Sim City Deluxe

Title: Sim City Deluxe
Platform Played On: iPad
Release Date: July 29, 2010
Date Played: Summer 2011
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
Sim City Deluxe is a port of the 2003's Sim City 4 on PC.

There actually is not much to say about Sim City Deluxe on iOS. It is an excellent and faithful port of Sim City 4. The interface is tweaked to accommodate the touch screen, and the game runs great on iPad2. The iPhone screen is most likely too small to really enjoy this game, so I would recommend picking it up for the iPad instead.

When it comes to ports of PC or console games to handheld devices my main concern is the "dumbing down" of the game in order to appeal to a broader audience or because of hardware limitations. Luckily EA stayed faithful and ported over everything from the PC version over. Now I can play full on Sim City on a handheld without battling the controls of a Nintendo DS.

If you liked the Sim City games on the Mac or PC, then you will love this game. Its a great app to have to play on a portable device (iPad), and the best thing is that it has all the features of the computer versions both in content and graphics!

Draw Something

Title: Draw Something
Platform Played On: iPhone
Release Date: February 1, 2012
Date Played: March 2012
Time Played: 1 hour
Completed (Y/N): N?A
Score: 3/5

Opinion:
Draw something is part of the barrage of "with friends" games. It seems like at this point there is a *insert anything imaginable* with friends on the iOS. From solitare to poker to scrabble to chess... you name it. Draw Something is the same idea but with Pictionary.

Draw Something is a great idea, and is enjoyable. However I found myself constantly struggling with the interface and navigation. For whatever reason the developer chose to use a proprietary log in system that fails half the time and gives errors. Matchmaking leaves a lot to be desired as well, I could not for the life of me connect with my girlfriend's iPad to play a game. It just kept telling me that the game already existed even though it didnt. All of these things could have been avoided by simply using Game Center for logging in and matchmaking.

Draw something is cool, and enjoyable when it works. I had a lot of issues with it that might get fixed in the future. There is a free version on the app store, so if you are into "with friends" games, there is no reason to not give Draw Something a shot.

Spelunky

Title: Spelunky
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: December 21, 2008
Date Played: 2009, 2012
Time Played: 2 hours
Completed (Y/N): N/A
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Spelunky is a roguelike experience. This means that every single level is randomly generated, and once you die, you are dead. The goal is to make it as far as you can without dying while exploring more and more of the caves.

Spelunky is an indie game developed by Derek Yu and Andy Hull. You play as a cute little spelunker slightly resembling Indiana Jones. There really is no set objective, just dont die and explore. The further you get the better stuff you can find. You have some tools like bombs and rope at your disposal to aid you in your exploration endeavors. And of course there are baddies and traps that want to see you dead.

For what it is Spelunky is an excellent game. The use of pixel art makes it incredibly charming and fun to watch. It controls well and is a great game to have installed to jump in for a few minutes now and then. It is free, and should be on everyone's desktop for quick breaks. In fact, it could be 21 century's Solitare.

Viva Pinata

Title: Viva Pinata
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: November 9, 2006
Date Played: February - March 2012
Time Played: 40 Hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes (Animal Crossing type game)
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Viva Pinata is easily dismissed; however as the old proverb states, dont judge the book by its cover.
If you have ever played Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, then you know what you are getting yourself into. It is a mix of those two with some Pokemon sprinkled on top.

Viva Pinata starts you off on a small patch of land with nothing but a shovel and a few items available for purchase. You are a gardener, and your goal is to create a garden attractive to various pinata animals to visit and hopefully become residents. The gameplay has an entire ecosystem where one species will depend on another, and certain species will not like each other (like cats and dogs, or ants and bees because ants eat bee's honey).

Viva Pinata is gorgeous. This is a launch title were talking about, its vibrant colors and cute animations are just as good as any modern game.

Viva Pinata suffers from some fundamental issues though. The controls are not standardized, which leads to some frustration. The X button will at certain times open a shop menu, at others dig a hole, the B button will sometimes back out of the menu, at other times do something else you didnt want to do. Sometimes the button functions switch, so you end up pressing the wrong button, even though a minute ago it would have been the right button. Thank god for the standardized 'get me the hell out of here' back button, which takes you back to your garden (most of the time).

