Blog de Dyer

First off, I want you to believe me when I tell you that I find Halo 2 to be the worst FPS I have ever played. I didn’t enjoy the story nearly as much as its predecessor, despised playing indoors the whole time, hated the Arbiter and was heartbroken when I left Earth. I think that the universe is fantastic and I find the novels to be genuinely good science fiction, but the second Halo game took away so much of what I loved about the first one, and didn’t ever have a situation that made me go ‘oh wow’. Halo 3, however, presents so much more than Halo 2, and has a kick-ass amount of references to the original game as well as the books. It also makes me speak my awe aloud again.

While it’s still nothing more than a regular FPS on the surface, what the package offers is stunning. While the campaign is short, it’s terrifically satisfying. The story wraps up in a way that fans will go ga-ga over and the encounters, as well as everything built around them, are awesome. The online multiplayer is as good as ever, and enabling a four player campaign option makes for a good time with your buddies, but what makes this one pretty unique (to the Halo series, anyway) is the Save-Film feature, and Forge Map Editor. Being able to watch, cut, clip and take snaps from previous multiplayer matches is a ton of fun, especially when integrated with the newly updated and shockingly user friendly Bungie.net. This allows you to watch you stick those 3 other Spartans, snipe that Elite, or get assassinated over and over again, and share it with your friends.  The Forge enables players, one to four, to take items away or add, to current multiplayer maps. Weapons, equipment (which adds greatly to the game in itself) spawn points, vehicles, flags and more are available for you to create a new game mode with a ton of variables. While this takes forever to get the hang of, it’s a really cool feature that you don’t really see on consoles.

It’s a very, very robust package, but for me, it’s still Halo. I like it, but I don’t love it. It’s fun, but it’s nothing special, however, I am really happy about how the story turned out, and I will be playing this one for a long while.

Like countless shooters before it, Warhawk is a very derivative shooter in the vain of the Battlefield franchise; more specifically, it’s Star Wars Battlefront without the “Star Wars” and without the single player. Despite this, Warhawk isn’t without merit, even if the game lacks an overarching story. The only detail of plot your given is that two rival factions, the Chernauvans and Eucadians, are apparently not too friendly with each other, so you need to hop in the boots of Joe-Shmo Soldier # 34 and lay waste to the enemy chumps. The Eucadian/Chernauvan war takes place across 5 maps (more on that in a bit) and 4 different game modes, “Deathmatch, Team Death Match, Capture the Flag and Zones” as well as the Warhawk-Only “Dogfight”. These all combine for action packed addiction, that is if you can look passed how shallow the game really is.

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Heavenly Sword has been getting, for the most part, pretty positive press. I’m not going to waste your time “reviewing” the game - I’ll let you make up your mind about it on your own. It’s one of those games that you know that you will do one of three things: Rent, Buy, or Deny. It’s one of those kinds of games that’s been such a long time coming that you’ve been able to fully make up your mind in the time leading up to release of how you’re going to go about playing it, if at all. I’m not going to tell you to not buy it, but I can’t recommend that you do. Heavenly Sword, while momentarily fun, holds absolutely nothing of value that you haven’t seen before. What the game offers is the most traditional of traditional gameplay mechanics, incredibly simple combat, and the tedious timed button pressing sequences we’ve all come to loathe.

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I’m not going to waste any time beating around the bush before I get to the punchline. If you want to buy one, and only one skateboarding game this year, it’s not Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. Deciding between THPG and skate is like contemplating if you’re going to buy Dynasty Warriors 76 or Devil May Cry, or God of War, skate being the latter batch. What THPG does right is what the franchise has always done right. It’s fast paced, crazy skating with insane combos and cool features. Upgrading your character (which is pretty deep) is accomplished by completing a series of goals, each in their own category that allows you to decide what kind of skater you’re going to be. Career? Hardcore? It’s up to you. However, the only thing different is the goals. Hardcore goals had me nailing impossible tricks, while the Career lifestyle had me learning the basics of THPG and progressing yet another super-lame story. Once again, you’re an up-and-coming-skater-star, and Eric, the nefarious and always annoying villain of the franchise thinks he’s better than you. Lucky for you you’ve got Mikey V, Bob Burnquist and other skateboarding celebs backing you. It’s getting really old just demolishing the competition in these games like I did the whole time. Asking for a 20,000 point combo is like asking me to zip up my pants when I’m done taking a leak… I do it without thinking. I’m not bragging by any means, the game is just too easy.

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