable, but when it isn't broken, you'll get tons of entertainment out of it for relatively little money (if you know where to look).
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video-games_xbox
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Good Features and a Few Issues. We've owned all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games, often for multiple systems, plus many other music games. We are both musicians. So we definitely were looking forward to Guitar Hero 5 to see what new features it would offer and how it would compare with the many other offerings that exist out there.
First, let me comment that it makes a HUGE difference what equipment you use for any of these games. If your drums suck, then it really doesn't matter what the game does or does not do. You're going to hate the experience because of lousy drum response. So we definitely recommend having wireless guitars, so there's no drag at all on your movements, and an Ion drum kit. Making these improvements in your set are going to give you a vastly superior experience whichever game you go with.
Guitar Hero 5 doesn't do anything groundbreakingly new. We were able to pop it in and start playing on Medium, whipping through songs at 5 stars without much problem. So the mechanics are sound. Hit colored notes with the matching button. Sing on key. The songs are all "real songs" by now which is great - no more fake-bands with not-right notes. You can import other songs from past games (in the same series) which is good too.
They've done some nice work with the interface. Each player gets their own view of the fail bar so you can see at a glance how well you're doing, and how you're earning star power. Activating star power implements it just for you, which I disagree with. I think a member should be able to help the entire band. That's always been a complaint of mine with this series though.
They are focusing now solely on stars. You earn up to five stars for performance, one for perfection, and then others through cool challenges. One song might be "hit lots of chords". Another song might be "hit lots of snares". It encourages you to go back and replay songs to get those challenge levels, and to try different instruments.
The overall interface for working with songs is less than stellar though. When you're in a given gig (location) you can't easily see all the songs. When you're on the overall list of gigs, you can't easily see which gigs still have songs to do. If you're poking into a given gig to look around, when you come back out it resets you back to your "current gig". The whole moving around the screens is a pain.
The character customization is lacking. I'm female and I found the outfits for women to be on the insulting side. In other games I can create PERFECT outfits that I adore. Here it seems I have to choose from leather bikinis, spiked bikinis or plastic bikinis. I was hard pressed to find something I even remotely liked.
The tutorials are also lacking. The drum star power for example says to use the orange cymbal - which we don't have on an ion drum kit. So we did the tutorial which properly showed us as not having an orange track - but then told us to hit the orange cymbal. We went through the tutorial and it said "good job" even though we'd never actually implemented star power!! What kind of a tutorial says you've succeeded when you've failed?
They did add some cool features to the locations. For example I was playing "Jailbreak" in the Grease drag-strip location. When the song gets to the parts with the sirens, blue and red lights started flashing - and then a burst of flame came out in perfect time to the main crescendo!! Someone did a lot of work with that sort of timing on songs. It really is quite fun if you look for it.
It's always hard to critique a song list. Some people will love these songs - other people will hate them. I do like that if you're reasonably good you can unlock new gigs VERY quickly so you can get to fresh songs. That way whichever ones you don't like, you can move past them and get some new ones. That being said, I found fewer songs I adored in this set than perhaps in any other similar game I've played. Maybe this particular one is skewed towards a musical type I'm just not fond of. Some classics are great fun - Sympathy for the Devil, Sultans of Swing - but many of them are not high on my list. I'm sure those exact same songs are high on other peoples' lists. Just be sure to look through the music list and see if it appeals to you.
I found the very obvious product placements - like GIANT T-Mobile billboards in the middle of a gig location - to be on the obnoxious side. Surely they could have been done more subtly.
In summary, we're certainly enjoying playing it. The tie-ins with the gig location reacting to a specific song is quite cool. The playing of the music is intuitive and fun. But for me, the characters being not ones I really connect with (due to clothing options) and the song list being weighted (for me) with songs I'm not really fond of gives this only 4 stars rather than 5.
Feel free to contact me with any questions. As mentioned, we play these games a LOT.
NOTE: One more thing to mention! This game was made on SHODDY GAME DISCS and will often give failure messages in older XBox systems. What you have to do is go into the XBox system console and copy the game onto your hard drive. It should run fine once you do that.
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video-games_xbox
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EDIT: Won't change the World but at Least You Can Shoot People Again (I thought. If you're reading this then there's 3 reasons you're here: 1. To validate why you hate the game. 2. You love the game and want to look at good reviews and hate on the bad reviews and set the "record straight." 3. Honestly figuring out if you want to buy the game. This is for the third people.
This will not change the world of first person shooters, but its back to basics in the COD series. After logging in about 4 hours, I will say this: get through the first 30 minutes of every reason you hate it then you'll come to enjoy. The game is smooth and put the "shooter" back into the game. All the fancy abilities don't really add much, but what they got right it, not having every jump around on multi level maps like crack monkeys. I had fun running around and getting into gun battles...go figure. My biggest complaint is that thus far score streaks are reserved for pro-players and the stacking "support" is not yet an option (not sure if it will be). Other than that a very solid game and if you like BO2 and COD this will a be overdue game.
Update: I'm changing to a 3 star as something is wrong with the hit detection in multiplayer. I've never had such issues killing people and getting killed so easily. I do like the game but never have I been dominated so badly in any cod series going back to the original ones. I've read some issues about the p2p but all cod games have done this I thought. My thought is either a lot of players had a beta version or there's a lot of cheating. I get into this great gun battle see my hits register several times then I die, I then watch the kill cam and I never even hit the other player as he basically had killed me before I had even shot. The score streaks absolutely suck, I've never played a cod that I can get 1 UAV for every 5 games played. I know I'm not the only one as it's pretty rare to see anyone get score steaks except for the best of the best. I'm trying to be cool and not get down on the game and realize there are good players and I'm not that good, but again somethings off. I'll give it a couple more weeks but if this game is going to be dominated by a select few then why play? I thought these games were for fun...maybe I'm just getting to old...
