Far Cry 3
I was a very big fan of the original Far Cry Instincts on the xbox, which is not the original Far Cry but it was the first on the xbox. It took a pretty common genre and threw a fun covered wrench into it to make it amazingly fun. Then Ubisoft decided they were through with the player having silly amounts of fun in their series so they released Far Cry 2, which took out all the fun bits and replaced it with a serious attempt at realism, the only really good thing being that they left in and improved upon the stealth. Don't get me wrong, it was a good game, it just should have been named something different, instead of Far Cry 2 it should have been African Mercenary Adventure or AMA for short, see how catchy that is? Would have made loads of money without disappointing anyone. But hey, I'm not here to talk about that game, I'm here to talk about it's much better sequel(?) Far Cry 3.
Single player is the focus because in my opinion Far Cry related multiplayer has never been good but I'll get to that later. So the story follows Jason Brody while he quests to not die. Basics are he and his friends are on a tropical island filled with pirates who want to kill/rape/sell into slavery/torture them all. Jason gets caught up in the island "politics" and starts practically leading a rebellion. What is fun is...well everything. You level up by doing normal stuff like completing missions and killing dudes and other fun stuff, put points into new abilities which are all wonderful and useful, and your skill is shown by a tattoo growing on your arm. You kill wildlife to upgrade your equipment such as weapon holsters to hold more weapons, ammo bags, arrow quivers, etc... Speaking of the arrows...you can get yourself a bow which is probably the best weapon in the game, if you get decent at using it you literally need no other weapon, as a bonus you can pick your arrows back up from the many corpses of your enemies. "But what if a truck tries to run me over?" well attach a grenade to the arrow...kinda...it works. The stealth is great, you can hide in a bush, throw a rock nearby to get a guard's attention, then stick a machete though him.
Multiplayer is not...horrible...but it's not really great. It follows the usual *shoot guys and level up your weapons* thing that every FPS is doing these days. Bow and machete stabby move seem a bit overpowered but hey, use it to your advantage I suppose. I don't really know what else to say on this matter so I'll move onto co-op.
I haven't played the co-op yet, yayyy! But I have watched numerous gameplay videos of it and from what I understand is that it plays like a merging of single and multiplayer, but borrows more from single player which I like. So you and three of your friends are all people with questionable but violent pasts and are all working on a boat together, however the captain decides to sell you into slavery or something like that, either way you are upset with him and wish to do bad things to his genitals. So you get a few missions, less than ten I believe, to kill a bunch of pirates unfortunate enough to be between 4 human characters and the end of the level, and do some mini games in between real missions. It also follows the rules of kill guys and upgrade your weapons but at least you share weapons between game modes.
So I'd give this game a 9.5 out of 10 with the multiplayer being kinda meh being the reason for the .5 deduction. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series, enjoys stealthy fps games and enjoy run in guns blazing fps games because it is both.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Battlefield 3
At this point this game is probably my favorite multiplayer game, and I have been a fan of the series for a long time, but I will do my best to see it unbiased.
I'll start with the single-player portion of the game. First of all the visuals are of course amazing, definitely the best when it released, and for the most part they don't falter at any point. The sounds in the game sound right, all the weapons sound different, the rain hitting a metal roof sounds right, vehicles sound proper, you can hear the engine rumble to life as you start up a tank. So all around the game felt, sounded, and looked real. I enjoyed the sway of the weapon as you moved side to side, and the camera bob when running, very realistic. However, the story seemed to jump around in time quite often but it failed to really tell you when something was. For instance, in one mission you witness one of your companions die, but then a few missions later you are apparently in the past and there he is, but the game didn't tell you that, they just leave you to figure it out on your own. The story isn't the most original, single bad guy in charge of a large military force, intentions to set world powers against each other, usual stuff with some interesting points thrown in to make it not a complete copy/paste of a guide of how to make a modern shooter. A few points in the game you are forced to use specific weapons which automatically removes you current weapon(s) which can suck but whatever, not the end of the world. A couple times the game will make you ask "why?" but I'm sure DICE would answer with something about making it work.
