Tag Archives: FPS

PS3 Review: Dead Island

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I think I was one of many who were captivated by the awesome teaser trailer released for Dead Island several months back. The trailer looked too good to be true, and it appeared that the PS3 would finally be getting something it was lacking…a FPS zombie kill fest. One of the 360′s advantages is it’s hold on this genre with the Left 4 Dead series. So does Dead Island live up to the hype? Does it succeed in matching the awesomeness that is L4D? Read on to find out.

Dead Island takes place on an island resort in New Guinea where a zombie infestation suddenly occurs. The peaceful, beautiful, lush island is soon overrun with the undead and the player is given the simple task of surviving. That’s about all the story you’re going to get. There are four different characters to choose from, each with his/her own backstory. Yet these backstories seem pointless as there is very little story otherwise. There are some cutscenes here and there to coincide with completing a quest but they are more filler than worthwhile content. Now many times you will hear be complain about how a game is lacking due to a lack of story, but not with Dead Island. It’s the kind of game that doesn’t need a true story, as it’s more important (and fun) to explore the huge environment on your own. In this respect the game reminds me of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, in that I could really care less about a story as I was too busy doing whatever the heck I wanted to do.

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Finally, The Rob, Has Come Back,To…Albany

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It’s been a very busy, yet relaxing, couple of days, as I have been visiting with the in-laws in Las Vegas, NV (well, technically Henderson, NV, but it’s pretty damn close to Vegas.) Both of Shell’s sisters live out there so we don’t really get to see them too often…the last time we were out there was almost two years ago. So we decided to take a bit of a break and head out there for a five day weekend. We left from Albany on Wednesday at 11:55 EST and arrived at 2:20ish PST (thanks to Southwest it was a direct flight), so what was a five and a half hour flight technically got us to Vegas in under three hours.

Since this was more of a visiting family trip, we didn’t really hit the Strip. Shell and I did head down on Tuesday for a little while and checked out some of the casinos and what not. So while there wasn’t any gambling, there was a lot of good eating, as we went out for every lunch and almost every dinner. Some of the highlights included Sonic’s (I really wish one would open up near Albany…the closest one to us is in Kingston), Lucilles, The Yard House (which had quite a large collection of beers on tap…I went for the Spaten Oktoberfest), Raising Cane’s, and many more. Read More »

PS3 Review: Knights Contract

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Last weeks new releases were mainly FPS (Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm) and I wasn’t feeling any of that. So I decided to gamble on a action beat em’ up that was getting little attention in the gaming media. I believed that I would enjoy this type of game over a FPS, but I was indeed wrong.

Knights Contract has a very interesting story/premise, but it just is not delivered well. You play as Heinrich, a knight who was charged with executing women accused of being witches. One of the witches you execute curses you, making you an immortal who just wants to die and move on. Eventually you meet up with this witch, Gretchen (who has returned from the grave), and the two of you become unlikely allies as you team up to take down the other resurrected witches who are trying to get revenge on mankind. The two of you will travel through a variety of bland environments where you walk to an area, beat up some enemies, walk to the next area, beat up more enemies, and rinse and repeat until you reach the boss. The catch in the game is that while Heinrich can’t die, Gretchen can, so you will be defeating enemies while ensuring that Gretchen is safe. If Gretchen dies, it’s game over. If you die (ie- lose your health), you will be downed for several seconds and need to rapidly pound on the x button to resurrect yourself and hope that Gretchen doesn’t die during this time.

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Knights Contract on the Way from Gamefly

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I’ve been waiting a few days for Gamefly to ship a new game to me, and I think it was disrupted a bit due to Sunday and Presidents Day. So I figured that instead of waiting for them to get one of the older games on my queue shipped out to me, I would just get one of today’s new releases. I had three choices: Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, and Knights Contract.

I tried Killzone 2 and did not like it. I’m very picky with FPS, and one of the only ones I really enjoy is Resistance. When the Killzone 3 demo launched last week I gave it a whirl, and could not complete it. It’s a very intense FPS, which ends up being too intense for me. I did enjoy the Bulletstorm demo, but I wasn’t sure it was a game I would enjoy. While it was a fun FPS, it felt to me that the game concentrated too much on massing up major bonus points by performing “trick kills.” This was even more evident when I read an interview by one of the developers, in which he said that co-op was taking out of the main campaign because they didn’t want people rushing through the level and not amassing major points. Bulletstorm just doesn’t sound like my kind of game.

That left me with Knights Contract. I hadn’t heard much about it, but the name sounded good enough for me to consider it. Researching it a bit online, I discovered it was an action beat-em-up of sorts akin to God of War as far as combat and Enslaved as far as having to protect another character throughout the game. That kind of game is more up my alley than a FPS, so I decided to give it a rent. I am a bit nervous about it since I don’t know much about the game, but we shall see. I’ll write up a review after I get some time with it.

