Bullet Storm is exactly what Duke Nukem was supposed to be. Then it picked it up, kicked it in the dick, and blew it's head off. Yep, that kind of game.
The weapons are brutal, gritty, and fit the game perfectly. The sniping mini game is fun, but can get a bit monotonous if you do it too often, so remember to switch back to the various other ways of killing people. Pulling them into spikes, kicking them into electrified walls, slide kicking them and blowing their head off, kicking them off cliffs, thumping them in the air then shooting them like skeet, etc.
The exposition is really well paced. Everything you do is built right into the environment, and interactive in an immersive way. The sound just makes the game come alive. The only thing that I've seen so far that seemed just a tad off was the animation when I first saw Trishka beat some ass. It was good, but the timing seemed off. Not horrible, just slightly off, like when sound and video gets de-synced by half a second when some streaming video players mess up.
The multiplayer was fun. A friend and I played it for a few weeks solid before I even started on the main campaign. It's more of the same thing you get in the main game, without the story. So it helps you figure out how to do combos and such.
The ending was good, the typical going-to-leave-room-for-a-sequel type of thing, but still wraps up the story. If you watch to the end of the credits, that's where the wrap up happens.
Overall, I'd definitely recommend it. I don't think I'd play through it again, but I might give the sequel a shot if they make it.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Monday, April 16, 2012
Mass Effect 3 - Collector's Edition
So I finally finished Mass Effect 3. I have no idea how much time it took to beat this, but I've been playing it since I got my copy -- the day it was released. I got the collector's edition, so it came with the From Ashes DLC, which includes a jerk Prothean for a teammate, who aside from giving some excellent back story, did not play much of a role in my party. He stayed in his room that I visited once after each mission, and did not get to come out and play for the most part.
Sorry to say it, but unless you're an awesome character that I want to hear kick some ass, I will not choose you. You will be in my party firstmost if I think you have something personal to contribute in banter for this mission, or if I think it applies to you (if you haven't manually butted in already), or if you have awesome powers that may help fight what we're going up against. So typically - sorry Kaiden, Ashley, Jacob, Zaeed, and now James Vega, and Javik.
The story was stellar. Pure amazing. The impact of what decisions I made in Mass Effect 1 and 2 were painfully apparent, and made me carry those decisions (good or bad) forward to the end. The cutscenes were great except for the occasional character's eyes following something offscreen, or even turning their head in some inhuman way. Aside from that, the voice acting was awesome.
The combat was good. They tried to keep it non-repetitive by varying the enemies and making the objectives vary, which was a nice touch. I found playing an infiltrator quite fun. I would like to complain about one fight in particular near the end. Oh my sweet baby Jesus. No other fight before that came close to the level of ridiculous I had to claw my way out of there... The fights in particular are fun enough that I've been delaying writing this review because I've been playing so much multiplayer.
To talk a bit about multiplayer - it's awesome. I will try my hardest not to put money into this, but it has been very, very difficult. Seeing your characters progress, playing with your friends, spending points on packs with random goodies, what's not to love? Simple, cookie-cutter fights have never been executed so well. It gets predictable, but never boring. It's always intense, and friends always want to play. Which as I said, delayed this review. Oh, they also recently gave out a free map pack and added characters. This really didn't help me finish the game...
With multiplayer I have to talk a bit about Origin. It was tough for me to make the switch from Steam to Origin, and I lost almost all friend-awareness when playing Origin - not necessarily a bad thing... That said, the interface is a little clunky, but it gets the job of click-button-play-game done. There's definitely some room to polish it up, so I hope EA throws some polish at it.
Finally, the ending. I can understand why people are upset, but they're coming at this the wrong way. Sure, I wanted more too. Did I feel like I got screwed over? No. Did I feel like they left things unresolved? No, I made my decisions, and saw what became of everything because of it. I would love to see more, and apparently I will.
Sorry to say it, but unless you're an awesome character that I want to hear kick some ass, I will not choose you. You will be in my party firstmost if I think you have something personal to contribute in banter for this mission, or if I think it applies to you (if you haven't manually butted in already), or if you have awesome powers that may help fight what we're going up against. So typically - sorry Kaiden, Ashley, Jacob, Zaeed, and now James Vega, and Javik.
The story was stellar. Pure amazing. The impact of what decisions I made in Mass Effect 1 and 2 were painfully apparent, and made me carry those decisions (good or bad) forward to the end. The cutscenes were great except for the occasional character's eyes following something offscreen, or even turning their head in some inhuman way. Aside from that, the voice acting was awesome.
The combat was good. They tried to keep it non-repetitive by varying the enemies and making the objectives vary, which was a nice touch. I found playing an infiltrator quite fun. I would like to complain about one fight in particular near the end. Oh my sweet baby Jesus. No other fight before that came close to the level of ridiculous I had to claw my way out of there... The fights in particular are fun enough that I've been delaying writing this review because I've been playing so much multiplayer.