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video-games_xbox
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Abomination to Aliens Fans. Alright so I played the games single and multiplayer modes to give my own opinion. Yes I admit the graphics and gameplay are terrible! But come on, after 6 years in development you would have a hunch about how badly the game will turn out. Look at Gearboxs' Duke Nukem, yeah I went there. Aside from the noticeable graphical glitches and animations in this game the storyline is not all that great either. You have a few plot twists that are meant to push the story forward, for instance you encounter Weyland mercenaries trying to contain the Aliens and any information the scientists have. It went from fighting Aliens to Call of Duty in about 45 minutes.
Throughout the game you fight a mix of nothing but Aliens and than a few levels of nothing but mercenaries, and at the end you fight a mixture of both. The boss battles are creative but not very fun. The most creative would be the Raven, where you encounter a xenomorph who is trying so hard to kill you. He is invulnerable and instead of bullets or using the environment to destroy it they put you in a Power Loader! You duke it out with the Raven(yes they gave this xenomorph a name) and the fight doesnt make things memorable either. After exhausting my 4 hours on singleplayer I jumped on multiplayer to if that is any better. In truth, it sort of makes up for it. In multiplayer you have many customizable options for both marines and aliens. These range from weapons and weapon mods to their appearance. Its really cool to change the way each marine looks but overall they only change a few minor appearances such as adding a pack of smokes to ones helmet or changing emblems on your body armor. For the aliens they have different attack upgrades and some neat looking aesthetic upgrades to only their heads.
The gameplay with the xenomorphs is fun, you have your primary and secondary attacks and the most satisfying of them all, the fatality attack which can be used whenever you creep up behind a lone marine! The fatality is well done with constricting a marine with your tail or spewing acid into their mouths(oh and there are more than 1 fatality for each xenomorph). I failed to mention that there are only 3 types of xenomorphs to play as: The Soldier(Balanced and strong alien), The Acid Alien(Totally forgot its name,but as the name implies), and the Lurker(Smaller and more agile alien). The attacks and animations for each alien works but when it comes to climbing walls and being more of a predator sneaking in the dark, thats where it fails. You don't get that suspense with trying to crawl through vents or hide in the shadows. Instead you just crawl around awkwardly trying to understand the physics of crawling and than try to hit a marine with your attack.
This game has some value if you play with A FRIEND NOT FRIENDS, playing with 4 others just feels like a huge crowd and theres no fun involved. But with only 1 other partner you can share the laughs that this game has to offer. Sad as it may sound, Yes if you play with a friend you will do nothing but laugh at this "Canon to the series" Aliens game. OK now to cut to the point. DONT BUY THIS GAME AT FULL RETAIL PRICE! BUY IT FOR LESS THAN $20.00(USD). The overall experience is like a shooting gallery but with aliens. Theres not much challenge or horror factor other than how bad the plot twists and plot line are. If you are curious as to why everyone is ranting about this game than rent it and see for yourself. Its not the WORST aliens but it is a big let down to many people. The only game from Gearbox you should care about is Borderlands, at least that was original.
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video-games_xbox
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Finally, another fun WWE game. I've played WWE games since NINTENDO and SEGA, so I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. With yearly titles, one of the main things that I look for is a fresh experience. When it comes to games, there's nothing worse than paying for one and then finding out that it's almost the same as the previous game. THAT was my problem with SvR 2011. It seemed like it was a slightly polished remake of SvR 2010. I played it for about an hour and didn't look at it again after that. I felt so disappointed and cheated that I wasn't planning to buy WWE '12...then The Rock returned, haha. Here's what I've found:
The presentation is fantastic. I'm sure that if you picked it apart, you could find a few issues, but when it comes to adding FRESHNESS to the series, it's great. The crowd seems more engaged. The camera angles are a nice touch. The graphics are top-notch as usual. People have complained about the commentators, but I don't pay much attention to them anyway. I will say that Michael Cole has no energy when he announces a victory.
The controls are GREAT! It's a very nice change from last year, and it's easy to pick up (even if you're used to the controls from previous games). I really like the grapple system. You have control over the way that you lock up (headlock, wrist lock, etc) as well as control over which limbs you target (head, legs, arms). It gives me a great sense of freedom and depth.
I haven't tried the Road to WM mode, but I'm sure that it will be enjoyable. I'm not a Sheamus fan, but I don't DISLIKE him. THQ made a joke about how fans were disappointed by John Cena being a WM character every year (That's why they start RTW with a John Cena cut-scene). Personally, I would have preferred him instead of Sheamus, but oh well.
The roster is great. The unlockable/downloadable characters are more than I could reasonably expect (some fans have unreasonable expectations for dlc).
I gave the game 5 stars for Fun because it's VERY entertaining. I gave it 4 stars Overall simply because only a few games REALLY deserve 5 stars Overall.
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video-games_xbox
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Bayonetta Review from a DmC fan. I won't make this too long as this isn't an exclusive game site where people will actually read walls of text. Even though this will be a mini wall.
4 stars out of 5.
Gameplay was fantastic. It melded fast action very well and you actually knew what you were doing. It also had various styles, such as when you're at sea or motorcycle missions. They could have made a whole mode on Motorcycle missions, which seems like a lost opportunity since it really was fun. I like these kind of games so it may be slightly biased. Moving further on, it was exceptionally linear. Maybe 2 boss battles required thinking beyond dodging and hitting mindlessly. The higher end grunts were more difficult than the actual bosses. The epilogue boss and the leviathan (? the one in the water) were the only exceptions. So, it was a plus in how it made the game not just playing through grunts for anticipation of a boss, but balanced for what to expect and and execute yourself. I would have preferred the bosses have more thinking to beat as the really were just dodge and hit. Their moves hardly varied as well. It did well however for the most part in keeping interest and making the hack n slash very elegant.
Graphics were great. I'm not picky though, but it was nice for a game that old (not very) and satisfied. Not much more to say. Sexualization of Bayonetta should take your mind off of an small defects in graphics.
The character of Bayonetta was very appealing to the public. It wasn't trying too hard to be an actual character per se, it was just portraying her as what you see is what you get. Not a huge analysis, which makes it hard to connect with as it seems shallow, but overall did fine considering the pseud-romance and child interactions. Could have played on that more and created a better bond so (like FMA where the dog died coughcough), it would have more impact in the scenarios.
