Monday 31 May 2010

Guest Review GTA 4

In all ways Grand Theft Auto 4 is a really neat, and great game. With some great story telling, multiple interesting characters, and as always, you're able to steal any vehicle (Not that Boeing 747!) and that freedom is always awesome
  
 Grand Theft Auto is a beautiful game! The graphics haven't really lagged up unless I'm going 190mph down a street, then the game has problems loading as fast as I'm traversing the area. The variety of vehicles are awesome. You can only find some one or two of the 3 islands, but something I've noticed in this GTA game makes me kind of mad. When you jack a car, or just get one of yours all the other cars on the map seem to be the exact same model. It's not that big of an issue, just gets annoying when you steal a limo and everyone else has one :) . A few things I really wish the designers would have brought to GTA 4. First, I was hoping for a parachute (now available in the expansion packs), second, I wish they would have brought back the tank from GTA Vice city! I just love that tank for some reason. Third, and probably the biggest problem for me is not having a country side area like in SA. I just loved driving around in the country and desert. 
 

Grand Theft Auto has a wonderful story line. As i progressed through it I never expected some of the twist and turns it had in store for me. The weapons are a big part of the game (who would have guessed...) and neatly made. The targeting system is better than in GTA SA. The ability to crouch behind cars, dumpsters, walls, etc. means that you have much more cover. It's one of the best installments. The cops actually seem smarter, they try to pen you in with their cars, they even use cover to their advantage. 



 The biggest improvement is the cars, I was blow away (literally when my head smashed through the windshield, and the rest of my body followed over a hundred foot drop to the concrete) by the physics, which excel with cars. I just love driving cars around aimlessly for 2hrs. Doing nothing but getting cops to come after me and them launching myself off a cliff to make them follow. Each car has a different type of speed, breaks, drift, acceleration, E-brake, collision power, and collision damage. (example: The fire truck is slow, has bad brakes, worse acceleration, but the power behind that thing is crazy. And the damage isn't that big) Sports cars break really easily, but are so fast it's easy to cross all three islands in about a minute (I'll post a map at the bottom to show how big the game is) . 



 Now, GTA 4 wouldn't be complete without cheats. Cheats are a huge part of this game, and the ability to store them so you don't have to type them in again is ingenious! I'm just a gamer who likes to mess around on GTA 4, so cheats are my thing, but in my opinion (hey, isn't that what this whole blog is about?) they make the game shine =]. I'm a bit peeved about the annihilator helicopter though. If my memory is correct, the heli in GTA SA had aiming crosshairs, this heli doesn't. Also since you can't use rockets (until you beat the game 100% or something like that) the machine guns are practically useless. If ANYONE has tips about how to even aim in that thing COMMENT and tell me! xD

 Overall Score: 8.75

Sunday 30 May 2010

Chome Review

Remember when Halo 1 came out? Remember how different and new it was for the consoles? Remember talking to a PC gamer about it and him saying that he had seen and played better games? Playing halo now... it's not very impressive...at all gameplay wise... the formula has been used so many times it's not very fun to play when you play a game using it. Chome is one of these games.

Story: You start the game as two mercenaries trying to steal some mugoffin from a science lab. You play as DUKE NUKEM!!!! You herd me the Duke, Sadly it's over whelming when the voice doesn't seem right for the character. Anyway you get betrayed and left to die... ummmm yeah that wasn't foreseen. Anyway you team up with Alyx Vances sister and go after him. OK i wasn't really concentrating of the story only of the Duke. For that reason it rocked.

gameplay: Well here it is the Halo aspect of it, this is why i didn't really enjoy this game, it does have some defences, like they use this resident evil 4 style inventory where you play tetris with your items sad thing is you can only have one main item and a pistol, this is my one complaint with the inventory there is no real room to experiment. The level design is bland but i blame it on the technology not the designers, but in some aspects i don't for one in the first level your under fire by a sniper, there is little to no cover so your going to loose a lot of health on the way to killing him, and you haft to i tried and it imposable to take him out from a distance.

The gun play isn't very good enemies don't put up much of fight meaning it'll get repetitive before long. Also the lack of auto save... yes i have gone that low. It's always annoying playing a game with no auto save i think games back them had them, i remember Half-Life having it, so why doesn't Deus Ex or Chome have it? it's not very hard or demanding for a level designer or coder. I maybe mistaken (if so i apologise) but it makes me annoyed and it's not very fun to replay a level you've just done to get cheap shot at the very end. Anyway the rest of the game you have played before and has been done better.

All in all the game isn't very good, but give me this game 5 years ago and i would of said it was good. Don't pick it up if you play allot of new shooters but if you like looking back at the past and play allot of old shooters pick it up.

