[D.C.]

I've just played Guitar Hero: World Tour for the first time this week too. There's something strangely fun about it. I've basically played only the drums. I too suck at this game, although shamefully I have to play on easy mode... for now. I have no plans of getting addicted to this game, so maybe I should stop while I still can.

[JemyM]

Alone in the Dark (V)
The fifth "Alone in the Dark" is not a horrible game.

What? Reviews were wrong? 62.5% average on gamerankings?
Well, let me explain.

AitD have really strong flaws. That doesn't mean it's without strengths, nor does it mean the game cannot be enjoyed. AitD is a game that tries to be many things but do not have enough polish and quality assurance. This leads to a game that sometimes shines due to it's gallery of innovations, but sometimes make you wonder "what were they thinking?".

A mix of genrés
AitD gameplay is a case of mixed genrés, from GTAIV style free-roaming with carchases, to Tomb Raider style puzzlesolving in ancient underground architecture, to Resident Evil 4 style action with the option to go into first person. Maybe trying so many things at once is the reason that some of these ideas never came out as good as they sound on paper due to lack of testing and polishing.

The Graphics and Audio
Let's begin with the good stuff. AitD is a beauty both for the eyes and the ears. The game carry one of the best soundtrack in modern gaming history, which I believe many will grab on the side even if they hated the game. Visually the game have very few flaws and it borrows from moviemaking in how it build up what you see on screen, using great cameraangles and slowmo when it fits the scene. The game also have a DVD style "skip ahead" function which is kinda unique. You can skip right to the end if you like but then you miss out on the story. But you can also jump back in time to replay a sequence if you like.

The story
Ok. First a friendly spoiler for fans of the series.

Spoiler:

The time-jump from 1920 to modern time is explained

The story is not bad. It's no oscar, but it isn't bad. It's better than the extremely silly RE4 for example. The dialogue can be bad at times and Carnby seems out of character but the voice acting is still ok. I would like to address the change of universe though. The first three games were inspired by Lovecrafts Cthulhu-Mythos and the 4th game dealt with indians. It's therefore quite odd that the fifth game subscribe to the judeo-christian mythology which is incompatible with the Cthulhu Mythos.

Controling Carnby
AitD controls is the most slammed aspect of the game. Even fans and the developers themselves agree that the controls are horrible.

When I begun to play the game through the first episodes and trying to understand it's controls, the game felt almost surreal. This is a game that have keymapping for functions like "Drop Rope" and "Fork Up/Down". Considering that "Drop Rope" can only be used when holding a rope, and "Fork Up/Down" only can be used when driving a forklift, one must ponder why one of the functions that can only be used when not doing so could be used for these functions. For example, since you cannot USE while holding a rope and you USE to hold a rope, why not being able to USE to drop the rope? Furthermore, as default "Drop Rope" is assigned to PrntScrn... The PC control issues made me almost imagine how the game was teared off the hands of the keymap designer during an early alpha stage of the PC controls. Another evidence for this is that all button help during the tutorial and in menus, show XBox 360 controller buttons, like showing you a green button when you should press the USE function and a red button when you should press the CANCEL function.
At least they bothered to code a proper mouseaim unlike Resident Evil 4.

Speaking of which, in AitD you can wave whatever you hold by using the mouse. This works in theory but not in practice, making fights unneccessary encumbersome. You swing your mouse back and forth, often off the mousepad, then you strike with left mousebutton. However, this unique controls also makes up for some cool puzzles that could only be done with this type of gameplay. Eventually, shooting enemies with firebullets is the preferred method simply due to the controls.

Not surprising for a half-coded console-port, left mousebutton is refered to as "Mouse 0". During the tutorial of the game you will learn how to use a fire extinguisher. The game is friendly enough to tell you to use Mouse 0 to do so, but it doesn't tell you that you need to be in first-person mode. Took me 15 minutes to figure that one out. Somewhat later you must drop the Fire Extinguisher. But you do not drop it by the function "Drop Item", you drop it by the function "Cancel". Took me another 5 minutes to figure that out. The lack of consistency and too many buttons is one of the greatest flaws of the game.