The Games of the PS Move

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I have been interested in getting the PlayStation Move for quite some time. I do like the Wii, but I was intrigued by the possibilities for the Move, particularly with the more accurate controller and the higher quality, HD graphics. However, at the price I was not about to buy it for myself. So I placed it on my Amazon Wish List, and I found out Christmas Day that my parents had purchased it for me. I already had the Eye, so all I asked for was the basic Move controller. After Christmas, I went to the PlayStation Store off of PSN and was happy to find that pretty much every Move-enabled game currently available had a demo. So I went ahead and downloaded all eight demos, and spent the next few days trying them all out. I want to share my thoughts on the demos for the games, but I’ll start with my initial view of the controller itself.

PlayStation Move Controller

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Getting Into Some New Games

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WWE SvR 2011 continues to take up a good chunk of what gaming time I have…or at least it was, until I finally unleashed Borderlands this weekend. I had forgotten how much fun it was, and I decided to start from scratch and re-roll a new character. I’m currently playing a Hunter, focusing on the Rogue skill set. The thing I realized today is that Borderlands is has many similarities with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, in that it successfully merges the FPS and RPG genres into one neat, awesome package. I’m pretty addicted to Borderlands right now, and I’m regretting taking a year to finally buy it. This one will be lasting quite some time, between four distinct characters and all the juicy DLC which I have but have not touched yet.

On the DS front, I am getting into Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure. The game is a surprise hit, and is also a combo of genres, to a degree. The meat of the game plays as a platformer, as you control Professor Hatsworth in a quest for a golden suit. One of the great features of the game is that Hatsworth is a British chap, and has the look of an aristocratic, eccentric British adventurer, complete with elephant gun, sword, cane, and monocle. Oh, and the bowler hat! The twist is that while the platforming action is going on the top screen, the bottom screen contains an advancing puzzle of blocks, kind of like Bejeweled. Eventually, if the blocks get to far up, they will begin to invade the platforming screen and can cause trouble. Thus, as you run around the main level, you will continually have to stop that and switch to the puzzle screen to clear it out. Doing this is also what gives Hatsworth health, extra lives, and “energy” which is used to more powerful projectiles, as well as for donning a gigantic robotic suit. It’s proven to be quite the addictive game so far.

PS3 First Impressions: Lost Planet 2

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I received Lost Planet 2 in from Gamefly today, and actually got the chance to put a little over an hour into it. I’m still a little on the fence with it, but it is definitely too early to make a final verdict, especially since I haven’t actually gotten to play with anyone online yet. Still, here’s what I have seen from the campaign so far.

The campaign mode of the game is interesting. There is technically no “single player” mode that you just continue from the last save point. From the campaign menu, you can either jump into someone else’s campaign, or you can create your own campaign. If you start your own, you can start it at any point you wish, up to any point you have already unlocked in the game. The campaign mode supports up to four players, and they can be online buddies or AI. I played two campaigns…one with the AI and one with the online. Unfortunately, no one decided to join in my game, so I was basically getting my butt kicked around. That was one of the first annoying things…it’s hard to play online with random people. I can see it being a lot of fun with some friends who you know will be playing alongside with you, but if you’re hoping to have someone join your game, you could be in for a bumpy ride.

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Lost Planet 2 on the Way from Gamefly

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About a month ago, I was tossed up on which game to rent from Gamefly when the time came…Lost Planet 2 or Red Dead Redemption. Both were promising some interest online co-op, and I couldn’t be sure which to set my Gamefly account for. In the end, I ended up buying Red Dead Redemption from Amazon, which cleared up my Gamefly queue to be all about Lost Planet 2.

I’ll be honest…I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one. I don’t know squat about this one. All I know is that it’s a FPS that offers online co-op, so I’ll be checking it out. I have heard some bad reviews about the game so far, so I’ll try and write up a quick first impression when I get the time.

PS3 Review: Jurassic: The Hunted

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Jurassic: The Hunted was a game that received mixed reviews. It has a few flaws that people really picked up on, and this game has gotten little recognition. However, I beg to differ. I really enjoyed this unique FPS, and I highly recommend it to FPS players, dinosaur lovers, and trophy whores.

One of the first things to mention is that the game is seriously lacking in the story department. Basically you play a security guard who gets sucked into dinosaur times, and must shoot your way through the giant reptiles to survive. Eventually you will come across some other people, and will help them build some machine that returns you to present day. The game does not go into detail on the story, and I was constantly confused if I was on some island lost to time (kind of like Jurassic Park…with dinos living in the modern day) or if I had traveled back  in time. Luckily, the lack of story did not ruin the game play one bit.

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Jurassic: The Hunted? Or Just a FPS Jurassic Park?

