What makes music in a game good? Something that fits the style of game, setting, and something that isn’t repetitive, annoying, or something we’ve heard in a million other games. Music is probably one of the most important parts of the game but easily overlooked by most gamers.
Bayonetta’s music isn’t only angelic and beautiful, but it’s so catchy that you just want to hear it again and again, and it really fits Bayonetta and her style. You just get goosebumps when seeing Bayonetta fight with style on the screen along with this angelic music. While there isn’t a huge variety what does play is amazing and is memorable.
Ever since the first God of War, the action/adventure genre has been all about cinematic set pieces, pounding soundtracks, and adrenaline-inducing combat, and Uncharted 2 pulls out all the stops. You play Nathan Drake once again, and this time you are trying to find the Cintamani Stone that Marco Polo died trying to find. Along the way, you meet old friends and make new enemies, but the story is as human and satisfying as ever, with amazing, snappy, and witty dialog and voice acting.
The best part about Uncharted 2 is the cinematic set pieces. These complete 1-up the original game when it comes to this. The game starts out with Drake hanging from a train, but to add extra tension, the train is slowly falling apart as you climb it. This method of getting your blood flowing is done throughout the game and really helps add to the excitement. The game is made like a Hollywood blockbuster movie, with tons of explosions and guns galore.
The gunplay is also a step up from the last game, along with a more balanced and better-scaled difficulty. Before, the game was a pain from the start, but now the game slowly gets harder. With a ton of weapons at your disposal and with each one packing a good punch, mowing down baddies has never been so fun. Along with the gun, play is on rail shooting sections that are pulse-increasing mayhem and a ton of fun, but Uncharted isn’t just about the action.
The adventure part is well implemented and just as exciting thanks to the clever level design and the puzzles are a little easier to figure out this time around. You really feel like you can do the impossible thanks to the game making you feel like a tiny person in a small world scaling mountains and giant temples, and this is also in part due to the camera angles. Naughty Dog learned what worked in the first game and built tenfold on top of it, and it does show really well.
While the controls and animations feel smoother, the game still has its issues. Despite the difficulty being scaled better, the game gets overly difficult and unbalanced towards the end of the game. The engine just isn’t built for a ton of super-tough enemies at once. Dying over and over again just isn’t fun, and this really detracts from the excitement of the story. There are some minor control issues that carry over, such as Nate moving to cover when you direct him the wrong way if the camera is turned just the right way. He’ll get stuck on small ledges, and this could lead to frustrating, cheap deaths, but other than that, the game is fine. The game seems to balance gunplay and adventuring a little better now as well, which makes the pacing spot on.
You can still collect treasures and unlock new bonuses, and the multiplayer is pretty fun, but it’s no Modern Warfare in terms of depth and strategy. If you love cinematics and stories at their finest, picking up Uncharted 2, with its beautiful visuals, will keep you pleased.
My name is John Marston, and I’ve lost everything. The US government took them from me and promised my freedom if I helped “establish a civilization” by catching the three crooks I used to ride with.
The first thing I noticed after I got off the train was how beautiful the country looked. Rolling hills, trees, and animals roam wherever you look. People on stagecoaches and even the occasional train. How I learned this new “civilization” was very interesting and even would make a good story.
Day 2
After getting shot by Bill Williamson, I met this lovely lady, Bonnie MacFarlane, and she helped me along the way. Riding horses with her was a good time, and it doesn’t seem too hard. If I kick it too hard with my spurs, it will buck me off unless I bond with it first by riding it often. Keeping speed with her was easy since holding my speed kept me right next to her.
Shooting on the horse was a little difficult, and using my dead eye was almost necessary since everything went by so fast. Controlling a horse and a gun at the same time isn’t very easy. When I focus enough, everything seems to slow down, and I can mark my targets with an X and blast away. I don’t know where I got this trait from, but it sure is handy.
She even showed me how to herd cattle by keeping pace behind the herd and making sure stray animals leave. Taming horses was pretty easy since I just had to lasso them and keep my balance until they were broken. Today was a long day, so I’m going to rest.
Day 3
I left Bonnie after helping her out on some errands. I just follow the yellow route line to my objective, which I put on my map, and it ain’t too hard from there. I can even mark waypoints and travel to them via stagecoach or when I make a camp off the road or away from water. This makes things handy since traveling this vast land can get tiresome.
