A Second Look @ Star Wars: Republic Commando

Made and published entirely by LucasArts, Republic Commando was launched just before the release of the Xbox 360 and received mainly 8/10 ratings. To be one of the better-praised FPS games of the time, it wasn't very widely spoken of among the people I knew.

Republic Commando puts you in the role of  Delta RC-1138, call sign Boss, as he leads an elite group of Clone Troopers, each with their own personalities and specializations, through missions on Geonosis, a destroyed spacecraft, and the wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk. You play through the tutorial in the first level and its incredibly simple, showing you all you need to know to use your armor's capabilities and to use your squad effectively. The rest is shown as you travel through the game and its very easy to pick up and play. One major drawback is the length: there are only three levels, each with several chapters, and once they're done, there's the multiplayer that feels like just an add on. Republic Commando feels like a build up to something greater, but I don't think we'll see it anytime soon. 

One major feature of Republic Commando is the use of squad tactics. Tactics is a word used loosely in the sense that all you have to do is aim at a designated point and press the USE button, giving a command to one of your three squad mates to complete the task at hand. By holding down the same button you can bring up a command menu to order your squad to secure an area, fire on one target, form up, or cancel whichever maneuver you had previously chosen. Its a little bit of Rainbow Six but doesn't really hold any significance here as these commands don't really feel necessary when playing the game.

Republic Commando definitely isn't big on downtime unless you want to be the one planting explosives or slicing (hacking) a computer, which there is a lot of both. Possibly 20% of the game time is used for this. You can give these commands to your team but they will take the same amount of time performing the task despite the backstory claiming they're best suited for these certain operations. All this happens while you're being shot at and listening to their banter during combat; they love to talk and are present for most of the game with the exception of the tutorial and parts of two levels. There is no lone-wolf gunning and your squad will take the initiative to take out enemies and are not satisfied to let anything slip past. They're not just random cannon fodder either: They take a lot of damage and you'll find yourself often reviving them mid-firefight during the latter chapters. Its a nice change of pace from other FPS game's bullet-sponge action but it does get bothersome when you're the only one left standing due to the AI being spread too thin.

Shields and health both deplete quickly if you're not careful but you're never too far away from a bacta tank, which in basic terms is a health refill station, or an ammo drop. Don't worry if you do get taken down: just as you have time to save your squad, they have time to save you. You can order them to carry out their current orders to take out enemies, finish an objective, or to come and rescue you. The latter puts them in danger as it takes a few seconds to revive someone, leaving the healer an easy target and only puts the downed member back at half health.

You're not stuck with the assault rifle for the total length of the game. At one point you can find sniper and grenade launcher attachments, you're also never left without your trusty sidearm which recharges ammo automatically. Alongside those you'll find an old-fashioned physical shotgun, a wookie bowcaster, a rocket launcher, and a mini-gun each dealing out better amounts of damage than your rifle. Thermal detonators (physical), Electro-static Charge detonators, Sonic detonators (mines), and flashbug detonators (flashbangs) are the grenade types and you'll use a lot of them to take out clustered enemies. One drawback is that the grenade selector display is cryptic and you'll find yourself throwing a flash instead of a thermal unless you memorize the icon for each.

Melee is satisfying as you put your gauntlet knife into an enemy and your helmet is splattered with fluids. Meanwhile gunplay feels weak as lasers constantly miss their targets due to the bad sensitivity for the Xbox version (setting at 1 feels sluggish while 2 feels twitchy, this is improved greatly when playing on the 360).

Your HUD is constantly working by displaying your health, identifying where your squadmates are as well as their health levels, objectives, detonator counts, and can be switched between normal, tactical, and low light modes. The melee splatters and low-light modes feel like ideas taken from Metroid Prime and they work well here.

Friendly fire is present, and while your squad does its best to avoid harming you they may get in your line of fire which can drain their shields or health. Your squad will do their best to revive each other but this will cause them to be in the open and take damage themselves. Luckily enemies aren't exactly the smartest and will charge at you instead of sticking behind cover. It feels like a let down and the difficulty is never too rough if you're paying attention to the surroundings.

There's not a lot of enemy variety and you'll face mostly Geonosians, Trandoshans and their scavenger droids, battle droids and the occasional elite guard droid throughout the game's three chapters. Hilariously enough, the game features ragdoll physics on dead enemies but its only good for a chuckle as you push them around. There are also Clone Trooper and Wookie allies throughout but most are immediately killed off within the first few seconds of appearing onscreen. While the levels feel like they belong in the Star Wars universe, level design is lacking in originality. It can be commended for not following the now-traditional "narrow-way-into-arena" gameplay but it maybe could have used a few of those to keep things interesting. Perhaps a test of the player's skill to use the team effectively is what's missing. You can choose to run ahead and take on enemies yourself, or you can actually stand aside and let your team do all the shooting. 

Graphics hold up well for a late console life release, looking crisp and without cracks, but it feels like the Unreal Engine 2.0 isn't being used to its full extent. Take Unreal Championship 2 for example, which was released a few months later and looked like an early 360 release. There are light reflections, lens flares, light blooms, and the HUD shows holographic standing positions for maneuvers. Several graphical effects occur throughout the game that affect the player's display including static from electric-based enemies, waving heat lines that distort the view, flashbangs filling the screen with white, and blood, oil, or rain that are wiped off by an electric wiper.

The sound you'll hear the most is from laser fire, which is familiar among the Star Wars universe, and oddly enough doesn't wear out its welcome. Even the chatter among your squad is somewhat comforting as they often talk to each other. Scorch being the sarcastic one, Sev being the sluggish brute, and Fixer being average. (To show that there's a lot of voicework done, a YouTuber has compiled all of their voiceclips into 15+ minute videos.) Explosions have no real impact in sight or sound and it feels very tame because of this. Even wookiee yells and "screams" from the battle droids sound like clips taken from the movies.

The orchestral soundtrack in the background is constantly giving off a powerful tone and it feels in-place with the Star Wars universe but somewhat cliche here. A different approach in the music would have given the game its own identity and its almost a shame that that idea wasn't implemented. To be the die-hard tactical FPS that it was billed to be, it doesn't really have any edge soundwise. While the music video from Ash (featured above) is a nice touch its merely an addition and is unlocked right from the start, seems more like a promotion from someone among the development team who heard the band and thought they were good. Despite all of this, the sound is not the weakest selling point for Republic Commando.

Multiplayer on original Xbox Live may be dead but couch multiplayer is still present with splitscreen. It includes the usual offerings of Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, and Assault modes; the last being similar to Battlefield's Conquest mode.