Co-op is a nice addition, even though it's more similar to Call of Duty 2's Spec Ops mode than a real co-op. It suffers from the same issue with dictating what weapons you have at certain times as the campaign but again, not a huge issue. Unfortunately on one of the early missions they throw you in the pilot seat of an attack helicopter, and before you say "Oh well I was awesome at flying the choppers in Bad Company 2" they changed the controls again. I assume the helicopters fly more realistically, I can't say forsure because I've never flown one in real life, but they feel heavy and kind of like boats at first. It takes some time but when you master flying them you'll be glad they made them more realistic, it seems to be much easier to do useful maneuvers that can save your butt. Positive thing about the co-op is that you can unlock weapons for multiplayer, it will take a while but hey, it's better than nothing.
Multiplayer is probably the main reason anyone buys this game, not because the campaign is horrible, just because mutiplayer is where the game really shows off. I play this game on the 360 so there are less people per match and the maps are usually reduced by a flag or two on conquest but this isn't a bad thing. It is quite the sight to see tanks, scout and attack helicopters, jeeps, jets, and infantry running around trying to capture/defend objectives. Destructive environments make the game very custom to your experience, and a large selection of weapons to customize and use in your own way in the ever changing battlefield make it a very fun time. Close quarters? Grab an MTAR-21, throw on a silencer, foregrip, and holo sight, or grap a shotgun, semi auto or pump? Or why not grab a powerful sniper rifle, strip off the scope and throw on a red dot sight and a silencer. Long hallway to cover? Grab an M60, toss on a bipod and an extended mag, 200 precise recoil-less rounds heading to your enemies. Really the combinations are vast.
The only real downsides to the multiplayer is that they have servers available to be rented, so there is always the possibility that you are going to annoy the owner of the server you're in and get kicked senselessly, alternately you can rent your own server and dictate the many laws of the game and which maps and game modes you go through. The other downside to the game is that there seem to be issues with servers balancing teams, you can actually have one team with 12 level 3-17s and the other team with 12 level 45-90+ which can get annoying either way, either you win too easy without experiencing much combat or you get a boot up your ass.
My verdict for Battlefield 3 will be a 8.5 out of 10, great multiplayer with minor issues, relatively short campaign with some story telling problems, and an alright co-op mode. For those who are hardcore Call of Duty players, there is a team deathmatch mode in multiplayer which I swear is just like COD but a little different, like a nice merging of the two games. So I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the series, if you don't already own it, to anyone who enjoys good multiplayer, anyone who likes to be able to fly a jet, drive a tank, and base-jump while screwing around, and anyone else who is all for this modern warfare kick games are on.
At this point this game is probably my favorite multiplayer game, and I have been a fan of the series for a long time, but I will do my best to see it unbiased.
I'll start with the single-player portion of the game. First of all the visuals are of course amazing, definitely the best when it released, and for the most part they don't falter at any point. The sounds in the game sound right, all the weapons sound different, the rain hitting a metal roof sounds right, vehicles sound proper, you can hear the engine rumble to life as you start up a tank. So all around the game felt, sounded, and looked real. I enjoyed the sway of the weapon as you moved side to side, and the camera bob when running, very realistic. However, the story seemed to jump around in time quite often but it failed to really tell you when something was. For instance, in one mission you witness one of your companions die, but then a few missions later you are apparently in the past and there he is, but the game didn't tell you that, they just leave you to figure it out on your own. The story isn't the most original, single bad guy in charge of a large military force, intentions to set world powers against each other, usual stuff with some interesting points thrown in to make it not a complete copy/paste of a guide of how to make a modern shooter. A few points in the game you are forced to use specific weapons which automatically removes you current weapon(s) which can suck but whatever, not the end of the world. A couple times the game will make you ask "why?" but I'm sure DICE would answer with something about making it work.
Co-op is a nice addition, even though it's more similar to Call of Duty 2's Spec Ops mode than a real co-op. It suffers from the same issue with dictating what weapons you have at certain times as the campaign but again, not a huge issue. Unfortunately on one of the early missions they throw you in the pilot seat of an attack helicopter, and before you say "Oh well I was awesome at flying the choppers in Bad Company 2" they changed the controls again. I assume the helicopters fly more realistically, I can't say forsure because I've never flown one in real life, but they feel heavy and kind of like boats at first. It takes some time but when you master flying them you'll be glad they made them more realistic, it seems to be much easier to do useful maneuvers that can save your butt. Positive thing about the co-op is that you can unlock weapons for multiplayer, it will take a while but hey, it's better than nothing.
