MEMBER PROFILE FOR Reclaimer
Average Overall Score Given: 8.93750 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 11095
Reviews
John Woo presents Stranglehold
Overall: Stranglehold is the video game continuation of John Woo's cl@!%#*!ic fast action movie: "Hard Boiled" starring Chow Yun Fat. Stranglehold is John Woo's vision of his style of action movies converted to video game format.
John Woo has inspired many action movies like "The Matrix" and has introduced the concept of "Bullet-time" slow motion video into games such as Max Payne.
Director/Producer John Woo's style of weapon oriented action movies represent a sort of onscreen ballet of violence. Characters wielding two guns at once, very choreographed stylish movements, liberal use of slow motion and spiraling camera angles. It was only a matter of time before the full vision of John Woo's stories and his pursuit of personifying the action movie genre would be fully realized as a video game.
You play as the character Police Detective John Tequila, as portrayed by the actor Chow Yun Fat. John Tequila, much like he was in the movie "Hard Boiled" is a maverick detective. He has a strong sense of duty and honor, but he's willing to break the rules and disregard orders to get the mission done.
To best personify who John Tequila really is, there is a line in which the police superintendent admonishes John for going into a situation alone, and John merely replies "I was not alone, I had my two friends with me," as he pats his two signature Berreta 92F pistols.
Stranglehold begins with the investigation of a mission Hong Kong policeman. As the story continues, Detective Tequila takes the matters personally and the further he fights his way through the case, the deeper he goes he himself finds himself in a stranglehold between life, his family and the crime syndicate he's pursuing.
Gameplay: This is John Woo's vision of a game, therefore you are thrust into the game as if on the set of one his movies. You are expected to create as much damage as possible to everything around you right off the bat. Very little is out of bounds even if that means shooting a large sign fixture until it drops on top of one of your enemies thusly killing him, then by all means do so.
The environment around you is either partially destructible or somehow can be used by you during gameplay. Whether be by taking cover behind something or being able to easily use environmental items to do some very stylish maneuvers. I'm talking about jumping on a grocery cart and body surfing it across a room and shooting at people in slow motion with a gun in each hand.
Or how about sliding under a table and kicking the table up to use as cover? Looks familiar?
Because things like that are what made John Woo popular. You are awarded for creativity during battle. Sliding across tables shooting, jumping backwards and sliding backwards on your back while shooting, diving and shooting, kicking off of walls while shooting are just a few activities you are expected to do.
So you are awarded for destructiveness and your general ability for @!%#*! kickery. You are awarded with Tequila Bombs. These bombs are special moves that can be pulled off when you have satisfactorily maintained a special meter that measures your scale of action. In general, the more outrageous you get the more you can do and more often it can happen.
You are awarded with the ability to heal yourself partially initially. As time goes on you awarded with the other bombs such as the precision shot. Activating the precision shot stops the game play for brief second allowing you to aim exactly where you want at a distance. Once your selection is made, John pulls a snap shot and you are awarded with a camera-following-bullet view as it strikes whoever it was you aimed at. Where you aim cues certain animations, shooting somebody in the groin, in the eye and so forth.
One of my personal favorites is the "Barrage Mode." Activation the barrage treats you to a animation sequence of John Tequila with Chow Yun Fat's near signature smirk on his face, reloading his gun and for a brief moment in time the game slows down, you become immune to damage and you have unlimited ammunition and your gun fires in continuous streams of death . Use this wisely, but trust me you won't be disappointed when you get a shotgun and do a barrage with it.
Stranglehold does offer an interesting sequence that occurs when you get surrounded called "standoff". It's very similar to Army of Two's back to back mode. The game goes into slow motion and the screen rotates around giving you a few seconds to engage the closest enemy. They fire back but you can use that time to dodge the bullets with a small movement of your body like what you saw in "The Matrix." Bullet trails included.
Graphics: Though the graphics are very good and the representations of Chow Yun Fat and even John Woo who makes a cameo in the game are outstanding, there are some minor graphic flaws. There are some minor clipping issues with character protrusions going through the game map elements. Sometimes walls disappear and reappear and occasionally the mission maps seem very repetitive.
Though nothing wrong with the missions, it's just that sometimes I began to wonder if I'm ever going to look at something different than what I've been looking at for the past 10 minutes.
A nice touch is that John bleeds when he's injured. The more hurt he gets, the bloodier he gets. Which looks really cool during that infamous barrage weapon loading scene if you've been shot up a bit.
The slow motion views are represented well and done convincingly. The reddish haze over the camera sometimes obscures brightly colored elements that may be important, but you can turn off slow motion and turn it on at will with a press of a button.
