The Last of Us (Naughty Dog)

Excuses, excuses I know, but with Finals and my current internship, I just haven't had time to really sit down and write something. However, I'm waiting for something to upload while I'm at my internship, so I figured now would be a great time to ramble on about how much I loved  played The Last of Us, by Naughty Dog.

Naughty Dog is mostly know for it's Playstation exclusive trilogies, Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot and Uncharted. All of which these games tend to have subtle serious tones with jokes pouring out left and right. Well, if you're looking for this, don't play The Last of Us.This game is as serious as it gets and pulls at all of the emotional heartstrings, while providing some humor and intense gameplay.

For most of the game you play as Joel, a grizzled old man who's life was turned upside-down by a mysterious outbreak that would tear the only family he had left apart.  The meat and bones of this game is protecting Ellie, the only known survivor after contracting this mysterious illness.

Now don't take this as a simple zombie survival game, it is so much more than that. The infected are based off of a real like fungal infection that is only known to be found in certain ants. This fungus is called Cordyceps and in this game, creates some very interesting "zombies". I say don't count this as a typical zombie survival game, because the infection is only a plot element, the real meat of this games plot is the father-daughter relationship that occurs between Ellie and Joel throughout this game. The way that Naughty dog has pulled off this relationship between the characters is dynamic. It is not your typical "Oh isn't that cute" kind of touchy-feely story, no they have found a way to tell an amazing story through excellent use of camera editing, dialog and game play. You feel invested in the characters and you feel everything that you would feel as if you really were Ellie or Joel.

The gameplay itself is kind of rinse and repeat, but the way it's done the fights still seem intense and all of the puzzles are done in interesting ways. The fighting either involves, sneaking, shootouts or a rampage of infected. The game encourages the use of stealth, so you can save your ammo, however that is not always the case. sometimes you'll screw up or you won't really have to option to be sneaky. Sometimes it seems like the AI knows where you are for no reason, however this happens very rarely, you need to be very careful. You are almost always accompanied by an AI, who will, more times than not, run out and around and not do things that would typically make sense. This can pull you out of the immersion of the game, however they don't pull the attention of the enemies, if they did the game would be ridiculously difficult. So, I guess the real question is, why not just have it so she hides in the back or something?

All in all I would say, so far, this game is a major candidate for Game of the Year. (I'm hoping for something amazing from Beyond Two Sous!) Looking over the few odd issues, the gameplay is great, the puzzles are challenging enough and the story and plot are just utterly amazing, I say this about very few games. If you own a PS3 then get this game, The Last of Us is a must for every game collection.

No Daud I ... I give up on puns.

No it didn't take me this long to beat this DLC, I've just been bogged down with homework and I haven't been able to write anything yet. Now, on to the review.

Knife of Dunwall is short, only 3 missions. If you explore all of the maps and look for all of the secret things you'll spend about 6 - 8 on each run, which considering that's about the run time of Dishonored if you just run through the game, that's not too bad. I actually enjoyed this over the game it was made for. Oh right review.

In Knife of Dunwall, you play as Daud the assassin that killed the empress and it was all blamed as Corvo. The story of this game is Daud realizing what he's done and how he needs to find his path to redemption. Story of this DLC is a bit weak unfortunately. The Outsider gives you a hint towards your path and it's a name "Delilah". In the end not much happens besides you finding who ... or what, it is.

The game play is very similar to Dishonored, I however felt that they fixed several problems and put them in Knife of Dunwall. However, going back to playing Corvo leaves you feeling a bit disappointed in Corvo.

In the end, is this DLC worth what you payed for it? Definitely. You have at least 2 playthroughs, good and evil with about 6 - 8 hours each. That estimate is only if you play stealthily. I went through massacring everyone and I beat the DLC in about 1 hour. Although they claim this is for every play style you don't get much out of unless you are going to play stealth.

If you enjoyed Dishonored, I did I got the Platinum Trophy, then you will enjoy this DLC. It add some depth to Daud and sets up for the next DLC finishing Daud's story.

You have Dishonored your family by not playing this game.

Dishonored is published by Bethesda and was made by Arkane studio. Not everyone knows that Bethesda didn't make this game, which explains the art style and why the game isn't open world. Keep in mind that none of these things  point to this game being bad by any measure.

