Metal Gear Solid 4: The Movie or the Game?

So just to be fair and just I'm not a Metal Gear Solid fan and furthermore Metal Gear Solid 4 was the first Metal Gear Solid I played. So right off the bat I saw how nice the gamed looked and though there was a bit of a learning curve for the controls over all they where well mapped. The sneaking game play is also very well done even though my style of gaming is more geared to lets blow some stuff up. The main problem I had with Metal Gear Solid 4 is that there was more game time spent watching cinema movies then actually playing the game. I personally think the game should be more balance with the length of game play being more proportional to the cinema scenes. Of course now I must be careful passing boxes and barrels, don't want to get shanked by Snake.

Prince Of Persia: Great expectations not meet

Before I begun let me give you some perspective. I had just finish playing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time over the holidays for the first time and immediately the game became one of my top all time favorites. I was pre-warned that this new Prince of Persia fell short on many things but I put all that a side and popped in the disk. If you read my Uncharted review you will know that I spoke of three things that makes a great action adventure game, exploration, story and combat. Prince of Persia is the primary example of what happens to a game when you screw one of these up. Prince of Persia exploration was not bad, the world setup worked and the world itself was fitting of a next gen title. The controls were a little clunky at times but over all the exploration experience was a good one. The compass feature was very helpful and worked most of the time. The only serious draw back to the exploration was the collection of light seeds which forced players to replay areas and dragged down a already sluggish game. Prince of Persia story also feel under the category of good but not great. The over all prince and princesses attitude were entertaining but in order to get a lot of the back story you would have to putting playing the actual game on hold which is never a good thing. The combat of Prince of Persia is what destroyed this game and removed all hopes of me enjoying it. Combat was scares and extremely repetitive. There where only two types of enemies in the game generic mini bosses and main bosses. The combat consist of the prince performing a few sword attacks, then being forced to block this would repeat over and over until finally you chipped away all the boss health. Also you could never die in battle but by pressing the wrong button the princess would have to save you and the boss would regain health. Combat was rarely a surprise and the difficulty level consist of your moves being restricted. In short Prince of Persia combat consist of you following a hidden direct of press this now and the player has no freedom to fight their own battle. Also all the great acrobatic combos that made the new age Prince of Persia games so popular is no where to be found. Prince of Persia was a failure because it forgot that combat is suppose to be fun and without good combat in an action adventure game you have a game that is boring. I sent the game back to gamefly without completing it cause of pure boredom.

Uncharted: Drake Fortune is smiply awesome

Uncharted has been one of my favorite game to play this whole gaming season. Uncharted really captures the essence of a single player action adventure game and has set a great bench mark of how this game should look and feel on a next gen console. In Uncharted you play as Drake your Indiana Jones type, an average guy but archaeologist extraordinaire. At the very beginning of the game you are introduced to the primary combat of the game which is a third person shoot and cover mechanism with of course some close range hand to hand combat. Uncharted masters the three main pillars of a great action adventure game combat, world exploration and story. Without these three things you get an unsatisfying gaming experience but when you you balance these three things correctly you have a great game. Uncharted follows the some what well know story of the lost city of Eldorado. Now don't worry I can assure you that Uncharted takes a completely fresh and new angel to this story and does not disappoint at all. Uncharted also has a very strong cast of characters that really come to life on the PS3. Uncharted exploration is an experience that matches the classic Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (if you haven't played this game pick it up now and be amazed). The world of Uncharted is vast and beautiful, really taking use of the PS3 hardware. The game also does a really amazing job of intertwining cinema scenes both big and small into the game play never breaking the experience. The controls for climbing and jumping from ledge to ledge also are well thought of making it feel really natural to use. Lastly the combat in Uncharted is both exciting and challenging. You must use your surrounds to protect yourself as you must flank your enemy be fore they flank you. The AI is all well structure as they well flank, charge and retreat just like you would expect real people to do. The combat is also filled with a ot of explosive barrels and such which helps make the experience unique and fun as this is not an FPS game but an adventure game. I highly recommend this game to anyone and I am really looking forward to the sequel.