Liam Hackett

Monday 24 May 2010

Guns of Icarus Review

OK so here we are a indie game braving to release in probably one of the biggest months so far. So why the hell pick this one up with games like; Red Dead, Alpha Protocol and...well...blur (OK maybe not the last one). Anyway it big question is should you buy this?

Gameplay: the main aim of the game is to protect your ship and cargo from pirates of the sky, so what do you do? Shoot the hell out of them, with anything that can be propelled. The weapon you'll use most is the good old Gatling gun, but there are many others like rockets and Tesla canons. Most the time you'll just use the Gatling gun , and get super (just an upgrade for it) Gatling guns and so on. To get upgrades you must get threw levels with a certain amount of cargo, for example with 80% of your cargo remaining you can get armor upgrades and better weapons, with 50% you just get marginally better weapons.

The levels are plain no ground just sunset, which wouldn't be too bad in fact it looks pretty good but sadly there's no eye candy,nothing to really sell the experience. There's a wide range of plans to shoot down, sadly there don't have any sort of individual weak spot, so it feels like your shooting at the same plan but with a different look.

The levels are set out like this; fight off the enemy till you reach the end of the level, you do not take control of the ship just the guns. At the end of the campaign it's a last stand, you haft to survive for as long as possible that's you big score.The campaign is OK, little repetative.

All in All this game is nothing special but some effort, a nice look and idea, i would say give it a go but don't think you will play it more than once,this is a one trip pony.

Liam Hackett
(sorry for being short not much to the game)

Sunday 23 May 2010

Wittyreviews: Kickassia!

Way back when, I discovered the joys and laugh inducing hilarity of thatguywiththeglasses.com. I believe it was somewhere around when That Dude in the Suede left for 2 years. I remember that magical day when the Epic Brawl popped up and believe me I dorked like a mofo. All my favourte internet personalities and reviewers together in one spot to kick the living shit out of eachother, talk about a dream come true right? Some of them I even got into their stuff due to the brawl, such as Angry Joe and Benzaie. Hell, watching their stuff is half the reason I got into this business in the first place! So when I heard they were gonna make a 2 Year anniversary special, you'd think I'd be excited right? Oddly enough, no. My immediate reaction to the whole affair was "They can't possibly top their previous attempt, can they?" and I more or less wrote it off as a disapointment. Not to be insulting obviously, I just didn't think they could top the Brawl, but I still kept an ear open for news and boy was I gobsmacked. How could they top the Brawl? By the invasion of a fucking nation that's how! The nation in particular is the glorious micro-nation of Molossia. Now, I know what you're thinking; "What the hell is a Molossia?" well...I don't know. By some loophole this acre of land is somehow considered a nation, but the president of this proud nation, Kevin Baugh, allowed the crew to shoot the 2nd Year Anniversary special within his nation and bassicaly take it over. Although, unlike the Brawl, the special did not have almost all of the talent from the website it did contain most of the favourites and a few of the newer contributors, resulting in Nostalgia Critic, Linkara, Spoony, Film Brain, Nostalgia Chick, Paw, Lee, 8-bit Mickey, Handsome Tom, Lord Kat, Phelous, Cinema Snob, Sage, Jew Wario, Marzgurl, Angry Joe, Benzaie, Chris Larios and even Ma-Ti from captain planet invading this micro nation and doing whatever the hell they wanted with it.

And all in all, I was greatly impressed. With it's complete run time, this 6 part special bassicaly ammounts to a feature length movie. It features cameos from just about all of Doug Walkers characters (though Melvin is left out) and even James Rolfes alter ego Board James aswell as other contributors to the site. As far the comedy goes, it's the usual quality delivered by the team. They nicely tie in a few of the running gags, Mr.Walker even dresses up as M.Bison for the duration of the Kickassia occupation in a very well put together costume, including a hat with the thatguywiththeglasses logo in it and even puts his own spin on the 'OF COURSE' gag. Spoonys alter ego, Dr.Insano, is always awesome and this time even plays a key role in the story instead of being an insert joke here or there. We finnaly get to see Lee from Still Gaming in 3 dimentions instead of still images, which actualy seems strange to me, I guess I'm used to seeing still images which of course leads to the running joke of Lee being unable to get over the fact he has fluid movement and texture. Mr.Larios plays an old fashioned American reporter, complete with a hat with a 'press' card stuck in the side of it. Nostalgia Chicks portrayal of Sarah Palin is supprisingly funny given the subject matter, as her repeated attempts to kill the Critic off fall on deaf ears and at one point even leads into a very Austin Powers-ish sketch. Though Sages, Linkaras and Angry Joes portrayals as a doctor, head of the FBI and generals respectivly is short lived, they do it very well and some of the time are very convincing. I especialy enjoyed Sages science logic of gun holding making you live; "I am holding an Uzi, and I'm alive! Science proven". Film Brain does supprisingly well protraying a weasely, pawn of a man who just enjoys serving his master, his giant grin just cracks me up. Other performances are the usual quality you'd expect, although some of them range from wierd to pointless. For instance, did Jew Wario do...anything? At all? Even 8-bit Mickey got more to do and Handsome Tom had a role..he was a flag pole!

If I had to some up what I think of the whole affair in a word it would have to be this: Fun. It's a group of entertainers getting together to do what they do best, entertain, and this do it very well. Snob, in fact, does supprisingly well as I never put him down as the acting type, at least not in great long roles but then again I don't watch him that often, not as often as I would like anyway.

Final Rating: 5/5

My advice is watch it if you're a thatguywiththeglasses.com fan, and if no just give it a try. You don't have to be an expert on everyone to enjoy it. As long as you enjoy semi-tastefull comedy you'll enjoy this movie...6 part..special thing.

By: Wittyreviewer

P.S Bum cameo was BLOODY AWESOME!

Monday 17 May 2010

Wittyreviews: Chu-Bra!!



Just...I don't know



Very rarely when watching anime do I actualy have to stop and get a drink just to get over what I just witnessed. So to me, Chu-Bra is a rareity. Chu-Bra follows the trend I first saw in the first seasn of K-ON, where it doesn't actualy have a plot just some resemblence of one that we are to assume is a plot. Thus, this anime exists solely for fanservice and maybe to get your jollies. But I doubt it.

Alright, fair is fair I'll give it a good run. But expect few compliments. The plot, what ther is of it, revolves around the teenager Nayu, who is an underwear enthusiast. She wrangles her friends into creating an Underwear Appreciation Society, where they do activities related to underwear. And yet Nayu never sees the massive gapeing problem with this, namely the windows into the room from the corridor. Ever heard of peeping toms? In fact, many a time they do this. Plus, just to give added insentive, their teacher. Oh wow, I swear if her bra got any tighter it would fall off. There's dense, and then there is a moron. The plot is about their exploits, mostly trying to get the club members and accepted, and...that's it. Another plus is that the show is actualy kind of educational, and it can give you good tips I guess if you're a girl but for the guys it's all lost on us. Which brings me to an interesting point, I'm the type of guy who doesn't go looking for fanservice but doesn't mind it when it turns up, yet in a show called Chu-Bra, with 2 female leads with mellon chests there is a shocking lack of fanservice, it's wierd I tell you.

And that's all I have to say really. I know it's short, but Chu-Bra is just sooooooo dull. Sure it has its moments and can be funny some of the time, but mostly it's just "Nayu and her friends do things for 20+ mins". It's not that funny, it's not sexy and if anything it's simply educational. Bottom line, watch it if you want a few laughs I guess, but don't bet on it.

Final Score: 2/5

By: Wittyreviewer

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Flotilla Review


OK third time lucky. Flotilla is umm... well it’s hard to say what it is, some of you may say it’s another arty games where bright lights and nice music replace any flaws the game may have. On the other hand is your Rodger Ebert, you’ll say that this game has serious issues, but what are the problems and the pluses.
Gameplay: Yes this is another Indie game where story is completely absent from the experience and I have no idea why, a game like this has all the elements for a good story;  deep space travel, epic battles and alien pigs and  fish. Sadly not as there is nothing to go on story wise. Anyway you set out to... well... go places. Nothing’s really put in place you start with 2 basic ship (which by the way can destroy anything with the right tactics).
The big thing here is the battles, with its bright art and piano music, relaxing you, as you go all out war on your enemies. You can’t just shoot and hope for the best, no there’s a certain type of skill you need to make this work.  The only way you can damage a ship is to hit them under or behind the ship, if not the bullets will just bounce off, but if you do hit bellow or behind the ship you will get a good amount of damage out of it.
You can get more ships but most of the time you’ll just stumble on them as you journey to well nowhere. Travelling is not fun, there’s no surprise all the red planets hold enemies all the neutral planets hold gifts or small battles, and the green planets hold bribes , it’s easy to tell when you’re in a good or bad situation giving you no surprise when you come across an foe. There is a skirmish mode with is fun but holds no real punches.
When you look at this game it looks like your getting allot for your money... sadly it’s shallow, nothing really to get you hooked yes is fun in short bursts but you’ll never get more than thirty minutes out of it, if you got some spare cash on you pick it up if not well you must be poor.
Liam Hackett