Whether or not nudity should be in video games could be endlessly debated and it will still come down to personal opinions (myself, I don’t see any reason for it). What can be legitimately argued is that it hurts a game’s sales to contain it. Nudity alienates a large group of buyers that either can’t or won’t purchase the game because of it.

Walk into any high school or middle school and it will quickly become obvious that under-aged gamers play titles rated M (must be over 17 years old). Countless students will be chatting about Gears of War or Grand Theft Auto. Many parents out there feel their children can handle a mature game, and they may well be right. They believe their children are fine with the violence since it really isn’t any worse than what you will find on cable TV. The language doesn’t bother many parents since they are aware that children have heard every bad word once a day on the playground by the time they are in third grade. I have met many of these parents who will tell their children they can’t play a game with nudity. A company will immediately lose sales from these parents no matter how good the game is. On the other hand, never once has anyone said, “Yeah, that game looks good, but I won’t buy it unless it has some naked people.”

I’m not saying nudity has no place in gaming at all. Just like movies, it can add to the emotion of a scene. Consider 300; there are a couple of scenes of nudity in that, but it was done from a very artistic and emotional perspective (and used natural women that didn’t pay more on cosmetic surgery than I paid for my truck, but that’s a whole different subject). The same can be said about Mass Effect; a game that got quite a bit of publicity for it’s sex scene. Gamers that actually saw it can tell you that it was a love scene that respectfully cut away before any of the sex began. Depending on the player, all that was shown was either a guy’s or girl’s butt; nothing over the top. Chances are that an immature player that wouldn’t understand the love aspect of the scene won’t play through a game like Mass Effect anyway. On the other end of the spectrum are movies like Under Siege (I know it’s old, but it’s a perfect example) where they hired a Playboy Playmate to pop out of a cake topless in her first major scene. Even when I saw this movie in middle school, I had to wonder how that was necessary. A good game example of this is Conan. Topless women are scattered throughout the game and have nothing to do with the story in any way. I am aware this is part of the Conan mythos, but they could have put the girls in leather bikinis and gotten the same exact point across. Actually they could have been left out since they really have no purpose or reason for being in there. I can’t tell you how many people look at that game box and say something along the lines of, “Nudity? Really? That seems dumb. What other games are out now?” I myself rented it and found that it was very good game, but I didn’t buy the game simply because of the unnecessary topless women. Further proof can be found in the stores. I recently was digging through the Walmart bargain bin and saw Conan for less than twenty dollars. It was the only game less than two years old in the bin and many other, older games are still selling for forty dollars or more.

I know major companies don’t consider morals when creating games, but making money will be a factor behind most major decisions. There is no question about it, nudity will hurt a game’s sales. When it is going to be included in a game, developer needs to really take a step back and think if it is needed. There may be situations when it will be good for a scene, but in most cases, a game will be better off without it. Unnecessary nudity may sell a couple more copies at first, but you will lose far more in the long run, including the respect of more mature gamers.

Welcome to the Call of Duty off-year. Two different developers switch off making the series and this year’s, Treyarch, has earned the title of ‘the other Call of Duty guys.’ That doesn’t mean their games are bad; they are still quite fun. It just means they don’t have the same wow factor as the far superior Infinity Ward does.

World at War plays like a direct sequel to Call of Duty 3 (which makes sense since that was Treyarch’s last CoD game). The series goes back to World War II and playing through that conflict is beginning to get a little stale. There is a beach landing scene that is insanely intense and ends with your character swimming underwater in slow motion while bullets streak by and you allies get shot up. It would have been a really epic scene if it was an almost exact duplicate of the beach scene from Call of Duty 2. One part of the game takes place during a campaign that starts in Stalingrad and ends in Berlin while the other part takes place in Japan. The Japanese sections help add some variety since that side of the war isn’t portrayed very often in games.

The game plays exactly like the rest of the series. So much so that the developers didn’t even include a tutorial. They just expect you to know how to play already. Basically, they are saying, “We hope you haven’t played any other shooters since Modern Warfare, or else you’re going to be confused.” It’s still fun and exactly what you expect from the series, although each new game is even shorter than the last; this on can be completed in under five hours. At this rate, the tenth Call of Duty game will be over in about an hour. What makes this worse is that a few of the levels are artificially lengthened by repetition. For example, one mission sends you through several similar looking underground trenches and you must destroy three mortar emplacements that look exactly the same. It is incredibly disappointing to see things repeated in a game that is so ridiculously short.

Although I had quite a bit of bad things to say about the game, I still had a blast playing it. The action stays intense throughout. There are several highlights, like a mission that puts you inside a plane and makes you run from one gun turret to another while defending your aircraft from all sides. The final mission (without giving too much away) takes place in large room that is constantly being flooded with an impressive amount of enemies. This was probably my favorite level in the series so far. The game definitely continues to build torward the end and doesn’t have it’s best levels half way through the way many other games do.

