Meet your guide to the west, John Marston

So what’s there to say about Red Dead Redemption? Well a lot actually, a whole lot to be precise. It is an open world adventure unlike any other kind and is set at the turn of the twentieth century. This was a turbulent time in American History when the lawless ‘Wild West’ was taking an unexpected turn, rapidly being crushed by the combination of effective government and the rapid advancement of technology. Compared to a GTA game it has its similarities but it has really turned out to be so much more. It is truly a one of a kind experience that you won’t find anywhere else.

Your journey begins taking place in the Old West across three territories: The frontier area of New Austin, south across a river into the Mexican border territories of Nuevo Paraiso, areas of the Northwest and finally West Elizabeth which was to become among the first modern American cities. Having a completely unique story with some very interesting set of characters you meet along the way, the most interesting one of them all though has to be the one you play as, John Marston. His tale is a dark and deep epic one at that and you will begin to learn more and more about him as you play. He is probably somebody you would definitely want on your side because you get on his bad side, you be dead…red dead. Puns aside any weapon you can get your hands on will surely do its job. The weapons you find throughout your journey are actually based off the real weaponry from the time when gun fighting was considered to be a real skill. You will come across all types of weapons ranging from rifles, shotguns, sawn-offs, sniper rifles, pistols and your use of melee weapons. If you want, even your fists can be a melee weapon but the most you can do is stun and knockout somebody you meet, so probably not the best idea in a gunfight. What you can bring is a lasso to a gunfight which turns out is a first in the world of video games. The lasso will constantly be your handy sidekick for upholding the law. While playing through the story you will run across some even bigger guns such as the Gatling gun and even the first set of automatic pistols. Just in case you start to turn evil on us in the game, now that you have all these guns at your disposal, it should be noted that once you start killing innocent people, the law will come after you and they won’t play nice…but what they will do is hunt you down until you are dead or at least until you have escaped their vision for the time it takes to not be wanted by the law. The bad thing about killing people, who don’t deserve to be killed, is it will eventually affect your honor a great deal and this can turn out to be bad or good whichever way you look at it. As soon as your honor reaches a certain point in negativity, you will be feared by everyone who see you and you will literally ride on an evil dark steed that changes from your regular horse as soon as you call for it. This is epic in itself if you really want to be the bad guy this time around but let it be known your choices affect the way people act around you. I won’t spoil too much for you when it comes to the story but you should know that it is very easy to follow and pretty soon you will be completely immersed in this incredible, stunning, and beautiful experience.

The scenery in this game is just absolutely gorgeous and it will not disappoint you.

Now not only is there the story, but there is a ton of side missions that will surely keep you busy if you just want to explore and enjoy the ride! If you think you’re not getting the challenge you want out of the whole experience then there is four specific sets of challenges for you to complete also and these include Master Hunter, Survivalist, Sharpshooter, and Treasure Hunting. Each of these challenges has individual ranks of 10 that require you to complete specific objectives around the world wherever possible. This will most definitely take you some time to complete all four but it’s probably best if you just worked at it while going through the story mode. Once you complete these challenges though you unlock certain rewards specifically for each challenge. In the end you will increase your abilities and unlock special items depending on which challenges you finish. This can be useful throughout the game but I think it is used more along the lines to have fun with more than anything. Another thing implemented very well into the game was random events, such as stopping a thief, stealing a stagecoach, a contest that tests your skills. All of these will help you to either move forward in the game or slow you down on the way. They are spread over the map and in different areas of the map you will get certain events you only get there, so it stays well balanced till the end of the game. Whether you complete these random events is a choice you must make and your choices will overall affect your Honor/Fame. Increasing your Honor or Fame depends on whether you do the right thing and help the people who need help, or you just happen to do the wrong thing. Honor fluctuates with every choice you make during the game, such as rescuing travelers from bandits, capturing prisoners who have escaped, or taking prisoners alive instead of killing them. All of these good deeds will make you a more honorable person overall and affect the outcome of certain benefits you can receive. Your fame is an entirely different feature that will increases with every major action you make in the game, which mainly concerns completing the main story mission but there are plenty of other ways to get famous. Fame usually stays pretty positive unless you start harming the people who think highly of you, but as it increases you will start to be more known in the world and everything you have accomplished will open up new opportunities, causing people to greet you by name or even challenge you to a duel. If you decide to stay on the positive side of things and increase your fame you will start to see that it really benefits you in the end, making life in the Old West a little easier. As real as the game feels and acts as you play through it you won’t have to worry about the traveling becoming too time consuming or tedious. There are a few ways to travel when it comes to getting around easier, such as taking a taxi service like stagecoach, or camping out in the middle of nowhere and fast traveling to the waypoint you marked out on your map. This makes things a great deal easier as you will find your self running around a lot. Speaking of camping you will also be able to use this as a rest spot for saving, changing your outfit, and restocking ammo, making it easier for you to continue exploring in a certain area. If you decide to stray from the story then there are plenty of fundamental activities for you participate in, including being able to track down outlaws for bounties, searching for buried treasure across the vast expansive world, hunting down animals for some quick cash, or maybe you would prefer hitching a ride on the good old steam train. Along with that are 6 mini games you can play in and gamble away some of your hard earned money.

• Texas Hold em Poker
• Liars Dice
• Arm wrestling
• Five Finger Fillet
• Horseshoes

I found all of these to be fun and fairly easy to play except for one, and that is Horseshoes. It’s not too hard to pull off but will probably take you a whole day’s worth in the game to get better at, at least that’s what happened for me. Liars Dice was kind of like playing Yahtzee in a way but except the object of the game was to bet on how many of a specific numbered dice is on the table. Somebody would then be able to call you out on a bluff or call out the exact number of those dice there are. If you make mistakes on what you call out you can eventually lose all your dice kicking you out of the game. I thought this was pretty interesting once I got the hang of it and I think most people will like it too. Arm wrestling is well…arm wrestling except the key to it is all in the timing along with some brute strength, which John Marston surely enough has. If you want to try out Five Finger Fillet, it consists of quick reflexes and coordination, but mainly just quick reflexes for us people playing the game. You begin by watching the person across from you stab a knife in between his fingers as fast as he possibly can, and your goal is to do it faster without screwing up too many times before you fail to impress. In order for you to do that you’re going to have to hit buttons in the sequence displayed. This is a somewhat a simple mini game and is good enough to just pass the time and earn an extra tiny bit of cash on the side.

"You might want to give up Mister"

So now that you know more about what you can do on the side lets talk more about the game play mechanics. One thing that makes the game a little bit easier is a little thing called Dead Eye, which was originally brought back from Red Dead Revolver. This feature was pretty much a way for you to slow down time and complete tricks shots, which when the time came was pretty handy. Dead Eye was made with three levels, the first being able to slow down time mainly, the second was only available to pistols or one handed weapons allowing you to automatically paint your targets. Finally the third will give you the freedom to paint your own targets as fast as you want and fire off with guns blazing. No matter how fast you can shoot though it always helps to have some cover to get behind, which Rockstar this time around improved on. At times cover might seem completely useless but it has it’s advantages when it calls for it. The physics in this game are absolutely phenomenal with a few minor glitches here and there, but the rest of the game is sure to make up for it. Humans aren’t the only ones that come down to a realistic level and interact with the environment and the player, but the animals and wildlife itself interacts just the same as well. This is an impressive breakthrough in gaming for we haven’t seen anything like it before. For example the way a cougar hunts you down in the middle of nowhere is very surprising and exciting at the same time. I enjoyed everything about the way you interact with the environment and how it interacts around you making the world feel just a little bit more real. When it comes to single player there were a few other small features that I personally liked to have at my disposal. One of these was the ability to pause cut scenes in case of an emergency, that way I could still pay close attention to the story. I was one of the people that used the custom soundtrack from my own library of music to its advantage although there were times during the game where it was a distraction making it hard to listen to the sounds of the game and cut scenes.

Posse up cowboys

Another thing I liked was the variety of different missions attaining to the story, making things more interesting without missions becoming too repetitive. One thing Rock Star did very well also was making the game difficulty something for people of all skill levels to enjoy. They succeeded in this by making three difficulty settings for anyone to choose at any point while playing. ‘Casual’ mode gives you a full auto-aim system, as well as faster regenerating health and the option to skip any mission you’ve failed three times. ‘Normal’ mode features a ‘snap-to-target’ system giving you the option of more precise aiming from the player using the right stick. ‘Expert’ mode uses a free aim system with no lock-on at all, giving players freedom to target with greater skill and precision.Graphics for this game seemed to look a lot like the style of Grand Theft Auto IV which isn’t a bad thing, but it looked like there might have been improved differences. Still everything looks amazing for an old west kind of look and you can practically start believing that you are truly in the old west. It sure is a treat seeing some of most nice looking horses act and function just like real horses would, in such a way that we have never ever seen before. Not only that but the world of Red Dead Redemption contains about over 450 unique kinds of characters with their own physical features and that says a lot. The graphics don’t have to be amazing to do that, but they sure did what they were meant to do. The frames even stay at a good pace, as I didn’t have any kind of problems with it when I was riding my horse as fast as I could go. For sure though playing this game, felt like and looked good enough to come out of a Clint Eastwood movie, which I wouldn’t be surprised that most of the ideas we saw came out of some of the best cowboy western movies to date.