Soundtrack was excellent. Enjoyed it greatly. All I have to say on that subject.
I suppose I do have to compare this to Devil May Cry. In my ranking, Devil May Cry 1 and 3 are better, but Bayonetta falls under the third rank. (followed by DmC 4, Reboot, then 2.). The gameplay in Bayonetta is certainly improved upon from DmC's, just missing a flair and isn't as thought provoking nor difficult.
Final points:
+ Storyline was fine and while semi-short, it was rewarding.
- Story battles were very linear sans Jubileus and Leviathan
+ New mechanics like Motorcycle missions were fun
- There is no separate mode for this. Personal minus. It probably means nothing to you.
+ Graphics were sublime
- Not as many full cutscenes as there are snippets
+ Certainly a quality game
Hope this helps. I do recommend this game to anyone who doesn't want to experience the higher difficulty of DmC or want an easier learning curve. Also, it just looks elegant.
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video-games_xbox
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This headset is a step in the right direction. After some disappointing purchases of Turtle Beaches in the past, I decided to try one more time for the perfect headset for my needs. I really did not want to spend 300+ dollars, so I decided to go middle ground with this headset. I have completed my first marathon gaming session and this 420x performed like a champ. As for the fit, the headset is very lightweight and comfortable, but the earpads were slightly stiff. Let me get right to what I thought of the sound with respect to my needs. The sound is much better than my PX4's and is on par with my Kingston HyperX Cloud II's as far as clarity and overall sound field is concerned. I would not consider myself an audiophile, but I have quite a few headsets over 100+ dollars to compare with. The 420x's don't have surround sound, this is stereo sound, but it is done with great balance throughout the sound field. Also the sound was great outside of Xbox One, I am listening to Spotify on my PS4 with my 420x's while I write this. Now onto my positive and negative points.
PRO's
-Very lightweight
-Great battery
-No hissing or distortion
-Suprisingly good stereo sound (right amount of treble and bass, not overpowering).
-ability to control every aspect of chat, mute, volume, and audio presets on the headset.
-100% wireless
-four types of audio presets
-active mic monitoring
-outstanding chat clarity
-can achieve very high volume with little to no distortion
-Microsoft's play and charge usb cable will also charge this headset. That cable is about 8 feet long.
-can work with PS4 for audio with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable (not included). Chat also works, I chatted in a private party on my PS4.
Secondly, now for the things I thought could be better or could be improved upon. I was concerned with the all plastic headband and frame. After asking many of the vine reviewers here on Amazon, none really answered the question of stability and if the headband was cheaply made. I reached out to Turtle Beach support and was reassured that the mistakes made with the Stealth 400 headset and the cracking headband for PS4 were not present in the 420x. I also felt that 158 dollars shipped isn't quite a great deal either, I feel that this is slightly a overpriced headset at this time.
CON's
-build quality could be much better, far to much plastic
-not a versatile headset, I will discuss this in more detail below
-149.99 is much higher than Sony's offering of the Gold Wireless Headset (wireless and simulated 7.1 surround sound) that is usually less than 99 dollars.
-not full noise cancellation
-mic monitoring is non-adjustable
-usb cable provided for charging is very short
-the overall headset headband is not flexible at all
My list of cons is mostly things that are slightly nitpicking, but this headset is really terrific overall, I am surprised at how it performs. Also this headset did work with my PS4 as well, but could not be powered by the 3.5mm alone, it needs to be plugged into the DS4 and also needs to be powered on which is going to drain the battery, this headset was made primarily for Xbox One only. It also works well with mobile devices, but this isn't a headset I would pickup for PS4, so please take my advice and go with another solution for that. My big worry is the plastic headband, I will update this in a few months to discuss durability. Despite any cons I could find, I am still going with 5 stars because this headset does many things right and not many things wrong. I commend Turtle Beach for going in the right direction with the 420x.
Update:09/27
The durability seems to be good so far, nothing is showing cracks. I have replaced the stiff earpads with Brainwavz HM5 memory foam earpads and the comfort is really great now.
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video-games_xbox
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Get's the job done. I bought this charger around December and so far this is what I can tell you about it.
cons.
1. There's no way to tell how charged te batteries are using the xbox button in the middle of the xbox controller, when you do the bars for the battery life are always full so you won't know when the charge is going to run out.
2. The charging stand where you put the batteries on isn't designed very well for charging the batteries without them being attached to the controller, if you try and charge them without it connected to the controller you have to try and line it up just right with the little LED on the charging dock and the battery, if you don't the light showing you how charged the battery is will stay red (no/low battery power) and will never change to yellow or green (fully/high battery power), resulting in you over charging the battery. The easiest way to prevent that is to just have the battery connected to an xbox 360 controller when you charge it and it will slide right into place. (P.S. I myself might have accidentally over charged the batteries because the light indicator showing how charged the battery is will only go to yellow. I'm not sure if this was caused by me or if the batteries themselves were defective or something of that nature.)
3. The average time the batteries last after being charged is around 3 to 5 hours of use, which is abit shorter than other batteries but if you aren't using both of them and have a second xbox 360 controller (you can charge the batteries without them being attached to the controller, it's just harder to line them up with the charging bay!) you can pop the dead battery into there and put that on the charging bay and then rotate them when those batteries get dead. If you are using both of the battery packs at the same time however get ready for some downtime for you and your friend for the batteries to recharge.
4. The instructions that come with the "Xbox 360 Power Base Induction Charger" do not tell you how long you should charge the batteries for or how long you shouldn't charge the batteries for in case the light indicator is messed up or something. (As stated above my batteries no longer show a green light when charging and will only show a yellow one.)
Pros.
1. The batteries work, I've had them for a few months now and they still stay charged for 3-5 hours of use.
2. You can use rumble without the the xbox 360 controller turning off (I'm talking about the issue for the xbox 360 controller where when you use rumble the batteries jiggle out of place for a moment and then that turns off your xbox controller which can get really annoying for online play or playing in general. Here's a video showing you a fix for that problem in case you decide not to buy these. [...])
