Will Rock

Will Rock is a game developed by Saber Interactive and published by Ubisoft. Saber Interactive is known for having developed Timeshift(released in 2007) and in 2010 they will release Inversion. Ubisoft is known for quite a lot of games and series, such as the Rayman series, Assassin's Creed, Brothers in Arms and many more. Will Rock was released in june 2003.

In Will Rock you're playing as Willford Rockwell. Willford is a young archaeologists who heads down to Mount Olympus in order to investigate a possible entrance of a temple, but as soon as he starts examining the entrance things go bad, the Olympian Restoration Army kidnaps your girlfriend and performs a ritual which opens the gate, through which they flee, but during a gunfight one of the statues is hit, and Prometheus arises from the statue striking down on the remaining ORA members. Then he turns to you and asks you to combine your power so that you do him a favor and kill Zeus and his minions and you'll get your girlfriend back. And at the end this will be exact what's going to happen, so there are no plot-twists in this game, it's more of an intro and and outro really.

Will Rock is an old-school first person shooter, you walk around, picking up weapons and items and shoot enemies, lots of enemies. Because in Will Rock you'll have to kill hundreds of enemies per section of a level. Luckily they are all quite easy to kill, it's just the sheer amount of them that are giving you a hard time sometimes, although I have to admit that the game is fairly easy. There are some differences between a normal shooter and Will Rock, primarily it's the fact that you can get powerups throughout the game. There are three powerups you can get Titan Damage, Titan Motion and Invulnerability. Titan Damage increases the damage you do for 30 seconds, Titan Motion gives you slow-motion for 30 seconds and Invulnerability makes you invincible for 30 seconds. The gameplay and controls feel very smooth and give you absolute control over your character, which is something I like in videogames, because it can help you a lot in certain situations, but more on that in the section about leveldesign. The weapons you can use in this game are a shovel, a pistol, a shotgun, a machine gun, a minigun, an acid gun, a medusa gun, an atomic gun(which can be missed), fireball thrower and a crossbow.

The graphics are okay for a game from 2003, they aren't the best from that year but they suffice and the smoothness of the gameplay more than makes up for it. The giant environment is a sight for sore eyes, the gigantic temples and arena's have an epic feel to them, especially during the boss fights, especially the last one where you confront Zeus himself. The enemies you face are pretty standard but their design has been done fairly well, not that it really sticks out, after all the pace at which you're blazing through enemies won't give you much time to sight-see.

The leveldesign is also great, as I've mentioned before the temples, giant arenas and other places you'll visit during your adventure are done very well and have an epic feeling to them. The areas are mixed up, you have levels with water, lava and rooms filled with traps, so you never know what you're going to expect. In Will Rock you'll have certain areas in which you have to do some platforming, but rarely you'll have to make a pixel-perfect jump, the game seems to be quite forgiving when it comes to platforming. However, you can skip certain parts if you do have pixel-perfect skills, sometimes it's a secret, but there are also times at which the developer simply didn't expect anyone to be able to make a certain jump. For example, within the game I was in a temple in which you had four different ways of getting to the top level and all four ways were supposed to be enclosed, because the developers had put in a round fence in order to keep players from simply using the edge below to skip having to use a different route, but what I found out is that if you manage to land on the fence, you can use it to hop past that area.

There are about ten levels in this game, and they're divided into three missions, every mission contains three levels and those missions end in a boss fight and the last level is the fight against Zeus. The boss-fights vary in difficulty, the first one(a giant cyclops) is a push-over, the second one(a giant guy with an eye-patch and a wooden leg) I found to be extremely difficult, since it took me multiple attempts to kill him. But the third boss(a flying bird woman thing) was very easy, especially with the acid gun. The final boss(Zeus) starts out as being quite difficult but when you've discovered his pattern you can simply pick a spot where he can't hit you and where you can hit him and kill him softly but steadily.

The sound and music in this game is exceptionally well, it starts out as We Will Rock You as the menu song, and throughout the game there are various rock remixes on other songs. Now if you don't care too much about rock music, you can turn it off in the menu and simply play your own music in the background like I did. The sounds of the guns are okay, they sound the way they should sound, they might not be a 100% correct but this game doesn't try to be realistic so this can be forgiven, the enemies and other sounds sound the way they should sound. Every once in a while your main character will say some line that's supposed to make you laugh, but more often than not they aren't funny.

