This is the first of something I'm considering doing for all the games I review (Yes, I'm acutely aware that so far it's just 2).
You see, I recently noticed that despite my massive praise for MW2, I don't actually play it anymore. Which lead to me to think, Do I still think the same of games after the initial hype of "OMG I'm finally playing >insert new game title here
So here goes:
Modern Warfare 2. I read online yesterday that it has made over $1 billion since it was sold not too long ago in November last year. This figure didn't surprise me at all. For two reasons. 1: It was so hyped up that it successfully managed to make pretty much every other game hoping to release last year piss themselves and delay until this year. And 2: It cost 45 fucking quid. For the STANDARD edition.
To some extent, it is deserving of all the praise it gets. The single player story is epic in most sense of the word. The narrative is gripping and not completely unplausable (once you get over the fact that every guy named "Ramirez" seemingly does everything, and you are, wherever you happen to be, always "Oscar Mike"). The Spec-Ops missions are an original idea which are quite enjoyable. The first time round.
The thing is, they marketed the Spec-ops missions as these epic action sequences (which, to be fair, they are) and could be played over and over again.
I disagree. This could be due to the fact that me and my brother decided to play them through on Veteran first time round (hardcore, I know), but personally, I think it's due to MW2's biggest flaw.
Replayability.
You may have noticed that I didn't mention the Online multiplayer in the paragraph up there, so let's talk about that.
Online multiplayer is pretty much the big thing in gaming right now. It's considered to be the main replay value of any game which supports it. But I view it as something that detracts focus and attention away from the single player story. Case in point: Look at Halo 3. That's hardly a gripping story... Anyway, MW2 is actually and exception to this rule, it still has a very good single player, even if the plot is a bit all over the place. But it's online multiplayer has also seen a massive overhaul since CoD4.
This had me a little worried about it to be honest, because there's only so many changes you can make to something, and it still feel familiar. It turned out to be the least of my worries. Oh all the new guns and perks and killstreaks all work fine. But it's the glitches and bugs and a little something called Party Chat which completely shat on my fun here.
It seems to me that for every patch and update that Infinity Ward release, it brings with it more tales of woe and unlimited ammo. To my knowledge most have been fixed now, but by now it's too late. I no longer really care. I don't play it anymore. The main replay factor this game has seemed rushed and buggy and it drove me away. And it's the same flaws that stop me coming back. My friends no longer play it, so why should I?
See, I like playing with my friends online, I don't play multiplayer without them normally, so taking away Party Chat? Rookie move IW. Now this is turning into a bit of a rant, so I'll wrap this up.
From a technical standpoint, Modern Warfare 2 is better in every way than CoD4. Improved Graphics, AI, textures, sounds etc. But for some reason, it lacks. Some of the fun and character of it is gone. I can't really explain it, but there is something missing when you think back to all the time you spent on Modern Warfare 1, and then realise that this just isn't as fun, or enjoyable. Especially online.
So this week it has hit the $1 billion mark, but what I want to see, is how many people are still playing compared to the first week of release?
If I were to score this now? I'd have to score it twice. From the technical side, and from a fun side. For the former, I suspect the score would remain the same as my initial review, but for the latter... I'd give it about a 6/10. 6 because it can be fun with friends, but glitches and a sense of lacking bring it down.
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Saturday, 14 November 2009
Friday, 13 November 2009
Wait, there's a Modern Warfare 2!?
“This year’s, perhaps the decade’s most anticipated game.”
“The benchmark for action games has just been raised.”
These are two statements that have been surrounded pretty much every Press Release this game has, it is, in fact, also on the back of the case. It has already sold over 4 million copies on day 1, 1.7 million in the UK alone, with 3 million more being shipped in.
Now, considering the hype surrounding this game, I was slightly sceptical about it. Why? You ask, well, I was only sceptical about the multiplayer side of things, since a lot was being changed, nearly everything except the core gameplay.
New weapons have replaced old favourites (no MP5?), death streaks now stand where certain perks used to be, customisable killstreaks left whispers of unbalanced playing in my mind, shotguns and rocket launchers are now secondary weapons where once it used to be a solitary sidearm.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. Infinity Ward have clearly spent a lot of time making sure all the new additions of weaponry, streaks, and perks are all just as balanced, if not more so, than they were in Modern Warfare 1. The multiplayer is as “formidable” as the case claims.
