In a world where multiplayer games have gained mainstream success, (pushed mainly by PC, Xbox Live,PS3 and screaming-cursing-preteens), have we as gamers forgotten about our beloved campaign modes?
IF YOU ARE LIKE ME YOU LOVE A GOOD CAMPAIGN MODE!
A good campaign will have you at the edge of your seat, fighting to save humanity against an unstoppable aggressive alien race ( Halo ), battling against mindless flesh eating zombies ( Resident Evil Series ), adventures that take you to mysterous worlds and universes ( Final Fantasy OrZelda ) , making decisions that affect the lives of thousands or even millions ( Mass Effect or Star Wars KOTOR). I could go on and on!
My point is...campaign modes are part of our gaming heritage, and games should not be overlooked because a multiplayer mode was not slapped on-to-it at the last minute! Some of these games may have gotten buried under the mass of games that are released around the holiday season, some have gotten average reviews, causing thousands of people to choose more "popular" games instead. Who says that a good game has to be a AAA title with a multi-million dollar budget?
In this blog I will feature games that I have played and have excellent campaign modes! Whether it's new or old , pc, xbox 360, ps3, all the way back to snes. I will feature them all! The best part is, you could find most of these games heavily discounted or used, anywhere!
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to comment Game On!
Sequels sequels sequels, more movie news, rumors, first looks and everything else to get you up to date on whats going on in the gaming-verse. One of my favorite videogame shows from MACHINIMA It's a gaming update for the average red blooded gamer, who's not afraid of comedy and a lil' cursing.
From the creators of one of 2007's best racing games, DiRT, comes GRID – a fast-paced, cinematic, all-encompassing racing game. GRID takes players on a world tour of beautifully designed race locations through Europe, the US, Japan and beyond. The game features the most extensive range of courses ever created by Codemasters, combining official racetrack/circuit challenges and drifting events, with road races and urban street competitions.
GRID embraces all types of racing, including traditional circuit courses in exotics in Europe, muscle car street races in the US, and drifting import tuners in Japan. Jump behind the wheel of some of the fastest, most powerful race cars ever created and take on your friends in the best that racing has to offer.
In any mode, on any surface, the car handling is sublime and the physics system is thrillingly accurate. A devastating new damage engine ensures players feel every bump in the road as they fight to keep control of their cars at breathtaking speeds. GRID delivers electrifying race action – squeezing all the juicy bits out of the world's best courses, cars and race styles to deliver one huge adrenaline rush. It's all about what happens between the GRID and the flag! KEY FEATURES:
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE RACE: Codemasters Studios' history of creating stellar racing titles, combined with AI and the ability of the EGO engine allow them to deliver GRID - a pure and cinematic race experience
A GREATER, MORE DIVERSE, WORLD OF RACING: New and classic, track and street – conquer the greatest racetracks and then go beyond with road races and urban street competitions
JUMP BEHIND THE WHEEL OF SOME OF THE MOST EXCITING CARS: Exotics, imports and beefy muscle cars are all available to race in hugely varied events with grids of up to twenty cars aggressively competing for the lead
THREE DISTINCT RACING REGIONS: Europe, US and Japan are all beautifully designed, each with their own individual takes on racing: U.S.A – In thunderous V8 muscle cars, race diverse courses on city streets in flat out, door banging racing action; Japan – Reject traditional Western racing and drift over to Japan for action the fringes of legality in industrial areas and back streets from dusk 'till dawn; Europe – Race the famous tracks dominated by Le Mans in some of the most technologically advanced cars ever created such as the Ferrari F430 GT, Lamborghini Murcielago GTR, Aston Martin DBR9, Koenigsegg CCXR and Porsche 911 GT3-RSR
EVERYTHING THAT COULD HAPPEN IN A RACE PROBABLY WILL: A GRID race tests a driver's skills at every turn -- crammed with high-impact moments such as, engine fires, tire blow outs, bump and runs, wild crashes involving flipping, spinning, and collisions with other cars and trackside objects
ENHANCED EGO ENGINE DRIVES ALL NEW HIGH IMPACT CRASH DAMAGE AND SEQUENCES: Physics models will ensure that collisions and crashes yield the kind of spectacle that a Hollywood movie director would ask for. Slow motion will be used extensively to give replays the blockbuster treatment
ONLINE RACING: Race your cars online in high-adrenaline multiplayer, multiple car events
Set in a fictional near future based upon the headlines of today, Frontlines: Fuel of War for the XBOX 360 brings players into the world's next great war. As society succombs to a worldwide energy crisis, a new global depression takes hold. Amidst this gritty backdrop, two superpower alliances emerge. Join battle on the frontlines of tomorrow as the Western Coalition (U.S./E.U.) or The Red Star Alliance (Russia/China).
