THE CREW - Just a racing game

NOTE: These are just my first impressions of Ubisoft's new long-awaited sandbox racing title. I probably won't be posting the review, because I won't be buying the game (not because the game is bad, but because I'm waiting for something better to come out).
So, today I got to my buddy's place and he surprised me with his freshly bought copy of The Crew. I was really excited to check it out because Ubisoft did promise us 20-30 hours of campaign and a sandbox that contained some sort of a mini-America. I didn't have much time to stay though, so we jumped straight to campaign.
The campaign starts out pretty uncomprehendable, you just start driving a car while the cops are breathing down your throat, trying to ram your, somehow, extremely fast pick-up truck. The dialogues were dull and annoying, not really to be anyone's cup of tea. The mission was to go through checkpoints in order to succeed. Pretty interesting eh? But, that doesn't mean that the game is boring. Quite in fact, it's pretty damn fun! You will have to wait in order to unlock other regions of the map by levelling up and completing missions. I forgot the names of all the states included in the starting region, but I think Michigan and Nova Skotia are in there.
A lot of side missions are on the map, so my buddy and I had no trouble finding what to do. Storyline missions were mostly just races that got a lot more money than the side missions. The game overall looks great, although the foliage is a bit too repetitive and non-stylish. I ran into a lot of houses with the same looks and textures, the trees are the same too, not that many types of models.
Not that much more that I can say, but THE CREW is definitely a fun game, full of eye candy. I did only explore 2% of the map, which means that this game may have a lot more than we know for now.
Lateers. :D

Great job Ubisoft!

Remember when Ubisoft used to make great games worth the 50-60 euro they costed? When Assassin's Creed I was the true next-gen with its climbing mechanics and when Splinter Cell was a franchise that had a new sequel every year? When console versions of their games didn't poop all over themselves with framerate issues and texture popping glitches? That time will come back, right? Right!?
I played Unity on my buddy's PC with a high end Intel i5 processor and the well-known MSI nVidia GTX 970 with 4GB of GDDR5 ultra fast memory. The game was installed on his 128GB SSD. When Ubisoft said that a GTX 680 would be a bare minimum to run their game, they, indeed, were more than right... The game runs at 15FPS average on that GPU! It barely reaches 45-50 FPS on the GTX 970, even with Ubisoft's special nVidia drivers installed, when in reality it should be reaching 60+ FPS. All this applies if the game is maxed out at 1080p except for the AA settings being set minimum to TXAA because setting it to SMAA 8x will reduce the amount of FPS by a staggering 20! And that is only in interiors...
TotalBiscuit did one of his port reports on this game, he was not satisfied at all. On his GTX TITAN, the game had the same FPS amount of FPS as the GTX 970 at some points during gameplay.
AC: Unity was also 'sponsored' by Microsoft during its development time, so it's no wonder that the Xbox One version looks a tiny bit better, while both versions run at 900p in 30FPS. The PS4 version suffers from certain random framerate drops where the game seriously hiccups, and that happends in more than a few places in Paris among which is one of the citadels.
First WATCH_DOGS and now this... But, WATCH_DOGS wasn't poorly optimized, it just looked uglier than what Ubisoft showed us earlier. Far Cry 4, it's a great game, although the tropical setting fits me more, that's just my opinion. The Division? It's already more than clear that the game will look waaay uglier than it was represented to look like, on the consoles of course. Ubisoft did say that The Division will look noticeable better on the PC which means that the PC gamers will be able to play the version shown at last year's E3. With that said, i think we can trust Ubisoft a little bit on this one, when it comes to the PC version.
I barely found any time to write, because right now i found some free time. I gotta study more so i can fix some grades lol... I dun fucked 'em up :D I'll write again soon, hopefully. Laters!

A ball that barely reaches the rim - NBA Live 15 REVIEW

Reviewed on Playstation 4

Last year, I was dazzled by how low some people may go for a bit of extra cash, and EA was no exception.
NBA Live 14 sank lower than any other basketball game that I've played before, and I would've rather played NBA Live 10 instead.
NBA Live 15 brings a few new ideas that mostly fail to shine, even though most of them are fairly interesting.

WASTED GREENS
This year also, EA has brought in the ESPN-like user interface which does give a nice impression and a sense of realism. It's original, shiny and dynamic, but the license was is again, like last year, a money waster.
In addition, game modes such as MyCarreer have been tuned up, but only in some aspects that are hard to be noticed. Things such as the experience gauge have stayed the same, while bugs, glitches and wrong calls are still very annoying. I still lose points by shooting at the right time (my player is a good shooter, and timing is important just not as it is for the other players), for making a good foul in order to stop the attacker who is on his clear path to a masterful dunk... Basically, you only get live XP for hitting shots or nailing layups, which is boring and repetetive. Not to mention that already on my second level, while playing against OKC, i had to have more assists than Russel Westbrook... Yep, Russel Westbrook, the big 0.
Legendary basketball moments are still there, and they look more polished definitely, especially when the players have to shoot, it can look gorgeous.

COVERS DON'T MATTER
NBA Live 15 looks and sounds well, but it performs way worse than it actually should.
The commentators (hell, can't even remember the names) are simple and cannot be compared to Kevin and Steve Curr from NBA2K... The animations of the players have been fixed by a tiny bit since last year, but they still perform like on PS2. The ball physics are better, the ball does bounce off the rim better and more naturally, while the jerseys swing beautifully like flags on the wind.
NBA Live 15 also has some awesome graphics. The players don't look as bad as last year, and the arenas look more realistic than ever! Light effects are cool, the sneakers look nice, no muddy textures.
PLAY AS A TEAM
NBA Live 15 uses a brand new AI engine that probably doesn't really work that well. Friendly AI moves unnaturally, and they even sometimes run into their own teammates. It can be frustrating a lot.
THE VERDICT
NBA Live 15 is a small improvement from last year that still doesn't hold up with bigger games such as NBA2K. EA can surely make ideas, but making them come true can be as hard as it gets.
I give this game a 6/10. If you ever want to try out something besides NBA2K, you should get this, but only when the price drops. For more info, check out IGN.

