Guitar Hero Aerosmith

I know what you are thinking: what a joke!  Seriously though, I purchased this game for the PS2 and was thouroughly surprised.  Most people bombed this game dubbing it the lowest ratings of all the guitar hero games, however this is simply not true.  The main problem here is how does one review a rhythm game?  Now I know I stated why I was not going to review rhythm games, but I feel as though this game should be an exception simply because it is a well known series and people will understand the ups and downs of it better.  So, why do I stand by this game?  Could it be that I paid $50 for it hoping that I would not be disappointed?  Am I just a Guitar Hero junkie?  These answers coming up next…

Lets begin with the facts.  This game is another cop-out title produced by Neversoft only because they figured that enough people would purchase it because it dons the “Guitar Hero” title.  As you may have guessed, the game is heavily Aerosmith themed and is automatically shittier than other guitar hero games simply because no one cares about Aerosmith.  Regardless, there are 30 main songs, and a slew of extra songs included in the game totally a little over 40 songs.  Not too much bang for your buck, but I will say this: the game is better than Guitar Hero III.  Big words, but I wholeheartedly feel it is true mainly due to one fact; Guitar Hero Aerosmith actually makes you feel like you are an important part in the song.  This feeling of “being a part of somthing big” is something that was completely lost in Guitar Hero III.  Ask most anyone and they will say that they prefer Guitar Hero II or other titles even thought they are easier and its just because the third game lost that vibe with the sloppy execution on almost every aspect.  Aerosmith gives more power to the player by giving rather interesting, unique, and involving solos in practically every song.  Included in the set list are also some songs that inspired Aerosmith on their voyage to rock fame, and each track is a fun little side note but the songs really just go to show how much better the Aerosmith songs are.  The difficulty of the songs are a little out of whack and some songs occur earlier than others even thought they are harder (Sweet Emotion and Dream On should be switched for example) but overall the songs are much easier than those found in GH III.  For me, this was good considering the difficulty of GH III took away from the fun of the game because songs were difficult for the wrong reasons.  What becomes of this is a lame online community that constantly play the hardest songs because they have mastered the most difficult parts to a point where there is no competition and you might as well play a computer.  For Aerosmith the songs have less to do about the general difficulty, but more to do about the length.  What is interesting for this game is that the songs are rather lengthy, which is both good and bad.  You certainly get your moneys worth while playing this game, however most of the time you just want a song to end.  I looked at the length of the songs positively because even if a song is easy, I know that the longer it is the harder it is to full combo.  Just the fact that these songs would piss off the perfectionists of the Guitar Hero franchise put a smile on my face.

The graphics in the game leave much room for improvement but then again, who cares?  The graphics certainly did not get worse than GH III so I don’t think points should be docked for that.  Although the graphics are still shit, the motion capture work for this game is actually damn good.  Stephen Tyler’s mouth moves smoothly to the tunes as every song as been motion captured to his mouth (crazy, but it is convincing).  The drummer does not look like a robot anymore and everyone else is animated in interesting and sometimes unique ways…overall impressive for a cash cow title.  The bonus features for the game are generally stock, however there are some real nice gems.  Playing as Run from RunDMC is a fun bonus, and the video interviews with Aerosmith are extremely entertaining and informative.  There are plenty of characters and even more guitars than GH III to chose from summing to a large product.  How good is this game really though?  Well it is just par; a silly excuse for an in between game from GH III to IV.  The flaws of GH III are all here but it’s gained a little from the prior game so in a way it is better but it does not even come close to the classic games in the franchise.  Just about every song is an Aerosmith song and this is just annoying since songs start to sound alike and they all have that Joe Perry vibe.  Not to say that the guitar parts are the same (because they are well varied) but it would be nice to have different bands and types of rock to play.

This review is short, just like this game.  GHA could have been good (like GH Rock the 80’s surprisingly), but instead it is just mediocre and mediocrity is not worth $50.

