Max Payne

Title: Max Payne
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: July 23, 2001
Date Played: 2001
Time Played: 20 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
I remember firing up Max Payne, having no idea what the game was about and being amazed by the smooth gameplay and absolute badassness of Max.

Ive always loved Die Hard movies, and for some reason Max Payne always made me feel like I am playing as John McClain. I dont know what it is, maybe its the smirk that both McClain and Payne share. This game was so innovative, it was perhaps the first 3rd person action game that I actually liked. It was the first time I came to realize that first person shooters werent necessarily always better than these console-like third person perspective ones.

At the time most games ran at 800x600, some even at 640x400, but Max Payne allowed you to crank up that resolution to the maximum your monitor supported, and the amazing thing about it was the fact that the textures instead of looking washed out ended up looking better and better to the point where playing the game at 1280x1024 I was utterly convinced that this is it, we have reached the maximum... there is no way games can look any better. And although some feel that Max's face is cheesy as heck, I felt that it gave him character, plus who cares about what grimace he made, look at him, looooook... he looks like a real person... do you see that? Isnt that amazing?!!??! This was also when games started implementing environmental damage, bullets started chipping walls and leaving realistic looking holes, a new era of gaming was unfolding.

Graphics are not the only thing that made Max Payne stand out, it was the addition of Bullet Time, although the concept was not entirely new, it was seen in The Matrix 2 years prior to the game's release, it was the first time I have seen it in a video game, and oh boy it was a whole new ball game.  Sure bullet time looks sweet in the movie theaters, but this was you who was shooting the rounds, controlling the motions, aiming... nothing ever felt like this before.  In Max Payne you are able to do a jump in any direction and trigger bullet time, it felt so rewarding, and fun. In fact it was so much fun I played the game all the way through several times. Remedy Entertainment (the developer) did such a good job balancing little things like enemy health, the amount of slowdown during bullet time, player animations etc etc, that the whole thing felt perfect.

Story in Max Payne is pretty interesting as well. Death of his wife and hunger for vengeance drive Max Payne to hunt down and kill those who have done him wrong. The levels are laid out and designed well, except for the dream sequence level, which is a love it or hate it type of level. I just know that in 2001 at 16 years of age it freaked me out.

Max Payne is a great game, it is one of my favorite games of all time, it changed my view on 3rd person shooters, showed me how much fun Bullet Time is in video games, and allowed me to be John McClain for several dozen hours. I havent touched it in years (8 years at least), so I can not necessarily recommend it since I have no idea if it aged well. But I think it would be just as enjoyable today as it was back then, and graphically it looked amazing back then, it probably still looks alright. With 3rd game around the corner I would say go for it, grab it off Steam (dont play the down-rezed low framerate console versions) and give it a whirl.

Left 4 Dead

Title: Left 4 Dead
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 17, 2008
Date Played: November-December 2008
Time Played:  20 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Clever name, brilliant game. Left 4 Dead is so genius that I cant believe that no one has come up with anything like it before.

I think every gamer had a moment where they said "damn I wish this was multiplayer, so that me and my buddy can fight for survival together", while playing a zombie game such as Dead Rising or Resident Evil.  Well, I bet the guys at Valve/Turtle Rock thought exactly the same thing because Left 4 Dead is precisely that. 

Left 4 Dead features four pretty unique from each other "campaigns" that loosely feed into each other to form an overarching story. But enough about that, Left 4 Dead is not about story, it is about getting up to 3 of your buddies (4 people total) together and enjoying a fast paced zombie shooter, covering each other's backs and constantly anticipating the "AI director's" next move.

The AI director was hugely hyped, it is something video games have been trying to do for many years, and we finally have the technology to make it work. Basically the game studies everyone's actions, and locations and adjusts the enemy behavior accordingly.  This basically makes it so that even though the level layout doesnt change each and every game will play out completely differently. There is no such thing as AI routines or patterns in Left 4 Dead. I do wish that the level geometry was somehow randomized at least a little bit, but thats not major knock against it.

