Review #6 Mass Effect 3 (PC)

Welcome to my review of Mass Effect 3 Just like the last 2 games in the series this game is developed by Bioware in Edmonton, Alberta and Published by the monolithic company EA Games. The game was released on March 6, 2012 in North America. Bioware has caused a few controversial topics to arise since Mass Effect 2 regarding their more recent games Dragon Age 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I won't get into those details here but Google can help you find the answer if you don't already know.

 The best way to describe Mass Effect 3 is to put it in the Third Person Shooter/ Roleplaying Game Genre along with its predecessors. Who's reviews you can find on my blog as well.



Story:
The story takes place only a few months after the second game the final story begins on Earth, with Commander Shepard on trial for the consequences of his/her actions in the Mass Effect 2 DLC Arrival (if you haven't played Arrival you might be somewhat lost) During the trial, Earth is attacked by Reapers. Faced with insurmountable odds, Shepard is forced to escape the planet. Shepard leaves a dying Earth to set on his largest task yet: to gather support from alien civilizations and mount a counter-attack.

The story provided many different emotions throughout, some good times and sad times and while some questions were answered Bioware missed a large portion of questions and by the end of the game forced their fans to eat the dirt from a rushed ending.

Mass Effect 3 story score: 3.2/5

Gameplay:
Mass Effect 3 improves upon most aspects of the Mass Effect 2 style of gameplay. The dialogue wheel is still present but it feels alot more empty. Velcro wall combat is still present and the RPG leveling system is still in place.

The new gameplay mechanics introduces a Galaxy at War system, you collect war assets from various missions to improve your chance at defeating the Reaper forces in the forms of fleets, armies and various other objects of interest. Another new feature is multiplayer co-op, with various classes to choose from with many different races (besides Humans finally) and can level up and get new and better weapons and upgrades through reinforcement packs as you play along. Multiplayer features a handful of maps and indirectly effects singleplayer through galactic readiness increase if you do well enough. There are 3 difficulties (bronze,silver,gold) and 3 different enemy groups (Cerberus, Geth and Reaper forces.) Each game you play 11 rounds on a map with 3 other people and complete various objectives and clear out the enemies the better you do the more you're rewarded. Multiplayer is plenty fun but suffers from not having dedicated servers leaving you to deal with client based hosts that don't always have the best connections.

Character customization returns again, you can import your save from Mass Effect 2 which will retain a basic custom face and the name of your character. You can tweak the face to your taste as always and choose a different class as well.

The combat system is mostly the same however moving from cover to cover is alot easier and you can now navigate corners on walls which is a vast improvement. However in multiplayer there is an issue where if I go to revive a teammate its the same button as use and sprint (default space bar on PC) this creates the problem where if I go to revive a teammate I may end up taking cover instead which is very irritating.


The roleplaying element is made larger again with many more weapon choices, upgrades and attachments reminiscent of Mass Effect 1 no omni-tool upgrades still. The power trees are bigger again and have 2 diverging paths that give you various special effects on each power. With all these upgrades they still retained the better part of Mass Effects gameplay and Mass Effect 2's combat parts.

The transportation allows you to again control your destination with the Normandy, you can interface with the galaxy map and steer your ship to different sectors, planets and jump to many different systems the new challenge is the scanning and probing tweak, in some systems as indicated on the map there will be reapers, instead of scanning all along planets you utilize a ping scan around your ship on the map and may detect things of interest on various planets or in a section of empty space which then allows you to scan the planet for a singular object and launch a probe to acquire it. The danger here is when you ping scan you alert the Reapers to your presence and if you do that to much they appear from the edges and hunt you down which means its time to run away. These scan improvements makes things alot less tedious and gives you more time to enjoy the actual game.
Many characters , old and new make appearances and promise to deliver many interesting plot points to the game. Though Bioware left a few out with barely a word about them.

Mass Effect 3 Gameplay Score: 4.6/5

Graphics:
A step up from Mass Effect 2 in most aspects however quality is lost between console to PC ports as per usual. There are some beautiful backgrounds and environments, powers look great it still has alot of recycled and reused objects like Mass Effect 2. My only real concern is the blatant use of stock photographs, while this isn't a problem in most cases a key character was reduced to a stock photo  after the allure of so many fans wanting to see her face she gives you a photograph in your quarters which is just a photoshopped stock photo.

