This may be short because it’s pretty simple: Darksiders is a gamer’s game. It takes elements of God of War, Zelda, Soul Reaver, Metroid, Panzer Dragoon, Portal, and gives you an enjoyable experience. If you don’t like the game and call yourself a gamer…I just don’t get it. Let me break it down a bit.

The game’s main game-play element is God of War style action. The game world is centered around a hub-like structure, similar to the recent Wolfenstien. What some call dungeons, I call ‘levels’. There’s not a real over-world, so you use various checkpoints to go from level to level. Or travel on your own if you wish. Like Metroid, you gain items that let you progress. Sometimes you can go back to a previous area and get a hidden item that was out of reach. Upgrades are insane, which are allowed for your weapons, your other weapons, your health and armor, and special abilities. Boss battles are big and epic, and you get to ride a flaming horse. This game has it all.

What helps make this game-play fun is the world. The design of the characters are just awesome. I’m not knowledgeable on comic book artists, but Joe Mad is creative director on the game…which shines through more than most games with original IP. I mean, I want some action figures of these badasses! Especially Samael. The story is rather enjoyable as well. It’s a take on Christian mythology, which from the medium, hasn’t really been done much if at all (that’s usually a touchy subject in this age…How do you think the Greeks might have thought of God of War?). Voice-work is awesome too, which helps drive the story. Mark Hamill is in it, so, that’s always a plus.

Now, it isn’t without its faults. The only issues I really had with the game are very minor. The controls feel like they could have been tighter, although this is a development process that may take a few games before being refined. The controls are easy and fluid, but there is something there that sets it apart from, say, the controls of God of War. I also got pissed at jumps. Now, this may be a wireless controller lag issue, but a lot of times jumps would delay and I’d fall to my death. Again, this could be the hardware as I feel Left 4 Dead 2 suffers bad from lag, yet everyone and their Mom writes this game home as the be-all-end-all multiplayer game – that I don’t agree with.

I guess that’s getting beyond the point…but to the point: Any little issues are so minor (and no game is perfect) that this game does deserve a perfect score because it needs to be played. Cool thing is that this is a first time game from Vigil studios. That says a lot and I hope it means more titles in the future. They’re working on an MMO right now, which I don’t play anyway, but I’m sure something else will crop up. I need to add that seeing review scores for this game make me laugh. It’s getting high scores…but this is just a game that, despite any flaws, is just so fun that it needs no less than a perfect score. I would never tell a gamer to avoid this game. Like I said before, this is a gamer’s game. It encompasses everything that makes gaming fun, sets it on fire, slaps your face, and gives you an enema.

Conclusion: Buy it. If strapped of funds, rent or borrow. Stealing might be accepted as long as you’re not stealing it from a gamer playing it.

So…Lucky for me some games are released in Asia first. I think this game was made by a German Developer so it was released in the UK and parts of Asia before the US release. This also holds true for Risen, which I played before the fix came out. The first release was too dark to play.

Now for Divinity (D2), I have never played the original and never even heard of it. It may have came out in 2002 on the PC. The only reason I wanted to play this game is because I like RPGs and I saw I can turn into a dragon. AWESOME!!! Now even though I really enjoyed this game I will have to start with the CONs because these are what hit you in the face when you start playing. The game doesn’t really get enjoyable until you are a little deep into.

CONs
The graphics could be a hell of a lot better. They are decent but the cut scenes are PC port overs that have been dumbed down. The characters look decent. The world is huge and looks pretty vibrant but no where close to what Oblivion looked like. I will go on record to say this is one of the hardest games I have ever played. I think besides the graphics this will be the biggest drawback. Hard to the point you may want to stop playing. But since it takes you a while to get to the point where you can be a dragon, I played on. What makes it hard is you will come to certain areas where the baddies are a higher level than you but almost impossible to beat. And this happens a lot. You just need to do as many side missions as you can to level up. Now would be a good time for the PROs.

PROs
As I said do a lot of side quests. Luckily for us the side quests are awesome. Maybe even better than the main quests. 1 early example deals with adultery. before I get into that you are able to read people’s minds if you want to give up some experience points. It is usually a good thing to do. So some chick in a village asks you to give some other dude a letter. After reading her mind you find out she has been diddling this guy on the side. Now if you happen to find her husbands diary you discover she has done this before and he murdered the guy and buried him in his basement, but she doesn’t know. Before you go ahead you can open and read the letter if you want, against her wishes. Then you could deliver it to him OR you can bring it to the husband. I brought it to the husband. He got very angry, but then I told him I read his diary and I know he killed a guy. I threatened to turn him in, he got upset….so….I killed him. Then I delivered the opened letter which the guy was upset that it was opened, but I lied and said it was like that when I got it.