Long term awaiting... Doesn't pay out - DESTINY REVIEW

NOTE: I played the game on a PS4 and an Xbox 360, the experiences were the same.
I simply had to review this game, because it caused so much hype. I may not remember the names of the story characters so well, but let's just say that they're not that important.
Enjoy the review!
THE HYPE ZONE
Bungie, a studio famous for its long collaboration with Microsoft and its Microsoft exclusive franchise HALO, has brought us DESTINY, a game worth so much mentioning. DESTINY is the first game released after the end of the pact between Microsoft and Bungie and, as many have expected, the game just doesn't live up to the hype... Nor to the 500 million dollars that was spent on it.
But yes, the game is not boring, it has a ton of content worth risking to get, a mediumly interesting story and freedom.
ENTERING THE WORLD
Like most MMOs, DESTINY lets you fully customize your own character, but strong limitations are there, so it's definitely not like something you would see in Saint's Row IV's famous Initiation station. Be careful what you choose, because once you put an ugly green slime on your face, there is no going back...
After finishing the simple character creation, i was off to the huge mystical world of DESTINY. After the first cutscene, you start off with a simple gun, and you are taught to survive and kill by tutorials.
SO, WHAT'S THE CATCH?
DESTINY looks like, feels like, sounds like and plays exactly like an MMO should, except that it has that refreshing FPS element that everyone is a fond of. Killing enemies, defeating huge bosses, collecting loot, raiding... All can be done with a friend, and it can be hell of a fun process, buut, already after my 7th or 8th mission, same enemies started attacking me, while I encountered the same boss three times until I reached level 14...
Reaching higher levels in the game is hard, mostly if you go solo on most missions and if you don't grab the necessary loot the game drops you at the end of missions. It's also worth mentioning that you always get the same loot at the end of a certain mission.
At the end of the main story mission cycle, you can keep collecting loot, fighting other players in PVP areas, raid caves and enemy strongholds and gain more experience so you can get to the highest level possible.
So, after you've done the campaign missions, there's still a lot to do.
HOLES IN THE LOST WORLD
Like every MMO game, DESTINY is filled with flaws and some can perhaps make you never want to come back to it again.
During exploration or PVPing, connection lag is a common issue and it can last up to 10 seconds... Framerate issues are noticeable, especially in the PS3 and 360 versions of the game. I got a bit of texture popping on both the PS4 and the 360 version, but nothing too serious. As for the hubs and merchants, various bugs still appear when trying to buy something or sell something. Once, my game froze on the loading screen, and going back to the interface was impossible, while on my third day, my character and all my progress was deleted out of nowhere... Good thing I don't like spending money on microtransactions that much.
THE VERDICT
DESTINY is a high budget game that at some points manages to live up to the hype, but also at some other points falls down close to rock bottom. I give this game an 8/10. For more on DESTINY, visit this.
Laaaters!

Is Call of Duty dying?

Don't hate on me, but I really did enjoy Call of Duty: Ghosts, i find it really fun and dynamic, the multiplayer is cool (although glitchy and laggy at the same time) while the campaign was something like from a third party game... Yes, my point is, i liked Ghosts only because of its multiplayer, and I also think that Call of Duty should be a game better optimized for consoles. What do i mean by that? Well, because of balancing! The PC versions of all CoD games have guys hacking and what not.

Now, is this franchise really dying? I would say so... Since Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, the hater base has increased by 3-4 times from what it had been before. Let me admit, CoD MW3 is my second favourite game in the franchise, first is MW2, but i kind of get it why people started biasing Call of Duty more largely from MW3... We can just conclude that everything started going down the drain after that Infinity Ward break-up in 2010, being followed by the formation of Respawn Entertainment, under the ownership of Electronic Arts, which is widely recognised today as the developer of Titanfall.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare does look like an awesome game, and as far as i know, the graphics in all CoD games have never been downgraded from their E3 or GamesCom form. I believe that this game will be awesome, but not sure how the people will like it, judging by the fact that many hated on Black Ops II because of its futuristic setting... Then again, we have Titanfall, a game that many praised to be the Call of Duty killer, but for me, it turned out to be another great shooter that deserves a sequel that might get that title.

So, where does this leave us? Is Call of Duty dying? Yes. Will it die out soon? No. Many people still play the game, because of its gameplay and features. (WARNING: After this sentence lies a form of personal opinion, so if you don't agree, show it with a nice pack of words. I'm serious.) If you ask me, every video game will die out at some point in time. There will always be new generations of kids that will be buying CoD games every year, because, Call of Duty is still the most popular shooter out there, whether we like it or not.

I gotta go now, my corn is ready to be eaten. Laters.

Here we fucking-go again

GTA V will be hitting the current-gen waves this November, and the PC waves in January... The game will have a few additions, it will still look the same, but badass at the same time, too. As for me, i'll just wait it out for the PC version... And no, it's not because i dislike or hate the consoles in any way. I don't have a PS4 or an XB1 because i don't feel the need to pay in order to play online. It may be a small sum of monies, but i'd rather play everything online on my PC for free. Yes, it may turn out better to buy a PS4 for 450 euro and enjoy the game in 60FPS, 1080p (the same would be for Xbox) but since i'm more of a spending-my-money-on-PCs kind of guy, i'll just stick with the PC version. The amount of hate between the PC and the console gamers has never been bigger. On one side are the lonely PC gamers, defining their #MasterRace, while on the other side are the console gamers, divided into 3 groups, SONY peeps, MS peeps and Nintendo peeps. So far, when it comes to differentialities in games, PC does take an advantage in ex. BF4 or Watch Dogs, but the consoles are still there. Dead Rising 3 runs at 720p 30FPS on the XB1, but at 1080p 60FPS on GTX 780, which is a very strong card. I believe that, since that game first came out, the desire for hate had never been bigger before. 'Console gamers are kids, they get what they want, but in the end they want more'... 'PC gamers are like kids, they feel the desire for more'... So yeh, all of the gamers are kids then, which is mostly true, considering that 60-70% of the gaming population are peeps aged under 18. But, that ain't my point. My point is, you should be happy with whichever game and platform you choose, because the diffies are so small, that you wouldn't be able to notice 'em at all. BF4 does indeed run 720p on XB1 and 900p on the PS4, both locked at 60FPS, while the PC version CAN run in 4k resolution with GTX 780 or Titan locked at 30FPS (due to the fact that no GPU on the market can run at a better framerate, and because EA set it so it's not possible to go higher, because your GPU can explode.). Again, if you are a gamer, you shouldn't give two fucks about which platform you're playing on. If you hate others and call yourself a gamer, then you're no better than those kids that play Minecraft and only Minecraft... Laters.

