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Lost Planet 2 Review









The other obvious change from the first title is that the setting is much more varied. Instead of just endless snow-covered areas, players will actually mix it up by visiting tropical locales on the planet as well. The issue with this is that while many of the rain forest areas look spectacular in HD, the various trees and vines will block your camera, making it very difficult to see at times. It may some like a small problem, but the fact that it happens throughout many of the levels cause it to be a significantly larger issue than it seems to be on the surface.


The other big problem with the tropical areas is that they don't play much different than the frozen tundra areas. The player is still encouraged to gather thermal energy, even though this would've been a great way for Capcom to have abandoned this aspect of gameplay, and the players move just as poorly on solid ground as they do in snow.



Perhaps the best way to describe the gameplay of Lost Planet 2 is "tired". The gameplay hasn't changed incredibly much from the first entry in the series, which may please die-hard fans, but it will likely frustrate those that were hoping Capcom learned from a few of the design mistakes in the first title. The characters usually move slowly and in a very clunky manner, which is very frustrating when fighting pirates or taking on giant Akrid.


Graphically speaking, the game is very pretty. The snow levels look just as great as they did in the first title and the rain forest levels are refreshing and exotic looking. The biggest issue with presentation lies within the cutscenes. Capcom tries hard to capture the epic cinematic feel that titles like Modern Warfare 2 and Gears of War 2 have so effectively brought into the shooter genre, but more times than not, Lost Planet 2 falls flat in this regard.



Lost Planet 2 is not a terrible game, but rather a game that should have been better. The set-up is somewhat frustrating from the start, but with some better in-game design choices Capcom could have put out one of the better games of the year. The epic boss battles, 15 - 20 hour long campaign and online co-op can be outstanding fun if you can get a good group of people to play through with. Lost Planet 2 will likely go down in the annals of gaming history as a cult-classic that could have had massive universal appeal with just a few small tweaks.

Iron Man 2 Review











Speaking of the missions, Sega did a great job restructuring them so that they are now linear, but many of them still feel very bland and unimportant. This wouldn't be as huge an issue if the game were longer, but as it is, the game is only 8 missions long, which only amounts to about 3 - 4 hours, which is completely unacceptable for a full-priced game. There's not even any cooperative modes to occupy more time, which is weird since the game seems built around Iron Man and War Machine cooperating through a majority of most of the missions.


While the gameplay makes those 8 short missions fun overall, Iron Man 2 suffers, just as the first one did, from bland missions. This is even further amplified by the fact that the enemies are incredibly repetitive. There are only so many helicopters that can be taken down, and while the amount of helicopters have been toned down from the first game, Iron Man 2 would benefit a substantial amount from having just a few more types of enemies.


One thing that has been hyped a lot about this game is the boss battles. On the back of the box, the game claims you can fight enemies that are several stories tall. While this is true for the final boss battle, which isn't so much a fight as it is a level itself, that really is misleading. The boss battles are fun, but nothing special.



The best non-gameplay element present in Iron Man 2 is definitely the customization options. They are fairly deep and do offer noticeable difference, but they are not without issues. The user interface is not the most friendly, as it tries to hard to emulate Tony Stark's 3D computer interface from the movies, but after some getting used to, things start to feel more natural. The biggest issue is concerning how confusing the actual customization really is. You receive research points for how well you complete each mission (i.e. enemies downed, damage avoided, etc.), which can be used to upgrade the Iron Man and War Machine costumes. The idea is fantastic and plays into Tony Stark's inventor background, but sometimes implementing the actual inventions can be quite problematic if you do not know exactly how to go about doing it. It's a small issue, yes, but with just a small amount of tweaking, this feature could have given much more life to this already short game.


The feature that most people are concerned about is, without a doubt, the storyline. If you are among the people waiting to see the movie before playing this game to avoid spoiling anything, rest assured that aside from the character likenesses, Iron Man 2 the game and Iron Man 2 the movie have nothing in common. They don't share the same story, they don't share the same themes, they don't even share the same villain, meaning Mickey Rourke does not make an appearance. While this may turn some off to the title, it can be easily spun to be a positive, as the included storyline is strong in it's own right and it adds more to the Iron Man mythology, which is always good.



Is Iron Man 2 a Game of the Year contender? Not at all. Is it worth the $60 MSRP price? Hardly. Is it a solid movie title that is worth a rental for fans of the movie? Absolutely. The game makes improvements upon it's predecessor and adds a nice little storyline to boot, but with such a short story mode, the replayability is really non-existent unless you want to go achievement hunting or unlock all of the little bonuses, such as alternate Iron Man costumes. With Sega slowly getting better at developing Iron Man titles, perhaps they'll eventually be given liberty to create an open-world title featuring the superhero which will finally push the series over the top.

