One is the loneliest number.

Two can be as bad as one, but it's perfect for EA's Army of Two. Let me start by saying that trailers and commercials failed to excite me in any way. So I really wasn't looking forward to this one but I decided to give it a try anyway. You have been forewarned: Spoilers ahead.

Campaign: In the campaign you play as either Elliot Salem or Tyson Rios. I played as Salem. You two start as a couple of army rangers in training. In training you will learn every single aspect of gameplay mechanics for the rest of the game. After training you're sent off to fight in the war in Simole. There you meet Clyde, who is a real prick. And right after you kill his bounty for him, while he sat back and watched, he takes all the credit and money. What a prick. Then you get picked up by some company called SSC who hire you as a pair of contractors. You go through quite a few wars and missions only to find out SSC was helping the enemy all along. They set you up to accidentally kill a U.S. senator. You fight back, clear your names and kill SSC leader, Dalton, and his little lackey, Clyde. I recommend you play on medium or high, because low is absolutely insulting as to how easy it is. Even with the weakest weapon configuration I could come up with, the enemies were still just dropping like flies. I like how you can change around your weapons in the middle of the mission. It makes experimenting with weapons easy. It was an overall fun campaign. If you can though, play with a friend. The AI of your partner can be pretty stupid. A lot of times I got downed he either stood there in enemy fire, or he dragged us both into it.

Versus: In versus mode two teams of contractors are both after the same objectives. You fight not only the enemy team, but also some NPC's like in the campaign. The goal is to gain as much money as you can by the end of the match. You get money by killing NPC's, the enemy team and most of all, completing objectives. You can find these odd dispensers where you can use some of your money to buy weapons and armor. Just save some to stay ahead of the enemy team. Oh, and spawn-killing is extremely occasional.

Final Thoughts: I liked it and I would definitely recommend it if you like action. There are a lot of jokes that Rios and Salem are gay for each other. I really don't get a gay vibe from them... most of the time anyways. There were a few things hinting towards that. Once I did the appreciation thing right after we slaughtered a bunch of enemies and Rios said, "Salem, Salem, Salem" in a very musical tone. My reaction: >_< Please stop talking now. My over-all score, 9 out of 10.

Thanks for reading. This is The Blade, signing off.

The Sims: Castaway and More

My birthday was last Thursday (No, the LITERAL last Thursday, not the one on meme forums like 4chan and the bigot-owned Encyclopedia Dramatica) and I received a total of $60 plus a new Wiimote for my Wii. 2 things were bought with this money: The Sims 2: Castaway for the Wii and a sonic screwdriver from ThinkGeek.com (read my latest post at my personal blog).

The Sims 2: Castaway is an offshoot title of the main Sims 2 game (I own the GameCube copy). Castaway itself is the stripped-down console port of an existing Sims 2 expansion pack called "Castaway Stories". Due to the fact modern consoles can not run actual expansion packs, game developers are forced to create entirely new games set in the world of main one, the Sims series and Guitar Hero II to be precise targets of this. While not bad for them, it squeezes the cash from us, because no one except for a complete retard (eg: me) would shell out $50 bucks for an expansion pack for a console game, because all it ever is is the same game with a few new added bells and whistles. In some games, things are lost. In console version of the Sims 2, there were 2 play modes: a story/career mode featuring your created sim (and your mate's sim if you did 2 player) going through completing objectives to fill his/her life meter because if they don't, they'll become some drugged-up parent in the suburbs wondering "WTF just happened?!", and a free-play mode reminiscent of the first Sims game for the consoles (my console at the time was a PS2). I didn't see it coming, but retrospectively it was to be expected, but all the children were somehow missing from the Sims 2, both in story and free-play mode. Well, that brought out the acne-ridden Hulk so to speak and I was about ready to twirl a tank Super Mario-style into Maxis' head offices, but luckily someone slipped a sedative into my Mountain Dew Code Red and I calmed town.

Anyway, the Sims 2: Pets did the same thing, only with story-mode and free-play clumsily mixed together. If you took care of your cat/dog/sim/thing then more people moved into the neighborhood (including Hilary Duff and her pampered pooch, whom by brother locked in a room by herself while the dog destroyed the Duff Mansion just for the fun of it). Now the Sims 2: Castaway throws free-play totally out of the window in-favour of a psydo-story driven game. Your sim, in my case my character, boy genius Gavin DeMilo, is on a boat with as many as six people on it. Everyone gets totally sloshed and starts singing kareoke (by the looks on their faces, it looks as if Gavin attempted "Bohemian Rhapsody" all by his lonesome without accompaniment). The good ship Simplicity shakes about and while fishing, they all fall off of the boat (for some reason, your fishing rod is not in your inventory at the game's start, making you to have to build one from bamboo and vines). Gav washes up on the first island, called Shipwreck Island, and begins foraging for himself, befriending chimps who gather for him and making shelter and inventing useful items like torches and axes and girls made out of sand (they won't nag for you to come to their mother's unless you build one).


