Montana Fragfest

I found Bastion after hitting a game boredom wall with my selection of titles. I was actually planning on trying out Trine 2 (still haven’t played it) after watching some of the Hatventures videos, but I ended up at Bastion after a couple days of looking around. In part because of the Totally Rad Show reviews of it from last year.

Overall, it’s a pretty cool game. I classify it as a hacky-slashy-burny-isometric-platformer (I don’t know the official genre). Battles are fun! There are a bunch of different weapons to try out and each one seems cool in its own way. Some of the weapons are centered around a certain type enemy. For example, in order to fend off these nasty beasts called Anklegators you use this long sharp pike that allow you to poke them right in the nose.

The narration is one of my favorite parts of the game. It reacts with you as you go along. If you are just smashing boxes to see what is in them, you get something like “Kid just rages for a while.” If you are just running past enemies as fast as you can, he’ll say “Kid makes a break for it.” It works really well, especially with the gruff voice of the narrator.

The game starts off at a decent pace and progressively gets harder as you go along. I have had to retry a couple levels because I died so many times, but I haven’t got frustrated at the game. Use your shield! I’m actually surprised at its size considering it is a $15 XBLA game.

It put a smile on my face – Recommended

Well I’ll be honest, I never really got into Battlefield 1942 or Desert Combat, but MAN did I love Battlefield 2. It was my World of Warcraft. I’ve never had more friends playing a single game at a single time, and I loved it. I was often the squad leader, and we would ROLL other teams. When I heard about Battlefield 1943 being release my excitement was tempered because of Battlefield Heroes, but let’s hop into the game and see how it goes.

The Good

The game is fun. It has all the classic elements of Battlefield combat: land, sea, and air vehicles mashed in with a large ground-based capture the flag maps. Another huge plus is that the game is only $15. I think that this is a great step in the right direction. I hope it sends a message to game publishers that you can publish a game that might not look the best or be game of the year but if it’s fun and cheap people will buy it.

They are also doing a challenge where the community unlocks new content by getting a large number of global kills. At 43,000,000 kills the respective system (Xbox360 or PS3) unlocked the Coral Bay map (which is an air-combat only map). This REALLY incentivized people to get on as much as possible and keep the fight going 24/7. Editors Note: Both systems have unlocked Coral Bay, although the Xbox 360 was the first to do so.

The Bad

This game is slow. While I enjoy playing it, I never get really passionate about it like I do COD4 or TF2. You have no sense of teamwork, or team goals, which is a problem in a game centered around team and squad based objectives. You basically run around capping points, trying to kill the enemy. When the game is over you are never really surprised about who won, because you have no clue what is going on elsewhere in the match.

The game in general seems very non-immersive. When I shoot my gun or run around I don’t FEEL like a soldier on a battlefield. I almost feel like I’m playing a rail shooter in an arcade.

When I hopped back into COD4 after playing this game for a couple reasons, I realized why COD4 is SO GOOD. When you run the camera moves around like I’m running, when I shoot my gun the camera makes me feel like I’m actually shooting a rifle, Battlefield 1943 just doesn’t do that.

The Down-Low

This game is fun and cheap, plain and simple. As you can tell, it wasn’t the best game I’ve ever played by any stretch of the imagination but it keeps me entertained and got me to pry open my wallet instead of GameFly’ing it like I do most games.

The Grand Theft Auto series has been a classic series for all gamers. From the top-down excitement of GTA and GTA2 to the mind blowing 3dness (and the infamous hot coffee mod). Chinatown Wars takes the top down of the originals and the 3D (and hookers) of the later games mixes them together.

The Good

This game is fun, VERY stylized, and adult. Why do people love GTA games? Because they are open-ended sand box games that allow you go drive around hitting people with cars and causing mayhem.

The top down style fits very well with the limited 3d capabilities of the DS. Also the stylization makes you really forget that you are on a portable unit.

The Bad

The story is pretty lame, which isn’t that big of a problem. As I said above, the story in these games are worthless, but they are challenges so you end up doing them anyways after an hour or two of driving around for no reason.

The aiming can get a little wonky at times. While someone right in front of me is blasting me away with a shotgun, the game decides the woman pedestrian at the edge of the screen is a bigger threat.

The Ugly

The corny ass dialogue and goofy cut scene art is enough to make a person stab their eyes The characters in the cut scenes look like a 5 year old did them, and the conversations are just juvenile.

Although I did laugh the first couple times I heard a hooker say “You wanna piece of my pie?”, hearing it 300 times again while walking around the city gets old fast.

The Skinny

This game is fun. It has some problems, but I’m really enjoying the new crop of mature games coming out for the Nintendo console. I loved GTA and GTA2 so this game fit very well with me.

Tell you what, I’ve been a fan of the Battlefield series for a long time. Didn’t play much 1942, but I’ve played the HELL out of Battlefield 2 and loved every minute of it. As you all may know, I also happen to love Team Fortress 2. These reasons are why I was so excited to hear about Battlefield Heroes. With the announcement of an expanded public beta yesterday, I couldn’t help but sign myself up and give it a review.

The Good

The game look great. Very stylized (like Team Fortress 2), good sounds, great models. I like the “gain points to buy new items” aspect, because it encourages players to play consistently to buy and keep better weapons. Besides the pilot there are two extra seats on planes, and by seats I mean you sit on the wing and shoot at people.

The Bad

The game has no focus. The loss of the mini map makes you feel like you are just one guy running around a field. The weapons dont’ feel like they do damage (except to you, of course), and you feel thrown into a game with no teamwork whatsoever. My favorite ability in the Battlefield games was the ability of teammates to spot enemies for you. They have removed this from Battlefield Heroes and without this it is VERY hard to find snipers (and trust me one good sniper can just wreck a spawn) or let your pilots know where enemy planes are. There is also no voice chat or commander, which makes it TERRIBLY difficult to coordinate a team.

The vehicles are TERRIBLE. When flying a plane you have no clue where the other planes are and no seeming way to gain an advantage on them. The tanks just seem silly and without the mini gun for the driver there seems to be no good way to kill infantry with it.

The sounds get annoying QUICK. They tried to make the sounds as cartoony as possible, but I can only hear the sad trombone sound (only much higher pitched) so many times before I want to choke myself with my mouse cable.

The Ugly

As it stands right now, I would pass on this game. It just feels too disconnected. There is no teamwork and therefore it’s just another run around and shoot things, only this time you are stuck in a cartoon.

I recently discovered the online game Auditorium and must say am VERY amazed at it’s beauty, well I am pleased to announce they the full version of the game was recently released for the extra low price of $10.99.

It’s independent and cheap

If you haven’t played this game then go RIGHT NOW to PlayAuditorium.com and try it out. You can play the first 3 acts of the game for free. This game appeals to the ears AND the eyes. The goal of the game is to fill up each of the color containers with particles from the “The Flow” that are the corresponding color. You do this by using the various controls to manipulate the stream. Read more »