DLC has only become important in this new generation and can really extend the longevity of game months beyond its release date. Good DLC consists of keeping true to the original game, adding solid content, and making the player feel satisfied with the money they spent.
Undead Nightmare (Red Dead Redemption)
Yeah, yeah it’s zombies, but in Red Dead? It’s perfect! The DLC even packs in a great story and is tons of fun to run around on horseback shooting zombies. The co-op multiplasdfasdfayer is also a hoot, but it’s the fluidity of the DLC and the perfect match that pits it over the others that just feels like chapters or extra missions.
Characters are just as essential as stories and they go hand in hand. Characters are what define video game series, and really make gamers separate from each other, and can decide how much a game sells. Developers really strive to make memorable characters, and most of the time it’s a huge factor in sales.
It’s not just Bayonetta’s sex appeal that makes her Messiah’s top pick of the year, but a sexy character in a game that’s actually good? With a good story? Great gameplay? And the best thing since Devil May Cry! It’s a miracle! Bayonetta also has some serious attitude and shows it is not just a trashy trampy way, but with a style that makes you drool with a sexy coolness that would make glaciers melt in sub-zero temperatures. She’s is sassy, smart, sexy, and just overall out for the greater good as well. Her soft side for little girls and her great sense of humor helps her along as well.
Stories are probably the most important part of a game, and a good story tends to be original, full of plot twists, good characters, and great dialog to go with it. Video games have set the standard for fantasy stories and are probably video gaming’s greatest achievement.
Alan Wake has a story like no other with a rich, deep, and complex (yet easy to follow) story that is ripped straight out of the best horror novels. The way Alan Wake unfolds, and the story is told with plot twists, and loops that keep on coming you just keep on playing just to find out what happens with Alan! This is exactly how a game story should roll out, and other games have big shoes to fill.
Voice acting is essential in a game to make characters sound believable and give them character. Good voice acting is just like a good movie, so it shouldn’t sound scripted or just plain terrible.
Red Dead may not have strange alien characters, but the voice acting is so authentic that you really get attached to these characters without awkward moments, or sometimes scripted sounded segments. The voice actors Rockstar chose really sound like these characters and put so much passion and effort into them that the whole game really just sounds like a movie.
Sound design is probably the most important thing next to the gameplay. Without some sound, there’s not really a game, and the best sound design makes things sound authentic for the universe it’s in and makes the sound convincing, and usually, it’ll pack a good punch, sound epic, or just subtle details in sound helps.
How can a war game have the best sound design? The first Bad Company truly made a game sound amazing with realistic weapon sounds, epic explosions, and differential sounds such as shooting in a building sounds different than outside and the echo traveled when walking through a door. That is the kind of detail that most games don’t make. The sequel follows suit with more detail in this department, and there’s nothing that can trump the epic explosions and sounds of gunfire.
What defines an atmosphere? It’s the portrayal of a setting and world that feels authentic in the sense that it can make you feel you’re in it. It can scare you, make you feel like a superhero, or make you feel full of magic. The atmosphere in a game is extremely important and with the latest technology developers can bring us more authentic settings.
While Metro 2033 didn’t see much light from retail it has one of the most amazing and scary atmospheres ever created. Feeling all alone in a subway in Russia with just a lighter, gas mask, shoddy handmade weapons, and the sounds of creepy dogs howling down the tunnel? Only one clip left and there could be ten or more? That is one scary situation, and even the outside environments are incredibly hostile feelings. The mix of enemy camps with stealth missions makes you feel desperate, and if you get caught the whole world will come down on you.
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.
Military shooters tend to take the most flak because they tend to be the same, linear, sometimes boring, with questionable multiplayer, but when Modern Warfare came out four years ago, it really shook the ground, and shooters have been copying it ever since. Black Ops also has something that surprised me, and this was a solid, memorable single-player experience. Blasphemy right? Wrong! The game has lots of varied environments, tons of epic moments, and a few vehicle sections are thrown in, as well as the best helicopter-based missions in any game ever. The game also doesn’t start out as a regular shooter, with Alex Mason (Red Faction: Guerrilla, anyone?) strapped in a chair and a disguised voice yelling at him to remember numbers. The whole story only makes sense at the end, reveals a lot of plot twists, is beautifully crafted, and shows developer Treyarch isn’t the weak link in the CoD series.
