Joe's Gaming Blog

Weekly Review - Gears of War 3

2011-11-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

27th September

So, the Gears of War trilogy comes to an end after 5 years. Created by Epic Games in 2006, Gears of War was one of the first games on the new XBOX 360 console, and one of the most intriguing shooters of all time. It uses a 3rd person cover system that has been replicated now in many over games including Mass Effect. The game has now come full circle, and its time to see who is victorious on Sera, the Humans, or the Locust.

Story

Gears of War 3 takes place 2 years after the end of the second game, which briefly descibred, has the humans struggling for survival against not only the locust, but also the newly discovered lambent. With the sinking of their main city Jacinto, in order to flood the locust tunnels, many humans live in small strongholds, and the main COG army has all but broken up. However Delta Squad is still up and running, and even seems to have grown with new recruits Anya, Sam, Jace and Clayton Carmine.

The game starts with a flashback to the first game and a dream sequence with Marcus and his Dad, it's quite a nice segment to get used to the shooting system if you are new and a bit of nostalgia if you aren't. When Marcus wakes up he is on a ship with Dom, Jace and Anya, just staying alive, they recieve a transmission that Chairman Prescott will be arriving on the ship despite being missing for the past 2 years. When he does land in his helicopter, the Lambent decides this is their time to strike and attack the ship. Prescott is injured and Delta Squad have to fend off the attack.

It's just not going to be that easy, as a giant Lambent Leviathan attacks the ship, which is more than a match for Delta Squad and 2 silverbacks, luckily the rest of Delta Squad (Cole, Baird, Sam and Carmine) are waiting on the bridge with an ambush. The game then cuts back to 3 hours before, showing Cole's squad attempting to find supplies for the group. It is very clever how they have the 2 segments intersecting each other and you actually feel that you need to get there to help your team-mates on the boat.

The main story involves trying to find Marcus's Dad and find a way to stop the lambent and Myrrah and her locust army. With many twists and turns and tragedies along the way it is the kind of story where all chapters are of a strong standard and make you not want to stop because you want to know what happens next. A really great story one of the best out of all the 3 games.

Gameplay

As I have mentioned before, Gears of War 3 is a 3rd Person Cover Based Shooter System. This means that it heavily places work on taking cover and picking shots carefully. It is also largely squad based, having at least 4 people working together at one time, allowing for 4 player co-op online, meaning strategy can be important, especially on the higher difficulties. The game is mainly combat based but also has some minor puzzles or occasional tedious exploration. However these really don't add much to the game at all. The combat itself is very satisfying, with some gratfyingly gory kills and good force feedback from the guns it can be very immersive.

The game really comes into its own with the multiplayer however, with 6 game modes over 10 maps of normal team deathmatch style games, as wellas Horde mode returning and updated, and an all new Beast mode. The multplayer has 5 players going against 5 enemies in matches such as Team Deathmatch, King of the Hill and Capture the Leader, rather than capture the Flag the opposing teams leader must be captured and held for a certain time limit. The games have an option of choosing from 3 assault rifles and 2 shotguns for the starting two weapons, all with very blanced advantages and weaknesses. There is also a pistol and smoke grenade to start with. Other weapons are placed round the map and can be swapped out. The player is also able to choose from a range of characters to be, however these choices really affect nothing but the looks, so choice is entirely on preference.

Horde mode is rather different than its Gears 2 predecessor, although the same premise is there, to survive waves of attacking locust (and lambent) enemies, however there is now fortifications that can be purchased and upgraded, as well as weapons needing to be bought. The player gains money by killing enemies and helping out their squad-mates, and purchasing upgrades improves the players proficiency with them allowing them to be upgraded further. The game mode also changes as the 10th wave ( and 20th, 30th etc) is now a boss wave with a stronger enemy that needs to be taken out, this boss can range from 5 or 6 Reavers to a Brumak.

The final game mode is beast, while not as long as horde mode it acts in the same way but in reverse. You play as a locust creature, trying to destroy a group of Survivors and COGs, which get progressivly tougher and more fortified. To spawn as a creature costs money depending on the size and effectiveness of the creature, from lowly wild tickers to the devastating Beserker. Money is again gained for taking out enemies and also for detroying fortifications. There is a mixture of normal enemies and Heroes, where Heroes need to be taken out with an instant kill or an execution. By gaining money you have the chance to spawn as more powerful creaturesuntil you finally get that 4th row and access to the powerful but expensive beserker. Like all multiplayer modes, Beast is 5 player co-op.

Graphics

The game improves upon the second game's amazing graphics with new character models that seem more realistic and extrremely well animated, voice work is up to another high standard. The world environments have impressive scale and are very diverse and well created, gameplay rarely affects the graphics, however ther can sometimesbe an issue of texture rendering slowly when first entering an area, as well as the occasional graphical glitch. The biggest of these has to be in horde mode on some levels if a Brumak is spawned as a boss, the Brumak will occasionally just walk through parts of the environment, somtimes causing it to get stuck or sneak up on the players and attacking them through a wall.

Longevity

The story is a good 10 hours long on an ordinary difficulty, longer on Insanity, and with over 40 collectibles to obtain can keep a user immersed for a long time. Horde and Beast are fun game modes that can take up alot of time, especially horde with 50 waves that can last for well over 5 minutes each. There are also a large number of unlockables such as new executions for the weapons, mutators for the campaign or horde, ribbons, medals and characters. Put that with the amazing multiplayer and you'll find that Gears 3 is a very hard game to get bored of, the multiplayer can get tedious after a long while playing it continously, but then there is so much more to do than that.

Story --------------- 10/10
Gameplay --------- 9/10
Graphics ----------- 9/10
Longevity ---------- 10/10

Overall ------------- 9.5/10

Weekly Review - Formula 1 2011

2011-10-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

16th September

Formula 1 2011 is the official racing game of the formula 1 calendar. If you follow formula 1 you'll no doubt know the basics on Formula 1 and all the racers and teams. For those who don't, Formula 1 racing is one of the fastest in the world. The season is split into 19 races all around the world ranging from Australia to Canada. There are 12 teams this year with 2 racers in each team, racers get points for a top 10 finish from 1 point for 10th place to 25 points for a win.

As there is no story mode in this game the score for Story is negligable.

Gameplay

Formula 1 has a main career mode where the player creates a new character with plans of becomming the Champion, however he has to start at the bottom with one of the worst teams in the season. He must prove himself by acheiving objectives in the races such as acheiving or exceeding the final position set for him and being in the highest place at the end of the season possible. Doing these objectives gains reptaion and with enough, the character may be approached by another team offering them a chance to race for them.

This career mode lasts for 5 years, which for most people will be enough to become champion with one of the better teams, however you feel that maybe it would have been better to let the player have more seasons.

There are also other game modes such as a normal grand prix season as one of the real drivers, and also a chance to create custom seasons and single races, there are also many multiplayer game modes. The final type of race is the scenario mode where the player must perform certain challenges with certain cars, unfortunately there are only 7 of these when you feel there could easily be more.

On to the racing itself. The game really gives off a sense of speed with its motion blur and feedback on the camera when the car goes over bumps or collides or any other action that affects the handling. The overall simulation feel is very good, far better than formula 1 games have been, and with the option of turning on Traction control, ABS and driving lines, is clearly aimed at both beginners and experts alike.

The game also includes the new advances in real Formula 1 with new Kers and DRS options for cars.

