After a Holiday 2007 that was filled with games like Halo 3, Mass Effect, Uncharted and others, the games of early 2008 have a large shoe to fill. Turok is one of those games that’s reception could change depending on the time of year it’s released. Turok itself isn’t a bad game…but it isn’t a great game either. There are times when the game shows a truly awesome moment. And there are times when it’s simply downright frustrating and annoying.
Turok is the 4th game in the franchise. While the first title in the series was fairly well received, the latter titles left much to be desired. The story puts you in the role of Turok trying to track down is old teacher Kane for some unknown reason. Suddenly the space ship Turok is on comes under attack and crash lands onto a planet filled with dinosaurs and other creatures. The original Turok was subtitled “The Dinosaur Hunter” and the latest game is no exception to the rule. There’s a good variety of dinos to hunt, though not all of them necessarily need to be massacred. In fact, by utilizing flares you can use the dinosaurs as weapon to attack an enemy. The other neat thing about the dinosaurs in the world is they will stalk and hunt you. You won’t necessarily see them, but you can hear them, and before you know it you’ll be knocked on your ass fending off the dino attack. There’s a button press mini game that is played to survive every attack, as well as during a few cutscenes in the game. There’s a good variety of animations and differences in the mini games that keep it interesting.
Like I said before, there are several scenes and moments in the game that will simply put a smile on your face. Sneaking up behind enemy soldiers and knifing them in the back is one. Launching explosive arrows into groups of unsuspecting enemies is another. But there are times in the game where things are simply so unbalanced that it’s just downright frustrating. Part of the problem is the screen shake in the game. When you take hits from gunfire your viewport is skewed a bit. The bigger problem is when an explosion goes off near you and knocks you off your feet. You become disoriented, and can’t shoot or move for a few seconds. The even bigger problem here is most times an enemy will be able to get off another rocket or grenade before you even get back to your feet, thereby knocking you back down before you really get back up. Before you know it your screen is a blurry red mess and suddenly you are dead.
The single player campaign was mildly entertaining, as was the story. There’s a solid voice acting cast with the likes of Ron Perlman as the cynical sidekick Slade. The game features a pretty indepth multiplayer mode complete with dinosaurs that roam the playing field. There’s also a small co-op campaign online which consists of 3 short missions. It would have been nice if the actual campaign was co-op, but what we get is pretty solid.
Turok is a game that many people will overlook, and while it’s not something everyone should play, fans of shooters or the previous titles will enjoy what the game has to offer.
The game with the biggest hype of 2007 didn’t disappoint…most. The trilogy came to a solid conclusion, and it took you on some interesting twists and turns along the way. The beauty of Halo though can only be experienced by exploring the lore that surrounds it, which is masterfully expanded in books, comics and other literature. It’s especially well noted in the excellent advertising campaign for Halo 3 in which they depicted real life actors as veterans of the war in which the Master Chief fought in. The multiplayer modes are the richest and deepest we’ve ever seen on a console, and tools like Forge and the Replay Viewer are going to be new staples in console gaming. Did the game live up to the hype? No, of course not. No game could ever do that. But god damn was it a fun as hell ride.
Rock Band is a recent release of the year, but it’s one that should be on everyone’s list. Rock Band is the ultimate party game. Combine Karoke Revolution, Guitar Hero and drums and you’ve got something for everyone to play. The music selection is varied, and the presentation is absolutely top notch. I expect this game to have a lot of legs well into next year, especially with the weekly support of downloadable content.
There’s a show on TV right now called Pushing Daisies in which the main character talks to dead people to help solve the mysteries surrounding their deaths. Folklore follows a similar premise by having you visit the netherworld to unravel a mystery in the village of Doolin. In Folklore you follow the story and play as two different characters with intertwining paths. Ellen is a distressed young woman drawn to the Village of Doolin by a mysterious letter from her dead mother.
Keats is a reporter at a sci-fi magazine who receives a frantic phone call from a woman at the Village of Doolin. Both arrive to find a woman dead on the cliffs of the town, and murder is in the air. It’s their job to get to the bottom of the crime as well as discover what exactly happened in the village 17 years ago in the Village’s past.
The game itself is broken up into two parts. The first has your character walking around town, talking to townsfolk and looking for clues. The second has your character transported to the land of the dead to talk to a character from village who has since been deceased to fill in a piece of the puzzle. Each one of these sections make up a chapter of the game, and each chapter is played by each character. Cut scenes are played out in a pseudo comic book style look with a mix of frames and real rendered 3d graphics with popup text. This was sort of a disappointment to me as there are a few cut scenes that are actually rendered really well with complete voice overs, while the graphic novel style cut scenes seemed more low budget. With all the touts of Blu-Ray and the space it provides, not having the voice overs in these other cut scenes seems sort of silly. Especially when a huge epic RPG like Mass Effect or even Oblivion has every line of dialog voiced. Read the rest of this entry »
With Lair somewhat of a disappointment, and Warhawk a multi player only title, PlayStation 3 owners have been hungry for a solid AAA single player experience. Hopes and expectations have been high for Heavenly Sword, and some are hoping it will help justify there $600 investment. While I don’t think any one title is capable of that kind of justification, Heavenly Sword isdefinitely a piece of that puzzle.
