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Dec 10th, 2012 at 12:33:14 - Halo 4 (360) |
Not too long ago, I finished my second play through of Halo 4. I can honestly say that my first review of this game was a rave due to me being a huge fan boy of the series. That is not to say that I did not like the game this time through, I still do, I just started to notice the flaws this time around. I keep getting this feeling that everything about the game seems forced. The story, I thought, was great, 343 Industries just did not do the best job telling it. There seemed to be a bit of assumption while telling it, where 343i was assuming that the player knew most of the extended Halo Universe. Unfortunately that is not the case for most players. It felt to me as though they were trying to pull of something epic but did not do it in a way that came naturally to them. To go with force story telling, the gameplay was even harder to deal with this time. Running to destination x to press a button gets old after a while. I will give them credit though, they introduced a lot of new vehicle driving and pulled it off very nicely.
Lastly, the music. I guess you could say that I had super high expectations for the music. When I think of Halo, I think of Marty O’Donnell and the most satisfying orchestral movements my ears will ever hear. There is no comparison that will do Marty O’Donnell’s work any justice. And I knew that the soundtrack for Halo 4 was not going to be as good going into the game. As talented as Neil Davidge is, he is no Marty O’Donnell. My problem with the music was the same as it is with the rest of the game: it felt forced. Forced in a way where it seemed like Neil Davidge was trying to make something just as good as Marty while giving it his own twist. You just can’t do that. It was still great music; I’m just a bit disappointed. But hey, you can’t please everyone.
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Nov 26th, 2012 at 12:24:11 - Assassins Creed III (360) |
This past week I finally finished Assassin’s Creed III. I am disappointed. This game was built up to be something so spectacular, and gameplay-wise, it was, but other than that, nope. The missions and battle system were fantastic. No mission felt the same as another. The naval battles were something that was completely unexpected and it was pulled off with fabulous fashion. The animations and fighting combos were beyond amazing and incredibly fluid. But that is more or less the end of the exciting aspects. The story was at most mediocre. Connor’s story was acceptable, confusing most of the time, but it was not too difficult to swallow. Desmond’s on the other hand, was poor. It consisted of the usual “fight the Templars before they take over the world” and go here and do something real fast and then come back. Characters were introduced in ways that played them off to be really important but then left in the dust without an ending. Even the characters that have lasted most, if not all of the story, were left without a proper ending or even a purpose in this game. They were just there. The game was essentially left without an ending. There was an ending all right, but it was extremely dull. It just kind of happened and that was that. It was nothing radical or surprising either. To add to that, the ending cutscene seemed to pull a Mass Effect and offer you a choice but then completely reject the player’s existence and go about its merry way and choose for you.
Now that I’m done and can form a complete view of the game, I didn’t hate it, I didn’t even dislike it. I was just hopeful and let down. Brotherhood still remains way above the rest in my book.
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Nov 19th, 2012 at 18:06:35 - Sir Benfro's Brilliant Balloon (iPd) |
After playing Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon in class the other day, I instantly wanted to try it out for myself. I’m glad that I did. The first thing that got my attention was the art style. The quirky, sketch-like, and flat art of the whole game pulled me in right away. However, after only a few seconds after launching the app, what got me really excited was not the art style, but the music. The music created this whole new mood that fit the game extremely well. It was happy, adventure music, reminiscent of Little Big Planet. It got to the point where I would play levels over and over again, especially the first level, Yellow Leaves, just to listen to the cheerful music. My main reason for continuing to play was just to hear the beautiful music.
In terms of gameplay, Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon is just a reincarnation of classic games such as Helicopter, and Jetpack with a few new twists. All the player needs to do is collect “fireflies”, which are just floating balls of light, to keep the player afloat all while avoiding crashing into the walls or big animals that cross your path. Just get to the end before you run out of fireflies and that’s it. Simple. But also enjoyable.
By no means is Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon a huge, heavy duty, iPad app such as Infinity Blade or other games of the like. But at the same time, it is just as great as its differing cousins, just in terms of completely different aspects. The game is great. Simple and beautiful and extremely pleasing to listen to.
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Nov 11th, 2012 at 13:54:44 - Halo 4 (360) |
There is a quote from the book 2001: A Space Odyssey where one of the characters says, “my God, it’s full of stars”. Every time I think about Halo 4, that is the one quote that comes to mind. The simple reasoning for this is that I was simply blown away by the game. How on earth they managed to make a game so visually stunning on the Xbox 360 is beyond my comprehension, but even so, they did it. Halo 4 marks the beginning of a new trilogy in the Halo universe and this game has landed a spot on top of all other Halo games. Halo 4 is the culmination of everything that has made Halo Halo and everything that has made Halo completely awesome, and it all works together seamlessly. The story has evolved into a new formula that is so much more emotional than the past Halo games and kept me on my seat the whole time. I actually played it straight through just because I couldn’t turn it off. It was extremely engaging. That is not to say it is perfect though. I found only a few slight annoyances such as the numerous occurrences of situations where it was a “run here, shoot some guys, press this button, go here, shoot some guys, press this button” and so on.
The multiplayer, as with all of the other Halo games, is a separate beast. In Halo 4, multiplayer is back and bigger than ever. It even has a story behind it. 343 has taken everything that made Halo multiplayer great in the past games and put it into a giant pot along with what makes multiplayer great in other games. Sure, people complain that it is becoming too much like Call of Duty, but the point is that what Call of Duty did worked. What Call of Duty does is what people want from multiplayer in first person shooters, and Halo 4 has simply agreed to play along with what people want. What really stuck out to me right away was the rewards system in Halo 4’s multiplayer. The game literally starts you out with nothing extra (you even only have one emblem option!). As you progress your Spartan career, you gain more items, which keeps the player coming back for more since they desperately need that awesome helmet. It works. That is the simplest way I can describe this game. It works, and it works great.
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Prodimator has been with GameLog for 12 years, 2 months, and 24 days |
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