How's it looking on the Homefront?

Hey Gamers, welcome back to my blog! 


It's time for my review on the hugely anticipated game, Homefront! I've clocked up a lot of hours on this game already, on-line and off-line, and I'm here to tell you the good and the bad points about this thrill of a shooter!


First of all, the hype surrounding this game was insane, so it was no wonder why everyone was expecting big things on all fronts from this game, no pun intended. Because of this, when the game was first released in the U.S and in other selected countries earlier this week, Homefront was getting bombed with negative comments as finishing below expectations, in the minds of both critics and gamers in general. Although.. this isn't exactly the developer, Kaos Studio's fault, as they didn't create so much of the hype and people forget and don't realise that this is only their second ever game; their first game being Frontlines: Fuel of War (FPS, released February 2008.)

I'm going to talk about the presentation of Homefront, to kick off my review, as it has been one of the main factors under scrutiny. The graphics aren't what I would call 'ground-breaking'. They don't even match the standards of the likes of Call of Duty, and they definitely don't come anywhere near being as good as Crysis/Crysis 2. With there being a lot of open spaces in this game, with a long view distance, the game suffers with it's lack of graphic power and it makes the game look rather tattered at times. However, up-close, the game isn't all that bad. The textures on the player models are just about above-average, but they're nothing close to spectacular; however the texture detail on the weaponry is pretty damn sharp, they've done a great job with that. 

In regards to the general terrain, lighting and surroundings, Kaos Studios have done OK; they manage to capture the mood with pathetic fallacy effectively and set the tone for the game to match the events within the story.
As well as the at-times tatty graphics, the facial detail on the characters leave a lot to be desired. Throughout various parts of the game, the characters show no emotion whatsoever, it's almost like you're playing along side a band of action men and women, it's very plastic! Because I am very picky regarding attention to detail, this was bugging me, as it was spoiling some of the heart-wrenching and general dramatic moments when the character expressions weren't there to match.

The sound in the game doesn't reinvent the wheel like EA Dice managed to do with Battlefield: Bad Company 1 and 2; Homefront just sounds like a common game in regards to the sound effects and the voice acting. However, the background music depending on what situation you're in, is pretty cool, and it goes well with the game and adds to the intense atmosphere.

The general game-play is fantastic. The controls are smooth and the movements are fluid, and there's also a satisfying amount of recoil on the weapons, which makes it much more realistic compared to, for example, Call of Duty: Black Ops. Whichever gun you choose from your load-out, or from off the floor, you will always feel like you have a good, powerful weapon. Using Black Ops as an example again, a lot of the weapons didn't feel powerful enough, and it didn't really feel good when you were using them, as it was like there was no significant damage being dealt, at all. Whilst every gun feels powerful, they're not powerful to the extent that it makes the game imbalanced; it just means that it feels like you're actually using something based on a real weapon, and not a spud gun.

Homefront is no way a run-and-gun type of campaign, oh no. You have to move from cover to cover, effectively, as the AI soldiers on the other team are a crack shot, and this adds realism to the situation. It doesn't take a lot of bullets to kill you, so if you're used to playing Call of Duty on a moderate difficulty, I would screw your head back on and pull your pants up for this one, as at times, it's quite difficult!

However, having said all of that, there are two big annoyances tied in with the game-play. The AI on your team take a hell of a long time to get into position, and what's worse is that you actually have to wait for them to get into position in order for the next sequence of the mission to start, this happens quite regularly. As for the second problem, it's pretty much a direct link from the first. After the AI has spent a good while getting into position, whilst you're stood there itching your head, you then have to wait for every single AI character to move through a door, climb down a ladder or hop over an obstacle, before you can do so yourself; this reminded me a lot of Medal of Honour's problem, regarding the same issue.

To describe the campaign in a few words, it's very short! I managed to complete the campaign in around about three hours. It's not even like the campaign leaves you wanting more.. it just leaves you expecting more! It's so frustrating. But, you have to give credit where it is due, as the story line was truly fantastic. I didn't expect it to be anything less than fantastic, considering the writer was the same guy who did the story for Apocalypse Now, John Milius. As I've said already in this review, some of the scenes and dialogue in the game are simply heart-wrenching. The story-line is so powerful that it will make even the hardest man or woman choke up at some points. One of the main reasons that I completed the campaign so fast, is because it was just so intense, and it was just none-stop action in one way or another, with the right amount of 'rest' periods in-between, where you got to walk around briefly and talk to some of the AI, to fill you in on what's happened. But because the story-line was so great, it just added to the disappointment when you find out that the game has been completed, in what can only be described as a sudden halt. Don't get me wrong, the ending was great, but it will make you let out a big, automatic sigh if you play it.

