1.Assassin's Creed 3
2 Dishonored
3 Halo 4
4 Adventure time
5 One Piece: Pirate Warriors
This is fairly self explanatory. We all know that the year is coming to an end and we have a bevy of triple AAA titles to look forward to next year but 2012's gaming roster is definitely not dead yet, I mean, Assassin's Creed 3...enough said. So here is what I am most looking for before the end of this year.
NUMBER 5
One Piece: Pirate Warriors
Some of you have seen that my review of Pirate Warriors has already gone up and if you read it you would know that it is definitely something of an esoteric game, that being said this is MY list of most anticipated games and I have been very excited to control a virtual version of the mugiwara pirates in combat for quite some time now. Pirate Warriors allows one to take control of the entire Straw hat crew in some iconic story moments and I cannot wait to finish it and unlock some of the more spectacular attacks and scenarios that the show is well known for.
NUMBER 4
Adventure Time: Hey Ice King why'd you steal our garbage?!
Yes once again you can all see what a child I am as I am looking for a video game that is based on a cartoon, although those of you who are fans of Adventure Time know as well as I do that it is a show that is just as much for people my age as it is for 12-15 year olds as odd as it sounds. The video game takes all the humor and colorful characters and stories that can be found in the show and wraps it around what I have heard is a very Zelda-esque gaming experience. There is 2D side scrolling combat similar to Zelda 2 with different combos that span many interesting actions that Finn and Jake have as well as a full top down over world and a crafting system based on item drops.
NUMBER 3
Halo 4
Alright so at this point in the list I am coming to some games that will be commonly found on the rosters of normal gamers. Halo 4 is something that just about every gamer is looking forward to because of no other reason than it is a new Halo. However, gamers like myself who dig below the surface know that there is more reason to be excited for this particular Halo. At the end of Halo 3, despite its secret endings, many of us were not sure if we would ever hear from Master Chief again it was a hard call to make after Bungie said they did not want to make Halo games anymore. Our minds are now at ease because we know that the Chief is back once again to bring peace to the universe through the power of ultra violence. Not only is the Chief back in this game for a continuation of his story in a brand new area of space, but the game is being made by an entirely new studio and I for one am very excited to see Halo attempted by someone other than Bungie. While many of the original devs of Halo are still on the team, which I submit is actually a really good thing to have, it is still an entirely new studio and hopefully we are going to get some creative new gameplay experiences added to the old Halo formula which I would not say is broken and in need of fixing in anyway but its definitely starved for innovation.
NUMBER 2
Dishonored
Dishonored looks to me like a steam punk Bioshock with some really interesting art direction, a deep story of revenge, and wide open levels where who lives, who dies, and how are left entirely up to the discretion of the player be they a psychotic killing machine or a more compassionate hero on a quest for justice and vengeance. The devs describe you as a "supernatural steampunk assasin" need anyone say anymore?! Trust me, be excited for this game.
NUMBER 1
ASSASSIN'S CREED 3
Before I say anything else...ASSASSIN'S CREED 3. That is it, that's all that anyone needs to say. This game is going to be huge I cannot even believe that we have come this close to its launch at the end of October. Ever since the first Assassin's Creed, I have been in love with this series. The characters, the story, the combat, the movement, control scheme, graphics, there is no aspect of these games where they phone it in ever. Every thing is taken deeply into account and I cannot wait to see what is next for this crazy story. Not to mention that it is the first Assassin's Creed in the last 3 AC games to have a full 3 year development period with a brand new game engine and a development team that is made up of the original Assassin's Creed development veterans. I cannot wait to see how this all comes together, GOTY right here people.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
One Piece: Pirate Warriors review
Before reading this review, you should know that this game screams FOR THE FANS ONLY, I would not even suggest you try it if you are not a One Piece fan let alone an anime fan. That being said I am a huge One Piece fan. I love it, I love every second of it and I think that everyone else should too so when I heard there was a new One Piece video game coming out and that it was actually coming over to the U.S. I had to have it, it became quite literally a necessity in my life. So now that all of that has been laid out on the table let me tell you what I think about One Piece: Pirate Warriors. While some people believe that this may be Dynasty Warriors painted over with a One Piece skin I am here to say that this is not entirely true, while it is mostly correct there are some distinct differences between Pirate Warriors and Dynasty Warriors. Both are made by the same company and both have you capturing territories and defeated large waves of enemies who are for the most part cannon fodder and significantly weaker than your character across a large battlefield.
Pirate Warriors has a fairly well made combo system. More often than not you can easily get by with just randomly mashing buttons as you can in most Dynasty Warriors games, however, there are many combos that are modeled after some of the Straw Hat's more iconic moves that cause different effects. Gum Gum Gatling, for example will cover a wide area and dish out many hits often pushing enemies back and allowing Luffy to advance but it does not do too much damage. Gum Gum Bazooka however will do a lot of damage and push a smaller number of enemies back in one hit with the added advantage of causing shields and guards to break. Most of these combos are rather large and can get difficult to remember but considering that I used to love games like that and have not seen one in a while this is a welcome addition in my opinion. Another large difference from Dynasty Warriors is that there are many platforming and puzzle sections in the game.
