Now some of might say, and some HAVE, that Team Fortress Classic is basically Team Fortress 2 except with a few bugs and filled with steaming pills of petrified shit. I would like to take those people and take them to the nearest restaurant, sit them down, let them order their food and then just before the food arrives throw a big pot filled with boiling water into their face then slam them onto the cooker that boiled the water. Team Fortress Classic is as good as Team Fortress 2, the only reason people don't like it is that it's different.
The graphics, I admit, aren't the usual high-definition brown-and-gray, or bloom large enough to blind an astronaut on the far side of the moon, it's the Half-Life engine and you better like it because the gameplay never slows due to processor demands. If you've played Team Fortress 2, this is almost entirely different. The main difference are the grenades, there were custom grenades for almost all of the different classes. For example, the Spy has hallucinogenic grenades which make the victim see and hear various attacks being thrown at or near them, such as grenades exploding or shotgun blasts. The Demoman has a cluster grenade which explodes into about 5 smaller bombs, and other grenades like that.
Some classes have their own abilities too, the Spy can feign death to avoid suspicion if enemies run around a corner, the Scout has Caltrops which are very handy if you're on the run as you almost always are. They slow anyone who walks on them to a crawl for a long period of time. Also, the Demoman has a Det-Pack, or as I sometimes call it the "Fuck-You Bomb", set it to about 10 seconds and peg it and everyone within a 10 mile radius will be plastered to the wall in various coloured bits.
The gameplay is fast, much faster than Team Fortress 2. Slower than Deathmatch Classic but faster than Day of Defeat. Everyone gets a piece of the action, especially the medics for some reason. The Medic, instead of having the medigun, the syringe gun and the bonesaw he has a medipack which works the same as the medigun except you have to be right beside the wounded person, also it spreads AIDS to enemies which can only be cured by another medic, a single-barrelled shotgun, a double-barrelled shotgun, a super-nailgun, 3 concussion grenades and 4 frag grenades. This is probably a sign to show that almost everyone is equipped to fight anyone except their polar-opposite.
This may seem good at first, and for the most part it is, except some of it is un-necessary. Also, for the Heavy Weapons Guy, his shotguns use the same ammo as the chain gun so If you used a lot of chain gun ammo and you need to run n' gun you'll be shitting yourself scared when you only have 8 shots left and you have the flag in the middle of their base and your Medic has run off to Rambo somewhere else. Also, the Medic-heavy combo doesn't work as much since the medic has to almost stand in the way of the Heavy to heal him and in more than one occasion other people needs the Medic more and also the Medic is useful for spreading AIDS to the eternal Snipers on the battlements.
The Snipers tactics are very different in Team Fortress Classic due to the fact that the sniper rifle is also a machine gun. Another case of unbalanced weapons is the Pyro's flame rocket launcher and the Spies double-barrelled shotgun and nailgun!
For the insubstantiality of it all, the game has a lot in it and is very fun with a server full of people to help in the unbridled mayhem that is Rambo-ing with a Medic in Red Base's flag room with nothing but a Scout to back you up.
Oh and the same rule applies, dirt cheap and requires almost nothing to run so if you or anyone you know is a cheap bastard and won't get this game for all it's glory bring them to the nearest restaurant and use your imagination.
27.7.08
Deathmatch Classic Review
Yes, I know this game is old.
Yes, I know it's not very popular.
No, I'm not going to do a Halo 3 review. EVER.
Deathmatch Classic is, in my opinion, a welcome step back in the First Person Shooter genre. I'm not sure if you have ever played DOOM or DOOM II, if you haven't do now or else you will miss out in the grand-daddy of modern-day shooters. The game was essentially 2.5D, maybe less because the BUILD engine was officially 2.5D. Also, I'm not too sure if you've played QUAKE, another game spelled totally in capitol letters, but it is another milestone in the FPS genre as well. I will show you a picture from DOOM, QUAKE then Deathmatch Classic and see what the similarities are:
OK, if you can't see the similarities between these games I'm going to have to beat you till you snap back to 1993. DOOM was made in 1993 (coincidence?) and was one of the first to have 3D maps, but the engine couldn't handle slopes and everything else was 2D, thus the 2.5D name associated with it. The layout is simple: gun in the centre, ammo, health, other ammo types and you. Yes, you. Whenever you get hurt, get damaged, lose health this guy representing YOU does something. That was cool, although you wouldn't get that nowadays. Imagine in Call of Duty 4 there was your HUD and a little box at the bottom with a high-definition version of your face responding to what happens around you.
