Dead Rising

I played Dead Rising for the first time in a very long time today, and I just have to say: this game may have been great when it first came out in 2006, but it hasn't aged very well.

Review: Shadow Complex (Xbox 360)

"Metroidvania"



Shadow Complex is a download-only game available for Xbox 360 users via the Xbox Live Arcade. The game is a 2D action/platforming game that somewhat resembles old school classics like the Metroid and Castlevania series (hence the nickname some people are using "Metroidvania"). Available for only $15 (1200 Microsoft Points), the game offers good play time and a lot to do over the course of the game. The left analog stick moves your character while the right one aims where you are shooting/looking, so unlike older platformers of the genre you can actually move and shoot in two different directions.

The game is fairly fun, the gameplay works well and you unlock better weapons and upgrades as the game goes on which helped to keep me interested while I was playing (more on that a little later). The whole game takes place in a large, secret underground complex, and as you get more powerful and get new gadgets you unlock new areas you can explore. The platforming part is fun, and there are secrets all over the map (much like Batman: AA) that you can take the time to try to find, which adds some extra challenge and playability to the game. While you are playing the game (not the cut-scenes), the graphics are good and the sound is alright.

This game has its fair share of problems too. The story is garbage. The intro level is a waste, it has only a very minor connection to the actual game. The way the main plot starts is lame. The ending scene and the plot twist are terrible and stupid (yes, not just one or the other, but both terrible and stupid). While the level design as far as platforming and secrets go is good, the levels/areas get very repetitive and everywhere just starts to look the same. Navigating the complex can be hard and frustrating, even with the help of the map. They make you retrace your steps a lot near the end of the game to find things you couldn't get to before, and that part is even more frustrating and boring.

There are some other gripes too, besides the awful story and level/world presentation. The cut-scene graphics didn't look very good to me. Something was just off about the people and the way they spoke. There are several boss fights in the game, and only one or two of them stand out as being challenging or interesting at all. Most boss fights just have you lobbing grenades at the boss until his health meter is gone. Even the final boss fight was incredibly easy (although the idea was interesting). Sometimes I'd kill all the enemies in a room, and come back to it two minutes later (usually back-tracking to try to figure out where the freak to go) and all the enemies would be respawned in their exact original locations, like nothing had happened. That really helps to take the realism out of a game. The enemy AI was also lacking; among other things enemies would often just keep shooting at you from the same place even if you were in cover and they obviously couldn't hit you, not thinking to move or try anything else.

This game got a lot of hype at E3 and other places, and while it's not a bad game, it definitely didn't live up to it for me.

In Summary:

Pros: gameplay, good value (only $15), decent platforming/action, cool items, lots of secrets to collect.

Cons: bad story/characters/cut-scenes, weak boss fights, bad enemy AI/respawn, repetitive/frustrating level design (at times).


FINAL SCORE: 3 out of 5.





Note: All reviews on this site are solely the subjective opinion of the author. While I try to look at media objectively, this is pretty much impossible (everyone has bias whether they admit it or not), so if you disagree with my review please feel free to post in a polite manner and state your opinion. I welcome respectful discussion on my blog and would love to get feedback on my review and also read yours. Thanks!

Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)

Be the Bat


"Wow." That was all I had to say as I played through this game. Everything about this game meshed together perfectly: the action, the graphics, the characters, the voice acting, the environment, the gameplay, cut scenes... everything. It's no secret, I loved this game. I was skeptical at first, but after seeing the great scores on Metacritic I decided to go ahead and buy it, and I am not sorry. This is easily the best game of 2009 to this point. To drive home this point, I'll quote Todd Howard, the executive producer at Bethesda (of games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3) who, when referring to the game on the official Bethesda Blog said "Batman: AA. Best game ever?" The man knows good games, so yes, it's that good.

Enough gushing though. The game is very good, and like I said before doesn't have any big weaknesses. And what makes this game so great is not that just all the individual parts (like graphics, story, environment, etc.) of it are so good, but that they all are placed together perfectly. What the game aims to do it does perfectly, and it doesn't try to do too much where it would strecth itself thin. The game isn't incredibly long, but that is a good thing, as I would rather have a medium length game that is an amazing experience than have a game that starts to drag on too long and gets boring near the end just so the developers could say their game is 20+ hours long. There are things to do after you beat story mode too- there are lots of challenges you can do to test and perfect your skills, and all over the map there are collectables that unlock things you may have missed during story mode. I almost never go back through a game just to collect everything, but this is one of the rare cases where I did. Even that part was thoroughly enjoyable.

