Take that! Yes, that! You want that! Then undress!.....
Anyway, it's time for a much belated game update! Woo! I've been home for a month and I've beaten about 6 or 7 games. I lost count now. I ran through RS Vegas 2, Halo 3, Condemned 2, Assassin's Creed, Ninja Gaiden DS, Naruto (360) and DMC4. That's a lot of gaming for such a short time span. The better yet, I still have No More Heroes, Zack and Wiki and The World Ends With You. Hooray. Well, opinion hour on the games I destroyed.
DMC4 is up and I have lots of hate to spill. The game is certainly action packed, but who thought it intelligent to repeat boss battles? Who thought it even more intelligent to repeat them a second time?! That is the most agrivating factor of this game, the repetion. It's not even funny how stupid the game becomes within the last act. They also start you as a new character (Nero), so you become completely adjusted to his combos and fighting style and then, BAM!!! You're Dante again! Dante just sucks, end of story. I don't care about hate mail or anything, Dante is a horrible character. His attacks may deal some damage, but you never feel in control. You need to almost micromanage his styles to get the best use out of them and even then Dante doesn't have the combo system that Nero did. Better yet, Dante repeats Nero's entire journey. Wow, that's great, I wanted to play the game twice within the same sitting. My main problem is that I ripped through the game on Human and Devil Hunter mode at the same time. I probably burnt myself out on the game, but who can say? The design choices are just pathetic, really. I don't understand fighting bosses 3 times.
Assassin's Creed. More like Repetition Creed. This mostly stems down to the way I played it (going for a full 1000 achievements, which this happens to be my first game in doing so). Even so, the game requires you to complete 3 "investigations" before you can even kill your target. I didn't realize Assassin's had to investigate everything. Another problem I have is the AI. Riding around the Kingdom on your horse, if you gallop the guards scream "Assassin!" OMG, of course, I never realized. Even while running in the city after having entered, guards will do the same. The next time I see a person running down my street, I'm going to scream "Assassin!" and see what happens. Apparently all running people are just Assassin's in this world, because you have no other reason to run, I guess. Maybe you want to take a morning jog?!
Halo 3, or teh gay-lo or whatever its known now after the success of COD4. Halo really hasn't even stood the test of 4 months of aging, so playing it now after about 3/4's of a year, it really isn't that great. The game is like a carbon copy of the rest of the series. Now that I've finally been able to venture past level 4, I see that the repeated corridors do exist, though its not to the degree of Halo 2 or 1. The AI is also kind of subpar. It seems that Bungie though newer generations suck at games, so they made Legendary about as hard as Heroic in the previous games. Let me tell you, playing Halo 2 on Legendary was just stupid, but now Halo 3 is just stupid in how easy it is. I was able to destroy more than half the game by myself, I only turned to a friend when I had two of those stupid giant robot things on me.
Condemned 2, more like the 1 minute game. While the actual gameplay isn't really that bad, the length is just atrocious. I went through on Hard and got a Gold rating on every level and I was still done within 6-7 hours. There is multiplayer, but its just awful. Some of the design decisions are asinine too. They now added two attack buttons, one for each fist, so block is mashing down both triggers in hope that you can time it correctly. I never understood why Condemned made you block within a split second of the attack, but now its nearly impossible. I usually fall back to playing the old game and just hit the left trigger, but wait, my 2x4 is swinging and I get hit, so I'm dead. This could all stem from playing on hard, but even with my lack of skill at the game I ran through it. I can really only recommned this game to people who are interested in a First-Person brawler, because fans of the first will be extremely disappointed. The story is a bit dumb too.
RS Vegas 2, or save or franchise! The game is great fun, but only because it's the first Vegas all over again. This was supposed to be a conclusion to the first story (which was awful in itself and didn't even end), but what we get is 6 acts of prequel then one final act of conclusion. It's really quite stupid. The gunplay is left the same, so if you enjoy the first, get the second. The only difference is the COD run button. You can actually sprint away from grenades! YAY! I'm mostly just disappointed because its the same thing, but what would you expect. GRAW2 was the same, it just did everything better. Vegas 2 doesn't really do anything better, it kind of just repeats the whole design to a fault.
Naruto! What a fun game, though its ultimately flawed. But let me tell you, I really enjoyed this. I've never watched an episode of Naruto in my life and I was able to have fun with it. The story is really glossed over, but it makes a non-fan interested. It's probably the best Naruto game out there, but I'm not in the proper position to make that judgement. The graphics are really stellar if you have an HDTV. The Cel Shading is practically like watching the show, just some of the filters throw that effect off and remind you it's a game. I guess this was a first attempt at recreating everything from the show, so even if the graphics are superb but fall just short of perfect, the open world is amazing. My sister (an avid fan) was surprised to see every single building from the city Naruto lives in. She also began filling me into the missing plot points, so I was able to get throug the story knowing more than you should. It's just all the extra side quests that fail. They are always the same: Deiliver these noodles, get my purse, where is Konohamaru (some stupid kid you hides a lot). They don't even work particularly well, either, so you're left with quests that suck but need to be finished because the difficulty takes a complete 90 degree change. You hit a brick wall once you get to the first boss and it's really agrivating since if you passed on the side quests, you don't have enough health. Of course, it's Ubisoft, so expect something stupid like that.
Finally, Ninja Gaiden DS. This is a fun little game, even if it's too easy on it's default difficulty. It's more like a recap of the previous game with new elements thrown in. The story is obsessed with the shrine Maiden from the first, even though she wasn't named in the original. The Maiden's sister is a Kunoichi and gets captured, so it's Ryu to the rescue. Some of the levels during the journey are pulled straight from the Xbox version, though obviously they are 2-D backgrounds since a DS wouldn't be capable of rendering that. The graphics are nice, though. Team Ninja always provides on that front. The gameplay works, even despite the few times where your movements just won't happen the way you like. Slashing and tapping have been perfected, so Ninja Gaiden just uses all previous formulas you know and puts in a random combo system to use. I suppose there is a move list, but just slashing like a maniac works. Itagaki must have not wanted to overload the user the first time through and with good reason, since a stylus is definitely not a gamepad. The enemies are resonably smart, but usually just sit in corners and wait. There is one enemy that is a floating eyeball and it's just plain stupid. It's untouchable until it opens it's eye, but you're surrounded on every side when it does that, so you either kill it or kill yourself. Whatever, I guess it's just a nitpick since I only died 3 times in the entire game. The ending is pretty lame too, since it repeats a boss from the original Xbox version.
That has been my month in a nut shell. Wow, too much to take in. I really should start editorials or something.
*Edit* I honestly forget to write about GTA4. There is too much on my mind. I ripped through it in 18 hours. Yeah, disgusting. I'll write more later, I just can't sit here anymore.
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