Tag Archives: 360 - Page 2

Alan Wake

Posted by on June 24, 2010 1 comment

Abut a month ago I made this post to Twitter:

Me: Alan wake is a “psychological action thriller”. Sarah: That’s code for “scary as shit!”

Thus began my decent into the darkness that claimed Alan Wake, the latest story driven thriller on the Xbox 360.  I had decided to hold off on playing Alan Wake due to my obsession with Red Dead Redemption.  Since RDR took quite a while to get through the story, it delayed my run of AW.  Of course once I finished AW I had planned to write up my review but my house was set upon by a plague of darkness on it’s own with everyone catching some sort of head cold.  This leaves me behind on quite a few posts, but I will do my best to catch up.

So, Alan Wake lives up to it’s tag line (and thusly, Sarah’s translation).  The main story gets played out as a kind of a Television episodic story that is broken up into 6 parts.  Even though I spread it out over the course of the month, the actual game play was exactly 6 days.  I did this because I really didn’t want to cut off an episode mid way.  Each episode was approximately 2-3 hours of game play, so in hind sight, the whole game was just about 15ish hours of play time.  Some of you would think that is short but trust me, the story is more than worth it.

The story is where Alan Wake really shines.  Most games that come out these days have amazing graphics, outstanding music, etc, etc.  The story is really one part where many games loose it just a little.  Case in point, I loved the story in Red Dead Redemption, but there were enough holes, and missing elements that, as a player, I missed out on.   With Alan Wake, the whole game was very linear so that the string the player follows is the story the developers want to tell.  When the story is done, you may want for more, but it’s not from holes in the story, it’s from the story being so compelling that you want more of it.

Ok, Spoiler time, if you don’t want to know, don’t read any further.

Alan Wake is a troubled writer who, with his wife, vacations to a lake side town of Bright Falls.  Unfortunately, the town has it’s own dramatic flare.  A haunted lake claims Alan’s wife as it’s hostage and forces Alan to write infusing his story with it’s own powers of darkness to gain strength.  Alan escapes the story by writing himself into it (I know, it’s weird but it does make sense, kinda) so that he can rescue his wife.  You spend the bulk of the game racing through town trying to learn about the whereabouts of your wife and following a trail of dropped manuscript pages that “you” wrote for the story.  The really mind blowing meta comes from the last two episodes where you learn that Alan’s Father was trapped by the same lake and forced to write a story that leads to Alan coming to the lake, to get trapped, and forced to write a story where he encounters his father’s story…. I’m going to stop there before my head explodes.

Now, as for the likes and dislikes:

Bright Falls (Likes)

Story – The story was so well written that you really felt like you were playing out a good novel or enjoying a really well written TV show.

Ambiance – In order to set the mood for the story, the ambiance in the town flows with the story both for daytime and night time.

Narration – I loved that Alan was Narrating the whole story as I played it out.  It added more of that “I am in a novel” feeling.

Barry – Your agent comes to “rescue” you in Bright Falls and ends up tagging along on most of the ride through the story.  His comedy relief is a great add to the whole experience.

Night Falls (Dislikes)

Lip Sync – This was the BIGGEST distraction of the game.  The voicing is good by the sync with the character models became such a distraction that I had to force myself to not watch the character faces during cut scenes because it was detracting from the game.

Scavenger Hunt – One of the things you have to do in the story is to hunt around and find various scraps of the manuscript.  Hidden along the way there are also a number of Coffee Thermoses, weapon stashes, and radio/TV shows you can tune into.  The problem I had with this is that I would walk into an area and start searching the areas that were more off the path of the story in order to try and find these things.  In some respect it’s cool, but in many it’s just a distraction.

Over all I felt Alan Wake was an amazing game.  I can’t wait for the next two episodes that are due out as DLC soon.  Hopefully the game won’t suffer in numbers due to being released opposite Red Dead Redemption.  Go Buy It!!

