Sniper: Ghost Warrior was a game trying to be different, a sniper simulator similar to Sniper Elite but much worse. Ghost Warrior 2 improves upon the predecessor a lot but is still not worth the price of admission. I actually wanted to be interested in the story; it kept trying to pull me in, but it just fell flat in the end. The voice acting is actually pretty decent, if cheesy sometimes. I don’t know why you’re on these missions; it never explains. All I know is that you’re hunting a guy named Marinov or something like that and trying to stop the sale of bioweapons. It was a typical present-day military story, but the plot twists actually had me interested, almost.
The game is actually a lot of fun, but all the gameplay mechanics are half-baked and fall flat. The game is supposed to be a sniper simulator, but it holds your hand through every scenario. It marks who to shoot in what order, how far away they are, and even gives you a red dot to accommodate for which way the wind is blowing. With the sniper rifles rendered in such high detail, why not let us figure it out for ourselves? Well, the average 15-year-old Call of Duty player wouldn’t like that, that’s why. The shooting feels fine, but all the sniper rifles feel exactly the same—all three. There is a serious lack of weapons; to begin with, your only other weapon is a silenced pistol. That’s it. I understand you’re a sniper, but why not a silenced sub-machine gun or something?
The other major issue is that every single gameplay mechanic is broken in some way. The game tries to implement stealth, but it doesn’t work. I was able to just walk around without being detected and even run. Stealth kills don’t work right and are unsatisfying because the animations are terrible, and the death kills aren’t very gruesome. Even the bullet cam shots stink; it’s nothing like Sniper Elite V2. On top of all this, the AI is dumb as dirt. In one mission, I alerted everyone but stepped into a bush, and not a single enemy saw me even after I stepped out again. I was able to kill everyone, and none of them even looked for me. Sometimes I died during scripted events without knowing why. Having your core gameplay elements break is not fun.
Ghost Warrior 2 fails to make a sniper simulator like it wants. The game is highly linear and is nearly on rails. The upside is that the game is still mindless and fun. Sometimes when the game does let you go on your own and you have to clear an area, things like killing two enemies with one bullet and clearing the whole area without getting detected feel a bit satisfying. Other than that, the same scenarios were repeated until the game ended. Snipe these enemies, sneak around a bit, scripted event, cutscene, hide, snipe these enemies, rinse, and repeat.
The game actually looks pretty decent but doesn’t use CryEngine 3 like Crysis 2 or 3 does at all. It doesn’t take advantage of the DirectX 11 features at all. The game looks like it has medium-high settings on Crysis 2. It still looks good, but there are some eyesores. Plants that you sneak through a move at a low framerate are literally just flat textures that bend around. The cattails are not even in 3D and look like something from a PS2 game. A huge oversight or just plain lazy? I don’t know. Don’t even ask me about the multiplayer because no one is playing and it’s boring anyway.
Overall, Ghost Warrior 2 is mindless fun but not worth the price of admission. Every core element is broken in some way, and even the graphics are broken in spots. Pick this up when it’s $5 or less; otherwise, pass it up and play Crysis 3 instead.
This is exactly how you do a game series reboot, right? I wish I could end my review with that, but I need to tell you why. Tomb Raider suffered through a few mediocre games during the first run of the series during the late 90’s and early 2000s. The first reboot did well for the series by maturing Lara and giving us better controls and a more cinematic experience. Now comes Tomb Raider (2013), a fantastic game that shows the more human side of Lara. The game starts out with you and a science crew on a ship on the way to an archeological site, but things go awry when Lara decides to head to the Dragon’s Triangle off the coast of Japan. A mysterious storm destroys the boat, and Lara and the team are stranded on this island. There is a mysterious cult trying to sacrifice people to a sun goddess to end these storms. Lara has to deal with this if she wants, of course.
What makes Tomb Raider so memorable is the struggle she goes through while surviving. She is nearly raped, suffers tremendous injuries, and has to cope with herself, dealing with the fact that she has to kill to survive. She is not comfortable with this at first and really struggles to pull the trigger. This adds layers of depth to her character that weren’t seen before. Not only is her personality more memorable, but her looks have changed. No longer is Lara wearing the short shorts and tight shirt with her huge bust. She has been knocked down a few cup sizes and is much younger, straight out of college, in fact. It’s hard to really describe her more than this; you have to play the game to really connect.
The gameplay in Tomb Raider has completely changed, but yes, there is platforming and gunplay. Both are tight and very well crafted. Gunplay consists of using scraps to create a pistol, bow, machine gun, and shotgun. That’s it. As you progress and find salvage in crates and dead bodies, you can upgrade these to look and feel like better weapons. There are many upgrades that increase damage and accuracy, as well as adding new ammo types. Lara’s animations are very well done and realistic, and this falls into combat. She scrambles around and ducks behind cover; the guns feel great to shoot, and you can see how inexperienced Lara is; she’s not a Navy SEAL or commando. Unlike other games like this, her stumbling animations don’t interfere with the game at all. You can still move around, you can dodge, and there’s even some melee thrown in. As you upgrade your skills (done at various campfires throughout the game), you can dodge, and through quick-time events, you can do some pretty gruesome kills.
