Bioshock Xbox 360 Review

Liked:

1. Great graphic design, and fantastic environment/atmosphere.

2. Good shooting and combat mechanics.

3. Good voice acting.

4. Lots of interesting plasmids to play with. (almost too many to be honest)

Disliked:

1. Boring “hunt and fetch it” quests.

2. Endings didn’t feel worth the effort of beating the game.

3. Failed to keep me interested.  I had the game for an entire year before I finally got through it.

FINAL BS RATING: +1ALRIGHT

Closing Statement: Next to Portal and Mario Galaxy, Bioshock has to be the most over-hyped game of 2007.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s well made and a quality game, but in my opinion doesn’t deserve quite as much “worship” as it has received.  Lesser rated and less popular shooters like The Darkness earned a spot closer to my heart than Bioshock.

The Dark Knight Movie Review

Liked:

1. Great supporting characters such as the Joker, Harvey Dent, Alfred, and Gordon.

2. Best Batman movie I’ve personally seen.

3. Heath Ledger as the Joker lives up to the hype. Best Joker ever.

4. The Joker plots some interesting events during the movie, but they tend to be predictable. Still very entertaining though.

Didn’t Like:

1. Batman himself was very boring to me.  He was very much upstaged by the other characters in my opinion.  Bruce Wayne was only slightly more interesting.

2. Like all Batman movies I’ve seen, the fight sequences tend to be too dark and sometimes hard to tell what’s going on.

3. Didn’t care for the “love interest”.

YAY: Heath Ledger as the Joker totally makes this movie.  Without him, I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked the movie very much. +1

Final BS Rating: +2 PRETTY GOOD

Civilization Revolution Single-Player PS3 Review

Only the single-player game was reviewed. The idea of playing Civilization with a complete stranger simply didn’t appeal to me enough to try multiplayer.

I’ve been playing the Civilization series on the PC since the very beginning, so I will freely admit  that I do have bias towards the more detailed PC Civilization games.

Liked:

1.   It’s Civ.  Still has that classic Civilization “one more turn” addictiveness.

2.   Different ways to win.  You can win by killing every other Civ, or win through other peaceful methods.  Gives you a reason to play the game in different ways.

3.  Researching techs, building units, wonders and buildings, and running an empire is lots of fun.

4. Less micro-management than previous PC Civilizations.

5. Best turn-based strategy game currently available for consoles.  Wish they’d make more of those.

Disliked:

1. The “Simlish” type gibberish the animated characters are always spouting.  English or shut the fuck up.

2.  I can’t find a difficulty level that suits me the best.  Chieftain and Warlord tend to be too easy, but I can play the game any way I feel like.  On King I can win using certain strategies that feel almost “gimmicky”. (but I don’t think I could EVER win o Domination victory on King or higher)   I haven’t tried anything higher than King since I’m not winning too often on that difficulty level.

3. Every game I’ve played, no matter what difficulty I played on, I’ve ended up at war with EVERY SINGLE other Civ at the same time. Whether I wanted to or not.  The Ai would only attack my Civ 99% of the time. I’ve only seen the Ai capture another Ai’s city TWICE in MANY games… Seems like the Ai is programmed to target the player.

4. Several minor nitpicks… This may be a perception thing, but it seems like the Ai can churn out an extraordinary amount of units in a short time.  More noticeable at the “King” difficulty level.  I couldn’t seem to replicate the apparent speed of the Ai production.

How is it I was able to get “Advanced Flight” tech before researching “Flight” first? That would have been like the Wright Brothers building a B-2 Stealth bomber before their “Wright Flyer” flew…

They dumbed down some of the management things, but made combat harder.   Before I realized that creating armies was the name of the game for combat, I was getting frustrated by not being able to capture cities.

No hot-seat games.    So you can’t have a friendly game with your girlfriend/wife/buddy on the same console.

Game of the Week is disappointing.

No trophy support.

5. Diplomacy has been neutered.  It all comes down to peace, war, trade, or bribe.  No alliances or open borders, or any of the more advanced things found on the PC games.  So that means no co-op play either.

