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Asura’s Wrath Finished!

Okay I have to be honest with you, Asura Wrath is a hell of a game! If you can find it for less than $30 dollars, go for it! If you don’t watch anime then you MUST go get this since you’ll see things that you’ve never seen before. There is one single thing that makes Asura’s Wrath unique: the over-the-top, balls-out, no-holding-back action you see every couple of minutes. It is a marvel to even watch it as someone else is playing it.

There isn’t much to talk about Asura’s Wrath story except that it is a pretty generic anime storyline. Not that it is bad or anything but anyone who watches anime can tell you what will happen next. It is a mix of mainly Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z but there are also a couple of animes you can see some similarities with. I actually like that it uses this kind of mix. There has never been a game that truly makes you feel like you’re playing in an anime. Asura’s Wrath will make you feel like you’re actually controlling all the actions that you see in animes even though you may be just pressing a couple of buttons.

Asura’s Wrath is split into three different kinds of gameplay. First is a brawler that is not unlike God of War series. You beat enemies, counter their attacks, and finish them off when their healths are low with a finisher. However it is usually an endless battle which you can only end by filling up this bar which I’m going to call it the “Burst Gauge”. Filling up this gauge will allow you to do a Burst. This goes into the next gameplay where you are watching the crazy over the top action while at certain times you’ll need to press a button or move in a certain direction. It is a quick time event. However Asura’s Wrath makes you feel the impacts of these events unlike other games that uses quick time events poorly. It is awesome when you see the button “B” filling up the screen and you’re forced to press every single one of them. The placements of these on-screen prompts are also uniquely place in a way that the button presses makes sense. Another type of gameplay is an on-rail shooter that is similar to Panzer Dragoon. You can shoot blasts but you can also lock on to many enemies and shoot a ton of blasts all at once. I think this is the weakest part of the three gameplays and I’m glad that there are only a handful of them.

I can’t really explain to you the craziness that happens in the game because I believe you deserve to see it or play it for yourself. It is an amazing experience that is totally different from any other games I have played. One final gripe I have about the game however is how you’ll need to buy the $7.00 DLC to get the true ending. The DLC will pay for another part of the game. The game comes with 3 parts with each parts having 6 episodes each. The story doesn’t end correctly with just those 3 parts and I felt way more satisfied after I beat the DLC. The DLC is totally worth it if you paid less than $30.00 for it. It has some of the best and unique episodes in the the game and it is unbelievable that they took it out of the disc.

Aside from the gripe of the DLC, I believe Asura’s Wrath is a true achievement to an anime style game. You get the feel of it but also it sets the level of extremeness to 11! It is an amazing game with some nice visual spectacular. Bring friends to watch it with you or else they would not believe things you tell them about what you just did in the game!

2012
06/15
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Currently Playing: Diablo 3

Diablo 3 is a really marvelous game that is flawed in some areas. It tries so hard to be better than it’s predecessors and on most account achieves it but there are other areas where they shouldn’t have touched. There are many changes that anyone who has played any previous Diablo games will see when they start playing Diablo 3. Skill trees are gone and replaced with rune systems. Special monsters with abilities are of more importance than bosses now. And most importantly the sense of item hunt has disappear and replaced by an Auction House.