THE NOSTALGIA - BATTLEFIELD 3 REVIEW

Finding myself in the middle of a battle with an M4, a half filled pistol and an RPG while a tank is coming to fill me up with lead is only possible in games such as Battlefield. I would normally use my common sense and throw a sneaky C4 at the tank, but this time i had to improvise. Battlefield 3 brings us the nostalgia back from the times of Battlefield 2 with full on arsenal, destruction and carnage waiting to be taken at the right place and the right time.
PRESENTATION
The story follows a group of American squad members that go into Iran, Iraq and, of course, Russia to liquidate the bad guys. As much bad and boring it sounds, it actually really is. Constant cutscenes with dull dialogues and voice acting of Duke Nukem are stretchy, thus made me want to drop my joystick even faster. Before certain missions, you can choose your desired arsenal, ranging from perks to RPGs. Constant quick-action events are, indeed, a nice touch, but they fail to fix the overall influence. After passing the campaign and forgeting most of it immediately, i turned to the massive and thrilling multiplayer. As before, you get 4 classes, assault, recon, engineer and medic. Brand new long awaited option to customize weapons not depending on the class has finally been brought in, but the class drop-after-death has been kept. In order to assault your enemies, you can attack in more ways. For instance, my jet buddy took me to a high place, i jumped out, landed on a high building crawling with snipers, took all of them one by one. It's amazing on which places the snipers can be, but remember, bullets don't travel with the speed of light, every one of them has its trajectory until it hits the ground. Game modes such as rush and conquest are still here, along with squad DM and they haven't been changed at all.
GRAPHICS
The bright and shining looks of the Frostbite 2 engine are amazing and they push the consoles to the limit while the PC gamers can enjoy a bit better graphics and twice as much more players in games. The game doesn't require you to have such a powerful CPU nor GPU to play it on the lowest settings.
THE VERDICT

Entire world in a smartphone - Watch_Dogs REVIEW

NOTE: Upcoming reviews, including this one, will feature screenshots.
Games such as GTA and Saint's Row are famous for the ability to kill whoever you want, whenever you want. Watch Dogs is a game about power, power that, if it existed, would take over not just Chicago, but more than you can imagine.
PRESENTATION
The smartphone is your main weapon, but strange enough, it's quite unnoticeable. It can be used to hack into everything, from cameras to electrical facilities causing the entire city to lose elrctrical power for 10 seconds. By hacking into, let's say, someone's phone or their electrical thingies, you gather different info based on their clothing, looks and profession. Cameras are a vital factor. They represent steps and logical paths and are scattered all around the giant city of Chicago. Aiden can use them to hack into unreachable devices because of their big height mount attribute. I found it hard to like the lone character of Aiden Pierce, but then again, that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. During the 20 hour long campaign, upgrades can be bought, along with clothes guns and vehicles. While the selection may be vast, races truly were dissappointing. I did like the ride around the city, getting away from the cops and activating massive traps along the way hungry for more yellow blazing, but races show a true disbalance between you and your AI opponents. While they can just race and hit your side doors and bumpers, you can devastate them in a beautiful thus boring way. Quite much makes me surprised why there's no slow-mo in this game... The multiplayer is surprisingly great for a genre like this. Few game modes such as TDM and CTI (capture the intel) mainly focus on bringing down a buttload of bad luck on your enemies using your smartphone. You can also join another player's campaign anonymously and try to hack him and ruin a bit of his fun.
GRAPHICS
Chicago is an urban wasteland, a huge playground for you to conquer, and it's also one of the most beautiful cities you'll ever see. From huge skyscrapers to poor suburbian territories and polluted lakes designed with DirectX 11 tech, i let my tongue reach the floor. Character faces look realistic, lighting is smooth and explosions look marvelous. A lot of attention has been put into sidewalks and roads, while almost every single building has an interior.

The chase after Makarov continues - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 REVIEW

