 |
Medal of Honor: Warfighter (Xbox 360)
by Seven17
This game makes a nice change from call of duty, and i bought it just to see what it was all about. I quite enjoy playing first person shooters but had yet to play this, so this was the first in the series that I've experienced. I didn't fully 1000 point the game because of the online and difficulty achievements, but actually quite ... enjoyed the storyline.
The most annoying feature on this game is the flinching when shot. You basically get what appears to be a shutter from an old camera start flickering on your screen and creating a red tint while the screen goes black. This is enough to send someone into an epileptic fit let alone annoy and confuse you as you try to shoot back at whatever it is that just ruined your kill streak.
The storyline is excellent, and i'd recommend playing through on a higher difficulty to full appreciate what goes on in the story, as the easier levels can be over too quickly and you miss the finer details form the cutscenes. While you can skip these short films I'd recommend watching them to fully understand why you're doing what you're doing.
The graphics are excellent, plenty of attention to detail and there are some excellent real world objects incorporated into the game. Things like the US humvee's which have the same shape and interior, although lacking a few polygons on the seats with some bad texturing, but the buildings and people more than make up for this, and give an excellent atmosphere when playing.
The script and voice acting are near perfect. There isn't too much waffle although it does drone on a little too much in some cutscenes. The characters each have their own unique voices and are voiced by professionals so no cheesy one liners or badly acted bits, they also sound like they mean what they says and not reading off a bit of paper in a recording studio somewhere.
I quite enjoyed the variety in this game too, some missions are extremely long and some over in seconds, like the sniper boat mission where you just take one shot and *ping* out pops some gamerscore. Mission over. Unlike Call of Duty you can also drive vehicles and there is a getaway mission where you rive both off and on road to catch the fleeing terrorist.
The achievements are not for score hunters, most are gameplay based and require a lot of time or mission replays to unlock. Some are for specific requirements on a level like shooting out the swinging lights in car parks which nets you an easy 20G but does require some effort. These are also hidden throughout the levels so they cant be accidentally unlocked, so check out some guides on x360a if you have any trouble. This game is not for score hunters, hence i only bought it to play for fun and the storyline.
Overall a great game, I really enjoyed playing it as a change of pace from cod but i certainly wouldn't recommend it over CoD, which to me at least still has the right online gameplay and excellent storyline. Close, but no cigar.
Read the complete review |
 |
Men In Black (Xbox 360)
by Seven17
I bought this game not because I wanted to enjoy it, experience it's storyline or anything like that, I bought it simply to boost an easy 1000G for my Xbox Gamer card. Why else would you buy this? Voice acting is disgraceful, storyline is stupid, graphics, physics and attention to detail is shockingly unacceptable and gameplay is poor. ...
Let's start with the voice acting. Nethera, the main alien character in the game has a rubbish voice actor who gives a half arsed performance and sounds like she's a robot drowning, sound quality is pretty bad on top of that too. The script is terrible and makes no sense.
This game is aimed at children because children wouldn't notice the flaws and could easily understand the inarticulate script which has been festooned upon the poor souls that play this game. Yet it's rated 12+ by Pegi? Forgive me for thinking this game is aimed at a market that can't even buy it, but what an earth were the developers thinking?!
So moving swiftly onto graphics and things go from bad to worse. The attention to detail is poor and the guns, aliens and cars are all low resolution, short of polygons and look a complete mess. Things like the nightclubs when you fly past them in the car, if you slow down you will see their signs, essentially their "names". On the second flying car level there were tens of nightclubs all called "Dancing". Have you ever sat wondering if you wanted to go to Dancing tonight? What a pile of nonsense.
Physics are disgraceful and accuracy from guns is hit and miss, most of the time pot luck. Because the developers don't want you to walk around and fall through badly made textures, you can't walk anywhere. Yes, this is a third person shooter game where you only shoot and the game does the rest for you. You cannot move, duck, run for cover, move back or forward etc, only shoot, and even that is no good. This often means you'll be hit by a barrage of enemies and you can't get back or dive forward to a table to get into cover, so you just die. Rage quit alert: This game is full of ragetastic moments.
The achievements are very easy and I got the full 1000G in 3 days. You will need a second play through if you want to go for the full 1000 as the higher difficulty cannot be unlocked unless you complete medium. Defeating Nethera is the hardest part and on the maximum difficulty took me 5 attempts a total of 1 hour. Most achievements are story based and the score based ones can be unlocked after you complete the game. The gun based ones can all be completed in one and a half play throughs, you just need to keep your eye on the number of kills you make.
Overall a disgraceful game. Avoid this unless you want a quick and easy 1000G. Don't buy this for a child (even the game rating says that) and don;t buy this for fun, I assure you it is not fun at all. A badly made game with a half arsed effort by the developers. Shame on them.
Read the complete review |
|
|
Nickelodeon Dance - Kinect Required (Xbox 360)
by Seven17
If you have a small child then chances are they watch nickelodeon. This is the game of the TV channel in whole, it's not just Dora. You play as many of the characters from the telly, Dora is the host but does like to run the show quite a lot, as many of the characters only have a minor role in the game, as an avatar dancing in the ... background.
The voice acting is all done by the original actors, apart from the fact that they're the American actors. Nickelodeon uses different voice actors for each programme in the UK and US so kids have a local accent that they can understand. Unfortunately this game was made as a global version in different region formats, meaning you end up with the American accents being played in Britain. Don't be surprised if your child complains about how the characters have funny voices!
The accuracy of the dancing moves is somewhat questionable and a bit hit and miss. You can often hit a move perfectly and get an excellent posture yet the game wont register this and it does seem to pick up a lot of your body without registering the move. Having said that, I have just flailed my arms around in mid air and jumped about and still got the maximum 3 stars.
I tried getting our 4 year old daughter to join in to help me get the two player achievement for 50G (Earning her keep, I said.) and she just didn't seem interested because the dancing moves were too complex, and quickly lost attention and concentration. She wasn't upset or confused by it but just seemed to have a "meh" look on her face. I think she might be too young but 4 year olds love Nickelodeon?
The achievements are extremely easy and can be fully completed within 5 hours. The dancing dynamo achievement will take 5 hours but this doesn't have to be played game time, as you can just hit the guide button and just sit about letting the game clock up the time effortlessly. The rest are easy and basically completion based, many abut collecting stars.
You get 1 star just for trying each move and this slowly fills up the star bar at the side and this allows you to rack up the points with little effort. You will need to try harder if you want to go for the achievements a lot faster.
This can be a fun game but I think 5+ is more recommended, our daughter didn't really take interest. The excellent thing about this is that it also has easy achievements so it's excellent for score whores to boost their score with dora. Highly recommended.
Read the complete review |