Graphics

The game has some nice graphics for the cars and tracks, unfortuately they do feel rather dated and are noting compared to other racers available on the market today.
There is a good amount of different camera views that don't reduce the quality, and the cockpit veiw is good to show all the detail on the steering wheel and someof the insides of the cars. Damage is also very impressive, the clipping is good and damage is accurately represented from punctures to broken nosecones.

The graphics for the people are also not quite up to scratch, they have very wooden and clearly looped animations, and the voice acting really isn't good. Another point that has to be made is that no commentry is available whatsoever, while this is a minor issue it seemed to me a wasted oppertunity, I used to really enjoy listening to the commentries in the older games and with advances in technology it should be able to be much better now.

The HUD itself is very neat and well placed, nowhere near in the way of racing but easily viewable for those who want it, however it too has nowhere near as much detail as there used to be, another minor problem that would probably just affect me more than other people.

It has to be mentioned also that the grpahical quality is greatly reduced when it is used in splitscreen.

Longevity

With a 5 year career mode that can have races lasting 2 hours and weekends up to 8 hours, this can be a very long game indeed, over 200 hours for the hardcore fans a season. Add into that the multiple game modes and online multiplayer and there really is alot here for one game. One problem however is how repetetive it can get to be continuously racing, so this is definitely a game best played in short bursts.

Story ------------- N/A
Gameplay ---------- 9
Graphics ---------- 7
Longevity --------- 8
Overall ----------- 8

Weekly Review - Dead Island

2011-10-17T13:39:00.001-07:00

9th September

Dead Island is a game that has been in production almost as long as Duke Nukem Forever. The game was thought to have died in 2009 when the production team stopped work on it, however it was picked up by Deep Silver, the game was released on the 9th September. Dead Island is a survival co-op game, which can be played single player. Unlike Left 4 Dead, the game has a specified story and has elements very similar to an RPG, including level based enemies and loot systems.

Story

Dead Island is set on the resort island of Banoi, a seemingly ordinary holiday destination. However strange things are happening on the island, not least of which that the bodies of the dead are coming back to life and feasting on the living.

The story follows one of 4 characters (the story is unaffected by this choice). Purna is a South African police officer turned mercenary and bodyguard to the rich, however she is less than impressed by this work, having come to the island along with a client. Logan is an ex-football star who was disgraced after he killed a woman during a street race. He has come to the island to get away from the guilt and prejudice of the world. Sam B is a rapper with a fading fame, he has come to the island as entertainment to perform his 1 hit wonder. Finally, Xian Mei is an employee at the Royal Palm Resort on Banoi, who also had ties with the martial arts in her homeland of China.

After being rescued from a zombie attack by the lifeguard Sinamoi the character has to work with other survivors to try and survive the zombie apocalypse as well as escape the island. The story has the player travelling from the Resort area to the city, jungle and prison areas of the island. The story, though starting strong greatly loses its way halfway through.

Gameplay

The main gameplay aspect of Dead Island is the idea that you must scavenge to survive, whether its weapons or parts for weapon plans. These weapon plans allow for the creation of even mroe powerful weapons and these can vary greatly, from explosive grenades to flaming swords. These weapons also decay and break though so there is also also a need to scavenge money to repair these weapons.

Killing zombies and completing missions for the survivors awards experience that can level up the characters, allowing them to purchase new skills and perks. Each character also has a specific fury skill that turns them into a zombie killing machine, and can change the tide of a fast-losing battle. Enemies level up along with the enemies and there are many types of zombies, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and with their own strategies to defeat them.

The missions for dead islands are split into 3 sections, Main missions are missions critical to the characters escape from the island, completing these missions unlock other ones and eventually lead to unlocking new areas. Side missions are missions given by survivors for their needs, usually involving a find and return of an item, these missions offer xp bonuses and new weapons and can only be completed once. There are also recurring missions that involve bringing a certain item to a certain survivor for a small xp or money reward, these missions can be repeatedly completed.

Dead Island also has a co-operative mode where up to 4 survivors can work together to make fighting the zombie horde a little easier.

While all of these gameplay elements make a highly enjoyable game it doesn't make it a difficult game, or even very satisfactory, weapons are far too easy to obtain, as is money, so there is little sense of necessity or threat.

Graphics

Dead Island has 4 large areas where the majority of the games are played, the resort is mainly made up of huts, bars and beaches, many of the houses can be entered and while well designed they are very repetitive.

There can be a large number of zombies on screen at any one time with little graphical reduction, however the overall graphic quality is not too high, and in later levels such as the jungle there are entire sections of poorly clipped and poorly designed graphics. At one point an entire treeline can be looked through.

Character graphics are generally good but the animations are fairly wooden and voice acting is not very good at all, although the facial animations match the words well.

Longevity

Dead Island has a large campaign, at least 30 hours for the main missions and possibly as long for the side missions, there are also secrets and easter eggs to find and many special weapons that can be collected.

However it is not a game that feels satisfying to play again, even with the choice of other characters, the story is very poor towards the end and co-operative does not add much to the feeling.

There is soon to be released DLC fro a new game mode called Bloodbath arena, that acts as a horde mode with zombies, that could be enough for some people to hold on to the game for a few months longer, but this game can be expected to be on the pre-owned shelf very quickly.

Story --------------- 7/10
Gameplay ------------ 8/10
Graphics ------------ 6/10
Longevity ----------- 7/10
Overall ------------- 7/10

Weekly Review - Mass Effect 2

2011-08-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Once again no new games out this week so its another older game that I will review. This one has to be one of my favourite games from 2010, created by Bioware it follows the story of the original Mass Effect that I have a small review on as well. The game is an RPG Shooter, with some brilliant dialogue and other gameplay methods.

Story

The game, as I have said, follows on from the original game after Commander Shepard has destroyed the Reaper Sovereign and the Turian Saren. And when I say it follows on from Mass Effect 1, I really mean it follows on. If you have already completed Mass Effect and have a save file you can carry over your save, meaning that all characters, key choices and decisions are carried over too.

However you can also start the game anew and the choices are made for you, except with the new genesis DLC where you can make the choices. Shepard and his crew are deep within the terminus systems, routing out any Geth left after their assault on the citadel, when their ship the Normandy is attacked by another Reaper, most of the crew escapes in capsules however Shepard is blown into space when trying to save the crew's pilot Joker.

Shepard is revived 2 years later thanks to Cerberus and their Lazarus project. However things are not well in the Galaxy, whole human colonies are going missing with no signs of a fight. Shepard must work with a company he once hated to come up with a solution to this mystery, and save te world once again.

Gameplay

Mass Effect 2 plays as an RPG Shooter. Shepard is controlled by the player while 2 other party members are controlled by an AI. The player can give the AI characters instructions and they will follow shepard during explorations and fights. The combat is a 3rd person shooter system, where the player can take cover and fire round the corner or can simply fire guns blazing. There is also the use of powers such as biotics (telekenisis and such) and engineering attacks that are especially useful on synthetics.

The player can choose from many paths at the start that range from Soldiers that are adept at all guns and Adepts who are extremely powerful biotics. Being victorious in fights, successful in missions, and ruthless in eploration gains xp that allows the party to level up and obtain special perks and new powers.

Another key part to the game is the dialogue options, the player can choose how shepard responds to certain questions and situations, with each option having a different choice. There are also special renegade and paragon options in dialogue that greatly affect the players moral standing, which may lead to new dialogue options and missions.

