Hazama is in the game to start with, unless they change it for you. The only real DLC character is dat underboob... I mean Makoto.
Rate The Last Game You Played
- Thread starter dub
- Start date
-
Two Factor Authentication is now available on BeyondUnreal Forums. To configure it, visit your Profile and look for the "Two Step Verification" option on the left side. We can send codes via email (may be slower) or you can set up any TOTP Authenticator app on your phone (Authy, Google Authenticator, etc) to deliver codes. It is highly recommended that you configure this to keep your account safe.
Hazama is in the game to start with, unless they change it for you. The only real DLC character is dat underboob... I mean Makoto.
Not on the subject of FFXIII, but I watched his review of Demon's Soul's and it was bloody brilliantI almost want to go out and buy it now, but seeing as how they are taking the online away would their be a point to it?
Buy Demon's Souls. Online is the offline with just some extra functionality. Still, if you buy it now you get the online and if you play it enough you'll get good enough to be ready for offline if you have to play that way. The game is still good online or offline (and hey, offline you can control the world tendency* more
.Honestly I'm not too worried about the online going away. If the game is still popular Atlus will keep the servers up.
*World tendency is crazy.
Started playing Blazblue: Continuum Shift, probably going to be a 9/10 for me as well, even if they nerfed my Arakune! BEES EVERYWHERE
Arakune is still very strong with curse and bees. Rachel has become unplayable. Thanksfully they're working on a patch which rebalances the characters.
I meant that Hazama is the biggest reason why I want CS. I like a lot his playstyle and most of all, its Distortion Drives.
I meant that Hazama is the biggest reason why I want CS. I like a lot his playstyle and most of all, its Distortion Drives.
Earthworm Jim HD - 8.5/10
This comes down to whether or not you loved or hated the original SNES/Genesis game, which for me this was a no brainer. It is the same game from way back when, only presented in tasty HD and a few extras thrown in. The graphics hold up surprisingly well(especially in "What the heck" it is really beautiful). If I had one gripe it would be the difficulty shoots up tremendously when you get to "For Pete's Sake". Screw the dog, screw the meteors, screw the tentacles. I give a big middle finger to you. Others seem to complain about the controls, but meh they were fine.
Some of the extras include bonus levels unlocked by collecting hidden cans, and coop multiplayer. Probably won't be able to touch multiplayer since no one on my friends list has the game
Anyway it is a solid platformer and hope they give the sequel the same treatment, if they decide to release it.
This comes down to whether or not you loved or hated the original SNES/Genesis game, which for me this was a no brainer. It is the same game from way back when, only presented in tasty HD and a few extras thrown in. The graphics hold up surprisingly well(especially in "What the heck" it is really beautiful). If I had one gripe it would be the difficulty shoots up tremendously when you get to "For Pete's Sake". Screw the dog, screw the meteors, screw the tentacles. I give a big middle finger to you. Others seem to complain about the controls, but meh they were fine.
Some of the extras include bonus levels unlocked by collecting hidden cans, and coop multiplayer. Probably won't be able to touch multiplayer since no one on my friends list has the game
Anyway it is a solid platformer and hope they give the sequel the same treatment, if they decide to release it.
Last edited:
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky - 5.5/10. Wasn't nearly as good as the first, and it was riddled with technical and gameplay issues to boot. The plot wasn't as good as the first, either, but at least it was better than Call of Pripyat's. It wasn't that bad of a game once I got past its many design flaws. The faction wars system was poorly implemented, though.
On a side note, I can't play anymore after I tried to load an earlier save. Stupid thing just crashes every time. Uninstalling and reinstalling did nothing.
StarCraft: Broodwar - 8.5/10. Probably the third time I've played through this. Pretty much everything about it was great. The single player campaign was a lot of fun, and the new characters were great additions to the StarCraft universe. It's StarCraft. 'Nuff said.
WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos - 5/10. I can't really say I liked this game very much. The voice acting wasn't that great and the gameplay itself was pretty boring. The whole Upkeep system really took away a lot of the fun. The multiplayer basically seems to be a big group of brightly colored units running around trying to avoid each other. At least, that's what it was like when I played a bunch of matches.
Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - 7.5/10. The new races were pretty interesting and well done, even if they're a bit unbalanced. The single player campaign was okay. I didn't like it was much as the linear Dawn of War campaign, but it did manage to be pretty interesting at times. The main thing that bugs me about this game is that the skirmish AI is pretty dumb when compared to the original, and skirmishes aren't nearly as epic.
On a side note, I can't play anymore after I tried to load an earlier save. Stupid thing just crashes every time. Uninstalling and reinstalling did nothing.
StarCraft: Broodwar - 8.5/10. Probably the third time I've played through this. Pretty much everything about it was great. The single player campaign was a lot of fun, and the new characters were great additions to the StarCraft universe. It's StarCraft. 'Nuff said.
WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos - 5/10. I can't really say I liked this game very much. The voice acting wasn't that great and the gameplay itself was pretty boring. The whole Upkeep system really took away a lot of the fun. The multiplayer basically seems to be a big group of brightly colored units running around trying to avoid each other. At least, that's what it was like when I played a bunch of matches.
