The most recent in a long line of games, the brain child of Tony Hawk and the production of Neversoft, they have been going since the early 90s, the only thing that has changed is the playable skaters (inc guests) and the tricks, but are these changes for better or worse?
The Plot: Anyone familiar to the "Tony Hawks" series will reconise this plot pretty much straight away, it's the same boring old "Start out as a rookie and work your way up through the ranks" story line. Enthralling. It's nothing special to be honest, it has some cool pro skaters acompanied by some sweet real-life cut-scenes it really makes up. The whole thing is very basic and has no life span what so ever and seeing as you spend 75% of your time learning new skills it's very un rewarding. A very disappointing story and short life span. 3/10
Graphics: Nothing special, they are average at best, they can be very glitchy and look very unappealing. How ever there are some very nice touches such as crisp packets in the bushes and litter on the ground but at some points it is very played out and looks a bit overdone. The cars however are the worst, they have very little detail so much so that the wheels hardly look the be going the same speed as the car. 4/10
The Gameplay: The best thing about it, the tricks are very easy to master and are very rewarding to watch back. A stroke of genius in this game is the rigger menu, you can set up or "rig" your own spots to get to places that would other wise be inacessible. It is one of the best features in this game, you can take photos of your tricks and save them, then look back at them. quite a lot of this game is very segmanted and nothing is streamlined. Very good gameplay basic simple controls ensure everyone can play this game. 7/10
The Sound: Meh. Nothing overly brilliant, the mouth moves out of time with the person your talking to and it's sometimes very quite and not always at the same volume. The back ground music, as good as the songs are, you just can hear them over the wheel noise and the noise of the deck hitting the ground when ollieing. It can be very sketchy like the graphics. Not as good as we'd hoped. 5/10
Overall: Well with a pretty boring old plot coulped with pretty boring old sound and graphics, THPG isn't great. However the game play is awesome with the innovative rigger menu it's made up for the crappy graphics and sound. A decent game, not as good as THUG and THUG 2.
A better than average 6/10
Thursday, 27 August 2009
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
Forza Motorsport 2 Review
The second in the series of the Forza Motorsport franchise, this installment offers a far bigger range of cars yet a smaller range of tracks, both real life tracks and virtual ones.
The Plot: Well there isn't much of a plot to this game, it's mainly about buy a car, modify it, win some races, buy a better car, win some races, modify it and so on. You start out with a fairly basic car which you then go on to race against other very basic cars, you then earn CR, this allows you to add performance, handling and body and aero dynamic modifications or skip that process totally skip that phase out or you could save your CR and just get a better car. They didn't excell themselves on thinking of a better story ie racing in tournaments and cut scenes, however it is strangely rewarding. 4/10
The Graphics: Brilliant, there isn't any other word for it they are very nice and consise. The details on the car are very good, the out side bits of the tracks aren't very good, but if your in the middle of a very tight race and are fully focused on the podium, you won't notice it and if you do. LOOK AT THE TRACK. Another nice touch is when you brake hard to turn into a corner the brake discs glow bright orange because of the heat however it's slightly stupid to have it on every single car even small hatch backs. Very pleasing graphics, they are brilliant. 8/10
The Gameplay: Very good, as a driving/racing sim it is top notch. You can actually feel to surge of power from the "super" cars very realistically. The way, when you brake you have to ease it off slowly before you start turning (just like in real life, brilliant) the realism is second to none (well maybe GT5 if it's ever made) The game can be slightly annoying when your cars engine blows because the top gear isn't tall enough. Another nice touch is being able to fine tune your car, everything from ride height to tire inflation, from bump damping to the differential set up. Excellent. 7/10
The Sound: Well only really engine noise and tyre squeal are the only noises in the game while racing, and since they didn't have to over do themselves and they did rather well, when you have an uprated exhaust or are driving sports car/supercar the noise from the engine is sublime and the tyre squeal couldn't have been a huge job and they did that well as well. In short, they couldn't have done a better job. 8/10
Overall: A very good game, brilliant graphics and game play, a less than medicore plot and basic yet robust sound quality. An excellent game, wether you're a complete car fanatic or a complete novice, a new gamer or a very experienced one. A must buy.