Unfortunately, you only have 5 maps total to play throughout each mode. It feels more like an add-on than something worth playing. Regardless, if you can gather three friends to battle with you'll find that the multiplayer is hectic, fast-paced fun along the lines of the original Unreal Tournament. As your disembodied hands pick up weapons and throw grenades, you'll find that you can't aim down the sights of some guns, the bowcaster and the sniper rifle being the only ones that can. The same weapons from the single player campaign can also be found here. Aiming is very accurate and the multi-tiered maps offer plenty of corners to run away from a firefight. Running is the best option as it only takes a few shots to take someone out. 

The multiplayer aspect is weak in the overall package, like a lot more could have been done since, being built off the Unreal Engine, it should have a lot more going for it. The map Arena G9 features two low-gravity sections on each side that is a great idea, but isn't implemented anywhere else. Its the small ideas that could have made this part of Republic Commando something worth experiencing more.

There's never any big "wow" moments and the story taking place during the Clone Wars, one of the biggest battles of the Star Wars universe, is awfully bland. The only unlockables are concept art, featurettes, and an interview with the game's director. If, at the time, you were in to Star Wars then the game really held nothing new for you except for a few new vehicles that were to be seen in Episode III. It didn't try to outdo the current reigning FPS champion of Halo and is almost content to do what it was planned to do. It succeeds in that respect but fails to try and tread new ground. It seems very comfortable confined into its own universe.

Personally, I feel like a lot could be done with Delta Squad through their differing personalities and ability to think for themselves unlike the majority of Clone Troopers. its a section of the large Star Wars universe that would be awesome to explore. More unlocks like skins, HUD customization, cheats for the Xbox version, and maybe a few others would have been nice touches to finish things out. If one thing is wrong with it, it never feels too difficult. You'll get taken down by an enemy's melee attack, and it feels more like a pause in the action rather an urgency.

Republic Commando is backwards compatible with the Xbox 360 and not only looks better in terms of graphics and video playback, it controls better as well. You can find it cheap these days and its available on Steam for $10, PC having the best graphical fidelity.

As a total package, Republic Commando packs in a lot and I'm sure the dev team could have made it an early Xbox 360 release had they waited. It would have improved the graphics, the controls and physics, the game length, and the AI. But for what it's worth, Republic Commando is an excellent and solid game.

Keep Playing

Wait a minute.... What's going on here? I call shenanigans!

A Second Look @ Homefront

(NOTE: Unfortunately, I can't comment on the multiplayer aspect of Homefront. With THQ's closure came the shutting down of the servers for all three available platforms. I can't even glance over how it was because I never had the opportunity to play it. In that regard the multiplayer aspect has been omitted and it does no good to read up on how it was.)
(ALSO: I'm sorry if you've read this review after the original post date of December 8. While trying to edit a few misspellings using the Blogger phone app, it instead reverted the review back to the draft and I unknowingly posted that in its place. So here's the real review...)

 (Images taken from multiple sources)

Why Homefront was ignored is beyond me. It came out at a time where everyone was looking for the Call of Duty killer (which will eventually kill itself) and people only wanted big multiplayer action. Homefront definitely had that with large-number MP battles and an engaging single player story. Kaos Studios used a template that everyone was familiar with but apparently nobody wanted.
Where Homefront succeeded was in its delivery: big action for both the single and multiplayer modes, an intense story and relentless enemies. Sound design of the highest caliber and an attention to detail of how the story came to fruition that most other FPS's don't bother with.

Where it failed is in its overall game design: an all-out para-military shooter with little regards to the cast of characters and a miniscule story length. The multiplayer was the usual mess of XP levels and being outclassed by higher ranks. It was the same thing we had seen in other FPS games before. It could have been done better, but only by very little.

If the plot sounds like a rip-off of a certain movie or book, its more of an homage. According to Wikipedia, while John Millius, the original writer of Red Dawn, is credited as a writer, he had nothing to do with the game's script. Regardless of who did the writing, it and the direction are very well done, elevating current global news stories to an exciting and terrifying degree for a story set in the future of a little town in Montrose, Colorado. Unlike Red Dawn, the Korean army is less political and quick to shoot at any resistance, bringing in helicopters and moving whole platoons against a small guerrilla army. The opening of the game is more focused on the horrors of what's happening: a child watching his parents get executed, bodies lining the sidewalks, people being forced from their homes and into labor camps. Its so surreal that it had to be edited in order to be sold in the Asian markets for fear of backlash from North Korea.
The game puts you in control of Robert Jacobs, a former Marine helicopter pilot. Disregard that information because none of it comes into play. You never get to pilot a helicopter and that's a shame. While being taken from your home by the occupying Korean military, you are rescued by a couple of resistance fighters. Without much argument you pick up a gun and proceed to shoot your way through the town to safety. The game doesn't deal with the emotions of the characters at all and is instead more concentrated on the horrors of war. There's a lot of focus on the here-and-now and very little on the past. It could be said that it would not do well to dwell in that area but instead the game feels as though it could have used a little of it.

The game also goes through intense hand-holding as you're very rarely left alone. You are not the one-man army like in FPS games of the same era and does everything it can to remind you of this. You will quickly learn to rely on cover and your allies to overcome a firefight. They never get in the way but the repetitive dialogue out of combat breaks the immersion. The guns handle very accurately and a few well-placed shots can take someone down even if they're wearing riot gear. The same goes for you as there will be a lot of cheap bullet-sponge deaths with the enemies seeing you as their only primary target. You will take the bulk of the damage but health recovers quickly by taking cover and staying out of a firefight for a few seconds. Even then enemies may flank you, forcing you to stay on your toes. In this aspect it knows how to keep the game exciting but the automatic health recovery takes away from believability. There's little time or space to run from an enemy grenade and your partners will take hit after hit without loss of life or even flinching. 
There are no cars to drive in the single player campaign but you can use targeting binoculars to command a Goliath, a remote-controlled and converted Korean mobile missile launcher, to take out enemy vehicles. This only happens a few times but its just enough to be awesome. Besides that you're put in the gunner seat of a Hummvee for a minute while playing part in escaping the town.

Very linear but excellently detailed levels usher you through the main campaign all while being led around by a man with obvious PTSD. While you may want to go exploring the interesting little nooks you might see, the game is littered with invisible walls that hinder any curiosity. Scattered throughout are newspapers that offer stories of events leading up to the current time and gives depth to the backstory. They're not all hard to find but some are easy to miss, but in the end finding them all is just for an achievement on the 360. Its a shame that so much more could have been done in terms of level size and variety. The campaign is short but a lot takes place within the small levels that include neighborhood houses, stores, and the cliched bridge level (if you remember, I mentioned that in my Black review). While the individual level details are acceptable, the design is lacking in originality with narrow ways giving way to arenas as seen in most modern FPS games.
The game comes to a head during the assault on a TigerDirect store (there are several product placements throughout) where the resistance army uses white phosphorous against the Koreans. Its a brutal scene that grabs the player's attention but not one of the only big action moments.

