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The Witcher 2 - Enhanced Edition (Xbox 360)
by ManicDooyoo
First of all ill start of by saying that this game, was originally on PC. About 6 months later, they released it for the Xbox 360.
When I got this game, the first thing I noticed was the box. It came in a nice thick, glossy box, and inside the box is the game case. In-between the game case and the box comes a Quest hand book, and a ... glossed double sided map of Tameria.
Game play- Fighting/combat system.
The combat system in this game is very swift, and easy to use regarding all of the different ways you can fight in this game. You have 5 spells, 2 swords, and 5 usable items all accessible without actually pausing the game. Each sword/spell/combat item, can be easily accessed by simply pressing the LB button, which slows down you and your surrounding, in which you can quickly choose the item of choice.
The Sword fighting is also very amazing, as well as the directions of the sword going in many different directions, you also do many different manoeuvres with your sword to kill your enemy's, which is very exciting to play. You also have 2 different swords. One is silver in which you kill monsters, and one is steel which you kill humans with.
Game play- Non fighting elements.
one of the aspects that raise the bar of this game, is the alchemy and the crafting.
Alchemy- The sheer amount of potions you can make in this game is amazing. You get ingredients from trees, bushes, and underground and also you harvest pieces of monsters (eg. harpies eyes,kayran tentacles). To make these potions, you need to "Meditate" and you also need the Diagrams of the potion. You then choose the diagram, and make the potion.
Crafting- You can make Swords and armour by crafting. You use ores which you can buy, loot or get from underground and gem dust to make swords. And items like monster skin, ores and other pieces of monsters. To make the armour, you also need to have crafting diagrams, and you go to a blacksmith and they make them.
Graphics- The graphics are amazing, and the best graphic game i have seen on the Xbox 360, it really pushes the boundaries of the system.
Upgrading your character- As with all RPG's you can upgrade your character, and in this game you have a 4 path star, Swordsmanship, Mage, alchemy and training. And each path has different aspects of your character you can upgrade.
Game play- Storyline.
you play as someone named "Geralt of Rivia" and you're a monster slayer who is trying to stop the assassination of kings, and you can choose many paths, each path changes every aspect of the game, eg, at the end of chapter 1, you can choose to team with "Iorveth and the elves" or a human called "Roche" and each path changes chapter 2 very much. In my opinion this has an extremely deep story line which will leave players hooked, and even wanting to do the side quests, (which also have a very good storyline!)
Advantages-
-Very Good story line, which makes quite a long play through.
-Amazing combat which is very easy to use.
- Huge amount of side quests which are just as fun as the main quest.
-Good graphics.
-Sex scenes are totally uncensored.
Disadvantages-
- the area is so vast, and there is so many paths, it can often be hard to navigate, the map being not much help.
-Not much player customization, you can only change his hairstyle.
-The only good weapons in the game are only swords, you can have axes etc, but they have very low damage.
Overall I rate this game 9.5/10. I would give it a 10 if I didn't have to spend a lot of the game running around looking for places.
I would definitely recommend this game to my friends, especially if they are a fan of the RPG genre.
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Space Marine (Xbox 360)
by Stunt 101
Since the dawn of games like Gears of War and Halo, space marines have become all the rage in video games. Given about as much personality as a block of wood and armour which clearly compensates for a lack of something down below, the space marine concept has become somewhat dry lately due to over-exposure. But now, Relic is delivering a ... game based around the entire concept of such characters, based in the Warhammer universe. Does it make blowing up anything standing in your way fun, or is it just another one of those space marine-games?
You play as Titus, leader of a squadron of Space Marines. Orcs have invaded a Forge World and it's up to you and your group to clear these enemies off the world. The story is not all very interesting. Cutscenes frequently punctuate the action, meaning the story certainly doesn't fade into the background of the game, but due to bland voice acting and repetitive voiceovers too (literally, the grunts in the marines have the same voice-over as the grunts in the Orcs) it certainly isn't engaging. Twists are abound, but they come as somewhat unsurprising because it's stuff which you're expecting to happen. And the unsatisfying ending will leave a cold taste in your mouth, essentially calling you the bad guy for the events which just transpired.
