Thursday 31 December 2015

METAL GEAR SOLID GBC

Title screen and box art simply say Metal Gear Solid, fans know it as Ghost Babel.

Game intro is very long

I started playing this more than a week ago, and recorded my progress, it's a cool little entry in the franchise.
Looking at how Mei Ling is introduced later in this game, as if Snake hasn't talked to her yet, I think it's fair to expect this to be the reason MGS: Ghost Babel is not part of the Metal Gear story canon.
It's a really cool entry to the franchise, and a great entry in the library of Gameboy Color/Colour games, could be easily considered one of the best games for that system, and it's really strong for what it is, especially considering the system limitations.

Tuesday 24 November 2015

REPETITIVE IS NOT A VALID COMPLAINT

Year go on and on, and one point of criticism pops up for some games:
"Game is repetitive."

Every game is repetitive, best ones and lesser ones, there is always a pattern to find.

Metal Gear games:
Sneak, fight, escape.

Assassin's Creed:
Chase, sneak, stab target.

Final Fantasy (and all JRPGs):
Walk, fight, walk, pop up battle.. etc....

The pattern repeats, so why do people use "repetitive" to crticize certain games?

Sunday 22 November 2015

Game Cheats Are Good

What do you receive from a number of hardcore gamers when you say that?

"You're no real gamer."

"But..but but, that lowers the experience quality."

"Are you kidding me?"

"Noob."

"There is no joy in that."

And more words undermining anyone using cheats for games.
Come on fellas, that's a game, I'm not talking board games or multiplayers, I'm talking simple campaigns.

Imagine yourself a newcomer to a JRPG game, like Final Fantasy VII, it's a great game, but Japanese Role Playing Games (that's me saying it for anyone who wants to know what JRPG means) are programmed with pop up battles, random, and sometimes can be merciless, you start a new game, no items collected, and there are all those enemies, not only that, you have to politely wait for your turn to strike, and if you don't know how to dodge (I'm not sure that mechanic exists) you have to be struck by every enemy on screen.

Whew, not the greatest thing when you think about it like that.
Trainers and cheats help players overcome that, until they manage to stand on their own two feet playing the game, and not dependent on trainers.

You know what else cheats are good for? When a gamer wishes to revisit the game, but is not in the mood to collect 50,000 EXP (experience points) to be able to level up to high level or buy certain number of upgrades. Remember:
"Different strokes for different folks."
Not everyone is patient enough to endure the chore/feel the joy of replaying and recollecting huge number of points.

Monday 27 August 2012

The Amazing Spider-Man Game Review (PC)

After playing this on PC, finishing the story in less than 3 days, completing some tasks, collecting all comic pages, here's a rap sheet:

*The Good:

All these alternate costumes is a good thing

  1. Cast is solid for the most part
  2. Combat is fun and fits Spider-Man very well
  3. Swinging is great, although I felt I'd dislike it before playing, after playing and seeing first hand how it works, I love it more
  4. Graphics look their best for a Spider-Man game, free roam or not
  5. Returning the mental patients
  6. Swinging patients to the quarantine zones
  7. Interacting with people
  8. Taking pictures
  9. Web rush
  10. Some missions give a breath of fresh air for a Spidey game, grabbing guns from walls, conducting electricity, web vibration, etc
  11. The many alternate costumes, especially the Future Foundation
  12. Spider-Man heals, otherwise it would be a darn hard game
  13. Sneak attacks
  14. All the care Beenox give to a Spidey game, including the story, and not going away with it just cause it's a movie tie-in. That is something said by a guy not giving as much attention to movie games stories as no tie-ins
  15. Story takes place after the movie events instead of remaking it, makes it a better game, feels as its own thing
  16. Comic books to unlock and read
  17. About time a movie tie-in Spider-Man game has a pleasant credit screen to look at, I hate those blue screens from SM2 & SM3
  18. Good amount of interior missions
  19. After credits scene



*Indifferent:

Hanging around, thinking
  1. Camera being this close to Spider-Man
  2. Boss fights aren't anything special. That comment was said about SM3 boss fights and I saw reasons not to agree with it, but here it fits, most bosses that aren't robots are just hit and run with nothing unique, which are boss fights in probably 99% of video games since the days of the NES
  3. Sam Reigil has a line to say about everything, it gets old after a while, and swinging yahoo gets old after the first time, but not in a way to feel the need to turn voices off as I did before
  4. No health bar


*The Bad:

