MEMBER PROFILE FOR TheCovenant
Average Overall Score Given: 7.30000 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 3733
Reviews
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown
Military action/tactical shooters have long had a special place in my heart, and no one does better tactical shooters than Ubisoft. Well, you can debate that point, but the fact remains?Ubisoft has defiantly garnered a place in the tactical fps hall of fame, and the series that started it all has returned in the form of Rainbow 6: Lockdown. I remember spending endless nights playing rainbow 6 3 on xbox live with many friends. We?d go all night, till the early morning?, and would only quit because of school or work. Then after school or work, we would take a light nap and get back on rainbow 6. It was addictive as hell. So naturally when I popped in Lockdown, I immediately sensed a bit of nostalgia, even though I was playing rainbow 6 3 about a year prior. Unfortunately, the bit of nostalgia lasted only a few minutes.
I booted up the single player campaign, and realized the random bad guy approach, heavily abused in such titles as ID software?s ?Doom 3?, was also heavily abused in this title. Thanks to the increased auto aim in the game though, this didn?t seem that bad, until you run into snipers. One hit kill, and they come from random locations, and they are in random numbers. Ouch. My throwing arm was sore the next morning. Snipers weren?t fun at all.
They implemented some nice things, such as a motion tracker, which seemed unfair in your favor, but you are quickly reminded what unfair really means when hot lead explodes into your skull while your looking at the motion tracker. The various visions are still there, and become really useful, which is good. There have been a lot of games with various vision modes that you never end up using. Rainbow 6 lockdown gives you the upper hand there too.
All in all, the single player is just as bland as ever. It can be a little bit more fun with co-op, but going through all the missions on your own is a bit of a drag, and you never feel like you?ve accomplished anything special, since you died every time you encountered a new enemy. However, the strength has always been the online play, and that?s where this games stronger points lie.
All the usual modes are here. The games overall feel is a little bit skewered towards arcade, but not enough to be called ?counter-strike? just yet. It is faster paced, and you do feel like you?re in an action flick, rather than a simulator. It?s obviously catering to the new comers of the genre, and although I wish they would have stuck to rainbow 6 3?s formula, this one doesn?t disappoint enough for me not to enjoy myself while playing online.
They?ve added a new rpg-like stat/point system, aptly titles PEC (Persistent Elite Creation), where you get points after every match, and then you spend them on leveling up your character. This means that if you?re a latecomer, good luck. Your enemies can take more damage, dish out more damage, and have way more accurate weapons than you. Sure there?s a rank matching system, but once the games gets going, you wont find to many matches in the lower ranks.
Overall, the multiplayer is fun, and addictive as always. It?s easier to play, of course, but who wouldn?t want more competition. Now you can teach all those halo 2; 12 year olds what it?s like to use strategy over a twitchy thumb.
An improvement over the last iteration, but wont be winning any superfluous graphical technology awards. Well, it might, but it?s a slim chance. Dynamic lighting is all over the place, and they?ve used saturated outdoor lighting for reflective dirty surfaces, such as clay or sand. Particles and lighting can be seen all over the place. The new visions are crisper and more fleshed out than the previous ones, but the most noticeable graphical quandary is the addition of a facemask, in which you must see through. As you take damage it cracks and finally breaks when you die. It adds to the emersion scale, but not much. The character models, friendly anyways, are very clean, with plenty of bump mapping so you can actually tell what kind of materials the suits are made up of. The enemy models, suffer as usual. Most of your terrorist nemeses look alike. You?d think your fighting one big family.
The motion capture was kind of awkward. People didn?t seem to move right, and really took away from the seriousness of most firefights. I don?t know why they simply didn?t use the animations from the last game. It?s as if they spent a lot of money on the new motion capturing, and they didn?t want to waste it, knowing that it looked bad. SO what you get is an odd feeling when running beside your characters.
