Grand Theft Auto has always been the pinnacle for sandbox games, angry politicians and moms, and great gameplay. With an already great game, this add-on gives us new characters, new stories, and added features. You play Luis Lopez, who is working for Tony, who pulled Luis off the streets and into his club business as a bodyguard. Both Luis and Tony get in over their heads, and their friendship spirals out of control to the brink of destruction. But can Luis save them on time?
You will meet many old characters from the original as well as finish a few unfinished side stories from Grand Theft Auto IV, such as the museum mission. If you want me to jump right to it, I will. There are a few great new features, and these include cars, people, dialog, parachuting, a rating system, and new weapons. The game also takes a more cinematic turn with epic helicopter rides, train rides, and even saving a person from certain death in the air via parachuting. There are triathlon missions, escort missions, killing missions, and missions that just turn for the worst.
The story is well planned out, and if you finish the story, you can finish drug wars on turf, but even if you finish those, you get about 10 hours of gameplay, so I just wish there was more for $20. The characters are very well thought out, and you can get very attached to them. All of this is accompanied by excellent voice acting as well. The rating system, however, is pretty useless since you don’t know what the requirements are, and perfecting each mission is tedious. Some require a certain amount of headshots or car damage. Sometimes this is impossible, but the die-hard crowd will strive to waste their time with this.
If you want variety in your missions, is it here, with no two being the same? Each mission is fun and memorable and may actually have you wanting to play through it twice. I love the mission variety in Grand Theft Auto, and Gay Tony provides this. With an epic climax that has you glued to your seat, you just don’t want to put the game down, and this is the first Grand Theft Auto that has done this for me, and that is what was worth the $20 for me. The great voice acting, dialog, story, characters, mission variety, and superb action.
If you are a fan of Grand Theft Auto IV and want more, here you go. The graphics are starting to look a tad aged; there isn’t enough new stuff, but the game is high in production values, and it really shines through.
When you think of sexy and video games, they usually don’t mix. There have been a lot of attempts at using sex to sell video games, and while some were successful, such as Dead or Alive, BloodRayne, and Tomb Raider, others weren’t, such as Red Ninja, Cy Girls, and Rumble Roses. Where does this put Bayonetta? On top as queen and as one of (if not THE most) stylish, sexy, and witty female protagonists ever created in any media period.
Being a good and bad Umbra witch trying to unlock her past. Bayonetta has witty dialogue and a super-sexy British accent. I can’t describe just how shocking Bayonetta is in terms of design. She is scantily clad in leather with proportionate breasts and has beautifully styled hair and glasses that look good. She just makes your heart throb when you see her, and no other female game character has done that for me. The cinematics in the game are very outlandish, outrageous, and just “I can’t believe they did that.” The game is developed by the lead designers of Devil May Cry and Resident Evil, so if you are a Devil May Cry fan, you know what to expect.
My last note on the design of Bayonetta’s sexiness is just how they incorporate it all into the gameplay, from items to moves to summoning demons. One cut scene I can recall has Bayonetta sweating on a plane, and Luka watches the bead of sweat drip down her breast and drop right off her nipple. All while the camera is zoomed in on this at a side angle. Necessary? Yes. Why? Because that is just what Bayonetta is all about. Nonstop action with sex thrown in.
Getting down to gameplay, you fight the good-bad angels by summoning the Creator to merge all three realms: Purgatorio, Paradiso, and the human realm. All these creatures are amazingly designed, and there are a good 30 or so of them. Bayonetta fights with both her feet and hands. You can equip a normal weapon on her hands and either the shotgun or handgun on her feet. Using the Y button, she uses her hands, and B is her feet. The combos are deep and almost endless since you can hold buttons down to charge weapons or use X to just use the handgun. Using witch time is a unique element that you must use at all times since time slows down for a few seconds if you evade at the right time, and this is key to defeating certain enemies and bosses since some can’t be beaten without it. This is also incorporated into puzzles, but they usually aren’t all that hard to figure out.
Unlocking weapons requires you to find pieces of LPs of angel hymns and bring them back to Rolin in the Gates of Hell bar. Here, you can also buy items, accessories, alternative weapon designs, and more. All items (like in Devil May Cry) give you either health, witch power, or extra life, and you get the idea. Each comes in a small or large form and costs a good amount of halos (the game’s currency). There are only four different weapons: a whip, a sword, guns, and Beowulf-type claws. Thankfully, you can have two different load-outs and switch between them on the fly.