The graphics are excellent. Everything looks almost real and characters react realistically when under attack. While the sound is good, some of your allies talk way too much, especially early on. The fourth level is a sniper mission where your spotter never stops talking. The entire time, I was just waiting for him to give away our position because he was so loud and wouldn’t shut up. Near the end of the mission, the Germans are shooting flamethrowers through the windows and the only clear spot is along the floor. After about ten seconds of this going on, your spotter yells, “They’ve spotted us! They’re trying to burn us out! We need to crawl along the floor!” Thanks, Sherlock.

Many people have heard about the zombie mode that is unlocked after finishing the game. At the end of the credits, there is a respectful quote about World War II veterans that is immediately followed by ‘Nazi Zombies’ being plastered on the screen in red. Honestly, I have to say that this mode is completely unnecessary. This is a serious game about a real life conflict and zombies have no place in it. It is borderline disrespectful. The mode is kind of fun, but if I wanted some co-op zombie action, I would play Left 4 Dead. At least there you don’t need to play through the whole game before you are allowed to fight zombies.

World at War may be a step backward from Modern Warfare, but it is still fun. The game is more of the non-stop action we have come to expect from the series. Just don’t expect the revolutionary gameplay that we got from the last title in the series.

Even though there wasn’t a new movie to base this game on, it is clear that this is a continuation of the series. It takes place in the comic book universe and the story is not related to the movies, but it plays very much like Spider-man 3. This is both good and bad, since the last game got mixed reviews as well.

The action is very straightforward, which many will like while others may get bored. The majority of the battles will take place on the ground and can be won just by repeatedly pressing the attack button. Anyone that plays this way will not be getting the most out of it, though. It’s better to try out all of the game’s combos to see how many different ways you can dispatch your enemies. This will actually make the game more difficult than simply button mashing, but it will also be much more fun. The aerial fights take a bit more finesse, since you must keep using your web on the enemies to stay in the air while also attacking them when you get close. Even these fights can get repetitive once you get a good rhythm down, but there are always new moves to try out to spice it up. Another area with it’s own moves is the side of a building. There is a smaller move set, the camera is too close, and judging distances between you and the enemy is difficult. It’s for these reasons that I avoided fighting on walls as much as possible, but it was rather annoying in the cases where I had to do it. Web-swinging around the city that was made popular by the last couple games is still as fun and seamless as ever.

The mission breakdown is possibly the games weakest point. Most every mission chain follows the same pattern. You start by having to either go defeat a enemy, destroy a target, or save a group of people. Once you complete this objective and return to the person that gave you the mission, they then basically tell you, “Good work. Now go do it three times.” After you finish that, you are then asked to do it again five times, then ten. Most of these missions are optional, but you still must do a good number of them to progress through the game. Many boss battles follow this same repetition. After doing a set amount of damage to them, many will flee through the city and force you to follow them while sending enemies to attack you. Some will run away from you up to five times and the battle can become quite tedious. This makes the game last a while longer than many other action titles (I finished in around ten hours) but it was definitely artificially extended by repetition.

My absolute favorite aspect of the game is the way it handles the black suit. During the tutorial sequence, you have a battle with Venom in which you gain the ability to use it whenever you want. With a quick button press, you can switch to it. It is so seamless that you can even switch between suits in the middle of a combo. Past games with the black suit balanced it with the regular suit so that neither really had an advantage over the other. In this game, the black suit is devastating. Since there are consequences to using it, you actually experience the same dilemma that Spider-man goes through when deciding if he wants to keep it or not. There are multiple endings based both on the moral choices you make and how much you used each suit. Since you can actually become a very bad person if you let the suit take over, the game does an excellent job of showing what would have happened to Spider-man in the movies or comics if he didn’t eventually get rid of it.

Regardless of which suit you choose, experience is earned from battles that can upgrade the abilities of each (or both if you take the time to earn enough exp). New combos are added, different attacks can be unlocked, and damaging finishing moves are learned. I would have preferred if there was either more to unlock, or it was harder to get each new upgrade because I had both suits maxed out and I didn’t even do all of the optional missions. In addition to spending experience on upgrades, you also can search for hidden spider symbols to increase your health, special ability meter, and web swing speed. Higher levels need so many symbols to increase and the difference is so minimal that I didn’t spend much time looking to level up after too long.

Although the beginning of the game is a bit bland, once the story gets going, it is quite entertaining. It can be a little confusing since it isn’t clear at what point in Spider-man’s history this game takes place. His identity is still a secret, so it is not up to date with the comics. Only Mary Jane and Venom know who he is. It also isn’t clear if Spider-man is either dating or just friends with MJ. The story begins during a typical fight with Venom. During the battle, pieces of Venom’s suit jump off and spread around the city. Par of it also fuses with Spider-man, giving him the black suit (apparently again, since several people mention that he has had it before). The symbiote from the suit eventually takes over most of the city and it’s people. It is a very epic tale that brings in many Marvel regulars, like Moon Knight, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Kingpin, and many more. The final of the three acts actually has a strong feel of a zombie movie around it and is fairly impressive.

