Largely what I was looking for in a dirt track racing game, and for the price an excellent racing game all around. I was a huge fan of an old Gamecube game called Dirt to Daytona, with my favourite part being the dirt track stock cars. This game takes lots of what I enjoyed about that experience and brings it to a modern platform. The cars feel great, which to me was the most important piece of whether this was worth picking up, though this is not in my opinion an attempt at full simulation. The career mode is pretty fleshed out, though not what you may be looking for if you are used to bigger budget games. The upgrade system is simple to learn and built in such a way where you will need to put serious time in to afford and maintain the best parts, which I like. I felt more could have been done with sponsors (the aforementioned Dirt to Daytona had a better system over a decade ago) and I wish they had gone with a race garage type career menu as opposed to just scrolling through menus. Something I was more disappointed with was the damage system. Even with it cranked all the way up, it just feels thin. All damage does is slow you down, taking damage should cause vibrations, steering issues, engine misfires, flat **** so far all I have experienced is reduced power or speed. Realistic damage is a big part of what makes dirt track fun and it isn't here. Despite these few shortcomings, I really enjoy this game, and find myself doing race after race after race. Pick this game up if you have a love of dirt track and just want to put time into getting those perfect laps, but if you are here for some slamming around fun, I would recommend Wreckfest instead.
Dark Souls is a tense inch by inch death fest where the idea of self preservation becomes a fond memory of other games you have played. You play this game to die over and over and over and than you go to sleep haunted by how to get past the thing that is currently killing you. Leveling up and item upgrading have never felt so useless, as you just continue to die over and over and over. I can picture right now the thing I'm trying to get past and I haven't played the game in months. This type of game is not for me, I feel like half the time i'm fighting enemies, and the other half I'm fighting the camera and the controls. What they have is a slow moving, grainy looking, repeat every area a dozen times game that hides all of this by appealing to our inner desire to win at any cost. All this game has going for it is gameplay time and bragging rights, everything else is just there to kill you. You don't enjoy playing this game, you take pleasure in beating it. You get there angry and frustrated and turn off the game exhausted and beaten down. Not how I like to leave a game, not a game I enjoyed. UPDATE years later: This is one of the best games I have ever played. As you can see from my review above, it beat me down. I set it aside, and came back to it a couple of years later, and this time I pushed through the learning curve and the deaths and the frustrations. What I found was a rich, beautiful, incredible game that I have now played numerous times with several characters. It is incredible and if you can get into the headspace where you expect to learn through dying, this game will reward you.
The destructible racing game I have been waiting for since Destruction Derby 64. I love it, great physics, great variety in play modes, great variety in car type and feel, great variety in car customization. This is a great return to a genre of racing game that has been dead for too long. I have two issues with it, the loading times in between races are pretty bad, and I have occasionally had minor and brief frame rate drops. Those two quibbles aside, I love this game and will continue to sink many many hours into it, smashing away happily at the best car deformation modeling I have ever seen.
Forza Horizon 3 is the first in this series of Horizon games that I have loved. Excellent car variety, very large open world, nice course variety, and very pretty visuals. Music has a wide variety, but nothing that really broke new ground. Car clubs have limited use and were not very well fleshed out. Online is fun with some interesting game modes. Ultimatly, this game is about the cars and the environment and it is excellent in both of those respects. Not a perfect game, but a great one that I have sunk many many hours into. Great pick up for a fun experience, but do not expect simulator level driving.
Possibly one of my favourite DLC's of all time. Getting to zip around on giant hotwheel tracks satisfied the child in me to no end (I am 30). Should have been more hotwheel cars, so not a perfect score for this DLC. If you have been enjoying Horizon 3, then this will be an excellent addition for you.
For those who have not played this game before or have never experienced the DLC packages, this game is a 10. For those already familiar with the content, having sunk hundreds of hour into the title, the price will seem ridiculous for something you already own. The upgrades to the environments are immediately noticeable and will cause some moments of just stopping and staring, particularly at the new lighting effects. The game also runs extremely smoothly and isn't the stuttering glitch fest of the previous console. For a complete review see my write-up on the original release. If you are new to the game, grab it now and play it as the beautiful complete game it has become. If you are a Skyrim nerd already, pick it up anyway because it is still one the best titles out there.
