007, Sonic, Zombies...all part of a healthy breakfast

I just finished playing Quantum of Solace (just this second...as we speak) and I decided that I don't want to write a review. There really isn't a reason to write one; all you need to know is that there are too many games that deserve your attention before you think about playing Quantum of Solace. Imagine Call of Duty 4 in the James Bond universe...then take out all the amazing ideas that pop into your head and replace them with bad graphics and Daniel Craig. That is all this new game is, it has some great moments in the story but it's such a basic shooter that it doesn't warrant a closer look.


In much more important news, Sonic Unleashed is coming out soon. Most think this game will be yet another crappy Sonic title, but I hope they're wrong. Seeing this game succeed would make me happy; I mean come on, you play as a freaking werehog! Hopefully the Sonic franchise can pick itself up this time, but the hope for this title as low as a regular Sonic game's review score.

Just to voice my opinion, again, Left 4 Dead is game of the year. It is the most fun I have had in a video game ever! The multiplayer is so focused and forced, in a good way, that you have to stick together and work as a team. I plan on reviewing it soon, after Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2, so look for that in the coming months.

Fable 2 Review

Fable 2 brought me to a world full of fantasy and amazement, but left me feeling needy inside. With a gorgeous art design and simple pick up and play mechanics, Fable 2 is definitely a step above its predecessor. The game is undoubtedly beautiful and fun to play, but small quirks keep it from being perfect.

Fable 2 takes place 500 years after the original Fable. You play the roll of either a boy or girl with only your sister at your side and toy weapons strapped to your back. Through a series of twisted events, you are left alone with only a dog at your side. Much like the first game, you are trained to become a hero, and destined to either save or destroy the world in which you reside.

While the first Fable was clear in its good or evil choices, Fable 2 seems to be filled with a bit more mystery. While you may think your actions are just and appropriate they may turn out to be dastardly and sickening once completed. Fable 2 urges the player to make choices during most of its quests; the challenge comes in making the choice you believe to be right.

While the main story is relatively short, about 10 hours--the side quests and second life will keep you playing for days. You literally live a second life in Fable 2. You can buy homes for your wife, or wives, and do whatever you please around the city. You’ll be buying food to fatten up or slim down, buying condoms to protect against STDs, stealing from businesses while the owners are asleep, and kicking every godforsaken chicken that crosses your path.


I found the main story to be a bit dull and anticlimactic but the side quests were filled with enough humor and wit to quell my nitpicking. It’s as though the developers took the humor from the original Fable and gave it all a dark twist. Whether you are eating chicks to enter a temple or helping an old hag the sense of dark humor is always present.

When you enter the realm of Albion, you are witness to what may very well be the most beautiful art design ever. Technically speaking, Fable 2 is solid, but it is the style that will grab your attention.

Buildings have a 19th century feel to them and the people appear to have been pulled straight out of a Dickens’s novel. After you venture out of your childhood stomping grounds, you are treated to the outdoors of Fable 2. Nature has never looked so damn amazing. The sunlight seems to gleam off the water and the grass provides a feeling of comfort and awe, no matter how many enemies surround you.

From a technical standpoint, most people would be hard-pressed to find something that makes them gasp in Fable 2; it just isn’t next gen looking. The frame rate dips sometimes, but never for more than a few seconds. The locations you traverse, whether they are treacherous towers or secluded swamps, are flat out astonishing. Hands down this game is one of the most beautifully designed games I’ve played in a while.

Gameplay in Fable 2 is certainly a step up from the first installment. One of the main reasons I disliked the original Fable was its combat system. Fable 2 smoothed out the problems of the first game and the effects show. Combos are easily stringed together from enemy to enemy and combatants are constantly dropping. Blocking has become a simple press and hold mechanic, and switching to a ranged weapon takes just one press of the Y button.

Your melee, ranged, and spell attacks are all mapped to their own buttons. Simply tap the button, or hold it, and watch enemies fall at your feet. The only problem I encountered during combat was the fact that the camera sometimes got in my way in enclosed environments. At those times I would wail on the X button and prey to hit anything near me. Potions and food are context sensitive, you simply press left or right on the d-pad when your health is low to heal.

One of the most talked about features of Fable 2 is the dog. The dog isn’t that big of a deal really. It follows you around and makes treasure hunting a breeze; he runs about and barks when treasure is nearby. Occasionally the dog will attack downed enemies, but he doesn’t do much else. The little guy will follow you on your path of righteous or supreme evil, and he does offer an emotional attachment. Throughout the game he will get hurt but he can’t die so there are no worries.

