Game Weapons

March 26th, 2012 | Posted by Ian

Having gone through a number of changes throughout the long, colorful history filled with many sequels and iterations, the Mortal Kombat series has provided a great way to let loose and have a violent, bloody good time, literally.  If you asked Mortal Kombat fans which game in the series was their favorite, most of them will probably answer with Mortal Kombat 3, with the reasons usually involving the lack of complex fighting styles, game weapons, 3D movements and other features that were not so well received by fans.  The game developers, Midway Entertainment (who has since changed their name to XXXXXXXXXX), have listened to these fans and decided to release Mortal Kombat in late 2011, which is known unofficially as Mortal Kombat 9.

Story

Since this is a fighting game, the story isn’t really important.  In an effort to tie in all of the previous Mortal Kombat games, the developers got together and apparently spent their coffee break trying to come up with a feasible plot.  The result?  STORY STORY STORY STORY STORY

Gameplay

The newest Mortal Kombat game can best be thought of as a very updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.  The 2D side view is back, but the characters and levels are modeled in 3D, and look amazing.  Each character is highly detailed, and after taking too many hits, your character will start to look bloodied and battered, and their clothes and armor will start to break, tear and rip.

Speaking of characters and levels, all of the fan favorites are making a return.  Some of the levels in Mortal Kombat include the Subway, Rooftop, City, and Temple.  Characters include the classics such as Scorpion, Subzero, Cyrax, Sektor, Jax, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Reptile, Ermac, Rain, Noob Saibot, Kitana, Mileena, Sindel, and so many more.  Lucky Playstation 3 owners will be able to play as Kratos from the God of War video game series, and he comes with his own stage.

Being a fighting game, the most important part of the game is of course the fighting.  Mortal Kombat fans will be pleased, and even non-Mortal Kombat fans will be certain to convert.  The combat is fast paced, frantic, and yet strangely calculated.  Some games are too slow, such as Soul Caliber and Tekken, while others are too fast, like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but Mortal Kombat got it right in the middle.  Whether or not you memorize the many combos available to each character, you can pound on the enemy as fast as you can think, and you are able to attack immediately after attacking.

A new addition to the game is the ability to play 2 versus 2 in a tag team battle.  My personal favorite combination is Scorpion and Sektor.  Catching an enemy off guard with Scorpion’s spear and then assaulting them with a huge combo that leads into Sektor finishing them off with his own combo in one seamless stream definitely satisfies a player’s thirst for blood.

Conclusion

All in all, Mortal Kombat is entertaining enough to buy, especially considering that you can go online to battle with everyone else in the world once you have perfected your favorite characters.  The game feels fast and fluid, with no lag, and the characters all have their own unique fighting styles.  The game is definitely a great way to pay homage to the previous Mortal Kombat games that helped shape an entire generation of fighting games, and I highly recommend that you pick up a copy for yourself.

March 26th, 2012 | Posted by Ian

Battlefield 3, the 2011 follow-up to Electronic Art’s smash hit Battlefield 2: Bad Company, was created with the (seemingly) simple task of competing directly with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which was released around the same time.  EA publically boasted that their newest Battlefield game would be far superior to Modern Warfare 3, and looked down on anyone who preferred Modern Warfare 3.  Do these claims hold any truth to them, or is EA just blowing smoke?  I spent a few weeks playing Battlefield 3 on the Playstation 3 and PC, and here are my thoughts.

Story

The story told in Battlefield 3 is just like anything else you’d expect from a first person shooter.  Once again the main story takes place around Iran and Iraq, though there are a few missions that take you to Paris or America.  You will get a chance to play as several different protagonists, and in a pleasant twist, some of them actually die, which has a tragic, more personal element rarely seen in other shooters.

Gameplay

The gameplay is what truly sets Battlefield 3 apart from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.  Aside from the many different game weapons available, there is a lot of fun to be had on the absolutely massive multiplayer maps.   The maps are so big because the game will allow teams of up to 32 players battle each other, though if you have the PC version you are treated to 64 player teams, allowing for 128 player war scenes that Modern Warfare doesn’t even come close to touching.

One of the best things about this game is the emphasis on vehicular combat.  You will be able to pilot tanks, jeeps, small and large boats, and –best of all–  you can pilot fighter jets.  No other game will give you the satisfaction of gunning down some enemies on foot, boarding a fighter jet, and engaging in some dogfights high in the sky.  On the PC version, because the maps are bigger, you will also have more airspace for aerial battles.

The only thing that I didn’t really enjoy about Battlefield 3 is how quickly you are gunned down, and how hard it can be to survive on a map full of snipers.  In Call of Duty, you can usually take a spray of bullets or two and escape without dying, but in Battlefield 3 a spray of bullets could be enough to kill you and your comrade that was standing next to you.  This might mean long waiting times for bad players who will see more of the respawn screen than the actual game.

