Crysis Review

Crysis

Publisher: Electronic Arts Developer: Crytek Platform: PC Release: 2007 Players: 1 Genre: First-Person Shooter / Sandbox Rating: 8.9 \ 10.0: Fantastic

Above is a military outpost being completely leveled.

In 2007, Crysis was released on PC and was received excellently. In addition to having solid gameplay that was unlike any FPS before it, the game wowed gamers and critics alike with its stunningly beautiful visuals. However, this meant that only the beefiest gaming rigs were able to run the game, and until it was ported to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011, PC gamers obsessed over the question "Can it run Crysis?".

These days, more people remember the game more for its technical prowess than its gameplay, which begs the question: Is the game as fun as it is pretty?

Before I address this, let's discuss the plot; The game starts off onboard a plane from the perspective of the protagonist. While learning nothing but the code names of the soldiers surrounding him, Nomad (that's you) is told that the island they're about to infiltrate has been invaded by the North Korean military. Partway through their descent towards the island, Nomad is unexpectedly knocked off course and plummets into a river.

This is a decent setup, but I feel that the weak point of this game are its characters. I wanted badly to be able to care about these characters, and they were unable to prove that they were anything more than generic soldiers before (minor spoiler alert) two of them are killed off. Even Nomad himself is completely forgettable. You could argue that a character Halo's iconic Master Chief, another faceless marines in power armor was no less bland in his debut title, but he was shown to have an interesting backstory and actually displays emotion in more recent games. Nomad, however doesn't even appear in future Crysis games. However, there are likely few other people that feel this way, and the story's shortcomings do little to diminish the game's overall quality.

To answer the question from earlier, Crysis still plays as well as it looks. Progression is linear, but the island setting allows for stealth as well as as explosive battles. Helping to allow for variety is Nomad's nanosuit. This high-tech getup allows him to generate an extra layer of armor to absorb damage, make himself nearly invisible, sprint lightning-fast, jump incredibly high, and have superhuman strength. Using these abilities consume's energy, and managing it is crucial to surviving. While both your health and energy can regenerate, don't think that makes this an easy game. Even on normal difficulty, Nomad can be taken down with a realistically small number of bullets when unarmored, so don't try playing this game like you would Call of Duty. Adding further depth is the ability to customize weapons in real time. There are several sights and attachments that you can apply after collecting them, and you can also add a laser pointer or flashlight, change the firing pattern, or even sometimes swap the ammunition of most weapons. When I first got tired of going into each encounter guns blazing, I thought that I'd be unable to attack from long range. I then had a lightbulb moment and equipped an assault rifle, slapped on a sniper scope, set it to semi-automatic, loaded it with incendiary ammo, and added a tactical attachment that supplied me with an infinite amount of tranquilizer darts, then cloaked and picked off enemies from afar one by one without being detected. That's not to say that the more action-packed approach isn't just as entertaining -- charging towards a group of enemies and grabbing one of them with super strength with one hand and shooting the rest with the other is just as satisfying, and witnessing rubble fly as mounted gunners tore through small buildings was exhilarating. It is a bit disappointing, however, when you're forced to take the action-oriented route in certain setpiece moments. Additionally, the various vehicles you can operate, despite being equipped with powerful turrets, are often nearly destroyed in seconds, which is a real shame since shooters that allow you to use vehicles in unscripted sequences are scarce these days. The controls can also be a bit awkward on console -- I found my self accidentally switching to weapons unintentionally because the weapon wheel and "switch to previous weapon" are both mapped to the same button. This is just a nitpick, and due to the large amount of keys the game uses on PC, I was still very impressed that all of the vital commands were crammed onto a controller (leaning was sadly excluded).

I mentioned how amazing Crysis looked earlier, but the game looks so darn good that it's difficult to overstate. Everything from the water to the foilage to the trees left me in awe, and the mission in which you board an alien ship is just as stunning as the coasts and jungles. I am a firm believer in the idea that gameplay is far more important than graphics, but I have little doubt that you'll be impressed by this game. Crysis obviously has lower texture detail on the 360 and PS3 and the draw distance is a bit short, but it is still easily one of the best looking games on the seventh-generation consoles.

The first two thirds of Crysis are fantastic, but the missions that follow the defeat of the general you came to the island to take out are lackluster by comparison. All the aforementioned freedom is mostly gone, and the enemy soldiers are replaced by the flying tentacled Ceph aliens that are briefly seen effortlessly dispatching troops several times prior. While this isn't necessarily bad, it's a pretty dramatic change in gameplay. The final boss, however, isn't enjoyable at all and lasts for what seems like forever even once you figure out its attack pattern (and some PC player have even reported that the boss was unkillable in their copy).

Crysis may not be a perfect game, but the the majority of it was incredibly enjoyable. Regardless of its issues, I can't recommenced it enough to anyone itching to play a unique FPS.

