The Guildmasters

Uncharted 2, yes there has been a lot of hype over this game, I  read the world first review on this game in my latest edition of  Playstation magazine and I must admit it has made me really want to give this one a go.

I’d heard about this game several times before but didn’t pay it much attention but after reading up on what has gone into the game the graphics, the story and the type of action it really does sound pretty cool, if I like it enough then i’ll give a play by play post like I did with RE5.

Anyway here is a little about the game, it seems there isn’t a movement you can’t do, hang, drop, jump, slide, take cover, you name it you can do it.  There is also a lot of  shootouts, but more than that is a lot of puzzle solving, this is what caught my attention, I don’t really like just shoot em ups, I like a good rpg with a storyline and a bit of shooting, but I also like puzzle solving and using tactics, this has all the elements of being a great rpg.

Another unusual aspect is there are five difficulty levels whereas most games will only give you three so there will be a difficulty level for everyone,  I personally start on the easiest on most games and work my throught to the hardest so this one will obviously keep me going for many hours.

There is also some massive online play and that was just in beta, earning in-game money will allow you to purchase unlockables like weapon upgrades and new skins. Online modes  vary from deathmatch to goldrush, there are co-op modes for two or three players so all in all it’s sounding cool.

The game doesn’t release till October 13th so I may just download the beta online version tonight and give it a go, i’ll post here once i’ve had a first hand experience of this and let you know what I think.

If your interested you can pre-order Uncharted 2 from amazon, you can check them out from the ad on the far right hand column, just make sure the store has a good lifetime rating and you’ll have no problems.

Tony

Yes started to play RE5 today, in some ways it was excellent, I am really enjoying the game but at the same time there is a bit of disappointment there.

I was surprised they took the merchant away, he was an excellent addition to RE4 but again I like the fact the inventory system means you can carry unlimited amount of things, well at least to a certain degree, you can’t access the full inventory until the end or beginning of each level, during each level you can carry up to 9 items, you can still combine the herbs which is good.

The most noticeable change ( apart from graphics ) is the Zombie’s, they are so fast now, it is a very fast paced game, when you come across enemies it’s usually in groups so you’ve got 4 or 5 minutes of non-stop action, panic almost in some areas, ammo is fairly limited especially early on, my first two groups of zombies was mostly fought with the knife.

Something I miss from RE4 is the lack of speed, I liked being able to work out what my next move would be, knowing the enemy was slower than me gave me the chance to experiment with tactics whereas RE5 is so quick you don’t have chance for tactics, you can’t outrun the enemy so it’s a stand and fight or die situation, although in a few areas if you get the chance you can get yourself on higher ground to pick enemies off more leisurely.

Well I played with my son for about 4hrs straight and we made it to chapter 3-1 and called it a day, i’m pleased with the game overall, just miss some of the aspects of  RE4 but i’m still getting used to this, resident evil fans will love it, it will be another keeper i’m sure.

Will  update as a review once completed, looking forward to the unlockables, it seems there might be more than in the previous resident evil, plus we have trophies to go for now which I think is fun.

Tony

I played this game for more than 6 months, I completed it at least 4 times, got every mercenary quest done, absolutely contagious this game was for me.

The storyline was very cool in the usual resident evil way, the merchant  guy was probably my favourite character, it was amazing when he first appeared, I couldn’t stop laughing he was just so cool. “what a ya buying?” ” what a ya selling?” reminded me of a pirate dude.

In fact when I came across a guy in Oblivion called Shady Sam he reminded me so much of the merchant  in resident evil 4 I went back and played it again for a couple of weeks.

There are so many different forms of enemies in this game and the boss fights are really enjoyable, a vast range of weapons and quick pace set this game up for me as one of the all time greats of the resident evil series.

I’m writing the review now as i’ve just ordered the new Resident Evil 5 for my ps3 and i’m hoping it’s going to live up to the same standards as number 4, the only preview i’ve seen on RE5 was a quick glimpse of Whesker so hopefully 5 will be better than 4, looking forward to it.

It can get difficult at times to upgrade your weapons so you do need to find all the gems which fit into the various treasures so the items are worth more, fitting items into items typically increases their value many more times than if you sold the item seperately.

Once i’d played through about 3 times was when I then opted to try the mercenaries, that is hard, your either going to enjoy it or get really frustrated with it and probably destroy your tv, it’s great fun, if you haven’t played Resident Evil 4 you should, definitely.