Multiplayer is probably the main reason anyone buys this game, not because the campaign is horrible, just because mutiplayer is where the game really shows off. I play this game on the 360 so there are less people per match and the maps are usually reduced by a flag or two on conquest but this isn't a bad thing. It is quite the sight to see tanks, scout and attack helicopters, jeeps, jets, and infantry running around trying to capture/defend objectives. Destructive environments make the game very custom to your experience, and a large selection of weapons to customize and use in your own way in the ever changing battlefield make it a very fun time. Close quarters? Grab an MTAR-21, throw on a silencer, foregrip, and holo sight, or grap a shotgun, semi auto or pump? Or why not grab a powerful sniper rifle, strip off the scope and throw on a red dot sight and a silencer. Long hallway to cover? Grab an M60, toss on a bipod and an extended mag, 200 precise recoil-less rounds heading to your enemies. Really the combinations are vast.
The only real downsides to the multiplayer is that they have servers available to be rented, so there is always the possibility that you are going to annoy the owner of the server you're in and get kicked senselessly, alternately you can rent your own server and dictate the many laws of the game and which maps and game modes you go through. The other downside to the game is that there seem to be issues with servers balancing teams, you can actually have one team with 12 level 3-17s and the other team with 12 level 45-90+ which can get annoying either way, either you win too easy without experiencing much combat or you get a boot up your ass.
My verdict for Battlefield 3 will be a 8.5 out of 10, great multiplayer with minor issues, relatively short campaign with some story telling problems, and an alright co-op mode. For those who are hardcore Call of Duty players, there is a team deathmatch mode in multiplayer which I swear is just like COD but a little different, like a nice merging of the two games. So I recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the series, if you don't already own it, to anyone who enjoys good multiplayer, anyone who likes to be able to fly a jet, drive a tank, and base-jump while screwing around, and anyone else who is all for this modern warfare kick games are on.
Friday, March 22, 2013
So I have some mixed feelings regarding the new SimCity, although I haven't played it myself, I have watched many videos of it being played...so my opinion may not be as valid as it would be if I played it first hand but whatever. So, EA being the dicks that they are decided that the game should require you to have an internet connection, this I do not understand. See if I made a game I'd be trying to appeal to as many different gamers as I can so that lots of people can enjoy it, with the wonderful profit on the side...but by limiting the customers to those who have a reliable internet connection they are limiting their sales. I mean, I get that 95% of the people who would buy the game would have access to the internet, who doesn't have internet these days? But not everyone wants to play online all the time. I guess I can maybe see it in that by being online you make your city in a region with a bunch of other people and everyone's city status affects everyone's city, and if you were to somehow take it offline then it could create problems with how that all worked cause not your neighbor's garbage collection company can no longer come visit and help with getting rid of your waste. But why not make it so that when you're offline you have a separate city, so that the two cities don't get fucked up. Maybe even your offline city can potentially take up the whole region like in the old SimCity games.
Speaking of which, remember the old games? One of the first games I ever played was Sim City 2000, I remember you could make just about anything with that setup. You could build massive cities, and even copy existing cities, you could even change the way the ground was shaped to be your completely custom city building experience. However, now they give you this relatively small plot of land and get you to build there. The size of the city you can build in this game is literally the smallest allowed definition of a city, I don't get it. I miss the huge expanse of city that you used to be able to make, what the hell guys?
