Splinter Cell: Conviction is the fifth game in the Splinter Cell franchise, sixth if you include the PSP game; Splinter Cell: Essentials. It was released back in 2010, I originally picked it up within a week of its release as an impulse buy and I really enjoyed it. Splinter Cell: Double Agent was the first in the series that I had played, but I consider Conviction the first one as with Double Agent I played it in parts with a friend, whereas Conviction I played all the way through.
I have a lot of good things to say about this game, they really packed this game with content, there's a story, a co-op story and four different game modes you can play alone or with a friend. I played through the story back in 2010, but having matured as a gamer, I decided to play through on realistic, which is the highest difficulty. It wasn't too difficult, but that's mainly because it's a stealth game and you're able to sneak through most areas with little problems. The story is around eleven missions so it's not too long and seems a good length, as you don't won't it to drag and get boring. The co-op story is four reasonably sized missions and it's very fun to play with a friend, as you work together to get through each section as best you can. The hunter mode is very stealth based, you have to get through each area and if you get caught more enemies spawn. You want to take this slow so you don't have to fight a lot of enemies. Last stand is a wave mode, killing a bunch of enemies in each area. Face off is a fun mode as you battle your friend to earn the most kills and if you're able to take out your partner you take their score and add it to yours. Infiltration mode is similar to hunter mode but if you are caught it is an instant fail, rather than spawning more enemies.
The story follows on from Double Agent as Sam Fisher tries to find out the truth about his daughter. I liked the story and really wanted to find out how it ended. The voice acting is really good and Michael Ironside who plays Sam Fisher was excellent. The gameplay is brilliant and the mechanics in the game work so well. The graphics are OK, certainly nothing special but the hair on the characters looks painted on, it doesn't look real at all. The game turns black and white when you're in shadows and can't be seen, this is great as it makes you feel safe and you feel vulnerable when out in the open. The stealth in this game is definitely one of the best I've played, sneaking around and using cover then taking them out is very satisfying. I also love the way the game tells you your objectives, they're written in large letters on the walls of the game, it just looks great and works really well.
The controls are quite odd but they work in this game, but it was confusing aiming in with the right analog rather than LT. Turning off light switches and shooting out lights is your best way of cover, which is a unique cover system. The shoot outs can be quite difficult as enemies can take a few bullets and lining up head shots can be difficult under pressure, but it's good because it makes you play stealthily. Unlike many games you can shoot through small gaps and gates as most games just show the bullet hitting the gate etc. Probably my favourite thing in the game is the mark and execute, where you mark two or more targets and then execute them, it's sort of like getting kills hassle free, provided they're in range and you can only get executions by meleeing enemies. When you get seen there is a 'last known' position, which is a ghost-like Sam Fisher, where the enemies last spotted you and investigate that position, even though you could have fled the area. The Interrogations are also great when you grab enemies and beat information out them, it's great to see the animations of Sam slamming heads into walls in exchange for what he wants to know.
Marking the enemies can be frustrating as if you mark the same target, it removes the mark, so trying to mark enemies in a group can result in you accidentally unmarking them. Not being able to move bodies and hide them seems odd for a stealth game and in missions where you faced the police and couldn't kill them, it seemed weird that you didn't have any non-lethal weapons like a stun gun to take them out. Having so much to interact with was also sometimes difficult as it was always done with the A button, so if a door and a light switch were next to each other, you may keep opening/closing the door and switching the light on and off. I had this problem in co-op as we had to extract in a helicopter to end the mission, but there was a rail you could vault over, this ended up in us failing as we couldn't get on the helicopter and would keep vaulting over as enemies came after us. I think cutscenes would've been better placed as conversations took place, instead of the characters talking in game, this led to awkwardly trying to move the camera around to see the person who was talking. There were also some bugs in the game which were absent my first time around, one which included Sam floating in the air as it tried to trigger an animation for an Interrogation I started.