(The infamous willy pete scene. It shocked me when I first saw it and heard Connor say "Let'em burn.")

While each voice lends itself well to the character, they lack any sort of personality besides "soldier" and you'll hear Connor the most during playtime. The other voice you hear a lot is during the level loads where the DJ for the Voice of Freedom radio network gives news to what you and your team have been doing. The game could have used more depth by exploring the short list of characters but its main focus is on the war. Understandable but a connection with them would have been a welcomed thing.
The main star of the game is the explosions, which some could rock a home theater system given the chance. Grenades and rockets give off nice booms and you feel a sense of urgency when you hear a helicopter off in the distance, knowing that you can't take it on by yourself. Each gun has its own unique sound and while they are fun to shoot, they go through so many bullets that you may not have time to pick a favorite. You'll be grabbing guns off the ground so often that the game gives off an air of "fire and forget."
The soundtrack ranges from a pure orchestral score that gives a sense of forlorn and can quickly change direction to a mix of rock- or techno-infused orchestra. Most of the time its background noise but given the chance its really very moving. The soundtrack is available to buy both physically and digitally for those who are into collecting game memorabilia. 

Since THQ is dead (R.I.P.) and the servers are gone, the game's single player campaign is now the only attraction left, but even without multiplayer its still worth picking up a copy for cheap just to experience the short but awesome campaign a couple of times. It will frustrate you a lot with the cheap deaths but changing tactics is a smart idea to follow and will save you from having to constantly restart checkpoints. You cannot take on the brunt of the enemies yourself and while this may lead to a new way of thinking, here its just to show you that you can only take about seven bullets before biting the dust.

Personally I want to keep playing it and I keep wishing that it had been longer with more situations to deal with. Throw in a decision-making moment that turns the tide of the game. Give us a chance to command others. A few vehicles to drive. Something!
We'll just have to wait and see what Crytek brings us with Homefront 2.

Keep Playing

A Second Look @ Black

(Images taken from EA.com)

Upon its release, Black was labeled as "gun porn," a kind of game with so many guns that it should have been classified as such. It was touted as having cinematic quality gameplay, destructible environments, an award-winning soundtrack, and an engaging story. The world was your playground to blow up as you saw fit. And for the first half of the game, it does this well.

Black puts you in the shoes of Sergeant First Class Jack Keller, who in the opening live-action and proceeding (unskippable) cutscenes is being interrogated while in chains. What unfolds is a story of betrayal, disobeyed orders, and uncovering international terrorist plots. Or something. It is really hard to follow because the story does little to draw the player in. Let's face it: all you really care about is shooting stuff.

As Keller, you and your team are running through a war-torn city in Russia attempting to hunt down the leader of a high-tech and highly-trained terrorist organization. Along the way orders are disobeyed, plots are uncovered, enemies are mowed down, and things are blown up. Its a typical summer blockbuster story held together with duct tape. 

The gameplay is as simple as a formula can get for an FPS game: pick up a gun and shoot your way through the levels. Staying undetected isn't needed as it only means you have to shoot less bullets. One drawback is that once enemies know your position they lock on and know where you are even if you approach from a different position. They're less like human AI and more like scared hunting dogs. Their shooting is relentless, never running out of bullets but they lack intelligence, the only way to quickly dispatch them is with a tricky headshot. In this game, you need to aim for the upper part of the head rather than just the whole face. One would think a helmet would be more likely to stop a bullet than someone's nose.

Multiplayer is non-existent and in exchange each map is very large, taking around 45-60 minutes to complete, depending on how you want to play or how many times you die. The total game clocks in around 12 hours. That isn't bad, but when compared to other games of the same era, which some had longer campaigns and multiplayer, its a wonder why the graphics weren't touched up in replacement.

There's no button interference, no jumping or sprinting, which makes backtracking a boring task. The ability to screw on a silencer to some weapons is mapped to one of the face buttons. You can look down the scopes, reload, melee, and crouch. The usual. There are a lot of objects littered throughout the levels and all of them can be destroyed, meaning you'll be hard pressed to find cover in a SNAFU.

The orchestral soundtrack is a great one and lends itself well to the environments and the overall mood. On the Xbox, you can switch it out for a custom soundtrack so you can feel free to blast away enemies with whatever tunes you fancy.

Since the guns are the main attractions, the attention to sound detail is perfect. Each gun has its own unique and powerful sound. There is honestly nothing quite like letting loose with an M249 machine gun against a small horde of oncoming enemies.

The voice acting is awfully dry and doesn't show any emotion behind the acting. The cutscenes are the same way. Any talking is just ignorable at best.

The level designs range from several bombed-out cities, to a bridge, and finally a jail. Its not much and its not impressive at all. The "destructible" environments include anything from cars, crates, pillars, gas tanks, a few walls, and red barrels. The game rarely gets intense and the best moments usually come from a large explosion. You never feel above the enemies, you are just as easily taken down as they are. Some levels can be a bit confusing to navigate since it never directly tells you where to go. Sometimes you just have to hunt for the way yourself. You will also find yourself stuck on more than one invisible wall several times throughout each level. You can't just walk off the sides of stairs, the only times you can fall is from certain areas, otherwise there's an invisible wall to protect you.

All this serves as a distraction from what the game really is: a shallow FPS that was caught up in the hype of the genre at the time. Linear levels, poor AI, a typical selection of guns, and a poor story to hold it all together. What it has is a long, narrow-minded, even ignorable story, repetitive gameplay, a meager selection of guns, and the type of brooding similar to an emo teenager: its just a phase, and once you're halfway through this game you'll want to move on to something else. Gathering all the intel throughout the game unlocks nothing more than the requirements to advance to the next level in hard and black ops modes. They serve no purpose in the story and generally don't matter to the overall package. The end of the game comes abruptly with a cutscene and the credits roll. That's it.

There's no multiplayer, and the short campaign will either leave you wanting more or a deep feeling of disappointment. The back of the box says to "Get creative with your kills." The problem with that statement is that there is little creativity to be had.

There is no "wow factor." Even reloading takes away from the game as it seems to put an emphasis on it. The background blurs and Keller takes his sweet time to do it right. This becomes a major problem when in the middle of a firefight, instead of focusing your reticule dot on the next target, you can no longer see them because it wants you to pay attention to the action of reloading the gun. It's embarrassing.