The game is divided into two sections - campaign and online multiplayer. The campaign is pretty basic, divided into five acts which contain multiple chapters each. Levels are completely linear, and if you don't follow the right direction an icon on-screen will inform you of which way you should be going. The strict linearity means you really can experience all the campaign has to offer on your first playthrough, and its deadly short clocking in at about 6 hours of length. The only reason to replay the campaign is to either find collectables you may have missed on your first run or mop up any achievements you may have missed. But overall, its strict path means that there's little room for replay value in the campaign.
Space Marine is a 3rd-person shooter, combined with a melee combat game. Titus carries up to four firearms and a melee weapon. It might sound odd, but Relic has made sure the game is smooth despite smashing two different kinds of game together. All the melee actions are mapped to the Face buttons, while shooting and aiming are mapped to the triggers and bumpers on top. It works very well, and makes sure it doesn't follow the Gears of War-syndrome by cutting out any cover kind of cover-system mechanic. Titus also has a rage mode, where after doing enough damage to enemies and the meter is filled, players can click both analogue sticks to activate. This puts Titus into a mode where melee attacks to more damage, and if you aim with your weapon time slows down and bullets do more damage. It's definitely useful in the tighter and more difficult situations.
Weapons are satisfying, whether they are melee or firearms. A semi-large variety of firearms can be picked up throughout the game, including standard pistols, sub-machine guns and sniper rifles, as well as plasma versions of these weapons. There are hundreds of enemies to kill, so Relic smartly enabled infinite-ammo for pistols so you don't come up unarmed in a fight. But, melee weapons also ensure this. You can find about 3 variations of melee weapons throughout the campaign - a chainsaw-style sword, a power axe and later in the campaign a giant Thor-style Hammer. The weapons pack a satisfying punch in Space Marine, meaning combat usually isn't too boring.
And Relic compliments these weapons by giving the player huge amounts of enemies to kill. Some fights have dozens of orcs running towards you and ready to kill you, and it's up to you whether you take them down with melee assaults or firearms. To avoid boredom, different enemy types are thrown into the mix, requiring somewhat differing tactics for success. You have standard orcs, which come in tiny and middle-sized forms that you can deal with in any kind of manner so to speak. Then you have the other, tricky kinds - the larger enemies, rather than brute force, require successful stun combos to weaken. Other enemies are sat in long-range distance with mortar-style explosives, requiring sniper rifles or long ranged weaponry.
It's definitely fun killing enemies in huge battlefields, where one blow can knock down dozens of enemies at once, but really this is all you do for the entire game, with no kind of variety for good measure, meaning it becomes a bore towards the end. Relic tries to shake things up at a couple of points. Two boss-fights are added in for good measure, but one requires you simply to do what you did before - hack away until they play dead - and the other is more of a fight against waves of enemies until you enter an action sequence with quick-time events. The game also shakes up its enemy types about three-quarters of the way through, with a new race of enemy making their first appearance due to troublesome circumstances. But, it just boils down to hacking at your enemies until they are dead.
Online, however, may salvage the player's enjoyment in this game. The game enforces a code from new copies of the game or purchasable access to the game's multiplayer component past Level 5. Though some may be annoyed with this feature, where essentially Relic will be asking owners of used copies of the game to pay for online multiplayer, it's still an enjoyable experience compared to its bland single-player component. The game injects a ranking-based system where kills and other actions in multiplayer level-up your rank. Once you break Level 4, you can fully customise your character and their class. 3 classes are present, from the machine-gun heavy grunt class to a class which packs you with a laser-sword and jet pack, making for insane fun online. You can partake in multiple modes from standard deathmatch to capture the zone, and a co-op mode is also presented similar to Horde from GoW (though it requires downloading to play). The game still has a healthy community, as I was able to find a full game within a couple of minutes.
