DC Universe

"Finally a MMORPG that isn't trying to be the "WoW killer" but a whole new idea for the genre"

I've been playing DC Universe Online since the beta and I've following the game since I first heard about it. What really drew me in was of course that fact that it's an MMO based on DC Comics but also that it really sticks out among all of the MMORPGs out there. It seems like everyone just wants to make the MMORPG that will make WoW obsolete and after all the smoke clears the new game is just WoW Lite. DCU on the other hand took the MMO formula and created a massive multiplayer online action RPG. There's no auto attack in this game, you're doing combos and big super powered attacks from the training area. I can see this as being a game that I'll be playing for years, just like WoW.

Graphics 8/10

This is an MMO game so don't expect it to blow your mind because they do need to keep it looking good but it's more about creating a game world that will run stable when the servers are at maximum capacity. It does look like a Playstation 3 game and it does have HD graphics (720p supported.) I would say that PS3 would be the version to get since it runs perfect while on the PC you would want a good quality gaming computer to run the same visual settings the PS3 runs by default. The characters are very detailed, mainly the player creations since everyone is getting new gear through shops, quests, drops, and so on. If you want to be a throwback to the colorful silver age of comics then you can look the part, if you want to be a dark brooding antihero then you can do it in plenty of ways, or if you want to fight in street clothes like inFamous or Prototype then you can look as awesome as you want. The DC characters all look just like you would expect them to down to the last detail.

The powers are probably one of the cooler aspects of the visuals of the game. No matter what weapon you're using, your power will show in your attacks. If you have a two handed weapon and nature then you'll see a green streak effect to the strikes and the enemy will have vines and thorns crawl on their body. Rifle and fire is a match made in heaven too with fiery bullets and cool power attacks that use the weapon like a fireball will appear to be shot out of your rifle while for a melee weapon it's usually like your throwing the fire from your hands. Also speaking of weapons, there is a great variety to pick from and they all have their own unique animations to go along with them. Everything you do will look very awesome from your movement power to your weapons. Also one of the smartest features as far as looks go is that there is a menu where you can browse all of the different costume styles you've gotten and switch off what looks the best but you keep the stats of what is already equipped. So if you get better stats from a full mask like Bane but you'd rather be wearing a hood then you can just change to the hood but keep the stats of the mask and even if you sell the item, you always keep the style.

Sound 9/10

There aren't isn't a lot of voice work in the MMORPG genre but DCU does have everything voice over. They managed to beat Star Wars: The Old Republic to the punch there. Every quest is voiced by your mentor, Oracle/Calculator (depending on hero or villain alignment,) or an NPC giving you the quest. Also the enemies, civilians, and other NPC's do talk too. There's also plenty of action sound effects in the battles depending on weapons and powers. The music itself does have a good superhero vibe to it. All around it does have better sound than most MMORPGs have.

Controls 9/10

They really had the right idea for creating a control scheme that feels natural on a PS3 controller. I would even assume that it feels better on a controller than a keyboard and mouse. Because the fighting is all real time, you will hit the square and triangle buttons a lot for your weapon attacks. To use your powers you just hold L2 and hit the face button that is displayed on your action bar. To heal or use various items just hold R2 and whichever button the item is mapped to. If you push up on the d-pad you get a brief menu where you can activate your role (tank, controller, or healer depending on the power you chose,) toggle PvP, and other quick changes. Start will bring up the larger selection of menus like inventory, alerts, redeeming DLC content, and so on. Everything feels nice and works well which you wouldn't expect from an MMO on a console. I'd say it does feel natural for anyone who's played plenty of modern action games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance.

Gameplay 9/10

What really impressed me from when I first played DCU was how polished the gameplay was and how much fun everything was for a brand new MMO. It didn't feel like any MMORPG I've ever played. Really the closest game you could compare it to would be Marvel Ultimate Alliance but on steroids. It's all based around how superheroes and villains fight, they don't take turns. You can go from swinging fists around like a beat 'em up game to being a skilled martial artist kind of like the Yakuza games, to dual wielding blades, one handed blade, massive two handed weapons, dual wielding guns for a more fast paced ranged/melee style, riffles for more medium range damage with great power, hand blasts for quick melee/range, and I'm probably leaving a few out. These styles really feel very different it's like using a riffle feels a lot different from dual pistols, not only in damage and how you fight but with all the skills you can choose in the skill trees (kind of like Diablo 2 or WoW.) The powers act like your 2nd method of combat and they do use an energy bar so you don't want go overboard and run out of energy right away. The powers are really diverse too like there's two skill trees for each power and there is no wrong way to play it. For fire you can focus on close ranged abilities like covering your body in flames to damage everyone attacking you to dropping a meteor on someone while the other tree has more in the way of big ranged damage. Stuff like nature is more different where one tree has plenty of nature based attacks and healing while the other tree is loaded with shape shifting powers like becoming a wolf, a gorilla, and others.

Creating a character can really be time consuming to get every last detail right and while it doesn't have as many options as City Of Heroes, there is a lot to work with. You can get very creative in the game. I've made a silver age superhero of Tommy Wiseau, a living planet, a giant tiger, a character inspired by The Gentleman Ghost, Bones Jackson from the Mutant League games, Frankenstein's Monster, and others. I've seen players recreate Dr. Doom, Spawn, various X-Men, The Punisher, Invincible, The Thing, Deadpool, and plenty more popular characters from other comics. Getting into the game is great because right at level 1 you get a nice weapon and best of all you can use a movement power (flight, super speed, or acrobatics) while other MMO's make you wait at least a few days of play to get a mount and they usually have you doing small tasks. In DCU you're on a Brainiac ship with a full assault force ready to attack Earth, it's not just about escaping but you must destroy that ship. This isn't fighting level 1 wolves for meat, you're fighting an invasion force. The game always makes you feel like a strong hero or villain and less like just another peon or rookie trying to make it to greatness. Early on you get to team up with Superman or Lex Luthor, then in missions that take you inside a building (it's just you or if your with a party then they go in to) you can usually work with different characters like Catwoman, Zatanna, Killer Croc, Batwoman, The Flash, and more. It really does feel awesome being called in to save an A or B list hero from a major villain. There is plenty of variety in the game and you can do quests for other mentors of your alignment. Leveling in this game is very fast and quests really give you a lot of experience and cool items. The current level cap is 30 which is just right since it's a good fast paced action game and of course there will plenty of expansion packs in the future. There is also plenty of end game content including epic armor sets based on the mentor you chose, like a magic character could get a costume based on Captain Marvel and a few others or a tech character could get a Batman style suit a cool Joker costume, and there's usually about 3 of these per mentor. The thing is that I haven't made it to level 30 yet, I keep making lots of new characters and trying different stuff out so I've barely scratched the surface of this game.

Overall 9/10

As of typing this, the game hasn't been out for a full week and I'm still on my one month free trial. It's pretty often to see the servers very busy or even full, but I haven't really had much of a wait to get in. I can honestly say that this was worth 60 bucks and I really do want to keep playing after my free time is up. A lot of console only players have been complaining about monthly fees and since there isn't much in the way of MMORPG's on consoles, a lot people just don't get it. DCU is worth paying 15 bucks for 30 days of play. It's an amazing game and really the most creative MMO since World Of Warcraft. The game is very stable and I haven't had any serious lag or problems even when playing a full server. Plus since it does have a monthly fee it does go to keeping the servers stable and really if everyone could play the game for free then it would a lot harder to get in the game with everyone playing at once and there would be a lot of micro-transactions for in game items and that is never fun. It costs money to play because these games aren't cheap to keep running smoothly for years. If you've never played an MMO and/or aren't a big RPG fan then I'd say this would be worth the money because it's much more of an online action game than anything else. For hardcore MMORPG fanatics, I'd say this is a great alternative to everything else out there.

Read more »

Final Fantasy XIII

"Like Greased Lightning, You're In For A Shock"

Return of the King

If sales promotion were any indication, then Final Fantasy XIII would be the God of War. Square has relentlessly been plugging away at pitching the first installment in its Fabula Nova Crystallis series (read: cash-exploiting monolith), bombarding Japanese people with TV ads, online promotions, tie-ins, trailer-sized billboards (one even right outside Shibuya Station's Hachiko Exit) and promotional junkets galore. As if the world didn't already know Final Fantasy 13 was in the future, it sure does now. It does, of course, have huge shoes to fill, for so many of the mainstream RPG fans, there has never been another fantasy so fantastic as the 7th installment: no one has ever come close to matching the menace of Sephiroth or the clout of Cloud. The most recent installments don't even compare, with FFX being more of a vacation in Okinawa rather than a cyber-punk adventure, FFXI being a joke (i.e. an online installment that had no business being numbered), and FFXII being an offline MMORPG with sparse narrative despite arguably having the best character in the history of the series (all hail Balthier). Helmed by many of the key staff members responsible for the sacred Seven, Final Fantasy 13 provides so much content and polish that one need not even question why it took ages to complete a game that was first unveiled publicly over 3 years ago. For better or worse, many people have been keen to note that FF13 is written "XIII" which, when read differently, can actually be X-3. In light of the glaring issues with this game, that is indeed what ti is.

