Lets Play: Halo Anniversary Edition

Following my new post framework, Wednesdays will be lets play days. Where I will play a certain game and talk about my experience.

Just look at that title screen. Doesn’t it make you want to play a Halo game? Well it should, because Halo is simply amazing.

For those of you that don’t know, Halo Anniversary Edition is a polished and modernized version of the original Halo: Combat Evolved. This is the first Halo game released by the franchises new permanent designer 343 industries. Even though 343 Industries is a branch of Microsoft as Bungie is, I am a little worried of where they may take the Halo universe. But I digress, Halo Anniversary Edition is essentially all the same programming from the original game, just with improved graphics. Some might say this was lazy on their part, but I believe it is much better that they kept it the same rather than trying to changing it.

Since I was short on time I started on the second level, one of my favorites. One thing that caught my attention is that even in the first halo they really had the driving down.

The driving is extremely smooth and the cpu gunner works very well. In this play through I got through three levels, and one thing that kept sticking out to me was how funny the primitive animations looked with good graphics. Because when 343 Industries redid the graphics they didn’t redo the way things moved. So character movements are very un-detailed and it just seems so out of place with these graphics. One thing that really brought back many memories of the original Halo was the death animation. Anyone who has played Halo: CE remembers how no matter what angle your body hit the ground it always ended up doing the same spin and landing in the exact same position every time. I laughed each time I saw this animation during my playthrough.

Elites are by far my favorite alien in the Halo universe. One thing I’ve always missed in the later Halo games is hearing the aliens talk in their native tongue. While playing through, I was very pleased to hear “Wort Wort Wort!” (my favorite elite phrase of all time). The typical weapons I used throughout my play through was the magnum pistol, and either the plasma rifle or plasma pistol. You always hear people talk about how good the Halo 1 pistol was, and yes it is a very good weapon. But I do believe the hype created about it is mostly from comparison, because I dont even think Halo 2 had a pistol and Halo 3’s pistol was garbage.

Hunters are my second favorite aliens in the Halo universe, they are simply badass. So I was very disappointed while playing through because they were extremely easy to kill. Hunter fights in other Halo games were the perfect combination of difficulty and fun; it took strategy, planning, badass maneuvers, and pure luck to defeat hunters even on the normal difficulty. But in the original Halo you could take both hunters down with a single plasma pistol. So in original games, you win some you lose some.

Now, I’d say about half the reason I love Halo games, is because of the story behind it all. 343 Industries won major points with me by adding terminals (like in Halo 3), but unlike Halo 3 these terminals didn’t include text that pertained to Halo’s backstory, they contained cinematics that pertained to Halos backstory. I simply love them, here are a few screen shots of them.

As you can see all the ones I saw on my play-through had to do with 343 guilty sparks. As I typed that I realized the significance of 343 Industries name, very clever.

If you have any thoughts of Halo or games in general, leave a comment!

Thats all for the first installment of Lets Play, next wednesday I will be playing Call of Duty Black Ops: Nazi Zombies.

How All Video Games Should Be More Like Dead Space 2

From now on, I will be following a loose framework for my posts, days that start with “T” are free post days were I can post whatever I like.

This post will have nothing to do with the game-play, story, or general awesomeness of Dead Space 2, instead it will be entirely about it’s achievements.

I for one enjoy the achievement system on the Xbox 360, and as you can see I have a pretty respectable amount of gamer-score. But as you can also see in “completed” game section, Dead Space 2 is very lonely… It is a good thing I finally got that last achievement I needed for Dead Space 2, because prior to this weekend I didn’t have every achievement unlocked for any game. Now when I say more games should be like Dead Space 2, I’m referring to the kinds of achievements in that game. All of them were fairly doable, no achievements were impossible to obtain and on the flip side, you didn’t get achievements for turning the game on, and yes I have played games were you got an achievement for exactly that.

