A game based around elitism and a very conservative view, you enter a world where the impossible is possible, where freedom really is free, and where man holds the power of god in their hands. This is, Rapture.
Bioshock is one of the best games I have played to date. I have played the demo on the PS3 and own the game for the PC, and this is a game that definately excels when played on the PC.
The game starts you off, surviving a plane crash out in the middle of the ocean, and you take control while in the water. You swim to a structure set out on a large piece of rock, which leads you into a city built under water. A city built around Elitism and the power to do whatever you're mind lets you. A place where no man or woman is bound by morals, a place where the stupid die, and the smart thrive. A city, called Rapture.
The game is basically a first person shooter, with action/adventure in it. You are assuming the role of a poor soul who is in this underwater hell where twisted minds reside. Upon entering a bathispehere (small transportable submarine on a set course), you hear the plea of a man begging for your help to rescue his family. So you think.
I'm going to examine three parts of this game;
Gameplay
Ambience
All around experience
Starting with Ambience, I have never played a game that had nailed the "Twisted, Psychotic, Terrorfest" theme. I actually could not even play this game in the dark for a few days. The game is generally dark, and everything that creeps around has the potential to lunge at you at an attempt to rip you're throat out and hang you by you're own intestines. You heard the sounds of splicers, big daddy's walking around, talking, lurking, waiting to start reaping. You hear the sounds of the little sisters, small girls, possessed with a demonic voice coming from the depths of their being. The effects of sound in this game are executed more prefectly then I have ever seen in any game before, and it sucks you right into the world of Rapture. Again, the use of water, sound, light, create a perfect setting to keep you on you're toes.
Gameplay. This is another greatly done aspect of the game. Being stuck in a watery hell, you need some weapons to fight back with. You might be crazy enough to face off against a big daddy with your wrench. But once he knocks you through a wall, i'm sure you will think differently. Like alot of games nowadays, you have regular weapons. These are you're guns, you're revolver, machine gun, shotgun, chemical thrower (sounds way cooler then it sounds. and it sounds fucking sweet). Ontop of regular weapons, you usually have you're skills or abilities. This is where Gene Tonics and Plasmids come in. Using genetic altering tonics, you can shoot lightning from you're hand, instantly set an enemy ablaze to burn to death, or shoot a cold air from you're hand, to freeze your enemies where they stand. There are also "passive" tonics, which give oy more defense, more attack, etc. The game molds both forms of attacks into the game, and it's impossible to get through the game with only weapons, giving you a reason to get some of those narly powers. A bit further into the game, you can also unlock upgrades for plasmids and weapons, bringing more power to you're arsenal.
The all around experience of this game is outrageous. The game wasn't advertised and hyped up to be something amazing, but what the developers put into this game is truly amazing. The amount of time and attention payed to each little aspect of the game is phenominal, and in turn produced one of the best games I have ever played. It's a relatively long game, with the option to change difficulty throughout a game multiple times, which gives beginners a nice playing experience, and giving those hardcore gamers, one of the hardest games I have ever played. Even at full price, this game is worth getting, and it's a game you can play through multiple times, in slightly different ways.
"Leaks. Lunatics. Rebellion. And now bleeding ghosts. Ain't life in rapture grand"
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
What is War Fueled by?
Another game I had recently picked up, for rather cheap, was "Front Lines : Fuel Of War".
I don't know what it is with development teams making games where you can't customize your weapons etc, but it's stupid.
This happens to be an FPS based a few years into the future, where Fuel is at the brink of being gone forever. Choas and rioting ensnare the cities of the world, and going outside during the night, and the day for that matter, without a 9 mm. is a bad idea. Whislt the world is in this condition, a war is being fought, and you're lucky enough to be, well on the Front Lines. Bet you didn't see that coming eh?
Dipping our feet in just a bit, i'll explain the single-player. It consists of 8 missions, which, naturally, get harder as you play through the game. Now, to be fair, besides the lousy aim of the guns, it was a decently rewarding experience, especially since the game was only 10 bucks. The scenes in which you're "squad" talks, cna feel quite heartfelt and may even pop a feeling into you, of sorrow or laughter. However, that's where the game being good, comes to a halt. The AI is, stupid, and completely lethal at the same time. This is directed at both the enemy and you're squad. The AI have an impossibly perfect aim, where they will hit you with every single bullet they fire (even on an easy difficulty) unless you are hiding behind something. The stupidity of the AI, lands soley on your squad, who are both blind, and completely oblivious. One enemy, can walk up to you, and you're entire squad, shooting at you, while you are trying to snipe someone further away. They will in no way even consider shooting the enemy, who is, at this time, face fucking you with a barrage of bullets. Actually, come to think of it, most of the time they don't do anything at all except follow you around.