Keeping true to the source material you will often have to use Luffy's rubber abilities and playful mind to get across puzzles and platforming stages. You can use Gum Gum Rocket to launch yourself across a gap, use Luffy's stretchable arms to swing, and use Gum Gum Balloon to bounce off of walls and redirect cannon fire. In addition to this you can activate any crew member in the vicinity as a partner and by inputting the correct combo you can initiate a powerful crew strike where Luffy dishes out his combo and then you are given control of the partnered crew member for a short time. Speaking of crew members, all nine members of the Straw Hat crew are available to play as in this game as well as four other special characters.
You do not often take control of anyone other than Luffy throughout the story but all crew members can be used in alternate modes like online and local multiplayer and Another Log which allows you to replay story missions as other characters.
One of my biggest issues with this game would be the camera control which is rather erratic and inaccurate, when centering, it centers toward the center of the screen not towards where Luffy is facing. You can also target enemies but the camera does not center on them it just centers Luffy's movement around them. When you are facing large numbers of enemies or deadly bosses you need to clearly be able to see where your character is in relation to them so that your attacks fire off in the right direction. Remember that this game is highly based off of Dynasty Warriors so the only real feedback you have that your attack hit when fighting a boss is that their health bar is moving down with the exception that you may startle them with certain attacks every once in a while.
My other huge issue with this game is that it skips a few very important arcs in the series. Jaya, Skypiea, and Thriller Bark are completely skipped as if they never happened and as a hard core fan this does not sit well with me at all. What does cater to my fandom is the few big story moments that are fully laid out in beautiful CG, Luffy's touching moment with Jimbei at the end of the Marineford War still made me bawl as hard as it did when I saw it in the anime. Truth be told, Pirate Warriors is not really such a great game, you can do much better as far as beat em ups go however for fans like me who really have been dying to take control of the Straw Hat crew in a new video game and use their powers and combat abilities, it can be one hell of a fun time.
6.5/10
Pirate Warriors has a fairly well made combo system. More often than not you can easily get by with just randomly mashing buttons as you can in most Dynasty Warriors games, however, there are many combos that are modeled after some of the Straw Hat's more iconic moves that cause different effects. Gum Gum Gatling, for example will cover a wide area and dish out many hits often pushing enemies back and allowing Luffy to advance but it does not do too much damage. Gum Gum Bazooka however will do a lot of damage and push a smaller number of enemies back in one hit with the added advantage of causing shields and guards to break. Most of these combos are rather large and can get difficult to remember but considering that I used to love games like that and have not seen one in a while this is a welcome addition in my opinion. Another large difference from Dynasty Warriors is that there are many platforming and puzzle sections in the game.
Keeping true to the source material you will often have to use Luffy's rubber abilities and playful mind to get across puzzles and platforming stages. You can use Gum Gum Rocket to launch yourself across a gap, use Luffy's stretchable arms to swing, and use Gum Gum Balloon to bounce off of walls and redirect cannon fire. In addition to this you can activate any crew member in the vicinity as a partner and by inputting the correct combo you can initiate a powerful crew strike where Luffy dishes out his combo and then you are given control of the partnered crew member for a short time. Speaking of crew members, all nine members of the Straw Hat crew are available to play as in this game as well as four other special characters.
You do not often take control of anyone other than Luffy throughout the story but all crew members can be used in alternate modes like online and local multiplayer and Another Log which allows you to replay story missions as other characters.
One of my biggest issues with this game would be the camera control which is rather erratic and inaccurate, when centering, it centers toward the center of the screen not towards where Luffy is facing. You can also target enemies but the camera does not center on them it just centers Luffy's movement around them. When you are facing large numbers of enemies or deadly bosses you need to clearly be able to see where your character is in relation to them so that your attacks fire off in the right direction. Remember that this game is highly based off of Dynasty Warriors so the only real feedback you have that your attack hit when fighting a boss is that their health bar is moving down with the exception that you may startle them with certain attacks every once in a while.
My other huge issue with this game is that it skips a few very important arcs in the series. Jaya, Skypiea, and Thriller Bark are completely skipped as if they never happened and as a hard core fan this does not sit well with me at all. What does cater to my fandom is the few big story moments that are fully laid out in beautiful CG, Luffy's touching moment with Jimbei at the end of the Marineford War still made me bawl as hard as it did when I saw it in the anime. Truth be told, Pirate Warriors is not really such a great game, you can do much better as far as beat em ups go however for fans like me who really have been dying to take control of the Straw Hat crew in a new video game and use their powers and combat abilities, it can be one hell of a fun time.
6.5/10
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