Gaming Blog of Doom

Skate 2 review

2009-02-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

I will be reviewing the Xbox 360 version, so I don't know anything about PS3 framerate issues.

Tony Hawk games have been pretty much the only skateboarding games for well, since the PSX era of games. Don't get me wrong, Tony Hawk used to be very fun, but there are too many of them, and it's just a boring series now where it's the exact same thing every year. Now here's Black Box, a company that made some of the Need for Speed games, decides to finally challenge Tony Hawk and make a skateboarding series of there own, Skate.

Controls: 9/10
Instead of using buttons for the main controls like in the Tony Hawk series, you will instead control the game mostly with the analog sticks, and the shoulder butons. Left stick controls your body, right stick controls your board. Flick up the right stick, you do an ollie, flick the stick down, you do a nollie, tilt the stick slightly back or forward to do a manual. Those are just some examples of how tricks are done, it's very intuitive and feels great. I perfer analog control to button mashing. The only problem I have is that it is too easy to hold a manual or a grind. Also, when you jump right near a rail, it will move you a bit so you go on the rail, even if you don't want to, this is great for beginners, but for regular players it can ruin a bit of challenge, there should have been a option to turn that on or off.

story: 5/10
The skater you make in the create a character system has just gotton out of jail, (I have no idea why he, or she, was in jail) and the world has changed a lot, after a natural disaster, the city has been rebuilt and is now run by Mongocorp, who hates skateboarding, and you have to stop them. It's a crappy premise, but really, who cares about a story in a skateboarding game. That being said, the voice acting is entertaining, as it is voiced by real skaters.

Gameplay: 9/10
In carreer mode you have to do all kinds of challenges to get money and sponcers, these challenges include racing, trick contests, games of S.K.A.T.E, photo shoots, and more. They aren't bad, and are fun for a while, but by the end of the game, the challenges get way too difficult, way too fast, and there are no difficulty settings. Most of my time was spent in either freeskate, where you just skate around the city doing whatever you want, and online, where you can do all kinds of games and challenges with friends, or random people. You can also create spots and put them online, and try to see if other people can beat your score on them. Oh, that reminds me, you can also get off your board in this game and move objects around, though you cannot move objects while online, so they arent there at all, which makes the world feel emptier while online, though there is still tons of spots to skate. You have to choose an area to skate online, you can't skate around the whole world like in freeskate, but the areas you choose from are fairly large.

Replayability: 8 or 10 depending on some things.
The carreer mode in this game is not all that long, though there are tons of optional challenges you may want to do to unlock more places and characters to play as. If you are goal oriented, that might bother you a bit, so the score for you would be 8, if you are like me, and just love to skate around the open world, make videos, make spots, and just play around with friends, then I give it a 10. Some people say the world in the first game is better but I did not play it so I can't compare the 2.

Overall, this game gets a 8.5 or 9 out of 10(depending how much you care about career mode), it's very good, but a few problems keep it from being exellent, the carreer mode could be better, the grind magnetism is annoying, and there are a few framerate problems here and there when there are too many cars and pedestrians around. Also, the controls are a bit difficult at first, so it isn't good for casual gamers. If you are a skateboarding fan, and want a more realistic skateboarding game then Tony Hawk, definately check this game out.

America's Army True Soliders review for Xbox 360.

2008-07-31T14:12:00.001-07:00

Oh, what to say about this game. It's a first person shooter. Well, it's realistic, not quite for the better, but still. Um, it doesn't crash your console, or at least, it didn't crash mine, that's always a good thing. Lets get the graphics and sound out of the way. The graphics aren't horrible, far from it, but they aren't very.... good. With graphics that aren't great, you expect the game to run well, right? Well, sadly that isn't the case here, the game isn't really laggy, but it feels somewhat slow. The sound is very average, the same stuff you hear in most shooting games.

Now to the controls. The movement is not very responsive. You can't go a tiny bit, you always take a big step. Another annoying thing is you change directions very slowly because you can't change mid step. This is a big deal considering you can be killed in a few shots. Aiming is also slow and feels clunky. It's hard to move the aim just a bit.