As the digital "d-day" has now passed, it is thus time to take a look at the "other" RPG titan...

Glitz and Glam to Gore

Without question, Final Fantasy XIII is one of the most graphically breathtaking games ever created. Everything you see, everything you do, everything that exists is painstakingly detailed and full of emotion. It's particularly interesting as, in many respects, Mistwalker's "Lost Odyssey" was very much a "Final Fantasy" game in terms of its graphical grandeur and obsession with CG. At the time, I actually remember thinking that it would be difficult for the REAL FF game to surpass it's visuals. And yet, perhaps as a factor of time, it does. The product actually feels less like a game and more like a movie given how good it looks. Explosions blasting roads as hundreds of helpless humans plummet to their doom, gigantic fields that sprawl as far as the eye can see, even small particles dancing in the air are filled with an inexplicable amount of attention to detail.

Though I will avoid spoiling anything, suffice to say that early on, there is an in-game "re-enactment" of a certain Dead Sea-type event that will delight fans of Chrono Cross. In fact, while playing 13, there are dozens upon dozens of situations wherein you will end up recalling some old-school era game and wishing that Square could remake it today with these kinds of visuals. The battle scenes are equally fantastic; bits of cast magic remain lodged on the field, gigantic summon monsters animate with all the grace and fluidity as any real-life creature might, as do the characters and monsters. You will easily find yourself with bated anticipation to see what comes next and to be sure, the game never disappoints.

Unfortunately what DOES disappoint however, does so on three fronts:


Flash in the Pan

As good as the graphics are, there is something a bit unsettling about them. It seems as if Square went a bit too far with the detail and design, as for all of the superb sights, you can't actually make out what is happening in a lot of them. Cut scenes in particular, gorgeous as they are, are often so jam-packed with action and movement that your eyes have trouble taking all of it in. And the camera pans too fast thus creating a situation that, while fluid, leave you with only a general sense of what's going on. It's a bit ironic, but the massive scope of detail in this game actually serves as a detraction from the visuals. The environments themselves are equally at fault as their overly complex nature can prevent you from actually taking them in. It's as if your brain actually turns "off" because there is no way for it to take in the minutia of complexity. Now before anyone attacks this comment, consider that I've been playing games for over 15 years now and this is the first time I've ever encountered something of this nature.


Sin-ful Scrummaging

Those players who loved Final Fantasy X will instantly feel at home here, as for better or worse, XIII returns to the same "Tunnel-Vision" map system that plagued Yuna's pilgrimage. It's so similar to FFX that you might actually consider this Final Fantasy X-3 (especially with the "Dresssphere type gameplay mechanic-more on that later). Square created gorgeous, sprawling locals almost reaching FFXII-calibre expansiveness and brimming with tons of detail and depth, yet lo and behold you are usually prohibited from exploring 80% of it. The game is literally "boxed" as you can't even explore nooks and crannies that your characters can technically fit in; the game just outright prohibits any exploration outside of the clearly delineated space. This makes for great annoyance as there are hundreds upon hundreds of little alcoves that are screaming out for you to explore them, yet all you can do is look and fancy what it would have been like...

Granted many will argue that Final Fantasy 12's gigantic DQ8-sized areas were somewhat lacking in the design and detail department, but at the same time their being gigantic ensured that you could do a whole lot of exploring. With FF13, however, the only real exploration you can do is towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule, but the utter fact that you spend much of the game traveling in a more-or-less linear line is a bit vexing, especially as this comes after the offline MMORPG before it and thus represents a step backwards. It's also quite frustrating as, when you finally get to said "open-ended" area, you quickly realize that it is the exception, not the new standard.

Terrible Towns

To put it bluntly, Final Fantasy 13 doesn't have towns. To explain it truthfully, it does. Confusing? Indeed; For all intents and purposes, this game doesn't have a real town in the sense that RPG towns accomplish three things: (1) providing new information about where to go, (2) providing places to shop, (3) peppered throughout the adventure to break up the dungeons. Given the criticism raised in the previous topic, it should come has absolutely no surprise to anyone that there is never a point in the game when you don't know what to do, especially since the game's auto map is ALWAYS marked with an arrow pointing towards the correct direction. Shops are gone entirely; you first wake up to this sobering reality a scant one minute after you start controlling Lightning as no sooner do you reach the save point than you notice a new option.

Yes, that's right: you save and shop at the same place. It came as a huge surprise to me; were this Biohazard then I could overlook this issue, but for an RPG to have shops stationed at every save point (which, I might add, is like 2 minutes worth of traveling) it's really unusual. I do like the manner in which you collect new "hyperlinks" to shops thus expanding the list as the game progresses and allowing you to buy more and more items. With respect to the third "town requirement", the game plays like an action movie with dungeon after dungeon after dungeon; it's not towns that are interlaced to stave off the tedium of the game, it's incessant cut-scenes every few minutes.

So, what do towns actually do in FF13? The "plethora" of towns that exist (read: utter sarcasm) are little more than dungeons lacking monsters and serve as no other point than to introduce different scenery really. Then again some of the dungeons are actually set IN towns, just without NPCs.

So Long Story...

While I won't give any story spoilers, it doesn't involve any kind of grand scheme or uber-political plot like Final Fantasy 12 featured. In fact, FF13 really doesn't have a story so much as it just follows the characters as they try to struggle with their fate. This means that, for all those expecting it, FF13 is already "broken" for not having its own Sephiroth, Kuja, or Kefka. In the first half of the game, there are a number of characters that you think might become the "big boss" or that could be a main menace (a la the Judges) however such is not the case. Unfortunately the story that is there is rather nonsensical with tons of over the top details and situations such that it becomes a total joke about 1 hour in; it takes itself way too seriously. To sum up the plot, it's about six individuals being "cursed" and their subsequent struggle to change their destiny. Quite simple really.

One of the things that annoyed me the most about the story is that, similar to the "Orphanage" situation in Final Fantasy 8, there is a similar "coincidental" event in the backstory of Final Fantasy 13 that is constantly being alluded to. It's so cliched and unoriginal that all of the main characters happened to be in the exact same place at the exact same time, even if they did or didn't know about each other.


Frantically Fun Fighting

The one area where Final Fantasy 13 really shines is the new combat system, though given it's mass-scale changes to the series, and to the genera as a whole, it is sure to enrage countless RPG fans.

Forget everything you know about the FF-series staple battles, because they are now rendered obsolete. As with the previous installment, all monsters are visible on the playing field. Final Fantasy 13 introduces a brand new ATB system: all actions, be they attacking, casting a spell, or using techniques, cost "time"; as a result there is no more MP. The game operates on a system such that as the full ATB bar fills up, you can split its content into different actions (the bar is thus broken up into set pieces). Thus, every action taken in battle costs "points"; standard attacks require only one charge bar however more advanced tactics require 2 or more. While waiting for the ATB bar to fill, you are thus tasked with selecting the desired actions and the subsequent monster to target, after which (when the bar fills), the assault will automatically commence. While the game starts with only 2 "Charges" per character, as you progress their bar will increase to 3, 4, and so on. To provide a basic illustration, say you want to use the "Attack" command with say, the magic Fira. Attack costs 1 bar and Fira 2. So to use both of these in a single ATB "phase", you must wait for the bar to fill all three units. But what if you are impatient or change your mind and don't want to wait for the entire bar to charge before attacking? No problem; push the Triangle Button at any time and the charge time will cancel prematurely and whichever attacks you have enough stock to use with initiate. Thus, if you decide to attack with only 2.5 of the bars filled, your character will commence the "Attack" command and the Fira magic will be cancelled. However, as you had 2.5/3 bars filled, that remaining 1.5 of ATB time will carry over to the next phase and thus you will start with 1.5 bars filled. Do note that when I say phase, I just mean the cycle of the bar filling and then emptying; fighting has no pauses whatsoever and no turns, thus if you sit and do nothing your PC will get slaughtered. (Yes, that's right, you are only in control of whomever is the main character at the time; the game will take control of the other 2. And yes, if your player character dies, it's Game Over even if the other 2 computer controlled characters are still living).