Let's move onto Quake: gun in the centre, armor, ammo, health and of course, a little man. Quake was made about 3 years after DOOM and I think id's project statement was
Yes, I know it's not very popular.
No, I'm not going to do a Halo 3 review. EVER.
Deathmatch Classic is, in my opinion, a welcome step back in the First Person Shooter genre. I'm not sure if you have ever played DOOM or DOOM II, if you haven't do now or else you will miss out in the grand-daddy of modern-day shooters. The game was essentially 2.5D, maybe less because the BUILD engine was officially 2.5D. Also, I'm not too sure if you've played QUAKE, another game spelled totally in capitol letters, but it is another milestone in the FPS genre as well. I will show you a picture from DOOM, QUAKE then Deathmatch Classic and see what the similarities are:
OK, if you can't see the similarities between these games I'm going to have to beat you till you snap back to 1993. DOOM was made in 1993 (coincidence?) and was one of the first to have 3D maps, but the engine couldn't handle slopes and everything else was 2D, thus the 2.5D name associated with it. The layout is simple: gun in the centre, ammo, health, other ammo types and you. Yes, you. Whenever you get hurt, get damaged, lose health this guy representing YOU does something. That was cool, although you wouldn't get that nowadays. Imagine in Call of Duty 4 there was your HUD and a little box at the bottom with a high-definition version of your face responding to what happens around you.
Let's move onto Quake: gun in the centre, armor, ammo, health and of course, a little man. Quake was made about 3 years after DOOM and I think id's project statement was
"Let's make something like DOOM except with better graphics, full 3D and in castles"
And it worked! Quake was a HUGE success, almost perfect except for the level design. Brown castle after brown castle after brown castle. Could've used some variety but I think space limitations could have caused that.
Now Deathmatch Classic. This was made when the stream of sophisticated shooters started to appear. System Shock 2 is a prime example of a good one that started it. Seeing this Valve probably thought "Let's make something old school, as a final hurrah" so they made Deathmatch Classic (Then Team Fortress Classic, then Day of Defeat, then etc). This time the HUD is the bare minimum: ammo, health and your gun which is in the middle, as it should be for a retro shooter. The action is fast, and I mean FAST. Stand still for 2 seconds and someone will come along and launch a grenade up your ass and watch as your body flies into the many, many lava pits. This may be off-putting to new players but for me, a Serious Sam and Doom fan, this is no problem.
This game basically symbolises the phrase "Hitting the ground running" because as soon as you spawn you have to peg it to the nearest weapon and shoot anything that moves. When it was my friends first time playing, we tried to have a truce but found it too hard because of the paranoia of going around each corner and firing off a few rockets and the freakiness of hearing footsteps behind you and not hearing any shooting makes you want to smash the person behind you in the face with a crowbar.
Now this is a very handy "time waster", if you could call it that. It is extremely fun and extremely fast and is good if you want to use up some excess sugar in your system or want to release some pent up rage and blast the friend up the road in the face with a double barrelled sawn-off shotgun.
You can get this game, Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat for less than 10 Euro off steam, each game being well worth that each.I will review those other two games next actually, and since each are relatively small think of this as part one of three of a three part review.
Also, it will run on almost any system made in this decade so there's no real excuse not to get it. Unless you don't have any internet and are reading this off a friends computer you cheap bastard.
And it worked! Quake was a HUGE success, almost perfect except for the level design. Brown castle after brown castle after brown castle. Could've used some variety but I think space limitations could have caused that.
Now Deathmatch Classic. This was made when the stream of sophisticated shooters started to appear. System Shock 2 is a prime example of a good one that started it. Seeing this Valve probably thought "Let's make something old school, as a final hurrah" so they made Deathmatch Classic (Then Team Fortress Classic, then Day of Defeat, then etc). This time the HUD is the bare minimum: ammo, health and your gun which is in the middle, as it should be for a retro shooter. The action is fast, and I mean FAST. Stand still for 2 seconds and someone will come along and launch a grenade up your ass and watch as your body flies into the many, many lava pits. This may be off-putting to new players but for me, a Serious Sam and Doom fan, this is no problem.
