Bioshock Review

Bioshock was a great First Person Action/RPG style game with a flowing story that Kept me wanting more. To give truth to this game, I'd say it had the best story of 07, and it helped hide the small instinces where you might find a flaw in the game.

The weapons in the game really impressed me, not only the weapons but the way the humour was used with the demonstrations of the weapons and how the game allowed you to be creative with them. With Bioshock you are given the use of not only melee wrench, and guns, you are given the use of plasmids. Plasmids are injected to give you powers like lightning bolts, or fireballs, even bee swarms.

Plasmid Needles are only to generally boost the plasmids use, not any one in peticular, giving a little more simplicity and less to worry about. Without Plasmids, you could try to get through the game, but you would probably run out of ammo alot, and plasmids are plain fun.

Sound is a great big part of Bioshock, the effects and voice acting is brilliant, and the fact that there are recordings as a opposed to cutscenes, and radio instead of misson briefing, it keeps the illusion going for much longer. The weapon noises were good, and for plasmids the noise was decent.

Graphics were a key make or break thing in this game, but not to a large degree, I think most people will love the Art Style and cartoony design of Bioshock, the Graphics were Excellent, but if you don't love the look of this game, then you will find yourself bored.

If I had to choose a game of the year for 2007 now, I think looking back, Bioshock might be it, as far as PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 go. Looking forward I think the sequel will

Mass Effect Review

Mass Effect recieved a 9.4 on IGN, an 8.5 on Gamespot and a 9.0 on 1up. I will not incorporate any averages into my reviews, but just my own thoughts on the game, not that I'm unfair.

I want to make sure that everyone knows this blog includes reviews although I haven't reviewed anything yet, I'm going back to 07 to recap what games are the best of the best, so here it is...

Mass Effect had a lot of good points that some people didn't see because of it's flaws, the game has some buggy, and laggy loading times, which couldv'e been fixed with just a loading screen. the in-game was worse, if you walk into a room with 5 enemies, you can see the levels of detail being aplied as well as the textures on their body. The one flaw I hear a lot about but see no real problem to is commanding your squad. When commanding your squad you can try to command them to go somewhere using the up on the D-pad, the squad will sometimes fullfill the command or sometimes not, which is not reliable game tactics, though I did find that it worked about 8 times out of ten. Something you might find annoying in the game is when you try to collect an item and you squad mates are beside you. Of course you go to pick the items up but the cursor to control what target you want to interact with is not your character but the camera angle behind him. the game seems like it's meant to be first person with a lesser third person option, like...Oblivion.

The story is really a turning point in gaming history, because it allows you to change other characters opinions, morals, or relationships by your words and not your money this time around. The Character base is so intelligent and really makes you look at the potential of the newest form of on screen entertainment.

The graphics are fine after they process in front of your eyes.

The cinematics are Masterful, the detail is almost human, the framerate is good as long as the games many bugs don't make it choppy.

The Gameplay is really great, and I see more after 2 and 1/2 playthroughs that the game is a lot of the same skills being tested more and more, where other games might continue testing your skill in many different ways. That said, Mass Effect is an RPG so you'll see a lot of repetition in combat, though if you go on side missions you can max out your characters skill points that are very specific compared to most, as well as you team mates *0*.

The sound is perfect with the story and cinematics. the voice acting is the best I've ever heard and the diferent races have quite unique speech quirks that are not only creative but apply to many sci-fi fans thoughts.

This is a short game, unless you go on the side quests which you can't go on when you beat the game, because you can't freerome after the main game is finished. You can make very well made custimizations of your characters for your first, second, or third playthrough, or you can stick to the developers character that they made.

**Story: 10/10

The Orange Box Review

Best Deal in 08


With the Half life 2 games this reddish yellowish box is already the best game deal of 07, but with Portal and Team Fortress this box is unstoppable.


The games are all very well paced and extremely well thought out. The puzzles that challenge you in Portal and the Half life 2 games are very different from what puzzles you might see in first person games. Half life 2 Episode 2 Team fortress 2 and portal are all new games, and the box also includes Half life 2 and Half life 2 episode one which are older games.

Half Life 2: Episode Two.


A lot of key moments occur in Half Life 2 Episode Two's story that will give some closure and leave you wanting more.

The only real new weapon is a bomb that you can shoot at Stryders (Giant Mechanical Spiders) with your Gravity gun and if it successfully attaches to them you can shoot at the bomb and it wil explode taking out the Stryder in one blow. The self centered, egocentric Scientist named Dr. Magneson named his bomb after, himself. Yes the Bombs are called Magnesons.

The first third of the game takes you through the ant lions colony and it shows how much the series needed an explanation for what Gordon Freeman is really fighting. You go through some Combine enemies, but you'll mainly face the combines Hunters which are introduced to half life in this game.