Graphics

Mass Effect 2 improves upon its predecessors graphics, with many locations from the original game being updated and some of the graphical issues like rendering problems being resolved. Facial expressions have been improved upon for this game and many of the characters are very well animated.

The locations themselves are often in a smaller scale than they were on the first game, however this means that more efforts can be spent on improving details and making the game far cleaner.

Longetivity

Mass Effect 2's story boasts a strong 10 hour+ gameplay for its main story as well as multiple side missions and new difficulties that can be unlocked, for the completionists, to attain all the acheivements in this game would require at least 3 playthroughs.

There is also a large number of DLC missions available, some free and some for between 280 and 800 MSP. These add hours a=onto the game time, especially the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC that includes a new main mission and multiple side missions.

Story --------- 10
Graphics ------ 9
Gameplay ------ 10
Longetivity --- 8
Overall ------- 9

Weekly Review - Duke Nukem Forever

2011-08-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

There was no weekly review last week due to me being on holiday so instead I will be doing 2 this week starting with Duke Nukem Forever. In the 12 years that this game was in production it has undergone numerous graphical updates and developer changes. The game finally came out in June 2011 under Gearbox who bought the rights from Realm Studios.

Story
The game is set a few years after the previous Duke Nukem after Duke saved the worlds babes from death from the alien scum. Now the alien's are back though but not attacking. Duke is a national hero and it seems the aliens have learnt their lesson and decided not to attack.

However one night when Duke's talkshow gets cancelled the alien's make their move, first attacking Duke in his mansion and stealing all the babes once more. Duke chases the aliens and the babes to Dukeburger and finds a mysterious cave where the women have been impregnated by alien babies.

The whole game has a fairly thin story just to attempt to add some sense as to why you are shooting, beating, shrinking and blowing up these aliens and while they add little to the progression of the game, they do add some humourous comic relief famous to the series. Duke has his witty one-liners that are mostly stolen from 90s Action Heroes. They may seem a little bit outdated now but you still find yourself giggling when you hear the cliche lines.

Gameplay

Duke Nukem Forever is a 1st person shooter, and while it remains similar to the original gameplay from the original games it has taken some from modern games. The Ego (Health) bar replenishes over time rather than having to pick up health packs. Duke is only able to hold 2 guns rather than his unlimited arsenal from previous games. There is also more of a sense of needing to find cover and take time, rather than frantic action which I find very unDukish.

There is also a plethora of puzzles and mini-games throughout the game, and while I enjoyed some of the mini-games such as air hockey and pinball, many of them seemed pointless and the puzzles were often frustrating relying on platforming and precision that the game failed to cater for.

The controls themselves were fairly well thought out, many actions requiring the appropriate button press for the situation, while combat controls were easy to get used to and simple to apply. The game does however fall into the quagmire that is Quick Time Events. There are far too many in the game.

Graphics
Considering the number of graphics updates the game has undergone over 12 years the graphics were never going to be great, however there is no excuse for the fact this game looks 4 years out of date on the xbox. Many of textures are poor and some of the environments bland and repetitive.

The one area of graphics that is impressive is the characters, people do look like people, and there is some good motion capture on faces. Duke however falls into serious animation problems and the top half of his body is very static when looking in mirrors and reflective surfaces.

Longevity
The game has a decent length story of about 8-10 hours, however once that is done there is nothign more to really add to it. Completing the game on the higher difficulties that are unlocked seems like a chore and the only other side-mission is to collect all of the Ego items that increase Duke's maximum Ego. Multiplayer is relatively fun but with few gametypes and maps it soon loses its charm.

Score
Story 5/10
Gameplay 7/10
Graphics 6/10
Longevity 5/10
Overall 6/10

Weekly Review - Forza Motorsport 3

2011-08-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

In the days leading up to Forza Motorsport 4 I decided to go back a few years to it's predecessor. Forza Motorsport 3 developed by Turn 10 and Microsoft is self boasted to not be a simulation, but an Invitation, I’m guessing to a party or something cos to me this is definitely a simulation, and a damn fine one at that.

It is going to be hard for me to keep out my personal feelings with this review seeing as how I'm a slight racing game fanatic, all starting with Porsche Challenge, Gran Turismo and the Formula 1 games on the PS1. But anyway let's try to keep this responsible shall we…

Story

… are you kidding. Fine I’ll make one up. You start off as a nobody, a worm, a maggot on the racetrack. Everybody knows you used to be the champion, you had all the fastest cars and best trophies, rich beyond your wildest dreams. But then Forza 2 got outdated and you had to switch to the new one and that is where you are now. Starting with a paltry 10,000 Credits you are forced to buy a car that will haunt you for the rest of your life knowing you will never drive it again but cant bear to sell.

In other words there is no story here, you simply race to win money to buy cars to race to win money and so on. Lets move on shall we?

Gameplay

Right then, first of all the basic stuff. This is a simulation racer, meaning that the developers have gone to extraordinary lengths to make this game as realistic as possible. As you race you can almost feel every bump and crack in the track. When you lose control you really have to fight to gain it again. As with all racing games you have an accelerator and brake button to control speed and you use they joysticks to control steering and looking. There is also an option to turn on manual transmission to manually choose gear changes and even the option to turn on a clutch button, for serious fanatics.

There are also certain assists that can help with beginner drivers and ones who are just getting used to the game, but even most of these are things that you can get in real life such as Anti-lock Brakes and Traction Control Systems.

This game really does take itself to be a true racing simulation and so the parts of the car work as you would expect them to and that includes when they are damaged. If you decide to shift up too late or shift down too early you will break your gear box making it harder to change gear next time. If you crash side on into a barrier you will find your car steering to one side, and if you flip… well you can car dance.

There is also online multiplayer which varies from 8 player racing to online muckarounds with friends. The gameplay in online is similar to ordinary gameplay but some aspects such as damage and collisions are autoset in order to avoid putting off players by players who may cheat.

Graphics

This area is without a doubt Forza Motorsport 3′s strongest area. Simply looking at the tracks themselves would be enough to make your eyes explode, and that is before you see any of the cars. Both track and car have been carefully created to make them accurate and very graphical. Together they work so well together that you can really feel like you are at these places if you didn’t have the HUD, Controller in your hands and weren’t staring at it through a 50 Hz TV.

Damage modelling is fairly accurate, if you have small crash then the damage will be brilliantly modelled to where you crashed according to speed and what you hit. You will also spin out as you would expect but strangely not die. Anyway back to why I said fairly. As I said with a SMALL crash it works well but with a big crash, such as flying headlong into a barrier at 250 mph, well the damage modelling just decides to heap it all on in 1 second, leaving you with a tangled mess of a silver scratched thing that was fine just moments before.

Longevity

This game has a certain amount of longevity especially for completionists and for achievement whores with up to 50 Driver Levels, over 100 Cups and 400 Cars to collect which will take even the best racers a long time. Also with a great online play it can keep many people occupied at least until the next variation of Forza comes to our XBOX screen.

Hence it comes to the final verdict, along with a score and overall opinion. There is no doubt that this is the finest simulation racing game to come out so far, and it will be a tough one to beat, although for people who aren’t into sim racing this game is not one that I recommend as it has a difficult learning curve.

Story N/A
Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 9.5/10
Longevity 9/10

With every area having high scores I found it hard to penalise it with no story, so it isn’t counted in the total.

