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Capoeira Fighter 3

Jun 19
Posted by Fatal Dawn in Action/Adventure, Gaming Review, PC

Capoeira Fighter is a PC fighting game series.

What makes the game unique is that it features the arcade-style, melee side-scrolling action popularized by Street Fighter whilst keeping up with its theme of Capoeira. For those unfamiliar, Capoeira is a Afro-Brazilian martial-arts form which incorporates music and dancing.

 

"Loading Menu"

The loading menu for an upcoming match. Control keys and hints are displayed

 

In the newest installment: Capoeira Fighter 3, players have many playing options to choose from. One could choose the classic arcade mode, face off against the computer or a friend, or even enter mini games. Face-offs can entail various manners of gameplay ranging from the usual knock-out to a game “Ring King” (players aim to stay inside a designated ring) to a “Money Game” (a version of capture the flag).
The gameplay itself is relatively simple once one is familiarized with the keys. As always, keys can be adjusted in the “Options” menu.  Hints are provided throughout the loading and other such menus and there are also opportunities to train and master the controls in “Tutorial” mode. “Credits” are accumulated through some game modes such as “Survival” and the mini games.  These credits are required to unlock more interesting characters.

When fighting, the player will notice two bars:  one large, gradient bar and a small, green bar underneath that. The top bar is the health bar and the small green one underneath is the energy bar. Players should pay close attention to the energy bar in order to perform combos. The game also allows players to enjoy tag matches and co-op gameplay. More supplementary information regarding the fight menu system is explained on the Official Site

The diverse array of backdrops and background music enhance the aura of the game. Each scene is artistically designed featuring scenes from a mini mart parking lot, to a plantation yard, to the deck of a yacht.

Combos in the game are incredibly enterprising and what really make the gameplay worthwhile. The reason this game is playable on repetitive basis is due – in large part – to the versatility in each fighter’s repertoire. The characters themselves are diverse in both appearance and ability. Each combo is unique according to player and there are some very interesting combos in the game. My personal favorite is the Muay Thai fighter, Chompoo.

Capoeira Fighter 3 is the epitome of a game truly taking a unique idea and using it to great effect. This creativity of drawing from the template of predecessor side-scrolling fighting games while still breaking free from the traditional mold could explain why it such a success and consistently earns above-average ratings on many of the gaming websites where it is featured. The backgrounds are surreal, there is a diverse cast of characters, and the combos are compelling. All in all, this is one highly-addictive, fun game.

 

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Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Jun 22
Posted by Reicha7 in Other

 

Recently at E3, Sony showcased new gameplay for Uncharted 3 and this, coupled with my lack of reviews recently, drove me to go back and finish Uncharted 2, a game I had put off in favour of more recent releases. Uncharted 2 received a lot of attention upon its release, including 50 game of the year awards as well as many other accolades and has been hailed as one of the best games ever made. This puts me in an interesting spot as I don’t follow other reviewers like sheep. Plus I work for free so can’t be bribed by the game companies, the way IGN is. This ensures a fair review of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

 

The plot follows our favourite wise-cracking, bad guy Nathan Drake as he goes off in search of the lost city of Shambhala and the magical Cintamani Stone; a giant sapphire with mystical properties. Joining him on his journey is the love interest and sensible girl from the last game, Elena Fisher who seems to have done some growing up since Drake’s Fortune and has become an independent and cynical young lady. New to the mix is this years model of love interest for Drake, Chloe Frazer the new love interest who helps provide a nice contrast to Elena. Where would we be without our bad guy, I mean besides Drake, and Uncharted 2 has thrown in another race for Drake to exterminate, Eastern Europeans, with their typical stereotype Easter European boss.

 

The game feels like one of those feel good Summer Blockbuster films we see every year with massive budgets and over-the-top, special effect driven action scenes. This is by no means a bad thing as I go to see an Action film to be entertained and not have to think a great deal, just enjoy the ride, and that is precisely what Uncharted does. Everything is done to a cinematic standard with some impressive action scenes, whether it be jumping across carriages on a moving train whilst being chased by a hind helicopter and shot at by half the Serbian military or running full pelt across a collapsing bridge over a several hundred foot drop. It isn’t the smartest game in the world but again it makes no allusions to being smart. It is just there to entertain and on that part, it does its job well.

 

The Game is played third person, sellotape-your-spine-to-cover shooter style but it has been pretty much perfected since the previous game and with additions like being able to just lean the gun around cover or lob a sneaky grenade without risk is certainly a point in the game’s favour. The hand-to-hand combat has had some changes whereby close fights last longer and you need to be on your feet to dodge enemy swings which is quite inconvenient when you are exchanging punches in the middle of a heated fire-fight but then again, why the hell are you choosing to exchange punches in the middle of a heated fire-fight? Stealth Kills have been improved however, with the ability to grab enemies while attached to cover and silently take them out and some areas are so full of patrolling enemies, being an assassin is almost essential to give yourself a fighting chance when shit does go down as indeed it will.

