Controller1.com Focus Test- Halo Wars
Clint overlooks he fact this wasn’t made by Bungie, Cam ignores the fact he’s to cheap to buy this and George laments its not a FPS
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Call of Duty: World at War review
Reviewed on PC (Single Player), Xbox 360 (multiplayer). Also on PS3, PS2, Wii, DS, PSP. Developed by Treyarch. Published by Activision.
So, despite the dire predictions of Call of Duty World at War being a total disappointment compared to Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat, Treyarch have surprised us all and delivered a worthy successor to the most popular CoD game of all time.
CoD WaW follows a US soldier in the Pacific being led by the hand by 24’s Keifer Sutherland interspersed with playing a Russian soldier in the final assault on Berlin. It doesn’t try to out do CoD4’s sniper mission or the Gunship level. It has its own slants to those CoD4 signatures and adds a tank level and flying boat level. The shooting is EXACTLY the same as that in CoD4, which is what everyone who loved CoD4 but wanted more asked for.
Keifer’s gravelly tones tell you to shoot that. You shoot it. He tells you to shoot that, you shoot. “Those Jap bastards,” he says and you aim and open fire. Flames are a big part of this game. You wield a deadly flame thrower in some levels, including one level where it subs for the machine gun on a Russian tank. The flame thrower is a really nice weapon- much more usable than the one in Gears 2. The weapons are typical WWII fare with KAR98, M1 Garand, Thompson SMG, etc but they handle very nicely. There are a few large battles where progress is a little more difficult since Treyarch love their “infinitely re-spawning enemies until you cross a threshold” trick but overall the level designs are solid and fun to play. You may not have been to these locales, but if you’ve played previous CoD4 games, you have played them.
You can play the campaign either by yourself or in coop mode and once you’ve beaten it you get the Zombie mode “Nacht der Untoten,” which is basically a short version of Left 4 Dead. It is awesomely fun and highly recommended to give it a go. Pity there aren’t more levels but I guarantee this will be expanded upon at some stage. I’ve found that I’m unable to get online in the PC version so I’ve been playing a few rounds of this before I boot up CoD4 every night. I love it.
Multiplayer offers the usual modes, Search and Destroy (CS), Capture the Flag and Deathmatch modes. I mainly play Team Deathmatch but it compares quite favorably with CoD 4 and CoD3 multiplayer (CoD3, also by Treyarch did feature excellent Multiplayer modes). If you’ve played CoD4 MP, then you know what to expect. Just substitute Recon plane for UAV, Artillery for Airstrike and Dogs for choppers. That’s right, get to 7 kills without dieing and you can unleash the dogs. So long as you have no problems shooting digital dogs in the head, you’ll have a blast. Think of it as retribution for all the times in Nintendogs when your Alsatian took a crap when you were walking it. One thing that makes me think of CoD3 is the fact you can drive tanks in multiplayer. Overall, highly enjoyable. They even used Keifer to announce “Team Deathmatch” when you play as an American.
Graphics are excellent. I mean, they are jaw droppingly gorgeous on PC and console versions. Even in multiplayer, the 360 version ran at a smooth as butter 60 frames per second. Sound is also excellent though the weapon are a bit weedier sounding than CoD4 (but at least the sounds are different). The Flash cutscenes opening each level are also interesting and different from what you’d expect in a WWII-set game.
Since FPS WWII games set in the Pacific are pretty thin on the ground, the only competition is really the two rather poor EA Medal of Honor games (Pacific Assault and Rising Sun) and this game just wipes away all memories of those travesties. So, no it isn’t better than CoD4. It is close in many respects and doesn’t fail in any one particular area. That said, its an entertaining game in its own right
controller1.com rating 2/3 (or 3/3 if you love Call of Duty games and can’t face any more CoD4 MW) As Keifer says when the Marines win a multiplayer game “Out-fucking-standing!”
Gears of War 2 review
On Xbox 360. Developed by Epic Games. Published by Microsoft Games Studio
Gears 2, so the saying goes, was bigger and more bad assier.