I think when it comes to sounds; Red Dead Redemption excels and creates a world full of unique sounds that represent the old west and the ecosystem of wildlife that comes with it. Everything you hear around you sounds so real, to the horses trotting along the road and wooden bridges, to the train blowing its whistle, to the gunshots of your deadly revolver, and to the sound of a person getting shot down. That’s another thing that sounds so great in this game that I’m just astounded by and that is the cast of unique voice actors who participated in the making of this game to make almost every character you ran into so lifelike. That is truly an amazing effort to make the experience feel so real to the player and capture the essence that is the old west.

Online is just a blast to play from free roam to multiplayer games and the newly added co-op missions.

So now that we have talked about all that let’s get into the online experience of Red Dead Redemption and see what it has to offer for all you online gamers. The way multiplayer works is very different than anything rock star has done before. They definitely expanded on the third person-open world multiplayer when it comes to Grand Theft Auto IV and provided something that really sets the bar high. They started by making a Free Roam system that not only acts as a lobby but stays connected to a similar experience you would find in the single player. It pretty much is you playing single player online with certain things missing like the lasso, being able to skin animals, and no train which I thought was kind of sad not to see but it probably wasn’t really necessary to keep I suppose. All of this has been done to balance out and fit into the multiplayer experience to keep its main focus. Things I found useful in this free roam mode were being able to invite your friends at ease by creating a posse and then having them teleport to you location wherever that may be. From there you and some buddies can get to work and start having some fun whether it’s going to gang hideouts and taking out some bad guys or just exploring around the map completing challenges, unlocking titles, and leveling up. Leveling up is always a big part of multiplayer, and it just so happens there are fifty levels to earn, but that’s not all, in return for reaching the max you will unlock a special mount and the ability to pass into legend and become the legend. This is a form of being able to prestige starting all over at level one and losing all your weapons, except for the titles and challenges you may have earned before hand. It really isn’t all bad considering once you level up again you earn the special mount unlocks faster than normal. Another benefit from this is you gain a legendary symbol by your name and you unlock one of the legendary characters to choose as your character. If you decide not to mess around in free roam then just get you and your cowboy boots into a party with some friends and hop into a list of competitive games for you to play and enjoy. These competitive game types include the following:

• Free For All
• Gold rush
• Grab the Bag
• Hold Your Own

Free for all is pretty much your typical death match or team death match invented into more of a Western variation. Gold rush is a mode that involves battling players to capture multiple bags of gold scattered across the map. Grab the bag forces players to fight over one bag of gold and capture it before anyone else does. Hold your own is the team based version of capturing the bag. These are all interesting and fun modes but if you would like to change things up a little bit in the sense of difficulty wise, then there are hard core modes for all of these, which change your aiming skill to expert mode so you can really show them how it’s done if you’re up for it.

After all is said and done, your probably going to want to get a platinum trophy out of this game, aren’t you? Well even if your not, that’s ok too, we will still love you, but you’re bound to get a bunch of trophies playing through the game just from the story. There are a total of 49 trophies to be earned which is quite a bit to keep you busy for a while for those who like a good challenge and love trophy hunting. Only 9 of these trophies are online if you’re wondering. But another 10 trophies for online are on their way and I don’t think they will affect your platinum as always like in most games. So yeah plenty of replay ability right here for all those trophy seekers, I know I’ll be after them just for the fact of how much I’m enjoying this game right now.

So now I’ve explained almost everything there is to know about Red Dead Redemption, but some other things you will just have to find out and experience for yourself. I enjoyed this game over all even if there were a few glitches here and there, but nothing too major except for some online connection issues and some AI glitches in multi-player. All of that will be fixed in time as it wasn’t really something to make me stop playing. There were even some really silly glitches that you might notice happening around you, but those might just make you laugh if not at all.

Drift your way to the front!

Welcome to the ModSpot

Along the way you’ll see some interesting cut scenes on your way to become champion. Most of the cut scenes are with the two anchors who cover all the action and, they are Biff Tradwell and Chad Reasons. These two will provide humor as you rise up among the elite. Visually, ModNation Racers looks real smooth on PS3. When creating my character it was cool to see him react to how I was making him look just like in LittleBigPlanet. For racing however, everything looks great. One minute you’ll be in a alpine city and the next you’ll be racing in the desert looking at each environment that looks pretty good especially for a PSP game. Cut-scenes look ok but their not great in-game as there as some visual hiccups you’ll notice. Gameplay for ModNation Racers is crazy good and as far as races go, they start out easy but become challenging as you move along. One thing that may push people away are the load times. Although the game installs 3 gigs worth or data to your hard drive, the load times are really long & if it gets to hectic, the framerate drops momentarily but, if you can bear with it you’ll enjoy this game without a doubt. Trophies are a plenty here. as usual basic ones are easy to grab but there is one that will require you to get very creative and for you to be favorited by a lot of people and it will be time consuming.  The AI can be pretty harsh on you especially when you get close to the end of a race, when that happens they let everything all out on you like a force of nature and if you get hit by a harsh power-up, you’ll lose your power-up and you may have to restart the race over again.

Create any kind of character you mind can think of, there's no limit!

In the beginning you’ll learn the basics of how to use everything from power-ups to learning how to take out your opponents by side-swiping them and luring them into traps however, for side-swiping and stomping you’ll need to earn boost to fill up your boost meter. Boost is what you get by hitting the other racers with a weapon power up, drifting, sideswiping opponents and elite racers, or getting some airtime. Once you have your boost meter filled up, you can use it to boost past the other racers, shield yourself from weapons that are on the attack and sideswipe your opponents out of the race for a couple seconds. All of these tactics are necessary for you to get to the top and plus their really awesome to use online and off. Drifting is where the fun happens. No matter what in every race you’ll want to drift to fill up your boost meter and take the lead on the competition. Power-ups are obtained while in race. You can get stuff like rockets, sonic booms, a speed boost,  and a lightning bolt. For power-ups, you can collect three to make the power-up even powerful and blow away whoever’s in front. The sounds for the game are pretty good as well as the choice of music which is great for a kart racer since it’s pretty unique to hear such a soundtrack for a game like this as it does put you in the racing mood. Custom soundtracks are here for offline modes only. Let’s move away from the racing and visuals, and jump right into the customization. For your character you can customize with a lot of stuff that you can unlock and use to trick out your ride. When you race in the career mode, there will be certain tasks that you can do that will unlock more items for you to use on your ride and your character as well as find tokens that are scattered around the raceways for you to buy more items for your character.

Creating your own raceway is simple and easy

Racers! Prepare to Race!

ModNation Racers overall is “la creme de la creme” of kart racing and PCS (Play, Create, Share)  for PS3, even with the little hitches this is one racer that a PS3 owner should not miss out on. While the in-game cutscenes aren’t as impressive, the framerate that drops, and the long load times this is still one great racer. For both Career and Multiplayer, ModNation Racers won’t disappoint although I was able to beat the campaign in about 7-8 hours, and the Multiplayer is fun and seems like it will make you come back to rev your engines yet again.

Where Power-Ups Meet Reality

Let’s start off with how this game performs. The graphics in this game are noticeably bad but what’s also noticeable is the amount of special effects they use to cover up the graphics. No matter how much make-up you put on an ugly doll it’s still an ugly doll. The anti-aliasing is a tad low and the some of the environments look like low res pictures that turn when you drive past. However, the frame rate is solid and no matter what the game still stays smooth. As I mentioned though there are a lot of effects that hide the “Blurry” scenery but the two most seen effects are the futuristic lens flare and the moving light waves.  This theme starts to become repetitive about halfway through the story but then again this kind of complaint begins to become nit-picking. One thing I do like however is the menu style. The menu’s are straight up sexy as they are sleek, smooth, and simple and straight forward. The sound in this game is nothing special however. The car sounds seem muffled and the soundtrack is nothing to get too excited about. There are in-game soundtracks and the game really saves itself with that. Too little games utilize in-game music today on PS3. The only problem with the in-game music in Blur is that the quality does degrade slightly when listening to it in-game and the in-game music doesn’t work when in an online race. When your done with online the in-game music automatically starts back up.