Rage is an odd game to evaluate. On one hand you have fantastic visuals and some truly unique and brilliant ideas, and on the other hand none of it really seems to fit together, as if numerous games were stitched together. You end up really enjoying what you're doing most of the time, but rarely understand the reason you're doing it. This is most obvious in the very unsatisfying ending that l won't give away here, but trust me when I say you'll be scratching your head wondering if there's more, but there isn't. Worse then the some of it's parts, Rage is fun but completely forgettable, which is a shame because there are some great parts.
One of the deepest, richest, and most engrossing first-person experiences you will ever have. Excellence in graphics, story telling, and scoring come together to create a truly unique and terrifying world where the moral question of whether something should be done has been abandoned for the question what can be done. I struggled to even describe this game, it so exceeded my expectations. Play it for yourself and see what made the first installment in this series truly the best.
Dirt 3 brings more types of racing as well as more varied terrain to a proven formula from Dirt 2. The game is very enjoyable and will give you hours of enjoyment. There are some negatives about the new formula dirt 3 tries to implement. The first being that race types are intermixed, from rally to land rush to rally cross, there is no sense of being a part of a race league. You are just some driver jumping from vehicle to vehicle. The second big take away is that the really unique interface of the race trailer from Dirt 2 has been replaced by generic race selection menus. The final issue I have is that you no longer buy and upgrade cars, you simply win the ability to race them, taking away from the collection process I love in car games. The game is a solid seven, but if you've played Dirt 2 it will feel like a bit of a let down.
Project cars was a big disappointment. The game looks good, has a wide variety of cars, and excellent tracks. The menu system is easy to navigate and the career mode layout is a very innovative idea in this genre. None of this can make up for a game that feels incomplete and rushed. I have never played a game so plagued with game crashing bugs (this coming from a fan of the fallout series). I have also never played a game with such poorly calibrated controls as to make playing with a game pad infuriating. While there are a multitude of options to re-calibrate yourself, it ends up feeling like they didn't have the time to do it themselves. I can't speak to the steering wheel, I suspect this game feels much better using one. And finally, the feel. This is the most disconnected I have felt in a simulator, with the sound and vibration communicating very poorly what the tires are doing. There may be a good game here, but it's not to be found with a regular controller and it's not to be found without learning the intricacies of calibrating, and even if you get those sorted out it will still crash.
Fantastic game, start to finish. A worthy successor to Metro 2033 that has made small improvements to every single aspect of the original. Some will complain about the field of view or the semi-constant cramped environments, but this is atmosphere in a game taking place mostly underground or with a mask on and it works perfectly. Where this game really stands out is in how the storyline unfolds. At times you will feel lost but by the end it all comes together for a terrific climax that ranks as one of the best first person shooter endings I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing. For something different in the first person genre, this is a must play, but make sure to play Metro 2033 first or you will be lost.
A must play open world stealth combat masterpiece. Good graphics, excellent story, excellent score, great pace and feel, this game blew away all expectations I had for it. The nemesis system works, the combat flows beautifully, and the variety of approaches available to the player ensure that you do things the way you want to. I will caution that the game can be very difficult and you will die, but even here death is an integral part of the game and plays a part in the ever evolving world. That may be this games greatest achievement, the feeling that you are in a world with a life of it's own, and yet everything you do effects that world and how it grows.
I was pleasantly surprised with this game. Having received it for free through Games with Gold I did not expect much. Instead I came away adrenaline pounding in my ears, thoroughly engrossed in an excellently paced and crafted experience. I say experience because the feeling of claustrophobia and confusion are palatable, and they pull you deeper into the metro. The audio adds to this experience being both tense and sorrowful interchangeably, making you experience the emotions that would accompany such an underground existence. Some week points do exist, the game never feels anything but linear, and there are some dated graphics at work here. These two things, plus the game being relatively short lead to the 8 out of 10. Excellent game giving a very different look and feel to a crowded genre, worth every minute.
