Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360

I have been looking forward to this game almost as much as I was looking forward to the original. When they announced the original game I knew I would be owning a 360 at some point in the future. So when I had a chance to play the original I knew that my original assumption was right and I have to say the sequel doesn't disappoint either.

Concept: 5/5

Continue the story of Commander Shepard and his crew in an attempt to defeat the reapers. A species of Giant Alien Robots that want to erase all organic life from the galaxy. Pretty simple and everyone that loved the first game will love the second. Plus the second might draw some people in that the first missed.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are definitely improved over the original. I love everything about the graphics except for a couple things. The faces. I don't know maybe it's just me but I felt like everyone's faces were kind of static throughout the whole game. To explain, if their character's default face is smiling than I felt that whenever they showed any emotion it wasn't a case of taking a passive version of the face and making it angry, sad, etc. It was taking that smiling face and then trying to make it angry, sad, etc. It just felt off. But who knows maybe this is just a quirk I have and no one else has or had a problem with it.

I also noticed the texture popping come back. For those who don't know what this is: When you're far away from a character or person, in real life or in a game, you can't make out all the little individual patches on a person's suit. So the engine is set up in a way to pretty much say "why bother" with all that detail if no one can see it. So when at long distances it loads a fuzzier version of the suit so there aren't all those patches and it doesn't take up processing power to render something you can't see. But the "popping" issue is when you're standing next to a character and the character has a low quality texture on because the game hasn't caught on that you're standing next to them yet, then it does and you notice the texture visually "pop" into a higher quality.

But by far the greatest visual complaint I have of the new game is that it will fail to position people properly during conversations. The first time I spoke to the character Jacob I was somehow standing next to him not across from him so whenever the game would go to show me a reaction shot of my character there was no one there. It was really weird. Then another time I was talking to another person and someone from my team was standing INSIDE the character I was talking to. This issue was very experience breaking.

Sound: 4/5

Overall the sound of the game in terms of music and sound effects is average. There is no real particular effect or song that I found really amazing. However, this game does have amazing background conversations and advertisements. Walking around an interstellar market place and hearing an advertisement for the latest show of Hamlet staring all aliens, this particular species can't share emotion like we do so they say how they feel, was hilarious. Or hearing about the latest future video game and what the fans are grumbling about. All the weapons sound like weapons and the atmosphere of the galaxy is amazing.

Playability: 4/5

The game plays amazingly well, it plays even better than the first game. The inclusion of heavy weapons really makes the game a whole lot better. Especially since the heavy weapons replace grenades. Because in the first game you seemed to be the only person in the galaxy that could use grenades. Honestly I never once came across another person that used grenades. But in this game every now and then someone else will have a heavy weapon so it doesn't feel like you've randomly developed this skill that no one else has.

Personally I did not like the fact that this game gives you a lot less information than the first game did. You have to kind of guess what everyone's class is based on how they talk to you and what they reveal about themselves. Which is ok I was able to piece together who I wanted in my squad this way but I think it would be nice if they just told you their classes. Also all of the weapons seem to be the same? There's no statistics so I can't tell if one shotgun does more damage than another or if they just reload differently.

Also the whole finding resources on planets, scanning thing? Horrible. It wasn't fun the first time I did it, I don't know if it will ever be fun. But doing it vs. not doing it has gameplay repercussions so I have to tell you to do it.

Entertainment: 4/5

The entertainment is great. I played this game with a friend watching that had never played the first one and she was getting as excited as I was whenever things went down. People that hadn't met Shepard before would be trying to act tough in front of him and my friend would yell "Don't you KNOW?! That's SHEPARD!" it definitely helped the amusement of the game.

No spoilers, but during the last couple hours of the game, this one particular location, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was so nervous, excited, and energized all at the same time. It was capable of making me that emotionally charged.

X-Factor: 5/5

The X-factor to this game is pretty great. After I played the first game, as a good guy, I wanted to play through again as a badass. But I didn't feel like a badass I felt like an asshole. So I stopped playing. I have tried to play through the renegade side of the first game at least 5 times and I hardly make it past the first mission each time.

This time when playing I was still a bit of a goody two shoes, but I felt my character had evolved a little bit so I allowed him to do some renegade options every now and then and they were so amazing that I plan on playing through the renegade side. Once I catch a break from playing all the other games I need to review for you all.

Overall: 26/30

Mirror's Edge

This time I'll be talking about Mirror's Edge. I have played a bit of this on the console as well as the PC so I will be able to share with you my feelings of the game on an overall scale.

Concept: 4/5

Parkour! That is the concept behind this game. It's a nice and simple concept. Let's take parkour which has been exploding in popularity on the internet and make a game about it. Better yet! Instead of making it a third person camera viewed game so that we can see the person doing all the parkour stuff let's put the camera in the person's head, aka First Person view, so that the player feels like they're the ones doing all these amazing awesome things.