The only slight weakness of this game that comes to mind is the melee combat system. The "Freeflow" combat system allows you four different options to do during any combat: attack, stun, counter, and dodge (the X, B, Y, and A buttons on a 360 controller respectively). The more hits you get on different enemies in a row the higher your combo counter goes (x2, x3, x4, etc.) and once you reach a certain number you can unleash some of Batman's special attacks. This in theory sounds great, but there were lots of times where I would reach a high enough multiplier, only to press the buttons for a special attack and have nothing happen. This was really the only part of the game that frustrated me, and it is a minor gripe.

As stated before, the graphics and sound were amazing. The graphics are honestly some of the best I've ever seen on a 360 (or of any HD game). Even my wife, who watches me play video games a lot and doesn't usually stop and notice anything about what I'm doing said at one point "Wow, those graphics are amazing." The sound was top notch too, especcially the voice acting. Most of the voice actors were the same ones from the old Batman Animated Series (which I used to watch a lot as a kid), so it immedietly felt natural hearing them do the characters. Heath Ledger might be the best actor to ever play Joker, but Mark Hamill will (at least for me) always be the voice of any cartoon/CG Joker.

In Summary:

Pros: graphics, sound, story, gameplay... pretty much everything.

Cons: melee combat system can be annoying at times, sometimes the camera can get in the way a little bit.


FINAL SCORE: 5 out of 5.




Note: All reviews on this site are solely the subjective opinion of the author. While I try to look at media objectively, this is pretty much impossible (everyone has bias whether they admit it or not), so if you disagree with my review please feel free to post in a polite manner and state your opinion. I welcome respectful discussion on my blog and would love to get feedback on my review and also read yours. Thanks!

Review: Call of Duty: World at War (Xbox 360)

I'll kick of my first review ever by reviewing a game I've been playing a lot lately- Call of Duty: World at War. You'll notice that my reviews usually will be pretty short; I'll basically just say what I feel about the game and then give it my score. WaW (World at War) is a good shooter with the usual solid and responsive controls and the strategic, realistic (for a game) feel that has become the trademark of the Call of Duty series. It doesn't propel the series to a whole new level and make huge strides in gameplay, but it takes the solid CoD gameplay and adds a few things, and does a nice job where it tries. The new Nazi Zombies mode is amazing, playing that online with friends is definitely the best experience that came out of the game to me. The online match-making is fine, it follows the same formula as previous CoD games, and adds a few new things like dogs and tanks. The dogs are a nice touch, but I absolutely hate the tanks online. I feel like they're overpowered, and if a team manages to get both tanks on a map, forget it. The ability to do the campaign co-op (something I wish Modern Warfare 2 was going to include) is also a great thing that was missing from most of the previous games. The campaign itself was good, the levels were well-designed and challenging. It got a little long and repetitive in some parts, but as a whole it was a decent experience.

So while the game overall is good (maybe even great if you think about Nazi Zombies), what keeps it from being excellent (5-stars) is the fact that whether it's fair to this game or not, it's always going to be compared to Call of Duty 4. Yes, this game adds some stuff, which is nice, but it doesn't do anything ground-breaking enough to earn it that fifth star. Nazi-Zombies is somewhat ground-breaking and I have had a ton of fun with that, but in the end it is basically a mini-game that you cant even unlock until you beat the story (or buy the map packs), and when the game shipped it only included one map for that mode (though now there are 2 more if you buy both map packs for an extra $20). In fact, even though I mentioned mostly good things above, there were some things that weren't as good as CoD 4. The story, while decent, didn't evoke the same feelings (in a good way) as CoD 4, and especially the ending (even though the two endings are fairly similar). The whole story itself and the characters all seemed kind of bland (yes, even the one Jack Bauer voiced). They were given no back-stories, and everything about them was largely forgettable. I cant even remember their names now, and I beat the game under a week ago. While a shooter with gameplay this solid would usually be forgiven for that, (like I said before) this game will always be compared to CoD4, whether or not it's fair to this game. Also, I already mentioned that I didn't like the tanks in multiplayer, and the guns in the game as a whole weren't as good as CoD4's. Maybe they're supposed to be that way since they are all WWII guns while CoD4 is modern (technology has grown a lot in the last 60 years), but even so I felt like most of the guns in the game were throw-aways while there were maybe 3 or 4 that I actually liked using and felt effective with.

