Everyone has hopefully played Crysis on PC or at the very least seen the original trailers to know that the game is a beast. As my friend recently said, "Will Crysis 2 run Crysis??" The technology behind the graphical, physics and other game engines are awesome. What happens when we push the limits of the physics engine by using the power of modern machines. Continue on and see how well Crysis can display thousands of objects and effects:

Unfortunately, I don't have the modding knowledge to even know where to look for the Crysis sandbox, so I'm going to be showing other people's videos. To start, here are 10,000 barrels (signature red to indicate they are explosive of course)

Notice at about :27 seconds into the film, the falling barrels seems in the middle seem to be hovering. Either the engine can not process that many physics calculations of the coefficient of gravitational attraction between objects is too high to keep them briefly suspended. At 28 seconds in, Crysis just gives up calculating the physics and has the top level far apart randomly. Then of course the player gets hit by a barrel and is not really effected probably because they are in "god mode".

At 1:07, a huge explosion occurs! The author and other mod people say looking directly at the explosion results in crashing or I assume really really poor framerates. Yeah, the game would probably crash from trying to render many explosions. 1:12 on appears to be too bright of a white to see the yellow of the blast. It's similar to Modern Warfare's white fallout and radiation.

A little before 2 minutes, we see a green tree is surviving the onslaught because it is too small to have destructible limbs. Skip ahead to 2:25 to see mini explosions on either side of the player. 3:05 shows the wasteland after 10,000 barrels ignited. The best part of the video is skydiving through the middle of the 10,000 barrels to Spin My Head Right Round - Primetime.

This other video shows what happens when you launch a nuke tank shell. You can just feel the atoms building while the fired round is just revolving on the tank turret. Watch out for that instant shockwave which shows off just how powerful the blast should be. The only problem is the tanks are still in one piece and the player is barely pushed back. I wanted to see him go flying really far away with ragdoll physics. Overall, nothing really exciting. So let's take it up a notch with this better Crysis Nuke video:

At the moment of impact at :38, we seem every single object get pushed with equal force towards the camera. The truck spinning out of control is pretty cool.

At 1:02, we seem the ragdoll physics of the person limited on the ability to show the amount of force. The best he can do is have his neck break and slide away. If the game had skeletal physics, I would want to see multiple fractures and bones breaking from that tremendous force. The trees are much more impressive although the tree trucks really should have been fragmented because the technology is already in the game. Perhaps the modder disabled tree destruction.

My favorite shot is at 1:16, where everything is normal with the man standing next to his car. 2 seconds later, the house and car are moving vertically. That man got crushed between his house and his car before getting skewered by trees. Strangely enough after the two minute mark, I can actually see that the tree trunks were splintered. There are also random fire effects coming from nowhere.

It is good fortune this video makes the nuke more potent, as it should be, compared to the first nuke video. Next on the modders list should be having a nuke take out a small village before moving onto skyscrapers being knocked over. When there is a physics engine, there is always a will and a way. Let's hope Crysis 2 doesn't settle for an adapted Crysis 1 engine to get it to run on consoles.

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by BlueZero

First, note the reference to the TF2 Fan video featuring the Engineer and addictive toast song.Engineer Toast Video. You can never get enough toast. At 1:46 in the video, the pressure reads an interesting level. Some might say the PSI was OVER 9000, because it was! When you get to 2:22, the Spy's face has traveled to anime land.

Moving ahead to 2:41 shows the amazing wedding being performed by the crazy priest from Half Life 2. Maybe since the Soldier won the Soldier-Demo war of 09, he was decorated enough to be the Spy's Best Man. The Pyro appears to be related to Chell's sister and the Witch from Left4Dead2. In this scene, we notice that all the Red Team are related to the Half Life and Portal (aka other Valve games) while the Blue team only has a Vortigaunt from HL2. At 2:47, we notice the Blue Engineer is recovering from being toasted, Chell proves the Cake is Not a Lie, and the cake has the flamethrower and spy gun united. The cake is also blue, red, and pink! At 2:52, the author has high hopes for Alyx and Dr. Freeman to tie the knot. This is impossible because Gordon Freeman doesn't say anything so he has no way to say "I do". They drive off and kill Frogger; they reference Frogger in the credits, otherwise I wasn't sure what it was.

The Honeymoon speaks for itself. The Pyro is dark skinned and is somehow huge even with her small stature. I was expecting the author to reveal the Pyro being male. Achievement Unlocked: Love Machine with a screw, haha, how clever.

The pregnancy section is the best part. We hear some of the best fitting music; it is both uplifting and cartoony. The gravity gun and the plunger were enough to deliver the baby. At 4:28, we get the reference to the awesome pic of the Spy having far too many cigarettes in his mouth. I believe the first appearance of this was from this Mock Meet the Spy Flash. I really though I posted this video on the blog but I couldn't find it. Anyway, 4:52 explains the entire creation of Spyro, the merging of a Spy and Pryo. There are now officially 4 teams: Blue, Red, Purple and Pink (Cupid who won the game).

There should have been one more plot twist at the end like the Red Pyro is actually a Red Spy. There is plenty of time to extend the story but it really did all it needed in 6 minutes. Overall, really enjoyed the work that went into this Flash video. After watching it, I am left satisfied and desire to post this last video:

Scout Goes to the Doctor NSFW Video

The art and audio speak for themselves!

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by BlueZero

If you have been living under a rock, this would be the episode where Ash gets Pikachu and really no action happens. Pikachu was just being an independent rat until a small boy decides to drive a bike really fast to a pet hospital. After a harsh crash, Pikachu decides it's time to save the day with a already super-effective thunder against the Sparrow.

First off, the voice of John Freeman is just as annoying, yet perfect, as the voice of Ash. This is an important first step to recreating the annoying first episode from the cartoon. Second, the overdramatic Kleiner (aka Professor Oak) really adds some great humor into the video. We all know he is making out with Ash's mother since Ash really doesn't have a father. This means Ash's mother is a gold digger as who wouldn't want to log some time with Professor Oak's Pokedex. "Gotta Catch Them All" Kleiner (that's hot). Third, the Gabe-dex has been in development for many years just like all of Valve's game commentaries. The voice actor for Gabe Newell is also spot on. I had to do a double take because my ears were fooling me.

Even if you never watched the original Pokemon episode, most of the horrible puns are still intact (shocking isn't it?). The creator has even captured the original music from the show and used it in the right places. 4:40 to 4:55 is just amazing. Alyx as Misty is a little disturbing as for some reason her face is very contorted for her brief time on screen. This is even true at 10:50 where she appears again. Also here, I glad that Barney, aka Brock, has no eyes visible. The Team Rocket with Breen and Judith must be explored in another episode. There is a lot of potential here with random purple Ekans, Koffing and blue Meowth.

Original Pokemon Episode 1

Overall, I really got a laugh out of this video. I look forward to future episodes which keep the same humor while doing the really uninspired first season of Pokemon justice. The moral of the story is when you pair either Gary's Mod or Team Fortress 2 with successful video games, amazingness always happens. Look forward to my next post to prove my point!

Update: Here is the Epic TF2 Fan Video proof you need.

Here is a random video I decided to add to this post:

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by BlueZero

Wow, so this last week or so there were a ton of birthdays for my friends and here I forget this blog is already a year old! Happy 1st Birthday BVGB! You have been good to me so far and have reached a significant audience with our limited scope. Shoutout to the original Kane and Lynch Gamespot review for once again pointing out professional game reviewers should be free from big business. While not being critical to this blog's development, it did provide a nice setpiece to work against.

With the First BVGB Post on post Jan 31st 2009, this blog entered the Internet with a lot of website wiki code construction and a little too much Russian. I have kept up the trend of the individual console/PC making a remark about each game. In Russia, game reviews you! Anyway, I am glad that I have settled the necessary Wikidot coding and have been able to secure domain names and hosting. I hope you guys are enjoying absolutely no ads on this website. While not permanent, be happy I am currently not being bought by other companys.

Also, with the transition to the custom domain name, the website lost significant organic traffic which it has really never recovered. The good news is that Google images is really prioritizing our pictures so people are seeing our content this way. If you enjoy reading these biased posts, please share the blog elsewhere on the Internet (forums, personal websites, blogs, social media, ect); many of our viewers have shared our content and we are glad you did!

May I now present you with the 5 most popular posts on this blog (starting with the most popular):


#1 N64 Texture Enhancement Projects/Packs

This post represented a significant amount of time organizing the amazing texture pack links from the various forums and sites into a convenient location. Bringing order from chaos was difficult. People viewing the post get to see what I consider the top shelf of emulated texture replacement for N64 games. I never did get around to posting my own retexturing project and probably will not.

There was no contest in regards to the unique views by visitors. As of today, there have been more than 2800 unique page views with most coming from Google and Google Images.


#2 Media Gamer: Killer Instinct C-C-C-Combo Breaker Edition

This was one of my favorite posts to write as a side note. I combined my love of the game with notable fads from multiple COMBO BREAKERS to the embarrassing ULTRA COMBO voice to Orchid finishing off the entire KI cast with her breasts. It's regretful that I am terrible at the arcade game by Tournament standards and could only beat the Gameboy version on the hardest setting by abusing cheap Sabrewolf combos. This post was seen by over 1200 unique visitors which isn't bad for a July post.


#3 Sim Tower Guide and Media

One of the more useful posts, I create a mini-FAQ for playing the original Sim Tower. I hope my insight into the running a successful tower helped you navigate the confusing elevator and service elevator placement and limits. The post had more than 700 unique views.


#4 Mirror's Edge (PC) Review

This review was written by Zott820 and has done quite well. The high resolution screenshots from his computer has really exposed the beauty of Mirror's Edge in ways the console's jaggy 720p could not. Zott820 wants the next game to be third person I don't think that it would work.


#5 Ghostbusters: The Video Game Multiplayer Review

Congratulations Sarcasmancer on writing I believe the first 360 game review and actually isolating the multiplayer mode for analysis. As I am personally don't understand Ghostbusters, this post was excellent in providing more video game coverage from my usual suspects.

Which leads to BlueZero's list of over covered topics. Hmm, maybe my coverage was biased towards more:

• Bayonetta
• Team Fortress 2
• Emulation
• Smash Brothers (all)
• Resident Evil
• Modern Warfare 2

BlueZero's Game of the Year

It was hands-down Uncharted 2. As other reviewers have stated, the gunplay and real-time cinematic moments have moved towards uncharted waters. Nathan Drake's shirt tuck saved him from losing to other less worthy candidates like RE5, Batman, Modern Warfare 2, yadda yadda. The Uncharted 2 Train level and vehicle segments were so amazing I reached a gaming euphoria where I couldn't stop smiling. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves won with just the single player campaign; the multiplayer was much better than I had expected.

In conclusion (aka BVGB Reviews Self), I look forward to posting more reviews, previews, gaming media and guides over the next year. I'll probably review more legacy PC games (Saints Row 2 comes to mind easily). I also intend to pay the Castlevania series homage soon. If there any game you would like coverage about, please let me know in the comments.

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by BlueZero

1. The narrator for this trailer was amazing
2. Banjo and Kazooie are guest characters racing along awesome characters Eggman and Ryo

Check out the trailer before I lay down the smackdown on what is sure to be a bargain bin contender a few months from now.

Ok, so one of these characters is definitely not from the Sega universe but at lease Banjo and Kazooie have raced in cart games before. Banjo must have been the victor of Diddy Kong racing and surely beat the other laughable characters in Banjo Pilot. So Microsoft thinks they can boost sales of the Sega franchise by crossing it with the Nuts N Bolts "Rare Bear Banjo".

Oh, I'm sorry Microsoft and Rare, you trust Sega to make a good modern Sonic game? It's gimmicks like including exclusive 360 characters that indicate the core racing will be boring or poorly executed. It doesn't make sense how 4 Avatar friends can run faster than vehicles. Why do I have to assume that Sonic will be a speed character when stats should really come down to the vehicle's performance? Why is Tails able to fly in a plane while Banjo can't compete on foot with the Talon Trot? Tails should be broken since he can just avoid all attacks and take some major shortcuts.

I love Banjo and Kazooie, but I know this game is just a cash in for nostalgia purposes. I mean who doesn't love to see Sonic, Ryo, Ulala and other classic characters in 3D HD. I want to race with them just as much as people wanted to avoid the 360's that were bundled with Sega Superstars Tennis.

In conclusion, I'll make sure to get my "paws" on some "premium high Performance Power-ups". The "Yes!" at the end of the trailer was barely comparable to Captain Falcon's "YEEES". I'm still waiting on Rare to make triple A caliber games again, but I know their time has passed. Maybe a Killer Instinct 3 with outstanding visuals and gameplay could resurrect their status with the hardcore gamers instead of Microsoft directing them toward the casual route.

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by BlueZero

I never get tired of seeing the Donkey Kong versus Samus fight. I got a good laugh out of Donkey Kong's eyes when he was hit with the charged shot. At the end, Captain Falcon also has an epic pose.

MALRWiiStation360 on YouTube, creator of the awesome Smash Brothers video stories, has also remake the intro to Smash Brothers 64 using footage he captured from Smash Brothers Brawl. If you know anything about the original intro, the Donkey Kong versus Samus fight has always been hard to pull off in the remakes. Here, the Brawl engine still has the same character moves to allow for an almost perfect reenactment.

Finally, I like this interpretation of the intro movie. Imagine if the Brawl universe where sucked into a cartoon and it was much better than the Mario, Link and Kirby ones. Watch as Mario and Samus once again do battle in space:

Link is so useless in this video. He just stands around holding his bombs. Fox looks bored in his ship and gets scared off later by Pikachu. Donkey Kong finally looks imposing to the other characters. At least Samus has the upper hand since only she can really breathe in space.