Blood rushing to the head, not a good thing
  1. Framerate can get shoddy during combat
  2. Some lines delivered by Reigil here were delivered much better by Harris in Shattered Dimensions
  3. After earning all upgrades, suddenly people attacking civilians can block, and their blocks are hard and unbreakable, although they originally couldn't block
  4. How come thugs call Spidey a kid? How would they know?
  5. Ending and curing the city feels kinda rushed
  6. Not being able to replay Scorpion and Rhino street fights
  7. No New Game+, the feature was there in both RE5 and [PROTOTYPE], both came out in 2009, and as far as things go, Beenox said they imported the city from [PROTOTYPE]


*Conclusion:
Finally, another good Spider-Man game, something I can enjoy and play for hours having lots of fun playing and less boredom found. Flaws are available, sure, but the game is overall fun, and it's my current favorite Spider-Man game taking place of SM3.
SM3 used to be No.4 on my top five video games list (before I play Arkham City that is), now ASM is my No.3 favorite video game, cause Arkham City is my absolute favorite, and Resident Evil 4 is my second favorite game

I'll give it an 8.5/10

Thursday 29 December 2011

Why I like Spider-Man 3 more than Arkham Asylum

I keep seeing all this ranting about Spider-Man 3 the game and describing it as a bad thing for gamers and Spider-Man/superheroes/comic book fans. Two years after the release of it came Batman Arkham Asylum with all the praising it received as the best comic book game ever, and that was before the release of Arkham City

Before playing Spider-Man 3 myself, I expected to find crap, after I played it I really enjoyed it, and saw plenty of things I wished to have in a Spidey game there, was surprised to find it my favorite Spider-Man game, but thought the quick time events pure useless nuisance.

After playing more video games with QTE's I actually admired Spider-Man 3 even more, cause QTE's in this game are actually basic and straightforward, you don't get a request of pressing punch to shoot a web like other games do, instead you are requested to press web attack to strike with your web, simple.

I tried to relate to complaints I kept viewing of the game, so I played it more, instead I found the grand majority of complaints are over the top and retarded, keyword most, stating there are some decent criticizing points, or complaints, and saying it's a dumbed down Spider-Man 2, or saying it's Spider-Man 2 with different coat of painting is just wrong, the game is far from that

Before playing Arkham Asylum I looked forward to this game to a great deal, I was kinda let down when I played it, the game is great, but it's not the "AWESOME GAME OTHER COMIC GAMES NEED TO BE INSPIRED BY". Atmosphere fits the game, story is great, combat and gadgets are a blast, but beyond the combat, gadgets and handling titans this game and X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged are pretty much the same

But so I won't get too far, here is a list of reasons why I think Spider-Man 3 is better than Arkham Asylum as a game, and I speak more in observation and testing rather than plain opinion, but I won't deny my opinion influencing the entry




















1. Mobility: It's better in SM3, plain and simple, it allows one to cover more distance with more speed, and even with quite a sluggish swinging (the lowest swinging in free roam games), it's more fun than just running. And wall crawling is even an extra plus

2. Combat: Both are button mashers, if you want to call them that way, SM3 combat system is Square & triangle for two kinds of attacks, the more upgrades you get the better, and it gets easier and faster in fighting gangs, there is also the use of webbing to grab and jump for other moves in combat, like jumping on thugs you grab, hit and throw. Different combinations make different moves, and that is not a plain button masher everyone keep saying it is.
Batman plays with one attack button most of the time, rotate stick to follow enemy with your attack, and the counter attacks and stun attack buttons for times of need making various moves.
If you try to convince me the first is plain button masher and the other is strategic, read this note please: "The beauty in Spider-Man 3 combat system is the player building personal strategies as needed against character to be handled, it's you who build the strategies, you need to understand how to build them, when and where. In Batman combat strategies are given as instructions for you to follow, that doesn't feel like strategies to praise"
This is what I found, and this is how it is

3. Handling thugs: You know the stealth methods and the head on combat in Arkham Asylum, simple and straightforward given to you in the face, and combat is all grounded. In Spider-Man 3 there are more ways to handle thugs, not just hanging them on poles or hitting them on ground, thugs you can't pull on ground are easy to pull while sticking to walls, and you can defeat some without touching them by fists or feet

4. Boss fights: Only good boss fights in Arkham Asylum are Scarecrow confrontations (no fight) and Croc chase while getting the ingredient for an antidote (not a fight either), they are good and fun. Rest of the boss fights have the needless amount of toy soldiers for you to bash constantly, what a pain. In SM3 they took a good take on boss fights, only time where there are others to fight along the boss is in Kraven's second fight, when he's invisible and you could find him using one of the lizard men for widow-maker, only 3 lizard men at a time, not annoying 10++ at once. You can defeat all bosses by just beating them up, or you could build up strategies to help you defeat them, it doesn't simply stick you to one move you have to do repeatedly or as the game says now (excluding tossing mega lizard at generators)