While gunplay is tight and fun, exploring is just as important. This island is massive, and you can go anywhere; there are no limits. Fast travel via camps really helps, but there’s a reason for moving around everywhere: collecting hidden items. These range from relics, GPS caches, documents, etc. There are hidden tombs found throughout the game that hold area maps for these items. These tombs consist of cleverly made physics puzzles that are really fun to complete. You get rewards like art and 3D models to view. The whole game just has an amazing atmosphere and is so much fun to explore.
On top of all the climbing around, you get a climbing axe, which is an important tool for climbing and combat. Your bow is used for shooting ropes across valleys and canyons to pull items to solve puzzles, break doors, and access new areas. The whole exploring ideal in this game is just fantastic and really fun. I did have to think about how to get to new areas and actually try to navigate and experiment with that good game design. There is a Survival Instinct ability that highlights map markers and objectives, and when you unlock the skill, you can see items through walls.
The story itself is a bit confusing; the whole spiritual thing is a bit unbelievable in such a realistic world like this, but that is what Tomb Raider is known for. Lara is the main character here, and what she goes through was the main story for me. I loved every second of the story. The voice acting is awesome, and the graphics look amazing—some of the best on PC yet. The new DirectX 11 features like Tessellation and the new TressFX technology applied to Lara’s hair look nice, but there were a lot of bugs and glitches for Nvidia users during launch (they are now fixed). You will need a monster rig to play this game on the highest settings.
The multiplayer was tacked on late in development and is pretty boring. The combat was designed for cinematic gameplay, not multiplayer. It feels just like it does in the story, but it just doesn’t suit multiplayer well. I played all three rounds and got bored of the game. Some people may like it, but there are better multiplayer shooters out there.
Overall, Tomb Raider is one of my favorite games of all time and is really memorable. The voice acting is solid, and Lara’s new personality makes her more human and more relatable. The graphics are outstanding, and the gunplay and exploring mechanics are fun and very cinematic.
The last, and final, book in S.D. Perry’s Resident Evil novelizations is about the Dreamcast and PS2 classic Code: Veronica. Claire Redfield is captured by Umbrella and gets stuck on Rockfort Island during a zombie outbreak. She has to find a way off the island, but this is only half the book. The last half is her being stuck on an umbrella research station in Antarctica. She and a fellow Rockfort prisoner named Steve set off through horrible scenarios to find freedom, but the Ashford siblings don’t make it easy.
The novel really lets you know Claire’s personality and her growing attachment to Steve. I also love how Perry puts across just how psychotic Alfred and Alexia Ashford are. These guys think they are above all beings on Earth, and there’s some awkward hinting at incest throughout, which is probably a subject Capcom rarely touches on. Honestly, Veronica is more about a few large carrier zombies than them barreling through a ton of regular ones. These fights are brief but enjoyable to read, but I always loved when the siblings came in because they were just sick and twisted.
Of course, Claire and Steve end up getting separated a lot and having to solve strange puzzles similar to the games. They wind their way through the island, the mansion, and the research facility, but the book doesn’t end on a happy note. What does the Resident Evil story do? With this being the final book, I can’t help but notice that every RE story ends with the bad guys losing and the main characters barely escaping. It’s starting to become cliché at this point. However, Veronica was probably one of the better RE stories due to its darker themes, so this is forgivable in this book.
One thing that drives me nuts about Perry is that she always has this awkward sexual tension between the characters; you just want them to go for it and completely stop. It gets annoying after a while. Her RE novels are also not very sophisticated; they are just fun popcorn novels while they last. These aren’t memorable or something you will talk about for years to come, but they are something to tide RE fans over until the next game comes out. Veronica is no exception and is just as good as all the previous six.
Ico is probably one of the most forgotten games in history. Being one of the first graphical powerhouses for the PS2, it proved that you don’t need a complex story and characters to have a good game. All you know is that you are a boy named Ico who is trying to save a girl named Yorda from her evil mother and escape from the castle. You enter as a captured prisoner because you have horns. You then escape and find Yorda along the way. What made Ico such a big deal was that you led her around manually by holding R1. This forced you to become attached to her, and they rarely spoke.
