Civilization Revolution

Title: Civilization Revolution
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: July 8 ,2008
Date Played: June 2008
Time Played: 40 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
With PC gaming drying up, the focus has been shifting to the consoles, and Civilization Revolution is Firaxis' first attempt at porting this legendary franchise to the consoles.

While it is greatly simplified in order to attract a new audience, Civilization Revolution is a competent port. It still has all of the core features that make this franchise so popular.  You have a choice to play as one of 16 leaders (each with their own strengths). At its core it is still a Civ game, you still start in 4000BC and work your way to 2050AD, with 4 different victory conditions (Domination, Culture, Economic, Technological), you still have an elaborate tech tree and the advisers. The presentation is much more lighthearted and features cartoony graphics.

A couple new mechanics have been introduced, the most notable one being squads. You can take 3 of any unit and combine them into one squad unit.  Doing so makes that unit a lot stronger, and can be done on any unit in the game, so you find yourself doing it all the time.

The game goes out of its way to explain the mechanics to a newcomer (a welcomed change). Anyone can pick up Civ Rev and be a competent player after an hour with it. Unlike Civilization 4, which has a learning curve similar to EVE Online.

Although Civilization Revolution is a great Civ experience on the consoles I do feel that they could have incorporated more aspects of the core games to make Revolution an even better experience. That being said, Civ Rev still has the core elements that make this series so great, and is by no means is an inferior experience, it is simply a streamlined experience. A single game of Civilization 4 could take 30+ hours (many days) to complete, while a Civilization Revolution game takes a fraction of that time, while still having that epic feeling.

Everyone should definitely check this game out, it is easy to pick up for newcomers and Civ veterans will most likely welcome the idea of a quicker and more streamlined experience for when the cant afford to spend 30+ hours on a game.

Braid

Title: Braid
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 6, 2008
Date Played: August 2008
Time Played: 4 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Braid was the headliner for 2008's (the first ever) Summer of Arcade. It is largely responsible for bringing the downloadable game's standards from dismissable to competent. What is impressive is that the whole game was developed by one dude (Jonathan Blow).

The game has an interesting love story and the game play consisting entirely of puzzle solving through bending the time and space continuum. Now, who the heck would not love to bend some time and space?

Braid consists of 6 chapters, each harder than the previous one and each with its own theme. The game features excellent hand drawn graphics, and the environment is full of lush, vibrant colors.

You can never die in Braid, as you simply rewind time to bring you back before you make that deadly mistake.  What is unusual, and simultaneously awesome, is the fact that you can rewind time for as long as you want, as many times as you want, at anytime that you want.  There are no constrains on this primary game mechanic, which is unusual for video games.

I do wish Braid would have more enemy variety, as there basically 2 enemy types. Other than that Braid is an excellent puzzler that everyone should check out. Not only are the puzzles interesting, the story has some interesting twists, especially at the very end of the game.

Dante's Inferno

Title: Dante's Inferno
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: February 9, 2010
Date Played: June 2010
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Dante's Inferno is inspired by Divine Comedy a 700 year old book written by Dante Alighieri. The game itself takes some basics from that story and takes them in its own direction.

Click to Zoom

You play as Dante, a crusader who has blood of thousands of people (non-believers) on his hands.  Once Dante finds out that back home the lovely Beatrice is killed he sets off through the 9 circles of Hell to reclaim her soul from the hands of Lucifer.

Dante's Inferno has stunningly good cut-scenes, and the game itself looks and plays great. It borrows the basics from God of War franchise, where it is a hack and slash but instead of Kratos' wrist blades Dante uses a huge scythe.

I played through Dante's Inferno is a fairly short time, as the game kept me coming back to it and constantly made me want to play more and more. The game never gets dull as each of the circles look drastically different from each other and have their own enemies.

The combat felt great, and gave a sense of freedom since you can have Dante learn different skill based on your play style.

I found it an interesting touch to run into famous people as I made my way through the circles, people such as Pontius Pilate (the person who sent Jesus to the cross), and Mordred (son of King Arthur, who betrayed his father by raising his sword in battle. Dante encounters him in the Circle of Treachery). Overall there is over a dozen of these historical figures that you encounter, and you have a choice whether you want to punish them (send them to Hell) or absolve them (send them to Heaven). Depending on if you absolve or punish the characters and other creatures in the game Dante gains Holy or Unholy power, which he can use to to get Holy or Unholy abilities. This creates an incentive for replaying the game using different powers.

