The Official MM Video Game Review Thread!

[WRXtranceformed]

Just picked up Turok last night and started playing it a little bit. I haven't read any reviews on it, but snagged it more out of nostalgia because I always liked the games on N64.

Few quick things I've noticed from the first 30 minutes of playing:
It uses the Unreal engine. I played a good bit of UT2k4 back in the day, my buddy in Newcastle got me into it who was in one of the top ranked clans in the UK (#3 iirc... search the w3b for "FatZ promo vid" to see some sickkkk FPS skills, his name is Venael). I loved the engine and how lightning fast and smooth it was. On the 360, it's not as smooth as what I remembered from PC gaming, but that's kind of apples to oranges. The game still looks good... not Bioshock good or CoD good, but good. Aiming is a LOT faster and this was a tough adjustment for me since I've pretty much had an overdose of CoD.

The storyline so far is above average and the progression through the game is pretty straightforward...so far there isn't much problem solving it's just point and shoot and follow the paths. One of the things I liked about the original game was the weapons you used. So far it hasn't disappointed; I've got an SMG, the signature Turok bow, and a pistol that fires explosive things. Each weapon has an alternative firing mode which make it interesting, and the knife you got ROCKS. You can do 1 kill moves on pretty much any enemy with it, and it makes big melee battles go a lot faster.

I was a little disappointed how easy "medium" mode is. I started on medium just to get a feel for the game, but it's actually *hard* to die. I think I only died legitimately once so far, all of the other times have just been falling off of ledges trying to find secret / alternative paths. I'm going to switch to hard when I get home tonight if it lets me. I do like the fact that you fight both dinosaurs and humans, and you can trick dinosaurs into fighting your human enemies, or just let them wipe out each other before you jump in.

So far I'll give this game 3.5 out of 5. If you liked the originals, you'll probably dig this one. It's got more of a Gears of War feel to it than the originals (my buddy even commented it reminded him of Gears when I was playing it).

EDIT: As a side note, after I opened the plastic wrapper to the game last night the thicker plastic that coats the game case itself and keeps the paper cover inside just peeled off. It was kind of ghetto, I've never had that happen before.

[Apoc]

CoD4 = Amazing

I only played the first two single player missions and that game had me freaking amped. I'm sure it's nothing like real combat but it's the closest I'm ever going to get. Wow.

[WRXtranceformed]

More impressions on Turok. LOTS of bugs in this game that never got worked out. CPU players who have to follow you on missions getting stuck on things in the environment and lots of hesitation when the game autosaves to the point where it interferes with gameplay. I watched an enemy walk off of a platform in front of me lemming style, die, then respawn at the start of where he began walking a few feet away, then sit there while I walked up and killed him. And then he respawned to my right again right after I killed him, and didn't budge ha ha...

It's gotten a little easier to die now, usually on parts where you're getting zerged from 270-360 degrees. Knife still rocks, story line reminds me of GoW more and more by the minute.

[WRXtranceformed]

Picked up DDR for 360 yesterday, love it so far! In the Quest mode though, it took me a little bit to figure out that you have to press "B" after you complete an objective and a song or else it will keep cycling songs over and over again. I was getting mad tired until I finally figured it out ha ha. Initially I didn't like the songs as much as the Ultramix 2 that we had on the regular XBOX, but they are growing on me. The box says it has over 70 songs, but I'm guessing I have to unlock all of them? I think you start with maybe 20-25. I'm going to look on Live tonight to see if you can download any of the Ultramix 2 songs.

[Apoc]

Dude... you get mad games. How many do you have?

[Mike]

i had ddr for the 360... it wasn't nearly as good as the ps2 versions. something with the timing.

[WRXtranceformed]

Dude... you get mad games. How many do you have?

A lot!

[WRXtranceformed]

Some impressions on Call of Duty 4 multiplayer after having played a lot of it.

This has nothing at all to do with the 1 player mode keep in mind, which I still think makes it one of the best games for the 360 so far.

The game promotes way too much camping, especially on certain gametypes like Sabotage. My brother who is an unbelievably good Halo player told me that he thought Halo took more skill to be really good at. I argued with him on that for a while, but now I'm starting to agree with him. Respawns are completely fucked up in this game which in my mind is one of the most glaring flaws that could actually be fixed. Killing someone only to have them or one of their recently killed buddies spawn *directly* behind you and kill you really just doesn't make sense. You shouldn't get penalized for killing someone.

I've already ranted about how I think some of the sniper rifles are broken so I'm not going to go on about that. The inherent game flaw that I think takes a lot of the skill out of the multiplayer game is the fact that you can shoot through walls. Have I killed lots of people through walls? Yeah of course I have. Do I think that takes skill? No way ha. I think it takes away a lot of the 1v1 battle skill when someone can just keep spraying and praying the wall you're hiding behind when you duck away to avoid damage.

I get so frustrated with that game even when I'm doing good, because I refuse to camp around corners. I'd say that maybe 1 out of 4 times I'm killed in a game I can honestly say it's because the person used a skillful way to do it. Scooter still really likes this game a lot and I'll probably help him crush out our account to gold cross 55, but I'm going to start playing Halo more with my brother and his friends.

