Ok, Im doing this at the last possible moment, and so Im
going to spend a whopping five minutes on this, then leave. The
short and the long of this month is that Ive played 4 games so
far. Three of them I only have a few hours each, as for the
fourth, Im under a nondisclosure agreement, and cant talk about
it until the game comes out in February. Thats right, I got to
beta-test Everquest Online Adventures for Playstation 2. I
probably racked up a good 20 hours on it at least, and will tell
you all about the game, and the beta-test process as soon as I
can. All I can say about it, however, is that you spend 50+% of
your time running from point A to point B, and yet the game is
still strangely addicting. Even Sidra agrees, and she has the
highest disdain for Everquest. The other 3 games Ive played
are 007 Nightfire, which I played at the end of November as a
rental, and Star Wars Bounty Hunter, and Tribes Arial Assault,
all for PS2. Im just going to give a vague review of the game,
and give it a rating of A through F, and that will be that. Ill
make it up some other time. (Incidentally, NO-ONE has
emailed me a single little message like I asked. Obviously
nobody reads this.)
007 Nightfire (played on PS2, also out on Gamecube and
Xbox, I believe)
Fairly cool plotline, very "Bondish." You are running around
getting information on some foreign guy (its been a month since I
played, remember?). You start by infiltrating a party to meet up
with another agent, and then go from there. The beginning is
very like a cross between the opening mission of Mission
Impossible and True Lies. Anyway, its a good mix of sneaking
around and outright gun fights. The graphics are quite decent,
and the story line has both talking and CG (computer graphic)
clip scenes. You also have other modes of play, like when you
are escaping in an armored snowmobile, and you get to man the
gun turret (yes, I know, snow mobiles dont have turrets) while
your female friend-with-benefits drives. At another time, you get
to drive the Bond car through city streets and stuff, then fight
your way past the police. The game has a good multiplayer
setup, with many characters and modes to unlock. One can
play 2 player death-match, team death-match, have bots, etc.
There are also modes like defend and destroy, capture and hold,
and a weird one called golden-eye, where if your team gets both
halves of the golden-eye key (yes, I know the golden-eye key is
one piece), then a random opponent dies. There game also
hosts a large variety of weapons, and even two remote
controlled weapons, a tank and a helicopter. Overall, if you like
Bond games, this one is definitely worth getting.
Rating: B+
Star Wars Bounty Hunter (played on PS2, also available on
Gamecube and Xbox, I think)
In this game you play Jango Fett from Episode II. This takes
place 10 years before Episode II when Count Dooku/Lord
Tyrannous is looking for a champion to make a clone army out
of. He gives you the task to track down and capture a dark Jedi
(I think) and if you succeed, you get the contract to become the
clone model. The graphics on the game are quite spectacular.
(If you go to the
there is a cool spot about how they did
the graphics for it using Maya (Uber-cool graphics modeling
program $2000-$6000). Anyway, the game is from a third
person perspective, with a free-rotating camera, and you play as
Jango Fett. You get his armor, and all the cool stuff in it, like a
flamethrower, powered dart rifle, twin blasters that you can
target 2 people at once with, a grappling cord, and any other
stuff you can collect. You go about collecting bounties, chasing
down one or two big people at a time, while always scanning for
small time crooks you can bring in along the way. Capturing
bounties gives you money, which so far seems to be applied
towards your final score. The levels are somewhat similar to
those in the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series of games, where
each level is kind of a puzzle to find your way through. There
are also hidden places where you can collect more points for
finding. By finding enough secrets and collecting enough money,
you can unlock videos, comic books, and more on the game.
Rating: B+
Tribes Arial Assault (Only on PS2, network adapter required)
I love Tribes on the computer, so I bought this with Christmas
money. Overall, I am very impressed. The graphics are good,
and the game supports all of the fun gameplay modes in the
original computer game. For those who dont know, Tribes for
the computer (and PS2 for the most part) is entirely a
multiplayer game. Players spawn on maps in powered armor.
There are two teams on the map, and your objective is to kill the
other team, and capture their flag, or hold a target, or defend a
target, etc. You get points for the completing the game
objective (i.e. each time you capture the flag) and each time you
frag someone. Each team generally has a base that they can
defend. Players can pick their own types of armor (light,
medium, and heavy, and their own assortment of favorite
weapons (all types from laser rifles to mortars to miniguns, also
various grenades, etc) Players can also get different types of
ships, from hoverbikes, fighter craft, heavy transports, and
bombers. When you die, you respawn. Games are generally
played under point and time limits. If you love multiplayer shoot
em ups, this is the game for you. The game is very similar to the
computer version. All my computer skills, like aiming ballistic
mortars by eye still works fine, hit my first target nearly dead on
the first try, and THEN I discovered the helpful guide-laser
ability. The game also has a small single player campaign, mostly
to get you use the gameplay style and control setup. After the
training, you get to take part in a small storyline in the tribes
universe, where you are defending the planet from invading alien
fighters. (the single player is hard towards the end, because
unlike multiplayer, when you die, you do NOT respawn again).
Like I said, you need an internet connection and a PS2 network
adapter to play.
Rating: A-
Well, thats it, gotta go. Some one please email me. Hasta
Luego. Da svidania.