3. They are really light making the xbox 360 controller alot lighter (Not sure if everyone sees that as a pro, but I do.)
4. The charging dock is small and lets you charge two batteries at once and they don't have to be connected to the controller to charge (but it is harder to charge them without being connected to a controller.
I would also like to add that I do not know if the batteries automatically stop charging the batteries once the charge light turns green to prevent over charging the battery, but I it might. If anyone knows a added comment to confirm would be great.
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video-games_xbox
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first impressions. I am pleasantly suprised by this game even though I am not very far into it. It is very final fantasy-ish and has turn based combat, a rarity on the x360, where you actually have to use strategy as apposed to mashing on the buttons like a 4 year old. The game is 4 discs. Unnecessarily large yes. Because of this I assumed it would be 80% videos and not really a game at all. But I was mistaken. It's not many fmv's all the time yet, at all. I'm not sure why there is 4 discs maybe some type of copy protection scheme or they want to make it seem like it is an old playstation final fantasy. Or... maybe the constant fmv's start later in the game, hope not...
So you are some dude who is immortal supposedly and can't recall his past. Can't say I really care. JRPGs in particular seem to forget that its a GAME not some kind of epic movie or novel designed to make your heart flutter. I do not care about such nonsense from a video game. However the characters in this game are pretty cool looking and lifelike looking. Even though it appears they are all wearing too much eye shadow, especially the male characters.... Their weapons also look very cool. It is well designed from an art standpoint. Voice acting is pretty good, music, sound effects, a good foundation is there.
I am not that far in the game. So you join up with this drunken mouthy jackass who is pretty annoying but does provide the only humor/comic relief in the game. And theres some other "immortal" chick with an awesome rack.
Well despite being immortal I'm finding it super easy to die on the first boss. You and your immortal chick seem not to be immortal whatsoever and you die easily. The first boss will just devastate you. Only thing I can think of to do is to go back and grind for like 5 more levels until I get a "heal 2" spell... if that will even happen... So basically the boss will wreck your s*** and do 140-300 damage a turn to everyone in your party. Why is this a problem? Because that is most of your HP and you can only heal one person at a time for 100 hp a turn, which also wastes your turn of course. Do the math. Its immensely frustrating and probably where most stop playing this game. It may explain why I got a like new copy for 10 bucks.
Got a couple other things to say. The circle target damage boost thing and whole ring system, is basically worthless. If you want to cause a whole 8 points more damage go ahead and use it. Really repetitive. The defensive spells are equally weak and not worth using.
If I can grind past the first boss it may be a good game it surely has potential. The thing about it is, I have already done alot of grinding up to this boss, much more than most people would, and still am dying, so you may need some serious patience to get thru the bosses of this game
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video-games_xbox
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Tritton Ax Pro First Time. Bought Turtle Beach px21 for my ps3 the first one broke, bought another set the same problem as the first except the whole headset doesn't even turn on when usb is plug in. so i went with tritton headset this time. couldn't figure what tritton headset to go with, after looking through many reviews i went with Tritton Ax Pro. setup was pretty easy the problem though for something that's a great headset sure has lots of cables for everything which OK but wish was wireless for lets hassle on things. i defently can say the sound is way better than Turtle Beach px21 even without the digital audio box. the headset feels way more durable and not feel like it was cheaply made like the px21 were. the headset are heavier than px21 but the comfort of them make up for it. i do like how you can take out the mic anytime you want that's great feats to have. the problems with the mic though is you cant switch it the right side, its little short compared to the px21 and its not as flexible as the px21 mic was. other than that the mic sounds slightly better than the px21 were. now for the digital audio box that comes with it. its a great feats that adds to the greatness of 5.1 surround sound for games, even for movies when you want to hear and feel the explosion coming from the movie. played uc 2 last night and in the option of the game your able to set what surround sound you want for basic 5.1 or pro logic 2 from changing it back and forth you can clearly hear the difference from what the game sounds like. i like how the box auto detects what sound is actually being produce which pretty neat. the problem though is certain cables like the usb and optical cable are pretty short so you have to have the box pretty close to your ps3,pc, or 360. though the length of the actually cable from the headset are very long, almost to long. i can say this was great choice of headset to buy for gaming
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video-games_xbox
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I am trying so hard to like you Xbox One... But the Dashboard needs tons of work. Being an avid gamer on the older (5-star!!!) Xbox 360 I put off getting an XBone until there were actually some "fun" games to play. Enter the Christmas Assassin's Creed bundle and an additional free game (Halo MCC Oh joy of joys!) for $329 and I was sold! When my Xbone finally arrived two weeks later I could hardly wait to set it up... Update? Check! Update again? Check! Install game? Check! Update game? Check! Play game? Oh heck yes! GAMEGASM ! ! ! Playing games is fun and the new controllers are quick and hella sensitive. As a game machine this puppy gets 5-Stars.
So why the 3-Star review? Well the rest of the system is a horrid, horrid mess.
(don't hate me for the below, as of today it is all still true)
The dash board and its "Metro" layout is absolute garbage. It is a pain to find anything and the constant blanking of the screen as it goes one level back and forth in this Metro garbage is nauseating. Speaking of nauseating, the dashboard is rendered in less than 1080p, yes I triple checked, but it is a janky, jagged mess of pixels and fonts that looks horrible. And for the love of Pete do not go into your friends list and even think about comparing achievements as there is literally no quick way to even make sense of this mess or navigate it as the tiles all stay blank for 10+ seconds at a time. The good news is that there is only "one" advertisement per page now, but heaven help you if you try to find a movie/game/demo/add-on on a page with the dozen or so badly scaled down metro tiles that look like they came out of the 16-bit era. Just exit this mess and pray they get it right in the next update, but don't press the back button one too many times as that will annoyingly restart whatever game was running last.
