Fozzy

Hitman Absolution... has some problems. There's no denying it's a good game, because it is. It's a very good game, and anyone who tells you otherwise is either mad, misguided or not a fan of stealth games. However, that's not to say it's the best game of the year, because it doesn't come close. While the previous instalments, particularly Hitman: Blood Money were magnificent, this game does feel like many reboots before it. It feels like this in that it takes a number of the systems of the previous games, adds its own ones and then jumbles them all together. And jumbled it does become. This game was directed by Tore Blystad, who served as Art Director on Hitman: Blood Money, and it takes the franchise in a different direction. The previous games were very non-linear, and there wasn't a story it was forced to follow. The result of this, of course, were the massive sandbox levels and exotic locales, as well as a huge variety of different targets and characters. In this game, Agent 47 has gone rogue after assassinating Diana Burnwood (his handler from the previous games) and taking the young Victoria, to protect her from the ICA. Meanwhile, Benjamin Travis, the head of the ICA, wants to get it back. He'll go about this with Blake Dexter, arms manufacturer and all-round psychopath. And so Agent 47 is thrust into the world, this time to escape the coppers and save Victoria from the ICA. I must praise the game for the story, because it's brilliant. Because of this, the characters are all well-developed, and have some strong voice acting from Hollywoodians like Keith Carradine and Powers Boothe, among others. There are people with clout involved in this game. However, the way they've one about bringing the new story focus to fruition isn't exactly exceptional. The level design, and pacing, suffer the worst here. Because 47's supposed to be running from the cops for a murder he didn't commit within the story, he's got to run from the cops in the game. Which means that, for the first act, which can take anywhere between two and eight hours depending on how you play, can be spend wandering through rather bleak locales escaping the Chicago PD. The fact that it's story focussed also means that you have to make your way through the level in a way that is logical in the context of the story. In previous games, the real system was "make your way from point A to point B any way you wish, then return to point A/C". In this game, however, the levels are chopped up to make sense within the confines of the story. Which means that, far from the amazing sandbox levels of the previous games, you're following a predetermined path that always ends in the same location. There's never any deviation from the predetermined path, because the story demands that you go a particular way to a particular point. It's also very cutscene heavy which, while not a bad thing in and of itself, can certainly put a few people off. Because the story is set about in a particular way, you've no longer got the pre-mission loadout screens, or the post-mission newspaper articles, that you see in Blood Money. Which means no weapon customisation, and no weapon selection. This gets to abysmal levels as, apart from the first and second levels, you're not given access to Silverballers until the beginning of Act Two. About two to eight hours into the game. Then, there's a bunch of other mechanics that really prohibit the way you're gonna go about playing the game. This is where the review devolves into a rant, children, so cover your eyes. Instinct. One word, a thousand problems. Instinct is a new function included in the game, and the game is built around it, which serves a variety of purposes. It introduces Point Shooting, a function a'la Splinter Cell: Conviction's bullet time-esque system. It's a slow motion system that allows you to target people and then shoot them in quick succession, very accurately. Then, there's a system that allows you to follow guard paths and see the guards. I'm one of the few people who wasn't incredibly annoyed with these systems. I kind of liked them. However, Instinct's integration with Disguises isn't so good. Basically, if you walk past a guard, you need to activate instinct otherwise you'll be spotted. However, because Instinct comes in painfully short supply anywhere above normal, and you need to be super stealthy anyway, there's no incentive for a hardcore Hitman player to go above Normal, because that mode doesn't work with the new Instinct function introduced. Instinct, above Normal (and sometimes in it) makes it almost entirely impossible to play the game like a Hitman game. Hitman's about exploration and finding multiple solutions to the problem. Without that, it's just a normal stealth game. To say this game's bad would be a lie. It's very, VERY good. However, it isn't great, that's plain to anyone, Hitman fan or not. But the acting's good and the story's exceptional, so if you're new, you'll probably love it.

Grand Theft Auto games have always been held in high regard by the majority of gamers. Most of humanity is easily accused of mob mentality when it comes to these games, and especially when it comes to GTA: San Andreas. This game is absolutely astonishing, from great voice acting to the multitude of mechanics. I only have two criticisms: the textures which... aren't brilliant, and the fact that you can't go into free aim on this version without finger gymnastics.

