Star Wars: Republic Commando Review

Written 07/06/2011

Note: This review is for the PC version of the game. Screenshot and video taken from my machine.

I really wanted to play Republic Commando when it was released back in 2005, but I couldn’t afford it and was rounding out my senior year of high school at the time. By the time I had enough money for it, the game completely slipped my mind. I only remembered it recently when I managed to snag it for $5 during a Steam sale. Not only had I finally gotten my hands on the game, but I also decided to make it my first Youtube playthrough game. Should I have forgotten about Republic Commando so long ago? No, but it was still great to save that much buying it!

Visuals and Presentation

Compared to today’s generation of ultra-realistic games, Republic Commando looks quite dated. To make such a comparison would be unfair though, so I won’t do it. Compared to other games of the time, Republic Commando’s visuals are quite solid. Models and textures are as detailed as they could be for the time, with most of the effort showing itself in the textures. Having done some rudimentary modding in the Jedi Knight games, I know that such a technique is the best way to achieve more realistic results with the limited power of the older game engines. Animations, while rather limited, are all much more fluid than many other games of the era. The environments and enemies are equally limited, but are still well designed. The limited variety also helps to keep the game focused, though there was still a little available room left to add more variety. By far the most limited in variety are the weapon models, but it actually serves an understandable purpose in the gameplay; which I will explain shortly. Overall though, Republic Commando’s visuals are solid with a lack of variety.

Visuals and Presentation Rating:

Sound

Considering that this is a Star Wars game, most of the sounds and music you’ll hear in Republic Commando are the same things you’ve been hearing for years. Honestly, I would have it no other way! The sounds and music of Star Wars are a large part of what makes the series so iconic, and it would simply not be the same without them. In addition to those classics, there is a very nice and original title song that also plays at key points in the campaign. The voice acting is also top notch, with the notable inclusion of Raphael Sbarge. For those of you who don’t recognize voice actors in games, he also voiced Carth Onasi from Knights of the Old Republic and Kaidan Alenko from Mass Effect. Everyone portrays their roles excellently, which is helped along nicely by the intelligent and coherent writing. Overall, the sound package of Republic Commando is excellent despite the reuse of most of the classic sounds and music you either love or hate by now.

Sound Rating:

Gameplay

As odd as this may sound, there are no Jedi whatsoever in Republic Commando save for a roughly 30 second appearance of Yoda. You are instead, big surprise, a Republic Commando in charge of three other Commandos. The game is a first-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on squad tactics. The shooting mechanics themselves are simple and basic, and are especially easy to pick up if you’ve ever played a Call of Duty game (and who hasn’t?). The gameplay’s real depth comes into play with its squad command system. While in most areas, you will be given the option to assign any of your fellow Commandos to a tactical location, allowing them to snipe, throw grenades, provide anti-armor fire, or man an unoccupied turret. Unfortunately, each location is pre-set to a certain action. So if a particular location is designated for sniping, the Commando will only snipe in that location. Fortunately, the developers were smart enough to place each tactical location in good spots.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, the weapon selection in the game is very limited. The reason for this is that your primary weapon, the DC-17 blaster rifle, actually acts as three separate guns. You start off with the DC-17 only acting as an assault rifle. Soon though, you’ll find a sniper attachment that you can switch to while still using the same weapon. After that, you’ll come across a grenade launcher attachment as well. While still being the same gun, each attachment uses it own ammo type; which is convenient. Other than the DC-17, there are seven guns in the game, but you will likely rarely use them, as you’ll be nicely supplied with DC-17 ammo throughout most of the game.

The difficulty of the game is fairly relaxed most of the time. On occasion though, you are thrown into a situation so difficult that you will die at least ten times before you succeed. I personally don’t have a major problem with this, but it was definitely frustrating nonetheless. Multiplayer in Republic Commando shows the game’s age most clearly, and generally feels like simply a tacked on feature. The gametypes are cookie-cutter, and mostly revolve around Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. The map designs are nice, but they can’t distract from the overall blandness of the multiplayer gameplay. Honestly, Republic Commando’s multiplayer can’t hold a candle to its competition. This game shines in its campaign experience, and I believe that was the intention. Multiplayer in Republic Commando would be best left ignored.

Gameplay Rating:

Story

At first, Republic Commando’s story seems as though it will make little to no sense. You begin the game as one of many elite clone squadrons sent to Geonosis to aid the Jedi in the events near the end of Star Wars: Episode 2. After you extract from the planet, you are sent to...well, I won’t ruin it for you. Suffice it to say that events begin to tie together very well as the game progresses, and ending with things leading directly into a battle depicted in Episode 3. Until the very end of the game though, there will still be questions as to why you are present in certain locations. Unfortunately, the game’s ending is also a pretty nasty cliffhanger; so be ready for it. Overall, the game’s still is a bit confusing at first, but ends up being worthwhile.

Story Rating:

Replay Value

Considering the weak nature of Republic Commando’s multiplay, all of the game’s real replay value is in its campaign. Fortunately, the campaign took me a respectable 10 hours 48 minutes to complete on the normal difficulty. Unfortunately, there is not much to do after that but replay the campaign on a harder difficulty. The game is certainly worth another playthrough if a Republic Commando 2 is ever announced, but until that happens, the game’s replay value is highly dependent on how much you enjoy it the first time through.

