Creative Assembly has made a lot of time-period hack and slash games that are decent but have many flaws (Spartan: Total Warrior for PS2 was one). Viking is a decent game but is plagued with repetition. I played this 5 years ago on the Xbox 360, and it was just OK back then. This game has aged like rotten milk, only having a decent graphics upgrade. Is it worth even a $15 purchase?
The answer is maybe. It depends on how you look at low-budget ports of older games. Viking has a paper-thin story that is middling on nonsense. All I know is that two busty goddesses are fighting each other and using Skarin (what a dumb name) to round up Vikings to stop Hel’s Legion. It feels more like a Lord of the Rings rip-off when you play it. Aside from the lame story, everything in this game is repetitive and grows boring. I finished this game back in 2007, but I couldn’t even finish the third section of this game this time around; I just wanted to tear my hair out. The combat is sluggish, with repetitive animations and combat moves. Sure, there are some upgrades, but mashing light and heavy attacks against hundreds and hundreds of enemies is boring. There are a few instant kill animations, but they repeat so often that you will just finish off the enemies normally because of how tiresome it gets. It doesn’t help that the slow motion goes on for way too long.
Using flame pots, throwing axes, and health potions don’t help either. This game can be really tough, and you respawn at Leystone locations spread throughout each of the three islands. Your only goal is to run around liberating camps with Viking cages in them. It gets boring because that is all you do. There are no other objectives. Some camps require you to “prove” yourself before they join your army. This leads to mundane tasks like liberating another camp to prove yourself. At the end of each island are large fortresses that you liberate, which are probably the only interesting thing in the game for the first time. You can summon a dragon to wipe out shamans, but you need to acquire stones to do this, which completely breaks this. Once all the shamans are dead, you liberate that area and move on. No matter how fast your computer is, you will experience a massive slowdown during these battles because of all the people on screen. This drove me nuts.
Before you can liberate the final town on each island, you have to use stealth to sneak in and complete an objective. This was both broken and boring because you had no idea where to go. Enemies spot you too easily, and then they call all their friends over, and you die. Why you have to sneak into these camps is beyond me. Why can’t you just liberate it and then take the item as a reward? After one hour, this game is just not fun. The world is empty, there’s no reward for exploration, and the map system is nearly useless. The only redeeming qualities are the gore and the updated graphics. At least the game is really short and can be beaten in about 8 hours.
Overall, if you missed this five years ago, you’re not missing anything now. If you really need a budget hack and slash, then go ahead, but be warned of the boring, repetitive gameplay.
I can’t tell you how long I have been waiting for this game—well, I can, since the first one. I didn’t know what AC3 would be, but I knew down the road it would come, and here it is. Somehow, Ubisoft can manage to make each entry feel fresh without having to do drastic reboots. AC3 is set in the American Revolution and is the final chapter in Desmond’s story, or so they say. You play as Connor or the unpronounceable Ratonhnhaké:ton. He is a Mohawk Indian, or half British, half Kanien’kehá:ka. He is actually a likable character, and after Ubisoft created such loved characters as Altair and Ezio, it becomes a huge challenge to create a third. There are so many changes to the game that it feels like a true sequel, but a few flaws that have persisted throughout the series remain.
The first thing you will notice is the change in the HUD design. It is much more streamlined and user-friendly. The second thing you will notice is that the puppeteer system is gone. You do everything with RT only and jump around with A. This is supposed to help streamline climbing (which it does), so you have to press fewer buttons. Connor automatically pushes people out of the way while running, so you no longer stumble and fall down. One major thing I took away was how much you can blend. Being able to run away from guards is much easier now, but you can still hide in stacks. There are different crowd types of blending in, like people leaning against walls, starting riots, etc., but when you are notorious, you can fight or lose them more easily. The whole environment just feels more natural, so you can climb on cliffs in the frontier and use different handholds. Trees can now be climbed because a new V-shaped object has been introduced.