5. Variety of things to do: BAA is repeated, same pattern over and over again, with a few things here and there. SM3 displays extra things to do, it is made to be more than beat 'em up, and it was done nicely in that way

Now that I'm done with that, I'll say what BAA did better: Game is more polished and well ironed of faults, that's really it, if you want something else you can go with the story, nothing further. Don't go with graphics cause there is a huge difference in scale of locations, and the time each one of them was released

Sunday 21 August 2011

ALL MY FAVORITE FIGHTING GAMES pt.2

A Mortal Kombat Fest, almost
The first Mortal Kombat was a huge success that spawned many follow ups, getting back to the classic titles today the first MK feels redundant and mediocre, if I start the list of video game franchises where you should start from the second installment be sure MK would be one of them

Mortal Kombat II was such a huge success, it's one of the most legendary games, and one of the top fighting games to ever hit gamers everywhere, it's so awesome you can almost find it available for every gaming system from the NES to the PS3. Motion and action became smoother, combat is fun, characters are great, finishing moves updated so each character would have 2 fatalities instead of 1, a friendship, and it introduced the concept of bablity. Photos got cleaner, details given more attention to, it was such a pure win, plus this poster is a real ASS-KICKING AWESOMENESS

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, I skip the regular 3 cause I love masked characters, especially Scorpion & Sub-Zero, the first version had no Scorpion and Sub-Zero wore no mask, kind of sad. Home consoles version of UMK3 introduced us to other ninjas like Rain & Noob Saibot as playable characters

Best version of MK3, end of story
As an MK fighting game this one is easily the best installment, storywise it's so-so
Guilty Gear XX/X2 reload is how I got introduced to Guilty gear series and loved it, never liked the sound of the electric guitar before listening to GGX2 reload tunes, and got so impressed. Combat is great, best side scrolling anime like fighting game that is not Street Fighter or King of Fighters

ALL MY FAVORITE FIGHTING GAMES pt.1: CAPCOM

I'll set this now, my favorites, ones I played and love the most, not placing as best or whatever, when I do my favorite sidescrollers fighting games won't be included, so let's start

P.S: For the sake of keeping posts readable, I'll post 6 games at a time, there are many great and highly memorable fighting games, this section is for the Capcom ones only, and the only Capcom fighting games there
Street Fighter Collection 2: Compiling all versions of Street Fighter before turning the series SUPER mode. 3 versions of one game released in 1992, they were ahead of their time for having smooth animation, great tracks and sound effects, not only is it memorable, it's fantastic, I still have a great deal of fun playing all of these three games

Super Street Fighter 2: The game got two improved releases with 4 extra characters in 1994, character designs changed a bit, tracks changed mildly and became continuous through both rounds 1 & 2, bonus levels remained, combo and first attack became important. SSF2 Turbo edition had the special of adding special attacks to the characters. KICK-ASS even to this day

Street Fighter Alpha/Zero 3: I always looked at Alpha as a reboot, can't look at it differently now, Street Fighter Alpha/Zero one seemed to retell the tale of Street Fighter 1 by making Sagat the Final boss for Ryu at least. Continuing with this reboot lead to this awesome achievement. Story mode for each character is a pit cause switching characters make you restart the ladder, but I managed to get over this


Marvel vs Street Fighter, I don't give it the title it was labeled with cause you can select a few of Marvel's supervillains, they aren't heroes, why say it as if only heroes from Marvel fight Street Fighter characters? Doesn't make much of a sense

What X-Men vs Street Fighter started continued, a track for each character with different backgrounds not a background exclusive to the character, this time having more Capcom characters than from Street Fighter franchise, it's a great win

Great sequel, loved the insertion of three players tag-team and inserting Jill Valentine as a fighter, also Iceman was upgraded from mere sidekick to a fighter, it's great

Haven't played the third installment of MVC, Street Fighter 4, or Super Street Fighter 4, I cannot judge any of those, so none of them is in part 2, or any later part of my top fighting games of all time

Friday 12 August 2011

BATMAN ARKHAM ASYLUM, THOUGHTS

This image looks like it has Batman sulking

Since this October we will be treated by a sequel apparently superior to this one, I figured it's time I state what I think about this game, give my general thoughts

Story:
Batman caught Joker, took him to Arkham island (as always) to see him escape capture (as always). This time Joker's capture and transfer to Arkham was uncomfortably too easy for Batman, so he decided to tag along with the guards to check Joker being placed in his cell, the bastard escapes, kidnaps Drs & gurards, kills guards, and unleashes terrors

