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Skyrim is the kind of game you lie to your girlfriend or wife just to play, the kind of game you skip work for because nothing else matters apart from Skyrim until you are satisfied about clearing a particular cave of necromancers.
TES V Skyrim
Every Elder scroll game starts with a downtrodden given a chance to change the face of the entire game world and Skyrim is no different but the sheer amount of content will knock your socks off. Whatever expression I write down will not be enough because you have to play the game in order to understand where I am coming from. I have 3 other new games that I am putting on hold because of Skyrim.
You play as a prisoner caught in the middle of an uprising between the stormcloaks and the Imperial legion. Ulfric, the head of the stormcloaks shouted the High King of Skyrim to death and he was captured along with you to face execution. In the middle of the execution, a dragon disrupts your beheading with a shout causing chaos and I decide to flee with Ulfric. A lot of RPGs claim to be open world with distant scenery that you can explore but fail miserably. Skyrim is a true open world RPG. The main quest is only a small fraction of what you will be doing in skyrim. There are so many storylines in the game and factions to join, it would be a crime not to try at least playing through the factions.
Fighting a dragon
In order for you, the prisoner to confront this new threat, learning how to shout is essential and shouting down dragons and collecting souls never gets old and there are lots of dragons in the game. Encountering a dragon for the first time can be daunting but when progressing, it gets easier.
Skyrim is to the north of Tamriel and it is cold and the overall tone of the game is darker than Oblivion was. There are new scarier foes, scarier caves and sometimes funnier dialouge than its predecessor. It is the same kind of exploration like in any previous Elder Scrolls game but done better in Skyrim. Almost everything is improved and some others left out for good reasons. Combat is far better than Oblivion and it has a more fallout 3 feel to the menus and in game information display. For instance, if you discover a cave, the display pops up similar to fallout 3 display. The menu system is a little weird and unPC-like. Saving game during combat is Godsend. Level-up user interface is the best I have seen with constellations and stars which make it look pretty. Some skills have been dropped like Athletics from Oblivion and everything has been made simpler. You now focus on particular skills and you are given perks every time you level up. In Oblivion, you get stuck until you decide to advance 3 main skills that had sub skills, it was annoying.
Equipping both hands with weapons or using them both for magic is spectacular and the best for me is weapon on right hand and magic on the left which makes for a potent combination. Get too close, I chop off your head and if you are far away, a fireball will knock you right out. Crafting, alchemy and enchanting are easier to accomplish and also essential if you want to survive on the highest difficulty. The landscape is not as colourful as in oblivion but it is far more varied. In Oblivion, the game did not permanently mark landmarks unless you downloaded a mod for that. Skyrim has solved this problem and there are various landmarks that are just awesome to look at. Every cave or house, landmark is different and unique. Caves are now lively unlike the dull look and feel of Oblivions. They now feel like someone is actually living in them. Lacking co-op mode or any multiplayer, Bethesda has opted for companion system where you can find NPCs that will help fight with you. The easiest way to find a companion is by paying a fee and the hard way is completing city quest where the Jarl will give you a companion. The other way is by completing quest for these NPCs and sometimes brawling with them does the trick.
Oops !!! Wrong Cave folks
The new creation engine certainly does justice to the landscape which is rendered beautifully. Caves are not dull anymore with shimmering light coming through cracks in the wall, trees also grow in caves and many more eye popping scenery. Everything is meticulously crafted except for the various bugs you encounter here and there like backward flying dragons, dragons with corrupted physics when landing, broken quest, things floating in mid-air, etc. But I digress because any game that gives me 150+ hours of super quality gameplay at $50 is a winner in my book. Ice on mountain tops are rendered beautifully with the occasional ice storms blowing past you.
Let us not forget that Skyrim is still in DX9 and the sound, voice acting and dialogue are exceptional. I am going to get the Skyrim soundtrack so I can play it in my car because it has one of the best soundtracks in a game I have ever heard. People still walk stiff but not as stiff as in Oblivion. Your character has a funny way of recovering from a shout when knocked down; the animation is so downright funny and at the same time shocking to see how he or she stands up.
