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.
Shooting things is what this game is all about, and I mean all about. Borderlands is highly successful in mixing RPG with FPS, bringing the best of both worlds to the table. Borderlands 2 is more of the same, just bigger and more badass. If you didn’t like the first game, you won’t like this one either. Fans of the last game will be very happy with this second installment.
There is actually more of a storyline here, with more main quests. Of course, there are 50+ side quests that you will pour dozens of hours into. You get to play as a new set of characters, but in the same classes. I stuck with Maya the Siren again in this one, and I loved her phase-locking ability, where I could make enemies hover in the air for a bit or do damage to large enemies. You will also be happy to know that you can customize your character’s head and skin as you find new ones as loot, but I would have liked a more detailed character customization system; it just feels a bit tacked on.
There are just so many different enemies and guns in this game that I couldn’t even count. The guns are all varied with different stats, but you will be micromanaging them again, and it does become annoying. I wound up selling or dropping about 80% of the guns I found because a lot of them are pretty useless. This goes for shields, relics, grenade mods, and other things. There are six different classes of weapons: rocket launchers, pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, sub-machine guns, and shotguns.
You will always be switching between different weapons in your four slots (that you slowly unlock). I never stuck with a single weapon for too long because I was always finding better ones. Enemies are constantly dropping loot, and some weapons are rarer than others. Some do elemental damage, which is actually a huge factor in Borderlands. Armored enemies are weak against corrosive weapons, and shielded enemies are weak against shock weapons. The new slag weapon coats enemies in purple goop that makes them weak to any weapon fire. Some of the weapons are pretty unique; I never found two that looked the same. Some have unique abilities like faster reload and better accuracy as you fire, and even one gun was cursed that slowed me down and made obnoxious noises when I fired. Some guns you can throw when you reload, and they will explode like grenades and regenerate in your hand. The guns are just awesome in this game, and you will be looking for new ones every second you play.
Of course, the game is tough as nails, but as you level up, you can unlock new abilities. This game is designed for multiple playthroughs because you will probably reach around level 30 and maybe a bit further even after you complete every single quest in the game. You won’t unlock all the abilities or even get the best loot until you do. In fact, Borderlands 2 is more designed around co-op this time around because the best loot is only available to more players on board. The game is also extremely tough without someone playing with you. The game keeps enemies leveled up with you, so that makes the game even more difficult than the last. One thing that I really loved was the badass tokens that would raise stats just a smidgen for completing in-game challenges.
This leads to the biggest complaint I have about the series: Respawns. You respawn at certain points, but you will die hundreds of times in this game. When you do, you have to backtrack to where you died, and these maps are huge. Some maps let you use Catch-A-Ride vehicles, but most of them don’t. This was just so frustrating when I would die 15 times while clearing an area, suffer through the long respawn animation, backtrack, and sometimes die in just one hit. You go into Fight for Your Life mode, which allows you to revive with full shields if you can kill an enemy. This alleviated the frustration a tad, but if there are no enemies nearby to kill quickly, you’re screwed. On top of this, the enemy that killed you will regain full health if you die. That includes bosses. This is just so frustrating and makes me want the game to end. The second thing I really hate about this series is the constant enemy respawning. Once you leave an area and come back, all the enemies respawn. This made doing missions annoying because I just ran by them all. I understand they have to respawn in a game like this, which is focused on large maps, but I personally found it a nuisance.
If you have friends, this isn’t so bad, but be warned when playing by yourself. Besides that, the game keeps the tongue-in-cheek humor of the last game with more characters and returns to the past characters. You really get to know them more this time around with about ten times the amount of dialog. The story is decent but has a pretty crappy ending. It is predictable and isn’t anything special. Just know that you are here to kill everything, and I mean everything. I found myself entertained throughout the whole game with double the number of areas to explore, more side missions, and just more of everything. I really wanted to see more change in the series, so in the end, this game just feels like Borderlands 1.5.
At least PC gamers get enhanced visuals with some nice touch-ups. Higher resolution textures, further draw distance, FXAA, and higher FPS, which can be capped at 120, This is the superior version over the consoles because you can’t get pinpoint precision while aiming with a joystick. I could snipe like I never could on a controller, and it made the game a tad more tolerable in terms of difficulty.