16 all-new maps and, if FBM is to be believed, at least one CoD2 remake, grace the online side of things in this game, leaving all the millions of people playing this plenty of new territory to learn. The maps vary in size, from the big to the small; to the Shipment-sized maps where respawn-dieing will always be an issue.
The new weapons are actually welcome additions to your online armoury, while I haven’t used them all yet, (I stick mainly to Assault Rifles) I can say that, from what I’ve used, they actually seem more powerful than their MW1 counterparts. Certainly, there seems to be less “bullet-lag” (whether intentional or lag-induced) than there was.
On that note, connection seems to be a lot better this time around; I’ve only had 1 or 2 games where it has lagged out due to someone using Tesco Internet. This is, in part, due to the new “Host Migration”; where in MW1, the host would quit, the game would simply end, saying “the host has left”, now, if the host leaves, the game pauses whilst it finds a new host (ie, the person with the best connection), I’ve only seen one instance where it has failed and the game times out. So that seems to work very well indeed.
On the Prestige side of things, there are 70 (I think) levels of it this time around, instead of the original 55. As far as I’m aware, there are still 10 levels of it. Apart from the level cap, it seems to work in exactly the same way as before, with players gaining XP for playing games, getting kills, scoring points etc. during a match. Gain enough XP, you level up (with the coolest riff ever). Simple.
There is also more customisation options for your classes this time too. You get your standard weapon, sidearm (or Rocket, shotgun, machine pistol), 1 type of equipment (frags, sticky grenades, claymores etc.) and 2 special grenades (flashbang, stun, smoke). You get your 3 perks, and now, you get to pick your death streak. This is essentially there for if you start sucking, it’s a little something to help you get back on top of your game. There are 4 death streaks, Copycat (copy your killers class), Painkiller (Juggernaut from the previous game (more health), Martyrdom (drop a frag when you die), and Final Stand (which is exactly the same as the Last Stand perk, except you use your primary weapon instead of a pistol).
There are also a lot of kill streak rewards, from the bog-standard 3-kill UAV, to the ridiculous 25-kill Nuke, which kills everyone in the game (including you) and ends it, winning it for you or your team. There is no way to survive the nuke, unless, by some miracle you happen to have the 15-kill EMP strike, which wipes out your enemies HUDs and killstreak rewards, such as the Nuke. However, it would need to be activated during the 10-second countdown before the Nuke explodes. So good luck with that.
On top of that, there are Titles and Emblems for your profile, you have to unlock them by completing the XP challenges, and there’s a lot of them. 22 pages, in fact, with 6 pages of emblems, too. I’m not sure whether these are reset when you prestige. I would hope not, since it takes a frickin’ age to unlock them.
So, if, by now, you’re wondering whether this game has (and, please note, I am coining this phrase) “done a Halo” on the story, you will be glad to know, it has not. What I mean by “done a Halo” is, has it focussed on the multiplayer to such an extent that the story is short and very pointless. Again, you’ll be glad to know that Infinity Ward have done a spectacular job on the story, even if it is a tad short.
The basic plot is that, 5 years after the war of MW1, some Russian terrorists, in a “controversial” display of doing things, kill hundreds of innocent civilians at an airport and then framing the Americans for the deed. Then the more Russians decide that America must pay for their sins. Meanwhile, the Brits are trying to track down the original Russian. Or something like that.
Even if it can be a tad confusing at times, it never failed to get a reaction from me. In keeping with my other review, this one will be spoiler-free, but I will say that as it gets closer and closer to the end, it just gets better and better.
IW have clearly tried something new with the vehicle sections of the game, which, in my opinion, work brilliantly as both a change of pace and style of play. I found it great fun to be speeding down a massive great hill at stupid speeds all while trying to shoot other snowmobiles hellbent on killing me. Good fun.
The other vehicle pieces are equally good, but, alas, mentioning them would amount to severe spoilerage.
I feel I should mention about the length of the campaign, it isn’t exactly huge clocking in at 6 hours. But I also feel that it’s the right length. All loose ends are tied up and if it were extended, the feeling of urgency and the pace of the story would be lost.