Replay Value Rating:

Final Thoughts and Overall Score

If you’re tired of playing a Jedi in Star Wars games, give Republic Commando a try. If you enjoy tactical military shooters, try Republic Commando. If you like Star Wars in general, try Republic Commando. If you hate Star Wars, what’s wrong with you? The game is available for PC and the original Xbox.

Star Wars: Republic Commando Overall Score:

System Requirements:

• OS: Windows 2000, XP or Vista
• Processor: Pentium III or Athlon 1.0 GHz or faster CPU
• Memory: 256MB RAM
• Graphics: 64MB 3D Graphics card with Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader (VS/PS) capability
• DirectX®: 9.0b
• Hard Drive: 2.0GB
• Sound: 100% Directx 9.0c
  

Borderlands Review

Written 12/21/2010

Note: This review is for the PC version of the game. Screenshot and video were taken on my machine.

Borderlands is a pretty hard game to categorize. The official website and advertisements claim that it's the offspring of an FPS and RPG's union, and I can believe that. I've also heard it classified as a Looter-Shooter, which is also accurate. In short, this is the hybrid genre to beat all hybrid genres. It does make you wonder though, is it a good idea to cross-breed an FPS and RPG?

Visuals and Presentation

As I sit here and think about how I'm wanting to start each section of this review, I'm realizing how truly difficult Borderlands is to describe. Everything is a hybrid of two things, except for the sound. The visuals in particular are very stylized but yet they try to give off a somewhat realistic feel at the same time. It can be a little jarring at first, with realistically detailed textures that are slightly cell-shaded, but the effect quickly grew on me to the point that I quite liked uniqueness of it. The same treatment can also be seen in the environment, player, enemy, NPC, and weapon models; and the quality remains quite consistent throughout the entire game.

Pandora is a desolate place very reminiscent of the Capital Wasteland of Fallout 3 with the exception that a nuke hasn't hit this planet. It's a very barren and unforgiving place, but not a particularly varied one. Expect to see a lot of sand and rock with the occasional bandit camp littered about when roaming outdoors. The interior areas, while largely reusing textures and prefab models, are all uniquely designed so that they really feel original. Toward the end of the game you begin to see some real variety, but it doesn't last very long. The most variety you'll be seeing in the game will be in the DLC areas such as Dr. Ned's Zombie Island. I only purchased the initial three DLC packs available at the time of this writing (The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot, and the Secret Armory of General Knoxx), and they provide a much more pleasing visual package than the core game with environments specifically tailored to the individual topics of each DLC. In all, the core game looks and feels great, but if you're looking for a little more variety, buy some of the DLCs.

Visuals and Presentation Rating:

Sound

Sound is probably the most straightforward, non-hybrid, aspect of Borderlands. Most of what you'll be hearing is the gun sounds, and there's quite a few to be heard. Each sound is perfectly appropriate for the type of gun you're firing, and avoids making any particular weapon sound weaker than it actually is. The music and other general sound effects are also solid, but the music can be a bit repetitive. You're going to be hearing the same exploration tune so much it's going to get stuck in your head for a while. The combat music is good, but it really blends into the background when things get heated up. The music in the Mad Moxxi DLC however, is just plain awesome! I found myself so distracted by it that it would almost get me killed; it's that good! Voice acting is good as well, if you can hear it. Some voices come in loud and clear and are performed very well. Others are hard to tell because you can't hear a dang thing they're saying. So keep the subtitles on and be ready to speed read. Other than that, I have no real complaints about the sound. It won't win any awards, except for possibly the Moxxi music, but it's by no means bad either.

Sound Rating:

Gameplay

More often than not, games are either supported by strong gameplay and have a very weak story, or vice-versa. Borderlands is most definitely a perfect example of the former. The gameplay is so solid that it makes the admittedly non-existent story just disappear (more on that in the next section). As I've said earlier, Borderlands is the offspring of an FPS and RPG's union, and there's really no better way to describe it. If you've played either Halo or Call of Duty, the shooting mechanics will be very familiar to you. If you've played World of Warcraft or any other MMO, the loot and skill-based mechanics will be very familiar to you.

At first glance, it's very difficult to distinguish between the shooting mechanics of Borderlands and Fallout 3. Both give you weapons with damage, accuracy, and fire rate stats, and let you shoot in a traditional FPS style. The difference is where Fallout 3's shooting mechanics are ruled by the RPG “number-crunching” method to determine hits and misses, Borderlands' shooting mechanics are ruled by your actual accuracy and twitch skills in an FPS method. That's not to say the stats on your weapon make no difference, because they do, but rather to say that you can overcome the poorer stats of your weapon with sufficient FPS skills. A weapon with poorer accuracy stats simply means your reticule is bigger, thus forcing you to either waste more shots or get closer to your target.

I can't really move on without talking about the weapons themselves. There are literally anywhere between 100,000 – 1 million guns in Borderlands. It seems like black magic, I know, but the system used to generate weapons is really quite ingenious. To put it as simply as possible, there are roughly 10 (I may be exaggerating, as I've not really counted) gun manufacturers in the game, and each specializes in certain weapon stats. Some focus on damage while sacrificing accuracy or fire rate, while others focus on high accuracy with limited damage potential, while others focus on giving the weapon an elemental property, and so on. Then there are a vast amount of individual gun parts, like stocks, scopes, barrels, etc, for each manufacturer. So when a chest is opened with a weapon in it, or an enemy drops a weapon, a manufacturer is (I assume) randomly chosen. After that is established, then random individual gun parts are chosen within that manufacturer available options until the weapon is complete, and that determines its stats. This means you will hardly ever come across the same gun twice, and assure that the weapon you're using is truly unique to you. For a more detailed explanation of this, among other things, check out this dev interview by GameSpot.