Most of the achievements pertained to gameplay aspects, which you could easily get just by reading what the achievement was, and then altering your playing strategies to get said achievement. There were achievements in which you had to find secret items, normally I would have to look up how to do all of these achievements online, but the maps on Dead Space 2 are not too intricate and I found almost all the secret items I needed after a couple run-throughs. Another thing I appreciate about Dead Space 2 is that they didn’t have any achievements that you got from the multiplayer. When games make achievements that you must unlock in multiplayer matches, they just become chores that dampen your multiplayer experience, this would have been especially true in Dead Space 2’s case because I didn’t care for the multiplayer very much. Now, all games have that one achievement “Beat the game on the hardest difficulty” and Dead Space 2 is no exception.

Dead Space 2 has one of the hardest campaign of any game I have ever played, the only games that come to mind as being harder are the Halo games on legendary, and Twisted Metal (2012). But one thing that is different, is that Dead Space 2 doesn’t make you want to throw your controller across the room and rage like legendary Halo games do. The main thing that make Dead Space 2 hard is that on the hardest difficulty there are no checkpoints and you can only save three times. This seems like a daunting task, but once you get your strategies down it is very doable. Anyway, the main point I’m trying to make is games need to lighten up a bit with the difficulty of their achievements, and become a bit more like Dead Space 2. Achievements should be challenging, but not impossible, and easily obtained with some time and effort put towards it.

Now, what do you think of achievements and their difficulty?

Twisted Metal 2: The Bossiest Bosses

One thing I say about older games is that they knew how to make bosses. The first boss is the devil himself, he drives a tank named minion. His special weapon is a tri-force of missiles accompanied by a freeze blast, this does quite a bit of damage and he uses it frequently. If he doesn’t feel like shooting you, he can simply ram into you at fast speeds dealing more than enough damage.

Despite all these things if your decent at playing the game he is a pretty manageable boss, mostly because he is essentially only a little more than a single typical foe. He handles just like any other car and is even a secret unlock-able character.

Minion is mere child’s play compared to the games final boss, Dark Tooth. Dark Tooth is sweet tooth’s father, and is arguably the best boss in twisted metal history.

As a young child I could not even comprehend fighting this behemoth of a boss. So I would just drive around the streets of Hong Kong hoping not to run into this mad man, while my dad dealt with him. I even had nightmares of Dark Tooth. As you can see in the picture, Dark Tooth is a giant ice cream truck with a flaming clown head to top it all off. At a distance he will shoot spinning, flaming, ice cream cones at you, freeze you, and throw his flaming clown head at you. His attacks are even more brutal as you get close, because he will do all of the above, and also proceed to jump on top of you. Only the fastest of Twisted Metal’s characters can escape Dark Tooth, for he has amazing speed. Defeating this monster is no easy feat even for the most hardened of twisted metal players. But if you manage to do so you win right? Wrong. After this beast there is one final challenge there is one final challenge.

You manage to destroy the truck, but not the flaming clown head. To destroy Dark tooth once and for all you must kill his head.

This final form has no where near the god like amounts of health his previous form had, but if you take this form of Dark Tooth lightly you’ll pay with your life. He still has all the weapons in in his arsenal, and he can dish the damage out. With a powerful special you can take him out fast enough. So those are the bosses of Twisted Metal 2, some of the craziest bosses ever made.

My Top 5 Video Game Soundtracks of All Time

This is just my opinion of the best video game soundtracks based on games I have played. I am sure as I experience more games and hear more songs this list will change, but for now I though I would share my top 5.

1) Halo

2) Final Fantasy VII (One Winged Angel)

3) Assassin’s Creed 

4) Call of Duty, World at War: Nazi Zombies (Der Reise)

5) The Legend of Zelda 

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: il Portatore di Morte

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character reviews here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/ and here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/twisted-metal-2-character-review-thumper/

So unless you speak italian you’re probably wondering what il portatore di morte means, it means the bringer of death. I wrote it in italian for a few reasons, 1. I’m mostly italian, 2. I’m learning how to speak italian, and 3. I wanted an excuse to mention that my last name (Mori) is a form of the word death in italian.