Dawn of War: Dark Crusade - 7.5/10. The new races were pretty interesting and well done, even if they're a bit unbalanced. The single player campaign was okay. I didn't like it was much as the linear Dawn of War campaign, but it did manage to be pretty interesting at times. The main thing that bugs me about this game is that the skirmish AI is pretty dumb when compared to the original, and skirmishes aren't nearly as epic.
Red Faction 3: Guerrilla - 5.5/10
Average Open World game that has the huge draw of its destruction physics, which is the reason for the decimal. Sure, every building you touch with an elbow and every stronghold you slam with a hammer caves in like tin foil (apparently you play as Thor, but on Mars...and a Guerrilla). But man, this series has survived on Geo Mod alone for three games now, and it goes a long way. It's basically like the wound effects in Soldier of Fortune; you're only playing for one reason.
I can't say the switch from First Person Shooter to Third Person Sandbox did the franchise any favors. The best part is that you get a better sense of Mars than you ever did in the first entry. Wisely avoiding the Rockstar effect, this sandbox world isn't bogged down by a series of "side missions" that involve monotonous bull**** like answering your cellphone to pick up your cousin (who you don't like) or spending the Wild West riding around on a horse that doesn't like to be handled...whilst trying to have a conversation. No, there is no social life in Martian insurgency, no tedious 4 hours of training-wheel missions, and everything you do in this game involves blowing the crap out of something several stories tall with a variety of methods...or you drive to places where you can blow the crap out of something several stories tall with a variety of methods, and blow up smaller things like military vehicles and people on the way...
...if you can survive any of the vehicular encounters, that is.
I can't say anything else remotely as pleasant. The story mode is pretty drab, but then again this series was never very strong here. Ignoring part two's odd departure of Mars and anything to do with rebellion, Red Faction 3 reminds me a lot of a Mercenaries title rather than Red Faction. Even the vehicles handle similar. It's all just kinda going through the motions. You even get regenerating health. I can't say I enjoyed the combat...and that means any combat situation where I'm on foot and dealing with waves and waves of army guys, who always out man you in every fight in the game. You can press a key to "cover" against any wall, but I found that rather useless for 99% of the game since 1) Anything you take cover against is made of, if you remember, tin foil, and it breaks without much negotiation 2) Chances are that unless you trapped yourself in a building where the only entry/exit is in front of you, guys will be behind you anyway, or at the sides of you, 3) every guy you kill will be replaced in seconds, and the only way to get more ammo for the "shooting" weapons is to run to corpses to rob their ammo and run back to a cover spot, or to run to Red Faction crates to get ammo and run back to a cover spot, and you will quickly find this whole process retarded when you can just blow everything up, forgetting the damn cover key most of the time. The worst part of the combat is that while buildings are easy to reduce to scrap...all the enemies...standard, walking-around-type-guys, mind you, are apparently made of adamantium if you use the same destruction tactics on them. Firing a rocket or an explosive at or around their general personal space (but not directly into their bread basket) will result in knocking them down, in which case they will likely stand back up, dust themselves off, and resume shooting you. Hilariously, all the guns that do absolutely nothing to the infrastructures of all the buildings (the machine guns, pistols, shotguns, and laser rifles) drop these guys pretty quick. Also, it's fantastically difficult to run anyone over, since if you manage to roll them there's a good chance it takes a few treadings to finish the job, like that wife that kept going from drive to reverse on her husband like 16 times.
That's not even the cherry on the turd, however. A lot of these missions for the main game have wonky difficulty. It's not that they are legitimately hard...as in, the game designers never sat down as they do at a better game company (like, say, Valve) and discussed how to properly plan out gameplay. You never know what guns you need for any major mission, so what I did was take the basic three (explosive, bigger explosive, and extra slot for rifles...or one of the weird guns), and the game just kinda says, "Okay....GO!", putting you in asinine scenarios where you fight whole battalions by yourself since your friendly rebel AI went to the same training school as all those stormtroopers from Star Wars. The enemy only seems to want to shoot you, anyway. I felt like every mission consisted of taking damage every 2 seconds, from every direction, constantly regenerating whilst moving away, whilst blowing everything up. This is just nonsense really, and it goes to the core of why I hate regenerating health in games. It is a stupid mechanic that makes it easy to plug crappy gameplay everywhere. RD3 gets particularly grueling in a few vehicle-favorite missions, which don't really rely on skill so much as luck. There's plenty of instances where you'll die and laugh at the screen. If your in anything other than a Mech Suit or a Tank, any mission with a fixed vehicle is 50/50.