So you can see I could have tackled this small side quest and many different ways. That’s what makes it so fun. And before I finish I will add that the levels are not just horizontal but also very vertical. Which comes in handy as a dragon.

So if you want a hard RPG that plays similar to Baulder’s Gate and you don’t care about graphics, you should pick up this game.

Ok everybody…Modern Warfare 2 is here! Rejoice! But wait…maybe the “Game of the Year” already came out! You’re probably saying, “No way Chad….can’t be”. I will say, “Oh yes….can be!” Dragon Age: Origins may be the game. For me, at least, it just might be. Bioware has done it again. I first played a Bioware game when Baulder’s Gate came out on the PS2. Before that game I had never really played “those” type of games. Dungeon crawlers, is what they are called I think. That was a great 4 player co-op game. I did not know who Bioware was at the time. The 2nd one came out, Dark Alliance, I think? Same ol’ greatness. Then I played KOTOR….jaw droppingly awesome. Bioware was now on my radar. Then Mass Effect…which I think is one of the best games of all time, for that type of game, at least. So now comes Dragon Age: Origins, which I didn’t know anything about before I played it. I mean like ZERO PERCENT. I mean its Bioware…when have they went wrong? Even that Sonic game they did on the DS was Awesome. So let me get to it.
I literally could write a novel about this game and be nowhere near being able to describe it completely, so bare with me. You can probably guess when the game takes place. It takes place in the future when robots have taken over right? Nope! It’s the dragon age. From the beginning you get to pick your character type. Male or female mixed with your choice of warrior, rogue, mage, dwarf. The basics. Pick how they look and also their basic starting attributes and spells or abilities. Now the awesome thing is every class has their own origin story. A set of missions and characters solely based on their beginnings. Now they will all spearhead towards the main goal, but just start from different vantage points. I started as a human warrior of course whose noble parents were betrayed by someone who wants control of the kingdom while at the same time the Darkspawn wage war across the land. My girlfriend also started from the same class. Even though we had the same origins each of our games played completely different.
Let’s get to the basic game play elements. Assume KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Baulder’s Gate had a baby. This would be the baby. You fight like KOTOR. You can mash at the attack button, but one simple press and they will keep attacking until you change it. Your basic attack is the A button while you can map up to 6 spells/abilities/potions/skills on X, Y, and B. Pressing the RT swaps 3 for the other 3. Easy for the quick go to, or you could hold the LT and everything freezes and allows you to manage and pick everything from a radial menu. In this menu you can also pick how you want to map your abilities on your buttons. Now if you really want to manage your character just hit the back button and you get the “Baulder’s Gate” character screen we all know and love.
As for the characters, you can walk around with up to 4 people at once. These are people you met along the way and maybe you helped them previously and now they are returning the favor. As of now I have almost 10 I think, while my girlfriend ended with just 4 (she was quite angry that I had more people than her). Now you can switch between your people very easily by hitting the RB or LB button. The great part about it is the tactics slots you unlock for every character so you can basically control what you want them to do in any situation without controlling them. At first I didn’t bother with this but then I found it to be essential. Especially in the almost impossible boss battles. You can also build relationships with your members by chatting with them, completing missions to their likings, or just giving them a gift. I even got to have sex with my evil mage girl. Luckily she didn’t want to build a real relationship. The game even rewards you by building these relationships. The players get special skills, and they might even give you something.
I wasn’t going to add a con section but I felt I should at least write a couple. Graphically I wasn’t impressed at first. It is probably because there is also a PC version. But I got over that quick. And just one more complaint sometimes the combat gets annoying when it comes to sword fighting since hitting a button starts the action and doesn’t do the action. Sometimes I would go for a swing and my character would walk around the guy first or just get confused about which guy I want to attack.
Now I want to talk about the story and other missions but I feel I loaded this up already. So maybe I will continue this review another time. I just wanted to give you some feedback on this game everyone should be trying. It is a fantastic game that should be played by all, especially the hardcore gamers because this game can be very hard. One of the hardest games I played in a while. And it is sad because my brothers won’t play this game because they might have to listen to someone talk or even read something. God forbid you might have to play a game with reading!

Alright, first off this game didn’t catch my radar early on so I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into before its release. My brothers told me about it, and said it was a first person shooter RPG. Since those don’t usually go together and I love both, I was excited. After sliding the loaded CD tray in I was ready to go. I will go on record to say I was the 1st Bluegamer to play this game, although they might add they got to level 50 before me (sorry I have a life…just kidding). Actually, I’ve been addicted to another game, but I will get into that on another post.