For $60 I got four games. All were premium releases with full multiplayer (as of March 2015, working seemlessly) and vast single player campaigns. All have full orchestral soundtracks that work incredibly well with the environments they were crafted for. I have access to videos, commentaries, and in-game unlockables. The games look great with or without the remastered graphics (Halo2 looks beyond incredible, as if they started from scratch). I get all of this for $60? Haters can hate, but these games continue to stand the test of time. Get it, halo fan or not, and play it through, then lie through clenched teeth that you didn't get your monies worth.
I want to rate the game lower than I did. There is such a sad excuse for a story it makes my head hurt, how could they waste this game with this story? Once you're done the story, you are faced with crushing repetition, and only the collection of stuff to keep playing for. Again, no story to drive you to keep playing, just endless loot collecting (98% of which you simply throw away because it's inferior). The soundtrack is fairly weak and the visuals are good, but not blow your mind next gen great. The multiplayer seems to be unable to consistently pair you with players of similar skill. Have one match even, next match you get creamed, creamed again, destroy everyone, destroy everyone, balanced, creamed, creamed, destroy. There seams to be no logic to how PvP stacks players and no logic to weapon balance either. Then I see that I have logged over 300 hours and realize that something about this game keeps you there. Something about being a Guardian patrolling an unstable buffer zone between Earth and it's enemies keeps you coming back. The action and enemies are so well crafted that you just enjoy shooting the same thing over and over. You enjoy running around the same maps over and over, kicking ass. Even writing this it looks insane to think that I just kept playing. I believe I have finally broken free from this madness, but for my dollars to hours ratio on this one, I have to give it at least an 8. A great, smooth shooter with endless storyless hours of gameplay. Addictive personalities beware, this game will own you.
I enjoyed the puzzles and characters and felt that there was little enough hand holding for me to feel like I was free to go and investigate what I wanted. Some of the puzzles were quite rewarding to solve, but too many were too easy, especially for a game with a mature rating. I did not feel like the puzzles were all meant for adults, and you only play this game for the puzzles. While the visuals looked quite pretty for this type of game, I found my self asking if this type of game had a place in the modern era of gaming. I don't know if it does for others, but in the end it didn't for me. A niche game that had elements I liked, but an overall package I could have enjoyed more.
The look and sound of Alive are great, as is the feel. The machine modifications are cool and the racing can be pretty intense. However, the lack of any career mode (no, what's in the game doesn't count) and the very small free ride environments means that for the single player experience, this game is quite shallow. I enjoyed playing it, but didn't play it very long before it became boring. Good start for a game, but quite short **** game.
Thoroughly enjoyable way to PG game in front of the kids. Hated this game until I discovered what all lurked beneath the surface. Then I found out how to get to the Nether and the game went up another notch. I do wish more features would be incorporated into the 360 version, and the map needs to be bigger. The survival feeling at night and under ground are really well done, and the graphics **** but that's kind of the point. Solid simple game to kill much time with.
Loot gathering gone even more insane, Borderlands 2 adds way more variety to the shields, grenades, class mods, and elements. The storyline has been greatly improved and the skill trees are even more mental. I loved playing through the game, the first time. 2K has unfortunately ruined this games second play through (True Vault hunter mode) if you are choosing to go it alone. The difficulty ramp up is manageable in the general areas, but the boss fights are no longer any sort of fun. 2K, this game has lost the replay-ability that made the first one of my favourite games. In spite of all the upgrades, this franchise has taken a step back for me. A great game that if you have lots of friends who can play, enjoy. If you like to go it alone, not quite as good as the first.
Loot gathering fun at it's greatest. I have logged over 200 hours doing multiple characters both times through. The music, weapons, stylized graphics,and pacing make this game a 10. The very poor storyline and copious backtracking do bring this down for a 9, but it is still an absolute must play for the FPS or multiplayer lover. Also the final boss is way too easy when you figure it out.