After shooting some thugs from the wanted poster I picked up, I realized how each bullet affects every part of the body. Hit an arm, and they drop their gun. Hit their leg, and they limp away; hit their chest, and they fall over and crawl away. I found this useful when having to catch criminals with my lasso. Shoot the sucker in the leg so he stops running!
I went to the local market (there are many) and sold some herbs I picked, and after I hunted some deer, wolves, a snake, and some birds, I sold all those parts for some cash and bought myself a new gun. I love my shotgun, sniper rifle, revolver, and other weapons, but I just needed something more powerful. I did buy a new horse as well as some tobacco for focus and some medicine. I’m beat for now, so I’m going to go purchase some property in this town and rest.
Day 7
I’ve learned a lot lately, and one of the biggest things I learned was not to shoot other people or even run over them by accident. I had the law come after me, and I now have a bounty on my head. I can get a pardon letter or pay the bounty, but if I get my honor and fame up by doing good deeds, maybe people won’t be so hasty to tattle.
I tried some gambling to ease my mind today, such as Liar’s Dice, Texas Hold ‘Em, Blackjack, Horse Shoes, Arm Wrestling, and more. These games seemed pretty fun at first, but after a few tries, they bored me, so I was off hunting again. After I caught my kill, I noticed a stranger needing help, so I marked him with a question mark on my map and a purple circle in the area where I could find him later. I’ll tell you to partner these tales and these people with something else.
There are so many things to do here that I can’t describe them all. This place is huge, even with Mexico to the south. Everything here just looks so amazing, and as you can see so far, it’s stunning. Even when I got to the snow-capped mountains and was hunting bears, I felt like I couldn’t get enough of the scenery. The world also sounds beautiful, with birds chirping and the sound of crunching dirt under my feet. It’s refreshing.
Day 28
Well, I don’t know what else to say. This world is so massive, expansive, and gorgeous that it’s like nothing else. There is so much to do here that by the end of my journey, I’ll have felt satisfied, and even roaming around with friends can be pretty fun. So long, partner, and keep the West and the Wild alive.
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.
Man o’ man, does this bring back a lot of good memories? I remember almost dying because my mom’s computer couldn’t run HL1. I begged her to get the computer upgraded (at the time, not even knowing how this was possible or the cost), but she just wouldn’t do it. All I could do was stare at videos and screenshots until I thought they would be forever da-da-da! until I heard about the PS2 port! I was so excited that I babysat my bratty sisters for a whole summer and laid down $200 in smackeroonies on a used PS2, but to my luck, HL was nowhere to be seen. It turns out that not many copies of the game were made, so they were scarce. Settling with a rental, I finally was able to play the game, but it was starting to feel old because I didn’t get ahold of it until late 2003. Realizing that I was missing out on a lot at the time, I wound up losing my save and, being so angry, never touched the game again. Four years later, I can finally play the game again thanks to Steam (I actually ordered the HL1 Anthology off of EB games for $20), and I have definitely realized what I missed now that I have finally been able to finish the game.
While Half-Life never looked as good as Unreal, Valve, it pulled some strings and did some custom stuff with the physics, water, and lighting effects. HL isn’t just your regular run-and-gun shooter; the story is told all in real-time by running into certain characters, and by just progressing, you get an idea of what’s going on without much dialog. This was revolutionary at the time, and so were the weapons, graphics, sound, physics, and enemies. The game has your usual weapons like machine guns with grenade launchers, pistols, revolvers, etc., but HL has some weapons up its sleeve that were never seen before. Such weapons happen to be laser-guided rocket launchers (you guide them with your mouse!). I remember people buzzing about these weapons back in the day, and they’re still pretty cool. You also have the Bee Gun, which is a weird slimy thing that shoots killer bees. You also have some strange electricity guns, mines, laser mines, satchel charges, etc.
The enemies were also something never seen before, like the Head Crabs, Head Crab Zombies, the Ichthyosaur, the Vortigaunts, etc. The game also had huge bosses, which were amazing back in the day and seemed very epic. The game was dark, creepy, and very hard as well. Most shooters back in the late 90s were just run-and-gun nonsense in dark tunnels, military complexes, etc. Half-Life is not innocent and does do this, but there are other places to see, like climbing a HUGE canyon and looking out over the ugly vista that looks like the Grand Canyon. Today it looks like someone slapped a low-res JPEG image in the background, but in the late 90s, things like this seemed like you were staring over a GrindLift in Gears of War 2. Half-Life was just so real and so amazing back in its day that it really kind of shocks you how such an old game can still make that kind of impact.
