GameSpotting!

Battlefield: Bad Company is Good Company, a review

Posted on August 27th, 2008 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, PS3, Review, Xbox360.

Welcome to Bad Company, Soldier!

Soldier? More like cannon fodder. The 222nd, Bad Company, is the “expendable” portion of the military made up of the leftovers and troublemakers that the Army bunches together rather than throw them into prison. It has the highest mortality rate of the whole army.

Which explains why the the division is only made up of three rejects (You [Preston Marlowe], Haggard, Sweetwater) and a Sergeant (Redford) who rather go fishing. The game opens with some wisecrack jokes and some great humor (a reoccurring theme in this game). After you are introduced to everyone, you hop on a truck and ride off to your next position. Redford proceeds to tell you everyone’s backstories. Haggard, the not so bright demolition expert, got transferred to B-Company because he blew up an army ammo cache and the officer’s latrine, Sweetwater was “promoted” to the position because he uploaded a virus into the military’s secure network and Redford was transferred when he made a deal with the army to have his term shortened in turn of leading B-Company.

So you’re driving down the road, with a helicopter that flies over you head going the opposite direction and Sweetwater starts to get tense. Suddenly, the whole area gets bombarded, and DICE gives you a first look at the explosive power of the Frostbite engine, which allows 90% of the terrain to be destructible.

And then you die. Game over. I rate this game, a 5/5!

Oh wait, you aren’t dead. Just sleeping/fainted. The game takes this opportunity to teach you the basics as a series of “Are you okay? Look up. Look Down. Shoot those Barrels. Bounce Around. Duck. Make me a sandwich.” Maybe that last one was improvised.

What’s Single Player really like?

Well, to put it in one word, fun. This game makes sure you have a good time playing it. The humor fits the situation and rarely feels forced. The game wants you to blow stuff up. Make a mess, they don’t care, they will probably be dead anyways. Run in, guns blazing, blow up everything. While the list of levels are short, they are very large and free roaming. And the game gives you a list of collectibles (guns) and gold bars, which are like the Halo 3 skulls. Everyone is getting tired of the army, until they find their first gold bar.

“Wars are fought for a number of reasons, and sometimes, if the one they gave you isn’t good enough, you might need to find your own”

From there on, we pretty much carry out A-Team style in the most bad ass way. The game doesn’t require you to find your own medic in single player, nor does it require you to heal your teammates (who are invincible). Enemy AI is decent, player AI is pretty strong, but unless I missed something, I haven’t really found them actually killing the other guys (normally I do it before they can).

I think my favorite parts of Single Player was blowing stuff up, the locations, the characters, and the dialog. The story was great, too, but DICE gave away some of it already during their advertising. So you can pretty much figure out what happens up until you get the first gold bar.

How’s Multiplayer?

Out of the box, there is only one multiplayer gametype, Gold Rush. Gold Rush is like one flag CTF with two teams; Attackers and Defenders. Attackers have limited respawns and can get more by destroying gold crates by either arming a crate or just shooting at it. The Defenders have to protect the crates by taking out the Attackers and defusing the bombs placed on the crates. If the all the crates are destroyed the Attackers win, if the attackers respawn bar is completely depleted, the Defenders win.

DICE recently released a Conquest mode, which I’m not a huge fan of. Basically, get more CPs than the other team to win.

All your stats are available online, with the exception of how much more EXP it takes until you rank up. As you rank up, you receive credits which you can buy new guns with.

“Now that’s what I call an explosion!”

The graphics in this game are great, they are very detailed, from far away and up close. The music fits perfectly with this game. It doesn’t suddenly break out into techno while you are trying to sneak into a base or something. Explosions are really explosions, not some crappy blast. If you want boom, they got it. The multiplayer maps are very nice and open with quite a few places for cover. It’s fun.

“It’s like a real live palace. It’s like uh..uh…”

But it’s not all perfect. The game has a few bugs that look better in a list.

