Call of Duty: Black Ops

 Call of Duty, the best selling Video Game franchise ever.  Black Ops, is currently, as of Jan. 2013, the most popular in the series, being the seventh installment.  This game breaks away from the WWII setting, and the near future setting of Modern Warfare, to go explore the espionage of the Cold War.  Everything you know about Call of Duty, changed with this entry.

GAMEPLAY

Black Ops, keeps to the shooting frenzy, all out war found in previous installments.  Classic weapons from the 1960s era, some of which that are in COD: MW2 as well, like the M16, and the AK-47, and  adding new weapons to the mix, such as a crossbow.  Black Op shootout's have a different feel than the ones in MW2, mainly because the HUD, is different, and your squadmates usually are wearing civillian clothing.  Mission structure also include's infiltration and sniping, massive firefights, and sometimes downright awesome cinematic sequences.

GRAPHICS

While slightly better than MW2, nothing much has changed.  The framerate, which is a issue for some PS3 games, actually keeps at it's Xbox 360 counterparts speed.  Character models are very detailed, and the enviroments are detailed much better than MW1, and WAW.

STORY

Alex Mason has been captured and is being interagated by an unknown enemy, being forced to recount his life's story about the Cold War.  Mason, Woods, and Bowman were a team of undercover C.I.A. black opratives, sent to  assassinate Fidel Castro in Cuba, during the Bay of Pig's invasion.  After assassinating Castro, the team goes through a very intense firefight to get to an airstrip. Once there and on the plane, Mason sees that the runway is blocked, Mason then jumps off and clears the runway to save his friends, but at the cost of being left behind.  After soon learning that Castro is not dead, and that he shot a body double, Mason is sent to Vorkuta prision in the U.S.S.R., where he meet's Viktor Resnov, the story then blossoms, by the way, thats just the first mission.

AGE

This game has very intense violence, and alot of blood and gore.  Languge is extremely fowl, and includes multiple uses of the f word.

There is a mature content filter, which cut's out all s-words, f-bombs, and blood.  With content filter Age 14 and up, no content filter, Age 17+.

CONCLUSION

With fun gamelay, a great campaign, and a interesting story, I award the Black Ops campaign 8.75.

DETAILS

Developed by Treyarch

Published by Activision

Released in 2010

Rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language by the ESRB

For PS3, Wii, PC, and Xbox 360.

 

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

The PS2, has had many great games released for it, but the most ambitious, and best one for it's time, was Jak and Daxter.
Developed by Naughty Dog, the team that created Crash, and after the Jak years, the largely acclaimed, Uncharted series.

GAMEPLAY
This game breaks away from the average, platform game idea.  It presents a semi-open world, with no loading times.  It's features different sub-sections of a region, making little free-roam levels, that you walk trough.  It's basicly Super Mario 64, without the castle.  The core gameplay revolves around exploring the world, to finding power cells, by completing, platform challenges, performing tasks,
and paying locals.
Once you have collected the required amount of power cells, you move ahead to the next set of area's to find more power cells.  Other collectibles such as precursor orbs (egg things) plague the world as well. 

GRAPHICS
For a game that came out in 2001, the graphics are very good, and beat most of what you would see on the wii.  Cartoonish worlds, and characters, help with the graphical side of the PS2, because, if it's not real, the better it looks.

STORY
Jak and Daxter have snuck to the forbidden island, against the green sage's will.  While there, Daxter falls into a well of Dark Eco, causing him to turn into a little animal.  Can Jak help his friend, or will he have to stay a rodent....forever.

AGE
Jak and Daxter has some cartoon violence, but nothing offensive.  Age 5 amd up.

CONCLUSION
Jak and Daxter presented a new kind of game, with fun, freeroam, platforming levels.
For a family game, or an adult wanting to relive the excitement, from when they were kid's playing SM64, or even if your looking for a great waste of time on the PS2.
8.5 out of 10.