Heavenly Sword is the tale of an ancient sword sent from the skies to help conquer evil in the world. Ironically, those who wield the sword are corrupted by it’s power becoming evil themselves, and killing all those in its path. Heavenly Sword puts you in the shoes (or sandals) of Nariko, a fiery red head who needs to wield the Heavenly Sword to protect her clan on the brink of destruction from an evil king.
It’s another week of WYSBP. The fall rush is almost upon us, and with that there are quite a few demos out there which should keep you occupied.
Bioshock Demo(PC/360) - While the demo is only available on 360 right now, this shouldnt’ stop you from downloading it immediately. Initial impressions of the demo have been solid, with considerable praise to the graphics. If you are looking for a FPS with lots of atmosphere and the freedom to accomplish things mulitple ways, this game is for you.
Stranglehold Demo(PC/360/PS3) - The Stranglehold demo hit last week on the 360, with a PC demo coming this week sometime. Anyone who was a fun of Max Payne needs to play this ASAP. Fully interactive enviornments, incredible damage modeling, and just an all around fun game. The greatest thing about this demo is successive playthroughs will unlock new abilities and higher difficulty levels. Sweet!
All Pro Football 2k8(PS3/360) - I know, I know. Madden 2008 hits this week. But you SHOULD be playing APF2k8 instead. Stick it to the man by playing a solid football game that’s more than just a roster update. The graphics are decent, but the animations are top notch. Overall the gameplay is solid, and should satisfy any football fan.
It’s Friday, that can only mean one thing. Evil Avatar Radio! But alas, during all the shuffle last week with the server outages and whatnot, you may or may not know that the last Friday show of EvAv Radio was broadcast last week.
That’s right, Evil Avatar Radio hosted by Philip “Kefkataran” Kollar is no more. No more late Friday nights in the chatroom listening to Phil and Amanda talk about Draygons and Horse Carcass. Phil is moving sidways and taking on more responsibilities at 1UP.
Fear not Evil Avatarians! Our newest Red and host of In-Game Chat, Scott “Psykoboy2” Benton has picked up the reins of said horse carcass and rode it, and the Evil Avatar Radio name, to Monday nights.
So what ever shall we do on Fridays? Us gamers SURELY can’t go OUT. We definitely can’t be social in public. So instead I bring to you, EvAv Arcade Fridays!
What is it? Every Friday night starting at 10PM Eastern we’ll be playing some specific games over Xbox Live and Playstation Network with the Evil Avatar Community.
So this week we’ll have 4 games lined up to play: Bomberman Live (XBLA) Carcassone(XBLA) Spyglass Board Games (XBLA) Calling All Cars (PSN)
I’ll be keeping the chatroom up, so if you need to try to get in a game, be sure to head over there and ask around. I encourage people to use it, or even just hang out on Friday organzing ANY kind of gaming activity.
So last night I finally fired up my PSP and downloaded the latest firmware release. I was quite a few releases old, so with the new update I was able to access the Remote Play functionality for connecting the PSP to the PS3. What is remote play? Remote play allows you to use your PSP as a virtual XMB of yours PS3. That mean, you can see and access almost anything that is on your PS3 via your PSP. The coolest aspect of this is the ability to connect via the internet, so technically you can connect to your PS3 from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.
After a few glitchy starts, I got the system up and running and it was absolutely slick. I was able to stream 1080p movies in realtime over the internet to my PSP. At one point I was literally browsing pictures that were stored on my Windows Vista Computer. Let me run that by you again. My PSP was connected via the Internet to my PS3, which was connected via my local network to my Windows Vista PC and streaming digital pictures back. God I love gross misuse of technology.
Unfortuantely you aren’t able to run any games via this method, it basically is like a remote desktop connection to your PS3. But the fact that you can stream videos and such, or listen to music is pretty awesome. And with the upcoming PS3 DVR, the ability to stream shows anywhere, anytime is huge. You are even able to adjust quality settings based on network performance, even on the default quality the videos look fairly crisp and sound great.
Finally I downloaded Syphon Filter for the PSOne via the Playstation Store and checked it out on the PS3. The title definitley shows it’s age, but it was still a blast. The really great thing is the ability to copy the game to the PSP then and play it on the go. Take note Nintendo, Sony has the pricing done right. $5.99 for a PSOne era game, something Nintendo charges $12 or more for), with the ability to copy and play it on your portable device. That’s value right there.
I’ve just posted 14 new screenshots from Resident Evil 5 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. I absolutely LOVE the look of this game. It’s a setting we rarely see in any games, and the style of the art is just drop dead gorgeous.
You can also see the new trailer over at GameTrailers.
