» 2009 » February

I actually downloaded the demo for Killzone 2 last night just to make sure this game was worth it, and I was right about getting this game. Finally, another worthy PlayStation 3 exclusive added to my collection. I will divide the review into two parts, the single player which I will cover today and the multiplayer part at a later date. I think its a good idea to get used to the game play first before going online against the “pros”. Oh, and for those who have never heard of Killzone 2, its a sci-fi first person shooter first appeared on the PlayStation 2 and a sequel, Killzone: Liberation on the PlayStation Portable PSP.

Game play and story
The story takes place in a planet called Helghan, the Helghast invaded Interplanetary Strategic Alliance (ISA) colony. Two years later, the ISA launched a counter attack on Helghast’s homeworld Helghan and in an attempt to capture the Helghast leader to bring the war to an end. Its a pretty straight forward bad vs evil scenario. That’s the “crash” version of the story. For more info on Killzone, visit the wiki for the game.

  

The control scheme is one of my “minor” complaints for this otherwise perfect sci-fi first person shooter. Probably because I’ve spent too much time playing Call of Duty 4 and got used to the COD 4 controls, after about 2 hours of intense battles I am still having trouble getting used to the controls. Although there are different schemes to choose from, there isn’t really one that fits me perfect like Call of Duty 4 and there is no customization at all which forces players to adapt to one of the preset control schemes. For example, the crouch and take cover is now L2 as oppose to circle in COD 4 which is, in my opinion, much more convenient. L1 is now your close combat which is another inconvenient setup. As a result I constantly mix up the zoom and close combat buttons during gun fights which are mostly intense. I guess I just have to get used to it, its just a matter of time.

Initially I thought the AIs in Killzone 2 were pretty dumb based on the trailers I’ve seen. But I was wrong, the AIs are actually pretty competitive, they will hide, or even camp a bit and wait for you. When in groups, one will throw a grenade at you and the other will charge towards you. They will also take cover and perform blind shots at you. You can take cover as well but I find it a little bit slow, you have to hold L2 to stay covered and you need to move your aim outward so that you can shoot while staying partially covered. You can also zoom in while in this mode but its easy to mess this up. So don’t think about going all Rambo at the AIs because chances are you won’t be able to last long, specially when there is no auto aim like COD. Also one thing to point out is that your movements are much slower compare to COD even if you max out the x and y axis sensitivity, in COD you are much more agile, even with the light machine gun. I guess its because you are wearing all these sci-fi gears so it makes sense that you move slower.

Just like COD, you can cook your grenades by holding down the throw button, what Killzone 2 does better than COD is that there is an indicator on the grenade that will tell you how “cooked” the grenade is.

  

Beside the grenades, there are also your standard rifles, rocket launcher, mounted machine guns (MG) which you can take cover behind as well as driving a tank. I don’t like the way they name the rifles though which consist of a bunch of letters and numbers which makes it hard, at least for me, to know which gun I have currently. By the way, you can only have one primary gun and a secondary hand gun which has unlimited ammo, but pretty weak.

  

There are instances where you will have to utilize the SIXAXIS controller to perform operations like rotating a valve or planting a bomb on the door. These little things add up and make the game more interesting and so you are not just running and shooting all the time.

I have finished 2 levels so far, and in between levels, the loading screen can also be tilted like a hologram with your SIXAXIS controller. Its pretty neat because you can do “something” while waiting for it to load. I have no problem with the loading screen between levels but I really hate the sudden lag cause by the load between sections within the same level.

Graphics and audio
The graphics are simply amazing and jaw dropping. Although the game only runs on 720p as oppose to full HD 1080p at max, the details of the characters (specially the Helghast), the buildings, landscapes and vehicles are all very detailed. I particularly love blowing up air tanks or gas barrels, watch the explosions and the enemies fly in all directions.

In the audio department, nothing has impressed me yet so far. In my opinion, the conversations between your comrades and enemies feel “lively” with all the F and S words flying all over the place, but not overly used. Your enemies will also “talk” to you during gun fights so again you are not just running around and shooting things.