Major Infractions (-10)

Song list is short and not worth $50

Songs go on for WAY too long

Too much Aerosmith

Infractions (-5)

Timing varies from song to song

No real difficulty

Minor Infractions (-1)

Load times seem longer

Final Score: 59 (Out of 100)

Grand Theft Auto IV

Another familiar face poked its head out of Rockstar once more with the aptly named Grand Theft Auto IV (because it is the fourth in the series, right?).  As always, the definitive “sandbox” element is in play here and is some ways better than ever, however this game is not without its many many shortcomings.  I really hate to say it, but this game was yet another disappointment that only strung me along the extremely long campaign just because I thought I would be rewarded for my efforts.  Unfortunately, this is not the story I can tell for this game…instead I must lay down the 6 star law.

The story revolves around one eastern European man by the name of Nico Belllik (I probably spelled it wrong but at least I remembered his name).  He comes from a far away land to Liberty City where his cousin Roman is apparently living a life of luxury and women, all things that sound promising for the poor and mentally scarred Nico.  Come to find out, Liberty City is pretty much the pits and Roman is a dirty liar because he lives in a shithole and works for a taxi company.  Well the story drones on bit by bit with Nico being the hired gun in town as usual to all GTA games.  Once Nico does enough missions in on section of the city, the next part is unlocked and so forth until all of the city is usable.  For Liberty City, it was slightly entertaining because the city clearly trys to look like New York City (even has the Statue of Liberty…subtle).  As cool as that may sound, it makes a rather bland and uninteresting map.  Dull colors and every other car being a taxis cab gives you practically no reason to look around and take in the city since every block looks the same.  Back to the story however…this was the most annoying part of this game.  Previous titles progressively got longer (as did the maps and general size of the game) but it was proportional.  For GTA IV (as compared to San Andreas) the city got a lot smaller but the story line and missions got more numerous.  Normally I would not have a problem with this because take for example San Andreas; every mission in that game was different than the previous and most of them were insane (scale wise and practicality) and challenging.  For GTA IV all the missions boil down to the same formula: kill people.  The only thing that changes is the location of where you kill massive amounts of people.  Now again, you might be thinking that killing people isn’t so bad considering that there are tons of guns.  Well, wrong again.  In GTA IV they took a step back and stripped the game of practically all the weapons that were interesting and obscure in the previous games.  Now there are two versions of every gun (pretty much).  Two SMGs, two assault rifles, two shotguns, two sniper rifles, one grenade, one moltov, one rocket launcher, one bat, one knife, one pistol.  Those are all the guns in the game and they get boring real fast.  The story isn’t very interesting to begin with either.  It seems as though everything happens in the background and Nico is simply just a guy who is hired to kill someone.  Purpose never really comes into play and so mission to mission the mindless killing only because a natural action.  At certain points you have to chose who you want to kill as if it were some great dilemma, but it is not.  For every (total of 4) points where you get to chose its either you kill the belligerent asshole or the innocent guy…hmm who to kill?  Finally, the story is just way way way too long.  I really started to hate this game near the end because it never wanted to end.  Usually I am ok with long story lines, but there was no story to speak of in this game so it only pissed me off!

The graphics in the game are generally nice.  The buildings and surroundings from afar look real nice, however when approached they are rather ugly.  The character models are much better than usual and the Nico model is especially suave, however everyone else pales in comparison.  Beyond graphics there really is only the gameplay to speak of, which, again, is, lacking.  The previous games never really revolved around flat out shooting missions mainly because the combat system was never that great.  GTA IV tried to fix that by including a cover system where by the press of one button Nico will dive into near by cover and can aim and shoot while still protecting most of his body.  With this system was the obvious inclination to make every mission end in a hail of gunfire, which again gets really boring after a while.  The cover system is interesting but it is borderline cheap because you learn to never get hit and now that you can auto-aim and control where you hit a persons body, headshots are extremely easy.  On the flip side, the enemies use cover as well and sometimes use it far too well.  Sometimes the bad guys will only throw their gun out of cover and fire out you, making them an impossible target to hit because there is nothing to hit.  You will find yourself standing around waiting for them to come out of cover for long periods of time before a feasible shot becomes evident.  To repeat, there are very few guns in this game so the fact that you use the M16 for ever mission after you get the gun makes for boring gameplay.  There are a bunch of cars in the game, about average for say GTA III and Vice City, but one thing that is glaringly obvious is the lack of boats and planes.  I have yet to find a fixed wing craft, there are three points in the game where you get a helicopter, and maybe 3 missions with boats.  The game has so much potential for the air and sea but Rockstar just threw away those portions of the game for no apparent reason.  You remember that mission in San Andreas where you have to get to the front of the jet while it is flying, blow it up while jumping off the back and parachuting to safety?  Ya, well none of that amazingness is in GTA IV.  Everything that was amazing about San Andreas was thrown away and I am very upset about this fact.  San Andreas was by no means perfect, but at least it was a really fun time.  GTA IV took all that fun and shot it to hell…GTA IV brought the player to the streets to make the game as boring as life in Brooklyn in real life really is  Past gameplay, the sound is good but there are far too many crap radio stations…who thought that having more than say 5 rap radio stations was a good idea?  I listend to two (maybe three) stations simply because most of the time they played something I liked, however the stations themselves have very short air times.  In a matter of maybe a half hour you will already be hearing the same songs.  The voice work is mighty fine but that is to be expected from the series, so there is nothing new about that.  The controls are good with the only change from previous games being that the L2 and R2 buttons control braking and accelerating in vehicles now that they are convex buttons on the PS3.  It controlled just fine for me, so I have to qualms with that (unlike the rest of the game).