Overall Dante's Inferno looks and plays great. I loved the story and the game play. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the God of War series. Although Dante's Inferno borrows a lot of the basics from it, it does an excellent job bringing itself on par with the God of War franchise to where you can not dismiss it simply as a clone. In fact it is just as competent and stands shoulder to shoulder with the God of War franchise.

Deus Ex

Title: Deus Ex
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: June 26, 2000
Date Played: February - September 2011
Time Played: 23 Hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5

Opinion:

Click to Zoom

Deus Ex came out over a decade ago... a year before September 11th attacks. It portrays the statue of liberty in pieces and no sign of world trade center rising over New York. The game is set in the year is 2052 and the world is falling apart. A new disease is spreading called Gray Death and the cure is in very limited quantity. The terrorists are attempting to steal the vaccine, and you JC Denton a genetically modified human is sent in to stop them; however you start unraveling a major conspiracy theory behind it all.

I first heard of Deus Ex when it came out, everyone claimed it was the next evolution in gaming, a new era in FPS and RPG genres. As expected I grabbed myself a copy and installed it. My first impressions were, this looks cool, but what is up with the shooting. After trying to get into it for a few hours, I gave up and went back to playing Counter Strike.  I simply could not get into it. At the time it was revolutionary, which is easy to see retrospectively. But I simply did not get it.  It didn't help that it has an extremely convoluted story line with some of the worst voice acting.

And so the game went on the shelf for many years.

Half a decade later after talking with some people the game was brought up again, a lot claimed it to be the best game they have ever played.

Again I attempted to give it a shot, unfortunately it was a similar situation, it felt slow, the shooting didn't make sense, and the graphics started to look dated. Again it was put on the shelf.

Click to Zoom

December 2010 rolls around, it has been over 10 years since the game's release and Eidos puts Deus Ex 1 and the sequel on a Christmas sale for 3$ (bundle) in order to promote the new Deus Ex: Human Revolution coming out in late 2011. I decided to pick up the bundle and give it another shot.

I started my 3rd attempt at Deus Ex in February of 2011. Now the graphics looked terrible, but charming. I liked them in a special retro way. And in addition to running nicely at 1080p resolution it features a really good soundtrack.

The combat still felt slow and frustrating, but this time I decided to take on a stealth approach as opposed to a shooter approach. This allowed me to actually make my way through the first level and move on with the story.

It was not until I was about 40% through the story when my character got sufficient amount of experience and upgrades to allow me to play the way I wanted to play. A playstyle in which using a gun was actual feasible  and I wouldn't miss my target at point blank range.  Prior to getting these upgrades it would require a ridiculous amount of bullets to kill someone, so the guns were not fun to use, yet the enemies seemed to kill me in a shot or two.

Click to Zoom

Along with the enjoyable shooting, at this point my character also started gaining useful abilities that were fun to use (i.e.  Regeneration, Run speed etc.) and at this point I actually started enjoying Deus Ex. However it was not until a bit later in the game when I realized the amount of approaches you can take in order to finish a level. It is actually quite impressive (even now in 2011) and I can not think of even one game that has given you as many options as Deus Ex does.  This makes it a lot of fun to explore, you know that there is not a linear path to your objective, but through exploration you can find new, and better ways to get to your target.

It took me about 5 months of off and on playing until I got to the point where I liked the game, once that happened I finished it fairly quickly. It also helped that about 4 months in or so through the game a 10 years in the making mod called New Vision was released. It replaces in-game textures with higher resolution counterparts in order to make the game look better. So I ended up playing the first 40% or so with old textures and the latter 60% with the higher resolution textures.

What I think they should have done to make Deus Ex a much better game is give you at least one ability that is maxed out (maybe you choose one based on your play style), because going in as this special augmented human who somehow is unable to do anything to any degree of satisfaction just plain sucks, and the game does not do a very good job explaining why you suck and how to get better, you just have to experiment.

I should also probably mention that about 30% through the game it is possible to encounter a game breaking bug, which I had the pleasure of encountering. Basically an NPC that you are supposed to talk to does not spawn. Everyone on the internet said that there is no fix and you have to restart the chapter, or the game if you dont have a save game from the previous chapter. Luckily I was able to solve this problem for everyone on the internet and posted it in the official forum and in steam forums so that people dont have to do that anymore.

