Pocket Tanks Review

Pocket Tanks Box Art

Hello ladies and gents, happy Tuesday.  Today I thought I'd take us back to the days of old.  Somewhere between Pac-Man and Halo: Combat Evolved, Pocket Tanks was created. First released in 2001,the game received positive support, thus the gaming industry was in its early stages of development. Halo came out only months later after the release of Pocket Tanks. It was released for Mac OS X and Windows, it is a 1-2 player game where the player takes control of a 2-D tank.  A recent version was created for the iPhone, created by Blitwise Productions, developer of Super DX-Ball and Neon Wars. Adapted from Michael Welch's earlier Amiga game Scorched Tanks, this newer version features modified physics, dozens of weapons ranging from simple explosive shells to homing missiles, and the ability to move the tank. It supports several expansion packs. At the moment, players can have up to 295 different weapons total.  Pocket Tanks is often abbreviated as PTanks, or simply as PT. The point of the game is to use various weapons, which come in various packs, to attack the other player's tank. Each hit scores a certain amount of points, which varies based on the weapon and proximity. At the end of 10 volleys, the player with the highest points wins.  The game features a fully destructible environment, which allows player to put themselves on pedestals, in tunnels, or bunkers, allowing for the probability of strategic play. A fun experience by yourself or with a friend. Overall its a fun game, that's worth playing, 7 out of 10.  I hope you enjoyed and I will see you Thursday,  OLD SCHOOL FOR THE WIN BABY!!! This has been Jacob Arnold signing off.

Unfortunatly I couldn't find a trailer so I thought I'd upload one of FreddieW's awesome videos that reminded me of this review. All content belongs to their rightful owners

The War Z Review

Hello everyone today I'd like to talk about the still developing game called War Z. The War Z is an open world zombie survival horror video game developed by Hammerpoint Interactive. The game features both first person and third person shooting abilities, allowing the player to switch between the two. The game only offers players the option of playing against other users.  It had the lowest score on Metacritic in the year 2012. The game is set five years after a zombie attack which has wiped out the majority of the world's population, leaving most of the world either dead or infected. Shortly before the game's start, a new and rare type of zombie mutation has been discovered that allows the world's living citizens to create a vaccine that will cure infected humans of zombification. The gameplay will have users looking for these zombies to create vaccines and to fight against packs of zombies. The War Z is a zombie survival game, where players must survive in the post-apocalyptic zombie infested world. Survivors can find weapons which are lying around the map, and can increase their chances of survival by joining in with groups of other players, which feature currently is not available, regardless of what the company's website promises. The game incorporates "realistic" survival features such as hunger and thirst trackers, which can affect the player's health. Supplies such as food and water are also available around the map, and can be picked up and used to reset these counters. If no supplies are collected to remedy this, hunger and thirst can kill the character over time. It is also possible to buy food or drinks if you cannot scavenge any. Overall I'd give the game a 3 out of 10. I expected more when my friends told me to buy the game and hope that Hammerpiont will continue to improve the game. So don't buy it until it reaches a playable stage that's enjoyable and to all War Z players, don't be camping jerks. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.  

Slender: The Eight Pages Review

Slender Logo

Happy February everyone, just thought I'd start the month on the horror genre again with a free heart pounding indie-game that IGN gives four out of five. Slender: The Eight Pages is that game.  Also known just as Slender, the game was released in June 2012, developed and published by Parsec Productions. Slender is set in the middle of a forest during night and is played from a first person perspective. The player's objective is to collect eight pages located in various areas of the forest while avoiding the Slender Man, a faceless humanoid entity. The player is equipped with only a flashlight to see through the dark; it has limited battery life and will eventually shut down permanently if left on for an extended period of time. The player character also has limited stamina as running will tire out the character and decrease her maximum walking speed. Slender Man occasionally appears in the player's field of vision, and game over occurs if the player stares at Slender Man too long or remains idle for too long. As the player collects pages, the fog in the forest grows thicker and Slender Man appears closer to the player character.  It is almost impossible to beat the game while staying alive, in order to do so you must be cunning and fast.  The part that caught me by surprise was that after I collected all eight pages, I died anyway when he poped up in front of me. Game Over for me.  That game is good and I like it, so try it, it's free and worth a hour or two of your life.  Hope you enjoyed and I will see you later.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

