Crysis almighty!

Hey Gamers! Time for my Crysis 2 review! I know I've been very inactive of late, but I've had a lot going on, and posting has slipped my mind unfortunately; hopefully this makes up for it with this review! Now I know people don't really want to be reading a massive wall of text, so I will try make this as short as possible, highlighting the key points in the game, whether they be positives or negatives :) 


Straight off the bat, this game was always likely to be an epic, following on from Crytek's massive success with the first in the series, back in 2007. When Crysis: Warhead came out, the expansion pack for Crysis, which was released in 2008, that wasn't anything short of an immense ride, either. However, prior to release, there were a few rumbles from gamers, in regards to the fact that Crytek may have dulled down the PC version too much so they could easily cater for the consoles at the same time, this giving the impression that Crytek were being lazy.. but this didn't end up being the case! Well, not totally anyway. 


From what I have seen from all platforms, Crytek have done a sterling job! However, even though they didn't end up dulling down the graphics for our beloved PC platform as such, there were still certain restrictions in the way you could tailor Crysis 2 to suit your visual needs, which is slightly annoying if you're a graphics snob like myself. I wasn't best pleased to find that you could only edit the visuals in a general sense, giving you a drop down menu which contained choices ranging from High, Highest and Extreme (options may differ depending on your system.) There is absolutely no other way to change the settings officially. However, there has been a third party program released, that you can integrate into your Crysis 2 directory, which enables you to tweak almost everything within the game, before start-up; but I found that it doesn't work as well as if there were in-game options. 


All restrictions aside though, the game looks fantastic and well polished, even down to the game's Menu. Even though the Anti-Aliasing settings within the game are virtually unknown, the "Extreme" settings seem to do a good enough job, automatically, in getting rid of unwanted 'step-ladder' effects around objects. I don't know what style of Anti-Aliasing is automatically used, but the game engine seems to blur the edges, subtly, so everything melds in quite nicely. The only downside to the Anti-Aliasing is that it doesn't make the game look as sharp as possible, but it still looks good because of the environment you're in; there's a lot of steam, smoke and dust floating about, so sometimes the fact that the game doesn't look as sharp as it could do, is hardly noticeable. 


The animations, textures and lighting in this game all look spectacular. From gun reflections to collapsing terrain/buildings, you're always in awe of what Crytek have managed to achieve with their Cryengine; it seriously feels like you're in a Blockbuster movie at times, especially in the opening 20 minutes of the game.

The campaign's length is decent, could have been longer, but it's not a bad length at all; certainly not as bad as Homefront anyway, no where near! The voice acting and music score will always grab your attention and immerse you into your surroundings and the general mood of the game, keeping you glued to your seat and making you feel compelled not to quit before you've completed the game.. which would be very irresponsible and unhealthy, don't do it! 
Now, there is a big downfall in the campaign, which is the AI, as per a lot of games. You will often find that the AI will make some questionable decisions in their tactics to try and take you down, whether it be firing and moving, or just getting into position. I witnessed that on many occasions, the AI will fire a few shots off, and then run into the most stupid spot ever, leaving them open to be fired upon; this is after they were already in adequate cover. Another thing I noticed was that when the AI are patrolling, they tend to walk into objects, and sometimes into other AI models.. it really took the attention away from the games realism, but I guess that getting the AI perfect in all video games is an ongoing battle for developers, and not just Crytek. 
The gameplay in the campaign is fluid and stable. I didn't come across any problems at all when moving about, nor did I have any problems with weapon recoil or anything of the like, so there isn't really that much to say about it in this section, as in general, everything tied in with the gameplay in Crysis 2 is awesome. 


