Battlefield 3 Single Player Review

 

So as you probably realised (based off my last post, if you actually read my blog), I’ve recently bailed on the sinking cash cow that is the Call of Duty series, and boarded another boat unfortunately heading for the same boat. My hatred for overwhelming greed in publishers aside (I’m looking at you, EA and Activision), Battlefield 3 is a really great game.

As with many of the games I review, I’m new to the series. The Battlefield series’ claim to fame is offering large infantry and vehicle based gameplay with a slightly more ‘realistic’ viewpoint. But this is a video game, if you want realism go join the army or play ARMA 2. Swapping from Call of Duty, you’ll notice the bullet drop and destructive environments immediately. Compared to the extent of Call of Duty’s amazing glass destruction, battlefield takes it far further. Taking fire from a house? Get a friend to bring a tank and bring the building down, or chip away at it with RPGs. Group of enemies hiding in an alleyway? Bring a building down on their heads. That kind of stuff (I’ll go more into multiplayer later)

Onto the singleplayer, and I’m going to start with this. If you don’t have an internet connection or don’t intend on playing online, don’t buy this game. Having played through the single player through twice, its only use is getting used to the Frostbite 2.0 engine. And what an engine it is. The graphics are amazing, the lighting stunning and the destruction has so much potential. Trust me, the campaign is going to cram those features down your throat. The story’s plot is kickstarted by an earthquake, and the earthquake only really seems to be a way for DICE to show off the capabilities of its baby. Look, a collapsing building! Whoop-dee-fucking-do. Impressive, sure. Necessary, hardly.

The plot is patchy at best, and seems to be riddled with excuses to show off the engine’s capabilities. The several night levels only really serve to show off the blinding lighting the engine is capable of. You play Sgt. Blackburn, a marine in interrogation after shooting your CO. The game starts you within a train, where it becomes apparent that quick time events are going to be commonplace as well. When will developers learn, that gamers hate going through an entire level to fail on a stupid QTE and have to do much of it again? If I wanted to mash buttons I’d play Super Smash Brothers or a Warioware title. Or an overpriced iPod app.

The plot unfortunately bears several similarities to the Call of Duty games. You go between level to level in a series of flashbacks whilst being interrogated. You’re trying to stop a nuke as well. Seem familiar? The antagonist also bears several similarities to Modern Warfare’s Makarov. That, and many of the characters follow their Call of Duty counterparts into ‘shocking’ deaths for cheap emotional scenes, which would work if they were properly characterised. I hardly knew many of their names, or enough about them to feel sad about their demise (I’m sorry, that was a cheap pun).

Some of the levels also link together quite badly. The link to the disappointing on-rails jet level is vague at best. You also play as a Russian, Dima, in two levels. The link between him and Blackburn is the second-last level of the game, and much of the story involving him is unclear during the first playthrough as you have no clue who this guy is. The plot actually has a book about it by a talented author. The book makes much more sense, and it really made me feel emotional about the characters rather than the state of the gaming industry. It’s a pity the game doesn’t follow the book’s plot, otherwise the single player would be worthwhile, instead it just seems to be a highlight wheel for the new engine.

 

Thinking with Portals: Portal 2 Review

There’s no denying it. Portal 2 has big shoes to fill. The original game was about as witty and puzzling as it was indie. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, portal has you firing two portals to solve a series of puzzles, usually getting a cube onto buttons, paving your way to the exit. The first game had a pretty slow pace, waiting for those balls of energy (I’m sure they have a proper name) to fly and around and platforms to get to you.

I’ll assure you, Portal 2 lives up to expectations and more. Valve has obviously put a lot of time and thought into this game. Set after the events of the first game, you wake up with Aperture Science having seen better days. But, sure enough, pretty quickly you’re throwing portals everywhere (just not the black walls). To differ from the usual portal here, portal there, cube in here type of gameplay (which never gets old for me, by the way), there’s a few new puzzling additions to mix it up. Faith plates throw you into the air, and you have bouncy/low friction gel. The gels are great, you have to spread them all over the map, there’s even one gel that gives you more portal spaces. Finally, you have excursion funnels, which suspend you in mid-air, making gravity rage and Newton turning in his grave.

