Hello People. I know I haven't blogged in a very long time, but I wanted ot place my thoughts out there about Saints Row the Third. I know it's kind of late to be talking about a game that his been out for nearly four months now, but I still want to explain some of the things I liked and disliked about the game.
First let's talk about the storyline. Most games don't have very good storylines, mainly because the developers spend so much time and money on the gameplay and graphics that they come up with a storyline quicker than some other developers do. I personally don't have a problem with underwhelming storylines in games, but with SR3, the gameplay surrounds it. Basically your character is robbing a bank with his gang in Stillwater, seeming like no big deal, until this larger group called the Syndicate takes you on an airplane ride and tries to force your gang to share profits with this organization. Your character says no and jumps out of the plane landing into a new city called Steelport. Steelport is about the same size as Stillwater, but it seems like the structure of the story missions would cause you to end up doing something similar to Saints Row 2; you would be taking out each gang and then a boss in order to take over their territory. Unfortunately, the story missions are so disconjucted that this is unable to happen, and as a result the game suffers as a whole.
What I mean by that is that the gangs you would be taking out all feed into the leader of the Syndicate, who dies a few missions in. This sort of ruins the whole structure of the game in terms of its story. Instead of taking out a boss for each gang, one of the gangs doesn't even have a leader. How would that work? And you take out one of the bosses before you even finish taking out that gang. It all feels disconnected. Then, without giving away any spoilers, another group comes in and starts trying to take out your gang, which has nothing to do with the main portion of the story. It's hard to know sometimes whether the members of Volition were talking to each other while creating this game. Anyway, the storyline and story missions are not very good in summary.
In terms of actual gameplay, the controls are changed on the PS3, which is a huge bummer for fans of this console version, because SR2's controls worked really well. You can't change them at all to fit your liking, which stinks, because it would have been nice to have the choice of whether I wanted R1 and L1 as my shoot and aim buttons or not. Also, the city feels very empty, and isn't as nearly random and chaotic as SR2. This is mainly because people don't walk around in the city. This makes messing around and trying to find entertainment other than some of the boring sidequests not as fun as it should be. Speaking of the side missions, I like some of them, like the Professor Ginki missions, but even those after the first time are boring. Volition seemed to have taken the worst side missions and put them into SR3, instead of taking the most interesting one's such as fight club, and bringing that with some sort of new twist. Also the customization, in some parts, is pretty new and exciting, but other parts limit you even more than SR2, which is a shame because every other reviewer for this game said that SR3 was trying to give you more. Quite honestly it doesn't seem that way to me. Again, everything looks better, at a cost of bad pop-in and the empty city. It seems like Volition was trying to fill the game with as much random stuff as they could, but they forgot to make sure the player didn't get bored.
Whenever I come back to this game, I fall asleep, because there's literally not much to do once you beat the silly story missions. While they are still addicting, it would have been nice to bring in some chaos that SR2 seemed to have. For example, in SR2 I could decide to shoot an old man driving his little car, and then randomly, a young woman runs me over while I'm trying to highjack the old man's car. Or I would walk by a set of cheerleaders at Stillwater University, and blow them up with a rocket launcher, then turn around to find a random dude streaking. That's the game I would have like to see being continued, rather than the goal of an "over-the-top" game. Sorry Volition, but SR2 seemed to be more over-the-top than SR2.
Remember, these are only my opinions. You can disagree with what I think, but please do it in a respectful manner. Calling me a moron shows that you are immature and don't like to admit to disagreement. Thank you for reading and I will eventually post my review of Battlefield 3, once the next patch comes out, and I will compare the game patched to it's original launch version. Have a nice day.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Friday, November 4, 2011
Battlefield 3 Review
Hello there. It's been a VERY long time since I've posted anything, but I wanted to give you my thoughts on Battlefield 3 for PS3.