This game basically symbolises the phrase "Hitting the ground running" because as soon as you spawn you have to peg it to the nearest weapon and shoot anything that moves. When it was my friends first time playing, we tried to have a truce but found it too hard because of the paranoia of going around each corner and firing off a few rockets and the freakiness of hearing footsteps behind you and not hearing any shooting makes you want to smash the person behind you in the face with a crowbar.
Now this is a very handy "time waster", if you could call it that. It is extremely fun and extremely fast and is good if you want to use up some excess sugar in your system or want to release some pent up rage and blast the friend up the road in the face with a double barrelled sawn-off shotgun.
You can get this game, Team Fortress Classic and Day of Defeat for less than 10 Euro off steam, each game being well worth that each.I will review those other two games next actually, and since each are relatively small think of this as part one of three of a three part review.
Also, it will run on almost any system made in this decade so there's no real excuse not to get it. Unless you don't have any internet and are reading this off a friends computer you cheap bastard.
16.7.08
Gears of War Review
Now before I start I just want to let you know that this review may be fairly obsolete with Gears of War 2 due to come out in November so don't write any hate mail when you read this.
OK, onto the review.
Gears of War is set in a post apocalyptic Earth where, what I can only guess are humanoid creatures, are fighting to take over the surface. Civilisation has gone to hell and Mankind is struggling for survival. Now, you may think that the story goes deeper than that but it doesn't. The story is about deep as a puddle and about as noticeable as one while driving really fast in a car through a street riddled with pot holes and it's been raining for two weeks non-stop and you're trying to spot that specific puddle. The protagonist is Marcus Fenix, a soldier in a group called "The Cogs" or "Cogs of War" or something to play into the title, and is released from prison by his friend Dom who in my opinion is the the coolest mother-fucker in there maybe to the exception of Cole but you don't play as him so who cares.
considerably. In the The gameplay is fairly straight-forward, if not repetitive at times. The routine goes like this: Run, Take Cover, Shoot (Blind firing is optional), Take Cover, Shoot some more, Run and it goes like that for about 90% of the game. There is one driving section in the game but it's short and easy but meant we had to leave the totally kick-ass old guy who had a revolver back at the petrol-station. There are certain mechanics to this game which spices up the gameplay. Multiplayer mode "WarZone", you can curb stomp a downed enemy to finish them off. In Gears of War 2 there's going to be that and more with custom animations for finishing moves for different weapons but we're talking about the first Gears of War so let's get back on topic.
Reloading now isn't just a "Tap-a-Button" reload sequence like 100% of other games out there, in this game when you tap reload a bar shows up with a white section about a third of the way through it. If you tap the reload button again when another white bar starts to fly across the bar and it lands in the white zone you get a perfect reload and it takes a fraction of the time. If you miss it the gun jams and you have to wait till it's fixed. Also while taking cover is easy jumping over objects is a big pile of ass because when you're running away from a group of enemies and have to jump over a barrier you have to take cover with it first, exposing your easily killed body to the enemies, then jumping over it with another press of the button. Now why they couldn't just have had it so that you can jump over it quicker and easier I don't know but it is a killer when you're in trouble.
Also, with the difficulty level, on singleplayer it can be very unforgiving. When your teammates are shot down you can just run over, drag them back up and they're good to go but when you're shot you lose and have to restart at the last checkpoint. This doesn't seem fair because you take risks running out to save them while they just leave you for dead as soon as you fall over. I saw another take of this in Star Wars: Republic Commando and let me tell you this. I fucking love Republic Commando! It livened up my Xbox with great controls, responsive AI and a priority system worthy of God. In Republic Commando you can revive your squad mates or tell another to revive them for you, but if you're down you're on the ground with blurred vision and dulled out hearing, with three options on your visor.
1: Recall and Revive
This will make your squad mates come heal you whenever they have the chance, even when under fire. They won't run on a suicide mission and will say when they can or can't come.
2:Finish Last Order
Your squad will finish the last order you give them before you were downed, such as to kill a large droid or clear a room. It also means that if you choose it, the team will clear the area before healing you.
3:Reload Last Checkpoint
If you want to redo the last section or think there is no chance of revival this is the last resort.
These options made Commando awesome and fluent without making it too easy. I may have said this in my Rainbow Six Vegas review that you can revive team mates but you can't be revived yourself. It's just bad game design.