Yay: Finally a Civ game worth playing on a console!  +1

Gay: Absolutely NO customizable game types. You can’t even choose the size of the map or how many civs you want to play against.  GAAAAY!  -1

Final BS Rating for Players Who Are Used to Civ on the PC : 0 MEH

Estimated Final BS Rating For Console Users Who Have Never Played Civ: +2 PRETTY GOOD

Closing Statement:

Fans of Civ on the PC will find about an equal amount of things to like, and dislike with Civ Revolution.  It’s definitely worth a try, but you’ll probably end up going back to Civ 4 after a few plays.   It is a bit dumbed-down,  but not always in necessarily a bad way.  Seems to be designed with online multiplayer console play in mind.

Console players who haven’t yet tried out Civilization will most likely find a great strategy game if they don’t mind the turn-based gameplay.

Army of Two Split-Screen Co-Op Review

ONLY the offline split-screen Co-Op portion of the game is being reviewed here…

Liked:

1. Overall fun co-op third person shooter action. If you’re into split-screen co-op with a buddy, this game is definitely worth buying.

2. I liked buying and customizing guns, and some guns look REALLY badass when they are pimped.

3. Achievements like “Kill 250 enemies with Assault Rifles”, etc, are good incentives to play through using all the different types of weapons.

4. Good length for the campaign, especially since you’ll probably want to play through on each difficulty level.

5. The interactions between Salem and Rios can be pretty fun.

Disliked:

1. The enemy AI is simply superhuman when it comes to accuracy, even on the lowest difficulty.  An enemy blind-firing from behind cover, half the map away will nail you literally the instant you pop your head orbody out of cover.  Luckily you can take a shitload of hits before you die. Superhuman accuracy tends to be a trend in shooters these days.

2. Sometimes you end up fighting with the controls more than the enemy.  Maybe the most frustrating thing can be when you’re fighting in close-quarters. Get too close to an enemy, and you’ll often find you won’t be able to shoot at him.  It can get to the point where you want to hurl your controller sometimes.

3. Probably all of the co-op specific mechanics feel too contrived.  Co-op sniping always has certain situations where the enemy is unaware of you with their backs turned.  There are enemies which you basically can’t kill unless your team-mate fills his aggro meter and you sneak around to shoot the baddie in the ass.  Some doors require you each to push a button on either side of the door. Who’s ever seen a door in real life like that?  What it comes down to, is that it never really feels like you’re working together, it feels more like you are jumping through hoops the programmers laid out to show off their “Co-Op stuff”.   The best uses of Co-Op are probably the dragging and healing, and the step jumps.

Yay: The fact that you can play split-screen offline co-op in the age of internet only fragfests is a definite bonus. It’s even better that it’s mostly pretty fun.  +1

Final BS Rating: +3 HARDCORE

Closing Statement:

If you like Co-Op shooters,  Army of Two is pretty much a must have.   Since there’s not a whole lot of offline co-op shooters out there,  Army of Two is a no-brainer.  Buy it or rent it, and have fun. Just remember to leave your brain behind before you get into the campaign’s story.

Medal of Honor Airborne Xbox 360 SinglePlayer Review

Liked:

1. Generally entertaining WW2 FPS gameplay.

2. Upgradeable weapons. Not so much for the upgrades themselves, but it gives you a reason to run around the levels using every weapon in the game, rather than just one or two.

3. Graphics are generally good, but not exceptional.

Disliked:

1. Hit detection or accuracy sometimes feels “wonky”.

2. Overly cliche.  Tries to be “Band of Brothers” without the story. The music wants to be emotionally evocative, despite not having any characters to be emotionally attached to. Every mission except one begins the same way, your C-47 takes a shitload of flak damage and everyone rushes to get out of the plane.

3. Some of the enemy soldiers are insanely gay.  And I don’t mean homo.  The Nazi elite soldiers later in the game are what I’m talking about.  The panzerschreck guys are the worst.  I literally got blasted in the face at point blank range with a panzerschreck, and I died, yet the German guy took the blast like nothing happened. Also the elite soldiers take an insane amount of hits to kill, despite not wearing body armor.  They’re very unrealistic, and seem to be there just because EA felt like the game should have some kind of “Nazi Super Soldier” in it.