Its not "full" of anything, even itself. It never has moments where its confident in what its doing. It doesn't do much to draw the player in to its world of shady black operations. If I could at least say one good thing about Black is that it sticks to its guns, literally. Every enemy drops a weapon that you can collect so you're never close to running out of ammo. It tries, but at the turn of the hardware cycle, trying wasn't enough. More weapon selections, more areas, a more detailed storyline, and a bigger emphasis on play style is what would have made this a great game.

If you're a fan of the run-and-gun FPS genre then Black deserves at least one playthrough. You can find it either on the original Xbox or PS2 for cheap or as a downloadable "Xbox Original" on the XBLA for $10. Despite all this it, its not hard to justify as a purchase for anyone else. Its a good, solid action game with long levels, amazing sound quality, and steady gameplay. It is definitely worth at least one playthrough.

Keep Playing

Review: The Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures

AVGN Adventures wants to punish you for your hubris. All those years of playing your modern games and thinking "I'm invincible! Nothing can touch me! Bosses tremble at my might!" will be reduced down to you yelling obscenities at your screen like a twelve-year-old on Call of Duty.
A badly timed jump will end with you missing a health point (in this game's case, beer) or an instant death. It has no remorse for making you angry and for making you curse at it. Focusing your attention on avoiding a fireball might make you forget about the deathbeam or deathblock that's just after it. The game is full of the latter and makes you share in the Nerd's pain as you progress through a twisted and sinister game that's all about old-school platforming and shooting action. Its littered with curse words and references to the Nerd's videos and surroundings and fits perfectly among his mythos. Its best played with an Xbox 360 controller attached to your PC, but it can be played with a keyboard, just very carefully.

(THIS took me at least 20 tries to get right, all to get that key on the right.)

Its an 8-bit platformer in the vein of the Mega Man games and, much like those, you can switch between characters on the fly that have different abilities to suit the job needed. The only drawback is that the other characters are never necessary. While Mike Matei can jump higher and see hidden blocks, BS Man has a more powerful attack and double-jump, and Guitar Guy is faster, these variations are never really needed except to discover hidden areas and cameos. Power-ups consist of an SNES Super Scope, which is a more powerful shot that unfortunately goes away when hit once, to rocks that arc in a terrible way, a nod to one of the nerd's episodes. Also the game-"glitching" Glitch Gremlin which freezes enemies and causes things to go haywire for a few seconds, and Super Mecha Death Christ v 2.0 beta Edition, which clears enemies off the screen. These last two aren't needed to get through certain areas and can almost be ignored. Unlike many of the game's that the Nerd has played, this one is very solid. No (unintentional) glitches and a generous checkpoint system means you won't die from a game-breaking glitch. All deaths are your own fault.

Its frustrating, but rewarding: You rarely ever want to stop playing for the feeling of wanting to beat it, of wanting to prove you're better. It also wants to reward you for your patience. The game is filled to the brim with patterns both simple and not-so-much. Taking your time to understanding these is key to finishing each level, especially on the last where you may die a few times before reaching even the first checkpoint, which is close by. Hidden pathways, cameos, power-ups and even playable characters are your reward for exploring. Its also generous on lives; the 30 you get from the start might seem like too many, but they dwindle quickly. Also, if you're thinking of using a certain well-known old-school cheat code, you'll only end up with a good chuckle. Try it out anyway.
The cameos are from friends of James Rolfe, like Angry Joe, Keith Apicary, and Whiz and Boomstick from DEATHBATTLE. The hidden paths to get to them aren't terribly hard to traverse, and finding all of them only unlocks an achievement. That and the S#!t Pickle achievement. There's one for dying 1,000 times. That can get awfully frustrating.

The music is purely chiptunes, which is a throw back to the music you used to hear on old NES games. It changes up with each level and they're catchy. The soundtrack is also available to buy and if you're into chiptunes then its a must have. The various sound effects throughout the game are repeated, but never enough to the point of frustrating.

While the asking price of $15 seems a bit much, it is best to wait for it to go on sale. It was made with speed runs and twitch.tv streams in mind. It was made so you can become better at it with each playthrough. For some, particularly those get angry very easy, will be disappointed. Others who appreciate a good challenge or love old-school platformers will find something to be engrossed in for a few hours.

Keep Playing

Control Freak: A Bone To Pick

Looking through my traffic sources on Blogger I've come across a few interesting findings; It seems that the majority of my page views have come from outside of the US. Not that I'm complaining about the total count but I'm a US-based blogger for games released mainly in the US. I don't have a PAL converter and I don't import any games; so I find it rather odd that in the last DAY alone, as of writing this, I received 50 page views from Indonesia. 

What do I have to do with that country??

This is just a gaming blog and if there are gamers in Indonesia who like to read my reviews then by all means that's awesome. Leave a comment (in English) and let me know what the gaming scene is like there. But if a website is redirecting people here for some unknown reason then I apologize. 

I am not affiliated with any website, professional or amateur, corporate or independent, in any way, shape, or form. Its just me at home pounding out my thoughts about games on my laptop. I do post my reviews to ScrewAttack and maybe some community-based sites but other than that I am not getting paid to do this. No corporation has given me review copies or codes. I didn't win any contests and I don't know people in the industry.

(On a side note: most of you are viewing from Internet Explorer. Time to drop that and get with Firefox, noobs. Also, 25 of you have viewed this from a PSP. Wow, way to stick to your guns. *thumbs up*)

Besides that incoming of views from outside the US, I've apparently been trafficked by a local sex/hook-up site. By local I mean that it has my city's name on the front page. While I make no bones about where I'm from, I try to not discuss it openly due to stereotypes. I have been called names because of my locale so to avoid any misconceptions about the people surrounding this town I prefer to stay away from them and write like I have a little intelligence. I'm open about being just a human. I'm not an Internet God and I don't conceal who I am. Some bloggers do that and it seems they're just trying to live a second life.

I just find it rather odd that I all of a sudden have views coming in from a foreign country. I'm also glad that so far no one has associated me with being a REAL mercenary. I don't think I've ever explained the meaning behind my gamertag:

I was once in a gaming clan for Counter-Strike, mainly Source. We had a decent-sized group of individuals and we were never serious about playing professionally, mostly pubs and scrim matches. It eventually came to a point where there were suddenly too many members for our leader to control. One day it just went away. I still talked to some of the members and they asked me to play with their new clans. So I would jump between clans, changing my clan tag with each one. I became a mercenary for them. At the time I was also playing Mercenaries on Xbox so the name seemed to fit. As for the BIG part... well I'm fat. Need I say more about that?

That's pretty much all I have to say. So if you've come here due to a redirect then I apologize. I don't have any affiliations with any website so they're linking to me without my knowledge. If you've found my blog somehow through a shady website that has nothing to do with gaming, then I apologize again. I'm just an amateur writer with a passion for gaming. I mean nothing in the grand scheme of the Internet. All I do is play games and write about them.

