BioShock Review

Developer: 2k Games
Publisher: 2k Games



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Intro:

A new FPS has shown up with promises of great gameplay and great story without needed muitplayer to make it successful (unlike halo :P )

We will see how true to those claims the game really is...

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Notable Awards:

• 2007 PC Game of the Year
• 2007 Xbox 360 Game of the Year
• 2007 FPS Game of the Year
• 2007 Overall Game of the Year

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Genre:

A regular First Person Shooter, nothing out of the ordinary here.

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Players:

The game is a 1 player only.

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Overview:

The game begins with you in an airplane in the late 1950's when it suddenly crashes and our the only survivor or so your lead to believe ...

You then come across this big tower in the middle of no where in the ocean, you enter and soon take a sub down to the city of Rapture...

You soon get ambushed and eventually found out it was a bad idea to come down here. The first plasmid is introduced (think of it as magic in a RPG) after your encounter with a Big Daddy, even though you dont actually fight it, its still a pretty sight to take and dont want to mess with.

And soon your tangled up in this rescue operation for atlas and...

Well im not gonna spoil the story for you,
you will just have to play and find out,
its such a great story

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Gameplay:

Game is typical among all FPS except for the plasmid system, which allows you to strike enemies with electricity, fire, and a few other elements.

The way you combine these powers with your surroundings is up to you.
For example you could shock an enemy in the water for extra damage, and it will shock all other enemies in the water also.
You could light a propane tank on fire then use telikenieses to throw it at your enemies for extra damage , ect...
its all up to you.

You will also need powers to melt ice, or freeze things to advance in the game.

The weapons are nice with upgrades and all the works and make you fell invincible at times.

Another pretty cool thing was the hacking minigame which is a remade version of the PC classic PIPE:


Multiplayer would have been good in this game, whats better then shotting your friends and complete strangers with plasmids?
But its still very good without it as you can see from the awards.


There was no lag or anything in the game that I experience, everything ran smoothly

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Graphics:

The graphics on this game are very well done.
From the glossy look to the water, everything looks very nice compared to other FPS's.


Some Pics to show its "awesomenesses"






















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Audio / Sfx:

The game contains a rich classical score and well as may songs popular from that time era that sometime play in the background.

Such songs as:
Papa Loves Mambo
Waltz of the Flower
How Much is that Doggy in the Window
Oh Danny Boy
and a few other as well...

Also there whole classical score is free to download from their site:
http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshoc...hock_Score.zip

Over all its very well done and pulls it off with the game well.


The voice acting it also extremely up to par.
They have a real emphasis to them from the Irish talking Atlas to the little sisters and as well as the Big Daddy sounds are pretty creepy.

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Replay Value:

The game doesnt exactly have a replay value to it.
After you finished, you will want to put it away until you fell like play it again a couple of month later, like me.

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Conclusion:

This game is really something to look at on how new games coming out these days instead of the usual rubbish we get today should be. This game is extremely good and is recommended to anybody who has a 360 or even PC (and soon PS3 also )

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Pros:

• Excellent story
• Voice Acting
• Weapons and upgrades
• Many plasmids to choose from
• Graphics
• Musical score

Cons:

• No Multiplayer

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Final Score:

Bored. Review.

Frontlines: Fuel of War
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Kaos Studios
Players: 1-50 (good lord)
Genre: Tactical FPS

Frontlines: Fuel of War bases around the idea of a third World War that is caused by a lack of oil and gasoline around the world. (sound familiar?) 2 major factions and four countries are included in this war: U.S. and Britain vs. China and Russia, the Western Coalition and the Red Star Alliance respectively. You are in the shoes of a soldier who, like many others, is caught in this war and speculates on all areas of the war, including the idea that the entire war is based on a conspiracy theory. Who knows...

Oil the Glorious
The entire story for this game is base on the idea that soon (in 2008) the world will erupt into a full scale war over the few remaining deposits of oil left on earth. The best part about this story is the possibility that this could happen. The idea of (in todays world) people fighting over oil in a global war isn't totally unforeseeable. Anyway, the story centers on oil, and the two factions (the RSA and WC) are warring over this. Overall, the story is basically another war story, except slightly futuristic and with a small amount of character development. (most of your teamates die fairly quickly) Honestly, there isn't that much to story. Menus work fine, but loading times are sometimes a little long. Multiplayer is glorious. 50 player online matches in massive arena based warfare. The connections for online? So far so good, I haven't ever noticed any connection errors, even in massive battles. A little bit of lag though when the going gets insanely large. Respawning is a pain in the a**.....



All of them soldiers, all of them lifeless


War doesn't look all too bad...
Frontlines certainly does look good sometimes. Explosions are gloriously, well, explosive, and they work nice. The main problem with this game graphically is that in the massive outside arenas seem to actually have no textures on them until you get very close up. In other words, the textures pop up AFTER you get close, which diminishes the spectacular view of massive war greatly. Pop in for buildings and models happen, but the game cleverly disguises this as saying the its due to the fog and the players (apparent) bad eyesight. Character models, while not exactly Call of Duty 4, work fine, but look very bland close up. Rainbow Six vegas this ain't. Bullet effects and fire seem both primitive and well done at the same time. (don't ask how, just watch it.)



Frontlines does have its moments, but for the most part it falls flat


Sorry sir, lip sync is not a-go.
Sound. Dialog among the characters is well done, if a bit choppy in campaign mode. A good bit of the dialog focuses on the characters thoughts about the war and the missions they are doing. but to be honest, none of it is memorable, and lip sync could have been much better. Sound effects are well presented, from bullet firing to explosions. The whir of a sentry coming in for a kill is sometimes a bit annoying, as you hear them as being a good for meters away, then boom. Your suddenly dead. You can't so much trust you ears when it comes to remote controlled vehicles in the game. I don't even remember whether or not there was music in the game (which should tell you something about the soundtrack.)