I only have a few major complaints, but they are just staples of the series. If you can tolerate the monotonous trekking around, respawning enemies, and constant death, then pick this up. Fans of the last game know what they are getting into, so this is a warning for newcomers. I recommend playing this with at least one friend because the game is brutal. Lots of enemies, lots of dying. I also didn’t quite care for the constant micromanagement of all the loot. This is a great mix of FPS and RPG elements and should be played by fans of either genre.
I am not a real big fan of tower defense games because they become repetitive too quickly and are flooding the mobile phone market. OMD is a different take on the genre where you actually control the person laying the traps to stop the orcs, so the game actually involves the player in the action instead of you just sitting back and watching. There really isn’t much of a story, but that’s OK because the game is full of awesome gameplay, but after a while, you will wish you could bring a buddy along, but alas, there is no multiplayer.
You start out by laying traps around the map, but you get to survey it first before the orcs come in. This is key to knowing the choke points and weak spots of each map. You start out with just a few traps like spikes, wall crushers, and lightning zappers, but as you beat each level, you earn new traps, and you can upgrade them to do more damage, more AoE damage, and even more size. These traps are awesome because they are all part of the whimsical art style and tongue-in-cheek humor the game provides. Once you layout your traps, you watch the orcs come flooding in from different areas, but you have a crossbow and magic powers to help keep them at bay. I stood back behind choke points and just let loose with my crossbow button held down, making sure orcs didn’t get through. Once I got the trap that let me put archers and knights in different areas, this helped a lot. However, as the game goes on, it gets really difficult, and this is where you will wish you could bring a buddy along.
The maps, after a while, start looking the same, and this is where the game will test your nerves. Will you want to complete all the maps? The best thing to do is to have a friend take over and maybe play every other map after a while. Some maps were so hard; even using multiple strategies, I still failed to protect my portal and let too many orcs through. This is where co-op would have made some maps a synch. The maps won’t just get on your nerves, but the hero’s one-liners will, which seem funny at first, but after a while, you will wish you could turn that crossbow on him. There is some DLC available, like costumes and a few more maps, but I really wanted more interesting enemies to kill. I started seeing green in my sleep because I saw so many orcs. Some are big and slow, some are fast, and some have weapons of their own, but in the end, the game kills you on repetition. I would have liked to see some mini-games or maybe some sort of reward or achievement system.
When all is said and done, Orcs Must Die! is a fun game in short bursts, and it really needs co-op to make the game a little easier and more enjoyable. The snappy one-liners grate on you after a while, and the maps start looking the same, just shifted around. Even the orc units get boring to kill after so many maps. I played about 20 myself and couldn’t take it anymore. If it wasn’t for the difficulty spikes, it was the sheer monotony of everything. Once you unlock all the traps, there’s nothing to really look forward to anymore, and it takes forever to earn upgrade points. This is a fun game, but only for so long.
I missed out and passed up this game so many times on both the Xbox and PS3, but now that I have played it on PC, I’m a bit disappointed. The game has charming visuals and great humor, like all Behemoth games, but this is only fun in co-op and pretty hard and boring in single-player. If you buy this game, make sure you have at least one friend to play with and that you are both around the same level.
There are several characters available to choose from, each with its own magic powers. The magic is pretty weak until later on in the game, but once you get there, it is pretty useful. The whole idea is just to whack away at enemies until you reach each boss. The boss fights are pretty unique, some with environmental obstacles in the way of staying on floating debris in a river. Every so often, enemies will drop weapons or pets that enhance your stats or give you abilities. I was really disappointed in the weapons because they never felt powerful enough. I would advance several levels and be stuck with the same weapon. Once you get through a few levels, you will realize how hard this game is. If you die, you start all the way back at the beginning of the level, which is brutal and frustrating. This is why you need a friend or three along.