Keep Playing.

Control Freak: Is There Any Hope For the Future of 1up.com?

 2003 - 2013

I suspect by now that most of the editors have cleared out their desks and may occasionally check the site at home from time to time. I imagine the server(s) that hold 1up in the digital spaces of the internet are ticking away the miliseconds to their inevitable unplugging but are still slowly working to post what few blogs come through via the users that still come here. I can only guess that the big business of Ziff-Davis has no intention of selling the site or name because they don't want to lose the ad revenue. And, I like to think that the users still care.

I have been a member of dozens of gaming community sites over the years. Some of them have been good to me, others I'd like to see burn to the ground with the creators trapped in the building.
I first heard of 1up through a magazine advert, the one with the kid holding the Dreamcast, I believe that was back in 2003 at the site's launch. I wasn't on the internet til 2001 and didn't really get into gaming until 2004. Back then I had never imagined there were gaming communities. GameSpy Arcade was my first real taste of online gaming and it opened the door to many of the big name review sites. I wasn't a member of 1up til about 2006 (under a different name) and what attracted me was the 1up Show. I had just gotten into podcasts and I genuinely loved it. The talent of production and the easy-going natures of Matt Chandronait and Ryan O'Donnell had me anticipating it each week. It was one of my few favorites. Sadly, out of the almost dozen or so I used to listen to, only 2 are still around.
It seems these days most people are migrating to the independent review sites for fear of pressure from the game companies or corporations. Ever since the Gerstmanngate debacle, writers have been called into question along with review scores. (And really, if a 5/10 is "average" then why is the average game a 7/10?) Its been hard to take anyone's word for how good a game really is these days.

1up had the best straightfoward writers that gave you the facts, it was never clouded with opinions. They had the wherewithal to know what the readers wanted. The only things I was ever disappointed with on this site was the game search, (it never had the little-known games that I have in my collection. While my count shows 452, its more like just over 500.) and the lack of reviews for old games. But those are minor mainly because I keep a list of everything on my computer and I know there wasn't enough manpower to review *picks absolute random game from the list* Silent Scope on the Dreamcast.
Along with that, the community has been one of the most mature I've ever come across. There was never any room for fanboys and the ones that I saw that made their way onto this site were largely ignored by those smart enough not to feed the trolls. I know my blogs were never A+ material, but getting one or two thumbs up for effort was good enough for me.

IGN had no real reason to buy 1up and Gamespy, UGO had no reason to merge with them, and neither should have let Ziff-Davis. What was the point of having a giant congolmerate of game review sites? Were they hoping to create a monopoly? I always felt 1up was more "raised on games" whereas IGN was for new gamers who only cared for the AAA titles. This site was about the gamers themselves, the community was always the main attraction. It was about finding people who were interested in certain games and geeking out about your favorite ones. You could post a blog, forum, or group message and have a game day with total strangers and make friends. You could even find people who liked the same music as you. No other sites did that.
It was about US. THEY created this site for US. For us to celebrate ourselves as gamers. To figure out why people loved the terrible games, to hate the draw distance on Turok 2, to praise the textures and polygon counts of a Sega Saturn game. From the headache-inducing pain of the Virtual Boy to discussing the rapid rise and fall of the 3DO. For tearing the newest video game movie a new one, to painfully admitting that Super Mario Bros was the worst movie we always love to watch. 1up.com was here for that.

"Where Gamers Call Home"

Yeah, I'm sorry I was never around the whole time to see just how great this site truly was. I don't want to start throwing out suggestions because the site is stable enough as is (just... fix the box art problem on some games, go look up Unreal Tournament) and I just don't know if, in the future if the site survives, anything will be changed.

If 1up were to rise again, I suspect it would be less like a phoenix rising from the ashes, and more like starting a New Game+: We have all the equipment, we know the storyline and what choices to make for a reinvention. The only thing to do is gather the crew and go after the Final Boss.

Keep Playing.

SGC 2013

Without a doubt, SGC 2013 was the greatest weekend of my life. It was less like a game convention and more like a family reunion. A lot of g1s who have met before and have become friends through ScrewAttack were all gathered at the Hyatt Regency in Dallas. It was a convention of epic proportions with a lot of voices lost, a lot of money spent, and a lot of friendships made.

Due to some trolling that happened a couple of weeks ago after I posted the first video, I've had to disable embedding. Someone posted it to Reddit and while I did get almost 2,000 views, I also got 8 thumbs down and a troll comment. I'm sure someone meant well by sharing it but instead the plan backfired. I don't like Reddit, its pretty much a troll site where people can say what they want about a shared webpage or video, and some users seem to think that they can take it farther and use the page comments for feeding their own agenda. 
While you may hate having to click the link for the videos, there's nothing I can do about it. I can't personally embed my own videos. Go figure.

I undid the embedding. If I get a thousand troll thumbs down, I don't care. The videos aren't for them.

A Second Look @ APEX

(All images are from Gamespot.com)

APEX is known as Evoluzione Racing in Europe

APEX is hard to pin down as far as a racing title goes. The physics are sim-like and grounded in reality while speed is more of an arcade commodity, never fearing to cause the car to brake quickly or bounce off of a wall. What it lacks in depth it makes up for in personality, but that alone does not a good game make.
You and your bud have found an old garage and inside are blueprints for race cars. While he builds your first car, you build the business, choosing the company name, logo, and car designs. Unlike other racing games, such as Enthusia, APEX has a purpose for racing: the better you do in each race, the more demand for car sales come in. Occasionally you'll be thrown a challenge from another driver or a car magazine who wants to see if your machine is truly up to par. A lack of definition as to what you're doing is to blame for the parts of the game outside of racing being boring. You can't really upgrade your cars right away, you can only choose from a few colors, and it will take a lot of replaying races to get enough sales to begin production on a new design. With enough cars sold the game automatically expands the company, adding R&D and Production wings to the small garage. 

Its definitely one of the better-looking games on the Xbox for the time. The frame rate never drops, there are no pop-ups, cars are nicely detailed, and tracks are varied, feeling alive with crowds, planes, banners and confetti. When passing under a bridge with support beams above, each beam shows a reflection in real time on the car's back window. Racing towards the sun causes the screen to brighten and might cause you to lose focus. Cars get damage from each other and the track but it never affects performance. Mirrors fall off, bumpers get dented, and sparks flying are the only extents of damage. Additionally you don't have to pay for repairs after each race, adding one more point to the arcade checklist. There's no money system involved, only sales to track your progress towards developing your next car.