Running on empty....
The setting and story for Frontlines is one of the immediate strong points for the game because of the terribly likelihood of it actually happening in RL, though Kaos has obviously taken huge creative license with it at the same time.
Basically, Frontlines is set on the backdrop of a huge resource war being fought in the year 2024. The oil is finally running out and humanity, which has never really pushed itself to look at the long-term, has no alternative. The introduction to the game sets the mood perfectly as a narrator explains what life is like in such a world. Farms cannot transport their food, vaccines cannot be shipped around the globe and overnight the world becomes divided into the Western Coalition and the Red Star Army of China and Russia.
Naturally, war breaks out and the last of the oil is pledged to the military – while the hospitals back home are going dark, the tanks are meeting on battlefields around the Caspian Sea where the last oil reserves are believed to be kept. It’s a powerful and important message and one I approve of wholeheartedly.
Despite being a multiplayer game first and foremost, Frontlines actually has a pretty decent singleplayer side to it as well. The campaign is made up of about ten missions set over the course of the war, with players taking the role as part of the Stray Dogs infantry unit who are positioned on the frontlines of the war and lead the assault. There’s no choice to change sides in this conflict unfortunately though, so you have to cope with only seeing the American and English side of the war.
Bottom line, this game has good graphics, solid action packed gameplay, and the story brings you right into a conflict that feels like it could really happen in the near future...
Who says a game has to be a AAA title to make it worth playing? Im all about getting immersed into a gaming universe. I believe that this game has been overlooked by alot of gamers, because of all the other titles that got released around the same time. Rent it, buy it, and kick some Red Star Army A** Lol Game On!
Oblivion is the quintessential role-playing game for the next generation and another leap forward in gaming. Step inside the most richly detailed and vibrant game-world ever created. Oblivion is the latest chapter in the epic and highly successful Elder Scrolls saga and utilizes the latest Xbox 360 and next-generation video game hardware to fully immerse you into the experience. With a powerful combination of freeform gameplay and unprecedented graphics, you can unravel the main quest at your own pace or explore the vast world and find your own challenges.
After the mysterious and untimely death of the Emperor, the throne of Tamriel lies empty. With the Empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion open and demons march upon the land-laying waste to everything in their path. To turn the tide of darkness, you must find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.In keeping with the Elder Scrolls tradition, players will have the option to experience the main quest at their own pace, and there will be plenty of opportunities to explore the vast world and make your own way.
Numerous factions can be joined, such as the thieves or mages guilds, and each contains its own complete storyline and the chance to rise to the head of the faction and reap further rewards.Oblivion is a single-player game that takes place in Tamriel's capital province, Cyrodiil. You are given the task of finding the hidden heir to a throne that sits empty, the previous emperor having been killed byan unknown assassin.
With no true Emperor, the gates to Oblivion (the equivalent of hell in the world of Tamriel) open, and demons begin to invade Cyrodiil and attack its people and towns. It's up to you to find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel.Live Another Life in Another World.
Create and play any character you can imagine, from the noble warrior to the sinister assassin to the wizened sorcerer.* Next Generation Graphics. Pixel-shader effects and high definition televisions are fully supported to create unprecedented visuals, including lifelike towns, dungeons, and the most realistic forests ever created in a game.
* First Person Melee and Magic. An all-new combat and magic system brings first person role-playing to a new level of intensity where you feel every blow.* Radiant AI. This groundbreaking AI system gives Oblivion’s characters full 24/7 schedules and the ability to make their own choices based on the world around them. Non-player characters eat, sleep, and complete goals all on their own.* Realistic Characters. Oblivion’s features over 1,000non-player characters who come to life like never before with facial animations, lip-synching, and full speech. They even engage in unscripted conversations with each other and you.* Open-Ended Game Play; Short Challenges.