I've posted the Team Fortress 2 Smash Brothers Opening in the past. Check it out as I can tell a lot of time has gone into its creation.

There need to be more interpretations of video game opening movies. I would love to see a modern version of Mario Power Tennis with Wario and Waluigi being chased around by strange police robots. Oh yeah, this is a real intro, I'm not exaggerating it. If anything I'm under-representing how great it is. Anyway, the Smash Brothers intro is still one of my favorites.

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by BlueZero

The HD version can be found here:Dr. Mario Lyrics HD YouTube. The extremely high resolution flash can at NewGrounds Dr. Mario Lyrics Flash.

I did not embed it here since the thumbnail would have been Wario's posterior. Highlights of the video is Mario watching TV, Mario throwing tons of blue and red pills to cure fever and chills and Mario diagnosing crabs with Princess Peach. The voice actor of Mario sounds a little Indian or Middle Eastern rather than the traditional Italian. It works and the animation is spot on for their goal. There is also a lot of details in the background like Mario's Certificate of Pasta

My reaction to the video is we need more parodies of Nintendo's favorite plumber. Next, we need to have a very catchy Zelda theme lyrics by the same people. I mean, Mario already has a Triforce tattoo in the video so hopefully this is foreshadowing.

Bonus Dr. Mario Lyrics Movie

Wow, just try and count how many times the phrase "Dr. Mario" is spoken. For some reason, I am enjoying the parodies more than the original parody. "For Theeee Chills" = 4D Chills from the awesome video effects. The word around 22 seconds into the video says "Lol Three Gloves" for those like me who wanted to know.

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by BlueZero

During Direct to Drive's 5 year old sale, where they were selling games for 5 dollars, I jumped on two games at discount prices. World in Conflict Gold was one of those games, and after playing through the single player on the normal difficulty I have constructed this review. I had not had the chance for playing much multiplayer for this game, so I won't reflect on it much. Instead, this review will focus on the single player aspect of both the original campaign and the interlaced Soviet expansion pack missions.

World in Conflict is a game which reminds me a lot of Command and Conquer with bits and pieces of other RTSs thrown in for a somewhat appealing and occasionally satisfying experience.

Story: The story takes place during the cold war, 1989 including additional historical pieces. During both, the allied nations are dealing with the threat of the Soviet Union, had it not fallen at the end of the cold war. In the American Campaign, the player takes control of a commander named Parker, and is joined with the help of AI Co-commanders, such as Bannon, with both of you being directed by Colonel Sawyer. While other characters come into play, those 3 are the ones of major storyline importance.

The story is original as far as videogames are concerned, though a lot of inspiration comes from movies such as Red Dawn; an invasion of the United States by Russia. The story carries from initial landing in Seattle to Oregon and places in-between. Halfway through the game there is a flashback to initial battles between NATO forces and the Russian's European invasion, being the back-story for the major characters cited above.

As far as the characters are concerned, many are 1-trick ponies. Bannon is a whiner, and starts and ends that way. Only in his last mission does he "man-up", though I felt little empathy for one of the most annoying characters of the lot. Sawyer is more interesting, always badgering Bannon and giving orders, but he too falls to the same routine mission after mission; giving orders, yelling at Bannon and yelling at everyone else.

Something interesting for the player's character Parker is his portrayal. He is shown in the game, but his face is not, therefore you'll find him standing listening in to Sawyer during cutscenes. It took me a while to realize why there was a soldier who's back was always facing the camera till I realized it was the character I was playing. I'm not saying this is bad, just a little interesting how a "silent" hero in a RTS was accomplished. Plot-wise it doesn't seem to harm or hurt the narration.

Some of the characters that were not major, but appeared in the cutscenes and cinematics such as Mike, Anton and Webb, seemed to have more humility and I could better connect to these characters. Unfortunately, most of the first half of the game only focuses on the big 3 mentioned before, which were probably my least favorite characters. Luckily after the half of the game, where some of their storylines were sorted out, the others could display their own superior better war commentary.

Now, World In Conflict Gold came with a Soviet Campaign as well as the American one, but soviet missions are spliced in between the American's. This is a little disappointing, since as an expansion it forces a complete replay through the game to find all the new content, rather than having that option as well as a mission/campaign select for just those special missions. Regardless, if one is playing World in Conflict for the first time, the inclusion of the Soviet missions certainly helps explain some of the story arcs as well as scenes occurring simultaneously in the storyline.

In terms of characters there are better-quality soviet versions. Rather than go into the names, I will simply say the Colonel feels more human than the American chatterbox equivalent, and stronger emotionally. He is sort of that stereotypical hero that one sees from movies such as from "Letters from Iwo Jima" that knows the enemy and respects them. His interaction with his associates also brings up more politically charged topics: execution, guerilla tactics, patriotism; which feel more in terms with the game's story than some of the early shallow dialogue occurring between the American counterparts.

The cut scenes are told in a similar vein as Company of Heroes' with illustrated storyboards that pan around; over these are placed the characters narration. These tell of side events in the story, not always addressing the current or upcoming missions, work to nudge in humility to the war. These scenes show such events as one soldier trying to get his army paychecks cleared, a solider phoning his father, and Soviet propaganda. I enjoyed these scenes, since just like COH, they were played off extremely well, and helped to set the tone of the war.

The American cinematic operation overview maps are narrated by an "unknown voice" and describe the thoughts of the current attack plans and reasoning. They include story of the map you will soon be visiting, but not each objective you will have to do on it. They are similar to Call of Duty 4 in storytelling style, but a more slow and morbid version. These are different than COH, which only play off the strategy of the map at hand in-game, with the operation overviews being separate in the animated cinematics.

Overall, while the story is interesting overall, dealing with nukes, and some plot twists, it only really starts to get exciting in the latter half of the game. This isn't because the initial levels are tutorials, but just because emotionally they feel stronger, and the gameplay is superior. I will say more about this further into the review. There are 15 American/NATO missions while there are only 6 Russian missions, but of them all, there are only about 5 great American missions, and 4 great Russian missions, making the expansion pack better overall in design, even if it is shorter.

The ending on the American side is a little disappointing, not because of how it ends, but how it is handled. There is no winding down. There is simply a dialogue that informs that the player has succeeded, one short story tie-up, and then the credits roll. There isn't any aftermath footage or epilogue. Especially disappointing is how the character Parker, whom was being played the entire game, has no post story. The Soviet Campaign has it a little better, the ending doesn't have a cinematic either, but it is definitely more fulfilling at at-least giving an inkling of the post-op of the characters in an in-game cut scene.

Graphics: World in Conflict is all about the environmental details. The graphics in World in Conflict are spectacular for an RTS, on the same vein of Company of Heroes, and increasingly becoming a standard for RTS graphics in general. Much like Company of Heroes, there is much in the way of visual splendor being produced; from the cloudy ash from a newly deconstructed building, to the pits where forecasts of artillery rain were correct; details are added quite stunning. One way in which World in Conflict really stands out amongst the RTS graphical crowd is in the tiny details. Company of Heroes has details, but as I'll continue to parallel the two on their focus, COH focuses on the people, and WIC focuses on the environment.

For this I only need to point at the towns, cities and farmlands in WIC. Each building has a very elegant, as far as explosions are concerned, destructible animation, with smokestacks falling to the ground and roofs collapsing. It is all very pleasing. Unlike COH, these destruction animations seem damage oriented, in that once the building gets to 50% health it may burst into flames, while in COH, you could destroy each side of the building individually. Overall, it seems a choice of scale. Since the camera is much farther out in WIC, they take buildings to be more terrain placeholders, rather than of maximal strategic importance with specific window placement etc. Buildings are especially easy to destroy in WIC compared to COH, removing some of their strategic usage for damage protection. Both still have canned destruction animations, and in both, not everything is destructible.

Anyways, WIC's importance of detail really makes the believability of invasion. There are signs and graffiti on the walls of the shops, with little details such as non-repetitious names added to each building. Furthermore there are scattered props like cars, lamp poles, freeway overpasses and more that add many "big picture details". The terrain is also stellar and while still a stretched texture over a mesh, is very highly detailed. The landscape texture is likewise, with volumetric clouds and a looming parallax moon. There is even a mission with an aurora borealis in it that animates beautifully, as killer whales dance below. These random props immerse the game in realism. At times it just amazes me that the developers included so many nicks and nacks, which have no affect on gameplay at all. There are things I would have never even considered including. A testament to the keen eyes and modeling skills of the developers.

There is occasionally grass added to the scene; not only can tanks run over the grass and leave their treadmark, the grass gets removed in the path the tank navigated, leaving the rest alone. It is quite fun to draw pictures with tanks with this effect. The same applies for snow, where even infantry leave their footprints on the ground, with brown and white representing the dirt smudging beneath soldier's feet. The grass and snow will return once the camera focuses away, but this is understandable for memory conservation sakes and don't detract from the experience of the moment.

Dear to my heart was a themed level with Christmas decorations, santas, and snowmen, and lights. Themes of this nature, while few, served to match the date of the mission and while serving 0 tactical advantage the details were appreciated for their pathos.

Trees and shrubbery are also well done. One mission is near a lighthouse in Europe. The steep bank of the cliff is mostly rocky but realistically there are some trees, and on a couple of plateaus of the cliff. There, some lone grass grows stranded from the majority. Each tree is also randomly generated using Speedtree technology. As they look over the boats in the harbor and birds fly overhead, I absorb the scene. It is details like this that I do enjoy in games.
Did I mention trees can catch on fire? No? Well they can, and it is sweet. Dropping napalm on trees and watching the leaves burn off to render a husk of bark and debris is what I call romantic. Thankfully they are virtual trees or else I might feel guilty basking in their warm glow. The developers must know how cool this effect is that they included for they have you napalm a bush of trees to flush out the enemy. Strategic use of fire. From its inclusion in Far Cry 2, many games before it, fire is quite a staple of coolness.

While the details are crazy good, not everything is passable with the graphics. Some of the bane occurs from poor design choices rather than pure graphics, however. The biggest thing that annoyed me graphically, and not design-wise was that many of the scorch marks on the terrain look very flat and boring. Even in older Games such as Myth there was added physical depth from explosion marks. Large explosions do cause pits, but it doesn't change the zoomed-out look. In WIC, as they constantly overlay the texture making their believability much much less. With the terrain limit for these marks set extremely high, the cartoony factor begins to show up. This happens in other games, but usually the camera never lets you see more than a couple sorchmarks at once. in WIC, seeing 100+ nearly identical marks is detracting.

Further graphical shame comes from the units. Soldiers all robotically run in the same march stride animation as they move about the world, no individual thought for the soldiers in this game. This is a big difference from COH, and certainly plays up the environment (Big Picture) vs. units (Up-Close) details I mentioned before.

Another problem arises during cinematics. During the wonderful cinematic, the last storyboard shot always seems to get cut off just before the in-game cut scenes began. I am not sure if this was purposely done, or if it happens by accident, but it happens on the majority of the missions that I am unsure what to think about it. The sounds seem to match the cinematic as they play, so I am confident that the sound is not finishing early and cutting off the final storyboard drawing. Not game-breaking, but an annoying detail.

Lastly, the textures have LOD applied to them; so higher quality versions will load as you get closer to the textured object to help with optimization. I appreciate this, since it makes the game run so smooth. Unfortunately, there is a long load delay as you wait for a while focused on an object or scene to have the high-resolution textures appear. I'm not sure if this is a hardware limitation or RAM limitation, but it was slightly annoying to "keep the camera steady" to avoid the blurry shot. On the plus side, the pop-in is not as bad as games like Mass-Effect's blurry jack-in-the-box texture mess.

Controls: World in Conflict does not have any revolutionary control features that I haven't seen anywhere else, but it does have a couple changes that I appreciate.

For one, I can select a unit with a special power, such as a healing unit and right click on a unit in my taskbar to have the healer ride over to that unit to heal it. This is a very useful time saver. It also works similarly for the enemy. In combat it is often a pain to have to select a unit to attack it amongst a cluster of units, clicking on the type indicator for that unit which floats above their head works just the same as clicking on the unit directly. Another helpful advantage.

The game makes use of the WASD keys to move around the camera. This is appreciated, since it gives my hand space to rest on my keyboard, rather than dealing with my rather cramped arrows keys. I know why most games just use the arrow keys though, the use of WASD for camera removes them as viable hotkeys. But in World in Conflict this isn't much of a problem. There is no base building, so that eliminates a lot of required hotkeys, plus the two that are needed, special weapons, are E, and R respectively, being right next to the camera controls of easy access. The camera is also well designed and I had no problem panning and orbitting about the playing field smoothly. The camera also has a built in height-pan speed adjustment. In this way, zooming in slows the camera's top speed down, versus what it is at the maximum camera height. This lets the player enjoy the many visual details without zooming past them by struggling with the spotty camera controls.

World if Conflict gets a lot correct in controls but not all is beautiful. The icons in the bottom right that pertain to functions is a mess of highlation , meaning some are visually available and others not. Plus it is so cluttered that the reinforce button doesn't even sit in the container and floats lonely on the side. Thankfully I rarely had to use that area for anything rather than the huge special weapons icons, highlighted boldly their importance.

The game includes waypoints, by holding shift, but it didn't work for what I wanted it. Moving units around using it was fine but for some reason the game refuses to queue healing. Whether it just wants to make it harder on the player, or if I'm doing it wrong is up for debate, but all I know is I had to manually order my repair vehicle around for it to do its functions.

Another nitpick I had was that all units follows the speed of the slowest commanded unit. While I understand this is to keep units together, it proved annoying to order my troops to a spot and have them get there too late to do any good, with the jeeps being as slow as the infantry. I had to order my troops in groups to get to destinations so that they would follow their maximum movement speed for better strategic usage. Hopefully there is a setting I'm missing that disables the "guarding" mechanism, since I currently don't like it as it stands.