Another issue, and a HUGE one, is the object limit. The great thing about Viva Pinata is its Pokemon bit of collecting every species of pinatas. That whole aspect of the game is ruined by the fact that there is a very low hard limit on amount of objects you can have in your garden. Everything effects this limit, even decorations. So what ends up happening is after having about 20 pinatas in the garden (keep in mind there are over 50 species, and you want to have at least 2 of every kind for breeding), and some trees/plans (which are also needed to either feed or attract pinatas), you hit the limit. Its actually pretty ridiculous how low the limit is, and kind of ruins the experience. You can not keep collecting the pinatas, you have to get rid of species to get new ones. I played the game for 40+ hours, and entirety of that time I was hovering at 99% full garden, constantly struggling to make room. This is unfortunate since the collecting aspect of it, is the thing that attracted me the most to Viva Pinata.

Overall Viva Pinata is a great idea, it is fun. However with the sequel out (Trouble in Paradise), there is no reason to play this first installment. TIP is the same game with some improvements. The aforementioned control issue is fixed, and the limit (although still there, and still constraining) is increased.

ArmA: Queen's Gambit

Title: ArmA: Queen's Gambit
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: September 28, 2007
Date Played: March 2012
Time Played: 5 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Right after finishing up ArmA's main campaign I installed and jumped into the expansion pack "Queen's Gambit", which actually consists of two separate campaigns Royal Flush, and Rahmadi Conflict.

I started off with the Royal Flush campaign. It is about 1/4 of the length of ArmA's campaign, and oh my is acting bad. I think that the cut-scenes do a huge disservice to this game. The NPCs sound absolutely terrible, its like they grabbed a random guy off the street, handed him a piece of paper and told him to read some lines into the mic. Every conversation is monotone with random moments of excitement which do not match the words or the action at all. Acting aside though Royal Flush features a pretty well done campaign that I actually found a bit more enjoyable than ArmA's campaign. It is clear that Bohemia Interactive (developer) was trying to improve the game. A bandage mechanic was added where you are able to bandage yourself at any point, its quite handy and is preferred to crawling to the next objective for 2 hours because your legs have been shot off.

Another welcome change is persistence. And if you know me, you know that I love persistence in video games. In Royal Flush you get to keep your squad mates, and whatever weapons you are carrying from the mission to mission all the way to the end.  This mechanic is supplemented by three mini missions where you can (optionally) meet up with a dealer and purchase new weapons. I found the dealer mechanic to be a bit gimmicky as it was much easier (and cheaper) to simply pick up the weapons off my enemies; however weapon and squad persistence is very much welcomed.

Sneaking Up on Some Rebels

The campaign is much more focused than that of ArmA. Instead of jumping from role to role you play as the same soldier through the whole thing working on one main goal. Towards the end you are even given a moral choice of whether or not you want to potentially spark a huge international scandal, but at the same time make sure your buddy is safe, or follow his orders and not look out for him. I chose to look out for my buddy even if it meant trouble, so I am not sure what  the other option would do. Potentially a second ending?

Overall Royal Flush is pretty good, even though it is spotted with some really weird hardcore/metal hybrid music, which I hate to admit doesn't really fit the simulation vibe of ArmA. I think Royal Flush made a few steps in the right direction with its missions; however scripting bugs nearly ruined my enjoyment of it. It is clear that Bohemia Interactive was trying to make a more streamlined, and focused campaign by utilizing a ton of scripting, but it doesnt seem like they did as many bug checks as they should have. Nevertheless I feel that it is a bit better than the original campaign and is worth playing even if only for the concentration camp missions. I really enjoyed those.

After Royal Flush I jumped into the second campaign "Rahmadi Conflict". While Royal Flush took place a year after the events of the original campaign this one takes place during it. You are a member of a special forces team tasked with capturing the enemy leader.

Rahmadi Conflict is fairly short (I finished it in just a few hours). It consists of 3 extremely focused and very polished missions. I think Bohemia Interactive realized how terrible they are at making cut-scenes, so instead of in engine clusterfrak in between missions they opted to use a stylized slideshow, and this time they hired a decent voice to do the narration. Overall the acting and cut-scenes are amazingly well done compared to those of ArmA and Royal Flush.

Welcome addition is also a set of new (small) islands to play on. Royal Flush reused the landmass from the main game, so it is nice to play around in the new environment in Rahmadi Conflict. I am guessing that it is due to the small size of the maps, but it seems like they crammed more detail into the levels as well.

All in all Queen's Gambit is a good expansion that expands and improves on the original campaign. While Rahmadi Conflict was the most enjoyable part of it, Royal Flush was pretty fun as well. If you finished up ArmA and would like more I would definitely recommend Queen's Gambit.

ArmA

Title: ArmA
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: May 4, 2007
Date Played: May 2007, Spring 2011, March 2012
Time Played: 40+ hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
ArmA, which stands for "Armed Assault" comes from the creators of Operation Flashpoint, and is only named ArmA because of the developers (Bohemia Interactive) not owning the copyright for that name. So for all intents and purposes this is the sequel to Operation Flashpoint.

Computer graphics have made quite an advancement since Operation Flashpoint (2001) came out, and so when ArmA came out it looked gorgeous with more advanced AI and weapon simulation than Op Flashpoint. Unfortunately as with all of the Bohemia Interactive games at launch ArmA was basically unplayable, the game was plagued with terrible framerate and countless bugs. All of these issues were eventually resolved via patches, for which I must commend the developer, they truly stick with their products much longer than any other developer that I have seen (aside Blizzard maybe). They will patch the game years and years after the sequel has been released eventually getting the game to the point that it has zero bugs.

But these bugs that were present at launch kind of shaped the way I played ArmA. When I first got it, it was unplayable. It ran at 10 FPS and unbalanced AI made me stop playing it after a few missions. I remember I could not finish the water tower sniper mission no matter what I tried. It was 4 years later once the game has been patched over a dozen times that I was able to try it again.

I must admit though, that once the game was fixed I could not stop playing it. ArmA provides the best military simulation out there (it has since been surpassed by ArmA2), with taking the simulation they developed for Operation Flashpoint and taking advantage of modern computing technology Bohemia Interactive managed to create a great looking and amazingly fun military simulator.

It did take me a while to finish up ArmA's main campaign, this is due to the fact that this game is very hard! Its a simulator remember? One bullet and you are dead. There is no Rambo-ing in ArmA, and there is no fooling around. It is all about strategy, and the ability to give commands. Its about crawling over a ridge and pulling out your binoculars to assess the situation. It is about outsmarting the enemy. There is no scripting. Everything AI does is calculated on the fly. So you can not rely that an enemy that was there last time will be there again. It creates a living breathing world, something very few games are able to pull off. All of these things are never present in your run of the mill shooters, and this is why ArmA is a unique experience. It is an experience you can not get anywhere else. It is not for everyone, but it definitely is for me. I enjoy spending 20 minutes sneaking onto a base just to be busted and having to replay that segment again. Why? Well because when  I do successfully execute my plan I feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

Screen After Completing a Mission

I have to knock ArmA for the inexcusable bugginess at launch. When I got this game at launch I could not enjoy it for the first year until there was at least half a dozen patches. Another knock against it would be the cut scenes and voice acting. They are downright atrocious; however neither of them is important at all and can be skipped. What matters is the clipboard at the start of a mission that contains your briefing, all the cinematics in between is just fluff to make events flow better. When it comes down to it ArmA is fun because of its simulation, not because of its story. I would give it A for execution and F for the story. But as I said, the execution is 99.9% of the game, story is not why one comes to ArmA.

All off this amazing simulation takes place ona couple huge islands, several hundred square miles for you to roam and approach your targets as you see fit. You can also use the built in editor to create your own missions from taking out a small patrol to assaulting a gigantic base.