I received this game for free and feel I overpaid. Here's why! The environments are so poorly detailed I had to check again to make sure the disc said 360. The voice acting is very annoying, the plot is non-existent, and many of the game mechanics feel incomplete. The soundtrack and soundeffects are very poor, again feeling as if they were incomplete. Basically the game feels rushed and incomplete. The one positive I will give it is that I did enjoy destroying buildings and generally wreaking havoc with my UFO. This should have been released as an arcade title for 5$ on the Xbox, absolutely not as a full game on the 360. One of the worst games I have played on the 360 or the Xbox.
The greatest Xbox game, period. Beautiful for it's time and vastly ahead of the open-world concept craze, Morrowind was the first truly immersive game I played. All RPG's that dare to go full 3D open world are measured Morrowind's complexity, it's diversity, and it's massive environments. Add to this a Fighter guild, Mages guild, Thieves Guild, Morag Tong assassins Guild, Tribunal Temple, Imperial Cult, Imperial Legion, Blades main Guild, chance to join one of three ruling houses, East Empire Company, Ashlanders, and even a rare chance to join one of three Vampire clans. Add to this many non-faction miscellaneous quests and you have a near endless amount of missions to complete. What separates this game from current versions is that there is little to no enemy leveling system. There is also little to no item leveling occurring. This allows for a far more dangerous and potentially far more rewarding exploration experience. Vampire den at level 4? Your dead and it's your fault. Find a massive enchanted sword at level 6? Hope you built your character to use it, enjoy! Find something impressive at level 10 and sell it only to discover it was mission essential later at level 30? Your fault, start over. Another thing worth mentioning is a brilliant music score. It is not perfect, however. This game also taught me what it was to have a game you could not rely on to be stable, which has become Bethesda's calling card. The combat is quite weak, you just flail at your opponent while they flail back and you see who had the better odds at flailing. The graphics may have been great when this game was made, but they have not aged particularly well. Also Cliff Racers are the most annoying enemy in gaming history. Not a game for people looking to have hands held through a game, but unrivaled in it's time and still a great play today. Top 5 game on my all time list.
Dishonored blends a great plot, wonderful stylized graphics, excellent non-linear feel, and great completion variety to the missions. You will discover a style of gameplay that works for you in the first couple of missions and spend the rest of the game perfecting it. I love the dynamic environments that change as you complete missions to reflect the style of gameplay you have chosen. Go through levels as death incarnate and kill all you see? Watch the world grow darker, more dangerous, and more plague infested. Slip through levels like a shadow, making your enemies disappear without a trace? Watch the city begin to come back to life and the plague wither. Loads of replay-ability coupled with all of the things listed above and this game is nearly perfect. The only two gripes I have are a soundtrack that disappears and is totally forgettable, and graphics that are definitely showing their age. Seriously, I thought I was playing Half-Life 2 again. A must play for any assassin lover.
Grid Autosport is a great looking, great sounding pseudo-simulator that brings something different to the racing genre. The various different types of cars display a good variety of handling and feel, and the sense of speed is well done. On the hardest difficulty, a very enjoyable game with lots of wheel to wheel racing. I liked the idea of the team offerings, though this concept was better executed on the N64 with World Championship Driver. In Grid there is no in-team competition to become the number one driver who gets equipment and support upgrades. There is also no story line between the various teams you drive for, this could have been easily added. The teammates are underutilized and serve only to hamper the team with their poor finishes. Finally, it may be because of the difficulty I play on, but the AI can get extremely aggressive. It's to the point where I have wondered if the game is intentionally trying to end my race. This has also resulted in some of the best racing I have experienced. This is the only game where I have raced a final lap against an opponent that drives like it's the final lap. I have had an opponent overdrive a corner under me and totally fudge his line to get the position, door slam me as I pass after I give him a nudge with the nose, then give me a decent hit with the nose of his car in the final corner to try to loosen me up. Great game, great difficulty, but not perfect.
Forza Horizon is a fun open world racer using more realistic physics than it's competition. The soundtrack is first rate, and the car selection (compared to other racers of the type) is commendable as well. Also, Forza Horizon again packs loads of modifications into it's car builds. The game offers a nice variety of tracks and challenges that contribute to some pretty solid gameplay time. All of this would make you think that Forza Horizon should be an 8 or a 9, and if you are unfamiliar with the Forza family of games you would be absolutely right. I am not unfamiliar with Forza, I have played Forza 1-4, and this game is a 6 for me. 1st-The story line is better than other Forza titles which have none, but is not an adequate story compared to other open world racers. 2nd-If you are very familiar with Forza, than you will be disappointed by how few cars there are. 3rd-If you have to play Forza games at max difficulty, this game will infuriate you. You will hit races where you have only one or two car options and neither will seem fast enough. You will smash your head against a table after your 30th attempt to complete a 2 minute race. 4th-And finally, Turn 10 are crooks and dangle DLC cars in front of your nose constantly. Add to that Rally upgrades and races not available until you get the DLC. Add to that Tokens that you purchase with real money to get crap add-ons like fast travel anywhere and treasure maps. Couple this with the recent Forza 5 "Day of DLC" that cost almost as much as the game just to give you a proper amount of cars for a simulator and you have fairly conclusive evidence that Turn 10 makes games with as little content as they can get away with and then spend the rest of your gaming time trying to milk you for every dollar. (And breathe...) This game is a de-contented twist on an excellent franchise that seems doomed to drown in it's own greed. It is still a good game but it could have been great. Can the next racing simulator franchise please stand up.
I love racing games, arcade and simulator. I loved the Need for Speed franchise, the Forza series, some of the Grand Turismos, various rally games, and even some of the nintendo party game racers. Midnight Club LA will never be in that list, but we'll start with what does work in the game. The cars are beautifully rendered and the modifications available are fantastic. The feeling of speed and edge of your seat insanity in the races is terrific, as well as the idea of weapons which was pulled off very well. The city size is terrific and the police chase system is both different and a welcome change in the genre. The music variety is also quite good and the customizable playlist saved my ears from committing suicide. Now for the bad. The physics and driving feel are horrible, probably the worst I can remember on the 360. Your low power golf steers and slides much the same as your Corvette, and they both get the same level of camera speed shake. The race selection will sometimes show that your competitior is in a mediocre car and than the race is on and you see Aston's and Lambo's lined up along side your Focus and your enemies Eclipse. The vinyls system is cumbersome and far inferior to the ones used in forza or early NFS. The story line is complete crap and I started hoping my character would get busted or shot. Does Rockstar think we all want to be arrogant self centered wise cracking trash living only for money and fame? Oops, that's every Rockstar game. Much like the lead character, this game looks good, but nothing feels right and there's no personality or depth to dig for.
A mediocre addition to a very full genre, gunplay and driving are weak and the story makes me hate my character more and more the farther I get. The environment size and variety of tasks available are commendable and the character building and upgrading are an addition I would like to see more games in this genre adopt. In the end though, you realize there a a variety of other similar games that deserve your time more than this one.
Dust is a very well constucted, beautifully painted game that paces it's challenges and upgrades very well. The story is excellent and the inventory system works fairly well, though there are aspects that are a little clunky. Some of the side quests involve collection missions which are boring, and the arenas detract from the rather serious tone the story is trying to set. The audio is terrific and is usually a sore point that I have with 2d sidescrollers, but this one was pleasant without being intrusive. The only other issue I have with the game is the repetitive combat when you re-enter areas you have passed through before. I realize that this is the way these types of games are done, but this is a great way to dilute the combat and make it less enjoyable. All negatives aside, the story and artwork are worth a play alone, and the upgrades and items keep it interesting. A single play-through game that you will enjoy while your there, but ultimately not a segment breaker.
A beautiful looking game with some great visuals and wonderful physics. This is a game for serious racers only (unless you are actually going to buy a F1 game and leave all the helps on) as the qualifying and tuning required at higher difficulties makes the game difficult to just pick-up and play. You pick it up and devote the next several hours to getting the car right and hoping you don't ruin all your hard work crashing in the race. So very much like the real thing. Also, the sensation of speed is like no other game I have played before. Excellent racer, not noob friendly. I would have liked to see a Team Manager mode where you take control of the team and manage the resources, directions, and sponsorship without ever racing.
