A Sith Reviews: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
Welcome to mercenary hiring class; now to the most important lesson, the rules of hiring a mercenary. Rule number one; always pay these one-man murder machines. Rule two, if you want to double-cross them, do it before they can figure your plan out. The final rule is, never injure said mercenary, and then let him live by failing to chase him down when he runs. Now that you know the rules do you: A) Let him kill hundreds of armed men, rescue your colonel, and then shoot him in the ass, but allow him to flee, B) Kill the mercenary the moment he arrives at the villa after completing the retrieval mission, or C) Pay him and add an asset to your organization? Logically if you want to live, you choose option C, but then I suppose this means your employer did not want to live; he chose option A. Thus, we begin Pandemic Studios' 2008 release: Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.
Once your employer Salono has betrayed you, your journey for vengeance begins. While killing hundreds of armed men at a glance is your business, you need help to get close to Salono and kill him. In Venezuela, many factions can aid you, for a price. Every faction has a level of hostility that fluctuates based on your actions. Doing missions for these factions will lower hostility and raise friendliness, while killing members of the faction and stealing their supplies result in less positive results. Money is another way to increase a faction’s love for you, but it is expensive. The main set of missions for each faction is to go take back an outpost from Salono's men. Once you have completed the takeover by force you gain a new landing zone, more oil capacity, and often times more resources. Taking outposts is usually quick and nets massive rewards, but to complete the mission you must call a strike team for the faction, these AI soldiers will run into the building to do the actual capturing. While this is an innovative way to mix using AI and you just rampaging through, it can suffer from the AI's lack of common sense or focus on the objective. Another optional assignment from each faction is to track down and either capture or kill other factions high value targets, or HVT's. Though HVT capturing will cause riffs with one faction, it will unlock more things to buy from other factions. Thus choosing who to attack and who to let live becomes important later on.
To capture an outpost, for the most part, everyone stationed there needs to die, and that is most certainly your bit of expertise. Employing a run and gun feel in a third person shooter is nothing new, but Mercenaries 2 does it well. Shooting is semi-accurate, easy to use, with quick reloading and manual aim, which all build together to make killing feel rewarding. With enemies having moderate amounts of health and dying with a single head shot, the system rewards you for taking the time to aim. Along with the shooting mechanic, the controls overall are tight. Driving, boating, flying, and running are highly responsive, without glitches or small breaks. While mechanics in Mercenaries 2 are sound, what shines is immersion and making you feel badass like your character. With features such as melee taking out multiple people at once, hijacking tanks, cars, and even planes in mid air. Hijacking becomes repetitive due to the action just being a sequence of quick time events. While some of these features break the illusion of realism, they fit in perfectly with the feel of the game
While you use shooting and hijacking to kill many people, nothing will lead to more deaths here than your old pal, the air strike. Airstrikes are one of the main draws, as they are visually devastating, leaving nothing, but lurid collapsed buildings in its wake. With every building in the game it would seem being destructible, there are hours of fun just leveling a town with air raids. Munitions in Venezuela seem to be rather unimportant as you will find piles of airstrikes, artillery strikes, and bombing runs laying all over the place; which your helicopter pilot can pick up once you have recruited him. While you are a killing machine, you are still only one man. During the course of the story, you will recruit several people to help in your attempt to kill Salono and earn lots of money. You start with Fiona; she is the head of operations at your base and gives missions and advice on how best to track Salono. You recruit your helicopter pilot, Ewan the Irishmen, during a mission for an early faction. Eva is your mechanic who gives you access to the grapple ability, allowing you to hijack planes and helicopters in mid air. The final member of your team is Mesha, a drunkard who fly jets and facilitates any bombing run or airstrike you ask. While all of these teammates add a lot in their own way they all have the same flaw, they speak the same few lines of dialog repeatedly.
While dialog is far over used and becomes grating it is nothing to the overall effect of repetition the game presents. Every mission is alike to one you finished not five minutes ago and there are many factions to appease to by doing these same missions. While this is a sandbox game and therefore the pacing takes a back seat, the story goes on for way too long. Once you think you have beaten all that needs beating you get the nice surprise of two more factions to appease to get access to a needed weapon. More than just the missions being repetitive and the story pacing slowly, the worst part of it is that it takes a good seven hours, depending on the order you do the missions in, to get a jet pilot! Without a jet pilot, you get virtually no airstrikes, which is a shining star for the game.
With loads of weapons and vehicles to kill people, Mercenaries 2 is fun, pure chaotic murderous fun. While there are issues and the biggest one being repetition the game is a decent game. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is worth a rent without question and if you can find it in a bargain bin you should grab it without hesitation.
Once your employer Salono has betrayed you, your journey for vengeance begins. While killing hundreds of armed men at a glance is your business, you need help to get close to Salono and kill him. In Venezuela, many factions can aid you, for a price. Every faction has a level of hostility that fluctuates based on your actions. Doing missions for these factions will lower hostility and raise friendliness, while killing members of the faction and stealing their supplies result in less positive results. Money is another way to increase a faction’s love for you, but it is expensive. The main set of missions for each faction is to go take back an outpost from Salono's men. Once you have completed the takeover by force you gain a new landing zone, more oil capacity, and often times more resources. Taking outposts is usually quick and nets massive rewards, but to complete the mission you must call a strike team for the faction, these AI soldiers will run into the building to do the actual capturing. While this is an innovative way to mix using AI and you just rampaging through, it can suffer from the AI's lack of common sense or focus on the objective. Another optional assignment from each faction is to track down and either capture or kill other factions high value targets, or HVT's. Though HVT capturing will cause riffs with one faction, it will unlock more things to buy from other factions. Thus choosing who to attack and who to let live becomes important later on.
To capture an outpost, for the most part, everyone stationed there needs to die, and that is most certainly your bit of expertise. Employing a run and gun feel in a third person shooter is nothing new, but Mercenaries 2 does it well. Shooting is semi-accurate, easy to use, with quick reloading and manual aim, which all build together to make killing feel rewarding. With enemies having moderate amounts of health and dying with a single head shot, the system rewards you for taking the time to aim. Along with the shooting mechanic, the controls overall are tight. Driving, boating, flying, and running are highly responsive, without glitches or small breaks. While mechanics in Mercenaries 2 are sound, what shines is immersion and making you feel badass like your character. With features such as melee taking out multiple people at once, hijacking tanks, cars, and even planes in mid air. Hijacking becomes repetitive due to the action just being a sequence of quick time events. While some of these features break the illusion of realism, they fit in perfectly with the feel of the game
While you use shooting and hijacking to kill many people, nothing will lead to more deaths here than your old pal, the air strike. Airstrikes are one of the main draws, as they are visually devastating, leaving nothing, but lurid collapsed buildings in its wake. With every building in the game it would seem being destructible, there are hours of fun just leveling a town with air raids. Munitions in Venezuela seem to be rather unimportant as you will find piles of airstrikes, artillery strikes, and bombing runs laying all over the place; which your helicopter pilot can pick up once you have recruited him. While you are a killing machine, you are still only one man. During the course of the story, you will recruit several people to help in your attempt to kill Salono and earn lots of money. You start with Fiona; she is the head of operations at your base and gives missions and advice on how best to track Salono. You recruit your helicopter pilot, Ewan the Irishmen, during a mission for an early faction. Eva is your mechanic who gives you access to the grapple ability, allowing you to hijack planes and helicopters in mid air. The final member of your team is Mesha, a drunkard who fly jets and facilitates any bombing run or airstrike you ask. While all of these teammates add a lot in their own way they all have the same flaw, they speak the same few lines of dialog repeatedly.
While dialog is far over used and becomes grating it is nothing to the overall effect of repetition the game presents. Every mission is alike to one you finished not five minutes ago and there are many factions to appease to by doing these same missions. While this is a sandbox game and therefore the pacing takes a back seat, the story goes on for way too long. Once you think you have beaten all that needs beating you get the nice surprise of two more factions to appease to get access to a needed weapon. More than just the missions being repetitive and the story pacing slowly, the worst part of it is that it takes a good seven hours, depending on the order you do the missions in, to get a jet pilot! Without a jet pilot, you get virtually no airstrikes, which is a shining star for the game.
With loads of weapons and vehicles to kill people, Mercenaries 2 is fun, pure chaotic murderous fun. While there are issues and the biggest one being repetition the game is a decent game. Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is worth a rent without question and if you can find it in a bargain bin you should grab it without hesitation.
A Sith Reviews: NCAA Basketball '10
Every year there is an event that captivates millions and changes the lives of hundreds of college men and women; the National Collegiate Athletic Association's yearly basketball tournament, known as March Madness. Unsurprisingly to coincide with this tradition there has been, for the last 15 years, a new NCAA basketball video game. EA's 2009 edition, NCAA Basketball '10, is the final edition in the series.
The majority of gameplay time goes into building a program making it a dynasty over a 30-year period. During this 30-year period, you choose whether to build from the ground up, or take a well-known program and take them to the next level. The building of your dynasty takes place in a few main places: recruiting, coaching, tournaments, and the actual match-ups. With each season starting with the off-season and the challenge of replacing your exiting seniors, or star player leaving for the NBA draft. The recruiting process is easy and intuitive, with a menu based system, which you select options to attempt to sway the targeted recruit the program. Some of the many ways to do this include sending the recruit an email or having him take a tour of the campus. With each successful choice done, the interest the recruit has in the program increases and will hopefully reach a point where they will accept a scholarship offer to play for you. While this system is easy it balances itself well, the higher caliber the recruit the more reputable or prestigious your program must be to garner any interest from the start. In addition the amount of points available, to spend on recruitment options are limited to create more strategy to the process. Though once you get past recruiting the off season is criminally shallow, while it does flush out how well done recruiting was, it lacks the depth that is needed in this detailed a dynasty simulator.
