Why am i not suprised?

I'm not sure whether it has been mentioned at all on the blog, but the three of us that posts here, that's right there are other people than 4ever, basically we don't particularly like ign, for various reasons, mainly because we often disagree with their reviews. So, if you think about it, reviews are an integral part of the game making progress. As a reviewer, you are meant to be honest, you are meant to tell the gaming community the truth about a game, unlike marketing which is solely there to make a game look good, reviewing can also point out the flaws in a game. This can then get a developer to fix the game before it goes public, or just warn the average gamer of what a game is really like. Reviewers are pretty important, but, when reviewers like ign start accepting money so that they will give games better reviews it ruins the entire system. Major flaws can get through to production and people can easily be disappointed in what they buy. This seems, to me, to just be another reason to dislike ign.

I found most of this out from a totalbiscuit video.

4EVER's adventures in the land of Skyrim

Well, here we are. After extensive playing and thinking, I've finally come to a conclusion. I am finished with Skyrim. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate this game...I just...Well, let's start shall we?


Skyrim takes place in the province of Skyrim where a whole bunch of fantasy races live and thrive. You are a prisoner about to be executed. You are saved when a dragon, thought to be long dead, comes and interrupts your death. You escape and from then on, you do whatever. This opening is the only cinematic part of the whole game, whereas the rest of the storytelling is done by talking to people. Yup, I just love standing completely motionless and watch a character's mouth flap. Whenever this talking is done, it feels so artificial. You pretty much mash "A" until the speech is over and you can go run away. So much of the voice acting is poor and there are maybe...ten voice actors across the land of Skyrim. Also, it hurts that the script is poor as well. I spoke to a child and he said: "You're new around here, so I'll go easy on you. But don't get on my bad side" A KID SAID THAT? Really? A freaking child of maybe ten years of age??????? On the plus side of presentation, the graphics are awesome. Seeing the mountains in the distance make you feel emerged in the universe and character models for things like the frostbite spiders make you swear you were really there. Basically, everything in Skyrim looks really pretty. Except for children. They are just plain weird. 


The gameplay in Skyrim consists of exploring, fighting and crafting. As you traverse the huge (and I mean huge) land, you'll come across enemies that range from wolves to Dragon Priests. Unfortunately, combat is simple. If you use magic, you pretty much just walk backwards and spam your powers. Swordplay consists of swiping, then moving backwards, then swiping again. Every now and then, you need to do a power attack to break somebody's guard, but that's really all there is. Archery isn't really something I explored so I won't talk much about that. Sure, combat involves the occasional dragon shout or the use of a special power, but that's all there is. But, it's still fun, especially magic. I enjoy fighting a lot actually. Exploring will lead you to places that have some treasure or armour to plunder, which is cool. You might even stumble across a section of a story while exploring. Crafting is done in many different ways. You may blacksmith, where you require certain ingots and materials to make new stuff or improve it. Enchanting grants an item certain powers and alchemy makes potions to be used offensively or as restoration. It's very deep and clever. The story will sometimes take you to places like temples or dungeons which really get to me. The music plays the same track over and over again while it attempts to put in interesting puzzles. Nope. It doesn't work.


With all this "awesome" exploration and complexity, why don't I like this game? At first, I didn't have an answer. So I took the dog for a walk and had a long think. Then I realised; Skyrim lacks two things important to any book, TV show or game. Excitement and character. I don't know how, but Skyrim fails to be exciting. You never have a sense of urgency or drive. Take something like Mario Galaxy. That is exciting because of the pure rush you get when running up walls with Yoshi or platforming above a black hole or fighting a boss, or just about anything. Of course, you can relax and tool around on Starship Mario as much as you want, but when you commit to a level, it's serious. You jump and run through perfectly designed levels and have a great time. In Skyrim...you just sort of walk about...and see and enemy and then beat the enemy. The combat doesn't reward you or make you feel epic like in Arkham City and there is no drive to complete these quests. They all feel like; collect x, kill y or destroy x after killing y. And this isn't exciting. Sure, there's no doubt that I had some thrilling moments throughout my time in Skyrim, but they were soon replaced by a lack of atmosphere and drive. Here's the other problem. I don't care about anyone in the game or feel any drive to do anything. Nobody is interesting or engaging thanks to the script and storytelling and nothing feels special. I don't feel like I'm tearing through thieves, I feel like I'm killing three of X. Look at Animal Crossing. No, it's not exciting, but it's not meant to be. You like the characters, you care about building your house and most of all, you care about this little town (I named mine "Town" Clever?) But in Skyrim: "oh, Riverwood might burn down...too bad"

Now, Skyrim isn't a bad game, with the following it has, how can it be? But it just doesn't grab me. Goodbye Skyrim. I'm going to go play Deus Ex for a few hours. Or maybe Arkham City. 