This game was way ahead of its time. That’s probably why people passed it by for Jak & Daxter and other PS2 games at the time. The game consists of some pretty cleverly designed puzzles that involve pulling switches, climbing, cutting ropes, and swinging on chains. You also push and pull on the occasional block. The level design is really well done, but there were a few obscure puzzles, like jumping off of a chain to knock a bridge down. This is completely against the game’s mechanics, so you would never know to do this. Leading Yorda around sounds annoying, but it prevents you from having to rely on the already shoddy AI. The game mechanics work well enough in design, but they are sloppy and frustrating to deal with.
When you jump, Ico tends to clip into ledges and ladders, making you have to slightly adjust him until he latches on. If you press the analog stick just slightly and jump, he will jump 20 feet, causing you to jump off ledges or fall to your death. There’s just so much bad collision detection, and the animations are janky and not well done. When you drag Yorda around, her arm looks like a flopping noodle that can go through her body. I know this was originally designed for PS1 before the game jumped ship to PS2, but still. There are other mechanics, like setting your sword down to pick up a giant stick, lighting it on fire, and then setting off a bomb. Sometimes you have to toss these before they blow you up. Fun game mechanics and all, but they repeated through the entire game, making you grateful for the short length (just about 4 hours).
A lot of times I didn’t know where to go because the middle of the game has two areas that are identical but just slightly different. The constant backtracking can confuse you, requiring a walkthrough. There are no boss battles to speak of except the final boss, but the combat is so frustrating and annoying. Ico swings his sword around aimlessly, and you can’t move while doing so. The AI jumps away as soon as you run after it, so if you get stuck in a three-hit combo, you get knocked down, and Yorda gets dragged away. You can’t die in this game during combat, but if Yorda gets dragged underground, you’re done. You can pull her out of the hole, but sometimes a shadow creature will hit you and knock you back, and then you have to suffer the long animation of getting up. A lot of games had these animations (The Mark of Kri), and I don’t know why. It breaks the fluidity of everything. Once you get the hidden mace in the game, combat is really easy, but you still get annoyed by the creatures constantly backing up when you approach.
The graphics look great with the new HD upgrade, but even back then, they were amazing. A lot of textures have been slightly upscaled, and some bloom and HDR have been added for better lighting. You can still notice the game’s age during up-close shots of areas. Textures are muddy and so blurry that they don’t even look like what they are representing. The main thing is that you can pan the camera around more now that the resolution has been bumped up, making navigation easier. This is how you do HD upgrades, right?
Overall, Ico is a great game, but the dated mechanics really show their age. If you can look past all this, you are in for a great, albeit short, game, but don’t expect engaging characters or a complex story. There are four cutscenes in the whole game, but this is about the journey and not the story.
Shadow of the Colossus
I have been wanting to review this game forever, and now I have the chance. I played this back in 2005 when it first came out, and it was just unreal. SotC still has some of the best graphics to grace the PS2, and it almost looked next-gen at the time. Of course, it suffered from the massive slowdown, but now we can play it with some extra graphical effects and at 60FPS. There’s not much of a story here; there never is with Famito Ueda’s games. You are a boy named Wander who brings a girl to a temple in a cursed land and vows to destroy all 16 colossi in order to bring her back to life. The game has one of the most touching endings I can remember.
The game is very basic; you just head to each colossus and slay it. There is a huge open world, but it is very barren and void of life, but that’s the way it is supposed to be. You feel very alone and helpless in this land of brown and gray. You have two weapons: a sword and a bow. You can hold the sword up to the light to guide you to the next colossus, which really isn’t that hard. Once you find it, you have to figure out how to get on top of it, and that’s the tricky part. Each colossus is completely different. Some are tall, some are fat, and some are the size of a lion. These lumbering beasts will attack, but you need to find their weak spots. One colossus has weak spots on the bottom of its feet. When it walks, you need to use your bow and shoot it. It then falls over, and you can jump up, grab its fur, and start climbing. Some aren’t so easy; in fact, there are no hints on how to get on top of these beasts. One tricky water serpent requires you to swim over him, and then his tail will come out of the water so you can grab it.
The best part is when you get on these things. Each colossus is like a level in itself. You can climb around and hold the R1 button to stay on. They will try to shake you and your window to actually stab the glowing, weak spots that are really small. You have a stamina meter, and when it depletes, you let go and fall back down. This can be really frustrating if getting on top of the Colossus is already frustrating or a long fiasco. As you slay these monsters, your stamina and health increase, but you still need to watch out. The worst part about the game is the god-awful controls. They just stink, and the game mechanics are sluggish and unresponsive. If it weren’t for this, the game would be perfect. Wander’s animations are a bit jerky, and when the colossi shakes you and your stamina is dropping, you just want to charge your stab and kill it, but sure enough, you get shaken again right as you start to charge. Wander flops around, and it just feels sluggish. When you try walking on the colossus, Wander will fall and tumble, sometimes right down to the ground. I almost threw my controller several times because of this. You will mainly die because of the mechanics, not your skills.