Gears II Men picks off where the story (such as it was) left off. Marcus Fenix, the hairiest bald space marine, still likes he’s hit the protein shakes a little too hard and now his friend Dom is looking for his wife. The Locust are trying to sink a Serran city called Jacinto and apparently there’s some internal squabbles back at the Locust homestead. Its all just an excuse for balls to the walls action.
So the first Gears game was good but i didn’t love it like I did Halo 3 and CoD games. I found the difficulty, even on the wimp mode Casual too much of an ass kicking to enjoy it much. Gears 2′s normal mode is far more forgiving than the first game so the more hardcore nuts out there should start on hard. Gears also manages to not recycle its unique code. You ride control certain beasts once, you drive a tank once, not over and over. The shooting has merely been refined but it was easily the best part of the original. The sequel, with its more sensible difficulty and extra polish takes the best parts of the first game and makes them blissfully enjoyable to play.
So If you’ve played the first one (or even uncharted, lol) you know how the shooting works with stop and pop gunplay with its cover mechanic improved. But you don’t get the feeling that you’re playing the same thing over and over since everything is suitably mixed up. The game does kick your ass at times, but not always you’d expect it. Unlike the first game with its tough bosses, the sequel’s bosses aren’t an amazing challenge, but they are diverse and interesting. Yes, find out what to do and do it three times is in effect but I’d rather that than the final boss from Far Cry on Xbox 1 which just had 60 billion hit points. Hey, i prefer easy bosses. That said, I found the times when the game did kick my ass was in some of the firefights but It rarely got so frustrating that I wanted to quit. No Brutes and no Krillitane made me a happy gamer.
Removing the chaff from the first one, fixing the difficulty and adding so many new styles that aren’t constantly recycled over and over again, the game never gets boring. There’s never any area that feels like the Library from Halo CE that just goes on and on (unless you play Horde- more of that later). Multiplayer, never the best feature of the first game, despite its popularity, is vastly improved (with one caveat). The star here is a coop mode called Horde, which is basically Zap Brannigan sending wave after wave of his men at you. You have one life per round and its up to your team mates to heal you if you lose too much health, otherwise you have to wait till the next wave to respawn, so long as at least one member of your team survives. The other modes, all variations of more common MP games are there and they too are a lot of fun. Except the matchmaking (at the time of writing) was so amazingly broken that it could take 5 or 10 minutes to get into a match. Once you got into one, it was great but jeeze that wait for a match almost make me want to update firmware on my PS3 and see which finishes first. I’m not willing to bet money but it would be a photo finish.
This game has the best sorta realistic graphics on 360. Apart from the character designs of the Cogs, which are somewhat exaggerated looking, the things very pretty. It actually looks very ugly and dour, it just does it very well from an artistic and technical perspective. Framerate is a pretty constant 30 fps and never hitches and never suffers from badly timed texture loading. Halo 3 may still be the better game overall, but the graphics of Unreal 3 here are first rate. Its still the best advertisement for the Unreal 3 engine by far.
Sound is also top notch with excellent sound design helped by a cool and grand musical score. Voice work is top notch with the likes of Terry Tate as Cole Train and of course John Di Maggio as the voice of Marcus Fenix and a few others. Also here is Carolyn Seymour as the voice of the Locust Queen (she was in a really old BBC SF show Survivor but you’ve seen her in Trek, Quantum Leap and lots of other series)
So overall, I very much like Gears 2. Its a good value package with a single player that’s not over in 6 hours, a lots of coop and multiplayer options and will probably be installed on a lot of 360′s for a little while at least.
Controller1.com rating 3/3
Controller1.com Podcast #6 GEARS OF WAR 2
In episode six, Clint decides to hate on Gears of Wars 2 because it is Gears of War 2 (and he liked the first one) yet still looks, plays and sounds like Gears of Wars 1. George tries to get Clint to actually try and play the game before pronouncing judgement. Cam is the UN Negotiator.
“10 SHITLOADS” by Marcus Fenix
controller1.com presents excerpts from the autobiography of one Marcus Fenix.