My review of various storylines in the game:
- Main Quest – 95%: Better than in Oblivion
- Thieves Guild Quest lines – 90%
- Mages Guild Quest lines – 90%
- Dark Brotherhood Quest lines – 92%
- Companion Quest lines – 85%
- Imperial Legion – 85%
- Bards College – 70% : Too short
- Daedric Quest – 88 %
- All City Quest – 90%
- All Settlement Quest – 85%
- Miscellaneous Quest – 94%
I choose the imperial legion in my first play through and I am sure the stormcloak’s are just as awesome.
Everything about this game screams PLAY ME NOW and after spending 165+ hours, I feel like I can go back and put in another 140+ from the beginning meaning I will be efficient.
Whiterun
In Game Menu
The Witcher 2 reminds me of… Ehm… Apparently I cannot think if any game or movie this incredible interactive piece of software reminds me of because it is unique, gorgeous and satisfying. This game has some unique set pieces that are unmatched, more reason why it will be contender for RPG of the year. I have not played a game in 5 months since my PC went dead and this was the only game I could think about once my PC was up and running.
King Foltest, Geralt and Triss
After an assassin failed at killing King Foltest from the ending of the first game, he entrusted his protection to the Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, a well-known and feared mutated monster slayer with a knack for making bad decisions. This game is full of decisions that will lead you to several paths. There are 2 major paths or allies you can follow depending on the decision you made at the end of chapter 1 Geralt let his guard down for one second and the King is slain by another witcher who is basically an assassin of Kings because he killed other kings. The castle guards immediately rush in and they see Geralt leaning over Foltest’s body. This scene does not look good for anybody no matter how hard you try to convince the guards. The real game begins when you break out of jail, joining your sorcerer friends Triss Merigold and Vernon Roche to a city called Flotsam. There are twist and turns as you navigate Flotsam and its surroundings solving quest after quest.
Mysterious Fog
Gameplay is just the same as the first game in 2007 in which you only have 2 swords: a steel and silver swords which are used for Humans and monsters respectively. The combat system is better and very fast. With any typical RPG, you get to level up and spend skill points. Spending skill points is simple and if you try to choose everything, you might not be able to complete a particular skill like combat but choosing skills from magic can also help in combat. Alchemy and potion drinking is essential if you are playing at a higher difficulty which is easy to make. The best potions are the ones that enhance your combat abilities or skills in my opinion. At some points, the game can be very difficult even on normal settings. You cannot take potions on the fly but only if you meditate for a split second. This sometimes is a problem because you might forget to take a potion before going into combat only to realise that you are outmatched by a foe. The Witcher 2 graphics and sound are fantastic. For a direct X 9 game, if they told me it was Dx 11, I would have believed them but FRAPS does not lie and this game looks gorgeous on an HD screen. Some graphics settings will have to be turned down in order to keep at least an average of 40fps if you are running a system that has a core i5 2300 Sandybridge and a 2 year old HD5850. Surprisingly the HD 5850 is good enough for even ultra settings but with UberSampling disabled. Character lip-syncing is spot on and mature in content. When combat kicks in, you can hear every single slice or tabbing.
Enjoying the Scenery Geralt. Go back to work
There are some memorable characters in the game that stand out like Letho, Triss, Vernon and so on and so although there is a lack of deep character development going on here. I wish The Witcher was a true open world game because it can be linear at certain points but it is still worth playing. I could not think of a better game to sink my teeth after my hiatus for 5 months. This is a must play for any RPG fans out there.
Fable coin golf on Windows Phone 7 is fun table game that involves you getting rid of evil in the land and conquering each area by getting your hero puck into the pillar of light in as few shots as possible for better scores.
Gameplay Map
The main weapon here is your trusty puck that has 2 firing modes which can be set in the options menu. When it is set to off, you can pull the puck by releasing the arrow. The farther you pull the puck, the farther it will go while the second mode involves you tapping the fire button to shoot the puck. There is a reason why you shoot the puck which clears a lot of dangers in the way and enables you collect lots of coins.
There is evil in the land to smite, shrubs to clear, water to scale across. This is where power-ups come into play. There are 3 power ups: Green Power up (Axe) enables you to be able to cut down trees along your path to enable you reach your goal in as few shots as possible while earning lots of coins. The soldier sword or red power up enables you cut down enemies in your path to victory. The Blue Power up (Carpenter’s Hammer) enables the player build bridges to avoid your puck falling into the water. It all sounds easy enough.