Let’s talk about your horse. Aggro is the main character, but I felt like I was driving a Mac truck. He won’t move if you push the stick forward; instead, you have to mash X, and it takes forever for his momentum to get going. You can only tap the stick left and right to steer him, but he moves too quickly and runs right into walls, which he then stops on a dime and turns completely around. Maneuvering through tight areas is a serious pain. The horse controls are just terrible. This is probably the only bad part of the game; there is nothing else like this game out there. The colossi themselves look fantastic and are just gigantic. You really feel helpless and wonder how you are going to take this thing down. It all adds to the foreboding atmosphere of the game and the loneliness and helplessness that you feel throughout.
I have been wanting to review this game forever, and now I have the chance. I played this back in 2005 when it first came out, and it was just unreal. SotC still has some of the best graphics to grace the PS2, and it almost looked next-gen at the time. Of course, it suffered from the massive slowdown, but now we can play it with some extra graphical effects and at 60FPS. There’s not much of a story here; there never is with Famito Ueda’s games. You are a boy named Wander who brings a girl to a temple in a cursed land and vows to destroy all 16 colossi in order to bring her back to life. The game has one of the most touching endings I can remember.
The game is very basic; you just head to each colossus and slay it. There is a huge open world, but it is very barren and void of life, but that’s the way it is supposed to be. You feel very alone and helpless in this land of brown and gray. You have two weapons: a sword and a bow. You can hold the sword up to the light to guide you to the next colossus, which really isn’t that hard. Once you find it, you have to figure out how to get on top of it, and that’s the tricky part. Each colossus is completely different. Some are tall, some are fat, and some are the size of a lion. These lumbering beasts will attack, but you need to find their weak spots. One colossus has weak spots on the bottom of its feet. When it walks, you need to use your bow and shoot it. It then falls over, and you can jump up, grab its fur, and start climbing. Some aren’t so easy; in fact, there are no hints on how to get on top of these beasts. One tricky water serpent requires you to swim over him, and then his tail will come out of the water so you can grab it.
The best part is when you get on these things. Each colossus is like a level in itself. You can climb around and hold the R1 button to stay on. They will try to shake you and your window to actually stab the glowing, weak spots, which are really small. You have a stamina meter, and when it depletes, you let go and fall back down. This can be really frustrating if getting on top of the Colossus is already frustrating or a long fiasco. As you slay these monsters, your stamina and health increase, but you still need to watch out. The worst part about the game is the god-awful controls. They just stink, and the game mechanics are sluggish and unresponsive. If it weren’t for this, the game would be perfect. Wander’s animations are a bit jerky, and when the colossi shakes you and your stamina is dropping, you just want to charge your stab and kill it, but sure enough, you get shaken again right as you start to charge. Wander flops around, and it just feels sluggish. When you try walking on the colossus, Wander will fall and tumble, sometimes right down to the ground. I almost threw my controller several times because of this. You will mainly die because of the mechanics, not your skills.
Let’s talk about your horse. Aggro is the main character, but I felt like I was driving a Mac truck. He won’t move if you push the stick forward; instead, you have to mash X, and it takes forever for his momentum to get going. You can only tap the stick left and right to steer him, but he moves too quickly and runs right into walls, which he then stops on a dime and turns completely around. Maneuvering through tight areas is a serious pain. The horse controls are just terrible. This is probably the only bad part of the game; there is nothing else like this game out there. The colossi themselves look fantastic and are just gigantic. You really feel helpless and wonder how you are going to take this thing down. It all adds to the foreboding atmosphere of the game and the loneliness and helplessness that you feel throughout.
The graphics are superb, even to this day. The PS3 version adds some texture filtering and anti-aliasing, and of course, the frame rate is now 60. There’s also some extra bloom added, so the lighting looks great. However, despite all this greatness, the game is pretty short, and you can beat it in about 5–6 hours. All you do is slay all 16 colossi, and you’re done. However, it was a very memorable experience.
Overall, Shadow of the Colossus was a milestone for the PS2 and is still one of the best games ever made. The frustrating controls and game mechanics keep this game from being as perfect as all the rest. Have patience and just deal with it. Every PlayStation fan should play this game.
I used these, thinking they would be an amazing collection for my PC rig and add some pizzazz. I was half right. Sure, it looks great when the lights adjust to the game’s lighting, but at what cost? massive headache that took days to cure.
I’m talking about the lights’ god-awful software. It doesn’t even work; it’s broken. Why in the hell would Cyborg release broken drivers and software? You plug in the lights (one in each USB port) and plug up the power to the wall. Install the drivers and software like normal, and then things start going haywire. Every program stopped working and crashed when I restarted. I uninstalled the software, and it went away. This happened on two computers I installed it on. Why, in God’s name, would Cyborg do this? Not only is the software buggy, but the drivers require you to restart the actual service if the lights aren’t working. Sometimes the software will detect them, sometimes not. Sometimes just one light will work. If that isn’t bad enough, the GenFX detector will cause some games to not start up or crash. Skyrim won’t work with an ENB wrapper, and a few other games wouldn’t start up at all.