First let's talk about the single player. While it may not be the most compelling storyline out there, with your typical Russians vs Americans in the Middle East, the game takes advantage of good-looking cutscenes where the main character (you) is being questioned for some sort of illegal act that he committed in the military. The very first mission starts you off running away from the police and jumping onto a New York subway train, and once you start actually playing, you find yourself shooting Russian dudes and stealing their Ak74u's. The missions themselves are fairly straight forward, and they don't seem quite as linear as something like Medal of Honor was doing. So there weren't any invisible walls that I encountered, but there were a numerous amount of bugs. For example, I would be playing a mission in the Middle East and going prone to not get shot, but as I was about to grab the LMG on the bridge, all the sudden there's an explosion and I immediately die, even though I was never seen. While this was on hard mode, and while hard mode is supposed to be a good challenge, this was beyond challenging: more like nearly impossible. Eventually I was able to get through it, but I couldn't keep playing the campaign when I would be shot in two seconds as soon as I wasn't prone. So I played the game from the start on EASY and turned off the aim assist. The missions were pretty cool, but it felt like there could have been a tiny bit more variety. I wish there could have been a proper stealth mission where you could choose to sneak past some Russian guards or engage in some firefights.
The game itself looks fairly nice on the PS3, and takes full advantage of the lighting effects, but I thought it started to become too much when many of the missions took place outside in the dark to show off the lighting from the street lights. I'm sorry, but the last time I checked street lights aren't supposed to be so bright that they blind you, even in the Middle East. That being said, the graphics look a tiny bit better than Bad Company 2, although it's very hard to compare the two games since they run on two different engines.
With regards to the multiplayer, it's definitely the highlight of the show. The conquest mode is better than ever, and the maps are large enough to include helicopters and fighter jets, but also small enough to keep the 24 players in a nice contained area. It's a bit frustrating that two people can't be in one jet (as in one person flys the jet the other one controls the weapons, just like in the campaign mission). Also, it takes way to long to unlock equipment for the jets, unless you know how to chase an enemy in the skies down very well. The other modes such as rush and squad deathmatch are back, and now there's a team deathmatch mode too. With regards to the Team Deathmatch mode, there are a couple of points for improvement. First, the spawn points need to be farther away from the enemy, and secondly, the broken buildings need to be solid, so that people aren't literally shooting through the rubble and preventing their gun's flash from being seen. The rubber banding/lag has been fixed which is great, but the issue of spawn points needs to be fixed in order for people to enjoy the game to it's fullest. Also, I would like to see a few more game modes to play besides just the ones that are available, just for more variety.
Stay tuned for the Co-Op review for this game.
First let's talk about the single player. While it may not be the most compelling storyline out there, with your typical Russians vs Americans in the Middle East, the game takes advantage of good-looking cutscenes where the main character (you) is being questioned for some sort of illegal act that he committed in the military. The very first mission starts you off running away from the police and jumping onto a New York subway train, and once you start actually playing, you find yourself shooting Russian dudes and stealing their Ak74u's. The missions themselves are fairly straight forward, and they don't seem quite as linear as something like Medal of Honor was doing. So there weren't any invisible walls that I encountered, but there were a numerous amount of bugs. For example, I would be playing a mission in the Middle East and going prone to not get shot, but as I was about to grab the LMG on the bridge, all the sudden there's an explosion and I immediately die, even though I was never seen. While this was on hard mode, and while hard mode is supposed to be a good challenge, this was beyond challenging: more like nearly impossible. Eventually I was able to get through it, but I couldn't keep playing the campaign when I would be shot in two seconds as soon as I wasn't prone. So I played the game from the start on EASY and turned off the aim assist. The missions were pretty cool, but it felt like there could have been a tiny bit more variety. I wish there could have been a proper stealth mission where you could choose to sneak past some Russian guards or engage in some firefights.
The game itself looks fairly nice on the PS3, and takes full advantage of the lighting effects, but I thought it started to become too much when many of the missions took place outside in the dark to show off the lighting from the street lights. I'm sorry, but the last time I checked street lights aren't supposed to be so bright that they blind you, even in the Middle East. That being said, the graphics look a tiny bit better than Bad Company 2, although it's very hard to compare the two games since they run on two different engines.
