Call of Duty Black Ops 2- Trailer/Leaked Info!

Yesterday, on May the 1st 2012, Treyarch released the official reveal trailer on the long anticipated Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. And, much to gamers’ surprise, it had a new unexpected campaign. It started off with Woods, who was thought to have died, talking and explaining how technology has become stronger over the many years, but people have become weaker, and were completely relying on their computers, drones, robots, missiles, and all other warfare devices that have been created to protect the people. But, then he asks an important question: What do we do when the enemies take over them? It then goes on to show how a huge battle is fought once again against their own technology to get everything back. It does look epic, but then again Modern Warfare 3’s trailer did to, but was it really? No. Being a big fan of Treyarch and not so much of Activision, I’ll still hope that Black Ops 2 will be as awesome as it looks like. I must admit though, it does sort of like a sci-fi game, more like Crysis style, meaning that the Call of Duty series are running out of ideas, and have already turned to futuristic shooters. Check it out for yourself, and tell me what you think in the comments. I’m not sure if I will buy it, but some of you guys might.

There’s also been some leaked info revealed on the official Call of Duty forums, but was later on removed by mods, meaning that the information was true and Treyarch/Activision doesn’t want people to know about it just in case it may lead them to think that the game will suck and they won’t be willing to buy it. But anyways, here’s some of that deleted info for you. This may be false info, but there is a 99.9% it is true.

Gamemodes:

– There will be a new gamemode called ‘Escort’, where there will be a V.I.P./president who will need to be escorted to a certain area of the map (there will be 2-3 areas depending on the map size), without getting killed. The enemy team will need to take him down. Seems like a fun idea. It will be slightly similar to ‘Search and Destroy’, so maybe the games were be more slow paces with no respawning, or maybe a limited  amount of rounds. Let’s hope there is a small time limit to keep it face-paced.

– Modern Warfare 3’s gamemodes called ‘Dropzone’ and ‘Kill Confirmed’ will be in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

– ‘Team Defender’ and ‘Infected’ will not be there.

Point Streaks/Killstreak:

– Bomb plant will be 2 points

– A Neutral flag is worth 1 point streak.

– Capturing an enemy flag is worth 2 points.

– A Flag assist capture is 1 point.

-The RC-XD will not be in Black Ops 2. This is a bit relaxing as I was constantly being killed by random toy cars. It was fun, but wasn’t when you were a victim of it.

– There will be a new Heat Vision killstreak reward. When you get enough kills, your player will put on an infrared scope on your primary gun, excluding shotguns. It will be able to see through some walls.

– Some kind of new care-package like killstreak, with 5  points needed but will include things such as ammo, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, a minigun, or body armor (hopefully only explosive resistant). The ammo in the new special killstreak might mean Scavenger will leave, but I certainly hope not.

Perks:

–  This is confusing, but the Specialist streak has been modified, and since it is not a point streak this is strange, but who knows- maybe it is in CoD 9.

– 2nd kill in Specialist gets you one (1) perk.

– 4th kill in Specialist will get you two (2) more perks.

– 6th kill will get you three (3) more perks.

– 8th kill will get you four (4) more perks.

– There will be a new perk called Speed which reduces the time it takes to ‘aim down the sight’.

– There are two versions a perk can upgrade to, each requiring its own challenges. Once one of them is unlocked, the player can select that as his/hers perk pro. Once selected, the only way to chose the other option is to prestige.

Ranks:

– There will be 15 prestiges, with 50 ranks in every prestige.

– Every 2 prestiges, there is a 5 rank increase. This means that in the last prestige, there will be 90 levels.

Removed:

– No M.O.A.Bs/Nukes.

– No Last Stand/Second Chance.

– No more death streaks.

– There is no longer a flamethrower attachment.

– Aim assist for sniper rifles will be gone. There will be less sway.

– Your character’s look won’t be based on the perks you chose (see below for more info)

– There won’t be any more grenade launchers in hardcore mode. Only vehicle guided rocket launchers will be allowed as well. No more camping noobs with RPGs. Awesome!

Combat training:

– It will return in Black Ops 2.

– Its difficulty is no longer based on how long the bots take to start shooting.

– Bots now have an advanced A.I. system.

Other:

– Your chracter’s look will be a combination of all perks/killstreaks.

– Elite will be returning as Elite 2.0. Combat recording has been changed/renamed as ‘Elite Stats’. Specific lobbies for clan matches to level up clans, and clan tournaments will now be there. Sweet!

– Hardcore mode is focused on a bit more, so it will be a tad bit better.

I typed this all myself for you guys. I hope you find it useful. Feel free to use it, but please credit my blog with a link to it. It would help. Thanks.

The Walking Dead: Episode One: A New Day

The Walking Dead Xbox 360 Arcade Cover Art.

When it comes to zombie games, they’re usually mainly focused on weapons, and less about survival. However, this new four dollar game took out the guns and left a perfect zombie game focused on survival, and harsh decisions you must choose in order to survive. Today, I’ll be writing a review on the new Xbox 360 Arcade game called “The Walking Dead: Episode One: A New Day”.