Fairly large Color palette

Blur has a sleek presentation and the theme behind is nice. Some people may not like it as much as other game styles but it works for what it’s there for. The load times are slightly long but that’s okay because, while you are loading a level there is an overview of what you will be doing in each event. The story is structured a lot like Split/Second in terms of overall career mode progression. To progress through the career you need to accomplish certain requirements to race a big time rival (sort of like a boss). These rivals or opponents are very fun and sometimes very difficult in races where you need to beat them in a one on one or eliminate their car. As you play the career more opponents will unlock with a list of new events for you to play. Each boss has a special car and mod you earn when defeating them and we’ll talk about mods later. The challenges/requirements you must complete to face a boss are really fun because they can be literally anything. Dodging a certain number of attacks to completing a fan run (which we will talk about later as well) are just some of the things you end up doing to face a boss. After completing an event you get a different amount of lights 3 lights for third, four lights for second, and 5 lights for first. You can get an extra two lights in every event by completing a fan run or achieving the fan goal. You can acquire a total of 50 lights in any opponent/bosses event line-up. A fan system is well integrated into this game to show your progression. By doing well in a race or performing special actions during a race you will earn more fans and as you get more fans you can unlock more cars and their actual cars that people actually drive. Yes you can see people driving the cars in this game rather than no one or some pro racer with a helmet on. One thing that is nice is that there is not much customization for cars the color scheme for each car can be changed to a large variety of options with a huge color palette and different patterns to choose from there is a lot that can set your car apart from the others.

Speaking of cars there are a lot of them, more than you will probably ever use. They are real cars too from companies like Ford and Toyota. It’s nice to see that in a game that isn’t totally realistic. Each car obviously has their stats for grip, speed, acceleration, and difficulty. However for a game like this it is surprising to see speed classes. A, B, C, and D speed classes are included in this title and the this further represents the aimed mix of realistic and unrealistic racing games to bring them both into one theater. Now keep in mind you can only race cars of the same speed class which I believe is a good thing. Each car has its own challenges adding even more to the game. You just need to keep in mind that defeating a boss or beating a difficult event could all be about the car you choose.

This game also has a photo book feature that is pretty decent. Any time during a career race you can take a picture. When you go into photo mode you can move your camera in almost any direction around your car allowing you a lot of freedom with your shots. After you take your pictures you can view them at the main menu. The only problem is that I did not find any type of system for putting these pictures on your hard drive. You could only upload them to blur’s website or to facebook. I find this a nice thing to have for this game I mention this because this game gives you more freedom with this feature than other games do.

Let’s Talk about the Power-ups First I will describe them to you then tell you how I fell about them.

• Mine – lay a mine in the road to blast the opponents behind you
• Shunt – acts like a homing missile
• Nitro – boost your car to high speeds
• Shock – Place 3 lighting traps ahead of you to hurt your enemies
• Barge – Release a radiant blast that hurts the cars that are around you (useful in matches with 20 cars)
• Bolt – Fire a bolt in a straight line in-front or behind you
• Shield – temporarily shields attacks from enemies
• Repair – Repairs your damaged vehicle

So now you know what each power-up does now my issue with these power-ups is that they are not that “powerful” they can slow your enemies down a bit but they never do anything that is irrecoverable. When you finally do something to an opponent to wreck them they still respawn. So after all your effort in killing your opponent they still just respawn. Now wrecking someone isn’t that effective still as they can recover within usually 30 seconds of the wreck. In my opinion I think this all makes the power-ups less effective and are never something that is a real threat in the game. The best part of this game I feel is not the power-ups but the genuine racing gameplay.

4-player split-screen!

The gameplay in blur is something that can be an acquired taste for some. It has a slow start getting into it but in the end can mean for some great fun. The career starts you off in a bad way for those new to this style of racing however it quickly picks up and gets you really in the game. If this game is an experiment to see if realism can mix with non-realistic elements than I have to say it is a success. The racing is flat out fun and can be hectic at times and professionally smooth at others. This game has some pretty good gametypes to keep you interested as well. There is obviously your standard racing but there is also things like destruction which is similar to burnout’s road rage gametype but instead of shoving people out of the game you need to use power-ups to eliminate them. Checkpoint is fun and classic, it’s a time trial where you have to hit nitro’s and clock stopping icons to make sure you can pass the finish line with at least 20 seconds left for 5 lights. Motor mash is a gametype similar to twisted metal in the way that it is an all out death-match in an arena map. There are even team matches where you and your team help each other in a race or death-match. I know what your thinking, how do you have a team based race? Well it’s difficult and doesn’t work all the time but in theory it is where you can help out your team mates in a race by dropping power-ups for them and targeting enemies instead of friends. This works if you have friends with mic but otherwise most players are kind of greedy and don’t pay attention to the teamwork in my experience online playing this gametype. Team match works better in the motor mash gametype. Motor Mash is fun but not fun enough to be something I would play often. The level design in this game is nothing to get excited about. All of the levels in this game appear pretty bland and there is nothing that jumps out. Some of the turns on these levels can be really tricky making some of the maps avoidable to new players. One thing that was impressive though in blur is that the AI is really smart, They can pull off tricks in this game that you wouldn’t expect to see offline.  All in all the gameplay may be an acquired taste for some but a good taste at that. Hough the levels are nothing to jump out of your seat about and the power-ups ineffective most of the time the driving is nice and diverse and represents a great diversion from most of the racing games that are out there today. There are two features of the gameplay here which are really nice and make a very interesting game mechanic. One if which is seeing you opponent or team member’s power-ups they have. If you can tell someone is in front of you with a mine then you know you shouldn’t drive behind them. The other feature is that You can destroy mines or incoming shunts with other power-ups. So not every time you use a power-up does it become effective. I know this is something that kind of lowers the usefulness of the power-ups even more but in this case I actually like this feature. One thing I would have liked is a tutorial rather than explanatory videos spread throughout the career mode. All of these videos are accessible though at the menu. One last thing I want to talk about is the Fan runs and Fan demands. These can be really fun yet really challenging in your race events. A fan run is where you pass through a number of gates that show up on the map if you make it through them all you gain extra fans. The fan demands are similar in the way that they are special things you need to do in a time limit to gain extra fans such as nitro overtakes or drifting bolt hit. These fan demands can be various in each event but are a cool feature. If you can’t tell already this game is JAM PACKED with features.

Let’s talk about the online. Online servers are unstable 25% of the time you play online maybe less as the game continues its life-cycle and gets more servers. 20 vs. 20 can be really hectic and really fun when everyone is using power-ups wrecks happen more often than career mode making the power-ups a little more adamant online. For ranking up online it uses the same fan system you can see in career mode. Ranking up in online in this game isn’t impossible like other games out there it actually feels like it’s a reachable goal when you start ranking up. You will have to unlock a special set of cars for online however that is not a bad thing. I wouldn’t want to be someone who 100% the story and then uses the best cars at rank 1 in online. Another great thing about online is that there are special playlist for lower rank people so you aren’t really thrown into a sh!t-storm when you get online. The online is well balanced where people who are new to the game get a chance but those who have earned their skill at the game are the ones who usually do well. Four player split-screen is a very nice addition to this game however. Split-screen games are also too rare and blur has it for 4 people. The online takes a while to get into but once your there, it will probably be a while before you leave. After getting into online from the menu you chose a playlist (not all of them are unlocked until you rank up) after you chose a playlist you want to do or is right for you. Though you spend a while getting into a good lobby. Once there you are set to be stream-lined to all the online fun you can have. With Host migration in the lobby and map voting (a BIG plus for this game) the online fun can last for hours on end. Another interesting aspect is if you join a lobby in mid race you are still put into the lobby however there is a preview mode that allows you to see what’s going on in the race via a picture of the track with however many tiny dots to represent where the cars are at. This features is kind of laggy but interesting. I would have rather liked to be put in as a spectator though than watch a bunch of dots travel along a line. After winning a race it’s likely that you will have a special title for that race. Titles in this game at the end of races are just things that tell what you did most or least for that race for example squirrel is acquiring the moist power-ups while gladiator is causing the most damage. There are others for things like fastest lap and best accuracy. PSN avatar images are more utilized in this game than others. At the lobby you can see everyone’s PSN avatar and they are seen often through-out online. I like this because it’s something you don’t really see much in games. There are AI bots for split-screen as well which is nice however not really being able to turn them off isn’t fun but I’m not really complaining. The last thing I want to talk about for online multiplayer is the perk load out system. You have 4 perk load outs that you can customize for online the way it works is that each load out has 3 perks or special effect during the race. These can be anything from taking less damage from collisions to gaining an extra fan bonus and even specials for your shield. It’s nice but sometimes you don’t even notice you have it on when your playing online there are lots of mods for your load-outs you can unlock as you progress through the online.