Perhaps the less talked about feature, but certainly more helpful, is the breadcrumb like trail system. A trail of glowing lights will point you in the correct direction for your currently selected quests. This comes in handy in every conceivable situation, since getting lost would be too easy with the horrible in game map.

Overall, I found the combat system to be incredibly intuitive. There are also jobs to earn cash that are simple one button games that get quite addicting. The dog and trail system help to iron out what could be tedious searching. These features and mechanics simply add to the twisted world that is Fable 2.

Epic scores, intense battle music, humorous dialogue, and heavy sound effects all mesh together to make Fable 2’s soundtrack one of the best. The music in the Fable series has become a staple of sorts. Its gorgeous soundtrack moves the player along from city to city, all the while giving the game an epic sense of scale. One of the more surprising aspects of the music was the transition from exploration music to battle music.

As soon as battle draws near the music changes into a heart pounding techno-like beat. At first the battle music surprised me; I would never imagine that Fable 2 and the Matrix soundtrack could go together. After a few fights, I realized how the music was able to immediately change my attitude from happy and explorative to tense and aggressive. Fable 2’s music is truly something to behold, but the sound effects are no slouch either.

Every crashing blow of a hammer or slice of a sword can be felt through their individual sounds. Bones of the undead crack and flesh from the living is clearly heard tearing. Gunshots echo through the world and spells cause the world to tremble. The only thing more entertaining than the sound effects is the dialogue.

Fable 2 is the proud owner of some of the wittiest dialogue in a video game. Passing pedestrians give their opinions of your hero while bandits and evildoers shout random verbal assaults. Drunks in the bars give their stories of the loved and lost, and devout followers of the light or dark beseech you with their faith. All of the dialogue is cleverly and expertly delivered giving Fable 2 a sense of dark humor.

I didn’t play much multiplayer in Fable 2, mainly because it wasn’t very good. The co-op in Fable 2 was supposed to be its main selling point; sadly it fell on its face. The camera in multiplayer always seems to focus on your partner and quests seem to lose importance with another player around; most of the time I was just trying to keep up with my partner as he ran around killing citizens. I felt the co-op to be a bit useless honestly-- just stick with the single player.

Fable 2 is a game that wants to be one of the best but is still stuck in that “nearly there” stage. The graphics are breathtaking and the mechanics make the game incredibly fun and intuitive to pickup and play. Phenomenal music grabs the player and never seems to let go. Just when the fun is peaking it is abruptly stopped by the end of the game. Fable 2’s short story and horrid co-op stop the game from reaching its true potential. Fable 2 is so close to being what Molyneux promised, its just small quirks that hold it back.

Overall Fable 2 is a great, if flawed, game with witty humor and top notch visuals. 4 out of 5 scruffy beards for this one.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

My review of Fable 2 should be up before next weekend and then I'll be immersing myself in Far Cry 2 for hours on end.

In the meantime, demos for Mirror's Edge and the new Tomb Raider have been released. While the shear idea of Mirror's Edge had me sold the demo only increases my anticipation for the game. On the other hand, the Tomb Raider demo had me second guessing the direction of the series. Hopefully the game will surpass the demo, but only time will tell.

Look for my Fable 2 review to be coming soon, damn school work.

This is Faith. See Faith run. Faith runs fast.

Here we go!

As of now my agenda for games is ridiculous. Fable 2 and Far Cry 2 are both coming out tomorrow; I want to give both games equal playtime before i review them so those may take a while. Fallout 3 is coming out on the 28th which will most likely require even more time than the previous two. Finally there is Battle Fantasia from Gamefly. It was made by the guys who made Guilty Gear so I'm excited about that enormously. Hopefully I'll be able have reviews up for all four of these games by the end of November. Wish me luck!

Sonic Boom!

http://www.giantbomb.com/street-fighter-4-tgs-08-trailer/17-75/

Epic

October = OMGSOMANYGAMES!

Ok so October is looking huge. Dead Space, Fable 2, Fallout 3, Legendary, Mushroom Men, Far Cry 2, Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 are all headed our way this month. It is an amazing amount of potentially great games to be released in less than 30 days. Most of those games are being released between October 16th and October 28th. To be honest I doubt I will be able to review at least half of these games. I think that by the time I play all of these games November will be upon me and then it's a whole new splurge of games.