Ok…I remember starting this game and just saying out loud, “This game was made for me”. You start out shooting guys with all your level 1 weapons and watching little numbers bleed out of them as they yell things like “meat bag” at you. The writers must have watched Surrogates. I will say it was a little annoying waiting to reach a level where I can use my special skill or my car. Before I go on, you can choose between 4 different classes. A big brute of a dude, a little skinny sword dude (Hunter), some girl that according to my brother goes in different dimensions (maybe the same dimension my girl friend goes to once a month for a week), and finally my chosen one THE SOLDIER! Why did I pick the soldier? Don’t you remember I like to shoot things? He also has a gun turret!

Most missions were find this, find that, kill that, kill that and get the thing it had, flip switches, and finally bosses (but I guess we can put that under “kill that”). Sound repetitious? It’s not, because you’re having a blast killing and leveling up. Not only do you level your man (lady) up, you level your special skill up, and also your weapons. As for weapons you get revolvers, assault rifles, sub-machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, and alien gun thingies. I usually used the assault rifles so I was pretty bad ass with them. You find so many weapons in this game it is simply crazy. Some weapons even have nice little elemental affects, so you might melt or burn people? You also have grenades and shields, and you will find all types of mods for those. I can go on and on about this portion of the game but I will leave some for you to explore.

Next on the list…..single VS multiplayer. Single player is fun. It is easier to kill things (most of the time). And you can really feel like you found that bad ass weapon you want to brag to your friends about. But the game gets really interesting when you have more players. Baddies are harder to kill, your weapons aren’t as bad ass as you thought, and you might actually have to implement some strategy. Don’t worry If you’re a lower level than your friend, because you will level up quick. Also you can battle in arenas or just outside dueling with a buddy, but this is better when you’re at the same skill level. And now here goes the only complaint I can think of. So Gearbox (is that their name?) made this 4 player game, and you have cars to drive in. So obviously we should all be able to ride in a car….right? WRONG! Now, one can argue and say, “But Chad, You can spawn 2 cars at a time and ride 2 and 2”. Excellent Billy….good shot. But I will retort with, “But why am I fighting other guys in cars that are just like mine, but they have 2 other guys hanging off the side making it a 4 person ride?” And yeah, I end up winning that argument.

Lastly and shortly, buy the game! You can easily get about a 50 hour double play through just maxing one guy out. Then you also have other characters to try that with that will add a whole new dimension to how you play the game. Enjoy!

     So this site really doesn’t get any love for sports games. I might be the only brother Blue who is somewhat into these games. So I feel the need to talk about NBA 2k10. I have always loved basketball games. The old NBA Lives, NBA Jams and so on. But I have never been into one so much as NBA 2k10. This is the first basketball game I have actually played a full season of. Usually I just go to the options and shorten it to a 16 game season, but this time I left it on the grueling 60+ game season. Now why would I do this you ask? Read paragraph 2 and I will let you know!
     My Player mode is the new thing for this game. This makes your NBA game play like an RPG. You customize everything about your character. EVERYTHING! Even more so than an actual RPG. How he looks, plays, stats, name, hometown, college, and even a nickname. All this info will even be used by the announcers during the game. You start off in a summer league and if your good enough you might get asked to be on a training camp. Depending how you do in this training camp they will ask you to join the team or if you suck you will go to the D-League. You will do drills to raise your stats and you will get ranked each game to raise your stats. The skills page to build your character is huge…OMG that’s what she said HUGE!

     During a game you are playing you. You only control you. Sometimes the coach benches you if you suck so be on your A game. I have spent well over 50 hours playing this one mode. The one of many I might add. So if your into playing a basketball game…this is the best out there. I also have NBA Live 10, and 2k is a couple notches better than that one. Play this game…if you like basketball…buy this game. I could go on and on about more features this game has available but it isn’t necessary. My Player Mode is where it’s at!

Back when Gearbox first announced Borderlands, I liked the look of the graphics and the idea of modifying your weapon how ever you want against the countless combinations. Well, as it turns out I was wrong about the assumption (I wasn’t the only one) with the weapons. The idea would have been cool, but you cannot modify and customize your weapons. Then after some development time, they change the graphics to a cell shaded cartoony look. I was not impressed. But, because of the hype it was receiving, I figured I’d give it a go anyway. I mean, Gearbox has never let me down. And because of the earlier release date, I got the 360 version…and because both Sean and Chad would have that version.