Click to Zoom

Overall I enjoyed Deus Ex starting at about 40% and on. I wish you would get better at skills/abilities a lot sooner than you do, and I also wish there was not as much walking and backtracking with nothing interesting happening (a good 20% of the game is just running from point A to point B, and back). Or perhaps they should have done the typical (maybe not so typical for year 2000), given you a ton of awesome abilities to show you what you will be able to do, and then taken them away.

I now understand why Deus Ex is on some people's best game ever made lists. It is impressive, and very innovative. There are just a few things that could have been done better. You have to play it as an RPG, and if you approach it as a shooter, you will absolutely hate it.  Shooting feels terrible until the very end game.  As such I would recommend Deus Ex to anyone who likes RPGs.  And one piece of advice I would give to everyone, is to stick with it. The first couple of level are not a good representation of the game. It gets a lot better during the second half once you get good weapons and upgrades.

PS - There are 3 endings, I picked the New Dark Age one.

IL-2 Sturmovik - Birds of Prey

Title: IL-2 Sturmovik - Birds of Prey
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: September 8, 2009
Date Played: September 2009
Time Played: 15 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
IL-2 is a very well known franchise that has been around since the early 2000's and is still played by millions worldwide.

In general I am a fan of simulators, especially flight simulators. I never had a chance to try out IL2 until Birds of Prey, its first iteration on the consoles, and I really liked my experience with it.  It allows for various levels of simulation from arcady feel to full on realism with rudder and pitch controls. The developers did a really good job adapting the control scheme for the Xbox controller.

Of course the cockpit, and other control options are not as in depth as the PC IL-2 iterations, but there is nothing that can be done about that since console's controller is limited on buttons.

There are half a dozen areas to play through as you make your way through the campaign, and in between the missions the game shows real World War 2 footage to fill you in on why you are there and your mission. The campaign stays consistently interesting, featuring missions with bombers, fighters and ground targets, and constant change of scenery keeps things fresh. IL-2 looks great, with great looking scenery and ground targets, along with an impressive plane damage model.

Overall IL-2 Sturmovik - Birds of Prey is an excellent flight simulator on the consoles. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone that is even remotely interested in planes, world war 2, and/or simulators. In my book this is the best flight simulator (of any era) that I have played on the consoles.

Destroy All Humans! Path of Furon

Title: Destroy All Humans! Path of Furon
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: December 1, 2008
Date Played: December 2009
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): No
Score: 1/5


Opinion:
I dont get it... there are quite a few people out there that like this game. After giving Destroy All Humans Path of Furon about 2 hours of my life I walked away in disgust, mumbling "Path of Furon.. more like Piece of Furon $#!t".

First of, this game uses Unreal Engine 3... really? Because it looks and plays like they licensed and built the game on PS2 era GTA3 engine. It looks and controls terrible by today's standards.

I dont know what else to say other than everything about this game is totally lame, the combat is lame, the premise is lame, the story is lame, the graphics are lame, the missions are lame, jokes are lame.. lame lame lame... And I am not hating just to hate, I love me some Area 51 and some alien shooters, be they open world or linear. But this game is just pathetic. It simply is not fun, not at all.

I would not recommend this game to anyone, and I stand here baffled at the fact that anyone can possibly like this game. You are much better off firing up GTA3 or Vice City, you will find way more enjoyment in those last gen (2001,2002) games than you will playing this 2009 (Holiday 2008) game.

Carcassonne

Title: Carcassonne
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: June 27, 2007
Date Played: August 2010
Time Played: 10+ hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5


Opinion:
Carcassonne is a fun board game to play with a couple of friends, and with this translation of the board game into the video game you can play with your friends (or strangers) via Xbox Live, or play by yourself vs AI.

The game delivers everything you would expect, 2 sets of rules, and great board graphics with cool backgrounds.

What is absolutely awesome is that you do not have to keep track of anything or go through and calculate everything at the end by hand... which is actually quite challenging in Carcassonne because of its plethora ways to score points.

If you enjoy the board game of Carcassonne, definitely pick this up, it is a great port of the physical game into a digital format. I would also recommend this game to those who maybe never played Carcassonne, but like board games in general. It is a great game with a decent amount of strategy.

Back To The Future: The Game (Episode 2 of 5)

Title: Back To The Future: The Game (Episode 2 of 5) 

Platform Played On: iPad 

Release Date: April 20, 2011 

Date Played: September 2011 

Time Played: 1 hours 

Completed (Y/N): Yes

Score: 4/5 

Opinion:

Episode 2, as expected starts right where Episode 1 ended, it is however much shorter at about 1/3 of the length of the first episode. This is very strange considering the pricing on the episodes is identical.