I could go on and on about issues with the controls alone but that would cover several pages.

The inventory
AitD tries a new inventory system and I actually believes that the PC version have an advantage here. Unlike previous games endless inventory, AitD5 makes your jacket your inventory. When opening your inventory screen you see Carnby looking down into his jacket, with pockets on the left side and the right side. From that screen you can combine items such as molotov coctails, homemade flamethrowers etc. The inventory is in realtime which lead to huge complaints by XBox 360 players, but I had no problems with this on PC since the mouse gave me very fast control over what I wanted to do. However, the vast majority of the combinations you can make is meaningless. I ended up throwing/shooting flasks instead of bothering with molotovs or sticky molotovs as it did the job well without the extra hassle. Out of the maybe 20 combinations I ended up using only a pair of them for puzzlesolving.

A comment should be made on how realistic some of the solutions are. You combine double-sided stickytape with a molotov to make a sticky molotov. That makes little sense. Even worse, you can pour flammable liquid on your gun to make flaming bullets. If you did that in reality the gun would blow up. Finally you have to carry batteries with you since batteries in your flashlight lasts for a couple of minutes. In reality, such batteries lasts through the night.

Driving
One of the most frustrating sequences in AitD is when you have to drive from point A to point B while being in hurry. There's three such episodes of which the first one is extremely difficult, so difficult that I believe the majority of the players who never finished the game gave up there. It's too bad because it's a really cool map in which you have to drive through a crumbling New York, which is spectacular at least visually. The problems isn't the controls, although in the PC version, without access to an analog stick, is pretty clunky. The problems is the physics engine, which really doesn't work as intended. Sometimes your car is launched like a catapult for driving over a tiny object on the street. Also the first sequence is extremely random. You might get hit out of the nowhere by meeting cars or falling debris and you have to finish the entire sequence in one shot. I took it on maybe 10-20 tries.

An MMO style grinding quest
Another important sequence to point out is the MMO-style grinding quest towards the end of the game. Although this is a spoiler it is a fair one. You have to find and burn roots, in an open free-roaming Central Park. This whole session felt like a waste of time really and it takes an hour or two. The greatest problem with it is finding the fire you need since you will be forced to scavenge for flameable stuff between roots.

Cracked gem
AitD is a case of a cracked gem. If you can ignore the crack the game still shines and can be enjoyable. If you cannot ignore the crack, the game wont make you satisfied. Anyone who are serious about horror games should try to at least get used to the controls as there's still some stuff shining beneath all the mud. You probably shouldn't play full price for it though.

[Dale Baldwin]

Originally Posted by wilco

It is my 1st guitar game and I suck at it...
Can't get my hands around the 5th button to do the Hard mode... any advice?

For me, I don't touch the green fret unless I need to. I keep my hand on red/yellow/blue/orange, moving down to green as needed. It's much easier to stretch your index finger than your little finger.

[wilco]

Originally Posted by Dale Baldwin

For me, I don't touch the green fret unless I need to. I keep my hand on red/yellow/blue/orange, moving down to green as needed. It's much easier to stretch your index finger than your little finger.

I actually was already stretching the index finger between the red and green button on normal, I was only using three fingers because of my lack of coordination with the little one (I blame the lack of controllers using it ). I guess I need to practice using it.

[JemyM]

Tomb Raider: Underworld
When the original Tomb Raider came about, I had neither Playstation nor PC, but a friend was obsessed by the game. Like many I poked fun of the game due to it's female lead with an above average bust size that kept growing. As time passed and new titles came about I shunned them and the series ran into a halt. Then came Tomb Raider: Legends, a title that did not only earn praise by reviewers everywhere, but also claimed to "reboot the storyline" so you didn't need to play earlier titles (that was scrapped in the new canon). That was enough to make me check it out and so I did, and I was glad I did. TR:L was a really good game, good story and great gameplay. I was less hesistant to get to Tomb Raider: Anniversary but I was eventually pulled to it but it didn't quite live up to TR:L and it was mostly a frustrating experience.