As of now I'm playing Ninja Gaiden 2 and enjoying it a lot, not sure if I'll have enough time to review it. Hopefully I'll be able to get Dead Space from Gamefly on time so I can review it in a timely manner.

This year looks like it is going to be amazing for any gamer. With so many choices out there gamers will either be made extremely happy or driven mad. Hopefully a little bit of both.

Oh, the Tokyo Game Show is going on this week and as of now the only announcements thus far are from Microsoft. The New Xbox Experience is going to go live on November 19th and Tekken 6 is coming out for the Xbox 360 (yet another hit to Sony's exclusives.)
Suda 51 also announced a sequel to my personal Wii favorite No More Heroes (woot)

Review: Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360

As I booted up Civilization Revolution for the first time, I realized something about myself; before that point in time I had never played a Civilization game. Sid Meier's Civilization series has been around for quite some time. This game is the first in the long line of Civilization games to be streamlined for the console players. Due to this approach Revolution becomes a more charming and whimsical experience than its predecessors.

I do believe that people who are diehard fans of the original Civilization games may be put off by the style of Revolution. That being said, anyone who wants that strategic game-play element that only Sid Meier games can pack should check this one out. For a console strategy game Revolution has surprising depth; it manages to dig itself into you and force you to continue playing, even though you can save and stop at anytime.

The art style was the first thing that struck me when I began playing my first skirmish. I noticed that all 16 historical leaders in the game looked like cartoon renditions of themselves. The game made leaders like Lincoln, Gandhi, and even Ghengis Khan seem adorable. If you know anything about these leaders, you know that they did not live during the same time periods. All 16 leaders are from completely different periods in history; each had his or her dominant civilization during their respective era. If the fact that this game can make Julius Caesar square off against Queen Elizabeth makes you cringe, then I suggest you stop reading now because it only gets worse. True historical reenactment is not what this game is about at all, and that adds to what makes this game so fun.
After selecting one of the 16 caricatures, you behold the beginning of your civilization. Whether you pick Alexander the Great or Abraham Lincoln you start the game with a small town and one unit of sword-wielding warriors. The object of the game is to build up your civilization and turn it into a powerhouse in one of four sections; technology, economy, culture, and domination. Even if you plan to concentrate on economics you will still be putting time into the other section; without at least paying attention to all four sections equally your civilization will not be able to keep up with the enemies’. To win a game of Civilization you must; capture all enemy cities, send a populated space craft to a new planet, extrapolate your culture so you can build the United Nations or horde all of your gold and create the World Bank.

The system used in Civ Rev (as it shall now be called) seams unbelievably simple for a game that is all about scale and strategy. During your turn you are the only player allowed to move his or her forces around the world. By simply selecting one of your units, you can then move them to any point on the world, as long as they have the permitted amount of moves they will move to the designated spot. When your turn arrives you move your armies around with ease, choose new technologies to be researched to enhance your civilization, build up your army, or create structures that will amplify your culture and production.

The graphics are beautiful and the character models are functional, if a bit simplistic. You won’t be seeing tons of details in your cities but they serve their purpose as beacons of your culture. As time progresses in the game, from BC to the futuristic AD, your city will become a sprawling metropolis filled with factories and busy citizens. As time goes on in Civ Rev the battles between civilizations become strange. During the first 20 turns or so battles consist of medieval type warriors, archers, and horseman facing off against. Once you begin researching technology that allows you to create riflemen and modern infantry the battles make you cock your head a bit. Modern infantry soldiers are meant to be defensive units, so why can they not best an army of archers or pike wielders? Well I guess in a game where Caesar can fight against Montezuma anything is possible.
The battle system in Civ Rev is just the rest of the game, streamlined. Every unit has an attack number and a defensive number. While this may seem straightforward, some upset victories do occur. Battles occur when a player moves his or her units over those of an opposing civilization – as long as there is no truce between the cultures the armies will duke it out.

This overly simplistic gameplay is what makes the game so appealing. Every turn grants the player a sense of accomplishment, whether the player is commanding an army to capture Berlin or sending scouts to find a lost castle, a resounding sense of greatness is always resonating from the game. Every turn that passes by leads into something new and exciting that makes the game harder and harder to put down and that sense of flow is what makes a game great.

Besides skirmishes there is also a delightful multiplayer and enticing scenarios. In the five multiplayer games I played there was no lag and I felt as though I was making and breaking friends along the way. In the time it took to play one game (two hours) I made truces with people that I quickly decide to turn on and crush; truly an experience only available in select games. The scenarios on the other hand are great ways break away from the usual build up and knock down attitude of skirmishes. Scenarios grant the player, and his or her enemies, immediate access to technology. In one scenario everyone had immense armies and so did the roaming barbarians of the world. It quickly became a bloodthirsty fight for survival.

Audio is definitely an aspect of Civ Rev that I may have overlooked the first time around. When you really listen to the music and sound effects you are treated to an epic sense of scale. The music picks up when battles take place and each unit is granted his or her own music when they move around the world. Battle cries can be heard from dying soldiers, as well as cheers from victorious armies.

Throughout my extensive time with this heavily addictive game, I found few flaws. From time to time the graphics begin to chug a bit. Also, when the action becomes frequent the simplistic system seems to be incapable of handing certain tasks, but luckily this game is not played in real time.
With such epic events taking place so often, you feel a sense of pride for your civilization. You truly feel as though you have led your people as they build a space ship that is capable of reaching new uninhabited worlds. Failure is also taken as a true pain because you become so close to your people. It’s the feeling of accomplishment and purpose (coupled by the fantastic graphics and great sound design) that kept me coming back to Civ Rev over and over again. Just when you feel as though you have exhausted all of the possibilities in the game you realize that there is something you haven’t done, and you immediately wish to accomplish it. Many games have attempted to make the player feel like a god, but only few succeed at accomplishing such a daunting task. Civilization Revolution is definitely one of those select few. If you’re looking for a game that can bring the feeling of a massive strategy game to a console then Civ Rev is your best bet. Few games on the Xbox 360 or PS3 can match its sense of scale and simplistic interface; Civilization Revolution is truly a game that deserves its place amongst the collection of any console strategist.

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution gets a grizzly 5 out of 5 beards.

All images credited to Giantbomb.com

Parameters, decisions, and other random thoughts

Alright, the blog is up and running as intended. I figured before I go straight into previews, reviews, and all that jazz I should give out some parameters to the way I do things. Five beards, it's simple and keeps reviews from conflicting. Five beards equals the best possible rating, one is the worst. I'm just one person so I won't be reviewing certain media (movies and games) on time as often as I'd like. For the most part I'll talk about a game's graphics, mechanics, sound design, story, and multiplayer. For movies, TV, and books I'll simply tell you what I liked and what I didn't like...I'm no expert so bare with me. My reviews are by no means a final say on anything, it's just an opinion to consider. That being said, I plan on having my first video game review up as soon as I get the game from Gamefly. It'll be Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution for the Xbox 360. And again, please don't think my review or opinion on something can't be argued. The one thing I don't need is someone yelling at me for not liking a game as much as they do. In this day in age anyone can be a "reviewer", so don't take things so seriously. With that said...let's do this thang!

TV: Alright September 22, 2008 the first episode of the new series of Heroes! Dear god, if the writers focused half as much on the dialogue as they did on making the events as obscure as possible the show might be perfect. Don't get me wrong, the show is spectacular, but the weak dialogue can bring it down a notch, especially when there is a tense moment or exciting scene. But the dialogue is really the only negative I could find in these two episodes, you heard me right, TWO EPISODES! As if one hour of skull opening, brain feeling, random pyrokinesising wasn't enough! The show opened up as if everything was alright, quickly the viewer is treated to the darkness that is going to be a staple in this season of Heroes. And what way to make the audience get excited and scared all at once than with a disturbing scene with our favorite badass...Sylar. Yeah ok, towards the end of the previous season Sylar was getting back into the swing of kicking some serious booty, but his newest power brings him to a whole new level of evil. That's right, our favorite cheerleader has been mind raped for her healing ability.
So now Sylar is invincible, although he always seemed to be anyway. This leads people to believe that the new season of Heroes is going to be much more violent. If he doesnt't have to worry about being killed then there is nothing to make him stop.
Hiro is being his dumb self, trying to save the world and constantly failing. Although the newest member in Hiro's storyline, a "speedster" named Daphne, is making his segments worth while. And yes the special effects that I experienced when Hiro froze time after Daphne ran off blew my mind. So overall it seemed to be normal old Heroes. Sylar was killing peeps, Pete was screwed, Nathan is crazy, Hiro is useless, and Claire isn't important anymore. Oh and the doctor got a power...but hopefully he will die soon.
But, just when you thought your favorite hero filled show couldn't get any better...VILLAINS! Sylar is tough enough on his own, but after an explosion at a maximum security villain holding cell he has some competition. So to list this all out, we have Jesse Murphy (who's body is currently taken over by Peter) who can manipulate sound to his whim. This basically means he can scream as loud as he wants and burst the eardrums, and probably brains, of everyone around him. There is Benjamin Knox, who has a dumb name, who is able to sense fear easily from people and gain strength from their fear...scary! There is also Flint, who is the aforementioned pyrokenetic (shoots fire). And finally there is the German, a guy with a real mean streak who has the ability to control metal COUGHmagnetoCOUGH! And that's that for Heroes this week, good show boys!

