I have a friend, his name is Bill. The reason I am telling you about Bill is simple. My friend Bill thinks that Assassins Creed is the greatest game ever to come out for any platform ever. He was so enthralled by this game that I had to try it. I mean if my friend Bill thought the game was this good, then it would seem to follow logic that I would enjoy the game as well.

Unfortunately I forgot that most people consider my friend Bill insane, and that any time he has uttered the words “most awesome ever” I have been disappointed. Yet in the end I remembered both.

I am not saying I absolutely hated Assassins Creed. Actually it was a fairly well put together game. There are gorgeous graphical moments, decent story, okay game play, and enough open ended story elements that you don’t feel like you are on rails the entire time.

However because of my friend Bill, I had expected the most awesome game ever. Well like I said, we live and we learn. So you probably are tired of hearing about my friend Bill and would like to read more about the game. I can understand that, so on with the review.

The thing that really hit me first was that the game was very pretty, from the opening, through the entire game, the graphics remain solid and eye pleasing. While they didn’t really offer anything super mind blasting, the game was fun to look at.

Next I have to admit the story was kind of unique. This is both its strong point and what I felt was it major problem. I dug the two separate story lines. The first is about the real you, who is the victim in some kind of experiment, and the other about your ancestor. However, honestly I wish they would have just made it two different games, or better yet made the primary plot about the game. But I guess all in all I can’t complain about the story line given the fact that at least it was interesting.

Finally I have to say something about the game play. This is another one of those hate it love it type of situations. On the one hand, you really do have almost complete freedom in the environment. However this freedom comes at a price of rather complex control use.

There were times I swear they set the control up to cause as many curses to exit my mouth as possible. Yet I managed to persevere through the crappy controls for the most part, and after getting used to it, found that I could play the game competently.

So there you have it, a brief review of a slightly better than average game. While there is nothing truly stunning about the game, it is solid in most of its aspects and succeeds is allowing you to forget about what you have going on in the rest of your life. All in all I would give this game a solid 7.5 on the ole 1-10 scale and would generally recommend it as a good game to a friend.

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In the year 2020, a group of U.S. archaeologists working on the Lingshan Islands in the Philippines Sea get taken hostage by the North Korean army. It’s been one week since the distress call, which suggested the science team had stumbled onto something important. Since then, no one has heard from them. As a Delta Force Lieutenant code-named Nomad, you and your squad are sent in to find out exactly what’s going on.

The game opens impressively, with you and your team getting air-dropped over the Lingshan Islands. You are specialist soldiers, equipped with state-of-the-art nanosuits that can boost your strength and speed, harden to stop bullets, or even make you nigh-invisible for short periods of time. For you though, the mission could have started better.

As you are falling you see a bright light quickly flash by, before you realise that your parachute isn’t working. Fortunately, you manage to land in the water, but as your scattered team starts working on getting back together, it quickly becomes apparent that the situation is worse than anyone imagined.

Crysis is German developer Crytek’s second game, following the success of their 2004 hit Far Cry. Several of the features that made Far Cry popular also return here, such as stunning graphics, and a rather open, sandbox-style FPS adventure.

From the onset of the game you will be given objectives, and your map display will indicate where you should be heading, but the island is a big place, and in what manner you move around and from which direction you approach is up to you. This, coupled with the variety offered by the nanosuit, makes Crysis suitable for several playstyles.

When you are sent to investigate a North Korean-occupied village for instance, you can take your time and circle around towards the back while using your suit’s stealth function to try and slip in unnoticed; or you can drive a machine gun-equipped jeep up to the front barricade and let loose on everything that moves.

Your weaponry can also be modified on the fly to suit your approach. You can add silencers at the cost of reduced damage, or put on a flashlight that might help you make your way around, but will also more easily alert enemies to your presence.

The game will become somewhat more streamlined toward the second half, as the storyline comes more into focus. Still, a mission will rarely put a clock on you or tell you how you should accomplish a particular objective; and these are good things, especially early on, as there are a lot of great sights to see.