And here's TR:U, a sequel to TR:L that also pay attention to the TR:A storyline. Was it worth it? Well, TR:U didn't really have the impact that TR:L have, but it's still a solid game. Exept for some issues with the keymapping (Right Mouse couldn't be remapped before the first patch, and I ended up running the game with gamepad anyway), and some questionable slowdowns when near water, the game ran rock solid. Lara was easier to move and control and there were less focus on timed challenges, which lead to less frustration. The story is primarily told through great cinematics, but I didn't find it as satisfying as it could have been.

[Kazmajik]

I really enjoyed Tomb Raider Anniversary. I liked TR:L up to a point that I could never get past, at least with PC controls. I'm intrigued by TR:U but still on the fence about actually getting it.

I finished Fallout 3 and it was a blast. It think the description Oblivion with guns is a little innacurate. I think it's more like Half-Life 2 with some RPG elements. The main quest didn't feel very long, but that might be because the world is vast and I only explored a fraction of it. For replay value this game is tops.

[JemyM]

Clive Barker's Jericho
Or... how to f up an excellent premise.

What do you get when you team up a great selection of artists, such as a famous writer, some great and twisted graphical artists, a gamedesigner filled with great ideas on how to build a squadbased shooter with far more special functions than the majority of the games on the market, and then ruin it all that with a terrible level design and AI? You get Clive Barker's Jericho.

A take on Judeo-Christian mythology
Clive Barker's Jericho ties deeply into Judeo-Christian mythology, kinda like a prequel to Genesis. Before Adam and Eve was created, there was the firstborn. A creature that even God couldn't stand. So he made another try and thus us humans came to be. Since the beginning, there have been special warriors who sacrificed themselves to keep the firstborn trapped so "it" couldn't take revenge on mankind. The latest of these are ofcourse you, a team of witches and mages called "Jericho". The story is one of Jericho's strong points, far more advanced than most games on the market. There are seven characters in your team, each one with a long and well-written background (that can be read if you unlock them in the EXTRAS), but they will also reveal some of their unique personalities during the storyline. You can really tell you have a real writer at work here. Not only are the story told by cutscenes and dialogue, you also get small bits of texts between every level (while waiting for the next one to load), that helps the buildup.

"The gardens are lavishly decorated with fountains and statues. The surroundings look impeccably beautiful but with Vicus' touch of sadism."

Despite all of that, I cannot say that Jericho's storyline is as cool as Clive Barker's Undying.

Artistic Graphics and Sound
The artwork in Jericho is great. The game uses the latest technologies (2006) and the levels beautiful (or terrible) to behold, with some really disturbing content. The monsters look great and the characters themselves are uniquely designed. The sound is pretty good as well, the soundtrack is good enough to get on the side. The voice acting is ok, but I have to say that some of the dialogue was laughably bad and sometimes out of place. For example, you can hear one of your companions say stuff like "You got your ass kicked by a girl", which doesn't sound too serious and would fit a B-movie rather than a game with a professional writer's name in it's title.

Ambitious gameplay mechanics ...
You begin as Ross, the leader of the Jericho team, and for reasons I wont reveal, you will eventually be able to take control of your entire team of misfits, each one with special magic abilities. You may say that Jericho is a squad-based shooter. If you are quick to grasp how the game works you will also be able to use it at it's fullest potential, although the characters are not all that useful.