The game looks mediocre. When standing on a building, it is impressive how far you can see across the building, but nothing looks particularly detailed up close. At the beginning of the game, the voice acting is terrible. Spiderman does nothing but whine and moan in the most pathetic fashion (worse than in the movies, believe it or not). As time goes on, it gets better and is even halfway decent by the end of the game. There are a ton of graphical glitches and clipping problems. Enemies can be knocked through buildings or the ground and will get stuck from time to time. Spider-man will clip through buildings or the ground constantly as well. I normally am not bothered by low frame-rates, but it gets a bit ridiculous when swinging through the city at high speeds. I would say there are actually times when you see less than five frames per second, especially late in the game. There were even four different occasions when the mission I was on completely broke; either the next wave of enemies never appeared or a person I was supposed to save was stuck inside of a wall. This forced me to reload the game and start the mission over. These kind of problems were almost expected in the last Spider-man games (excluding Friend or Foe) since the were forced to stick with release dates that were around the movie releases, but there is no reason that this game couldn’t have been pushed back a little to fix these issues.

Web of Shadows is a good game. The repetitive missions will prevent it from being a classic, but there is still some good fun to be had. If you go in expecting it’s problems, you will be prepared for a great time.

Take everything you know about Far Cry and throw it out the window. This story has no relation to the first game. The feral abilities are gone. Instead of different levels, this game uses an open world environment. There wasn’t really any reason to actually call this Far Cry 2, but that doesn’t stop it from being a good game. Just be prepared for a very different experience.

The gameplay actually has far more in common with Fallout 3 than it does the original title. It is definitely an action game and not an RPG, but the basics are much the same. After the opening tutorial sequence, you are thrust into an open world and can go anywhere you like. At first, this can be a little daunting because the game doesn’t give you much direction. Tasks can be received by a number of different people that will reward you with information, assistance, or diamonds (the currency of the game). Most of the missions play out much the same, with only one of three different objectives in most scenarios: kill a person, destroy a target, or get an item. Most of these objectives are located quite a ways from where the mission starts, and you probably will end up driving to your destination. This is one aspect that may impress some people and disappoint others. You will be driving more than shooting in this game. The average mission takes around fifteen minutes. Five of those minutes will be driving to the location, five will be fighting the enemy at the objective, and five will be driving back to the person that gave you the mission. This got particularly annoying when I wrecked my car or got it stuck between two rocks. I then had to walk to my destination or hope to stumble across a new car. There are bus stops around the map that allow you to fast travel, but not very many and their locations aren’t the most convenient. The vehicles controls are very good. They strike a good balance between fun and realism. It feels like you are really driving the vehicles, but you will never have to fight against the controls to keep the car on the road at high speeds. Far Cry 2 is also an incredibly long game, especially considering that it is a first-person shooter. Most of the time these games can be finished in under seven hours, but this one can last anywhere from twenty five to fifty hours, depending on how many side missions you attempt. There are multiple difficulties that further extend replay value.

Traveling around the map in the game is brilliantly implemented. At anytime, whether walking or driving, you can pull up you map. If you are moving, the map is lower partially so you can see where you are going but is raised back to full view when you stop. Like many other games, there is a compass on the bottom corner that shows you which direction your objective is. Also like many other games, there are sign posts at intersections that tell you which direction points of interest are. Unlike other games, instead of having to slow down to read these signs, the one pointing to your destination will be colored while all others will be white. This makes it extremely easy to get around at high speeds without getting lost. My only gripe with the map would be that you cannot set your own markers. This means when you aren’t on a mission, getting where you want to go will mean constantly checking your map to make sure you’re heading in the right direction. This is a minor issue, so otherwise, travel is a breeze.

In the beginning, you start with four basic weapons: a machete, pistol, assault rifle, and rocket launcher. As you perform missions for the weapons dealer, many more will become available. Once a weapon is purchased, an unlimited number can be found in your armory. Upgrades can be purchased for each weapon or other areas, such as camouflage or your ability to repair vehicles. This was the driving force behind the game for me. I didn’t care about the story or completing missions. My main goal was to earn diamonds to buy all the weapons and upgrades.

The graphics are probably the best I have seen on the next generation consoles so far. The envoirnment looks like a real jungle with extremely realistic trees and grass. Each vehicle is intricately detailed, both inside and out. They will even gather mud the longer you drive them around. Although you do hear tons of birds and animals in the environment, you don’t see many, which makes the land feel empty and unrealistic at times. The character models aren’t the game’s strongest aspect, but they look just as good as most other games. There are tons of little things that add to the experience. For example when a NPC hands you an item, in most games they would reach out and the item would disappear from their hand. In Far Cry 2, you will see your character’s arm take the item. I was a little disappointed at how little effect you actually have on your surroundings. Bushes and grass don’t move as you walk through them. In lakes or streams, it is clear that the animations for splashes or ripples are playing on top of them and the water itself isn’t affected. All things considered, though, this game is still a treat to experience.

