Battlefield: Bad Company

For most of us that play first-person shooters, we’ve gotten used to the story lines; grim circumstances, fate of the world rests of your shoulders, blah blah blah. How about a story about you being assigned to a squad of expendable misfits, sent out on dangerous missions so the Army doesn’t waste their best troops, blowing up everything that gets in your path … and making a little extra cash? EA and game developer Dice deliver an excellent game concept utilizing cutting edge new game elements and a story taken straight out of Kelly’s Heroes. Welcome to Bad Company soldier! Read more

Civilization Revolution

Sid Meier is universally recognized as the master of computer game design. I remember playing F-15 Strike Eagle, on my old Commodore 64 when I was a kid. Civilization is his masterpiece, delighting millions of gamers and evolving through several versions. Civ, for the most part, has been exclusive to PC’s and Macintosh’s. However, with the PC market in a decline the past couple of years, it was only a matter of time before the franchise expanded. Read more

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith

Hi, my name is PK, and I’m a Guitar Hero addict. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, and my guilty pleasure has been Guitar Hero. Read more

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Hellboy: The Science of Evil

You’d think that film studios would exhibit a little common sense and follow a simple rule: don’t make movies that suck. In my opinion, in the past fifteen to twenty years, I’d say about 50-60% of films fall somewhere within the mediocre to decent categories, meaning that I got some sort of enjoyment out of them. Read more

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Metal Gear Solid 4

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m sure that you not only know what Metal Gear Solid 4 is, but you’ve also been waiting patiently to get your hands on it, because MGS4 is the crowning achievement of console game development.  It reaches a standard of quality by which all other games should be judged.  Mr. Kojima’s team has created an uncompromising tour de force. Read more

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LEGO Indiana Jones

One of the first toys I became obsessed with as a child were LEGOs. I used to have a metric ton of them. I had the first generation Space LEGOs, the Medieval Castle LEGOs, and the Technics LEGOs. I used to save every penny of my allowance so I could get the next set. I finally, unwillingly, gave my Lego collection to my nieces and nephews. Even today, I find myself checking out the new sets. Read more

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Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy

If you love spy thrillers, chances are you’ve probably heard of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne novels, made popular with the Hollywood adaptations starring Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. The well choreographed and brutal hand-to-hand combat portrayed was the hallmark of the films, and game publisher Sierra and developer High Moon Studios have done a excellent job capturing that adrenaline-filled action, almost to the point where you feel like you’re recreating scenes from the movie. Read more

Army of Two

There was a lot of hype surrounding Army of Two, so I was pretty excited when it finally came out.  After watching a lot of the trailers and commercials, and then actually playing the game, I can assure you that this is just one of far too many examples of how style and hype can supersede substance and quality.  

The story follows the adventures of Salem and Rios, two ex-Army Rangers-turned-mercenaries hired to do the government’s dirty work.  As you go on missions and complete your objectives, you receive cash rewards so you can pimp out your armory.  As you start following the “story,” you soon discover that someone within your organization is trying to sell you out.  Shocker!

There are some good gameplay concepts.  One example is that if you’re too wounded to fight, you can be dragged away to safety by your partner while you provide covering fire till he takes you to cover so he can heal you.  Another is the simultaneous snipe, which you and your partner can do to take out one or two targets at exactly the same time.  You can also give your partner help in overcoming obstacles, like giving him a boost to get over a wall or by pulling him up out of a hole.  The biggest element of note is the aggro system.  It’s much like a typical MMO, except the bigger a threat you are, the more aggro you generate, attracting more fire towards you, which frees up your partner to flank them and take them out.  The biggest problem I ran into playing co-op with the computer AI, however, is that when you order him to generate aggro, he does it for about five seconds, thus leaving you exposed in an open area as you try to maneuver for position, thus having to have your partner come in to drag your sorry butt back to safety.  And of course you can praise your character by giving him a high-five, or if he does something stupid you can give him a backhand across the face.  Not very useful for the game itself, but you can get a kick at smacking the crap out of your partner.

