Friday 5 November 2010

Long Overdue Post - Game Reviews

Hello and welcome to Tyramatt's Irregular Game Review Segment. This is not just a way to distract from the fact that I haven't got any 3D work to show... So lets get down to the games that I have been playing since I last posted.

Resistance: Fall of Man
A game I have never actually played before, this was a bit of a blast from the PS3's rocky beginnings. A PS3 launch title and I thought with the highly anticipated Resistance 3 coming out in the next year, I best catch up to speed. So what did I think of the game? For a PS3 launch title, the obvious cracks show. It is way too short, but the premise is great. The storytelling is lacking, but the gameplay is brilliant. You could make a list of the good and bad points of this game, but these would come to about the same number, depending on how much detail you went into. What score would I give Resistance: Fall of Man? Well it provided a good start to the early PS3 lineup but if anything it was let down by the poor game line on release overall. That does hurt it a bit. I'm also running it against other things that were out at the same time to be fair to it. Overall I would give Resistance: Fall of Man 6/10. I've judged this game by the lineup of the time, so there will be no Modern Warfare 2 comparisions here! Now lets see whats next on the slab...

God of War 1 and 2
I'm judging these two games together as I played them in quick succession. I was playing Resistance: Fall of Man and the two God of War games at the same time, which made for an interesting contrast. Whereas Resistance was a competant FPS which switched out the areas mission by mission, both God of War 1 and 2 use a very small number of locations despite being as long as these games take to complete. Like Resistance: Fall of Man, I have never played the God of War games until now. I started playing them, again to play the third one in the trilogy so far. God of War's combat flows smoothly as i'm sure anyone who has heard of the games knows so that is not worth mentioning. My problem with the first game in particular was that the game seemed to be dragged out slightly more than neccessary. The second game fixed this to an extent, but not entirely. Both of the God of War endings were pieces of brilliance, but again if you have played the games, there is no point mentioning them. Overall both God of War 1 and 2 deserve the same score because they carry on the same story so well. I would give them a 8/10 just by the skin of it's teeth.

Dead Rising 2 (First Impressions)
I picked up Dead Rising 2 as a bit of a time killing simulator. I wanted to kill some zombies, but without going back to Call of Duty: World at War's Nazi variety. I soon found out what Dead Rising 2 was. A game that I have very conflicting opinions about. On one hand I do not want to be doing sidequests. I can understand why they put them in as some people like doing sidequests, but why would you not put measures in place so that you can wait for a certain amount of time? It would make sense if you could do it in the safehouse, but you can't. I spent 24 minutes waiting for the next mission to start in the worst time I have ever had with a game. On the other hand in one of the more compotent game design choices I have ever seen in a game, when you die you have the option of starting the whole game again, but keeping your character's stat increases, levels, etc. I have decided to restart mine because i'm stuck on a boss fight that is actually very creepy. You will see when you get to it. Just remember these words. "They are not alive". So far I can't really give this game a score, so will tack it on to the next game review segment I do.

Resistance 2 (First Impressions)
Ok. So I cheated slightly by not combining Resistance: Fall of Man with this one, but I haven't completed this one yet. I'm about 57% through it. This game is a massive improvement on the last one in the sense of combat, narritive, and gameplay overall. Unlike the first one you can only carry 2 weapons, I didn't mention earlier that you keep every weapon you pick upin the first one, which keeps combat plain and simplified. This is a good thing! It can be frustrating at times to have to scroll through all of your weapons to find the right situational weapon. The storytelling is dramatically changed from narration over still sketches to full cutscenes, of which i'm guessing that the narration over sketches was a ploy to get it out on release, and is improved for it. If there are two points in which this game is lacking from the first they are the navigation, and the pacing. The problem with the navigation stems into two fields, the navigation points, and the open areas. The navigation points are not used all the time and when they are they range from pointless, to useless. Some points end up being 4 metres away, and others can be 200 metres away, but you cannot go straight to them because you have to go through about 15 buildings. It is just not as polished as I thought it would be. The pacing is also terrible, switching out locations as fast as the first, but there is alot more going on in a short time. Its like the game is throwing everything it wants into as little time as possible. Again, as I haven't completed this game yet, the game score will be tacked on to the next game review section.

This is Tyramatt, signing off.

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