Chapter 4 “MY FIRST CURSE WORD”
“I was 13 when I uttered by first curse word. It was a Tuesday. I remembered it very clearly since it was only a week after I got a bandanna for my birthday. I was fooling around in my Dad’s workshop when I accidentally hit my thumb with a hammer. “Shit!” I cried out as the thumb throbbed and pulsed, the pain indescribable. Out of that moment of sharp pain came a realization. I could swear.
At first I was sparing with my use of the word ‘shit.’ I’d stub my pinky toe on the door frame and inadvertently say ‘shit!’ I’d trip over on the street whilst practicing my roadie run and get my balls stuck on my Homemade Lancer. OK so it was a BB gun with mom’s carving knife stuck on with duct tape, but it still hurt. Pretty soon I was flinging the swear words around with careless abandon. “Shit this,” I’d say when I got bored with a TV show I was watching. “Screw that,” when I was told to get ready for church on Sunday mornings. Pretty soon I was swearing so much I was using curse words out of context so much that people could longer comprehend what I said.
I remember presenting an oral report in my senior year of high school. It was meant to cover causes of the Civil War but all that came out was ‘Jism cock turd overflow ass tits shitburger fuckerfacials.’ OK, so I got extra credit as well as detention but I knew I had a problem”
Other tidbits:
1) Mr and Mrs Fenix originally wanted a daughter and so they named their only son Marcy. Sgt Fenix was dressed in gingham dresses up till age three.
2) Dom loves singing Englebert Humperdinck songs in the Karaoke Bar. Word is that he’ s not very good at ‘Quando’ but his ‘Please Release Me,’ brings tears to your eyes.
3) Marcus Fenix has never taken steroids. He just looks like Ben Grimm’s stepson purely by chance.
FABLE II
Developed by Lionhead. Published by Microsoft.
Controller1.com presents a review of Fable II, the highly hyped sequel to one of the most hyped games ever to not suck.
Yes, Fable part 1 had a lot of hype, a lot of promises that didn’t make the final game and a lot of people annoyed at Peter Molyneux. Fable 1 (if you avoided the hyperbole before its release) was actually a pretty good game. My only criticism was that by the end you were overpowered by the time you reached the final battle. Fable II fixes a lot of minor irritations with the first game.
You start off as a young boy or a girl (you choose), who eventually grows up to be a hero in the world of Albion, the same world as the first game but hundreds of years later- a place where belief in magic has disappeared. Your family has been shattered by a villain up to no good for reasons best understood by himself and the people at Lionhead. So, just like any RPG, you play a character and level them up the Lionhead way. You have a main story whereby you become a hero and have to search for a number of other heroes to help you defeat the Big Bad at the heart of the main quest. Along the way you have many, many side quests and have all of the distractions Fable was so good at. I.e- trading, buying property and becoming a landlord, having relationships and families. Most of which doesn’t impact too much on the main quest. Its really a game where the Main Quest can be a very small part of your play experience. Just like going to school. You don’t have to study, you just get through it faster if you do.
There’s never any sense that you aren’t levelled up enough to face any challenge, though the more money you earn, the better weapons you will be able to afford. For an RPG, armour is strangely absent so you can have your character run around in their underwear and not incur any extra damage. You can hold a lot of stuff in your inventory but can only have one ranged and one melee weapon assigned at anyone time. Melee is on one button, ranged is on another, Magic (called Will) on another. So while you have flourishes and can charge up your Will attacks, its not overly complex. Its not bad, its just not that deep. Combat is button mashing but generally enjoyable because when you die you just get knocked out for a but and if you don’t have a revive potion, you just lose XP when you run out of health. You are instantly revived with a lower XP rating but otherwise you can just continue.
The main quest itself is interesting but what sets Fable apart from most RPG’s is the depth of is normally the other bullshit RPG makers throw in to make it longer. You can do odd jobs which are mostly repetitive timing-based minigames such as pulling pints or chopping wood, you can go looking for the various methods to opening demon doors, hunt gargoyles, go on bounty hunter missions, save slave, etc. Mostly for gold (and of course gathering XP along the way), but also for Reknown.