I think this game is great, a few of the issues I had were also resolved in the following game Splinter Cell: Blacklist. There's currently no news on a new SC, but it's certainly on the top of my wishlist as I really am enjoying them. I think a lot of effort went into this game and I think the co-op shows it because the areas you traverse are big and well designed rather than small, quick missions. Keep them coming Ubisoft.
7.9/10
Thursday 28 April 2016
Thursday 21 April 2016
Saw The Video Game (Xbox 360)
First off, I must say that I have never seen any of the movies. Strange I know, seeing as I'm about to review the game but, here we go!
The game was released in 2009 which I got that corresponding Christmas, as I thought it fitted in with the Christmas spirit, obviously. It starts straight off with you in a reverse bear trap you have to quickly remove, before it times out and kills you. You are instantly thrown into the fear and intensity of the Saw franchise. You play as Detective Tapp, who I believe is a character from the film series. You get the idea that the environment isn't safe when you find out there are booby traps everywhere. This keeps you alert and on your toes, making you worried about opening a door incase you were greeted by a shotgun trap.
The story is interesting as every victim the Jigsaw Killer has captured, is someone that relates to Tapp, whether it's someone Tapp has questioned while trying to find Jigsaw or someone he has wronged in their eyes. It all seems to link together, Tapp has been trying to capture the Jigsaw Killer and in the process his partner, Detective Sing was killed.
The graphics are pretty poor as the characters look very cartoony and there's a number of texture problems and these are even visible in the cut scenes. I wasn't a big fan of the camera angle; third person, over the shoulder. It makes for awkward movement and vulnerability as you have to turn all the way around to see behind you. There is also some glitchy-ness, when you close doors and enemies run up to then their hands start showing through the doors and the worst thing that happened in the game, was when going through a trap, I glitched under the map and was killed. Thankfully it only happened once.
The combat in the game is by far the worst I've experienced, it's slow and clunky. Sometimes I couldn't even swing my weapon and would just get constantly hit by the other enemies and I'd be killed. The executions were awful, as an enemy was on the floor and you'd keep hitting them, they were just still as if you weren't actually hitting them at all.
Some of the minigames were enjoyable like the lock picking, linking up the three symbols and opening locked cabinets pressing the right buttons as they spin around and time it correctly. There's also a bunch of case files and patient files you can find and read, these are probably great collectables to a fan of the franchise with their links to the movies and characters.
The game did have a sequel released in the following year, but I'm not yet sold on whether I want to play it after the first game. Maybe I'll try the movies...
3.2/10
The game was released in 2009 which I got that corresponding Christmas, as I thought it fitted in with the Christmas spirit, obviously. It starts straight off with you in a reverse bear trap you have to quickly remove, before it times out and kills you. You are instantly thrown into the fear and intensity of the Saw franchise. You play as Detective Tapp, who I believe is a character from the film series. You get the idea that the environment isn't safe when you find out there are booby traps everywhere. This keeps you alert and on your toes, making you worried about opening a door incase you were greeted by a shotgun trap.
The story is interesting as every victim the Jigsaw Killer has captured, is someone that relates to Tapp, whether it's someone Tapp has questioned while trying to find Jigsaw or someone he has wronged in their eyes. It all seems to link together, Tapp has been trying to capture the Jigsaw Killer and in the process his partner, Detective Sing was killed.
The graphics are pretty poor as the characters look very cartoony and there's a number of texture problems and these are even visible in the cut scenes. I wasn't a big fan of the camera angle; third person, over the shoulder. It makes for awkward movement and vulnerability as you have to turn all the way around to see behind you. There is also some glitchy-ness, when you close doors and enemies run up to then their hands start showing through the doors and the worst thing that happened in the game, was when going through a trap, I glitched under the map and was killed. Thankfully it only happened once.