So, to conclude this review, I would definitely recommend this game if you really like old-school first-person shooters. If you don't really care too much about shooters I'd suggest you give it a rent or something seeing as some may think the game is quite boring, because of the thousands of enemies you plough through in order to get to the end, however the final boss is definitely worth all the time, not really the ending itself (it's a cheap slideshow basically telling you that all is good now). So yeah, check this game out, it should be quite cheap now, seeing as it was released in 2003.

Gears of War

This Third Person Shooter was developed by Epic Games en released by Microsoft Game Studios in 2006. Epic Games is known for the Unreal series, the Unreal Tournament series and above all the commonly used game-engine, the Unreal Engine.

The game takes place on the planet Sera where humanity is being threatened by a race called, the Locust. This race emerged from the ground in all cities attacking and killing humans on the day called Emergence Day. As a result people fled to the Jacinto Plateau, a 100km wide plateau made of granite, where the locust couldn’t break through. Eventually, the Locust broke through the defenses surrounding the plateau. The game itself commences 14 years after Emergence Day.

The main character of Gears of War (GoW) is Marcus Fenix, an ex-soldier who got thrown into prison for leaving the battlefield. As Fenix, you are ordered to obtain and deliver a device called the Resonator, to map the subterranean tunnels that the Locust use. After which a bomb, called the Lightmass bomb, will be launched at the center of the tunnel network. Well so far the story. But before I close this part, one final comment. This game is as linearly as almost every other shooter.

The maps in GoW are very well done, giving you enough opportunities to take cover behind a wall or a refrigerator (don’t ask). At certain points in some maps you have to decide what route to take, either right or left. I found out that there’s almost no difference in the choice you make. And to keep players entertained, they’ve added a part where you drive a vehicle.

Of to the weapons in the game. Immediately at the start of the game, you’re given 2 weapons, a pistol and a assault rifle. Now there’s nothing special about the pistol but the fun starts with the assault rifle. Instead of a knife as bayonet, here you have your own special chainsaw. And with it you get some amusing cinematics where you splice a Locust soldier in half. Ah relaxing. Another great weapon is the Hammer of Dawn, an awesome weapon that uses satellites to rain fire and death upon your enemies. The drawback of the weapon is that it’s only available for a certain amount of time.

One other thing the developers added is a feature called active reloading. Meaning that when you reload a weapon a bar appears showing multiple lines in three colors. When you press the reload button at right moment, it doesn’t only reload your weapon faster but also gives it a damage bonus for a limited amount of time.

The game focuses, next to shooting a lot of Locust, on taking cover. Now on a low difficulty taking cover isn’t a thing you would think about, but one the higher ones however, it becomes clear that you are forced to take cover in order to survive every battle. But to prevent players from staying in one place constantly, enemies in GoW tend to flank their opponent or throw grenades at their position. And to make matters worse, your enemies can pop out behind you if you don’t look out. Locust reinforcements usually comes in the form of emergence holes from where the Locust spawn. Luckily this is easily solved with a well placed grenade.

So to conclude my review, Gears of War is a game that you will definitely like, if you are into shooters of course. The enemies will keep you alert throughout the game and you will have a hard time to stop playing when you haven’t reached the end.

Robot Arena 2

Robot Arena 2: Design and Destroy is a robot action game developed by Gabriel Entertainment, the company that also made the first game and also the company that's infamous for making six games in the John Deere series. The game was released in February 2003 on PC.

As you can guess by the title you have to create a robot and destroy your opponents in the arena. You can also pick one of the standard robots but these robots are very weak, and thus it's very hard to win the tournaments with these ones. However, if you're able to build one yourself with strong weapons like our robot in the video the singleplayer tournaments are very easy. The only problem is finding out how to build a robot that actually works. But when you discover that you'll have a lot of fun with this game. The game offers a lot of customization and freedom when looking at other games of that period.

In this game you play in seasons, and in each season there are nine tournaments. In each of these tournaments you have to win four 1vs1 battles or two battles against three other robots (these are mostly king of the hill battles, get on top of the plateau and keep the other robots away to achieve points, or you can just destroy them all, that also works fine). There are four ways to defeat your opponent: Destroying his robot, immobilize his robot (can be done by destroying his wheels) eliminating his robot (push him in a pit) or when you've achieved the most points in battle (just smash up the other robots) after the time has expired. For each victory you gain points, and when you have the most points after you've played the nine tournaments, you win the season. There are 15 AI teams, each with three different robots. One in each weight class: Lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight. Unfortunately the AI teams are very weak and it's easy to win these tournaments, there is only one robot that is quite hard, and that's the third opponent in the video below.