Audio: You can't go wrong here. The voices are the voices of the real characters, the audio is in sync with people's mouths and of course, the guns sound like guns which is really all you need.
The sound track to this game is essentially you shooting everybody all the time with a great many bullets. All other sounds are nonessential.
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Suggestions: To be honest, the multiplayer over Xbox Live could be completely avoided. Sure it could be fun, but with so many great online games like Call of Duty 4 and Gears of War, it's hard to compare. I'll be honest, I never played Stranglehold online because I never saw the need to. I absolutely love this game, but it's just one of those games that I just don't feel compelled to play because i have other great games to play online.
Since we're suggesting things here, I'd suggest a sequel but done with a co-op mode.
Overall Score: 9.2 / 10
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Overall: OK, here we go. Back to Sin City. If you think about it, this isn't really a story line sequel. It's more of a parallel story line that is occuring right before and during the previous game's story. Essentially your team is after a terror cell @!%#*!ociated with the one that Logan's team went after. A few things get introduced to the series such as the new ACEs system in which you earn weapons, equipment and uniform upgrades with the acculumilation of points earned for performing actions @!%#*!ociated with different aspects of tactical battle. Another welcomed addition is the ability use your custom face that you create with the Vision camera accessory and have it put on your character in the normal story mode, not just online play. Also, depending on your level of completion was on the the first Vegas game, you are awarded perks and bonus points in this game.
I guess my biggest issue with this game is the actual story. Like the first one.. come on! Seriously, if over 50 bad guys with guns are running around in a building do you think in reality somebody is going to send 3 guys in after them?
But hey.. that's the beauty of a video game!
Gameplay: Not much has really changed from the last game to this one. It generally makes me feel like Ubi-Soft has followed the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mantra. Controls are just the same with addition of a much needed "sprint" mode. Hold down a bumper button and your character will now let go of his gun and run like crazy for a short distance. The caveat to that is that your team does not sprint with you so don't go too far.
Gameplay is still tactical based, so don't expect to get into Halo'esque running firefights unless you like to die often. Success is always based on planning and having the right equipment for the job.
I did notice some little tweaks like the shotguns are a bit better this time, a bit more accurate and the killing radius is improved to a more realistic level.
There are new guns of all types in the game now but despite that the Famas and the UMP45 seem to be a constant favorite to me.
From a tactical perspective, your team is much improved. They are quicker on the draw and more accurate. However they really haven't smartened up too much. How they pick their targets is beyond me because I can watch them ignore the closest enemy to engage a distant one.
Graphics: Vegas 2 looks a lot like like the first game. You do notice that Dodge has every car in the game a model of one of their cars, much like the first time. The graphics are hit and miss. Some things are beautifully details, some things look like they got largely ignored. Character models are very detailed but walk up to something like.. say.. one of those Dodge cars and details get blocky and pixelated.
Despite the addition of civilians to avoid killing you'll notice that like the enemies, they all begin to look alike. All civilians, short of the story specific ones will look like the same basic set regardless of where they are. All enemies despite the story specific ones are of one variety or the other and it makes you wonder.. how the heck did all these bad guys get in here?
Audio: You know.. of all things about this game that goes well, it's always the audio that doesn't seem to please me. Even with the first game, the sounds of grenades are very plain and generic. It's hard to explain but the audio in this game just seems to sit there, it doesn't really stand out.
The same generic enemies all say the same generic lines every time you meet them. You get tired of every fifth bad guy saying "shoot them in the head!" or "I need back up!"
Suggestions: Well, it's a very good game. Rainbow Six never dissapoints.
Overall Score: 9.7 / 10
Conflict: Vietnam
Conflict: Vietnam is the latest offering from Pivotal Games and SCI. Their latest game is the continuation of the 4 player squad combat sleeper series Conflict: Desert Storm and Conflict: Desert Storm 2 "Back To Baghdad". Conflict: Vietnam was nearly doomed earlier this year when it's developer, Gotham Games went out of business shortly after the Conflict: Desert Storm 2 game was released. Fortunately, developer The Gathering was tapped to picked up the game and bring it to fruition. So with the continuation of a great series with a brand new development team at the wheel, Conflict Vietnam gets a fresh start and a new look since the last two games.It seems lately there is a large flux of video games covering the Vietnam War on the market. Each game tries to stand out on it's own with some unique aspect of game play. Today, I'm going to take you into the jungle with The Gathering's Conflict: Vietnam and see what it's all about.