Sound is an important part of a racing game. If the engines sound weak or repetitive then immersion is lost. A Corvette simply cannot sound the same as a Lotus Elise. While the sounds between cars might seemed varied here its merely the same sound just adjusted in pitch, meaning a muscle car doesn't sound powerful with a whiny engine. The hits between a car or the environment each time is just the sound of a glass breaking. Better get used to that.
The music is purely generic rock and seems to loop the same song constantly, or its just me ignoring the difference in them. On the original Xbox, you can choose your own custom soundtracks which saves you from having to listen to the mundane and unattractive tunes.

The game isn't easy, but that's mainly due to poor AI. (At one moment I looked behind me to find that the last three opponents had wrecked... on a straightaway.) The AI runs on rails and is, for the most part, always properly braking, turning and accelerating, causing you to either hit them or vice versa on a sharp turn. The AI just feels lifeless and they're more like moving obstacles on the track that you have to avoid and overtake. There is no option to restart a race on the pause menu, which I've never understood why a racing game does that. It forces the player to completely back out of the race in order to try again. There are racing series that forces you to go to the next race automatically, and those moments are understandable to have a no restart policy.

You'll find you can only race your custom-created cars in the Dream Mode against real world manufacturers. Meanwhile in Arcade Mode you can pick from several. Racing is done on city, mountain, racetrack, and stadium/speedway locales. There are several tracks in different "cities" with each track being a variation of one larger track. It changes up often enough to prevent boredom so there's enough variety in each locale to keep you interested. City courses have long straightaways and tight corners. Mountain tracks have winding roads. Racetracks are meant to test the player's braking and handling abilities. Stadium races are for true tests of speed.
Cars are sectioned by classes ranging from Roadster, Sportcar, Supercar, and Dreamcar, in the first two classes you have upgrades from Street to Evolution to Racing. Dreamcars are unlocked by fully completing all of the racing series being presented.

Uniquity is a hard thing to pin on a game such as APEX. The only stand-out performance in this game is the "custom" car creation which, even then, isn't very customizable. The only multiplayer option being couch co-op is just racing between you and one other person with no special modes; just choose a car and race. Its a neat idea to create your own company and that's just about the only appeal behind it all. The AI is lifeless and merely follows the track. Mindless drones that sometimes don't even brake properly, which can make the racing itself not very fun. Handling is either too loose or too sharp, braking feels unresponsive, and there's a lack of a sense of speed (80 feels the same as 40). However, once you reach the racing evolution for each car, then the real speed starts and the game begins to pick up its pace.

But despite all the shortcomings, if you're a fan of racing games in general then its worth playing. The developer, Milestone, put their all into this game and it shows. A careful attention to some details that other racing games of the time didn't have. It feels like it wasn't trying to be the best, it was trying to be just a racing game. In that regard it only succeeds as "something to do." It doesn't have a huge fan base and to be honest it shouldn't. The game doesn't do anything to WOW the player into completing it unless you're a completionist by nature, yet its solid enough to stay in you're collection for a while until you feel the need to play every so often. And maybe, one day, you'll check it off of your completed games list.

Keep Playing

BIG @ PAX East 2013

After all the events that have taken place in Boston recently, I want to go on record as saying: I LOVE BOSTON! Its a beautiful city, (most of) the people are nice, there's a Dunkin Donuts on almost every corner, and I most definitely felt welcomed. Bostonians, you guys rock. (But I'm still a Braves fan, don't hold it against me!)
This video should have been up last month but I've been procrastinating, also its been up on YT for a few days before this post. It would have also been longer but I didn't record much because I was standing in line most of the time so there are very few files left over that I didn't use. If I go next year, I'll be sure to record a lot more. 

My Top 10 Games of 2012

 (Pictures taken from various sources. Also you will notice ad links on these blogs now. I NEED to make money somehow. I'm going broke! These ads are suggested by Google and are safe.)

2012 has come and gone.

No, I don't want to start off a blog like that. It's been said too many times. What I can say is that almost everyone of note has a Top 10 of the year blog or video posted. Games have affected each of us differently. Some of us have had to choose our experiences carefully.That being said my list isn't full of AAA titles like most are. I quit my job late in the year and started a new one a few months ago. I'm getting paid less and even my collecting of retro games has slowed to a near-halt. So any new releases are pretty much out of the question right now.

Keep in mind, like everyone else says, this is MY personal top 10. This hasn't been influenced by anyone. No company is paying me. This is not your list, do not tell me I'm wrong. Additionally these are games that I have played, not just watched a bunch of videos and wished I had played them.

DIABLO 3 HAS BEEN REMOVED BECAUSE BLIZZARD DOES NOT RESPECT THE PRIVACY OF THEIR CUSTOMERS. WHY CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THEM WHEN THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU?

#10: Lego Lord of the Rings - Nintendo 3DS

The Lego series is best known for its goofy, some might say childish, humor. Meanwhile The Lord of the Rings series are some of the best epics that have ever been written. I became a fan of the movies out of the blue and I'm eager to read the books (sorry Tolkien fans, read the part where I quit my job, money's tight and I got the movies out of the $5 bin). Some might think that combining the three pieces of fiction to make a Lego game was a bad idea. It would be hard to make a violent movie into a kids game. Well its hard to take that violence and fearful tone seriously when its being done with Lego men. Hands popping off, comical deaths, and soundbytes taken from the movies all work well together to make sure that the LotR name is dulled down to a goofy, mindless adventure. The humor doesn't show at every cutscene and the story path follows the movies closely. Gameplay-wise, its a typical Lego game where you can switch out characters with the press of a button, run through the storyline a second time to unlock things you had to pass up first, and a TON of unlockable characters. To 100% this game will take more than 10 hours. What's best is that you can sit and play for an hour or so at a time and not feel bored. For the 3DS version, the 3D is just a minor addition. It doesn't really add any precedence to the gameplay and would probably have the same impact as the DS version. I bought this game after playing the demo and before that I was heavily considering selling my 3DS. Basically, this game saved my handheld and that's what's worthy of a mention.

#9: HAWKEN - PC

This game most certainly would have made it higher if it was easier to play. Every time I log in I feel inadequate and unprepared for a fight. While most players level up quickly, this adds an imbalance. New and better weapons are unlocked at higher levels so its easy for someone to go in and obliterate noobs, myself included. I haven't played the beta since day one and my mech is pretty much stock. Despite this, I will play Hawken in the future because its unique. Mostly. Mechs can be customized with new paint, weapons, and armor. New weapons can be bought and designs saved. The levels are nicely balanced and offer plenty of cover. There's always a chance to run away from a fight. On top of that, if your mech is badly messed up, you can repair it on the battlefield. If you can find a team that works well together or get some friends that you can communicate with, then you're pretty much unstoppable in Hawken. The gritty and barren feeling of the world around you is a perfect touch and the graphics are amazing to look at. Don't get caught ogling the scenery for too long because someone will come by and pick you off for an easy kill. 

