Madden NFL 07
By Sandor Hugert

This is probably the best football game made to date. The graphics are absolutely jaw dropping, but somehow EA Sports manages to make better graphics each year. The game play really hasn’t changed much, but it’s still really fun. The franchise mode is deeply compelling, and very well done. I mainly just enjoy playing online with the game, which is still really fun especially that I really haven’t experienced any lag in the game while being online. It’s pretty obvious that if you want an official NFL game then you have to pick this up since EA managed to be the only company allowed be making any NFL official games after the NFL agreed to this deal. There really isn’t any problem with this game, except for the fact that these Madden games really hardly change every year. Another little problem that I found with the game is just that it can get a little too frustrating if you’re not having a lucky day with the game, and therefore you will just get bored of the game very easily.

Score: 7 out of 10

Call of Duty 3
By Sandor Hugert

This is probably one of the best first person shooter games ever made. It was so cool to immerse yourself into this whole setting of the World War 2. Activision did an awesome job of creating this whole world of this tragic war. It really made you feel like you were part of this whole war. There were some extremely cool parts of the game like when you have thousands of enemies charging straight at you. It really is too bad that Resistance: Fall of Man came out considering that this game just isn’t as good as that masterpiece. This would have been probably a much more popular game if it didn’t come out at the same time as Gears of War (Call of Duty is better) and Resistance. It’s just weird how Resistance had many of the same settings as this game and somehow managed to just make the game more enjoyable. Like I said though, this game is an awesome game as well with some amazing graphics and driving in vehicles was also really fun. Activision nailed the feeling of having a sniper in the game as well. In the end, the game was very good, and when I beat it I thought that this game would be my favorite first person shooter for a long time, but somehow Resistance just improved on this game.

Score: 8 out of 10

UEFA Champions League 2006-2007
By Sandor Hugert

This soccer game for the XBOX 360 is very well done. This soccer game isn’t any different than the Fifa games considering that it has the same teams and they are both made by EA Sports. However, the only difference is that in this game you get to play the Champions League, which is a positive, and a negative point. It’s nice to actually play with your favorite team in the Champions League, but there really is no other mode in the game that is actually really fun, other than this new mode called Ultimate Team. In this mode you get to basically be the manager except instead of the cool setup of the manager mode in Fifa 07, you play with cards to trade and buy new players in this mode. I had way more fun with the manager mode in Fifa 07 than this mode. Obviously the Champions League tournament mode is very well done since that’s what the whole game is about. It really makes you feel like you’re playing at this awesome tournament, the graphics are amazing. The online for the game is also really fun except for the fact that many players quit during the game once they are losing by like three goals. At tines the game does lag a bit too much when you’re online, but that doesn’t happen too much to ruin the game. I really wish that they made a manager mode in the game where you start out in let’s say the Premiership and you have to get in the top four after the season is done, and then you could take your team to compete in the Champions League. It’s still a really good game and definitely worth at least a rent if you enjoy playing soccer games, or just love the sport like I do.

Score: 9 out of 10

Resistance: Fall of Man
By Sandor Hugert

This game for Playstation 3 was absolutely amazing. It was probably one of the best games ever made. The graphics were really good and the game play was really cool. The story actually made sense, which hardly ever happens in my opinion. This has to be one of the best launch games ever for any console. The guns used in the game were so cool since they even had guns that shot through walls and some other cool stuff like that. You even got to drive in some unique futuristic vehicles. The graphics had to be some of the best graphics I’ve seen in any video game. I really hope that they make a sequel to this outstanding game. It was also so cool how you got to play in all types of weather conditions: snow, rain, and obviously sunshine. The online feature of the game was also sort of cool even though there have been way better online games made before for death match game play. It was still a nice feature to just have online game play for a launch title.

Score: 9 out of 10

Rainbow Six: Vegas
By Sandor Hugert

This game is very well done. The single player campaign is sort of cool, but you really should play it with other people over online. The game would get really boring without the online capabilities that it has. The cooperative game play is okay, I guess, but it could have been a lot more interesting if they added a better story line to it instead of just terrorists taking over Vegas. It would have been a lot cooler if they actually had some type of story line to it, but they didn’t have that. Where the game really shines is the death matches over online that is up to 14 players (not 16 which the game claims). It is extremely fun as you can customize you character as you get points for playing online and winning. There are many types of game modes, but your ordinary 7 vs. 7 is still the best one. The levels are very well done as they give you an opportunity to hide in many locations, which is my favorite thing to do in these types of games. I sort of wish that they made the game into a third person shooter instead of a first person shooter considering that the customization really doesn’t make much of a difference if you can’t see your character. The graphics are really sharp and clear, but they don’t necessarily compare to a game such as Gears of War. It still has pretty good graphics just not the best when you compare it to other big title XBOX 360 games. Overall, the game is pretty well done, but it could have been a lot better if they put some more effort into it.

Score: 7 out of 10

Mario Party 8
By Sandor Hugert

This new game for the Wii doesn’t disappoint, surprisingly. The mini games are still really fun even after this being the 8th game is this long franchise where I taught that no sequel could beat the original Mario Party. This game actually does beat it, mainly due to the cool new controllers that the Wii came up with. It doubles the amount of fun to be had in these party games. You obviously need at least one other friend to have some fun with this game considering it is a board game. If you have a four-player party then you’ll have even more fun in this game. This is where the main flaw comes into place, which is that there is no online play in this game. Nintendo promised us that there would be a lot of online games for the Wii. They haven’t released one online game yet, so that is very disappointing on Nintendo’s part. Overall though, this is a very fun game and is a must have for your Wii collection.

Score: 8 out of 10

God of War 2 for Playstation 2
By Sandor Hugert

This has to be one of favorite games ever made. It had everything that a person wants to see in a video game. It had the best action in a game, great story, interesting and challenging puzzles, and even awesome boss fights. The length of this game was also just about perfect considering that I never really got bored of the game, which rarely happens. I really liked the first God of War, but surprisingly I thought that this one was actually better than the first one. Towards the end of the game, I thought that Sony went a little overboard with all of the boss battles. It just seemed like someone at Sony just realized that they didn’t have enough bosses so they decided to add like five of them at the end of the game. Also, this isn’t really a flaw but at times the puzzles might be a little too difficult to do, I constantly had to find walkthroughs of the game on the Internet to beat those puzzles. The boss fights were extremely fun and the difficulty was just about perfect for most of them anyway. I don’t really understand why Sony didn’t just make this game for Playstation 3 as well considering that many more people would buy it if God of War 2 came out for it. They could have way better graphics for the game for Playstation 3. I honestly think that this might me one of the best games ever made. Great job Sony!

Score: 9 out of 10

Gears of War
By Sandor Hugert

This was probably one of the highest anticipated games of 2006 for XBOX 360. I personally didn’t see how it was that good, but that doesn’t mean that it was a bad game. The single player game was very short but the graphics were perfect and so were the level designs. The action in the game is just as amazing as you saw in the trailers. In my opinion, cooperative online play for the single player game was the best part of the game. It was just extremely fun to beat the whole game with my friend while we were just chatting about random things with our headsets. The normal online death matches are just not that fun since most people playing that are experts and you’ll just get killed really easily. It is just way more enjoyable to play with your friends that play on the same level as yourself. I actually wouldn’t have even really liked this game if it wasn’t for cooperative gameplay. Another problem that I had was how I really only had fun with the game for like 2 weeks due to the short length of the game.

Score: 7 out of 10

Crackdown
By Sandor Hugert

This game for XBOX 360 was okay but I had higher expectations for it. A month before the game’s release I couldn’t stop playing the demo of the game with my friend, but somehow the game just didn’t deliver once I bought it. The demo had one full city in it while the whole game just added two more cities. The sad thing was that the best city was the one in the demo (Los Muertos). The other two cities: The Volk and Shai-Gen. The Volk was just weird considering that in the whole city construction was taking place. Shai-Gen was sort of cool, but it was just annoying to get the Agility Orbs considering that every building in the city was a skyscraper. By far the most exciting part of the game was collecting Agility Orbs considering that the more you get, the better your jumping skills will be. The cooperative part of the game was also quite fun, but I just wish that they had up to four player cooperative play since then more of my friends could have played. The missions in the game very quite dull since each mission’s goal was to just take down the boss any way you can. The graphics were fine but not quite up-to-date with other games such as Gears of War. The game also got quite boring after a while since there was really nothing to make you want to keep playing. I must say though that the ending was unexpected which I’ll give credit for in my overall rating, I won’t tell you the ending cause I don’t want to ruin the game for you. I hope that the game makers will fix all these little problems and make an awesome sequel because I truly think that it’s possible to make this game a lot better.

Score: 7 out of 10

Call of Juarez
By Sandor Hugert

I had very high expectations for this game for the XBOX 360, considering that I had a lot of fun playing other western games such as Gun and Red Dead Revolver. Sadly I have to say that I was a little disappointed with this game. The story line is really cool how you are switching between two characters as Reverend Ray is chasing down Billy. This gets sort of weird how you basically play every level twice, once as Billy and then as Ray trying to find him. Thankfully the gameplay is different for each character as with Billy you are trying to be stealthy on every level considering that you basically get shot three times and then you die. I found that being with Reverend Ray is way better considering that it’s more of a run and shoot type of gameplay. I myself never really found that being stealthy in a game is too much fun since we play video games for enjoyment. There were a few very weird puzzles in the game where you’re not really sure what to do, and jumping on ledges with a rope is just a bit weird in first person camera angle. They could have at least given you the option to switch between first person and third person camera angles. On the other hand, this game has some of the best graphics seen up to this day when you walk around near waterfalls. I advise people to try this game out, but if you want an awesome western experience in a video game then buy Gun, not Call of Juarez.

Score: 6 out of 10