In time, you can build a one-man raft to travel to Airplane Island, the second island were your crew (if there is any) resides. You assemble a rag-tag tribe of sorts and all of them can pick from 4 tribe duties: cook, fish, forage for supplies, and forage for food.

....

And that's it. That's as far as I've gotten.

SO, let's talk about the Sims movie, shall we?

As I told you before, Fox Studios has bought the rights to a film based on Will Wright's brainchild, the Sims, with John Davis producing and ol' who-cares directing. According to my sources, the film will be a drama. The main character finds out that Pleasantville, the first neighborhood on the Sims 2, is actually part of a massively played video game. The game also features characters from the Sims titles, including the Goth and Newbie familes, and Don Lathario from the Sims 2. While it doesn't seem interesting, I like to see that a game-movie finally has them realize they're in a game.

FINAL SCORE:
The Sims 2: Castaway (Wii, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, PC [titled Castaway Stories and is an expansion pack])
Pros: In-jokes to previous games, fun dialouge, unique idea (came out before the Lost video game), good music
Cons: Difficult camera angles, annoying NPCs, crazy goals.
Score:
7.5 Out Of 10

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The story of Soap.

So, after about a month or so of hearing, "Halo 3 sucks all of the sudden for no other reason than Call of Duty 4 is better", I decided to rent it and try it for myself. Spoilers, there will be spoilers.

*Campaign* Let me just start off by saying that it's definitely better than I thought it would be. My original thoughts were that it would constantly repeat the boring "Duck for cover but pop up for a split-second to shoot something" formula. It was actually very lively and fun. It wasn't boring for even the slightest second. You switch a few times between the British SAS soldier, Soap (what kind of name is that?) and the US Marine Sgt. Jacskon. Oh, and you get to see through the eyes of some kidnapped soldier right before he gets a bullet through the face on national TV and you also get to work some sort of cannon on the side of an aircraft. My point is that with all the perspective switching the game is always interesting. My favorites were of course Soap and Jackson. They actually get to interact with all the other characters of the game. At some point though Jackson dies and his marine buddies and the SAS squad that conveniently had Soap team up for a joint mission. Speaking of the characters, don't get too attached to them. They die in the end. I was just starting to like them and then came a car chase/ gun fight and they die while protecting me while I was injured. Then the credits have Griggs (a.k.a. one of the two black marines I saw in the whole game) rap in the end. I'm not quite sure what to say about that. And right after the credits there's an Epilogue Bonus Level which caught me off guard, scrambling for my controller as bullets starting whizzing by my head. Over all I liked the campaign. But it felt a little static. The AI don't really make that many different decisions and this just makes me feel like I'm doing the same thing over again.

*Multiplayer* The multiplayer is a lot of fun. But it's almost just as frustrating as it is fun. The spawn system is REALLY messed up. In half the games I played I get spawned in the near vicinity of an enemy who finds and kills me within about five seconds of being alive. A few times I even got spawned literally right in front of the enemy helicopter who proceeded to give me more than my daily recommended dose of bullets. Even more frustrating than that, I once got spawned (and I am NOT joking when I say this) two inches from a LIVE GRENADE! Next thing I know my jaw has dropped more than it should and I've lossed my controller. And in the midst of my shock and confusion the ever enjoyable kill-cam plays. The kill-cam is useful when you're left wondering, "How did he kill me?", but all other times it's just insulting. You take a shotgun blast to the face and the kill-cam chimes in, "Oh, by the way, here's how he killed you."

*Final Thoughts* Call of Duty 4 is an excellent game and definitely worth the 60 bucks. But I have to give it a 7 out of 10 because the spawn system is so frustrating. And if you remember I gave Halo 3 an 8 out of 10.

Thanks for reading. Blade signing off.

Wii Come In Piice

Sorry for not posting in...ever, but I'm back with my review of the Nintendo Wii.

Now, I got the Wii, maybe a month ago. It came with one game, WiiSports,  and one Wii remote, or "Wiimote". The first game we played was Bowling, and we had an incredible amount of fun. My grandparents and I quickly decided it was our favourite game on the system. Then we attempted Golf; much, much much harder, but was still sort of fun.

A couple of days later, my Grandmother went to GameStop and bought a new game, WiiPlay, that came with a free Wiimote and she also bought a second Nunchuck. WiiPlay was not as FUN as WiiSports, but some of the games were entertaining. Games included a shooting gallery (throwback to Duck Hunt on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), an update of Atari's "Tank", a sort of Neon Pong game, a Fishing simulation, and a game where you raced cows and maneuvered obstacles by jumping over them and hitting scarecrows for points. Plus, when you clicked on the Miis in the main menu, they moved depending on where you clicked. Clicking their face caused them to shake their heads, and clicking their arm made them wave to you. I'll let you find the rest on your own.

My grandmother is going to the local Hollywood Video store to rent some new games for consideration. If we like them, we'll by them from GameStop. If not, well, them's the breaks!

FINAL SCORES:

Wii Console: 9 out of 10. (Excellent!)
Pros: Unique controller, ability to play GameCube games without buying adapter, exellent graphics, better Internet support than previous Nintendo consoles.
Cons: Trouble controlling the Wiimote at times; not all games are good. We've only played 2 out of 5 from the Wii-Series.

WiiSports
Publisher: Nintendo
Score: 9.5/10
Pros: Fun games, great for parties or just hanging out with friends, great use of the Mii system, and good use of the Wiimote.
Cons: Some games are hard to control with the Wiimote, like putting in Golf (seems too sensitive)

WiiPlay
Publisher: Nintendo
Score: 8.5/10
Pros: Great graphics, fun games, great Easter Eggs.
Cons: Complicated controls on some games,

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My parachute is stuck.

So now it's time to review Medal of Honor: Airborne.

Let's start with campaign... The campaign is pretty good. A wide array of combat situations. And it's pretty fun. Although the second to last level is just frustrating seeing as how there's about 50 snipers in rather obscure and hard to find places. And I'm not quite sure if the campaign is historicly accurate anymore. I don't seem to remember the nazis having a giant tower made of concrete and an elite branch of storm troopers that wore gas masks and carried around MMGs. Oh well. It's still a rather fun campaign.

Now onto the AI... Your friendly AI are just as useless as ever. I mean I know that not every soldier on the field can make smart decisions under pressure, but they can't be THIS stupid. I can't tell you how many times I've had a guy run in front of my gun as I'm firing and yell at me for it. The only time I ver see them get a kill is when they steal one from me. Seriously, the one and only use they have is being the occasional distraction when a tank rolls in. The enemy AI also realize how stupid your alies are and will, on the most part, shoot you alone.

Now about the weapons... There is one of every weapon on each side of the war. An SMG, an automatic rifle, a rifle, a sniper, and a rocket launcher. Pistols too but you can only use the German pistol when you play on the Axis side in multiplayer. The only weapon that isn't on both sides is the shotgun which of course belongs to the Americans. There are also three types of grenade: frag, stick and some other grenade with a name that I don't remember that's used for tanks. You must upgrade each and every one of these weapons three levels. But don't fret, you can upgrade at least one all the way in a mission if you use it enough. You just don't get a hold of rockets and tank grenades except for certain levels. For all the other weapons you pick it up and you then have access to it at the start of every mission from then on. All the weapons are pretty fun but I've got to admit, the campaign becomes almost insultingly easy once you get your hands on the shotgun. That thing obliterates just about everything. Everything except the gas masks. The first one I encountered (on easy difficulty mind you) took eight shells to the face at close range before he went down.

Best played without other people... I didn't think I'd like the multiplayer in the least. But it's actually pretty fun. I thought it would be duck, shoot, duck, shoot. But it's pretty lively. I just think it's unblanced. The odds just seemed to be stacked really high against the Germans. Most, if not all, of the American weapons are over powering to thier German counter parts. Not only that but the Americans parachute into the match just like in the campaign and can land just about any where (including next to the German spawn area) with a sniper or a rocket launcher and force the Germans to go down an extremely frustrating highway known as Spawnkill Junction. And THAT is not what we like to call fun. And some guy on XBox Live had the nerve to say that all is fair in love and war... Ok, 1: if that was love I'd hate to see war. And 2: last I checked this wasn't war, it was the multiplayer function of a video game. And I thought multiplayer was suppoesed to have both sides with an equal chance to win, leaving the challenge based on skill. And it takes zero skill to spawn kill.

Thanks for reading. This is the Blade, signing off.

Tony Hawk's Massive Failure

Hey, all! Since Acs posted a new review, I thought I would too. The game is "Tony Hawk's Project 8" by Neversoft and published by the first independent game developer, Activision, for the PlayStation 2. While not exactly NEW, it is rather recent. The game is a departure from the past 3 games in the fact that, while there is a story ("Career") mode, it does not have cut scenes with your player and your skater has no voice. The game features one new feature, that being the "land the trick" function when in special mode, which is basically "Focus mode" from THUG 2 and THAW. The difference between "land the trick" and "focus" is that in "land the trick", your camera goes yellow and closes up on your board, and you can push different joystick directions to make your feet go a different way, doing a unique trick when you get the hang of it.

Other new things are new pros to skate as, such as "My Name Is Earl", "Underdog", and "Alvin and the Chipmunks" star Jason Lee, skating out of semi-retirement to help the player during the second level. Unfortunately, the game takes a major departure from previous Tony Hawk titles in the fact that you can only play as 2 characters in free play at the games beginning (Tony Hawk and the Custom Skater), as opposed to being able to play as every pro AND Custom Skater like all the others. Speaking of, the Customization is very small and you have to choose between 3 presets: Punk, Urban Youth/Thug, and an 8 year old kid...or a midget...
My sister had a major problem in THAW to where she couldn't play as a girl in Story Mode due to the kiss at the end. She was further infuriated by the fact that you couldn't even make a female skater PERIOD in the Create-A-Skater option in Project 8. Oh, sure, you could play as a female Realtor, but that was about it, and still you had to complete the second level to get her.

Many hallmarks of the series have been removed for no reason other than "realism", chiefly Create-A-Park, which was my second favourite thing after character creation. The create a trick function introduced in THUG has been taken out, as has the "FREAK OUT!/Board Throwing" moves from THUG 2 and THAW. As a teen with severe anger management problems, this really pissed me off. I did my own FREAK OUT! move and chucked the game case into the rubbish bin.

There are MANY worse games you can get than Project 8, but I find it to be severely disappointing. It has nothing in common from the past games other than being the second-latest in the Tony Hawk brand, the newest being Proving Ground for the Wii, 360, PlayStations 2 and 3. If I ever get my Wii and get to try Proving Ground, I'll let you know how it stacks up. My current favourite games in the brand are Tony Hawk's Undergrounds 1 and 2. As Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw said, "I could say it appeals to die hard (*dubbed over*) [TONY HAWK] fans only, but I can't really recommend it to them either". My advice to Neversoft is to not fix which isn't broken, I guess. The past 3 titles where HUGE successes, and fans clamored for more of the same, but you had to get all real like EA Games' "skate." and dumped your loyal (usually drunk) user base in favour of the die-hard skate enthusiasts who demand realism. Either return future games to form or axe the franchise and start a new one, perhaps with MTV's Rob Derdrek or Ryan Sheckler. Then you can ruin someone's gaming credibility OTHER than The Hawk's.

FINAL SCORE:

Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PS2, 360, GameCube, PSP)
Neversoft/Activision
Pros: New skaters, good graphics, realistic physics engine.
Cons: Removal of all good content, bad customization, goofy characters, limited choice in character selection at beginning.
Score: 2.5 out of 5.

We come in peace.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and New Years. I got some new video games. So over the next few weeks you can expect some new reviews... But no promises.

Let's start off with BlackSite Area 51.
Let me just say that there is very little to complain about in this one. The story is pretty interesting, the weapons are fun (especially the default assault rife, but more on that later) and the gameplay manages to stay moderately interesting.

Campaign: The levels are definitely interesting. They sure don't repeat them self. The squad commands allow for a little strategy. How I wish I could send troops where I please in other games. Though your best bet is to just have them back you up while you charge through with your super awsome assault rifle. I will admit however that your AI companions are more competent than the ones in other games and actually manage to help you at times. The only thing I guess you could complain about is how every thing you need is extremely conveniently placed when you need it. Just as an example, there was a part where a giant alien thing called a spore tower landed and started spitting out alien squid-dogs and the only thing that could kill it were rockets. After a quick look around I found a fully-loaded rocket launcher. Well, at least it's easy to find ammo.

Weapons: The assault rifle in this game is the most balanced weapon (the gun itself is balanced) I have ever seen. Accurate enough to take out snipers and powerful as well. The pistol is very useful as well. Fast, accurate and can do alot of damage in the right hands. The sniper takes a little more skill than other guns. While useful it is the game gives you no extra clips. You can only carry two more clips at any time. These two factors combined make it so ammo is scarce. I did not use the plasma rifle very much. It takes about three shots to kill an enemy soldier, shoots really slow, only holds five shots to a clip and takes long to reload. I wouldn't recommend it. The spray gun is basically a shot gun. And according to an achievement I got called "Geometry Kills", the shots can bounce of a surface. So if you got your degree from smarty-pants university you can bounce shots to pull off kills from around the corner. Ten shots to a clip. A very fun weapon to play with. Finally the rocket launcher. The only use it has is when you need it.

This is one of those games that only like for campaign and have no interest in multiplayer. So I can't honestly review the multiplayer aspect of the game.

Well, thanks for reading. This is the Blade, signing off.