The same flaw persists in parkouring throughout every game. Connor will jump around on handholds that you don’t want him to. He will even sometimes get stopped by invisible barriers if an object is too low. This led to cheap deaths and frustrating restarts. I guess some things can’t ever be ironed out. Thankfully, the combat is much improved, with Ubisoft realizing Assassin’s Creed is a counter-fest and actually building on this. AC3 is my third favorite fight system in an action adventure right under God of War and the new Batmans. Each attack is built around a counter, so you press B when a red triangle appears above an enemy’s head, then press X to instant kill, B again to throw, or A to disarm. The combat system is fast and fluid and leads to fewer deaths, but it is still challenging because you need to be quick. Each assassin you recruit is unique, and there are only six. Each one has a special ability, like escort, marksman, riot, and others. These unique abilities give you much more options when infiltrating restricted areas to either bring you to the heart or distract guards. You can even send them off on missions through the map menu instead of localized areas.
There are many weapons and items you can use in combat. The punch dagger has been reduced to just one, but you have a flintlock pistol (yes, it requires a lengthy reload every time, but you can carry two later on), and you also have a bow and arrow. Other items include mines, poison darts, rope darts, and many others. You also have to watch out because enemies have weapons and will form firing lines. When they do this, press A near an enemy and use them as a human shield. Good stuff.
On another note, combat leads to hunting, which is a great mechanic added to this game. Exploring the large Frontier area and homestead allows you to hunt animals and skin them for items to use for crafting. You can stalk animals (stalking is a whole new feature that allows you to hide in tall brush), assassinate them from the air, and lay snares to trap smaller animals. Laying out bait will make an animal come to the exact area you want, but watch out. Using more aggressive methods of killing will damage the animals’ pelts, such as using a pistol or mine. Hunting also leads to many club challenges, which are extremely difficult to complete. You can even be attacked by animals, which leads to quick-time events.
Now that we have the three major things about the game out of the way, let’s talk about the minor stuff. The menu and HUD design are much more streamlined, such as your health, ammo count, and even the assassins you can call upon. Everything is minimal, and I really like that. Of course, when you pass by new areas, you get briefed on a bit of history about them, which is 25% of the fun in AC3. After you finish the story mode, you can go around finding hundreds of collectibles such as feathers, chests, trinkets, and other items. The club challenges are really tough, though, and require you to meet certain criteria to move onto the next list. It can be fun, but some are nearly impossible to complete.
One of my favorite things in the game is the Peg Leg Trinket missions, which are cinematic and a placeholder for the Templar Tombs that were in previous games. The final piece of loot for these missions is awesome, and each mission is memorable and so much fun. There is a new investigation mechanic added that has you finding clues on the map, which is used for hunting, side missions, and story missions. What’s more, the naval battles are absolutely epic and really fun. Thanks to the new Anvil-Next graphics engine, Ubisoft created some pretty realistic water effects that make you feel like you’re really in the ocean. Steering the ship around and blasting off cannons at enemy ships is so much fun, and each mission has various objectives. Probably the best use of a controllable ship in any game ever!
You are probably wondering about the story. Sure, Connor’s story is touching and has him following every major event in the Revolution along with key people. The characters are entertaining to watch and hear, and Desmond’s story is, like all the other games in the series, very brief, but the ending isn’t as bad as everyone says it is. It isn’t confusing, but just abrupt. Desmond and the gang are trying to stop the solar flare from destroying the world on 12/21/12, and it gets a bit complicated. Connor’s story has a satisfying ending, but you just can’t help but feel giddy when a historic figure like Ben Franklin or George Washington appears on the screen.
Once you finish the epic story mode, there is multiplayer, which is just so addictive. Ubisoft has fine-tuned it and nailed it with the cat-and-mouse gameplay that you can’t get enough of. Each player gets an avatar of another player they have to kill. However, at each level, there are dozens of duplicates walking around, but you can’t just start killing everyone. Killing innocents exposes you and makes you vulnerable. Find your target by watching for suspicious behavior like blending, hiding, or running. You also have people hunting you, but you can’t kill them; just knock them out. If you confront them directly, you just get an honorable death, which reduces their kill score. Stay incognito and knock them out from behind. There are many modes, such as Assassinate, that don’t give you any contracts. You just have to watch your compass and kill everyone you can find. There are deep customization options that allow you to change the appearance, attack moves, stances, taunts, and weapons of each character. You can unlock new items by ranking up and earning credits.
Overall, AC3 is huge and fantastic. Exploring the Frontier, Boston, and New York is amazing, not to mention the fantastic graphics for such dated hardware. Multiplayer is extremely addictive, and other small tidbits just add to that. Weather changes, hunting, crafting, side missions—the list goes on and on. The only way to truly experience this amazing game is to play it. This is definitely a game of the year-worthy game and well worth a purchase.