Ups
Tons of freedom in combat (for the most part)
Nanosuit abilities add strategy
On the fly weapon customization I've rarely seen in other games
Amazing visuals

Downs
Complete lack of character development
Lackluster final few missions
Occasional performance issues
Vehicles are near-useless

The System Difference: Graphics fanatics will obviously want to pick up the PC version of Crysis if they have an able gaming rig. However, if you're more concerned with performance, then you're out of luck, as even high end PC users reportedly have experienced framerate issues, which is the fault of the game and  not hardware. I have a GTX 1070 graphics card with 8 GB of video memory which massively surpasses the game's hardware issues and was able to run the game fine fro the most part. Bizarrely, the vertical sync settings locked my framerate to 50 6PS despite my monitor supporting 60 FPS, but this didn't bother me. What did bother me is that the framerate briefly dropped below 30 FPS in the most intense battle in the game and didn't exceed the low 40s to mid 30s range until the mission was over. As for the console version, I  encountered some bizarre bugs on the 360 such as wreckage of houses floating in midair and soldiers being unable to stop using mounted guns, but there was nothing game-breaking. Last but certainly not least, the mission Ascension in which you control a helicopter is surprisingly absent from the console version, possibly due to it often being regarded as the worst segment of the game.

Also available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

ESRB: M (PARENTAL WARNING: This game contains intense violence, strong language, and moderate amounts of realistic blood) Content: Blood, Strong Language, and Violence Price $19.99 (Download)

Kirby: Planet Robobot Review

Kirby: Planet Robobot

Publisher: Nintendo Developer: HAL Laboratory Platform: 3DS Players: 1 (Story, Arena, MKR, K3DR), 1-4 (TKC) Release: 2016 Genre: 2D Platformer / Action Rating: 8.7 \ 10: Fantastic

Above is Kirby battling a boss in the Robobot armor.

Kirby: Planet Robobot isn't a particularly unique game. It doesn't do much to differentiate itself from its predecessoors, but it does surpass the games that came before it in one way: It manages to be one of the most consistently fun platformers I've played in quite awhile. If you're in search of a deep plot, you'll want to avoid a large number of Nintendo games, but there is a tad bit more complexity here than in previous Kirby titles; Everything is well and good on Kirby's homeworld Pop Star until a fleet of alien ships arrive and start to industrialize the entire planet. Unsurprisingly, it's up to Kirby to defeat the head of this operation and restore peace to Pop Star.

Gameplay wise, Planet Robobot is hardly distinguishable from Triple Deluxe before it. As you might expect, the game plays like a combination of Kirby's Adventure and Kirby Super Star with a few neat twists including new copy abilities, creative sequences where you jump between the foreground and background of a level (just like Triple Deluxe), and the all new Robobot armor. This powerful suit doesn't appear in every stage, but when it does, it's an absolute blast to use. Just like Kirby, the armor is able to scan enemies and absorb their abilities, making the machine practically unstoppable. These power trip sections are in my opinion more fun then the Hypernova and Super Ability sections from previous games in the series due to armor abilities which add a lot for variety and a larger number of puzzles and increased interactivity. Wreaking havoc with the aforementioned power ups in the previous games was fun, but you often caused all the destruction with very little input and mostly watched the chaos unfold. With the Robobot suit, overcoming the obstacles that lie before you hardly ever involves simply holding down a button or watching a cutscene unfold life before. Whether or not you're using the Robobot, the levels are as entertaining and creatively designed as ever.

As I said before, KPR includes some fun new Copy abilities. These include Doctor, which equips Kirby with deadly pills and syringes (Rated E for Everyone!); ESP, an ability inspired by Ness from Earthbound which enables you to control a deadly ball of energy using telekinesis; and my personal favorite, Poison, which grants you the power to spew and surf on lethal purple liquid and breathe out small toxic clouds. While these new abilities are great, two of my favorites from Triple Deluxe, Beetle and Bell, have sadly not returned.

Presentation wise, this is easily one of the strongest games in the franchise. Industrial-themed areas usually look incredibly dull, but Planet Robobot uses this theme to its advantage by adding adorable cyborg enemies and colorful areas amidst the metal and machines, making for a game that looks fantastic by 3DS standards. It's also well worth mentioning that Robobot easily has one of the best soundtracks in the series so far, which is quite a feat. The score features tons of catchy new tunes that span a decent number of genres, as well as plenty of excellent rearrangements of old fan favorites. The references to the series's past don't appear exclusively in the music, either -- there are also numerous references to Kirby's Dream Land 2 and Kirby Super Star which I won't spoil here which are sure to bring a grin to the faces of longtime fans.

In addition to the main story, the game also features a few other modes that can be unlocked. The first of these is Team Kirby Clash, a co-op RPG-lite mode in which you battle bosses using one of four Copy abilities with a team of AI or human-controlled Kirbys. While the mode is plenty of fun, the progression is shallow, and there isn't much replay value. Next up is Kirby 3D Rumble, a brief but entertaining top-down sub-game where you rack up combos by defeating enemies without taking damage. Two more modes are unlocked upon completing the adventure: The Arena and Meta Knight's Revenge. The Arena has barely changed at all since its previous iterations; You select your favorite Copy Ability and face every boss in the game with limited health items to use in between. In the Meta Knight's Revenge, you play through the main game as Kirby's frienemy Meta Knight. The prospect of playing through the game of the iconic antihero is made is better by the inclusion of several powerful moves that can be unleashed by collecting M-shaped coins.

As much as I enjoyed this game, there are a few issues that must be addressed. While the game runs at a very smooth 60 frames per second most of the time, I occasionally experienced brief slowdown (I played the game on both the original 3DS, and the New 3DS and there were no differences in performance despite the faster processor of the newer system). I was also mildly disappointed by how similar the game was to Triple Deluxe (as great as that game was), and it doesn't always feel like its own unique title.

