In defense of the game’s formula, you really have to be an FPS nut or a fan of classic games like Doom and Quake to appreciate what’s going on here. There are no cinematic events, no quick-time events, or helicopter rides. This is just pure shooting, with enemies doing nothing but coming after you. If you played the last game and its expansion and got tired of it, you probably want to come back again because of the interesting and completely original levels and enemies. That’s probably the only saving grace for Overdose, but it does have some niceties.
First off, the story is semi-interesting, with you playing as a half-demon or half-angel who gets thrown into a prison in Hell for thousands of years by Samuel and Cerberus. You ascend through Hell, up to the middle plane, and then up into heaven. The levels are just awesome and so original, like Dead Marsh, which is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft with Cthulhu-type enemies. Riot is a level with creepy-looking police, hoodlums, and sexy nurses. Farmland has creepy, reanimated butchered animals, and the list goes on, but the gory, mature nature of Painkiller stays. I liked this game over the last few years because of these awesome new levels and enemies that are drastically different from before and never feel repetitive.
The weapons are all new, including an Evil Eye, which is a severed demon head that shoots a laser eye. You get a cannonball launcher with a machine gun attached, a crossbow, a radiation launcher, and just a bunch of cool weapons that make the game feel completely new. Of course, you get to collect coins in the game and use them on tarot cards that act as perks, which you will really need if you aren’t playing on Daydream difficulty.
The main problem with Overdose is that it’s ten times harder than the last game. You will die hundreds of times throughout the game, and I couldn’t beat it on anything higher than Daydream because it’s just too damn hard. My only other comment is that the character you play chimes in every so often with funny comments and will react to the level you are in when you enter it. Despite all this, the game is just running around and shooting; that is the end of the story. It can get boring really quick, and only hardcore FPS fans should stray into the Painkiller realm because it’s damn hard. Unfortunately, online play is pretty much dead now, but we do get updated visuals, and it looks good even for its age. Stay away if you don’t like tough shooters; come back if you love Painkiller.
I still remember Gears of War when I got my Xbox 360 on Christmas 2006. It changed the way I thought about games forever, which is why it is the only game I ever gave a 10. The game was perfect at the time, and I couldn’t really find anything wrong with it. I also remember the game being almost a complete failure early in development and seeing glimpses of shoddy gameplay footage on TV during E3 2004. The classic hit comes to PC with some enhancements that are great for newcomers and enough for fans to come back for another run (or three).
I’ll review this all over again for people who are unfamiliar (PC-only gamers). You play as Marcus Fenix in Delta Squad, who are sent on a mission to deliver a light mass bomb deep under the planet Sera to destroy the Locust horde that is trying to kill all of humanity. This sounds like a typical sci-fi B grade, but this is one of my favorite gaming stories of all time because of the characters, sheer terror, and hopelessness humans go through to rid of this vicious species. Gears of War may seem like a manly shooter on the outside, but inside there is a deep and complex story (just pick up the four books and you will truly see) that tests and trains every human to fight for survival.
Despite the excellent story and memorable characters, there is a great underlying gameplay system here. Slamming against cover, shooting awesome weapons, and killing interesting enemies that were never seen before is quite awesome. Locusts aren’t just bugs or aliens; they feel like entities that you should run away from and have nightmares about. It takes half a clip to take these guys down, and they shoot back with good AI (excellent at the time, good for today’s standards). During that time, the AI was unrivaled because the locust would flank you and act smart instead of just standing there and getting a shot at you.
The weapons are memorable, such as the infamous Lancer with the chainsaw bayonet. Slicing through an enemy and watching blood splatter on the screen is just awesome and never gets old (even if you play the last two Gears). The Longshot is a powerful bolt-action sniper rifle; the Hammerburst is the Locust assault rifle; the Boomshot, Snub pistol, Boltok revolver, and Gnasher shotgun are some of the greatest weapons ever made, and they are infamous for a reason. The enemies vary greatly, and some can’t even be taken down with guns. The Hammer of Dawn is used to take down the Berserkers who run at you and must be dodged during three different scenes in the game. The Corpsers are huge spider-like enemies that can only be taken down in the same manner and jam communications. The list goes on, but each enemy has to be taken on in completely different ways, and most shooters can’t do that.