Limited Edition: For $60 extra, you can get a highly detailed figurine of Connor, a life-size Assassin’s version of the American flag, a beautiful art book, and a belt buckle. This is all well worth the extra money because of how detailed everything is. The flag has metal eyes, so it can be flown on a pole. The statue has so much detail; it looks fantastic. The art book is designed like a 17th-century journal and looks beautiful. It was well worth the purchase.
Revelations is the first Resident Evil game on 3DS and is probably the best portable RE game ever made. Not to mention, probably one of the better, more recent Resident Evil games. The controls are solid, the story is at least a little interesting, and the monsters are awesome. Of course, the game has great 3D effects and a lengthy campaign. Hop aboard Queen Zenobia as Jill Valentine and find out for yourself.
You start out as Jill Valentine aboard Queen Zenobia, which is a derelict ship that possibly holds answers for the T-Abyss virus that the terrorist group Veltro unleashed into the ocean (or will unleash). The game has an over-the-shoulder perspective like RE4 and 5, but when you use your weapons, the camera goes into the first person to utilize the 3D effects. It works well, and you can move around while aiming by holding L. There are many different weapons in the game, and you can find custom parts to upgrade them. It really makes a difference when facing tough enemies, but not every custom part is easy to find. Some are hidden away, needing certain keys, but this is grouped into a major issue with the game (I will explain later). The shooting feels great and is really solid. The weapons vary from various machine guns to shotguns and pistols. Each type of weapon shares the same ammo pool, but each weapon is different in range, fire rate, and damage.
The exploration is a lot like early RE games because it is claustrophobic and you are stuck on a ship the whole time. This felt a lot like the mansion in RE1, but I prefer the more open adventure feeling of the later games. This leads to constant backtracking, but Capcom tries to skirt this by blocking off passages or making new ones available via keys. I find these ships confusing to navigate and am always lost until later in the game, when the last few chapters are linear and more cinematic and you only have one way to go. It would help if the map system didn’t stink so much. It is in 3D, but you can’t turn it the way you want, and there are no lines that divide sectors. Half the time, I couldn’t tell if I was on the bottom floor or the top floor and just had to run around guessing. The mini-map is more detailed, but why not the full map too?
This is probably the worst thing about the game, but sometimes the enemies can be tough, and too many spawn. This is a close-quarters game, so having 10 enemies spawn in one hallway is a disaster and leads to frustrating deaths. Not to mention the extremely tough final boss, who is a lot like Nemesis. The game does have a pretty good dodge feature where you push the analog nub towards the enemy at the right moment. This can ease tough boss fights, but finding their weakness is key. The enemy designs are awesome, and some are almost Silent Hill-like. They are creepy and gross, and they stray away from the human zombies that we are used to in this series. It is a nice change and should be introduced more often.
The game also has some pretty awesome gameplay change-ups where you use a turret to fight off a giant monster, carry wounded team members, swim, and do various other things that change up the pace. Revelations is a fun roller coaster ride that is full of surprises and will keep you entertained throughout the entire 10-hour campaign. Once you beat that, you can do co-op missions where you fight off hordes of monsters, but some sort of single-player mission mode would have been nice. Revelations also look fantastic with visuals that fully utilize the 3DS hardware.
Overall, Revelations is fun with great visuals, 3D effects, and awesome gunplay. The monsters look good, and the story is decent but nothing memorable. The gameplay is changed up often, and there is a nice long 10-hour campaign. If you love Resident Evil, then this is a must-have for any 3DS owner.
Dead or Alive is one of the longest-running fighting games, dating back to the PS1 era. It is also one of the fighting games that probably adds the least amount of features or changes through each sequel. DoA 5 doesn’t really add much, so fans of DoA 4 will be a little disappointed here. The fighting system is nearly unchanged, and all you will notice from the beginning is a new story and a graphical upgrade. The game looks pretty good, and there’s a long 65-mission story, but is it worth the $60 purchase if you are just happy with DoA Dimensions or DoA 4?