There's a basic purchase upgrade system, but on the whole the system lacks polish. There are radio messages that play to impart story-relevant dialogue during high speed chases or explosion heavy Tank-to-Tank shelling, guaranteeing that all the climactic scene dialogue will be missed. You won't even realize when you've killed one of the game's alleged antagonist characters (though you won't even know who they are unless you read the game manual). There is a weak...sorta twist somewhere in there I think about one character not being who they say they are, but it's not really important. I was left with an "uhhhh...kay?" because I didn't give a **** about any of these stupid people. And why should I? They didn't even have the decency to put celebrity voices like Lance Hendrickson and that guy from The Transporter movies, like they did in Red Faction 2. They did this twist bit in the other two Red Factions, as I recall, and no...it was never really pulled off so cleanly in those either. The music sucks. Enemy and Pedestrian AI is pretty unremarkable, and Pedestrian AI in regards to traffic seem unable to NOT drive into you.
Eh, I'm going on a little long on this one. It's fun to break stuff. They made it more fun to break stuff in this one than in the previous two Red Factions, but at the expense of everything else. The End. Rent it for some amusing deconstruction and not much else. You can even avoid the story missions if you want.
Average Open World game that has the huge draw of its destruction physics, which is the reason for the decimal. Sure, every building you touch with an elbow and every stronghold you slam with a hammer caves in like tin foil (apparently you play as Thor, but on Mars...and a Guerrilla). But man, this series has survived on Geo Mod alone for three games now, and it goes a long way. It's basically like the wound effects in Soldier of Fortune; you're only playing for one reason.
I can't say the switch from First Person Shooter to Third Person Sandbox did the franchise any favors. The best part is that you get a better sense of Mars than you ever did in the first entry. Wisely avoiding the Rockstar effect, this sandbox world isn't bogged down by a series of "side missions" that involve monotonous bull**** like answering your cellphone to pick up your cousin (who you don't like) or spending the Wild West riding around on a horse that doesn't like to be handled...whilst trying to have a conversation. No, there is no social life in Martian insurgency, no tedious 4 hours of training-wheel missions, and everything you do in this game involves blowing the crap out of something several stories tall with a variety of methods...or you drive to places where you can blow the crap out of something several stories tall with a variety of methods, and blow up smaller things like military vehicles and people on the way...
...if you can survive any of the vehicular encounters, that is.
I can't say anything else remotely as pleasant. The story mode is pretty drab, but then again this series was never very strong here. Ignoring part two's odd departure of Mars and anything to do with rebellion, Red Faction 3 reminds me a lot of a Mercenaries title rather than Red Faction. Even the vehicles handle similar. It's all just kinda going through the motions. You even get regenerating health. I can't say I enjoyed the combat...and that means any combat situation where I'm on foot and dealing with waves and waves of army guys, who always out man you in every fight in the game. You can press a key to "cover" against any wall, but I found that rather useless for 99% of the game since 1) Anything you take cover against is made of, if you remember, tin foil, and it breaks without much negotiation 2) Chances are that unless you trapped yourself in a building where the only entry/exit is in front of you, guys will be behind you anyway, or at the sides of you, 3) every guy you kill will be replaced in seconds, and the only way to get more ammo for the "shooting" weapons is to run to corpses to rob their ammo and run back to a cover spot, or to run to Red Faction crates to get ammo and run back to a cover spot, and you will quickly find this whole process retarded when you can just blow everything up, forgetting the damn cover key most of the time. The worst part of the combat is that while buildings are easy to reduce to scrap...all the enemies...standard, walking-around-type-guys, mind you, are apparently made of adamantium if you use the same destruction tactics on them. Firing a rocket or an explosive at or around their general personal space (but not directly into their bread basket) will result in knocking them down, in which case they will likely stand back up, dust themselves off, and resume shooting you. Hilariously, all the guns that do absolutely nothing to the infrastructures of all the buildings (the machine guns, pistols, shotguns, and laser rifles) drop these guys pretty quick. Also, it's fantastically difficult to run anyone over, since if you manage to roll them there's a good chance it takes a few treadings to finish the job, like that wife that kept going from drive to reverse on her husband like 16 times.
That's not even the cherry on the turd, however. A lot of these missions for the main game have wonky difficulty. It's not that they are legitimately hard...as in, the game designers never sat down as they do at a better game company (like, say, Valve) and discussed how to properly plan out gameplay. You never know what guns you need for any major mission, so what I did was take the basic three (explosive, bigger explosive, and extra slot for rifles...or one of the weird guns), and the game just kinda says, "Okay....GO!", putting you in asinine scenarios where you fight whole battalions by yourself since your friendly rebel AI went to the same training school as all those stormtroopers from Star Wars. The enemy only seems to want to shoot you, anyway. I felt like every mission consisted of taking damage every 2 seconds, from every direction, constantly regenerating whilst moving away, whilst blowing everything up. This is just nonsense really, and it goes to the core of why I hate regenerating health in games. It is a stupid mechanic that makes it easy to plug crappy gameplay everywhere. RD3 gets particularly grueling in a few vehicle-favorite missions, which don't really rely on skill so much as luck. There's plenty of instances where you'll die and laugh at the screen. If your in anything other than a Mech Suit or a Tank, any mission with a fixed vehicle is 50/50.
