Metro 2033 review

Metro 2033 is a post-apocalyptic shooter with aspects of horror and RPG elements so if you liked the setting of fallout 3 or the scary appeal of games such as Fear then you will defiantly enjoy metro.

The story of metro is based on the book metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitriy Glukhovskiy where the earth’s surface has become a frozen wasteland filled with blood thirsty mutants, the remaining humans in Moscow took shelter in the metro tunnels and formed small towns at each station some considerably better than others. You play as Artyom who is tasked to deliver a message to a station called Polis along the way you will see that different factions have been set up the two main ones being the communists and Nazis and you have to fight both. Later your task with some friends you acquired is to stop the Dark ones who are strange alien creatures. As you can see the story is very unique.

The game is strictly linear apart from some of the stations where you get to explore, however some of the really important stations such as Polis the station you have fought so hard to get to and it looks absolutely amazing but you can’t explore more than a small room where the only things you can do is buy more equipment. The shooting is traditional and works fine, the guns look great as most were cobbled together from scavenged materials also if you want to use your knife for close kills then you will have to select it separately there isn’t a melee button. One thing that doesn’t work very well is the games stealth sections if you are detected then all the enemies in the entire level are notified of your presence which is a pain as they don’t try to look where you are because the know. Somehow.

Another strange thing is that the human enemies are a lot tougher to kill then the mutants, it’s not that they are smart although they do use some basic mechanics quite well it’s just they have a huge amount of health when in theory it should be the other way round. You will also spend a few levels on the surface for this you need a gasmask stocked with filters and that mask can become cracked get too many and the mask will break and you will slowly suffocate. If you like being scared then metro is the game for you it has plenty of gruesome monsters and death scenes, the sound also helps with that but more of that later. However the game is extremely isolating very rarely will you have some companions, this ads the fear factor but it was too much for me and I ended up running through some levels where there were very littler shooting trying to get to some form of civilization.

The sound ads to the horror, as they say it’s what you hear and don’t see which truly scares you and the sound of Metro excellently conveys the terror and depressing feel of the world you are in, along you travels you will hear the sounds of howling mutants and on the surface the extremely uncomfortable sound of wind rushing past you. The voice acting is good and if you want to you can change the language to Russian to get the full experience, just make sure you turn of English subtitles if you are unfamiliar with Russian as you could miss some important dialog.

In conclusion Metro is a blast to play just with a few shortcoming but 4A games plans to remove all problems for their sequel, my final verdict is a 7/10 the game is great but the problems such as the rubbish stealth and the redictosly hard human AI brought the game down a few places. However it is a definite by.

Comment on your opinions and suggest new games to review. Thank you.

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Starcraft 2 review

StarCraft 2 is the continuation of the StarCraft real time strategy game made by Blizzard from ten years ago that’s a long time but by god it was worth the wait.

The story follows Jim Rainer and his band of rebels as they face off the Dominion and eventually fight the Zerg on the volcano planet Char. The story is great with some really interesting missions, great character and the great universe from the original

The graphics are some of the best I have ever seen especially in the cut scenes and you don’t need a great computer to see it on high graphics even though the menus outside your campaign are a bit temperamental. There are also CGI cut scenes as well as the in game cut scenes which look amazing, you can tell the production team put a lot of effort into them as you would expect given the amount of time it took for the game to come out.

The sound of the game is great, all weapons sound as you would expect and the voice actors are just excellent. And typical to Blizzard strategy games such as world of warcraft each unit has some really funny comments if you click the unit enough times.

The game goes from traditional strategy building bases and units to a point and click game in your ship as you go to different areas of your ship and interact with people and some terminals to buy mercenaries and different types of upgrades. At your star map you can view the different types of missions are available and each missions has a intro and outro cut scene and a audiolog done by different crew members briefly summarising what’s happening on the planet.

The game itself is brilliant but there are just a few things that disappoint me and other reviewers regarding the business side first it was split into three games the terrans campaign, then the Zerg and protos which is annoying as Buzzard’s release dates have never been definite. Another is Activision which is stopping Blizzard from doing what it really wants which is to be generous to fans such as giving away copies of the game, instead we get world of warcraft and StarCraft 2 guest passes which you will likely never used. Plus from what I have heard your battle net is region locked so playing with other people around the world is almost impossible and a host of other problems. If you want more info on the problems Activision has placed on Blizzard then check out this review done by the Angry Joe show http://angryjoeshow.com/2010/07/starcraft-ii-review/

My final verdict will be similar to what Angry Joe does and have 2 verdicts so the verdict for just the game is a definite 10/10 it is a brilliant game however with all the business ruining it the other verdict is a 8/10 as having to wait for a long time most likely for the other two games. The game does come with multiplayer but I haven’t played it but if you love competitive strategy then you should love it.

Some new reviews will be LA noire, prototype and A2a’s acusim spitfire for those like me who love simulation flying. Comment on how you thought the review was and give me some tips to make my reviews better and suggest new games to review.

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Fsx acceleration review

One problem I had with Microsoft FSX is that I would have liked more missions; it appears Microsoft answered my prayers when it released acceleration.

The main features that acceleration has is it includes new missions and aircraft however the aircraft are few only three the first being a P-51 D Mustang (racing model), a F18 Hornet that can be taken off from a carrier but no carrier is provided in free flight you can only fly off a carrier in a few missions or if you download a scenery file. The last is a Westland EH101 helicopter, I am not a helicopter person but from what I have played of it handles better than other helicopters in FSX.

The missions are very varied and many are very fun, one of my favourites is resort supply where you are delivering apples to different resorts in the mountains.

The graphics are fairly similar I noticed little to no difference. Another problem I have with acceleration is that it makes the game crash a lot more then it normally did to the point where it is very hard to sustain a long flight, if you have any tips to help that would be very helpful as this problem is really sapping the fun out of the expansion.

My final rating for Acceleration is a 4/10 it gave me some fun with the new missions but the low aircraft count and annoying errors made it less of a leap forward then what other Sims are doing like X plane where it fixed a lot of bugs that plagued the game. I hope that the new Microsoft flight can truly be a leap forward from FSX, if you’re interested In FSX and don’t have the original game then buy the gold edition. If you want a game reviewed then comment and please subscribe to my YouTube and follow on twitter.

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Assassin’s creed brotherhood review

With the success of assassins creed 2 Ubisoft very quickly released assassin’s creed brotherhood and my overall reaction is brotherhood is great but not as legendary as AC2.

The story continues from the second and sets you up as Ezio as he travels to Rome to rebuild his order after it was destroyed by the Borgia’s and take down the corrupted empire of Borgia’s. Plus you follow Desmond as they are trying to figure out where the hidden vault is that contains the apple of Eden. The story is told very well and kept me engaged but you need to have played the first two to get a proper feel for it. The characters are very good although some of the characters like ezio’s sister look completely different to how they looked in AC2 which is odd.

The graphics are brilliant and are on par or even surpass AC2 probably due to the fact that the game is mostly centred in Rome. All the great Roman landmarks are there such as the coliseum and the Castello San Angelo. There is also a great contrast from the poor rundown section of Rome with the crumbling buildings mixed with the old Roman architecture and the aristocratic areas with wonderfully decorated buildings and well-kept roads.

The climbing has remained relatively untouched apart from the fact that the annoying jumps have been decreased but there not gone completely. The combat system has seen an overall focusing more on speed and you taking the fight to the enemy not waiting and countering as enemies don’t just stand and attack one by one. This means that you have some new tricks when you do enough damage to some enemies Ezio will automatically finish them off with an extremely gratifying attack while he is doing that you can target another enemy hit the attack button and when the first enemy is dead Ezio will automatically kill that person, and if your good enough you can make this sequence last an entire fight.

The sound is similar to the last game that’s not to say it isn’t good just the same you got from the second with a few more battle tracks thrown in for good measure. The voice acting is as solid as ever with the same actors/actresses doing the voices for their character in AC2.

The mission design for Brotherhood features a lot similar missions in AC2 there are a lot more of the stealth following missions only now there much harder, more missions where if you get caught you desynchronise I liked it in assassins creed 1 where if you were detected you just had to face fact and change your strategy to kill the target which reflects more on real life. However many of the war machine missions are fantastic and give you a great sense of achievement then the secret cavern missions in AC2 where your only reward was some money and at the end Altair's armour.

A large new part of brotherhood is the multiplayer which from what I have player of it is quite good as it breaks the standard attacks that people have gotten used to with games such as call of duty which his running around and shooting everybody in ACB’s multiplayer the game rewards you by being a true assassin and also running around will get you noticed. There is a wide variety of maps set in different locations in Italy and across Europe. 

Overall the game is great but with some annoying missions that are very frustrating and multiplayer while good doesn’t have many new refreshing game modes meaning I won’t be giving Brotherhood as many play trough’s as I gave its predecessors I only hope that in Revelations there is more flexibility in mission structure. ACB gets an 8/10.

If you have any comments or ideas on what to review next please leave a comment it would help out so much. I am also trying to get review out more as I took a break from it, now I have a lot of free time I will be doing a lot more reviews. And remember subscribe to my YouTube and follow me on twitter.

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Medal of honour review

Previous medal of honour games were liked very much by fans and were king of first person shooters for a while, until call of duty came to consoles and took over. Now medal of honour is back and in an area not touched on for a number of reasons, Afghanistan. The game was disliked by main reviewers such as IGN but me personally really like it, it is the PC version and I will just be doing the single player, multiplayer might be done later.

The story is brilliant compared to other fps’s while a bit short it is nothing compared to call of duty, now I don’t plan in comparing it to cod as they are totally different games which you will see later on. The story isn’t anything huge such as nukes being stolen it starts as you would expect a real operation to start with small spec ops teams going in to recon the area then the main force. You play from multiple perspectives one a ranger and other is a spec operative although you change within the squad.

The mechanics of the game feel more realistic in the fact that it takes a lot less bullets to kill you so you will be utilising cover more and you squad is actually very good and I encountered no Ai bugs. One thing that is realistic but not well implemented is the ammo system, if you have the same weapon as your team mate you can ask for ammo when you are low, this wile realistic isn’t good for ammo saving as your teammates don’t run out of ammo only when the game tells them too in scripted events, meaning you can just spam enemies on full auto and not care about losing ammo. There isn’t much weapon variety anyway. The grenades are a bit of a pain as many times they wouldn’t kill someone standing next to it and have a feeble blast area.

The graphics are hit or miss, the faces and character models are good but the scenery can take a while to fade in as can the gun textures. However danger close made a good job of keeping the scenery different especially in the day.

The sound in the game is something that the developers got spot on the guns sound realistic especially the heavy weapons where the bullets have a real impact. The explosions are good with appropriate ringing in the ears and the screen moving and shaking to represent vision blearing. The voice acting is good but all the special forces seem to have very similar gruff voices making it hard to distinguish the person other than the name tag that appears over there head.

The game overall is good and its story surpasses current FPS standards, if short. However with barely adequate mechanics the game falls slightly. 6/10 it is a blast to play over a weekend but sustained play might be difficult. If you’re a medal of honour fan then buy it. EA really did a good job of showing the patriotism that not only American soldiers show but Britain, France and other countries

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