4. Some historical inaccuracies stick out. The one that stuck in my mind the most was in the very last scene of the game, after you finish the last mission, you see P-40s flying over Germany in their “Flying Tigers” shark mouth paint scheme.   By 1945, all of the squadrons in the European theatre who had been flying P-40s had switched to P-47s or P-51s.  Which means there’s no way P-40s would be flying over Germany at that point in the game.  And they most definitely would not have been painted with the shark mouths.

Final BS Rating: -1Not So Good

Closing Statement:

MOH Airborne is a decent WW2 FPS. I enjoyed playing through the game except during a few very frustrating parts of certain levels.  I picked it up at a pawn shop for about $20, and for $20 bucks it was worth the money.  I never bothered trying the multiplayer, because honestly after playing Bad Company and COD4, it didn’t really feel like a game I would enjoy online.

If you’re bored and want some easy achievements, and you find this in a bargain bin, by all means buy it and play through it a couple of times. Just don’t expect greatness.   Airborne seems to be pretty representative of the kinds of games EA has been publishing over the last 10 years or so.  They make functional, mostly competent games, which never quite achieve the fantastic.

Hancock Movie Review

Liked:

1. Great concept, drunken asshole superhero, awesome.

2. Got some good laughs during the first hour of the movie.

3. Will Smith is the perfect choice for Hancock, and the rest of the main cast also does a good job.

Didn’t Like:

1. Movie falls apart during the last 30-45 minutes. Right after the big twist, the movie goes down the shitter.

GAY: The big CGI fight sequence right after the “big twist”. WTF? The whole “twist” itself is pretty gay as well. -1

Final BS Rating: +1 ALRIGHT

Battlefield: Bad Company Xbox 360 Review

Liked:

1. Multiplayer is fun.

2. Best use of snipers in an online multiplayer game so far.

3. Single player campaign is pretty lengthy and worth playing.

4. Entertaining characters with humor that actually amuses.

5. Some of the best sound effects I’ve ever heard in a game.

6. Graphics look great, and mostly destructable environments are awesome.

7. Controls on the 360 feel better than on the PS3. It seems more comfortable and feels more “right”.

8. Achievements come pretty frequently and easily.

9. Lots of trophies, awards, patches to be earned, plus you can collect dogtags off of people you knife to death.

10. Blowing shit up doesn’t get old too soon.

Didn’t Like:

1. No prone position.  WTF?  A next-gen modern FPS with no prone position??? It’s an even bigger deal for me because I play snipers mostly.

2.  Spawn camping.  Yet another modern FPS where spawn camping is possible.  Prepare to be killed literally within seconds of spawning if your team is on the losing end…

3. The single player campaign starts off being interesting, but then started to lose me about half way through.  I recommend playing through the whole campaign before trying multiplayer or you may not want to finish the singleplayer.

4. One of the worst value  “Gold Editions” I’ve ever seen for a game.  A few guns that you can unlock in the regular edition, plus a video that will probably be up on Youtube as I type this is all you really get for an extra 10 bucks.

5. Only one multiplayer mode available at launch, and it’s not that great.

6. No co-op options at all for the campaign.   This is such a disappointment it almost tempts me to take 2 points off the score… Talk about dropping the ball…

7. It can be hard to tell friend from foe during an online match.  i’ve both been killed, and have gotten easy kills by standing beside someone without realizing they were an enemy.  Your cursor will display a blue crosshairs if you point at a friendly, but it only works out to a certain distance. So if you’re doing some long range sniping, you better be absolutely sure you’re sniping an enemy before you pull the trigger.

On the Fence:

1. Squad spawning: This can go either way, it’s great for assault type squads to spawn closer to the action so they don’t have to hike all the way across the map again.  If you’re a sniper though, it can suck hairy monkey balls.  All the work you put into creeping to a good sniping point can vanish in a second when 3 squad mates all spawn right next to you.  That can be frustrating as hell for people who play serious snipers.