Once you’ve burnt through the campaign, the end of the credits suggests you now try some Spec-Ops, or Special Operations, which are essentially short but ridiculously hectic missions that don’t necessarily fit into the story. Similar to the end-game mission of MW1, “Mile High Club”.
From what I’ve played, they work very well and though can be frustrating at times (to be fair, we’re Veteran-ing it first time round) the sense of accomplishment for simply finishing them is great.
There are various types of mission for the Spec-Ops, from Survival mission where wave upon wave of enemies try and assault the spot you just, by chance, happen to be stuck at; to the stealth missions where the object is to simply walk about 200-300 meters forward, without being spotted, or killing opposition quick enough so that no alarms are raised.
If , for some reason, you tire of shooting people whilst playing this, there are also race missions, the only ones I’ve seen are set in the aforementioned snowmobile chase. But both offer a change of play should you bore of killing people.
Now, graphically, this really is a step-up from the original. The faces especially are better. All the textures seem to have been revamped, as do the animations and sounds. Guns sound and feel more powerful than they did before, and killing people almost looks pretty.
The maps themselves both single- and multi-player look very nice indeed, and when I first started playing, not a few deaths occurred from me simply looking at the background niceness that are the skyboxes. The only nit-picking I can do here is that the plants are quite flat and low-res compared to the rest of the environment.
The controls are exactly as they used to/should be, left trigger has you looking down the sights, right trigger does the killing, etc. So no complaints there. In fact, the only reason I mention it at all is that, a very nice touch is used a couple of times during the campaign, where cinematic-style kills are executed using the knife button, and also I liked the use of the triggers to climb the mountain at the start, and used again at a spoilery bit at the end. Very nice touch.
The gameplay is exactly as it was in MW1, occasionally it feels like you're just playing DLC for it. Nothing’s really changed gameplay-wise. Which is in no way a bad thing.
So, overall, I’d say that this game definitely lives up to its exuberant claims of “BEST GAMER EVAR” and the hype it has generated. I’d score it 9.5/10.
It is here that I should mention the biggest flaw of this game. And it has something to do with the multiplayer. Specifically, the party-chat in multiplayer, or more specifically, the LACK of party chat in multiplayer. IW have decided that for some reason that people shouldn’t be able to talk only to their friends, and must talk only to the mass of rascist jerks that live on Xbox Live. You can use party chat in 3 of the 12 or so playlists. Nice one IW.
So, aside from that flaw and a small touch of short-campaign-syndrome, this game is simply awesome and deserving of all the praise it gets.
Back to playing it....
Toodles
“The benchmark for action games has just been raised.”
These are two statements that have been surrounded pretty much every Press Release this game has, it is, in fact, also on the back of the case. It has already sold over 4 million copies on day 1, 1.7 million in the UK alone, with 3 million more being shipped in.
Now, considering the hype surrounding this game, I was slightly sceptical about it. Why? You ask, well, I was only sceptical about the multiplayer side of things, since a lot was being changed, nearly everything except the core gameplay.
New weapons have replaced old favourites (no MP5?), death streaks now stand where certain perks used to be, customisable killstreaks left whispers of unbalanced playing in my mind, shotguns and rocket launchers are now secondary weapons where once it used to be a solitary sidearm.
As it turns out, I needn’t have worried. Infinity Ward have clearly spent a lot of time making sure all the new additions of weaponry, streaks, and perks are all just as balanced, if not more so, than they were in Modern Warfare 1. The multiplayer is as “formidable” as the case claims.
16 all-new maps and, if FBM is to be believed, at least one CoD2 remake, grace the online side of things in this game, leaving all the millions of people playing this plenty of new territory to learn. The maps vary in size, from the big to the small; to the Shipment-sized maps where respawn-dieing will always be an issue.
The new weapons are actually welcome additions to your online armoury, while I haven’t used them all yet, (I stick mainly to Assault Rifles) I can say that, from what I’ve used, they actually seem more powerful than their MW1 counterparts. Certainly, there seems to be less “bullet-lag” (whether intentional or lag-induced) than there was.