Hell No!!! Level design requires that you put your thinking cap on. Shooting the puck straight ahead into the pillar of light will be too easy but you have to manoeuvre it through various elements in the game like enemies, water, ice, explosive barrels, balloons and rubber bands, teleporting gates called Cullis gates, etc. These elements certainly make the game very lively and can be replayed for a higher score.
In order to progress to the next level, you have to earn at least a bronze in a previous level. Each shot taken deducts -100 points and you need to keep up with the level progression requirements. Also make sure that you hit something except enemies. The maps are varied and tactical and the graphics are beautiful for a mobile game with good enough humour plus a solid audio to boot.
Fable coin golf is a solid package that should not be missed if you own a windows phone 7 smartphone.
Crysis 2 is the kind of game you brag about to friends and family. Crytek announced that they were going to go multiplatform and my heart skipped a beat because I thought PC gamers were not going to get the same quality of gameplay we got from their technological and gameplay marvel that was Crysis.
Prophet
Prophet survived the Lingshan Island according to Crysis 2 story in which he went AWOL during the last scenes in Crysis. Crysis 2 story is about the rise of the Cephs or Cephalopods in New York and one protagonist’s mission to save the city. New York City is under siege and the nanosuit is your only hope of fighting back the deadly virus unleashed by aliens who were here before us buried deep in the earth. They are here and doing some house cleaning. We are the roaches in the fridge. Prophet gives the protagonist the suit and the fight begins with unbelievable carnage seen around this gorgeous rendering of New York City. The story goes deeper and I beg you to complete at least 75% of the single player campaign before casting your stone.
Crysis 2 has some amazing shooting mechanics and they feel heavy and powerful. Level design is one of the best I have seen for a shooter with the landscape changing before your eyes. The game is linear in some places and open in some. With so much devastation in the City, routes will be difficult to find and hence the linearity. In some cases, the game opens up to some very good vistas that give you tactical advantage over your foes. The nanosuit enhances this advantage with stealth mode. Stealth mode enables you to become invisible but not if you are 2 meters away from the enemy. The best way to reduce stealth energy usage is by crouching and I was crouching all the time. In fact you can play the entire game cloaked if you wanted you. The suit also gives you the ability to mark points in the map for tactical advantage like ammo dumps, stealth areas, observations areas and so on.
Map Scale
If you are caught with your pants down, you can activate maximum armor to absorb the bullets directed towards you. Maximum armor can also save you from falling from heights if necessary. Crysis stealth, speed, armor, strength modes were all separate but in Crysis 2, stealth and armor are separate but speed is automatic when you press the SHIFT button. Some will call this dumbing down but I call it efficiency and effectiveness but the speed is slower here. You can still grab enemies and fling them around if they come too close by pressing F.
Customisations return to guns and armor enhancements at your fingertips. Just like in Crysis, you can add silencers on the fly, shotguns and scopes. I prefer it without the silencers because of the sound. Armor enhancements are upgradable only by killing cephs and collecting the crystals dropped. A.I. in this game is not what I expected because they tend to run around in circles. They also take cover and flank you when necessary but we have seen this in so many games except for the excellent A.I in the first FEAR game
Cloaking mode
Multiplayer is decent enough to warrant investment of time levelling up and unlocking new weapons and other combat paraphernalia. The nanosuit brings enough decent gameplay to the playground which conceals and extends your capability in the battlefield. The main draw for me is the map variety and the level-up you get for using armor or stealth when killing your enemy. This is a good multiplayer
Crysis 2 is not DX 11 out of the box. Graphically, Crysis is far more superior to the second with high resolution textures, with huge maps and long draw distances as far as the eye can see. The beauty of the first game was that you were given options to adjust textures, motion blur, physics, shaders, etc. Crysis 2 is bare which is insulting to all PC gamers and the fact that it is DX 9. Although the lack of support for DX 11 is very annoying, the game looks gorgeous with the extreme pre-set adding antialiasing to smooth things up. Sound on the other hand is phenomenal with city echoes and explosions that will blow your speakers away.
Crysis 2 is a gorgeous, meticulously crafted shooter that tells a good story about the fight for survival of the human race. I bought it and you should too no matter the platform
Ceph Carrier
Mafia 2 is an interesting game which any gamer should try when the price is right because it is good.