The enormous world of Oblivion is open for you to explore at your own pace, and shorter challenges such as fighting bandits, mixing potions, creating magic items and persuading friends keep the challenges coming.
Fallout 3 begins with your character's literal birth and ends with...well, that's up to you. It might never end, should you opt to hit the (metaphorical) pause button on the role-playing game's main quest. What happens in between, from your formative years in the shelter of Vault 101 and well beyond your eventual escape into the irradiated, postapocalyptic Wild West outside, evolves via a nice mix of guided narrative and player choice. Help a townsperson kick his drug habit and you'll earn good karma; feast on the corpses of your enemies in broad daylight, on the other hand, and people might think you're a little weird. How you deal with the challenges of the Capital Wasteland affects what nonplayer characters will fight by your side, where your early quest-hub town is, and also some details about the game's final chapter.
But it's not just wanderlust and the search for your on-the-run scientist dad that compels you forward in Fallout. Like any RPG, character advancement is both a means and an end. While the leveling system in developer Bethesda's previous game, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, was built on an arcane combination of attributes, skills, skill perks, specializations, and multiple class templates, Fallout 3's mechanics are far simpler and far improved. You allot your attribute points at the beginning of the game, and when you gain a level, you earn a certain amount of points to spend on skills (Speech, Lockpick, Energy Weapons, etc.) and one perk of your choice. Perks range from practical stuff such as Life Giver (+30 hit points) to oddly whimsical abilities. Mysterious Stranger, for example, occasionally summons a trenchcoated, .44 Magnum-armed dude who kills your target and disappears, spaghetti Western guitar riff resonating in his wake. Spend skill points and pick perks accordingly and it's easy to create anything from a plasma-rifle-slinging do-gooder to a computer-whiz cannibal. Whatever path you take, peace and love have no place in the Fallout universe; a whole lot of mutants are gonna die. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) -- pause time, target specific body parts -- is fun and works well despite the severed limbs and decapitations served up in horror-porn slow-mo (and that's without the aptly named Bloody Mess perk). And of course, assuming you don't sink all of your skill points into Science and Barter, you'll see real improvement in weapon accuracy and effectiveness as you level up.
You can only carry out so many actions at once in V.A.T.S., though, so some real-time combat in between V.A.T.S. attacks is inevitable. Here, Fallout 3 feels very much like Oblivion; it's less precise and polished than a dedicated first-person shooter such as Call of Duty 4. Distractingly bad character animations -- I'm talking man-on-the-moon jumps and running that looks suspiciously like ice skating -- and occasional camera problems, especially when you have an A.I. companion, make third-person view an option for Fallout series-nostalgia fetishists only (of which exist plenty). Fallout's heavy emphasis on wholesale slaughter combined with a relatively small variety of enemies makes for combat that can get a wee bit predictable at times. The ubiquitous Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls both suffer from the same brand of chemo brain and love to charge into melee range. Until I picked up a plasma rifle and became a one-shot headshot machine, I'd start most indoor battles with some long-range plinking and then duck down a corridor, kicking in V.A.T.S. again for a point-blank shotgun blast or three at whatever bumbled around the corner. But then it does depend on who's holding the controller, too -- I watched other players around our office adopt a more Rambo-esque attitude, and while they lived and died from health pack to health pack, at least their finishing moves were more varied than my signature shotgun-to-the-face.
But it's best not to get too hung up on the intricacies of gunslinging. It's the world of Fallout that sticks in your mind when you turn off the game. The Atomic Age educational film iconography and paranoia-humor (see also: BioShock). Your first step into the big world, that seminal Oblivion moment when your irises adjust to the glare and you look out to the horizon and understand that you can go there, or there, or over there. And especially the quests, which sometimes push against the "that's just too f***ed up; I'm not doing that" boundary and can shock and surprise you with unexpected or uncomfortable outcomes. Fallout 3's world can be a lonely world, too -- and not just when you crest a hill and look out over a shattered, hardscrabble vista of sun-baked rock and burned-out cars. Sometimes you feel it when you're the one pushing the boundaries and get an unwanted glimpse behind the curtain, like when I headshotted an NPC not just to watch him die but also to see what his bodyguard would do. The bodyguard continued standing there as though nothing happened. I had to shoot him, too.
