Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games

By Sandor Hugert

 

Nobody was really expecting much from this game, but it turned out to be one of the more enjoyable games of 2007.  Somehow this game managed to be better than many Wii games.  You actually have to do totally different motions for each event.  There are many characters that you can play with from all the Mario and Sonic games.  There are lots of events that you can compete in, and as you start to gain gold medals for your events then you actually unlock many other cool events.  There is even online play in the game, but the Wii’s online play is a little weird, as you can’t really play with just someone random because you have to know their whole friend’s code and everything.  Overall, this was a fun game and all, but that’s really all it has going for it just the fun aspect of the game.

 

Score:  6  out of 10

Assassin’s Creed

By Sandor Hugert

 

This was one of the most anticipated games of 2007, and it was also the most disappointing game of the year.  This is the most repetitive game ever made in the whole history of video games.  The missions are all the same exact thing.  There are basically three types of missions that you just do over and over with the difficulty of the game rising up a little.  The graphics are nice to look at, but it doesn’t compare to some of the better-looking games lately such as Uncharted Drake’s Fortune and Call of Duty 4.  There really isn’t that many cool killing moves, but instead if just block and counter attack then you’re just about set to beat the entire boring game.  The story line tries to be all serious and make sense, but it fails in both aspects.  The big twist of the game is revealed to you in the first few minutes of the game, which is one of the dumbest moves made in the story lines of any video game.  The ending sets up the story for the sequel, which is very unnecessary after failing to make one of the most anticipated games in the year good at all.  The guys at UBI Soft should just go back to working on Tom Clancy games and their Prince of Persia franchise.  If they’re going to make the sequel to Assassin’s Creed, then they better fix up all the problems in the first game.  This game was definitely the biggest disappointment of 2007.  At most this game is only worth a rent.

 

Score:  4 out of 10   

 

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

By Sandor Hugert

 

This game was really the main competition for Halo 3 in 2007 as it was highly anticipated for all consoles.  You have to start out by saying that this game has some of the best graphics seen in any video game.  It is certainly up there with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune in the graphics department.  As we all know though, graphics don’t make any game perfect.  There really isn’t anything horrible with this game except the fact that the campaign mode is incredibly short.  You can basically beat the game in about four hours.  I’m not asking for like a 30-hour game from a first person shooter such as Call of Duty 4, but four hours is really just too short.  A first person shooter really needs to be about 10-hours long.  This year in the first person shooter department, The Orange Box really got the length of their games down as each game in that box was around 7 to 10 hours long.  Other than the length of the game, there really isn’t anything wrong with it.  The story line was really intense and the online is also intense.  The online part of the time tends to get a little boring after playing it for like two hours, but it’s still pretty fun.  Overall, this game was good, but not great as it could have been longer and online could have been a little more enjoyable.  Hopefully, we’ll get the official really good Call of Duty game with Call of Duty 5 next year.

 

Score:  7 out of 10

Uncharted Drake’s Fortune

By Sandor Hugert

This is one of the best Playstation 3 games to have come out yet.  The whole game was exciting, but it was really short.  The story line kept you going throughout the whole game.  The game got really repetitive after the first few levels though, as you’re basically doing all of the same things from level to level.  The puzzles were extremely amazing to beat, but the action was usually really cool.  There was a wide selection of weapons you could pick up.  There cover system in the game was awesome, but it was an exact rip-off of Gears of War, which is fine considering that both games used the cover system in great ways.  The graphics on the game have to be mentioned, as they are by far the best graphics seen on any console right now.  It was absolutely amazing as everything was crystal clear and perfect.  The graphics were really the best part of the game, and the story line was also pretty good with some fairly good twists as you were going along in the game.  The voice-overs in the game were basically as good as a movie such as Shrek.  The whole game acted like a movie basically as the cut scenes were amazing and so was the voice-overs, but the main part of the game which is the game play just fell sort of short as you were constantly doing all of the same things.  I would still say that if you own a PS3 then this game is a must have for your system. 

Score:  8 out of 10

Halo 3

By Sandor Hugert

 

This is the most anticipated game of the year for any console, and the sales are proving that fact very well.  The game continues the story line from that big cliffhanger at the end of Halo 2.  It sums up the story line pretty well in nine chapters in the game, and the ending is very well done.  The levels in the game have some of the best graphics, but the game doesn’t change anything from the other Halo titles.  This is a negative if you like to see new things in a game, which most people do, but at least you know that Bungie didn’t mess up on anything in the game.  The coop in the game is by far the best feature in the game.  It’s really a lot of fun to beat the game with up to three of your friends, but as you play with more of your friends you tend to experience more lag which is really something you don’t expect from possibly one of the most anticipated games in history.  The game overall is pretty short, but it keeps you entertained throughout the whole game, and you might feel that it’s worth going back in the campaign to find all the hidden skulls and collect more achievements.  Most people were most excited about the online portion of the game, which delivers very well.  All the levels online are pretty cool, but they are really small to always keep the game flowing with action.  There are some really cool modes online such as Rocket Race where one person drives a Mongoose and your partner has a rocket launcher, and together you’re trying to collect bases before the other teams reach them.  Microsoft will keep you entertained with the online as they will sell new maps over XBOX Live which you can download.  Overall, the game really shouldn’t have gained so much hype as it’s really not better than most first person shooter games that just came out such as The Orange Box or Bioshock. 

 

Score:  7 out of 10

The Orange Box

By Sandor Hugert

This is one of the best games of the year.  It’s also one of the best deals of the year as it includes five games for a price of just one game, which is $60.  The five games are Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode 1, Half Life 2 Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.  Now on the XBOX 360, you tend to experience lots of lag on Team Fortress 2, but when there isn’t any lag then the game is a lot of fun.  Team Fortress 2 is really not the best online death match game that you should be playing right now though as Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 both have better online modes and more maps to play at.  Half Life 2 as everybody knows is one of the best games ever made just like the first Half Life.  Half Life 2 has just about everything a person looks for in a first person shooter:  good story, great guns, lots of enemies, lots of interesting puzzles, and even vehicles to drive.  The only thing that doesn’t work well in the game is that your character, Gordon Freeman, never talks in the game even though the characters around you are having conversations with you.  The graphics also seem a little outdated, but you can’t blame them as Half Life 2 came out three years ago on the PC.  The game overall though really doesn’t have bad graphics, as it seems like they have updated the graphics for the consoles to make it look more clean and crisp.  The two episodes after Half Life 2 are also very fun, but they are pretty short.  Portal is a great puzzle game, but nothing more than that as it only takes like an hour or two to beat it.   For a price of $60, you still must pick this game up as it is one of the best deals in gaming history just like it says on the back of the box.  Make sure to go and buy this game in your local video game store.

Score:  8 out of 10

Fifa Soccer 2008

By Sandor Hugert

 

I got this game for Playstation 3 last week, and it’s amazingly fun.  Ea Sports basically made everything about the game better this year.  They made the graphics better, the game play, and even the online game play.  They updated the rosters correctly, which is always a plus in a soccer game.  Some of the stadiums in the game are actually officially licensed so they look like just how they would in real life.  The stats of the players in the game are very well done.  I play the manager mode all the time, and it’s a lot of fun to use the skill points, which Ea did in last year’s game as well, on players to make their stats grow.  There is hardly any lag when you play online which is awesome because I played with people from Germany and France and there wasn’t any lag.  The main thing that Ea worked on this year was to make the game play more realistic which they achieved perfectly as it’s not as easy to score goals any more as in recent Fifa games.  The AI works much smarter against you, which is good to see.  You really have to outplay the AI to score any goals at all which many people complain about, but personally I find the game to be much more enjoyable this way.  They added another difficulty to the game so instead of World Class being the hardest now you can play on Legendary.  These Fifa games are probably some of my favorites, but this year Ea really outdid themselves from past years.

 

Score:  9 out of 10

  

 

Heavenly Sword

By Sandor Hugert

This new game has just been released for the Playstation 3, and it’s really good.  The game is basically exactly like God of War 2, even some of the levels look exactly the same as in God of War 2.  I guess that this is a good thing, but it just sort of shows that makers of the game didn’t really have many new ideas to add.  The fighting in the game seriously looks exactly what you saw in God of War 2.  One really good thing about the game is the graphics, which must be some of the best graphics that I’ve ever seen.  The characters in the game are a little too bizarre for my taste, but I guess that the story line is acceptable.  You get to play with two characters, and the second one is really cool as she shoots these poisonous darts, which is really fun because while the dart is in the air you control its movement by rotating the controller.  This was probably the most enjoyable thing to do in the game.  The game itself was really fun and the graphics were amazing, but I’m just not sure if it was actually better than God of War 2 considering that basically all the ideas for this game came from there.

Score:  8 out of 10

Shadowrun

By Sandor Hugert

I just recently got this game for XBOX 360 and it’s a pretty okay game.  There is nothing necessarily wrong with it except that the game gets a little boring after playing for like two hours.  The game itself is pretty cool, but it’s just a little weird how it’s only online play and there is absolutely no single player campaign in the game other than the training levels.  The online game play is pretty cool as it has all types of magic powers which makes the game a lot more enjoyable especially the teleporting and the flying.  You can also resurrect your teammates if you have that magic which I thought was pretty neat.  The game doesn’t have the best guns though considering that it has only like ten types of guns and they are all pretty weak.  I think that the game would have been way better if it was a third person game instead of a first person shooter, but the cool thing is that it does go to a third person view if you use the katana.  One really cool thing about the game is that you can even play with people playing on Vista.  The game can be really fun if you’re playing with a group of friends.  Overall, I think that the game is pretty average but there are some parts to the online that makes the game stand out.

Score:  7 out of 10    

hey, its me the mighty Turbojugend!

Just thought I’ll let you know about a game I’ve been playing for the past couple of weeks called Second Life. Which…to put it in words us other hardcore gamers can understand, it’s a ” Sims Killer,” and its free! My volunteer coordinator told me about this game, and I decided to try it out. Although I was a bit skeptical at first, because my laptop couldn’t handle the extremely good graphics, but after logging in a few times, it began to get used to the huge file download each time I played. Other than the massive lag most of the time, (my fault for not putting more ram in laptop) it is still way better than The Sims. I say this because when you walk around, you can interact with thousands of people from around the world, via the instant messaging feature. And if you failed typing class in middle school, do not fear, teamspeak is there! Yup I said it, you can talk with a headset to your friends too I find this feature very interesting, because it’s kind of like skype, without the extra phone number, and its also free. Although Second Life is mostly a way to interact with diferent people, you can also build….Anything, as long as you know how to script. However, if you have no idea how to script or code, they have classes! I of course haven’t gotten that far, because the script teacher people were not online when i wanted to take a class, and because my computer was lagging so badly. It’s kind of bittersweet, because your class isn’t available at the moment, but you realize, there isn’t any computer players, there all real people on the other end of the wire. Another interesting thing I have to let you know about is that besides the cool features that second life has, like building, changing your appearance, interacting with people, there is one thing about second life that i enjoyed the most, Flying. yes, you can fly in this second life that you have. Take that Sims! but believe it or not, there is quite a few wonderful things to do in Second Life, and I recomend that you check it out, who knows, you might even see the ever famous Draken Umarov on there playing as well.