Red Dead Redemption and Hard Labor

Posted by on May 26, 2010 No comments

Just a quick post to let you know I haven’t dropped off the face of the planet (again).  The last few weeks have been spent diving into Rockstar’s new Red Dead Redemption and doing a bit of hard time demolition work in my back yard.  I hope to get a review of RDR up soon as I am probably about 50% through it now.  Initial reaction:  Amazing, go get it and expect to spend most of your free time wandering around New Austin.  Speaking of free time, in the back yard, I am tearing down the above ground pool that has lingered in all it’s ghettoness back there and it’s time for it to go.  So I bought a new saw (Dewalt 13 amp Reciprocating Saw) and I am carving it up like a turkey.  Hopefully I can take in the scrap metal and get some good cash out of it.

Also, we picked up a new car!  We traded in the Honda Fit and got a Ford Escape Hybrid model.  2010 with all the bells and whistles.  For a gadget geek like me it’s even got the Microsoft Sync stuff for integration with my phone.  I might even do a little bit about that later, but I wanted to keep this short.  So keep your eyes out for a full review of RDR and next on deck is Alan Wake! (which is sitting in all it’s shrink wrapped glory taunting me)

Toy Soldiers (Micro Review)

Posted by on March 20, 2010 No comments

So I have been a little out of it this week due to some crazy injury to my back.  Don’t ask, I am not sure how it happened either, I just know it hurts like all hell and I apparently did the worst thing I could do for it.  You see, the Doc tells me that I strained the cartilage on my ribs.  So when you strain a muscle you want to apply Ice to reduce swelling and heat to encourage blood flow.  Yeah, when you strain cartilage, you apply ice, and that’s it.  When you apply heat it only makes it worse.  So the other night when my back was hurting to all high hell, (and I hadn’t been to the doc yet) I came down and slept with a electric blanket balled up on my back……alll night.  Needless to say the next day was insanely painful.  They gave me lots of good drugs and I am spending most of my time laying down on an Ice pack.  So I have had lots of time to sit and play on the Xbox.

Enter Toy Soldiers.  Toy Soldiers is a new Arcade title that was released about 2 weeks ago.  The premise of the game is more tower defense style set with your old fashioned Toy Soldiers (Duh).  Now, back in the 90’s there was a game called Army Men, which took your old green army men and animated them to a strategy game.  This game is nothing like that.  The soldiers in this one are the old old style, think the old metal soldiers your grand dad would have had.  (for some of you, your great grand dad, damn I am getting old)  In Toy Soldiers you have your toy box and an unlimited stream of soldiers at your disposal.  You however only control the defensive aspect of the game.  You can queue up your offensive force and hope they make it to the other side.  You can take control of the various turrets and defenses to add more of a human element to the defense.  But that is all just the basic game play.  Some of the best parts of the game come from the overall design.

So lets charge into it, shall we?

The Hoo Rah’s!!

  • The overall look of the game is awesome.  The setting of making the backgrounds look like a bedroom where you are really sitting and just playing with your soldiers is great.  Add in the period music and it’s a great package.  I could almost just set the menus and leave with the background playing and enjoy it.
  • Upgrades Upgrades Upgrades!  Each unit has a series of upgrades which not only make the unit perform better, it changes the look!  A machine gun turret changes to a cannon and it has a completely different look of the soldiers.
  • No Launch and leave.  Most Tower Defense game you can build them up to a specific place and then just leave them alone to finish the job.  Like it or not, you can’t do that here.  You have to stay engaged.

The “Don’t Ask Don’t Tells”

  • It’s a race!  When playing multi-player you pretty much are in a race to get your upgrades done the fastest.  If I can get my howitzer up to level 3 it will have the range to destroy your guns.  So first to get there usually wins.
  • The AI is smart, but not that smart.  You need to be on top of almost every aspect of the defenses if you want to catch everything before it gets to your toy box.  It can get a little “Micro (no pun intended) Management” like.,
  • No Specials for teams.  Maybe I just haven’t found it yet but it looks to be just two Teams, the Brits and the Krauts (British and German troops) and they all seem to have the same equipment.  It would have been nice to have the Germans get a special gun that the British don’t, and vice versa.

