BattleField BadCompany II (PS3)

Have you ever gotten so annoyed that snipers are camping in a building and there's nothing you can do about it? Well why not just call and air strike and destroy that building? cant do that? then you sir/ma'am, need to get your hands on a copy of
Battle Field Bad Company II.

Graphically BFBC II is beautiful and stunning, walking through water, or perhaps your just enjoying the view as you get blasted in the air. With the fully destructible Buildings and environments, you pretty much have no choice but to explore and create your own routes. Feel like taking down a building and hiding in the remnants of whats left? sure go for it!

Single player is fun and funny. the added humor in it is just wonderful, the banter between your squad mates is great. not to mention the bashing on modern warfare 2 ;]
not gonna tell you, you'll have to play it for your self!

As far as online play goes, i've barely played an hour of it but i enjoyed every bit of it. From the three modes that are play able i favored the squad death match, it pins you and 3 others against 3 other squads with 4 people in each. with random spawns its always constant chaos, not to mention who ever grabs the tank becomes prime target so you can sneak some kills in while they are trying to take out the tank.

There are 4 main classes, Assault, Engineer, Medic, and Recon. The names pretty much explain them selves. As you play with each class you gain points for them which unlocks weapons, add ons, perks and other valuable items and weapons. But through your over all rank you can unlock weapons that can be used by every class, unlocked the shotgun? go ahead be a recon class and run around with it! I encourage it!

All that being said I do feel that BFBC II will give Modern Warfare 2 a run for its money. For avid shooter fans i do suggest that you pick this up! even if its just to rent, be worth every penny.
Till next time! Josh Out!

add me on psn! ActionBasterdMan

Coming very soon, Final Fantasy 13 Review

Tera Online and En Masse Entertainment

Hey guys!

So I got invited a couple of months back to be in a focus group test for a new MMO called Tera Online.

This game is going to be good. It is made from the same people that made Lineage 2. It is being developed with the unreal engine I believe. the graphics are amazing also. For being in pre-beta the client runs smoothly and I didn't crash once. I've tested quite a few MMOs in the past and this one by far feels more complete already than most of those did at launch (Age of Conan).

The targeting system is really refreshing too. You actually have to use skill! There is a cross-hair and you have to click your mouse to do basic attack moves, much like in an FPS shooter. the combat is really fast paced and loads of fun. I could see myself grinding away mobs for hours because of how fun it is.

The lore for the game is pretty good too. There are 6 different races to choose and 8 classes that are all defined. They are going to officially have a press release at Game Developers Conference in March.

Then also just announced En Masse Entertainment, from right here in Seattle is going to be working with them to localize Tera.
"En Masse is dedicated to bringing players the best massively multiplayer online games in the world. Every game we make meets or exceeds the highest standards of production quality while providing a secure, well-supported, and enjoyable gameplay environment as well as a gamer-centric approach to community that engages players worldwide."
-En Masse website.

If you'd like to know more about Tera you can go to:
- Their main website
- The Curse community website

If you'd like to know more about En Masse Entertainment you can go to:
- The En Masse Entertainment website

Some twitter pages to follow:
- Brian Knox - Senior Producer for En Masse
- En Masse
- Tera fans community
- Me! Just because I had to :p

BattleField BadCompany II Beta

So many of you know that the BFBC 2 Beta has been out for almost 2 weeks now. I was lucky enough to grab a code and got my friends codes early on when it first started.
For fans of the original one, i believe they will be very very pleased about this one.
Though its only in beta the game is still very addicting, i've already spent hours upon hours playing this game non stop.

Some of the things that people will find familiar is the squad spawn and set up, but now in the beta you can only have up to 3 other people in your squad. You'll see alot of familiar weapons, possibly even your favorite.

There are only 4 classes, Medic, Engineer, Assualt, and Recon. But this time around the classes are almost fully customizable. Say you want your recon to have a shotgun, go for it. Also as you play with a class and earn points with it you start to level it up and gain weapons, boosts, scopes, and other items you might find useful in the battlefield.

I noticed that they really made the tanks alot stronger in the front, really making you work to hit its exposed back side. The anti-tank gun wont kill it in one hit anymore. They'll also introduced a new vehicle type, its called the UAV, its a remote controlled small helicopter theat you use to scout/call down hellfire which is just a big ol missile that can wreck you.