Transformers: The Fall of Cybertron

If you weren't already blown away by that trailer, let me elaborate further into the lore. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron is the upcoming sequel to High Moon's War for Cybertron game, which was one of the few good Transformers games, well, ever. It's been tough for the Transformers as of late. Not a single good TV show since the G1. Plotless movies. Bad games. Basically, not doing so well. So High Moon decided to do the Bots justice and make an awesome game. Now, I haven't played it yet, but I'll have the chance soon. This new Transformers game features some new elements. For instance, robots can now triple Transform from things like Helicopter, to Jet, to Robot. This opens up different attack options and strategies. Also, the Dinobots are back. Hell yes. There are now robots that can combine, just like the show. High Moon said that they really wanted to push the difference between each Transformer in this new game, so they're getting rid of Co-Op to help with the dynamic new gameplay choices. There also appear to be a big emphasis on Optimus Prime and how bad ass he is. But that's cool. Prime was always the coolest.

ARKHAM CITY STORY DLC W/ ROBIN!

At freaking last! There may just be some story DLC for Arkham City. On the PS3 trophies site, it give us achievements names for Robin under the label Harley Quinn's revenge. Now, this can't be confirmed as accurate, but it seems more than likely that Robin will be facing off against Harley Quinn in Arkham City soon. 

Call of Duty

This series has copped a lot of hate, yet sold millions of copies. But here's the funny thing. EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO BUY IT STILL SEEM TO HATE IT! Now, let's get the story straight. I dislike Call of Duty, and not just because it's popular. There are so many legitimate reasons why I detest this game series. To begin, let's go to single player. Or, what is almost a single player. Thing is, the developers put little to no effort into it. The story makes no sense, the setting is basically "oh, stop the evil bad guy terrorists" and there are no memorable characters. The gameplay in this limited amount of space is almost thoughtless. You can hold down "L" and you sights will snap to the nearest enemy, and then you just rip through them. Admittedly, some sections are kinda fun, but they get repetitive quickly. Any vehicles in the campaign control awkwardly, making them feel tacked on, which they are. But the focus of the game admittedly isn't on the single player. It's the multiplayer. It's fast, furious and flawed. Now, don't get me wrong, I had some genuinely gleeful moments with multiplayer. I liked the thrill of hunting for other players and then blasting them before continuing my search for others. But, as with most other forms of online shooters, it gets boring after a while. I'm not being biased against COD, Halo and Goldeneye got boring within week of online multiplayer. If I'm playing a game, I need drive. I need a story to pull me along, or I need friends to make the experience more enjoyable. Also, this type of game is really unpolished. You just walk around, hoping you don't get sniped and killing enemies within seconds. There's little challenge, just mainly seeing someone before they see you or having the better weapon at the better time. In Halo, you strive to get those shots in, but in COD, it's just bamdead. Here's the other thing. EVERY COD FEELS EXACTLY THE SAME! I hear people complaining: COD 4 is so much better than World at War, but they play identically. A few different weapons and a few new maps aren't enough to be part of a completely new game. Fans pay $100 for something worth about $30 at maximum. So, the game has its moments. Okay, but hold on: sorry IT IS THE BEST GAME OF ALL TIME. ALL OF THEM! People talk about this game like its Zelda or Deus Ex or even Skyrim. But its not. Its a timewaster. Here's the thing. The devs have so much money from this game series which could be spent in truly pleasing their fans and putting in effort and devotion into the inevitable yearly release, but instead, you get the same game. Year after year and the fans eat it up. Why? And the final thing; the community. Every player hates every game, except for all of them. People say: Oh, MW2 is better than Black Ops, but they keep playing it anyway! Also, you get a lot of kids playing the game to try and be cool, but in actuality annoy the crap out of you. I know a kid who asked his mother if he could take a day off his school to spend the day playing Black Ops. Apparently, noob tubing is more important than en education. 

Playstation Vitor? Viter? Vita! Playstation Vita. Right?

