Tomb Raider’s comeback with Legend gave fans hope that Lara was not dead, but after the success of Underworld, Crystal Dynamics decided to do something different with a top-down adventure game, and everyone was skeptical. The game’s story is probably the weakest part of you and an Aztec named Totec trying to beat an evil Aztec guy. Yeah, really interesting.
Despite that, the combat is awesome with dual-stick shooter-type gameplay. You can switch weapons on the fly from four presets, and killing wave after wave is fun. Each enemy type is pretty unique, with some shooting magic spells; some explode with deadly gas; some are huge and can crush you; and some are even faster and come in high numbers. There is a huge weapon selection, from assault rifles to spears to grenade launchers, and each weapon is well balanced and has its uses, even in puzzles.
This, of course, has always been Tomb Raider’s strongest point, which is the puzzle department. You can use spears to get to higher ledges, use the grenade launcher and bounce it around corners to flip switches, destroy barriers, etc. You can use your grapple to hang down ledges, and pushing giant boulders around can even be used as a powerful weapon! It’s great how everything in the game has more than one use and really makes you think and gives you a broad range of things to do. The puzzles can range from switch puzzles to combat puzzles, or even a whole level being one great puzzle.
The game also has lots of ways to come back and do well in levels. There is a point system, and you acquire them by killing enemies and collecting gems, and you get rewarded relics for completing challenges. Relics can be equipped to boost your stats, such as weapon power, health, speed, or range. These will really turn the tide in battle, and there is quite a bit to collect, so it’s a good incentive to really do the challenges. However, some challenges are almost impossible and don’t seem like they were planned out too well.
The game looks amazing, and Lara is as sexy as ever and is voiced by the same person who’s been doing it since Legend. The game is full of thrills, just like the bigger games, and is just so much fun that not one section ever feels the same. Each level is crafted perfectly, and everything is balanced just right. Another incentive for players who couldn’t get the hang of other TR games is to pick up GoL because of its ease of perspective and good controls. This is one of the best XBLA games to come out in the Xbox’s history and should not be passed up. It even has a good price!
Arcade racing games have always tried to do something new other than just adding new cars, tracks, and customizability. Racing games are trying to go beyond that by bringing in the environment and getting more involved with the other opponents instead of just racing them to the finish line. Split Second tries to involve everything around you in the race, and you really get the feeling that it is. The guys behind the hit sleeper Pure bring back exhilarating speed with top-notch audio, visuals, and controls. The focus around Split Second is bringing the environment down around your opponents and getting ahead in the race.
The way you accomplish this is by building up your power meter, which has three segments. Doing drifts, shunts, jumps, or slipstreaming will grant you this power. Activate the power when the icon appears above an opponent and blast! Something’s going to happen, but you have to watch out because you can wreck yourself doing this as well. You can start out by blowing up cars near opponents, but it’s when you can level whole pieces of track on top of them that it really gets exciting. Having a landing plane come crashing down on you and try to drive under its wing is pretty damn cool and has never been done before in a racing game. Watching huge towers fall down and block the path can really get your adrenaline going, especially when you start getting ahead.
Yeah, the further ahead you get in the pack, the bigger the target you’re going to be and the more you’re going to have to watch out. I’ve never played a racing game before where I was actually afraid to be in first since everyone would be targeting me. There are several modes to keep this interesting, such as time attacks and an eliminator mode, as well as others that have you dodging things and even shooting back at helicopters.
You can unlock cars, and most of them vary depending on their stats, but don’t expect any real-life cars here. These are generic, and Burnout fans will already be used to them. Unlocking new episodes is rewarding, and it keeps you playing through the long game, so you won’t ever get bored.
The game looks and sounds great, but the PC version suffers from a bug that makes the music drown out the car sounds if you have any surround sound system at all. Also, playing the game on a keyboard is no good since you can’t get precise control of your car. I recommend a gamepad for this, or even a wheel if you have one. The multiplayer is what you would expect, and it is a bit more intense thanks to the more clever human opponents.
Split Second is a racing game that really tries to define the genre and really does a good job doing it, if only it weren’t so repetitive. While the game is super fun, it slowly wears off unless you play in short bursts. The game really could have built upon the destructible environment idea more and made it a bit more controllable. Despite this, Split Second is a must for action racing fans, and you will walk away with a smile on your face and sweat on your palm.
