Hello everyone and happy Wednesday. I'm back this week with another FPS this week that lives up to its predecessor, and maybe even surpasses it; Metro: Last Light. Metro: Last Light is a first-person shooter developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver, the sequel to its acclaimed predecessor, Metro 2033, which takes place in post-apocalyptic Russia 20 years after a nuclear war ravaged the Earth. This event forced the survivors to retreat into Moscow's metro system to survive, animals mutated into dangerous creations that hunt from the skies, the land, and the waters. In the current time of the Metro series, it is impossible to even step above the surface without a gas mask that requires filters, a item you will always be searching for throughout the game. The watch on Artyom's left arm tells him how long until his filter runs out, in which he must then change it, so remember, always keep an eye out for filters. The people left above mutated from the radiation into what were known "The Dark Ones". In Metro 2033, Artyom (the player) is told that the Dark Ones are the greatest threat humanity has ever faced due to there telepathic and super-natural abilities, allowing them to enter the mind of any creature, strong or not, and react havoc if they chose to. They also are extremely agile, fast, and have the ability to render themselves invisible. This displays a common concept shown throughout history: we are afraid of what we don't understand, this is shown by the people of the Metro towards the Dark Ones. The overall plot is that you are Artyom, a Ranger for the Order, one of many factions spread throughout the Metro. These factions include the Red Line; a re-birthed version of the Soviet Union, the Nazis; which are the re-birthed soldiers of the Nazis, The Order; a organization which was created to maintain order within the Metro, which you belong to, and many others who are not so important. Instead of banning together to try to savage what remains of humanity, these factions are locked in a sort of pre Civil War rivalry. Under the guild of a Ranger named Hunter you are instructed to proceed through the Metro and find the solution to this problem involving the Dark Ones.
A young Artyom being saved by a Dark One from mutants
At the end of Metro 2033, you approach your long awaited D-6; a pre-apocalyptic shelter that contains the last weapons of mass destruction in Russia: enough missiles to level the country. After fighting his way through the Metro up to the surface through Soviets, bandits, and mutants alike Artyom approaches D-6, however just before he reaches the facility he is contacted by the Dark Ones through hallucinations of a sort. Artyom enters the facility, uses the missiles to target the Dark Ones home, essentially destroying the Dark Ones. This brings us to the events of Metro: Last Light, it has been one year since the destruction of the Dark Ones and the Order now inhabits D-6, which turns out has enough supplies to supply them all for decades. The situation between the factions of the Metro has grown worse, and the discovery of D-6 has not helped. Even though the Order tried to keep D-6 a secret, word of the safe haven quickly got out, and rumors have spread that the other factions plan to take D-6 from the Rangers (The Order). Artyom is awakened with urgent news from Coronal Miller, the leader of the Rangers, that a Dark One has been spotted near their old home. You are instructed to gear up and head out to find this Dark One. Oh, also, turns out when the Dark Ones flooded Artyom's mind with hallucinations, they were trying to establish with humanity that they only wanted peace. So, pardon my language, but Artyom f*cked up pretty bad on that matter. Now that we have the set the scene for the world we're about to step into, I will talk about some of the new aspects the game has to offer. Probably the biggest change in the game is the improved stealth system, allowing you to stray from the standard path a FPS into a darker and more entertaining perspective. Being a gamer as I am, I enjoy the stealth aspect of Metro: Last Light.
