Vox De lusus

Whats that you see before you? a new post by moi?

yes it is true dear reader, I'm nearly back. college will soon be over and I'll have several months to do all those reviews I never had a chance to finish. Unfourtantly this blog will not be where they are posted.

let me explain. About a year ago a freind of mine in college who I've known for years, invited me to start writeing reviews for his brand new game blog, Vox de lusus (that's voice of the game)

So the plan is for me to close up shop and move my critical analysis to another site. However, despite the lack of updates to this site, I don't want to abandon what I've made here. so I'm dividing my time between this site and Vox de lusus. newer games will be reviewed over there, older games will be reviewed here.

so anyway, here's the link to the site. So far I've done a review on deadlight and my boss, I guess, has done a post on who we all our and what we hope to achieve. I've also got a review planned for dishonored. so keep an eye on it.

http://voxdelusus.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/im-coming-out-i-want-world-to-know.html

well, I suppose that's it for now. thanks to all of you for keeping up with the blog so far and let's hope the future is bright and breezy.

Brink
Genre: fps.
Console: Xbox 360, Ps3, PC
Players: single, co-op and multi player.
Developers: splash damage
Publishers: Bethesda
Release date: may 2011

When I first heard about brink, I was generally excited. I had just gotten xbox live, and was spending nearly every second of my life online. I thrilled at the knowledge I could create my own character and weapons and loved their idea that diffrent body weights would affect my game play.
When I finally got brink I was ecstatic. Finally a game that could throw me back into the world of multiplayer (as I have recently lost my taste for it)
This is what I spent several days playing...

Plot:
The word plot is used rather loosely. It sounds interesting with there being two factions, the security and the resistence who both have different idea on what should happen to the ark. It's never stated who are the bad guys as after playing both sides, I found there was a different take on the same missions which was a lot more different than most video games out there. Unfortunately this is never actually developed upon with most missions becoming a series of simple multi player battles. Still, I never really thought there would be plot to a multiplayer based game

Gameplay:
so first off, the customization options are very varied. There are multiple different items availabe for both sides giving you a rather unique character. weapon attachments do actually affect the gameplay, though most of them just do the same purpose, so go for whatever one you like more.
As for the weight options, well... there not really that different. Fatties have more health and skinnies have less. oh and they can climb on objects better. So those are the good points. bad points? Gunfighting is awful. The guns barely do any damage and the reload times take far to long, melee attacks are a pain to use and all the classes basically do the same thing. Go over an object and hold down use. Most of the objectives are a pain as well, with the player being sent into enemy territory to repair or hack an object. And considering the health bar gets eaten away like a pig in a truffle factory, you'll probably end up screaming like a...banshee at the death of her most loved person in the world? eh?

Graphics:
The graphics are actually rather good with quite a bit of detail being placed into the enviorments and character models, who would look close to real people if it wasn't for the weird art style that feels so out of place. Like if pixar did a dark film that was meant to appeal to adults.

Sound:
The voice acting is okay, but it's not going to win any awards. Most of the characters have over the top accents that could make some people giggle a bit. But I mainly found them to be rather annoying especially since they repeat the same phrases over and over AND OVER AGAIN!!!!
The music is okay but it's simply the same piece of music played...you guessed...over and over AND OVER AGAIN!!!
oh but the pitch changes.
Finally the guns. Well they sound really weak. The mini gun sounds like pebbles being dropped onto the ground and the shotgun...the really big one! sounds like a simple cough. Not a loud one more like a cough you hear after hearing a bad joke.

conclusion:
I really didn't like brink. I hated it with a passion. the gameplay was horrible the sound was horrendous and although the graphics where good, it doesn't make up for the horrible aspects of this game. And you know what makes this worse? it's the fact the game is actually addictive! I couldn't stop playing this terrible game because it was addictive! If you want to save yourself from hours of terrible torture, don't get this "game". but if you love multiplayer and if you love fps. then I'd rent it.

The scoring system will be gone!

Okay, so after reading a Q&A session with Zero Punctuation creator Yahtzee Croshaw, i have decided it might be best to get rid of my scoring system. I'll still keep the whole Gold, Silver sort of thing but I don't want to keep using numbers. I takes to long for me to think what i should assign a section and I really want to stand out from all these other reviewers. You may be a bit annoyed, but understand I am still rather young and have just gotten out of my whiny immature self phase. I really do need to find some stable ground. So, that's it. good bye numbers! Never liked maths anyway.

Crysis Genre: First Person Shooter/ Sci Fi Console: Xbox 360/ Ps3/ PC Players: 1 player/ multiplayer Developer: Crytek/ Crytek UK Release Date: March 24th 2011

the first crysis was a first person shooter which was well known throughout the world for being virtually unplayable thanks to it's realistic graphics which still haven't been beat. Of course a sequel was pretty much guaranteed from the start and thanks to piracy and the ever growing console generation crytek made the choice that they should develop the sequel for consoles as well as the good old pc. Now that it's here, it's time to see if this game is worthy competitor for all the other big time shooters out there or if it's just another wanna be who is desperately trying to impress us all.