The playstation vita is...a new handheld from sony? That plays handheld games? NO! NO I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT THE PLAYSTATION VITA! NO GO AWAY!! NO MASTER, I WON'T! NOT THIS TIME! HUSIBVIUFWUYBFGWHFB IUG. 


The Playstation Vita from sony is a new handheld console to succeed the much less than awesome Playstation Portable. Admittedly, the PSP was alright. It had a good game on it...somewhere. But it was overshadowed by the glory of the Nintendo DS...and the other pointless variations of it. WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO MAKE A DSIXL? Anyway, Sony's team went back the drawing board and went "Okay guys, look at this! Nintendo made handheld with touchscreen, we should totally do that as well" One of the guys says: "Shouldn't we stop stealing from Nintendo? I mean, they still hate us after rippn' off the Wii?" "U mad?" So, Sony had a closer look and said: People love graphics, so lets make it HD. Okay, picking up steam here...
And let's put a touch screen on the back
Waitasecondhuh?
AND THE FRONT! You can never have to many touch screens!
whyrudoingthisisittoohardtojuststop?

OMMIGOSHLOOKATHOWMUCHfunWE'reHaving?

But soon, they had their greatest idea ever; "Let's just make a PS3 on a screen that's too small, yet still too big for my pocket! Genius!" The sony team was stunned at the sheer brilliance of the idea. And this time, there was nobody complaining about ripping off Nintendo. "Where'd that nintendo guy go?" "Oh, he got lost" "If only he had a GPS..." And so, a GPS was added, just in case players forgot where they were. All of a sudden, the stars shone a brilliant bright purple and pure brain power was trust into the minds of the PSV creators. The idea of allowing people to play their PS3 through their Vita was born...bro. This was the first great idea they had. Similar to the Wii U, but with more distance and could be played virtually anywhere. Only one problem...THEY FORGOT TO IMPLEMENT IT WHEN THEY RELEASED IT!!!!!$!$!$!$!$ You see, they could have waited a little longer to give players the option from the get go by putting EFFORT AND TIME into their baby, but instead sony's eyes were like $-$ and they felt obliged to release the Vita and promise the release of programs that would allow the Vita to stream PS3 gameplay later on. What's that smell? Smells like money to me. Anyway, all this was forgotten when they announced the great game that would come out for the Vita...Uncharted. And you know something? IT WASN'T ACTUALLY ALL THAT GREAT! The rest of the games, you could get on your PS3 which might be cheaper than buying a Vita and, oh wait a minute...YOU CAN USE IT ON A BIG SCREEN! I MEAN WHAT IDIOTS...
Nope. Never mind. I'm done. I'm-I'm done. I give up. Game over.
bang
I just killed myself. Can you live with that Sony? 

Boss fights in First Person Shooters

GET RID OF THEM!!!
Virtually none of them are any good. 
Boss fights in action games? Usually awesome because of the number of ways you can fight them, like in Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions. Sure, they tend to be a bit formulaic after a while, but you can't deny that in games like Arkham City and Infamous, the bosses are spectacular to look at and you get a true sense of epicness when dueling them, your powers against theirs in a battle to prove which are stronger. And if you aren't as strong as they are, its up to you to outwit them in any way you can. Epic!
However, boss fights in FPS always seem to suck. Why? Because the style of the game doesn't fit in with boss fights. Shooters like Goldeneye 007 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution have awful boss fights, despite the fact the games themselves are amazing. When shooting, most enemies go down in a few hits. There's a lot of strategy involved with shoot outs though, which makes them so interesting. Deus Ex is all about strategy, variety and just plain epic combat. Enemies take cover and try to flank you, making for some intense firefights. Although you can rip through these guys with a few bullets, they can do exactly the same to you. Except in the boss fights. The boss just slowly walks towards you, barely flinching as you fill him full of lead. If you get too close, he demolishes you...pretty much effortlessly. The bosses are unlike any other enemy. The fights in the game aren't about player choice and strategy any more, it's about how many shots you can get in before having to sprint away. Not fun. Same with Goldeneye. You can get behind the boss and kill him to death with you bullets...or can you? The boss can only take a certain amount of damage before he becomes temporarily invincible, meaning that your bullets do nothing. Do you ever become invincible? NO! Do any other enemies become invincible? NO! Sure, bosses are meant to be more challenging, but not because they stop the flow of gameplay. If you want a good FPS boss fight: Try Metroid Prime. Epic fights there.
4EVER out