Story does characters justice, it got the mythos properly, progressed finely, nice little changes for the game, a game I admire when it comes to storytelling, not as admirable as Resident Evil or Metal Gear, still admirable

Collecting tapes of patients interviews adds to the story some details not found in normal gameplay, so respect and collect them

One cliched line and reply are there, they irked me ever since I first heard them, they still do, it's the only flaw in this game story
Batman: It's over
Joker: It hasn't even begun

For that annoyance I give the story 9.9/10

Graphics:
Nice good looking graphics, clean, based on art of Alex Ross made it look highly admirable
Lips animation feels a little animatronic like, not as human as it should feel, so that is a minus
9.5/10

Miscellaneous: 9.9/10
Soundtracks: 10/10
Camera: It has some issues every 3rd person game suffers from, get your back to a wall and your character is hidden, not something to go all "DAMMIT" about. 9.8/10

Gameplay:This is the big one, I give 70% on game reviewing based on gameplay. How the game goes:

Combat: Smooth and fine, it's a button masher where you depend mostly on pressing one attack button, often you need to counter, there are times when you need to use stun attacks. Playing on Normal Mode after finishing the game on easy mode felt like Normal has a more aggressive fighter in Batman. Combat is fun, not the best combat system, but it's great, and lots of fun
Stealth takeouts: You will need to do that a lot to avoid bullets, Batman depends a lot on stealth in combat. After you get the "Hang from Gargoyle and pull henchman" upgrade stealth takeouts get more fun
As you progress in the game, more gadgets are collected to get use of, some of them are fun to use on henchmen and have a blast with, I love using the bat-claw to pull them
Shedding light on everything that is good about this game would make this post too long and unreadable, so I'll stop here
68/70

Total Score: 97.3/100

Saturday 30 July 2011

SPIDER-MAN SHATTERED DIMENSIONS, THOUGHTS


As a Spider-Man mega nerd -and my full geekiness didn't see the light before I play Spider-Man 3 console games and enjoy them, followed by seeing the source movie an underrated fun movie instead of viewing it as a terrible one like I used to- I started to look forward to every Spider-Man video game I could lay my eyes on, I was even searching for them vigorously and playing them. Then I played Web of Shadows myself and got greatly disappointed, it made me think more carefully about getting another Spider-Man game, so thinking with my mind instead of my deep attachment to my main nerdiness

I played this game, finished it twice, thought it was better than Web of Shadows back then, was defending it and strongly advised people who ask which of these two games to choose to pick Shattered Dimensions, at least it shows respect to characters more than Web of Shadows did, used to despise that one a lot, only recently I feel the older one is decent, and great
compared to the newer one

STORY:
It opens in a museum in the world of Amazing Spider-Man (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, MTV Spider-Man), Stan Lee narrates, and the lines they give the Big Man are too cheesy, he sounds cheesy saying them, so cheesy I hope I don't listen to him narrates the upcoming game (Edge of Time), not at all, nil line

Going back to the main feature, Mysterio grabs a precious artifact known as the tablet of Order
and Chaos (why make a tablet like that?), Spider-Man somehow knows something is wrong at the museum that night, nothing is explained of his reasons or knowledge, kicks Mysterio down, and grabs the tablet pulling it away with his webbing, but instead of it going to his hands it falls down on the floor and Spider-Man
bounces about the museum dodging Mysterio's shots. The way Spider-Man kicked fish bowl for a head this should have been the result

Writers keep writing Mysterio too stupid to put unbreakable fish-bowl, and he spent so much money before, and behaved with great deal of intelligent, but this never happens because?

So Spider-Man web zips himself and punches the tablet Mysterio grabbed to sell in the black market, and the artifact turns to fractures flying out of the museum to unknown areas through the walls, one shard remains with Mysterio and he escapes, then Madame Webb from the 90s cartoon show up (cause she posses the power cosmic, not simply a blind old psychic woman like her -deceased- comics version)

Silver Surfer is so proud of you (his eyes look like the Human Fly eyes, why?)