There's a basic purchase upgrade system, but on the whole the system lacks polish. There are radio messages that play to impart story-relevant dialogue during high speed chases or explosion heavy Tank-to-Tank shelling, guaranteeing that all the climactic scene dialogue will be missed. You won't even realize when you've killed one of the game's alleged antagonist characters (though you won't even know who they are unless you read the game manual). There is a weak...sorta twist somewhere in there I think about one character not being who they say they are, but it's not really important. I was left with an "uhhhh...kay?" because I didn't give a **** about any of these stupid people. And why should I? They didn't even have the decency to put celebrity voices like Lance Hendrickson and that guy from The Transporter movies, like they did in Red Faction 2. They did this twist bit in the other two Red Factions, as I recall, and no...it was never really pulled off so cleanly in those either. The music sucks. Enemy and Pedestrian AI is pretty unremarkable, and Pedestrian AI in regards to traffic seem unable to NOT drive into you.
Eh, I'm going on a little long on this one. It's fun to break stuff. They made it more fun to break stuff in this one than in the previous two Red Factions, but at the expense of everything else. The End. Rent it for some amusing deconstruction and not much else. You can even avoid the story missions if you want.
Last edited:
StarCraft II - 5/10. Well, it didn't seem very much like StarCraft. The lack of LAN play is really disappointing and frustrating. My internet connection is crap right now, so I can't play with friends through Battle.net. The fact that you're key is registered to your account is freaking annoying. The single player campaign was by far the most disappointing part, though. The voice acting was bad enough that it made me want to turn the volume down, just so I could avoid all the cheesy one-liners. "It's time to kick this revolution... into OVERDRIVE"! The plot was pretty cheesy and WoW-esque. What was great about the original StarCraft was that Blizzard had the guts to kill off major characters that people really liked, and that didn't happen here. The campaign itself was pretty bland, and most of the missions are just filler.
It didn't even seem like the writers looked back at the original. The only character I liked was Tychus, and
The GCI cutscenes looked great, but the in-game ones weren't too good. The actual graphics weren't bad, but they didn't capture the dark feeling of the original StarCraft. The unit sounds themselves were pretty annoying and wimpy (the ultralisk's attack sound comes to mind).
One of the things that bugs me about SCII is that it seems like the original races could beat the crap out of the new ones (if economic advantages could be compensated for). IE, massed goliaths with Charon Boosters could probably kill a lot of Vikings before they could even transform. I could go on about that kind of thing, but it would take up too much space. The units themselves just weren't that interesting.
The multiplayer is okay, I guess, but from the 20+ matches I've played, it seems to be about massing one kind of unit or having one awesome build and then doing that over and over again; that gets old after a while. Multiplayer seemed a lot more fun to watch than it was to play.
Aside from gameplay, StarCraft 2 seemed to have more in common with WarCraft 3 than it did with StarCraft. Wasn't worth the 60$ I paid. Maybe it will be if I can get a better internet connection.
WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne - 7/10. The singleplayer was a massive improvement over Reign of Chaos. I actually kind of like a few of the characters. What I liked most was the new heroes, and the Tavern heroes add a lot more options. Voice acting is pretty much the same. The plot wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good, either. Multiplayer is still just a bunch of brightly colored units running around trying to avoid eachother, but the new heroes add a lot of variety.
It was an okay game. Definitely glad I got it.
Dawn of War: Soulstorm - 3/10. It doesn't really add anything new or worthwhile to the Dawn of War series. The single player campaign is just like Dark Crusade's, except it's worse. In DC, your buildings would save on the territories you take. In Soulstorm, they don't, so you pretty much have to go against AI opponents that have way more crap than you do.The voice acting is pretty bad, the new races are really bland, and the air units suck. I don't even think it's worth paying 10$ for, and I got it for around 40$ (I think).
Raynor apparently doesn't give two sh*ts about Fenix, who he swore to avenge. Tassadar's actually alive? What in the hell have you been doing the past four years? The UED Expeditionary Fleet was never mentioned at all, and were probably retconned out of existence. Mengsk was a total dumbass, but he somehow managed to foresee that Tychus would get a chance to kill Kerrigan. The Overmind (who is 'good and noble', by the way) has a corpse, apparently, even though it pretty much got wiped out in the first game. Kerrigan gets turned into a human again, but all of the other infested terrans die? Seriously, what the hell.
It didn't even seem like the writers looked back at the original. The only character I liked was Tychus, and
he ends up being a traitor at the end. Gee, that wasn't obvious at all.
The GCI cutscenes looked great, but the in-game ones weren't too good. The actual graphics weren't bad, but they didn't capture the dark feeling of the original StarCraft. The unit sounds themselves were pretty annoying and wimpy (the ultralisk's attack sound comes to mind).
One of the things that bugs me about SCII is that it seems like the original races could beat the crap out of the new ones (if economic advantages could be compensated for). IE, massed goliaths with Charon Boosters could probably kill a lot of Vikings before they could even transform. I could go on about that kind of thing, but it would take up too much space. The units themselves just weren't that interesting.