After getting into the game, I realized this is Diablo as an FPS. You mainly kill the same enemies over and over again that are near or at your level, and you collect a plethora of items. Guns, guns, guns, and guns. I guess the game becomes a ‘gun hunter’. You have four classes to choose from, and from their you upgrade certain abilities to your needs. Want to go tank, healing, or a little of both? And with that, each character class has a unique ability that goes along with the upgrades. While doing all of this you have the exact same controls as Call of Duty. Smart move, in my opinion as they are fantastic controls. You can also warp between points so traversing across large areas doesn’t get too boring. There’s a lot of land to cover here, so the addition is welcome. Vehicles are available as well. They can be fitted with a rocket launcher or chaingun, can also be ridden by baddies, and allow for a co-op partner to ride in. Speaking of co-op, the game allows for four players at once to go through the entire game. This for some is the greatest thing ever, while for others, not so much.

The story here is really…nothing. You’re supposed to find an alien vault. And…sometimes someone talks to you about it. And…someone else is trying to get to it. Early game, some people you meet had cool little artsy intros that just seemed to disappear over time. And it didn’t make sense how some minor characters had this, and majors didn’t. I mean, I guess story isn’t a big deal when you’re having so much fun with the gameplay. The one redeeming quality to the story is hearing the journals you’ll collect throughout the game. It has some of the best dialog I’ve ever heard. It’s hilarious! And that goes with some of the other dialog too. It’s all pretty witty and well written. Now if there was just a deep story or mythology to go with it…

You can play this game by yourself or with three other people. The game in co-op is supposed to be harder and better loot is to be found. I personally found better loot when soloing…and sometimes had a better time. Soloing, you really get to know how powerful your weapon is. In co-op, it’s more about how many people you have flanking the enemy. When soloing, I get to go at my own pace and use better loot management strategy. When in co-op, you may play with someone that doesn’t share loot, doesn’t tell you when they find anything, or they keep everything for them self to sell later on. Luckily though, xp and money is shared with the whole party.

There’s really not a whole lot more to say to describe this game. It’s all pretty basic. A diablo style FPS. And as basic as it is, and as turned off as I was initially, I realized this basic gameplay is what makes it fun. But are there any problems with it? In a way, yes. It just felt like things were missing. First, like I mentioned before, story. Being on an alien planet with so much land and so many possibilities, I was hoping for a whole new mythology to get into. But there’s nothing here. There are some neat things hinted at, but I wish for more immersion in this world. At times I’d also compare the world to Zelda: OoT…but then feel there’s too much missing to be that immersed. It was the one area where I think the game lacked. Enemies didn’t have much variety and the world looked to similar. The last two aren’t huge, but it is noticeable.

There’s really not much else to say. This game is fun. I got to lvl 50, almost done with my second play through, and started up the other classes (well, for achievements..but I do plan on playing them more). I think I played ~52 hours. Even with it lacking atmosphere and immersion, I’d say it’s so fun that it could be GoTY. And there’s reason to keep up with your character considering the DLC that could be coming out. We already know of one, Zed’s zombie island, but I hope there’s more and that it’s well worth it.

In the end, I say this is a game to buy. Even someone like me, who only gets into Diablo style games 50% of the time, this one is just fun.

If I started by telling you that Dead Space: Extraction is an M-rated, on-rails shooter for the Wii, you’d pretty much just ignore it and move on. Some may even talk bad about it before even playing it. So let’s pretend this first paragraph didn’t happen and read the rest of the review as if it’s some Dead Space game – a prequel to a game I assume you love. Only a handful of people didn’t like the original.

Dead Space: Extraction is a prequel to Dead Space, and starts of on the planet when the marker is first found. As you know from Dead Space, a possible alien artifact was found that may or may not have had powers to make people go crazy and create zombies. Sounds awesome, huh? The game plays out as a first-person movie. With much voice-acting, character interaction, and story elements that are more than enough to pull you in. This perspective rivaled Uncharted 2’s story for me, personally. As the story progresses, obviously the shit hits the fan. It does a good job of answering the questions brought about by the first game, and seeing the familiar (and haunting) locales is even more exhilarating.

Once the shit hits the fan – or blood, it literally looks like blood has hit a fan – the game seamlessly gives you control to shoot oncoming enemies. To keep the cinematic approach, you can only control your characters ‘arms’. You are being moved by the game for story purposes, but you have the ability to shoot wherever, use stasis, and use your gravity beam. This is where some people may be turned away at first, but even on-rails, this game is highly imerssive and requires a great deal of skill. As the game world moves you around, enemies pop out which of course you have to take down. Like the previous Dead Space, the most effective way to do this is to shoot at the limbs. This way, you can keep them back as many swarm at you. This is where skill comes in, as you have to be able to aim correctly and in a timely manner. To help you out, you have stasis which slows down enemies to buy you time. The game also offers a plethora of weapons to take out enemies.