The combat in the game is by far the worst I've experienced, it's slow and clunky. Sometimes I couldn't even swing my weapon and would just get constantly hit by the other enemies and I'd be killed. The executions were awful, as an enemy was on the floor and you'd keep hitting them, they were just still as if you weren't actually hitting them at all.
Some of the minigames were enjoyable like the lock picking, linking up the three symbols and opening locked cabinets pressing the right buttons as they spin around and time it correctly. There's also a bunch of case files and patient files you can find and read, these are probably great collectables to a fan of the franchise with their links to the movies and characters.
The game did have a sequel released in the following year, but I'm not yet sold on whether I want to play it after the first game. Maybe I'll try the movies...
3.2/10
Wednesday 20 April 2016
Army of Two: The 40th Day (Xbox 360)
The 40th day was released in 2010 and is the second game in the Army of Two series. I had originally rented it when it came out and played all the way through the game on my own, this is definitely not how these games are meant to be played. I did however, play through the game again this year with a friend and on the hardest difficulty. This makes the game much more fun and more of a challenge.
This game flourishes in co-op. As you're playing with a human partner, you can communicate and play as a pair, rather than hope the AI would work well with you. This game has decisions you have to make and the game heavily focuses on morality. Whatever decision you pick, it shows the outcome in the form of a comic book story. You can instantly regret the decision after seeing the outcome which engages you and really makes you think about the choices you're about to make. If you're playing with a partner, whoever picks first will make the decision and it'll stick, even if you didn't agree, so it can even cause friction with your partner if you can't agree on a decision.
This game has a lot of great features and most of them are co-op features. There's the back to back were you and your partner spin around killing any enemies in the vicinity. You can pick up shields or even rip off small doors and use them as shields that you and your partner can use as movable cover. There's co-op snipe were you and your partner mark targets and mock surrender were you pretend to surrender to the enemies, pull out your gun and catch them by surprise. You can even flip over tables for extra cover.
The customization is great, you can pick your weapons attachments and camouflages, you can pick your characters mask too. If enemies are behind weak covers like wood, you can shoot through making it seem more real. When you sneak up on enemies, you can take them hostage and tie them up avoiding a firefight. You can also save hostages the enemies have taken, adding to the morality and making you decide whether you will save them.
If your partner goes down, they aren't actually killed as you can revive them. It can be quite slow though, as there's an animation of your partner grabbing them and turning them around, so it can be difficult to revive eachother on hard difficulties. You can whip out your pistol and shoot enemies while you're down and also your partner can drag you around while you're down to get you behind cover if you were out in the open. When you get close to death you can 'feign death', which makes you play dead, so enemies ignore you and it gives you a chance to recover and then spring up to action. There's also some tough enemies that are kinda like mini bosses and they take some time to kill, these are the big guys with miniguns or grenade launchers, these oppose quite a challenge.
The story is set in Shangai, but the story is nothing special. It's pretty forgettable once it's finished, depending on your final decision I guess. The story is pretty dark, innocent people, animals and even children are killed, this is a pretty mature game. The game's hard difficulty is quite challenging, even with a human partner, but the main problem was that there was so many enemies, it just felt like the difficulty was set to 'Enemy spam' rather than hard. The enemy spawns were also a pain, as you would be attacking enemies and then all of a sudden they spawn around you and you die and go back to the previous checkpoint.
Overall I enjoyed the game and thought the gameplay was great! I loved all the small features in the game like making your own shield and was a great game to play cooperatively.
6.7/10
This game flourishes in co-op. As you're playing with a human partner, you can communicate and play as a pair, rather than hope the AI would work well with you. This game has decisions you have to make and the game heavily focuses on morality. Whatever decision you pick, it shows the outcome in the form of a comic book story. You can instantly regret the decision after seeing the outcome which engages you and really makes you think about the choices you're about to make. If you're playing with a partner, whoever picks first will make the decision and it'll stick, even if you didn't agree, so it can even cause friction with your partner if you can't agree on a decision.