While it takes a few minutes to get use to initially, the system is polished to perfection and ensures that fighting is once again fresh, fun, and...fast! Those of you who dislike fast-paced battles are in for a sharp wake-up call: Final Fantasy XIII's fights are on par with FFX-2, if not even faster: trust me, that's a good thing given how frequently you will be fighting. You must remain constantly on your proverbial toes as even a few seconds of pause can result in life-or-death. Newcomers will be pleased to know that the ATB system can be toggled in the Configuration screen to allow more time for their decisions and command input.

Another aspect of battle is that, similar to Final Fantasy XII, it's truly in real time. Despite the characters automatically carrying out their selected commands, their actual ability to do so is largely dependant on what is going on on the battlefield. For example, if you input the Fight command, your character will do just that. However should the target move too far away, or should you get attacked in the process, the command is carried out (or cancelled) and the target remains unscathed. Properly timing your attacks is pivotal for success, as it plays a large part of what follows:

Tearing a page out of the Xenosaga playbook, FF13 introduces the "Break" system. All opponents have a life bar and a break bar. While the former is self explanatory, the latter may be quite new for those unaccustomed to Zarathustra and KOS-MOS. The Break Bar serves as a type of stress meter; each attack you launch on an enemy causes the bar to fill; after it reaches maximum capacity, the opponent will "break" and thus remain docile (save for the more difficult monsters) and let their guard down thus allowing for major damage opportunities. Note that the bar will begin to empty immediately after the attack connects, though it has a "holder" such that, if you execute another attack before the bar empties completely, the subsequent damage will continue filling the Break bar where the last blow ended. Physical Attacks cause the Break Bar to fill slowly, but the "rebound" to empty quite slow; Magic Attacks on the other hand, cause the bar to shoot up quickly, but with split-second emptying. Thus you need to combine both physical and magic attacks to properly break the bar. This is key, as many monsters are almost invincible should you not break them.

It's also worth mentioning that, if you score a Preemptive Strike, your main character will not only attack all the enemies before battle begins, but also have full ATB stock AND, most importantly, all of the monsters will be near break status.

Curiously, your HP is restored at the end of each fight, thus restorative items and spells may only be used during battle. I am ultimately not sure what the outcome of such a huge change is: on the one hand it allows the game to flow much smoother between exploration and battle, yet at the same time it eliminates much of the challenge as who among us can not recall a plethora of situations wherein we were nearing 0MP and low on healing items, and plugging away at the given game praying for a heal spot or Level Up; that kind of tension is sadly absent from the game. Equally curious is the obscene nature in which you can procure Potions; the game practically hands them out like candy (some fights can yield an excess of SIX as victory spoils). Equally questionable is the issue that potions, when used, heal everyone instead of just one character.

Those who played the FF13 demo will be interested to note that the final version allows for command overrides. This is to say that, in the demo, if you selected commands that exceeded your bars, the battle engine prevented the input. In the final version, the most recent command input will override the previous prior to selecting the target. (To use the prior example, if you selected Attack and Fira, that would use 3 bars. But if you then selected Firaga that might use 3 bars, it would cancel the input of Attack and Fira and replace it with Firaga).

Also "lifted" from the Nietzschean world of Xenosaga is the "Strategic Engagement" element. As you explore the game's environments you will come across a variety of items that, when used on the map, allow the use of a smoke screen to guarantee preemptive strikes, or other items that can boost certain magics or whatnot.


Crystal Spheres and Optimum Options

Each character takes on a set role in battle, and that role is determined by you. The "Optima" system is much like the Dress Sphere system employed in X-2 and consists of the following roles:

Attacker: Focuses exclusively on melee attacks. Can use a wide variety of automatic abilities when attacking.

Blaster: Focuses on Attack Magic and Magic Attacks (the latter being melee attacks that are enhanced by magic.)

Defender: Focuses exclusively on defensive abilities; can not deal damage to the enemy except for "Revenge" charges.

Enhancer: Focuses exclusively on party-supportive status magic such as Protect or Haste. No offensive abilities whatsoever.

Jammer: Focuses exclusively on enemy-related status magic such as Curse, Bio, or Dispel. No offensive abilities whatsoever.

Healer: Focuses exclusively on party-supportive restorative magic such as Heal, Esuna, or Raise. No offensive abilities whatsoever.

Each of these styles, or Optimas, has its own unique crystal board where you can develop your skills. Each style starts out with a single learned function, but as you battle and earn CP (Crystal Points), the points can be spent to learn a new ability, with each subsequent one requiring more CP. (More on this shortly).

The catch is that you must select the proper Optima to match the given battle situation, as you are basically "equipping" the style and all abilities contained therein. This is similar to the gameplay mechanic found in Star Ocean 4 wherein you level up a "Class" however said class bonus features only apply when you are using it. Thus, if you're up against a tough monster with thousands of HP, it's necessary to switch one (or two) characters to the role of Healer so that they can repair damage. Likewise, if you're pitted against a lot of cannon fodder, its best to change everyone to Attacker and make quit work of them. Fortunately, initiating an Optima Change is as simple as hitting the L1 Button and selecting the desired configuration. Similar to the Gambit System in FFXII, you can mix-and match your own Optima Change configurations to create a variety of party combinations, and then save them for pre-set use in battle. If you want the short version, think evolving Dress Spheres. Of course the down side is, obviously, that you will constantly have to change Optimas, as a party of 3 Healers, Jammers, or Enhancers are literally unable to attack.

Because the AI controls the other 2 battle characters, it's sometimes important to make sure that they are assigned a proper role, with your leader character having the most important role. This lies in the fact that the computer, while most of the time successful, can be unpredictable and use magic that is of lower value than you want (i.e. Fire instead of Firega) or heal everyone evenly when you want it to focus exclusively on you (since it's game over if you die).

Crystal Chronicles

The best way to describe this game's character development system is to imagine a combination of Final Fantasy X and X-2 with a touch of 12's Licence Board system. The Crystalium Board works much like the Sphere Grids, with each Optima "Class" having its own board to develop. The boards, then, have a clear starting point consisting of the first ability and you then expend CP to move to the next node. As one might expect, the content of the individual nodes is strictly dependent on which of the Optima classes you are evolving; while the Attacker boards will deal with damage, the Healer will deal with restorative magics. In addition to command abilities and automatic abilities for use in combat, these boards also contain HP, Attack, and Magic power bonuses.

While the Crystalium System does introduce some new abilities, such as the attack spell "Rune", it also sees the removal of some others that fans might consider "staple". The other issue sure to draw the irk of a number of fans is the lack of any sort of balance in the board's CP cost structure. After a certain major event early on in the game, when you first gain access to the development system, you will notice that the nodes require very little CP to activate. After about 2/3 of the game however, when you reach the final nodes, there is extensive grinding necessary to activate them given their huge CP requirements. Granted monsters give more CP than earlier in the game, but the fact remains that much of the latter portion of the adventure is not spent adventuring, but rather spent fighting. Additionally, while each character is limited to 3 "jobs" at first, later in the game they gain access to all the different classes, however activating any nodes on the "non-preferred" board comes with a huge CP cost as well.

It is also important to note that, although the status bonuses are permanent, all of the Command Abilities are restricted to their associated class. This means that, realistically, two of the characters will never actually use a physical attack as their roles are supportive in nature (in addition to Attack Magic) and thus you will actually have to grind like mad just to allow them the use of their weapons as melee objects.

The only down side is that, at least in the early parts of the game, you wind up with a huge surplus of CP even after you have maxed out the available boards. It's frustrating because the game thus impedes your ability to develop your characters until specific points wherein the "limiter" is removed.

Ranking Reality

At the end of each battle, you will receive a detailed screen informing you of various battle aspects, including the elapsed time, your "score", the amount of awarded CP, and your TP bonus (TP is akin to a special tactical abilities such as Libra that have their own usage gauge). And...a star ranking. The game ranks each fight out of a possible 5 star maximum that is determined by your performance. Unfortunately this system is horribly broken, as the game awards a perfect ranking way too easily. It's so bad that you actually find yourself annoyed that when you do pull off some great combination or finish the battle in record time with no damage, the score is no different than when you played half as good. IMHO a system more similar to Namco's Tales of's "Grade" score would have worked much better here, wherein the game would award your skill with a number as opposed to a set delineation. Nonetheless, it's a nice change of pace from the typical "Earned EXP/Gold/AP" fare that was so common in the FF series.