The graphics are not raising any bars in games, but are well done and the art is not comparable to any other games. The real part of the games in half life that get me are the conversations with Alyx and Eli Vance, or Dr. Kleiner, and others.

The Aliens were more a part of Episode 2 as you go through their tunnels in the ground. You learn about the Ant Lions and you seethe Larvae, more Protectors and a lot of the regular Ant Lions.

This Game is only about 6 hours long unless you survive the whole game, and believe me you'll enjoy it.

Team Fortress 2

This game is going to give you great online multiplayer.

The game will blow you away with laughter, it has it's own unique, cartoony style, great characters to ontexperiment with, and fun combat techniques that are original to Team Fortress.

The bad stuff isn't so bad, and the good stuff is great! The game may be a little bit too slow paced for some players, the weapons don't match up with everyone's styles, but you've got hours of fun on this game.

The characters have 3 classes, Offense, Defence and Support. Offense Includes the Scout, the Pyro and the Soldier. The Defence has a Demoman, Heavy, and an Engineer. Finally the Support has the Spy, Sniper and Medic. The classes are quite fun to use and try to balance your team. You get three weapons for each class you pick Ex.(scout has Shotgun, pistol and Baseball bat)

I'll Start with Offense. The Scout is a character for those of you who want a fast paced kind of game where you are capable of avoiding enemies instead of having to go face to face with them. I've already mentioned the Scouts weapons, and to let you know, the bat is a one hit kill. Soldiers have rocket launchers which they can not only launch at enemys or ground near them, but ground near themselves to launch themselves to do a big jump. They also get their own shotgun and they have shovels which are comical to use. Pyros get the ever beautiful Flamethrower, which is my favourite weapon besides maybe the bat. They also get a shotgun, the same as the soldiers, and a red axe.

Now on to the Defence. The Demoman has a bottle of some kind of Rum, or at least alcohol, and a grenade launcher as well as the most frustrating death, the proximity mine. Heavy is one of the most popular classes and it gets its big Chain Gun, two fists, and the same shotgun as the soldier and Pyro. The Engineer has his Wrench, *FUN*, his pistol, same as Scouts, shotgun same to the Soldier, Pyro and Heavy, and also his trusty engineering gadget which can build Dispensers of engineering to build Sentry Guns, and Teleporters.

Support is equally fun where with the medic you can heal teammates with your ubercharger saw enemies or Shot pills at them with your pills despenser. The Sniper being on of My favourites again, has a sniper rifle, machine gun and a long knife. Finally the Spy has his big Revolver, his disguise as the other teams players, his little pocket knife and the Electro Sapper which I can't figure out what to do with honestly.

The Game can be slow paced if you don't have enough pplayers, which not a lot of people are on Team Fortress 2, but the game is Worth playing and truly a boost of the Ogrange Box's lasting Appeal.

Everybody saw the games

concept and thought it was

pretty good, but the feeling

of actually Playing Portal

is one of the best games

I've experienced. It really

gives you the things you would

only Sub-conciously wish for

in a type of puzzle game.

Portal truly shows that

fighting against enemies can

be a puzzle if you make it one.

Network Wars

These three networks of websites flood the internet with information, rumours, video and a lot more on gaming.

Gamespot has a stricter review method, IGN has a more numbers based review method, and 1up is more fair with games that have big flaws that are still fun.

Whether it's top ten tuesdays, the 1up Show or On the spot, these game sites have a lot of control on gamers.

The big questions for some are,

-are they reliable information sources?

-will they over hype a game and score it low?

-are their reviews fair?

-Will they rumour just for site traffic?

Well the answers are not all easy but I'll try to answer a few. The best source of real game content is probably 1up, they know when to say that even though there is a lag in a game or bad sound or graphics, that it was an amazing experience. they know when to say that a game has potential, and they say when it hasn't met it, and so on.

IGN.com is known to over-hype games and give them 7.9s or 7.8s on the review, but they do fairly score games and they know how to put the numbers together and rank them well. They are better with numbers and math to solve how much they enjoy a game. They maybe over do a bit of the hyping on the more popular games that tend to flop.

Rumours are made by all, but their motives are unknown. I do know they try a lot to keep their wishes away from their solid information about upcoming games. 1up is quite good at saying when a game could be one kind of gameplay that would help the series, although they make sure everyone knows its not fact or rumour, but their own creativity. Gamespot tends to keep things as facts to make sure gamers trust their direct respectable site. IGN seems to try to get gamers more excited about games which works and a lot of the time their info is true but a lot of the time not.

IGN is a good site if you want specific reviews, the forums on gamespot are the best, the 1up show is the best video network including Gamevideos.com.

Gamespot gives .5 or .0 scores ex.(9.0, 6.5) IGN gives .1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9 or .0 scores ex. (8.3, 4.6,7.0) 1UP gives .5 or .0 scores like Gamespot.