This game has a lot of great features and most of them are co-op features. There's the back to back were you and your partner spin around killing any enemies in the vicinity. You can pick up shields or even rip off small doors and use them as shields that you and your partner can use as movable cover. There's co-op snipe were you and your partner mark targets and mock surrender were you pretend to surrender to the enemies, pull out your gun and catch them by surprise. You can even flip over tables for extra cover.
The customization is great, you can pick your weapons attachments and camouflages, you can pick your characters mask too. If enemies are behind weak covers like wood, you can shoot through making it seem more real. When you sneak up on enemies, you can take them hostage and tie them up avoiding a firefight. You can also save hostages the enemies have taken, adding to the morality and making you decide whether you will save them.
If your partner goes down, they aren't actually killed as you can revive them. It can be quite slow though, as there's an animation of your partner grabbing them and turning them around, so it can be difficult to revive eachother on hard difficulties. You can whip out your pistol and shoot enemies while you're down and also your partner can drag you around while you're down to get you behind cover if you were out in the open. When you get close to death you can 'feign death', which makes you play dead, so enemies ignore you and it gives you a chance to recover and then spring up to action. There's also some tough enemies that are kinda like mini bosses and they take some time to kill, these are the big guys with miniguns or grenade launchers, these oppose quite a challenge.
The story is set in Shangai, but the story is nothing special. It's pretty forgettable once it's finished, depending on your final decision I guess. The story is pretty dark, innocent people, animals and even children are killed, this is a pretty mature game. The game's hard difficulty is quite challenging, even with a human partner, but the main problem was that there was so many enemies, it just felt like the difficulty was set to 'Enemy spam' rather than hard. The enemy spawns were also a pain, as you would be attacking enemies and then all of a sudden they spawn around you and you die and go back to the previous checkpoint.
Overall I enjoyed the game and thought the gameplay was great! I loved all the small features in the game like making your own shield and was a great game to play cooperatively.
6.7/10
Friday 15 April 2016
Medal of Honor: Warfighter (Xbox 360)
It's hard to believe this series was once a big name in the FPS genre, especially with the popularity of Call of Duty and Battlefield. The series was rebooted in 2010 and this is the sequel released in 2012. The series is currently on hold and in limbo whether it'll ever be back and it's really not hard to see why after playing this.
I'll start with the good, seeing as it's shorter. Requesting ammo off your allies is a handy feature as it's always nice to have ammo, but it does give a feel of unlimited ammo making it easier. In the story there are some unique sections which make the game a bit different and not just a FPS, including some driving although it can drag, the breach sections are also quite fun as you can unlock all different ways to breach the door. The leaning out of cover is probably the best thing in the game, it's very useful and works great to pick off enemies and not take hits. Another good thing about this game is that you are not a 'one man army', most war games have you do everything alone. Crazy I know, but they do! In this game you are 95% of the time with other soldiers, so it gives the feel that you actually are a soldier.
