Review Score Descriptions UPDATED!

10 -The perfect game. Absolutely nothing can be improved. A game of this level can not be improved upon. Impossible to achieve.

9 -A great game. A game that not only is great on the first play through, but is going to be highly regarded 10 years from now after another console itertation or two. Only a few minor flaws

8 -A game that you can identify with this console generation. This game can keep you entertained not only for hours but days on end. Multiple minor flaws, 1-2 major flaws.

7 -A very good game. It will keep you entertained while you play through it. Once you're done you may play through it to see if you missed anything or you may play it again in a year for the memories but not quite a game that will keep you playing for months on end.

6 -A slightly above average game. Nothing screams speical about this game. While a good game, may not be considered a good game for very long.

5 -An average game. Brings nothing new to the table and does not meet specifications from previously released titles. Could be a niche game or possibly a poorly realized idea.

4 -A below average game. Game has several problems that limit the players enjoyment of the game.

3 -A bad game that while finding something new to bring to the gaming community, doesn't have their idea fully realized or fully implemented. The game has many glaring issues but can be played and enjoyed by a very select few.

2 -A horrendous game that is barely playable. Players are left wondering why they paid money to buy/rent the game.

1 -A game that brings absolutely nothing to the gaming community. The game lacks any thought, production, or desire to play. While this score is possible, I doubt that any publisher would let their game out of the door.

Update (5/22/08): Upon further thought, the scoring system is not completely analog. What I mean by this is that is is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between a 9.4 and a 9.5 unless I have a criteria for each sub point. All scores will now end in a '.0', '.5', or '.9'. A score with a zero following will be as close to the score described. A half score will be awarded if a game is significantly better than the whole score below, but hasn't completed all criteria to move up to the next complete score. A score with a '.9' following it will show that the game is one or two minor details short of the next full score. If you have any questions or comments leave them and I'll respond as soon as I can.

Click here for more after the jump.

New News Site for Gamers

I'm now an author at a gaming news website. Come visit us at GameZig here.
Click here for more after the jump.

Diablo PC Review

I first played Diablo ten or so years ago, not too long after it was first released. I greatly enjoyed the game then not only for single player but the free multi player that was available. With the recent announcement of Diablo III, I decided to go back and play the first two games.

Diablo starts with you, the hero, in a dimly lit town. As you talk to the towns folk you learn this town is named Tristram and has recently come under attack of demons and has been cut off from the rest of the world. As a hero you investigate what is occurring and come to realize Diablo: The Lord of Terror, has been resurrected under the town. It is your job, and your job alone to ride the town of this evil.

Diablo is an action RPG from creators Blizzard. The game is heavily action driven with only character stats, equipment and spells to actively control. While this game was released in 1997, it is still a great amount of fun to play today. The Battle.net servers allow you to play online with friends (for free) as well as in single player. There is a personal chest to store items not being used in multiplayer. This chest and it's contents are saved and travel to any game the player goes to.

Pros

• Superb Balance. The game offers unrivaled balance where the game is challenging no matter what point in the game you are in.
• Graphics. The game uses an isometric, top down perspecive where there is no need for a draw distance to show off scenery in the distance.
• Frame Rate. The computer the game was played on is six years old and was an average computer in its day. There was never a slow down during combat no matter how many demons, skeleton, etc. were on screen at the same time.

Cons

• Limited Storage Space. The amount of storage space is fairly limited. This was done in part to make the player choose certain items over others. This works well in multiplayer where more than one person can open a portal back to town, but this slows down the gameplay drastically. In single player it is a must to sell back as many items as possible so that the player has gold to buy certain items. This means on the lower levels traveling back to town several times merely to sell goods to the towns people.
• Cheating. The host of multiplayer games is the person who created the game. This allowed for rampant cheating as it was difficult for blizzard to check what was going on in the multiplayer games. There are also ways to take items and create them in the game.

Overall this was a great game and the first time I beat the game in single player. Diablo was as much fun as I remember and I enjoyed the entire play through. I give this game a 9/10.


Click here for more after the jump.

Grand Theft Auto IV Review

To be honest, I was excited about GTA for the last month or two. Because of all the great games that came out the second half of last year I was unable to buy into the hype until later than most.

