I couldn't find the old topic, which may have been lost in the format change. Anyhow, this thread will be used as a review board for games that you've played that others may want or thinking about getting and want our 2cents of input on it versus all the hype and slightly/heavy bias reviews of big name reviewers. So, if you played a game regardless if it's a Indie or a AAA type game and want to say something about it here, then do so, and please do go in depth about it, we weren't there nor mind readers of what you experienced.



Go.

OMFG HALO HALO HALO

/insert fanboyism comment here

[/Daru Impression]

Honestly, a lot of games today are quite disappointing *cough* TFU II *cough*

I'm still speculating which game I like best.

That's quite enough, John.

So anybody have any games worth posting their review on or games your looking forward too. Games I'm especially looking forward to are Halo 4 and Mass effect 3, respectively.

Anybody know anything about Batman Arkamn city?

Splinter Cell anyone? Played Pandora Tomorrow and found it rather interesting. A different kind of TPS.

And I regard the Ubisoft company rather highly.

(Though what they are doing to AC disturbs me...)

I've seriously had enough of your bullshit, John.

Well, okay. Guess I can review a game I've been playing the HELL out of lately.

Gears of War 3

So, let's start with the story. Gears of War 3 picks up ~14 years after the last one left off. Humanity got seperated, some live on ships and others on dangerous ass land. The Hollow was flooded, the Locust all but extermianted by it, but the new threat, "Lambent" is really taking a toll on shit. So now it's basically a 3-way clusterfuck.

I've never really gave a rat's ass about the characters in Gear of War. Marcus is the angriest cuss in gaming history. However, this is the only time I ever gave a shit. By this time, everybody's lost something. Marcus lost his dad, Dom lost his wife, which sent him into a massive spiral of depression.

I mean, shit. He had to kill his wife to put her out of her misery. Takes some fuckin' conviction to do that.

But really. From the get-go, you understand the situation is dire. Your gear ain't what it used to be, your weapons look a little more roughed up than before, everything is patchwork, and there's constantly maintenance on the boat you live on. Tough times. Then you get metaphorically anal raped by lambent asshole just trying to ruin your already shitty day. Gears of War 3's story is essentially one of a desperate fight for survival, losing something at every turn. SPOILER:Marcus even loses his best friend, Dom. He knew the guy since freakin' grade school, even Adam Fenix was aware of how close they were. It's just about the only time I actually pitied Marcus. The other time being when his father all but dies in his arm, and he's left with ashes. Feels bad bro.

The story is better than the other two entries, because it offers a better look at each character's individual issues.

Let's head to gameplay. Gears of War is known to be an over the top, violent, crazy ass adrenaline based bloodfest. It maintains that, but over the past few games it's gotten to be a much more strategic, difficult game. It's fun to play. Every single gun fills its own individual role, has some oomph to it, and none of them feel the same to use. Games like Call of Duty, filled with redundant ass weapons, could seriously take this into account. Every gun has its own individual set of reload and execution animations, the latter of which you have to earn by using that weapon, making a strong statement when you end somebody with a special execution. The same ingenious blind fire system exists, as does the cover system. It can sometimes be flawed, and yes, had seriously fucked me over once or twice, but all in all, it's good and more games should use it.

Multiplayer. There's not much to say here, honestly. The same as campaign in gameplay, but more cheapasses. Gears is a great, fun game when done right, but shotgun greifers often ruin the fun. It's better than Gears of War 2, where literally everybody treated the shotguns as their standard weaponry. You'll often find players using what they're good with. players that suck, generally use shotguns only. That or they're just cheapasses. Gears of War boasts a variety of interesting game modes, such as King of The Hill, Warzone, TDM, and so on. Most gametypes share a live-pool system, where players really have to be cautious about what they're doing. Oddly enough, this doesn't result in a total campfest sometimes.