A close up of the protagonist, Artyom
Though you have to play Metro 2033 to appreciate the improved stealth aspect, a example of this is that you used to be spotted very easy and silent take-downs were rare. However the stealth aspect also contains new features, such as sneaking past guards to reach power breakers and turn off the lights for a section of a area. This allows Artyom to sneak past enemies with more ease, silenced weapons, throwing knifes, and take-downs add to the fun of stealth. In some environments you can walk under the floors in the waterways to avoid detection. That was basically the only big change in the game, other then a updated HUD, better graphics, and a few other things. I would recommend this game to any FPS survival horror fans and all gamers in general, 9/10 on my scale. I hope you all have enjoyed this review and I will be back next Wednesday. Until then, game on. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Recommended to watch in full screen for full awesomeness
North American Box Art, featuring the series protagonist Gordon Freeman
Hello everyone, glad to be back from a very long and fulfilling summer to write about video games. Now then a new service announcement, I will only be posting one blog a week on Wednesday instead of on Tuesday and Thursday. So now that I have set down the standards for this year, I can get down to business. Today I will be reviewing a game so awesome, it received Game Of The Decade award. That game is Half Life 2. Developed and published by the Valve Corporation, Half Life 2 was released in November 16, 2004, receiving positive reviews from both fans and critics alike. A sequel to Half Life, Half Life 2 was highly anticipated after the release of the first game. Though Half Life was a huge success before the release of the second game, it was HL2 that really threw the series into the the category of golden games that would be played for generations. Upon its release it was praised for the number of new features that were added in, along with new weapons, the occasional vehicle, the ability to command and control a squad of soldiers in combat, and the biggest thing; the introduction of the Source Engine. Basically the birth place of most modern Valve games, the same engine is used in countless titles such as Team Fortress 2, Portal 1 & 2, Alien Swarm, Dota 2, Counter Strike: Source, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and countless other titles. Another popular indie title that became a large success using the Source Engine was Garry's Mod, a game in which the player the player has the ability to manipulate rag dolls, create an environment, and do just about everything. But enough about about all those other games, now we will talk about Half Life 2. The genre is a single-player FPS that takes place 20 years after the first game, located somewhere in near Europe (perhaps Russia as several old Russian bill boards found around the countryside suggest). Also the iconic trade mark of the returns, the grey and red crowbar continues to reek havoc on your foes and planks alike. You are Gordon Freeman, the silent protagonist of the series. The game begins with Gordon mysteriously appearing on a train bound for City 17, as you take your little train you are spoken to by the mysterious G-Man, who has been watching Freeman since the start of the first game. At the end of the first game, after Gordon is transported to the alien world of Xen and destroys a powerful space entity that was holding open a portal to Earth, allowing the hostile aliens into Black Mesa (the facility where Gordon worked until the "resonance cascade" or what is referred to as "The Black Mesa Incident".) After Freeman kills the creature he is teleported to safety in the G-Man, the man who had been shadowing Gordon throughout Black Mesa. At the end of the game the G-Man offers Freeman a opportunity to work with him, Gordon can say yes or no, but in the case of moving on to the sequel, he presumably said yes, because if you say no, you get eaten by aliens. Happy ending, no?
G-Man as he appears in Half Life(left) and as he appears in Half Life 2(right)
So, Gordon's on a train, and after the somewhat disturbing speech given by the G-Man, he gets off the train into a station. Quick fill-in on the current state of the planet: the Earth was conquered sometime ago by a alien race known as "The Combine" during a event called The Seventeen Hour War, in which the human race as we know was conquered by the Combine. So, yeah, pretty sad, but we didn't totally get our ass's handed to us, with the help of Dr. Wallace Breen, former Black Mesa administer, Breen negotiated the surrender of humanity. For his efforts and cooperation Breen was rewarded by the Combine with power, and seated as representative and Administer to supervise the survivors of humanity. Unable to reproduce due to a Combine suppression field, humanity has matured, meaning no kids. The Combine have also implemented a brutal police state of Civil Protection officers in effort to maintain order over humanity. Now then, after arriving at the station and evading Combine forces, Freeman joins Lambda resistance members including Barney Calhoun, a former Black Mesa security guard now working undercover as a Combine CP officer, and Alyx Vance, the daughter of one of Gordon's former colleagues, Dr. Eli Vance. From here Freeman will travel across the remnants of the old world, fight the Combine, and free humanity. I don't want to give away all the details, so I'll leave the story at that. As I mentioned earlier, vehicles were a popular introduction because nothings more fun than driving around in a air-boat with gattling-gun shooting down choppers. I would honestly give this game a 10/10, that how good it is. If you would like to purchase it, you can find it on the steam store for $10.00 on Steam Store. Hope you all have enjoyed my back-to-blog post and I will be back next Wednesday. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone and happy Friday. As most of you know, this is my last blog for this summer, I but I may consider throwing in a post now and then. But until the end of this post comes to a end, I will act in a usual manner. Now, down to business. Today I'm going to review a game that generated millions of dollars and left millions of fans satisfied and knowing every penny was worth it. That game is Borderlands 2. Developed by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games, Borderlands 2 follows a similar plot of the first game, you are a vault hunter who is seeking the vault. The following video explains the introduction to the game.
So that's how the game starts, you are a survivor of the train wreck and depending what mode you're on you'll start alone and meet up with computer controlled players along the way. However if you start in co-op, the feature the game is praised for, than you will start out with someone else, up to four players. As the video highlights you can be one of four unique characters, each with their own special ability. My favorite character to play as is Zero, as Zero you have the ability to project a hologram of yourself while turning invisible and as you reappear the first shot or stab you make will be critical, guaranteeing a one hit kill for most enemies, handy when fighting bosses and you health is low. Next is the Gunzerker, who can dual wield to rifles for devastating firepower, which in case you didn't know is pretty f*cking awesome, totally reminds me of the Terminator, shotgun in one hand, rifle in the other, or two rifles and two shotguns. He also has alot of health. After him comes the Commando, who is really good at defending objectives with his deployable sentries that offer quick firepower and are very useful for most situations. Last, but not least is the Siren, who possesses the ability to grab enemy via levitation and blow them up, so yeah, awesome. Another aspect the game was praised for was the vast assortment of weapons of grenades. Some gun even have special abilities like catching the enemy on fire, electrocuting them, using explosive bullets, and even bullets that apply a subsistence called rust that makes them more vulnerable to damage. The game also features a massive landscape over the planet of Pandora, in which the player can roam freely and select their choice of objectives. Throughout the world depending on the place you will find money, weapons, and ammo. The game's AI reminds me of the Director for the Left 4 Dead series, it randomly places things in the world, and it never there the second time you play the level or it's something different. But you can only carry so many items, and when your backpack gets full you will have to drop stuff. If a ammo, health, or gun box happens to be near by, you can sell unwanted items to the Russian guy that supports capitalism. While out in large plain areas you can access virtual vehicles that you can customize to your own extent and then use to get around faster. Throughout the game it also helps that you have this AI talking to you, advising you, and hacking into things for you, as for how she got there, I have no idea. Well thats about everything you need to know about it. Once again, totally worth buying, I recently bought the season pass for, allowing me to get all the DLCs for the game forever. So there you have it, my last post of the summer. I was thinking about doing Assassin's Creed III, but realized I hadn't reviewed Assassin's Creed: Revelations yet. I'd like to thank all of you for reading this blog, but don't worry, I'll will be back after Summer. So until then game, have fun, go outside, play with your dog, all that good stuff. See you starside, this has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday, hope you're doing well. Sorry about no post last Friday, never trust scheduled update made by Blogger. Today were going to review a 8-bit game that has received positive energy from critics, give a 8.0 and was chosen as editors choice award by IGN. The game was featured on a variety of platforms including Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The game is based off the movie that was based off the comics, so yeah. That game is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, the game was a huge hit in many different countries. Honestly one of my favorite 8-bit games it is totally worth the low amount of Microsoft points you pay for it, (Hint: Don't buy this game for PlayStation). In the game you can play as one of four characters featured in the game, though the plot of fighting through bikers, punks, band players, zombies, and super vegans is not changed. The four characters are Scott Pilgrim, the main protagonist (if you have any common sense, you will play as this guy, cause he's awesome), Ramona Flowers, the girl Scott's in love with (also a bad ass), Kim Pine, Scott's ex-girlfriend and drummer of his band, Sex Bob-omb, and Steven Stills "The Talent", the vocalist of the band. Along with these characters are three other characters, one unlocked through a achievement, the other two bought through DLC content on the Xbox Live Market Place. Nega- Scott, Scott's evil counter-part, is unlocked, while Knives Chau, the 17-year old Scott is dating before Ramona, and Wallace Wells, Scott's gay room mate. So throughout the game you run, jump, smash, throw, and kill enemies throughout various levels from the movie. The following entry in Italics was taken from Wikipedia to explain the plot of the movie, for those of you who are patient enough to read and understand whats going on.