The multiplayer is okay, I guess, but from the 20+ matches I've played, it seems to be about massing one kind of unit or having one awesome build and then doing that over and over again; that gets old after a while. Multiplayer seemed a lot more fun to watch than it was to play.
Aside from gameplay, StarCraft 2 seemed to have more in common with WarCraft 3 than it did with StarCraft. Wasn't worth the 60$ I paid. Maybe it will be if I can get a better internet connection.
WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne - 7/10. The singleplayer was a massive improvement over Reign of Chaos. I actually kind of like a few of the characters. What I liked most was the new heroes, and the Tavern heroes add a lot more options. Voice acting is pretty much the same. The plot wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good, either. Multiplayer is still just a bunch of brightly colored units running around trying to avoid eachother, but the new heroes add a lot of variety.
Why didn't Illidan just TELL his brother he was going to destroy the undead? That would've saved everybody a lot of trouble. And after that, why didn't Illidan's forces just ignore Arthas and attack the Lich King?
It was an okay game. Definitely glad I got it.
Dawn of War: Soulstorm - 3/10. It doesn't really add anything new or worthwhile to the Dawn of War series. The single player campaign is just like Dark Crusade's, except it's worse. In DC, your buildings would save on the territories you take. In Soulstorm, they don't, so you pretty much have to go against AI opponents that have way more crap than you do.The voice acting is pretty bad, the new races are really bland, and the air units suck. I don't even think it's worth paying 10$ for, and I got it for around 40$ (I think).
Last edited:
Allods Online - 8/10
I really like the feel of it, actually. It's very reminiscent of WoW, which for me isn't a bad thing. I haven't gotten around to playing it that much, but the overall experience seems great. I just hope there's enough activity, the thing that makes such MMORPG games is the community.
I really like the feel of it, actually. It's very reminiscent of WoW, which for me isn't a bad thing. I haven't gotten around to playing it that much, but the overall experience seems great. I just hope there's enough activity, the thing that makes such MMORPG games is the community.
Singularity - 6.5/10
It's impossible to talk about this game without mentioning Bioshock, as Singularity follows that format to a fault. The levels and art design look surprisingly similar to the decor and style of much of Rapture. Gameplay elements, such as the 'two-handed' attack system used in Bioshock appears (the first iteration of this that I ever experienced dates back to Undying, and to this day I still prefer how Undying did it best), as do the popular Inventory Vending/Purchase spots. Lots of games have been doing this; merging the ___Shock purchase system into their own game design. Dead Space did this with work benches and its own upgrade spots (using nodes and a obligatory cash system). Singularity does it similar. E99 Tech replaces Adam and Weapon Upgrade kits replace Nodes. Of course, an explanation for all these vending spots popping up on an abandoned Russian island swarming with phase-shifting zombies is provided. They all have explanations, don't they? Unfortunately it seems that only Bioshock had a good reason. In Singularity you find out, quite bluntly from a found letter, that a particular character has purposely been scattering upgrade venders and E99 pickups all over the island. Why you ask? Well, to help you. Well, then why bother making me find all these schematics, weapon kits, and E99 loot? Why not just have it all at that hideout we meet at somewhere in the early-middle of the game? Unlike Bioshock, the reason for this system showing up in relation to the plot seems kind of arbitrary.
Forget it
The Bioshock influence reveals itself in just about every facet of the game. The water effects are just as beautiful, and just like Rapture the team here wastes no opportunity to make it rain or have a pipe leaking. Aside from the outdoor segments and the obvious lack of six-inch glass barriers between you and the ocean, it's really hard to shake the Bioshock feel in much of the levels. Even a lot of the scientific machinery reminds me of that steam punk tank/valve/rivet look. There are audio logs, which are found just as randomly and used the same way as Bioshock's logs. There are the scrolls on the wall, the 50s style propaganda videos (Russian styled of course, but the artist looks to be the same guy who did all the cartoons from Bioshock...which in turn looks to be the same guy who did all the cartoons from Fallout), the parts of your environment that must react to your plasmid...er, TMD skills. Heck, you even see the "ghosts" you saw from Bioshock, reenacting scenes from a distant past as you walk amongst the refuse of the present. Even the HUD follows similar rules. Your health meter can be replenished using a collection of medkits on the fly, as can your TMD using E99 vials (ala Eve Hypos). Like Bioshock, you can use your guns or your left handed attacks, but not at the same time. But the biggest thing? The whole narrative flow of the game is Bioshock. I don't mean the storyline, no. I mean the whole style the story is told. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You begin as a silent protagonist sitting down in an aircraft. Something happens and your aircraft goes down near water. You come to amongst the flaming wreckage and wander into a vacant environment, where you soon find hostile forces and your first weapons. There are secondary characters, complete with "plot twists" and moments of great reveal that seem to occur in a very dun Dun DUN! kinda way. The only real nuance the game does outside of the scope of ___Shock, or ___Shock minded games is that the environment and major enemies/characters are Russian...which of course makes Singularity like just about every other new shooter out right now. What is it with Russians lately? The Cold War ended twenty years ago. Even James Bond has moved on. Why can't you, Indiana Jones?
