A zombie game set in a shopping mall, I wonder where they got that idea.... Zombies have pretty much been done to death now, Dead Rising however, was near the start of the zombie buzz. Released in 2006 and spawning many new additions, this is truly one of the great current game series around. You play as Frank West, a photo journalist who's covered wars y'know. Frank is dropped off at the mall and is determined to cover the zombie outbreak story and get it out to the world. Frank has three days to get his story, so he can make it out by getting picked up by his choppa buddy, Ed.
The game has a 'if you can pick it up, you can use it' approach, meaning whatever you can pick up can be used to kill zombies, benches, boxes, baseball bats, you name it! Things that don't start with a B can also be used too! Zombies aren't the only thing to fear, psychopaths are even worse. People who have gone crazy due to the outbreak, they often have survivors held captive, but they are hell-bent on killing you. The battles are often good, but always cheap, striking you while you're already down and taking plenty of health from one attack. You do feel like you've accomplished something when you take them down. You level up through the game and unlock new moves and such throughout, you can level up by bringing survivors back to the safe room and killing zombies of course. Otis, a mall security officer gives you your side missions and let's you know when there's a survivor or a psychopath around, he calls a lot and is really annoying, but you can't help but love the guy.
The game has multiple endings and will probably require a couple playthroughs too. After completing the main story, there's Overtime mode, which sort of extends the main story. You also get 5 day and 7 day survivor mode, which has you try and hold off for longer than the original 3 days. Plenty of extra modes to try once you're all done with the story. I was genuinely quite frightened by this game back in the day, maybe it was because I was pretty young, but I was always weary watching the cutscenes waiting for something bad to happen. I always panicked when I would run into a psychopath. Sadly, future DR games never had me feel the same way, infact they tamed the games down way more. If you killed Adam the clown, you'll know how violent this game was. The psychopaths are great though, they're memorable and very disturbing to watch in the cutscenes, a lot of their death scenes are so brutal to watch too. As well as a chainsaw wielding clown, you have a raincoat cult and convicts driving around in a car with a gun turret.
The map is a decent size, numerous places to go and a whole bunch of shops to explore. Likeable characters and a great performance from Frank West, most of the other characters weren't portrayed as well. A good story that actually has a good zombie outbreak, most zombie related outbreaks are just contaminated food products or some virus got out. An unclear ending though, if you complete overtime mode if you ask me.
This is one of the most frustrating games I've ever played, yes the boss battles are cheap and annoying, but nothing comes close to the dumb AI survivors. You'd think they don't want you to save them. Sometimes when calling them they just stop and you have to call them again to get them moving. You can give them weapons but they're more likely to hit you than zombies. They'll walk in front of you as you're about to clobber a zombie, you'll clear a path for them but they'll run up to the one zombie you missed and there could only be one around and they could get grabbed by it, meaning you have to go back to them to smack the zombie off them.
The game is old and with that comes poor controls, how I longed for aiming and shooting with LT/RT, instead we had aim with RT, fire with X, disgusting right? Only one save, if you screwed up and left yourself with no time to get to the next case mission, you done fucked it up, buddy! Also, manually saving by having to find a bathroom, the amount of times I would die and have to go so far back was depressing, I'm used to autosave, we really do take that guy for granted. Dialogue only exists in cutscenes, when you get a call from Otis, it shows up in a damn text box, nothing makes good gameplay by trying to read a phone call with literally hundreds of zombies around you!
A nice touch was that some of the zombies you see are fallen survivors, they will look familiar as they were people you've came across, I thought that was a good small detail. You can drive vehicles and take out multiple zombies at once and you can even ride skateboards indoors to traverse more quickly. The photography is annoying at times but it's necessary to the game seeing as Frank's a photo journalist. The game has lots of hidden secrets that you most likely didn't even think of, you can blend food items together to create consumables that give off effects such as, running faster or invulnerability. The graphics were pretty good for the time but they come across as cartoony now. Being constantly grabbed by zombies as you try to get by is the worst, especially when you think there's enough distance to walk past, only for them to suddenly leap onto you. The game is funny and most importantly, fun. There's nothing like being dressed up as a woman and putting teddy bear masks on the zombies, actually makes the outbreak look less frightening when they all look like slow, friendly bears!
This game is "faaaaantastic". There's so much to do and so much to explore, you nev- *transceiver rings* - hang on. - *answers call* - GODAMMIT OTIS, WILL YOU STOP CALLING ME EVERY TWO MINUTES, I'M TRYNA REVIEW THE GAME.
Sorry about that, Dead Rising 4 is out later this year with a Christmassy trailer, I for one am looking forward to killing more zombies in hilarious ways with my good buddy, Frank.