How do you use these lights, then? Download the beta drivers from AmBX’s site. Not quite, though. You have to download just the drivers from Cyborg, then the software from amBX. To get the beta drivers, you have to sign up for their forum. It also doesn’t help that these lights have been abandoned. There hasn’t been an update for a few years—yes, years. You can’t use these lights with music unless you get the third-party Aurora Synesthesia program, which is in beta and was also abandoned. Great, $100 lights that are abandoned. When the lights do work, they really immerse you in the music and games. Each light can be adjusted in intensity as well as its position in the room. Each light works separately and displays great colors. The hardware part is good, mostly. The left lens cap fell off for no reason after a few months, and one tab broke off when I tried to put it back on. They feel very cheap and are super light and flimsy.
This doesn’t sound attractive at all, but if you have the PC know-how, these lights are actually worth the trouble you go through to get them to work. I loved turning my lights off and being totally immersed in the game with the ambient lighting. What else can you do with it? The lights work with Windows popups and errors; you can also customize your own scheme; however, you can’t delete detected software from the list. Why? The engineers were idiots, that’s why. You will end up with an endless list of games that you don’t even have anymore. It will also detect dumb things like CCC, various browsers, and programs that use DirectX. The software is really buggy, and there are few games that directly support the lights in the game. Just as there are fewer official profiles for games because the lights were abandoned, recent games don’t have tailored lighting schemes. There are generic schemes, but whatever, it works fine.
Should you buy these? Unless you really want cool-looking lights, then go ahead. You will have to fiddle with the software and drivers until it works right. Two USB ports and a power port are pretty demanding. People with limited USB ports will be out of luck. I don’t recommend this to the average PC user, but enthusiasts who know what they are doing should go ahead.
Ico is probably one of the most forgotten games in history. Being one of the first graphical powerhouses for the PS2, it proved that you don’t need a complex story and characters to have a good game. All you know is that you are a boy named Ico who is trying to save a girl named Yorda from her evil mother and escape from the castle. You enter as a captured prisoner because you have horns. You then escape and find Yorda along the way. What made Ico such a big deal was that you led her around manually by holding R1. This forced you to become attached to her, and they rarely spoke.
This game was way ahead of its time. That’s probably why people passed it by for Jak & Daxter and other PS2 games at the time. The game consists of some pretty cleverly designed puzzles that involve pulling switches, climbing, cutting ropes, and swinging on chains. You also push and pull on the occasional block. The level design is really well done, but there were a few obscure puzzles, like jumping off of a chain to knock a bridge down. This is completely against the game’s mechanics, so you would never know to do this. Leading Yorda around sounds annoying, but it prevents you from having to rely on the already shoddy AI. The game mechanics work well enough in design, but they are sloppy and frustrating to deal with.
When you jump, Ico tends to clip into ledges and ladders, making you have to slightly adjust him until he latches on. If you press the analog stick just slightly and jump, he will jump 20 feet, causing you to jump off ledges or fall to your death. There’s just so much bad collision detection, and the animations are janky and not well done. When you drag Yorda around, her arm looks like a flopping noodle that can go through her body. I know this was originally designed for PS1 before the game jumped ship to PS2, but still. There are other mechanics, like setting your sword down to pick up a giant stick, lighting it on fire, then setting off a bomb. Sometimes you have to toss these before they blow you up. Fun game mechanics and all, but they repeated through the entire game, making you grateful for the short length (just about 4 hours).
A lot of times I didn’t know where to go because the middle of the game has two areas that are identical but just slightly different. The constant backtracking can confuse you, requiring a walkthrough. There are no boss battles to speak of except the final boss, but the combat is so frustrating and annoying. Ico swings his sword around aimlessly, and you can’t move while doing so. The AI jumps away as soon as you run after it, so if you get stuck in a three-hit combo, you get knocked down, and Yorda gets dragged away. You can’t die in this game during combat, but if Yorda gets dragged underground, you’re done. You can pull her out of the hole, but sometimes a shadow creature will hit you and knock you back, and then you have to suffer the long animation of getting up. A lot of games had these animations (The Mark of Kri), and I don’t know why. It breaks the fluidity of everything. Once you get the hidden mace in the game, combat is really easy, but you still get annoyed by the creatures constantly backing up when you approach.
The graphics look great with the new HD upgrade, but even back then, they were amazing. A lot of textures have been slightly upscaled, and some bloom and HDR have been added for better lighting. You can still notice the game’s age during up-close shots of areas. Textures are muddy and so blurry that they don’t even look like what they are representing. The main thing is that you can pan the camera around more now that the resolution has been bumped up, making navigation easier. This is how you do HD upgrades, right?