Gameplay: World in Conflict plays like Command and Conquer. This is not one of the early Command and Conquer(s) either, it is more in tune with Red Alert 3, or C&C3. There are controllable units, and clicking on the units gives a choice for special weapons, with most having two "unique" ones. Ground units of infantry are joined into squads; unlike COH, these squads were treated as merely another unit, and there was little in the way of individualism.

Unlike both C&C and COH, there is no base building. WIC takes the camera far out, and makes the player a commander, not bothering with trivial stuff like base building. However, results in both bad and good consequences. It is good, since base building can sometimes be annoying, and it faces the player with a source in which to lose. Lose one's base;lose the mission. Here's where the negatives start to roll in. In terms of the single player campaign, there never felt like much of a deterrence from simply throwing units into the fray, having them die and simply dropping more in. The strategic aspect was lost of me; unlike Myth II, where you could not build more units, and strategy was involved as there would be rarely any more given. Occasionally missions will try and match this setup, preventing extra drops for a time period, usually at mission beginnings, but it rarely adds much strategy; it just prevents temporary stupidity.
In terms of units there are the predictable ones. There are air, artillery, infantry and armored divisions, with the single player being a combination with major focus on the armored and infantry divisions. Occasionally the player would be given air and artillery to use, but for the most part tanks and ground forces are the staple.

Units did not feel completely balanced, owing more to the lack of strategy required. I usually could just build a whole fleet of APCs and win a mission, or build a fleet of light tanks and win, depending on the situation. Sometimes it was wise to go completely Anti-tank infantry, as these seemed completely overpowered, their only weakness being other infantry, snipers and the chance of being run over. (I liked this touch of being able to run down infantry, another carry-over from the C&C series. Alas, it was usually confusing to hear "Unit lost", and look for a whole missing unit only to find that only half a squad had been road raged by an enemy tank.) The game may have been more balanced for multiplayer, which I did not have the luxury of playing in mass quantities, but as far single player was involved, there really was no reason to dash one's unit selection with anything except that one unit that works, and perhaps an anti-air.

As the player destroys the enemy they are granted points to spend on off map assistance. These include the aforementioned Napalm, as well as tank busters, cluster bombs, and artillery. In essence a lot of these felt the same, differing mostly on the area of effect and damage done. Since killing the units using the special power often resulted in more points, there was seemingly an endless supply of off map death waiting to be rained down at times. I appreciated the assistance of these special powers and many missions seemed focused around their usage, sending hoards of tanks your way, which happened to cluster up, calling for use of focused artillery on their position.

These special support powers are easy to dispatch the enemy but on the other hand, they are far too easy to use and perhaps too often required, removing their uniqueness , and just making them simply another standard tool in the arsenal. This also devalued the ground units, they did their thing, usually without a lot of help, and the player focused mostly on where the bombing runs would go next. The ground units were just used to resupply the needed points if the bombing runs failed to do the same.

As for missions, many were largely the same. Sadly, this is the game's biggest fault. Every mission felt like a repetition of the last one, with perhaps one different unit being added to your pool. This sadly did not change up the game a lot, since as I mentioned, only one real unit was needed to complete each mission regardless. The game also suffers greatly from repetition due to this structure. Often the maps had the player attack a point, or defend a point. There was rarely chances for diversion from this tactic. Certain areas had to be attacked to be captured, holding special places on the ground to build up defenses, then there would be a counter attack, and the player had to hold off the enemy. This predictability and subsequent use in almost every mission became dull beyond belief. The use of timers in later missions did not help ease the boredom.("What, you want me to attack that point within 40 minutes? OK. Next Mission: Attack it in 30 minutes? Fine. Next: 20? You got it.") What also proved irritating was that while some missions gave timelines for how long positions had to be defended, some just let you sit there for who knows how long. Yes, in real life one is clueless to reinforcement timing, but in this game, since you can call in help at all times, it truly provides no additional realism, just annoyance. I suppose it is telling if I had to focus on time spent defending rather than the action to say just how exciting the commanding was.

Only in the later half did the game try to mix up the gameplay, but unfortunately it was too little. One Soviet Mission allowed the player only artillery to help the AI hold off an attacking force. This meant that player had to keep an eye out for enemies and make sure to try and predict enemy movement. This was challenging and appreciated. Another Soviet Mission had the player escort a convoy of trucks to a position. It was actually more like a standard Attack/Defend mission, but at least tried a different approach to it. An American mission forced the player to use only helicopters. Carefully navigating the islands as the player defended New York, avoiding the Anti-air, preventing casualties, and racing against a clock were all engaging and actually challenging. Lastly, a notable American mission forced the player to support their allies by repair, as they salvaged wrecks along the snowy peaks. All these were great improvements, but were rare in the game. Basically, any mission that either limited the amount of units to a select couple that weren't over powered, or changed up the mission structure from something other than attacking and defending were the superior ones for gameplay.

One mission in the game in which I really enjoyed the gameplay was on the Soviet side, it dealt with the elimination of the guerilla camps. This mission got a couple things right. Firstly, it had clear objectives, eliminate the Anti-air sentries. Next, it limited the units to a couple infantry varieties. Only two were really needed, snipers and Anti-Tank crews, but even with these two, it felt as though the player had something important to do. Focusing on this select amount, and lining them up, keeping the tanks away from the snipers, and the ground troopers away from the anti-tank proved exhilarating. To leave one would doom the other. Unfortunately, the latter half of that mission proceeded down to the same trend of monotony, with tanks and the like clogging up the flow, but that initial part was beautifully designed, with a good story too. It is a shame there aren't too many missions that adopt this structure. They certainly help the game's recycling.

Perhaps the developers knew that they didn't have that much in the way of variety for mission objectives so they added optional secondary missions. These, if accomplished, added badges to the victory screen, which just like COH, add nothing except for bragging rights and completion tracking. These secondary missions were greatly appreciated, especially in those initial missions to keep the game from getting too stale amongst the usual boredom. They also were original, having to keep certain things alive, and beating time limits actually became main objectives for me, as I kept my interest by making those main priority goals. None of these secondary objectives were very difficult on the normal difficulty setting and so it is likely any player playing the game on normal will accomplish these secondary goals with little or no extra work.

Another disappointment in recycling comes from the 3 available armies. The 3 armies in the game, NATO, American, and Russian, play exactly the same. Therefore, when playing the expansion pack, do not expect anything extra in terms of strategizing goodies. Also, the differences between a lot of them are negligible besides their special weapons. If one can afford the best unit, there is little reason to choose the lighter variety unless they especially need that special weapon. IE, the light tank has a weapon good against heavy tanks, but the heavy tank has a special weapon good against light tanks. Therefore, it is kind of moot which one to choose. But, for the helicopters, the heavy attack helicopter has a special weapon to kill only ground units, which the light version has an air to air missile, making it the better choice for engaging enemy air or getting a couple to help support the heavy air choppers.

Units gain veterancy over 5 levels. The icons are confusing for those that don't have army insignias memorized, but it is really no matter, the veterancy didn't seem to change my tactical outlook much. This is not like Company of Heroes where a level 3 tank dominates a unvetted one. The level differences for units adds slight advantages for the unit in WIC, but considering the spammy nature of units in WIC anyways, its game-changing moments in single-player missions are slim. There is also apparently a damage based location system, but without any indicators like in COH, and hardly any noticeable difference as far as I could tell through the entire game, this feature was squandered.

AI: The artificial intelligence is good at doing its job, but that is all. The computer allies go about their own business, holding off the enemy, and the enemy does the same thing. There seems to usually be an equal amount of pushing and pulling from both sides since on most of the maps, the allied units are not often overrun by the enemy, or vice versa. They stagnate their positions just to add more diversity and scale to the battle. Sadly, this means if you assist your ally in killing the enemy force attacking them, the ally will just hold position and not move forward; same for the enemy. This makes it easy to predict where the enemy will stop to engage, and special support artillery drops make quick work of the stationary and camping, enemy.

As for the AI navigating your own units, they seem to be apt at targeting proper units attune to their strengths. IE, the anti air seems to prioritize the attacking helicopter, while the Anti-tanks crew goes for the tanks with their recoilless rifles. Of course, like Command and Conquer, practically any unit can harm the others, it is merely efficiency to take into account. So the infantry can still harm tanks slowly, it is just better that they engage infantry instead, which they appear to do. Ground units are also proficient at path finding, so I'm happy I don't have to complain abut them getting stuck on bridges.

Don't expect to be amazed or challenged by the AI in single-player, it is good at spamming, like much of World in Conflict is based around, but is not apt at handling the strength/weakness mechanics provided.

Sound and music: The sound in this game is average. Compared to COH the unit voices are exceedingly sterile and disappointing. Once more I was reminded of the standard C&C units with their 3-6 responses for everything. Also, the notifications of "unit lost" seemed very vague, and unhelpful, not pinpointing me to any of my lost units.
As far as voices for the main characters, they were believable and fit the characters, though it only worked to fit the characters, it did not improve their faults, which I have already mentioned.

Explosions are repetitious and while the game changes the volume and pitch a small amount depending on camera distance, it works, but does so standardly.

I was so transfixed on the visuals the majority of the time that music took a backseat. There is an orchestrated score, which must be good since I hardly recognized it, and it definitely wasn't a silent scene. Consider the music fitting, but there didn't seem to be any overarching theme, which I appreciate in games that want to be either franchises, or have memorable, hummable music. There are a couple oldie sounding songs to try and fit the era. Occasionally they worked, but sometimes them stood out too much from the war scene. I'll let them slide on the preacher moment, as that seemed to work alright, and I was amused on how it ended.

Extras & Other Notes: Firstly, one great bonus of this game is the hidden loading bar. Imagine Call of Duty 4, and how it loads as the cutscene is being played. This is exactly how World in Conflict does it, except it hides the loading bar. The loading bar only appears during the cutscene if you try and skip it; in which case the loading bar will appear to warn the player that it understood what they wanted, but isn't finished with the undercover loading. I wish more games took this approach. This is even a method that WIC has over COH, even though they both seem to use similar style cutscenes. This method does its job well because of its player influence. It makes the game appear to have absolutely no loading at all, and makes the transitions from main menu to in-game that much more fluid and uninterrupted. Hiding it is also clever, since it stops it from detracting from the scene, unless it is absolutely required from the player wishing to skip. Thankfully, as a side note, all dialogue and videos can be skipped, regardless of whether you had seen them or not before. More games need to allow this.

Another positive note is that the game appears quite optimized for DX 9. My laptop is not the most powerful one out there, but even its 9700m GT can run the game at 1680 x 1050 with almost every setting on high. In fact, it runs very smoothly, and only a tremendous amount of explosions slows it down. This is quite impressive for the scale that the game is going for, being able to zoom way out, and then back in freely without transitions. Sort of like a more detailed version of Supreme Commander. DX 10 is unfortunately another story, and requires a more beefy rig, but as described in the graphics section, the game is quite impressive graphically regardless.

The credits include outtakes and photos from development, which make watching scrolling text more entertaining to the common man.

I had a small glitch happen to me where I was trying to choose my dropzone; a tutorial window appeared, and all the places where I could place my marker disappeared. I couldn't reproduce it, (Didn't try too) but could be annoying had it not been an early mission.

Cutscenes are done in-game which is quite cool as the craters from the current mission as well as units are portrayed as they stand in the cutscenes as they do in the mission, for the most part. However this reveals problems occasionally. The game has the tendency to spawn units where there were previously none after a cutscene triggering objective, making your previously well-off units suddenly surrounded.

Conclusion: World in conflict is a beautiful game, there is no doubt about it. There are details everywhere that are simply amazing by having being considered and implemented into a game. A highlight in graphics for RTS of 2007. A seemingly well-optimized engine brings the graphics to the user smoothly. However, while the graphics stun, even by today's standards, the game play is lacking. Units are too much cookie-cuttered and there are no unique powers or units for the different armies. Furthermore, gameplay is too much based around spamming single units, or simplistic combinations. Therefore, with unbalanced units for single-player, strategy is minimized for an RTS. Units are easily replaced and there is no emotionally connection at all for the soldiers and units lost or killed. The AI is average and only does its job; nothing more or less. Voice acting is good, but the sound department overall isn't overwhelmingly stunning. Storyline is original, and stays away from the saturated WWII market. Storyboards portray the story elegantly. However, some characters, especially on the American side, are too shallow. A fine line is not established between minor and major characters. Expansion pack adds 6 extra missions which tend to be better overall than the American Campaign. Missions are based too much around the same goals, there isn't enough originality in the objectives. Optional secondary goals add minimal, but still appreciated replayability. Controls are easy to learn and useful, but some cleanup and additions would have been preferred. Destructibility of the environment is pleasing, almost everything can be destroyed to some degree. I would recommend World in Conflict for those looking for a Command and Conquer experience without the base-building aspect.

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by Zott820

Welcome to the world of Bayonetta! Some witch cult has some impure child and has considered her an outcast. Someone rescues the girl named Bayonetta from the bottom of a lake. Next, she battles the blond haired woman in the red dress because that woman decided to fight the outcast as her witch challenge. Enter boss fights so seamless and fast, that they shine as a molding of Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden. I thoroughly enjoyed the Japanese demo and spend almost 30 minutes playing to the end. Do note I wrote this write-up before the English demo came out; enter the demo spoilers:

The demo starts out with Bayonetta learning all her seductive moves in the Tutorial level. Here, we have the triangle button be her physical attack with her hair and magic attacks. The square and circle button do her ranged weapon, which in the demo is either pistols or a shotgun. The X button allows Bayonetta to jump and double jump. The R2 button allows her to dodge and it’s an important part of the game. L2 switches her stance between the default pistol and the shotgun/sword stance. L1 is the taunt button which raises her special bar if you are fighting enemies. R1 is your special move button you hold while pressing the face buttons. R1 + triangle seemed to be the best move with the sword to get around quickly in the air. Since I am writing this hands-on preview a few days after I played the demo, I can see what sticks in my memory.