The only new additions to the fighting system are the Cliffhangers and the Critical System. Both are underwhelming and just add to the already complicated fight system. However, it is more enjoyable to button mash than other fight games that rely on things like jump canceling, jump this, cancel that, etc. DoA is based around a triangle fight system that is based on holds and counter-attacks. This means you have to be quick and read your opponent’s moves; most fighting games aren’t like that. This is also a problem because predicting moves is very hard in this game, and having counters and holds for high, low, and mid strikes is just ridiculous and creates a very high learning curve that will turn most new players away.
The critical system allows you to do extra damage when the word pops up on the screen; when it turns red, you can do even more damage, but the timing for this is a serious pain. You spend more time trying to read and predict all this stuff than just button mashing, which is a lot more fun. Some fighting games are more fun when learning the moves and the fighting system (Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom), but Dead or Alive isn’t. You have to focus less on the fight and more on the animations and things that pop up on the screen. I spent hours trying to learn all this, but in the end, I just resorted back to button mashing, which I felt more confident in.
Cliffhangers are cinematic events in which you power blow (a super-powerful charged attack) into a certain danger zone and a quick-time event comes up. This was fun, but it is hard to figure out the special Danger Zone in most stages and leads right back to that issue where you are distracted from the actual fight. DoA 5 just adds too many distractions, but for people who don’t mind (probably hardcore fans), then you may like these new ideas. Despite all of this, the fighting system is very fun and fluid and is all martial arts, with no fancy fireballs or magic attacks.
The story mode is back and is pretty well developed, but it is confusing for newcomers. You had to have played past story modes because they pick up after each other. Kasumi is just trying to stop Alpha 152 again, and the Mugen Tenshin clan (Ayane, Ryu Hayabusa, and Hayate) are after her. In the meantime, Zack is trying to recruit people for Dead or Alive 5, and most people will find the story mostly uninteresting. It is better than most fighting game stories, though. The graphics look great and pretty much push the consoles to their limits. There is a new dirt and sweat feature added to characters, but you can only guess why. Dead or Alive is 70% female fighters with large breasts that jiggle with every move in very little clothing. This isn’t a bad thing because most of the characters are well known and very well developed, with unique personalities. One of the features in every Dead or Alive release, for me, are the new costumes I can unlock in the game because they are so well done and make the women look even more beautiful.
The story mode also has bonus missions, but after halfway through, they start becoming impossibly difficult. Dead or Alive isn’t really a combo type of game, but pulling off 7 and 10-hit combos can be a serious chore. Online modes are fun as always, but most players will get discouraged by the good long-time fighters. This just proves that you must master the triangle system because once you get locked into a combo, you’re stuck. Health bars deplete quickly in this game, so fights can last only a minute or two.
Overall, DoA 5 doesn’t bring much to the table to call this a true sequel—graphical upgrades, a new story, and just a couple of new additions to the fighting system—but they hamper it down. There are also no new characters, just a few cameos from Virtua Fighter. Plus, the stages are actually pretty boring. Construction site, a street, and a Japanese house. Yawn. DoA 5 is solid and fun, but wait for a price drop.
Modern Warfare gets the bad rep of being the game that sheep flock to. “Only morons play it,” some people say. “The only people online are 12-year-olds.” The problem is that those are true, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a fun game. Sure, the game became too mainstream for everyone, and their mom has played it, but that doesn’t make it a bad game or series. What makes the game tiring is that nothing really changes. Modern Warfare 3 feels like Modern Warfare 2.5. Not much has changed from the second game other than the campaign and a visual upgrade. There are even recycled maps from the second game!
The campaign is a disappointment because it just doesn’t feel as awesome as the past two games. It feels like a gallery shooter more than ever and has very little challenge. The epic set pieces aren’t as grand as previous games and have great potential at first, but no climax ever happens. Levels are really short without the varied gameplay clips that are thrown in. The story is confusing if you haven’t followed the games until now, but you aren’t missing much. The story between Captain Price and Soap MacTavish is interesting, but it just falls flat in the end. The campaign is entertaining at best and a lot of fun, but it isn’t solid like the past two games. What you are mainly here for is multiplayer, because that will keep you coming back for more.