Most of the time I used Frank, a big guy with a minigun, a heavy sideshooter and the ability to send forth a flaming demon from his right hand. A second favorite was Black, a girl with a sniper weapon and telekinesis, with the ability to possess and control her bullets. Cole is the teams "brain" and she have the ability to slow down time around her, which was also useful at times, such as when you must quickly revive your team. Then we have Church, a ninjagirl with a sword and the ability to root opponents to the ground, but I found her generally useless due to lack of firepower. Despite having the strongest melee attack, it still ended up pretty useless. Then there's Jones who have both an assault rifle and a shotgun but is mostly useless, except that his possess ability is required to solve some puzzles. Finally there's the priest of the group, who were best kept controlling himself, since he runs around healing people so you do not have to.

... to be ruined by horrible level design and AI
So what's so bad about Jericho. Well, I believe that the key problem with the game is the level design, that really ruins the entire game. Jericho is so linear that the term "rail shooter" might fit. You progress a bit, then monsters run in in hordes, and when you killed them all you can continue a bit more. This gets really repetitive and do not allow you to really use those gameplay mechanics I just spoke about. The game always let you know right away what you should do, so you never really get much chance of experimenting and trying to use the tools you have been given "your way".

Another nuisance is that your team have terrible AI, and they usually end up knocked out, forcing you to run and heal them. This is almost bareable on EASY, but get's extremely frustrating even on MEDIUM. Being forced to spend most of your time "healing the AI" doesn't make a fun game. Especially bad is that they do not understand explosive opponents, which they gladly kill at close range, knocking out half or most of the squad like all the time.

As a final slap in the face, the ending is absolutely horrible. With all that excellent writing otherwise, you are really expecting a great ending to the game, only to be met with ... well. I wont spoil it, but if you manage to get that far, prepare to be disappointed. Even fans agree that it's nothing to make popcorn for.

[SnorkleCat]

Last finished game... that would be Monkey Island 3 (mega monkey) a day or two ago... I've finally gotten around to it after all these years! I liked it. The voice acting was very enjoyable, which can be a rarity in games of all sort, and I quite liked the toony nature of it. Before that, I finished Kyrandia 2 and Kyrandia 1 (both of which drove me up the wall with convoluted guessing games instead of puzzles, and I'll never ever forget that horrid fireberry/cave thing. *shudder*), and Deathgate- which I loved. Yeah, I'm in full on retro mode.
Working on Day of the Tentacle now.

[JemyM]

Blacksite: Area 51
A traditional FPS with brief entertainment, decent graphics, no surprises and little memorable content. It might offer a starving FPS fan some hours to waste but I wouldn't rush out to get this one.

Story: Conspiracy Theories 101
Blacksite Area 51 takes most of the "government are up to no good" conspiracy theories and boil it down to a very average story, with maybe a few minor twists but yet a plot that fails to be interesting. If you have payed any attention at all to pop culture you are probably familiar with Area 51 in Nevada and the supposed "goverment experimenting on aliens" theory. Well, if you want a sci-fi story on that one, Independence Day might give you a better, at least funnier plot than Blacksite. The story failed to bring me any emotions and when my buddies got lost I didn't shed a tear. Overall the game is extremely short, and while I could tell that the writer had as a message, it simply didn't connect to me.

Engine, Graphics & Sound
The Unreal 3 Engine have been used by plenty of games now, but it's not only getting your hands on a good engine, you also need good graphical artists. The graphics in B:A51 is average by todays standard. Some parts looks good, but most looks decent compared to other games of the same engine and time released. Sound is ok, with plenty of voice acting, a few funny dialogues, but nothing that stands out or stick to your brain. Even with patch 1.2 the game seems unfinished, with weapons and ammunition floating over the ground. Then there's the case of the Unreal engines shadow system that simply doesn't look good. Dark areas break up and look like a splash of mud and characters have a strange shine to them. This isn't the first time I have seen these kind of issues in the Unreal 3 engine though as even Mass Effect have them.