If you seek to break the world, you'll occasionally find a way -- which is understandable, given the limits of time and tech -- but it does pull you out of the otherwise broad and engrossing experience. Faults be damned, though; this is the kind of hugely ambitious game that doesn't come around very often, and when it does, you'd be a fool not to play it and enjoy the hell out of it and look forward to the day (next-next-gen?) when the fidelity of open-world RPGs takes another big step closer to the uncanny valley's far side.
Halo is the best game I have EVER PLAYED!!! I have been playing games since before the Atari 2600, and Halo just enveloped me in a world of Science Fiction heaven. I would describe it aa a cross between Aliens (the one with the marines) and Starship Troopers. Never before have I been faced with as many alien enemies at one time. Sometimes it seemed like hundreds coming out of the woodwork, dropping from the sky in troop carriers, swooping up in hovercraft. It reminds me of the scene in Starship Troopers when the base is being overrun by the bugs. They look over the wall and you see thousands of bugs advancing on the base. The action is constant, frantic (especially when fighting those little "Tribble" (Star Trek) like things that explode out of one type of alien. These things come at you in the hundreds, and you have to fight them off, while still fighting off the Covenant solders.
The concept of carrying just two weapons is a stroke of genius. Having to strategically decide which weapons to carry, shoosing brtween alien and human weapons, and also conserving ammo really adds to the game tremendously. The control scheme is simply the best ever. The controller works perfectly. You never die, or miss a shot because of poor or inaccurate aiming controls. You can go exactly where you want, look exactly where you want, and shoot exactly where you want with ease.
As a matter of fact, the opening sequence has you being prepped for awakening from hypersleep, and the technicians on the ship, while testing your suit, reflexes, and your sighting, actually are taking you through a tutorial in controlling your character. Awesome! And just when you think you are getting the hang of it, the Captain orders you to the bridge. You follow a fellow marine at a dead run, out of the Cyro-bay, through a door and around a corner. Then as soon as you round the corner, an explosion kills your guide. There you are, without any weapons, witnessing the boarding of your ship by an alien army, with no idea what to do or where to go. Mind you, this takes place in the first five minutes of the game. Talk about frantic.
I could go on and on about this game (I feel my blood pressure going up just writing about it, and I want to go back and play it again...For the 5th time!!!) but I'll end this review with the sound track. Fantastic! You will be hearing the theme music in your head all day, as you anxiously wait for the workday to be over so you can ruch home and play some more. I really enjoyed this game. It is the 1st game I have played through to the end, without cheating, without playing on Easy, and without becoming bored. That is really saying a lot, considering I've been playing games for over 20 years!!!!! Every time I got stuck on a really tough section, I just could not stop trying over and over to get through it. I LOVE THIS GAME!!!!
All BOW TO THE MASTER CHIEF!
This campaign is non stop action, the story, music, action, sci-fi universe, and I'll admit, the multiplayer was awesome too! You definetly need to add this to your Old School collection. Halo's gameplay still holds up against the newest releases today! If you have a Xbox, Xbox-360, PC, and you don't have this in your collection.....Shame On You! Lol
We often get e-mails from readers charging us to write more "objective" reviews. Per this philosophy, game scores should be based on a rubric of sorts. Let's take fictional fighting game Street King of Mortal Calibur Smackdown as an example. How are the game's fighting mechanics? They're pretty decent, so let's say 7 points out of 10. Graphics? Eh, a 3 out of 10—it's pretty ugly. And so on and so forth. At the end, tally up the points and figure out how the score translates to whatever rating system you're dealing with.
Is that a wrong way to evaluate games? I'm not sure. I do know that this is the method used to rate a lot of games. And I confess that this is how I've rated more than a couple of games myself. If God of War were judged according to an objective method, it would not get the score that I'm giving it. In the campaign the puzzle solving involves a little too much pushing and pulling of objects. There could be a few more bosses. The length is probably kind of short for most people's tastes.
But I don't care.
This campaign sucked me in from the very opening scene, in which Kratos stands at the edge of a cliff, about to throw himself to the depths below. The story, your basic tale of revenge and redemption, isn't groundbreaking, but it is well told. While franchises can be beautiful things, I loved playing as a new character with no baggage, no history—you could almost call it the perfect one-night stand. I got to become Kratos. It was, in its way, like starring in my own movie.