 

Now for the game’s aesthetics. As with its predecessor, Uncharted 2 looks beautiful and the whole world feels really believable. The variation of environment from jungles, to war-torn villages, to Tibetan mountains keeps everything fresh as you progress and the music fits nicely to the environment although considering how often it has to change to the combat soundtrack, you don’t really get to enjoy it very often. Overall the game is pleasing to look at and to listen to with a very varied range of voice acting from Drake’s wise-cracking to Chloe’s British sarcasm all done to an excellent standard by the actors.

 

Uncharted 2 still retains one feature that I liked in the previous game but don’t see very often in games; where you play as a villain but still feel like the hero. Let’s face it, Drake is not a good guy. He steals, he kills, he defiles tombs but he is never in control of the situation when things go wrong and it shows a flaw in the character that makes him a lot more believable than the Iron Maiden that is Lara Croft who happily strolls into gunfights without so much as a shrug. I mean in Tomb Raider 2 a guy turned himself into a freaking dragon and she was not even slightly phased by that? Drake would have probably shit is jeans before making some corny joke and spent most of the fight, getting the shit kicked out of him before scoring a lucky break. It shows a fundamental difference in character which I genuinely like. It shows that not every player character has to be this paragon of virtue and that they can have some flaws.

 

Better wrap this review up before I go on ranting about all the characters and their personalities. Maybe I can make a future topic of it as they are, in my opinion genuinely well designed characters, even if they are stereotypically Action film beautiful but I think I can forgive Naughty Dog for that.

 

Uncharted 2 is one of those games you sit down and play just for raw fun. No great deal of mental stimulation is required but that’s by no means a bad thing. It is designed to entertain and it does just that. Some people may accuse me of calling them game stupid but I’m not. Call of Duty is an example of a stupid game in terms of delivery of narrative. Uncharted has a fairly simple plot with some nice twists but it is delivered in manner that is engaging for the audience without dragging and allows for development of character as opposed to going from gunfight to gunfight.

 

So does Uncharted 2 deserve all the awards it has received? In reflection to what else came out in 2009, certainly nothing I played from 2009 comes close to beating it but then again I haven’t played Arkham Asylum yet so we shall see. Important question is, is it good? And the answer is a definite yes. Its entertaining, action packed and delivers everything you would expect to see in a big-budget action film. I think this game might actually make my very limited 5 star list as I genuinely cannot think of one bad thing to say about it, besides the fact it has multiplayer.

 

 

 

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Crysis 2 in Retrospect

Jun 11
Posted by Reicha7 in Other

Some of you may remember that my Crysis 2 review was full of praise for the game, hailing it as a well done sequel, doing its predecessor proud. Well I looked back on my review having given more time for Crysis 2 to sink in and have decided that I was wrong. I allowed hype to muddy my opinion of the game and as such I will review it again properly with all the hype out of my mind. I will also make a not to not review games until a decent time has past since I completed them. With that let us continue.

 

Crysis left us on a cliffhanger with the game’s heroes setting off to the site of a nuclear explosion to investigate the signals being transmitted by the mysterious nanosuit captain, Prophet and we all hoped that some degree of explanation as to what would transpire from there would occur.

 

Our Hopes were in vain it seems as the game did very little to explain the gap in what I can only assume is a ploy to get us excited for the third instalment. Instead, all we get is a regular G.I. Joe called Alcatraz getting severely fucked up in a battle with aliens in the opening mission and having his body transferred into Prophet’s suit with no advanced medical tools or machinery needed. Now these aliens look absolutely nothing like the ones in the previous game and Crysis 2 passes this off with a rather cheap explanation that different sites for the invasion yield different aliens.

 

These aliens have caused a spread of disease throughout New York and it is up to Alcatraz to figure out what the fuck is going on with absolutely no personal motivation as he was just forced into a suit and given instructions from the get go. The story unravels with many twists and turns full of betrayal and plot twists of little relevance involving poorly characterised characters who add very little to the game experience. This is all to drive towards the ending scene where some parts of the original Crysis is explained but still didn’t leave me with a clear state of mind. I guess that’s Crytek’s plan to make me play the next game.

 

In the press conferences before the games release, Crytek announced that the new suit design would give you a greater deal of choice in how you play and I thought this to be the case at first as well but in retrospect it is actually a lot more restrictive. The micromanagement of the minor suit functions isn’t really necessary and switching between them at change of combat pace is a pain in the ass so this basically leaves you with Stealth Mode and Armour Mode while the predecessor had armour as standard with Stealth, Speed and Strength all a keyboard press away to adapt to the situation. Couple this with the fact that Strength and Speed have been considerably weakened to compensate for the fact they are standard mode and add in the fact that bringing down your visor gives you a step by step breakdown of the best path to take in almost any situation makes the game almost insultingly simple but at the same time very limiting if shit gets serious, which indeed it does later on.