In fact, Crysis might well be the best-looking game ever made, on any platform, which would be no mean feat considering the level of competition. The island surroundings are inviting, borderline photorealistic, and seeing the Sun rise for the first time over lazily swaying palm trees can do a lot to put you in Nomad’s shoes. The game world also comes with a full physics system and day/night cycles.

The extremely advanced graphics can be something of a mixed blessing though. If you visit a Crysis forum, you will notice that almost all the threads concern one single topic: whether or not people’s hardware are up to the job.

The game’s features, story and action all get pushed to the side in favour of the worry that a certain computer might not be enough to deliver a satisfying game experience. To a certain extent, Crysis then becomes a way of showing off just how cool your rig is rather than a game admired and discussed for its own merits.

From another point of view, the large, seemingly-alive world of Crysis also appears full of untapped potential. You have a beautiful setting and a realistic physics system, but all you can do with it is blow things up and kill people. It can be satisfying to see palm trees crack and topple to your machinegun fire, or power-jump onto a shack only to have the roof collapse and drop you inside the building; but we find ourselves missing more immersive elements.

With a dose of, say, Metal Gear Solid added, you could be able to climb trees, utilize camouflage and hunt animals for your survival in the jungle. The world, rather than just a beautiful scene for destruction, would become an active part of the game mechanics.

Though it may not sound quite as spectacular as it looks, the audio of Crysis is by no means bad. Explosions and weapons fire are loud and satisfying, the jungle has a lot of ambient atmospheric sounds and noises; and from time to time the island itself will seem to groan and rumble, as if trying to warn you from pressing on. The soundtrack is also well designed, and makes the game sound and feel a lot like a Hollywood blockbuster.

The combat mechanics work well and feel mostly realistic. Enemies will use cover and support each other, often lobbing grenades and laying down suppressive fire while closing in on you. If you get spotted by a patrol that you can’t eliminate in a timely fashion, there’s also a high risk of them calling for backup; which usually means additional troops and vehicles heading your way very soon.

On the downside, the hit localization system is pretty basic for such an advanced game, divided into head and body shots. You can’t drop an enemy to the ground by shooting him in the leg, nor interfere with his shooting by aiming for the arms.

Virtually all enemy soldiers will also wear plenty of body armour, so a head shot can save you both time and ammunition; though many times you will find your first shot only serves to knock off a helmet, leaving your foe surprised but unharmed.

Completing Crysis takes around 10 hours if you play it straightforwardly, whereas going out of your way to be stealthy and eliminate every single enemy could make the game last a few hours more. As you progress through missions, the action will keep ramping up.

From the early goings-on of legging it through the jungle you will find yourself taking down enemy helicopters, blasting your way across a war-torn valley in a tank; and ultimately getting to the bottom of just what it was that the archaeological team discovered, something that will have dire consequences for everyone on the island.

The only real low point is a vehicular mission in the later part of the game, where you have to pilot an extremely unwieldy VTOL aircraft. Struggling even to stay off the ground, you are faced with enemies much faster and more maneuverable than yourself in a match-up that feels a lot like chasing fighter jets with a zeppelin.

Thus you will spend the majority of this mission at their mercy, to a point where we often felt that we only survived because of questionable AI and an uncharacteristic lack of enemy aggression. Fortunately, the action picks up in the very last chapter to deliver a truly epic, if yet incomplete, finale.

In the end, Crysis is a very ambitious and occasionally very good game. It can really shine in certain moments, but can as a whole also serve as a reminder of the old gaming adage that graphics aren’t everything; especially when they end up being the quality overshadowing everything else. If you have any kind of liking for shooters though, as well as a near top-of-the-line computer that can handle it, you should most definitely give Crysis a go.

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Before I get into the nitty gritty of reviewing this game I want to make a couple things abundantly clear. I absolutely hate First Person Shooters. I don’t play them well, they don’t hold my interest, and really I think that there are far to many of them available. The other thing I want to make clear is that my friend Derrick is an absolute FPS guru, and he is the sole reason I can actually like this review.

