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Friday, February 4, 2011

Bulletstorm - Xbox 360 Demo Evaluation

      Epic's been up and about, developing games which will in end be released this year. The upcoming game on the spotlight of most gamers is the New and Improved Gears of War 3. Epic has been tempting many gamers that they could obtain early access to the beta coming out in Spring by purchasing Bulletstorm. As we all know Gears of War 1 was amazing, and Gears of War 2 was horrible, so hopefully Gears 3 will be outstanding. Cliffy B even said that they screwed up drastically with Gears of War 2 and that they will be make Gears of War 3 the best of the trilogy. Well any who, back to Bulletstorm. This game has been getting a lot of promoting, including loads of commercials and a new game that came out called Duty Calls. Its actually a pretty goofy game which I think all should check it out especially since its free. But Bulletstorm looked pretty cool from all those ads that I tryed out the demo and for that I give you this review.

      The game is more like a version of Borderlands on crack. The way that you can kill your enemies is astounding. The game provides hundreds of combinations in which you can kill people. When you first start the game it grants you a nice long Tutorial video on how to play. When you start the game begins to time how long it takes for you to complete the level. The score you receive on the level is determined by how fast you can complete the level with the most points possible. So basically if you want to get high on the leaderboards you need to rush and try to reap up the best combos you can. The map design seemed like a mix of Gears of War 2 and Borderlands, which was nice.

Goods-
      -The ways of killing your enemy are very numerous.


 Bads-
      -Gets very repetitive very fast. Basically the ways you kill people get old and the combat itself is dull.
      -Movement and look controls are clunky

      I had more fun watching the intro/tutorial video than playing the actually game. At least it was longer than the demo itself. There was not much I could pull out of this demo but seeing as how it was a demo the controls and gameplay should be fixed in the full release. This game seems more of a rent rather than a buy. The campaign may be good, BUT it doesn't seem like it will be good enough to buy the game. Also the game will have 4 player co-op, so you can compete with your buddies in the same game on getting the highest score the in level.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Breach - Xbox 360 Arcade Version Evaluation

    I remember seeing this at E3 2010 on G4. It seemed like a good game at the time based on the gameplay they showed. January 26 came around and the game was released. I played the trial version of it, which of course was the full game but could only play 30 minutes of it. In those thirty minutes my decision was made. Let me give you a brief description of the game.

    Playing the game made me feel like I was back in the old Rainbow Six: Vegas days but with a twist of the Frostbite engine (It doesn't actually use the Frostbite engine but uses their own engine called "Hydrogen")  The game has well thought out large scale maps. You can have up to 12 players on each team, 24 in a game all together. Domination has 3 points, you could compare it to the domination gametype in Call of Duty. But in this it's more of holding and camping rather than running around and slaying like in COD. Now with the Convoy gametype, it made teamwork much needed in succeeding with winning. You are given 3 vehicles to defend, which all 3 have turrets located on the top of the vehicle that you can man. Your objective is to protect them all the way to the destination. On you way you must slay the other team as well as destroy blockades in your convoys path by placing a demo charge on it. The gameplay gets progressive as spawn locations change as you move forward.


-Goods
      - Destructibility is very insane, You could compare it to the quality of destruction in Red Faction: Guerrilla
      - Destroyed objects can kill people as projectiles
      - Weapon's have a fire selection ability so you could do single fire, 3 round burst, or full auto.
      - Weapon damage is very well done as there is no gun which is bad.
      - Weapon customization is very high
      - The ability to use thermal really caught my attention as it reminded me of the Rainbow Six days
      - Cover mechanics is very similar to the mechanics used in Rainbow Six
      - Convoy gametype added a new layer in team work and defensive gameplay

-Bads
      - Net code is so screwed up that it is almost impossible to play a game.
      - Movement speeds were to slow for the size of the maps
      - Domination gametype was to poorly done
      - Sprint was poorly done (Only went about 5% faster than normal walking)

 Overall the game was a piece of shit. Now the destructibility was a key piece in the fun of the game, but it was lacking a difference in uniqueness from other FPS's. Due to the net code being so poorly coded, it is virtually impossible to complete a game or even play one at that. For the price of 1200 Microsoft points, it was quite a rip off. Playing it made me want to just go back to Bad Company 2. Now remember this is only the Xbox 360 version of the game, the PC version available on steam will probably be  A LOT better and not broken as it was on the 360.

Crysis 2 - Multiplayer Demo Evaluation

      The game that blew everyone's mind by how far you could push a graphics engine. This game of course why Crysis. At the time of its release not many gamers owned computers or the components to run Crysis, even on low settings. But the CryEngine 2 game engine used would soon pave the path for games to come, both on gameplay and graphical quality. But 4 years later, the third game in the trilogy would be released. This was entitled Crysis 2.

       Now as we all know the Multiplayer Demo was release last week for xbox 360 and PS3. I would like to run through the goods and bads about the game. But before I do lets go over a brief description based on what the demo offers. Now the graphical aspect of the game looks a little griddy but futuristic. You could compare it to the looks of a map from Blacklight: Tango Down. There are 5 classes and many guns to choose from as well as many customization possibilities for each. There are 2 forms of armour abilities which are "Cloaking" and "Armor". Cloaking is self explanatory, but the armor ability allows you to take more damage than you could normally take but at the cost of speed. Everything runs on an energy system. Sprinting, Jumping, and Armor abilities all run on this energy. This game also includes kill streaks just like the Call of Duty series and Medal of Honor. The twist on the way kill streaks are earned is that once you kill someone, they drop an a small glowing object called a "Dog Tag". You can only obtain these by YOU killing the person, you can't steal other people's. But remember when you die, you lose your kill streak/dog tags, so try not to die.

Goods-
        - Agility System which allows you to climb over things as well as jump high.
        - Weapon Choice and Customization is great
        - Armor abilities are balanced
        - Energy system is a good touch


Bads-
        - Melee system is overpower (Lunge range is too far and melee is insta-kill)
        - Gameplay is too lacking in diversity
        - Kill streaks are to similar to those in Call of Duty
        - Shotgun range is too far as well as damage is quite overpowering
        - Camping is Very Huge as all you need is cloak and a shotgun/melee the opponent

All in all, the game seems just like another Call of Duty clone with the added touch of Halo: Reach. I would say that the game should be a rent for most gamers unless you want to buy it for the campaign, as the campaign is expected to be amazing. Especially with the new AI that the guys at Crytek are developing, it is speculated that it will be one of the most advanced AI systems in games to date.