With the campaign leaving a lot to be desired, in terms of it's life-time, can the multi-player do Homefront any justice? To answer swiftly, hell yes!
Kaos Studios have done an immaculate job with the multi-player, and even though it doesn't try anything new, it just tries to be fun. What is most evident for me when I play the multi-player, is that they have taken the best things about Call of Duty and the best things from Battlefield: Bad Company and melded it into one, to make a thrilling on-line experience. I have been playing Homefront multi-player for quite a lot of hours now, and it's made me nothing short of a happy panda.
Kaos Studios haven't gone overboard in regards to the weapon selections and general equipment and perks; they have managed to create a good balance so that it isn't over-kill, and it makes sure that you won't be sitting there for about fifteen minutes before your session, just trying to figure out what damn guns to pick! 

One of the things I like the most about the Homefront multi-player, is the game points system. In each game, you will start at 0 points, and with every kill, assist and general team objective that you manage to execute, you will be rewarded with points. With these points, you can unlock vehicles for use for when you next spawn (which won't carry over after you die, unless you get the right amount of points again), and those vehicles include Humvee's, Tanks and Attack Helicopters. Also with the points, you can unlock whatever special weapon/equipment you put into your load-out, and this could include anything varying from a flack jacket to a guided missile. You can also control robots to your advantage too, such as the radio controlled mini-tank equipped with a mini-gun to suit, and different types of helicopter-like vehicles. I really like this points system, as you actually have to earn the powerful vehicles and equipment by putting more effort into your game, instead of getting kill-streak rewards regularly in Call of Duty, which has become a massive annoyance to a lot of people who play that game on-line. 

The maps in the multi-player are really well made, and a lot of fun. There are plenty of places to hide with your sniper, flank as an assault solider or just have a full on shoot-out on a main road. Said maps are quite large, and can effectively host 16 to 32 players on-line in one game, which makes for some immense battles. Even though there can be 32 players on-line in one game, the stability of the multi-player is awesome. I've experienced no connections problems, nor have I come across any obvious bugs which spoil the game.

Now, I could have said a lot more about this game, but I have said quite a lot already! So I will stop there, and let you rest your eyes, because I'm nice like that.

I'm going to give this game a score of 7.5 out of 10, and here's my general conclusion, kept as brief as possible; the campaign is short and will leave you wanting more, but the story is incredible and must be played. The visuals and the sound are altogether quite average, but in terms of capturing the mood and the weapon detail, it excels. The AI on your team are slow and leave you waiting whilst they get into position for the next sequence of the mission, which can leave you frustrated as it breaks up the pace of the game significantly. In terms of game-play, on and off-line, Homefront boasts fluid movements and smooth controls, making it an effective shooter. The multi-player alone will have you thinking it's money well spent; if the campaign doesn't give you a kick, then the intense multi-player will. It has the potential for a long life and no bugs at all are present at this stage.
I would highly recommend fans of FPS games to at least rent Homefront and give it a chance, because you will be able to complete the campaign before you have to send it back, and you will be able to get a good amount of hours played on the multi-player, which is very likely going to nudge you towards buying the game!

Thanks for reading gamers, and if you're still with me after that epic wall of text, then you deserve a pat on the back! If you didn't stay with me until the very end, then you're impatient and you fail.

I hope that you're all awesome and that you will come back soon!


Take care,


Jayhmmz (''')(O.o)(''')

Well.. here's a curve ball that I wasn't expecting!

Hey Gamers, time for a quick follow on from yesterday's post about Homefront.. and I bring news, of somewhat disheartening proportion. 
After many gamers having bigged up the game after visiting game conventions, and gameplay trailers conveying what seemed to be a pretty amazing looking game.. turns out it isn't all what it was hyped up to be. However, it is still "fun" and "unique".


I watched a video review on IGN.com this morning, and they pretty much delivered a curve ball, in terms of what the game is like overall. 
First of all, they reported that Homefront's presentation isn't all that great, but that it didn't look bad; it just wasn't going to be battling it out with the rest of the awesome looking games, such as Killzone 3 and Crysis2, but it's still playable and it does a great job in presenting the mood and surroundings of the setting. It's also been said that the voice acting and sound effects aren't outstanding, but they're still good. 
The last negative worth mentioning, is the fact that the campaign will only last the average gamer for five hours. However, where the campaign length fails, the multi-player impresses. Homefront's multi-player is said to have added significant value to the game overall, with a lot of customisation and great gameplay, which has been described as "fluid".


IGN.com gave this game a 7 out of 10.. but with that and the negatives that have been stated, it still doesn't put me off buying Homefront, as the story-line, "fluid" gameplay and the multi-player still tickles my fancy. 
The problem is with developers and their games these days, is that the focus seems to be more on the multi-player, rather than the effort being equally distributed between both the campaign and the multi-player.. it's either one or the other with a lot of games. The first developer that pops into my head in regards to campaigns filled with effort is Crytek, with their Crysis games.. but the sacrifice being that the multi-player left a lot to be desired, but they look like they have learnt their lesson, and have put more effort into the online aspect in Crysis 2. Fingers crossed for an all-round fantastic experience on both the single-player and multi-player fronts.


