Gears of war

In Gears of War, a slab of concrete is your best friend. And if that slab of concrete isn't around, you can always make do with burned-out cars, piles of metal, huge columns, or even the ever-popular wall next to a doorway. Why are these inanimate objects so friendly? Because if you aren't hiding behind something in Gears of War, you might as well be dead. Microsoft and Epic have teamed up to create this wicked game of hide-and-seek with high-powered future guns, which delivers one of the most heart-pounding and graphically thrilling experiences of the year. If its exciting campaign doesn't rope you in, chances are the team-based multiplayer will--either way, Gears of War is downright amazing.

Marcus Fenix disobeyed orders and got locked up, but in tough times, even a traitorous soldier is better than nothing.

The game's campaign tells the tale of a man named Marcus Fenix. He, like the other soldiers around him, is an extremely thick dude that very clearly doesn't have time to bleed. The game immediately sets an action movie-like tone, complete with an interesting post-apocalyptic world that's been overrun by a mysterious force called the Locust. Marcus is a former soldier for the Coalition of Organized Governments, or COG. Their soldiers wear ridiculously huge, bulky armor, but can't be bothered to wear helmets. They're just that tough. Or stupid. Either way, Fenix is a former soldier that's been branded a traitor and locked away, but he's busted out of prison at the opening of the game, to help in the fight against the Locust. After a brief tutorial level where you and Dom, the soldier that busted you out, make your way out of the Locust-infested prison and, yes, get to the chopper, you're connected with the other members of Delta Squad and sent out to find Alpha Squad, which is both missing and supposedly in possession of a device that could turn the tide of the war. The game's story isn't very deep, and aside from a very brief mention in the front of the manual, it doesn't really bother to fill you in on the details behind the conflict or the main character's incarceration. The lack of exposition feels like a missed opportunity to make the characters and the setting even more compelling, and there are parts of the game that seem like they were built specifically to make room for some kind of flashback sequence, but the gameplay is so sharp that you probably won't care.

You'll fight a decent variety of enemies in Gears of War. Most of the Locust are humanoids, with minor visual distinctions between the standard troops, ones with shotguns, and so on. Later on, you'll fight some different-looking humanoid-style enemies that are armed with explosive torque bows, and there are plenty of other critters to face--some small, some screen-filling. They all use slightly different tactics, but the same basic rule applies: Wait for them to pop their heads (or other weak points) out and attempt to shoot it off. The enemy response to your actions has its great moments, but it also has its problems. Enemies hiding behind cover tend to not react when they get hit. From time to time, you might catch the back of an enemy peeking just over a piece of cover, and if you start shooting it, he'll usually just sit there and let you drill him to death. But in spite of its few problems, the action is tense and extremely enjoyable.

Gears of War consists of a large series of pitched battles between your squad and the enemy forces. If you leave your fool head popped up for too long, it'll get shot off every single time, so the proper place for you is tucked behind a wall or some other piece of cover. The cover mechanics work very naturally, making it easy to stick to a wall, pop up or around to take shots at the enemy, and get back down safely. Moving between nearby pieces of cover is also very easy to manage.

This isn't the first time that taking cover has been a focus of gameplay--the mechanics work very similarly to a fairly obscure PlayStation 2 game from Namco called kill.switch. But no game has made this sort of gameplay quite so exciting. One of the greatest feelings in this game is that when you pop out to take a shot, you immediately feel like you're taking your life into your own hands, because the enemy is very good at opening fire the second they see you and you'll see those bullets heading your way. This formula remains thrilling from start to finish, though boss fights and a pretty neat vehicle section help to break up the action.

Thankfully, one shot won't kill you, in most cases. The health meter takes the form of a skull and gear icon that appears onscreen in pieces as you take damage. If it's completed, that means you took one hit too many and you're history. But if you can avoid getting shot for a few seconds, the gear fades away and you're restored to full health. It's a much quicker recharge than something like Halo's energy shields, and this helps keep the action moving while reinforcing that you really need to play cautiously.

You'll usually have three other guys in your squad, but they usually aren't much help. They're good for distracting enemies, and they'll take down a few here and there, but they also tend to get dropped a lot. You can revive them, if you can get over to them and hit the X button, but usually it's easier to just finish the fight yourself, which brings them all back without exposing you to the same enemy fire that took them down in the first place.