Action games live or die by their controls and speed. The most impressive part of the game is that her moves are so well animated and flow well with her combat. She doesn’t feel stiff like other action games. She can go instantly from physical attacks to a ranged attack and can interrupt any down time from a move with an instant jump. The frustrations of slow Devil May Cry 1 (DMC) moves has been replaced with the fast action of Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Unlike Ninja Gaiden, the angels are not throwing a billion things your way or getting some super cheap grab move, not yet at least. The dodge button is very liberal in going into the bullet witch time. I appreciate that Bayonetta actually dodges the attack with the blade or whatever traveling under her instead of some games where the items clips through the person and it is hidden with a lot of sparks (God of War). A unique move for the game is a 360 rotation of the control stick plus a projectile button. This puts her into a frenzy of firing and you can aim her attacks from over the shoulder. The attack was very useful.

The game speed seemed to be locked at around 30FPS unless the game was doing cinematics like boss intros or some Bayonetta in game cutscenes. Again, Sega has done a decent job getting the game to run well. Yeah, the comparison videos show that there is more color in the 360 version of the game. When I was playing the demo, I didn’t think “Oh, these textures are kinda murkey and the colors could be more vibrant”

The demo starts off with Bayonetta on a train after a brief video about her back story. She just sits there until the train stops and she leaves. The other people in the world are represented as shadows for some reason. I’m going to assume that the angels make people oblivious to the battle between witches and the angels; the battle between magic and time as hinted in the trailer. Then some magical voice starts talking to her and I didn’t think it was important.

As soon as you can control Bayonetta, you will notice that the camera controls are extremely slow and must be immediately changed to mid level so you can rotate the camera to see enemies. She likes to walk with one hand on her hip and runs full force at maximum run. Even when she is in the air, she will put a hand on her hip while she is firing with the square button. The creators have done an excellent job making her look sexy while she is fighting. She can strafe enemies and faces them at a kind of angle that makes it look like she is dancing with them. When she does her double jump, I was surprised that she has magic butterfly wings that give her extra height. When she lands, magical looking butterflies come from her impact. Her dodge move is a very high flip which if done enough makes her do a really high jump and go into a recovery mode where she can’t move for like a second. I see this intention to prevent spamming the dodge move for easy witch bullet time where all enemies are slowed for a few seconds.

Bayonetta exits the train station and can destroy pots and objects for Sonic looking rings. I’m not sure their purpose, I assume they will be used to buy new moves/items ala DMC. When she gets outside, the angels come out of the heaven. They are introduced by a cutscene and their name written in a book which flies away. The introduction of the enemies with their name written in a book might get old if they do that for every enemy we meet. There are a few ground and air enemies. Since I was playing on the Normal setting, the highest level allowed in the demo, there was a danger icon before each attack and I had to do my own combos.

After the enemies, a boss demon enemy appeared. He had a red spot on his back. The Japanese text did not make it easy for me to understand that I could use her Torture move to finish the boss. As you dish out the pain, your torture/special meter starts filling up. When it is full, Bayonetta’s body glows purple and you can press L3 to unleash a finishing move. The finishing move against the boss is a huge dragon head emerging from Bayonetta’s hair, which is naturally the source of a woman’s power, and then doing “Megatons” of damage to the angel.

Fast forward through the demo to the next boss fight. As soon as Bayonetta gets on a suspended bridge over a cliff, another angel comes from the pit and starts grabbing onto the bridge. Bayonetta unleashes her stylish moves and near the end, the boss actually rips the bridge from the world and eventually tosses it with her on it. The player has to press the jump button and she lands with a graceful picture of her landing. The boss returns as she walks toward a door on another bridge and drives her back to a platform. The rest of the boss fight builds suspense with the platform getting more cracks and the boss is hanging off the edge swiping at Bayonetta. Once you whittle down the health bar, you get to do another finishing attack with the dragon hair spawn.

The game next loads a fight with the blondish woman from the trailer. The fight takes place in a rectangle room and can go on all surfaces. This boss fight is quite challenging as the other woman can guard most of your attacks. When I fought her with the sword style, it was much more difficult than using the normal style. Dodging her attacks doesn’t enter witch bullet time because both people are witches I suppose. If you manage to beat her, then the demo ends and shows a brief trailer.

To sum the game up, Bayonetta is not a full witch probably because a witch had a daughter with a regular human. Thus Bayonetta is an outcast and the witch council doesn’t want to accept her in their clan. Also for some reason this blond hair witch wants to fight Bayonetta as her initiation ritual. Yeah, that’s going to really show off your mettle battling half a witch. My opinion is that the creator is going to make a sequel to this game, thus the story is going to not be tightly wrapped up at the end. Yeah, Bayonetta is most likely going to beat down the angels, but it’s not going to be conclusive. I'm going to be buying it day one anyway.

*Images from the Official Bayonetta Website and the Bayonetta Flickr Account.

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by BlueZero

Ok, so on 360, people can use their Xbox Live party to eventually setup a public, yet customizable private match. This means that random people join the game but the person can kick people and tweak the server settings like maps and points. I can't find the YouTube video I watched in which people showed it off, but I remember seeing it posted in the comments of a recent Joystiq or Kotaku article.

As a part of this glitch, people are able to start the round with unlimited ammo. This means they never have to reload and for some reason this works on the AC-130. That's why this guy gets more than 200 kills with only a few deaths. Obviously with SMGs and gernade launchers, this means you have no chance for a fair fight.


As a partial aside, I think you guys should check out the Modern Warfare 2 Mythbusters video that answers questions I wish I had. You will be amazed at some of the things that people try to do with the weapons and killstreaks.

With more and more glitches/exploits being found in the game, it looks like Infinity Ward is not going to have time to make downloadable content ready for early next year. Then again, I wasn't looking forward to paying $15 for 3 maps where one of them is probably from a prior game.

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by BlueZero

Valve is once again doing an amazing job with marketing Team Fortress 2 way beyond the shelf date. In the past, people looked to Criterion Games as the go to company for DLC. Valve again shows that class updates, hats, and new content keep a game fresh. There was recent stirrings of new voices added to the Announcer (her real title is the Administrator) of the game regarding "Friendships" (you know that lady that yells at you during the game). Today Valve posted a super sweet comic strip actually showing what she looks like while paving the way for possible class updates!

First, you MUST go check out this official Team Fortress 2 Administrator Comic if you play Team Fortress 2. I'll wait while you digest the pure win of the comic.


Ok, now do you realize according to the mythos of the game, the Administrator decided to alert the Blue Soldier about the "A Red Spy is in the Base" yet she knew who he was disguised as the Scout all along. That's because she puts the "traitor" in Administra(i)tor. Anyway, she doesn't want the mercenaries to know about her and her associate Miss Pauling to be discovered. My money is on the Red Scout eventually discovering her hidden location and then the huge reveal that the Administrator is the mother of the Scout, aged well by cigarette smoke and yelling at the top of her lungs. The TF2Wiki.net has a better explanation with the Administrator being Elizabeth, the maidservant of the deceased Zepheniah Mann (the hats we got for with the Halloween map)

Valve seems to have gobbled up an independent artist name Makani who created a excellent concept of the Administrator. Amazing Team Fortress 2 Fan Art She has a Two-Face kind of feel with half of her being red and the other half blue. The artist posted on their blog that Valve requested an interview with them and he or she went. It seems they have contracted Makani's artistic skills and now can use the Announcer concept as they well did. This artist has a lot of potential and will go far with Valve's artistic direction.

The biggest thing to take out of the comic is that the Blue Soldier and the Red Demoman have been secretly best friendly. Both guys somehow defy vision with Demo's perfect vision with one eye and the Soldier's lack of vision with his helmet. I liked how they met at a gun projectile convention. Also pointing toward class updates for the Demo and Soldier is that the Administrator is contacting Mister Hale. You know when we see his catelogue, there are always great weapons added to the game. We will find out tomorrow or very soon. Perhaps everyone's speculation is off and the Friendship turns out to be just the voice samples played when either a Soldier or Demo kill each other. Either way, Valve has made the TF2 Announcer/Administrator even cooler because I can now picture her face veins tensed as she puffs a cigarette and yells "You are all failures!".

Official Administrator come from the Official Team Fortress 2 Blog. Concept Art Credit to Makani

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by BlueZero

So as I was writing my Racist Review of Resident Evil 5, decided to write a better story for the game. This improved version tries to fix all the flaws with the original story like generic bosses and uninspiring narrative. Again like my review, Resident Evil 5 SPOILERS coming up. Do note that I am discussing culturally sensitive subjects and more use of the African culture in the game would have been better for the game overall:

As you can see from this early E3 video, the game looked pretty vicious. There were tons of villagers attacking Chris with throwing hatchets and pushing him violently around. Also notice that there were women in the crowd!

New Resident Evil 5 Story

If I had to tweak the African elements, I wouldn’t be afraid to head toward the cultural heritage. I would probably include some blood diamond plot as a cover for mining operations for more advanced Plagas. The white terrorist selling guy would be portrayed as very racist and brutal. He could smack a few people around and attempt to conquer a few cities/tribes/part of Africa. You know the part at the beginning where the guard guy feels up Sheva? Yeah, real storytelling would actually show it. He would naturally be killed by Africans after they harness the new Plagas and infect themselves as a form of control which would be an interesting way for Africans to reclaim their homeland and pride after years of enslaving Imperialism. Then, you introduce a strong African leader (male or female), like Kirk, who needs to correct the injustice against his people. (Sheva never really feels powerful, which I’ll explain later) This leader would face off with the white people (Weskar, the terrorist guy, and the BSAA) as well as the Africans who would betray their country for profit. I would be okay if Kirk later got a virus similar to Weskar which would raise the stakes. I mean, if Kirk became arrogant like Weskar and his powers didn’t become teleporting like Weskar, then he would be a believable new villain/anti-hero.

The outcome of the both storylines remains the same with Weskar dead except he doesn’t die in magma, he is overcome by the power of teamwork with the knife teamup scene ending his life. Jill is actually part of the final battle against Weskar instead idiotically leaving it to a mini hulk and a proper English woman. Weskar dies with the combat knives stuck in his body, going through his exposed body cores. He is dead except Weskar never dies because he had injected himself with another serum on the bomber to only feign death like always. Perhaps the volcano decides this is the right time to start exploding due to Uroboros being absorbed.

Enemies
On the enemy side, I would remove the stupid “bat/scorpion” boss since it poorly designed and very boring. Plus the music is really annoying for the lackluster boss Only Uroboros (on the ship deck) and Weskar were original, exciting boss fights. There were too many variations of Uroboros in the boss fights. Uroboros are just black worms that can control humans; I only need to fight it once. I hated how you had to fight the recycled boss El Gigante on the car turrets; this made the fight less dynamic compared to dodging trees in Resident Evil 4. Replace him with an African shaman woman who controls a human looking boss made of shrunken heads and different patches of skin. Expect to see a golem creature made of dirt as well as a throwback to the Legion boss from Castlevania or the golem could be similar to El Gigante if you can actually move around. You would first have to defeat her “human” corpse animated by the Plagas/Uroboros before you fight her next creature. I want to see a lot of corpse animation (resurrection) made possible by Las Plagas and blood diamonds. I would be fine if she showed up during the course of the game with new “magicks” aka bosses. Therefore, Excella should have been a shaman/elder but still have a scientific background mixing the two cultures.

If the game threw in children who were infected, like an diary article alludes that they were, then the game would get so much criticism but it would be more realistic. If the game included infected babies, I don’t think there would be much backlash since Dead Space was able to do it (I got a laugh out of Issac drop kicking the baby aliens). It worked for Dead Space, I don’t think it would work for Resident Evil. If the designers included pregnant women who were infected, this game would be boycotted internationally and reach a level of infamy beyond of ManHunt 2 and GTA San Andreas’ Hot Coffee. I personally don’t see a reason to push the envelope by including pregnant women, but I could see it being a memorable boss fight, perhaps optional so Chris can actually show some emotion.

Racial or Gene Superiority?
Resident Evil has always been about human surgery and experiments gone wrong with a virus as the catalyst. If there truly were no bounds on story, the AIDS epidemic in Africa would play a fitting role for pharmaceutical companies like Tricell to deploy supposed AIDS vaccines. Therefore as part of an experiment, some people would die as test subjects, some would be cured from AIDS, and some would gain extraordinary strength/abilities. Capcom decided to shirk away from the cultural history in the development of the game. In doing so, they made the story all about Weskar and his worldwide cleansing of non-infected creatures. This racial agenda alone should raise the political correct (PC) flags more than a white Chris shooting African zombies.

Lack of Emotion
Chris should also feel a little bit of morality choosing a side that will hurt the African population in the process of healing it from the biological terrorism. If not Chris, then Sheva should be saying SOMETHING about how she has to kill her fellow people in order to justify her losing her family to a biological outbreak. In my game, there needs to be some buildup for Sheva’s loss by having her as a playable character at the start of the game futilely trying to save her family from white invaders instead of a biological outbreak instigated by the white Tricell corporation. Maybe even if you beat the game, then Sheva can save her family with the New Game+ due to her increased strength and moveset. In this case, she saves her family only to have Kirk die. There always has to be a tradeoff. Then Kirk is replaced with her brother if she has one, setting up a slightly different story line. Either that or we get Jill as Chris’ partner for this extra mode.

