Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Infamous


The game Infamous is a exciting creative open world game. You start as a citizen in the middle of an attack on a fake city that is loosely based off a Chicago Manhattan blend. As you attempt to escape the city before its closed off you discover that the explosion has given you some interesting powers. The story is there and it is different but its not delivered well and it isn't all that interesting. You will also find yourself doing a large number of side missions but there only a few different types from help the clinic to running across the town to hit checkpoints in a small amount of time. The side missions do give you a helpful bonus by clearing out gangs from that part of the city but often times you'll be in a safe zone and you still get shot down by the enemies gangs. The story mode missions are also similar and majority of them are just turning on the power in parts of the city. A noticeably interesting thing about the game is how you act in missions determines weather your seen as a Hero or Infamous. With this karma change also comes a change in powers that you can get and also the color of your lightning. I have to say though the only way to play this game to its full potential is to be Infamous other words your constantly trying not to hit civilians while fighting off angry aggressive druggies but if you go Infamous the citizens do throw rocks at you but you can basically level the city block with the powers you get from being evil that its not that big of a deal.

The game play is solid and thought the game you earn new powers and points to upgrade these powers so just when the powers you have get stale you get a new one. Since your healing is based on sucking electricity out of objects in the city your never far away from a full does of heath. This element does make the character godlike and completely overpowered but come on its a super hero game so what if you can kill everyone within a 100yd radius and blast 20 people into the nearby ocean.

This game is fun to play and creative even though the story lacks and can get repetitive it has a high replay ability and the story lasts for about 30-60 hours depending how you play. Basically this game is guaranteed to keep you busy for 2 or 3 weeks and its defiantly worth the $50 price tag.

X-Men Origins Wolverine

X-Men Origins Wolverine is a rare game in which it's leaps and bounds better than the movie it's based on. The story in this game is presented in a series of flashback which is unoriginal but is done in fashion were he flashes to two different places breaking up the story enough that you don't really know what is going to happen when you go from one flash back to the next. I cant say much more about how the story is presented without giving a major unexpected element of the story away. I can say is that the story will last you a good 16 hours and is enjoyable all the way through.

The combat system in the game is well done but can get slightly repetitive but this repetitiveness isn't that noticeable when you see wolverine hacking off peoples limbs in slow motion. The game also has a wide variety of moves and sets of moves work together so thought the game you can change strategies to keep things fresh. For example you can either lunge and pound the hell out of people or maybe just use the environment and quick kill to kill your enemies. Either way they both do the job and they both look beautiful when you do them. Another cool idea in the game is something called mutagens. These are things that you find in game that make wolverine even stronger then he already is. Its great because there ways to improve them and they often work together in groups of 3 which is convenient since they give you three slots to equip them. Though there are times in which wolverine seems to powerful there are some difficult mini bosses that can really knock you down a notch and bring you back into reality. The reason they can do this is because when you fight them you really only have one practical option which is to jump on there back and slash them till they throw you off. Lastly the campaign offers one final bonus were if you find wolverine dolls in the story you can dress up as either Classic Wolverine, Legendary Wolverine, or X-Force Wolverine this does add quite a bit of fun to the experience if you get sick of Logan shirtless or in a tang top.

This game not only is fun to play but looks great while your doing it. The Shadows and details on the enemies and surroundings is great but the most noticeable thing is Wolverine himself. As his skin shot, hacked, cut and smashed off of him his metal coated bones and inner organs, at certain points his entire waste is missing and the only thing holding him together is the lower part of his spine. Not only does Wolverine look great half blown up he also looks great as he regenerates slowly in real time from being half blown up.

All in all you should rent this game for a week for about $7 and don't even consider watching this movie because this game is ten times better and 8 times longer than the movie. The reason I say rent is because one you beat the story once you wont really feel the need to play it again.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Fight Night Round 4


Fight Night Round 4 is a continuation of the Fight Night series which focuses on realistic boxing. This game looks stunning when you connect with a good punch and you see the spit and blood fly in slow motion you feel like you’re watching a real prize fight. This game also has a innovative new feature that allows you to pare up any two fighters and watch the simulated fight. So with the click of a few buttons you can watch Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali go at it without coughing up 50 bucks.

This game does have some a good number of downsides. The create a character is decent at best and compared to previous installments in the franchise it’s an utter failure. There are ways to add to the experience like downloading pictures from EA Sports World even then you have to create a new account and it doesn’t work well at all and you’re PS3 or Xbox 360 will have hard time finding it. If you have a PS3 then you can also use your Playstation Eye to take a photo and this method seems to work well. Even with these two methods to make your fighter look like you the avatar can still come out looking like a creature out of Frankenstein.

The legacy mode in which you start as a rookie with a custom character or a real life fighter is extremely lacking. Unlike previous games there is no money earned from winning fights and there a only a few unlock ables. The training is impossible and your best bet is just to do the auto training for half the possible points.

Now to the heart of Fight Night the fighting. The fighting is good at the start of the legacy mode where all punches hooks, jabs, straights, uppercuts and the occasional hay maker and signature punches are but by the time your ranked at about 40 and on your just throwing jabs, and straights. At this time the fights become endless and most times you get your ass handed to you because the computer has technical perfection. Another unfortunate draw back is that due to the creative scheme in which you preform punches in later fights you end up throwing an accidental uppercut and the opponent counters and pounds you into the floor without hesitation. They have also traded out the traditional mini game like healing system for a point based healing system in which you get points for how technical you are in the fight.

Basically this game is a good looking instalment into the franchise if you want to rent it and set up and watch a few prize fights be my guest. It will also serve as a fun party game for the weekend but if your a boxing fan and you want a good boxing game go pick up Fight Night Round 2 for about 19.99 instead of blowing $60 bucks on this game.