Fighting crime and being the criminal

Just finished up with Stranglehold I was really surprised at how fun the game is. Midway managed to pull out all of the stops with this and if you’re a fan of John Woo’s films, you’ll love what they did here. It’s actually the official sequel to Hard Boiled in game form complete with huge sets, plenty of action, and enough property destruction to make insurance peddlers cry at the office. It’s incredibly short, though, lasting only six or seven hours, and multiplayer might as well not exist unless you can find friends to play with as there’s nothing really out there, but it’s definitely worth at least a rental if you feel the need to practice your gun ballet.

I also finished up Kane & Lynch and it’s really worth only a rental. It’s a short game as well, but the annoyingly rabid characters, flawed gameplay, and a story that takes a nosedive halfway through the experience really made this a struggle to even get through without thinking of something a lot more fun to play. This was a something of a huge disappointment for me. I loved Freedom Fighters, but instead of updating that experience with a gritty crime drama, it succeeds only half of the time. At least the multiplayer offers something unique as long as you team up with a group of players that play the way it was meant to, but this is a title that you really won’t miss out on if you don’t get a chance to try it.

Catching Up

Finally managed to catch up with my writing and the games that I wanted to hit this holiday season. Yay!

Uncharted by Naughty Dog was a lot more fun than I thought it would be. The demo really didn’t do it justice and the story came off a lot better than I had thought it would. Looks like Lara finally has some competition in that department. I’ve already read and heard some people calling it Uncharted: Gears of War, and it’s hard not to see how similar the cover and combat system is like, but it works. Great story, exciting action, but the main game is painfully short. If you rent this one over the weekend, you could have it done before Monday morning.

Blazing Angels 2 was also a lot better than the first one with plenty of improvements especially in the voice department. No more stereotypes here, but it also tosses out any historical pretensions that the series might have had which wasn’t as bad as you might think as long as you don’t mind how crazy it can get. Some parts of the game were very Ace Combat-ish which was kind of surprising to see, but it helped in the end as it didn’t have the degree of suck that the first one suffered from.

I also had a chance to play Call of Duty 4 which is as good as everyone says that it is. Multiplayer is especially fun, and the single player is pretty good although it’s can be finished in a sitting if you’re that determined to get through the story. It’s my pick for the best FPS this year on any platform. Infinity Ward hit a homerun with this one, and Activision’s already talking about the development of COD5. Definitely recommended, especially if you’re a huge shooter fan.

Assassin’s Creed finishes off my list for now. It’s definitely a flawed game and the repetition can test your patience. It can also be a lot of fun as it often feels as if it’s playing itself off like a high production movie. The world alone should be used for something else other than Creed as the RPG player in me wanted to explore every doorway to visit the local watering hole to get the juiciest bit of lore. It’s too bad that it really doesn’t go that far, but I can’t deny that I couldn’t stop playing it as long as I didn’t think too much about the rinse and repeat gameplay. It might not be everything that I hoped it could have been, but there’s still something there that’s worthy of at least being a rental.

I also played a bit of Red Steel and I really had to work at getting into the game. After the first few missions, I really wasn’t looking forward to more of the goofy shooting controls. I might get back into it if I have time, or when my mind isn’t wandering towards other games while playing that one. The story isn’t too bad, but the action is pretty bland and the graphics…wow. I’m not sure if it was my television or not, but my eyes were burning.

I’m also playing a little of Kane & Lynch and found out the hard way that Gerstmann, along with several other players that I’ve read opinions from, weren’t too off the mark when they voiced their own problems with the gameplay. I enjoyed Freedom Fighters and this game reminded me a bit of it, but I hate the characters. Hell, I hate everyone in this game. He’s right, there’s no one in here that I really want to pretend that I’m playing as, but maybe that might improve later on. We’ll see. The story seems to be interesting at first, but I had reached the point where it started to feel like a generic excuse to shoot more people. Maybe I should try some multiplayer as that seems to be something that could be more fun…

Lair’s not that horrible…

…but it could have been a lot better. Finally played through this one and you can read up on my thoughts here. In a nutshell, far from the knockout title that the PS3 has been looking for (and may have already gotten thanks to Uncharted along with Ratchet and Clank’s newest). It’s pretty much a confirmation of others’ experiences with the game, only now, I can say that they’re not exaggerating much. But the controls aren’t entirely to blame as a few other things hurt the game in my eyes, but they were responsible for a lot of the annoying little things that I had experienced.

gamespot fails

I don’t know Gerstmann personally, nor have I created any real sort of impression on his work, but you don’t spend ten years doing what you love at a company only to be fired for simply voicing the opinion that you’re paid to give. Either pressure was applied to get rid of him because of Kane & Lynch, or it might have been for other reasons. We may never know, but it’s hard not to dismiss Eidos’ ad campaign and tie ins to Gamespot as having nothing to do with it on some level. Joystiq had a chance to ask him about what he’s going to do next and his feelings on what just happened, and his answers show that he’s a pretty cool headed guy. When Richard Garriot left Origin/EA, nary a word was said until a year later when Gamespy interviewed him on the reasons he had left. I expect the same here, but I’m not holding my breath, either.

In any case, Gamespot’s management have pretty much managed to piss off most everyone on the ‘net. I don’t envy the position that the journalists and other writers within the company are in right now, especially in going through the links that Virtual Fools has put together collecting all of what is being said about the event. One reported possibility is that Gerstmann refused to play ball with one of the execs when he was asked to change his review to alter its tone. VF thinks that could hold more weight than most anything else that was reported, and I’ve seen enough corporate warfare on my side of the fence to know that it could very well be true. Corporations care only about one thing = profit. Anyone that refuses to play along is usually replaced. Given time, it will all blow over. That’s the approach that they could be banking on.

It’ll be a part of ‘net history, a lot of people will eventually forget it happened, and it will become a meme whenever a bad review comes up on Gamespot that someone might get fired again. But one thing is for sure: Gamespot’s credibility has really forced a lot of people to take a closer look at how marketing and reviews really tie in together at these larger sites. That, and quite a few people have already made it a point never to forget as they punch the delete key on the Gamespot entry in their bookmarks.