The Getaway is a fun game, but not in the sense that you will get an exceptional amount of enjoyment out of the act of playing. Its fun because of the obscurity and the fact that you're trying something new. The graphics are astonishing but the gameplay is tiring and boring. This game, if it were a film, would succeed massively. It has an astonishing plot, great voice acting and is well written on the whole. It works very well as a film, but as a game? No. Sorry.

This is like one of those games that you and your two or three mates can start playing on a Sunday afternoon, either to kill some time or to take the piss. This game is certainly a bit of fun, but it is completely incapable of holding anyone's interest for an entire match, let alone an entire hour or even an entire playthrough. The graphics are sub-par at best, the shooting and the mechanics aren't up to spec and it is an exceptionally boring title. And the Borderlandian announcer should burn in "hell in a toga" forever.

Oh dear Jesus. Hahahahahaha! I thought God Mode was bad! Honestly, I got God Mode and actually said to myself "this is the worst game of the year"! God Mode was worse than Aliens: Colonial Marines, for god's sake. And now, for Old School Games to do some senseless cash-in like this is amazing. It's actually astonishing that they would even do something like this.

I'm not going to deny that this is a good game and a good experience, because it is both of those things. Bioshock Infinite has an astonishing story, and Ken Levine and the rest of Irrational Games should be credited for that. But the overwhelming acclaim for this game, hailing it as the best game of the year, is misguided. It's just an average first person shooter,with an extremely above-average plot and collection of characters. There are a number of issues with this game. The mechanics are that of a rather average and somewhat chunky first person shooter, the shooting is mediocre at best, and it is overlong. IF you are in the mood for a great story with the game's mechanics not pulling it off in a very good way, then this is the game for you.

Every one of the Hitman games has been absolutely astonishing. IO Interactive are one of those truly special developers. Hitman 2: Silent Assassin revolutionized the stealth genre, and was added to the library of Eidos' formidable library of popular and critically-acclaimed stealth games such as Deus Ex and Thief. Hitman: Contracts, though not the best game in the franchise, managed to bring thousands of PS2 and Xbox gamers a chance to play some of the missions of the game they missed out on, Codename 47, in a much less buggy and more functional variation. And then we have Hitman: Blood Money, the definitive Hitman game, and the definitive stealth game. Better than any other game, this gave gamers a sense of freedom that they had never before experienced inside a linear game. And now, they have been put together and remastered, and now look a lot more appealing.

Hitman: Blood Money is one of the best games of all time, and there's really no way to deny that. Apart from the occasional bug and glitch, this game has won the hearts of thousands, me included. This game puts a lot of people off due to it's difficulty, but more people should give it a go, and see how good it really is. Better than Contract and Absolution, on par with Silent Assassin, this game is more than deserving of a ten out of ten.

It's doubtful this was intended to entertain for an extended period of time, rather to quell the rampant excitement among Hitman fans, who wanted a little bit of Hitman: Absolution. This game, however, is quite good, and one of the more entertaining downloadable games I have played, made better by the fact that it is completely free with both Absolution AND the HD Collection. It's by no means better than any Hitman game, or most games, but because of the fact that it's free, you don't need that much, made even better by the fact that getting points in this will unlock you stuff in the final game. There are so many ways to try and finish this level, and, if you enjoy it, you will always be trying to beat your score and get the prestige of the Silent Assassin rating in the fastest amount of time possible.

I do honestly believe that, though this isn't a particularly good game (AT ALL), it isn't as bad as the people say. Though it isn't good, it's average at worst. I think that 3.3/10 is a little bit under expectations, and I think it's because people were expecting more from the game. I think people got over-excited, and as a result they are having a little bit more of a negative reaction. This is by NO MEANS a good game, but it isn't as bad as people say. Sure, the graphics are bad, there are some glitches, and O'Neal is a tosser, but apart from that it's nothing more than a rather generic science fiction FPS.

