In a recent 1UP article, they compared all of the multi-platform titles that are on 360 as well as PS3 to find that the PS3 versions of the games look exactly the same. In some cases they look even worse due to less anti-aliasing. Not to mention a number of the games have crappy frame rate on the PS3 compared to the 360 (notably Call of Duty 3 and Tony Hawk, both of which scored lower then their Xbox 360 counterparts over at Gamespot). So they ask “What the Cell is Going On”? I can tell you what’s going on: PS3 is garbage. It has a pretty inferior GPU, less flexible memory architecture, a nightmare of a CPU that isn’t even all that great for gaming applications, a crappy online service and a slow media format that many people don’t want to win. If it wasn’t for an army of loyal Sony Zealots, the PS3 would crash and burn faster then the Hindenburg. You can check out the comparisons here, and vote whether or not you can see a difference. Anyone who voted “The PS3 version is clearly better” on any of those is just lying to themselves in an attempt to feel less shitty about wasting $600.
Category: Games
Small Arms is a four-player fighting game in the style of Super Smash Brothers. But here the game puts a much heavier emphasis on using guns to take down your opponents. The combat is pretty action packed and fast, but it’s not exactly complex either. While it does play pretty similar to Smash Bros, the overall experience is not as deep.
While in Super Smash Bros. all of the characters are familiar faces, each with their own personality, special moves and abilities based on whom they are. In Small Arms, all of the characters are pretty much random. Among the 12 characters to choose from, there is a dinosaur, a ninja, a cat and a robot. The characters look decent, but they don’t offer any personality like those in Smash Bros. Also, the only difference between each of the characters is which weapon they start off with when they spawn. There are no unique moves or anything like that.
The single player campaign takes you through a series of battles against AI controlled characters. These fights get increasingly harder as you go along and sometimes they throw multiple opponents against you at once. Once you reach the last level, you will fight against a boss that is actually pretty simple to defeat but is still pretty cool nonetheless. The game also features a challenge mode that is best described as a survival game where you fight enemy after enemy until you finally die. Lastly, the game also has an extra shooting range game where you have to shoot at paper targets as they go across the screen to get bonus points. While the single player gametypes are interesting enough to warrant playing and do give you good practice, the Xbox Live play is where the real action is.
The weapons in the game are much more interesting then the characters, which is great since they are the main focus of the game. All of the weapons have two different firing modes. For example, the freeze gun can shoot either ice shards or freeze enemies in one blast of ice and the sniper rifle can shoot normal bullets or it can drop mines at your feet. Overall, there is a pretty good selection of weapons, and they all behave pretty differently from each other. This means that you will probably have one or two favorite weapons, but all of the weapons are pretty useful. You can shoot the guns in any direction by aiming with the right analogue stick. This adds a good amount skill to the game, requiring you to be able to aim all while jumping around and dodging enemy fire. In fact, the game can be pretty difficult until you get used to how the characters control and how to aim their weapons. But once you do, the controls feel pretty natural.
All of the weapons run on energy that you deplete when you shoot. The good news is that ammo (in the form of batteries) as well as new weapons spawn into the arena pretty often. This makes watching and controlling the spawns a pretty important. Knowing when you are low on ammo and making a run for a newly dropped weapon or ammo before other players can get it is an important part of the game.
When you do manage to run out of ammo, it is possible to get in close do some damage. But while there is a decent amount of depth in the weapons, there is little depth in the melee system. The only attack available for you to use is punching. It would have been nice to be able to string together punching and kicking combos or something like that. But since all you can do is punch, your best bet when going up against an armed opponent is to run away by making good use of the dash button to grab a new weapon or some more ammo.
The levels (along with the weapons) are the highlight of the game. All of the levels are designed pretty well for four players. There isn’t a single level in the game that falls flat. One of the more interesting levels takes place inside a tornado while you jump from one piece of flying debris to another. Another level has you jumping from car to car on a speeding train. The levels a pretty impressive graphically considering this is an Xbox Live Arcade game. The weapon effects and furry characters also look pretty good.
Overall, Small Arms can be pretty fun, but it lacks the personality and depth that Smash Bros. has. But then again, Smash Bros. is a full retail game while Small Arms sells for just $10. Considering that it has some pretty fun online gameplay as well as some interesting weapons and levels, Small Arms is a worthy Xbox Live Arcade purchase.
I have been looking over my collection of games that I have bought recently and realized that I hardly play any of them. I am not talking about Xbox 360 games; I played and finished all of those. But recently I bought a few original Xbox and Gamecube games that I have not even put into my console. Specifically, the games I recently bought (in the last few months) are: Armed and Dangerous, Gun, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Lockdown and Resident Evil 0. They were all used games and were pretty cheap, which is why I bought them, but I still would like to play them. The problem is that there are too many great next gen games coming out that I seriously doubt I will ever get around to playing them.