Modern Warfare 2 is the best CoD in the series, with all its content and thingies that we would have never expected. Modern Warfare 3, on the other hand, can be described as copy-paste or 'i've seen this before'. The game isn't bad, but so much same stuff is just ridiculous that this game could have been put out as a DLC, not as a 60 dollar release with no new stuff in it.
PRESENTATION
The campaign is a short, but satisfying experience, the story is clear, you play as Yuri, Price or some American or British soldier trying to kill Makarov. The story could have been longer, but IW got shut down a year before the release of MW3, so not that much money was given to them by Activision (AKA not that many fucks were given). I enjoyed the 4-5 hour campaign, it, indeed, had some amazing scenes. Shifting between Cpt. Price, Yuri and Soap is cool, and the story is quite interesting. The world is under the siege of a terrorist, Vladimir Makarov. Makarov is an example of a modern Hitler, with a few more extensions such as the word Russian written on his forehead. While there are no unexpected twists and turns, the campaign is mostly a pile of gun shootouts and very few intercations followed by some more shootouts. The AI of the soldiers is still the same (yes, which equals to mediocre). Enemies will still rush at you full speed to feed you with that brand new stock they bought at the local Russian gun store. Sometimes, enemies just stay put in one particular place until you come to knife them (they don't even notice you coming).
GRAPHICS
CoD: Modern Warfare 3 uses the same old engine used in CoD 4 and CoD: MW2, which makes the game look like... Meh. The same old props, the same models, the same guns that don't look polished since MW2... Just ultra-meh. I have found a door (yes, a white steel door) used since CoD 3 multiple times, usually where the enemy spawner is. With all this being the same as before, there is something new and strong, and those are the system requirements... But, don't get confused, i'm sure there was a mistake made by IW, and i think people even with single core CPUs (3.0 GHz) can run this game at least on the lowest settings.
MULTIPLAYER
After the great and satisfying campaign comes the multiplayer (along with Special Ops). It has been changed, but not necessarilly. New perks haven't been brought in, only their names have been changed (Assassin) or split into more different ones (Cold blooded has split into Blind eye and Assassin). Brand new things like the strike package, which allowes you to change the way you play (e.g. Assault gives you the normal killstreak system where when you die, your killstreak progress vanishes or Support where when you die, your killstreak progress persists). Assault has better killstreaks than support BTW. There also are, besides weapon attachments, weapon proficiencies. Proficiencies are like weapon perks that don't apply for the entire class you're using. E.g. kick reduces recoil and impact increases depth of bullet impact on stronger materials. Many of the maps look like the campaign mission maps, as before. On the other hand, there is Spec Ops, something we've already seen in MW2. Nothing's been changed, which I find good. As before, you beat smaller missions and you gain stars to unlock other new and better missions. This can be played in either multiplayer or singleplayer.

+                            -
    Great campaign                             Dull graphics
    Fun multiplayer                             'Seen before'
    Spec Ops

THE VERDICT
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a fun game, it's potential is seen all around, while the dynamic charm makes me play it more every kill. I give this game an 8.7. For more game reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

The battle for the planet continues - Call of Duty: Black Ops II REVIEW

NOTE: A lot of people didn't like this game, but i did. It's pretty cool and fun, and it's campaign is maybe even the best in the franchise. I just wanted to let some peeps know that reviewing is just giving out personal opinion and recommendations. Now for the review...


9th year since the franchise began to heat up our PC CPUs and GPUs, and it's still active and is one of the best FPS games out there. CoD BOII is better than MW3, worse than MW2 and MW, but it has that charm that makes you not forget about the game, it has some unique features and the theme is fairly relevant. Some people find the futuristic setting quite boresome and uninteresting, but i find it amuzing and fresh for the series (MW was a leap forward, so why wouldn't BOII be one too?).
PRESENTATION
CoD: BOII brings a ton of new stuff, but also keeps some that presented probs in the previous installments. The campaign structure is mostly the same over and over again i.e. you spawn somewhere, go through a bunch of 'hallways', kill some enemies (mostly Eastern Europeans standing in cover or rushing towards you for a juicy taste of an M4A1 bullet), collect the objective (or just simply go to it) after which the entire level starts going down apart in explosions and flames and BOOM! Level completed! If the mission structure is nothing like that, don't worry, it will be almost the same without scripted level destruction. The problem is, enemy AI is dumb and at some points, quite useless. There's just no strategy involved, and your only job is to kill enemies and nothing else (well, you can also interact with certain elements like buttons or levers or jumps, but in order to get there, you'll need to spill way more blood than you think you would in the first place). Sometimes, i would even get hit when i'm in cover, behind a thick steel door, and enemy bullets would still keep going through, while mine wouldn't even reach half way. The story follows David Mason, the son of Alex Mason from CoD: BO, and the story is well told. The many cutscenes that don't only involve first person perspective are interesting and well acted, and they also bring out emotions, while the character faces and lip syncing have been done really well. The game has a long campaign, which is enjoyable. Apart from the dumb-ish AI, the many action sequences tell the game's story like no CoD before. There are dog fights (mostly scripted), controlled bug sequences and numerous interactions.
GRAPHICS
CoD: BOII uses the same engine as CoD WAW and CoD BO, but wiith a few upgrades that make the system requirements a lot higher than the ones for IW's CoD games. The game looks descent, the guns look cool and polished, but many map textures are still blurry even on the highest settings.
MULTIPLAYER
After i was done with the campaign, i jumped straight to multiplayer. Maps are medium sized, some are pretty small (Nuketown 2025). Treyarch added more killstreaks and decided to change their name to 'scorestreaks', which are gained by getting certain amounts of kills without dying. Again, there is the gun customization which allows you to customize your dot on your red dot or holographic sight and of course you can put your customized emblem on the gun and give it some additional swag. Creating classes has been fixed (most of it). The new '10 per class' system allows every player to have a maximum of 10 items (guns, attachments, grenades, perks not including weapon camos). It's also worth mentioning that you cannot pay to have more slots. This way, all of the players are equal. The ability to customize your soldier's face has been taken out, which i didn't find as a bad thing, mostly because it was unnecessary.

+Tweaked multiplayer                                             -Dumb-ish AI
  10 per class system                                                 Mission structures
  Choice of weapons          

THE VERDICT
Call of Duty: Black Ops II is a great game that deserves attention, even after 1.5 years of being out in the stores (check Steam stats and you'll notice that both MW3 and CoD BO II have more players than CoD: Ghosts). It does have a lot of problems, but it still is one of the best CoDs in the franchise. I give this game an 8.4. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters!

The ultimate non-linearity - Battlefield: Bad Company 2 REVIEW

Most people say that BFBC2 is the last great BF and they're certainly right. BFBC2 brings us a whole new world, with the same looks as BFBC, but with different mechanics and added dynamicity. It's a totally linear-free experience that will take away much more time than just one campaign playthrough.

PRESENTATION

Russia is evading, holy buttholes! The story is based on some bad Ruskis trying to take over the world, but it's not really explained who is their leader. The squad of four (Sweetwater, Sarge (no named), Haggart and Marlowe (the guy you play as)) are the main pratagonists, and once again they have made me laugh. While not everybody might find the hmour amusing, it gives a nice touch because the story sometimes just doesn't make sense, and the voice acting can be inadequate, more or less, boring. Everyone of the four has their own way of fighting, and after you finish the campaign (if you even finish it) and jump right into the multiplayer, you'll see that the campaign was just a preparation for something big. I wasted about 5-6 hours killing dumb enemies in single player while i could have spent much more and leveled more in multiplayer. However, the campaign is not boring, it's cool, thrilling and entertaining. 