Now I finished Gears of War on co-op which to me seems like it was made for it. Fairly often you have to split into teams of teo to explore both routes and that usually means one human player and one AI per team, with one team needing the help of the other at certain points. The levels were very challenging but some sections were just unreal. There was one section where we first get shotguns and we were supposed to be freaked out by munchkins charging at us from both ends of a corridor. Rather than being scared we pissed ourselves laughing at how the ragdolls flew and exploded in mid air.
The one complaint I have is a major one. When you get to the last boss, usually it's hard. I mean hard. As in you could throw a stick of dynamite at it and it wouldn't do a thing. In Gears of War this is not the case. The last boss is a testosterone filled rocket-man with a shield which lasts for 4 seconds before it flies off trying to attack us only realising we're in the light and gets scared and runs off back to offer a small amount of protection to the slow, grunting rocket hoar with bad aim. All you need is a sniper and a knack of avoiding really slow rockets and you're done! He doesn't even take that long to kill!
I know this was a launch game for the 360 and they had no real experience with past games for it but to me it seems unfinished. Unrefined. In need of a longer campaign, good storyline and a good fucking ending.
I'd give this game a "Should buy for the experience, but don't expect to replaying it anytime soon"
P.S.: Any game made by a developer called "Epic Games" HAS to be worth buying.
OK, onto the review.
Gears of War is set in a post apocalyptic Earth where, what I can only guess are humanoid creatures, are fighting to take over the surface. Civilisation has gone to hell and Mankind is struggling for survival. Now, you may think that the story goes deeper than that but it doesn't. The story is about deep as a puddle and about as noticeable as one while driving really fast in a car through a street riddled with pot holes and it's been raining for two weeks non-stop and you're trying to spot that specific puddle. The protagonist is Marcus Fenix, a soldier in a group called "The Cogs" or "Cogs of War" or something to play into the title, and is released from prison by his friend Dom who in my opinion is the the coolest mother-fucker in there maybe to the exception of Cole but you don't play as him so who cares.
considerably. In the The gameplay is fairly straight-forward, if not repetitive at times. The routine goes like this: Run, Take Cover, Shoot (Blind firing is optional), Take Cover, Shoot some more, Run and it goes like that for about 90% of the game. There is one driving section in the game but it's short and easy but meant we had to leave the totally kick-ass old guy who had a revolver back at the petrol-station. There are certain mechanics to this game which spices up the gameplay. Multiplayer mode "WarZone", you can curb stomp a downed enemy to finish them off. In Gears of War 2 there's going to be that and more with custom animations for finishing moves for different weapons but we're talking about the first Gears of War so let's get back on topic.
Reloading now isn't just a "Tap-a-Button" reload sequence like 100% of other games out there, in this game when you tap reload a bar shows up with a white section about a third of the way through it. If you tap the reload button again when another white bar starts to fly across the bar and it lands in the white zone you get a perfect reload and it takes a fraction of the time. If you miss it the gun jams and you have to wait till it's fixed. Also while taking cover is easy jumping over objects is a big pile of ass because when you're running away from a group of enemies and have to jump over a barrier you have to take cover with it first, exposing your easily killed body to the enemies, then jumping over it with another press of the button. Now why they couldn't just have had it so that you can jump over it quicker and easier I don't know but it is a killer when you're in trouble.
Also, with the difficulty level, on singleplayer it can be very unforgiving. When your teammates are shot down you can just run over, drag them back up and they're good to go but when you're shot you lose and have to restart at the last checkpoint. This doesn't seem fair because you take risks running out to save them while they just leave you for dead as soon as you fall over. I saw another take of this in Star Wars: Republic Commando and let me tell you this. I fucking love Republic Commando! It livened up my Xbox with great controls, responsive AI and a priority system worthy of God. In Republic Commando you can revive your squad mates or tell another to revive them for you, but if you're down you're on the ground with blurred vision and dulled out hearing, with three options on your visor.
1: Recall and Revive
This will make your squad mates come heal you whenever they have the chance, even when under fire. They won't run on a suicide mission and will say when they can or can't come.
2:Finish Last Order
Your squad will finish the last order you give them before you were downed, such as to kill a large droid or clear a room. It also means that if you choose it, the team will clear the area before healing you.
3:Reload Last Checkpoint
If you want to redo the last section or think there is no chance of revival this is the last resort.
These options made Commando awesome and fluent without making it too easy. I may have said this in my Rainbow Six Vegas review that you can revive team mates but you can't be revived yourself. It's just bad game design.
