Ryan Ellis

So far its pretty cool.  And wow some of the vistas look really damn good.  Especially the mining area in mexico.  Very nice.

Nebs Game Reviews

I recently finished playing Red Faction.  I quite enjoyed it.  The game made me feel like I was one of those professional demolitionists that you see dropping old buildings in Vegas.  I would take the time to find the buildings weak  points then plant the necessary charges to make it do what I wanted.. so much fun.  Also the Nano rifle is a freaking awesome weapon.  Sadly the demo for this game is pretty terrible.  But I think you should just skip that and get the game anyways.  Good Times.

Nebs Game Reviews

I have finally got off my fatening ass and started going to the gym.  So far it’s been good.  Then yesterday in best buy I saw the new EA Active trainer thingy for the Wii.  Of course I am not going to replace going to the gym with it but I thought I could give it a try in addition.  Some parts of it are pretty good.  Tho I kinda feel like a total tool running in place with stupid Wii shit strapped to me.  It started out ok but then partway through the fucking curse of the shitty-ass gimicky Wii motion controls kicked in.  It would randomly start telling me I was doing something wrong when I wasn’t.  And there is nothing more frusterating when you are working out and doing it correctly than some stupid bunch of polygons is telling you that you are doing it all wrong.  And ZOMG the rollar skating part is so inaccurate.  It really was annoying.

Nebs Game Reviews

Game Designers… I will stop playing your game the second there is a Quick-time-event.  Why do you think its fun to make me slam buttons like a fool only to have me fail halfway through the sequence.  Then making me restart from the beginning… SUCK IT.

Nebs Game Developement, Game Reviews

flower the downloadable PSN game came out today…  I ended up purchasing it and I have to say it’s quite interesting.  It is one of those things that skirts the line between game and experience.  The game portion of flower has you collecting petals that allow you to spread green life to the dead parts of the level.   The rest is pretty much the experience of flying around the nice looking environment while listening to some very relaxing new-age music.   Part of me want’s to make things like this.  But I know what would happen… I would start feeling pressure to have to more gamey things put into it and it would loose some of the “experience” part of it.

Nebs Game Developement, Game Reviews

OK so the only way to get this demo currently without pre-ordering  is to become British…  Which I did (at least according to PSN) I downloaded the demo which some is around 1,200 megs.  Here are my quick impressions…

Liked:

Looks fantastic.  The use of filters and post effects really takes the graphical fidelity to another level.  Top notch.

Man this game is polished.  Everything looks and is animated wonderfully, from the menus to the in-game content.  Fantastic.

HATED:  I use the word hated because the rest of the game is so well put together it really made these stand out to me.

Feel.  Let me be blunt.  The ps3 controller is a giant steaming turd.  From the shitty loose feeling sticks to the fucking silly convex triggers that cramp my hands.  I really do think that it’s actually the hardware that makes me dislike the feel so much.  The reason I say this is that all the animations and sounds in the game are great and really do help you connect to what is happening on the screen.  But even with all that there is a sense of floatyness and lack of fine grain detail in the way your finger movements are translated into the game.

Story.  Wow the Helgans… so lame.  I could not be less interested in what is going on in this world.

Ok last thing.  And I will admit this is a silly one for me to even mention but it really pisses me off.  The landing craft.  Yeah I said it… Landing craft.  You know the ones from the eairly trailers?  Yeah those.  No engeneer in their right mind would design an OPEN AIR FLYING landing craft.  The design is just fucking silly.  The first sign of flak and those dudes would be dead.  It offers no protection!!!  Even a fucking errant flock of birds would be deadly to those solders.  They are litterally standing on top of a flying table with nothing but a railing to keep them on…  Fuck you know how strong the wind would be up there?  Even traveling at 60mph which is pretty slow for a flying vehicle would make it a full time job just to not be blown off into the void.  It is absolutly the dumbest design for a landing craft I could think of.  Hell even some “strong” manouvers from a pilot trying to dodge incoming missles would send people flying like so much tickertape.  PUT A GODDAMN ROOF ON IT!

I wish this was coming out on the 360 so I could play with a good controller… sigh.

Nebs Game Reviews

I tried it… I came away pretty much thinking one thing.  EPIC Controls Fail.  Im not sure I even want to play it at all now.

Nebs Game Reviews

So I managed to get into the Quake Live beta, it’s the in browser version of Quake 3 Arena.  Back in film school I used to play a ton of this game with my friends, it was awesome and is full of good memories.  A few first impressions.

Liked:

It does just work in your browser… you have to download a plugin but after that it is just a website.  Awesome!