Cosmic powered old hag explains the tablet Spider-Man just broke controls order and chaos, now that it's broken fragments of it traveled to other three alternate dimensions (between the lines: Don't you worry, you are important as a playable character in this game, hence some fragments for you to collect in this world), and they are to aid him in his quest

Each of the four Spider-Men collects a fragment in his world before it's discovered by the unknown evil one and used for the unbelievable evil shenanigans they can do with it. All Spider-Men place the fragments they collected in the cosmic web of dimensional rip caused by the fracture of the tablet, then we move to Mysterio who just discovered the powers of his fragment, and wants the rest of the fragments to rule the world

-What is with these stories? Why such a powerful tablet stored in a museum of normal security with all the powers it contains? Why the heck did the main super-villain want to sell it in the black market not knowing what this is exactly? Heck (as cliched as this word is) why was such a piece even made? A tablet carrying a formula that gives one youth is acceptable, a tablet with a formula of poison killing specific DNA carriers is acceptable, but this?-

Well, I guess they needed the story to happen, something had to make reason for it to happen, like the main hero acting like a stupid clown instead of completing his job right

Every universe has 3 villains who obtain the fragment the next day directly, carries it, fights the hero, throws Spider-Man to a wild goose chase, fights him again, and it happens in 12 stages, the same pattern for 12 stages with minor differences from one to another. Kraven is the dumbest chapter, how did he know about the fragment to buy it online and place it with a 100 booby traps to lure Spider-Man and catch him? How was it sold online with full description?

Story is too stupid, the writer who had credit for making it is current writer of Amazing Spider-Man: Dan Slott, he's a capable writer, knows how to handle events and stuff in comics, I've been told by some the story had interference, so here's me hoping the new game had no interference and Peter David managed to pull the whole thing on his own and executed a well made story, which is tbh flawed from what I gathered about it so far.

Seeing how dumb the story is I don't wish this was an animated movie instead, unless it was well written and worked finely. One good thing about this game is how well it was received, it expanded the trey of Spidey-Fans a little, I appreciate that from Beenox, but hope for an actual good game to absorb extra fans

GAMEPLAY:
Stage 1 introduces gamers to how each character is played with and controlled, but only Spider-Man 2099 has combat introduction

12 stages between the first and the last with the basic following pattern: Fight boss, chase boss and fight chronies, save people and let them do you a favor, save people while they do favor for you, go fight boss again and pick the fragment. Some levels are free from humans to save, it's nice, but in the levels with people to save: WHY DO THE ONES WHO JUST PRESS A DAMN SWITCH TAKE TOO LONG TO OPEN THE DOOR?

What distincts Spider-Man 2099 from the rest in gameplay is the freefall, and the Noir guy is distinguished by stealth

Final stage: Use each Spider-Man to kick the hides of a large sum of bad seeds, fight mysterio, fight chronies, fight mysterio. Noir is the best one cause he rips the fight against Scarecrow from Arkahm Asylum, go stealthy all the way to do this one important attack only. Though this one there are absolutely nothing to fight before Mysterio, the road to reach him is tedious and too long, you'll have to shut Spider-Man up cause he keeps repeating the same two lines over and over again.

AUDIO:
Great use of VA's from Spider-Man cartoons only, and the voice director from the Spectacular Spider-Man animated series to assure great quality voice acting
Music is nothing memorable, but nice
Great quips

best thing about this game

GRAPHICS:
They are all the same, things vary in coloring system only
ASM: Comic-esque with too bright coloring
USM: Comic-esque as well, but this one has coloring a bit more realistic
SMN: Almost black 'n white, right coloring for the mood
2099: Too much like tron, bright neon lights on dark backgrounds, looks the most realistic, but I don't like Tron brightness

So:
Story 5/10
game Play 3/10
Audio 8/10
Graphics 7/10
Average 5.6/10

Game is overrated, all flash and no subtle. Batman Arkham Asylum is popular cause it deserves the success it got, that one is a well crafted game, sure is repetitive like every other game is, but it holds some values to play and replay, no missions where you have to do the same thing 2-3 times to finish one stage in half an hour all combat, and 12 stages with the main pattern

Sunday 24 July 2011

PS1 Spider-Man Game Covers

The first PS1 Spider-Man game from Neversoft, what a beautiful piece of gaming, I think it's one of the best games released on the PS1








Here are the game covers, kind of like chapter partitions, designed in the style of comic covers

Thursday 30 June 2011

OPERATION: RACCOON CITY



As a huge fan of Capcom, and a real geek of Resident Evil series, I hereby announce that I'll get this game as soon as it gets released
I'm highly satisfied it's not a first person shooter

Tuesday 1 February 2011

GLITCH


Cars in the subway from Spider-Man 3 the game

Police car on a rooftop in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows

Monday 29 November 2010

PROTOTYPE




















Hmm, quite some time passed since I last posted about a game, now I return with this. Like most new Action/Adventure games, most of what you do here is move and fight enemies, this routine got really overused, get a new sense of gaming developers, please.

