PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale Review

Nintendo has had great success from their crossover fighting franchise, Super Smash Brothers. This title features everyone's favorite Nintendo characters doing battle in bouts of up to four opponents at a time. Now, Sony has decided to create their own game as such, and released PlayStation All Stars: Battle Royale. This game features your favorite characters from franchises like Killzone, Twisted Metal, Bioshock, InFamous, and many more, taking part im matches us gamers have only dreamed of before.This game provides seeming endless entertainment for you and your friends to take part in. The amazing cast of characters, dynamic maps, and diverse items always make the game interesting.

Don't knock over his ice cream.

The best part of this game is the cast. I really enjoyed battling my way through the PlayStation universe as Cole McGrath, Kratos, and Ratchet. Rivalries are formed between characters, such as Sly Cooper and Nathan Drake, or Parappa the Rapper and Ape Escape's Spike. The battles lead to a story that, though interesting, leaves to be desired. The best example of a story is Drake ending up with a few pages of the Thevius Racoonus, prompting Sly to take them back. The worst is Jak pulling a gun on Ratchet because Ratchet looked at him funny. Some of them are even comical, such as Kratos knocking over Sweet Tooth's ice cream cone.

Bioshock's Songbird firing at the plane from Uncharted 3

The maps in this game are fantastic, and adds new layers to the story. Sometimes you get to see Chop Chop Master Onion kick a Chimeran Goliath so hard that it collapses. Other times, your Uncharted 3 cargo plane will get shot down for flying too close to the sky city Columbia. It is worth it to play all of the maps just to see what happens next.

One of the games downfalls is the unbalanced characters. Some always land hits and gain AP incredibly quickly, while others are easily avoided and take awhile to level up. Some level 3 supers are difficult to use and don't guarantee kills, while others allow up to six and guarantee three. Another problem is the noncompetitive challenges to be played alone. The game lays out several difficult tasks that are too be completed whilst battling three opponents. The third difficulty I had was how characters tended to be unnecessarily aggressive to each other, such as Spike attacking Parappa for scaring away a monkey, but this was only a minor issue.

I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who likes their PlayStation exclusives, Smash brothers, or fighting games. Its better than any Smash Brothers game that I've played, and its something that's been a long time coming.

9.5/10

Assassin's Creed III: Liberation Review

The PlayStation Vita since it launched has been in need of a massive system seller, so along comes Assassin's Creed liberation trying to fill that void. Now your wondering if Liberation is the game you've been waiting for to jump on the Vita bandwagon, I however am sad to report that it is most certainly not a must own. This is not to say that the game is bad no not at all it's just that minor flaws keep it from true greatness.

The first thing that you'll probably notice is that this game is gorgeous from the city streets of New Orleans to the Murky swamps this game is astounding to look at. And that is a true feet for a game world this vast and filled with things to do. For that is really where this game succeeds, for the first on a handheld I felt like I was in a living breathing world.


But after that things start to go down hill starting with the uninteresting story. Throughout my time with the game I never had any reel connection with the games protagonist  Aveline or her plight against the Templars. I never got a good sense of who she was because unlike other protagonists in the series I never got to spend enough time learning about her back story or motivations.

And then comes along the actual gameplay which when it works it's incredibly fun, but that the problem it only works about sixty percent of the time. From the unresponsive free running which constantly had me fumbling around and falling off of building and out of trees. Plus once in open combat the buttons feel unresponsive. Leading to me feeling that most of my deaths were not because I screwed up. Not to mention some of the worst Vita specific controls I have ever seen. From paddling the boat with the rear touch to controlling a ball through a maze all of the Vita gimmicks feel totally and completely broken.

The game also includes a completely useless asynchronous multiplayer mode. In which you will pick a side in the war between Assassins and Templars and position troops to defend your base whilst also sending troops to attack others bases, but it really doesn't matter because it's pointless and uninteresting. 