Co-op is much better because friends can watch your back. Just make sure you are on equal levels because one friend will find the game too easy or it will be really tough for the other guy at a lower level. When it comes to actually fighting enemies, there’s not much to it but to mash buttons. Enemies take forever to die, and there’s constant knockback from projectiles, which makes the combat even more frustrating. On top of this, there are annoying things like the weaponsmith. Having to run down a long hallway to see each weapon you have picked up is just annoying. Some levels also carry on for far too long, so if you die near the end, you will probably not want to play this game anymore.
The visual style is excellent with the classic Behemoth style, and even the humor is great. One level in a forest has animals literally spewing liquid feces because they are scared of the boss slowly approaching behind you. The humor is what makes you want to keep playing, but there’s not much of a story here, which is fine for this kind of game. The controls are responsive, but it is everything else wrapped around the combat that makes this frustrating.
Those are just some things that make this game really frustrating to play. Playing with a friend eases that a bit, but it seems the game could use more polish. Even lining up shots is hard because the characters are 2D, and you can sometimes just walk right behind them or in front of them because you weren’t lined up upright. I, for one, gave up on this game early on because it was just too damn frustrating. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, though. I feel some people like this kind of thing, but being a Behemoth game, that is highly expected. For the low price, you are getting a fun and challenging co-op game, but if you don’t have any friends, the game will be tough and boring.
War for Cybertron was the first Transformers game that was actually good and not based off of any of the three movies (hey, I liked them!). It’s based on the characters of the Generation One cartoon series and even brings back some of the original voice actors. Fall of Cybertron continues in this fashion, but brings out some of the lesser-known Transformers and puts them in the campaign. The game is overall the same as the last one, but with more polish and fine-tuning.
The story is decent and entertaining, but nothing memorable. It picks up from the last game, where Megatron is still trying to wipe out the Autobots, but this time prevents them from escaping on the Ark. Optimus Prime and his gang are desperately trying to gather enough energy to power the Ark, but Megatron and the Decepticons, as well as the Insecticons, are causing problems for everyone. The planet is pretty much lost at this point, and all Optimus cares about is getting his autobots off the damn planet and to safety. You play through thirteen chapters of various different Transformers from both sides to experience this pretty cinematic and entertaining story.
You play as regular Transformers and the larger ones. Bumblebee is your first one in the first chapter. Optimus Prime and Megatron are used quite a bit, but also Cliff Jumper, Bruticus, Jazz, Vortex, Grimlock, Starscream, and even for a brief moment in the final chapter, Jetfire. I preferred this over choosing between just a few different ones, like in the last game. It made the campaign more unique and less repetitive and boring. Each chapter is completely different, with different gameplay elements, thanks to each Transformer being unique. Sneaking around cloaked as Cliff Jumper, grappling as Jazz, flying around as Vortex, and stomping things into the ground as Bruticus was awesome. The vehicle forms are better controlled, and I used them a lot more than I did in the last game. Even the gunplay is tighter.
The enemies are smarter this time around, and there’s a bit more of a variety. The insects add to this variety and are spread throughout the campaign. Even the objectives are more varied instead of just pulling levers all the time. There’s a new upgrade system via Teletraan 1, which allows you to use Energon Shards to upgrade weapons. These upgrades are actually useful and make a huge difference. I still wish I could upgrade my vehicle, but it is already powerful enough. The campaign just stands as a solid cinematic Transformers story and is just so much better than the last game. There are still a few issues, like difficulty spikes and minor collision detection issues, but they aren’t nearly as abundant as in the last game. This game is hard, and if you don’t take cover and watch out, you will die in a few hits. Using shields and energon packs helps, but at least you won’t die every 5 seconds like in the last game.
The graphics are really good, but it still uses Unreal Engine 3 based on the consoles, and it could look better. I was hoping the PC version would have some enhanced visuals, but it doesn’t. There are some ugly muddy textures here and there, but overall, it looks way better than the last game. War for Cybertron already looked dated when it came out. The art style is gorgeous, and the voice acting is just top-notch. The multiplayer comes back again, but not much else has changed besides being able to build your own robot. After a while, you will get bored with the last game, but hardcore fans may stay. If it makes you feel better, you get to be a T-Rex as Grimlock later in the game. I just can’t tell you how many surprises this game can throw at you. There is just a ton of love put into this game and tidbits for fans.
As it stands, Fall of Cybertron improves immensely over the last game, but still doesn’t offer enough variation and diversity to make this game of the year worthy. There is more variety here than in the last game, with different Transformers used in each chapter, but I really wanted something even more epic. What’s here is great, and this really is the best Transformers game ever made, but I know it can be even better.
Sleeping Dogs is actually a True Crime in Hong Kong, for most people who didn’t know. Does anyone care? No, because the True Crime series had two previous games that were mediocre to poor, and there was little hope for this game. Square Enix picked up the project, seeing the potential in the game, and released it as Sleeping Dogs because they did not buy the name from the previous company. What we have here is probably the best GTA clone since Saints Row, and that’s saying a lot. There have been many GTA clones, but very few are any good or do anything different. Sleeping Dogs features a fluid martial arts system, a huge open world, a gripping story and characters, and a few side missions.
The story is actually very gripping and entertaining. You play an ex-triad member turned cop named Wei Shen. You are working undercover to bring down the Son On Yee triad gang and bring in their chairman. Your rival gang is the 18K, which is relentlessly making hits on your turf. This isn’t just your typical gang war story. You actually get to really like the characters and feel for all of them in different ways. While you were working for the triad, you could do cop missions on the side as well as bust drug deals throughout the city. This story is pretty epic and has a satisfying ending. I never once felt bored or detached from the story.
If that isn’t enough, then the combat system should help bring you in. The combat system is simple but deep and requires some skill to stay alive. You can counter when enemies turn red, but you must use the attack button and hold the button in combination to bring them down. The animations are fluid, and you can really feel the punches. This isn’t just some wailing and kicking combat system that feels half-baked and broken. Some enemies may have weapons that you can take and use, but they are pretty rare because they do so much damage. If you are doing really well, you will go into an adrenaline-type state and start to heal, while enemies may flee from you. The other half of this combat is the gunplay, which is really smooth and well designed. The cover system works great because, as you leave cover, you can go into slow motion and shoot out enemies who might be an immediate threat. This also goes for jumping from ledges. Once you actually start completing missions, you will earn Cop, Triad, and Face experience, which allows you to upgrade to better moves. Each one can be upgraded to level 10, but I reached this level way before I finished the game, so I felt all that experience, later on, was wasted. There just aren’t enough upgrades in the game.
Another main feature of the game is a parkour system similar to Assassin’s Creed. Chase sequences play out often, but instead of climbing up walls, you can climb ledges and jump gaps. The trick here is to hit the sprint button just before each obstacle so you can smoothly go over them. Keep fumbling over everything, and you will lose your target. This is something that has never really been incorporated into a GTA clone, and Sleeping Dogs nails it perfectly.
Of course, you can travel around the huge, open city of Hong Kong, but there isn’t much to do. There are the drug-busting side missions, favors, races, and random events, as well as finding hidden boxes for money and clothes. That’s about it. I wound up doing all the favors and most drug-busting side missions, but I didn’t care for the others. There are some hacking mini-games thrown in here, as well as lock picking, bug planting, and other mini-games that are fun. There’s a lot of detail put into the gameplay of Sleeping Dogs, but I just wish I could do more in this huge city.
After you finish the main story, there’s no reason to really go back unless you want to collect all the boxes (which can all be shown on your map, thankfully), but after you finish this, you will probably have had enough. The driving works great; there are lots of different cars; taking taxis is convenient; and there are other things you will be familiar with within this kind of genre, but Sleeping Dogs masters the story, characters, and combat system very well. My biggest complaint is only the lack of variety in side missions and the large number of bugs and glitches in the PC version.
The PC versions do give us some nice DirectX 11 visuals with a free high-resolution texture pack for people who have 1GB video cards or better. There is a huge difference with the game maxed out on the consoles. The anti-aliasing and FXAA make the game look smooth and flawless, plus the ambient occlusion adds a little extra that consoles can’t do. The PC version is by far the superior version, and most of the bugs have been ironed out by now since there have been 5 patches released thus far, but a large number of crashes and bugs were unacceptable at launch.