GRAPHICS

BFBC2 looks cool, even for today's standards. The Frostbite engine used in the game was something that made BF3 (in a way). The PC players and the console players will be having the same experience but the PC players have a built in dedicated server browser in case something goes down, on the other hand, the game looks the same on all three platforms.

MULTIPLAYER

10-12 maps, each with their special characteristics. Some can be only in certain game modes, while others fit in for any. As in other modern FPSes, you level up and unlock weapons, gadgets (perks) for each class. There are 4 classes: assault, engineer, medic and recon. Assault brings the ammo, engineer can have a vehicle fixing kit and a rocker launcher, medic comes in with med packs and an LMG and recon has a sniper rifle or a shotgun and has C4 (C4 can take out an Abrams tank BTW). When you progress, you unlock items for classes that you scored the most with. For example, i mostly played with assault and engineer and got all of their items pretty damn fast, while it took me more time for recon and medic. 

+ Great multiplayer                                          - Voice acting

   A good choice of weapons                               Campaign

   A great choice of maps                                    

   Hard but challenging level up system

THE VERDICT

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 brings back the bad company and puts it where it belongs. It certainly is one of the best Battlefields at the moment. I give this game a 9/10. For more reviews, check ot my blog. Laters.

Poop - South Park: The Stick of Truth REVIEW

NOTE: The game isn't poopy or bad, it's quite much the opposite of the title. You will see later why i gave this review a title like that. I actually bought the game but for 1$ from a friend of mine who got an extra copy for free.

When i first double clicked on 'South Park: The Stick of Truth.exe' a world that i have seen before opened up and started to shine infront of my eyes. It was the state of South Park, and it looked gorgeous (well, it's a game that should have an ugly set of looks, but that's what South Park is all about, right?). I have had a lot of laughs for a pretty short time, but it was definitely worth the dollar.
PRESENTATION
Create your own character, give him some clothing, and you're good to go. Meeting with Cartman at his mom's house lets you choose which class you're gonna be, Figher, Thief, Mage or a Jew. Some people may find the Jew quite offensive, but the devs really didn't mean anything bad with it. I opened one of the various doors in Eric's house and there was a toilet, with the seat down. I approached by not expecting anything to come up, but as i clicked space, my character jumped on and started pooping! Awesome, right? I also accidentally right clicked and he farted... The campaign is about 6-8 hours long (sometimes even shorter), and that is something i didn't expect. The combat system is like an RPG game, you get in a fight and you have weapons to choose from (like Ninja Saga on Facebook for eg.). You have to plan your attacks carefully, enemies change stances from turn to turn (defence up=armour, attack up=stronger attacks that can break your defence, their ability to be invincible against your melee attacks.). As your progress, you gain XP and friends on some sort of a social app (South Park's version of Facebook) and you receive statuses and messages from them. By gaining friends, you also gain perk unlock points. Perks stay forever and can all be with you at the same time. Don't ever forget to upgrade your character, won't do you any good if you don't. Mission structures are well written, HELL, you even have a mission in which you go and find Jesus, TWICE!
GRAPHICS
South Park looks amazing, however it's hard to believe that the game stutters on last gen, while it can run smoothly on lower end PCs. The devs have done an outstanding job bringing the world from the cartoon we all know into a virtual world we control. The game might even have the first ever fully drawn map of South Park!
MULTIPLAYER
Mafia II again...

+ Fun and very enjoyable                           -A short campaign with no multiplayer (yes, multiplayer
   Awesome customization                            would be awesome in this game)
   Great visuals                                             A bit repetitive sometimes
   You get the feel of the real
   South Park!

THE VERDICT
South Park: The stick of Truth is a nasty, gory, but at the same time, awesome game hat will bring you into the world of South Park even more. I give this game an 8.5. For more reviews, check out my blog.


(Another)NOTE: I've been busy as i said before. At the end of the school year, i hope to get a new PC that will play Watch Dogs on ultra (yes, on mothafuckin' ultra settings), so games won't be old, instead they will be fresh out of the developement PC. Laters.

Press 'E' to blow up the Universe - Saint's Row IV REVIEW

NOTE: One of my favourite game devs and publishers, THQ, has gone into bankrupcy. The company basically doesn't exist anymore, so the SR franchise has been left to rot with a publisher like Deep Silver, who clearly has no sense in owning the rights to the franchise. I will, probably, be giving this game a higher score than it should get because i find it amazing, fun and charming. From now on, every review will be getting minueses and pluses for cons and pros, just so they show why i gave a certain game