New Exciting Elements
The new game could take more inspirations from Hotel Rhawanda and less from Black Hawk Down. It’s just a passé trend now that a helicopter in Resident Evil is going to be shot down. If your main heroes are in there, it is invincible. If a no name person, sans Mike, is in there, it’s going down from a little tap of anything, biological or otherwise. Regardless, I wanted more violence in the game that would make me cringe in the same way that the acid death in Resident Evil 4 made me feel. It makes you feel mortal like Leon instead of a superhero Chris pumped up on steroids who can’t even be bothered to show his head being chainsawed off.

*Image from Official RE5 Site

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by BlueZero

Now, Let me tell you all the reasons that this video is better than the actual game that came from it.

1. The main character has some kind of face. He is actually a person that matters in the game.
2. The graphics are kind of simple, but although simplistic they still carry points for having more detailed environments than the actual game.
3. Crushing sound of the guy's fingers sounds like it hurts. In the actual game it is a soft, fwamp, that sounds like kicking a football, not breaking bone.
4. This guy is EVIL. He throws a guy into fire! Not only does that guy break his legs from the fall, but the he burns to death. Furthermore, the guy looks like James Bond! When do I get to kick James Bond's butt in the game? It certainly isn't during the helicopter scene, since he dies anyways (and yells if you shoot him down). This mysterious character also punches a guy into a shark tank. When did the game have an awesome shark tank? I mean, the game had a shark tank level, but there weren't any man eating sharks in it, removing the prestigious badge of "awesome". The enemies in this video take friendlies hostage, or so it looks. In the game they only take enemies hostage. Wow, smart move, take a guy hostage who I as the player was going to kill anyways. Atleast in the video it makes it seem like the player doesn't even care about the friendly, and decides to shoot him anyways.[This picture seems to confirm]
5. Rarely anything good explodes in the game during gameplay. I certainly wish I could have exploded a helicopter by lighting a fuel trail. I could feel like Wolverine from Xmen Origins.
6. The player can absorb a boatload of bullets with his goldeneye power. In game if he took even a second of that fire, he'd be dead.
7. In Air Fragmentation grenade? Where can I sign? Unless he is blowing up a guy with explosives attached. Then kudos. Unless that is a hostage with explosives attached. Then especially evil kudos!
8. Guys have wicked sunglasses.

What sucks about this video which the game got right:

1. Simple graphics and textures are better in game.
2. The main character during the first part facing M has his head jerk weirdly. I believe it was green-screened in. I don't recall it during the actual game cutscene being that way.
3. Better shooting animation, and better shooting sounds.

Anyways check out a screenshot gallery here:http://www.mi6.co.uk/media/gallery/index.php3?subdir=gra_screenshots/&view=gal&offset=1

Notice how a lot of the pictures appear to be in-production photos. This is especially apparent by the shadows and texturing. The texturing is very poor, but the shadows are soft, and resource intensive. This means that the photos were likely taken in an unfinished/ overly expectant rendering engine.

Also, you got to actually fight Oddjob.

Try and find one photo that doesn't look more exciting than the actual game, I dare you. Post a comment with the offending photo.

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by Zott820

Story: Here come the SPOILERS: The gameplay builds heavily on Resident Evil 4. Cut and paste the basic Granados enemies into “Africa”. Remove the scarier Plagas human infestations and replace them with flowers. Yes, I feel that the Majini are less intimidating this time because there aren’t huge parasites coming out of their body and the African culture is muted. The Los Illuminados cult was very unexpected and well executed with the robes and the castle. I expected more reliance on African culture of shaman, voodoo and other racial/cultural heritage to be utilized for the fifth Resident Evil. Yet Capcom has given into the fear of Resident Evil 5 appearing racist by including white Majinni (How many times do I have to see the Mexican looking guy with a mustache and the bald looking white guy?). The tribal village middle of the game attempted to rise to the occasion, but there wasn’t any good sacrifice of people, possession from spirits, or dense jungle fever. Please let me officially raise the bar for future games set in Africa that won’t be afraid of appearing racist:

Weskar may be able to dodge bullets Matrix style because of increased reaction time due to multiple viruses, but he sure fails at killing a steroidal mini-tank named Chris and a knife wielding “African” British sounding woman named Sheva who specializes in kicking and flipping moves. Weskar’s repeated failure to remove these two people, and its plot device, forces Capcom to come up with a story where Weskar with his epic skills, can’t kill mere mortals. Instead only his passive actions are successful like any good villain would have it (Weskar killing Excella with the Uroboros injection). Is this divine intervention from god ala the action commands? No, it comes down to the elite training of the two agents.

Chris has taken a course in epic action commands learning the famed punching moves from Captain Falcon. Chris PAUNCH with a “Straight” and Chris KIIICK with a “Stomp.” or “Kick” to the enemies face or back. The Straight and Stomp moves have the ability to completely explode a Majini’s face. Chris has made a fundamental flaw in his training that makes his move-set incomplete. He seems to be lacking the crucial “Suplex” that Leon spontaneously learned by entering a castle. Since Chris doesn’t enter a castle, he doesn’t learn how to suplex enemies which is a shame. In exchange, Chris has the combo action command of “Haymaker” and “Neck Breaker” which almost make up for the loss, but not quite. I can’t forget the first time Leon did a suplex with a “Huh” and the enemy’s face exploded. All I was expecting was for Leon to kick the Granado in the face, not pull out epic skills.

Sheva has been training in the Tiki Lounge, learning how to be a “powerful” woman while remaining helpless for annoying plot devices (final boss fight where she is forced to slip and hang on). She does have a sort of suplex move where she gets on the enemies head and does a backflip 3:14 in the YouTube video above. It’s always great to see Sheva get all personal with Jill while Chris pulls at her chest. Anyway, in reality Sheva’s family was killed by the initial people who discovered the flowers which created the first Resident Evil virus for Umbrella. Her backstory is severely underdeveloped as she is just there for a reason to have a second person. Her voice is British sounding to make her entitled for vengeance and her skin color isn’t black enough. Thus her parents must have been a mixed couple. You know that color black, the presence of all colors? Sheva is closer to the white spectrum of being devoid of all color (especially on PS3). Why does Sheva need Chris to flip across gaps if she is empowered? Sheva exists so that Kirk can be awesome (aka human).

Kirk is member of Sheva’s military team who joins forces with the BSAA. He has a great voice, excellent skintone, and reminds me of Louis. All of these are pros in my book. It’s just a shame that he isn’t a playable character for Co-op or for multiplayer. WHY?? I would much rather have Kirk on my team than Sheva. Kirk is a minor character that only serves a purpose of tying Sheva to the black community.

Umbrella is able to live on as Tricell, another “pharmaceutical” company intent on creating biological creatures of mass destruction. So for some reason, there are more Granados with Las Plagas than Uroboros, the black worm like creatures that swarm the hosts. There is some really annoying Brooklyn guy that serves no purpose other than he sells the biological agents to terrorists and has worse development than Sheva in the story department. I don’t even know his name offhand, that’s how poor his development is. His real role is very small and he does nothing because Capcom cares more about co-op this time than story and meaningful action sequences.

Weskar once again manipulates every single person he meets so he can develop biological weapons in missiles. Why not just launch them if Uroboros can’t be stopped? So instead of firing the missles, he decides to load up his one plane, carrying maybe two missiles so he can drop them himself. Chris and Sheva completely forget about all the stockpiled missiles in the bases and decide that two missiles and Weskar are a greater threat than the Majini accidentally stumbling around and activating one with their flowers.

I just want to say that Uroboros is more racist in this game than Africans. I am deeply offended by worms being show in a black color. Pink worms or I boycott the game.

Gameplay: The gameplay remains faithful to Resident Evil 4 but the gameplay is expanded to incorporate co-op. The best new aspect of gameplay is the ability to “help” your partner when grabbed and to be able to do combos with action commands. I assume gentle reader that you are familiar with the basic mechanics of the hit game Resident Evil 4, so there is no need for me to go into generalized stuff about how you have to hold X to run and backward X to turn 180.

The ability to strafe is not a gameplay enhancement as each character’s strafing is too slow to avoid thrown objects or attacks. The C and D play styles are only there to entice FPS players on the 360 to give Resident Evil 5 a try. Those players are going to be frustrated at the stop, aim, shoot mechanic and will HATE not being able to run and gun. This focus on shooting and action is probably why a lot of people think the Resident Evil franchise has departed too much from the Horror genre.

Resident Evil 5 was never created to be a FPS and games like Metal Gear Solid 4 failed in this use of the first person perspective. I shouldn’t have to hold a billion buttons to be in first person in MGS 4 and I shouldn’t have to hold buttons to keep the gun/knife out in RE5 (this was later half fixed in the PC version with the quick knife button). I like the controls on the PS3, but I still feel better using the Gamecube controller (obviously since I played RE4 on Gamecube and didn’t own a PS2). Having to push “B” to help your partner results too often in my character saying “Come on”. Yes, I need to “come on” and help my partner. At least I died less often because my partner was there to save me. This changed my mindset from survival to using Sheva as portable first-aid spray. The mean the computer Sheva will automatically try to heal any small amount of damage with whatever she has.

The controls are responsive to what I want to do. There are only a few problems and they revolve around the inventory menu and me not being able to switch weapons or items fast enough. The designers actually let you reload weapons by moving the ammo onto the weapon in the inventory screen. This is a very handy feature that inadvertently makes the game even easier for me and is essential for keeping the Mercenaries combo going with slower reloading weapons (magnum and shotgun).

MINIBOSSES

I characterize any enemy that has a one hit kill attack or does massive damage as a miniboss. They take a little longer to dispatch because a grenade won’t instantly kill them. An example is the axe wielding dude at the start of the game. This classification extends to the different variations of this enemy.

Here are what I consider to be other minibosses: the bag chainsaw guy, the tribal masked giant, the initially very annoying bug creature, the big mini-gun RE4 guy (this time he is packing heat with a cigar), the humanoid mouth creature with the closed hard shell/fleshy leg (because it is annoying), and the Lickers (Beta). The minibosses are for the most part well executed. I still find the Lickers to be really powerful and a challenge to take down since their tongue attack is very powerful and there is no chance of escape without partner assistance. The chainsaw people are extremely easy for the veteran RE4 players since they are old hat and feel a lot weaker this time. The only difference is that on higher difficulty levels, the chainsaw enemy will get back up after defeated and go into a wild chainsaw swinging motion. This is instantly fatal and you can put the enemy back down permanently with more firepower.

The best part about the minibosses is that most of them have action moves you can do against them to attack, dodge or something in between. It’s a lot of fun to let off an action command, your partner goes in for their action command, and then you can follow up with the powerful move like the haymaker. It is very dynamic and feels intuitive.

Bosses

Let me rank the bosses. The most creative boss award goes to the Weskar and Jill fight. It was refreshing and my first time fighting them was exciting. My mindset was “Oh, I see Weskar dodging all my attacks. Ok, well Jill is able to be hit.” So I unload many rounds into Jill only to see Jill die and Chris yell “JIIILL!” That apparently wasn’t the right way to beat the boss. It was a while before I found out that Weskar can kick open the door and open up the upper level. I will say that surviving the 7 minutes the first time was nerve racking but not in the same level of survival.

Most disappointing boss: This award goes to the El Gigante, the on rails boss fight where the car is not moving. Way to go Capcom! You turned one of the most dynamic boss fights into a stationary shooting gallery. The new boss is no fun. All you do is fire and fire. The action button to dodge his attack is strange because Sheva and Chris duck and El Gigante doesn’t FEEL like he wants to crush the people and the truck. Why do I have to target random Majini at the same time while I am fighting this boss? Oh, it’s because the Majini need to be added to add some “action” into the battle. There are some high expectations when you use the most well known boss from Resident Evil 4 again in this game. A small consolation prize is that the El Gigante is named something else and looks quasi African with a goatee.

The coolest looking boss: the spider boss inside the bio lab. I didn’t know you could feed it grenades the first time I beat it. The in-game description says that Chris and Sheva only fought one type of the spider boss. I would have rather fought this twice than the flying bat boss.

Gameplay FLAWS

When on Veteran, I usually only too damage because I was reloading or missed shooting projectiles out of the air. Professional presents a plight: I like the added difficulty that a single hit puts your character in the critical state. What was done poorly here was when the other player tries to “revive” the “downed” player. On Professional, it is near impossible to health the other character in time with a can of First Aid Spray because by the time your character gets out the car, the other character has already died. So literally, the player falls to the ground while the green spray is still coming out of the can. Yet, if you didn’t have the can of First Aid Spray, then the “revive” button would instantly work and the player would be saved. You better hope you are standing a cm. away from the other player if they get hit and you have a can of First Aid or else you lose on Professional. Optimally, I wish Capcom would fix this stupid gameplay mechanic that inadvertently punishes players for carrying healing items who want the Professional level of difficulty.

Like I mentioned earlier, the new action commands are great forms of gameplay. (I am referring to the punches and kicks and not the reduced number of Quick Time Events in the game) but the Quick Time Events are poorly implemented in this version. The reduced number of these Quick Time Events (QTE) has actually hurt the franchise. Leon showed us how he could do the impossible as long as you got the button presses correct. Need to jump across a bridge, no problem, just press ( A + B ). Want to dodge danger (a pit, a thrown knife, a defeated boss?), just press ( L + R ). Resident Evil 5 thought that randomizing the buttons made it too difficult so the actions are always the same if you die and have to replay the cutscene. This is a gameplay design failure. There are also few QTE during boss battles.

