Just to prepare for Fallout 4, I replayed Fallout 3 though Fallout: a tale of two wastelands as the original game did not age well as the RPG elements, game crashes, game bugs that crashes the game or run, and out-dated mechanics. Thankfully, mods help extended the life of old games and adds more replay value. However, the system is still dated, meaning even modded the game still crashes occasionally as the games where made on a buggy engine.
The player stars as the vault dweller who was frozen in time just as the nukes landed just outside his home. He (or she, even tho the male is heavily advertised at the start of the game) wakes up two hundred years to a war-scared Boston harbor, which is now over-ran with raider, super mutants, and new enemies know as the synths, A cyborg race inspired by modern Science fiction novels. The player must find their lost child, as Shawn was kidnapped by the institute while murdering your better half! Oh, it's on!
Game-play wise, it's basically fallout next-gen as it was intended, but more streamlined so the shooting mechanics and SPECIAL attributes. I personally welcome the change, as it doesn't require the annoying number system while it prevents players to become over-powered early on. For example, in Fallout 3, I was able to be over-powered as stealth was broken as balls as the perks and the stealth-suits and Stealth-boys kill the difficulty of the game. While the Stealth-boy might return later as DLC, stealth-boys have been nerfed to the point that the player use them just to escape. However, skills like Gun-nut and Science have been boosted as they can be used to make adjustments to your weapons in crafting, making silencers to your shotgun to even using the skills to make your settlements.
Oh right, the settlements! When you start the game, you meet The Minute Men, the small army of the game. The players can optionally make settlements that has benefits such as running shops, farming food for those with iron stomachs, providing shelters and giving them jobs, and recruit settlements to join The Minute Men. While it is tatted on to the game, it dose help give experience bonus while it dose seem like a time-sink. They also provide reoccurring missions that can help level your characters, but that tends to lead to tedious grinding and you're better off doing other side quest, even though they can give you weapons on the side.
While on the field, the players can also face special enemies from rad-roaches to raiders that can drop a special weapon or special armor pieces that the player can mod later. However, they can be very annoying as they tend to mutate, a way to pad out a simple fight and making them into boss characters. Be prepared with at least one heavy weapon, as they tend to appear when you least expect it. Seems luck was heavily boosted in this game, as having your luck on one makes it challenging. Just beware the death-claws, as they're still the deadliest in the series!
However, while I personally didn't mind the changes, there are some flaws with this game that can break the experience. For one, they gutted the karma system for a like and dislike system with the fractions system. And yes, the Brotherhood is back but it's not the one from fallout 3 but instead from New Vegas. Which begs the question, where has all the cowboys gone? It differently reestablish the gray of war where no one is truly evil, but not everyone is good, but to those it means being evil is pointless. I don't mind as I'm not entirely a genocide player, especially since Under-Tale shows how scary that is! This game dose the "more is less" approach, which can either improve or hinder a game. Oh, and it doesn't shag-shame you for sleeping with everyone and takes the Saints Row 4 approach. Post-Apocalypse anyways.
Another problem that the conversation has been dubbed down thanks to the voice acting, which is another hit-or-miss problem with the game. Only four conversation choices which no matter which you choose doesn't really matter and lays no real impact. Sure, speech dose help getting more info or at least give you an alternative option, but there needs to be more. It also doesn't help that your partner's AI can be terrible for stealth gameplay, block doorways and hallways, and tend to get you shot more than often. Thankfully, there's perk for that called Lone Wanderer that boost the player while they're alone.
If this isn't the game for the players that are in mind, I would recommend getting Wasteland 2, as it is based off the original Fallout series, but if one want a first-person shooter that is fun, this is one's game. This game might be literately be Skyrim with guns, this game is at least better optimized than the previous games before it. It's more next-gen fallout, just better streamlined and miles-may-vary type of game. Try it before you bye, and if liked, get it and finish it. Otherwise, Wasteland 2!
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Beastly Bash: WORST GAMES of 2015~!
These games reminds me that the game industry really needs a lobotomy when it comes to crappy main-line titles that have hit this year. As the rules goes, no easy targets, which means Mario Party 10 wont be on the list since I personally felt like they been garbage since the Nintendo Wii days. No, these games has to be made by the mad men behind the corporate commanders who only exist the milk the cash cows, or in this case, to oil out the whiles in the world. No offence to the good game devs that remember that fun's the main focus of the industry, it's just the Xbox launch really brings the evils running about. And now the worst games of 2015!~
1) Alone in the Dark: Illumination
Ever since the "re-imagination" of the series within the dying age that was the Xbox 360, Atari has really butcher the series that invented the survivor-horror series which Resident Evil sorta copied from if Sweet Home didn't existed. The game is a buggy, unfinished mess, as it tries to cash in on the franchise where Resident Evil 6 fails in comparison. However, we all know how that ended up. They might as well bury the game as it is like the ET buried within the Sahara desert.
2) Hatred
Trust me that using controversy just to sell a game is one thing, but trying to sell a repetitive third-person shooter is another. Pushing the controversy aside as it's a way to help boost their sells, the game gets really boring very fast. While some say that it's this generation of Postal, even postal is more colorful than Hatred, as Postal Dude's personality helps breaks the ice of the gameplay as his banter helps absorb the players. If I needed to kick a buch of balls, I'll stuck with Saints Row 2 and 4; Thank you very much!
3) Star Wars: Battle-Front
While the games are either bad on a Technic level or a moral level, this is so wrong on a personal level to those who love the Star Wars franchise. This is a cash-grab from your favorite game business villeins EA Games while Dice handles the gameplay. This is the same issue that have ran the Spider-man games to the ground as Dice has been worn down on the franchise. A ten Dollar pay-to-win weapon, no real single player, four maps, and a ton of DLC content on its way. On a personal note, I would rather recommend the new Star-Wars movie that is coming out this mouth. Seems EA is not EA without the worst company of the year reward. I hope you guys missed it since Ubisoft won that last year, because bugs and yearly tittles...
4) Tony Halk's Pro Skater 5
There's a reason Tony hawk dyed down after the skate-board craze after the play-station days. Back then, this series as well as Underground was very popular, that is until Underground 2 released with mixed reviews and the series went down from there. This game is a buggy piece of sadness, eating away what little was good about the franchise, as if there was anything else left. Ugly graphics, bad settings, and uninspired music and so many technique issues. While it's not Tony Hawk's Ride, this is not a skating game. At least Actionvision worked with Platinum games with Transformers, so check that out instead? Still, Actionvison ladies and gentlemen...
5) The Devil's Third
This is a game that everyone forgot, and personally, it's a good idea too as this was at the last E3 stream on Twitch.tv! As I watch the frame-rate chug during the demo last year, I knew that this would be on the worst games list to the point that Nintendo stopped advertising the train wreck of a game. How did they turn the action-combat bad here? Repetitive melee combat, cliches out from some bad action flick, bad visuals and sound effects, and in the end comes as underwhelming experience! There is online multiplayer, but that is the worst part of the game as it is full of micro-transactions! Pay-to-win by buying power-ups as it milks the whales of their money. At least they did fix the frame-rate issues? No, it's still a mess...
6) Cartoon Fighters
Really? Someone is trying to resell M.U.G.A.N. on green-light and the game wasn't originally his? What kind of scams are people running these day!? For those who don't know, Mugan is a free fighting game where programmers make their custom fighters and install it into the game to compete into other competitors. There has been some creative to lewd characters on that game, but now some scam-artist is trying to pass it off as a fighting game not made by him. I seen some cratice stuff mugan as dose as making A great DBZ fighting system that even the original Street fighter dev couldn't manage when they tried. However, this is not how you mugan! I would have got the dev himself release the game with a workshop feature to add-on fighters. perfect timing since of STeam Link was released this year, so I'm calling you out, MUGAN devs! Make THIS FTP game happen! Otherwise, screw green-light...
Well, this year have gone and passed. Year's revolutions where at least almost met and Christmas is coming soon! I'm going off for the rest of the year until January to prepare as the holidays can cause a man to go crazy at this time of year. Until then Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Years and at least have a designated driver when you head out with your family.
1) Alone in the Dark: Illumination
Ever since the "re-imagination" of the series within the dying age that was the Xbox 360, Atari has really butcher the series that invented the survivor-horror series which Resident Evil sorta copied from if Sweet Home didn't existed. The game is a buggy, unfinished mess, as it tries to cash in on the franchise where Resident Evil 6 fails in comparison. However, we all know how that ended up. They might as well bury the game as it is like the ET buried within the Sahara desert.
2) Hatred
Trust me that using controversy just to sell a game is one thing, but trying to sell a repetitive third-person shooter is another. Pushing the controversy aside as it's a way to help boost their sells, the game gets really boring very fast. While some say that it's this generation of Postal, even postal is more colorful than Hatred, as Postal Dude's personality helps breaks the ice of the gameplay as his banter helps absorb the players. If I needed to kick a buch of balls, I'll stuck with Saints Row 2 and 4; Thank you very much!
3) Star Wars: Battle-Front
While the games are either bad on a Technic level or a moral level, this is so wrong on a personal level to those who love the Star Wars franchise. This is a cash-grab from your favorite game business villeins EA Games while Dice handles the gameplay. This is the same issue that have ran the Spider-man games to the ground as Dice has been worn down on the franchise. A ten Dollar pay-to-win weapon, no real single player, four maps, and a ton of DLC content on its way. On a personal note, I would rather recommend the new Star-Wars movie that is coming out this mouth. Seems EA is not EA without the worst company of the year reward. I hope you guys missed it since Ubisoft won that last year, because bugs and yearly tittles...
4) Tony Halk's Pro Skater 5
There's a reason Tony hawk dyed down after the skate-board craze after the play-station days. Back then, this series as well as Underground was very popular, that is until Underground 2 released with mixed reviews and the series went down from there. This game is a buggy piece of sadness, eating away what little was good about the franchise, as if there was anything else left. Ugly graphics, bad settings, and uninspired music and so many technique issues. While it's not Tony Hawk's Ride, this is not a skating game. At least Actionvision worked with Platinum games with Transformers, so check that out instead? Still, Actionvison ladies and gentlemen...
5) The Devil's Third
This is a game that everyone forgot, and personally, it's a good idea too as this was at the last E3 stream on Twitch.tv! As I watch the frame-rate chug during the demo last year, I knew that this would be on the worst games list to the point that Nintendo stopped advertising the train wreck of a game. How did they turn the action-combat bad here? Repetitive melee combat, cliches out from some bad action flick, bad visuals and sound effects, and in the end comes as underwhelming experience! There is online multiplayer, but that is the worst part of the game as it is full of micro-transactions! Pay-to-win by buying power-ups as it milks the whales of their money. At least they did fix the frame-rate issues? No, it's still a mess...
6) Cartoon Fighters
Really? Someone is trying to resell M.U.G.A.N. on green-light and the game wasn't originally his? What kind of scams are people running these day!? For those who don't know, Mugan is a free fighting game where programmers make their custom fighters and install it into the game to compete into other competitors. There has been some creative to lewd characters on that game, but now some scam-artist is trying to pass it off as a fighting game not made by him. I seen some cratice stuff mugan as dose as making A great DBZ fighting system that even the original Street fighter dev couldn't manage when they tried. However, this is not how you mugan! I would have got the dev himself release the game with a workshop feature to add-on fighters. perfect timing since of STeam Link was released this year, so I'm calling you out, MUGAN devs! Make THIS FTP game happen! Otherwise, screw green-light...
Well, this year have gone and passed. Year's revolutions where at least almost met and Christmas is coming soon! I'm going off for the rest of the year until January to prepare as the holidays can cause a man to go crazy at this time of year. Until then Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Years and at least have a designated driver when you head out with your family.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Beastly Bash: Disappointing Games 2015
While this year had the biggest games that I've hit the digital shelfs, not counting the thousands of cheap green-light games, there has been some disappointing games that have came out this year. Some of these are on a personal level, but don't worry, none of these are shovelwere or easy targets, as that would be too easy as a choice. These are the disappointing games of 2015, plus at least one inde game!
