It was expected really, there was nothing unordinary about this piece of news - what with the “To Be Continued…” left right at the first game. But in all fairness, there really shouldn’t have been left room for a sequel. Why?

BECAUSE THE GAME’S FUCKING SHIT.

Atleast, that’s the most bluntest way of putting it.

I guess the best way of making any rant-ish blog post good is to atleast let the reader honestly know why you think it’s shit.

THE GAME IS FUCKING SHIT.

I joke, but I really do wish I could finish off this blog post with that single line. Anyway, lets start with the first game shall we?

Right, so first of all.. it’s easy to consider this as a sleazy console port, but looking back at the previous RS games, they haven’t necessarily been so widespread over different consoles. Granted, the way older ones hit Playstation & Xbox - But ever since that generation of consoles it definitely seems like the dev’s at Ubisoft are trying to plaster this piece of shit over every single platform. Including the handhelds.

Remove the first layer of shit, we eventually get to the inner bit of shit. Which is the shit that really counts; gameplay.

It’s a universally accepted principle that if the gameplay of the game is so good, then the person playing that game won’t be leaving his gaming platform til 3AM the next day. Granted - RSV had this element for about 2 hours of game play then it hit me, almost like shit to a fan.

Comparing RSV to the older RS games such as Raven Shield, it’s nice to know that the dev’s have finally tidied up the commands available to give to your team mates. And it’s even better that you no longer have to do hours worth of “level planning” just for one short-fucking-mission.

This is actually one aspect that kept me happy, just because it left you to have so much creativity as to how you entered > busted > cleared the room or building. Noticeably, this wasn’t at all what bothered me - especially with what cool new “duck ‘n’ cover” & “back to the wall” manouevres that were available to the player.

Artificial Intelligence - I would guess that this is one hell of a nightmare for game developers world-wide, just purely because it’s such a challenging task to create system for the machine to operate by that is almost human-like. But with RSV, from a sincere point of view - the devs must have been on atleast a pounds worth of cannabis while coding this part of the game.

First off, i’ve noticed that your team mates sometimes don’t wish to obey your orders. For example, you enter the next level… you got a great idea as to where you want to take cover. So you spam the space bar at the location that you have aimed at and as soon as you’re under fire your team mates find it logical to run like bad-asses at the terrorists. What makes it worse than snorting camel’s diahorrea shit is that you then have to go save their asses by “healing them” (in which you actually just stick a needle in their ass… no really) in order to continue the god damn game.

I guess it’s cute you being there for them, but who said I wanted Barbie’s Fucking Pony Adventures? Maybe if they want to be such jack-offs, the game devs could have made a shovel their secondary weapon so they could dig their own fucking graves and jump in it before I have to take a turn around to shoot off the terrorists that massacrated them.

What’s even more worse is, when you go down; thats it. Game over.

You can’t be healed by your own team mates but the stupidity of it is that you can heal them?

I’ll give you another example of how truly idiotic the AI is.

I have my team follow me into a room, and as soon as i’m being fired at by terrorists, the chinese bloke says (repetitively) “GET OUTS OF TEHH LINES OF FYYY-AHHH!”. At this point of the game, for once you can tell the developers actually understood what us gamers wanted.

Chinese special ops personell telling me to play the game better. Fuck.

Amusing. And yeah, it really did make me laugh.

I’ll give the poor guys at Ubisoft some credit though, as the two guys that follow you around are incredibly good as cannon fodder. That’s right. Line those retarded pieces of code against a wall, tell them to bust - wait for about 5 seconds… and as soon as both of them go down - go around, take another entrance - and wallah! Room cleared. Play ass lovers for about a minute with 5 inch needles (and this revives them?), then carry on with the game.

The next point that i’m coming to is the enemy. Suprisingly, it seems that Ubisoft had spent more time into the AI of the enemy rather than the AI of the two key people who are going to keep you alive in the game. Seriously, they should have just easter egged Death, with a scythe & and a black cloak into the game somewhere… it’s that unbalanced.

