Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope you had a good weekend. Also happy belated St. Patrick's, hoped you avoided the pinching hands of your friends who stalked you because you weren't wearing green. Now, to the game. Last week when I reviewed that fun parkour game called Vector, and in that review I mentioned I was going to review a stealth game, so today I will be talking about Thief. This reboot of the classic stealth series redeems itself in a whole new way. Developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix, released on February 25, 2014 for Windows, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. Ten years since the last game, Thief: Deadly Shadows, Thief 4 had high standards to meet. The development team took a turn for a few changes, starting over and simply calling the game Thief. The setting of Thief resembles that of the last few games. Taking place in a dark fantasy world being inspired by the Gothic period of the middle ages mixed with the art style of the Victorian era, and technology based on the steampunk concept. The Thief series take place in a place called "The City", which is currently undergoing an industrial revolution, however guns and other firearms have yet to be invented, the only weapons are bladed weapons like swords and crossbows. In this game, a tyrinical Barren rules over The City with his brutal watch at his back. As the rich fill their pockets, the majority of the city is mainly poor and starving, dying of disease in the streets. You step into the silent shoes of Garrett, the Master Thief, armed with a unique set of skills and impressive set of weapons, his mission is simple, steal from the rich and give to himself, working with the underground economy to pawn off items he has stolen from silver cups to solid gold busts,
From left to right: blunt, broad head, dry ice and fire
The Blackjack
though Garrett never shows interactions with this group of people, it wouldn't make sense if grabbed loot suddenly turns in coins and bills when grabbed. While their is a large amount of story involved in the game, it stays true to its name throughout it's progression, to loot everything you can and use that money for upgrades, tools, and items. As Garrett you are armed with a multitude of tools that you have at your disposal. Garrett's most useful and most used tool would be his compound bow that unfolds with ease and shoots multiple types of arrows. Some of these include broad head and sawtooth arrows that are lethal, dry ice arrows that extinguish flame sources, blunt arrows used to hit pulleys and switches from a distance, fire arrows to ignite open oil for a distraction, stun arrows release a gas that stuns guards for a period of time and renders dogs or birds unconscious. There are also explosive arrows whose name is explanatory
enough as it is. Another useful tool in Garrett's arsenal is the wrench tool, used for unscrewing bolts on vents, allowing easier paths to be taken. Probably Garrett's most useful tool right next to his bow is his unique little foldable weapon; the Blackjack. This little beauty is specially designed to render it's victim unconscious without causing further harm, this Garrett's main weapon in close quarters combat and with a quick tap to the head to knock the unsuspecting target out with ease.
Garrett's home
Their is also the claw, a tool used to reach out of reach and latch on to navigate to places usually unreachable. His other tools of the trade consist of the razor tool, used to cut paintings out of their frames and the wire-cutter tool which is used to disable trap systems, I would recommend acquiring all these as soon as possible. You start with you bow and Blackjack and purchase the rest of these tools from your friendly neighborhood black market dealer. Along with these gadgets, poppies and food can also be bought from these dealers. Poppies are used to refill your focus meter, which allows you to see things that would usually be unnoticed, thanks to your magic eye. This resembles eagle vision of Assassin's Creed, for those of you who are familiar with the series. Food is this games form of health, used to restore a portion of life energy if consumed, they can be found all over The City, same with poppies. During the course of his heists Garrett can gather collectibles to display in his clock tower (home), these are things that Garrett values over the price of gold. While collectibles hold no value, they make you feel pretty on top of things when you marvel at your collection of paintings or chases of rings and necklaces. These items can be found while in free roam or while on missions.