Although there isn’t really anything wrong with the game, nothing really made it stand out. All of the characters are generic stereotypes that you would expect to find in a diamond-mining third world country. There are the mercenaries (of which you are one) who are motivated only by money and don’t particularly care who they are fighting for. Then of course you must have the rebels who want to drive out the foreigners. Everyone else that would be expected is there, from corrupt police to the brutal militia that just wants to shoot at anyone they can. The only person with any real personality is the main enemy, an arms dealer known as “The Jackal.” This makes it hard to dislike him, especially if you’ve seen movies like “Lord of War.” In addition to the characters being bland, the missions aren’t very exciting either. There aren’t many large areas and most missions sent you to a small group of run down shacks with ten to fifteen enemies guarding them. Most tasks break down to shooting a straight line to your objective then running back out. Even the destruction missions end poorly because just as your target begins to explode, a menu immediately pops up on the screen to let you know you completed the task and breaks up the action. Thanks, the gigantic explosion wasn’t obvious enough. I also never understood why the militia always shoots as soon as they spot you. In the opening scene, you drive right past them, but after the game starts, you become public enemy number one for no apparent reason. Even after you kill enough of them to be perceived as a reasonable enemy, they still open fire long before they would be able to recognize you.

Although I had fun playing Far Cry 2, it is also important to note that once I turned the game off, I didn’t feel it dragging me back. It’s a very well done game; there’s no doubt about that. It is probably a good idea to rent this one first. Many people will love it from beginning to end while others may not like all the driving or sparse action moments.

Last week, NCSoft announced that their MMORPG they released last November will be shutting down it’s servers on February 28, 2009. The company sited lower player populations than expected as the problem. The game has four servers with a medium population on average. To put some perspective on this, last time I counted, World of Warcraft had two hundred and thirty six. It also probably didn’t help that Richard Garriott has left the company to pursue other, unspecified (and probably not gaming related) interests. It can’t be easy to keep a game going when the guy it is named after is gone. Another reason for it’s cancellation probably has something to do with the recent beta launch of another MMO by NCSoft, Aion: The Tower of Eternity. Not many companies have the resources to maintain two online games, especially two unproven ones.

These days, creating a game like this that doesn’t have a pre-existing fan base is almost doomed from the start. Lord of the Rings Online had the books and movies to bring people in, Everquest II had the original game, and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning had countless tabletop adventures as well as a decent number of strategy games on the PC. Tabula Rasa didn’t have any of this kind of support and was fighting an uphill battle since day one. This comes as disappointing news since it was fairly original as far as MMOs go and had a ton of potential. The gameplay was far more action packed than any other game of it’s type. The environment and setting were unique because it went for a futuristic, science fiction setting instead of the overused fantasy, medieval theme. The game just got caught up in the MMO catch 22; you can’t keep a game going without enough players, but most people are afraid to start paying a monthly fee if the game population is too low. I myself am guilty of one of the main reasons this game failed. I played for a few months and loved it, but got sucked back into World of Warcraft by friends.

Tabula Rasa isn’t dead yet, though. It can be found on sale at several locations around the Internet for less than a dollar because many places are trying to get rid of their excess stock of the game. The retail purchase comes with the first thirty days free and the monthly fee is being dropped by NCSoft on January 10th. This means if you buy it after December 10th, you can play almost three months of the game for only a dollar before the servers are shut down. There is a lot ot like about this game and is definitely worth checking out before it’s gone. For more on the game itself, there is a review posted further down on the site.

The wait is over and now we finally have something to do with our characters that have been sitting at level 70 for over a year. Wrath of the Lich King gives us a level cap raised to 80, a new land to explore, and another character class to play. This new expansion doesn’t revolutionize the game, but just adds bits and pieces that improve on an already great game. However, if you had given up on the game because of any of it’s particular faults, this probably won’t bring you back.

The new land of Northrend is a worthy addition to the game. Just reading through it description in the manual, you would think that it would be nothing more than a frozen mountain range similar to the Alliance area around Ironforge, but there is actually quite a bit of variety. Not just between zones, but even within each zone itself. Just in the first one, there are at least five geographically different areas. Many of the quests are more story-oriented, which I preferred. Players that just want to rush through and get to level 80 as fast as possible may get annoyed by this because there are several scripted segments that you must watch before you can continue some quests. These scenes are cool, but I would venture a guess that well under half of the game’s population actually pays attention to the storyline. These scripted segments may also get repetitive when playing any additional characters through the new areas. More vehicles and mounted weapons have been added to some of the quests. One had me firing a cannon from the deck of a ship while another gave me full control of a makeshift tank. These features wouldn’t hold up in an action game, but they do a lot to spice up the gameplay here. The graphics may not noticeably look better, but all it will take is a quick run through any of the starting areas to see how much things have improved. The style hasn’t changed, but everything looks more vibrant and detailed. There are a large number of rehashed enemy models from the original game, but not as many as the last expansion. The game still stands up well against it’s competition, which is impressive since it is still using the same graphics engine it started with over four years ago. Basically, if you are still playing your level 70 character, there is no reason not to pick up Wrath of the Lich King.