Just to start things off, I really do not like the idea of the Auction House. As I said before, it takes away the item hunts and sense of achievement when you get something better than your items. I understand that Blizzard had to add the auction house but I’m not sure if it was really there for gamers in mind. From what I understand, the auction house main purpose is to fight against gold farmers. You are allowed to either use in-game gold or real money to buy items in the auction house. The latter being not available currently but I would like to know how the situation of the auction house changes with real money involved. As of right now, you can get most of your character’s items from the auction house for really cheap. Sure you still have to play the game to level up your character and progress through each of the game’s four difficulty but you don’t have to worry about getting items. The strange thing is that you can buy the item, say a chest armor, for 10,000 gold. Then after you wear it and you level up with it, you find another chest armor with better stats for your current level for 10,000. Well you can buy it and then sell off the old chest armor for 10,000. Someone else is bound to buy it again from you. This continues the forever trend of the auction house that I came to notice. It is cheating using the auction house but I feel that Blizzard has the auction house for a reason. There are times when you feel super powerful because you just bought two brand new powerful axes from the auction house. The sense of power you get from using the new items are amazing. One moment you may be struggling with a boss or a special enemy and another moment you’re blasting through them with full health. The thing that I really miss is that this eliminates the feeling of an achievement when you buy these items. You didn’t get these items, someone else did. The items you find seem meaningless to the items you bought. Sure I may find a Legendary item or some powerful rare item but those are very rare chances. Why play through the same areas hoping to get a specific armor or weapon when you can look specifically for the item you want in the auction house? This is one of the main reasons why I haven’t played as much as I use to.

The eliminations of the skill tree system is a pretty risky idea that Blizzard has played. At first it is very strange that you can pick different skills anytime. It makes you wonder if you’re even getting more powerful with the skills. In theory you aren’t getting more powerful. The skills you unlocked in the later levels may be weaker to you than the skills you already had when you started the game. This new system gives the player choices. You pick what you want to use for a certain situation and test out if it is a good pick. It is similar to load outs in that each boss or special enemy is a match that you need to figure out. You may need to use a health healing attack, one that increases your attack speed, or one that slows down enemies. It is all different for different kind of situations. On the easier difficulties it doesn’t matter what skills you use as you’ll mostly be using skills that you’re comfortable with. On harder difficulties however, you need to pick certain skills that makes sense for those situations. It gives a sense of strategy that is balanced out by the aforementioned auction house item buying.

The last thing that I notice that is changed in Diablo 3 is the way how special monsters are handled. For every step up in difficulty, they have an additional new ability they can use. On Inferno, they have four abilities that can all be used at once. Abilities are most likely chosen random for every special monsters which means every special monsters may have a way to kill you quickly. It makes these monsters harder than most of the bosses in Diablo 3. I believe that is why Blizzard has put more emphasis on these special monsters than the bosses. Sure with bosses you’re still bound to get better items or rarer items. However in Inferno, killing these special monsters gives you a boost that will help you get better items. This boost lasts for 30 minutes and it can be stacked. So you can theoretically kill multiple special monsters before going to a boss and killing him. Though it is possible, Inferno is a pain in the ass to even fight a special monster.

Anyways, Diablo 3 is an awesome game. The changes that Blizzard made helped introduce Diablo to a new generation and a wider audience. However I feel that some of the changes made Diablo 3 lose some of its charms. The sense of gratification that is received from an item hunt is now gone in place of an Auction House. Because of that, I keep wondering why I keep playing the game. It is fun to level up and kill a room full of monsters but I’m not sure how much it could last. I’m hoping Blizzard may patch something that will make it stand out more but as of now I haven’t gone back to Diablo 3 in a while. I don’t think I will until I hear some changes are made or the economy of the auction house is balanced when the paid auction house is released. So this game is worth a try but it is not worth hyping about as I thought it was before release.

2012
05/31
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Witcher 2 Finished!

Witcher 2 has got to be one the most spectacular games I’ve played in a while. I’m not sure why I held off from playing it ever since I got my new graphics card last summer just for this game. Usually there would be other big name RPGs like Skyrim and Mass Effect 3 to play. Witcher 2 was always being put up back into my back log. Now that I have some chance to actually dive into playing it, I have to say that playing Witcher 2 is an amazing experience.

The first thing that I noticed was how beautiful the graphics were. I had an older graphic card when I started playing this game and I felt that I wasn’t getting the full experience so I bought a new card just for this game. That’s really saying something when I wanted to buy a new graphic card just so I can get a better experience. It means that the graphics really add to the gameplay experience. From the moment you see the sun shine through the forest in Witcher 2, you know that you’re in for a spectacular delight. All the locations are unique to each other and there is always a sense of scale to how large the world of the Witcher is. Character designs are also well done with very high detail character models. Each armor that you put on Geralt (main character in the game) looks unique to each other. There are zippers, pockets, and hoodies that makes each armor feel unique and give a sense of style to the character. This is a game for graphic whores and I’m glad to have bought my new graphic card for this. Even now I plan to rebuild my computer to play this game a second time with a better processor. I am now in High Settings but I want to try to get it to it’s “Uber Settings.”