Video Games: Well no reviews just yet, but I'll go into what I've been playing as of late. For the most part my time has been split between two games. First off is Crysis Warhead for the PC, a thirty dollar game that is a side story to Crysis. Side story meaning that it happens parallel to the events of Crysis. In this game you play as Psycho, a pissed off Brit in a high tech nano suit. I haven't played too much yet but as of now I may just be in love. With only maybe an hour played I've seen a huge arsenal of weapons, vehicles, and nano suit powers. The game is considered a "sandbox" shooter. This basically means that you can play the game, and approach any situation however you want. For instance, a camp ahead of me was giving me trouble so I decided to jump in a nearby truck and drive it straight into said camp. I immediately got out, turned up the strength on my suit, and started beating down Koreans with my bare hands. Your suit comes in four flavors; strength, speed, armor, and stealth. All four can be used at your leisure for any given gun fight. If you want to cloak your way through a camp to get a good tactical position then go for it. But you can also turn up the armor and bring the pain to those evil bastards!
Next up on my recently played list is Battlefield Bad Company for the Xbox 360. For the most part I've been playing the single player in this game and have loved every second. Similar to Crysis Warhead the arsenal of weapons give the game a great feeling of longevity. Oh yeah I almost forgot...everything can blow up! It's not like in some games where certain barrels will go boom, no, everything goes boom. Throw a grenade into a window and in three seconds the entire wall will come down. This leads to a new way to run and gun. Instead of hiding and picking off enemies at a distance you want to run up to the wall, strike it down, and wipe out the guys who used to be hiding. Almost every gun comes with a grenade attachment on the bottom, simply tap a button and you've got yourself a grenade launching party. The dialogue is phenomenal as well. Great, if a bit silly, lines flow from your four squad mates. I haven't played too much of the multiplayer but I defiantly plan on going back to it as soon as I'm done with the single player.

Alrighty then, look for my first review sometime next week hopefully. Please spread the word about this blog to anyone you think will be interested, whether it's friends, family, random encounters at night clubs...yeah. The more the merrier.

Fisco

Oh yeah, this came out...so for the first time in a long time I will own a phone that isn't eight years old.

Hey There!

Alright, my first official blog! Let's make this a keeper, shall we?
When I was around ten years old I started reading magazines about video games so I could see which ones were good (i.e which ones to buy). From there it continued on and on. I kept reading, and eventually it became more than a hobby. Writing became sort of a knack of mine, and I decided that it was what I wanted to do when I finally got going on a career path. Writing has always intrigued me, I'm not sure why but it's just something that comes naturally to me. Writing is the one thing that keeps me happy no matter how many times I do it. So I decided to mold my two loves, video games and writing, and go for it. Something about writing about the thing I love most just feels right to me. However, it's never good to leave yourself in a position where you are blocked off from other ideas. Since my journalism epiphany I decided to open my horizons. Movies, TV, books, and whatever else I feel like writing about. I just spend some time with the topic and start writing, and that's how this blog was started.
I mentioned on this blog that this is a way for me to get my "talent" out to potential job offers and colleges, and that is true. They see it as a writer taking it upon himself to get his work out there in the public. If anyone else plans on writing as a career choice I highly recommend a blog, as it will help you later on. For now this will be a place I can come to when I feel like writing whatever, whether it's a review, random bull, or just stuff that happened in my life.
Feel free to read, or not read the blog... doesn't make a difference to me. If you feel like arguing, go for it, all I ask is that you don't be immature about my writing. I'd rather get "Your writing could use some editing." instead of pointless comments.
So look to this blog for stuff I find interesting, and hopefully you do too. I'm not trying to convert people to my way of thought...just trying to get my thoughts out there. Pass on this blog to people you think might be interested, every little bit counts.

Fisco