As a tactical shooter, I couldn’t say it’s even sub-par; the computer AI is horrible, both for your partner or the enemies.  I had enemies run right past me or my partner and neither would take a shot.  What the heck?!  And then I’m starting to wonder who’s the better shot.  It seems the terrorists were trained at the Marine Corps Sniper School.  When I run and gun, I couldn’t hit the broadside of the bus.  The only way to effectively take out your targets is doing a precision aim and taking a head shot.  In all, the gameplay is unbalanced and extremely frustrating. The game’s only saving grace is that it has some decent graphics.

In the end, Army of Two attempts to capture the magic of Gears of War or any of the Tom Clancy games - and falls way short.  As a multi-player, I’m sure that Army of Two would have been decent, but I have to admit that I didn’t get that far.  This game left me so bitter that I didn’t even bother trying to play its online co-op features.  Do yourself a favor, go pick up Rainbow Six: Vegas 2; or better yet, wait for Gears of War 2.

Hail to the Chief: Halo 3

A letter from the Managing Editor:

Dear Readers,

I wish to extend to you my most sincere apology for the amount of time it took to get this review to you. Because of my gross violation of one of the Gamer’s Commandments (”Thou shalt save a lot, save often”), I was forced to replay approximately six hours of Halo 3. It was an innocent mistake; I had paused the game and went downstairs, when my oldest daughter decided that it would be okay for her to take the game out of the Xbox 360 to play Guitar Hero II. My scream could be heard in three counties.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, on with the review.

I don’t consider Halo 3 to be the world’s greatest first-person shooter. As an FPS it’s excellent, but arguably there’s a dozen others that can top it, especially on a PC. One of the reasons that Halo 3 series is great, however, is its well written back story. You find yourself set immediately after the events of Halo 2. Master Chief and the remains of Earth’s forces along with your new allies, the Elites lead by the Arbiter, head out to stop the Covenant from activating the remaining Halos. I won’t go into any more details about the story. It’s definitely worth the effort of playing the game in order to get closure on many of the questions you may have had from the previous two games.

All of the basic game mechanics have remained the same with some excellent new additions. First, there’s the introduction of some great new weapons, such as the Spiker. They’re the Covenant equivalent of the sub-machine guns, and if you can dual-wield them, they’re devastating. Another new weapon is the Spartan Laser Cannon. You can also literally take weapons that are normally mounted and use them as handhelds, such as mini-guns, flame throwers, or plasma cannons. There’s also a host of new vehicles such as the Mongoose, which is basically a fast moving ATV that you can either drive or sit in back to shoot, and the Hornet, a Human version of the Covenant Banshee. There’s a bunch of vehicles that you’ll get to experience as you play, many of which are not documented in the game manual. Halo 3 also introduces the concept of deployable equipment. By pressing the X button, you can deploy items such as the Bubble Shield, which will stop weapons and explosives but can be walked through. Others include Power Drain, Regenerators, Trip Mines, and Deployable Cover.

One of Halo’s strong points has always been its multi-player modes. One of the major updates in Halo 3 is the new co-op mode. With Halo 2, you could play the entire game with another player, but in Halo 3, you can now have up to four players. To top it off, your teammates can play with you over Xbox Live, so you don’t have to crowd three other guys on the couch for split screen mode. I also enjoyed the level of customization available now. You can change which weapons you start with, which weapons you can pick up on the map, the speed of the game, or how much gravity can be on the map (I love low-grav maps!).

One of the most interesting modes is Forge, which essentially allows you and other players to manipulate certain aspects of existing multi-player maps on the fly, mainly moving objects and changing their characteristics. Each map has a “credit” limit, with each object having a set credit amount, so you won’t be able to put sixteen tanks on a single map (though that would be really fun). On top of all that, you can save your Forge creations and share them via Bungie’s new file sharing system. Players can now send files to other players that are online via Xbox Live, or you can send them to Bungie’s central file storage server where you can share them with the entire Halo 3 community if you wish. You can also upload screen shots and saved films as well. Each Xbox Live Gold member gets 25 MBs of diskspace across 6 save slots, with additional space and slots available if you choose to use your Microsoft Points.