Nier Review



















With Nier, it really is all about the story, which is what the title does incredibly well. The story is intricate and full of details that cannot possibly be fully comprehended in the duration of one play through, which is why if you really like the game, it might benefit you to play it a couple of times. The voice acting, along with the fairly well-done cutscenes is the main reason the average player would want to keep playing this game.


All in all, Nier has a great and unique story to tell, but the manner in which the player must experience it is very flawed. The gameplay is bland and the graphics are pretty poor. When stacked up against games that have similar gameplay mechanics, Nier just doesn't stand a chance in a side by side comparison. Perhaps if Nier were to refine it's gameplay slightly and give the game a new coat of paint, the game would be a contender, but until that happens, Nier is a forgettable action RPG that will leave gamers wishing they were playing a more polished title.

Final Fantasy XIII Review











The primary thing that many fans come to Final Fantasy for is the battle system. Luckily, the battle system in Final Fantasy XIII is one of the game's strong points. While the real-time battle strategy might make fans of Final Fantasy X cringe, a fair amount of strategy is involved. The system will pit three characters on your side against anywhere from one to six enemies. The battle system has the player controlling only one of the characters (whomever the team leader is at the time) while the other characters are controlled by the AI. While this may sound like a monotonous recipe for disaster, Square Enix actually does quite a good job implementing the system into the game. The strategy really comes into play when the paradigms are introduced. Paradigms essentially shift each characters' class with a couple button presses. This is particularly helpful during long boss battles as it allows characters to buff, debuff and heal, then in about three seconds, switch to an all-out offensive paradigm.


Summoning is also a part of the battle system, but it really feels as though it has taken a seat on the back-burner for this game. The characters are able to summon Eidolons, which are able to fight beside the team leader who summons it. In order to gain an Eidolon, however, each character must "defeat" it in a battle. While you don't have to drain the beasts of their HP, you will have to get a high chain of attacks working in order for the Eidolon to "yield" to you. Once defeated, the beasts join the team and are able to be summoned for a small sum of TP. Only the team leader can summon Eidolons, which can be frustrating if you want to summon a certain one, but don't like playing as that character. The Eidolons don't deal nearly as much damage as they have in the past it seems, until they go into gestalt mode, where they transform into vehicles of some sort. Once in gestalt mode, the Eidolons really have a chance to bring the damage to the enemies, but their appearances in battle are usually very short lived and underwhelming.


While Final Fantasy XIII is ambitious, it falls a bit short of expectations set forth by the Final Fantasy faithfuls. For one, the linearity of the game just kills any notion that Final Fantasy is based in an open-world environment. While Some direction is good, Final Fantasy XIII takes any choice that the player might have in the first 25 hours and just completely destroys it. You literally are on a rail for the first two discs, which will turn many series and genre fans off. Another problem with linearity exists with the characters development engine, the Crystarium. The player may develop each of the six characters along six different roles using the CP experience points they obtain through participating in battles. The problem with the system is that there is little deviation in each of the paths, leaving the only real choice to be made in developing each character in which role to develop first.



There is one big issue with the battle system, however. Players are able to select "Auto-Battle" or some variation of that depending on the role, which is not only the most efficient way to do battle, but also the most uninvolved. It's simply amazing how many encounters simply turn into pushing the "A" button quickly instead of actually selecting which attacks to do. The game really feels more like an RPG simulator in that regard. When the battles are slightly one-sided in favor of the player's team, the battle system in place in Final Fantasy XIII is not only very uninvolved, but very ineffective. The battle system is much more strategy-focused rather than battle-focused and at times it feels more like a management exercise than an actual RPG battle.


As far as graphics go, Final Fantasy XIII is a very welcome change from many of the first-person and third-person shooters that insist on using a color palette that consists of brown, black, gray and yellow. This game exhibits some of the most beautiful scenery ever witnessed in any game's setting. While some of the game is fought from inside the mythical metropolis of Cocoon, once the player gets out and experiences Pulse, there is no denying the gorgeous nature of the game. The cutscenes are also something to be marveled at. If you have a nice TV with HDMI hookup, you are in for a treat when the scenes involving fireworks come up every so often. The colors are unlike any other game and the vibrancy will catch you off-guard if you've been playing a lot of Gears of War, Halo and Modern Warfare.