This game is based on the graphic novel ‘The Walking Dead’, and is probably the reason its graphics are so cartoonish. However, just because it is so doesn’t mean it makes it less scary. In full honesty, the zombies are actually more detailed and frightening, making close zombie calls more intense, and realistic despite that zombies don’t exist and never will. The plot also is a bit more realistic apart from other games such as Resident Evil. The game begins with you, a 37 year old man named Lee, in a police car about to be taken out of Atlanta, the city you reside, and into jail for an unknown crime. The police officer starts a lively conversation, in which you will notice that you have many options to chose from as answer. After talking, the cop gets so into the discussion that he doesn’t even notice someone dark, dirty, bloody, and creepy on the road. You only manage to yell to him when it’s to late, and he swerves off the road. You then wake up, and get out of the car and begin your long journey of survival, in which you meet many people and nasty zombies. Roughly five minutes after the game starts, you’ll be introduced to its creepiness and heart pounding moments.

One thing that sets this game apart from most other zombie games is its freedom of player choice. As soon as the game begins, the player gets to choose one out of the two options which will affect how the whole story plays. Throughout the game, you will also have many dialogue to chose from, which based on how you speak will affect characters’ affection to you, the way you’re accepted, and even how the story is told and what happens in it. There is also many situations in which you must chose from, each choice with its own ups and downs. This is a feature that really caught my eye and convinced me to buy this game.

No gun? What do I do?

Another great thing that I really liked is that this isn’t just a game of mindless shooting and running from zombies. There are dozens of moments which will cause you to sit in fear as you slowly carry out your actions and see what happens afterwards. The player will also be introduced to many puzzles needed to be solved in order to escape certain places, which raises the fun and tension in several situations. To make it harder for more challenged players, there is an option to disable hints. I haven’t tried it, but I suppose it can add to a challenge.

Speaking of tense situations, this game has many. Apart from there being critical choices to be made regarding someone’s life, there are also many close calls in which you have to manually fight back. The majority of modern games will just tell you to press a button and your character will do all the actions needed to take out, but The Walking Dead takes it to a whole new level. When you are attacked, you have to manually aim toward the zombie, slowly crawling up to you, which scares you and makes you panic as if you were truly being tackled by an undead soldier, and then press the correct button for you to attack. Not only that, but to even add to more pressure you’ll have to sometimes find something to fight back, making the critical moment even more frightening. Are you scared yet? If not, then congratulations! You’re braver then me.

Oh no. Not good.

However, there is one thing I do not really like about this game. It’s that a lot of it is cut scenes. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an awesome game, but it seems like you do to little and watch to much. If only you were allowed to do things yourself that they play in the cut scenes… But, that doesn’t really matter. It could also use multiplayer with game modes such as survival, but then again, that isn’t really necessary.

 

The Walking Dead: Episode one rating

With a mysterious storyline with many secrets and sad moments that you’ll uncover for yourself, a good eerie setting with many challenging puzzles and intense moments/surprises, AND with your own freedom to chose how the story will play, this game deserves 4 stars. ‘The Walking Dead: Episode One’ is extraordinary, it’s just that there are too many cut scenes. If you were allowed to play a bit more of the things in the game, than this would be a perfect game for every zombie fan.  This game is worth 400 Microsoft Points ($4), and I’ll be sure to buy all the other episodes when they come out (There will be five, this is the first).

The rage meter shows just how angry you can get with this game. The highlighted level is the one this game gets. Here are the levels:

Level 1) It’s all cool. I like this game. Not angry in the slightest bit.

Level 2) This is slightly annoying…

Level 3) It’s getting out of hand…

Level 4) OKAY… Starting to get angry..

Level 5) Excuse me while I go and smash everyone in my lobby’s console. $#@$@$#@$@$!!@#!!(~((!)

Gotham City Impostors

Multiplayer games are usually intense. They make you focus on winning and give your best shot at it and create lots of tension, but just because many games are like that didn’t stop Monolith Productions from creating a game that focused only on having fun- just forgetting about winning; only enjoying yourself in a first person shooter set in Gotham City with lots of funky new gadgets and weapons.

The game, as the name suggests, takes place in Gotham City and you play as a Joker/Batman wanna-be continuously battling against each other since Batman has decided to stop crime-fighting. Each team has their own base and ridiculous home-made costumes and weapons, which gives the player quite a strange but special selection of weapons to play his or her games. Apart from there being three multiplayer game-modes (two quite special), there is also singleplayer Challenges (Where you have over one hundred challenges to complete with different gadgets and objectives), and ‘Initiation’, where you are introduced to the game as one willing to join the Bats,  and they guide you in showing you how to use all the many gadgets, tools, and weapons the game has to offer.

Batman wanna-bes at their best!

Gotham City Impostors has five quite unusual maps with good graphics in multiplayer gaming fun with eight vs. eight player lobbies. You will see what I mean as soon as you play all the maps, which take place in iconic locations that ‘Batman’ or ‘Joker’ has something to do with, such as a carnival fair or a chemical factory. Spread throughout the map are things that make the gameplay even more unusual for a FPS including trampolines, or half pipes which, when with the appropriate tool, can take you around the map quite fast. There is also small little ‘health stations’, which heal the player when wounded  as the game plays with the good old fashioned percentage health.

Here you see a player armed with a regular shotgun in 'Fumigation'.

Gadgets and new different weapons are quite another jewel that Gotham City Impostors has to offer. Apart from there being funny looking standard weapons such as guns or rifles, there is also a selection of ‘home-made’ ones which are amazingly fun to play with. A great example is a weapon that uses sodas mixed with chemicals in a slingshot to create effective explosives. There’s also other weapons that have been made into not such serious ones, including grenades replaced with jack in the boxes and rocket launchers made of PVC Piping. Good other goodies include things such as the grappling hook (enables the player to shoot an anchor at a solid item and pull him or herself toward it), roller skates that let the player run faster and be able to ride on half pipes, or even glider wings which can be used to glide after jumping off of a high location.