!) Armagrogg
This one is personal as I am a fan of Doug Tennaple's past works from Earthworm Jim to even it's spiritual successor Neverhood. The biggest problem of this game is that it lost it's core audience as much as Broken Age did, as it tried too hard to catch past audience as well as it's modern audience. Even after fixing many of the bugs, it feels like they didn't have the programing know-how and felt like the game is incomplete. While it tries to be for both type of gamers, the puzzles end up being mixed and even pissed of a major of backers for their refund. I'm sorry, Tennaple. I hope you'll forgive me.
2) Mortal Kombat X
Mortal Combat 9 was a great remake AND reboot that helped bring newcomers and old fans together to break skulls and pull of fatalities; even pulling off ideas that even Marvel vs Capcom fails to advance on. Sadly, Mortal Kombat X stepped all that down as many of the hit features are removed for Downloadable content. Want to play as Goro, who is ON THE DISK? Five bucks! There's a reason WB's marketing is getting a lot of slack for their business decisions. It also didn't help that they porked the PC port like they did with Mortal Kombat 9, which is a reason PC gamers hate High Voltage studios.
3) Mad Max (The game)
Sandbox, the sandbox game. No seriously, the game personally over-did the sandbox portion of the game to the point that it over-burdens the story part of the game. It wasn't a bad game, mind you, it just dose the sandbox too well to the point of being mundane. Graphics wise, it did the nicely programed MGSV magnifier to help the game run. However, as I would put it, there's too much sand, not enough box for me personally as an experience. It doesn't help that they are competing with games like Batman and Fallout 4, as even those game's mechanics where built around it's open world.
4) Halo 5
I personally gave up on the Halo series after three as I have moved away from the Xbox counsel gaming ever since the XBone has a disappointing release with the many things that gaming should never have invented. While the online portion is somewhat untouched from Halo 4, the story as absolute "Meh" at the best of times and bad at the worst of times. Personally, I wouldn't touch this game with an eight foot pole if it wasn't part of my job. Why did I make it part of my job? So I know what and what not to do when I make an inde-title. Running a series to the ground is one of them.
5) Battle Field: Hardlines
While most cop-based games that are usually third-person sand box games, shooters, or even point-and-click games, this game is merely a shooter dressed as a cop game. This game is so basic and out-of-logic that all the past shooter games blend in like a Martynne and you end up with a below-average experience. While games like Splatoon try it's best to mix up it's gameplay like how in hardline you could arrest perps, there was no reason to do so as it seems pointless as it just gives you lethal upgrades. There's a reason I don't review shooters anymore!
6) Evolve
I played this when it was in beta and as soon as I played it, I knew it would end to be a horrible running simulator. From the same dev teams as Left 4 Dead one and two, they tried to make a game just as fun. However, this ends up being the most repetitive game that I have ever played more than even most Zombie sandbox games that have hit the market that has hit the shelfs. Not only that, but they try to resell cosmetics and recolored guns that anyone than the art-team could do. It was a mess for both human and monster players and I'm not sure if the game is even still up as it was. The sad thing is that games like The Devil's Bluff did this idea better than the Tripple A devs of this game. Keep away from this game!
!) Armagrogg
This one is personal as I am a fan of Doug Tennaple's past works from Earthworm Jim to even it's spiritual successor Neverhood. The biggest problem of this game is that it lost it's core audience as much as Broken Age did, as it tried too hard to catch past audience as well as it's modern audience. Even after fixing many of the bugs, it feels like they didn't have the programing know-how and felt like the game is incomplete. While it tries to be for both type of gamers, the puzzles end up being mixed and even pissed of a major of backers for their refund. I'm sorry, Tennaple. I hope you'll forgive me.
2) Mortal Kombat X
Mortal Combat 9 was a great remake AND reboot that helped bring newcomers and old fans together to break skulls and pull of fatalities; even pulling off ideas that even Marvel vs Capcom fails to advance on. Sadly, Mortal Kombat X stepped all that down as many of the hit features are removed for Downloadable content. Want to play as Goro, who is ON THE DISK? Five bucks! There's a reason WB's marketing is getting a lot of slack for their business decisions. It also didn't help that they porked the PC port like they did with Mortal Kombat 9, which is a reason PC gamers hate High Voltage studios.
3) Mad Max (The game)
Sandbox, the sandbox game. No seriously, the game personally over-did the sandbox portion of the game to the point that it over-burdens the story part of the game. It wasn't a bad game, mind you, it just dose the sandbox too well to the point of being mundane. Graphics wise, it did the nicely programed MGSV magnifier to help the game run. However, as I would put it, there's too much sand, not enough box for me personally as an experience. It doesn't help that they are competing with games like Batman and Fallout 4, as even those game's mechanics where built around it's open world.
4) Halo 5
I personally gave up on the Halo series after three as I have moved away from the Xbox counsel gaming ever since the XBone has a disappointing release with the many things that gaming should never have invented. While the online portion is somewhat untouched from Halo 4, the story as absolute "Meh" at the best of times and bad at the worst of times. Personally, I wouldn't touch this game with an eight foot pole if it wasn't part of my job. Why did I make it part of my job? So I know what and what not to do when I make an inde-title. Running a series to the ground is one of them.
5) Battle Field: Hardlines
While most cop-based games that are usually third-person sand box games, shooters, or even point-and-click games, this game is merely a shooter dressed as a cop game. This game is so basic and out-of-logic that all the past shooter games blend in like a Martynne and you end up with a below-average experience. While games like Splatoon try it's best to mix up it's gameplay like how in hardline you could arrest perps, there was no reason to do so as it seems pointless as it just gives you lethal upgrades. There's a reason I don't review shooters anymore!
6) Evolve
I played this when it was in beta and as soon as I played it, I knew it would end to be a horrible running simulator. From the same dev teams as Left 4 Dead one and two, they tried to make a game just as fun. However, this ends up being the most repetitive game that I have ever played more than even most Zombie sandbox games that have hit the market that has hit the shelfs. Not only that, but they try to resell cosmetics and recolored guns that anyone than the art-team could do. It was a mess for both human and monster players and I'm not sure if the game is even still up as it was. The sad thing is that games like The Devil's Bluff did this idea better than the Tripple A devs of this game. Keep away from this game!
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Games of the Year: 2015
Well, its that time again to see which games are the best of this year. You know what that means: idiots fighting over numbers with other idiots about which games are the best and CoD fanboys fighting with MW. You know what, I'm not going to put numbers on them, instead I'm going to just list them in letters just to add confusion. Please note that ONE of the games I actually got for free when I updated my computer as a promotion by Nvidia, and yes, that counts as well since I got this game for free. These are usually games that I have played or have on a review account to help as not all critics can afford to review most games.
A) Undertale
This short, inde-RPG game that was made by Toby Fox, an Odd-ball EarthBound fan who worked on rom-hacks and is known for that one awesome song Megolavina. Common, folks! He left that songs in most of his works to show that he has worked on the game before. Except for that Concatenation game; that didn't count as it was borrowed with Fox's permission. That song is not really a spoiler. A game that remembered your actions as you replay the game over and over again. This gets an honorable mention because it did something that most RPGs don't usually do by playing on almost all RPG tropes with the endings sticking onto the players. Also, ten US dollars! That's about what I pay for lunch!! Get it, because the demo actually sucks becasue the intro is harder than the main game.
B) Batman: Arkham Knight
While I do agree that the plot is disappointing, the bat-tank is tacked-on, and the completion bonus is not worth it, I would still recommend the game as it ends the game of the trilogy. However, the PC port is still broken as of today, so I would have to recommend the Playstation 4 version as it seems to be built for that system. It would be lower on the list since WB tends to porked their ports, which happened before with games like Mortal Kombat 9. Run it on PC if your dare. However, the plot-twist in the opening of the game what redeemed the game to me, even though it was false advertisement on WB's end.
C) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
This is the game I got for free while updating my computer so I can work on my other PC game reviews and is probably the BEST looking out of the series. However, it's also has the WORST story of the franchise and is probably the last good game from Konami as Kojima has officially left as of 2015. The best part of the game is its gameplay, as it's sandbox stealth at it's best while it stays challenging with three different endings, but a sad plot-twist at the end. While Snake Eatter will always be the best with the Solid Snake remake for the GameCube behind it, this is not a bad game; Just yet another game where the completion bonus SUCKS!
E) Fallout 4
I know I am going to get slack for this game, but this is the most optimized Bethesda Game that I have played ever. I have just finished the game and it is such a doozy. Without spoiling much, the player star as a survivor of Vault 111 out to find your lost child as he was taken as a baby. The player must then escape and decide which path to go upon to survive the wasteland. While some found that a gray plot and moral lines may have hurt it's viewpoint and disappoint some looking at the game, I found that it dose more from doing less. Besides, looking back at Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the two games did NOT age well as both games are littered with far worse issues than Fallout 4. At least the Wounderer's not a child killer. No, seriously; he/she can do that in uncensored versions of Fallout 1 and was even an unused perk!~
F) Super Mario Maker
It was either this game or Splatoon. While Splatoon was a fun, it then had power-issues where some weapons are too over-powered and quickly faded away as well as it's hype. However, with check-points just added on for free in the latest update, this is a great game to play with your friends. Make from the noob-friendly levels to teach players about a gimmick to something that even evil itself would not even publish, like the meat-boy levels! This is a game for both casual and hard-core gamers. I just wouldn't recommend it to children, as they tend to break all sorts of games.
G) Just Cause 3
With the ever new ways to travel via flying suit, new ways to use your tethers, updated bomb with a new booster, and new weapons like the multi-launcher, the readers understands why I added this game to my list. This time, however, it's personal for Scorpio as the game takes place in his home country, meaning he has no reason to hold back anymore. He sets out to save his own country from a dictator who has Scorpio's loved ones under his boot. However, the story missions is not the main focus as causing mayhem will help get income called chaos, which you can use to buy planes, cars, and all sorts of goods to help cause chaos to help liberate his country. I would like to talk more about the game, but S-E embargos are usually too strict.
Which numbers they belong to is up to the viewers, as I personally feel these are my top games of this year. Hopefully, there wasn't as much disappointing games as there was last year, but there are some games that where very disappointing. So Next time, the six most disappointing games of 2015!
A) Undertale
This short, inde-RPG game that was made by Toby Fox, an Odd-ball EarthBound fan who worked on rom-hacks and is known for that one awesome song Megolavina. Common, folks! He left that songs in most of his works to show that he has worked on the game before. Except for that Concatenation game; that didn't count as it was borrowed with Fox's permission. That song is not really a spoiler. A game that remembered your actions as you replay the game over and over again. This gets an honorable mention because it did something that most RPGs don't usually do by playing on almost all RPG tropes with the endings sticking onto the players. Also, ten US dollars! That's about what I pay for lunch!! Get it, because the demo actually sucks becasue the intro is harder than the main game.
B) Batman: Arkham Knight
While I do agree that the plot is disappointing, the bat-tank is tacked-on, and the completion bonus is not worth it, I would still recommend the game as it ends the game of the trilogy. However, the PC port is still broken as of today, so I would have to recommend the Playstation 4 version as it seems to be built for that system. It would be lower on the list since WB tends to porked their ports, which happened before with games like Mortal Kombat 9. Run it on PC if your dare. However, the plot-twist in the opening of the game what redeemed the game to me, even though it was false advertisement on WB's end.
C) Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
This is the game I got for free while updating my computer so I can work on my other PC game reviews and is probably the BEST looking out of the series. However, it's also has the WORST story of the franchise and is probably the last good game from Konami as Kojima has officially left as of 2015. The best part of the game is its gameplay, as it's sandbox stealth at it's best while it stays challenging with three different endings, but a sad plot-twist at the end. While Snake Eatter will always be the best with the Solid Snake remake for the GameCube behind it, this is not a bad game; Just yet another game where the completion bonus SUCKS!
E) Fallout 4
I know I am going to get slack for this game, but this is the most optimized Bethesda Game that I have played ever. I have just finished the game and it is such a doozy. Without spoiling much, the player star as a survivor of Vault 111 out to find your lost child as he was taken as a baby. The player must then escape and decide which path to go upon to survive the wasteland. While some found that a gray plot and moral lines may have hurt it's viewpoint and disappoint some looking at the game, I found that it dose more from doing less. Besides, looking back at Fallout 3 and New Vegas, the two games did NOT age well as both games are littered with far worse issues than Fallout 4. At least the Wounderer's not a child killer. No, seriously; he/she can do that in uncensored versions of Fallout 1 and was even an unused perk!~
F) Super Mario Maker
It was either this game or Splatoon. While Splatoon was a fun, it then had power-issues where some weapons are too over-powered and quickly faded away as well as it's hype. However, with check-points just added on for free in the latest update, this is a great game to play with your friends. Make from the noob-friendly levels to teach players about a gimmick to something that even evil itself would not even publish, like the meat-boy levels! This is a game for both casual and hard-core gamers. I just wouldn't recommend it to children, as they tend to break all sorts of games.