YAY: Very entertaining and fun game to play, plus Conquest mode is coming as a free download later this summer.  +1

GAY: With the lack of co-op campaign options, Conquest mode not being included at launch, and no prone position, Bad Company kind of feels like it should have had another couple of months in development.  -1

Final BS Rating: +3 HARDCORE

Halo 3 Review

Liked:

1. Controls are easy to to pick up and play with.

2. Good variety of weapons and vehicles.

3. Good graphics, sounds and music.

4. Multiplayer is fun.

5. Forge map editor and customizable games.

Didn’t Like:

1. Some campaign missions are absolutely horrible, especially near the end.

2. Cortana repeatedly popping into your vision, preventing you from acting and seeing what’s going on.

3. Questionable online melee system often leads you wondering “What the fuck!?”

4. A lot of weapons feel underpowered and worthless. Attacking with the assault rifle feels like hosing the other player with a Super Soaker water gun…

YAY: Extra features on Bungie.net including stats, saving screenshots and film clips etc. +1

GAY: Every asshole, fucktard, dickhead, cum stain, wannabe karaoke rapper, racist, and 10 year old kid with Xbox Live plays this game. -1

Final BS Rating: +1ALRIGHT

Metal Gear Solid 4: PS3 Review

This review does not include the Metal Gear Online game that comes with MGS4

Liked:

1. Best looking game ever made to date, on any console or system.  Anyone who would disagree with that must be a raving fanboy of some other game or system.

2. Good voice-acting, sound effects and music.

3. Best gameplay of any Metal Gear game.  It’s so much easier to control and fight with Snake.  A lot of the clunkiness is gone. Shooting is now fun.

4.  Nice looking female characters. Naomi in particular is smokin’ hot.

5. Octocamo is pretty cool and actually works.  I had enemy soldiers walk 2 feet away from me and they never knew I was there.

6. There are some good nostalgia bits during the game.

7. The tracking sequence is one of the cooler and more realistic things in the game.  If you’re familiar with real world tracking you can actually use that knowledge during the sequence.  I was very impressed.

8. It’s an absolute technical marvel. Everything in this game just looks amazing, and I never once saw any obvious bugs, glitches, or graphical clipping.  I never had any crashes, errors, and the framerate only slowed down slightly during intense segments.

Didn’t Like:

1. Worst story of any Metal Gear game so far. Seriously this is the most over-the-top, unbelievable, and unlikely plot of all.  To make things worse, the entire Metal Gear saga is hard to follow and confusing.

2. The attempts at humor just do not work at all.

3. Long beginning installation, followed by several more shorter ones during the game.

4. The number and length of cut scenes in MGS4 borders on the obscene. Prepare to spend 45 minutes to an hour watching certain scenes.  At least they are entertaining though.

5. The “emo” boss chicks.   You have to fight 4 female bosses throughout the game and each one is insane. You then have to sit through a crazy death speech followed by Drebin giving you their life’s history. One big long sob story that I couldn’t find myself caring one little bit about.  Some insane crazy-ass bitch just put you through a gimmicky boss battle, and you’re supposed to care why she’s loony?  Sorry, but the boss battles in Metal Gear Solid 1 had a lot more impact, especially Sniper Wolf.

6. Some characters and relationships were extremely over-the-top and/or unlikely.  The two romances in this game were so unlikely that they feel almost laughably contrived.

7. Blatant product placement that doesn’t really add to the game much.  One question that pops into my mind is, if Otacon has an Apple laptop, EVA drives a Triumph motorcycle, and Snake has an iPod, why doesn’t Drebin get to drink a branded soda? Or Snake get to smoke branded cigarettes? Ok the answer to the cigarette one is obvious. They’d get lynched by do-gooder special interest groups over it.

8. I was disappointed with Snake’s exit from the series. I expected a bang and got a fizzle.

Yay: MGS4 is more art than game. As a pure entertainment product, you can’t find anything better on the PS3.  +1

Gay: Metal Gear has always been at least a little over-the-top in places, but MGS4 takes that to the extreme.  This game feels the most contrived out of all the games in the series.  -1

Final BS Rating: 0 MEH

Closing Comments:

This is by far the hardest review I have ever done.   You might not think so from my review, but I enjoyed MGS4 and would recommend it to everyone.  Most of my negatives come from differences in personal tastes when it comes to story, characters and the more “artsy” side of the game.  If I looked past my own feelings on those parts, MGS4 would easily rank as the greatest game ever made.  In terms of technical brilliance and artistry, MGS4 definitely deserves the many perfect scores reviewers have given it.  No game even comes close to MGS4 in that regard.