As always Valve (technically Turtle Rock) did a phenomenal job at telling the story with the environment.  Every piece of the level is set perfectly in a believable manner and scribbles on shelter walls tell bits of the story as well as fates of other survivors. All in all Left 4 Dead has a great atmosphere and level design.

Then on top of all that co-op goodness in a highly detailed awesomely crafted world there is the multiplayer.  Here in four vs four you can be the "infected" or as I prefer to call them "zombies" and prevent the opposing team (who is playing the survivors) from reaching the safe house. Playing as infected is a ton of fun since you gain new, and interesting abilities that play nothing like the co-op survivors experience. Playing as survivors against the infected controlled by other humans is also a blast.

All in all Left 4 Dead is a ton of fun. The Source engine is as smooth and fun as ever. I absolutely love the games that utilize it well. Left 4 Dead is a must for any shooter fan.

Silent Hill

Title: Silent Hill
Platform Played On: PS3 (PS1 Classic)
Release Date: January 31, 1999
Date Played: February 2012
Time Played: 9h 32m 32s
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5

Opinion:

Harry Mason Walking Down A Street of Silent Hill

Yes, it took me 13 years to play a PS1 classic, and I loved every minute of it.

One of my friends (Devin) is a huge fan of the series, and has always told me that I should play it. I thought of him, when I saw that Silent Hill 1 was available on PSN as a PS1 classic download. It was now or never, so I jumped in.

I must say that I was immediately impressed by the opening cut scene. Although nothing like today's life like CGI, but on par with the Final Fantasies of the time, which were pretty damn impressive. The cinematic foreshadows some of the game's events and features a very fitting score and sets the mood just right. Visually Silent Hill is no less impressive, its got to be one of the best looking PlayStation 1 games. The city geometry and textures look unique, unlike other games of the time where you could tell that a building or texture was copy pasted several times. There are many objects in the environment that did not necessarily need to be there, like random mail boxes, car tires turned to make it look like someone pulled in to the parking spot, life rings near the water, ropes, street sign detailing and a lot of other little details without which Silent Hill's atmosphere would not be nearly as good. The developers were able to use in game mechanics to their advantage in order to accomplish such polish. Since Silent Hill is a spooky town, the developers used one of the primary spooky elements to us humans... fog.  And with fog, the draw distance is so short that it allowed them to jam pack a ton of detail into the environment without the PlayStation 1 hardware buckling under the processing intensity.  This is one of very few example of excellent game design, it plays both ways, help create a spooky in game atmosphere, and at the same time helps the engineers with making the game.

The First Time You Realize That Things are Messed Up

The game starts with you (Harry Mason) waking up from a car crash and realizing that your daughter (Cheryl) is missing form the car. Finding Cheryl becomes your primary mission. As you explore the nearby city of Silent Hill you encounter strange beasts and even alternate dimensions. As you progress through the game you begin to unravel the mysteries of Silent Hill.

I didnt find Silent Hill to be necessarily scary, but it does have a ton of spooky/creepy moments, coupled with a phenomenal sound direction even at 13 years old Silent Hill creates an awesome, desolate town full of monsters ready to tear your head off atmosphere.

In essence Silent Hill is an adventure game, I would definitely not classify it under the survival genre. The enemies are fairly straight forward, and boss fights are more of a puzzle than anything else. Granted I played it on easy, but I died only once, and even that was a puzzle death. The game provides you with more than enough ammunition and health packs, I ended up never using the large health packs (I think I found around 15 of them), nor did I use the ampules (buffs) at all.  I only used the small health bottles (about 15-20), and still had around that many left when I finished the game.