If you played the first Crysis game, or Crysis: Warhead, you will know all about the Nano suit modules. There were plenty of suit options for you to play around with, including Speed, Strength, Armour and of course your Cloak; all of which were accessed from a selection wheel on-screen. In Crysis 2, they have taken away said selection wheel, and instead made a short-cut for just your Stealth and Armour modes. But don't worry, they haven't got rid of Speed or Strength as such, they have just melded it in with the Sprint button, and the Jump and Melee buttons. At first I was a bit disappointed, but then I got used to the idea and it really isn't that bad.. it's easier if anything! The Nano suit works well, I haven't really come across any imbalances or bugs, so thumbs up in that respect! 

Last but not least, it's time for the multiplayer; it's pretty damn awesome. Let me just say, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Crysis 2 has your simple custom class load outs, with a few weapons to choose from (some which you must unlock, including attachments), a side-arm slot, a special grenade slot and three suit module slots (aka perks; one for each Armour, Stealth and Power slots). Crysis 2 Multiplayer is to-the-point, and it isn't overkill when it comes to choosing your equipment, like Black Ops is. There's a decent amount of equipment to choose from, but not too much, so you can select your things and get playing as soon as possible, with minimal time wasted; it's excellent. 


The gameplay itself is fluid, much like the campaign. I didn't notice any major glitches in the multiplayer, nor did I notice any imbalance or massive connection issues, apart from one, which has been resolved now, but I will explain anyway. When I first attempted to enter the multiplayer menu, it asked me for my CD-key, which I duly delivered. However, I then entered a server for it just to kick me back into the menu, stating that I had lost connection. I restarted the game, clicked on the Multiplayer option, and it asked me to enter my CD-key again.. which I thought was very strange. I repeated the same process around about four times, and by then I knew that it wasn't a problem with my computer. After trawling through many forums myself, I was then pointed towards a helpful thread by a friend, which stated the following fix:


Enter the multiplayer menu, and input your CD-key. Once you have done that, and you're in the multiplayer section, go back to the main menu again. Re-enter the multiplayer, and re-enter your CD-key, if prompted to do so (if not, it doesn't matter). After this process has been completed, the game should work.


..and that it did work! So, I was finally all happy again and I went on my way to be all jolly and shoot people in the head and stuff. 
Despite the aforementioned hiccup with the game server, the multiplayer does seem stable from my own experience, I've had no problems to note since then, thus making it pretty much perfect! 
The game did have an auto-aim feature for the online, but it was removed by popular demand, luckily, so how well you play will all be down to skill, and skill alone; and that's pretty much it for my review! Hope you've enjoyed the read, and I would highly recommend you play this, whether you buy or rent it, for any platform you have at your expense. 


Personally, I give this game a 9 out of 10. Epic visuals, fluid gameplay and a multiplayer feature to keep you entertained for a long time.


Take care guys and girls,


Jayhmmz.

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood Review

Welcome back guys for my first games review of the New Year! 

The Assassins Creed series kicked off back in November 2007, and gamers hadn’t seen many releases like it. Sure you had Prince of Persia which is a pretty awesome franchise, but this had an added twist, massive sandbox, action-adventure game play... where you climb walls like an old-style ninja and just generally look and be awesome. You play a guy by the name of Desmond Miles who is your friendly neighbourhood bar tender, plodding along in life as you do...  then HOLY SH*T you’re captured and taken ‘prisoner’ by an insane company called Abstergo Industries and made to do things you don’t want to! ...Nah, but seriously though, Abstergo Industries have a machine at their disposal called the Animus, which basically allows you to relive memories of your ancestors... and yes, you want one. Desmond’s ancestors turn out to be Assassins, which is always an added bonus if you’re lucky enough to own one of these bad boys. So Desmond is pretty much ordered to re-live his ancestor’s memories so that the crazy people at Abstergo can find and recover artefacts, all together known as the ‘Pieces of Eden’. Sounds cool, eh? In the first instance, you play as Desmond’s first known ancestor, who goes by the name of Altaïr. Assassins Creed II was then released in November 2009, where you played as Ezio, Desmond’s next key ancestor; Ezio Auditore’s story is now continued in Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, released a year later in November 2010.

