Saints Row The Third: Review

Gangstas in SPAAAAAACE!.. C'mon... really,  I've waited so long to play this game only to be disappointed. Before I played this game I've read alot of bad reviews on this game that I didn't want to believe with the highest complaint being that it was repetitive... and it was so true. Most games I play leave me with that "excellent game feeling", and have me sitting on the edge of my seat but after I beat this game I was sitting on my couch and said..... "ok".

Story:

Of course the story always remains the same; the saints dominate the other gangs to take over the city, and in the end becoming heroes, short and simple but let me tell you the game started out awesome: doing combos on enemies, jumping out planes, shooting enemies while your falling like you would see in the movies, and then the meter dropped drastically as the game progressed; constantly doing most missions in a helicopter (which by the way I hate), beating up enemies with a blow up doll, and toy sharks, ridiculous costumes with this being one of them:

You got flushed

yes you can dress up as a toilet for your character. For me, I felt like it swayed away from the "hard gangsta perspective" to "comedian gangstas" so it wasn't as fun as the Saints Row 2. You can still do alot of the same activites, assassinations, and vehicle thefts plus some extra like escort with a tiger to conquer your fears, and the dangerous television show Genki Bowl VII.

Graphics:

Before I play another installment to the game I would always think bout the graphics of the last installment and think "I bet the graphics are going to be beautiful". In this case it looks the same as the last one. One thing that kind of upsets me is when you make your character, and you think your character looks so hot, but when the game starts their head looks the size of a balloon.

Characters:

There weren't too many exciting characters in the game to remember down the line when it comes to the best villian or hero, and even goofiest character. In my opinion I felt like the characters were just there, and there were no actual "character"in them, but I can give just some little props.
 First of all I love what they did with then new Shaundi, with her new look came more attitude.

 

 Pierce is still pierce but he doesn't get dis-respected as much in this one. Some of the new characters include Zimos the auto-tune pimp:

T-pain ain't got nothing on me

You don't really see him much in the game unless someone is messing with his ho's.... then its on.

Oleg is the team's big man, the enemy basically used him to clone brutes which are fun to fight.

Kinzie is the team's brains and does all the hacking and such plus she is very bossy.

The main villians' of the game were Killbane "the walking apocolypse" who wants to rid the saints. He wasn't one to be crossed and he will show you the light male or female

Stag was the new military group called to extinguish the saints, and they come heavy: tanks equipped with incenterators, jets with laser beams, soldiers with shields (but that didn't stop me), and everyone else heavily armored. Later on in the game they get smart and put up cement barriers so you can bomb through their road block.

Music:

The intro was a real head-bobber, just like the Borderlands theme song I had to let this one play out for at least a minute. One feature I like in the game is that you can make your own mixtape of songs YOU want to hear, so instead of listening to all the songs on one radio station you can take one from each station and make your own playlist. By far these were the songs I was jamming to during the whole game:

Robert Tepper- No easy way out

Mark Morrison- Return of the Mack

Talk Talk- It's my life

Frankie goes to Hollywood- Relax

"No easy way out" is a great song to hear when you are surrounded by gangs and their vehicles. Yea I played the mess out these four songs. Of course there were other cool songs but I'm just in the old-school music mood right now.

Conclusion:

Alot of the DLC... excuse me ALL of the DLC are not worth the money unless you really enjoyed this game. I'm surprised you can buy cheats that you can earn in the game like unlimited ammo and immunibility to mostly all damage (except melee). Let me tell you I earned my unlimited ammo and immunibility and for the moment it felt MAG-NI-FI-CENT! It just felt great to take out my smg's and shoot everyone in sight, yes even the man in the hot-dog costume I spilled his ketchup.

 

If you are a huge saints fan and enjoy differnt versions of game titles you may love this game but for those who have high expectations, you may not want to waste your money on buying it, just rent it.

Funny moments of Portal 2

I didn't think Portal 2 was going to be at the top of my favorites, and gee golly it is, all because of the humor. Here are some bits of humor from Portal 2 *WARNING THE LAST VIDEO CONTAINS A SPOILER!!!* for those of you wanting to play the game buy hasn't yet. I did post alot of videos so it's probably best to just sample a little of each.