Horde. Holy. Crap. Remember playing Horde with your buddies online at late nights, grabbing Boom shields every round and Mulcher turrets to set up mini bases in strategic places? Yeah, well, looks like Gears of War 3 took those concepts to heart. barriers, auto-turrets, manned guns, dummies, and ass-plowing mechs are all a part of the new Horde system, and every 10 waves, you've gotta' fight a slough of tough-ass opponents ranging from the mighty Brumak, to the crazy-bitch lambent Berserker. It's all really good fun, and the enemies are extremely varied in both appearance and mannerisms. You always know what you're fighting against, and that's what makes it scary sometimes. You have to buy the aforementioned fortifications, however, and money can be earned by doing neat things, completing challenges, and just playing Horde normally.

Another thing worth mentioning is the mutators. These unlockables change Arcade Campaign, a score-keeping mode for competitive campaign, and private Horde matches. From flower blood to no ammo pickups, to a laugh track when you get a kill, the mutators range from awesome to even more awesome.

Gears of War 3 also offers a slough of downloadable content in the form of weapon skins. They may seem silly at first, but they're pretty sweet once you see them in game. Sometimes, they're just silly pink paintjobs that remind you it's just a game. Or, if you're feeling serious there's a variety of messed up, beat up skins for your guns. Serious business, people. Gears of War also keeps track of your stats in the form of medals, ribbons, and other commendations. These more or less act as mini achievements, and unlock a variety of cool stuff for you to use, from onyx lancer rifles to a thugged-out Cole, the unlocks are mind blowingly cool.

Gears of War is a game that rewards you in a variety of ways for simply playing it, and enjoying it. You can get lost in it for hours, and is always more fun with more friends.

All in all, 8/10 for me. Clearly a lot of work went into this title, though there are a couple of things here and there that wouldn't be so terrible to rectify in the future, such as glitched unlocks and maybe some way to stop cheap assholes online.

I recommend you get this game, and play it online above all else. Its story is great, and this game has a lot of replayability simply because the variety of game modes it has.

Hope you enjoyed the review!

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
So anyone who hasn't noticed my PSN game tag, I"m been pretty much been drilling Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. This being the second game from Project Aces to take place in the real world, but a first on a major console, leaving behind it's fictional world of countries loosely based on real countries, with real planes. Some of this will reveal spoilers about the game, but so does every wikipedia page. The game takes place in 2015-2016 with a very CoD modern warfare story line, involving those evil evil Russians. This is where I believe the game is weakest, past Ace Combat games, cause they took place in a fictional world, had much better story lines. Also had to go into controls and set it to 'original' to have full pitch/yaw/roll.

The only bright side is that there are no Nuclear weapons to be used on, however there is a weapon called "Trinity", which is like a fuel air bomb on steroids, however these have been fitted to be in cruise missiles and can be mounted on aircraft. These are used several times on the player through out the game, with one remaining in the last level, which takes place. You guested it, Washington D.C. Where you and the antagonist, a Russian rogue Ace pilot (the name escapes me) is threatening to fire it on the capital, with one problem, a few levels before, over the skies of Miami, both the player and the Russian fought and the missile was damaged and can't be fired at long range. So, over D.C. you are going 1 on 1 with him. Campaign wise, you are flying a F-22 Raptor. While the antagonist is flying a PAK FA (a real Russian plane that's being developed right now, which is in prototype phases). The ending to the Campaign mode is in my signature.

Multiplayer and Free Mode is will gives the game it's replay value, in Free Mode you can play any of the campaign missions, on any difficulty, with any plane that's in the game. So, if you wanted to, do the last level with a F-16 or a Mig-21, You can. Multiplayer is a bit bigger, with Domination and Deathmatch being very CoD like, but on the PS3 I see these modes hardly played. Next is the Capital Conquest, this is much more like Battlefield series/Battlefront 1-2. You there are two bases, and each match has 16 players so it's 8v8 which are broken down further into groups of 4 so one group be covering the other group with fighters while the other being in ether attacker or Mulitrole aircraft to attack the base also with the players, there are AI planes for each team if selected to be on, but it isn't so cut and dry. One side has the take the transmission tower in order to getting a "attack run vector" onto the base, which is the only way to damage the base. This leaves you very vulnerable to other players. The match ends when one teams base is destroyed. This mode I see alot of people play. ALOT. Next is Co-op missions, which are just the campaign in multiplayer, cutscenes and all, you can have up to 3 players in co-op, one being clearly the main player, the other two follow the call signs Warwolf 3 and 4 as in the campaign these pilots don't talk and are just controlled by the AI, where as Warwolf 2 (Guts) always talks and does get shot down over Miami. Along with Capital Conquest, I play this mode often and like Free mode you can select any aircraft.