Speaking about the second play through, the game literally wants you to play it more than one time. CD Projekt Red has made the game so that each locations that you visit is unique to the choices you make in the game. For example, there will be one big choice that you decide at the end of chapter 1 which will determine which location you go to. Each locations has it’s own set of quests and dialogues that you will not see unless you made the other choices. It is a very risky and costly idea for CD Projekt Red to do this. Just imagine the development time it took to make this new location with quests and dialogues that some players won’t even see. Other developers are afraid to do this since they want players to see everything they made in the game. That is why games like Mass Effect 3 or Fable don’t have decisions that really diverge as much from the story. Even though choices matter in those games, you’re mostly bound to see the same people and same quests as everyone. Even the choices in this game are very grey to the point that it was taking me a good time to figure out what I want to do. There is no right or wrong answers in the game and the story will progress but the choices you make matters a lot. The worst thing is that you can tell what will happen if you make a certain choice. Knowing that makes decisions harder since you’re not sure if you should kill off this character who if you let live might be the cause of an end of a civilization. And if you kill him then you just lost the reason for the cause you’re fighting for. Each choices matter and you can tell that there is never a true right choice. Other games like Mass Effect and Fable both go the other route in saying how any choice is the right choice but you decide how your character is developed. However in Witcher 2, you’re deciding how the fate of the world will be and not so much as how your character will be.

Questing in the game is short but very fun. There are only a few handfulls of side quests and they are all unique to each other. Some will even help out with the main quests which was a nice touch. The interesting idea about the quests in Witcher 2 is that it doesn’t really hold your hands as your completing it. The quests may sometime not even tell you where to go or who to talk to. It may just say “Go find X so you can do Y” or “Read the notes and solve the riddle to find the location of X.” Unlike other RPGs these days, Witcher 2 will force you to read the notes you uncover throughout the exploration to solve some quests. RPGs these days hold your hands so much that they show you where you have to go and even point out who or what you have to kill. It is a nice departure to figure things out by myself and I felt better when I do complete the quests.

As for the story, it took me a while to get use to it. You play as Geralt of Rivia who is a witcher with amnesia. Yea I know classic RPG cliche right? Anyways most of the game you’re trying to figure out what happened to your friends and even figure out why certain things are happening. This may have been a good time to introduce the world of the witcher to new players but like the quests, CD Projekt Red doesn’t hold your hands in the story. Things are already happening before you even start playing as Geralt. You’re as lost as Geralt and the story wants you to put the pieces all by yourself. Many things have happened in the past game and there might be hints of it. The only thing I know about the past game is the stuff I read from Wikipedia but I highly suggest players to read that before playing the game. It helps you get a sense of who some characters are and what they have been doing. I felt like the story was similar to Game of Thrones. There are really not much similarities but the style is the same. Both the book and game starts off with things like wars and deaths that have happened already. Characters may talk about it but you don’t really know the full detail of the event until you read further into the story. There is even a feud with different Kings trying to take over each other lands similar to the book. Though they may be similar in certain beats of the story, the story is still unique to itself.

The last thing I wanted to talk about is the gameplay. It has been a while since I’ve played a game with a combat system as fluid looking as the Witcher 2. The last game was probably Batman: Arkham City and I still believe that game still have the best fighting mechanics. Witcher 2’s combat is fast but you need to strategize before every battle early in the game. Once you’re surrounded by 2-3 enemies, you’ll most likely die. You have to set up traps, use bombs, sharpen your sword, drink potions, and use your signs (magic) before/during every battle. The battles only get easier once you level up and add new abilities. The animations in combat for Geralt has got to me some of the most impressive animations I’ve seen. He moves very fluidly from one enemy to another. He will do jumps, cartwheels, and even spin his sword depending on how far the enemy is and what the enemy is doing. It is awesome and I never got tired of it. The enemies animations aren’t that great but you’re mostly looking at Geralt in action that it really didn’t make a difference. Even writing about it makes me want to play the game over again just to fight enemies as Geralt.