Regardless of these minor issues, I highly recommend that any 3DS add this title to their library. It may not be very different from its predecessors, but any fan of the Kirby franchise is quite unlikely to be disappointed.

Ups
Creative level design
Robobot segments are great fun
Charming and detailed visuals
Fantastic music
Entertaining extra modes
Tons of fan service

Downs
Team Kirby Clash is fairly shallow
Occasional framerate drops
Too similar to Triple Deluxe

ESRB: E Content: Cartoon Violence Price: $39.99 (Retail / Download)

Just Cause 3 Review

Just Cause 3

Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Avalanche Studios Platform: Xbox One Release: 2015 Players: 1 Genre: Third-Person Shooter / Sandbox Rating: 8.6 \ 10.0: Fantastic

Above is Rico, just causing some chaos.

Have you ever wanted to play a game you can decapitate a statue, attach the head to a heavily armed helicopter, and use the head as a wrecking ball whilst launching an endless barrage of missiles, and are morally obligated to do so? If your answer is "Yes", then Just Cause 3 is for you.

For those of you unaware, Just Cause is a series of open-world action games in which you take control of Rico Rodriguez, a man obsessed with freeing oppressed fictional countries from the reign of evil dictators ... by reducing countless military assets to flaming rubble.

This time around, things are a bit more personal, as Rico's homeland, the fictional Mediterranean archipelago Medici is being controlled with an iron fist by General Sebastiono Di Ravello. The general plans to use a precious ore known as Bavarium, which is found only in the region, to take over the world, therefore justifying any "crimes" committed by Rico. If you have any doubt that liberating Medici wont be exciting, then the game immediately proves you wrong; unless you don't find bombarding military property with an infinite supply of rockets from atop a plane to be the least bit thrilling. While this stunt is difficult to recreate, this opening gives you a good idea of what to expect.

Rico is eventually thrown off the plane, and meets up with his best friend Mario Frigo, who explains that he and his fellow Medician rebels are in dire need of help, and calls in a helicopter to bring Rico to the brilliant scientist Dimah Al-Masri, head of the rebellion. She outfits Rico with a wingsuit, an substitute to vehicular travel that's difficult to master, but incredibly useful.

After flying towards to a small unoccupied fuel station, Dimah also equips you with a brand new grappling device. Just Cause 2's grappler was a lot of fun to use, but could only really be used to tear down statues and yank enemies towards you. The all new device allows for much more destruction, as you can pull any object that's not rooted to the ground towards a solid surface or another object. You immediately get to put it to the test by tearing down several fuel tanks, resulting in a beautiful series of explosion. You're then instructed to blow up a nearby bridge to stop an incoming military convoy, which reveals that unlike its predecessor, JC3 gives you access to unlimited triggered explosives.

After the bridge is demolished, the mission concludes, and what you do next is up to you to decide. Will you go out of your way to free every settlement from Di Ravello's wrath, or travel around the beautiful landscape seeing what you discover? There's entertainment to be had whatever you decide to do, but it's easy to get lost if you don't stick to the optional objectives; the islands of Medici make up a whopping surface area of 400 square miles (1,000 square kilometers), and every acre is truly a sight to behold. This land is divided into three regions, each of which offer a unique experience. Insula Fonte is a rural, agriculture-focused area littered with vibrant fields flowers; Insula Dracon houses a large amount of  oil stations; and the incredibly dangerous Insula Striate is widely varied, containing both snow-capped mountain ranges and Bavarium mines.

While there is tons to do in this game, the core of the gameplay lies in liberating the towns and military bases peppered throughout the archipelago. In order to free a settlement, you must destroy every military asset in the area. Towns will often contain speakers, Di Ravello Statues, billboards, and other means of spreading propaganda, and most restricted areas are littered fuel tanks, electrical units, radars, and satellites. Most civilian areas will also have a police station, which is taken over by calling in rebel reinforcements are taking out enemy troops and vehicles. After freeing every settlement in a province, you will be able to fast travel (extract) without using your limited flares, and the location of any collectible items is revealed. Reducing government control over Medici is loads of fun at first, but by the time that only a few settlements remain, liberation will feel like a chore. To make matters worse, the game's framerate will suffer horribly when there's too much occurring onscreen at once (or sometimes when there's hardly anything occurring), though this rarely lasts for long.

The one thing that keeps the action from becoming stale is the vast amount of freedom you you are given in combat. Say that you're being confronted by a helicopter; you could simply gun it down, hijack it, tether it to a nearby surface or hack a nearby anti-aircraft turret and have it take down enemy aircraft for you. I once saw someone down a copter by tethering it to a car, driving it off a bridge which weighed it down, and bailing right before the vehicles crashed. It's moments like these that simultaneously add of strategy and silliness amidst the nonstop chaos. If you'd rather take out Di Ravello's forces silently and stealthily, then this game unfortunately isn't for you; the closet you can get to an alternative to going in guns blazing is picking off the opposition from afar with a sniper rifle. (However, if you're in search of a "liberate bases in exotic nation"-style sanbox shooter where stealth is effective, than I'd strongly recommend playing Far Cry 3 or 4)

Making the combat even more enjoyable is the varied arsenal. While there is a selection of fairly generic pistols, assault rifles, and the like, there are also creative weapons such as dual-wielded automatic shotguns and a lock-on rocket launcher that splits into smaller rockets to hit multiple targets.

