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Holy crap. Three new announcements that make me glad that I just purchased a 360.
First, Rez and Ikaruga are coming to the Xbox Live Arcade. Both of these are easily worth the $10 entrance fee. Both are still rather expensive here on their respective consoles, so being able to play them at a reduced rate is just sweet.
Next, one of the most exciting announcements that I've heard in a while...
Ninja Gaiden 2
[img width=320 height=202]http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z275/JWKobayashi/ninja_gaiden_2-1.jpg[/img]
Finally! I've been waiting for this one for a while. There are some questions about the difficulty being reduced, but I say keep it in a "hardcore" type mode. I loved how hard the first Ninja Gaiden on Xbox was.
My wallet is already cringing at the barrage of games coming out at the end of this year and now the beginning of next year.
So, while I was away for the Labor Day weekend, I finally got my key into the Xbox 360 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare beta. Last night, I had the chance to play it for about an hour.
So far, my impressions are very positive. The game is a nice break from the WW2 theme present in the series. It places you in a middle eastern looking war ravaged area. Both the graphics and the sound are very pleasing, especially for an online mode.
The gameplay is what really shines here. It's (obviously) a FPS, but it also incorporates 'RPGish' elements. For example, you start out as level 1 with only three types of soldiers to pick from for use. As you gain kills and complete other mini-tasks, your XP goes up and you begin to level up.
After an hour of playing, I'm currently at level 4 and have 5 classes of solders to choose from. I haven't tried it yet, but apparently you can customize your weapons further as you level up as well. The beta has a level cap of 11, but I plan on getting there as soon as I can.
There are also other rewards for doing well in the game. For example, gaining a certain amount of kills in a row gives you the ability to call an airstrike. It's the little touches like this that will make or break the game. It is all going to come down to an issue of balance. However, from what I've played thus far, so far so good. | [img width=254 height=126]http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z275/JWKobayashi/cod4.jpg[/img] |
Well, so I tried the Bioshock demo last night. I was expecting pretty great things, as I listened to the 1up Yours podcast this week. They just kept spewing on about how great this game is going to be, how it will be game of the year, how great the graphics are, how big it will sell, and so on.
Yeah..... well at least I agree that the graphics kick ass. It has the best water effects I've ever seen. The textures are very detailed and the lighting is superb.
I just didn't think the demo was very fun. It was like trying to stick fast paced FPS action into a slow paced "exploration" type game. I think it was cool how you can search through the trash and other various places for items, but that just didn't really mix well with the action for me. The storyline seems cool, as do the special powers, and I like the idea of the voice diary system thing.
I think the project may have just been a bit too ambitious. Cool ideas, but they don't flow well together. Maybe the demo just sucked and the full game will be better. I'm just thinking that this will probably not be game of the year this year.
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