Lastly on my bitch-a-thon is the issues with the servers. I believe they fixed this issue mostly but it doesn't stop me from complaining. So apparently they didn't have enough servers active and such for when the game released so everyone lost connection to the servers periodically. No, you can't release a game which is only playable online and not have enough servers for everyone to play, that doesn't work like that. Battlefield 3 had a similar issue when it first released but I don't remember anyone really complaining, just more of an inconvenience really, it's kind of expected when a big first person shooter releases that they may have server issues, but if they do then you just play the single player or something, no big deal. But you can't do that in this case, you lose connection, you start up again and hope for the best. But like I say, I believe they have already gotten this figured out and fixed so there shouldn't be much of a problem from here on, I'm just complaining because there really shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
Good things are that they seem to have a really nice and smooth system happening here. Everything looks real nice and easy to navigate, maybe a little bit to get used to everything but it all seems pretty nice. They have simple ways of telling you what affect buildings and other structures have on the community, and it seems pretty easy to figure out what you're people want. But again, I haven't played it, so I don't know forsure, but it at least looks like the gameplay is a high point in this game. I also like that you can play with other people, giving you the choice of whether to help them out or sabotage them, just not the choice of if you want to play with them or not. But hey, who am I to judge? I'm not the one in charge of making the game, just the one in charge of writing this blog, potentially playing the game, and then passing my judgement...wait...
Another interesting little bit of info, I read on a website I can't remember that someone messed around in the code and figured out a way to make the game playable offline, something about changing two lines of code, the only downside is that any city you make in "offline mode" can not be saved, so consider that before looking it up. I'd give it a rating but I haven't played it...yet, still on the fence, might wait till it goes down in price first. Either way I recommend looking up some videos on youtube of people playing it, see if you can be ok with the faults I listed above.
Speaking of which, remember the old games? One of the first games I ever played was Sim City 2000, I remember you could make just about anything with that setup. You could build massive cities, and even copy existing cities, you could even change the way the ground was shaped to be your completely custom city building experience. However, now they give you this relatively small plot of land and get you to build there. The size of the city you can build in this game is literally the smallest allowed definition of a city, I don't get it. I miss the huge expanse of city that you used to be able to make, what the hell guys?
Lastly on my bitch-a-thon is the issues with the servers. I believe they fixed this issue mostly but it doesn't stop me from complaining. So apparently they didn't have enough servers active and such for when the game released so everyone lost connection to the servers periodically. No, you can't release a game which is only playable online and not have enough servers for everyone to play, that doesn't work like that. Battlefield 3 had a similar issue when it first released but I don't remember anyone really complaining, just more of an inconvenience really, it's kind of expected when a big first person shooter releases that they may have server issues, but if they do then you just play the single player or something, no big deal. But you can't do that in this case, you lose connection, you start up again and hope for the best. But like I say, I believe they have already gotten this figured out and fixed so there shouldn't be much of a problem from here on, I'm just complaining because there really shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.
Good things are that they seem to have a really nice and smooth system happening here. Everything looks real nice and easy to navigate, maybe a little bit to get used to everything but it all seems pretty nice. They have simple ways of telling you what affect buildings and other structures have on the community, and it seems pretty easy to figure out what you're people want. But again, I haven't played it, so I don't know forsure, but it at least looks like the gameplay is a high point in this game. I also like that you can play with other people, giving you the choice of whether to help them out or sabotage them, just not the choice of if you want to play with them or not. But hey, who am I to judge? I'm not the one in charge of making the game, just the one in charge of writing this blog, potentially playing the game, and then passing my judgement...wait...
Another interesting little bit of info, I read on a website I can't remember that someone messed around in the code and figured out a way to make the game playable offline, something about changing two lines of code, the only downside is that any city you make in "offline mode" can not be saved, so consider that before looking it up. I'd give it a rating but I haven't played it...yet, still on the fence, might wait till it goes down in price first. Either way I recommend looking up some videos on youtube of people playing it, see if you can be ok with the faults I listed above.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Ok, so this is a first person shooter developed by Gearbox studios (developers of Borderlands/2) which is counted as canon in place of a sequel movie. The script was actually written by James Cameron and multiple members of the original cast were brought in to record their voices for the game. This game had a lot going for it, developed by a reputable game company, based off of the unused script written for a movie sequel to Aliens...so what happened? This was one of the most anticipated games of the year, I was waiting for it since it was first mentioned years ago, I was there on the day of release to get my copy, and I was one of the many other gamers very disappointed by it. The game's story is agreeable, it fits the series properly, the weapons look and sound right....then it all falls apart.