Adding even more depth is the new leaderboard system. By performing a wide array of feats ranging from farthest distance ascended with the parachute without touching the ground to most enemies dispatched with a single clip of ammunition, you are ranked on list against a randomly selected pool of players and your friends that play the game. If you do something absolutely insane like drive out of a cargo plane multiple kilometers above the ocean and survive (just like yours truly did here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs-gJmiZ1NA) and you want to see if your friends can outdo you, you can send them a call out daring them to do so.

The equipment upgrade system has been given a major overhaul; rather than simply collecting weapon and vehicle parts to increase power, there is now a wide variety of optional "GEAR mods". Some of these can't hurt to have activated, such as mods than increase your maximum items and reduce the cooldown of equipment drops, while others are suited to certain play styles. For example, if you care more about witnessing objects go flying than causing destruction quickly and efficiently, you'll want to equip your planted explosives with rocket boosters. If you fall into the latter category, you might also want to activate the Glass Grenades mod, which causes your grenades to explode the moment they make impact with a surface. I developed a strategy of placing explosives with the Proximity mod activated at areas where I knew reinforcements might arrive that would explode as soon as an enemy approached them. However, these mods aren't available from square one -- in order to unlock them, you must complete challenges. Each category of gear has its own set of enjoyable challenges. My favorite challenges are the wingsuit courses in which you glide through wings to the accompaniment of an uplifting soundtrack and the Crash Bomb challenges that have you drive a bomb-rigged car towards a set of targets. Based on your performance in the challenge, you are awarded up to five gears that go towards unlocking mods. While the challenges are fun for the most part, some of them can be incredibly frustrating, especially timed Destruction Frenzies that take place in bases with chaos objects that are spread far apart or take an excruciatingly long time to destroy with bullets. I even encountered a glitch during one of these challenges that placed an invisible barrier in front of the targets, making it nearly impossible to get a five-gear score until I took a riskier alternate path to the objective. I was also mildly annoyed that I had to earn gears in order to unlock the ability to aim down the sight of my gun, which is essential to making the most of semi-automatic weapons, given this feature was usable from the very beginning of JC2.

Another aspect of JC3 in which it outdoes its predecessor is the presentation; the HUD and menus look sleek and professional, and the voice acting is a massive step up over exaggerated so-bad-it's hilarious performances in Just Cause 2 -- this truly feels like a Triple-A game.

If you're planning to complete this game 100%, then be prepared to sink around a hundred hours into this game, if not more; you'll have to liberate every settlement, bring one of each civilian vehicle to a Frigo Garage, earn five gears on every challenge, light every rebel shrine, pay your respects at every ancient tomb, dig up every vintage weapon and vehicle part, and collect every entry in Di Ravello's audio diary.

My final and possibly largest gripe with this game is that the repetitiveness can make even the most fun things I did in the game feel stale. My first time pulling a helicopter towards the ground felt incredible, so did wingsuiting over the beautiful landscape, but such activities start to get old once you've played the game for as long as I have.

Just Cause 3 isn't an outstanding game, but the sheer amount of replayability easily overshadows the flaws, and it will keep any fan of open world action entertained for a long time.

The System Difference: While JC3 is a blast on all platforms, but it is reportedly the most stable on PlayStation 4. I only played the game on PS4 for a couple hours, so I'm not sure if that version of the game contains some of the glitches I encountered on Xbox One. The game still lagged and eventually crashed when the action got too intense on PlayStation, so no player is safe from that issue. The console version also has annoyingly lengthy load times. If you own a powerful computer which an NVidia GPU, it's the best platform to play on. I've played the game on my PC which has a GTX 1070 graphics card with 8 GB of video memory as well as on my Xbox One and experienced no performance issues when using the highest graphical settings at a 1080p resolution. However, players who use AMD hardware or that had 8 GB of RAM or less have reported frequent crashes and memory leaks.

Ups
Massive open world
Engaging combat
Decent voice acting
Incredible visuals
Brand new leaderboard
Fun upgrade system

Downs
Liberation ends up feeling like a chore
Occasional performance issues
Lengthy load times
Some poorly designed and glitchy challenges

Also Available on PlayStation 4 and PC.

ESRB: M (PARENTAL WARNING: This game contains moderate amounts of realistic blood, intense violence, and some strong language) Content: Blood, Intense Violence, and Strong Language Price: $59.99 (Retail / Download)

Halo 5: Guardians Review

Halo 5: Guardians

Publisher: Microsoft Developer: 343 Industries Platform: Xbox One Release: 2015 Genre: First-Person Shooter Rating: 8.8 / 10.0: Fantastic

Above is Locke battling a Promethean Knight

Halo 5: Guardians is a tough game to review. As a first-person shooter, it's a must-have for all Xbox One owners, but as a Halo title, it's a disappointment. Having become a huge Halo fan shortly after this game's reveal, I was incredibly excited as new announcements were made. What the Halo fanbase got was a title that, while still very solid, did not live up to the hype generated by intriguing trailers, a TV series starring centered around a new main character, and a web series that described the events leading up the game.