Alright already, I'll quit sulking about it and give my detailed opinion of this game, which can be summed up in this short paragraph:
"It is awesome to drive air and ground army vehicles, to consume people and disguise as them, to glide and use so many superpowers, as well as slicing enemies, only it get tiring too soon when a game is so repetitive"

Elaborately speaking:

*STORY:

Story is nice, it's about "Alex Mercer", a scientist from Gentek, one of their top gniuses working on developing a bio weapon, a virus (it seems so many story tellers don't get tired of this plot in both games and film, seems to them it doesn't get old), the guy died, woke from death not remembering anything, escapes soldiers, then he's on a quest to make ssensse of everything and stop the spreading of infection he caused turning all people of Manhattan to canibalistic beasts. The thing that separates Ale from the rest is that he keeps his mind, and he gain memories of people he consume

Flaw in the game is that after you discover that Mercer is actually dead, and you play with the virus that consumed him and gains memories of everyone it consumes, it consumed nothing of Mercer's memories causing him Amnesia
--------------------------------
*GAMEPLAY:
In an open city where you can move freely, youdon't have to worry about playing a linear game, or be bored of a Sandbox game (I belong to category No.1), too bad for travelling you don't have threads to shoot like Spider-Man, and you can't steal a fast vehicle like in Grand Theft Auto, all you have to do is sprint, until you consume a certain soldier to learn how to drive a tank

Consuming is fun, you can do it in two different ways:
  • Cause soldiers to chase you if they see you, that doesn't always happen, not everytime you lift someone to walk with and consume
  • Stealth consume, this is the silent better approach, cause it is less trouble making

Most of what there is to do is move and attack, making it more of a Beat 'Em Up sort of game. You can use powers to attack, use arms you steal from soldiers to fight, use helicopter or tank, or carry and toss some stuff on the enemies

Extra activities:

  • Walk races
  • Glide

----------------

*AUDIO:

  • I bet you were looking forward to this, what have I got to say about the voice acting and music, I really admire the voice cast selected
  • A lot of soundtracks have the feel of Dark Knight music to it, man that music is awesome

-------------------

*GRAPHICS:

They're really nice in cinematics, need greater improvement in gameplay mode

--------------------

This is a great game for you if you enjoy war games, monster games, slicing characters and camaflouge

Saturday 7 August 2010

"SPIDER-MAN 3" vs "WEB OF SHADOWS"


The are the boxes for the PC discs of the two Sandbox Spider-Man games with "Quick Time Events"For you who don't know, Activision ported the versions of the two games to PC from the current generation of home consoles; XBOX360 & PS3, that's why I placed the back of the boxes to show how similar they are to the back of the boxes of those consoles ports of the two games

SM3 PC most crucial minimum requirements for XP & 7:
  • Pentium 4 2.8 MHz
  • 256MB graphic card

SMWoS PC most crucial Minimum requirements for XP & 7:
  • Core 2 Duo 2.13 MHz
  • 512MB graphic cards
"Web of Shadows" was released only 17 months after SM3, and its requirements are far heavier, when "Resident Evil 5", "Devil May Cry 4", "Batman Arkham Asylum" are ported to PC with lesser requirements than SM3, and they were released in 2009. Big difference, huh? Guess that's why people generally say Activision games are badly ported to PC
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I read plenty of comments recommending people to play "Spider-Man Web of Shadows", considering it to be the best Spider-Man game released in a long time. I watched videos of this game before playing it and it looked really awesome.

When it comes to "Spider-Man 3" it comes the exact opposite way around, people insult it and bash it, calling it a waste of a game, the worst Spider-Man game ever. I watched videos of it before playing it, it seemed to be boring, something that really should be avoided, there is even a fan made manual showing SM3 to be a most disastrous experience

What do you think? Forget what you think, what's important is what I think, cause it is my blog, so here go my exact most fair most reasonable treatment ever for a review for both games. Just so you know; I'm a Spideyholic, I can tolerate a Spidey story no matter how bad it is, but I can still be fair in commenting, so here goes everything
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spider-Man 3:
Loosely based on "Sam Raimi" poorly received finale for his Spider-Man movie series, only in movie plots and in the designs of some characters it follows the movie, and I'll talk since the start

It got bashed cause it opens with a story mission that has a tutorial, when none of "Ultimate Spider-Man" nor "Web of Shadows" got bashed for that -WTF?- it's not something to bash the game, not really, it has a nice tutorial, it shows you have more control of Spider-Man and better grasp on his fighting skills more than any previous game before it, for the first time it is NOT simply a button masher. The only flaw is that you can't do something unless it says you can do it, so you can't do reflexes when you press the reflex button unless it says you can use it, but the first few guys you need to fight are easily dodged without reflexes. After finishing the first mission and first part of the tutorial, the intro is rolled, you see the cast, get an idea of the story, and go forth