With regards to the multiplayer, it's definitely the highlight of the show. The conquest mode is better than ever, and the maps are large enough to include helicopters and fighter jets, but also small enough to keep the 24 players in a nice contained area. It's a bit frustrating that two people can't be in one jet (as in one person flys the jet the other one controls the weapons, just like in the campaign mission). Also, it takes way to long to unlock equipment for the jets, unless you know how to chase an enemy in the skies down very well. The other modes such as rush and squad deathmatch are back, and now there's a team deathmatch mode too. With regards to the Team Deathmatch mode, there are a couple of points for improvement. First, the spawn points need to be farther away from the enemy, and secondly, the broken buildings need to be solid, so that people aren't literally shooting through the rubble and preventing their gun's flash from being seen. The rubber banding/lag has been fixed which is great, but the issue of spawn points needs to be fixed in order for people to enjoy the game to it's fullest. Also, I would like to see a few more game modes to play besides just the ones that are available, just for more variety.
Stay tuned for the Co-Op review for this game.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Playstation Network Back on
Playstation Network has been brought back to PSP and PS3 users, and it has been missed. I have to say that Sony deserves some slack because they worked very hard to do what would have taken a few months to complete. However, if there is another threat in the future, I hope that there isn't a 3 week time frame once again, otherwise Sony will be screwed.
The first game that I decided to try out again was Crysis 2's multiplayer, which I found was a bit "unbalanced." My reasoning for saying that as I have in the past is because this game and MoH's multiplayer require you to shoot constantly to get a "kill" but games like COD take only a couple of shots in the foot to kill someone due to LAG between yourself and the host. I do have to say that this game has much better designed maps, but keeping the powerups that you get to use in the single player makes the game feel less polished than it actually is. It plays and seems a lot like COD, but it lacks the fairness that COD would have.
As for Killzone 3's multiplayer, it feels like an unbalanced version of Team Fortress 2, in the sense that everyone plays as either the spy or.... the spy. When someone tries to be a medic, they are usually across the map from where your wounded player's body is. The maps aren't quite as polished as Killzone 2, possibly because they were trying to be closer to COD. The thing is COD has such a unique gameplay style that whenever other games try to borrow off of that, it just doesn't work.
As I may or may not have said previously (few months ago) Medal of Honor is supposed to be difficult. What makes it difficult is that you can't just run out and start killing players. You have to stick with your team (somewhat) and stay out of the open, which gives the game a PC shooter style. I like that, because it adds a different type of strategy to it. Black Ops is fun, but it requires a different strategy that most PC gamers are willing to use, because the sticky aim (AKA aim assist) is what allows players on consoles to kill each other with seemingly good accuacy. As a side note, the aim assist really has to be used, because a mouse and keyboard have a lot more precision than a controller. Actually, if COD developers decide to add new features, they should have a lobby/servers that don't allow aim assist at all, to make it feel like the classic CODs. Perhaps they could call this classic mode.
Anyway, I'm just glad COD is back up. I know I've already commented on these games before, but I wanted to make the point that CODs style and gameplay mechanics only work with COD, not with any other shooting game.
The first game that I decided to try out again was Crysis 2's multiplayer, which I found was a bit "unbalanced." My reasoning for saying that as I have in the past is because this game and MoH's multiplayer require you to shoot constantly to get a "kill" but games like COD take only a couple of shots in the foot to kill someone due to LAG between yourself and the host. I do have to say that this game has much better designed maps, but keeping the powerups that you get to use in the single player makes the game feel less polished than it actually is. It plays and seems a lot like COD, but it lacks the fairness that COD would have.
As for Killzone 3's multiplayer, it feels like an unbalanced version of Team Fortress 2, in the sense that everyone plays as either the spy or.... the spy. When someone tries to be a medic, they are usually across the map from where your wounded player's body is. The maps aren't quite as polished as Killzone 2, possibly because they were trying to be closer to COD. The thing is COD has such a unique gameplay style that whenever other games try to borrow off of that, it just doesn't work.