OVERALL 9/10

Weekly Review - Left 4 Dead 2

2011-07-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

I am going to attempt now to put a games review on this blog every week. Although there are currently not any games out now there have been many out since my last review.

The review I am giving today, because I am incredibly lazy/busy is actually one I had already written for another website that has since gone down the pan...

Left 4 Dead 2 is a zombie survival co-op game which plays as a first person shooter, the main point of the game is that players have to work together to survive.

Story

The world is in chaos after a zombie apocalypse has torn through every country around the globe. There are very few people who are immune to the virus and a few who have mutated from it. In the little town of Savannah in America 4 survivors desperately try to signal for a helicopter from the top of a burning hotel, but to no avail. No they have to get out of the area before the whole building collapses.

And then the game starts, that is if you chose to do the campaigns in the right order. This game consists of 5 campaigns consisting of 4 or 5 levels each. Although the games are set in an order they can be completed in any order and can be played individually from the others. In a way the campaigns are treated as movies, consisting of a poster before playing the levels and credits at the end.

Kill all sons of bitches. That's my official instruction!

The 5 levels of the game are Dead Centre, set just after the outbreak in a mall in Savannah. Dark Carnival is set shortly after this and shows the survivors trying to escape through a carnival, they are rescued by helicopter who turns into a zombie forcing the survivors to kill him and prompting the start of the 3rd campaign Swamp Fever. This campaign is set in a swampy area and ends in a shootout in a plantation area. They are rescued by boat but have to collect fuel for it in Hard Rain, a new twist on the A to B to C to D level design as it involves going from A to B to C to B again and finally back to A. However the dynamic environment with rain means the level still changes. The game finishes with The Parish campaign, set in a suburban area of New Orleans and culminating with a mad dash across a massive bridge to safety.

DLC out in Spring 2010 added a new campaign, The Passing which had the survivors meeting up with the original survivors who are guarding a bridge where the survivors need to go. The only way to lower the bridge is to start the generators from the other side, but the original survivors are less than willing to help as one of their members failed to escape to the bridge (but who?!?!). Cue a trek through the zombie infested town and park to reach the other side and an exciting finale involving all 7 survivors, old and new against up to 3 tanks.

Another DLC added late 2010 had The Sacrifice campaign that was essentially The Passing with a different route. However it also included the No Mercy campaign from the first game and allowed the player to use the original survivors.

Gameplay

Left 4 Dead 2 is a mixture of multiple genres of games. The main genre would have to be Survival Horror as there are zombies and an ultimate aim to survive. Other genres include comedy with many visual and audio humours abundant within the game, FPS as many guns are used and played in first person shooter. Also it is a massive co-op game as it is impossible to survive without team-mates helping you out.

As with the first game there are a few game modes to choose from. Single Player and Campaign game modes simply follow through the story mode either with AI team mates or online help. There is also a twist on this game mode with Realism mode which makes the game harder by removing visual aids to explain where teammates are and conditions as well as game objectives.

Another twist on the campaign game mode is the versus mode which allows other players to control Special Infected zombies trying to prevent the survivors completing the campaign. Basically it involves 2 teams competing for highest points and taking it in turns to play as the survivors. 2 Other games are the returning Survival mode, which asks how long 4 survivors can survive against hordes of zombies, and the new scavenge mode which is a best of 3 round based game playing like versus with 2 teams (one zombie, one survivors) where survivors have to collect gas cans to fill a generator and zombies have to try and stop them

Basic survivor gameplay is like an FPS by showing crosshairs and survivors using guns and melee weapons. Although there are 4 very different survivors to choose from they all handle and play exactly the same. Most gun weapons have a limited ammo supply that should be spared, however pistols somehow have unlimited and melee weapons never break, the chainsaw does run out though. There are other pickups too like health, adrenaline and grenades.

As for the zombies, there are 7 versions of zombie that can be human controlled, each with different skills and controls. There are 4 returning zombies from the first game. The hunter is a stealthy zombie that pounces on stragglers to trap them and start clawing at them. The hunter must be crouching to attack so movement and attacking is prohibited, however they can jump very far and fast. Smokers are zombies with long tongues who snag survivors towards themselves and attack them or strangle them. They have the advantage of a long range attack but a disadvantage that their tongue can break. The Boomer is a large zombie who attacks by throwing up on survivors, this not only impairs a survivors vision but also attracts other common infected to attack the survivors. The Tank is a huge mutated zombie boasting impressive power and health, its very difficult to take a tank down and alot of time. However there is usually only one tank a campaign and one zombie player is chosen to control them.

The Special Infected from Left 4 Dead 2

There are also 3 new special infected in the new game allowing new gameplay and tactics. The Charger is a zombie like half a tank, as in it has one massive arm the can smash and pound a survivor with high damage. They don't have too much health and are fairly slow normally but can charge with an impressive turn of pace. The Jockey is a small zombie that attaches itself to a survivors head and attempts to steer them into danger. Finally there is a spitter who attacks survivors with a noxious acid similar to the boomers bile, the spitter acid damages survivors over time and can cut off choke points and split an otherwise tight group.

Finally we have to take a mention of the AI director, that bastard who sits on his high pedestal and decides exactly how he wants the game to play out. This is a variation to ordinary scripted game and seems to be becoming a new fad in games design. The AI director will look at how players are reacting to the game and change stuff accordingly. For example if you are breezing through a campaign he will send out a tank to slow you down. If you are low on ammo he will hide a gun in an alley. And if you are dying and need health he will… send a tank at you. Now you know why he is a bastard.

Graphics

OK so Valve has never been a company to look for realism in their graphics but despite this, the game looks really good. There is a good range of zombie looks for all but the special infected so it doesn't look repetitive. Building and environment textures look surprisingly realistic and the blood adds more colour to a colourful but dark game. It has a good blend of all the things that make a good looking game.

But like most games it has its problems, mainly graphical glitches and collision problems are what I have noticed, such as a hunter pouncing to the side of you and still getting you or a charger running you into a wall and sending your character backwards only swinging your bodies ragdoll like features back for it to pummel you into the ground. Sometimes there also seems to be too much on the screen at one point and gives a feeling of crowding. Occasionally this can be good as it gives the atmosphere of the game with a feeling of claustrophobia. However when you begin to see graphical low points here it begins to really take away from what you see as brilliant, as you rush by it as fast as you can.

Longevity

With multiple game modes and many campaigns and levels you may think that this game has alot to offer, unfortunately i felt rather disappointed by how quickly it began to get repetitive for me. Pretty soon you would only be playing versus, scavenge and survival as the other game modes lose their touch. It begins to wear away as you play obsessives who know every choke point and tactic in the book.

Huge Explosions are common during a zombie apocalypse

The whole game had alot of promise to offer great co-operative gameplay that remained fun, and it would, if there weren't people online who ruin games such as these, the new DLC adds more game types such as mutation and versus reality. This adds a bit but not much to the game which can go sour quickly and be very aggravating especially when playing on harder difficulties.

Saying that, it's the kind of game that you would need to play in installments, rather than in one go, to keep the excitement running, meaning that you can pick up a new game to play, finish that, return to L4D2 and think “Oh, I forgot how much fun I had with this, I must get my friends together for a bit of 4v4″

So now its time for those crucial scores, well not as crucial as IGN’s maybe.

Story 9/10
Gameplay 10/10
Graphics 8/10
Longevity 7/10

OVERALL 8.5/10

A brilliant game worthy of the first games sequel but where the DLC doesn't add too much for it's large price tag, that is unless you have this on PC rather than XBOX360.