An awesome game 9/10
The Plot: Well there isn't much of a plot to this game, it's mainly about buy a car, modify it, win some races, buy a better car, win some races, modify it and so on. You start out with a fairly basic car which you then go on to race against other very basic cars, you then earn CR, this allows you to add performance, handling and body and aero dynamic modifications or skip that process totally skip that phase out or you could save your CR and just get a better car. They didn't excell themselves on thinking of a better story ie racing in tournaments and cut scenes, however it is strangely rewarding. 4/10
The Graphics: Brilliant, there isn't any other word for it they are very nice and consise. The details on the car are very good, the out side bits of the tracks aren't very good, but if your in the middle of a very tight race and are fully focused on the podium, you won't notice it and if you do. LOOK AT THE TRACK. Another nice touch is when you brake hard to turn into a corner the brake discs glow bright orange because of the heat however it's slightly stupid to have it on every single car even small hatch backs. Very pleasing graphics, they are brilliant. 8/10
The Gameplay: Very good, as a driving/racing sim it is top notch. You can actually feel to surge of power from the "super" cars very realistically. The way, when you brake you have to ease it off slowly before you start turning (just like in real life, brilliant) the realism is second to none (well maybe GT5 if it's ever made) The game can be slightly annoying when your cars engine blows because the top gear isn't tall enough. Another nice touch is being able to fine tune your car, everything from ride height to tire inflation, from bump damping to the differential set up. Excellent. 7/10
The Sound: Well only really engine noise and tyre squeal are the only noises in the game while racing, and since they didn't have to over do themselves and they did rather well, when you have an uprated exhaust or are driving sports car/supercar the noise from the engine is sublime and the tyre squeal couldn't have been a huge job and they did that well as well. In short, they couldn't have done a better job. 8/10
Overall: A very good game, brilliant graphics and game play, a less than medicore plot and basic yet robust sound quality. An excellent game, wether you're a complete car fanatic or a complete novice, a new gamer or a very experienced one. A must buy.
An awesome game 9/10
CoD WaW Review
The most recent installment of the Call of Duty series (second most if your reeading this after Tuseday 10th November '09) the aptly dubbed World at War.
The Plot: Based during WW II you play as PVT. Dimitri Petrenko a Russian and PVT. Millar an American. The 2 soldiers you play as are fighting on 2 very different battle fields, from the streets of Berlin to the beaches on a remote Japanese Island. These offer very different ways of combat, for example in the streets you are mainly to conform to sniping and long range shooting a far cry from the Japanese fight scenes where you are mainly right up close to the enemy and are force to use melee alot more than I'd like to. 8/10
The Graphics: On the whole the graphics are pretty good, explosions and fire (from the flame thrower) is very crisp. The dark, dank German underground is very realistc and really makes you feel very immersed in the game. How ever at some points during the Japanese levels they can be a bit sketchy. 6/10
The Gameplay: Well depending on what difficulty you play on the game can either be a quick blast or a lengthy session. After you have finished the last level and completed the game completely you will be in for a rather pleasant (or unpleasant) suprise, you get launched into the CoD 5 mini game... NAZI ZOMBIES. Yes you heard correctly, zombies who are Nazis, in short you are a soldier stranded in a delapedated house (or one of 3 other maps if you choose to buy them) and are forced to fend off round after round of undead Nazi soldiers who try to kill you, and your main objective is to not die, couldn't be simpler. 9/10
The Sound: Suprisingly bad, the gun fire is very detached and dumbed down and the explosions (even though they could be 5 feet away they sound like they are several hundred feet away) are also detatched. The talk from other soldiers is rather good and brings my marks out of ten up, it's very clear and consise and you can always hear them. 4/10
Overall: Well with a rather good story line, just above medioker graphics, excellent game play and pretty crap sound, it's a suprisingly good allrounder. Definatly worth a buy (if you haven't already) I look forward to reviewing the next CoD.
A very respectable 8/10
The Plot: Based during WW II you play as PVT. Dimitri Petrenko a Russian and PVT. Millar an American. The 2 soldiers you play as are fighting on 2 very different battle fields, from the streets of Berlin to the beaches on a remote Japanese Island. These offer very different ways of combat, for example in the streets you are mainly to conform to sniping and long range shooting a far cry from the Japanese fight scenes where you are mainly right up close to the enemy and are force to use melee alot more than I'd like to. 8/10
The Graphics: On the whole the graphics are pretty good, explosions and fire (from the flame thrower) is very crisp. The dark, dank German underground is very realistc and really makes you feel very immersed in the game. How ever at some points during the Japanese levels they can be a bit sketchy. 6/10
The Gameplay: Well depending on what difficulty you play on the game can either be a quick blast or a lengthy session. After you have finished the last level and completed the game completely you will be in for a rather pleasant (or unpleasant) suprise, you get launched into the CoD 5 mini game... NAZI ZOMBIES. Yes you heard correctly, zombies who are Nazis, in short you are a soldier stranded in a delapedated house (or one of 3 other maps if you choose to buy them) and are forced to fend off round after round of undead Nazi soldiers who try to kill you, and your main objective is to not die, couldn't be simpler. 9/10
The Sound: Suprisingly bad, the gun fire is very detached and dumbed down and the explosions (even though they could be 5 feet away they sound like they are several hundred feet away) are also detatched. The talk from other soldiers is rather good and brings my marks out of ten up, it's very clear and consise and you can always hear them. 4/10
Overall: Well with a rather good story line, just above medioker graphics, excellent game play and pretty crap sound, it's a suprisingly good allrounder. Definatly worth a buy (if you haven't already) I look forward to reviewing the next CoD.
A very respectable 8/10
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