The game also has a mission where you need to use "stealth" as you're weapon and be sneaky about who you kill. This is where they launched the game out of a catapult at massive pile of crap. While standing, crouched, or proned, an enemy will always instantly find you, as soon as you are within view of them. Ontop of this, they equip you with a "unsilenced" sniper rifle, which once shot, alerts every enemy in the game you are there.
I found the multiplayer to be pretty good. Until I realized the only way I ever died, was by someone in a helicopter. After a few hours of playing, I also found out there was maybe twenty people online. Maybe... There was never a room with more then ten people in it. Now you may be wondering, why that's such a bad thing. Well, these online maps, could hold possibly 50-100 people, and you could STILL walk around, and not get into a gunfight of some sort.
The online offers you to pick a class, and a form of support (from deploying stations which disrupt vehicles etc, to calling in air strikes to decimate areas on the map), and regardless of no way to customize, it was still a really good concept, and in the one good game I got to play, was very well executed.
I wouldn't suggest you buy this game for online play, ever. The only people playing this game online, are in helicopters who will kill you instantly. For the single player, though it's not that great. If you really want to play a single player FPS, go with Enemy Territory : Quake Wars.
I think this games developers were fueled by stupidity and cocaine..
I don't know what it is with development teams making games where you can't customize your weapons etc, but it's stupid.
This happens to be an FPS based a few years into the future, where Fuel is at the brink of being gone forever. Choas and rioting ensnare the cities of the world, and going outside during the night, and the day for that matter, without a 9 mm. is a bad idea. Whislt the world is in this condition, a war is being fought, and you're lucky enough to be, well on the Front Lines. Bet you didn't see that coming eh?
Dipping our feet in just a bit, i'll explain the single-player. It consists of 8 missions, which, naturally, get harder as you play through the game. Now, to be fair, besides the lousy aim of the guns, it was a decently rewarding experience, especially since the game was only 10 bucks. The scenes in which you're "squad" talks, cna feel quite heartfelt and may even pop a feeling into you, of sorrow or laughter. However, that's where the game being good, comes to a halt. The AI is, stupid, and completely lethal at the same time. This is directed at both the enemy and you're squad. The AI have an impossibly perfect aim, where they will hit you with every single bullet they fire (even on an easy difficulty) unless you are hiding behind something. The stupidity of the AI, lands soley on your squad, who are both blind, and completely oblivious. One enemy, can walk up to you, and you're entire squad, shooting at you, while you are trying to snipe someone further away. They will in no way even consider shooting the enemy, who is, at this time, face fucking you with a barrage of bullets. Actually, come to think of it, most of the time they don't do anything at all except follow you around.
The game also has a mission where you need to use "stealth" as you're weapon and be sneaky about who you kill. This is where they launched the game out of a catapult at massive pile of crap. While standing, crouched, or proned, an enemy will always instantly find you, as soon as you are within view of them. Ontop of this, they equip you with a "unsilenced" sniper rifle, which once shot, alerts every enemy in the game you are there.
I found the multiplayer to be pretty good. Until I realized the only way I ever died, was by someone in a helicopter. After a few hours of playing, I also found out there was maybe twenty people online. Maybe... There was never a room with more then ten people in it. Now you may be wondering, why that's such a bad thing. Well, these online maps, could hold possibly 50-100 people, and you could STILL walk around, and not get into a gunfight of some sort.
The online offers you to pick a class, and a form of support (from deploying stations which disrupt vehicles etc, to calling in air strikes to decimate areas on the map), and regardless of no way to customize, it was still a really good concept, and in the one good game I got to play, was very well executed.
I wouldn't suggest you buy this game for online play, ever. The only people playing this game online, are in helicopters who will kill you instantly. For the single player, though it's not that great. If you really want to play a single player FPS, go with Enemy Territory : Quake Wars.
I think this games developers were fueled by stupidity and cocaine..
Enemy Territory : Quake Wars
Here is to the first post of this blog.
I recently came into possession of two copies of a game called "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars", mainly because it was cheap. I got two copies of the game, one for the PC, and one for my Playstation 3 (which I had been neglecting, and felt bad about). I saw the back, and it isn't an old game, but when any videogame is priced down to such a low price, we know not to expect much. But I was pleasently surprised.
Right off the back, I find one major problem with alot of online PC games, and that is many of them, new or old, tend to lack alot of people who play online. And when that happens, the developers tend to skew away from updating and maintaining the game servers.. which inevitably leads to people running hacks etc. (I do realize there are alot of old and new PC games which have ALOT of constant online users. But lets be honest. How many DON'T have alot?)
Now before I get into the pros and cons of the game, there is something I want to mention. The game has two "main" modes of play. Single-player campainge and Online. I went into the single player, because I never go right into online play on a new game. That's just asking to get killed off and t-bagged, then laughed at. The single player was NOT what I expected. Instead.. it was a massive multiplayer style map, with computer AI acting as "other players", and this portrays the feeling of an "online match" There is no "story" to follow, nor is there any "progression" through the game. You select you're game options, and play an online based game, with computers. Now this is something I have NEVER in my life seen before, and it was awesome to play on single player. I figure that many games already have that, but to me, that was a new discovery, and an excellent one at that. This game was also the average "one race against another race" first person shooter. Nothing special.