ArmA is as close as you can get to really flying a helicopter and driving a tank, it is as close as you can get to participating in a war without actually being shipped to Iraq or Afghanistan. This is why I love ArmA. It is unique and in my opinion extremely fun. I definitelly agree that it is not for everyone, but if you are a fan of simulation you ought to check out ArmA. You can pick it up on Steam for a couple of bucks.

RPG7 vs BMP2

Baldur's Gate

Title: Baldur's Gate
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: November 30, 1998
Date Played: Spring 2010
Time Played: 40 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 4/5


Opinion:
It took me a while to warm up to Baldur's Gate, by a while I mean 10 years or so.

Baldur's Gate is the type of game that can only be played with a specific mind set. It is the type of a game that you need to be in a roleplaying mood for. Comparatively speaking it doesn't have much action and instead focuses on character development and rich story telling. This is precisely why it took me so long to warm up to it. My view of isometric games was shaped by Diablo, and as such anything as slow as Baldur's Gate just felt broken.  It wasnt until a decade later that I gained the appreciation of the RPGs that focused on the story and not action. You will find yourself reading page after page of books, descriptions and dialogue.

Baldur's Gate is based on Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition rules, and as such has a lot of confusing mechanics (that were removed in the 3rd edition) , one of which is the fact that lower the armor the better because instead of telling you how much armor it provides it tells you how much damage reduction there is. This was confusing to me for a very long time, until I spoke to someone who knew D&D and they explained it to me.

Thanks to the fact that it features D&D mechanics Baldurs Gate manages to be an excellent roleplaying game. True to D&D your party members react to your actions and can straight up turn on you or each other if they dont like what you did. They are not your minions, they are your companions in the truest sense of that word. They have feelings and thoughts they are not afraid to express. They can die permanently and you never know if one of them will turn on you.

I feel that Baldur's Gate starts really well, with some interesting questions being raised that you are compelled to get answers to; however the middle half of the game drags on as you explore ruins and help strangers. There really isn't any "loot" in this game as you would think of it in a traditional sense, and so there is nothing to keep you going during the rough (boring) story parts, you just have to kind of power through them. There are a few "named" items that you can get through doing specific tasks, but most of the things you find in the world either has no stats at all or are clones of each other. I must have gathered enough identical staves by the end of the game to build a 5 bedroom cottage out of them, and enough generic long swords to arm the Chinese army.

It takes a while to understand how to play Baldur's Gate, and it is better if you have a buddy that is either very well versed in D&D or that has played through the game before. There is only one reason to play Baldur's Gate and that is the story. The best way to approach it is how you would approach a book. A book in which you can read chapters in any order you choose to.

Baldur's Gate is a classic, I feel that it should be played by any Dungeons and Dragons fan, even then since the game is based on the system that is several editions old it may come off as ancient to those that dont have experience with it. If you dont give a damn about D&D though this is probably not a game for you.

PS - I feel that the expansion "Tales of the Sword Coast" added a cool mystery quest to the mix and kept things interesting, it is something 'different' that you can do if you are bored of the main quest line.  

God of War

Title: God of War
Platform Played On: PlayStation 2
Release Date: March 22, 2005
Date Played: December 2006
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Being a PC gamer there are very few games that I would rather play on a console. God of War is one of those games. It is the type of game that is best played with a controller, and although Microsoft's introduction of plug and play Xbox 360 controller for the PC made it possible to enjoy this type of gameplay on the PC. One would have to use an emulator to play it on there, so might as well play it on the console.

God of War's universe revolves heavily around Greek mythology. Athena, Zeus, Sparta, Olympus and many other well known locations and figures play an intricate role in Kratos' story (main protagonist). And it so happens to be that I really like Greek mythology, so God of War's setting really appeals to me. But do not fret, even if you could care less about the story, God of War has incredible genre defining action. It is the best we've seen to date, in fact it is so good that many games released since March 2005 have been deemed 'God of War Clones' because they try to imitate its awesomness.