Made Man - Vito Scaletta
Here is why I liked Mafia 2:
+ Great storyline about crime families, trials and tribulations of protagonist Vito Scaletta and his crime loving friends
+ The cut scenes are great and should not be skipped because they contain information about the gameplay
+ Shooting and cover gameplay mechanics are solid and simple to use. Carrying a lot of guns is permitted
+ The open world of empire bay is gorgeous and does not pop into the screen at any distance that I have noticed
+ Voice acting is superb and very accurate in terms of gangsta talk back in the 50s
+ Overall graphics is spectacular and ragdoll physics is one of the best I have seen in a long time
+ Some characters really stand out from the storyline with the strongest being Leo Galentte, Joe Barbaro and Vito Scaletta
+ The music and soundtrack from the car
Joe and Vito on a killing spree
What I did not like:
- Most of the game is spent driving around empire bay and they expect you to stop in traffic.
- Weird ending to a good but cliché crime story.
- Empire bay could be compared to an Island in Grand Theft Auto 4
Dragon Age Origins was a huge game when it came out in 2009 with enough back stories to every race to fill a 2 hr movie. Dragon Age 2 is leaner, meaner and in few cases better than Origins. The reason for this is that I went back and fired up Origins so I could compare and my verdict is I never want to go back to Origins because it is tedious.
Companions
Storytelling (8.5/10)
Varric Tethras tells your adventures to a Templar interrogator according to how you play starting out with your hero running away from lothering with your family after choosing one of 3 classes of only human race: warrior, rogue and mage. In Origins, I tried playing with Elf or Dwarf but I never got past the backstory because I had completed the game with human warrior because after the backstories, everything else seemed to be the same although conversations might differ slightly if you play different races. Other gamers will be pissed at Bioware for leaving out other races. I am not.
Hawke
DA 2 has a great story behind it which involves the war between Templars, The Qun and Mages and Hawke is smack in the middle trying to choose sides. After fleeing lothering and encountering Flameth, you travel safely to Kirkwall, a city that is helping refugees because of the war with darkspawn. Kirkwall and its surroundings is where Dragon Age 2 is based and you might wonder about the scale because Origins scope and scale was enormous. This is a leaner game and I am all for it. 40 hours of first gameplay through to the end is still huge but shorter than Origin’s 60 plus hours.
There are various quests for you to undertake in the game which will involve you finding a missing wife, helping companions complete missions, looking for ingredients and fighting deadly monsters. Dragon Age 2 is about the journey and at the end of the day you will have to choose which side you will defend. I stuck with the mages because the Knight Commander was a lunatic who simply hated mages because of their power of magic. That did not fly with me because not every mage was bad. The experience and end story could be different for you depending on how you choose.
Gameplay (8/10)
Combat is the main saving grace for this package because after playing Origins again, DA2 has the fastest RPG combat ever made and is less tactical. The PC version has been stripped of its tactical view which I used once in a while in Origins. Controlling your companions is still fun but I do not know why Bioware decided to stop the user from changing companions armor. OMG BIOWARE what have you done. Changing companion armor was crucial in Origins or even other RPG games. Instead they opted for a more mundane armor enhancement which you can buy at a store. Changing weapons and effects still stay the same for all companions with a very weird rating system. If you level to 40, most or all of these star ratings are empty except that you have to look hard for a better weapon or armor or whatever.
Combat
Combat is fast, furious and sleek no matter what character or class you decide to play with. Rogues are swift and fast, mages spew out magic with great finesse; warriors pound the living daylights out of foes all while looking good. I went back and played Dragon Age Origins just to check out the combat and DA 2 is five times better in every single way except for the tactical view that was removed.
I am all for recycling products to reduce waste but I do not know what Bioware was thinking recycling dungeons, landscapes and house interiors. If you have seen a particular scene, there is a high chance you will see it again and again and again but instead of entering from the way you came in the last time, it forces you to use a back door and some spaces are closed off so you can proceed straight to your mission. Whatever happened to adventuring and getting lost in a game world and coming back to the mission? This is very odd and why the score is lower for this section.
