Killzone 3 (PS3)

Note:  I decided t try making my review into easy bullet points.  This is just an experiment. Tell me if you think it works better than paragraphs.

Killzone 3
Guerrilla Studios

Story: Your army, the ISA, has just assassinated the monarch of Helghan, Vesari. Now you have to escape an entire planet of angry soldiers as the Helghast hunt you down.  You play as Sev.
Style:  Technical and passionate soldier talk and cliche' cinema moments where the soldiers disobey the captain's orders in order to save a life.  The bad guys act and look like cyberpunk Nazis.
Thoughts: It's Medal of Honor mixed with Gears of War.  An interesting twist, but everyone is so tough and gritty that there isn't really any soldier you are rooting for.

Gameplay
FPS Style: A open warfare shooter with auto healing.  You also have the ability to duck-and-cover behind objects.
Mission: You are asked to clear out or eliminate certain threats most of the time.  Mostly you are just pushing through an enemy line to kill something or blow something up.  Sometimes you will go into a turret tank, a mech or an Intruder to use the massive machine guns and take down the big craft.  The most unique experience is controlling the jetpack to get from place to place.
 Difficulty: Bullets fly from everywhere meaning that it's impossible to find a safe position.  It's very easy to be taken out with just a few headshots.  Checkpoints are merciful and some levels have Rico, your squadmate, rejuvenating you if you die.  Enemy warriors love to throw grenades at you.
Weapons: All the machine guns and shotguns feel heavy and tight and allow for very satisfying impact.  The rocket launcher and grenades seem to have poor impact.  Melee has been stylized so that you are either crushing someone's eyes or slitting their throat.
Coop: Finally KZ3 has some coop play for those who actually have non-digital friends and a second controller.  It's nothing fancy, you just play the campaign with a friend. 
Thoughts: The style is a balance of chaos and tight controls.  The vehicle levels add some monotany breakers.  While the mission structure seems heavy on the "kill something" plan, the good controls make it easy to bear.  The duck-and-cover system seems pointless because enemies can still shoot you behind cover.

Multiplayer:
Modes: You have 3 modes, Guerilla Warfare, Warzone and Operations.  Operations is the newcomer, setting up specific stages to have objectives from either the ISA or Helghast perspective.  Cinematic moments show whether your team is winning or losing.  The other two modes are a team deathmatch and a mode that combines a lot of mini missions for each team to accomplish.
Noob Friendly: It is so easy to die that the gameplay feels like the original Rainbow Six.  On the other hand it's easy for you to nail three people just by sneaking up on them.
Depth: Each character gets 5 roles to upgrade: Infiltrator, Medic, Tactician, Marksman and Engineer.  These borrow somewhat from Team Fortress 2 in that you get the power to disguise yourself, build turrets and heal others.  Every time you level up in your class you can spend career points to update your skills.   
Maps: You get an assortment of arctic, jungle and urban levels, but you will have to spend mucho dollars on the DLC if you want more.
Thoughts: Operations mode seems to be the most immerse gameplay, leading players to use their class skills and gun crazy ways to finish objectives.  Death is so sensitive that even shotgun blasts to the shoulder lead to death.  This works for you and against you.  It's easy to get into and easy to be a part of multiplayer, but I wish the disc had a few more maps or modes.

Tech:
Graphics: Wide variety of linear locations ranging from the urban cities of the Helghan to the tropic Avatar world of the jungle.  Everything is sharp and color ridden.  The characters look a little pale sometimes in the cutscenes.
Sound: The voice track was glitchy on my game, leading NPC's to repeat what they were saying over and over.  Some of the lines of dialogue cut out before an NPC could finish a sentence.  The gunfire sound effects are really diverse and meaty.
Acting: Some of the lines feel like they were forced and it seems that 90% of the game is angry yelling soldiers, while the Helghast scenes are arguing and conniving Germans.
Framerate: Everything chugs along at a wonderful rate. 
Thoughts:  Graphics prove that PS3 knows how to treat their own games.  The scenery is stunning and worth the romp through endless bad guys.  Sound needs to be worked on in terms of acting and being non-glitchy.