While recruiting players is a key to success on the court, knowing your play style as a coach is almost more important. During the game a tempo meter shows the current tempo, there are three tempos: up-tempo or quick shots with few set plays, balanced, which combines the quick style of up-tempo and the longer plays of the final tempo, which uses many set plays and is slower, the half court tempo. The importance of this system is that if you play to the tempo you as a coach set your team to before each game you gain a bonus in shooting accuracy and range. This bonus is invaluable when playing with a weaker team, such as one that you may start with.
Although the teams at the inception of your dynasty may be lack luster, they will not lose because of the controls. The game play on the court shares the lime light with the building behind the scenes of the dynasty. With anywhere from 20-40 games in a season there is plenty of basketball to go around, so the controls had better be adequate or the game would fall flat. Unsurprisingly, the game keeps true to college basketball of recent memory, with controls that are fluid and tight allowing for easy passing, shooting, and of course dunking. If there is anywhere the gameplay falters, it would be the broadcasting, while using the legendary Dick Vital and Brad Nessler for one team and the CBS star team of Gus Johnson and Bill Rafferty for the other, the overuse of random one-liners takes a lot away from the game.
What, one might ask, is the point of enduring this grating broadcasting, and playing the regular season? Well two words synonymous with college basketball can sum that up: March Madness. After the regular season and the conference tournaments, depending on how well you did during the season you may go dancing in the hunt for the NCAA title. With a selection show to give, the full experience of seeing which teams were snubbed and what teams earned the coveted one seeds. Leading to six games over the course of three weeks in which competition is tougher and one loss means devastation to the hopes and dreams of your team. This, just means more, with each win you inch closer to the ultimate goal of the year, and with just a few wins both you and your team takes your rightful place in basketball lore.
While the dynasty mode's NCAA tournament is intense and well worth the work of the regular season, if instant gratification is more your style this game conforms to your wills as well. With the tournament mode, you can play any of the many preseason tournaments, including the prestigious NIT preseason tip-off and the Maui invitational tournament. Also the NCAA tournament, selection, and seeding are at your control. With the ability to select what teams get in and what their seed is the match-ups you always wanted are available, which includes historic teams that can be put in the tournament such as the “greatest upset team in history” Western Texas, which upset powerhouse Kentucky. However, the only problem is that all the tournaments are the same thing repeatedly in a different arena with different teams.
While you can match up rivals in the NCAA tournament for fun, there is also a rival challenge mode for those who want more of a challenge in their rival games. This gameplay mode allows you to hit the R3 button and a list of people whose profile has their favorite team as the rival to your favorite. Allowing for quick match-ups against the people, you most want to beat. While these games can go on for a little too long, and your win does not count if the opponent disconnects mid-game can cause some rage, but that is an expectation with any online sports game.
While the game is fun, its biggest flaw is the lack of replay value, or even incentive to playthrough a dynasty. Even though the gameplay is polished, you will not find this game sitting in your Xbox 360 for too long. As a title that will give some entertainment and most certainly scratch that itch for college basketball I recommend NCAA Basketball '10 as a buy, but if you just want a weekend of who would beat who and not want to play a 30 year dynasty it is still good for a rent.
The majority of gameplay time goes into building a program making it a dynasty over a 30-year period. During this 30-year period, you choose whether to build from the ground up, or take a well-known program and take them to the next level. The building of your dynasty takes place in a few main places: recruiting, coaching, tournaments, and the actual match-ups. With each season starting with the off-season and the challenge of replacing your exiting seniors, or star player leaving for the NBA draft. The recruiting process is easy and intuitive, with a menu based system, which you select options to attempt to sway the targeted recruit the program. Some of the many ways to do this include sending the recruit an email or having him take a tour of the campus. With each successful choice done, the interest the recruit has in the program increases and will hopefully reach a point where they will accept a scholarship offer to play for you. While this system is easy it balances itself well, the higher caliber the recruit the more reputable or prestigious your program must be to garner any interest from the start. In addition the amount of points available, to spend on recruitment options are limited to create more strategy to the process. Though once you get past recruiting the off season is criminally shallow, while it does flush out how well done recruiting was, it lacks the depth that is needed in this detailed a dynasty simulator.
While recruiting players is a key to success on the court, knowing your play style as a coach is almost more important. During the game a tempo meter shows the current tempo, there are three tempos: up-tempo or quick shots with few set plays, balanced, which combines the quick style of up-tempo and the longer plays of the final tempo, which uses many set plays and is slower, the half court tempo. The importance of this system is that if you play to the tempo you as a coach set your team to before each game you gain a bonus in shooting accuracy and range. This bonus is invaluable when playing with a weaker team, such as one that you may start with.
Although the teams at the inception of your dynasty may be lack luster, they will not lose because of the controls. The game play on the court shares the lime light with the building behind the scenes of the dynasty. With anywhere from 20-40 games in a season there is plenty of basketball to go around, so the controls had better be adequate or the game would fall flat. Unsurprisingly, the game keeps true to college basketball of recent memory, with controls that are fluid and tight allowing for easy passing, shooting, and of course dunking. If there is anywhere the gameplay falters, it would be the broadcasting, while using the legendary Dick Vital and Brad Nessler for one team and the CBS star team of Gus Johnson and Bill Rafferty for the other, the overuse of random one-liners takes a lot away from the game.
What, one might ask, is the point of enduring this grating broadcasting, and playing the regular season? Well two words synonymous with college basketball can sum that up: March Madness. After the regular season and the conference tournaments, depending on how well you did during the season you may go dancing in the hunt for the NCAA title. With a selection show to give, the full experience of seeing which teams were snubbed and what teams earned the coveted one seeds. Leading to six games over the course of three weeks in which competition is tougher and one loss means devastation to the hopes and dreams of your team. This, just means more, with each win you inch closer to the ultimate goal of the year, and with just a few wins both you and your team takes your rightful place in basketball lore.
While the dynasty mode's NCAA tournament is intense and well worth the work of the regular season, if instant gratification is more your style this game conforms to your wills as well. With the tournament mode, you can play any of the many preseason tournaments, including the prestigious NIT preseason tip-off and the Maui invitational tournament. Also the NCAA tournament, selection, and seeding are at your control. With the ability to select what teams get in and what their seed is the match-ups you always wanted are available, which includes historic teams that can be put in the tournament such as the “greatest upset team in history” Western Texas, which upset powerhouse Kentucky. However, the only problem is that all the tournaments are the same thing repeatedly in a different arena with different teams.
While you can match up rivals in the NCAA tournament for fun, there is also a rival challenge mode for those who want more of a challenge in their rival games. This gameplay mode allows you to hit the R3 button and a list of people whose profile has their favorite team as the rival to your favorite. Allowing for quick match-ups against the people, you most want to beat. While these games can go on for a little too long, and your win does not count if the opponent disconnects mid-game can cause some rage, but that is an expectation with any online sports game.
While the game is fun, its biggest flaw is the lack of replay value, or even incentive to playthrough a dynasty. Even though the gameplay is polished, you will not find this game sitting in your Xbox 360 for too long. As a title that will give some entertainment and most certainly scratch that itch for college basketball I recommend NCAA Basketball '10 as a buy, but if you just want a weekend of who would beat who and not want to play a 30 year dynasty it is still good for a rent.
A Sith Reviews: Bully
School, there is no better place to cause mayhem and act as a site of bedlam. Such is the case in Rockstar Vancouver's Canis Canem Edit, or its American name, Bully. Much controversy has been caused among those opposed to violence in video games, especially due to the T rating by the ESRB, which allows teens access to the game. In line with another Rockstar title that preceded Bully, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, the game was well received by critics and sold exceptionally for a last generation title but faced legislation to have the game banned. Luckily, for gamers most attempts failed and Bully made its way from shelves across the world into homes like mine for playing and enjoyment.
In Bully, you play Jimmy Hopkins, a constant troublemaker. Your mother drops you off at the “prestigious” Bullworth academy while she and her new (6th) husband go on a yearlong cruise. Upon arrival at Bullworth, you encounter the bullies and other cliques, all of which want to beat you to a bloody pulp. Early on, you meet your only friend Gary, who has aspirations of taking over the school with you at his side. Therefore, you must do favors to earn the respect of each clique in an attempt to execute Gary's plan. Through the progression of the plan, the main antagonist reveals himself and your goal for the game drastically changes from conquering the school to destroying your enemy.
While your main antagonist is a constant for most of the game, you face a different clique in each chapter of the story. The story spans an entire school year, and different times of the year occur during different chapters of the story. Chapter 1 is the beginning of the school year in fall, and your main enemies are the bully clique. With every chapter comes a new area that is focused on, with the second chapter focusing on the main part of Bullworth town as you fight the preps. This continues throughout the game and keeps the story fresh as you get a new set of enemies and a new place to explore with each chapter. The chapters are all long enough to feel as though completing one is an accomplishment.
While a new area is unlocked with each chapter, the place where you spend the majority of your time. While you focus on the missions, is the town. Once you complete the first chapter of the story, the town becomes open to explore. In town, several save locations become available through certain quests and events, giving you another bed, and place to save. Also in town are shops to buy weapons, clothes, and gifts for various uses. To pay for these various items you can do odd jobs around town such as working a paper route. The town is only a small portion of the massive sandbox that is playable in Bully; another hot spot is the academy itself. The sandbox feel of the school borrows heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series, as you are free to do as you please, and go wherever your heart desires. A few examples of your freedom are the ability to pick locks, start fights, and participate in races. In addition, where GTA is grown up and has police officers chase you down, in Bully there are prefects and teachers to hunt you down for your shenanigans, although the prefects do have the flaw of being extremely thick and easy to escape. While this sandbox feels much like one I have played in before, it recreates the feeling of a large place to traverse that never feels too big. Overall Bully takes old parts and reuses them in a fresh way that remains fun hours after you realize it is the same old sandbox with a different paint job.
While you have no restrictions in this sandbox, there are still classes to attend. While one might surmise that class would be boring and a waste of time, they would be astoundingly wrong. Classes take the form of a mini game of some sort in which you must be successful to a certain degree to pass the class. Each class you pass gives you an upgrade, gym for example gives you new moves for combat and higher accuracy with weapons. Chemistry class is a quick time event game where upon passing you can then create a new weapon, such as itching powder or stink bombs, at the chemistry set in your dorm. While failing the class has no real drawback except having to do that same challenge over again next time you have that class. The classes rotate to keep them from becoming repetitive; also, they occur at 9 AM for the morning class and 1 PM for evening classes making it easy to build time into your schedule to make class. Where sandbox games often fall flat is not giving incentive to make you want to do things that are not required, here the classes though optional, feel crucial because they help along the way. While one or two of the mini games are dreadful and drag on, such as shop and photography class, the overall enjoyment of class and the bonuses they bring outshine the little tarnish that is present with them.
One major bonus classes give is increased accuracy with weapons such as your slingshot. While the combat system is relatively simplistic, it feels very rewarding and visceral. The controls are simple but precise, square is for punches and other attacks of that variety, triangle grabs enemies to throw them or tackle them to unleash more punishment upon them. The L1 button activates the lock on auto targeting, and R1 throws or shoots whatever weapon you have selected using the R2 and L2 buttons to cycle through your arsenal. The combat is best when performing melee as the attacks look and feel as they should, painful and fun, such as when you tackle someone then beat them. While the weapons and shooting is fun as well, the true enjoyment is experimenting with all the different weapons available. Some of the weapons include stink bombs, slingshots, firecrackers, eggs, itching powder, baseball bats, and wooden paddles. Combat never seems to get old, be it itching powder to a prep or a baseball bat to a jock, it all feels great and is fun to do.
While knocking a prep or two around is great fun, finding them in a fight can be a challenge. The camera tends to swing unhinged too often, causing situations where you cannot see someone who is trying to attack you. Along with the fact that the controls for movements such as running, swimming, and biking all feel loose. While mid fight, running may not be a major issue but throughout the game, these loose controls hamper you. One instance in particular was during a race. My bike swerved causing me to lose. The controls tend to be loose while doing the same things, so after awhile you can start to create the illusion of tightness in the controls as you avoid trouble places and moves, but they are still present causing anger and frustration.
While crashing mid race may lead to a controller being broken, nothing will infuriate more than glitches and save issues. Every once in awhile the game will glitch or freeze, often during a loading screen, which occurs nearly once a minute. One glitch is to become stuck doing the same combat animation until you are knocked out and you cannot defend yourself during this glitch. Another low point is the lack of an auto save feature. With the myriad of glitches and camera issues, death will occur. Or the game will freeze causing hours of game play that was not saved to be erased. While save spots are often available, that does not rectify the fact that glitches happen, and some game play will be lost because of the exclusion of an auto save feature.
Finally, I come to the point where I must balance the good with the bad and give a decision, whether this game is worth your time. While it is by no means perfect and has one or two major flaws, the good parts far outnumber the bad. Most noteworthy though is how the game sticks with you, be it the characters or the outstandingly well-written and humorous missions. I recommend this game as a buy, though it may be older and feel much like a GTA game, it is an experience all its own.
In Bully, you play Jimmy Hopkins, a constant troublemaker. Your mother drops you off at the “prestigious” Bullworth academy while she and her new (6th) husband go on a yearlong cruise. Upon arrival at Bullworth, you encounter the bullies and other cliques, all of which want to beat you to a bloody pulp. Early on, you meet your only friend Gary, who has aspirations of taking over the school with you at his side. Therefore, you must do favors to earn the respect of each clique in an attempt to execute Gary's plan. Through the progression of the plan, the main antagonist reveals himself and your goal for the game drastically changes from conquering the school to destroying your enemy.
While your main antagonist is a constant for most of the game, you face a different clique in each chapter of the story. The story spans an entire school year, and different times of the year occur during different chapters of the story. Chapter 1 is the beginning of the school year in fall, and your main enemies are the bully clique. With every chapter comes a new area that is focused on, with the second chapter focusing on the main part of Bullworth town as you fight the preps. This continues throughout the game and keeps the story fresh as you get a new set of enemies and a new place to explore with each chapter. The chapters are all long enough to feel as though completing one is an accomplishment.
While a new area is unlocked with each chapter, the place where you spend the majority of your time. While you focus on the missions, is the town. Once you complete the first chapter of the story, the town becomes open to explore. In town, several save locations become available through certain quests and events, giving you another bed, and place to save. Also in town are shops to buy weapons, clothes, and gifts for various uses. To pay for these various items you can do odd jobs around town such as working a paper route. The town is only a small portion of the massive sandbox that is playable in Bully; another hot spot is the academy itself. The sandbox feel of the school borrows heavily from the Grand Theft Auto series, as you are free to do as you please, and go wherever your heart desires. A few examples of your freedom are the ability to pick locks, start fights, and participate in races. In addition, where GTA is grown up and has police officers chase you down, in Bully there are prefects and teachers to hunt you down for your shenanigans, although the prefects do have the flaw of being extremely thick and easy to escape. While this sandbox feels much like one I have played in before, it recreates the feeling of a large place to traverse that never feels too big. Overall Bully takes old parts and reuses them in a fresh way that remains fun hours after you realize it is the same old sandbox with a different paint job.
While you have no restrictions in this sandbox, there are still classes to attend. While one might surmise that class would be boring and a waste of time, they would be astoundingly wrong. Classes take the form of a mini game of some sort in which you must be successful to a certain degree to pass the class. Each class you pass gives you an upgrade, gym for example gives you new moves for combat and higher accuracy with weapons. Chemistry class is a quick time event game where upon passing you can then create a new weapon, such as itching powder or stink bombs, at the chemistry set in your dorm. While failing the class has no real drawback except having to do that same challenge over again next time you have that class. The classes rotate to keep them from becoming repetitive; also, they occur at 9 AM for the morning class and 1 PM for evening classes making it easy to build time into your schedule to make class. Where sandbox games often fall flat is not giving incentive to make you want to do things that are not required, here the classes though optional, feel crucial because they help along the way. While one or two of the mini games are dreadful and drag on, such as shop and photography class, the overall enjoyment of class and the bonuses they bring outshine the little tarnish that is present with them.
One major bonus classes give is increased accuracy with weapons such as your slingshot. While the combat system is relatively simplistic, it feels very rewarding and visceral. The controls are simple but precise, square is for punches and other attacks of that variety, triangle grabs enemies to throw them or tackle them to unleash more punishment upon them. The L1 button activates the lock on auto targeting, and R1 throws or shoots whatever weapon you have selected using the R2 and L2 buttons to cycle through your arsenal. The combat is best when performing melee as the attacks look and feel as they should, painful and fun, such as when you tackle someone then beat them. While the weapons and shooting is fun as well, the true enjoyment is experimenting with all the different weapons available. Some of the weapons include stink bombs, slingshots, firecrackers, eggs, itching powder, baseball bats, and wooden paddles. Combat never seems to get old, be it itching powder to a prep or a baseball bat to a jock, it all feels great and is fun to do.
While knocking a prep or two around is great fun, finding them in a fight can be a challenge. The camera tends to swing unhinged too often, causing situations where you cannot see someone who is trying to attack you. Along with the fact that the controls for movements such as running, swimming, and biking all feel loose. While mid fight, running may not be a major issue but throughout the game, these loose controls hamper you. One instance in particular was during a race. My bike swerved causing me to lose. The controls tend to be loose while doing the same things, so after awhile you can start to create the illusion of tightness in the controls as you avoid trouble places and moves, but they are still present causing anger and frustration.
While crashing mid race may lead to a controller being broken, nothing will infuriate more than glitches and save issues. Every once in awhile the game will glitch or freeze, often during a loading screen, which occurs nearly once a minute. One glitch is to become stuck doing the same combat animation until you are knocked out and you cannot defend yourself during this glitch. Another low point is the lack of an auto save feature. With the myriad of glitches and camera issues, death will occur. Or the game will freeze causing hours of game play that was not saved to be erased. While save spots are often available, that does not rectify the fact that glitches happen, and some game play will be lost because of the exclusion of an auto save feature.
Finally, I come to the point where I must balance the good with the bad and give a decision, whether this game is worth your time. While it is by no means perfect and has one or two major flaws, the good parts far outnumber the bad. Most noteworthy though is how the game sticks with you, be it the characters or the outstandingly well-written and humorous missions. I recommend this game as a buy, though it may be older and feel much like a GTA game, it is an experience all its own.