As you play, many items will be visible around you. But you have to be quick to use your gravity beam and grab the items. These items can be health, ammo, guns, and upgrades. Upgrades make your weapons much more powerful and really help you. Each weapon has four possible upgrades and there are more than four guns, as you can only hold four at a time – so I don’t have an exact count…maybe eight? By completing the mission with good accuracy and many collected items, you can also upgrade your Rig suit, so that gives you another reason to play skillfully – it will help to have more health/resistance later on! All of this is what gives the game much replay value. In addition to co-op, playing through to collect items you’ve missed or select different paths, is just a number of reasons to play over again.

The controls here work great. I use the wiimote in a Nerf Blaster in one hand, and a nun-chuck in the other. You obviously shoot with the wiimote, but also shake in dark areas to activate your glow-worm. The nun-chuck allows for gravity beam, stasis, weapon selection with analog, and shack-to-reload. It also uses a Gears of War style reload mechanic. Shake, then shoot when the reload bar hits a specific area. This helps with quick reloading when fighting enemies – a must. You can also use mele attacks by pointing the wiimote outside of the screen and swiping the nun-chuck. This helps when breaking through barriers or knocking back enemies that have jumped on you.

The graphics are also very well-done for the Wii. While HD is obviously absent, it looks like the original Dead Space was taken, and HD was removed. Models look the same, animations are spot on, but there’s just a hint of jaggedy-bluriness that the Wii is known for. I even think the character models – especially faces – are some of the best around. While this is the one negative thing to say about the game, it does not change the gameplay and can not be faulted to the developer. They did great with what they can on the Wii.

With the many characters also comes the voice-acting. There’s a lot of talk the whole time. Like I said, this plays like an action movie. You get to know and learn about the characters, and the best way to express that is through the voice acting. While not movie quality, it’s actually the standard style found in games. So not horrendous, but hilarity is found. Again it helps move the story forward, which is amazing. Other sounds throughout are from the original Dead Space, which is unique and makes it easy to nail this as a Dead Space game.

In the end, you should definitely play this game. Because of the replay value, I say it’s worth a buy. Especially with co-op! If you are just strapped of funds, find a way to play this. Not only can I not wait for the real Dead Space sequel, but I want another Dead Space: Extraction.

I’m going to be honest – I’ve never played a Tim Schafer game through entirely. They were fun, but too wordy and story driven for my tastes. But that’s just my preference because that style of gaming is popular. I mean, heck, I don’t even like RPGs. But Brutal Legend stood out because of the setting. Metal. My favorite bands are Judas Priest and Iron Maiden (sadly absent from the game), and I even play drums/guitar while Sean and I are working on a metal album. So it was very easy to get me hooked.

Watching previews and playing the demo, the game looked to be a 3rd person action/adventure title. Now that I have the full game, I’ll call it a 3rd person real-time action/adventure/strategy. The RTS elements in the game are pretty badass. But because there is emphasis on the hand to hand combat, it’s not a full-blown RTS, and commanding of the units is pretty easy. You never have to send them out separately. You are more or less babying a group of fighters to go along with you. You have the option of using double-team abilities with all the units that will only help you in battle, and you can play solos that help out to, by either killing enemies or strengthening your troops.

The main singleplayer campaign is an open world game that have stage-battle missions that then bring in the RTS elements. Other than that, you are exploring to expand on the story, finding items throughout the world, and doing side-missions. The story is great as it is about metal, and features some of the coolest voices of the genre, specifically, Rob Halford. I would have hoped for some Maiden, but my belief is since Maiden and Osbourne have some issues, Maiden didn’t want to be part of a project that featured Ozzy as a big character. On a personal level, and as huge Maiden fan, the Ozzy camp have been real pricks, so I can understand in a way why the Maiden camp just steers clear. But unfortunately by doing so, Maiden is turning their backs on their fans. The official maiden boards even include a video games forum! …and no one is even talking about the game. Fortunately though, Tim went as far as naming the main character Eddie Riggs. A big time nod to Maiden fans.