The beauty of God of War is that anyone can play it, even someone who doesn't really play that many games. The combat is simple enough to where mashing buttons will get you by and allow you to experience the epic story of Kratos and (by 2005 standards) stunning visuals, and at the same time it has enough depth to where a more experienced player can execute intricate combos and maneuvers.

God of War is an excellent game with fast paced visceral gameplay. I would highly recommend the recently released God of War Collection on the PlayStation 3, which has revamped, HDified versions of the first two GoW games. I loved the time I spent with God of War, and i think its a series that every gamer should play.

PS2 didnt have the best resolution :)

Resident Evil 5

Title: Resident Evil 5
Platform Played On: Xbox 360
Release Date: March 13, 2009
Date Played: March 2009
Time Played: 12 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5



Opinion:
Ive always enjoyed the Resident Evil series, although the only game in the franchise that I have ever finished was Resident Evil 2 in 1998 on the PS1. The characters and the convoluted premise always appealed to me.

I was pretty excited about the prospect of playing through Resident Evil 5 co-op with my buddy Gavin. We have played through several games over Xbox Live (Army of Two for example) and it has always been a very enjoyable experience. So as soon as RE5 hit the shelves we each grabbed a copy and jumped in. I played as Chris, and he played as Sheva.  It took us a few weeks (5-7 sessions total) of playing a few hours at a time to finish the campaign.

Even though I havent played a Resident Evil game in over a decade I was immediately reminded of what it was like to play one.  The inability to shoot while moving, familiar characters and even the UI was reminiscent of my late 90's experience with the franchise.  While most people seemed to hate on the fact that RE5 failed to evolve along with the rest of the third person shooter genre (main gripe being the inability to move while shooting), I found these design decisions to be completely fine and fitting for the type of game Resident Evil 5 was trying to be. And although it did take a mission or two to get used to the controls, once I did, they felt as natural as in any other game.

I am going to go out on a limb and state that Resident Evil 5 was best co-op experience I have ever had (at least on the consoles). The game was of a perfect length, the level layout and enemy patterns were laid out in such a way that it was enjoyable to fight through them with a buddy. The boss fights were somewhat creative and different from each other. And the overarching story kept me interested throughout.

I have absolutely no complains about RE5. I feel that Capcom (developer) accomplished everything they set out to do with this title, and as I already mentioned I feel that it is one of the best co-op experiences this generation. I loved every minute of it and am hoping to find Resident Evil 6 (whenever that comes) to be just as enjoyable. Props to Capcom for sticking to the roots of the franchise and developing an excellent third person zombie (virus or whatever) action game. I had so much fun with it that I am thinking about playing through it again split-screen with my girlfriend (thank you Capcom for including NewGame+ mechanic).

Railroad Tycoon 2

Title: Railroad Tycoon 2
Platform Played On: PC
Release Date: October 31, 1998
Date Played: 1999
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): No
Score: 4/5



Opinion:
Who doesnt love toy trains? Only the Grinch and Hitler of course. As for the rest of us, we can scratch that toy train itch of laying out the tracks and ferrying "pretend" passengers from point A to point B by playing Railroad Tycoon 2, except here you can actually see the passengers and goods that you are transporting, which feels pretty rewarding.

Rendered with beautifully drawn detailed sprites Railroad Tycoon 2 looked great at the time of release, and to this day looks pretty decent. Railroad Tycoon is more on the simulation side than anything else, all of missions that I have played have all been very hard. The tutorial is not the best, and the AI is more skilled than he should be; however there is nothing more satisfying than finishing up that trans-continental railroad and seeing the little train trucking along it.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with Railroad Tycoon 2, I just wish it was more accessible and explained things more clearly; but then again, we wish that about every simulation game. It has been 13 years since its release, and although its sprite based graphics still look decent, the locked 4:3 resolution and multi-core CPU introduction did not let it age well.  If it shows up on GOG.com then perhaps Id give it a shot, Its a great train simulator. Otherwise you will probably get frustrated with trying to run it properly, and as such I would probably recommend going straight to Railroad Tycoon 3 (which utilizes a full 3d engine) to scratch that toy train itch.

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