Anyways, when you finish a batch of angels, you will be scored based on your combo style, time, and damage taken, and this affects your overall level score. If anyone is a Devil May Cry fan, you will know this scoring system is brutal and impossible to score perfectly on every level. This is also Bayonetta’s biggest flaw since a lot of the game is hair-tearing, controller throwing, and frustration-inducing ulcers, especially when it comes to boss fights. There are five different medals you can get. Pure platinum, platinum, gold, silver, and bronze. Pure platinum consists of you getting the biggest combo style and killing all enemies in the shortest amount of time with no damage at all. Platinum consists of the same, except you can take a little damage, and so on and so forth. You are then ranked at the end of the level by these medals plus how many items you used and overall damage was taken plus time and combo style. If you do poorly (like I managed), you can get a stone award. Even on normal, I did my best and thought I was smokin’, but I still managed to get stone awards at the end of every level.
On another note, the bosses are fun and out of this world. They are ugly and big, and you just want to kill them. Each one is unique, and one even has you riding around on a piece of debris in the ocean fighting a 200-foot sea creature. Epic? Sure, it is, and every second of the game is. Each boss and each fight consist of a little damage-inducing, button-mashing mini-game using Bayonetta’s demons or torture attacks. For the larger enemies, Bayonetta’s hair turns into demons, and if you didn’t know, her clothes are also part of her hair. She goes into a sexy pose, and her clothes are stripped except for the hair swirling around her sweet spots. You can pulverize the enemy. Smaller enemies have torture attacks that are gruesome, sometimes sexy, and satisfying. This can be done by getting your Witch Power meter all the way up, but take a hit and it goes down. There is no magic in the game, and you won’t even remember since all the elements work well.
On a side note, the gameplay is changed up in almost every level, which leads to epic motorcycle riding levels, jumping across cars in traffic, shooting down enemies on a rocket flying through the air, and a whole lot more. There is even an arcade shooter in between levels that earns you points you can use to get items or exchange for halos. The game is chock-full of neat elements that have never been used in any game before (if so, they are perfected here). If you want stylish, over-the-top, sexy action, then look no further than Bayonetta.
JRPGs that were the standard are now being taken over by western RPGs, and one of the main developers responsible for this is Bioware. Dragon Age: Origins is a very deep game, mainly in politics, religion, and mythology, that is reminiscent of Tolkien lore. Not only is the dialog witty and humorous, but every piece of dialogue is spoken with great acting. Each character is memorable, and Bioware really does it with their morality gameplay because it takes ten minutes to decide a choice since they change gameplay so much, more so than in any other Bioware game.
The game has different factions you can play as (dwarf, human, elf, then different classes in those races), and each takes about 50+ hours to play (my first playthrough was 41 hours). You start by customizing your character, but that isn’t the deepest part of the game. When you start out with any race, you learn the combat basics, which are pretty deep yet also very simple.
The actual combat itself is the standard Hit the attack button and watch the characters hack away. You earn experience by killing enemies and level up accordingly. The game has a radial menu that lets you access your potion and trap-making skills and techniques, as well as combat tactics. You can create traps and potions by learning the skills over time and by using ingredients found throughout the game world (I found both of these useless). Skills range differently between mages and warriors, but warriors can learn different fighting styles such as two-handed, dual weapons, sword and shield, and even archery. Each class can learn other classes’ techniques, and that’s the beauty of Origins. There are dozens of different skills to learn, and you won’t learn them all before beating the game.
The sheer depth of the game is mind-boggling, but I know one thing that people are concerned about, and that is side quests. There are dozens upon dozens of them to keep you satisfied, but of course, you don’t have to complete them all. There are also tons of Codex pages to pick up and read in this deep and wonderful lore that Bioware has created. There is enough stuff to read to fill a history book, but if you’re not the reading type, you can just skip over this. There are hundreds of different items to obtain, from armor and weapons to ingredients and gifts to make characters like you better.
After playing for about 5–10 hours, you will realize how much the game relies on your actions to tell the story. Unlike other Bioware games, you will notice these changes right away, and sometimes a decision in the beginning can progressively make things worse or better for you throughout the game, and it will make you regret what you did, and that is brilliant. The deepest part of the game is the menu itself, in which you equip your gear, check quests, codex pages, and your map, but there isn’t much to explain other than your normal inventory menu. Thankfully, the game steers away from unnecessary stats that boggle your mind and make you want to quit playing.
Playing the game is fairly simple, and the controls are easy. You can control all four party members, which gives you a nice tactical advantage, but most of the time I just played as my own character. Just remember, when a character dies during a battle, you have to wait for all enemies in the area to be killed for them to be resurrected (unless you have a mage with that skill). I found the game very difficult on the normal setting (almost impossible), so the easy setting had to be used, and that was challenging enough. Traveling between areas is easy enough since you use a world map, but you can encounter battles in between the areas.