Games Update

2011-07-27T09:43:00.001-07:00

I currently have 2 game projects In Progress:

Legendary Chronicles - Crystal Guardian

This is the first game that i started work on a few years ago. The current situation of this game has rather halted due to me starting a job and other consequences but it is still being worked on and is going fairly strong. The game will be split into 4 parts and part 1 is very close to completion. The other parts have also been worked on and the main area of this game that needs to be done is event scripting and adding the story.

Story

The story is set in a fantasy land called Gaia. The 1st part takes place entirely on the continent of Arthulan, where the Hero finds out about his destiny of becoming a Crystal Guardian just like his father. However the evil Knight Darsil has killed the king and taken control of the kingdom in order to obtain the crystals. It is now the Heroes duty to collect the crystals before Garland can. The start of the adventure sees the Hero meeting with several other characters and trying to find a way to the other continents on Gaia.

The second part sees the Hero attempting to find all the crystals on the other continents he must defeat enemies sent by Darsil along the way. The third part has the Hero entering a lava dungeon following a failed attempt to assassinate Darsil, with the crystals under Darsil's command it would seem hopeless however the crystals have given all their power to the Hero and so are useless on their own, now the Hero must escape hell and use his newfound power to find a way to defeat Darsil once and for all.

The final part of the story is the final confrontation with Darsil and his minions in Pandemonium. There are also more pars to the game than the story including multiple side quests such as finding the summon towers spread all over Gaia and obtaining the summoning stone within each.

Legendary Chronicles - Future Wars

My second game in development actually started as a technical test for a new battle system that has melded with my imagination to create an entirely new game, this game is set in a more modernized steampunk era. The new battle system involves a Fatigue system, where every action takes Fatigue rather than magic points. Fatigue can be recovered during a fight using the Recover command, allowing the user to plan different strategies during a battle.

Story

Future Wars only takes place on a small area of a world, rather than the whole of Gaia in my other game, the area is split into sections, the main city where the beginning of the game is set is Dynamo City ( Name TBC ) where the Hero Zhao starts as a street kid. He later joing the cities military force and specialist squad Rogue. The other members of Rogue; Mikado, Yun, Rojas, Ashrah and leader Lee, can also be controlled during the adventure. Rogue are the only squad to leave the city constantly to deal with invasions of monsters all over the area.

During a monster Hunt, the city is attacked by a myterious force using an army of fiends and androids, Rogue and the rest of the military attempt to push back the invading forces but the city is lost and Rogue are forced to flee. To find out more about the attacker the squad head to the nearest city neighbour, it is here they learn another secret about Zhao, his strange ability to use magic. Their adventure to defeat the unknown force and take back their city leads Rogue to unknown lands at the South of the continent and they all face perils and trials to overcome.

This game, like the other, also includes a large number of side quests ranging from simple, find and return missions, to the enormous Monster Hunter side quests that follows the events of the main story.

Delayed Update

2011-07-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Wow it has been a while... 1 and a half years in fact, I feel it may be time to start up this long forgotten blog as my career hopes in the games industry is still going fairly strong.

I am now at Uni with computing science and this really helps me to get an idea on what makes a good game with graphics and performance. I am alson still continuing with my game itself, now I am doing 2 projects at the same time and progressing on both VERY SLOWLY.

With very few new games coming out I reckon I will start with some recent game purchases I have had as well as more retro games. Soon though (Autumn time) there are many new games coming out I would love to review new.

Expect to see more content soon.

Mass Effect Mini-Review

2009-12-01T09:32:00.000-08:00

This article is on Mass Effect, a game for the XBOX 360 and PC created by BioWare. The main concept of this game is that it is a space exploration RPG with some shooter elements. You play as Shepard, who is a commander of a ship who is also completely unique depending on who plays him or her. For Shepard can be a boy or girl. Shepard can be old or young. And Shepard can look like whatever you want him to, although only if it falls within the 10 face shapes and 12 eye types etc.

This is one of many reasons why I think this is a game to play before you die. Most games struggle in the RPG category from either sound problems or lack of variety. For example in morrowind the only time you saw your characters name was in text. This game however allows you to give your character a completely original first name and yet still utilizes the full extend of spoken word, no part of this is reading except for speech choices and subtitles.

Which brings me on to the speech choices, these are easily set out in a disc shape at the bottom of the screen with up to 6 choices around it. Selecting the choices involve simply selecting it using an analog stick or mouse. Although when you select a choice the description may be only a few words, the character Shepard will actually say more in the script based upon what you say and also previous decisions.

The game allows you to take multiple routes in creating your character, most simply allowing you to be a Paragon or Renegade (Good or Evil), but also letting you choose a character class and background story before the game starts, affecting certain missions or scripts. The main combat element of the game involves 4 weapon classes (Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Pistols and Sniper Rifles). There are hundereds of these weapons ranging form level I to X. Also there are ammo upgrades and performance upgrades for the weapons as well as armour and armour upgrades and a grenade launcher and grenade upgrades.

What I'm saying is that the weapon customization is HUGE, like most of the customization in the game. The game also has massive replayability value by letting you restart the game at the same level and with the same equipment as when you finished. Getting acheivements is a biog challenge in the game as you would expect it to be.

And I haven't even got to the biggest part of the game, the exploration and side missions. The game is set all across the Milky Way galaxy, and includes around 20 different clusters and over 50 systems and very near to 500 planets. Of course it is impossible to land on every planet, so BioWare made it seem realistic, letting you land on planets that we're between certain suface temperatures and pressures etc. This means that you may only be able to land on 1 planet in each system (not Earth sorry, but the moon you can :D). And the size of the planets themselves are very big areas that would take a good 30 minutes to an hour each to ensure you found everything on them.

So in all this game is a truly great RPG experience with enormous customization capabilities and very few technical problems, the most obvious of these is that rendering times for some of the textures are quite slow.
And all these reasons pull together to show why i think this game is a game to play before I die.

RPG Demo

2009-09-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

This is a very early example of a game I am creating in the RPG Maker 2003 application. This example shows how I have managed to add script, name changes, battles and editted the animation. Soon I will be hoping to have completed around 10% of the game and get a demo-type version for people to play.

New RPG Demo

2009-09-25T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have finally made my rpg far enough for it to be a half decent demo game. Of course this is a very Early Production version so there will be glitches and problems but not enough for it to break completely (He said hopefully).
Basic gameplay is similar to Final Fantasy.
If you need help or a walkthrough or want to give me feedback contact me through the forums or just comment on this post.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W5H3BJ5S

[PS2] Final Fantasy 12 review

2009-09-25T11:53:00.000-07:00

Final Fantasy XII is a PS2 exclusive game created by Square-Enix in 2005, to hit shelves in 2006. The final fantasy franchise was its busiest it had been for a long time around this period with many games released very close to one another (Namely 12, 4 Advance, Advent Children, and Dirge of Cerberus) however this game was by far the biggest game title to be released.

Story

Ok so its time to start of the full review, and maybe start off by explaining the cut-scene at the beginning. In this cut-scene the whole affair starts with preparations for a wedding in the Royal City of Rabanastre, in the small Dalmascan Empire. The wedding is between Lord Rassler of Nabradia and Princess Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca (or Ashe), the only daughter of King Raminas.

