Crysis 2: Better Than That Thing You Saw At The Movies

By: Louis Caston

FPS (First Person Shooters) have become a regular in the video game market. We all have played at least one in our lifetime. With such popular franchises as Call of Duty, Halo, and Battlefield, you can sometimes forget smaller FPS series like, Red Faction, Killzone, and Rainbow Six. Sometimes one comes out that exceeds expectations or gives the genre, a swift kick to the nuts. Epic Games’ Bulletstorm did it in February, and now Crytek’s Crysis 2 has done it in March.

You play the game as Alcatraz, a Marine whose squad was wiped out in a submarine attack, and on the brink of death, you are saved by Prophet and are given his Nanosuit (A suit that increases your tactical awareness, as well as your speed, and jumping ability), and the mission to stop the Ceph invasion. Without going into too much detail, the story was gripping. It almost had a movie feel, with the plot twists that happen throughout. Don’t get me wrong, the story is far from perfect, but it kept me more entertained than some movies I have seen.

The visual presentation in this game is fantastic. The fictional New York City comes to life as you play. As you progress through the game, you slowly begin see the city falling apart. Its good to see a building fall in a game, and dust engulfs the entire area around the building. Your Nanosuit’s powers are brilliant to look at. When in Cloak, your gun and arm disappeared with a water-like effect that reflects the light around you, while in Armor mode you get a honeycomb appearance around your HUD. Now everything wasn’t always perfect visually. You did have the occasional frame drop issue at the beginning of some levels, and some character models were stiff, but that wasn’t enough to take away from an already gorgeous game.

Gameplay in Crysis 2 is intense. At any given time you could have bullets flying at you from multiple directions. In most cases you have the option to be stealthy with your kills, or go all Rambo-like with them. When you come to an area, you have tactical options that come up when you look through your visor. Some positions are for sniping, while others allow you to flank your targets. Along with your Visor, you also have the abilities of Cloak and Armor. As the names suggest, Cloak makes you virtually invisible to targets, while Armor increases the amount of damage you can withstand. Both use your suit’s energy, so use them wisely. Basic combat in the game like shooting, running, jumping, and moving are your common button configuration you find in most FPS. Overall the gameplay of Crysis 2 was very smooth and fluent.

Crysis 2 does a lot right. From combat to visuals to story, it all works. It keeps the intensity high without giving you that feeling of helplessness. Your suit powers give a new feel to the FPS experience. Minus the occasional hiccup in the game, it’s not enough to stop me from playing this game over and over. If you haven’t played or even thought about playing Crysis 2 I suggest you give it a try. You might be pleased what you find with the game. ON a scale of 1 to 10 I give Crysis 2 a 9.5

WWE All Stars: THQ Is Officially Sorry For Legends Of Wrestlemania

Prior to the rise of the Smackdown Vs. Raw series, the best video games featuring Vince McMahon's squared circle juggernaut were primarily based in arcades. From the offerings by Technos Japan to the more over the top game from the folks at Midway to the oft-forgotten, yet very impressive Sega/THQ offering, WWE arcade games have lacked the depth of their home console counterparts, but made up for them with impressive gameplay. THQ's latest WWE game returns to the roots of those classic arcade games while answering one important question: "What would happen if the greatest superstars of the past were able to match up against the top stars of today?" The answer is an over the top, fast past, thrill ride that might be one or two minor flaws away from being a serious top tier fighting game.

One difference that fans of WWE's traditional wrestling games will notice is the art style. All Stars has a look reminiscent of 2009's lackluster Legends of Wrestlemania, but that is pretty much where the similarities with that debacle end. Each character in the game sports an overly muscled physique much like the old rubber LJN WWF action figures we grew up playing with. The animations are highly exaggerated as well, with moves like dropkicks launching opponents into the air while slingshotting the wrestler who performed the move in the general direction of a turnbuckle. and when it's time for a wrestler to perform a finishing maneuver, everything around them changes colors, and the resulting move is the most violently exaggerated thing seen in a wrestling game since the special moves seen in EA Big's Def Jam Vendetta.

One of WWE All Stars' tag lines calls the game's roster "the greatest ever assembled, and outside of a Fire Pro Wrestling custom roster, I'm hard pressed to argue. The legends side reads like a who's who list of Hall Of Famers or soon to be inductees, while the Superstars side sports a list of superstars that have headlined Pay Per Views, held championships, and are beloved the world over. To make things feel balanced, the wrestlers are broken into four classes: Big Man, Brawler, Grappler, and Acrobat. Each class has strengths and weaknesses, for example: wrestlers that fall into the Big Man category can typically take more punishment than those that fall into the Acrobat class, but acrobats are exponentially faster. Brawler can string can use charged strikes to juggle opponents, while Grapplers can chain together multiple holds and deal a great bit of damage.It typically pays to play to your characters strengths sense that leads to their signature and finisher bars filling faster. Much like Street Fighter 4, each wrestler in WWE All Stars can build a three level "signature move" meter while a second meter, reserved for "finishing moves" builds a little slower, but the resulting move deals enough damage to keep an opponent down for the three count or knock them out all together. That another element of the arcadey coolness of WWE All Stars.