It all started with a phone call from Derrick. He was his standard calm and collected self “Dude Have you played UT 3 Yet! It’s awesome! I mean…” Like I said calm and collected. So anyway about three minutes into the conversation (the part where I actually got to talk) I tell him how I feel about first person shooters.

So we spend the next several minutes with him attempting to convince me to play, and finally I agree having no actual plan to ever play the game. I hung up the phone and proceeded to forget about the talk I had with Derrick until a half hour later I spot him pulling into my driveway.

Now normally I really dig seeing Derrick, however one look at the tower in one arm and the mysterious white bag in the other and I had a sinking feeling that he had not forgotten that I had agreed to play. However I was not about to give in to his bold manipulations and greeted him at the door trying to play the “oh I forgot” card. He didn’t buy it a bit and started to move all his LAN gear into my house.

Seeing that things were getting desperate, I told him I didn’t have a copy of the game. He smiled widely and handed me the mysterious white package as he began hooking everything up. With a sinking heart I opened the package and inside was a brand new unopened copy of Unreal Tournament 3. I glared at an obviously pleased Derrick, trundled over to my computer, turned it on and with a deep breath resigned myself to Derrick whooping my butt at yet another boring FPS.

So okay, I tried to hate this game. I really did. I did everything I could think of. I made fun of the name, I complained about the system requirements, but none of this did any good once The game started.

Alls I can say is I was floored, from the opening scene through the absolutely stunning graphics (even running them at a lower mode, they still rocked!) through the game play, I could not believe how awesome this game was. I am not just talking about I didn’t mind getting my butt kicked by Derrick awesome, I mean balls to the wall, blow it all up, winner take all, type of awesome. I have NEVER liked a first person shooter this much.

I can’t really tell you what exactly about the game that has blown me away so much. I mean yeah the graphics rock, but that is almost common place. The game play was really good, but still I am the guy who never likes these games. Hell I didn’t even mind the fact the story was the usual shallow story. I have honestly never had so much fun blowing stuff up and getting blown up in my life. I even continued to play the game long after Derrick had left me alone.

So there you have it, my review for UT3, I realize that I didn’t get much into the hard stuff, but trust me that doesn’t matter when I am willing to give a an FPS 9.5 out of ten. Sorry it deserves a ten but I just can’t bring myself to give a first person shooter that high of a score.

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Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Developer: Naughty Dog
Release Date: November 19, 2007
Genre: Action/Adventure
ESRB Rating: Teen

Great games, or even any games for that matter, have been relatively few and far between for Sony’s sleeping giant, making those who shelled out a handsome sum of money for it soon after its release, begin to question their decision.

Sure, the promise of great future games like MGS IV and FFXIII exists, and the general consensus still seems to be that the PS3 will eventually have the most games despite its slow start, but this is of little solace to the current stable of game-starved PS3 owners.

One of the lone bright spots thus far for us poor souls has been Uncharted, a beautiful and competent action game from Crash Bandicoot and Jak and Daxter creators Naughty Dog. They’ve shown with Uncharted that they have more than enough talent to conquer genres beyond the mascot platformer genre that’s largely been their bread and butter to this point.

Uncharted puts you in the boots of Nathan Drake, a supposed descendant of the legendary explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he works to uncover the mystery of his ancestor and the location of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold.

The story features numerous twists and is expertly told, with a strong cast of characters and well paced story telling. You’ll be driven to play through the game as much to see what happens to Nathan and his companions next as you will to see the next beautiful environment.

Comparisons were inevitably made with Tomb Raider due to the story and setting, but in terms of game play Uncharted has a much stronger bent on action than the slower, more methodical pace of Tomb Raider. Nathan can equip himself with two weapons at once and has a wide variety in his arsenal. He can also engage in hand-to-hand combat if the need arises, and even pull of stealth kills if he can successfully sneak up behind an enemy.

Uncharted also takes cues from the successful Gears of War in the use of its cover system, an integral element to survival. Nathan can take cover behind virtually any conceivable object in the environment with the press of a button, pop out and take a shot at the enemy, and then retreat behind cover or dive to the next area of cover for a better angle.