8/10
Friday, 19 August 2016
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Homefront (Xbox 360)
'Home is where the war is'..... As long as it's not where this game is! Homefront released in 2011 and I remember how massive the hype was for this game, a hype I never got myself sucked into. I rented this game when it came out because I didn't think it'd be worth a purchase. The game is set in the near future, where North and South Korea unite and a war begins with the US. A war with the US you say? I'm shocked too!
You play as Jacobs who... who's... I'm not even sure. I'm some guy anyway, who has got some sort of military background. While on a bus being driven by Koreans, some geniuses come up with the escape plan to drive into the bus you're on to free you. You're the only survivor on the bus, gee, that was lucky! The Resistance, as they referred themselves, tell you that they read your file, you're really great and want you on their side... How did they get the file? How did they know Jacobs was on that bus and that route? Does Jacobs even want to be part of the Resistance? Surely he would've already signed up by then. The game is ridiculously short and has only seven forgettable missions, baring some sections. It has to be said, the Call of Duty esque intro is very memorable and brutal, you should probably witness it for yourself. The story is ok, but there are so many close calls and you survive every one of them, this includes falling off a bridge, falling out of a tower and even a white phosphorus mortar aimed on top of you, now that in itself is just laughable.
The shooting is probably the best part in the game, the M4 is outstanding. The Goliath is a really cool idea, getting to commandeer a vehicle that can target enemies and wipe out groups at a time is really handy, sadly there isn't much with the Goliath. The AI actually do kill, but they get in your way more than they help. If you're scavenging for ammo or looking for collectables, orders are barked at you to go somewhere and the dialogue is constantly repeated until you carry on the story. The Guerilla difficultly wasn't too hard but there were some challenging sections, definitely not for casual gamers. Did you notice how small the good section was and that it probably had more flaws mentioned than good?
This game has lots and lots of problems, incredibly slow loading textures and plenty pop in and out as you move. There was a vehicle that blocked the way and as I got close to it, it just completely disappeared and you could see the next area that the vehicle was meant to block. The game is really slow and clunky and the melee is crap, there is no reason to ever use it. It never even gave me an option to pick a difficulty when I started, I wanted to play on the hardest difficulty, but to do it, you have to change it in the options before you start the game. One of the most buggy games I've played, there's a part where you run across the street to hide from a tank, I ran right across an enemy, a foot away from me and he never saw me somehow! I was also hit in a section where there wasn't any enemies, but I lost health and was hit by a bullet. I couldn't shoot through a space because there was debris too close to it, yet I was shot while talking cover behind a plane for Christ sake! The game looks so bad at times I wasn't sure if it was a PS1 game, it's hard to believe it was released in 2011. Enemies would just walk past the AI to get to me and they would let them! One more thing that frustrated the Hell out of me, I got to the objective to end the mission but the new objective hadn't set and I was almost killed waiting for it and the worst part was that it's the hardest part of the game. You have to kill a bunch of enemies and GET TO DA CHOPPA (couldn't resist) but the enemies are infinite and on the hardest difficulty, it really was... well, difficult.
This part gets its own paragraph because it was so bad.... the characters. Oh my God, the characters. Are we supposed to like them? We're actually meant to care about them and they try and make you feel sad about a certain individual near the end, I couldn't give a shit about them! Connor is one of the worst characters I've ever seen in a game, he shouts everything and is always bossing you around, he's so unlikeable and even tells a hungry kid to go away. Fucking dick. Can't forget Jacobs, the guy you play as, no face or voice, he's just a silent protagonist who's meant to be great, but he doesn't do anything and has no story. Don't get me wrong, not all the characters are bad, Boone and Hopper are likeable.
I think most of the effort went into the multiplayer, I wasn't interested in it back when I rented it and by the time I played it again, the servers were gone due to THQ's closure. This game somehow managed to get a sequel, well, more of a reboot so I hear. I am willing to give it a chance, despite my hatred for this game I think it has potential with more focus on the characters and a longer story. However this was a disaster. Just before I go.... FUCK YOU CONNOR, I HATE YOU.
5.2/10
You play as Jacobs who... who's... I'm not even sure. I'm some guy anyway, who has got some sort of military background. While on a bus being driven by Koreans, some geniuses come up with the escape plan to drive into the bus you're on to free you. You're the only survivor on the bus, gee, that was lucky! The Resistance, as they referred themselves, tell you that they read your file, you're really great and want you on their side... How did they get the file? How did they know Jacobs was on that bus and that route? Does Jacobs even want to be part of the Resistance? Surely he would've already signed up by then. The game is ridiculously short and has only seven forgettable missions, baring some sections. It has to be said, the Call of Duty esque intro is very memorable and brutal, you should probably witness it for yourself. The story is ok, but there are so many close calls and you survive every one of them, this includes falling off a bridge, falling out of a tower and even a white phosphorus mortar aimed on top of you, now that in itself is just laughable.