G) Just Cause 3
With the ever new ways to travel via flying suit, new ways to use your tethers, updated bomb with a new booster, and new weapons like the multi-launcher, the readers understands why I added this game to my list. This time, however, it's personal for Scorpio as the game takes place in his home country, meaning he has no reason to hold back anymore. He sets out to save his own country from a dictator who has Scorpio's loved ones under his boot. However, the story missions is not the main focus as causing mayhem will help get income called chaos, which you can use to buy planes, cars, and all sorts of goods to help cause chaos to help liberate his country. I would like to talk more about the game, but S-E embargos are usually too strict.
Which numbers they belong to is up to the viewers, as I personally feel these are my top games of this year. Hopefully, there wasn't as much disappointing games as there was last year, but there are some games that where very disappointing. So Next time, the six most disappointing games of 2015!
Friday, November 6, 2015
Beastly Byte: Undertale! A game where no one has to die (...oR NoT...)
Well, we all know this was coming since it a game that was reviewed by EVERY media outlet, as it was a inde-game inspired by Earthbound, Thohou or any bullet-hell shooter, and even Wario-Ware. I know people compare it with Cave-Story because it happens underground, but I don't personally see it since most of the music here is SNES based. And while some people dislike this game as it's fan-base can over-hype things at times, Alla Five Nights at Fready's, even not a fan of Thohou need to look at. Created by the creator Toby Fox of Earthbound Rom-hacks and co-developer of Home-Struck as his signature metal song is in all three of the series.
So how is the game? Dose it compare to Earthbound than the other tribute games like OFF and Lisa?
Positive:
+ Interactions with enemies and characters, which influence the plot and endings of the story
+ Passive game designed that excels as an challenging experience, or you can do the normal RPG route
+ The game remembers what you do in past run-though, causing creative fourth-wall breaks
+ Funny and lovable characters, which makes players invested in the story
+ Great enemy designs, requiring players to think on their feet
+ SNES Music mixed with real-music counterparts, which is very catchy; sticking on the player's head for a long time
+ Game humor plays on RPG tropes, which help to the longevity of the game
+ A surprising Plot-twist which sticks with the player even after the game ends
+ Hidden secrets which includes two creepy back-stories, Easter eggs, references, and more
However, even a perfect game has a few nick-picks, as even a clean man or woman can get skin infections no matter how hard they try to wash it's skin. ew...
Negatives:
- The main character (Chara Frisk, as you find out later) tends to be the least interesting character because of it's pale skin.
- While it's cool that Toby Fox made it thought limitations of game-maker, the one-save system tend to be annoying since for lets plays and reviews, you have to modify the save-files delete the file to start again
- The biggest flaw is that genocide run is painfully less challenging than I though. On one hand, it makes the player realize how evil it is, but on the other hand, there's only two new bad-ass boss fights.
- Genocide also ruins a pacifist run on a new game, as the game remembers your past actions. Do genocide last!
Final thoughts:
This is a game that everyone needs to experience! Just like Earthbound, the characters are very charismatic, funny, and the player just want to get to know the characters individually. And in some points, it dose better results for not only being ten dollars (or the equivalent) and can last from five to ten hours - a perfect length for that cost. This game can be also considered best inde-game of this year hands down from me, but if you, the players, can wait until the hype dies down, that would be a safe bet to avoid spoilers. I would also recommend playing blind so the experience is full and rewarding...
...OR PuNiSHing...hehehehehe-MWhahahaha....hA...ha...
...I need to get Orta out of my blood stream...
...Then go for a pacifist route, but go for a genocide run if you dare, but I personally don't recommend it....
...Meanwhile...I need to rest....
...
So how is the game? Dose it compare to Earthbound than the other tribute games like OFF and Lisa?
Positive:
+ Interactions with enemies and characters, which influence the plot and endings of the story
+ Passive game designed that excels as an challenging experience, or you can do the normal RPG route
+ The game remembers what you do in past run-though, causing creative fourth-wall breaks
+ Funny and lovable characters, which makes players invested in the story
+ Great enemy designs, requiring players to think on their feet
+ SNES Music mixed with real-music counterparts, which is very catchy; sticking on the player's head for a long time
+ Game humor plays on RPG tropes, which help to the longevity of the game
+ A surprising Plot-twist which sticks with the player even after the game ends
+ Hidden secrets which includes two creepy back-stories, Easter eggs, references, and more
However, even a perfect game has a few nick-picks, as even a clean man or woman can get skin infections no matter how hard they try to wash it's skin. ew...
Negatives:
- The main character (Chara Frisk, as you find out later) tends to be the least interesting character because of it's pale skin.
- While it's cool that Toby Fox made it thought limitations of game-maker, the one-save system tend to be annoying since for lets plays and reviews, you have to modify the save-files delete the file to start again
- The biggest flaw is that genocide run is painfully less challenging than I though. On one hand, it makes the player realize how evil it is, but on the other hand, there's only two new bad-ass boss fights.
- Genocide also ruins a pacifist run on a new game, as the game remembers your past actions. Do genocide last!
Final thoughts:
This is a game that everyone needs to experience! Just like Earthbound, the characters are very charismatic, funny, and the player just want to get to know the characters individually. And in some points, it dose better results for not only being ten dollars (or the equivalent) and can last from five to ten hours - a perfect length for that cost. This game can be also considered best inde-game of this year hands down from me, but if you, the players, can wait until the hype dies down, that would be a safe bet to avoid spoilers. I would also recommend playing blind so the experience is full and rewarding...
...OR PuNiSHing...hehehehehe-MWhahahaha....hA...ha...
...I need to get Orta out of my blood stream...
...Then go for a pacifist route, but go for a genocide run if you dare, but I personally don't recommend it....
...Meanwhile...I need to rest....
...
Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Beastly Bash: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcades Series; When they where actually good.
Before the TMNT became way too feminine, they where the 80's to 90's cheese of their time. An idea series spun-off from Marvel's Dare-Devil series. They started out as a graphic novel about a mutant rat and his turtles after revenge for their master's murder. My, didn't this end up very dark as hey killed actual humans instead of robots like you see in the 80's cartoons. And yes, there's the 00's cartoon series done by 4kids, and while it did have it's editing problems, it was probably their only good feature.
However, while the arcade series was based on the 80's cartoon series, it became it's own cannon on it's own. The shredder would do evil deeds like kidnap the busty reporter April O'Neil who seem to get herself into trouble and dress inappropriately (the two main things of reporter should NEVER do!) to stealing the statue of liberty to hold for ransom. Remember, the 80's cartoon shredder was a big-baby parody of his former self; with a loud-mouth alien Craig who is the most annoying in his anime form.
The fun thing about brawlers is that they are simple and yet complicated all at the same time. Each of the four turtles have their advantages: Mikey the cool dude before the annoying dude-bro became a plague of rats with a leaping attack, Donny has range with his bow-staff, and Raf has the shortest attack but most damage with his angerisum under his belt. The characters where designed around their flaws, and in later games, they gain their special attacks that trades their health for high damage.
While the arcade was downgraded for the NES, it was more of a creative port as it was a legit way to play the arcade game at home and helped make Konami a lot of quarters at the time before the arcades went down at the time. However, there where exclusive levels which added challenge as well as the NES was known for hard games. There was even a few games for the gameboy and the Sega Genesis that where considered to be very good to ok.
Turtles in Time is considered the best brawler within the series, and while Ubisoft tried to recreate the experience, the original still has aged well to this day and is considered one of the best Super Nintendo games besides all the other brawlers. It has the exciting music, colorful backgrounds as they travel though time, and, of course, fan-service for both the fans of the 80's cartoon and the 90's movies that actually works. It's considered the best TMNT game of all time.
Sadly, Konami lost the rights for better and worst as they moved on to other projects like the renowned Silent Hill series and the Metal Gear Solid games. However, Konami has formed an unhealthy relationship with it's developers such as the harshness to the creator of Silent Hill to Kojima's resent shadiness. Meanwhile, the TMNT went into isolation until their 4kids counterpart. While some of their games where good, they weren't as memorable and some of them wasn't any good at all. (I'm looking at you, GBA GAME with bad engrish!)
Now, I just don't care for them anymore. The latest I heard of the TMNT is that they're teaming up with batman in a cross-over event. While it is not their first cross-over, as they teamed up with the ghost-busters before, this could end up well. But as a franchise, I sold the figures years ago. With the latest price, I should have invested them for profit, but it's best just to bury them respectively so their "Children" can take their place realistically. Sounds like something Simpsons and family guy should have done ages ago.
Now if you excuse me, I probably have an angry fanboy at my door. I'm going to have to empty out the literal skeletons in my closets. Never mess with an angry introvert ...
However, while the arcade series was based on the 80's cartoon series, it became it's own cannon on it's own. The shredder would do evil deeds like kidnap the busty reporter April O'Neil who seem to get herself into trouble and dress inappropriately (the two main things of reporter should NEVER do!) to stealing the statue of liberty to hold for ransom. Remember, the 80's cartoon shredder was a big-baby parody of his former self; with a loud-mouth alien Craig who is the most annoying in his anime form.
The fun thing about brawlers is that they are simple and yet complicated all at the same time. Each of the four turtles have their advantages: Mikey the cool dude before the annoying dude-bro became a plague of rats with a leaping attack, Donny has range with his bow-staff, and Raf has the shortest attack but most damage with his angerisum under his belt. The characters where designed around their flaws, and in later games, they gain their special attacks that trades their health for high damage.
While the arcade was downgraded for the NES, it was more of a creative port as it was a legit way to play the arcade game at home and helped make Konami a lot of quarters at the time before the arcades went down at the time. However, there where exclusive levels which added challenge as well as the NES was known for hard games. There was even a few games for the gameboy and the Sega Genesis that where considered to be very good to ok.
Turtles in Time is considered the best brawler within the series, and while Ubisoft tried to recreate the experience, the original still has aged well to this day and is considered one of the best Super Nintendo games besides all the other brawlers. It has the exciting music, colorful backgrounds as they travel though time, and, of course, fan-service for both the fans of the 80's cartoon and the 90's movies that actually works. It's considered the best TMNT game of all time.
Sadly, Konami lost the rights for better and worst as they moved on to other projects like the renowned Silent Hill series and the Metal Gear Solid games. However, Konami has formed an unhealthy relationship with it's developers such as the harshness to the creator of Silent Hill to Kojima's resent shadiness. Meanwhile, the TMNT went into isolation until their 4kids counterpart. While some of their games where good, they weren't as memorable and some of them wasn't any good at all. (I'm looking at you, GBA GAME with bad engrish!)
Now, I just don't care for them anymore. The latest I heard of the TMNT is that they're teaming up with batman in a cross-over event. While it is not their first cross-over, as they teamed up with the ghost-busters before, this could end up well. But as a franchise, I sold the figures years ago. With the latest price, I should have invested them for profit, but it's best just to bury them respectively so their "Children" can take their place realistically. Sounds like something Simpsons and family guy should have done ages ago.
Now if you excuse me, I probably have an angry fanboy at my door. I'm going to have to empty out the literal skeletons in my closets. Never mess with an angry introvert ...
Monday, August 31, 2015
Beastly Bash: Hatfall and Poacher; Yatzee's Free(ish) games
With my birthday come and gone, it's time to get back to work with a new graphics card and new tools. And one of my gifts where a new graphics card with Metal Gear V, which means that review will need a disclosure for the review as it will be treated as a review copy since the US Law requires me to do so. So by next week, to kill the time before the review, this will mark this upcoming mouth as Konami month to honor those who worked in the company for a long time. Until then, here's the review of Ben, AKA Yatzee's, games.
