Thursday, October 25, 2012

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Review

This week I decided to do one of my favorite games.  You know one of those games that you can keep on playing after you finished the initial objective, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock is one of those games.  Warriors of Rock is a music rhythm game that was released September 24, 2010 for Europe, September 28, 2010 for North America, and
September 29, 2010 for Australia.  It is the last game in the series develop by RedOctane and Neversoft prior to the termination and closures by their parent company and publisher Activision, in part as a result of week sales in the rhythm game market from 2009.  Additional development for the Wii version with a not-so-decent Nintendo DS version as well.  The Wii and DS version of the game were crated by Vicarious Visions, who took over future development of the Guitar Hero series before it was placed on hiatus.  Warriors of Rock continues to retain the gameplay style of the franchise,  challenging the player to match scrolling notes on screen to actions on special game for lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. To rise against the withering rhythm game market and the perceived lack of focus of its predecessors, the game was designed to return to return to the series roots, focusing heavily on lead and towards the existing base of skilled players of the series.  The game features a remade career mode called "Quest" set to a story influenced by heavy metal.  Throughout Quest mode, the player recruits eight characters each with their own unique power that allows you to score higher, have more Star Power, or get more points for each note.  Eventually this leads to all these powers combined together and used to free the Demigod of Rock from enslavement form a metal machine called the Beast.  Part of the story is interestingly enough influenced by the lyrics of the song "2112" by Rush, who narrate this portion of the game.  While the finale is is set to a new song preformed by Magadeth and written by Dave Mustaine specifically to challenge players, but its still a fun song.  Other single and multiplayer modes feature improvements form previous games in the series as well as incorporation of the new gameplay powers from Quest mode.  The game features 93 songs on disc, and compatibility with existing exportable songs and downloadable content from several previous games in the Guitar Hero franchise.  The game recieved mixed reviews about it's gameplay and soundtrack. Praising certain highlights such as the '2112" segment of the game and it's improved Quickplay+ mode, which is what I usually play, but thy also cited other elements such as lackluster as the Quest mode's story or the lack of focus within the soundtrack, I disagree with this, for I thought the game had a great soundtrack.  Overall it's a great game, but my favorite part of the game was the hundreds of customization options that you could use for your Quickplay+ charcter, I even made a whole band.  You can also custamize instraments such as guitar, bass, drums, and micraphones.  I tell you, there is nothing cooler than creating a sick guitar that you equip to your awesome character.  The only problem with the game is that you need the set controllers to play the game, so its a little pricy, but worth it.  Also Assassin's Creed 3 is coming out next week on the 31st, it's going to be AWESOME! So keep an eye out for it and get it quick, cause I guarntee that as soon as it hits the shelves, its gonna be sold out, so grab it.  Im a huge Assassin's Creed fan, so I'll probaly be waiting at the midnight launch, like I did with Revalations.  So I hope you've learned something new today and I will see you next week.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.




Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Poker Night at the Inventory Review


This is not your average poker game, this an Inventory poker game, unusual, and interesting.  Four legends, Heavy from Team Fortress 2,  Strong Bad form Homestar Runner , Max from Sam & Max, Tycho Brande from Penny Arcade Adventures, and they are playing playing poker with you.  The game is developed by Telltale Games, released on November 22, 2010, and available on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. The game really really doesn't have much of a plot. The general basis is that the game takes place at a secret underground club below a video game ware house called the Inventory which was founded in 1919 due to a early draft of the 18th amendment.  It was discovered that it would not only outlaw libations, but games and amusements too.  Even though this never came to pass, the club has remained in secret, just in case Congress ever tried to set the prohibition into law.   Every time the player starts the game a cut scene is triggered in which the player takes a secret elevator down to the Inventory and then is greeted by Reginald Van Winslow, former caption of the Screaming Narwhal and sidekick to Guybrush Threepwood in Tales of Monkey Island, a Sam & Max concept. He explains the back story of the Inventory, and raises the blinds for the poker games.  In the game you always play Texas Hold 'Em style poker between you and the other four characters in the game, Strong Bad, Max, Tycho, and Heavy.  Every game each player buys in with $10,000 in which they are awarded a certain number of chips to play with and are given two cards in which they will play their hand off.  The game applies to basic poker rules, you stay in the game until they are broke, with the goal of being the last man standing. The game uses no-limit betting and a gradually-increasing blind bets over the course of several rounds.  Once in a while, one of the other characters will not be able to cough up the money, but will offer one of their possessions as a buy-in for the game. The player can win these items as Team Fortress 2 unlockable equipment only if it was the player that knocked that character out of the game to receive their personal item.  This was honestly the reason I bought the game, I really wanted the Iron Curtain (a awesome looking mini-gun that Heavy buys in with), that and I like poker.  The game keeps track of the player's statistics over the course of several games, and by completing certain objectives (such as number of hands or games won) can unlock different playing cards or table artwork to customize the look of the game.  So its an okay game, but not an awesome game.  Its fun if you like poker and you want something to spice up your character in TF2.  It is $4.99 on Steam, and now that I got all the items, it was totally worth it.  Hope you've enjoyed, see you next time.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.






Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Team Fortress 2 Review

Stand alone cover for Windows
One my favorite games and without a doubt my favorite PC game, Team Fortress 2 is just an endless world of possibilities.  Released by Valve on April 9, 2007, but was originally released October 10, 2008 with The Orange Box for Xbox 360 and Windows. On June 23, 2011 it became a free-to-play game, which dramatically increased the amount of gamers and I remember that day; I was just playing with my buddies on a server playing payload and the game crashed. Turns out all the nine year olds that just got the game, jumped online all at once, and it crashed the game afterwards.  A few days later I jumped online and my worst fears had been confirmed.  Let me tell you something about PC gaming, its where I go when Im sick of listening to all the little kids screaming and cussing at you on Xbox, because PC gaming is mainly free of that kind of thing and people are nice and good sports..  So nothing annoys me more when I get on my laptop and run into the same scenario.  Thats pretty much what that day was like, along with the rest of the month.  It was bugging me because I knew how to play, at first this was good because I always beat these kids.  Then about half way through the month they figured out how to boot you with a vote, which is an option that TF2 has, but is rarely used because people are nice. Although these kids usually played together so they  used to their own skill level and when a experienced player like me or my friends comes along they think that were hacking because we know how to play the game, so we got booted. It was like Combat Arms all over again, but in a game I loved and cherished.  Anyway back to the game.  TF2 is mainly a multiplayer game but has a general background plot that is revealed through comics on the official website. Redmond, Blutarch, and Gray Mann were born in 1822 as fraternal triplet sons of Zepheniah Mann, the owner of a successful arms manufacturing business. Gray, already sentient, intelligent and capable of fluent speech, was kidnapped by an eagle within minutes of birth during the Great Eagle Scourge of 1822; Zepheniah would withhold knowledge of Gray from everyone else. Redmond and Blutarch were extremely competitive, attempting to vie for favor from their elderly father as to inherit the company after his death. In the 1860s, they convinced Zepheniah to purchase numerous pieces of land in the United States as assets for the company, but once they traveled there, they found the land to be barren dustbowls and gravel pits. Further, the travel caused Zepheniah to come down with numerous maladies, and soon died thereafter. In his will, Zepheniah bequeathed his munitions company, Mann Co., to his aide and tracker, the Australian hunter Barnabas Hale and his estate to his maidservant, Elizabeth. As punishment for their reckless and short-sighted scheme, Zepheniah's will ordered that Redmond and Blutarch were to fight over the worthless land they had made him acquire. Soon, Blutarch created his own company Builders League United (BLU) and hired mercenaries to fight for him; Redmond followed suit with his own company, Reliable Excavative Demolition (RED).  Their battles continued for forty years, with neither brother relenting. Blutarch realized that they would die soon, and hired an engineer, Radigan Conagher, to build him a life-extending machine, believing that by outlasting his brother, he will have won. Conagher was later met by a mysterious woman that offers him a stash of the valuable metal Australium in exchange for building Redmond an identical machine. Conagher agrees, but later it is shown that he also built a third identical machine for an unknown entity. Battles between RED and BLU continued for over sixty years; both Redmond and Blutarch hired new mercenaries to fight for them in 1968. By that time, their battles are overseen by the Administrator, the granddaughter of Elizabeth, while the Australian Saxton Hale, (who is just awesome you should read about him)  has become CEO of Mann Co, the company that provides all the weaponry, equitment, and hats for both sides of the war.  Some time in the future, Redmond and Blutarch are brought together through letters they believed were sent by the other; both having cheated death for many years realize their folly and propose a truce to create a machine that will make one of them pregnant as to continue the heir. Gray reveals himself as their brother and arranger for this meeting, trying to convince them that instead of fighting over worthless gravel, to instead take over the technology-savvy Mann Co, which should be theirs by birthright. Neither Blutarch or Redmond agree to budge on the new technology, having become obsessed by gravel in the long conflict, and Gray kills them both.  Gray uses his own army of robots to attack Mann Co. facilities all across the world. Saxton Hale hires the mercenaries, who are jobless since their employers were killed (RED and BLU unite as a result), to defend the Mann Co. sites against Gray's army of robots (who are themselves based on the mercenaries) There are nine characters awesome classes, not just with different abilities, but with different looks and personalities, I like that in a game.  (I've included videos introducing all the characters at the end of the blog that I think you'll like)  My favorite classes are the Heavy and the Sniper which I think you'll understand if you play the game.  Now I'm going to take a moment to pay tribute to the awesomest guy in the game, Heavy.  Hes Russian, hes big and hes got a great personalty.  Where you ever having lunch with your friend and he said "Sanvich", Heavy said that. So Id like to say thank you Valve for making someone so awesome.  Valve would make millions if they put Heavy and Ellis in a game together, I can see the headlight now, WOO HOO. This is my favorite PC and one of my favorite games of all time, and you want to know why?  Because you can never stop adding to it! Weapons, equipment and hats, all yours to customize forever. And its free to play, so why not try it out, all you need is a Steam account, a computer and your ready to go.  Multiplayer is fun with countless game modes and co-op allows you to work together with your teammate to stop endless hordes of robots.  Hope you've enjoyed and I know you will enjoy the game. This has been Jacob Arnold, sighing off.