The RPG side of things becomes most apparent in the amount of looting that you do, and the skill tree used to specialize your character. To put it bluntly, if you don't loot, then you won't progress, then you will surely die. It's like this in almost every RPG known to man, and Borderlands is no different. You need to constantly be scavenging for better and better loot to stay competitive with the enemies you're fighting, and it almost becomes a meta-game in and of itself. Your skill tree allows you to specialize your character to your playstyle. I played the Soldier class (there's also the Berserker, Hunter, and Siren classes), and my skill tree allowed me to progress in offense, defense, healing, or a bit of each; which is what I chose to do. The skills themselves, aside from your one active skill, serve to buff your character to make them more proficient in a certain role. Considering the Soldier's skill trees above, it's pretty easy to guess what each one does. You also level up just like in a traditional RPG by completing quests, killing enemies, and completing challenges to gain XP.

Pandora itself is a pretty large place, and you're going to be traveling a lot. Luckily, there are Catch-A-Ride stations scattered all around the planet that spawn vehicles, and generally make your life more enjoyable. Typically there are only two-player vehicles available, but in the Secret Armory of General Knoxx DLC, there is a vehicle that can carry a full group of four players. Speaking of full groups, Borderlands' multiplayer is a whole lot of fun. It's basically just a four-player co-op through the single-player campaign, but going through the empty wastes of Pandora is much more enjoyable with a friend at your side. Just keep in mind that your connection is dependent on which player in your group is the server host, so be sure the one with the best connection is hosting the server. With all of that said, you're going to be hard-pressed to find a more unique and enjoyable gameplay experience than Borderlands.

Gameplay Rating:

Story

This is going to be a really short section because there's just not much to say here. You're on Pandora because you are a Vault Hunter. What's in the vault, no one knows, and you never find out. That's it, case closed, the end, no joke. The story in the core game is an excuse to shoot everything in your path, and that's ok considering how good the gameplay is. Just don't expecting anything deep and engaging. The DLCs on the other hand have very enjoyable and focused stories. So if you're looking for any kind of story at all in Borderlands, buy the DLCs.

Story Rating:

Replay Value

If you enjoy the gameplay at all in Borderlands, playing online is enough to keep you happily occupied for a very long time. Playing the campaign alone took me roughly 53 hours to complete, and I still have a few side quests left to do. Then after you complete the game once, a second playthrough option opens up that brings everything's level range up to high-levels. So even level 1 areas become challenging again. Overall, it just depends on how much you enjoyed the game the first time. I can definitely see myself replaying this in the future though.

Replay Value Rating:

Final Thoughts and Overall Score

To answer my initial question in the opening paragraph: yes, it is definitely a good idea to cross-breed an FPS and RPG; so long as the product is as awesome as Borderlands. If you enjoy originality in your games, give Borderlands a try as soon as you can! The game is available for PC, 360, and PS3.

Borderlands Overall Score:

System Requirements

• OS: Windows XP/Vista
• Processor: 2.4 Ghz or equivalent processor with SSE2 support
• Memory: 1GB System RAM (2GB recommended with Vista)
• Graphics: 256mb video ram or better (GeForce 7 series or higher/Radeon HD3000 series or higher)
• Hard Drive: 8 GB or more free space
• Sound: Windows compatible sound card

Bioshock 2 Review

Written 02/15/2010

Note: This review is for the PC version of the game. Screenshot and video taken on my machine.

Back in 2007, 2K Games took everyone by surprise with the original Bioshock. It was a smart, original, and story driven survival-horror-FPS. Its quality is still hard to match today, considering what it offered. Now, three years later, we see Bioshock 2 aiming to dethrone its predecessor. Its success in that goal however, can be left to interpretation. I will attempt to reserve my personal opinion on the matter until the end of this review.

Visuals and Presentation

The one thing that Bioshock 2's single player campaign exudes the most is ambiance. This game is so atmospheric it's palpable. Everything you see is completely top notch from the models to the textures to the animation. The animations in particular carry the most impact for me simply because there is no mistaking what each character is feeling and at times what they are thinking about. You don't typically see impressive digital acting like this except in games like Half-Life 2 and Grand Theft Auto IV. It's also apparent that 2K spent quite a bit of time on its lighting. Without such detail paid to the lighting, most, if not all, of the atmosphere of the game would be lost. The lighting can also provide critical gameplay elements when necessary. Often times you'll see a shadow or some other visual cue that warns you of impending danger and gives you enough time to prepare for it.

Unfortunately, very few of these good things can be said about Bioshock 2's multiplayer visuals. No shred of the game's excellent lighting remains in the maps; which are mostly recreations of areas from the original Bioshock. This leaves every area flatly lit and feeling empty despite the chaos of matches. The models, textures, and animations also severely suffer from the same treatment. Every texture's resolution has been reduced far beyond what is necessary for a typical multiplayer setting. This is so extreme on the weapon and character models that most of their fundamental texture definition is lost and degrades many models to colored blobs. The models have also had many of their polygons removed, which leaves their shapes less defined and somewhat distorted. Animations are also much stiffer than in the single player campaign. Overall, single player = good, multiplayer = bad.