Example - I don’t advise you to play with “Realistic” or “Normal” mode, because with every room that you run into - you’re fucking dead. It’s almost like running into some kind of camouflaged grave. And that’s me truthfully speaking; these terrorists only unload one bullet on you, and you’re dead. Absoulutely out of here.

Which doesn’t make sense, because even with the most highly damaging weapon in the game - it still takes about 3 shots to take a single terrorist down.

There’s so much more to say about this game, but the real reason why i’m dreading it’s sequel is that it’s got real big shoes to fill if it’s going to come out any better than the first one. And I mean that, especially with the appauling PC multiplayer functionality - atleast online was fun with the Xbox 360, even if it did look worse.

PS: If you have a fairly low end machine, I thoroughly recommend for you not to get this game. Not only is it shite, it’s going to eat your systems resources like a fat kid in McDonalds.

I need sleep.

Trailer Link: YouTube

- LoveDuckie^

My oh my. I’ve been sitting here for two days now thinking of something to write about Call of Duty 4, do I do a review? A good ‘ol moan? Well, I’m going to do a bit of both, so be ready.

The first thing that really jumps out and takes you by the throat is that this is a Call of Duty game. Well no dur, I hear you say, but this is one of the most important aspects! I went into the single player with a certain amount of fear and trepidation that this wasn’t going to ‘feel’ right. I wanted the lovable characters, hordes of enemies and soiled toilets that I’ve came to expect from the CoD series. Guess what? I wasn’t disappointed. From the get go this is CoD at its very finest, your thrust face first into the action, you run to some cover, pop a few shots off and see your men mercilessly gunned down. Bliss.

But. And a big but. This lack of real change, while a blessing in most parts, is the games biggest, and buggiest, flaw. Let me take you back to CoD 2, there was what, 4, maybe 5, enemy models? I could live with that, they all wore uniforms and it would make sense that they would look similar. But rag tag Russians all looking the same? I don’t think so. There are maybe 3 or 4 enemy models for each of the enemy teams and these don’t differ all that much. There’s a guy with his face covered, on both sides, a guy with a beret and sometimes a guy with a helmet, again, on both sides. Though this may sound picky, it really starts to annoy towards the later parts of the game where everyone looks the bloody same!

Anyone remember those checkpoints in CoD2 where you’d die as you got it? Having to start the entire level again, especially on Veteran, was a pain in every gamer’s ass. Well it’s back and I simply cannot understand why. No other game I have ever played has this problem, only CoD. Admittedly it doesn’t happen as often as in previous games, but it happened to me on two separate occasions, once near the start of the game and once right at the end. Both times I had to start the whole level again, both times I punched the wall. I’ll be demanding an explanation from IW and I’ll make sure to let you guys know the root of this evil.

Last and no means least of the flaws is probably the most annoying one. Constantly respawning enemies. If you see a house, run in it. Count the amount of bad guys in there and then load to the previous checkpoint. This time, sit outside and shoot the bastards as they come to windows, how many in the house? In the name of a fair review, I tried this and counted 36 bad guys in a building that only had 6 in. I know this is necessary on the easier difficulties to make the gameplay a bit more substantial, but on Hardcore or Veteran, it’s just plain irritating. Some parts of the game require you to advance on a house from bloody miles away and having a constant stream of enemies running at you makes things no end of hard.

I bet you think I’m going to list all the things that make this great now don’t you? Well I’m not, that’s not how I believe reviews should be done. It’s a trend that made me stop buying gaming magazines, they either completely hate, or love, a game and there seems to be no middle ground. While I may seem a little hypocritical here, I’m not saying I hate the game, I love it, but not to the extent that I let it cloud my vision to the point of being a moron. I will tell you the good points of the game, but not in the intensity and depth of the flaws.

First and foremost, the graphics/looks/whatever you want to call it. In my opinion, without the amazing visuals, this game wouldn’t be half as good as it is. It’s the subtle things that make all the difference, such as dust swirling around as a helicopter lands or vegetation flattening underfoot. While tanks exploding, helicopters crashing and buildings being reduced to rubble are breathtaking, they are expected in a war game and we see them without batting an eyelid. But take a moment and look at the way you, and everything else, interacts with the environment. Bullets rip the place apart, bricks crumble, glass smashes and by the end of the fight, that house you were using for cover has been reduced to a ruin, the entire thing shot to pieces. I want to go deeper into this but sadly; it’s one of those things where you have to see it to believe it.