As for the graphics and sound, they were both great. No complaints there.

In Summary:

Pros: NAZI ZOMBIES!!!, some new add-ons to matchmaking, gameplay/controls, graphics, audio.

Cons: weak story/characters, tanks in matchmaking, many of the guns in the game are worthless.


FINAL SCORE: 4 out of 5.




Note: All reviews on this site are solely the subjective opinion of the author. While I try to look at media objectively, this is pretty much impossible (everyone has bias whether they admit it or not), so if you disagree with my review please feel free to post in a polite manner and state your opinion. I welcome respectful discussion on my blog and would love to get feedback on my review and also read yours. Thanks!

Reviews

I've decided that from now on I'm going to use this blog mainly for the purpose of reviewing different types of media that I experience. This could be anything, but will mostly consist of video games, movies, television shows, books, and maybe other forms of electronics occasionally. I dont know how often I'll actually want to sit down and write a review of something, but that seems like the best use I can find for this blog right now. I will also still rant about stuff once in a while if I feel the need.

For my reviews, I'm going to use a very basic 5 star system (much like the show X-Play does). 5 out 5 stars is basically perfect (or very close), while 1 out of 5 stars is a complete failure. I wont usually give half-stars, but I do reserve the right to do it in rare circumstances where something really does fall directly between two categories. For a bit more detailed description of my rating system, I'm going to cut and paste a section from the Wikipedia site of X-Play where they describe X-Play's rating system (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Play):

The video game reviews on X-Play use a five-point rating scale, based on such factors as graphics, sound, gameplay, and playability(i.e. replay value). On X-Play's original TechTV homepage,^[10] the ratings system was broken down in the following way:

“

1 - Hated it. Do not buy this game. Not even worth the bargain bin. Run from it. Escape!! Escape!! 2 - Alright. These games are fun, with some good points, but nothing special. There's definitely a few specific things holding this game back. Wait until the price comes down or pick it up as [a] renter to check out some of the things it does right. 3 - Good. Fun to play, pretty solid titles, with a few minor flaws. Most games will probably fall into this category. They're the games that if you like the genre, or liked other similar titles, you might consider giving it a good look. Otherwise, you might not be into it. 4 - Very good. Games that are at the top of all our lists, but are missing that strange intangible aura of perfection, and unfortunately that's keeping them from getting in the realm of the almighty five. 5 - Near perfect/perfect. If you're a true player, these games will undoubtedly be in your collection, or at the very least you'll have played them until the cartridges and CDs melted. If a game gets a 5, and you like the genre, you should buy.

”

In a 2007 episode billed as a "primer on our scoring system",^[11] Adam and Morgan further elaborated on their ratings scale:

• A score of 1 is a game that "has to produce true crappiness, [through] the full cooperation of an entire development team - level designers taking off early to attend their children's soccer games, animators getting so high during their lunchbreak that they can't operate their mouse, and of course money hungry execs who will release anything if they can dupe kids into begging their moms for it."

Example Given: 50 Cent: Bulletproof

• A score of 2 "is such a difficult score to give, because it requires a game that fundamentally fails, but has a barely redeeming charm which makes it untenable to give a 1; it's that Suddenly Susan cocktail of technical competence floated atop a pile of dreck."

Example Given: Genji: Days of the Blade

• There are different levels to a score of 3 - "there's the 3 that's a mix of very good and very bad elements (like Blood Will Tell) or 3's that have a great concept that's poorly executed (like Railroads!), and then there's those 3's that are just churned out because they know people will buy them even though there's nothing original in it (like every FIFA game ever)."

Example Given: Sid Meier's Railroads!

• "There are really two kinds of games that get 4's regularly: these are great games with significant problems (like Dead Rising) and games that are amazing but just aren't suited for everyone (the Warhammer: Dark Crusade expansion or any of the Sims expansions are good examples)."