The campaign begins several years after the events of Halo 4, and much has happened since the Didcact was defeated by the Master Chief. After a brief prologue taking place in Dr. Halsey's lab. While this opening cut-scene contains a  subtle nod to the Halo novels, things don't get interesting until you're introduced to Fireteam Osiris. This squad of Spartan IV soldiers comprising of leader Jameson Locke, Halo newcomers Olympia Vale and Holly Tanaka, and fan-favorite former ODST Edward Buck, has been sent to rescue Dr. Halsey from the clutches of Jul M'Dama, the leader of the Covenant Remnant. This first mission kicks of with a bang, starting with an action-packed cutscene that seems to be heavily inspired by the Avengers films. Right off the bat, you'll notice a few significant additions to the gameplay.  First off is Smart Scope, a feature for all weapons that is the equivalent of the aim-down sights mechanic that most modern shooters use. Scoping while midair allows you to slowly hover periodically, allowing you to line up shots with precision weapons more easily. (You still have a reticle when unscoped, so Halo veterans will fare just fine if they choose to ignore this feature). You can now clamber onto ledges and slide by crouching during a sprint as well, which brings up more comparisons between Halo 5 and your garden variety modern shooter. Guardians also ditches Armor Abilities in favor of a handful of Spartan abilities that you have access to all at once. These are boost, which allows you to travel faster or move to side in any direction to avoid projectiles; Spartan Charge, which can be used to slam into enemies send them flying; and Spartan Slam, which enables you to bring death from above without risking fall damage. I initially thought that these agility-centric abilities didn't fit the Halo franchise, and while I had a hard time getting used to these changes, I soon found myself boosting across the battlefield, scaling small cliffs, and sending enemies flying with well-placed charges and ground pounds. The default controls have also been tweaked to resemble (insert title of currently popular FPS here), so I recommend that longtime fans change the button layout to the Halo 4 setting, which is as close as you'll get to traditional Halo.

After completing the first mission, you're placed in control of Blue Team, which consists of the ever iconic Master Chief and his lesser-known teammates Frederick, Linda, and Kelly. Chances are you've never heard of these Spartans, but as someone who's read the majority of the official Halo novels, I was super excited to see them in the game. Halo 5's campaign includes a lot of fan service, but those who have only played the games will learn next to nothing about the Chief's teammates. They met each other when they were abducted into the SPARTAN II program at the age of six and they're practically family, but only a few scenes in the entire game even imply such a bond between these soldiers. I'm glad Blue Team is in the game, but it's a shame that they only serve to give your co-op partners unique characters to control.  Speaking of co-op, this is where Halo 5 begins to get ugly. It was revealed awhile before the game's release that Guardians would not feature splitscreen play for the campaign, matchmaking, or even custom games. If you wanna play with a pal, it has to be over Xbox Live or via system link. I had a blast playing through the game with my friend online, but I had another friend without a copy of the game that was disappointed that he wouldn't be able to play the latest Halo game with me. The lack of splitscreen would be nothing more than a nitpick in other games, but depriving a beloved franchise of a feature that has allowed my friends and I and many others others unforgettable gaming experiences is inexcusable.

Now, to continue my summary of the story: Midway through the mission, Blue Team is ambushed by a pair of hunters who destroy the bridge upon which the Master Chief is standing, causing him to plummet to the bottom of a large pit. While unconscious, he sees Cortana, who tells him that she in fact alive, and tells him where to find her, draining all the shock value from the previously heartbreaking ending of Halo 4 (millions of tears were shed in vain!). This is where the plot, which is usually a strong point of each Halo title, starts to get a bit dull and confusing. When the Chief awakes, he orders that Blue Team abandon their mission and search for Cortana, and, being his close friends, they are fully willing to oblige. What follows in the campaign is a decently lengthy series of levels with some excellent setpiece moments that's dragged down by a overabundance of missions where you play as Fireteam Osiris and a few extremely brief ones where you simply walk up to a character and trigger a cutscene.

There are still plenty of positives: While the story certainly isn't the greatest the franchise has ever seen, things do get more interesting towards the end of the game, and while I won't spoil anything, there is a scene involving Cortana that's almost as heart-wrenching as Halo 4's ending. Additionally, despite all these modern features, Guardians also goes decent lengths to appeal to longtime fans; the Covenant once again speak English, and there as many well-hidden humorous lines as there were in the original Halo trilogy, and as with the earlier games, the 13 gameplay altering skulls aren't available to use right off the bat and must be tracked down first.

When it comes to presentation, Halo 5 is great. While industrial environments are more common than I would like, the graphics are still well-detailed, and the missions taking place on the Elite homeworld of Sanghelios are visually stunning. It's also worth noting that this is the first Halo game to run at a silky-smooth 60 FPS on a console, and while I certainly appreciate this change, I'd gladly play at 30 FPS if split-screen was a possibility. The game's orchestrated soundtrack is fantastic as well thanks to Halo 4's underappreciated secondary composer Kazuma Jinnouchi, whose work with that game was much closer to traditional Halo than Neil Davidge's arrangements. Snippets of classic Halo tunes are also included to further please longtime fans.

Despite the lack of splitscreen, the online matchmaking is the most polished aspect of this game. The mutiplayer playlists are divided into two categories; Arena and Warzone. Arena is a mix of all the gamemodes you know and love (Slayer, Infection, Grifball, etc.), while the Warzone modes are new to the series. In Warzone, two teams of 12 Spartans face each other in a battle simulation in which they must gain points by defeating a variety of Covenant and Promethean bosses and capturing territories. If one team holds all three capture points, the shields protecting the enemy base will be disabled, giving them a chance to destroy the core within and win instantly.

Warzone heavily implements the new Requisition system, which is the equivalent of the Supply Drops in Call of Duty: Black Ops III and the Loot Boxes in Overwatch, two other currently popular shooters. By logging in daily, leveling up, winning matches, you receive Requistition packs (REQ Packs for short). These packs award you with random gear. Reward packs usually contain little more then single-use weapon, a vehicle, and boost cards, but you can buy more valuable packs using the REQ points you acquire from finishing matches (Or you could use real money, though I strongly discourage this). Inexpensive Bronze Packs are practically useless, but Silver and Gold Packs have a chance of containing permanent unlocks including Spartan armor, emblems, armor mods, and upgraded loadout weapons, the latter two of which can be used only in Warzone. These REQs can be be used in both traditional Warzone and Warzone Firefight, a refreshing spin on the fan-favorite wave-based survival mode. Rather then being tasked to simply kill enemies, your team of 8 Spartans (a step up from one to four players) is given five minutes to complete an objective in five increasingly difficult waves. (Warzone Firefight, sadly, cannot be played in a custom game) Although the Requistition system isn't very balanced, Warzone is a lot of fun.

Another new gamemode is Breakout. This is a fast-paced battle simulation where death is permanent, and teams of Spartans must work together to eliminate the enemy soldiers or win instantly by securing the flag loctaed at the heart of each arena; think of it as if Counter-Strike had a Capture the Flag mode.

An update to the game unexpectedly added an all new Custom Game Browser. This great new features allows you to browse and download user created content easier than you could in Halo: Reach and also enables you to host and join customized matches. Some fun player-made modes I played included Jenga City, in which half the players must survive as the other half ram into the fragile towers upon which their enemies stand with ships; Death run, which will be familiar to anyone who's played Garry's Mod; and Demolition Derby, which places players into an arena filled with Warthogs and has players push each other into fiery pits.

While the online gameplay is very entertaining, your Spartan customization options are very mediocre. While the last few main series games have allowed you to customize every armor piece of your Spartan from chest pieces to knee pads, Halo 5 limits you to just helmet and body armor. Additionally, you must unlock premade emblems from REQ packs rather then being able to make your own. Being forced to level up to unlock emblem foregrounds and backgrounds in Halo 4 was aggravating enough, but this is ridiculous.

My only other complaint is that this game's Forge mode is much less accessible then before. This is made up for by the vast selection of tools available to Forge users that have alllowed them to create the incredibly impressive aforementioned custom modes.

I had a lot of fun playing Halo 5: Guardians, but it doesn't even come close to fulfilling the hype generated by the marketing. Despite the flaws, this game is a great addition to the library of any Xbox One owner, whether they've played Halo for years or never played it at all.

Ups
New Spartan abilities are fun to use
Great visuals and soundtrack
Nostalgic callbacks to the original Halo games
Entertaining new Warzone gamemodes
Custom game browser

Downs
Mediocre plot with underdeveloped characters
No splitscreen mutiplayer
Customization is limited

ESRB: T Content: Blood, Mild Language, and Violence Price: $59.99 (Retail / Download)

Half-Life 2 Review

Half-Life 2

Publisher: Valve Developer: Valve Platform: PC Release: 2004 Genre: First-Person Shooter / Puzzle Rating: 9.3 \ 10: Excellent

Above is Gordon battling Antiloins on the coast of Highway 17

Whether the best PC games of all time or even the greatest games in general are being discussed, Half-Life and its sequel are bound to be brought up. In 1998, the classic first-person shooter revolutionized the genre by introducing a fascinating style of storytelling and setting high standards for setpiece moments in future action titles. A few years later, Halo: Combat Evolved refined this concept, and a few years after that, a sequel came along and, to an extent, perfected scripted shootouts. Let me begin by saying that I feel that Half-Life 2 is a tad bit overrated. While it is a spectacular experience, it has too many flaws for me to consider it the greatest game of all time as so many others do, and I'll explain these issues later.