 

One thing I will give Crysis 2 is that it paces itself rather well, starting off much the way Crysis did, with you stealthing your way around, getting the hang of the suit and slowly increasing in pace, building momentum until the explosive finale which does end the game quite nicely. This is achieved more easily by the game being unbelievably short. I buy Games for the Single player mostly and this game only gave me a 7 hour campaign and for £35 that is a fucking joke. This game is actually one of the shortest I have ever played. It wouldn’t have been so bad if it actually looked good but the PS3 version seems to have gotten shafted mid way through development with the poorest visual quality of the 3 platforms and this makes me feel even more cheated since we were promised the best visual effects with the CryEngine 3 being developed for PS3 usage. That is more a development fault than a game fault but I am still going to rant about it.

 

I won’t even discuss multiplayer as I haven’t played it and don’t really intend to as it appears to just be Call of Duty’s multiplayer in Nanotuits.

 

My final gripe before I finish this review, the physics and this also kind of goes back to the tactics. We were promised the ability to make full use of New York city, with a great deal of destructibility to help us achieve our goal such as jumping through floors of buildings and such, you know, like what Red Faction: Guerilla was able to achieve and still look good back in 2009. Instead, we just got a bunch of exploding cars and barrels, with detachable machine gun emplacements and a few scripted collapsing or collapsed buildings. Sorry but that is just cheap Crytek, you’d have been as well to come clean and say “sorry guys, we overestimated scale, our bad” and it wouldn’t have felt like such a big kick in the balls. Instead, you did;t tell us and managed to make Crysis 2 feel even more linear if that was possible.

 

My concluding thoughts here. Crytek, you messed up I am afraid. Your game was not as good as I thought it was and pales in comparison to the Goliath that was the original Crysis. I only hope you can learn from your mistakes and focus more on making a game that delivers compelling narrative and clever gameplay instead of trying to get a perfect scale of New York City.

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Violent Video Games and their Effects

May 21
Posted by Reicha7 in Other, Points of Interest

This is going to be somewhat different from normal. Instead of talking about a game for my review, I am going to look at violent video games as a whole and the potential damaging effects they bring. Most of my discussion is purely my views gathered from my own observations of the subject so don’t take it as gospel and please don’t go demanding numbers to back up my claims. These are purely my views on the issue.

 

Well I guess this might as well start with what the main issue is; violent video games cause kids to be violent. I will first of all discuss where there may be some weight to this argument before I point out the ultimate flaw in this argument.

 

Throughout my time playing video games and meeting new people who also play video games I have made some observations about the effects of games on people. I got my first Playstation when I was 7 years old back in 1999. I was thrilled at the prospect and sat down and began enjoying the games It had come with. Several months later my dad brought home a copy of Duke Nukem: Time to Kill and it was like nothing I had ever seen before, nothing but blood, violence, sex and ridiculous amounts of swearing. I had never seen anything like this in game or in film as my parents had never allowed me to see anything I was too young to see. In fact the whole reason I had Duke Nukem was because the store had put its price labels over all the age rating certificates. As soon as they found out its age rating, I had the game confiscated and rightly so.

The game had had an effect on me. I had become desensitized to ridiculous violence at an early age and this was not good. I had also tried to copy a few of Duke’s catchphrases around the house which did not end well either.

 

From this point on my parents were adamant about checking the age ratings of games I received or asked for. There was a degree of leniancy however and I was usually allowed to play the next age rating up e.g. at 7 I could play 12 rated games and at 12 I could play 15 rated games. This continued until I hit 15 at which point I was still not allowed 18s on the grounds that since it was the final age rating there was no limit to the graphic content they could contain as could still have negative effects on me. This stopped when I hit 16 and got a debit card though so could just order them online but I like to think I was mature enough to handle the themes in them by then and I think that still holds true.

 

Meanwhile, one of my old friends came into the picture when we were about 10 years old with all these stories of how he had been playing Grand Theft Auto since he was 5 as well as all these other stories of his parents leniency towards games and I was amazed and for years I tried to use this to convince my parents to let me play them but rightly so they refused to budge. As the years went by I slowly began to get to experience the graphic experiences my friend was but there seemed to be a dividing line between us. While I was just finding the game as a whole fun and would discuss many parts of it, my friend only focused on the gore and violence aspects which seemed to be the sole reason he would play said game. It was worrying as it was affecting his attitude. His views on other people became very dark and he began discussing how happy It would make him to see people he didn’t like get brutally murdered and he himself became very violent although not physically violent, just very abusive and evil mannered. This is the point I broke off our friendship as his attitude towards other people was directly clashing with mine and I was fed up of the abuse I received from him.

