Here are a number of photos that I personally took, of about 4 of our last games reviewed here on Lost Planet.

Once again is the city that doesn’t sleep, or perhaps that should be the city that never goes away, if you play Video Games with any where near frequency.

New York is what I’m talking about, I think I’ve seen my share of the  nice place to visit, but wouldn’t want to live there, city. Godfather and Grand Theft Auto and quite a few other ‘adventure’ games have focused mainly upon  New York City.  Problem is, New York itself is a Main Character… often too big of a character for anyone!

In Prototype, for the first time that I can remember in a Video Game, at least, New York City is really looking good.  The city is very impressive in Prototype and the makers of the game have really done something correct for a change, they’ve been able to, for the most part, avoid the Dead Space of Video Game Technology, that vast space that is endemic to the Video Game Experience, where you have a large land mass and the need to fill it in. Prototype actually gives you a sense that there is actual life teeming in its New York City.

If you ‘Drop’ from the top of a building (something that you will do often in Prototype) to street level, there are large masses of people walking around with many things happening, Prototype doesn’t bother letting you in on too much, is what it is, the buildings can’t be entered, but they look like the real thing, and luckily night doesn’t descend unless it’s a part of the tale that Prototype is trying to tell.  So here, finally, we have a story overtaking the substance of our complacent knowledge of reality and placing it in New York.  The Island has never looked better, even though it is under a Plague!

Biology and it’s myriad uses  is mostly Prototype’s game, you are more than likely familiar with what I’m talking about.  If you’re in any way familiar with modern entertainment then you’ve likely seen a science lab gone wrong and a monster running rampant.  It’s the Zombie Syndrome packaged into a young man, Alex Mercer, who is, in fact, the actual reason that there is a plague in the first place.  Alex died releasing “The Black Light Virus” into New York Cities atmosphere and awakens from ‘death’ into a new sort of creature who can ‘Consume’ people and gain their experiances and knowledge.  In this way Alex goes about finding “Who Did This To Him”.  Which is interesting since Alex is a thief and was killed while stealing from a Government Agency.  I’d say that Alex did it to himself, but Alex is young and he may not yet see the world as being bigger than himself.

Prototype then continues with Alex searching for who he is, in this way he finds his sister Dana and together with her and a few other people Alex begins to awaken his new powers.  The story is actually told as something of a backtrack.  Having us play the events 18 days earlier from where Alex is, 18 days in the future.   Alex is our future selves then.  So its a “how did we get here” approach to things.  In this time the city of New York begins to break out with the Black Light Virus, and people are generally as you’d expect, killing each other and destroying everything around them, typical humanity up to it’s usual ways and means!  So there are no surprises here!  Alex meanwhile is often taking on tasks, or Missions that further his understanding of himself and the virus itself, he unlocks a great many powers, powers of which you will have to Purchase by means of Experience Points (EP), which can be gained by completing Missions or destroying and causing grief wherever you go!

I primarily focused upon getting all my Health Upgrades bought out, since that to me was the most important.  At first the Missions aren’t that difficult.  But things do get harder as the game progresses,  luckily Prototype isn’t too hard, nothing is more frustrating than being unable to continue a Video Game because it has gotten too difficult.  You’ll have to ‘Consume’ certain important people during the game, where you sneak up behind them and ‘absorb them’.  After which, if the person is of note, you’ll see a small film of their lives, mostly having to do with the military… these little scenes give you an idea of what is occurring behind the scenes and helps Alex unravel the militarys’ plans in terms of himself and the deadly virus.

Alex himself is young as I mentioned, he doesn’t seem all that aware that he is the cause of all this terror and the military has given him the name Zeus. Not a bad name because as Alex, you cause a lot of damage.  I do remember, a bit later in the game when Alex receives his full body shielding and long sword, that I spent some time just mowing down pedestrians and the so-called Strike Team which is two helicopters, and a tank or two. After a time, this destruction began to pay off as my EP points went up pretty nicely, allowing me to buy new killer moves. There are all kinds of upgrades, and you’ll probably find yourself going mostly to the upgrade section of the game to figure out which buttons to push to make these cool new moves happen.

Prototype is called a Sandbox Game, which means you can explore the city without having to be on a timed schedule.  There are certain ‘tests’ (usually signified by Monikers placed all over the game map) that you can do to gain medals and extra EP points.  Generally you have to get a certain number of kills in a specified time, these are called “Events” in Prototype, which is funny, because I don’t think there is much “Event” happening to these little sidebar moments.  This kind of thing is getting popular in Video Games of late, I like especially when I don’t have to do these things.  I usually try a few of them then I get one that’s too hard and/or boring that isn’t important to the game… to me these ‘little taunts’ as I call them, can get out of hand.  I believe that the story needn’t be too cluttered up by these ‘arcade moments’.  Still I’m not against these, but after entering a tank for the 5th time and getting blown away I finally decided that I could do without the 5000 EP for a bronze medal!  I’ll just stay as dumb old Alex then!

Everyone knows about the guy who does everything in every game, I’m definitely not That guy.  I’d rather take a DIRTNAP (My Favorite New Word) and leave a mystery unsolved a time or two.

Now having finished Prototype I’m pretty well pleased by this game, it was actually a lot of Fun. Fun.  I haven’t much felt any for some time, and the tone of Prototype is to be commended.  You get a sense that the makers of the game were having a good time just making it, and there is the Rub as Old Shake’s would say.  Sure these are pretty depressing events, but Prototype tells it’s Armageddon story without the whining and keeps us interested until the end.  Alex Mercer is enigmatic, I suppose, for a video game character he feels more real than most video game creatures.  It is interesting that he won’t take any responsibility for his actions or who he is! Instead he does blame others (Boring!) and the game agrees saying that he is something else now, funny though he still looks like Alex Mercer, at least his sister seemed to recognize him.  Still Alex Mercer isn’t Spider-Man, he isn’t going to be looking into himself too deeply until his 20th birthday or so!

The final round with the Supreme Hunter was fun, although almost every Hunter in a video game  looks like a knock-off of Resident Evil. It took quite a while to off this big bad wolf!   I could have played many more hours of Prototype.  There will be a Prototype 2, there is no doubt, this first one is very good.

A sure hit.

Wikipedia = Prototype

Red Faction Guerrilla begins with you as Alec Mason, a rather swarthy, tall and perhaps more mature man than usual in FPS’s.  Alec even has a less than full head of hair, one Game Reviewer made much of him being bald… I don’t think he’s bald but he has a bald spot.  Alec arrives on Mars and meets with his brother who is quickly killed by the Earth Defense Force or EDF.  These EDF Soldiers were apparently good friends of the people in the first Red Faction game but somehow have gone mean and nasty on Mars and are against the good will of the people!

Mason then joins the Guerrilla Movement against the EDF, his first duty is to rid a number of ‘cities or towns’ of the EDF presence.  The first city to clear is Parker, there are a number of Guerrilla actions to perform and most are easily laid out on the Red Faction Guerrilla Map.

For instance you can help the Faction by destroying EDF Property or Completing Certain Objectives for the Red Faction.  You can also destroy EDF Targets that are marked easily on the map.  The EDF kidnaps and holds Faction Members who you must rescue, by doing these various tasks (which are optional) you raise the peoples morale and you get Salvage Points, which can be used to update your weapons or buy new more powerful ones.  There are Major Missions (which are Mandatory) to be carried out that you must complete if you are going to get to the next area to liberate.

The Motto of the Red Faction is: “Better Red than Dead”/”A Free Mars, or Death!” And the logo of the hand holding the hammer is pretty neat as it ties into the troubles that this Red Faction is having… and it looks very communist, which is cool!  Mason has his own hammer of which you can destroy things and get the Salvage.

I made out on Parker pretty well and in the next area to liberate called, Dust, I’ve found that there is much more to do.  I completed one Mission by following the mysterious marauders (these are like Sand People, like in Star Wars) who had some secret device that I had to steal.  I’ve decided to mostly clear the map however, before getting to the missions.  I’ve found that the Shotgun and Electric Charge Rifle are a pretty good combo together.

The Electro Rifle stuns EDF troops then I run up to them and hit them with a Melee tactic which kills them, therefore saving energy, this way you can clear many EDF at once… like 3 at a time!  Then the shotgun, I’ve found is really good and powerful and blows away an EDF Enemy really nicely with just one shot.  Also, you should keep in mind that you don’t have to complete the various tasks in just one way… what I mean is that you needn’t just blast in etc, that you can run around quite a lot in the game, and this is good strategy, I found that when I’m way outnumbered that I just get into a vehicle and head out of the conflict zone… this restores my health and then I simply return and continue the fight, Killing All In Sight!  Of course the EDF often follows but you get new health when you enter a vehicle, it’s the vehicle’s health that shows up allowing you to ‘get healthy’ again.

Red Faction Guerrilla is a very intense game… you’ll often get upset when you die!  So you may find these tips helpful!

SNIPER MADNESS!

Hell’s Bells!

Towards the end of the game over at The Free Fire Zone is a Sniper Mission, it is really pretty hard because the EDF is very prevalent in this battle and to top it off there are millions of these people running around, which you often bump into and get blasted to Hell!  It took me quite a few times to get this one right.  First I found the first Three EDF Snipers on the roofs of these two buildings, sure you could use your mines, etc and bring both buildings down, but it would deplete your precious ammo and you’d take a long time, these are buildings that have much support, if you’ve been playing the game you’ll know what I mean.

Some buildings in Faction go down with two explosions and others are much better built and take much, much more to down.  Any-Who, I realized that I’d be better off avoiding the many EDF troops that are everywhere, and I equipped only my Rocket Launcher and the Laser Nano Rifle, thusly I ran through the troops then quickly aimed at the first Sniper way up on top of the first building, usually one good placed hit with a Rocket downs him pretty fast.

