Bjornishigi

Sanctum 2 dials in on the fps side of the equation in this hybrid tower defense game and as far as I'm concerned it's awesome. Fans of the original lost some of the detail with map building and customization but I am hoping that future installments will again expand on this aspect of the game. There is a lot of game here though and you will get deep into it trying to find the optimum floorplan/character loadout to complete challenges. I have just as much fun playing solo as multiplayer, not sure what people are complaining about here. As far as I know you can complete all the maps solo if you are good enough and have unlocked the top tier stuff. I was able to solo all of the original game content so far. There is plenty of replayability with higher difficulty settings and survival mode. Sanctum 2 is a lot of fun and if you pass it up you'll be missing out on some of the best gaming to be had.

Oh dear. Where to start. Lets start with the gameplay. There is none. God is this some uninspired gameplay. Just trash mobs everywhere, absolute bottom of the barrel trash quests with empty, placeholder level design intersperesed with trash cartoon segues. A perfect storm of shyte hoping to capitalize on fanboi'ism. I felt like I was playing a flash browser game. Marvel Heroes utterly fails to pull you into it's world. The super powers are all also completely bogus because there's no real choices. You get a bunch of xp points and you just plug them into the few abilities you have that are unlocked. This is the most shallow money grab I've ever seen. In a nutshell the game has zero soul. A game full of art assets needs to display a little creativity for me to get interested. There is none on offer here. Maybe there is but I absolutely will not slog through this turd **** to find out. If you are a fan of bland, one dimensional superhero cartoons you might be braindead enough to enjoy this. Have at it! It's all yours.

I have been a long time fan of intricate rpg's and thinking games. Deus Ex will give you some of that complexity you crave. However for me it is wrapped in such a linear, pointless, b-movie script that I can't muster up the ambition to play past the first couple levels. There was no immersion or compulsion to find out what pre-determined encounter might be around the next corner. But I have never been able to enjoy on-rail games (except Spacemarine). If you like scripted stories with only one way to complete them then this is probably a good representation of that genre. Hitting the uninstall button now.

I would like to clarify a few things for potential buyers (only reason you're reading this). This is a campaign/story type game with mild puzzle type elements. If you have played darksiders then you are in the right ballpark. I knew this was a campaign/story type game and I bought it anyway determined to play even though I am a sandbox kind of guy. Bottom line, even as a marginal batman fan (only batman I ever liked was Frank Millers The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel) you are going to get something out of this. The force that is Batman is communicated here but mostly graphically. For those of us who enjoy sandbox the gameplay is incredibly claustrophobic. But in a puzzle-like way which is why it works. At least for the gazillion people who gave it a 10 here. You get strung along in extremely linear fashion with some gratifying puzzle-like play in your attempts to complete level challenges and bosses. I can't really stress how claustrophobic progression is though. The gratification for completing this game is equivalent to reading a book. You want to complete the story rather than experience the awesome gameplay. And I guess thats what divides us gamers, those who want a mild challenge with more story and those who want an insane challenge with no story. So to sum up my review, if you know what type of gamer you are you should definitively know whether you will enjoy this game to the fullest, or not. If you are man enough to admit you are a softcore gamer and would enjoy this go for it. Otherwise steer clear because you will be filled with mostly, contempt.

Beta is beta people.. I was playing the game back when every mission had roughtly the same content so I waited a couple weeks and now there's a ton of new scenery. Thats kind of how beta's work, they are actively adding content to the game so reserve your negative reviews till launch. Then they are valid. Moving on, warframe is kind of the sweet spot for me and I am guessing a lot of gamers. First off having a coop only game was a pretty bold move and I would say it's a resounding success, so kudo's for that. While this game does make you wonder how cool pvp would be it still stands, imo, solidly as it is. I love so far how the game unfolds and how you slowly discover abilities of the warframe as you gain familiarity especially as regards advanced wallrunning and combat. Last night I realized I could power up my main abilities by fusing mods so I torqued up a sprint mod and got in a higher lvl mission with some more experienced players. I was flying through the objectives doing crazy wall running trying to keep up with these guys who knew all the shortcuts.. So much fun, being a space ninja has never been this badass. The art style is reminiscent of manga, but in a good way, because some manga is terri-bad. There is a nice diversity of warframes, weapons and playstyles available which should keep things interesting for some time. Also new content like dojos, clan structering, etc.. is in the works. The f2p model is working for me so far though expect to grind for new stuff which instead of buying outright you buy a blueprint for and then find crafting materials on missions to create content in your foundry, a main menu crafting screen. The high pointsfor me here are the slick art direction and music, space ninja theme in a variety of deadly flavors(stealth to hulk) and rpg elements that hardcore gamers crave. I don't knowk, games tend to all go stale on me after two months so if I at least get that I'm happy and I expect too. Play this game!