Shortly after this wedding, Rassler is called into war between Rozzaria and Arcadia over the city of Nabudis, just on the outskirts of Rabanastre. Joining Rassler on this campaign is the Captain Basch fon Rosenburg, and together they lead the Nabradian Army to war. The war scene is fairly brief but incredibly action packed, including air-ship battles with Remoras and on ground battles which are reasonably graphic.

During the confusion Basch and Rassler ride fowards on none other than the mighty steeds called CHOCOBOS. Basch calls to Rassler to fall back, "Not while the Paling still stands!" cries Rassler, just as another cut-scene shows men chanting in a tower to keep the barrier surrounding Nabudis strong, the tower is seiged by Arcadian soldiers and the enchanters killed. And so Rassler and Basch are forced to fall back, although Rassler is hesitant about turning back. In amongst all the indecision an archer gets a lucky shot, and hits Rassler right in the neck.

The next scene shows Basch desperately trying to recover his lords body while fighting off hundreds of soldiers, a lucky explosion allows him to escape and the screen changes to show Lord Rasslers funeral, with the Widowed lady Ashe.

And so the action is finally bestowed upon the player, where he controls a character called Reks, a simple soldier in the Nabudis army who has some connection to later characters. Anyway, this early level is a tutorial level and as this character isnt used any more in the story, except as a reference, there is no point in levelling him up. In the mid-point of the level the player will witness his first AND EASIEST boss fight. Easy because you could literally stand around and not touch the control pad and STILL win. Because as soon as said boss is at 50% health Basch will unleash a QUICKENING, explained later, and take it down to 20% health and thus win the fight. After this the level is more tutorial explaining save crystals and the very useful FLEE feature.

And so we come to yet another cut-scene revealling a shocking twist in the storyline during which the King Raminas is murdered and your own character Reks is also murdered, both by Basch (seemingly oops!) Following this there is a spoken prologue by the Marquis Ondore, explaining how Arcadia won over Nabudis and Basch was locked up and sentenced to death while Queen Ashe killed herself... yada, yada, yada.

And finally the first part of the game is complete, and a whole new story begins, the action returns to the royal city of Rabanastre only 2 years later and the Arcadain army has truly made an impression by putting up thousands of banners and positioning hundreds of guards to keep the "citizens" in check.

Another, thankfully much smaller, cut-scene shows 2 Arcadian soldiers bullying a shop-owner, when a street urchin runs into one of them, suddenly one of the soldiers calls out, "My wallet!, Hes stole my money!". The camera now moves onto the street kid and he meets up with another one, a girl called Penelo. I say kid but really they are around 17. Our street-man friend is finally given a name, Vaan, and it is revealed that he is Reks' brother. The city of Rabanstre is expecting a new mayor from the Arcadian empire, the son of the Emperor.

The main part of the early game is simply involving running errands for a few people in and around the city of Rabanastre, including the start to a side mission that goes on for the WHOLE GAME. The story begins to get interesting around an hour in, when Vaan plans to break into the palace where the new mayor, who is called Vayne Solidor, is being celebrated. He plans to steal something of importance and slip out unnoticed, as do two other mysterious characters.

None of them expect to be caught in the middle of a fire-fight when a group of the resistance against Arcadia, also tries to break into the palace for altogether different reasons, namely assassination. Vaan and the other two theives are forced to flee through the waterways under the palace. The two theives are introduced as Baltheir (or Ffanram Mid Bunansa) and Fran, a viera from Eryut Village. Together the three move through the waterways as your first proper party and eventually meet up with Amalia, a member of the resistance (who looks vaguely familiar).

Eventually this group is captured by the Arcadian Empire and sent to the Nabudis dungeons, under the city of Nabudis. Here they meet up with an unlikely character, a certain Mr fon Rosenberg. Vaan gets angry and jumps on the cage holding the prisoner, and together He, Basch, Balthier and Fran fall into the Barheim Passage and so escape.

After some long trekking and a quick airship ride we arrive in Bhujerba, the Sky City. Here we meet a new character in the name of Lamont, a young boy who is too posh for his own good. We also meet a new antagonist called B'gamnan, who is after a price on Balthiers head. After escaping, Lamont leaves, and the team sneaks aboard a ship called the Leviathan. They meet up with a guard captain, Vossler, who was friends with Basch two years ago. Finally they find a person they have met before, Amalia, who turns out to be none other than Princess Ashe! You have nearly made it out of the airship when you again meet Lamont and Penelo, who is there for some reason I cant remember. And so your party is completed with the 6 main characters: Vaan, Balthier, Fran, Basch, Ashe and Penelo. Lamont, who is really Larsa, and Vossler turn up again in the story as guest characters, but your first objective should be getting off the ship, as the way is blocked by Judge Ghis, one of many Judges who are very evil and powerful but also seemingly expendable.

The story takes you to many different locations such as a Tomb way out to the west, a large open plains to the south, the city of Arcadia in the north, and an enourmous tower called the Pharos in the East. Lastly there is a port very late on in the game called Balfonheim where you meet the only other character to act as a guest, a pirate called Reddas, who rules, and you which could stay with you forever and ever.

The absolutely final point I have to make involves a point much earlier in my review where I stated Basch "seemingly kills the King Raminas and Reks." I say seemingly for a good reason. Basch has a twin brother, Gabranth, who has been corrupted by the Empire and turned against his home country, he took on the role of Basch when he was captured and killed the king, then pretending to be captured later on.

Gameplay

Gameplay in Final Fantasy is traditionally an RPG adventure where battles are thrust upon when you are wholly unexpecting it. The fighting element in Final Fantasy 12 is COMPLETELY different and yet somehow still holds elements of tradition. No longer do you run around on an empty world map, instead the maps are split into two categories, Cities and Field.

City maps are simply where the game takes you inside a city or village and the screen only shows Vaan as the character moving around. You are able to talk to many of the inhabitants and interact with lots of objects such as gates and doors. Weapons are not shown and there is never any threat of fight. Field screens differ in several aspects. For one thing there is now your whole active partyof three visible as you move around, one character is the leader and he is the one you control. The other memebers simply follow around like obidient dogs. That is until an enemy is spotted.

As I said before battles are no longer random, (nearly) all enemies are visible before you are attacked giving a small chance of running away before a battle even begins. This can be a valuable asset to the game as sometimes some enemies are just too powerful or you are trying to CHAIN enemies. Enemies are also given some element of personality, which are driven simple by whether they are neutral or aggresive. Neutral enemies will ignore you until you attack them, or occasionally other conditions are met. Aggresives enemies will attack as soon as they see or sense you. Of course depending on a targets max range this can vary quite a lot.

Which now brings me on to another new aspect of the game, Gambits. Gambits are like a kind of rules which you can make your characters abide by. They are created by unlocking Gambit slots on the LICENSE BOARD, and by buying Gambits from specific slots. Gambits consists of two parts, target and action. This is farily self explanitary, assuming the target is set to NEAREST ENEMY, and action is set to ATTACK, then the character will attack the nearest enemy. Every character has his or her own set of Gambits that can be set in over 1000 different ways and combination. Gambits are also stacked, meaning that the first gambit is given highest priorety and the lowest will only be used if no other gambits are active.

Gambits allow for a good use of strategy but cannot be used without a set of actions to be used with them. Some actions, such as attack and items, can be used straight away. However many others have to bought and unlocked on the LICENSE BOARD. The license board acts as a new way to unlock abilities in Final Fantasy 12 and is used by spending LP. LP is gained by defeating enemies in the field. Most enemies only drop 1 LP, however bosses and MARKS drop much, much more. Every character has their own license board and every license board is identical, however it would take a very, VERY long time to unlock everything so its best to specialise charcters upon seperate routes to start off with.