The story in this second episode is not as good as the first; however the way this episode ends could mean that the 3rd is going to be the best one yet. It has a very exciting ending. We'll have to see how it goes, as I have yet to start it.

Episode 2 focuses mostly on Biff's ancestors and Marty's ancestors and the relationship between the two.

The graphics are still sub par on the iPad version, with even worse frame rate and general performance issues than the first episode.  There are parts where the scene will freeze completely, then unfreeze at a later time with voice overs stuttering and catching up.

There are a few repeat puzzles, which makes previously easy puzzles totally trivial and boring, and I am not sure if they were pushing the deadline, but towards the end of the episode there are a few parts where it will straight up teleport you from one location to the next without any explanation, and making very little sense.  And by teleport I dont mean that the game says "2 hours later" or anything of the like, nope. You are talking to a person, then screen goes black and you are in a completely different part of town about to do something that you were just talking about not doing. No explanation as to how exactly or why you are doing it all of a sudden.

All of the previous issues are still present, it is still easy to accidentally skip dialogue, there are still some puzzles which are not explained very well as to what you can or can not do within the puzzle. Thank god for the Hint option, although even that is useless at times.

Overall this is a less impressive episode than the first one; however there is still enough interesting things happening and overall story is interesting enough to where anyone interested in the series should play this episode before going on to number 3. Again I would recommend the Steam version as opposed to the iPad version because of the technical issues and inferior graphics on the iPad.

Back To The Future: The Game (Episode 1 of 5)

Title: Back To The Future: The Game (Episode 1 of 5) 
Platform Played On: iPad 
Release Date: February 17, 2011 
Date Played: August 2011 
Time Played: 3 hours 
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5 


Opinion:

One thing for sure, Back To The Future is one of the best franchises ever invented.  All 3 movies are a ton of fun for all ages and generations, and I always secretly wanted for them to make a 4th movie, not to say it will never happen, it probably will, and it will probably suck (i.e Indiana Jones 4).  But all that aside, I was super stoked when I first heard about Telltale (a notoriously good adventure game developer) announcing its plans to release Back to the Future the game in 5 installments.

The game would take place after the 3rd movie and will tell about the events that followed.  To Back to the Future nerds like myself that meant one thing... for all intents and purposes this was canon, and given the nature of the game (being an adventure/story game) this was the 4th movie that we've all been waiting for in interactive form.

The game starts off shortly after the end of the last movie. Doc is gone (possibly dead), so his lab and all of his equipment is being reposessed, and auctioned off.  Marty is in distress, as he is unable to do anything about the situation. Suddently out of nowhere the Delorean appears with Einstein onboard. Marty determines the time that it came from and rushes to figure out what happened to Doc, and why the car returned without him. The voice acting is spot on and everyone sounds like their original characters.

I am not going to spoil any more of the story, all I am going to say is that it is an interesting little action adventure, that ties in bits and pieces of the universe. The puzzles themselves are not hard at all, and if you find yourself stuck you can always use the built in Hint system, which does not penalize you in any way for using it.  Back to the Future the game does quite good with humoring the player with jokes and bringing up interesting pieces of history behind Doc and his youth, as well as Marty's and Biff's ancestry.

Computer vs iPad Graphics
(Click to Zoom)

I am playing through these episodes on the iPad, and one thing I can say for certain is that it looks nowhere as good as the PC/Mac versions of the game. The computer (Steam) version of the game has prestine graphics that look like they were made for a modern game, while the iPad version of the game has muddy, jaggy (no anti-aliasing), textures, with no reflections or crispness. Refer to the screenshot (click to zoom) for comparison of the title screen on the two platforms.

While I understand that the iPad version had to be optimized for the iPad 1, even still I feel that they could have done a much better job at opitmizing the game. I didnt even mention that at times there are terrible performance issues, where the game will go into slideshow mode or run at very very low framerate for 5-10 seconds at a time. It is a fairly basically set up game with static backgrounds and for the most part staticly positioned people. There is absolutely no reason for the game to perform the way it does.

Luckily the performance issues do not effect the game as much as they would eslewhere since there is no need for fast reactions.  For me personally the iPad is the better medium because I can play it 10-15 minutes at a time before going to bed, for others who like to sit down and play a few hours at a time, Steam version may be the better alternative with its smooth performance and significantly better looking graphics.

