Mirror's Edge

Mirrors edge is a first person, action-adventure and platforming game, developed by DICE (EA). The game is set in a futuristic dystopian society, which has people known as "runners" transporting messages whilst trying to evade the government. The game received mostly positive reviews and scored a META score of 81%.

The story, summarised in the above paragraph, is very short but is often lost amongst just trying to continue in the action that the game brings. The setting of the game is in an unnamed city which is seemingly pristine and has non-existant crime. However this is due to a completely totalitarian regime run by the government. You play Faith who is one of these "runners". The overall story is very much lost unless you pay very close attention to it, and so it is most definately not story driven.

The gameplay is very interesting. As you play a group of people known as runners you must travel through the city quickly and without detection, which means you must do this via free-running or parkour. This is an urban sport which involves quick travel across buildings through forms of acrobatics and such. This means that the game will be fast paced and keep you looking around the area for unique ways to progress through the level. Unfortunately the game is very narrow and there will be 2 ways to get on top of a building, as for the rest of the time you will have no choice but to follow the path they have set out for you.

The graphic style shown in this game, are incredibly strange, but suit the context of the story very nicely. The game uses very few colours (Mainly whites, oranges and blues) throughout the whole game and with the only variation on colours being red to highlight a ledge that you must jump up to, to continue the story. This graphic style makes the game very interesting, however, this game has no colour-blind support and so anyone who suffers from colour-blindness with colours such as red will not be able to understand where the game is requiring you to go.

Fun-factor within the game is the aspect of being a free-runner. This game gives you the thrills of jumping from building to building several stories in height, without having to suffer the glorious reality of realising that you don't have the body of an Olympian.

The final point is the replayability, this is what can make and break a good game. This game features no multiplayer features, which in my opinion can be a very big let down of any game. However this game does have a time trial mode. This has each level in the game, without the cutscenes and story areas, which times you when trying to complete the level in the fastest time possible, with online leadrboards. This is not multiplayer but it is fun to see how you compare against your friends on the same course, this can give the game a sense of an online community which a more traditional multiplayer system gives. They also use a conventional collectables system, which people may return to the singleplayer mode to gather all the collectables.

This game receives:

3/5 "Rentable"

The game is very interesting and incredibly fun, but once you have completed the game there is very little that persuades you to continue the game.

Split Second: Velocity

Split Second: Velocity

Split Second is an action racing game developed by Black Rock Studios and published by Disney. This game was released in 2009 and set to bring a new style to the already popular racing genre. Split second's selling point is that the game is a fictional reality TV program, in which you must buil;d up your "Powerplay" to destroy the scenery and other peoples cars.

The gameplay elements are much like a normal car racing game but with a slightly more action oriented feel with the constant explosions and the adrenaline rush of levelling a 4 story building to create a new path for you to drive through. This creates for an incredibly fast paced experience for the gamer as they must constantly be aware of their surroundings as they do not know if the opposition has the points to destroy the scenery around them.

The graphics shown in this game are incredibly realistic even 4 years on they are still incredibly detailed and seem close to real life, which is the professional norm for serious racing games. However, one negative point is that when riding close to a collapsed building small bits of debris sticks to your screen. I believe however, realistic you may believe this to be, I believe it comes across as tacky and do not agree with their decision to use this.

The sound in this game is very intense. The car engines are incredibly loud in comparison to everything else, including collapsing buildings. This is unrealistic but i believe it adds to the fast paced action of racing your car, all of the focus is on you driving which means your focus is not shot on something else. They also use a variety of fast songs which adds to the action packed settings.

The fun-factor of this game is very obvious. Who doesn't love pressing a button and watching a motorway fall ontop of the unsuspecting man in first place, only to then take over as the victor of the race! This is also very satisfying when you find out this game has online multiplayer! I believe the key demographic for this game was teenage males and so the constant explosions and loud noises can be considered here as well because that just makes the game so fun for this specific audience.

The Replayability for this game, as previously mentioned is in its multiplayer, both offline and online. When having computer AI in singleplayer chase you the game will seem very one sided, as they choose not to use powerplay very often. This is completely reversed when playing the game online or split screen with a friend, because you will be constantly hunted by the other players and powerplays will be activated to screw you over as often as possible. This can easily be the most fun and most frustrating experience for any prominent driving game enthusiast.

 

I believe this game is a:

3.5/5

Rentable

I am not very interested in the racing game genre and so my opinion will be very different to any person who is interested in this sort of game.

Batman Arkham City

Ever wanted to be a super hero? Maybe even the greatest detective in the world? Well here he is, and your chance to be him, in Batman Arkham City. Batman Arkham city takes the caped crusader that we have all grown up to know and places him in a completely new environment with all his old foes, including The Joker, The Riddler and the main evil-doer of the game Hugo Strange!

The story revolves around a virus being given to batman by his arch rival The Joker, it is then up to batman to find Dr. Freeze and find a cure to save himself and also The Joker, who was also infected. During this escapade Batman must also stop "Protocol 10" which is a mysterious operation constructed by Hug Strange. The story is constantly engaging and keeps the player on the trail. It is very interesting and old fans of batman will enjoy seeing multiple reincarnations of their favourite villains and vigilante heroes.

The gameplay was well received amongst the media especially for its unique style of combat, which allows you to fly across the room to attack another enemy, as well as linking combos together with counter attacks and special moves which are made buyable as you level up. In keeping with the nature of batman being a vigilante and not a super hero, a lot of things such as transportation are taken in the form of your gadgets. Overall the game allows a lot of fluid movement and transitions between sections of the game.

The fun factor of this game lies mainly with its compelling storyline, alongside its amazing array of puzzles to be solved. Being noted as a detective batman must solve a lot of mysteries throughout the game which can be from the sublime to the ridiculous, which keeps it interesting as u traverse this engaging universe.

There is not much to say about the sound other than the music within certain places changes from one dreary, and bleak song to the next, which emphasises the dark story that is within the batman universe. They also have a large number of celebrity voice actors such as Mark Hammel playing the voice of The Joker.

The graphics were, and still are ground-breaking! This game really brings the story of batman to life with this incredibly realistic graphic style. They managed to make details such as facial features look very realistic which many games fail to do even when making the rest of the game very realistic.

Finally is the Replayability, This game offers several "End game" options to complete your gaming experience. For one they have several "side mission" to complete which take on multiple villains from past comics, as well as themed mini-games. these are all based around "The Riddler" which have various tasks such as stealth based areas where you must eliminate the enemies without being spotted, or high action combat sections. However, this game does not have any form of multiplayer which i believe lets any sort of game down because the main market nowadays is for multiplayer games so that people can keep trying a new experience, which this game does not support.

Overall I believe this game deserves

4/5

"Buyable"

Even without a multiplayer feature this game gives more than enough content to keep the player interested for long enough to guarantee they are satisfied with the initial cost.

Ecco The Dolphin

Ecco the Dolphin is an adventure game developed by Novotrade International, and was made for the Sega Mega Drive. Ecco The Dolphin's original release was in July 31st 1992 and was released only in Europe until July 1993 where it was later released for North America and Japan.

Ecco The Dolphin is about a Bottlenose dolphin who accidently travels through time to combat hostile extraterrestrials that have inhabited the earths ocean (believe me I did some research because I didn't believe that storyline either).

The gameplay is very short lived as it gives the player puzzles to solve to progress to further parts of the ocean. There is only so many times that you can push a seashell into a wall and have it collapse! However, the game does shown some variation on the puzzles at points and also a small number of combat related scenarios which have you charge into the enemy with you nose.

The graphics are very old an tattered but this is baring in mind the time this was created and the console this was designed for! For its time this was industry standard and was expected of most games, unfortunately there is not much to say about this game as it was not a ground-breaking graphical game but it served the purpose of entertaining the community and the graphics sized up to it very well.

The sound throughout the game is a very soothing melody that you would expect of a game based around the ocean, it is very calming and was a very nice touch to the game. The general sound effects are quite plain but undoubtedly suit the game well and inform you of your surroundings as part of your audio feedback.

In terms of replayability for this game there is pretty much nothing. There is no multiplayer between your friends, no multiple endings to go back on and see, no special collectable objects for you to grab for a secret bonus. However, saying that, the game is now around 21 years old. This means that it kind of falls under the category of nostalgia, people who bought their mega drives and played these games several years ago will remember having fun on these games. Your opinion on games wasn't as so high oriented as they are nowadays because there is a lot less to compare them to and so this game may of seemed so much more interesting to children of this time then they ever will to me, and so people who are now grown up will want to revisit games of their childhood and just have fun with how different the games were and how much they have advanced.

The fun factor of this game is the adventure of the game, when you choose a place such as underwater, or space, you allow a lot of creative freedom and so making interesting scenery or mazes under the water for people to solve can make for an interesting game in itself.

Overall i give this game

2/5

Not worth it!

This game was once such fun for anyone to play but then it fell down under the weight of competition I believe that I will not do this game any justice and that someone who experienced it when it was first released should be a much more true and faithful judge of what it once was.

Beyond Two Souls

Beyond two souls is a game developed by Quantic Dream, the creators of the game Heavy Rain which received many mixed reviews for its very new and ground breaking style of gameplay. The game stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe, I agree that it sounds weird to introduce a game by naming the stars in it but this game is quite a strange turn on other traditional styles of gaming as anyone who has ever played Heavy Rain will agree.

The gameplay shown in this game is very limited when you consider this to be a game, and so I believe it should be reviewed as an "Interactive Story" which is what this game has been affectionately titled. This is because the actual gameplay is very small because it is more about quick button reactions and holding down buttons in order to activate certain cutscene areas. There is a small element within the game and that is the areas in which you can walk around and interact with the world around you the progress through the game. As I said this is limited and the camera angles are very odd in the sense that it will give you very awkward angles to see from and this can be detrimental to your game.

