My Review - Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - 10/10

Infinity Ward has a knack for making great games, and Call of Duty 4 doesn't stray from that fact. With superb graphics, gameplay, sound and story, CoD4 is one of the few games I have been able to pick up and enjoy again and again. With several Heart stopping moments in the campaign it has easily one of the best single-player portions of a game I have ever played, from escaping a sinking ship to holding off an entire army on a bridge, you will never be bored during the campaign.

The multi-player has been full of fun since I joined my first match. I honestly have never had as much fun playing video games as I do playing the multi-player of CoD4 with friends. The leveling system is great in my opinion, experience granted per kill, for completing challenges, and for finishing a match combined with it being impossible to lose a level makes it where anyone can get to the high levels if they put in enough time. It isn't without faults though, several maps suffer from poor design which leads to victory usually being decided on what team you spawn as, not team skill. Several weapons are severely overpowered which makes using anything else just preference.

That being said, I love Call of Duty 4, it is one of the few games I will probably ever give a perfect 10/10.

My review - Halo 3

Halo 3 - 5/10

We go from the best to the meh, perhaps even bad. Halo 3 was supposed to be one of the 'end all' games that just blow anything else out of the water but instead made only a ripple. With there being a significant gap in story between Halo 2 and Halo 3, shifting from the Covenant attacking Earth to the Brute's controlling most of Earth very quickly for such a short time-span in story between the two games, Halo 3 starts off on shaky ground. Average sound effects and blocky graphics in High Definition only worsen the already ill fated Halo 3, with too few "Wow!" moments in the campaign to stay interested for long Halo 3's single-player fails to sustain enjoyment for much longer than a single playthrough.

The multi-player, while better, still can't keep the same enjoyment Halo 2 could. Bungie tried to do a lot of things in this sector and failed by gimping core features that made Halo 2's multi-player fun for years in place of unnecessary features that Halo 3 could do without. Weapon imbalance couldn't be more of a problem than it is, with most weapons being near useless compared to the Assault Rifle and your fist. The gadgets that are a big feature of Halo 3 take too long to be useful in a combat situation most of the time and the land mine being too weak to cause any actual damage make the gadgets another nail in Halo 3's coffin. 4 Player co-op is the only aspect of Halo 3 I found to be any fun, and even then it got boring quickly. The Theater mode is another fairly useless addition in my opinion.

Halo 3 tried to make a boom but only fizzled and went out. Shame on you Bungie.

My Review - Rome: Total War

I picked this game up sometime in 2005 and played it tons, recently I started playing it again.
Boy, oh boy, did I forget how fun this game is..

Rome: Total War, like all the others in the Total War series (except for two knock-offs), is a turn-based strategy/real-time strategy game. A main campaign map takes the part of turn based strategy while actual battles themselves are in real time.

At first you can only choose between three starting Roman factions, The Julii, The Brutii and the Scipii. Other factions can be unlocked by either destroying a faction on the campaign map or by beating the game as any of the above three families. You can even make a small change to one of the game files to have all factions unlocked from the start.

The graphics, despite being four years old, are fairly good, even on this Dimension 2400. Every one of the thousands of soldiers, Horses, Dogs, Pigs, peasant's, Camels, Elephant's and Seige engines you can have on screen at once is entirely in 3D, water shines when the Sun shines, metal glints depending on where the Sun is.

Sound design is top notch, whether it be the sound of a soldier's sword slicing into his foe, the yelling of your troops issuing and following orders, seige engines rolling into place, archer's releasing their arrows, rain drops hitting the ground, or even your troops hitting the ground after flying through the air after an elephant charge.

While later into the game you spend more and more time micromanaging your towns and cities the bonuses that micromanaging provides carries over into the battlefield, depending on what you build your army gets new troops, better armor and weapons, higher morale, or more experience.

Even if you don't like turn based strategy there are several options, the custom battle, quick battle and historical battle options. The first options allows you to choose all of the units in the battle or let the computer randomize them, it also lets you choose where you wish to fight.
The second option instantly puts you into a random battle. Whereas the third option lets you fight actual battles that happened two-thousand years ago to see if you can change the outcome of some of the fights.

For those which like to modify their games rejoice, almost ALL of the game can be changed in some way and fairly easily too. This personally has led to some very interesting fights. If you've ever wondered what it would be like for an SUV to fight a giant cheeseburger and don't mind modding a little, this game is for you.

There is even a multiplayer portion of the game which I have yet to play, mostly because of the low frame rate I have on this computer.

Overall this game is extremely fun, a must have in my opinion, even if you aren't a fan of the genre.

10/10

My Review - skate.

For years Tony Hawk has ruled the skateboarding game genre.... and he still does. Skate, while fun, really doesn't do anything new, (the control system isn't new, just unused, Skate Or Die used the same controls) sure, the graphics look nice and its 'realistic' but after all that its just Tony Hawk with different controls.

The graphics are nice but really just repetitive, brown dirt, green grass, gray pavement. That is really all I have to say.. there isn't much more TO say.

Sound is done rather well, the sound you hear while rolling along changes with the ground type, wheel size, and speed. Cars honk and hum like you would expect, and the sound of your characters face hitting a steel pole at mach 2 will never get old.

Speaking of faces and ouchies, the game starts off with a skateboarding video showing you getting hit by a bus, you then go to the hospital where you design your character. I feel that its a nice way to integrate character creation into the flow of the game.

Controls are one of the bigger complaints I have about skate. Instead of using the AYXB buttons to do tricks you use the right stick, you flick the stick in different directions to ollie and do tricks. While it seems fun and it somewhat is, its also much more difficult, you will miss and have to retry so many challenges because you moved the stick one millimeter too far over.

Probably the biggest complaint about the game is the camera. It sits behind your character, aimed at the skateboard, with your character in the way, and you can't move it at all. This mixed with the iffy controls make for a very frustrating game.

As for story? Its a skateboarding game. You skate, you get money, you use money to buy skateboards, you skate some more.

As for multiplayer, I never played it, I assume its fun with friends. But eh.

All in all, not great. Tony Hawk still owns this genre.

6/10

My Review - Bioshock

Bioshock, a game set in 1960 in Rapture, an underwater city built by a crazy millionaire, let me start this off by saying this game is probably the creepiest game I've ever played. Its not scary, just really, really creepy. The game starts off with a crash (literally) and you find yourself on a ride to Rapture, at first it seems that all is well but once you get into Rapture you find that the city is in the middle of a civil war, the enemies in Bioshock are your standard gunner, grenade thrower, magic user, and pipe swinger.

The difference between Bioshock's enemies and other game villains is that the enemies you fight in Bioshock are actually citizens of Rapture, just really hopped up on 'Adam' (Sea-Crack). The thing that makes them monsters isn't the fact they're deformed, its their actions, Bioshock really tries to tell you that throughout the entire game. Another enemy that sets Bioshock aside from other games is the Big Daddy. These behemoths can kill you faster than you can say "What was that noise?". Unfortunately thats only true on the highest difficulty, while challenging at first Bioshock gets too easy later in the game once you acquire weapon upgrades and new/stronger plasmids.

Another element that adds to the 'uniqueness' of Bioshock are the Little Sisters, guarded by the Big Daddy's they are the main source of Adam, the thing you need to buy all plasmids, once the Big Daddy is defeated you can either kill the Little Sister for maximum upfront Adam or you can save her for more overall Adam and an achievement if your playing on the Xbox 360 version. Some parts of the game will change depended on your choice. Also depending on what you choose you'll either get a good ending or an evil ending. I personally liked the good ending a lot more.

The graphics in Bioshock aren't the best I've ever seen, but they are amazing, I spent about half an hour of my first playthrough just walking around looking at everything. The graphics really make you feel like you are in an actual underwater city, if you step into a spray of water water will trickle down your screen, if you set a group of chairs ablaze with a plasmid they will light the surrounding area, which is actually a good idea for most of this game because this game is DARK.
When you have the above plasmid selected a heat wave and small fire will radiate from your hand. When using an Ice plasmid spikes of ice shoot through your hand, which in turn causes your hand to bleed.

The story in Bioshock isn't one of the best, but it will keep you interested for hours on end. You'll want to play through multiple times to see the subtle changes from killing or saving Little Sisters.
About three quarters of the way through the game the story changes quite a bit, I won't spoil it, but it changes the feel of the game somewhat.

Sound design is excellent, enemies will talk to themselves or others, water will sound different depending on the distance from you, speed at which it is flowing, and how much of it there is. Even vending machines sound true to life, Big Daddy's make probably the most noticeable sound in the game.. a low rumbling noise. The voice overs in Bioshock are also excellent, with every character sounding like a real person.

All in all, this game is fun. Go pick it up if you're into FPS/RPG's. It's a 8/10 in my book.