Where should I begin in how this game makes my butt ache? Lets start with the obvious, visuals. The game is properly dark, but I think they might have hoped that it hid all the ugly textures surrounding you. The first level is literally the best, after that the graphics just...leave? I don't know what they were using to work the textures in this game but they must have been from a decade ago. Light doesn't always work too well with the textures, smoke/fog effects look choppy, NPCs and objects alike glitch into walls and the ground. Lets say you're playing a game and you enter a new area where everything is out of focus and fuzzy and the ground is higher or lower that the physical ground your character is on, all because the game hasn't loaded the area yet, well that's Aliens: CM. I've actually had a face-hugger sit inside some alien goop on the floor and I couldn't shoot it because the game allowed the face raper to pass through it but my bullets weren't allowed inside. As for A.I. I can say it's ridiculous. Your squad mates seem to never notice the alien(s) trying to rip your face off, but instead spend their time shooting at a box, really. that and the aliens can be found running into walls, getting stuck on railings, or just standing in front of you waiting to be shot. That is if you have any ammo left. Throughout my playthrough I noticed a pattern, either I couldn't find ammo or I couldn't find health/armour. Apparently you only need one at a time, and what you do find is far from the next occurrence.
The multiplayer seems to be the only redeemable aspect to this game. It's not amazingly fun but it isn't terrible. I never got the hang of it truly but I was actually having fun, it seems the game is good when you remove the A.I. and replace them with people.
So I guess my verdict would have to be a 2.5/3 out of 10. I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you are a big fan of the series and/or are a big achievement hunter because the achievements aren't very hard to get for the most part.
Ok, so this is a first person shooter developed by Gearbox studios (developers of Borderlands/2) which is counted as canon in place of a sequel movie. The script was actually written by James Cameron and multiple members of the original cast were brought in to record their voices for the game. This game had a lot going for it, developed by a reputable game company, based off of the unused script written for a movie sequel to Aliens...so what happened? This was one of the most anticipated games of the year, I was waiting for it since it was first mentioned years ago, I was there on the day of release to get my copy, and I was one of the many other gamers very disappointed by it. The game's story is agreeable, it fits the series properly, the weapons look and sound right....then it all falls apart.
Where should I begin in how this game makes my butt ache? Lets start with the obvious, visuals. The game is properly dark, but I think they might have hoped that it hid all the ugly textures surrounding you. The first level is literally the best, after that the graphics just...leave? I don't know what they were using to work the textures in this game but they must have been from a decade ago. Light doesn't always work too well with the textures, smoke/fog effects look choppy, NPCs and objects alike glitch into walls and the ground. Lets say you're playing a game and you enter a new area where everything is out of focus and fuzzy and the ground is higher or lower that the physical ground your character is on, all because the game hasn't loaded the area yet, well that's Aliens: CM. I've actually had a face-hugger sit inside some alien goop on the floor and I couldn't shoot it because the game allowed the face raper to pass through it but my bullets weren't allowed inside. As for A.I. I can say it's ridiculous. Your squad mates seem to never notice the alien(s) trying to rip your face off, but instead spend their time shooting at a box, really. that and the aliens can be found running into walls, getting stuck on railings, or just standing in front of you waiting to be shot. That is if you have any ammo left. Throughout my playthrough I noticed a pattern, either I couldn't find ammo or I couldn't find health/armour. Apparently you only need one at a time, and what you do find is far from the next occurrence.
The multiplayer seems to be the only redeemable aspect to this game. It's not amazingly fun but it isn't terrible. I never got the hang of it truly but I was actually having fun, it seems the game is good when you remove the A.I. and replace them with people.
So I guess my verdict would have to be a 2.5/3 out of 10. I wouldn't recommend buying it unless you are a big fan of the series and/or are a big achievement hunter because the achievements aren't very hard to get for the most part.
Alright, just making an introductory post. I'm making this blog to write specifically about video games because I need an outlet and they seem to be the only thing I'm good at so why not right? I primarily play on the Xbox 360 with a little bit of PC gaming thrown in for variety, I'll likely mention what I'm playing on so that you will know that anything I say is related to that specific version and not necessarily relevant to other consoles versions. So yea, that's what I have to say about it right now. I'll hopefully post something soon.
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