Even though this game comes up short on some key things I am still looking forward to what assassin's Creed's future will look like on the Vita. But as it stands now I can only recommend this to die hard Assassin's Creed fans. 


7.5/10             

Halo 4 Review

Master Chief, A.K.A. John 117, was the hero of the Covenant Wars and responsible for the destruction of the Flood. Halo 3 left him floating through space while fans busied themselves with Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, Halo: Reach, and the anniversary of Combat Evolved. Now, five years after Halo 3, 343 studios takes over the Chief’s story in Halo 4.

The game begins four years after the events of Halo 3. The Chief awakens from cryosleep as his AI, Cortana, wakes him up frantically, saying that there are intruders on board their ship. Chief takes almost no time to prepare and goes to investigate the disturbance. Cortana and Chief are both puzzled by the appearance of Covenant Grunts, Elites, and Jackals. Chief fights through the ruins of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn to repel the Covenant forces. They discover that the ship is orbiting the forerunner shield world known as Requiem. Both the Forward and the attacking covenant fleet are pulled out of the sky by Requiem’s gravity. Whilst on the planet, Cortana intercepts a signal from the Infinity, another UNSC ship approaching Requiem. Now racing to prevent Infinity from suffering the same fate as Forward and the Coveys, Chief discovers a more personal problem: Cortana is beginning to malfunction, and is becoming increasingly insane. Soon, Chief encounters the Prometheans, a new enemy race that is primarily AI and native to Requiem. This engrossing story follows Chief and Infinity’s struggle with the Prometheans and Covenant, all the while trying to get back to Earth, where Cortana’s creator, Halsey, is currently located. The story is interesting, action packed, and pretty sad. Master Chief seems like an actual human for the first time, showing real emotion (as much as someone can through a helmet). The antagonist, Didact, was a better antagonist than Truth, Gravemind, and Guilty Spark.

The gameplay was great, but there wasn’t much change from previous installments. Sprint is now a standard ability to be used along side your armor effect. The sound effects were much better than the other games, such as firing a gun actually sounding like a real gun. The graphics were the best I’ve ever seen. During one scene between Halsey and an unnamed interrogator, I actually believed that the characters were actors, and had to look closely to realize that it was animated.

Of course, the main selling point of Halo has always been the multi-player. The leveling, loadouts, and lack of preset weapons in maps warned of a possible Call of Duty-like experience. So far, this is not true. I did not get a COD feeling at all from the competitive multiplayer experience. In fact, the competitive has mostly improved from Reach’s. Instead of whichever jerk spawning closest to the rocket winning, now it’s whoever has better actual tactics. There are plenty of new, interesting maps to explore. Flood, however, is lacking. As promising as the idea of playing as a Flood for infection mode is, this game ruined my favorite game mode. Playing as an infected was difficult before, their only saving graces being the one hit kills and the evade ability. Now, the evade is replaced with thrusters, which isn’t nearly as good. It emits a light that the Spartans can see from across the map, and has one use before stopping to have to recharge. With evade gone and no worthy replacements, being an infected has become even more difficult.

The Spartan Ops mode has replaced Firefight. Though this game type will be missed, the Spartan Ops seem to be killing wave after wave of Covenant with purpose, which cannot be said for Firefight. Spartan Ops are entertaining both alone and with friends, and it almost seems like an extension of the campaign to be visited and revisited.

Overall, this game has an incredible story, great multiplayer, good gameplay, good graphics, and a new game mode that promises to entertain long after the end of the campaign. The only issues with the game are the downgrade from Infected to Flood and the slow servers experienced by some players opening week. I believe that this is an effective changing of hands from Bungie to 343, as well as a great sequel to one of my favorite games. I look forward to what else 343 has for Halo and its fans in the future.