Now I finished Gears of War on co-op which to me seems like it was made for it. Fairly often you have to split into teams of teo to explore both routes and that usually means one human player and one AI per team, with one team needing the help of the other at certain points. The levels were very challenging but some sections were just unreal. There was one section where we first get shotguns and we were supposed to be freaked out by munchkins charging at us from both ends of a corridor. Rather than being scared we pissed ourselves laughing at how the ragdolls flew and exploded in mid air.
The one complaint I have is a major one. When you get to the last boss, usually it's hard. I mean hard. As in you could throw a stick of dynamite at it and it wouldn't do a thing. In Gears of War this is not the case. The last boss is a testosterone filled rocket-man with a shield which lasts for 4 seconds before it flies off trying to attack us only realising we're in the light and gets scared and runs off back to offer a small amount of protection to the slow, grunting rocket hoar with bad aim. All you need is a sniper and a knack of avoiding really slow rockets and you're done! He doesn't even take that long to kill!
I know this was a launch game for the 360 and they had no real experience with past games for it but to me it seems unfinished. Unrefined. In need of a longer campaign, good storyline and a good fucking ending.
I'd give this game a "Should buy for the experience, but don't expect to replaying it anytime soon"
P.S.: Any game made by a developer called "Epic Games" HAS to be worth buying.
2.7.08
Tom Clancy's: Rainbow Six Vegas 2 Review
TC:RSV2 as it is unoriginaly called is a sequel to TC:RSV which is a tactical shooter based in Las Vegas New Mexico... I mean Nevada. When I got this game I had no idea what it was going to be like, since my only previous experience with Tom Clancy is his Splinter Cell games which I must say is a good series and I hope they don't fuck it up with bad story like Metal Gear.
Now, I managed to sneak into the TARDIS for a few seconds while the Doctor was getting aquainted with his new robotic friend and I had a spin with it.
To my surprise it took me back to my Counter-Strike days when I used only two types of weapons: the ones that are practical and money efficient and the ones that just look freaking cool. What made this even better is when I found out about skins, so all of my practical weapons became even more freaking cool.
To my surprise, Vegas 2 was the same experience for me. It needed skill and a really itchy trigger finger to get everyone without dying and a really good eye if you're a sniper as I am. Now, the main reason I bought this game is for the co-op, and when I looked at the back of the box and saw the blind-firing-wall-hugging style game play I thought "Dear Lord, is this going to be another shitty Gears of War rip-off?" and when I looked at the first menu screen I was glad that I was wrong. I found out that you could customise your character from a wide range of stuff even from the beginning and it could only get better from there. What is also a good feature is being able to choose your starting weapons, armour and explosives and because I'm such a sniping bastard I chose a scout sniper and an mp9, which I first thought was mp7 because my TV is so shit and was kind of disappointed with it, and a pistol but at the time I didn't know how to select the pistol so I just left it with a p99 with a laser. The first thing you do with a new game is bitch-slap the controller to see what each button does. And no sooner did I do this I found the controls to be perfect with the flow of the game. Well almost perfect. Doesn't it suck when you think something in a game is "The Shit" and makes it seem like the high point of a game then it starts nibbling on your shoulder like a suger-crazed friend after you tank through him in rugby? the way to select the pistol is un-intuitive at best and could be significantly improved. You have to hold the Y button and move the left analog stick to it to select it and it is kind of annoying when cocky American terrorists are swearing and blind firing their way up your ASS. It would have been much better to tap Y to switch between main weapons and old it down for like 1 second to go to the pistol. And it would have been better to hold or even better double tap B to switch between explosives, because if you want to cook a grenade, which is a phrase I found very weird because if you were to "cook" a grenade it would surely blow up in your face. Anyway, back on target, the laser pointer on the pistols I find very annoying because the laser immediately want to align where the barrel is pointing and for appearances sake that is different to the actual crosshair and so whenever you shoot the laser goes wherever it fucking wants then snaps back into place where the crosshair is and it's a bitch when moving and firing because you no longer have the ability to shoot where you want and get blasted in the face by a camper with a shot gun. Another point is the lack of a melee attack, so if a testosterone filled prick runs around the corner while you're reloading you're FUCKED. Also, in the first Vegas game there was 4 player co-op but now it's only 2 which is better in a way that the screen isn't cluttered but the split is vertical not horizontal and how can you scan a room for enemies while all you can see the the ceiling, floor and door frame. The "Thermal Scan" is a vertical thermal map of your area which is very useful but you only get once every few minutes and is horrible when playing split-screen because It takes up about a third of player ones screen space.