Sound and graphic-wise, Halo 3 is impressive. Frame rates are smooth, with lots of nice dynamic lighting and effects you’ve come to expect from the Xbox 360. The soundtrack is also very familiar, but nonetheless appropriate, for each of the environments you’ll experience. You’ll also get the usual good voice cast making their return, from Cortana to Sergeant Major Johnson. The funnest things to listen to are the exchanges you’ll hear between other characters, such as an exchange between one Marine behind a blast door pleading with another marine who insists on asking for the password. It’s worth an extra minute or so to listen to the hilarity that ensues.

Bungie and Microsoft have scored another home run with Halo 3. With the enhancements to its multi-player features and the community it’s building with the new file sharing capabilities, packaged together with its great story and gameplay, it will leave you no doubt why some consider the Halo series one of the most successful game franchises in history. You’ll now have to spend the next couple of years wondering when the Master Chief will be back, and what threat to humanity he’ll have to save us from next. In the mean time, Halo 3 will be able to fill that void for quite a while.

E for All Expo - Day 3

Day 3 - Wrappin’ it up!

Things are beginning to rapidly wind down here in the LA Convention Center. Though I would say that there are the same amount of people here today than yesterday, the crowd is a bit different, with a lot more families wondering around the various demo areas. There are a lot of others that are participating in the various Major League Gaming tournaments as well.

Guitar Hero II Tournament

I sat in on one of the daily tournaments, and it was a blast to watch the four contestants pull out all the stops. One guy came in a glittery disco shirt and really had the crowd going, playing Rush’s YYZ. This guy was jumping off the stage, playing the guitar controller behind his head, switching hands, and generally making a complete fool of himself for a $1000 gift card from Target. Another guy actually disrobed in the middle of the song and was wearing only a pair Guitar Hero III teeshirts, one on top and the other with his legs pulled though the arm holes. This guy actually played with his feet and between his legs. The other two just couldn’t top those acts.

Civilization: Revolution

A lot of people were abuzz for the console version of Civilization. It was pretty entertaining, with all of the tongue and cheek you’d expect from various advisers in your quest for world domination. I got to play the Xbox 360 demo version, and I was impressed. I’m sure that it was toned down, because I easily destroyed Cleopatra and her Egyptian Empire in about 15 minutes.

Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo has got its next great platformer in Super Mario Galaxy. Like other Mario games, your objective is to get as many stars as possible, but this time you need to travel to different planets, and each planet has different characteristics that can effect how you play. Some planets have more gravity than others, so you can’t jump as high, which means you’ll need to find different means to get to those hard to reach places. The real challenge is also having to navigate around the round playing surfaces as well as utilizing certain gestures from your Wiimote to pull off special moves.

Link’s Crossbow Training

Another game that will appeal to the younger generation is Link’s Crossbow Training. This will be one of the titles bundled with the Wii Zapper when it’s released in November. With three modes of game play, from simple target shooting, defender mode, and a Ranger mode that allows you to actually move Link around to complete your missions. The Wii Zapper is very easy to use and should add lots of value to the growing number of attachment devices coming out. Also in the mix is Ghost Squad, Medal of Honor, and Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles.

TN Games 3rd Space Vest

More and more we begin to wonder what else can be done to bring the gaming experience to such a level where it can actually be felt. The first step is TN Game’s 3rd Space Vest. Mark Ombrellaro, the designer and CEO, who also happens to be a vascular surgeon, has developed a high quality vest that actually reacts when you’re being shot. Filled with air bladders in strategic locations, a USB connected air compressor rapidly fills and releases them to simulate getting hit. Not to worry, it only puts about 10 lbs. of force, so it’s more like a light shove. They also have other vests that are designed for flight and driving simulators to help you experience G-forces as you’d in a cockpit or driver’s seat. When released it will come with two games; Incursion, a Doom 3 mod developed for the vest and Call of Duty 2. They also provide patches for Quake 3: Arena, Quake 4, and Doom 3. Ombrellaro also said that this is just the beginning, and you can expect other products down the line to take things up one step further, such as flight suits and helmets.

That’s a wrap for me. Time to go and enjoy some of the scenery and pack up for the long trip back home. I’ll have more bits and photos up this weekend, so keep checking back.

Cheers!

PK

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