Your partner is really never in any trouble, especially if they are grabbed from behind where the enemy does NO damage. Being grabbed from behind could actually be a great strategy in the Mercenaries mode as the enemies LOVE to grab people from behind. The CPU controlled Sheva is not up to my level of expertise since Capcom didn’t want to make a partner that plays the game for you. Potential deadly enemies are only the ones that are instant death ala the “regenerator cricket bug” as one could call it. I don’t know how many times Zott was owned by the bug creature before we developed a correct strategy to dispatch it. I guess Weskar’s whip arms could be considered instant death but Chris enjoys swimming in magma just like Weskar.

There is no reason why Sheva needs to be flipped across a gap to become helpless with an onslaught of summoned enemies. I mean, there is no one there, and then just for game design, about thirty Majini are spawned. Then you have to assist the other player if they aren’t good enough to handle it on their own. I am good enough to handle it on my own. My partner is just there for support so I can do all the epic gunplay and action commands; they will provide healing support and action combo potential.

There is more use of the “cover” mechanic in this game. It makes more sense in this game since later on there are a lot more projectile enemies. I like and dislike the ability to fire behind cover. I like how it makes sniping really easy with the protection but makes the player TOO powerful with cover. I dislike how the cover controls make it difficult to get off the cover. I would like to be able to get out of cover faster somewhat similar to gears of war where I can just push a button and back on the controller.

Chris and Sheva should have the option of using ammo that fires healing anti-plagas medication at the people. In my mind, this would be some sort of lightbulb or taser system that would activate a bright light inside the target, killing the plagas from the inside with a flash. Then ammo could be limited on a recharge meter before it could be used again. The Majini would then be able to break free of their plaga, sometimes helping Chris distract the enemy, sometimes running away, sometimes hiding, there are many options. There could even be an entire mod where players play the game with only this weapon on a cleansing mission.

There needs to be more infected women in the game. There was one female character enemy in the game and it was only in a small part of the village. Like I mentioned in what I would do with the game, I want more woman shaman, more women showing off their physical power, an actual woman boss, more controversy.

If the game threw in children who were infected, like an diary article alludes that they were, then the game would get so much criticism but it would be more realistic. If the game included infected babies, I don’t think there would be much backlash since Dead Space was able to do it (I got a laugh out of Issac drop kicking the baby aliens). If the designers included pregnant women who were infected, this game would be boycotted internationally and reach a level of infamy that ManHunt 2 and Hot Coffee reached.

Graphics: The first impression is that the graphics are both next gen but lacking the graphical punch that the Resident Evil series usually brings to the table. The best graphics are the Uroboros worms, the bosses, the character models and the final volcano areas. Chris’ character model is excellent with great bump mapping for his huge muscles and decent texture work. Sheva is also pretty good with a solid face texture and well rendered body. For best character model, I would say it is a tie between Weskar, Jill and the tribal miniboss. Weskar’s moonlight jacket is very well designed and looks photorealistic. His glasses and character design are top notch and deserve to be praised. This level of effort on Weskar paid off since he was the main focus of the game. Jill also benefited from a very sexy “Zero Suit Samus” character design. I can’t say no to a girl with a ponytail who isn’t afraid to show off her hot bod in skin tight clothing. The tribal miniboss is the tall huge Majini with the mask who has some really well rendered facemask and sweat streaking his body. He attacks by doing the jumping and sweeping of his melee weapon; he also has a amusing kick attack.

The environments look great but feel much smaller than Resident Evil 4 in a few areas. I would have liked to have some fights in the savannah where my character can walk around. There are some large areas but they are mostly large just from the amount of open air that is above the characters. It’s good that the developers dropped their intense heat and shade gameplay since the shadows in this game are not dark enough to contrast with the HDR. My favorite set-piece in the game is the prison Mercenaries map because the volcano environment and Fire Axe Executer mini-boss look amazing.

I really don’t have many complaints with the graphics. The engine is effective at rendering enough zombies for the single player. At certain points like explosions, there is a little lag below 30 FPS. The cutscenes are all in-game which is always a good step in the right direction.

Sound: The music is a less adrenaline pumping than Resident Evil 4. The music is very environmental so it accomplished its goal of players not paying it any attention. The bat boss music sometimes irritates me because of the jarring sounds. The enemy voices are decent but it comes down to the voice acting of Chris, Sheva, and Weskar to make the game special. Chris always sounds confident and does sound like an emotionless machine even when he is talking about Jill. Sheva seems to have more emotion in her voice. Both have some corny lines. How about Chris: “Now Sheva shoot him! Sheva: I can’t without hitting you! Chris: Then shoot through me!” anyone? Luckily I like cheesy dialogue.

Weskar’s voice actor really enjoys pronouncing each of his lines with precision and excellent timing. I was more excited to hear Weskar’s dialogue than any other character. His over-the-top dialogue about genetics and superiority is well done with cheese.

A majority of the menu and gun sounds are reused from past Resident Evil games including 4. The sound in this game was overall good enough where I don’t have to focus on it.

PC Version: Since this review took a long time to complete due to distractions, the superior PC version came out. I have no reason to buy this version except I want a real challenge of more enemies with the PC version. Capcom seems to want to release this game like 3 more times with different controls, side missions and skins. I’ll probably end up reviewing the re-release version on PC if it comes out. Otherwise, they better have Leon with voice acting if they want me to buy an add-on.

The Bottom Line: I am satisfied with Resident Evil 5 even though it is not as revolutionary as Resident Evil 4. The game would have benefited from a little more story and character development so I can feel connected to a mini hulk and an “African” woman. The first part of the game was decent, the gas facility/terrorist man was not well developed and the final part was excellent sans ridiculous lava plot. The game could have really used more African elements as this game felt like it could have taken place anywhere in the world. Also, the coop was good for single player but split-screen coop should have had a menu option like the demo instead of having to start the game and then selecting “start” on the second controller. If you are going to buy the game, wait for the new versions coming out since it has more content. If you don't care, get the PC version or the 360/PS3 if your computer is too old.

PS3 Reviews Game: My framerate may be a little worse than the 360, but I can render black worms too. I just glad I can render a lot more zombies than the Dead Rising port on Wii but I'm not displaying the large amount of people from the early RE5 E3 videos. Having Capcom hide their Versus mode in a patch and then paying for it is not worth $5.

*Images from Capcom's Resident Evil 5 website. Note they were from development some look better than PS3 version. Also some elements have changed from images.

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by BlueZero

To sum it up simply: BiasedVideoGamerBlog.wikidot.com will transition to BiasedVideoGamerBlog.com.
Content and website design will remain the same!
The old domain will work for a while longer until I know what I am doing :D

The content will stay the same and we will still be on Wikidot servers for a while longer. If you use the old address, it will eventually transfer you to the new one. For now, both will go the same. Again, the content and look of the site is not changing so this really is only a minor announcement.

The BiasedVideoGamerBlog.com address may not work for a while due to configuring DNS services. I've gotten it working and then later received a parked domain page. Once it is stabilized, we will move on from there.

On my favorite side notes related to video games:
I still can't believe I don't have my Resident Evil 5 review up. I'll just have to finish it and maybe forgo pictures for a while. I also eventually want to review Modern Warfare 2, Majesty 2, Batman Arkham Asylum and other games.

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by BlueZero

My review of this game comes almost comes by luck. Why? Well, there was a Direct2Drive promotion not too long ago that sold games for 5 dollars apiece. It just so happened that one of those games was Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena. It had been marked down from $40 in the promotion, an eye catcher if any. I had heard positive notions about Butcher Bay on the original Xbox, many praising the graphics, perhaps some of the best on the system. A quick trip to Metacritic showed an average rating of about 90. More convincing was not required. For 5 dollars, if it sucks, then it is no big loss. I have paid more for worse games (especially when $10 is considered bargain-bin prices.)
The deed was done, and I proceeded to install the 7GBs of data needed to play this sucker, which would eventually uncompress to about 10GB. Hefty Hefty Hefty.

This review will only encompass the re-mastered Butcher Bay campaign. I have only finished that campaign, and having never played the original, felt that I should give it its own review. Therefore, I’ll consider the two campaigns as completely separate games, and thus possibly two unique reviews. Everyone who has reviewed this game has seemed to complain about it being remade. Well, I don’t have any bias toward the original, since I never played it, so this should be a fresh perspective.

First off, I beat the game on normal once through, with most graphics settings on high, except at a resolution of 1440x900 and one setting at 8-bit to avoid extra lag for possibly negligible graphical increase.

This review contains SPOILERS.

An unofficial list of changes of this remake from the original can be seen here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=939612&topic=49738144

Story: You are Riddick, scourge of the universe, or so it seems. To be honest, I haven’t seen the movie that this game ties into. You start off being escorted by Johns, whom is some mercenary with enough guts and skill to capture Riddick somehow. Then, the player has a short tutorial level, which was cleverly implemented, giving the ability to explore some of the game’s tactics early on, while usually throwing them by the wayside for the rest of the game.

(IE: Guns are DNA locked most of the game, yet the tutorial gives them to you no problem). From here you meet Hoxie, the warden of the non-quotidian Butcher Bay Prison. It isn’t made clear in the game, but the prison is multi-layered, with towers and deep subterranean pits. Riddick is initiated into the prison in a Call of Duty 4-esque walking sequence. Perhaps Infinity-Ward was inspired by the original?

Once properly deloused the player has the option to talk to various characters, as well as walk around freely. The game is not open world, but similar to an RPG in that not every quest is a requirement; there are missions that can be completed to grant additional equipment. These periods of rest in the story, without action, reminded me of the puzzle sequences of Half Life 2, as well as the calm ship exploration scenes of Star Trek: Elite Force.

From this moment on, Riddick cranks out authority, and escapes that prison part. He fights some monsters then repeats this structure 2 more times. After that there is an underwhelming final boss(es) to end the game.

This light summary may make it seem as though the story is repetitive but it is only in the fact that you seem to keep escaping and being recaptured. Each time Riddick is recaptured, I was expecting an ending to the game. In fact, each pre-capture feels like a climactic ending yet the game will not end. Instead, each restraint results in Riddick’s transmission to a new sector of the prison; somewhere with new characters, new enemies, and new environments. In this way, while the basic gameplay remains more or less the same, the player now has new venues to explore, joined with a new cast of characters. Though… all the characters whom Riddick help pretty much end up dead. Or he kills them, your choice.

The game is still linear at its heart. Riddick is free to move around in the prison sections often using the ducts as a slipstream to new areas. This includes sometimes circuitous backtracking if Riddick wants to finish optional quests down the line. Overall, the freedom of movement gives the game an open-world feeling, even though it is prison, and largely confined. Riddick cannot move back to zones post-capture(s) (I.E. Riddick cannot go back to the starting Prison level after being sent to the second-tier prison level) but this is not too bad, except the chance of finishing earlier segment missions is then removed at those points.

There was only one multiple-path section in the game that I recognized; happening in the second-tier prison. It was a choice between killing lots of people in a fighting ring, or getting caught with drugs. I chose the pure killing route, and it was straightforward. The drug path choice, as far as I could tell, was more complicated; I was unsure how to even start it. Regardless, it too involved killing though had additional plot elements. Both ultimately resulted in the same solution, but it was nice for the developers to add a sense of choice, and possible replayability.

There are a couple sections of the story that are unexplained. Riddick gets super-darkness seeing eyes about 1/3 of the way through the game. Yet, despite there being a women’s voice, I have no idea why he got these powers. There is also an intro and outro to the game that star Riddick hunting a yeti-like creature with the same women voice-over. I’m not sure why he’s doing that ether. These cinematics don’t play automatically in the remake, which adds to the confusion; they are found in the extra content part of the menu. I think the makes more sense without the random movie sequences, so I can see why they were left out, but on the same note, what is their background? Perhaps the women and the movies relate back to the movie tie-in that I haven’t seen. Either way, the movies and the voice felt out of place or perhaps just a plot device to give Riddick the special “eyeshine”. Consider me uninformed.

Characters: There are a bound of characters in the game, but honestly, few are really important, and these are people that are reoccurring. The game is not afraid to kill off characters, main or not; realistic, raw, and fitting.

Riddick – Man of few words. Virtuosic killer whom likes the darkness. Bio complete.

Johns – Mercenary who keeps getting screwed over when capturing Riddick multiple times.

Jagger Valence – Dude that helps Riddick.

Abbot- High Ranking Guard, antagonist of early segments of the game.

Hoxie – Warden of Bucket Bay. Not really evil, just a shrewd businessman.

Soldier – Dies

Riot Guard – Dies harder. Takes more critical flinching damage from behind.

Pope Joe – Doesn’t die, but doesn’t do much either. “Gives” Riddick Eyeshine.

Monsters – Come in different varieties but act much the same. Xenos, mutants etc. Die; Gib familiarly.

Turrets – Most annoying enemy in the game. Changes from instant kill varieties to major damage type with no visual indication. Very weak health-wise, but if it spots Riddick, it is usually too late. They tend to respawn, making them that much more persistent and horrible.

All other characters are just well voice-acted quest vendors. I will compliment the developers for creating such a wide assortment of characters, not just their personality and dialogue, but also their modeling. It is a compliment when there are not five characters standing around that are cookie-cuts of each other. The soldiers are, but that is because you fight so many of them through the course of the game. Even among soldiers there is usually some distinction on their visible features that set them apart; some wear helmets and hats.

Regarding enemy strength, there is no initial indicator to tell how strong one enemy is to another. For this I must give an example. In one situation, Riddick commandeers a Riot Guard and must plow through the facility. Along the way he meets other, bigger and different-looking Riot Guards. These enemies seem like they would be a suitable match, and yet pumping bullets into them sends them into a twitching frenzy, in which they don’t return fire, and just die. During that same phase, a communication by the guards mentions that they must send in some super robots to stop me. These super-robots only appear at that point in the game and the player has absolutely no idea how strong they are, but just pumping bullets into them seemed to work like it did for regular riot guards.