This time around they really make you work with your squad, rather in the first one you can go off and owned the game by your self, try that in this game and you wont make it far at all. The medic can now revive people and when your attacker this comes in handy to bring your limit back up. In a round attackers have 100 lives pretty much and when a player dies they loose one, when medics revive someone the lives go up by 1, as if that player never died. Can't seem to be shooting where you want to anymore? thats ok its not the games fault just yours, the creators have applied gravity to this game and that includes rockets, grenade launchers and even sniper bullets so remember to aim high!

The knife is still a one hit kill, but you cant run with it, just press the button and your guy will pull out his knife and stab and then put it back. which can come in handy when your in a bad situation.

Overall this game is amazing, i think in sales wise it will make modern warfare 2 run for its money. Its a great I love it, better then the first one. oh yeah did i mention you can fully destroy buildings? yeah you can fully destroy building, like make it fall to the ground kind of destroy. So if your lucky enough to of grabbed a code then ill see you on the field! if not then your gonna have to wait till march i believe!

PSN: ActionBasterdMan

Laters!

Assassins Creed II

Come my fellow gamers! For I bring a glorious review of assassins creed II. Like many of you, I pre-ordered this game many months before the game came out. Needless to say, the game lives up to everything I’ve expected and read about.

The graphics are beautiful, diving into water and seeing it splash up and watching the water ripple was just lovely. Not to mention that once you get out of the water, ezio is drenched and is dripping wet, which is a nice touch. I spent a good time just sitting on a top of the tallest part of each city just enjoying the view as the sun sets and rise. Of course there is always a down side, the shadows were kinda pixilated and during the cut scenes when people are talking you wouldn’t see their teeth and then you would after the next word, it bothered me quite a bit, but not enough to deter me away from the game.

At the first fight that you do, I just took the time to learn everything I could rather then wait for the story to teach me. This time around you have a huge arsenal at your disposal! Not to mention all the weapons you can steal from baddies. If you haven’t heard about the dual blades, then where have you been? Comes in handy a lot, either it being two guards guarding something or you need to dwindle numbers down from a group of guys. Being able to counter using all your weapons is great, its a lot easier then switching to a different weapon and being vulnerable to attack. After I learned to disarm the enemy, I spent most of my time doing that. I found it quick to deal with enemies not to mention once you have their weapon they can’t guard.

The enemy AI is amazing. They will communicate with each other when in large groups and sometimes they can counter your attack. Evading guards is a lot harder now that they put in guys that are just as quick as you are, that’s not to say that you can’t out maneuver them. Sometimes you have to catch up to a guy and kill him before he alerts more guards. Archers will stay their distance until you charge after them; do not underestimate them because their arrows can be very deadly, especially if you’re on an edge. Most guards can’t follow you if you start climbing buildings, but that wont stop them from bombarding you with stones that can be pretty accurate. When you are surrounded by a big group, they will organize and attack strategically.

The story line kept me going through the whole game; I was never bored by it once. The puzzles (truths) really made you think, especially towards the end, sometimes it just became really ridiculous and I just started doing random combinations. Boss battles were pretty much all the same; use the same tactics over and over again. There is also a small sim aspect to the game, your in charge of building up a small town so people will start visiting it again so you gain money, upgrade shops and building, your town gains money and you get to pocket a certain amount of it so your always gaining money, which comes in handy when you need to buy the next best weapon.

Ok, as much as I don’t want to, its time for the bad stuff, which happens to not be a lot. Like I said earlier, the shadows can be pixilated, it seems that at times the controls can be too touchy; sometimes I just wanted to drop down to the next ledge, sometimes he would just leap and fall to his death having me to restart at the last checkpoint. There isn't much replay value either, once you beat the game and collect everything there isn't much else to do; other then that the game was amazing. Not to mention being able to take on a group of ten guys just using a broom as a club. I’d give it a solid 5 out of 5, defiantly needed in the collection for all gamers. Expect a good 30+ hours of gameplay

Mountain Sports, Wii

For a Wii sports game that’s targeted for a younger audience, I actually had a bit of fun with most of the games. The controls are pretty easy and straight forward and using the wii balance board, the response to my leans and turns was actually pretty precise. Graphically, it’s nice and smooth and not all choppy and pointed like space camp.
I was able to beat the game and get gold in almost every event in only a few hours maybe less, But I wasn’t sitting there going this is killing me. The different games provided a different experience, especially since I got to try it on the wii board, some of the games were easier with the board then using the wii controller; for example when doing the bobsled game I felt like I was more in control and able to correct my self easier then I would on the controller and doing the biathlon was so much easier with the wii board then the controller.