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I wanted to be able to just back and enjoy a simple game. These ideals brought my attention to Jurassic: The Hunted, which is a dino-killing FPS, that has received some pretty crummy reviews. However, I for one am really enjoying it. There is almost no story to the game at all, and the little that is revealed makes no sense. But that’s just fine for me…I just pretend I’m on Isla Nublar, protecting Jurassic Park from rampaging killer dinosaurs.

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The game is definitely a guilty pleasure. I never thought I’d enjoy a FPS that didn’t have mutants or Nazis, but I was wrong…dinosaurs definitely top the list. Most of the dinosaurs I know of, either from Jurassic Park, or from my childhood fascination with dinos. The usual enemies are velociraptors, deinonychus, and dilophasaurs, but of course there are others at particular levels such as the Tyrannosaurs Rex, Utahraptor, and pteradons. Grabbing an assortment of guns, including pistols, shotguns, and machine guns, you basically run around killing any of the giant lizards you come across.

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The game is a lot of fun, if you are looking for a brainless FPS. Having dinosaurs as the enemies was a great change of pace (aside from the horrible Turok game that didn’t have nearly enough dinos), and the game is simple enough. The addition of a bunch of fun silver and gold trophies also makes the game a blast to play through. Despite the relatively negative reviews the game received, I am enjoying it so far. I will definitely be making up a full review when I’m done, simply because the game deserves that much.

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PAX East- A Recap

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There was quite a lot to do at PAX East, and since I got a lot of the specifics out of the way in other posts, I will be able to give a general overview of the weekend here.

We first stepped into the Hynes Convention Center around 3:30ish on Friday afternoon and started checking things out. The first floor of the convention center was dedicated to basic stuff such as checking in, the PAX merchandise stand, and other stuff. There were a lot of internet notarities selling their wares, as well as a lot of table top game providers. There were two rooms set aside on the first floor for free-play table top, meaning you and your friends could go in there, pick out a board game (and there were a lot to choose from), and kick back and play. After checking out the first floor, we made our way upstairs to the second floor, where the main exhibition room was. Read More »

Bioshock 2 = Great Multiplayer Experience

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Now I know that in the past Ive said that I hate playing FPS in online competitive matches. This is due to the fact that I tend to just really suck. I don’t have enough experience playing against other players, and that leads to me generally getting killed more than I kill others. Now I received Bioshock 2 when it came out, but I had not checked out the multiplayer mode since I hate playing online. But I was bored last night, so I decided to give it a whirl. I was not disappointed.

Between last night and today, I have logged in close to two hours online. I have definitely been doing well, and often come in within the top three places in the team-based deathmatches. Since I do fairly well, I enjoy playing it. There are a few traits to the online mode which I think are what attract me to it.

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PS3 Review: Aliens vs. Predator

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As you may know, I had some real issues with the AVP demo that came out two weeks ago. While the demo proved the game had a good premise and some great ideas, complex controls and the fact that it was impossible to get a game going left me a bit concerned for the final product. Well, I received the disc from Gamefly on Thursday, and have since then given most of the different game modes a whirl. Unfortunately, the demo gave a very accurate pretense on how the finished game would be…a game with great ideas, but executed badly.

First off, the story/background to the game is virtually non-existent. The game takes place shortly after the events of Alien 3, but I would not have known that had I not read it somewhere online. There is no background story at all, and the cut scenes, while looking and sounding good, do little to explain what the heck is going on. Im going to take a stab at it and say that humans find some ancient Alien/Predator temple and start creating mutant Aliens. The Marines and Predators come in to put a stop to it, resulting in a three-way battle royale to be the last species standing.  There are three single player campaigns (Marine, Alien, Predator), and each three tell the same story through the respective species point of view. For example, as an Alien you are defending the hive from the invading factions, and as a Marine you are called in to clean up the mess. That being said, I’ll start this review up with the single player campaigns.

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Finally Got Some Alien Time in Aliens vs. Predator PSN Demo

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As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a hard time getting a match going in the AvP demo that launched on Thursday. I tried throughout the weekend at random times, and was unable to get another match going. Today I tried again, and I finally got into a match. I basically set it up and while it searched for a match, I walked into the other room and played around on the computer. After about six minutes, I began to hear other people on their head sets, which meant that I had finally gotten into a game.

First off, I must correct a previous statement. In my other post, I complained that you were unable to choose your character in the demo, and that both times I was assigned to be a Marine. That is only half true. You are able to choose your own character, but you have to be quick. For some reason, the developers didnt want an 8-Alien or Predator battle royale going down, so once the first few Aliens or Predators are selected (I do not know the exact number), the remaining players are automatically assigned to be Marines.

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Why Do I Suck at FPS Games?