The game has a lot of new weapons that are true to the Cold War/Vietnam era, and even the art style shows. The game is beautiful, with great sound, voice acting, and the actual plot mentioned above. The game has memorable characters that you get attached to through the 7-8-hour campaign (yes, it’s also a tad longer than most campaigns in shooters) and even memorable moments themselves. The storming of the Vorkuta prison in Russia and many other levels are memorable. Of course, the game has some issues that Treyarch is known for, such as not knowing what to do, poor directions, respawning enemies, and a few glitches here and there. Despite that, the campaign is solid and well worth the wait and the money, but of course, it’s multiplayer that most people will keep coming back for.
And, oh boy, is the multiplayer sweet. With new maps, a whole new approach to customization, and even the new Wager matches, Black Ops multiplayer is probably the best in the series and the best FPS multiplayer ever made. The game has the same overall playstyle as Modern Warfare 2, but instead of receiving fixed unlocks, the game adopted a currency system, and you can buy everything from perks to weapons to visual add-ons—you name it. This is a great approach to changing up the game and making it more about what you want. On top of this, the Wager matches are ingenious, with players betting on a match, and the top three get some money and the rest lose their bet.
There is One in the Chamber, which gives you one bullet and a knife. If you kill someone, you get a bullet but run out, and you are left with your knife. This is a great and intense mode because it does not shoot first and aim later like the regular models. Gun Game has you start out as a pea shooter, then you move up in tiers of guns with each kill. Not every gun is good because a sniper rifle vs. a machine gun won’t be very easy. The next mode is Sticks and Stones, which gives you a crossbow, a tomahawk, and a ballistic knife. Hitting a player with a Tomahawk resets their score to zero, and the most points are awarded for crossbow kills. Sharpshooter has your weapon switch every 45 seconds, and it’s random, but every player has the same weapon. These are fun and amazing modes that never get old.
On top of that is the zombie mode that Treyarch made a cult hit in World at War. You play as Nixon, Kennedy, and two other characters, along with surviving the three maps and the hilarious political banter the characters speak (Nixon when spending points to remove a barrier: This is taxing me like the Democrats). Players, but fight off hordes of zombies in multi-tiered maps, and points are awarded for barricading windows and shooting the zombies. Points can be spent to buy weapons and ammo and unlock new parts of the map. It’s intense, and trying to survive rounds gets heated (most won’t survive after round 10 and past round 5 alone). With four players playing cooperatively, it’s a great departure from the seriousness of the rest of the game.
All the great World War II shooters are going away from that genre since it’s been beaten to death. Medal of Honor went the way for Call of Duty and was adapted to modern warfare, which works for this series. The single-player campaign is nothing really special, but it does showcase the realism of war and really makes you feel like a helpless nobody warrior in the middle of a Taliban shootout. It does this better than Modern Warfare, but not the multiplayer.
The single-player campaign has you playing as four different parties: a regular soldier, a Navy SEAL, a pilot, and a Tier 1 operative. Like most war games, you never get attached to the characters, but you do care for them enough towards the end. The game’s pacing is pretty good with you moving from night to day levels, and there is even an ATV level (why choose the loudest vehicle to do a night raid?), and the flying levels are pretty fun but extremely linear and limited in control. You can actually move the helicopter, but instead, just aim and shoot. There are some great moments, like the Tier 1 sniping sections and cinematic arts, but these are far and few. Most of the game consists of moving from cover to cover and shooting everything in sight. Sound familiar? Sure! Is it still fun? Why not! You seem to always be equipped with the right weapons, and ammo is unlimited since you can just ask your fellow teammates. I never had to pick up a weapon off the ground, but it’s there for variety.
My favorite moment in the game has you playing as army soldier Adams, and you and your squad are stuck on a hill inside a tiny little mud shack, and the Taliban are raining down on you from the mountain. You hear military chatter an awful lot, but it sounds more authentic and not just silly babble. Your team slowly runs dry on ammo, and after the cinematic music plays, almost all hope is lost to the helicopters! During this sequence, it seems it never ends, but the surrounding chatter makes the whole experience more intense and authentic to real-life battle warfare. But the whole game isn’t like this. There are a lot of moments that seem more like the rest of the shooters, so the pacing is off a bit, but it doesn’t fall apart.