First off, Hatfall, which is free to play on The Escapist website and optionally phone app game. I say optional since you get the options of more just in cosmetics to make the game somewhat easier for you. While the review for the game seems very pointless since you can play the game free, other flash or free games usually get proper treatment as well; Especially when you count five nights a Freddy's, which might as well be episodes that was made in less of a year.
The goal of the game is to catch hats on your head, which sounds like a fun concept, but its hard because it can be placed randomly as you must also avoid getting lost by lookalikes and crushed by other falling objects. Once you fail, you then use the hats to buy clothes and skins for the other characters so you can tell them apart. There's also selected parts of the game where Yatzee pissed the wizard off and if you manage to survive, you would get a 1-in-3 chance of bonus hats. Also, once you play enough, you would get a gift of your choice that changes the game into parodies of other games. Silly times are all around!
Would I recommend to get the iPhone or iPad version of the game? Em, sadly no; The reason being is that there's no real difference just for more cosmetics within the paid version of the game. It's basically paid DLC for the game just to add more cosmetics which can make the game too easy as everyone can be colorful than your character. Should that be considered as an insult? Anyways, I still would recommend looking at it as this game is easy to pick up and put down.
Now for a Metroid-Vania game made sometime ago by Yatzee know as Poacher, about a guy who goes out for a walk with a shotgun. Well, things have turned very fast as he is spotted his friend Gamey tries to get him but he falls though and the player finds a hidden world underground, where it is occupied by a ghost race of the dark ones and a race of ghost that can compact with humans and grant them special powers. All the sudden, the dark ones attack and its up to Pouncer to stop the invasion!
While it dose fallows the Metroid-Vania, it makes things somewhat challenging for both the right and wrong reasons. One of them is the Belmont bounce, where you can move freely in the air like Samus can do; but getting hit will cause you to fly off into the great beyond like me enter the Smash Bros. tourinemt. Back then, it added challenge, but it's a dated control gimmick that only hardcore fans would like. The game also has that Sympathy of the night mechanic where to get the best ending, Poacher must do or do not trigger some event flags that rings with Cavestory's story.
However, getting everything in the game helps makes things more manageable, as you gain new abilities, more bomb slots, and such things you can expect from a Metroid game. And as the player progresses, the player finds that there more than what is going on. This is how devs add replay value within the game as there are three endings. I won't spoil the game out respect for Yatzee and I would recommend to play the game as well for the nice soundtrack is great as well as it comes with the game.
With this, I would recommend the readers to try these games out as they are both fun to play as well as free to play or at least one of them is. If the readers don't mind trowing money at yatzee, it's what he's often gets paid for besides his Escapist channel. No really, I know the others moved on to form their own channels, but it seems rather empty. I know they're usual a magazine, but we all know that they went down like the modern Du-Du bird as they died off because they work at a weapons shop. Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, hiding from talent seekers to avoid slavery! Carry on!!
First off, Hatfall, which is free to play on The Escapist website and optionally phone app game. I say optional since you get the options of more just in cosmetics to make the game somewhat easier for you. While the review for the game seems very pointless since you can play the game free, other flash or free games usually get proper treatment as well; Especially when you count five nights a Freddy's, which might as well be episodes that was made in less of a year.
The goal of the game is to catch hats on your head, which sounds like a fun concept, but its hard because it can be placed randomly as you must also avoid getting lost by lookalikes and crushed by other falling objects. Once you fail, you then use the hats to buy clothes and skins for the other characters so you can tell them apart. There's also selected parts of the game where Yatzee pissed the wizard off and if you manage to survive, you would get a 1-in-3 chance of bonus hats. Also, once you play enough, you would get a gift of your choice that changes the game into parodies of other games. Silly times are all around!
Would I recommend to get the iPhone or iPad version of the game? Em, sadly no; The reason being is that there's no real difference just for more cosmetics within the paid version of the game. It's basically paid DLC for the game just to add more cosmetics which can make the game too easy as everyone can be colorful than your character. Should that be considered as an insult? Anyways, I still would recommend looking at it as this game is easy to pick up and put down.
Now for a Metroid-Vania game made sometime ago by Yatzee know as Poacher, about a guy who goes out for a walk with a shotgun. Well, things have turned very fast as he is spotted his friend Gamey tries to get him but he falls though and the player finds a hidden world underground, where it is occupied by a ghost race of the dark ones and a race of ghost that can compact with humans and grant them special powers. All the sudden, the dark ones attack and its up to Pouncer to stop the invasion!
While it dose fallows the Metroid-Vania, it makes things somewhat challenging for both the right and wrong reasons. One of them is the Belmont bounce, where you can move freely in the air like Samus can do; but getting hit will cause you to fly off into the great beyond like me enter the Smash Bros. tourinemt. Back then, it added challenge, but it's a dated control gimmick that only hardcore fans would like. The game also has that Sympathy of the night mechanic where to get the best ending, Poacher must do or do not trigger some event flags that rings with Cavestory's story.
However, getting everything in the game helps makes things more manageable, as you gain new abilities, more bomb slots, and such things you can expect from a Metroid game. And as the player progresses, the player finds that there more than what is going on. This is how devs add replay value within the game as there are three endings. I won't spoil the game out respect for Yatzee and I would recommend to play the game as well for the nice soundtrack is great as well as it comes with the game.
With this, I would recommend the readers to try these games out as they are both fun to play as well as free to play or at least one of them is. If the readers don't mind trowing money at yatzee, it's what he's often gets paid for besides his Escapist channel. No really, I know the others moved on to form their own channels, but it seems rather empty. I know they're usual a magazine, but we all know that they went down like the modern Du-Du bird as they died off because they work at a weapons shop. Anyways, where was I? Oh yes, hiding from talent seekers to avoid slavery! Carry on!!
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Beastly Bash: Batman Arkham Trilogy
This is the end of trilogy mouth and now for the final review: Batman Arkham Trilogy! This is what happens when a company takes a twist of Metroid-Vania into a brawler; The invention of Bat-viania, a dance-like combat system that's focuses more on perfect timing than mashing buttons like in most fighting adventure games! There's a reason the series is highly acclaimed to the point of imitation from games like Sleeping Dogs; It's just the format works for action games!
It all starts with Batman, as THE batman, is driving in the bat-mobile with the joker arrested after taking the mayor hostage. Before that, Black Gate prison had a fire and had to transfer the majority of thugs into Arkham. Batman knew something wasn't right, but delivers The Joker. However, Harley Quinn kidnaps the head of Arkham, Quincy Sharp, and took over with her sexy nurse outfit on, and all hell broke loose! The joker takes over Arkham with his Titan formula monster men and it's up to batman to stop the madness.
This game help start the series off, as batman must explores Arkham and later picks up new gadgets from either from his Bat-storage or what he invents on the fly like the charge-pluse gun which shoots nonlethal bolts which open and close some doors. And that was just a small taste of the bat-gadgets the player. The combat is very simple from timing your punches, dodges, and counters; However, it feels really slow and it's really easy to lose the combos. Thankfully, the Wane upgrades helps as it boosts gadgets, Batman's Armor, and help improve the gameplay. Along the way, Eddy Nigma, known as The Riddler, leaves trophies and puzzels for those completionist and helps with leveling.
After the events, Joker is suffering from blood poisoning from the titan formula and is slowly dieing as a result. Bruce Wane, in the meantime, is trying his best to close Arkham City down as many criminals has escaped and has occupied the city. However, Hugo Strange has figured that Bruce Wane is Batman thanks to an outside source and, with his private army, kidnaps Bruce and sells him to Penguin. Bruce Wane then escapes and fights as Batman to regain control of the city with the help of Catwoman; who is more interested in robbing Two-face blind during the chaos, but helps anyways because it would benefit her.
The game is more refined as there's more new gadgets and a new stunt-combo system as it helps build combos when fighting goons. The Batvaina evolved into a more open-world. It's not bad, it's just very jarring and different from the past game. The Riddler is also back, and this time the riddles are all over the city! This time, you have to catch him as he token Gorden's police team hostage. Solving enough riddles will help catch him and save the police. The gliding mechanic, which existent in the last game, has been refined to help travel around the city. It also has an upgrade when the player complete the training set by Wane Interprizes and it helps. However, if going for completion, it's best to go after the side missions first as there's a point of no return after one point in the story.
In the end, The Joker dies before Batman could have gave him the cure to his blood poisoning because joker made batman drop the cure, breaking his chances of survival. Harley blames Batman for his death and plots her revenge. It has been months since the events of the last game and things where calm for a time until a fear toxin bombing in a local diner occupied, causing death and injury which lead to the city being evacuated to the villains. All the sudden, a private army occupies Gotham with the help of The Arham Knight, who seem to know Batman from the inside and out. Things go beyond crazy than they ever before.
However, while they did center the game-play to the point where it is easier to complete, but it's the only way to get the real ending of the game. While alternative endings, or in this case real endings, in metroid-vania games, usually handle well. Its not here. The problem is the Riddler; While normally some of his puzzles are ok, some of the racing portions of the game didn't fit his personality. And speaking of, while some parts of the Bat-Tank was challenging, it felt more of a transformers than Batman game. However, if the player read the comics, the plot twist in the end is just very bland, making the game not really worth completing 100%.
In the end, I would recommend this trilogy whenever they go on sale. However, the Disk-Locked Content isn't worth in the long run as they are too short and not worth the effort. This is a series that inovated the Metroid-vania series into something new and somewhat refreshing. This is the last trilogy that RockSteady will be official working on for Batman as it will probably be handed down...God help us all....
It all starts with Batman, as THE batman, is driving in the bat-mobile with the joker arrested after taking the mayor hostage. Before that, Black Gate prison had a fire and had to transfer the majority of thugs into Arkham. Batman knew something wasn't right, but delivers The Joker. However, Harley Quinn kidnaps the head of Arkham, Quincy Sharp, and took over with her sexy nurse outfit on, and all hell broke loose! The joker takes over Arkham with his Titan formula monster men and it's up to batman to stop the madness.
This game help start the series off, as batman must explores Arkham and later picks up new gadgets from either from his Bat-storage or what he invents on the fly like the charge-pluse gun which shoots nonlethal bolts which open and close some doors. And that was just a small taste of the bat-gadgets the player. The combat is very simple from timing your punches, dodges, and counters; However, it feels really slow and it's really easy to lose the combos. Thankfully, the Wane upgrades helps as it boosts gadgets, Batman's Armor, and help improve the gameplay. Along the way, Eddy Nigma, known as The Riddler, leaves trophies and puzzels for those completionist and helps with leveling.
After the events, Joker is suffering from blood poisoning from the titan formula and is slowly dieing as a result. Bruce Wane, in the meantime, is trying his best to close Arkham City down as many criminals has escaped and has occupied the city. However, Hugo Strange has figured that Bruce Wane is Batman thanks to an outside source and, with his private army, kidnaps Bruce and sells him to Penguin. Bruce Wane then escapes and fights as Batman to regain control of the city with the help of Catwoman; who is more interested in robbing Two-face blind during the chaos, but helps anyways because it would benefit her.
The game is more refined as there's more new gadgets and a new stunt-combo system as it helps build combos when fighting goons. The Batvaina evolved into a more open-world. It's not bad, it's just very jarring and different from the past game. The Riddler is also back, and this time the riddles are all over the city! This time, you have to catch him as he token Gorden's police team hostage. Solving enough riddles will help catch him and save the police. The gliding mechanic, which existent in the last game, has been refined to help travel around the city. It also has an upgrade when the player complete the training set by Wane Interprizes and it helps. However, if going for completion, it's best to go after the side missions first as there's a point of no return after one point in the story.
In the end, The Joker dies before Batman could have gave him the cure to his blood poisoning because joker made batman drop the cure, breaking his chances of survival. Harley blames Batman for his death and plots her revenge. It has been months since the events of the last game and things where calm for a time until a fear toxin bombing in a local diner occupied, causing death and injury which lead to the city being evacuated to the villains. All the sudden, a private army occupies Gotham with the help of The Arham Knight, who seem to know Batman from the inside and out. Things go beyond crazy than they ever before.
However, while they did center the game-play to the point where it is easier to complete, but it's the only way to get the real ending of the game. While alternative endings, or in this case real endings, in metroid-vania games, usually handle well. Its not here. The problem is the Riddler; While normally some of his puzzles are ok, some of the racing portions of the game didn't fit his personality. And speaking of, while some parts of the Bat-Tank was challenging, it felt more of a transformers than Batman game. However, if the player read the comics, the plot twist in the end is just very bland, making the game not really worth completing 100%.
In the end, I would recommend this trilogy whenever they go on sale. However, the Disk-Locked Content isn't worth in the long run as they are too short and not worth the effort. This is a series that inovated the Metroid-vania series into something new and somewhat refreshing. This is the last trilogy that RockSteady will be official working on for Batman as it will probably be handed down...God help us all....
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Beastly Bash; Hitman: Complete Collection (Excluding Absolution)
This is a series been fallowed since there has been tons of videos on you-tube, from Harpoon to Hit-God, and it was their trick clips that got me to play the original trilogy. That what personally sold me the game as this series had as the original trilogy added replay within itself. While they did started some controversy for killing in this game, the players get the best score by going for the Silent Assassin ranking, the best ranking within the series. This not only helps discourage people from randomly killing, but this help portray Hitman 47 as a chaotic anti-hero, hired to kill bad people who has wrong people and earns cash to help him with his other hits and objectives.
Where did Hitman 47 come from? He was a perfect clone created by one of the worst people in the world from cells of the terrorist whom he was made to kill. He escapes and joins the ICA and then the game introduces Diana; A sidekick who assigns targets for Hitman 47! After killing the terrorists, the mad doctor Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer decided to make a clone army to help rule the world. However, Hitman 47 saw this as a dangerous act and kills him as well as the clone army; Hitman then destroys his research notes, making sure that no one else could use the technology ageist him. Hitman then escapes the swat team and then hides in the church as the alias Tibias Reaper and serves the church.
The first game, Hitman: Agient 47, tells this story origin of Hitman 47 though it's gameplay. However, it was more of an action game than a stealth game the series was better known for. While the game did have some faults, this game sold well enough on it's narrative to get attention enough for two damn good sequels; plus, the game's sequel, Hitman 2, help defined what the hitman games where all about. Hitman 1 gameplay is forgiven as the narrative goes over the gameplay.
However, Hitman 47 stood out too much in the last game and attracted the attention of Zavorotko's Mafia criminal group; his minions kidnaps 47's friend and mentor Father Vittorio; randoms him to the Hitman 47, forcing him to come out of retirement and help Diana with her assignments in the ICA. Hitman races to kill his targets, known members of Zavorotko's criminal empire to help lure out his kidnappers. After killing a clone that was left over from the asylum, he traced that they have returned to the seance of the crime; He faces Zavorotko and his minions, freeing Father Vittorio and leaving him alive in the church. Hitman 47 then knew that he would endanger him, decides to return to the agency.
This is the hardest of the original games, as it introduced mechanics but has tons of bugs. Personally wouldn't recommend this game as a starter game and point out the other two games are they are much more balanced and open. The bots tend to see you from a mile away on some difficulties, covers are blown even if you walk slowly as crawling, and everyone shoots first before asking questions. When getting the hit done, it is satisfying but finding the new way can be tedious. That's where youtube comes to mind; Use it as a guide to save your sanity!
And then there is Contracts and Blood Money; Their story happen between each other while Hitman 47 is being hunted down as well as the members of the ICA. During an assignment, Hitman 47 got injured by a gunshot wound, leaving him helpless in his hotel, passing out from the loss of blood. As he is out cold, he flashes back to his past missions from his escape from the asylum as well to his other missions. After a mob-doc heals his wounds, he knows that he's close to death more than ever before.
Before all this occurred, an american control group called The Franchise wants to capture Agent 47 as they fear that he would use cloning for his personal advantage. They want to take over with their own personal clone in their business and any interference would cost them money. Basically, it's the cola vs Pepsi, but we all know Pepsi is evil and that we all prefer Dr. Pepper as he's our favorite anti-hero. Anyways, Hitman has to to kill those who help run the franchise, while at the same time, avoiding those rivals that are after him.
Both Hitman games almost plays the same except Blood Money is refined both graphically and gameplay wise. However, both games has aged well within the series! While Blood Money is the best of the series, Contracts feels the most challenging. Both games comes highly recommended as you don't have to play the first two games to recap in the back-story and the player sees the events before/after Contracts. As past Hitman games, the maps are wide and varied, but more contrived in these games. There's more than one way to skin your human targets, as they preformed horrible things than Hitman ever done.
The biggest problem with Absolution is that is was too liner than the Hitman games; And now that there's a sequel announced at E3, it proves an old theory that Absolution was Half-baked like how Saints Row the Third.It feels that the developers had too much in their hands; as Tell-Tale Games found out when handling The Walking Dead with Wolf Among Us. The game's semantics and the story got in the way with the gameplay mechanics and it felt like the developers forgot what made Hitman 47 good; That, or they had Kane and Lynch Failure in their minds. That wasn't even a good game series, so It's time to move on. Better yet, trow them out so other IPs get the spotlight!
In the end, I wish I could recommend the series; However, pick up Blood Money and Contracts, as the story adds up to sum up Hitman in a simple way. That would be shoving everyone off the edge while giggling like a school girly girl who found her friends cookies while leaving a fart on her friend's seat. Nasty fun! However, please don't do that; That is rather freaking stupid!
Where did Hitman 47 come from? He was a perfect clone created by one of the worst people in the world from cells of the terrorist whom he was made to kill. He escapes and joins the ICA and then the game introduces Diana; A sidekick who assigns targets for Hitman 47! After killing the terrorists, the mad doctor Otto Wolfgang Ort-Meyer decided to make a clone army to help rule the world. However, Hitman 47 saw this as a dangerous act and kills him as well as the clone army; Hitman then destroys his research notes, making sure that no one else could use the technology ageist him. Hitman then escapes the swat team and then hides in the church as the alias Tibias Reaper and serves the church.
The first game, Hitman: Agient 47, tells this story origin of Hitman 47 though it's gameplay. However, it was more of an action game than a stealth game the series was better known for. While the game did have some faults, this game sold well enough on it's narrative to get attention enough for two damn good sequels; plus, the game's sequel, Hitman 2, help defined what the hitman games where all about. Hitman 1 gameplay is forgiven as the narrative goes over the gameplay.
However, Hitman 47 stood out too much in the last game and attracted the attention of Zavorotko's Mafia criminal group; his minions kidnaps 47's friend and mentor Father Vittorio; randoms him to the Hitman 47, forcing him to come out of retirement and help Diana with her assignments in the ICA. Hitman races to kill his targets, known members of Zavorotko's criminal empire to help lure out his kidnappers. After killing a clone that was left over from the asylum, he traced that they have returned to the seance of the crime; He faces Zavorotko and his minions, freeing Father Vittorio and leaving him alive in the church. Hitman 47 then knew that he would endanger him, decides to return to the agency.
This is the hardest of the original games, as it introduced mechanics but has tons of bugs. Personally wouldn't recommend this game as a starter game and point out the other two games are they are much more balanced and open. The bots tend to see you from a mile away on some difficulties, covers are blown even if you walk slowly as crawling, and everyone shoots first before asking questions. When getting the hit done, it is satisfying but finding the new way can be tedious. That's where youtube comes to mind; Use it as a guide to save your sanity!
And then there is Contracts and Blood Money; Their story happen between each other while Hitman 47 is being hunted down as well as the members of the ICA. During an assignment, Hitman 47 got injured by a gunshot wound, leaving him helpless in his hotel, passing out from the loss of blood. As he is out cold, he flashes back to his past missions from his escape from the asylum as well to his other missions. After a mob-doc heals his wounds, he knows that he's close to death more than ever before.
Before all this occurred, an american control group called The Franchise wants to capture Agent 47 as they fear that he would use cloning for his personal advantage. They want to take over with their own personal clone in their business and any interference would cost them money. Basically, it's the cola vs Pepsi, but we all know Pepsi is evil and that we all prefer Dr. Pepper as he's our favorite anti-hero. Anyways, Hitman has to to kill those who help run the franchise, while at the same time, avoiding those rivals that are after him.
Both Hitman games almost plays the same except Blood Money is refined both graphically and gameplay wise. However, both games has aged well within the series! While Blood Money is the best of the series, Contracts feels the most challenging. Both games comes highly recommended as you don't have to play the first two games to recap in the back-story and the player sees the events before/after Contracts. As past Hitman games, the maps are wide and varied, but more contrived in these games. There's more than one way to skin your human targets, as they preformed horrible things than Hitman ever done.
The biggest problem with Absolution is that is was too liner than the Hitman games; And now that there's a sequel announced at E3, it proves an old theory that Absolution was Half-baked like how Saints Row the Third.It feels that the developers had too much in their hands; as Tell-Tale Games found out when handling The Walking Dead with Wolf Among Us. The game's semantics and the story got in the way with the gameplay mechanics and it felt like the developers forgot what made Hitman 47 good; That, or they had Kane and Lynch Failure in their minds. That wasn't even a good game series, so It's time to move on. Better yet, trow them out so other IPs get the spotlight!
In the end, I wish I could recommend the series; However, pick up Blood Money and Contracts, as the story adds up to sum up Hitman in a simple way. That would be shoving everyone off the edge while giggling like a school girly girl who found her friends cookies while leaving a fart on her friend's seat. Nasty fun! However, please don't do that; That is rather freaking stupid!
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Beastly Bash: Earthbound/Mother Trilogy; Too hot for 'merica! [Spoilers]
Before I start, I will place one warning: SPOILERS AHEAD!
Thanks, now for the retrospective!~
Well, since Earthbound fans are having a Bound-Fest or something like that, as well as Mother 4, Its time for a retro-review! About Mother 4, it's Fan-game that is a prequel to Mother2/Earthbound taking place in the 197X; 20 years before the birth of one of the most annoying game characters ever. No, not Kefka, silly fools; Porky. And before you ask, wouldn't recommend Consonance Distance because it messes with the cannon. We all know that Giygas is cannon as he attacked the 9X's and what's left of his body created Mewtwo, as his corpse was left in the Pokemon world. Guess they didn't think they would make a clone of the shell of an alien god!
First off, Earthbound Zero, this is where Giygue was first still in his teen-agency sent to kill Ninten's grandfather and grandmother who raised him as a kid, his his parents left him behind because...of a plot point never explained within the series. Wars? Rebooting earth? Who knows!? Anyways, While the grandmother was raising Giegue, the grandfather studied their race and abandoned them. (Itoi never really had a father in his life.) Giygue, angry that he ran off with the knowledge, kills him and starts kidnapping people, as he fears that humanity will use his race's power ageist the universe. Nintend gets involved when he find his grandfather's journal and goes off to stop Giygue.
Sadly enough, this game is the WEAKEST of the series; Since the game's fighting system based off the old Dragon Quest games, Random encounters where bad to the point that they where actually work in a way that it wasn't really intended. The game was intentionally hard for the wrong reasons that the modding community made an easy version of the game to over-condensate for the difficulty of the game. while most NES role-playing games didn't age well, this game is one of the worst aged games. It's why I decided to spoil the plot without warning.
After the events in Mother1/Earthbound Zero, Giegue retreated to space, where his powers grew to the point to becoming the power of evil himself! After losing his alien form, he become like Cthulhu and becomes a dark alien god. However, he has lost his mind, as "absolute power corrupts absolutely," the newly formed Giygas was contained int the Devil's Machine as his mind-controlling powers corrupts everyone including the annoying neighbor Porky, who helps sets everything in motion as the "devil's" advocate. Buzz-Buzz, a failed version of Ness, goes back into time to warn past Ness and sends him to find the eight Your Sanctuary locations to get the powers of the earth and stop Giygas.
At first, this game did NOT sit well with most critics, but being a 90's person, this game was not build on fun but more on the reflection to most people at the time. Also, this game did influence games later in the line like Persona 4, which is considered one of the best JRPGS of it's time. Being someone who personally like Earthbound dispute what critics say, as some like soulless games like Doom 3, It one of the best classics. Other than that, the game introduced an awesome combat system that adds a "Bleeding" effect to where the health counts down like a car's fuel gadge. SOMEONE needs a HEALH bar. The game also has the enemies in the background instead of random encounters, making it manageable and some fights ship-able. This game is also thankfully easier that Zero, but is the LONGEST of the series. Despite this, it's recommended none-the-less.
After Giygas' defeated, Porky runs off with what is left of Giygas' power and technology, making him a very dangerous foe more than before. With the technology left behind, he uses it to kidnap people from his time and creates the Pigmask army, a reference and parody of the collective from Half-life 2. He and his army lands in Tazmilly Village, a post-apocalyptic village in an Australia-like island, he bombs forest and gains control via happy boxes. He then makes chimeras, Animal and machine hybrids that cause chaos that kills Lucas' mother in the start of the game! It's up to Lucas and company to stop the Porky and his Pigmask army while looking for his missing brother Clause.
While Earthbound was strong, as it didn't take itself seriously as a free-roaming JRPG. However, Mother 3 has the strongest story of the trilogy as the player has feelings twords the characters and their new movements of sprites. This game pushed the limits of the Game-boy advance! The player can relate to one or many of the events that occur during the story. The battle system has been ampted, as there's a new combo system that is based on of the rhythm in the background music, and getting them down is satisfying! Returning and fixed from Mother 1 is the running mechanic, which can bypass weak enimies and sometime crashing into things cause things to happen, even if there's a few in the game. The game is considered the BEST in the series for a reason, beating Earthbound with the majorities tens all over review sites. This is highly recommended, but I will not spoil the ending here as it's something to see first hand!
Overall, the Mother/Earthbound series is all about the experience! While some do not see it as fun, as they tend to not see gaming as art, I would recommend the series for anyone who like to play RPGs to kill the gods of olde. However, its recommended to watch Mother 1 as its the weakest of the trilogy. While Earhbound seems dated, it has that "Story is not important" charm liked in games like Phantasy Star Online. Mother 3 has the heart and actually revolutionized RPGs to perfection, it's a real damn shame that it will NEVER be localized normally; While I don't recommend piracy, play the game via translation patch. This is one RPG trilogy that is under-utilized withing the realm of gaming...
Thanks, now for the retrospective!~
Well, since Earthbound fans are having a Bound-Fest or something like that, as well as Mother 4, Its time for a retro-review! About Mother 4, it's Fan-game that is a prequel to Mother2/Earthbound taking place in the 197X; 20 years before the birth of one of the most annoying game characters ever. No, not Kefka, silly fools; Porky. And before you ask, wouldn't recommend Consonance Distance because it messes with the cannon. We all know that Giygas is cannon as he attacked the 9X's and what's left of his body created Mewtwo, as his corpse was left in the Pokemon world. Guess they didn't think they would make a clone of the shell of an alien god!
First off, Earthbound Zero, this is where Giygue was first still in his teen-agency sent to kill Ninten's grandfather and grandmother who raised him as a kid, his his parents left him behind because...of a plot point never explained within the series. Wars? Rebooting earth? Who knows!? Anyways, While the grandmother was raising Giegue, the grandfather studied their race and abandoned them. (Itoi never really had a father in his life.) Giygue, angry that he ran off with the knowledge, kills him and starts kidnapping people, as he fears that humanity will use his race's power ageist the universe. Nintend gets involved when he find his grandfather's journal and goes off to stop Giygue.
Sadly enough, this game is the WEAKEST of the series; Since the game's fighting system based off the old Dragon Quest games, Random encounters where bad to the point that they where actually work in a way that it wasn't really intended. The game was intentionally hard for the wrong reasons that the modding community made an easy version of the game to over-condensate for the difficulty of the game. while most NES role-playing games didn't age well, this game is one of the worst aged games. It's why I decided to spoil the plot without warning.
After the events in Mother1/Earthbound Zero, Giegue retreated to space, where his powers grew to the point to becoming the power of evil himself! After losing his alien form, he become like Cthulhu and becomes a dark alien god. However, he has lost his mind, as "absolute power corrupts absolutely," the newly formed Giygas was contained int the Devil's Machine as his mind-controlling powers corrupts everyone including the annoying neighbor Porky, who helps sets everything in motion as the "devil's" advocate. Buzz-Buzz, a failed version of Ness, goes back into time to warn past Ness and sends him to find the eight Your Sanctuary locations to get the powers of the earth and stop Giygas.
At first, this game did NOT sit well with most critics, but being a 90's person, this game was not build on fun but more on the reflection to most people at the time. Also, this game did influence games later in the line like Persona 4, which is considered one of the best JRPGS of it's time. Being someone who personally like Earthbound dispute what critics say, as some like soulless games like Doom 3, It one of the best classics. Other than that, the game introduced an awesome combat system that adds a "Bleeding" effect to where the health counts down like a car's fuel gadge. SOMEONE needs a HEALH bar. The game also has the enemies in the background instead of random encounters, making it manageable and some fights ship-able. This game is also thankfully easier that Zero, but is the LONGEST of the series. Despite this, it's recommended none-the-less.
After Giygas' defeated, Porky runs off with what is left of Giygas' power and technology, making him a very dangerous foe more than before. With the technology left behind, he uses it to kidnap people from his time and creates the Pigmask army, a reference and parody of the collective from Half-life 2. He and his army lands in Tazmilly Village, a post-apocalyptic village in an Australia-like island, he bombs forest and gains control via happy boxes. He then makes chimeras, Animal and machine hybrids that cause chaos that kills Lucas' mother in the start of the game! It's up to Lucas and company to stop the Porky and his Pigmask army while looking for his missing brother Clause.
While Earthbound was strong, as it didn't take itself seriously as a free-roaming JRPG. However, Mother 3 has the strongest story of the trilogy as the player has feelings twords the characters and their new movements of sprites. This game pushed the limits of the Game-boy advance! The player can relate to one or many of the events that occur during the story. The battle system has been ampted, as there's a new combo system that is based on of the rhythm in the background music, and getting them down is satisfying! Returning and fixed from Mother 1 is the running mechanic, which can bypass weak enimies and sometime crashing into things cause things to happen, even if there's a few in the game. The game is considered the BEST in the series for a reason, beating Earthbound with the majorities tens all over review sites. This is highly recommended, but I will not spoil the ending here as it's something to see first hand!
Overall, the Mother/Earthbound series is all about the experience! While some do not see it as fun, as they tend to not see gaming as art, I would recommend the series for anyone who like to play RPGs to kill the gods of olde. However, its recommended to watch Mother 1 as its the weakest of the trilogy. While Earhbound seems dated, it has that "Story is not important" charm liked in games like Phantasy Star Online. Mother 3 has the heart and actually revolutionized RPGs to perfection, it's a real damn shame that it will NEVER be localized normally; While I don't recommend piracy, play the game via translation patch. This is one RPG trilogy that is under-utilized withing the realm of gaming...
Friday, May 22, 2015
Beastly Bash: Dead Rising 2 (with Off-the-Record) : Crossing Dressing with the Dead [Spoilers!]
Just to set the record, Dead Rising 1 did not age well. While it was fun at the time, it would be recommended just to watch about the first game just to catch up to what happen, which I will spoil somewhat. And about Dead Rising 3, personally, the game has lost it's identity to the point that the game ended up becoming bland and the game was not ported too well on the PC. In the end, Dead Rising 2 is the best of the series, and with the lastest update on Steam to remove the gutted Windows Live that died of late, now would be the perfect time for a retro-review of the Zombie smashing hit.
We start off as Either Chuck Green, or non-canonically, Frank West in Off-the-Record. Both characters compete in the show Terror Is Reality for money to afford Zombrex, a drug that prevents the infected from becoming Zombies. The infection is caused by either Zombie bites like Katie's or from being stinged by one of the many queens used to the incident 2 years ago in the game. Just when things seem normal, Frank finds something fishy going in the background while Chuck runs off to get his daughter. All the sudden, an explosion happens and an outbreak occurs! After escaping, depending on which of the two games, Either Chuck or Stacy will be framed for the incident and it's up to the player to find the truth and stop whoever's behind the incident.
In terms of gameplay, the game is still the same, but the controls aren't as clunky as everything gameplay-wise has been refined from the last game as the characters run more straight and narrow than before. While the AI is not as stupid as before, they still are somewhat slow. However, that is easily remedied as they have UNLIMITED AMMO with shotguns and hand guns. Just make note that in Off-The-Record that the AI is worst as they are actually worst as not only they get locked by Zombies, but their Health drains, making them weaker than in the normal game! Keep close if playing the spin-off game.
One of the biggest features of the game, besides dressing the character for a comical effect, is the psychopaths, human turned enemies thanks because of their sanity snapped like twigs within their minds. You do get three new bosses in Off-The-Record, but the story remains the same. Beware, as most of the bosses are challenging and can easily butcher lower levels. This goes into an annoying pet-peeve of the game: While restarting the game dose help at times of low levels, it makes replaying the game somewhat a forced obligation.
The biggest addition of the game if the crafting system, as Chuck or Frank can combine weapons to make even bigger and better weapons. While most weapons are just for looks and humor, the other half is very useful for zombies and psychopaths that are within the game. Sadly, the player will often use few of the weapons are most wouldn't be as helpful as the ones the players usually stick with. For example, mixing the axe and hammer together makes a great weapon that pulverizes zombies with one jump attack or make a spiked bat to clear a way to pass by.
In summery, I would have to recommend getting Dead Rising 2 over Off-the-Record as the game should have been an add-on than a stand-alone game. Its an issue within the game industry as this is a habit that occurs more often than it should happen. However, if anyone likes Frank west for being a love-to-hate character, get Off-the-Record if fan of the "character." Oh, and avoid Dead Rising 3. It's just not a colorful game that gamers once loved. Sorry...
We start off as Either Chuck Green, or non-canonically, Frank West in Off-the-Record. Both characters compete in the show Terror Is Reality for money to afford Zombrex, a drug that prevents the infected from becoming Zombies. The infection is caused by either Zombie bites like Katie's or from being stinged by one of the many queens used to the incident 2 years ago in the game. Just when things seem normal, Frank finds something fishy going in the background while Chuck runs off to get his daughter. All the sudden, an explosion happens and an outbreak occurs! After escaping, depending on which of the two games, Either Chuck or Stacy will be framed for the incident and it's up to the player to find the truth and stop whoever's behind the incident.
In terms of gameplay, the game is still the same, but the controls aren't as clunky as everything gameplay-wise has been refined from the last game as the characters run more straight and narrow than before. While the AI is not as stupid as before, they still are somewhat slow. However, that is easily remedied as they have UNLIMITED AMMO with shotguns and hand guns. Just make note that in Off-The-Record that the AI is worst as they are actually worst as not only they get locked by Zombies, but their Health drains, making them weaker than in the normal game! Keep close if playing the spin-off game.
One of the biggest features of the game, besides dressing the character for a comical effect, is the psychopaths, human turned enemies thanks because of their sanity snapped like twigs within their minds. You do get three new bosses in Off-The-Record, but the story remains the same. Beware, as most of the bosses are challenging and can easily butcher lower levels. This goes into an annoying pet-peeve of the game: While restarting the game dose help at times of low levels, it makes replaying the game somewhat a forced obligation.
The biggest addition of the game if the crafting system, as Chuck or Frank can combine weapons to make even bigger and better weapons. While most weapons are just for looks and humor, the other half is very useful for zombies and psychopaths that are within the game. Sadly, the player will often use few of the weapons are most wouldn't be as helpful as the ones the players usually stick with. For example, mixing the axe and hammer together makes a great weapon that pulverizes zombies with one jump attack or make a spiked bat to clear a way to pass by.
In summery, I would have to recommend getting Dead Rising 2 over Off-the-Record as the game should have been an add-on than a stand-alone game. Its an issue within the game industry as this is a habit that occurs more often than it should happen. However, if anyone likes Frank west for being a love-to-hate character, get Off-the-Record if fan of the "character." Oh, and avoid Dead Rising 3. It's just not a colorful game that gamers once loved. Sorry...
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Beastlt Byte: Midle Earth: Shadows of Maldor!
Well, since it's the start of summer, it means it is already the start of the summer drouth. However, it has been raining a lot of late, so it's not THAT kind of drouth. Instead, this is the part of the year where game, both Triple A and indie usually slows down to a crawl. This would be the best time to review something that was either missed or, in my case, something I couldn't afford and/or that was limited to WB-Games being a total dick to independent reviewers and critics alike. Thankfully, this has finally lifted. Still a shady practice, WB!
So...How is the game?
Pros!