Now all that being said, I really do like the game.  It’s a great way to spend some time while I am laid out on the couch.  And I am sure I will find more good in it the more I play.  (I could do without the creepy gas mask Avatar award though).  If you enjoy the old timy aspect of classic Toy Soldiers, I Highly suggest you at least download the demo and check it out!  If you buy it then feel free to send me a game invite!

Still Plugging Away, Captain in sight!

Posted by on March 3, 2010 No comments

Ok so I have been splitting a lot of my game time up for the last few weeks.  Star Trek Online really has me stuck in the holodeck and has taken control of the ship.  When I can get some escape from it I have been working my way through Bioshock 2.  Since the time is split on both and finishing up neither it has left me with some wonder on what to post to keep things current out here on the site.  So I will give you the thoughts so far on both of these.  First up, a State of Rapture.

So I am quite a ways into B2 and it’s just, finally, starting to get to a near playable state.  I say that because the first few levels were spent figuring out how to play and building up weapons so they can actually hurt someone wearing just a dress and a plastic mask.  Where as the junkie with a pipe can kill me in my deep sea armor plated dive suit.  Yeah, it’s a lot like that.  It would also appear that the Xbox version has a few bugs.  None of the vending machines give off the familiar “Welcome, to the Circus of Values!”. And I still miss the little sisters reacting to your rescue of them (“No No, No No!”).  Now that I am past the build up phase and getting more into the game, it’s getting a little better.  I may have to agree with the guys in the Joystiq Xbox fancast when they say that maybe using Bioshock 2 to follow Mass Effect 2 is a bad idea.  When you go from a game that is very heavily story based and rich in it’s plot, and you go to something that is basically a re-hash of the first game, it’s bound to leave you a tad bitter.  Fret not though, despite all this, I am still enjoying the game and it’s probably better that I take it slow so that I can enjoy the good parts and be away long enough to forget the bad.

In the meantime I have been enjoying the Trek experience in Star Trek Online.  I have a grand total of 3 characters (BTW, the max is 3), My Main, Boothby, is a Trill Science Commander (Commander 9, soooooo close to Captain) flying the U.S.S. Amazonia which looks like it’s ready to be hatched.  I hate the look of the Commander Science ships.  They have that horrible sphere instead of a saucer section.  I also have my Klingon Character which you are able to start playing after you reach LT 6 with your Federation character.  The nice thing is that you start at LT 6 with the Klingon as well so Lt Lock, Tactical Officer of the I.K.S VeS Qab (WarCrimes), is bringing hell to the Federation.  Finally I have my Alt, Lt Commander Wi’Zzer, Vulcan Engineering officer of the U.S.S. Fairfax.  This character I am running with my friend Doc so we are keeping the characters in line with each other.  When he isn’t on, I play Booth.

So the State of the Galaxy is that Boothby just managed to reach Deep Space 9 out towards Cardassian space.  I like that there are a specific set of missions for each area and a specific enemy that you are working against.  Something I would love to see, though, is a different set of missions based on what you are.  I’m a Doctor not a Tactical officer!  Where are my Science specific missions?  Why does my Engineer character get missions where he needs to scan Nebula’s and gathering Data?  My Science officer is running off on missions to take out 5 squadrons of ships that should be better suited for a Tactical officer.  Now it’s usually better if you are running in a team of course so you have 1 of each type, but that is rare.  Another big complaint would be in the stats and skills.  So I have my ship that I can outfit with a billion different bits and parts.  I loot a science console that gives me +10 to Astrometrics.  I have found no where to tell me what exactly that does for me!  Some of the skills are good in that they give you examples of the skills they benefit, but it’s really hard to keep the granularity straight.