In fact, the whole game plays like a movie. The story line and resulting gameplay are very linear. The fixed camera, something that typically drives me batty, reinforces the cinematic feeling by zooming out and swooping around, giving you perspectives you'd never see if you were the one in control.
The graphics are more beautiful than any PS2 game's graphics deserve to be. When developers spend time expounding on the beauty of water effects and light streaming, all I hear is "blah blah blah." But this is actually a game in which they're worth pointing out. When you're fighting in a room with a highly polished marble floor, take the time to look down at the floor and see the combat reflections. The water effects actually are pretty amazing—I ran through every reflecting pool I came across just to see at the splashes I could make.
Then know that this is all augmented by movie-quality cut-scenes that I actually wanted to watch. I hate cut-scenes—the only time I don't skip past them is when I think I might miss out on information I need for the next part of a game. During the campaign in God of War, I actually hushed someone in my office who started talking during a cut-scene.
But the really cool stuff is the action. When the mother Hydra head screams in the opening level, you can almost feel the blast that emanates from her mouth. The animations of the blades of chaos as they rip through the torsos of your enemies are so awesome that you are Kratos. And as Kratos, you can render gore galore as you tear a swath of destruction through the game—watch vultures plucking eyeballs from corpses and heads bursting off in showers of blood.
Combat is smooth. Button mashing can suffice on easier difficulty levels, but even then, it's rewarding to learn the combos, thanks to the gorgeous animations of Kratos using his blades. The god powers that you earn along the way can be helpful, too—I made the most use of Poseidon's rage and Hades' demons—but they're not quite as cool to wield as the blades are.
Between bouts of mutilation, you get to exercise your brain a bit by solving puzzles. A few may cause a bit of head scratching, but there's nothing so maddening that you end up beating your head against a wall. And thankfully, all puzzles are fairly contained within their individual levels, so you don't end up retracing your steps to find an item that you failed to see the first time around. The one complaint I have is that too many solutions involve pushing and pulling objects.
My favorite thing about God of Waris that it reminded me why I am a gamer. Many developers spend the bulk of their energy coming up with ways to make their games different, to do something innovative. But that's the wrong focus. The bulk of your energy should be focused on making the game good. Who cares if you've provided me with a new move that no gaming character has ever executed before if it's wrapped up in crappy gameplay and a half-assed campaign? People do not play games because they break new ground. People play games because they are fun. And fun is God of War's greatest strength.
On a rubric, you could take away points for nitpicky weaknesses in God of War. However, I didn't care about the minor flaws, because I was enjoying myself so much, and enjoyment is just one of those things that a rubric can't sufficiently measure. This is not a perfect game, but it is a great one. This campaign is full of hack and slash-greek-awesomeness. Get it used, new, from anywhere for a good price.
Final Fantasy VII, the first Final Fantasy to hit the Playstation game console and indeed the first Final Fantasy to enter into a new revolution of 3-D RPGs. The anticipation for this game was unreal, I can remember it like it was just yesterday. I was about 12 years old when news of the latest Final Fantasy installment was heard. EB games was allowing pre-orders of the game and they were giving away so much cool stuff. I remember getting a free Underground demo and a Cloud T-shirt. (which I still have) I believe FFVII was only 39.99 when it was first released and now after 13 years, the game has become a rare print and sadly, the game has gone up to 60-70 dollars on eBay.
The Final Fantasy VII campaign really did live up to the hype in many many ways. The full 3-D polygon rendering set all new standards for the gaming companies releasing RPGs. At the time, the graphics were nothing short of the word b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! It was a definite improvement from it's predecessor FF VI, truly an excellent transition from 16 bit to 32 bit. All of the cut scenes were something to marvel over along with the games ending, unforgettable and brilliant for the time.
