Thought I'd blog a bit about CV: Lords of Shadow and Resistance fall of man as I have just finished them thismonth.

Just finished off res and CV a few days ago so here are my rants.

Res is such a safe game it goes from an average of 5 to a 4 just because its that's bland, sure you can call it a Gears of war clone it's not so much hurt be copying its themes of monologue by non of the main charatcers for the main narrative, enemy coming from the ground,ect,ect,ect, a bit of mutant biological and hitech,ect,ect,ect but it just comes off being aseptic and placid the more you play it, kinda like Damnation only without the wired levels and more weapons to kill things with(why dose the hail strom only have 150 ammo? It should have 500 Gdmanit!!!!).

I do like health system you get 5 health bars and can rege3nerate only a health bar that has health in it otherwise it put me to sleep more than once.

Average gamer(through zippys eyes) :7-8

Zippy score: 4 to 5.

Now for Castelvina Lords of shadow….. ung I do not know where to start with the assumption that changing the theme from anime/ European to realism infested/ European changes the default mechanics of Castlevina sure this game is a God of war clone with smaller levels BUT the last 2 games had pretty bad level design as well, sure they were more open but still pretty blocky and bland.

And that is one of the 3 pillars to castlevina level design, fighting mechanic and pacing of skills/items. From the stand point of the current CV games CV is a action adventure game that is platform game inspired but you can see other games evolving the genre like Metroid prime or Zelda. Its my opinion that CV should be done on the same scale as Zelda and not a generic action game of the month type of thing. You take the scale of Zelda ad palce a CV world within that not trying to place a CV world into God of war.

But back to the game at hand its story is essentially Lament of Innocence the 2nd attempt at a 3D console CV game only with more plot development and a bigger twist or 2 along the way. Sure it might be "better" but I had more fun in the more generic "of Sorrow"(aria and dawn were good to ok the rest not so much) 2D generic fantasy games they called Castlvina and they were pretty bad but seriously I had more fun in Soylent Comando despite its major issues and fail of a story.

Still I can barely give it a 5 there is a dissonance between gamepaly and story/plot(coughcoughholy coughcoughwatercoughcough) sometimes the controls cannot change camera angels sometimes blocking is off he should have twice as many daggers make the werewolfs regenerate faster to offset it maybe, how about toss a enemy in a direction you press…. Also the enemy AI is so cheap with unblockable attacks… they should show up one in 10 not one in 3…. And only bosses and sub bosses should have them…. Unleash there is a real charge for it.

Combat is not bad a tiny bit more sloppy than GOW and once in a combo it should be hard to be knocked out of it.....

Still the worst thing is the level design they are even tighter and on the rails than God of wars and you can only use the whip for grabbing a hook only when the game wants to even when you can see the damn thing….. *sigh* I'd like to a cross between Castlvina 64 and LOI/COD with a heavy Zelda design/mechanic influence in it but line Capcom they are much too cheap to do that…..

Average gamer(through zippys eyes) :8-9(shudders if this is a 9 we have fallen so far so fast..)

Zippy score: 5 to 6.

http://zippydsmlee.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/thought-i%E2%80%99d-blog-a-bit-about-cv-lords-of-shadow-and-resistance-fall-of-man-as-i-have-just-finished-them-this-month/