Slender Trailer

Halo 2 Review & Storyline

Halo 2 Box Art

     Today I decided I wanted to start doing sequels to games I've already reviewed.  So today I decided to review on one of the father's online multiplier experience and a universe so epic it hurts. This ladies and gentlemen is Halo 2.  The second installment in the Halo franchise, unlike it's processor Halo 2 supported Xbox Live. This feature allowed gamers to hook up with other players via the Internet and were no longer restricted to LAN parties as seen in Halo: Combat Evolved.  On release, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live,  holding that rank until the release of Gears of War for the Xbox 360 nearly two years later. By June 20, 2006, more than 500 million games of Halo 2 had been played and more than 710 million hours have been spent playing it on Xbox Live; by May 9, 2007, this number had risen to more than five million unique players.  
     Halo 2 is a first person shooter and is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game with at least 6.3 million copies sold in the United States alone. Critical reception of the game was generally positive, with most publications complimenting the strong multiplayer component of the game. The campaign was the focus of criticism for its cliffhanger ending in which I will explain later.  The game was released November 9, 2004 on Xbox and later for Windows Vista on  May 31, 2007. Players use a combination of human and alien weaponry and vehicles to progress through the game's levels. The player's health bar is not visible, but are instead equipped with a damage-absorbing shield that regenerates when not taking fire, it is seen above the player's mini map. 
     Certain weapons can be dual-wielded, allowing the player to trade accuracy, the use of grenades and melee attacks for raw firepower.  The player can carry two weapons at a time (or three if dual-wielding; one weapon remains holstered), with each weapon having advantages and disadvantages in different combat situations. For example, most Covenant weapons eschew disposable ammo clips for a contained battery, which cannot be replaced if depleted. However, these weapons can overheat if fired continuously for prolonged periods.  Human weapons are less effective at penetrating shields and require reloading, but cannot overheat due to prolonged fire. The player can carry a total of eight grenades (four human grenades, four Covenant) to dislodge and disrupt enemies. New in Halo 2 is the ability to board enemy vehicles that are near you and traveling at low speeds. The player or jumps onto the vehicle and forcibly ejects the other driver from the vehicle.
    The campaign takes place shortly after the events of the novel Halo: First Strike, Halo 2 opens with the trial of a Covenant Elite commander aboard the Covenant's mobile capital city of High Charity. The Elite is stripped of his rank, branded a heretic for failing to stop the humans from destroying Halo which happened near the end of the first game. Thel 'Vadamee (the Elite) is tortured by Tartarus, the Chieftain of the Covenant Brutes. On Earth, the Master Chief and Sergeant Avery Johnson are commended for their actions on Halo. Lord Terrence Hood awards the soldiers alongside Commander Miranda Keyes, who accepts a medal on behalf of her deceased father, Captain Jacob Keyes. Jacob Keyes was killed in the first game upon being taken over by the Flood Gravemind, in which he resisted it's control and denied it the location of Earth.  A Covenant fleet appears outside Earth's defensive perimeter of satellites and ships The fleet then begins an invasion of the planet.
     While the UNSC repels most of the fleet, a single Covenant cruiser carrying an important member of the Covenant hierarchy, the High Prophet of Regret, assaults the city of New Mombasa, Kenya. The events of Halo 3: ODST revolves around this certain event. The Master Chief assists in clearing the city of Covenant; with his fleet destroyed, Regret makes a hasty slipspace jump, and Keyes, Johnson, Cortana and Chief follow aboard the UNSC ship "In Amber Clad". The crew discovers another Halo installation; realizing the danger the ring presents, Keyes sends the Master Chief to kill Regret while she and Johnson find Halo's key to activation, the Index.  Meanwhile, the disgraced Covenant commander is presented before the Prophet Hierarchs, who acknowledge that though the destruction of Halo was his fault, he is no heretic. They offer him the honored position of Arbiter so that he can continue to fight for the Covenant. The Arbiter is a fictional ceremonial, religious, and political rank bestowed upon alien Covenant Elites, in which they go on suicide missions to fulfill the will of the Prophets, their spiritual leaders. On his first mission to kill a elite heretic commander, the Arbiter discovers 343 Guilty Spark, the moniter of Installation 04, or the first Halo ring discovered. Who the Covenant calls an "oracle," and brings him back to High Charity. Responding to Regret's distress call, High Charity and the Covenant fleet arrive at the new Halo, Installation 05, just before the Master Chief kills Regret. Bombarded from space, the Chief falls into a lake upon escaping the orbital explosions and is rescued by a mysterious tentacled creature. 