Visuals and Presentation Rating:

Sound

If the visuals of Bioshock 2 are that atmospheric, the sounds are doubly so. From beginning to end, you will always be hearing something interesting or disconcerting. From water dripping on the floor through cracks in the environment to creaking support beams, you're constantly reminded by the audio that you are hundreds of miles under the sea. Splicers and Little Sisters are always heard before seen, and it's always interesting to hear what they have to say before revealing yourself to them. You'll also be hearing a great deal of voice acting via the prerecorded tapes littered across Rapture and conversations with your allies. Every bit of it is very well thought out and performed, and add tremendously to understanding the overall story as well as Rapture's history. The music is also an excellent contributor to the game's atmosphere with melodies that keep the apprehension high and climax songs that leave you downright stressed. Without such excellent audio throughout, Bioshock 2 would simply not be the same.

Sound Rating:

Gameplay

If you've played the original Bioshock, you're already very familiar with the gameplay formula of Bioshock 2. The game is designed to keep you scavenging for new equipment, ammo, and money to keep you alive. If you're not someone who likes to explore or you can't handle limited resources well, Bioshock 2 is not the game for you. You also have various powers such as the ability to wield lightning, fire, and ice from your palm through genetic mutations called Plasmids. To obtain more Plasmids, you must find Little Sisters and either kill them for their ADAM, or save them and accept a lesser amount of ADAM as a gift from them. Unlike the first Bioshock though, you can wield a Plasmid and a conventional weapon at the same time. Everything else in the game simply requires you to survive long enough to reach the end. While this still works well in Bioshock 2, a few key issues keep the game from rising to true greatness.

While you are encouraged to explore your surroundings to stay afloat, doing so doesn't feel as rewarding as it did in the original Bioshock. You're still in the underwater city of Rapture, and it's still a very original and interesting place, but the breath-taking aspect of the city is somewhat diminished in the changes made throughout Rapture. Technical issues are also very abundant in the game. In short, 2K needs to release a major patch for the game...now! During my play through of the game, I experienced a major crash that would not allow the game to relaunch, even after reinstalling the game. I searched the official Bioshock 2 forums for a solution but there wasn't one available until a day and a half later; and even then it was only a work-around of the real problem. On another occasion, my Plasmids were fully disabled and remained so even after logging off and logging back on. The only way I found to fix the issue was to spend some of my limited ADAM on a new Plasmid, thus resetting my Plasmid selection options.

As for multiplayer, I can sum it up in two words: stay away. For one, the lag is absolutely unacceptable. The gametypes are the same standard ones we've seen over and over for years in FPSs. As I've mentioned in the Visuals section, all artistic pleasantries have been stripped away in the vain hope of increasing performance. Balancing is basically non-existent as everyone runs around with only grenade launchers. I'm unsure if I should be blaming the QA department or the programers for this, but if a major patch is not released to fix these glaring issues, heads need to roll.

Gameplay Rating:

Story

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

It's been 10 years since the events of the original Bioshock, and a lot has happened. You're no longer Jack Ryan from the first game, but a Big Daddy known only as Subject Delta. As the game opens, you're strolling along with your Little Sister, Eleanor, doing what Big Daddies do best; drilling holes in those who would harm his little friend. Then one of the cheeky buggers throws a Plasmid at you that allows the user to command a Big Daddy for a short amount of time. While you're still under the Plasmid's effects, Eleanor's mother, Sofia Lamb, reveals herself to you. She hands you a pistol, tells you to place it to your head and fire. Unable to resist the Plasmid, you obey. You somehow survive, and are awakened years later dazed and confused. You're now left to figure what's going on.

The story from here is not as well developed nor does it hold the same impact as the first Bioshock's did. That's not to say it's bad by any standards, but it definitely feels like someone else wrote the story for Bioshock 2. There are many references to a cult that has formed in Rapture under Sofia Lamb, and they can be seen everywhere from the paintings on the walls to random scribblings by the Splicers. A fair warning though, there was one painting in particular that offended me as a Christian. It depicted three men hanging on crosses surrounded what look like prayer candles, and it looks like Jesus' crucifixion at first glance. Upon closer inspection though, you can see that the three men hanging on the crosses are Rapture citizens. I don't know what 2K was trying to say there, but needless to say I did not appreciate the image. Luckily, that was the only serious incident like that. After everything's said and done though, the game ends in a satisfying way that leaves the door open for a potential Bioshock 3.

Story Rating:

Replay Value

Considering the utterly broken multiplayer or the fact that the single player campaign takes 10 hours or less to complete, Bioshock 2's replay value is next to nothing. The only thing that truly warrants another playthrough of the single player campaign is the ability to see the alternate ending of whichever one you got before by doing the opposite of whatever you did the first time. Unless you're interested in replaying the game on a harder difficulty as well, there's nothing else to do beyond the alternate ending.

Replay Value Rating:

Final Thoughts and Overall Score

Under all the rubbish 2K has failed to clean up before releasing the game, Bioshock 2 is actually a solid game. If a major patch that addresses all of the severe issues is released, the multiplayer portion of the game has a chance to be fun and possibly worthwhile. Let's be honest with each other though 2K, the original Bioshock was a huge success because all development time was put into the single player campaign and only the single player campaign. Had Bioshock 2's development cycle followed the same path, it could have easily outshone the first game and then some. If you, the player, have played the original Bioshock, Bioshock 2 is still worth it...after a patch and possibly a price drop. Quite honestly though, this game would be rated higher if the multiplayer did not exist.

