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Tropico 4 (Xbox 360)
by Seven17
Tropico is a game where you play as a ruthless dictator and you have to help your island become a better country by stopping your people from living in mud huts, and converting tiny islands into economic powerhouses with tourist destinations and attractions. Some of it is quite funny, some of it is quite intricate and requires attention ... and strategy, but it's mostly a kick back and relax game as opposed to the amount of Grand Theft Auto I play...
The graphics are good but little minor details such as faces and street signs are not that good, it's the bigger things like trees and buildings that have smaller less noticeable details such as flags and statues in the shape of animals outside the buildings. There are lots of different varieties of people and the clothes/hats they wear differ a lot so people never look the same, everyone is unique.
The sound is questionable. There is an in game radio where el presidente speaks over the top of the music and most of these are repetitive and pre recorded. For example, when i issue an election speech he begins to talk over himself, and the sound transitions depending on what you want him to say vary a great deal, making it sound... just awful really. The music in the game is authentic cuban and latin music which works well with the game so it picks up some marks there.
Difficulty i would say is about 4 out of 10. There are some levels with natural disasters and because of free will even under communism things get out of hand and debts pile up, then you can get voted out at the next election. You are constantly at risk of loosing the game even over the smallest detail. You have to keep a constant eye on everything like employment and your nuclear program. Assuming you have one...
Achievements are a little difficult to get because some require many hours of gameplay, and some are secret achievements. If you're a gamerscore fiend like myself then you will easily get about 300G in 2 days and around 500G in a week. any more than that is challenging and if you can 1000 point it, then well done, you've put some serious hours in.
Overall a very good game, and recommended for those that want a change from the hardcore FPS games, something to kick back and relax with.
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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (Xbox 360)
by Thebaker50
[No Subject]
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BCC: recipientsYou Show Details FROM:Arif Razzak TO:arif Message flagged Monday, 30 July 2012, 8:02 Red alert 3
Red alert 3 is the newly made game in the C&C series, following on from one of my favourite games, Red alert 2. The plot twist in RA3 is that the Russians went ... back in time to kill albert Einstein to prevent him coming up with the theory of relativity, to help the Russians have better technology than the American counterparts.
Kinda cool right? Anyway, this has led to a new race coming to power, the Japanese. Here the Japanese have cool transforming machines, which are supposed to have been inspired by the anime that occurred in the orient. I have to say they have some cool models, like a fighter jet that transforms into an anti infantry vehicle.
Anyway, that is the first big change in the game. The second change is that now all the races can now build on water! This is a really unique feature about this game, in the fact that for the first time in a RTS game, the water actually means something! Most RTS games, you build a dock simply to build 1, maybe 2 artillery ships, or maybe fishing ships, and thats about it. But when you can build your entire base on water, suddenly naval combat becomes important! Also, some of the boats can come on lands, for example, the nightwing for the orient, or the battleship for the Americans, or the ?speedy boat thing with electric shocks as weapons? Thing for the Russians.
Anyway, this is all good news, and add to the fact that you can now garrison troops in buildings, and that you can have unlimited troops, thats right there is no troop cap in this game, and furthermore each unit has a special ability. So why do we get a feeling that there is a "but" coming?
That is because of the fact they have undoubtly ruined the resource system in this game. I have played RA2, and C&C generals, and both these games have way better resource systems. In this game you have gold mines, and you can build a resource spot right at the gold mine. But you cant really build one resource pot, and send out tractors and build huge bases around the front line like you could do in RA2, because each supply depot only makes 1 gatherer, and you just end up with this result of there being lots of pathetic little bases dotted around the place. This makes the army sizes really small as well, because only smallish armies are needed. When you have like 20 or so different units to choose from (its probably more than this), and you have all this amphibious units and stuff, it kinda feels annoying when all that is just sort of not used if that makes sense.
I dunno, i just really found this game underwhelming, which is a real shame. I just don't like that way that this game there is no defence aspect, its all about being aggressive. Some people like this, and it leads to a very quick pace in the game, but personally, what i liked in RA2 is that you could build huge armies, and have epic battles. Whats the point in a game that gets rid of the population limit, if you can't then build enough units to show that they have gotten rid of the cap because the game is lost or won by then?
Overall then, 1 give this game 2/5. I like the water feature on this game, but that grows old when you don't really get to spend a lot of time building stuff up, and most of the battles feel kinda small and pathetic. YOu kinda get the feeling its a sort of rock paper scissors game, so say if you send tanks early on, and you enemy sends anti tank infantry, they are likely to win the game. And so on. It just feels a bit lame, and gets old quickly. Not as good as RA2.
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