• Snapshot system is broken
• Sometimes, you can end up running up stairs and right through the wall.
• When jumping up terrain, you can lag between when you pressed the button and when your guy jumps
• You can get killed by nothing
• When you drive a vehicle and get out, sometimes you get out right in front of it. And if you were driving fast, you will die.
• Some objects will be magically floating
• When you want to play on a specific map, the game often chooses a different one
• Sometimes, teammates won’t show up as friendly until after you shoot them.
• Friends very rarely end up in the same squad or team

Multiplayer on some maps can be annoying. One of the Gold Rush maps, Harvest Day features infinitely respawning tanks that respawn instantly. It’s annoying if you are defending as very few people play as demo man. Also, there is very very very little splash damage to the point you would think there isn’t any at all. Respawns take forever in multiplayer.

All in all, you would game is pretty much standard from any other military combat game, right? Wrong. This ain’t a serious military shooter, but that doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy this game.

If you are thinking about purchasing the game, you might want to rent the game first or maybe play the demo. I rate it a 4.5/5.

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Downtime

Posted on February 4th, 2008 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, Site.

Gamespotting.net is currently transferring domain registrars, so expect some downtime soon. This is also the reason the blog hasn’t been updated recently.

Sorry. Once the domain is back, posts will start showing up again.

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New backgrounds!

Posted on January 13th, 2008 by MASA.
Categories: Site.

I have just uploaded some new backgrounds that I created from wallpapers I made. They replace some old backgrounds that really don’t fit the site anymore. Some of them are kind of expanded to fit, and due to size restraints to keep the site quick to load. I might make a portal one soon. That should be neat.

Currently, we have:

1. Sonic
2. Legend of Zelda (just Link from Twilight Princess)
3. Samus (from Metroid for the Gameboy, to Metroid 2, to Hunters, to Prime)
4. Halo 3 tribute called Do you Believe?
5. Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass

Read More for Download Link

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GameSpotting!’s 2007: A Year in Review

Posted on December 31st, 2007 by Wailord.
Categories: Best of 2007, Gaming, Site.

Starting at 1:30PMPST/4:30PMEST, the editors of GameSpotting!, both me, ddawn and MASA, will begin to countdown the top ten games of this year. Every 30 minutes will give a new game, starting with #10, and the #1 game will be revealed at 6:30PST/9:30EST.

2007 was one of the greatest years EVER for gaming- it won’t be an easy thing to rate them, and to snub some. Anyway, we kick off in 20 minutes, and I hope you all enjoy this. Feel free to speculate…

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Have a Happy New Year!

Posted on December 27th, 2007 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, Site.

Hey, it’s almost 2008! Woohoo! 2007 has been a great year, loads of new games, many of them were stars of the gaming universe. It’s been great having you guys, and we will see you next year.

Our gift to year during these last few days of the year, we are giving out 4 2-day Xbox Live Gold codes. In other words, this is our last prize post on GameSpotting! You know the drill. Tell us your favorite game of 2007, and if you are one of the first four, you will have the fabulous prize.

All codes have been given out! But feel free to post your favorite game anyways.

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Super Mario Galaxy Review

Posted on December 27th, 2007 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, Review, Wii.

One game I got recently was Super Mario Galaxy, a spiritual successor to Super Mario 64. While Nintendo doesn’t actively say that it is a spiritual successor, it sure does feel like one. While it did release in November, I was unable to review it due to mass amounts of work. So I will review it now.

The game starts out with the usual story of Mario getting a letter from…you guessed it, Princess Bowser Peach. And, of course, Mario has to go meet the Princess at the castle. Upon entering Toad Town, Bowser attacks everything. Same old, same old there. Much later, Bowser finally kidnaps Peach and Mario goes flying. Then comes the basic training that you go through (however, I thought it was apart of some messed up storyline). And afterwards, you come in contact with this big flying castle ship with this Wizard lady who looks almost exactly like Peach.

So now you are on this ship, which needs power from these Power Stars, to light up a section called an Observatory. Each Observatory is made up of several Galaxies, many contain at least 3 regular stars (and the occasional bonus star). Once the whole ship is lit, you will fly to the center of the Galaxy to save Princess Peach.

Most of the controls are spectacular, I really like how the game utilizes motion, shaking the WiiMote makes you do spins. It also allows you to use the Mote at the same time to pick up these StarBits, which was a bit awkward at first but got easier to control over time. The levels and graphics are outstanding, and really really take advantage of the Wii’s power (and limitations). The music and sounds are well done. The levels are fun and not easy to get lost in (something that happened to me a lot in Super Mario 64).

However, I am disappointed with the camera and its controls. The camera is really annoying in Galaxy. Especially when you are underneath a platform (yes, you can walk underneath most things), or walk on a spherical surface. The camera moves to a really awkward angle and the controls respond to those odd angles. So moving forward may make you go right or left or diagonal. That’s really annoying. Especially since it’s never consistent, so you can’t guess where what the control stick is going to take you. Sometimes you can and sometimes you can’t control the camera. Just something I found annoying. In less then two hours I was about 3/4th’s through the game. This is with most bonuses (missing two of them) and almost all stars collected from all the available galaxies (I am currently at the Bedroom Observatory). I haven’t finished the game, but I will be soon.

And now to the ratings:

Sound: 9.7 - The music and sound was great in Super Mario Galaxy, but sometimes I very very rarely noticed it was there.

Graphics: 10 - While they aren’t the most realistic anyone has ever seen, you have to give credit due to the fact it’s on the Wii. The graphics in this game are awesome. Very nicely done.

Difficulty: 8.4 - Few levels are very difficult, if you know what you are doing, you can blaze through a whole Observatory in about 20 minutes with one or no lives lost.

Story: 9.2 - While it’s still the same old, same old, Super Mario Galaxy contains lots of new story elements to keep things interesting.

Controls: 7.8 - The camera controls really hurt this section. I hate the fact that the camera will turn awkwardly and change how Mario reacts controls at random. Can we keep it consistent, please?

Overall Score: 9.7 - Overall, Super Mario Galaxy is a pretty solid game. It’s fun and enjoyable at the same time.

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New Contributing Editor: Dddawn

Posted on December 2nd, 2007 by MASA.
Categories: Site.

Recently, there were a few posts by the author, Dddawn. To clear up things, Dddawn is our new contributing editor to gamespotting.net. We welcome her to the GameSpotting! site and hope she will stay for awhile. Be on the look out for more posts by her in the future.

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Undertow Review

Posted on November 22nd, 2007 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, Review, Xbox360.

Recently, you may have seen advertisements on the Xbox Dashboard about a game called Undertow. I normally download a lot of Live Arcade games to see if any are really good, as most of them are really boring and/or not fun at all. Undertow is one of the rarities in the XBLA, as it went over my expectations.

The game itself starts with a quote from a book talking about how humans can now live underwater. Thoughts of Rapture (BioShock) came to mind immediately. You play as an underwater town’s defenders as threats from pirates often occur. When the cinematic starts, you are fixing a leak with another guy talking about the pirate attacks when suddenly, you get attacked. What a coincidence!

You are then put into a battle where have to swim around underwater and blast people with a laser harpoon gun (different classes have different guns [I like the marine the best because I can swim fast and take out enemies really quickly]) and use Depth Charge (which is like a bomb) to survive. Battles are against the blue team (defenders), and against yellowish orange team (pirates). Undertow requires you to take control points (command posts), which you do by swimming in the area and taking out any near by bad guys. To fire you use the second control stick just like you do in Geometry Wars. You can turbo boost, which you can master for quick kills in awesome ways. The controls are easy to get used to and are pretty simplistic.

In graphics this game rules! Undertow is based on Unreal technology, I assume for the awesome water and lighting effects. Chair Entertainment (the company who made Undertow), did an awesome job on the level of detail for graphics. You really need to see them to believe it. Ripple effects, explosions, bubbles, etc. They are all nicely done. However, no one’s mouth moves when they talk. Something odd and extremely noticeable despite some shadow that is portrayed on the debriefer’s face (he is only your debriefer in the first few levels).

The biggest downside is it’s length, but being an Xbox Live Arcade game, it is okay, if it was not an Arcade game, this would be a problem. The story only lasts about 3 Acts, with each act having about 5 missions (2 of those missions are boss battles). However, this is an Xbox Live Arcade game so 15 levels is a good amount for a story mode. Thankfully Chair put in extra modes into Undertow, like a Co-Op campaign mode, as well as a Versus mode which allows you to duke it out underwater with the AI. The multiplayer includes 9 maps for up to 16 players. So, Chair makes up for the story length in the end.