The shooting is probably the best part in the game, the M4 is outstanding. The Goliath is a really cool idea, getting to commandeer a vehicle that can target enemies and wipe out groups at a time is really handy, sadly there isn't much with the Goliath. The AI actually do kill, but they get in your way more than they help. If you're scavenging for ammo or looking for collectables, orders are barked at you to go somewhere and the dialogue is constantly repeated until you carry on the story. The Guerilla difficultly wasn't too hard but there were some challenging sections, definitely not for casual gamers. Did you notice how small the good section was and that it probably had more flaws mentioned than good?
This game has lots and lots of problems, incredibly slow loading textures and plenty pop in and out as you move. There was a vehicle that blocked the way and as I got close to it, it just completely disappeared and you could see the next area that the vehicle was meant to block. The game is really slow and clunky and the melee is crap, there is no reason to ever use it. It never even gave me an option to pick a difficulty when I started, I wanted to play on the hardest difficulty, but to do it, you have to change it in the options before you start the game. One of the most buggy games I've played, there's a part where you run across the street to hide from a tank, I ran right across an enemy, a foot away from me and he never saw me somehow! I was also hit in a section where there wasn't any enemies, but I lost health and was hit by a bullet. I couldn't shoot through a space because there was debris too close to it, yet I was shot while talking cover behind a plane for Christ sake! The game looks so bad at times I wasn't sure if it was a PS1 game, it's hard to believe it was released in 2011. Enemies would just walk past the AI to get to me and they would let them! One more thing that frustrated the Hell out of me, I got to the objective to end the mission but the new objective hadn't set and I was almost killed waiting for it and the worst part was that it's the hardest part of the game. You have to kill a bunch of enemies and GET TO DA CHOPPA (couldn't resist) but the enemies are infinite and on the hardest difficulty, it really was... well, difficult.
This part gets its own paragraph because it was so bad.... the characters. Oh my God, the characters. Are we supposed to like them? We're actually meant to care about them and they try and make you feel sad about a certain individual near the end, I couldn't give a shit about them! Connor is one of the worst characters I've ever seen in a game, he shouts everything and is always bossing you around, he's so unlikeable and even tells a hungry kid to go away. Fucking dick. Can't forget Jacobs, the guy you play as, no face or voice, he's just a silent protagonist who's meant to be great, but he doesn't do anything and has no story. Don't get me wrong, not all the characters are bad, Boone and Hopper are likeable.
I think most of the effort went into the multiplayer, I wasn't interested in it back when I rented it and by the time I played it again, the servers were gone due to THQ's closure. This game somehow managed to get a sequel, well, more of a reboot so I hear. I am willing to give it a chance, despite my hatred for this game I think it has potential with more focus on the characters and a longer story. However this was a disaster. Just before I go.... FUCK YOU CONNOR, I HATE YOU.
5.2/10
Tuesday, 2 August 2016
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PS3)
Welcome to the start of the charismatic story of Nathan Drake. Released all the way back in 2007, it was one of the first big hits on the PS3. It's went on to spawn three more major releases and has continued into the PS4 era. Drake will be one of your favourite playable characters I can assure you, he's cool, he's funny and he's entertaining. I didn't get to play this game until late 2012, it was definitely worth the wait.
The game starts off straight in the middle of the ocean. Drake, accompanied by journalist Elena are lead to believe that Drake's relative, the great adventurer, Sir Francis Drake's body is buried at sea. Drake's old friend Sully, joins Drake in hunting for more of Francis Drake's treasures, with the help of his handbook filled with information and sketches that lead to treasures. Soon after, 'friends' of Sully's catch up to them, people who he owes money to. One suggestion of payment is Francis' treasure, it suddenly becomes a race to the finish, who will win?
The game has some great characters, the aforementioned Drake of course, but the side characters are really good too. Sully and Elena are good characters and all gel together. Each actor put in a stellar performance and they had great characters to play. The gameplay is really well done, it's fun to play and the climbing sections aren't frustrating, even when you fall. Thankfully, they're not too long so you don't feel you have to do a lot if you make a mistake. The shooting can be quite difficult, but once you get used to it, it's no problem.
There is a great variety of weapons, in case you ever get bored of using the same one. You can have a sidearm and a primary weapon, like a machine gun or shotgun equipped at all times. You also have grenades if you find them, Drake is also capable of knocking sense into enemies and by that, I mean he knocks them the fuck out!