Then using the Jet Pack (which I purchased, of course!) I hop on over to the ledge where I have a good firing site to the next building over where one Sniper is seen through the window and the other Sniper is on top of the Roof!  I Rocket the Sniper through the window (usually an easy kill) and then I move a bit to the left and hit the rooftop area of the 2nd building to get the 3rd Sniper (it usually takes about 3 or 4 Rockets to get him dead… but don’t give up if it takes more… oddly enough on that plateau you won’t get much shot at by the regular EDF… Then you’ve got to get the other 5 Snipers.

They are pretty far away… you’ve got to run through the high-rise tunnels to get there and you’ll have to pass a large number of regular troops… ignore them, don’t fight them, just keep running until you reach the two buildings where the remaining 5 Snipers are.  Go down the corridor all the way to the end where the left building is, you’ll find that the EDF Snipers (in White, like Stormtroopers) will shoot out all the windows for you, and at the end of the corridor you’ll have a bit of cover by being out of site to the Sniper’s Fire…

I lined up the Snipers with my Rocket Launcher and that way got them by destroying the top parts of the buildings where they are laying in wait, if you get lucky you can get about 3 of them that way, then quickly ‘Tag’ the rest of them with the very long range and accurate Nano… of which it takes about two shots to down an EDF Sniper.  You have to work fast because the regular EDF are everywhere, but by doing this a number of times, you’ll come out the Victor!

The final mission is the end mission where you’ve got to do a number of things to insure that a ship from Earth from the EDF gets destroyed, it’s called Hydra and can decimate the Red Faction on Mars.  One of the missions requires you to get into a high powered Tank that shoots intense rockets, you’ve gotta get to the top of the Mountain,  which is very, very well protected with tons of tanks and soldiers.  I kept getting blown up and then when I finally did make it up I wasn’t at the beacon, only later did I realize that I had to leave the tank and go it on foot!

Once you reach the top you’ve got to blast a few ‘doors’ to allow The Red Faction’s Special Nano Missile to load and fire at the Hydra.  That brings you to the final sequence.

It was difficult and unpleasant to have to start all the time with the Tank again though… kind of unnecessary since I’d already done it 50 times!  I’d prefer not to have to repeat so often and hope the next Red Faction game takes this into account, the saves should be much more friendly!

Red Faction: Guerrilla is a pretty good game all in all.

During the game I did decide not to do too many of the side missions, they became a bit repetitive for my taste.  For me it was better to focus on destruction of EDF’s Medium to High targets while awaiting the Missions which propel the game forward.

I didn’t think it necessary to have so much to do and would have preferred to leave the many hostage and raid situations out of the game and instead make more important and necessary actions part of the game… sure there would be less to do, but the story would gain in emotion and detail if every action and plot point were significant.

Red Faction: Guerrilla is an intense and fun game.  A good series which may improve with age.

Recently while examining my account Q (My list of games to rent) at Gamefly, I began to realize that I needed to take quite a few games out of the Game Q, due to poor ratings.

I trust most reviewers … usually the ones who get paid for it like Ebert, etc. They are intelligent at least.

At Gamefly they have a place for each game where you can get Professional and User Reviews of the games. It’s important for me not to play or rent Bad Video Games. Bad Movies are not as Bad as Bad Video Games. For one thing a Video Game can last for Many Days, and for another thing a Video Game is much more expensive.

Often Critics don’t review a truly bad game right away, so I go to the Users to see what they think. I find most User Opinions informative and sometimes really interesting.

Here then are a few of the Games and The Reviews that Users are or have been wary of:

Terminator Salvation

“Maybe this game is what Bale was Cussing About!”

Result: Removed From The Q.

Rating 1 - Horrible!

The game glitched on me within the first 15 min. I would hope they would fix robots getting stuck in walls before they ship out games. The aiming is cheap, the running looks like the wobble of an overweight kid being told to run the mile. the cover system is over complicated with a directional, the robots fly and apparently if you blow up a terminator in a car they die but unleashing 100 bullets into its head would not suffice. Its ridiculous how the chick can take an onslaught of a mini gun to the face for a minute but the other guys die instantly. how bout jus make the ai umm smarter? ive seen it done. Complete waste of a que slot, i wish someone warned me.

Rating 5 - Fair

I Just saw the movie yesterday and went to get the game right after… TRUST me… MAJOR Freaking LET DOWN!!!! MAJOR!!! the absolute WORST $60 i EVER SPENT on a Game…

This could’ve been a real sleeper hit… i beat it in 5 hours… my 1st time playing it ever and i had the difficulty on hard… i say if not for the trophies which are the easiest on the system to get… if you want a platinum trophy this is by far the Easiest game to acquire one on there are 10 gold and 1 platinum… only because of the trophies do i rate it a 5 other than that 4.5

the sad part is im a HUGE terminator fan and now I’m just looking on a way to sell this game.

Rating 1 - Horrible

This game is terrible. Its so full of bugs I couldn’t get past the 2nd chapter of the game. At one point spider robots would spawn in but one kept spawning inside the environment and couldn’t be killed. I restarted the level 3 times but the same bug kept occurring. So I played it for a total of 30 minutes which from what I hear from other reviews is only 3 and a half hours short of the complete game. Not even worth a rental.

Rating 3 - Bad

I got this game and was excited because the possibilities could be endless on how cool the game should be. Once you download the game and start playing you start to wonder why you even wasted the time to download it. The movement was clunky and the buttons sucked. I would not recommend this game to my enemies.

Summery: Overall Rating: 5.0 from 206 Users.

Opinion: This game surely bites hard. I too thought that no one could screw up a Terminator game but I must have been in error. Yet when you look at the horrible Star Wars Games (oh, about 10,000 of these and you wouldn’t even wipe your A with one!) then you see that maybe there is a pedigree here. It’s like when a book gets turned into a Movie, sort of a long shot and so far movies into video games have a dreadful record.

Overall advice (Terminator Salvation, The Video Game): Don’t Buy, Don’t Rent, See the movie instead!

Next on our list of Horror would have to be Damnation, the first thing I noticed about this game in my Q is that it’s rating plummeted to 3.7 in about 1 day. That meant that the overall average quickly went down as more Users played the thing. I quickly jetted over to the User Reviews to see what the Hell was going on! Read On:

Damnation

Result: Removed From The Q

Rating - 2 - Really Bad

I had quite high hopes for this game.

For months I looked and hoped that Damnation was a good game and could help me cast away boredom for a bit.

I actually gave up the opportunity to rent Infamous a game I knew was gonna be great and fantastic!

Yet, I got something HORRIBLE instead!!

…Unlike the Assassins Creed it tried to clone, Damnation makes jumping anywhere boring and plain. Its impossible to jump to certain obvious areas that you wish to get to and on top of that the mild jumps that should be extremely simple are absolutely dumb. Jumping from wall to wall is easy but boring. The physics are also absolutely horrible as stepping next to any dead enemies causes them to bounce as if hit with a grenade and the use of mines is all but (un)necessary. Your computer partners also are extremely useless as they die for LITTLE to no reason. Against a mere five people they will be wiped out with ease as you are walking taking shots and what not.

Rating - 1 - Horrible

Avoid at all costs. It is unbelievable how bad this game is. It does nothing well. I played for around 15 minutes and was shocked by how poor it was… I was actually laughing because I couldn’t believe it.

Rating - 2 - Really Bad

Stopped playing shortly after the first cutscene. Aiming with L1 and firing with R2 I can handle. But reloading by pressing R3? How does one stand on a ledge, back pressed to a wall, and then backflip to a ledge overhead? This game was not developed for PS2…why does it look like it was? No mission objective screens. You get one look at the layout of a level then you are on your own. Camera alignment for proper jumps is nearly impossible. If this is an FPS why MUST I have a partner. They are constantly whining about needing help? And why is their dialog limited to only one sentence? Repeated ad nauseum. Damnation dam sucks!

Summery: Overall Rating: 3.7 from 52 Users

Opinion: Damnation is not a good choice.

Overall Advice (Damnation): Call of Juarez looks good. Best to rent Lonesome Dove again… I love the part when Tommy Lee Jones beats that guy to hell for hitting (Ricky Shroeder) his son! Now that’s a Western!

Bionic Commando has a cool looking game cover, apparently the guy has a killer arm… he uses it to swing around and grab onto things, but from what I read this wasn’t quite enough. In this case Gamespot did have it’s review out and ready… but the other ‘biggies’ of Game Stardom (IGN, Gamespy, etc.) were silent, a sure sign that a game is lousy. Here’s a little blurb from Gamespot:

Bionic Commando is a third-person action game that likes to tease you. It dangles endless possibilities in front of you, only to snatch them away and replace them with limp gunplay and extended stretches of nothing. There are some good ideas here, and when they coalesce, you glimpse the great game struggling to escape from the shackles of average(-)ness. - From the Minds at Gamespot.

Bionic Commando

Result: Removed From The Q

Rating - 3 - Bad

The swing mechanic, which is supposed to be one of the hallmark features of this game, is terrible. Especially if you’ve played Spiderman: Web of Shadows and seen just how good a swing move can be - and if that’s the kind of game you’re expecting, you’re going to be disappointed. I was.

Rating - 4 - Weak

The story is this hilariously generic pile of garabge that could be cribbed from any bad video game or Van Damme direct to video movie release. At one point the “guy who’s calling the shots” calls you up mid mission. The important piece of info he’s got to pass on to you? That you answer to him. THANKS. SO GLAD YOU CALLED. Anything else you want to let me know? No, because you’re a paper-thin stock character.

I didn’t even beat the game. I just got tired of how repetitive the game was, how stupidly designed it was, and how little fun I was having compared to how long the game was loading. Boo-Urns.

Rating - 1 - Horrible

throw in a cheesy plot line with bad voice overs. To top it off you die a bit too easily, the swing mechanic isnt very refined, u just shoot people with limited ammo, grab and throw guys , didn’t they do that better in the force unleashed? oh yeah they did! (Go Ahead) If you’d like to waste a Q slot go for it, I sent it back the next day.

Rating - 3 - Bad

the controls are shaky, the character animations lacking, the level design stupid (you can just walk by without even having to swing, and the music is irritating. there seemed to be a lot of potential for this to be a good game, or at least for it to be interesting with the bionic arm and the swinging. Especially because i liked the 2d remake that the same developer did, but this game is irritating and dumb.

Summery: Overall Rating: 5.3 from 318 Users

Opinion: A guy with a Bionic Arm must be respected, but he needn’t be Liked!

Overall Advice (Bionic Commando): This game is likely not very good… the thing about video games is that there are lots of ‘Not Very Good Games’, and it actually isn’t worth playing them even though it seems like it is.  My advice about Bionic Commando is to buy the Action Figure if there is one and play that way, (move his arms and legs, toss him at the wall, etc.) actually games cost $65.00 dollars these days so you’d pay about just as much for a Statue of this Commando.

So there you have it, 3 Piss Poor games.  I don’t think I’m out of line here, some very young people are spending a lot, I mean a lot of money on these games and it is really bad when a game isn’t good.  I’m glad I don’t have any sponsors here on Lost Planet, I’d be in ‘Piss Poor Trouble’ if I did, you won’t find a post like this on IGN anytime soon!

See you next time!

50 Cent’s new Video Game “Blood On The Sand” begins with 50 Cent at a concert in a fictional middle eastern country, he doesn’t get paid (10 Million!) for the concert, and boy, it’s pretty interesting as all of a sudden 50 Cent has a shotgun pressed up against the promoters face demanding his money.

Rap Superman 50 Cent.

Not the usual Rapper behaviour! Instead, the promoter gives 50 an ancient skull that is embedded with diamonds, which 50 takes and calls it even. From then on out it’s a whirlwind of action as the skull gets stolen by some nefarious terrorists which has 50 cent after them.

The amazing thing about Blood On The Sand is that the graphics are very high quality, the scenes move by so fast though that you hardly feel like you’ve even left your hat somewhere. Blood On The Sand plays fast and furious. Luckily the makers of the game have not made it too demanding. The story is your usual mash-up of characters, the terrorist faction, the mercenaries and a hot chick that stole the skull in the first place, it sort of all gets put together but you can do yourself a favor and ignore the plot, since it is mostly there to get 50 and one of his buddies (you can choose one of three, I chose DJ Whoo Kid - “Whoo, It’s all clear, Sheesh!” is what the Whoo Kid says.) through the many action sequences.

The graphics in Blood on the Sand are good. Very Arcade like.

The gaming AI isn’t that scintillating, the enemies you will face do go down rather easily, luckily there are a whole lot of enemies to kill, so in the end it works out very well for Blood On The Sand. The game has a good feel of Arcade/Vegas like action to it… that it’s Rapper 50 Cent who is the main character does take a bit getting used to, as he isn’t fictional as most video game heroes are, still he does look good in the game. Big and strong 50 Cent looks like a wealthy bouncer with a grudge throughout the game. He spends much time complaining to the various bad guys about how he’s been treated, etc. And coming from a ‘Star’ that’s not too far out of character!

50 Cent in a Brawl with some bad guys!

The game is a lot of fun really, you smash things all the time and get money and ‘Rep’ points and you are often called on to perform special kills to receive money… you have to complete these kills in a certain time to get the bonus, and it isn’t very hard… such as shooting 2 snipers from a faraway window in 2 minutes time, etc. So there are incentives throughout the game. You smash boxes to get gold, rings and jewels and also there are about 5 or so Posters and Targets to find through every level, that is, if you want the bonuses.

In the above video from IGN you can see that the weapons are pretty functional. I waited quite a while to buy my first weapon which was the super magnum called The Ravaging Bull, In fact it cost $90,000 I used it exclusively until I got the rapid fire machine gun, The Fabrique MG, for $120,000.  Lastly I realized I needed a Dragon SUV for sniping, and bought that as well, but you don’t really need to buy special weapons at all, you could use the cheap handgun all the way through, but that wouldn’t be much fun.

It's Bang, Bang, Bang in BOTS

You do have to use the “Rocket Launcher”, you know as well as I do what it looks like, and yeah, you gotta load it quite a lot.

Shooters do get to be alike somewhat with helicopters to shoot, and B.O.T.S. has just about every shooter recipe in it’s wiring. There is the Truck race through the city. There is the Helicopter scene where you’ve got to shoot the bad guys below. There is the “Palace” to go through and, oh yeah, the “Theater” every shooter must have a Theater! So Blood On The Sand has covered the bases for sure.  But you really don’t care if you are laid back while playing 50 Cent’s game, it’s a good time at the Arcade and that’s not all that easy to find in Games these days, as so many game companies and game creators vie for Top Dog Status, often losing the idea of Fun.

You'll have to shoot down about 4 Helicopters! That's more than usual in a Shooter!

Blood On The Sand will rev you up all right, and I think that the makers of this game have done a good job in bringing Arcade Action back to games.  The question is then will 50 have my Back?

Well, sure, as long as you don’t cross him!  ”No one crosses me, and lives!”  50 Says.

50 Cent star of Blood On The Sand.

3.1 the marshlands begins after a few cut scenes of how Jill Valentine died, presumably at the hands of  Mr Albert Wesker, Chris’ lifelong nemesis.  Sheva also gives us some background into her own battles with the bio-terrorists revealing that her parents were killed by Umbrella’s mishandling of these viruses.  So everybody has an itch to scratch here.  It seems a few of our Delta Team members are dead… there is half of a Beast Plate here and a big doorway that is locked solid.

In the marshland you have to go to about 4 Swamp like outposts which are infested with native African majini.  You have to fit 4 ‘plates’ which fit together to open an important doorway.  It isn’t difficult and won’t take you much time.  Beyond that door is a bigger native village and more natives… some witchdoctor types are hard to kill.  These wild Giant Majini are very difficult to kill because they have Tribal Head Masks that protect them from harm and their Mace attacks which can easily take away most of your health with just one hit.  After you’ve cleared out the village take the tram with Sheva.

You also pick up a Magnum from this sequence.  I swear I shot two Majini with one shot, the bullet went through both bodies.  So it is a powerful weapon! 3.2 is called Execution Ground : After a last ‘Fling’ with some of the natives on the pier you and Sheva come to the Oil Field, The Tricell Refinery to be exact and you and Sheva spot the sleazy Irving walking along nearby.  There is Fire blocking some of the areas you need to get to so you have to turn a few spigots off.  Problem is that each time you do new Majini pop up, a chainsaw Majini pops up when you take a slide bar across the refinery… to turn a valve.  He’s tough and killed Sheva… her very first death!  3 Shots with my shiny new Magnum, and a few ‘pop shots’ from Sheva felled him finally.  Inside of the refinery is Josh, the BSAA Officer somehow survived, he needs cover while he tries to enable the elevator out of the building.  After the elevator is fixed Josh, Sheva and you fight your way out of the refinery… Josh then states that the nefarious Ricardo Irving is most likely hanging down by the dock.  Sure enough Irving is on a Yacht which suddenly takes off.  The mysterious bird lady is nearby as well, and exits on a small boat.

Many Majini come and you have to get over to Josh who has secured a boat for your escape; you are timed and have to get there in 2 minutes!  Boy!  I sure must be lucky because I decided not to fight all the Majini off and just ran to Josh and the safe boat… It was pretty funny because I had :58 seconds left and didnt’ shoot a shot!  There should be a trophy for not shooting.

Chapter 3.3 -  You end up on Irvings Yacht and Irving injects himself with the Virus and becomes a horrible sea creature that you have to kill.  You use the machine guns on the yacht to do so, it will take a while but finally Monster Irving (what’s left of him) gets thrown on deck, and dies before your eyes. Take a look:

With that fun over on with Chapter 4.1

4.1 Caves

Well in the caves we see the boat that the “Bird Lady” took off in, it seems that she is Mrs. Jill (”I am Chris’ Old Partner”) Valentine… she sure isn’t Batman, that’s for sure!

The Birdlady isn't Batman!

Well Josh shoves off and we enter the caves, now that Irving has been dispatched we’d best see what’s goin on in our Evil World!  There seems to be an amazing lost city underground here with waterfalls.  Interestingly I’ve been getting an Uncharted Vibe from R.E. 5 and now it looks a bit like Uncharted as well… come to think of it Chris Redfield is somewhat similar to Drake of Uncharted!  What do you think?

4.2 Worship Area (Caves) Now onto the Worship Area of the caves.  There are a number of Earth Symbols that you must get and insert them into the 3 slots of an important wall… meanwhile the Majini have a sun ray weapon that uses the sun to block your way with a laser beam.  You must hide in cubby holes to avoid getting melted!  With the 3 symbols inserted you can now continue further into the caves.

Wow!  In the end section of these Caves you have to position ancient  idols to use the power of the sun to proceed… the last one was pretty complicated… I don’t know how, but I just sort of moved everything first then propelled the first stone idol and presto… somehow I got it right!  Perfect on the 1st try!  I’ve never gotten these right before.    Ah well…  come to think of it I’ve been getting through Resident Evil 5 almost magically.

5.1 Underground Garden is the name of this chapter.   Here you find a genetically superior flower that Umbrella is using called Progenitor, Umbrella created this laboratory in the caves to harness the flower because it’s attempt to grow it outside of its environment did not succeed.

The big boss U-8 is what you’ll end up fighting at the end of this chapter.  He’s a massive Crab like creature.  You’ve got to shoot his leg off then shoot him in the mouth.  You can use grenades but I used the trusty shotgun.

5.2 Experimental Facility -  this chapter leads you to the evil vixen Excella and the Mysterious Bird Lady… they’ve injected a poor slob with the Uroboros Virus but he is rejected by the virus and becomes a bad Uroboros Mkono, which you and Sheva must kill… I must have done this part about 20 times… I used the fire against it and ran out of ammo, etc.

Then I bought some fire rounds for the grenade gun used all of that and still this monster just wouldn’t go down.  There’s a refillable flame thrower that you have to use against it, I finally just let Sheva use it, and conserved my energy.  Finally with rapid fire gun fire it went down, and a whole lot easier than that 20 minute time!

Shucks!

5.3 Uroboros Research Facility: Sheva and I are back at the Research Facility where we spiral up to the top all the way to the platform.  There are the usual Zombie’s to consider, a few of who stop the lift from going up, you’ve got to shoot them for them to release the controls.

Important Note:

Sheva has become a real pain in the ass!  She never goes away, she’s right in your space constantly and when she’s shooting she’s usually shooting me.  She wastes ammo like a girl with a full pocketbook at Macy’s!  Which means she spends like crazy.   And just now with about 20 Licker’s killing us all the time I finally found a way to defeat them by staying a sensible distance from when Sheva drops into the shed.  She’s so goddamn stupid though, I have to constantly hit the circle button, because she’s always running towards the Lickers (about 20 or them), “Come On!”  ”Come On!”  ”Come On!” I have to have Chris say.  I must have had to push the button on Sheva about 30 F’n Times!  Boy in real life I probably would have shot her head off by now… or left her sorry ass in a swamp somewhere.  She has been coded very poorly!

This is the only major problem that I have to RE5, it’s a great game, of course, but I feel like I want myself back!  I’m so used to being alone in games that it has become 2nd nature.  Usually with Co-Player gaming you can tell the ‘Buddy’ to stay somewheres… but here Sheva just isn’t very intelligent… in actual combat she’d be so dead, in just about every way, her survival instincts suck like the Rock Of Gibraltar.  She a nice enough little girly… but I just think she weighs me down, and her popularity with game boys doesn’t much phase me!  She’s been a hindrance!  So I literally think the game would have been even better without her.

With that said let me continue.  I used the Acid Charges in the Grenade Launcher for the Lickers, which is the perfect weapon for them!

In the next Scene the Bird Lady is revealed to be Jill Valentine and she’s working with Albert Wesker… Excella is here as well.  It’s a fight then….Jill has been implanted with a device that Chris and Sheva must remove… thus ends this chapter.

6.1 Ship’s Deck… just your basic stuff many Infantry Majinis some dogs and a few Fat Majinis to get through.

6.2 Main Deck… Wesker makes Excella into a Uroboros who is rejected by the virus and becomes a horrible monster. Chris and Sheva run into the ships exterior to do battle with Uroboros Excella! You get top deck and use the Satellite Laser on the Beast Excella… it takes some work but is accomplished with Excella exploded and done for! Watch the Excella Boss Transformation… way to treat a lady!

Chapter 6.3 - The Bridge : Now onto the Final End here on Resident Evil 5 against Wesker himself.

You and Sheva must battle him quite a lot, but you might say that in the end he’s in too much “Hot Water” to keep afloat!  I won’t put a Video in of this last battle because you may want to play the game.

I try to put Videos in that don’t show too much of Resident Evil 5.  There are so many of these, show all and everythingVideos, now of days, that they can ruin the game experiance for you, who may not want to know too much!

I’d say that Resident Evil 5 was a very good ride, but I must admit that I didn’t like Sheva… I don’t mean as a person, of course, she’s a mighty fine gal as Rock Hudson would say, but I really got frustrated with her!  She was always, I mean always in the way.  I ended up being annoyed by her far too much.   So the makers of Resident Evil 5 should look into the coding next time to allow us some ‘distance’ from a partner.

Sheva in the end was a hindrance to the game.

Still it was a good game and can be recommended.

Well Done.

The one thing about Sheva is that she can either do things on her own (Attack Mode) or she can basically do your bidding (Cover Mode), she does sometimes tend to waste the Ammo! Which is interesting with the Co-Ops Mode that we have here in Resident Evil 5. It’s clear that the creators of the Game were intelligent about the “partner”. The coding is really very well done. Unlike other games with ‘friends’ or partners (like Fallout 3, etc.) you do get a more visceral feel with Sheva in that she really Sticks with you, and I mean she is right on you!

It was odd at first to have this young woman so close to me in a game… considering that I’m very used to shooting anything that close up to me! She is a ‘nice looking woman’ which is cool then, and she does appear to be cool enough to hang with someone of my caliber! Still I do remember a time back when she was using the Shotgun a bit much. She was wasting the precious ammo, ammo is occasionally hard to come by in a Resident Evil game. So you will have to decide which mode you prefer most. Sheva also smashed the goody boxes and runs around on her own in Attack mode. You may want to do the discovering yourself… another interesting note regarding Sheva is that while I had her in attack mode she found some jewels in the water areas, which amazed me because I’d never look or even think to look there for goodies! So she did bring me some intel, for sure. I’m just starting the game but I’m sure that as we progress through our little Evil Adventures that I’ll decide which mode is best for me. A good idea is to switch to Attack Mode for Sheva when there are quite a few attacking zombies and after the zombies, etc, are killed put her back into cover mode. This appears to be the most ‘control’ you can get out of Sheva. Of course in the future there will be great advancements to Buddies or ‘Partners’.

Throughout the Game there are “Magic Emblems of BSAA” you’ve got to shoot them to get points, and also to get Sheva that African Costume and so forth. Honestly, I must admit that I’m really very poor with ‘gathering’ these hard to find treasures. I do get into the tale and end up with less than average on most of these so called Side-Bar Pursuits. Some people really get off in putting it all together and yes, I suppose if I were any good at it, I’d be pretty much the same way.

These BSAA Emblems are dispersed throughout Resident Evil 5... find them and shoot them to get prizes and Sheva gets a sexy Native Bikini to wear.

I’ve run into the Chainsaw Majini, (A shirtless Majini with his head wrapped with a burlap bag armed with a chainsaw. His attacks will instantly kill the player via decapitation) out on the road to the crashed helicopter from BSAA that was shot down. I decided to equip the grenade to see if that would do better. The “CM” (Chainsaw Majini) is one tough customer. But by the time he and the other infected reached me I had wore CM down with the grenade shots and blew him dead after a few shotgun shots.  Cm is know as a ‘Minor Boss’.  On to the Helicopter Crash site where some Infected are on Motorcycles… you have to push some of the right buttons… reminds me a bit of the Clive Barker’s Jericho Game (Underrated) then your BSAA buddies show up.

The Chainsaw Majini is one bad customer. He's a 'Minor' Boss.

From there it’s onto the Mines in chapter 2-2, the GPS system Map is unavailable in the Mines and you get a Lantern and Sheva says that she’ll cover you.  Well, Thanks Girl!  In the mines you reach a larger area and there are quite a few infecteds to off.  Then it’s up into the elevator and beyond.  Once out of the Mine you and Sheva meet Ricardo Irving, who is Excitable and has a gun, it’s a stand-off until a Shrouded Figure smashes through the window and rescues Mr. Irving.  Irving is going to the marshes and there you and Sheva must go as well to track this dangerous man down.

The Mines!

On the way there you and Sheva encounter a Winged Popokarimu which is like a Giant Winged Bat-Caterpillar type creature, he can fly but mostly he follows you round and round the area, there is a big truck which blocks your path.  He has a soft area that you can shoot at.  Finally he’ll eventually expire and your good luck holds as this Minor Evil Boss takes his Truck with him!

This Popokarim can fly, and it can attack... shoot it in the 'rolled up' section where it is tender. You gotta wound it some to relax it.

That ends Chapter 2.2 and so far things are pretty exciting!

2.3 begins with a very exciting ride in a truck where you and Sheva man two big mounted Machine Guns… in this Safari Road moment one of your Bravo Buddies is driving.  You are beset upon by Cycle Nomads that are Infected, lots of them and Big Trucks, it’s a very fun scene… then after that you enter a small town where many soldiers who have mysteriously died litter the streets… who could have done this?  Ndesu that’s who, he’s a giant creature with a huge head and hands, sort of like an insane Jolly Green Giant without the Green and without the Jolly!  Sheva and Yourself man some more machine guns and go to work on him in the town square.  He has many things inside of him that sprout out you’ve got to shoot and shoot but finally he goes down, plopping down like a soggy bag of Bricks on top of the hood of a Subaru!  Fun!

Motorcycle Majini are fun to mow down especially if you have a high powered Machine Gun.

Then Chris admits that things have taken on an interesting note in that his long lost partner Jill Valentine, presumed dead, is now believed by Chris, to be alive!  He talks to Sheva about this and demands that they go it alone: “No orders anymore,”  He warns her.  ”Just you and me!”  He says.  Sounds cosy… end of 2.3.

This Ndesu was fun to kill and expressive. He ends up falling on the hood of a car.

Wikipedia = Resident Evil 5

Well, It’s been awhile since I played Resident Evil, pretty much one of the Grandaddies of Video Games from Yesteryear.  I remember Resident Evil 4 with Leon Kennedy, I actually played that one on the Gamecube!  So you know it’s been awhile.  With this new Resident Evil, Evil 5, we have Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as his partner.  I don’t remember Leon having a partner but we had some fun with Leon perhaps being gay (Sexy Leon from Resident Evil - Evil Gay Thoughts!) because he sure was Pretty!

Pretty Leon Kennedy from R.E.4... He's missed.

But Chris seems like a straight man, he’s friendly and boy his biceps are really very, very large!  But I was thinking how cool it would be to have Chris and Leon in the next Resident Evil and maybe they have a gay affair!  Yes?  No?  Why not?  That would really be cool and maybe the series is Big enough to take some chances.  Well we probably won’t be having that, but anyway, Sheva is pretty nice, she is cute in her way but probably not as sexy as Leon though.   So far I’ve just begun the game and am finding it absorbing as the controls of Resident Evil are some of the most welcome and well known in the Gamer Universe.

Redfield is way buffed, he's been working out. He and Leon would make an attractive couple.

It is a pleasure to be back in the Resident Evil Machine which runs pretty seamlessly.  This new one is set in Africa, and with my latest experiance in Africa (Jackaless African Gun Safari : Far Cry 2 Is A Bit Short On Delivery!) with Far Cry, I’m good and ready to see what’s up in the Ole’ Cradle again.  There was a controversy however leveled at Resident Evil 5 because a white man (Redfield) is shooting black people in the game, which is pretty dang weak, I must say.

Resident Evil 5’s 2007 E3 trailer was questioned for its depiction of a Caucasian protagonist killing black zombies in an African village. Newsweek editor N’Gai Croal began the criticism, stating, “There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery.” He acknowledged that only the preview had been released.

There is nothing at all to this racism charge against Resident Evil 5.  I mean if it comes down to it, why not code everyone in as White then, if you can’t handle it?  I mean sure, If it’s a Vid Game about Skinheads in Africa then, yeah I can see where some people will just lose it, as often happens, still even then I’d wonder if the Story or Plot was serving a useful purpose… Many do tend to go on about Free Speech, so long as it’s the Speech that supports them and their ideas, ideas which are usually complacent!  So let us beware of the do - gooders!  They aren’t gamers after all.

Zombies must be Shot! Racist charges against R.E.5 are baseless and ridiculous!

At any rate back to the game.  It seems that Chris is working for the BSAA ( Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance) and has been sent to this African Province Kijuju, in the African Desert to investigate a terrorist threat to Weapons of the Umbrella Corporation.  Resident Evil 5 begins with trying to locate Ricardo Irving, who is trying to sell viruses on the open market.  So far I’ve been fighting a number of zombies, so me and Sheva are shooting them down, we find Alpha Squad dead or nearly, they were killed by a monster, the last Alpha Team Member gives me a compact hard drive…

Now I’m in the furnace room where the monster that killed Alpha Team forms from the mysterious Black Ooze.  I dispatch the Monster rather easily, as you will as well!  It’s pretty obvious, but we aren’t gonna tell you!  With that done HQ’s says that I’m to continue with the mission and get Mr. Irving at all costs, so I’m off to the Mines apparently.  So far things are interesting, I sure could use a shotgun though I have the shells but no shotgun!  Oh well… onward.

One other note until the next Resident Evil 5 Post. Sheva can be got up to look really very sexy, but you have to gather all 30 BSAA Emblems to get the “Tribal” costume for Sheva to wear. I found a cool website which pretty much shows you where each one is. *click*

"I may not be as Hot as Leon but I'm pretty darn Hot!" Is what Sheva might say on this occasion.

As you can clearly see from the photo Above Sheva is very attractive, especially in this Costume!  Maybe Leon could wear a speedo next time!  That would be hot as well.

Leon Kennedy

Wikipedia = Resident Evil 5

Superfluous is the Word for Plot in Killzone Part 2, I missed the first episode and perhaps that is what the makers of Killzone 2 were counting on, namely that enough players from the first Killzone would have no trouble in understanding the ‘Killzone Conflict’.  Yet because I’m new to this series I came into it cold and really didn’t pay much attention to the story.  Here is the general rundown of Killzone 2:

Killzone 2 follows the events of Killzone and Killzone: Liberation, and entirely takes place on the planet Helghan, the home-world of the Helghast, who invaded an Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) colony. Two years after the Helghast assault on Vekta, the ISA has launched an assault on the enemy’s home world of Helghan. The ISA goal is to capture the Helghast leader, Scolar Visari, and bring the Helghast war machine to a halt. Players assume the role of Sergeant Tomas “Sev” Sevchenko, a battle-hardened veteran of the special forces unit Alpha Team, who go on a mission to take out the Helghast threat.During the invasion of Helghan, Sev’s unit is deployed behind enemy lines to assist the main invasion force. Tasked with securing the enemy capital of Pyrrhus, the team quickly discovers that the Helghast are a more formidable enemy on their home planet. Not only have they adjusted to Helghan’s hostile conditions, they have also harnessed the power of the freakish lightning storms that always occur on Helghan which they can now use against the ISA. A cold, barren, unforgiving world, Helghan provides a ready defense with thick, acidic air, dust clouds, and violent surgical lightning storms. Sev discovers his squad is not just fighting enemy forces – their fiercest opponent may be the planet itself.[8]

Well that sounds good but after the fairly good opening of Scolar Visari making much of his war with the ISA, we don’t much get much story to munch on throughout the rest of the game. I actually felt rushed by Killzone 2, I couldn’t seem to get my bearings in this Shooter.  The ‘team’ is the usual hard scrabble types in Jump Suits, they tend to Bark at me as I’m doing my work, but boy when they go down they never Shut Up!  As soon as one of them is injured you hear this moaning “I’m Hit, Help me, please someone, someone help me”.  It’s fairly annoying hearing it once, but the injured member of your crew never stops whining!

I was finding the ever present ‘Helper’ soldier always on my Ass and forever ‘chatting’ with me.  It’s enough to remind me of Haze and the infamous “Remember Marino”, repeated over and over again.  Game Creators really must remember to be careful about the ‘Dialogue’, these aren’t movies and scintillating speech is the last thing you expect from a Game, yet a character shouldn’t repeat the same sentence too many times, unless it is integral to the Tale or is very, I mean very funny. That aside my Crew were pretty good guys, they are just getting through with this war, but they did seem a bit Call of Duty-ish, in that they are from the future, but they could pass for any man on the street today.  Yet here they all are in Space warring with another Planet.  It is difficult to propel a story in Games without an Alien around, yet with games like Dead Space (My choice for last years Game of The Year) I must expect more from games today.  Killzone 2 is not up to par in this area, I wasn’t interested in the fight because I couldn’t get a clear grasp at what was at stake.

The scenery and attack modes of Killzone 2 are good looking and up to par, there are the requisite guns and they perform adequately, but I didn’t see any Thrill Kill weapons. The Magnum could have been upgradable as could the other weapons. I didn’t find the necessary kill power behind these weapons. The shotgun just seemed a bit weak… I mean I’d shoot the guy twice sometimes 3 and even 4 times before he’d go down… just to remind you I don’t think it would take much more than 1 shot with a shotgun to blast an enemy to hell and back!

So I was a bit perplexed by the weapons. The standard rifle is a Pulse shooter that gives you about 300 rounds but the Zing isn’t that powerful. I liked the bolt gun though it was pretty effective but isn’t very much in use throughout the game. The best gun was the Electro-Gun that you take from a bad guy, it really Fries the enemies good. While I had this gun for awhile I was thinking that at the cut scene it would be taken away and I’d have to use the weak pulse rifle and that was the case. It felt almost like the creators of Killzone 2 didn’t want me to ‘Go Too Far’ with the weapons is all. There should be college courses on how to show good kills in games and effective weapons! The Sniper Rifle was okay but in Killzone you don’t get much space to be a sniper. Often the surface is moving and I must say the enemy forces in the game are well coded they really seem to know when you have them in your sights! Nothing is more restful than being a few clicks out and scoping a villian in your sniper sight of fire and just blowing the head off, but in Killzone 2 the enemy forces shoot and often they actually hit you! They are good shots.

Which brings us to the endgame and Radec, Vasari’s Commander at the Vasari Palace,  it takes quite a while for you to kill enough soldiers to finally get to Radec, they come wave after wave of them.  You end up with Radec who disappears and comes at you with a knife.  You have to shoot him to stop him, and it may take you a number of frustrating times to finally off Radec but finally he’ll appear on the second floor with a rifle.  I zipped on up there and took him out from across the room with a Bazooka, end of Radec.  Killzone 2 isn’t a very long game actually and you could finish it in about a day or so.

From there you finally meet up with Vasari the Leader of the entire Planet, he looks like Darth Vader, but without the mask.   He talks a lot and then he talks no more.  It really didn’t mean that much too me at this point, as there was only action to propel this story along.   There will surely be a Killzone 3 and the creators of this Tale must find a much more compelling manner and way of presenting their story, as it stands now, Killzone 2 is good looking but won’t stand the test of time, it’s a Minor Shooter in a Technicolor Dream coat you might say, lots of flash but no real meat to hold onto.

If you’re looking for a Shooter Killzone 2 will provide, but if you need more to your games, then, you may well feel a little bit lost with Killzone 2.

The Plot just doesn’t measure up to the Mixture.

Written by Clay Scott Brown

Well I felt that I’d see if I could Serailize the new Godfather II game.  As you may know I did play the first Godfather game, and I remember quite distinctly that there was a lot, I mean a lot of driving around.  I never did complete the game, but I found it erieely similar to Grand Theft Auto of all games, and as you know I didn’t like GTA at all (Grand Theft Auto IV: Reviewed by Lost Planet) I still consider it to be a very flawed game!  I’m probably one in a million on this for some reason everyone is Bat-So about GTA… which makes me feel left out,  Welcome To My World.  Still even though I may dislike or even despise a game I still see the attempt and the old Godfather Game, the first one, felt dated even back then.  I do remember that they hired Brando himself to voice the big G, and Duvall and even Caan as Sonny!  So there was a huge build up to the festivities.  I’m really qute surprised that there is a part 2 because I didn’t think that the first Game made enough Money for Electronic Arts.  It didn’t feel like a hit, but must have been terribly expensive.  So I’m really in admiration of this next game and am hopeful about it, even though I couldn’t finish the first Godfather Game.  This series of Godfather Games almost feels like a Labor of Love from Electronic Arts, a company with a Heart…

Hyman Roth is Still Alive!

The game begins with you deciding the look of your character, this is exactly how the first Godfather game began.  You play Domonic.. I remember my last Godfather character for the first game… man I was really mean in that one… I’d punch everybody just for the hell of it, he was one mean Bastard!  In Godfather II I’ve ended up looking like a River Boat Casino Dealer!  I’ve got a bow tie and an ugly stripped tie and I almost look as bad as Fredo!  Hysterical… I sure made my self look non-Mafia!  And by the way it’s funny but Michael Corleone in the game doesn’t look anything like Al Pachino!  I think this is because Al didn’t want to be involved in the 1st game and didn’t get any money… so he’s probably sensitive about it!  It’s kind of funny to see Michael Corleone in the game and not see Mr. Pachino… and the voice is all wrong to.  I mean you can’t duplicate the Godfather!  That’s Copolla for you!  I’ve got a real camera though and took some pics of my character which I’ll put up but probably after these rundowns since I can’t easily develop a film camera!

Well anyway, the game begins in Cuba with Hyman Roth… and like the movie there is rebel trouble with Castro’s Rebels taking over the country.  You play as Dominic, and you must guide your boss, Michael Corleone and Fredo out of Cuba and to the airport.  Aldo your boss is Sniped and killed and you, Michael and Fredo Fly off in a Cessna!

Godfather II is a lot better than the previous Godfather Game.  The visuals aren’t going to blow you away forever, but the graphics are appropriate.  I like the gunwork, the guns are very successful in the game, I think.  You get gads of amo throughout the game and shooting Cops, Enemies or just the occasional standby is really nice.  I did find myself in the beginning of the game shooting cops quite a bit and was pleased that they ‘let up’ on me, I can’t stand when a cop or ‘do gooder’ in a game never lets up… unless that’s the whole game that is!  I shot a few ‘regular people’ a time or two and beat some people up to no discernable effect, so that is good… you just have to wait till the next cut scene and things are good and chummy, unlike in real life!

Michael Corleone (Al Pachino) in the Godfather Game Part II doesn't look or sound anything like him.

The Don’s Screen where you get to see the city and the ‘lay of the land’ is much better as well.  This time the whole city isn’t there and the important establishments aren’t way in Queens or something, it was a major drag in the first game to drive for about 10 minutes, including a freeway drive, just to get to some warehouse to take from Carmine!  So now you can even get there by foot  and reach your destination.  You’ve got to get the various stores and warehouses from other Mafia Families which you then get a fixed amount of money everyday, but you also have to hire regular goons/guards to watch the place… because there are other Mafia Families that will try to take your establishments from you.

There are special members of ‘Your’ family… made men that have certain abilities that will eventually make up your Family.  Like a Medical man who will heal you if things turn ugly in a gun battle, or a demolitions expert who you can eventually send to a Mobsters Establishment to Blow Up and thereby reduce that Mobsters moves on the Board/Cityscape.  The game has improved in that it keeps things going at a clip with calls to the Corleone Compound when things go wrong and clear directions on how to proceed here and there.  In Godfather I The Game… the game sort of let you loose a bit too much and that can be a bit troubling, when, after all you don’t want to get that far into a game… I mean that was my problem with the first Godfather Game and Grand Theft Auto, by the way, in that I didn’t feel like I needed half the bothersome stuff in there.  I mean some Chick asking me to take her to a bowling alley in GTA isn’t my idea of fun!  Or travelling on a highway for 10 minutes in Godfather one was just about as fun as the real thing!

Frankie has something to say... ah... well for awhile that is...

Interesting in the game is the nudity.  There are Vegas Like Strippers in the Casino’s with no tops on!  I guess we are Adults then!  I flirted a time or two but the girls sure didn’t seem all that impressed, even though I’m supposedly a Don and I own the joint, they sure do talk down at me!  I don’t think a Showgirl would be talking like that to me If I owned the joint, I think she’d hop into bed and do what I say!  I mean I’m dangerous and wealthy here, not just some Rube off the street!   Well Nude girls are fun then!  Good for EA for exciting us!

One of the important things throughout the game is not to go to Heavy on who your roughing up… especially for the ones you have to convince to take over a Drug Warehouse or Prostitution Den I must have accidently killed three of them, I hardly hit them, but when they die you have to wait for the business to reopen and do it all over again, until you can take ownership!  So go real lite about these fun and amusing beatings!

The Don's Main Screen is Much Improved from the 1ST Godfather Game.

I had some trouble when killing a Capo of Carmine Rosato at a Construction Site… Norman Rossi you have to kill him with a pistol, you have to literally execute him… I kept killing him with a pistol and he’d disappear.  The game would recover him again and again to the Construction site, and you’ve got to go kill all the guards again and then Rossi… I finally figured it out!  You gotta shoot him in the knee with your pistol, he’ll kneel down, then run up to him and then Click/Shift the Right Knob down and you’ll suddenly go into Execution mode, very satisfing to blast his head off finally!  Well done!  Many people on the internet were asking how to do this, they were stumped!  As was I…  This was a really fun part of Godfather II… very inventive!  I offed all of the Capo’s on Rosato’s team it’s just good fun and not that difficult.

After that it wasn’t hard to destroy Rosato’s Compound and execute him, actually one of my Capo’s shot Carmine with a shotgun!  Which was unusual since I’m the one who’s supposed to do that.

See you at the Party, Carmine!

I had been serializing Far Cry 2 as you can see in my last two posts, but after the shooting of the King and placing his son in charge of the throne (Far Cry 2 : Snap, Crackle and Pop!) I saw that Far Cry 2 may not be as deep as I thought it was going to be.  I was fairly right in this regard, Far Cry 2 is a pretty big game but it isn’t as creative an endeavour as say, Fallout 3, (Fallout 3 Welcome to Glitch City!) which I was unable to complete because of technical difficulties. I continued with Far Cry 2 though, and finally completed it.  In some of the pictures of the game I see that the guns, etc., are pretty new looking!  That is probably due to these ’side missions’ that you can complete throughout the game. I decided that I wouldn’t do these and made sure that I stuck to the Main Story of the game.  I just couldn’t see myself running down a ‘Caravan” of gun runners half way across the map just to open up a few guns.  But indeed it is troubling to have a rifle that Jams on you!  Your guns, if they are not your own actually get Rusty throughout the game!  This isn’t a bad device to tell the truth and does add some realism to the game.

There are Games out there that as soon as they hit the street seem dated already.  This, I believe is because the developers/creators of these games are looking a bit in the past at times.  This isn’t a bad thing, but Far Cry 2 is pretty dated already.  It’s a game that ‘feels’ like a generation behind the Gaming Curve.  You can start to feel pretty lonely in fact if your playing Far Cry 2, on your own these days. Most game boys have blown by it some time ago.  And this was the case with me here, yet I had done pretty much the same with Brotherhood In Arms (A Flash of Hitler - Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway) and in fact, it is kind of nice not to have that kinetic gameboy energy all around.  I mean I was thinking I was going to get Killzone 2 and up pops Far Cry 2… so you see the difference!  Anyway I’m just saying that Far Cry 2 is a very leisurely game compared to other more recent shooters.

To summarize Far Cry 2, you are an operative on a mission to hunt down The Jackal a Gunrunner who has been supplying munitions to both sides of an African Civil War.  The two sides of the conflict the UFLL and the APR are led by their respective Generals who are constantly  bickering about generally petty matters.  It’s a lot of Pride and not much Brain Power, you might say, which is what usually rules these ‘fly by night’ Militias.  The African nation, by the way is fictional.

The goal of the player’s character is to find and assassinate the Jackal, an arms-dealer who has been selling weapons to both sides of the conflict. The player must accomplish this goal by whatever means necessary, even if he has to reach the level of immorality employed by the warring factions and the Jackal himself.

That’s from Wikipedia and yes that was the stated goal, to hunt down the assassin, The Jackal and kill him. Yet the game really doesn’t deliver on this or keep the narrative going in this manner.  The Jackal rarely shows up in the game at all!  You can find Tapes of the Jackal throughout the game, but in the end I only found 2, simply because I wasn’t looking for them!  Instead of hunting the Jackal you’ll find yourself going either to the UFLL or the APR, who when you arrive at the Office they are always ready to either Assassinate their enemies on the other side or blow up and or steal something that their enemies have, the Jackal himself is not much mentioned at all.  That’s the real problem of Far Cry 2 in that it would have been really very cool to see The Jackal constantly mixing it up with me in the game… but amazingly at the end of the game I don’t even get to shoot him! Yet Far Cry 2 is inventive and really pretty fun once you get into the Vibe of the thing.  I focused on doing jobs for the UFLL exclusively, but then the game would only let me do jobs for the APR after that… so the games AI wasn’t all that expansive after all!  Still it was sort of fun to drive around.  You usually have to get from place to place by Jeep, etc… although you can take the bus, which is sometimes necessary, you’ll often have to go through checkpoints along the road that are heavily fortified with militia.  I’d usually stop my Jeep just a bit before they realized I was coming in and Snipe one or two.  In fact all you’ll really need is the Sniper Rifle. My favorite weapon in any game except for maybe a really powerful Magnum is any Sniper Rifle.  I pretty much went through the game blowing away these Militias pretty effectively, especially at the destinations.  I found that if you stop a few clicks out from a ‘town’ or ‘village’ where your main mission takes you, you can snipe one guard and the entire force of the town will soon arrive.  In that way you can get, sometimes, about eight cool kills.  I Bagged quite a few this[a]way!

And this is how the game goes for the most part, going back a forth doing the UFLL’s and the APR’s business for  them.  I was pretty happy towards the end of the game to get the final sniper rifle which I used to good use, and found throughout the game you can just stop in at your gunshop and update the condition and accuracy of your gun then constantly go to the gun supply area to renew it’s newness! This worked out fine, in fact as by the near end of the game all the guns etc, become available.  I didn’t much bother with finding the cases of diamonds, either, there are about 150 cases throughout the game, you open them up and get a diamond.  Well I only got a case when I heard it beeping and couldn’t be bothered to hunt everyone of them down… in fact you get plenty of money/diamonds for doing your missions to buy munitions.

That is how Far Cry 2 goes however and only towards the end do you get to see a bit more of the Jackal, he is against Peace and wants an all out assault for both sides, but then later seems to change his tune a bit, all of which I found a bit unusual. If the makers of Far Cry 2 had focused upon the Jackal as the center of the story, as was promised then Far Cry 2 would have had a real emotional impact and purpose to it, but as just a minor character in a very, finely rendered African Savannah, The Jackal doesn’t have much ‘Teeth’ as we would say in the Congo!  He’s sort of not a part of the conflict it seems… not much of a threat either… still Far Cry 2 is a pretty good game, inventive and has a really good ‘feel’ to it.  You could end up spending many, many hours playing Far Cry 2… I choose to blast through it as fast as possible and even that took me a bit of time to get through… so Far Cry 2 is a worthwhile game but one in which you will wish had got the story better and the conflict with the Jackal more clear and purposeful.

Far Cry 2 : Play but with Reservations.

Written by: Clay Scott Brown

Well, as I continue into Far Cry 2 my first assignment came from a gun dealer at one of the shacks where you buy and upgrade weapons.  It seems that there are some gun runners bringing in some inferior product and the gun seller wants me to destroy the gun runner caravan… he offers me some upgrades on the weapons, etc.  This is a part of the game in that you can take these side assignments.  So I go out and it’s hard to survive at times!  As there are guard posts and men with rifles prowling around in trucks that will shoot you.  They are very accurate and can kill your progress in the game rather easily.  I think it was about the fifth time out that I finally decided to go to the bus station and transfer from there to another bus station closer to where the gun runners were.  I finally get there and the ‘gun caravan’ is a jeep with men with guns and a big truck behind that, they go round and round on this one stretch of road, the roads here are very heavily guarded.  I’ve become pretty good with my Sniper rifle so I was finally able to blow everyone away, and stop the gun runners shipment.  Although the gun upgrades are cool, I decided that after all that I was going to stick more to the main story.

So back to the main story where I go back to Pela and the UFLL needs me to get some gold that is at a desert oasis, left there by the former King of this unknown African Nation.  You can either do what the UFLL says or you can consult with ‘Your Buddy” and go a different route.  My buddy is Flora Guillen, and she says that I’ve got to go to this fort to kill the King and get his gold ring for his Son Prince Oedurard who will be taking over the nation.  Well so far I’ve been going with Flora’s ideas on things… so I finally got to the fort and it’s pretty fun, since there are quite a few there I kill them pretty well, hey, I’m getting pretty good at this, is my thinking on the matter!  So I kill everyone and get to the top of the tower, and the king is standing there talking, he reaches for a gun, and, well that’s that I mow him down like a gutter dog!  End of King!

So I go back to a safe house and give the ring to Prince Oeduarard, Flora isn’t there by the way, and Prince Oeduarard is sort of high on himself, he says that I’d better not cross him because he stronger than his father.  Alright fine!  He does give me the choice of two of his cars as a present.  I take the snazy SUV and head on over to the Oasis where Flora is with the gold.  I get there and tag it, but then Flora is attacked and I’m supposed to save her… Well they kill her and that’s pretty much that… end of buddy!

Well, scratch that I decided to play back that point and saved Flora… after all she gained 10 points in experience…

Now for the next assignment I decided to go to the AFL (I got a trophy for playing both sides!) and the AFL wanted me to assassinate the police chief because he was favoring the UFLL too much.  Good reasons then!  And of course now Flora calls me and says that I needn’t be troubled by killing the police chief during his motorcade but that I should see his brother and threaten him for some important documents, thus causing the police chief to hole up in the police station where I can kill him more easily.  Good idea!  It took a bit of doing but I get to the Police Station and blow away the Police Chief, who starts talking, I pull out my gun and start shooting not listening to any of it, he pulls his own gun and I’m a bit surprised that he is defending himself!  The King didn’t… but I finally blast him away with a head shot!  So much for DA Police!

After that I went back to Pela where the Priest there gave me some passports to give to a friend so that I can get some Malaria Pills!  I have been troubled by the Malaria, going in an out of consciousness so I would advise you to get your medicine through the Priest as often as you can!

Good Tip: You should get into Jeeps when you can, they have a rifle set-up in back and when you press the X you can shoot down the other Jeeps that will usually ram into you.  The good news is that these are pretty easy to kill, the shooter and the driver.

Well after the troubling ending of Fallout 3 (Fallout 3 Welcome to Glitch City!) I was more than ready to move on and now I’ve received Far Cry 2 from my friends at Gamefly.  Game players at Gamefly rated the game at 6.7 but the Game Critics give it high marks comparatively at 8.8 and 8.5… so I at least know that there is something involved.  One must be careful in this area as Many a Time I’ve gotten stuck with games that are not worthy of my attention.  I’m not looking to improve my hand, eye coordination, in other words.  So Far Cry 2 seemed like a good game to at least try as most of the games in my Gamefly Q are very popular and unavailable!  Here is a brief rundown from Gamefly of Far Cry 2:

In Far Cry 2’s chaotic world of mercenaries, gunrunners, and armed militias, you’ll find yourself dropped into a dizzying web of shady clients and paper-thin alliances. All manner of names and faces are introduced during the course of the storyline, but the real star isn’t anyone brandishing a smuggled weapon in search of blood diamonds; it’s the daunting and awe-inspiring 50-square kilometers of African landscape that make up the game’s open-world setting. Aside from providing the opportunity to soak up an amazing sunset, Far Cry 2’s free-roaming terrain brilliantly harmonizes with the first-person combat. The diverse landscape and myriad environmental factors work alongside a wide assortment of weaponry to give you tremendous freedom to approach each mission. Combined with solid multiplayer, Far Cry 2’s sheer breadth of action provides you with plenty of reason to stay lost in the African wilderness despite an underwhelming plot and the occasional sense of tedium in navigating from one location to another on the gargantuan map.

Yes, that is the first thing you see about Far Cry 2 is the African landscape and its lush and vibrant rendition. It’s nice to be in Africa! The beginning of Far Cry 2 asks you to choose a character amongst about 7 mercenaries or fighters I chose Paul Ferenc a 34 year old from Israel. You are in Africa and a cabbie takes you through a long ride to your hotel, but something goes wrong as you have contracted Malaria… you pass out and are awaken in your room by The Jackel, your main opponent in the game. The Jackel is a gunrunner… After your meeting with the Jackel you go through a series of ‘training moves’ in the game, to give you the lay of the land and so forth. Here is the opening tag line of the game:

Five minutes in this country and it’s
Clear – things are about to go very bad.
The UFLL and the APR are gearing up
For open fighting. My mission is simple –
To kill ‘The Jackal’ – the bastard that
armed both sides.

It wasn’t so long ago that this was
another one of those dirty little wars
that barely rated a sidebar. There was
an arms embargo in place, and everyone
back home could just cluck their
tongues and plan their next tax-
deductible donation…

When The Jackal showed up here with
Containers full of AKs and RPGs – That
Set off some alarm bells somewhere.
This guy really puts the fear in the
black-bag crowd. There must be some
history there they can’t afford to have
walking around.

So far I’ve begun the game and it looks fairly expansive. I’ve just left the church and the priest there has given me some medicine for my malaria which I must procure throughout the game! Malaria… I’m not sure but in real life I don’t think I’d be prancing around with guns, etc, while suffering from Malaria! The game looks good though and I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the story unfold.

Here now is the newest Vid of the forthcoming Arkham Asylum. Batman sure looks big, he wasn’t quite as Large as his last Vid Game. I was one of the few who played that game and found it really very good at the time. I was on the Game Cube back then… Do check out our other Arkham Asylum Posts. This is one to Pre-Order from our Amazon Shop!

Batman Arkham Asylum Vid Game Coming Soon

Batman: Arkham Asylum Video Game Teaser Trailer Spotlights The Joker

Well, I sure was enjoying this game, but I’m not going to be able to continue with it as it has froze up!  I’ve tried it from about every direction and no matter what I do I can’t get the game to continue.  This is just after the Tranquility Lane episode where I get to talk to Dad afterwards.  I even tried it all over again and fired Charon, all to no avail the game just Jams up right over at the Jefferson Memorial where I meet Dad about the pumps, etc.  Oh, well!  I think this may have to do with all the Ammo I have and that jammed 10 MM. gun that I mentioned.  I was able to clean out everyone… so right there that’s unusual… unfortunately I’m not gonna be able to see what happens!  Damn!  Fallout 3 was a very good game!  Still these things happen, and there really isn’t anything to do, I’ve ejected the Fallout 3 disk about 20 times in one night… nothing works!  So anyway, let’s move on and hopefully I’ll get back into Fallout with the 4th installment.

Well this is my latest adventure a new side quest called Reilly’s Rangers.  In this one I met Reilly at the doctors office in Underworld where I offed Greta (Fallout 3 - Greta Goes Down!).  Reilly is the leader of her munitions crew and she was injured apparently whilst fighting on the roof of the Statesman Hotel.  Reilly is asleep injured on a cot in the Doc’s office… you have to go through quite a lot of talk to get the Doc to awaken her… he’s worried about her, but he’ll do so even if you have a low speech count… I had a 17% rating on the speech and was surprised when the Doc injects Reilly.  When she awakens, Reilly goes on to explain that she is worried about her men and enlists you to get over to the Statesman to help out.

Well it isn’t that easy to find Lady of Hope Hospital… you have to go through the D.C. underground, but I finally got to the Statesman Hotel but you can’t get to the roof from there… you have to go through the hospital just down the street and cross a downed communications relay over to the 2nd floor of the Statesman. I did so and went through a hell of a lot of killing.

Luckily I have Charon with me, and he is a Hellsend if ever I’ve seen one. I don’t have to bother as much in the killing because Charon pretty much does it for me… I’ve found that with both of us shooting the beasties they explode in a much more timely fashion with the two of us now. Well anyway I reach the roof of the Statesman and talk to the guys and blam! I need a damn battery!

A Fusion Battery to power the elevator to the lobby! I didn’t have one, so I go back into the hotel and forgot how to get out… I literally forgot that their isn’t a first floor!  (Now that I’ve come back to the Statesman, to complete this quest finally, I see that you can’t get through the hole in the ceiling to return back through the Lady of Hope.) What happened is that I simply couldn’t find a fusion battery in the hotel, so I finally just gave up and reloaded at the beginning… over at the Lady Of Hope hospital! Well I transported back to Big Dog and completed the Galaxy News Radio Main Quest. And now, Well, looking through the clues (Mahalo Fallout 3 Walkthrough) “Make sure to investigate the storage room under the stairs to the southwest. Loot the Protectron for its Fission Battery”, well damn!  I didn’t remember the robot had a fission battery!

So I’m back in the building (The Statesman Hotel)  Luckily over at the Lady of Hope all my Kills with Charon are still in effect!  I just sailed right through and opened a safe up to!  Well onto the Protectron in the restaurant’s maintenance area, I got the battery and went up to the roof… the elevator works!  I thought that Brick was a boy until I reached the compound and Reilly calls him a her, up until then I was in love with Brick!  Oh well, I’ll still make him/her one of my top Gameboys this year!  lol.

I get some really cool armor, Ranger Battle Armor which doubled my armor count from 15 dr to 24… Also don’t forget to talk to Mrs. Reilly again, yeah she’s a sure bitch, but chat her up and she’ll ask you to get locations for her on the pip boy.  Well after that say goodbye and then quickly talk to her again and she’ll give you caps for your entire journey so far.  I got about 950 caps from her this way.  I don’t think I’ll be back, tell the truth!

Written by Clay Scott Brown

I believe that I’d better start writing down my adventures in Fallout 3. I thought that Metal Gear last year was long… but Fallout 3 which I kept thinking and calling Fallout ‘Boy’ 3 is so big that I really had a difficult time in deciding how to approach this game. In fact when I first rented this game from Gamefly (Fallout 3 won game of the year from Gamefly users) I was waiting for another game, F.E.A.R., which as you know I didn’t find to be a good game.  So after our review of Hell’s Highway (A Flash of Hitler - Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway) I was waiting for Killzone 2, of course and had Fallout way, way down below, at 10 or so on the Gamefly Q.

Next Morning on Killzone 2 release day I bring up the Gamefly Q and they sent me Fallout 3!  End of Killzone 2 for a few months!  Since it will be rented by everyone and be in low rotation, It will be awhile.  I didn’t know gamefly would pack a game off to me from the 10th position.  I was steaming mad to say the least!  I was of course, going to look into Fallout 3 again, I still had the game saved on my lusty PS3, that data would bring me back to Megaton, which is where I stopped.  So I was really at odds with Fallout 3 to begin with.  I’d never played it before… I had the Gamecube!  Of all things… back then!  Then Gamefly said it was the best game of 2008 and I realized that I would need to really take a look at it again, and for real this time.  I think that there is so much to do and see in Fallout 3 that it can be difficult to ‘think’ about shooters, RPG’s and other games as more than pre-concieved notions of the programmer/creator of these games.  Usually we get to do everything and see everything in any game… but in Fallout 3 you don’t have to do any of the Side-Quests, of which there are a whopping  17!  So you see you may be feeling a bit woosey taking this all in… I mean Gods! I want to play a Vid Game, but do I want to have my life in turmoil because of it!  Maybe I’m going on a bit… ha ha, but still.

To continue I received Fallout 3 and popped it into the PS3 and from then on I’ve been getting better at it and finding myself staying in buildings for a long, long time.  Buildings that have little to do with the actual completing of the game!  A real unusual thing for any gamer to be certain.  So I’m in the process of changing my circuitry in the brain to stick it out, and just do everything and see everything, because I know now that I’d be pretty disappointed in myself if I didn’t.

Well let me update you now on where I’m at.  I have made it to Washington DC… where I’ve come to the Natural History Museum and took up the proposition of Azhrukhal to kill Greta a Zombie that he doesn’t much like and in return I get Freelance Gunner Charon.  You’re supposed to get a special ability to mesmerize her into attacking you, but getting this ability involves another side quest.  Or you can see her outside smoking a cigarette, pop her and nobody knows.  I just found that out as well.

Before knowing any of this I decided to knife Greta, but after killing her I’m shot down pretty violently by the Ghouls!  Next I decided to just shoot her behind the head with my Magnum!  It was great!  Her head was just flying in the air… unfortunately I didn’t save correctly and was gunned down very quickly!  Luckily I was able to get outside of the Museum and then I went to the Archives.  On my return I was hoping that the ghouls would have forgotten my killing of Gretta!  I was hopeful as I entered and yep!  The ghouls didn’t seem to mind!  I told Azhrukhal that Gretta was ancient history and now I have Charon… see what he did to Azhrukhal!

Charon a tough and useful fighter is now with me!

Charon: Charon is a gun for hire that is currently under the employ of Azhrukhal. You can either buy the contract off of Azhrukhal for 1000-2000 caps depending on your speech skill, or you can kill Greta for him. Once you get the contract, tell Charon and he’ll kill Azhrukhal. It doesn’t matter what kind of karma you have with Charon; he’ll follow anyone who’s holding his contract.

This article was written by Clay Scott Brown

I was sure that that was Dante there with the sword of the Devil May Cry Game or Nero. In fact he looks like a super sexy gay version of both! Surely the makers of Matt Hazard are showing us (wink)  “in the closet boys”  (wink) that we belong by this preview vid! The swordmaster there is very Hot! He could surely do a strip tease at Rage in West Hollywood, or at the very least a hot dance down Castro Street during Gay Parade day! And even if the makers aren’t gay or something that only makes it hotter if he’s straight! So keep on giving us these pretty sword boys! We haven’t been this stoked since, (Sexy Leon from Resident Evil - Evil Gay Thoughts!) and let’s thank Bohemoth IGN for it’s support of hot gay gaming scenes!

I was reminded by this vid from The Armory that I have to get back my copy of Fallout 3 so I can finish it.

I wasn’t sure what to think of this title before I got it.  It has received a pretty lukewarm reception but has a fairly good pedigree.  Based on a number of WWII battles Hell’s Highway is very different from the other World War Games most notably the Call of Duty Series (Call Of Duty: World At War - Reveiwed by Lost Planet).  For one thing Brother’s in Arms looks more animated than the Call of Duty Games, it isn’t as ‘Modern Feeling’ either.  There is a datedness to Hell’s Highway which may turn off a few gamers, especially young ones who are only interested in cutting edge everything.  I actually found Hell’s Highway to be rather fanciful at times with its animations and perspective.

In the game you play Staff Sergeant Matthew Baker, as the game proceeds.  Sergeant Baker is someone the other men look up to but who is sensitive to the men he has lost under his command.  Eventually you as Baker start to see things, hallucinations and you are called to question because of these troubles.  I found the emotional perspective of the game to be a bit distant from what I was experiencing.  I didn’t play the first game and some of Hell’s Highway referenced that earlier Brother’s in Arms game.

The game consists of WWII battles with infantry the major part of these conflicts.  You are in command and often you are able to control the movements of your various teams…  these battles involve killing the Germans who are stationed at various important targets throughout the game.  You must have good cover at all times in Hell’s Highway.  Your person is easily killed in Hell’s Highway… just a few bullets and your history!  I found that troubling quite often as I was killed and had to start all over again and again, even when I was just about to kill the last German in the scene.  You have to start all the way back at the beginning of the mission.  I would say to the makers on Hell’s Highway… if there is another one that the save points be updated somewhat throughout the game.  It’s daunting and frustrating to have to return over and over again to well tread territory.   Even on Casual setting not getting Baker killed is a major pain.  Also, one of your men is always yelling “Baker, your being shot at!”  and “I won’t be playing poker with you!”

With the command structure of the game I must say that when I am maneuvering my army buddies here and there it almost gets to be too much of a bother.  I tried any number of combos, and often my army boys just shot indiscriminately at the targets.  The AI is not scintilatting in this area… my ‘team’ just keeps shooting and occasionally questions where I put them!  ”I’m out in the Open, Baker!”  One of them would always scream.  I’d like to break that man’s arm!  Get out of the open, idiot!  Is what you’ll want to scream.  Finally I just had one squad of 3 follow me until I myself shot most of the Germans, in fact I seemed to be the only one doing much damage!  This way after those 3 were dead, and here the game was rather easy about killing off my men, I’d call to the next 3 and so on.  The one exception was the valuable Bazooka Team which actually was very handy indeed.  One Bazooka hit would take out a Tank and fortifications all over the map.  The only problem is that the Bazooka Team isn’t with you later in the game when things get really tough!  And also when your man carrying the actual Bazooka is killed in the game, the Bazooka is gone… the other two on the Bazooka team only have guns!

The guns in the game are fair, I’d say.  The power packed is not as realistic as I’d like actually.  I found later in the game that the Rifle was pretty accurate and the repeater fairly good.  Still the guns need some oohmph to them assuredly.  Indeed I felt that there should be more grenades and some land mines and Molotov’s would be a good touch ala Call of Duty.

Well , Brothers in Arms : Hell’s Highway isn’t near as intense as Call of Duty, still it’s a fairly good game.  I do enjoy the WWII perspectives to be sure, these are ‘good old boys’ that done good, I’d say and it’s pretty hot to go back and win one for the ‘Gipper’, right?  So at any rate the look of Hell’s Highway was pretty neat, hopefully if they issue a new one, something that was strongly hinted at  the end of the game, then the next Brother’s at Arms will be a sure winner.  An update on the Engine, better AI and some kick ass WWII weapons and VGI Visuals will go a long way in making the next title Rockin!

Brother’s in Arms : Hell’s Highway Review was written by Clay Scott Brown