Mass effect 3 Graphics Score: 4.1/5


Mass Effect 3 Sound and Music :

Jack Wall....oh wait, Jack Wall has little to do with the music in Mass Effect 3. What I mean to say is the various music artists that contributed to Mass Effect 3 create a compelling soundtrack. They hit the right emotions at the right times. The voice actors managed to play their parts but neither female Shepard nor male Shepard improved by any right and some dialogue forced emotions I don't think the voice actors have ever actually experience in their lives. Most supporting characters did a excellent job though. The sound effects upped the ante again and provided a crisp audio experience (we have Dice to thank for this.) Environments sounded great as well.

Mass Effect 3 Sound and Music score : 4.8/5


Overall: The series comes to a close on a very even ground, while the story is mostly back on track since Mass Effect 2 Mac Walters ignored key ideas left behind by the previous writer Drew Karpyshyn and the end felt unsatisfactory and it seems like EA wanted to rush the game out of the doors.

Total: 16.7/20
Average: 4.17/5

Image sources:
http://images.wikia.com/masseffect/images/c/cc/Mass_Effect_3_Box_Art.png
http://files.g4tv.com/rimg_606x0/ImageDb3/269070_l/mass-effect-3-screenshots.jpg
http://oyster.ignimgs.com/mediawiki/wiki-api.ign.com/mass-effect-3/thumb/e/e2/Mass_Effect_3_-_Weapon_Customization_2.png/450px-Mass_Effect_3_-_Weapon_Customization_2.png
http://sticktwiddlers.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/me3mpspacescreen.png

Review #5 TERA Online- First impressions Closed beta 1

Welcome to my review of TERA The Exiled Realm of Arborea. Developed by Bluehole studios and published by En Masse Entertainment in North America, Frogster in Europe and Hangame in South Korea. This game is a MMORPG with third person shooter style combat elements. This game is controversial in the fact that Bluehole studios is comprised of ex employees of NC Soft and are under accusation to the point of lawsuits against Bluehole because they stole intellectual property for the Lineage 3 engine. Being a fan of some of NC Soft's games I'm still skeptical that the entire truth about all this is out. Nevertheless, TERA reaches PC North America May 1^st and Europe on May 3^rd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPgM3j1eZzk

Story:

I will use the official website source as not everything is clear from a beta test.

“About a millennia ago two omnipotent titans Arun and Shara entered into formless voids and for reasons we can only guess, fell asleep. The titans started to dream. Dream of a world that took form on their backs known as Tera. The first beings to call Tera home were twelve godlike beings dreamt up by the titans, but it wasn’t long before the gods started fighting. As the dream continued new creatures took place called mortals, they were less powerful but far more numerous. Arun dreamed of ambitious Elves, clever Humans, honour bound Amani, powerful Giants, scheming Devas, and mischievous Poporis. Shara dreamed of sly Sikandari, dark Gulas and Vampirs, fierce Wendigos, strange Faeries, and serpentine Nagas. The mortals were forced into the divine wars of the gods, which eventually left the gods dead, imprisoned, or otherwise diminished. The mortal races didn’t escape unscathed. Some—like the Sikandari, and most of the Giants—were wiped out but others rose from the wars such as the Barakas and Castanics. Now that the gods were gone the seven races; Amani, Barakas, Castanics, Elin, High Elves, Humans, and Poporis must band together to fend off a new enemy. A metallic race from the underworld called Argons; their goal is to take over Tera and wake the titans to end their dreams and destroy Tera.”

Basically the usual, gods make mortals, bad guys threaten the world. Go save the world. The story itself is very RPG cliche and forgettable.

Tera story score: 2.5/5

Gameplay:

When you first make your character you get some nice customization options and with a fairly large race roster you can make a busty babe, a little girl, a big mountain man or a fuzzy little cat. I myself made a Popori warrior, a fat little cat named Tartarus.

Like conventional MMO's you must fight your way through various but repetitive quests and level up to take on harder various but repetitive quests. This is not required however as you can just kill things endlessly for the same results but then you miss out on the story.

Combat shines through however, instead of selecting an enemy and watching your character beat it to death (I call this the Runescape virus.) You get the chance to aim your attacks with crosshairs which can lead to the chance you might miss an enemy in a fight not based on chance. The combat cuts out alot of the random variables you've come to expect from many MMO's such as World of Warcraft or The Old Republic or Aion. This adds more of a competitive nature to the game and stresses that Player vs Player combat is king.