After killing off the computer AI for about an hour, and learning the controls, I jumped online, and found a room. I wasn't all that surprised though, when I found few rooms with alot of people in them. There was maybe only four-five rooms up in the middle of the day, with five-six people in them, which was dissappointing. To say the least, the game is much better on single player.
Well, after that dissappointment, I poped in my PS3 version, and was ready to role. HOPING that there were people online. And there were. I only ran into one "tiny" problem while playing the game on my PS3. Even with "Look sensistivity" up all the way, the look speed reaction was, in one phrase, a giant pile of crap in a frying pan on high heat. The controls were slow, you could not look on an angle (you had to move it up a bit and then over to properly aim in a diagonal direction, which would result you already being dead). This purely killed all interest in the game for me at this point.
Picking into the actual gameplay itself. You're basically just completing objectives and killing the other team. You have a list of pre-assigned classes which boast different weapons ETC, and there is really no customization at all. I understand that this keeps online play balanced. But come on, that's just stupid. Both sides have different weapons (though being the same in a way, i,e assult rifle class is the same for both, one just has a different weapon), and odds are, you and someone else are going to be running at an enemy, and he's gonna be thinking "What the fuck. Two of the same guy!", then he's gonna look beside him and say "Holy shit! A double of me now!". This game is a whole lot better to play on single player, and you can test out different tactics and such without the fuss of going from room-to-room.
I dunno how to recommend a game like this. I'd say, if you wanna play an FPS (first person shooter), and you are new to them. Grab this game if it's cheap, and just whore out the single player. It's basically what you're going to face in actual online games, and this way you can set the AI difficulty to you're own level, and get a feel for FPS' ".
I recently came into possession of two copies of a game called "Enemy Territory: Quake Wars", mainly because it was cheap. I got two copies of the game, one for the PC, and one for my Playstation 3 (which I had been neglecting, and felt bad about). I saw the back, and it isn't an old game, but when any videogame is priced down to such a low price, we know not to expect much. But I was pleasently surprised.
Right off the back, I find one major problem with alot of online PC games, and that is many of them, new or old, tend to lack alot of people who play online. And when that happens, the developers tend to skew away from updating and maintaining the game servers.. which inevitably leads to people running hacks etc. (I do realize there are alot of old and new PC games which have ALOT of constant online users. But lets be honest. How many DON'T have alot?)
Now before I get into the pros and cons of the game, there is something I want to mention. The game has two "main" modes of play. Single-player campainge and Online. I went into the single player, because I never go right into online play on a new game. That's just asking to get killed off and t-bagged, then laughed at. The single player was NOT what I expected. Instead.. it was a massive multiplayer style map, with computer AI acting as "other players", and this portrays the feeling of an "online match" There is no "story" to follow, nor is there any "progression" through the game. You select you're game options, and play an online based game, with computers. Now this is something I have NEVER in my life seen before, and it was awesome to play on single player. I figure that many games already have that, but to me, that was a new discovery, and an excellent one at that. This game was also the average "one race against another race" first person shooter. Nothing special.
After killing off the computer AI for about an hour, and learning the controls, I jumped online, and found a room. I wasn't all that surprised though, when I found few rooms with alot of people in them. There was maybe only four-five rooms up in the middle of the day, with five-six people in them, which was dissappointing. To say the least, the game is much better on single player.
Well, after that dissappointment, I poped in my PS3 version, and was ready to role. HOPING that there were people online. And there were. I only ran into one "tiny" problem while playing the game on my PS3. Even with "Look sensistivity" up all the way, the look speed reaction was, in one phrase, a giant pile of crap in a frying pan on high heat. The controls were slow, you could not look on an angle (you had to move it up a bit and then over to properly aim in a diagonal direction, which would result you already being dead). This purely killed all interest in the game for me at this point.
Picking into the actual gameplay itself. You're basically just completing objectives and killing the other team. You have a list of pre-assigned classes which boast different weapons ETC, and there is really no customization at all. I understand that this keeps online play balanced. But come on, that's just stupid. Both sides have different weapons (though being the same in a way, i,e assult rifle class is the same for both, one just has a different weapon), and odds are, you and someone else are going to be running at an enemy, and he's gonna be thinking "What the fuck. Two of the same guy!", then he's gonna look beside him and say "Holy shit! A double of me now!". This game is a whole lot better to play on single player, and you can test out different tactics and such without the fuss of going from room-to-room.
I dunno how to recommend a game like this. I'd say, if you wanna play an FPS (first person shooter), and you are new to them. Grab this game if it's cheap, and just whore out the single player. It's basically what you're going to face in actual online games, and this way you can set the AI difficulty to you're own level, and get a feel for FPS' ".
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