Now let’s talk about the trophies for all of you trophy hunters out there. What I think you will love the most about this game is that there is an trophy tracker. Every time you do something that gets you closer to your goal is shown on your in-game HUD with a little bubble that pops up! This is really useful and even comes in handy when reaching the requirements for each boss. Every time you complete a challenge you get a sticker (and usually a trophy but not every time). These stickers show up in your sticker collection but they don’t really do much. I was hoping for more reward from these stickers. There are a LOT of stickers and a LOT of challenges for this game and the platinum isn’t impossible to get either, it just takes time. With a challenge for every car online you might be spending a lot of time to complete this game to 100%. This is something you achievement guys will really love though: Friend Challenges! The way this works is that if you do really well on a certain event you can challenge your friends to do as good as or better than what you just did. You do need friends with this game to do this but in either case it is still a really fun feature.

Graphics aren't pretty underneath the effects

In conclusion Blur is a game with a lot of good features and though their main attraction might not attract everyone, the amount of special features they have in this game expand it more than enough to earn your respect. In my opinion Blur is a game that will not just blur past your memory rather. It is the full package and the most you can get in a $60 racing game. The good definitely outweigh the bad in this title. As I’ve said, it’s style of racing is an acquired taste but a VERY good one once it’s acquired. Blur will be a game that last for a long time with most that are really into the title and can even be a game that you will come back to later. To beat the main story will take you about 40 hours but the online can last forever and split-screen will also be a delight.  A lot of the aspects of this game might require friends for the full experince though the game still is a jam packed title that is worth your money despite it’s short comings. This on game play over performance.

First one to collide into the plane is a rotten corpse!

You must never hesitate. In the time that it takes you put one foot forward, another person can hop. You’re swimming – they’re rowing. You’re swinging – they’re flying. Split/Second wastes no time playing catch-up for players, for it is players having to keep up with the game. Set in a reality television program known as Split/Second, the game itself places you as the driver gunning for the finish line. Tuning this arcade racer with kart-racing application, Split/Second steers from the point of sporty vehicles – the Lamborghini and pickup truck-looking kind – on top of enclosed city streets where you can’t jam to the fullest… unless you’ve got power!

Va-Va-VaBOOM! Split/Second, as said, is not just a mere arcadey racer. Your vehicle scores more from than just staying ahead of the pack, where the game also heavily relies on secreted powers climbing ever higher as a player presses their foot to the pedal. In Split/Second, there is one of two ways to be good at this game: you have to drift or you have to draft. Motorheads, gear jockeys, or fans of racing in general should know all about the process that comes from turning a corner sideways and sliding around into position. Drafting, on the other hand, puckers up your front bumper’s lips to kiss the rear of the vehicle(s) ahead of you as their trail blocks out wind resistance that would otherwise reduce your car’s inertia. By enabling either motion into your vehicle’s rotation around a track, you’ll find that the displayed gauge on the screen (which, by the way, interestingly adheres to the tail of a vehicle) starts to fill and then refill as time ticks and players stick to this cause. Why you’re doing it is because of the need to get ahead. Other racers aren’t your pals – they’re your foes. Other racers must cripple shortly for any incremental chance to reacquire them and once again retake the #1 placement on the course. With a rising meter churns out an automated opportunity to access powerplays, or the chance to impede other drivers through vehicle wreckage that is in turn operated by players’ destructively transformable use of level manipulation.

Stupid GPS! I said "finish line," not "You're finished!"

Bad isn’t Split/Second’s color. More like an ‘okay’ or ‘decent’ effort, Split/Second just doesn’t have a whole lot to offer. Actually, it’s better to say that what is here doesn’t elevate the tier on ingenuity or impressive standards for the gaming category itself. Through the campaign mode, you can race against the computer in order to unlock all twelve episodes of the TV program, albeit the extent of an “episode” is that of about a one-minute clip highlighting the likes of a power plant turning to rubble. “In the next episode…” Beyond this stupidity, here’s where you have the chance to soar through a handful of varying driving modes in each episode, whether you’re competing in a race against the computer or you’re handling the wheel through a certain mission objective. If you’re not racing, either you’re evading obstacles by yourself in order to beat the clock during a time trial mode or you might be playing a survival or elimination game of some kind. Enlisting into one or the other, you’ll be keeping ahead of everyone as the timer continually erases the driver in last place. Another event pits you and other drivers behind large dump trucks that discard rows of hazardous barrels. Pass ahead of the trucks, stay ahead of the curve, and being the person who outwits the best is what helps to land you a greater amount of points that gear into the distribution of further levels to spread your tires and future vehicles that are fundamentally superior to the basics that you’ll roll out of the garage with.

Split/Second falls apart with or without you.

Sound of music, or music over sound: what’s your pleasure? Either one encompasses 99% of Split/Second’s audio channel, as an electronic/rock combo syncs together the soundtrack. Intense like the action on your screen, different background tracks meld nicely with your vehicle tempo. Vehicular charging readies along while the game sings its song. There isn’t much to note about the music besides its appropriateness. Noises mainly formulate from engine and smashing chatter. Scratching, breaking, and vanquishing sounds compile regularly, effectively, and expectedly. More garden variety than the rest of it, a general announcer communicates the uninspired video footage at the start and end of a season. His gruff voice matches up with the game, but like everything else, there’s not one thing about the sound design that is going to make headlines.

This game blows... UP!

Get Ready For The Wild West in Downloadable Form

When you start up the game the way to the tutorial isn’t clearly defined. The tutorial (which is called practice in the menu) is actually halfway decent. It’s not prolonging, yet it teaches you the basics for practice against the AI bots. Doing this in what is really the co-op mode doesn’t prove to really be much practice, but it’s interesting to do when you’re bored.  Keep in mind that there is no single-player other than this, and that this is a multiplayer game.

So let’s get into it, the multiplayer. This is spread amongst 6 gametypes (one of which is Co-Op) these gametypes are actually very nice.  The Gametypes are as follows:

• Conquest – You and your gang/team need to capture separate zones in sequence to the enemy base. When your team holds a zone you gain points. Whichever team gets to 1000 points first wins. Essentially its domination meets backwards tug of war.
• Robbery – Robbery is kind of like assault meets capture the flag. First the attacking team must blow open the enemies vault with a barrel of explosives. Next that gang steals the three bags of gold from the vault back to their base. This is all going on while the other team attempts to prevent this from happening.
• Powderkeg – Another assault type gametype where one team needs to destroy two enemy bases with a barrel of explosives, while the other team defends them.
• Shootout – Shootout is just your basic team deathmatch
• Greed – One Flag Capture the Flag
• Co-Op – You and a friend fight off AI bots while you both continuously grab sacks of gold and return it to the center base.

These gametypes are short but that keeps the game going and prevents overly uneven games from prolonging. Another great thing about these gametypes is that holding the gold in a gametype constantly earns you points motivating people to get in there and do the objective. It is not always the case, but it is a good attempt. The Only Gametype with issues is the HORRIBLE AI in Co-Op. the Bots are literally walking in circles. Co-Op is more of an AI exercise class rather than a ruthless assault. What really makes these game modes shine is the maps. I want to know who their level designer is and shake his hand, because I really enjoy the maps in this game. They are totally balanced and greatly designed. I would like to see a gametype with only one life though such as elimination.

Escape with the Gold

One very important and unique gameplay feature is spawning. When you die, first off you get a chance to kill someone or get revived while you’re on the ground, but when you die you can either spawn at your base or whomever on your team has the spawn flag. This is a great feature that keeps you in the action and can be a very interesting tactical maneuver. Keep in mind however the person holding that flag can drop it. You can still spawn on it however that also means it can be picked up by the enemy team spawning the flag back at your base.

While we are on the subject of online, another very important aspect is the classes. There are four classes, all of which are somewhat equally balanced. Each class has a special power or ability and a different synergy effect. Synergy is a special power boost you get from sticking near different types of teammates; this encourages teamwork and sticking together, making the game even more exciting.  Synergy effects can do more, depending on your rank, when you rank up during a game this rates how well your synergy can do. Sorry but there is no real long term ranking system just ranking in each individual game. There is the Gunslinger, Trapper, Blaster, and Deputy.  The Gunslinger is a short range to medium range pistol wielder. His special ability is to have increased fire rate where a barrage of bullets can be fired. His synergy effect is increased accuracy. The blaster wields a pistol and a medium range double barrel shotgun. His special ability is dynamite which acts like grenades and his synergy effect is extra armor (which is basically health). The third class here is the Deputy and he has a repeating rifle as well as a pistol. His special ability is to mark or tag enemies and has a synergy effect of extra damage. Finally the trapper, whom holds a sniper rifle and a pistol as her weapons. She can set traps as her ability and her synergy effect is better critical hits. As you can tell if you are in a group with one of every type of character you can really do some damage.