 

Before this game was released, the air was filled with many questions relating to the length of the game, the story line and the multiplayer. The main issue was that a lot of the Assassins Creed faithful were worried in case Brotherhood was going feel like an add-on for Assassins Creed II, instead of a being a full blown release. With Assassins Creed II being released two years after the franchise’s debut, it was understandable that the fans were concerned that Ubisoft were churning out another release just a year later. Now we all know what happens when you start churning out game after game, year after year don’t we? The modern Call of Duty titles happen! Not necessarily a good thing either...

There were also questions being raised about the multiplayer and whether this was just an effortless feat for the game to give it a bit more of a longer life. Although, with these questions came excitement, as Brotherhood is the first game of the franchise to introduce multiplayer, so naturally, there was curiosity thrown into the mixed feelings.

Ezio's day to day activity.

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood still has the core game-play of the title’s predecessor.  You still have the same fluid feeling to the controls which enable you to free run around Rome in the year 1499, the new setting for Ezio. The fact that Ubisoft  have perfected the controls in this release make this feature alone entertaining enough to keep you playing for hours on end. In contrast to the game play in ACII, the combat controls have been improved; they feel smooth and free flowing, and less restricted and repetitive. There are a lot of cool new animations in the combat sense too and there is never a dull moment when duelling or fighting five guards at once, this helps a lot to make the game feel fresh throughout and to prevent it from going stale quickly; like the first Assassins Creed was guilty of doing.

Just looking at the title, you know there’s going to be some sort of a rebellion or army starting up somewhere belonging to someone; that someone so happens to be you, Ezio! The Brotherhood is in fact a Brotherhood of Assassins, or a guild as the game likes to call it. At a certain stage in the game, you will unlock a mission path which will basically have you randomly coming across civilian rebels in trouble with the new Guards in Rome, the Borgia. These civilians believe that your cause is just, and are choosing to fight against the Borgia too, and you have to save them as they’re really stupid and pick a fight with like five guards at once...pfft. When you save the civilians from the guards, they are then willing to become your apprentice. You may have up to 12 apprentices at one time, and for each apprentice you can assign them with contracts which will have them flitting across Europe completing missions set by you, earning them experience points and levelling up through the 10 ranks, the 10^th rank being Assassin.  When your assassin apprentices complete the contracted missions, they will also earn you money and item rewards; as well as contracts, you can call them in to do your dirty work for you, killing guards so you don’t have to... like a more violent version of Flash cleaning spray. 

Ubisoft have used the same graphics engine as Assassins Creed II, so not much has changed on the face of Brotherhood. However, the textures are presented in a higher resolution, and the lighting looks sharper, making Rome a perfect setting to show off the colourful and stunning visuals.

Doing good business.

The story in this game is yet again awesome. Brotherhood picks up from where Assassins Creed II left off, with Ezio still confused by what he saw in the vault at the end of the game. After escaping the Templars, Desmond and the gang escape to Monteriggioni, a city in and commune of Tuscany, Italy. They set up their animus underneath the ruins of Villa Auditore after finding a source of electricity which enables Desmond to continue the quest as his ancestor, Ezio. As a Master Assassin, you will have to re-establish the Guild of Assassins and rebuild Rome by destroying the Borgia influence, whilst renovating famous landmarks, faction buildings, shops and banks to give you an economic boost. AC:BH has a fantastic and gripping story line filled with vengeance and ass kicking; the game manages to keep you on the edge of your seat with well thought out, dramatic and action packed missions which differ from each one you choose to do, whilst being helped by an amazing setting for the release and convincing voice acting.

He doesn't look notorious at all...