That's pretty much it for the good and now onto the bad, this could take a while. First thing's first, it's very clear the game was rushed. The graphics are very poor for a game released in 2012. The texturing is the worst texturing I've ever seen, it's awful. When you boot the game up it asks if you would like to install a 1.7GB download for HD textures... No, because it should already have good texturing in the fucking game! Plus I had no room to install it and it certainly wasn't worth deleting something to make room for. Bugs. Bugs every where, how they released this game that is 99% full of bugs is beyond me. Faces sinking into the floor, trees collapsing then disappearing as they fell, a silencer attachment on a gun was just floating in front of a teammates weapon and a guy's beard was see through.. I could see the environment through his beard hanging off his chin as we flew past in a helicopter. In the breaches if you don't aim down the sights and shoot their head they won't die, three times I shot a guy in the head and he survived, I died because I didn't kill the three other enemies after being so annoyed I just wanted to kill the guy I shot three times in the head. There is plenty of awful lip syncing. Picking up enemy weapons is pointless as you practically have unlimited ammo, but if you switch weapon after picking an enemy one up, it automatically drops the weapon and you'd have to go pick it up again if you wanted it. There was a part were you were going through a flooded building and it didn't look like water, it just looked like the bottom of the environment was cut off, it was just a black floor halfway up the walls. The AI is dumb, they just barge you out the way if you're in their path, you can die with them pushing you out of cover. A teammate ran in front of me as I through a grenade which got me killed. There was an invisible wall in a bunch of trees despite enemies being in front of it and you being behind it. When blowing up explosive barrels, enemies didn't die and sometimes they did, there was no distance of the barrels explosion radius. Sometimes if you were near cover then started to shoot, you could see the impact of your bullets as if you were shooting at a wall despite aiming in an open space. There was also a point were I saw the enemies spawn and what was probably the worst thing in the game was having to force the enemies to spawn, sometimes you would have to get close to the spawn for them to show up which often resulted in an instant death. When a solider spray paints something on the floor, when I moved back and forth I could see the paint disappearing and appearing as I moved. Another point was when it was smokey you could see fine, but then when you aimed down the sights, it just went white and then back to normal when you weren't aiming. On one mission you have to save hostages and their health was just going down, even though no one was shooting at them and they weren't injured, their health was just randomly dwindling. The menus were also annoying, if you paused the game and pressed B it wouldn't exit back to the game, you had to press close and they were also big but all the options were squeezed at the top and bottom and weren't shown in a list which would've been easier to manipulate. And finally, the hard difficulty was too easy and not challenging at all. But there are harder modes which I have yet to try but I don't think I'm going to bother. See? I told you it'd be long.
There's also the multiplayer, which was pretty much dead by the time I got to it. I'm glad though as it meant I could get off the game. I imagine it wasn't too bad and probably were most of the effort went into the game, I did enjoy Medal of Honor's (2010) online however. The game is pretty much pointless, not much effort went into this game at all and it shows. Another bland storyline with characters you don't really care about. It is without a doubt the worst FPS I've played all the way through. As a fan of games, I hope Medal of Honor does come back and redeems itself and once again be a high profile series. Rant over.
4.2/10
I'll start with the good, seeing as it's shorter. Requesting ammo off your allies is a handy feature as it's always nice to have ammo, but it does give a feel of unlimited ammo making it easier. In the story there are some unique sections which make the game a bit different and not just a FPS, including some driving although it can drag, the breach sections are also quite fun as you can unlock all different ways to breach the door. The leaning out of cover is probably the best thing in the game, it's very useful and works great to pick off enemies and not take hits. Another good thing about this game is that you are not a 'one man army', most war games have you do everything alone. Crazy I know, but they do! In this game you are 95% of the time with other soldiers, so it gives the feel that you actually are a soldier.