The visual factor of this game takes a giant improvement from the last two games in this series. It looks familiar and it plays the same as the last, but there are many improvements in the graphics department. There are a lot more visual details in the game and a great way has been gone to maintain authenticity with the visuals.
I would hardly call it more of the same from this franchise, but it's more accurate to say that it's a very large and satisfactory improvement in the series. The only disappointment I could find in regards to the visuals is that in the split screen multiplayer mode, the outdoor settings make it very difficult to view your corner of the screen and see what the full scope of what is happening. It's hard to appreciate the game in that mode and it nearly comes off as a disappointment because the 4-player aspect is what built that game. In this game, too much of a good thing is practically true.
Suggestions: If there is anything I would like to suggest to the developers in the next game in the series is that they should implement Xbox Live for the cooperative game play. With over a million subscribers to Live, there is no excuse for a squad warfare game to not utilize the services of XBL to promote that mode. It's hard enough using split screen to enjoy the game.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Conflict: Desert Storm II : Back to Baghdad
Suggestions:
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
WWE Raw 2
Suggestions:
Overall Score: 9.6 / 10
Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter
Mace Griffin is a man on a mission. A mission for revenge. At one point in Griffin's life, he was a Ranger. Part of an elite group of soldiers trained and deployed to keep the peace throughout the colonies. Then on one fateful mission, Mace's world changes forever. While adherring to his orders, he gets framed for the death of his squad during a mission. Mace Griffin get's sent to prison for 10 years. Once he get's out, you assume the role of Mace Griffin, and you will set out and seek revenge. Just like he says in the game's introduction movie: "Besides, who wants to go to hell alone?"The gameplay of Mace Griffin pans out rather interestingly. You get an assignment from your boss, you get in your spaceship and you fly yourself to your destination. You get there, dock and then begin. You encounter hostiles and you engage in space dogfighting along the way. Sometimes, the hangar you land in will have bada guys. You can use your ships weapon system to make a safe place for you to get out. So basically we're looking at 2 games in one. Unfortunately, the space portions are rather short.
Once engaged on a mission, the missions are incredibly long. Like Halo style long, complete with in game loading zones. Through this though, you can comeback from death without having to go through someplace you've already been through. The combat system is very solid and intense. The enemy AI ranges from smart, to essentially stupid. But I think the game throws the dumb enemies at you to lead you into false confidence. A majority of the enemies essentially refuse to die and will take cover, regroup and attempt to flank you. They will keep you busy.
The graphics of this game range from average to exceptional. Some of the character models seemed kind of blucky, but the enviroments where richly detailed. Your weapons are highly detailed, and the game uses "motion blurring" quite well. The visuals will not disapoint. Also, the space graphics where outstanding.
Henry Rollins is Mace Griffin's voice. His tone, his inflection, everything. He tells the story, you hear him speak, and he does a !&%$@#* fine job. The soundtrack to the game is rather nice, but I too noticed that sometimes it didn't seem appropriate at times. But I will give massive kudos points for including the Rollins Band song: "Shine" in the intro movie.
Suggestions: First I would suggest keeping the graphics quality consistent throughout the game. It's great in most places, but sometimes it's lacking in others.
Second, I would find a better way than to interupt the game to load the next sequence. I like the ingame loading thing, but I don't like how it stips the game sometimes.
Third, I noticed that sometimes the game gets buggy, and wouldn't load a sequence properly. That's something to look into.
Please make a sequel with Henry Rollins.
I'm not so concerned about online or deathmatch play, sometimes a good FPS can be a single player game too. And this game is perfectly fine as a solo game. Not every FPS in the world needs to be Co-Op.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Red Faction II
You are going to hear "It's not Halo" from certain people. It's true. Red Faction II is not Halo. There are no Warthogs, Covenants or Cortana anywhere in this game. What you do get is: A new first person shooter game that introduces a largely destructible scenery. The story line is deep and has it's twists and turns. So thankfully there is some depth to the game. There is an interesting feeling of immersion in this game. Good sound, good graphics, I pretty much felt like I was out there hunting down the Red Faction. RFII has it's own great features like a ton of weapons, enemy AI that is fairly creative, the geomod system that let's you destroy the enviroment as you wish, and a pretty extensive multiplayer mode complete with tons of maps and programable bots.
RFII can hurl you into some quick and intense action. There can be some lulls in the game as you wander around trying to get your bearings, but once the fighting starts, it'll keep you on your toes. The game makes you get creative and you have to switch your strategy up as you go. Meaning you can't just blast your way through the game. You have to sneak, snipe, explode, and generally cause mayhem to survive. There are levels that include vehicles, you are basically rhe gunner in most cases, but it's an interesting change of pace to let someone else to the driving.