Sleeping Dogs is a beautiful game, both in execution and spirit. The game really captures the Chinese culture, atmosphere, and triad feel of Hong Kong. This is a must-buy for any fan of the genre, and if you have a high-end PC, make sure to pick that version up.
I try to be forgiving with games, but there are some that just can’t be overlooked. Red Ninja is a perfect example that has mechanics that are broken beyond reason or repair. The story is the first thing you will notice that isn’t very interesting. You are trying to stop a rival clan from getting a machine gun blueprint from yours to use to destroy their enemies. The beginning cut scene shows your clan using a machine gun to cut down hordes of samurais. Just one machine gun. After this, your leader tells the man in charge of making it to destroy it because it dishonors the rules of engagement. Sure that’s noble, but all this for one stupid machine gun!
You will notice the game is severely flawed in the tutorial. The camera is completely useless, the controls are awkward, the platforming is uncontrollable, and the enemies are stupid as well as generic. The only interesting thing in the whole game is the tetsugen weapon and Kurenai’s panties. The camera is inverted no matter what you do. In the options, you can turn it off, but it becomes inverted vertically instead of horizontally. I constantly had to consciously remember to turn the camera the opposite way I wanted it to go. This is so frustrating during already busted boss fights or when surveying enemy patrols. On top of all this the combat works a little but needs a lot of work. You can use the tetsugen as a melee weapon or throw it from a distance and slice enemies in half. One awesome feature was being able to run around enemies in a circle while one is tethered and trip them down or cut them in half. Good luck keeping all the enemies focused because of that broken camera.
Secondly is the platforming, this is probably more frustrating than anything because you need to do this to avoid enemy detection. You can shimmy ledges, ropes, wall run, and dash around, but the combination of the camera and the weird controls make it frustrating. Wall running consists of you having to be in a dash while running at a wall. You have to continue running while moving the analog stick in the direction you want Kurenai to run. This is ridiculous and unintuitive. A lot of times I had her bouncing off walls because the camera just couldn’t keep up. Enemies will detect you even when you are on rooftops which is weird. Swimming is no better because enemies can always see you and you can only hide underwater while being still. Completely useless. You can use projectiles by picking them up, but aiming them is just too time to consume. There should be some sort of auto-aim for these.
If that isn’t enough for you to stay away I don’t know what will. I got two levels in and just couldn’t take anymore. The camera constantly going berserk and doing its own thing, the stupid AI, weird control scheme, bad platforming, and just overall an unpolished mess. The combat is somewhat saveable, but the camera and controls make this frustrating as well. The game looks pretty good, but in the end, you won’t even care. Not even the sexy seduction kills are enough to save this game. I hope one day this series is revived but needs to be built from the ground up. Just stay away from this pile of garbage.
Diablo III is one of the most long-awaited games in history. StarCraft II and Duke Nukem Forever are in the same boat, but Diablo III is something else. Everyone who played the last two games was either in high school or college at the time and is now in their 30s and 40s. 12 years in the making with so much turmoil and history to write a novel about. Now that the game is finally out, is it any good? Blizzard surprised us with StarCraft II and how good that game is, but can they do it twice in a row? The answer is yes. The game has its fair share of problems, but they were mainly during launch with a plethora of glitches, balancing, and server issues. Most of the major problems have been patched now, so I won’t spend time complaining about that because I didn’t experience any issues apart from the occasional server error.
The story in Diablo III is fairly good, but only people who played the last two will truly appreciate it. I found the middle of the game to be pretty uneventful, but the ending was great, with a few plot twists. You play as one of many hero classes who are trying to stop the Prime Evils from taking over the world. Not just Diablo, but Azmodan, Mephisto, Belial, and many others. One of the best things about the game is the many different locales, from indoors to outdoors. The art style is absolutely beautiful, leaving you with plenty of great scenery to look at.