On the plus side, the missions I have run lately have been great for the story.  Learning about the Hobus Star and what happened to Romulus was very intriguing.  Playing as my Engineer and being the tank while Doc tears through with his Escort ship, and even playing through as my Klingon even though it’s just PVP for him.  (Need more Klingon Quests!!!)  I can see that I will be very entertained for quite a while still.  Is it bad that I have had the urge to watch more of the TV show and movies as of late?  Not much else on the radar right now so I will be cooking up some non-review articles in the coming weeks.  Stay Tuned!

Stupid Ezio! or My trip back to Florence.

Posted by on February 23, 2010 No comments

There have been two bits of Down Loadable Content released for Assassin’s Creed 2 since I played and reviewed last month.  Sequence 12: Battle of Forli and Sequence 13: Bonfire of the Vanities fill the gap in the story between Sequences 11 and 14.  If you have played through the game you know about how apparently there is some degradation in the data stream that causes the two sequences to be corrupt and thus, un-obtainable by Desmond and the crew.  Well Rebbecca, your tech lead, manages to “repair” the data and you can now access it.

Sequence 12 opens up back in Leonardo’s shop and you are inspecting the newly acquired Apple.  It’s too dangerous to keep it hidden in some random spot (like is has been for the last few hundred years) so you clearly must put it in a fortress with lots of people around it.  A visit to Forli and the Strong willed Caterina Sforza brings trouble in the way of a full on attack from a new target for Ezio.  Without going too in depth, this story played out well, had good cut scenes, and overall good gameplay.  My only complaint about it was that it felt very short (and no achievements).

Sequence 13, however, had me crying out expletives about every 2 minutes!  The Apple was taken and ends up back in Florence under the control of the Mad Monk, Girolamo Savonarola, who is using the Apple to influence the people to do his bidding.  In order to garnner discontent umong the people, Ezio needed to take out 9 of the Monks top people.  Normally I would think this was fine but about 5 of these were “Oh by the way don’t alert the 80 bazzilion guards in the area when you do it”.  I think I may have scared the dog a few times screaming at the TV.  God Bless the invention of the Sniper Rifle.  I think this one went on a tad long (maybe to make up for 12 being short) and could have done fine with maybe 5 Assassinations instead of 9. Also….Needs Achievements!

Overall I was very happy with the story except that it all should have been in the game to begin with.  It’s not like a new story, or a special side mission.  This was all info that was a part of the main story!  So why not include it in the main game.  I also found the DLC to be a tad glitchy.  There were many times where the Dialogue was not heard at all and just the subtitles were what I had to follow along with.  After one mission I was spawned inside a building and couldn’t get out without having to quit.  That mixed with the standard frustration of alerting guards and failing out of a mission about 50 times really made this part of AC2 more of a Chore than enjoying the added story.

My Advice?  Download the DLC THEN play the game so it’s all one coherent story.  Where I gave the Main game an 8.8 out of 10 Florins, The DLC is getting only a 6.5.

Assassin’s Creed II

Posted by on January 17, 2010 No comments

Much like everyone else, I have been looking forward to ACII ever since I played ACI .  Only mostly it was hoping that they finally got it right.  ACI was stunningly beautiuful and had a really good story to accompany it.  Unfortunatly, the gameplay was horrible.  If you managed to get through the first area, you have pretty much played the whole game.  Each area of ACI involved things like pick pocket this guy, evesdrop on that guy, beat up this guy, and then kill that one. Wash, rinse, repeat.  Even the collection parts of the game were mind numbing.  You walked into an area and had to collect flags, but there were like eleventy billion of them.  I am not sure I know anyone who actually got all of them.

But this isn’t about ACI, it’s about it’s successor….Assassin’s Creed II.  It would appear that Ubisoft realized that they had a great engine but needed to fill it out with a great game.  And that’s what happened with ACII.  It is amazing to see that a company finally started listening to it’s fans!  The gameplay has caught up to the engine and we as gamers reap the benefits.