Anyhow, graphically the game stands above many titles, and wouldn?t be called bad in any way, however, we?ve seen much better done on the xbox.
Guns sound as realistic as ever. Minor differences in the weapon can sound very different, form one another, and the positional awareness on your 5.1 home theatre system will actually make it feel like bullets are whizzing by your head. The tension and fear that came form sound is still there, only this time it?s accompanied by a sort of annoying feature. Your teammates wont shut up. ?Awaiting orders? which is followed by a sigh of impatience. As your trying to figure out what your next move is, they do it again, and again. I wanted to send them home and do the mission by myself. Alas, that was not an option, which made planning something become annoying to me, and to my virtual teammates.
However, the atmosphere, the guns, and the bullets do their usual tricks, and overall the sound is above average.
Walk-down, to your local rental store:
The game is worth a few nights of frantic firefights and stat building with some friends for co-op, but ultimately, if you don?t mind the graphics, you should stick with black arrow. It?s just more fun, and way cheaper.
Overall Score: 7.4 / 10
Advent Rising
This is the perfect example of story driven games that rely too heavily on the story. Critically acclaimed author Orson Scott Card (Enders Game), co-wrote the dialogue for this title, Advent Rising. The story is massive. Galactic scale politics, love, hate, death and war; this story has it all. I?m not used to getting this level of story from a game, and I am so glad that Newbie developer Glyphx has realized a full-fledged trilogy in this universe.So ambitious for such a small, new company. Following the story of the main character, right when the games starts there?s a bunch of stuff you can do. Dual wielding, melee, grenades, dodging.
It?s all actually pretty fun. As the game progresses you attain more powers, much like all those Jedi games you?ve grown used too. On of the powers seems eerily familiar to the force push, but I wont hold it against them. Your dodge turns into a Max Payne type dodge, where you go into bullet time. You get telekinetic Psi-Ops type powers, and there a shield power where you conjure up a shield that floats around you. All these powers have secondary, well, powers, that?s a blast to uncover and figure out how to use. All these powers can be mapped to either trigger very easily using the d-pad, so managing them can be a split second arcade type thing. There are some cool boss battles, but too few of them to be considered a major part of the game. The fun thing about them though is that they force you to use newly acquired powers, so you don?t get this new power and have the mentality that your old power is more useful and that you don?t really need the new one. It?s a clever trick, and it works. Aiming would be a pain in this third person adventure, if it wasn?t for flick targeting, much like Zelda?s ?Z-targeting?. Flick targeting is like an over blown auto aim, where the crosshairs movie from enemy to enemy depending on how close the crosshair would be if there wasn?t flick targeting. This makes it so you can shot aliens while dodging and strafing and jumping, and even during the framerate jumps. It almost felt as if Glyphx knew they couldn?t lower the framerate, so they developed flick targeting to compensate for it. The game is pretty fun to play, and the gameplay evolves as the character does. However, again, technicalities hammer this one down. As I mentioned before, collision detection looks and feels awkward. Glitches make it so very important objectives are unreachable. An elevator door doesn?t open, vehicles don?t appear, a person your supposed to talk to isn?t there, and there?s no form of multiplayer. All these things affected me throughout the course of my play, but I managed to finish the game without too much frustration due to the high frequency of save points. Not a huge complaint there, but needs to be worked on.
The games weakest point. Although the Art Direction is very good, technical features falter. There were many instances where of clipping, visual tearing or texture stretching, things that come in and out of existence right in front of you, and framerate, framerate, framerate. There are many pretty particle effects throughout the game, how collision detection is a problem with them. People dive into each other and instead of hitting them; it just shoves them out of the way. That makes most battles look awkward and clunky. No HDR, or any real special lighting effects are found in this game, but you don?t really notice it due to the games visual style. It?s sort of like an animated series, only more serious. You do get tons of enemies on screen, but you can?t really hail that technical achievement, because framerate drops when they are. Usually the big deal about having many enemies onscreen is salvaging the framerate. When enemies die on a slope, their limbs stretch out, a la Halo: CE, and it looks awkward now, all the ragdoll physics have spoiled what I've expected to see from death animations. However with all these problems, the game still looks fairly good. The cut scenes are fun, the particle effects are nice, and the overall art direction is impressive, and allows a glimpse into the creative minds at Glyphx.