Finally, onto the gameplay. Needless to say, it's bad. The enemies can shoot you from a mile away, and they're very accurate. There's also a training mode where you shoot targets! How exciting. Oh, wait, here's the best part, the multiplayer. There are barely anyone playing. I found one match and it was already in progress, with 4 players. This game supports sixteen player co-op. Thats not possible because it seems the entire population of the game CONSISTS OF 4 PEOPLE.

Don't play this game, don't rent this game, and don't even look at the box too long, you will probably go blind.

I give it a 2/10.

Cheers,
Future42

Mythos has been shut down.

2008-07-31T14:07:00.001-07:00

I'm a little late, but yeah, Mythos, the action mmorpg from Flagship studios is closed indefinitely. I was in the closed beta, and its sad to see it go before it was even released to the public. It was my favorite free mmo. I think there transferring it to a Korean company or something. They will probably change it a lot though. Well, maybe people will get better at making free mmo's and we will see more like Mythos.

Flagship studios is not totally closing down.

2008-07-17T16:41:00.000-07:00

They recently reported that the company has fired most of the staff but kept the most important people. More info here. http://www.mythos.com/underground/flagship-studios-still-operating

Defend Your Castle on Wii Ware.

2008-05-17T17:43:00.001-07:00

This game is really fun! It takes the original idea of defending a castle from the original flash game, and makes it even more exiting. Its made by the same creators as the original, Xgenstudios. Lets start with the graphics. The first few things you will notice are 1. Graphics look like they were drawn with crayons with buttons and bottlecaps glued on to them. 2. Theres no blood, while this is a bit of a disappointment, it doesn't affect the game at all, and it still is funny when the stick figures die.

The gameplay consists of a few things. Throw stick figures into the air by dragging them with the wiimote. Repeat until night. Buy stuff. Things you can buy include, health, adding more heath, archers, spells, and other things. Once you buy the converter, which is the can of paint, you can drag sticks into it. From there you can turn them into suicide bombers, archers, spell makers, and builders.

Not much to talk about with the sound. Pretty simple sound effects, I liked them. The explosions are done by people making explosion sound effects, its amusing. I never got annoyed with the sound effects.

Enemy wise, theres enough variety to keep you interested, it starts out with only plain stick figures but other enemy types are added as you progress. I really recommend this game, for 5 dollars, you probably won't regret buying it.

Review, Space Intercepter.

2008-02-29T14:55:00.000-08:00

Heres another one from www.game.giveawayoftheday.com

This one is a space ship fighter, and thats pretty much all. The graphics are really good. Theres blur effects and good nice textures. The controls take a little to get used to, Its controlled by the mouse. The gameplay, (from what I played) was just shooting, in the first mission I had to protect a ship from waves of attacking ships, I ended up losing, partly to my bad sense of pilot games and party to the so-so controls. I would recomend this game to people who like space games, but its not great, maybe it gets better, but I don't care to find out. 7/10

Remember, this game is only free TODAY. If you don't get it today, its gonna be 20 dollars, I wouldn't buy it, maybe theres a demo. But if your going to play it, try to get it today 2/29/08.

Future42 review. eXtinction

2008-02-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

Ok, ok, so I was checking www.game.giveawayoftheday.com and they usually have dumb games like Pac Man clones or Arkanoid clones. The site gives a different game away almost everyday. But today, the game caught my attention. The picture they showed was quite cool too. Its a 2.5d shooter. The graphics aren't very good, but I think this is an old game, so I wont blame it on that. Theres some nice blood affects too.

Now on to the gameplay! It feels sorta like a 2.5d version of doom. You go around the environment getting keys, weapons, health, power, and special abilities. You use power to use your jet pack, it recharges over time but its very slowly so its better just to find one of the power items. Enemies respawn, which I don't like, because they sometimes respawn right next to you and it feels out of place. The controls are pretty smooth. When you get more keys it feels like theres tons more enemies coming at you, thats my main complaint with this game, it feels like theres tons of enemies, but they all look they same and its pretty easy to pwn them all. The levels are too big, I was too bored I couldn't finish the first level, It was confusing to go through. The map didn't help much.