Overall this game was just angering.  I expected the game to get better as I played and expand to such a grand scale like the previous games did.  Nothing was the way it should have been.  In fact, dare I say I enjoyed the $20 throw away game Vice City Stories for the PS2…in that game you could buy real estate and build gangs and own hookers; in that game you could purchase vehicles and you actually had to pay to get your weapons back after you died; in that game you actually had a purpose and the story line fit in with the Vice City; in that game the vehicles were fun and entertaining (hovercraft = epic win).  I could go on, and that was a port of a PSP game that nobody cared about…except me.  To top it all off, the grand finale of GTA IV sucked hardcore…you would think that if there was one thing this game could have done is finish with a bang, but no.  In GTA San Andreas the final mission had a save point in the middle, that’s how long and epic it was…in GTA IV the mission is over in about a minute and half of it is predetermined shit (getting hit with a rocket after you get in a helicopter for SERIOUSLY 7 seconds).  The multiplayer is practically non-existant so I wont even talk about it, and there is nothing more to say about this game.  This review needs to end so I leave you with this: GTA IV can honestly be summed up by one word: boring.

Major Infractions (-10)

Story missions go on for far too long

Air and sea are completely ignored

City, weapons, vehicles, and mission variety all got smaller

Infractions (-5)

Graphics are gloomy and bland

Too much junk on the radio/stations do not run long enough

Minor Infractions (-1)

Cover system is unbalanced on both sides

Hidden items (pidgeons) do nothing unless you collect all of them (200…ya right)

No real estate

Too many lame distractions (e.g. people call you ever 5 minutes to hang out)

Special abilities gained from friendships are useless and have no logical connection to that friend

Multiplayer is a waste of time

Final Score: 54 (Out of 100)

Zeeroh Punkchewashion

This past night (after a long day of shooting airsoft guns in a manly man fashion…a necessary plot point) I was a little bored and in need of massive entertainment.  So, I went about the same daily routine of Facebook, various forums, digg, and finally checking to see if Zero Punctuation or Angry Video Gamer Nerd released any new videos.  Sadly, ZP (not to be confused with Zombie Panic, an amazing mod for half life) released another piece of flaming dog shit for me to stare at for a few minutes.  I am sorry, but his review of Lost in the Dark…err…Stranded…I mean…fuck it I don’t care.  He reviewed a game that maybe 10 people who don’t look both ways before crossing the street purchased for the XBOX 360.  Wonderful, now no one can call him out for his biased reviews mainly because no one even knows what he is talking about.  Moving along, the point of me writing this is because I watched his review and did not even crack a smile once.  Not only is this guy terrible at making reviews…he is not even entertaining anymore.  Half his videos are that really annoying theme (Angry Video Game Nerd much??) and ads for his merchandise.  If I saw the man in person I would throw a tomato at him, and depending on how he reacted I would either run in fear of him striking back, or I would stay to watch him roll around in tomato juice…judging by the way he looks I would hope for the latter.  Deep breathe now…stay tuned for my soon to come review of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Metal Gear Solid 4

I took one week off to collect my thoughts as I said I would, and my opinion on the matter still stands: Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best game of the year and possibly one of the greatest achievements in video game history.  Strong words from such a harsh person, but I feel that completing this game was like finishing a chapter of video game history.  Many games may prove to be strong contenders for a “Game of the Year” award, but I believe the true test of greatness lies within the people.  Even if a game was great for it’s respective year, it is meaningless unless it is remembered throughout history; the kind of stuff that fills the record books as games that defined an era and will always be everlasting in their fun and uniqueness.  Move over Bioshock and Mass Effect, you are peanuts compared to this game…and let me tell you why (if you need some info on the Metal Gear Solid series, look at my review for MGS 2).

Lets start with an obvious category: graphics.  Metal Gear Solid 4 brings out the best in the PS3 largely in part to the small details.  The enviornments are filled with little frills that entertained and excited me the whole way through the game.  It starts with a battle-laden middle east setting where there are constant barrages of grenades, bullets, and shrapnel that fill the air.  Do not be fooled, the game starts with a rather awkward point where snake must manage his way through what is an already waging war between the locals and the guns-for-hire.  The war is a backdrop but it is full of life.  As Snake crawls through the carnage he is subject to every element.  The sand picks up and causes the screen to gain some dust causing vision to be limited, the bullets leave trails all around snake in a realistic and power-packing fashion, and bodies fly… and all this happens with no noticeable slowdown in frame rate.  The screen is alive ever second of play and the gritty style that Kojima and Co. chose for the game gives the game even more human feel.  The environment, however, is completely overshadowed by the character models.  The characters in the game (even the background militia) are all detailed to an extreme degree.  Their bodies and faces move accordingly and the shading is sublime.  What amazed me was that a lot of the cut scenes are done in real-time…I was always shocked to find that right after a cut scene the camera would swing behind snake and I would immediately gain control of Snake.  The last thing on graphics I want to touch on is the Octo-Camo for Snake.  Basically the system from MGS 3 was brought over to this game and modified to a more feasible manor by using the new Octo-Camo.  The Octo-Camo is a suit that Snake wears which will modify the outer appearance of Snake to be that of whatever he is lying down on.  Say you are laying down on a sandy pathway…the suit with take a second to recognize the surface and then change to a sand colored camouflage and give you a rating (like in MGS 3) as to how hidden you are for that surface.  The suit is amazing in that it is never fooled…I was laying down on a grate type catwalk, and the suit formed the same exact image as if the bars went right over me.  The suit never gets boring and its always fun to try and trick it…however I have not fooled it yet.

Next up is the sound; Dolby Digital to its finest.  Not many games actually use the rear channels of a sound system well, however this game nails it with a fury.  The sound comes out of the respective speaker according to how snake is positioned…if someone is behind snake and is making noise or talking, the sound will come out of the rear channels.  Its very natural and it makes me wonder why games don’t put more attention to such a detail.  If a person walks away from snake the sound gets softer and so forth.  As great as the sound mixing is on the game, the true award has to go to the voice acting.  All the great voice actors from the previous titles have been rounded up for this game and they all do a perfect job.  David Hayter, although given the task to voice a much older Snake, still gives his character the charming sense of charisma and wit as he always does…Otakon is still a crying wimp, and the Colonel is still rather creepy (especially with his new wife…what a player).  Finally, the musical score is breathtaking.  The music fits nicely with the part of the world Snake is in and it is convincing.  The tone of the game is grim (with Snake on the verge of death and all) and the music never lets you think otherwise.  Also included in the game is an iPod (lol product placement) that you can control and play just about any track from the Metal Gear history (although the MGS 2 theme was conveniently missing haha) so if you find the acoustic guitars and heart-throbbing vocals a little too depressing for you, you can click on any tune that you like (figuring you’ve found the secret track already in the game that is).  Beyond that you can download some extra tunes from the MGS Online stuff or you can get some Podcasts on something related to MGS…whatever suits your fancy it’s there.