The campaign is well-paced with lots of different scenarios, such as avoiding the deadly Kryll at night while shooting tanks to stay in the light. There are turret sections, but sadly, there are no helicopter sections, which this game is dying for. There are epic boss fights, but overall the campaign is perfectly paced, with varied environments from outdoors to indoors. All of this combined equals one sweet package that 90% of shooters can’t accomplish in one game.
The multiplayer is fun if this is your thing. Gears of War multiplayer is a lot different from most because it’s tactical and close-quarters. 6-on-6 is tough, and you will die quickly against vets because the game requires a lot of rolling, dodging, and quick trigger fingers, but the modes are fun, like Execution and Wingman. Sadly, not many people play Gears 1 online anymore, so you will rarely find people playing. There is even a co-op mode for the campaign, which is a blast, but good luck getting anyone to play online.
For the PC, we get updated visuals with DirectX 10 lighting, some higher-resolution textures, and, the best part, five all-new chapters that were cut from the Xbox 360 version. If you did play that version, remember after leaving the Fenix mansion, a Brumak comes after you, and you jump into an APC and escape? Stuff happened after that and between arriving at the train station. Delta Squad gets stuck at a lifted bridge and needs to find a way to power it so they can head to the train platform. This is also where you take on that Brumak that followed you and is probably the best 5 chapters in the whole game. I’m sad Xbox 360 owners had to miss out on this epic piece of Gears, but PC gamers will be pleased. There are also three additional COG tags, so watch out if you want those achievements!
Gears of War is worth a re-purchase for veterans or newcomers because this is a piece of video game history that can’t be missed by any shooter fan. Why do I not give this a 10 then? The game has shown its age with its dated graphics. Sure, they still look great, but the lower resolution textures, weaker lighting effects, and slightly sloppy animations show compared to the new Gears games. Most people will overlook this, but the game also does feel repetitive after a while, no matter how you slice it. You’re just running around shooting grubs, right? I feel it needed some more vehicle sections, and well, it was all fixed in Gears 2 and 3, but that’s beside the point.
The first game was an online-only shooter that barely passed as mediocre and was quickly lost and forgotten. Prejudice is almost the same game, but with a new campaign and some new additions. Fans of the first game should pick this up right away, but don’t expect to play online (more on that later). The story is dull and typical, with uninteresting characters. Something about a man-made race of humans that are the perfect soldiers’ rebel and try to kill us all, and you are tasked with killing their leader. The point of the campaign is just to get you warmed up to multiplayer with vehicles, weapons, and load-outs.
The shooting is good and solid and feels like a bit of Halo and Mass Effect thrown in. The sci-fi vibe with energy-type weapons sure feels like Halo, while the load-outs with various ammo types feel like Mass Effect. You get seven different types of weapons, ranging from shotguns to rocket launchers, but the ammo types vary from different armor and shield damage to structure and vehicle damage, and some ammo types even damage over time. You really need to pick the right weapons for the enemies you’re killing, so there is some strategy involved. Every so often, you get a freebie lock-on that I find pretty useless but that is useful in multiplayer.
The whole game is based more on shield damage than armor damage, so choosing the right weapons is important. You can use jetpacks, which make the game more interesting and add aerial combat. This prevents people from hiding behind something and staying there. You can go in for close knife kills known as fatalities (nice try, guys), but no matter what the game has, it feels “been there, done that” throughout. The vehicles and mechs are a nice addition, but they don’t pack the punch you expect and are cumbersome to control, especially tanks.
With all that said, you get mediocre graphics using Unreal Engine 3 and an online mode that is completely dead. Not a single person is playing this, so you have to result in LAN. It’s a pity that this game died so quickly and has been out for less than a year, but there are just bigger and better shooters out there, so you should only pick this up if you are craving a shooter and have nothing to play. What is here is a decent shooter with interesting weapons, jetpacks, and a nice sci-fi vibe. Nothing more, nothing less.