There is a smattering of puzzle and platforming elements scattered throughout the levels, but these shouldn’t pose any problems for even casual gamers. These are more like small complements to the otherwise frenetic action, rather than fully fleshed out elements, if for no other reason than the fact that enemies come in unrelenting hordes and battles can sometimes carry on back and forth for good stretches of time.

The graphics are one of the more talked about features of Uncharted, and for good reason. From the realistic character models and fluid animation, to the expansive, gorgeous and varied environments and the amazing water effects, this is one pretty game.

The environments are dripping with small touches that make them truly feel alive. The ancient ruins look just as they should with weathered, crumbling walls overgrown with shrubbery, the lighting is fantastic and the special effects sparkle. All of this comes with no noticeable loading times or frame rate issues.

Uncharted is a disappointingly short game, and relatively linear at that. While there are some hidden treasures to be found, the game does a fairly good job of keeping you on a tight leash without you necessarily realizing it. Many areas are large, but constructed in a very linear fashion, and the environments themselves have little interaction.

Despite the short play length, this is a game that any PS3 owner should play through at least once. It truly displays the potential held within that little black box, but beyond just the graphics, it takes you on a compelling narrative journey filled with plenty of fun gun fights, ancient riddles and leaps of faith.

News: Strong sales and glowing reviews led to the inevitable, the announcement that there would indeed be a sequel to Uncharted, with a 2009 release date probable.

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Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sumo Digital
Release Date: March 18, 2008
Genre: Sports
ESRB Rating: Everyone

As a huge fan of tennis games since the aptly titled Tennis was included on that massive all-in-one NES game cart (how many games were on that thing, 60? 100? I can’t remember, but you could get lost for hours in that thing), I was really looking forward to this title. While I generally prefer the more serious minded and technical sports games, complete with real players, detailed stat tracking etc.

I’ve had a blast with many of the Mario Tennis games, and was hoping for something at least comparable to them, and this game was almost certainly inspired by them. Sadly, SST is no Mario Tennis, nor is it even Tennis.

SST features a variety of characters and settings from past Sega games, some of which need to be unlocked, including characters from the Sonic series, Nights, Alex Kidd, The House of the Dead and more. There is also a good deal of game modes, both single and multiplayer, but the PS2 version is sadly lacking in online play. Many of the mini-games need to be unlocked by progressing through the single player tournaments and challenges, and most of them are fun at least for a while.

All sounds good so far, but problems start popping up when you actually get playing the games. SST is an extremely simple game that requires very little skill to play, which is evident from the first set of your first game.

The action and timing requires very little precision, if you’re in the general area of the ball and swing at around the time the ball is there, you’ll hit. That’s about all there is to it. The characters cover so much ground that lobs and net play is all but ineffective, forcing you to sit at the baseline and keep whacking balls back and forth till someone mercifully misses one. Each character has unique super moves that can be used, but again, there’s no real skill in using them and they don’t really add much to the game.

Now to be fair, the Mario Tennis games largely suffered from the same problems of simple game-play, but this was compensated for with the addition of RPG elements of character interaction and character building that SST lacks.

I grew bored of SST extremely quickly, maybe as a result of playing the similar Mario games for many hours already, maybe not. All I know is that aside from some of the enjoyable mini-games and challenges, I didn’t have much fun playing the actual tennis, which I can say I did with the Mario games, despite their similar weaknesses.

Graphics also fail to impress. The character models are decent, and the environments are unique and quirky for the most part, but lack detail and resolution, and the frame rate occasionally has hiccups despite the lack of graphical might.

If you enjoyed Mario Tennis or are simply a big Sega fan looking for a game with some great fan service, you may get some enjoyment out of SST. Anyone else would do well to rent first before giving this one a purchase.

News: Poor sales (at least in the U.S) caused many retailers such as Gamestop to quickly slash their prices on SST. You should be able to find a new copy for as little as $19.99.

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