Swinging tutorial comes next, it starts with smooth normal basic swinging lesson, how to rise and speed boost, and how to pick the side you swing on, no big deal, good part, with a nice soundtrack

After it you get the map tutorial, it shows how to select the next mission, a.k.a shows you what mission comes first and what comes later, for a comic geek like me it did very good, and it allows you to check the various missions you can choose from, not restricted to the linear story where you have to finish one mission to head to the next, therefore you can leave a mission if it felt hard and complete it later after you complete other easier missions

Story missions: Five movie missions, 3 of them marked with the movie spider, and two are rides, one is a scare ride and the other is a thrill ride, very good fun replacement for what there is in the movie, without leaving a gap in the story. Thirty Seven more missions are there, one of them is the first one with the tutorial, it is fortunate that only less than quarter of all the story missions have the symbiote in them, cause there were too many symbiote centered Spidey games, including the one that came after this one, made me quite sick of symbiotes. Story missions are well written, they tried to take a great a detour as possible from the movie way, they did good (the movie was very well done by the way, I prefer "The Dark Knight", but this one was done 10 folds better, no WTF moments cause they make no sense, alien influence was funny, not badly written, but I'm not here to review the movie). Some subplots from previous games are explained, others that were introduced here will unfortunately remain unresolved cause they were expecting more of Raimi & Maguire Spidey movies, which are never to come thanks to the reboot

In stories and out of stories, this game has the biggest number of things to do in a Spider-Man game, you not only fight and swing, you can use Spidey science knowledge and intelligence in defusing bombs (a guy who amazed two of the worlds eight smartest men with two of his creations, and one creation amazed another genius, you expect a guy like that to not be able to defuse bombs? Give me a break)and defusing bombs is smooth and very easily done, though in the hard ones you need to be sharp & quick. Give "Mary Jane" some quality time like he did in "Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21", and it comes with a great soundtrack, you can do stealth, take some cameras to prove you're not a menace, take photos, collect a cure to help Connors (the stuff behind how Lizard men were around gets explained, unlike the PS2 version). Also outside of the story missions there are trick races and skydive missions, they are fun applications of the various capabilities and works of Spider-Man

Motion:
-Reflexes are great to dodge bullets and other stuff, just don't depend on it too much, some foes just shoot too much you can't dodge all even with your reflexes fully upgraded, so this is something you should really lower your level of dependency on them.
-Combat is smooth and amazing, you can attack in the air, not directed like that in WoS, but you still follow close targets. Boss combats take too long in comparison to fighting them with the "Black Suit", but they still finish fast enough, the more experienced you are, the faster you finish them, but they don't finish any less slower than a fight in "Ultimate Spider-Man"
-This is the first game to allow swinging from two lines at once, swinging is fun and relaxing, nothing stiff
-Poleswing, wallsprint, web yoyo, truly amazing feats, but they are upgrades, except for the poleswing
-Moving from bottom to top, smooth
-Going indoors is great, you can choose to go indoors to some buildings, and you can free roam in the subway, and go to "Roosevelt Island" anytime you choose, you can swim there.
-The first sandbox Spider-Man game to allow you to go to missions without being required to do side quests first

Upgrades you unlock before unlocking the "Black Suited Spider-Man" are not unlockable for the black suit if you finish Venom fight and left some of the story missions with upgrades for after the "Grand Finale", so don't go cheap on them

Of course there are the things they could do better to make the game better:
*Not being pulled by the hammer girl, but to be fair, this annoys people when "Black Cat" -an individual with no superpowers- can beat Spider-Man and that is fun (same goes for Batman beating Superman, it pleases Batfans prefering Batso to Supes)
*Thugs going behind walls you can't go behind. Don't worry, it doesn't reoccur very often, but it does happen more than any other glitch
*Fill the special bar of the normal suit with the press of a button like you can do for the black suit
*Have an option in the Extras to select the mission you would like to do, showing all the story missions in the correct order they happen with, and you can choose one of the side plots after you get through with it, but that is a different option in the "Extras Menu"

Game as I rate it as I think it deserves: 9.5/10
Best Spider-Man game ever made, truest to the core of the character and his mythos, it does what Spider-Man always does to me, it does it better than any other Spider-Man game, it places a wide smile on my face. I finished this game more than any other video game, I finished it over 20 times within the two years I played it in, it applied plenty of things I hoped to have in a Spidey game (though I prefer 4 "Resident Evil" games to it, and RE4 is my all time favorite game)