There are lots of enemies and some spectacular battles with strange looking bosses using new and old spells and skills add-ons that make the whole experience worthwhile. Attributes, abilities, tactics interfaces have been made simpler. Abilities have been done using tree-like structure. In Origins, as you move up the levels and encounter new places, you get several levels of healing potions, simple healing potions, medium healing potions and high healing potions. DA2 has stripped this nuisance to just quick healing and lyrium consumption and so on.
Dragons
Bioware has brought the Mass Effect type dialogue to Dragon Age 2 with dialogue dials at the lower center of the screen and the protagonist talks this time around. Every dialogue has a friendly, joking, mean; loving or I have no clue response.
Dragon Age is nothing without companions to spice it up with funny, outrageous, racist or naïve dialogues. In fact, the dialogues are best when you switch up companions while on a mission. In origins, I left some companions while on a mission for a long time but in DA2, I seem to be enjoying everybody’s company and their problems which I liked solving. Every problem solved for a companion brings you closer to being friendly with them and this also improves your skills because they are loyal to you which will be helpful during the game endings.
Some things that were annoying in Origins have been shifted to the sides of the screen like saving notification, quest notification and the quick spell bar has been merged together left to right and so on. Does anybody remember the fade mission in Origins?
Graphics and Sound (8.5/10)
Dragon Age 2 looks very good once you download the 1 GB texture mod Bioware released on day of launch. This is the another DX 11 game apart from Metro 2033 since last year that has stressed my PC using new technology like Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO), tessellation on the rocks but missing from characters and so on. The lighting is very good and the overall look and feel of the game is brighter than Origins. The best part is watching as sparks fly all over the screen when mages do their thing or specifically when they drop fireballs.
The music in my opinion was rushed and sometimes does not blend in with that particular moment when something is happening on screen but every blow, every magic and every disappearance can heard if you listen closely and DA2 has a spectacular voice cast and dialogue just like the Mass Effect games which is the best in the business.
Verdict (8.3)
Despite its various flaws, Dragon Age 2 is still the best choice driven storytelling, spectacular combat oriented RPG you will ever play. I bought it and I played it twice.
Outskirts of Kirkwall
Bulletstorm is a profanity heavy shooter with dick jokes to make your stomach turn every single corner. As a shooter, the game works extremely well with kill skills that will make you giggle all the way to the end.
Grayson and Ishi
Here is why I liked Bulletstorm:
+ Good storyline about a mercenary group betrayed and exiled to a gorgeous mutated paradise after finding out they have been working for the wrong reasons killing innocent people. The funny thing is that, the culprit has also crashed landed on the same planet and it is up to the remaining Dead Echo Mercenary members: Grayson Hunt and Ishi to find a way out of this forsaken rock.
+ Complex kill with skill mechanics that rewards you for finding different and ridiculous ways to kill your enemy.
+ There are 8 guns in the game that are upgradable to pack more punch and enable new kill skills.
+ Some funny over the top dick jokes
+ Ishi is a memorable supporting character followed by Trishka
+ Interesting and varied enemies with over the top blood splatter around the environment
+ In game cut scenes should not be skipped because they are interesting to watch
+ Controlling bullets coming out of sniper rifles is awesome
+ Spectacular scenery, gorgeous graphics, lighting and overall good sound. The over the top HDR lighting in the game is compensating for some plastic textures found throughout the gameplay but overall, it looked very good
Plant Monster
What I did not like:
- No sense of freedom and extremely linear
- Weak multiplayer with only one mode of gameplay
- Ishi is the best character but overall, they were undeveloped and you did not care what happened to them.
- A.I. is dumb and they keep on running towards you although they occasionally take cover
- Boss battles are easy even on hard difficulty using the same routines and some quick thinking which I am sure you might not need
- Short single player campaign which can be completed in 6 hours even on hard difficulty
- On my PC, with a Core i7 930, HD5850 and 6gig RAM, it was stuttering all the time. Not nice at all.
Trishka
Verdict:
Bulletstorm is the kind of game that wears off after playing the single player because there is no reason to jump back in except for the multiplayer which will not last long due to lack of different game play modes. What saved this game is the kill with skill mechanics that rewards you for finding new ways in eliminating the competition but that gets old quickly. The experience could be different for everyone. Don’t take the game seriously.
