Hannibal Rysing

The Dark Centurion-RYSES Son of drone

Have you ever wanted to travel back in time, back to a time of ancient philosophy, when military tactics were mightier than the pen. No? GOOD, you don't want typhoid do you?!!! If you do then go get Total BORE: Groan 2, you frakkin' NERD, what is this the history channel? we don't need your stinking historical accuracy here, you damn hippies!

We're all over this, what we need are pretty visuals and strictly linear game-play along with scripted events, turret segments.

 JUST LIKE MA USED TO MAKE!! 

  Pop it the oven, wait a good 2-3 hours and you're done. One flashy tech demo ready to serve for a single-player campaign, as well as a mediocre multi-player survival mode sprinkled with more helpings of pay to win!!

  In the 3^rd level you ,among other boats, land upon a beach where upon all your allies are shot, fired upon from the cosy fortifications further up the beach. Across the beach you can see people searching for their lost limbs while recovering from the disorientation caused by artillery. An epic scene only made better by the inclusion of the lead role of Bafta nominee Hom Tanks. Sven Squealborg did a number on this one, I tell you this film “Saving Private Rysan” will be a X-Baux office hit.

To fight the enemies (which consists of 7 people CTRL C + CTRL V through out the game) you will mash a varying flurry of light and heavy attacks, once the pain threshold of the enemy has been exceeded, you can perform a quick time event in-which Kratos Marius Titus will promptly execute the enemy in an extremely gory and brutal fashion. After which your space marine Marius Titties will receive a boost in health and fury or focus. This is not the only option though as you can switch between 2 other ones as well consisting of more exp and damage. Yes, there are Testudos in-game but that’s the most you're gonna get tactics wise, otherwise it's a simple case of: Oooh, Ooooooooh!!! Hit them,hit them, hit them with the pointy end!!! Yeah!!! Now smack your shield!!

The game world is pretty, it would be unfair to deny it that better looking than Skyrim (un-modded) and the lighting nothing shy of amazing. The sound assets are well done pretty well, the thuds of the arrows give them the appearance of having real impact. I am especially impressed with the jiggle physics on the barbarians pot bellies and man boobs as they really add another dimension to the whole feel of the game.

I have also noticed the lack of blood in game, which I find mildly irritating, I mean you've been hacking off peoples limbs and the puddles aren't worthy of a leaky pipe never mind an entire arm, what are these swords magic or something, gonna cauterise the wound for the big bad barbarian. I sure hope it doesn't get infected don't want him to go home in a coffin. I feel this may have been done to increase performance or maybe lower the age rating of the game. NOT THAT IT MATTERS, THE GAME IS ALREADY 18+, YOU'RE ALREADY CUTTING OFF PEOPLES LIMBS IT CAN'T GET MUCH WORSE.

 The character variation in the gooks is very lacking, as by the time you have finished this game you'll be able name, shame, describe and recite their war cries to a T.

 Do I like this game? Well it's not bad, it could be better but it's not bad. It's in that grey bland area of mediocrity amongst Calls-field #23: Duty of the shooting and Mine-craft clone #224. It is the Oblivion(Tom Cruise film) of the video game world (name withstanding), a frankenstein made up of the best parts of other games, without all the emotion.

  I don't think this game knows what it wants to be, I feel it wants to be cinematic but it doesn't have much personality, a very cookie cutter story. It is set in historical times but not enough research has gone into it to appeal to history nerds. It may possibly want to be appeal to dudebros but you're playing as freaking Romans, they have no interest in that, they only care about football and Call of Duty.

  Who wants to play as a dumb Roman when across the pond you can see Kratos ripping out Cyclops eyes, Dante volleying enemies with his absurd combos or even space marines tearing Orcs a new one for £8-£15, perhaps I've been spoiled by all these radical titles such as GoreofWar III or Warhammer 40k Space Marine.

 Ironically much like the Roman empire itself the game has spread itself too thin, with it not really specialising in anything. Don't buy it, at least not yet, to me it feels like an over-hyped launch game which was made solely for showing off the systems graphic potential. Save yourself £30 and get a different beat em up game.

BrillZone: ShadowDrawl

KillZone: ShadowFall

"Don't count your owls before they are delivered." - Albus Dumbledore

Kill-zone is a FPS franchise in which you play as a member of “ISA”* that fights against the Helghan administration, under the United Colonial Nations in an intergalactic war.

*Interplanetary Strategic Alliance

Well, the next generation of consoles here and they are now relying on their exclusives to bring in the customers. Up on Sony's bench is Kill-zone: Shadow-fall, can it deliver good game play and story while showing off the PS4's potential? Let's find out!!

How does it look?

The game looks fantastic, from the glowy space guns to the not so nazi nasty bad guys to the atmospheric scenery it is certainly a step in the right direction. The lighting is great, especially in the forest, with enough lens flare to bake Michael Bay.

The sound assets are very well done as they cover everything from the waves crashing on the rocks, to the transition of walking across forest onto stone.

This coupled with the visual effects make the game very immersive.

Game play

The game play of Kill-zone is one that could be considered a generic super soldier FPS although they have added a queer little companion known as the O.W.L. This “owl” will shield you, attack specified targets, stun enemies and create zip-lines for you to traverse the map with, a neat little addition although I never used it unless prompted to and to be honest, it felt less like a game-play component and more like a last minute tacked on side gimmick.

