I was really so excited to get into bioshock again. I loved the other two and the worlds were always stunning. This world was no different. The first time I got to see Columbia going down in an elevator, my breath literally caught and the sheer stunning beauty of it.


The colors are vibrant and everything is so artfully put together. The world is absolutely gorgeous. When you are first roaming around Columbia once you come out from underground, the whole world just sings with life. It was really fun to just stop and listen to some of the weird conversations that took place. Once everyone turns on you (naturally). Everything feels dead, where it once felt beautifully alive. While there are still some things going on in the world around you, it manages to feel empty and lonely even after you have Elizabeth.

The Gameplay

The gameplay is typical of a Bioshock game. You have all your crazy weapons and your vigors (plasmids). I felt like the vigors were really boring actually. The two I liked was the murder of crows and undertow. Murder of crows sends out this murder of crows lol, that attack your enemies. My other favorite was undertow. This allowed you to knock enemies off of Columbia using a shot of water. Once you upgraded it you could actually grab people with tentacles of water. One of things unique to this game is you are escorting a person. This person being Elizabeth. Rather she is escorting you it seems. At some point you get the ability to create tears where you can bring in objects from other dimensions. This allows you to get cover, weapons, and supplies. Elizabeth also throws you health, salt, and ammo. It is super useful when you need it.

All in all this game really left something to be desired. I felt like the game was supposed to have some huge message that just completely flew over my head. While the game was beautiful and the story elaborate, I just felt like it wasn't enough. It felt dull and without heart. I know a lot of people believe the sun rises on this bioshock installment, but it just wasn't that great for me.

Labels: 3 star game, bioshock infinite, game review, xbox 360

You are a half English, half Mohawk Native American Ratonhnhaké:ton, but you quickly get the name Conner from a sweet old chap named Achilles. When you start the game you play as Conner's father Haytham Kenway. I really love the setting. There is something about early America that has a charm to it. Playing as Haytham is kind of like driving a clunky car that has no cool features. You can't really do anything as him. You do anything too assassiny After you play as Haytham you get to play as young Connor. I thought this was a cute way for the audience to connect with him. You play hide and seek with your fellow tribe members. This is the way they familiarize you with the controls. Finally you grow up and are living with a man named Achille's. He lives in a cool house that overlooks a small lake. He teaches you everything you need to know to be an assassin. This is your homestead. I will discuss more about your homestead later. You travel from Boston to New York doing assassin missions and being part of events that shaped a new America. Your goal is to bring down the templars (as always) and try to find out what the meaning of right and wrong is. Connor is naive and often finds that the things he believes in, no matter how impassioned he may be, may not be what is true and right for the greater good. I love that Connor is so pure and stands by his beliefs.

My Favorite Part Of The Game

 You are introduced to missions in this game called homestead missions. From helping a man woo a woman, to helping the doctor get to a pregnant woman, these are the warming and fun missions that made this game fun for me. When Connor settles into the homestead, it is a bare and desolate place void of many humans, but Connor brings people to settle there and we are along for the fun missions. These missions change the homestead around you. In the final missions of the homestead missions you are surrounded by friends and settlers of this lively and wonderful place.

Counter Kills and Attack.. Maybe I am Missing Something

        This has been by far THE BIGGEST adjustment I ever had to make in a game. According to the game makers, killing people is easier than ever. Yeah maybe if you don't want to get cramps in your hands. I have little tiny hands. I know the XBOX 360 controller is pretty small, but I had the hardest time killing people. My hands would start to cramp up from the constant mashing between A and B. It's fine when all you have to do is keep pressing A to attack and B to counter in consistent intervals, but when they are erratic like they are in this game, I actually have to pause the game sometimes when I am fighting more than 5 enemies. My hands end up hurting so bad. Maybe there is some magic way to do this, but for me it's a real task. It was AMAZING when Ezio could consistently take down one attacker after another with minimal effort and the right combination of Attack and Counter would chain together in a glorious heap of bodies. In this, your attackers keep getting up and up and up and up... You could be going to do the final killing blow, when an attacker behind you hits you (if you miss the quick icon to counter). This throws off any fluidity that you could have had in the fighting. I asked my husband if his hands cramped when he played this game, and even he said that they did.  I have read tons of reviews that say the fighting is effortless and fluid, but for me it was not. I mean maybe I was doing something wrong. I will admit that is possible, but it felt really disconnected to me. When you actually CAN get into a rhythm you feel like the biggest bad ass on earth, but the feeling of any true rhythm really dampened my gameplay experience in that sense. I may just have the worst hand eye coordination on earth, but I didn't have a problem with any other Assassin's game.

*Update*
I have been writing this review as I have been playing and now that I am done with the game, I have mastered the controls. I wanted to leave my ranting about the controls because they were a huge discouraging part of playing this game in the beginning. Once I got used to the controls they weren't that bad.

Damn You For Jumping on Everything, But Damn You Make It Look Good

I swear Conner wants to jump on everything. I alert the guards so many times by accidentally jumping on stuff. The free-run is SUPER EASY and streamlined in this game. You jump from tree to tree so effortlessly that it's like a dance in water. Yeah, it's that smooth.

Lockpicking

WTF GAME? Seriously I think there is some cosmic joke being played on me. This is the most inconsistent piece of crap I EVER tried in a game. This is by far the worst lockpicking mechanism in a game I ever experienced. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes I want to throw the controller at the TV for sitting there for 20 minutes trying to do it. Just let me open the effing chest. I would rather be sitting there breaking lockpicks all day than this sh*t. *Update* As of completing this game, I have only opened 3 chests because it is so annoying.