Content
Swearing: The military has quite an array of colorful language.
God's Name: Very misused.
Blood and Gore: The blood spattering and melee makes some very up close and personal gore.
Redemptive Value: The soldiers might be cliche in their actions, but they prove that they care and look out for each other.  They would even go as far to disobey orders to save another soldier's life.  This is a living lesson when Jesus says: "Greater love has no one then this, that they give up their life for their friends." John 15:13.  You might have to kill a lot of people to get there, but this game shows the sacrifice of one life to save another.
Thoughts: While the blood and bullet impact makes for some of the satisfying gameplay, I think that the combination of bad language and the toughness of the characters makes this game hard to recommend.  I think Resistance 2 and Modern Warfare 2 would be better options.

Final Word: You are definitely playing the PS3's finest here.  Even though the gameplay is far from new, at least Guerilla is one of the few companies putting next gen quality into their games.  Every game should feel like this.
Pros: Great controls and gun feel.  Beautiful graphic scenery.  Operations Mode.
Cons: Wooden acting.  Glitchy sounds.  Truck driver's mouth.
Recommended For: Starved PS3 fan, Fans of Gears of War and Call of Duty
Overall:  B-

Enslaved (PS3)

Escape from NY, the Island, Escape from LA and Running Man all have something in common.  They are cyberpunk stories of people trying to escape evil dictatorships in America.  Add Enslaved to the list as the official video game of that genre.

Ninja Theory is producing their second next gen game and Andy Serkis is still the acting director and voice for the characters.  For those of you light on your Lord of the Rings trivia, Andy Serkis is the animation director/voice behind Gollum.  But for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to experience his first game, Heavenly Sword, Enslaved has all the acting bells and whistles that you will need.

OF MICE AND MEN

You play Monkey, a man with no past, no patience and great climbing skills.  He just wants to be free of the mysterious race of enslavers.  Instead, he meets Tripp.  She is a computer hacker with no street smarts to survive.  Instead she places a slave crown on you that forces you to help her get home safely (not a good first impression).

Monkey gets to do all the climbing missions, reaching from pole to ledge.  He also does all the robot fighting.  Tripp is the breadwinner of the relationship, pimping out Monkey with new gear, special upgrades and hacking.  She may be good with the computers, but she needs to be babysat a lot.

It's okay, you can come out.  I promise not to threaten to shank you.

Their relationship builds over the journey, as the two honeymooners work together to fight off the robot apocalypse.  The storytelling is superb in respect to it focusing on Tripp and Monkey’s relationship.  About thirty minutes near the end of the story the director decides to assume you have the backstory all mapped out and throws in a larger scheme.  Needless to say, it’s confusing near the end.

Best contestants for the show Amazing Race:

1. Prince of Persia

2. Lara Croft

3. Monkey

4. Nate from Uncharted

5. Mario with warp whistles

PRINCE OF TOMBRAIDERS

The game is one huge 3D game board filled with climbing, fighting and navigating—but mostly climbing.  Climbing gives you a sense of how gigantic post apocalyptic America is.  Since the game doesn’t let you die from falling, it is incredibly easy to jump from ledge to ledge.  In fact, the game won’t let you jump at all unless you are near a ledge where you can transverse.  This is helpful for anyone who has ever died millions of cheap deaths from a bad camera in Prince of Persia or Tombraider.  The downside is that you can be stuck on a tiny ledge with no way to get down because your character isn’t positioned in the right place to hop.  Finding the next pole or ledge can be tricky when you are trying to find the next sparkling piece of scenery to grab onto.  Luckily, most of the swinging levels are smooth sailing.  They really aren’t meant for challenge as much as they are to show you the great level design.

Combat is equally smooth and refreshing, though the melee is very limited.  You either have to fight droves of robots or you have to sneak up on a few mechs and take control.  Certain parts of the game ask you to take command of a certain robot and use their carcass as an EMP, explosive or as a machine gun turret.  These were the exciting parts of the game and I would have loved to see more utilization of mech takeovers.  Combat is probably the hardest part of the game because you can get ghetto stomped by four mechs at once and half of them have a shield that needs a special EMP move to knock out.  There are parts of the game where turret guns are blowing away your cover and you have a limited supply of plasma lasers.  Upgrading your weapons and shield are a good way to combat this, but you’ll notice the difficulty is still present.  Checkpoints are in odd places in a few parts of the game.  Sometimes they are right next to each other and other times it feels like an entire desert is between you and the next one.  In some cases, your checkpoint is before a substantial cutscene and you’ll have to sit through it again (unless you smash all the buttons and learn to pass it).  It’s not a deal breaker, but it is kind of an easy fix.

