Pokemon X/Y

Released: October 12,2013 Console: 3DS

Story: Pokemon games aren't generally known for their narrative The stories all follow a pattern you the player are a child who's to be given a Pokemon and go on an adventure, the adventure features a Rival, 8 gyms, The Elite 4 and Champion, and there's always an evil "team". There's usually some attempt at variety but the story is universally the same just in different settings.

Gameplay: Pokemon has always had a system where you get a Pokemon and you are left to catch and raise whatever Pokemon you happen to run across. Pokemon games feature a surprisingly deep system of stats, levels, and types. All of those have advantages and disadvantages.There are different things attributed to the development of your Pokemon's stats that have made the game much deeper and more appealing to a competitive crowd.(Time to hit the MLG circuit)

Graphics: The graphics are this games biggest improvement no more do we have sprites, we now have full 3d models. Of course this is sort of hard on the Hardware causing frame rate drop.(It's pokemon though do frame rates really matter?)

What they did well:

Fairy types: The new fairy type is Really cool(Gardevoir FTW!) and fits into the games pre existing type list fantastically I can't wait to see what Pokemon are introduced into this typing in the future.

3D Sprites: The Jump from 2d sprites to 3d models is something all Pokemon players have been waiting for for years.

Kalos: Kalos is Pokemon's recreation of France and the game does a great job of filling the terrain with not just new Pokemon but those from previous generations as well.

Super training: Super training is a feature introduced to help the competitive players better train there Pokemon's stats, cutting out much of the grinding(Time to face 400 Bidoofs for some Sp.Att) that was once required to ensure the stats were as they desired

Trainer customization: In X/Y They've added the ability to customize your in game character which is much better than being stuck with a generic character and it allows the player to be more immersed.

Mega Evolutions: The game added a feature called mega evolutions which allow one Pokemon per game to mega evolve giving massive stat boosts and adding a secondary ability. This feature is really cool and can change the course of a battle entirely.

Wonder trade: Wonder trade is basically a random trading system and it is pretty cool.(However expect to receive much crap before you get anything cool)

What could have been better:

Post game: After beating the champion in the the previous games there'd be a new area with higher level Pokemon and trainers to help the player continue to level up and playing. The champion and elite four would also level up to be re-challenged. In X/Y however this does not happen and the post game is essentially non-existent.

Mega evolutions: Above I mentioned the positives of the system, however there are negatives. Namely that to stand a chance in a battle one pretty much needs a Pokemon that can mega evolve, but not all Pokemon can. So you are stuck with a limited number of Pokemon that are required to be on your team.

Pokemon Bank: This is the system in which players will be able to transfer Pokemon from the DS versions up to X/Y. Will. This system is not out yet and will cost money after a month free trial. The system also hosts an anti hacking program which will not allow players to transfer up modded Pokemon.

Overall : 9.5/10

Top 10 games that should have a sequel, but don't

10. Shadowrun (fps)

9. L.A. Noire

8. Halo wars

7. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 ( since all info on its would be sequel has gone dark)

6.  I maed a gam3 with zombies in it!!!1 

5. Naruto the Broken Bond

4. Naruto Clash of ninja Revolution 3

3. Destroy All Humans 2 ( Path of the furon never happened <.<)

2. LOTR BFME:II

1. Castle Crashers

Grand theft auto? More like Grand theft time.

So sorry about disappearing for a week between the last post and this one i've been somewhat busy.... well the last 3 day's haven't been busy so much as completely absorbed by GTA 5, That said despite having been playing it vigorously for 3 day's pretty much straight I still don't feel as if I can review it as a major portion of the game has yet to be released. That being the much hyped online portion.

3 days, poof!

I HAVE however started thinking of short stories I could write ,probably branching off of the larger story I wrote sometime ago, that will likely not see the light of day until much later. However the story was dark and serious.(REALLY DARK going with the bad ending) and I'd rather write something more comical or light hearted so It may end up as something entirely different.

Gears of war Judgement

Release:March 19, 2013 Platform: Xbox 360

Story: Gears of war judgement is a prequel story to the Gears of war trilogy focusing on series familiars Damon Baird and Augustus"Coletrain"Cole(COLETRAIN BABY WOO!). This game details the events following E-day as well as tie in to the trilogies original story.