The game begins with a speech from the mysterious G-Man. Around two decades after placing protagonist Gordon into stasis at the end of the previous game, the interstellar agent decides to wake the silent scientist. Now seeing the world through the eyes of Freeman, you are suddenly placed aboard a train getting off at an eastern-European city. This, as scientist-turned overseer Dr. Wallace Breen will soon inform you via a massive screen, is City 17. Quite a lot has changed since Gordon unintentionally opened a portal to an alien world at the Black Mesa science facility. An alien race known as the Combine took notice of this and invaded Earth, and they managed to force the planet to surrender in a matter of seven hours. They're now draining the planet of its resources, and the remaining population has been forcibly spread out among an unknown amount of numbered cities where they live in pseudo-slavery. The enslaved humans now have to decide between facing unfair beatings and raids by the Combine Overwatch's Civil Protection forces or risk death by attempting to escape from the cities. A Suppression Field surrounding the city prevents human reproduction, which is why you won't see a single child throughout your journey. Soon after getting off the train, Gordon is taken into an interrogation room by a Combine soldier who reveals himself to Barney, who once worked as a security guard at Black Mesa and was the protagonist of the Half-Life expansion Blue Shift. Barney uses a video terminal to call  Dr. Kleiner, one of Gordon's fellow Black Mesa scientists who is thrilled to see them both. After making his way through the streets of the city, Gordon enters an apartment building where he witnesses the wrath of Civil "Protection" firsthand, and soon finds himself running across the rooftops while being pursued by armed Metrocops. He is cornered by the Combine and struck with an electrified baton, temporarily blinding him, but is rescued by an unseen figure who is revealed to be Alyx Vance, daughter of another of one of Gordon's coworkers, Eli. She escorts the scientists to Kleiner's lab, where he is finally reacquainted with his Hazardous Environment Suit. All is well, and the group is preparing to teleport to the hidden Black Mesa East facility where they'll meet up with Eli; but Kleiner's pet Headcrab Lamaar messes with the teleporter, sending Gordon to a variety of locations, | including Breen's office. Gordon is spotted, and the Overwatch is alerted of his presence. He finally ends up outside the lab, where Barney tosses him his trusty crowbar and bids him good luck in making it to Black Mesa East. This lengthy introduction sequence, although fairly slow, was surprisingly fun and captivating. Looking back, I think the main thing that kept me content during the intro is HL2's attention to detail; most of the citizens have a thing or two to say when you get near them, almost every object not rooted to the ground can be interacted with in some way, and angering the metrocops is super fun. There are even two achievements that you earn by either obeying or rebelling against a Metrocop who prompts you to throw a can into a trash bin. However, the game isn't paced slowly for much longer. After a couple more minutes, you'll come across a couple being cornered by a pair of CPs, and you'll finally get your hands on a pistol.

It is from this point that you'll get to experience one of my favorite aspects of Half-Life 2: the combat. There's almost always a creative way to approach each encounter, whether you decide to conserve ammo by shooting a conveniently placed explosive barrel (of which there are too many to count littered throughout the campaign, but blowing stuff up is fun, so I can't complain) or fling crates using the Gravity Gun you will acquire partway through the game. Another thing I appreciate about HL2 is that the firefights require you to think before you act; as much as I enjoy other sci-fi shooters such as Halo and Destiny, being able to fully regenerate your health after avoiding fire for several seconds detracts heavily from the tension shooters should have. While Gordon can take an unbelievable amount of punishment even on "Hard" difficulty, all injuries will remain unhealed until he can find a medkit or a health station. This allows you to learn from your mistakes, and soon enough you'll go from charging at turret tripods, crowbar in hand to strategically lobbing grenades at them from behind the protection of a wall. You don't have to be extremely careful, though; the HEV Suit will absorb more than half of the damage caused by projectiles that strike you until its energy is depleted, at which point you'll need to find an energy capsule or charging station. However, the suit can't protect you from long falls or drowning. The way weapons are used in the Half-Life franchise is unique among shooters as well; rather than being limited to only a couple firearms at once like most games in the genre nowadays, you can hold onto every single one of the near dozen weapons you come across and switch between them on the fly. As an avid Halo fan, I was initially thrown off by this feature, but came to enjoy it very much. I only have a few complaints with this aspect of the game when compared with the original Half-Life: First off, the arsenal is smaller than the original game's, and the few new weapons (with the exception of the Gravity Gun) are either carbon copies of or are very similar to old ones. Also, despite the shorter length, there are more sequences when you are encouraged to use certain weapons then I would like, and the hints as to what tool in your arsenal will be the most useful at a given time are far from subtle.

If you went into to Half-Life 2 knowing nothing about it, you may be shocked to hear that it was released in 2004 -- this game is a technical marvel. This was the first game to use Valve's Source engine, and the results are beyond stellar for an early-2000s game. The graphics are what stand out the most. The character models and textures may no longer look stellar, but the realistic facial expressions of NPCs are impressive to this day, the environments are thoroughly detailed, and the water looks practically real! (And when a game makes you talk about how good the water looks, you know it's doing something right). This is also one of the first titles to employ the sophisticated Havoc physics engine. The aforementioned Gravity Gun is one off the most accurate examples of Newton's Laws ever seen in a game. Havoc also allows for hilarious ragdoll deaths. However, I sometimes felt that Valve was trying  too hard to show off the power of its fancy new engine, as evidenced by the physics-based puzzles sprinkled throughout the campaign which bring your journey to a halt and serve no purpose but to show that the Source engine can successfully emulate the physics of a makeshift teeter-totter. Additionally, the fact that there is an achievement for completing the mission "We Don't Go to Ravenholm" using only the Gravity Gun does little to hide that the horror-themed level is a glorified showcase of the weapon. While I wish the game didn't flaunt its physics so much, you can't deny the realism.

In addition to being a visual spectacle, HL2 sounds great in every possible way. One element of this game that will never age is the voice acting, which surpasses the quality of some movies; each one of the sci-fi sound effects from the button press to suit recharge the  are as iconic to gamers as Star Wars sounds are to film fans; and the intense techno tunes will help to boost your adrenaline as you battle the Overwatch forces.