Of course, a dungeon crawler isn’t one without a lot of loot, and Diablo III has an endless amount. The best loot is at higher levels (60 is the cap) and on Nightmare difficulty. This is really a game for people who want loot. You can blow through the story and reach around level 30, but it will take another play-through to get the best loot. Why do you want this loot so bad? To sell in the auction house for in-game gold or real-world cash. That’s right. Cash. People can bid on it or buy it outright, but don’t expect anyone to bid on the crappy stuff. Only level 60 loot is really being fought for. I tried selling dozens of rare items throughout my playthrough and only sold one for $1.25. Really sad.
The best loot comes from bosses, which are highlighted in gold. Main bosses give you the best stuff, but they can be tough as nails. Some bosses were pretty easy, such as mid-level bosses or blue sub-bosses. There were a few that just kept killing me, but I didn’t die all that often. The penalty isn’t very severe, with just 10% durability of all your equipped items taken away, but you can always repair it at a town center. One thing I didn’t do at all was buy items. I always found the best ones as drops rather than at shops. I didn’t even craft any items, which is a shame. I found this to be sorely wasted. I did like the new gem ability, which will raise the stats of items significantly. Weaker gems can be crafted into more powerful ones as well.
Of course, you can take a buddy with you, but you really don’t have to. This is only recommended for Nightmare difficulty, but most people will probably want to take a long break from the game and come back a few months later when the game feels a little fresher. After I finished the game, I felt I needed a long break because you are just clicking around madly while using 1-4 keys for your attacks. I sure wasn’t disappointed here because there are plenty of abilities to learn; I just wish you could hotkey more of them instead of just four. I even wish there were some better AoE attacks because the last two acts throw a ton of tough enemies at you, and you are constantly boxed in. I managed, but it would have been nice.
At the end of the day, you are just clicking around furiously at everything that moves and trying to find the best loot in the game to sell in the auction house. This is a game for people who are dedicated. Sure, you can enjoy the single-player mode, but if you really want to experience the way Diablo was built to be played, you must continue on with a second playthrough on a harder difficulty. Sure, the game has good voice acting, some of the most beautiful pre-rendered cutscenes I have ever seen, lots of abilities, and tons of loot, but in the end, this is all this game is about. Looting, clicking, and selling. If you don’t like that, then you will hate this game.
My biggest complaint would have to be that the layout of each level is nearly the same. There is a fog of war on the map, and you have to discover where everything is. There may be some side quests, hidden chests, and sub-bosses, but I found this tiring and kind of boring. What’s here is great; I just wish there was a little more variety. Another thing I will complain about is the game’s DRM. You need to be online at all times, or it will boot you and you will lose your progress. I hated this more than anything, but Blizzard has successfully sidestepped pirates, and I applaud them for that. It’s probably the only video game ever made that isn’t pirateable. Other than this, the game is great and well worth a purchase.
Survival games without the horror are hard to come by, and I Am Alive has a lot of potential. Being stranded after a natural disaster that pretty much wipes out the planet, you are trying to find your wife and daughter after getting injured and trekking across the country back to your apartment. You stumble upon a little girl that you end up helping, along with her current caretaker. The story has some interesting points but ultimately isn’t all that interesting. The plot doesn’t thicken very much, and right when it should, the game ends. What we are left with is a disappointing cliffhanger.
There are two main elements in the game: exploration and combat. Each has a huge flaw that makes the game a tad frustrating, but not so bad that you can’t look past it. The exploration is based on a stamina meter that slowly depletes while you climb, combat, run, jump, and pretty much anything else you do. This is fine and all, except when you are down on the ground in the ash. The meter slowly depletes until you are dead or climb up high out of the ash. This is the most frustrating thing in the game and makes you not want to explore and help people. Climbing is just fine because it makes you think quickly and decide whether or not risking your stamina capacity is worth getting a bullet or healing item. If you start to deplete too much while climbing, you can use pistons to recharge or items that give you stamina and stamina capacity. If you run out of stamina, you will go into an effort mode where you quickly tap a button and your capacity starts depleting. If you deplete this, you’re dead. Not once did I completely deplete my capacity, so don’t worry about that being hard.