Gears of War 2: A shiny toy with rusty parts

Gears of War 2 was suppose to be the game of year and though sales were profitable the over all gaming community was cluttered with disappointment. First of all this game is definitely a rent and not a buy with only really 7 hours of game play. So if you do the math your paying about 7 to 8 dollars and hour for this game. In my opinion this is purely wrong but of course that is the trend and this is why I rent games through gamefly now. Gears 2 is an epic storyline that does not require but recommends you have played the first game. The story however can be boiled down to one giant tease. Most of the major plots never really get solved and those that do leave you going well that was worthless. Overall game play is good but nothing really stands out about it as the game play hasnt change sense Gears 1. So in short you got an overpriced, overrated and unsatisfying game experience. But fear not my Faithful Gear followers that are cursing this very blog entry im sure Gears 3 the quest to make more money is just around the corner.

A dash of radiation: Fallout 3

A dash of radiation goes a long way with Fallout 3. So first of all Fallout 3 is a hardcore gamers fantasy of what life would be like in a post apocalyptic world. Fallout 3 is all about customization of your characters and weapons. From the start of the game you are asked to give points to different traits like knowledge, charisma, strength and so on. Though this does cause the game to have a rather slow start the story does a good job of incorporating the story in to training. However I would highly recommend an option to skip the prologue after you have played through it once to make replayability a much more pleasant experience. I soon discovered that it would require me to play this game multiple times all with different personality traits to truly experience the depth of the game. As far as game play time and interactive worlds Fallout 3 is the best choice of the year. I will admit I really just gave this a test drive around the block before sending it back to gamefly. Dont get me wrong it is a great game just not for me.

Little Big Planet:: A world of fun

Little Big Planet is the most refreshing game I have played all year long. It is simply a flawless master piece that will hopefully help rejuvenate the side scrolling puzzle genre. LBP is pure imagination where possibilities are endless. LBP consist of two main modes the story mode and the custom map mode. Story mode takes you around the glob in a theme adventure where you must save Little Big Planet form the evil collector. Each level consist of a series of puzzles that you must solve. The game mechanics are simply jumping, running and grabbing the many object in the world. I personally have not seen a game with such deep game play based such simple controls since the classic SNES Mario Bros. LBP created a core game play of simplicity and then added depth through excellent level design. Ever level is theme appropriately with your world location and the levels get progressively harder as you play the game. The puzzles are exciting and you feel a bit of relief when you successfully avoid falling into that pit of alligators.

As you progress through the game you unlock new clothes and stickers for your characters. The clothes are an awesome way of decorating your character appearance to yours heart desire. Stickers serve a dual purpose one being decorating your character and the world the second being placing trigger stickers in the correct location to unlock secrete paths in the level. You can also control your character emotions and poses for the pure entertainment factor or to use the camera function.

LBP also has a very in depth level creator that lets you create or recreate a wide variety of platformer and other genre of levels. The engine requires hard work and time but you can truly create some awesome things. The level creator also adds a lot of depth for some of the more hard core gamer types. LBP is one of those games where you really need to play the game in order to truly appreciate it. So instead of me going on all day why I think LBP is awesome go out and pick up LBP so you can see for yourself.

Tears for a once Great Hog

Sonic Unleashed breaks all the rules of good game design. The training missions are not only forced on you but they are bookend with horrible loading time. I don't need a whole mission to teach me how to jump. Every time I actually tried to play the game the game would freeze sonic and give me pointless tips or dialog that is unbearable to handle. It took literally 30 minutes to get through all the crap and to be able to play the first real level. By that time I was already done with the game and all hope is lost. Though the normally sonic missions had some hope of fun game play the WARE-HOG version of sonic game play just feels unnatural and annoying. I am a sonic fan and was actually looking towards this game, hence the Sonic Unleashed poster on the wall behind my desk at work. The only thing this game has got going for it is the graphics look very nice for a Wii game.