#8: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD - XBLA

Yes, I know I wrote a scathing review of this game in an earlier blog, but you KNOW its bad when a free Android game, Rage of Bahamut at #8, beats out a $15 XBLA game. Still, it made this list, but ONLY because I wasn't able to play many AAA games this year. Borderlands 2, Dishonored, Assassin's Creed, even Lollipop Chainsaw would have easily knocked this one off. I won't go into details because you can read the review I've already posted. Go do that.

#7: RAGE OF BAHAMUT - Android

Not many people are into CCGs or TCGs these days. Magic the Gathering, World of Warcraft, Pokemon, and Yu-Gay-Ho are the only ones I can name off the top of my head. While looking at some cards earlier today I noticed a pack of 2007 baseball cards still on the shelf. Reduced price. Its awfully sad how the once-mighty companies of Topps, Fleer, Upper Deck, and Donruss are now just memories for older folks. A 1970 rookie card has probably reduced in price on eBay by a lot. Cards have evolved and so have games. If you haven't guessed by now, Rage of Bahamut is a CCG game on Android and iPod where the player is given a basic starting deck and they work their way up the totem pole through quests and by fighting other players. The game starts slow but there's never a feeling of helplessness. Meters for stamina and attack power drain with each quest attack and each battle. These don't refill once a day but rather 1 unit per minute, and with power ups you can play for even more time. What's great about it is that it can be played by both the casual and the hardcore. If someone wants to log in and play through the quest until their stamina runs out, they can. For the hardcore there are event quests, orders, trading and a lot more. I've spent over an hour before playing quests, battling players, and enhancing and evolving cards. This game is much bigger than you'd expect. Cards have rarities and the more rare they are, the more powerful they can become. Cards can be enhanced at the cost of other cards and rupies, and cards of the same kind can be evolved into more powerful ones. Real world money can be spent to buy power-ups or card packs and every once a while the game GIVES you a ticket to get a Rare card. Trading can be done among players and there are so many rewards for just participating. Best of all: ITS FREE. Its not a freemium game and buying a card pack doesn't always guarantee the best cards. Rage of Bahamut will stay installed on my phone for a very long time. I rarely find myself being bored with it.

#6: The Walking Dead - XBLA

A video game has never made me cry. At least not until Episode 3 of the Walking Dead when one characters desperation reaches a point where a suicide death is the only welcomed feeling they have, it becomes very heavy. The choices made at certain moments affect how other characters react to you or options you have down the road. Playing as Lee Everett, you're tasked with taking care of an 8-year-old girl named Clementine whose parents are lost. Traveling through Georgia (w00t!, about time we get recognized for something) you make stops throughout each episode and meet new people along the way, all the while watching your back for a zombie invasion. But sometimes the zombies aren't the only things you need to be afraid of. What makes the Walking Dead comics and show so great is that they're about the people and how they cope and survive during what might be a worldwide crisis. Its not all about hacking zombies to pieces. Old habits die hard among some and survival becomes the main mission. What's best for the group may not be best for one person and they will remember that, most of the time at bad moments down the road when there's a thousand walkers coming for you.

#5: Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - PC

This is the late entry into this list and the reason this blog was delayed. I had been wanting to play it for a for a few weeks and decided I might as well go for it during the Steam Winter Sale. The gameplay is based around dual personalities, one light and one dark, residing in Giana (why its called Giana Sisters is beyond me). You can get a better understanding of the plot by reading the Wiki page about it. It wouldn't do you any good for me to try and explain things. Switching between a cute and punk personality changes the world between dark and light. You can only collect red crystals as the punk and yellow crystals as the cute. Its a really smart mechanic and done amazingly well. I haven't seen this sort of flow since Ikaruga. The artstyle is awesome and the difference between the light and dark worlds flows with an even pace. Its never the game's fault when the player dies, its all on the player: a mis-judged jump, not switching personas at the right moments, repeatedly dying so you can understand a pattern. Whenever I get past an obstacle there's never really a feeling of being rewarded. More of an expectancy of "what's next?" The enemies that roam through the levels are never the major concern. Its all about the environment and puzzles.
The game comes with two bonus levels based on Halloween and Christmas. The artwork gallery pictures are unlocked by discovering big blue crystals, these are always found on an alternate path. There are hardcore and uber-hardcore modes to unlock as well as score and time attacks. The game has a great replay value and if you can find it on sale on Steam or a GOG.com, then I highly recommend snagging it. Keep in mind, I'm still playing this game and have only made it to chapter 2, but from what I have played it most definitely deserves the fifth spot on this list.

#4: Guild Wars 2 - PC

I'm a huge fan of Guild Wars. I've sunk so many hours into the first game that its unbelievable. I pre-ordered Guild Wars 2 a few months before it came out and I dropped $150 on the collector's edition (which, honestly, doesn't seem worth it now when looking back) and reveled in how amazing it was. But a month before the game was released I was kicked out of my guild and after playing Guild Wars for a mere two weeks I found I just didn't have it in me to continue. Not only was I alone for most of the game but there was no one to have a friendship with. And then the WoW players started pouring in. I suppose after hearing all the good things about it, they checked out GW2 and liked it. Now the world is full of people who only play PvP, GvG, WvW and the ones who play PvE are the ones barking orders at people whom they can't control. GW2 may be doing well with others, but to me its just another MMO now. The magic is gone and I'm just not feeling it anymore. I will go back to it because I love the exploring aspect, I love discovering everything, but I'm hesitant because I'm constantly alone.
But I digress, what I did experience was amazing. A huge world, amazing art style, so many attack combinations and a unique unfolding story that's tailored to the choices I make should have made this my Game of the Year. What I said about players giving orders to others whom they can't control, I meant it. Freedom is the name of the game and the choice to go an do whatever you want is only limited by your character's level. The expansive world means you should never get bored easily and the quests that suddenly pop up, (such as having to fend off a town that's being attacked by minotaurs, followed by finding out where the minotaurs live, followed by attacking them) means a near-infinite variety of things to do. I should definitely get back into playing soon.

