Catch up - part 2

Another "part 2" post, how original... Well, lately my imagination's been running low, so bear with these god-awful titles...

Anyway, this time I'm just going to talk about games, since I haven't seen any new movies recently (maybe I'll see the Simpsons Movie this weekend). For some reason I don't feel like writing much lately, so I'm just going to resume my gaming experiences. Don't expect full reviews.

Medal of Honor: Airborne


The MoH series has quite a past. It started as a couple of pretty decent FPS's on the original Playstation, and then made the jump to the PC with the classic MOH: Allied Assault, a game that was an instant hit partly due to the simply amazing Omaha Beach level. It was if the movie Saving Private Ryan had come alive or something, and you could play it! Fucking awesome... Then the development team ran away to make the Call of Duty franchise and probably all of you know the rest. Poor, uninspired games, both for the PC and 128bit consoles flooded the market just to put more money in EA's pockets and put the MoH name to shame...

But wait, for all was not lost! In fact, after playing the demo, I had high expectations about Airborne, the first next-gen MoH game. The possibility of landing anywhere on the battlefield and the upgradeable weapons sounded like awesome additions to a, otherwise, stagnant series. Unfortunately, as usual, it all turned out to be less impressive than it sounded...

Yes, you can land almost anywhere, but that's not so awesome as one might think. The fact that you can see the whole level right from the start somehow takes that sense of discovery away, and after you're on the ground it's pretty much like the CoD levels where you have multiple objectives. It's a good addiction, don't get me wrong, but it's not the next big thing.

And the upgradable weapons... There are awesome, useful, upgrades, like scopes and bigger magazines, but I was fucking disappointed when I killed dozens of Nazi soldiers just to get a fucking bayonet for my shotgun (it's useless to go melee, anyway, since just a hit from those fuckers takes away more energy than a whole clip of bullets) or a grenade launcher for my rifle.

About the structure of the game and the gameplay itself, there are other things I don't like. For instance, unlike in pretty much every CoD, and specially CoD 4 (yeah, I know, different setting, but they're still similar games), where your partners play a big role, here it looks like you're winning the war alone.. We usually have a handful of allies by our side, but they're fucking useless since they are barely able to kill anything and we end up doing all the dirty work by ourselves. Yeah, I know, this is a game, we are the stars, but fuck it, this is not a one-man war, it was the biggest fucking conflict in history!

Also, what the fuck where they thinking when they made the last levels of the game? Putting you against Nazi super-soldiers wearing gas-masks (to scare us? Because there's no smoke or gas grenades or anything), armed with MG 42's. Oh yeah, that's right, the fuckers shoot MG 42's! Not, not mounted ones, they shoot them just like that, like they're holding regular machine-guns. And not only that, they take 20 or more bullets to die, depending on your gun. OMFG! Are they, like, genetically altered or something? Is this Return to Castle Wolfenstein all over again? And what kind of idea was that, making "super soldiers"? Aren't the regular ones good enough? After seeing this I wondered why Hitler himself wasn't the last boss, maybe controlling a giant robot or something...

My final verdict is, buy if if you're a nut about WWII. Otherwise, just go play CoD4, Turok or, maybe, Halo 3.

Conan


Great game. Of course I have more to say, but this is pretty much what I think of this game. An hack 'n' slash that plays a lot like God of War, the best thing I can say about it is that it's very faithful to the whole Conan universe and mythology. The barbarian is brutal, relentless and doesn't miss the chance to save imprisoned (and almost naked, including perfectly visible, and well modelled, breasts) women. Don't expect sex mini-games like in GoW, though. Talking about GoW, I dare say that Conan takes it's gameplay a step forward, with much more tactical combat.

While in Sony's game we can pretty much beat the whole thing using the same combo (or just button mashing), in Conan, somewhere around the middle of the game the enemies start to block and prevent us from grabbing them, requiring some specific and well-timed attacks to be beaten.
We can also grab the weapons of our enemies, allowing for 3 very different styles of fighting: one weapon, 2 weapons or two-handed weapons.

To sum it up, if you like GoW or just this type of action games in general, give Conan a try. It's a solid, entertaining and pretty long game that should satisfy your need for action and violence (almost forgot to mention that, this game is definitely not for kids).

Sega Rally


I wasn't planning on talking about this game, but what the heck, since I'm already at it, here it goes. Like the Nerd says: "It fucking sucks, it sucking fucks and I don't like it!". Ok, now seriously, the game is not exactly bad. In fact it's pretty good...if you can handle its gameplay, that is. The graphics are amazing, with that arcade vibe that only Sega can do; there are plenty of cars and courses to keep you entertained, and then there's the online mode, a first for the series. The only thing that could make it better would be Sega Rally 95 HD for a bonus. That and decent handling for the cars...

I won't make a huge fuss about this because it's apparently not a defect of the game, but mine instead. I say this because our dear Father K (and millions of gamers throughout the world apparently) happens to like it, but I for an instance can't seem to enjoy it. It's just not the game for me, I guess...


Anyway, lately I've been playing the most excellent Colin McRae: DiRT and let me tell ya, that's my shit! That's the kind of rally for me! The almost perfect blend between arcade and simulator, the almost photo-realistic graphics, the superb damage system of the cars, it all comes together to make what is one of the few games that I really enjoyed on my 360. One thing is to like a game, another is to genuinely feel good while playing it. Having actual fun, not just passing time. But more on that later, cause I'm not even half through it yet...