Tera Gameplay score: 4.2/5

Graphics:

Graphics in TERA range from brutal to beautiful depending on how much your computer can handle. Many different environments to explore, beautiful cities, cool looking enemies and interesting character designs. Though the armour and weapon variations are very limited.

Rumour has it that in the next closed beta they will release the improved graphics update which is said to be an extra 6 gigabytes of higher resolution textures.

Tera Graphics score: 4.7/5

Sound and music:

The music in Tera has a wide variety of interesting tunes for different areas and dungeons and cities which adds to the environment of the game and are very well composed.

The sounds are pretty clean, nothing stands out as very excellent but its not as important when a mass of players and monsters are fighting and it becomes jumbled anyways. The voices aren't very pleasing, the range is too small and the male and female voices are the same on all races which is disturbing to hear a little whiny voice on a huge Baraka or a very sultry womanly voice on a tiny Elin.

Tera sound and music score: 4.2/5

Overall: This is just the first closed beta, we were limited to level 22 as the cap, not being able to do any arena or battleground PvP and it utilized an older version of the game engine than the Korean one, many improvements and changes are to come to this promising game.

Total:

15.6/20

Average:

3.9/5

Image sources:

http://rpg-exploiters.com/wp-content/uploads/TeraOnline-combat.jpg

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i22/cali1111/TERA_ScreenShot_20120210_212616.png (my own screenshot)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Tera_online_box_artwork.png

Review #4 Mass Effect 1 and 2

Welcome to my review of Mass Effect 1 and 2. In the spirit of 3 coming out I decided to make my review of this franchise. This game is developed in the province next to me; by Bioware in Edmonton, Alberta (that's in Canada guys.) Published by the monolithic company EA Games.

Mass Effect came out in November 20th, 2007 and then came Mass Effect 2 on January 26th, 2010

The best way to describe these games is to put it in the Third Person Shooter/ Roleplaying Game Genre. I will review both games separately in this review as I did with my .hack review as they experience major changes between the two games. I played both of these games on the PC but Mass Effect is available on the Xbox 360 and Mass Effect 2 is available on both platforms and the Playstation 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yqJuJTIus7U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Y2O-0-fQOOs

Story:

Mass Effect-

Humanity reached a new apex of technology 35 years earlier allowing instantaneous travel to new systems in the galaxy utilizing “mass relays.” The Human Systems Alliance is a rising power in the galactic stage. The only war they have participated in was the "First Contact War" in 2157. A human exploration expedition was activating dormant mass relays which was disallowed by the Council races as it would cause unknown complications and danger opening new relays. A race known as the Turians attacked the small fleet and proceeded to capture the closest human world, Shanxi which caused backlash. I would go on but you can learn much history by actually playing the game or going on the wiki. However the main plot goes as follows; In 2183, the experimental SSV Normandy is sent to the human colony of Eden Prime to recover an unearthed Prothean beacon. To assist, the Citadel Council, the galaxy's primary governing body, sent one of their top agents, Nihlus, a Turian Spectre. He has also been assigned to observe you, a veteran soldier known as Lieutenant Commander Shepard, who is a candidate for Spectre membership. Spectres (agents of the "Special Tactics and Reconnaissance" office) are above the law and work directly for the Council. No human has ever received the title, and the human Systems Alliance, hope that by achieving the title, humanity will receive increased stature in the galactic community. However things get very complicated and more dangerous than anticipated and a new threat arises; “The Geth” it is up to you and some new friends you meet along the way to go on a dangerous journey of discovery, action and danger.

Mass Effect story score: 4.1/5

Mass Effect 2-

Mass Effect 2 begins only a short time after the original ended . While patrolling for remainders of the Geth, the Normandy is attacked by an unknown starship, and many crew members die. The remainder of the crew is then forced to evacuate. During the evacuation, Shepard tosses Joker into the Normandy's final escape pod before being blasted into space. After a suit breach, Shepard dies of asphyxiation and his body is pulled into the orbit of a nearby planet. With the help of former squad mate Liara T'Soni, Shepard's body is retrieved by a human supremacist organization called Cerberus and they spend two years resurrecting him/her. Once revived, Shepard awakes aboard a besieged station, where he/she helps Cerberus agents escape. Immediately after, Shepard is given an audience with the Illusive Man, head of Cerberus. He tells Shepard that a new problem has arose, entire human colonies have started disappearing off of worlds and it is you job to discover the truth. With new allies (and some old ones) Shepard sets off on another galactic journey that pushes him to his very limits.

