Don't have a review yet. But just wanted to say that BioShock is incredible. I just bought a 360 last week, along with this game and NBA2k10. My first 5 hours of game play or so have been really impressive. This is my type of videogame. Where art story and fun come together. Note to developers: make more games like Bioshock.
Uncharted 2 <div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=50337"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=50337" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/uncharted-2-among-thieves/10562" title="Uncharted 2: Among Thieves">Uncharted 2: Among Thieves</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-uncharted-2/50337" title="E3 09: Official Trailer">E3 09: Official Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div> Pros: One of the best single player adventure games ever, including interactive cinematic experiences. Perfect mix of stealth, gunplay, and platforming Varied locales that are stunningly rendered A tremendous improvement over the first game, which was pretty good in its own right The story is told through gameplay and some very well animated cutscenes with movie-like attention to detail Smart AI with very witty dialogue between characters during gameplay Cons: The multiplayer was meh The plot gets a bit hokey, but that's nitpicking because it fits together. Sometimes ledges or handholds are difficult to spot making traversal drag out My thoughts: I enjoyed the first Uncharted 2, but the sequel completely blows it out of the water. It really is the perfect mix of stealth, gunplay, and platforming. There are a number of mountain and temple locations that you will have to scale and jump around. Luckily, the character does these things pretty fluidly. Occasionally, you will scan the screen for a while until you find the brick or ledge needed too climb. Also, sometimes Drake will grab onto something or duck behind cover when you don't want him to. It's not Prince of Persia quality, but it comes close and overall it works pretty well. The stealth element is important, especially if you're playing on the Hard or Crushing difficulty. In the first game you could maybe take out 1 bad guy before the rest were on to you. This time around, you can take out waves by stealth alone. In quite a few spots, there are multiple waves that come at you, but if you take out the first wave with stealth alone, you can avoid the subsequent enemies. It definitely helped soften the enemy up before you engaged in a firefight. The gunplay is vastly improved. It's so much easier to take cover, and there are a ton of items to take cover behind. They've also introduced blind fire, and the grenade tossing mechanic is much improved over the first game. With the different locations and an assortment of bad guys, the gunplay doesn't get as stale as it did in the first game. Even at the very end, I didn't feel like I was having to grind out another gun battle. You play with a variety of friendly AI throughout the game, and they play smart and will help soften the enemy up. More importantly, you're not constantly having to watch out for their health since they do that on their own. The most impressive part of the gunplay is what Naughty Dog calls Interactive Cinematic Experiences. Instead of showing an event in a cutscene, Naughty Dog throws you in and has you play through a blockbuster action sequence. I'm not going to mention any to avoid spoiling the surprises, but there are some truly epic levels in this game. The game is beautiful. I'm not a complete game junkie, so there are probably more beautiful games out there. I haven't seen them. The game jumps to quite a few different locations, and the scenery is gorgeous. You get some interesting views from up high and on speeding vehicles, and there's not let up. Uncharted 2 is consistently beautiful to look at. The dialogue is top rate. My favorite part of this game is the interaction with the AI while you're playing the game. It's not recycled and repeated, and it's incredibly witty. You truly get the feeling you're playing with another character and not some stock AI partner. Overall, the single player experience is phenomenal. I can't say I was impressed with multiplayer. I played a few matches cooperative and competitive and don't really plan on doing so again. The shooting just seemed a bit off to me. However, I bought this game for the single player mode so I really wasn't disappointed in the multiplayer experience. My grade: A+ This is one of the true AAA exclusive titles for the PS3. If you're into action adventure games, go out and buy this game. Now.