The classes are all fine except for the Blaster being overpowered.  Extra health, dynamite, and a powerful weapon make this class overpowered enough to cause problems with this game especially online since a large portion of the players chose a blaster as it’s already known to be the overpowered class online.

FINISH HIM!

The Gameplay for this game is great, the controls are simple to understand and very smooth, however, a dedicated melee button would be extremely nice. Certain things like pressing right on the D-pad for score might not be something everyone can figure out let alone the fact that it is awfully glitchy. Many times a person can’t hold the score sheet down while playing, and having it on select would be much nicer.  Pressing left on the D-pad for the map is nice though. The fact that they can be on hand that easily is great, but making them a little more responsive couldn’t hurt.

There is an issue I would like to talk about however, and that is the auto balance. I understand balancing the teams so that the games aren’t uneven, but doing them in the middle of a game? Not a good idea and doing this makes it nearly impossible to play with friends. You can invite people from your friends list into a game, however, don’t plan on them being on your team too long. Before you know it, in the middle of a game, anyone can be auto balanced, forcing that person to battle against the people he was just fighting with. Any progress you made on your team to help defend or attack is turned on its head. Besides all of that though, I personally would rather wait for more people to get on my team, than be forced to accept help from the other team.  Auto balance is really the reason there is no party system, as well which would be exceptionally useful. In any case the mid-game auto balance is not helping this game at all.

Great Gameplay!

Let’s move on to the performance of this game on the Playstation 3. There isn’t much lag, if any, even though there is only local hosts. This sometimes causes freezing every now and then for the host, but is still not really a big problem and the host advantage is minimal at best. The game does tend to lock up your PS3 when it really does freeze (which is usually the host in a multiplayer match). This brings up two things; A: There should be a migrating host, and B: this shouldn’t be happening.  I know I am asking A LOT from a 15 dollar game but these are just things that would be nice.

The Graphics are GREAT for a downloadable title, the FPS is smooth and the lighting is remarkable.  Character animations are cool as well. In many ways this game has better graphics than most retail games today. The Sound quality is great there are no voices however the ambient noise and music are great for this western title. The Camera is actually very good for having the perspective in such a weird spot for a third person shooter.

All-in-all this is probably the best 15 dollar game money can buy. If your waiting for Read Dead Redemption, or are just looking for a great third person shooter (as if there aren’t enough already) this is the shooter you should get.  The Promised DLC can’t come soon enough for this amazing title!

EDITORS CHOICE!

For those of you who are wondering whether the next DLC for one of the most critically acclaimed games this century is worthy of  a purchase, well then look no further.

Well I just finished playing with everything included in this new DLC and I am pretty satisfied with what they have brought us this time around. It includes the following, 6 new character skins, 2 new maps to be played in, a new co-op mode known as siege, and also can’t forget 11 new trophies to be obtained online. I think what catches peoples attention the most here is this siege mode, which at first I was skeptical about whether it would be just as exciting and fun to play as any of the other co-op modes. So now lets get down to the business of the details shall we.

I’ll start off with the the two new maps which both take place from Nepal, one is the Museum where Drake and Flynn decide to heist, and the second one is High Rise which takes place on the rooftops and broken down buildings of Nepal near a construction yard. Out of both these maps I enjoyed High Rise the most just because of its accessibility above and below, plenty of places to climb, and the frequent Air Raid that happens every so often and shakes things up a little!  One other thing that interests me about this level is it seems to have almost every single power weapon you could think of hidden around it, making the only thing that matters is getting to them first. Now the Museum is all very familiar to us since we played it in the single player, but it seems to have had a few changes to make it capable of being a good multi-player frag fest. It has a lot of places to climb and some very high points in the level where you can get an advantage over the enemy, which half the time I find myself fighting my battles up there. So now that you have heard the good things, I’d say the only problem I’ve had with these maps is I barely get to play them when it comes to map voting and they don’t show up as frequently as I’d like.

Alright so you find yourself playing Siege mode in co-op with some buddies, first thing you should know is it’s just like playing king of the hill except you all have to be standing in the circle in order to finish a round and throughout each round the hill keeps moving. The only thing standing in your way is mercenaries ready to do anything to stop you from accomplishing your goal, and I mean anything. Now my first chance at playing this mode was on the two new maps and I have to say it can get pretty hectic, so make sure you have a good defense no matter where you stand.

Another thing you might enjoy about this update is new character skins to improve on looking good or just looking bad to the bone in battle which they were very successful in doing so. On the heroes side we got the classic baseball drake, and the wetsuit drake, which I find kind of funny to playing in because your running barefoot everywhere,  possibly getting splinters or just stepping on glass but it don’t phase him cause he’s Nathan Drake and can take any kind of pain you dish out at him. On the Villains side we have some really interesting and cool undead skeletons known as Platzor and Glowzor which looks like he just came out from underneath an atomic bomb. Also a zombie, he’s a Dead Explorer who apparently had a bullet put into his skull somewhere in his lifetime, and yet he’s still alive and kicking or something like that. He’s looking pretty hip and fashionable though with his Grey hoodie on. Let’s not forget our favorite Pirate, and no not Captain Jack Sparrow, a different kind of pirate known as Prakoso, you might have seen him running around from time to time in multi-player, but that was only because he wasn’t available to everyone.

Not too much to say about the trophies other than they seem like they came a little late cause I could have earned them by now, but all is forgiven. If you feel like something is missing from the multi-player then maybe this set of trophies is for you, just enough to keep you busy while you enjoy this new expansion pack to your all time favorite action adventure game.

Trophies:
Bronze

• You Can’t Break Me – Complete All 3 Co-op Objective Maps on Crushing
• Under Siege – Finish Wave 10 in 1 Siege Game
• Speedy – Get 10 First! Medals
• I’ll Cover You – Get 50 Defender Medals
• Fallen Angel – Get 50 Afterlife Medals
• Not So Fast – Get 20 Shut’em Down Medals
• Jack Of All Trades – Get 15 Triple Threat Medals
• You Run, I’ll Shoot – Get 10 Protectorate Medals
• Back At Ya – Get 50 Retaliation Medals
• Kneel Before Z.. – Get 5 Put’em Down Medals

Silver

• Rock a Rhyme – Get 100 Tricky Medals

Sometimes, that boy sitting on the moon reels in the worst catches.

"Get 'im quickly, Toothless! Scandinavian Idol is on in 30!"

One dragon is hot and the other is not.

More than an action game alone, How to Train Your Dragon actually consists of multiple aspects that formulate the whole. To begin the main quest you can choose to play from one of two perspectives: Hiccup or Astrid, the male and female protagonists from the movie. Either way you choose it doesn’t matter, for the importance of playing the game rests in the hands of shaping your flock of scorching reptiles. Up to four dragons will eventually be able to follow you, in which the thing to know about one dragon (and all of them equally) is that even if they behave a little differently in combat or look apart from one another, each one has curing methods, modifications, and status barometers to spend accumulated points on all the same. From within, there is a village to explore, and through navigation you’ll come across various areas of interest. Included in the inspection is your home (used for tweaking/healing dragons), a shop (a dealer for the healer), and the gates to a tournament arena where you’ll match off against ranked AI-controlled dragons in one-on-one sets through the lower-level scum trail until placing high enough to butcher the person carrying the most weight in the competition. Adding to all of this is inhabitants for objectives, animals, plants, and minerals to gather, mini-game events, and multiples of RPG-like training session. Putting that on the table, How to Train Your Dragon is not a brilliant game. It’s a mess spread out all over, a mess that you probably wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about picking up the pieces.

This dragon is better than we are already; it has two heads.

gain recipes from pacing townsfolk. Although, the point here completely centers on reenergizing your dragons, so the doctor can work his or her fingers to the bone from inside of the ‘home base.’ Operating around the island there are sheep, wild hogs, and chickens. There are flowers, carrots, destructible barrels and moveable stone tablets. Mobilize those stones. Pluck each plant. Dig a hole for a scurry of insects. Turn every chicken into the other white meat – the dead one. It’s with a long strain of recurring actions, bashing and culling dozens of goods one at a time that is the only way to carry on and tend to your dragons every time that they get off work. That is unless you decide to let your farthings go to the store clerk. Once inside the Dragon Den where you’ll care for your beastly party, it’s here though where you can revitalize each one individually, use recipes to wrap them up all at once, change their appearance and color schematic, or push their limits by spending points earned from dragon-infused scenarios.

