Halo 3 Review

Halo 2 was a rough era for those people that got into the game a little too late, thrown into the multiplayer arena with those hardcore gamers that had already accrued roughly a year playing the game. Nearly frustrating enough to just put down the game and be done with it, the MLG nature of Halo 2 served as a deterrent for those who really weren’t all that dedicated to the edgy nature of online multiplayer. Halo 3 serves to bridge the gap between the hardcore group and the new players, throwing open the world of Halo to anyone who cares enough to pick up a 360 controller.

Condemned: Criminal Origins Review

Sporadic nightmares filled with drug induced criminals, with zombie-esque motions, men with metal parts, murder, and of course, the occasional dead bird. Maybe after a horror movie, but these night time terrors don’t often come after a late night of video gaming. That is, of course, assuming that you’re not playing Condemned: Criminal Origins.

The player assumes the role of Agent Thomas, one of the FBI’s most trusted investigators, specialized in serial killers. After being called in on one case, Thomas is accused of being the murderer, after evidence framing him is found at the scene of the crime. The player is excommunicated from the force, with the sole exception of his lab scientist, the only apparent FBI source that believes in their agent. Thomas, with the help of the lab, must independently go around proving his innocence, while collecting evidence against the real serial killer.

The city is infected with these drug addicted criminals, with little or no independent thought to separate them from enemies commonly found in zombie games. While they impede the player from time to time, generally their numbers aren’t great enough to stop game play.  The real challenge from the game comes from the investigative techniques that must be used to discover new clues. It’s easy enough to miss clues, and if clues are missed, it can leave the player wandering around looking for their next breakthrough. The dark and gritty background gives it a depressing feel, like the player is thrown straight into a horror movie.

The horror movie aspect of the game really gives it it’s trademark feel. In a lot of “detective” games, the game play is either incredibly easy and child friendly, or else wise incredibly unrealistic. The graphics take a hit on the style, and those of you who can’t play a game with older graphics might want to just skip to the sequel. {Author’s Note:  Condemned 2: Bloodshot, can be found in our older reviews} The game itself is unique; so far away from the traditional “go to this point and shoot bad guys” games that have become rampant in the 360 generation.  The repetitiveness of the game can be boring at times, but is made up for in it’s mind blowing storyline, allowing one’s interest in the game to be renewed every mission.

To the point for you score-whores: the achievements really depend on if you want to play the game by yourself, or have help. A single, straight, play through of the game will probably net a gamer maybe 400-450 points. Anyone with a walkthrough FAQ on their computer screen will find much more success, after being told where many of the hidden items that can win some serious g’s are located. For the legit gamer however, it can be nearly impossible to find them, saving  hours of long comb throughs of every single level. Achievement Difficulty: 7/10.

Condemned: Criminal Origins, is a new (for the time) sort of game. Even four years later, it retains its value and uniqueness, as so few of the games in the 360 ‘s catalog do. If you’re willing to ignore the graphics, and are sick of the same old thing, pick it up. Seriously, it’s easily at in the top five bargain box games, if not the number one.  Game Rating: 7/10

Mercenaries 2: World In Flames

In Mercenaries 2: World In Flames, (Mercs 2: WIF) the player runs through the game as a freelance mercenary, one of the three mercenaries from the original game. I played as Mattias Nillson. In the beginning of the game, the main character is seen helping an old friend from the first game, and then proceeding to be betrayed by that same friend. The player continues the game in an attempt to find information on the ‘big players’ in the game to get your revenge. Early in the game, Nillson gets shot in the rear end by a gangster, a recurring joke through the game. Throughout the game Nillson (or whatever character you choose) goes through the town fighting for ‘factions’ in an attempt to get favor and information in the hunt for your main target.

Your mercenary character spends the game performing routine missions, stealing trucks, drugs, and raiding towns held by opposing factions. Every mission completed increases your favor with that particular faction, unlocking more weapons and information. The issue here is, the factions are often opposed, and so most of the game is spent attempting to balance missions for each faction to gain information for both.

