Modern Warfare Extravaganza - Xbox 360

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote a review so here's a big one.

I was house sitting for a week and decided to do something: beat all of the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare games that I hadn't already reviewed. I figured that they were all about seven hours long, but it was still five games. I started off with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and then played through them in order. Here we go.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:
I originally played this on the PC shortly after it was released. I was absolutely blown away by it. I had never really played a FPS like it before, it was so fast paced, so exciting, and I absolutely loved the story and characters.

I was hooked on not only the game, but entire series after playing CoD4. I still remember the rush I felt as you have to make the jump from the sinking boat to the helicopter. I still remember thinking "Wow..." at the twist about halfway through the game. And after playing it on Xbox? I still feel that way. I still love the hurried pace of the game, the twists and turns, the overall feel of the game. After playing it on PC I declared it to be my favorite FPS of all times... and after re-playing it on Xbox my opinion has not changed.

Modern Warfare: World at War:
After playing Call of Duty 4 I was somewhat leery of going back to World War 2. It just felt like it had been done to death, that there was no new ground to cover. I had played Call of Duty as well as Medal of Honor and a bunch of other WW2 games. It's not that I didn't like them it's just the market had been flooded with them at the time.

Going into World at War I was still a little skeptical. After the first few levels my opinion had changed. They had breathed new life into the genre. They were always fast paced games, but World at War pushed it that much faster. It didn't quite live up to Call of Duty 4 but it was still probably one of the best World War 2 games I've played.

My only problem with World at War was the difficulty level and grenades. The difficulty seemed ramped up, I seemed to be dying a lot more then I did in the other games and sadly it seems a lot of the deaths were kind of cheap. A lot of those deaths were from grenades that seem to explode the moment you noticed them. I have a feeling that it was because the grenades could be cooked, it adds realism but it also makes it so you die a lot more. Overall though it was an incredibly solid addition to the WW2 FPS genre.

Modern Warfare 2
After playing Call of Duty 4 I had to play Modern Warfare 2. I had to continue the story, I was hooked. The Modern Warfare games get a lot of flack for being "the same game released every year." I can understand this, but frankly, I'm okay with it as well. I haven't played a Modern Warfare game that I felt was anything but really good, if I have to pay $60 a year and get a really fun game with a really great multiplayer I'm okay with that.

While I didn't like Modern Warfare 2 as much as Call of Duty 4 I still think it's an excellent game. Everything was there that made the first one great, and I was finally able to play the multiplayer I had heard so much about. The story kept me interested and I still had that "Wow!" moment a couple of times. There were a few parts in the game that I felt were kind of tedious, playing errand boy while defending the burger joint felt kind of odd, but overall if Call of Duty 4 was an A+ in my book then Modern Warfare 2 was an easy A.

Modern Warfare 3
Every story has to have an end I guess, and ending to the Modern Warfare series was excellent. While I thought that there was some kind of tedious parts to Modern I didn't feel that at all with Modern Warfare 3. It was back to the rushed excitement that I felt with Call of Duty 4. The story was great, the locals were awesome, and this had some amazing missions in it. If they released a game of this caliber every year I would have no problem ponying up the $60 for it. The Modern Warfare series got the send off it deserved with Modern Warfare 3. It was a great game almost on par with Call of Duty 4.

So there it is. My love letter to the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare series since Call of Duty 4. As you may have guessed I enjoyed pretty much every minute of them. I know some people disagree with me but at the end of the day I really don't care. I play video games for enjoyment, for a release, to get away from my everyday life. Sometimes you just want to blow up as much shit as possible and be pulled out of a gulag by a helicopter. (By the way you can read my Black Ops review here ).

Squid.

Medal of Honor - Xbox 360

I absolutely love the Call of Duty franchise (as you'll find out in my next couple reviews). When I saw the new Medal of Honor in OXM a while back it struck me as a CoD clone. I had no problems with this, mostly because I sometimes enjoy the clones more then the original (see my Saints Row review). The release of Medal of Honor came and went, and I didn't really notice it's reviews so I wasn't sure how good or bad it was. It mostly flew under my radar.