Anyway, that's all from me, it was just a quick news blast to let you all know what's going on in the Homefront, just in case you wanted to reconsider buying the game. 
If you want a nice, long campaign to play through, and you don't really care about the multi-player aspect, then steer clear of Homefront until the game comes down in price! Or you could go out and rent it, due to the fact that you could probably complete the game before you have to return it!


Thanks for reading, and stay tuned.


Have a good day,


Jayhmmz (''')(O.o)(''')

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 Two.

Hey readers!

Hope you’re all having an awesome day today and I welcome you back, for part two of my Call of Duty: Black Ops Multiplayer review!

So, where were we? Ah yes, the bugs, glitches and other catalysts of anger. 

Ahhhh!!

Picking up from what I was saying about the new patch that was released early morning 16^th December for the PC, all of the fix reports do seem to be accurate, well, almost all. There is still one issue that hasn’t been properly solved though, despite the error being one of Treyarch’s main focuses, the random game freezes! I know that the weather is cold outside but it’s still no excuse for the game to keep freezing and crashing, so what on earth did they do to “fix” it? Simple answer... No alot! Even though a fair few gamers haven’t encountered this issue as of yet, it’s still happening to many others, myself being one of those unlucky ones. Now, I haven’t been able to find a fix for this as of yet, I have been trying many different possible solutions, but none of them have worked. When the game was first released, very few gamers were experiencing Black Ops crashing, if it did crash, it was more than likely something to do with the system specification of the gamer’s PC. However, the issue started when Treyarch released their first noticeable patch for the game, that’s when everything seemed to get worse, and oh my, was it noticeable. There’s just nothing more annoying than owning on a map, having 35 kills to 10 deaths, about to whip out your chopper gunner reward – “Friendly Huey on th-” to find out that your game just froze. Rage!

Before I get into an anger rant about that particular subject, we’ll just cut that paragraph short, as it will just turn into a complaints letter that I would copy and paste into an email addressed to the Treyarch HQ. *deep breaths*

Overkill?

Now, I’ve just made reference to the Chopper Gunner kill-streak reward that you can get in the multiplayer in Black Ops – it’s pretty damn cool when you get to use it, but we all know we’re a bunch of hypocrites. We, in fact, loathe the airborne annoyance when it’s used against us. The Hive, Cobra and Huey are just three causes of stress within the multiplayer, these of course being filed in the same drawer as the Claymore, Grenade Launcher/Noob Tube and anything else that doesn’t involve the use of an actual skilled weapon that fires actual rounds (bullets). The helicopters in the game are basically just used for preventing the enemy team from spawning whilst the user is racking up the points, and this can get a lot of gamers annoyed with playing the multiplayer, and also give drive to a lot of PC owners to purchase their own servers for the game so that they can create a rule against the use of certain kill-streak rewards. These kill-streak rewards are far too over-powered, it’s near impossible to avoid them – even if you’re in a building. You could be hiding between a canyon, under the cover of a boulder whilst sitting in a deep, armour plated bucket, and the chopper would still be able to somehow see you through the thick rock and be able to penetrate through it all and then kill you. Again, rage!

Another annoyance to the players of Black Ops is the remote control car! This, initially, was a fun creation – but when people were using it too much, again, it got annoying! This particular feature has a lot of potential. Instead of having it as an exploding car, I think it would help balance the game out a lot more if it were to have a camera on top of the car, just so you could have a look around corners and down the corridors, you know, to assess your situation to help you think up a plan of action! 

Sprayers? Throw them off the map!

After bringing up some of the annoyances and over powered features in the game, it now brings me on to talk to you about the general balance of the Black Ops Multiplayer experience. First of all, Call of Duty has always been a game that doesn’t take all that much skill to play, however, if you were to switch from being a PC gamer to an Xbox gamer – it would take some getting used to, but I ask, why would you want to switch in the first place? Anyway, because you can refer to the controls as a “Plug & Play” sort of game, it means that there’s a big chance you’re going to get noob gamers playing on your server –which also means that you’re going to get people stumbling around like headless goats spraying their SMG and Shotgun rounds your way when you’re trying to play the game properly, it’s kind of annoying if you’re more of a tactical gamer. Because Call of Duty has had the same feel to the game for the past 7 years, I suppose the developers don’t really want to change too much in regards to the controls, although it would be nice to maybe see at least some effort in tweaking it to make it a better, more tactically intense experience, which doesn’t invite such frantic rushing. 