So with the story, all elements of the metal culture are given some sort of explanation, which plays out both awesome and humorously. It makes sense. But I have to wonder, will you get it if you don’t care for metal? Well, as a 3rd person brawler, the fighting is pretty goof, but I feel the controls could be tighter. The idea of busting out your guitar for rhythm-game style solos is an awesome addition. And having a car to drive around and blow up shit is also entertaining. As you explore, there are many things to activate/collect/find which gives you points you can use to upgrade almost every aspect of the game. Guitar, axe, gun, and car. And as far as the RTS elements, I’m sure RTS fans would have fun with the multiplayer. I’m sure if the game was marketed as an RTS and you expected that, you might possibly still be impressed, but the elitists would cry.

As for graphics, things here are pretty simple but ooze with style. Again, it’s all based around the metal culture and makes sense. I personally love the style of the baddies. They are the black/death metal style, as you can hear that music in the background. Their look is really just terrifying to me. Traveling around in their part of the world gave me the chills, so I went back to make sure I was fully upgraded first. The main villain, Doviculus, just looks fucking awesome. I want an action figure STAT! But to go back on the negative points, this does look like something you can play on the PS2. Even though graphics aren’t everything, people still complain.

With the sound, you got some fun voice acting to go along with the characters. It’s much more cartoony than realistic, and jack Black delivers as Eddie. The soundtrack is brutal. Not a lot of metal that I like, but the Priest choices are spot-on, and hearing 3 Inches of Blood in a game like this works. As Priest is a favorite band of mine, I like metal in the style of Liege Lord or Attacker. Both are similar to Priest/Maiden. Check them out.

Shortly after the game was released, Tim posted some strategies on Double Fine’s site:

Some people find it hard to split up the army and give individual orders to individual troops. This is kinda true, mostly because you shouldn’t be doing it! That’s how you play an RTS game, not how you should play Brütal Legend. True, there are times where you might want to split your army, but it’s not common. I play complete Stage Battles most of the time without issuing a single Individual order. Your army is most effective when it’s together. The AI automatically groups your warriors into battle formations where the troops support each other. Many of the units buff or heal each other. When they are together they can all be enhanced with a single Battle Cry (or other buffing) solo. And when they are all together and you are in the middle of them, that is when you have the greatest number of options for Double Team attacks.

Tim is right (well, he made the game…). You can go about as if it’s not an RTS, and it’s much easier. By thinking of it as an RTS, I did lose some battles. Once I understood it’s really about fighting with your army, it became clear. You don’t send guys out to different locations, you don’t sit back and plan where to put what. You get a good amount of dudes, send them out, and then jump in, taking advantage of the many abilities provided. By doing this, I tore up a stage battle that made my previous attempt look very, very sad.

Tycho from Penny-Arcade then posted this:

This is a statement I honestly don’t understand. Much of the game (and the entirety of the multiplayer) is self-evidently an RTS, and one must engage in real-time strategy battles in order to progress though the body of the campaign. The fact that the game is also many other things, perhaps too many things simultaneously, doesn’t alter the fact. And you can’t really blame people for playing the game as an RTS when that’s explicitly how you taught them to play it.

I see where Tycho is coming from because he is a hardcore gamer who has played many RTS’s in the past. As a console game with a wide market appeal, many, many non-hardcore gamers will play this. Most, have not played an RTS. They go into battle going by what the game tells them and without a background knowledge of what to do in an RTS, and they will do a lot better.

I love rhythm games, but I don’t want to play a rhythm game while I’m playing an RTS while I’m playing a third person action game. In the middle of RTS battles, some basic commands require wyldde soloz to be rocked via a timing mechanism, which serves Brutal Legend’s theme but not its gameplay, and that’s the problem here in general. Brutal Legend is like a spoiled child, afforded every luxury, but grown wild in in the absence of discipline.

Again, he misses the point. Doing a solo is just another way to perform an ability of some sort among your army. By doing the solo wrong, you don’t activate that ability. This is no different than a button combo that will activate an attack or spell. Plus…it’s simple and adds to the setting.

I can see if you don’t care for metal and love RTS’s, you might have a hard time with this. But with my love for metal, I was able to overlook what seemed to be an RTS sneak-attack, and was able to play the game for what it is. If you love metal, play this game asap. It’s worth the $60 if you can swing it. If you don’t care for metal, you might just want to try it out. And if not now, some time soon. It doesn’t do anything amazing for those not into metal, but the stage battles are a little different and may interest those who want a little bit of strategy in their brawling.

I bought the PS3 originally for Uncharted, and it did not disappoint. I still consider it the best game of this gaming generation. I guess you can say that would be hard to beat a second time around, wouldn’t you say? Uncharted 2 lives up to the hype, but if you can be as awesome as possible, it’s hard to be any awesomer. That’s Uncharted 2. Oh, and minor spoilers below. Nothing drastic though, because as you will find out, there’s not much to spoil.