In fact, there are tons of Xbox games that I have owned for over a year that I started playing but never finished due to new games coming out such as: Conker: Live and Reloaded, Dead to Rights II, Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter, Red Dead Revolver and Silent Hill 2: Restless Dreams. A lot of those are pretty good games, but I just can’t get myself to spend time playing them. There are just too many awesome new games coming out. And it is only going to get worse this holiday. The only solution that I can think of is for game developers to stop making so many good games. Anyone else feel this way?
The Heroes of Might and Magic franchise used to be the best of the best when it came to fantasy turn based strategy games. But ever since the release of Heroes of Might and Magic III, the series has been going down hill rather quickly. With New World Computing, the developer behind the series, going out of business, the future of the Might and Magic series was in question. But then Ubisoft announced that it secured the rights to the Might and Magic series and that Nival Interactive would be developing a sequel. Most people seriously doubted whether or not Nival could actually breathe new life into a series which most already considered dead and buried. So expectations were not exactly high for this sequel. The good news is that Nival surprisingly managed to resurrect Heroes of Might and Magic from the dead and bring back its charm it had lost over the years.
If you have played either Heroes II or III, then you should know exactly what you are getting into in this game since it shares a lot in common with both of those. You start off most games with one hero and a low level castle. From there you must build up your armies to crush your enemies. But to do that you must go exploring, fight enemies, and build up your castle. The amount you can move is based on a daily allowance. Once you have moved all you can, you must end your turn. This moves the game ahead one day, allowing you to rest and giving the other players a chance to make their moves.
The maps are filled with resource to collect, artifacts to find, enemies to defeat, dungeons to explore, towns to capture, and much more. Capturing mines will put them under your control, giving you a set amount of that particular resource per day. But many of the resources on the map are guarded by neutral creatures, so you will have to fight to control them.
Battles take place on a grid with one army on the left and another on the right. Both sides take turns moving their creatures. A unit with a number on it represents a “stack” of that many creatures and will behave as a single unit. The amount each unit can move depends on its initiative, with faster units attacking first. The amount of damage they do depends on the creature’s stats as well as how many units are in that stack. Many units have their own special abilities that they can use in combat. Also, heroes can directly attack units as well or cast spells with their turn comes up. There are over 100 different unit types in the game, giving a good amount of depth to the combat system. Knowing what units to attack and when to attack them is extremely important, as is positioning your troops on the battlefield and effectively casting spells. The AI does a pretty good job playing smart and will keep you thinking during these battles.
When you win, your hero will gain experience that you can use to learn new abilities. There are tons of different skills that you can gain, way too many to list, but they range from having your troops take less damage from melee attacks to being able to move greater distances each turn. No two heroes will have exactly the same set of skills, making each of them somewhat unique.
With all of the resources you collect, you will be able to upgrade your castle. There are a few different types of structures you can build. Some of them will allow you to recruit new types of units for your army while others, such as the mage guild, will teach you new spells. Some buildings will add defenses to your castle like turrets and others will increase the population growth of all your creature dwellings per week. The buildings you can create are listed in a tree diagram, which is similar to some RTS games. Many buildings have requirements that must be met before you are allowed to build them. Building your structure that gives you your best units before your opponents get theirs will give you a pretty good advantage in battles.
The single player game in Heroes V consists of six different campaigns, each of which consists of five separate missions. The storyline in the game is actually decent and is told through various in engine cutscenes. While the storyline and voice acting isn’t anything special, it is good enough to keep you interested. Each mission has multiple primary and secondary objectives to complete in order to finish it. All of the missions are pretty well designed too, with lots to see and do. Most of the missions take multiple hours to complete, making Heroes V a pretty long game.
The game also features a few stand-alone missions as well as a few multiplayer maps. You can play the multiplayer maps over the internet, a LAN, or in hot-seat mode where you and a few friends take turns playing on a single PC. Multiplayer missions end when you destroy the other player’s hero and capture his castle so he can not recruit another hero. This can take a pretty long time, meaning online matches can easily take a few hours to complete. Also, waiting for other players to take their turns can be pretty boring, making the online multiplayer not very appealing.
If the game’s storyline doesn’t suck you into the world, the games fantastic graphics probably will. Heroes V is the first game in the series to make the jump into a fully 3D world. The game features a pretty good art style. Everything in the world is beautiful with a good amount of detail in their textures. All of the trees and water animate, as well as many of the buildings, which makes the world come alive. The combat animations, especially those of spells, look pretty cool. Although, it is a bit annoying that the characters mouths don’t move when they talk during the cutscenes. Also, sometimes you will have to rotate the camera around to see past buildings and trees. But overall the games 3D graphics is a great addition to the series.
Overall, Heroes V feels like an updated remake of Heroes III, which is great considering that many feel that Heroes III was the best in the series. The combat and tactics are as solid as ever, and the 3D graphics and interesting enough campaign make the game extremely fun to play. If you consider yourself a turn based strategy game fan, Heroes V is a game you should seriously consider picking up.
From the moment Xbox 360 launched in November of 2005, everyone has been waiting for the “killer app” that would single handedly justify purchasing the console. The original Xbox of course had Halo. But since Halo 3 was a long way off, gamers turned to Gears of War. Ever since its first showing at E3, fans have been dying to get their hands on this graphically stunning game. With Microsoft hyping the game as the next Halo, expectations could not have been any higher. The good news is that all that hype was well deserved. Epic managed to deliver on all of its promises and provide a compelling third-person action game.
The game opens up with Marcus Fenix being busted out of prison by his best friend Dominic. It appears Fenix was imprisoned for disobeying orders during the initial locust invasion by trying to save his father. Apparently things have gotten significantly worse since his incarceration and humanity needs every bit of help that it can get. With a full pardon, your initial objective after escaping the prison is to meet up with Delta Squad and stage a rescue mission for Alpha Squad, which is in possession of a weapon that may have the power to turn the tide of war. That’s about as deep as the storyline gets; there is not any more back-story to the conflict or anything like that. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t keep you interested. The game features quite a few excellent in engine cut-scenes that move the story along at a good pace. The combat chatter between the soldiers in your squad gives each of them a unique personality, even if they aren’t very deep characters.
While the storyline is only average, the gameplay is exceptional. The combat is very intense, forcing you to take cover whenever you can. Taking cover feels very natural, making it easy to pop in and out to shoot. You also have the ability to shoot blindly around corners to stay concealed, but it is not very accurate. The enemy AI is pretty good at shooting you when you pop out, so you only have a few seconds to fire before you need to take cover again. This makes flanking an especially effective tactic allowing you to rob the enemy of their cover while keeping your own. The enemies put up a pretty good fight and will attempt to flank you as well, keeping you on your toes. You also have a squad with you that you will be able to issue limited commands to. They do a pretty good job of distracting enemies, allowing you to sneak up behind them. They also do a decent job of taking out enemies on their own, which is good because you are usually outnumbered.
If playing with an entirely AI squad isn’t your thing, the game has the ability to play the entire single player campaign with a buddy. This can be done via split-screen or over Xbox Live. This can make the game considerably easier, allowing you to work with your teammate to flank enemies. You can also revive your teammate if he goes down as long as he doesn’t die during one of the sequences where you and your teammate split up and go down separate paths. Playing over Xbox Live was extremely smooth without a single hit of lag.
To take on the locust horde, you have a pretty good selection of weapons. You can carry two weapons at a time as well as grenades and a pistol. All of the weapons feel extremely powerful and are fun to fire. The Lancer will be your standard purpose weapon for most of the game. It’s a fully automatic machine gun with a pretty good rate of fire, but it also features a chainsaw bayonet, allowing you to cut enemies in half if you manage to get in close. The shotgun is also extremely powerful at very close range. It has the ability to rip enemies into pieces in a single shot. Other fun weapons include the torque bow which is an explosive arrow launching weapon and the hammer of dawn which is a satellite particle-beam weapon.
Reloading weapons can take a bit of skill in Gears. All weapons have a set reload time, but you have the ability to reload faster by performing an active reload. Underneath the weapon icon on the screen is a multi-colored bar that looks a little bit like a golf swing meter. When you reload, a line goes from the left to the right of the bar. If you press the reload button a second time when the line is over the gray portion, you will reload the gun faster. If you press the button when the line is over the smaller white area, you will not only reload faster but you will do extra damage. If you mess up and press the button at the wrong time, the gun will jam and take extra time to reload. The fast reloading isn’t all that difficult to do, but getting the extra damage requires very good timing.
The graphics in the game are absolutely incredible. There is simply nothing out there on any other platform that comes close to providing the amount of detail and beauty that Gears of War has. From the characters armor to a large building, everything in the game features an absurd about of detail. The environments are as varied as they are beautiful. They range from destroyed city streets and rainy forests to underground caverns filled with flowing lava. The visual differences between these environments are huge, keeping you constantly impressed with the game’s visuals. It’s also worth noting that the game runs at a rock solid frame rate.
The single player campaign will take most players between 10-12 hours to complete (depending on the difficulty setting). But after you finish the single player portion of the game, the multiplayer component will keep you coming back for months. Online matches feature four-on-four action in compact but perfectly designed levels. The gameplay is round based without the ability to respawn, making every life count. Gears features three different game types to choose from. Warzone is your standard deathmatch where the objective is to eliminate all of the enemy players. In Assassination, one player is the leader and all of the other players must defend him. Lastly, Execution is a lot like Warzone, except downed players will eventually get back up if you don’t get in close and finish them off. The ten excellently designed levels provide players lots of opportunities to work with teammates and perform flanking maneuvers. Voice communication is extremely important and playing smart and using cover effectively is essential if you want to do well in the online matches. The amount of skill and tactical depth to the game is sure to keep you coming back for more.
Gears of War truly is a complete package. The single player campaign is constantly fun and intense for the 10 or so hours it takes to finish. The three difficulty settings, achievements, and co-op will give you some incentive to go back and play through the game multiple times. And the online multiplayer is extremely addicting and should keep you playing for a long time. While a slightly longer campaign and more multiplayer maps would have been nice, it’s tough to ask Epic games for anything more. Gears of War makes good on its promise of great gameplay and amazing graphics, and is reason enough for any action game fan to buy the Xbox 360.