9.5/10

Halo: Forward Unto Dawn

Forward Unto Dawn is a live action, 5 part mini-series that covers events leading up to the beginning of Halo 4. It follows Commander Thomas Laskey of UNSC Infinity as he picks up a distress signal from the Forward Unto Dawn. The series is mainly Laskey’s flashbacks to his time in Corbulo Military Academy at the start of the Covenant War. This is an incredibly interesting story, laying a background for Halo 4 as well as the conflict with the Covenant. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in playing Halo 4, or in general anyone who wants a good, action packed story. Anyone can access it for free via Halo Waypoint or on the YouTube page:.Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

Assassin's Creed III Review

Assassin's Creed was the story of Desmond, a subject in a modern day research facility using advanced technology to relive the experiences of his ancestor in the crusade era: Altair. This game had a good cast, but was overall repetitive and frustrating. Assassin's Creed II introduced Ezio Auditore, an new assassin in Renaissance Italy, in areas such as Florence, Venice, and the Apennine Mountains. The games characters consisted mostly of famous Italian figures, most notably Leonardo da Vinci. It also provided the redemption most people needed to stick with the series. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood followed Ezio into Rome while he and his new partner, Niccolo Machiavelli, tried to free Italy from the corrupt Borgia family. This game was great, my personal favorite, with good gameplay and story. Finally, there was Revelations. This game was well hyped as Ezio travels to Altair's home in Istanbul, where both their stories concluded. Unfortunately, the new frustrating enemy types and game modes ruined this game for me and several others.

News of Assassin's Creed III came about, and though I was still weary after Revelations, I gave the game a try. The opening scene follows Desmond and his friends into a strange cave clearly built by the First Civilization. They are greeted by a massive blue gate and a message from the FirstCiv, Juno: Find the key. Desmond and the team resolve to return to England to Desmond's ancestor, Haytham Kenway. Haytham steals an amulet during an assassination, and his commanding officer sends him to a new colony to find the gate that the amulet opens. The game continues through the stories of Haytham and his son Connor. Figures such as Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, George Washington, and Ben Franklin appear  throughout as Connor fights through the American Revolution. Periodically, Desmond's friends wake him up to do a few missions in present day, in places like Manhattan and Brazil.

I really enjoyed this game. Many put-offs from previous games are faded or gone. The story was engrossing and interesting, and the characters were generally likeable. The gameplay was enjoyable and the missions were fun. Particular events such as the Boston Tea Party and Battle of Bunker Hill make the experience more fun for history enthusiasts. The world was vast, and had plenty in it, but travelling from one place to another was a time consuming task, especially when the player gets distracted by the interactive objects, characters, and missions along the way. The hunting engine proposed a fast and entertaining way to earn money. The naval battles were epic and fun, providing something completely new to the series. I found myself devoting all my funds to upgrading my ship to give me the edge the next time I faced a pirate.

There were some drawbacks to the game. The story did take a few hours of gameplay to get truly interesting. The free running, though upgraded, had Conner running off into the forest at random because there were no straight paths. This only posed a problem during winter, when the snow was too thick to walk through. On occasion, your missions were thwarted by a glitch or two, such as an ally who fell off the roof but isn’t programmed to climb back up. A few times, I dived from a cliff, only to discover that the water didn’t reach the whole way to the cliff, and all I can do is watch Connor bounce down the rocks like a ragdoll.

The online multiplayer shows major improvement, and I enjoyed it way more than Brotherhood and Revelations. The competitive modes were very entertaining and ran smoothly. They still represent the basic wanted and team manhunt modes used in previous installments. The cooperative mode was fast paced and action packed. This mode, called Wolfpack, consists of up to four players trying to locate and eliminate targets. This calls for less stealth by far than the other modes due to its lack of intelligent opponents and brief time limit. My friends and I play online for hours at a time.

All in all, this game is fantastic. Despite its few faults and slow start, Ubisoft Montreal has impressed me yet again. I look forward to returning to this game to complete all of the side missions and trophy challenges.

9/10