User Reviews

All Reviews by R2B2

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Medal of Honor: Airborne - Xbox 360

Another WWII Shooter, but with enough to make it slightly different

So most people are thinking "Not another Medal of Honor? Why won't they stop it with World War II!?". Well this game may still have some of the things that make most WWII shooters generic but EA was able to put a good twist on this installment of the MOH series. The largest notable difference is the ability to tackle your objectives in any order and any way. You jump from a C-37 into the level (anywhere in the level) and continue on in whatever order you seem fit. With the exception of the last level in the game (which if you play it, it's excusable) is quite large and has plenty of cover and so many ways to attack your enemies. They are all very, very beautiful creations and the random little things that developers never really focus on, they seem to have put a little more attention to in this game. So the graphics and the levels are pretty, and you can anywhere in the levels; but how does the game play? For the most part the game plays very smoothly and the mechanics are quite tight in this game. There are a few exceptions here and there with mundane objectives or ridiculous enemies to face. The aiming in the game is a little cumbersome but it adds to the realism (if you care at all). Also throughout most of the game aiming isn't too much of the game. The friendly AI is a little useless in Airborne, but the enemy AI is another story. They use cover well and attack in droves instead of alone. Although the aiming is off in the game, the weapons themselves are spot on. In some previous games I could never really tell whether I liked the MP-40 or the Thompson before or what the differences even were. In Airborne each weapon is significantly different from the others, the four rifles in the game are so dramatically different. Your load-out in the pre-mission phase is almost as important as how you use them during the mission. Another awesome thing they added was that you can upgrade your weapons. The Kar-98 starts as an annoying bolt-action that has to be loaded single-bullet. By the time you have it leveled up the fire rate is faster and you get a stripper clip that loads all 5 rounds in at once. The way the weapon upgrades work is with every kill you get with the weapon your experience grows with it. Each gun has three levels and for the most part make the gun dramatically better. Eventually through upgrades the little Colt .45 becomes an amazing weapon (which is good because it carries infinite ammo). The multi-player is another good spot of the game but it just wasn't enough to make it a Live hit or even any online hit. There are only three modes to choose from: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, and CTF. There were some innovative ideas such as Allies start in planes and parachute down and Axis are already on the ground. Or that if you are an Allied soldier, you are able to kick a German while in the air for a one-hit kill. Still, the multi-player was lacking. It's also ridiculous that there was no off-line multi-player like in Rising Sun (one of the things that made it fun for me and my friends). The major con to the game is the short campaign mode, although I won't tell you how many missions there are. To say they aren't well made is wrong, but there could have been just two more missions would have dramatically increased the life of this game. Unfortunately because of the short game span it'll probably be forgotten by October or if it's lucky, November. There are some frame-rate issues later in the game and some points in the game are completely one-sided to the enemy. All in all EA is trudging along on the right path but maybe it's time to just do away with WWII until the next-gen, when people actually want a WWII shooter again. I would suggest EA goes with Korea, that would be a new idea...

Black - PS2

Black - the last great FPS on PS2

Black was really the pinncale of the PS2 shooting experience for me because I don't really do the whole online thing that much because of how lame people can be; so this game was practically perfect to me. The game has been pressed with the label of "gun porn" because it is seriously not stop shooting the whole time. It's one of the only shooters that I've actually ran out of ammo during the game. The point to Black is a little cloudy but I guess that your Sgt. Keller was sent to take down a man named Lennox who led a terrorist organization called Seventh Wave. The thing that makes that special is that apparently your mission was never approved by the CIA so now you're under investigation. So yea you actually are re-living a story. The awesome thing about Black is that all of the levels are massive, they are kind of linear but they are massive. Although you have a basic path to where you are going you have slight choices on how to do it. The best example is the second level of the game you are in the middle of the forest and there are about three major ways to get to the farm at the end of the level and it's all up to you. The weapons are obviously the main point of the game and they are perform quite amazing. Even the pistols in the game are powerful enough to the point that later in the game you can still use the Glock and actually take down enemies. The guns sound amazing and the muzzle flash from them is spectacular. When bullets hit metal or wrought iron or something of that sort then the sparks that are emitted are just beautiful (especially for the PS2). Although the drawbacks is that some of the SMG's in the game have such low accuracy that it's almost impossible to fight with them. There are limitations to the game, and they are pretty big ones. The first is that the game is pretty short and leaves you wanting more. The next big thing...no multiplayer to heard of. Not even a deathmatch option or anything, I think that was a huge mistake on Criterion's part; that would have made the game so much fun if they included a multiplayer. Co-op would have been amazing. Overall it's a solid shooter and for the PS2 it's probably the best you're going to get, but with a few drawbacks to the game you better be a hardcore FPS fan to really, really enjoy this game.

Final Fantasy XII - PS2

Final Fantasy XII is a good close to PS2 RPG's

Square Enix is the king of the RPG world and it certainly shows with this installment of the monolithic Final Fantasy series. This is the last game for the PS2 (Next to God of War II) that might be worth picking up. The story of this game is slightly different that the previous ones with politics playing a much larger role than before and in a twist from FFX, religion is a very rarely mentioned commodity in the game. On the planet Ivalice there are two montrous empires: Archadia and Rozzaria. They are fighting (no way!) for the control of the planet, there is one nation however that stands in the way, Dalmasca. This is where the story kicks off after the Archadian invasion of Dalmasca that leads to the empire's occupation. You start off just like every other Final Fantasy game, although this one starts off a little faster and the beginning isn't so drawn out like in FFX or in others. The battle system was the biggest thing to hear about pre-launch. Unlike the turn based system of yore this one is more real-time and the random battles are gone. Now you see your enemies on screen and have the chance to run from them, although they can give chase to take you down. The best thing about this battle system is that moving around makes the battles more intriguing and thanks to Gambits (which I will discuss in a moment) you only actually have to control one character and the other two to three can go off and fight other enemies. Attacking is the basic thing as normal but after you choose to do a Magick or a Technick then it'll just go directly back to attacking without you having to re-command your character. Another nice thing is if you leave the Gambits on then you can just walk away from the game if something like your brother catches the kitchen on fire. Gambits as I already mention is an auto-command system. The way it works is that you pick a battle scenerio and the action to take when it happens (the types are dictated whether they are used against enemies, allies, or yourself). So for an example it would say: AllyHP below 40%Curaga. So it's pretty easy to set up a basic attack set-up but if you get deeper into it then you never have to worry about a single thing if you place everyone properly and set their Gambits accordingly. One more thing about this game is there is a lot to do besides the main story, the largest side-quest being Mark Hunting. A peitioner tells you the basic area of a fiend on the lose doing damage and you find it and kill it and then return to the petitioner to reap the rewards. The thing about that is it gives you weapons and items that can be very valuable. Another new thing is the License Board which works kind of like the Sphere Grid, you gain License Points and then find the license you want on the board and purchase, however...you have to have activated a License within one square of that particular License. Stats increase with level, which is a nice return; weapons and armor dictate the overall performance of your character but stats change with level. So that way no matter what, when you level up someone increases with it. This game is not perfect by any means, the environment is beautiful in this game but the graphics are lacking due to the sheer number of stuff they have to throw into this game. The story is somewhat short compared to other Final Fantasy games but this doesn't always equal bad. Overall this game is the best Final Fantasy in my opinion. It's been a while since the release and I'm guessing that the newer systems have seriously impared the ability of this game to become a massive seller, but if you are stuck with PS2 and no money to upgrade then this game is perfect. A massive game for the past-gen era.