It took me a little over nine and a half hours to finish the game, without puzzles that time would have been somewhere between tree to four hours. What I am trying to say here is that majority of the time you find yourself solving puzzles trying to make sense of whats going on. Speaking of puzzles... I applaud you Konami (developer), what a great job on the puzzles.  For once I was actually interested and intrigued by the creativity in puzzle design.  Most games have stupid cliche puzzles, such as move the blocks around to get the red block out of the square, or match three puzzles, or pipe dream, or a Sudoku puzzles. Silent Hills puzzles are a completely different cup of tea, they are thought provoking and creative. A lot of them are comprised of poems that you have to read and make sense of, others require you to think logically, and use the items in your inventory to achieve certain goals.

Silent Hill features 5 different endings, one of which is a gag ending that you can only get after finishing the game multiple times.  The other four endings have to do with your actions throughout the game.  All in all it boils down to saving the people you meet.  I could not save anyone, although I was extremely close to saving the doctor, which would have gotten me a Good ending; however after getting to his hotel room, I could not figure out where to use the code.

I think it is clear that I was very impressed by Silent Hill, I found myself wanting to keep playing it even at 2am when I should be going to sleep because I have to get up for work the next morning.  The story was engaging throughout, and I found that the game was of perfect length. At the end, when you make sense of it all it is a little weird, but I can easily overlook that since the getting from point A to point B (beginning to end) was so enjoyable. I feel that Silent Hill is a bit like playing through an X-files episode.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes puzzles/adventure games and doesn't mind getting spooked once in a while. Silent Hill, you impressed me all around and I can not wait to play the sequels.

My Finish Screen

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

Title: Warhammer 40k: Space Marine
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: September 6, 2011
Date Played: February 2012
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 3/5




Opinion:
I love the Warhammer universe. Its Gothic architecture, its "space British" (aka Space Marines), and its latin based naming conventions all create an epic war-machine atmosphere. However I am not a huge fan of some of the mechanics chosen for this game.

First of, Space Marine is a hard ass game. Even on easy there were several spots that I had to retry half a dozen times, either hard is not much harder, or hard is impossible.  I found myself yelling at the TV "wtf, this is easy?How hard is Hard?". Before I go deeper into that, let me set the scene.

Space Marine uses the Unreal Engine 3, which was used by the genre defining Gears of War. Bulky armor, crazy guns, enemy with "horde" mentality.  Hey that sounds familiar, re-skin it and we got ourselves a Warhammer game.  Unfortunately, that is basically what happened with Space Marine. The character movement, and interactions resemble Gears of War to the tee.  The weapons feel exactly like Gears of War, with most of the enemies soaking up hundreds of bullets and behaving just like Locust in Gears of War. In fact it seems like there was only one $#tty attempt to differentiate Space Marine from Gears, and that was to limit ammo, and force you to melee in order to regain health. Fine, sounds great on paper. Space Marines are known for their melee, and it would seem natural for them to engage in hand to hand combat more so than ranged; however it ends up being a terrible game mechanic that causes more frustration than fun.  I found myself in situations where I had a sliver of health left and was forced to run head first into a hail of bullets in order to get to an Ork whom I can melee to regain health. Which just caused me to die, but because of the game's central design, that is what I am supposed to do and there is no way around it (I was out of ammo).  In other games, at least you can jump into cover and regen some health, but here you basically have to kamikaze and hope that you live. Not fun at all.

I would have liked it if Relic, being a world class developer to be more original with its game design. There is almost nothing that differentiates it from Gears of War, even the melee emphasis is thrown by the wayside as you still end up spraying thousands of rounds from your Bolter into enemies that soak up bullets just like Locust.

The only thing that kept me going was the Warhammer universe. I could care less for the game's mechanics, which is a shame.  There have been plenty of developers who took Unreal Engine 3 and charted new territory, Mass Effect, BioShock, Mirror's Edge just to name a few.  There is absolutely no need for a talented developer to copy and re-skin a 5 year old game.  Even some of the levels are simply reskinned assets from Gears.  All of us remember the final level in the original Gears of War, the train level.  Space Marine literally takes that level and throws a new skin on top.  It is literally the same level.  Shameful.