The atmosphere of this game is amazing. Characters are doing their own things and talking about their own lives. When rain falls, everyone starts talking about how wet it is or how it doesn’t fall as much where they come from. There is not much to do in towns except walking around and talking with others so it really helps that they have their own things going on. The graphics, locations, characters, story, and the combat made Witcher 2 a game that is really worth playing. I highly recommend playing it on a nice PC as the graphics really add to the experience. If not the PC, at least the Xbox 360 version just to get a sense of what this game is all about. I had a great experience with it and I hope to do it again with difference choices the next play through.

2012
05/13
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Walking Dead Episode 1 Finished!

The Walking Dead game is my first adventure game that I have beaten fully from the developer Telltale game. The reason I don’t finish most adventure games is that they get really repetitive throughout it’s short episodes. You’re walking around and talking with everyone while trying to click everywhere that looks intractable. The Walking Dead is similar to this concept but they also throw in some actions sequences to keep you interested. Even some puzzles made sense compare to other Telltale games. It felt like the puzzles were part of the story instead of just some random puzzle the game throws at you. Even though I love the changes that Telltale has made for this game, it is still not perfect.

A lot of things about this game kept me interested to keep playing. The voice acting for one is pretty close to perfect. The characters are all very thought out and they all feel like characters that could exist in the Walking Dead universe. Sure some of them are cliche of any zombie movies/games but I mean it makes sense to have them here. The main character, Lee, is a great addition since you’re playing someone entirely new. He’s somewhat like Samuel L. Jackson and he talks like him too. The way Telltale built up his character throughout this first episodic was pretty nice. You get to learn about his family and the stuff he did to get him to where he was at the start of the game.

The episodic nature also works for this game. I beat it in about 2 hours and I felt that it went by at a really nice pace. It didn’t feel like I was being rushed or the game was just bogging. 2 hours was enough for me to learn everything about the characters in the game. It is something that even the show doesn’t do well.

The gameplay was also a nice departure from the usual Telltale games. There are some quick time events not unlike Jurrasic Park but it makes more sense when it happens here than in that game. There are also some parts where all you had to do was move the reticle and press a button to do an action but I felt more impact given the circumstances. It adds some flavor to the usual walking around talking part of Telltale games. Telltale needs to add these features to it’s other adventure games to keep me interested in finishing an episode.

The game also have branching decisions which will supposedly change the story through the 5 episodes. There will be new characters and certain characters will die depending on your choices but some of the major story beats in the game will stay the same. Think of it like a diamond shape where you pick certain things and it branches out but eventually the characters will all end up at the same ending. It makes sense in a developer’s point as if they didn’t do it then they may have to create assets and stories that only 1 out of 10 people will see. It was also a nice touch that the trailer for the next episode reflects the choices that you made in the current episode.

The Walking Dead kept me interested throughout the whole episode and I believe it could keep me interested for all five episodes. As I said it isn’t perfect though. They are some parts of the story that didn’t make sense of why he was doing it. For one thing, the main character mentions “Walkers” and “Zombies” a couple of times which I don’t think those words exists in that universe. There are also some points in the story that I felt like a glitch might have happened because I had no idea what to do. It is a problem with all Telltale games since you just have to click everywhere to get everything. Sometimes I don’t see where I have to click and it makes me think that the game glitched up. Anyways aside from that this game is very worth playing for anyone interested in a good zombie game. They don’t even have to be interested in the Walking Dead universe. Though it does add nice touches when you already know who certain characters are.