I have only a few other complaints about Half-Life 2, first and foremost being that there's not much incentive to replay it. There's no achievement for beating the game on a higher difficulty, and because this is a linear shooter, there's nothing more to discover in subsequent playthroughs other than a few secret areas and brief G-man cameos. However, this is the type of game you play again when you have the time because it's that good. Another issue I have is with the story, of all things. The game has a strong plot, but it's ridiculous how highly regarded Gordon is. In the original Half-Life, Gordon was an every-man. He may have slain an evil alien overlord, but he was just a normal scientist like everyone else at Black Mesa. Now everyone from Gordon's coworkers to the NPCs treat him as some sort of messiah (which is even explicitly referenced by Breen). My last quibble is that the campaign ends on a massive cliffhanger, and the story ark's conflict hasn't been solved even after the release of two additional episodes. (Chances are you've heard of the "Half-Life 3 confirmed" meme)

Overall, Half-Life 2 is an incredible game that should easily appeal to fans of shooters, sci-fi or otherwise. The visuals, physics, story, and combat have all aged gracefully, and at a price of only $9.99, you have little reason not to experience what some call the greatest game ever made.

The System Difference: There are also a couple technical inferiorities exclusive to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game available via The Orange Box (I originally played the game on 360). The first disadvantage of playing the game on a console is that the load times are longer than what the vast majority of PC hard drives are capable of. The other thing I noticed is that there were occasionally very brief framerate drops when one or more explosion was onscreen at a time. The PS3 port, which was clumsily developed by Electronic Arts, reportedly has much worse frame rate issues. If you own a computer that's several years old or less, it will probably be able to run Half-Life 2 on high graphical settings, but if you're not one for playing on computers, the console version will suffice. Besides, the controller vibration in the console version adds a little to the experience.

Also available on Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PlayStation 3 (via The Orange Box bundle)

ESRB: M (PARENTAL WARNING: This game contains intense violence, large amounts of realistic blood, swearing, and frightening scenes) Content: Blood & Gore, Language, and Intense Violence Price: $9.99 (Standalone) / $19.99 (The Orange Box bundle) (Retail / Download)

4th Anniversary Post

It's Told You So Review's 4th Birthday!

I'm publishing this post in celebration of my blog's fourth, albeit belated anniversary! Since the day I created this blog, I've published 98 posts, received 19,326 pageviews, received 117 comments (my replies among them), and been followed by 11 people (my two Google accounts included)! This wasn't my greatest year, but I did add quite a few new features. Be sure to keep commenting and checking out my blog, and maybe become a follower! Thanks!

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition Micro Review

Minecraft: Xbox One Edition

Publisher: Microsoft Developer: Mojang / 4J Studios Platform: Microsoft Xbox One Release: 2014 Genre: Sandbox / Adventure Rating: 9.3 \ 10.0: Excellent

NOTICE: There are times when I'll own multiple editions of a game, but won't have enough to say to justify making another full review. It is for this reason that I've decided to write bite-sized micro reviews that are divided into to two segments: The first is a brief summary recalling the game's past, and the second is a small review that informs anyone that owns another version of the game whether it's worth purchasing again. I hope that you enjoy my first ever micro review!

Summary: Minecraft has come a long way since its full release in late 2011. The game has went on to sell millions of units across computers, mobile devices, and consoles, setting sales records on most of its platforms; the Xbox 360 Edition apparently turned a profit within two hours! Speaking of Minecraft on consoles, the game has since been ported to all current PlayStation systems and eight-generation consoles, including the Wii U! The is a huge deal considering that the Wii U Edition was released after developer Mojang was bought out by Microsoft, which goes to Nintendo fans that the folks at the major computer manufacturer are more flexible than they may seem; they're more than just the evil company that bought out Nintendo's beloved second-party Rareware and reduced them to developing Kinect titles. If you're like me and you must own Minecraft on every system possible, you may be wondering: "Should I get the eight-gen version of Minecraft if I already have it on my 360 or PS3?" Read on to find out! 

Review: There's no question that Minecraft is best enjoyed on a Mac or PC if replay value is important to you, but those seeking an accessible drop in-drop out cooperative experience have had the console editions to fall back on. Minecraft: Xbox One Edition is largely identical to its seventh-generation counterpart, but with several minor additions, the most prominent being "infinite" worlds (if you want to make a smaller world, you can disable this feature). The game now supports 1080p displays, but given the game's pixelated / voxelated visual style, this doesn't make much of a difference graphically. You will notice, however, that the load and save times have been dramatically decreased. Saving your game was once a half-minute long annoyance to those playing with you, but in the new-gen version of the game, the amount of time it takes to save your world ranges from a few seconds to the blink of an eye. If you already own Minecraft on a seventh-generation console, I recommend buying it again on the same system family. This way, you can upload your favorite worlds from your Xbox 360 or PS3 to your new system. You can also use any DLC you've purchased on both consoles. However, the PS and Xbox versions each have extra content based on the consoles' exclusive games respectively, so I'll leave the choice up to you. So...

Is it worth it?
If you love Minecraft as much as I do, you'll want it on every platform you can play it on. None of the fun or features present in the older version have been omitted, and $20 is little to ask for such a wonderful experience. If you still haven't played Minecraft, then now's a great time to start!

Also available on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita

ESRB: E 10+ Content: Fantasy Violence Price: $19.99 (Retail / Download)