All these new additions really add to the puzzling element of that game. You think you’ve mastered one thing, nd then they combine two or more together. The game feels fresh throughout. The story, while not in-depth in the slightest, is so simple not to hinder your gameplay. Wheatley is just comedy gold, with great added humor to Glados’ antics throughout. And, typical for Valve, the music is awesome.

The major addition in Portal 2 is the addition of Co=operative mode. You and a friend (or a random) have to work together to solve puzzles through a umber of levels. It’s great fun with a friend. I’ve “accidentally” either thrown the level-ending cube into a pit or crushed my partner with a “mashy spike plate” (as Wheatley puts it) several times. You can’t help nearly pissing yourself with laughter while playing it.

Probably the only problem I have with Portal 2 is some stages, especially while underground, going on crazy hunts for a small patch of white wall to place your portal on. It’s not puzzling in the slightest, and just gets annoying. Besides that, I can’t fault the game for anything else past its shallow storyline.

My Rating

Music: 10

Gameplay: 10

Creativity: 10

Graphics: 8.5

Other: 8.5

Total: 47/50

First Game Review: Spiral Knights

Ah.. Spiral Knights. A free game made by Three Rings.. or is it?

Spiral knights is a game where you are basically an adventurer who’s fighting off fiends, beasts, jellys, and more to get to the core. Each gate to the core has three tiers. You must get to the tier two barrier on each gate and have a set of two star or better gear to be eligable to do tier two. To be eligable to do tier three (the last tier), you must get to the tier three barrier on each gate and have a set of four star or better gear. While you’re doing this, you’ll find minerals to collect. After you’re done dungeoning, you can deposit these minerals into the gate that you want to appear next. This is in fact worldwide. The gate that has the most minerals will be the next gate to appear. You’ll also make recipes which are bought with crowns, the currency in this game, and made with energy and crowns.

Let me just say that the music in Spiral Knights bypasses any other flaws of the game by far. The music goes with anything that’s happening in the game, like an ambush will have random baddie music and once you’ve completed it, it’s over and back to the kind fun happy music. I had heard about how epic the music was from a few youtube videos, but once me and my friends were really playing the game, we were just amazed. “Wow.. that music is pretty damn good..” The menu music is best though, it makes me just want to stay on the menu screen and just continue with my day, with that endless loop of music.

And as always, the bad part of the game.

I’d honestly only recommend playing this game if you’re alright with only one hour of gameplay a day. It’s horrid. The “energy” goes out so fast in this game because energy is now used for basically.. everything. Now, you start off with 100 energy. Making recipes take anywhere from 10 energy (1-star equipment) to 800 energy (5-star equipment), going farther into the dungeon takes 10 energy each time (unless you get to a terminal which is like a tiny rest area to get recipes and full health), there are random energy gates scattered in each dungeon that justwipe out a bit of energy, and you can’t just avoid them due to them being on the path, and lastly, if there are any dangerous areas that you and your group have the chance of going into, it’d cost energy for the member who opens the gate. But ofcourse don’t fear! You can always buy more energy! But how much does it cost? Well you can buy 100 energy with crowns (the currency in Spiral Knights) for the current price of 4,890 crowns which rises more and more each day, or you could buy from energy which goes from $2.45-$49.95. And getting crowns just isn’t that easy. Considering that just playing a few dungeons with yourself would be difficult unless you had some 5-star stuff, you’d be with a group. There’s always a lootshare and the only real time you’re getting good crowns is when you come around an arena when is mad difficult and makes you want to quit the game multiple times. Now if you completely refuse to pay a price, there’s ALWAYS waiting about 24hours to have your energy replenished. Yeah, boring.

Basically, the conclusion that me and other Spiral Knights players have come to is that Three Rings really just wants money. I heard from past players that before it had gotten on Steam, ofcourse it was on it’s own website. Well the Steam benefits are there too. Achievements were included :D. No “:D”? Well not for the older players who never had Steam. Although you could log in with your Spiral Knights account, the achievements would have to be redone by all of those veterans. Like the Master Miner achievement where you deposit 10,000 minerals into a gate. Just think if someone had done that and now had to redo that. And yes, “mining” on Spiral Knights isn’t as simple as buying a pick axe from a little roleplay store in the game and mine as much as you want. No. You can only get a mineral from a dungeon level, and the amount of the mineral you get is determined by the size of the mineral which is totally randomly generated, though big minerals come rare. The values go from 1-6 of a mineral.