     The death of Regret sows seeds of discord among the races of the Covenant, as the Hierarchs have given the Brutes the Elites' traditional job of protecting them in the wake of the death. The Arbiter is sent to find Halo's Index and captures it, Johnson, and Keyes before being confronted by Tartarus. He reveals to the Arbiter that the Prophets have ordered the annihilation of the Elites, and sends the Arbiter falling down a deep chasm with his magical hammer of death. The Arbiter is saved by the tentacled creature and meets the Master Chief in the bowels of the installation. The creature, Gravemind, is the leader of the Flood on Installation 05. Gravemind reveals to the Arbiter that the Great Journey would destroy Flood, humans, and Covenant altogether. Gravemind sends the Arbiter and Master Chief to different places using the rings teleportation system to stop Halo's activation. The Master Chief is teleported into High Charity, where a civil war has broken out among the Covenant between the Elites and Brutes; the "In Amber Clad" crashes into the city, and Cortana realizes that Gravemind used them as a distraction to infest the "In Amber Clad" and spread the Flood throughout High Charity. As the parasite overruns the city, infecting the Prophet of Mercy in the process, the Prophet of Truth orders Tartarus to take Keyes, Johnson, and Guilty Spark to Halo's control room and activate the ring. 
    The Master Chief follows Truth aboard a Forerunner ship leaving the city; Cortana remains behind to destroy High Charity, The Flood, and Halo if Tartarus succeeds in activating the ring.  Meanwhile, the Arbiter is sent to the surface of Halo, where he rallies his allies to assault the Brute's position at the control room. With the help of Johnson, he confronts Tartarus in Halo's control room. When the Arbiter tries to convince Tartarus that the Prophets have betrayed them both, yet Tartarus angrily activates the ring in proclamation that the Brutes, not the Elites, will begin The Great Journey, and a battle ensues. The Arbiter and Johnson manage to kill Tartarus after a long annoying battle involving energy swords and lots of sticky grenades. Keyes removes the Index after Tartarus has been put down  Instead of shutting down the ring entirely, a system wide fail-safe protocol is triggered, putting Installation 05 and all the other Halo rings on standby for activation from a remote location, which Guilty Spark refers to as "the Ark". Aside from not being energy efficient for all the rings to be on standby, this is also very dangerous.  As Truth's ship arrives amidst a raging battle on Earth, Hood asks Chief what he is doing aboard the ship. Chief replies, "Sir, finishing this fight." 
     This probably was his best one-liner in the Halo franchise. In a post-credits scene, Gravemind is seen arriving on High Charity, where Cortana agrees to answer the Flood intelligence's questions. Then everything fades to black and there in-lies the biggest  cliffhanger in the history of man that left the world, myself included, dumbfounded and wanting more. Probably why Halo 3 was in the top five most sold games of all time, but that's for another day. Overall I'd say Halo 2 was one of the awesomest games of all time and got four-and-a-half stars, almost five if IGN wasn't such a hard ass about reviewing awesome games. The game is no longer sold at stores but is available if you check eBay or Amazon, I'd recommend Amazon.  Sadly the game's Xbox Live support was terminated April 15, 2010 along with all other remaining Xbox games.  It was awesome while it lasted, I still talk to my old clan and we reformed on to Halo 3, then Halo: Reach, and were talking about transitioning over to Halo 4, but we'll probably stick to Reach cause we like it more than Halo 4.  The game is good none the less and I know you'll love it.  I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next week.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