Hearthfire was a wonderful, low key addition to a game where you sometimes felt the need to just get away from it all. I loved the drafting and building process and enjoyed the challenge of trying to collect enough resources to get everything done, it turned every dungeon crawl into a treasure hunt. At the end of hard day of adventuring, it was nice to come home, drop off my stuff, and indulge in a fantasy where I am father and husband and handyman. I am a Father and Husband, the handyman part is the fantasy, and maybe that's why I enjoyed this expansion so much.
Lionhead has given us a shell **** that is a major downgrade in every way from it's predecessors. It has a grainier lower quality look, it has had all RPG elements stripped out of it, and it's environments and people are bland and unintersting. The magic system is one dimensional, the weapon selection is laughable, and the road to riches really did make me feel like Disney had a hand in this game's development. Having the hardest decision to make in the game occur in the opening tells you how poorly this game was thought out. How can they make a game this thin for 360, I would barely have accepted this game on regular xbox, never mind a next gen system. The only redeeming quality to this game is another very well executed storyline that keeps you going until the end. I received this for free and still felt like I may have overpaid.
Fable 2 is an incredible, enjoyable experience start to finish. An excellent re-tool of the magic, melee, and shooting system make combat much faster and more fluid, comparing the Fable 1. The music and ambient sound are very well done, as is the stylized architecture and populace. All of that aside, the main reasons to play this game are the incredible storyline and your dog. Your dog is easily the greatest executed companion since Navi. Excellent game to replay time and time again.
Inferior to the regular xbox version in look and feel, the only notable upgrades to this game are the audio and the achievements. This is obviously a money grab from a company with little to no recent successes, and game refreshes like this are unacceptable. It is glitchy, oddly shaded, and the cut scenes look horrible. The game remains an excellent one in spite of the cheap spit and polish job attempted and if you have never played Fable give it a whirl. If, however, you have the original Fable Lost Chapters, just put that in instead. Bad form LionHead, next time you won't fool me so easily.
An absolutely spell-binding RPG that holds your attention through hundreds of hours of game time. The visuals are incredible and varied, the soundtrack is second to none, and the controls and combat are tight and balanced between the various styles available to the player. Never before have I played a game that I thought I could lose myself in like this one. Bethesda has recaptured what they had in Morrowind and lost in Oblivion, and that is an environment and social structure that exist quite independent of your adventuring and advancing. This is a game where you are most fulfilled when you slow down, take the time to look around, and realize you are in another world that lives and breathes on it's own without you. (Metaphorically, it is still fake and they are still just AI.) I have only two issues and one fear related to this game. 1. The infinite missions this game was hyped to have are mostly endlessly performing mundane tasks for various guilds that have no additional storyline once you complete the main one for that group. It would be like me endlessly giving you a grocery list with the same items on it and saying that I was giving you an endless variety of chores. 2. The good old Bethesda bug machine keeps on rolling right along, crashing sporadically. Go 8 hours crash, go 30 minutes crash, fail to boot up, go 30 hours, crash. They must come up with some patches to stabilize this game and this is the sole reason I gave it a 9 and not a 10. This type of poor code writing should not be glazed over anymore! And finally, I have a fear that if they choose to remove anything else from this game for the next installment, less will start to become less. They did a wonderful job of trimming the fat from Oblivion, but anymore and this won't be an RPG for long. A brilliant game that only the serious gamer should undertake, otherwise you'll only be frustrated that you don't have enough time.
Assassin's Creed 4 is a thoroughly enjoyable pirate adventure game that has no business being tied to the Assassin's Creed franchise. This is a stand alone game that happens to use the same engines and styles as Assassin's Creed, with a weak story line taking place somewhere you're not interested in. The positives: Great sailing and naval combat experience, beautiful sea environment, excellent soundtrack, great side missions, and an awesome open world experience. The negatives: Very poor storyline, more follow a conversation missions, some frustrating environment interaction glitches, resource collecting requires some serious pirating farming. A very good game I like to break out when I feel the need to sail, but held back primarily by a lack of unifying story to drive the player.