You are the prince once again who will stop his brother from using King Salomon’s army of sand to destroy the kingdom. The story is pretty straightforward, predictable, and not very interesting, but it’s enough to keep you interested. The Prince’s banter is funny as always, but there isn’t any character development.
Prince of Persia has gone through a lot of changes since its original release in the 80s, and The Forgotten Sands adds some new things. First, the game’s focus has changed to elements instead of concentrating too much on time. Yes, you can rewind time if you mess up, but the focal point of the game is the ability to freeze the flow of water and use it as a wall or a pole. Let me set up a little scenario for you: Jump to a wooden beam, and then you have water spewing out ahead of you. Freeze it, jump to it, climb the wall of water, and jump back to another pole of water, but then you have two waterfalls next to each other and a wooden beam. Quickly unfreeze the water, jump in between, freeze quickly, jump back to the other waterfall, unfreeze the water to jump through the other one, and you’re done. Sounds complicated? It really isn’t, but getting your timing down is a bit tricky at first.
You can also use water to solve puzzles by freezing the water and having poles on the statue stop so the lower pieces can rotate, etc. While water is the main element, the others feel tacked on. You can jump to an enemy that’s on a ledge that’s too far away to jump, so you get this super dash move. It feels unnecessary since you only use it for this. The other “power” is the ability to bring back a piece of the environment, but this also feels tacked on since there’s no real challenge to it. It works like water since you can only bring it back one piece at a time. I wish they would have used Earth and the wind or something like that instead.
The platforming is top-notch, and every level is cleverly designed with tons of traps and obstacles to work yourself around. All the same types of traps from previous games are here, and each level never feels the same. The game slowly makes each level harder and harder, but the game always feels really easy, not to mention short. The puzzles are easier this time around, and there aren’t that many of them either, but there are a couple of head-scratchers thrown in there.
The combat is probably the worst part of the game. You get lots of enemies on screen, but they all look the same, and there aren’t even half a dozen variants. They are pretty dumb and don’t really do much, and you can quickly take them down. You get a basic attack, a shove attack, and you can jump on enemies. The combat is very shallow, and even with the powers you can upgrade, you never really use them since the game is so easy. These vary from flames to ice, wind, etc., but you only really use them if you are playing hard. Bosses are even easier since they all play the same and aren’t very interesting.
When it comes to looks, the game uses the Assassin’s Creed II engine, but for some reason it doesn’t look as good. It’s the best-looking PoP game to date, but artistically, it feels like all the others and stray away from the 2008 PoP reboot’s looks. Is this the best PoP game? No, but it is a good one. While the shallow combat breaks up the exciting platforming, you will get a good six hours of PoP fun.
Sam Fisher is back in a more action-oriented Splinter Cell, and while this may be great for people who hated the series before, fans will be let down. Splinter Cell is known for its stealth-heavy gameplay that relies on shadows, trial and error, and patience. While Conviction still uses this, it’s quicker and feels like Splinter Cell Lite, and this isn’t really so bad.
The story is continued from the series, but only fans will really pick up on it. Sam is still trying to find his daughter after Third Echelon supposedly killed her. In the meantime, he is trying to stop a terrorist organization from setting off EMP bombs and killing the president.
To get to the meat of the game, let’s talk about stealth. Yes, you can use shadows like in previous games, but instead of some sort of meter, the screen just turns gray when you are hidden. The game’s best feature is the new cover system, which lets you jump to cover on the fly by pressing Space and aiming for a new place to hide. This can give you quick access to enemy positions, but it is a little broken. Sometimes there isn’t cover in the right spot, and it’ll force you to use your gadgets and even use headshots. This can really kill certain parts of the game and make them very difficult, especially when you have lots of enemies in the room. In previous games, you could just kill lights and sneak around in the dark, but Conviction confines you to cover. You can climb around things and hang off pipes like before, but the game mainly forces you to use cover.