As I may or may not have said previously (few months ago) Medal of Honor is supposed to be difficult. What makes it difficult is that you can't just run out and start killing players. You have to stick with your team (somewhat) and stay out of the open, which gives the game a PC shooter style. I like that, because it adds a different type of strategy to it. Black Ops is fun, but it requires a different strategy that most PC gamers are willing to use, because the sticky aim (AKA aim assist) is what allows players on consoles to kill each other with seemingly good accuacy. As a side note, the aim assist really has to be used, because a mouse and keyboard have a lot more precision than a controller. Actually, if COD developers decide to add new features, they should have a lobby/servers that don't allow aim assist at all, to make it feel like the classic CODs. Perhaps they could call this classic mode.
Anyway, I'm just glad COD is back up. I know I've already commented on these games before, but I wanted to make the point that CODs style and gameplay mechanics only work with COD, not with any other shooting game.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Alternative Fuel Sources Post 5
I found another very interesting article on my topic, alternative fuel sources. This actually kind of goes against many proposed ideas about alternative fuel. The article almost "shuts down" at least the idea of ethanol from corn. One excerpt made the point that ethanol is less efficient than gasoline and would cost more for motorists. This is a good point, but because oil in the Middle East is already causing gas prices to rise, I personally could see ethanol as just a part of a combo of alternative fuel. While it's important to try to use cleaner fuel, it ends up being more expensive for the consumers (which are the people who ultimately have to get the gas at the gas station).
Here's a little excerpt from this article:
"For the first time since the push to use more ethanol in American vehicles began five or six years ago, ethanol costs more than gasoline. E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, has recently been priced higher than regular gasoline at some stations.
"It's not going to last," said Wallace Tyner, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
The reason is that E-85 is a bad deal for motorists when it costs as much as gasoline. Ethanol contains less energy per gallon than gasoline. A gallon of ethanol normally will propel a vehicle fewer miles than a gallon of gasoline."
While I may have recently implied that we should use more alternative fuel, this opened my mind a little bit, and made me realize potential problems with alternative fuel such as ethanol. I kind of see why America hasn't made a whole lot of effort over the past few years to try to use more alternative fuel. That being said, however, the U.S. is dealing with rising gas prices because of imported oil, and because China is in the ballpark to compete with America, it's time to take extra measures to make sure that dependence on imported oil doesn't lead to another attack similar to the 9/11 attacks.
It's time that America toughens up a bit more and starts initiating in more research to find the right combination of alternative fuels (not just one type alone) to create cleaner fuel and more energy efficient fuel for vehicles.
Here's a little excerpt from this article:
"For the first time since the push to use more ethanol in American vehicles began five or six years ago, ethanol costs more than gasoline. E-85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, has recently been priced higher than regular gasoline at some stations.
"It's not going to last," said Wallace Tyner, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University.
The reason is that E-85 is a bad deal for motorists when it costs as much as gasoline. Ethanol contains less energy per gallon than gasoline. A gallon of ethanol normally will propel a vehicle fewer miles than a gallon of gasoline."
While I may have recently implied that we should use more alternative fuel, this opened my mind a little bit, and made me realize potential problems with alternative fuel such as ethanol. I kind of see why America hasn't made a whole lot of effort over the past few years to try to use more alternative fuel. That being said, however, the U.S. is dealing with rising gas prices because of imported oil, and because China is in the ballpark to compete with America, it's time to take extra measures to make sure that dependence on imported oil doesn't lead to another attack similar to the 9/11 attacks.