PRESENTATION
Saint's Row was the beginning of something special. It was one of the first games that would seriously be compared to GTA. It had better graphics at the time and was much crazier. SR2 was a huge leap forward, giving the franchise a signature that couldn't be easily copied. SR: The Third is my favourite Saint's Row. It's got jets, helis, rockets, wobbling dildos and, never forget, professor Genki! Saint's Row IV is my second favourite Saint's Row. Many people find it boring and uninteresting, but i find it quite cool. It may have went too far away from what it had been back in the good old days, and aliens replacing gangsters? Really? You play as the boss (a no named character in the game that you have full control in creating of) and you have to save the city of Steelport (the same one as in SRIII) from an alien invasion. The main characters stayed the same, and you can also transport your SRIII character into the game if you have your game on PSN, XBL or Steam (cloud storage is quite helpful). New taunts, weapons and cars have been added, and no wonder because the game was supposed to be a SRIII DLC, but after THQ vanished, things got different. New weapons such as the dubstep gun or the inflator gun (the gun you use to make your enemies' heads bigger) are quite useless in my opinion and only give you nonsensical power. Shaundi and Pierce look the same as in the previous sequel, and the aliens look ugly (texture ugly). The story doesn't make any sense, the voice dialogues are sometimes so poorly done that they make you laugh (kinda like in Rogue Warrior), and making choices don't really make a huge impact on the story. Throughout the game, as you pass missions, you get super powers, such as the flight ability, the speedrun ability that can together be replaced with godmode. Godmode, literally, is something that makes you unstoppable, even on the hardest difficulty. Enemies shoot around and are dumb (the AI isn't what you would want). The story is pretty simple: Invaders must die! I got through it in about 6-7 hours and i enjoyed it.
GRAPHICS
The game is powered by the same engine used in SRIII. SRIV looks exactly the same, but can hold a bit more explosions, and with all that comes a list of pc specs that will make your tongue reach the floor. SRIII was playable on a 1.8GHz Dual Core processor, while SRIV demands a waaaaay stronger GPU (yes, a stronger GPU than what Crysis 2 wanted!) and a Core 2 Quad processor! Talk about optimization...
MULTIPLAYER
As before, you can join co-op campaigns. You get in someone else's game and you can activate cheats, cause mayhem etc. Unfortunately, there are no deathmatches and other game modes beside co-op so you might be a bit disappointed.

+ Fun and enjoayble campaign                - Godmode-ish

     Badass equipment                                    Too much nonsense

     Too many explosions                                Only online co-op?

     Fun co-op experience

     More crazier than ever

THE VERDICT

Saint's Row IV is a crazy game, and one of the craziest out there. If you are a Saint's Row gamer, you should try it! I give this game an 8.2. For more revs, check out my blog. Laters.                          

How to reload a gun with a missing limb - Loadout REVIEW

NOTE: This game has been out for some time, it's been in some famous YouTubers' videos and it's still pretty damn popular. The only way to get it is over Steam, no download client.

Have you ever played a game that has a name of an ability that is just 0.00001% of the entire game? Yep, if you've played Loadout, sure you have! The enormous amount of fun in this game brings so much joy and blood spill! While it may be fun, the overwhelming fun may be interrupted by people that pay2win.
PRESENTATION
Loadout is a ridiculous third-person shooter that i haven't seen alike before. You get your own character, choose your loadout weapons and head over into the fight. The game starts by spawning everyone in the same spot (yes, both your enemies and allies) and you have to survive that (if you do, it's not over yet, you just get a bonus). You have 2 weapon slots in each loadout and 1 equipment slot (grenades). You can perhaps carry two guns of the same kind with you, but watch out, depending on which ammo they use, you might have to refill ammo way more than usual. It wasn't a long time until i came across a player, with my fat and ugly lady character, who payed to have stronger weapons and clothes. Yes, there is no armour, but if there was, it wouldn't be available to everyone. Accessories and clothes can only be bought with premium cash (AKA gold coins) that can only be obtained with real world cash. Bluttes are the currency F2P players use and thankfully all weapon attachments are available to be bought for bluttes (for lower levels). What about getting killed or shot? Well, that's a different story. I got hit by a rocket and my arm almost fell off, while the blood would keep coming out of my opened shoulder. Sometimes, you would even have a huge hole on your torso that you could see through. After you get killed, you get a few seconds to move into the sides until you fall into your last dream. Taunting doesn't bring you points, but does bring you swag.
GRAPHICS
The game characters look okay for a F2P shooter, the maps look quite okay too, the textures are better than in DNF or CoD. The best thing about the visuals in my opinion is the blood.
THE VERDICT
Loadout has no specific problems except for the P2W players that can ruin your experience sometimes (or at most times). The servers are more stable than ever. I give this fine piece of creation an 8.5. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

An even wilder wild West - Red Dead Redemption REVIEW

NOTE: I played this game a long time ago, but i remember what it can offer. I'll probably forget to say something important, but don't hate me 'cause of that.

Huge worlds of our past, BC, AD, Medieval, the New Age etc. All of those ages have been shown in video games, but Red Dead Redemption takes the cake. Rockstar games has been famous for their ability to show the real life in a certain era, and they have made sure that they do it best. RDR is a primary example of what a postapocalyptical story should be.

PRESENTATION

You're John Marston, once a member of a gang after they left him to die. Now, his goal is to find his wife and son and kill the 'old friends'. It took me about 10-12 hours to finish the campaign and boy did i have fun.

A lot of missions have an interesting structure and hardly any mission looks even a tiny bit alike some mission before. As you progress, you get emotionally attached and when you see some of your favourite characters die, you start to wish you didn't play that mission. RDR is a game about how life looked back at the beginning of the 1900s, at the time before the Mexican revolution and when the cannibals roamed a lot. The creepiness of the situation sometimes is big, a long with the backround music that plays and scary found objects such as human bodyparts, strange blood puddles etc. Some missions with shooting have some badass music like the 'Triggernometry' also found in the game's launch trailer. Many enemies hold guns, and you level up as you kill them. There are a lot of repeaters, rifles, revolvers and even mounts such as horses, cows and wild piggies. Needless to say, you probably won't even try out all of the guns in the game before you finish the campaign. You have infinite horses, if your horse dies, you can get another one by just pressing one button. the thing is, not all horses have the same stamina bar, some have a smaller one, some have a bigger one that also drains slower. Taking out gangs in various locations (canyons, buildings, forts etc.) you level up, gain loot and money. You can sell the loot for some cash and with that cash you buy ammo, upgrades and mounts. Money from multiplayer goes to the campaign.

GRAPHICS

2010 and the game still looks badass, makes even GTA V tremble. The level of detail is really high. The lighting effects are astounding! Just a beautiful game.

MULTIPLAYER

You choose your own character that you will be free roaming with, killing players with etc. You cannot customize his apparel, but there are a lot of characters to choose from. You level up the same as in the campaign, by taking out gang hideouts, killing bounties and gaining loot. You can also create a posse and invite other players to play through the gang hideout with you.