To talk a bit about multiplayer - it's awesome. I will try my hardest not to put money into this, but it has been very, very difficult. Seeing your characters progress, playing with your friends, spending points on packs with random goodies, what's not to love? Simple, cookie-cutter fights have never been executed so well. It gets predictable, but never boring. It's always intense, and friends always want to play. Which as I said, delayed this review. Oh, they also recently gave out a free map pack and added characters. This really didn't help me finish the game...
With multiplayer I have to talk a bit about Origin. It was tough for me to make the switch from Steam to Origin, and I lost almost all friend-awareness when playing Origin - not necessarily a bad thing... That said, the interface is a little clunky, but it gets the job of click-button-play-game done. There's definitely some room to polish it up, so I hope EA throws some polish at it.
Finally, the ending. I can understand why people are upset, but they're coming at this the wrong way. Sure, I wanted more too. Did I feel like I got screwed over? No. Did I feel like they left things unresolved? No, I made my decisions, and saw what became of everything because of it. I would love to see more, and apparently I will.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Jamestown
Ah! I completely forgot I beat this game, and only remembered because I keep a group of "Beaten" in my Steam categories. I picked this up from one of the Humble Bundles, so it came cheap, and made me feel good about donating to charity and indie developers.
So, the story of the game is simple, shoot things and ignore the story screens. The ships you get to pick are unique, with enough variation to allow picking a ship that suits a level quite well.
The real nice part of this game is that you can have four people connect 360 controllers and play multiplayer on the same machine. Essentially allowing me to die repeatedly in a blaze of glory while other people are responsible for keeping us alive, since you only lose a continue if everyone is dead at the same time.
Would I recommend it? Yes. Did I play it for hours during lunch breaks? Yes. 'Nuff said.
So, the story of the game is simple, shoot things and ignore the story screens. The ships you get to pick are unique, with enough variation to allow picking a ship that suits a level quite well.
The real nice part of this game is that you can have four people connect 360 controllers and play multiplayer on the same machine. Essentially allowing me to die repeatedly in a blaze of glory while other people are responsible for keeping us alive, since you only lose a continue if everyone is dead at the same time.
Would I recommend it? Yes. Did I play it for hours during lunch breaks? Yes. 'Nuff said.
ICO
I picked up the ICO and Shadows of the Colossus pack for PS3 and started up ICO, since I beat SotC a year or two back.
The story is good. The game starts with a decent length intro cutscene, with very little dialog. From there, you're on your own to explore and figure out what's going on. You quickly discover a girl, Yorda, and the two of you continue your attempt at escaping, with you being the main driving force behind that.
The gameplay blends seamlessly with the story. Most things you can do, she can't without your help. The special doors you need to get through, she can open but she can't reach them on her own. This goes all the way down to the save mechanics. To save the game, you have to bring her to a stone couch, where only after both of you are sitting does the game allow you to save. Oh, did I mention she's being hunted by weird shadow creatures you have to to fight with a large stick?
The music plays a really important role in setting the tone, as neither character speaks the other's language. The rest of the tone is carried by the limitation of communication, and how you convey the tone through your decisions and facial expressions.
The controls are what you would expect from a climbing puzzle game, and I rarely ever cursed the controls. I did get upset at a few puzzles that were needlessly difficult, but almost in the tone of Braid, the puzzles are unique and you have to bring new ways of thinking to the table to solve them. All while not leaving Yorda behind. If you leave her behind in a room for any decent length of time, the shadow creatures will come steal her, and then you die. So... don't do that. Very rarely you will have to leave her alone for a short while, but if you get too far away, you're doing it wrong.
I would highly recommend this game. The only regrets I have is that I do not have a 3D TV to play this on, and the other regret is that it took me this long to play this game. It was amazing.
The story is good. The game starts with a decent length intro cutscene, with very little dialog. From there, you're on your own to explore and figure out what's going on. You quickly discover a girl, Yorda, and the two of you continue your attempt at escaping, with you being the main driving force behind that.
The gameplay blends seamlessly with the story. Most things you can do, she can't without your help. The special doors you need to get through, she can open but she can't reach them on her own. This goes all the way down to the save mechanics. To save the game, you have to bring her to a stone couch, where only after both of you are sitting does the game allow you to save. Oh, did I mention she's being hunted by weird shadow creatures you have to to fight with a large stick?
The music plays a really important role in setting the tone, as neither character speaks the other's language. The rest of the tone is carried by the limitation of communication, and how you convey the tone through your decisions and facial expressions.