Secondly, comes the combat. Bullets are extremely rare, but you have to intimidate enemies by pointing your gun at them. They will put their hands up, but enemies with guns will not. You need to use strategy and decide who to kill first. Sometimes an enemy will get cocky and speak up. If you kill him first, the others may surrender. If not, you can order them to back up and knock them into fire or off high ledges. If you put your gun down, they will start charging. If you are out of bullets, you need to be careful and not pull the trigger, or they will know you’re empty. This isn’t as clever as it sounds because, in execution, there are problems. If you are completely out of bullets, you are pretty much screwed if there is more than one enemy with a gun. You can walk up to him and surprise kill him, take his bullet, and shoot another gun wielder, but then you’re out of bullets again. You may have two more guys to kill with knives, so what do you do? That’s the flaw. Each scenario is set up with really only one outcome. Later on, the combat gets really frustrating, despite having a bow with retrievable arrows. These arrows are so rare that I only found three in the whole game. The combat is great on paper but slightly flawed in execution.
When you help people, you will get extra retries, but there are items you need to find to help them. Some want rarer items than others, but in the end, the ash issue kept me from exploring everywhere and helping anyone. They abused this stamina meter and should have held back a bit. That’s pretty much all there is to the game. You rotate around exploration and combat, but in the end, the game could have been a lot more. I love the idea of the combat, but it really needs work in the next game.
Despite those two major flaws, I Am Alive is entertaining, and when you aren’t freely exploring, the game is quite fun. The atmosphere is foreboding, but the story isn’t as interesting as it could have been. At least the PC gets some enhanced visuals with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, so the game doesn’t look as ugly. For the small price, I Am Alive is worth this purchase, but most people may want to download a demo first before buying.
The band rhythm genre was one of the shortest-lived I have ever seen. Starting with Guitar Hero and quickly being killed off with games like Rock Band 3, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, and DJ Hero 2. There were a ton of them, but because of the constant yearly releases, the public got sick of them quickly, and now the genre is pretty much dead. Harmonix decided to go back to its roots and release another controller-based rhythm game like Amplitude for PS2. Before you insult the game, read on.
Blitz is just as addictive as the other games in the series, but in a different way. You play all the instruments at the same time, but this is a very important thing that you need to remember: This game is about scores and not hitting every note. You only use two buttons on the controller to hit each note on the left and right sides of the track. You play like you normally would in a Rock Band game, but just with two notes. Don’t sit there thinking this is easy. The game can get downright hard, mainly because you have to constantly keep your score multiplier up. As you play along, you will pass gates that will turn the multiplier wheel. It will stop at the lowest-set number. Make sure you switch between tracks and get those multipliers for each one! If you play close to perfect, you can raise each track by four with plenty of room left before the gate.
This sounds hard and stupid, but the game is so much fun! It also helps that you can use power-ups that you unlock by raising your cred. Using the power-ups costs coins that are earned based on your score. There are a lot of fun power-ups, such as a rocket that will shoot ahead and destroy some notes. Certain instruments can have double points, bombs, flames that spread around and increase your score, a 2x multiplier, and the list goes on. You will find yourself trying out different power-ups and using your favorites. I also love how you can use your entire Rock Band library. You can also download any Rock Band song from the store, and it will work with this game! This, of course, increases replayability quite a bit.
Blitz incorporates Facebook integration for co-op play and most multiplayer stuff. This is both good and bad. It’s good for people who use Facebook, but bad for people who don’t or who are paranoid about their internet security. I didn’t have a problem with this, but I know some people will. One issue I did find annoying is that there is only one stage the game plays through. Sure, it changes a bit as you go along, but I would have liked to have seen more. Other than that, there really isn’t much wrong with this game.
In the end, this game is about taste. Some people may think just hitting two buttons is stupid, but if you sit down and play for a while, you will realize how ridiculously addictive this game can be. The game keeps your adrenaline up by constantly having to switch between tracks and keeping your multiplier up. If you are a huge Rock Band fan, then give this a whirl, but due to the small list of songs the game comes with, newcomers will find the game less appealing. You should really only play this if you have a large Rock Band library.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !