Week 25 - Back to our Regular Broadcast

First off I want to apologize for not writing an entry for the past 3 weeks. Truthfully, though, I have a good reason. Finals were coming up and I had to study for the last 3 weeks so I didn't have a chance to sit down and put some time and effort into my posts. Luckily for you, I have 2 game reviews to share with you. Since I've been away for so long, I have put some time into my gaming and am working on 2 more platinum trophies for this month. I completed Brink about a week ago (both storylines) and completed Socom 4 on Monday! I have about another week to platinum both. Brink is almost complete just a couple more hours of online game-play and I should be good to go, and for Socom 4 I will need to finish my Elite play-through! That's not all I have for you this week... I will also be posting up another mission from my Mass Effect 2 Insanity run! Without further ado lets get started with my Socom 4 review, which I must say is a little iffy... the game not the review :D

Socom 4 Review
For a game I was on the fence about, it hasn't left me with much of an impression. First off I was excited that Slant Sux... I mean Six have given the title back to the original creators Zipper Interactive. Now I'm going to be honest, and say I've never played Slant Six's Socom: Confrontation, but I can tell you I've heard enough about it to know this game is already better. My whole play-through, I encountered only 1 minor bug, which was being spotted (on a stealth mission) pausing and resetting checkpoint to be in the middle of gunfire. A second quick reset checkpoint fixed that with no problem.

When playing this game I was looking for something that set it apart from other shooters, and seeing how this has been one of the only 3rd person shooters left in the market there's not much to compare it to. I can say, though, it didn't leave an impression that made me think, "Wow, I want to play more of this." The stealth missions felt like they were only tacked on to give the game a longer play value..but I can't complain much as it was interacting with the story/following missions.

What got me interested in this game was the Co-Op missions. Sadly, when I tried to play local/couch Co-Op, there was none. I could hop online to play a Co-Op game, but decided not to at the moment. One thing I don't understand is why game companies are getting away with no local Co-Op? Not everyone wants or can play on-line, so why force them to? What if I just want my brother in-law to head over to play some games with me or friends that are getting together for a party? If your gonna allow Co-Op don't take out one or the other, allow both!

Sounds: First off I want to say no Surround sound... My Turtle Beach 5.1 Dolby Digital did not work on this game... WTF?!?!? Are we in the early 2000's? Outdated much? Not a game breaker, but definitely a mark... and not a good one. Music was the right volume until you got into a firefight, which would ramp up the pace of the music (allowing you to feel more intense in some epic firefights) and the volume which was kind of annoying when trying to think or just having to pause to turn the volume down. Each gun seemed to have it's own sound which made the gun feel more unique then the next. You also had the NPC's, the good or bad guys, talking in the game which was a nice addition. Made the characters feel more like real people, but if I hear whats his face say, "I can't stay here any longer..." I'ma shoot him in the face repeatedly.

Gameplay: Nothing that stood out from any other Shooter except the ability to strategically place your team and give them targets, but honestly that sometimes didn't work properly. On the 2nd mission they taught you how to target an enemy, but not give the go ahead until you say when. Well by the 5th mission that stopped working and they would just not do it all together, so you had to push left/right real quick (instead of holding it down). The enemies AI as well as your team were complete nimrods! First off, enemies would charge out of their cover and run straight to your cover to shoot at you. No enemy in real life would risk their life to do that... The AI on your team would constantly run in front of you when your shooting at enemies, and then repeatedly tell me, "watch your fire". This game isn't all what I was hoping. The single player custom missions were a huge disappointment, because I expected it to be more customizable. You get 6 maps, 2 game types (kill leader(s), or retrieve data), and 4 or 5 settings for amount of enemies. If I remember correctly Ghost Recon from 8 years ago allowed you to choose the number of enemies you wanted to face. Why couldn't I get that in this game? Why do I have to choose from low, medium, alot, alot alot... seriously? I was expecting way more customizable features. Other than all those issues, the game-play was smooth and enjoyable half of the time, but not outstanding enough to keep me playing for long periods of time.

Story: Like most shooters, not much of a story. I am seriously still waiting for a decent shooter on the PS3 to give me a Halo quality story. I need more, "Okay this is your mission this how your going to do it", "Follow orders you renegade", "Shit we've been double crossed", and "They have big weapons that they plan to turn on us" lame ass story lines! Give me something people! Resistance has been by far the best shooter storyline on PS3, but it's still really far away from Halo quality (not Halo series Halo one).

Replayability: There is lots of replayability in this game, how long it will last is another question. I got bored of the single player custom missions pretty fast, but online custom missions were quite intriguing. Playing with a team of 3 other people to complete the missions was fun. The little amount I got to play competitively online was just a disaster. The game types were boring and if you played the current style of games, there was a ton of camping in the objective games as well as a lot of spawn killing. The maps and weapons were not balanced properly, I was getting headshot by a SMG from half a map away constantly. I went and tried out classic, which I must say is more my cup of tea. It's a lot like Search and Destroy on Call of Duty, but if you have played Search and Destroy on Call of Duty then you should know when you have 1 life that also leads to a lot of camping. As I expected the Online custom Co-Op missions is why I wanted this game, and I'm not sure how long it will keep my interest. I hear the Single Player game is a whole different ball-game on harder difficulty, and that you have to actually use your team strategically to successfully complete missions. I will be able to confirm that when I go through my elite difficulty.

Graphics: Nothing special, cutscenes weren't rendered, which makes it more difficult to look at after having every game render their cutscenes now a days. No real facial expressions throughout the cutscenes as well. The environments looked pretty stable and decent, as well as the buildings. I could tell the characters were a little blocky looking at times.

DS3: From what I did play, the controls were almost natural. They were different settings than normal shooters, but after a few seconds it just made sense. Responsive controls, easy to use, and fast to learn if need be. I should have checked for customizable layout, but I doubt it as a lot of games are leaving that option out (which I also disagree with)

Move: Again fun to use, but I don't see my self using this over a DS3 when it comes to harder difficulty or competing on-line. Might be fun just to pick up and dink around with, but nothing for serious gamers to get excited over. It was a lot more responsive and better tracking than in the Killzone game. You could also tell this controller was made for Socom. In my opinion, the button layout on the Sharpshooter is perfect for socom 4. The melee was rather easy, and didn't jerk the screen around like it did in KZ3, same with the reload. Although the reload button on the bottom is more realistic I find it much simpler and faster to just cock the front part to get your reload. It was also more customizable than Killzone 3 in it's sensitivity options, and allowing more choices for horizontal/vertical deadzone.

Overall, It was a decent game that missed out on some key points - major key points. I would recommend a rent for this game, and if you enjoy the Co-Op/Online play I would suggest a buy. I would try it out first before you jump to that conclusion though. This game could have been a 8+/10 for me if it just had options such as the local Co-Op. It's a playable game, and very fun if your into the whole strategizing a Navy Seals team to own a bunch of terrorists then this is a great game for you, but for gamers like me this was a lackluster shooter with no attention grabbing story, and poor multiplayer options.

Brink Review
For a game that I was hoping would be good turned out to be sad and disappointing, but on the other hand, a game that I had little faith in was just downright amazing! A game that I didn't want to drop money on, but took my time and chance to win it off of UGO.com and their daily contests. This game is non-other than Brink! A game that caught a lot of bad rep, but for all the wrong reasons. It seems when critics say nono don't pick this game up at all then everyone says the same thing without actually having their own opinion, and just saying nono they said it's a bad game don't get it. Completely gave me a shock when I started playing this game.

When I first saw videos and news on this game I automatically thought Borderlands looks with a Team Fortress multiplayer. How can that be bad? I don't know but it's gonna be bad somehow... I was absolutely wrong. This is the competitive multiplayer that Borderlands should of had implemented into it (would have made Borderlands the best game to date). Unfortunately it's not, but let me tell you why this game is so great. This game doesn't have an amazing story, but I can honestly say it's 8 chapter/levels had more story then Socom 4. The story isn't what matters though, it's the multiplayer. I have never played a multiplayer that required so much team effort to win at. Buffing your team with Health, Damage, extra ammo, more supply bars is all required for your team to win. This game has everything I've looked for in a shooter multiplayer game.

Sounds: I have yet to try my headset on this game, so I couldn't tell you honestly if it supports surround sound or not. Again it is a huge deal to have this and it would be very disappointing if they left this feature out. The sound seems to be very cookie cutter music was just implemented in the game I don't think it changes from firefight to firefight, but I do remember it getting more intense in the last minute of the game. The characters do speak. When you choose out a mission on your mission wheel your guy will shout out what he plans on doing, which is nice for the people who don't have mics.

Gameplay: This is where the game shines for me. First off you get to create your own character from what he looks like, sounds, and wears. You can spend a good hour on customizing your character, but have to say there are limited choices at the beginning as a lot of customizable features are added after ranking up or completing challenges. That's not even the key feature in this game. You have 4 classes Medic, Soldier, Engineer, and Operative. They all have their own key points to them and they make each class definitive in their specialties. Medics can revive and give health boosts. Soldiers is more offensive with boosting your teammates ammo supply while giving yourself armor piercing rounds to go through and Engineers Kevlar buff. Engineers have the ability to give weapon damage buffs, as well as create turrets to cover choke points or defending a position. Operatives get the ability to disguise as the enemy team and hack comm stations, and this can give your team a buff in health or supplies. Each class has a use when it comes to objectives in a game as well with the exception of medics, so every class is needed and one isn't better than the other. The teamwork required is what really makes this game fun and challenging. On top of all this this game also has a point system you get when leveling and each class has it's own upgrades and abilities to purchase giving you so many different options and builds to work on.

Story: It's like beating a dead horse I know... trust me. FPS lack story, and this one is no different. Your on some island that has been abandoned and your given the option to save it or escape it. Most of the cutscenes are just talking about giving your life to get off or saving the island. These cutscenes could have been used to tell us why they are escaping the ark and what happened before the incidents as well as whats happening currently.

Replayability: You can have I believe up to 8 characters, allowing you to build each class on each team. You have 20 levels to max out your character and so many different ways to build characters. It is honestly one of the most well designed multiplayer games created to date and so many different options are given. You can play your character online and offline, so if your friends aren't playing there is no reason you can't work on building your character.

Graphics: This is what seemed to be the proverbial "nail" in the coffin to the critics... Which I don't understand at all. Yes there are imperfections like right after loads, but I have not seen any major issues after 30 secs of game have started up. No tears or rips have popped up or stood out. We are looking at a cell shaded game which is a technology that is week in graphics but gives it a whole new look and color than what we see today, and critics seem to be hung up as it not being the norm. A big plus for this game is they implement your characters into the cutscenes, yea that's right the exact face, voice, and clothes that your character looks like on the opening screen.

Controls: The controls follow every other basic FPS. Aim is L1, fire is R1, jump is x, and etc... If you've played or haven't played an FPS it's real easy to pick up and understand. The only thing different is sprint, which is L2 and honestly I can't argue with it being there. A new technology known as "SMART" has been implemented into the game. Allowing your character to smoothly move across random terrain, did you ever sprint into a rock or a slight risen platform on another FPS and get stuck or unable to step above it. Well SMART allows you to hold the sprint (which would be hard to use on the analog stick which is why I agree with it being L2) making your character more mobile to terrain that would get in your normally on another FPS. The HUD when playing is easy to understand and everything is spaced nicely and neatly.

I highly recommend this game, if you have it hit me up. This game is by far one of the best multiplayer objective based FPS games I have ever played. I plan on keeping this and playing it with friends for a long long time, and when I get flustered with Activision and their poor decisions in Call of Duty I will be glad to pop this in my system instead. All around it is a fresh new experience you don't normally get from other FPS out there at the moment, and I hope other developers take a note out of Bethesda book of online/offline multiplayer games.

Alright and now for my weekly videos of Mass Effect 2. Sorry to keep you all waiting on these, I really wanted to use this week off to get all these video posted today, but I was way to far behind in my gaming that I used it for that instead. Anyways here is your video for the recruitment of Archangel, which is said to be one of the hardest missions in this game on Insanity. Sorry it's hard to hear me in future videos I'll make it an effort to speak louder or determine how to lower the game volume.

Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 1/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 2/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 3/4 (Insanity)


Mass Effect 2 Recruiting Archangel 4/4 (Insanity)


And on that note that is the end of this fun-filled and exciting blog entry. Thanks again to all my followers and browsers for reading, please tell your friends about me and my Super Awesome Blog! If your just browsing please join and come back at least once a week to continue getting updates and new videos of me completing my goal of reaching my trophy mark of 2,012 by 2012! Until next week I hope you guys have a good wonderful week ahead of you. My summer classes start up and my new work schedule kicks in, and I'm hoping this will make it easier and my gaming availability more consistent. Thanks again and catch you all next week!

I have decided to throw up a trophy card from PS3trophies.com so people can keep up on my progress daily.



Trophy Counter:
Trophies: 1438/2012 Platinum Trophies: 23/32