Example Given: Dead Rising

• Titles that earn a perfect 5 out of 5 are "those magnificent games which, whatever minor flaws they may have, call out to us and say, 'Buy me, you must buy me' ... "

Example Given: Ōkami

During this episode, the hosts also explained why they use a 5-point ratings system, rather than a 10- or even 100-point scale:

Morgan: Our system is better because it recognizes that scores are broad generalizations. Adam: For example, a popular web site gave Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire a score of 3.0 out of 10. They gave Torino 2006 a 3.9. What is the difference? Morgan: Both games suck, all the score is gonna be able to communicate to you is that the game is bad. If you want more nuance on the suckage, you have to actually go and read the review. See, in a 10-point scale, everything under 5 just means 'this game ain't worth buying', so there's no real difference. Adam: And there's no real nuance to a score difference of two- or three-tenths of a point. Our scores at least give sweeping generalizations for you to use as a guide.

DLC and Killian's Red

A quick intro for people who dont know: DLC is short for downloadable content, and is a term mainly used for video game add-ons. You download this DLC usually through whichever console you have's online service (whether it be for Xbox 360, PS3, or PC) and it adds something new to your game, like new levels, characters to play as, maps, weapons, etc. It varies for each game. You also have to pay extra for this new content, and the prices vary from game to game, but they usually fall into the range of around $10 each (once in a while something is free, but it's rare). So for example, there's DLC for games like Gears of War 2 and Halo 3 which consist of new maps for their multiplayer modes. You cannot play these maps unless you buy the extra content. For games like The Force Unleashed, Fable 2, and Fallout 3 (who do not have multiplayer modes, and yes I'm purposely not counting Fable 2's so-called "multiplayer"), there is DLC that adds new missions or quests the the story that you can play through even if you already beat the game.

So, with that out of the way, here are my personal feelings on DLC. I like it, and I think it's a good thing for games and most gamers. Assuming you only buy DLC for games you like (why would you pay for an add-on to a game you hated?), it allows you to play that game longer, and gives games more replayability. But I also think that often we are overcharged for it. Take for example Halo 3's new "Mythic Map Pack," three maps for $10 (800 MS points). Three. Maps. To quote Gob: "COME ON!" (the Halo 3 map pack dropping today is what inspired this rant... I mean post). The entire game of Halo 3 only cost $60 when it came out, and included several multiplayer maps, a whole single player campaign, and, oh yeah, the whole game design which the DLC are based off of itself. It just seems to me that 3 new maps (one of which is only useful if you like to build maps yourself, which I dont) should cost 1/6 of what the original game itself did. That being said, I bent over and took one from Microsoft/Bungie today, as I did in fact spend the $10 to buy the maps. But I am not happy about it. Same thing with Gears of War 2 (which I have not purchased any DLC from)- they have a couple of map packs out that have four maps each and also cost $10 each. For four maps each, that's still a little expensive for my blood.

Also, the Resident Evil 5 DLC got me a little upset, but not because of the price, but because it really should have shipped with the game or have been free. The versus mode is fun, and it was only $5 (400 MS points), but you could tell that the mode was already programmed into the game (the download was less that 2MB and the item in the menu for "Versus" was already there, but with "???????" until you buy the DLC), and they basically made you spend $5 to unlock it. I hope this doesn't develop into a trend where developers release new games with certain modes, maps, characters, weapons, etc. already built into the game at release, but then just make you pay extra to unlock them online.

While most of this post has been negative, I would like to say some good things for a moment. Although I still thought the price was too high, I did really enjoy Fallout 3's DLC "The Pitt" (Operation Anchorage was okay, but the only really good thing that came out of that was the scoped Gauss Cannon). Also, I would like to take a moment and praise Valve, whose upcoming DLC for Left 4 Dead is going to be free. The DLC will add a survival mode where players see how long they can last against wave after wave of zombies (think horde mode from GOW2), and will unlock the other two maps from campaign mode to be used in versus mode (which is something that probably should have been released with the game, but that is why I assume Valve is making it free). Thanks Valve! I hope other developers take note of this a realize that if you're not releasing something actually new for a game, you really shouldn't charge for it.

Lastly, for anyone who likes beer and hasn't tried George Killian's Irish Red, I would really recommend it (especially if you like ales). I had it once a long time ago, but I couldn't really remember what is was like and if I liked it or not, so I went and got some on a whim yesterday. Delicious.

P.S. I didn't feel like spell checking this after I wrote it all, so sorry for any typos/grammatical errors. If you find any, feel free to point them out in the comments and I will fix them.

Check out this website

mikepouch.com

Check out this website for some pretty cool random stuff. It's run by a friend of mine. There's some free music to download.