The graphics are still as good as the first Uncharted, which is saying a lot. I do believe Batman: Arkham Asylum now holds that title though. One thing though that I notice on PS3 games are rough edges. Most people (including Sean) call me crazy, but look at both Killzone 2 and Uncharted 2, and while the graphics are fucking incredible, there’s no anti-aliasing (or something else that creates that blurred/rough edge look)! This can be debated for some time, but bottom line is I can tell if a game is a PS3 game because of this. And while it’s present here in Uncharted, Uncharted still looks great. The colors are what really stand out for me.

The gameplay is another unchanged element. You have your platforming, shooting, and mele combat. Nothing more to see here. I think now you have more stealth moves than the original, which is actually fun to use if you want to get by all the enemies without them noticing you. The sound is top-notch too. DTS has never sounded better, especially with character chatter going on around you. The character dialog is great; voice-acting is superb and the story is wonderful. Though, as good as the story is, it’s not as good as the first, and not as exciting. I guess I let myself down by hoping for a twist, but IMO, there’s not much of a twist here. It’s more like, ‘we’re going to do this’, ‘ok we’re here’, ’stop bad guys’, ‘ok we’re done’. Yeah.

One complaint I had in the game had to do with movement. For some reason all of this only became an issue during the second half of the game, but it was frustrating. Jumping around to find ledges, what looked like ledges weren’t. But, they were if you were supposed to use it. This made the game too linear when it gave the impression of not being. Even if it didn’t get me to somewhere in the end, I would have liked to be able to climb around. One time I saw a treasure piece on the side of a wall that was against a lake. Now, this lake is dangerous and one touch takes away the ability to swim. I had two options, from what I could see: Climb up the wall from the back side, or drop down onto the hanging ledge above the water. Because too many times in the game I grabbed ledges when I was really trying to jump down. So, I decide to drop, but that section did not allow me to grab the edge, so I fall into the magical water. That kind of ruined the immersion of the world for me. Also be sure to stay away from your invincible AI buddies. Since they know they are immortal, they kind of forgot you’re not. So when a grenade gets thrown at you and you try to dodge away, you’ll run into their immortal wall-hard bodies and get blowed up. They then scream as if they are shocked you died from a grenade blast.

Those complaints made the end half feel a bit unpolished. I didn’t remember having this problem with the first game, and that along with the weak story makes this just as awesome as the first, but not better. Maybe it’s hard to make a better game? They added some fun multiplayer, which consists of capture-the-treasure or deathmatch. With the controls and platforming, it really does become a lot of fun. You are awarded with cash along the way to buy upgrades which adds some re-playability to the game.

In the end, this game is a must-play. Immediately. The multiplayer is good enough to consider this a purchase, but if not, rent or borrow now.

The following reviews are from the 360 version of the game.

Adam:

This is a fun Dual Review to do with my older brother Chad. We did a lot of PC gaming back in the day especially Wolfenstein 3D. Now, FPS’s can be considered generic if it isn’t for some gameplay variant to spice things up. Although, fighting Nazis doesn’t really get old, especially throwing in the whole sci-fi steam-punk atmosphere to it. Wolfenstein is really that: Nazis, Sci-Fi, with a little twist on gameplay.

I don’t know how long it took me to complete the game, but I did get an achievement for completing it for under 12 hours. I also started on Hard, as I tend to do this to try and get the most out of a game. Sometimes it can be so hard that it’s not worth it, but we’ll get back to that later. The basic gameplay of Wolf revolves around your normal FPS’s action, but set in a hub-world filled with various levels to complete. A usual level is completed by going through it, then back to the city. It’s pretty neat to travel through a level like that, as most FPS’s don’t do it, and it requires the gameplay to be fun even in the other direction. It also screams co-op, but that’s another point I’ll get to later.

Along with the level design, which is great by the way, is the added veil gameplay. You get a medallion that allows you to activate a veil, which then allows you to view another dimension (doorways, secrets, etc). This medallion also allows the player to enable greater damage, a shield, or time manipulation, which I found to be useful the whole way through. You can also upgrade your weapons in the black market, which is a fun way to keep weapons fresh. Although, I didn’t come across too many during my first play-through, and when I needed to get back, I came across many difficult enemies in the hub world.