I've played the last few iterations of GTA. I dabbled a bit on a friends version of GTA 3, and completed Vice City and San Andreas (story at least) on the PS2. It was a difficult decision for me to decided which version to buy as I prefer the Playstation 3 over the Xbox 360 but with the majority of my friends having an Xbox and this latest iteration of GTA having multi-player I purchased it for the 360.

I remember when I first preordered the game that I was excited that the special edition came with a safety deposit box along with all the goodies. I have been a bit of a sucker as of late for special editions. Now having the game for almost a week, all I've used the lock box for is to hold the other extras that came with the special edition. Now $30 extra for a decent duffel bag, and a lock box is not a bad deal but it also isn't an especially great deal either. I would recommend the standard version of the game over the special edition unless you need a lockable carrying case for extra controllers/games or if you have something of value. It appears to be made of aluminum so its easily transported.
Now onto the actual review. Minor Spoilers, mainly about the opening.

GTA IV begins with the main character's, Niko Bellic, journey to Liberty City in search of the American dream. Niko's cousin Roman has been sending letters to Niko telling him about how Roman is living the American dream full of sleeping with multiple women, huge mansions, and fast cars. Very quickly the player learns that the American dream that Roman is living is anything but. Roman is struggling to get by and lives in a roach infested apartment.

Niko gets introduced to his first friends/business partners through his cousin. The first missions are very simple and give the player the ability to explore some of Liberty City, get used to driving (which I believe is much more realistic and therefore difficult than previous games in the series), and try out the new GPS feature.

The game progresses in a similar way to previous GTA games with exception of having sometimes to wait for a phone call on Niko's cell phone. To progress the story missions must be completed and certain missions are only unlocked after others are completed. There are four instances that I can remember where the player can either chose to kill or spare a person or gets to choose which one from a pair to kill. The final main mission is like this where you can either make a deal with or kill someone from the game who betrayed Niko.

The games size and detail is great but I didn't fully realize this until a mission where I used a helicopter and could see all the buildings above street level. When driving your focus is on the car and avoiding traffic but while flying your obstacles become the massive buildings that you must avoid or fly over. This large cityscape is beautiful and like San Andreas it is hard to get a full view of the size without getting a look down on it from above.

I finished main mission based part of the game in about 30 hours. This would have been longer but if I had failed a mission 3 times I would load the last save and try it again. Normally I wouldn't do this but there is an achievement in the game for beating the main part of the game in less than 30 hours and while I enjoyed the game I thought it would have been a while before I gave all my progress up to complete the game again to get that achievement.

Pros:

• Virtually no loading. Like previous titles, GTA IV used some long bridges to mask loadings of new areas. However in GTA IV if you went from outside a house to inside (ie. raiding a house of drug dealers, etc.) there were no load times and the door could even be shot open from the outside (useful for when trying to see in a room).
• Fully realized character. Niko not only has a past, he talks about it, explains how it made him the person he is, and has his past revisit him. Niko also has a future life consisting of more than killing and racing cars. He has friends that he can do anything from play pool and shoot darts, to going to a strip club and going to a comedy club.
• Fully realized wold. While not as massive as San Andreas, Liberty city is fairly large. The city consists of 3 main islands with a few smaller ones. Each island has it's own districts. Every street has a name. Every business has an address. The gun stores are more realistic hole in the wall type of places on an alley. Cars that are parked on the side of the road are locked and some even have alarms. Plentiful cabs (at least in some locations) where you can hail one and ride in it. These cabs can be used as a quick travel device or you can watch your surroundings go by.
• Fully realized NPC's. Your girl friends in the game are more like real women (they don't enjoy driving fast or going to strip clubs, etc.). You can get on the Internet dating sites to meet women. Your friends/girl friends don't like it when you go too long without doing something with them. Pedestrians get upset about honking horns and even putting one wheel on the side walk. Some drivers resist getting torn from their vehicle when Niko tries to steal it.
• Long, enjoyable game play. In about 6 days time, I played roughly 35 hours. I only put the game down once because I wasn't enjoying it. (Part of that was because I was tired so I was cranky and trying to raid a house but the police had other ideas and killed me before I could finish.) The game also adds multiplayer (I admit I haven't played yet, partially because I don't have Internet at home at the moment), which adds the possibility of 100's more hours of game play.
• Semi-Realistic police response. Now when you have two stars, you don't have to go to a pay-'n-spray to lose your wanted level. You can out run the cops. The more stars you have the larger "search radius" is. Also the more police units give chase. New units also appear that are headed toward where you were seen last, so to escape you must pay attention to where more units are coming from.
• Graphics. While not on par with games like Call of Duty IV or Halo 3, the graphics are amazing. When driving through the Liberty City version of Time Square, I was able to recognize it (I have never been to time square in person, only seen it on TV.) without any one saying where I was.