Another major issue I ran into on the iPad is the fact that it is way too easy to accidentally skip important dialogue, as accidentally touching any part of the screen skips whatever is going on.

Overall Back to the Future: The Game (Episode 1) is a very enjoyable adventure, I would definitelly recommend it to everyone that likes the movies, although I would advice them towards playing on a PC as opposed to an iPad, especially if they care about the graphics.

Mirror's Edge

Title: Mirror's Edge
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 12, 2008
Date Played: January, 2009
Time Played: 8 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
I applaud EA for trying to innovate. Mirrors Edge is truly one of a kind, even now nearly 3 years later, no one has done anything like it.

The game focuses on running and leaping from building to building using everything in the environment, from pipes to walls to people's faces. The game does a good job at giving you hints, by coloring whatever you should be using in red.  As seen in the screenshot below the red beams in the bottom left of the screen.

You play as a girl called "Faith", who takes a lot of leaps of faith... get it? You are a messenger, and while the story is not that important you have to get from point A to point B using wicked maneuvers.

Mirror's Edge looks amazing, extremely clean and sharp, with highly detailed textures and shiny surfaces. The animations, and camera placements truly give you the sense of speed and I often found myself holding my breath as I leap off of an edge to another building.  EA (DICE, the developer) nailed the presentation, the game simply looks amazing.

Unfortunately beyond its looks Mirror's Edge does not have much else going for it. There is hardly any combat, and the story is forgettable at best.  Most of the extras are focused around timed runs, which I frankly dont give a damn about.

Mirror's Edge is most fun when you are sprinting and jumping from roof to roof, not knowing how you are going to get over the next obstacle. So once you play it once, it is not as interesting to run through it again.

I feel that there are quite a few things that could have been done better in Mirror's Edge, but even still, I feel that everyone should at least check it out. It is an experience you cant get elsewhere.

Final Fantasy XIII

Title: Final Fantasy XIII
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: March 9, 2010
Date Played: May - November 2010
Time Played: 60 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5


Opinion:
Oh Square Enix, what are you doing with the Final Fantasy franchise? Where are you taking it? What are you trying to accomplish. Were the questions I kept asking myself while playing the latest installment of the quarter century old franchise.  I'll give FF13 two things, one... it is pretty... two, it has an interesting story, in my opinion one of the best stories in all of Final Fantasies.

As per usual, FF13 is radically different from its predecessors. There are no random battles, and instead you can see your enemies and avoid them, although you never do, because you need to grind that experience.  The combat system as a whole is completely different, instead of having specific characters be specific classes, anyone can be any class.  There are sort of skill trees that you upgrade in order to make them better at one skill or another. By the end of the game you end up maxing out a couple of the trees for each character.  This is a good change, since you can focus the characters you like the most and always use them, switching their classes on the fly in order to suit the situation. One of the other combat changes is that now you always start the battles with maxed stats, no longer do you have to worry about using HP potions before battle. The combat itself is not so much about the moves you pick or weapons, it is all about switching classes on the fly. Typically combat consists of starting out with fighter types, hammering at the enemy, then when low on health switch to tank/healer classes, heal up and go back to fighter types.  This makes every battle seem the same, and gets boring after a while, especially since it is the strategy you end up using on all the bosses.

Did I mention that there is no overworld map? Thats right! The whole game takes place in one super, super long corridor. I am not kidding either. See the image on the right (click to zoom), the boss is at the top, you start at the bottom. Cant say that its a very interesting level layout.

FF13 Map
(click to zoom)

Summons... let me tell you about the summons, the actual process of summoning is great, it looks awesome, and the summons themselves are fairly powerful. But the game's mechanics are such that you can summon one every few hours of gameplay, and each character has their own summon, so if you are like me and stick with the 3 characters you like the most through most of the game, at best you will get to see only 3 summons. Terrible design decision. I would go out of my way to use under-powered characters just so that I can see their summon. So most of the summons I either never saw, or only saw once in the whole 60+hour game.

One of the worst explained things in FF13 is the item upgrade system. I am not even going to attempt to explain it, but it is so poorly done that I did not understand it until I looked up a F.A.Q. online about 25 hours into the game.  And even when you have it figured out, it seems like each item has to be upgraded at least a dozen times to actually seem like it made a difference. Square Enix could have come up with a better system. The game does not get shy about throwing a million different names at you that sound very similar to each other, and then proceeds to act like you've been using names such as Lcie and iCie your whole life.

