x-box quickies (halo/ttt/orta)
Categories: l33t
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Between my roommate and I, we got three new X-Box games over the past three days. Yeah, we’re crazy– sadly, we’re not Hitomi-crazy. (Not yet…) Here are some quick reviews:
Halo— like everything people said it would be. Very good controls for a console FPS, and it does have an interesting storyline. Graphics, I guess, were good back then, but having played Mechassault and Orta so close to Halo, I found Halo‘s graphics to be lacking.
Multiplayer is extremely fun, and my roommate and I had a blast with the cooperative story mode. Normal multiplayer (i.e. death match, capture the flag) was ok, and I expected more from it– maybe because we do not have 4 X-Box and 16 people playing it. Mechassault is, by far, more fun to play multiplayer-wise because of its X-Box Live support.
My main complaint about this game is that the enemies become very repetitive. There is a grand total of like eight different monsters in the game, and for a game to play almost ten levels, it becomes very repetitive– especially since there are no boss battles. The outdoor levels are magnificent, but the indoor levels become very repetitive– especially the Spark level where you journey accross the same corridor for two hours. The worst part of the game is the end where you have to race a Jeep around a track within a time limit. It’s very difficult and very unnecessary.
But don’t get me wrong– Halo is a very solid FPS. Having only be able to carry two weapons adds to the strategy element, and the weapons are pretty well-designed so that certain weapons make certain areas much easier. Vehicles are also very well done, and running people over with the tank is just as fun as it was in Tribes 2. And, as I said before, cooperative multiplayer is extremely fun. Definitely one of those “most-owns” if you have an X-Box.
The Two Towers— the game incorporates all of the action scenes from the movie, and it has quite a bit of movie footage as well as bonus movie footage. We haven’t beaten this one yet (out of the three, the one that’s played the least), so I’m not sure how great all of the extras are, but there are a ton of them.
The gameplay is very hack-and-slash, and it is very similar to the Tekken Force mini-game from Tekken 3. You chose a character, and hack away– along the way, you earn experience to purchase skills/health with. Most of the stages are the standard “hack your way to the end,” and some have time limits. The bosses are all fairly unique in that each requires some strategy to win.
The game also encourages constant action with a Devil May Cry-like style meter on the bottom. The more attacks, and the fancier attacks, you string up, the better rating you get. Get a “perfect” rating, and you’ll get a temporary attack power boost, and better overall ratings means more experience earned.
Game is fairly mediocre. The controls and aiming is a bit rough, having no lock-on ability, and the enemies become as repetitive as Halo. Lacking multiplayer is also a downer, since most of the missions, another character tags alone and helps you anyway.
Panzer Dragoon Orta— game is incredible. I’ll do a full review of this game once I tear myself from it (i.e. when my thumb gets sore). Basically, best game I have ever seen in terms of video/sound. Gameplay is fantastic too– easily in the same class as Metroid Prime— just a bit too short.