Gears of War is all about ducking, covering, and blasting your enemies whenever they give you an opening.

Gears of War offers two difficulty settings right off the bat, and a third unlocks when you beat the game. The game defaults to the easiest setting, called casual. On this setting, taking cover only becomes important when you're up against heavy odds or later in the game, when the enemies get tougher. The middle setting, hardcore, feels just right at first--you need to take cover, but you can usually pop up and take shots without immediate punishment. But near the tail end of the game, both difficulties ramp up quite a bit. Hardcore starts to get a little unmanageable. Casual gets to be about as hard as the hardcore setting is near the beginning of the game. And once you unlock insane, you'll find that it's aptly named, though not impossible. Overall, the difficulty feels like it could have used a bit more tuning, or another setting that finds the sweet spot between casual and hardcore. But since you can select your difficulty each time you load up your game, it's easy to set it down to casual if you get stuck at a certain checkpoint, then raise it back up once you've made progress. Making your way through the campaign should take most players somewhere from about 10 to 12 hours, depending on the difficulty.

The game has achievements for finishing each of the five acts on each of the three difficulties, and they stack, so if you beat an act on hardcore, you get the casual points, as well. It only seems to keep track of what difficulty setting you're on when you finish the act, so all this switching around won't cause any trouble on that front, either. The game's achievements are pretty good, with a smart mix of points you'll get for simply playing through the game and some more esoteric ones, like points for playing as Dom in co-op, points for perfectly reloading your weapon many times in a row, doing well online, and so on. None of the points seem that far fetched, but you also won't have the full thousand during your first couple of days with the game, either.While the campaign is fine and good alone, it's even better when you're playing with another player. You can do so via a split-screen or over Xbox Live, and the good news is that you can continue the campaign from where you've played in the single-player, so you can use any mix of single or cooperative play to get through without having to replay missions. The second player takes on the role of Dom, and the game is both more entertaining and significantly easier when playing with a partner. That's because when players die in co-op, they can be revived, provided they haven't been blown to bits or their deaths don't take place during one of the few times when the team splits up, separating the two human players. Online, the co-op behaves quite smoothly, and the graphics in split-screen mode appear to be just as good as they are when you're playing alone. About the only negative aspect of co-op play is that if a player drops out of an online game, the other player is forced to quit back to the main menu. A more seamless drop-in/drop-out setup would have been cool.

The game's online options make for some really exciting team-based gameplay.

A big part of making any shooter memorable is the design of its weapons. Gears of War has some very satisfying weaponry that really make the game stand out. The machine gun you're going to use for most of the game is the Lancer, and in addition to it being a fast-firing death dealer, it also has a unique melee attack in the chainsaw bayonet. Yes, a machine gun with a chainsaw mounted to the bottom of it is just as awesome as it sounds, though since most of the enemies are content to hide behind cover and mow you down if you attempt to get close, you don't get to use it as often as you might like. But when you do, it's a terrific display of great, splashy blood effects. The other weapons in the game aren't quite as flashy, as you'll get a standard sniper rifle, shotgun, rocket launcher, some grenades, and so on. But you'll also get to use something called the Hammer of Dawn, which is an orbital satellite that beams down hot, fiery death from above when you paint a target. But the catch is that the satellites have to be lined up above your position and you have to be outside for it to work, so it's only available in a few very specific situations during the campaign. You can carry four different weapons, but you'll always have slots reserved for a pistol and for grenades, so you have to make choices about which two main weapons you'll carry around with you.

Another really cool facet of the gameplay is that there's a trick to reloading your weapon. By default, reloads take a set amount of time and aren't anything flashy. But if you look just below the gun indicator on the screen, you'll see a line sweeping across a bar with a couple of different colors on it. That's the trick. A button press stops the meter. If you stop it in the gray area, the weapon reloads faster. If you stop it in the tiny white zone, you'll reload and all the bullets you just fed into your weapon will do more damage. But if you miss and hit it in the black, the gun jams and takes even longer to reload. It's a fascinating risk-versus-reward scenario that isn't difficult to master, but when you're under fire in a tense situation, you're still likely to screw it up now and then.