It took me a while to actually play and review the Brotherhood’s Multiplayer feature, because I couldn’t connect to a damn session easy enough, which explains the delay in bringing this review out to you! Although I did eventually get into games, as the servers seem to have sorted themselves out now. After playing the Multiplayer for a decent amount of time, I get the impression it had all been a bit rushed in the making, which is what I, and many others feared. Sure, when you first play it, it is awesome, fresh and it has the addictive ranking system and skill unlocks, but the style of game play get’s a bit boring for a multiplayer game, and isn’t really a long-term option. There are five game types in the multiplayer; Wanted (6-8 Players, a game of hide and pursue), Manhunt (Two teams, each composed of 3-4 players, taking turns in hiding and pursuing), Alliance (6 players, 2 players on each of the 3 teams, again, hiding and pursuit...) and Advanced Wanted and Advanced Alliance, which basically means a lot of the assists are turned off when it comes to trying to find your target. Again, it is awesome at first, with a great idea being shown through the multiplayer, but I think with a bit more time they could have really made this multiplayer feature special, giving it the ability to last longer.

To conclude, Brotherhood in no way feels like the add-on many people predicted it would be - it isn’t an add-on at all. The campaign is solid with a fantastic story line which doesn’t feel short or rushed what-so-ever, including significant and vital sequences that bridge the big gap between Assassins Creed II and III, with some very exciting and shocking twists added in. There are also a mass amount of side quests along the way to complete, for example, there is a quest path to get some pretty cool armour and gear by adventuring into six different lairs to recover keys from shrines, guarded by weird cultists with wolf helmets...  it’s interesting to say the least.

*Slight spoiler alert in this paragraph* The new ‘Brotherhood’ addition to the campaign starts out as a lot of fun, because you can rank them up to become mean machines for them to do your bidding; You’re then let down in the end because you really are expecting there to be some sort of a big fight between your guild and the Borgia, but there just isn’t, it made me very sad. So the Brotherhood ends up being a bit pointless in the grand scale of things. Let’s hope they make things more epic in ACIII, well, they have to with it supposedly being the final instalment in the franchise!

*jaw drops*

Rome in this game looks amazing, just the fact you get to free run around this big, scenic sandbox is enough to keep you entertained for a long while, it’s like being on a hectic, sword wielding summer holiday that you couldn’t get with Thomas Cook. There are next to no limits to your adventures and you can explore pretty much everything on the map. Just climb to the top of a view point and take it all in, it’s actually breath taking what Ubisoft have achieved, the improved textures and lighting are definitely evident here.

The multiplayer is the biggest let down in this title, however it is still a lot of fun in small doses. The only problem is, is that a lot of players don’t play it properly. The game is based on stealth, you know, with you being an Assassin and all – you don’t really want to become notorious. That being said, select gamers still run around like absolute idiots, sticking out like a sore thumb... it’s like Call of Duty or Counter Strike just went back in time, and the shotgun noobs have been replaced with hidden-dagger noobs, sprinting across the map.

This game is definitely worth the purchase in my opinion, and it is important that gamers, who want to buy Assassins Creed III when it is released, play Brotherhood first; as mentioned above, it is a vital bridge from Assassins Creed II!

That’s it for my review of Assassins Creed: Brotherhood! I could have made it miles long, but the story line is just far too complex to note down fully, as there’s been book releases and everything! I would simply put you to sleep. If you haven’t yet played any of the Assassins Creed titles and you have read through this, I would highly recommend getting them all, even the first one. The two titles prior to Brotherhood will be reasonably cheap now. I know Assassins Creed II is cheap, as I recently bought the Game of the Year edition for £9.99, bargain!

Hope you enjoyed the read and I hope you will come back for my next review; I have just bought DC Universe Online, an MMORPG based on the Comic Book heroes where you can basically create your own hero and roam about completing quests and looking effing epic, so that may be my next review when I get another good bucket load of hours in! If you’re interested in the game, it’s only been released on PC and PS3 so far, I myself have the PC version, so I’ll tell you what it’s like as soon as I can give a fair view on it.

Thanks for visiting gamers, hope you’re all awesome,

TTFN,

Jayhmmz    (,,,)(O.o)(,,,)

Black Ops Multiplayer Review: Part One.