Who doesn't like a funky Afro?

This game doesn’t only have great different features, it also has new styled regular game modes. Apart from there just being standard Team Death match, there is also ‘Psych Warfare‘, and ‘Fumigation‘. Each of these are based on the standard game modes, but have a new style of playing them.  In Psych Warfare, a capture the flag remake, you need to pick up a battery and go past enemy lines and turn it on. Then, you need to hold off foes until it fully charges. Once the battery is fully charged, your enemy will not be able to use weapons. However, in Fumigation (Domination style), there are three gas pumps that each need to be taken over by a team, and when this happens, the match ends with either the air filling with toxic gas (Jokerz) or Bats (Bats).

Customization is a big chunk, too. As all the first person shooters will let you customize your load out, this little game will let you customize your character look as well. This isn’t so important, but it’s a nice little add. The clothes and size of your character can be changed, which can play an important role in things such as I like to call them, ‘falcon punches’. This is actually an equipment that lets you hold your fists out while gliding and go full speed and hit someone with lots of damage.

Gotham City Impostors Rating

What do I think about this game? Well, only thing I know is that it’s a heck load of fun. No pressure, no worries- just ridiculous battles that can kill hours of your time. You can get Gotham City Impostors for only $15 in your console’s arcade section. Try the demo, it is one hour online and will show you just how fun the game it is. It takes a match or two to get used to, but once you have the hang of it get ready to have countless hours of fun. It deserves 5 stars.

New! The rage meter shows just how angry you can get with this game. The highlighted level is the one this game gets. Here are the levels:

Level 1) It’s all cool. I like this game. Not angry in the slightest bit.

Level 2) This is slightly annoying…

Level 3) It’s getting out of hand…

Level 4) OKAY… Starting to get angry..

Level 5) Excuse me while I go and smash everyone in my lobby’s console. $#@$@$#@$@$!!@#!!(~((!)

Need for Speed: Most Wanted

Hello guys. It has been quite a while since I last wrote a review, and I apologize for that. It’s not that easy to write reviews when you don’t have the time for it or just don’t really feel like creating one, but this time I have a valid excuse: I’ve been moving into a new home, which is alot of trouble. So I was very busy, but now I think I’m ready to write another review for you guys to enjoy. This time, it will be on a old racer ‘Need for Speed: Most Wanted’. Once again, I am sorry for your long wait.

This game is one of the older jewels that will never get old. I’ve been playing it for a while now and I must say, I’m enjoying it alot more than all the modern racers. This game was developed by EA and released in 2005, so it has slightly been forgotten. But after finding the old disc for it, I decided to give it a shot, and boy did I ever like it! This is a shining example of how old games aren’t always worse than newer ones.

Graphics don't really affect a great racing game!

Need for Speed: Most Wanted takes place in a setting of a virtual city ‘Rockport’, where you play as, as the name suggests, an illegal street racer. You challenge the leaders on the ‘Blacklist’ (top 15 most wanted racers) and eventually get into a final race which woulddecide who would get the first place throne. But unfortunately, your opponent, Razor, cheats and cuts out your oil, causing your car to turn off a few yards from the finish line. You then have to work your way back up on the blacklist in the game.

One thing I really like about this game is that it isn’t just all racing. Apart from just having to race your opponent and cross the finish line first like most of these games will force you to do, this game takes a break from that style. To beat a racer on the blacklist, you will have to do three things: one, race a couple of people in all different game types and win… Two: complete a certain amount of milestones (achievements you need to reach), and three: Gain enough bounty. After doing all this, you will be allowed to actually race your opponent and if you win you will beat him and carry on to the next racer on your list.  By winning, you also get two bonuses of your choices such as money, car parts, styles, or other small little goodies.

The three requirements to advance in the game are very fun to play through. My most favorite is probably the bounty, where you have to anger cops until it breaks out in a race, with more and more cops following you the longer you resist arrest. By doing things such as that, or breaking things along your way, your bounty will increase, which means more pressure but more fun as well. When cops become to larger in amount, there’s tons of ‘secret’ tunnels and roads to shake them off your back or even special things such as towers that collapse on them if you ride into them. Is this fun? Heck yeah. Getting bounty related achievements is usually one of the milestone’s objective, which often differ but nevertheless can be a great challenge.

Hot pursuits are fun... virtually!

And of course, the racing. The racing experience in this game is great. Sure, the graphics aren’t the best, but who cares? If graphics was all that made up a game it would suck pretty bad- but then again, that’s all Call of Duty is made of.. Anyways, back to the racing. Whatsets this game apart is its street like environment instead of boring old racetracks. There are many tunnels to ride through and second paths to choose, each with their own gates to bust and thus provides more choice for the player to ride on. This can be a great getaway from busy races with four people, or just a fun experience with only one. Instead of just one simple gamemode, there’s many different type you can choose from. My personal favorite is ‘tollbooth’, where you have to reach a tollbooth in a certain amount of time in order to proceed to the next. And of course, sometimes you’ll have some cops chasing you, which can be pretty intense but yet awesome- imagine four racers crashing through gates with cops following them. Do you like the idea? Well, then you’ll certainly like this racer. This game also has different rock/rap songs that plays throughout the game, which are pretty cool to listen to and fit the game style.