Plot: The plot of crysis is pretty simple and mundane at first. You play as a marine called Alcatraz who is given a super suit and told that he is now the only one who can save the world from the invading aliens, and from that point you would think the story would pan out the same way the Halo series did. But halfway the story starts to pick up. I can't spoil it, but eventually you'll begin to learn more about the aliens, the suit and it all leads to interesting territory that I haven't seen in video game before. of course the characters in game are also interesting...sometimes. You have the smart business man, the officer with a tragic past and the conspiracy nut job who is quite sane, all of who have a role to play and twist the story in multiple ways. Meanwhile you have angry commander who hates you and his enemy, angry commander who wants to save world, which I guess couldn't be sidestepped as so many stories these days have to feature these characters. and I suppose the same can be said about the interesting characters a few years from now, when every single story starts using them. Besides a slow start and a few generic characters crysis 2 plot does begin to go up there with the best. Unfortunately it still doesn't beat some of the other sci fi shooters out there who have been praised for there detailed plots.

Gameplay: Of course one of the things the first crysis was praised for was it's amazing game play which have you use a range of diff rent tactics to take down your opponents and it's pretty much the same thing here. You can sneak up behind them and make their heads do an impressive 360 degree turn, or you can grab a giant machine gun and rip them to shreds with those massive bullets. Your also able to be a bit more creative, for instance throwing some c4 onto a car, kicking it off a building, let it crush someone and then blow it up.

the game also feels a lot more fluent than the first crysis. Your easily able to change between cloak and maximum armour, and combined with the fast paced gunfight and...sneaky stealth, it all combines into, as crytek put it "beautiful combat"

although you feel like an invincible human predator, the game does have to impend you in some way. all these actions cost energy which can be depleted rather quickly, meaning you'll have to plan everything out before you get into a fight, which is helped thank to the tactical visor which will show you different options you can take while fighting with the option to customize your suit with different modules that affect performance and the ability to customize your weapons with various attachments.

There are problems though. the stealth does sometimes feel clunky what with enemies still sometimes being detect you even if you are cloaked. The AI is also rather clunky what with the only real threat being the aliens themselves, which only comes in the form of the stalkers who sneak behind you and push you over onto your heavily armoured face. the other more human threats seem a bit dopey think that rushing you, a super powered death machine, will obviously result in your death. As for your allies, well they do the same thing against the aliens, which is you only cloned several times.

as for the muliplayer? well, there isn't much to say. it's fun yes and the added option of super powers is fun but I can't help but feel it's basically Cod meets halo reach. You have your perks and your armour unlocks and your class customization. it just doesn't feel very fresh. You'll enjoy it yes, but probably not as much as other games.

Graphics:

"Can it run Crysis?" that will be the first achievement you will get for this game, unless you go straight to multiplayer. The first one had some of the best graphics ever seen in a video game, which I guess is true, so it would be pretty difficult for crysis 2 to improve on them. Now crysis 2 does look beautiful. In fact I think it looks better than every single game I've played on the xbox... so far. Not only does everything look nice with textures, models and colour being used creatively, but all the physics of the game surpass others out at this moment in time. Buildings collapse realistically! water looks more like water! Aliens melt like frozen jelly! It all work so well that you would think that this would be an improvement over the first crysis. And yet...the first one still looks better. Textures have even more detail, characters look better and this isn't surprising. Crysis is, for the moment, the best looking game around and even today most new pc's have trouble playing it. So crytek obviously had to make sacrifices to make it work on all our favorite consoles. So despite it being less Superior to the previous entry, I still think it looks pretty awesome.

Sound: It might just be me, but if you ever played the first crysis you would have found the sound effect amazing, the music beautiful but the voice acting...well at points...terrible. It's like they got a random person off the street and told them to act. and the same goes for this game as well. There's this particular character in the game who, although only appearing for a few minutes, make some pretty big revelations to the character. And I swear his voice was just so over the top and bored at the same time that my ears crumpled up so that I couldn't listen to him any more. Luckily some characters do have some well executed voices like prophet, with emotion and depth being pored into them by these actors. The sound effects in game are still top notch. From the aliens strange form of communication to the satisfy sizzle of the Xvolt, you just know the developers where keen to make this game sound amazing. The music which has two themes conducted by the great hans zimmer is also well made and superbly well done. My shaggy hear is tipped of to everyone involved in the sound development my ears where healed back into there rightful position thanks to you...until chino started talking. Ow.

Conclusion: Crysis is probably one of up and coming stars in the sci fi generation and thanks to crysis 2, I think it's safe to say that this game series will soon become as well loved as mass effect and halo. This game just work and I'm sure several other gamers out there will agree with me when I say this game has surpassed it's expectations. Still the game does have problems but I'm sure they won't make you go other into a blood thirsty rage. well done crysis 2. you've earned this nice shiny GOLD

New rules

Hey guys and gals and other creatures out there! how are you all doing? I know it's been ages but college work kept me bogged down. Luckily I'm temporarily free so I should be able to get a few new reviews in. I've had to change the the review scores a bit so that everything can be slightly easier to read. so right now I am changing all review scores to have a maximum score of 5. Diamond will be awarded to a game that scores mostly 5. Gold will be awarded to a game that scores mostly 4. Silver to a game that scores 3. Bronze for 2. 1 for rusted. Also get ready for my crysis 2 review! just got to study the multiplayer in a bit more depth.

I'm back!- sort off and the new spidey su

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

ah what a nice first year.
Fallout New Vegas, Assassins creed Brotherhood, Black ops and of course Halo reach all got to tickle our senses and proved how awesome video games are!
This has been a great year for games, but, it seems next year might be a bit barren. or will it?
we've got gears of war 3 coming out at the end of the year but before that we have a new marvel vs capcom, new fallout downloadble content and hopefully but not certain a brand spanking new assassins creed!
so it's time to say farewell. thanks for supporting me by reading my reviews. I couldn't have had a better audience.
merry Christmas and a happy new year to you my Friends.
without you, this wouldn't have been possible.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!