 

That is an example from my life of the effects of violent video games on children at a young age and it can be argued that he was an isolated incident. As I went through school though I did begin to notice change in every new batch of first years that came up to the school especially once games like Call of Duty:Modern Warfare came out. This was most noticeable after Modern Warfare 2 was released when I was in my final year of high school. It seemed every student in the school had this game, even the first and second years who were only abut 12-13 years old. Their attitude towards other students and teachers was vastly different from what my year group’s had been. They refused to listen to authority, they were rude and quite often very violent. They seemed not to even care about school. All they could discuss was how they killed some retard on Modern Warfare 2. This was worrying that the newest generations were becoming increasingly violent as their parents allowed them access to more and more violent games.

 

This is of course not always true for every student and a lot of children do mature out of this stage when they reach an older age but at the present there is no denying that violent video games can have a detrimental effect on the minds of children. At a young age the human mind is a lot more influential. This has been proven scientifically and there are streams of data online to support this. So why at this young influential age are children being exposed to violent games?

 

This brings me back to my original statement that the public view of violent games is that they cause kids to be violent. This is true a lot of the time unless the violence can be put into context by the parents of the child. The real issue I have with the statement of violent games making violent kids is this: why are kids getting access to these games?

 

Parents are the biggest source of outcry. They wail and moan that games are corrupting their kids. This is untrue. It is not the games that corrupt kids. It is their own parents who purchase these games for them as a babysitter. It is the high street stores who don’t bother to check ID of people attempting to buy games. There are massive labels on games with their age rating clearly displayed. Parent cannot sit there and denounce video games when they are the ones giving them to their kids. I know some games like the call of duty games and Dead Space 2 are directly marketed at people too young to buy the games but parents should take more of an interest into what their children are being exposed to. The main problem is that parents don’t understand video games and just go “yeah whatever you can have this game” without even looking at what it details. It isn’t difficult to check a game. My parents were adamant about what I could and couldn’t play and I feel I have turned out all the better as a result.

 

The main problems of violent games causing violent kids are thus: Game stores are too concerned with their profit margin than about what games are doing and parents aren’t taking enough interest in their kids to see what the are exposing them to. In the future I certainly will not be buying my child the latest call of duty at age 12 and I will be strongly advising other parents to do the same.

 

While I do agree that violent games can adversely affect children’s mental state it still amazes me that people don’t actually notice the main issue; that kids are getting these games. We have age certificates for a reason. Most modern consoles have parental control options. This article really goes out to parents out there. Guys you just need to take more of an interest. It isn’t difficult to read an age rating on a box and there are detailed instructions on how to set up parental control on your kids machines. So stop blaming the games industry when you yourselves are probably more to blame.

 

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Crysis 2

Mar 31
Posted by Reicha7 in Other

I will start by saying that I played this game on PS3 on a non-3D television so most likely did not get the same visual experience that most PC players or owners of a 3D TV will have gotten but hopefully that will help me pick away at the important parts of the game like gameplay, story etc. So, on with the review.

 

Crysis 2 takes place 3 years after its predecessor, where a mysterious plague has gripped New York and the rising threat of invasion from the alien Ceph from the first game has driven most people to evacuate. Martial Law has been declared and a private military company, Cell, owned by CryNet, the creators of the Nanosuits, is in charge of controlling the spread of the virus and protecting the city from the Ceph. You play as special forces marine Alcatraz; a member of an elite group sent into the city to rescue Dr. Nathan Gould, one of the chief designers of the super hi-tech Nanosuits. Inevitably, shit hits the fan, your squad is attacked by the Ceph and you wake up in a warehouse wearing a Nanosuit and with Dr. Gould giving you instructions. So it’s off on a journey of learning for young Alcatraz and for the player as well. I will give Crysis 2 credit for being able to tell an engaging story. The game has a great air of mystery about it as you get told very little about what has happened in the last 3 years and this isn’t helped by none of the main characters from the first game, bar one, appearing at all.

 

This is good though as it keeps you playing trying to find out more and more. You want to know what the hell is going on and more and more questions pop up throughout the course of the game especially with flashbacks from another character’s past keep playing in your suit. It all boils down to an epic conclusion and a great lead in for the final instalment. It is like the ultimate example of a story telling tool. First game is like act 1, setting up the ultimate question. Crysis 2 is act 2, gathering the tools and skills to answer the ultimate question question and Crysis 3 will hopefully deliver to us the answer in a clever and jaw-dropping manner.

 

Speaking of jaw-dropping lets get to what the game series is famous for, the visuals. Crysis 2 is very nicely refined as an overall package but when you get into the fine details especially on vegetation it kind of stumbles a bit there but this can be forgiven. No doubt the PC version is considerably more beautiful but on the PS3 I would still put Killzone 3 above it in visuals. The original Crysis for PC had better visuals but that is the price you pay for opting for console.