The layout is like all previous Modern Warfare games without much change. You can customize your loadout, callsign, emblem, and unlock new items by ranking up. The only new additions really are how you score. Things like rescuing people and a few other things. To be honest, the controls and feel of the entire game haven’t really changed much. There are a few tweaks here and there, but it doesn’t feel like an actual sequel. The weapons are a little different, but everything is just the same when it comes to how you unlock them. There are a few different killstreak rewards, like the IMS and a few others, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? There are a few different perks, and that is really it. The maps aren’t designed as well as in the past two games and aren’t as memorable. There are a couple of maps in here from MW2, like the Airport map, which is a classic, but the others have to just grow on you. There are a lot more modes in this one, but I was missing the modes from Black Ops, which I felt should have been included. One in the Chamber was a favorite of mine, but the whole money system from Black Ops is also missing. I would rather buy upgrades than wait to unlock them, but what can you do?
The graphics received a huge upgrade and look decent on the PC, but look pretty bad on the consoles. There’s a slight texture upgrade, some SSAO effects, and anti-aliasing, but they are all very minor. You don’t need a powerful rig to run this game maxed out. There are a few cool scenes in the campaign, but overall, this doesn’t feel like a true sequel but more of an expansion. Multiplayer is super fun, and most players will pour dozens of hours into the addictiveness of it. There are a few complaints about the multiplayer, such as when you start. You are fighting people who are level 80 prestige and have all the best stuff, so don’t get discouraged. Quick scoping is a thing people complain about where you can look down your scope almost instantly, which is considered cheating by some. They fixed this by making it a perk, but if you play Battlefield 3, you will notice the difference.
Modern Warfare 3 has a lackluster single-player campaign, and not much has changed in multiplayer. The new maps are fun but not as memorable as past games. There are a few tweaks here and there, but no major changes you should expect. For the low price these days, it is well worth it, but just don’t buy it expecting a cinematic campaign and tons of multiplayer changes like you saw from Modern Warfare 1 to 2. I also have to say that there are a surprisingly large number of cheaters and hackers due to the lack of dedicated servers, but this only seems to happen at night. Still worth a purchase.
Klei Entertainment has had a pretty bad reputation with the not-so-great Shank series. It is a huge surprise that Mark of the Ninja turned out so well; in fact, it is probably one of the best indie games to come out this year. Mark of the Ninja succeeds in making you feel like a true ninja with great stealth mechanics, puzzles, and skill moves. However, Klei still needs to hire a new story writer because it isn’t very interesting. You are a ninja who is going after someone, and you have tattoos that give you powers, and that’s pretty much it. You should play this for the action because that’s all you will care about anyway.
The game uses light and dark very well. The game is in 2D, so everything around you is dark. You have to avoid enemies by climbing up walls and ceilings, hiding in ducts, and even in objects. The game has a great kill mechanic where you press the kill button, but time slows so you can press a combo of a direction and the kill button that pops up on the screen. This feels very satisfying and should be incorporated into more games like this. You have some weapons in your arsenal, such as darts, that can be used to distract guards by taking out lights, luring them into traps, and many other things. You get smoke bombs, mines, and even the ability to see everything around you and teleport. That is what a ninja is really like, and I haven’t played a game yet that makes me feel like one (sorry, Ninja Gaiden).
The controls are silky smooth, if a little sticky when clinging to walls and objects. As you progress, you can level up by completing optional objectives and finding hidden scrolls throughout the levels. You can acquire new moves like killing from above, snagging enemies while hiding, etc. You can even unlock more ninja weapons and gadgets for your arsenal. The whole system works really well, and the gameplay is just so addictive. There are multiple ways to approach objectives, but you can never fight head-on. That is what I like about this game. If you are caught, you need to flee and hide until the enemies settle back down. Just a couple of shots will kill you. Thankfully, checkpoints are very fair, unlike the Shank games, and don’t set you back too far.
Puzzles are pretty fun in this game because they require reflexes more than anything. Hitting tripwires may send arrows flying at you, but there’s a crank that pulls a box up along a wall to block them. Cranking it up as you climb the wall is the way to go, but some get really tricky but are fun to solve. This game is just pure fun, and I felt like a ninja the whole way through. No guns, no super-fast martial arts, just stealth, sneaking, and being a part of the shadows.
The graphics are beautiful and are actually part of the gameplay. Everything seems dark and shadowed, but when things are in the light, they are fully revealed. The only thing visible to you in the shadows are your glowing red tattoos, which are really neat. My only complaints are the story and the fact that there really isn’t enough variety in enemies. I wanted to see more, and the overall game just gets repetitive towards the end, but if the story were better, you wouldn’t feel that way.