I expect that's how the concept was made. If it wasn't that energy driven then I don't know how they made such an energetic game.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are great. I'm a huge fan of the graphics in this game. Basically what they did was made everything very minimalistic and simplistic. In fact everything is pretty much white washed and kind of blends into each other a little bit. UNTIL you add "runner vision." This is a special game mechanic that lets players see what things on the screen are possible for use in jumps, wall runs, climbing, sliding, etc. And when the "runner vision" notifies you of these special environmental objects they turn into a bright primary color, usually red or orange all though not always. This allows you to see a bit of where you're supposed to go and if you get used to the different types of moves you can pull off you can even figure out where that environmental parkour piece is going to send you and look for the next one.

Sound: 2/5

The sound is sound in this game. It does its job. I really have nothing memorable good or bad about the sound in this game except for one thing.

And unfortunately it's a bad thing but I'm also pretty sure that's because I died so much. When you fall from a great height you hear the air rushing passed your head. Which is cool. Except that it's incredibly loud and when you keep dying attempting the same jump over and over again you keep hearing the wind blasting passed your head at an incredibly high volume over and over again. If this sound effect wasn't so loud and obnoxious I probably would have gotten a lot farther in the game a lot faster but it just wore on my nerves when I was stuck on certain parts so I said "Enough!" and turned the game off for a while.

So a sound effect that can get so annoying it makes you want to stop playing the game? BAD!

Playability: 2/5

The game has some great playability to it. Not only can you beat the game but after you beat a level you can go back into the game and play through it again to try and beat a timed score. Basically racing through the game.

There are a couple problems though. For one, there were times when the cops started chasing me and I just died over and over again. Not because the cops were all that hard to avoid but because I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to go and I couldn't take the time to look for the exit with the cops shooting at me. This forced me to fight them... which wouldn't be that bad except the controls are made for running not fighting.

In fact in the 360 version of the game there's an achievement for never shooting a cop in the whole game. So if you can get away with only disarming and avoiding the cops you're rewarded. But the thing is, it was hard to tell where I was supposed to go at times and I found it really hard to disarm in the game. You can disarm when a cop moves to pistol whip you with whatever firearm he has. His firearm will flash red for a moment right when it's time to press the disarm button. But the thing is that I could never time it properly for some reason. Maybe my reflexes aren't sharp enough? Or perhaps it's that I was able to get away with just about everything I had to do in the game by spamming the "jump" button so when I tried to disarm if you spam the button it breaks it and I didn't know and couldn't stop myself.

Another problem I had with the playability of the game is that you have to line up perfectly. If you're jumping from one roof to a pipe on the side of a building next to you, you have to hit the pipe so that it's in the dead center of your screen. If it's just to the left or just to the right, in the real world I'm pretty sure people could grab onto them anyway. So on the 360 I played this game and died over and over again on one section of the game near the very beginning. It may have even been the first level and I just couldn't do it so I gave up on the game. Then when Steam was having a sale I bought the game for the PC for I think $2.50 or $5 something like that. With the keyboard and mouse I had a lot more control and only died twice before making that jump. But it was still a pain.

There is also the added benefit and detriment of checkpoints in the game. I say benefit because you will die often so the game having checkpoints throughout the level is very helpful and keeps you from losing too much progress in the game when you die. I say detriment because the game doesn't just quick save from where you are when you hit the check point. The game loads you back into the game from where it knows the check point to be. So if you were on a wall when you hit the check point you might be loaded back in after you die in the middle of a hallway. It's weird and disorienting when you don't realize you've been in that place before.

Entertainment: 3/5

The game has some good entertainment points. For one the main character is a nice strong woman and the person feeding her intel through a radio is a guy. It's a nice reversal of roles that have come to be expected from video games. I really applaud Mirror's Edge on this.

The story is a bit poor however. The game starts off talking about some riots and protesting and then how the city is completely controlled by the dictatorial mayor's office now... but I have no proof of this actually being the case except for what the main character told me. Seriously, the player never gets a chance to see how the average people are suffering under this dictatorial dystopia.

It's kind of like in the movie "Star Wars: Episode 1: The Phantom Menace" when you never see the Naboobian people dying or suffering from this trade blockade. When the main characters land on the planet everything seems nice and idyllic, nice lush forests, beautiful cities... No over population... Seriously except for the end sequence during the parade, all the people you see in the Naboobian cities are volunteer guards for the Queen and diplomats! As far as I could tell when the blockade began everyone on Naboo decided to go on vacation and left the planet.

It's the same thing in Mirror's Edge. I saw some civilians walking around street level... once. Otherwise the only people I've seen in this city are runners like me and cops/private military cops people... Where are the suffering masses? Where are the people that need the services the runners provide outside of the system because the government is going to look through their stuff that their shipping? I have no feel for the dystopia. Especially seeing as everything is so nice and brightly light and clean. Except for the occasional rat I see running away.

X-Factor: 4/5

With all my complains about the gameplay and story and sound... There's something that captures you in this game. It's a challenge, like the older games on the NES and such. You may be hitting your head against the wall but you want to. You want to hit your head against the wall until you break it down with your skull. The game makes you want to do this. And for that it has a great X-Factor.

