October 2, 2007 – 12:26 am
Having played Halo 3 for about a week now I can honestly say ‘meh’ to the whole series. I have no idea why it is so popular or why it gets such great praise. It is a well made game for what it is (a pointless shooter), but the story is boring, and the gameplay is the same thing over and over again. Sure it’s fun for a bit, but not really for me in the long run.
This is my first experience with the Halo franchise so bare with me. I’ve never been much for online gaming so I dug into the campaign mode first. Sure I’m coming into the story at the final act so maybe I was a little confused, but for the most part the story was lame. I was much more intrigued with the narrative in Gears of War than this snore fest—even though it was fairly sparse.
Now that I’ve finished the fight and collected all the skulls, I’ve dipped into matchmaking and online play. I’m not good at shooters, never could get into all that twitch control—run and shot stuff the 12 year olds have down pat. Played a few ranked matches, got my ass handed to me, and now I’m about done with playing this. Maybe when some of my friends cave in and purchase the game we can do some co-op I’ll find some enjoyment in this game. Otherwise after getting a couple more achievements I’m going to shelf this game.
I will say that the community features built in are quite impressive. It records the last 25 games you play and allows you to watch them from every angle, share with friends, create screenshots, and so much more. More games need to follow with this feature set, it’s great.
September 4, 2007 – 2:34 pm
I have a few minor gripes with BioShock for the Xbox 360. First off, the story seemed too short—I polished it off in about 3-three hour sessions. To be fair I did play it on easy during my first pass so that could explain why I breezed through it never knowing what happened when you died. Big Daddy’s pretty much went down by laying two proximity mines on the ground and causing them to rush into them. Something tells me on medium or hard it takes a lot more ammo to kill these bad boys. =P
While more of a frustration than a game design problem…the achievements. I nabbed 800 points playing the game to completion on easy mode. I should have gotten 950 points but I missed one frickin’ diary in the Kashmir Bar, which you can’t go back to after you leave that area! That and apparently if you kill Sander’s after completing his masterpiece you can’t get into his secret room later in the game. A room you’d need access to if you want to fully upgrade all your weapons for another achievement. I also forgot to photograph him so I didn’t get that achievement either (went back to where I thought I killed him to photograph the body but couldn’t find it).
Other than these minor nit picks, this game has been fantastic. I am by no means a fan of first person shooters, but I’ve really gotten into it. Probably has something to do with the amazing art direction, story, and sound design…and all the fun ways you can come up with killing enemies. If they make a sequel to BioShock that takes place in the Rapture universe, I’m buying it!
The game just gets better with each play through. Last night I started a game on medium, in hopes of grabbing the remaining achievements (minus the one for beating it on hard). Originally I was going to attempt hard mode but after getting frustrated with the constant dying I gave up. I can live without a perfect 1,000 gamerscore on this game.
Oh and what’s up with the game creating individual save files each time I go to a different locale in Rapture? I don’t mind the autosave feature but couldn’t it just keep it confined to one save? I had to manually delete saves because it filled up my Memory Unit and would refuse to save my progress. Eventually I gave up and just saved to the harddrive, but it shouldn’t have to be that way. Lame.
August 13, 2007 – 7:37 pm
I’ve been hearing about BioShock for a long time and frankly I didn’t give a damn. FPS (first person shooters ie: Halo, blah blah blah) aren’t my thing and that’s exactly how this game has been described by the press. I think labeling it a FPS has done the game a disservice because to me it seems more like a first person action adventure with more to offer than just fragging doods. Condemned: Criminal Origins pulled me in with it’s eerie story, great sense of environment, and overall creep factor—BioShock is doing the same for me.
After downloading the demo and completing it you really get an idea of what the game is all about. The world of Rapture looks amazing, sounds amazing, is amazing! The best part about this game is that enemy AI feels real, which makes the gameplay dynamic and fresh. Not to mention it’s probably going to scare the crap out of me because you never quite know what the other characters are up to. Going to pick this game up for sure when it’s released for the Xbox 360 in a few weeks.
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The Xbox 360 is looking better and better everyday. 16×9 widescreen and high-definition output for every game! Love it. Wireless controllers/streaming music from iTunes… love it! How did Sony come up with that busted design for the PS3 after creating such a sleek handheld? Those chaps have Spiderman on the mind. Xbox 360 and N:Revolution Nintendo Wii here I come.
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