Call of Duty: World at War

Though Call of Duty: World at War has been out for a while; I felt the need to blog about it. Or more specifically about it's expansions. As of right now 3 map sets have been released.

The first (technically a bonus map set) is the Makin Day map. It's like the original makin map; though its day time, the tide is out and there are a few areas that you can walk now that the 'village' is awake and active. Though there isn't much new here; its free, so whats not to like?

The second Map pack (labeled Map Pack 1 on XBL selling at 800 microsoft points) contains the maps Nightfire; Station and Knee Deep, as well as the new zombie Expansion 'Verrückt'. The online live versus maps are nice; though when you first play them they are hard to learn; the maps are not symmetrical, but its a good set of areas to use different weapon types. Verrückt is what originally brought me to this map pack; and it does not dissapoint, though much harder then the original zombies (starting split up if your group size is large then 2, and the moving weapons box) there are several nice new additions to the game. First off would be the perk cola. The perk cola allows you to get one of four different perks to use. Speed reloading(and rebuilding and running), Juggernaut, Quick Revive, and double tap. Another nice new addition is the barriers; that can grant you a temporary reprieve from the hordes of the undead.

The second Map pack (labeled Map Pack 2 on XBL also at 800 microsoft points) contains Sub Pens, Corrosion, and Banzai. The maps add a new set of territory to play in and they certainly are different from the originals by adding a new depth of realism to playing; mainly background noises like waterfalls. Other then that its more of the same.

What really brought me to the '2nd' Map pack was yet another new Zombie map. Shi no Numa. Shi no Numa is different then all the other maps because you can go outside. Yes. Out of your fortified building. It may sound crazy; but the temptation of the 4 perks(the same as the last set) that are each randomly assigned a building is strong; Mainly because you can have all of them at once; and let me tell you; when you've got that you are a super man slaughtering zombies. Though the spitefully evil teddy bear remains in the box lurking; now when it moves it glows so its easier to find out where it is. There is also a new weapon; the Wunderwaffle. This rifle, a cousin or the ray gun, is some non standard gear aimed at taking down large numbers of zombies very very fast. Though it only has 18 shots one properly aimed shot will kill 10 zombies.

Oh and there are achievements for the zombie map pack. So you can brag about how awesome you really are at killing them.

Shi no Numa was so popular over 1,000,000 purchases occurred in the first 4 days of its release.

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Call of Duty: World at War is a very good game; its expansions make it even better if you can afford the DLC. If you don't have it; get it.

DJ Max Fever

This little music-simulation PSP game is kind of obscure, but it's packed with quite a lot of good stuff. When you turn on the game, the menu looks very nice with the techno music in the background. Because this was originally a Korean game, most of the songs are in Korean. Didn't think I liked K-pop, but what do you know. There are quite a few very addictive songs that I liked instantly.

Because I can pass level 5 songs in Beatmania games, DJ Max Fever is a bit too easy. There are 4 keys, 5 keys, or 6 keys, and I passed a 6 key Level 8 song no problem during my first plays. It's either that I'm good or the game is not challenging enough :P

Anyway, there is one interesting concept. It's the same with Beatmania in that you are supposed to hit corrosponding keys when it gets to a red line near the bottom, but in DJMF it doesn't necessarily has to be the right key. As long as you hit a key at the right time, the combo continues, but you only get a fraction of the score for that note.

The visuals in the background are very nice, too bad because unless you are watching someone else play, you probably are too busy to watch those. Heh.

Overall very nice game, well worth the money.

X-men Origins Wolverine: Uncaged Edition

So, while the usual movie-to-game area of games are usually bad, X-men Origins Wolverine: Uncaged edition is pretty darn awesome. Its not the movie; which is a good thing, I've got nothing against the movie, it was pretty with its explosions, but the coreography was lame.... But for a single player game, Wolverine manages to avoid the repetition of only pressing the same button over and over.

Its just too darn fun to rip people apart. The achievements for doing so are fun to get, but just challenge enough to be worth trying, yet not too easy. The plot is a bit straight forward through, but its something you can easily end up wasting time on, because how can you imagine ripping people apart to be too linear?

While its fun, over all its an okay game. The graphics are good, but the soundtrack leaves something to be desired. Yeah the music comes on when you fight and such, but the sound effects and music don't make you pause and go wow. The controls are smooth and easy to use; but the slowing down of time (not optional) when you kill the last baddie in an area gets repetetive.

All in all, this a good game to waste time on if your by yourself, but with out the option of multiplayer, no replay value (aside from the hard difficulty locked at the beginning) its really only good for one go through (with a slight pause to get the gamer score from achievments), So this falls into the rent it or borrow it category, not the buy section.

Props to the local madison RavenSoftware for making this though, superb work for being handed crap when the previous group ran out of budget. Good choice there Activision....

Combat Arms

Combat arms, by Nexon found at http://combatarms.nexon.net/Intro.aspx , is a free FPS shooter; that has both a competitive mode (a la modes like elimination, capture the flag, Search and destroy and one-man army) and cooperative modes (Fireteam/Scenario mode). Its not the best graphics, and the music is a bit loud; but its free. FREE.