It could be that Half-Life also was inspired by the Area 51 mythos, but the blend of monsters (the type of aliens and footsoldiers), the areas, and the plot, gave me very strong Half-Life vibes.

Gameplay & Controls
B:A51 tries to give you a squad based shooter, but your squad wont really matter. Their AI isn't that great and if you have some decent FPS skills you are going to do most of the work anyway. If you are going to assign squadmembers by aiming at opponents and click "USE", then why not using "Fire" instead as that will pick down the target quicker since you already aimed at the target anyway.

Besides being a very linear and very traditional shooter, the game also tries to implement driving sequence that end up mostly annoying when you are up against homing missiles and an AI who do not know how to shoot them down. There's some minor control issues with the PC version. You cannot change controls on the run, you have to exit the game to do so. There's no button for "running" which seems to be common these days with console ports, dodging is set at "toggle" which cannot be changed, and "pick up weapon" for some reason needs a separate key. One ponder why "USE" couldn't do the trick.

[JemyM]

TUROK (2008)
Turok is a fun and traditional first-person shooter that does things according to the formula but little to break out of the mold, except for some cool melee dinobashing.

Story: From hunt to survival
Once Joseph Turok was a member of Wolf Pack, a specialized military group who's leader was General Roland Kane. After some problems, Turok left and eventually joined the Whiskey Company. As it so happens, their current missions is to go to another planet and capture Kane. Things do not go as plan though, when reaching the planet their ship is shot down and the plot instantly changes into a quest of survival on a planet that seems to be filled with dinosaurs. Turok are quickly forced to co-operate with Slade, one of the members of Whiskey Company, who for some reason have some beef with him. Throughout the game, the plot is filled in with short cutscenes, sometimes flashbacks to why Turok joined Wolf Pack and why he left. For a First-Person shooter, the story is quite good. It might not win any prices for originality, but at least it's there.

Engine, Graphics & Sound
TUROK is a First-Person shooter based on the Unreal 3 engine. This can be seen in both it's advantages and it's flaws. The characters looks truly great and the dinosaurs looks particulary great, which is one of TUROK's strongest artistic achievements, although it looked a bit silly when they instantly looks like they are splashed with blood once you fire at them once or twice. You also spot the Unreal 3 specific "shiny actors" problem, that looks like all humans have some kind of gloria or divine glow to them. This is difficult to explain through words but once you seen it you recognize it right away. Since TUROK mostly takes place within forests, one cannot help by comparing it to Far Cry, Crysis or Far Cry 2, who makes TUROK pale in comparison. The levels are very linear and not very open ended, and the vegetation technology is simply outdated by todays standard. There were also some problems with choppiness in the first level but that ceased later on. Still, this comparison is made against the best of the market, which might be unfair, as Turok still looks good enough.

The sound did it's job as far as I concern but didn't really add much to the atmosphere, but there are some places where noises are used to foretell danger. As far as I concern, Jurassic Park established in 1997 how pop-culture dinos should sound, and I miss some of those sounds in Turok. The voice acting is quite good as well and the characters in the game sounds like old hardboiled veterans.

Gameplay: Shoot 'em or knife 'em
In most respect, TUROK is your average First-Person shooter, following the trends of the genré.

Like many recent FPS's, TUROK gives you a couple of squadmembers to play with, who never felt annoying and could even be helpful at times even if they were mostly transparent. When they are "killed" they are temporarily knocked down, only to get up again after you cleared the area.

Another trend is the buttonmashing-driven cutscenes who I normally find annoying but were fine in TUROK. Granted, I believe I started the game in easy mode so I do not know how annoying they become later on. Usually the buttonmashing is used when escaping dinosaurs that knocks you to the ground or clings on to you.