50 player online battles? GOOD ****!
While story mode is rather unimpressive, multiplayer makes up for it rather well. First off the bat you'll notice the MASSIVE battles of 50 players in equally massive battlefields. Theres so much strategy behind team work in this game that people don't even see. For instance, a Special Ops guy could load your vehicle up with C4 to have you bail out of the vehicle right as it collides into another tank and tell the guy to detonate his C4. Or for a less strategic note, get two of your friends into a well-known hiding spot as close combatants, and basically herd your enemies into the area where your friends do the rest. Now speaking of vehicles. The controls for the vehicles are bad, even worse then GTA IV. other then that, vehicles are also insanely overpowered. If your enemy is in a tank, it doesn't matter if you can get a rocket off on his tank. At best it'll only take a third of his health down and by that time you'll be blown to Jupiter. Same goes for all vehicles. The class system works. The only thing is that you'll almost never see ANYONE playing as close combat, i.e. the shotgun class. People who play as the sniper class are doomed too. The Sniper takes at least 2 HEADSHOTS to kill someone, where as the assault rifle (the machine gun class) has the same accuracy as the sniper rifle with the same damage. Still, all these work in the hands of decent players. Multiplayer is the best part of the game, easily.

1 game mode? Honestly?
As far as replay value goes, it all depends on you love for the multiplayer. As you won't play through single player twice, will the 6-10 maps hold you with only a single online mode? Well, that all depends on you, and Frontlines mode really isn't to be messed with.

Lets get to it then! (Watch above your head!)

Presentation: 3.5/5
Intelligent story combined with meh execution equals meh-ness. Connection is great and menus are fine.

Graphics: 4/5
Texture pop up aside, this game can look pretty stunning at times. Explosive times especially.

Sound: 3/5
Sound and gunfires works, voices are alright, but none of it is really spectacular at all.

Gameplay: 4/5
While singleplayer is alright, multiplayer takes a crown for the thing in this game most worthy of your time. If you can get into it, it may be hard to get out of.

Replay Value: 3.5/5
Do you like the multiplayer? Then you have good replay Value...

Overall: 3.5/5

Frontlines offers some pretty nice war-based ideas for online multiplayer. pitty the storyline is only so-so, but it reminds me of CoD4 in this way...

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Game of the Year Edition
Review

Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks/ZeniMax | 2k Games




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Intro:

Here we have the fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls Saga, and probably one of the most anticipated and biggest one to date.
The game of the year edition of Oblivion which I purchased for $59 (USD) which was a bargain compared to buying all the expansion that come with it alone.

Ive got the 360 version but all versions should be the exact same no matter what.

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Notable Awards:

• 2006 PC Game of the Year (Oblivion)
• 2006 Xbox 360 Game of the Year (Oblivion)
• 2006 RPG Game of the Year (Oblivion)
• 2006 Overall Game of the Year (Oblivion)
• 2007 PS3 RPG Game of the Year (Oblivion)
• 2007 RPG Game of the Year (Shivering Isles)
• 2007 Best DLC Xbox 360 (Shivering Isles)

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Genre:

It is a First Person Role Playing Game (no thats not a joke , it pulls it off very well )

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Players:

The game is 1 player only (no multiplayer doesnt hurt this game)

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This edition comes with:

• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (main game)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Knights of the Nine (exp pak)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles (exp pak)

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Overview:

You begin the game in a cell and for some reason there is a secret escape way in your cell in which the emperor of all the land comes to use it to escape assassins (mythic dawn) and for some reason he lets you come along for the ride [I dont know what crimes the original character committed beforehand but you were gonna rot in the cell until you die...]

Anyway the emperor gets asasignatied along the way and now before his last breath he entrusts you with the Amulet of Kings to give to the next heir, you are omitted of all your crimes and set free.

Now out of jail and can virtually go anywhere, do anything, explore, hunt, go on a killing spree, join clans, do side missions, help out people, be a thief, ect... (I spent over 110hrs just doing side missions O_O )

The amount of customization of also very huge.
You will be able to select your race, birth sign, as well as change how your face looks and how your stats are (each race has its own abilities choose wisely...)

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Gameplay:

The Game Play is very smooth, no lag which is surprising for how big the outside world is (like GTA:SA)
The FP controls also handle very well (you can also switch to third person, but its better with 1st person imo)

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Graphics:

The Graphics are Superb:
I mean look at these and tell me there not...?









if you still dont get it
it looks amazing, especially for an RPG

More pics can be found here:
http://plume.dk/oblivion.html

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Audio / Sfx:

The audio is also very good featuring a very rich classical score , that you really dont get bored off.

Other sfx are also very well done and sound realistic from swords bouncing off a metal shield to animal noises and well as monster sounds, and voice acting, not the rinky dink acting we usually get from games that they just took people off the street walking by and paid them like $50 to do it. You can tell a lot of time and effort was put into the audio and sfx for this game.

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Replay Value:

I dont think anyone can actually finish the game to replay, though you might be interested if you chose another race and made different choices...

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Conclusion:

Overall this game is amazing, its huge, and just plain epic
From every little detail, including gfx, sounds, missions, items, quests, ect...
(I have plugged in over 180hrs and still havnt beat the main quest (I did finish one of the expansion packs, Nights of the Nine which was very good)

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Pros:

• Amazing graphics
• Excellent Voice Acting
• Open Ended Story
• Includes 2 Expansion paks adding 200+ hrs to game play
• Customization
• Miles and miles of explorable area
• Breathtaking landscapes

Cons:

• May not be for everybody
• A couple of the other small expansions could have been included
• Some weird glitches tend to occur sometimes ruining the whole game (must start a new game)

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Final Score: