Posts Tagged ‘ps3’
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The return of Cynthia the TV (which is an LG, which is a brand made in Korea, hence the asian reference). I figured a bickering moment between the TV (picking up on my dating woes) and the PS3 wanting companionship – however unrequited it may be.
To me this can be comedy. It’s also another chance to play with the new camera. It’s also an excuse to get a comic up, because this weekend I’m back in Ann Arbor attending my friend’s wedding.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone! I’m going to get my drink on at the reception and flirt with bride’s maids. 
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Video Game Review: InFamous
Platform: PS3
Developer: Sucker Punch!
Official Website
Plot: You play as Cole, a delivery guy in Empire City. When a package that you’re delivering (The Ray Sphere) explodes and destroys most of the city and all of the power, you begin to develop electrical powers. Your girlfriend leaves your side, and your best friend Zeke wants to capitalize on your newfound abilities. Meanwhile, the city is under quarantine by the United States government because a plague has broken out among the populace. Able to chose your path (redemption or revenge), you go on various missions around the city either liberating or conquering all in an effort to find the criminal mastermind behind it all, the mysterious figure known only as Kessler.
The gameplay is free-form, not unlike a Grand Theft Auto (only instead of driving cars, you can climb buildings and ride along electrical wires and train rails), with an upgrade system similar to most modern action games. As you progress through the game, you unlock new abilities that will help you reach new areas or defeat new enemies. You gain experience points by completing missions (good, evil, or neutral) and savings / killing enemies or citizens.
There’s a moral barometer (called “Karma”) in the game that allows you to be the hero or the villain. Unfortunately this mechanic isn’t very sophisticated like you would expect to find in an RPG game, usually something similar and more blatant. You’re usually faced with a moral dilemma (“Do I save this guy, or do I kill him and take his stuff) which usually results in the same outcome either way. There are some powers and trophies for Karma Good or Karma Evil, so there’s some replay value in there to try the game again playing the polar opposite.
Exploring the city is fun, especially since you can’t take any damage from falling. You can climb to the highest point in the town and just jump straight down (or you will later unlock a glide ability). Going through the city and liberating or conquering the various sections from the gangs that have taken over is a great mechanics, and gives you a very realistic feeling of accomplishment when you control an island (of which there are three in the game). The landscape even changes as you make a difference.
The cutscenes are an exciting motion comic with some terrific voice acting (although I question why a delivery guy sounds like Solid Snake from Metal Gear), and you’re generally interested to know what’s going to happen next and how you fit into this vast conspiracy surrounding the Ray Sphere. With a (predictable) cliffhanger twist ending, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see a few more games with Cole coming in the near future.
The game is totally worth buying, but don’t take my word for it: there’s a free downloadable demo that allows you to explore some parts of the city, as well as undertake three missions.
Video Game Review: Uncharted 2 – Among Thieves
Platform: PS3
Developer: Naughty Dog
Official Website
Plot: The game opens with fortune hunter Nathan Drake (a descendant of Sir Francis Drake, a great explorer) sitting in the chair of a train, blood pouring out of a gunshot wound in his stomach. Looking out the window, he appears to be in the mountains. Upon trying to sit up, he realizes that gravity is playing tricks on him – and that the train car is actually dangling from the side of a mountain cliff. Falls and breaking out of the bottom of the train, Drake watches in horror as the door falls far down into the valley below. Losing blood and moving slowly, Drake begins to climb the train cars to reach a safe area….
…and that’s where Uncharted 2 starts you off.
After the events of the first game, Drake is looking for his next score that is going to make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. Apparently separated from Elena (the journalist that followed his adventures to find El Dorado in the first game), Drake teams up with new love interest Chloe and her partner to follow the clues left by Marco Polo and find the Cintamani Stone from the lost city of Shambhala. Based on some historical truth but with a measure of fantasy and fiction (think Indiana Jones meets Tomb Raider…but a little less fantastic), Uncharted 2 is like the biggest action movie (but with a plot that actually makes sense) where you play the movie hero. Drake is a fun protagonist with a heart of gold and quick with the witty banter, and some sweet moves to get him through the levels against armed soldiers and a madman trying to gain ancient power for himself.
The gameplay is mostly duck and cover mechanics, with very fluid animation and intuitive controls. You also do some platforming and puzzle solving, but if you get stuck the game does give you hints throughout. I will admit to getting stuck in a few rooms because your path doesn’t stick out as obviously as in other games of this type. The path you’re supposed to take blends into the lush backgrounds like it was actually part of the world. This is not a flaw, but something that I’ve been looking forward to in gaming for a long time. A level of emersion that completely brings the world to life, instead of pointing out the path you should take. Thankfully, there’s not much penalty for dying if you make a wrong jump.
The game is very forgiving in it’s platforming, though. Jumps that appear to be impossible are very probable with Drake being one of the most athletic characters in a game (even with a bullet in the gut).
The action sequences are what stick out to me the most in this game. While the first game focused more on the duck-and-cover mechanics, this game enjoys marrying more the gun play with fist-a-cuffs. The ability for Drake to duck behind cover, shoot some guys, grab a dude that’s running him to him and pull him over cover and punch him in the face, then run out shooting and get into a fist fight with another enemy is jaw-dropping to watch, and even more fun to play.
I’ve already reviewed the multiplayer beta for the game, but I’ll add here that they have added additional content, play modes, maps, and even extended the maps that were available in the beta! I’m not much of an online game player, but with some friends this game is rather fun – mostly because I can actually hold my own.
If you own a PS3, you need to get this game and the first one. They are fantastic, hours of fun, and with a great story and great play mechanics. If you don’t own a PS3, then you should be jealous of me like I’m jealous of you (ie: I want to play Mass Effect). This is the game to own on this system, and probably the best game of the year!
Video Game Review: Uncharted 2 – Among Thieves multiplayer beta demo
October 8th, 2009 |Posted In: Uncategorized
Video Game Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves multiplayer demo
Platform: PS3
Developer: Naughty Dog
Official Website
Plot: The multiplayer has no plot, but I’m sure the game does. The first Uncharted was a ton of fun to play, and I’m eagerly awaiting this title when it’s released on October 13.
The Multiplayer beta for Uncharted 2 came out this week, and I was able to sit down with some of my good web comic friends and blow through several hours of what should have been spent working on our comics, but was instead spent shooting each other’s digital avatars. The players were Steve Wallace, Phil Chan, Joe Dun, and myself. We started out in Plunder mode, which has you gathering a treasure and taking it from it’s spawn point to a chest on your team’s side. Trying to figure out the controls while someone is shooting you in the face gets old quick, but thankfully the level was large enough to be able to run around and figure out what you were doing while dodging bullets all the while.
For those unfamiliar with the Uncharted play mechanic, the bulk of the combat is focused on a duck-and-cover system that allows you to shoot blindly (with some surprising accuracy), or by exposing yourself for better aiming. You are incredibly agile, so you can jump and climb and roll all over the place. Also, your character has the ability to enter into melee combat when up close in the single player game, but in the multiplayer game they replace this with a single swing of your fist (no combos). It’s a devastating move, to be sure, and a useful tactic when up close to your enemy. You are only allowed to carry two weapons at a time: a pistol and a rifle of some kind. You also have a supply of grenades, but it appeared that the multiplayer limited you to a single grenade…at least to start out.
After the first round, we chose teams and played a deathmatch. This is a pretty standard run-and-gun situation, but the level designs make for some very interesting play depending on how you want to take out your opponents. We played to 20 kills (total for the team, not individuals), and Phil was an adamant sniper. Steve was a fan of the mini-gun, which is powerful as hell but also slows you down considerably. Joe and I were always at arms to get our hands on the grenade launcher, which is fun for the 6 or so shots that it has.
We then changed things up and went into a temple level and altered the weapons to only be RPGs. This became an interesting battle for higher ground, and really required use of strategy on the lower team’s part to gain the upper hand. The RPGs don’t require as much accuracy, but they do take time to reload.
The final match that we played was a co-op mode which had characters playing through a scenario from the game. This was incredibly difficult, as bad guys were spawning from all sides and the cover mechanic became somewhat cumbersome to use because you constantly had to flip from one side of cover to another. And some cover is destructible, so when the stronger bad guys came out (or started throwing grenades), you would have to run quickly for new cover.
When one of your friends goes down there’s a timer that pops up over their head. When the timer runs out, that character dies. But if you’re able to get to them before, you can revive them – but the longer you take to get there, the longer it takes to revive them. This means that your characters should stay relatively close to make sure that no one character is too far away or too deep in the thick of it to be saved.
There were some fun moments where team dynamics came into play. For example, after a round of baddies came in we were prompted to gather around a light post in the street. Once two characters were there, one was able to boost me up onto the sign dangling from the light post. While I was climbing along the sides of buildings trying to figure out how our team could advance, more baddies showed up and the group was forced to continue the firefight sans one more player. My ultimate destination was an open window, which I climbed in and pushed a bookshelf out of the window (which we would later use as a make-shift ladder to climb over a tipped bus). Several team dynamic situations like this followed, until we eventually ran out of time and the demo ended.
Uncharted 2 multiplayer was a lot of fun to play, and I don’t consider myself a multiplayer fan. Sure, playing it with your friends instead of against some faceless online opponent helps, and the fact that we were all on the same learning curved helped as well. I’m looking forward to the release of Uncharted 2 (October 13), and being able to play the full online multiplayer with my friends again. Be sure to check out the beta in the meantime, available for free on the Playstation Network (PSN).