Oh, and there’s an auction house that basically destroys the purpose of an auction house. Once the auction house was added, it also changed trade. You aren’t allowed to trade/auction any 4-5 star items. Not even 4-5 star materials. That’s a tad harsh. Just a bit. I mean it’s not like there were any RWT (real world trading) issues in the game, why such drastic measures? I mean the end game when you are all bored out of tier 3 things used to be to make high level things and sell them off to people who need it most, but now, there really is no end game. So what are the high levels to do now?

What sucks the MOST is that once you equip an item, you’ll never be able to sell it or trade it. Some think a reason for that would be so that way a new player wouldn’t be able to get a full set of (for instance) maxed out 5 star gear from a friend. I don’t really agree with that. If a friend wants to hand over their gear then let them! I mean it doesn’t have to be kept at their same level! They can be reset upon trading or something clever like that. You can’t deprive a bunch of players like that! Especially the ones who had a friend refer them to the game.

On the good side…

The game is SO intense that it’ll make you want to buy more and more energy! It really is a fun fun game! But for people like me who actually nolife and play a game even til it’s past completed, we can’t really do that. The overpowered enemies and what now keep the game interesting and force some teamwork habits.. XD The fighting is pretty nice after changing up the controls too. And wow, the graphics are beautiful. They’re so crystal clear. I love it. I thought this would be some low grade looking game but for something free, it’s got some look to it. It’s worth playing for this reason especially if you’re a graphics freak. The weapons are very unique and all have their good sides and bad sides. It’d be hard to recommend weapons mainly because well, everyone has their own opinion on the weapon to get. There’s weapons from swords and guns to crossbows and angel guns. It’s fairly creative.

Plus, there are just so many emotes you can do in this game, I was surprised XD. Most of them aren’t emotes that really just make you do emotes (such as the /dance command just goes “(player name) has the urge to dance!”). But it was still cute.

Gameplay: Poor Good Great Excellent Awesome

Graphics: Poor Good Great Excellent Awesome

Music: Poor Good Great Excellent Awesome

Creativity:  Poor Good Great Excellent Awesome

Extras: Poor Good Great Excellent Awesome

My Impulse Purchase of the Month: Nintendogs+Cats (review)

Gallery Pictures:

1. Thats my dog, Ace, trying his hand (paw?) at being an Elvis impersonator, at the mountain park.
2. More mountain park.
3. If you touch the screen here, they lick your hand. It’s really cute.
4. All of the competitions have gotten a graphics overhaul, and you don’t go down a rank if you lose.
5. A cat playing. It’s not mine, I’m at the cafe.
6. Dogs fighting over a disc at the beach park.
7. My cat in a high place.
8. AR card usage. Depending on the card, the dog changes hat.
9. Running around in the cafe.
10. Catching a boomerang (I tried to time if so you had the dog jumping, but it didn’t work).

This is a first- a review with pictures taken from my own game! Wow!

Nintendogs was the tied second game I bought for my 3DS. Why did I buy it? No idea. But I did (equal second with Ridge Racer, more on that in a later post.

If you have never played nitendogs (the original), and you own a DS, you should have a long hard look in the mirror. Sure, its a slightly childish game. But its charm and general awesomeness makes it a brilliant game. Nintendogs was released, like any launch title, purely to show off the system’s abilities. Nintendogs+cats is clearly made for the same reason.

So, how could Nintendo improve on such a great game (besides make it 3D). They added cats, fixed a few things, added new items, updated graphics, changed a competition… And that’s about it. It’s really quite sad that there aren’t more differences to the original.

The dogs side of it is pretty much the same. Competitions? Check. Walks? Check. Tricks? Check. The obedience trial and disc competitions are back with few changes (AR card functionality and sand/bonus areas respectively) and the other competition that I can’t possibly remember its name has been replaced with lure coursing. Now, I liked the old competition, and I like lure coursing too. Maybe they should have dumped the ever-annoying obedience trial for lure coursing. The concept behind lure coursing is your puppy chases a lure around a course. Eventually crossovers and hurdles are added in, mixing it up.