The game also consists of a lot of maze-like halls that you can get easily lost in, and I found this to be the main problem with HL. Some of the puzzles were a bit confusing to do, and navigating the endless halls calls for a much-needed walkthrough. While the level design is excellent and you pretty much know where to go, there are those occasional moments that make you wander around the whole area a few times and look in every nook and cranny, wondering what switch you missed or what you need to go through. Some neat things back in the day were being able to have the Blue Shift men help you and ask scientists to open doors for you. While this is standard these days, this kind of AI was unknown to late-90s PC gamers. This added to the realism and made you feel like you really were stuck in Black Mesa trying to fight off the alien invasion.
You’re probably wondering what the story is, right? Well, it’s really simple: Gordan Freeman (that’s you) arrives at Anomalous Hazards as a regular employee, an experiment goes awry, and Gordan must escape the facility and figure out the source of the alien invasion. The story, as I’ve already said, isn’t told through cutscenes but rather in real-time while you play. This helps add to the experience, but of course it may bore most younger PC gamers who are used to FEAR, Crysis, CoD, etc. Half-Life is for hardcore old-school PC shooter fans only and really takes cunning skill to finish. The game will give you less and less health as you go, and you’ll have to figure out how to take out a room of 10 bad guys with only 2 health. While this isn’t impossible, it can be done and requires precise skill (thus only for hardcore fans).
Most of you have probably played HL2 already, and these games are pretty much completely different besides the content. You still have your hazard suit; most of the weapons are the same, but there is more stuff in HL1. About 40% of the weapons and enemies in HL1 aren’t in HL2. HL2 is more realistic, while HL1 is more of a sci-fi type of game. Thankfully, you can play HL2 without even touching HL1 (which I did), but HL1 explains a lot of things that aren’t explained in HL2, and there are bits in HL2 that are for fans of HL1 that you normally wouldn’t know about unless you played this game.
Now, of course, HL1 has a lot of flaws, like floaty physics, being able to run 100mph, cheap deaths, and poor graphics, but these are flaws seen with age. If you were to go back to 1998, the game was almost flawless. Now, when it comes to upgrades and mods, there is an endless ocean. There are a ton of amazing multiplayer and single-player mods available, and I have spent hours and hours on most of them. You must go to FilePlanet.com and download these mods, because they are super fun. HL1 also has a free hi-def pack that you can download to update the graphics a little bit. If you want to go even further, pick up Half-Life: Source, which uses HL2’s engine to make things look more modern. I highly recommend the Source version for people who just can’t stand “old graphics,” but old-school shooter fans should just get the hi-def pack just for nostalgia’s sake.
The only way you’re going to like Fallout 3 is for two reasons. 1. You loved Oblivion, and 2. You love the Fallout series. Otherwise, you’re probably going to hate the game and think it’s “boring.” I say this because the game relies a lot on you finding out what to do and where you should take your next steps. The game is 100% nonlinear and features a perfect balance of FPS action and RPG stat building. The game is more than just “Oblivion with guns,” and the reason people say this is because Bethesda uses the Oblivion engine for this game. Just like in Oblivion, you take quests from people and complete them as you wish. You can be good, bad, or neutral in the world. You can find mini-encounters or free-form quests that are separate from the main and side quests to unlock achievements. I don’t want to spend this whole review comparing this game to Oblivion since it is its own game.
The first thing you’ll notice is how amazing the graphics are. The Oblivion engine has been refined, and everything looks amazing. Step out of Vault 101, and your eyes will adjust from the dark, and you’ll witness a beautiful yet desolate wasteland that leaves you wondering, “Now what?” Don’t be scared since the game does guide you a little bit, so you aren’t completely lost. Just wander around to find Megaton and just talk to people, and you’ll get quests eventually. Of course, you always know where to go for the main quests, and every quest has arrows on your map that point to where to go. You may see places on your map, but you can’t fast-travel there unless you actually walk around and discover them yourself. This forces players to explore the vast world of DC and really get to know the place. There are two sections to the game: the Wasteland, which takes up about 70% of the game, and DC, which is cluttered with metro stations, fallen buildings, and all the main landmarks like the White House, the Library of Congress, the Pentagon, etc.