I give this game a 6/10. Its ok for the great price of free, but you could find much better free games. But if you do want this game, you can get it for free today on http://game.giveawayoftheday.com/

Tell me what you think of my review and tell me games you would like me to review, preferably a free game.

Cheers,
Future42

Jurrasic Park for the Sega Genisis

2008-01-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

Jurrasic park, your on an island, theres dinosaurs, dinosaurs go crazy, then try to kill you. Thats pretty much the plot. In this game you can be a human, or a rapter. Each of these modes play differently and I'm pretty sure even the levels are different. As the human, (I don't remember his name) you shoot the dinosaurs. Its a platforming 2d shooting game. In the rapter mode, you bite the dinosaurs. This mode is a lot more fast paced and I think this is my favorite of the 2. I haven't gotten far in this game, but I know the first level of each character is the jungle, I forget the others I played. The controls are fine, the graphics are pretty good for the system, the gameplay works just fine. Overall, this is a good game, but not a great one. I would be more detailed, but I haven't played this game in a while and I don't feel like playing right now. I give this game a 7/10.

Cheers,
Future42

Quck review, Half Life 2.

2008-01-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

Heres a rundown of the whole game. Non shooting level. Cinematic shit. Shoot stuff. Whoa, a boat. Now get a gun for your boat. Shoot in a boat. Get out of the boat. Fight more stuff. Get a jeep, shoot stuff in a jeep. Some on foot shooting. The end.

Ok, ok, theres some more stuff then that, but thats basically it. Thats not a bad thing though. Its a very good game. Great voice acting, graphics, and gameplay. So if you like shooting stuff, solving physics based puzzles, driving boats and jeeps, you'll love this game. I told you it was going to be a quick review. Don't look at me like that. I'm not going in to the story at all because I don't want to spoil it for you. So, yeah, the reviews over, bye.............. wait, I forgot to say what your actually shooting, in this game, you will be shooting combine soldiers (evil cop people) zombies and headcrabs. Thats it, the end, reviews over, cya. Until next time.

Written by future42, like always. :D

Luigis Mansion review + extras

2008-01-15T12:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, so heres my new Idea, I can do a review, or whatever, then if i feel like it, ill add some stuff at the end, it could be game news, some websites, or other kickawesome stuff instead of making a bunch of sentence long posts.

Review

I was supposed to do the Call Of Duty 4 multiplayer review, and I will, but right now I feel like reviewing a very underrated game, Luigi's Mansion. Some may call it short. Some may say it has bad controls, and other people say Nintendo should have just made another Mario game. I don't agree. I actually find this game to be more fun then the actual Mario game released on the console, Super Mario Sunshine. The beginning of that game was fun, but it got frustrating. But enough about shooting water at dirt, lets get on to fighting ghosts. That just happens to be the main thing you do in Luigi's Mansion. Mario somehow managed to get himself trapped in a mansion. Luigi gets invited to inherit a nice mansion or something, then has to save Mario from it.

The bulk of this game consists of using your vacuum thing to suck up ghosts and turn them into paintings. You do this by solving some sort of puzzle, then shine a flash light at the ghost, and suck it into the vacuum. Its actually fun, which most games now a days purposely try to avoid. The mansion has a nice feel to it. The graphics are clear. Not amazing, but nice for the time. Theres not much else I can say without boring you all to death. I would buy this game if you like survival horror games, Luigi, and ghosts. I'll give it an 8/10.

Now for some extras. Here are some cool free music websites.

www.projectplaylist.com On this site you can make playlists, listen to music, then post your playlist in myspace or facebook or whatever.

www.seeqpod.com Similar to project playlist, you can make playlists, listen to music, blah blah blah, then you can go to the pod crawler and actually see as the website finds new songs. Pretty neat feature, eh?

www.pandora.com Heres something different, here you can put in a song or band you like and it will create a radio station for you. Then you can tell it if you like or don't like the songs its playing for you, and it will change the station each time you do that. You can also add different kinds of music to the station or create more stations.