A Sith Reviews: Splinter Cell Conviction
Splinter Cell: Conviction, was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released on the 13th of April 2010 for the Xbox 360. Splinter Cell: Conviction is the sixth game in the Splinter cell game series, based off the books by Tom Clancy. Featuring a mix between stealth and action, this is a reworking of the series that maintains the story from previous Splinter Cell titles.
Stealth has always been indispensable in the Splinter Cell series; Conviction's changes to the visibility meter alter game play immensely from previous titles. The surrounding starts in full color when you are in light and visible to enemies, when you shrink into the shadows and become invisible everything becomes black and white. While it seems as though it would be distracting, after the first few times it becomes almost unnoticeable. The flow of running from cover to the shadows, matched perfectly without misstep, with the change in scenery that gives immersion a boost.
One use of the color change mechanic is that while the screen is colored you risk detection by hostiles. When detected, a silhouette of your last known position appears. Enemies will advance to, attempt to flank, and grenade this silhouette. This becomes a useful and innovative tool in your arsenal. With enemies focusing on the silhouette, it allows you to flank the enemies or retreat into the shadows to plan a stealthy take down. Learning to take advantage of any stealth gaffes or intentional detection by the enemies is essential to survival, especially later in the game.
One key trademark of any Splinter Cell game is climbing and stealthy “death from above” kills. Conviction lives up to its predecessors in this aspect, as death from above feels visceral and looks gorgeous. How much climbing occurs is based on your play style, as most the time climbing is an optional stealth tool. Allowing for quick getaways, stealth kills, and alternative entrances to buildings the climbing is a highly polished feature perfected here.
While climbing has remained intact from past games, the cover system got a complete makeover. Getting into cover from open areas is one button quick and allows diving for cover to feel rewarding and fun. Moving in and out of cover is remarkably fluid and never feels sticky or slow, which highlights your newfound speed. The cover system overall is a successful remodeling and works beautifully, especially for the firefights that will be occurring during your play through.
The shooting takes a major role in this new take on Splinter; you will be doing a lot of it while running from cover to cover, shadow to shadow, and pipe to pipe. The shooting mechanics are standard third person, with a crosshair that reddens when you are on-line to hit your target. Every shot taken causes the crosshair to fluctuate in size due to recoil. Recoil plays a major role in the firefights; you will have to adjust your shot often if you cannot kill your target in one shot. While the system is by no means innovative or reworked, it does function well and is enjoyable to use.
Although the shooting mechanics are standard, one part stands out as innovative, the mark and execute system. This system allows you to mark any enemy you can see, then, if the target is in range, you headshot and kill them at the press of a button. Depending on weapon choice you can target anywhere from two to a maximum of four people at once. While the instant kills do feel somewhat cheap, the system is balanced. Weapon strength restricts the amount of marks you have and the need to perform a hand-to-hand kill before being able to execute targets keeps the system balanced. While the system is original, it does have one small kink. If you mark someone and go to execute them, they can walk behind something solid, such as a wall, and they still die. This is more of a glitch then a complaint against the system. Overall, the system works well, is balanced, innovative, and fluid in combat.
In order to enjoy the mark and execute feature a hand-to-hand kill is necessary. While these kills are graphically pleasing they do not require much skill, they occur by simply hitting the B button. The system works as an effortless way to take down an enemy silently. Those who enjoy stealth rather than attempting more firefights will use these more often. Using this is a bonus since you kill them silently and can kill several enemies with mark and execute from the shadows. The kills are interesting and while the system is a little... shallow, it never ceases to be enjoyable.
With combat and stealth remaining at high levels of quality, another major improvement for Conviction is story. You play as Sam Fisher in his quest to find out who is responsible for the death of his daughter Sarah, who died while Sam was off on mission. Sam formerly worked for a secret network of spies known as third echelon. The game commences in a cafe where Sam receives a call on a mystery phone by a former contact of his, Grim. Throughout Grim is the person driving you to your goals and eventually revealing a secret that will leave you shaking if you have known the former games.
Your former Iraq squad mate and only real ally, Vic, narrates the story from an interrogation cell, this makes the transitions from mission to mission simple and enjoyable. The pacing of the missions is good, never allowing the narrative to drag along. While doing the “standard save the world from destruction” part to the narrative something odd happens, you begin to feel for Sam. Many points and twists in the plot lead you to feel for Sam and, unlike in many titles that try this, it works.
Often Sam's true colors shine through, showing what he is willing to do in order to find his daughter's killers. After an unexpected twist, which will hit home especially well for fans of the series, you are told something that changes the entire story. The revealing of this secret enrages Sam, and he is forced to escape as parts of building are raining down from around him. Where this shows the development of the character is that you gain unlimited mark and executes for the escape, in his anger he just one shot kills everyone he sees, the antithesis of what Sam normally does.
The whole story is good and gets the job done, where it shines is the final few missions. Difficulty curves, especially of late, do not work as they should, you get stronger as the enemies get harder to kill. In Conviction, the last few missions are some of the hardest missions I have played in Splinter Cell games, with a myriad of firefights and stealth required to get past each hallway. In addition, the use of flash forward throughout the game leads to a twist that would seem commonplace and benign, unless you had seen the flash-forwards out of context as we had. To close such a hard hitting and well told story anyway besides how Conviction ends would have felt cheapened. Other games go with a moral high road only, you have a choice, to show that Sam has forever changed into the hunter, or remained the moral assassin often choosing not to kill but evade. This choice and its repercussions leave you at the end of the game feeling though the campaign was short, that it was worth every moment you spend playing through.
While there are a lot of positive aspects to Conviction, it is by no means perfect. One spot where the game fell flat is the interrogations. They are not bad per say, but they lack fun or any interactivity. It feels like the mechanic needed more polish, which stands out in comparison to the rest of the game. Another small setback is the enemy A.I., which at times is brilliant and challenging, but also at times feels as though they have the IQ of a hamster. Often repeating the same thing that just got their friend killed, which they watched happen, and running into traps that had been used many times before. I am not asking Einsteins, some common sense would enhance the experience.
Small problems by no means really retract from the value of a title, however there are also some bigger missteps taken by the developer that do. Writing on the wall to show objectives and cover is innovative and a cool feature, but when overused it becomes obnoxious, one such example is when after trashing an office in a fit of rage the wall says "anger". This overuse kills the seriousness of the scene, as I could not help but snigger at the wall's comments. Another feature that was overused is the pistols, with no weapon save one or two that are silenced besides the pistol, you end up ignoring the large stockpile of other weapons, such as the shotgun or the M4A1. A final small issue is the graphics, it is 2010, and the faces in this game looked poorly rendered as they did not look very human, especially Grim. However, while these issues did take away from the experience a little they are by no means deal breakers.
There is one deal breaker in this entire game, while the campaign is criminally short at six to eight hours and there are minor issues in game play as detailed above, the biggest flaw is the Iraq level. First, you do not actually play as Sam, which makes the story slightly askew to start. This is not to mention that the whole level feels wrong and out of place. I would liken it to a "forced action section in a stealth game." While the level feels out of place for the narrative, for combat, it is even worse. The entire mechanics were redesigned and updated to speed up stealth game play and increase Sam's ability in a firefight. The whole Iraq level is scoped or run and gun warfare, which betrays the control system and makes it much harder than it needed to be. In addition, it is light out, there are no stealth sections at all, and it feels like when I was not looking my dad swapped in Modern Warfare and expected me not to notice. While I say it is a deal breaker, it amounts to about 20 minutes to an hour (depending on competence at MW style shooting) out of six to eight hours of otherwise perfect storytelling and pacing and can be overlooked.
Some other small notes of mention are that Ubisoft has announced weekly DLC for Conviction called "project Trend Buck." The first of this DLC is available currently and is a silenced machine gun. In addition, there is a separate Co-op story line called Deniable ops, which adds a few hours to the overall time for the game. In these Deniable ops, you play as two Splinter Cell agents, neither of which is Sam, in the time shortly before Conviction. I would go into more detail but I was unable to find someone to come over and play co-op with me and I lack Xbox Live. Speaking of Xbox Live, there is competitive multiplayer for online, though it seems to be mainly run and gun like the Iraq level, again I was unable to play it so I can only speak to the single player.
With many positives and few negatives, most of which are small, I can safely say that Splinter Cell: Conviction is a great game. With single player being fun and immersive, though short, and with Co-op to add length to your playtime along with multiplayer, it is a great value. I give it my full backing and recommend you go out and buy this game immediately. This is a contender for my Xbox 360 Game of the Year as it stands today.
- Thank you for reading, Feedback is appreciated
-A special thanks to Full Metal for the banner
-Also thanks to Stranger of Sorts for his feedback and help
-Again a special thanks to Elle for the editing
Stealth has always been indispensable in the Splinter Cell series; Conviction's changes to the visibility meter alter game play immensely from previous titles. The surrounding starts in full color when you are in light and visible to enemies, when you shrink into the shadows and become invisible everything becomes black and white. While it seems as though it would be distracting, after the first few times it becomes almost unnoticeable. The flow of running from cover to the shadows, matched perfectly without misstep, with the change in scenery that gives immersion a boost.
One use of the color change mechanic is that while the screen is colored you risk detection by hostiles. When detected, a silhouette of your last known position appears. Enemies will advance to, attempt to flank, and grenade this silhouette. This becomes a useful and innovative tool in your arsenal. With enemies focusing on the silhouette, it allows you to flank the enemies or retreat into the shadows to plan a stealthy take down. Learning to take advantage of any stealth gaffes or intentional detection by the enemies is essential to survival, especially later in the game.