Mass Effect 2 story score: 4.2/5

Both these plots have plenty of novel twists and turns for you, many choices you make will have an impact on the outcome of each game.

Gameplay:

Male or female, you can give Shepard a nice face or an ugly mug

Mass Effect-

 Like most role playing games you get to design the face of Commander Shepard to your own specifications. You also choose a class for him, each class using different powers and specialties in and out of combat.

This Game's engine has many aspects to it. For story and plot you get a dialogue wheel. A more streamline form of a choose your actions and words type RPG style. Your respective choices will have a positive or negative or even a neutral impact on the plot.

The game uses a what I like to call the “velcro wall” cover system where you stick against whatever wall you are up against for cover so you can peek and shoot. While not that bad of a cover system it is finicky sometimes especially with corners that you get stuck taking cover on the wrong part.Combat is real time but can be paused to issue orders to your squad including but not limited to use of powers and weapon changes.

Furthering the Roleplaying Element, Shepard and his squadmates level up. You can assign points to the powers of the class you picked to customize to increase the power, speed or add new effects to your abilities. Another aspect is you can change the weapons, armor and tools of you and your squad as well as add special upgrades ; all that can be found throughout shops or even in the environment of the game.

There are two modes of travel in Mass Effect. One is your ship the SSV Normandy that allows you to travel systems to various worlds and other exotic places through use of the Mass Relays to jump. There are many worlds that you can land on with your trusty transportation vehicle an all-terrain armored personnel carrier called the M35 Mako coming armed with a machine gun and a rocket launcher. You can roam and explore planets and discover many interesting things including side missions. However sometimes planet roam can be tedious and downright even boring.

Nice Scenery

The vast amount of characters are very well done, many exciting alien races to talk to and learn their stories from.

Mass Effect Gameplay Score: 4.4/5

Mass Effect 2-

The gameplay of Mass Effect 2 is vastly changed; while it still utilizes the dialogue wheel, velcro wall combat and leveling, a few things became severely limited.

Character customization is back, you can import your save from Mass Effect which will retain a basic custom and the name of your character. You can tweak the face once again and choose a different class as well.

The combat system is the same even including the finicky corner cover issue I had.

The roleplaying element is severely downgraded due to confusion from people less fortunate with their genetic disposition to having a low brain capacity. The weapon/armor customization virtually gone,absolutely no omni-tool customization. The power upgrades crushed down to a smaller tree size. This turned focus on Mass Effect 2 being alot more story/ combat oriented which isn't a bad thing by any right but it is disappointing to severely limit choice.

The transportation allows you to once again control your destination with the Normandy, you can interface with the galaxy map and steer your ship to different sectors, planets and jump to many different systems. Planet exploration is mostly cut from Mass Effect 2 because of the Tedium from Mako roaming, however this gets replaced by an equal, if not more tedious and boring mini game where you scan planets for minerals and some distress beacons. You will be making alot more runs back to refueling stations for more probes and more fuel for the ship than you want to. Some DLC reintroduces a smaller scale planet exploration with some other neat little things but still doesn't compare.

THIS IS NOT FUN,BIOWARE.

More characters, old and new make appearances and promise to deliver many interesting plot points to the game.

Band of badasses

Mass Effect 2 Gameplay Score: 3.9/5

Graphics:

Mass Effect-

Nowhere on the general level of a game like Far Cry 2 or the Witcher 2 but still has very beautiful design for different environments and characters. It's clean enough to pick out enemies from the background and the biotic powers have some neat effects. This complements the type of game well enough for what it is.

Mass Effect graphics score: 4.0/5

Mass Effect 2-

 A step up from Mass effect, but not a major one. The levels are fairly nice looking in the background but I noticed a distinct lack of object variation on cover and other things after a while. Biotics are still pretty and has some other nice effects. My only problem is that some objects were harder to discern from a distance in Mass Effect 2.

Im gunna shoot that guy..then maybe that guy

Mass Effect 2 graphics score: 4.0/5

Sound and Music:

Mass Effect-

Jack Wall put out some brilliant musical pieces that fit with the mood of any given situation, the use of some electronic elements with symphony was outstanding. The voice actors did a great job for the most part (the most disappointment actually came from Shepard, especially the female version who sometimes didn't display proper recognition of the emotions required.) The sound effects we're fairly standard but still sounded nice and powers sounded..well, powerful. The environments had great ambience to them.