The only way to travel around in DC is through the metro tunnels, and I found this kind of annoying since it may be tough to figure out which tunnel goes where. I just really can’t express how amazing the game feels, and you really do feel alone and empty when you go through stores and buildings that are completely trashed. With the melancholy music, you sometimes get a bit depressed since it’s just so amazingly surreal. Thankfully, Bethesda injected a bit of dark humor to keep you from feeling this way, and one way is with VATS. The Vault-Tec Automated Targeting System is one of the main gameplay elements. Hit RB, and you’ll pause time and zoom in on your enemy, and there will be parts of his or her body you can hit. The percentage is your chance of hitting that target, your AP is your action points, and each weapon takes a certain amount of them every time you queue up attacks. If you do enough damage, you can cripple a limb and either make your enemy drop the weapon, lower their accuracy, or make them walk slower. Once you get to higher levels, a few shots and you can blow their heads off in a heaping gory mess, and it never ever gets boring. Sniping someone from 200 feet away, watching the camera follow the bullet, and having someone’s head fall off their neck is just so satisfying. I played for 54 hours and never got bored with it.
Of course, you can fight in real-time combat, but you don’t get the advantages of VATS like critical hit strikes, etc. The game has many weapons, from mini-nuke launchers to rocket launchers, 10mm pistols, combat shotguns, sledgehammers, hunting rifles—the list just goes on and on. You can also make your own weapons by finding schematics and collecting the items you need to build various weapons, like the Rock-It Launcher, which lets you shoot anything you find, and the Railway Rifle, which lets you shoot railroad spikes and impale limbs on walls. The game is huge, amazing, and awesome, and all of the combat is very satisfying, and there are endless ways to approach a situation. Don’t you like fighting? Use a Stealth Boy to sneak your way through places, plant live grenades in enemies’ pants, and watch them explode! Like fighting with your fists? Walk around with a power glove and bash your way through the wasteland. Now that combat is out of the way, let’s get to stats. Your menu is your Pip-Boy, which is attached to your arm, features an easy-to-navigate interface, and makes it really easy to find what you want. You can level up to level 20 (which is lame since you’ll get to level 20 way early in the game and be maxed out), and you have several options once you level up.
You can add points to yourself for things like your medicine, small guns, big guns, explosives, speech, barter, energy weapons, lockpicking, science, etc. Then you get to pick a perk (say that five times fast!) and these are another unique gameplay idea in Fallout 3. There are over 40 perks, but you can only pick up to 20 throughout the game, so choose wisely! Perks range from giving you more health, increasing your regular abilities, automatically giving you another level, making animals in the world your friends, revealing every location on your map, making you a law bringer, and if you bring every finger off a bad enemy to a special HQ, you get caps (currency in the game) and good karma. The stats are also affected by items such as Buffout, Jet, Mentats (post-apocalyptic drugs!), etc. These have temporary effects and will get you out of a tight situation. You can trade and repair your items with people around the city and become rich. You can also just shoot everyone in the cities and get bad karma, so as you can see, there are no restraints.
You can also pass time by “waiting,” which skips hours. You can heal your crippled limbs by sleeping or going to a doctor. Getting too irradiated? Take some Rad-Away! Getting addicted to a certain drug? Go to the doctor! You can eventually get your own place in Tenpenny Tower, and you can buy things like a workbench, doctor stations, etc. I just can’t express how HUGE this game is, from its vast size to being able to pick up anything you see to use as ammo, trade, or sell. You really do feel like you’re struggling to survive in a hostile wasteland, and that feeling never goes away, even after 100 hours of play. Of course, you’ll eventually conquer the wasteland and not be afraid of even the strongest enemies in the game.
Now there are issues with the game, but they’re minor. There is loading between each section of the game, such as going from the main world into buildings, etc. The level 20 cap is extremely annoying and makes you quit trying really hard to find places to fight in. The game is really similar to Oblivion, and people who played the F out of that game will feel too familiar here. That’s why this game didn’t get a 9.5 from me like Oblivion did because I’ve kind of “been there, done that” with this engine. While there are so many subtle things in the game, like having followers (including a dog!), the many types of weird enemies, and all the different people you can talk to, it’s insane. I could spend hours telling you about every location and person you meet. Just stop what you’re doing and go play Fallout 3, and you’ll spend dozens and dozens of hours surviving the vast wasteland! Go grab an Ice Cold Nuka-Cola and watch out for the hostile factions (Raiders, Talon Company Mercs, Slavers, etc.), and good luck out there!
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !