Grand Theft Auto IV

Grand Theft Auto 4 review by: Quik

I will start off by saying I really like GTA games. I have played all of them beginning with GTA2 (just a side note that both GTA classic games are available for download for free and legally from Rockstar on their website CLICK HERE to download them) then GTA3, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories (both “stories” on PSP), Chinatown Wars and now finally GTA IV. I think this game is true to the franchise and is all you would expect from a next chapter in the GTA franchise. Killing, driving, stealing, amazing soundtrack (I could listen just to the radio stations in this game all day long) and obviously since it is a next-gen GTA game the graphics are breathtaking.

Liberty City is modeled after New York City everyone knows that by now but how close is it to the source material? I’ve lived in N.J. with my parents most of my life and it’s where I grew up so me and my parents know N.Y. pretty well. When I first got my Xbox 360 and GTA4 (THANK YOU to Fated and Monmouth Media Group, LLC for sponsoring my AMAZING gaming setup, one love!) I showed it to my parents who are not gamers and asked them to recognize where the game takes place. Of course the N.Y. landmarks although slightly altered are immediately recognized and put a smile on a face of anyone who’s ever been to N.Y.C.

Liberty City is alive all around you. The pedestrians have conversations on the streets and subway stations (in different languages to add even more realizm), you can hail a cab, grab a hot dog from a street vendor, ride the subway, you have to pay the bridge tolls, I mean this game is as close to being a gangster in N.Y.C. as you can get without getting a life sentence in prison. If you haven’t played it yet and you like “sandbox” games this is one title you definitely have to pick up. At the time I am writing this review STEAM is offering Grand Theft Auto Complete Pack (including GTA, GTA2, GTA3, GTA IV, GTA: Episodes from Liberty City, GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City) for 48,99€. I am not sure if such a pack is available on any other platform outside Steam but you can always check.

O.K., enough of my fanboy drooling over this (great) game, now let me put on my evil horns and tell you what I didn’t like. I hate fast driving missions in this game. I HATE them. I hate chases. One such mission made me want to quit playing this game already. Everyone in this game is a Tokyo drift champion. Seriously. Everyone makes perfect turns, and I noticed the chases are very scripted (first mission when you use the police computer for Brucie). Even the environment is scripted in that mission. Now don’t get me wrong, I actually like driving around Liberty City, I like taking my friends and girlfriend out, listening to different radio stations and obeying traffic rules. The way the car reacts and handles is worlds above what we were introduced to in San Andreas but at the same time you can’t have the same scripted car chases as you did in San Andreas Rockstar! This is a very personal opinion however and for some of you those missions may prove to be quite fun and challenging.

I am really looking forward to comparing Grand Theft Auto IV to Saints Row soon and I am sure in my review I will judge Saints Row based on how it compares to GTA IV. Later on.

GTA 4 Review by: Fated

For my take on GTA4, I want to do something a little different than usual. Quik has given you a good overall idea of the nature, feel and quality of the game with which I completely agree. What I would like to do is talk about the special moments that embedded themselves in my memory.

The beginning of the game is, well, amazing. The credits rolling as the cargo ship pulls up to the NY Harbor and the smooth transition into the start of the game made me truly feel like an immigrant coming to a strange land. I can also tell you that immigrant brothers who exaggerate the wealth of America and their success are far more common than you might think, and that also put a smile on my face.

You know, I haven’t played the GTA games to completion in the past, enjoying Vice City mainly for its great soundtrack and trying San Andreas until about halfway through before the appeal of being a West Coast gangsta wore thin. Maybe the theme of this game spoke more closely to my soul, or maybe the overall quality has improved enough, but I had no trouble finishing this game all the way through.

The first time I stole a car I got arrested. Heh, great I thought, I actually have to pay attention while carjacking. When I finally managed to steal a car without ending my fledgling criminal career, the radio was turned onto a station playing Russian Rap. I shed a tear, how thoughtful, how in-character for Niko. That radio station stayed on a lot during my days in Liberty City, because it’s what I imagined my character would listen to. I wore track suits because all the Russian gangsters I see in movies with bad subtitles wear track suits. Everything was thought of, and the completeness of it left a lasting memory.

I remember a mission where an unruly passenger fought with you as you were kidnapping her, tugging at the steering wheel. The car would veer wildly off course and you literally wrestled with the controller as if you were really fighting over that steering wheel. I don’t know anyone who didn’t hate that woman, and even the most gentlemanly of us wished we could just knock her out for the remainder of the ride.

Blood or water, that eternal question of loyalty is well represented in a memorable choice you have to make early on, made all the more difficult by how much time you can invest into your relationships. I’m glad GTA presented you the choice, as it spoke to who you are as a person. Who knew, a game delving a little into my own psyche and holding up a mirror.

I not-so-fondly recall the last mission of the game, not because of its inclusion of every mission element possible, but for one horrendously difficult jump. Oh man, that leap, taken half-blind, unsure of what exactly you had to do to make it successful, was the epitome of frustration. But it is an epic jump and upon its eventual and successful completion, it made seeing the ending credits rolling by ever more sweet.

You know what I disliked? Looking for all the damned pigeons. Yes, as secret hunts go they’re very appropriate for New York, but I honestly and passionately hate what amounts to a fetch quest with 100 locations. The city is beautiful guys; I don’t need  100 pigeons to be encouraged into exploring it. Bottom line, this is a great game, engrossing, detailed, and with as close to a soul as a video game can get.  Another classic standing among lesser imitations (cough...Saints Row...cough)

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 review by: Quik
War. War never changes...
I have just finished the main game last night and I am about to experience the DLC starting with the Brotherhood of Steel and I will be playing Fallout New Vegas as soon as I get it. What a thrill, what an experience this journey was. This game is everything I have imagined and more. The world is huge and with so many interesting locations it provides weeks of entertainment. I was just walking about, looking for stuff to sell when I have discovered an old snacks factory. As I explored it I have eventually learned (through hacking, exploring and reading everything I could possibly find) that the factory was secretly taken over by Chinese agents before the first nukes were launched. The place was infested with ghouls in Chinese uniforms and as the patriotic songs on the Enclave Radio signal gave me courage I have cleaned that place from those commie bastards. This is just one example of those many, many locations you can explore that do not have a single thing to do with the main quest line (or often even side-quest), but they are so detailed and fun you wouldn't skip a single one. Detail is what makes this game really, it's what drives you to explore this world, learn all you can about it. It's what gives you a sense of danger and understanding of what it is like to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The graphic details in this game are beyond words. The first time I have exited Vault 101 I just stood at the look-out point and stared at the horizon, taking in the sites and sounds (or lack of them) I imagined for a minute what this world will be like, the adventure(s) I was about to embark on. I know Fallout, I've played the old games (only finished Fallout 2 I'm embarassed to say) I had an idea of what to expect but the actual experience of exploring Fallout world in first person perspective blew my mind.

The only negative thing I can really say about the game is it's infestation with bugs (and I don't mean the radroaches). I played Game of the Year edition for the PC and I had to constantly press F5 to quicksave otherwise most often inside buildings the game would just freeze and if I forgot to quicksave I would have to go all the way back to the autosave when I entered the before mentioned building. It might not sound that bad to someone who hasn't played the game but once you realize how huge some of those locations are you would understand my frustration. The A.I. of the NPCs in combat is also disappointing sometimes,  especially the Raiders running against the walls or the scientists in Enclave's Raven building who run away even though they have laser pistols (maybe my holy karma aura was that terrifying to their evil souls? =p).

In conclusion, this is possibly one of the greatest games I have ever played. It's hard to explain how epic this game is, how detailed, it's not just a game, it's an experience. To all the people who are saying that this game "ruined Fallout universe", "it's not really Fallout" just because it is first person game, you are stupid. World changes, technology changes. I assure you if they could make Fallout and Fallout 2  like this back in a day they would have. Now stop complaining and learn that technology always changes but war... war never changes.

 

Fallout 3 Review by: Fated

The biggest question a Fallout fan might have about the latest game: “Is this essentially an Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Mod?” Thankfully, no, not even close. The game feels like the Fallout games of old, the atmosphere of a post-nuclear struggle for survival among the ashes of civilization is there and then some. The characters that inhabit the world have unique personalities: paranoia, survivalist junkies, cowboys, cannibals, delusional emo-heads, slaves, drunks, addicts, victims of radiation and religious zealots. The game treats its subject maturely and doesn’t go out of its way to insult your intelligence. In addition, the atmosphere itself is just amazing. The wasteland oozes desperation, oppression, the very struggle to simply stay alive is felt in the land itself. It takes a special game where you can become a drug addict, cannibal, murderer and slaver. The game has balls of irradiated steel considering that something like Call of Duty is being banned because you can play as a soldier or an insurgent.