 

One thing I will say is that the gameplay let me down a little bit. I enjoyed the complete chaos of destroying every little bit of a building in Crysis, or destroying half a forest with an assault rifle in a drawn out firefight. In Crysis 2, the most you can do is shatter windows and blow up explosives in terms of physics so a little disappointed there considering there was so much potential to be had with New York city as your playground. The changes to the Nanosuit though are something I do like with Strength/Speed being the default mode and a tap of the shoulder button switching to either Stealth or Armour mode. Coupled with the minor level customisation options for each mode and the variety of attachments for your weapons does allow you to shift battlefield tactics accordingly especially if you are like me and get too impatient when stealthing only to do something stupid and get half the army shooting at me.

 

The AI are generally quite intelligent and communicate to each other quite well although can be rather thick when it comes to finding a dead comrade whereby they check his pulse and move on as opposed to say sounding an alarm but oh well, maybe they are all heartless people.

 

Another thing I do enjoy about the game is the way it handles its tutorials. Instead of lumping everything on you immediately, Crysis 2 introduces you to aspects of the gameplay as they become appropriate and make it part of the actual gameplay so it doesn’t feel arbitrary or forced but instead is an enjoyable integrated experience.

 

Overall, I like Crysis 2. Despite its flaws it is still a great game with a plot I genuinely found well crafted. One objection I do have though is the inclusion of collectables throughout the game. Sorry but that should not be a way to get people to replay the game. I do feel a great sense of replayability in Crysis 2 though as the Nanosuit makes gameplay so interesting and varied and replayability is essential here as the game only took me 7 hours to complete on regular difficulty. The game is a very well crafted game but I just didn’t think it beat its predecessor overall. There was so much it could do but didn’t as opposed to the original Crysis which let you do damn near anything.

 

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Medievil

Mar 21
Posted by Reicha7 in Other Games

 

I have decided to start reviewing a selection of games that were very close to my heart and indeed still hold that special place; PS1 games. For Years I played my PS1 loving all the wonderful diversity, creativity and downright fun I found in the games before things became too serious, before we lost characters like Daniel Fortesque, Tombi and the Hogs of War to the faceless, emotionless goons that dominate today’s popular market. So now I will begin playing all my old PS1 games and reviewing them at my leisure as keeping a schedule is far too annoying.

 

Might as well kick off the list with one of my absolute favourites from the PS1 era and that is Medievil developed by SCEE Cambridge back in 1998. An evil Sorcerer named Zarok who was supposedly killed 100 years prior to the game by a brave and valiant knight has somehow returned to the land of Gallowmere and has risen the dead, stolen the sanity of the living and is generally making a big mess of the country. His spell however awoke Sir Daniel Fortesque, the knight who supposedly slew Zarok a century earlier when in actuality he fell in the first charge on Zarok’s army but had his legend created so the King could save face about his “Champion’s” death. So Dan sets off to put Zarok down once and for all, thereby restoring his reputation and allowing him to rest once more.

 

The plot doesn’t really get much simpler than that but that’s a good thing. It tells us what we need to know and lets us pave our own path throughout the game without tying us up with lengthy plot sequences or ridiculous twists and turns.

 

Medievil sees you facing off against all manner of undead and demonic foes from zombies to axe wielding villagers to homicidal pumpkin creatures and allows you to counter this with a colourful array of weapons including swords, hammers, bows, your own arm and even turning your foes into chicken drumsticks. Some of the weapons are found in certain levels in the game, and are better at dealing with some foes than others, but others need to be earned from the Hall of Heroes, a gathering place for the spirits of history’s greatest heroes. If you kill enough enemies or vice-versa not kill enough brainwashed citizens then you become eligible to collect the Chalice of Souls which allows you to visit the Hall of Heroes, collect your new item and probably have the piss taken out of you by one of the statues there.

 

Gameplay is simple, hit things until they die while avoiding being hit by them for most fights although all the bosses usually have an interesting twist during the fight. Health can be regained from fountains and health vials sprawled throughout the level and there is plenty of treasure to be collected for those who look hard enough. This is used to exchange services with some of the many gargoyles present throughout the game. These leering stone faces either fill you in about the local history or sell you provisions such as ammunition, shield repair or return weapons that may have been pinched from you earlier in the game.

 

The game is rich with lore from the many books found lying around and humour is around every corner in the form of conversations with the gargoyles, heroes and even in missions you undertake. The levels are very varied and you see a change of scenery and enemies every few levels. This added with the large amount of problem solving needed for some puzzles altogether serve to make the game all the more enjoyable. The enemies are nice and varied and often quite humorous from the lumbering, moaning zombies, to the squealing, torch-branding imps. The vast choice of weapons coupled with the large number of zones gives the game a great sense of size and often has you replaying your favourite levels to test out different weapons.