The sound used in the game is very interesting because it uses alot of orchestral music which builds up tension in many of the games key moments which is a BIG bonus! The sound FX are nothing special they are all well timed and realistic which is what this game is aiming for.

Graphics are where this game really hits its stride, as it is very focused on making this game as graphically pleasing to the user as possible. This was their original goal with Heavy rain also (Apologies for the constant reference to Heavy rain) and it served them very well. With this game there was a big hype over them using motion capture to capture the true likeness of the stars Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe which worked to the favour of them and it created a graphically pleasing experience for everyone.

The story is very interesting and in-depth. You play as Jodie (Played by Ellen Page), a girl who is "possessed" by an angry spirit who is only referred to as Aiden. Due to her strange connection with this spirit she is taken away from her parents to a military base under the care of Dr Nathan Dawkins (Played by Willem Dafoe). The game is not in a regular linear storyline, but it has many key points throughout Jodie's life which it changes to and they are not in order, one mission she will be 18 and the next she could be 8, This is a technique used by finding key moments that relate to areas further on in her life (or previous) and this will lead to the next scene in the story.

Replay-ability This game does not feature a multiplayer section which could be a good point considering the nature of the game, it wouldn't necessarily suit having a multiplayer without ruining the storymode slightly. So you must be incredibly interested in the actual storymode to want to be involved in buying the game for real! The only real replay-ability that this game offers is that it gives several different endings for the player to try out. This may kind of seem a very small point and not very attractive to many players but to some this is a great opportunity to explore into the game with a lot more depth.

And so, This leaves us with the "Fun-factor" i would rate this game highly for its ability to swap into the evil spirit, Aiden. This vengeful spirit has fun "messing with people" by throwing furniture around and passing through them making the room feel all of a sudden very chilly! This is incredibly fun to see the reactions of the people around you as you continue throwing things in their direction and scaring them as much you can!

Finally i rate this game an impressive

4.5/5

"Buyable"

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (Will refer to just as Warhammer) is a third person shooter and hack an slash game, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ on September 6th 2011 in North America and 9th September in Europe. This game is based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe, which is a Science fiction, tabletop miniature wargame. The game follows three "Ultramarines" on a fictional planet named Graia (A planet devoted to military production) , that has been invaded by alien "Orks". However, the game doesn't really reveal anything about the story line until a while into the game and so it will leave you very confused with what you are doing until some way into the game.

The gameplay is deliberately unrealistic as in you are a single commando-type soldier taking on multiple hordes of advancing enemies with limit weapons including the "chain-sword" shown here. The game is very "Hack and slash" which means that you can often forget about your guns and just button mash the melee attacks, which is fun to begin with but it will lead to the game becoming boring more quickly as the levels are very linear, leading you from point A to point B with a horde of Orks in between. The game will however last an average of 8 hours which depending on your own patience can be a good or bad thing.

The graphics on this game are very cartoony, but not all games want to achieve the realism that you see in most shooters. This cartoony style emphasises the Exaggerated models that the Ultramarines have. They are built to be huge human like characters with their heads being a normal proportion but some kind of suit that has all of their features exaggerated to an epic proportion, and i believe that making the graphics more cartoonish rather then ultra realistic proves to be a better way to show off these features.

There isn't much of a focus on the sound throughout the game, but one thing that I can comment on is the volume of the gunfights in comparison to the rest of the game. They seem to be somewhat louder and more focused upon during fight scenes, as if deliberately trying to draw your attention and to focus on the flashing guns fights and explosions that fall before you, which is actually an excellent point as this is what the game prides itself on, however some of the scenery in this game is beautiful and you can miss it very easily in the search for these battles.

The replayability of a game is obviously one of its biggest points and so a game needs a solid reason for some to buy it rather than rent it. In this game they have a multiplayer section which is the driving point of most games. This game uses an 8 vs 8 gamemodes in both of its 2 gametypes. These gametypes are classic team deathmatch and domination game modes. Unfortunately this game won't have much to contend with against such shooter titles as Battlefield or Call of duty but it does have some fun in the game and it can keep you entertained as you can show off your seemingly undefeatable super powered "Ultramarine" with the rest of the world!

The "Fun-factor" of this game is what will draw you into it and keep you interested. The game has no focus on its storyline and to understand it you may need to know a little about the Warhammer universe to know whats going on. But the Hack and slash gamestyle along with the ability to kill hordes of enemies without breaking a sweat is definately a point that many people will find interest in even if they don't have an engaging story to follow along with.

3/5

"Rentable"

I don't believe this game shows much replay value above mindlessly playing the same multiplayer games over and over again. Although the campaign is interesting enough to mean that many people should look into playing it as it can be very enjoyable.