And if you want to take a break from the singleplayer, you could always race in multiplayer. I won’t go into detail into it because I haven’t really played it much, but from videos and other people’s opinions, it looks pretty good and will be another reason to add to the list of why you’ll enjoy this game.

An example race.

The cars you get can either be bought and then upgraded, or ‘taken’ from a racer by using a pink slip, a special marker you receive from beating someone on the blacklist. By earning money from winning races, you will be able to spend it on things such as new cars or upgrades for your vehicles in engines, look, and more to help you win more races. As you defeat blacklist racers, the shops will have more to offer for you. This is a familiar style in racing, but it’s only just
that part that is the same. To make up for that, here’s something that’s really cool in the game and makes it a bit funner to play: There’s rechargeable slow motion and turbo boost. Who doesn’t like that?

Need for Speed: Most Wanted Rating

Alright, time to review! Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a great racer that sets itself apart from others in its city environment with regular streets and alleyways as races. It has many new features such as boosts, slow motion, and many game modes. It can prove to be a great experience to play through, and it doesn’t have many glitches or bugs, only a few graphical ones so far. I think it deserves five stars. You can get it off of Amazon.com.

Rage meter] New! The rage meter shows just how angry you can get with this game. The highlighted level is the one this game gets. Here are the levels:

Level 1) It’s all cool. I like this game. Not angry in the slightest bit.

Level 2) This is slightly annoying…

Level 3) It’s getting out of hand…

Level 4) OKAY… Starting to get angry..

Level 5) Excuse me while I go and smash everyone in my lobby’s console. $#@$@$#@$@$!!@#!!(~((!)

We have a winner!

Alright guys, remember that 100 Microsoft Point code contest we hosted? Well, I finally decided to announce a winner. I’d like to personally say that I’m sorry for such a wait. I’ve been busy and the contest didn’t reach the minimal 5 people it needed to finish… I kept waiting for them, and now I’ve just decided that it’s enough of keeping you waiting. Sorry about that, and sorry about inactivity! I just moved into a new house last week and I didn’t have good internet available and was just busy- I might be so for a little longer, but hopefully tomorrow you’ll have a good new review. Thank you everyone for your continuous support. There will be more contests soon, so if you didn’t win check back daily and there just might be another contest! With all of that out of the way, congratulations to our winner picked through a random number generator:

 

ESM Kemist OFWG

The code was sent to his inbox. If he doesn’t claim it within 36 hours, it’s passed on to someone else… but I wouldn’t count to much on that. Please don’t unsubscribe if you didn’t win since if you do so your IP will be removed from future contests. We used  a reliable number generator that we tested many times. Also, I might get a Roxio and I will be able to record raw gameplay along with a review, so you will be able to see the in-game features without any disturbances such as voice or music. This is a possibility, but not a fact.

Blacklight: Tango Down

I thought I might switch from reviewing Indie Games and for once try out an arcade game. I browsed through the selection of games and picked a game that I could buy with a small budget of four hundred Microsoft Points. The game I chose, which looked pretty cool, was Blacklight: Tango Down. After playing it a little, I realized that it wasn’t at all what it looked like.

This game, for the cheap price of five dollars, offers players an experience with four player co-op missions as well as twelve multiplayer maps with up to sixteen players. It’s what you’d expect from a regular first person shooter. However, it did had some pretty neat things you could do in it that regular FPS wouldn’t have, such as sci-fi guns, UAV you can see in first person mode via your high tech war helmet, or even simply co-op campaign. The graphics in this game are great, too. Playing this game reminded me alot of Crysis 2, since this game was sent into a future world where things have gone ‘out of control’. Fallout reference? Not really, even though this game is two or three years old. So, at first glance this game seems to have it all. But, even though it has all of those gameplay options, just how good are they?

Cool graphics, guns, and everything! What's the catch?

First off, campaign. The ‘campaign’ is slightly different from most games since it can be played with up to four people. With a few lengthy missions, it can be a fun experience to play with other people., but as I said, it’s alot harder. Why? Because this game has extremely few checkpoints, and also doesn’t have regular FPS health. It has health that you’d expect from games such as old fashion Legend of Zelda. You start out with 175% health, and slowly after each shot you get fewer health permanently. Is this good in a first person shooter? No, not really. They did add cheap health packs where you can regain health, but that proves to be a very huge disadvantage. You can also play the missions with your choice of guns  that you unlock through multiplayer gameplay (just like other games).. Apart from just shooting everything, sometimes this game will ask for small mini games that don’t seem to belong, but either way they can sometimes be fun or frustrating. In trial mode, you’re only allowed to play through one mission, but through unlock you get all of them unlocked… Which, is slightly disappointing since it removes the need to play through the first ones to get to the last ones. Why did ‘Zombie’, the developer, do this? Who knows. Co-op campaign is a fun experience to have, but many things in it could be improved.

A perfect day to spawnkill.