Brutal Legend (PS3) <div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=50432"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=50432" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/brutal-legend/5666" title="Brutal Legend">Brutal Legend</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-brutal-legend/50432" title="E3 09: Trailer">E3 09: Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div> Pros: Very detailed art direction. They went all out trying to capture the essence of heavy metal Some funny lines and one awesome cameo Cons: Repetitive and clunky gameplay Pretty lame overall story The RTS stage battles The music My thoughts: Tim Schafer is a gaming god, and it pains me to write this. However, Brutal Legend is easily his worst game, which is ironic because with EA's backing it will probably be his most successful commercially. I'll start out with the positives. Schafer's schtick all these years has been taking on a genre and providing all sort of funny takes on its in and outs and sterotypes. Mix in some fun gameplay, and you have a classic game. In Brutal Legend, Schafer does a good job capturing the essence of Metal. You travel across 3 areas and come up with interesting armies that draw from their music's stereotypes (goth has Johnny Depp looking grave diggers, the headbangers have headbangers and harley dudes, etc.). The game succeeds in that, but that's about all the good things I can say about it. Tim apparently forgot his funny bone when writing the game script, which is hard to believe given his longtime standing as one of the gaming industry's funniest people. The game is about heavy metal, and plot comes straight out of a 80's heavy metal movie (and that's not a compliment). It goes for too much seriousness and plot twists when the game was screaming for something else. I really wanted to laugh out loud at this game, but I had a few scattered chuckles and that's it. The most egregious problem is the gameplay. It consists of hand-to-hand, driving, and RTS, and it's all extremely clunky. The main character can't jump. He battles with an axe and guitar, but neither is really a finesse weapon. With Eddie not being agile and not be able to jump, fighting is pretty much a brute force approach. If you go against someone bigger or are outnumbered, you're usually going to die. There are guitar solos that mix it up and you can buy a bunch of upgrades for your axe and guitar, but I really didn't like the hand-to-hand combat in this game. The driving sucks in this game. Double Fine, it's great that you built a huge mountainous terrain, but driving around it is terrible. There no on-screen map. If you want to travel long distances, you're constantly pausing to look at the map then resuming driving. You can only plot waypoints to certain locations, which frequently aren't anywhere near where you want to go. The off-screen map also frequently gives you ineffective routes to take. The car itself doesn't handle all that well. You can upgrade it quite a bit, but it still handles pretty terribly for a game that makes you drive everywhere. You also get 7 racing missions, which aren't too bad, but some of them are pretty painful due to the bad driving mechanics. I don't mind challenging games, but I don't like when a game is hard because it doesn't handle well. Then there's the RTS. I generally don't play RTS games, but I played Starcraft and WoW back in the day. This handles all right, but I just didn't care for these battles. Double Fine tried to have this be a hybrid RTS and action section. You control your units, but you can hop in double-team with them to fight enemies directly. However as previously stated, the hand-to-hand is bad. Although you do gain the ability to fly during RTS, so that helps a bit. It's also very difficult to split your units up to do multiple things. There is a mechanic for it, but it's laborious. This whole part of the game felt weirdly out of place. There's also the online portion of the RTS. Apparently. I played once, but I wasn't able to make a connection with anyone else after that. I generally try to platinum every game I play, but I don't think I'll be able to win 50 matches, let alone play in 15 due to the really low number of people using the game servers. I also have to vent about the music here, because it plays in your car and during RTS battle scenes. I grew up listening to heavy metal, and there's a wide variety of metal here: some good, some bad. In your car, you can customize your play list to only play music you like. In battle, your stuck with an assortment of music. What's worse than playing a clunky RTS battle? A clunk RTS battle with Motorheade (or Tenacious D or any of the other bad tracks in the game) in the background with no option to skip that song. The most serious fault the game has is its repetitiveness. For such a detailed game, Double Fine sure came up with a paltry amount of mission types. It's a lot like Assassin's Creed. You have about 3-4 main mission types, which you will play 3-6 times during the course of the game. The main story is actually pretty short. There are also a ton of side missions, and these are also pretty repetitive. They even recycle the same dialogue instead of having something fresh and funny for each one. "Who we ambushing?" "Bad Guys!" It was sad how stunted and weak the gameplay was. They tried to extend the gameplay with a collectathon, which is great if you're into that that sort of thing. But it seemed a bit over the top. Collect 120 serpents, 24 buried metal tracks, 11 metal forges, 32 vistas, 24 jumps, 12 guitar solos. I'm all for hunting widgets, but this game has more time spent on that than the actual game itself. I also had a problem with the metal talent they used. Jack Black seemed like a logical choice for this game, but he was kind of annoying. I like Rob Halford personally, but he was awkward as Lionwhyte. Lita Ford was wretched with her lines. Maybe it was just the bad dialogue. Other metal luminaries pop up with some varied degree of failure. Ozzy, however, as the Metal Shop guy was awesome. That cameo, alas, could not save this game. My grade: C+ I'm writing this for the PS3, because that's what I played it on, but it's my understanding the two consoles are pretty similar. XBL probably has a lot more people online. The PS3 is getting free DLC next week, but it costs $5 on the 360.