So, XCOM... I never played the original UFO: Enemy Unknown on the PC, so I went into the demo with feelings of skepticism, not believing if the acclaim was deserved or not. However, I finished the demo with one feeling: that I needed to get this game. And, when I did start playing, there was no feeling of regret, and I knew the $90 I had spent on it was spent well. I easily put about 20 hours into the game without feeling like it was pointlessly long. The game offered a real challenge, and for the first time in my life I actually felt terrified of playing any more ****. The choices to be made in this game have astounding after-effects. For example, you may save the United Kingdom from an abduction instead of Brazil, and Brazil will no longer fund you. And I found myself in one paticular situation when my only Colonel was pinned down with only two health, and a Muton Beserker standing next to him, also with two health. I had a rookie with a grenade. If I were to throw the grenade, I would kill the Muton and my best soldier in the entire game, but there would be a chance of survival. However, if I didn't throw the grenade, my Colonel would most likely die anyway and the surviving team members would need to retreat and evacuate (if they weren't killed by the aliens surrounding them in the act). It's those kind of choices that make XCOM: Enemy Unknown such a great joy to play. It's the sense that your only chance of survival relies on strategy, hunches, weighty decisions and big sacrifices. And, through my twenty plus hours of play (so far), I have spent so much time planning my missions down to the most minute of details, customizing my soldiers to make them immediately recognizable as the core members of my team. Just tuning to the game to fit your liking to the finest of details is a joy within itself. A great part of the game is the choices involved. Sometimes, for example, you will need to risk the lives of everyone on your team to fulfill an objective of the council that fund the XCOM program. You will sometimes need to sacrifice five of your six soldiers to rescue a politician with some pull in the program. Sometimes, though, you'll need to pull your good, effective soldiers out of a dangerous mission, because you know that you will lose them during the mission, and instead put six rookies up to the job of, well, surviving. I would be prepared to say that this is not only a turn-based strategy game, but it is a survival horror game because of the terror that the game evokes as you try and keep your soldiers alive, and risk the lives of them, and send them to certain death, in order to defend the world from an alien invasion that slowly but surely engulfs the entire world. You will find yourself defending against abductions across the world, and destroying UFOs spotted above major cities, engaging in a rather easy combat with the UFO in one of XCOM's many fighter jets. XCOM: Enemy Unknown may just be the my Game of the Year, but at the moment this amazing title is dismissed, as it is the most addicting game I have come across in years, and I am sure I will be playing it, trying to get better, for years to come. This game is truly brilliant and deserves all the praise and critical acclaim it gets from the critics.

I have to admit, I was quite excited about this game. I ordered it from the EB Games website and waited patiently for it to come in through the post. When I finally got it, I put the much-loved Yakuza 3 back on the shelf for a few days to soak in Max Payne 3. I mean, I was holding a new Rockstar game. I know some will argue that reviewers needlessly overhype games, but LA Noire wasn't made by Rockstar and Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto IV were brilliant games, so I thought this was going to be as good as them. This just proves that even people who do spend most of their free time examining and reviewing games (check out the link below) can be wrong. In the first ten minutes, I concluded that this was feeling a lot like a generic game as my hype levels plumetted from "holy **** Max Payne 3" to "oh, wow. Max Payne 3". This game, though by no means bad, feels like a lazy expansion on a dead series. Max Payne 2 was really the be all and end all of the series, being absolutely brilliant and even better than it's predecessor, and this feels like it was made to drag in the old fans of the series that were hungry for more while also trying to make a game for newcomers to the series. When I finally played this game, it felt like Hitman: Absolution before E3, where people (including me) were feeling cheated and wanted out old Hitman back. This game is a good game. Just not a great game. I am disappointed that Rockstar have not lived up to their usual standards, especially with one of their most loved franchises that has been awaited by the fans and newcomers alike since its announcement. All of the press releases by Rockstar and all of the pre-release hype didn't really come out, because everyone (well, most people) would have bought it and thought "well, is this it? Is this all Max Payne is?". I remember discussing it with a friend the day after. He was initially thrilled of the idea of me getting Max Payne 3, because he knew he would be able to come over and play it. After I explained it, however, he began to lose interest in the game entirely and began to doodle on his I-Phone as I explained the nature of the game. And, once you manage to get to the part in all the trailers about the fat, bald and drug-addicted Max Payne you are left feeling utterly shortchanged. I thought this was going to be a new and improved Max Payne that I would have learned to love. Instead, he feels like a complete rip-off of Lynch from the Kane and Lynch games. He has the same clothing, the same fatness, virtually no hair and a massive beard while also sporting a drug addiction (Lynch's was the pills that kept him from going on his minor psychotic rampages). And, along with this, the rest of the game feels like a rip off of Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days. Once you get past the first part of the game, you have basically done everything in the game that there is to do. The controls in this game are clunky and imprecise, not exactly what you want for a third person action game, and the aiming system is either the annoying and imprecise lock on system or no proper aiming at all. The lock-on system means that you will be left aiming at the chests of all the goons in body armour. These goons will then move around as you clumsily try to lock in on the guy's head, completely eliminating the purpose of a lock on system to begin with, causing you to go into the Bullet-Time system, which wastes it, so you may as well have included an automatic head lock-on, Rockstar. And the bullet time jumping and shooting doesn't work at all as manual aiming is a completely pointless endeavour that will leave you completely infuriated as you go mindlessly across the battlefield looking for the enemies that blend into the background. This game, I must say, is actually quite hard on easy mode compared to most other games, so there is really no point using manual aim unless you like watching the infinite killcams zooming into your face as a healthy bullet flies through it just for you. But this game isn't wholly bad. It is quite a bit of fun as long as you can put up with living through the cutscenes and all of that. If you can do this, you will find this game incredibly enjoyable and really worth your time. Just learn to shoot correctly... ****