Overall rating i’m giving another 10 out of 10, I know it seems like i’m being generous with the ratings but i’m not, it mostly takes a top notch game to keep my interest now, I know what it takes to make a really good RPG so most of the games i’ll write reviews on will almost certainly be a 9 or 10.  I don’t really see the point in writing a bad review on a bad game, I just simply won’t recommend a bad game so if i’m not going to recommend something why write about it, makes sense to me.

Tony

Wow, one of the best games i’ve ever played, this game is awesome, i’ve just finished all that I can, meaning the basic game not the one with all the extras, it’s the only thing that stopped me buying it, i’ll wait until I can get the version with all the extra quests.

I did finally manage to get all the trophies for this game and as soon as I get the chance i’ll sync it with the playstation server for all to see.

Ok review time, there isn’t much else they could have done with this game which would have made it better, it really was that good.  The main quest again could be completed fairly quickly but with the amount of side quests and some very hard to find quest items and bobbleheads it made for many many more extra hours of game play.

There seemed to be traces of so many other good games in this one, in some cases it was very much like Morrowind and Oblivion with guns yet it was nothing like those two games, when one of my boys first saw Fawkes he said “cool, a better version of Nemesis” I thought that wasn’t a bad description really, Fawkes was pretty cool.

I have to admit there were two bobbleheads  I would never have found on my own, one in particular I ended up having to look for the location online, even after finding it I knew I would have never found it on my own, a place called Rocopolis  ( or similar ).

The quests in this game aren’t boring either, there always seems to be something new wherever you go, dialogue can play an important part but it’s not a have to, you can be very good and get rewarded for your goodness or you can be downright evil, or of course you can be a bit of both, it works on a good, neutral or bad karma rating.

I think the thing that is really going to draw the playtime out for you is if your like me and decide to go for every trophy in the game, I would say hunting all the trophies gave me an extra 20 hours of playtime at least,  I really enjoyed going away from the main quest to explore, the fact that you could get certain beings to hang around with you was cool, I used my extra buddies to carry an awesome amount of stuff when I would have had to go back to my house if i’d have been alone, and a dog too, how cool was that? Get your own dog who can hunt down meds or ammo for you, my next dog I get i’m going to call him “Dogmeat”.

Overall rating i’m giving 10 out  of 10, it was so enjoyable to play this game, I can’t wait to pick up the game of the year edition with the extra quests.

Tony

With Oblivion there are two ways to write this review, your either going to compare it to Morrowind or write it as a  totally seperate game, on it’s own.

To compare it to Morrowind could be disappointing and also unfair to both games so i’m just going to write this review as if I had never played another game, just Oblivion.

After being freed from my cell one of the first things that really grabbed my attention was the first encounter I had with an enemy, it was a rat, that’s not so unusual but the graphics and reality of how that rat behaved were unbelievable, so lifelike.

When you eventually work your wait out in to the actual world of Oblivion it’s astounding, the scenery, the grass, the trees, yes this sounds like i’m making a big deal out of something which should appear ordinary, but it’s not ordinary, this is the first game which actually had grass that moved in the wind, trees that dropped autumn leaves, like something more out of a movie than a game.

Without trying to make this review an epic, as I could write about it all day and still not get it all down, you have to play this game even if it’s just to experience what can now be  achieved with these new gaming systems.  For graphics and the way they work I have to give 10 out of 10, the trouble is I think the play has suffered a little probably because of the graphics, you can complete the main quest fairly quickly but again as with a few others the side quests are far and wide and are many which can give you a lot of hours of play time, this is certainly another game I will keep hold of as I will undoubtedly play it over and over again.

If your looking for a follow on to Morrowind you could be disappointed so treat it like a completely unassociated game and you’ll be fine, it’s definitely worth the money especially now as it’s a lot cheaper, I mean even Oblivion must be a couple of years old now.

My overall score for Oblivion would be around 8 out of 10 but that’s simply because I was expecting a Morrowind like game with added extra’s and in fact they took things away which I really liked in Morrowind, I know I said I wouldn’t compare the two games but it’s really hard for me not to when I spent more than two years playing Morrowind so even though I was amazed by the graphics, personally I would have preferred slightly less focus on graphics if it meant sacrificing what could have been a 10 out of 10 game,  I mean lets  face it, it was great to see moving grass and falling leaves but it’s not essential in a game, grass is grass and plays no relevance in the story so why spend so much extra time and resources making it sway in the wind, my guess is this was an experiment to show what really could be achieved with the latest technology and I can’t blame the makers for that, it’s nice to see, I just think ultimately something was taken away from the gameplay itself, still a great game to play though, go get it if you haven’t yet.

Tony