The Story:
In Toronto, Scott Pilgrim, the bass guitarist for the band "Sex Bob-omb", begins dating high schooler Knives Chau, much to the disapproval of his friends. Scott meets an American girl, Ramona Flowers, who has been appearing in his dreams, and becomes obsessed with her, losing interest in Knives. While playing in a battle of the bands sponsored by one "G-Man Graves" for a record deal, Scott is attacked by Matthew Patel, who introduces himself as the first of Ramona's "evil exes". Scott defeats Patel and learns that, in order for them to date, he must defeat all seven of her evil exes.
Scott breaks up with Knives, who blames Ramona for taking Scott from her and begins trying to win him back. Scott battles Ramona's second evil ex, popular actor and skateboarder Lucas Lee, whom he defeats by tricking him into performing a dangerous skateboard grind that causes him to combust. Scott later encounters the third evil ex, Todd Ingram, who is dating Scott's ex-girlfriend, Natalie "Envy" Adams. Todd initially overpowers Scott using his psychic vegan abilities, but is stripped of his powers by the Vegan Police after Scott tricks him into drinking coffee with half and half cream, allowing Scott to defeat him.
Scott begins to grow upset with Ramona over her dating history by the defeat of the fourth ex, Roxy Richter. During the second round of the battle of the bands, Sex Bob-omb faces off against the fifth and sixth evil exes, twin Katayanagi brothers Kyle and Ken, earning Scott an extra life upon their defeat. During the battle, Scott sees Ramona together with her seventh evil ex, Gideon, who turns out to be G-Man Graves. The members of Sex Bob-omb accept Gideon's record deal, except for Scott, who leaves the band.
Upon returning home, Scott receives a phone call invitation from Gideon to his newly opened Chaos Theater where Sex Bob-omb is playing, claiming there to be "no hard feelings". Scott arrives and challenges Gideon to a fight, professing his love for Ramona and gaining a sword called the "Power of Love", which Gideon easily destroys. Knives then crashes the scene to fight Ramona over Scott. Scott goes to break up the girls' fight, only to accidentally reveal that he cheated on them with each other before he is killed by Gideon.
Ramona visits Scott in Limbo and apologizes for getting him involved in her affairs, revealing that Gideon had planted a mind control device in the back of her head. Scott realizes he still has an extra life and uses it to return to life at the moment in time when Gideon first called him. Scott reenters the Chaos Theater where he makes peace with his friends and challenges Gideon again, stating he is fighting for himself and gaining the much stronger "Power of Self-Respect" sword with which he strikes down Gideon. He then apologizes to Ramona and Knives for cheating on them, but Gideon interferes and knocks down Ramona, leading Scott and Knives to team up and defeat him. Free from Gideon's control, Ramona prepares to leave, but Knives accepts that her relationship with Scott is over and encourages him to follow Ramona. He does, and the two start their relationship anew.
So there you have it, you must defeat Ramona's seven evil ex-boyfriends in order to date her. While doing this you must also fight your way through a assortment of other enemies until you reach the boss. The combat system is fairly simple and as you move up in level you will unlock more combos to cause more damage and you will have more health. That's basically everything you need to know about the game. Once again, totally worth the little money it costs. And now, a announcement. So this Friday will be my last blog for the rest of Summer, so I'm trying to decide what game to go out with. This has been awesome and fun to do, I will miss it and wish I could keep doing it, but with the time I'll be working this summer will make it hard to have any free time. But I'm not done yet, I'll save the "Thank You" speech for this last blog. Until then, this has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
E3 Launch Trailer
Official Movie Trailer, watch the movie, its awesome.