Final verdict
Killzone 2, a near perfect sci-fi first person shoot will not disappoint existing Killzone fans as well as fans of first person shooter. If you are looking for something different from the COD or Halo series, Killzone 2 will be your perfect alternative. By no means I am not saying Killzone 2 is superior compare to the two series but its a nice change of style, more so when comparing to the COD series. If you are still debating, stop waiting and download the demo!
9/10

It felt like ages when I played Quake 3 or Quake III Arena, it WAS ages ago, 10 to be exact. I was instantly hooked by this whole online mutiplayer shooter because it was a big thing back then, at least to me.

This classic first person shooter is back and you can actually play it on your broswer and its free. Nothing is better than free, and guess what? Its actually pretty addictive and brings a lot of my childhood memories back. The reason why I call this a minor review is because I hard got to play it, the server is always down but its obvious why.

You will first need to register, no brainer there. You will be put into a queue in order to do so, same as when you log in to play (yes you have to wait in line to log in and play). Then pick one of 20+ characters that were in the previous Quake series as well as the Doom series. The controls are basically the same by the way. First thing you need to do is go through the so called tutorial, mainly aim for those that have not played first person shooter and/or Quake on a PC before. You have the option to skip the tutorial by pressing F3 and go right into a practice match with a computer opponent Crash for 10 minutes. You should have absolutely no problem getting more frags (kills) than her. If you can’t, well you are a true noob.

Unfortunately that’s when my fun stopped, right after I finished the painfully long 1 on 1 with the computer, the server crashed while I was searching for available games. Hopefully they can fix the server issues because so far I have seen “Quakelive will return shortly” far too many times.

I can’t wait to play with the human opponents!

The Apple iPhone has been such a hit that 1 out of 10 of my friends has one, be it the first generation or the new iPhone 3G. They are always constantly looking for iPhone Accessories to personalize their iPhones.

Wireless Emporium, Inc offers a huge selection of iPhone Accessories such as iPhone leather case but I much prefer one of these Silver Aluminum iPhone cases.

WE (Wireless Emporium) also sells screen protector films as well as a huge selection of faceplates of different colors and styles. Aside from selling these protective products, WE also sells iPhone compatible hardware such as chargers, data cable, battery, holsters / belt clips and over 50 different hands-free headsets to choose from.

Wireless Emporium not only provides accessories for iPhones but it also offers accessories from other brand name wireless products like Sony, BlackBerry, LG just to name a few. There are also a few phones that you can purchase on the site as well.

The web site is also user friendly because you can browse the products by their brand names, accessory types or carrier types. For those that do not know the model of their phones, the site also teaches you where to look for it (as quoted from the site “The model number is noted on the back label of the phone”).

If you are looking for accessories for your cell phone, you should drop by Wireless Emporium and check out its huge selection of wireless accessories at very reasonable prices.

What game do you get when you combine African and Japanese? Afro Samurai. I downloaded the demo for Afro Samurai for the PlayStation 3 last night and I must say this demo is one of the shortest demo I have ever played. The demo allows you to slice about 20 or so enemies and just when you are about to meet the boss of the level, the demo ends there (bad teaser!). Since the demo is short, my demo review will reflect on that as well.

Let me talk about the positive things about about Afro Samurai first. I love that artsy cell shaded graphics and the fact Afro Samurai is voiced by one of my favorite actor Samuel L Jackson makes this Afro even more live and real. Aside from the cell shaded graphics, it was also real fun to see your enemies (samurai’s and ninjas) get decapitated and body parts fly out as a result.

The controls are pretty straight forward, typical first/third person shooter style. You get a few basic attacks initially and you will be chaining your attacks similar to Heavenly Sword. You get a light, heavy and a kick attack as well as two focus moves which I personally think makes the game much less challenging, at least in normal mode. As you progress you will unlock more moves.

Although too powerful in my opinion, these focus moves are pretty fun, again during the short game play. You have to hold and press either L1 or L2 to execute each of them and will be able to refill them by doing normal attacks so its pretty easy to execute them. The L1 focus move, when held down, you will also have to hold down one of the attack buttons (light, heavy and the kick) and release the attack button when the sparkle is at the tip of the sword to execute. The focus + light attack combo will execute an area attack (in circle actually) that slices everyone in the area and pretty much all your enemies in range will be in half. While the L2 combo will perform a strong vertical slice from top to bottom so this will split your enemies in half vertically. Finally the second Focus, again while holding down L2, will have Afro moving around and chopping up enemies while the Focus lasts.