One of my biggest gripes about the game is that it is pretty ugly. The Xbox 360 version is the ugliest, with flat, muddy textures that look like you’re playing on the lowest settings. Why this is, I have no idea, but there are also frame rate issues and long load times every time you enter a new area. There is also some sort of collision detection issue because when you press A to attack, enemy party members will sometimes dance around the enemy before attacking, and this can kill you in tight situations. This seems to be a huge issue when many characters are against one enemy.
In other words, if you love deep stories that deal with Blights, an Archdemon, and a deceitful king, then buy this game, but try to get the PS3 or PC versions since they look better. Dragon Age is probably one of the best western-made RPGs in decades, and with so many items, skills, party members, techniques, and side quests, you are in for hundreds of hours of addictive RPG gameplay.
First-person shooters have always been one of my favorite genres because of the amazing stories that most tell, accompanied by the beautiful cinematic experiences that most provide these days. Modern Warfare 2 is among those, but the multiplayer is what will keep you coming back for more. Modern Warfare 2 starts after the first game, so I highly suggest picking up the Game of the Year Edition if you really want to get into Modern Warfare. You play as new recruits and follow the characters you played as in the original (Captain Price and Soap MacTavish). You are still trying to stop the Russian psychopath Makarov, who has now brought the war to the east coast of our own country.
The game is more cinematic than the original, but not as intuitive in terms of level design and length. There are things in Modern Warfare 2 that have never been done in an FPS before, like ice climbing, but you also have a snowmobile scene as well as using AC-130 attack planes. But the game just doesn’t compare to the original in terms of single-player. One of the most memorable moments is at the beginning, when you actually play as a terrorist on one level and massacre people in an airport. I am very surprised this passed the ESRB censorship without anyone complaining because they can’t control their kids’ actions. Anyways, there are a lot of things in the single-player experience for fans of the original, including flashbacks of the last game and even another sniper level with Captain Price, but nothing tops the level in Pripyat from the original. The biggest thing you will notice is the mass amount of weapons you can use. There were so many weapons that I couldn’t use them all in one play-through. One thing that just strikes me as amazing is seeing our own country, as if this happened tomorrow, as a war-torn battlefield. It’s very awe-inspiring and makes you stop and admire the scenery. While the single-player experience only has about 4-6 hours of gameplay, it’s enough to get you started and familiar with the game enough to jump right into multiplayer, and it comes out bats swinging and all.
Modern Warfare is renowned for its award-winning multiplayer, and it is probably the best FPS multiplayer I have ever played on any system. The game is about reaching rank 70 using the real-life military ranking system and earning experience points from kills. You start out using the default load-outs, but after reaching rank 4, you can make up to five custom classes. You can pick a primary and secondary weapon, equipment, special equipment, three perks, and a death streak. For each weapon, you can choose an attachment ranging from scopes, grips, silencers, and heartbeat monitors. Perks add advantages to your skills, such as steady aim, faster reloading, being invisible to UAVs, air support, etc., master melee speed, and you get the idea. There is even a new perk called Bling, which allows you to have two attachments to your primary weapon.
Once you have your classes created, you can start earning experience points with them. The multiplayer in Modern Warfare 2 is so deep that you earn points from completing challenges by using and doing everything you possibly can hundreds of times. Challenges range from getting so many kills for every weapon, attachment, perk, death streak, kill streak, etc. Just about everything you do earns you points to move on up, and this can get you hundreds of hours of online fun. If that isn’t enticing enough, 12 players may not seem like much, but on these maps, they are. My only real complaint is that there aren’t many maps, and most of them aren’t that good. A select few are well designed and very fun to play on, but some are just boring, but a map pack is due soon to fix this.
Some of the new features you have heard me talk about are new death streaks, which are a fourth perk that is enabled if you die three times, and these range from dropping a live grenade upon death to 10 seconds of extra health upon respawning. Killstreaks are now customizable and unlockable by earning ranks. There are over a dozen now, ranging from controllable AC-130 airstrikes, helicopter strikes, Hind attacks, and carpet bombing. Getting 25 kills in a row can even land you a tactical nuke that lets your team automatically win. My favorite is the care package drops (upon earning 4 kills in a row) that deliver random kill streaks or even the placeable turret.