The multiplayer aspect of a computer game is what gives the game the life span it needs to keep gamers happy for a long time, preferably up until the series’ next instalment. Multiplayer offers gamers the chance to match up against other players from around the world, online; to compete against them, to shout at them, to virtually beat the crap out of them and so on and so forth

Image courtesy of IGN.com

Call of Duty is no stranger to Multiplayer. You could say that they changed online first person shooters for the better. It was definitely a turning point either way. Collectively both Infinity Ward and Treyarch have just over 7 years experience, Infinity Ward being the guys and girls that started the franchise off back in October 2003 for the PC platform. It was a massive hit, earning an average 91% rating on Metacritic. The first Call of Duty alone grabbed a lot of awards, including Game of the Year 2003 from several reviewers, Game of the Year 2004, Outstanding Innovation in Computer Gaming and many more. 

So understandably, there is a hell of a lot of hype and expectation when a new Call of Duty game is announced for production, especially when they’re considered veterans of the online gaming world. It’s been a bumpy ride to say the least for the Franchise in regards to how well the games have been received, and Black Ops is the latest release to be brutally ripped apart and analysed by gamers and critics alike.  

I was really excited to get started with the Multiplayer. Straight away I could see that they had made a few changes to the menu system, confusing at first, but never the less an improvement. The new character customisation feature in the game is really cool. It still has the usual custom class setup that you come to expect from the latest CoD releases, nothing much has changed there, apart from one notable thing... no more martyrdom! Yes, that’s right folks! You will no longer be subject to killing someone outright, only to hear that feint clink of metal bounce off the terrain followed by shell shock and hurt. However, for those of you who haven’t played this game yet, let me share with you an unpleasant fact – Claymores are still in the game. Those horrible little blocks of pain which when you run in front of one, make that trigger noise, giving you enough time to say, “Awww shi-”     boom.

Image courtesy of rmdclan.com

Now, Treyarch added two really awesome features into the customisation menu this year, the first one being the all new player card editing screen. This will allow you to create your player card with much more flexibility compared to what was offered in MW2. For instance, you can now create your own logo to go onto your player card by using a variety of designs, images, letters, numbers and shapes – you can literally go crazy and do pretty much whatever the hell you want. I’ve saw people that have managed to create South Park characters out of the resources available. Just to give you an example though, mine is pretty simple, I have a skull and two Enfield assault rifles crossing over in the background to make it look like crossbones. Once you’re happy with the logo you have created, you can then slap it onto your weapon! This is as well as having your desired clan tag etched into your weapon also. This feature is basically win, which brings me to the next win feature, face paints!  Now if you’re like me and love Brave Heart, Dutch (Arnie) from Predator and The Joker, you will not be disappointed, as you can have the option to give your guy a pretty similar, and well made, face paint design that’s a worthy representation of said characters. But apart from those three designs, there’s a shed load of other designs to choose from also, this will contribute to Treyarch’s mission to keep gamers happy, is it working? Read on

 

Image courtesy of tgntimes.com

Modern Warfare 2 for PC was missing one vital thing, dedicated servers. Giving a PC game an option to run dedicated servers for multiplayer is just the right thing to do, period. So a lot of gamers were angry that MW2 turned out to be “just another crappy, lazy console port.” Matchmaking is for consoles only, it works well for consoles. PC? Not so much. You will have always encountered a session that on every other map, the match had to stop because a player’s connection was so dire, he or she cannot host anymore. So you, and all of the other players, were left sitting there until the new host was found. This often took about an annoying 10 to 15 seconds of your gaming time away from you, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re in the flow of owning noobs, it’s a lot! So a bit thumbs up and a golden star to Treyarch who re-introduced dedicated servers to the Call of Duty franchise, because as I said earlier, it’s the right thing to do!