THE GRAPHICS

Ninja Theory blew everyone away when they had the PS3 with Heavenly Sword.  Now that we are clearly three years past that, how do these graphics look now that the PS3 and Xbox360 have it?  The PS3 version is colorful and the outdoor terrain is absolutely gorgeous.  Some of the in game cutscenes start off with some frame rate hiccups.  In later levels I found the sound cutting out for no apparent reason.  The loading of environments was slow as you could clearly see the textures rendering in the background in some cutscenes.  Ninja Theory has some great art design and some of the best art direction I have seen in a game, but their hardware might have some issues.

Monkey is the kind of guy who loses his Tripp, but realizes she was on his back the whole time.

The music is a mix of Matrix techno and epic drama orchestra, which adds to the tension and fury of the battle.

Best Game Story Rankings

1. Alan Wake
2. Resident Evil 4
3. Final Fantasy 7
4. Metal Gear Solid
5. Heavenly Sword
6. Enslaved

LIFE’S A JOURNEY

Probably the most engaging part of this game is the story and the characters.  Monkey and Tripp grow to trust in one another when they find out their lives depend on one another’s strengths and abilities.  Like most cliché buddy films, both characters eventually get onboard to complete the ultimate goal.  But like in real life, if two people have conflicting goals, one usually has to surrender their goal so both can work together.  Rarely is a partnership 50-50 and lots of married couples will agree.  In the story, Monkey has to give up his freedom to help Tripp find her home.  At the end of the story, they are both working together, united as one.  Who will give up their life to work with you?  Better yet, who would you give up your freedom for just to help?

Content: PG-13

S words: plenty
Lord’s name taken in vain: plenty

Tripp’s outfit: Good for raving

Pigsy Character: A little weird

       Pros:

       + Great acting and character chemistry

+ Good balance of climbing and fighting

+ Taking over mechs is fun

Cons: 

--    More variety in melee would have been nice

-      Graphical nuances

--      The story drops off

B-

WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2011 (PS3)

Type: Review

Developer: THQ

In most cases, telling someone you are going to control glistening oiled men in their underwear will get you some weird looks and a call from your pastor.  If you tell them its from the WWE, you might get less weird looks and at least the pastor will take you off the prayer list.

Raw vs. Smackdown 2011 is the latest annual installment of sport's entertainment.  Whole new rosters, whole new modes and a whole lot of tweaks and twinges have been added to the latest installment.  There's a lot of reasons to check this game out if you have never played a wrestling game.  Also, there are a lot of bad graphics choices that make me wonder what THQ was thinking.  But overall, the game is worth the three count.

MEET THY MAKER

Create modes are what attract a kid like me.  There is a robust roster of wrestlers reflecting the 2010 roster, but I hunger to build all my wrestlers from scratch.  Create a Wrestler mode will take you a solid hour and a half to make a full fledged combatant.  If you are worried about the nitty gritty of the wrestler, than expect 3 hours.  This includes making the move set, the in ring attire, the entrance movie and the highlight reel.  You can't take shortcuts otherwise your combatant will walk around in his skivies in the backstage with no entrance music.  Other create modes include a signature move creator and a way to capture wrestling scenes and put them into a movie.  I always had envisioned a Create-A-Story mode for wrestling games, but never got around to creating the patent for it.  Now you can setup wrestlers, storylines and matches fulfilling your soap opera needs. 

WORKING THE ANGLES

Speaking of soap opera antics.  WWE SvR 2011 has some of the wackiest stories this side of the squared circle.  In Road to Wresltemania, you get five storylines to choose from.  Currently, my character, The Reaper, has to face off against the Undertaker.  What are my side missions, you ask?  Collecting souls and putting it into a magical urn.  What???  This and many more odd jobs are part of the story mode.  You walk around backstage, talking to different wrestlers.  Some will give you missions and others will start a backstage brawl.  You can even start the brawl with others.  Once you get into the ring you get your main objective.  The main objectives are easy, which are a blessing because wrestling games have never been that easy.