On foot, Riddick is meat to robots and Riot Guards unless he can sneak behind them to their weak spot or use a heavy weapon such as a chaingun. With this in mind, the later portion of the game throws the player for a loop by introducing big white robots, which while looking stronger than Riot Guards, are taken down easily with one or two shotgun blasts. There are also floaty robots that are even easier; one shot of anything will kill them. When the thought of robots was previously “strong”, it is unclear what hierarchy of power exists. The confusion continues later with bosses, and how seemingly strong they look, yet tactically simple to kill they are.

AI and Gameplay: Just to mention it, each box of health is a portion of the health that is recoverable by waiting. If a box is lost, only a health station can get it back. There are special health stations that give an extra bar of health permanently. These were rare, and the game could be beaten without them, but they do help. Med-stations that run out of their “four squares” of juice can be refilled with health canisters.

Moving through different areas of the game results in a load screen like Half Life 2, but the big difference here, is that the load times for Chronicles of Riddick are whopping fast (Maybe 10 seconds or less). I seriously mean this. This includes the initial load too. Compared to other modern games, I am surprised at the pace. Even Half Life 2 doesn’t load as fast as this game, and it is older with lower requirements. I was very, very impressed by the loading speed. It is annoying to walk back through a load portal and have the game have to reload, but thankfully, I don’t have to waste my life waiting for this game to queue and complete.

The AI in the game is acceptable. It is not a very intelligent AI, but it fits the purpose of the characters it is portraying for the most part. Most usual guards tend to stay far away from Riddick. They will not simply rush up to him (to be bashed to bits) if they have cover. Instead, it was often I who had to come to them. They also didn’t fire and retreat either, a flaw or a clever plan?; forcing me to get shot at as I approached. Let me tell you, the guns do a lot of damage to Riddick. This is more than likely used as a method to keep the game sneaking based, and it works. I often had to rethink attacking strategies to incorporate stealth.

Guards are both facile and execrable at spotting Riddick in the dark. Sometimes I will make a noise and they’ll come rushing to me. Or they will see where I hid and search it. Other times, when I attacked, and then rushed to hide, the guards will change into seek and destroy mode, moving slowly with gun-mounted light on, and making easy targets for Riddick at less than 1 ft away walking by.

Other enemies, like the robots, tended to not have much of an AI at all. They simply stood there and got shot, or shot. Sometimes they changed positions and repeated the behavior. The same simplicity applies to the Xenos and pit dwellers, but their simply programming is Left 4 Dead style pack rushing.

Graphics: Imagine walking into a prison, and instead of being greeted with grit, you found yourself face to face with lots and lots of shiny things. The prison looks anything but sere. That is how this game is. The new game engine definitely added something more to Bucket Bay. I haven’t played the original, but from what I’ve seen from comparison videos, there are definitely items that have more detail attached, such as the health dispensers and character models.

The lighting is also better, giving the shadows and textures a sense of more depth. The darks and shadows are inviting. The only problem is that secularity. While not the bloom that plagued Mirror’s Edge, it might as well be, for it does detract from a couple scenes. The only spots where the secularity is fitting are the near ending portions that revolve around “clean-rooms” in which case the graphics engine makes the rooms feel futuristic and on key. A legally required recreation chamber is an especially outstanding example of the lighting done correctly. (And an offbeat section of the game too) In a prison though, not the best. The flatness of the original game engine might have been better at giving off the dullness of the prison. Overall, certain objects should have kept the shiness, and others not so much. I’m not sure if this unsightly shine was intended, or an oversight by the developers to save time and not have to reformat all the textures with new bump-maps.

The addition of motion blur and field of depth add a lot to the game. Especially giving a more cinematic touch to many of the cutscenes, and a ferocity of Riddick's moves during gameplay. Both are pluses, and they are integrated so well that they don't have any of the annoyance that plagues their use in some games. Bravo.

Special attention was paid to the graphic indicators and HUD. With this I mean effects that relay information to the player. When Riddick is in darkness and well hidden, the hue of the screen will turn bluish. Similarly, when Riddick is using his eyeshine, he is given a slight tunnelvision/fisheye, as well as increased brightness overall. These effects were well integrated, and they were not detrimental to the game I felt.

On that note, the developers seem to have opted for a different way of signaling objects and character names. In the original Butcher Bay, there were HUD elements where descriptive text would hover over an object or person, with a line connecting to that person. In this remake, that has been replaced with a fade in of the same text in the bottom left and right corners of the screen with no connective elements. This works more effectively, as it doesn’t make Riddick seem like a robot wearing an eyepiece. It also enhances the integration into the game world, Riddick knows these objects and so the fading in is almost signal of a recollection of his memories. Unfortunately, it forces looking into the corners of the screen to see who or what is being interacted with, but this is only a problem initially, once you get used to the areas and objects, there is no reason to even think about the text. The health in the top left corner IS important however. The developers made the boxes signifying chunks of health more shaded which make them look nicer and fit better with the rest of the UI.

Color blending is an issue in the dark areas, where bands of color can be made out when they shouldn’t. I can only say that it may be due to the graphics settings I had chosen, the 8-bit lighting with the off occlusion setting, and so cannot lay absolute judgment on this unfortunate outcome until further analysis is done. There is a cool grain effect placed all of the game's visuals. It isn't as prevalent as in L4D thankfully, and I only noticed it through the screenshots. If it played any part, it was subtle. This grain effect is not the color blending problem.

In the later parts of the game when Riddick are controls a Heavy Guard, the rooms become quite destructible. This is really the only section when you can do this. Every other destruction scene of the environment is scripted, especially when the guards throw path-opening grenades. During this particular scene, there isn’t a plethora of things to destroy, mostly pillars and flooring, but it was nice to see that something came apart in the game world. This may have originally been a 2004 game, but a little bit of physics is appreciated, bringing it up slightly to more modern gameplay standards.

Sounds and Music: Sound quality was good. None of the sounds were washed out or overly compressed. It is difficult to describe sounds in particular that stood out, but they were good enough as to not needing mention.
Sadly, the sound seems to de-sync on the cutscenes. It didn’t happen all the time, but occasionally would become noticeably off from the actor’s lips and movement. Now, the lips of the characters are not as good as the ones from Half Life 2 at matching what the character is actually emitting from his orifice, but even then I could tell the sounds were off. Furthermore, taking the many snapshots for this review resulted in de-synced sound. Apparently the engine is not capable of taking a snapshot and keeping the sequences up to date. Disappointing.

Apparently, some of the music was changed in the remake compared to the original release. I can’t tell any in particular, given this being my first time playing Butcher Bay, but some people said that the prison break song and others were changed.

Overall, the music seems very atmospheric in this remake, at least when sneaking. There are a couple up-beat action tracks, especially when the Xenos attack, or when driving some of the mechs around, but generally it is just atmospheric background. I can’t complain, even if there were changes. What did stick out was the use of a “Riddick theme” which popped in and about the songs too often. I could have used a little less of that during my playsession. It may even have been the same song repeating, but whatever the case, I seem to recall noticeable annoyed at the theme being so prevalent. This is bad when the music, not the enemies are causing annoyance.

Voices: Dialogue is of high caliber and quality with the NPC’s characterization correctly played out. Riddick’s ethos is one of strict independence, a man of few words; even when answering people’s questions, which one might think would require more than 3 words, somehow he finds a way.

There are parts of Butcher Bay where Riddick can stop to listen to the characters speaking about events. These are not like Oblivion in which they are random; they happen as you enter the areas for the first time. Still, I liked the option of listening to these optional dialogues, or just interrupting them, never to hear them again. On that note, conversations can be skipped, and it doesn’t skip the whole dialogue tree either, only what the person is saying at that instant. I found this feature useful, as in many games I prefer to read the dialogue through the provided captions than wait 4 times as long for the actor to finish speaking. Also, on subsequent playthroughs, I may not want to hear all the same lines again.

There is some subtle humor written in for some of the NPCs. The Heavy Guard constantly insults the Riddick for being a poor driver. There is Craps, who lets Riddick play dice, along with some interesting professional/unprofessional terminology of the mini-game. Running around and beeping all the doorbells in another section rewards completely frivolous dialogue to please oneself. I liked all these diversions; my accolades to the developers to put some humor in an otherwise serious game.

Controls: Good and bad. What makes the controls iffy is the feeling that they are not as precise as they could be. There are moves that should be pulled off, and they are not. Blows that should hit in hand to hand combat, and are deflected. An enemy attacks you by raising back for a blow. There is supposed to be a moment in which you can counter the move, or do a finishing blow. This feature works accurately when countering guns, but if you are fighting a foe with a switchblade or club, it hardly, if ever, works. Is it supposed to? I think it should.

Attacks are dependent on the movement of Riddick when a button is mashed; moving forward while attacking yields a different offensive strike than if moving left and attacking. While these were supposed to play a strategic role in hand to hand combat, I found it hard to accomplish to any real degree of skill, and was just random button mashing with the hopes of a hit. To win any of the hand to hand showdowns, it was timing, gap between characters, and weapons that mattered most.

I know I am beating this game with its controls, but I must continue to crush them. Mouse look was also slightly odd the first time the game was played by me. The freelook had an almost limited degree of motion, something that I’d grown accustomed in very old games like Marathon. By this, I mean the degrees of look are not all possible positions, but are limited to certain angles of movement. This only appeared when moving short spans of look and did not detract from overall gameplay as one got used to it, but initially it felt offbeat. Could this have been something ported from the consoles? If it is something real, and not just part of my imagination/ gaming setup, why put it in?

So many bad controls can only means one thing…. Console port. Well, the developers included a weapon wheel, but unlike Crysis; no you can’t change weapons with the middle button effectively, and no you can’t go through all of them with the number keys. Thus you must hold down X, and either pin a weapon to the two available assignable slots (1, and 2 only), or just use the clunkier than Crysis selection menu. I’m not sure why I can’t use the number keys to change weapons, the weapons all occupy specific spots anyways and there is no customizable inventory, so they can’t be rearranged. You won’t be changing weapons often in this game, but why such a stupid limitation? The number keys were there for a reason, and especially in this day and age the scroll wheel should be perfected in quick weapon switching and killing. Arg!

I will compliment the vehicle scenes. Both felt clunky and heavy as they were supposed to. The Riot Guard scene didn’t change too much for the controls, but the Heavy Guard added noticeable delay and mass, which I felt were comfortable integrated with the style of the beasts.

There is actually a decent amount of user interactivity in the world. Riddick can open lockers, flush toilets, Flip beds, turn off lights, ring doorbells, pick up weapons, talk to people, poison food, use health machines, open vents and more. A lot of these actions are required by the game to proceed, but a couple, such as the toilets and lights, are merely methods to get players more involved in the gamespace. Granted, there are no PhysX or Havok physics at work here, so objects stay stationary for the most part, and the barren prison is just that, barren; but I appreciate the extra “optional” interactivity the developers put in. As something fun and strategically important, bodies can be dragged into the shadows to avoid alerting the guards. I frankly didn’t find it all that useful. I appreciate its inclusion for the true Splinter Cell players and for throwing bodies into flesh hungry blades, and off cliffs. I only wish that like Arkham Asylum there might have been some atmospheric debris floating around…

Navigation: When Riddick is jumping, he can sometimes catch onto objects. The problem is, the objects that are grabble are not clearly defined. This isn’t like Mirror’s Edge where you can climb anything. This is like Mirror’s Edge where you want to climb a ledge and find you don’t seem to stick. Riddick tries to jump again, and again, but it turns out you aren’t even supposed to get on that box. Sigh* Also, Riddick likes to lose his grip when getting shot while climbing up. I know it is more realistic, but from a gameplay standpoint, it meant enemies on platforms above could neither be shot, nor reached as they camped the spot. This happened rarely, but was still annoying, especially towards the end of the game, when the monstrous Xenos attack.

As I mentioned, the prison is navigateable through ducts and Riddick can visit most of the facility that he is stationed in freely. To help guide the player through the many pathways and labyrinths there is a map. This map is useless. I couldn’t even tell where I was on it, and even worse, the map just shows room names on generic squares. Instead the proper way to get around is just by learning the environment. Luckily, there are useful guiding signs to help maintain sanity. Some lunatic had been kind of nice to paint/etch the names of areas the ducts are leading with an arrow pointing the way towards those stations. I usually stumbled across the correct path to get to my destinations, but for those wishing to explore more, this writing in the duct is very useful. It also prevents the player from backtracking down the same duct by accident, which due to the similarity of textures and lighting, happened on occasion.

Weapons: In this game, weapons are a mixed bag. There are some criteria for weapons that must first be brought up. There are melee weapons, and there are shooting weapons. Every shooting weapon can be used as a melee weapon though, as well as a flashlight. With that note, let me go over some weapons.

Shotgun- Best weapon in the game. Use it in close range for instant-kills, use it at longer range to suppress till you have gotten within close range, repeat.

Rifle- Inaccurate. Use as a last measure, or if out of shotgun bullets. Frankly, it is almost better to snipe with the shotgun than use the rifle. The rifle is good if the target is close for dealing a lot of damage quickly, but then, that is what shotgun is for. Later down the line you can find an enhanced prototype rifle, I have no idea what was enhanced about it besides the shape.

Gun- It is a generic “gun” in the game, but is really a pistol. It isn’t prevalent, but can be better than the rifle, though weaker.

Gatling Gun - Strong, fast and seems to have unlimited ammo. Sucks at close range though, since it takes a while to spin up, ALA the Team Fortress 2 Heavy.

Shiv- Ranging from screwdrivers to scalpels to various shapes of metal, they all perform the same.

Clubs – Pretty much the same as a Shiv, though has a different attack pattern, so I’ll count it different. Not sure how much better it is, though usually costs more than a shiv.