It's time that America toughens up a bit more and starts initiating in more research to find the right combination of alternative fuels (not just one type alone) to create cleaner fuel and more energy efficient fuel for vehicles.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Alternative Fuel Sources Post 4
Here's a link to an excerpt of the "Clean Air Act," which was first issued in 1963. Amendments were made to this act in 1966 and 1990. The reason why I bring this article up is because this indirectly relates the reasoning for why the U.S. should ideally switch to cleaner and more abundant sources of energy. Basically this act discusses includes uniform standards for controlling air pollution. This act, however, wasn't limited to regulating the pollution from cars, but I imagine it contains regulations for factories, and what regulations were ideal for keeping the air clean. I'm actually a little surprised that this act was released in the '60s, because I wouldn't totally associate efforts for cleaner air with the 1960s, but I guess that can be considered an ignorance on my part.
Anyway, this post could imply that I believe in the theories about global warming, which is a separate issue that I'm not working on for this project. Let me just put out there that the link I posted here does not imply any of my opinions on global warming. While many people, including the more Democratic-sided politicans, believe that America needs to stop depending on oil for fuel because the Carbon Dioxide is contributing to global warming, I believe that there are different reasons that more people can agree on for gaining an independence for fuel and energy. Our dependence on the Middle East has proven to be dangerous, and many of the places where we get our oil from are in countries that we are essential fighting against. If America stops depending on these countries, then the U.S. can move forth with new ways to fuel cars, buses, trucks, airplanes, and other vehicles. While many people disagree with offshore drilling, perhaps it's the only way we can transition from oil to cleaner fuels.
I'm just trying to get people to think about this.
Anyway, this post could imply that I believe in the theories about global warming, which is a separate issue that I'm not working on for this project. Let me just put out there that the link I posted here does not imply any of my opinions on global warming. While many people, including the more Democratic-sided politicans, believe that America needs to stop depending on oil for fuel because the Carbon Dioxide is contributing to global warming, I believe that there are different reasons that more people can agree on for gaining an independence for fuel and energy. Our dependence on the Middle East has proven to be dangerous, and many of the places where we get our oil from are in countries that we are essential fighting against. If America stops depending on these countries, then the U.S. can move forth with new ways to fuel cars, buses, trucks, airplanes, and other vehicles. While many people disagree with offshore drilling, perhaps it's the only way we can transition from oil to cleaner fuels.
I'm just trying to get people to think about this.
Alternative Fuel Sources Post 3
I recently found a fascinating article from nytimes.com that discussed a specific proposal over my topic, which is Alternate Fuel Sources. The author of the article, Joe Nocera, discusses about a friend of his, Boone Pickens, who drills for natural gas, rather than crude oil. The author of the article suggested that the U.S. should use natural gas to power vehicles, not just the 140,000 trucks and buses that already use clean energy. One of the facts that was made in this article was, "There are already 12 million vehicles around the world that use either liquefied or compressed natural gas."
The author referred a bill that proposed the increased use of natural gas as the Boone Pickens bill, which suggests that America goes towards the path of gaining an independence on foreign oil, and start using natural gas, which the U.S. has more of an abundance of, to power vehicles, especially one's that use diesel fuel.
Here's a little chunk from the article that Boone specifically agrees on, "Although Boone believes that our continued reliance on OPEC oil is dangerous, he also knows that even if you drill, baby, drill, as many Republicans want, it won’t make much difference. Quite simply, America is running out of oil. The Pickens plan calls for increased use of wind, solar, nuclear, even coal. ”I’m for anything that’s American."
I agree with this, but the concern that I personally have is how America would be able to switch from Middle East oil to natural gas. Again, if I didn't post this is one of my previous posts, the people like Boone who drill for natural gas have to actively start drilling as if America was already using it, that way it will be accessible for newer cars to use. The transition is probably the most critical part of this process of swtiching over to cleaner fuel, because the U.S. can't just suddenly stop importing oil over on night. At the same time Americans who support cleaner gas can't just get rid of the cars that require regular gasoline. Hopefully there will be a solution to this conflict that I forsee happening.
The author referred a bill that proposed the increased use of natural gas as the Boone Pickens bill, which suggests that America goes towards the path of gaining an independence on foreign oil, and start using natural gas, which the U.S. has more of an abundance of, to power vehicles, especially one's that use diesel fuel.