The game play is where Mercs 2 falls so horribly short. The game play is typical of low quality third person shooters. Run in, shoot some bad guys, and maybe throw a grenade or two while searching for health before you take too much enemy fire. Any sort of stealth in the game is ruined by motions sensors that immediately alert enemies to your presence. Surprisingly effective, however, is calling in your helicopter pilot to drop off supplies or weapons, or (later) your jet pilot to have air strikes against the enemy encampment. Most of the major defects in this game involve the repetitiveness of the missions, leaving players agonizing for something new until the familiar ‘beep’ comes up: achievement unlocked. Many of the missions also involve driving some sort of vehicle, made difficult by the fact that the game’s systems don’t handle fast action well.

As an early release 360 game, not much is to be said about the style of WIF. The lack of detail in the game makes the game uninteresting, to say the least, and the obviously rushed (or perhaps financially independent) game leaves a lot of shortcomings and holes in both the graphics and the entertaining portions of the game.

The achievements are also typical of the early 360 games: get so many kills with this weapon, destroy this many things, piss this many factions off, beat the game. The achievements aren’t terribly hard, just usually time consuming, and with as poorly as this game is designed, that time is better spent, say, watching grass grow. Achievement Difficulty: 6/10

The game is a basic, cheap, game for those who are bored with the major blockbusters, or those who can’t afford to shell out $45 on a used copy of COD 4. It has an overused story line, a lack of innovative game play, and cheap graphics. Only hardcore achievement whores will want to finish the game, much less find any replay value in it. 6/10

Prince Of Persia

In Prince of Persia, the player goes through the game as (gasp!) the Prince of Persia, completely removed from the rest of the Prince of Persia games in the series. Early in the game, your big sword wielding character gets forced into a companionship with a mysterious, magical woman named Elika. (Literally forced, she jumps off a cliff on to your back…because that’s how all good friendships start) Early in the game, Elika introduces her to her wacky religion, which she acquires her magical powers from. Elika’s father decides, for some unknown reason, to unleash the super-demon that conquered the world with darkness before the light-god imprisoned him in the temple. (Sounds familiar, right?) The player spends most (all) of the game running around, fighting the demon’s minions and slightly more powerful bosses, in an attempt to reach the ‘fertile lands’, which can consume the demons if Elika can use her magic to heal them.

The basic objective of the game is to escort your new magic friend to the fertile lands to help her defeat her crazy father. And even though she’s a nearly all powerful witch, she still needs your sword and random jump moves to defeat even the most basic of enemies. Once the enemies are defeated, Elika can then use her magic to heal the lands. Be warned, however, this action makes her extremely weak and special magika orbs must be collected to return her strength.

The game play is where this game can claim it’s ‘uniqueness’, shared with Mirror’s Edge and 90’s arcade games. The game is based off of ‘wall running’ and other ridiculously acrobatic moves to get around, something that can be ridiculously frustrating to those who don’t have fast enough reflexes to jump and flip at precisely the right time. If the player happens to miss the right button combination, he falls, but Elika’s magic saves him. (The same applies if the player ‘dies’ in a physical battle) While this cheapens the feeling of dying, there is an achievement for completing the game with her saving you fewer than 100 times. Therefore, dying is technically impossible, making the game really easy. And for those of us who can’t follow the brightly marked path, and the map, Elika’s magic includes an orb to help us find our way.

Even though the game was released in 2008, the graphics still are not up to date by any means, even by the standards of comparable ’07 games. The style comes entirely from the wall running and acrobatic moves, which can become slightly boring, considering nearly all of the moves are the same button, turning the game into a repetitive button masher in some spots. Some of the magic moves are flashy; temporarily blinding the player into thinking he’s playing a good game.

Joking around with Scorephoria’s Norton, I faked a ‘beep’ noise and said “10g, Started the Game”, completely kidding. Literally, the cut scene finished loading before the real beep came. “Congratulations, you’ve started the Journey” next to the 10g. I continued the game to Norton shaking his head every fifteen minutes when the beep came up, sometimes for useless or easy things. Achievement Difficulty: 4/10

While Prince of Persia seems to remain strong as a series, the 2008 rendition falls short with the lack of any sort of innovative gameplay, or even a plot that’s not halfway ripped out of the Bible. Any sort of replay value is immediately de-valued with the lack of achievement incentive, and a repetitive button masher doesn’t serve well for much more than a two night rental. The game teeters on the edge of boring, with the only thing saving it is the occasional bad ass hack-and-slash-magika combo. 6/10

Shadowrun

I’ll be quite honest with you guys, I was looking through Gamestop’s used games online, just looking for a few titles to throw out to my parents to get me for Christmas. I saw a game for 14.99, with its Prima Official EGuide listed right below it for the same price. Quite honestly, a 360 game for 15 dollars worried me, but then I decided to look at the picture and some of the descriptions. I sent the link to my parents once I decided I wanted to give it a shot.

Someone really should have told me how amazing this game was. Simultaneously gliding, transporting, and hacking down with a katana or shooting with some form of submachine gun is more fun than I ever could have imagined. The game incorporates magic, swords, and guns, the three things that have made up every video game known to man. The basic game play involves a first person shooter, with magic elements adding in a new twist unfamiliar to most FPS players. Magical powers include gliding to higher places, a transport magic that will put you ten yards ahead of your position, even through solid objects, a look function that will allow you to see through solid objects, and an automatic healer over time. These techniques require something known as essence, or the essential magical ability that is available.

Also available to the player is something called tech. These are special power ups that can also drain essence, and on occasion health. These objects range from a Tree of Life, which acts as a healing post for all players, friend or enemy, to a Summon feature that summons a demonic creature to fight on your behalf. Like magika and weapons, these features require purchase before every round.

The non fantasy aspects of this FPS are of course, the shooting weapons. Everything an FPS player is familiar with is here: shotgun, rocket launcher, SMG, etc. Among other things, sniper rifles also make their mark in the game. Each gun requires money before each round, and ammo is extra in-between rounds. It should be noted that weapon’s accuracy decreases while reloading and using any sort of glide magika, adding that bit of strategy into the game.

The other bit of strategy is the introduction of classes. As it is a fantasy game, humans, trolls, elves, and dwarves all fight together as a cohesive unit. Humans are the basic unit, mediocre in essentially everything. Trolls are huge but slow, with heavy artillery to take out any on comers. Elves are faster but understandably weaker, and also have a higher magika capability and naturally carry the katana. Dwarves are slower, but achieve the powers to steal magika from the other players. Each of these are designed to work as a unit, so some strategy in between teammates would be beneficial in winning the match.

Now, I’m moving on to the reason that this game is only 15 dollars, and isn’t even offered new on the website anymore. The number one issue is the fact that the game is solely online. The only ‘campaign’ are the training levels that teach you about the different classes, magika, and tech abilities. Past that, single player does not exist. Everything is online, making those players without Live seriously lacking, and those with a shotty internet connection or modem serious disadvantages.

The next part concerns the multiplayer itself. Personally, I notice my entire friends list playing COD 4 and 5, or else wise Halo 3, and I know it’s not for the replay value on the campaign. Nearly every member is playing the online multiplayer. Their replay value is great, hoping for the player’s favorite map or favorite game type. I was looking forward to that in Shadowrun. Once again, I was severely disappointed. The only game type is a Capture The Flag type game, one flag, none the less. It takes place on a single map, so everyone involved knows every nook and cranny available to hide in, snipe in, or take a restroom break in. The fact is, a new player gets destroyed nearly every time , for those who have been playing a long time. Shadowrun takes a long time to learn to play effectively, and new players are hardly given a chance. What I was impressed with was the matchup time. I expected an old game to take forever to get me into a laggy match, so I went to get a snack while it found me a match. I hadn’t even gotten to my bedroom door, and I was already loading into my first game. Ridiculously fast, even compared to the COD games.

Quite frankly, the achievements in this game are hard. Obviously, as an online game, it requires a lot of matches and a lot of opponents to even acquire a 5gs achievement. Also, in the game, there is a lot of cross platform emphasis, since the game is compatible on Vista and Xbox 360. This adds an extra difficulty to acquiring the achievements, considering the amount of Vista players is considerably smaller than those on the 360 version. The achievements are doable, if the player has hours and hours to devote to the very monotone game. Achievement Difficulty 8/10

The game was worth the fifteen dollars. But then again, so was the Taco Bell I had for dinner a week ago. For Fantasy players, this game is a goldmine in a plastic case, with every element the player could ask for. For those of us used to playing the blockbuster games, Shadowrun falls miserably short, unfortunately for those of us who hoped for a good ending. Game Rating 5/10

Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt Combo Cartridge

So I have an Xbox 360 hooked up, and a Wii next to it. I have high tech gadgetry all over this place I call a bedroom, yet for some reason I find myself drawn to the oversized box that I need to blow on just to make it work half of the time. Of course, I am talking about my NES, and the oversized cartridges that accompany it. Seriously, this is the same console my parents played on that I found boxed up in my basement, and I’ve been in love ever since.

And what, exactly, would a console be without its ‘franchise’ game? The original Xbox has Halo, the PS2 had Final Fantasy, and what exactly would the PS3 be without Metal Gear Solid 4? Nintendo had one of those games too; it’s called Super Mario bros. Of course, being the consumer friendly publisher it is, Nintendo included on the cartridge the cult game that is Duck Hunter. Oh yes, I did just say cartridge, God bless the 80’s. Let’s start with the namesake, shall we.

Super Mario Bros is quite possibly the most landmark game in video game history, excluding possibly Pong on the Atari. (Watch for a possible review later). I personally enjoy drawing comparisons from it to the Beatles: the best of their class not because of talent of ingenuity, but simply because of the revolution they caused. Every kid has played Super Mario Bros, and if they haven’t, they live in a cave or with an over protective mother, either way. But to the review!

Super Mario is a quite simple game, expected since it came out for the NES. A majority of the game involves walking in a straight line, avoiding enemies and hitting little boxes with the character’s head to get coins, power ups, or extra life. The way to die is easy: walk into an enemy, or his weapon (i.e., fireballs and boomerangs) Most of the game is spent collecting coins, when 100 of them have been collected, a new life is added. Power ups such as a growth spurt and fireballs are also available, which also gives the player some sort of force field, so when he or she gets hit, he or she only loses the power up instead of a life.

The main quest is simple: find and save the princess from the evil turtle that is holding her hostage. The game takes place in various stages, avoiding enemies, and at the end of each set of stages is a castle level. These levels are dark and especially dangerous, but Mario insists on going to find the princess, yet at the end of the castle, it turns out the princess is hiding in another castle. Mario then proceeds to travel to another world and repeats the same steps, until he gets to World Eight. At this point, a ridiculously hard castle level is unlocked, and if the player somehow managed to store up enough lives to get past the boss, the princess will be saved.

The game however, is surprisingly more than a linear progression. In the early levels, traveling down a seemingly dangerous pipe (where the Venus Fly Traps live) may yield the player an unexpected pile of coins. Hitting a brick or box that seems to just be scenery may yield a power up or several gold coins. Later in the game, trial and error must be used as separate pipers will transport the player to other parts of the map, while the wrong ones will transport him or her back to the beginning of the level. Much more in depth than most NES games, Mario and his game will keep even hardcore gamers occupied, even in the era of wireless controllers and zombie apocalypses.
Game Difficulty: 9/10.
Game Rating: 10/10. (It’s the Beatles of gaming man)

Now on to the second bit of the game: a slightly less complex Duck Hunter. While seemingly simple, this game is ridiculous fun. Seriously, what other game will allow you to shoot wildly at horribly pixilated ducks while a dog laughs at your misses. It’s almost like hunting, except you’re in a climate controlled environment with a piece of orange plastic. Oh yes, the gun is orange. Now to the review! (again!)

This game is actually pretty advanced for the time it was put out. Admittedly, in a world where microwaves are common and wireless remotes are a household item, shooting a duck on a TV isn’t all that impressive. However, for the NES, the fact that it even had a remote idea what direction you were aiming in is ridiculously amazing. Even in the game menu, shooting away from the screen changes the options, while shooting the screen selects one. Duck Hunter was pure gold for future hair metal rockers ever. Even now, ask someone who is over the age of 12 to name a game for the NES. One out of two will say Duck Hunter, I promise.

The main ‘quest’ of the game finds itself in three forms. You can either play one duck mode, where you shoot at one duck at a time, two duck mode (self explanatory) or disc mode, which is essentially shooting at clay discs, unsurprisingly. In any mode, the play is given three bullets a set of ducks (one duck in the first mode, two in the second). If the player misses all three shots or doesn’t hit the bird soon enough, the duck flies away and the player loses that point. Each round is a set of ten ducks, and a certain score is required to pass the level. In early levels, 6 or 7 ducks out of the ten may make the grade, but later on even missing two will spell out game over. Single duck is pretty simple; I would personally suggest playing two duck mode. It actually can get pretty challenging toward level twenty or so, with the ducks flying around like bullets.

A little known fact about the game is that the game is indeed, multiplayer. In single duck mode only, if a regular controller is inserted into the second player slot, the controller will control the duck. This is a little bit of obvious cheating, for those people who are so low on self esteem that getting to level 50 in Duck Hunt will be monumental. However, Nintendo believes that people are inherently good, and trusts that you won’t cheat. The only other bit of this game that is slightly irritating is the fact that if you don’t shoot anything, your hunting dog laughs at you. For many gamers, this lowers the self-esteem immensely, and makes the player wants to shoot the dog. Unfortunately, Nintendo seems to have foreseen that particular issue, and makes it impossible. Rumor has it, however, that in arcade versions of the game, a special version of the game is unlocked that the dog will indeed die if you put lead into its back.
Difficulty Rating: 8.5/10
Game Rating: 8/10

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Delving once again into the land of much forgotten video games, I am finally catching up with the game of the year recipients of years ago. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was a game of the year a few years back, but its gaming value still holds true today. This review does not include the Shivering Isles or Knights of the Nine expansions, they will come later.

The game is difficult to review without giving away a lot of the plot points, as are more RPG’s, expectedly. To start out with, Oblivion is a single player, open world, RPG game. The game has a few aspects of a hack-n-slash, mainly due to the fact a large majority of the game is based on hacking beasts and other inhuman creatures, generally with an overly large melee weapon.

The main quest of the game involves an emperor, a stolen rite of passage, and a ridiculous amount of little side quests to get said rite of passage back from those who stole it. Most of the game involves fighting the enemy that simultaneously proceeds to attack the mortal world and attempts to defend its own realm of Oblivion in an effort to prevent the main character to obtain the Amulet of Kings to appoint a new emperor to stop the essentially immortal beings from invading the mortal world.

Within the game is about a million and a half side quests, none of which are very important and achieve nothing more than consuming a few hundred hours of game play. A total of five side quests breed achievements, not including the expansion pacts, and the other few hundred are essentially things to keep your character occupied if the player needs to build up its strength for the main quest or another side quest. As an open world game, the main quest can be completely ignored while the main character embarks on the side games, essentially wasting the thirty or so dollars that you spent on the game.

The meat of the game, of course, is the main quest. The essential plot points are simple enough, but with so many small things involved in acquiring the necessary ingredient or fighting the right boss can be tiresome, to say the least. Personally, Oblivion falls right into my preferred genre of games, so I could sit and play for hours to beat through the game in a week or so. Many players today complain about the lack of length in a game’s single player, but Oblivion is nothing of a sort. Even just the main quest takes the average player fifteen to twenty hours to complete, well over the length of the entire Halo series combined. It is easy to express displeasure with the game for its constant plot twists and the ‘I always have to do one more thing’ mentality until the game is finally winding down. Even within the main quest, the game can be shortened if the player manages to complete the game without certain portion.

In the beginning of the game, the player gets to choose his race, his basic characteristics, his physical attributes, his class (warrior, magician, etc) and seven main features to emphasize within training. Most FAQ’s put a high emphasis on this part of the game, claiming it essentially makes the game either easier or harder, and the attributes and armor types should be carefully synchronized for optimum performance. Personally, an all out strength/endurance/agility worked well for me, although it may have made the game less strategic. Many people in this type of scenario enjoy optimizing their magical abilities, since such a wide range exists. However, this takes away from the hack-n-slash nature of the game, which almost ruins it for me.

Basically, this game is impossible to screw up. As long as you keep the main quest as your active quest, the game gives basic instructions and a map indicator, making it pretty simple to follow along. As an open world game, obviously, these objectives don’t have to be completed in any sense of time, and only in vague order. It’s simple enough to get lost, but any character with a torch and a decent capability of using the map will be able to find their way back to their intentions. The biggest issue in the game involves lock picking houses and chests, something not particularly difficult but it gets aggravating when you have to travel all the way back to a main city to buy more lock picks from some black market-esque shady guy standing on the edge of town.

More resilient than any of the enemy factions are the city guards and security forces. In a game where the A button is such a general action button, it is quick easy to mis-aim and accidentally steal something from a store counter instead of talking to the person behind the counter. This generally aggravates the city guard, who proceed to arrest you. The three options at this point are to pay a bounty, go to jail and serve time, or resist arrest. Paying the bounty is always the best idea if you have the gold, but if you don’t, I’d highly suggest just serving your sentence. Your character loses some stats for succumbing, but resisting arrest involves a fight to the death where eight or nine of the guards appear out of nowhere to fight you. Even if you manage to escape the city and ditch the guard, you will not be able to step within that city without being arrested or attacked again. Serving time or paying the bounty completely negates any wrong doing on your part.

So basically, Oblivion is a launch title for the Xbox 360. Most of the achievements are simple, and at least 35% of them are involved in the main quest, if not more. The rest of the achievements fall into the side quests involving the Fighter’s Guild, the Mage’s Guild, the Thieves’ Guild, The Arena, and the Hand of Darkness. Simple quests, essentially, but the achievements are time consuming. Even for casual gamers, this game is easily within the realm of 100% achievements, if the gamer has the time to play.

Achievement Difficulty: 3/10

Overall, the game is engaging and ridiculously addicting. I personally spent 9 hours straight playing, although that may be quite obsessive. A few critics would contend a repetitive game play as far as fighting goes, but the quests are all essentially unique and worth the time to figure out. The hack-n-slash adds a ridiculously naïve side to the game, but one that appeals to every fantasy RPG player since Final Fantasy X. The Game of the Year addition, including the Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine expansions, is down to approximately thirty dollars. For the ridiculous amount of game play, drop the cash and play the game.

Game Rating: 7.5/10

Crackdown

Coming from the only person in the state of Ohio and possibly the world who still plays this game, Crackdown is often given an unfair review, if any at all.

The game sold surprisingly well, but not for the game itself. The reason most gamers have, or at least had, Crackdown sitting on their gaming shelves is for the fact that when first released, the game contained a pass to download the highly anticipated Halo 3 beta, flooding the market with buyers who probably aren’t that interested in sandbox style games anyhow. Despite this particular competition within its own case, Crackdown has been high accredited in its own right by reviewers far more adequate than myself.

The game play is pretty simple. In a short version, you are an agent working for an “Agency”, a small police force attempting to clear out the gang infested streets of their city. Most of the Agency are normal humans, however you as the main character are genetically enhanced, taking more bullets than a firing range target, even when good marksmen are on the course.

The main objective of the game is to clear out the gangs of the city. As you walk, run or jump throughout the city, gang members in groups of two or three attempt to destroy you, however in these small numbers are generally inaffective. If you ignore them; however, the numbers eventually build up into a significant fighting force that stands a decent chance at destroying your agent. These particular assassin’s are essentially endless, and the only way to destroy them is to head off the gang bosses. The game is split into three different districts: The Los Muertos, the Volk and the Shai-Gen, Spanish, Russian and Oriental gangs, respectively. Each section of the city has a certain number of bosses. They need not be taken out in a certain order, but by taking out the lower bossed, it significantly lowers the defenses of the stronger bosses. Once the menial bosses are disposed of and the ‘head’ boss killed, the remaining lower members of the gang group together on a spot marked on your head’s up display; killing these gang members will permanently remove this particular gang from the street. Repeat three times.

The “side-quest” of the game is upping the stats of your Agent. The five stats are Explosives, Firearms, Strength/Melee, Driving and Agility. Gaining ‘experience’ is simple, if you kill a gang member using an explosive, firearm, or physical strength, color coded ‘experience orbs’ are gained from the corpse, slightly elevating your status. As time progresses, this experience goes up to 100, resulting in a star and starting your count over. Four stars are ‘maxed out’. To obtain driving experience, a gang member must either be killed by a vehicle you’re driving, or some sort of special trick or jump performed. “Stunt Markers”, purple circles of light, will also give you driving experience if you can manage to vault yourself through them, as will driving races, which involve driving your vehicle through a course within a certain amount of time. Agility is gained through agility orbs, beams of light scattered in relatively high places around the city, or through foot races, similar to auto races, however they require going over and through buildings as opposed to in the streets. Every star gained gives you more power: your bullets do more damage, you can lift heavier objects, your car’s handling improves and you can jump higher and run faster. Killing civilians or friendly agents will negate some of your experience, to serve as motivation to needlessly kill innocent people.

The only other side quest in the game is finding “hidden orbs”, similar to agility orbs. Other than an achievement gained if all of them are found, each one gives you menial experience in all five categories. This achievement is practically impossible, unless you intend on playing the game for several hundred hours. Another side quest rarely undertaken is impounding all the gangs’ cars for agency use, a long and tedious process because the agency garage is far away from any part of the map.

The gameplay as described is irritating, at best. Towards the begininning of the game, the agent is weak and has horrible weapons, making the game rediculously frustrating on the harder difficulties. Toward the end, with full stats and a rocket launcher, the game becomes easy, but somewhat boring after the bosses are defeated, even if you resurrect the gangs. Being an essentially imortal agent with a homing rocket can only be entertaining for so long, after all. The best portion of the game is certainly the middle, where the bosses are still tough, but not rediculously frustrating. Once the bosses are defeated, the rest of the game consists of finding orbs and trying to win races or impound cars, an easy if not tedious task without a half douzen machine guns shooting into your back.

Gang members are easily dispersed of, but come in packs. If you anger any particular gang, or even the agency due to team killing, to a certain extent, they will send hit squads after you, wave after wave until you kill them all or you die, in which case the anger is reset. I often describe this game as Grand Theft Auto from the cop’s perspective, due to both this varying anger level and the fact you run around killing people and hijacking cars. Hit squads are also sent after any of the gang bosses are killed; however, your character can hide until the anger cools. Many of the gang members travelling in vehicles can easily be stopped by shooting out their tires, or else wise shooting the driver through the windshield. Similarly, members on foot can be shot through the arm, causing them to drop their weapon, or their leg preventing them from running, or through the heart or head, killing them. While shooting them in the leg may be fun, watching them suffer and wiggle on the ground can become boring after an extended period of time.

Crackdown does not come with in-console multiplayer, but it is achievable through system link or Xbox Live. System link seems like an outdated tendancy to this point, thanks to Xbox Live.  However, Live is sketchy, and the game will often be dropped. Crackdown is not particularly designed for online play, and nothing is worth it, save for a few co-op achievements that can quickly be gained if you have a friend who will suffer through the lags and the game severing with you. This game is better played by oneself on a rainy day, or else wise when his Call of Duty has been taken away.

The achievements range from very easy to very hard, but most gamers  will be able to acquire 500+ gamerscore from it, a decent amount considering the length of the game. Dedicated gamers will be able to acquire much more, with the patience to find all the orbs or commandeer all the gangs vehicles. Achievement Difficulty: 6/10

This game is down to fifteen dollars used, thanks to the game coming out over a year ago. It’s worth it to pick up and play, obtain an easy gamerscore boost and blast the hell out of genetically inferior gang members. If you’re only interested in straight game play, just rent it. Three days at the maximum to beat, but much longer if you want to play in-depth.

Score: 7/10

Condemned 2: Blood Shot

What in the Hell was that? Where in the Hell did that come from? These are a couple of questions you will probably be asking yourself throughout the course of your Condemned 2 experience. Condemned 2 does a great job at keeping you on the edge of your seat.

Your story starts out about 1 year from where the first one left off. The insane events of the first Condemned have led your main character Ethan Thomas to become an alcoholic. This arouses one main question, is what I’m seeing here the result of some supernatural event or a result of Ethan’s raging alcohol problem? Half of the fun is guessing.

Ethan is a vital part of the local police and detective force though he isn’t treated like royalty. Quite the opposite actually. This lack of respect will lead to some controversy between you and your teammates. I won’t give too much away so keep playing to see how this plays out among many other things.

Now for the question of Condemned 2’s gamplay compared to the first Condemned. The melee system in Condemned which basically defines the entire game feels much stronger in the second one. They have added a combo system and an environmental kill system which you are going to have to experience on your own. You have similar weapons in both of these; however, the guns play a much bigger part in Condemned 2. You are basically forced to use the guns, especially when you approach 4-5 enemies who all have guns.

On the topic of graphics, Condemned 2 really offers a lot. If you take the time to stop and look at your surroundings and your weapons you will notice the great detail put into every little piece. You don’t have to play Condemned 2 on a 72″ 1080p plasma screen T.V. to enjoy all Condemned has to offer graphically. I am very well convinced that you don’t even need a television at all to enjoy Condemned’s gameplay. So if you have a 360 or PS3 and you love being scared (by the way this game tends to be scary as hell) then you must pick up a copy of Condemned 2: Blood Shot.       Score 8/10