Gildargaming

I finally got around to writing this first impressions article after having played the game for 20 hours plus. This Genre is really difficult to write a first impressions article on since the story is such an important part of the game and the gameplay may change throughout the game.
Well, anyway, here’s my impressions of this game so far. I didn’t play the original deus ex when it game out, but from what I can tell this game has a little less freedom, and the rpg elements are a bit less complex when it comes to character development in terms of statistics. Some would probably call it dumbed down. Well let’s get on to the game itself.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution takes place in a not to distant future where human augmentation through inplants is possible, but not available to everyone. There is an ongoing struggle between the people who are pro augmentations and those who think modifying humans in this way are morally wrong. This theme is an important part of the game, and brings up the classic question of how far sciance could and should go.

The main character: Adam Jensen, is (even though, it’s not by his own will) an augmented human being. He gets his augmentations so early on that I don’t consider it a spoiler. He gets involved in a big conspiracy involving very powerful augmentations.

The game consists of several “City hubs” with a main plot and a lot of side missions. The hubs are fairly large and (at least for me) fairly easy to get lost in. It’s not a true open world game but while withink a hub, you can move around freely before moving on to the next one. The missions are fairly good and usually have several solutions and sometimes leads to other side quests.

Graphics

Overall, the graphics are really good. Their are more important things in a game like this, but it doesn’t hurt that most of the game looks really good. There are some exceptions however. Some of the scripted cutscenes and “Take downs” (more on this later) looks weird. As I’ve already stated though, this doesn’t take away much from the overall experience.

Audio

The sound effects and music of this game is great. Most of the areas in the game has music in the background that adds to the overall atmosphere and feel of an area without being repetitive. Many places also have people talking to each other. You can overhear some interesting conversations, some of which can give you hints to quests or just add to the overall feel. This gets me into voice acting. The voice acting in this game range from quite bad to really good. For some reason, I really like the voice of the main character. As in most open world games, some of the general chatter can be repetitive, but I really haven’t found as much of this here as in other games.

User interface

There isn’t much to say here. The UI does what it’s soposed to and it does it well. Inventory management is quite easy and it’s always easy to find what you’re looking for.

Gameplay

The game is played from a first person perspective for the most part, with the exception of some, for the most part unnecessary cutscenes. This brings up the concept of the Take down system mentioned above. You can incapacitate people by using a non lethal take down (basically walking up to someone and pressing a key). This will take care of enemies without having to kill them, and can be a good solution to many situations. I think you can actually play through the entire game without actually killing someone with a few exceptions. This brings me to the most annoying part of the game: Boss fights. From what I’ve heard, the boss fights in this game were outsource to a different company and the original developer wasn’t to happy with them, however they are there and I have to talk about them. The first one almost made me stop playing the game, cause I got there with weapons that made it really difficult and these fights only take away from the overall experience of the game. They are few and far between however, so, for the most part, those shouldn’t bother anyone to much. This game, however isn’t only about killing stuff. The main story and the multi layer quests is better then you’ll find in most games. This game calls itself an RPG, and RPG  for most people today means statistics, leveling and character development (even though this can be debated and I don’t agree with it). You gain experience by doing all sorts of things; Talking to people, completing quests, hacking computers and taking out enemies). For the most part, you gain more experience by using non lethal solutions to problem, something that can push your gameplay in a way that I don’t like. While playing, I usually don’t care and I just take the solution I feel is the most righteous thing to do or whatever suits me best. In terms of leveling, you gain praxis points that can be used to buy augmentations. Augmentations are basically the skill system of this game. When it comes to weapons, I don’t feel that any weapon is more powerful then another in most cases. Everything has it’s advantages and disadvantages, with the exceptions of the silly boss fights. Same goes for the augmentations, even though I’ve found a few that would be really difficult for me to do without. There’s quite a few weapons to choose from, but I usually use what’s at hand, and what I can find ammo for, since your inventory space is quite limited, even with inventory enhancing augs. I’ll usually find myself switching weapons several times during a long mission depending on what my enemies are using. This will depend on your accuracy and the difficulty level you play on off course. Even though I have been talking a lot about combat and such here, I want to emphasize that the most important part of this game is the storytelling and character interaction.

Conclusion

In 2011 we saw quite a few great games, and this is no exception. If you like a game with some action, that also has a good story, this game is a must. I really don’t have much to complain about in this game, despite what I’ve said above. I highly recommend this game, and if you want quests to be more challanging, I recommend turning off the quest tracker waypoints in the options.

I finally picked this game up after Christmas and have been playing it quite a bit since. This is the type of game who will take some time to get a really solid impression of, so I wanted to spend a few hours before I tried to come up with a conclusion. I’m a big fan of the original XCOM series, even though I didn’t play the original that much and spent the most time with Terror from the deep and Apocalypse. The problem with a remake of a great game is that you want the same game, but at the same time, you want something new. I think this game, overall makes agood job of recreating the original feel of the gmae, even if parts of it feels a bit dumbed down. Overall, There’s also some limitations in the gameplay that annoys me a bit; for instance, you can’t deal with multiple alien attacks at once, even if you had the resources to do so. You have to pick one abduction site and the areas you don’t pick with suffer from increased panic levels and eventually withdraw their support for XCOM. I should also mention the “dumbing down” in the tactical department. In the original, your squad member had action points. IN this one, every squad member has 2 actions per turn, and you have to plan your movement accordingly. If I remember correctly, you also had an inventory in the original game, something that doesn’t exist now. Well, it does exists but there’s now way to change anything during a mission.

Graphics

The graphics are good enough for a strategy gmae. SOme of the graphics are quite impressive and the tactical map is good enough.

Audio

The sound effects in the are good and I in my openion the music is excelent. The voice-overs are generally good, even though the one liners from your squad tend to get a bit repetitive after a while.

User interface

You’ll likely learn everything about the UI in a few minutes. It’s quite simple and you’ll learn how to access everything quickly. At your base, you’ll reach everything in a few clicks and the menus are intuitive. Same goes for the missions. You’ll do everything with one or two clicks or a hotkey.

Gameplay

THe gameplay consists or two parts: The base management part and the missions. The base management part has a decent dept to it, even though there could be more. You basically decide wiath to build, what soldiers to hire, where to place satelites and what to research. I felt the original series had a bit more depth here, This is also true for the missions. Now you pick your squad, pick their equipment and head out to the abduction site or UFO crash site. WHile in the mission, you are stuck with your choices. THis can cause a bit of trouble when the wring person dies. Let’s say you have one person with a medikit (can revive or stabilize unconsious squad members). If this person dies and one of your other squad members is injured, there’s nothing you can do. If he or she is dying, there’s no way to save him. Same goes for special weapons. There’s also the things I already mentioned about the simplified 2 action turn system. I could go on and on about things I don’t like here, but there’s no point. There is a few things i do like. I play in Iron man mode. THis means you can’t reload if something bad happens to you. THis really forces you to make be careful and plan your decision well. This brings back a lot of the feel and tension from the original game, Some turn based combat is also nice for a change, and overall it’s done pretty well. The game also has an RPG element. Your soldiers will gain experiance and promotions over time and you’ll have to pick the right skills for each of them. I should mention the different classes I guess. There are 4 classes in the game, each with a different set of skills. They usually obtain their first skill after their first kill, when they get their first promotion to squadie. The classes are assault (speaks for itself), support (SMoke granades, supression and stuff like that), heavy (well, heavy weapons :)) and sniper. It’s usually a good thing to have all of these in your squad for every mission.

Conclusion

In spite of it’s flaws. This is a really good remake of one of the best game series ever. As mentioned I played Terror from the deep more, and wouldn’t mind if they made a simular thing with that game. Not sure it’s wort the full price, but if you’re reading this, it’s probably because you see this game on sale somewhere, and you should definitely pick it up.

I should have written this a long time ago, but things have gotten in between, and I wasn’t really sure what to think about this game honestly.

The main character in The witcher 2 is Geralt of Rivia, I monster-hunter or Witcher. If you’ve played The Witcher, the first game in the series, you’ll recognize him, as well as some other characters in this game. The game starts in a prison, or more like a dungeon where you are interigated by a captain of the king’s guard (or something like that). During the interigation you “relive” the events you’re questioned about. This, I asume is kind of a tutorial to the game, even though it’s really difficult for a tutorial (this is a standard separate tutorial as well, just to learn how to use powers and fight).

The game does not feature class choices or character customization from the start. You are stuck with Geralt and his abilities. You can however, customize your character in different areas when you level up, so I asume there’s different ways to play the game.

I’ve only played through the interigation part, so I can’t say anything about the size of this game yet, but after what I’ve heard it’s big, with a lot of side quests. One thing I will say though, is that the game is kind of difficult right from the start, I also quickly discovered one of the annoyances of this game. The game seem to be using quite a few quicktime events. Quicktime events are ok in some places,, I can live with them in Mass Effect, but here they were a bit annoying, not sure why. Maybe it’s because this could have been done just as well in the game engine. This is just my personal openion and nothing that should ruin the game.

The combat, however is awasome, it feels really good and fluid. I don’t know any other way to describe it.THis is an area where the game really shines.

The game has crafting as well, it seems quite simular to the original game, but I haven’t done enough of it yet to say anything about it.

When looking at an RPG you have to look at the story and the charactrers in the game. I’ve only just started this game, but I like the story so far. I don’t think it has the same character depth as some other games though. I guess the game I have to compare this with got to be the dragon age series, and in my openion those games, especially Dragon age: Origin has more character depth,

Graphics

From what I’ve seen so far, the graphics in this game are awasome. A lot of attention has been paid to detail. I’m not far into the game yet, but I expect to see some great envirements throughout the game. Despite the nice looking graphics, the game runs really well on my system.

Audio

The music in this game is great, even though, again I prefer the music in DA. Same goes for the voice acting. I’ve read a lot of people think the voice acting in this game is great, but I think it varies. I haven’t experianced anything terrible yet, but I’m not as impressed as I was when first playing Dragon age: Origin. The sound effects and ambient sounds are good.

User interface

While it takes a little time to get used to, the game does a good job of telling you how to User interfaceuse abilities and other hotkeys available. Overall, the UI is good.

Gameplay

As mentioned abovbe you play as Geralt of Rivia. He seem to be a quite self-sufficient character who prefers to travel and fight alone. So far I haven’t seen any signs of party-based gameplay and I don’t expect to see it later. There’s a lot of NPCs to interact with, but I don’t think you’ll be able to form a party.

Conclusion

Overall, this game seem to be one of the better RPS over the past few years. I still prefer the Bioware RPGs over this game, but it’s still an awasome game so far.

da

I don’t play FPS games a lot except the occasional Red Orchestra session, however, large scale battles in games have always been facinating to me. I never played Planetside 1 or any other MMO FPS but I remember reading about them (played a lot of MMORPGs at the time).

So, what can I say about PS2 after a few days of play? Well, it’s difficult to say the least, and I’m terrible at it. Even though I die a ton, I enjoy the game and find the large scale battles very imersive. The game still has a few problems, but I asume most of this  will be fixed before launch on November 20th.

No other game has these kind of large  scale combined arms battles. I’ve never experianced anything like this in an FPS, or any other game for that matter. The only real problem I have with the game is that it’s quite difficult to get in to if you haven’t played Planetside 1. Most games these days go to far with tutorials, but this game could certainly use it.

The game has three different factions with different weapons and vehicles, even though they share some equipment. There is a never ending battle going on between these factions and the goal is to control as much of the game map as possible. The map consists of “hexes” with control points and resources. THe faction in control of each “hex” with get the resources. You capture a control point by hacking terminals. Resources are used for buying weapons and vehicles.

Graphics

The graphics are really good for an MMO.  The effects from some of the weapons are stunning, especially at night.

Audio

The game has some great music and the sound effects are just awasome.

User interface

The user interface is fairly simple, and for the most part, easy to read and use. I haven’t really tried to customize anyting yet, so I’m not really sure how customizable it is.

Game play

As I’ve allready mentioned, this game plays like most FPS games, except on a huge scale. You have 6 classes to pick from, and you can change class at most facilities in game. The classes are Infiltrator (stealth, sniping), light assault, heavy assault (with ati-vehicle weapon), combat medic, engineer (reapir, place turrets, mines tec.) and MAX (Heavy trooper with dual weapons, that can take quite a few hits, however it has some limitations). Throughout the game you’ll get “Cert” points that can be used to unlock new weapons and customizations.

COnclusion

RIght now, this game looks really promising. If they can keep this game Free to play without making it pay to win, I think this can be a huge success.

I picked up this game on a sale two days ago and have had some time to try it out. Keep in mind this is a six year old game, and things may not look as good as they do nowadays.

Company of heroes is a Real Time Strategy game set during world war two. Before I picked this game up, I thought it was pretty much like Men of war, but after playing the tutorials and a few missions, it feels more like a  standard RTS with base building elements and resource management. Don’t get me wrong, the campaing missions I’ve played so far plays pretty much like Men of war, but the game feels more like a standard RTS then a WWII battle simulator or whatever you want to call it.

I’m always a bit sceptical to games trying to be somewhat authentic, while at the same time time incorporating base building and resource “gathering”., however this still seem to be a fun game and I’ll keep playing it.

The campaign is set on the western front in 1944 (like most other WWII games). It seem to focus on the operations in Normandy. It would be nice if it had some different campaign, I mean, WWII is more then just just the invasion of France, but the existing campaign seem to be well done.

Game play

I haven’t played enough to say much about game play yet, but it’s the usual RTS stuff. You start with some units, establish a base and build more troops. You can also upgrade tropps and gain special abilities and spend command points to get artiliry strikes and stuff, so the game seem to have pretty good strategic depth.

Graphics

For a game from 2006, the graphics are really nice. They also mix in cut scenses during the campaign to enhance the experiance. THose cuts seem to be  well done thus far.

Audio

Sound effects are good, and the game has a really nice soundtrack.

Conclusion

If you like RTS game, this game is definitely worth a try, especially considering the price 6 years after the release.