Here's a little chunk from the article that Boone specifically agrees on, "Although Boone believes that our continued reliance on OPEC oil is dangerous, he also knows that even if you drill, baby, drill, as many Republicans want, it won’t make much difference. Quite simply, America is running out of oil. The Pickens plan calls for increased use of wind, solar, nuclear, even coal. ”I’m for anything that’s American."
I agree with this, but the concern that I personally have is how America would be able to switch from Middle East oil to natural gas. Again, if I didn't post this is one of my previous posts, the people like Boone who drill for natural gas have to actively start drilling as if America was already using it, that way it will be accessible for newer cars to use. The transition is probably the most critical part of this process of swtiching over to cleaner fuel, because the U.S. can't just suddenly stop importing oil over on night. At the same time Americans who support cleaner gas can't just get rid of the cars that require regular gasoline. Hopefully there will be a solution to this conflict that I forsee happening.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Alternative Fuel Sources Post 2
I recently found an interesting article that discusses how Obama set a goal for America to reduce oil imports by one-third by the year 2025. While it's nice that President Obama has set a fairly realistic goal for America, it will still be hard to follow through, because he's definately not going to stay in office for that amount of time to make sure that goal is completed. While it's important for America to become more independent on energy sources that we can find, this is not an easy task to complete, because transitioning from oil imports to American resources might not be too predictable, when it comes to prices. One thing that I found interesting about this article was the critism that President Obama recieved by a Republican Senator, and how he reacted to it.
"Republicans have blamed Obama's policies for the rising gas prices, pointing to the slow pace of issuing permits for new offshore oil wells in the wake of last summer's massive Gulf of Mexico spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deep-water exploration.
The president struck back at that criticism Wednesday, saying his administration has approved 39 shallow water drilling permits since new standards were put in place last year, and seven new deep-water drilling permits in recent weeks."
While making the effort to initiate offshore drilling is important, and possibly crucial, if the Americans are to complete the president's goal, there has to be even more possible energy sources besides oil that can be used. While Obama's plan to cut oil imports may seem like a good idea, the problems with this outweight the benefits. You can't just cut something that we are constantly using. The US has to already be initiating offshore drilling and effectively using that oil before any oil imports are to be cut. If the president does not realize this, then his plan will backfire. It's one thing to have a plan and to set goals, but reducing imports without already using the oil from offshore drilling is not the best idea.
Besides, even if the US successfully reduces oil imports from the Middle East, there are still cars that use oil for fuel, and not any "hybrid" power. There's no telling that oil prices will continue to increase, but for the people who drive regular cars, it will not be easy to pay for gasoline when the prices continue to rise.
In case you were interested in the actual article, the link is here.
"Republicans have blamed Obama's policies for the rising gas prices, pointing to the slow pace of issuing permits for new offshore oil wells in the wake of last summer's massive Gulf of Mexico spill and an Obama-imposed moratorium on new deep-water exploration.
The president struck back at that criticism Wednesday, saying his administration has approved 39 shallow water drilling permits since new standards were put in place last year, and seven new deep-water drilling permits in recent weeks."
While making the effort to initiate offshore drilling is important, and possibly crucial, if the Americans are to complete the president's goal, there has to be even more possible energy sources besides oil that can be used. While Obama's plan to cut oil imports may seem like a good idea, the problems with this outweight the benefits. You can't just cut something that we are constantly using. The US has to already be initiating offshore drilling and effectively using that oil before any oil imports are to be cut. If the president does not realize this, then his plan will backfire. It's one thing to have a plan and to set goals, but reducing imports without already using the oil from offshore drilling is not the best idea.
Besides, even if the US successfully reduces oil imports from the Middle East, there are still cars that use oil for fuel, and not any "hybrid" power. There's no telling that oil prices will continue to increase, but for the people who drive regular cars, it will not be easy to pay for gasoline when the prices continue to rise.
In case you were interested in the actual article, the link is here.
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