THE VERDICT

The best Wild West based game on the market. A truly wonderful experience, never really though R* San Diego would create a masterpiece like Red Dead Redemption. 10/10. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

The never-ending world - STAR WARS: The Old Republic REVIEW

Many MMOs come out in free2play form, and they barely last for a few months while the developers invest thousands (and sometimes even millions) of dollars into its developement. Most of those games are unfinished, unpolished and crude. SWToR is a great exception. After being in developement for almost 8 years, this massive game has been released, firstly in pay2play form, after shifted to free2play.
PRESENTATION/MULTIPLAYER
The game has two big factions' the Republic and the Sith, and i'm guessing a lot of people know which is which. There are no level restrictions, you just play untilmyou reach a certain level, but a lot of the available items can only be bought with real world cash, and they can be pretty damn expensive. The world is consisted out of 10-12 sub-worlds. Sub-world that you spawn in vary depending on your character and faction. I you choose to be a member of the Sith, you can perhaps choose a class and spawn on a ship in Space. I chose to be a Republican, a trooper to be more accurate and i spawned in a world where there are only troopers. The campaign is pretty long, might take you 20-30 hours to complete if you are free2play, but technically it doesn't stop there. After that you have PVP arena fights to participate in, all sorts of monsters to kill, you might even not explore the world completely after you end the campaign... Basically it's like WoW with guns, lightsabers and starships. Starships can be obtained somewhere after you reach level 16. Till then you will spend most of your time looting enemy bodies in search for credits, armor and other items that can be sold to a street vendor. Mission structures are sometimes a pain in the ass. You go to a dungeon, you kill some scavengers and you get to your checkpoint... After you finish what you had to, you now have to go all the way back to the mission source (the person that gave you that mission to complete) but you have to fight the goons again, not to mention if there get to be more than 5 of them each time. Skills and powers are learnt by talking to a trainer. Learning each skill costs credits, so do the upgrades. If you get to a part that you cannot go through, you should get a companion to come with you, they have way more firepower than you, the same health amount as you and whenever you start to heal, they heal along with you. If you die, you get two choices, the first is to get revived and get back into battle, while the second one is to get revived and be sent to the nearest medical camp. Getting revived after dying doesn't lose you any items, which is awesome, considering that it's a F2P game we're talking about.
GRAPHICS
SWToR looks great for a huge MMO game. The graphics can look like the ones from SW: The clone wars sometimes, or at least remind of it. A big flaw is that the game is poorly optimized. I have a two times stronger GPU than the one the official system reqs website for the game, a two times stronger CPU, two times more RAM, but the game still lags and stutters, even on lower settings than medium. Also, remember that you need a really fast internet connection (500kb/s) is recommended.
THE VERDICT
SWToR is one of the best MMO's i've ever played. It absolutely beats WoW. I give this game a 8.2 for it being really fun, but also for being poorly optimized and sometimes a bit too nerve wrecking. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

Your typical pay2lookcool - Blacklight: Retribution REVIEW

We all love free2play games, but all of them gotta have some flaws, right? Ghost Recon Online, NFS Online etc. Blacklight: Retribution is a free2play game developed by Perfect World. It stands out as one of the best F2P shooters i've played in a while, but it certainly gets on my nerves sometimes.
PRESENTATION/MULTIPLAYER
As most of the F2P games out there, B:R is a game that contains only multiplayer. It's filled with guns, attachments, equipment and some other customizations. It almost got into Steam workshop, but the devs strictly kept the imagination for themselves. As soon as you start, you can go through a short tutorial. After that you receive some items that last forever. Most of the items can be bought to last for a period of time, most of them cost a lot, and when you look at the price for permanent use of an item, you will be shocked, but it does make sense. There are absolutely zero hackers and cheaters in the game, but there are a lot of people that use the P2LookCool (AKA Pay2Win) method. It may be a little bit harder to kill pay2winners, and most of them don't really know how to play. Loads of guns to buy, loads of heroes to buy (BTW they cost a fortune). After only a few hours of playtime, i earned enough GP (the in-game currency) to buy myself a new gun for permanent use. Of course, the same thing applies for attachments, where some cost more than a high powered shotgun. Safe to say, if you wanna buy a gun, you'll need hard work, but playing Blacklight is like playing a F2P CoD, so a lot of players will get used to it. Loading times are very short.
GRAPHICS
B:R looks cool, but its optimization is weak. My PC meets the minimum system reqs, but i still cannot run the game on higher settings than the lowest. Still, the game looks badass, and i cannot complain against it.
THE VERDICT
B:R is one the best F2P shooters out there. It gets way less attention than it should. I give this F2P FPS game a 8.3/10 for its dynamic gameplay, strategy and fun. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

The 90s called, they want their voice loops back - Rambo: The video game REVIEW

NOTE: I didn't buy this game due to it being criticized a lot before it came out. At least i my friend was one of the only ones to pre-order this game, so when he tried it, he lent it to me. Rest assured, i'll try to be the most positive as i can, as this game may seem as the next Day One: Garry's Incident, but it surely isn't.