There are a few games on there that can be frustrating at times. Like the tube racing, sometimes I would have issues turning my guy and once you hit something your guy will go in reverse so you can’t take the track really fast like you would want to. Curling can be a bit frustrating because I found that most of the time when I go to slide the puck my guy would either not slide it, slide it to hard, or slide it too slow because there’s no real indication on how hard you’re going to slide it until it’s already to late.

Multiplayer mode is pretty basic. Each player takes turns doing a round so you could do the whole thing with only one controller but it gives the options of using more then one. Up to 4 people can play. There are 3 modes that you can play and they are Event mode, Create tournament, and select tournament. In event mode you can just play any event you want, Create tournament mode is exactly how it sounds you select a number of events and then you do them in that order, In select tournament mode there are a number of pre-made tournaments all ready to go; each including 3 events. Over all I think it’s a good game for the targeted audience.

Dexter iPhone game review

“My name is Dexter Morgan and it’s going to happen again and again…” This is the opening line from our dark protagonist. In this new iphone game, you get to play as the man with the uncontrollable urge to kill, Dexter Morgan. But Dexter has a set of standards/rules that he must follow; Kill only those who deserve it. Now Fans of the show can step into the shoes and solve the cold cases and take action, the way Dexter was taught. In the game the player gets to solve cases that he solves on the show and even some new ones, so if you’ve seen the first season you’ll see some very recognizable cases. Not to mention that all the original actors have lent their voices for their characters, so you don’t have to worry about hearing some cheap knock off actor that they try to pass as the real thing. Players also get a lot of mini games to try out and practice incase they want to take a break from the main story line.

The control scheme of the game was pretty straight forward and easy to use. You are given two modes of control, you can tilt the iphone to change the angle of your camera or you can use the joysticks that are on screen; I found it easier to use one joystick and slide my finger across the screen when I want to look around, it’s much quicker that way. The mini games are pretty straight forward but can become challenging. During the DNA mini game I found my self taping the screen when I should be and it doesn’t register or registers late and I get it wrong or during the blood spatter one I would drag at the angle that I think it is and every so often it would shoot off in a different direction.

In this game, you need to have patience, you can’t just run and do things as fast as possible you have to think it through. I found that, at times, when Dexter is telling you where to go next if you miss what he say’s then your going to have a difficult time trying to figure out where to go next and its possible that you will miss some pieces of evidence or sometimes it’s not very clear on where to go next. For example when doing the Marielli murder case Dexter said that I should run the number’s on the license plate on the computer, well he doesn’t exactly say where so I spent a good 30-45 minutes running from desk to desk trying to figure out where to go then I randomly found it while I ran through the lab and all the mini game options went away.

Being able to hear Michael C. Hall’s voice and the rest of cast in the game makes it feel like you’re actually in the game and your not thinking to your self how bad the voice acting is and all that. I was able to focus more on actually playing the game as Dexter in the show was doing his killings, how he would go about it anyways. The game looks amazing, especially for iPhone, I thought that it looked better then some of the games that are on the PSP. But I can’t help but feel that they rushed on the design of Deb, she looks blocky and pointy at times in the game, especially when you meet up with her for the first time.

As a gamer, I felt compelled to gather every piece of evidence as if they were trophies or achievements. Often at times though I couldn’t find/figure out where to get the next piece of evidence because you get no clues on where they might be so I would run around checking every single thing to make sure I got all that I needed. I felt that this part of the game was really short; I was able to collect most of the evidence, in total, and finish the game in about 3-4 hours. After I finished the game I really wanted to play more and continue on with the story so I just restarted the game saying and doing different things. I got kind of confused on the whole Mask and Dark passenger part, when in conversations I wouldn’t say anything dark and I would gain more dark points then I would mask. Also a nice little tidbit that I found is that you can go to you’re a/c unit and look at your previous victims even Dexter’s first kill, which I thought was really interesting.