Thats all for right now folks!

Cheers,
Future42

Call of Duty 4 singleplayer review.

2008-01-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

My friends have been bugging me to get this game for a few weeks, so I thought, why not? It looks pretty good anyway. So I get it. The first thing I do is try a few singleplayer levels. The first thing I notice is the graphics, there great, some of the best I have ever seen. The cut scenes are interesting, its mostly news reports and mission briefing, but I found some of it to be interesting even though I skipped most of it. Its the gameplay that matters most. So after I finish the tutorial level, I'm on a helicopter on my way to a cargo ship, this is the first time you get to shoot people. So you land on the ship, which looks amazing, and you go up to a window. Your squad tells you to open fire or something like that, so you shoot through the windows, kill the enemies, and move in. Heres where you notice that your person can't open doors by himself, he needs his squad to do it for him. You would recognize this if you've played the other Call Of Duty games. Its annoying at first, but you don't notice it after a while, it helps the games pacing. So after a few fights later, you find some bombs or something, the ship starts sinking, and you have to escape. This part looks spectacular, theres pipes falling apart, objects sliding down halls, and water everywhere.

This game is about 6 hours long. It may seem short, but you can play it over and over. Its just that good. After you beat the game you unlock arcade mode, which is the singleplayer levels but the levels are timed, there checkpoints, scoring, and lives. I really liked this mode. It feels like an actual arcade game, but better. The levels are varied, the locations look different. One level has you using a turret in a helicopter, one is on the back of a car, shooting other cars, and even one where your in some kind of helicopter bombing a place with this cool vision, and lots more. Even though the game is short, there are a lot of levels.

I don't feel like doing a multiplayer review right now, so ill do it some other time, but I can tell you, its really good. So this game is a definite buy.

Virtua Cop for the Sega Saturn.

2008-01-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, so heres the deal, this is an arcade port. I don't have a light gun, so I have to use the controller to play. Its a very simple game, and a very short game, like a lot of arcade games. Theres 3 stages, easy, medium, and expert. I just played the easy level a minute ago so heres a run through. I went in to a crate shipping place, I shot lots of bad guys. I went into a ware house, shot more bad guys, then fought a boss bad guy with a rocket launcher. I call them bad guys because thats just what they are. There just evil people in black suits, and once in a while theres a different color shirt guy who try to hit you with an axe or throw grenades at you. Thats it. Thats pretty each level. Virtua Cop would be better with a light gun. If you don't have a Saturn, or a light gun for it, I would pass on this game unless your a hardcore light gun fan. Anyways, this will probably come out for the wii soon since it seems Sega likes porting light gun games to it.

Some quick Wii reviews.

2008-01-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

I don't have many Wii games so ill review them all.

First lets start with Rayman Raving Rabids. I wouldn't have bought it but I got to pick one free game out of like 4 games at that looked like the best out of the 4. Its a mini game collection. Pure and simple. You are Rayman and you get captured by Rabids. These little frog things get captured too. You have to rescue them and escape. Most of the mini games are boring, difficult as hell, or just monotonous. The fun parts are the dance levels, which are like a simple ddr. And the best parts are the shooting levels, and there are a lot of them. They are standard light gun type games like Virtua Cop or House Of The Dead. (which i may review later) Some of the mini games are fun, but those are few and far between. If you just have to play this game, just rent it. Its not worth paying for.

Zelda Twilight Princess. I can't go much into this game. I didn't get very far in it. I'm not very good at Zelda games. I really should try to play it again. I even have a guide for it. From what i've play, its a very fun game, the graphics look really good for a Wii game. If you like 3d Zelda games, this would be a definite buy.

Mario Party 8. The Mario Party franchise has been around since the N64 and they make a new one almost every year. There still good. But they have gone downhill since the first 3, which were great party games. I didn't get to play the first one much though since I don't own it. But enough about my history with Mario Party games, lets get on with the review shall we. The wii controller adds some variety to the mini games, but not enough. Most of the games are fun. Some aren't, but thats how it is with every Mario Party game. The graphics are weak, even for a Wii game. The mini games don't even support widescreen, it just puts a border around the mini games. How lazy. This is still a really good party game, so if you have people over this would be a good one to have.