Knuckleduster/hand-to-hand – This weapon attaches to your knuckle and possibly adds more damage, it is difficult to tell. It is not removable once equipped, unless switching it for a different looking one. Surprisingly, the guards do not care if you wear this around them, especially during the Tower 17 parts. I guess this is attributed to the fact you cannot remove the item, and killing anyone is that part will have you die anyways.

Stun gun- Shocks people, unlimited ammo. The victim will recover after a while, but can be stomped for an instant death. As good as the shotgun, except it takes a long time to recover per shot. Useless against robots and Riot Guards.

As can be observed, there is not a wide selection of weapons. The melee attack of the guns seems weaker than using the shiv or clubs, and so is not recommended. Unfortunately, due to the controls, easily switching weapons in case of ammo depletion is not possible; something to keep in mind.

Finishers are awesome. They make your effort to kill a person have that extra surprise at the end. There are no gun finishers, though the shivs, club, and hand to hand do have some. These finishers are usually gruesome [Shiv in the eye anyone?] and happen automatically if the target gets below a certain health. There appears to be enough frontal finishers that I rarely saw many repeat.

However, for stealth finishers, I found that the same animations occurred too often for my taste. It was either a crepitating neckbreak; for hand-to-hand, a stab in the head; for shiv, or a strangling/bashing; for the club. For a game based a lot on stealth, I think there should have been a couple more of these stealth finishers. The shiv is also slightly strange for its stealth finisher. The stab in the head works no matter what gear they are wearing. It is awkward to see Riddick smack a piece of metal through a soldier’s metal helmet; guess Riddick is super strong.

The game doesn’t go overboard with the guns, thanks to those RPG-esque missions sequences as well as limiting their use. Guns are locked down the majority of the game with DNA, forcing Riddick to use what is presented to him. Through the second half of the game this includes the Stun Gun, which is amazingly effective at killing. The stun gun is limited by the reload time, so a couple areas of great guard density force its holstering for sneaking. This helps keep the balance between pure power and stealth in the game.

Extras: For collecting cigarette packages the player is given extra art. The art is good, but doesn’t feel worth it to collect the cigarette packages for it alone. Also, the art is not so high quality that players can zoom in, like Soul Caliber 2 allows. I suppose disk-space might have been an issue for that. To make up for the averageness, each pack had some pseudo-witty quotes on them, and are interestingly named. That is the real draw; at least it was for me. Also 100% completionism with achievements, but I am not one of those people. The commentary that was in the original director’s cut is removed which is a serious disappointment. I can only suppose the game is so big already that perhaps it wasn’t cost effective to include it on the “DVD” too.

There is money in the game. It is used to buy items, pay off guards or enter bets. It is only useful for the second portion of the game, while in second-tier security. After that, the use of money seemingly disappears, and also stops showing up around the level. No problem gameplay-wise, just something noticeable if the player pays attention.

Conclusion: For $5, I definitely cannot complain. Even at full price I’d say the game is worth getting if you have never played it before. Butcher Bay is good on its own, even if I find that Dark Athena sucks, this portion is worth the price of admission. Graphics were above average though wet and shiny. Sound was quite good. Music is repetitious. Characters and voices were stellar for being unique, even better than Oblivion’s. Enemies do their job, but misleading strengths. Mech scenes are fun. It is refreshing to find games that have RPG elements, but they aren’t forced down the player’s throat, and give a chance for the player to relax in an FPS. Cigarettes and concept art are a nice treat. Confusing story if not in the know. Characters die in gruesomely effective and spectacular ways. HUD and graphical effects are useful without going overboard. Missing extras from previous versions of the game disappointing. Desyncing cutscenes is very sad. Appreciate a game that gets loading done correctly. Getting around the mines is somewhat of a confusing mess, but horrible map, but there are some helpful pointers around.

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by Zott820

Note: One of our faithful readers sent this review in to us. Appreciating biased videogame opinion, we post it here for your pleasure.

By ZenOnion

I found the other day, a game that made me smile when I thought back on the hours I spent playing it— NHL Hitz 20-03 by Midway Home Entertainment. As a Mom of biased gamers, I was challenged by my sons to learn this game. Since they had many years of practice, they were the experts, I was the beginner and to play together was crazy. If you do not have access to experienced gamers who can show you the controls and offer advice it is a good idea to complete all lessons at the Hockey School and then go on to one of the 6 Mini Games to learn how to handle the controls. This I did since the boys decided to keep some controls secret just to mess with me. Much laughing and snickering occurred around me as I provided hour of entertainment for them. This was evident during the many hours I spent in The Hockey School as I learned how to handle the controls and make a fool of myself. I enjoyed the various mini-games and became a better player because of these elements. I found out that expert gamers get very competitive and creative during these mini-games so be for warned. The entertainment value alone in what strange things can occur between players showing off and trying to win is both time stealing and at times indescribable. Many tricks were learned by me by just sitting back and watching. The most enjoyable mini-games to play for us were in this order:

1. Shootout You as Goalie need to protect your goal or you as the shooter try to score. One on one action.
2. Three in a Row Tic-Tac-Toe via stick to puck. The secret to win is to block the shot.
3. King of the Rink Check or sweep players to gain the most points. A player knocked out of the rink earns extra points.
4. Shooting Gallery Shoot the most windows out of a building while on rooftop across the way. Try getting them all in a row, diagonally, or make a design.
5. Own the Ice Grab the puck and skate over 5 areas of the ice trying to change them to your color while your opponent steals the puck trying to do the same.
6. Keep Away Gain points for highest time of puck possession and most successful passes to your team mate.

Now to an actual hockey game—to begin with we would all yell out our preference for the various special themed ice arenas such as “let it snow in the disco arena”. We had customized the Viking team into our franchise team by adding players to match our personalities and physical characteristics. We made a player named Mr. Big who was gigantic— as big and tall as we could make him and who was announced on the ice as “Slim”. There was our favorite female player the “Black Knight” and our high scorer “Mark” followed closely by “Zeus”. I was of course named Mom, but was announced on the ice as “Mummy”. We had the most fun and challenges when we had a total of 4 players competing against each other. A player could change his position on the ice depending on the action or player he wanted to be (forward, goalie, etc). Since I was a beginner to start with I usually locked myself into one position so when I got lost I could scan the rink to find out where I had skated off to by looking for my number on the ice rink. Also by locking in my position I didn’t mess up the game so to speak by getting in the way of the action. As I became a better player I was able to not lock in and could change my playing position as needed. The intent of winning as many games as possible and performing certain tasks or goals was to unlock certain rewards which could be used in future games. It was strange to see elk and other strange characters as players as rewards. You could also earn equipment and experience points to boost your player’s attributes which was our goal. The ultimate challenge for the expert gamers in our house was to see if their Goalie could skate all the way down the ice to the opponent’s goal with the puck and score a point while leaving his goal unattended. The other players did their best to steal the puck.

Lately other games have gotten my attention and the gamers are not around like they use to be. Once in a great while when we have the time, we get the game out and find Hitz 20-03 was always fun to play and still is.

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by Zott820

Moving alone is the OC remix named Malevolent Mansion by remixer: Audix, Nekofrog. The pace of the song is much faster than what one would expect from a halloween song. The electric tone and beat add to the original.

The would also like to embed the Mad Monster Mansion Theme OC but embedding is disabled on this song. Thus, check out this Banjo Kazooie OC Remix. This remix takes a huge departure from the original by really slowing down the tempo, adding a little woman vocal background sound, and by making each chord have more emphasis.

Kingdom Hearts Nightmare Before Christmas Music

I'm not impressed with the way that Kingdom Hearts did the Nightmare Before Christmas music. They should have made it vocalized and not made it background music.

I only watched my roommate play the game a few years ago. It's pretty bad that I like the Disney characters more than I like the Final Fantasy characters. At least they had most of the original voice actors doing the Disney characters!

NOW WE ARE TALKING! Here is a pretty epic battle between Jack and Oogie Boogie. Mmm, original voice actor for Oogie Boogie singing a variation of the original Oogie Boogie song. I really enjoyed watching this video and I just discovered it after I made the post. I really don't understand how Jack does damage with music but it fits nevertheless.

In conclusion, this Halloween post is a little too short for what I wanted to do but hey, it's Halloween and we all have things to do. My new favorite song is the variation of the Oogie Boogie song. I'll be looking more into this later.

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by BlueZero

Perfect Dark on the N64 set a new standard for first person shooters when it came out. Rare needs to release good games so they decide they can remake the game for Xbox 360's Live Arcade. The visuals look slightly upgraded and I hope the porting team does a good job of replicating the revolutionary, but now outdated gameplay to the 360. Continue reading to look at the new screenshots the developers have released to increase my personal hype.

Here is a little background prior to the pics. It seems that 4J Studios is handling the port. They promise online and offline multiplayer with 1080p and 60FPS. Straight off the bat, I challenge that the 360 can render a true 1080p image. The game will probably be upscaled from 720p knowing the development trends on 360. If the studio can pull off a true 1080p video, which should be possible since this is ancient technology and a computer can render the base game as high as possible. I have to be skeptical because I don't want a poor port of one of my favorite games.

Right-click and view the picture for excellent quality. Images have been formatted to fit our 800 width blog

I'll start with my personal favorite screenshot. Observe the very nice looking face of the DataDyne guard woman. She actually looks like she is wearing earrings and I'm digging her white pants. The textures of the city and the desk look excellent for the source material.

Next, look at the next gen Carrington Villa. Perfect Dark sure is not rendering any next gen shadows when you look outside the windows. This requires some soft shadows! The lighting in this screenshot is also poorly done in comparison to the other screens. I would expect there to be more light flare on the roof next to the light source rather than far away. I'm probably nit-picking too much but this is a screenshot the marketing team released and I have the right to judge their game. The edges of the objects in the room are good; they are smooth enough to remind me that real objects are not jagged.

Moving on to what appears to be the outside of start of the first Area 51 mission, I am again hit with the poor shadows. Why can't they be more diffuse so they aren't as sharp and I don't see lines. There should be a new shadow/darkness engine created to give more contrast. Since this is one of the newer screenshots, I doubt the programmers will spend the time to fix the shadows.
Another thing with the picture is how horrible the ground texture meshes with the wall textures. It looks like they didn't even try to make it match. I can't even tell if the ground is supposed to be snow, it looks more like mashed potatoes.

Now here are some exciting alien screenshots. 4J Studios and/or Rare are taking some chances by upgrading the character textures. Some like Elvis look excellent with the eyes looking like alien eyes should. The Skedar texture is decent and is what I would expect from an upgrade.

Take a look at that FarSight! Now that's a bold style for what is the cheapest weapon ever created. I actually like the new design and I hope the developers slow down the "autoseeking" secondary fire for competitive multiplayer.

The game featured an incredible single player campaign with high production values and visuals. You know that thing called Co-op play that Gears made "popular"? Yeah, Perfect Dark accomplished this back on the N64 with splitscreen 2 player cooperative or counter-operative. Man it was sweet to control enemy characters in the counter-operative mode. My friends had no idea how evil I could be to thwart Joanna's objectives.

The splitscreen screenshot shows off decent textures and nice lighting. What are still being denied the face of the next gen Joanna. Hopefully the developers increased the audio quality so the characters don't sound like they are recorded through an ancient microphone.


In conclusion, based off the screenshots, it appears the game has taken an excellent step forward with the new character textures. In contrast, the shadow engine needs to be revamped so it is not directly porting the light cells of the N64 generation. The shadows in the screenshots confuse me because the DataDyne and the interior base shots look great. Then I am smashed against a tide of shadows arbitrarily ending with solid lines. Please add soft shadows to the game or allow a special next next gen lighting option for true dynamic lighting.

I would buy the game if I had a 360. Unfortunately, I can't justify a purchase of more than $100 to play a classic I could play on my 64 or elsewhere. So the port gets my praise, and my money if I can access a 360.

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by BlueZero

For reference, Bobby Kotick is some high ranking Activision guy. AKA the CEO.

The reason for the PC backlash is that we as a elitist crowd are legion and are able to get our way. Some PC gamers have been denied being right in life and the Internet and video games are the only places where they have some power. You tell these people that they can't run their own server and thus can't be superior, you tell these people to boycott and flame your game.

Another part of the anger is that FourZeroTwo basically had to play the role of Marketing PR by saying that this matchmaking only system is better and an evolution for PC gaming. Hmm, taking away an option is never a step in the right direction. Moreover, this setup is bad if IW ever took down their servers (unlikely when compared with similar systems like BattleNet and Steam). I personally want to see mods on the PC platform and dedicated servers are always better than a few servers.

I understand that Infinity Ward is making this move to combat piracy on the PC. They saw the high number of people playing without a cd key on servers and they want to get a piece of that pie. The catalyst was Activision, a company that has been reducing the range of PC Internet gameplay with their no LAN for Starcraft II. Thus, I hope that gamers are able to cope with less for their money. With MW2's price of $59.99 on PC, an increase of $10, PC gamers better make their money do the talking.

Here is a video of the now famous Hitler scenes for any huge paradigm shift in the gaming world.

So anyway, this recent announcement which I first read on Kotaku a few days doesn't change my standpoint about the game. I am still getting the PS3 version because I feel I can dominate the players where on PC I will get possibly destroyed. Maybe nowadays with my new Core i7 and gaming mouse, I can compete, but I don't want to pay $60 for a PC game. For PS3, still a day one purchase. For PC, I would wait a couple months for the price drop. For 360, I hope you enjoy paying $50 a year to play the same game online. Oh, what's that? You are correct, this is my bias! If you are a Wii gamer, enjoy a badly made port of Call of Duty 4, which I doubt few people haven't played this Game of the Year.

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by BlueZero