I really enjoyed the game, then again my opinion might be biased on that because im a big fan of the show, But I believe that even people who have never seen the show will play this game and get hooked and might even watch the show to get the extra details that the game doesn’t portray.

Dirt 2 review (Colin McRae's Dirt 2)

“Hey! Watch what your doing!” as dave mira says when I ram into him going 100 mph. I am talking about the game Dirt 2 and not actually ramming into the real Dave Mira. This isn’t your normal rally racing any more, which the first Dirt game focused on, it has a blend of rally and arcade style racing. Codemasters takes pride in their racing games, it’s they expertise if you will, and with Dirt 2 they have really given this game their all. Many of you who don’t know, colin McRae died in 2007, said he was one of the top rally racers out there and Dirt 2 is a homage to Colin McRae.

Dirt 1, as I said before, was more of a standard rally; race against the clock and all that. It was said that Dirt 1 has the best menu design. But Dirt 2 has stepped it up and has again impressed us all with its free look menu design. Your menu is pretty much everything around your RV, for example if you look at the map on your table with the right stick, it’ll show you all the races (career mode) and if you look at the door you can exit to where your car is and customize it to your style. When your outside your trailer you can see the crowds and you can hear music off in the distance. It’s a menu system that you have never experience before.

You start off the game as a up and coming racer who has yet to make a name for him/her self. Your first car is Colin McRae’s Rally Cross car. You gain experience points through races and missions. When you level up you open more levels, gain liveries (car skins), dashboard items and other fancy little gifts. For those of you who like to drive behind the wheel rather then behind the car, you’ll get to enjoy all the gifts on your dashboard and rear-view mirror. The max level you can reach is 30, but believe me, its quite a challenge to even get to half way there.

A player can choose between 6 difficulties before they race, as one would expect the higher the difficulty the more money/experience points you can get and not to mention the amount of flash backs you can use. You’ll have so many car options to drive from during each race and you’ll be driving all over the world, like from Croatia to Malaysia even China. During Each race, you will be pinned up against tough world racers and not just no named people. Codemasters even put the real voices of all the racers on this game and they will talk to you during the racer or challenge you to certain events. It’s a weird experience because I’ve always wanted people to say my name during games but in Dirt 2 they actually do that, If your name is on the long list that they have. I mentioned Early about a flashback, well its pretty much self explanatory if you have a major crash or didn’t take the turn like you wanted you can rewind time back to 15 seconds before hand and correct your mistake; but depending on your difficulty your only allowed a certain amount.

Missions were added in Dirt 2, which are in race tasks that give you extra exp at the end. There are many different missions each with 5 levels. For example you have to do a certain amount of spins or drift a certain amount, things of that sort.

Graphically the game is gorgeous. Real affects of driving through dirt and mud, your car will get dirty and will have mud splashed on it, a neat little feature that I came across was if your driving behind the wheel and your go through water, your windshield wipers will activate and clear the windshield of the water. The environments are stunning, one lose track of where their driving when stumbling upon a sunset going over the landscape.

Each car has its own feel to it so you can’t really drive one way with a fast rally cross car and then try to drive the same way with buggies. So you will have to learn and adapt to the cars specs and try to become an all round good racer with all the cars.

Players will have all sorts of events to choose from, from your basic rally to your domination race, which is earn the best time in sections of a race track to gain points.
And all the events that you can race in career mode can be raced in online. While racing online a new player doesn’t have to worry about only being able to drive the really bad cars, all cars are unlocked for a player to race when online, and it evens the race track. Compared to the career mode, online can be very different and aggravating. In career mode racers will slow down and try not to ram you if you cut them off or get in their way, but online other players will hit you as hard as they can for no apparent reason and it can get very frustrating and its oh so satisfying when you hit the person back and they go flying and end up in last place.

Overall Dirt 2 is one amazing piece of work, its graphically beautiful, game play is amazing realistic with a hint of arcade, and the story line is easy to follow, not to mention the easy/interesting menu design. This game really appeals to the racing and non racing fans, such as my self and I love this game. At the end of the game there is a Colin McRae race event which I think is a nice remembrance to Colin McRae and his family.