Reknown is Fable’s currency for making sure you do side missions before continuing on the main quest. Which means side quests are partly integrated into the main quest, which is nice. And of course, you have choices whether you behave or act like an asshole (as in Mass Effect and KotOR). Your character’s body will evolve as you play the game. If you get stronger, your character gets bigger. If you eat junk food and drink beer, your character gets fat. If you are pure and eat well, you can lose weight. I chose to eat celery and my character still ended yo looking like a candidate for the Biggest Loser.
You can make people like you by expressions that you find and earn throughout the game. You can scowl, fart, flirt, seduce, scare, offer gifts, dance etc in order to intimidate people, make them like you, etc. A far more evolved version of that in GTA IV, though really in the end they don’t influence the main quest all that much. I got married in Fable I just to see what it was like. I have since gotten married in real life so the attraction to do it in game just wasn’t there but I did manage to have lesbian sex with Carol the Whore and then when I wouldn’t marry her, she started shooting a gun at me and following me wherever I went. I killed her because she was annoying me and felt utterly horrible. So I reloaded my last save. She may have been a Whore (She was Carol the Whore), but she was a human whore.
And then there’s the dog. The Dog is your companion and you can have specific expressions for your dog such as heal, play with, punish, etc. Your dog will bark when treasure is nearby or growl when enemies are around. If you’re a cat person, then you’re shit out of luck.
So how about those more technical aspects of the game. There are some basic online co-op options but I didn’t test any of them since they didn’t add much. If any one from your friends list is playing the same location as you, you will see their avatar and you can join the other’s game (but not as your character). Overall, the game’s presentation is mostly good with a few rough edges at transitions (ie when you beat a mission and the next bit loads or saves, people you were talking with will suddenly disappear).
Graphics are nice and the game manages to keep a decent frame rate though particle effects tend to make the game chug somewhat. Sounds is vbery good and while many American players find the rural English accents forced, they are better than every village hag sounding like Dame Judi Wench. Sound Effects are nice, and musically the game hits the right notes.
Fable II is a very good game and its initial sales success are definitely well deserved. This is a good Zelda style adventure for those not into the grit of Oblivion, Fallout or Mass Effect (or MMO’s). Its got so much that if you didn’t want to play the main quest you’d easily get your money’s worth with the reast of the package. The story is definitely worth playing. It goes into some very dark places later in the game, much darker than the rest of the package and you have to do some heartbreaking things in order to progress.
Controller1.com rating 3/3. This game does so much right, and unique that you really should find the 15 or so hours you need to play through it. The only downside is I now have to go into Fallout 3 having just played a longish game.
MEDAL OF HONOR: AIRBORNE
Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on: PS3, PC. Developed by EA. Published by EA
It’s a recent oldie if there’s such a thing. One thing’s for sure, no one does Call of Duty Medal of Honor better than Infinity Ward EA.
So EA’s most recent MoH game is not a bad game for MoH fans. What’s new? You start every level by jumping out of a plane, and indeed every time you die, you jump out of a plane again, though any objective’s you’ve successfully completed are still intact. Of course, most enemies also respawn after you die, but you can land almost anywhere on the map. Indeed, this is encouraged because although there are safe landing zones (green smoke) there are also 5 skill drops in each level (these are more difficult landing points you can aim for as a collectible for those of you who look for such things in this type of game). But really, think of it as a game with branching paths rather than the scripted events of yore because you still have to complete all of the objectives in a level before the more linear ending area is unlocked.
Many people forget MOH started off as a successful PSOne series before 2001′s PC hit Medal of Honor Allied Assault, which was of course excellent and 2002′s PS2 (and later Xbox and GC) MoH Frontline, which was also pretty good. Of course, despite two decent expansions on the PC, Call of Duty hit PC in 2003 and changed everything for Medal of Honor (Most of Infinity Ward’s leads came from 2015, makers of MoH: AA).