Where the game parts from all the Bioshock influence is with its gameplay. Don't get me wrong, you still do a great deal here that you also did in Bioshock. Using your TMD skills like you used Plasmids to clear obstacles and solve puzzles. Alternate your weapons/TMD in all combat situations. What Singularity does a little better is direct combat. First off, the enemy horde consists...shockingly...of more than one villain type. You'll fight various mutated beasts and former-humans that all look similar to the mutants of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s Chernobyl. Russian soldiers show up, in various timelines, to fight you. That brings up the coolest aspect of Singularity, I thought, is the time-jump in locations. Granted, I expected a little more after the great boasting the promotions did for the manipulation of time, but I always enjoy playing the same environment twice...both in the past and far removed future. The level design team did a great job with the environments in this regard. Walking around a ruined laboratory in the present, you'll find collapsed ceilings and walls/floors eroded by decades of rain water and exposure. Mummified corpses lay curled up under desks in a school and you'll have a hard time telling piles of rubble or leaves apart from dried of cadavers in the street. When you jump back to 1955 though (literally), you'll see these environments in a more sterile, clean way, where the events leading to the present are played out in real time, with you in the center of the fray. This is something Singularity else does that Bioshock didn't, as in Rapture...I always felt like I had missed the most interesting events.
Singularity employs the limited gun system a lot of shooters have adopted, though I found it strange that a pistol and a shotgun take up the same carry space as a rifle and a shotgun. Surely I couldn't have had a third cycle space for a handgun? No? Oh well, not every game can be F.E.A.R. I guess. The actual shooting is okay, though it was hard not to use any weapon but the Sniper Rifle for most of the soldier-vs-player situations, thanks to the time-slowing scope view and the fact that the Rifle will drop a guy no matter where you hit him, severing arms and legs on the spot. In fact, the violence in general is more grisly than it could have easily been, which is commendable. You blow actual holes in monsters instead of knocking down ragdolls, and using your TMD to reduce targets to bone dust or placental juice is pretty cool the first few times you do it. Unfortunately the TMD system in general doesn't make for good combat compared to the guns. In Bioshock, the Plasmid system had the same problem as the weapon system; you had too many choices where only a couple were really necessary to handle the game. In Singularity, the gun balance is better since you can't carry an armory on your back, but the TMD powers are kind of clunky and unreliable in any fight I was in that consisted of more than two or three enemies. Maybe it was because I was more predisposed to basic shooter survival skills, trusting my guns over anything else. But any instance where I used my TMD for too long over raw firepower left me with damages I wouldn't have received otherwise.
Other things than bothered me...hmm. Okay, this is a BIG one. Well, unlike Bioshock, the illusion of non-linearity doesn't even factor in. No, the game is very...rigidly linear. Progressing a few rooms ahead will mean that a door behind you will close and you won't be able to go back. Exploration is kept to an absolute minimum. The game seems to want to compel you forward at every possible instance, as if standing around or daring to explore is the worst idea you could have. Wreckage and other restrictive barriers prevent you from moving beyond your immediate set pieces. This is a very tragic decision, I'm afraid, and more than anything else this limited the enjoyed of Singularity for me. Say what you will, but Bioshock can't be accused of grabbing the player's arm when they want to go off and look around and scolding, "Whoa whoa, not so fast sport!" Even the ingame NPCs are annoying because of this. Whenever I'd meet any of them, they would quickly dump any information they had to share on me and then hurry me out of the room while I looked around for items. Seriously, I would be searching a room for stuff and they would stand by the exit they wanted me to go to and repeat over and over again that I should wrap it up and get my ass moving. I'm not a fan of this rushed pacing, especially in shooters. Let me look around, dammit!
And lastly...just like Dead Space, the infuriating appearance of Small-Monster-Cheapness-Syndrome showed up to piss me off. If I can fight hordes of military trained soldiers and giant monsters, than surely a small group of little piss ant pests shouldn't be able to kill me in seconds do to the fault of clunky/slow movement limitations? I guess not.
Overall, it was a fun Uengine game. Not very original, sure, and too influenced by Bioshock for its own good. But a palpable rental.
It's impossible to talk about this game without mentioning Bioshock, as Singularity follows that format to a fault. The levels and art design look surprisingly similar to the decor and style of much of Rapture. Gameplay elements, such as the 'two-handed' attack system used in Bioshock appears (the first iteration of this that I ever experienced dates back to Undying, and to this day I still prefer how Undying did it best), as do the popular Inventory Vending/Purchase spots. Lots of games have been doing this; merging the ___Shock purchase system into their own game design. Dead Space did this with work benches and its own upgrade spots (using nodes and a obligatory cash system). Singularity does it similar. E99 Tech replaces Adam and Weapon Upgrade kits replace Nodes. Of course, an explanation for all these vending spots popping up on an abandoned Russian island swarming with phase-shifting zombies is provided. They all have explanations, don't they? Unfortunately it seems that only Bioshock had a good reason. In Singularity you find out, quite bluntly from a found letter, that a particular character has purposely been scattering upgrade venders and E99 pickups all over the island. Why you ask? Well, to help you. Well, then why bother making me find all these schematics, weapon kits, and E99 loot? Why not just have it all at that hideout we meet at somewhere in the early-middle of the game? Unlike Bioshock, the reason for this system showing up in relation to the plot seems kind of arbitrary.