In addition to the single-player and co-op play, Gears of War has a team-based multiplayer mode for up to eight players. The four-on-four action is also round-based with no respawns, though like in the co-op game, you can revive other players when they go down. On the other side, though, that means you need to pump a lot more rounds into your enemies after they go down, just to make sure they stay down. Or, alternately, you can run up on their downed body and hit the X button, which delivers a very satisfying life-ending boot to your foe's head. For as much fun as the weapons are in single-player, they're actually more exciting here. The Hammer of Dawn becomes a pretty hilarious addition to the game, and you'll get to use that chainsaw more frequently against unsuspecting players thanks to the way the maps offer multiple ways to get to the same location. The key to multiplayer is to never work alone so that you can always have someone around to revive you and vice versa. Two players rolling up on one player usually (though certainly not always) results in the single player getting decimated. One of the other players may go down, but that's nothing a revival won't fix. The game's 10 maps offer a good variety, and you can mix the action up a bit by changing out the weapons that appear in the map. You can play in three different modes. Warzone is a standard team deathmatch. Assassination puts one player in the leader role and the other three players must fight as protectors. Execution forces you to kill opposing players yourself--if you let them sit there and bleed, they can hammer the A button to revive themselves. With a good number of maps and exciting action, this game appears to have some longevity to it online. If you like, you can also play over a LAN via system link, or locally--though local multiplayer is limited to two players, which isn't too exciting.

A shooter is only as good as its weapons, and Gears of War has a couple of really outstanding guns in it.

Consider Gears of War to be the game that raised the bar for how console games should look from here on out. The character models are thick and look outstanding. The gray, war-torn environments are nicely varied throughout the game, and the game is full of amazing standout visual moments, such as a train sequence where you see that the sky is full of ink left behind by flying Locust enemies, blocking your view of the stars just enough to prevent you from busting out the Hammer of Dawn. Or, when you get to an underground mine and see a lot of molten, glowing lava all around you. Or, anytime you get to use the chainsaw on anything, ever. Or, the way the camera gets down low and starts shaking like a wartime documentary whenever you start running. It all looks absolutely amazing, from the animation to the game's over-the-top blood effects.

The game also runs at a very steady frame rate during gameplay. The cutscenes, however, are rendered in real time, and when the action really gets heated in some of the sequences, the visuals chop up. The music in Gears of War is appropriately cinematic and really helps carry the action-movie style that the game is shooting for. The dialogue also gives off an action-movie vibe, mainly because most of it is totally meatheaded. The COG soldiers aren't scientists--they're dumb, strong soldier boys that are at home when they're behind the trigger. As a result, almost all of the dialogue is appropriately gruff and filled with the sort of "let's rock!" enthusiasm that you'd expect from a team of hardcore shooters. The weapons are also enhanced by great sound effects. The squish of flesh being ripped apart by the chainsaw, in particular, is outstanding.

Gears of War is a game that capitalizes on all of the promises made by the next generation of gaming. It looks more than a few steps beyond what consoles have been doing to this point, and the gameplay is supremely fulfilling from start to finish in all of its various modes. While there have certainly been plenty of similar shooters before it, the game's great weapons, amazing graphics, and absolutely thrilling action make it stand out from the pack in a big, big way

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Castlevania:symphony of night

Since its US debut in 1987 on the NES, Konami's Castlevania series has gone on to become one of the most popular franchises in video-game history, with releases on nearly every major platform (including the Super NES, Genesis, and GameBoy). The latest installment - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the PlayStation - is quite possibly the best 2D action side scroller ever.

Symphony takes place four years after Dracula X, a PC Engine title in Japan that never saw a US release. Unlike most previous Castlevania games, Symphony features a main character who isn't one of the whip-cracking Belmonts. Stranger still, it turns out that our hero, Adrian Fahrenheit (aka Alucard), is actually a son of Dracula. Your task is to explore Dracula's castle (rumored to only appear once a century) and find out why Richter Belmont, the hero of the first game (and descendant of the original Castlevania hero, Simon), has mysteriously vanished. Oh, and you've also got to kill quite a few monsters along the way….