The controls are what you would expect from a climbing puzzle game, and I rarely ever cursed the controls. I did get upset at a few puzzles that were needlessly difficult, but almost in the tone of Braid, the puzzles are unique and you have to bring new ways of thinking to the table to solve them. All while not leaving Yorda behind. If you leave her behind in a room for any decent length of time, the shadow creatures will come steal her, and then you die. So... don't do that. Very rarely you will have to leave her alone for a short while, but if you get too far away, you're doing it wrong.
I would highly recommend this game. The only regrets I have is that I do not have a 3D TV to play this on, and the other regret is that it took me this long to play this game. It was amazing.
Shank
So I got the itch for some side-scroller, beat-em-up, simple, linear action.
Shank met that desire for a scratch with a blood stained shiv. Everything from stabbing people in the face, shotgunning people in the face, or impaling them with the various sharp objects you easily hold on your back. Oh, and you can throw people off cliffs, which I resort to if I'm trying to replay an area quick, because I died, or if something is lobbing grenades at me.So without a question, the gameplay was solid.
The controls were a little finicky at times (aiming up in particular), but once you got used to their nuances, it wasn't a big deal. Just plug in the 360 controller, and go crazy.
The story was good enough to keep me thinking without having to go too deep. Yep, people are going to kill you, but you have pointy things to stop them. If only you could remove the required number of gallons of blood from their body so they stop getting up... but how...
The boss fights were really unique and interesting. I died multiple times at almost every boss fight, but since there was learning to be done (and obvious hints given to you after multiple deaths), I got past them eventually.
For game length, it took just shy of four hours for me to beat the entire game, which was fine by me. I came to this game with an itch, and left quite satisfied.
I would definitely recommend it, and have already queued the second one on my list for a good playthrough when the itch comes back.
Shank met that desire for a scratch with a blood stained shiv. Everything from stabbing people in the face, shotgunning people in the face, or impaling them with the various sharp objects you easily hold on your back. Oh, and you can throw people off cliffs, which I resort to if I'm trying to replay an area quick, because I died, or if something is lobbing grenades at me.So without a question, the gameplay was solid.
The controls were a little finicky at times (aiming up in particular), but once you got used to their nuances, it wasn't a big deal. Just plug in the 360 controller, and go crazy.
The story was good enough to keep me thinking without having to go too deep. Yep, people are going to kill you, but you have pointy things to stop them. If only you could remove the required number of gallons of blood from their body so they stop getting up... but how...
The boss fights were really unique and interesting. I died multiple times at almost every boss fight, but since there was learning to be done (and obvious hints given to you after multiple deaths), I got past them eventually.
For game length, it took just shy of four hours for me to beat the entire game, which was fine by me. I came to this game with an itch, and left quite satisfied.
I would definitely recommend it, and have already queued the second one on my list for a good playthrough when the itch comes back.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Cave Story+
So I played this game back when it was free about 8 years ago. It was awesome then, it's still awesome. The only thing that's changed, is I forgot how difficult it was (or I played it on easy back then...). Anyways, this game is tough.
Do NOT play this game on Hard difficulty unless you love games where normal enemies one-shot you and you die. For some reason it took me quite a good chunk of the game before I realized I wasn't getting health upgrades... Then I replayed in on normal and enjoyed it much more, granted, it was still tough.
I used JoyToKey to allow using my Xbox 360 controller for this game, which made it actually playable. You can also use a gamepad controller, but the 360 controller felt better to me. I also cheated and set a button on the controller to be a turbo-shoot button, so that I don't worsen my inevitable carpal tunnel progression. Also, it's a platform shooter, so having a turbo button allows me to completely own the enemies face as I stand next to them.
So back to the review! The game is really enjoyable, in a nostalgic way. The graphics were updated when they put the game on Steam, and they also redid the soundtrack. They also added a seasonal graphics update which you can enable or disable in the options. All of these are great, and the overall game did not change (it was good then, it's good now).
The story is good, and the presentation of the story fits.
The difficulty options:
* Easy - you take half damage
* Normal - this is what I played it on this time around
* Hard - you get no health upgrades and will be one-shot by quite a few enemies, be prepared to load... a lot
The weapons power up as you collect mini-Triforces dropped by killed enemies, which makes not getting hit doubly important. Also, there are some hidden weapons, if you want to just Google them. Almost every weapon has a good use, and there are a few you have to choose one or the other.
So the only thing I planned to do that I didn't do this completion run, was the optional extra final boss. He is unbelievably difficult to get to, and once you get to him, it's a multiple-stage boss fight and if you lose, you must redo quite a bit of legwork to get back to fighting him. I had the patience 8 years ago, and I'm not sure I still have it.
Ok, quick update. Screw that, it only took about 30 minutes, but I beat the bastard again. Muahahahaa! Done.