Walks have been messed with slightly. The view is more first person (from the side on in the original). You don’t choose a path before going on a walk, instead, you come across signposts on the walk to take you to different areas. There are 4 in total (mountains, town, seaside and default). And, like the original, you come across other owners (who add in their unrequited opinions) and gifts and rubbish on the road. There’s also a gym, two parks, a cafe and other secret shops that only open at certain times. I don’t like the new way. I’ve had many times where I’m going to the mountain signpost so I can visit the park and train for the disc competition, and there’s a gift right behind the signpost. So, you’re face with a decision. It’s happened so many times now that I get really annoyed.

Tricks, besides a few new ones (unless I missed them in the original), are the same. You direct your dog to do something, repeat the command 3 times, and it gets saved. Some tricks require you to wave a treat in the air to get the dog to its required learning position.

Now, the other new addition. Cats. Lets look at what cats can do. No competitions. No walks. No tricks. All they do is laze around like… Well, cats in real life. They love shiny things, as well as high places. Oh, and annoying all other creatures. And that’s just all about it for cats. You can awe at their cuteness and complain at their lack of use. It makes it quite a waste to save up so much in-game money to get a useless ball of hair.

Obvious bias about hating cats aside, nintendogs+cats is the same game with a few new additions. It doesn’t really show off the 3DS’ abilities either. A touch screen is hardly a new addition to Nintendo handhelds, as is a microphone. It has streetpass (unused so far), picks up our face, and uses the outer cameras. But the 3DS is more than just cameras. It has a gyro sensor, which is so far unused.

The addition of 3D is the main change in this game. You remember how, in the original, pets come and are all over the screen The 3D effect really makes this feel real. You get licked all over the face. You get a gift. You throw a disc. All these things that seem so novel become much more real.

All I can say is this. Thanks to 3D, many simulation games are going to become a lot better (I’m hoping to purchase the new Pilotwings at some point too).

Tl;dr version: Decent game, too similar, dogs>cats

My Rating

Music: 6

Gameplay: 8

Creativity: 5

Graphics: 10

Other: 7

Total: 36/50

Pokemon Black- Story Thoughts (spoilers)

 

WARNING!

CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Ok, you asked for it. So, the story. A quick summary. Plasma are the bad dudes. Team Plasma’s “King”, N, was raised by Ghetsis (one of the Seven Sages) in such a way that, when he was older, could re-awaken one of the two legendary Pokemon and rise as the new hero of Oblivia, and force all trainers into releasing their Pokemon so Plasma could reign supreme. N believed that Ghetsis had good intentions (heh). So that establishes N as a character. You have the 7 sages, and then 3 ninja guys (I forget their name,Shadow Triad or something) that persistently pop up throughout the game (and pretty much stalk you).

N meets you in the 3rd city (or was it second…) and battles you after Ghetsis gives you a speech. N eventually obtains a stone (depends which version) and uses it to awaken a legendary (depends which version again), and with it charges to the Pokemon League to defeat the Champion so he can force all trainers to release their Pokemon. He challenges you to find the other legendary so that you can both battle. So you obtain the other stone… And nothing happens. You go to the Pokemon League anyway, and defeat the Elite Four. Just as you enter the Champion’s room, a building rises around the Pokemon League (and pretty much destroys the place), and N escapes. You follow and eventually reach N after weaving through Plasma’s Castle (no battles) and N summons his Legendary to him, and scoffs at you for not having a legendary of your own. conveniently, your Legendary pops out of its stone and you battle it. Upon its capture, you are asked if you want to transfer it into your party. You then defeat N, and battle Ghetsis, who revealed the PETA-like ambitions to be a farce, and N a puppet. You then battle him.

So, as you are now more informed about the story, now comes to my criticism. The storyline is quite different from previous games. The bad guys have good intentions, and your Rival is pure at heart. Team Plasma seems like a religious cult and there aren’t any crony-bosses that you can battle. You don’t get a Legendary until RIGHT before you battle N and defeat Team Plasma, and don’t beat the champion until post-game. It is different, and very much weird. Plasma doesn’t have a hideout in which you can battle them (unlike previous games).