One thing that Final Fantasy has always been known for is the deep storylines. While this game doesn't quite have the story depth of Final Fantasy VII or X, the story is compelling enough to hold your attention until the end. The characters are interesting and varied enough that you'll care what happens to most of them. The only real problem with the characters themselves is that they just don't feel developed quite enough to make them feel alive. Sure, much of the team has plenty of background revealed, but other members just have an uninteresting and unintentional shroud of mystery surrounding them.


One other thing that tends to plague the characters is the sudden awkward moments of dialogue that have the ability to bring the otherwise great scene to a screeching halt. Some of the lines spewed by these characters can be so cheesy and melodramatic that you might think you're watching a children's show or a soap opera. Some are just flat out embarrassing, particularly some that seem to aim to teach the player a moral lesson out of nowhere. The dialogue can seem forced at times, but overall it is about on par with what players have come to expect from Final Fantasy titles. One thing is obvious, however: the voice acting is miles better than any previous voiced Final Fantasy game.



The mythology of this Final Fantasy game is about what fans usually get with titles in the series, but something just doesn't seem to click at times. Perhaps it's due to the mythology being so deep without any real explanation at first. Figuring out the origins of certain terms and the motivations of certain antagonists can prove very tricky at times.


One frustrating thing that occurs with this game is a constant change in difficulty. Some fights will have the player ready to throw their controller out the window, while other subsequent battles will see the characters breezing through without breaking a sweat. This inevitably leads to the ugly concept of "grinding", where players will stay in a certain area and face enemies with the intent of raising their characters' attributes. While this might not seem like a problem, many players will become bored with fighting the same group of enemies over and over again if they get stuck on a certain part.


Also, as the players progress through the story, they will notice that many of the enemies throughout the world are just re-skinned versions of previously faced enemies. This can add to the monotony of the game at times, but the story explains it well enough. There are some instances where it just feels like a cheap recycling of the same enemy designs.


Speaking of enemies, throughout the game, you will face some of the most daunting boss fights ever seen. Some of the bosses have the odds stacked so heavily in their favor that you might think you'll never win. This can create an incredible sense of epic victory once the intimidation factor wears down and the battle gets really going.



While Final Fantasy XIII may irritate some with it's sharp difficulty curve at times and it's linearity, there is absolutely no denying that this game is an incredible value, even at $60. The title can easily last you 100 hours if you take your time and do a few side quests, but at the very least you'll be spending about 50 - 60 hours with a normal play through. There is much to do in the world of Pulse, so don't think that the story's conclusion means you're done with the game.


Final Fantasy XIII had the potential to be one of the greatest games of this generation, but a few glaring issues caused it to fall just short. The battle system's idle feeling in less important battles and the weak dialog is easily made up for by the longevity the title carries across it's three discs, but the linearity will definitely turn several people away. If Final Fantasy XIII was as good from the start as it was from 25 hours in, the game would have a much greater appeal and would receive a much better rating. Instead, the game's early stalling cost it valuable points and really thwarted an otherwise spectacular and immersible experience.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Review












Conviction follows a scorned Sam Fisher, who is out for blood against Third Echelon, the company he gave everything for until they betrayed him. Those who played the previous Splinter Cell games might want to take the catchphrase of this game, "The Sam Fisher you know is dead", and apply it to the game mechanics of Splinter Cell: Conviction. While the game is still incredibly based in stealth, this time around, Sam Fisher is more well-equipped to survive a firefight than ever before.


The most spectacular upgrade that Fisher has now is his Mark and Execute ability, where he can identify enemies and targets around him (by using the right bumper) and execute them instantly. While this may seem like a cheap, instant win feature, Ubisoft places it into the game with the idea that each execution must be earned. To earn these execution moves, Sam must defeat at least one enemy in hand to hand combat, which means stealth comes into the forefront. After sneaking up behind one member of the opposition, the player must decide if they want to simply destroy another 2 - 4 enemies instantly using the flashy executions, or if they want to save it in case some more formidable opponents come along. It really adds a great mechanic to the title. The best thing, perhaps, about the Mark and Execute ability is the fact that is really makes the player feel as though they are controlling a trained killer, which is what Sam Fisher is. While the previous entries in the series tried to convey this feeling, this is the first time that they have really succeeded 100%.


While discussing gameplay, one thing that cannot be ignored in terms of issues, is the fact that the "A" button feels like it does way to much at times. Countless times during the campaign, the player will accidentally pick up an unsilenced weapon instead of jumping across a desk or up onto a ledge. It's not a huge issue that presents itself too often, but it can be very frustrating and disruptive to the flow of the mission to have to go back and try to find the silenced weapon that Sam dropped.