I played this about 3 years ago, and even then, it wasn’t all impressive. This game has nothing to do with the underappreciated Area 51 that came out years ago, despite being made by the same studio. In fact, the game has nothing to really do with Area 51 at all except you fight through Rachel, NV, and there are aliens. The game is a day’s worth of mediocre entertainment at best. The story is paper-thin, with something about a government experiment where they are trying to create the perfect soldier using prisoners and homeless people. The experiment breaks out, and you are fighting off a weird paramilitary plus Xeno aliens. The characters aren’t interesting, and this is by far just a B-grade experience.
The worst part about the game is the lack of content. Only a few weapons (like less than six) and a handful of enemy types make for a typical shooter experience. There are a couple of large boss fights that were epic at the time, but now they feel too scripted and stale. The graphics are pretty bad since this uses Unreal Engine 3 from years ago, so there are badly scripted explosions, crappy AI, and a useless squad command and moral system. You can send your two buddies somewhere, but it makes no difference because they won’t shoot anything most of the time. If you get shot a lot, your morale will go down, but I actually didn’t notice this doing anything because the AI is so dumb anyway. There are a few vehicle sequences (which stink), and all the weapons feel the same except a couple of alien weapons.
The multiplayer is nonexistent because the servers have been long gone, but you can grab the game for less than $1 on Amazon. The game lacks the greatness of its predecessor, with a lack of interesting stories, characters, and scripted cinematic events. You can go around collecting dossiers, but other than that, this is bare-bones at best. The game had a lot of potential but was executed poorly with lazy design and shortcuts. Why should you bother playing it? Mainly for fans of the first game or who just want an FPS fix for a few hours.
A game claiming it’s one of the craziest around is something that would be hard to live up to. Thankfully, Saint’s Row: The Third does, and man, is it crazy. Parachuting out of planes and shooting tanks while falling out of the sky, a God of War-style boss fights in virtual reality, beating people up with giant purple dildos. Yeah, I’d say that’s crazy, but The Third offers even more!
The story is really great, with awesome characters and witty dialog. Johnny Gat dies in the beginning mission (that’s no spoiler), but returning characters like Pierce and Shaundi return, and the new characters are just as great, such as the bit brute Oleg and the nerd Kenzie. This time around, you are famous, and the Saints own the city, but they lose it because three new gangs move into town: The Morningstar, Deckers, and Luchadores. A paramilitary group called STAG has also moved in with heavily armored guys, tanks, and VTOLs (jets) that, yes, you can fly and keep in your garage.
A lot of the story missions are interesting and completely varied to help deliver this interesting and entertaining story. From going inside a supercomputer and fighting as a walking toilet, blow-up doll, or fighting in a Luchadore match, to shooting cars with a rocket launcher from a helicopter, to just running around and killing everything, everything is a huge blast, and each mission is different. Of course, there are side missions such as Trailblazing, where you drive around in a fireproof suit on an ATV and run into people and cars to blow them up to earn seconds on a clock as you blow through a checkpoint race. There are other side missions that let you pimp your girls around: Insurance Fraud lets you get hit by cars to earn money; Mayhem lets you use pre-determined weapons to cause as much destruction as possible; and a lot more. My favorite is the Genki matches, which are like a gladiator-type game show. There is no shortage of things to do in The Third, with collectibles to be found, assassination missions, car theft missions, and tons of challenges.
Saint’s Row doesn’t stop there, with a ton of cars to drive as well as a bunch of customization options for building your character, upgrading and decking out cars, and even a crap ton of upgrades for you and your guns. You can use your phone to call in homies to help you fight, deliver vehicles, and even customize how your gang looks and taunts. You can run around and buy property to increase your respect rating and how much control you have over that territory.