Looking back, I feel like I hardly actually played the game.  It’s one big experience rather than simply a game to sit down and play for an hour or two like Halo or Call of Duty.  This is the first Metal Gear game I’ve actually really enjoyed PLAYING, and it’s a shame there wasn’t more of it.  Previous Metal Gears I’ve felt like I basically labored through to get to the next interesting cut scene.

Overall I have to say I’m disappointed with the game.  Sure it’s an amazing experience, but the game leaves me feeling flat. MGS 1 had a big impact on me, and MGS 3 did as well.  I’m torn between those two games on which story I enjoyed more.  In my opinion MGS4’s story doesn’t even come close.

Grand Theft Auto 4: Single Player Review (Playstation 3 Version)

Liked:

1. Amazing production values.  The sheer number of extras Rockstar has thrown into GTA4 is incredible. In game TV shows, comedy acts, cabaret shows, radio talk shows, fake commercials, the list goes on and on.

2. Superb graphics. I found the city, with all of it’s detail, size,  cars and inhabitants, simply astounding.  Drive from the hood view in your car, and sometimes you can actually nearly feel liek you’re really driving in a city. Occasionally there are some graphical glitches though.  I’ve seen cars just appear on the screen, tumbling over and over in place.

3. Improved shooting mechanic.  They definitely improved how you shoot compared to previous GTA games.

4. GPS driving directions. I love that yellow line that tells you where to drive to get to your destination.

5. Minigames. Bowling, darts, pool. They all work well. I don’t find the urge to sit and play them for an hour, but when I do, they don’t suck.

6. Great voice acting.  Characters, radio etc, it’s all good.

7. Easier to evade police than in previous GTA games.

8. Flying helicopters was kind of neat. Wish the controls were different though.

Didn’t Like:

1. The music selection.  Too much rap/hip-hop, and bands I’ve never heard of.  GTA Vice City had a fantastic 80s soundtrack that really fit the game. I’m disappointed GTA4 didn’t have more mainstream radio songs included. That took away a little of the immersion for me.  I ended of listening to Vladiovostok FM mostly. Seemed to fit well with Niko’s character.  A country music channel is a glaring omission here.  Oh they could have had SO much fun with the DJs on a country station too…

2. Some missions are controller-smashing frustrating.  I hated the ones where you have to chase some dickhead for miles through traffic, all while trying to disable his vehicle to make him stop.  Too often you’d end up ramming some traffic or running up and curb and flipping your car, while the target speeds away. One mistake and it would mean you’d have to restart the mission.  I also didn’t like the racing missions much, for similar reasons.

3. Driving back and forth through the city gets old pretty quick. I’d ask for a quick travel system, but that takes away a lot of the point of the GTA games.

4. Glitches. There’s several minor glitches visible while you’re playing, but nothing game-breaking.  Stuff like I mentioned above with cars tumbling in place, or AI cars getting stuck on bridges. (the ambulance near the second safehouse)

5. You can only save at a safehouse.  (not counting the autosave)  It sucks if you need to get off the game to go do something in real life, you have to drive all the way back to a safehouse to save your game. If you’re on the other side of the city, this could take several minutes.

On the Fence: (Stuff that could go either way on the score)

1. The Driving mechanics.  At casual speeds, I love how the cars handle. They feel weighty and in my opinion seemed to feel good to drive. However at fast speeds, I hated it. Especially certain cars. Some cars seem to spin out at the slightest touch.  The driving mechanics could really make some missions and races frustrating.

Yay:

The amount of effort Rockstar put into GTA4 is amazing in the age of cookie-cutter minimum content bullshit games. Rockstar has achieved the pinnacle of production value with GTA4. If only every game could have the same richness of content.  +1

Gay:

Despite the incredible production values and improved combat, I still find myself getting a little bored with driving back and forth, picking up people, taking them places and stuff like that.  It gets repetitive but you want to keep playing to see the next cut scene or unlock the next area or “thing”.   -1

Final BS Rating: +3 HARDCORE

Closing Statement:

GTA4 is a great game, but it’s not deserving of perfect 10s like a lot of reviewers were giving it. My opinion is that how could a game receive a perfect 10, when it had so many obvious glitches in it? Search Youtube and you’ll find lots of videos showing off the glitches.  It’s an incredible game, but far from perfect.