Since the main character doesn't carry a whip, gameplay has obviously changed quite a bit from past Castlevanias. Now you can use several different weapons and items, each of which is kept in an RPG-like inventory subscreen. But Symphony mimics an RPG in more ways than one. Experience is gained from killing enemies; attributes are raised whenever Alucard levels-up, which is good incentive not to pass up enemies when trying to get from one area to the next; special skills are learned by performing different control-pad movements that subsequently save to a move list in the subscreen; and you can find and use numerous magic items during your quest. Even with the new trappings, though, the basics of the game are true to previous installments - break candles, collect hearts and money (which you can now actually spend in a shop), and fight ghoulish enemies.

Perhaps the most important new feature added to Castlevania is its map system. Extremely similar to the one in Super Metroid, the map (which can be viewed at any time by pressing the Select button) opens up room by room as you travel through the castle. You can buy an extended map that shows you some of the areas you have yet to visit, but as you might imagine, it's limited and doesn't show you any of the castle's hidden portions. Even if it did, it wouldn't much matter; like any good adventure game, many areas can't be accessed until later in the journey. Specifically, you can't visit certain places until you've found the three souls that Alucard can transform into - Wolf, Bat, and Mist, each of which can be used at any time for a small amount of magic power.

Needless to say, the graphics and musical score are great, which is what you'd expect from Konami. The anime-style look of Dracula X has been replaced with a more Roman approach that adds a surprising amount of depth to the game's wonderful atmosphere. Each area comes to life with vividly animated enemies, gorgeous backgrounds with multiple levels of parallax scrolling, and stellar special effects (particularly of note are the lighting and fog effects used in certain levels). The voice acting is also good, and the storyline is awesome.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is easily one of the best games ever released and a true testament to the fact that 2D gaming is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. The game is very large and will keep you entertained for a long time.

Castlevania:lords of shadow

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a game of contradictions. Its lead character, Gabriel Belmont, finds himself equipped with great combat abilities and more than enough special skills to combat the forces of evil and avenge the death of his love. But for the player, it's almost overkill--a good portion of Belmont's unlocked special skills are only truly necessary when solving environmental puzzles. Similarly, Lords of Shadow is an astoundingly beautiful game filled with expansive views of a broken world dotted with solemn waterfalls; sinister forests; and decaying, ancient cities. But, you won't be exploring much of these locales because the game is very strict about where you can go and how you can get there, delivering only an illusion of freedom conjured by a combination of invisible walls and platforms just out of reach. As these and other facets of the game continually butt heads, it becomes clear that Castlevania is largely a mishmash of mostly incongruous ideas taken from some of gaming's finest moments. And it's those very same moments--previously seen and played in other games but well executed here--that ultimately define the game but sadly strip it of an identity to call its own.That isn't to say the game fails in giving these moments context within the Castlevania universe as constructed by Lords of Shadow. In fact, the story does a reasonable job in setting things up and explaining why Gabriel Belmont fights massive titans, as well as hordes of werewolves, zombies, vampires, and other mainstays from the vintage horror assembly line. As a member of the Brotherhood of Light (a holy order of knights), Gabriel sets out on a quest to retrieve an item that can potentially bring the dead back to life--in this case, his murdered wife. Of course, to find the item, he first has to learn where it is and how to get to it. Eventually, Gabriel runs into a character named Pan, resembling the mythological creature of the same name, who tells him that he must venture to the lands where the Necromantic Wars took place to retrieve his prize: the God mask. It just so happens that these lands are also infested with lycans (werewolves) and vampires, which are agents of evil from the Necromantic Wars. Meanwhile, the forces of good have long since collapsed, with only scant traces of their once massive and proud civilization lying in dust--their defenders, save a few functioning titans, fallen and scattered into pieces. Gabriel presses forward and ultimately discovers new allies, the origins of the Lords of Shadow, the Lords' involvement with the Brotherhood of Light, and the true nature of the God mask.

It's a rich universe, to be sure, but Lords of Shadow rarely ever uses it as more than background filler. In other words, most of what is described of the world comes in the form of notes from an in-game bestiary and narrated text displayed at the beginning of a level. While Patrick Stewart (of Star Trek fame) does a fine job of speaking these lines, they rarely elicit the same kind of connection to the world and its characters as the game's own cutscenes do. The problem is the majority of these worthwhile expository sequences occur near the beginning of the game and at the very end, leaving very little meat in the middle of the sandwich that is Lords of Shadow's story. Sure, there are bits and pieces throughout that deliver explanations for boss characters and the like, but the most important character is almost completely neglected. More specifically, there's a significant stretch of game where it seems as though Gabriel has fallen completely mute--an unfortunate occurrence for a potentially good character and a great voice actor (Robert Carlyle).