For some reason there are no "Run" key in recent FPS's which I still miss in Turok. When you need to run faster or outrun something you make a habit out of switching to the knife, which I find kinda silly. Speaking of the knife though, it's one of the unique weapons of TUROK due to it's effectiveness against dinosaurs. Whenever you meet dino's smaller or equal size to raptors, you can use the knife for an instant kill. This give you a short and brutal cutscene with Turok owning the poor reptile. A fun trick that makes dinokilling rather easy but didn't get old to me.

Other weapons include the basic range of FPS weapons, like the overheating pulserifle, the standard assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a heatseeking RPG etc. Unique is the 2nd fire on shotgun that makes you fire a flare that distract dinosaurs, and the minigun can be placed as a turret. There's also a level in which you need to fire a flamethrower at holes that emits explosive gas to pass the area. Finally you have TUROK's bow, which I actually never found too useful. The problem I had with it is that once you stretch the bow (which takes 1-2 seconds) you need to release it after a few seconds, else Turok drops the arrow. Since the sniper rifle also was too slow, I made it into a habit to use the Pulse-Rifle as my sniperrifle of choice. It's accuracy in 2048x1536 was more than enough to pick down even opposing snipers at range.

Finishing words
All in all TUROK gave me more entertainment than other recent games I played, which have been all lacklusters in the reviewscore department (Alone in the Dark, Jericho, Blacksite). Unlike the others TUROK felt like a properly cooked and satisfying dinner but not a gourmé buffet. It's a game that fans of First-Person Shooters could well check out, but can be missed an favor for other titles of the same genré.

[AprilLives]

Scratches Directors Cut 6/10

It’s nice roaming around that beautiful old house and grounds. A few puzzles were cleverly thought out. But most required going over the same areas too many times in fear of having missed some important piece of inventory. Also, the game was much too short and areas to explore too limited. I thought the writer hero was just the first chapter of the game instead of the entire story.

The ending must have seemed very obscure in the original Scratches. But although the Director’s Cut answered some questions, it could have been better executed IMO. The really scary, surprising parts were well done, though. The voices, music and lighting changes were also well done IMO.

[JemyM]

Red Faction
A very average and outdated first-person shooter.

Story: When there's no union, call Red Faction
Parker got a new job on Mars, that turns out to be under less than tolerable conditions. Not only are the guards mistreating the workers, a mysterious plague have spread among the workers, killing them off one by one. Eventually some of the miners snap and ends up fighting the guards, a fight that will spread like fire throughout the entire facility. Parker is the only one who seems capable of staying alive. Eventually he will find out more about the secret motives of the place and then there's no turning back. The story of Red Faction is mostly given through intercom dialogue with your friends and some enemies, except for a few brief cutscenes, some rendered in-game, some prerendered. There's a twist that I saw coming from far far away, and the story wont win any prices. At least having a story is good I guess. There's little surprise that the game seems to draw inspiration from socialism. All miners are red, all guards are blue. Posters that can be seen all over the station show workers in a romantic way, very similar to the propaganda posters during the soviet regime.

Engine, Graphics & Sound
Graphically, Red Faction is by todays standard ancient. There are no shadows, no shaders, no nothing of what todays games have, but at least the graphics is good enough to make you see what the polygons in front of you intend to represent (meaning it looks better than Jedi Knight for example). I used a hack to bump the graphics up to 2048x1536 which might not have been intended, since I was usually able to snipe foes from long distance with the AI not realizing where I was.

The sound is "ok". I actually liked the music, or at least some tunes in some levels. The voice acting is so-so. I found the voice for your friend Hendrix to be quite lame, but your other friend Eos had a unique tone to it and had overall better quality as far as I concern.

Gameplay
All in all RF is a very traditional first person shooter. All the controls are there and the game behave exactly like you expect a FPS to behave.

The game was boosted for a special engine, one that allows you to break walls. Personally I found this nothing more than a gimmick since it's usually just used to bypass blockades a few times throughout the game, and when that happens it's obvious that you should blast something, just not what you need to blast. So you waste 3-4 charges trying to find what to blow up.