Back to the level design; each level is unique in look and gameplay. It keeps things interesting, especially when most require you to trek back to the beginning to get to the city. This is where co-op would be excellent. Flanking of enemies could certainly be achieved, as well as each player using certain weapons/abilities to get tasks done much more efficiently. Also there are many hidden items in the game, and splitting up to find this would be fun. I guess I can’t knock the game for not including it, but it would be a real co-op experience rather than what most people consider fun ‘co-op’ – point A to B; boring in my opinion.

Also, playing on Hard, the difficulty ramped up quite a bit. Especially at the end, the last boss was a pain. I did change to normal in order to beat him, although it warned me I wouldn’t get the Hard/Uber achievement. But fortunately for me, after dying again, I never switched back to Normal, so I did complete the last boss on Hard. While I said it was a pain, the last boss was fun as hell! I really don’t want to spoil too much about it, but there’s a lot to it and you take advantage of all gameplay elements.

A favorite part of the game I want to share was when I entered a room that was filled with many, many enemies. I pulled out my fully upgraded tesla gun, and just ran around shocking the heck out of everyone. Now, if I didn’t fully upgrade my tesla gun, how would I have done it then? That’s what is cool about this game, as upgrading paths can lead to different gameplay experiences.

As for graphics, they were decent. Nothing incredible at all, but oddly, I played the PC version at QuakeCon and found the graphics to be awesome. So I’m guessing the more recent hardware capabilities combined with higher resolutions really show how this game looks on PC.

As for multiplayer deathmatch, I didn’t try it. I really don’t care. I played Wolfenstein for the singleplayer, and really enjoyed it. I can say this game is worth buying. If you’re on a budget, rent it or borrow it now. If on GameFly, put it at the top of your GameQ. Even though Raven did a great job, it’s interesting to see how the next title will fare being developed internally at id Software.

Chad:

Hello everyone. This is my first official review for Blue Gamer. I will be reviewing Wolfenstein, and I will add I’m writing this review, just hours after receiving an email from raptr.com saying my brother Adam now has more achievement points than me for this game. At this point I wish there was a medal or award saying “I beat it first….nanananana boo boo”. Besides that I’m happy to let everyone know my thoughts on this Nazi killing frenzy of a game.

First and foremost, thank you for making this game! I loved killing Nazis since the first Wolfenstein and I’m glad to do it again. I’m not sure but I don’t think any gamers encountered a Wolfenstein game since Return to Castle Wolfestein on the original XBOX. Someone tell me if I’m wrong. Although I played that game I have no recollection of it what so ever. So I was super excited for this new adventure. I must say my first impressions were not so good. I didn’t like my slow clunky gun I started with and I was even unsure of the look of the game. Lucky for me these impressions took a complete 180 about the second or so level. What was good about the game was when I finished that first beginners’ level I got to the main city, which sort of becomes your hub or base. In this city you meet people with a similar cause and they end up selling you upgrades for your weapons and giving you missions to complete. Once I started upgrading my weapons I learned why my gun seemed a little slow and clunky. My machine guns quickly became the perfect weapons to turn these Hitler hungry doo dahs into swiss cheese.

Now besides all the weapons you are armed to the teeth with (including rocket launchers and some sort of futuristic kill everything in the area weapons), you have something called the Veil. This is an artifact the Nazi’s and your allies are either after or already have. Now you slowly upgrade this four function device into a little helper that you will sometimes rely on to beat the game. One function slows down time, another helps you find secrets, one gives you a shield, and the other makes your weapons pierce shields and other cover/armor. Now although this artifact kind of follows along with the story, I found it to be rather pointless and wished they would have thought of something else to twist up the game play.

As far as cons, besides the artifact, the awesome little central hub of a city can be quite torturous at times. I had a problem locating all of the black market upgrade areas. I was forced to return to the first one I discovered, which was sometimes a painful task to complete. One reason is this city does have baddies scattered about, and as you progress through the game, the enemies here become bigger badder and tougher. I found myself dying sometimes in the supposed home base of operations. Also I wished to play the multiplayer, but since I reside in South Korea and the times are opposite here, I never found any games. Note that I only tried it once and I was impatient. The only first person shooter Koreans play, are games like Sudden Attack on the PC.

My final thoughts are if you either enjoy FPS or you are a fan of the Wolfenstein series…PLAY THIS GAME. You could buy it, Game Fly it, borrow it, but whatever you do you should play through it. Me personally…I would buy it. And I would have if I wasn’t magically blessed by the gaming gods already. You will enjoy the level design, guns, Nazi screams, boss battles and if you enjoy 2nd playthroughs there are tons of things hidden throughout the game. My score out of 10, 10 being the highest is……just forget numbers and PLAY IT!