The other major addition is the new class, the death knight. Unlike the other classes, the death knight starts at level 55 and cannot be created unless the you already have at least one other character already at that level. The death knight is basically a warrior with stronger abilities. They are mostly a melee class but have some fairly devastating special attacks. What makes them different is their use of runes. Each has three types of runes and two of each type. Most special attacks use a rune of their corresponding type and then the rune must go through a short cooldown. It doesn’t take long, so by the time you use the last of your six runes, the first is ready to go again. As you level, stronger attacks may use multiple runes at one time. The death knight has some of the strongest attacks, can wear plate armour (the best in the game), and can even heal themselves. All this makes me wonder if they might be a bit overpowered, since no other class is so well rounded. There won’t be any way to know for sure until more people reach level 80 and I begin to see them in some PvP action. As for right now, I can tell you that my friend with whom I usually quest with was fighting just as effectively with his level 68 death knight in basic gear as he was with his level 70 hunter in full battleground and arena gear. The death knight starting area is, by far, better than any other starting area in the game. Every quest is very important to setting up the return of the Lich King and the entire segment has a very epic feel to it. It is slightly disappointing that it ends with you being dumped into Orgrimmar without any direction to go from there. All you can do at that point is head over to Outland and work your way up in levels. This is disappointing for two reasons. First, most everyone is tired of Outland by now and wants to jump right into the new area. Second, since the expansion came out, Outland is basically empty of other players. I flew around the main city, Shattrath, on a Saturday afternoon and I didn’t see one other player. Both of these things could have been avoided if the death knight began at level 65 instead of 55.

There are still a few existing problems that should have been addressed. The first thing I ran into was the ridiculous respawn rate just outside of the starting area. The enemies are rather close together and once you kill two or three, the first is already reappearing. Once outside of this area, the respawn gets more manageable. Another major issue I had was that less than one hour into the new area, I was sent on a boar hunting quest. Either Blizzard is running out of ideas or it is some kind of inside joke with the developers, but there is no reasonable excuse as to why we have a quest to go kill boars in nearly every single zone of the game. There is also the return of the quests where you must collect an item that you would expect to be found on every enemy of a certain type, but it only drops off of one out of every five or so. These are really the only problems most people have with the game, but it is disappointing to see that they have persisted through two expansions.

One more thing to keep in mind is that this expansion has no content for anyone under level 55. The last expansion encouraged people to start new characters from level 1 while also having an added area for high levels. In Wrath of the Lich King, you can’t get any of the quest in the new area until you are level 68 and the new character class is only available to high levels. If you are just starting out with the game, there is absolutely no harm in holding off on this expansion until your character has made it into the sixties.

Wrath of the Lich King is basically more Warcraft. If you didn’t like it before, you still won’t. If you can’t stop playing, you’ll still be hooked. If you quit playing just because you ran out of things to do, then this will give you plenty of reasons to start up again.

Spore is a brilliant idea, although sometimes the execution is a bit off.  You start as a microscopic organism and must evolve into an entire civilization of space-traveling creatures. The beginning is incredibly simple and easy, but everything becomes more complicated at each stage of development. There are five stages: spore, creature, tribal, civilization, and space. Each stage is vastly different from the others. Although this provides quite a bit of variety, Spore could also be viewed as a collection of five games that couldn’t stand on their own.

In the beginning, you start with a single organism. You make the choice to be either a carnivore or herbivore. Shortly into the game, you can decide to stick with what you choose, or become an omnivore. As a carnivore, your only goal through the entire game is to eat or kill everyone. This is the easiest type to play, although it is also the most boring due to the simplistic goal. The herbivore must make everyone like them by socializing with them in a simple Simon Says type mini-game (which can get very repetitive). Omnivores are a combination of the two. No matter which you choose, completing your goals unlocks new additions to add to either your creature (in the first two stages) or structures and vehicles for your people (in the last three).

The first stage of development consist of simply swimming around eating food while avoiding the larger organisms that are trying to eat you. Once you eat enough food, you will be allowed to enter the creature stage. At the start of this stage, you slap some legs on your organism and walk out of the water. Shortly, you will have access to a incredibly detailed creature editor. There is basically an unlimited number of ways to create your creature, although you will be hard pressed to make one that doesn’t pass off as cute. This didn’t bother me any, but some people may not like cutesy games. Some of the tools used to make you creature can be a little confusing at first, but the game is paused while in the editor, so you are encouraged to take your time. The only other issue I had with the creator was that it allows you to make drastic changes in a single generation of animals. For example, a six-legged pig-like creature can give birth to a two-legged bird if you make enough changes in the editor, which doesn’t exactly make much sense. At this stage, you will also have other creatures in your herd. You will only control your own creature, but others can be ordered to follow you and help accomplish your goals. The next phase is the tribal stage. Here you must order your people to gather food that will provide you with the resources to build structures. Again, you goal here is to either kill everyone or make them like you. The Civilization stage is much like the tribal stage but on a larger scale. This time around you are supposed to be spreading your religion and unite the world, by either friendship or war. It’s also in this stage that you start to harvest the ’spice’ resource. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Dune here and it made the game feel less original. The final stage takes place across the entire galaxy and is the deepest phase of the game. The goals are the same, but there are more units and places to explore. This stage takes the longest and more closely resembles a typical strategy game than any other stage. Since you can begin the game immediately from any stage that you have previously reached, I have a feeling that most gamers will be starting from the space era instead of playing through the whole game every time.

Up to this point, I have been trying to describe Spore as a game. Even though that is exactly what it is, it may be more enjoyable if it isn’t looked at this way. Instead of trying to accomplish goals and beat the game, most people may have more fun if they just kick back and see what they can create by treating the game like a sandbox on a galactic scale. I can tell that the people who will really love this game are the ones that spend more time in the editor than in the main game mode. With enough patience, you can make not only any type of creature, but also craft any kind of building, car, boat, spaceship, and more. The more creative you are, the more you will get out of the game. If you don’t have the patience for building things from scratch, then this may not be the game for you.

The graphics fit perfectly. Everything is vibrant and pleasing to look at. Everything is meant to look cute and cartoony. The first stage has a really cool style about it, but the environments in the rest of the game aren’t as detailed as I would have liked. The creatures, on the other hand, look amazing. Especially when you consider that they weren’t pre-animated by the developer because they do not exist until the player makes them.

Spore was definitely made with casual gamers in mind. The more hardcore crowd may not like the simplicity. Parts of the game do feel as if the development was rushed a bit (EA + before Christmas release date = rushed game). If you ever wanted to get an idea of what evolution would be like on a less-than-serious scale, then Spore is worth a look. Just don’t expect a strategic challenge, but more of a relaxed and charming god simulation.

Mercenaries 2 provides a level of freedom that you can’t find anywhere else. Every game, open world environment or not, has sequences at some point that are designed to let you go along a single, predefined path. That never happens here. When attacking an enemy location, you have the choice to go in guns blazing on foot, have a tank airlifted in for you, steal a helicopter that is in mid flight, or just drop a bomb on them and pick up the pieces. This is just a small taste of the freedom and you can go about the destruction any way you see fit. Had it not been for the excessive amount of glitches, this game could have been great. As it stands now, it is just a good title that is still a lot of fun.

The game is very easy to pick up and play if you have played any other action or open world game. The weapons are the same that you have seen in every other war game. Commandeering a vehicle is done with a single button press when in the right spot, almost exactly like Grand Theft Auto. Land and air vehicles handle great, but sea vehicle are jumpy and unpredictable. This is made worse because nearly every sea-based mission is a timed race through obstacles which you cannot predict how your craft will react to. Air-strikes and bombs aren’t as readily available as in the last game, but they can still be used liberally. The game begins with a single contact, but more are added as you complete missions, though usually there are only two to choose from. What is different from other games is that many of these contacts will send you on missions against other potential employers. If you attack a faction, they will eventually not allow you to work for them anymore unless you pay them a bribe. There was a missed opportunity for the developers here in that you cannot play the factions against each other by doing jobs for both. Basically, the best way to play through is to do all the jobs for one faction, then bribe the other and do their missions. If you upset one side, they will no longer allow you to buy their supplies, but the other side usually has something equivalent. The mission variety is a bit lacking also. Almost every mission is no more than go take over that outpost, go kill that guy, or go blow up that building. There are a few glimpses of brilliance. Delivering the ‘Devastator’ in one of the first missions was ingenious (I won’t ruin it). Also, escaping a collapsing oil rig with a tied up captive was intense, but most of the mission quickly just become ‘more of the same.’ There are a number of side missions that usually consist of checkpoint races. They are referred to as different things, like test the prototype vehicle, deliver the items, or simply beat the clock. The delivery ones were fairly original. They consist of transporting anything from rum to human organs. You are given a pickup truck with supplies in the back and you have to make it to the destination in time without the stuff flying out. The physics behind the items in the bed are very impressive. They slide around, bounce off each other, and fly up in the air. As long as enough are left in the bed by the time you arrive, you pass the mission. The entire game can be played as co-op, although the difficulty is not scaled for a second player which makes the game much easier. If one player dies, the other can revive them so being just mildly careful can lead to never having to restart at base. While it is a fun game, there isn’t much in the way of replay value since there aren’t multiple difficulties. There are hidden items to hunt for (which have a tendency to disappear from their spots when you are looking for them and then reappear later), and the rewards may be fun to mess around with but they won’t help you play the game better. The main enemy of the game doesn’t actually seem all that bad in the big picture and actually seems to want to help the country. Of course, you play mercenary and he didn’t pay you. Screw politics and give me my damn money.

I did really like the way resupplying works. Everything, from bullets to bombs, must be purchased from the headquarters of the faction that is selling the item you want and only a very few items are available from multiple sides. It’s a good idea to make sure you have bought everything you want from a faction before you attack them, including a few of their spare vehicles to use as a disguise once they don’t like you anymore. Once purchased, the item is added to your stockpile. At any time after this, the item can be airlifted to your location. Just make sure that there is no enemy anti-air weapons in the area or you supplies will be lost and your money wasted. In addition to money, you must also collect fuel in order for your helicopter to fly the items to you or the jet to perform the air-strike. The only problem I have with the system is that you are unable to sell items back. For example, I bought a bunch of helicopters to make it easier to get around. I used one to complete a couple of missions and then unlocked the ability to buy a much better helicopter. Now I was stuck with about ten choppers that I will never use. Even if they could be sold at an extreme price cut, it would have been nice to get them off the list of supplies.