Overall, Ico is a great game, but the dated mechanics really show their age. If you can look past all this, you are in for a great, albeit short, game, but don’t expect engaging characters or a complex story. There are four cutscenes in the whole game, but this is about the journey and not the story.
I’m not much of a kart racing fan because the games tend to be too simple and easy, but Transformed really knocks it out of the park. The last Sonic Kart Racer was just okay; it had a slow pace, and it just wasn’t designed very well. This game really surprised me with its excellent graphics, track design, and character selection.
The obvious are Sega mascots such as Sonic, Amy, Shadow, Robotnik, Alex Kidd, and various others. While any of these guys outside of Sonic aren’t well known, it is nice to see them here. PC users get exclusive characters such as Football Manager (I know), Team Fortress, and Shogun (I know… Not exactly amazing characters you would want in a kart racer, but oh well. When you start your first race, you will immediately see how much better this game is. The handling is so much more fluid, and the races just flow. What really sells the game are the tracks that change mid-race and are able to transform into flying and nautical vehicles. Each character has three different vehicles, and it just feels great. They all handle things differently, so it makes you stay on your toes. The track design is amazing. There are hazards everywhere, and the weapons are really cool. The tracks are featured in various games, like Sonic’s Green Hill Zone and Samba De Amigo’s crazy LSD track. These levels are fun, but I just wish there were more.
The weapons vary from iceballs, twisters, remote cars that explode, rockets, blowfish, and various other crazy weapons. You pick up the question-mark capsules to find them, but you will find an All-Stars weapon that will make you really powerful and fast. Your car transforms, and it just looks really cool. Along the way, you can pick up coins that are used in other modes’ load screens in a slot machine to acquire boosts and other items. I just found the game to be very pleasing to play, but not with a single player. Easy was too easy, medium was too hard, and hard was impossible. The AI is really bad, but people play kart racing games for multiplayer anyway, which is where all the fun is to be had in this game. Unlike the last game, PC gamers get online multiplayer.
The graphics are really nice, with bright, vibrant colors, great-looking textures, and some really amazing lighting effects. Of course, the PC gets the best treatment, and it looks way better than the last game. As you play the game, you will eventually find tracks that become your favorites and find which character you prefer. The dynamically changing tracks just add that much more fun to the game. Hitting speed boosts, finding weapons, and avoiding track hazards are so much fun, and the sense of speed is incredible.
I just wish there was a bit more, but while there is more content than in the last game, I feel something is just missing. Maybe if the AI wasn’t so bad, the single-player would be more fun, but I found myself getting bored with it. The only reason to constantly come back is multiplayer. There is a licensed feature that allows you to add up to three stickers that you earned, but I felt this was completely useless and something to put in for little kids. However, as it stands, it doesn’t add anything significantly new to the genre or push it forward, which is what it needs. While it may not reinvent the wheel, it just makes it bigger and louder.
Dead Space is one of my favorite franchises of all time. The first game was the most memorable with its deformed and twisted monsters, a very deep and intriguing plot, and revolutionary HUD that was very minimal. Dead Space 2 was more of the same, but not enough new to make it memorable. It also had so-called multiplayer, which was fun for a few hours but quickly got boring. Dead Space 3 is here with a co-op and a new more open design. Is it better than DS2? In a way.
The story is pretty epic and is told on a larger scale now. You are no longer stuck on a derelict ship or space colony. You start out on Earth in your run-down apartment, where we find out Isaac has turned himself into a depressive bum. Ellie has recently left Isaac for another man, but they soon get brought back together to save humanity once again. A crazy man named Danik is trying to find a way to bring humanity to “ascension” and “rebirth” by wanting the Necromorphs to destroy everything. You and a team cast off to the Marker homeworld to stop all this once and for all. The problem here is that the game is stretched out so much that the story is hard to follow during the first half. Cutscenes are too far apart, and so little is told because it is saved for the end. The story is a bit disappointing, and the ending doesn’t have the wow factor that it should. You just finish it and think, “That’s it?” It’s one of those trilogy endings.
The gameplay is pretty much the same and untouched. Things feel a bit more smooth and streamlined, but nothing has changed there. The first big change you will notice is that you can create your own weapons. A crafting system has been implemented where you get loot off of dead bodies to craft various items. You can build weapons from blueprints or build your own. You start out with a frame, then add an upper tool, a lower tool, and a tip for each tool. After that, you can add chips that increase the gun’s stats more than two support modules, such as more ammo, stasis-coated bullets, and various other things. This is really awesome and allows you to combine your favorite weapons. Stick a flamethrower under your shotgun. How about a blade gun under your plasma gun? Do whatever you want. The problem here is that you can only carry two weapons now. This really sucked. I guess they thought that each gun had two weapons, so it really was four. It doesn’t really work that way. It also takes a really long time to gather enough materials to craft anything. I couldn’t really do much until I was nearly halfway through the game. This is to encourage people to spend money on microtransactions and sucker them into buying materials. Taking advantage of impatient gamers isn’t a nice thing to do, but what can you expect from a greedy corporation like EA?