But what about the world you play in, you say? It looks amazing with DirectX 11 features exclusive to PC, which makes the game look ten times better than that of the consoles, and the world is huge and bursting at the seams with life. The game never looks boring, feels boring, or sounds boring, with great radio stations with funny commercials and even one radio station dedicated to Adult Swim. I just can’t describe how crazy this game is because you have to play it to experience it. The controls are silky smooth, with great car control and even aircraft control. Is there anything wrong with the game? Yeah, there are some irritating issues like ragdoll physics when you get blown up, there are way too many enemies to kill, and the side missions are extremely difficult, but these things can be easily overlooked. If you love open-world games, I would say Saint’s Row: The Third is the best out there, and there really isn’t anything quite like it.
I still remember when Resistance: Fall of Man (known as I-8 back then) was shown at E3 2005 and was amazed at how good it looked. When I picked it up about 4 years later, it looked like crap, was ridiculously hard, and had ho-hum multiplayer. I never finished it and skipped the second game. The third game has a new protagonist, Joe Capelli, and has a more organic fluid campaign reminiscent of Half-Life 2 than Resistance. You go from the east coast to New York to destroy the tower that the Chimera have built to freeze the Earth over. This is the last shot to save humanity, but in the meantime, you get to meet some new and old (Chimera) faces.
The game is still too familiar to me and will be for Resistance vets. No matter how many times you re-create Chimera they are still the same and it’s pretty old by now. The same tactics work, most of the same guns are still here (Bullseye, Rossmore Shotgun, Auger, Deadeye, etc.) plus a few new ones. The Cryo gun is fun, but most of the weapons are the same, and the same problems are still present in the game. There isn’t enough ammo that you can hold for each gun so you have to constantly swap weapons even if the situation doesn’t call for it. There is no regenerating shield (there’s a reason why Bungie invented it for Halo), and health packs are scarce even on normal difficulty. The game is extremely tough because it feels built for co-op because dozens of Chimera will come after you and you will die with just a few hits. This means taking 20 steps forward only to find a horde and get pushed back 50 steps. Thankfully, you can level up your weapons just by using them, and useful things happen, like your shotgun spits out incendiary shells, your Deadeye will highlight heads, and your revolver will cause more damage.
Despite the ridiculously difficult campaign, there are some great cinematic moments, but they are far and few between. The first third of the game is nicely paced, with varied environments ranging from a forest to a train ride to the snowy streets of New York, but after you get near the tower, it’s the same Chimera bases and architecture that we’ve seen three times already (if you count the PSP’s Resistance:Retribution, which was equally as difficult). The game gets even more difficult, and the story becomes less interesting. The characters are pretty shallow, and there’s not too much delivery in the story despite a few odd twists, plus a disappointing ending that makes you feel like the developers gave you the middle finger for sticking with the series for 6 years.
There’s multiplayer here if you really need to keep playing, but one playthrough was enough for me. Resistance 3 has some amazing visuals, despite some ugly textures here and there, and will satisfy fans with a difficult and challenging campaign. FPS players used to Call of Duty and Halo will probably hate this game (and the series), so only hardcore FPS fans should take the path of Resistance.
Not much can be said about this DLC for Renegade Ops. This closes off the story with just 3 levels and a couple of new enemies, but everything is the same, and that’s not really good or bad. If you couldn’t take any more after the end of the main game, then three extra levels may or may not kill you. The biggest change is the ice-cold scenery, but the overall design of the levels remains the same.
The final boss fight with Coldstrike is very challenging and even harder than Inferno was. The same problems consist of the repetitive nature of the game. The objectives are not any different from the main game, but if you really like the structure of this game, then this DLC is a must-buy for you.
The new enemies consist of a new huge bad boy called a Golem (who replaces the Juggernauts) as well as turrets that fall from the sky and just “re-texturing” of old enemies. There are a few scenes where you are running from missile drops that will break the ice for you, but that’s as exciting as it gets.
For the low price, you get an hour’s worth of fun activities, but you can go back with friends to experience it all again. With just 3 levels and barely anything new, it doesn’t add up to a “campaign” and more like, well, DLC.