Well, well, well. If it isn?t G4tech TV?s smart mouthed judge. Tommy Talarico is known for not liking games due to his own personal preference. Now here I am, judging one of his own, and !&%$@#* it to hell, I don?t get to bash him. The game incorporates a full-scale orchestra, and saves many of the over dramatic moments in the game. The Score is catchy as well. This is the kind of music that halo has set the bar too, and I?m glad Mr. Talarico has lived up to that bar. Voice acting is questionable, but since the whole feel of the game is animated, it doesn?t bother you for a second. It?s on par with a Saturday morning cartoon. Well, at least the ones I grew up with (X-Men, WB?S Batman, The Adventures of Batman and Superman?NOT POKEMON). All in all, I have no real complaints when it comes to the sound department. Good work Talarico, ya jerk.
Suggestions: Not done rising:
The game is fun, the story leaves off on sort of a cliffhanger, and if sales do well for this game, the next game should be a good one. I can?t wait to see what Glyphx has in store for us in the next chapter of advent rising. New powers? New weapons? It seems like this title covered it all, but there?s two more titles that have plenty to cover, according to a recent interview with Orson Scott Card. The game is a great rent, but a weak buy. If the trilogy ends up being amazing, then you have to own the first one, just to have the whole collection, but other than that, give this one a rent and when the second one comes out, you can buy it used for 15 bucks.
Overall Score: 7.8 / 10
Raze's Hell
In the same week Majesco releases its revolutionary, one-trick pony: Psychonauts, I completely forgot about Raze?s hell, whose trailer popped up in the middle of summer last year. Its premise seems interesting, but not completely original. Play a bad mamma jamma who kills cute animals that are sadistic, and violent in nature. Before anyone mentions machine gun wielding, bad-mouthed squirrels, I was talking about Raze?s Hell, a new creative license by the publishers of Psychonauts. Although the premise is interesting, and has some unique gameplay elements, I can?t help but feel like this has all been done before.Raze?s Hell is a third person action adventure shooter, with a heavy emphasis on shooting. All the typical weapons are there, sniper, rocket, etc. The thing that separates this title from the rest of the live enables shooters out there is probably the difficulty level of the offline campaign. The game was unfairly hard, which makes it fairly not fun. You are so overpowered by these annoying creatures, whenever they land a frag on you it feels like a noob just killed you with a rocket launcher and wont shut up about it. Shooting enemies gives you health, but even with this little boost, you still get punished hard for not staying behind cover every second of the game. Co-op, is a different story. The game offers a small co op mode, where you and a friend who can join at any point in the game, can take on the 20 levels of frustration together, so when you both die, you have someone else to blame, instead of blaming the A.I. (which I did, and will do in this review). Friendly fire can?t be turned off, and there was more than one instance where I accidentally killed my friend. This ended up in my friend throwing his controller across the room, and leaving. We are no longer friends.
On a lighter note, multiplayer is fun, but suffers from framerate issues. Killing humans controlled enemies is much easier than killing the perfect A.I. However, trying to find a decent game is hard, and all your friends are on Halo 2.