Offering you to use a large amount of vehicles might have been modern back when the game was released but the vehicle sequences were crap by todays standard. There are more weapons than you will use with nothing really special to them.

I need to mention the difficulty. At a certain point in the game, the difficulty is bumped by a radical amount. Before that point, the game felt like a walk in the park, just to become increasingly frustrating since you could instantly die even if you had 100 health/100 armor left. Being one of the older titles, I was happy to be able to save wherever I wanted, which helped to ease the frustration.

Final thoughts...
I decided to try Red Faction since it was one of those "much talked about" games back in the days that I never had the chance to play up to now. Also, with Red Faction 3 coming up I thought it was time. Im happy I did finish it, but it didn't really give me anything. The game is a bit too old and have no really interesting mechanic or story to remember.

[lumbrefrio]

Still Life - 8/10 (hated that damn ending)

[Guyra]

@lumbrefrio: Yeah, it can be somewhat frustrating.

I just finished F.E.A.R... It was okay... For killing time. But it was not scary at all, something I thought it would be(because everyone else says it's supposed to be), though that might be a side effect from playing actually scary games a lot. But still, the story was only so-so, the enemies were mostly boring, and several different enemies looked almost the same. And even those human enemies that weren't supposed to be clones actually looked like they were just that. And lastly, most of the game felt like you were just repeating the same levels over and over.

Personally, I found that the game actually became interesting first somewhere in the second to last chapter.

[JemyM]

Red Faction 2
Console port from the PS2 era that have little in common with it's prequel.

Story: By the Glory of the Commonwealth
Unlike Red Faction, RF2 takes place on earth with Parker (hero of the first game) is nowhere to be seen. Instead you play Alias, a member of a nano-enhanced group of ex-elite soldiers for a dictator called Stalin... uh, no Sopot actually. Not surprising Alias and his squad are not fightin against Sopots regime (the Commonwealth). The story is told by a mixture of cutscenes and dialogue. Your squadmembers have their own personalities and they play a major role in the story that unfold. There's a twist, but it's not uncommon for computer games so it's not that surprising.

Graphics & Sound
Being a 2002 game the graphics will impress no-one. At least it's made at a time in which you could actually see what polygons on screen is supposed to represent. Also opponents, civilians and your squad members are well modelled and each member of your squad looks unique. Voice Acting is ok, the voice actors include Lance Henriksen (Bishop in Aliens) and Jason Statham (Transporter, Crank). Once in awhile you encounter civilians with rather funny dialogue.

Gameplay
Like the story, RF2 is a completely different game from RF, except still being a FPS. All weapons are replaced. Red Faction 2 is a console port from PS2 and it's rather obviously so. The gameplay is extremely dumbed down to fit a console, like a crosshair that shines up like a christmas tree when aiming anywhere near an opponent. There are some vehicle driving like it's prequel though, maybe the best bits when you get the chance to use a mecha-like robo suit. The Geo-Mod engine is improved in RF2 and you will find yourself blowing stuff up more frequently than in previous games. Still, there's very little in RF2 that makes the game worth playing. If you have played other FPS's, RF2 brings nothing new.

Final Thoughts
I decided to pick up Red Faction 1&2 considering Red Faction 3 (Guerilla) is on it's way, but I cannot say I have been impressed with the series. I was also surprised to find how different RF2 was over RF. It's almost like the developer had made the entire game as a stand-alone title, then got their hands on the "Red Faction" label and decided to tweak their product just a little bit to be able to ride on Red Factions previous fame to be able to sell more copies of RF2. I said almost since it's not true, but it looks that way.

[kuze]

The way you are working through those games you should be payed for your reviews, Jamy.