With great ninja gameplay, smooth controls, fun stealth mechanics, and interesting puzzles, Mark of the Ninja proves to be one of the best indie/arcade games this year. For the low price, you have nothing to lose except a few hours of having a lot of fun.
Serious Sam is one of the original old-school shooters where you just shot everything on sight. Forget about the story, gameplay, cinematic events, or anything else. Serious Sam is one of the less popular FPS series that is shadowed by Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem. BFE doesn’t really do anything new or add anything new except a spiffy new engine, which is seriously wasted. The game is repetitive, lacks any awesome guns (except a couple), and has the same handful of enemies thousands of times over. BFE is mainly for newcomers because only the super-hardcore fans will truly enjoy this (if that).
The story is paper-thin, with Sam trying to stop an alien invasion. That’s it. This is the prequel to First Encounter, but who really cares? The game tries to be a bit different by starting off slow with a sledgehammer and introducing awesome melee attacks to show off the new engine. You acquire a pistol, then a shotgun, and then more guns as the game goes on. There are dozens of secret areas everywhere (I couldn’t find a single one for some reason). You shoot thousands of enemies throughout the game, but in extremely difficult waves that can be in the hundreds.
I honestly felt that my arsenal was underwhelmed by the vast amounts of enemies the game throws at you. The most effective weapons were the cannon, C4, and Devastator, but the ammo for those is pretty rare (except C4). All the rest were pretty useless except the minigun, which was good at reducing crowds in a wide area but ate up ammo quick. I can’t tell you how boring the game got by the end, and it will really test your endurance. I played on the easy setting and still got my ass kicked sometimes. For the hell of it, I tried it on the hardest difficulty, and it was impossible. I couldn’t get past the third level; it was that hard. By the last level, you are thrown probably a few thousand enemies with wave after wave that takes you about 45 minutes to chew through. The waves get so big that I backpedaled half the level to get some breathing room in some areas.
When it comes to looks, BFE is impressive for a DirectX 9 game. This is the most customizable PC game ever made when it comes to graphics options. There are options here I have never even heard of! There are about 45 options, but when you max the game out, it looks amazing, but it is sadly wasted on a bland and boring art style. Everything is brown and dead, with nothing interesting to look at. Halfway through the game, I couldn’t take it anymore but finished it anyway. I do have to say that I am disappointed that Sam’s macho quips aren’t as funny this time around as in previous games. They just seem stale and are pretty mellow. Oh well.
Multiplayer is where BFE shines, but no one is playing online. During my entire week of playing the campaign, I logged in at different times of the day and night and maybe got 1 or 2 people playing if I was lucky. The server list is almost always empty, which is sad. This is a game that you will have to get buddies to go LAN on. When I did get a tiny game going, it was addictive and felt very old-school with fast movement, lots of jumping, and twitch reaction shooting. There are some neat modes, but I never got to play most of them because this game is nearly abandoned despite Croteam releasing a patch about 2 weeks ago.
I can only recommend this to hardcore FPS fans and hardcore fans of past Sam games. The campaign is nothing special and gets incredibly boring and monotonous halfway through, not to mention freaking tough as nails. The weapon arsenal is disappointing, and there are only a handful of different enemies. There isn’t enough new here to make it a true sequel, but the game looks damn good. For the low price, it is worth a fun play-through, but don’t expect tons of people to be playing online.
When big new action RPGs come out, I am very wary because it is very difficult to create a convincing, believable world without forcing it onto the player. Amalur fails in this sense and feels extremely forced and weak in almost every way. The game is just too big for its britches, and it tries to do too much. There is too much game here that feels empty and boring, and the game seriously lacks polish everywhere you look.
Let’s start with the story. The story, lore, environment, characters—all of it just feels forced and not memorable at all. Almost every aspect of the story is just boring, and I could not care for anything even if I tried. There are too many unpronounceable names, and just too much is thrown at you early on. Games like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Fable, and other action RPGs dole it out slowly, but they also have names and lore that are just memorable. It just doesn’t click here, and you will notice this about 3–4 hours into the game. I looked all over the place, desperately trying to find that one quest or character that would make everything click, but I just couldn’t. The story has something to do with Fey and war, and yeah, I lost track early on because there is just too much distraction here.