It took me about half a year to play this 3 disc game form the beginning to end.  FF13's story comes in waves, there is a lot of filler that could have been cut to make the game flow better.  As I said initially it is a gorgeous game, the graphics are top notch and cinematics are enjoyable to watch.  It was the graphics and the anticipation of the next "double-U. Teee. eFFF" moment (in a good way) in the story that kept me coming back to FF13.

The game features 13 chapters, by the time I got to chapter 11, I could not wait until the game would end, by that point it got so monotonous that I wanted to hammer it out, see the ending to the ridiculous story and put it back in its case. Dont get me wrong, I enjoyed FF13, and I am very glad I played it, but I dont see myself ever playing it again.. while there are games like FF6 and FF7 that I totally see myself coming back to in the future. In my opinion SquareEnix did not do as good of a job as they could have, they focused on the pretty, and not so much on the world and the mechanics.

I would definitely recommend FF13 to anyone who has liked the previous games in the series.  Once you get into the story, hours can pass in what seemed like an instant.

Blacksite: Area 51

Title: Blacksite: Area 51
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 12, 2007
Date Played: November 2007
Time Played: 8 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 2/5


Opinion:

Yellow/Brown Environments are extremely boring.

I have to admit, I am a sucker for Area 51. Its mysteries have always interested me. Naturally I am interested in video games that portray their take on this controversial location. Blacksite: Area 51 is one of those games.

The basics of the plot are as follows. Roswell UFO piece get sold to Iraq, and later are recovered by the US in the invasion (2003) and taken back to Area 51. 3 years later things go wrong, and you have to clean up the mess.

Aside from an interesting story twists, Blacksite is a very standard shooter, that does not innovate on anything. The level design is very yellow/brownish and is filled with bugs. The enemies are generic fleshy aliens, that do little to scare you, and come off as overly generic.

Area 51 was alright, but did not leave behind anything memorable after being put back into its game case. I think the thing that put me off the most about this game was its choice of environments.  Every level felt like a deserty level, and those deserty levels felt extremely boring.

I can not recommend this game to anyone for any reason, even those that love anything related to the Area 51. Just read the plot synopsis on wikipedia.

Too Human

Title: Too Human
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 19, 2008
Date Played: August 2008
Time Played: 40+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
I dont know how, but I managed to avoid all the hype and backlash related to Silicon Knights's game Too Human (infact I had no idea about it until shortly before its release).  Perhaps this is the reason why I found myself enjoying the heck out of this game.  I did quite a bit of single player, but the majority of my time was spent playing co-op with a friend (Devin). Together we have beaten the game multiple times on increasingly higher difficulty levels in attempt to get better and better equipment (Diablo style).

The loot system is not the only thing that Too Human borrows from the Diablo series. In fact it is basically a sci-fi version of Diablo rooted in Norse mythology.

You start by choosing between a couple different classes and embark on an interesting, maybe even unique journey to fight back a race of robots that want to destroy humanity.

Perhaps it is the fact that the game was in development for 10 years that rose people's expectations. I did not have any expectations going in and thoroughly enjoyed the dozens of hours I spent with Too Human.  Playing it co-op definitely helped make the experience more fun, but playing it solo it feels like a solid action-rpg set in an interesting world, which tells a story from the Norse mythology. A topic very rarely explored in any entertainment media.

The only issue I had with the game was it's inventory management, it could have really used more work in that department, but to be fair inventory in a game with hundreds (if not thousands) of items on a console is a hard thing to make perfect.

Too Human is supposed to be a trilogy, but the game did not meet the expected sales (partialy due to overhype), so I dont know if that will ever happen.

All silly expectations aside, I would definitely recommend Too Human for its unique setting and fun gameplay to any action-rpg enthusiast, especially if they have a buddy to jump into co-op with.

Gun

Title: Gun
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 8, 2005
Date Played: August, 2009
Time Played: 20 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
Let me put it this way, Xbox 360 launched November 22, 2005 (yep 6 years ago, isnt that nuts?). Gun shipped on November 8, 2005.  From looking at it its clear that the game was mostly designed for the last gen of consoles (PS2, Xbox and GameCube). Gun plays like a PS2 title with higher resolution textures that the Xbox 360 allows (most likely the uncompressed PC textures). For its time the game does not look bad at all, since we didnt have the GTA4s, Gears of Wars and Bioshocks to really compare to. You just have to go into it with that mindset.

