Bioshock Infinite Review

So I got Bioshock Infinite for my birthday and I was very excited! I have been looking forward to this game for more than a year, lol.  I finished it in a couple of weeks, mind you I didn't have a lot of time to play as I work almost every day and I do play games slow, I explore every single inch of the game. 

A little bit of background, you play a character called Booker Dewitt, and you have come to the floating city of Columbia to get a girl named Elizabeth and bring her back to your creditors in New York to pay off a mysterious debt.  Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it sounds, and you are pulled into a war between the city's founder, Comstock (who is like a magnetic cult leader who fancies himself a prophet of God) and Daisy Fitzroy and her Vox Populi (the lower working class folk who want to be treated fairly).

You really have to explore this game in depth and collect all the voxophones (sorta like audio logs) and really visit every inch of territory as it brings the whole game to life and adds in so much back story.

First of all, the graphics are amazing!  There are the breathtaking vista's you'd expect of a city in the clouds, and the attention to detail is stunning.  I swear, I spent more than a couple of minutes just looking at the scenery, lol. 

The way you travel in the game is fitting as well, you travel by floating gondola boats to other locations in the game, or you travel by Skyline, which means you have a huge hook in your hand and you latch onto the skyline and go fast along the line to another area.  It's very awesome, and way more exciting than my boring description made it sound lol.

The gameplay is also very good, quite simple, you use your vigors (this game's plasmids from the original bioshock) with the Left Trigger button and you use your gun with the Right Trigger button.  To melee someone with your sky hook you press Y. 

One change this game made from the original bioshock games is that you can't carry around extra salts (which power your vigors) or extra first aid kits.  Once you pick up food, health kit, or salt it's used right away, even if you have a full health or vigors bar.  I miss being able to carry around extra supplies and use them when I need them, like in the middle of battle when my health is getting low.  The good news is, you now have a shield which regenerates, so as long as you stay out of the line of fire long enough for it to come back, you shouldn't lose too much health.  And once the battle's done, the bodies of your enemies lying around should carry some food, salt and ammo for you to replenish your supplies.

Another thing I like in this game is that once you find Elizabeth, she'll toss you salt, health or ammo as you need it.  She is your companion, but you don't need to protect her, she can fend for herself! She also has the ability to open up tears in reality which you can bring out food, a different weapon, salt, a turret or cover to help you in battle.

I was worried when I first started following the game videos, as Skylines and Skyhooks and Elizabeth opening up tears, they look cool but they also looked really complicated! But I needn't have worried, the game teaches you how to use these new abilities very intuitively and simply so that you aren't confused. 

Storyline wise, this game is wonderful.  It's so layered and complicated (at times) and in depth! As I said, you really have to explore everywhere and collect every voxophone in the game to get a real sense of the story line and the back ground of the game.  It will help you understand the ending, which is a tad bit confusing lol.  I'm still a little bit confused and I did find out everything!  Even the back ground characters in this game are fleshed out, to the characters you walk by in the street to characters you never even get to meet.  Speaking of which, I would have liked to interact with the world renowned hunter Preston Downs, we only get to meet him through his voxophones in the game. 

And what can I saw about the Lutece siblings! They are twins, Robert and Rosalind, who follow around your character through out the game and offer him aid.  It may be confusing how they appear and reappear in different places so often but that will be explained!  The dialogue between them is hilarious at times and very aggravating to your character, Booker, lol. 

One thing I didn't like about the game was that you couldn't save anytime you wanted anymore, now you had to wait for an autosave.  It may have been just me, but the autosaves were few and far between! And when you only want to hop on for a bit in the evening, after supper but before going to bed, that is a bit annoying.  I'm not sure why they changed that, but I didn't like that about the game. 

The achievements were a little bit blah as well, only 5G for killing x number of enemies with x weapon in most cases, achievements for killing people with the Skyline or Skyhook and the normal game play unmissable achievements. 

All in all, it was a fabulous game, with minor annoyances, so I'm giving it a 9 out of 10.  Now I need to play it again and on Normal difficulty so I can get that achievement!

Cheers, and happy gaming!

L.A. Noire Video Game Review

I wrote this awhile ago for another site, but figured I might as well post it here too!