On that note, connection seems to be a lot better this time around; I’ve only had 1 or 2 games where it has lagged out due to someone using Tesco Internet. This is, in part, due to the new “Host Migration”; where in MW1, the host would quit, the game would simply end, saying “the host has left”, now, if the host leaves, the game pauses whilst it finds a new host (ie, the person with the best connection), I’ve only seen one instance where it has failed and the game times out. So that seems to work very well indeed.
On the Prestige side of things, there are 70 (I think) levels of it this time around, instead of the original 55. As far as I’m aware, there are still 10 levels of it. Apart from the level cap, it seems to work in exactly the same way as before, with players gaining XP for playing games, getting kills, scoring points etc. during a match. Gain enough XP, you level up (with the coolest riff ever). Simple.
There is also more customisation options for your classes this time too. You get your standard weapon, sidearm (or Rocket, shotgun, machine pistol), 1 type of equipment (frags, sticky grenades, claymores etc.) and 2 special grenades (flashbang, stun, smoke). You get your 3 perks, and now, you get to pick your death streak. This is essentially there for if you start sucking, it’s a little something to help you get back on top of your game. There are 4 death streaks, Copycat (copy your killers class), Painkiller (Juggernaut from the previous game (more health), Martyrdom (drop a frag when you die), and Final Stand (which is exactly the same as the Last Stand perk, except you use your primary weapon instead of a pistol).
There are also a lot of kill streak rewards, from the bog-standard 3-kill UAV, to the ridiculous 25-kill Nuke, which kills everyone in the game (including you) and ends it, winning it for you or your team. There is no way to survive the nuke, unless, by some miracle you happen to have the 15-kill EMP strike, which wipes out your enemies HUDs and killstreak rewards, such as the Nuke. However, it would need to be activated during the 10-second countdown before the Nuke explodes. So good luck with that.
On top of that, there are Titles and Emblems for your profile, you have to unlock them by completing the XP challenges, and there’s a lot of them. 22 pages, in fact, with 6 pages of emblems, too. I’m not sure whether these are reset when you prestige. I would hope not, since it takes a frickin’ age to unlock them.
So, if, by now, you’re wondering whether this game has (and, please note, I am coining this phrase) “done a Halo” on the story, you will be glad to know, it has not. What I mean by “done a Halo” is, has it focussed on the multiplayer to such an extent that the story is short and very pointless. Again, you’ll be glad to know that Infinity Ward have done a spectacular job on the story, even if it is a tad short.
The basic plot is that, 5 years after the war of MW1, some Russian terrorists, in a “controversial” display of doing things, kill hundreds of innocent civilians at an airport and then framing the Americans for the deed. Then the more Russians decide that America must pay for their sins. Meanwhile, the Brits are trying to track down the original Russian. Or something like that.
Even if it can be a tad confusing at times, it never failed to get a reaction from me. In keeping with my other review, this one will be spoiler-free, but I will say that as it gets closer and closer to the end, it just gets better and better.
IW have clearly tried something new with the vehicle sections of the game, which, in my opinion, work brilliantly as both a change of pace and style of play. I found it great fun to be speeding down a massive great hill at stupid speeds all while trying to shoot other snowmobiles hellbent on killing me. Good fun.
The other vehicle pieces are equally good, but, alas, mentioning them would amount to severe spoilerage.
I feel I should mention about the length of the campaign, it isn’t exactly huge clocking in at 6 hours. But I also feel that it’s the right length. All loose ends are tied up and if it were extended, the feeling of urgency and the pace of the story would be lost.
Once you’ve burnt through the campaign, the end of the credits suggests you now try some Spec-Ops, or Special Operations, which are essentially short but ridiculously hectic missions that don’t necessarily fit into the story. Similar to the end-game mission of MW1, “Mile High Club”.
From what I’ve played, they work very well and though can be frustrating at times (to be fair, we’re Veteran-ing it first time round) the sense of accomplishment for simply finishing them is great.
There are various types of mission for the Spec-Ops, from Survival mission where wave upon wave of enemies try and assault the spot you just, by chance, happen to be stuck at; to the stealth missions where the object is to simply walk about 200-300 meters forward, without being spotted, or killing opposition quick enough so that no alarms are raised.
If , for some reason, you tire of shooting people whilst playing this, there are also race missions, the only ones I’ve seen are set in the aforementioned snowmobile chase. But both offer a change of play should you bore of killing people.
Now, graphically, this really is a step-up from the original. The faces especially are better. All the textures seem to have been revamped, as do the animations and sounds. Guns sound and feel more powerful than they did before, and killing people almost looks pretty.
The maps themselves both single- and multi-player look very nice indeed, and when I first started playing, not a few deaths occurred from me simply looking at the background niceness that are the skyboxes. The only nit-picking I can do here is that the plants are quite flat and low-res compared to the rest of the environment.
The controls are exactly as they used to/should be, left trigger has you looking down the sights, right trigger does the killing, etc. So no complaints there. In fact, the only reason I mention it at all is that, a very nice touch is used a couple of times during the campaign, where cinematic-style kills are executed using the knife button, and also I liked the use of the triggers to climb the mountain at the start, and used again at a spoilery bit at the end. Very nice touch.
The gameplay is exactly as it was in MW1, occasionally it feels like you're just playing DLC for it. Nothing’s really changed gameplay-wise. Which is in no way a bad thing.
So, overall, I’d say that this game definitely lives up to its exuberant claims of “BEST GAMER EVAR” and the hype it has generated. I’d score it 9.5/10.
It is here that I should mention the biggest flaw of this game. And it has something to do with the multiplayer. Specifically, the party-chat in multiplayer, or more specifically, the LACK of party chat in multiplayer. IW have decided that for some reason that people shouldn’t be able to talk only to their friends, and must talk only to the mass of rascist jerks that live on Xbox Live. You can use party chat in 3 of the 12 or so playlists. Nice one IW.
So, aside from that flaw and a small touch of short-campaign-syndrome, this game is simply awesome and deserving of all the praise it gets.
Back to playing it....
Toodles
Saturday, 7 November 2009
The Most Manly Description Of Games Ever
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
GAMES!
GAMES FOR MEN!
RRRRRRRR!
WHERE'S MY WIFE?
Friday, 6 November 2009
I renamed it...
Nerdcopter sounded like it belonged to me too much and as this is not just my blog I thought it deserved a rename. I haven't discussed it with Ron Burgandy? or the Captain yet but I will some time soon to see if they have any name ideas.
But for now. It's: Gaming and all that Jazz
Byee
NMRNOMG
But for now. It's: Gaming and all that Jazz
Byee
NMRNOMG
Monday, 2 November 2009
Borderlands: A Review (Updated: 13/11/09)
I promised FBM a while back I would do this. Read: Before he bought it. But hey, Ima gonna do it anyway.
It's likely gonna be a spoiler free review for two reasons, initally only 1, but now 2. You can't stop the reasoning. 1: FBM hasn't finished it yet, and since this is for his benifit, there's no reason to include them. 2: NMRNOMG has them in the post below.
Off we go then. (Please bear in mind, IGN I am not. I'm just aiming for better than Gamespot's shitty reviews here)
Borderlands, claims the back of the case, is an RPS - Role Playing Shooter, a mix of the main elements of character progression from RPG's like Fallout 3; and the main elements of FPS's like... well... shooting things. With the emphasis rather on the latter than the former. You'll spend most of your time shooting things than staring at a stat screen.
I have no problem with this, I'll admit that I own far more shooters than I do true RPG's. But I far from hate them. So Borderlands comes as a nice blend of the two. The levelling system is simple, (you gain XP from kills, missions etc.) and anyone familiar to RPG's will feel right at home.
On the flip side, anyone not familiar to RPG's may struggle a bit at the start, what with the slightly overwhelming amount of things you need to take into account, and compare before making choices. For example, skill point, class mods, grenade mods, shields, guns, gun damage, fire rate, reload speed, accuracy... the list goes on. And to make the most of the game, you need to learn whats what.
Thankfully though, a simple tutorial takes you through the ropes, teaching you the controls (thankfully similar to other shooters like CoD4, so any shooter player feels immiediately at home) and the basics of comparing the paltry piece of bullet-spraying crap you have currently against any one of countless millions (the lastest count brought it in in excess of 16 Mill) guns you find on the floor, and in weapons crates.
Comparing guns is very simple thanks to an onscreen display of the gun-you're-looking-at's stats with little coloured arrows indicating whether each stat is better or worse than the one you are holding, and you soon get into the swing of after every firefight, pausing to loot the ground around you.