Now in Dishonored you play Corvo the Royal Protector of the Empress and her daughter, Emily. You start off coming back from a mission trying to find a way to end the plague that came from an unexplained source. Soon after you come back to the country someone decides to murder the Empress and blame you for it ... Dishonoring you.

I mentioned the art style earlier. It's looks like the style of Borderlands in a way but at first glance everything looks kind of ... dirty and smudged. Upon closer inspection you will notice that the game is actually done in a very interesting style that I haven't seen before. Everything was done with watercolors and water paints. Some miss this and think that graphics are bad, which is a shame because when you realize this, the game is beautiful. Unless you don't like watercolors ... well then never mind.

The developers really play to the games title, Dishonored. It seems like everyone, who is given the chance, Dishonors themselves in one way or another. There is plenty of irony in the game too. Corvo seems to be the only one who has the option whether or not to Dishonor himself or not. When you go the path of purity you Dishonor your targets, when you go the path of evil you Dishonor yourself. Upon doing this you realize you've either tried to prove your innocence or became the monster they wanted to portray you as. Further looking into that, some of the "pure" ways to handle the situation are pretty monstrous.

The story line is pretty basic, you get Dishonored, you get revenge and there's betrayal everywhere. With out trying to spoil anything, the story line is pretty linear and it has a twist or two. The in between of the targets is where the meat of the game is however. Each mission has small sub-stories that may or may not have to do with the actual mission or the next. These sub-stories give the area a bit more immersion and give the game more life. What I'm trying to say is that the people in the levels have a nice breath of life to them but the story itself was a bit weak.

Many people have dismissed this game because they say that it is a bad mix up of Bioshock and Thief. Which is a bad way of looking at this game. Sure it's a first person exploration game where you can have a power in one hand and your melee weapon in the other. It's reminiscent of of Bioshock but they change it and make it their own to have it work and not be blatantly the same. I'm not 100% why it's compared to thief ... because of the stealth mechanics? meh. Not trying to throw my bias into this, but trying to say that this is a blatant rip off is a bit ignorant.

I would say this game is at least worth one play through and if you like the game, play it another way. The game has three possible endings, two of which require you to be murderous. The amount of slaughter you cause actually does a good job at changing how the game plays. The guards act different or might be more of them, there are more diseased civilians and more rats that may try to kill you. When I can actually get my hands on Knife of Dunwall I will right a mini review for it.

Assassins Creed III

Once again you are following the story of Desmond and one of his ancestors. This time it's Ratonhnhaké:ton and he takes a step back and reads out of Altiar's book and isn't as ... let's say ... charismatic as Ezio, however he can swim.

Ratonhnhaké:ton, pronounce that however you will, is raised by his mother after your white father knocks her up and sends her on her merry way. Soon your fathers men attack your village, burn it and kill your mother. What's let of your village moves and you become one of the best hunters.

With the rumors that your fathers men are trying to get your village to move in their attempt to kill the rebellion (The American Revolution), you go on your way to become an assassin, by learning from a sassy black man. Soon your very complicated name becomes Conner and you blend in with all the white folk and live happily ever after stabbing everyone wearing red ... wait ... that doesn't sound right.

So if you played Revelations and Brotherhood, if you haven't go to Youtube and watch the cinematics  (Don't worry, you didn't miss much), you will notice that that they got rid of the clutter of items and weapons. You've been brought back down to silent ranged, loud ranged, a few melee weapons and a few tricks (like the smoke bomb). To accompany this much smaller myriad of things they add hunting, which is brought up and turned into a side thing. Even though hunting is a side thing, you use these animal parts for additional money so you can make better weapons.

The fighting system hasn't changed much, you block, counter, and kill. There are occasionally bad guys that need you to counter throw or dodge attack but they are not as frequent as the regulars. For the most part the enemies scream that they are attack on screen, with red arrows that dictate that they are about to attack and you need to block. Sometimes they attack with a yellow arrow and you need dodge and you cannot retaliate.

Desmond actually does something in this game. That's right Desmond has a purpose! Sort of ... kind of ... briefly. For the most part you play as Conner and Desmond has a small amount of missions that are short. I think only one of Desmond's missions actually has a fight sequence. Desmond's story bring some sort of closure to his story arc but raises more questions than were answered.

All in all the game is worth playing, these are much better than Revelations and Brotherhood but I'm not sure if this game is better than II. Conner's story is definitely worth the play, Desmond's story might not be. If you aren't really sure about the series, because they churn out games every year, then at least rent the game. The closure to Desmond's arc is worth it and Conner has an interesting take on the American Revolution and bring you to the perspective of an American Indian, albeit a tree hopping, red coat killing, semi-unrelatable American Indian.

Important

Update this game before you play it. The game seemed to be released well before the game was actually projected to get released so the fresh copies have many, many bugs. You can play the game without the updates, but you will find some hilarious bugs.

Mass Effect (The Finale) ... Or is it?

So once again we play as Shepard the Commander of the ... oh wait ... (s)he's grounded. I guess the Alliance didn't like that (s)he was working with/for Cerberus and sent him to his/her room with no Normandy. However as soon as the game starts INVASION! Remember those nasty Reapers that you tried to warn everyone about in the first game and became a realistic threat in the last one and they still ignored you? Well they actually found a way in the known galaxy and are fucking shit up on earth.

Now not to ruin things, and it's not to say that I didn't enjoy this game. However, this game seemed to have more plot holes than I could fathom and the ending ... Jesus Christ the ending. Certain things from the last few games have been ignored or worked around with some backwards thinking. Like how the Reapers originally were explained to only to go through the Citadel Relay and now they can somehow use a relay in dark space to go into our galaxy.

Now besides the few glaring plot holes that can easily be looked over if you don't think to hard about it ... and the ending ... this game is great. I don't quite think it's as good as ME2, however this game did a very good job at keep my attention and me wanting to play more.

As I believe I mentioned in the ME2 review the game changes the mood again and changes how certain things are done. The game revolves around the war so your group has shrunken down, the RPG elements have changed to fit around it and you are in charge of getting the galaxy together to take down the reapers.

Now putting this all together this game is completely different from the other games, which Bioware seems to keep consistent among the series. Again, I'm not saying this is bad thing it keep the games different and interesting. 

However different this game may be from the others, I have a hard time saying anything about his game without repeating myself about the others. There are RPG elements that have been expanded upon  from ME2, it is still a cover based shooter, the shiny clothing has gotten a bit more in depth than in ME2 but it still can't touch ME1, their are still more side quests than I can count and you are still Shepard teaming up with Garrus.

One thing I can say about this game is don't get too connected with some characters or you will be devastated. I would definitely recommend this game series, it kept my attention, it left me wanting to play more, the characters were very well developed and the game is very well rounded. The ending is disappointing however very ... very disappointing.

Mass Effect (Part 2)

Mass Effect 2 is shockingly the second installment in the Mass Effect Series. I know I'm suppose to not show any sort of bias in my reviews, so I'm going to get this out of the way. This is my favorite out of the series and Thane is my favorite, actually useful, team member in ME2.

Mass Effect 2(From now on called ME2), takes place almost immediately after the events of ME1, Shepard is on his ship, cruising around endless space searching for Geth to kill then BAM!, you get exploded and die. The end. No seriously, you die in the first 5 minutes. Everyone gets off, the Normandy and Shepard goes down with the ship. 

Don't fret though, Cerberus spends two years rebuilding you. You'd think tech like that would be a bit more used even if it takes a few years to get right. Anyway, now you either "work with Cerberus"  or are "doing them a favor" to pay them back for bringing your back from the dead.

So now that you've stopped the initial reaper threat in ME1, apparently a race not previously mentioned is now a huge threat and occasionally have been before, who knew, and now you need to stop them.

This game is a bit more intensive then ME1 is, I think the story line is self is about 10 to 15 hours, almost double that of ME1. However you don't need to attain all of you team mates and several of them are optional. Side missions are a bit more ... for lack of a better word ... dumb. You scan a planet, send a probe and land where you sent the probe so you can fulfill what ever excuse the game gives you to shoot things over a chest high wall. While they did in fact fix the gun fighting system, they drastically cut down on the RPG elements of the game.

I played as the sniper/stealth class, in the first game you got a laundry list of abilities to sink your points into. In ME2 you get like 5, which was about half of where it was before. The powers seem to be much more effective however, so I guess that makes up for it. And just for the record, head shots get more and more effective as the series carries on.

If you thought that the game has enough characters to help and play with then this game will make you jump for joy, there are 12 other characters you can play with, each one has a unique set of techs and biotics. Each spec that you can make Shepard play as has a group of at least 2 partners that will play to  your strengths. 

The way you upgrade your weapons and armor have also changed in this installment. Instead of figuring out which suit fits better and acts as better laser repellent, you keep your standard clothing and put different parts on it that you find in shops and you can find new weapons and buy or find the upgrades of. You also cannot change your partners clothing, unless you make them loyal to you, even then its just one new costume. 

One other thing worth mentioning is they changed guns in an interesting way. Guns no longer work on a cool down, it works on ammo. They give flavor to it and a good reason, but the change seems a bit odd. They also took out the old way of doing bypasses and hacking and changed it with a new system where you cant just use omni-gel.

So all in all, ME2 is almost completely different from ME1. They pretty much completely changed the fighting, changed or removed some classes abilities, lowered the level cap, got rid of the several armors, changed the way you upgrade your weapons (for the better), gave you more strategy for biotics and tech for the bad change they did and in some odd way made the game more immersive. I would have liked for them to keep the world exploration in stead of just planet scanning. Some changes were for the better, some for the worse, but as I stated previously this ME is my favorite.

Mass Effect (Part 1)

I apologize for not posting anything the past few weeks; however, two weeks ago was mid-terms and last week was break and I was pretty much just sleeping. So, anyway, I spent most of my break playing through the Mass Effect series and the Metal Gear series (the canon ones anyway). I'm going to try to look at this game without comparing it to the future ones in the series, but I may slip a few times.

So this is a Future Fantasy Third Person Shooter RPG, sounds like a full plate right? Well this game does a pretty good job at merging everything together and making a decent narrative. The game takes the best parts of RPG games like a good story and a decent level up mechanic and then a third person shooter that does a very good job at incorporating the two together.

You play as "Insert First Name" Shepard, the commander of the Normandy, a space ship (I mentioned future fantasy right?). Now Commander Shepard is the first Human "spectre" (A select group or soldiers that do the dirty work of the Council (The "rulers" of the known universe). All of this seems like a lot of information, so the game has a codex that goes into farther explanations of the aliens, planets and lore.

That's all I'm going to say about the specifics as I don't want to ruin anything and I could go forever to try to explain the story of this game. Now, what I saw as the biggest downfall of this game was that the main story line only lasts about 5 - 8 hours. However there is about 20+ more hours of exploration and side missions. The exploration deal with a ATV tank styled vehicle that is one of the biggest pains in the ass to drive, as it bounces everywhere and sometimes doesn't go up certain terrain. The exploration can be a bit of a pain to drive around but each planet is different and brings you into the worlds just a bit more. (Not to mention each planet you can see gives you the story of it and certain statistics.)

As most RPG games you get to obtain new outfits and figure out which one fits better and protects you the best. Each race gets its own armor and cannot where other races armor. However once you've picked which two squad mates you want to use, you don't need to worry about equipping the others. Once your played the game through once however, you can unlock the best weapons and armor the game has to offer, however it is not cheap. In the same breath though, I had earned enough money to buy the weapons, armor, get infinite lap dances and probably still have enough money to own my own solar system.

The game bugging out occasionally caused a few issues for me, certain quests either didn't finish right or wouldn't even appear and sometimes dialog would just stop. Nothing major but when it happens it really takes your away form the immersion of the game.

Now besides these small ... oversights ... the game all in all is very well done. The game tries to rely on cover based shooting but its very difficult to attempt, its just easy to run in guns blazing. With different techs and biotic powers its easy to not die and controlling your team mates is a bit of a cock slap, but I didn't have too much of a problem.

The first of the Mass Effect series does very well at establishing the trilogy of Shepard's story and leaves the story at a good part. The fighting, level up system and powers all go well together and the game easily keeps you immersed in it. This game also does something that I have never seen in another game, when you earn a trophy it more than likely will effect your game in a positive way, like a permanent exp boost or extra tech damage.

If you haven't played this game before and want to, remember to try to do everything before you move onto the next game, Almost side story and major story choice effects the next game and even the one after that in some way. This game sets up the massive trilogy, however this is the only one where almost everything effects the next. This game is well worth the play, someone I know once called it "An RPG cleverly hidden in a Future Fantasy setting" and honestly this one does this the best out of the series.

(To bad the Mass Effect style of handling conversations and battle affected the rest of Biowares games  *cough* Dragon Age 2 *cough*)

-EDIT- I beat Mass Effect 2 so expect its review to be out soon.