Leveling Down

In Fable II, if you’re well-known you’ll attract a crowd of followers whenever you enter a town.

I never got in on the Fable game for the original Xbox, as I was too busy playing World of Warcraft or something during that time period. I ended up picking up the original game several months back for a few bucks since I figured I wanted to try it before the sequel came out. I played it for about two hours total, broken up over several various days. I had a negative initial impression on it at first, but as I played it a bit further it got a little better. The thing I disliked most about it was the game was running in basically low resolution on a 4×3 box on my LCD. It looked dated and the dialogue/humor/etc. was definitely not American. I sort of struggled to understand the nested action/expression system in the game, and it was not very intuitive.

You can laugh, flex, etc. and people you do it to give you a reaction, but the confusing thing is that when you hit the D-pad direction (left, up, or right for a different expression theme), it performs the expression but then switches to the next expression in that group. So say I want to perform a playful expression like dancing. I hit the D-Pad right and when it’s over, intuitively I would imagine that if I hit the d-pad right again, I could dance again. But no, the d-pad right action is now whistling – a different expression but one that still falls under the social category. I had a hard time grasping that for a while and didn’t like how the specific expression assigned to a button would change automatically after I used it. Regardless, I pushed on for a bit and found the combat enjoyable enough to get further into the game. But then it seemed to suddenly branch out too much and I didn’t quite care what to do next so I just stopped playing.

For this holiday season, I expected to be spending dozens of hours in one game only: Fallout 3. Fable 2 was more of an afterthought for me – after not really “getting into” the first one. But when I saw it for cheap I decided to pick it up. And I’ve discovered it’s actually pretty good.

More »

While Too Human does have some scrapes and bruises, it comes off as a relatively decent game.

I’ve been spending a majority of my gaming time playing Too Human lately, and I’ve gone through enough of the game (beat it with one of my characters already) to write up a review. I’m still pretty into the game (can’t wait to go home and play it tonight) so I believe it is underrated. It’s not a AAA title either, but it has certain qualities that I found enjoyable. Of course, I tend to be a fan of treasure hunting action RPG games, so maybe my bias is a little higher than most on it. I even got my brother to get it so we can get our co-op on whenever he has time. Read on if you’re curious about this action-RPG and why I think it’s better than what the “professional reviewers” say.

The Good:
- Enjoyable combat system
- Music is excellent
- Addictive “just five more minutes” system for progression and loot rewarding

The Bad:
- Uncontrollable camera
- Itemization and tech trees not as deep as the Diablo series
- Lack of 4-player co-op

More »

Call of Duty: World at War seems to have all the gameplay elements that made CoD4 a success, but something still feels lacking…

I was able to spend some time with the Call of Duty: World at War Beta this past week so I’ll spend this entry going over what I played and my general impressions after these first few days of playing. I may appear to be rambling at times in this writeup due to it being more of a “journal format”. I guess it may also be because I don’t know how I even really feel about this game even after several days. I can’t conclude whether I think this game is amazing or not!

More »

Too Human ain’t the greatest, but it’s certainly not as bad as the critics say.

With my lack of satisfaction from sinking many hours this past week into Viva Pinata, I decided to fire up Too Human to give my gaming some sense of variety. The game, a loot-based action-RPG set to Norse Mythology, got universally panned by critics but I found the demo playable. I have a soft-spot for loot-based games like Diablo and Phantasy Star Online, and while this game isn’t as good as either of them, it still satisfies me.

More »

The Force Unleashed looks awesome from screenshots, but it’s ultimately quite lacking.

I just completed The Force Unleashed this past Sunday night. Considering it only took me a week to get through the game, that sort of goes to show you how short this game is. While the game had a very ambitious scope, it ended up falling flat in several areas, ending up a mediocre game just like the professional reviews have stated.

The Good:
- Getting to play the Prologue as Darth Vader
- Well-placed use of various Star Wars classical music tracks such as “Imperial March” and “Duel of the Fates”
- Unique new Star Wars storyline that takes place between Episodes III and IV

The Bad:
- Doesn’t feel like the Force is really “unleashed” as there are several restrictions that make the gameplay not as fun
- Short game: 9 non unique-levels that take about 6 hours to play through
- Poor targeting system
More »

Stranglehold successfully captures the charm and feel of the Chow Yun Fat & John Woo movies

Stranglehold is a pretty old game, but I just played through it recently so I figured I’d give it a review. Looks like there’s enough content to write about that I will give it an indepth review instead of a quick one. I actually had low expectations going into this game and came out realizing that it was pretty fun. It could have benefited from a bit more polish, but at a retail price of $20 these days, I think it’s definitely worth it at present.

The Good:
- feels very much like a John Woo game: slow motion 360 degree shots, double fisted gunplay, doves flying, etc.
- quite satisfying to play as Chow Yun Fat if you are a fan of his movies
- interesting and satisfying style system that encourages you to kill enemies in a more “stylish” manner

The Bad:
- multiplayer sucks
- singleplayer a bit short
- storyline is hokey

More »