Game play, the DFM mode or Dogfight Mode is a interesting spin on the series, see any trailer. It basically puts you behind the enemy and tails them, sometimes scripted, until they are destroyed or you lose them. I find this being to easy to kill enemies and players in Mulitplayer and to easy to die from. The Next is ASM, the name escapes me but it's the ground attack version of DFM, them makes your plane level and like I said for Capital Conquest you can be shot down easily. Both these modes I don't like due to the feeling of being put on rails to progress a level. Other then these two modes, the game feels like any other Ace Combat game, with hundreds of missiles, in this respect the series always felt arcadish, but that was the point. Higher the difficulty, the more damage you take and the less missiles you have where Rookie gave you, depending on the aircraft, 250ish missiles while Ace gave you only 35-50 missiles.

There are some Easter eggs in the game, which I find refreshing. Easter eggs??? Say whaaaa... little bonus in the game for fans. In the debriefing room there is a character from Ace Combat 5 in the front row, during the Miami mission, a rescue mission to rescue a down pilot at the Stadium takes place (Radio Chatter), again Ace Combat 5, where a wingman goes down at a stadium (which ironically in Ace combat 5 this pilot dies on impact), During the cutscene where it shows the 4 F-22 raptors in the background shows 2 F-15's, one which has a red wing, which are from Ace Combat Zero, Cipher and Solo Wing. Those are the ones I've found, and it just shows the Project Aces hasn't forgotten these games.

Presentation is drop dead awesome. Namco never skipped a beat on it's music for the series. Most of the tracks I do enjoy for example, with the Track 'White Devil' (seriously look it up) that places in the Mission Siege, where you have to protect 4 cargo planes carrying medical supplies and doctors, while also protecting a airfield from enemy forces while running on low on fuel where you land mid way through the level to refuel. The track expresses that tension and being under pressure, while giving it a, were still kicking your ass feeling. Also the Track 'Rebirth' is excellent as it starts with a Arabic kinda tone, then slowly explodes in a full on Orchestra with the games theme, again Check it out. The levels have a good flow and the story within the levels among the pilots is good and believable though I wish they were more fleshed out. Despite the main stories flaws, there are still several oh shit moments that the developers put in that made me want to play, and were timed perfectly with the Music, which were not altered to fit the game as I have the OST and it's the same as in the game. Project Aces, I feel didn't drop the ball on the eye candy, and didn't sacrifice gameplay for it, from the moment you pressed start to the time you see the end credits, which kinda surprised me, as they were like watching the end credits for a blockbuster movie. Though the Credit song feels very Japanese in that they translated the words, but didn't really redo the song for it to make sense to be in English. Again... watch the ending in the signature to see what I mean.

Overall, I'd give the game a 7/10.
While the Music and the Presentation of the game is gorgeous and the OST to the game is worth finding/buying. The Story of the game, which I feel is a step backwards from it's fictional world setting and it's stories, and the DFM/ASM systems kinda place it in the casual section of gameplay, as there is no way to shut these systems off and your left to deal with it. But it wont stop me from recommending the game. Though preferred on PS3 so that we could play together. Sadly no Ace Combat game ever went to PC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ0VWHlg ... re=related

All I have to say.

Turn off the lights and play Amnesia: The Dark Decent. Scary as shit. The environment and sounds really makes it. Best thing is? You can't attack them, all you can do is run. Get it on steam for $4 before the Halloween special goes away!!

Review: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... rk-Descent

SC2 Pro playing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQPuv3qrbDQ

Amnesia.... Scariest fucking game ever made. I still haven't finished it completely.