Professionally worthy rating: 8.75/10
The game has some annoying glitches, scarce, but annoying, it also has funny glitches. The music is great, action is great, Spidey is a solo act, like he is in the comics. Spider-Man is quippy and funny enough, Toby does a better job in the games than he does in the movies. Least repetitive Spider-Man game.
Camera can stick behind you back if you're back is stuck to a wall, so all you will see is Spidey's back
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Spider-Man Web of Shadows:
The trailers showed it to be symbiote centric, and it is indeed, at least 60% of the game is symbiote centric

Story: Platform story, back to the linear way, not choosing one of several scattered missions, but you can choose a path that will decide a different outcome in the game at certain points, it (as I heard) allows you to open four endings. No extra activities available, so no activities you are required to perform to perform missions, at least not like the two Sandbox games before Treyarch's SM3

Motion: Between missions you can free roam in Manhattan (only), can't go indoors or stuff. It has swinging mechanics done better than SM3, so it does have more benefits. Charged jumping doesn't affect the height of your jump, so don't count on it. This is the first game you can do a back flip with Spider-Man, so yeah, benefits are quite more

Combat: First time for combat on the walls, makes some great moves, the more you upgrade the better. Attacks here are back to simple button masher, you press a button repeatedly to do attacks, not like in SM3 where you make a different combo with every change of sequence of button pressing between strong & quick attacks. Symbiote doesn't make fights much smoother, only a bit slightly more, boss fights take much more time than they do in previous games, cause the boss health bar is 3 times the size of your health bar, and your attack takes only one small line in the boss fight. "Black Cat" has no super powers and she can jump much farther than the guy with super human powers, faster, and swings around your neck, meaning you can't grab her. You get slightly hit, no matter how weak the enemy is, you fly back over 50 feet behind, and you can't anchor yourself before going such a distant, and if a wall is behind you, you can't see who attacks you unless in front of you, and you can't see Spidey (On that, so many claim this game is superior to its better SM3, they must be stupid fans)

Activities: You have spidey powers, but all you do with them is swing, fight and destroy. A game like this is a sensation and "Spider-Man 3" is a joke and toilet material? "Spider-Man Friend or Foe" is Extremely WeaK?

Rating (Both my personal view and the professional rating it deserves from my opinion): 4.5/10
What a mess, there are plenty of good points about this game, but the bad almost outweights the good. Enjoy the good in the game if you play it, don't just focus on the negative things about it
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Why did this big pile of crap beat "Spdier-Man 3"? Cause so many fans are stupid, too many fans are stupid, they hate a game for a few bad things emphasizing them, and love another considering it far superior when one of the more superior things in it are the sucky points. Just add great swinging mechanics and great combat, that's all the fans want, they don't want anything really good, not good story, not good activities, just stupid bland violence with great graphics and amazing combat system though it's a button masher. Developers make an amazing game that truly puts all the greater aspects about a character and it becomes toilet material, just know how to use fans stupidity for your own benefit, well move Shaba & Treyarch on thes pile of crap called "Web of Shadows", I don't blame you for doing what you did, I blame fans for being too stupid and love to be blind about somethings, then give nonsense good credits, even if it is just a souped up version of a game badly received by them for being kiddie like & repetitive

Friday 12 February 2010

RESIDENT EVIL 5 JOURNAL. DAY 1 Feb 10th 2010


First thing I'd like to say is I wanted to start this trend with "Resident Evil 4" last year, but the idea came a bit too late so I passed. Much like Punisher's "War Journal"

I finally began playing the game on my PS3, the controls are far from what I'm used to for a "Resident Evil Game", especially since 4 mostly followed the same formula the previous games followed with R1 holding the gun up, X is the "Action Button" & Square is run

Controls in this game are like this: Square & X functions are switched, here we have X for running and Square for action. Inventory is using Triangle, not start nor Sircle, the game doesn't pause when you use your inventory

The main protagonist is the guy you play with since original "Resident Evil" game, "Chris Redfield", he's backed up by an African girl named Sheva. Gameplay is in Africa, you play against people infected by parasites different than the ones from 4

I walked through for a while, I left the tutorial on and played on "Easy Mode", we're supposed to find a guy named Irving, but we pass a few obstacles on the way like the requirement to escape a horde of creatures, we hide in a shack and move underground to a different shack and watch this sonovabitch seeing us with an eagles eye after executing the guy who gave us the guns and explained our mission to us in the start of the game


He sends the ones he executed our friend in front of on us, we are trapped and needed to survive until Kirk hands us backup, he did after a long struggle and shot the creatures who used to be humans saving us

Later we discover Irving is a traitor, and a blond girl requires our aid, but we reach her late, the parasite she got fed with grew rapidly and hurt us. Later we went underground where a monster required us to place him in a furnance and work it on him