About a month ago Medal of Honor went on sale for $10 on Amazon. My stance is that I'll try any game for $10... how bad could it be? While that has bit me in the ass a few times I generally stick by it. So I picked up Medal of Honor and I have to admit I was kind of excited about it.

Medal of Honor is a flat out Call of Duty clone. It might as well be called Medal of Honor: Call of Duty. I was expecting as much, but still it was pretty much a carbon copy of Call of Duty... but something was off. It didn't have the slick feel that Call of Duty has. It was like if Call of Duty was suddenly made by another developer, a developer who just wasn't up to par with Treyarch/Infinity Ward.

It's things like the AI being a bit wonky. Not overall horrible but just a little bit kooky here and there. Occasionally my AI teammates would just stand there staring at the enemies while they sat and shot me. It didn't happen always, but it happened just enough for me to notice it was happening. Or when you have two guys to snipe and your AI teammate says he'll take the one on the left... most the time I ended up killing both of them because the AI teammate was just too slow. Little things like that.

The game was fun, I enjoyed it. For $10 I got about five and half hours of enjoyment out of it. It wasn't on the same level as the Call of Duty series, but it did come close. At the end of the day I'll probably end up playing it again because I did have fun. If they release another Medal of Honor game in the same vein I'll probably also pick that up as well.

Medal of Honor is a slightly less polished Call of Duty game. It has the same feel, the same ambiance, and the same fast paced nature. It's not as good as the CoD franchise but it's certainly worth taking a look at.

Squid.

Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time - Nintendo 64

I've owned Ocarina of Time since it came out. I still have the gold N64 cartridge and everything. I've played OoT probably at least five times, and every single time I get about halfway or so through it and move on to something else. I know that I've gotten to the ice temple, but I'm not sure I've made it past that point. It's not that I though OoT was a bad game, or that it was uninteresting, I just seemed to get distracted and moved on to another game.

I was kind of excited to start playing OoT because I've always wanted to beat it. I constantly hear how great of a game it is. At one point in time I know it was voted the best video game of all time.

So I started playing it, and I'll be the first to admit: the first little bit felt like I was trudging through it. It was hard for me to get into the game, to even get excited enough about it to want to play it. I figured it was because I had played it so many times, it just felt kind of stale. I figured that once I got past the point of where I had played it would pick up and I would get into it.

But it didn't happen. I just could not get into OoT. I kept playing and kept saying "It will get better..." but it didn't. Never once did I not feel like it wasn't a chore playing the game. Normally I play video games every day or at least every couple of days, even if it's just for a couple of minutes. With OoT I felt like I pretty much had to force myself to continue playing. Days would go past, and I would finally have to force myself to play it.

I don't know what it is about the game that made me not like it. I have enjoyed every Legend of Zelda game I've ever played. This starts from the NES days and goes right up to Twilight Princess. Maybe it's the fact that I've played it so many times, maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a Zelda game, but for whatever reason I just could not get into OoT.

Squid.

Crystalis - Nintendo

If you asked me my ten favorite games of all time Crystalis would definitely be on the list. It would most likely make it in the top five. Probably my favorite NES game of all time, and certainly the one that I remember the most. I remember this game vividly from my childhood, the graphics, the music, the gameplay, everything about this game brings a rush of nostalgia to me.

Here's the thing though, I've never actually beat Crystalis. I don't know how many times I've played Crystalis before, I would guess at least five, but I've never been able to make it all the way through. One of the reasons I started this blog was because about 85% of the games I played up until about three years ago I've never actually beat. I would start a game, then something new and shiny would come along and I would put down the old to usher in the new. That's why I wanted to go through my old games, to actually beat some of these games that I never made it through.