Now that I am done expressing my dissatisfaction with Relic's lack of creativity, I will say that Space Marine looks and sounds great. The blood splashes, the armor detail, voices, weapon sounds all create a great atmosphere. And even though I was frustrated with some sections of the game, I still enjoyed most of it, largely due to the aforementioned atmosphere.  The story is not bad either.

Overall I would say that if you are a Warhammer fan, or like the Gears of War gameplay then you will most likely enjoy Warhammer 40k: Space Marine. Otherwise you are better off playing something else. If you do end up picking it up though, heed my word and play it on Easy. There is plenty of challenge there. Playing it on Hard is simply masochistic.

Wolfenstein RPG

Title: Wolfenstein RPG
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: May 11, 2009
Date Played: January - February 2012
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
I never played the original Wolfenstein 3D (or the games it was based on), so there is no nostalgia there for me. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was a sweet shooter, but its a completely different game. Anyhow, after wanting to play it for a few years I finally buckled down and decided that it was time to foil the Nazi plans for world domination.

Wolfenstein RPG has a pretty unique presentation. At first glance it looks a lot like the original Wolfenstein 3D; however one major difference is the fact that it is completely turn based. Every time you encounter and enemy you may perform one attack (some attacks fire multiple times), so within your turn you can look around and choose a weapon, but once you fire, unless your move kills the enemy they have a shot at you. There are dozens of powerups and multiple ways to heal damage.  There is even a simple crafting system within the game which allows you to craft syringes, which in essence are buffs.  There are secret rooms and even a leveling system. Basically Wolfenstein was overhauled with the cliche RPG mechanics, and I must note that this FPS to RPG transformation was done much more elegantly that I would anticipate.

The gist of the story is that the Nazis have been up to no good at the good ole castle Wolfenstein, and you, B.J. Blazkowicz have to stop them. Just like every other Wolfenstein (as far as I know), you start in the Nazi prison, through clever trickery (in this case throwing a toilet at the guard) you manage to escape and fight all the way to the top of the castle.  The game features three major areas, the prison where you start and the catacombs below it. A village between the prison and the castle Wolfenstein, and the castle itself.

Traditional to Wolfenstein this game has some cheeky humor, from Gunther, the crazy Nazi and his card games to B.J.'s snarky remarks Wolfenstein RPG brought quite a few smiles to my face.

One downside to Wolfenstein RPG is that it is pretty repetitive.  There are a handful of enemy types (with a few palette swaps each), and basically 3 environments (dungeon, indoor castle, and outdoors).  However ID did a good job at throwing new weapons at you pretty frequently, which allows you to try new tactics and keeps the gameplay fresh.  Half a dozen boss fights and two (almost back to back) on the rails (non turn based) shooting sequences all help as well. That being said Wolfenstein RPG could still use more variety in actual combat. I ended up using my 3 core guns throughout the game largely disregarding the rest because I felt they worked with my strategy.

Overall Wolfenstein RPG is a great RPG based on the ID's classic game. While I criticize it for being a bit repetitive, I must note that I never got bored, and enjoyed the game all the way through.  If you have an iOS device and would like an RPG, at 99 cents there is no better offering on than this game (maybe only Doom II RPG ;) ).

The Crazy Nazi

On The Rails (non turn based) Section

Final Score When I Finished The Game

XIII

Title: XIII
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 18, 2003
Date Played: November 2003
Time Played: 9 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Thirteen is game I associate with starting college. I distinctly remember sitting at my desk in the dorms and playing this game.

XIII grabbed my attention immediately with its unconventional cell shaded approach. In fact I am pretty sure it was the first cell shaded game I have ever played. The art direction was pretty impressive.  The way cell shaded technology works it allowed Ubisoft to craft an incredible looking world, which still looks pretty good 9 years later. The visuals are very clean and the animations are well done.

Playing through XIII is a pretty unique experience, even to this day no one really attempted to craft something like it using cell shading.  The story bits and in game dialogue is presented in a comic book style.  When enemies walk around you can see the "TAP TAP TAP" from their feet, explosions trigger "BOOM" moments. It reminds me of the 90's Genesis game called "Comix Zone", except its a first person shooter. All of these popups and comic book boxes make actions you do feel really bad ass.