The graphics are there. Not too shiny, not too bland. The design of the arenas are usually large open spaces, which are usually a welcomed aspect of level design, but these deserts are so barren that I get excited whenever I go somewhere in doors. It seems like I?m surrounded by miles and miles of sand, mortar craters, and cute little enemies with the precision of -well that?s more of a gameplay attribute. The enemies look good, detailed, and high res. Raze doesn?t look so hot, but it?s forgivable. Particle affects are found all over the game, from the pods you collect health from, to the blood that sprinkles unto the screen whenever you melee a cute little enemy. My personal favorite part of the game. There are many enemies on screen at once, all shooting brightly colored and often slow moving projectiles, so you know right off the bat framerate can?t be good. Well I have good news. The framerate holds up, for the most part, but go on live and that changes dramatically. I didn?t catch any technical aspects of the game to be missing, so they got the basics down. Even the draw distance can be semi impressive in some levels?it just depends on how impressed you can get with miles of sand though.
This could be less annoying by having less of it. The cynical little bastard enemies they put you up against in this game feel it necessary to let you constantly know how cute, yet evil they are. The splash of blood they make when you run em? over with your rolling melee is oh so satisfying, especially when you get them in mid sentence. Cutscenes are composed of News updates hosted by Kewlett anchors, and although the high pitched noises are about as welcome as an episode of Chip n Dale, they do often make you chuckle. Unless you don?t have a soul, then you should be in therapy, not killing cute little animated animals.
There is a soundtrack to the game, which is a high bass eerie score, but is usually over powered by the sound of battlefield combat. It?s not a bad thing, but it kind of seems like a waste of money to have a score that you can barely hear half the time.
Suggestions: Hell for a reason:
No one said hell was going to be easy, and if you like challenges such as Enclave, Halo 2 on legendary, or Ninja Gaiden Hurricane Pack, then this one is up your alley, and still I would only suggest a rent. However, those games are much more satisfying to beat, and have much higher production values. If you want a neat break from Halo 2, and you and a few friends are willing to pick this one up, the live components can offer some interesting gameplay, and some genuine fun. Otherwise, thereare other third person shooters out there that are well worth your hard earned cash.
Overall Score: 6.6 / 10
Predator: Concrete Jungle
Prey for this game.Predator: Concrete Jungle
Like most 80?s sci-fi movies, Concrete Jungle is very flashy but has no real substance. The premise of the game is interesting, but falls short of anything good due to clunky controls, and unbalanced gameplay. A disappointment, as this title has been in production for over a year. It even had a playable demo at last years e3, with the same clunky controls and camera that are present now. If you?re a fan of the predator franchise, then this title may end up just being for display on the shelves, because it doesn?t belong anywhere near a console.
Gameplay
In the middle of CJ I stopped and wrote this review. I didn?t need to finish the game to know that it was bad. First and foremost, I have to bring up the bad animation from earlier, Get used to falling. A lot.
Then comes the four visions granted to you for absolutely no reason. Not once did I feel compelled to use them, although I did, just to see what everything would look like through them. It did not help my aiming, or my ability to find anyone like in the Splinter Cell series. Instead, it convoluted my enemies, making me unable to distinguish one from another. Not that it matters, as you swing away at everything mindlessly. Using your cooler weapons would be kind of fun, except that they run on a battery that depletes after 2-3 shots. Afterward you get your staff, which is the equivalent of a knife in a gunfight. You start of with only this weapon, and in the end, you really end up using only this weapon. Beating up the street scum felt like chores, with no allowance. I did end up finishing the game, but to no avail. I didn?t find one thing I like about the gameplay.
Graphics
It?s best to start with the good news. Although not astounding, CJ does have some redeeming graphical qualities. He has a multitude of ?visions? which all look neat. It?s another look into the predator universe, and although the visions are pretty much useless, you cant deny that they are interesting to look at. That shine wears off quickly though. The animation suffers from inconsistent collision detection, and visual tearing. The game quickly becomes very clunky and awkward when you see people running around, however, the Predator himself looks great. Reminiscent of a one Sam Fischer, the Predator has skulls and tools hanging from his belt, all of which bounce realistically as the predator runs around. His locks also bounce around and are animated fairly smoothly. The level design is weak, and uninspired. Sometimes placement seems random, as you?ll see that you have to jump out of a building and walk to the other one, when you could have simply walked to the second building to begin with. However, the outdoor areas have all the right lighting, and the usual normal mapping, which is admirable compared to the rest of the game. There?s not much more good I can say about this game, however.