But defenitaly this game's two shining lights are the unlockables and the quality of the co-op. For instance I like to play as a sniper. You get markmanship points by killing people in a specific way, such as from a long distance, headshot etc and they get you more points. the more points you get the higher level in that aspect you go in either Markmanship, CQB or Assault. Personally I think markmanship is piss easy and Could be gotten with a motherfucking shotgun but it wouldn't be as satisfying as sniping a guard off a ledge to hide the body or pistol-ing someone from across the map. Also the more people you kill the more experience you get and the higher rank you achieve. Such as the first rank requires 500 XP which would mean killing 50 enemies on the hardest difficulty and achieving new ranks unlocks new armor, cosmetic armor and different types of camoflauge. All this is is purely for looks besides the ammount of protection you have but I don't see any noticable difference when an enemy sniper decides to shoot one into your bollocks, you die in one hit if your hit in the torso, head, legs, etc except if it clips you and that makes you as week as hell for about 20 seconds which is a bitch when Jung runs out and gets sniped in the head and you have to save him.
Personally I can handle the snipers no problem it's the fact that they pin my teamates to the floor is the hard part there. If you take a shot at them and you miss theres a 50/50 chance that they'll hit you unless you time it right and bait their shots. Also I never understood why in a team based games enemies always shoot YOU even though your friends are sleeping out in the open and you're inside a bunker with 1 small hole to shoot through, the enemies in Vegas almost always shout "Aim for their leader" which is an attempt to cover up the fact that the developers couldn't share the shots out equally.
My last point is the AI chat system which in some places is plainly scripted but in battle they actually give orders and reply to them depending on the situation. Once I was sniping down a hall and one guys shouts "Cover me!" and looks out to see where I am. I shoot his friend in the leg because by the time I saw him look up I shot another guy, and the first guy's friend just shouts "Fuck you asshole, cover me!" Which I think is a very good touch. Another example went like this:
Enemy 1: Throw a flashbang!
Enemy 2: Watch your eyes!
Enemy 3: Shut up, just throw it!
All in all this is a very good game and even after completing it once you want to do it again for the higher ranks, new clothes, armour and guns. Incedentaly I have all the weapons I want, a P90, a sniper, C4 which I use for traps, opening doors and as grenades, and frag grenades. This is also amazing for co-op except maybe for the annoying objective update video box on Players 2 screen for a short while and the Thermal Scan on Player 1 but it is thoroughly enjoyable if not a bit short on the story aspect. I won't use numbers to category this game so I'll just say it's a "Very good buy"
Now, I managed to sneak into the TARDIS for a few seconds while the Doctor was getting aquainted with his new robotic friend and I had a spin with it.
To my surprise it took me back to my Counter-Strike days when I used only two types of weapons: the ones that are practical and money efficient and the ones that just look freaking cool. What made this even better is when I found out about skins, so all of my practical weapons became even more freaking cool.
To my surprise, Vegas 2 was the same experience for me. It needed skill and a really itchy trigger finger to get everyone without dying and a really good eye if you're a sniper as I am. Now, the main reason I bought this game is for the co-op, and when I looked at the back of the box and saw the blind-firing-wall-hugging style game play I thought "Dear Lord, is this going to be another shitty Gears of War rip-off?" and when I looked at the first menu screen I was glad that I was wrong. I found out that you could customise your character from a wide range of stuff even from the beginning and it could only get better from there. What is also a good feature is being able to choose your starting weapons, armour and explosives and because I'm such a sniping bastard I chose a scout sniper and an mp9, which I first thought was mp7 because my TV is so shit and was kind of disappointed with it, and a pistol but at the time I didn't know how to select the pistol so I just left it with a p99 with a laser. The first thing you do with a new game is bitch-slap the controller to see what each button does. And no sooner did I do this I found the controls to be perfect with the flow of the game. Well almost perfect. Doesn't it suck when you think something in a game is "The Shit" and makes it seem like the high point of a game then it starts nibbling on your shoulder like a suger-crazed friend after you tank through him in rugby? the way to select the pistol is un-intuitive at best and could be significantly improved. You have to hold the Y button and move the left analog stick to it to select it and it is kind of annoying when cocky American terrorists are swearing and blind firing their way up your ASS. It would have been much better to tap Y to switch between main weapons and old it down for like 1 second to go to the pistol. And it would have been better to hold or even better