Garrett fighting a watch gaurd
The wrench tool mentioned earlier can be used to remove city heritage plaques, a series of sixteen plaques spread throughout the city. The gameplay resembles that of Dishonored in the sense that their is not total freeroam, but something similar. The player can roam most of The City while not on missions, however only certain portions of The City are available at certain times and becomes available as the player progresses throughout the story. Client jobs can be unlocked as parts of The City are unlocked, along with side quests in which the objective is to steal, sabotage or simply scout out an area. Garrett can make donations to the Queen of Beggers, who will give focus points to Garrett which he can use to upgrade his abilities such as lock-picking, stealth, combat, pick-pocketing and more. While review from large game critics were average, as a fan of the Thief franchise, I think it was worth while reboot. I will be providing a link to a quick informative video about the past Thief's setting and the events that led up to this one here. I do not own this video and all credit goes to the Lore team. I hope you have enjoyed this review and I will be back next week with another post. Until then, stick to the shadows. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope your all doing great. Today I am once again diving into the world of portable games. While I was going to review a awesome reboot of a stealth game, I was running alot this weekend and felt it suiting to sit down and play a parkour inspired run game called Vector. The original release to the tablet made its debut on November 28 of last year. Created by Nekki Game studies with the idea to bring fast paced parkour action the mobile device. While there is a little story to the game, it does explain whats going on pretty well, so here it goes. Vector takes place in a futuristic urban environment where human freedom is non existent and everything is control by a few select people in power.
The one and only cutscene in the game shows that people do what they are told without question and that these tyrants in power have robbed you of the true that you can do without any restraint: free thought. However you are a normal guy living like everyone else when one day amongst your hundreds of fellow brain washed buddies when it is likely you have been up to a building point of longing for freedom for a long time and in a moment of strength, you rip your mind headset off. As you rip your shirt off and run out of your cubicle and find yourself chased by peacekeepers, you leap out the window and the game begins. Throughout the game, you will have access to many areas and environments in which the player will duck, jump and climb towards the ultimate goal of freedom. Along the way you will encounter little cubes that are worth points that allow you to get a better score at the end of the level. There are also little circle collectibles that are worth money which in turn allows you to purchase parkour moves that make it easier to traverse the terrain and get a higher score at the end of the game. This also makes the gameplay experience twice as awesome.
You can attain up to three stars for each level, while the stars don't seem special at first, you start to see the significance as you near the end of the area. Each area contains up to twelve levels, in order to unlock the next area you need to attain three stars for every level in a area. Every play through is different with many mistakes likely to happen on the first try, consistent failure is likely to help you find the best way to traverse a level. I find this a fun and captivating game for audiences of all ages that any individual on the go should try. It's also free, so no excuses, just try it and you'll love it. Also a quick announcement to all, the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 2: A House Divided is out now! This new chapter in this episodic game series looks awesome and I will play as soon as I have some time, so keep an eye out for that now. I hope you have enjoyed this review and I will be back next week with a new post. Until then, have fun. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Vector Trailer, suggest watching 720 hp for maximum effect
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, sorry there was no post last week, I was in the Bay Area doing ocean stuff. Today I decided to take a break from the console genre and look at phone or tablet games. So today I will be reviewing a fun run game with zombies called Into The Dead. Developed and published by Pik Pok Game Studios, this fun little run game is with you wherever you go, being compatible with iPhone, Android, iPad, and every other kind of tablet, this game is everywhere. The game only story is that you are a survivor, but for how long? You start away from a city, waking next to a crashed helicopter to see the dead rising around you and do the logical thing; run. This is all the player does, run from the dead, picking up means to defend themselves along the way such as guns, chainsaws, and grenades. Into the Dead delivers a unique experience of a zombie run game, don't think just because theres guns in this game that it is a shooter, its not. The guns guns are just there to eliminate a zombie or two that in the way, which becomes pointless
Running from zombies helps when you have a weapon
once you get far enough, after that you will need the machine or minigun. When you first start the game, you are given no weapons, after you play the game once, you are given the pistol, a gun that takes two shots to kill a zombie. With every run you complete, you will be rewarded with a certain amount of coins depending on how far you ran and will be given the option to complete challenges to level up to gain more weapons, these challenges can vary from running a certain distance to killing a certain amount of zombies with a certain gun and so on. You can also purchase perks before you start the game, these perks can allow to start with a gun instead of having to find one in a crate, or let you have a dog companion that can run ahead of you and kill zombies. Also, for those you want to run ahead of the game, they can purchase a head start perk that allows you to move 1500 meters ahead before the game begins, allowing you to start in a more difficult environment. For anyone who has some spare time on their hands or is in for a road trip, download this game for free off the app store. Hope you have enjoyed this post and I will be back Wednesday with another post. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope you had a good Valentine's and Presidents Day, today I'm hopping into my favorite arcade game, and in my opinion is part of the best running arcade series there ever was: Metal Slug 3. Developed and published by SNK, Metal Slug 3 released in March 23, 2000 for arcade systems worldwide. The third game in the popular run and gun series, MS3 added new features to series such as more weapons and bosses, along with a little editing to the levels. The objective of the game is to run and shoot at enemies as you progress through the level, throwing grenades and picking up other guns along the way. This can be accomplished by freeing POW's who will give you weapons or points. There are many levels with many different enemies ranging from soldiers to zombies to aliens, really cool stuff. There many weapons to take on your opponents with including the machine gun, rocket launcher, flamethrower, shotgun, a knife used for melee attacks, and your basic pistol. Then there is the most powerful weapon of all; the Metal Slug, a versatile tank like vehicle that kicks ass and is decked out with machine gun turrets and
Marco defeating a boss with a friend in a Metal Slug
powerful cannons that blow enemies away. While Metal Slug is fun going solo, it is double the fun going with two players allowing you to work together and conquer bosses with a better success rate. While I hope that at one point in your lives you played Metal Slug at a pizza arcade or someplace with arcade games. This game will always hold a special place in my heart, as I'd like to think it does for anyone who played arcade games as a child. I hope you all have enjoyed this review and I will be back next week with another post. Until then, have fun. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Since there was no trailer for the game, heres some gameplay
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, I am back with another game by Telltale this week that started the trend that evolved into their Walking Dead series, it was Jurassic Park: The Game that created the interactive gameplay that evolved into the Walking Dead's interactive gameplay system. Jurassic Park was developed and published by Telltale on November 15, 2011. For those of you who have seen Jurassic Park, which I hope is all of you have, this game takes place in the middle of the movie when Dennis Nedry has stolen these dinosaur embryos from the lab housing them, however in order to do this, he had to shut down the security system, which turns off the power to the fences. Basically allowing the dinosaurs inhabiting the park to turn the island into their own little playground, and the people are the toys that you break into little pieces because your a 7 1/2 ton dinosaur that eats little scientists for breakfast. So through the game you take the role of many characters, such Gerry Harding, the chief vet, his daughter Jessy, Nedry's associates send to collect the embryos, and even soldiers sent to rescue the survivors on the island. The gameplay utilizes quick time events that allow you to make decisions about certain outcomes of the game, you must also move fast to complete tasks or
This isn't going to end well
just to avoid being eaten by enemies. While I find the game fun and enjoyable, it is also great for Jurassic Park fans, going into greater depth of what happened of Isla Nublar. Though there is alot of cool elements in this game, I would sadly have to say that it is not worth thirty dollars, maybe fifteen, and while I know Telltale put alot of work into this game, I'd wish they bring down the price a bit. While receiving mixed reviews from multiple critics that called it a "interactive movie", while it is that in simple form, I believe that this game greatest achievement was probably its contribution to the Walking Dead's system of gameplay, which was first used in this game. While I wouldn't suggest buying it for its full price, their are other methods that can be used to obtain it. I'll leave this post with that thought floating around, while I apologize for this short review, there is not much to talk about in the game. Oh, one other thing: the main plot is basically these guys trying to escape the islands, big shocker. Hope you have enjoyed this post and I will be back Wednesday with another post. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
A behind the scenes trailer that explains the game pretty well
Soundtrack Cover, but it also represents my needs for a cover
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope your all doing well and had a nice weekend. For all those who watched the game last Sunday, I understand sadness for some and the happiness for other, but the all around feeling that was more of fluke than a game. Now then, on a brighter note, I am reviewing a small 2-4 player indie game that is loads of fun and loads of laughs, that game is Starwhal: Just the Tip. Mimicking the style of 1980's arcade games, Starwhal is filled with a heart pounding soundtrack and a space background that moves as you play. Developed and published by Breakfall, a small indie company based out of Ottawa, Canada, this game is still in demo stage of development, but is said to be released February 17, 2014 on Steam and possibly consoles in the future. The purpose of the game is to pierce the heart of the opposing player's narwhal (if you do not know what that is, leave this page right now and write me a twenty page essay on narwhals) until their hearts are all gone,
Four player hard-core action
depending on how many hearts and rounds there are, the gameplay can vary. While I personally think the game is really awesome as it is, the developers at Breakfall are gathering donations on Kickstarter to improve the game and work on its transfer to other ports. The game shows much progress and I believe with support and money this game will become known to every person in this country. If any of the developers are reading this right now, I wish you luck in your escapade and Andrew Jobin, I hope you launch that narwhal to the stars. For everyone reading this, you should all check out the game, its free and fun, you can find it at http://www.starwhal.com/. Thank you all for reading this post, check the game, and until next time, have fun. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Since there isnt a official trailer, I thought I would
just use a "Let's Play" by Achievement Hunter.
You only have to watch it for five minutes to get the
idea, but these guys are pretty f*cking funny, so i'd
Hi everyone and happy Wednesday, its been a couple weeks since my last post and I believe there's no better way to come back into the mix than with zombies. So today I will be talking about Red Dead Redemption's fifth downloadable content pack; Undead Nightmare. Developed by Rockstar San Diego, Rockstar North, and published by Rockstar Games, this awesome DLC was released on October 26, 2010. Mixing the last days of the Old West with a zombie apocalypse, this kick-ass add on really gives you your money's worth. As in the main game you play as the main protagonist, former out-law John Marston. The year is 1911 and John has returned to his after a month spent away from home hunting down the outlaws he once called friends, the government has returned his family to him. Now, with a bright future ahead of him, John tries to pick up the pieces of his ranch and keep on living. Our story begins one stormy night when John is riding home from town on his carriage, he parks the carriage and puts the horses away. It seems a normal evening as John talks to his son and wife about life. Abigail asks where Uncle is, (the old farm
John rescuing a girl trapped in a house surrounded by the dead
hand), John replies that he is probably hunkered down somewhere dry until the storm passes. Several hours later when everybody is asleep in their bed, Uncle bursts through John's bedroom, a zombie. John and Abigail stir from their bed, John yells at Uncle to calm down and then proceeds to whack him over the head with a lamp, apparently knocking him unconscious. John runs out of the bedroom telling Abigail that he's going to get his gun, he runs back from the barn with his double-barrel shotgun to find Uncle chasing Abigail, Uncle bites Abigail in the neck and then John shoots Uncle in the head. He asks if she is alright, the response is that she doesn't feel so good. John's sixteen year old son jack comes out, leaning over his mother to see if she is alright she jumps up and bites Jack. John, understanding the situation runs back into the barn and grabs his lasso.
My personal favorite, War, he looks cool and sets zombies on fire
He comes out and hog-ties them both, leaves them in the main bedroom with food and sets off to find a cure. Throughout the game, John will be journeying far and wide looking for a cure, encountering undead animals such as bears, cougars, wolfs and warthogs. Mythical beasts will begin to appear across the vast landscape, creatures such as the Chupacabra, Sasquatch, and a Unicorn. John also can break and ride the Four Horses of The Apocalypse; War, Famine, Pestilence and Death, each with their own unique effect on zombies; from blowing the undead's heads up to setting them on fire. They all New equipment is introduced such as the torch replacing the knife or obtaining the blunderbuss, a weapon that basically vaporizes multiple zombies at once. Phosphorous coating can be applied to bullets to set zombies on fire, useful if your accuracy is bad because the fire will kill the zombie. Another thing is that the only way to kill the zombie is to destroy the brain; headshots only. There is also zombie bait that
Now would be a good time to run like hell
attracts zombies and if you combine it with dynamite you get Boom Bait, explosive zombie-attractive bait = awesome. Activities like capturing wanted criminals has been replaced with finding missing people and clearing out gang hideouts of bandits has been replaced with clearing out graveyards. Money is no longer used, instead you will be paid in ammunition, bullets are scarce, so keep an eye on your supply. The player must also clear out towns in order for them to become safe zones in which they can sleep and fast travel. The campfire allowed the player to fast travel if they set it up anywhere in the wilderness, but now, you can only travel from towns or outposts that have been cleared out. Random attacks by bandits have been replaced with random zombie hordes trying to eat you. World events, such as discovering campfires for storytelling have been replaced with encountering people eating human arms acting LIKE NOTHING IS WRONG, shotgun to the face, you see people eating human body parts, shotgun to the face. You see total nuts feeding human flesh to there undead wife and sharing the meal with them, shotgun to the face. The world has become dangerous, more dangerous than it was, the dead rising up and people going crazy. Really awesome DLC, know you'll love it, ten bucks only. Hope you have enjoyed this review and I will be back with another post next week. Until next time. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