Then again, there’s also the mini-games and combat training sessions to indulge. Combat training is simply a matter of regular brawls without the risen difficulty that you would find otherwise in contested fare. This section turns to boredom easily when you’ll find yourself completing the very same instruction over and over and over and over, four times in a row in four separate battles. Accepting these sets of teachings with every melee and projectile attack does reward you with experience points toward each of your dragons’ augmentation. Although, if you think about it… constant training, again and again, and with every dragon gives players ample opportunity to expand their play time into a state of sheer bother. When not committing to basic tutorial guidance (it should only take about ten minutes to adjust), a small list of mini-games waits on the other end of the island. An otherwise semi-interesting distraction from the main game, it’s here where more leveling and arcade bonuses can be acquired. Arcade mode, by the way, is an option in the game for up to two players where within the main game you have the ability to unlock a myriad of dragons for a versus battle, just like the one found in the story rounds. This is the perfect time for a sarcastic round of applause. Circling your dragon through flaming hoops under a time limit, carting sheep from distanced reaches by way of Dragcon Air, and pressing the corresponding buttons to ignite the structure in the sequence that they had appeared in are just a few of the examples of enlightenment that you’ll find through the course of this side attraction. Despite the game not sounding like a total blast, there are certain attributes that help elevate enjoyment, for as brief a time as that may be.

Evil wears a snarling grimmace.

Lucky you, Leif Ericson doesn’t require resurrection in order for you to discover the single most attractive land mass in How to Train Your Dragon: the graphics. How to Train Your Dragon is a colorful game that will remind you in some ways of being in touch with the film itself, while on the other hand the game won’t come quite close enough to matching up. That’s okay: the game still comes across as effective. Plotted around the miniature, humble, open world are tiny wooden houses, fields of bright grass, barrels and concrete statues, recognizable portraits of the characters from the film itself and a whole mess of animals all pacing around. Bubbling wide ocean blues and whites motions all around the mound of land, and yourself, as a character, has a few interesting touches of animation. Mashing your sword at barrels makes for a typical gesture that sees the damage and water rushing out. Yanking vegetables or plant life from someone else’s garden results in a squatting/tugging motion that has believable structure. Most interesting, probably, is in times when you’ll hop over to one of the numerously respawning barnyard critters. Tackling them, you’ll end up in a classic dusty whirlwind of unseen brutality. Returning from the dirt cloud as you were, your character will be standing there next to a plate of the animal’s baked development. Miss an animal, though, and your character will just leap forward with the sheep (or whatever) fleeing and squealing into the distance. Inside of the fighting grounds, the visuals look all right too. Dragons exude fire patterns that go from an orangey splattering all over the place to a more bluish split-second stab in the face. The ranges of animations, as mentioned earlier on, are fun to watch. The only problem is that these visuals aren’t excellently refined. Compared to other games, you’ll think, “Hmm… How to Train Your Dragon looks nice, but mother dear: Kratos’ blood-splattering divinity is the eye-sex that will give me a boner through to the Heavens!

Spicy food does that to everybody!

Up, down, and around we go. You’ve had a taste of greater; now try the lesser. The sound design within How to Train Your Dragon is one of the game’s worst aspects, in that its voice-acting isn’t necessarily corrupted, and yet it becomes that way when you’re forced to listen to the same stupid remarks in succession. Wheezy energetic shouts from either Jay Baruchel himself or someone who sounds a lot like him, such as “That barrel is brrrroken!” and “Oh, you’re sure to become a better dragon after this!” run endlessly it seems in given situations. If loopy voice-over work doesn’t bother you, then maybe the generic offerings from Scottish-sounding others in the surrounding area will. “I love my crops!” “I like what I see!” “Candy is sticky and good.” Such tacky content would only make you mute the volume, if not for the miniscule redeeming qualities that exist in the department. Sound effects are typical, in that dragons roar or sizzle with flame, the ocean sounds as if you’re there at the beach (with the wind of waves churning in restlessly), and animals squeal and cluck as they should. Depending on where you’re standing on the island, you can also hear the music switching tracks, all of it being reminiscent of an orchestrated Irish property. It’s peaceful, it’s not anything to pull on your memory strings, but these melodies are not going to fill your head with regret when you listen.

Vomitous fire? Sick!

Standard is a common classification for the ordinary, or the sorted lame wads in between bliss and bitch. Serenity drives gamers mad-happy. Abysmal conditions have gamers howling through a drunken rampage. How to Train Your Dragon is neither. Positioned in the center aligning, this is one movie game that will go on for eons probably slipping detection or going untouched by the masses… unless you really have a thing for movie games. How to Train Your Dragon is neither worth it or worthless. There’s some decency, but not enough to have it be that you must not miss this one. Unless you’ve seen the film, you probably wouldn’t know about or care about the tale from within. Battle after battle, collection after collection: How to Train Your Dragon badly sweats its very own broken record. A seal of approval is not melt down properly for this one. Its seal is hanging in there loosely, unfettered and uncared for. You’ll feel the same way. Maybe you’ll hang in there liking the game an inch or two, but for the rest How to Train Your Dragon has miles to catch up with the very best.

His name is Kratos: The almighty, anti-heroic, powerful, God of War. Through all of Kratos’ journeys and campaigns of war and fierce encounters of battle, he has never taken up a challenge like the one he will face in God of War III, the final piece to an epic saga that ends with an unforgettable battle, of Olympic proportions.

Kratos and the Icarus Wings

Now for the Review, I hope that first paragraph got you excited, because the excitement does not end there. The amazing, opening scene of this game starts off right where the second game left off with a crazy opening cut-scene that will look familiar to a lot of the god of war veterans out there. You start right on the back of Gaia, the earth Titan, who is essentially “Mother Earth,” an ally in your assault on Mount Olympus.

Your first big moment, in this game, is killing the God, Poseidon, as he ventures down into the ocean, summoning the leviathan. He sends his loyal monstrosity to kill you and Gaia. Your epic battle will last for about 20 to 40 minutes, depending on your difficulty. And in some cases, it may be even up to an hour before you are betrayed, yet again, by Gaia and back into Hades you go. I am not going to go any further into the story of the game however you can trust me that it is great! This Game is very well presented. Those familiar with God of War will be able to pick this game up and instantly start doing good. But not everything is the same in this game; it is quite innovative with the way they set up their combat system. It’s something we’ve never seen before or at least I haven’t. Each weapon has its own Magic skill or ability and you can combo these into attacks for instance Someone who is really good at this game can be fighting with the blades of Exile (the new blades for Kratos) and in the middle of a move you can switch to the claws of Hades and other weapons, on the fly, to finish an enemy off all in one combo! Another part of the combat in this game is the item powers, besides your health and magic you have a yellow bar that gauges your item usage. Items are things like the Bow of Apollo and the Hermes Boots. Using those drains your item power but it regenerates itself on its own. This makes items much more prominent in battle and increases the speed of certain battles and makes the combat even more in depth. The three status bars (health, magic, Item power.) all can be maxed out further by getting things like gorgon eyes, phoenix feathers, and Minotaur horns respectively.  This game is very fun and addictive. Another great game that is easy to learn hard to master. While the combat is fun the puzzles are also great. While not as tied into the combat as previous games they are still fun and diverse, some might even have you scratching your head.

Great Fighting System

The graphics in this game are off the top. If you thought Uncharted 2 was cool. You haven’t seen anything yet. The scale of this game is amazing but what’s even more amazing is the attention to detail as well, such as from the texture of Kratos’ skin, to the solid stone of Mt. Olympus. This is one of the PlayStation 3’s best looking games yet. The only thing more impressive than the graphics is how well the camera follows Kratos. Props to the camera work in this game because while it follows the titans massive scale it also keeps Kratos visible making the action easier for us to follow while making it look ULTRA BADASS!

His Vengeance Ends Now

Sold yet? No? Well how about this? The sound in this game is the best of the trilogy. The chains clashing together to the breaking of urns just show off how expertly recorded the sound in this game is. Surround Sound you wouldn’t expect to be good in a game like this but it actually feels really good as well. The Voice acting in this game is great everywhere except for one spot. Yep, the voice acting is amazing except for one single spot that kind of makes you laugh. In the opening scene when Kratos is on Gaia’s shoulder he screams “I bring the destruction of Olympus!” well, you’ll have to hear it for yourself but it is god awful…no pun intended. This game redeems itself though with great voice acting by actors like Rip Torn and Linda Hunt. The dialogue is spot on just adding to the fluidness of the story. Now for the Replay Value.  The only thing that will make you stop playing this game is probably a rage quit because the challenges in this game are extremely difficult than past games. You have the Challenge of Olympus, the Challenge of Exile, and even Chaos mode which is what they call the hardest difficulty and is unlocked upon beating the game. But with trophies, alternate costumes, special godly possessions throughout the game, makes God of War 3 even more complete. To beat the game on normal will take about 8 hours but completing everything will take around 30 to 40 hours depending on how you play. The incentive to replay the game with the alternate values isn’t prominent as much as you would want it but the fact that they’re there is good enough for me.