A new level of deepness had been achieved with the storyline of the Final Fantasy VII campaign. There's been many opinions about this games storyline, both bad and good opinions, but with every game and movie alike, there's bound to be skeptics. With this game only you can be the judge, but to be honest, I can say that I did enjoy the storyline. Final Fantasy VII first takes place in the massive city of Midgar where the massive government of Shinra has control. The city of Midgar is completely powered by reactors’ that generate what is called Mako, an energy that's extracted from within the planet. Among a number of other things the Shinra are in charge of all of these mako reactors. Now apparently extracting mako from the planet is a bad thing and the only people who seem to care are a small group of outlaws known as Avalanche. This group of eco-friendly terrorists take it upon themselves to set time bombs in each mako reactor. Now as you first start the game, an ex-soldier for Shinra known as Cloud is hired by Avalanche to help in a mission to destroy a mako reactor. Long story short, Cloud eventually swallows his pride and follows two members of Avalanche, Tifa and Barret, on a quest to save the planet from Shinra's mako reactors. After an accident during one of the missions, Cloud is separated from Tifa and Barret and finds himself meeting up with a new team mate, Aeris. After finding out that Aeris is wanted by the Turks, a terrorist organization working for shinra, Cloud helps her escape from their reach and agrees to become her body guard. Another long story short, Aeris is kidnapped and Tifa, Cloud and Barret try to save her. To spare you anymore details, the general gist of the story is about Cloud trying to figure out who he is while leading his group from here to there in order to save the world from a mad man named sephiroth. There is a lot to the story and if you don't keep up, odds are you will get lost. Some of the contents in the story aren't to original, but for the most part, it keeps it's good ole' Final Fantasy goodness.
Final Fantasy VII by far has some of the most memorable game play, mini games and side quests. Playing the game straight through guarantees you at least 30 hours of game play. Now when you start embracing some of the side quests, the hours start pouring on. One quest that most gamers will never forget is chocobo racing and breeding. In FFVII, you have the opportunity to catch chocobos from the fields by luring in with choco greens. By feeding and racing your chocobos, you can start breeding to create more efficient chocobos that can actually walk over mountains and rivers. With these special chocobos, you can start locating secret hiding spots where some of the most valuable materia is. The Gold Saucer is like an amusement park where lots of mini games take place. This is where all of the chocobo races take place and this is also where the battle arena is. In the battle arena, you can fight through each battle and gain points which you can trade in for items.
Materia is what made this game a joy. (at least for me) Materia are little spheres you connect to your weapons and armor that teach you magic and summoning spells. After every battle, you receive AP, (ability points) which works as EXP. for your materia. The more AP you earn the more likely your materia will level up into a new spell. With the materia system, you are free to let any character you choose learn whatever spell of summon you like. I saw no flaws in the materia system, it's a definite A+!
Altogether with the game play, battle system, materia and story line, I would have definitely given this game either an A or at the least an A- but a huge problem with the game presented itself to me, glitches. My worst enemy that was ever created were the "game genies" and the "game shark." I don't believe that you ever get the full potential of a game when you cheat. Final Fantasy VII has three major glitches (that I know of) that make certain portions of the game just way to easy. The first glitch which is probably the most common, the item duplication trick. When you use a certain materia in a certain way, you can duplicate your items as many times as you want. This glitch allows players to create an infinite amount of elixirs making materia leveling up at the end of the game way to simple. The second glitch takes place in the battle arena. When you enter this mini game, you have reels you must choose from before every battle which decide what status alignment you will be infected with. The problem is, when you hold down the top buttons of your controller, the reels pause allowing anyone to choose which status alignment, if any, you will have. The third glitch allows you to keep your stamina gauge at make when you are racing your chocobos. Now, if you choose not to use any of these glitches to your advantage, the game will stay some what challenging and enjoyable. But even if you were to give all of your characters master materia and claim you didn't use the glitch to do it, no one would know if you were lying or not.
All and all, I did enjoy this game for many years. Like I said though, the glitches in this game keep me from giving Final Fantasy VII any grade higher that a A-. Gamers, don't cheat, have some pride and play the game for what it is and how it is!! You could find this game mostly online, most used game stores are sold out on this one, or don't stock it anymore. Im sure sooner or later it will be a download on the Playstation Network for PS3. Add this one to your collection and never sell it!! Game On Gamers!
Criminals are an ugly, cowardly lot more worthy of pity and disdain than admiration. This is what you'll learn playing through the single-player campaign in Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto IV. The series cheered (and criticized) for glorifying violence has taken an unexpected turn: it's gone legit. Oh sure, you'll still blow up cop cars, run down innocent civilians, bang hookers, assist drug dealers and lowlifes and do many, many other bad deeds, but at a cost to main character Niko Bellic's very soul. GTA IV gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-caliber drama.
