Rise of the Tomb Raider – PC Game Review

I had been looking forward to playing Rise of the Tomb Raider since it was announced, and decided to pick it up on steam, because it was on sale for fairly cheap! I can’t remember the exact price, but it was cheap. Did it live up to my expectations?

Here’s the thing about ROTR: It’s very much like the original Tomb Raider. It doesn’t really bring anything new to the table! In fact, the graphics are very similar to the graphics found in the original Tomb Raider PC Release(We’re talking about the reboot of course, not the very first original Tomb Raider game). This isn’t a bad thing! The graphics in the original were absolutely breath-taking! I am completely happy with the graphics in both games, but it does leave me confused on why ROTR requires such a beast of a computer to run! The game is currently one of the current higher requirement games out there, and I just don’t understand why. Granted, I am not a game developer, so there is probably much that I don’t understand.

As I said, a lot of the game is very similar to Tomb Raider. This statement also includes gameplay mechanics. There are very few new tools at your disposal, The few new tools that DO exist don’t even come into play til toward the end of the game, and even then aren’t that interesting. It boils down to the same Ledge Climbing, Rock Scaling gameplay as the original. Complete with sliding down snowbanks/waterfalls and having to move left and right to avoid obstacles.

What the game DID do right however was the storyline! It had a very appealing any interesting storyline the focuses on an artifact that can grant eternal life. It also has an evil group which is a secret society who is seeking the artifact for themselves, and a group of rebels who are trying to keep the artifact from falling into the wrong hands. It has some twists, Moments of betrayal, Moments of loyalty…It has everything you could want from an adventure story of this type.

One thing that might upset some people, is that Rise of the Tomb Raider doesn’t have a multiplayer mode. What it does have instead is an expedition mode.I haven’t really mucked around with expedition mode too much, but it seems to offer you a variety of different modes that let’s you replay chapters of the story, while also giving you the option to increase or decrease difficulty through the use of cards which can be purchased using an ingame currency(Or using real cash apparently). Personally, I don’t find the lack of a PVP based multiplayer game disappointing at all. I love the fact that a game company still focuses on the creativity and story based captivation of the single player campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, I like when a game has both a rich and full single player campaign as well as a PvP mode. It’s just that more often than not developers go the lazy route and just toss in some half assed single player campaign that is completed in a half hour and basically serves as a tutorial for the online game mode. Other developers even go the more incredibly lazier route and toss out the campaign mode all together and stick you with a multiplayer only FPS, that when the servers eventually go down, or people quit playing..you are stuck just running around shooting bots. At least with a campaign, you have that to fall back on when the servers are gone.

Speaking of rich storylines! Rise of the Tomb Raider is an incredibly long game! It took me 22 hours to complete it, and that’s just the main story. That’s not including all of the optional tombs and side missions. I did a few of them, but there’s still plenty more for me to go back and do! There’s also the expedition mode which as I said before I have only lightly dabbled in.

Now, this long storyline might be good or bad. Depending on your view. I loved the game and the story, but even I was getting to the point where I was wishing the game was just over. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing I suppose. Like I said, I enjoyed the game. but 22 hours is a long time to find out what’s going to happen. For me, the perfect length of a main campaign is about 15 hours. Any more than that, and my attention starts to wander. This is mainly due to my ADD, so it may not apply to you.

Overall though, it was an enjoyable game. If you were a fan of the last Tomb Raider game, or the Uncharted game series(Which the gameplay shares similarities with) then you will most likely enjoy this title.

PROS
-Gorgeous Graphics.
-Long and in-depth story.
-Many Side missions to keep you occupied.
-Decent replay value
-Flawless gamepad support
-Impressive voice acting & Mocaping.

Cons
-No PvP based Multiplayer
-Game might be TOO long for some players.
-Micro transactions.
-High system requirements

Overall score: 7.5/10

Sleeping Dogs Review

 Sleeping Dogs is an open world sandbox game from Square-Enix. The game takes place in Hong Kong, and unlike most open world games you play a cop. Don’t worry though, it isn’t a goody two shoes type of cop! You play Undercover officer Wei Shen, who is infiltrating a Triad society called the Sun On Yee.