You also now have a customizable call sign, which is a placard that displays an emblem, a mockery banner, your rank, and your gamertag. There are dozens of emblems and titles to unlock, and mixing and matching is fun while the titles can match your personality, such as ones that say “Bow Down,” “Omnipotent,” “Joint Ops,” or “Voyeur.” There is just an endless heap of options in this game, and it truly makes it the best FPS multiplayer game ever made because there isn’t one thing I would want to change about the game. I really want to give this game a 9.5, but the slightly disappointing single-player and covert ops bring it down a tad.
Covert Ops seems more like an experiment than anything else because no one plays it online. Think of these as special missions that have you killing a certain number of enemies or racing down a hill in a snowmobile to get a certain time. 90% of these are impossible to do without someone else, so you will most definitely need a buddy to beat them.
On one last note, the game looks amazing. With super high-res textures and looking close to real-life on an HDTV in all its 1080p 50” glory, you will be drooling all the time. Everything is highly detailed, and the sound is just amazing for that “in-the-war” experience. Modern Warfare 2 is just an amazing game and really shows how sequels should be: improvements upon the original in which the developer listens to its fellow community and makes changes accordingly.
Maybe once a decade we get a truly beautiful game that really represents what games are: cinematic experiences that the player can get lost in for hours. Assassin’s Creed II is one of those rare games, and it also represents what a sequel should be. Assassin’s Creed II boasts a wonderful, enrapturing story that really grabs you both in a political, historical, and science fiction sense. Never have I seen the three mixed so well with an ending that can make your head spin for hours afterward and have you talking amongst your friends about it for days. You are not Altair, but Ezio Auditore, who is on a path of vengeance for the rival banking family that killed him. In the real world, you are still Desmond Miles trying to unlock the secrets of his assassin ancestors and figure out what the Apple of Eden is really meant to do and why everyone wants it.
From the start, you will notice major changes from the original, and these are graphics. The game is truly one of the most beautiful of the decade, capturing the Italian Renaissance era with all of its amazing architecture, historic figures, and language, along with the social classes of the time. But before we talk more about beauty, let’s talk gameplay. As everyone recalls, the first game was very repetitive and pretty bare-bones, so expect Assassin’s Creed II to have tons of things to do. Not only are there more side missions, but there are more scripted story-driven missions, and playing Desmond isn’t so boring. You actually go to a different location with Desmond and even fight with him. Just a hint without spoiling anything. You have your Messenger, beat-up, and race events from the previous game, but gone are the “helping citizen” events. You have tons more variations, from raiding assassin tombs (interior Tomb Raider style levels) to Templar Lairs, races on horseback, assassination contracts, finding codex pages to upgrade your health, chasing down people stealing your money, chasing down messengers, solving glyph puzzles, finding statuettes, restoring your uncle’s villa, more viewpoints, and the list goes on. Yeah, there is more variety, and because there is so much to do and so many ways to do it, you really never get bored, because I never did.
You can do ten side missions, then three main missions, then fast travel back to your uncle Mario’s villa to upgrade the city to get more income for you to spend, then go find some feathers for your mother in mourning, and maybe get some Codex pages. Doesn’t that sound like enough? That’s ok. The variations in story missions never get dull with all the weapon upgrades you get. You even get to use Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine about 2/3 of the way through the game. Want to talk about upgrades? Well, there is an economic system in play here, but don’t get too excited. It’s your simple buy stuff from merchants and upgrade your stuff type thing. You can upgrade your armor over a dozen times, buy dozens of weapons, upgrade medicine pouches, throw knives, and even poison vials. You can dye your clothes or buy paintings to increase the value of your villa. Did I mention there is every assassin weapon in this game? You have smoke bombs, dual hidden blades/punch daggers, poison blades, hidden guns, and even a passive ability to toss money on the ground to distract guards.
Fans of the original remember that the best attack was the running and jumping assassination attack. Wanted more? Well, you get more with the ability to pull guys down from hanging on a ledge, from a hiding spot, on a bench, in a crowd, jumping off something, and anyway you possibly can. You can now swim, which is a huge plus, and blending has totally changed. Instead of having a “blend” button, the previous “blend” button is now a “walk fast” button, which can be used to pickpocket people for money by just running into them. Blending now consists of using any group of pedestrians or hiring people. You can hire courtesans, thieves, or mercenaries to do your dirty work or distract guards from important posts or patrols. This allows you to walk right on by to wherever you need to be. You can blend by sitting on benches or dropping your notoriety. Your notoriety is the creed diamond that has a red bar around it. The higher it gets, the more the guards will be on your case and chase you for subtle things. Ripping down posters or bribing heralds can bring it down, but becoming anonymous first is a must.
Now that we have the basic elements out of the way, let’s talk combat. The core combat system is here, but with upgrades, such as being able to counter a counter-attack, take away weapons, use your hidden blade as a weapon for instant counter-kills, and so on. The enemy AI is also better, with four enemy variants that can chase you down or kill you with their bulk and massive weapons. Free running is also slightly improved with tighter controls and better-designed levels, more climbing puzzles (viewpoints), and just more terrain overall. The game really only gets frustrating when the controls get a bit sticky and you cling too well to ledges. The world is 3x the size of Assassin’s Creed, with the towns of Forli/Venice, Firenze, the Villa, and Roma. After about ¼ through the game, you get to ride a horse-drawn wagon in a chase down a mountainside to get to Forli/Venice, which is a rich cinematic experience that the game is full of. Once you get to Venice, you can ride gondolas and swim in the water.
So with all this greatness and beauty that Assassin’s Creed II gives us, how does this soup taste? With all these ingredients, I have to say it tastes damn good. Everything works well together, and the game feels like a rich, illustrious world that doesn’t feel dead. With fluid combat, free running, plenty of stuff to do, amazing visuals, voice acting, history, and science fiction, you get anywhere from 15 to 25 hours of a wonderful game. This game will have you sitting back and savoring every moment, not just because of how amazing it looks and sounds, but because of how beautiful the game is as a whole. These games come once in a decade, and Assassin’s Creed II is it.
The newest RPG hybrid is probably FPS hybrids, and since these are so new, Borderlands can be considered one of the first to perfect them. While Fallout 3 holds the crown, let’s just say Borderlands is the prince. If you have had a hard time grasping FPS/RPG hybrids, then let me put it simply for you. Like in traditional RPGs, you have elemental attacks. In Borderlands, you have these, and they consist of corrosion, explosives, fire, and lightning. Some guns can be fused with elemental powers, i.e., a lightning combat rifle will deplete enemies with shields faster than just a normal rifle. A shotgun with corrosive powers can kill creatures faster than a gun with lightning powers.
Another element that you should be familiar with is statistics. Just like TRPGs, Borderlands has damage and hit accuracy on weapons. You get shields that have certain aspects, such as when they deplete, they send a wave of corrosive acid, or they recharge faster or give you a health boost, etc. You also get grenade mods, which change the way your grenades act, just like guns. There are also specific class mods that can increase some of your stats even further. Additionally, each character has a specific ability they can use, and you can equip special spheres that add attributes to this ability. Sound like a TRPG so far? What about enemies? They too have levels and shields, and the damage you deal with them will bounce off of them in a series of numbers, along with the experience you get once they are killed.
There are a lot of little tidbits, such as the money system; you can purchase items or upgrades at vending machines; saving claptrap robots can give you more storage space; there are healing items; when you kill an enemy, you can loot them; and you can also loot the dungeons you enter or the open world. See, it still sounds like a TRPG. What makes it different? Just add guns, a vehicle you can drive and shoot from, and a fast travel system. The way to play in all this fun is to co-op. More players + harder enemies=better loot. There is good math in my book.
This sounds fine and dandy, like nothing can go wrong, but Borderlands has its issues. While the gameplay is actually pretty flawless, with lots of guns such as rocket launchers, combat rifles, SMGs, revolvers, etc. The content is very thin. There isn’t much to do but run around the barren wasteland, completing the 150+ side missions and 50+ story missions. There is hardly a story or any dialog. You’re just running around trying to find this vault with some special treasure. All the loot is the same, and even the storage bins you find them in get boring to see after a while. While the game has a pretty neat cartoony graphics style, everything is brown and boring, which puts the neat art style to waste.
The difficulty isn’t something to complain about since it increases as you level up. Each area has to load separately, and the load times are longer than they should be. Most of the side missions vary from scavenger hunts to killing people, looting, and more killing, but the core gameplay is really shallow, and the stuff it’s wrapped around is flawless. This game is really meant for people who just want a straightforward shooter with some more depth and a twist. While it does feel more arcadey than Fallout 3 and more pick-up-and play it just doesn’t have that charm and amazing feeling to it. Borderlands is executed well but just needs more filling to make it superb. However, the game is highly addictive, and even though you know you’re doing the same thing over and over again, you never get tired of it. The game has a level 50 cap and can be completed 100% in less than 20 hours, so Borderlands is a great purchase for any shooter fan.