Hello everyone and happy Wednesday. Today were doing to review one of the less serious games made this year: Surgeon Simulator 2013. Developed by Bossa Studios and published by Steam, S.S. was originally a game made in 48 hours by four sleep deprived game developers. So they decided to see what they could do in 48 days and this was the result: Surgeon Simulator 2013. As the title of the game suggests, you are a surgeon preforming surgery. There are a few different modes that have been introduced into the game since the first one. Although the original objective of the game is still present, which is to preform open heart surgery on a patient without killing him, however most of the players of the game simply make a mess of things breaking the patients rib cage, dropping bone saws in his organs, and injecting yourself with drugs with drugs meant for sedating the patient. So overall most the fan base doesn't play the game seriously. Back on subject, some of the new modes include brain surgery in which you have to remove the brain while fixing the non functional part of the brain, I also think you can preform a lobotomy depending on the objective. The most popular and difficult new mode is ambulance mode, where you have to preform surgery in the back of a moving, bumpy ambulance. This mode requires careful persition or you will kill your patient and scatter all your equipment over the floor of the vehicle. But for the most part the developers knew that most people would just mess around and find funny ways to kill the patient. That's basically what you do in the game and everything about it. Surgeon Simulator 2013 is available on the Steam store for $9.99 and the hours of laughs you'll get out of the game is worth it. That's all folks, thanks for 50 posts. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone and happy Friday. Sorry about no posts on Wednesday, was busy and forgot. But I'm back and ready for another day. So to start off, this kind of strays from the usual post, and since I haven't done a post about a non violent game in a while I though Moonbase Alpha was as non violent as you can get (not really) and is a great game to play with your friends. Developed by Virtual Heros, Inc. and America's Army Game Studio, while the game was published by NASA Learning Technologies. The plot of the game takes place on the moon, where you are a NASA astronaut on your way back to base from patrol when a meteor shower strikes the life support system to critical condition. The point of the game is to fix and repair damaged equipment while on the moon. The overall objective is to do this before time runs out. Thankfully you won't go into battle unarmed, you will access to futuristic fully automatic weaponry to help you in your quest to save your friends and conquer the alien menace that also threatens your life. Just kidding, you will be completely unarmed and defenseless against these aliens as they massacre everyone stupid enough to be on the moon, and everyone stupid enough to think the game would be this exciting. But seriously, you are armed with a welding torch, wrench, and other tools to help you repair the damaged couplers, hoses, and solar arrays. Another option of repairing something is that is damaged enough, it would be faster to fetch a replacement from the equipment shed where the tools are also located. To increase your time in which you repair and replace gear you have a car-like vehicle to help you move faster, you can also load equipment and tools on the back to transport it faster. Although this is the main objective of the game, most people only download the game because of the text to speech translator that is funny to listen to. Well, that's just about everything about the game there is to know, wait, the game is free, so now you know everything. Hope you have enjoyed and I will see you all next week. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
Hello everyone, good to be back and happy Wednesday. Today since I had no inspiration on what to do, I decided to talk about Halo Reach. The sixth installment of the Halo series. Released in September 14, 2010, Halo Reach received positive and welcoming reviews form critics and the public alike. Developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Studios, like the previous installments of the game, the creators are the same. The game takes place within the same universe as the previous games, however Halo Reach is a prequel that takes place before he Fall of Reach and before the rise of Master Chief. To put it simply it takes place before the first game: Halo: Combat Evolved. The game however introduced newer and better technology than the other games, which take place in the future, I little confusing, but awesome none the less. New features of the game include things ranging from jet packs, armor abilities, to reintroducing shields, and finally introducing the long awaited sprint ability (you could not sprint in any of the Halo games until Reach). The storyline, while taking place in the same universe, the characters and plot are different. Instead of taking on the role of Master Chief, you step into the shoes of Noble 6, a Spartan III of Noble Team and with new shoes come new places to walk and new roles to take on. You have one responsibility, a very important responsibility: prevent the fall of Planet Reach at all costs.
The base of the Spire, one of the many locations in Reach
So thats the story in a nutshell, now for the multiplayer. As I mentioned earlier new features have been added to the campaign and multiplayer alike, but a big thing to point out is new gamemodes. For those of you who don't know a gamemode is the thing that decides the role of what you'll be doing, what kind of weapons you'll have, and how much time you have to do it in. So one of the favorite new game types is Invasion, in which you are either a Spartan or a Elite(alien) in which your objective is to get the enemy power core to your ship. To do this you have to to go through three steps. First you have capture one of the two of your enemies control points, in which you then have access to another set of control points farther up the map in which you must also capture. After that you can finally have access to the power which you must grab and take to your Pelican. (or Phantom, depending what team and map you on) But like most things this is easier said than done, you have to carry the core, which impairs movement speed and you cannot defend yourself, leaving you to hope that your team will protect you. So that's one of the many game types the game has to offer, I'd go into more, but I'd be here all night. Bottom line, great game, totally worth buying, way better than Halo 4, but that's just my opinion. So I hope you have enjoyed and I will see you all Friday. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.
A live action film that secured my purchase of this game