When you start a new game and watched the intro cutscene, you are asked to select 1 out of 4 characters to play the story as. These choices are your basic Soldier class, the slightly cliché Big Burly but Slightly Stupid Guy, the Sniper, and the Siren (read: Mage).
Each character is made different by their Action Skill, the Soldier's is a Turret/Shield combo, the Berserker (big but Stupid guy)'s is to basically punch the SHIT out of everything, the Sniper's is to send a little bat/bird/dragon out to attack things, and the Siren's is to turn invisible/invincible.
Once you've made your choice, you're run throught the tutorial by a little robot called Claptrap (which is not unlike the moon/fridge/robot from Wallace and Gromit's A Grand Day Out) and eventually sent out on missions.
When you inevitably reach level 5 (it doesn't take long), you gain the ability to use your Action Skill. And for every subsequent level, you gain another Skill Point with which to level it up until you reach the (current) level cap of 50.
One thing I'm happy about with this game is that you actually need to think about how you spend your skill points; because there are 3 skill "trees" full of a variety of power-ups to your Action Skill; and you only have enough points to complete 2 of them at the most. So it doesn't turn into something Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Oblivion are both guilty of, your character becomes ultimately overpowered and undefeatable.
The Borderlands story is composed much like Far Cry 2's "story", as in, there isn't really one. Set on the desolate planet Pandora, you are given lots of missions to complete to ultimately find and claim a supposedly hidden "Vault" full of alien weapons and technology. The characters also apparently have a backstory as to why they are looking for the Vault in the first place, but this is never so much as hinted on in the story.
Personally, I'm not too bothered by the lack of story for 2 possible reasons, 1: I've finished Far Cry 2, so I'm probably used to a lack of story in sandbox-type games, 2: I personally feel that if there were a deep story to this, it would be more likely to get repetitive, but as it stands (since I haven't reached level 50 yet), this game isn't very repetitve at all, there are plenty of missions (over 120 if I recall) to keep you entertained, with a fair few location changes to keep things fresh.
Gameplay wise, it is very smooth and acts just like any other "Tactical" shooter (ie, not run-n-gun), there is only one section where framerate drops, and even then, that section is over quickly. The RPG elements are integrated almost flawlessly into the game, the only gripe hardcore shooter fans could have with it is that headshots don't normally kill (but do score you critical hit damage).
Graphically, it is a very recognisable game, since being overhauled from ultra-realistic, it is now cel-shaded to add more character and atmosphere to the game, and in my opinion, it works. The humour of the game is only benefited by the visuals.
Multiplayer used well in the form of drop-in, drop-out, up-to-4-player co-op play, either through Xbox Live, split-screen and system link. Online, it works very well, with little to bring it down. Except one glaring flaw. No split-screen online. Or, so I'm told, no split-screen system link either. So, if you want to do a local 4-player game. You'll need nothing short of 4 consoles, 4 TVs and 4 copies of Borderlands.
It is rumoured that this is going to be fixed... but I'm not sure it will...
Ultimately, Borderlands is a visually appealling, fun, and long-lasting game with a fair bit of replay value (there are, after all, over 16 million guns, as I've mentioned), and with promises of DLC, this game could, and probably will, last a very long time.
If I were into the whole "scoring" thing, I'd probably rate this a 8.7/10, since the game is very good, but is let down by its lack of story, and multiplayer hinderances. but this is really a very good game. See NMRNOMG's post below for opinions on the ending.
So there you have it FBM, I don't care that you already have this and have no doubt formulated your own opinion, here is mine. Enjoy.
Forgot to mention.
I'm also buying a Playstation 3. So sue me.
EDIT: I just did a quite on IGN that decides whether I should play Dragon Age Origins or Mass Effect 2. It told me Dragon Age...
I've said many times that game looks shit and I had a massive nerd-gasm when I saw the ME2 trailer. So IGN IS WRONG.
EDIT: I just did a quite on IGN that decides whether I should play Dragon Age Origins or Mass Effect 2. It told me Dragon Age...
I've said many times that game looks shit and I had a massive nerd-gasm when I saw the ME2 trailer. So IGN IS WRONG.
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