Ahh, good ol’ metal. That is exactly what you’ll say when playing Brutal Legend, thanks to Tim Schafer’s genius imagination and Jack Black’s great voice acting. Brutal Legend isn’t exactly revolutionary, but it does have some ideas that are interesting. When it comes to the story, this is one of Brutal Legend’s strong points. You play Eddie Riggs, who is a roadie and gets sent to another world, and that world is full of metal. Eddie runs into many characters, but his main goal is to find out why he is there and defeat the evil lord Diviculus.
The game starts out strong and shows you the ropes of combat and your deuce. Yes, the vehicle you drive around in the big open world. Combat consists of a strong attack and a normal attack, followed by your axe. Your axe can shoot lightning at foes or burn them. Along with this, you can smash down on the ground to send foes flying. There are some upgrades you can get that will extend combos and lead to using your axe, but combat is pretty shallow. Nothing ever really evolves, and it can even be a bit sluggish at times and a tad unresponsive. Upgrading the pain and strings on your guitar can make certain attacks more powerful. Not only can you upgrade your ax, but the deuce as well (more on that later).
While you may think combat sounds shallow, you can also use “superpowers,” which are little riff mini-games that can do certain things. The main ones you will use will be the ones to summon your deuce anywhere. Another is the face melter, which is followed by a great camera cut of melting faces! There is even one to rally your troops, block your enemies from creating more troops, and so on. Finding the relics for these powers is a huge pain since the world is so big and finding these rare relics can be tough, but wait a second; I’ll get back to the open world later.
First, let’s finish the combat. Yes, you can upgrade your vehicle with weapons to help shoot down foes and even get a secondary weapon such as mines or flamethrowers. The main focus of the game is RTS. Wait, what? RTS? You’re kidding me, right? I thought this was a God of War-type game… I’m very sorry, but this is true, and while it works, it is the game’s biggest letdown. I too thought this game was all action-adventure until I got hit with a tutorial on how to do this. Well, to make things simple, all your basic RTS elements are here: Creating troops, upgrading your “base” to create stronger troops, and collecting “resources” to fund all this. With a unique take on RTS, you have to build “merch booths” on green holes in the ground to create fans, which in turn let you create troops. Upgrading your base up to two times lets you create greater troops like roadies, bouncers, and even fire barons. You have basic troops (headbangers) and chicks that shoot fire out of their guitars. There are a lot of units, and while you command them around the map via a light, you can tell them to hold, attack, go to, or follow you. Eddie gets to fly around the map, and when you need to aid your troops, you can use any of your “special attacks.” If Eddie dies, he respawns on his stage, thanks to his fans.
Now, while all this sounds simple, it really is too simple and could have been cut from the game. There are “in-between” levels that have you fetching these troops or going from A to B, and I really liked those missions better. The RTS just took too long and felt out of place in an action-adventure-type game. I was also disappointed to see only two boss fights, which were at the beginning and end; thus, the developers used side missions as fillers in between story missions. These side missions are interesting at first but become extremely repetitive since there isn’t much variety.
Side missions vary from helping the Ironheade (yes, with an E, so people know we’re serious) members ambush an enemy convoy all the way to racing. Some other missions consist of using your vehicle to fight off convoys, and the rare, unique side mission. There is even a hunting record-breaker, but this allows you to send that creature into battle to help you fight. Of course, you get something for completing these missions, and that is fire tributes. Think of these as currency to buy stuff at the store.
My favorite part of the whole game is actually the art style. Everything from the trees to the rocks to the animals is influenced by metal from the 70s and 80s, and Double Fine captured the feeling perfectly. The graphics are amazing and the voice acting is top-notch, but you can’t help but notice the attention to detail in everything. Not only is the art style unique, but the execution is as well, such as the dry ice mines and the great wall, which is made of amps that are so powerful they can kill you. Everything is pure metal, and so is the great 40+ song soundtrack. Brutal Legend isn’t for everyone, but metalheads or people who just appreciate great games or music will enjoy it very much.
The new Star Wars: The Clone Wars series is a cartoon/CGI spin-off of the Clone Wars era of Star Wars, complete with 20’s Anakin. While the cartoon series is something to be desired, the game is the same way. The story is about, well, the Clone Wars, and, um, yeah, you know, I know nothing about the cartoon series except the fact that I did watch the Clone Wars cartoon movie. I don’t know what the big deal was since it was mediocre at best with a strange art style, but enough of that. The best part about Republic Heroes is the co-op and the fact that you play as many Star Wars heroes as possible. You start out playing as Anakin and Snips, while branching off and playing as Republic soldiers, Obi-Wan, and even Aayla Secura (hot). The bad part is they all play the same game using mindless saber hacking (mash square forever), force pushing, and jumping. You can build a combo bar that lets you increase your saber throw power, but it’s no big deal. Playing as soldiers lets you shoot and toss grenades and shoot rocket launchers, but it’s all pretty much the same.