Overall: 19/30 Average

This is an average game through and through. It has some great originality to it and an interesting art style. But the gameplay is lack luster and the story is a bit cliché and contrived. If you can pick this game up cheap do it. But if someone wants you to pay $20 or more I'd say don't bother.

Resident Evil 5 for the Xbox 360

So here we are again. Another month, another review. I have to say though. I'm a little scared. I've hit the point in my gaming career where a lot of games just don't interest me. So I've basically matured to the point where I'm not like a puppy chasing after every game that comes along... Which is cool I guess, but... it also means I'm not sure what I'm going to review next Month... We'll see if I find anything to talk about in between now and then.

Also in a special note about this review. I've noticed that my previous reviews were pretty wordy and I realize that people probably don't want to read all that. So I'm going to try and keep each section down to a single paragraph. If you disagree with this decision please comment on this post. Or even if you agree, please comment. I'd like to know I'm being read.

Concept: 2/5

The concept of this game is pretty terrible. The Resident Evil Series has this weird rut, where the head designer of the first game made that one and then moved on to other projects and they just kept rehashing that idea over and over and over again. He finally said enough is enough and came back to work on Resident Evil 4 to try and get them to make something new and it worked he jumpstarted the series again. Now that we're on to Resident Evil 5 though... they're just rehashing his idea from 4 again... It's just horrible. The only thing I give it props for is actually having a "zombie" infestation in Africa. Maybe it's because I live in America but every Zombie media I've seen has taken place in America, or England for the 28 whatever series. So Resident Evil 5 gets credit for taking "zombies" out of America and Europe. I'll explain why I put zombies in quotes in the Entertainment section.

Graphics: 4/5

The graphics are amazing. I mean other than a couple facial quirks of one character I think they're damn near perfect. And the facial quirks, I learned from watching the bonus DVD that came with my copy, were little ticks and stuff that the actor did when voice acting and motion capturing the character. Capcom did a lot of motion capturing, they did a lot of story boarding with the cut-scenes, heck they even motion captured the actor's faces when they were voice acting. In the end they spent a lot of money on the graphics for this game and it shows.

Sound: 3/5

Sound is normal in Resident Evil 5. There's nothing particularly amazing about it but at the same time it's not bad. It's doing its job which is to make the game feel right without being distracting. There isn't really much to say about the sound. Other than in the "making of" video in the bonus DVD when they talked about the music and such it definitely made me feel that if I were a musician I would almost exclusively want to work on soundtracks for movies and games. It just seems like a more stable and entertaining job than being part of an orchestra that plays the same 20 famous songs by the same 8 famous dead guys over and over again.

Playability: 3/5

The game handles itself pretty well. There's the all time Resident Evil complaint of not being able to shoot and walk at the same time. But that helps lend to the scariness because it means you can't just shoot everything and keep moving you have to become a target before you can start shooting which makes it tougher and like I said scarier. This game also focuses heavily on co-op. To the detriment of trying to play this game by yourself. The AI of your partner is so abysmal that as soon as I learned that I drafted one of my roommates to play with me and we worked through the whole game together. So this means that this game is 2 player only, really. So I went from Ghostbusters which was single player only, to Resident Evil 5 which was 2 player only. Which was nice I guess. My other complaint about the playability of the game is that during the final boss there's a sequence where you have to do certain things in the perfect order otherwise he will one hit kill you, so as you're learning how to do this you will be replaying the same sequence over and over again for probably close to 20 minutes.

Entertainment: 4/5

OK. Time to explain "zombies." Here's the thing, ever since RE4, there are no more zombies in the Resident Evil  universe, well none that you fight anyway. You are instead fighting people infected with a special germ, plant, seed thing which makes them mindless slaves. But it's easier to say "zombies" than to say "people infected with a special germ, plant, seed thing which makes them mindless slaves" so everyone still calls them zombies. Now as for the story of this game it's pretty good. For fans of the series it will explain a lot of the history of how Umbrella Corporation was founded, where the T-Virus, G-Virus, etc. came from, and what's been happening with two or three of the original characters that kind of fell off the face of the planet as far as the series is concerned. So there's a lot of fan appeasement in here. Also the story while not the most mind blowing thing ever, is solid so it will be enjoyable too. A note of warning though. This game is only enjoyable for the people playing it. So if you have people that like watching games being played. They probably won't enjoy it. Mostly because since this is really a two player game each player will be staring at their half of the screen and the people watching won't know where to look and it will be confusing for them.

X-Factor: 2/5

There's not much x-factor here. There's no replay value, there's no feeling of attachment to the characters. It's all about playing with someone else. This game will give you a good couple nights of hanging out with someone and enjoying a story together. But once those couple nights are over... this game is going to go into your library and you're probably never going to look at it ever again. It's a onetime game. You play it onetime and you're done. That's all there is to this game.

Overall: 19/30 AVERAGE

If you're a fan of the Resident Evil Series, or more specifically Resident Evil 4, than you'll love this game... That is you'll love it if you have a person to play with. If you're by yourself you'll probably grow frustrated, annoyed, and not want to play anymore, if you do have a partner in crime it will be a nice fun experience that the two of you can share together.