Runs super fast… only surprising because it’s in your browser.

Lots of options for finding matches and browsing what games are currently happening.

Stats tracked.

Dislikes:

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whats a button in the interface… The join and next game options and things like that are kinda hidden by the graphical design of the site.

Not sure that the skill matching stuff is working very good.

I suck now!  Not the games fault but it’s disappointing to remember being good at something and now being terrible… that’s just aging I guess…

Nebs Game Reviews, games

Drew and I finally completed Army of Two last night.  This game has too many issues to get into the details, but the frosting on the cake is that they didn’t even give us an achievement for completing the game.  Which is basically 360 game design heresy.  After completing the game I felt like the designers were more interested in trying to make a “cool” dynamic between the main characters (also major fail here) than making the game rewarding.  The best thing I can say about Army of Two is that I don’t have to play it anymore.

Nebs Game Reviews, Uncategorized, games

I am really enjoying Mirrors Edge.  It’s a nice breath of fresh air.  I really like the visuals and music.  For some reason it makes me think of Scandinavia.  I don’t think I would have liked it as much if it was a third person game.  I really hope this means that EA will be trying some new things, I suppose it all depends on how well the games does.  Wow look at all those sentinces starting with I… Blech

Nebs Game Reviews, games

So I just tried it last night.  My initial impression is… Neato!  Just the setting alone is enough to keep me interested.  It’s totally different from almost all the other games I have been playing.  The actual game play itself is not really anything to write home about but the game world is interesting and fun to explore.  I applaud them for trying something different like this.  Also it makes me laugh when people get all up in arms about this game.  It’s quite harmless as well as being not wholly inaccurate about the experience of going to a big underfunded school.  Yes all you haters out there.  There are Bullies, Nerds, Jocks, Stupid Faculty, etc in our school system.  A game like this gives people an outlet to deal with those kinds of things in a silly way.  The real school experience is much worse than this game could ever show.

Not to say that our schools are that awful but the game can never truly expose a child to the horror of becoming a freshman.

The argument I suppose is that kids might try and deal with their real life issues by emulating what happens in the game.  But so far nothing you do is really more than mischief.  Maybe that will prove differently later on but for now its quite harmless.

Nebs Game Reviews, games

I was really actually enjoying this.  Despite it’s wacky story, strange characters and sometimes frustrating puzzles.  But then I got to what I thought was the big climax in the story only to have the game make me start over with a new character.  I was into the game until then.  Now I have lost all want to play.  I don’t want to start over learning a new character.  And the plot is now boring to me.  I guess I was all worked up for the ending and it never happened and that left me drained and not caring about the game anymore.  Sad.

Nebs Game Reviews, games

I think Mass Effect is a perfect example of why video game reviews are so inconsistent. What I mean is Mass Effect is one of those games that has serious flaws in pretty major chunks of the game yet somehow people are really loving it (me included). The rest of the product is so compelling that you forgive these flaws. This is what makes game reviews so subjective. You have to take into account how you are feeling while you play the game. Its very hard to put a number score on a sensation that a game is giving you. If I were reviewing ME my numbers might look something like this..

Graphics: 9.5

Controls: 6

Game-play: 7

Sound: 9.4

Presentation: 9

Final Score: 9.1

Now if I took the average here we would Get 8.18 as the overall score… But personally I would give this game about a 9.1 Which is quite a bit higher than the average. Now that’s the intangible part that is hard to communicate to others… And one of the main reasons its hard to take some game journalism seriously. Even with its flaws it’s more than the sum of its parts.

Nebs Game Reviews

I’m so confused with this game.   One minute I think its one of the most amazing games I have played.   Then the next minute I want to punch the game designers in the face.

My latest   frustration.

I have died more times because of water then from combat.   WTF?   This cool assassin character can be killed by early 90’s game design? STUPID

The crazy people that push you around.   I had a mission ruined 5 times in a row cause through no fault of my own I got stuck between two pushers that bounced me back and forth until the mission was blown.   This was prolly one of the most frustrating momentsI have ever played through.   Jeez.

Nebs Game Reviews

Wow is this game a mixed bag.   Let me get the bad out of the way first.

Story:   $%!$@ stupid.   They have such a cool world to base a game in.   The Knights Templar… assassins… ancient cities.. neat!   But they totally ruin it with some made for TV sci-fi bullshit that sucks so bad its not even funny.   It totally ruins the immersion factor of the world which is soo strange cause they spent so much time making a living breathing place.   It just seems like the worst thing they could have done.   For example…   you are on a mission you are getting involved with the world you start to get sucked in then BAM!   A dumb computer voice chimes in…   FAST FORWARDING MEMORY.   What the hell!!!   Immersion lost thanks for ruining it guys.   BAD BAD BAD.

Lack of Direction:   This also stems from the stupid storyline.   You totally jump around randomly and each mission you go on does not feel at all tied in with what else is going on with the world.

Combat:   The combat system is really really gamey.   Meaning that for a game that strives to be so realistic feeling the combat feels like an old prince of Persia game form ages ago.   Lame.

Ok now for the good…

Visuals:   Stunning.   There are parts that are just unbelievable.

Climbing/Running:   This is soo much damn fun that it will sustain me in this game even tho the other parts of the game play suck so bad.

Really what I keep feeling as I play is that it’s a lost opportunity.   The production values are stellar and the world is amazing but the lame story and combat really start to drag it down.   It’s sad this could have been one of the best games ever made…. most of the pieces are there it just falls on its face pretty hard.

You still need to play it tho even if just for the running around and the visuals.   It’s worth it.

Nebs Game Reviews

Well… actually I am totally hooked on this game.   And that’s a strange thing to say cause I normally HATE ANIME especially anime video-games.   I have a list of things that I look for.

1.   Do the characters have dumb spikey hair?

2.   Do the characters scream at each other all the time?

3.   Does whats going on make no sense at all?

4.   Does it have Final or Dragon in the title?

5.   Is the voice acting 5 octaves too high?

6.   Is it popular with junior high kids?

If the game hits one or more of these criteria I usually avoid it like the plague.   Lets check on Naruto now…

1. Yes

2.   Yes

3.   Yes

4.   No!!!

5.   Yes

6. Yes (I guess)

Wow so it’s 5 for 6.   Thats pretty bad.   This game should be at least 100 yards from me at all times via court order.   But somehow I am totally hooked.   Here is why.

It’s really pretty.   If you are a game artist and your next game has a cartoony look this is your reference piece.   The world is just amazing to look at.   The characters are kinda ho-hum but the world more than   makes up for it.

The combat is actually pretty fun.   All the crazy moves and stuff you do are pretty satisfying.

Exploration.   They totally nail the metroid style world exploration.   The city is not really that big but there are so many new parts that get unlocked with each new power its just a joy exploring.   Also when you finally get up tot eh top buildings and look around its a pretty sweet feeling.

Weirdness.   Normally this turns me away but their brand of weird is more edible than most anime.   Part of it is that the whole thing is soo goofy.   The powers you get and the people you meet are just strange.

It’s basically Harry potter ninjas.   Same formula that worked for that series is at work here.   Kids going to school and learning all sorts of strange powers and battling evil along the way.

So there you have it.   Its a diamond in the rough.   Don’t get me wrong.   It still has issues   The controls kinda suck, the camera is awful and there are some pretty annoying sequences.   But all that said it’s a pretty neat game.

Nebs Game Reviews

Portal has the best credits sequence ever.   You HAVE to beat it just for that.   I found the link to that song on You Tube.   Only listen if you have already beaten the game.   Otherwise… GO PLAY.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjGfgV7rJHI

Nebs Game Reviews

Man I love this.   What an awesome idea.   I have to say that I cannot wait for someone to get this working in combat.   Imagine the co-op possibilities.   One guy manning the portal gun another with grenades.   Man it would be sweet.   It would turn classic shooter tactic on its head.   Meanwhile its a blast doing the puzzles.     I understand that it would be a nightmare making this work in a typical video game level.   But man when someone does…

Go play Portal it’s awesome.

Nebs Game Developement, Game Reviews

I just tried it… I gotta say… I just don’t seem to like fighting games anymore. Also I expect more from the graphics. The people look OK. But for a game where you fight only in a tiny area they could make the whole thing look allot better. The cloth is very nice tho.

Nebs Game Reviews

Well I played a few minutes of TF2 last night.   Here is my initial thoughts…

I adore the look.   The soft toon shading is very pleasant…

It RUNS!   woot!   my old comp can actually run it pretty well.. Bravo Valve

Hmmmm something feels off with the shooting.   I have a very “disconnected” feeling when I am shooting other players.   Things like when a rocket pushes them sideways they just translate and the character does not seem to react.   So far this is kinda turning me off of it…

Man people are good at this shit!   I used to be able to play shooters with the best of them, but for some reason this game escapes me.

Gotta play more to really know how I am feeling about it.

Woot.

Nebs Game Reviews