To be fair, producing an abundance of character-driven story sequences doesn't automatically make for engaging character development, but the desire to see more should count for something positive. And to its credit, Lords of Shadow never implements (or even needs) cutscenes as a balance for lack of content because it's a surprisingly long game with dozens of levels that present a solid challenge. On normal difficulty, without being too compulsive about discovering hidden items or completing special objectives, the game takes about 15 to 20 hours to beat, and that time is peppered with good and bad experiences. Those good moments are usually quite entertaining, but the bad moments are just downright irritating and not for the right reasons. One aspect floats between these two extremes, however: hand-holding.

Gabriel stands in the shadow of a colossal battle.

Having a tutorial-like structure at the beginning of a game--something that eases you into the experience and gets you comfortable with what you can and can't do--is not the issue. Indeed, in the early parts of Lords of Shadow, the helpful messages at the top of the screen serve their purpose, helping you navigate ledges, open locked doors, and complete other environmental puzzles. But then they appear in the third level, the fourth level, the fifth level, and further into the game--giving hints in areas that only require the slightest bit of thought. Ultimately, these breadcrumbs and their ubiquity convey a lack of faith in not only the game's ability to present a logical solution or path, but also in your ability to find those solutions within a reasonable amount of time. Along those lines, actual puzzles (mechanical devices that require some brain power to complete) have solutions that you can purchase, which sends a similar message. It's all quite odd because Lords of Shadow is at its best when these scenarios are solved on your own terms, without such aids. These occasions lead to some trial-and-error gameplay that can be frustrating, but thanks to a rather generous checkpoint and death system (for example, falling into pits only takes off some energy), it's never so egregious that it overrides the sense of reward for completing a difficult task.

Granted, there are also those moments--with or without hints--that are completely infuriating, and it's not because of difficulty spawned out of cleverness but, rather, difficulty spawned from Lords of Shadow's own limitations and shortcomings. It can be anything from a ledge or enemy partially obscured by the game's fixed camera to a timed puzzle that requires Gabriel to deftly move in a way he obviously wasn't intended to move. After all, his default walking speed is more like a sprint, so navigating a series of electrical fields with slight taps of the analog stick presents more than its fair share of issues. Sometimes issues stem from situations where Gabriel has to use a special ability--like a powerful punch--to move an object. While that special skill may have moved a similarly weighty object previously, the very same attack may be useless against this new object for no practical reason, other than a shoulder seems to have the magic touch and a fist does not. Actually, there's almost a superfluous aspect to Gabriel's special abilities--those granted to him upon receiving sacred items from fallen enemies. It's immensely frustrating to struggle with a seemingly simple puzzle for far too long, only to realize that the key is a particular ability you used only once more than six hours ago.It's a testament, then, to the unabashedly God of War-inspired core combat mechanics in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow that they're as good as they are despite the needless depth and confusion created by the relics found later in the game. Armed with his combat cross whip, Gabriel performs two different kinds of attacks--short but strong, and sweeping but weak, strikes--that he can use in conjunction with jumps (for aerial combinations), throws, as well as rolls and blocks (for counters). These attacks are then mixed and strung together, creating flurries that either work to great, bloody effect on his opponents or merely give Gabriel a brief respite from an onslaught of blades, claws, and fangs. Additionally, as Gabriel ventures further, he also acquires subweapons in the form of daggers, fairies, holy water, and a crystal that unleashes a suitably odd--and very naked--creature capable of wiping out most enemies with a single hit. These items are never meant to dominate a fight as they are to supplement Gabriel's skills against specific kinds of creatures. Daggers, for example, can kill most low-level werewolves with a single shot. In that respect, they work quite well, and there are opportunities to increase the number you can carry by finding hidden chests. This is the only reason to revisit levels if you're not interested in meeting new and seemingly arbitrary goals upon completing a level for the first time.Additional attacks for the combat cross and subweapons are available for purchase as you make headway toward the land of the vampires and earn more currency by defeating enemies and solving puzzles. Some of these moves are more useful than others, so it's entirely possible to get by with just purchasing one or two and never looking at the skills menu ever again. Despite even that, Lords of Shadow maintains a quality combat engine because its enemies and bosses provide a good, fulfilling, and often memorable challenge. They require manipulation of Gabriel's strategy in a way that utilizes nearly all of his basic skills and items. This same sensibility works its way into the magic system and its source of energy.