I finally got around to playing (and finishing) this game this weekend, and I definitely agree with ScriboErgoSum's review. So much better than the first game IMO, and I thought the first one was pretty good. This includes the graphics, which somehow manage to make U1's visuals look a bit dated (and U1 probably still has some of the best visuals for the generation). I often had to tell myself to quit gawking at the graphics and pay attention to what I was doing. I haven't played KZ2 or a couple of other games, but this is easily the best looking game I've played.
The train chapter was amazing. But then they followup with the hummer chase part and it is probably the best 3 minutes in video games this generation.
Me too. The game is amazing. I recently bought it after buying/playing the first one first. I must say, though, the second one is a bit more frustrating with the movement/platforming but I can't put my finger on why -- perhaps it doesn't hold your hand as much. That, and my grenade tosses keep misfiring or not landing where they're supposed to... However, the improvement to the visuals (which were already amazing) just continues to put me in awe. You can pan your camera around at any point in the game and get a beautiful vista that makes your jaw drop.
Just put in a good 5 hours of Uncharted 2...Im at Chapter 24 now...will finish it off tomorrow before MW2 comes out. Incredible game...best single player game Ive ever played (I grew up on sports games, so Im a rookie as far as campaigns are concerned).
A hearty second to all of the above on Uncharted 2. The first one was one of the few games I had the patience to finish all the way through to the end, and so getting this was a no-brainer. And I just have to say, even though I have had it for less than a week, and have not really been able to spend many good solid hours on it yet, I am now making my way through the speeding train level, and this has got to be the most breath-taking video game experience I have ever seen. Talk about Bungie, Bioware, Epic, Blizzard, any of the big boys who we know are going to produce incredible polished gaming experiences, but Naughty Dog seems to have outshined them all this round. Wow. This game has made me put off my purchase of Dragon Age for a while, and that is saying something.
Just finished it on Hard...wow, what a freaking game...Unfortunately, I only found 31 of the 100 treasures, lol. Lots of trophies still up for grabs, so I'll have to definitely go back and play some more (since Im becoming a w**** when it comes to achievement points/trophies). Looking at stats, I had spent a total of 34 minutes in the air, haha. That should tell you something about how action packed this game is. What a ride.
You can replay the chapters via the chapter select from the main menu. Play on easy, turn on one shot kills, and you can pick up all the weapon and treasure medals pretty easily. You almost have to use a guide to find all the treasures on this game.
Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (PS3) <div style="width: 480px;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" id="gtembed" width="480" height="392"> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=58397"/><param name="quality" value="high" /> <embed src="http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=58397" swLiveConnect="true" name="gtembed" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="sameDomain" allowFullScreen="true" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="392"></embed> </object><div style="font-size: 10px; font-family: Verdana; text-align: center; width: 480px; padding-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 2px; background-color: black; height: 32px;"><div><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com" title="GameTrailers.com">Video Games</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/game/ratchet-clank-future-a/11051" title="Ratchet & Clank Future: CT">Ratchet & Clank Future: CT</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/launch-trailer-ratchet/58397" title="Launch Trailer">Launch Trailer</a></div><div style="padding-top: 3px;"><a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/" title="XBox 360">XBox 360</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/" title="PS3">Playstation 3</a> | <a style="color:#FFFFFF;" href="http://wii.gametrailers.com/" title="Wii">Nintendo Wii</a></div></div></div> Pros: Funny dialogue Fun gameplay, very cartoonish but fun gunplay Clank time puzzles Returning characters from the entire Ratchet & Clank franchise (including Dr. Nefarious and Captain Qwark) 4 channels to listen to while in your spaceship featuring characters listed above Cons: A bit too short Not a very difficult game The weapons don't feel as crazy inventive as previous entries in the series My thoughts: I loved the Spyro the Dragon series on the PS1 and have followed Insomniac Games ever since. I picked up every Ratchet & Clank game the day they came out and loved every single one on the PS2. I haven't been as thrilled with the PS3 versions and was hoping A Crack in Time would liven the series up. There were rumors that it might be the final game in the series, and I at least hoped it would end the series properly. I think if this is it for Ratchet and Clank, they went out all right. This is a fun game. I'm saying this having played and enjoyed every previous entry in the series. If you didn't like previous Ratchet game, this game is not for you. It captures the zany shoot 'em up style and funny dialogue\storylines that has been the series' hallmark. This time Ratchet and Clank start out separated, and it's a bid odd not to have Clank strapped to Ratchet's back. This comes into play especially when Ratchet has to jump somewhere and he doesn't have the hoverpack ability of Clank to assist him. Each character plays through a number of levels before the two eventually team up again to save the universe. Missions are broken up by funny cutscenes. Ratchet's levels are a heavy dose of gunplay mixed in with a bit of platforming. For the most part this isn't too difficult. There's always ample health around, and you can deal a fair amount of devastation with your weaponry. Insomniac has always featured an over-the-top aresenal in the series and have created some pretty unique yet handy weapons. A Crack in Time seems a bit underwhelming. I found myself sticking to 4-5 weapons and not really branching out or even caring about most of the weapons. Insomniac focused more on Contructo Weapons. There are 3 of these (pistol, shotgun, blaster) that you can find upgrade schematics for. Then you can customize how you want your weapon to function. Faster rate of fire vs. explosive bullets vs. charged shot. You get similar options for all 3. It was kinda cool and all, but I really set them once and never bothered to change it up. I think Insomniac envisioned changing this up for each mission so you could maximize your damage, but the game was so easy that it wasn't necessary. That was probably the biggest disappointment in the game for me. Ratchet also gets to delve into space missions. His portion of the game is essentially 5 galaxies. He can warp between them (after opening them up by completing missions). There are 2-3 planets\ships that Ratchet must defeat in each galaxy. While there, he can also explore moons for gold bolts\weapon mods\zoni. The moon missions are a lot of fun and requires a different skill set to master. Some are pure-platforming, others are enemy hunting missions. There are also spaceship missisons to partake in, but I found these easy and monotonous. These in particular felt like filler thrown in to make the game longer. Overall the space missions were a fun diversion in Ratchet's levels. Clank's levels are the best of the series for the little robot. He runs around the Great Clock, smiting enemies, throwing time bombs and playing some cool mini-games. There are some games he plays to fix time-alteration vortices. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, but they were quite fun. The best part of the Clank missiosn are the time puzzles. Clank can create up to 4 versions of himself to solve intricate puzzles. Example: Clank version 1 steps on a button which opens a door to another button. Clank version 2 steps on the button opened by Clank 1 to open the exit to the room. Redo Clank 1 to open the door for Clank 2 then run out the room exit. Make sure you go back to Mnemonic Stations in each of Clank's levels for some seriously difficult Clank puzzles. These each reward a Gold Bolt, but the satisfaction of beating them was enough for me. They take a while, but were a lot of fun to solve. The humor in this game is on par with the rest of the series. Dr. Nefarious and his butler Lawrence are the bad guys, and they were always the best Ratchet villain. They get quite a bit of lines and are consistently funny as is perennial favorite Captain Qwark. You can also listen to 4 different radio stations while you perform the space missions. All of them feature previous characters in the Ratchet series and have some good humor mixed in with good background music. This is not a long game. Even with the extra missions, I spent less than 15 hours to beat the game. With the short gameplay, this almost feels like it would be a better rental than the cost of a new game. There's not much incentive to play again either unless you missed picking things up the first time. I had a bit of a "that's it?" feeling when I finished it. Still, while not a long game or featuring the best weapons of the series, this is the best PS3 entry to date and possibly a fitting cap to a great series. My grade: B+
Infamous 2 (PS3) <div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:moses:video:gametrailers.com:714982" width="512" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" base="." flashVars=""></embed><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;">Tags: <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com">GameTrailers.com</a>, <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-infamous-2/714982">E3 2011: Gameplay Trailer</a>, <a href="http://pc.gametrailers.com/">PC Games</a>, <a href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/">PlayStation 3</a>, <a href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/">Xbox 360</a></p></div></div> Pros: Fun combat and superpowers Impressive graphics User Generated Content Fun traversal Cons: Repetitive gameplay and lazy mission design Pretty cheesy plot User generated content Cole grabs on to too many things My thoughts: I'm a big Sucker Punch fan from their excellent Sly Cooper series for the PS2, so I played the first Infamous as soon as it came out for the PS3. I found it to be a good game with some serious flaws that kept it from being a classic. Namely, repetitive gameplay. You played 25 missions and about 70 side missions, and the side missions were repeated over and over. Even the regular missions felt like kill 'em all missions with the same enemies thrown at you. It also suffered from a lack of boss fights. The plot was okay with a pretty obvious twist, but the morality system was so black and white and clumsily implemented. Save this old lady's life or kill a busload of children. Pick now! With the sequel, I assumed it would look better and address the shortcomings of the first game. The addition of a level editor and User Generated Content (UGC) seemed like a sweet bonus. The developers were bandying about the leap from Uncharted 1 to Uncharted 2 as their bar. Well the game looks better, but I'm sad to say all the problems from the first game return in full force. If they were aiming for an improvement on par of Uncharted 2, they fell way short. Infamous 2 is about 25-30 missions long and is padded with about 75 side missions. The side missions once again are so repetitive. Destroy the gunboats (4 times), overcharge a substation (6 times), throw the supplies off the boat (4 times), find the hidden package (6 times), etc. Sucker Punch had two years to develop this game and are hyping their UGC engine, but they really couldn't come up with better mission ideas than this. It's like they got to three months out and realized they had a great engine but needed missions ASAP and only had a secretary to design them. Even the main missions seemed pretty generic after a while. There are three main enemy types: militia, mutated beasts, and ice warriors. They come in small, medium, large, and titan sizes. At first the large and titan size enemies seem like mini-bosses, but an hour later, your powers are amped enough that you can take them down quite easily. There's essentially two (maybe three depending on if you're good or evil) major boss fights, but even those are pretty easy. They gave Cole some sweet powers, but the game never felt challenging even on hard difficulty. The powers Cole develops are pretty cool. You have electrical powers and also pick up fire or ice based abilities depending on your alignment. The electrical powers come in gun, grenade, and rocket varieties. You also get some supercharged abilities that allow you to throw down a limited number of super attacks. Cole