Aesthetically, Space Marine is somewhat displeasing. Graphically, the game looks a little bit low-resolution. Character models for less-important people look blocky to a degree, though animation in cutscenes is usually good. Levels feel bland, with dark purple tints highlighting the battlefield and barren trenches populating the zones. Orc models look good, and the nasty effects from nailing headshots and melee executions are satisfying. Space Marine is a rather gory game, and the blood effects definitely add to the action. But Space Marine overall looks pretty bland. Sound is worse, however. The blimey-British accents most of these enemies contain is strange to say the least, and as mentioned before, multiple enemy/friendly types contain the exact same voice-actor. It's also rather annoying that almost every single enemy yells at you "SPACE MARINE", as if the game's title didn't give that away. The music is sparse and generic too, adding almost nothing to the action.
So Space Marine is, essentially, bland. The campaign is lacklustre, losing its fun a little bit over half-way through. The game's presentation, with dire sound and dull graphics, doesn't help this either. It has fun weaponry, but you can only kill so many thousands of Orcs before it becomes repetitive. And because it is so strict and linear, there's no reason to return once you've pulled your way through the first time. The multiplayer component is pretty fun however, with a good customisation system and a ranking system which will addict you, aping multiplayer components such as Gears of War and Call of Duty. But, considering so many games can offer you exciting campaigns as well as tight multiplayer experiences, that hardly means you should rush out and buy Space Marine. If you're looking for a cheap game which could peak your competitive interest, Space Marine may be for you but otherwise, steer clear of this bland shooter slasher.
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Assassin's Creed Revelations (Xbox 360)
by melloncollieclie
Warning review contains spoilers!
I am a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed series, so I was looking forward to this a lot.
This is the final adventure of Ezio Auditore Di Firenze and follows him as an 'ageing' assassin trying to discover the secrets his ancestor, the famed Alatīr Ibn Al-Ahad, left behind.
The ... game play is similar to the previous instalments, but this time we follow Ezio out of Italy to Istanbul. There are a few new additions to game play, such as the 'hook blade' which allows Ezio access to ziplines and a few new moves, bomb making, which is an interesting if not crucial diversion and more strategy based interludes defending bases.
The story is perhaps less well evolved than previous instalments or perhaps after so long it just feels like more of the same, more could have been made of Alatīr, especially given his prominence in the trailers. I felt like Altaīr's sections were tacked on, I am a big Altaīr fan so was looking forward to playing him again but the sections of the game with Altaīr are rather short and uninspiring.
The turn based strategy defending bases is a bit clunky and not a good fit for the exploratory and action packed feel of the game as a whole, however they are thankfully short though you have the option to do more if you wish.
The scenery and environment is stunning, the worlds of Istanbul;'s different neighbourhoods are detailed and full of life, the background chatter is especially brilliant and humorous, the guests at a party discussing Italian food as you sneak by was a favourite of mine. The humour of the franchise is still intact, the mission which Ezio has to disguise himself as a minstrel, is one of the funniest moments in a video game ever, especially if you have played the other games as he sings a satirical account of his past adventures.
Although he is 'ageing' Ezio remains as athletic as ever, perhaps even more so, and his advancing years have done little to dampen his charm; his character is as loveable and believable as ever.
Whilst the game breaks no new ground and somewhat lacks the impact of the previous games it is still a fantastic game and Ezio remains one of the finest leading men in video game history.
The multi-player aspect has been improved in this game compared to "brotherhood' however it still feels like a shallow add on and can be frustrating at times; often you will press a button to kill or stun and it wont work as your enemy has already got there first , it seems impossible to tell when it will work or not, perhaps this is due to a small amount of lag. The multiplayer experience is quite repetitive, with the same few maps and characters unless one puts in the often tedious work of levelling up. You can also be thrown into a match with many higher levels, offering a thoroughly depressing experience if you are a lone low level player!
However the multi-player has always been a sideshow with assassin's creed, and it is a nice extra. The main draw will always be the main single player game, which is a polished and thoroughly enjoyable experience.
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