You can “Droid Jack,” which I found completely useless since you can’t move these droids when they are jacked; all you can do is use their “ability” while staying still. This varies by Droid since some can shoot, some stomp, etc. The levels tend to be pretty short, lasting about 10–15 minutes each, but I haven’t gotten to the thing that kills the game. It’s the jumping. Yes, since the game has pretty nicely large environments, the game stays linear with platforms that have that “sticky” jumping thing going on where you jump and then stick to it. The camera is what kills this, in turn, since the camera is so far back that the characters look almost like ants on-screen, and judging jumps is really hard this way.
Not only is Droid hacking useless, but upgrades are as well. You pick up blue orbs that you experience, but you lose them when you start a new level. How can you collect enough orbs in 10–15 minutes for the more powerful attacks? Beats me. You really don’t need them anyway since I played 3/4 of the way through without any upgrades, and that goes to show how easy this game is. I mean, you can’t even die in this game because you get a checkpoint every five seconds and you can just respawn there, so I found a life bar pointless. All enemies have around the same health, and this includes destroyer droids all the way to battle droids and beyond. All your Clone Wars enemies are in here, but seriously, it’s not much variety. You do rarely get a fun vehicle driving section, but they are so short and so rare that you wish, “I want another one of those.”.
Co-op is what really brings the game to life, since your AI-controlled buddy is retarded. Each person can take separate paths, but you really have to work together to get all the orbs and artifacts, but that’s if you don’t beat each other up over the bad platforming and terrible camera. Yeah, the graphics are decent and the audio is good, but that doesn’t save this mediocre Star Wars game from the bargain bin.
I watched the movie when it first came out, and now I’m late playing the game. While I played the PC version, I found the Xbox 360 version not much different. The game does sport decent graphics, but now, in 2009, they feel pretty dated, there are a lot of collision detection issues, and the game is very…green. While you spend 70% of the time playing as Jack, you wish you could play as Kong more. There are a decent variety of enemies, such as giant centipedes, bats, T-Rex, raptors, crabs, and so forth. You just wish there were more.
When you play as Jack, you are in a first-person perspective, and there are no health bars, no ammo meters, just you and your instincts. Ubisoft made it this way, so the game feels more cinematic like the movie, and it works. I was surprised at how well you can aim with the spears and guns without a reticle, and it’s very easy to do. Most of the playing as Jack is pretty straightforward, with most of the puzzles revolving around burning brush via lit spears. Most of these puzzles get pretty dull towards the end, but thankfully, as you progress, you play as Kong more often. Playing as Kong, though, is the best part. You are in a 3rd-person POV, and the camera sweeps around dramatically while you beat up a giant T-Rex and fend off dozens of bats.
There are moments when you run along giant cliffsides and swing on huge pillars. While this is good and all, it does get repetitive, and it’s the same thing over and over. The game isn’t very well-paced, and there aren’t any clips from the movie at all. I understand that Michel Ancel wanted players to not emerge out of the experience with jaunting clips from the movie, so everything is done in real-time. Of course, all the load times defeat this purpose since some chapters are only one cutscene long. I also have to mention that King Kong has the easiest access to 1000 GP ever. Just complete the game, and you have all your achievements and GP. Yes, you heard me, just complete certain chapters, and they hand them to you. Of course, this had a lot to do with the fact that most developers didn’t give two sh**s about achievements during the first year or so of the console’s life. While Ubisoft did a good job in the short time they had, it could have been a lot better. The game also ends very abruptly, and it feels like they took huge shortcuts. Despite all this, you’ll get a kick out of the game on any console, and it’ll sure to please the movie fans.
Everyone has a favorite superhero or villain when they are kids and grows up dreaming about them, reading their comics, and even cartoons, but what about video games? Superhero games were far and few between until the recent superhero spike when Spider-Man came out. Spider-Man 2 (based on the movie) was freaking epic and really showed that a superhero game can be done right. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was another epic superhero game showing that, for one, Marvel has balls and will let their super characters kill (DC has yet to grow a pair), and that a movie-based video game can be done right. So, what really defines a good superhero game? Well, the roster is probably the first thing since that’s what people look for on the back of the box or in previews. Another thing would be the gameplay, since we want to feel like we’re super powerful, and that’s what Arkham Asylum does best.