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Its true, its true. One of the most popular genres on the market today are one of my least favorite. Not because they are not fun, but because I suck so badly at them. I love playing the single player campaigns on FPS’. I enjoyed shooting my way through the Medal of Honor series on the PS1 and PS2, and I rocked through the likes of Resistance, Bioshock, and Wolfenstein on my PS3.

However, my qualm is not with the single player campaigns. My problem is with multiplayer games, which is the meat of a FPS. I am really horrible at them. When I play against others online, Im lucky if I die less than ten times in a round and get one kill myself. I dont know what it is, but I dont have the proper training/skill to successfully play against others online. What got me thinking of all this was that I was playing the MAG Beta tonight, and I did so horribly. I seriously died eight times, and was lucky to get one kill.

The only FPS online game I ever really enjoyed was Resistance 2, but that was only the co-op missions, since you and a bunch of friends got together to take on the AI. The PS3 needs more FPS like that, where you can play through the campaign mode online, taking on the AI with other actual players. I really need to play these games more and get more experience…

PS3 Quick Review: Borderlands

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I got home from my college class at around 7:45. After wolfing down dinner and finishing up some school work, it was a little after 9:00pm, and I was ready to pop Borderlands in and try it out. I wont be around Friday or Saturday, and I have a bunch of school work to do Sunday, so I wanted to use the opportunity to get to see what Borderlands was all about.

Its pretty great.

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PS3 Review: The History Channel: Civil War- Secret Missions

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I have been in a Civil War kick as of late, between classes, books, and documentaries. Also, I was in need of a quick game to pass the time between now and Uncharted 2 for Gamefly rentals. Both of these needs resulted in me renting History Channel Civil War: Secret Missions. Unfortunately, the game does nothing to bring one of the most epic wars (aside from WWII) to life.

In the game you start the game as a Confederate ranger, who is given special missions in which you have to sneak around Union forces and accomplish some goal. First off, the gameplay is all over the place, and does not follow a timeline of any sorts. The first level takes place in 1863, and then the next one is in 1861, so there is absolutely no continuity. Also, there is no story to connect the levels or anything else. Your character has no name, and simply navigates the level going to the next point of interest. While there is an excellent introduction to each level, telling you the date and battles, commanders, and whatnot, there is nothing throughout the level to reinforce your mission. Whats worse, the level will end abruptly and simply go to the stats screen. There is no information telling you that the mission is over, or a movie explaining what your actions resulted in, or anything. For all the work they put into the introduction of each level, I expected them to give similar attention to the remainder of the level, but they did not. This was a very disappointing aspect of the game.

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PS3 Review: Wolfenstein

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So I just completed the single player campaign today. The story follows BJ Blazokwicz as he attempts to take out the Nazi’s plan to build a super weapon from another dimension. The game takes place in basically two areas; Midtown and Downtown. From those two areas, you interact with resistance fighters to accept missions, and then travel to a marker on the map to begin the mission. Along with interacting with them, you will also find black market dealers, who can sell you upgrades and ammunition for your weapons. Weapons range from tradition guns and grenades to advanced Nazi weapons like a proton gun (reminds me of Ghostbusters) and a large gun that disintegrates enemies.

As you travel through the city, you will run into Nazi squads which you will have to engage and take out. Also, you will be on the lookout for intellegince documents, gold, and hidden tomes. Both sections of the city have a set amount hidden throughout, as well as each mission. Finding these items not only will eventually land you a trophy, but you also collect money, which is used to purchase upgrades from the black market.

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PS3/PSN Review- Battlefield 1943

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I love FPS’s that take place in the tried and true WWII setting. I had every Medal of Honor game ever released for the PS and PS2, and really want to get Medal of Honor: World at War for the PS3. But with Modern Warfare 2 coming out soon, I’ll just wait for World at War to get a nice price drop. In the meantime, Battlefield 1943 does cure my itch for some Axis-killing fun, although there are Japanese rather than Nazis. Its still great though.

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My Medic Reached Level 26 in Resistance 2

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Back in March I hit 20, and as of today Im 26. I played for a few hours this afternoon, and actually leveled twice. I just unlocked the final weapon upgrade for the medic, and in four more levels I’ll be able to get his last armor/gear. My latest weapon is the most powerful, so I’ll be able to do more damage with my Phoenix gun, and be able to launch health further to my allies.

The medic is so awesome because he gets mad experience without having to kill anything. A successful medic hangs in the back, attacking only when every else in the squad has low health. Once someone takes even one hit, you can heal them and get experience. You have these stupid medics who run to the front line and try to get kills with the Phoenix gun, and these are the jokers who get like 4000 xp for the match and end up in last place. I played about six matches today, and was in first place for most of them (ahead of the soldiers and spec ops players too). Its all about playing it smart from the back lines, and making healing a priority over killing. I know it sounds odd for a FPS, but its the best way to get your medic experience so that he can reach the level cap.

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