While the game is an absolute blast to play, it is marred by an insane amount of glitches. Several times I had to save and restart my Xbox 360 because the voices stopped working during all mission briefings. A grappling hook can be used to steal helicopters and on a few occasions, the running animation continued to play while I was in the air. Far more often than is acceptable, I ordered one of my helicopters to be delivered and the pilot would land it on top of a box or piece of debris. This would make him think he hadn’t landed yet and so he wouldn’t get out or let me in. After a minute or so, the chopper would simply disappear from right in front of me, but my money and fuel was not refunded. One of the more strange ones was when every time I called for a supply drop during one particular play session, after the chopper left he reported being under attack by an enemy I could not see and then the chopper damage bill appeared on screen. This would have been incredibly annoying if it weren’t for the fact that it actually gave me money when this happened instead of taking it away like it was supposed to. Everyone in the game talks way too much for the small amount of recorded statements that are in the game. This is really more of a design flaw, but the hundredth time you hear someone yell ‘Hey, it’s the Merc,’ you’ll think of it as a glitch. There are tons of other problems like this in the game, such as people hovering in mid-air or invisible vehicle when driving at high speeds. None of these are game breakers, but they are incredibly disappointing to see (let’s hear it for EA’s quality assurance department).

The graphics look great in some places and sad in others. The explosions are awesome and the environments look very realistic, especially from the sky. Basically everything is destructible: buildings, trees, the aforementioned oil rig. Drop a nuke on a city and everything is flattened. The only thing that can’t be blown up is the ground itself. On the other end of the spectrum, the tracer fire looks bad, mostly because it moves so slow. Helicopters always make a loud, metallic bang and throw sparks when they land (including the ones with tires) even though they are designed to not do exactly that. Also, the swimming animation plays at about ten times the fastest speed of Micheal Phelps. It just looks ridiculous.

This is basically the original game with some next gen polish on it and a new location. I’m not sure why there were so many glitches in the game since there was so much time for development. Even with it’s faults, the game is still a lot of fun and worth a look from any action junkies that get a kick out of excessive destruction.

Vegas 1.5 probably would have been a much more fitting title. Barely anything has been added and the game can be completed in under 5 hours. Even so, if you enjoyed the first game, you will enjoy this one.

Other than a very few minor additions, the game plays the same. The gunfights are intense and rewarding. The cover system continues to be one of the best in gaming. Intelligent, tactical approaches to situations are definitely the best idea. Your squad mates are incredibly helpful and fight like the highly trained soldiers that they are (unlike, say, nearly every other squad based shooter ever made).  They did occasionally display some odd behavior. Once, they got stuck at the bottom of a stairwell and I had to go back to get them. They also had a habit of entering rooms backward. This never really got them killed, but it just looked dumb. These issues weren’t major and didn’t really cause too many problems. It is very easy to be able to rely on them to back you up, which makes it that much worse in the second to last level when they leave and you are sent in alone. It didn’t make sense as to why they didn’t come along and it was the most frustrating section of the game. The only reoccurring glitch that really bugged me arose when you tried to stack up on a door before your team. Once you command them to join you, they will tell you that they can’t execute the order. This forces you to walk away from the door, reissue the order, wait for them to get into position, then get back in your spot by the door. This made the game feel less like a tactical, squad-based shooter and more like a babysitting simulation.

Even though the game is very short, a new gameplay feature was implemented to increase replay value. Once you create your soldier (from a fairly limited character creator) and the game starts, an experience bar appears along the bottom. Every enemy killed gives your soldier experience points that will level them up through a large number of military ranks that begins with Private Second Class and ends with Elite. The higher difficulty you play on, the more experience is earned. Kills from your teammates earn you points also, but not as much. Each level unlocks new armor or camouflage to equip. In addition to your level, there are also three other categories called A.C.E.S. to rank up. Players who like to take the enemy out from a distance or with precise headshots will increase their marksman rank. Others who like to mix it up at close range will improve their CQB (Close Quarters Battle) rank. And finally there is the Assault rank for those that just like to blow crap up. Performing actions related to each category increase the corresponding rank and rewards are based on each. For example, the best sniper rifles will only be available to a highly ranked marksmen. The A.C.E.S. ranks allow players to be rewarded for catering the game to their own play style. These rewards carry over to online since the same character is used for both multiplayer and single player.

The environments can best be described as “…meh.” There is only one casino level and much of your time isn’t even spent on the main floor; strange for a game named ‘Vegas’. The others aren’t particularly exciting. There is one level that is in a convention center, which was cool at first but I quickly caught on that it was little more than one giant room. Another is in a night club, but without the being full of customers, it looks like any other building. Most of your time is spent in backrooms and hallways that look almost the same no matter what building you are in. While the graphics are good, the environments are so ridiculously clean that they aren’t believable. Other games, like Gears of War or GTA 4, have dirt and smudges everywhere or debris floating around but the levels in this game are spotless. The game is also almost completely devoid of non-terrorist life. There is the occasional hostage to rescue, but you never see anyone that isn’t directly involved with you. Looking out a window or down from your chopper and seeing downtown Las Vegas completely barren kills the experience a bit. The final level puts the last stamp of blandness on the whole experience. It takes place in a sparsely decorated estate and can be completed in about twenty minutes; half the time as any other level in the game.