One genre that has always been lacking in the gaming world is the  westerns genre.  So naturally when one comes along I personally find myself jumping in head first and emercing myself into it.

Story in Gun is surprisingly innovative and engaging, you find yourself uncovering secrets of your past and fighting bandits.  Similar to GTA series you sport a minimap, healthbar and a life bar.  You go on various missions from races to Wanted missions to story progression missions. The game is set in a semi-open world, with a good variety of environments, and interesting places to explore. You can either walk or use a horse to traverse the landscape.

The only problems I had with Gun were its graphics, and when I say that I mostly mean the simple geometry. The game has vast planes that are just a flat texture.  It does not look terrbile, but it makes it aparent that it is a last gen game, where the consoles could not handle the complex geometry.  Buildings and cliffs have sharp box-like visuals to them.  Being a 4 year old game these complaints are minor at best.

Overall I really enjoyed Gun even though I played it for the first time 4 years after its release. There are just not many games that can raise the bar for the cowboy open world genre to make this game obsolete. The only other game that I can think of that is even remotely similar to Gun is Call of Juarez series. That being said, I really enjoyed Gun and would love to see a sequel.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Title: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 5, 2007
Date Played: November 2007
Time Played: 100+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Wow, I remember the summer of 2007, and that reveal trailer from E3. I watched it multple times in anticipation of COD4's release, and every time it left me giddy like a little school girl.

To be honest, by 2007 I was tired of the shooter scene, it was the same thing over and over again, with little to no changes or inovations from title to title. But on that faithful November day when I first put in Modern Warfare, the first person shooter was reborn.

Oh man, those graphics, that smooth as butter 60FPS framerate, and the amazing feel of the shooting. Not to mention the story, which took new and interesting twists, with memorable characters and exciting environments. It truly was the next step, the long awaited revolution in the first person shooter genre.

As my personal tradition entails I play all of the COD games on Veteran difficulty, no matter how b@ll stabbing hard it is.  The campaign is fairly short, about 6 hours, and I made my way through it on Veteran in about 8-10. Feeling extremely satisfied with my experience I watched the credits roll, and to my surprise, there was another mission! Mile High Club... oh god... long story short.. I beat the game on Veteran a few days after it came out, I did not sucessfully finish Mile High Club on Veteran until about 6 months later (2+ gameplay hours). I should mention that the entirety of the level is about 90 seconds long, so at 2 hours thats around 100 attempts. Needless to say that when I beat it, it felt extremely satisfying.

But the single player was not the end of it, infact the single player in COD4: Modern Warfare was a mere fraction of what the game had to offer, the bigger slice of the cake was the new and revolutionary multiplayer.

Almost every aspect of the multiplayer was new and innovative. For the first time you earned experience for kills, which allowed you to rank up and unlock new weapons and tools. This created a true sense of progression, something that has not been explored in FPS multiplayer before.  The maps were perfect, and matchmaking system paired you up with people of your skill. The maps were diverse and interesting. Everything felt perfectly balanced. Over the next 6 months I was absolutely addicted to COD4 and spent over 100 hours in multuplayer matches.

Without a doubt this is one of the best first person shooters of all time, it is extremely polished and is a ton of fun for any FPS lover. It raised the bar and is largely responsible for the state of the first person shooters today.  If you have not played Modern Warfare, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy.

Fable II - Pub Games

Title: Fable II - Pub Games
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: August 13, 2008
Date Played: September 2008
Time Played: 3 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 4/5


Opinion:

The idea of Fable II Pub Games is great. Basically a few months before the actual game comes out you can play some mini-games and earn some cash, which you can then import into the retail game. The game features 3 casino games you can play. Beyond racking up coin for Fable II, there is nothing else that Pub Games has to offer.

It is a great idea, somewhere in the line of demos offering imports into the final game.  Since the Pub Games we have seen other games pick this up. Crackdown 2 offered imports from the demo, Dead Rising 2 imported character level from Case Zero.  It is definitely a welcome trend to have. It lets you sample the game before its release, and in the process benefit from it in the final game.

I would not recommend Fable II Pub Games to anyone at this point, especially if you have to pay for it (I got my copy for free for registering my game with Lionhead Studios). The pub games can be played within Fable II, so if you really want to check them out, pick up a copy of Fable II, its got to be around 10$ used now.