Gameplay: Gears of war is a cover based third person shooter. Gears Judgement broke away from the series' traditional gameplay which had many adverse effects. One of which was making the game more vertical allowing players to use height to a greater advantage. The movement was also made to be more fluent. Gun balance was changed to adapted to the new faster gameplay.

Graphics: Judgement had a more refined version of Gears 3's graphics, it looked a lot nicer at first glance but upon closer inspection traces of textures from 3 can be seen.

What they did well:

Movement: The game greatly improved the movement system set by it's predecessors(Not getting stuck to every wall ever is an improvement, trust me). This smoothed out many of the nuances with Gears 3's movement system.

New Executions: Gears of war has been traditionally violent so when executions were introduced in 2 expanded upon in 3 and further so by Judgement. Judgement did executions very well(although they were not introduced back into multiplayer until later by a dlc)

Story: Gears of war Judgement had one of the most entertaining stories throughout the series(not many shooters have legitimately fun campaigns) and the way it was executed was nearly flawless, unfortunately this was the games best aspect...

What could have been better:

Gun balance: The guns in the game generally served there purpose but some were noticeably better than others. More over the guns you were able to spawn with were a little questionable, such as a semi auto sniper which in gears is normally power weapon to be sought after.

Stim gas Grenades: This sort of ties into the last issue but its such a game breaking and prevalent problem that it has to be addressed separately. Stim gas was a medical grenade meant to be throw to revive or heal teammates at a distance. What it was used for instead was a temporary immunity grenade(also know as D-bag grenade and HAX). A player could throw it at their feet and were unable to be killed by anything not insta kill until its duration was up.

Verticality: The ability to jump of of high ledges was nice but after a while became an irritation, in a hectic gunfight people were able to escape by merely rolling off the edge quick enough.

No active reloads: Active reloading was a system in Gears where a player could time the reload to reload faster and gain a damage buff through what can be compared to a small QTE. It was featured in every game and its sudden removal confused and angered many veteran players.

Only one weapon: The load out system only allowed a player to pick a single weapon (perhaps as way to counter the questionably powered spawn weapons?). The series normally allowed players to pick a rifle and a shotgun for long and short distance fights. This new system meant you had only one option once you selected a weapon you were force to go either long range or close range, which lead to much less versatility(although lets face it Gears is sort of meant to be close range).

Over run mode: Over run could easily have been a really fun game mode, and by all accounts it can be really fun with the right people but the balancing on the maps and characters left much to be desired. A team could run 4 soldiers and a medic and more than likely stone wall the opposing locus team.

The money grubbing: Gears of war one released in 2006 shipped with 10 maps Gears judgement shipped with 4 , eight including the isolated overrun mode maps. They followed up by increasing the prices on micro transaction weapon skins. This made it seem as if the game was massively unfinished and rushed out and that the developers were desperate for money the season pass also included half as many Dlc maps which made Judgement have the lowest total map pack count of all the games in the series

Overall : 4.5/10

Black ops 2

Released: November 12, 2012  Platorms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii-U

Story: Black ops 2 follows the story of Alex mason, and his son David mason as they combat a man named Raul Menendez and his organization 'Cordis die'. The conflict rages(almost as much as those playing mulitplayer) throughout the 70's as Alex mason and into 2025 as his son David mason.

Gameplay: The gameplay follows Call of duty tradition of not necessarily changing that much but the changes that have been made such as the pick ten system really altered many playstyles mine included, but things like Scorestreaks replacing killstreaks were experiments gone bad in my eyes. This has lead to many divides in the community as many would like to see greater change between the games. Call of duty is as always is an FPS and has a heavy emphasis on competitive multiplayer.

Graphics: Black ops 2 doesn't really stand out graphically(some even say its a downgrade from the previous installment graphically) theirs many nice set pieces but in standard gameplay it has little to offer in uniqueness although thats not to say the graphics are bad either.

What they did well:

Story: Black ops two had in my honest opinion on of call of duty's best narratives, it had a lot of good writing which really made some characters stand out much more than in previous games, on example is the games antagonist Menendez(maybe its because people constantly scream his name?) is incredibly memorable.

Camos: They introduced many camos that broke from the normal patterns we'd come to expect. They later added many purchasable camos that also look very good on the guns.