Forget it
The Bioshock influence reveals itself in just about every facet of the game. The water effects are just as beautiful, and just like Rapture the team here wastes no opportunity to make it rain or have a pipe leaking. Aside from the outdoor segments and the obvious lack of six-inch glass barriers between you and the ocean, it's really hard to shake the Bioshock feel in much of the levels. Even a lot of the scientific machinery reminds me of that steam punk tank/valve/rivet look. There are audio logs, which are found just as randomly and used the same way as Bioshock's logs. There are the scrolls on the wall, the 50s style propaganda videos (Russian styled of course, but the artist looks to be the same guy who did all the cartoons from Bioshock...which in turn looks to be the same guy who did all the cartoons from Fallout), the parts of your environment that must react to your plasmid...er, TMD skills. Heck, you even see the "ghosts" you saw from Bioshock, reenacting scenes from a distant past as you walk amongst the refuse of the present. Even the HUD follows similar rules. Your health meter can be replenished using a collection of medkits on the fly, as can your TMD using E99 vials (ala Eve Hypos). Like Bioshock, you can use your guns or your left handed attacks, but not at the same time. But the biggest thing? The whole narrative flow of the game is Bioshock. I don't mean the storyline, no. I mean the whole style the story is told. Tell me if this sounds familiar. You begin as a silent protagonist sitting down in an aircraft. Something happens and your aircraft goes down near water. You come to amongst the flaming wreckage and wander into a vacant environment, where you soon find hostile forces and your first weapons. There are secondary characters, complete with "plot twists" and moments of great reveal that seem to occur in a very dun Dun DUN! kinda way. The only real nuance the game does outside of the scope of ___Shock, or ___Shock minded games is that the environment and major enemies/characters are Russian...which of course makes Singularity like just about every other new shooter out right now. What is it with Russians lately? The Cold War ended twenty years ago. Even James Bond has moved on. Why can't you, Indiana Jones?
Where the game parts from all the Bioshock influence is with its gameplay. Don't get me wrong, you still do a great deal here that you also did in Bioshock. Using your TMD skills like you used Plasmids to clear obstacles and solve puzzles. Alternate your weapons/TMD in all combat situations. What Singularity does a little better is direct combat. First off, the enemy horde consists...shockingly...of more than one villain type. You'll fight various mutated beasts and former-humans that all look similar to the mutants of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s Chernobyl. Russian soldiers show up, in various timelines, to fight you. That brings up the coolest aspect of Singularity, I thought, is the time-jump in locations. Granted, I expected a little more after the great boasting the promotions did for the manipulation of time, but I always enjoy playing the same environment twice...both in the past and far removed future. The level design team did a great job with the environments in this regard. Walking around a ruined laboratory in the present, you'll find collapsed ceilings and walls/floors eroded by decades of rain water and exposure. Mummified corpses lay curled up under desks in a school and you'll have a hard time telling piles of rubble or leaves apart from dried of cadavers in the street. When you jump back to 1955 though (literally), you'll see these environments in a more sterile, clean way, where the events leading to the present are played out in real time, with you in the center of the fray. This is something Singularity else does that Bioshock didn't, as in Rapture...I always felt like I had missed the most interesting events.
Singularity employs the limited gun system a lot of shooters have adopted, though I found it strange that a pistol and a shotgun take up the same carry space as a rifle and a shotgun. Surely I couldn't have had a third cycle space for a handgun? No? Oh well, not every game can be F.E.A.R. I guess. The actual shooting is okay, though it was hard not to use any weapon but the Sniper Rifle for most of the soldier-vs-player situations, thanks to the time-slowing scope view and the fact that the Rifle will drop a guy no matter where you hit him, severing arms and legs on the spot. In fact, the violence in general is more grisly than it could have easily been, which is commendable. You blow actual holes in monsters instead of knocking down ragdolls, and using your TMD to reduce targets to bone dust or placental juice is pretty cool the first few times you do it. Unfortunately the TMD system in general doesn't make for good combat compared to the guns. In Bioshock, the Plasmid system had the same problem as the weapon system; you had too many choices where only a couple were really necessary to handle the game. In Singularity, the gun balance is better since you can't carry an armory on your back, but the TMD powers are kind of clunky and unreliable in any fight I was in that consisted of more than two or three enemies. Maybe it was because I was more predisposed to basic shooter survival skills, trusting my guns over anything else. But any instance where I used my TMD for too long over raw firepower left me with damages I wouldn't have received otherwise.