You’ll mainly come back for multiplayer, which is your standard military shooter affair. There are only three classes, a few maps, and that’s pretty much it. It’s fun since DICE (Battlefield: Bad Company) makes it, but it’s no Modern Warfare. You have your usual three classes of ranger, sniper, and specialist, so everyone is pretty much the same person. It basically shoots whatever moves it makes and racks up a score. There is an objective-based type of game mode, but it’s essentially the same.
The game also does one of the weirdest things, and that uses two different game engines. The single-player uses an outdated version of the Unreal Engine, and it’s obvious that it looks outdated due to low-resolution textures and some low models. It uses the Airborne engine, which was a poor move on Danger Close’s part. The multiplayer uses the Frostbite engine that’s used in Bad Company 2, and it looks great! Why the weird design choices? I don’t know, but I hope MoH2 changes its engine. Is the game worth a purchase? Not really, but maybe a weekend rental. After about five or six hours of multiplayer, you’ll be bored and probably just switch back to a better shooter. If you get bored, you can go into Tier 1, which disables everything and times you. Yes, health restores slowly; no ammo refills, no reticle, nothing. So enjoy the super-hard mode.
Halo. That word is loved and hated by many, but Halo did help define the FPS genre and FPS multiplayer for consoles. If it weren’t for Halo, we wouldn’t have to regenerate health or have solid FPS multiplayer, but Reach perfects the Halo multiplayer in many ways, but before we get there, let’s dive into the single-player campaign.
Reach has you playing as the generic Noble 6, who is part of other numbered Noble team members. You can create your character this time around and swap out different armor parts, but you have to advance your rank and earn credits through multiplayer and playing the campaign. This is more of a gimmick and doesn’t do anything other than add filler to the already-bloated series. After the disappointing ODST, we get another campaign with more nobodies instead of a master chief. The game is set before the first one, so you are experiencing the first contact with the Covenant. You are just hopping around Reach trying to save the planet only to realize you can’t, and then you have to use desperate measures to save the human race, but the story doesn’t get interesting until the final cutscene (surprised?) and it’s a shocker.
The game is pretty much another recycling of the same Covenant aliens with better graphics. The same grunts, elites, brutes, and even vehicles—you name it. Is it ever exciting? Maybe in the very beginning because it’s been a while since the last Halo, but after the first couple of chapters, you just want the game to end already. The game just adds everything we’ve seen since 2001 and even takes away dual-wielding, which is good or bad depending on how you look at it. There are maybe one or two new weapons and vehicles, but everything’s been recycled so much I can’t tell! They couldn’t even add an iron sight option since the left trigger is no longer used for a second weapon. C’mon!
Other than that, the mission structure is the same. Kill this wave, press this button, defend this place, backtrack, and re-kill Covenant that suddenly appeared again. It goes on for ten chapters! There are a couple of space flight missions that are kind of fun, but it’s not enough to keep you from yawning at the rehashed crap. Sure, the campaign is solid and challenging, but it’s not as spectacular as, say, Halo 2. At least the flood is absent, which is a godsend!
But after slogging through the campaign, you’re going to come back for multiplayer, right? Right. Which is the best the series has, with tons of modes and playlists, all the modes we’ve grown to love, and a mix of favorite maps from past Halo campaigns? I’m not a Halo multiplayer vet, so I can’t tell you every tiny change, but I know enough that saving every match, sharing with friends, picking through their highlights, and so on is a lot of fun, and the Forge mode has been re-done to be a little more intuitive, but it’s still no LittleBigPlanet, or say, TimeSplitters. The new daily challenges are the biggest incentive to come back since they advance your rank. They change daily and are a lot of fun to aim for, but the only thing you can do is unlock stuff in the armory with this, and that’s not too exciting on its own, but it’s better than nothing.
Reach is also the best-looking game, but it still doesn’t look up to par, and this is sad for Microsoft’s flagship series. The game looks good technically, but artistically, it’s kind of bland. But there are a lot more open environments and not too many indoor ones, so there’s a lot more to look at this time around. All the same, sounds are recycled as well, so you know what to expect in that department. With a so-so story, characters you can’t get attached to, and a great multiplayer suite, maybe Reach should have been multiplayer only? Sure, no one would miss the campaign, but it’s there. If you want to play through it again, go online and play it co-op, even if you have to, or try the hardest difficulty. Actually, scratch that, it’s almost impossible.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yeah, it's pretty damn awful. Notoriously one of the worst games on the PSP. A 4 was actually being generous.…