The crafting system is similar to your suit because you can gather materials to upgrade them, like air capacity, stasis, telekinesis, health, and armor. Another major addition is side missions. There are only seven of them in the game, but three additional ones are added for co-op only. I found these side missions boring because they were all the same. Go through the same identical compound, killing hordes of Necromorphs, to find a chest of stuff. The stuff isn’t even that good. The loot packs don’t give you much, so these side missions were disappointing. At least the main missions are fun and varied, with some fun scripted events. You can set out scavenger bots to help find loot if you want, but that’s just a distraction rather than a mission. I felt EA really tried too hard with this game. Instead of making the game memorable like the first one with scares, they just make it completely action-based and stretch out the world.
The first half consists of you floating around several ships in space, trying to find information and various other things. Humans are a new enemy in this game and are a nice change of pace, but the same old Necromorphs pop up. Sure, they are cool, but there weren’t enough new ones. By the end of the game, I was so sick of these damn things. I honestly don’t want to see another Necromorph again, not because they’re scary but because I’m tired of seeing them. The game just isn’t as scary as it used to be. In the beginning, it felt a bit eerie, but after that, it was just the same hordes of monsters coming at you. Once you are done being in space, you crash land on an icy planet, which is the “homeworld,” but things just feel the same here too.
The game just suffers from fatigue at this point. Fans will enjoy this game for sure, but you long for a good scare or something to really change. There is a lot of backtracking towards the end of the game, with you running back and forth through the same area several times. It is almost like the developers ran out of ideas towards the end. I would have loved a shorter, more solid campaign, but what is here is fun. The graphics look good on PC, but the textures still stink. Up-close shots really show that this is a console port. There are some nicer lighting effects, but they are subtle. Even an older rig can handle this game maxed out.
Should you buy this game? If you are a hardcore fan, sure, but I just suggest waiting for a price drop. When you finish this 15-hour campaign, you will be slightly disappointed. Sure, it’s fun and all, and crafting weapons is neat, but the scare factor that people expect when they play a Dead Space game is nearly gone.
So here I am with my first tablet, I swore up and down that, I had no use for one because I have a laptop and a 4″ phone. Why would I need a tablet? Apparently for a lot and this is one of the best devices I have used in a long time. It’s sleek, powerful, and well designed. Why a Nexus 7? Well, the 7″ size is perfect where it isn’t too small or too big. I don’t like 10″ tablets because they just feel big and clunky. You are probably wondering what’s under the hood, why not an iPad Mini, and is the screen nice?
The Nexus 7 is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chipset which is one of the most powerful on the market. Directly competing with Apple’s A5x chipset in their iPad 3, the Nexus 7 is extremely powerful for a 7″ tablet. This tablet has a whopping 16 cores, a quad-core 1.3Ghz CPU, and a 12-core Geforce ULP GPU. The tablet CPU has a fifth core that is dedicated to running in a power-saving mode during times of low processing needs. That is one powerful tablet. The Tegra 3 chipset allows for some of the most advanced graphics seen on a tablet as well. Games like Dead Trigger, Dark Meadow, Zombie Driver, and a few others optimize their games for the Tegra chipset adding extra effects and higher FPS. The tablet has 1GB of DDR3L RAM rather than DDR2 RAM which is in both the iPad 3 and Mini and it is twice as fast. The Tegra 3 chipset is even more powerful than the iPad Mini and iPad 3 with the Mini having a single-core 1Ghz CPU and the iPad 3 having just a dual-core 1Ghz CPU. Even the ULP graphics chip is more powerful than the iPad 3’s with 416Mhz. If that doesn’t impress you…I don’t know what will.
Asus just stopped producing the 16GB models so only the 32 are available now, but that’s fine. 16GB really isn’t enough space anyway, but there are no expandable storage options. You can use an OTG cable and a USB stick, but most people won’t know to do that. 32GB is plenty for games, movies, music, and books. I have over 30 games on my tablet and still have plenty of room. I found the battery life is pretty decent for such a powerful device. Running high graphic games you get about 3 hours and everything else will last you most of the day, but that’s with Wifi on. With it off it is probably 30% less power-consuming.