It doesn’t help that the game is so hard to navigate. There is a fast travel system via the map, but the world is just way too big and empty. There are no memorable landmarks, and every place just starts looking the same after a while. The game forces level grinding on you, so you are locked out of areas due to enemies killing you in one hit until you level up more. Leveling up takes so long in this game and forces you to do these side quests too, ultimately making you want to quit playing. The menus are clunky and confusing, and I still couldn’t really figure out the crafting systems even 10 hours into the game. There is just so much in this game that needs polish, but the game just needs to be seriously downsized.
There are way too many pointless and boring side quests. I could count 30+ side quests in my journal at one time that spread across the entire map. You feel completely lost and have no idea where to start. It also doesn’t help that the game is just way too long. That is fine in a game where you love the lore and characters, but here you just want it to end. Too many characters are introduced too fast; they have boring personalities, and they all just look and sound the same after a while. I swear I was introduced to 50+ characters by the 15-hour mark, and I felt my brain swim in the confusion. I got tossed so many names of races, characters, magical relics, landmarks, towns, buildings, weapons, and other things that my brain just imploded after a while.
The combat is at least decent because it relies on skill, but the level grinding makes the game really hard. You can use a secondary weapon and a primary weapon, but leveling up your character is also confusing when you start. The tree skill is odd and lets you upgrade skills outside your class, which I found pointless. If I’m a mage, why would I want to increase my heavy armor and two-handed weapon skills? When the levels don’t come very often, you can’t afford to deviate like that, so you just stick to your class skills. The controls are pretty good for combat with parries, counterattacks, dodges, blocks, and magic skills. The animations are fluid, and when I was in combat, that was the only time I forgot about this huge, confusing open world.
That is probably the only strong point in Amalur besides the pretty art style. However, the game is technically underwhelming and looks like it was made in 2006 or 2007. At the end of a session, you will sit back and not remember a single thing about the game’s story or characters, and you will be overwhelmed by the amount of pointless and seemingly endless side quests that give a very little reward. Hell, even the looting system is odd, with magic rune dispelling on chests and lock picking as well as picking wild plants. Sound familiar? Well, it would, with one of the head guys having worked on Oblivion. All the mechanics around everything in this game are just so unpolished, and they feel wrong.
After about 10 or so hours, you will probably quit the game and not find any reason to go back. With boring, pointless side quests of hunting animals, finding stupid items, and running aimlessly around this huge, huge open world, you will call it quits. I had this game sitting on my computer for 10 months, and I got in just under 20 hours and couldn’t find any incentive to go back. Even when I had no new games to play, I couldn’t even load the game up. I thought about the level grinding and dozens of pointless side quests, and I couldn’t remember a single thing about the story or a single character’s name. The only redeeming thing about Amalur is the art style and combat. If you can stomach all this, then go ahead, but most players will get bored quickly.
The stealth action genre has been in a real slump lately since the last Splinter Cell, and everyone is waiting on Thief 4 and Hitman: Absolution. Dishonored displays a wonderful story, a convincing world, and excellent level design, but the most important thing is the superb stealth mechanics this game gives us. You play Corvo, who is a protector of the royal empress. There is an assassination plot, and of course, you are framed. You join an underground loyalist group to bring the empress’s daughter back to power. In the meantime, you are assassinating higher-ups so Havelock can gain power and restore order, but there is a huge plot twist halfway through that will throw you for a loop. These kinds of twists are what I miss in games, and Dishonored not only does this but also incorporates random ideas that just make sense. There’s a rat plague that everyone is being locked down from; these rats can actually attack you. Whale oil is used to power machines, sorcery gets involved, and guns. Man, this game is just so freaking entertaining. It was well worth the $60 purchase.
Let’s talk about this (what I consider) revolutionary stealth system. The game does something that I have been waiting for since I first played Metal Gear Solid. Arkane Studios worked around the infamous movement issue that all stealth games suffer from. Let me indulge you here. When you learn an enemy pattern and sneak up behind them, they usually turn around and you are spotted. Dishonored not only allows quick saves, but you can use your magic skills to counter-attack the stealth genre quirks that frustrate so many fans. I used my ability to see through walls, leaning, and blinking so much that it just made the game not easier but smoother and more intuitive, and I felt completely in control. That is the beauty of Dishonored. Want to go up on that rock that most games have invisible barriers on? Want to use that rock to go up and over the spiked fence that most games wouldn’t let you do? How about going into that vent using those pipes and that awning? Go ahead. Dishonored lets you by using Blink (teleporting a certain distance) and being able to see through walls made me feel like I was the predator and completely in control.