HIGH RISK MANUEVERS

The fighting system covers virtually every move a wrestler can do in the ring.  This can seem overwhelming, except WWE was smart with their tutorials.  Much like NBA 2010, you can practice your moves on the title screen.  Figuring out how to irish whip, get into the ring, climb a turnbuckle and pin a wrestler has always been tricky and it doesn't get any easier in this game.  You don't have to worry about combos or button bashing; your only concern is hitting the R2 button at the right time to counter.  One thing you’ll have to get used to is the fact that this is more of a simulation than an arcade fighter.  Moves aren’t going to sky rocket your opponent through a brick wall.  But there will be that one moment when your character reverses an irish whip into a top rope moonsault and you find yourself chanting, “this is awesome!”

None of the game modes stuck out so much, but they all had their replay value.  Road to Wrestlemania was the story mode part of the game.  You can also play an entire year of PPVs and see how many titles switch around.  Online presented a bit of a lesser experience.  The camera angles had to be pulled back for more than 6 combatants and the framerate dropped down to a halt.

A BLADE JOB

Now for the downsides.  Road to Wrestlemania has some very pecuilar design choices.  The backstage is setup like a Legend of Zelda dungeon and it is pure ugly.  This is not just normal ugly, this is losing a bet ugly.  From the loading screen which shows you Playstation 1 quality trees and skyline to the very bland looking backstage area, THQ dialed back the quality of this mode all the way into the Stone Age.  Even the backstage brawls look spacious and boring.  Why?  Beats me.  Perhaps the art director had a nephew who wanted to give it a shot.  Perhaps this is a tribute to PS1 games.  It just doesn’t add up.

So technologically, the game did not proceed forward, but I feel this iteration of WWE SvR made some logical choices.  Removing the long load screens, the flustering controls and the annoying extras, we have a solid game.

THE REF OF LIFE

Pro wrestling has always been a constant metaphor for the human condition.  Just watching an episode of WWE you can see trials of determination, greed, covetousness, pride, hope, joy, trial and failure.  All these wrestlers are fighting for the belt and they will do whatever is in their power to get it.  In the same way, life presents its own belts and asks us to fight for them.  Some people will beg, borrow and steal for the newest toys.  Others will puff themselves up for the praise of others.  Others will train themselves till they are considered perfect.  While we chase after these things, a certain psalmist explains what the true title belt of life is,

 “¹ Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,
   who walk according to the law of the LORD.
² Blessed are those who keep his statutes
   and seek him with all their heart— “    

Psalm 119: 1,2

To the psalmist, pleasing God and living by his ways is the best reward for this life.  Those who sought after God were considered blessed and their lives were richer than anyone else’s.  Is this a call to be absolutely perfect?  No.  If happiness came through perfection no one would be happy.  But I do encourage you to negotiate what your title belt of life is.  If its not to please God and live for him, then what is it?

Pros:

+ Simple, easy to use interface and controls

+ Great create modes

+ Much replay value

Cons:

-- Ugly backstage

--No superior single player mode

B

Fallout New Vegas (PS3)

For those of you shy on the post apocalyptic RPG gaming, Fallout is a mission based FPS RPG. Set in an atomic fallout world, you play a former package delivery person. The game starts out with you surrounded by some Legionnaires and a guy in a checkerboard suit. You were supposed to deliver a specific package, but it ends up the mission was to cap you in the skull. You wake up in Goodsprings, Nevada with a new mission on your mind: find the guy who did this to you and get some revenge. From this point on you get full control over your character.

GAMEPLAY
When I say full control: I mean full control! Whatever tickles your fancy. It’s an RPG so you might need to level up before you take your six shooter and start decimating a town. Fallout is what you make of it. You can cut to the chase and follow the storyline or you can:
- Follow one of the many gangs and become a leader
- Get registered as a ranger or a sheriff
- Lose all your karma from stealing and killing
- Hone your computer hacking and medicine skills
- Get a town decimated
- Smooth talk your way into some deals
- Follow your own mission path


With that said, Fallout is a slow paced game. You don’t go in with six shooter blazing to see how much damage you can do. You will need to level up in one of the games numerous stats. If you need to win a gun fight you need to level up guns and make sure you bought the right kind of bullets. If you need to convince the town to start an army, you will need your speech skills. All this takes time and planning. THIS IS WHY THE GAME IS EXCITING TO PLAY BUT SO BORING TO WATCH! Even if you just want to go through the story, you will find that the dungeons contain enemies that are quite tricky. Levels are gained easily by going around to different towns folk and accepting missions. If you are like my brother you can play this game multiple ways, raising in different stats for each player you create. He is the only guy I know who can spend countless hours selling useless trinkets so he can afford a fusion rifle, which will help him level up his science skills.

