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Nov 30th, 2012 at 19:42:47 - DmC: Devil May Cry (Demo Version) (PS3) |
Dmc: Devil May Cry demo review
I have beaten the demo of the upcoming Devil May Cry game today. Believe me, I am not a real fan of the Devil May Cry series but I like hack and slash games in general. It includes two missions: Under Watch, which takes place in the heart of Limbo city, and Secret Ingredient, which is a boss battle against the very old Succubus demon. The game has three difficulty settings to choose from and if you finished the demo on the hardest difficulty setting, which is nephilim, then you can do the levels on the Son of Sparda mode. Dante, the protagonist, is equipped with his Rebellion sword, His Ebony, Ivory hand guns, his demonic axe, the Arbiter and the angelic scythe Osiris. I have done the Under Watch mission and it was pretty good that the city is expansive and I get to take out various types of demons. Dante can perform combos by attacking with his sword and shooting with two pistols. He can collect various types of souls which can be used to recover help and purchase items. For example, I used the gold orb whenever I died during this level and during the boss fights. I use triangle and r2 to take out the demons more effectively with a more powerful sword. This allows for me to be in Angel mode, in which Dante’s sword attacks change to the Osiris, a speedy scythe type weapon. Triangle gives a heavy attack and circle is to shoot. These controls have been the same for other games as well. There are new controls I have used in the game, such as mashing x two times and hitting L2 makes me jump farther distances. While a little blocky, everything oozes with a really good urban style without taking it too far from its demonic roots.
Spirits come in and out as Dante runs across the city and the sickening cameras and other hellish creatures add a nice touch. The city feels alive, like an ever changing being in itself. As for the story, the game starts with Dante recovering from a hangover when he is attacked by one of the demons. He learns that he is in Limbo City, a sullen city that appears serene or calm at first, but transforms into an antithesis of itself with demons and other hellish creatures who attempt to kill him whenever he is seen by the demons. After encountering a demon, Dante meets a girl who sends him to meet the leader of “The Order,” an organization labeled by the media and the press as terrorist. The Order is fighting against the demons of Limbo and the leader, Vergil, expects Dante to join them. During the game, he is taunted and stalked by the demon Mundus, who wants to kill Dante. The opening cutscene opens with “Demons, you know your game. Your Cameras watch us. Your media brainwash us. Your drinks poison us, and your banking system enslaves us.” I like how the guy in the cutscene looks like the Anonymous guy from YouTube who rants about the government all the time. When I saw a Virility ad with a slender guy in the background, I saw a corpulent person who was drinking it. It is so contradictory. When the gameplay starts, I discover that the living cameras are watching Dante and that he has to take them out. I used the Devil Mode to pull myself into enemies in order to kill them more effectively. I used the Angel Lift to lift the cliffs and hedges off the sides of buildings. Demon lift allows me to destroy demons from far distances and to destroy whatever is surrounding the demons. I like how the game is fast-paced with all this metal and rock music that is also giving me some headaches.
In the boss fight, I first tried to kill the Succubus demon on a harder Nephilim difficulty setting. I used Angel lift from one hedge to another when she poisoned the hedge that I was previously on. Killing her takes a lot of effort and she is more destructive at this difficulty setting. I only had three gold orbs to revive myself after I died. I died three times and I still did not do enough damage to her. Then I used retried the boss fight on the easier Devil Hunter difficulty setting. I was able to kill her effectively as she is not as destructive as she was in the harder level. At one point, I noticed a glitch in which I kept slashing her feet after the yellow bars went away. The white bars remain and stay stuck. I finally was so good at slashing her that I received SSS, which means Sadistic and I achieved a high score of 500,000 points. Then, I restarted the checkpoint and went back to defeating the boss. I finally killed her and I was relieved.
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Nov 24th, 2012 at 22:11:12 - Temple Run (iPd) |
Temple Run is one of the games tearing up the top charts on the App Store. Temple Run is a free running game but it doesn’t play the same as most flash-based games of this style. It plays from a behind-the-back third person view and has me fleeing form a pack of ravenous monkey monsters. The premise is that the character (there are several character who I can unlock) has escaped from a temple and is being chased by the monster-monkeys. They make a growling sound at the beginning of the game. If I trip, swipe left and right too often, or jumping to a ledge too early, I can see the ravenous monkey monsters in my view. Like Mirror’s Edge, the main control scheme is using up and down moving to either jump over or slide under obstacles while not ruining my momentum or running into things. If I make too many mistakes, I will find myself getting munched by monkey monsters or smashing headlong to my doom in a hazard ridden swamp. I find myself running along narrow walkways and having to make swift and quick decisions as to whether to make a right or a left turn where the wrong decision can mean an unfortunate doom. Within the simple gameplay, the evil genius lies. The simple, evil genius – even more tortured than the monster-monkeys that chase me. I will need to collect coins to spend on life-saving protective measures and power-ups in the in-game store. Power-ups include a coin magnet so I can scoop up any coins in my view with minimal effort, invisibility, and distance boosts. The more power-ups I have and the more features I can unlock, the higher the score multiplier and finally, the higher my score. The whole game is done in an Indiana Jones, archaeologist motif complete with an Aztec ruin backdrop which makes for a nice fantasy fulfillment for anyone who likes free runners. The complete package comes together to produce an incredibly addicting endurance challenge that will have me to frustratedly and elatedly hitting the play again button over and over. The “one more go” lure allows players to be blurred into a hazy nightmare involving hollow trees, gold and perhaps multicolored coins, Aztec-style platforms, dull rivers, fire-breathing statues, and weirdly, a football player.