DETAILS
Developed by Naughty Dog
Published by Sony Computer Enterainment
Released in 2001
Rated E by the ESRB
for PS2, and PS3

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

 

The Super Mario series has had many great games, but after Super Mario 64, there was a lack of side scrolling mario adventures.  As with New Super Mario Bros. for the DS,  this title includes all the best ideas in the series, with the classic, unbeatable side scrolling gameplay. 

 

GAMEPLAY

New Super Mario Bros. Wii has the gameplay of all it's predecessers.  To name a few of the features, it has the overworld map, first seen in Super Mario Bros. 3, the wall kick, first seen in Super Mario 64 DS, and the ability to ride Yoshi's, first seen in Super Mario World.

Goombas, Koopas, Bullet Bill's, and Shy Guy's are some of the bad guy's you'll find in the mushroom kingdom, this go round.  The side scrolling gameplay remains solid, and the boss fight's are quite fun, but are hard at the same time.  The main area where this game is totally different, is that it has up to 4 player, drop in/drop out, offline Co-Op play.  In Co-Op mode, you all play together, at the same time, to guide Mario, and his pal's in their quest to save Peach.  Alot of new power up's were also introduced, with the crazyness of SMB3, but slightly more helpful in your journey.

 

GRAPHICS

This game has amazing graphics, for the Wii, which are perfect cartoon animations.

I think, that NSMBW has some of the best graphics for the console all together.

 

STORY

Princess Peach was kidnapped again, this time, by the koopalings.  Can Mario and his pals save the Princess, or get squashed by the Koopa's trying?

 

AGE

That's an easy one, 4 and up.

 

CONCLUSION

This is a fun game, and one of the best game's for the wii.  The main problem, comes to difficult stages for the younger gamers, that the game appeals to.  If you are a long time Super Mario fan, or new to the series, or even just looking to find a great game for your wii, check it out.  I give it 8 out of 10.

 

DETAILS

Developed by Nintendo EAD

Published by Nintendo

Released in 2009

Rated E by the ESRB

Only for the Wii

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Ultimate Spider-Man

 

Remember the warm and fuzzy feeling's from Spider-Man: the movie game?  Remember the even fuzzier feeling's from Spider-Man 2?  Imagine, the open manhattan of Spider-Man 2, in a real, breathing, talking comic book.  In Ultimate Spider-Man, we get all that and more than we could ask for.  The game loosley follows what happened in the "black suit" story ark of the Ultimate Spider-Man comic series.  Keep in mind that this is a different dimension than the movies, and the original comics, the long running series  "The Amazing Spider-Man". 

 

GAMEPLAY

Ok, so the freeroam Manhattan from Spider-Man 2, with part of Queen's added is in the inviroment.  You can't enter the Shops, and resturants like in the predecesser, but that's all right.  Combat, is just slightly different, once again having the kick button.  The main mission's are fun, but the side missions get old.  The main feature that make's Ultimate different than 2, is that some of the missions involve playing as the archnemesis, Venom.  The venom mission's involve jumping, and downright combat in linear levels.   Venom can hurl cars, and whack enemies from a distance using the suit's tendrils.  To gain health, you must feed on civilians/enemies.  After story mode is finished, Venom is a playable character in freeroam.

 

GRAPHICS

The graphics in the game are much better than Spider-Man 2, but that's because it went for cell shaded cartoon style, rather than real.  The game looks, like a moving version of the comic book.

 

STORY

The game follows the story of Peter Parker, 3 months after he seperated himself from the black suit.  And the events that followed after Eddie Brock bonded with it.

 

AGE

 It's not a scary game, but it does feature fantasy violence, which involves Spidey beating the bad guys, and some minor cursing, including H+++, D+++, and A++.

 

CONCLUSION

Ultimate Spider-Man is a fun, but short super hero action/adventure, freeroam, load of happyness.  It is a tad short, but if you have a last gen console, you should check this one out.  I give it a 7.9.

 

DETAILS

Developed by Treyarch

Published by Activision

Released in 2005

Rated T for Mild Language, and Violence by the ESRB

For Xbox, PS2, Gamecube, DS, GBA, and PC