I am not going to lie to you, because you should pick this up if you are a fan of the franchise, or otherwise do not have a brain. But, if you are here on planet sensible, you will know that you should instead go out and buy CoD4: Modern Warfare. Modern Warfare 2 is an insulting, hopeless cash in on an alreattdy brilliant game, with an appauling single player, average multiplayer and so full of plot loops that it gives the **** developers more reason to release rediculously overpriced DLC to expand the "story". Couple that abominable experience with the fact that Call of Duty is designed for you to give $80 a year to Activision so they can produce more stuff for you to buy and you have the mess that you got yourself into by buying this rubbish ****, and the fact that you will have seen everything in the first hour and you will experience more helicopter crashed (with you inside, of course) than Michael Bay on an acid trip. This game really doesn't have any redeeming features except for the barely on par graphics allowing for a steady frame rate, and the fact that the killcams (which you will probably skip anyway) give you something to laugh at. I would even reccommend Black Ops over thi, even though that doesn't even deserve any acclaim. When you buy this and finish the abysmal four hour campaign, you will wonder why you bothered to spend so much money on it in the first place. But, if you DO live in the land of insanity (otherwise known as my brother's mind) then you will enjoy this game until the day you die, probably name it GotY for 2009 and campaign to change the law so that yo can marry it. Of course, if you have five minutes, you just wanna kill **** and you find this game in the shops for $3 then it is also a vaguely interesting experience, until GameStop rings up and asks why you returned it when you were finished with it. Buy Killzone, or Medal of Honor, or maybe a brain, because if you consider buying this, that's what you'll be needing the most.

Look, I know how to review a game. And it is obvious that some of these people don't. A half of the people who have reviewed this game have either got a vendetta against Besthesa, are CoD or Battlefield fanboys, or simply got extremely pissed off when their game froze at level 49. I want to be honest, because I am not going to con people in to getting this game. It is not perfect, but it definitely isn't as bad as most of the people on this list make it out to be. Skyrim is a diverse and brilliant as you could want, because it is rare (as in extremely rare) for a game to hit the 100% mark. This game doesn't deserve a score of 100%, but it doesn't deserve a 0%, a 30% or a 60% (and I know I am going to get some hate for this). A 75% would probably be acceptable, and even a 70% as long as the reasons were about the game, and not the reviewer's feelings against the game. The game world in this game is awesome, alive and large enough that you are playing a magical version of life itself, and you really feel like some of the people you are talking to are real people, and not just a bunch of pixels that spit out backstory. If you buy this game, you should love it, but people who say that this game is a 50% or 60% should know that this game just isn't for them, and people who gave it a 0% or a 10% are complete idiots.

I will simply start off with this- Modern Warfare 3 is a joke. Not to the extent of Duke Nukem Forever and Thor: God of Thunder, but a joke nonetheless. I will not lie and say I am not a BF3 player, but I had never played a Battlefield game until after CoD, but it was better. MW3 is almost like a DLC of MW2, which wasn't very good to begin with. This game expects everyone on earth to be big Michael Bay fans with the endless explosions, gassing of London and being pseudo-killed an uncountable amount of times in a helicopter. I will not argue that the multiplayer is bad, because it is good, the developers are just lazy and added about 10% more stuff into the game. All the kilstreaks are still there, you don't get any new attatchments, the leveling-up system with the weapons is poor at best and you will find yourself so bored with it after 4 hours (even after finishing the short campaign) that you will sell it on Ebay. But I'm being realistic, and I know you can't give a game a low score because you like something better. But I urge you, please buy something else. There are so many great games out like Skyrim, Dark Souls, Uncharted and Assassin's Creed. Buy them instead.