Bioshock 2 Overall Score: 

Amendment: 2K has released a patch for the multiplayer portion of Bioshock 2 after the writing of this review which fixes many, but not all, of the game's lag issues. All of my other statements not concerning the lag still apply.

Minimum:

OS: Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3800+ 2.4Ghz or better, Intel Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghz Processor or better

Memory: 2GB

Graphics: NVIDIA 7800GT 256MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon X1900 256MB graphics card or better

DirectX®: DirectX 9.0c

Hard Drive: 11GB

Sound: 100% DirectX 9.0C compliant sound card or onboard sound

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Recommended:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Dual Core 2.60Ghz, Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Dual Core 2.13Ghz

Memory: 3GB

Graphics: NVIDIA 8800GT 512MB graphics card or better, ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB graphics card or better

Other Requirements: Initial installation requires one-time internet connection; Ability to save game, earn achievements, receive title updates and online play requires log-in to Games for Windows LIVE; software installations required including Microsoft Visual C++2008 Runtime Libraries, Games for Windows LIVE client, Games for Windows LIVE Client Patch, Sony DADC SecuROM, Microsoft DirectX.

Halo: Reach Review

Written 10/19/2010

Note: The screenshot and video are courtesy of Bungie.net and Youtube respectively, and all credit goes to the original recorders.

It's been a long haul for Halo, particularly where Master Chief and Cortana are concerned, but we've almost always been in the boots of our friendly neighborhood Spartan. In fact, Master Chief has been the only Spartan we've had the pleasure of slaughtering the Covenant as; until now. The fine folks at Bungie have given us a prequel to Master Chief's odyssey of a tale in the form of Halo Reach; a tragic tale in which you know the end of the journey from the very beginning. It has a very definite end, as does Bungie's relationship with the Halo franchise. This, my dear friends, is Bungie's last Halo game, and they are taking themselves out with a bang!

Visuals and Presentation

Halo Reach uses an upgraded version of the Halo 3 engine by rebuilding it from its base code and optimizing the daylights out of it. The result of that optimization in the visuals is very plainly seen; as Reach is a very pretty game! In a developer diary I had seen a while back, it was mentioned that in weapons alone the amount of available polygons the team could create on each individual weapon was nearly tripled from what it was in Halo 3. This is most visible in the new Assault Rifle and Battle Rifle (now called the DMR) models. Both have intricate and technical designs and insets all over the models that are actually modeled in instead of being bump mapped into the models. Character and vehicle design also greatly benefits from the same treatment with the best looking models presented in any Halo title to date.

While the environments are great as well, and also benefit from the engine optimizations, I do find them to be Reach's weakest visual point. I'm not saying they are bad by any stretch, but some of the larger set pieces that were meant to be really epic just didn't come off as awesomely as I felt Bungie really wanted them to. The flow of the environments in both the campaign and multiplayer is by far the best of any Halo to date. Basically, if you're paying attention even just a little bit, you won't get lost, period. Man, that really reminds me of how bad the library level was in the original Halo. Overall though, this is the best a Halo's visuals have ever been hands down!

Visuals and Presentation Rating:

Sound

Halo's sound has always been a trademark of its experience, especially the music! I mean, what other game franchise aside from Mario, Zelda, and possibly Call of Duty can you recognize simply by listening to it? Reach is no different in the least. In fact, some might say it's even better than the other Halos' sound! The weapon and environmental sounds are exactly the same as they always been with some hardly noticeable tweaks to the originals (of course, I may be hearing things because I played Reach on a newer TV) and some new additions that keep the same quality as the rest.

The real stars of this show are the music and voice-acting. Martin O'Donnell is back as the composer for Reach, and he has absolutely outdone himself this time! You will only hear one short tune from the previous Halos during the course of Reach, and a heavily remixed track during the credits. Everything else is 100% original for Reach's darker and grittier setting. There are tranquil melodies, depressing dirges, tense transitions, and adrenaline pumping action tracks; all crafted so eloquently that you would swear it was ripped from the best three action and drama movies you've ever seen. I can't overstate how good this soundtrack is! It can put you in awe when combined with the visuals one moment, then bring a tear to your eye the next, and get your heart pounding as you fight for survival the next. Martin O'Donnell is without doubt a master of his craft!

The voice-acting in Reach is also top-notch with no expenses spared for the sake of quality. The writing is very easy to understand and everyone plays their roles to excellent effect. I hate to keep sounding cliché here, but the voice-acting and writing are movie quality work. Overall, you just don't get this awesome of an audio experience very often, from any form of media.

Sound Rating:

Gameplay

If you've played any of the previous Halo titles, and who hasn't, then you'll feel right at home with Reach. While it's mostly the same, Bungie has tweaked everything just a bit to further perfect the formula beyond what we've seen so far. I felt that balance issues in the weapons were very minimal, if not non-existent; though I'm sure a more seasoned Halo player than myself can correct me if I'm wrong. Along with those excellent tweaks we now have two new gameplay elements at our disposal, Assassinations and Armor Abilities.