One of the absolute coolest new features in Conviction has to be the cover mechanic that leaves the screen in black and white when Sam Fisher is covered by darkness. The entire screen goes black and white, except for the enemies and possible traps in the environment that Fisher can use to his advantage. This give the player an even greater feel at being Sam Fisher, the hunter. Also incorporated into this is the "Last Known Position" mechanic that appears when Fisher breaks the line of sight from his pursuers. A white outline of Fisher will appear where his enemies think he is, which gives the player an indication that it's time to flank the opposition and take the upper hand.


The cover mechanics can prove a tad troublesome at times. The camera can be a little finicky when taking refuge in the corner, this is particularly obvious when Sam is in the dark. Another issue can present itself when Sam is in cover and is targeting an individual. If the angle is too severe (which there is no indicator for), Sam will have to stand up before he attempts to shoot at the target, causing the aim to shift dramatically and cause the shot to miss. Other than these few issues, Splinter Cell: Conviction has the best cover system ever seen in a stealth game.


For those that are looking for Splinter Cell: Conviction to deliver one of the most graphically spectacular experiences of this generation, you will be disappointed. The game looks good enough, but when compared to recent titles like Mass Effect 2, Battlefield: Band Company 2, and Assassin's Creed II, the game definitely is a few steps behind. Some of the player models look a bit awkward, particularly in the face. Also, when Sam goes to perform executions as a part of the Mark and Execute ability, he will sometimes shoot through walls to kill the targets. Some of the effects of Sam Fisher's gadgets, however, look brilliant. The EMP looks great when it goes off and his goggles create a really cool effect that allows you to see clearly through walls as long as you stand still.



The presentation of the game is on par with other titles on the market, however. The game has one of the most cinematic feelings of any game released to date. The fact that your mission objectives, as well as key flashbacks from previous Splinter Cell games project up on the environment make the whole experience flow a little better and feel a bit more epic. Another key component to the cinematic feel of Splinter Cell: Conviction is the interrogations. While the interrogations are little more than interactive cutscenes, they are fun and give the player a true bad-ass and satisfying feeling in squeezing the information out of the target.


One of the main gripes up to this point by many critics has been the fact that the campaign lasts only around 5 hours. From experience, the title generally lasts closer to 7 hours, and while that is still very short, the campaign mode's replayability is on the high side. Replaying the missions with a slight knowledge of where the best hiding spots are and where the enemies are congregated in each level gives you a true feeling of what it's like to control a super-agent like Sam Fisher. This feeling of premonition really completes the experience and allows you to perform more satisfying "paths" to stealthily take out the enemies one by one.


Not a fan of going back through a campaign you already completed? There are plenty of things on the side that will definitely extend the life of Conviction well beyond the campaign's short shelf life. The Deniable Ops mode is a great way to practice your stealth moves by yourself or with a friend in four different game modes: Hunter, where you must clear a room of enemies as efficiently as possible, Last Stand, where you defend a position against waves of enemies, Infiltration, where you have to reach an objective against a group of enemies that may or may not know you're coming, and Face-Off, a great mode that has two user-controlled spies fighting off waves of enemies. If all of those modes leave you wanting more multiplayer goodness, there is a completely separate Co-Op campaign that is a blast to play through as well. The fact that the Co-Op campaign is different from the main story gets Conviction major points. All of this adds to why Conviction is definitely worth a second look after many dismissed it as a "rental" due to a short story mode. As if that's not enough, however, Ubisoft has announced that they will be added several items as DLC in coming months, which will definitely breathe life into the game, even if you get sick of it.



Splinter Cell: Conviction is by far one of the most entertaining titles for the Xbox 360 so far in 2010. While the game does have its shortcomings, they are all vastly overshadowed by the games cinematic presentation and just overall great feel. This is the first time that players can truly feel what its like to control Sam Fisher, the trained killer, the hunter, and the master of stealth. With Ubisoft providing you with all of the right tools, even someone who has never played Splinter Cell can jump right in and by the end of the campaign, feel as though they've mastered the gameplay mechanics. For those that do want a slightly more traditional Splinter Cell title, however, they may want to look elsewhere.


If you were among the many that wrote Splinter Cell: Conviction off just because of the fact that it has a shortened campaign, it may be time to reconsider that notion. The game is deceptively loaded with content and with the promise of DLC in the future, Splinter Cell: Conviction might be grabbing some space in your Xbox 360's tray more than you might think. With so many great deals going on for this game, if you are even remotely interested in the title, you'd be foolish not to check it out.