The game flows chapter to chapter. You could climb up a ladder and as you walk forward a little, the new chapter triggers. The cutscenes are great, I always enjoyed watching them. The characters were so well done, it was a joy to watch. A lot of games have boring stories and cutscenes, but this certainly isn't one of those games. The conversations in between action sequences are fantastic, just the bond between the characters is entertaining to watch. Anyone who played The Last of Us would know how well Naughty Dog do this. The game has humour but it also has serious parts too, it's a nice combination.
The music is amazing, I love it! When the main theme plays at the end of the game, it fits perfectly and you realise how great this game is. The game has some good puzzles for you to work out, made easier with Sir Francis Drake's handbook, the only issue was that it didn't seem there were enough of them. The water effects look beautiful, Drake looks soaked after he's just came out of the water and it looks real, water, as well as hair I imagine are two of the hardest things for a developer to create. There's also some unique sections, there's driving and even driving a boat.
Like every review I do, there's bad things, there really aren't many here though. As in almost every game, there's texture issues, nothing too daunting of course. There is also an exploit you can use in cover, I did use it to my benefit, you can angle youself so that you have a great view of the enemy while aiming, even though you're clearly blocked by the cover, the bullets still hit. It justifies it a bit in that you can get hit too if you can see them, but it makes it much easier. The boat section was quite difficult on hard difficulty, it seemed better to stop and kill the enemies, rather than drive through like you're meant to do.
The hard difficulty was quite challenging, but that was mainly due to the difficult shooting. There is an even harder difficultly for expert gamers to use called 'Crushing'. I look forward to trying this difficultly and I'm now looking forward to replaying the rest of the trilogy and one day playing the fourth game. If you missed this game or don't own a PS3, now is the time to go back to it or even purchase yourself a PS because it's worth it! I envy you if you have yet to play them.
8.5/10
The game starts off straight in the middle of the ocean. Drake, accompanied by journalist Elena are lead to believe that Drake's relative, the great adventurer, Sir Francis Drake's body is buried at sea. Drake's old friend Sully, joins Drake in hunting for more of Francis Drake's treasures, with the help of his handbook filled with information and sketches that lead to treasures. Soon after, 'friends' of Sully's catch up to them, people who he owes money to. One suggestion of payment is Francis' treasure, it suddenly becomes a race to the finish, who will win?
The game has some great characters, the aforementioned Drake of course, but the side characters are really good too. Sully and Elena are good characters and all gel together. Each actor put in a stellar performance and they had great characters to play. The gameplay is really well done, it's fun to play and the climbing sections aren't frustrating, even when you fall. Thankfully, they're not too long so you don't feel you have to do a lot if you make a mistake. The shooting can be quite difficult, but once you get used to it, it's no problem.
There is a great variety of weapons, in case you ever get bored of using the same one. You can have a sidearm and a primary weapon, like a machine gun or shotgun equipped at all times. You also have grenades if you find them, Drake is also capable of knocking sense into enemies and by that, I mean he knocks them the fuck out!
The game flows chapter to chapter. You could climb up a ladder and as you walk forward a little, the new chapter triggers. The cutscenes are great, I always enjoyed watching them. The characters were so well done, it was a joy to watch. A lot of games have boring stories and cutscenes, but this certainly isn't one of those games. The conversations in between action sequences are fantastic, just the bond between the characters is entertaining to watch. Anyone who played The Last of Us would know how well Naughty Dog do this. The game has humour but it also has serious parts too, it's a nice combination.
The music is amazing, I love it! When the main theme plays at the end of the game, it fits perfectly and you realise how great this game is. The game has some good puzzles for you to work out, made easier with Sir Francis Drake's handbook, the only issue was that it didn't seem there were enough of them. The water effects look beautiful, Drake looks soaked after he's just came out of the water and it looks real, water, as well as hair I imagine are two of the hardest things for a developer to create. There's also some unique sections, there's driving and even driving a boat.
Like every review I do, there's bad things, there really aren't many here though. As in almost every game, there's texture issues, nothing too daunting of course. There is also an exploit you can use in cover, I did use it to my benefit, you can angle youself so that you have a great view of the enemy while aiming, even though you're clearly blocked by the cover, the bullets still hit. It justifies it a bit in that you can get hit too if you can see them, but it makes it much easier. The boat section was quite difficult on hard difficulty, it seemed better to stop and kill the enemies, rather than drive through like you're meant to do.
The hard difficulty was quite challenging, but that was mainly due to the difficult shooting. There is an even harder difficultly for expert gamers to use called 'Crushing'. I look forward to trying this difficultly and I'm now looking forward to replaying the rest of the trilogy and one day playing the fourth game. If you missed this game or don't own a PS3, now is the time to go back to it or even purchase yourself a PS because it's worth it! I envy you if you have yet to play them.
8.5/10
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