That's pretty much it for the good and now onto the bad, this could take a while. First thing's first, it's very clear the game was rushed. The graphics are very poor for a game released in 2012. The texturing is the worst texturing I've ever seen, it's awful. When you boot the game up it asks if you would like to install a 1.7GB download for HD textures... No, because it should already have good texturing in the fucking game! Plus I had no room to install it and it certainly wasn't worth deleting something to make room for. Bugs. Bugs every where, how they released this game that is 99% full of bugs is beyond me. Faces sinking into the floor, trees collapsing then disappearing as they fell, a silencer attachment on a gun was just floating in front of a teammates weapon and a guy's beard was see through.. I could see the environment through his beard hanging off his chin as we flew past in a helicopter. In the breaches if you don't aim down the sights and shoot their head they won't die, three times I shot a guy in the head and he survived, I died because I didn't kill the three other enemies after being so annoyed I just wanted to kill the guy I shot three times in the head. There is plenty of awful lip syncing. Picking up enemy weapons is pointless as you practically have unlimited ammo, but if you switch weapon after picking an enemy one up, it automatically drops the weapon and you'd have to go pick it up again if you wanted it. There was a part were you were going through a flooded building and it didn't look like water, it just looked like the bottom of the environment was cut off, it was just a black floor halfway up the walls. The AI is dumb, they just barge you out the way if you're in their path, you can die with them pushing you out of cover. A teammate ran in front of me as I through a grenade which got me killed. There was an invisible wall in a bunch of trees despite enemies being in front of it and you being behind it. When blowing up explosive barrels, enemies didn't die and sometimes they did, there was no distance of the barrels explosion radius. Sometimes if you were near cover then started to shoot, you could see the impact of your bullets as if you were shooting at a wall despite aiming in an open space. There was also a point were I saw the enemies spawn and what was probably the worst thing in the game was having to force the enemies to spawn, sometimes you would have to get close to the spawn for them to show up which often resulted in an instant death. When a solider spray paints something on the floor, when I moved back and forth I could see the paint disappearing and appearing as I moved. Another point was when it was smokey you could see fine, but then when you aimed down the sights, it just went white and then back to normal when you weren't aiming. On one mission you have to save hostages and their health was just going down, even though no one was shooting at them and they weren't injured, their health was just randomly dwindling. The menus were also annoying, if you paused the game and pressed B it wouldn't exit back to the game, you had to press close and they were also big but all the options were squeezed at the top and bottom and weren't shown in a list which would've been easier to manipulate. And finally, the hard difficulty was too easy and not challenging at all. But there are harder modes which I have yet to try but I don't think I'm going to bother. See? I told you it'd be long.
There's also the multiplayer, which was pretty much dead by the time I got to it. I'm glad though as it meant I could get off the game. I imagine it wasn't too bad and probably were most of the effort went into the game, I did enjoy Medal of Honor's (2010) online however. The game is pretty much pointless, not much effort went into this game at all and it shows. Another bland storyline with characters you don't really care about. It is without a doubt the worst FPS I've played all the way through. As a fan of games, I hope Medal of Honor does come back and redeems itself and once again be a high profile series. Rant over.
4.2/10
Saturday 9 April 2016
Shadows of the Damned (Xbox 360)
Not a huge title, but certainly an interesting one. I never found out about this game until a few years after its release. To me it was a quiet release and quickly swept under the rug. I'm glad I gave this game a go, despite it being in 2016, almost 5 years after its release. The game follows Garcia Hotspur, (a pretty poorly voiced Mexican) travel to the Underworld to save his wife Paula from a demon called Fleming. Not much interest in the main characters although Fleming is quite a flamboyant villian that gives the game some character. Johnson, Hotspur's companion, a talking skull is by far the best character in the game as he brings flair and humour to the game. There was another great character called Christopher, who acted as the game's vendor, but he just wasn't involved enough. The game has quite an awkward aim when using guns, it can be quite tricky but gets easier the more you play. The game has unique weapons that are all different variations of pistols, machine guns and shotguns. The game isn't too difficult, nor are the boss fights. The real danger in the game is 'the Darkness', when it appears it slowly drains your life as you try to escape or shoot a goat's head, which provides light and removes the darkness. The graphics aren't ground breaking but are far from poor. The camera angle can be quite annoying and the awkward movement of Garcia can be hard to watch. However, the game does play fine, but bum rushing enemies can make it frustrating as you try to kill them. Reloading can be a pain also, as charging enemies will cause the animation to stop if they hit you or you have to dodge them, this was the most frustrating part for me, just trying to reload. An interesting addition was the light shot, it acted as a stun to the enemies and could be used with every gun and costs zero ammo. The melee attack seems pretty pointless and was only ever useful to bat the enemies away and give you some breathing space. The game had innuendos left, right and centre, although the game was quite funny, at times they could get annoying, even the weapons had names like 'The Hot Boner'. The best parts of the game for me were the conversations between Garcia and Johnson, they were both interesting towards the story and humorous. No surprise there was no sequel but definitely worth a playthrough.
6/10
6/10
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