One key trademark of any Splinter Cell game is climbing and stealthy “death from above” kills. Conviction lives up to its predecessors in this aspect, as death from above feels visceral and looks gorgeous. How much climbing occurs is based on your play style, as most the time climbing is an optional stealth tool. Allowing for quick getaways, stealth kills, and alternative entrances to buildings the climbing is a highly polished feature perfected here.
While climbing has remained intact from past games, the cover system got a complete makeover. Getting into cover from open areas is one button quick and allows diving for cover to feel rewarding and fun. Moving in and out of cover is remarkably fluid and never feels sticky or slow, which highlights your newfound speed. The cover system overall is a successful remodeling and works beautifully, especially for the firefights that will be occurring during your play through.
The shooting takes a major role in this new take on Splinter; you will be doing a lot of it while running from cover to cover, shadow to shadow, and pipe to pipe. The shooting mechanics are standard third person, with a crosshair that reddens when you are on-line to hit your target. Every shot taken causes the crosshair to fluctuate in size due to recoil. Recoil plays a major role in the firefights; you will have to adjust your shot often if you cannot kill your target in one shot. While the system is by no means innovative or reworked, it does function well and is enjoyable to use.
Although the shooting mechanics are standard, one part stands out as innovative, the mark and execute system. This system allows you to mark any enemy you can see, then, if the target is in range, you headshot and kill them at the press of a button. Depending on weapon choice you can target anywhere from two to a maximum of four people at once. While the instant kills do feel somewhat cheap, the system is balanced. Weapon strength restricts the amount of marks you have and the need to perform a hand-to-hand kill before being able to execute targets keeps the system balanced. While the system is original, it does have one small kink. If you mark someone and go to execute them, they can walk behind something solid, such as a wall, and they still die. This is more of a glitch then a complaint against the system. Overall, the system works well, is balanced, innovative, and fluid in combat.
In order to enjoy the mark and execute feature a hand-to-hand kill is necessary. While these kills are graphically pleasing they do not require much skill, they occur by simply hitting the B button. The system works as an effortless way to take down an enemy silently. Those who enjoy stealth rather than attempting more firefights will use these more often. Using this is a bonus since you kill them silently and can kill several enemies with mark and execute from the shadows. The kills are interesting and while the system is a little... shallow, it never ceases to be enjoyable.
With combat and stealth remaining at high levels of quality, another major improvement for Conviction is story. You play as Sam Fisher in his quest to find out who is responsible for the death of his daughter Sarah, who died while Sam was off on mission. Sam formerly worked for a secret network of spies known as third echelon. The game commences in a cafe where Sam receives a call on a mystery phone by a former contact of his, Grim. Throughout Grim is the person driving you to your goals and eventually revealing a secret that will leave you shaking if you have known the former games.
Your former Iraq squad mate and only real ally, Vic, narrates the story from an interrogation cell, this makes the transitions from mission to mission simple and enjoyable. The pacing of the missions is good, never allowing the narrative to drag along. While doing the “standard save the world from destruction” part to the narrative something odd happens, you begin to feel for Sam. Many points and twists in the plot lead you to feel for Sam and, unlike in many titles that try this, it works.
Often Sam's true colors shine through, showing what he is willing to do in order to find his daughter's killers. After an unexpected twist, which will hit home especially well for fans of the series, you are told something that changes the entire story. The revealing of this secret enrages Sam, and he is forced to escape as parts of building are raining down from around him. Where this shows the development of the character is that you gain unlimited mark and executes for the escape, in his anger he just one shot kills everyone he sees, the antithesis of what Sam normally does.
The whole story is good and gets the job done, where it shines is the final few missions. Difficulty curves, especially of late, do not work as they should, you get stronger as the enemies get harder to kill. In Conviction, the last few missions are some of the hardest missions I have played in Splinter Cell games, with a myriad of firefights and stealth required to get past each hallway. In addition, the use of flash forward throughout the game leads to a twist that would seem commonplace and benign, unless you had seen the flash-forwards out of context as we had. To close such a hard hitting and well told story anyway besides how Conviction ends would have felt cheapened. Other games go with a moral high road only, you have a choice, to show that Sam has forever changed into the hunter, or remained the moral assassin often choosing not to kill but evade. This choice and its repercussions leave you at the end of the game feeling though the campaign was short, that it was worth every moment you spend playing through.
While there are a lot of positive aspects to Conviction, it is by no means perfect. One spot where the game fell flat is the interrogations. They are not bad per say, but they lack fun or any interactivity. It feels like the mechanic needed more polish, which stands out in comparison to the rest of the game. Another small setback is the enemy A.I., which at times is brilliant and challenging, but also at times feels as though they have the IQ of a hamster. Often repeating the same thing that just got their friend killed, which they watched happen, and running into traps that had been used many times before. I am not asking Einsteins, some common sense would enhance the experience.
Small problems by no means really retract from the value of a title, however there are also some bigger missteps taken by the developer that do. Writing on the wall to show objectives and cover is innovative and a cool feature, but when overused it becomes obnoxious, one such example is when after trashing an office in a fit of rage the wall says "anger". This overuse kills the seriousness of the scene, as I could not help but snigger at the wall's comments. Another feature that was overused is the pistols, with no weapon save one or two that are silenced besides the pistol, you end up ignoring the large stockpile of other weapons, such as the shotgun or the M4A1. A final small issue is the graphics, it is 2010, and the faces in this game looked poorly rendered as they did not look very human, especially Grim. However, while these issues did take away from the experience a little they are by no means deal breakers.
There is one deal breaker in this entire game, while the campaign is criminally short at six to eight hours and there are minor issues in game play as detailed above, the biggest flaw is the Iraq level. First, you do not actually play as Sam, which makes the story slightly askew to start. This is not to mention that the whole level feels wrong and out of place. I would liken it to a "forced action section in a stealth game." While the level feels out of place for the narrative, for combat, it is even worse. The entire mechanics were redesigned and updated to speed up stealth game play and increase Sam's ability in a firefight. The whole Iraq level is scoped or run and gun warfare, which betrays the control system and makes it much harder than it needed to be. In addition, it is light out, there are no stealth sections at all, and it feels like when I was not looking my dad swapped in Modern Warfare and expected me not to notice. While I say it is a deal breaker, it amounts to about 20 minutes to an hour (depending on competence at MW style shooting) out of six to eight hours of otherwise perfect storytelling and pacing and can be overlooked.
Some other small notes of mention are that Ubisoft has announced weekly DLC for Conviction called "project Trend Buck." The first of this DLC is available currently and is a silenced machine gun. In addition, there is a separate Co-op story line called Deniable ops, which adds a few hours to the overall time for the game. In these Deniable ops, you play as two Splinter Cell agents, neither of which is Sam, in the time shortly before Conviction. I would go into more detail but I was unable to find someone to come over and play co-op with me and I lack Xbox Live. Speaking of Xbox Live, there is competitive multiplayer for online, though it seems to be mainly run and gun like the Iraq level, again I was unable to play it so I can only speak to the single player.
With many positives and few negatives, most of which are small, I can safely say that Splinter Cell: Conviction is a great game. With single player being fun and immersive, though short, and with Co-op to add length to your playtime along with multiplayer, it is a great value. I give it my full backing and recommend you go out and buy this game immediately. This is a contender for my Xbox 360 Game of the Year as it stands today.
- Thank you for reading, Feedback is appreciated
-A special thanks to Full Metal for the banner
-Also thanks to Stranger of Sorts for his feedback and help
-Again a special thanks to Elle for the editing
A Sith Reviews: The Godfather 2
This week on A Sith Reviews, I turn my gaze upon EA Redwood Shores' final game under that moniker, The Godfather 2. Released in Spring 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, The Godfather 2 is a third person sandbox shooter with real time strategy elements set in Havana, Cuba, New York City, New York, and Miami, Florida. The game is loosely based off of the movie donning the same name written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1974.
Balancing multiple game play styles and elements is one of the hardest things to do in game design. Where The Godfather shines is in the balancing between third person shooting, sandbox exploration, and RTS elements that mix seamlessly within game play.
The third person shooting mechanics work well together, with the R1 and L1 buttons being used for auto lock aiming and firing. The targeting system is responsive and allows for quick switching between enemies to maximize the damage done by one clip of a gun. When firing multiple times, usually with an automatic weapon, the target will recoil allowing for you to see the chances of missing increase if you don't take your time in a fight.
Along with the shooting mechanics, the melee and hand to hand combat system feels rewarding as each jab and head butt causes visible damage to your target. The main function of the hand to hand combat system is surprisingly not combat, but rather to intimidate and extort the local business owners. As you run around the town you can attempt to take over a racket, or front, by eliminating all the enemy guards. This is achieved by threatening, attacking, or vandalizing the owner, or his shop, until he agrees to give you a daily cut of the profit.
With each shop you control you gain the responsibility to pay guards to defend the store from the rival families trying to take the businesses back. This leads to the RTS elements in the game, which all revolve around the Don's view. The Don's view is the map of the cities. It shows all fronts, rackets, banks, hospitals and compounds, as well as who controls them and the amount of guards defending these places. Also from the Don's view you can manage your crew, which you recruit while running around. Your crew is made up of people with special skills such as medic, arsonist, demolitions expert, bruiser, or engineer. During the course of the narrative you will upgrade your crew and send them to defend and capture more fronts. This development of your crew and the capturing of crime rings earns money and bonuses. This is a major addition to the game from the original version.
Besides rackets and fronts there are compounds to capture. To take a compound you must eliminate the family that lives there. To do this you must take over all of that family's businesses to force them to retreat in to the compound. Next you will need to attack the compound and blow it up. This eliminates the family forever. These compound battles feel epic in comparison to the taking over of a front or racket because there are many more guards and crew members of the rival family there. These battles will take more strategy, ammo, and resolve to complete, giving a rewarding feel to putting a rival family to rest.
With all the fighting you do it isn't surprising that you will die, a lot. Now how much depends on your own use of cover, shooting, planning, and adjusting of your crew to suit your needs. Inevitably, like in real, life, you will end up dying. When you die you are placed outside the hospital with some money missing and a feeling of failure. Painful as it is to fail, there is no real penalty to dying. Another component that will lead to a death or two is the cover system. The cover system works, but feels a little out of place. The pacing of fighting moves rapidly and the cover system does nothing but slow the pace down.
Most of the combat works but does have its flaws. Some major issues arise with running and driving. The controls for running and driving feel loose, and the camera likes to swing wild making things hard to see at some points. Driving also has issues. The faster you drive, the closer the camera gets to the car. This causes many crashes from a lack of vision. Another issue is the mechanic for switching guns. You use the right analog stick to pick a weapon from the gun wheel, this feels very clunky and unintuitive.
Besides game play issues, one main problem area of The Godfather 2 is the story. This is surprising given what the developers had as a source. The pacing is too slow. It drags on and becomes nothing but doing the same things in different places. For a game with a great story to draw from, the changes in order and pacing make the narrative feel generic and disappointing. Finally, the “twist” used, which I will not spoil, lacks any shock value and falls flat. This puts the final nail in the coffin of the story.
The presentation for this game is also lacking luster, especially for a new generation game. The in-game cut scenes look sub par. While the graphics look fine during the standard game play, the cut scenes just don't seem to have the same sharp looking quality. Another small issue I had with the presentation of the game is that whenever you go into the pause menu (Don's view) you are treated to a bright white light that wears on your eyes if you play for any extended period of time. Though it is a petty complaint it can start to become an unneeded nuisance.
Besides the major issues, a small thing that bothered me was Michael Corleone. While they brought back Robert Duvall to voice Tom Hagen, Micheal is not played by Al Pacino but rather was voiced by Carlos Ferro (Dom from Gears). Granted Carlos gives a good performance, but it just didn't feel quite right without Pacino.
One final complaint about the game is the lack of replay value. The game becomes repetitive after a few hours and unless you really love The Godfather world, or just can't bring yourself to go play some Grand Theft Auto for the fifth time you most likely won't come back to this game after your first play through.
Verdict
Even with all of its issues and hiccups, what The Godfather 2 does well it does very well. Repetition will come into effect but with a 10-12 hour play through most people will make it without too much boredom. Taking into account the fun factor that this game brings for at least the first five or six hours, I recommend The Godfather 2 as either a rent or a bargain bin buy.
-Thanks for reading
-A special thanks to Full Metal for the banner
-Extra special thanks to Elle for editing this
Balancing multiple game play styles and elements is one of the hardest things to do in game design. Where The Godfather shines is in the balancing between third person shooting, sandbox exploration, and RTS elements that mix seamlessly within game play.
The third person shooting mechanics work well together, with the R1 and L1 buttons being used for auto lock aiming and firing. The targeting system is responsive and allows for quick switching between enemies to maximize the damage done by one clip of a gun. When firing multiple times, usually with an automatic weapon, the target will recoil allowing for you to see the chances of missing increase if you don't take your time in a fight.
Along with the shooting mechanics, the melee and hand to hand combat system feels rewarding as each jab and head butt causes visible damage to your target. The main function of the hand to hand combat system is surprisingly not combat, but rather to intimidate and extort the local business owners. As you run around the town you can attempt to take over a racket, or front, by eliminating all the enemy guards. This is achieved by threatening, attacking, or vandalizing the owner, or his shop, until he agrees to give you a daily cut of the profit.
With each shop you control you gain the responsibility to pay guards to defend the store from the rival families trying to take the businesses back. This leads to the RTS elements in the game, which all revolve around the Don's view. The Don's view is the map of the cities. It shows all fronts, rackets, banks, hospitals and compounds, as well as who controls them and the amount of guards defending these places. Also from the Don's view you can manage your crew, which you recruit while running around. Your crew is made up of people with special skills such as medic, arsonist, demolitions expert, bruiser, or engineer. During the course of the narrative you will upgrade your crew and send them to defend and capture more fronts. This development of your crew and the capturing of crime rings earns money and bonuses. This is a major addition to the game from the original version.
Besides rackets and fronts there are compounds to capture. To take a compound you must eliminate the family that lives there. To do this you must take over all of that family's businesses to force them to retreat in to the compound. Next you will need to attack the compound and blow it up. This eliminates the family forever. These compound battles feel epic in comparison to the taking over of a front or racket because there are many more guards and crew members of the rival family there. These battles will take more strategy, ammo, and resolve to complete, giving a rewarding feel to putting a rival family to rest.
With all the fighting you do it isn't surprising that you will die, a lot. Now how much depends on your own use of cover, shooting, planning, and adjusting of your crew to suit your needs. Inevitably, like in real, life, you will end up dying. When you die you are placed outside the hospital with some money missing and a feeling of failure. Painful as it is to fail, there is no real penalty to dying. Another component that will lead to a death or two is the cover system. The cover system works, but feels a little out of place. The pacing of fighting moves rapidly and the cover system does nothing but slow the pace down.
Most of the combat works but does have its flaws. Some major issues arise with running and driving. The controls for running and driving feel loose, and the camera likes to swing wild making things hard to see at some points. Driving also has issues. The faster you drive, the closer the camera gets to the car. This causes many crashes from a lack of vision. Another issue is the mechanic for switching guns. You use the right analog stick to pick a weapon from the gun wheel, this feels very clunky and unintuitive.
Besides game play issues, one main problem area of The Godfather 2 is the story. This is surprising given what the developers had as a source. The pacing is too slow. It drags on and becomes nothing but doing the same things in different places. For a game with a great story to draw from, the changes in order and pacing make the narrative feel generic and disappointing. Finally, the “twist” used, which I will not spoil, lacks any shock value and falls flat. This puts the final nail in the coffin of the story.
The presentation for this game is also lacking luster, especially for a new generation game. The in-game cut scenes look sub par. While the graphics look fine during the standard game play, the cut scenes just don't seem to have the same sharp looking quality. Another small issue I had with the presentation of the game is that whenever you go into the pause menu (Don's view) you are treated to a bright white light that wears on your eyes if you play for any extended period of time. Though it is a petty complaint it can start to become an unneeded nuisance.
Besides the major issues, a small thing that bothered me was Michael Corleone. While they brought back Robert Duvall to voice Tom Hagen, Micheal is not played by Al Pacino but rather was voiced by Carlos Ferro (Dom from Gears). Granted Carlos gives a good performance, but it just didn't feel quite right without Pacino.
One final complaint about the game is the lack of replay value. The game becomes repetitive after a few hours and unless you really love The Godfather world, or just can't bring yourself to go play some Grand Theft Auto for the fifth time you most likely won't come back to this game after your first play through.
Verdict
Even with all of its issues and hiccups, what The Godfather 2 does well it does very well. Repetition will come into effect but with a 10-12 hour play through most people will make it without too much boredom. Taking into account the fun factor that this game brings for at least the first five or six hours, I recommend The Godfather 2 as either a rent or a bargain bin buy.
-Thanks for reading
-A special thanks to Full Metal for the banner
-Extra special thanks to Elle for editing this
A Sith Reviews: inFAMOUS
Welcome to A Sith Reviews. I am starting this series to try my hand at reviewing games at a regular pace. This is my second review, so please feedback is wanted and make sure to be nit-pickish. Thank You.
inFAMOUS (To be known as Infamous from here out) is a third person open world shooter by Sucker Punch Productions, their first game since the Sly Cooper series finished in late 2005. The game was released on 26 May 2009 and is exclusive to the PlayStation 3. It was also recently announced that the game will be re-released in the PS3 greatest hits series.
The narrative is set in Empire City, which is a fictional city modeled after New York. The city is separated into three islands the Neon, Historical District, and Warren. At the game's beginning only the Neon is accessible, later through story progression the other islands become unlocked. The city is pulchritudinous even for standard PS3 graphics, but where it shines is the dystopian areas like the destroyed bridges or the explosion's epicenter. These areas are well designed, with many places to climb and see, adding a reason to just explore the sandbox that is Empire City. The setting is a great piece that adds to the enjoyment of the game.
Now onto the characters, the protagonist is Cole MacGrath. He is a bike courier who receives super powers after the package he is delivering explodes en route. As a character he comes off as immature and cocky, but he has a charm that seems to come from Jason Cottle's voice acting that keeps him likable. His comedic best friend and side kick Zeke however does not have the same saving grace as Cole. His one liners and constant nagging are a main reason to hit the mute button on your television while playing. Reminding me a lot of Roman from Grand Theft Auto: IV, but without the ability to tell him to stop calling. Next, the love interest, Trish. She is a doctor who will only love you if you play the game with a positive karma. Playing as evil she comes off as using you for her own ends of helping people, what a bitch right? Either way you choose to play the game she will remain one of the most memorable characters. Moya plays the role of Charlie from Charlie's angels. Telling you what to do from a distance progressing the narrative. She plays her role well and develops from the cold heartless FBI agent to an ally and back so seamlessly it becomes a blurred line what her priorities are. She is voiced well and though she is written to be condescending it never gets to the point of Zeke where you disdain her. The characters mostly come off as memorable and keep you entertained with Zeke being the only character that wears on you, but even that will take some time.