The question of whether you will like this game or not rests on the following points: Do you mind if a game has a slow pace and combat is dangerous? Do you like having long conversations and reading? Do you explore places even though you don’t have a quest to do so? If you answered yes to these, this is a great game for you. As Quik pointed out, the heart of the game lies in just walking off toward the sunset, finding an interesting place and discovering its story on your own. If you just rely on the main quest, you haven’t seen even half of this game.

Considering how realistic and mature the game tries to be in most aspects, you quickly notice an issue with two important apocalyptic considerations: food and radiation. You never feel very concerned about starving to death, or dying of thirst. I mean, look at the landscape, provisions should be the most valued commodity in the wasteland. Hell, the whole story revolves ultimately about drinkable water. Yet you never really feel that pressure of survival unless a mutant is chasing you down with a chaingun. In addition, while radiation is a threat, it is gotten rid of far too easily. Also, am I the only one to think that the Fallout universe missed a big book of fun in NOT having weird mutations change your character? I mean, growing a third arm or something, while difficult to code, would be all kinds of hilarious.

Ultimately, Fallout 3 is a classic. It belongs to a short list of games one simply must experience in their lifetimes. It will be one of those games that you reminisce about when you talk about the good old days when everything was better in the world. It will be one of those games you wish someone made more of, and that is the best compliment I could give it.

Star Trek Online

Note from Quik:
There will be no STO review from me. I just got Fated’s review in the e-mail and after reading it I cannot express enough how right he is. I feel exactly the same way about Star Trek Online and Fated’s review opened my eyes to some aspects I pretended I did not see but somehow felt in the back of my head the same way as Fated. There would no point in my writing exactly the same review, especially since Fated’s is greatly written and pretty much says it all. So all you Trekkies who want to try STO because “it’s all I’ve dreamed about for years and years”, you must read this review!

Star Trek Online review by: Fated

Star Trek Online has a generally well deserved reputation as one of the worst MMO’s ever. To give you an idea, a recent review of Final Fantasy 14 I’ve read had not one single good thing to mention about the game, but did give the following “positive”: Not as bad as Star Trek Online. Is this deserved? Taking my passion for Star Trek aside, definitely.

STO is one of the least polished games I have experienced. It does not seem simple, but every complication seems to be there for the sake of complication, instead of enabling some deeper gameplay. You have a choice of ground weapons and personal shields and kits, each of which have ever so slightly different effects, such as sometimes pushing an enemy back slightly, or slightly lowering their damage, or slightly doing something else not truly meaningful. There are all kinds of shields for your ship, some of which regenerate slightly faster, others that are a little more solid, and others still that last a longer time under fire, and all of those are affected by some generally hard to decipher skills. Tell me, is my shield getting stronger from my Starship Engineering Training, my Starship Warp Core Training or my Starship Command Skill, or all three? Who knows without spending hours reading obscure blogs and wikis on the internet? What exactly is a +12 to a skill, what does it do? Should I go with a +10 instead? You may never know. It is unnecessary confusion and obfuscation to make a system seem less simplistic than it really is. (Quik’s note: OK, so you do you understand why I “lost it” at one point when trying to organize my inventory . Can’t all RPGs have a character developement system as fun and detailed but also intuitive and easy to understand as Fallout 3?)

The only thing in the game that has seen a lot of serious work is the art, which I believe was borrowed from a prior developer. The Star Trek look is there in the ships, the uniforms and the settings. It is easy enough on the eyes. However, you only need to fly by a few Capt. Jack Daniels flying their USS ScotchWhiskey to lose your immersion. It doesn’t help that all the personal shields, tactical kits and combat armors with armor-plated glossy uniforms make half the players look like they jumped in from Unreal Tournament or Global Agenda. I’m sorry, was Cryptic working on Voltron Online before they got the Star Trek license? Probably.

The biggest gripe most fans have with the game is that it doesn’t “feel” very Star Trek. The shows and movies are about violence as a last resort, no battle is gone into without at least some attempt at communication and remediation. The Federation does not give orders to “destroy” pirate outposts, but to conduct diplomacy and mediate an agreeable solution. The game is not like that AT ALL. It has more in common with what you would expect from Warhammer 40,000, where humanity is at war with everyone forever. There were points at which I and Quik would be faced with enemies, and we wanted to hail them. There is no such option; you cannot hail your enemies. You don’t even get the “we’re kind of trying” pretense of “Captain, they’re not answering our hails”, there is just combat.

Ground combat, heck, ground missions are ludicrously bad. Bring your scanner and your gun. You either scan ten rats or shoot them. Except the rats look like metal boxes or Klingons, respectively. In addition, every other ground mission will have enemies materialize into the ground and shoot you with apparently trans-dimensional weapons while you are unable to do anything about it. Transporter technology has obviously lost some of its finesse, because boxes and objects are constantly shown inside rocks and trees.

One of the earliest missions has a Klingon Captain telling you that a particular ambassador is a traitor, and asks you to hand him over. Why can’t I? I believe him, why can’t I end the mission there and then. Because this game sucks, that’s why. Why don’t your enemies ever surrender, or run away, or ask for a cease fire, or hail you? Bottom line, you get war, constant war, with no peace possible, no mercy, no prisoners and nothing of the spirit a Star Trek fan would care for.

Your missions are repetitive, and very few are nonviolent. The nonviolent “diplomatic” missions are tolerable, although boring. The biggest crime is that there are no choices, pretty much in anything. I HAVE to talk to all the miners, I “Resolve” their grievances by correctly repeating their problems back to them. WOW, if only the world was really like that!! I HAVE to destroy that Klingon away party, to the last man. I HAVE to blast that Orion Pirate and his inhabited Starbase from existence. I HAVE to scan the first artifact before I can scan the three identical ones down the road. It’s ridiculous in its simplicity and disregard for canon as well as your intelligence.

But do not despair, the game is not hard. If you “die”, you or your starship respawn a few seconds later a few feet from your last location. The game has a nice resuscitation system for away teams, but why bother when you can just respawn anyway. Why, in the future, does “food” still heal us from laser blasts? Seriously, wouldn’t some “Medical Nanobot Injection” been too hard to use instead of Romulan Ale? It doesn’t feel serious. When my starship is destroyed, why aren’t I rescued by someone or eject? Why aren’t I towed back to the nearest starbase and repaired/given a new ship?

In space combat, your crew can be injured or killed. Your injured crew recover fairly quickly, but so do your dead, in the middle of battle!! Why do I not have to go back to a star base to get new crewmembers? Why is it never held against me that hundreds of people die under my command each day, and my promotions just keep rolling in? Wouldn’t it make canonical sense that taking heavy casualties would be held against a captain and affect his rate of experience gain, aka promotions through the ranks? Nothing matters in this game, not even the “pretend” lives of your “pretend” crew in this pretense of what Star Trek should be.

The ship to ship combat in this game is passable, and along with non-violent diplomatic missions, it is the only part of this game even remotely enjoyable. Your ship is slow, turns slow, and takes a lot of hits to be destroyed, and that is how it should be. Your crew’s special training is implemented in special abilities like “Emergency Power to Shields”. However, there are gaping holes in what you can do. You cannot launch shuttles, target enemy subsystems, use a tractor beam, or beam boarding parties to the enemy ship without the requisite special abilities. That is like not being able to turn right in a car without a passenger trained in Driving 3. Oh wait, maybe they were modeling NASCAR J.

So why do I play this train wreck of a game? Why do I find enjoyment in it? The answer is simple: my friend Quik. Ultimately, we play social games for the people, the friends and the camaraderie. It doesn’t necessarily matter if the game is good or not, as long as you have good company to play it with. We are both Trek geeks, we can role play our characters, we do not fly the USS Ikillyourship. We do not give our captains Justin Bieber hair and combat armor from Star Wars. We play the game our way, the Trek way, even with all the limitations against our doing so, and only then is it any fun.

Fatboy Slim: Why Try Harder? (Greatest Hits)

Review by: Fated

Okay, Quik excitedly told me of a great “techno” album so good he could easily listen to the whole thing over and over and love every song. Intriguing. I got the album, Fatboy Slim’s Greatest Hits. I can’t say I share his enthusiasm.

The album opens well, with the first track being catchy and recognizable from commercials and tv, however, my biggest gripe with the entire album becomes entirely clear after about a minute.

Perhaps some of you remember those funny little songs like “This Is the song that never ends….” And “99 bottles of beer”. They’re cute but the level of their repetitiveness and sameness gets you sick of them faster than the speed of light. You know which songs I mean, church has a ton of them, those songs that have 3 or 4 lines and are repeated for as long as the crowd is “into” it, perhaps hours. This first track has TWO, count em, two lines with one word different between them. This might work, if it was a minute and a half song, and the accompanying beat was really that good. Sadly, it’s not, not even close. It’s a mash up of beach boys surfing funk and those two lines. The artist felt he needed to keep the song going by employing that really lame song device of speeding up and slowing down the track to fool (“yeah right”) my mind into thinking that NOW, NOW I’m going to get to the creative original and new part that’s going to make me like this song. Final rating: Epic for the first 10 seconds, COMPLETE FAIL for the rest of the 4!!! Minutes I was unfortunately subjected to.

Praise You is the second track. It suffers from exactly the same problem. Overly simple, overly repeated, lame stutter effects to change up something that is 10% of a REAL song stretched out into 3 and a half minutes. It even sounds like church music, which makes me wonder if this whole album isn’t some kind of sick revenge for Fatboy Slim having to listen to some damn near endless and mostly mindless praising of Jesus as a child.

Basically, I’ll sum up this album: Listen to about the first 15 to 30 seconds of each song and sample the beat before its very soul and spirit are crushed out of you through a merciless lack of progress, change, or a timely end to the track.

In terms of style, the whole thing is very 70s funk, kind of like a Tarantino throwback except musically.

The thing is, I don’t know how anybody can listen to the whole album straight through because you’ll be bored to tears way before you hit the middle. Each interesting beat from each new track will be immediately followed by “This is the whole song right here, how many minutes am I going to listen to this one?”

The greatest songs are complicated, multilayered and not afraid to change up their beats, style, pace and lyrics. Think perhaps Queens “Bohemian Rhapsody” or Black Sabbath’s “Ironman”. The songs just change several times and get MORE interesting as you listen to them.

This is the complete opposite. Your first few seconds are as interesting as these songs will ever get. I, well, I kinda hate this album. Sorry Quik.

 

Review by: Quik

 

Sir, how can you hate this album? Hate? Why do I have a feeling you approached this cd with a negative attitude to begin with and hence you did not allow yourself to be swept away by the phat beats and positive rhytm (hehe).

^_^

I discovered this album at work, I was sitting in front of my Mac slaving away in Photoshop and my boss put the cd on. I didn’t have any podcasts or audiobooks to listen to that day so I just sat there and listened to the music in the background. I heard a couple of tracks by FBS before but I had a very neutral attitude about it. A couple of tracks in I caught myself dancing in my seat while working with a nice positive smile on my face. I was intrigued. I got the album and copied the cd to my iPod. I immediately liked it. Funky, very positive beats, sampling of different music styles, (Bird of Prey makes me think of The Doors, Don’t let the man get you down put an image of 60s hippies in my mind) and an overall positive attitude of the tracks made me listen to this album for a long time everywhere, commuting, working, relaxing you name it.
I think this music is incredibly visual. If this was a soundtrack to some fun funky movie I bet you it would be the most popular soundtrack of the decade.

How many times can you spot the neighborhood spy???

The music videos very much prove my point, honestly Fated I made a mistake, I should have made you watch a couple of music videos first and then tell you “Oh by the way, this is the cd with all those songs in one place.” and I think you would have a much greater appreciation for the album. Well just in case you are willing to trust me on this I have “sneaked” a couple of videos into my review, hope you watch them, give them a try and perhaps try the album again hmmm? ^_^

I absolutely fell in love with this track after watching the video =)

Last but not least, if all those videos before did not put a smile on your face and made you move your butt to the funky rhytms this is my last attempt (my Weapon of Choice if you will) but it is the strongest one. “Why is that Quik?” you ask. Well sir, three reasons:
1) Christopher Walken is dancing in it. (Yes, except for a couple of stunt moves that is really him dancing) and on a coolness scale of 1 to 10 (1 being Mr. Rogers and 10 being Chuck Norris) Mr. Walken is 12.
2) There is a line in the song “If you walk without rhytm then you won’t attract the worm”. I love stuff like this, it reminds me that the mighty army of geeks and nerds is that much closer to taking over the world.
3) Christopher Walken is in this… DANCING!!!

If you walk without rhytm, you won’t attract the worm!