The graphics of this game have been improved in comparison with the first game, as expected. The arena levels look great, and they didn't forget to put the traps in the game, something that really has to be in a robot battle game. Some of the traps are: spikes, saws, sledgehammers and launch plateau's. There is no ingame music, only in the main menu. A fun sound effect that they've put in is the announcement voice before the battle commences.

This game also has a multiplayer option, but the servers have been shut down two years ago. There is only one forum that's still standing. Their name is GameTechMods, in case you're interested.

The game has some compatibility problems with the latest operating systems, but it's still playable. It's a fun game to unwind after a day of stress. In conclusion: It's quite a fun game, but unfortunately it's a little bit to easy.

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down is a First Person Shooter set during the United Nations intervention in the Somali Civil War. The game was developed by NovaLogic and was released on PC (Windows 2003, Mac 2004), Playstation 2 (2005) and Xbox (2006). This is the sixth game in the Delta Force series. The game also got an expansion on Windows and Playstation 2 called Team Sabre, which featured two extra campaigns, one takes place in Colombia and the other one takes place in Iran.

The player begins the game as a soldier attached to the 10th Mountain Division, taking part in Operation Restore Hope; part of the United Nations-backed humanitarian effort to end the famine in Somalia which had killed 300,000 civilians. Following the third mission, the player assumes the role of a soldier assigned to Task Force Ranger, taking part in Operation Gothic Serpent, a military operation conducted during the Battle of Mogadishu on October 3, 1993. During the latter section of the game, the player controls members of the 3rd Ranger Battalion and 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, commonly known as Delta Force.

The game is based on the 1992-93 UN peace missions in war-torn Somalia. The first few missions in the game are designed to make the player accustomed with the different types of weapons, their usage, enemy AI, (which is kind of stupid, when playing this game it looks like they're deaf, since they don't react when you fire a shot at them. They only react when they actually see you) terrain types and combat techniques. The majority of the missions involve convoy protection, providing security for food distributions, destroying weapon stockpiles, taking prisoners, etc.

The fans of Delta Force know that the earlier games in the series were very hard, but this game has been made a lot easier. In the earlier games one hit sometimes was enough to get killed, but here you can take three-five hits. You're also able to find health packs which heal you completely. Another thing that also has changed is that your freedom is limited, the maps in this game aren't that open as the maps in earlier games. Most of the time you are flown in by chopper and it all happens automatically, you only have to wait until it lands and listen to some instructions. You can also use a limited amount of quick saves which also makes the game much easier than its predecessors.

The graphics of the game aren't that special, but to be fair they have been improved compared to the earlier games in the series. Especially in the city levels you can see that the creators have put some time in the graphics. However, the desert levels mostly are very gray and bare. Another thing that I think that could've been worked out better is the sound aspect of the game. The ingame sound effects aren't that bad, but there is no ingame music. So over time the game will get boring.

The game also has a multiplayer mode, which can be played along with 149 other players. However I don't think that there aren't much people playing this game anymore since it's quite old, and there are much better titles around than this game. This is also my conclusion of the game: You can enjoy this game for a couple of days, but after you've completed the singleplayer you won't waste more time on this game, it has a low replay value.

Crisis Response Team Versus Urban Terror

Introduction:

Crisis Response Team was developed and released by Alten8 in 2007. Alten8 has released several games such as Power Of Destruction, State of War: Warmonger, GT Racers and Project Xenoclone.

Urban Terror was developed and released by Frozen Sand in 2007, after several releases of the mod Urban Terror. Urban Terror is their only game.

They both feature a very thrilling website.(1) (2)

The Graphics:

This comes down to a tie, they are both visually similar. Although, Urban Terror seems to have smoother and more responsive menus. The level-design in these games is where they differ from eachother, the maps in CRT are small, bugged and odd. Whilst in Urban Terror, they're big, relatively open and less buggy. For example in CRT, there are doors that you can open when they only show a brick wall, which would trap you in the heat of a moment. The level descriptions are also odd, they tell you about certain objectives, whilst the objectives themselves are uncompleteable. The only downside to Urban Terror is that the maps don't hold players back from spawnkilling, since everyone spawns at set locations.