Villains often make better foremen for why a game is great than the protagonist or his allies, Infamous is one of those games. The main antagonist, Kessler, has an allure to him that never fades. His voice acting is a joy to hear and never becomes stale. He is the extremely powerful leader of the First Sons, a powerful gang that has taken control after the explosion. He posses powers much like Cole's, possibly even more powerful, yet he never uses this power to directly attack Cole, rather choosing to test him in indirect ways. Throughout the narrative Kessler's motivations become an enigma, leading to a conclusion that cements him as one of the deepest villains in recent gaming I can recall. Along with Kessler the other villain that has a major role is Alden, the leader of the dustmen. Alden's weakness as a character is a lack of development. From the first moment you meet him until you confront him he comes off as the same thing, a crazed revenge driven mad man with powers. His motives are simplistic, Kessler took his spot as leader of the First Sons, so he wants to destroy Kessler and all other powered individuals, including Cole. Also his story seems to fall short, especially when flushed by the deepness of Kessler, as a secondary villain he is decent but he won't be making any villain or character of the year lists. Overall the villains are good, but the strength does stem from Kessler carrying the load.
The narrative of Infamous starts with a very basic idea, you are a bike currier who gets sent to deliver a mysterious package and it explodes. When you awake the city has been devastated and you are at the epicenter. Empire City is quarantined and as you try and escape you are captured and offered release from the island if you help them accomplish their goals. So, off you go to find the ray sphere, which was in the mysterious package. The story progresses through in-game dialog and in-game cut scenes, but for major events the story switches to a comic book presentation to tell the narrative, which keeps the game fresh and is used in a compelling way. The pacing is very quick early, the first 25 or so missions can be accomplished in about the same amount of time as the last 10. The only problem that occurs because of the pacing is that towards the end of the game some missions drag on causing some loss of interest. As you progress further the narrative does develop well, and in an interesting way. Though it is by no means a masterpiece and some major clichés arise they fit the type of story and storytelling used. Some twists do come into play later in the game, though not original they do keep the story compelling and will keep you invested in playing to get to the ending. Speaking of the ending, to me it really did fit the type of over arching comic book style plot and the surprise of the ending is one that will stick with you long after you have completed the game. Parts of the story are forgettable and slow, but on a whole the narrative is well written and was an enjoyment to play through.
Along with the main missions and all the exploration to be done around the city there is another major part to Infamous, the side quests. Unlike many games currently available there is a reason to accomplish these quests besides experience grinding. After each quest you complete a percent of the enemies in a part of the city will no longer be there, thus cleaning up the city of gangs. Also where the side questions stand out is the variations in mission types. The standard go there kill him missions are present, though in the evil side missions only. There is also destroying surveillance cameras on buildings, recovering medical supplies, races, and finding packages that are hidden by seeing a snap shot of where they are, taken from the memory of a dead enemy. Due to there being three areas to clean up there are plenty of side quests to keep you occupied. Also there are karma specific side quests that give you perks such as arch lightning if you complete enough of them, in addition to giving extra karma as a reward. The side quests are well done and don't get tedious, along with the fact that they accomplish a goal they give added play time to the game which is appreciated.
Moral choice systems, often broken into good and evil with no middle ground. Infamous' karma system is no different, with the exception that it breaks down into levels of how good or how evil you are. From the starting point of neutral the good side progresses as such: neutral, guardian, champion, hero, whereas the evil side goes: neutral, thug, outlaw, infamous. To gain points in morality for either good or evil you make choices during the narrative, during these times of choice the game will freeze time and Cole will describe the situation with an inner monologue and present the two choices. You then proceed to pick what option to do giving points in the category your actions fell under. In addition you can heal the injured to gain a positive moral standing, or suck the life out of the innocent to gain evil morality. The main purpose for the system is for skill progression. To increase the power of your attacks you will need to purchase upgrades with experience points, but you will not be able to purchase the skill unless you have a certain moral standing. The overall effect of the karma system comes down to the narrative sections told through comic pictures, where your morality determines what Cole does. One such example is when your free people from a train that had been captured, the good Cole is heralded as a hero and thanked, but the evil Cole is criticized, and assaulted causing him to kill someone to set an example. Also the ending is influenced upon the choices you made leading up to the final cut scene altering which ending you receive. The system works and takes nothing from the game, but to the same effect it does not add all that much either. For what it is used for it is fine, but it isn't a feature to flaunt about.
Now, to the big factor, the game play. First, we start with the combat seeing as you will be using it a lot. You use lightning based attacks to kill your enemies, manually targeting the enemies from an over the shoulder viewpoint. There are a lot of attacks that are available, from sticky grenades that split into several projectiles to a lightning storm. The different attacks work well together and can be used fluidly and quickly in combat. The combat itself is visceral and simple allowing for mastery over the system to come quick even to people new to third person shooting mechanics. You start with just a single semi-automatic bolt of lightning that can become broken with the ability to spam it, but other stronger attacks have a balance with them costing energy stored in nodes shown in the heads up display. These nodes can be refilled by absorbing electricity from generators and other places around the city. Refilling the nodes also heals Cole instantly, though his health does regenerate over time if he stays ouf of fire. The game does its best to avoid repetition in combat by using so many attacks but it will start to become dry after a while, with using attacks to create different and interesting effects being the only appeal to using more than the basic powers a while. The combat is done well, but it does get tedious and remains interesting only when causing massive explosions or killing lots of people in creative ways.
Next is the open world game play aspects of this sandbox. The sandbox is vast and the way to traverse it is to climb. You will spend the majority of your free time climbing buildings and jumping from building to building. This does add to the feeling of how big the city is, but at the cost that this process gets old ridiculously fast. Also the climbing does get glitchy at certain points, not grabbing onto a ledge when you want and so on. Cole doesn't seem to enjoy it either as the grunts he emits while climbing start to feel like having a brick bashed against your forehead every time you jump. Though there is a second way around, thank god, and that is the railways and electrified wires. Once you restore power to a part of the island the wires and rail tracks can then be used to let Cole speed along the wires and rails to get around faster and with less effort. In addition later in the game you gain the ability to glide in the air, which makes getting around quicker as you can jump longer gaps and climb less. The climbing is a low spot for the game but with the other ways to get around being introduced it does soften the rare misstep of the game, though it can't be completely forgiven.
Difficulty is a tough thing to judge, usually. Here however it is rather simple, Infamous is, with one or two exceptions, yielding. On the hardest difficulty with nothing more than your first attack and not trying to be Rambo most the enemies go down without much effort. Also with the ability to run around gaining experience and moral standing you can gain attacks far too strong for the point of the story at which they are accessible. The only good point about the difficulty is that it does curve into a slight challenge by the last third of the game once all the islands are available. Another point to mention is the gap between the difficulty felt in normal missions and battles versus the boss fights. The boss fights are long and hard, though that is attributed to the bosses having massive amounts of health that can only be chipped at slowly. Though it makes sense for the bosses to be much tougher than normal enemies the leap in difficulty is so great it's stifling. The game could have done better by making the standard missions and enemies tougher and tuning down the bosses a little to fit into the game more seamlessly.
The environment becomes a great weapon in your arsenal. Cars can be shot until they explode, destroying cover for enemies or just killing them. Enemies in sewers can be killed in large groups by electrifying the water, using the environment to its full potential. Places such as gas stations also add to the fun and destructive powers you have as you can blow up the stations and kill anything standing around at the time. The only annoyance caused by the environment is that you can't touch water. You being a human battery this is sensible but it can get irritating at points, such as when avoiding bullets in a sewer by jumping to a pole only to fall to your death in the water below. Overall the environment is well used and causes more fun than annoyances.
Just a few quick notes that I felt need mentioning, the game has good length at somewhere between 10-14 hours of story and unlimited time as a sandbox. If evil, hours of fun can be drawn from running around killing the homeless (yes I did spend a lot of time frying people for fun, do I have a problem?) Besides the fact that you can play through twice to see all the events and both endings there isn't much replay incentive. Although that first play though will be fun and the time spent in sandboxing may make up the time it would take to play the game a second time.
With that I reach my
VERDICT
For the $30 that it will cost to get the game in the upcoming PS3 greatest hits release I strongly advise you to go out and buy this game if it isn't already in your collection.
-Thank You for reading
-Also a special thank you to full metal for the banner
A final note if you would like to see the review with the pictures I put in and formatted as it was meant to be here is the link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.186434-A-Sith-Reviews-Infamous
inFAMOUS (To be known as Infamous from here out) is a third person open world shooter by Sucker Punch Productions, their first game since the Sly Cooper series finished in late 2005. The game was released on 26 May 2009 and is exclusive to the PlayStation 3. It was also recently announced that the game will be re-released in the PS3 greatest hits series.
The narrative is set in Empire City, which is a fictional city modeled after New York. The city is separated into three islands the Neon, Historical District, and Warren. At the game's beginning only the Neon is accessible, later through story progression the other islands become unlocked. The city is pulchritudinous even for standard PS3 graphics, but where it shines is the dystopian areas like the destroyed bridges or the explosion's epicenter. These areas are well designed, with many places to climb and see, adding a reason to just explore the sandbox that is Empire City. The setting is a great piece that adds to the enjoyment of the game.