Gabriel has two kinds of magic at his disposal--one type, when activated, heals him when he attacks enemies while the other type inflicts more damage with each blow. In most instances, weaker enemies present a prime opportunity to gain some valuable health because their defenses are minimal, but stronger enemies will give more health if you have the skill to inflict a lot of damage before they start blocking. Both forms of magic can be recharged either by finding statues and absorbing orbs of energy or by defeating enemies while a special meter at the bottom of the screen is completely full. Charging this meter requires you to engage enemies in skillful way--dodging and attacking without ever getting hit causes orbs to spew from enemies.

When magic is introduced in Lords of Shadow, it feels forced; it's almost like another idea being thrown into a game as part of a kitchen sink mentality to create a game that appeals to everyone. But it does end up working well in conjunction with the combat system, especially during boss battles when you have to be careful with how and when you use magic. To be perfectly clear, however, there are two types of boss battles in Lords of Shadow. One type is against incredibly strong foes (namely, the Lords of Shadow) where victory requires not only a clear strategy, but also a strong knowledge of what Gabriel can and can't do because these boss foes simply aren't stupid.. The other type is a dramatic titan battle where Gabriel maneuvers his way up the appendages of a massive creature to find its weak spots and take it down. It's quite a blatant takeoff ofShadow of the Colossus, but Lords of Shadow pays proper tribute with its own intense and memorable versions of that formula and surprisingly adds its own spin, playing up Gabriel's ability to use his primary weapon as a grappling hook.

If anything, these confrontations with the hulking titans are also some of the most visually impressive portions in a game where awe-inspiring scenery is already plentiful. It's almost a shame that Gabriel runs so fast because there are times when it becomes necessary to stop and appreciate the amount of effort that went into the great span of environments in Lords of Shadow, whether it's the fallen empire of Agartha, a dilapidated castle, or even the murky swamps. Even the tiniest of details, such as the mist from a waterfall or a setting sun are cause for praise. It's just a beautiful game. As for the character models, Gabriel looks fantastic, but it's pretty clear that secondary characters, aside from bosses, weren't given as much attention and look rather bland in comparison. It's also worth noting that while the PlayStation 3 version maintains a steady frame rate, the Xbox 360 version occasionally hiccups during action sequences and cutscenes.

But no matter the version, another impressive aspect of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is its soundtrack. While most fervent Castlevania fans will probably be disappointed by the lack of grandiose references to music from the series (they're there, but relatively subtle), the epic score fits perfectly well with the game's locations and what's occurring onscreen. The only issues that arise are the frequent playing of the main battle song (which triggers when Gabriel gets into a fight) and the fact that there just aren't enough tracks to give each stage a unique tune--perhaps understandably so, given the sheer number of levels. Nontheless, it's one of the few areas where Castlevania successfully carves out its own identity from the games that obviously provided its inspiration, but it's still surprising that the game doesn't borrow from an abundance of great source material from its own background. Other aspects of the audio, such as voice acting, are also well done with even minor characters giving good performances.

Castlevania has more than its share of pretty visuals.

All of this leaves Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in a position where it takes bits (and sometimes chunks) of ideas from other games to reboot a classic series for a more contemporary audience.Those core ideas are what make those games good, and fortunately they're also what make Castlevania: Lords of Shadow good. And, to the game's credit, it takes more than a bit of skill to make all of these ideas gel together in a way that doesn't produce a disparate train wreck. Still, it's not without obvious faults. The combat is great and the boss battles are quite memorable, but it degenerates when those core ideas clash--when Castlevania ignores what it does so well (action) for the sake of creating a more diverse experience. The problem is that diversity ultimately adds nothing notable except for shallow adventure elements and frustration. It's a good start for a series in need of some new blood--so to speak--it's just unfortunate so much of it comes from other games and not an original source.