Suddenly MoH looked tired (DESPITE CoD BEING THE SAME GAME) by comparison and the two MoH games set in the pacific were universally loathed (Rising Sun was particularly awful). There was one last hurrah on PS2/Xbox called European Assault which tried to get away from scripted, linear levels and make scripted open levels. It was okay, but didn’t feel like MoH (as well as being cuntingly hard) while even the two PS2 / Xbox CoD games (Finest Hour and Big Red One) were quite enjoyable. Now MoH Airborne (which came out in late 2007 for PC and 360 and later on PS3) is trying to recapture the magic.
It does and it doesn’t. It plays like a fine antique since once you get past some of the innovations – it plays like the older games, particularly when it puts you on rails (funnily enough, the more linear areas feel like very good classic MoH). The game is not easy and you will be jumping out of the plane a lot. And in an effort to make the game feel less scripted, the AI is waaaay too good. You often will be surrounded. In one particularly obnoxious example is in the penultimate level when you have to destroy a pimped out battle train and a new Elite group of Nazi troops attacks you and you are swarmed from all sides and FUCK YOU EA!
Graphics are decent if nothing special. It does at least look better than Too Human or Resistance Fall of Man. Sound is pretty good but then MoH games were one of the first games to treat sound as a feature rather than an afterthought. I can’t tell you about MP because it seems more or less dead but considering I basically swapped this for Assassin’s Creed (which i found initially fun but eventually boring), I think I’ve gotten a hefty amount of fun out of this title. If you like FPS games, particularly MoH or older CoD games, give this one a spin. If those games aren’t your bag, baby, then you might want to try something else.
It’s definitely a product of ‘old’ EA, but since the single player of Battlefield Bad Company is very similar, it remains to be seen whether ‘new’ EA can make this series sing again.
C1 rating: 2/3 (if you ever liked MoH or older CoD games)
GUITAR HERO: AEROSMITH
Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on PS3, PS2, Wii
Well, Guitar Hero for rock fans who only like Aerosmith. That should cut down the need for things like advertising, sales, etc.
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock developed by former Tony Hawk developers Neversoft, puts paid to the rumour that the Guitar Hero series would be milked into the ground. They managed to keep the series humming along quite nicely. But then Guitar Hero Aerosmith comes out as a full price game, completely screwing up the first sentence
So really, it’s just Guitar Hero III with Aerosmith models on stage whenever you play an Aerosmith song. And do you want to know why I like GH Aerosmith compared to III? Its purely down to musical taste. I’m not a huge Aerosmith fan, but I love the type of rock they play.
GH III was weighed down by too much modern crap and indie bands which are like modern crap but not as popular.
It could have just been a downloadable pack, there’s really little reason for this not to have been the case, apart from money. It its first month, this game did not appear very highly in the NPD sales figures for NA, but considering the only costs in this game are a bit of licensing of Aerosmith’s tunes, I can’t see Activision stopping anytime soon.
Why should you play this? If you like hard rock, ’70s rock or if you just like Aerosmith. Or if you love GH and want more of the same. Now since the next iteration of Guitar Hero adds bass, drums and a mike, this is the last time the guy with the axe is the star of the show.
C1 Rating: 1/3 (Aerosmith fans should make this a 3/3 however)
LEGO INDIANA JONES
Reviewed on Xbox 360. Also on: DS, PSP, PS2, Wii, PS3, PC. Developed by Traveller’s Tales. Published by Lucasarts (NTSC)/Activision (PAL)
It’s the third Lego game based on Lucasfilm source material. And probably the best so the pressure’s on Lego Batman. Lego Indy takes the storylines from the first three movies and turns them into plastic heroin.
Maybe that was pushing it a bit far but what you have is a charming (if
sometimes obtuse) action game with puzzles, combat, vehicles and Short
Round able to destroy metal barrels with his bare hands.