[Apoc]

It's funny you should post that. I've only played a few days worth of multiplayer but I'd tend to agree with you. I'm not that good and I've found that I can do better by camping. I think doing so is in bad faith but that doesn't prevent others from doing it.

I don't have a problem being able to shoot through walls though cause that's more realistic. Some things actually do stop bullets and you have to hide accordingly.

People have said CoD4 is much better than Halo 3 and as a single player game, I agree. I would consider CoD4 one of the best, if not the best, console game made... if talking about offline play. In talking with Mike, he said online was 10x better than single player and I was excited about that because I've been loving the single player so far. Now maybe it's because I'm not that good, but I actually prefer Halo's online play to CoD4. I'm not that good in Halo either but I find myself getting much more enjoyment out of its online play thus far.

[HAULN-SS]

I tend to disagree with you on the camping and sniper rifles. If camping were so easy, everyone would be able to do the 5 minute stay alive challenge easily. It is NOT easy to stay alive and camp. Kill cams pretty much prevent this. That's the only downfall with the sniper rifles IMO - people can see where you shot them from, and there ARENT good places to camp. I can pretty much pwn with any single shot sniper rifle.

As for the wall shots - I think it's pretty realistic. Standing behind a piece of tin isn't going to stop a nato round, so you should be able to shoot through it and kill the guy. It DOES slow them down and you can take more hits being behind that tin or whatever, so that seems fair enough to me. If you start getting ping, move or lay down, and stay alive.

[Apoc]

I tend to disagree with you on the camping and sniper rifles. If camping were so easy, everyone would be able to do the 5 minute stay alive challenge easily. It is NOT easy to stay alive and camp.

I don't think we were saying it would keep you from dying, just that it would up your kill/death ratio. I know it does mine.

[WRXtranceformed]

Yep, exactly what Chris said. I look at my kill / death ratio and I usually just write off some of the deaths to some dude just camping in a spot I happen to run by. I don't know what to say about your amazing sniper kills, I've had witnesses watching me play make identical shots with the Barrett and the M20A3 and hit air and make the kill respectively. I still think the M20A3 is the best sniper rifle you get

Also, the debate here isn't realism. Obviously you can shoot through drywall in real life, but for gameplay purposes, I think it takes away a lot of the challenge involved with 1v1 battles. Halo is not like this; if you get the first shot of it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win the battle. Now if we're talking about realism, let's talk about the fact that if you got hit with a single .50 bullet from a tripod machine gun anywhere in your torso you are going to die, not run away to hide and set up camp somewhere else. If you want realism in a multiplayer FPS, play some of the original R6 games on the PC.

[Evan]

single player has a good story well executed (although the plot arc is a bit tired) but its super short but its clear that it was meant as a sideshow to the main event online multiplayer. More pure singleplayer games like Metal Gear have a much better singleplayer IMO.

[Evan]

this guy cracks me up

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[CaptainHenreh]

Zero Punctuation is pretty funny.

[WRXtranceformed]

Haven't done a review in a while, but I played two pretty fun games. Devil May Cry 4 and Army of Two. In short, both are fun. Devil May Cry is fun for mindless mob killing, Army of Two is really fun if you have another person to play with you. It's a lot like Gears of War but a LOT harder and with a slightly tweaked "aggro" system. You get some badass guns too and you can customize them with money you get from completing mercenary missions.

On a bigger note, GTA IV comes out Tuesday morning at 12:00AM. I've had my preorder for months... this game looks absolutely unreal. IGN gave it a 10 (which is rare) and it has a new physics / AI system called Euphoria that is going to make it super lifelike and unpredictable.

"Euphoria is a real-time simulation of humans. It uses the console's processing power to simulate the human body, muscles and -- most importantly -- motor nervous system. Previously, games have been based on pre-canned animation, stored on disc and played back at more-or-less appropriate times in the game. This meant that you could only see what's already been pre-produced, A game could never be truly surprising and interactive.

Euphoria isn't based on canned animations, but generates human movements live, as the game unfolds. This changes everything. Now, you never know exactly what's going to happen -- it's not pre-animated. Games can be truly surprising and unique. In addition, all characters are truly interactive. GTA4 is the first game to exploit this -- it completely opens up gameplay.

Euphoria is the brain and muscles behind our "ragdolls," so that instead of being limp articulated bodies that can only simulate unconscious pedestrians, we can simulate intelligent AI responses while the peds are involved in physical situations."

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WOW

[Evan]

GTA 4 looks pretty crazy, and Im not even a GTA fan.

between Metal Gear Solid 4, GT5, and GTA4, I may be compelled to pick up a 1080p tv and a ps3

[Apoc]

Don't forget CoD4, RE5 and all the other 4th and 5th versions of over-used series titles.

[Evan]

Don't forget CoD4, RE5 and all the other 4th and 5th versions of over-used series titles.

I was talking about good games :p

I may be compelled to pick up a 1080p tv and a ps3

1 down...

[Apoc]

At this point, GTA5 can hardly be evaluated as good. It's so repetitive after all the other versions.