The screen is gorgeous. Being better than the iPad Mini with a 1280×800 resolution rather than 1024×768. It also has double the PPI at 216 rather than 163 for the Mini. It also is a 16:10 aspect ratio rather than the Mini’s 4:3 aspect ratio so it is a widescreen tablet. The text is crisp and-and the images are sharp and vibrant. You won’t be disappointed watching high-definition movies or games. I also found the screen to feel very nice to touch and my finger would just glide across. The tablet is also fitted with scratchproof Corning fitted glass, also known as Gorilla Glass to some. The glass is alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass which is the best out there right now. On the back, the device has a bumpy, leathery texture which makes holding the device easier. I love this texture and feels so much nicer than the hard plastic of other tablets with their sharp edges. You also don’t have to worry about setting it down and scratching it up. The whole device just looks so sleek and smooth.
The tablet comes stock with android Jelly Bean 4.1, but as of a week ago the new 4.2.2 update is out. Nothing else to expect software-wise other than a great Google Android OS experience. However, if you’re a gamer check out Nvidia’s TegraZone app to get started on what games were specifically designed for the Tegra chipset. My only complaint is that there is no rear-facing camera. Just a front-facing 1.2MP camera for video chatting. However, most people don’t use their tablets for taking pictures (unless you are one of those iPad people)
Overall, the Nexus 7 is one of the most powerful tablets on the market and the most powerful 7″ tablet you can get your hands on. With the 16-core chipset, bright vivid screen, and sleek design, any hardware fan will want this tablet. For the low price of $250 for 32GB of storage…nothing beats it! Once you pick this up you will realize why it was chosen as 2012’s best tablet.
The Nexus 7 is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chipset which is one of the most powerful on the market. Directly competing with Apple’s A5x chipset in their iPad 3, the Nexus 7 is extremely powerful for a 7″ tablet. This tablet has a whopping 16 cores, a quad-core 1.3Ghz CPU, and a 12-core Geforce ULP GPU. The tablet CPU has a fifth core that is dedicated to running in a power-saving mode during times of low processing needs. That is one powerful tablet. The Tegra 3 chipset allows for some of the most advanced graphics seen on a tablet as well. Games like Dead Trigger, Dark Meadow, Zombie Driver, and a few others optimize their games for the Tegra chipset adding extra effects and higher FPS. The tablet has 1GB of DDR3L RAM rather than DDR2 RAM which is in both the iPad 3 and Mini and it is twice as fast. The Tegra 3 chipset is even more powerful than the iPad Mini and iPad 3 with the Mini having a single-core 1Ghz CPU and the iPad 3 having just a dual-core 1Ghz CPU. Even the ULP graphics chip is more powerful than the iPad 3’s with 416Mhz. If that doesn’t impress you…I don’t know what will.
Asus just stopped producing the 16GB models so only the 32 are available now, but that’s fine. 16GB really isn’t enough space anyway, but there are no expandable storage options. You can use an OTG cable and a USB stick, but most people won’t know to do that. 32GB is plenty for games, movies, music, and books. I have over 30 games on my tablet and still have plenty of room. I found the battery life is pretty decent for such a powerful device. Running high graphic games you get about 3 hours and everything else will last you most of the day, but that’s with Wifi on. With it off it is probably 30% less power-consuming.
The screen is gorgeous. Being better than the iPad Mini with a 1280×800 resolution rather than 1024×768. It also has double the PPI at 216 rather than 163 for the Mini. It also is a 16:10 aspect ratio rather than the Mini’s 4:3 aspect ratio so it is a widescreen tablet. The text is crisp and-and the images are sharp and vibrant. You won’t be disappointed watching high-definition movies or games. I also found the screen to feel very nice to touch and my finger would just glide across. The tablet is also fitted with scratchproof Corning fitted glass, also known as Gorilla Glass to some. The glass is alkali-aluminosilicate sheet glass which is the best out there right now. On the back, the device has a bumpy, leathery texture which makes holding the device easier. I love this texture and feels so much nicer than the hard plastic of other tablets with their sharp edges. You also don’t have to worry about setting it down and scratching it up. The whole device just looks so sleek and smooth.
The tablet comes stock with android Jelly Bean 4.1, but as of a week ago the new 4.2.2 update is out. Nothing else to expect software-wise other than a great Google Android OS experience. However, if you’re a gamer check out Nvidia’s TegraZone app to get started on what games were specifically designed for the Tegra chipset. My only complaint is that there is no rear-facing camera. Just a front-facing 1.2MP camera for video chatting. However, most people don’t use their tablets for taking pictures (unless you are one of those iPad people)
Overall, the Nexus 7 is one of the most powerful tablets on the market and the most powerful 7″ tablet you can get your hands on. With the 16-core chipset, bright vivid screen, and sleek design, any hardware fan will want this tablet. For the low price of $250 for 32GB of storage…nothing beats it! Once you pick this up you will realize why it was chosen as 2012’s best tablet.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Clearly you have been blocking everything you or haven't played the game at all. Maybe pay attention to the story…