2012
05/06
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Currently Playing: Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded

I feel like I’m a masochist when it comes to Kingdom Hearts games. I will still play any Kingdom Hearts game no matter how bad it is or how much the games don’t add anything to the overarching stories. Fortunately Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is somewhere in the middle. It isn’t a bad game but the story really doesn’t do much for me so far.

What I can tell you is that it plays really similar to the PSP’s Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. The fighting is similar to it in that you do not get to bring two team mates along with you unlike the console games. I don’t want to get into too deeply about the combat yet but so far the combat is different and better for it.

Another thing that they tried to do differently is a leveling grid type matrix. What that really means is that it is really similar to the grid system that is used in Final Fantasy X. It is fun and gave me a little more control over what I’m actually unlocking.

One last thing they added was the ability to combine two abilities to make a more powerful version. You basically can combine two abilities that you’ve put enough experience in. You can get the experience from using the abilities inside battles. This is kind of addicting but I found my usual skill lists already so I’m finding it annoying now trying to gain experiences for the abilities that are less powerful just to combine them with the powerful one. I guess it’s keeping things from getting repetitive.

Oh and speaking of repetitive, Kingdom Hearts games are known for repetitiveness and this game reeks of it. Same music, same character models, and even same environments I believe. But it’s Kingdom Hearts so they add something new to it that makes me want to play it. The only thing I found that is really new in my 5 hr playtime are the cutscenes (four so far!). Hopefully more new stuff comes once it gets to the end.

2012
04/26
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Puzzle Agent 2 Finished!

Puzzle Agent 2 is the sequel to the Professor Layton clone Puzzle Agent that was released in 2010 by Telltale Games. Both Professor Layton and Puzzle Agent’s main mechanic is the puzzles that the town’s people you visit seem to want you to solve. They both even have a hint system where you need to find hidden hint icons throughout the game to use them during the puzzles. However, Puzzle Agent adds humor to the game which is really missing in Professor Layton.

Puzzle Agent 2 starts where the first game left off. Agent Nelson Tethers is still confuse as to why his case from the last game has been marked as closed when there is still a missing person. He decides the spend his vacation time revisiting the town folks of Scoggins to figure out where the missing person is. That is the gist of the story but like the previous game, the town folks are what makes this game stand out.

All of the town folks in Scoggins have something funny or weird to say to you. Most of them even have a puzzle for you to solve. The reasons to solve these puzzles work with the story most of the time not unlike Professor Layton. The town folks are all unique. There is the guy who gets really jumpy when you talk to him. There is the suspicious sheriff who doesn’t like newcomers. There is even a character which is very similar to Scruffy from Futurama. There are many more but the best parts of the game are when you are introduced to these new characters. However there are not that many new characters in this game. I believe that is where Puzzle Agent 2 falls short is that they rely heavily on all the great characters from the last game that they don’t introduce not many new characters. Even though I complain about reusing the same characters, I still had a blast when I was talking to them.

The puzzles in Puzzle Agent 2 isn’t as great as Professor Layton or even Puzzle Agent. There are about 4 main types of puzzles if I remember correctly. There’s the sort the puzzle in chronological order from pictures. A puzzle to direct a line or laser to a spot using objects to redirect it. A puzzle to move objects around so that a path is open to the exit. And finally a puzzle that involves some knowledge in math to be able to solve it. Though there are some other puzzle that are not of these 4 types, most of the puzzles in the game are. The puzzles with the math stuff are really confusing as I’m not sure how many people would get it. I mean would you really know the 7th and 8th digit of Pi? Or would you know something about integrals? I’m just not sure how Telltales could think that only smart people would play this game since it is a puzzle game.

Though the puzzles in Puzzle Agent 2 are a little disappointing, I really like the story of these games. I love these characters and the world Telltales had created. I love that the main character is in a division of the government called The Puzzle Division. Even his friend is in a division called the Vegetable Crime division. Random things like these are what attracts me to these kinds of games. I played through the puzzles so that I can see more of the story and interact with these characters. Even the animation is so stiff that I have to imagine that the developers are intentionally doing it for a style. It looks cheap and it is better for it. I played it on the Ipad but I believe you can play it almost everywhere. I believe this game is worth a try if you like randomness or just something close to the humor of Family Guy or Futurama.