The person behind the wheel: Mr. grimm is the grim reaper, he enters twisted metal because he is addicted to souls, he can never get enough of them. If he wins he will wish for the worlds population to plumet so that he can have a sufficient feast. Now if you look at the character picture above, he looks like a badass, and he should! He’s the god damn grim reaper! But in the video sequence after his victory he appears like this:

And he talks in this whiny voice, “Calypso…. I can’t take the pain…. ughhh…. I need more souls….” This disappointed me, I would expect more from the angle of death. The way Mr Grimm gets screwed is that he gets his wish, and the whole world is turned into a battle ground where death rates skyrocket.

But obviously the human race eventually becomes extinct and he has no more souls to eat ever again, so he comes back whining to Calypso.

The Car: Mr grim has been in every twisted metal game ever released, and he always has driven a motorcycle. Except of course in my least favorite twisted metal game of all time, twisted metal 4. In that game he appears as “Captain Grimm” and drives a crazy boat with wheels, just plain stupid. Throughout all of the twisted metal games Mr grimm has always been one of my favorite characters game play wise. I tend to like characters with extreme strengths and weaknesses as apposed to more well rounded characters. Mr Grimm excels in speed and special weapon power. In Twisted Metal 2 he has my favorite handling by far, his max speed is 131, and has powerful special weapon that can be used at any range. For his special Mr Grimm summons a soul in the form of a bloody skull that races across the screen, doing major damage to whomever it may hit.

The freeze attack definitely helps, but given the attack’s sheer speed you dont always need it.

As I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

Twisted Metal 2 Character Review: Thumper

This is a review on a specific character from the first game I’ve ever played, Twisted Metal 2. To read my review of this game in general go here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/13/twisted-metal-the-only-good-car-destruction-games/.

also, check out my other character review here, https://potassiumpizzaparty.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/twisted-metal-2-character-review-my-old-favorite/

The person behind the wheel: When me and my dad picked twisted metal up again I ventured out from my normal mister slam and started trying to play as other characters, Thumper quickly became one of my favorites. The driver of thumper is named bruce, he lives in LA and is part of dangerous gangs. He enters the contest because he’s tired of fighting for his life everyday and wants to be somebody. If he wins he will wish to be the ruler of the world.

Like almost everyone else he too gets screwed by his wish, He becomes the ruler of the world, but the world has been reduced to ruble due to the twisted metal contest. So he hardly has anything to rule over.

The Car: Bruce drives a pink low rider. The car has average handling, decent armor, and the most powerful special weapon in the game. Like I said the car has average handling, but average in this game is pretty spectacular. Thumper does not handle like a low rider at all, it can reach 105 mph and fly across the map if you hit a jump right.For Thumper’s special weapon a flamethrower shoots a flame out the front of the car dealing massive amounts of damage. This weapon can be a little tricky to get a hit with, but combined with a freeze shot, Thumpers decent handling, and the weapons range it isn’t too hard.

Like I said in my last post I would love to hear from you if you’ve ever played any of the twisted metal games, or if you want to talk classic games in general.

My Recently un-dusted PlayStation 3

 

I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember, it’s just something I grew up with. In my more early years of gaming the Xbox certainly took a backseat role. There were much more games for my other systems that appealed to me, and also I did not appreciate the huge awkward controller that belonged to the original Xbox. But when the Xbox 360 came out, it instantaneously became my main gaming system. The controllers were perfect, the graphics were great, and the game selection was wonderful. Out the three main systems, xbox exclusives proved to be my favorite. Only the occasional Wii exclusives (such as super smash bros brawl, or paper mario) would detour me from my Xbox 360. All the while the playstation 3 that my dad bought sat in my living room, virtually untouched.

Even now the only use my Playstation is receiving running an old Playstation 1 game that me and my dad used to play all time. You’ll hear more about that later. My main point is, my Playstation has been there the whole time, and not once has a PS exclusive come out that has compelled me to get it. That is, not until now. A Playstation exclusive is coming out in the very immediate future that I just have to get. I can’t wait to get my hands on it and you’ll hear about it soon enough.

How I Think the [Prototype] Series Will Be Similar To the Assassin’s Creed Series

Even the most casual of gamers have at least heard of the Assassin’s Creed series, but not everyone knows of it’s more humble beginnings, and my theory is that [Prototype] is the humble beginning of what could be a fairly popular series.

Although the first Assassin’s Creed was a fairly good game I do believe Ubisoft could have done a much better job with it, after all the game did come out in 2007. On the other hand there’s [Prototype], a game that (in my opinion undeservingly) sold enough copies to be considered a platinum hit. I picked this game up about a year or so ago when I was looking for just about anything that wasn’t first person shooter, what I got didn’t impress me.

Plot: Assassin’s Creed has an amazingly original plot, while [Prototype]….. not so much. what makes a plot original for me is whether or not another game could be made with a similar plot. No game could ever make a plot similar to Assassin’s Creed, but a game with a plot similar to [Prototype] is a different story. The plot is basically a sketchy company is preforming biological experiments on unsuspecting civilians, one such civilian escapes and possesses awesome powers and now seeks to find the men who did this to him and make them pay. Come on, that’s so generic it’s almost cliché.

Graphics: I for one am not too picky about graphics in a game, but both of these games were significantly under the norm of graphic quality for their time. Both games have pretty bland and unoriginal graphics. The cut-scene graphics for [Prototype] are also nothing to be proud of, the lip synching is awful, characters show little to no emotion, and their movement is awkward. Assassin’s Creed’s cut-scenes however were very welly animated; it makes me wonder why they didn’t take the time to improve in-game graphics a bit more.

Animation: I might not be picky when it comes to graphics but animation quality is a whole different story. I cannot stand games with awkward animations, it constantly brings me out of the game and downgrades my experience all around. Assassin’s Creed’s animations were pretty awkward, the character didn’t move fluidly at times and interactions with the environment and other characters were awkward. [Prototype]’s animation is smooth, but things don’t behave how you would expect them to. For example, when you are holding someone in the air by their neck, and proceed run around a little bit, their body flails around like a rag doll. Also when you throw a car it seems to glide through the air, it just doesn’t feel like your throwing a car.

Game-play: [Prototype] runs on a generic super-hero game engine, this disappointed me  greatly. I felt like I was playing a spider-man game for god’s sake! On the other hand Assassin’s creed runs on an original game engine, but it didn’t seem to have all the kinks worked out of it. Each game has original game-play aspects which I appreciate. Since Assassin’s Creed runs on such an original game engine just about every aspect of it is original so I won’t bother going into it. [Prototype] includes just about anything you could expect to be in a super-hero like game such as, flight, disguising, wall running, hand to hand combat (obviously), and stealth missions, but it also includes something you wouldn’t expect in a typical super hero game, the ability to pick up weapons and drive vehicles. Also by (for lack of a better word) consuming people the main character gains their memories, this might be more of a plot aspect, but it also serves a purpose in game-play, because you can gain certain abilities by doing so.

Assassin’s Creed had more advantages to begin with than [Prototype] does, so I don’t see [Prototype] becoming anywhere as big as Assassin’s Creed, but [Prototype] definitely has potential. There are enough original aspects to the game-play to make it distinguishable from other similar games, and the plot seems to thicken a bit in [Prototype] 2 when the main character switches to an army official bent on tracking down the main character from the first. Who knows, maybe the two main characters will start recruiting people and giving them powers as well, then the next game could be called [Prototype]: Brotherhood. Then I would be able to say I told you so.

p.s. just for the record I wont normally be this critical of games, this review type thing just called for it!