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The Thing (Xbox)
by Hannard
(also posted on Freeola)
If there's one game that was heavily hyped and subsquently failed to deliver, it'd be Fable, of course. A close second, however, would have to be The Thing, based loosely upon the John Carpenter film of the same name. Like the film, the game takes place at a polar research station and has you dealing ... with an organism that can infect and flawlessly mimic any other creature. Which, in theory, means that anyone you encounter could in fact be The Thing and you won't know about it they decide to reveal themselves, or until you find a means of testing them for the infection.
At least, that's what the developers promised - and being a fan of the movie I was certainly looking forward to the game. The various previews and puff pieces mentioned how the game would never be the same twice, how any members of your team could become infected. In actual fact, the infection aspect of the game that was so heavily promoted is in fact totally absent. It's true that you do get to fight the various monsters - which range in size from tiny crawling heads to giant monstrosities - as part of a team. And when you've got seven headcrabs coming right at you, you'll be grateful of your help. But you can't count on their help, because all your team members will, at some point, turn out to be infected. And they'll inconveniently attack you, leaving you to face the boss monsters on your own.
'But wait' you may be thinking 'perhaps they were infected as you were fighting all those creatures?' No, not at all. How do I know this? Because throughout the game, you get given a number of infection test kits which, when used on a character, should reveal whether they're infected or not. Apart from two characters on the second level, who are always infected, no other characters in the game react to the blood tests. What actually happens is that when a character walks past a certain scripted point on a level, they burst out and attack you. If you stand just to the side of that point and test the character, they'll be shown to be uninfected. Walk past that selfsame point, and they attack. This always happens if you have any surviving team members with you when you're near the end of a level. And it's annoying as hell because having infection being truly dynamic or, at the very least, random, would make the game a hell of a lot scarier than it is. Which, as it stands, is not particularly scary at all.
That's not to say that The Thing is a terrible game - it's just so utterly average. The monsters are reasonably gruesome, and the levels are pretty to look at, although they're a little linear. And there's a gruesome touch whereby team members can get so freaked out that they'll turn their gun on you or themselves. But the problem is that the game just doesn't make good use of the licence that the publishers likely paid a lot of money for. And given how highly regarded the movie is, that's a real shame.
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The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Xbox)
by Hannard
(Originally posted on Freeola)
Before there was The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, there was Morrowind. And also Arena and Daggerfall, but those are reviews for another time. Morrowind was made available - and is still available on the PC and X-Box and, like Oblivion, casts you as a former prisoner tasked with putting the world to ... rights.
You do this by undertaking a variety of tasks - slaughtering monsters, taking objects from A to B and so forth, and talking to various non-player characters. Or you can ignore the main quest and join various guilds, take on other quests and so forth. There are more guilds and side quests present in Morrowind than there are in Oblivion. Though the quests in Oblivion are by and large less interesting than those found in Morrowind.
Another key difference between Oblivion and Morrowind is that in Morrowind it's very easy to get out of your depth. Oblivion sported a rather controversial system whereby your enemies leveled up with you, meaning you rarely found yourself getting utterly wasted by a foe. Morrowind, on the other hand, doesn't coddle you at all. You can walk into a dungeon and get your backside kicked in a matter of seconds. Which is a good thing, since it makes for a more challenging game.
Morrowind's scenery is also far more varied than Oblivion's. The play area in Morrowind is quite large, and many of the cities have a different look and feel to them. There are even cities where the houses seem to have been made entirely out of wax, or some strange alien substance. The story's reasonably compelling too, though the final boss is a bit of a letdown.
So, then, is it worth playing? Given that the PC Game of the Year version can be picked up for under a tenner, I'd say yes. The Game of the Year edition even comes with two additional areas, one of which gives you the ability to become a werewolf. I personally didn't enjoy it as much as Oblivion, but it's a good RPG in its own right. And the graphics aren't all that bad, considering how old the game is.
However: a warning. If you are planning on buying the X-Box version, make sure you get the Game of the Year edition, since the original version is horribly bugged to the point where some quests are uncompletable. In fact, if your PC can handle it, just get the PC version, since even the X-Box Game of the Year edition has a few quest-breaking bugs left in it. And whereas you can use the cheat menu to fix broken quests in the PC version, you can't do that on the X-Box.
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Conflict: Global Terror (Xbox)
by Bullydc1
I didnt play the xbox version, only the ps2 one, but you know the score the games are practically identical in all ways other then in the buttons you use. This is the 4th instalment from Pivotal games, and it is arguably the best in every respect other then great storyline. The problem with this is that rather then playing in multiple ... battles (levels)in one campaign, be it desert storm for the first two games, or vietnam in the 3rd instalment, you fly around the world, hence the title taking out bad guys and so this doesnt give you a scope of being on the defensive or offensive within a war. But what this game does show is if you compare the first desert storm game and this one, you can see the differenc ein the graphics...just like the PS1 the PS2 actually got better.
In this game you are not inone country, you fight in several countries, from Columbia, Egypt, Kashmir , the phillipines and South Korea, in your move into the a global terrorism unit sent in by a UN style organisation
It starts with you HALO jumping into Columbia and instantly grips you into the game.
Gameplay
As usual you play a trio of four, Connors the heavy weapons expert, Jones the technical explosive and close quarter expert, and Bradley, team leader and all round great guy. In addition to this you have either foley or Sherman, both snipers, depending on whether you are in a brit or yank squad..and no I dont know why they needed to change the name !
In addition to the myriad of weapons, sniper rifles, hand guns and assault rifles(you can also take people out with a knife now) etc, you also get to drive APCs, bradley tank and jeeps...although it takes ages as each one of your four man squad runs to the vehiclea nd gets in...not good if your already under attack..you dont have this problem in bad company. The problem is someone must have said enemy AI in conflict vietnam is too hard and other then enemy soldiers lying prone on the floor to shoot at you really making it harder for you to target them..other then that they are much thicker than in the vietnam game...they stand still, just square up to you getting shot, or when you take out a guard on a tower the other guard doesnt even move or take cover..they literally stand there and take it one by one. On the plus side your squad AI is much better. You can also blow up helo`s now by throwing a mag load of bullets at it, so now heavy weapons and machinary can be afected with normal guns and not just bazookas.
Handling and aiming is still jittery, lifelike when your firing your sniper rifle it jerks up, the jittery sue is still a problem I think. Also when your in a tank you can move the turret around so quicker it seems unreal. It is good that the develpers marked up item of use, like fual dumps and alarms, things you ave to use to complete your objectives.
On screen you get game objective , a compass, you get your squad, their weapon and ammo/mag info, you get any special weapons your using like grenades, a centre target and a spiral reloading time around the target, which really helps.
Graphics
So much better then the others and you can trace the fact the graphics get better through out the series..In the first desert storm the enemy looks like blocks of bits, now they looked fully rendered, gore and blood is more frequent, and when you take out someone with a sniper rifles they slump against surfices and dont just fall heavily on the ground...all this really contributes to making the feel of the game more complete. Wall and ceiling surfaces look much better, blemished, not smooth and unblemished, which doesnt look real. When you look through the sniper rifles it is also much more detaile and you can elevate in the scope and get much better detail. You also get rifles flashes out ogf the barrel now, as I said much more detail. Although fire still looks very fake.
Sound
Much better in this game, assault rifles sound great, there is a difference in sound to different rifles and heavy machine guns sound bassier, which implies here power
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