There is no Gil earned from battles. In fact, money is utterly pointless. To earn currency, it's necessary to sell battle spoils from to the "Save Shops". These shops carry only those items and weapons that you've already obtained 99% of the time, and thus it's highly likely you will go through the game without buying anything save for swapping the Gil for weapon customization items.

Stupid Summons, Pointless Powers

Square would have you believe that the Summon monsters in Final Fantasy 13 are hot stuff; all of the promotional material released after the Spring 2009 Japanese demo features them as did the print advertisements, TV commercials, etc. Countless pictures were shown of the diverse line-up and the "new" idea that you can drive the summons ("new" as in ripped straight out of Transformers). In the end, the Edolions are a total throw-away that serve no other purpose in the game other than to (1) create an infuriatingly difficult battle to get them, (2) increase each character's ATB gage stock by one, and (3) heal everyone's HP after they leave. Similar to the Guardian Forces in FF8, if you actually know how to play FF13 then there is absolutely no need to ever use a Summon. But I digress...let me start from the beginning:

After a major plot point early in the game, all of the main characters will have eventual access to their own summon monster. Eventual is the key word as it's entirely dependent on the story and thus, you will indeed wind up some 30 hours into the game and still not have all the summon monsters. During a key story sequence for each character (read: pointless melodrama), their summon power will awaken and you must subdue it to continue with the game. A battle thus ensues wherein you are automatically under Death status and have roughly 2 minutes to find the summon's weakness and exploit it enough to allow you to tame it. These are arguably the hardest battles in the game, in no small part because your optima configuration may or may not even be configured to allow you to use the abilities that will actually subdue the opponent. As a result, you will have to die and then choose the restart option just so you can access your menu to add the required Optimum Change to your list. Once you finally subdue the beast, that character gets an additional ATB stock gauge and can then summon the monster whenever they have at least 3 Tactical Points or more. Since it takes between 5-10 battles to accumulate enough TP, suffice to say that the summons are only for dire situations.

When summoned, the monster will replace the other 2 battle members and act on its own. It's life is timed and will rapidly decrease until reaching 0. The objective is to raise the summon's "energy" via the abilities you used to subdue it, then switch to Driving Mode. Driving Mode is Square's pathetic attempt to be cool and let players actually control the summons. The monster will transform into a vehicle and you then have a set number of action points to use for attacking the enemy. There are a number of different attacks, each of them costing a different number of action points. You can also let the game automatically decide which attack to use (Auto-Drive) and opt to expend all of your points for what would normally be considered a "Limit Break". After the action points reach 0, the summon disappears and your 3TP are gone.

Unfortunately the summon system is horribly broken. Normal monsters are too easy to kill to warrant the use of summons in light of the TP consumption, and difficult monsters have such absurdly high HP that the extra power has little to no effect. The only real reason to use a summon is to take advantage of the free restore that you get when it leaves: all your characters status and HP will be restored. Additionally, the fact that you won't get the final summon until quite far into the game means that roughly half of the characters in the game are of less value given that their ATB bar will be 1 less than the other 3 until their "crisis" calls their beast.

Music to Make

Ask any Final Fantasy fan about their favorite aspects of the series and chances are likely the word "music" will be somewhere in the answer. The series is known for its memorable themes, catchy battle tracks, and even the occasional waltz or two. Though staple-series composer Nobou Uematsu has long since parted ways with the FF universe, one should rest assured knowing that FF13 continues in the same tradition of upstanding, memorable pieces. Scoring the music this time around is veteran Square musician Masashi Hamauzu who contributed to the Final Fantasy X OST, as well as Brave Fencer Musashi 2, Unlimited Saga, Dirge of Cerberus, and Sigma Harmonics, to name but few of his works. What he accomplished with FF13 is nothing short of brilliant, especially in creating what might possibly be the best battle music in the entire series. SO good is the music, in fact, that it's actually incorporated into several other tracks and serves as a quasi-theme to the game itself.

At the same time however, there are a number of tracks that are reused too often, especially some of the poorer tracks. It's kind of like "what's good is good, but what's bad is always there." There are a handful of tracks that, in my opinion, truly hurt the quality of the score and are tracks that Uematsu would never have bothered with had he composed the music.

As with every modern FF game, each area has its own theme, each character has their own theme, and many battles have their own theme. Suffice to say that the game's score will take up 4 discs when the OST releases in January, one of which is the game's theme song, and the subject of a minor controversy as, for the first time ever, Square has opted to totally replace the theme song between the Japanese version and the English/foreign language versions. "Because You're Here" is the soft ballad sung by Sayuri Sugawara (the game also features another song by her, "Eternal Love"). The foreign version will feature the song "My Hands" by British singer Leona Lewis though from the get-go the reaction to such a change has been teeming with venom among the die-hard fans.

The voice acting (for the Japanese version, obviously) is excellent as par the course with Japanese voice actors, and the sound effects are also fitting and at times, fantastic.


Creating Crappy Characters

For all the things Final Fantasy XIII has going for it; for all the time and effort it took to make such a brilliant game; I can't for the life of me, understand why in the world the developers settled on what might be the worst set of characters in an RPG ever. Allow me to approach this from a triangular approach:


A. Character Design

Testuya Nomura, whom I use to love for his once-lively and fresh designs back in the PSOne days, continues in his relentless attempt to rehash each and every tired cliched character from the past. We've seen much of this before: Snow (i.e. Zell Dincht), Lightning (whom Nomura was actually told to design as a "female Cloud"), Vanilla (i.e. Selphie Tilmitt) and Fang (Paine dressed as Kimahri). What we haven't seen we really had no need for thanks to the terrible character designs: Hope and Sazh, the former a pathetic little chaos-looking wannabe, and the latter of whom annoyed me in particular; why must the series' second character of African decent be so horribly stereotyped, even down to the idea of something stuck in his "must have" huge afro (in this case a baby Chocobo). Japan really needs to wizen up to the fact that people of African decent are of a diverse composite and thus stop the stereotypical cliches that are so frequently depicted with respect to said race in Japanese pop-culture.

On a side note I will say that the CG models look worlds better than their in-game counterparts. Square had once claimed it would eliminate the gap between the two yet this game proves that there is still a LONG way to go. Lightning in particular looks awful in the in-game scenes for 90% of the time, as do does the fact that everyone has the lips of a pre-teen Japanese girl.


B. Characterization

Trite garbage. To say that this game reeks of cliched melodrama is an understatement. Whereas Final Fantasy X had its fair share of "acting" peppered throughout the sad story, save for Tidus it never managed to lower itself to the banal existence that Final Fantasy 13 achieves. This lies, in no small part, in the fault of the characters themselves, namely:

Zell...I mean Snow, is hands down the worst character in Final Fantasy history. Like an overgrown 7-year old, you will constantly hear about how he is "going to protect everyone" or "protect the world" or "protect what is important" or "protect [his] friends". It's difficult remembering a single cut-scene that transpired wherein he did not use the word "protect" or "hero". It's cliched, it's annoying, and it's pathetic, right down to the "thumbs up" he gives. It's also amusing how Lightning (the main character) even makes fun of him at one point. Where the writers got the idea that ANYONE would like this kind of looser is beyond me, though perhaps for the majority of anti-social otaku who worship this game series, to be such a "dynamic" character is their life's dream. Then again considering that the programmers were so in-love with Snow as to specify his shoe size (33cm for those not in-the-know) it might be their charismatic lust as well. Snow is, in a very real sense, the epitome of what makes normal people embarassed by videogames and what makes them ashamed to let someone else watch.

Hope is equally infuriating with his tired-and-true "tween-meets-emo" appeal. Are we suppose to feel sorry for him admist all his whining and running away and moping around? Give me a break. At least Squall Leonhart managed to be edgy with his angst; this louse seems to have no other purpose than to have dramatic outbursts. Listen up Square: no one wants to play a 40 hour game with an annoying Shinji Ikari in-tow, especially when you obviously designed him to look like chaos and we all know how chaos was really something special. No one wants kids in their videogames, especially when they are annoying and especially when you make a point of showing their cliched maturation from "child" to "adult" that happens in all of a days' worth of time.

Honestly speaking the only character I actually found myself liking was Lightning, perhaps in no small part because she is so different from the other party members. She is angry, violent, and unpredictable. She alone saved this game from being a total write-off in terms of the characters and content, though after a certain point she (as with Squall) suddenly looses her actual appeal and becomes another nobody. Thus it's the battle system that really saves this game.

Now I'm sure that many people will love the cast of characters and adore the banal Japanese "ningen drama" that reeks of anime like nothing else. Thus for those of you who will disagree with me on this aspect, the game is that much more enjoyable for you. It's just my opinion, but I'd much prefer more mature characters whom I could care about rather than this band of bothers.