The Gameplay:

Both games are standard online FPS'es, they both don't have a singleplayer. The major difference between the two shooters is that in CRT you have to pick up weapons on the move, whilst in Urban Terror you pick them beforehand, and you have an option to pick up different weapons whilst you're already in combat. Urban Terror offers more weapons than CRT does, although the differences between weapons is quite unclear, whilst in CRT they are so standard that you already know which one is the better. In Urban Terror it's possible in some servers to register so that you're stats are registered, in CRT you cannot. CRT also has a bug concerning reloading, when you don't have any ammo left and you walk on ammo of the same kind, you don't have to reload, but you'll need to be shooting at that exact moment.

The Sound:

Both games don't feature an in-game soundtrack, so the only things we can judge is the sound of the guns and what not. In CRT the gunsounds don't match the guns, for example an uzi sounds heavier than a minigun, which is definitely not the case. CRT also has a soundbug, when you're firing your gun the sound sometimes loops, even when not shooting. Urban Terror isn't really noteworthy on sound, but it isn't as bad as CRT.

Multiplayer:

The multiplayer in CRT is non-existent, there are no servers. We even went as far as trying to set up a LAN, which resulted in nothing, we were never able to join, because the game told us to wait, for eternity. Urban Terror, however, does feature online multiplayer, like it should. And I found it to be pretty enjoyable, despite the occasional lag and cheating asshole. It offers several game-modes, all of them are standard game-modes such as TDM, DM and CTF.

Conclusion:

Urban Terror is clearly the better one and on top of that it's free, as in no money required(= no transaction of currency-holding items is required). Whilst CRT is sold for extremely high prices, I personally got my copy for the ridiculously high price of €1. But on a serious note, CRT has no players, no servers and no online support(for which it actually was designed), Urban Terror does feature all of that, so it'd make no sense to buy CRT, instead of downloading Urban Terror for free.

Medal of Honor: Frontline

Medal of Honor: Frontline is a first-person shooter and the fourth game in the popular Medal of Honor series. The game was released on Playstation 2, Xbox and Gamecube in 2002.

In the game you control a character named Jimmy Patterson, a Lieutenant from the 2nd Ranger Battalion, who is working for the OSS (The Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA, formed during WWII), as he campaigns his way across Europe into Nazi Germany itself, during World War II. The campaign consists of six chapters, and each chapter has two, three or four missions. Two chapters take place in France, two in Holland and two in Nazi Germany. Lt. Jimmy Patterson's mission is to capture a prototype of the Horten Ho 229. The Ho IX, as it was called, was the first application of a flying wing design, combined with a jet engine. Baron Von Strumgeist is the commander of the facility in charge of designing the HO IX, and several other informants and soldiers are involved with various missions.

In the game you can find various weapons, such as the M1 Garand, the German STG44, a Walther P38 or the Springfield sniper rifle. Other objects that you can find are health cans (heals 10% of your health), kits (heals 25% of your health) and packs (heals 50% of your health) and of course the mission objectives such as rosters, keys and other stuff.

In each of the missions you can get a bronze, silver or gold medal. Bronze can be achieved by completing the level, while silver is a little bit harder to get, you need to kill 95% of the enemies. Especially this goal can be hard sometimes, because some enemies won't spawn before you go back to an area you've already visited or in some other cases you need to mount a MG44 before they'll spawn. For gold you need 75% of your health at the end of the level + 95% of the enemies killed. When you get all gold medals in one chapter, you'll receive a reward.

You can notice that the creators have put much effort in this game, as you can see in various bonus video's that you can acquire by completing the missions. This game has very good graphics and animations for its time. Unfortunately I'm not able to make a good quality video myself because I own the PS2 version. There are a few things that are great about this game. First thing that is great is the music. In some occasions it can be really sad, especially in the mission Arnhem Knights. The music in this mission is so sad that it gives me the shivers while playing the game. In this mission you have to fight in the ruins of Arnhem alongside some British soldiers, which brings me to the second thing that jumps out. Nowadays there are many games that feature AI squad mates (let's take the Call of Duty series as example) and when they get killed they will be replaced by new guys, so you don't care about it when one gets killed. In this game they won't be replaced, and they don't respawn. When one gets killed you can actually feel sad, especially in combination with the sad music in Arnhem Knights.