- This game mixes Assassin's Creed with the Arkam Games' gameplay
- Two main areas that is big, but not over-whelming
- The Nemesis system make failure critical as the Oorcs can be promoted, even to War-cheffs
- The runes and upgrades help make the player powerful
- TONS of side activities which fits and can benefit the main compain
- Branding adds tactics as the play can have sleeper agents in the field
- Help the sleepers by fighting their rivals and climb up the chain
However, I can see WHY the reviews where limited the reviews (besides money) because...
Cons!
- The game gets too easy in the end as upgrades make players feel Over-Powered
- The Add-on campaign starts you full powered, killing the challenge
- The game is locked at 30-40 Frames per secant, making it awkward
- Worst of all, Quick-time final boss, which is under-whelming
- The game is somewhat of a pain to complete
Rating: C
The game has a great start, but as soon as branding comes in play, the game became easier unless someone die alot. While it dose easily defeats Assasin's creed, it's not as long, which is fine. If anyone was hoping for a total fusion, it's more of a Cheese and peanut-butter cracker snack. It's good, but it's not as filling as most (but one) Arkam games. If anyone is hungry for batman, this will hold up until the final game of the series. However, I DO NOT recommend this game at full price due to it's short story missions compared to past WB games. The add on also are nice, but they end anti-climatically as well. Wait until the steam sales.
So...How is the game?
Pros!
- This game mixes Assassin's Creed with the Arkam Games' gameplay
- Two main areas that is big, but not over-whelming
- The Nemesis system make failure critical as the Oorcs can be promoted, even to War-cheffs
- The runes and upgrades help make the player powerful
- TONS of side activities which fits and can benefit the main compain
- Branding adds tactics as the play can have sleeper agents in the field
- Help the sleepers by fighting their rivals and climb up the chain
However, I can see WHY the reviews where limited the reviews (besides money) because...
Cons!
- The game gets too easy in the end as upgrades make players feel Over-Powered
- The Add-on campaign starts you full powered, killing the challenge
- The game is locked at 30-40 Frames per secant, making it awkward
- Worst of all, Quick-time final boss, which is under-whelming
- The game is somewhat of a pain to complete
Rating: C
The game has a great start, but as soon as branding comes in play, the game became easier unless someone die alot. While it dose easily defeats Assasin's creed, it's not as long, which is fine. If anyone was hoping for a total fusion, it's more of a Cheese and peanut-butter cracker snack. It's good, but it's not as filling as most (but one) Arkam games. If anyone is hungry for batman, this will hold up until the final game of the series. However, I DO NOT recommend this game at full price due to it's short story missions compared to past WB games. The add on also are nice, but they end anti-climatically as well. Wait until the steam sales.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Beastly Byte: GTA V (PC )
This game is one thing that everyone been waiting for. While the Xbone and the PlayStation 4 version been out for some time, PC gamers waited for some time after so many delays. As of this review, it has finally hit steam after quite some time! After GTA4, I found it to be under-whelming since the game-play clashed horribly with the story to the point I would rather play Saints Row 2 and even recommend that game over it. It would be nice if they patched Saints Row 2 and bring 1 to the PC master system, but that's neither here nor there.
So, how IS the game. well...
The positive:
+ Best port of the game
+ Three playable characters that you would either love-to-hate or Hate-to-love with different abilities
+ The game is bigger as advertized
+ There are a lot of sub-activities from Heist to the simplest game of golf
+ Online can be a blast with friends
+ During crime sections, music cues with fitting themes
+ A lot of crime movie tribute pieces
+ Single player runs smoothly over +60 Frames
However, There are some big flaws, in my humble opinion. For example...
The negative:
- In summary, the story is a major dick-butt
- Characters that are known are either killed, missing, or worst, butchered
- The family sucks, as they are easily the worst characters in the game
- Unskippible water boarding section, which is pointless
- Plot-holes which the game contradict itself with
- While most of the music nice, most of them doesn't fit GTA's ascetics .
- Graphical glitches can occur on some graphic cards. Recommend +800 Cards
- Heist in Online are currently broken on all ports; Dated Online Social system
- Path finding for AI drivers are broken, especially the taxi drivers!
- Useless out-of-game phone apps for smartphones which don't really add anything to game
- Caps where not all your CPU power is not read properly; Fixed via notepad
- Online needs a passive-aggressive mode that prevents Friendly Fire to other players
- Worst of all, Micro-transactions break the flow and ruins progress in the game.
Grade: B
If the gaming PC can handle the game, this is recommended hands down. The player can easily work around the micro-transactions, but they should NEVER exist in a triple A game. Thankfully most of the cut-sceans are skip-able besides the few parts of the game which act as loading zones. While the story and the micro-transactions do hold this game back from being a perfect game, there's no denying that this is the best port of the game!
So, how IS the game. well...
The positive:
+ Best port of the game
+ Three playable characters that you would either love-to-hate or Hate-to-love with different abilities
+ The game is bigger as advertized
+ There are a lot of sub-activities from Heist to the simplest game of golf
+ Online can be a blast with friends
+ During crime sections, music cues with fitting themes
+ A lot of crime movie tribute pieces
+ Single player runs smoothly over +60 Frames
However, There are some big flaws, in my humble opinion. For example...
The negative:
- In summary, the story is a major dick-butt
- Characters that are known are either killed, missing, or worst, butchered
- The family sucks, as they are easily the worst characters in the game
- Unskippible water boarding section, which is pointless
- Plot-holes which the game contradict itself with
- While most of the music nice, most of them doesn't fit GTA's ascetics .
- Graphical glitches can occur on some graphic cards. Recommend +800 Cards
- Heist in Online are currently broken on all ports; Dated Online Social system
- Path finding for AI drivers are broken, especially the taxi drivers!
- Useless out-of-game phone apps for smartphones which don't really add anything to game
- Caps where not all your CPU power is not read properly; Fixed via notepad
- Online needs a passive-aggressive mode that prevents Friendly Fire to other players
- Worst of all, Micro-transactions break the flow and ruins progress in the game.
Grade: B
If the gaming PC can handle the game, this is recommended hands down. The player can easily work around the micro-transactions, but they should NEVER exist in a triple A game. Thankfully most of the cut-sceans are skip-able besides the few parts of the game which act as loading zones. While the story and the micro-transactions do hold this game back from being a perfect game, there's no denying that this is the best port of the game!
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Citizens of Earth and Freedom planet; Games of tribute.
W'oops, look like winter attacked out from nowhere in it's dieing breath while I was planning to do the rest of my valentine's review and I have caught the stomach flu again. However, while sick, I was introduced two games that tries to capture the heart of what made the original games that they are based on. Like Shovel Knight, which shows the good parts of the NES games like Mega-man and it's other cohorts, Citizens of Earth wants to show what's good about Earthbound and Freedom Planet wants to show the epic story of Sonic Archie's counterpart and Sonic 1-3 gameplay in the 90's.
When the earth decided to unite in a cutesy world, it makes one wounder if it has been taken over by the female Illuminati. That is at least one thing they got right with right when it comes with the Earthbound influenced world as Itoi would make it. The player star as the president, as he recruits people to fight for him, as he doesn't exactly fight the random monsters, aliens, and creatures himself. The one thing that this game has over earthbound is the different citizens you could recruit like in The Wounderful 101. Each citizen has their special abilities they have can can unlocked, different dialog, and the different names they can take.
However, unlike Earthbound, it lacks the hidden dark tone and the humor of the game, as most of the jokes are either hit or miss. Personally, they seem to be mostly misses, as they wanted to hit the players with the punchline, but misses as it closes up to the end of the joke. Most of the lines, as much as the characters, are too two dimensional. While the fighting system is solid, it is just dose not have the heart as earthbound.
In the end, I recommend playing the fan translation of Mother 3 over Citizens of Earth. Mother 3 that is a great sequel to Earthbound. Yes, the different cultural name for earthbound is different, but personally agree that at least mother is a much fitting name. In fact, there's a new fan game that's coming out this year. I recommend to look into that as well. Earthbound is also available on the Nintendo eShop, but beware, as the game is long.
Meanwhile, Freedom planet started out as a fan game to the Sonic 2D games, but in the end, the developers realized that the idea should be rewritten as an identity as it's own. It starts as a evil leader storms the castle, killing the king and brain-washing the prince to his bidding. meanwhile on a literal animal planet, a ship comes in, two women characters with abilities of their own, must fight to liberate the planet from evil leader...With also a help from a bunny/dog thing later in the game.
This game is a love letter to most Sega games within Sega's counsel era from the character's design looking like abandoned characters that Sega and time forgot, as well as the game-play controls, to even the Sega CD music. This is a colorful game all around! You can play either by story or skip it via classic mode you would expect from any Sega game of the past. The story plays as the freedom fighter story, as it was a popular edgy story element since the 90's.
However, there is one minor problems with the game: One would be the very configuration issues. For one, the sound options are one in the same, so you cannot adjust the music from the voice acting in the game, which leads into another flaw with the game: The quality of the voice actors are phoned in. This is where the lines are in low quality because of limitations of either technology or quality. The smallest issue is the design since there's a lot of anamorphic characters now. But the biggest issue is the controller configuration, as it easily confuse your keyboard as a controller. Joy-to-keys dose help, but it's an error that is usually rare and should not exist.
If Sonic couldn't scratch that itch to that one 2D sonic fan to another, this is the game for that one sonic fan. As for Sonic himself, I fear that he has really dug himself into a very deep hole that not even Mario can dig him out. Thankfully, Sega is making more careful investments in Aliens thanks to creative assembly and they're making money thanks to Free-to-play games like PSO2, so they are making back their investments.
All and all, The love for one thing can make another, especially when aliens help make games like Mertoid and Doom. Sure, it can be misused and exploited like with the spider-man franchise, but when use cautiously, it can birth some new IPs!
When the earth decided to unite in a cutesy world, it makes one wounder if it has been taken over by the female Illuminati. That is at least one thing they got right with right when it comes with the Earthbound influenced world as Itoi would make it. The player star as the president, as he recruits people to fight for him, as he doesn't exactly fight the random monsters, aliens, and creatures himself. The one thing that this game has over earthbound is the different citizens you could recruit like in The Wounderful 101. Each citizen has their special abilities they have can can unlocked, different dialog, and the different names they can take.
However, unlike Earthbound, it lacks the hidden dark tone and the humor of the game, as most of the jokes are either hit or miss. Personally, they seem to be mostly misses, as they wanted to hit the players with the punchline, but misses as it closes up to the end of the joke. Most of the lines, as much as the characters, are too two dimensional. While the fighting system is solid, it is just dose not have the heart as earthbound.
In the end, I recommend playing the fan translation of Mother 3 over Citizens of Earth. Mother 3 that is a great sequel to Earthbound. Yes, the different cultural name for earthbound is different, but personally agree that at least mother is a much fitting name. In fact, there's a new fan game that's coming out this year. I recommend to look into that as well. Earthbound is also available on the Nintendo eShop, but beware, as the game is long.
Meanwhile, Freedom planet started out as a fan game to the Sonic 2D games, but in the end, the developers realized that the idea should be rewritten as an identity as it's own. It starts as a evil leader storms the castle, killing the king and brain-washing the prince to his bidding. meanwhile on a literal animal planet, a ship comes in, two women characters with abilities of their own, must fight to liberate the planet from evil leader...With also a help from a bunny/dog thing later in the game.
This game is a love letter to most Sega games within Sega's counsel era from the character's design looking like abandoned characters that Sega and time forgot, as well as the game-play controls, to even the Sega CD music. This is a colorful game all around! You can play either by story or skip it via classic mode you would expect from any Sega game of the past. The story plays as the freedom fighter story, as it was a popular edgy story element since the 90's.
However, there is one minor problems with the game: One would be the very configuration issues. For one, the sound options are one in the same, so you cannot adjust the music from the voice acting in the game, which leads into another flaw with the game: The quality of the voice actors are phoned in. This is where the lines are in low quality because of limitations of either technology or quality. The smallest issue is the design since there's a lot of anamorphic characters now. But the biggest issue is the controller configuration, as it easily confuse your keyboard as a controller. Joy-to-keys dose help, but it's an error that is usually rare and should not exist.