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Nov 24th, 2012 at 22:10:23 - Temple Run (iPd) |
Temple Run is one of the games tearing pu the top charts on the App Store. Temple Run is a free running game but it doesn’t play the same as most flash-based games of this style. It plays from a behind-the-back third person view and has me fleeing form a pack of ravenous monkey monsters. The premise is that the character (there are several character who I can unlock) has escaped from a temple and is being chased by the monster-monkeys. They make a growling sound at the beginning of the game. If I trip, swipe left and right too often, or jumping to a ledge too early, I can see the ravenous monkey monsters in my view. Like Mirror’s Edge, the main control scheme is using up and down moting to either jump over or slide under obstacles whild not ruining my momentum or running into things. If I make too many mistakes, I will find myself getting munched by monkey monsters or smashing headlong to my doom in a hazard ridden swamp. I find myself running along narrow walkways and having to make swift and quick decisions as to whether to make a right or a left turn where the wrong decision can mean an unfortunate doom. Within the simple gameplay, the evil genius lies. The simple, evil genius – even more tortured than the monster-monkeys that chase me. I will need to collect coins to spend on life-saving protective measures and power-ups in the in-game store. Power-ups include a coin magnet so I can scoop up any coins in my view with minimal effort, invisibility, and distance boosts. The more power-ups I have and the more features I can unlock, the higher the score multiplier and finally, the higher my score. The whole game is done in an Indiana Jones, archaeologist motif complete with an Aztec ruin backdrop which makes for a nice fantasy fulfillment for anyone who likes free runners. The complete package comes together to produce an incredibly addicting endurance challenge that will have me to frustratedly and elatedly hitting the play again button over and over. The “one more go” lure allows players to be blurred into a hazy nightmare involving hollow trees, gold and perhaps multicolored coins, Aztec-style platforms, dull rivers, fire-breathing statues, and weirdly, a football player.
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Nov 24th, 2012 at 20:59:56 - Angry Birds Star Wars (iPd) |
Angry Birds Star Wars review
Rovio came out with another installment in the Angry Birds franchise. After a few weeks of teasers, Rovio released Angry Birds: Star Wars. The controls are familiar for anybody that has put time into an Angry Birds game. Players have to drag back birds in a sling shot, adjust force and angle, and release in order to destroy buildings and clear each level of pigs that are scattered throughout. This time, the pigs dress as stormtroopers, Darth Vader and even get to hop in Tie-Fighters and fire lasers of their own. Bonus points are awarded based on how few birds are used as well as how much destruction is caused, with a tally awarded out of three stars. Each bird in the game has their own unique abilities, which are activated by a tap when the birds are in mid-air. The red bird spins with a lightsaber, deflecting fire from Stormpiggies and taking down structures. The yellow bird dons Han Solo’s appearance and can open up fire over the course of his trajectory. Obi-wan Kenobi, the black bird can use The Force to push objects away from his trajectory. C3-PO and R2-D2 look similar to the egg-dropping bird in the original Angry Birds game, though they have entirely separate functions. C3-PO explodes into a bunch of damaging pieces while R2-D2 can electrocute enemies nearby. The unusual pink bird is dressed up as Leia, who has a laser-firing ability similar to Han’s. As for the story, every Angry Birds game has followed a loose and boring story. Green pigs capture the eggs that belong to the Angry Birds, and the birds use slingshots to pummel the pigs and get their eggs back. In this game, however, players follow the storyling from the Star Wars’s saga, starting with Episode IV when Princess Leia gets kidnapped by pig stormtroppers. The gameplay is incredibly fun and funny. When I launch the R2-D2 bird, it screams wildly until I tap the screen, which results in R2-D2 electrocuting areas close to its position. The C3-PO bird moans in a British accent once I launch him, and by tapping on the screen, he blows up in golden shrapnel. These awesome powers were never seen in previous Angry Birds games. Unlike previous Angry Birds games, the power of the birds actually change throughout the game. For example, the Luke Bird has no exceptional powers at first, but at one point when he discovers the Lightsaber, the weapon is added to the bird’s abilities, letting players do away with obstacles with the buzz and swing of the iconic laser sword. As I progress throughout the story, the Birds seem far more super powered than ever before, and its satisfying to use those powers, like Obi-Wans blue Force and Luke’s Lightsaber, which create a lot of exceptional opportunities for creative problem solving.
One of the complaints that I have about this game is that the camera automatically pans at the beginning of a level. If I notch a bird too early, this puts the slingshot out of the frame and can cause me to fire the bird backwards. It becomes frustrating when I burn up an Angry Falcon. Another complaint is that I have to zoom out in certain levels where the pigs are located far away. This makes it harder to see the birds and maintain their trajectories so they can kill the pigs at the desired locations. Another compliant is that the graphics are still as 2D as ever. This is not a really big complaint since there is a nice foreground and background perspective effects. All of the textures are well-done and really sharp. By the way, the audio is pretty interesting because it’s a mash up of familiar effects and music. The hollow speaker voices of Stormtroopers are a lot less menacing when they are relaying pig snorts or oinks. The blaster fire sound will cause pangs of reminiscence for those that have watched many Star Wars films. It is sill hard to say whether the gameplay is still fun at this point. Rovio has done some interesting twists and are throwing in some new abilities to play with in many Angry Birds games. It is the same core mechanic we have been playing for years. The first stages haven’t been much of a challenge but later stages can get tricky, especially if the goal is to get three stars. Many of the stages features core mechanics from Angry Birds Space, such as zero gravity and centripetal acceleration and gravity around certain celestial bodies. The cross-licensing going on here may be quite difficult to handle, but if Angry Birds and Star Wars have anything in common, its that they have hardcore fans after being merchandised to and back. This game maintains the charm that Rovio has become well-known for.
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