Official Halo 2 Trailer

Colin McRae: Dirt Review

American Box Art

I decided in celebration of the holidays to do a non-violent game for my last review before Christmas, so I choose Colin McRae's Dirt. (Commonly known as DiRT in America)  Dirt is a racing game and the sixth Colin McRae Rally series, it is also sadly the last game in the series that was published before McRae's death.  The game was developed and published by Codemasters.  The game was released in June 15, 2007 in Europe and June 19, 2007 in North America. The single player game plays out through 3 modes. Career, Championship, and Rally World, which is a single race set up. The Career mode is set up in a stylized pyramid that has 11 "tiers", with the bottom tier having 11 different events. Each event consists of one or more race events of a single type requiring a specific type of car. The player earns up to 10 points for their placing in all the races within the event. Most events require a specific number of points within a specific tier to unlock, and thus as the player earns points, more of the pyramid becomes unlocked, moving up to the "Champion of Champions" event at the very top. By winning races and earning money the player is able to purchase cars and liveries (skins) for the cars. In total there are 46 different cars and 186 liveries. The amount of money earned is based on the difficulty level picked by the player when selecting the event; higher difficulty levels have more challenging AI opponents and more realistic damage effects. Completed events can be repeated at any time, although unless challenged at a higher difficulty level, the player will earn significantly less money than when they first raced it. In Rally events with multiple races, the player has the opportunity to repair damage between races, but is only allotted 60 minutes of damage repair at each point based on time estimates to fix each component of the car. Championship mode offers up a series of races in which the player's combined time throughout each stage is cumulative. Multiplayer allows the player to race up to 100 other players in rally races through solo competition, as there are no other cars, ghosts or players present on the track. Fastest time determines who wins. DiRT is a good racing game overall and its sad that Colin McRae died and with him, the series.  Hope you have enjoyed this post and I will see you in two weeks. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off. 

Left 4 Dead Review & Storyline

Left 4 Dead box art

Honestly by my opinion one of the best zombie games of all time, Left 4 Dead has received numerous awards and still immensely played throughout the planet. Released in November 2008. developed by Turtle Rock Stories, but purchased by Valve during development, and also published by Valve.  Left 4 Dead (abbreviated as L4D) is a cooperative first-person shooter arcade-style video game. The game uses Valve's proprietary Source engine, and is available for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360 and Mac OS X. Development on the game was completed on November 13, 2008, and two versions were released digitally: A downloadable digital version, released on November 17, 2008, and a digital retail disc version, with a release date determined by region. The digital retail disc version was released in North America and Australia on November 18, 2008; and in Europe and Japan on November 21, 2008. Set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, the game pits its four protagonists—dubbed the "Survivors"—against hordes of the infected. There are four game modes: a single-player mode in which allied characters are controlled by AI; a four-player, co-op campaign mode; an eight-player online versus mode; and a four-player survival mode. In all modes, an artificial intelligence (AI), dubbed the "Director", controls level pacing and item placements, in an attempt to create a dynamic experience and increase replay value.  One of the first experiences like, this makes the difficult and fun at the same time, making you constantly having to think outside box in order to survive.  Pennsylvania suffers an outbreak of "Green Flu"; a highly contagious virus causing extreme aggression, mutation to the body cells, and loss of higher brain functions. Two weeks after the infection four immune survivors—Bill, a Vietnam veteran; Zoey, a college student; Louis, an IT analyst, and Francis, an outlaw biker—make their way through the city of Fairfield, only to discover that the virus is creating more dangerous mutations. After narrowly avoiding these new infected, along with hordes of others, the survivors are alerted to the presence of an evacuation point at the nearby Mercy Hospital roof by a passing helicopter. Fighting their way through the city's streets, subway and sewers, they are rescued from the hospital's roof by the pilot, only to discover he is infected.  When Zoey is forced to kill him, the helicopter crash lands in an industrial district outside the city. Finding an armored delivery truck, the group uses it to make their way to the town of Riverside. However, they find the road blocked, and travel the rest of the way on foot. After an encounter with an infected lunatic in the local church, they discover that the town is overrun, and decide to head to a nearby boathouse for rescue. Contacting a small fishing vessel, they manage to reach the city of Newburg on the other side of the river, only to find much of it in flames. Seeking cover in a large greenhouse, their rest is interrupted when a military C-130 passes overhead, leading the survivors to travel through the city's business district towards Metro International Airport. Upon arrival, the group see that in an attempt to contain the infection, the military had bombed the airport while infected pilots crash planes in an attempt to land; the runway however is largely intact, allowing the survivors to fuel up and escape in a waiting C-130. Despite this apparent rescue, it crashes as well, and the survivors once again find themselves alone on the outskirts of Allegheny National Forest. Following a series of train tracks through the area, the group find themselves at a functioning, but abandoned, military outpost. After answering a radio transmission, the survivors make their final stand against hordes of infected, before a military APC arrives to transport them to Northeast Safe Zone Echo, supposedly the only uninfected area yet to be overrun. Instead, they are kept at a military installation and informed that even though they are immune, they still carry the virus. They are temporarily held by the military before the base is overrun with infected. The four escape via train and travel south at Bill's insistence; Bill believes that they can find long-term safety from the infected on the islands of the Florida Keys. At the portside town of Rayford, they find a boat but must raise an old rusty bridge powered by an aging generator to get the boat into open waters, assured that the machinery noise will alert a large horde. Bill sacrifices himself in order to restart a generator when the lift jams, so that the others may reach safety.  So for me I wanted to cry when Bill died, him being awesome as he is.  So Bill's tale ends here for the greater good.  Overall the game is awesome and never gets old, the zombie better is Left 4 Dead 2, which I might do a blog on next year.  So I hope you enjoyed this and I'll see you Thursday.  This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off. 

UK Introduction Teaser Trailer   

The Impossible Game Review

The Impossible Game Logo

The Impossible Game is a Xbox Indie Game and a App for the iPhone that was released November 23, 2009 for Xbox, couldn't find out when iPhone version was released. The game was developed by FlukeDuke and is an Indie Game, meaning that it wasn't published by a company, just made by a single person. The iPhone version was remade into a small compact version by cocos2d which is my favorite app of all time. Gameplay is really simple and straightforward it just consists of an automatically fast moving square through a level and while you make your square jump over smashing objects the game becomes more and more exciting and interesting. As the name already tells you, the game is really impossible and when you fail, and believe me you will undoubtedly fail, you will be more excited to start over and over again. There is a practice mode, so starting this mode you can place flags down as you progress through the level so you could restart from your last dropped flag. Although, the thing that makes this game really impossible is that if you do not play in a practice mode but you must beat all the levels from start to finish only with one life. It takes a lot of practice and motivation to accomplish. Impossible Game is known as the “Insanely Addictive” – the music consists of techno beats and it increases your focus as well as the tension. The soundtrack is synced with the game to make it ever more suspenseful  Each time you start the game you will experience something new and harder. However, if you are a person who is capable of beating the Impossible Game levels, then you are definitely an exceptional one. l You will feel you have beaten something amazingly difficult that only a few could do globally (just kidding, but it really is hard to beat the game). The Impossible Game is available on the Xbox Market Place for only 80 Microsoft points and $.99 on the Apple App Store. Hope you enjoy it and I'll see you next week. This has been Jacob Arnold, signing off.

Lot harder than it looks, trust me