 Fact sphere:



 Defective turrets: its funnier when you play the game

 Adventure shere (rick)

Turret quotes: I just like how they talk

*SPOILER* I'm in space:

Dead Space 2 Review

I'm not a real fan of horror games, but I make myself play some from time to time to keep my gaming experience different. First I have to say that for a horror game, this wasn't all that scary. Here and there you will get the lights to cut out and monsters "play BOO" but after a while it's like "alright I already know what weapon I'm gonna' use on you", instead of the sudden scare and you can't think straight. Even the monstrous babies weren't scary, but don't get to close cuz' they do pack a punch.

isn't it cute!

Story

The game had a great story, and even though I didn't play the first one I know it had a great continuation. The main character Issac Clarke has lost his memory for the past three years. Him and another character (Nolan Stross who suffers from dementia  ) were supposedly responsible for building the marker:

no not that marker, this marker:

that caused the great infestation of nasty-looking creatures. The goal is to make the marker whole and free his mind from the marker's influence, and Nicole's vision. Of course there are some suspenseful in-betweens like: an eyeball on a stick, and this great guy:

If you play Dead Space 2 you'll see what I mean.

Game play

I liked the suits, I thought they were really cool-looking (especially the helmets)

 I wish they had just a couple more to choose from. I even like the animation when you buy a new suit, he gets into the machine and comes back out like he's bad, lol. The weapon selection was okay. I did like how they had alternate fire with each weapon, and that makes it very useful for certain situations.

The controls were pretty straight forward your typical first-person shooter buttons, the only button that pissed me off was the circle button which was the instant-heal button. Yes it's great, but I always pressed it accidently, and end up wasting my health, and health doesn't come cheap, and is rare to find if you play the harder levels.


Sound

Of course with horror games you have to have the horror music, but it didn't occur very much throughout the game. I guess they needed some surprises huh. I did like the ending theme song. It was a great piece to hear after defeating the boss, it really relaxed me and let me know it was over. Check it out:



Overall

I gave this game a 8.5 mainly because I felt a horror game could have been more scarier, although since I'm not a horror game fan it was alright with me, lol, I'm just speaking for the horror game fanatics. Lookout for Dead Space 3, you know it ain't over.

L.A. Noire Review

This was one of the most wanted games of the summer, and I was proud to stand in line on the launch date to receive my copy along with the 2 bonus cases, although I came home and went straight to bed.

To play this game you have to have ALOT of patience, and by alot I mean you can't rush into anything. If you want to make a good score on the case you have to really search, and pay CLOSE attention to the people you are interviewing, and interrogating, it's hard to assume one thing when there is another correct answer.

The game starts off with Cole Phelps, and ex-marine that served in the Okinawa campaign, and a receiver of the Silver Star. After the war Cole Phelps was discharged and starting working for the LAPD. Cole Phelps seemed like a typical honest, and hardworking man with no worries, working his way up in the LAPD. Everybody knew Cole Phelps because he was darn good at what he does, but during the game with all the flashbacks of the war, Cole Phelps was still in shame for sending order to kill some Japanese  civilians in a cave that was converted into a hospital for wounded, and still living in guilt he does some things to cope with his guilt, some things you didn't see coming.When Phelps was demoted to Arson,  this is where things got really interesting. A big secret is found out and more corrupt people will  unfold, and most of all and ending that is so heart-felt, it will leave you on the edge of your seat.

Cole had different partners in each division of Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and Arson, and for one in particular I wish I could of slapped the taste out his mouth:

his name is Roy Earle.... don't he just look like you wanna slap him and his mama? He was a dirty cop, who talked to me like I was his bitch. I was hoping at some point in the game after work hours Cole would give him the smackdown, but instead, sometimes I would drive off without him and make him run to catch up with me.. heh, heh how bout them apples.

Well enough with the loser with the two-toned suit, Let's talk about the game. First off the graphics were E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T.....T-E! Everything from the sky to hell was so crisp, and the characters movements and facial expressions were so believable you would think your talking to someone in front of you.
The controls were mostly like Mafia, the running, shooting, taking cover, get in the car, get out the car, etc. etc.

The cases consisted of real life situations, murder, theft, drug-dealing, and chasing... It's not fun if your not chasing someone *sarcasm* (I hated chasing people). The kinds of cases you deal with the most are the ones linked to the "Black Dahlia" (so many women were killed in gruesome ways), and illegal morphine distribution (that was some deadly s***).

The way to correctly solve a case is to make sure to find all the clues and don't accuse anyone of anything they didn't do, but sometimes it's tricky, you would think they were guilty but they aren't, and it just causes the case to get harder. You can get a little help from the community  which will tell you how most people answered (for some answers you can't trust the community), and erasing one answer . When suspects are brought to the interrogation room, make sure to make the boss happy or your score will flop... (although there were times I felt I knew I had the right person but he just wanted to bitch anyways).

Some extra activities you can do in the game are collecting cars of course (some of them were SWEET!), collecting films (I couldn't find any at all) and answering optional police calls which could help you gain experience. Not very much to do but it can keep you busy.

I will end this review saying  that this is one of the best games I played all summer and I would give it a 9 out of 10 rating. I didn't give it a 10 because:

1. there was a point where I was replaying cases and didn't know I wasn't suppose to save over my "continued game" therefore I had to start all over and I was not happy.

2. I felt they could of made the girls look different. I swear every girl had the same face and red lipstick, just a different hairstyle

3. I felt like I got cheated out of a couple cases, even when I looked up the answer online... Not cool.

Adults say the dardenst things

I guess this is how call of duty gamers deal with getting their butt stomped by the second player on the opposing team:

"Get your d*** out your brother's butt and get your own playstation!"

.... and don't get me started on what they say if your hiding in the corner, and using claymores.

Till death do us part...

I was reading an interesting article in PC gamer magazine where 2 guys were debating on whether single player and multiplayer modes should be sold separately, and honestly I kind of have favor for both sides.

The first guy (we'll call him Mario) thinks that buying single and multiplayer modes gives him more for his money, plus he explains that game developers can make mega-bucks selling to a wider and combined audience.The second guy (we'll call him Luigi) disagrees and says:

"games don't need "mega-development" dollars" to be excellent values. Do you know of anyone that played COD:Black Ops for its single player, or its pitiful zombies co-op mode? They're back of the box bullet points, meant to give the impression that your're getting alot of content for your $60. That doesn't benifit gamers, it means overpaying for access to the piece of the game you actually want to play."

Then Mario says:

 "You're looking a gift horse in the mouth, you ingrate! Separating single-player and multiplayer modes into two purchases won't guarantee you'll save a penny. In fact, you'll probably be getting less for more! Look at Bioshock and Dead Space: both are single player only games that sold for full price. If their sequels had sold their new multiplayer modes separately, they would've still been full price for single player, then an extra $20 or so for the multiplayer DLC..."

I like to get more for my money as well , but for myself, I buy a game mostly because of the campaign, and if the campaign isn't good I could care less about the multiplayer because usually most multi-players are shoot-em-up and I'm not the best at those, but I play here and there just so I can laugh at how horrible I am, but If I know a game on hand that I will enjoy the single player mode as well as the multiplayer, for example, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, then I would definitely buy it together because I enjoy both modes.

So in conclusion I would love to save money on games if I wasn't playing one mode, but is it possible? And if so, should single-player and multiplayer get a divorce? Or should some games just stick to being good at one mode, for example, only make call of duty a multiplayer game only, and other games like dead space a single player only. I can say for sure and you can agree that some games have no business being multi-players.

Co-op games: Are you against me?

I had this topic on my mind for the longest time, and it bothers me alot. I may sound like a crybaby about it but I'm just gonna spill my opinion and maybe some of you can give me your opinion or clear it up for me so I won't think about it again.

Have you ever had one of those games your playing with a local partner and experienced some of the following:



1. you have only 2 bullets left and your partner runs and picks up the ammo without asking if you need it.

2. you have 25% health left your partner has 75% health left and yet he picks up the health that YOU needed.

3. Some games require separate points and your partner only has the sole intention on getting more points so they try to run ahead of you every time, and kill everything.

These are just some things I don't understand. If it's a "co-op" game then why not supply for both, otherwise it becomes the survival of the fittest. And if it's a co-op game why are the points separated aren't we suppose to work T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R? These type of instances focuses mainly on adventure-type games, and I am aware that some games allow you to trade items and such. I remember playing older sega games with my little brother like streets of rage and he would always grab everything and leave me to die. I'm just saying, we are suppose to get through this together.

Then, in this time and age I play games with my hubby like little-big-planet (story mode) and I swear he's trying to compete with me and stay ahead on points more than working together so he can feel like he's done the most. I've confronted him about that he always says "It's just a game"..... I'm thinking, uh-huh, you wouldn't have the same tune if you were loosing.

Does anyone have some clarification on this topic, or am I the only one that feels this way?