Although the game is quite fun, at the end of the day it is still simply an upgrade to the original game and not worth a full $60 price tag. It contains nothing that wouldn’t have been added to the average PC game through a series of free patches and user mods. If you loved the first Vegas, then it’s a must buy. On the other hand, if you thought the last game was simply ‘pretty good’ then you will probably get everything you want out of this sequel from a rental.

Anyone who has wanted to be in a John Woo action movie now can have that chance. Now you too can take part in completely unrealistic action sequences, take a thousand bullets and come away with a couple of cuts and scratches, and have doves appear out of nowhere and fly around you in slow motion during the most intense scenes. Alright, so I have a few issues with Woo’s movies, but the premise is perfect for a video game.

This is one of the more action packed and intense shooters in recent memory. The gameplay itself isn’t entirely original. You can carry two different types of weapons at a time and they are the standard fare. Most levels start you with a pistol but you can find shotguns, machine guns, and assault rifles. The game is very similar to Max Payne or Enter the Matrix. You can slow time for a set duration. The slow motion refills at a decent rate, so it is almost always available. Defeating enemies builds up special moves that are unlocked throughout the game. The first is a simple, but very useful, healing ability. The second brings the game to a near standstill and allows you the chance to fine tune a single shot. When you hit the trigger, the camera chases the bullet to the enemy and is followed by their death sequence in slow motion. The third is a kind of rampage mode where you have unlimited ammo and health for a short time. The final is used to kill every enemy in the room in a very cinematic sequence. This last ability is also where the magically appearing doves make their entrance. I know John Woo loves his doves, but their random appearances are strange. Charging up these abilities is done fairly quickly, so you don’t have to worry about saving them for major battles and can use them liberally. There are many objects in the environment that you can interact with in order to perform cool moves from; anything from rolling along pushcarts, sliding down banisters, swinging on hanging lamps, all while shooting enemies. Unfortunately, these moves sometimes aren’t easy to pull off and you will find that it is more effective to simply run and gun in a more straight forward manner. To add a little variety, there are shootout sequences. You will occasionally come across a room with a couple of guys who already have their guns aimed at you. In a ridiculously dramatic cinematic, your character will point his gun at each of them. Then, you will take aim at each individually with the left joystick while dodging their bullets with the right. They are cool sequences, but I was always left wondering what the last guy in the room was doing while I was systematically killing all of his friends. Instead of standing there and waiting his turn, he could have easily shot me in the back at any time.

As far as enemies go, the game took the approach of throwing hundreds at you instead of making them smart. There are several sequences where a group of guys will run up a staircase in a line and allow you to mow them down. Most enemies will stand in one place and shoot at you without trying to take cover or even move out of your line of fire. The challenge of the game comes from the shear number of enemies. There are actually too many guys for my tastes. There are so many that one or two (or even five) kills don’t really give you any sense of accomplishment. It is also hard to worry about your character when you know that he is fully capable of walking into a room with forty enemies and walking out unscathed. The game also makes you wonder if one guy can take out so many criminals, how is it that crime still even exists in Hong Kong? There is really no sense of dread because you are such a badass. I did die from time to time, but I couldn’t believe it actually happened when it did. The boss battles are a bit on the lame side. They aren’t any different than a regular enemy. They just have the best weapons and take a hundred bullets to take down.

The story is generic in every possible way. You are the renegade cop that always goes against your boss. The game completely telegraphs every scene that is found in every boring action movie. First, you disobey orders and go to the scene of the first level. Shortly after, you turn in your badge but continue your mission. Then you are betrayed by a fellow cop that I saw coming from the moment he entered the game. Close to the end is the death of a friend that is used to make the finale more emotional. Everything was so unoriginal that I never cared what was going on.

The game looks great, but considering that it was made using the Unreal engine, the graphics are a little disappointing. Next to Gears of War (which also used the Unreal engine) and Unreal itself, it just doesn’t compare. There are virtually no shadows in the game, which is really the only problem with the graphics, but just this one exclusion makes the whole game look unrealistic. It also doesn’t have the gritty look of Gears so the locations almost seem too clean. The environments themselves are wonderfully destructible. Most everything will begin to crumble when under enough gunfire. The hit locations on enemies are also impressive. While most games are content to simply allow players to execute head shots, this game separates it further by allowing enemies to be hit in the throat, mouth, either eye, and the forehead. There are also many individual locations on the rest of the body that can be hit. This may not be very noticeable in normal play, but the bullet-following special ability mentioned above showcases these hits beautifully. There are also very few clipping problems. Enemies fall and land on objects realistically. From a technical standpoint, the game is quite an achievement. If Gears of War hadn’t come first, this game would have seemed even more impressive.

At its heart, this is a great action game. The story is a complete afterthought and the action can get repetitive. Even with this, it is a fun and frantic game that succeeds at being a well put together shooter. As long as you don’t go in expecting a movie quality script (since this is supposed to be the sequel to Woo’s 1992 film, Hard Boiled) the game will supply you with some mindless fun.