Twin-stick shooters are running amok on mobile devices, but the best tend to be on consoles. Renegade Ops lets you choose from a variety of characters with a special weapon each. You can level up and unlock new upgrades while trying to mow down as many enemies as possible to rack up a high score. The story is actually really cliché and stupid, with a commando leader named Bryant trying to stop the evil Inferno from taking over the world. The cut scenes are drawn in nice comic book-style stills, but the dialog is as cheesy as it can get. No matter how you try to kill Inferno, he always seems to survive, and it’s just one of those “You’ll never kill me, Bryant! MWAHAHA!” type stories.
Besides the cheesy story, the action is really fun, with some great graphics and physics. You drive your vehicle using the right stick to shoot with your machine gun. Along the way, you can get pickups to make your machine gun stronger as well as secondary ammo pickups like rocket launchers, rail guns, and flamethrowers. There aren’t many pickups, which is a real bummer, but this is just the start of what else there isn’t much of. The enemy variety is interesting with varying degrees of difficulty, but it leads to the game being very difficult most of the time. You start off with 5 lives per level, and if you lose them all, it’s game over. The levels are very long, and you will be infuriated if you have to go through all that effort again.
My main concern about the game is that it gets very repetitive very quickly because all you do is drive around and shoot. The graphics are excellent, so you could get some cinematic scripted scenes going, but instead, you just follow an objective arrow around all over the place and kill everything in front of you. There are secondary objectives that lead to achievements, but they span the entire level and take way too long to complete. You are also timed on the primary objective, so if you don’t get it done fast enough, a 3-minute timer ticks down, and if you don’t complete it by then, it’s game over. This means you have to abandon the secondary, which makes things even more frustrating. When you die, you lose your machine gun pickups, so you start with the weakest form and can die easier that way because it takes longer to kill enemies.
There is a lot of fun to be had here with destructible environments and a four-player co-op, which makes the game easier and more fun. The upgrades are disappointing because you can only equip four at a time, and this leaves a lot of useful upgrades unused. There are only 7 missions, so you will beat the game in less than 5 hours, but most people probably won’t go through it again due to the difficulty and repetitive nature of the whole game. Twin-stick shooters should pick this up and rejoice, but don’t expect it to change the genre.
Mixing RTS (Real-Time Strategy; Shogun 2, StarCraft) with FPS (First Person Shooter; Call of Duty, Quake) sounds like trying to hammer a nail with a banana, but it works here despite not seeing the RTS part too often. Unlike other games that poorly implemented RTS (Brutal Legend) into another genre, Nuclear Dawn does it right. The person doing the RTSing is the commandre, and only he can do it. This is an online-only game (boo!) so the commander must be voted in, but usually that’s the host, and rarely will he ever get booted.
The game uses standard RTS elements like building buildings that give your men on the ground more powerful ammo for their weapons (the FPS part is the men on the ground). You have to kill the commander to win the game, but capturing energy sources is also key for respawn points. Everyone knows an online FPS needs to respawn points, so that’s the commander’s job by making sure there are plenty. The RTS elements are light and not very complicated, but you have the constant fear of pissing off the guys down below and voting you off if you don’t manage your resources right, build useful structures, and give them frequent upgrades.
As the guys on the ground, you are doing all the work capturing resource points and killing that freaking commander. You get to choose four different classes that have unique powers, such as a tank that uses a minigun and can plant it and act like a human turret, or you can use alternate classes for each class, like the tank using an energy-type grenade launcher to knock out structures. You have a stealth class that can turn invisible for a while and knife people from behind. Plus, you get the typical sniper and foot soldier roles that have various sub-classes. The shooting mechanics are simple, if a little dated, and the whole game is rough around the edges.
Not that it isn’t any fun because fragging with other players is loads of fun because this game has a back and forth kind of like Team Fortress 2, and a game can go on for over an hour. Once a team starts knocking out your resources, you can make a comeback, and it’s just like a tug-of-war. This can be loads of fun since you can switch classes after each death and use it to deal with a problem like people camping in a small room or snipers that no one can spot.