ACII starts off where ACI left of (in the horrible WTF cliffhanger, except that now it makes sense) in the Abstergo lab but it takes no time before you jump back into the Animus (2.0 even) to start off on the real reason that we all bought the game.  I am not going to explain the plot of the game for you because this is a review and you probably already know what the plot is.  From start to finish this story grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t leave me be.  Even Sarah enjoyed watching the story (and filling me in on all the buildings and plot lines that mirrored real life).  The visuals remained just as stunning as the original which was great of course.  And the actual gameplay was brought perfectly in line.  Each mission was unique and played well into the story.  The outside collection missions were easy and beneficial.

In ACI you had to grab flags, but in ACII, you collected chests….which had money, which you could spend.  Oh and by the way, they added a mertchant system!  And a real estate system.  Not to mention an equipment system.  All of these things would have been great in the first game.  It worked simply enough, Missions and chests would net you money.  You use the money to make improvements on your Villa (your home base).  More money pumped into the villa would bring you more income over all, which you would use to buy new and better weapons. You could also buy maps, that would show you where the treasure chests were, which would get you more money.

Where ACII really shined though was in the story.  It was engaging, from start to end.  There are very few games that have such an investing story that just grabs you and makes you care about the characters.  (and there should be more!!)  I found myself wonder what happened with some of the characters that I had only casually met! (Where is Christina the girl Ezio was seeing in the beginning?)  At the same time I was excited to go and visit with Leonardo and see what wacky thing he had going on.  This is one of the reasons I was happy to hear that the upcoming DLC for the game would fill in the holes on some of the characters.

Now that I have praised the game enough, lets start talking about where it fell short.  I can not tell you how many times I cried out “No, no that way, Stupid Ezio!!!” (Although Sarah probably could tell you how many times.  I think she was counting.  There were times that the controls just didn’t do what I wanted them to do.  Sometimes it was nothing but a wrong turn but too many times it resulted with death, or even worse, missing a timed event!  I am not even sure if it was me or the game, but like all other gamers, I am gonna blame the game here.  I am trying to communicate that I want to jump after flipping right, and if Ezio goes forward then jump then right, that’s not what I told it to do.  I think the problem really was in the left over animations.  Ezio would still be moving after I stopped, and so it translated wrong. 

Ubisoft cut down on the collection quests but not all together.  The nice thing though is that they added the collections into the story.  Feathers were collected to please your mother and remember your brother.  (They also added a bit to the villa’s worth) There are, of course, the chests, but you can get a map for those where there is no way of finding the feathers except seeing them in your travels (or using a guide).  The only other collection item would be the glyphs for “Subject 16”.  These symbols were found on random buildings and added to the overall story outside of Ezio.  The bigest problem I had with these was finding the building, and then where on the building.  I managed to run across the buildings while I was out and about, the database would let me know there was a glyph but I would rarely have the time to search for it.  So I would have to re-find the building later, and then scour the building for the glyph.  After about 20 min of wall crawling, I ended up using a guide for some of these as well.

I really have to say, ACII is one of the best games I have played all year.  I am not sure how re-playable it is, but it certainly took many hours of my gaming time and I count those as good solid entertainment.  Unfortunatly it’s not a perfect game.  Finicky controls and hard to find collection items added time to the game that I would have rather spent in the story.  The last complaint I have isn’t really a complaint so much as an overwhelming feeling.  There was so much in this game that it was almost hard to keep up with!  Between the Vilia improvements, the main story, the codex pages, the Armor and weapon shops, the Assassin seals, and collections, I found myself sitting down and wondering, What part of the game do I want to play now?  I know I know it doesn’t sound like a complaint, but when I have to ask myself “what do I want to do?” it detracts from what the game wants me to do.

Over All, I give it a good solid 8.8 Florins, out of 10.