The system also crawls to a halt when you go to the dashboard or accidentally pull up the achievement menu... well just about any menu with more than two tiles in it for that matter bogs this monstrous machine down. Also don't ever pull up that side 'snap?' menu thing, I have made that mistake several times and I am still convinced that the only way to get rid of it is to power down the system as nine times out of ten you can't get rid of the foul thing, it just sits there mocking you, daring you to try and close it once again so it can open up some other convoluted menu. Oh yeah, almost forgot! Having to double/triple/quadruple sign in is annoying too! Turn on the XBone and be greeted by "Hello Gamertag". Go to download the newest content (when I finally can find it that is) and be greeted with "Who is downloading this?" Choose "Gamertag" again. Be met with "Who is downloading this?" repeat this 3~4 times and then finally get your demo... Well at least I think it started. I gave up shortly after the the Xbone started to openly mock me.
So to wrap up. Gaming Good. Dashboard Bad. But with any luck Micro$oft will get the kinks out and we can get back to a system that is simple and easy to use.
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video-games_xbox
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Read before judging. First, I want to say that I love PvZ anything. My kids especially love it.. the biggest reason you might ask- well, they are 16, 13, and 5. It is one of the few games they can play together that they all can ~actually play~. They all were waiting anxiously for this games release. When it finally came out they pooled their money and when I got on to buy it I did notice it said it needed xbox live gold. OK I told my boys and the older two said it was no big deal as they both have xbox live accounts.
Here is why I say to read before judging in the description right here on Amazon it states under the Xbox 360 platform (and I just jumped to another window and double checked, as of today it is still there) it says that it is a 4 player online co-op. So, my kids get it loaded and it comes up and they realize that they can not play with each other on one tv. I double checked then and just a few seconds ago no where does it say that the split screen is xbox one only. Nor does it explain anywhere that if you buy this game you can only be a loner at an xbox playing only with people that you can't actually see. So, sadly, my two older boys can play but the younger one is left out. Now I am trying to decide whether I want to get my 5 yr old an xbox live account so he and I can play this stupid game together!
Here is my issue I have been in marketing the people saying this is 'a money grab' are right. I usually have my 'marketing goggles' on and am pretty skeptical about anything. There are marketing ploys everywhere. We as a society choose which ones we are willing to buy into and which ones we are not. Those leaving their reviews and opinions about the fact that this game is online only are doing precisely what the review process was meant to do. It is to let the product manufacturer know what their consumers want. Well, I think they have spoken pretty loudly they don't appreciate being forced to buy xbox live just to play a game. And yes, forced, in a loose sense of the word. Because when you or your children buy something that they think is one thing and find out it isn't quite what they expected and it was done intentionally all in the name of forcing you into buying or participating in something you didn't originally intend to .. that is being forced. I do believe that the manufacturer knew they were being slightly misleading. And they specifically made certain features on the xbox one available that you can't get on the 360 (and don't give me all the processor crap, the 360 could have handled a split screen - they could have made it not have to be online, gee what a concept). The reasoning behind that is so that kids would bug their parents into (or so that the give me, gotta have it generation would want it even more) getting the xbox one. I told my oldest sons this all would happen from the gate (and that is why we have not, nor will we ever, buy an xbox one). And it has. Everything they are doing is a ploy to get people to feel that they HAVE to move up or they are missing out. Well, I for one don't think that splitting brothers into separate rooms and making people sit solitarily and dividing ourselves from human contact is 'missing out'. We now have a stack of games that the older boys have gathered that they are taking down the their local GameStop to trade in to get their little brother a live account so they can all play. We could just buy another xbox live membership but I am officially done putting money into xbox. From now on if we can't trade it straight across then it 'ain't' happening. And once we run dry of our xbox stockpile, well, we will find other game consoles at that point that will have hopefully learned from xbox's mistake.
All of you saying that we shouldn't be rating on the fact that it is online only, stop being sheep and read what the definition of review is. You tell what you do and do not like about a product so they can make improvements. How do they improve if we don't let them know anything? If PopCap was smart, they would read these and get the hint that part of what made the original PvZ so popular was the fact that it wasn't the online, loner game. It brought families together. This separates them. That is it's downfall. Online games are a dime a dozen. The ones that can bring a family with such a wide range of ages - now that was talent.
Making the game the same across all platforms would have been more honest. Aside from that. any game should be able to be played offline. Period. Otherwise, i look at it as you are encouraging my 5 yr old to engage strangers in order to play a simple game. Justify it all you want that is what you are doing all in the name of $$$.