Zombies: One of Treyarch's major selling points for its games is the inclusion of a zombies mode which has continually grow in popularity in each game and has been continuously expanded upon(though these expansions weren't always great, I'm looking at you Mr.Romero) in every iteration.

Emblems: Black ops 1 had a decent emblem editor, but it was limited to 12 layers or 12 objects so to speak. Black ops 2 has many more base objects and easier methods of editing as well as increasing the amount of layers to 32 which makes making detailed emblems much easier(although the community still contains many immature individuals so perhaps this isn't such a good thing lol).

Pick Ten system: Treyarch created a pick ten system for the games multiplayer which I think was a really awesome addition to the game and I hope it becomes a series staple. This system introduced new playstyles such as the no weapons class or sidearms only players.

What could have been better:

Maps: Black ops 2's multiplayer is fun and does have many maps at this point but looking at it objectively rather than as a player there's more maps i'd avoid than want to play on. Whats worse is that there are many DLC maps I'd want to avoid and having paid for them separately paid for them it is a slightly bigger issue than if it were just a few of the on disk maps.

Scorestreaks: These were a nice way to try to coerce the comunity to employ more teamwork(although who am I kidding this is CoD teamwork is a myth). At least on paper but in practice it really punishes anyone who isn't an objective player by making these once easy streaks much more difficult to obtain without objective captures.

Community: The Call of duty community is one of the largest and most fickle of any of them. It's also become on of CoD's most polarizing aspects, Most are either Fanboys or Haters. It's gotten rather sad honestly but then you have the actual players who can never be satisfied no matter what tweaks or balance changes happen it isn't good enough to the many self entitled players. It's not as if everyone is so whiny, but the most vocal are the most heard,and as such have given such a negative connotation to the community.

Overall : 8.3/10

L.A. Noire

Release: May 17, 2011  Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC.

Story: L.A. Noire puts you in the shoes of Cole Phelps(This one can't swim) a World war 2 veteran turned policeman as he rises through the ranks of the Law enforcement bureaucracy(contain your excitement). This puts you in charge of solving cases such as Traffic, Homicide, Vice, and Arson. The games story also focuses on Cole's personal life and how he copes with his war experience.

Gameplay: The game plays somewhat like Rockstar's other franchise Grand theft auto(except a complete role reversal) but with a greatly reduced amount of gun play and penalties for harming civilians. This highlight of the game is the crime scenes and interrogations, which are made challenging and intriguing by the use of a custom engine to make the facial expressions as realistic as possible.

Graphics: The games graphics were not its highlight (that's not to say they're bad). However the games facial animations are still incredible even two years later.

What they did well:

Interrogations: The facial animations incorporated during questioning and interrogations was and still is one of the games biggest draws.

Setting: The setting of 1947 L.A. was a great choice and the team did a great job recreating L.A. as it was at the time.

Characters: The characters were incredibly deep and believable. Many of the later characters introduced were Phelps squad mates who brought more of Phelps past over in the Pacific theater to light.(*spoiler* its pretty dark)

What could have been better:

Free roam: The game featured a perfectly recreated 1947 L.A. but not all of it was used. The game allowed you to travel but outside main quest's and a few street crimes there wasn't much incentive to do so.

Gunplay: The game takes the emphasis of off Guns but doesn't really replace them with much. It makes sense being that your in the shoes of a cop but the lack of action can be a deal breaker for some gamers.

Overall :8/10

Top 5 most disappointing games

5. Darkest of days

So I really only have myself to blame I didn't do enough research into the game before I got it. I fell for the hype, but how could I not, the game allowed you to travel through time and alter famous historical battles. Well needless to say  cool premise does not a good game make, this game has literally no redeeming qualities that I can think of at all.

4. Assassins Creed 3

Assassin's creed 3 is one that no one could predict would be disappointing, none of the others were. The game's protagonist was much less cool than the antagonist, the game lost nearly all of its verticality, and it put a heavy emphasis on the games new naval combat which was simplistic and really boring. The game tried to hard to change and messed up.

3. Fable 3

 After Fable Lost chapters the games got simpler and simpler to the point where I felt like Fable 3 was patronizing players. The game has absolutely not way to lose, if you lose all your health you fall over and get back up with a scar. Fable 3 was much more linear than its predecessors and yet still felt the need to add a line showing you exactly where to go, killing any and all exploration. Your main character is no longer able to use magic without special gloves. There is only 4 weapons in ALL the games weapon shops per game, because too many weapons clearly confuses and scares players.

2. Homefront

This game is painful to write about because it was so close to being a good game. It needed only one mechanic and a little more polish to be on the caliber of CoD and Battlefield. The game mechanic needed was bullet penetration and it would've been great. I'm really hoping Crytec see's the mistake and fixes it for the sequel.

1. Gears of war: Judgement

Another that's just so close to being good. Gears judgement had the series best campaign, a brand new gamemode, and was finally shifting focus off of the shotgun in multiplayer. Unfortunately the game shipped with only 4 maps. The Dlc only added 6 maps of which 2 were remakes. Gears of war 1 SHIPPED with 10 maps in 2006 and added 6 more on Xbox and 9 more on PC. Lastly Gears judgement added the ability to drop down from above which was incredibly game breaking and irritating.

Judging something based on it's Community

 This is a follow up on the Call of Duty Hate/Hypocrisy post that I had planned since I wrote it. In that article I mentioned that as an overall judgement. I said Call of duty has a bad community and should that make it a bad game then? The way I see it that's a biased perspective. But it's simultaneously understandable. If you have a bad experience in a game you'll blame it on the game. Now not all games are perfect and those opinions may have merit sometimes, but if its the game how can so many people like it? Simple because it wasn't the game, it was the people. There's never going to be a perfectly balanced game because in a multiplayer setting you can only control the weapons and the maps, not the people. You can make great maps and weapons but how the community plays may differ from the designers intent.

 The best example I can provide is the introduction of "quickscoping" to the Call of duty community. Quickscoping is the result of a slight flaw with call of duty's aim assist that allows players to rapidly scope in and shoot a sniper rifle at and enemy with little to no skill involved, due to the 1 shot kill weapon being slightly pulled towards an enemy. The developers tried to stomp out the problem by altering snipers, but were thwarted by the communities incessant need to quickscope. It wasn't the Developers intent for how the community would use the sniper rifles or the aim assist, but its become a part of the game now.

  Moving off of the call of duty example to show that it's not just a isolated problem. A game that I used to love but can no longer play due to my developed hatred for the community, Halo 4. If you read my review of the game you should know that I don't hold the actions of the community against the judgement of the game. However I can't stand playing it due to the matchmaking forcing me into matches with the worst of the worst. Its not game mechanics, aside from the matchmaking system, that are to blame for ruining the game for me, but the community. I refuse to say outright that Halo 4 is bad because I can still enjoy custom games with my friends but I no longer like to play the game with the online community.

  So hearing that is it right to let my personal experience lead me to call a game bad regardless of if the game was well made? Everyone is entitled to whatever opinion they may have but I feel too many people dislike popular franchises because of the community and not because the quality of the games are bad. I just hate the thought of a game being called bad or being disliked for things other than inherently bad game design or balance.

Borderlands 2

Platforms: PC , Mac, PS3 , Xbox 360 Release date: September 18,2012

Story: You are one of 4 vault hunters(6 now including DLC) who've traveled to the planet Pandora looking to open the vault, a mysterious alien portal said to contain unimaginable power(Halo?). Unfortunately you are ambushed and nearly killed by Handsome Jack(Plot twist!), the head of the Hyperion corporation, who's taken control of the planet to search and open the vault for himself. The game has you seeking out Handsome Jack(Not unlike myself, no?) and the vault to stop him from opening it and destroying Pandora.

Gameplay: The game is an FPS that borrows influence from certain RPG elements such as leveling up or powers. Each character has 3 different skill trees that usually appeal to 3 separate play-styles. As the game progresses your characters level up and gain more powers. The game has system of loot drops which include things like Weapons,Shields, Grenade mods, relics, or just money. As the game progresses so do these loot drops consistently giving the player something to strive for and generally lengthening the game experience.

Graphics: Borderlands has a distinct cell shaded art style making its graphics design really unique you can always tell that it's borderlands. That said if you get to close to things they may not look as nice but from a distance look really cool.