2012
04/19
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Currently Playing: Darksiders

I’ve been in and out of this game for quite a while now. I even though about getting the superior version on the PC but I decided to stick to my 360 copy. After hearing so many good things from Patrick Klepek at Giant Bomb, I decided I should try finishing this game. At least finish before the sequel and see if the sequel lives up to this game.

Darksiders is a game that can be described as a fan-service game. No not anime kind of fan service but more of a gaming kind of fan service. What I mean is it combines many mechanics from a lot of great games and also add it’s own ingredients into the mix. This game is pretty much 70% Zelda, 20% God of war/DMC, 5% random games, and 5% original. This game may not be original but it copies the mechanics so well that I tend to forgive it. It has dungeons and weapons like Zelda but sometimes it does it better than Zelda. For example, in Zelda you have to do some repetitive mechanic to summon your horse and then wait for your horse to get to you. In Darksiders, all you need to do is press a button and your horse comes out of the ground.  There are some stuff that could have done better like the dungeon design but so far I’m really enjoying it.

The combat is also nice and compare nicely to DMC or God of War. I really like the weighty feel of War’s sword when he swings it. It really brings out an impact to everything he hits. The story is also pretty original. It involves the four horsemen trying to make things right when all hell breaks lose on Earth. It’s not a great story so far but playing as one of the horsemen is pretty exciting. I don’t think I’ll beat this game for a while but I will be sure to write another post about it soon!

2012
04/17
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Ace Combat Assault Horizon Finished!

Ace Combat Assault Horizon is an interesting game. Writing this post is really conflicting. A part of me wants to really recommend the game to others while another part of me just want to say that it is not worth playing. Ace Combat does a lot of things right that previous Ace Combats failed to do. The combat, flying, and even the story is better. However it still falls back to it’s old roots by having long missions that gets really repetitive by the end.

Ace Combat would be an amazing game if the missions were just a little bit shorter. There were many times during the missions when I asked myself “Really? They’re making me do this again?” The missions are only about 20-35 minutes long but even then I wish they were only about 15 minutes long. Fortunately each missions are unique to each other. One mission requires you to bomb naval ships while another require you to use a helicopter to save ground troops from incoming attack. Even though each mission goals are unique, the game forces the player to repeat this task at least 5 times each mission. One mission where you have to take out incoming bombers before they blow up Dubai requires the player to take out 5 waves of bombers. Five! Each wave has at least 4 bombers with 3 enemy airplanes for each bomber. The first 2-3 waves are a blast but I got tired of doing the same thing afterwards. The weird thing is that the next mission would make the player do something fresh which would really get me pumped up and excited only to be let down by the repetitive structure of the goal. I really wish that these missions would have been shorter. I clocked in at 8 hours and I felt that the game cheated me on that because of these long missions. I would have liked more missions but shorter burst.

Another thing that really didn’t make sense is the aforementioned helicopter sequences. Though there are only 2 in the game, I felt that these missions were just dragging the game. They’re even longer than the airplane missions which I already mention that I didn’t like. Even worse is that the helicopter controls are horrible. They fly really clunky and some of the buttons are mapped weird. The button to shoot machine guns in a jet is the A button while you use the triggers to shoot the machine guns in a helicopter. I get that the developers wanted to make some kind of a shooter type level but it doesn’t make sense to change the controls. Another weird change was how use button combinations to dodge missiles. You press the RB+LB button to dodge missiles but you press the RB button to shoot missiles. I found myself shooting the missiles myself as I was trying to dodge them. Someone should have looked into the controls or at least let these controls be customizable.

One more thing that really didn’t make sense is the turret levels. There are two missions with this type of gameplay also and they both felt out of place. Using the turret is fine but it really gets tedious when you’re doing it for 30 minutes. It plays like a rail shooter but imagine a turret sequence where you’re in one place for 10 minutes shooting at the same stuff. Yea not so fun.