Sound
I expected to hear lots of quotes from the movies, or sound clips from the movies. None of both, however the sound clips did sound realistic enough to belong in the Predator universe. The moans and healthy growls the Predator makes when he needs health or replenishes it; is familiar, but not the same. As good a mimic as it is, some female voice narrator is introduced early on that doesn?t sound like she belongs anywhere in the predator franchise. Also, she sounds very amateurish. I think I could have recorded a more believable segment in my garage, using old sound clips from Terminator 2 and a tape player/recorder. Other than that, the random announcements of the pimps that you have to kill is annoying, but gives you a reason to dispose of them quickly.
Alien to good gaming
Developer Eurocom has done their best, and with one year at the helm, this is truly a disappointment. With almost nothing to offer, CJ was made only for the die-hard predator fans. So those 12 people will love this game, even if they don?t end up playing it. The graphics are mediocre, and everything else is below average, and that?s the ?with-sugar-on-top? version of the review. CJ Serves better as a coaster than a game.
Suggestions: BAlance is the keyword here. SOme of the weapons are actually pretty fun to use. Too bad they dont let you use them. This game is in dire need of extensive testing, and should be recalled for wasting time. If you're the die hard afforementioned Predator fan, then by all means, give this one a rent. If not, i'd stay far away from this one.
Overall Score: 5.0 / 10
Area 51
They don?t call Xbox the FPS console for nothing. We get more FPS?s thrown at us than the Washington D.C. county jail, and that just makes it hard to compete. Had Area 51 been released 6 or 8 months ago, it would have been much more well received then it is today. When you get right down to it, Area 51 is a solid shooter. The gameplay is tight, and the mechanics clean. The story is?complicated, at best. The title looks good, and sounds good, but when names like Halo 2, Doom 3, and Half-Life 2 are thrown into the mix, area 51 falls short of having the inherit epic attributes that follow the latter. With that said, lets get this review started shall we?Fierce, tight, clean, and just plain cool. The gunfights make me say words like counter-strike, and John Woo, and there?s plenty of them too. Yup, the game takes a minimum of 15-17 hours. This game is LONG. The firefights get more and more intense, if not by making the environments bigger, but also by streaming in hordes of more enemies than earlier in the game. They try to go for the half-life 2 in game cut scenes, but the freedom to leave the conversation or scene is always too tempting, as the person talking is usually David Duchovny. Other then that, it?s a fairly linear FPS. Go into new room, clear out enemies, repeat. Along the ways you pick up newer, cooler weapons. As simple as this may sound, it?s actually pretty !&%$@#* fun. They even incorporated dual wielding into this bad boy, which only adds to the whole feeling of awesomeness. I know I?m pulling a lot of good words out for the game, cause at its core gameplay, it?s a good title. It?s not AS good as some other shooters, which will hurt the score a little, but all in all it?s a good single player experience.
Multiplayer is very bland. Deathmatch, King of the Hill, capture the flag are all here. Nothing really new, except for a select few modes where you can turn into a mutant. These are fun, but still nothing to make you shell out 50 dollars.
The game is also on the ps2, so right off the bat, the game had to be dumbed down from its true graphical potential. That?s not to say the game looks bad, it just doesn?t compete against other games that do. The lighting is there, with muzzle flashes that light up rooms, there?s even reflective mapping, and some normal mapping can be found in some areas. The guns look like guns. There have been many shooters where I?ve never been convinced that I'm holding anything more than a toy, but these guns are guns. They look like guns, and when they fire they thrash around like guns should. Mowing down a crowd of alien/mutants looks exactly as it should. Animation is smooth, but again, throw in a name like Doom 3, and it isn?t AS smooth. There?s lots of particle effects, as you?ll notice in the first level of the game, when glass, bullet shells and blood are all being slung at each other in the City of God fashion. The chaotic gunfights look great, and add to the immersive aspect that is robbed by some of the sound and story of the game.
Full use of 5:1 Dolby Digital is always nice. The sound is great. The gunfights, which are the highlight of this game, sound incredibly realistic, with bullets whizzing by, broken glass crashing behind you, and monstrous growls and moans coming from all directions. The guns, again, I must mention. They sound like they?re firing and I think in that aspect Area 51 even beats out Doom3, which I had a real problem with how weak the guns sounded. Sound really adds a whole new dimension to the game. However, sound is also one of the games weakest aspects. Hired to narrate the game is the ever-boring David Duchovny. His teammates get mauled over by humanoid mutant alien monsters (I really don?t know what they are) and all we get out of Dave is a weak ?my god?. Terrible. I want to know why David would try to butcher the genre he so helped advance. David! show a little emotion! Show a little sympathy! David Duchvny, why won?t you love Area 51? Well, The times where David is quiet are very fun and energetic. Not to mention Marilyn Manson also voices an overly grotesque creature. Between David and Marilyn, I?d call Marilyn my own personal jesus.
Area 52? Or is it Area 51,2? Or area 53?.
With the few minor things, this is a great shooter. If you?re a die hard shooting fan, you shouldn?t miss this one, for the rest of us, we can rent it, or remember that we have plenty of shooters on the system to satisfy our fragging needs. However, there is a lot here to salvage so maybe a sequel that has addressed these issues could be a killer app for a certain next gen system?
Suggestions: All the production quality that went in to this title would have been great, had it not been botched by David Duchovny and a story that wants to be so much, but ends up being so little. A good sci fi story isnt anything impossible. C'mon midway, can you flesh out a story(pun intended) with only one plot twist?
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict
Lately I've been noticing a trend that I?m not liking too much. Games who are innovative, for the sole purpose of being innovative. I'm not going to name names, however, when a game developer brings something new to the genre, or takes it a step further and combines genre's, they'd better have a good reason for it, and that reason had better involve enhancing gameplay. Luckily for us, there aren't any fools working over at epic games. Epic, best known for their unreal franchise, has made something very unique in Unreal Championship 2 (UC2). They crossed a FPS, with a Third person hack and slash, what many have been calling a fighter. The result is unreal at its finest.A twitch shooter, and frantic multiplayer hack and slasher, a fighting game?what is this hybrid game Epic has created? Well whatever it is, it?s fun as hell. After spending a good amount of time with the game?s prerelease live enabled demo, and with the game itself, I have to admit I?m hooked, although, the learning curve did make it difficult for me to get hooked. This is a crossbreed game, and learning to master both attributes of the game is no easy task. A solid day of playing online will probably do the trick, but get ready for a lot of losing first.
First and foremost, the game is fast. Very fast. There a lot of jumping off walls, double jumping, charge jumping, and dashing. Epic was smart about this however, by adding a system that enables you to be tethered down to your opponent. It isn?t an auto aim system, but merely a system that keeps the opponent on screen, because the game does get very ?bouncy? at times. This alone makes the game work unbelievably smoothly.
The offline campaign is there, and it has been tweaked since its last iteration, but the core of the gameplay lies on Xbox Live. Offline you have three modes, which are the Ascension Rights, tournament, and challenge. All of which are fine, and Ascension actually has a story, albeit it is a little weak. However, this is all just to whet your appetite for the core of it?s fun. Multiplayer.
Live, and LAN alike are fun, with 8 player frag festivals happening at lightning at a lightning fast pace, this game becomes all about destroying your opponent in the most stylized form possible. The melee function serves well in adding close quarter combat to the game but also adds a lot to the style factor. Finishing off a guy with a gun to melee, air to surface combo is very cool, and even your dead opponent will admit it.