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video-games_xbox
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READ THIS FIRST (sorry for the bad spelling. Most of the negative reviews that have been giving this game a bad rating are mostly from parents complaing about how they need Xbox Live, and all that stuff, but they are not really actually looking at the gameplay itself. People are here to see of the game is good, not to here people complain about Miscrosoft and EA. Anyway, at the time of this writing four DLCs have been realeased for the game, the garden variety pack, the zomboss down pack, the tactical tacopack, and the suburbination pack, they all were free and added a lot to the the game, making it much more rich and filled with things to do. There are several different game modes; Garden Ops- A cooperative 1-4 player mode which harkens back to the original PvZ (plants vs zombies), in which the plants defend a garden from 10 waves of zombies, with boss levels at 5 and 10. The game mode is fun and is more relaxed than the competitive multiplayer, and is a nice omage to the it's tower defense roots. The one complaint I have is that you cannot change your character mid-game, which kind of adds another whole strategic element to the game. The next gamemode is Welcome Mat-This mode is a simplified TDM (team death match) where no customizable characters are allowed and you get more health the worse you do, a good place for beginners to start. Team Vanquish- Is Welcome Mat without the health boosts and lack of customizable characters, first team to 50 vanquishes wins and reviving a fallen team mate takes a point from the enemy (which encourages teamwork). Gardens and Graveyards- Is perhaps the most complex game mode to date, and it goes like this: the plants have to defend a garden from the zombies, the zombies capture the garden by standing inside of the green circle and waiting until a purple bar overtakes the green health bar at the top of the screen, the zombies push forwards as the plants fall back until they reach there final objective. The final objective can be disarming a cuke bomb or infiltrating a mansion, or even rolling a golfball into a hole but whatever it is its always the highlight of the game. Playing as the zombies DEFINETLY gets you more coins, smoetimes over 15,000 in a really good match, so if you grinding for coins then this is the mode for you. The next two are Classic Team Vanquish/Gardens and Graveyards- These two are just like welcome mat but without the health boost. Gnome Bomb- Gnome Bomb was the first new gamemode added to PvZ Garden Warfare in which plants and zombies fight for control of a gnome which has the power to destroy mini gardens and graveyards. One of the only modes that is timed (other than Gardens amd Graveyards) it used to be that one team was immensly overpowered defeating the other team in 5 minutes or less, while this is less so now it still sometimes can occur. Mixed Mode-8v8 Mode which is basically just a shuffle of all the game modes. Vanquish Confirmed- Instead of just having to kill people to win, vanquished foes now drop crazy orbs which you or a team mate must pick up in order for the vanquish to be confirmed. Suburbination- Plants and Zombies battle for control of three points on the map that will let them win if they hold them the areas produce points, so more points means more winning. If one side captures all three they go into SUBURBINATION where they earn heaps of points and coins, first to 100 points wins. The game economy evolves around PvZ coins which can be earned through playing matches, these coins can be used to buy sticker packs which unlock cool stuff like new characters or upgrades n' stuff. There ARE microtransactions in the game but they dont't need to be bought in order to unlock everything though it can he tempting to get those couple extra coins to open just one more sticker pack. With 1000's of customization items your character can look any way you want it to look, and speaking of characters lets look at them. On the plants side there is the Peashooter, Chomper, Sunflower, And Cactus and on Zombies we have the Foot Soldier, Engineer, Scientist, And All Star. They all have distinct personalitys which is pretty impresive since all the can make are grunts and weird noises. So all in all the game is good and even though you need Xbox Live to play it is still very fun and addicting and I would definetly reccomend it, so just keep this review in mind before you purchase this game, and thank you for your time!
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video-games_xbox
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In a nutshell: Don't buy this game. Just about everything in this game is hastily developed and poorly thrown together. A list:
1. The plot is shoddy at best. It is NOT about the Revolution. It merely takes place during the Revolution and features famous events from that time. You are NOT a Revolutionary soldier, as the trailers made it seem. You are merely doing your own thing through the events of the Revolution. Don't misunderstand- you are also not really doing the "Assassin" thing either. You ARE an Assassin, but Connor's motives are all over the place. There is no unified motivator for Connor- it is simply kill for A or B.
2. The characters are boring and poorly developed. I loved Ezio and Altair. Connor is nowhere near as compelling or interesting. Other than when he is in combat, he is a meek, boring, and simple (although admittedly good) man. The other characters are equally poorly developed. George Washington is not a major character, nor are any of the other founding fathers, as the trailers would have you believe. Sam Adams and Lafayette are pretty much all you get.
3. The combat system is honestly condescending. It took me a while to figure out just how simple the controls are. It is, as one reviewer noted, the "dumbed down" version of Assassin's Creed II.
4. The missions feature an incredibly annoying "Optional" objectives notification system, which flashes in your face every time you do not get one done correctly. I am assuming this is just to get you to play the game again. However, for me it was just annoying.
5. The game suffers from the same control issues that Assassin's Creed and Assassin's Creed II suffered from. It is very difficult to get your character to do EXACTLY what you want him to do. For a game that has many missions involving limited time or chases, this can be extremely frustrating.
6. The ending is terrible. Think of Mass Effect 3, only even more of a let down.
In short, this game was marketed as an old fashioned "American Legend" that would finish out the series. It is certainly not this, and if it is an Assassin's Creed game, it does not do the series justice. Assassin's Creed II is one of my favorite games ever. I beat this game today and do not plan on ever playing it again. I am hugely disappointed, and honestly very angry that I spent $60 on this game. Save your money. Wait until it is cheap, at the very least.
(Amazon did a great job delivering this in 2 days, despite a hurricane to get in its way. This is not a review of their service, which was impeccable.)
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video-games_xbox
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SPLOSIONS GALORE. There are enough explosions in this game to impress Michael Bay!
Although, a few flaws prevent Red Faction Guerilla from becoming a masterpiece, it's a very fun game that allows you to utterly destroy an open ended world.
Concept: 9/10
You're a colonist on Mars. The suits on Earth have funded a private army to take away your human rights! You teach them a lesson by joining a band of Freedom Fighters and wiping them off the face of the planet... literally.
You team up with the guerilla fighters to take on the Earth Defense Force (EDF). Your mission is to kick them out of your city, district by district. Each district has a bunch of Missions: Drive a vehicle somewhere in X amount of time, Rescue some Hostages, Defend an area, Assault an enemy stronghold, or Demolish a building. You can attempt these in any order and how you complete them is entirely up to you. After you successfully complete a Mission, you get rewarded with cash for upgrades, a higher chance of civilians helping you, or a reduction in EDF control of that area. When the EDF control drops, you can perform a key Mission that advances the story. Once you complete a district, you can move onto the next one. There are a total of six districts. Each has a greater difficulty, but better weaponry.
Graphics: 8/10
The graphics are good, but they're not the best you'll see. The visual effects and explosions punctuate the action as you destroy EVERYTHING! The character models are a bit on the bland side, but they get the job done. The Martian architecture and vehicles are really interesting. The landscape looks good, although after a while it all looks like slightly different red rocks.
Gameplay: 8/10
Red Faction Guerilla is full of vehicle chases, large scale battles, sci-fi shootouts, and destruction. Blowing stuff up has never been so much fun. You can literally drive construction vehicles through buildings and they'll collapse fairly realistically. You also get a wide variety of high tech explosives. Rocket Launchers, Mines, Rail Guns, Tanks, Armored Cars, Fuel Cans, and the mightiest sledgehammer known to man. All of these weapons are upgradable as well. In general, the controls are pretty good. A few of the vehicles feel a bit sluggish or floaty; but when the game is this much fun, a few flaws are easy to overlook. The game has an arsenal of powerful weapons, but is lacking in defensive equipment. This game could have really used the Halo Bubble Shield or Health Packs. In the game, you automatically recover your health if you don't get shot for about 10 seconds, but there are times when it feels like shotgun guys appear out of nowhere and you don't stand a chance. If you die, you either respawn at a Mission Checkpoint or back at one of your bases.