Cons (most of which are nitpicking):

• Driving. While realistic driving a car or flying a helicopter, it prevents players who haven't played a game with this much driving that's not a racing simulator to fully enjoy the game. While taking a cab is an option, too many missions require driving for it to be this difficult. (ie. A mission requires driving a dump truck sized vehicle. The vehicle requires 3-4 lanes of traffic to turn at slow speeds. Its actually easier to turn using the emergency brake and sliding around corners). While in a sports car and trying to power slide around a corner, if the car does a 180 and the car is now going backwards the gas (right trigger) acts like a brake until stopped. I know this is the more efficient way to stop but I would prefer the tires to start spinning which should happen if I punched the gas.
• Auto saves. The auto-save after each mission is nice, however long missions that have 8 or so parts or are long developing should have mini-saves during them. There's nothing like playing 15 minutes of a mission to have a guy that has to live catch a stray bullet in the head and then having to replay that 15 minute part again.
• Party AI. While friends in the game that shoot at the police, or other enemies to help you out, they show no priority on who to attack and the player does the majority if not all of the killing. There is a mission where you have two friends with assault rifles and have to run around killing a bunch of cops. I don't think they killed a single one. I agree that there should be a challenge for the player but these other life time criminals should be able to fire a weapon fairly accurately. They also shouldn't run in front of me while I'm firing. This happens in most games where the NPC's are scripted to run certain routes (CoD 4 for example) but at least have them know that, "hey, this guy is firing, let me wait till he reloads or at least stops shooting. and then get out of his way as quickly as possible.
• Randomly spawning police. If I'm in a car and drive into a river 3 police boats shouldn't automatically spawn around me. If I get near water I can believe one boat coming and driving along the shoreline just in case and then more coming when I'm in the water, but randomly spawning there when they weren't there a second ago is not right. Land cops will also spawn out of no where but typically you're in a car so its not as big of a deal unless you're almost outside of the "search radius" with a high amount of stars.
• Texture popping. I've read this happens a lot less on the Playstation 3 version (due to a mandatory install) of the game, it is quite noticeable in the xbox 360 version. When driving quickly from one island to another or around a corner at high speed. The building lighting texture or the road texture "pop" in. While this isn't game breaking it is very noticeable as these are large objects. Also, while not texture popping, the road lines not being correct was noticeable. On single direction roads there was still a yellow or a double yellow line down the center of the road. This isn't on every road but can be bothersome when trying to determine if a road is one way or not.
• Police should not random spawn inside of my mini-map radius. If I'm running from the police and have just about escaped a police car should now spawn at the next intersection.

Overall this is a great game with a few minor annoyances. I have not played multiplayer yet but I will update the post when I do. The game's major flaw is it didn't much new the video game table. While not all games are required to do this a game of this caliber should have. I give it a solid 8.5/10 right now but if multiplayer adds much, which it can, the rating may go up.

Update:I've played some of the multiplayer now. The multiplayer, in my opinion, is fairly average. While there are some new modes that have great potential, the matchmaking/party system are not the best.
Click here for more after the jump.

Lost: Via Domus Review

I am a huge fan of the television show "LOST." I don't think I've missed an episode since I got into the series (which was right before season 2 started). The main reason I purchased the game was due to my enjoyment of the show. The game does NOT fit into the cannon of the show, so you will not learn anything new about the show by playing the game.

LOST: Via Domus stars a background character in the Lost universe. You start the game as a passenger who is about to be assaulted by a menacing looking man on the plane. Just before this can begin the plane tears apart and you have crashed on a mysterious deserted island. When you awaken, you figure out you have amnesia, and you must begin your quest to find out who you are, but there are many forces acting on this island and not all of them are benevolent.

The game is broken up into seven episodes all with their own flashback, signature to LOST. With each flashback your character learns a little more about his past and why he was on the plane. The game spans the first two seasons but has a few locales from the third season.

Via Domus, I would classify as an action platform game. Almost all of the game takes place in the third person. There are only two spots where firing a bullet is required, however a third possibility is in the final episode which offers a slightly different ending sequence. There are only a few action sequences that are quite short but offer a lot of fun.

For LOST fans the voice acting is bit off due different actors being used for the majority of the roles however the voice acting to a non viewer would be slightly above average. There were a few spots where the emotion being shown in the game (ie. Jack being angry) wasn't carried over into the voice acting but it only happens a few times.

The walks through the jungle become tiresome due to the difficult nature of navigating. You are always given a direction to go whether it be scattered plane debris or by directions written on trees. If you are slightly off 1-2 degrees you can miss the next piece due to a tree being in the way and then have to back track to the nearest marker or start that entire jungle sequence over.

The creators of the game, Ubisoft, did a great job recreating the set of LOST. The beach, hatch, the Staff, Sonic fence, the Flame, etc., where all beautifully done. A lot of time and energy went into researching the various items that were recreated.

Pros:

• Great environmental design
• Sticks to places and people the fans would know.

Cons:

• Voices where not as they sounded in the show and poor dialog user interface.
• Getting lost (no pun intended) on jungle treks
• No replay value

Overall this is a slightly better than average game. The game does not have any game breaking issues but has several things that could be improved upon. I give this game a 7.0/10. I'd recommend fans of the show if they wanted to play it to find it used as it would be a few dollars cheaper or rent it.

Click here for more after the jump.

Viking: Battle for Asgard Review

Viking: Battle for Asgard is a hack-and-slash game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I have not played many hack-and-slash games on consoles until the last few years. The first one I played was Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom which I enjoyed and brought me into the genre. I have since played other games, such as Devil May Cry 4, before I purchased Viking.

My interest in this game came after seeing several advertisements online showing some of the large battles that occur in the game. After watching a couple videos by the developers showing the game a little more, I decided to purchase the game.

A few minor spoilers ahead of the opening sequence of the game.

You start the game as a Viking warrior, Skarin, who has been mortally wounded in battle. In a state somewhere between life and death the goddess, Freya, comes to you. Freya tells you of another goddess, Hel, who is waging war on the world of Asgard. Freya asks for Skarin's help to rid Hel and her army of demonic warriors (Legion) from your world in return for saving his life an making him immortal. Skarin agrees and the premise for the game is set.

To banish Hel and her minions from Asgard, Skarin needs to free other Viking clans that have been imprisoned by the Legion around the land, summon a dragon, sneak into an enemy strong hold to complete an objective, and wage 2-3 giant battles per island (3 islands total) where you get to use all the Vikings you have freed.

As you start the game and talk to the few people available, in each village you are given quests to do. Most of these quests are either rescue another viking clan or do some sort of task and return with proof that you've done it.

While the quest descriptions are boring, the game play is addicting. Killing Legion gets more difficult as you progress though the game. At first there are only unshielded opponents. As the player moves, he encounters Legion with wooden shields, metal shields, and one type of enemy that is very good at blocking your attacks with his sword. Also as you progress through the game you can learn special fighting moves to help aid you in battle. Some moves allow you to sneak up on enemies and dispatch them without him warning other Legion nearby or more powerful moves that can break the legion shields in a matter of 2-3 hits.

The game has a fast travel system in between Leystones where you can "warp" to any you have previously visited as well as one in each of the players main encampments. These aid the player when he is resurrected after being defeated as well as on the return trips to some settlements to "prove his worth" to the clan leader.

Now in the seventh generation of consoles, graphics always are a factor. The graphics in Viking do not disappoint. The game has an extensive drawing distance to the point where you can see across almost an entire island. During the major battles you can add up to several hundred allies and enemies on the screen interacting.

The game does suffer a bit during these large battles. The frame-rate would slow down noticeably at times but never longer than a few seconds and never more that a few times during each major battle.

The game also suffers from lack of online multi-player, either cooperative or battle. While I understand the lack of online features the lack of replay ability of the game may make it a difficult purchase for some people.

Pros:

• Massive Battles
• Great Visuals
• Addictive Gameplay

Cons

• Some frame-rate issues during large Battles
• Lack of replay built into game design

Overall I would rate this game a 7.9/10. This is a very good game and I am looking forward to a sequel.

Click here for more after the jump.