What they did well: 

Classes: As mentioned before all classes play differently. This is done real well, whereas some games may make some classes better than others (*cough*Dead island*cough*), all classes are generally balanced out to be even with one another.

Weapons: There are so many weapon types and variations that its unlikely you ever see the same weapon twice(barring legendary weapons and mission rewards). The weapons can vary in appearance, attachments, fire rate, fire type, elemental type, and manufacturer. Manufacturers which each have different specialties in weapons.

Villain: The Antagonist Handsome Jack is just a great character,whether its making sarcastic jokes at the main characters or invoking the players wrath, he never ceases to be entertaining. I can't even imagine how the sequel can get a better villain.

Humor: The developers go through great lengths to make the game as humorous as possible(unfortunately that only applies to this franchise, Sorry Duke Nukem) whether it's entertaining side characters or pop culture references, the games usually got something to offer everyone.

Co-op: The class balance is great for playing with multiple people in a generally seamless cooperative experience. Once again the game is great in single player albeit slightly harder. The game does however give multiple benefits to people in groups, such as increasing the chances of good loot drops and increased enemy levels allowing the players to level up quicker.

What could have been better:

Customization: I feel bad saying this twice in two reviews but in the particular case I feel really burned. The game can handle near infinite weapon variations but can't handle a decent character customization. Now you can change they head style, but not the body style, and you can only select pre-coded color schemes. While still a step up from the first, it still has a way's to go.

Vehicle types: I wouldn't have minded this as much if they hadn't made it out to seem like there'd be multiple vehicle types, some were even said to be able to be flown. Instead we got 2 vehicles both ground based(more types were added later via DLC, still no flying however) which ended up being a huge disappointment in an otherwise great game.

Overall : 9/10

Top Ten best Halo MP maps

This was an idea that just hit me to make a top ten list becuase it can be applied to nearly everything and can break the monotony of text. I think i'm going to make this a new sunday tradition and  I hope you like it. Anyway these will be based on my experience with the games and lists objects so without further ado my top ten all time Halo multiplayer  maps.

10. Epitaph

9. Ascension

8. Powerhouse

7. Solitary (Prisoner)

6. Relic

5. Relection (Ivory tower)

4. Beaver/Battle Creek

3. Colossus 

2. Turf

1. Guardian

Payday: The Heist

With Payday 2 coming out soon I figured it would be a good time to cover the original. That said the original is fun but isn't a particularly deep game so there won't be as much to say.

Platforms: Pc & PS3 Release date:  October 18, 2011

Story: Payday doesn't have much story besides the fact your a group of guy's who pull off heists(Totally unexpected given the title right?) under the guidance of the plan maker Bain(No not Tom Hardy).

Gameplay: The gameplay is more the games focus rather than the story. The game HEAVILY emphasizes playing with teammates (anyone who's ever played solo can tell you that A.I. team mates are pretty much a knife in the back). The game is playable in single player but it is incredibly difficult to succeed this way(This is no joke). The game play's similarly to Left 4 dead(they have a crossover map as well) with a group of 4 trying to achieve their goal. In this game you play against various forms of law enforcement trying to stop your heist.

Graphics: The games graphics aren't bad but they're not anything particularly special, some things look better than others. The Character models are nice but the environments are kind of bland by comparison. Also the Cops all use the same few base models and given how many there are in a mission it gets noticeably repetitive.

What they did well: Gameplay mechanics are done well, they throw enough objective twists to lengthen the heist without becoming unnecessarily tedious. The game has an incredibly fun Cooperative experience. Some of the heists are really over the top and awesome.

What could have been better:

A.I.: The AI are insanely difficult to face especially when playing in single player. The reason they're so hard is that the A.I. are programmed to literally not miss (No seriously 100% accuracy all the time, they are freaking terminators).

Customization: You can only change your characters mask and weapons/equipment between a few limited choices(The mask designs are at least pretty cool). In the future I'd like to see a larger selection of weapons and gain the ability to customize the mask I wear is all.

Overall : 7.5/10

Payday the Heist 2 comes out August 13th for Steam and within the week for the consoles.

And to anyone who reads this and has a Gmail account or any other Google account feel free to follow this blog or comment I'd love to hear your feedback/Suggestions.