The best feature by far is the mark and execute system, which lets you target certain enemies, and Sam will quickly kill these guys with headshots without giving away your position. This is great when you have multiple enemies, but you can only get a mark and execute points if you stealth kill someone. This really forces you to sneak around cover and try to kill someone up close. Certain weapons have a different amount of points you can use as well. There is also an interrogation system here, but it’s not much other than pressing C and watching Sam bash up his targets. This could have been a lot more.
The game has a weapon upgrade system, but it’s really cheap and pretty pointless. You can upgrade handguns with more powerful ammo or reflex sight to upgrade accuracy, but there are only three upgrades per weapon, and you usually stick with the same weapon throughout the whole game, so this is really wasted. You get some pretty neat gadgets, such as the sticky camera, which allows you a remote view of an area, makes noise for distraction, and even blows it up. However, the noise distraction rarely works since enemies won’t walk over and check it out, so it just feels like an irritating remote mine. You get your NV goggles late in the game, and they are the same as before, but you can see hidden lasers with them, but they just feel tacked on.
The multiplayer is what you would expect from a Splinter Cell game, but it uses the whole cover system thing, so it’s not as intense as previous games. There’s not much to talk about here, and I’m not really a multiplayer fan, so if you like Splinter Cell multiplayer, it’ll keep you busy for a while.
Conviction just feels too light and has broken stealth elements that they shouldn’t have changed. Even when you do have to shoot, the other weapons feel useless since they can’t hit anything. The story is pretty decent, and the game looks good (what you would expect from UE3). Michael Ironside does an excellent job as Sam, but it feels like Splinter Cell was cored out, and it just feels like a rush job. You still have to have patience in this game, but the elements and patience don’t really mix since this game is more like a Splinter Cell with action elements. Still, the game is worth a playthrough, and you will have a lot of fun.
The biggest hype behind Crysis was its looks. Very few people have the hardware to run the game like it should be: all settings are very high and using DirectX 10, and I am one of the lucky few to have the hardware setup to do so. While most people can run this on ultra settings, you won’t find too many who can run it above 30 FPS. My setup was able to handle most of the game at above 20 FPS, but it did dip into the single digits every once in a while. With that aside, Crysis is just stunning, even three years later. Every texture is high resolution, and even when looking at something up close, you can see all the detail in that texture and not just a blurry or pixelated mess. All the lighting is gorgeous, and the physics seem almost real, thanks to the super-advanced Crytek engine and DirectX 10. Everything in the game just looks amazing: every blade of grass sways, trees crumble under fire, and leaves on palm trees shear off when fired at. Throughout the whole game, you will never get sick of looking at this tropical technical feat.
Now a game can look as good as it wants, but it’s no use if the game doesn’t play well and has a good story?. You play as a Special Forces agent called Nomad and are sent in with a team to investigate an island that the Koreans have occupied. It gets interesting right from the beginning and stays interesting throughout.
Thankfully, Crysis is a solid shooter with some elements that other FPS games have never used before, and the biggest thing is the Nano Suit. This thing lets you choose between four different modes to help you out on the battlefield. Stealth turns you invisible for a certain amount of time. The faster you move, the more energy it depletes. Armor is pretty self-explanatory, and speed gives you a super boost that lets you dash dozens of yards in a matter of seconds, for a few seconds. Lastly, strength lets you throw enemies and melee them to make them fly, as well as extra height when jumping. All these are crucial to surviving in this hard and wide-open game.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s not linear. Surprised? Well, with so many linear FPS games out there (cough, Halo cough), it’s a nice change. The island is huge and wide open, and you can take different approaches to each situation. Most of the time, you have to infiltrate Korean KPA camps, and using stealth along with silenced weapons is a good start. Or you can go in guns blazing. If you prefer the backdoor approach, maybe you can get there by truck or swim across the lake and take them all by surprise. The multi-approach system is useful, but stealth may not always be the best choice, and sometimes you don’t get one.
That brings me to the next element of customizing your weapons on the fly. Have a sub-machine gun and can get an accurate shot? Attach a silencer and a sniper scope, set it to single shot, and pop off some guys before charging in. Once inside, attach a red dot sight, add an ACOG scope to the top, and even a grenade launcher. Being able to change one weapon to another on the fly is just awesome and really does help in every situation. This breaks the monotony of trying to find a gun for specific situations.
