The Force Unleashed 2

WARNING- CONTAINS SPOILERS.

For those out there that don’t remember the first Force Unleashed, it promised the opportunity to fight as a bona fide bad ass, Starkiller, trained by the original bona fide bad ass, Darth Vader. Players were told that they could wield the mystical force like a hammer, and pound enemies into the ground with lightning, just like the Emperor. We were even told that in one sequence, we would be able to actually pull a Star Destroyer out of space. Being an evil bad ass never in a galaxy far, far away never seemed as cool as it did back when watching those previews.

The reality is The Force Unleashed ended up being a rather average title in which the player could do things like make stormtroopers their bitch with the force, but had to deal with sluggish control while doing so. It is so very frustrating to destroy a squad of stormtroopers using the force, only to inexplicably jump off a cliff seconds later. The much vaunted Star Destroyer scene, rather than making a player feel powerful, became an exercise in repetition that made one feel less like a bad ass, and more like an assembly line worker. Overall, the game was OK at best, with the platforming segments being frustrating enough to induce controller smashing anger.

Thus, it was with great fear and hope that I downloaded the demo of The Force Unleashed 2. Hope because I still want to feel like a bad ass, and fear because I can’t afford many more controllers.

This Force Unleashed begins with you playing Starkiller again- even though he died at the end of the first game. In the midst of a standard opening tutorial sequence, the fighting system seems the same as before. This is difficult to notice, however, as the screen keeps flashing and the voice of Juno Eclipse, your pilot and love interest from the first game, keeps asking you if you really want to do this. It is kind of annoying, but gets the point across. Starkiller must be schizophrenic and dead. Great.

Eventually, you refuse to kill the image of the Juno Eclipse after she tells you that you are the only hope for the rebel alliance. (I thought Obi-Wan was our only hope?) After this sequence, Vader appears, and gives you some good news and some bad news. The good news is, you are not dead- you are a clone of the real Starkiller, who is actually dead. The bad news is, the cloning process was sped up, and you are going insane, just like several other clones that came before you. Great, I knew I was schizophrenic.

Vader then informs Starkiller 2.0 that it is time to die, and instead of just accepting his fate, he attacks and momentarily stuns Vader. Seizing this opportunity, Starkiller 2.0 jump out a nearby window and begins falling.

Now pay attention, because the game begins to get awesome here.

The cutscene ends, and you begin to control Starkiller 2.0 as he falls. You dodge past pieces of the building as you plummet toward the ground, and occasionally have to use force push to knock other objects impeding your path out of the way. This mechanic is super fun, and totally unexpected, especially after the initial dull schizophrenic combat. Starkiller 2.0 handles somewhat like a fighter, and as he lands, I find myself wanting more of this cool effect.

After landing, Starkiller 2.0 begins fighting stormtroopers, ala Force Unleashed. It is still pretty satisfying at this point to slaughter stormtroopers, but it feels very similar to the first game. Force lightning is a lot more powerful now, actually knocking enemies down in one hit, but other than that, it is essentially feeling like a rehash, at least combat wise.

Then the game gets cool again.

Starkiller 2.0 sneaks up on one stormtrooper, and the player is instructed in the use of the “Jedi Mind Trick,” and told to use it on the unsuspecting trooper. I begin to get excited. The idea of actually being able to use the Jedi Mind trick is cool enough, but this isn’t Obi-Wans, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for,” light side mind trick. Remember, even though Starkiller 2.0 is fighting for good (he is one of the last hopes for the alliance, remember) he is essentially still only versed in the Dark Side of the force, so when you use this Jedi Mind Trick, the stormtrooper screams and jumps out a nearby window, falling to his death. I’d like to repeat that, because it is awesome. You can convince people to jump out of windows.

I bet he uses that in bars to get laid. “Go home with me you will.”

As this was my favorite force power, I continued to use it throughout the level, and experienced everything from stormtroopers cowering in fear to actually turning around and shooting other Imperials after being told, “You are a rebel spy.” This power is limited, because there are usually a lot of enemies coming at you, but it is still really cool to watch a stormtrooper scream, “I have to get out of here,” and jump off a bridge. It does not get old.

The remainder of the demo is standard Force Unleashed. There are still QuickTime events to take down big War Droids, which are essentially giant droids with shields and flamethrower. (They are terrifying, by the way) You can still pick up stormtroopers and throw them around. Jetpack troopers are still bastards, but they can also still be quickly killed with force lightning, if you can get around the sometimes glitchy 3^rd person camera and targeting systems.