Every facet of Rockstar's new masterpiece is worthy of applause. Without question, Grand Theft Auto IV is the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You play as Niko Bellic, an Eastern European attempting to escape his past and the horrors of the Bosnian war. He arrives in Liberty City to experience the American dream, only to discover his cousin, Roman, may have fibbed a bit in his tales of success. Starting from nothing, Niko makes a living as a killer and enforcer, a bad-ass foreigner who appears to have no morals. The longer we stay with Niko, the more we see that there is a broken human being inside, one who would give anything to escape the person he once was.
Don't worry, GTA's famed over-the-top action and tongue-in-cheek humor are intact, but there is a new level of sophistication in the characters and the game world that raises the story above the norm. As Niko becomes mired in the death throes of American organized crime, he begins to become more self-aware. Niko's struggles with his ruthless nature never inhibit the gameplay, but instead enhance the emotional gravity of a brilliant storyline. The more absurd the action becomes, the greater we feel the very real pathos of Niko Bellic. Much of the credit goes to the artists at Rockstar North who created as believable a city as possible. Liberty City is inspired by New York, but not beholden to it. While there are many parallels, Liberty exists in its own universe and rightfully so. Many open-world games have cities that feel as if they existed only from the moment you first turned on your console, but Liberty City looks lived in. It's an old city and each block has its own vibe and its own history. Drive around Liberty City and you'll be able to identify each individual block. Though Liberty is filled with brownstones and a myriad of similar brick buildings, you can tell one from the other, just as you can in New York. Go to an affluent neighborhood and the street is likely to be newly paved, the pedestrians better dressed, the cops more plentiful. But head to Dukes or Bohan and you'll find streets nearly stripped of asphalt, homeless people wandering about aimlessly and criminals preying on the weak.
Watch the people and you'll witness some amazing things. At one point, I saw a woman stopped at a light, looking in the rearview mirror right before she was rear-ended by a man ogling a girl on the street. The man got out of his car and went to the woman, checking to see if she was okay. This had nothing to do with Niko or a single action I took. These were the citizens of Liberty City going about their day. And it was just one moment in a day full of incidents. Hang in one area of the city long enough and you'll see how traffic and pedestrian flow changes as the day progresses. When it rains, people bring out umbrellas or shield themselves with a newspaper and run for an awning. Cops chase petty thieves unaware that walking down the street is Niko Bellic, cold-blooded killer. There's a perfect balance of mumbling doomsayers to remind you that the reason this city never sleeps is because it's full of nut jobs. People go about their day, only altering course when Niko inserts himself into their lives with his crappy driving or excellent marksmanship.
This Campaign is HUGE! GTA IV defines this generation of consoles ( PS3, XBOX 360 ), it's the king of open world games, and sets the bench mark in every way! Play it, get some sleep every few days, and play it again!
The lasting appeal of the Riddick games is often attributed to their locations: dank, grievous black holes of humanity, devourers of men for whom death is judged a luxury. But it’s not the bile that whizzes about Richard Riddick’s head that does it, but the cold calculations within. Like all the shadiest anti-heroes, he’s an instrument of justice; some would say blunt, others clinical. Put him in a place of moral mayhem and he’ll turn every screw, sniff out every rat and snuff out the agents of true evil in the universe: the abusers of power. By putting you squarely inside this man, 2004’s Escape From Butcher Bay is one of the finest, truest ‘roleplaying’ games of its time.
Assault On Dark Athena bundles it with another ten-hour campaign, an expansion pack that’s grown into something more. As the ship that broke him out of Butcher Bay prison floats through space, Riddick starts it as he does every adventure: asleep, in the dark, awaiting his next misfortune. That arrives in the shape of a rocket-propelled harpoon that tows him and Johns, his longsuffering escort, into the clutches of the Dark Athena. A rogue mercenary ship shaped a bit like a prawn, it turns its prey into zombie drones for the black market. “I haven’t escaped,” growls Riddick, “just traded one hell for another.”
It’s a great venue, if only for being the one thing Riddick can’t stomach – a violation of death itself. Getting his bearings, he instinctively focuses on the brains of the outfit: the dreadlocked Captain Revas and her ambitious lieutenant, Spinner. Revas is excellent, played with relish by Michelle Forbes who, with a similar turn in Battlestar Galactica, has carved quite the niche as a kick-ass lesbian fruitcake. As her crew’s assassin steps slowly into the light, her provocative swagger turns to urgency and rage. “Easily manipulated,” notes a satisfied Riddick.