Lego Indy has refined the formula laid down in Lego Star Wars but reducing the number of characters in your party (usually 2, sometimes three in some of the Temple of Doom levels) and very occasionally 4 (as in the final level of Last Crusade) but without characters who only have one talent that is occasionally used and is otherwise a drain on the fun (ie C3PO). Of course now you have phobias (Indy can’t go near the snake pits, Elsa won’t go near the rats, etc). You also don’t have unlimited ammo in guns and can only use weapons dropped by enemies (when they have them). A few shots and you’re empty. Of course any character can pick up a spanner to fix a machine or a shovel to dig up Lego treasure and small characters have their hatches leading to secret areas but on the whole this has refined the approach. There are puzzles based on Simon Says provided one of you characters has a blue book that’s usually sticking out of their pocket and some boss battle where its not immediately apparent what the fuck you have to do to progress (the worst was the thugee on the rock crusher)
That said there’s still some annoying crap such as often respawning on the edge of the cliff you fell off anyway, areas where you are constantly overwhelmed by enemies, some of whom now wield RPG’s that blow you to Lego bits with one shot. Obscure puzzles and boss battles are annoying but you’ll generally work stuff out without too much drama. I scratched my head a bit, but then I’m not very bright. But I think the Comedy 64 is more over-rated than Kristen Bell so I can’t be all that dumb.
Graphics don’t really matter much as they look the same on most platforms but they are quite pretty on 360 with background textures of non Lego items being rather nice. Lego is Lego and as such Marion looks like a tranny, but one without a penis so its not all bad for Indy. Lego Indy, of course has no genitals either so….
The Score is great and It’s nice to hear the music from Temple and Crusade since you can’t buy the fuckers on CD at the moment. The sound effects are also crisp, but many of them are the same as the ones from Lego Star Wars.
So I loved Lego Indy. Would I buy Lego Batman? Well, One Lego game a year is enough and I love Indy and Star Wars so much more than Batman. But I would be up for a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull game, just so I can hear people trying to popularise “nuke the fridge” and be burned like a goat’s bitch. Oh wait.
C1 Rating: 2/3
BATTLEFIELD: Bad Company
Reviewed on PS3. Also on Xbox 360. Developed by DICE. Published by EA.
Let’s get this out of the way. There is no PC version. Nor is this the free to play Battlefield Heroes. Let’s also get this out of the way: It’s frickin’ sweet!
Battlefield Bad Company has been touted by EA as a Single player Battlefield game with a multiplayer component. The single player is like Call of Duty with longer distances between the objectives. A storyline ripped from the Clint Eastwood classic Kelly’s heroes and some destructible buildings but really the reason to play this game is from some of the best online gameplay for this type of game (PC or console).
The multiplayer was downplayed for whatever reasons EA had, but they’ve made one hell of a game. There are two modes, Gold Rush and Conquest mode (which was recently added in a patch). Conquest mode is the old control the flags while the tickets count down from the original Battlefield 1942 game. Gold Rush is altogether more interesting and truth be told, all I’ve actually played online. You either play as Attacker or Defender. Attackers have to destroy the two gold crates of each base of the opposing team. They can do this by firing weapons, using tanks or missiles or by setting a charge (a la Counterstrike). Once each base has its two crates destroyed, the defenders have to pull back to another base, the attackers inheriting the destroyed base for their next assault.
You have tanks, light tanks, jeeps and occasionally choppers as well as turrets and missile launchers. Its very well balanced unless you want to use grenade launchers which are gimped (to the point of being useless). The choppers don’t dominate like they did in a PC game of Battlefield though they are a lot easier to fly. The artillery also works rather well with some bases having a giant field gun and some classes offering unlockable mortar strikes and guided missile airstrikes. But no class is totally overpowering so it works and works well.
And jeez it works well. I thought it would be a while before a multiplayer game could tear me away from CoD4 for any decent period of time. I’ve been playing this on PSN and the only gripes I have will eventually be fixed the more Sony copies the Live infrastructure. This title apparently uses servers for both PSN and Xbox Live and to be honest, this has been the most consistently playable on line console game I’ve played.
Graphics are very pretty, control worked very well and the sound is suitably huge and excellent (though my amp found the levels too much to handle). Why PS3 version for review? It’s multi region and cheaper for me to import but I played the Xbox demo and it too ran well.
I likes it a lot.
C1 Rating: 2/3
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