The license board controls the magic(k)s, accessories, armour, weapons, TECHNIKS and AUGMENTS that a charcter can use or equip. As soon as a character has bought the piece on the board they can start using whatever is on it. That is assuming that you have bought the item that it is connected too. Preety much everything is goverened by buying the item first from a shop, from Magic to Techniks, not to mention weapons. In fact there are very few things you dont have to buy in this game. Now to mention two parts that you may be confused about and wondering what the hell they are.

TECHNICKS are special moves that are different to magics as they do not require Magic Points to cast them, these include a scan like technik called LIBRA, and skill like techniks such as STEAL. Augments are one of the only things that are used as soon as they are bought on the board. They govern your characters base stats and open up gambit slots. Most of these are not worth getting early on n the game such as the gambit slots however some are indespensible, such as swiftness, which speeds up the ATB bar, and HP+, which is self explanitary.

The last thing to mention about the license board is there are secret squares such as Quickenings and Espers. Quickenings grant the character a POWERFUL magic based attack that can be chained together and conclude into an even more powerful finishing move. Espers are similar to summons, but these are monsters who must be defeated in order to add them to the license board, and then your arsenal. The only other point on the license board is that although you can tell the type of sqaure, you cannot tell what is on the square until you unlock a square next to it. However the board is grouped together very nicely and it makes sense as the easier items are in the middle whereas the best squares are on the edge.

Finally we move onto Magic itself. In this game magic is referred to often as MIST. Your MIST charge decides how often you can use magics and this bar gradually refils as you around, or perform other actions when you get certain augments. Max Mist gradually increases as your character levels up, but it can also be doubled, and even tripled when Quickenings are gained and add another mist gague (a max of three quickenings per char). Mist is also used to govern Espers and Quickenings, and these will be the most damaging to your remaining MP, one Quickening or Esper can consume 1, 2 or 3 whole mist gagues.

Other tahn that gameplay follows very closely to traditional Final Fantasy RPG elements. There is still an ATB (Active Time Bar) that must fill up before your charcter performs an action. Magic is governed by the rules of weakness and strengths, bosses are exceptionally powerful and have ridiculous amouts of HP in later stages, and the Max damge per normal hit is 9999! Max health is TECHNICALLY 19998 because of a magic called bubble which doubles HP.

Graphics

In terms of overall graphics this game is very well made, a lot of detail is used when creating cities and the fields, monsters move as you would expect them too, even if they look supremely strange. Characters are slightly poorer in animation but still a lot better than most games on the PS2. The cut-scene graphics are really impressive and the English dubbing is very close to what you would expect to be normal.

Where this game truly comes into its element is in the sheer size of the game, when you first move around in the ruined gorunds of the Nabudis place you can see the detail stretching a long way all around. This becomes even clearer when you reach open spaces such as the Dalmasca Estersand or the Tchita Uplands. This is contrasted very well by some of the more constricted levels such as the Great Crystal or the Pharos. All in all the entire game could be considered to be like the enormous map that you can see on the world map screen, even though you only explore a small part of some of the areas, it is clearly enough. Any more and it would be too much of a slog through repetitive landscapes. Despite the size of it already the developers have done well to make every part look and feel unique, every map has a different layout and each part of the map is detailed in a different way.

I now move onto the areas such as towns and the citizens. Although you can clearly tell that all the women/men/children/moogles have been modelled upon the same sprite, the diversity of the detail means that every place seems to have its own cultural status that is clear to see, and the dialect adds to that touch (although why Cockatrices are Cockney I'll never know).

Sounds

So now we move onto the music and sound effects of Final Fantasy. The main music for this game goes back to basics and sounds very reminiscent of Final Fantasy 1, 2, 3 and 4. The title music for this game was created and produced by Nobo Umetsu who had recently moved away from Square-Enix and so this was his only contribution. Overall music is normally based upon the terrain and does fit in very well, although some of the tracks can be rather repetitive and some tracks are used in more than location, also some of the tracks can be quite annoying to listen to too long while some are drowned out altogether with Sound Effects.

The Sound Effects however are very near to perfection, footfalls sound like foot-falls and are affected by sand, snow, echoes and such the like. When swords connect they make a satisfying THWACK sound. Blocking gives the sound of metal on metal while dodges yield a light yet effective whoosh. Characters makes realistic noises when they swing swords or are hit, and the monsters sound like they should do in the same way as they move like they should do.

One aspect of sounds where I am very indecisive is in the voice acting. In general the voices are very good, with some exceptional performances, namely Gideon Emery as Balthier "The leading man." There are still some low points. Vaan suffers from main character awkward voice symptoms as seen with Tidus, Raiden and Sora from KH. Fran has an annoying speech impediment that you feel the game could have done better without and the Arcadian Army is VERY BRITISH. All the voices also suffer from an echoing seemingly from recording that is glaringly obvious. It makes me wonder if it's only due to the dubbing and the original Japanese version sounds alot better, but as I'm not likely to find out I'll leave as a low point.

Lifespan and Replayability

The story in Final Fantasy 12, as you may have gathered, is very long indeed. In fact even for some of the more expert gamers they will be looking at 60+ hours at least! And that is not even including the side-quests. In total there are 23 side-quests in the game, ranging from a small quest requiring you to sell bottles of beer to a full scale game of Monster Hunter style that runs through the whole game. The fact is that these side-quests are COMPLETELY optional, except for the start of The Hunt, and all but 1 can be completed at any point in the game. Some are actually best left until the later part of the game, especially a certain MARK, as part of The Hunt, that has 50 MILLION HP.

Including these side-quests the game easily exceeds the 100+ hour mark, but the fact is that this does not make the game boring. Sure some of the battles begin to get repetitive, but the endless supply of monster and the vast bestiary of monsters allows for new strategies to be tried and adopted, then changed. As the license board does take a good 80-90 levels to fill out completely you wont have access to eveything until at least the end of the games enjoyability rating, and that is high!

The only problem with this game and pretty much every Final Fantasy is guilty of this, is that in the final battle it is IMPOSSIBLE to go back. When its over, it is over. There isnt even an option to start again with new modes. All it does is show a game over screen, staring at you until you soft reset or turn your console off all together. Mind you after playing 150 hours worth of RPG you may have forgotten the finer parts of the story and which to re-imburse your memory with that EPIC BOSS BATTLE. Or maybe you made a mistake so you couldnt get the ultimate weapon in the game, so you have to start again. At least there is more than 1 save file, in fact theres 50, so you can keep your ownage file and just start a-new.

Ratings

And so we come to the final part of my review, the all important ratings. If I was being biased I could easily give this game a 10. But as I am impartial I will have to accept the good and the bad. The good, a truly epic and incredibly vast story. Supremely good animations. Remarkable size and open-ness of the field. Excellent Sound Effects. The Bad, some poor voice acting, lack of replayability, occasionally repetitive.

And so now for the all important score...

I give this game...

9.7

I feel this is fair and I have come to the end of my review, final words... fond of RPG's? Got a PS2? GET THIS GAME!