The presentation makes XIII stand out even today. Its graphical style looks great at 1080p even now in 2012, and overall it is a pretty unique experience. My only complain about it is that although presented very well, the actual story itself is very forgettable, but even still I would definitely recommend XIII to any fan of the comic books and/or cell shaded style.

Simpsons - Hit and Run

Title: Simpsons - Hit and Run
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 13, 2003
Date Played: November - December 2003
Time Played: 30 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:

Hit and Run (Top) and GTA (Bottom)

Even though portrayed by weird looking yellow creatures I've always been a fan of Simpsons. The writers have always been able to make me laugh.

Simpsons Hit and Run came out shortly after I started college. With first set of midterms behind me and controller in hand I jumped in to this highly rated game. This was probably one of the first games I played on PC with a controller. Back then the PC games were still designed with mouse and keyboard in mind, unlike today's games, which are designed with 360 controller in mind.

Simpsons Hit and Run came out during the time that GTA 3 and Vice City ruled the world. Infact Vice City came out just 6 months earlier and was a smashing success. So it was a no brainer for game developers to cash in on open world GTA clones.  Unfortunately most of these games were overshadowed by the triple-A product that Rockstar was churning out.

Hit and Run however did a good job taking the GTA formula and creating a fun experience. This is largely due to the fact that Radical Entertainment (developer) took as much as they could from GTA and straight up copied it over.  All the little things that make GTA a great experience are there.  The camera angles, the emphasis on car driving, and character and car handling. If I would have to guess, I would most likely guess that Radical licenses the GTA 3 engine from Rockstar (which is not the case).

As of January 2012, Simpsons Hit and Run is the best Simpsons game I have ever played. The Simpsons game (2007) for Xbox 360 did a good job making you feel like you were playing out episodes from the show; however no Simpsons game came even close to being as fun as Hit and Run.  At this point in time Simpsons - Hit and Run would probably be enjoyable only to the fans of the series. Since its release (9 years ago) many other games have perfected the genre (GTA4, Saints Row 3, Just Cause 2, Red Dead Redemption). But if you are interested, the PC release with cranked up resolution and an Xbox 360 controller would make a great retro gaming experience.

Nothing at the time came even close to Vice City; however Simpsons - Hit and Run made a great distraction until San Andreas came out.

Puzzlejuice

Title: Puzzlejuice
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: January 19, 2012
Date Played: February 2012
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 4/5

Opinion:
Puzzlejuice is an interesting puzzle game.

Its like playing Tetris, except simply filling in lines is just half of the game.  Once you fill a line, or have more than 3 blocks of the same color touching you can turn them into letters, and after that you have to spell a 3+ letter word in order to blow up the blocks.

There are always challenges to strive for. For example, form a 5 letter word, or clear 10 lines.  And after completing these challenges you unlock powerups. The first two you unlock are a bomb and freeze ray. The bomb will blow up all nearby tiles, and the freeze ray will stop the Tetris shape from falling for a while, so that you have some time to think about the next move.

Puzzlejuice is great about its sense of humor. With things like Hard mode being called "Euro Select Mode" and the Exit button being called "Rage Quit" the game keeps you smiling as you dominate the playing field.

Surprisingly addictive Puzzlejuice is a great way to pass time while in line or on the toilet. Integration of your score into GameCenter makes it even more intense, as you battle with your friends for the number one slot. Currently 1.99$ on the App store, Puzzlejuice is worth checking out for those that like Tetris and word searches, those two have never been combined in this way.

Hero Academy

Title: Hero Academy
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: January 11, 2012
Date Played: January - February 2012
Time Played: 4 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 4/5

Opinion:
If chess and Magic the Gathering had a baby, no doubt it would have close resemblance to Hero Academy.

Set on a 5x9 grid you start on one end of a randomly generated field, while your opponent starts on the other end. The sides are mirrored for balance. The objective is to destroy the opponent's crystal(s).