Now then, let’s get into the gameplay shall we? There’s one word to use here methinks, non-stop (or is that two words?). The start is a little slow, with a dull training mission and a ridiculously easy opening level, but once the first level of Act 1 begins, you’re thrown into the thick of it. Within 5 minutes, you’ll have stealth killed some guys, sniped some guys and got into your first meaty firefight. From then on, there’s barely a second where you’re allowed to breathe. It’s awesome is all I can, and need to say really.

Before I end this review, I’ll take a few lines to explain the multiplayer, which happens to be a very different beast than the single player. First of all, this isn’t for the fain hearted, if you want to be good, the hours are going to slip away. You start with a few basic guns and perks, but by playing more and more and racking up the points, you can unlock a massive variety of guns, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses and tons of perks, most of which are fairly pointless, but there are a few hidden gems in there. Again though, without actually sitting down and playing it, it’s hard to describe.

And here it is, my first of many reviews here at Frontier Gaming, hoped you enjoyed it.

So the most anticipated PC game of the year is almost upon us. To say I’ve been feverishly anticipating this game would be an understatement, and with the recent release of the single player demo a little review of the demo seems in order.

The demo begins with a fairly slick opening cinematic showing off the different powers your nanosuit grants you. This futuristic military armour grants you enhanced strength and speed, cloaking and damage absorption, and although it seems difficult at first to quickly switch between suit modes, by the end of the demo you’ll be nimbly switching between the four modes in the middle of a firefight. After that there’s another opening cinematic where you and the rest of your team all kit up and drop out of an aircraft. However, old friend plot device strikes you on the way down so you crash land separated from the rest of your ethnically diverse team, and it’s your job to meet up with them again. So far, the plot seems very paint-by-numbers; nothing jumps out at you that tells you this is going to be the next Shakespeare. But that’s okay in this instance, as you’ll soon discover when you take over and can freely move about; this game isn’t about the story, it’s about the gameplay. The first thing you’re likely to notice (assuming you have a nice PC) is that the game looks utterly fantastic. The second thing you’ll probably notice is that you can pick up a turtle which is happily lazing around on the beach. I repeat; YOU CAN PICK UP A TURTLE AND THROW IT AROUND. If this isn’t enough to make you rush down to your latest game store and preorder Crysis then I’m not sure this game will be you.

In fact it seems you can pick up almost everything in this game. Shoot the hat off an enemy and you can pick it up; catch one of the little birds running around and you can use it as a weapon or just to satisfy your sadistic needs. The physics in this game are absolutely incredible; Half-Life 2 Episode Two may have wowed us with its Striders demolishing complete houses, but that was all scripted. Demolition of houses in Crysis is completely physics-based; Grab a Korean by the throat and throw him into the side of a wall and it will collapse the wall, taking the rest of the building with it. Take out the supports of a small shanty building and watch as the rest gives way. This all looks and feels absolutely incredible and real. But it’s not all good; while the graphics and physics are phenomenal you will need a monster rig to get the best out of this game, and there’s lots of little bugs and things missing that need to fixed before the finished version hits the shelves. The gun and weapon sounds really need to be tuned up as well; weapons generally don’t sound very powerful, and someone tell me why an enemy can bring down a highly trained high-tech soldier with just one whip of his rifle?

Still, these are minor things that I’m sure will be fixed by the time the actual game is released. The single player is going to be amazing, but don’t write off the multiplayer; I’ve played a lot of it in the beta so far and it’s an absolutely unique experience; I can’t say anything else without giving away too much but multiplayer is going to have a lot of people hooked for ages, the unique mode Power Struggle is so good it simply cannot be missed. Mark November 16^th on your calendars; Crysis is coming.

Check out some amazing videos of Crysis in action:

http://www.gametrailers.com/game/2509.html

 - KillaCon