also picked up a cool melee weapon, so you can also go hand-to-hand a lot more readily in this game. This really is the highlight of the game. You feel like a true superhero and get to throw down on large groups of enemies. Just be prepared to do this over and over. And then again and again. I was hoping the morality system would be more subtle this game, but it's just as black and white. You either watch the world burn baby burn, or you run around helping ladies cross the street and rescue kittens out of trees. You essentially align yourself with the evil fire-based Nix, who encourages you to kill everyone, or you align with ice-based Kuo who is out to save the world and feed starving orphans. Depending on how you play, citizens throw rocks at you or run up and applaud. There really is no middle ground, which seems kind of lame. Some side missions are good or evil. You play good and you lock out the evil mission, and vice versa. This is a shame, because they were both fun, and I almost don't see the point of having to play twice to see all the missions. The game looks pretty good. You have three main areas, which are all accessible from the beginning. Some just don't have power until later, which when you're electric boy means you won't survive long. My only problem is that the third area is an industrial complex, and nice graphics only go far when everything is brown, metal, and rusting. Traversal works pretty well, especially when you get the long glide power about an hour into the game. You can glide from rooftop to rooftop or ride electrical wires. Climbing buildings is pretty easy, although scaling down is a pain because Cole wants to grab onto everything. There are also some traversal methods that make zipping around the terrain so much easier. The Ice Launch was awesome, and the Lightning Tether was also very welcomed. The only problem is you only get the former on a good playthrough, and the second doesn't come until the very end. The other problem is that the world seems pretty limited. Depending on your alignment, you only have a set number of things you can do other than killing civilians, which doesn't really serve any purpose. You can collect blast shards and dead drops, stop muggings or kidnappings, mug blast shard bombers, defuse blast shard bombs, kill street performers, kill cops, or heal a group of people. GTA this is not. I wanted some variety to my interaction with the city. There are trophies tied into these interactions, but Sucker Punch once again failed to include a status page when you pause the game. Am I close to stopping 80 games in progress? I have no idea. We also have the plot, which unfortunately reminds of post season 1 of Heroes. This is not a good thing. We're supposed to feel this bond between Cole and Zeke. We're also supposed to feel this about Kuo or Nix depending on Cole's alignment. I had no attachment to any character. The plot moves forward with cliche comic book devices, and the two endings were both pretty underwhelming. Finally we have the UGC. This seems like a great idea, except the UGC so far sucks monkey balls. Even the stuff Sucker Punch developed on the UGC was pretty weak sauce. It doesn't help that there's no spoken dialogue, only text you can read. But many missions had no way to complete them or had impossibly tough jumps to make. They also skewed heavily into throw Cole in an area with 50-100 enemies and let him duke it out. I'm willing to give this a pass for now. Hopefully in time, some good missions will get developed, but I don't plan on designing any. That's a lot of b****ing about the shortcomings of this game, but I did enjoy this game overall. While the gameplay could get stale at times, the combat was enough fun to pad things over for me. I'm pretty frustrated, however, by Sucker Punch's inability to fix the glaring problems of the first game. I do feel I overpaid at $60, and I doubt I'll ever play this game again. This is a used game purchase, rental, or wait for a price drop to $20 game. Most disappointing for me is that Sucker Punch was too busy making this flawed game to take the helm developing Sly 4. I would have loved to see what they would have done with their signature characters instead of a mediocre superhero game. My grade: C+
I liked the second better than the first, but I had much higher expectations for the second. Both games had the same basic faults, but the combat, powers, and traversal are better in the second game. While not too varied, there is better variety in the enemies in the second game. If you're into collecting every last item, there's a blast shard sense that will point you to the closest one anywhere in the entire game that you get close to the end. I'm also hoping eventually there will be some good UGC that will add some life to the game.
I remember playing the PS2 version of this and loving it. Don't really remember the details, just something where the dog had superpowers or something. But, anyways, I saw a newer 360 version of it, and was wondering if anyone on here had played it, and could tell me if it was worth it. Thanks in advance.