Darksiders PC
Darksiders PC Review (8/10):
Darksiders is a puzzle heavy, third person combat game ported over from the console with a neat story about heaven, hell, earth and protagonist War smack into the middle trying to clear his name.
Here is why I liked it:
+ Great combat system with adequate combo skill system
+ Great selection of weapons, upgradables and add-ons
+ Huge environments and surroundings
+ Good graphics and spectacular sound
+ Spectacular boss fights
+ Good story about good and evil
+ Crazy puzzles to solve and sometimes overwhelming and time consuming.
Why I did not like it:
- Repetitive combat after some hours of gameplay
- In game menu is too console like
- Some puzzles can get tiresome and tedious especially when you get closer to the end.
Darksiders for PC is the kind of game you get when the price drops to around £20 or $30 or less in order to appreciate the package which has no multiplayer or co-op. Overall, this is a good game worth checking out.
Riddick
Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena PC mini Review (7.8/10):
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was one of the best games I played in 2004. There were so many things that Tigon Studios got right which included: hand to hand combat, stealth, shooting, dialogue, casting and Vin Diesel himself. The game was almost perfect. Dark Athena continues where Butcher Bay left off with Riddick escaping prison with Johns and running into the arms of a ruthless mercenary which also means that you must do everything to escape from the clutch of this mercenary. Assault on Dark Athena uses the same formula with new weapons, new cast, same awesome shooting, awesome stealth, new story and adds Escape from Butcher Bay to this package. The openGL engine is getting old but the sound is till spectacular and haunting once you enter those dark corridors and vents. Sneaking up to enemies does not get old and it works very well. 2 games for the full price of one is nothing to complain about. I am a Riddick fan and although there were few new gameplay features, it is still a good game and worth trying if the price is right and you will not regret it.
Brothers Ray and Thomas McCall in Call of Juarez Bound in Blood
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood PC mini Review (8/10)
Call of Juarez is an interesting game with a good story, great combat system set in the Wild West during the American civil war. This is an adventure of two brothers Ray and Thomas McCall who desert the army to save their home while Colonel Barnsby hunts them down for fleeing. While on the run, they decide to seek out the lost treasures of Cortez with the intent of using whatever loot found to rebuild their home. While in Mexico, both brothers meet a lady name Marisa, mistress to a local outlaw named Juarez who also wants to find the lost treasure but without taking out a competitor name Devlin using the McCall brothers as his death messenger. The story delves into apache territory where the tribe is waging war against “the white people” and also in possession of a medallion which they claim can help the McCall brothers find this treasure.
During the gameplay, you can choose either character to play with which is very neat. Ray is a heavy hitter while Thomas carries light weapon and is more flexible. The shooting mechanics are very good and every now and then, you are given a chance to quick draw on a level boss just like in the movies. You can also buy weapons and ride horses. The environments are huge and dusty and meticulously detailed with the sounds of the west. This was a good experience although a little flawed here and there. Multiplayer is OK and empty at this point in time. Overall this was a good buy.
Dead Space 2 is an extremely linear game with some memorable set pieces, predictable scary tactics and also a somewhat weak psychologically thriller. The first one was very original and very scary but it seems that Visceral decided to play safe developing the second for some reason. Your experience could be different because I am not easily scared.
Story (8.5)
The protagonist Isaac Clarke wakes up in a massive space city called “the sprawl” after surviving the nightmare in Ishimura where it all started. Our lone survivor confronts a slew of powerful necromorphs, is being hunted by the government and also haunted by the memory of his dead girlfriend. Isaac must do everything to save himself and stop the necromorphs no matter the cost.
Isaac Clarke
Gameplay (8.8)
You wake up wearing a straightjacket and the doctor sent to help you gets killed right in front of your eyes. Running through the halls with a straight jacket while trying to avoid necromorphs is not easy but after a short while, you are given the trusty plasma cutter, BRING IT. Isaac is still a slow walking, deadly tools toting hero with a knack for making bad decisions.
A city like the Sprawl is presented in very linear patterns that it makes Ishimura look good because it was a mining space ship. Running through a mining ship is acceptable but the Sprawl should have been opened up for exploration because I felt like I missed seeing some parts of it and killing more necromorphs but considering the vastness of some of the areas you encounter, it is not so bad. In fact there are varieties of places you visit, like the church of Unitology, a day-care and the best being going out to space to fix stuff. The set pieces are beautiful to look at and that is why I think, they should have opened it up a little bit for exploration.