Yep, I've been spoiled by modern games. Also, if any game has quick saves, I will quick save enough such that I will never have to repeat:
* Any fight
* Any conversation/choice
* Reopen any door I opened before
Also, if the quick saves are not on a small rotation or single slot implementation, I will most likely fill up my hard drive (stares at The Witcher)
Overall, very enjoyable game filled with awesome nostalgia. If it's your first time through, play it on Easy and enjoy it.
Do NOT play this game on Hard difficulty unless you love games where normal enemies one-shot you and you die. For some reason it took me quite a good chunk of the game before I realized I wasn't getting health upgrades... Then I replayed in on normal and enjoyed it much more, granted, it was still tough.
I used JoyToKey to allow using my Xbox 360 controller for this game, which made it actually playable. You can also use a gamepad controller, but the 360 controller felt better to me. I also cheated and set a button on the controller to be a turbo-shoot button, so that I don't worsen my inevitable carpal tunnel progression. Also, it's a platform shooter, so having a turbo button allows me to completely own the enemies face as I stand next to them.
So back to the review! The game is really enjoyable, in a nostalgic way. The graphics were updated when they put the game on Steam, and they also redid the soundtrack. They also added a seasonal graphics update which you can enable or disable in the options. All of these are great, and the overall game did not change (it was good then, it's good now).
The story is good, and the presentation of the story fits.
The difficulty options:
* Easy - you take half damage
* Normal - this is what I played it on this time around
* Hard - you get no health upgrades and will be one-shot by quite a few enemies, be prepared to load... a lot
The weapons power up as you collect mini-Triforces dropped by killed enemies, which makes not getting hit doubly important. Also, there are some hidden weapons, if you want to just Google them. Almost every weapon has a good use, and there are a few you have to choose one or the other.
So the only thing I planned to do that I didn't do this completion run, was the optional extra final boss. He is unbelievably difficult to get to, and once you get to him, it's a multiple-stage boss fight and if you lose, you must redo quite a bit of legwork to get back to fighting him. I had the patience 8 years ago, and I'm not sure I still have it.
Ok, quick update. Screw that, it only took about 30 minutes, but I beat the bastard again. Muahahahaa! Done.
Yep, I've been spoiled by modern games. Also, if any game has quick saves, I will quick save enough such that I will never have to repeat:
* Any fight
* Any conversation/choice
* Reopen any door I opened before
Also, if the quick saves are not on a small rotation or single slot implementation, I will most likely fill up my hard drive (stares at The Witcher)
Overall, very enjoyable game filled with awesome nostalgia. If it's your first time through, play it on Easy and enjoy it.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Bastion
So, I picked this up on Steam a little while back, but only because it had 360 controller support. No controller support for a platformer/button masher means I will never own the game on PC.
Anyways, the game starts out good, introducing you to weapons one at a time, with an awesome, gritty narrator talking to you and about you as you travel and kick ass through levels.
I really liked the changing world, and the upgrades on the weapons, it kept everything fresh and new for the entire game. Having read the directions though, I was almost shy to upgrade since I wasn't sure if I would be screwing myself later (I literally upgraded Kratos' starting blades to max, and then saved all of the other red orbs until the final boss in God of War II, seriously). Anyways, go nuts with upgrades, but try to get a few weapons to max, and not just spread things around. I found the few that worked for me, and pumped the crap out of them.
There are also challenging mini games for each weapon where you will will prizes for using it as effectively as possible, but keep in mind that sometimes you need to upgrade the weapon to get the best score. There are also other challenges that reveal story and give you more points for upgrades, so double bonus there.
The story was really good, the narrator really breathed life into it, and the progression was well-paced. I would highly recommend picking this game up if you get the chance. Steam with a Xbox 360 corded controller or XBLA, either will do just fine.
Anyways, the game starts out good, introducing you to weapons one at a time, with an awesome, gritty narrator talking to you and about you as you travel and kick ass through levels.
I really liked the changing world, and the upgrades on the weapons, it kept everything fresh and new for the entire game. Having read the directions though, I was almost shy to upgrade since I wasn't sure if I would be screwing myself later (I literally upgraded Kratos' starting blades to max, and then saved all of the other red orbs until the final boss in God of War II, seriously). Anyways, go nuts with upgrades, but try to get a few weapons to max, and not just spread things around. I found the few that worked for me, and pumped the crap out of them.
There are also challenging mini games for each weapon where you will will prizes for using it as effectively as possible, but keep in mind that sometimes you need to upgrade the weapon to get the best score. There are also other challenges that reveal story and give you more points for upgrades, so double bonus there.
The story was really good, the narrator really breathed life into it, and the progression was well-paced. I would highly recommend picking this game up if you get the chance. Steam with a Xbox 360 corded controller or XBLA, either will do just fine.
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