Mass Effect Sound and Music score : 4.2/5

Mass Effect 2-

Jack Wall returns with powerful symphonies. The urgency of the mission was felt at many twists and turns, the emotional parts conveyed well through music. The voice actors returned with generally positive results, however female Shepard still struggled and some romance dialogue sounded forced and sometimes downright corny. The sound effects made a more distinct return sounding more memorable. Environments kicked it up a notch and gave off all the right feelings.

Mass Effect 2 Sound and Music score : 4.6/5

Overall: These games have been a great experience for me, a thrilling story that kept you interested, very well put together graphics and sound gave off the right ambience. Mass Effect 3 will be the final installment in the trilogy as far as we know. It will be sad to see this go but I hope it ends brilliantly and conclusively . I will review Mass Effect 3 in due time and look forward to playing it.

Total

Mass Effect: 16.7/20

Mass Effect 2: 16.7/20

Average:

Mass Effect: 4.17/5

Mass Effect 2 : 4.17/5

...imagine that. Same overalls.

Image sources:

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/561/235562-mass_effect_large.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/masseffect/images/7/77/FinalboxartME2.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUpDBg_51Zpta7G9qjyHx8kyXjAGtfq1655_mUxDMMCl4w-iDofF4wzEVpFf5eFgVR0YqdWw30sYElsFA7GOuNm3rak7L_5P7tK6z6hQMykZZybTrQg6BjQJ6F1VRHkBJFdG_trbEJFzs/s1600/ME3+007.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3584/3451972465_a925bc5eab.jpg

http://www.gamerzines.com/guides/files/2010/01/MassEffect2-2010-01-28-13-47-12-32.jpg

http://images.wikia.com/masseffect/images/4/41/ME2_Combat_HUD_smaller.png

http://www.gameseyeview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/shadow_broker-01-p1-640x250.jpg

An intermission,

Instead of posting a game review I would like to review Sony's -The Tester webshow.

Overall: Drama and no games.

Total: 0/20

Average 0/5

Review #3 League of Legends (pc)

Welcome to my review of the hit online game "League of Legends." League of Legends (LoL for short) is a game developed and published by Riot Games on PC. Riot Games is an indie developer founded and 2006 and so far they are doing a great job getting thier face out in the world of PC gaming.

League of Legends is a free game under the newly dubbed MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) genre and is free to play but has a market allowing you to spend cash to buy various things but will not have a detrimental effect on balance (aka the" pay 2 win" markets some games have.)

Now for the review.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzMnCv_lPxI

Story:

The story begins with a world known as Runeterra. This world was constantly engulfed in the chaos of war. Tribes formed from the various denziens and various disagreements would cause problems between the tribes. Magic was main tool of warfare, armies rose and fell from magical might. Champions would make the most of magical weapons and artifacts that were forged and could change the tide of battles and finally summoners, the defacto leaders would unleash terrible powers with no regard for lives or land. The largest of these battles took place on the continent of Valoran

Over the course of time, however, Runeterra began to show its scars. The landscape was altered and violent natural disasters ravaged Valoran. So in response the summoners and various key figures decided that they needed a more controlled method to resolve conflict, thus the League of Legends was born. With systematic skirmishes, summoners were able to resolve conflict with relitively no damage to the world. They began to pluck champions one after another from various worlds, times and dimensions in order to have many fighters to control.

This is only the basics however, each champion has thier own backstory and various reasons to participate, some are doing service for crimes, some just want to experience the constant bloodlust of battle and some have deeper reasonings to step into those brutal battlefields.

LoL Story score: 4.4/5

Gameplay:

League of Legends has a very basic control scheme, if you have ever played DOTA on warcraft 3 or any other similar game. Your champion has access to 5 skills, one is an inherit passive that you get at the beginning differentiating between champions. The other 4 skills you have to “level up” by putting points into as your champion levels and grows in strength. Each skill has a designated button in the top row “ Q-W-E-R” with the first 3 being basic skills and the “R” skill being an ultimate ability.

There are 2 types of battle arenas, the first is “Summoners Rift” which is a 5 versus 5 battle. There are 3 lanes in which you and other players are to decide who goes down which. A countdown timer designates when minions spawn. Minions are a small footsoldier that allows you to press forward, they will attack anything they come in contact with and are to be considered a important source of income. Every minion killed, tower destroyed and player splattered gets you a sum of gold to spend in the shop in your own base. The ultimate goal is to destroy everything on the way to the big nexus building in the middle of the opponents base.