C. Usefulness

I could look beyond the problems with the various party members if they had a clear and sufficient use. Frankly speaking however, the only three characters you ever need are Lightning, Fang, and Vanilla. While I give Square credit for trying to make all of the characters balanced and useful, if you are anything like me then you will pretty much play 95% of the game with the aforementioned trio, using a Optima such as "Furious" or "Rush Assault" (both emphasizing all-out melee or magic attacking) and Vanilla occasionally changing roles to serve as a Healer. I found no use whatsoever for the Defender role, the Enhancer role, and the Jammer role other than the occasional uber-difficult enemy. I'm sure that many players will disagree with me, but I have no doubt that these are the very players who prefer tedious, slow battles and who will be equally angry at the computer AI controlling the other 2 characters. The fact of the matter is that this game is designed for fast paced, quick battles, and thus using any configuration but an Assault based one is wasting your time. To this end, Snow, Hope, and Sazh have no real game related function whatsoever, rather they are mainly present for "story" reasons.

Final Focus

In the end, the real question is not whether you will buy FFXIII, but if you will enjoy it as much as the next person; the game has so many strong points, but also some very prominent shortcomings. In addition to the opinions expressed above, there is the fundamental issue of whether you (the reader/consumer/FF fan) will feel the same way. Perhaps some of you will loathe the battle system, for example. For better or worse, Square has continued its merging Final Fantasy with the mainstream gaming market and along with it, the benefits and the detractions. It's actually worth pondering what Final Fantasy XV will amount to as without a doubt, the feedback from this game (as well as the in-house related discussions) will strongly affect the next installment. Also worth wondering, what will come out of the other two planned projects; Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII; how will these two products fit into the universe? Will there be any overlap? Will we see cameo appearances (that is all but assured given the level of fan-service this company stoops to)? Final Fantasy 13 is truly the opening to a brand new universe: just make sure that once you step through, you don't forget your way back to the rabbit hole.

Read more »

Bulletstorm

"A Breath of Fresh Air"

Bulletstorm is a new IP first person action shooter developed by Epic Games and People Can Fly. It is the first installment into the series. Bulletstorm focuses on over-the-top action and crazy sadistic ways to kill enemies. As you began to play this game the first thing you will began to notice is that this game is not your ordinary first person shooter game, but something much more unique and an experience you will not soon forget…..


Story 9/10

Bulletstorm takes place in the 26th century on a futuristic planet that is filled with all sorts of enemies ranging from mercenaries, robots, all the way to huge, ferocious dinosaurs. This is a fun, intense campaign that fortunately doesn't take itself too serious and will have you laughing and will surely keep you entertain from beginning to end. You are in the shoes of a bad mouth, highly skilled space pirate named Grayson Hunt formerly part of a secret black-ops organization called Dead Echo. Early on after finding out you have been deceived into doing “inhumane” things for Commander General Serano, you are betrayed and are dishonorably discharged from Dead Echo. This leads you to go out on a quest for revenge alongside your partner Ishi Sato. After an unsuccessful attempt to seek your revenge on the General you crash on a planet known as Stygia fighting for your lives and looking for a way off. General Serano is also on the planet after the crash. This leads Grayson Hunt to want to continue his quest of revenge which is contrary to what Ishi Sato wants and leads to tension between the two as Ishi Sato already questions Grayson Hunt leadership and decisions. Along the way you encounter Trishka Novak, a female who is also fighting her way through the planet. The three all team up to make a dysfunctional but effective team fighting your way through hundreds and hundreds of General Serano troops, crazy mercenaries and robots in a fun, action-pack, bloody battle for your own survival and a way off of Stygia.

Gameplay 10/10

This is where Bulletstorm separates itself from all the other first-person shooters out there right now. From beginning to end there is action around every corner, heads exploding, guts and insides flying around everywhere. There is absolutely no stop in the action-packed gameplay in here .There a five difficulty settings ranging from very easy all the way up to very hard. Bulletstorm does not focus on the popular run ‘n gun style that more popular first person shooters such as Call of Duty and Medal of Honor focus on. It heavily focuses on HOW you kill enemies. The theme is of Bulletstorm is to “kill with skill” People Can Fly and Epic Games has implemented a very fun, highly addictive, skillshot system. The skillshot system awards you points for killing enemies in very unique, gruesome ways. You can find different ways to kill your enemies ranging from impaling them into cactuses, electrocuting them, kicking them into spinning blades or just your simple headshot. Anytime you knock and enemy in the air it will slow them down so you can line up a better killshot. There is a list of skillshots to complete and more and more are unlocked the longer you play and the more weapons you unlock. With the skillpoints you earn from your creative kills you can use those to unlock weapons, unlock secondary fire modes, and buy ammunition. You have your simple assault rifle, shotgun, and pistol guns, but there are a couple of unique weapons also such as the Penetrator, a very cool drill that has been modified into a deadly projectile weapon that you can use to impale multiple enemies in cool different ways. Also the Flailgun which is a unique weapon that has grenades along with a steel chain that wraps around your enemies, leaving them helpless until their inevitable explosive death. The secondary weapon fire is also a cool feature too. Every weapon has gruesome secondary fire modes. For example your assault rifle has its normal burst mode but also has a “shotgun” type secondary mode which incinerates all the skin off your enemies leaving them with only a skeleton. There seems like endless ways to put an end to your enemy's lives. Going through the same level you are bound to kill enemies in different ways every time. One of the most deadly weapons in this game is also Grayson Hunt's size twelve foot. You will do a lot of Spartan kicking in this game. You can kick enemies in the air and into all types of different things such as electrical cords, blades, and other dangerous environments. There is also a pretty cool slide feature too. You can slide into enemies and flip them into the air, and also slide into cover when things get a little out of hand. Arguably the most unique device in the game is the Leash. The Leash will become your bread and butter throughout the whole game. This Leash can be used to grapple enemies and bring them to you Scorpion style then after that it's all up to you how you want to end their life. The Leash can also be used in other ways once you unlock the Thumper which opens up dozens of more ways to kill your enemies. The Thumper is an upgrade on the leash which also you to throw multiple enemies in the air at once and pick and choose more ways to kill. There are a few more cool weapons you will get the chance to play around with and kill enemies with.

Multiplayer 8/10

Bulletstorm does not feature a competive multiplayer component but does introduce a competive cooperative “horde” style game mode called Anarchy Mode. In this mode you are paired up with three more players and must fight wave after wave of different types of enemies competing with your teammates for skillpoints, but you do not advance waves by simple killing all the enemies. In order to advance waves, as a team you all must earn enough total skill points in the wave you are in to advance. As you go higher in each wave the minimum skill points are also raised, so as a team you must all find ways to kill enemies to earn maximum skill points. There is also a ranking up system in which you earn experience points to level up and get a chance to customize your player. You can customize your appearance by changing things such as your helmet character skin, and boots. This push the player to try their best to kill with skill during the waves because you rank up much faster by doing so then just running and gunning. At the end of waves you will have the chance to buy new weapons and also upgrade weapons that you currently have. You can also upgrade yourself. For example, between waves you have the option to increase your speed, which obviously increases has fast you move, you defenses which also you to take more damage, and you power which increase the strength of your Spartan kick. Anarchy mode also introduces Team Kills in which you and your teammates can team up and kill enemies together to earn even more skillpoints. While at first Anarchy mode seems pretty fun and cool. After a few hours it became a little repetitive and I found myself getting a little bored with the multiplayer entirely. It's hard to advance in higher waves because it really requires teammates that are willing to cooperate to achieve team kills so you can make the minimum required skillpoints needed to advance. Another mode introduced in Bulletstorm is Echoes. In Echoes you play through single-player segments but are scored and ranked to create leaderboards to compare with your friends and other Xbox live members. You start off with basic weapons with minimum upgrades on them. You are scored based on skillshots and time taken to finish. These scores are posted on Xbox Live and you can increase and decrease the difficulty settings also. After playing Echoes a few times it also became a little too repetitive and eventually pretty boring. For some reason the decided to get rid of cooperative campaign mode for some reason. Based on the kind of game this is, it seemed like a cooperative campaign would have been a perfect addition to the story mode. This is kind of disappointing because it would be twice the fun to find ways to kill enemies in even more creative ways with a partner. Overall the multiplayer in this game is pretty solid but could have been made more enjoyable by tweaking some of the fundamentals keeping a cooperative campaign and maybe even adding a few more game modes.