Aside from the long missions, helicopters and turret sequences, the game is a blast to play. Flying around the jets were always exhilarating. There were certain moments when I had my mouth open because of the amazing visuals the game had. Flying through a storm only to fly higher and see no more rain was a nice touch the developers added. The environments and weather effects they added made the flying so much more immersive. The missions as mentioned before were really different from each other. One mission in particular was so simple but yet really amazing. It involved chasing after a missile that was going into space to target the united states. All you’re really doing is chasing the missile vertically but trying to dodge the missile’s rocket flames as you’re trying to shoot it down is one of the most impressive part of the game.

The new mechanic that they added called Dog-Fight mode is also a great feature. It takes the flight controls away from the player and makes the player take aim and try to shoot down the enemy. Most of the time, the enemy will try to run away from you in some of the most amazing airplane chase sequences I’ve seen in a game. Flying through buildings and over stadiums as building are crumbling over you is an amazing feeling. You have to speed up to try to get a better lock on but enemies may sometime try to trick you and make you fly straight into a building.  Even though you don’t have much flight controls, the auto follow the game does when in Dog-Fight mode isn’t perfect that it’ll just follow the plane everywhere. You still have to keep the lock on to the enemy aircraft or else you’ll be taken out of the Dog-Fight mode. The Dog-Fight mode really makes the game much more interesting as you’re not just flying around trying to lock on to the enemy and shooting a missile. Though you can still do that, I found myself trying to get into the Dog-Fight mode as much as possible. The Dog-Fight is a feature that was really needed to Ace Combat games and I hope this feature goes over to the next Ace Combat games.

The multiplayer mode is interesting too as the Dog-Fight mode goes over to the multiplayer. It get hectic as everyone usually goes into this mode and you can clearly see planes trying to fly away from one another as there might be 4 jets chasing each other. Though I didn’t play much multiplayer, I was surprise to really enjoy the time I had with it.

Ace Combat is a conflicting thing to write about. I really want to recommend this game to people but the missions might get too long and repetitive for people. I stuck with it because I wanted to see what other unique missions that the game had to offer. I’m glad that I stuck with it because the end missions were one of the best in the game. They were also short too so that might had to do something with it. If you’re into flight combat games I would say to try this game out as it adds new features that you would think wouldn’t work in these types of games. Though they might have added too many features with helicopters and turrets, I believe the new addition of the Dog-Fight mode really makes the game worth playing.

2012
04/14
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Currently Playing: Ace Combat Assault Horizon

This will be a short one since I briefly played Ace Combat. I was never really a big fan of Ace Combat. I always thought that the air combat was too slow and got a little repetitive. Everything also looked the same after a while and you’re mostly doing the same thing. However, after playing the demo of this game, I figure that I have to give this game a shot since it feels so different from a regular Ace Combat game.

The new feature they added is a mechanic called “Dog-Fight mode” where the player is basically locked-on to the enemy target. When the player is locked-on, the plane moves and follows the enemy automatically. What the player has to manage is the speed of your aircraft and the targeting for missiles and machine guns. Being close to the enemy allows the player to get a better lock on for missiles but also give the enemy a better chance to counter maneuver you. Most of these dog fights become very cinematic as planes are counter maneuvering each other trying to get lock on for missiles. I only tried one online match and I can tell you that it is crazy as there are usually about 6 planes locked on to each other back to back. Since the player doesn’t need to direct the aircraft when locked on, I was surprise to see some amazing enemy scripting as they take you through buildings and factories to out maneuver you. This got me interested to keep doing these dog fights in single player mode. I can see this dog fight mechanic getting old real quickly if it wasn’t for some shnazzy enemy scripting.

Oh and before I close this post, I have to say that the non-airplane parts are one of the most boring parts of the game. Especially the helicopter where you’re doing the same thing over for 20 minutes. It isn’t even a challenge at all and I hope there aren’t that many of those missions. I’m only 4 missions into the game so I guess we will see.