Isaac’s tools for taking down necromorphs are very powerful, varied and upgradable using power nodes which can be hard to find. The various ways in which the weapons kill enemies is interesting and every weapon is unique. If somehow you run out of bullets, sharp objects and body parts can be used to impale necromorphs and it works extremely well. Upgrading weapons is done at the store found in various locations around the Sprawl using money and selling semi-conductors. Armour can also be upgradable only 3 times during the entire first run which is a little disappointing.
Deadly Necromorph
New foes have also been added like little kids and exploding babies which is a little disturbing but makes the entire creepy experience worthwhile. Necromorphs like in the first game can be killed or slowed down by taking out their limbs one at a time. Some spit, explode and just outright stalk you but this scenario can be very predictable every time you enter a new area.
Every now and then Isaac’s dead girlfriend appears to haunt him at various places but I was not buying the scary tactics in these scenarios for some reason and I never jumped out of my sit. Put it simply, I was not threatened by her appearance or any of her mischievous psychological deeds and this part for me was a total let-down.
Jumping into space to fix broken stuff is fun and should have been frequent. Zero gravity has been refreshed to include flying and turbo boost which adds more gaming quality to the whole package.
Multiplayer is Ok and just fun without anything new to stop you from playing other online games. The single-player is actually very good that it is Ok to forget the multiplayer which will not see a huge following in the long run. Other things I do not like about this game is the old ways of healing which involves running through a vast area, killing enemies and then collecting money, health or cartridge for your weapons. It is too old school for a great modern game. This is an example of playing it safe
The Sprawl
Graphics and Sound (9)
The Sprawl is gorgeous to look at with every detail meticulously crafted to melt your eyes. Isaac’s armour is amazing to look at including the various necromorphs. Although the whole experience was not scary enough for me, the necromorphs look deadly and scary. The whole atmosphere was meticulously crafted to be gorgeous and scare the pants off anyone and it works.
Dead Space 2 sound is also crafted to haunt your dreams and the best way to experience this is have a 5.1 surround system and turn the lights down and turn the audio up because you can actually here enemies approach you from behind. Gunplay sound is extremely good and every tool has a different sound.
Dead Space 2 is a great game that will haunt your dreams, make you jump out of your seat with its cinematic single-player campaign even though some scares are cheap and will pull into a climatic end that you will beg for more. This is a recommended buy and a worthy follow-up to its predecessor.
The Last Sam Fisher game before Conviction in my opinion was broken in so many ways that I did not finish it and I finish 90% of my games no matter what. Splinter Cell Conviction is a much better game with unique gameplay features that companies will copy in the future. The story is quite good and could not get any better than this. Third Echelon is being defunded by the government and someone higher up will pay dearly with his or her life, hence it is up to Sam Fisher, former Echelon employee to save the day.
Interrogate Kobin
The game-play has been refreshed from the past games with new features like tagging enemies which I used frequently. Make no mistake; it is still a very good sneak game with better controls. Other notable gameplay features include moving from one hiding position to another by just pressing the SPACE BAR. The tagging system activates when you press C close to an enemy then you can tag up to 4 enemies and execute them neatly. There are so many guns in this game which are all upgradable to add better range or add an additional execution tag. Although it felt a little a repetitive with the tagging system, it was executed well in my opinion. The famous goggle returns with one switch that does everything which is very neat. Apart from the gameplay changes, the environments are varied and very well executed with missions clearly written on walls of buildings, on the ground and sometimes other obscure things in the surroundings.
Sam Fisher
Apart from the single player, multiplayer is good in that you can decide to play the game co-op with a friend which adds extremely good value to this package also with customizable gears to boot. I did not have any connection issues at all which is a plus.
Graphically, conviction is a very good looking game with high resolution textures and fluid character animation. Everything turns black and white when you are perfectly hidden from your enemies. Sound is spectacular with 5.1 surround sound and everything works the way it supposed to. This is the best Sam Fisher game ever made although the single player is short.
White House Mission
Sneaky Sneaky