Riddick is unique among videogame predators, perhaps less a shadow than a showman. He can drag bodies into hiding but clearly isn’t meant to, his MO being to display them in the crooked, mortified shapes they fall in. It gives both Butcher Bay and Dark Athena incredible velocity as you flash on and off the enemies’ radar, into and out of darkness, through arteries and armour. Riddick’s almost vampiric aversion to light is at the front of your mind throughout, even the soft glow of the latest Starbreeze tech slicing cruelly through his cover, blinding his marble eyes. The only thing deadlier than bullets, then, is a torch.
That’s saying something, because bullets in these games are lethal. The heart of the series’ combat is the assurance that even Riddick’s hard exterior can be popped by a machine-gun. This universal rule turns every gun-toting hunk of meat into a challenge – a foe to be bested. Everyone else, all the rapists and the thugs and the lackeys, are just practice.
The new campaign itself is a curious creature, visibly improvised from start to finish. Such is the raw talent and ingenuity of Starbreeze that it alone, you feel, could pull off such a reckless, almost lawless piece of work. If there’s a problem it’s that it feels awfully incidental to the Riddick timeline, its only significance being as an origin story for the Ulaks, the deadly curved blades of the movies. The demented classicism of movie The Chronicles Of Riddick is back, leaving the game to switch between two distinct visual styles.
But never mind; it doesn’t stop this being one corker of an action adventure. Perhaps the biggest mention goes to the ‘vo-cap’ tech behind its extraordinary performances. True, the NPC feet are rooted largely to the spot – much like those of The Darkness – and most of the interaction happens in a single cellblock in the ship’s gut, but when Lance Henriksen heaves himself into to the shoes of Dacher, an industrious captive with a shattered soul, 99 per cent of his effort ends up on screen. It’s a breakthrough that has no place in an expansion pack, and the game refuses to become one, its agility that of any triple-A title and arguably greater than most. There are big fights and little fights, bosses and grunts, twists and transformations, gimmicks and gadgets. And dull moments? Not a chance.
Misfortune may be the one thing Riddick can’t escape, but he’d surely admit it’s the thing that keeps him alive. So it goes for this, a terrific package that salvages (with due thanks to Atari) and rejuvenates one of gaming’s great protagonists. As an exercise in technical renovation it does, admittedly, slide back and forth between this generation and the last, at times akin to a movie, at others betraying its roots. A proper, more focused Riddick sequel is waiting to be made; and this, surely, is proof that it should be
Conclusion: Chronicles Of Riddick: Assult On Dark Athena has a Awesome Campaign! Stealth, action, dark humor, deadly anti-hero, and a menacing sci-fi universe. Buy it, rent it, get it used, barrow from a friend (and never give it back..LOL) It's
You'll take the role of Dominic, a thug-turned-Don who rises to prominence by defending the honor of the Corleone family and wiping out the forces that oppose it.
It's a story that dovetails with the film of the same name, but it doesn't detract from the gameplay. Much of the game revolves around takeovers: You drive to an enemy business in one of three massive environments (New York, Florida and Cuba), kill the opposing guards, rough up the owner and take control of the racket.
The action is plenty satisfying on its own, with a lock-on aiming system that's simple to use without making things too easy.Your assaults can be made considerably smoother by utilizing the special skills of the three-man crew you assemble; there are classes ranging from the Electrician, who can keep enemies from calling for back-up to the Bruiser who can knock down reinforced doors.
It's Good To Be The King
As fun as these petty crimes are, the metagame surrounding them is just as engaging. When you control all of a certain type of criminal outfit - bordellos or chop shops, for instance - you'll get a big advantage in combat like brass knuckles or bulletproof vests. Knowing that kind of bonus is just a couple of takeovers away makes it impossibly difficult to set the controller down for the night.
If I were to lodge one complaint against the game, it's that the environments could use an extra coating of graphical polish, but the slight lack of fidelity is more than made up for by the gameplay variety. I'm not ready to call this the king of open world games - that crown is still firmly ensconced on Nico Bellic's head - but when it comes to replicating the feeling of being an underworld kingpin, Godfather II is the Don.