The biggest difference between this game and the original is that this game is polished. The few platforming sequences that exist are crisp, and much easier than before. I only fell to my death once, and that is because I pushed the wrong button. This is a great improvement to the game, and it makes me feel more hopeful about the finished product. It looks like this time, Starkiller 2.0 will actually be a bad ass, not just pretending to be one before launching himself off a cliff. I had so much fun playing this, that at times, it felt like I wasn’t even playing a Star Wars game at all.

My advice on this game is to BUY IT, BUT RENT IT FIRST. I say this for many reasons. The first is, this level did not feature a lot of the platforming that was so bad in the original, so we have no real idea if it is completely fixed, or just fixed in this level. This is also an exciting holiday season, with Assassins’ Creed, Fable 3, and Call of Duty all coming out. After the performance of the last game, I want to make sure that Lucasarts did a good job with this one, and the demo is not just a fluke. It is definitely worth the $9.99 rental from Blockbuster, though. I will say that based solely on the demo, the game actually does feel worth $59.99- but right now it is still behind some other titles on my list of games to actually buy.

Overall, I am hopeful, if tentative about the final game, but only the full release will let me know if the force is with me, or I am just some schizophrenic clone.

Wolfenstein

After the last review (Bionic Commando) I thought I would again review something whose roots lay in my childhood. This time, however, I have actually played the first game. Indeed, I played the heck out of it. Or rather, I played the heck out of the first ten levels, because my mother would not let me buy the full version.
I did hear rumors that the game was really weird at points though, and have seen pictures online of Adolph Hitler in some kind of giant battlemech/diabolic weapons platform.

So I was really prepared for anything starting this game.

And let me just say, it is weird.

The game begins innocently enough. The opening cut scene is quite pretty, although the characters do appear somewhat stiff in their movements. BJ Blazkowicz - yes, that is you, and yes, your name is BJ- is on board a Nazi cruiser that is about to launch missiles somewhere. BJ decides the best way to stop this is to beat up all of the Nazis on board, and proceeds to spectacularly kill several soldiers (who for some reason are the only people on the ship- there are no sailors) Several crazy one man attacks against swarms of enemies occur, but the insanity can be summed up by this: A German soldier turns an anti-aircraft gun on BJ, who opens a door, which deflects the bullets. He then pulls out a .45 and shoots some lifeboats that are located conveniently above the soldier, and the gun. They fall and crush the soldier.

Then things get weird. BJ is surrounded by many angry Nazis with guns. It looks as if it is all over for our hero. But then, in stroke of pure genius, BJ whips out this little glowing disk that he found on the ship and melts all the Nazi’s, Indiana Jones style. No joke. He melts the Nazi’s. Then BJ jumps in a plane just as the ship explodes in a violent display of light and sound. Now, why didn’t he do that from the beginning? Well it must have been cooler to use the .45 and the lifeboats.

And if you thought that was weird, just wait.

Now the actual game play begins. For some reason even though the opening cut scene was on a boat in the Atlantic, the game starts you on a train somewhere in France, and your first task is to “Escape the Nazi’s.” This is a little confusing, as I thought this game was a run and gun, Quake style, John Carmack’s Ferrari going 110 MPH type of FPS, not a stealth, hide in the sewers type of game. This leads me to one of the problems I have with the game; it doesn’t know how to what type of game it is. More on this later, but keep it in the back of your mind. So instead of shooing the Nazi’s, or rather using that cool disk thing, BJ decides to run from them.

Dropping into a conveniently located sewer, BJ is then given a tutorial in how to use the disk in his pocket. It is called the veil, and it can let him walk through walls. I do so, and find myself crouching looking through a door and into a room that contains two Nazi guards. Neither of them notices me. I shoot one, and the other still doesn’t notice me, apparently failing to hear the pistol shot going off right next to his head. I go ahead and shoot him too, making sure that I am the last thing on earth he does not notice. As I walk out into the room to get the bad guys guns, confident that I am playing a stealth game, the world explodes. Nazis begin shooting at me, grenades go off, and I am forced to duck behind some cover. I get it now; I am playing a cover based shooter game! Great, I love these.

A tutorial “help” screen pops up, and explains bullet time. It is not really called bullet time, but that is what it is- time slows down, and you can kill people! Great, no problem. Max Payne was a cool game! I kill the enemies, and running to get their guns, I notice that the curser used to pick objects up looks suspiciously like the one used in Oblivion. Matter of fact, it is the same button I used in Oblivion too. The movements of the characters also resemble those in Oblivion. Great, I loved Oblivion.