2012
04/12
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Currently Playing
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Not Worth Playing: Xmen Destiny / Shadows of the Dammed

 

This is going to be a two games in one post since I played one right after another. Surprisingly both were not worth my time to finish playing through it. I know Xmen had a bad review but I really wanted to play a superhero game for some reason. I was giving it a chance since it was developed by Silicon Knights but I guess I should have known after all the bad reviews and Too Human. However I wasn’t expecting Shadows to be bad but it wasn’t my type of game. And as you can tell from my previous posts, my range in games isn’t very limited.

I’ll start with Xmen. In the game, you are asked to pick between three different characters: the jock, the average white American, and a Japanese girl. Whoever you choose doesn’t affect what kind of powers you get later on. You get to choose those powers afterwards. Speaking of powers, the game does not give you any access to your powers until about an hour into the game. An hour! What kind of an Xmen game does not allow you to get your powers in the beginning? Or at least one power for me to use so I can at least feel like a superhero. You do get to see this amazing cutscene in the beginning of the game of your character using all the powers you’ll probably get throughout the game. I was stoked when I saw that video. I was thinking “Sweet I picked Nightcrawler’s powers so I should be teleporting everywhere with this!” Unfortunately, I don’t even think I have that power. I stuck with the game thinking that it will get better when I get my powers but it turned out to be some cheap powers that wasn’t in that amazing cutscene. I don’t know what Silicon Knights guys were doing when they created that cutscene but I don’t think you should be showing a cutscene like that and then not even give the player any of those powers. What’s worse is that as you’re going through the level, you see all the other Xmen and Brotherhood mutants using their powers. You get to see Ice Man sliding around in the air making ice walls. You get to see Quick Silver running super fast like the flash as he is attacking enemies. Whenever I saw that, I kept wondering why they wouldn’t let me play as them? They have all the assets already. Why couldn’t they just map some controls to those characters? I believe the game would be much better if they had allowed the players to choose or unlock the real mutants throughout the game.

The game would be better but it still wouldn’t be great. The graphics in the game looks like it could be a Wii or even a PS2 game. Textures are blurry and things still pop out and slow down occasionally. Even the character designs look boring. I don’t know how they could get Xmen character designs to look so boring but they really accomplished it. Another thing that really bothered me was how you couldn’t skip conversations. Even if you accidentally replay that conversation, you’re tasked to wait until they finish talking. Another thing you can’t skip is the camera walk through of the level. Normally in most games, as the level starts, the camera would walk the player through the level so that the player would know where the end point is. The camera walk through in this game, however, is so slow and you can’t even skip it. I feel like the developers were trying to extend my game times with these annoying bugs and it doesn’t make the game any better.

As for Shadows of the Dammed, I didn’t get to play that much. Everything is fine with the game except for it’s repetitiveness. You play as Garcia Hotspur and you’re trying to get your girlfriend back from a demon in hell. The conversations between Garcia and his demon pal Johnson are hilarious and I wish the game was more interesting enough for me to keep listening to their conversation. The game mostly revolves around darkness filling the room and the player being tasked with searching for a goat head to shoot at. I know it sounds weird but imagine doing that in every room. Also the game heavily relies on get key to open certain door mechanic. Even the HUD has three slots for the keys. When a game has slots in the HUD for the same keys to be used, you should be expecting to do this same mechanic a lot. Some times you may have the wrong key so you have to look for the other key. Sometimes you might have to use that wrong key in some way to find the right key. There aren’t many ways to go find a key and I believe I’ve seen all the ways this game has to offer. The shooting is okay too in this game. The aiming feels iffy and while there are settings to change this, I didn’t want to spend my time figuring it out. I wish the game wasn’t as repetitive as it was. Otherwise, I think it would have been one of those unique games that I finished.

So there you go, two games I haven’t finished and probably would not finish because I believe that they are not worth playing.

 

2012
04/10
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Not Worth Playing
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