Story: 6/10
There really isn't much of a theme to Red Faction Guerilla and the NPC's are greatly underdeveloped. But a shallow story is better than a bad one, right? This game and Transformers 2 raking in $400 Million pretty much prove you don't need a great story if there are lots of 'Splosions! The story serves its purpose and ties all of the missions together in a pretty solid package.
Replay Value: 9/10
There are a ton of Missions in the game that you can play in any order. Some even have challenge times that you can try to beat. (Destroy this building with a fuel can and a pistol in 1 minute. The Pro Time to Beat is 15 seconds.) The Campaign is long and after you finish the main story, you can keep playing!
Red Faction Guerilla also features a bunch of multiplayer modes and even more equipment. Team up with your buddies for Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, or Team based Destruction! The multiplayer modes are really fun and the more you play, the more costumes you unlock.
The game is rated M for Strong Language, Action Movie Violence, and a bit of Blood - but not gore.
Overall: 8/10
There are 20-50 hours of fun gameplay in the Campaign Mode and an infinite number of hours in the Multiplayer Matches. Red Faction does have a few quirks, but where else can you put remote detonation mines on an armored car, drive it off a cliff into a building, jet pack out of the car before it hits, detonate the mines to destroy half of the walls, and snipe the survivors from the air?! If you like open ended games like GTA, and you like the idea of blasting entire towns to rubble, then this is the game for you!
Rent it if you have about 25 hours to finish the game and you like open ended world games.
Buy it if you love blowing stuff up! Unlike a lot of 9 hour action games, Red Faction's Campaign offers up to 60 hours and the Multiplayer Modes really are fun.
Avoid it if you don't like action games, sci-fi, explosions, destruction, loud noises, or you're racist towards Martians.
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video-games_xbox
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More of a masterpiece than I expected. Well let me start off by saying that I try not to buy into the hype of games anymore after the slight letdown that was Halo 3 and the huge letdown that was Army of Two for me. And for the most part while first hearing about GTA4 I was not all that interested in picking it up. But then the reviews started coming out and I began to read, and read some more. My interest peaked up a little bit and I decided to go and pick up the game on release night.
And seeing as how with a few trade ins I got it for literally nothing I guess there really wasn't much to lose.
Boy am I glad I did, not only does this game live up to every thing the reviews have stated about it, it pretty much surpasses my expectations by a landslide.
By far one of the most complete games I have played in quite a while and it does not leave much for me to desire.
I haven't had any graphical slowdown or popins that I have noticed as stated in some reviews. No tech problems with the game locking up as I have been hearing people talk about. The controls took a little bit of getting used to because they aimed for a bit more realism than in the past GTA games, so driving is a little odd at first.
I love the story down to the last detail and while I have not finished it yet, I have been making nightly progress.
The multiplayer is absolutely great, mainly because of the ability to wage your battles and races in any part of the entire city.
I find Team deathmatch to be the most entertaining because no 2 games are ever really the same because the fights are always in different areas.
Free roam is some serious fun although I do wish they had added some more customization options that you could turn on or off for free mode, maybe to give you different things you can do (I.E. Zombie mod anyone?)
But who knows what will come with future DLC on Xbox live.
Everything in the graphics is great down to the little details like most of the pedestrians actually appearing different in different areas of the game. You really get a feel for the economic situations in the city as you are roaming around. As well as small things some people may not even notice like when driving around with Little Jacob and seeing the smoke from his joint pouring out a car window if its broken out. To the great effects of the water on the ground after it has finished raining.
And while I can't say enough good things about what I love in this game, there will never be a review that will let you see how it truly is to play it. Go out and rent it, buy it, give it a shot.
And a side note to parents buying this game for kids, I personally would not recommend it, it is rated mature for a reason and I'm sick and tired of hearing people come on the news attacking this game for all the things it lets you do. There is continuous subject matter which really should not be viewed by younger kids. While it is up to the parent to decide, do so with caution and read up first before making that decision.
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video-games_xbox
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Somewhat slow beginning belies true greatness. It seems the latest installment of the FF franchise has caused quite a stir. Everyone's arguing about how good/bad the game is due to its linearity and battle system. I decided to take a chance and buy this game, despite the conflicting statements about it, and I must say, I'm not disappointed by my decision. Yes, the game's more linear with less areas to explore than previous versions of FF, but whether that's a positive or negative is purely your own preference.
People who love to mess around for hundreds of hours on games like Oblivion and Mass Effect doing everything and anything imaginable might not take kindly to this change. But others, like myself, who were less interested in RPGs before for the same reason they're loved (free-roaming/easy to get lose, too complex, etc.) will take an interest to this game after giving it a few hours for it to develop. It seems Square-Enix decided to take a risk and try to appeal to more than the traditional RPG fanbase.
The battle system is introduced gradually, with the most basic moves available at the start of the game. As you progress deeper into the storyline, all of the abilities are unveiled. I found that this gradual introduction of the game system was probably the better way to get players accustomed to all of the game's features. If everything had been available directly at the start, I suspect that a good amount of players would encounter a learning curve. There's also been a change to the traditional system, which is the other point that older FF players are hanging on. Instead of it being purely turn-based, it's become more fast-flowing. As soon as you encounter an enemy, you are transported to a battle screen. Actions that you order characters to take against the enemy cost sections of an action bar, which refills over time. You can string together attacks which eventually lead to combos. Basically, imagine battle elements of a purely action game and a purely RPG intertwined. To players who are used to quicker battles, this is welcome.
I won't get into story specifics, but I would recommend this game to anyone who previously avoided RPGs, those who like the FF series, and anyone who had wavering feelings as to whether to purchase this game or not. Keep in mind that it's linear, but not to the point of it being mundane and boring. Just give it a chance, it'll show its shine after the first few hours of gameplay.