Dragon-born is the best of the Skyrim expansions by a mile, especially if you have put a decent amount of time into Morrowind. I found nostalgia and flashback behind every rock and tree and loved every minute of it. The music and environment are terrific and having the old plants and houses back was great. The story line was good, if a little short and the dragon riding was quite poor. Apart from that, a must have expansion for the Elderscrolls enthusiast.
Sleeping Dogs is an interesting spin on the open world game that attempts to place the various criminal activities present in other sandbox worlds in a more morally correct policing role. Combining a very slick run system with a GTA like backdrop sounds like a recipe for success, but this game never feels like it puts it all together. Below average graphics with a brutal soundtrack hold back some excellent story and nice on foot feel. The driving is quite poor as well, maybe being passable for a previous generation system, but not the 360. A solid attempt and worth a play, but nothing I'll miss or feel nostalgia for. Average in a genre with some incredible offerings. (Also, I hate any game requiring me to make constant use of a cell phone.)
Having played AC 1 and 2, I was unsure of where they could take the series as 2 was an incredible piece of work. The answer is they got very ambitious and fell short. The opening is fun once, and by opening I mean first 10 hours. This game is not replayable, too many very long story sequences of linearized gameplay. The good is that this game is beautiful, vast, complex, and has alot of play time in it. Best part hands down were the ship missions. The free run mechanics continue to work great and further variety has been added to combat to keep it from stagnating. Find this game discounted and it will not disappoint, but not a full retail purchase.
Driver San Francisco is the sequel to the original I have waiting for. For the first time since Driver I enjoy simply driving around endlessly. The story is cool and weird, the online is great, and the music is really well matched, but all of this pales in comparison to how well the cars in this game feel. The handling and modeling are things of beauty and alone make this game the greatest open world driver for the 360. Driver is back. If only there was a second city, one the best parts of the original was the different surroundings you unlocked.
A brilliant sequel to an incredibly innovative game, this is one of the purest, most focused games I've played on this console. A true masterpiece combining fast paced visuals, an intense soundtrack, and a driving story-line. A must play for any 360 owner. The only drawback to this game is that it is very short, so much so that I cannot give it a perfect rating. Find it in a discount bin for a good price and than I would give it a 10.
Stupid fun where the less you think about what you're doing the better it its. I can see when this game was released that some of what you do would be innovative and fun, but in 2013 there are many games that do the same things better. If you want to climb buildings, play Assassin's Creed. If you want wide open kill fest, play GTA, if you want to drive madly through a city, play driver 3. I did have fun playing this game, but only when I forgot what other games I could be playing. Also, the ending is REALLY lame, and a bad ending turned a generous 6 into a deserved 4.
Repetitive and dull, DR2 really gave me nothing I was looking for from a zombie survival game. No scares, no ability to clear out areas, and sub-par graphics. Soundtrack was weak and story-line was WAY too predictable (guessed end after 1 1/2 hours of play). It is initially fun to customize your character and to kill copious amounts of zombies, but they keep coming back so what's the point. There is no point in playing this game, it's not survival horror nor is it fast paced enough to be action. Were I in this world I would die, not by zombie, but by boredom.
The game you wished the first was and more. Perfection of the free running elements as well as beautifully told storyline and incredible vistas. I have not yet played the third but I am warming myself up for disappointment, because there is really nowhere left to go after this, possibly the greatest game sequel of all time.
Great game with an incredible career mode, I especially love how the sponsorship works in the game. If only I could hire a driver later in the game to race my lower level cars on the big race weekends.
Assassin's Creed is a beautifully detailed, smooth operating, engrossing game that suffers from one glaring fault, repetition. The number of times you must save a harassed citizen is a product of a design team that had to work on all kinds of function and scenery, and than had little time left over to fill the game with missions. The other annoyance to a game that is supposed to favor stealth and assassin techniques is the constant large scale unavoidable fights the later assassinations produce. I'm sorry, my character is the worst assassin ever if he constantly just walks into a crowd of soldiers. Great game mechanics and wonderful detailing largely overcome second rate missions.