Now to the negative things, the characters use the F word a lot, even in this short demo, the F word was used more than a handful of times. While I found this funny at first, it started to lose the humor after the first 2-3 times. I can’t imagine how many times it will be referenced through the full game. My control related complain is the 360 degree camera using the right analog stick. Its inverted which means if you press right the camera will look to the left and vice versa. And finally while the slicing of body parts was fun, I have a feeling that I will get bored of this repetitive game play pretty soon.

This game might be for the Afro fans and/or anyone that doesn’t mind repetitive hack and slash games. But even with its pretty cell shaded graphics, Ef-fing humor and the body chopping, I’m not sure if this game is worth $59.99+ tax but rather a rental. I also don’t see any reason to replay this unless you want to challenge yourself to a harder level. Then again to each his own. But I do suggest renting this game, try it out before you actually buy it.

I haven’t written a daily rant for a while, I have to get this off my head. TheStar.com reported that our cable, home phone and wiresless monopoly giant Rogers Communications Inc., is once again raising their internet (3-9% except the Extreme Plus plan) and cable fees (5% for basic cable), effective March 1st. In my opinion, this is a very bad move for Rogers specially after reporting a $138 million fourth-quarter loss, according to TheStars. They are already losing new customers in the last quarter, now they decided to raise fees, yet again and we, as customers are furious. Not only they are losing new customers, they are also losing their existing ones because there are other providers that provides similar services, if not better, for a much more reasonable price.

One such company is Primus, their bundle which includes home phone, calling features (Call Display, Voice Mail, & Visual Call Waiting plus), high speed internet and unlimited long distance between Canada and US, offers more than 30% of savings compare to Rogers or Bell. Unfortunately they do not provide cable services. I’m not trying to sell you anything and there is no affiliate links anywhere in the post but rather trying to point out how much premium Rogers and Bell are charging us.

I have a feeling that Rogers’ first quarter isn’t going to be too bright either after this raise. So basically we are now paying more for the same services, if not worse (and its pretty well known that their customer service is terrible). Although I understand a company should focus on making a profit, I still don’t think it makes sense to raise any fees during this global economic slump. They might be able to suck some money from us for a short period of time, once people discover there are cheaper alternatives, they will start to lose even more in the long run.

When was your last time you check if all your software’s drivers are up-to-date? It is important to remember that although most of the time it is absolutely harmless having outdated drivers. But when you notice your system’s performance starts to deteriorate and it is likely that one or some of your software’s drivers are out of date and render the system unstable. These are mostly related to the system drivers. What if your digital camera, for example, stops working like it used to?

Unlike other drivers sites, DriversSoftware provides not only system related drivers but also computer hardware drivers such as ATI drivers for your ATI video card to electronic peripherals such as Sony drivers for your Cyber-Shot digital camera, mp3 player and printer just to name a few.

The site is easy to navigate thanks to its organized design. You can search for a particular driver by its maker name in several different ways – through the alphabetical list on the top, by driver type or by operating system. Finally it also offers driver scanning tool for you to scan and update your system’s drivers if necessary.

Took me more than a day to finally convince myself to get this game. The main reason is because the game consists of only 12 levels and second reason is I’m a cheap gamer. In the end its the combination of sci-fi theme plus the fact that I’m a semi-hardcore fan of tower defense strategy games that made me make the purchase. I was a bit skeptical at first but after playing the first 4 levels, I must say this game offers a lot of content for the price I paid.

The goal of the game is simple, defend the mining operation from swamps of deadly alien insects called Insectocytes. The first 3 levels are basically tutorials, although you can switch off in the Options menu if you decide to replay those levels and I’m pretty sure you will. Just like any other tower defense strategy games, you will always start with the basic towers, just like PixelJunk Monsters, but instead of an arrow tower, your first tower will be a machine gun tower. By killing of waves and waves of enemies which gradually grow stronger than the previous waves, you will earn money to research new towers as well as upgrade your existing towers (up to level 5). You can als earn more money by advancing the enemy waves, if you feel that you can handle more without preparations.

Unlike PixelJunk Monsters where different types of enemies only take away one life from the total (one villager), different enemies take away different amount of health in Savage Moon. The stronger the enemy the more health or damage it will deal to your mining operation’s overall health.

As I mentioned before that this game offers more than what you are paying for, at least in my opinion. There are a couple of features that are not in PixelJunk Monsters – Command system, new types of towers that can be researched and you can rotate/zoom in and out of the map as well as camera mode from a particular tower.

Another difference between this game and PixelJunk Monsters is that you can only build a limited number of towers based on the available drop pods, even if you have the resources to build more. This makes the game more challenging as you need to plan carefully where you want to place the towers. A very nice feature. But don’t worry, the number will refill itself after each wave.

The command system has three aspects – more money per kill, stronger tower attacks and defense. At one time you can only have up to two of the three prioritized and sacrificing the third aspect. Or you can choose to have all three balanced. Early on you will pick more money per kill plus more fire power so that you can build up more, upgrade existing towers and research new ones.

There are also new types of towers to defend your mining operation such as the Repair Tower that will constantly repair nearby towers and Amp Tower that will make your nearby towers stronger as well as the very useful Block Tower that will allow you to block a path (not all paths can be blocked) by building multiple of these towers beside each other. Other towers can also be built on top of these Block Towers. There are more powerful ones as you progress through the game, I haven’t finished the game yet but I know there are more just by looking at different loading screens. I can’t wait til I get my hands on the Orbital Tower!

One negative comment I have for this game is the lack of multiplayer support (co-op) but I am sure a simple patch can change that?

Overall this game isn’t easy, except for the first 3 levels. The 4th level on Duergar on Xipe took me a few tries before figuring out what’s the best to deal with those pain-in-the-ass giant Insectocytes. This level is the first challenging level that will sure frustrates a lot of people playing for the first time. For those that are stuck on this level, just build a lot of Mortar Towers and you should be fine, at first I thought the Laser Towers would take them out quicker but I was wrong. And don’t forget to upgrade them as much as possible.

Most of the time you will use your money for researching, upgrading and building towers but occasionally you will want to use the Repair Base option to repair your damaged base.

PixelJunk Monsters has a relaxing and cartoonish feel to it, on the other hand Savage Moon has a totally different theme that takes place in space. Graphics are obviously more realistic, I am not criticizing PixelJunk Monsters’ graphics though because it was meant to be cartoonish and unrealistic. While its not Metal Gear Solid or Call of Duty quality, the graphics are more than enough to justify the price you pay.

I think the audio is what stands out the most besides the game play. When you kill waves after waves of enemies, you will constantly hear death screams which are very, very satisfying. I also love the sound each tower makes when it fires as well as when it upgrades and transforms into a stronger tower (great animation too!).

I highly recommend this little downloadable game on PlayStation Network for 9.99+tax. Fans of the sci-fi Tower Defense genre will not be disappointed with its refreshing style of game play. If I was to pick between PixelJunk Monsters and Savage Moon, I think I will pick Savage Moon over Monsters because there are just more things to do and the battles are much more intensive. Let’s hope there will be add-ons for this game in the future.

8.5/10

[Update]: If you are looking for Savage Moon walkthrough, there isn’t any so far, not even in gamefaq.com. But I have found video walkthrough from PSU’s Savage Moon Walkthrough

Image source: PlayStation.Blog @ Flickr

Another great teaser from Gametrailers.com. This 3 minute long trailer features more CG cutscenes as well as some game play. The trailer also offers actual game play footage of shooting from a vehicle mounted machine gun in first person view, again something I hate, you cannot move while you are shooting. Near the end of the trailer, there is this mysterious person accompanying Wesker. Who might that be? I don’t know why but my gut feeling tells me the person is Jill. If someone knows please enlighten me.

March 13th people, just 1 more month! In the mean time keep playing the demo and suppress your thirst. Definitely have to try out the online co-op mode!

Enjoy!