As far as the gameplay modes, there is the Path of Champions mode, which is the standard arcade style ladder made famous by Mortal Kombat. (writer's note: a big chunk of the development team for All Stars worked for Midway during their arcade heyday). Next there is the Fantasy Warfare mode, which pits legends against active superstars. each match has a specific theme, so unless they add DLC characters to the mix, don't expect more than the 15 matches in this mode from the start. What's the benefit of playing through the various Path of Champions ladders or Fantasy Warfare mode, why the joys of unlocking characters, venues, alternate costumes, and the very well produced video packages that precede the matches in Fantasy Warfare mode.

Now for the the things I didn't like about the game. My main gripe is the computer catchup that seems to occur during some single player matches. Some computer opponents will take a tremendous beating throughout a match only to launch into a mainly unblockable combo that will instantly whittle your character's health to near nothing. Another gripe is a problem I've encountered after years of playing SNK fighting games: Many computer controlled opponents tend to turtle (constantly block) during matches, and since their is no such thing as "chip damage" in this game, this can slow down matches, and in this type of game, slow matches can prove disastrous. I noticed that the create a character mode, while present, was a bit thin on editing options, but in a game of this manner, there is only so much to expect, so the light pickings on the create a wrestler mode are not a big issue. The most glaring issue I had with WWE All Stars is an issue I've had with THQ's WWE product for years now. The loading times can be a bit long to say this is 2011 and loading times are something that most gamers barely remember nowadays. All of these issues are forgivable though, and a skilled player can overcome issues with turtling and computer catchup with relative ease.

All in all, THQ has done what most gamers have wanted since they dropped quarters into Midway's Wrestlemania game in the mid 90s and threw ghosts at their opponents with The Undertaker. if a sequel is made to this one, a bigger out of the box roster and a few more match types might make WWE All Stars become a must play fighting game.

Aliens And Predators Only Equaled Awesome Twice For Gamers

I'm going to go out on a limb here and state that most licensed games suck. By licensed, I'm referring to games that are based on other media. Then there are the games that are based on more than one thing in the same medium. There haven't been many of those, but they are usually tied together somehow so it makes the amalgamation work a lot better. One such grouping has always seemed to stand head and shoulders above its competition. That franchise being Alien Versus Predator.

The two classic Sci Fi franchises were joined together thanks to the good folks at Dark Horse Comics in 1989. The tie in continued with a Super Nintendo game released by Activision in 1993. While it wasn't the best game, it served two important functions: it introduced gamers to the idea of an Alien Versus Predator game, and it served as the the first decent game featuring Predator characters released in the US. That SNES game was followed up with an okay Gameboy offering in Alien Vs. Predator: The Last Of His Clan later in the same year.

A year later, we received the excellent AVP arcade game from the good folks at Capcom. This AVP game has been widely regarded as the second best game based on the franchise. Which one is the best? Why it's Alien Vs. Predator for the Atari Jaguar. British developers Rebellion seemingly put their everything into this game, and with three character types, which means there are three story arches, this one game a lot to console gamers who may have been limited in the amount of experience they had with First Person Shooters at that point. This version of the AVP story was probably the most well received, and had it not been released on the ill fated Jaguar console, it may have become a long running series of games.

While there have been other games that used the Alien Vs. Predator name and characters released as recently as last year, none of them ever reached the critical or commercial level of Success as the arcade of Jaguar games. Even though Rebellion, the developers of the Jaguar game, have been tapped to develop many of the FPS iterations of the AVP franchise, they haven't been able to capture the imaginations of gamers out there. It may not have helped matters that the two AVP films that were released in 2004 and 2007 were pretty bad movies. It just goes to show that sometimes only the right people can make magic happen.

Random Arcade Gameplay Theatre

Duke Nukem Forever Delayed...AGAIN!!

Just found out an interesting bit of information. Apparently, folks have preordered Duke Nukem Forever have to wait until June 14, 2011 to get their copy of the long awaited first person shooter. Gearbox interactive announced the news with a tongue in cheek attitude, calling the delay "the shortest delay in the games nearly 15 year development cycle". At least it hasn't been pushed back to the next system generation again.

The NFL Lockout May Screw Gamers Too

As many of you know, The 2011-2012 NFL season is in serious jeopardy. While this many not matter to most gamers, it should matter to anyone planning on buying Madden NFL '12. The last time there was a strike/lockout in sports, EA Sports was readying NBA Live 99, but when the NBA endured a strike shortened season, the glaring flaws of NBA Live 99 were made even more apparent, and the game sold horribly. This football season is as of now on hold, and Madden may have the luxury of being the only NFL licensed football game on the market, but that doesn't mean that the long running football juggernaut can deal with the spectre of its source material shutting down for a year. Take for instance those roster updates you guys are used to getting during the week based on how well your team does...yep, they aren't happening. That over hyped rookie that's going to be a bust that your hated rival drafted? He'll kick your tail all over the field during games and his ratings can't be adjusted because there's no parameter to make said adjustments. Who knows, EA Tiburon might say to hell with it and just change the year on the menu screens a sell you the same game. There are a lot of "What ifs" gamers have to consider with the NFL season in danger of screwing up their yearly $60 buy. Then again, anybody who buys madden yearly will buy it like always and whine about the stuff not in the game. I would seriously like to pose a suggestion to anyone who buys Madden yearly. instead of lining up to get it on day 1, do some research and make sure the lockout and lack of football won't have a major impact on the game. I know many will read this and say, "I can't watch football and I need my fix", but $60 is a lot of money to spend on something that may potentially suck.

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I got some new stuff...and figured I'd share the vid with you guys