As cool as this game may make you feel, it will also induce some stupid feelings as well. It is a tad under balanced. The melee weapons are very powerful, and usually always win versus a gun. It?s especially frustrating when you snipe someone out, and then deflect the bullet right back at your cranium. Nothing makes you feel dumber than getting killed by your own sniper bullet, except the announcer who rubs salt in the wounds by adding his little insightful commentary of ?HEADSHOT? followed by ?REJECTED?. Also, usually the bigger characters and the smaller characters are balanced out with speed and power, but the bigger characters seemed to have too much of both. They can take a large amount of punishment, and dish it out as well, and are just as agile and bouncy as any of the smaller characters to. It takes a lot to take down one of the behemoth characters, and can be frustrating when you?ve inserted several rockets into him and he comes and gets you with one melee. These are minor issues, not enough to critically cripple the games balance in any way.
The unreal engine 2 has been licensed across many games, al of whom look great. So of course it's no surprise that Cliffy B and friends have used their own engine to its greatest potential. This is the best xbox game to use the unreal engine, period. The wonderful palette of colors work to compliment the environments, which I'll get to in a second. The textures are sharp, and this game (unlike UC 1) makes use of bump, and normal mapping well. The reflective mapping on the weapons are nice, and the design very well thought out. Of course, you'll hardly notice the graphics, as you'll be flying past them at blazing speeds with explosions surrounding you, and a guy dressed up as a wolf swinging an energy sword frantically at your face; but I was just stating it for the record.
The environments are something, quite literally, out of this world. The unreal franchise has always been about amazing weaponry and gorgeous environments and this one is no exception. The environments have the usual range (which is a lot) of maps to blow each other apart in, from ice caves, to underwater agendas, and from up high in the sky (outer space even), to under the ground where rocks flow in rivers of lava. All of it can be found in the unreal, and all of it delicious eye candy.
UC2 uses full Dolby Digital 5:1 channel surround sound. Hearing a rocket that is locked on to you swerve from speaker to speaker in your living room is nothing short of exhilarating. The sound is sharp, clean, and doesn?t get in the way of the frantic frag fest. Before, the announcer (aka the omnipresent all powerful voice that loved screaming ?HEADSHOT!?) was a bit annoying, but UC2 has addressed that issue, in a rather stylish manner. The announcer now sounds like the announcer from the Mortal Kombat series. You know the ?FINISH HIM? guy. After finishing someone off with a coup de grat, his voice sounds rewarding as you hear him announce the words. Its also satisfying to hear the ever-rewarding ?HEADSHOT? followed by ?REJECTED?. Oh so sweet.
They?ve brought back lots of music from the first Unreal Tournament game from pc in 98. The title theme has been brought back, but revamped a little and other music made its way back too. The music isn?t as loud as the sound effects, which just keeps you focused on the action better.
You?re fellow teammates, however, can get annoying at some points. Sometimes you?ll see you flag being taken away, and you?ll see a team mate run pass him and voice over the com ?enemy?s got the flag?. Thanks, if it?s not too much trouble, can ya get it back? Of course you have some preliminary control over your bots, but that?s something I?ll dive into later.
The conflict is not having broadband
Offline the game is sort of weak, unless you have friends over, but over live this is a MUST HAVE. It is THE mp player game to have, especially if you just like to go on and frag some friends. The game has everything you need, shine, polish, gameplay, and most importantly, style. If the learning curve doesn?t turn you away early, then the game will grow on you as it has so many others.
Suggestions: online, the game is a solid gem. One of the best controller internet games ever. My only gripe is offline. The bots, as smart as they may be, still dont compare to humans. Their near perfect aiming, or but lack of any coherent strategy is upsetting. The story can be a lot stronger too. AN immersive story can forgive poor AI or clunky controls, but since UC2 didnt suffer from either, i think a strong singleplayer mode wold have made this one of the best games ever.
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