Leveling up is the meat of the game. You get attribute points, which ultimately help you complete future missions and win gun battles. Then you get perk systems, which gives you an added boost or bonus in different gameplay elements. My favorite is Cannibal, which lets you eat dead bodies for health, but in return you lose serious loyalty from good folk. Aside from the leveling up, you need to collect apparel to show what faction you are in, weapons for battle, trinkets to tweak guns and sell stuff, and different food for healing. All this adds up to one of the most expansive games on the market.

Death is also common in battle. Like I said earlier, unless you have the time to hone your skills and buy the right weapons, you will get chewed up and spit out very fast. The enemies don’t hold back in a fight. You can engage an enemy in what is called a VATS system. The VATS allows you to freeze a battle, pick out a particular appendage and attack it. This is a life saver when you are sneaking up on a villain. It’s a waste of bullets to try to gun someone down the traditional way; so you might find the VATS the only to ensure victory in a fight. Each limb and body part can be crippled, but I noticed that crippling someone’s head doesn’t make them act any different than crippling someone’s arm. I can literally paralyze someone from the neck down and they could still beat me to death.





The game also has Hardcore Mode which makes you responsible for drinking water, eating food and taking care of your limbs. No thank you, I’m good with what I have.

ENGINE
This game requires a very intelligent gameplay engine. And while this game is nothing short of a great achievement, I found the engine being dumb at times. Some of the enemies will run into walls or get stuck in the environment. NPCs have a very limited vocabulary and you will hear the same three settlers tell you the same piece of advice. Sometimes you can kill an innocent in cold blood and the person next to you will not react accordingly. There are some flaws in the engine and it reminds you that the world Fallout: New Vegas is trying to create might be too big.

Load times are not bad and the game will let you wander for quite some time before you will see a hitch in the frame rate telling you that its loading. The game has an excellent autosave function that comes in really handy.

ATMOSPHERE
The year is 2075, but the style of the game is 1950’s West Coast. You can hear Benny King on the radio, singing jazzy music, or you collect old sheriff magazines. The whole world is freeze framed in the atomic era of McCarthy. But New Vegas also puts the spin that its a midwest podunk world that has sheriffs and rangers. This gives free reign for the characters to be rich with southern drawls and speak to you like you are coming in from a spaghetti western.

Since this is the apocalypse, the world of New Vegas seems almost empty. Each village has about three interesting people that will talk to you. You can walk for miles and not see anything more than wildlife. Expect a slow and quiet game when you are not in a dungeon.

ARTISTIC
I give Vegas credit for quantity over quality. This is a huge world, filled with lots of different buildings, caves and nuclear plants. The rich artistic world of the post apocalyptic 50’s is eye candy. I would consider this one of those games you buy because you are tired of all the same old WWII and Middle East shooters and you need something with style. Other notable mentions is the different old timey radio stations you can play, while shooting enemies. It’s all part of an artistic package.

ETHICS
One of the more freeing (disturbing) parts of the game is the ethics system. You can be the good guy through helping out innocent people or you can toy around with shady characters and end up getting a whole town nuked. One of the things I liked about this game is that you can’t help everyone. If you want to be the moral man, than you will have to complete 5 sub missions just to get to completing the original mission. OR you can just shoot the guy who is making you do something and take what you want. It’s all based on a karma system.

This is probably the closest to real life you can get in a game. We face moral questions like: “do I buy the MP3 or do I download it off of Limewire?” “I can tell my dad I was drinking too much at the party or I can feed him an excuse?” In life, there are some very easy ways out of tight predicaments. But sometimes the easy way does not have the best long term rewards. If life was like an RPG you would get -3 TRUST and -2 DEPENDABILITY from people if you lived a less than honest life. Every choice we make effects the stats of our growth and our relationships. I believe Jesus sums it up quite well, “What good is it to gain the whole world (the easy part) but lose your soul (the long term reward)?” He is referring to those people who give up on the richness and eternity of their souls to chase lesser things. These are the shortcuts in our existence, which we use to get through the day. Most of the Gospels are spent urging people away from these shortcuts to embrace what life truly has to offer: God’s free gift of life through Jesus.

Pros:
+ Very meticulous level up system
+ VATS combat
+ Ethical choices
Con:
-Can be seen as too slow
- Minor glitches with controls and AI
- Not as epic as the first one


B