Amazing Detail

Overall this game is amazing. The characters, the reveals, the ending, it’s all great. This is Kratos’ final game and last struggle. The feeling of ending in this game surrounds you through the entire journey and by the end of your struggle you will know this epic trilogy has made its mark not only on gaming but on you as well. This game is definitely a game of the year contender. Greek mythology will never be the same again. As Kratos says, “My vengeance ends now.”

PSN@Home Editors Choice Award!

Lightning is fierce just as she is gorgeous.

When inspiration turns into faith, when faith turns into betrayal, and when betrayal turns into abandonment’s aberration, you might have a problem. As far as release dates go, Final Fantasy had always been an exclusive franchise. The first, the second, the third… the fourth, the fifth, the sixth… the seventh, the eighth, and the ninth: need this go on? Don’t you realize that whenever a Final Fantasy game launches, it is always for a single platform? Yes, Square has walked the “mark now, port later” path over the course of time, but not until slow sales of the PlayStation 3 has Square Enix come to the unthinkable conclusion: end Final Fantasy XIII’s exclusivity. At E3 2008, no one from that day forth would look at Square Enix the same way again. They stomped on the hearts of PlayStation 3 owners, not because the game would no longer arrive on one system, but more so because they would not launch the game until both versions were completed. No one knew of the game’s full status at this point, and no one has since – besides the suits of zipper-lipped industry insiders. Wasn’t the game supposed to be nearing completion by this point? Was there a retooling in effect? How would this affect the game, by catering to cross-platform infrastructures? Moreover, why didn’t Square Enix finish the PlayStation 3 edition off first, port later, and make the gaming world sane again? Whatever the answers may be, we’ll never know. We’ll only know the war that has waged since then, and the truth that now lies ahead with this flagship title’s final release four years in production being finally upon us!

From birth until death, sometimes people are a guiding force to light the way for a purpose. In a world split into two, there exists a place of people called Cocoon that sits above strange outskirts within their busy beehive, a haven away from the land of Pulse. Always led to believe that the creatures that exist in Pulse are fearful by a governing power known as the Sanctum, it is at this point, where a purging of the people is underway. Whosoever undergoes an exposure to a fal’Cie being, or a machine with godly powers is forever more cursed – at least that’s what everyone has no choice but to believe. When something is unknown, cowardice sets in. When the exact same something happens to someone close, the situation becomes clear that you’ve got to set things right and break a few laws. Rebelling against the Sanctum’s army, six heroes stand for a cause that only leads them all to the farthest reaches, as an l’Cie, or a person who has a chosen destiny that doesn‘t come with instructions. Now the choice to decide on what that path may be is beckoning, whether they’re to protect the army that seeks to destroy them or to save themselves.

There are two kinds of stunningly calibrated visuals out there: the ones that impress and the ones that do not. While one breaks ground, the other just sits there looking pretty. While the other has a jackhammer, the other reads a book. Final Fantasy XIII looks good, but really does nothing to prove it. Where other Final Fantasy games have scooped out miles in order to arouse, it’s as if Final Fantasy XIII doesn’t. Expressively, other video games released throughout this generation look better only because they carry a “wow” factor when they bring food home to the table. Final Fantasy XIII may look nice, but it’s not going to amaze in the same way that previous entries have. Behind you and in front, the sides and all other environmental adjacents are made up of mountainous canyons to cross through, of drab enemy tank, crate, and sewer-routed camp to sneak by, and even a botanical and evening-brushed city to circle around as the rollercoaster of the future spins on by. Some environments have people in them, and some do not. Some environments have light traces of water to witness a splash effect spring up as you walk over it, and others do not. For the most part, Final Fantasy XIII’s environments don’t stand out very well at all. Along the way, you may notice the enormous backdrops, like where liquid weaves a tad in the ocean next to a plain beach or some blocked gates with a crowd of AI people just hanging around on the other side. From the look to the lack of a richer set of textures… as neatly knit as the game’s sewing job proves, this has to be one of the worst looking Final Fantasy games in existence.

Someone must be thirsty.

Additionally, that’s just saying that Final Fantasy XIII is a disappointment on the Wile-o-meter. Its ability to stand head and shoulder against its brethren in the form of slamming down on impact factor is weak sauce. Final Fantasy XIII is still a nice looking game, depressing as it has turned out. Character models are fine, you’ll think. Well, actually some interesting design choices made it in, especially for the game’s lead protagonist. Named Lightning, she’s a sassy sort. Her hair being combed and hanging all down her face, her red cape attached to one shoulder blade as the sword’s carrying case wags back and forth from behind… it’s unique.

Snow’s facial hair spread stands out on a strong jaw line, a face buried in a cap, and an overcoat dangles with shredded edging. If anything deserves your focus the most, the cut of characters would be it. Battle windows are effective all the same. You’ll have flames zipping across the screen and electrical balls of energy motioning toward you. Blades sweep enemies into the skies, and guns blast along the bottom, as characters jump around and become knocked down, reacting to how brutal each sequence plays itself out. Best of all is likely the summon spells, where rose petals flutter around in one particular movie sequence as your white knight comes galloping in to save the day.

Messy face: does the mouth lead or follow? Final Fantasy games have had failings before in the sound department, particularly on music’s sliding scale – just like a piano. Notes pile up sweetly and they tumble down into darker depths. The Final Fantasy musical maestro Nobuo Uematsu hasn’t been a permanent staple in the series for nearly a decade. This legend has composed the greats, and he is not the reason why Final Fantasy XIII’s soundtrack sours in certain parts. There’s actually quite a bit of diversity in the song selections, as rock, electronic, instrumental, and even some songs with words falling into place. In total, this composition comes across both soundly and strangely. When you’re listening to a jazzy harmonica motif strewn in the background, that’s when you start to feel less respect for the game‘s irregularity. Compared to this section, conceivably the rest of the lot isn’t as unfavorable. Audio is a stranger to being in danger, for this aspect happens to have no significant follies. Footsteps differentiate between surfaces, gunshots and magical attacks burst out and crackle where they should and other noises pitch in correctly, whether foot soldiers are charging in on your position from behind the bend or a levitating enemy’s rocket pack gusts right toward you.

Strong vocals tell of the main cast. Distinctive and appropriate matchups happens to be the calling for the talent at work, from Hope’s fervent quiet to Vanille’s spunky British accent that will keep your ears dialed in. On the other hand, Square Enix decided to create the first Final Fantasy that would open the gates to fully voiced NPCs. Each person in a crowd that you run by, who isn’t an enemy, is going to say something whenever you get close. In the earlier Final Fantasy games, the people that you would talk to would have text boxes prompting their thoughts.

"No contest! Cloud's weapon is waaay more enormous."

They had stuff integrated in the story that you would want to read about, no matter how minor it was. Instead, here Final Fantasy XIII’s objective is to feed the full details of the game into your understanding only through data logs that will update, as you get further into the story. If it’s not a part of the allotted playtime and you have to spend time away from the game within the menu system browsing off-course, you might be thinking that instead Square should have just kept the text in the game. After all, the only sentences those NPCs have mutters through generic speech patterns that are unimportant, and more so are sometimes hard to hear when the music overshadows its softness anyhow.

The role-playing genre that gamers cared about ten years ago hasn’t been the same for some while. Final Fantasy X is the last of the “main” Final Fantasy series to engage enemies’ row-to-tow, switching turns and strategizing with traditional, tactical turn-based bliss. Final Fantasy XII arrived six years afterward, already past the point where a non-standard sequel had arrived. The twelfth installment hiked up the action in a period where Western role-playing games were flooding the market. This was an approach to diminish the count of seconds that battle time would commence, as unlike in previous games load times and summon spells were drenched in minutes rather than seconds. The gaming community spoke out, and Square Enix listened. Final Fantasy XIII takes its chops from Final Fantasy XII in battle formation, but in other regards, the game draws its energy from all over the Final Fantasy map.

Take Final Fantasy XII. Just like it, enemies appear on the battlefield ahead of time where each encounter initiates upon your ability to run toward the fiend(s) and make contact. A few things to keep in mind about this approach are that it’s best drawing near the monster only when it has its back turned to your front. Getting a jump on the enemy is what lands a player into a preemptive strike, or the chance to precociously attack. One problem with this ploy is that you won’t always know when a creature has its back turned or not. Is this thing with a fin covering looking my way or the opposite way? Where is this glowing ball’s frontal lobe located? While immense dragon-like beings, humanoid soldiers, and tigeriffic classes are on the easier end of dissolving the situation, another small issue presents itself with the scale of the battlefield. If you’re a Final Fantasy aficionado, or at least have some small recollective knowledge of the series, it’s widely known that towns, NPCs, mini-games, weapon shops, inns, sidequests, and other such significant properties were a rather large backbone of any, every, and all Final Fantasy operations… until now.