In conclusion, I really think this is one of the best World War II games ever, it has great animations and graphics for its time, and I think I really need to give Michael Giacchino (who is the music composer) credit for the greatness of this game. If you can find this game somewhere you must buy it, I guarantee you won't be disappointed about it.

Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2 is a game developed by Avalanche Studios and Eidos Interactive. The game was published by Square Enix. The game was released on the 23th of March in 2010. The game can best be described as a sandbox-style action game. Avalanche Studios is known for games such as The Hunter and Just Cause(1). Eidos Interactive is known for games like the Hitman series, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Shellshock: Nam '67. Square Enix is known for games such as the Final Fantasy series and a whole range of other RPG games, chances are that you've probably already heard from them.

This game doesn't really have much of a story. You're Rico Rodriguez, an employee from the Agency, being send out to knock over a dictatorship in Panua, because it seems that Panay, the dictator, is becoming more and more unfriendly towards the US, so it's your task to make sure that Panay is killed and that his country gets a different leader. Along the way you'll help various factions to increase their influence over the country, so that they can fight government, which helps the US evade a full-out war, while it's still in the shades knocking over the regime. Throughout the storyline you'll meet various people, such as Tom Sheldon. But the reality is that the game doesn't really focus on it's storyline, seeing as most of the time you're allowed to do whatever you like. So it's basically: Cause chaos and win, simple concept.

The gameplay in this game is quite unique due to the grappling hook, which will play a major role in this game. In combination with a parachute it makes up for one of the fastest travelling techniques in the game, it also allows you to climb buildings and mountains very fast. But the grappling hook is the only original part about the game. You have ordinary weapons such as rocket-launchers, machine guns, pistols and many more, which you can upgrade by calling the black market and spending your weapon parts on the upgrades. Same goes for vehicles, you'll have to trade in vehicle parts to upgrade your vehicles. The weapon and vehicle parts can be found scattered throughout the map. The Black Market Dealer will also sell vehicles and weapons, so that you can get them dropped near you at any given moment, if you have the cash for it. The game also offers Extraction through the black market dealer, which is essentially nothing more than fast travel, although the loading time makes it not really that fast. During the game you'll be doing nothing more than doing really short missions for various factions, as a matter of fact, I've never experienced such short missions in a game, which is a bit of a bad thing if you ask me, I had missions that asked me to destroy 2 boats and after I did that, I immediately got rewarded for completing the mission, which took less than 2 minutes. Aside from those missions you'll also find faction items, which are marked on your map, so it's nothing more than going to the location and picking the item up. But most of the time you'll simply be busy leaving a trail of death and destruction throughout the country, by rampaging villages, bases and communication centres.

The graphics in this game are very nice, the mountains, ocean and trees look very realistic and give you the idea that you're on a tropical island. The buildings are also very detailed, so you can really see that the developers put a lot of time into this aspect of the game.

There is also a lot of humour to be found within the game, such as the Mile High Club, which is a strip-club hanging from 2 Zeppelins high in the sky. And there's also the instance where you have to fight elderly japanese soldiers that are still defending an island, being oblivious to the fact that World War II is over. So, the game does spice things up every once in a while by using humour.

Now there are a lot of good points to this game, but it also has it's share of bad points. First of all, the glitches. You'll often find various objects within the game floating above the ground, not to the extent that it makes it impossible for the player to get to the object but still, it's weird to see such things occur. Another glitch that you'll see, that also has to do with clipping, is that the player can sometimes walk below the ground, so you'll see Rico waist-down in concrete and in even more extreme cases he can actually fall below the ground and keep falling into infinite space. Another bad point in this game is its repetition, whilst spreading death and destruction is quite fun for quite some time, after having destroyed a similar base for the 15th time it gets boring, yet you'll have to keep doing this in order to unlock more stuff, which makes the game drag quite a bit. Another little annoyance is the loading time, you'll have to wait quite some time due to the loading times, even when using extraction, whilst playing you have no loading times, which is quite odd.

So to conclude this review, this game is quite good, it offers great graphics and gameplay, yet it will become boring when playing the game for too long. But if you really like to play shooters and action games, I suggest you buy this game, although renting the game seems like a suitable option as well, even though the game is enormous. If you really want to get everything out of the game you'll easily spend more than a hundred hours playing this game. So, overall, this game is worth your money if you like the genre, otherwise I'd suggest renting or lending the game in order to see whether it's your cup of tea or not.