The game’s pacing takes a turn halfway through the game when you start fighting aliens. Of course, this makes the game more interesting, is almost like two games in one, and takes a more linear turn. Instead of infiltrating KPA camps, you fight alongside squadmates against aliens. This is fun, and I wish shooters would do stuff like this more often. It breaks up the monotony of the open jungle and kicks things up a notch.
Every element in the game works, but of course, everything could be better, and that’s why Crysis 2 is coming out. My biggest gripe with the game is the difficulty. Even on easy, the game is brutal and seems unfair at times, such as vehicles blowing up really fast, having 30+ guys come after you, and not being able to use stealth to get into a camp. This can drive you nuts, but the story is good enough for you to keep coming back for more. If you have PC power, Crysis is a must-have.
Norse mythology. That’s what drew me to Darksiders, but don’t just jump into this thinking it’s a God of War clone. In fact, it’s a mix of Zelda exploration and puzzle-solving and combat similar to God of War, but not as good or as epic. The story goes a little something along the lines of you playing as one of the four horsemen, War, who is chosen by the Council to find these broken seals and kill whoever did it to bring back Balance because the bad guys want all the realms aligned and made into one. The story is stretched between the long-winded levels, and it never picks up until the last hour, but by then you have forgotten what has happened because there is a little story between levels. It almost feels as if the story was an afterthought, and Vigil just concentrated on the puzzles and combat.
That being said, there is a lot of puzzle-solving in this game—almost more so than any other I have played. The game takes a lot of ideas from other games, such as God of War, Zelda, and even Portal, and puts them to good use. While the game isn’t 100% original, it does have its originality in certain areas. While starting with the combat, it’s pretty simple. You start out with your Chaoseater sword, which is mapped to the X button. Later on, when you get the scythe, you can map that and any other secondary weapon to Y and your tools to RT. Combat moves can be purchased by using blue souls gained from killing enemies. There are power moves and multiple combos you can pull off, and it’s all fluid and fun to use, so there’s no problem there.
You have a yellow wrath meter, which is war’s “special powers,” and then you have health shields, which are bars of health. Sometimes when you weaken an enemy, you can execute a kill move by pressing B (God of War, anyone?), but no QTE (quick time events) are displayed. Instead, you just watch war butcher the enemy. I love QTEs and would rather participate in the killing than just watch, but some people may prefer this. You can also ride your horse, Ruin, through the last 3/4 of the game and swing your blade while on him to kill and demolish enemies.
Now combat is neat and fluid. I just wish there were QTE events and a more fixed cinematic camera, but after explaining the puzzle-solving, you’ll see why it’s a user-controlled camera. The puzzles are so frequent and so complicated that they drove me nuts. It was just puzzle after puzzle after puzzle, and it was never-ending. While this doesn’t ruin the game, it just feels more and more like Zelda with every hour that passes. You have a free-roaming world that is broken down into sections that you can warp to. You have to find tools such as a grappling hook, a Mask of Shadows (to see hidden objects), and a portal gun (yeah, ripped straight from Portal, but it’s a gauntlet instead of a gun), as well as a glaive (Dark Sector maybe?). As you discover each tool, you use them to solve puzzles accordingly. The portal gauntlet is probably the most unique. There are orange circle plates that you can attack portals with too, and if any portal fans are reading this, you know what happens. However, there are a few unique touches, such as in the Black Throne area (mostly puzzles and hardly any combat), where you guide a beam from across a level through the different rooms and solve those puzzles to allow the beam to pass through more rooms. Yeah, it’s a bit in-depth and complicated, and don’t fret because most puzzles are pretty easy to solve, but there were a few brain scratchers that resulted in a video walkthrough.
A lot of the puzzles are pretty unique, but there are a few things thrown into the game that will surprise you, such as the ride on the dragon and using heavy guns that enemies drop. There is even a pistol that you can use in the game, but it is kind of useless except for the boss in the Ashlands level. Other than that, the pistol was pretty useless. There are just a lot of unique puzzles in the game, and they are pretty fun, but the fact that there are so many makes the game redundant, and that’s why it didn’t score as high as I wanted it to. The combat is pretty repetitive, and there’s nothing outrageous about the gore level; it’s actually pretty mild; it’s nothing close to the gore in God of War III. The kill animations are pretty repetitive since there is only one per enemy, and even the enemies are recycled. While there may be about six or so different enemy types, they are just recycled with different “costumes” and become more powerful as you progress through the game.