The second arena is called Twisted Treeline. It is a generally darker map which allows a 3v3 battle, there are 2 lanes that minons stream down in this one but the goal is generally the same.

There are many more advanced aspects to the game as well but you should play to find out.

The only issue is, being a multiplayer game. There are various issues in the online battles themselves. As Riot releases new champions and items to buy they are subject to having the need to be tweaked because there may be a balance issue or a bug affecting gameplay. The other issue is matchmaking, based on the “trusty” ELO system ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system ) time and again people are matched up with various players that could be professional daily players to players that just should not be allowed on the internet.

The premise does get old occasionally but with the various champions and items as well as the large community you can expect to have many hours of good times and the occasional facepalms while playing this game.

LoL Gameplay score: 4.1/5

Graphics:

The graphics are fairly mid tier for the aspect in which you see the arena. The character models are easy to discern and recognize, the spell effects are enticing and the environment is decent. The graphics are well optimized and should be able to be run by computers that are up to 8 years old and mid tier laptops.

LoL Graphics score: 3.9/5

Sounds and Music:

This game has very limited music tracks but its understandable in a game of this nature. The sound effects can range from nice and crisp to crispy crunch when glitches occur. Each champion has voice overs, tells jokes(albiet some very corny ones) and laughs.

LoL Sounds and Music score: 4/5

Overall: This game has a great future ahead of it as long as the developers listen to certain people with good ideas. It's fun and can be silly at times and it is best to play with some friends on voicechat.

Total:

16.4/20

Average:

4.1/5

Review #2 super Thanksgiving Special: .Hack IMOQ and GU double feature (PS2)

Welcome to my review of the Entire PS2 .hack series which includes the first generation (Infection/Mutation/Outbreak/Quarantine) and the second generation respectively (.hack//GU Rebirth/Reminiscence/Redemption) developed by Cyberconnect 2 and published by Bandai games.

The only major difference is within the 2 generations, each Generations 4 and 3 parts have generally the same development and graphics and gameplay so reviewing 7 different things would be tough so I will do it by generation Designating Gen 1 as IMOQ    and gen 2 as GU

IMOQ also features a 4 part anime to go along with each game part which follows the happenings in the real world as problems arise in the game. GU also does this in the games news section based in tiny mini reports of a quirky investigative reporter.

So begins the Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ny88kZq_4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA2CJIF5KCw

Story:

IMOQ: The story is set in a fictional MMORPG known as "The World." developed by Harald Hoerwick. The World's back story is based on the Epitaph of Twilight, an epic poem by Emma Wielant. you control the actions of Kite, a twin-blade class user. He was introduced to this world by his friend Orca. There is ; however, more to "The World" than let on. After following a girl in shining white clothes a strange in game monster appears and puts Orca into a coma in the real world as his in game body is lost, all of this in front of Kite which paves way for the story to unfold. The poem bit by bit becomes true as the series progresses and Kite is off to find the truth behind the game. Along the way he meets and joins people with different goals in mind but one set path toward the truth.

The story is linear but interesting and will keep you going through the series.


IMOQ Story Score: 4.6/5

GU:  The story once again takes place in a remodeled version of "The World." The developers created a back story where there were developments in technology, the world is run by steam power. The developers true goal however was to cover up the incident in the old world and hide the black boxes left behind. This however is a failed attempt. The story follows Haseo an adept rogue which is a new class made for this world, his friend Shino fell into a coma due to a player known as "Tri-Edge" and Haseo gains an obsession with growing stronger which is encouraged by a mysterious player Ovan. Haseo finally meets tri edge once more but Tri-Edge is simply out of reach. Tri -edge strips Haseo of his ill-gotten power only for Haseo to start again. This is where the story sets off. However things change as he meets a Female player known as Atoli who he mistakes for Shino at first and he is set upon his true path towards saving his Friend.

GU Story Score: 4.8/5


Gameplay:

IMOQ: The controls were very simple and not too intuitive. You had to rely on the in game menu to select the skill or item you want to use and to change your equipment which had a very Final Fantasy feel to it. However the in game movement was fairly open and free.

The .hack series biggest charm for me are the random generated dungeons using 3 keywords. In town you go to an object called a "Chaos Gate" and you can enter 3 keywords or randomize and you will be taken to a field with monster that reside in yellow shining portals. In most fields there is a dungeon to explore and at the very bottom in a certain room is a statue with a chest full of rare and useful items.

Demonstrated Chaos Gate

The Characters were fairly charming but a few had a hero complex or were just way too into their roles in "The world" as you would find in many MMO's in town there are various players you can talk to or trade with.

There are some fun mini games and more relaxing parts of the world if you need a breather from the sometimes heavy storyline.

IMOQ Gameplay Score: 4.4/5

GU: The controls were tightened in GU and served more functions. You no longer have to go to the menu to select skills as you can set them to be used with a couple button presses. The Random generated areas are still in GU but now fields are just fields with a treasure room and bridges islands and dungeons are a separate part but some have more traps and surprises

The battle parts were more closed in a barrier around the monster you are fighting and the magic portals are now gone. I found that fields with a big boss at the end were more fun than the dungeon exploring near the end as some could be long and tedious having to load from one room to the next.

The Characters were exceptionally more personable and interesting in GU for me. They had their own personalities and ideas and you may just end up falling for the different characters you meet.

Who? me?!

There were more side quests and other things to keep you occupied as well as an interesting guild function to improve your progress in the game. GU also features a prominent battle arena where you fight "real players" and some of the story line is based around things that happen in the Arena.

Unfortunately the huge downfall was the difficulty, IMOQbossfights were easy and the difficulty was only redeemed through the Avatar battles at some points which could be tedious.

GU Gameplay Score: 4.3/5


Graphics

IMOQ: The graphics were mid tier for playstation 2 but this series was pretty early in the Playstation 2's lifespan so they were pretty good looking, nice animations, a few quirks where it wasn't so smooth or it felt a little sped up and even a little bit of lag. Teammates spells looked pretty neat and the effects that made it look like "The World" itself was coming to a halt gave off an eerie and amazing feeling for the atmosphere. The monsters looked tough (or funny depending on the situation) and gave off an incredible sense of accomplishment to fight and beat.

IMOQ graphics score: 4.4/5

GU:  The graphics were a bit higher tier at this point, adopting a cel shaded style in the animation. There were very neat effects for special attacks but the spells looked a bit weaker this time around. The backgrounds and the fields and dungeons looked very neat and once again wonderful atmoshpere although maybe a bit less urgent than IMOQ

GU graphics score 4.5/5



Sound and Music:

IMOQ:
The in game sounds were great, skills and spells were called out in the strange created language of that world and when you hit it sounded like you gave the enemy a decent smack although the actual part when you hit them sounded generally the same each time.

The music is ingenious however and this is the creme de la creme, the genius of the game series. Each Field had its own unique variant of a song and when the fights got going the tempo would rise and get you into the mood. The major boss fights had amazing music which could get you nervous about how badly you may get smoked.

The cut scenes had charming and compelling music and your in game desktop had a neat theme to it as well. .hack has by far some of the best soundtrack material as it is large and there are alot of great things on it.

IMOQ Music score: 4.8/ 5

GU:
The in game sounds were improved and the hits sound more devastating at some points, the spells are once again in their native world language and the fights could sound pretty intense.

Once again the music shines through with emotion and variety, The fields are sounding great however the regular battle theme is the same for the most part and only changes for boss fights which actually got irritating after a while hearing that rock and roll jam. The Avatar battles had great revamps on themes based on IMOQ boss fights.

The cut scenes had great emotion, wonderful piano and vocals and one even made me feel upset as it played along to a tragic( and rage inducing) scene in game. The OST spans 4 discs if you look it up which beats out IMOQ just slightly in variety.

GU Music score 4.9/5


Overall: These games were a big part of why I truly enjoy console gaming. They had great story lines that pulled you in, well put together in graphics and sound and are generally the ideal base for ideas, developers need to create expansive world story lines that compel and take you with various feelings and ideas and leave questions in your head and you craving more. This series is going to receive 1 more game for the PSP which will give you a large character roster but seems more like an extra bone for the hungry fans, just filler, just fanservice but of course I'll check it out. After that the series will be laid to rest which I feel is the best thing to do, it can't be milked into stupidity like Final Fantasy and is an amazing series where it stands here and now.

