^

I do wonder how they are able to do ten hour gaming marathons, but can't move their arm slightly for five minutes.

I finished Staff of Kings last night, 6 hour game. Decent game, it's simple as nothing really stands out but it at least keeps you on your toes with puzzles and constantly changing gameplay segments. The combat is of the beat em up variety. Very few moves, you can pick up objects, use the environment to throw people into. Beacuse it uses motion control to punch its not as responsive and can lead to fights where you felt the controls messed you up rather than the difficulty, but it's still ok overall.

I tried the co-op a bit, it's cool, you got Indy's father and him on an adventure. I wish that was the main storyline. There are a few other modes and of course it comes with Fate of Atlantis. In no way is this game terrible.

Overall Score: 6.0

Dvader said:

I must say that I miss using the wiimote. Even though its unresponsive at times I still love the design of it and the fact that it still surprises me with the different ways you can use it.

In what context are you saying this? You playing a new wii-mote less game?

The only taste of wiimote fisticuffs I have tried is Bully. It's a direct button replacement but so satisfying. The nunchuk and remote act as your left and right hands, you can swish the nunchuk to kick people on the floor and gesture to throw people into bins.

I like it. I hear the Godfather has great brawling controls too.

Ok the honeymoon with Red Faction is over. It's still a very high quality but it does suffer from way to many repetitive side missions syndrome. The main problem with the game is that you need to travel too much, Mars isn't exactly Liberty City, nor is it whatever the Infamous city was called. Its just hills, its red and it has a few buildings that all look the same. So most of the time you are driving from point A to point B with nothing really going on. Many side missions have you drive to a point where they give you another destination to drive to. Then there are those missions where you need to drive someone back to base, sometimes its the furthest base. GTAs side missions can happen anywhere, hop into a cop car at anypoint and just like that you are doing vigalante. Plus there is fast travel to basically everything and GTA has mostly main missions.

So yeah its not GTA, not that I expected it to be. I have come to the conclusion that nothing will ever be GTA, its on a class of its own when it comes to open world action games. I am still enjoying Red Faction, but I am finding myself avoiding side missions which is not a good sign. I should want to do them.

Red Faction is finished, the last few missions were pretty cool. The satellite bombing runs were ok, CoD4 did it way better, this was way too simple. Overall the game is blast, the best Mercenaries style open world game I have played. It is so satisfying to blow everything up. The game gives you the guns to do so, great variety in weapons and vehicles. As I mentioned before, some of the side missions are a bit of a pain cause of too much travel but some are excellent. The combat can be a bit sloppy, you cant really stealthly advance on a location. When enemies attack its best to just blow stuff up and escape, trying to take them down like a tactical shooter doesnt work so well. I miss the combat on that level a bit the game sort of teases you cause it gives you a cover system but its almost pointless to use it. Traveling can get boring, home bases are sometimes far from missions, many missions require you to return to the base so after you finish you need to travel out all over again. Too much terrain without anything interesting. It's sad cause driving is blast, it feels like an offroad racing game, something like motorstorm. I tried online and the experience was not so good, it was hard to find a match and when I did it wasn't that great.

Great game, with a few tweaks it could be in the AAA range. But it's right there, on the edge of excellence. It's one of the better games I have played this year.

Overall Score 8.8

I managed to get Protototype, woo! So the open world summer trifecta is complete. The opening segment of this game blew me away, I was ready to declare this game the winner. It was basically a glipse into all your powers, it was sort of a tutorial and showcase of the action. After that you start with a few powers and work your way up which is always fun. This game has you constantly upgrading with a ton of different moves. What I love most about it is the action, out of the three this game feels the best when it comes to fighting. You have all sorts of different powers to switch from, you can grab guns, you can hijack vehicles, throw things, there are so many ways to fight. Variety in combat is in abundance but of course the enemies you face are not, neither are they up to the task in taking you down. Sure you will die cause of the sheer number of enemies that attack you but it's never a true strategic fight. The majority of enemies are grunts which can be killed with one punch. There are these giant mutant monsters which are actually a challenge, if more enemies where like this the game has the potential to feel like a DMC or NG style action game. But no, most of the time you are just beating up on wimpy humans, tearing your way through the battlefield like an unstoppable force.

This might be the least original of the three though, it is very similar to Hulk Ultimate Destruction and I hear its almost the same game as that new Spider-Man game. Side missions are more like mini games, stuff like jump and land in a certain spot or race through the checkpoints. There is also kill a bunch of enemies in a certain time missions. It's repetitive, the curse of this type of game.

The main missions are good but I have yet to play anything as spectacular as the opening segement of this game. There are only 31 main mission, i have done 16 of them already, I feel like I just got started, I hope they really pick up. It's a blast to play and fight but Prototype might have the worst missions of the three games

I may have to get Prototype now given your and Leos impressions.

Fallout 3 is next.

Dvader said:

aspro73 said:

Dvader said:

Red Faction is finished

How many hours did it take you to get through campaign?

About 22 hours.

That's pretty good. Usually games are about 8-10 hours.

I finished Prototype, its borderline excellent. With some effort into the missions and a few more enemy types I feel this game could have been one of the best of the year. The action is incredible. Say an alarm goes off, tanks, soldiers with missle launchers, helicopters all start to shoot at you. You can use brute strength and pull out a huge claw and destroy your enemies, or you can hop in the air, use a tenticle to lach onto a helicopter, take it over and use that helicopter to rain death on everyone below. If the copter gets shot at and blows up you can fly out and grab another helicopter in midair. When you are done with the copter you can jjump out and dive bomb below to take out any remaining people. Or you can skip all that and absorb a new body and go into hiding.

There are so many options to the combat, so many cool moves to perform but the problem is the game doesn't really take advantage of it. There are like 4 enemy types all can be killed with the same attacks. It's easiest to choose the most powerful form, the blade and just go at them. I could only imagine if some effort was put into these enemies, where they would adapt to one of your forms so you were forced to use another. If they were a challenge like something out of DMC. The devs were satisfied with making this game a Hulk clone or a Spider-man clone or whatever, the fact is you have probably played a game just like this before but never was the combat so dynamic. And I still had a blast with the game, its frustrating to see such potential.

I completed all side missions and got gold on all of them.The game took me about 25 hours, there is still reason to go back and play as there are platinum challenges and a hard mode. The side missions are simple, they are like small mini games but they are all fun. The game is on the edge of greatness but doesn't try hard enough to cross that line.

Overall Score 8.9

I now have Wanted... its a better version of Terminator, but that is not saying a lot.