 

Medievil is a game with few faults and they can be ignored by its outstanding good qualities. It is well paced and sees a nice steady progression of difficulty while never being too horrific but at the same time still remaining relatively simple. Coupled with a wealth of humorous characters, menagerie of enemies and sheer stupid number of weapons the game gives you a great deal of enjoyment from start to finish. All in all a spectacular example of originality and raw fun with Dan himself standing out as a loveable character from the get go. Well worth downloading for your PS3 if you don’t own it already.

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Killzone 3

Mar 03
Posted by Reicha7 in Action/Adventure

Guerilla Games, you have done so many things right with your series. Killzone 2 was a masterfully crafted piece of art. It did a better job at conveying what the true horrors of war are than most games based on actual wars. Having never fought in any real battles I cannot say from experience that Killzone is more realistic but stepping onto the brutal battlefields of Helghan and watching scores of troops being relentlessly massacred by the enemy troops while the sound of gunfire and death are forever permeating my eardrums creates a much more real image of war than Call of Duty ever has. The Killzone games have consistently reminded me of Saving Private Ryan, which , in my opinion was the greatest war film of all time due to its unwavering determination to show the true horrors of the Second World War and the truly epic execution of said goal. Killzone 2 was genius and after seeing its tremendous set up for the sequel I awaited eagerly awaited to see what the developers would deliver with Killzone 3. Well all I really have to say is: Guerilla know how to create an atmosphere.

Killzone 3 takes place just after the assassination of Scolar Visari, the leader of the Helghast. His death brought in a new surge of militaristic patriotism for the Helghast as they all rally together to extract brutal revenge of their beloved leader’s assassins. The ISA forces have been broken and are in the midst of a full retreat, Helghan politicians are arguing over who Visari’s heir will be and in the midst of this, a small band of surviving ISA soldier fight to their last breath trying to stay alive under the relentless onslaught of their Helghast pursuers.

Killzone 3′s plot has had a noticeable amount of attention paid to it after the rather empty story that accompanied the predecessor. The game focuses less on pure gratuitous carnage and more an atmosphere and plot which is definitely a step in the right direction. The story has you take control of Sev, our ISA buddy from the first game, as he battles to lead the last few surviving ISA troops in a desperate attempt to escape Helghan having given up hope of winning the war. The game is set over a 6 month time period and early on breaks up the story by jumping back and forth between the start and end of this period before levelling out once the story is fully established. The campaign has you going to all sorts of varied environments such as sneaking through a murky swamp, silently eliminating all the Helghast there, to launching a full scale assault on an arctic weapons plant. Despite the locale variations, the single player campaign is unfortunately much shorter than that of Killzone 2 but every second is on display in a whirlwind of adrenaline culminating to an epic final battle and the conclusion of the game and the series, or so we thought….

Yes Guerilla have fallen into the unfortunate trap of not knowing when to stop. When I finished Killzone 3 I was actually quite surprised at how intense and chilling the ending was once you absorb the full scale of what has just happened and that would have been fine for closure until a post-credits cinematic revealed there will clearly be another Killzone game. Honestly Guerilla, I love what you have done but you don’t need to do any more. Killzone 3 ended perfectly well and you should just let the series end as the epic monument to first person shooter that it is.

The controls are lifted almost unaltered from Killzone 2 with a few minor changes such as the ability to slide into cover and subsequently vault over it. You can now carry a 3rd speciality weapon like a LMG or Rocket Launcher to accompany your assault rifle and pistol. There are also plenty of vehicle sections in the game and a few overpowered “fuck you!” weapons scattered throughout just to add a bit of variety to the already diverse missions. One of my personal favourite features is the brutal melee where you effectively perform an extremely gratuitous execution on the enemy when in melee mode. One complaint I have is the ability for your AI comrades to revive you if you are killed. Granted they aren’t always able to for various reasons but it still makes the campaign a little patronisingly simple at times. Still, can’t have everything.

Visually the game has taken a noticeable step up and no doubt the 3D makes it even more impressive as is continually boasted in all the magazines. I was still sufficiently impressed by the 2D visuals though and felt it added to the whole “war is hell” atmosphere that’s been present since the last Killzone game. I am being genuinely series, this is probably one of the most immersive atmospheres since Bioshock and that is saying something. The phenomenal voice acting performances by Ray Winstone, Malcom McDowell and Brian Cox coupled with the titanic sound track help make the game the piece of art that it is.