Finally, controls and gameplay.  The controls are nothing totally new to the series although they have been tweaked to give the player a much easier time (especially with shooting).  The new shooting scheme (which I detailed in my Zero Punctuation rant) comes down to two shoulder buttons and an optional triangle button.  You hold one shoulder button to ready your current gun (while the camera goes behind Snake and his movement slows a little to maintain accuracy) and use the other shoulder button to fire.  If you want to go into a first person view, you can press triangle and bam…there you go.  Letting go of the first should button puts the gun down and allows Snake to move about the cabin as he likes.  This system is a very nice considering now Snake can move and fire at the same time, and there are no more pressure sensitive issues.  Before if you snuck up behind a soldier and held him captive, a slight addition of pressure to a button you had to hold would cut the soldier’s throat….in a game where you do not really want to kill ANYONE this is a big problem.  Beyond that, now Snake can chose cling to a wall by pressing X, so again there are no pressure sensitive issues and moving along a wall is now much better.  The camera is in third-person and can be controlled much like MGS 3 Subsistance and it is wonderful.  To finally have control and know where you are going is a breathe of fresh air.  Now for the gameplay…finally.  The game is very fun if you have played the series.  By playing the series you already know that there are going to be many/long cut scenes, but for me this was not a problem.  The story of the game is easily half the game.  The cut scenes are rarely boring and the story makes so many twists and turns (all reasonable this time though) that you can’t put the controller down because you need to get to the next one.  The story this time around though is rather serious and morose.  However, paired with the story is the Tactical Espionage Action game.  There are 5 acts to this play, and each one offers a different play style for Snake.  In the first he is attempting to avoid conflict in the ensuing war in front of him either by sneaking around or conveniently helping one side to further aid himself.  To contrast this, there is an act of the game where Snake has to stalk a soldier through the dirty and quiet streets of a European city, sneaking past guards and sentries all around the city.  Oh noes….sneaking and stealth…why!?!?  Well even if you don’t really like the sneaking portions you can almost always Burger King it and Have It Your Way with running and gunning.  The virtually limitless amount of guns and modifications to those guns makes the firepower in this game a whole lot of fun to use.  Making note of its history, almost ever classic gun featured in previous games (no matter how ridiculous) shows its face on the usable gun list.  To top it all off, the bosses in this game are massive amounts of fun.  There are a decent amount of them (about par with MGS 3) and they all require a different technique to defeat them.  The story intertwines with the bosses a fair amount however, and you learn about their past when you defeat them.  After slaying the beasts (since they are all named after animals) you come to find out just how psychotic they are…but in a strange way feel bad for them.  This game makes the people human, and it tries to convince you that what is happening is in part real.

Clocking in around 15-20 hours of single player gameplay, this game ranks about average in length for a typical game, but what fills that 15-20 hours is the greatest stuff on earth.  I havent even touched the multiplayer on the game yet (largely in part to the fact that it is very similar to MGS 3’s multiplayer so I already know what its all about) but I know it will not disappoint, just like the rest of the game.  It is true that I walked into this game already knowing that I would like it, and that, one would think, should make me biased…however I do not believe so.  I felt I was going to love MGS 2 and I certainly did not, so my hype should have only set me up for failure for MGS 4…but it did not.  The game delivered on every aspect that I could have hoped for.  I know I did not go into much detail about the game per-say…but that is because people should experience this game for themselves.  What I have touched upon barely scratches the surface of what this game has to offer.  The only negative that I can honestly place on this game is that the cut scenes can be a little too long…I had to go to work the night that I beat the game and I starred at the clock as it flew by with every cut scene.  So, that is the only ingredient that is needed from the player really: time.  But time is such a small thing to give for what an impact this game leaves on you.  Unfortunately I already know that most people will not play this game simply because it is on the PS3 and the game will most likely be covered by the sands of time, lost in the eternal dessert of video games.  Perhaps the game will age like a fine wine however, and when it is re-discovered years down the line once people purchase the PS3 it will be even better than ever.

Major Infractions (-10)

Infractions (-5)

Lots of cut scenes that go on for a little too long

Minor Infractions (-1)

Install times between Acts can be lengthy

Load times are somewhat frequent

The saga is over

Grace Points (+?)

A work of art, shined and polished in every way (+5)

Final Score: 97 (Out of 100)