Total
IMOQ: 18.2/20
GU: 18.5/20

Average
IMOQ:4.55/5
GU:4.63/5

Pic sources:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:2yXPGXAuczsWKM:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v432/Shinogu/DSCF0562-1.jpg&t=1

http://image.gamespotcdn.net/gamespot/images/2003/ps2/dothackinfection/d_790screen004.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3097/2335723476_574132634e.jpg?v=0

http://squackle.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/11865596651.jpg

http://news.filefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/hack1-1.jpg

Review #1: Armored Core:For Answer (Playstation 3)

Welcome to my review of Armored Core:For Answer on the Playstation 3. Armored Core is a mecha combat game developed by From Software since the Original Playstation's title: Armored Core(simple enough right?) and published by Ubisoft. For Armored Core 4 it was developed by Sega and most previous games before were published by Agetec.

The game got handled in a few different ways in all of these years, receiving massive changes from its leap from the PS2 to the PS3 including a change in the health(armor points) the damage of weapons have been scaled accordingly to do more. The Lockboxes for the HUD have been made within bounds of the screen itself rather than the smaller visible boxes.

Now onto the review itself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2khLx5WAid0

Story: For Answer takes place 10 years after the events of Armored Core 4's lynx war. Most of humanity is now above the sky in habitats called cradles. The world below is decrepit and stagnant due to the war and the release of Kojima particles. Lynx are now just mercenaries for an organization known as Collered who mediate between the League of Ruling Companies made up of manufacturing companies such as Global Armaments, Bernard and Felix Foundation, Rosenthal, Omer Science etc.

Orca, a mysterious rebel group wants to cause the destruction of the cradles and have humanity face the damage they caused to the planet below.

What I like about the story is it does continue the saga from AC4 but as any person who has played all the AC games since the beginning knows is that this storyline is fairly out of place from any of the other story clusters earlier.

You do have a few choices that are very subtle but do effect how the story ends for you with a total of three endings it is probably worth playing through it a few times.

Story Score 3.8/5

Gameplay: The controls did change between the old PS2 AC games and the new PS3 ones. It took some getting used to because there are more buttons to utilize this time around, not difficult to learn regardless. Everything else is pretty close to the same as you would expect, fast paced gameplay along with plenty of mecha customization that you can spend lots of time on with just that. I particularly liked making an Emblem for my AC "Dancing Bear" which I have a bear with wings on a target, had a decently original feeling to it.

The problem I had was with the missions. Most of them were outside in open terrain, they were bland, the missions as well as the arena were brutally easy with my dual back chaingun build. Along with just Arms Fort missions were just a bladefest which made them even easier than anything else. The missions lacked any real originality or feeling to them leaving a dull, lifeless sense of accomplishment when you beat them. Even with the difficulty increase afterwards they were laughably easy.

Online. Well I just couldn't find anybody to play with so I don't know what to mention about it, the community seems to have strayed away from this aspect.

Gameplay Score 3.7/5

Graphics: There was plenty of brown and bloom and dust to go around. There were few static destructibles (even Armored Core: Silent Line had this though) and some overlap terrain damage which wasn't too special. The effects were decent but lacked any real dazzle. The NEXTs looked pretty in the hangar but once again was lacking in actual combat , enemies were even less appealing due to distance and the fact you could just fly overhead and blow them away.I noticed there were alot of water related missions due to the ability to glide on water that came up on AC4 and it seems they put most of their graphical effort on this rather than what matters, such as the rest of the terrain.

Graphics Score: 3.1/5

Sound and Music: I don't want to sound like I have my nostalgia goggles on but the music just doesn't sound right anymore, it is very bland and lifeless for the most part with lots of vocals orchestra whatnot to it which gets a little irritating. The weapon sounds have little differentiation to them and actually lead to this dull bass spam when everyone is using rifles and missiles. The overboosting and lock on is the only sound I could make out through everything else.

Sound and Music Score: 3.1/5

Overall: It is by my opinion to deem this series is in need of some refreshing changes. More time and effort needs to be spent on the ambiance from the music and sounds to the story and add more exciting effects to the graphics. From Software needs to take their time and bring out something amazing that will bring the online community together and the many loyal fans of AC over the years to buy and enjoy what they have come to expect and love about Armored Core.

Total 13.7 / 20

Average 3.4 / 5

Picture 1:  http://ps3.kombo.com/images/content/boxart/acforanswer_box.jpg

Picture 2:  http://palgn.com.au/media/pics_inside/art_13530_id_2_mw_520.jpeg

Picture 3: http://www.ursalia.com/reviews/armored-core-for-answer7.jpg