For the weapons in the multiplayer, there isn’t too much of an imbalance to note, it’s pretty much the same as the Modern Warfare titles in the game’s own way, so you’re going to be used to it if you’ve played those versions of Call of Duty before. However, there is still a major issue with a weapon called the Skorpion. The Skorpion is a little, dinky SMG that you can unlock quite early on in the game, a weapon that has also been featured in Modern Warfare. The Skorpion has two different versions of the one problem – it’s too damn accurate for an SMG! What happens if you put a silencer on it? It gets even more accurate, despite the game stating that equipping the silencer on the weapon causes a decrease in the weapon’s ranged stats – it just doesn’t matter!  It’s been a glitch that has been marked up and complained about by thousands of gamers across the world since Call of Duty 4, on a lot of different forums - although, neither Infinity Ward nor Treyarch have bothered to balance it out... I guess we’ll just have to deal with it? *sigh*

Carentan, how I miss you.

The Call of Duty multiplayer franchise has always been released with maps that are adored and played joyfully by millions, over and over again. These include Carentan, Brecourt, Dawnville, Foy, Burgandy, Beltot, Toujane, Ambush, Bloc, Crash, Strike, Crossfire, Highrise and Scrapyard. (Sorry if I missed off a favourite of yours.) Now when it comes to Black Ops, there isn’t, as of yet, a massive favourite of mine. I mean, I can’t even list the map names to you now because I’d have to look them all up because I’ve forgotten all of their names, a lot of other people are also having this difficulty. There just isn’t one that sticks out and cries to me, “I’m so well planned out and I even have spawn points that make sense!” It’s really disappointing, and in some ways, it pushes me away from the game. Maybe I am being too harsh – I mean there are a few decent maps out there, but they’re just not that memorable, you know? They are hardly classic map material.

So, you’re probably thinking to yourself that with this many negative markers, why the hell you bought the game in the first place, or why the hell you would want to buy this game, if you haven’t already. Well, I will answer the first question now for you, you bought the game because it’s a Call of Duty release - it has to be bought, even if it’s just out of curiosity. I bought the game because it was CoD, and there was far too much hype about the game to ignore it, you couldn’t help but get excited, at least a little bit. Even though there are all these negatives surrounding Black Ops with the games imbalance issues, system errors and the glitches, it’s still a Call of Duty game! It’s still fun, it will still be there to play when you need to pass time when you’re bored stiff, it’s a little lifeline. As I’ve said, it’s not a game you have to think too much about because of the control style, it’s not too much of an arcade style game and at the same time, it’s not too realistic either. It’s a casual game that you can just jump into whenever you like, and to be fair, that’s what we want from some games occasionally. Don’t get me wrong, I love realistic first person shooters, actually love them because of the effort put in regarding the authenticity of the game – it also puts your skills to the test as a gamer! But when you’re not in the mood for hardcore gaming, and you need a break from time to time, it’s always good to have a game like Call of Duty, to just click play, and you’re straight into the thick of it. It’s just fun! You eventually get used to being owned by choppers and RC Cars, but in the end, it’s just a case of brushing it off your shoulders and taking it on the chin the next time it happens.

So, here’s my simple conclusion for Black Ops Multiplayer for those of you who haven’t bought the game yet. If you’re a hardcore gamer and you don’t like people running around like maniacs with noob tubes and RPGs around you, then I suggest that you maybe avoid this game, unless you’re after a game that offers a more casual experience whilst you recover from playing too much Flashpoint or Socom, etc. However, if you have bought all or most of the Call of Duty titles prior to Black Ops, then I would recommend you to at least give this game a try as it will still offer you the same experience in the games own way. I predict that every single major bug will be flattened out within the next month or so, because despite them not fixing the game freezes in the last patch, they still fixed a lot of other things and actually did an alright job – although it is still no excuse for Treyarch what so ever to have released a game as buggy as Black Ops was in the first place. It seems to me that to both Infinity Ward and Treyarch now, it’s about churning out a new release every year and doing it as soon as they possibly can – I just hope that they don’t lose sight of what they’ve managed to achieve in the past and go down-hill from here. Although, Infinity Wards next Call of Duty is rumoured to be Space Warfare? We shall see, eh? 

On that note folks, this is the Black Ops review coming to a close! I hope you enjoyed the read and I hope to see you back on here again for my next post, which will most likely be on the new Battlefield release, titled Bad Company 2: Vietnam! It’s literally promising to be a scorcher!  I should have my hands on it at either midnight tonight or sometime through the day tomorrow (18^th December) so expect a ‘First Impressions’ post this weekend!

Thanks a million for taking the time to read, and if you have anything to comment on either what I’ve said or on the Call of Duty titles in general, then by all means feel free to share!

TTFN and take care,

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)(''')