The last gameplay mechanic to note here is that the bullets are actually individually rendered.  This means that if an enemy is running, you should aim ahead of him instead of at him, and gauge the distance correctly.  With snipers it becomes even harder, yet more satisfying when you do get a kill, to land the perfect headshot.  You have to take into account the wind speed and direction, the weather, gravity, and your enemy’s movement speed and direction.

Graphics

Battlefield 3′s visual effects provide everything that Modern Warfare 3 does, and dare I say, goes above and beyond what its rival offers.  The details are so sharp that you are easily able to spot an enemy in the far distance and pick him off with your sniper (if you are skilled enough, that is!), and the environments are lush, vividly colored and vibrant.  The water effects are spectacular, and I found myself swimming more often than piloting a boat just to get another chance to take a closer peek at the water.

Conclusion

It sure doesn’t provide the same experience as Modern Warfare 3 for many reasons, including the vehicular combat, the realistic bullets and shooting, the gigantic multiplayer maps and teams, and the emphasis on fighting the enemy as a team.  Battlefield 3 is certainly more realistic than MW3, and piloting a jet fighter gives you a sense of being awesome unlike most other first person shooters on the market.  If you love team based gameplay, brilliantly designed maps, and just want to get a new shooting game that doesn’t take place in space or involve World War II, then this is the game for you.

March 26th, 2012 | Posted by Ian

Assassin’s Creed Revelations is finally here, and is the thrilling fourth installment in Ubisoft’s crazy historical action/stealth game. Personally, I never thought I’d like this game back when the first one came out, but I played it and it took me until I beat the game to realize how enveloped I was. Assassin’s Creed as a whole is amazing, and certainly has a historical feel to it, with the architecture beautifully representing whatever setting Ubisoft decides to throw you at. This specific game received a solid 8.0 from many reviewers and I stand behind that review 100%.

Gameplay

Revelations features many changes to the core gameplay, and this is certainly welcomed by all players. I won’t spoil the story but the game has you meeting historical figures and participating in the life of Altaïr Ibn-La‘Ahad, Ezio Auditore, and the main hero, Desmond Miles. Combat is improved, traveling is vastly improved, and overall, multiplayer has been given a great amount of attention. There is a new Deathmatch mode and “Artifact Assault” which is a Capture the Flag type game.

The story has new elements to play with, as well as new locations and new items. It will bring you across the country of Turkey, mainly Constantinople. Multiplayer offers a new range of customization for your character, including emblems to display on your character. While waiting to join and participate in a game, you can now watch the other players in action until your turn to bat comes up. There are new rewards, weapons, pre-order game weapons, and characters to experience in multiplayer, and this keeps the game exciting for a longer period of time. The Hookblade becomes your best friend as a means of travel whether it’s on or offline. The combat feels as intuitive as ever, and best of all, counters and assassinations feel as brutal as ever. Ubisoft went so far as to release a beta for Revelations to ensure they perfected their recipe for multiplayer in a hide and seek game like this. The game also features side quests in the form of Challenges for the player to complete in the single player campaign. These include challenges from different Guilds in the game such as the Thieves Guild, Assassin’s Guild, etc, and Bomb Challenges.

Graphics

The world in Revelations looks beautiful and will have you stop and stare while you’re exploring the land of Turkey. As you run into key figures in history, you will also run into packed cities, villages, farms, and elaborate chapels.  Landscapes are rendered in an amazingly realistic sense, with an accurate scale, and of course, the series’ mainstay, climbable buildings. Character models and textures have also seen quite the improvement, and everything else from huge mountains to Ezio’s mustache look great as well.   No matter how nice the graphics are, though, Desmond Miles will always look like Adam Sandler to my eyes, and Lucy Stillman was spot on to her inspiration of Kristen Bell, but sadly she doesn’t appear in this game. Facial expressions appear to move nicely, and it’s refreshing to see the characters with so much life, doing their historical counterparts justice at every turn.

Sound

Assassin’s Creed was never a game to say “Oh I love this song! I want to put down the controller and listen to it for a bit!”, but the music certainly flows through nicely.  As things pick up, so will the music, whether it’s a chase scene, a horse riding scene, or a solemn death. The game is a stealth game, so there will be a lot of silence in terms of the score, but the ambiance is nice, and footsteps and NPC actions are loud and clear. The silence is deafening at times, due to the high tension while stalking your prey. While traveling, or falling from a high height into a pit of hay, the sound of things you pass by is phenomenal. You can treat your ears even more by playing this game with Turtle Beach headsets, giving what players call the “Turtle Beach Advantage” in multiplayer.

Conclusion

Pick this game up whenever you can, because it provides awesome multiplayer that will stay alive until a successor releases, and it provides an epic single-player story mode. It’s a good length for a game, and fans of the franchise will enjoy seeing all of their questions unravel throughout the story. You will meet key characters such as the elusive Subject 16, and Desmond’s father. Ezio is a bit older now, but with age comes skill, and it certainly shows in his playing style. As with the recent games in the series, DLC is available as well as pre-order bonuses. It is a great buy and I highly recommend purchasing this game if you want a good story, and good multiplayer, although I would shy away from Revelations if it is your first game in the series.