One issue I had had with Killzone 2 was regarding the two warring factions. In Killzone 2 I genuinely felt bad for the Helghast having read some of the back story leading up to the war and seeing them as more of the victims of oppression being punished for trying to take back for what is theirs and this disturbed me as I was sympathising with a faction that was clearly modelled after Nazi Germany. Come Killzone 3 however and all sympathies are lost as Guerilla transformed the Helghast from a wronged nation into merciless brutal murderers devoid of all ethics and morality in terms of how they treat their prisoners. This shift made me wonder if Guerilla had noticed that others might feel the same way I did regarding the gas-masked nation and hastily tried to fix that for fear of backlash if it was interpreted wrongly by one of the ignorant masses in modern society. Either that or they wanted to show to true extent of social breakdown at the loss of their beloved leader, who knows.

Time to wrap up this review then. Despite its rather insultingly short campaign, allusions to an unnecessary sequel and revive system removing some of the games challenge, Killzone 3 is still one of the best shooters out there especially with the option of co-op campaign. Overall I find it to be a big step up from its predecessor. While Killzone 2 delivered what little plot it had to an excellent standard, it did it with such an excess of mindless gratuity and unnecessary profanity. I am happy to say Guerilla handles the mature themes much better in this instalment with more focus on making it plot appropriate and less on trying to horrify parents. Overall Killzone 3 is a masterfully crafted piece of art rivalling some of the best shooters in the industry and is a perfect end to an epic series; until Killzone 4 comes along to ruin it…

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Muse – The Resistance (Music Album Review)

Feb 26
Posted by Aryan in Other
The Resistance Album Cover

The Resistance Album Cover

“The Resistance” is the 5th official album of Muse, a British Alternative Rock band. Let me clarify right now that not all Rock fans might like this album, since it’s not pure rock. Instead, Muse have used a mixture of rock sub-genres such as Alternative rock and Symphonic rock in this album, meaning that you won’t hear that many intense guitar solos in the songs. “The Resistance” is a combination of Rock and Pop which includes songs like “Uprising” which is more rock-oriented and “Undisclosed Desires” which sounds more pop than rock.

In this review I will try to right a bit about every song in the album. Here’s the track listing, and I’ll also follow this list, starting with “Uprising”:

  1. “Uprising”
  2. “Resistance”
  3. “Undisclosed Desires”
  4. “United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)”
  5. “Guiding Light”
  6. “Unnatural Selection”
  7. “MK Ultra”
  8. “I Belong to You (+Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix)”
  9. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)”
  10. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross-Pollination)”
  11. “Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)”

(more…)

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Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

Feb 25
Posted by Reicha7 in Action/Adventure


We live in an era of shitty rip off sequels, abandonment of genres, remakes and of course, the crown jewel in the death of virtual creativity, franchises. I don’t mean creative franchises like Blizzard Entertainment who at least mix up the gameplay to an acceptable level every game. No I mean companies like Nintendo or EA who literally remake the same game every year and slap a new number on it and this has gone on for so long that when they finally try something new, they realise their creativity is all gone and we get games like Metroid: Other M in to drive a stake through the heart of the series. However, there is one franchise which, despite its bumpy history has managed to surprise me several times especially with its most recent incarnation and that is the Call of Duty series. Yes Call of Duty has gone through a long history of both good and bad and maybe I should give a rough summary of my opinion of the series before I continue: 1+4 were good, Modern Warfare 2 was a clone of its predecessor and 2,3+5 I honestly did not give a shit about.

Now comes a new year and with it we get Black Ops which is neither the old man World War 2 era or the moody adolescent Modern Warfare era. Instead it is more like a young child prodigy taking place somewhere around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and such so still has plenty of room for controversy in case parents need to make sure they can kick up a fuss after giving it to their 12 year old as a baby sitter. Black Ops manages to balance gameplay and plot very well which is something I really have to admire about a franchise game as they usually find that sort of thing too much effort. Anyway I suppose I better break this review down into the various elements that make up the game.

One thing that stood out for me more in this game than in Modern Warfare 2 is that I actually liked the character I was playing as more than my team which I had a real hard job doing in Modern Warfare 2, possibly because they kept getting killed off. When playing as protagonist Alex Mason I do genuinely find him to be an interesting if rather confused individual while in Modern Warfare 2 I was too busy swearing at Sheppard for executing Ghost than I was lamenting my own characters’ deaths. As I always feel plot and characterisation is very important in a good game it was a nice surprise to find myself actually admiring the characterisation of some of the protagonists.

The plot itself is a twisting knot of secrecy, cover-ups and conspiracy theories all culminating to an exciting conclusion which I must admit, I didn’t predict which is another point in the game’s favour. The gist of the plot is you play as a special undercover agent performing the most secret of Black Operations so the American Government can have full deniability. After all, the wake of destruction and mutilated corpses left behind you after the mission is done probably won’t be noticed by anyone. Yes parts of the plot are a bit silly and a stealth game may have better suited but its Call of Duty, if it wasn’t an action-packed, cocaine-induced, shooting extravaganza it might lose sales which would be the end of all life as we know it. There is also another plot line about your character being involved in some massive conspiracy involving a set of mysterious numbers so the game flashes back to Mason being strapped to an interrogation chair while a mysterious voice demands the same thing over and over again to no avail.

Gameplay has been lifted virtually unaltered from Modern Warfare 2 except now you can do a sprinting dive in order to feel more awesome when running for cover. The guns of the game of course reflect the guns at the time; a load of shit. Some of them are laughably bad while others like the Olympia shotgun just look so awesome when they shred a guys hand off in a lovely visceral display. Yes there is dismemberment but only to the extent of one limb per person which isn’t very fun when you hit a rebel with an RPG only to see him sink to his knees clutching the stump of just one arm but I can’t say I expected much more.

Zombies mode has returned but as with its ancestor back in World at War the thrill dies after about 2 games although all my friends seem to find it so enjoyable for hours on end. Maybe I am just boring in that regard but it really doesn’t entertain me for more than a few attempts especially when you have to put up with the characters spouting off the same cheeseball catch phrases every 2nd zombie kill.

Multiplayer is a big improvement from Modern Warfare 2′s although still has the problem of too much grind, not enough fun but then some people feel its a status symbol to be on max prestige or whatever so Activision are just accommodating the angsty mainstream community while grind in most other games is to accommodate the angsty shut-in community. There are new modes such as a wager mode where you gamble in-game currency on unique and extremely entertaining matches. There’s the standard Call of Duty multiplayer experience with a more advanced and better designed load out customisation and, for the first time in the series, the ability to take a split-screen guest online. While I have never used it I personally feel it is an extremely useful feature because not only does it give you and your mate something to do but it also reassures you to know that there are other Call of Duty players who actually have real life friends and not just people they met online.

All in all the game is considerably better than Modern Warfare 2 which was just a coat of polish added to Call of Duty 4. It appeals to the demands of the community hence the online guests and zombies mode. The plot may not be the most realistically conceived war plot but its execution more than makes up for it. Easter eggs are abundant throughout the game giving the real nerds something to enjoy. The unimportant things like multiplayer and visuals are done to a good standard so overall I am happy and can happily say that this is the best instalment in the franchise besides obviously Call of Duty 1.

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Guitar Hero: Metallica

Dec 21
Posted by Fatal Dawn in Other Games

Guitar Hero: Metallica

Players: 1-8
Platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Playstation 2

So you Australians thought Harmonix was the only music game developer who would delay Australian game releases. Oh no! Two months since Danny has FCed all the songs of Metallica on the first day of release and we finally get to merely practice. Oh well. The wait was worth it.

Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Rob Trujillo are all ready to rock out to some of their greatest hits, some of their lowlights and even a few inspirers and inspirees of their style. Can you, the player, keep up Hammett’s frenetic finger-work, Ulrich’s banging, bashing and bouncing, and Hetfield’s supreme screaming?

The graphics are the same as World Tour’s, but all of the characters, even the random ones, seem a lot more detailed and fine-tuned, at least on the 360 and PS3 versions. This comes at the expense of losing a few characters available from the line-up, but some are now unlockables.


Running on aggression, turns into obsession, cannot kill the battery!

The setlist is probably the best one yet. Metallica is a fun and fast band, so it comes as no surprise that most of their songs are incredibly fun to play. Master of Puppets should be your first stop on guitar, and if you pre-ordered the game, you may get another bass pedal and splitter, so you can try the new Expert+ drums mode. Do it on Battery, I dare you!

The non-Metallica songs range from great (Am I Evil?) to good(Blood and Thunder) to crap(Mother of Mercy) to really weird(No Excuses). Rest assured, the highlights of the setlist all belong to Metallica, and even they have some bad songs. Frantic is rubbish, and so is evrything from the Black Album (bar Enter Sandman).

[Image: guitar-hero-metallica-band-screenshot-big.jpg]
Drain you of your sanity, face the thing that should not be…

All of the songs are unlocked in quickplay from the off, so you might be wondering what the point of the career is. There are plenty of unlockables, including guitars, characters, Metallifacts and videos.

Ah, the Metallifacts. Beat a song in career and you can view the song while numerous facts relating to it and the band pop up in place of the note track. This is tacked on, as there aren’t enough facts to run through all of a song usually.

One other gripe I had is that to get the full game and all of its achievements and trophies, you must buy the Death Magnetic album. Wii and PS2 owners don’t have to worry about this, as they get two more Death Magnetic songs on top of the standard one(All Nightmare Long). 360 and PS3 owners, get ready to shell out. And not in the Ninja Turtles style either.

This really is a solid addition to a solid though uninspiring franchise. As Van Halen was not as influential nor prolific as Metallica, I’m not expecting a lot from that game, but Metallica is a worthy addition to your game collection.

Graphics: 9/10
Setlist: 10/10
Note Tracking: 8.5/10
Extras: 9/10
Length: 8/10

Total: 9/10

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