Next, I come to another big fight. I figure in my Max Pain/Oblivion hybrid, the best thing to do would be to engage bullet time, charge out in the open, and kick some ass!! Except….I have no more bullet time left, I used it all. No problem- I can still play this FPS style right? Wrong. I die charging a German position.

This must really be a cover based shooter. However, there are some problems with this theory. There is no “pop in, pop out” button, like in Rainbow 6 Vegas. Nor does the game seem to want me to use cover all the time, because sometimes when I hide behind cover, I either get killed or can’t shoot back effectively. So I charge in like a gun toting….BJ Blazkowicz. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it gets me killed or causes me massive amounts of damage.
At this point I am really unsure of what to do, but I am having a good time killing Nazi’s, even if the game has schizophrenia and is unsure of it wants to be when it grows up and goes gold. I even accept the “shopping” portion of the game that lets me buy weapon upgrades in the middle of a firefight, even though it gives me horrible nightmares of Army of Two.

And then, it gets weird again.

I have just finished off a group of Nazis located in another part of the railroad depot in which I started the game. Grabbing their MG42, I note that even the machine gun has a marginal zoom feature (something missing in many FPS). I have a great time mowing down the hordes of Nazis that kindly charge right into my zoomed gun sights. I love zooming in on a machine gun.
Just then, a boss appears. No kidding. I get a message telling me to “defeat the Heavy Trooper.” I look around for a fat guy in a German uniform, maybe someone resembling Sgt. Schultz, and find a huge enemy in a giant suit, with a giant cannon, running right at me. I guess he is heavy because of his gun, not his weight. I run away, backing up and firing. I quickly dispatch the trooper with minimal loss because he has continently put glowing blue balls of energy on his suit for me to shoot.

I am not begrudging boss battles at all, and I actually had a lot of fun on this one. It got my heart moving a bit, and running away firing was cool, but this guy was finished too quickly, and left me feeling unsatisfied. While I am sure that there are women saying that there is something poetic about me being left unsatisfied after too quick an encounter, I think that the fight should have been a bit more epic, like what it started out as being- me running from a huge scary enemy that I could not see very well. That said, I am more than willing to give the boss thing a pass because I have no idea if the game spawns these Heavy Troopers every 10 minutes, and this was not a real boss battle- but it sure felt like part of one, and that felt pretty good.

I pick up the Heavy Trooper’s cannon, and then it gets really weird.

Apparently, killing the heavy trooper released some weird anti gravity thing, and things are now floating. Everything. Cover, guns, and Nazi’s. And me. Every so often I find myself floating in the air, and then come back to earth. The Nazi guards are easily killed with the cannon, and it is a very satisfying feeling to shoot a giant cannon at a helpless Nazi floating upside down and screaming, “Help me!” in a German accent.

The demo ends shortly thereafter. The best way to describe this game is weird, but good. The game does not seem to be able to decide what it is. Is it a first person shooter in the traditional style of Wolfenstein? Is it a cover based shooter? Or is it an RPG? Well, the answer to that may never be known, but the game is fun, in a weird sort of way. Also, I have not mentioned it before, but the game is beautiful. The visuals are pretty stunning. The water is sparkling, the Nazi’s move and die realistically, and allowing the physics engine to flex its muscle with the floating Nazi’s at the end of the level was the crème de la crème.

My overall recommendation of this game is to BUY IT WHEN IT IS $29.99. This should be soon, as the game is not selling all that well. Coupling this with the fact that there are some pretty heavy hitting releases hitting shelves in the next couple months (Assassins Creed 2, Modern Warfare 2 etc) this game’s prices should be slashed soon.

Bionic Commando

Hey all, I know it has been a while since my last post, but it has been somewhat hectic around here, with Finals and Jury Duty and such, but without further Ado, here is our second review: Bionic Commando.

I somehow missed this game the first time around, back in 198-something, so I went to a convenient and reliable source (wikipedia) to check it out. Apparently, this game was huge back in the 80's because it featured a bionic arm with a grappling hook, rather than a jump button. It seems odd to me that a game's selling point is the fact that it's main character is not only disabled, but also lacks the ability to preform the somewhat simple task of jumping, but I mean, it was the 80's, and any decade that can give us Michael Jackson's moon walker and "Can't Touch This" can give us just about anything. The other interesting thing I learned was that although in the Japanese the enemies were Nazi's, in Europe and America, the enemy was changed to something else entirely. This struck me as odd, because Japan was on the same side as the Nazi's during WWII, and most of Europe was occupied by them, and America lost thousands fighting them, so why the hell would we not want to unite 40 years later so the grandchildren of that greatest generation could kick some polygonal Nazi ass? I mean the whole world kind of owes them another good ass kicking so what the hell?