Games that look suckish when they are firstly announced, usually come in a big package, wiyh improved gameplay, graphics engine etc. Rambo: TVG is a clear example of the opposite. The developers (Teyon and Reef studios, two rookie developement studios) have shown that they have indeed watched Rambo movies, but only when they had to.
PRESENTATION
The most likely thing to happen is something from the movie, but in this game that fails too. Sure, the beginning is a bit better explained, but why do other things happen, you might never find out. You're Rambo, a commandos in Vietnam who kills about 120 Vietnamese soldiers in one level. The entire level structure is bogus, soldiers just come in and shoot, and yes, they miss. PC gamers will have way more advantage. I used my mouse and 95% of my kills were headshots, not to mention because the soldiers just stand in one place not giving a damn about you blowing their heads off. I also forgot to mention that Rambo: TVG is a rail shooter with neat transition mechanics that would go great with an Android OS game (Gun Club 3 for ex.). Practically, you can just see some movement without any jumping over obstacles, just soft flying through the air (if you understand me). Voice acting is good, the lip syncing is, obviously, not. Voice acting is great because the devs took the voices from the movie and put them into the game, and boy, do they sound awful, absolutely no effort whatsoever in rendering those voices into being HQ. At least i did find some levels amusing, until they ended, which was a common thing. The campaign barely lasts for 5-6 hours, and those are only just shooting enemies with headshots with true ease. During every level, you use the same elememtary and secondary, there's no way to pick up other's guns. However, it's not like you have no choice, at the beginning of every level, you choose which guns you will carry. I also found amusing the blood splash due to enemy soldiers exploding on critical hits. Whenever you kill a significant amount of enemies, you reach a so called 'Rambo mode' in which you gain 1/4 of your current health bar by killing an enemy WITH AN INSTA-KILL.
GRAPHICS
The game runs on a so called 'Potato Engine (3)', and it looks bad, very bad. It's also weird that, in order to play this game, you need DirectX10 support, a Core 2 Duo processor with 2.83 GHz of strenght and a 512 MB GPU! It's bullocks! The entire game looks awful, plays averagelly and still needs a strong PC!? Best PC optimization 2014!
MULTIPLAYER
Brick.
THE VERDICT
Rambo: The video game is a rare example of stupidity among the game developers. The game gets the hate, we ruin it more. I give this game a 4/10 because it simply does have exploding soldiers in both slow-mo and normal-mo and because i find rail shooters amusing for some weird reason. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

Call of Duty on steroids - Crysis 2 REVIEW

Crysis or Crisis? Definitely Crysis, because the game was developed by Crytek in the first place. Crytek's CryEngine has been out there for a long time, and it managed to impress many people with its stunning capabilities. The best thing about the engine is that it is PC sided - meaning that it looks best on PC. Crysis 2 is a fine example of that, but some wounds still haven't been healed from Crysis, but they also aren't that crucial.
PRESENTATION
You are Alcatraz, a US Navy soldier who is in a submarine during the alien attack on New York City. He gets saved by P.R.O.P.H.E.T., a guy in a nanosuit capable of destroying vast areas and taking down enemies silently by being invisible. Alcatraz gets hold of the nanosuit without a reasonable explanation, but as you progress through the story you finally get the point. Mission maps are huge, and every mission has at least 2-3 observation points. Observation points are places from which you can overlook the place that will soon be crawling with the dead bodies of your enemies. There are usually more than 3 ways to complete the mission part. You can, at most times, choose to sneak or to go all in, to refill ammo and flank etc. Some missions can be completed in your own way, by combining different tactics. Going in in different ways doesn't really determine the ending of the story, instead it just judges how much health you lose, and it's painfully obvious that the more stealthy approach takes less health away than in, well, the other given choices of approach. Missions in Crysis 2 are mostly focused on you being a lone wolf and killing dozens and dozens of soldiers before you get to the specified location, which is fine, but doesn't feauture anything but that. There is no more max ammo power, like in Crysis 1 where you get maximum ammo when the power is turned on, but you still have nanovision which is cool. The game also has a dynamic way of weapon customizing. During the campaign, you can use a special menu for adding silencers, scopes, sights etc. The same is done with Nanosuit upgrades. Upgrades are bought with catalyst, a liquid that aliens drop into the air when they die. Every pick-up is 100 hand catalyst, and upgrades go for 200 to even 10000 hand catalyst. Crysis 2 has some impressive AI, however they can sometimez glitch into the ground or in a barricade and become invincible for a reason. Overall, the campaign is decent, well-lenghtened and polished.
GRAPHICS
Crysis 2 was and still is one of the most beautiful games out there, believe it or not. You wanna play this game? All you need is a Dual Core processor of any kind with a strenght of 2GHz and a GPU with 512MB RAM and you're homefree.
MULTIPLAYER
Multiplayer matches can be ranked, unranked, classic, standard. Classic matches are games that don't give you the ability to have powers, while standard is the opposite. The leveling and the equipment system is similiar to the one in CoD MW2/MW3, you level up - you get callsigns AKA dog tags with images on them. As you level up your weaponry, you get new unlock tokens for either guns or attachments. Your powers can also be leveled up (maximum level is 12). Overall, a CoD multiplayer on extazy.
THE VERDICT
Crysis 2 is one of the most beatiful FPS games of all time. I give this game a 9/10. For more reviews, check out my blog. Laters.

The grand controversy - Violence in video games

Before 1996, violence in video games wasn't so common. Blood was pixelated, could be barely described as blood, there were no psychic actions. In 1996-1997 a company called BMG Interactive announced a video game called 'Race 'n' Chase'. The name was soon to be changed into Grand Theft Auto, and after the public had seen what the game had to offer, complaints started to fly in. Jack Thompson, an activist, a lawyer, started a campaign against GTA and its violence. The game feautured free roaming around 1980s London with liberty to run over people and shoot them with lethal weapons (yes, that was how it went). GTA 2 was released soon after, and the pain was even bigger, but so was the profit. Thompson didn't give up. A few murders happened at the time, both were connected to the GTA games because the murderer was a GTA player. However, the charges on BMG were dropped, and Thompson lost another battle. In 2001 GTA III came out with its publisher being the newly formed Rockstar games. GTA III was criticized because it came out at the time of the 9/11 accident. People didn't want to play the game because it would remind them of the disaster. Lets go a few years forward. Manhunt, a jarringly weird experience that many people saw as a curse, but, it was developed to show the real life in those certain circumstances. Nobody wanted to play a game where you play as a psychotic killer in a psychic hospital being burnt down by its inmates, but on the other side, the game sold well. What was even weirder was the fact that the White House demanded the sequel of the game to be taken off the video game store shelves, so it happened, but it didn't last long until the game was back. Rockstar was off the hook again. Now, the main point, do video games really affect us, can we become more violent because of video games? The latest studies show that we cannot become more violent than we are now if we play violent video games. My opinion is: No, we cannot become more violent, we can only become more spoilt. Laters.