The game, first off, is very cinematic since you start out at Arkham with the Joker strapped in and being hauled off to a high-security cell. Of course, he escapes, and that’s where the nightmare begins. You start out fighting off some inmate goons and learn the combat. There are a lot of gameplay elements here, so stick with me while I explain them all. CQC combat is great since it’s called “free flow” combat. You aren’t supposed to touch the analog stick and just use the face buttons for a light attack, a heavy attack, a counter-attack, and various other things you can do. When you knock down an enemy, they’re temporarily dazed, so you can lay a ground attack on them to knock them out for good. When you see an icon appear above an enemy head, you hit the counter button, and Batman will quickly jump to that enemy and counter in all his martial arts butt-kicking glory. The combat is amazing since there’s a lot you can do, and it looks great. You can use a quick batarang to knock back enemies, or you can use your bat claw to pull multiple enemies toward you. The whole point of the combat is to create a combo without stopping, and this is probably the only flaw in the game since it really reflects the challenge mode (more on that later), so this will be my biggest gripe. The flaw here is that there has to be an enemy within hitting reach at all times, or your combo breaks. Yes, you can use the batarang or bat claw to close gaps, but sometimes this isn’t easy if you have to quickly face an enemy. It takes perfect precision and a lot of grueling practice to nail the big combos, but otherwise, during the main game, you can just ignore this.
Another gameplay mode is detective mode, which allows you to see everything in a blue x-ray-type view, along with the skeletons of enemies and their status. Detective mode is essential for finding Riddler challenges, breakable walls, and even sneaking up on enemies. Detective mode is used about 80% throughout the game, and I feel it was too heavily relied on since you can’t see how amazing the game looks most of the time since it all looks blue and X-ray-like. In detective mode, you scan objects to acquire some of them, and this includes riddles.
Being a predator is a huge part of Batman, since that’s what he is. He uses fear to deal psychological damage to an enemy, thus weakening them. In certain rooms, you’ll have a lot of enemies, and you can swing from gargoyles and take them out however you see fit. When someone passes under, you can hang down and do an inverse takedown, so while he screams and dangles, everyone rushes to his aid. This is when you swing to another gargoyle, use a batarang, cut him down, and scare the crap out of everyone. While they spread out, you can do dive kicks or even drop down behind them and take them out silently. The stealth mechanics are great and easy to execute without lots of trial and error. Of course, later in the game, you must use your predator skills since some enemies will have collars that alert everyone if their heart rate rises too much, which means you’re in the room.
Now I should mention the story since it’s excellent. While you’re running around the asylum trying to find Joker, you run into your old pals such as Killer Croc, Ivy (who is HOT), and Harley Quinn (who is also extremely hot). Throughout the game, you can pick up on how the super criminals got to Arkham through audio tapes (part of the Riddler’s challenges), and while not every Batman villain is in here, you can read up on their bios by finding and completing the Riddler’s challenges.
You might ask, What are these Riddler’s challenges? Well, they are a big pain to find since there are so many types, trophies, audiotapes, actual riddles, and many others. There are over 250 of them, but there is an easy way to find most of them. If you find the secret map for each section of the game, you can pretty much tell where they are due to the floating green question marks on the map. Most secrets can’t even be found until the game is completed or gadgets are required. When you find these riddles, you unlock challenge maps, 3D models, and bios, along with achievements. Speaking of gadgets, all of Batman’s beloveds are in here, but you only start with the Batarang. You eventually acquire the bat claw, bat-grapple, explosive foam, zip line, and more. There are upgrades for your bat suit, weapons, and combat skills, which can be bought through points earned by completing missions. The game is very free-form since you have several buildings on Arkham Island you can travel to at will, so certain gadgets are required to get through certain areas.
Challenge mode allows you to use your skills to get certain scores and reach certain time limits, and they are challenging—almost impossible for the impatient or novice—so approach at your own risk. As good as I was at this game, I found the challenges hard to conquer and get gold medals in.
When it comes to how the game looks and sounds, it’s amazing. The game uses Unreal Engine 3, so you can expect graphics that rival Gears of War 2. Batman’s cape flows and he gets damaged in real time; everything looks dark, crisp, and scary, just like Batman should be. The atmosphere is great and will even creep you out sometimes. The voice acting is top-notch, and so is the dialog (the joker will make you laugh numerous times). The game runs a fair length of about 15 hours, depending on how you play the first time (and if you try to collect everything). Batman is one of the best games of this generation, and even Batman haters should check this out.
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Clearly you have been blocking everything you or haven't played the game at all. Maybe pay attention to the story…