Now, with Call of Duty having been around for so long, you would have thought they would be able to release a game pretty much perfect from release, right? Wrong! There were many issues that came with the release of Black Ops. A mammoth issue that was not dealt with so swiftly by Treyarch was the consistent game play glitches that gamers were experiencing when moving around maps and coming into an encounter with the opposing team. Not all problems were able to be resolved client-side, either, so it was left up to the patching team. Unfortunately, PC gamers were the ones suffering from this massive problem more so than the console gamers – to my knowledge their problem wasn’t as bad as the PC’s version. This sparked mass anger being channelled through the Treyarch forum and third party forums alike, expressing disappointment and resentment toward the developers, so it was easy to see that it had been an evident shaky start by Black Ops.

Image courtesy of IGN.com

For a multiplayer game the graphics are decent. As I have already said in my single player review, they could be better, but they don’t have too much of a negative impact on the game itself. When the game was first released, there were some graphical glitches popping up here and there, such as texture and general terrain processing issues – although these were dealt with by team Treyarch quite quickly.

It took Treyarch a good few weeks until they completely abolished the problem, but at least they eventually fixed it, and all was well in that department. However, there were still quite a few issues to be fixed, here are a few examples:

• Final Kill Cam lag
• Server connection problems
• Unable to join friends’ games
• Game freezes
• Ranking up to then be put down back to the rank you started the session at

By now, most of the problems have been fixed, both on PC and on console. More notably for the PC, as December 16^th brought a new patch for gamers that had been highly anticipated for many weeks since the release of the game back on November 9th. The patch contained a fix for pretty much everything that was wrong with the game, the main issues anyway, such as sorting out the incredibly annoying final kill cam lag, general server connection problems, certain system performance issues, team changing and much more. Go to http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/66855 for a full list of fixes.

On that note, that concludes Part One of my Black Ops Multiplayer review! I hope you've found it interesting and enlightening! Part Two will be up tomorrow, where I will be sharing more about the gameplay and controls, the current stability of the game to date and a general conclusion for Black Ops. Should you really buy it, or not?

Thank you very much for reading, and I hope you'll leave a comment sharing your own personal experiences with the game! If you have any questions so far, please feel free to send them accross for me to read, and I will get back to you! 

Thanks again and TTFN!

Jayhmmz    (''')(O.o)(''')  

*Door Creaks Open* Hello? Anyone there?

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Merry Easter! Wait... What?
 
So, this is my first ever blog, ever. I mean, I write a lot on my Facebook and Twitter updates, but that's not blogging, that's just freaking annoying! So I thought to myself... I'm doin' it wrong!
Just in case you're a new comer into the thoughts of Jayhmmz this is basically just an introduction post, for you to get to know me, enough for you to follow my blog... *glare* Yes, you! It's the sensible thing to do! Also to give you a quick preview on what's to come!

So I'm up pretty late tonight, 2:50am as I type. But I told myself I have to get this finished before I go to bed... and no I don't make a habit of talking to myself - Not yet anyhow!
In terms of gaming news, I'm hopefully going to be playing Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam today! I pre-ordered it off Steam, and they promised me I could play it three days before the retail release date. I was actually hoping the download would start at midnight, but it hasn't... *sigh*

That's gunna be the first main thing I'm doing on my blog, exciting stuff! I'll give you a proper review of it for all those who are still not sure what to expect from it... Apart from loud noises and fire of course. Even if you've got it, then still have a read of my review and come and relate, post your thoughts in the comment section. I'll give no BS and I'll pull up the win points and fail points.
Besides new releases, I'm also gunna post some thoughts on games that are out now, and games that I miss playing - all of which you'll be able to relate to. Same goes for films too, so I hope you will enjoy reading! 

Anyway, I really should get to bed before I face roll the keyboard and sign the post off with "BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB..." or wherever my nose lands first. I hope you'll come back and keep an eye out for my new posts. If you do, I promise good things! Remember to click follow before you vacate the page, even if it's just a sympathy follow!

TTFN (Ta Ta For Now).  

Jayhmmz.   (''')(O.o)(''')