Final Fantasy XIII is the final Fantasy to make use of such well-known franchise conventions as exploration, as the game has for the most part trimmed down its bloated waist. Aside from a couple of “activities,” such as smashing rows of enemies with a mech or chasing after a Chocobo, most of the game is entirely spent following long drawn out trails that ever so slightly deter, only to venture down yet another walled-off path. You’ll miss the pit stops. You’ll miss the dynamic conversations when reaching a villain’s lair, having them being a constant rather than a distant strain on the story. Final Fantasy XIII’s plot is mainly rehearsed between the collaboration of some same and then some differentiating “chosen” who often get separated on their travels, split up for a narrative that switches between each personality’s backstory as well as the one ahead.

There is a point to this, though. In such condensed environments, it’s impossible to ensure that a precedent strike occurs at all times, as narrow hollows paint a portrait that holds little space for honing in on your enemy’s buttocks. These aren’t wide valleys; they’re scrutinizing routes that only veer off into handfuls of extra space for additional monsters to fight and/or floating treasure balls to pry open occasionally. Tracking the condition upon which each battle ensues probably isn’t as important as knowing how to progress through one, though. Final Fantasy XIII’s system acts similarly and adversely from what’s familiar in a Final Fantasy. Starting out you’ll be able to select your character’s standard attacks from an “Abilities” menu. Diversely, automating your confrontational agenda means that manual choice drops the length that it takes for a player to choose, and randomly generates a plotted list of offensive commands all for you at the press of a button. Some of what you’ll need to know is that once a battle starts, everything is in real-time. Fingering an attack method or an item from the categorical menu won’t halt the enemy’s advances. Another thing is that all attacks base off an ATB gauge, or Active Time Battle.

Switching classes and formulating diverse attacks is key.

Each time that a battle input manifests, it’s on the left-hand side of the screen where you’ll notice the meter ascending. This is your blood, your food, or your fuel for issuing commands. Each time that an attack is ordered, the gauge will go back to zero and begin its climb all over. Simple, except for the times enemy forces will toughen – and they will. Each of your opposition and you has a health meter designating detection from how much juice there is in the tank, but furthermore also has something brand-new: the stagger bar. Cut them, shoot them, or set them aflame – harming an enemy enough times, in other words, will eventually increase a yellow bar right underneath the amount of green that dictates how much left there is of it that you need to destroy. Once the stagger meter fills up enough, this turns an enemy on top of their game into a stumbling fool that’s about to be shamed. Effectively, each subsequent strike causes them to suffer greater damage – but this all happens only until the yellow bar completes its rate of depletion.

Complexity isn’t always free in this world, not even from Final Fantasy standards. Adapting to Final Fantasy XIII doesn’t happen Lightning-fast. Through a series of tutorial sessions and descriptions setup over time, you’ll be approximately ten hours into the story until the game actually starts to become translucent. Only then will the fuzz fall off and only then will everything start to become available – including essential elements like upgrades and summon spells. Summons are another huge chunk of battle whenever necessary. Defined as Eidolons in this Fantasy, you’ll only come across these ethereal giants at given points during your adventures, and these duels are certainly trying to overcome. Beating a summon means that you’ll have to appeal to their weakness in a set time limit, whether you’re to shield and/or attack to boost the meter that makes them meet their soon-to-be master: you. You’re bound to fail in capturing one, at least once. Having done so, you’ll dispose of TP (no, not toilet paper), or Technical Points, whenever calling upon their thunder. Using Eidolons in combat will also clear away whoever else is in your character’s party, as private conversations are apparently what are in an Eidolon’s best interest. Fighting alongside the summon is where their purple Gestalt gauge starts its descent, otherwise known as a limit for how much screen time they have between their arrival and departure. You’ll also have the option to combine forces with an Eidolon and dispense points through a secondary button-tapping sequence, pounding on the face buttons multiple times in a row to deal extra damage for the likes of bosses that need it. At this stage, you’ll view a main character hopping on the back of Odin, whose transformation is that of a horse. All summons are more than meets the eye – they’re transportational bodies in disguise, decidedly an unexpected twist for the series.

There is of course more about the battles than just swinging a sword around and magically spelling death. Every time that you exit the battle screen, one thing that you won’t have to worry about is constantly stocking up on potions, antidotes, or other status relievers. Health (or HP) always has its clock automatically rewound. The same goes for poison and other such determents. TP (which essentially replaces the magic system) is the only one that doesn’t regenerate. To regain TP, you’ll have to battle hard, battle fast, and battle well. Fights with smaller durations are the ones that will net players a larger count of stars, which along with Crystarium Points (CP) and items/components are ratings designed to elevate your course. The TP count refuels with every star earned. It helps that the reward of money is nowhere to be found after battle, because after all currency is nowhere to be found in this game except for the rare occurrences when it is.

He's either hungry, or he's yawning.

Otherwise, you would have the funding to buy several things, with the long list of items that are of great importance at times. Rather, you won’t be receiving many health-generating potions, character-reviving phoenix downs, or components that not only are useful for upgrading weapon/accessories but also are extravagantly expensive in comparison to the little money that nestles into your possession. From time to time money, or in this case Gil, can be stuffed in a treasure ball or otherwise will be available when you’ll find yourself selling off goods during desperate times. Final Fantasy XIII is just like Final Fantasy XII in that Gil isn’t yours after battle, but unlike Final Fantasy XII, there aren’t any monster hunts to participate in… at least not directly for cash. You’ll suffer ever so slightly for losing all of your money while buying expensive things when they start to run out, and it shouldn’t be this way.

In some regards, it’s fair to say that Final Fantasy has stifled, while it’s obvious that from another perspective number thirteen is simply branching out into newer regions. Final Fantasy XIII’s experience system comes off as approachable and foreign at the same time. Easy as can be, the CP acronym as mentioned earlier is a point system that pays its way as often as you want it to, and you will want it to. If you’re thirsting for more health, strength in magic or attacks, or more to the point new abilities, then you’ll have to spend accrued Crystarium Points on a leveling wheel that constantly elevates. From the in-game menu, the “Crystarium” submenu spans across one or eventually multiple character classes. Swapping out classes on the fly is possible during combat just so you know, whether you want your team to have a medic curing the weak or a synergist provoking enemies and defensively bolstering your party so that the team has a divisionary moment to catch up. Character classes are a part of a paradigm system, which in itself has entry to customization so that you get to choose which classes come with you on the field of battle and in what order. When leveling your characters through the Crystarium page, it’s here where connected lines spin into wheels, which are all dotted with colored crystals along the way. Some crystals follow along the path while others branch out. The idea is that in order to upgrade your character’s class, you’ll have to hold down on ‘X’ so to spread the points. So long as you’re holding the button, a brightened line will curl around the paths, dispensing points, and embedding your characters’ with more options during a fight. Choosing where to spend points is all up to the player. Where you spend them, how you spend them: these obligations don’t matter as much as when you spend them, as the Crystarium experience system is straightforward just like playing the game itself.

Are you talking to me? Because if you are, I've got a joke. Two rabbis walk into a barber shop. Get it?

Four years incoming, it shouldn’t have taken as long as it has to finalize Final Fantasy XIII. Somewhere along the lines, Square Enix must have stopped dead in their tracks to lose faith in a ship with one major leak. Bon voyage to the PlayStation 3 crowd, Square Enix parties that night on Microsoft Isle, only to write Sony while they patched things up on their end with a more able-bodied crew (more customers) and a vaster supply of eats and treats (more wonderful software). All the while sleeping drunkenly on Microsoft’s smelly barge, Square Enix awoke one day to finish what they started on another platform by splitting it down the middle. Servicing two halves, we have now some news that could set aside the differences that make or break the decision that you should decide upon when asking yourself if this game is really worth your time. The bad news is that this beloved franchise has lost its luster. The bad news is that the visual quality has been diminished so to accommodate an inferior model. The bad news is that essentially Square Enix would not allow PlayStation 3 owners a different game than what could have been. If given the time, Final Fantasy XIII could have been way more, way better. Scrapping the original game engine for another would leave one to believe that Final Fantasy XIII is not the game intended for us all of this time. Setting hope aside and living with what we’ve got, you’ve been waiting for “Final Fantasy XIII b.” this long… might as well give in and play on.