And now to the ratings:

Sound: 9.0 - The sound quality was excellent and they did a great job with water noises. But the base being captured sound is played way too often.

Graphics: 9.4 - Well done. The water effects in themselves really bolster up this number, as well as the differences in bases and such. Just over all, greatness for an Xbox Live Arcade Game. However, the actors have to have their mouths move to talk. And the debriefer has a silly animation that causes him to wobble every now and then.

Difficulty: 9.6 - The difficulty is pretty good, Undertow covers many different difficulties, from Casual (like easy mode or people who play to relax), Normal, and Ultra (like super hard for people who have mastered this game). The changes in difficulty are easy to notice, enemies get smarter and will attempt actively to strike in groups for CP’s and try to get as many as they can. I mainly played Casual and Normal mode.

Story: 7.7 - Originally it does a very poor job introducing who you are as during the clip scenes, you are black but when you play in battles you are blue. The story is pretty interesting and makes you want to learn more. It does a okay job of drawing you in. It’s really hard to follow at times due to what seems to be the use of the same voice actor as the player (the player plays different characters).

Controls: 9.3 - The controls are easy to learn and master. However shooting can get a bit awkward at times with some of the slow to fire classes. I would also fix the character switching system. To switch you have to press A, but no menu or list of classes you can switch to (press a direction button to choose) isn’t very helpful.

Playback: 9.6 - The playback of the game is great, due to the fact the enemies don’t have a scripted fighting system, they seem to learn and battles are different each time you play.

Overall: 9.4 - This is a great game and I would suggest it to pretty much anyone. A must have!

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Brawl Custom Maps!

Posted on October 30th, 2007 by MASA.
Categories: Gaming, SSBB, Site, Wii.

Yesterday, Nintendo announced that players will be able to create their own maps for Super Smash Bros Brawl. Yep, that’s right. Custom Maps. That’s pretty sweet. You will be able to create your own maps, with music and custom backgrounds, etc. When you are done, you can play it yourself and save it or upload it to Nintendo to be featured some day.

Nintendo is also experimenting with the idea of having the daily custom map that will be able to be downloaded onto your machine. Awesome, eh? They have yet to really work out the details whether it will be a one time download for only one day and then it will go away, or start saving each day onto your Wii. We hope to hear more as this develops.

On a side note, sorry for the really long time between postings. I have been busy for the last few weeks and things are winding down for awhile.

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BioShock Review

Posted on August 21st, 2007 by Wailord.
Categories: Gaming, PC, Review, Xbox360.

If you’ve played the demo, the opening sequence is identical, as is the story: it’s 1960, and you (Jack Fontaine- how do you not remember your own name?) are on a plane over the mid-Atlantic for a reason only you would know. For some reason, the plane crashes, and your lucky self doesn’t explode, but nearly drowns. In an effort to live, you find a lighthouse, which is all too convenient. You swim over to it and enter a Bathysphere, and pull a lever…probably not the smartest thing you’ve ever done: welcome to Rapture.
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GameSpotting! Giveaways

Posted on August 11th, 2007 by Wailord.
Categories: Gaming, Site, Xbox360.

We here at GameSpotting! love free stuff. So, we present to you a new GameSpotting! promotion- the first three to comment on a marked story get a two-day pass to Xbox Live Gold, absolutely free.

We don’t want a totally random “oh that’s cool” or some one worded comment like, “cool” or “wut”, but along the lines of, “I can’t wait for Corruption! It’s gonna rock!”. We have plenty of these to give away, so any post with the Giveaway Badge (the orange badge you see at the beginning of this post) is eligible- see a post with the badge, comment on the story, get a two-day pass to Xbox Live Gold. Once all the codes have been given out for a particular post, the badge will be removed from that post (the exception is this post). It’s that simple! We’ll kick it off with this post.

If you are looking to get more codes, check the home page of GameSpotting! often, as we have prize posts frequently.

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