I hadn't planned on playing Crystalis yet, I was holding off on some of my favorite games. Figured I would go through the ones I hadn't really given a chance to. Then I joined a discussion about Nintendo games that you wish were longer, there were quite a few people saying Crystalis. They were mentioning that it was only about five hours long. This made no sense to me, I guessed it was at least a twenty hour game. I remember spending a ton of time as a kid playing this game. I wondered if it really was a five hour game, had all this time I not finished a game that could probably be done in one sitting?

I sat down with Crystalis and it just made me smile. I knew every note of music, I knew pretty much everything people in the first town would say to me, I knew the map like the back of my hand. I played for a good four hours the first night... and that's when I noticed something weird. In those first four hours I had played through a lot of the game that I remember... and the second night when I played again for about another three hours? I made it through to where I had stopped the last time I played the game. The next time I played the game? Well, I beat the game. This game that I had played at least five time since 1990 that I had never managed to beat was actually about eight hours long. Here's the funny part: Crystalis has two save data slots. I used one and left the old save alone, after I beat the game I loaded up that old save to see where I had quit in the game last time. Turns out on that save I was only about 15 minutes to a half hour away from finishing the game. If I had stuck with it for another half hour it wouldn't have taken me twenty one years to finally beat this game.

Crystalis is a really good game, and I don't think that's nostalgia talking. It's a great action RPG with a decent story. It's one of those underrated gems that if you like these types a games and haven't played it before you owe it to yourself to give it a shot. It's one of those games I wish had become a series, or at least had a sequel. Do yourself a favor and find and play Crystalis.

Squid.

Saints Row - Xbox 360

I quite like GTA sandbox games. I pretty much have since I first played Grand Theft Auto 3. There's just something about driving around, and creating mayhem. I enjoy the freedom that these games allow. I really enjoyed Grand Theft 3 and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City... and then the GTA series seemed to get serious about itself. It was still fun, but not as cartoon-y and unrealistic. With GTA4 it became a little too serious and I just couldn't really seem to enjoy it, but that's a review for another time.

Saints Row basically made me feel like I was playing Grand Theft Auto 3 again. It brought back the over the top fun that I remember. I was still answering my cell phone, but instead of then having to drive and pick up my girlfriend it was having to drive and stop a gang warfare on my turf. I was involved in insurance fraud schemes that had me running in front of cars. Huge police chases that could go on for miles. Overall it was just insane, over the top fun. That's what I was looking for. This is what I wanted a GTA clone to be. Honestly this is what I wanted GTA4 to be.

When it comes to GTA-like sandbox games I really don't care about the story. I want there to be one, but I don't really care how deep it is or how great it is. Basically I play these games to cause mayhem, and Saints Row excels in this. Hell, there's even a mini-game called Mayhem. Overall Saints Row is just a fun time where you don't have to think a lot.

That's not to say that there isn't some problems with Saints Row. There were actually quite a few missions that were oddly difficult, mostly ones that involved doing a mission that automatically gave you five stars. It's hard to finish a mission when you're getting rammed by FBI vehicles left and right. Frankly I hate missions like this in any GTA game. Also you can't do missions until you fill your respect bar, this get's really annoying after a while. Having to do a couple little mini-missions before you can advance the story is kind of aggravating.

Overall Saints Row was a really fun game with some flaws that can be overlooked. If you're looking for a game that feels like a throwback to GTA3 then this is definitely game you want to play.

Squid.

Simpsons Hit & Run - Gamecube

I'm not sure why but for the most part video games based off of The Simpsons are pretty bad. Sure there's a couple that are okay, but overall they're not great. Maybe it's because most video games based off of TV shows/movies tend to be bad, but I was always kind of disappointed that there wasn't a really good Simpsons game.

About five or six years ago I picked up Simpsons Hit & Run for the PC and thought "This is the game I've been wanting!" It was funny, there was a ton of references sprinkled throughout, it had the voice actors doing all the lines, and it was a pretty fun little sand box game.

I would play it for a bit and then would forget about it. Then a year or so later I would remember how much fun I had playing it and would start it up again. I would get to about the third level and then find some other game that interested me more and start playing it. I never managed to make it past the third level.

Well one day I was sitting around and thought "I should see if I can get Simpsons Hit & Run on some console I have." What would you know, Amazon had it for Gamecube for $4. Done.

I have to admit, I was pretty excited about playing Simpsons Hit & Run, and really it was everything I remember. There were actually some pretty funny lines, I did laugh out loud at one point. There are tons of hidden little references throughout the game, like head into the Kwik-E-Mart and you'll see Frostillicus in the freezer. There's a lot of little in jokes if you pay attention. I was having a pretty good time, I finally made it to the third level and realized that I had only played a bit of it, from here on it was going to be new to me.

After the third level Simpsons Hit & Run morphed into some sort of horrid beast from the dark depths of hell. I went from describing the game as fun to "possibly the most frustrating game I have ever played." That's no lie, I honestly cannot remember a game that so thoroughly frustrated me. There were times I'm pretty sure I was just yelling a string of expletives at my TV.

Up to level three it wasn't that difficult. There were timed missions but nothing to hard. After level three it seemed like EVERY mission was timed, also you never got enough time. The game worked on the idea that you needed EXACTLY 47 seconds to do a mission, so they would give you 45 seconds. Hey you have a spare 2 seconds, what are you complaining about! As long as you don't crash, slow down, or do anything that may eat up your precious 2 seconds you're fine. Also when I say you needed 45 seconds that's only if you know all of the shortcuts. If you don't you're going to need about 60 seconds... better know those shortcuts! I'm not kidding. There were missions that I did in a fast car, didn't crash, took all of the shortcuts, and overall drove incredibly well... and still ran out of time. This wasn't an occasional problem, this was on about 90% of the missions after level three. I would say on average I probably would fail a mission at least once, but more likely two or three times. If it was because I was doing poorly, I can understand it... mostly though it was just because you had a VERY limited amount of time and any little thing that screwed that up made you fail the mission.

The missions are what killed Simpsons Hit & Run. As I've said I hate timed anything in video games and think they shouldn't be in them. Almost all the missions in Simpsons Hit & Run are timed and done horribly. So much to the point where you become incredibly frustrated and want to break the game in as many pieces as possible. It's lucky it survived.

Squid.

Dead Nation - PS3

So after the whole "Awww crap! Our servers have been haxored!" debacle that happened with the PS3 they gave away two free games. Seemed like a good deal to me since it didn't effect me at all. I think it made it so I had to watch Netflix on my Xbox360 and that's about it. I couldn't really decide which games I wanted, it came down to Little Big Planet, Dead Nation and InFamous. Since my brother was getting InFamous and I figured I could play over at his house I decided to go with Dead Nation, and quite frankly I'm glad that I did.

I've always enjoyed top down shooters since probably I first played Smash TV on SNES. I think they're a very under-appreciated genre. When done well I think they're a really good, brainless time. And that's exactly what Dead Nation is. It's not going to win awards for writing but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy pretty much every minute I played of it.

One of my major complaints about zombie games is that there are not enough zombies. With Dead Nation there was no problem on that front. When you first start playing there's a lot of zombies, somewhere around level three you get more zombies then you can handle. Making it this frantic, fun filled race to the checkpoint. Much like Left 4 Dead (which this game borrows quiet a bit from) you get a variety of different zombies including the fat zombies, the fast zombies, the jumping zombies, the hulking zombies and your run of the mill zombies. There's a LOT of zombies. Everywhere. You will spend every single level running from zombies, trying to get the horde off of you and trying to make it to the end of the level alive. It's just a damn good time.

Dead Nation is $15, has a ton of replayability, is fairly long (I would say probably a good 10+ hours), and overall is just really, really fun. If you have PS3 and didn't pick this up as your "we're sorry!" game I highly suggest you buy it.

Squid.