Anyway, on to the 21st century, where we have replaced Nintendo with XBOX360 and original ideas like moon walker have been replaced by evil companies hell bent on capitalizing on our child hood memories. Thus we have Bionic Commando. Now I will note, yet again, that I never played the original of this game, so I am not all that nostalgic about it at all.

My research, however had been through, so I settled down and got myself ready to play what I thought would be some sort of platform game, and decided to look at the character's handicap as more of a challenge.. Loading the demo, I noticed the most dreaded sentence imaginable on a demo: "Multiplayer only." Shit. Not only was I going to have to learn how to play a new game, I was going to have to do it with some 12 year old brat screaming bloody murder in my ear in a high pitched sequel while he humps my corpse. Great. Personally, I think releasing a multiplayer only demo is immediate cause for me to be suspect. If the single player did not suck, why not show us a bit? It's a cheap, copout. So already Bionic Commando is already annoying me. Glancing at the clock, I noted that it was 731, and the game had been in the machine less than one minute; this had to be a record of some sort.

Anyway so I am then greeted by a neat 8 bit sound, which I am forced to conclude could only be true to the original soundtrack. So if I had played this, I would be nostalgic. I glance sadly at the "Single Player" option, which is not selectable, and click on the multiplayer option. Immediately, I am greeted by a picture of a controller. Now this is interesting, I think. And wait. Eventually, I accidentally hit a button on the controller, and the controller on the screen shows me that buttons use. It is kind of a neat gimmick, but as I start to hit all the buttons, the game loads me into a waiting room.

Eventually, someone starts the game. The system loads for what feels like a full 5 minuets (it is actually more like 2 minuets- the clock faithfully now says 735) and I am greeted with an error message "Connection lost." Pressing the A button, I am greeted with another message. "Searching for a game." This time, it really does take 3 minuets to find a game (it is now 739) We wait in the chat room for a couple of minuets (742) and then take off into the game, only to be immediately greeted by a "connection lost screen." This happens a couple of more times before I am forced to quit the game, having lost 20 minuets of my life. (It is now 800)

So that is that. Skip it. Even if you are a nostalgic gamer, SKIP IT. If this company cannot put out a working demo, then I am guessing that the finished product will not be anything to write home about. Servers, people? In my opinion, if a game developer has the balls to put out a multiplayer only demo, it should be backed up by something. So skip it, and beat anyone who doesn't skip it senseless. Because they are supporting bad gaming, and the wasting of 20 good minuets which could have otherwise been spent playing a good game.

What time is it now? ITS HAMMER TIME!

Halo Wars

Not content with destroying the world of first person shooters, the Halo series has decided to now turn it's attention to destroying the real time strategy genre as well. Thus Halo Wars, the first demo to be reviewed in this blog.


Let me begin by saying, if you have not already guessed, that I am not a fan of the Halo series. I thought the first one was ok, mainly for the multi player- which was not revolutionary or new (Goldeneye did multi player much better 5 years before) The second and third Halos offered similar game play to the first one, and offered only online multi player, which for me consisted mostly of having 12 and 13 year old's scream at me in high pitched, angry voices, killing me and my character on maps they had time to master while I did grown up things like work and kiss girls. But this review is not about Halo, Halo 2, or even Halo 3. This review is about Halo Wars.


Before I begin I would just like to say that I applaud the fact that the Halo franchise is no longer sticking to it's proven system, that being remaking the same first person shooter with new skins and then running off to catch the money train. So it is good that Halo is branching out; trying new things is good.


Unfortunately people forgot to tell Halo Wars that trying new things BADLY is not good. It's just, well bad. There are several things wrong with this game. The first, and most glaring problem with this game is the fact that everything is so small. Maybe it is just my own male insecurities, but I don't like it when things on the screen are small. More accurately, I don't like it when important things on the screen are too small to see. And that is the problem with Halo Wars. The tanks and vehicles are clearly visible, but the marines and enemy soldiers are so small that it is difficult, if not impossible to tell them apart. According to the game, which actually kept score of how many enemies I killed, there were two types (at least) of enemy soldiers. You could have fooled me, I was just attacking the different dots that appeared to be shooting at me. So you can't tell what type of enemy you are attacking. So if there were a particular unit that was strong against grunts, you couldn't tell which targets are grunts, thus negating any type of strategy. In addition to this, as you advance through the game, different types of marine units become available. In the demo, these are regular marines and flame throwers. These units cant be told apart on the screen, thus reducing the strategy to clicking on all of your guys, denoted by being on one side of the map, and sending them over to kill all of their guys on the other side of the map.