Outland (PS3, 360) <div style="background-color:#000000;width:520px;"><div style="padding:4px;"><embed src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:moses:video:gametrailers.com:713337" width="512" height="288" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" base="." flashVars=""></embed><p style="text-align:left;background-color:#FFFFFF;padding:4px;margin-top:4px;margin-bottom:0px;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;">Tags: <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com">GameTrailers.com</a>, <a href="http://www.gametrailers.com/video/rogue-launch-outland/713337">Rogue Launch Trailer</a>, <a href="http://pc.gametrailers.com/">PC Games</a>, <a href="http://ps3.gametrailers.com/">PlayStation 3</a>, <a href="http://xbox360.gametrailers.com/">Xbox 360</a></p></div></div> Pros: Excellent 2D MetroidVania style gameplay Light and Dark mechanic Good enemies that ramp up in difficulty Challenging boss fights Great visual style Cons: Co-op My thoughts: I haven't really played downloadable games on my PS3, but I've been intrigued by Outland for a while. It's finally out on the PS3 after the PSN outage fiasco. Outland was a really fun game and a classic MetroidVania style game, where sections of the world become accessible as you progress and gain additional powers. The best part of this game is a simple mechanic. We've seen light and dark done so many times over the years, including in a Metroid game, but this might just be the most fun I've had with it. In Outland, dark is red, and light is blue. Once you gain both light and dark abilities fairly early in the game, you can toggle between the two by tapping the R1 button. This mechanic leads to some interesting applications. The world is scattered with traps that shoot out red or blue. If you toggle to the same color as the trap, you're safe from harm. Enemies, however, can only be damaged if you toggle to the opposite color. This eventually leads to interesting traps, where you're jumping, running, and toggling colors to avoid getting hit. Wall jumping up a tall chute is nothing new, but it adds a different challenge when you also have to keep hitting R1 to stay safe from a trap at the top spitting out alternating colors. The game paces itself really well. You start out with little in the way of abilities, and they are slowly doled out in each of the five worlds. The enemies and traps start out easy for each new ability, and you soon learn how to master that technique by the time the game ramps up the difficulty. There are a number of health upgrades, which is helpful for some of the later levels. The enemies in this game were perfect. They weren't difficult at first, but they gradually became challenging, especially when you fight them in the midst of a multi-color trap. There are a number of mini-bosses as well, some of which show up multiple times. Later in the game, you encounter fish that alternate colors, and you have to smack them when they're the opposite color. This is just a prelude for the final world, where all enemies alternate colors every few seconds. There were five bosses in this game, and they were also well done. Like a good MetroidVania style game, bosses require analyzing their patterns and then taking them down with surgical precision. I died a few times on some of these bosses, getting further each time, before finally taking them down. Now I could handle any of them easily, but it was a nice sense of accomplishment. Visually, the game is beautiful. There's nothing remarkable about the graphics power, but the artistic style was amazing. I liked the soundtrack as well. As a MetroidVania game, Outland has you collect powers, and also collect widgets. The powers come automatically as you play the game, but you'll have to seek out Mark of the Gods and Money Vases. Money Vases are just large vases with coins in them, as opposed to the small ones that litter the game world. You'll want the money so you can buy the health upgrades mentioned earlier. Mark of the Gods are used to amass art and eventually extra abilities. In particular the extended wall hang comes in handy to help avoid alternating color traps when you're ascending. Get 32 of them, and you get a treasure map which shows where the Money Vases are. Get them all, and your sword does double damage. This last one was helpful for the very last boss. The game has a map for the level you're on, which a careful analysis will identify likely spots for goodies. My only real complaint is the co-op challenges. At least on PS3, nobody plays. As in, I waited an hour and got one hit on playing a game. When we stareted, it was beyond laggy to the point of unplayable. The other player bailed after five minutes, and I've been unable to establish another game. I'd like to get that last bronze trophy, but this might be one I'm just not able to complete. My grade: A For $10, this game is definitely worth it. It's a 5-10 hour game depending on how much collecting you like to do. It was definitely visually appealing, fun throughout, and I finished it with a sense of accomplishment.
Anyone interested in Ace Combat Assault Horizon? <iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-SP1aLhmx1U" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
^ Well, if you enjoy the air missions of COD (AC-130, Apache, etc.) this game might grab your interest. They've totally redone the battle system and it's very similar to those air missions plus of course all the fighter jets you can imagine. The graphics are on the same level as GT5 -- so far it's a lot of fun, but the planes aren't as maneuverable as in the past games, which is weird.
