Take a claustrophobic trip through the tunnels

Let's get this out of the way first, yes I realized this was released in March, but I haven't had a chance to play it until now. Either way, I rented and after beating it decided I might as well write a review of it. Now here's is the review part. Metro 2033 is an interesting game. The atmosphere, story, graphics, and shooting are all uniformly great, but the game is bogged down by incredible difficulty and terrible AI. As for the good, the atmosphere and world are fantastic. The game is based on a book of the same name, written by Dmitri long-Russian-name. The game takes place in the year 2033, in a reality in which only 40,000 people escaped nuclear holocaust by retreating to the Metro tunnels underneath Moscow. You play Artyom, who leaves his home station to get help from the "capital station" Polis, in order to fight an enemy called the Dark Ones, which have been driving people insane. The game has excellent pacing, and takes you from fighting mutated beasts, to psychological hallucinations, to the remnants of Nazi's and Communist fighting it out. Two out of those three scenarios are great, with the monsters truly scaring you and testing you, and the hallucinations showing who the Dark Ones truly are. Whenever you're fighting humans however, the game nosedives. The AI is either broken or incredibly smart, and it makes fighting other humans a frustrating and difficult ordeal. However, using stealth is a usually more viable option, reducing the difficulty of the human on human fights. Speaking of difficulty, the game is incredibly hard, and the fight against exploding mucus monsters was one that I must have retried over ten times. Ammo consumption also adds to the difficulty. There are two types of ammo, "dirty" ammo, which was made in the tunnels, or pre-war rounds, which deal more damage but also serve as your currency. When you run out of the much more plentiful dirty ammo, you are forced to literally shoot money at them, making it harder to buy more dirty ammo at the next station. However, the ammo system also adds to the atmosphere, and whenever you catch yourself counting the rounds you have, you'll smile at how the game sucks you in to its world. Other interesting ways that the game portrays its setting is in the use of gas masks. You will go above ground quite a bit in the game, and gas masks with extra filters are needed to stop you from suffocating on the contaminated air. You're gas mask can crack and even break if you take too much damage, making above ground fights even more difficult. However, this (and many other aspects of the game) is very realistic, so if that's your thing jump in. Even with some of the pneumatic weapons, which require regular pumping to keep up the air pressure, show the attention to detail. Metro 2033 is a brisk ride, which will take 10-12 hours to beat, and with no multiplayer or co-op, or any type of incentive to play it again besides an alternate ending, wait for the $40 dollar price tag before picking this one up. Even with all these problems though, the atmosphere, story, solid shooting, and some intriguing design decisions make Metro 2033 an experimental game that you owe to yourself to play.
Final score 8.75 out of 10

-Smith

Is Survival Horror Dead?

Yes, you read that right, is the Survival Horror genre dead? I've wondered that ever since Resident Evil 5, which don't get me wrong, was an incredible game. However, the main problem I had with it was, it was not scary in the slightest. The franchise that began the franchise of horror, was now no longer a horror game. Next came Silent Hill: Shattered Memories that, while providing some scares during chase sequences, was largely an adventure game. The two franchises that began the genre are now moving away from what they did so well back in the day. I think it reflects how that genre is moving at large. When was the last game that truly truly scared you, and did not offer just the shock or thrill of being overwhelmed by enemies. When was the last game that used creepy little girls, dogs jumping through windows, and ambient music to create an experience that truly scared you. I mean even Alan Wake, which was one of the few games lately that creeps me out, was more a thriller than a horror game. Heck the box says "A psychological action thriller". The last game that was truly horror for me was the original Dead Space, which truly scared me and even though I dreaded every new corner, I never wanted to stop playing. It used atmosphere, music, and horrifying enemies to truly provide a terrifying experience. Even this franchise is supposed to have "Modern Warfare levels of action" in its second installment, according to the project director himself. So where has the horror game gone? More importantly, will we ever find it again?

-Smith

Remedy's Thriller Masterpiece Delivers One Heck Of a Ride

When I first sat down to play Alan Wake I didn't really know what to expect. Was I going to be playing an action game with horror elements, or a plot heavy thriller filled with scares? The game falls somewhere between the two, but is exhilarating nonetheless. The brilliance of Alan Wake is in its pacing and the way it presents its expertly crafted story to you. The game is set up episodically, and it really does feel like you are playing a serialized tv show at some points. The pacing always keeps you on your toes, and it is an insanely hard game to put down once you start playing. The story is the thing that keeps the pacing up and, in a word, it is an incredibly intriguing yarn. Mysteries are answered and always present new questions, and the ending is something people will be debating for a long time. Remedy has promised a slew of downloadable content and I, for one, will be right there to see what the future holds for Alan Wake. Even with all this emphasis on story, gameplay does not fall by the wayside, and it is actually where most of the scares in this thriller jump out. Alan always carries a flashlight and either a revolver or some type of two handed weapon, and using the flashlight as your aiming reticle was a smart move that fits the game perfectly. Most enemies must be weakened by light before being taken out with the guns, and you can focus the beam of the flashlight, but it drains the batteries quickly, requiring you to change batteries often. You really need to manage your batteries and ammo, which is an obvious way in which the game was influenced by the survival horror genre. The game provides some heart pounding moments when you are whittling down an enemies defenses as they bear down on you with an axe, and when you are hit from behind by an enemy you didn't see, it will make you jump. Sometimes the game varies up the combat a bit, giving you a flare gun and flashbangs that act like small vessels of death against your light-shunning enemies, or throwing poltergeist objects at you that can only be hurt by the hard stare of your flashlight. Alan Wake is six episodes long, and it will take between 8 and 12 hours to beat depending on difficulty. It provides some excellent set pieces along the way, including driving down back woods roads and a scene slightly reminiscent of Left 4 Dead 2 (you'll know when you get there). Alan Wake is also no slouch technically, as it is one of the best looking games on the 360, with some of the best lighting and layered weather effects I've ever seen. Overall Alan Wake is a tense ride that is only tempered by it's somewhat short length.
Final Score 9.0 out of 10

-Smith

Rockstar blows my mind

Let's just start with this, I didn't play GTA4 so this is the first Rockstar open world game I've played. Man can they pull it off; Red Dead Redemption is a masterpiece of storytelling, gameplay, and atmosphere that comes together to make one of my favorite games of the year. The real way Red Dead Redemption excels is in the atmosphere of the Old West. Everything feels authentic, from the way the land is barren, to the ghost towns in the middle of the plains, Duels in the middle of town, even to the way the period accurate weapons feel and fire. Speaking of the weapons, for simple repeaters and revolvers, firefights in Red Dead require a large amount of strategy and are very exciting. The game has a full working cover system, that works well most of the time, but can glitch very rarely to where you might not be able to take cover behind objects. The Dead Eye ability (which allows you to slow down time and mark enemies) is a meter you need to constantly watch as it can become a crutch to lean on in some of the game's harder showdowns. Also, the horse riding controls are unrivaled in the medium. There are tons of completely optional side missions, but all are fun and as fully realized as some of the story missions. And as for the story, it is one of the most finely crafted revenge tales I've heard in a long time, with an ending that is shocking and you won't see coming. As I've said in a previous post, John Marston is a complex character, and he, along with several of Rockstar's patented freaks and wackos. Even the good guy have problems, from a cocaine using professer to a womanizing leader of the Mexican Revolution, Rockstar shows how good and evil is a relative view a lot of the time. I've already touched on the atmosphere, and the graphics really add to that. A full day and night cycle paired with excellent lighting provides one of the best looking games I've seen. Also, Red Dead contains a full on multiplayer suite that includes capture the flag variants, deathmatch, team deathmatch, and everything else you'd expect. Every match starts with a Mexican style standoff, which is a nice Wild West flavor added in. Characters can be fully customized and you can roam with people throughout the entire game map, hunting and taking out gang hideouts, all the while earning experience to use in the competitive modes. In closing Red Dead Redemption is an incredible game with a story and production values to boot.
Final Score=9.5 out of ten

-Smith

The Virus of Space Marines

I have been playing through Red Dead Redemption lately (review to come later) and the character of John Marston got me thinking that there just aren't that many truly interesting characters in games these days. John Marston is the antithesis of uninteresting. He is complex and his motives are sound, and his views on certain issues and ideas come out through the dialogue Rockstar wrote so well. But for the majority of games these days, how many can truly claim to have a truly interesting character who isn't simply a hardened marine or the cliched "everyman" who gets caught up in something bigger than him? With such games as Gears of War, Prince of Persia (the 2008 release) and Killzone 2, you get either the wise cracking everyman or the marine who wants to kill a whole lot of aliens or people or whatever. Call it lazy on the developers part. Personally, I think that the whole thing behind the space marine epidemic is that developers don't want you to care about the characters sometimes, instead wanting you to focus on the situation the characters are in or on how much crap they can blow up. With the everyman, I see it as a way for developers to make a character relatable to the audience. But sometimes we don't need to relate to a character, sometimes we want to see what THEY think, what THEY want, and how THEY are different from us. The characters of Mass Effect or Heavy Rain really show us how character progression is done right. Those to games had me caring about those characters too the point of thinking about them even when I wasn't playing the game. That's the sign of a good game and, the sign of a good character. I'm having a top ten list of my favorite characters go up soon and be sure to comment on the issue in the comments below. (Speaking of comments, thanks Jessepe)

-Smith

Why is the biggest always the most evil?

Yes it seems that, as Abe Lincoln said so long ago "If you want to test a man, give him power". Well the "man" I'm talking about is Activision, and they have most certainly failed that test. I can't say we didn't see there eventually corruption coming. From charging a 120 bucks for a piece of crap Tony Hawk game, to CEO Bobby Kotick saying that the he might quit developing for the ps3, they have been in the headlines a lot lately. Then comes the firing of Jason West and Vince Zampella, the leaders of Infinity Ward and the two brains behind the great Modern Warfare games and four of the six COD games out so far. From what I understand West and Zampella didn't want to develop Modern Warfare 3, instead wanting to create a brand new I.P. That is fine, as a developer you are always getting new ideas and coming up with different games. However, Activision, being the biggest third-party publisher in the world, only cares about money, and I'm sure they didn't want to take the risk of publishing a non-established brand. Apparently West and Zampella went to other publishers to see if they could negotiate something, and they ended up getting fired for it. Sucks for Activision. Soon after, West and Zampella filed a class action lawsuit, claiming they had sole rights to develop any Call of Duty game set after The Vietnam War. I've seen the agreement, technically they do have creative control. I guess that explains the setting of Black Ops huh? Until this whole thing is sorted out Activision can't make a COD game after Vietnam in risk of violating that contract. It seems these issues aren't stopping West and Zampella though, as they formed Respawn Entertainment and soon basically everyone from Infinity Ward had joined them. They have even signed with Activision's biggest competitor, EA, to help work on the new Medal of Honor, a franchise they also created. More power to them. I'm fed up with Activision trying to "Maddenize" all of their franchises and firing two of their best developers because of their inability to take a risk on a new franchise. I am currently boycotting Activision and their ridiculously priced Stimulus Package. Here's hoping Respawn really shows up Activision this year

-Smith

Wow the first non-game post

Yes, this is my first non-game post. Then again I've only had two posts so this isn't exactly the Cubs winning the world series here. But I do have to comment on what I watched last night. I, for the first and last time, watched twilight. Yes indeed, and to anyone who says the sparkly immortal gods in there are vampires I say go read flippin Dracula where it all started. I mean I'm sure the director thought she made a good movie (although I've heard she was fired immediately after the film was released) but I for one, found no redeeming quality in it. No plot even entered the movie for at least an hour and a half! Kristen Stewart looked like she was on drugs and both her and Pattinson mumbled all of their lines. Heck Mass Effect is wayyyy better written then "The biggest romance epic since Titanic" (Hollywood.com's words definitely not mine). Now my rant is off, and I promise to talk about something relevant in my next post.

-Smith

Games can't look as good as Avatar

So while I was surfing Gametrailers.com today (yes on the first day of my blog) I saw a post that announced Killzone 3 and said it was going to be in 3-D. The way it was said made it sound as if the 3-D is gonna be the big game changer for the ps3 now. They failed to mention however, that for the price of the 3-D t.v that would be needed to play it you could by a F-150 truck and have about 500 bucks left over. Now when you go to see Avatar, its 15 bucks for the ticket and glasses. I'm sure everyone saw Avatar and thought "dang that there is the future of movies". Even Avatar the game had 3-D effects (It's obviously James Cameron's way of saying "Look what I can do!"). However, I'm guessing less than 1% of Americans even own a 3-D tv. So when everyone's salavating over the effects at E3, the fact that practically no one will get to experience it themselves is cleverly hidden. 3-D may be the future of movies, but until prices go down, it is not the future of games. (P.S Hi Rachel)

-Smith

Stickin' It To the Man

And so begins the summer. Right after school let out I quickly realized that summer was going to be a long, boring affair that would consist of me getting up at six in the morning and playing either Red Dead Redemption or Alan Wake until my eyes bled. Of course I needed an alternative, out of that need so came DGRO. I figured if I don't want to waste my entire day playing video games, why not waste it by talking about them and the industry as a whole. To all three (probably less) people who are reading this let me tell you that if you don't like my sarcastic snarky tone and the way I see things then you can go to freakin gamespot where all they care about is pleasing the fanboys. Well, I'm not here to please fanboys, I'm here to please gamers.

-Smith