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video-games_xbox
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Very nice highs and lows. I'm using another reviewer's format to voice my opinion. I figure these are the basic parameters for review of this headset.
Sound:
Very nice highs and lows, however anything you don't like can be modified to personal preference in the programming. I'm no sound expert, but right out of the box these sound great.
10/10
Comfort:
The mesh material is not my favorite, but it serves the purpose. Imitation leather is just superior. The earcups, which ties into the general fit of the headset, are incoherently flawed: This headset is slightly too big. Rather, its size parameters do not go small enough to fit all sizes of heads. I don't have a huge head, but I certainly don't have a small one, and this headset does not shrink small enough. It is usable, however the biggest problem with this is that the earcups sit on the top of your ears, shifting the weight from where it should be, on the crest of your head. I have owned several headsets, and none are as flawed as this in that department. I suppose turtle beach does not (or at least did not) want to cater to everyone with this product. This size issue, combined with the moderately heavy weight of the headset, makes for a painful ear experience for some.
6/10
Durability: No complaints here. Owned this one for close to 6 months, still going strong. All the parts work just fine after all this time.
10/10
Functionality:
Functionally, this is undoubtedly the best headset I have ever used. Wireless bluetooth chat is amazing. Can't get that from astro. Now there is the new a"Dual- Band Wifi" out with Turtle beach's newer headsets, but really, unless you know you will experience interruption in your wifi, that should not even be a considering factor when choosing a headset. I'm being honest here, my x42's WITH DUAL BAND give me more interruption than these in the same location. Bluetooth capabilities are an awesome feature on these. You won't believe how fun it is to prank call someone with the voice morph on. :D If I could put an 11 for the rating, I would.
10/10
Summary:
PROS:
-Interruption free sound in Beautiful Dolby Digital 5.1
-Wireless Chat on Xbox 360 and Playstation
-Voice calls and music streaming via bluetooth
-Programmability
CONS:
-Not so great comfort, not good for smaller heads
-Battery life with my Ni-Cad rechargeables is not too great
That's it for my review of the TB XP500. Hope you enjoyed it.
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video-games_xbox
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Amazing Strategy and Tactics for the Mature Gamer. Full Spectrum Warrior is an amazing squad-based strategy game that was developed by the military. It focusses on two squads protecting each other and taking out the enemy.
First off, this is a MATURE title. It is about violence and real-life soldier situations. While it is not a first person shooter - you aren't actually pulling the trigger - you are ordering soldiers into difficult situations. There is also heavy swearing in some situations.
For adult gamers, though, this is an AMAZING game. Each team has members with different personalities. The clothing, movementse and weaponry are all quite accurate. Probably the only real complaint is that the grenade from the M203 seems to have a little rocket in its tail given how it moves :) This was certainly a game the military had some feedback in.
The graphics are stellar, as you might expect on the XBox or PC. There are birds flying around and landing. Trees have leaves, buildings have porches. The sky has clouds and the grass has spots of dirt or moss. You really feel like you're moving through a real city and down real streets.
The audio is also very well done. You hear the boots running over concrete and dirt. The 'tutorial voice' sounds like it's coming in over a radio. The various soldiers have unique voices and attitudes. The weaponry all give accurate sounds as well.
The squad movements are extremely well done, with the soldiers acting like REAL well-trained soldiers. You don't have to tell them how to take cover or shoot - you move them from location to location and they take cover appropriately. It's very easy to get the hang of movements and actions - and a great mental challenge to strategize the best solution to a given mission.
You can do coop in XBox Live, but there's no way to do head to head. The point being that you are playing the Army here against terrorists - and the game doesn't give you the ability to be a terrorist. While that might annoy some people, it really is in keeping with the mission of the game. The game is about training soldiers who are street wise, but who understand how to safely move through an area, only taking out the "bad guys". There are even restrictions about not firing in religious areas and not leaving behind guns for innocent civilians to hurt themselves with. If the game let you "be" the terrorists and shoot the soldiers, it would send quite the wrong message.
Highly recommended for any military / strategy lover - but definitely a game for the mature gamers.
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video-games_xbox
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One of the best and most Underrated JRPGs I've played. I bought RoF just because it was a cheap JRPG that had my eye for a while. I read several reviews over the past year, and because the game was received as an average game, it faded out from my thoughts. Now that I finally decided to spend the money to get the game, I'm really glad I did. This game is very unique and fun.
First off I would like to address the plot and setting. The game is set on a gorgeous steam punk tower created to fix a ruined Earth. Even though the game is set more than a thousand years in the future, because it's post apocalyptic, they have more primitive technology than we do. The enviroments themselves look fantastic even though the battle areas aren't as exciting as I would like. The story follows three characters: a teenage boy, a young woman, and a man. They carry out missions for both common civilians and the leaders of the tower. The story is almost undetectable at start, but you slowly get slivers of what is really going on as you progress. Many may gripe about how "little" of a story there is, but it picks up as you progress through the long game. When you are about twenty hours in you'll be getting to the good stuff. You don't want to waste twenty hours waiting for a story? Maybe for an average RPG...
...Except, the combat in this RPG is anything but average. While it is turn based, it isn't your standard "I want to shoot. Ok, now you shoot me, alright... I think I'll defend now." This game is a hybrid between combat types, where you can move around to get yourself to a better position to fire at your opponents, and the more you do, the more the enemies will attack you. You use guns, grenades, and different ammo types to kill your opponents. While that may sound standard, there is another unique element calle "Hero Actions" and "Resonance Actions" where you basically run and shoot multiple times and fly through the air, in a very stylish way. It kind of reminded me of Devil May Cry a bit, in that there is a major focus on style. Early in the game, the fights are easy, but they pick up in difficulty quickly, and you will have to grind a little bit before you can attempt some of the more difficuly fights. Don't worry though, the fights are a blast. *pun*
If you enjoy JRPGs I think you can definitely find a lot to love about this game. Whether it be the unique setting, good musical score, frantic and awesome combat, or likable characters, I was surprised by how much I liked this game.
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video-games_xbox
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