I should really rephrase though, as Assassinations have always been in Halo, but never in this form. Typically when an assassination occurs, one player will simply hit another player in the back with a melee attack, and the poor sap dies. That same poor sap still dies in Reach, but in a much more humiliating fashion. Assassinations now involve one player jumping onto the back of another player, shoving his combat knife into the poor sap and almost disemboweling him, or forcing the n00b to his knees and breaking his neck. If you are the dealer of such pain, it's an extremely satisfying experience to say the least. If you are being dealt that pain, it's almost as bad as being tea-bagged; especially if you do get tea-bagged immediately after being assassinated.

Armor Abilities on the other hand, really are a new gameplay element! Basically, Armor Abilities give Reach a somewhat class-based perk system. In full, the abilities you have access to are Sprint, Armor Lock, Evade, Jetpack, Active Camo, Drop Shield, and Hologram. For the sake of keeping this section less than two pages long, I've made each Armor Ability above a link to a demonstration on Youtube. While I haven't tried every available Armor Ability (namely Evade and Drop Shield), I've found that each ability is balanced well; considering you know when to use a particular ability.

The single-player campaign, while a bit short at 6-10 hours on Normal difficulty, has got to be the hardest one of the series. It's not impossible mind you, but the Legendary difficulty truly is legendary this time in my opinion. The AI is smart and nothing dies as easily as in Halo 3. Remember when you would see an Elite in the original Halo and freak out because they were one of the hardest things in the game to kill? Well, Elites ARE the hardest things to kill in Reach, especially the ones with Energy Swords. Just accept it now, they WILL kill you at least a few times, even if you are proficient in Halo! The pacing of the campaign is excellent with your typical run-and-gun gameplay, as well some stealth missions, vehicle set-pieces, and an awesome StarFox-like space combat sequence. Personally, I feel Reach's campaign is the best in the series.

Just like every other Halo out there though, Reach truly shines in its multiplayer; which is by far the most refined in the series. The gameplay is almost identical to Halo 3's, but the addition of Armor Abilities makes it an almost completely different animal. You think that rocket's going to kill that guy right in front of you? You better hope that guy doesn't have Armor Lock equipped, because you might just be eating your own explosives! Got a shotgun in your face? Evade out of the way and avenge your would-be death! Got a trigger-happy n00b on the opposing team? Send a Hologram in ahead of you and pull off an assassination while he's distracted! The possibilities are really quite expansive; you just need to know when to use a particular Armor Ability in any given situation.

The maps are all well made, but many of them are throwbacks to previous popular Halo maps. There's nothing wrong with that in my opinion, but it definitely does cut down on originality. Map selection also seems a little limited compared to Halo 3, but that's probably because Halo 3 has so many DLC map-packs. The gametypes are mostly what you would expect with Slayer and Team Slayer, as well as odder gametypes like Crazy King and Oddball. There are also little gems here like Rocket Race, which is by far my favorite gametype in Reach. In it there are six teams of two players each, and each team is given one Mongoose and a rocket launcher with unlimited ammo. One player drives the Mongoose and tries to reach checkpoints places around the map before everyone else. The other player rides on the back of the Mongoose and tries to shoot rockets at the other drivers. Each checkpoint you reach first gives you a point, and whoever reaches the point limit wins the match. It's an extremely fun deviation from the norm, and I would highly suggest everyone try it at least once!

You can also find companions for Firefight matches and cooperative campaign romps via the matchmaking system found in all of the competitive modes. When playing through the campaign cooperatively now though, the game's difficulty will ramp up depending on how many players are present. So playing cooperatively with a full group of four players on Legendary is actually Legendary x4. Teamwork is an absolute must in a situation like that! Overall, this is the most refined gameplay experience of any Halo to date, and any self-respecting fan of the series should definitely not miss it!

Gameplay Rating:

Story

Without giving too much away, Reach probably has the easiest story to understand of any Halo I can immediately recall. That doesn't mean its bad in the least though! Its simplicity allows the drama to impact you in a much more effective fashion than if there were a lot of smaller nuances you needed to keep up with. For an almost purely military story like this, it just works!

From the intro of the game, you're looking at the end of the game. Everything after that cutscene is a flashback of how everything got to be the way it is. You are Noble Six, a Spartan sent to replace the late member of Noble Team by the same number. After a short introduction with the rest of Noble Team, you are all sent to investigate an abandoned colony, or so it seems. It doesn't take very long before you discover that the Covenant are on Reach, and things start going badly for the entire planet, very badly. SPOILER ALERT! Get this into your head right now, you will not win! Everyone dies by the end of the game, even you!

My only real complaint is that individual character development seems to have been left out in the cold in favor of focusing on the overall story. That's fine in case like this, but I think it would have given the story that extra little “something” to make it truly perfect. Overall though, the story in Reach is simply spectacular! While simple, the writing is always top-notch, and the drama is superb! If you want a new shooter with a compelling and engaging story, which is terribly hard to find these days, definitely give Reach a try!

Story Rating:

Replay Value

Reach's replay value is honestly dependent on how much you like Halo in general. If you like Halo at all, then you'll love Reach hands down. If you've always hated Halo or are a staunch Call of Duty fanboy and refuse to betray your beloved franchise, give Reach a try at a friend's house or rent it; but there's not much here that will change your mind about Halo in general. If you enjoyed the campaign or multiplayer in the least though, there's anywhere between 50 and 200 hours of solid and enjoyable play time.