Is it fun?

Yes it is fun, as it lets you play pretend predator with the sonar scanner as you pick off each of the enemies from either a perch opposite the site or the floor below that you accessed through the vents, coupled with the competent A.I., fun times can and will be made .

But what about the story???

To be honest I couldn't pick up on the story at all throughout the time I played this game, perhaps it's because I hadn't played any of the prequels but the game doesn't seem to ease in newcomers to the franchise in my opinion.

Should I Buy?

I would wait a little while for the price to drop as at the moment it costs about £40-£50, that is if you are looking for a fun decent looking shoot 'em up. If you want realism look else
ware and if you want to get a good story out of it play its predecessors first.

Gourd of Ward Tres: Olympian Rhapsody

Olympian Rhapsody

Last of the franchise? or is that just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide. Another escape from poor Hades.
 Pick up your claws, look up-to the gods and see...
 I'm just a poor Spartan, I need no amnesty.
 Because it's easy kill, easy spree.
 Beat them up, QTE.
Anyway the series goes, doesn't really matter to me, to me.

 God of war 3 developed  by Sony Santa Monica, follows the story of revenge-driven Spartan Kratos carrying off from the end of the second game during the titans attempt at defeating the gods perched atop Olympus, it is your job as the crazy mythological monster lawnmower, to protect Gaia from Hades goons and later Posiedon as she scales the mountain at a snails pace.


 The game-play in GOW3 comes in three forms: 

1. The mook mashing - You come around dozens and dozens of weaklings for you to pound into dust with radical over the top combos, thus giving you the official status of bad ass.

2. Boss battles - What is that I see in the background? A tentacle? *whoosh* Suddenly you're fighting a Kraken aboard a ship for superiority, next second you've impaled it on the mast, god damn.

3. Puzzles - Now this isn't the most prominent part of the game, but it does make a good break for between all the mindless goon grinding action and the epicly brutal boss battles.

  God of War 3 did and still has astonishing visuals, that show of fantastic environments of an enormous scale. Much like the previous games it doesn't let up on the blood and gore, showing decapitation and dismemberment all throughout the game.

The sound is spot on, you come in a scrub you exit a GOD-DAMN CHAMPION!!! It makes for exceptionally brilliant boss fights as the orchestra wails in the back ground as you take a beating, just before grabbing their appendage and jamming it right into their heart!

 Is it fun?
     Damn right it is, as-long as you mind continuously fighting the goons along the way, you're in for a good time. If GOW3 was a burger goons would be the buns, puzzles would be the dressing and the boss battles would be the meaty core of the burger. A burger covered in lots of bloody ketchup and mature mustard.

Should you get it?
     If you've got a PS3, then yes! Get it (must be over 18+) as it is a good edition to any library of games you have for the PS3. It only costs about £10-£15 for about 8-10 hours of game-play, a deal in my eyes. I wouldn't however buy a PS3 just to play this game, it's not that good.

Quaker Oats III : ARENA

QUAKE III

When someone mentions to you the abbreviation "FPS" what do you think of? Perhaps Call of duty, Battlefield or Arma. If you said frames per second, you are indeed a stubborn ass. But what if I told you that there is another breed of FPS (not frames per second), where you didn't have to follow linear corridors, walking into scripted sequences time and time again?

Enter Quake 3, a fast paced multi-player first person shooter, released in 1999, done in the style of those old games of yonder. As you can tell by the "3" it is the third installation of the mentioned series. Thrilling, I know.  But this series was ID software's attempt at moving to greener pastures, as they thought multi-player was the most fun part of a game and decided to dump the single-player experience all together*.
 *Actually you can verse bots but there is no story mode to speak of.

 These FPS's had you sprawling all over the place at super-human speeds, dodging rockets and exchanging bullets as you went. Health re-gen? No, these were the times when you couldn't simply cry behind cover like big wuss you are, no you had to haul ass and pray to Mother Mary that somewhere within this god-forsaken place was a med pack to keep you going for another ten minutes.
 A rare species that may be slowly coming back with re-releases of older games on games distribution that are now available. As well as the remakes released such as shadow warrior and rise of the triad.

Now wait right there, I have three things to warn you about before you go gallivanting off wallet in hand.

 1. This game, much like your face, is pretty damn ugly even with mods you're going to have to play with a disregard for graphics or better yet blindfolded. The sound however isn't too bad as the music suits the semi technophilic maps, it is not my cup of tea but I'm sure it has it fans somewhere... amongst the other tone death buffoons that belong in the rancor pit.

2. It's old, I mean pretty old in technological terms, you're hardly gonna find any other humans playing online unless you wanna go against bots, which from my experience isn't that gratifying.

3. There are better alternatives. Like I mentioned earlier, many of these old FPS games are being re-made, this means that you can have the game-play and story of these games while having the fancy graphics and polish of current FPSs.(FPSs or FPS's or FPSes or FPSi? There's some food for thought, now eat up cause that's all you're getting.)

Conclusion: Is it fun? Yes.
                     Is it graphic-ly impressive? No.
                     Should I buy it? No.
                      Why? Because there are newer, better and more importantly cheaper games that do the essentially the same thing.

I don't use scores in my reviews, but when I do I make sure to give Quake 3 a 2/10.