Now onto the characters, the protagonist is Cole MacGrath. He is a bike courier who receives super powers after the package he is delivering explodes en route. As a character he comes off as immature and cocky, but he has a charm that seems to come from Jason Cottle's voice acting that keeps him likable. His comedic best friend and side kick Zeke however does not have the same saving grace as Cole. His one liners and constant nagging are a main reason to hit the mute button on your television while playing. Reminding me a lot of Roman from Grand Theft Auto: IV, but without the ability to tell him to stop calling. Next, the love interest, Trish. She is a doctor who will only love you if you play the game with a positive karma. Playing as evil she comes off as using you for her own ends of helping people, what a bitch right? Either way you choose to play the game she will remain one of the most memorable characters. Moya plays the role of Charlie from Charlie's angels. Telling you what to do from a distance progressing the narrative. She plays her role well and develops from the cold heartless FBI agent to an ally and back so seamlessly it becomes a blurred line what her priorities are. She is voiced well and though she is written to be condescending it never gets to the point of Zeke where you disdain her. The characters mostly come off as memorable and keep you entertained with Zeke being the only character that wears on you, but even that will take some time.
Villains often make better foremen for why a game is great than the protagonist or his allies, Infamous is one of those games. The main antagonist, Kessler, has an allure to him that never fades. His voice acting is a joy to hear and never becomes stale. He is the extremely powerful leader of the First Sons, a powerful gang that has taken control after the explosion. He posses powers much like Cole's, possibly even more powerful, yet he never uses this power to directly attack Cole, rather choosing to test him in indirect ways. Throughout the narrative Kessler's motivations become an enigma, leading to a conclusion that cements him as one of the deepest villains in recent gaming I can recall. Along with Kessler the other villain that has a major role is Alden, the leader of the dustmen. Alden's weakness as a character is a lack of development. From the first moment you meet him until you confront him he comes off as the same thing, a crazed revenge driven mad man with powers. His motives are simplistic, Kessler took his spot as leader of the First Sons, so he wants to destroy Kessler and all other powered individuals, including Cole. Also his story seems to fall short, especially when flushed by the deepness of Kessler, as a secondary villain he is decent but he won't be making any villain or character of the year lists. Overall the villains are good, but the strength does stem from Kessler carrying the load.
The narrative of Infamous starts with a very basic idea, you are a bike currier who gets sent to deliver a mysterious package and it explodes. When you awake the city has been devastated and you are at the epicenter. Empire City is quarantined and as you try and escape you are captured and offered release from the island if you help them accomplish their goals. So, off you go to find the ray sphere, which was in the mysterious package. The story progresses through in-game dialog and in-game cut scenes, but for major events the story switches to a comic book presentation to tell the narrative, which keeps the game fresh and is used in a compelling way. The pacing is very quick early, the first 25 or so missions can be accomplished in about the same amount of time as the last 10. The only problem that occurs because of the pacing is that towards the end of the game some missions drag on causing some loss of interest. As you progress further the narrative does develop well, and in an interesting way. Though it is by no means a masterpiece and some major clichés arise they fit the type of story and storytelling used. Some twists do come into play later in the game, though not original they do keep the story compelling and will keep you invested in playing to get to the ending. Speaking of the ending, to me it really did fit the type of over arching comic book style plot and the surprise of the ending is one that will stick with you long after you have completed the game. Parts of the story are forgettable and slow, but on a whole the narrative is well written and was an enjoyment to play through.
Along with the main missions and all the exploration to be done around the city there is another major part to Infamous, the side quests. Unlike many games currently available there is a reason to accomplish these quests besides experience grinding. After each quest you complete a percent of the enemies in a part of the city will no longer be there, thus cleaning up the city of gangs. Also where the side questions stand out is the variations in mission types. The standard go there kill him missions are present, though in the evil side missions only. There is also destroying surveillance cameras on buildings, recovering medical supplies, races, and finding packages that are hidden by seeing a snap shot of where they are, taken from the memory of a dead enemy. Due to there being three areas to clean up there are plenty of side quests to keep you occupied. Also there are karma specific side quests that give you perks such as arch lightning if you complete enough of them, in addition to giving extra karma as a reward. The side quests are well done and don't get tedious, along with the fact that they accomplish a goal they give added play time to the game which is appreciated.
Moral choice systems, often broken into good and evil with no middle ground. Infamous' karma system is no different, with the exception that it breaks down into levels of how good or how evil you are. From the starting point of neutral the good side progresses as such: neutral, guardian, champion, hero, whereas the evil side goes: neutral, thug, outlaw, infamous. To gain points in morality for either good or evil you make choices during the narrative, during these times of choice the game will freeze time and Cole will describe the situation with an inner monologue and present the two choices. You then proceed to pick what option to do giving points in the category your actions fell under. In addition you can heal the injured to gain a positive moral standing, or suck the life out of the innocent to gain evil morality. The main purpose for the system is for skill progression. To increase the power of your attacks you will need to purchase upgrades with experience points, but you will not be able to purchase the skill unless you have a certain moral standing. The overall effect of the karma system comes down to the narrative sections told through comic pictures, where your morality determines what Cole does. One such example is when your free people from a train that had been captured, the good Cole is heralded as a hero and thanked, but the evil Cole is criticized, and assaulted causing him to kill someone to set an example. Also the ending is influenced upon the choices you made leading up to the final cut scene altering which ending you receive. The system works and takes nothing from the game, but to the same effect it does not add all that much either. For what it is used for it is fine, but it isn't a feature to flaunt about.
Now, to the big factor, the game play. First, we start with the combat seeing as you will be using it a lot. You use lightning based attacks to kill your enemies, manually targeting the enemies from an over the shoulder viewpoint. There are a lot of attacks that are available, from sticky grenades that split into several projectiles to a lightning storm. The different attacks work well together and can be used fluidly and quickly in combat. The combat itself is visceral and simple allowing for mastery over the system to come quick even to people new to third person shooting mechanics. You start with just a single semi-automatic bolt of lightning that can become broken with the ability to spam it, but other stronger attacks have a balance with them costing energy stored in nodes shown in the heads up display. These nodes can be refilled by absorbing electricity from generators and other places around the city. Refilling the nodes also heals Cole instantly, though his health does regenerate over time if he stays ouf of fire. The game does its best to avoid repetition in combat by using so many attacks but it will start to become dry after a while, with using attacks to create different and interesting effects being the only appeal to using more than the basic powers a while. The combat is done well, but it does get tedious and remains interesting only when causing massive explosions or killing lots of people in creative ways.
Next is the open world game play aspects of this sandbox. The sandbox is vast and the way to traverse it is to climb. You will spend the majority of your free time climbing buildings and jumping from building to building. This does add to the feeling of how big the city is, but at the cost that this process gets old ridiculously fast. Also the climbing does get glitchy at certain points, not grabbing onto a ledge when you want and so on. Cole doesn't seem to enjoy it either as the grunts he emits while climbing start to feel like having a brick bashed against your forehead every time you jump. Though there is a second way around, thank god, and that is the railways and electrified wires. Once you restore power to a part of the island the wires and rail tracks can then be used to let Cole speed along the wires and rails to get around faster and with less effort. In addition later in the game you gain the ability to glide in the air, which makes getting around quicker as you can jump longer gaps and climb less. The climbing is a low spot for the game but with the other ways to get around being introduced it does soften the rare misstep of the game, though it can't be completely forgiven.
Difficulty is a tough thing to judge, usually. Here however it is rather simple, Infamous is, with one or two exceptions, yielding. On the hardest difficulty with nothing more than your first attack and not trying to be Rambo most the enemies go down without much effort. Also with the ability to run around gaining experience and moral standing you can gain attacks far too strong for the point of the story at which they are accessible. The only good point about the difficulty is that it does curve into a slight challenge by the last third of the game once all the islands are available. Another point to mention is the gap between the difficulty felt in normal missions and battles versus the boss fights. The boss fights are long and hard, though that is attributed to the bosses having massive amounts of health that can only be chipped at slowly. Though it makes sense for the bosses to be much tougher than normal enemies the leap in difficulty is so great it's stifling. The game could have done better by making the standard missions and enemies tougher and tuning down the bosses a little to fit into the game more seamlessly.
The environment becomes a great weapon in your arsenal. Cars can be shot until they explode, destroying cover for enemies or just killing them. Enemies in sewers can be killed in large groups by electrifying the water, using the environment to its full potential. Places such as gas stations also add to the fun and destructive powers you have as you can blow up the stations and kill anything standing around at the time. The only annoyance caused by the environment is that you can't touch water. You being a human battery this is sensible but it can get irritating at points, such as when avoiding bullets in a sewer by jumping to a pole only to fall to your death in the water below. Overall the environment is well used and causes more fun than annoyances.
Just a few quick notes that I felt need mentioning, the game has good length at somewhere between 10-14 hours of story and unlimited time as a sandbox. If evil, hours of fun can be drawn from running around killing the homeless (yes I did spend a lot of time frying people for fun, do I have a problem?) Besides the fact that you can play through twice to see all the events and both endings there isn't much replay incentive. Although that first play though will be fun and the time spent in sandboxing may make up the time it would take to play the game a second time.
With that I reach my
VERDICT
For the $30 that it will cost to get the game in the upcoming PS3 greatest hits release I strongly advise you to go out and buy this game if it isn't already in your collection.
-Thank You for reading
-Also a special thank you to full metal for the banner
A final note if you would like to see the review with the pictures I put in and formatted as it was meant to be here is the link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.186434-A-Sith-Reviews-Infamous