You are probably thinking of teleporting, and seeing through walls is cheating, right? Not at all. The way the level design is done (which is genius, by the way) allows you to take advantage of these naturally laid-out areas. There are so many ways to approach an objective. You can go completely non-lethal with sleep darts and choking enemies unconscious. You can carry their bodies and still use your crossbow as well as their powers, which in most stealth games makes you completely vulnerable when moving bodies. Or you can use your sword and pistol and just fight your way through, which isn’t as rewarding. Along the way, you can pick up runes to upgrade abilities and bone charms, which are perks. You are also a thief, so you need to steal items and money to afford these upgrades, or you will have a very hard time.
This is how the natural feeling of the world comes in. While you’re advancing toward your target, you can steal things for money, eat food for health, and find mana potions for magic. You can even deviate sometimes for a few side quests, which can be really fun. Unlike most stealth games, I never felt lost or frustrated because you always see your objective marker, so the game doesn’t even need a map. That is purely genius-level design.
At the end of the day, this is all there is to the game, but the story missions are varied enough that you will never feel bored, which I feel is one of the weaker points of the game. Sure, you can say the game is repetitive because you run across the same enemies over and over, the occasional plague victim, and a group of rats or spitting plants. The plague victims and rats that appear reflect on how you play. Kill people all the time, and you make the game harder on yourself. At the end of each level, you will see a score sheet that tells you if you were spotted and how chaotic you were. The game is so much fun and immerses you like no other recent stealth game can.
On top of all this, the art style is phenomenal and beautiful, but it is the attention to detail that draws you in. This steampunk art style looks fantastic, and even the voice acting is top-notch and well delivered. My only complaint here is that the graphics, technically, are a little dated. The game was designed for consoles, so Unreal Engine 3 is naturally used. The PC version looks a tad better with some better lighting effects, better FOV, and anti-aliasing, but in the end, I would have liked to see some DirectX 11 effects here because this game would look amazing with it.
In the end, Dishonored is something fresh, new, and exciting that fans of the genre have been waiting for. The storytelling is similar to Half-Life, with exciting stealth and thievery that reminded me of the Thief series. Dishonored is definitely game-of the year material and is something that will keep you busy for a weekend or two. I just wish the game was longer and had a little more mission diversity, but other than that, there’s not much else to complain about.
Now that we are almost done with this series, I am sad that the next one will be it. Episode 4 sees the gang trying to get on a boat and out of Savannah, Georgia, but things don’t go as planned. There are a bunch of new characters this time around, but most are hard to care for because they make brief appearances. By this point, most or a little of your gang will be with you, but this episode is mainly lacking the suspenseful choices like in the last one. We get bigger areas to explore, a little more action, and finally, a ton of zombies.
The series has been lacking any zombies lately and has just dealt with internal turmoil, but Episode 4 skirts this and brings the gang back to realizing that the zombies are the real threat here. There’s a strange calm before the storm within the group; the conversations are tense and borderline everyone going postal on each other. I found that there was a lack of gameplay here and that it focused more on delivering a story, but that is ok in this series. There is more action with some zombie shooting, action-oriented puzzles, and larger areas to explore. I sat through the whole episode in one go because it was so intense and entertaining. You always want to know what is going to happen next.
The new characters are hard to really like except Molly because of her shady personality. The new guys are brief and seem pretty generic. I really don’t care for Christa or Omid, who we met at the end of the last episode. Christa is selfish, and Omid is boring and just seems useless. What grows even more are the characters you have right now from the original group. Clementine and Lee’s relationship really blossoms here, and their trust will be tested.
This episode is just a mishmash of everything from the past ones: lots of zombies, action, large areas, new characters, and tense conversations, but nothing very serious. What has stayed the same throughout is the constant, intense atmosphere that makes you stay in the game, and you never want to quit until it’s over. This is my favorite adventure series of all time. The game puts you in control just enough to make you feel like you made all the important choices. The game has been built up to the climax, and the cliffhanger ending here is so abrupt and so sudden that you just hang your end, knowing you have to wait another month or two for the last episode. This is just like a good TV series, but better.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…