Replay Value Rating:

Final Thoughts and Overall Score

For this being Bungie's last Halo game, they certainly left the building with a bang! For all intents and purposes, this is THE definitive Halo game that everyone should try at least once. If you own a 360 and enjoy shooters at all, you're doing yourself a massive disservice if you don't play this game; especially if you enjoy Halo! If you own a 360 and don't enjoy shooters, what's wrong with you?!

Halo: Reach Overall Score:

Call of Duty: Black Ops Review

Written 12/30/2010

Note: Screenshot and video taken from my machine. This review is for the PC version of the game.

I was pretty hard on Treyarch in my review of World at War, and I still stand by everything I said in that review. However, it appears that I'm going to need to eat my negative words about their understanding of the Call of Duty franchise. Black Ops not only stands up to the mighty Modern Warfare 2, but it also surpasses it on some fundamental levels; including story. Unless you're a die-hard Infinity Ward fanboy, this is more than likely the Call of Duty you're looking for.

Visuals and Presentation

Black Ops is made on the Modern Warfare 2 engine, so if you've played MW2 you know how pretty it can be. Some definite improvements were made however, especially to the character models and textures. Treyarch makes a point of giving you very nice closeups of the characters pretty often in the campaign, and it's something I never grew tired of. You see individual wrinkles, beads of sweat, strands of hair, creases in certain facial expressions, and on and on. It's really striking to see, and you're going to have a hard time looking away. Animations are also equally awesome, with nuanced gestures at times giving you more instructions than verbal commands; especially in the more stealth-heavy sections of the game. The environments and weapons are also gorgeous, but play second fiddle to the characters and animations by just hair. Variety is also in great abundance in Black Ops, with a wide assortment of weapons and customizations for them. The environments you'll be visiting range from government buildings, to third-world prisons, to jungles, to snowy mountains, to desert-ish areas; it's all here, and it's all beautiful in both the campaign and in multiplayer. The dramatic lighting seems to be a little reduced in the multiplayer maps, but I think it was a necessary sacrifice to improve gameplay. My only complaint, if you can call it that, is the fact that you'll occasionally see a rather low-res and flat texture on a character or two. This should by no means distract you from the amazing amount of eye-candy in Black Ops!

Visuals and Presentation Rating:

Sound

The Call of Duty franchise has always had a good grasp of sound, but Black Ops seems to be a notch above the rest; especially when it comes to the music and voice-acting. In the typical Call of Duty campaign, music is usually present in the high-action sequences, but it's also usually too low to hear or drowned out by the constant gunfire and explosions. In Black Ops, the music is not only awesome and appropriate, but also very easily heard! Granted, it's still only in the high-action sequences, with excellent hard rock tracks that perfectly compliment the over-the-top action on-screen. In other words, if you're not in the mood to blow stuff up before the music, you definitely will be when it starts! The voice-acting is also top-notch, not only because of the voice talent itself, but because the writing is actually more than your standard “A terrorist organization is threatening the world with a bomb!”. It's more personal, and interactions between the characters don't feel forced like some of the other Call of Duty relationships. The weapon and environmental sounds are just as high quality as they've always been, so there's not much really to comment on there. Overall, a very solid sound package with some excellent writing. I just wish there would have been more music in the multiplayer aside from the rank-up, match-start, and match-end tracks.

Sound Rating:

Gameplay

The core gameplay in Black Ops is basically the same as every other Call of Duty in existence; a fast-paced action roller coaster that's highly dependent on your reflexes and twitch skills. The formula doesn't feel like it's been changed a bit, and quite honestly it doesn't need to be in my opinion. The campaign flows much more cohesively than in the previous games (more on that in the Story section), and the multiplayer is still as fun as ever; though unfortunately stricken with some technical issues.

There's not really a lot of new things going on as far as the campaign goes, but again, there didn't really need to be. There are large shootouts, races against the clock, on-rails vehicle shoot-em-ups, and two sequences where you fly a helicopter. It's all here, and it's all great! If memory serves me well, the helicopter sequences really are new to a Call of Duty game, and it's a whole lot of fun to say the least.

Multiplayer is another story though, with the introduction of Wager Matches and CoD Points. In the most recent Call of Duty titles, you would unlock new weapons and perks by ranking up with a traditional XP bar. While you still rank up and gain XP in the same way, CoD Points, which are earned in the same way as XP, allow you to have more control of what weapons and perks you unlock at any given time. For example, if you  want to use a particular weapon, you must first meet the rank requirement as usual. After you have the required rank, you need to also have the required amount of CoD Points to purchase the weapon. Once the weapon is purchased, you can continue on to buy any available attachments for that particular weapon, like scopes, grips, larger clips, etc. I find this to be a more user-friendly experience than in previous Call of Duty games because of the simple fact that you aren't gimped when first using a new weapon because you haven't earned any attachments yet. It allows you to more freely experiment with weapon and attachment combinations to find the perfect match for you; which is always a good thing.