[PS2] Dynasty Warriors 5 review

2009-09-25T11:25:00.001-07:00

The Dynasty Warriors series by Koei, started on the PS1 as a simple beat-em-up with weapons, kinda like Soul Caliber. With the second in the series it changed to a more RPG style slash-em-up in big maps. This 5th version of the series has currently the most characters, stories, stages and weapons.

Cover art for dynasty warriors 5

STORY

The main story in this game is based upon the book Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, set in ancient China during the collapse of the Han Dynasty, the land is split into 3 main kingdoms: Shu, Wu and Wei (and technically the Nanman as well). The actual story progresses differently depending on which character has been chosen during the story mode, a change from the other games which mainly chose stories based upon the kingdom chosen. The character will then progress through 4-6 stages where the idea is to complete a main goal, although it is also basically killing as many enemies as possible .

With every completed stage the character will become stronger and gain new skills and weapons to use in the next battles. At the end of the story-mode the overall score is taken for the character and recorded, as well as opening new characters and stages in some situations. In total there are over 40 characters and over 25 stages.

GRAPHICS

The overall graphics of the game are as could be expected in the later part of the PS2s life. The essential textures of the world are very decent and character graphics are too, although they are nowhere near lifelike.

As for animation, the movements are very good and fluid, while some glitches do occur, the whole game is made very well. Voice acting is also really good and dubbing has been performed as well as other Japanese made games, you can decide if that’s good or bad.

GAMEPLAY

General gameplay starts in the preparation screen before the battle, deciding which weapon and items to equip on your character can be a vital turning point between victory and failure. There is also a change in the way bodyguards are included in this game. In previous games (except 1) you chose a class for your bodyguards and then chose how many to have depending on your characters class. In this game you only get one bodyguard, however you can choose them from a choice of up to 8 with many different classes and skills, making the choice more personal affair.

Some gameplay imaging, take note of the kill counter!

When all is chosen the battle begins, with the main idea to be fulfilling the victory conditions, usually killing the enemy commander, while making sure to not fulfill the defeat conditions (usually your commander being defeated). The game will also end if your character dies (or your partner in 2 player matches) and if the time runs out, which changes depending on the size of the map.

The game also tries to add an essence of strategy to the hack and slash gameplay by having different bases that help your team and hinders the enemy, while also having morale for officers which makes them harder to fight if they are winning. This usually will make very little difference as they will still eventually fall through button bashing.

Which brings me onto the controls. Attacks are easy, one button for fast attack, one for strong attack, one for jump and one for a musou attack, musou is a very powerful attack that you can only perform when the musou bar is full, this fills through your character being attacked, or it refils constantly if your character is in critical health, at this point your character will also perform a much stronger and longer attack.

There is therefore going to be an element of button bashing to do attacks that are effective, however this is particularly less effective at the harder difficulty levels and therefore more advanced tactics are needed, such as combos. These are performed by mixing fast and strong attacks, and the better weapons allow for longer combos, up to 7+ attacks for the best weapons. There are also other tactics that can be used such as blocking and counters.

LIFESPAN

The game essential storyline is a very short game, however taking into account the number of characters it all adds up to a long game. There is also other elements such as collecting all the items and also maxing out character levels and collecting the best items, this game offers quite a long playtime.

SCORE

Story: 8/10
Graphics: 6/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Lifespan: 8/10

Overall 7/10

Check this website

2009-09-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

OK so I havent blogged for a while, but I do have 2! new reviews for this website that I will put up shortly. I also feel that it is partly my oblgation to do my part in supporting a certain website:

www.moretothegame.co.uk

Be sure to check out this website if you are into gaming. It is free to sign up to the forum so theres no reason not to.

Jonobrow

Final Fantasy 3 (DS) review

2009-06-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

For many years now Final Fantasy has been an iconic name in the RPG genre. This game is one of the many remakes of the original games improved with updated graphics, innovative new gameplay and ultimately an enjoyable experience... all on two 5 inch screens.

Story

All Final Fantasy stories a re pretty immense and follow many different themes; FF7 was environmental, FFX was emotional and FFXII was political. FF3 however sticks to a more traditional theme and is a battle of light versus darkness. It tells the story of 4 orphans, brought together by fate with the game following them attempting to return the light to ancient crystals.

The game then throws in a twist and you realise that the game is actually much deeper than that, and the little continent you presumed you were stuck to is actually only a tiny part of the real map. You just never know with final fantasy games, just what waits around the next corner.

Lifespan

Final Fanatsy games are reknowned for their massive main quests and multitude of side quests, and this game manages to fit half that criteria. On a first playthrough the main story is 30 hours plus. However this game lacks the side quests, as I have found only 1 so far.

1 feature in the game which adds to the life is the player being given the ability to change the characters jobs and gaining skill in all areas of fighting, meaning time could be spent levelling up and trying to create an ultimate fighter.

So this may not be the longest final fantasy game out there, but it is still longer than alot of games available on the DS.

Graphics

Considering the console, the graphics would never be expected to jump off the screen, however it has some of the best graphics the DS has seen and the opening movie truly shows what the DS can be capable of. The 3D graphics add alot to the gameplay allowing movements to look very fluid compared to other final fantasy games (lower than 7).

The battle system is also in 3D and is very similar graphic-wise to Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1, maybe just a little less sophisticated.

One thing is for sure, on a different console such as the PS3 or XBOX 360 this game would not have got the good engines most games get and therefore would not have the graphics you may expect from those consoles. It does push the DS's limits to the boundaries and work very well on it. A good job in a difficult review section.

Gameplay

The DS allowed for a new style of gameplay with the dual screens and touch screen. There are two ways to play this game, either with the buttons or the stylus and touch screen. The basic gameplay involves traditional Final Fantasy elements; Field movements, town movements and battles. The battle system is turn based meaning that you select your characters actions and
they perform the moves in an order depending on speed stats.

The level system is as simple as ever, winning battles gains experience and when enough exp points have been accumulated the character will gain a level. This game also includes an additional element of job levels. As I explained before the jobs of the characters can be changed and as the story progresses more jobs become available, however it takes time for your character to become a master at his or her job at they have to gain job levels in order to perform to the best of their abilities. Job levels are increased in accordance to number of battles, not experience, and there is a transition period when a character changes job types.

Actions during battles are decided by these jobs, some jobs allow the use of magic while others simply allow for a stronger attack or defense. One major difference in this game from most others is the way magic is used. Instead of having a Magic Point (MP) gauge, magic is split into different levels (from 1 to 8) and each level has 3 black magics, 3 white magics and a summon. Each level is then given a certain number of points depending on the character's level and that shows how many spells of that level can be performed, all magic uses 1 point. Naturally Higher level spells will have less points available than lower level spells (until later in the game *hush hush*).

In all they have used the DS's abilities well by allowing the players to use the touch screen, however there are no touch screen/microphone specific features in the game, a negative point, as games which include these are what makes the DS unique.

In conclusion, Final Fantasy 3 really does show what makes Final Fantasy an outstanding franchise with the success it has today, and the port onto the DS makes the game better in almost every way. There are several places where you feel Square could have made more improvements but maybe they are keeping all their attention on Final Fantasy 13!

Ratings

Story *********- : 9/10
Lifespan ********-- : 8/10
Graphics ********-- : 8/10
Gameplay ********-- : 8/10

Overall ********-- : 8/10

Welcome to my blog post

2009-06-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well I have finally got round to making one of these, and here is a quick brief on what my blog will contain. Quite obviously the main focus will be on games including reviews, screenshots and maybe some hints and tips for certain games, I will also include some movies in here.