Other things than bothered me...hmm. Okay, this is a BIG one. Well, unlike Bioshock, the illusion of non-linearity doesn't even factor in. No, the game is very...rigidly linear. Progressing a few rooms ahead will mean that a door behind you will close and you won't be able to go back. Exploration is kept to an absolute minimum. The game seems to want to compel you forward at every possible instance, as if standing around or daring to explore is the worst idea you could have. Wreckage and other restrictive barriers prevent you from moving beyond your immediate set pieces. This is a very tragic decision, I'm afraid, and more than anything else this limited the enjoyed of Singularity for me. Say what you will, but Bioshock can't be accused of grabbing the player's arm when they want to go off and look around and scolding, "Whoa whoa, not so fast sport!" Even the ingame NPCs are annoying because of this. Whenever I'd meet any of them, they would quickly dump any information they had to share on me and then hurry me out of the room while I looked around for items. Seriously, I would be searching a room for stuff and they would stand by the exit they wanted me to go to and repeat over and over again that I should wrap it up and get my ass moving. I'm not a fan of this rushed pacing, especially in shooters. Let me look around, dammit!
And lastly...just like Dead Space, the infuriating appearance of Small-Monster-Cheapness-Syndrome showed up to piss me off. If I can fight hordes of military trained soldiers and giant monsters, than surely a small group of little piss ant pests shouldn't be able to kill me in seconds do to the fault of clunky/slow movement limitations? I guess not.
Overall, it was a fun Uengine game. Not very original, sure, and too influenced by Bioshock for its own good. But a palpable rental.
Mass Effect 2: 10/10
One of the best games I have played this year.
The levels were cool, and much better looking than ME 1. However, what had me hooked was the story and character interactions. Simply amazing!
One of the best games I have played this year.
The levels were cool, and much better looking than ME 1. However, what had me hooked was the story and character interactions. Simply amazing!
Alan Wake: 8/10
Great storytelling, atmosphere and overall game experience. Could have done with more enemy variety, waves of "zombies" got boring after the 2nd act. Fun gunfights though and the flashlight mechanic was well done. Lip-sync/facial animation was pretty bad. Onto the DLC. :tup:
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: 9/10
Excellent take on classic Tomb Raider gameplay. Suprising amount of polish and content for an XBLA title. Played through the coop mode which was great fun, the way it's meant to be played.
Starcraft 2: 7/10 (SP) 9/10 (MP)
The singleplayer campaign was predictable, but well put together. The scenes and interaction between missions on the ship were a good addition. Multiplayer is the best of any RTS I've played ('cept maybe WAR3 or Total Annihilation), but comes with a massive learning curve... or, well... its just hard as nails.
Red Dead Redemption: 6.5/10 so far
Still playing through this, haven't gotten far at all. Solid game but doesn't really drag me into it's world or storyline as much as I'd expected. The slowish pace puts me off too.
Great storytelling, atmosphere and overall game experience. Could have done with more enemy variety, waves of "zombies" got boring after the 2nd act. Fun gunfights though and the flashlight mechanic was well done. Lip-sync/facial animation was pretty bad. Onto the DLC. :tup:
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: 9/10
Excellent take on classic Tomb Raider gameplay. Suprising amount of polish and content for an XBLA title. Played through the coop mode which was great fun, the way it's meant to be played.
Starcraft 2: 7/10 (SP) 9/10 (MP)
The singleplayer campaign was predictable, but well put together. The scenes and interaction between missions on the ship were a good addition. Multiplayer is the best of any RTS I've played ('cept maybe WAR3 or Total Annihilation), but comes with a massive learning curve... or, well... its just hard as nails.
Red Dead Redemption: 6.5/10 so far
Still playing through this, haven't gotten far at all. Solid game but doesn't really drag me into it's world or storyline as much as I'd expected. The slowish pace puts me off too.
Last edited:
Secret of Mana (SNES emulator): 8/10
Man, seriously lots of nostalgia, but some of the game simply does not hold up. Maybe I've been conditioned too much, but I got lost once or twice on my way through this epic. The bosses are uber cheap though, which is something really sad, because it's such a great game from my childhood.
Secret of Evermore is next (again).
New one coming September 7th.
Man, seriously lots of nostalgia, but some of the game simply does not hold up. Maybe I've been conditioned too much, but I got lost once or twice on my way through this epic. The bosses are uber cheap though, which is something really sad, because it's such a great game from my childhood.
Secret of Evermore is next (again).
New one coming September 7th.
I like that game in some ways more than Secret of Mana. Loved the puzzles that involved poochy and your character. The atmosphere in each time period felt really natural.
Both games are awesome and I've played a crap load of times both on SNES and emulator. Have you played Seiken Densetsu 3?
Part of me likes Evermore better as well. There was just something magical about crossing between the different eras, though it is tough to get some of the spells in that game. I'm hoping on plenty of awesome though. (again)
I am not familiar with Seiken Densetsu in general. Would you recommend it if I love SoM and SoE?
Seiken Denetsu 3 is I believe Secret of Mana 2, but that gem was never released stateside so afaik it can only be found through emulator or if you are Japan people. And just to clear up confusion, the first Seiken Denetsu was the gameboy game Final Fantasy Adventure if I am not mistaken.