Does it work? No, not for me. I want the bad guys to be bad. I want to beat the champion to end the game. I want to feel good after beating my evil rival. It all seems very different from previous games. Not for me, however.

NINJA EDIT: I’ve noticed many people coming to this post via google, looking to see if you can find N after finsihing the game. Here’s a hint for you- you can’t.

 

Pokemon Black- Midgame Thoughts

Yeah, I’m sorry. I said I would post every week, but that became a very long week.

So, on March the 10th, like the good Pokemon fan I am, I went down and bought Pokemon Black. I chose Black because you get Black City over White Forest, for some reason I chose a city over a bunch of trees.

From the start, it is pretty obvious this game is different. The camera is slightly lower than Diamond and Pearl, and even lower than Ruby and Sapphire.

The starters are probably the weirdest so far. The fire Pokemon is a pig, as many of you already would know (it gets weirder as it evolves). And the grass one is a snake… thingy that also get weirder as it evolves. The water one is an otter, that gets more awesome as it evolves.

In these games, the Pokemon’s individual personality comes out with animated sprites. I know that it doesn’t seem like a large achievement to have moving sprites, but it looks really cool. Suddenly a cute little puppy just standing there (Lillipup), turns into this energetic bundle of fur, jumping around like crazy. I can’t wait to finish the story so I can see what the previous versions’ Pokemon look like.

The story… It’s slightly weirder than usual. The evil team is like PETA, but without all the naked celebrities. There are no boss like things that you can actually battle. There are 7 Sage things, but you can’t battle them. There are 3 ninja dudes, but you can’t battle them either, so you’re stuck with grunts and their leader, N. It just seems weird most of the time.

The difficulty seems significantly lower. I haven’t once had a problem with N, your two friends or any Gym Leaders. The first Gym battle is type dependent, but a nice person gives you a Pokemon that counters the Gym Leader’s Pokemon- and you don’t even have to train it. From then onwards its smooth sailing. The Gyms themselves are pretty cool, and are rather fun.

The region map is large enough, and densely populated. The 5 bridges that are in the region (3 of which I have passed over) look awesome. The camera when passing over the main bridge to Castelia City (and Castelia City itself) look amazing.

The addition of darker grass in which double battles with wild Pokemon happen, and the movements that show either a hidden item or a rare (ish) Pokemon are also a neat addition. That said, the encounter rate is far too high, many times I’ve had 3 or 4 Pokemon come out in as many steps.

The seasons I can’t say much about, seeing as it’s been the same season for the whole time I’ve had the game. That said, I look forward to seeing part of the region in snow in Winter. The weather also changes slightly. Raining areas don’t constantly rain (again, doesn’t seem like a big thing) and a legendary Pokemon whips up insanely strong storms and makes trouble (which looks pretty cool).

The music, as always, is awesome. The battle music isn’t annoying, and the routes and cities have fitting music. You’ll walk past someone playing an instrument in a city and the music will change to suit. It’s a nice touch.

Game Freak have messed with the age-old formula ever so slightly, but it’s enough to be noticeable. HMs are hardly used. Cut and Strength have only been used twice, and I’m up to Victory Road. You aren’t even told which Hms you can use after beating a Gym Leader. TMs can be used infinite times, and you don’t get a fishing rod or a chance to grow berries until post game.

Elite Four, here I come.

 

My rage moment for Today

Gah.
Well, today I felt like finishing Mario Galaxy 2
So, I got the extra 30 stars I needed to get to the final galaxy (level). Finished the final galaxy easily, but then you have to do it again… without getting hit. No checkpoints, just all the way through.

So, about half an hour and about 20 lives less later, I get to the last bit. Three Boomerang Bros face me. I dispatch two and send the third flying. I go to finish off the third one… and my remote battery dies. Yes. Normally the wii will pause the game for you, but mine doesn’t for some reason. So while I hurry around looking for more batteries, the Bro gets up again and slices me in two.

Aaand I’m done. <_<