Nuclear Dawn does not have a single-player campaign or even offline bots, so this is strictly online only. I really don’t like that, and it could use a campaign to get you better at playing it. Mainly because 99% of the time you won’t be the commander, you get almost no experience in the RTS part outside the tutorial. The menus are also pretty ugly, and the whole game feels more like a mod than a full-fledged game, but the unique mix of genres is worth a purchase for the low price anyway. The graphics aren’t anything to write home about because they are pretty average and will run on an average computer. This game is strictly for hardcore online players only, but pick it up if you want something new.
The Uncharted series is really interesting because it was a skeptical Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones knock-off during E3 2005 when Sony showed it off as a new IP for the PS3, but everywhere just kind of blew it off and ignored it. Now we’re six years ahead, and Uncharted is one of the most respected and well-liked series in gaming history. Uncharted 3 is a solid roller coaster ride of action, suspense, and excellent voice acting that will really keep you sucked in.
After the events of Uncharted 2, Drake and Sully find themselves in a fight at a bar with a strange woman wanting Drake’s ring. What this ring does and how they get themselves into more trouble will be left for you to find out. The story gives us some history on how the two met as well as the most dangerous treasure hunt Drake has been on. These guys seriously want blood, and they are more vicious and violent than any of Drake’s other adversaries. The story isn’t anything to balk at because there are some extremely harrowing scripted events, and the characters are just perfect, and you get attached to them even more because Naughty Dog brought out a new level for each character (especially Drake) for this big finale.
The game is mostly the same combat-wise, with cover, lots of guns, and explosions. There is a great variety of guns that we love in the series as well as a few new ones, but combat still has a few issues, like snapping into cover doesn’t always work, and the game is extremely hard with way too many enemies like in the previous games, so this has never been addressed. You will die dozens of times during certain scenes, and I really wish they would have fixed this and made it more reasonable and not so difficult. The stealth sections are still poorly designed because you have no idea where to go, and there are too many enemies to sneak past or take out silently. One area will be choked up with enemies, and if you kill one, the next will see you because he’s just a few feet away.
Despite the combat being the same, the hand-to-hand is improved and is a blast to use thanks to great animations and quick counters to knock these guys flat. The platforming and climbing are the same, and that’s a really good thing. Cleverly laid-out levels are really fun to explore because you never really get lost. But what is special about Uncharted are the unique puzzles that span entire levels and are even bigger in this game. They are a little easier to figure out only in the sense that the clues you get can actually be used like they should, unlike in the last game, where the puzzles were almost impossible to figure out. Each puzzle is completely different from the last, but there aren’t as many as in previous games because this one is cutscene-heavy, and there is a better balance of shooting, puzzle-solving, adventuring, and cutscenes, so the overall flow is more natural.
Of course, the best part about Uncharted is the scripted scenes, and these go way over the top with horseback riding, combat in the air while trying to get on a plane, a battle on a sinking ship, and just a whole bunch more that make the game feel like a blockbuster movie. This was my favorite part of the whole game because it just sucked you into the experience like most games can’t, and I really felt the situations and the danger Drake was in thanks to clever camera work. The visuals are probably the best the PS3 has seen (better than Killzone 3, Resistance 3, and I daresay may be better than God of War III). The huge open landscapes are just riddled with ridiculous detail that I didn’t think the PS3 could even do. Beautiful lighting, high-resolution textures, and the animations are so detailed, with Drake tripping over himself and putting his hands on stair rails, so this makes the entire game feel organic and fluid.
Uncharted 3’s multiplayer is also a blast, with unlockable characters, guns, and other goodies to keep you playing. I really like the multiplayer, and the style works great, but of course, it’s nothing to break the ground for online shooters. Co-op single-player is a welcome blast, so the whole multiplayer suite involved helps sweeten the already great package. Uncharted will be remembered by myself and most gamers who appreciate an excellent game. The third entry is the perfect ending to an amazing trilogy.
Collector’s Edition: If you want to spend the extra $40, then you will be treated with everything coming in a beautiful chest (it’s heavy cardboard, unfortunately), as well as a replica of the ring, a belt buckle, and a 6″ figure of Drake, plus special packaging for the game case. The whole collection is beautiful and very well designed, but this is strictly for collectors, and people who aren’t really hardcore fans of the series should probably pass this up.
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Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…