L.A. Noire is the latest hit from developers Rockstar Games and Team Bondi. It is available for the Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms, with PC coming in the fall of this year. With this game they have created a visually stunning and authentic recreation of 1940’s Los Angeles, in which you get to play as Cole Phelps, a policeman. The game is comprised of different sections, which have different cases that you investigate. For example, in the tutorial section of the game, you are a normal police officer; later you get promoted to detective and you investigate different cases in the Traffic, Homicide, Vice and Arson sections.

The game is an over the shoulder viewpoint, and the controls are simple. You can run, walk, shoot, pick up clues and drive. You also get to play as another character other than Cole Phelps, but I won’t say who that is as I don’t want to spoil it for you. During the game you will investigate crime scenes to find various clues, question witnesses and interrogate suspects, engage in shootouts with various criminals and drive all over Los Angeles. Oh, and you will also watch lots of cutscenes which flesh out the story more fully. And it is a good storyline, if a little clichéd.

I would give the gameplay 9/10 as it is, for the most part, very well done. The controls are simple, easy to use and remember, and fine for even novice video game players. There are also mechanics in place so that if you fail at certain parts of the game three times you can skip it with no penalty, something I wish other games did. As for the bad, walking can be awkward at times, at one point I walked towards a clue, hit the button to investigate it and nothing happened because I had walked over it. I had to circle the clue and come at it from another angle to finally pick it up. Also, the controls seem too sensitive when driving, during one car chase there were many twists and turns I had to make and I ended up crashing into obstacles too many times. There was also a strange bug where a car I was walking towards just disappeared, but that only happened a couple of times.

The sound and the graphics get a 10/10 from me, as what can I say; they are excellent. It looks and sounds just like the time period, and the attention to detail is incredible. Graphics are crisp and clear, and the animations are smoothly done. The voice acting is perfect, not one sounds out of place, and the game is filled with music from the era and a lovely orchestral background at the right dramatic moments.

The replayability of the game should not be an issue as there are four DLC cases available and who knows what will come in the future. You can also replay the cases or go into free roam mode to get various achievements/trophies and collectibles. There is no multiplayer, but you can register with Rockstar’s Social Club to view your friends stats and see how they compare to yours and satisfy your competitive spirit that way. All in all, I would give this game 8 out of 10. Rockstar Games has released an exciting, addictive twist on the old style detective games, and I can guarantee that if you play you will enjoy many, many hours of fun.

So.....

So, it seems as if I have joined the throng and have created a blog. I have no idea what to write about!

Um....last night I finished Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure. It was a pretty good game, the hidden objects were not too hard to find, but not too easy either. In fact, my daughter Heather shamed me a couple of times when she found objects before me! (She's six). No replayability value though. The extra items that they added to locations after you were done I found while I was playing the game so there was nothing for me to do after I finished the game. I uninstalled it as there was no point in keeping it on my computer.

Be warned though, I needed help from this walkthrough a couple of times. Some tasks were confusing! Graphics were pretty good, though they did get blurry on the "zoom in" sequences (when the camera would zoom in as if you were moving forward). Oh my god, the talking sequences were so annoying! After you finished a area (or quest) there would be a cut-scene in which characters talked to each other, and there was no way to go fast through the text without skipping the whole scene. It seemed as if they left the text on the screen forever! I guess people are slow readers. But those scenes seemed to drag on forever.

Anyways, I am still playing Hidden Expedition: Everest, which I am really enjoying so far. I love how you're in competition with three other teams and it really feels like you have to go fast to win over them. Objects are not too hard to find, and you can find coloured gems in each scene to add extra hints. I also like how the game has Ed Viesturs(real life mountain climber) narrating it and popping up little trivia on the map page. It also has photos and video of his real life climbs of Everest.

Logged in to my nightly session of Urban Dead recently, and so proud of myself, I'm not dead! Whoohoo! I swear you log in sometimes and you have a whole list of stuff that happened while you were "asleep" like a zombie broke down the barricades (of the place you're hidden) and bit you and now you're dead. If you haven't tried this great online mmorpg game, you should. It's pretty simple but it works. Let me tell you though, it takes forever to get to level 2, or at least it did for me. As you level up you can add on more abilities (every 100 xp) so the game gets easier. Yeah, so I'm totally addicted to it. And you only get 50 action points a day, so you have to log in to use them!

I don't know what else to write about, so I guess I'll be going. Thanks for reading!

Oh and welcome to my new blog :)