#3: Forza Horizon - Xbox 360

Forza Motorsport 4 is currently #6 on my list of All Time Favorite Games. The depth and lengths that the game goes to please every player is astounding. From the gearheads with steering wheel controllers, who turn off all assists and manually shift, to the casual players who want no damage and a lot of help controlling a fast car, Forza 4 does things right. Unfortunately I'm not talking about 4 here, just Horizon. A horrible misstep in the wrong direction for a well-established franchise, Horizon goes out of its way to draw in the crowd of people who loved the Need For Speed Underground games, and subsequently the next 5 games after that. Its a pseudo-sim-arcade street racing game and while it is easy to master, I for one only miss the depth of the previous games. While the cars have a definitive weight to them, the gearhead aspect is non-existent. Besides that, the game just CAN'T SHUT UP. The event organizer who must describe every fart she's ever made in her life, the radio DJs who give scripted monologue, and the racers who talk smack at the start AND during every race, it seems someone is talking at all times. Would it kill one of the star racers to just say "I've heard good things about you, don't disappoint me"? The game is tied together in a festival atmosphere. Music and speed gathered at one place in Colorado. If you're a fan of mostly alternative music then you'll be glad to know that the soundtrack is varied, and it might introduce you to some new music.The problem here being that ITS ALL BAD. From anti-music dubstep to indie rock bands you've probably never heard of, the soundtrack is one of the most useless I've ever heard in a game. I just play without the music on, and at one point I became so frustrated with the speaking that I just completely muted the sounds altogether.

Still, despite all of this, Horizon is solid, well-built, knows what it wanted to deliver and delivers it. Speed is abundant and the community is alive. Too bad I will NOT be buying any of the DLC or a sequel if it comes to that. So just to be clear, the only reason Forza Horizon makes it this high on the list is because of its quality. My overall feeling of the game however is that Forza Horizon should die.

#2: Spec Ops: The Line - Xbox 360

Extra Credits said it best when talking about this game, "Its engaging. Not fun, but engaging." (They give a better review in two videos than I could ever give.) Spec Ops: The Line wasn't on my radar until I played the demo for it. I was blown away by the action. I was sold after the first time I tried it. I pre-ordered after barely debating it. After playing through I can definitely say that this game deserves to be this high on the list. It takes the player, Cpt. Walker, through a mission to find Colonel John Konrad somewhere in Dubai, which has been overtaken by sand. Walker and his two squadmates must fight against the army of Dubai and later against the US Army. It becomes a sticky situation and by the end it delves into some aspects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I don't mean to make a spoiler of it but the story is expertly crafted and all throughout you begin to uncover some things that make you question who the real badguy is. On top of the excellent single player, the multiplayer is just as thrilling. Using the same game mechanics, you play through the usual multiplayer affair: deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, etc. Throughout the multiplayer games, sandstorms happen that obscure the player's vision, disrupts the radar, and sometimes changes the environment.
While Spec Ops: The Line might not be a AAA game for years to come, it certainly made an impact on me simply by being different. It didn't want to follow the norms of other shooters and whenever I finish a game of single or multiplayer, I walk away satisfied.

#1: Halo 4 - Xbox 360

Please, anti-fanboys: Shut up and remember that this list IS NOT my top games of all time, just a top for 2012. That being said, Halo 4 is the most gorgeous-looking game I have ever seen on the Xbox 360. This is a step above Halo: Reach in the right direction. Adding new elements to gameplay, both single and multiplayer, while still keeping it familiar to the veterans, while even STILL making is accessible to newcomers is what makes Halo 4 so admirable. The single player campaign delves into the relationship of Master Chief and a failing AI Cortana whose own thinking is ripping her programming apart. The main mission for this new trilogy is to get Cortana to Dr. Halsey to be repaired all the while fighting your way through a sect of Covenant who are ignoring the truce in favor of discovering what's contained in a Forerunner planet. The solo campaign is vast but the usual "narrow way leading into an arena" is still present. Regardless, its just as much a star of the game as the multiplayer, which has a ton of various gameplay types in War Games and introduces Spartan Ops, an episodic side story where you play as your custom Spartan through a storyline separate from the main campaign. Multiplayer contains the usual fair of Slayer, Team Deathmatch, CTF, and the others you've come to expect in the Halo series. However I miss Firefight but its understandable since the number of differing enemies has been reduced, even with the new race introduced in the solo campaign.

It would be wrong of me not to mention the cutscenes that happen between the storylines in both campaign and Spartan Ops. 343 has outdone Bungie completely and not only is this game impressive to see, but it also backs it up by having astonishing gameplay. For those who lost faith in the first Halo Trilogy because of the extra games, Halo 4 is a great start to get back on track. I was never a huge fan of the Halo games but Halo 4 has made me a believer.

Keep Playing.

(I noticed when I started writing this that all top 4 games are ones that I pre-ordered. Go figure.)

An idea for a game based on the 5 stages of grief.

Just had an idea that I had to share. A game idea. One for kids. Its sketchy at best but its more of a teaching tool than something for adults.

You play as a kid, selectable boy or girl, with an adult AI character, selectable man or woman depending on the person that was lost. For a few hours, having experiences with the adult and learning to trust them. Safety, happiness, and bright colors are the themes from the start. Puzzles are easy, hints are plenty, and reassuring comments are abundant.
Then during one of the levels, the adult's gone. The character goes through the 5 stages of grief through themed levels.

Denial: The player finds their way back to the beginning of the first level while the colors gradually fade. The kid thinks they're okay on their own but the levels they went through with the adult are now hard or impossible to complete. There are no hints, the character is left alone.

Anger: This can either be done through the character they play, a change in the levels color schemes, or conjured as emotion through the player. They meet other adult characters that are downtrodden, always looking down, and never listen to the player's instructions. None of them work well, they don't seem to understand the puzzles and walk away at times. The character in turn gets mad and the movement is faster.

Bargaining: This is done in the same instance as anger. Switching out the adult they trusted with someone else. They start to long for the original adult and will subtly ask the others if they can go find the original. Replacement adults show the wrong kind of sympathy, leading the character to...

Depression: They can't have the original adult back and suddenly new puzzles are introduced. These can't be solved. None of them. Character visibly gets sad and the overall color scheme turns blue and the character's walk slows.

Acceptance. Returning to a backtracking section of the level, the character comes across something that helps them solve one of the puzzles. At the end of that puzzle is something that helps them solve another (a map, a tool, etc.). This is done several times until the last. During these puzzles the colors slowly change back to normal. The player feels as though they can accomplish things on their own.

At the end of the last puzzle, the character comes out into bright sunlight with a smile on their face and the smiling faces of the replacement adults. They realize now that they can do whatever it takes by themselves and they can learn to move forward with life.

The idea is sketchy because I feel like not all of the levels should involve puzzles. Maybe building things too and that requires one of the adults but none of them want to help. It can most definitely be improved on but I'd like to see it happen. It wouldn't have to be played by kids who are going through a tough time, it could be used to prepare them for IF one of those tough times come.