This is the first ten I am giving to a game with several glaring flaws, and I will address these faults immediately. First, and most maddening, is the idiotic AI that has lost the ability to start a race, drive in tight formation, and recognize a passing vehicle as a solid object. Many times, while driving side by side, the computer will simply turn into me and not stopped until they are back in the race line, often to the point of pushing me right off the track. How did Forza go from a brilliant, tough, precise AI (in the hardest settings) to this? Second issue I have is with a bugged audio system, where engine notes will get stuck or will cut out altogether for several seconds, both of which cause havoc you shift manually in the game and rely on that engine noise. My third, and final issue with this game, is a delay issue I am having that is getting worse and worse the more races I complete. After a race, as you select to see your winnings, the game jams, sometimes for as much as a minute, sound and video. I've cleared the cache, I've reinstalled the game, nothing works and it's getting worse the more I complete. That's all the bad, and it would seem un-redeemable except for three incredible changes from Forza 3. First, is the most brilliant racing physics engine ever devised, period. This is especially evident when you drive older cars with skinny tires and flexible bodies. Every car is an experience and different types of cars feel more different, so driving a variety of cars becomes more rewarding. Second is the absolutely incredible variety of quality performance vehicles, from vintage Alfa Romeos to obscure modern supercars. Along with variety I'll also note that the car modelling seems to has also taken a large leap forward. Thirdly, the addition of Topgear and Topgear personality Jeremy Clarkson takes this from being another car game to being THEE car game. From Clarkson's humorous takes in Autovista, to the topgear track, to some of the included cars in the game, the quality of presentation is greatly amplified by this partnership. I can play no other car game without feeling that in some intangible (and sometimes very tangible) way, all other racing games have been rendered inferior.
While every other game in the series is saving with world with some character secondary story, the campaign in Halo 4 is flipped. Saving the world seems to take a back seat to the Master Chief's quest to solve Cortana's rampancy. This makes for a more emotional story, but a less intense one as well. The saving the world story which I will not spoil doesn't seem to be given the attention it deserves. This is easily the most amped up storyline Halo series has seen, what with numerous leading up books and movies, yet the story in the game itself doesn't feel alive and fleshed out. That is my largest complaint in a game that I like very much. The music is incredible, the environments are beautifully detailed, and the facial CG is beyond incredible. I cannot wait to play more Infinity so that I can write a follow-up to this review. My final complaint is the complete stripped down content you get if you are not online. Never have I been so disappointed with offline content. It was an inevitability that the days of offline gaming were coming to an end, but I never imagined not even having access to a campaign scoring system, the elimination of offline firefight, just stripped down. Were it not for the lack of offline content, this game would have been a 9 for me. The lack of out-of-box value, however, has shown that 343 has largely abandoned the offline gamer, and considering that Reach, ODST, and Halo3 had plenty to keep one occupied unconnected, this step back has tarnished my view of this series; Until the Internet guy makes it to my house...
Halo 2 adds several mechanical achievements over Halo:CE, as well as continues the incredible story arc the first began. What is loses is the originality of the first without introducing enough new elements to feel completely fresh. This is understandable, considering what a feat the first game was and how soon after this game was released. Again, graphics and controls stand up well, even after a considerable amount of time. The Soundtrack from any Halo game is incredible, and this one is no different. For the completionist, this game on Legendary is, in my opinion, the hardest of all the Halo games, CE to Reach. Overall, a great continuation that just failed to deliver enough new material to be the greatest.
How do you write a review 11 years after a release. The game will feel dated, it won't look or run like you're used to games running. That is not a problem for Halo:Combat Evolved. The graphics still hold up, even from a different system generation. The gameplay is still fierce and engaging, the multiplayer still robust enough to lose several hours with a few friends, and that's playing it now. The game has held up beautifully because it was so far ahead of it's time. Colourful scenery with an absolutely incredible soundtrack, the ambiance of Halo takes you away. How do you review a game released in 2001? Quite favourably, it seems.