I am very pleased with this game. Though in some very few aspects Halo would technically be the father of all Xbox FPS games, RFII can stand on it's own and provide the gamer with a different experience and still be a lot of fun.
The graphics are good in this game. There is quite the spectrum of quality. Meaning, sometimes you will encounter something that you wish it would have looked better, but for the most part, everything is presented well, and easily able to recognize. Does it capture the power of the xbox? No, of course not. But then, what game truly does? For what it's worth, the graphics are good.
The sound and voice acting is done very well. One of the voice actors is actually Lance Henricksen, well known actor. If you remember, he was Bishop - the android, from Aliens and he starred in a lot of science fiction movies and TV shows. Every now and then the sound effects seem to clash with the music and one or the other seems to get drowned out, but that doesn't happen too often. The background music is quite good. Weapons sound good, and explosions on a theater system rumble convincingly.
Suggestions: Probably the most noted absent item that must be put in if there was a sequel would be a Co-op mode. I was stunned that it wasn't included. Even with such an expansive mulitplayer mode, co-op would be nice. That's my real concern.
Maybe make the sniper rifle a little faster to chamber a round. I figure in the future we wouldn't still be using a bolt action sniper rifle.
More bots in the multiplayer. Having six players is cool, but 8 would be better. Since there is no link or live, 4 humans against 4 crazy hard bots would be nice.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Conflict: Desert Storm
In Gotham Game's Conflict Desert Storm, you take comand of either an Amercian or British Special Forces Team through various missions that where based on actual events during the Gulf War. Before each mission you recieve a briefing and you are given a set of orders to carry out. These missions range from located and escorting dignataries or scientists, destroying scud missle launchers, to clearing anti aircraft batteries for an impending air raid. You are the team leader of a 4 man squad. Your squad composes of a rifleman, a machine gunner, a sniper and a demolitions expert who also doubles as your medic. Each soldier has a certain specialty and you will need all of them to be successful. During the game, you can switch freely among the soldiers and control them, or you can give orders and have them carried out. The orders you give are limited to basically movement and positioning, but this is important if when you want to set up for certain task. The computer controls the other soldiers with accurancy and when it is left to the computer to engage the enemy, they are confident in a firefight and for the most part they make good decisions for themselves. The game also has a multiplayer mode where 3 of your friends can play along and set out on the various missions of the game. The multiplayer mode alone can keep you and your buddies occupied for some time. If the thought of comanding a squad seems a little strange at first, fear not because the game has a training mode tin the style of a bootcamp. During bootcamp the game instructs you how to peform perform the tasks that are expected in the game. Training includes, movement, markmanship, driving, and commanding squad movements. It's more than enough to make you familiar with the game.
Gameplay can be intense. When you become engaged in firefight, you have to consider what you are doing and what your team is doing. You have to keep up with their health and ammo status. If you lose a team mate, you have 2 minutes to get him a first aid kit and heal his wounds. If the time expires before you get to him, he dies and you lose him. You have to carry out the mission without him and afterwards a replacement will be provided. But the replacement soldier is nowhere near as good as the guy you just lost. There are experience levels in the game and awards given for performance. The more xp points you get, the higher your skill levels get.
This game is authentic to the actual war. The hardware and the few vehicles you drive are true to life. This game combines elements of strategy to a shooting action game. You have to learn how to work as a team, or you will get killed quickly. Basically it boils down to laying cover fire for you men and chosing the right man to do the right thing, and I can't stress enough to utilize your sniper as much as possible. Not only is the sniper valuable to taking care of distant threats, but he can be used to identify targets at great distances, further helping you make choices about how to perform a certain portion of the mission.
For the most part, the graphics are good. They are not the best, but they are good. Everything looks as if it should. For the purpose of a rating scale, I would say that the graphics where overall middle of the road. But you can feel like you're really in there at some points. I have to say though, the night vision perspective is accurate and true to real life.
The overall sounds in this game are really good. From the squeaking metal on metal of a tank rolling down a street, to the sound of your rifle. It is accurate. The game throws realism in with voices and other ambiant sounds. A good thing about this game is the soundtrack support mode. It wa especially inspiring to use my own music to motivate me through the missions.
Suggestions: I only have a few things to suggest. Mainly to tighten up the graphics. Second I would suggest making more missions. On the highest difficulty the game takes a long time, but I wanted more in the long run. And third, tightenn up your team's AI. It's really good, but I hated how your team had a tendency to huddle up behind you while you where moving, making you prone to explosives wiping out your entire team all at once.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