Sleeping Dog is the “Spiritual successor” to the True Crime games. If you owned a Playstation 2, you most likely played either True Crime: Streets of LA or True Crime: Streets of New York. Sleeping Dogs started it’s life out at Activison / Blizzard as True Crime: Hong Kong, however the game was cancelled for various reasons, and then insteps Square-Enix who bought the rights to the game. They however did not buy the rights to the True Crime franchise, and so the game was renamed Sleeping Dogs.

Now that we are done with the back story of the game, let’s move on to the meat of the matter! The review!

First things first! The graphics are amazing! Probably some of the best that I have seen on a finished console product. Everything from the lighting to the water to the fire looks amazingly realistic. Those are three of the hardest things to create in video games and keep realistic looking, but Sleeping Dogs pulls that off with flying colors.

The cast is all very believable, however since it takes place in Hong Kong, there is a fair bit of Cantonese spoken, although nowhere near as much as you would expect if you were actually in Hong Kong. However, there are subtitles, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue to anybody.

One thing that has become a staple in Open World games, is the car radio! Which makes sense, because usually a fair amount of time is spent in a car, and a person just needs some tunage! Know what I am saying? Well, Sleeping Dogs knows what I am saying, and they gave us car radios as well. Their choices for radio stations and songs playing on them however kind of suck! This is probably the worst collection of “Radio tunes” I have heard in an open world game since GTA3.

The game is actually pretty linear compared to others of the “Open World” genre, in fact I would go so far as to say, that it only gives the ILLUSION of freedom. Most things have to be done in a certain order, however you can explore the entire city right from the beginning. You don’t have to wait for bridges to open up, or anything like that. Just grab yourself a car and explore.

The game naturally has races, which has become standard fare in these types of games, however I usually suck at races, which usually either means I don’t finish the game, or I get bored and move to another game for a few months, the prolonging my completion of the original game. However, unlike other games of this Genre, has the races as side missions. If you love the race missions, do them! If you don’t, just skip em! Brilliant!

Then there is the combat! The game feels like it’s trying to lift the combat style from the Yakuza games and blend them with the newer Batman games. It does a pretty decent job of blending the two, but the combat does become frustrating, since there are a few times, where you get your ass handed to you, and have to go back quite a bit, because Checkpoints are few and far between.

Overall, the game is great! Sure, there’s a few areas that could use some polishing, but nothing that will break the game.

Fun fact though: Some players who research a lot on organized crime, or are familiar with the Chinese Triad, might think the games Triad clan Sun On Yee sounds familiar. The clan is actually a play on the RL Triad Sun Yee On.

Related articles

• Review: Sleeping Dogs (atthebuzzershow.com)
• Sleeping Dogs Review (PS3) (gadgetreview.com)
• Sleeping Dogs review (gamedelite.wordpress.com)

The Wii might not be so bad!

Image via Wikipedia

I have never hid the fact that I am not a huge fan of the Nintendo Wii. In fact, I believe I have even clearly stated that I hated it. That it wasn’t for me. That was all true! However, things have taken a slight turn now. Don’t get me wrong, I am still not a big fan of the Wii, in fact they only have 2 decent exclusive titles. Those titles are as Follows.

Animal Crossing: City Folk – A good game, however there isn’t much difference between this version and the version found on the Nintendo DS called Animal Crossing: Wild World. There’s a few changes but not much. In fact, it’s so similar, that they allow you to transfer your Wild world character over into your City Folk game. Basically, City Folk is like an expansion pack for wild world, and not even a good one.

A boy and his Blob  – This is a remake of the original NES game, so if you were a fan of the original, like I was, then you will no doubt have to play this remake. The graphics are beautiful, the game play is fun. It’s an enjoyable experience for the whole family.

That’s it! Those are the two exclusive Wii titles that are even slightly of interest. Sure, they have other good games! I never said they didn’t, but the fact is those other good games can be played on better consoles with better game controls. Have I mentioned in this post how much I hate motion controllers? Because I really do!

Anyway, despite my dislike for the Wii, I decided today to rummage through the Wii shop, and see what all they had in there, and to my surprise there was some pretty good stuff! The first thing that tickled my fancy was Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, which apparently is a sequel to the Super Famicom / SNES game Final Fantasy IV, which for the record is in my opinion the BEST Final Fantasy game ever created!

After my mind boggled at that game, I decided to dig around some more, this time in the Virtual Console section of the Wii shop. I found myself shitshocked at what I found! Many of the best games ever created from past consoles, all right there on one system! I mean, they were old game titles, Most were well over 15 years old! However they were still incredible games, and they were right there! These were games that I used to play instead of doing homework! Games that I would play hooky for! Games like Super Metroid, Paper Mario, Mario RPG, California Games, the entire Phantasy Star Series and that’s just to name a few!

The one that really caught my eye though? Y’s Book I & II. You see, the original Y’s Game. Y’s book I was the first RPG I ever played! It got me interested in not just Role Playing, but gaming it’s self.  I played the original on a game system called the Sega Master System, and I remember staying up all night until I passed out from sheer exhaustion. Sure, before that game I played other games, but I had never played a game that long without losing interest. Considering I suffered from ADD, that was amazing. Needless to say the game became my all time favorite game.

Fun fact: Not only did Y’s get me interested in Gaming, but it also got both my cousins interested in gaming and even my aunt and mom. Yea, it was that much of a kick ass game!

Years later a system popped up called the TurboGrafx-16, which people were going gaga over. mainly because it had some game called Bonk’s Adventure and everyone thought it was the bomb diggity. The game didn’t appeal to me, in fact none of the games appealed to me, and so I had no interest in the gaming console. That was until they released Y’s Book I & II, the original combined with a sequel. Being such a huge fan of the original, I had no choice! I had to buy the TG16! So I did, I of course also got the CD player, and Y’s I&II, and I have to admit I was thrilled! I felt it was the best purchase ever made, and once again I found myself unable to set the control down, I found myself passing out from sheer exhaustion.

Now, they are available on the Wii, for only 800 Wii Points, which is the equivalent of less than 10 bucks! Needless to say I bought quite a few Wii points, and bought quite a few games and relived my past in ways I never thought I would again, and the games are every bit as good today as they were then.

So, now I don’t mind the Wii. It’s not a great system in my opinion, but it’s also not too shabby either. It has it’s pluses.

Final Fantasy 13 First impressions

I have been looking forward to the release of Final Fantasy XIII for a while now, and when it came out I purchased it. It took me awhile to play it, what with my recent 360 issues and everything. Not to mention the masses of other games that were in line before it.

However, I have now gotten a chance to play it, and while I am not very far into the game, I am so far Very unimpressed! I mean, the graphics are incredible, there’s no denying that. Just that the story as well as the characters are lacking. The story is boring, the characters are laughable. Even during dramatic moments, I can’t help but laugh due to the characters reactions.

Maybe I am being too hard on the game. I mean, I used to love the series, but in all honesty I believe my tastes have changed. I am more interested in western RPGs than Eastern ones. However, back in the day, my opinion was totally reversed.

So, taking into consideration my newfound taste in RPGs is it still blah inducing? I would have to say yes.  The characters are too cartoony, laughably so. The character designs are outlandish, the locals are incredibly unbelievable. The voice acting is just ridiculous. Plus, on top of all of that, I don’t feel like I am playing a game. There’s absolutely NO freedom.  I feel like, I am pretty much mashing the buttons on my gamepad during a movie. A really long boring movie. The kind of movie that makes Titanic seem short and exciting.

Granted, it’s been awhile since I have played a Final Fantasy game. The last one, actually was Final Fantasy X, however I don’t remember them being so bad! Basically, only get this game if you are a hard-core Final Fantasy fan. Otherwise, you might find yourself incredibly disappointed, and who knows, you might still be disappointed even if you are a hard-core fan.