And off course, who could forget multiplayer, such a big part that is pretty much the only thing people play. Many maps, many players, many things to customize. However, just because there’s lots of things to eat from the buffet doesn’t mean all of the food is tasty. This is the same way that games work. All of the maps are quite small, which packs the enemies together and makes this game very fast-paced. There are different gun types to choose from, such as Assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, you name it. Guns are unlocked with each level you gain, and can be edited by their look, emblem, or the attachments. But, one massive flaw that is a grave error to put in a game is to give newbies awful guns. This is how this game is. Players that have played longer get stronger weapons than newer ones. This convinces many people to quit- bad move, developer. Nevertheless if you ignore that and somehow manage to level up, your guns will become stronger and the game will be much easier to play. This puts lots more pressure on new people, and it in general isn’t a good thing. Also, since each player gets UAV he/she can use for a limited time through the player’s helmet, every single enemy can be seen. This can be a good thing, but it’s a huge tool for campers. It tells campers when people are coming or to get ready. Not only campers, but spawn killers. This game is a spawn killer heaven. Each map is medium sized, and each team has one spawn point: their base. While there are some sentry guns to kill enemies that come, people love to sit in corners next to people’s bases to shoot them. Not only is this the best way to win, it’s sometimes the only way to win since the maps are so small and there is no other place to get kills from. When people come and try to kill them, they simply run to a health pack and refill their health. When they run out of ammo, they do the same with a ammo supply crate. Is this a cool add? Yes. Is it a fair add? No, not at all! People think it’s a great ‘tactic’ to camp near health crates and just shoot everyone that comes, then get their health refilled. Since the game has a terrible health limit, if you make it out of a mini fight with another player alive you’re more than likely gonna get killed by one bullet in a few seconds since your health is so low. The developers may have tried to make this game special, but most players will hate them for this. I’m one of them.

Also, this game seems to encourage camping or spawn killing. There are so many perfect places in the map for spawn killing or camping that it’s not even funny. It’s as if the developers actually planned out places for that. Not only do they make it easy for these people to make it to the top, they actually help out and reward gamers to do so. There are dozens of corners or crates to hide in and easily be unseen in the maps. That’s probably a reason that such a UAV was made, but it’s not worth it since the campers can use it to a even worse point, too. They can even throw ‘stun grenades’ that block people’s camera and make their UAV/screen helmet ‘reboot’ or ‘scramble’. This, like most other things in this game, is used for people to protect themselves from campers and such, but it’s alot easier and more convenient for cheaters to use this.

The king of the world!

Just keep in mind, if you’re lucky enough to get in a lobby with legit gamers, it’s the funnest thing in the world. It makes the game such a great experience. It’s not the game, it’s mainly the players- but the developers clearly didn’t really consider the possibility of gamers like this playing. The developers could have changed the game to make it so much better, but clearly they didn’t. That’s a big flaw, but when the downs aren’t there in a lobby, this game is great and an awesome way to take a break from intense games such as CallofDuty or Battlefield. The game is good, but it’s just that you always have to plan it out for spawnkillers and campers… Which Zombie did not do whatsoever. Only  a tad bit, with a sentry at your spawnpoint, which doesn’t really help that much.

Altogether, this game isn’t worth it unless you plan on strictly playing co-op or spawn killing. Sure, graphics are good, there’s lots of guns or game modes, but it’s simply not worth it when the quality of the gameplay itself is just so low. No, it’s not because I can’t beat anyone, because I can- I’ve won quite a few matches. This game is even worse in some ways than End of Days, but with twice the price. However, if you still want to play this game and make your heart rip out for beating so hard, then go ahead, no one is stopping you. You can get it from the Arcade marketplace on your console for about five dollars. Here’s my rating:

3 stars! Nothing better.

Rage meter] New! The rage meter shows just how angry you can get with this game. The highlighted level  is the one this game gets. Here are the levels:

 Level 1) It’s all cool. I like this game. Not angry in the slightest bit.

  Level 2) This is slightly annoying…

  Level 3) It’s getting out of hand…

  Level 4) OKAY… Starting to get angry..

  Level 5) Excuse me while I go and smash everyone in my lobby’s console. $#@$@$#@$@$!!@#!!(~((!)

End of Days: Infected vs. Mercs [remade]

What’s up gamers? I’ve been looking into some of my very first reviews and decided to take a shot at playing those games again. I thought my reviews for them were still good; the games are still the way I described it, except for one. End of Days: Infected vs. Mercs. After playing it for a little longer, I realized just how far off I was on correctly describing the game, and possibly even fooling some people into thinking it was amazing. In fact, I felt so ashamed I decided that I needed to make another, cleaner review for it now that more players and updates have come.

Just by first glance, most people will just go ahead and assume it’s a good game that’s their type of style. With fairly good graphics, guns, and multiplayer with a price of 240 Microsoft Points, it seems as if this game is truly one that stands out of all the other Indie games. If you think  about this game this way, you are slightly wrong. I thought this way once because I didn’t play it enough to realize it’s downs. So, after unlocking all the guns and playing in many lobbies, I realized I needed to review this game for a second time.

Good game… right?