Graphics & Sound 9/10

Bulletstorm takes advantage of the Unreal Engine 3 and it looks absolutely fantastic. There is a gorgeous artistic look in here and the game is very colorful. From lighting to the blood the visual looks simply amazing. Character models are done very well and the planet of Stygia looks great also. There were very minor, framerate issues and texture issues, but slowdowns were not an issue at all which is very impressive for a game with this much action going on at one time. This is one of the best looking games to be released in the last couple of months. The sound is also impressive in Bulletstorm. Gunshots sound great, the voice work is one of the best, and Steven Balm did an exceptional job on Grayson Hunt. The soundtrack really puts you into the game. The composers, Krzysztof Wierzynkiewicz and Michał Cielecki do a superb job in using the soundtrack to really get you into the action.

Playtime/Re-Playability 8/10

The single-player story mode takes around 8-10 hours to beat if you play Bulletstorm the way it is meant to be played and don't just rush through it but take the time out to have fun and kill people in cool, sadistic ways, and try to achieve different skillshots. There is really no reason to go back and play the single-player mode unless you're going to unlock more skill shots. With the addition of Echoes, more hours are tacked on to this game. The amount of time you spend on Echoes will be entirely up to you. If you want to just play through the levels it will take you probably around 2-3 hours but if you are trying to score high on the leaderboards it will take you much longer as you will play through the levels a few extra times. For people who like the horde type Anarchy mode then you will be playing for a long time as it is another whole ball park online.

Read more »

Gran Turismo 5

"Gran Turismo 5 The Real Driving Simulator - Masterpiece - Review"

Racing fans have been sitting around for five years, waiting Gran Turismo 5 and finally the masterpiece has now released. For those unfamiliar with the Gran Turismo franchise is the best racing simulator or should I say "The real driving simulator" available on the market and a PlayStation exclusive. Gran Turismo 5 is for you, if you are looking for a game where you can race off road or in a different weather situation. Gran Turismo 5 is highly focused in which you compete in closed circuit racing competitions and licence test where you can improve your ability to drive.

Graphics: Excellent 10/10
Polyphony Digital has been developing this game over 5 years so there is no doubt that the final version of Gran Turismo 5 looks very stunningly beautiful. There are 200 premium cars which are very detailed in every way and you can even see every single detail in cockpit view and it looks the same as the real cars. The other 850+ is the standard version which is from the previous series and you can even import your cars from the PSP if you want to see how they look like in High Definition. The standard cars looks beautiful as the premium cars but they don't have a cockpit view, but it's really ok, not everybody want to play in cockpit view. Weather system is new in the series; you race on snow or even on rain and the time changes day to night as you drive your car. The physics model is absolutely superb, with cars given enough weight and inertia to somehow feel absolutely real. They'll spin if you push them too vigorously, drift wide if you break too late into a corner. The damage model are so realistic, for those people who is complaining about the damage model, it can be unlock at level 20 and the level 40 for the full damage model. The damage model at the beginning of the game is little because it's for the beginner so that, you can spend fewer credits to repair your damaged car and Polyphony want everyone to play through the game and discover it by yourself.

Sound: Excellent 10/10
The in-game soundtrack is amazing and you can choose in variety of music which is suit you the best. The sounds of the cars are realistic and it's like the cars are beside you. The premium cars engine sounds is customizable, depends of you tuning. The standard car engine sounds has been upgraded from their previous game.

Gameplay: Excellent 10/10
Gran Turismo 5 has loads of mode like GT mode, Arcade Mode, and the Course Maker and specially, online multiplayer gameplay. The GT mode starts out with a few credits and level 0. This mode has A spec and B spec, A spec is a mode where you can drive the car and B spec is when you can command an AI like an RPG game to compete with other AI's. You can enter on a competition or go to licence test to improve your ability and you gain experience throughout the game. Arcade mode is where you can customize your race and play with your friends and family. Course Maker is the new mode in Gran Turismo where you can make a random track and race. You can as well drive newly introduce cars such as Nascars and Kart racing. The game is enjoyable if you are using a driving wheel and you can get the full experience of the game. Online mode is where you can compete with your friend or strangers around the world and show off your ability. 16 vehicles can take the track at any one time.

Presentation: Excellent 10/10
The presentation is excellent. The cinematic scene when you insert and start the game looks stunning and it shows how the cars are being made. The menu layout is user friendly and it's easy to navigate. Overall, it's amazing.

Overall Score: 10/10 Amazing
Upon inserting the game on your PS3, you can expect some installation and the latest patch for online and you can still see the installing letter at the side of the screen but it doesn't distract your gaming experience. Gran Turismo provides an incredible number of events and races to test your driving skills and takes up to 100+ hours of gameplay and collecting every single car from around the world. The cars are obviously the true star of the game and if there's one thing that Gran Turismo has always done particularly well it's manage to cram in more vehicles than you'd spot inside the multi-tiered garage. I recommend this game for casual player and hardcore player who interested in collecting cars and racing simulators. Gran Turismo is the absolute best racing game ever in a gaming console. Well done Polyphony Digital!

Read more »

Killzone 3

"Welcome back to... *puts on shades* Hell-Ghan!"

Now that I'm done trying out my comedy routine it is time to prepare you on what to expect in the latest installment to Guerrilla Game's series, “Killzone” . Killzone to me has never really been anything to write home about for both the Campaign and Online. Killzone 2 was plagued by Rico, your teammate that dropped more F-bombs than Joe Pesci in Goodfellas and who's dialogue was just unbearable to listen too. It killed any enjoyment I could have found in Killzone 2. When I was reading up on Killzone 3 and learned that Rico would be toned down and not an annoying assclown I went straight to Gamestop and placed my pre-order. The lore and Killzone universe has always interested me. I read summaries of the first 2 and went into Killzone 3 with a clear mind, and I have to applaud Guerrilla Games because Killzone 3 is stunning and insane nonstop action packed with variety from the beginning all the way to the end.



Story: Killzone 3 begins immediately where Killzone 2 left off. The Helghast Dictator Visari is now dead thanks to the ISA (Interplanetary Strategic Alliance) and the Helghast Empire is in a sticky situation. The Helghast Council find themselves arguing over what to do next and who should now lead. This is where 2 new characters come in; Stahl and Orlock. Aside from being voiced by the great Malcolm McDowell, Stahl is a weapons manufacturer with a lot of stroke within the Empire. His plan is the gung-ho one. In this case it consists of hitting the ISA and Earth with everything they have including a nuke. He competes against Joseph Stalin... err... Orlock. Orlock is the Military Commander and the more rational of the 2. I really do mean rational by the way as one of the more interesting aspects of the Killzone universe is that you can feel everything the Helghast do is justified and not look like an idiot. Neither faction is clear in the right making the story that much more interesting.

Nevertheless, you do play as Sev of the ISA again ready to kick some Helghast ass. Sev and a slightly less annoying Rico will make their evacuation as Killzone 3 begins right after Killzone 2 ends. The ISA regroups and is ready to stop the invasion of Earth. There are also new ISA characters too like female soldier Jammer. However, the characters on the ISA side just aren't as interesting and as fleshed out as the main characters in the Helghast Empire. Sev is your average and generic war hero while Rico is still a pretty forgettable teammate with no character whatsoever. None of the ISA characters go through any character development. From start to finish it is just about kicking Helghast ass which isn't necessarily a bad thing but there is room for say in Killzone 4 maybe to shake things up and make me want to kill the Helghast. As of right now I just shoot everyone because I'm supposed to, not because I want to see the ISA win the war. The overall story though is great and worth anyone's time. Every scene with Stahl and Orlock going at it is entertaining. My only other complaint is with the ending. For such an intense and epic moment in story and gameplay I can't help but feel Guerrilla dropped the ball giving us an abrupt and anti-climactic ending that doesn't rival anything previously seen throughout the game in any way, shape, or form. Things do keep improving in the Killzone franchise though so hopefully with Killzone 4 Guerrilla Games can nail it.




Gameplay: Let me start off by saying that all modes of Killzone 3 are easier and more accessible for players. The enemy AI is still very smart though so don't worry at all. Killzone 3 to no ones' surprise plays just like the first 2. R1 is your fire button and L1 melees. There are a numerous amount of different ways to tweak the controls though so every First Person Shooter shooter player should feel right at home within minutes whether you're using basic Killzone controls or the basic Call of Duty set-up (L1/R1 aim and fire). Aiming down the sights really isn't that necessary in Killzone though. You can of course sprint, reload, and change weapons on the fly. The cover system also returns in Killzone 3. Basically, if you crouch near a surface you can snap to it and take cover. You can peek around corners and shoot and overall play really tactical. Killzone 3 does feel less weighty than Killzone 2 but that doesn't mean it now mimics Call of Duty. It just feels a little more responsive and more natural to pop Helghast heads now. The battlefields are all pretty big with a lot of different ways to go about each section. My personal favorite although not the most strategic is going gung-ho and performing Brutal Melees on the Helghast. There's a lot of satisfaction to be had gouging out Helghast eyes with your thumbs. Killzone 3 truly does resemble a warzone as you go from point A to point B killing everyone in your path. A large part of this epic in scale battlezone feel comes from how much variety in level design and mission structure there really is. There are numerous types of enemies such as exploding spiders, jetpack Helghast, and Capture Troopers. These robotic looking Helghast look awesome and are very acrobatic as they try and melee you head-on. During a few sections you will commandeer a jetpack and actually have firefights in mid-air. I have to say it controls very well too along with being awesome. The locales you visit throughout the game are fantastic, especially the Arctic chapter Icy Incursion which looks phenomenal and simply awesome. There's also a jungle which is very detailed and fleshed out featuring plants that burst out a deadly poison that kills Helghast upon shooting them. You can even sneak around the jungle and not get into a single fight. There are quite a few on-rails segments where you'll control mini-guns and canons from tanks or various types of aircraft where you will cause massive amounts of destruction in huge set-pieces that are simply epic. The whole MAWLR battle spans a whole chapter and is just one big battle against a massive titanic in size walking Helghast creation of death. The final battle is where the game peaks incorporating Zero-Gravity into the firefight. There's also an insanely epic space battle at the end that resembles the end of Star Wars: Episode 4. The variety isn't just in the set-pieces though. There are some awesome Helghast weapons for you to use too such as the Arc Cannon that shoot a big green ball of energy and causes any enemy stuck inside it to blow up. The Pistol Shotgun also returns and is fun to use. Even the standard assault rifles are fun to use as popping off Helghast helmets and shooting them in their bald Stone Cold Steve Austin resembling domes never gets old.

There are a few flaws though. The actual checkpoint system is fine but the saving system is weird. I backed out to the main menu to see which scene of a chapter I was on ( I was aiming for a chapter specific trophy) but when I hit continue I was brought back by about 15 minutes instead of my latest checkpoint. There's also the First Person Shooter staple complaint of dumb partner AI during combat but it's made up for by Rico being able to revive you (if he is near) if you fall during battle. Thanks Rico, but you're still an annoying jackass. My only other complaint is the pointless use of motion sensing to turn valves or place explosives. It always breaks the flow of gameplay and is a minor annoyance. Since I am on the topic, Killzone 3 can actually be played using the Move and it apparently works well, so there is even more variety. This is not necessarily a complaint but since Killzone 3 allows split-screen co-op Campaign it is a bit of a bummer that there is no online co-op Campaign. There's always Killzone 4 but for now Killzone 3 pretty much exceeds expectations and is one near perfect roller-coaster of a ride that you do not want to miss.




Graphics/Sound: I might as well just say it, Killzone 3 is the greatest looking First Person Shooter ever. The amount of detail is insane. Seeing debris flying all over the battlefield, the guns, the dropships, the character models, it all looks insane. The lighting effects are amazing and the framerate rarely drops which is a massively impressive feat when a game looks this good. The character models and facial expressions look very good too. You can just tell that Stahl is an evil bastard up to no good just from his evil smirk. By far my favorite aspects though are the blood. Killing a Helghast and seeing his blood spurt out and stain the snow looked incredible. I just stood there in awe staring at how detailed everything was. Everything about the chapter Icy Incursion from the visuals to the set-pieces will just blow you away. The Arctic landscape and jungle alone make Killzone 3 hands down the graphics king for shooters both in technical power and artistic design. It is beyond beautiful for a warzone and needs to be seen by everyone. Amazing sound is also here to compliment the outstanding graphics. The music is so good that whenever I start up the game I have to listen to the music in the pre-menu screen. If anything, that is what makes me want to kick some Helghast ass. Killzone 3 has the greatest musical score for a First Person Shooter ever. It truly gets your heart pounding and makes every battle feel intense. The amazing detail in the sound of explosions also helps too along with the distinct voices of the Helghast soldiers. Some of the voice acting from the ISA members isn't that good but over in the Helghast Empire you have Malcolm McDowell and Ray Winstone bringing it and nailing their respectable characters. It is worth mentioning that if you have a 3D-TV and want a game to show it off, this is the game to buy. Killzone 3 succeeds above and beyond here.




Online: There are 3 different modes with each holding up to 16 or 24 players a game.. One team is the ISA while the other is the Helghast. The first is Guerrilla Warfare which is your standard Team Death-Match mode. Then there is the new mode Operations which is a bit of a spin on Capture The Flag. You either have to plant bombs or defend areas. This mode actually comes with small amusing cut-scenes too. The final mode and my personal favorite is Warzone. It is a 24 player mode compromised of 7 rounds with each featuring a randomized objective. Sometimes you will have to protect a specific teammate, some rounds are just Death-Matches, and some are essentially Search And Destroy rounds. Killzone 3 has 5 unique classes to choose from each with abilities resembling Team Fortress 2. You can play as a Medic and revive people, an Engineer and build turrets or ammo stashes, a Tactician and capture spawn points, an Infiltrator who can don an enemy disguise, or a Marksman who can use an invisibility cloak. Each classes' perks can be upgraded too using the Career Points you earn from ranking up. Of course you can also choose to unlock new weapons. One of the coolest things about Killzone 3 is that some maps contain jetpacks or mechs to handle. For these maps it adds a whole new dynamic to the Online modes and makes you want to play them more. There are 8 maps total resembling the various chapters of the Campaign and most are designed evenly. A few maps feel a little too small and claustrophobic but that's my only complaint there. Most games seem to take a hit in the graphics department when heading Online but Killzone 3 surprisingly does not. You can invite your friends to your games but it is a bit of a bummer that there's no private lobbies. There is Botzone though which allows you too hone your Online skills against the AI. It is worth noting that I sometimes have trouble connecting to games but it isn't that big of a deal. Overall the Online component of Killzone 3 is a blast and should keep gamers busy.




Replayability: The Campaign lasts around 8 hours and is a blast. You will unlock Elite mode upon completing the game. Add in the Online component and I think it's safe to say Killzone 3 will keep you busy. Granted if you're not a fan of Online there isn't much else to do or reason to play. The trophy list is more accessible this time around meaning it won't take 100's of hours to obtain the platinum trophy.

Read more »

Call of Duty : Black Ops

"Welcome to the Classified 1960's"

Call of Duty: Black Ops is no doubt the most anticipated game of the year and compared to last year's predecessor in Modern Warfare 2 , Treyarch follows up with a grand entrance into the turbulent 1960's with top secret missions featuring some of the worst fighting in Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, and plenty of exploits through the Soviet Union. Following up the new warfare setting, Call of Duty: Black Ops reintroduces the outstanding multiplayer experience online with a few new features but same style of play as well as the fun and very quirky zombies mode in which I think we'll see again as its own stand alone game.

Campaign

The story of Black Ops follows the trail of secret operative Richard Mason who is introduced to us while being tortured to divulge information about his past. Each time Mason comes in and out of consciousness the story picks up where he starts to remember. So throughout the game you get to revisit some of the most memorable military incidents in the 1960's starting with the Bay of Pigs and as the plot develops you start to find out how the story of Black Ops correlates with these events. What results is a James Bond/Max Payne like walk through the campaign. Playing on normal or recruit will get you through the campaign in a few hours as there are not that many missions to the game and each has its own bits where we are cut back to Mason in the present day as he comes to in the interrogation room.

I would have to do my fact checking on some of the weapons featured in the campaign but I guess they were introduced that early on in the 20th Century. The MP5 and M16 are very prevalent as well as the AK47, which defined the Communist armies of the era. As for the sentry guns in multiplayer...I don't know. The game play is very standard and fans of Call of Duty will have no trouble picking up the controls again for Black Ops. Taking cover is always a necessity to not get shot up too quick or to recover from wounds but it's too bad you can't peak out from cover. Enemies will immediately find cover and peak out from time to time until you flank them out or borrow a flamethrower and melt away all opposition. A lot of the campaign experience can be best described as a Michael Bay film where you can be in the middle of a heavy firefight and as soon as a checkpoint is reached all fighting stops and it is back to normal again. I'm not too much on how realistic this game feels as to how realistic it looks.

My greatest dislike of the modes of Black Ops was definitely on the campaign. I found the campaign to be full of glitches due mostly to having to be at the right place at the right time for a scripted event to happen. Getting ahead of somebody you are supposed to follow seemed to be the biggest result of the game glitching to the point I had to restart the second mission over. Other glitches such as enemies getting stuck in midair or freezing in place were also prevalent. No update can cure that. The campaign starts to take off once you get to the Vietnam missions but a lot of the sequences of these missions are not too original since all of the ideas for the missions are taken from Vietnam war movies. There have been plenty of games to take advantage of the same exact ideas (such as the much overused Russian Roulette) so originality takes a beating with the game's campaign. I'd dare say the last scene in the final mission is a poor attempt at an armed forces recruiting commercial.

Multiplayer

Call of Duty's multiplayer is still the best online and while you can't improve on something that is the best a few new features are added to take your interest in playing and reaching the prestigious prestige mode to the next level. My favorite experience was the Combat Training where you compete against the AI who take on the role of random members of your friends list so that you can improve on your skills or unlock achievements. Unfortunately, what you earn in Combat Training does not cross over to the online multiplayer so you have to start from scratch when you take to the gritty streets of combat against other players. So if you have a friend online that is a mega fanatic you can get a video clip of him stepping on a claymore you placed in plain view and send it to him asking what's up.

Once you hit rank 5 online you are pretty much home free to start creating classes and purchasing challenges to help boost skill points to purchase more items like perks and weapons and gadgets. There are more multiplayer modes and you can even take the Zombies mode online. Customization is a bigger feature as well as you can virtually design what your favorite weapon will look like from color to writing and even the dot sight shape.

Had this game been made simply as a multiplayer game I actually would have given it a 10/10. Between remote detonated RC cars after a three kill streak, napalm strikes, and the ever wonderful Semtex grenades there is plenty to enjoy online. The Zombies mode has been given more of a story as the bonus mode features key figures from history banding together to fight to the last man and you can also jump into an online game in this mode so you do not have to wait on your friends to stop playing the multiplayer to join you.

The graphics are very detailed and remains the reason why the Call of Duty games have such a realistic feel. The only thing I did not think worked are the napalm strikes in multiplayer because they do not create the wall of fire you see in the vintage footage of such strikes. Certain weapons will cause enemies to lose limbs so this game takes a more gory tone than with the likes of the Modern Warfare games. This is an outstanding game visually with so much split second video to give even the most unfazed a seizure and plenty of time to take in a view of the action during large battles going on. The musical scores are quite good but the dialogue during interrogations is the only thing we have to keep up with the story, but things do finally fall into place at the end.

The multiplayer is the greatest selling point of Call of Duty: Black Ops and it will make this game last long into the years ahead until the next Call of Duty game is made. Achievements are easy to get with a few tricks to perform during campaign missions and finally we have a few multiplayer achievements available for the Call of Duty series. Picking up intel items during the missions will score being able to take the black tape off of classified documents so you can read up on the background of each mission you complete. There is always an Easter egg hunt with these games.

Final Recommendation 8/10

Call of Duty: Black Ops is everything that I expected it would be and having expected the campaign to be as far out as the Modern Warfare 2 story this game did not exceed expectations. Still, the multiplayer is a fun and engrossing part of this game that I would have paid full price just for the online play only. Will there be another Call of Duty to top this and Modern Warfare 2 in the future? Without any more competition from the Halo series I would say next year may be a bleak year for online shooters, but Black Ops will be a top game for online gaming well into the end of next year. There were plenty of other games preceding Black Ops but if you were thinking about another game to get while waiting for the word on Black Ops the word is: get Black Ops.

Read more »

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

Since the late 90's, Street Fighter fans had been asking for a true sequel to one of the greatest and most successful fighting games in the industry. In 2009 Capcom answered the call with Street Fighter 4. Having successfully taken the series back to it's 2d roots, and familiar gameplay, the next obvious demand from fans was a sequel to arguably the more demanded, Marvel vs. Capcom series. For those of you living in a cave for the last two decades: Marvel Vs. Capcom is a team based fighter featuring popular characters from each universe. With the re-release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on Xbox live and the Playstation network, an all new versus series exclusive to the Wii, it seemed a no brainer Capcom would follow suit with a new Marvel vs. Capcom. In 2010 the company once again answered the call with the announcement of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of two worlds. Fans across the globe immediately began to day dream of seeing their favorite Marvel and Capcom heroes battle it out in all their high definition glory. Rest easy knowing Capcom has delivered not only a nostalgic trip back to the arcade days, but possibly a sure contender for fighting game of the year.

Gameplay 10

Those of you familiar with the series won't have much trouble picking up the controller and jumping right into the action. You'll soon feel like your on familiar turf. The game responds as smoothly if not smoother than you remember. You will however, notice the button remapping. The four kick and punch buttons have been removed and replaced with a four button low, medium, high and special button layout. Not only has the buttons been remapped, but swapping and calling in your teammates have turned into a single button press. Some veterans may not like the changes, but it makes sense and seems to give a more fluid feel to the action. Not only has Capcom changed the buttons around a bit, but they have also added a new ability called the X-factor. Down to your last teammate and think all hope is lost? Activate the X-Factor and not only does your character become faster, he/she also becomes stronger defensively and offensively. It's actually a really neat addition to the game, because not only can it turn a match around, it also serves as a cancel for some really crazy combos.

Despite the changes, this is still Marvel vs. Capcom at it's core. There's really nothing too new or groundbreaking for the series. The only gameplay mode available is the same as always, three on three battles. Despite this, MvC3 is as addictive and fun to play as ever. The characters are all well balanced and have their own feel to them, this is great as it encourages you to lean away from your normal three and experiment with some of the other characters. Speaking of characters, the roster has dropped down from 56 to 20 less to a mere 36. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. From the sacrifice we have gained some really great new characters like Xmen's Phoenix and Devil May Cry's Dante. However, I was a little disappointed not to see Venom or Mega man return. I was also hoping to see Ghost Rider and Carnage enter the series. Nevertheless, considering the amount of characters for each IP, it would be impossible to please everyone. With obvious DLC packs coming, I'm sure we will see more characters, as well as costumes for many months to come.

Graphics 9

MVC 3 is a visual treat. Seeing all these great characters battling it out in high def will have you awe struck. The art style seems to fit every character perfectly. You never get the sense that a particular character doesn't belong. Spiderman fighting Okami's Amaterasu fits as well as Iron Man fighting Wolverine. The art style blends the two universes together perfectly. Not only do the characters look great, the stages are also very vibrant and busy. It's also neat seeing different stages (although limited in number) based off the different worlds retrospective to particular characters. The visuals are great from the ground up, from the screen filling fireballs to the explosions. The face melting, on screen action never skips a visual beat.

Sound 7

Let's be honest here. MVC isn't exactly known for its outstanding music. Not much has changed. I don't know about you, but I got my feel of “Gonna take you for a ride” in MVC 2. I was slightly disappointed to still have to hear that song every time I play the game, but I'm guessing Capcom considers it the official MVC theme song. And no Capcom, the remix isn't any better than the original. But while I do have my gripes about the “theme song” the music during battle isn't too bad, its not all that spectacular on the ears, but it does serve it's purpose with a fast tempo to fit the speed of the game. The voice work for the characters were done pretty well. The voices sound about like you would expect from the series. All the fighting noises are good as well. Don't worry too much about the mediocre sound track, more than likely, you'll be so wrapped up in the action you won't notice anyway.

Replay Value 10

You will no doubt be spending some time with this game. With the numerous characters and abilities for each, there will be plenty to keep you occupied for some time. Given the fact that DLC will be released, it only adds to the value. And of course, what makes fighters of this generation so great is online multi-player. I've spent a bit of time online with the game, and with the exception of losing the host a couple of times, online play has been mostly smooth and lag free. One complaint I do have is when your in a lobby with your buddies, your forced to watch their health bars instead of the actual fight. This gets old really fast. I'm really hoping that somehow Capcom fixes this annoyance. But with this minor issue aside, with the mind blowing amount of characters you can combine for different teams and the staggering amount of combo's, MVC3 will keep you busy for months if not years to come.

Overall 9

If you're a fan of the series, you have no doubt already picked this up. If your on the fence about rent our buy; there is just no way you can experience what this game has to offer in a weekend. This team based fighting game delivers on nearly all fronts. This fighter is packing great characters, stellar gameplay and enough visual candy to more than make up for the price tag. The only thing missing is the arcade cabinet. Marvel Vs. Capcom: Fate of two worlds should not be passed up from fans of the series or from fans of the genre.

Read more »