Thursday, November 21, 2013

PAYDAY 2 Review

  Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope your all doing well.  Today I'm reviewing a game that I think is truly unique experience in co-operative gaming.  Now I usually don't review sequels, but with this game other than the characters theirs not much plot to explain.  PAYDAY 2 returns with the four main protagonists Dallas, Hoxton, Chains, and Wolf.  As you once again step into the shoes of these men, you have a simple goal: get into the bank, get the money and have your payday.  Or at least thats what it used to be, now there's so much more.  Jewelry stores, strip malls, gold deposits, and so many more heists than the last game.  More guns are now available with more attachments and color schemes, provided you are high enough level to unlock them, also have to have the money to purchase them.  Taking place in Washington D.C, the player has the ability to customize their character via a mask that can be edited to be awesome, provided you have the money, color scheme, material and design for the mask.  So anyway, your in D.C. linked in with something called Crime Net, a crime planning program that helps you choose jobs to hit with friends and hopefully make it back to your safe-house in one piece.  All provided by your best unseen friend BANE, the creator of Crime Net and mastermind of the criminal underworld. He will guild you through jobs via his associates, recommend the job best suited to your level and skill and guides you through the mission as it
Defending against the Feds on a jewelry store heist
happens.  Another new feature, or at least a feature in development, is your safehouse.  This is your home away from homes, this is where you spend your downtime after the heist.  Your money, masks, and weapons are stored here,  The developers say that in later updates that the option to customize your safe-house and possibly share it with friends.  These are some of many new features introduced in this kick-ass sequel.  For those of you who have never played a PAYDAY game, I'll walk through the basics.  I'll talk about a bank heist, original and fun.  You begin across the street from the bank in a alleyway.  Depending on what apparel you chose to wear, for example heavy armor equals lots of protection while less visible armor offers less protection, but also a less likely possibility of being detected while in plain sight.  So if you have no armor on you could basically walk through the front door until you put your mask on, which triggers combat mode, meaning you can now shoot stuff and will be detected.  So before you enter the bank, you will have to grab a drill used to drill through the vault.  After you enter the bank, you have the option of taking care of security problems, like disabling security cameras, zip-ting guards, and jamming outgoing transmissions.  So after this you are drilling through the vault, this will take awhile so depending if you have tripped the alarm or not, you will fortify your position with planks you can find to board up windows.  You can also plant trip-mines, zip-tie civilians to serve as hostages that will b used to bargain with police if you are taken into custody.  After holding out for a while against SWAT teams or waiting peacefully, sipping tea waiting for the drill to finish, the doors will open and there will be THE VAULT, that thing full of millions of dollars in cash and gold.  So you will throw all this cash into bags that you will carry out and throw in the van, after all the bags are loaded into the back, get in the van and your done.  It sounds simple, but you got to waver through the large groups of enemies to get it gone.  Also, if any of the crew is captured, after loading the bags, the game will recommission you to a "escape" mission in which you hold out until the van arrives.  Other than that, there's not too much to it.  Although its hard to describe this game without writing a book.  So I'll just leave it at awesome game 9.4/10 in my opinion.  I hope you have all enjoyed this and I will be back in two weeks, Thanksgiving and all.  So until next time.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
awesome trailer, recommend watching in fullscreen HD

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Mirror's Edge Review

   
Mirror's Edge Cover
     Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope your life is filled with happiness and puppies, lots of puppies.  Okay, so as mentioned in last weeks post, I will be reviewing possibly the best free-running game of the generation; Mirror's Edge.  Developed by EA Digital Illusions CE and produced by Electronic Arts, Mirror's Edge was released on November 12, 2008 on Xbox 360 & PS3, while it was released for PC on January 13, 2009.  The game received many awards but criticism was mainly focused at the short story and overall play time.  However the game introduced many new concepts to the parkour genre such as first person running along with a mix of combat and running, making it a unique experience among games.  The game also displays a new form of free running including sliding under barriers, tumbling, wall-running, and shimmying across ledges allowing a greater sense of movement along the roofs and occasionally streets.  One of the little things I loved about the game is that there is no heads up display, allowing a more realistic first person view.  The player can also see their arms and legs, instead of just being a floating head jumping over buildings. So the plot of the game is set in the nearby future in a dystopian city where the inhabits live in a peaceful crime free environment.  However, this peace is held up with that of government tyranny in which a militarized police force keeps the population in check via fear and force. 10 years prior to the game, a numerous amounts of highly populated riots were held against the government tyranny.  Faith was part of these riots when she was a little girl, her mother was killed by the police, commonly called "Blues". The riots were eventually ended by the Blues, but there were those who were condemned to death or prison if caught. You are Faith, a member of the Runners, those who deliver messages and packages across the city, employed by the criminally condemned who serve as their clients. The game starts out with a  introduction narrated by Faith explaining her identity and so forth.  After a quick training course, you run across the city, encountering Blues along the way and then deliver a package, followed by a escape away from the Blues.  While at Merc's headquarters (Merc is the man who arranges the Runner's contract and also trained Faith) there is a heavy audio traffic coming from a office building, that Faith's sister, Kate is in.  While trying to get a read on the situation, Merc pops back in from a contract he was running, Faith tells him to monitor her while she runs to the office building.  After running across town to the office building and encountering several Blues along the way, Faith enters the offices to find her sister in the large office of Tomas Pope, human rights activist fighting for more freedom in the oppressed city.  He is dead, and Kate was set up and will be framed for it.  You flee the office after a conversation with Kate and grabbing a piece of ripped paper supposedly from Pope's journal reading Icarus".  It is up to Faith to prove Kate innocent and find out what Project Icarus is.  Throughout the game the player will thrive to discover these secrets, aside from the main story there are also time trails that can be undertaken to test ones ability in their skills of free running.  I really enjoyed the game and would give it a 9.4 of 10.  Great game and I hear a second one is coming out within the next year or so.  I hope you all have enjoyed this review and I will be back next Wednesday with another post.  Until then, have fun.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

Mirror's Edge Trailer, watch in 720 HD for full effect

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

No More Room in Hell Review

No More Room in Hell Advertising Art
     Hello everyone and happy November.  I hope life is going good for you because at any moment the zombie apocalypse could occur causing everyone you know and care about could be eaten alive by undead monsters.  Just kidding, but today we will talk about a game following that premise, that game is No More Room in Hell, a Source Modification turned into a official game with awesome models, weapons, and audio.  No More Room in Hell was released in beta form on Halloween 2011 by the NMRiH Development Team.  That game utilizes survival horror.  Guns and ammunition are limited, but available, melee weapons are very useful. Varying from two handed weapons; which are more powerful but slower, then there are one-handed weapons that are faster and the player can hold a flashlight, which are very useful considering most of the games maps are dark to the point that visibility is not possible.  No More Room in Hell has a vast amount of guns, varying from civilian weapons, to law-enforcement and finally military grade weapons, which are hardest to come by, but be conservative with your ammo because you got to split the guns between up to 8 team members, so don't be greedy, it's one of the 7 deadly sins of gaming.  A lot about this game is that you got to be a team player, I've played by myself and with other players.  I enjoy playing with other players because if you work together properly you'll survive, however if someone hogs all the guns, blows through ammo like its never going to run out, and doesn't work like a team player, its gonna suck.  Also when on a team its nice to have someone watching your back, because if your hit three times by a zombie, your gonna die and turn into one.  There are two ways to prevent this, you can take pills to prolong your death, meaning it doesn't cure you, and then theirs bandages and first aid kits.  These are used to heal you after you've fallen, taken friendly fire, or if your really lucky you were attacked by a zombie and didn't get infected, these healies can fix you up.
A nice freezeframe of a zombie getting its brains splattered all
over the walls. Ah, the apocalypse.
When jumping online or staying in your own lobby there are two game modes currently available, Objective and survival.  I prefer objective where you follow a series of tasks while finding supplies that eventually leads to becoming rescued.  In survival you must survive a number of waves in which zombies will attack you and your team.  To prevent this, the player can nail each board to doors and windows to prevent the zombies from breaking in, however they can break down these barriers, but it will buy you time.  Don't worry though, you wont have to wade through waves of zombies un-supplied, with each wave that passes, more weapons and ammo spawn in.  Other than all that there is not much else to say about the game, although it was named Mod of the Year in 2011 by PC Gamer Magazine.  For those of you who love zombie and have a little time on their hands, this game is for you, and don't worry you penny-less bums, this game is free and has low requirements, meeting the standards of most computers. Well, I hope you have all enjoyed this post and I'll be back next week with the best parkour game of the decade: Mirror's Edge.  Until then, happy weekend, also, I'm not telling you what to do with your hard earned money, BUT BUY GRAND THEFT AUTO 5, its one of the best games that I've seen in a long time.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.