If Sonic couldn't scratch that itch to that one 2D sonic fan to another, this is the game for that one sonic fan. As for Sonic himself, I fear that he has really dug himself into a very deep hole that not even Mario can dig him out. Thankfully, Sega is making more careful investments in Aliens thanks to creative assembly and they're making money thanks to Free-to-play games like PSO2, so they are making back their investments.
All and all, The love for one thing can make another, especially when aliens help make games like Mertoid and Doom. Sure, it can be misused and exploited like with the spider-man franchise, but when use cautiously, it can birth some new IPs!
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Metroid Prime Trilogy: Samus at her Prime
Samus, it's sad that no one really loves you. Seriously, the other Nintendo series get more attention from Zelda and Mario's Peach, but then you're stuck with all the perv-y fan-base who have not gone out for ages. And when Nintendo doesn't know what to do with you, they scared you with a soft personality which doesn't really fit your character, a problem which even Lara Croft Reboot has been scared with since it started a annoying trend that everyone's adopting. Why do people confuse annoying characters with strong characters? ... Dammit, JRPGs....
Samus was at her prime during the GameCube days, where they manage to fuse Metroid-vania with a first-person shooter. This game series was the Metroid: Prime Series! While it was made to compete with Microsoft's Halo series, which was born on the PC, this game trilogy has left an impact within the Metroid franchise whenever anyone likes it or not. While the trilogy WAS rare, it has been re-released on the Nintendo eShop, And before anyone say anything, no, some old GameCube and Wii games do not emulate well.
While it is a good trilogy, these are some flaws within the game that threw the classic fans off guard.
The common issue is what I like to call The Power Amnesia, where the character has all of their abilities but then loses them because of current story occurrence. Within all the Metroid series and other metroid-vania games, this is meant to tease the player to their full potential so it would encourage plays to one hundred percent the game to help fulfill their power fantasy. When it's done right, it can help players feel entitled, the trope can wear out very fast to where it's not exciting anymore.
Another issue is the the dated motion controls, while it is prefect for shooting games and takes time to adjust to, It makes some parts in the games both easier and harder than originally intended. Take the opening part of Metroid Prime as you fight the mid-boss for regaining the missals. While they did added steps to easily keep you out of the acid, the boss quickly closes it mouth before Samus could get a few shots in. This causes inconsistency which can be jarring to returning players and newcomers alike.
Thankfully, most of the games are intact, dispute the issues with the ports and reports. While the game is annoying to scan with Samus, the lore within the game is somewhat fascinating. There is a ton of back-story within the game about the livelihood of the aliens of the past, from the enimies has somewhat of a story as they have ranks within their army to how an alien race met their end.
The graphics, while limited to 480p thanks to the Wii's limitations, managed to pull out nice graphical tricks to make itself look very nice. A reason Metroid Prime trilogy is good is because of how well the world was designed. While the lands are limited by metroid-vina's design, exploration always results in getting a health boost, new tools, or lore.
I would cautiously recommend this game since not everyone can get into a first-person shooter. However, this game trilogy is still fun! While the motion controls are dated as even Nintendo have left the trend somewhat behind, this is one trilogy I am glad that I have played as a teen. While this is a way that Nintendo can milk money from their fan-base, at least it's not their Youtube "union" they have formed on the Internet...
Samus was at her prime during the GameCube days, where they manage to fuse Metroid-vania with a first-person shooter. This game series was the Metroid: Prime Series! While it was made to compete with Microsoft's Halo series, which was born on the PC, this game trilogy has left an impact within the Metroid franchise whenever anyone likes it or not. While the trilogy WAS rare, it has been re-released on the Nintendo eShop, And before anyone say anything, no, some old GameCube and Wii games do not emulate well.
While it is a good trilogy, these are some flaws within the game that threw the classic fans off guard.
The common issue is what I like to call The Power Amnesia, where the character has all of their abilities but then loses them because of current story occurrence. Within all the Metroid series and other metroid-vania games, this is meant to tease the player to their full potential so it would encourage plays to one hundred percent the game to help fulfill their power fantasy. When it's done right, it can help players feel entitled, the trope can wear out very fast to where it's not exciting anymore.
Another issue is the the dated motion controls, while it is prefect for shooting games and takes time to adjust to, It makes some parts in the games both easier and harder than originally intended. Take the opening part of Metroid Prime as you fight the mid-boss for regaining the missals. While they did added steps to easily keep you out of the acid, the boss quickly closes it mouth before Samus could get a few shots in. This causes inconsistency which can be jarring to returning players and newcomers alike.
Thankfully, most of the games are intact, dispute the issues with the ports and reports. While the game is annoying to scan with Samus, the lore within the game is somewhat fascinating. There is a ton of back-story within the game about the livelihood of the aliens of the past, from the enimies has somewhat of a story as they have ranks within their army to how an alien race met their end.
The graphics, while limited to 480p thanks to the Wii's limitations, managed to pull out nice graphical tricks to make itself look very nice. A reason Metroid Prime trilogy is good is because of how well the world was designed. While the lands are limited by metroid-vina's design, exploration always results in getting a health boost, new tools, or lore.
I would cautiously recommend this game since not everyone can get into a first-person shooter. However, this game trilogy is still fun! While the motion controls are dated as even Nintendo have left the trend somewhat behind, this is one trilogy I am glad that I have played as a teen. While this is a way that Nintendo can milk money from their fan-base, at least it's not their Youtube "union" they have formed on the Internet...
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Grim Fandango Remastered; A tale of olde mexican lore
Bleh... I didn't feel like recalling the last year, as some games that was released this year was disappointing and somewhat glitched. The only developers that is actually doing work was Nintendo at the end of the year, especially when a few of high end that only ported old gen works to the new gen counsels. Pointless when you think about PC games since a good graphics card is all you need for a good time. Plus with all the "exclusives" becoming outrageous, and all the craziness of the world being just a giant baby that needs to be spanked...
Before I become weirder, lets move on to to Grim Fandango Remastered! For those who fallow me on Deviant Art knows, not only how laughable crazy the new logo is, but that Grim Fandango is one of my favorite games of all time. However, the man behind it, Tim Shafer, tends to be stuck in the past.He did make games like this game, Phyconaughts, and helped with cool games like Sam and Max: Hit the road... However, he also made a few "misses" that to his business practices like in Broken Age, which is unfinished dispute making millions, and a few failed kickstarter projects like SpaceBase DF-9. However, his games still influences today's companies like the German adventure company Daedalic Entertainment, as well as other developers, to fallow in his footsteps.
While the game now runs on all windows platforms now because of the engage over-hawl, it still have it's lazy patch jobs that is quite noticeable. While the game dose render some cutscenes very well, some of the original cutscenes are still there and are noticeable as they run in thirty frames per secant while the game's renders are at a full sixty.
For those running the game on the PC version though Steam or GoG running on HD Graphics, this is very noticeable, as some older graphics pop out like an old crumbled paper compared to a new one. There is also some animation hick-ups when one swears they almost T-pose for at least one moment. For those on the Playstation version, you can use the touch-screen to control the character, but we know tank controls are better on horror games than adventure game, especially when you count that 3D Monkey Island game and, the worst offence, Simon the Sourer 3D.
There's also the annoying small pet-peeve window boarders, which can be switched out with a stretched widescreen, which is somewhat annoying the least. I, personally, don't know why game re-releases, or remasters in this case, like those on Xbox-live games have the boarders like they're trying to compete with the Super Gameboy, which is easily defeated by modern emulators. However, this can be easily fixed if the patch-works aren't lazy on the steam version.
However, there is a lot of good with the game! The story is just as awesome as ever! The player stars as Manny, a salesman of the dead, who is after redemtion and revenge on the corrupted Department of the Dead while looking for a runaway woman named Mechie who he felt he let down. Meeting all sorts of characters within the main game, which last up to seven to twelve hours, Manny find the truth behind all the conspiracy and redeems himself at the end.
Another new feature is the controls! While the original tank controls are still here, they can be moved with the comfy 360 controller, or best yet, point-and-click controls. Where has that been so far? Ever since telltale went with their controller setting at Sam and Max: The devil's playhouse, the mouse controls went with the inde-games! I know they threw mouse controls out just to sell on the new gen counsels and to spam the Quick-time Events, but one should never throw out an mechanic that actually survived the passing of time. Something that Sega should have learned with Sonic...
For those who have a hard time emulating the old version of the game, I would actually recommend this game as this game is a classic that should be played for the great story within the game. For the viewers, they can tell if they will like the game by the gameplay alone. Knowing my friend, Orewaussop, he's going to try let's playing the game soon. So let me sell out to my old friend so it would help thy viewer decide to either watch or buy the game.
...No, I'm serious.... Watch his upcoming let's play when it's out...Or at least I hope he got all the kinks out... Seriously, Chris!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, thanks for the one thousand views!!~ I am planning to do a group Let's play on this one game that I have in mind. I would update on my youtube, but since of my computer HDD burning out, this could take awhile. I'm also doing graphics and other works on my Patreon. Donate and I'll make some logos, twitch goods, and other graphical goodies. I will try to make a special for the one thousand plus views, so please stay tuned. Thank you and goodnight...
Before I become weirder, lets move on to to Grim Fandango Remastered! For those who fallow me on Deviant Art knows, not only how laughable crazy the new logo is, but that Grim Fandango is one of my favorite games of all time. However, the man behind it, Tim Shafer, tends to be stuck in the past.He did make games like this game, Phyconaughts, and helped with cool games like Sam and Max: Hit the road... However, he also made a few "misses" that to his business practices like in Broken Age, which is unfinished dispute making millions, and a few failed kickstarter projects like SpaceBase DF-9. However, his games still influences today's companies like the German adventure company Daedalic Entertainment, as well as other developers, to fallow in his footsteps.
While the game now runs on all windows platforms now because of the engage over-hawl, it still have it's lazy patch jobs that is quite noticeable. While the game dose render some cutscenes very well, some of the original cutscenes are still there and are noticeable as they run in thirty frames per secant while the game's renders are at a full sixty.
For those running the game on the PC version though Steam or GoG running on HD Graphics, this is very noticeable, as some older graphics pop out like an old crumbled paper compared to a new one. There is also some animation hick-ups when one swears they almost T-pose for at least one moment. For those on the Playstation version, you can use the touch-screen to control the character, but we know tank controls are better on horror games than adventure game, especially when you count that 3D Monkey Island game and, the worst offence, Simon the Sourer 3D.
There's also the annoying small pet-peeve window boarders, which can be switched out with a stretched widescreen, which is somewhat annoying the least. I, personally, don't know why game re-releases, or remasters in this case, like those on Xbox-live games have the boarders like they're trying to compete with the Super Gameboy, which is easily defeated by modern emulators. However, this can be easily fixed if the patch-works aren't lazy on the steam version.
However, there is a lot of good with the game! The story is just as awesome as ever! The player stars as Manny, a salesman of the dead, who is after redemtion and revenge on the corrupted Department of the Dead while looking for a runaway woman named Mechie who he felt he let down. Meeting all sorts of characters within the main game, which last up to seven to twelve hours, Manny find the truth behind all the conspiracy and redeems himself at the end.
Another new feature is the controls! While the original tank controls are still here, they can be moved with the comfy 360 controller, or best yet, point-and-click controls. Where has that been so far? Ever since telltale went with their controller setting at Sam and Max: The devil's playhouse, the mouse controls went with the inde-games! I know they threw mouse controls out just to sell on the new gen counsels and to spam the Quick-time Events, but one should never throw out an mechanic that actually survived the passing of time. Something that Sega should have learned with Sonic...
For those who have a hard time emulating the old version of the game, I would actually recommend this game as this game is a classic that should be played for the great story within the game. For the viewers, they can tell if they will like the game by the gameplay alone. Knowing my friend, Orewaussop, he's going to try let's playing the game soon. So let me sell out to my old friend so it would help thy viewer decide to either watch or buy the game.
...No, I'm serious.... Watch his upcoming let's play when it's out...Or at least I hope he got all the kinks out... Seriously, Chris!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also, thanks for the one thousand views!!~ I am planning to do a group Let's play on this one game that I have in mind. I would update on my youtube, but since of my computer HDD burning out, this could take awhile. I'm also doing graphics and other works on my Patreon. Donate and I'll make some logos, twitch goods, and other graphical goodies. I will try to make a special for the one thousand plus views, so please stay tuned. Thank you and goodnight...
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