This may just be a problem with the genre, but I don't think we can call Halo Wars a real time strategy game. It is more like a "point and click to attack and then build more guys and do it all again" type of game. The fact that you cannot see what type of unit you are selecting simply adds to the confusion. But, more to the point, it really doesn't matter which units you select, because they all seem to work equally well against the enemy.

And, they all work poorly against the enemy, unless they are Warthogs. For those of you not familiar with the Halo series, the Warthog (or Puma) is a kind of jeep with a large machine gun attached to the back. These things rock in Halo. They have a special attack that involves giving up on blasting the enemy with the gun and causes the whole vehicle to just run over the enemy. This is an incredibly effective attack, and that leads us to the problem with it; it is so effective that you really don't need to use anything else. These jeeps just destroy enemy units instantly when they use this special. As these attacks recharge very quickly, one jeep is able to destroy multiple infantry units. In fact, this "click the special button" strategy is so effective that the last battle of the tutorial level, I was able to destroy almost all the enemies with ONE JEEP running them over while the rest of my army stood and watched from a safe distance.

So what is good about Halo Wars? Well there are some things. First of all, the cut scenes are really pretty. The space ships are very cool looking, and all of the characters are very well drawn. Secondly, if you are a fan of the Halo series, all of the sounds and feel of the Halo franchise exist in Halo Wars. The sounds are the same sound effects, so the enemy soldiers and the guns sound authentic. The soundtrack and menus also scream Halo.

That is about it for good things. My recommendation for Halo Wars is SKIP IT. If you are a really big Halo fan, put on your Master Chief Limited Edition Helmet (I know you got it when you paid almost $100 for Halo 3- and I know you wear it!) and go down to blockbuster video and RENT IT. But only do this if you love Halo.

Some random thoughts I thought of while playing Halo Wars:

1. The space ships look very cool. I want to play as the space ships.
2. The air support in the game is very effective and powerful. Too bad the computer has control of it. Will I ever get to control it? Furthermore, why don't we just take these really cool looking space ships that we have and blow up the entire Covenant army from space?
3. The space ships still look cool.
4. These guys are so small. Is it supposed to make me feel good about myself by making me feel like a giant? Is it sad that for just a little bit, pretending to be a giant did make me feel better?
5. If I wanted a bunch of soldiers that didn't listen to me that I could barley see, I would just go outside and try to get an army of ants to attack something.
6. I still want to play as the space ships.

Introduction

Hi, My name is Mike. Thank you so much for reading my blog! This blog takes game demos from XBOX 360 and reviews them. Why do I review game demos that people can download for free, and then decide for themselves to buy or not? Several reasons!

1. Sometimes, there are a lot of demos, and not everyone can download every one and play them.

2. I have noticed a sharp decrease in the quality of video gaming in general over the last several years, and I would like to talk about some of it, because I am an ego maniac, and think that everyone most definitely should care about what I say.

3. I would like to write full time when I get out of school one day, and people tell me the best way of doing this is starting a blog.

4. Taking into account 2 and 3, I have no money whatsoever. So I can't justify going to spend $60 on a new game once a week. I also have no time to play through said games every week, so I came to

5. Demos. Cheap, easy to play, and quick. I will spare you the comment about liking my women this way.

So that is why I chose to read this blog. I suck at math, so we will not be rating games with numbers, decimals, or anything else that may remind me of my 6th grade math teacher or the horrible, horrible things he said to me. Oh, and Mr. Gaulic, if you are listening, I did so become something. I am on the Internet.

I also never understood why people chose arbitrary things, such as stars, to rate games (as in this game gets 5 stars etc) I mean the both the symbols and the numbering are meaningless. Why use stars? Why 5, or 10? What exactly does 5 stars mean anyway? The same thing as 100,000 cantaloupes, or 20,000,000,000,000,000 widgets, or 3.5 fish

Nothing at all.

So my rating system for these demos is easy. You either should buy the game at full price, buy the game at half price, rent it, or skip it.

That's all. There may be some subcategories, for example, "Rent this game, but if you are a really big fan of 16th century art, particularly the paintings of Jaun Jaurez, then buy this game, as it will appeal to you."

So that is that. Please subscribe to my blog, as I will be posting soon.