PC Version Review(with troubleshooting tips for ATI) - I was a bit late to the franchise because the trailers didn't grab me.. I thought the art was derivative of WoW and it just seemed like a cheesy cartoon.. I bought in during an Amazon sale and as it turns out I was totally wrong. The art and production value here is actually on par with the best I've ever seen in a game, which is quite an accolade. That is if you can squeeze the performance out of your pc.. I had a lot of debilitating stuttering at first so I had to research fixes. I run ati/amd so I picked up a utility called RadeonPro. The nvidia counterpart is Rivatuner. Vsync wasn't a big issue for me(no tearing) but I got less stutter when I locked my fps to 60, turned on triple buffering and turned vsync on. I also forced some AntiAliasing and turned anisotropic filtering(key for eye candy). Turn texture filtering and mipmap up and put texture LOD to -.5. The biggest performance gain was from turning my resolution down, but no big deal there, I ended up averaging around 40-60 fps with very minimal/infrequent stutter in big open areas on a mid/lower high end pc. Totally different game experience with the eye candy turned on. I've never seen such lovingly crafted level design and detail. I just wandered around amazed at what I was seeing, taking screenshots. It's freaking amazing how much effort was put into environmental stuff like stone flooring which looks like it was painted.. I just wandered around immersed in what I was seeing for a couple hours! Even if the gameplay was crap(it's not) just experiencing the ambient love this game offers makes it a must have/win. As has been mentioned many kudos to the soundtrack engineer, Jesper Kyd for the highly original immersion his tracks provide to the gameplay. Just awesome. As for the gameplay itself, I hope this mad combo of rpg, platforming/puzzle and hack n' is a theme other developers will champion.. because its so much fun. You explore, loot, fight truly epic bosses, access many sweet weapons/fighting styles and you get a decent story to top it off. They've blended the quirky evil of Devil May Cry with the steroidal fury of Space Marine and thrown it all into fantasy land and voila, gaming magic. I much prefer the direction here to both of those (mostly)excellent games. Did I mention epic horseback combat on a flaming green demonic steed which power stampedes enemies into an exploding grimy mist? Just play this game.

I can give everyone the straight dope here in a few in a brief summary. I played continuously for a couple weeks or so and got up to about lvl 20 so I know the game mechanics well. I was absolutely blown away with P2 initially. It was almost everything I ever wanted in an FPS and seemed to fulfill all the promise of PC gaming. It ran fine(mostly), looked great and had all the large scale conflict and tactics a hardcore ,high-skill ceiling, pc game should. I will tell you what killed it. I knew these two things would eventually be a problem from the outset and they were. Number one: The conflict is meaningless as there is NOTHING at stake for gaining/losing your territory. Sure the fight is fun but for how long when there's absolutely no payoff. A war of this scale without any reward in the offing makes no sense and kills any long term enjoyment. Problem 2: P2 caters to the newer gen Ritalin children who can't comprehend the value of earning a kill in-game and so anybody can get the drop on you at anytime and 1 automatic burst later your dead. You'll spend most of your time in this game dying and trying to get back into the fight. The whole point of the game feels like it revolves around dying. It's absolutely horrendous and ridiculous. By having two hit-points you eliminate 75% of any skill or tactics the conflicts here have. If you had time in a firefight to utilize terrain and tactics the conflicts would be fierce and meaningful as they are in other games that allow for some damage. Instead you just zerg around the map dying and spawning until you outzerg the zergers. Even the heavy's vaporize under minimal fire. I just don't get it. Twice the hitpoints, and it soon becomes apparent who is the more skillful opponent and who deserves to control the battlefield. Why devs don't get this is beyond me and I don't feel like returning to this game even though they'll probably address my first issue. This fantastic game is utterly ruined because you can't sustain any damage. Just like all the other mainstream shooters Ritalin kids thrive on. I don't know who to blame so I jokingly pick on the Ritalin kids. Ridiculous, I'm done.

I'm a fan of sandbox games, and never enjoyed any game with a scripted story or campaign except Gothic(1). I wouldn't have liked this game either because the story is pointless and your on very tight rails.. but!, the combat is just so over the top with your space marine dishing out the most supreme ass-whoopings by the bushel. They nailed the most important thing they needed to, the melee mechanics, making this hands down the best hack n' slash money can buy. The guns have some nice diversity and pack plenty of punch, no complaints. The health mechanic of regenerating only on melee fatalities is a perfect fit for a space marine, no cover required. They also throw in a bonus power that refills as you get kills called fury. Fury seriously augments your normal powers and generates health while attacking which allows you to take out the elite orcs and bosses. I never got a chance to play Gears of War which this has been likened to but I've played a ton of games, fps's etc.. but this sets a new standard for virtual violence which I can't at the moment imagine how anyone is going to top. Multiplayer has been a bit of a letdown so far, didn't enjoy the maps I've seen or starting at a huge disadvantage to seasoned players who have the good gear. Regardless, I can't wait to see what they do next with this series. Believe the hype.