The second major addition in multiplayer comes in the form of Wager Matches. If you have 500 or more CoD Points you don't know what to do with, you can gamble them in a Wager Match for a chance to make a lot more CoD Points in one match. There are four available Wager Match gametypes: Gun Game, Sharpshooter, Sticks and Stones, and One in the Chamber. In Gun Game, everyone starts with a revolver. When you get a kill, the revolver is exchanged for dual-wielded pistols. Get another kill, and the pistols are exchanged for a shotgun. The process continues with you getting more powerful weapons with each kill. Once a player gets a kill with the 20^th weapon, that person wins. You should keep in mind though, that if you're killed with a melee attack in Gun Game, you are pushed back by one weapon rank. So if you're using a shotgun and are killed by melee, you will respawn dual-wielding pistols again. In Sharpshooter, everyone spawns with the same weapon again, but this time around that weapon will switch for everyone (to the same weapon for everyone) every 40 seconds. Other than that, the gametype is basically a free-for-all with the winner being the one that has met the score goal, or the one with the highest score when time runs out.

In Sticks and Stones, everyone spawns with a crossbow, three explosive darts for it, a ballistic knife, and a tomahawk. The game progresses as a free-for-all until one player reaches the score goal. Beware though, because if you are killed with the tomahawk, you are bankrupted and sent to the bottom of the scoreboard. In One in the Chamber, everyone spawns with a pistol, one bullet, and three lives. If you kill a player with either your gun or melee, you take that player's bullet. Things continue as a free-for-all until there is one player left or time runs out. If you're not lucky enough to be in first place at the end of a match, the second and third place players also receive a reduced amount of CoD Points. Everyone below third place gets nothing. In all, the gametypes are a whole lot of fun, but they can become one-sided very quickly if you don't bring your A-game every single time. I do wish the gametypes were available without forcing you to be in a Wager Match, but I understand why they did it the way they did.

As a bit of fan service to the World at War faithful, Treyarch brought the Nazi Zombies (or should I say Korean Zombies here?) gametype back in Black Ops, and it's as awesome as ever! If you haven't played it in World at War, think of it as Left 4 Dead 2's Survival gametype with Call of Duty shooting mechanics. You can also build barriers to keep the zombies back for a short time, as well as using environmental hazards for quick kills. The cast is absolutely fantastic, featuring John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro, and Robert McNamara. Each is fully voiced over and it's a riot to see and hear them slaughtering the undead with prejudice. My only complaint is that there are only three maps in the gametype with one of those maps locked and no real explanation on how to unlock it.

My final and worst complaint is the stability issues in the multiplayer portion of the game. In the campaign, I suffer no crashes or even slight hitching. In multiplayer, the game crashed forcing me to Ctrl+Alt+Delete and exit at least seven times in 16 hours of gameplay. Doing the math, that's roughly one crash every 2 hours 15 minutes. In my opinion, that's quite bad and needs to be addressed as soon as possible. Overall though, I wouldn't allow that to deter you from enjoying the most excellent gameplay offered in Black Ops. Even with the crashes, it really is quite great!

Gameplay Rating:

Story

As far as storylines go in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops has the best one by and far. Considering how poor the stories (if you can call them that) are in the previous games though, that's not a very hard title to claim. The biggest thing helping Black Ops with that achievement is the simple fact that the story here really IS a story! Without giving too much away, you are Alex Mason, and you have been captured by an (at first) unknown party and are being severely interrogated. You're being asked to recount the events that took place while you and your team were in Vietnam, but the questions begin to be very personal about those events very quickly. Eventually the subject of cryptic numbers comes up, and things become much more confusing. That's all I'm going to say about that. The story is told via flashbacks (which are all gameplay), and things seem to move in very random directions fairly often. Don't let that throw you off though; all of it has a meaning. So be sure to pay attention to everything going on, because it will all come together at the end of the game, and you'll be saying “ooooooh, I get it now!”. Overall though, it's not an award-winning script, but it's definitely better than every other Call of Duty story I've experienced.

Story Rating:

Replay Value

You're probably getting tired of me saying this in this section, but Black Ops' replay value is highly dependent on how much you enjoyed the game the first time around. There's not a whole lot to do in single-player after the campaign, but multiplayer offers literally hundreds of hours of gameplay; especially if you're a completionist that must unlock absolutely everything. If you're not a fan of Call of Duty gameplay in general or get easily bored, you'll likely get a solid 20-30 hours out of the game easily. If you do enjoy Call of Duty gameplay in general, you're likely looking at your new primary game right here!

Replay Value Rating:

Final Thoughts and Overall Score

Treyarch has really stepped up their game since World at War! Black Ops is easily one of the best entries in the Call of Duty franchise, if not the best. If they can keep this up in years to come I would venture to say that they could become better at this than Infinity Ward, especially with all the drama at the latter company of late. So if you enjoy FPSs at all and you're not a die-hard Halo fanboy, you will most definitely enjoy Black Ops! Great job Treyarch!

Call of Duty: Black Ops Overall Score:

System Requirements

• OS: Windows® Vista / XP / 7
• Processor: Intel® Core™2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom™ X3 8750 or better
• Memory: 2GB
• Graphics: Shader 3.0 or better 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600GT / ATI Radeon® X1950Pro or better
• DirectX®: DirectX® 9.0c
• Hard Drive: 12GB*
• Sound: DirectX® 9.0c-compatible

*Call of Duty®: Black Ops requires an initial hard drive space of approximately 24GB to download and install the game via digital download (8GB of compressed files, 8GB of decompressed files and 8GB of installed files). Upon installing the game, 16GB (compressed and decompressed files) may be deleted from the hard drive. Please make note of where the compressed and decompressed files are being saved on your hard drive in order to later locate these temporary files for removal.