Hero academy is presented in a cool art style, and smooth animations. It features asynchronous multiplayer, which is what makes Hero Academy so appealing. You can take a turn and forget about it until a few hours or days later a little notification pops up saying that its your turn again.

One major complain about the game is the fact that it doesnt explain anything, and I mean... it does not explain anything.  It doesnt even explain that you can click on the "hint" button and then click on something else to see what it does. So what ends up happening is you end up making random decisions based on your best guess, which end up with your ass being handed to you by the opponent.

Hero Academy is a cool idea, executed well, just explained poorly. Overall it is a cool game to play asynchronously with your buddies, and the (free) price is hard to beat.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Title: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 8, 2011
Date Played: January 2011
Time Played: 40 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Its been four years since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare changed the gaming world as radically as its forefather Doom did in the early 90's. 4 games, 4 years later and I am ready to see the end of this exhilarating tale.

It is apparent that Modern Warfare 3 itself is aware of how big of a phenomenon it is. Most games start out slow, with tutorials and hand-holding. Even its predecessors started out that way, not assuming too much and taking care of those new to the franchise. Modern Warfare 3 however, pulls out all the stops. It is the fastest zero to 60 in a video game since the time when video games had no story. Without any tutorials or much of an explanation you are thrown right into the action. Me being me, and playing the game on the hardest difficulty level, I died within the first 10 seconds of starting the game. Thats pretty unbelievable by 2011's standards.

I actually jumped into Modern Warfare 3 right after finishing up Battlefield 3, and I must say that these two games could not be more different. Battlefield 3 (as I have mention in my write up about it)  puts you in a role of a soldier, makes you part of a larger, greater oiled machine.  MW3, looks at all that and goes "eh f*k it".  Here you are no ordinary soldier, here you are a Rambo, a lone wolf, a macho man, a bro. And to be honest I kind of liked just being an ordinary soldier, because an ordinary soldier is easier to relate to. And there has been so much of this unstoppable special forces gameplay over the last several years that even though technically it is more exciting, it got kind of boring. I am tired of things happening on the screen being cranked to 11 the entire time, its not exciting anymore.

That being said though, I still had a lot of fun with Modern Warfare 3, mostly due to the same reasons I had a blast with Black Ops. The silky smooth 60 FPS framerate, and spot on handling are still as fun as they have ever been. However one can argue that I can get that satisfaction by going back and replaying one of the previous 4 games, and I wouldnt argue with that.

Modern Warfare 3 boldly wraps up the Makarov story that originated in Call of Duty 4. I must admit an unexpected move from cash-mongering ActiVision. By the end of the 6 hour cranked to 11 journey I was relieved to see the story end. I was getting tired of the sameness of it. Terrorists this, terrorists that, invade this, invade that. How much more crazy can you get?

Coined in MW2, Spec Ops mode makes its return, this time more brutal than ever with more missions and a horde based survival mode. Ive spent over 25 hours playing through all of the Spec Ops missions on Veteran (3 starring them) and through all (16) of the survival mode maps to get to at least wave 15. This time around you can purchase equipment and weapons while in the survival mode. This allows you to use the them outside of competitive multiplayer.  The ranking system has been expanded to Spec Ops as well, now you are able to take your rank from Spec Ops to Multiplayer and vice versa (a welcome change). I must note that Spec Ops is a lot harder this time around, with some of the missions taking hours and hundreds of attempts to complete. Comparatively the campaign took me 11 hours to complete on Veteran.

Overall there is nothing new in Modern Warfare 3; however it still is an extremely tight shooter, with sharp graphics and perfectly balanced controls. Bottom line is that its just as fun as ever, but the formula is starting to run its course. The multiplayer is basically the same thing we have seen for the last 4 years, just with new maps. If you have been a fan of the series, and want more then by all means pick up a copy of Modern Warfare 3, you will not be dissapointed. But if you are getting tired of the same formula, then be warned, it hasnt changed.