Naval Missions

Naval missions are some of the most fun and frustrating missions in this game. You get to man a huge ship and blow up other ships. You can't really go too wrong with that! I find that if your ship isn't upgraded enough that later naval missions can be hard to complete. I would suggest anyone who play this game to save money to upgrade your ship.

Final Thoughts

I had no idea what happened at the end of this game. I really don't. I played it through twice to try to figure it out. Nope. I guess I just don't get it. While there were many aspects of this game that I loved, this wasn't my favorite AC installment. Make sure you look up how to sell and trade items. This will help greatly. Also, my regards to you for the 20 minutes you will sit through credits waiting to continue playing after the ending of the game. You can't skip it. Trust me I tried.

Labels: 4 stars, Assassin's Creed 3, game review

Oi. Where do I start? This was the biggest emotional roller coaster ever. This is the first time I EVER cried playing a game. You play as Lee, a convict on his way to prison when all hell breaks loose. I can't even go into the details of the story because it is so twisty. Soon after you start playing you meet a little girl named Clementine. She is your moral compass in the game. She is the reason for pretty much every move you make in the game. The basis of the game is pretty much survive and protect Clementine.

Game play

The game play is your basic point and click kind of adventure. You usually have a movable reticle that let's your hover over people or items of interest. It's take a minute to get used to, but once you do it's like an easy to maneuver extension on game play. Shooting is a bitch. In episode 2 or 3 I had to actually stop playing at one point because I was so angry. The gun has a tendency to fly really fast from left to right. Towards the end of the game I saw a screentip that said hold RT to control your gun, but I don't know if that would have helped at all. This is a game where your choices affect the outcome of the game and characters who stay with you. Some choices you make are a direct result of your actions, and some are set in stone. The game makes you feel like you are making the choices though. I don't know if every choice plays out the same in the end, but some choices dictate what characters you have with you.

Characters

Never have I  played a game where I was emotionally involved with the characters. You find yourself becoming attached. It's a weird thing. The story is told so beautifully and artfully that you are pulled in. You start making choices that you would make for someone you really cared about. In your mind you know it's a game, but the writing is done so well that you get lost in the world while you are playing it. I won't give anything away, but the ending was so hard on me that was just sitting there like.. "I need a hug or something.." Don't expect happy endings with this. You will love and lose. You will defend and sacrifice. This game is so emotionally charged. You want things to work out, and like in real life-- the loss is hard when they don't.

Graphics

I love the graphics in this. The cel shaded style is really awesome. I did find that it was too dark sometimes. I turned the brightness up all the way and it would still be dark.

Last Thoughts

Just know going in to this that it's going to be quite a ride. The game is wonderfully written and it's worth every penny you pay for it. I would recommend it to anyone.

Labels: 5 star game, game review, the walking dead, the walking dead game, the walking dead xbox 360, xbox 360

Jason Brody is on vacation with a group of friends on a tropical island in the Pacific when they decide to take a skydiving trip. But they all land in different parts of a pirate-infested island, and are taken prisoner by a pirate lord named Vaas.
Played On: Xbox 360
Rating: M for MATURE AUDIENCES
Published by Ubisoft

Tatau Image from gamingnation.nl

So I had to be talked into playing Farcry 3. I spent 3 hours playing Farcry 2 and I said: “Never again”. My husband began playing it and the first thing that caught my attention was the acting of the character named Vaas. I was absolutely blown away at the caliber and believably of the character. I mean he was one crazy fool! I was so drawn in by that character that I decided to give it a try.  We have the copy for the xbox 360, the graphics aren't that great, but some things about the graphics are beautiful. The water is specifically beautiful. In this game you are a rich kid whose sky diving goes awry when you and your friends land on an island full of crazy rebels. You play as a kid named Jason who is thrust into becoming a savage to save his brothers and friends.  The acting of this guy is less than memorable, but you meet many colorful characters. You gain xp and in turn fill in a tattoo on your arm called a Tatau, I thought that was kind of cool. You get new abilities as you fill in your tatau. Some things that I find irritating are as follows: Sometimes while you keep holding the (Y) button to heal, the animation won’t start and you die. This happens quite frequently even when you try to anticipate your death. Another thing that instantly infuriates me, is when you go to the map to fast travel, you can’t. It won’t highlight the fast travel location. This happens so much. I have had to go in and out of the map several times until it works.

Image from rockpapershotgun.com

In this game you have to hunt to craft items for yourself. I absolute hate this aspect of the game. I am an animal lover and I know it’s just a game, but I just hate have to take out animals. In some camps the bad guys have pit bulls with collars on, they attack you. I think it sucks that they have to vilify pit bulls more, but when they put collars on them, it makes it so much more personal to me. I literally cringe every time.  It’s different when you are walking along the banks of the game and get attacked by a crocodile or are swimming and get attacked by a shark. It’s just sad every time to kill the other animals in the game, at least for me.


An unbelievable part of this game is that the main character becomes this blood thirsty vigilante pretty fast. But nothing I mentioned above distracts from this amazing game. The missions are fun and I can spend hours just exploring the caves and finding collectibles. When they say this game is like Skyrim with guns, that is a fair comparison. You begin to lose hours of time just exploring; it’s fantastic. Sometimes you will be walking around and hear gunfire. Once you look around you realize there is a tiger attacking a group of people. There are so many unplanned, unexpected things happening in the world.

Vaas. Image from egmnow.com

I just want to get back to this Vaas character. Wow. I was so impressed by the guy who did the voice for this that I had to look him up. His name is Michael Mando.  He is so fantastic. He just breathes life into that crazy character. I can’t wait to hear more from this guy.




I have to say, I recommend this game to anyone. It’s a great departure from the boring, tedious Far Cry 2.  From the hang gliders to breaking a tiger cage to let it attack a group of rebels, this game is not one to pass.

Labels: 5 star game, game review, xbox 360