Sure, graphics are good. Animation is good  in reloading and running, but there is none for actions such as ladder climbing. There’s also a  selection of guns and weapons for you to chose from. The map seems to be big with many buildings to go in, roads to battle in, and underground tunnels to sneak through. But, this is all just chocolate covering to hide the not so tasty diet bar underneath. Let’s start off with simply the weapons. All of  the assault rifles , though with a new look, barley actually have any shooting difference at all.Some shoot faster, but only a bit with maybe a slight bit more strength.. So, because of this, if you come face-to-face with someone armed with an assault rifle, you’ll both die at about the same moment if you decide to attack each other. Even if you were aiming at the head, and the other at your foot, you’ll both die because of the lag and glitches. Some guns however, are amazingly overpowered, such as the shotgun. And it gets even worse when you add strength points to your stats which makes your bullets stronger. This makes guns such a shotguns (instantly unlocked upon purchase), and grenade launchers (a bit more fair, unlocked after 500 kills), both weapons that victims won’t survive. I’ve been in countless situations where I meet an enemy, begin shooting at his head but he simply hits a button and kills me instantly. Knives are also annoying to since it’s possible to knife someone 2 feet away and you will kill him. Worst part is people can’t hear you sneaking up and the knife has no noise either.  By camping in the shadows then sneaking up from behind and knifing your victim,  you’ve just gotten an easy cowardly kill. The knife is amazingly annoying, as it can quickly kill someone shooting at you with no efforts or brains required. Guns occasionally will magically get silencers, too. And sometimes, It takes two times longer to kill someone in which you will most likely die of someone shooting you in the back since the person you’ve been trying to kill has his health raised. This is all due to stats. You can upgrade yours by earning points, and while this is a unique add it just doesn’t belong, and quickly makes an unbalanced game. This isn’t a feature to add in such as game- not in a first person shooter.

Another huge flaw in this game are the countless bugs and glitches. Where should I begin? First off, there’s out of the map bugs. Lots of them. They’ve been used to kill people that don’t know that people can get out of the map. I know many of these, but I don’t use them in fear others will discover them, and just to be a clean gamer. However, some bugs are known by many people. There are glitches where you can hide inside a wall and kill people that don’t see you. You can see them, they can’t see you. I found this glitch on accident, and couldn’t get out so I had to leave the game. But people saw me, and began using it. And finally, the other massive bug I can remember is probably the biggest problem. It’s been so many times where your teammates can kill you. Yes, teammates are capable to kill you with a grenade in Team Deathmatch, that’s a bug to be fixed, but this is simply one that is just too dirty to use. Sometimes, I get killed on my team by my own teammate. No, this isn’t free for all or hardcore Team Deathmatch. Just plain ol’ Team Deathmatch. The description says,”No friendly fire”. Oh really? Then how come people on my own team can kill me? What will happen is that a person on your team, with your teams look (example: Infected will be a zombie, merc will be a human), and your teams green name above him, will simply walk up and shoot you. Yes, the person on your team list and with the same look can just kill you sometimes. But when you try to kill him, it’s impossible. No damage. Then he turns around and knifes you. So, in these times you’re pretty much playing hide and go seek with your own ‘teammate’. Seriously? Of course, many people love to abuse unfair situations to simply make it out in first place.

Enemy? Shoot, doesn’t matter if it’s at the air!

And that’s not all! I’ll just go ahead and name two more big ones. Sometimes, when you are in a lobby, the game won’t work for you. You’ll just sit in the lobby while you hear gunshots and little text saying something like ‘He killed him.’ You obviously realize that the game has started. You’re just simply stuck in the lobby, with no way to get inside. Forget this, sometimes you can’t even join a game! You’ll try to join, it has 1/12 players, or maybe more, but you simply can’t. It kicks you back to the main menu. And to make matters worse, sometimes the game will just crash often and you’ll be forced to watch the 1 minute loading video again. There’s tons of more glitches I could go on talking about, but you get my point.

Server issues are a common thing in End of Days. While the game can hold up to 16 players in one multiplayer lobby, it all depends on the host’s internet connection. When you create a game, the game estimates how many players your internet can hold but still run normally without any problems. But, when it does reach the estimated max, it still lets players join. This may sound like a good thing, but it’s not. It causes enormous issues due to overload, such as more lag (this game has lag normally, when a player joins/leaves), the players freezing on the screen or teleporting, and the server very slowly responding, meaning you could keep shooting at someone for minutes but he/she won’t die. While you’re shooting others, others will have the same problem too… So your screen will randomely become all bloody because someone’s been shooting you for two minutes, but it’s been taking a while to actually go into effect. This can be simply fixed by NOT letting players join a match when it’s full. Maybe letting one or two more in, but that still would cause problems, so it’s best not to.

The game has quite a few selections, each unlock able.

However, when you ignore and shove those problems away, this game does prove to be quite fun. It has different types of guns with different attachments, and can prove to be a great and fun first person shooter to play with your friends. It only has one map right now, but I’ve heard that there’s a new one coming later on. It currenlt has three gamemodes: Team Deathmatch, Free for all, and head Fest where it’s headshots only. Most of the game is Call of duty like, but gamemodes such as Head Fest and upcoming survival will prove to be different from just plain old shooting and can be quite fun to play. All of these are nice gamemodes to enjoy on Xbox LIVE. The map, as I said, is big and has many buildings and tunnels to head inside.  You’ll be entertained for many hours just playing on different gamemodes and unlocking more and more new guns. For 240 MSP, who could have made a game any better?.

Lots of attachments. Here’s a sniper scope attachment in action. Lots of fun.

I’m not whining, I’m stating the facts. This game needs fixing. If the bugs are patched and the guns are balanced, this would be a great game. But for now… it’s not excellent like the other two games SickKreations published. This game can be a fun but slightly frustrating experience in some moments,as I noticed in many matches. You can get it off of the Xbox LIVE Marketplace for 240 Microsoft Points. SickKreations, please don’t get mad of this nasty review, but I know you can do better. Your other games were legendary… this once just  disappointed me. Here’s my personal rating:

Edit 1/24/13: Microsoft limits to what the game can do, and this game is now 80 Microsoft Points. It’s not entirely the developer’s fault and they’re working to fix it.