[Fantasysci5]

I just finished "Faust: Seven Games of the Soul". I was disappointed in it, since everyone was telling me it was so dark, and confused as hell. I loved the end song, but for me to enjoy a game, I like to make sense of it in my head the best way I can. Like "The Lost Crown", there were a lot of questions, but I could make my own opinions. I'm having trouble even understanding Faust...:/

[MdaG]

Rock Band 2

Just played through the world tour in Rock Band 2 on guitar. It's amazing the kind of replay value this game offers. Addicting, challenging and modes including, 1 player, 2 player (coop and vs.), 3 players (coop and (3 vs.) vs.), 4 players (coop and (4 vs 4) vs.) etc.

Is it better than Guitar Hero World Tour? Barely, there are some minor differences in the options and how the songs are built mechanically. Which will sell the most is more up to the marketing departments than the developers.

For me trying Rock Band 2 made me sell all my "Guitar Hero"-games and buying Rock Band 1 & 2 instead. I realized that I would never play guitar hero in my own home again if I owned Rock Band. For me Rock Band > Guitar Hero.

9 / 10

[JemyM]

Gears of War
A must for action fans, the rest might be convinced by the superb graphics.

Story
Playing Gears of War is like reading a few chapters in the middle of a book. The game begins with Dominic Santiago getting Marcus Fenix (you) out of a demolished prison, and as the game goes on, it feeds you bits and pieces of information that hints of what have happened before that. Appearently you were part of Gears, a military force, and human civilization is almost completely overrun by an enemy force of monsters. Appearently you are brought right back into Gears now, right into a mission to get hold of a way to map the underground where the enemy forces are. This is a bit confusing at first and the entire game is like one long battle that almost never end. The characters are pretty well made, with their own personality.

Graphics & Sound
Gears of War is one of those games that keeps making you taking a halt, just absorbing the scenery. This is really the game that first showed off the Unreal 3 engine, and it's definitely the game which brings most out of it. Not only is the engine great, the models, the architecture in the maps, the monsters, everything is extremely well designed. It's almost too well designed and it's almost too bad you do not get to see much of it while the action is going on. I am not exaggerating when I say that the graphics in Gears of War is among the top games available on PC in terms of graphics. I was happy to be able to enjoy it all in 2048x1536 resolution at full speed. The only thing that stood out as poor was the fire/flames, and there were some areas towards the end which were unneccessary dark. Soundwise the game is simply great. I noted specifically that when you are going out of ammunition the weapon begin to sound funny, which was a great tip to reload. Monster sounds is very well made, and especially some explosive crawlers you meet later on have a scream that is really one of the most disturbing monster sounds i heard. The music is quite good as well.

Gamplay: Duck & Cover
In most shooters you fight by strafing left/right and try to aim as good as possible, preferably headshots. Gears of War has a special form of gameplay in which you are meant to duck and take cover as much as possible as trying to strafe/shoot through the game wont work. This is really the essence of Gears of War gameplay and it lasts through the entire game. But that's not the only innovation. Since Dominic stays with you throughout the entire game, he can be controlled by a second player, and thus you have co-op gameplay. When you play yourself, Dominic is controlled by the computer. Then I noted that the game have a unique reload feature, if you time the reload correctly you will boost your damage. Beyond that, Gears of War covers most of the latest trends, squad based gameplay, vehicle driving, manuvering turrets etc. I was a bit annoyed that headshots really wasn't as effective as they are in other games, a single Bomber can take several clips in the head, even on Casual. Maybe it's because the game was planned for a console.

Final Thoughts
For an action fan, Gears of War is one game not to miss. For one who doesn't like action and who aren't impressed by good graphics, Gears of War might not be for you. Personally the graphics kept me going, but since I am no real actionfan the endless action sometimes got a bit boring to me. The story, meh...

[JemyM]

Originally Posted by kuze

The way you are working through those games you should be payed for your reviews, Jamy.

I know, and I have thought about it. I tend to pile up on games only to play them in a frenzy when I got a few days free, and I have finished a great amount of games in my days. I am not sure if my taste will fit the customers of a mainstream paper/website though.