The bosses are pretty epic, but they aren’t too hard to beat. They repeat the same pattern over and over, and even the last boss is a pushover after you learn the strategy. The graphics are actually pretty nice. The character details are excellent, but the environments tend to be lacking. There is a lot of aliasing (jaggies), and I know the game could just look a whole lot better. This is also a game for people who like collecting since there is hidden crap all over the game, but I tend to not go searching for this stuff since I’m not good at it, but it’s there for Zelda fanatics to find.
Overall, the game is worth a purchase, but people who want just the action should steer away from it since this game is very puzzle-heavy, as in Zelda-type puzzles. The game gets very redundant after a while, and only the hardcore will continue playing, but Zelda fans and puzzle fans should check this out. You can play anywhere from 10 to 20 hours of gameplay, depending on whether you’re a completionist or not. There is lots to love in this package, but a bit more flare would have been nice. Bottom line: This is an adventure game for men, not elves.
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.
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.
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.
Call of Duty is probably the best WWII FPS series ever made, and there are many reasons why. If you rewind back about six years, when Call of Duty was released on the PC and console, gamers envied this exclusivity. CoD offered cinematic gameplay, great characters, and amazing visuals. At the time, the Medal of Honor reigned supreme, but not for very long. With Medal of Honor, Brothers in Arms, and Wolfenstein being the top competitive WWII FPS games, CoD always remained on top. With each new sequel, CoD added better graphics, a more realistic cinematic experience, and overall great multiplayer. Throughout CoD’s six-year life cycle, Activision has used many developers to keep the series going strong, and it was also the first WWII series to stray away from WWII and lean towards modern warfare (no pun intended, really!). Now that CoD is back on the WWII front line, it finally hit the nail on the head, and this is what CoD should have been years ago: World at War.
I thank the WWII gods who listened because we finally, for the first freaking time, got to go through the trials and campaigns of Japan and not just the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The game starts out in the jungles of Japan with banzais rushing after you with bayonets, strange rifles never seen before in a WWII game, amazing visuals (a slightly updated Modern Warfare engine to be exact), great enemy AI, and just absolute mayhem. The first thing I noticed were the new weapons. Yes, you have the Kar98, MP40, Thompson, BAR, MG42, Springfield, Enfield, etc. What I picked up was an Arisaka, a variation of the Kar98, a flamethrower?!, a bayonet?!, the ability to toss motorheads like grenades, molotovs?…insane. I couldn’t believe this. Someone actually added something new. Not only are the graphics amazing and extremely cinematic, but the level design is also awesome. There are cool sniping missions (think of the one in MW), tank missions (they drive great for once, by the way), and missions where you run through Japanese mortar pits and just torch the hell out of everyone. How fun is that? Well, let’s just say it’s so fun you won’t want to use another weapon during those levels.
You don’t just fight in Japan; you also fight on the European front as the Russians overtake the Reichstag all the way to planting the flag yourself. If this isn’t enough to sell you, try out the air mission, where you’re shooting down Japanese boats and pulling in survivors of the Pearl Harbor bombing on your way back home from Japan. If that’s not exciting enough, oh boy, I don’t know what is.
What makes the return to WWII so great isn’t just the new content or the cinematic gameplay. It’s the detail put into the level design, the characters, the ambiance, the dialog, and the voice acting; it’s all top-notch, and not even the first CoD had this much detail put into it. After playing WaW, you will want more WWII games, and this is the revival we’ve all been dying for (sorry, MoH Airborne was terrible). If single-player isn’t enough to sell you, how about multiplayer?
While I didn’t get to try it, I was involved in the beta multiplayer, and it was pretty amazing. It’s just like Modern Warfare but set in WWII instead. There’s plenty of incentive to go back and play the game again, thanks to its fair difficulty and amazing visual experience. World at War has so much detail put into it that I wouldn’t be surprised to see another MoH, BiA, or Wolfenstein copy any of it. Thank you, Treyarch and Activision, for reviving this great series. Now everyone shuts up.
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Super, thank you