Last but defiantly not least, SUPER MARIO GALAXY. This is by far, my favorite Wii game. I've always been a huge fan of the Mario platformers. This one gets back to Mario platforming bliss. No more stupid FLUDD. (the squirt gun thing from Super Mario Sunshine) This is the best graphics Wii game yet. The amount of variety in the levels is stunning. The water effects are brilliant. The fur on the creature looks really cool. This is just a great game to look at. Control wise, I've had no problems, unlike some other wii games. The controls are very smooth. Wii movements don't feel tacked on, they feel natural. This game is a definite buy.

Cheers,
Future42

Portal review.

2008-01-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Portal is a game where you shoot portals, go through them to another portal, and solve puzzles with this.

Story, not much I can say without spoiling stuff, but you're a test subject in Aperture science labs. Simple enough, not quite, but you will have to play the game to know the rest, and boy should you play this game.

Gameplay wise, its a breath of fresh air. Its a first person game..... but not a shooter. It's a puzzle game that makes use of the source engine. You can use portals to launch fling your self into high places. Throw boxes into portals to knock out turrets. And so on.

You could probably beat this game in about 2- 3 hours. Thats a good thing though. Its a great game, but too much would be bad, like too much cake. Speaking of cake........

This game is hilarious, which leads me to sound. GLaDOS, which will have almost every line in the whole game, is just great. GLaDOS is the computer that guides you through the game via intercom. GLaDOS stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System. You think it might get repetitive, but it never does. The other sounds are pretty generic, you might have heard them before if you played the Half Life 2 games.

Portal is included in The Orange Box or you can buy it separately from Steam for 20 dollars. Both are pretty good deals. Though the game is short, theres advanced levels and people will probably make custom levels.

Rent or buy? I would say buy, its witty, short but sweet, and just a generally good game.

Cheers,
Future42.

Song of the day!

2007-09-19T17:18:00.001-07:00

Dashboard, by Modest Mouse. Pretty cool song.

http://www.projectplaylist.com/musicsearch?searchfor=modest+mouse+dashboard&search=search

Pac Man world. Mini review

2007-09-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

This game is pretty cool. Its sorta like crash bandicoot. The same kinda running and jumping. Your going around the levels killing ghosts and eating dots. I cant really tell much about this game, since my copy freezes whenever I try to play one of the levels. But still, its a pretty fun game.

Retro reviews.

2007-09-09T07:56:00.000-07:00

Heres one for a SNES game called Space Megaforce. You know even by the title its gonna be awesome.

Sound 7/10 Average shooting sounds and explosions. Cool music

Graphics 8.5/10 Great effects for a SNES game. Varied backgrounds and cool zoom effects for level 2.

Gameplay 9/10 Your shooting stuff. Get power ups. Shoot more. Nuff said.

Overall, a solid side scrolling shooter.

Final rating. 8.5/10

Flash game sites comparison.

2007-09-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

People are always saying which flash games site is the best. Is it Miniclip. Hell no! Is it armor games. Nada. (this is all opinion, you may think whatever site is the best to you)

Here are some of my top picks for flash game sites.

1. www.arcadepod.com This site has all the games organized in tons of categories. Its easy to find a good game.

2. www.freeonlinegames.com They have cool games. The site is pretty fast. And theres even a few multiplayer games.

3. www.newgrounds.com I'm pretty sure most of you have heard of newgrounds. Anyone can post there own games or animations easily. It has a cool site design. And the cool blam and protect system.

There all easy to use sites with cool games on them.

Trying to update more? We'll see.

2007-09-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hahaha. I forgot I even had this blog. I'm gonna try to post more. And to make it more interesting. Its probably not gonna be just games now. I might do reviews of games, websites, we'll see. Thats all for now. I think I will actually write something of interest now. Or not. I might even think up a cool name. :)

introduction

2007-04-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

This is my gaming blog