It can take a while to download, but the game mechanics are pretty good, there are standard guns everyone has access to, and guns you 'buy' using in game earned points for a time period. The more kills you get in a round the more points you get to buy guns. The better you are, the better your weapons, the better your kills.

Its a great way to waste time with friends, its free, and will run on almost any recent PC (and some macs running PC windows.).

Then again I've only wasted 5 hours in the last 2 days after full days at work.... So its fairly good.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne

I was playing Final Fantasy XII earlier today and I thought maybe I should play something else because there's only so much of the MMORPG-styled game I can take. So after some digging around in my games pile, I decided to play SMT Nocturne again.

Apparently I left it off after about 10 hours of gameplay, because I encountered a boss that was really hard to beat. After a bit of level-grinding and a few new demon fusions (awesome system btw, just like in the Persona series) I beat him on my first try.

The story is basically about a Japanese high school boy, who was visiting his teacher in the hospital, but due to some mysterious incidents, was turned into a half-demon. Now he has to fight his way to save the world. Or something like that. The whole thing so far is kind of vague, or it's possible that I simply forgot.

So, about the actual gameplay. For those who have never played it or the SMT Digital Devil Saga series, the whole game is basically 95% dungeon-crawling. Whatever time you are not spending in dungeons, you are on the world (not so vast though, more like overall area) map. There are only few rare places in the game without any random encounters, the rest of the places are crawling with monsters. And the encounter rate is really high.

The battle is turn-based, but winning usually requires strategy, and that's what makes this game so challenging and fun. Elemental weaknesses, critical hits, missing the target all contribute to how many actions you get per turn. Sometimes you find yourself making hit after hit, while other times you are unlucky enough to miss a few hits, in which case your turn is over before you know it.

Now for the overall presentation. Nocturne is rated M, and it shows through the monster designs and certain themes. Overall, the colors used in the game are rather bleak, and it really affects the player's mood after a while. Because you are all alone all the time save the demons that you recruit, it really feels lonely and desolate.

That's an image of a typical dungeon. As you can see, the atmosphere is rather desolate. The sound and the unique character design of SMT games all make the game creepy in its own way.

Nocturne has its difficult moments (rather frequently) but it's quite a fun game. Rather rare now, but very well liked among hardcore RPG gamers.

Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3: ODST (previously Halo 3 : Recon), is slated for release this fall, as an FPS gamer; and as a huge Halo fan (if you haven't yet, and you have time take a look at the book series) I'm really excited to play ODST.

Orbital Drop Shock Troopers is different from the other games in the Halo sandbox that is their universe, as your not playing as the famous 117, Master Chief. The main playable character, 'The Rookie', is human; pure, un-genetically modified, 100% pure human. This means No super speed and strength, no Spartan armor, and a biggie, no dual wielding.

But that does not make the ODST members weak by any means; They get the best and the brightest shiney new gear to kick butt with. Stealth and finesse take the place of the cavalry charge style of Spartan combat. With the new and returned weaponry (the suppressed SMG, and the M6D (a vairant of the original Halo:Combat Evolved pistol)) its still an open game.

The controls of the released footage and demo's look insane. The Open world segments of New Mombosa, offer a lot of game play options, and I am pleased to say it will look great in 1080p Hi Def.

As usual Bungie will be bringing back their Cooperative play for campaign (still 1-4 players) and there will be maps that have content for the original HALO 3 game.

All in all, this fall looks to be another very good Halo year.

Beatmania IIDX 17 Sirius

Ok, the first game I'm going to mention is the newest one in the popular DJ simulation game series (well, mostly in Japan, here not so much) Beatmania IIDX 17 Sirius. They are currently location testing the arcade game in Japan, so any releases will be far into the future. After all, they have yet to release IIDX 16 Empress on the home console.
Always nice to listen to some nice techno/trance and whatnot.

-Cookie

RAG(ed) Begginings...

Test?

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Edit, Hawks here (aka Guy Gamer of the title);
This was sent from my phone; just to see if I can keep up with Girl Gamer as she will likely post a lot at her work place.

So, this marks the beginning of G3 Rag. G3 Rag (Guy and Girl Gamers Rambling about Games), is a blog about games and electronics. Right now there are two authors;


Guy Gamer aka Hawks.
Hawks is a College student, and loves to play video games; His console of choice is the XBox 360, and he prefers to play FPS, Action, RTS, and occasionally RPG games. When not gaming he freeruns and works.


Girl Gamer aka Um...the cookie that you throw away after it's all charred black? (Well, Cookie is fine I guess)

Also a college student, specifically a Computer Science major, who is hoping to someday do programming for video game companies. Yep. Very ambitious. Hoping to buy a PS3 some time in the future, but currently is occupied by her 2 PS2's (one NTSC one JP). Mostly plays RPGs, strategy, and music simulation. But one never knows.


Together we're gonna write G3 Rag. Here's to Gaming.