double tap B to switch between explosives, because if you want to cook a grenade, which is a phrase I found very weird because if you were to "cook" a grenade it would surely blow up in your face. Anyway, back on target, the laser pointer on the pistols I find very annoying because the laser immediately want to align where the barrel is pointing and for appearances sake that is different to the actual crosshair and so whenever you shoot the laser goes wherever it fucking wants then snaps back into place where the crosshair is and it's a bitch when moving and firing because you no longer have the ability to shoot where you want and get blasted in the face by a camper with a shot gun. Another point is the lack of a melee attack, so if a testosterone filled prick runs around the corner while you're reloading you're FUCKED. Also, in the first Vegas game there was 4 player co-op but now it's only 2 which is better in a way that the screen isn't cluttered but the split is vertical not horizontal and how can you scan a room for enemies while all you can see the the ceiling, floor and door frame. The "Thermal Scan" is a vertical thermal map of your area which is very useful but you only get once every few minutes and is horrible when playing split-screen because It takes up about a third of player ones screen space.But defenitaly this game's two shining lights are the unlockables and the quality of the co-op. For instance I like to play as a sniper. You get markmanship points by killing people in a specific way, such as from a long distance, headshot etc and they get you more points. the more points you get the higher level in that aspect you go in either Markmanship, CQB or Assault. Personally I think markmanship is piss easy and Could be gotten with a motherfucking shotgun but it wouldn't be as satisfying as sniping a guard off a ledge to hide the body or pistol-ing someone from across the map. Also the more people you kill the more experience you get and the higher rank you achieve. Such as the first rank requires 500 XP which would mean killing 50 enemies on the hardest difficulty and achieving new ranks unlocks new armor, cosmetic armor and different types of camoflauge. All this is is purely for looks besides the ammount of protection you have but I don't see any noticable difference when an enemy sniper decides to shoot one into your bollocks, you die in one hit if your hit in the torso, head, legs, etc except if it clips you and that makes you as week as hell for about 20 seconds which is a bitch when Jung runs out and gets sniped in the head and you have to save him.
Personally I can handle the snipers no problem it's the fact that they pin my teamates to the floor is the hard part there. If you take a shot at them and you miss theres a 50/50 chance that they'll hit you unless you time it right and bait their shots. Also I never understood why in a team based games enemies always shoot YOU even though your friends are sleeping out in the open and you're inside a bunker with 1 small hole to shoot through, the enemies in Vegas almost always shout "Aim for their leader" which is an attempt to cover up the fact that the developers couldn't share the shots out equally.
My last point is the AI chat system which in some places is plainly scripted but in battle they actually give orders and reply to them depending on the situation. Once I was sniping down a hall and one guys shouts "Cover me!" and looks out to see where I am. I shoot his friend in the leg because by the time I saw him look up I shot another guy, and the first guy's friend just shouts "Fuck you asshole, cover me!" Which I think is a very good touch. Another example went like this:
Enemy 1: Throw a flashbang!
Enemy 2: Watch your eyes!
Enemy 3: Shut up, just throw it!
All in all this is a very good game and even after completing it once you want to do it again for the higher ranks, new clothes, armour and guns. Incedentaly I have all the weapons I want, a P90, a sniper, C4 which I use for traps, opening doors and as grenades, and frag grenades. This is also amazing for co-op except maybe for the annoying objective update video box on Players 2 screen for a short while and the Thermal Scan on Player 1 but it is thoroughly enjoyable if not a bit short on the story aspect. I won't use numbers to category this game so I'll just say it's a "Very good buy"
Fuck It, I'm Not Doing It Anymore!
Yes, that's right. I have abandoned my RE4 review because things keep cocking up on me and it is pissing me off. I will only do reviews on request and if I have it. I might even do old NES/SNES/Genesis games depending and I don't care if they're good or bad as long as it gives me enough material to write with. I apologise to all 1 of you who actually read my blog about this but it's just a load of grind to try get the review out.
Actually, I'll review anything, ANYTHING! Well, it will be very rare if I actually review anything outside of what interests me so all you politicaly mal-adjusted freaks who get a boner from people talking about the oil crisis can go fuck themselves.
Actually, I'll review anything, ANYTHING! Well, it will be very rare if I actually review anything outside of what interests me so all you politicaly mal-adjusted freaks who get a boner from people talking about the oil crisis can go fuck themselves.
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