3 stars. I’m sorry, this game just isn’t a perfect one yet- hopefully SickKreations will improve it. I know they will, their two other games are awesome! I’ll review their first one later on this week.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 game picture.

Hey there, guys! Today, I’m really excited on this Gaming Friday to announce that not only are you guys getting a review on Fallout 3, but you’re also going to get a chance to win 100 Microsoft points! It’s a small giveaway, but still you’re getting a chance to win free money out of nowhere! Don’t think this will be the only one, I will be having more and maybe even bigger ones. Well, I think you get the point now, let’s begin the review!

Fallout 3 is an open world, role playing first/third person shooter. Most video games will just simply have one category such as first person, but this game is a combination  of many different types, making it special. Even though it was released in 2008, it’s still a great and fun experience to enjoy. The game sets place in the year of 2077, after a great nuclear war fell and the United States was turned into a large wasteland. You start off playing as a baby, then slowly grow up in Vault 101, an underground facility that protected people from the nuke, and now protects them from radiated monsters, raiders, or just about anything else. As you grow to be around nineteen or twenty, you wake up and find out that you have to escape into the vast wasteland because of your father unexpectedly leaving. You then begin your adventure in the ‘Capital wasteland’, which was once Washington D.C, with only one thing in mind: Finding your lost dad who left without saying anything.

Fallout 3 is a great game for people who are looking for taking a break from those games such as Call of Duty, or other first person shooters like Battlefield. It plants you into a huge world where there are many buildings, towers, and dozens of more secrets to uncover. But it still has that action feeling in it, since it has many guns that can be bought with money or found by killing armed enemies. It’s a good mix of different types in one single game, especially with its nice graphics. This adds up to make the game even more realistic and slightly creepy as you explore locations such as broken down subways filled with feral ghouls in them.

A player using the V.A.T.S. system on a Feral ghoul in a subway.

Apart from there being a main mission, you can also complete side quests from people you meet in places such as towns, or just out in the random wasteland. These can be sometimes a fun experience or mind questioning ones, such as blowing up a whole town. Having sidequests is a great idea, since it’s what many modern games with singleplayer don’t do such. It’s always nice to take a break from the main mission and follow side ones by exploring the huge open world, shooting every monster or human in your way and picking up their items to further continue. It’s even easier with the unique V.A.T.S system, which you can use to see how likely it is to hit an enemy in a part of its body by percentage rates. Playing the main mission without any breaks can last on average twenty hours, but with side missions sometimes even two times more. The plot is not boring, and will is entertaining to play through and uncover more and more secrets.

Just exploring the huge 'Capital Wasteland' will entertain you for hours.

Ah yes, as I mentioned a big part of fallout is the huge world. Fallout will last for hours just roaming the plains, uncovering collapsed buildings or travelling down in creepy places such as subways. In your path, you will find many goodies such as new guns, food, supplies, or even new missions. Enemies, and friends. That’s why exploring is considered very rewarding, which it actually is. I personally found it very fun to explore the buildings, enter some of them to find many treasures and monsters in my way, or just simply walk around and seeing the large world. It’s a very big part of the game, and I’m not wondering why.

There’s also the leveling up and perks. There’s many bonuses hidden throughout the game which add points to one of your perks, which helps out in times when you need  them. These secret books that add points to one of your perks are hidden around the huge world, and further confirms that exploring does reward you. Even upon leveling up,  you chose which perks to add points to and which new ones you wish to have.

A Brotherhood of Steel soldier.

In the whole wasteland, there are dozens of enemies and foes you will uncover. There are the regular humans who aren’t very friendly like raiders, but there’s also ones like the Brotherhood of Steel that are friendly. And of course, there are hundreds of creatures that went through radiation through the bomb’s blast, so you’ll find many mutated animals as well as humans which in result may turn out to be rather ugly and frightening at first. A great example is a feral ghoul, a zombie-like human that dwells in subways or dark places. It attacks every human it sees and is quite creepy  and disturbing. Once killed, like any other living thing will leave you items to pick up.

This game may not have multi player, but it doesn’t need it. It’s great without it, and is lots of entrainment. It’s been known to have many bugs and glitches, though. And crashes. But throughout my dozens of hours of playing the game, I’ve only experienced one crash which isn’t good but still isn’t anything critical. The animations also could have been a little improved since they’re often off, but still it can’t ruin that which is a great game. And you can also edit your character, which most games don’t have. It’s a great thing to have. Here’s my fair rating for it:

 

This is one of the best game’s you’ll ever play, but it still has many glitches and bugs here and there.

You can get Fallout 3 in a store that sells video games or from Amazon.com. I recommend getting Game of the Year Edition as it includes all 5 DLC for free at only a price of twenty dollars.

It’s a giveaway!

These 100 Microsoft points could be yours!

Hey there, gamers! As a bonus post, I’m having a small giveaway! Want to receive 100 free Microsoft points* sent straight to your email? Well then, you’re in luck since I’m hosting a small giveaway for that!  You can get avatar items, or one of many Indie games such as Bloody Checkers or Castle Miner using these points. All you have to do is:

Step one: Follow this blog if you haven’t already! Just enter your email into the blank on the left. Make sure you have a valid e-mail, because if you win your code will be sent to your inbox.

Step two: Comment on at least one of my game review posts with a good, sturdy comment! You can make as many comments on different posts as you want to increase your chances!

Step three: Tell one friend or at least someone at my blog.

Final step: Leave a comment on this post saying anything, but make sure it includes the word ‘Microsoft Points’.

Remember, there is no limit to entries! Enter as much as you want and your chances of winning will increase! If you’ve done all of that, then good luck, you’ve been entered! Just keep these simple rules in mind. *You are not to comment on the same post over and over, but you can still comment on several posts, and enter as many emails as you want to increase your chances of winning! If the winner does not claim the points within 36 hours in his or her e-mail, it will be passed onto another winner. Be sure to check your spam as it might end up in there! If this blog doesn’t receive the minimum amount of 10 new followers, then the contest will be continued for another few days. Entries will be picked by a random number generator. If you do not win, don’t unsubscribe or remove/mess up your comment. People  that do so will be removed from future contests through their IP address.

   Contest officially opens on Friday, but you can go ahead and enter. It will last for a week unless minimum amount of new followers/comments, 10, isn’t met by March 18, 2012. Good luck!

CastleMiner Z

You have Minecraft. You have dozens of games just like Minecraft. So, another one of those type of games to add to the plate really won’t stand out, and may seem unoriginal, which it really is. But, someone took one of his games that was alot like it, Castle Miner, and added twists and turns into it. After he had finished, it was truly a fun masterpiece to enjoy. It had what most mindless gamers could want- guns, violence, but also still had that sandbox feel to it. Today, I’ll be reviewing CastleMinerZ.

CastleMinerZ logo.

Just by looking at the cover, most people will stupidly already go and buy the game, since it has a zombie and creepy setting in it. However, I usually like to experience a game before buying it. I was introduced to a eerie, quite creepy setting as I first loaded the game.  Dark clouds, thunder, and no joy to be seen anywhere. There was even a gun in my inventory, as well as other tools. I liked it, as strange as that may sound. After examining the place a little longer, I noticed that despite that, this game was defiantly one like Minecraft. everything was in blocks, and could be destroyed. So, as  I would have in Minecraft, I went down to a tree to gather some wood. I then began digging my house in the side of a mountain, when then it came- a disturbing moan or yell of a zombie. It was animated and made quite well, and actually made me raise some goosebumps since it was the first time. It dashed at me, but luckily my pistol helped me out. I could tell this game was pretty good, so I went ahead and bought it with my cheap 240 MSP.

After buying, I unlocked multiplayer and unlimited singleplayer. Being a person that likes to try out everything in a game, I went to multiplayer, and hosted a server and began to play. I discovered many things during that time. Of course, I had heck loads of fun, this being my first time playing the game. Here it is all in more detailed terms of speaking.

A creepy setting? Heck yeah.

After exploring a bit further away from the spawn point, I soon  found out that it wasn’t always in a setting of valleys. Because there are different biomes (different areas with their own resources and look), in different locations from the spawn, each with its own feel, look, and new challenges and things to uncover.  I haven’t gotten to all of them, but the ones I have visited each looked alot different from the other ones and had lots of cool new things in them. As an example: I’ve been to the mountains, it had lots of ore in them and was a great place to build a watchtower! The snow biome was fun, too. It had a new snow dragon, which didn’t breathe flames- it breathes ice.

Zombies for everyone!

A game can’t just have one enemy. Many cheap indie games do. Some throw in only two so that they won’t at least have just one. But this game will not bore you with one enemy all the time. There are not only zombies with each their own look and ability along with skeletons with bows and arrows, but there’s also a dragon.  Yes, can you imagine? This may sound like a challenge, but it’s more fun than it actually is work. I don’t know why, but shooting down a dragon and then collecting its treasure, or maybe even just hiding in your house watching the dragon’s failed (or not) attempts to destroy it, is just so much fun. And like I said earlier, when you kick in more creepy and different zombies along with it, the game means nothing but more challenge. Each day they get harder to defeat. And top it all off, I’ve heard there’s more monsters coming soon!

This game has guns that can be crafted.

As I had said, this game is alot like Minecraft. You have to mine and craft to survive. But, I really like this game’s style of mining tons more. Caves mean darkness. And that usually means zombies. It’s a challenge to gather even the simplest ore in a cave since there are always zombies trying to eat you in the back, so it’s always a good idea to put your friend or whoever you’re playing with to go on guard and kill all enemies while you mine the ores. After gathering enough supplies from the cave, you can use them to craft more materials or tools, such as stronger pickaxes or different guns such as the AK-47 or just simply upgrade them depending on what resources you have. And oh yeah, don’t go to deep, or you’ll fall into hell. This is a really neat biome. It’s the lowest point underground, has its own new zombies and dragons, and once you’ve fallen in it’s a one-out-of a million chance you’ll make it out alive.

I also like how you can change your gamemodes before you start a match. So if you’re tired of fighting zombies and dragons and want to just play, you could select freebuild mode. Or if you’re feeling the exact opposite and want to fight more monsters like dragons, you could select dragon endurance mode (I think it’s called that). No, there isn’t just one gamemode. There’s multiple choices for you to select!

This game is awesome, gave me tons of fun for the first few weeks I played it, but then it gets boring. But for 240 MSP, it’s a pretty fun game that you will enjoy for sure if its your first time. This game gets:

4 stars! [Updated 9/17/12] Several updates have improved this game. Still lacks many things, though.

You can get this game for 240 microsoft points at the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Note: I’ll soon be hosting a small  contest for 100 MSP soon enough, stay tuned!