battylife Reviews

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare (2010 Video Game)

Undead to the End

[9/10 · 27 February 2011]

It's no secret that the original Red Dead Redemption was an amazing game. And what does every amazing game need? Zombies! So does Undead Nightmare live up to it's original or is it truly a Nightmare?

The year is 1914 and John Marston is trying to get his life back in order after having to kill his former friends. Just when he thinks everything will work out a zombie plague sweeps over the Western frontier. After his wife and son become infected John ties them up and heads out to find a cure.

One of the best things about Undead Nightmare is how it's so similar yet so different from the original Red Dead Redemption. The zombies are very different from your standard outlaws. For one almost all of them fight hand to hand which makes cover less important than finding higher ground. They also need to be taken down with shots to the head as they take a lot of bullets to kill and ammo is limited. You'll come into towns from the original game overrun by zombies that you'll have to kill if you want information, ammo, a place to sleep, and fast travel from as you can no longer fast travel from camps.

The game looks great. Everything about the games presentation from the voice acting, sound track, landscapes, and the disgusting sound of a zombies head exploding perfectly immerse you in the game.

If there is one downside to the game is that there's so little variety. Sure there are different breeds of zombies and new horses but if you play one hour of Undead Nightmare, you've played all of it. But this is a small grievance when what's here is so well done.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010 Video Game)

Improvements and Bugs

[9/10 · 14 January 2011]

After the mega-hit that was Fallout 3 a follow up was inevitable. Fallout: New Vegas attempts to recapture the shock and awe of Fallout 3, while adding a little spice in the form of new locations, gameplay, and the karma system.

As the name suggests Fallout: New Vegas takes place in a post apocalyptic Mojave desert. Your character is a courier who is shot in the head and left for dead. Luckily a friendly robot digs you up and takes you to a town for medical support. Once you're back on your feet you need to find out who shot you and why and retrieve the package they stole from you. But it's not that simple when you've got two major armies battling for control of the area, raiders, gangs, and countless wasteland critters in your way.

One of the things that sets New Vegas apart from Fallout 3 is... well Vegas. Unlike the rest of the Mojave, Vegas was never hit by the nukes. It still has the lights, casinos and sin of the old world attached to it. This attracts more than just tourists. Several military forces are pulling for control of Vegas and Hover Dam, and your choices will decide the winner.

Gameplay is similar to Fallout 3. You have guns, explosives, melee weapons, energy weapons, and even your own two fists to take care of the bad guys. The combat can be played in real time or in V.A.T.S. When using V.A.T.S. the game is paused and you select body parts to attack. Their chance of hitting and the enemies health are displayed. V.A.T.S. requires action points which are replenished in real-time combat, so you'll be using both evenly. The game can be played in first and third person, although first is highly recommended. When it comes to exploration there are no vehicles, which mean you'll be walking everywhere. Luckily once you've discovered an area you can fast travel there. Each time you level up you get to increase your skills. Skills determine how deadly you are with certain weapons, how tough you are, the locks you can pick, and the people you can trick. Every other time you level up you pick perks. Perks give special abilities to your character. Perks are unlocked depending on your current skill level with different skills so it's recommended you play through a second time to experience everything.

The other big gameplay feature is your karma and reputation. Karma is your personal choices on how to handle situations. Stealing and killing civilians will lower your karma while helping others will raise it. Different groups treat you differently depending on your karma but it's not as important as reputation. Your reputation is how much different groups like or dislike you. The more a group likes you the higher the discounts you get at their shops and the more support they'll lend you against foes. The more a group dislikes you the higher the prices the at their shops and the more likely they'll be to put bounties on your head. In makes you think twice about who you double cross. You won't be able to be friends with everyone so certain quests will be locked, so it's again highly recommended you play through a second time.

The graphics are (for the most part) amazing. Character models look great and it's breathtaking to climb a steep hill and see the Vegas strip shining for miles over a bleak and destroyed wasteland. The occasional texture fade-ins and unblinking eyes of NPCs break the realism.

Fallout: New Vegas sounds perfect, but it's not. The game is riddled with glitches. Some small like invisible walls and clipping, some big like hostile NPCs and and game crashes. If you save often it won't be a problem but it's still annoying.

All in all Fallout: New Vegas is an impressive game that any fan of shooters, role players, or gambling would be a fool to miss.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010 Video Game)

Good not Great

[8/10 · 2 January 2011]

Let's not sugar coat this. When you attach the words "Call of Duty" to anything, it's going to sell. Call of Duty is easily one of the most recognizable names in pop culture. Ever since Call of Duty 4 the games have been amazing, from insane campaign battles, addictive multi player, and un-dead Nazis it's all been great. Well not so much recently.

The campaign is a step in a new direction for the series. It's a weird mix of their past World War II games and original modern warfare stories. Taking place in the 60's the game follows Alex Mason being tortured by two unknown assailants. As he relives his past battles, you play them. The campaign jumps around a lot, and it can become difficult to follow. It follows a simple pattern: cut scene, close quarter stealth kill, shooting, driving/running away then repeat. After six hours it can become repetitive. My biggest gripe with the story is that they got a lot of the dates wrong. Half of the guns and vehicles were not in production yet and even big important dates are wrong, and not by a few days, ten years. That is unacceptable for a game that is so rooted in history.

The multi-player is also a bit of a let down. It's very similar to Modern Warfare 2s which is a good and a bad thing. The leveling, maps, and game play are the same, well with a few exceptions. Leveling has been changed and allows you to unlock weapons in whatever order you choose. Game play has changes too, however none are improvements, weapons like the RC-XD and flame thrower (which is now an attachment) are over powered. The "noob tube" returns as well. I've also had problems with hit detection. The wager matches are fun, but can only go so far.

The high point of the game is the zombies mode. There are three new classic modes, Five and Cinema of the Dead. Cinema has the old zombie characters returning and Five... well I won't spoil it for you, but it's a lot of fun. The final zombie mode is a top down shooter, similar to Gauntlet.

In conclusion the game is fun, but has a lot of problem that ultimately stop the game from achieving what it could.

Alien 3 (1992)

Not as good as the first two, but still a scary flick.

[7/10 · 3 December 2010]

I'm a huge fan of the Alien series. Alien was great and Aliens was a master piece. As expected a lot of pressure was put on Alien 3, and sadly it didn't deliver. But then again I didn't expect it to. How many movie series have had three hits in a row? Star Wars pops to mind, but not a whole lot more.

So let's talk about what the film did right. For starters Alien 3 succeeds in presenting a very dark and depressing mood. It introduces a new type of alien which looks cool and creative and helps keep the movie feeling fresh. The acting is also top notch.

It did do a few things wrong. For starters the majority of characters are forgettable and for the most part not very like able. The CGI effects are awful. The aliens color will change and its movements don't look realistic at all. Luckily you'll mostly get close ups of it so it won't be CGI.

In conclusion it's the best in the alien series, but still succeeds in providing a few good scares. I give the theatrical cut a 7/10 and the extended cut a 7.5/10.

Halo: Reach (2010 Video Game)

More of the same, even if the same is what we've come to love.

[9/10 · 17 October 2010]

Halo Reach is a prequel to the original Halo trilogy, taking place on the planet Reach, which is destroyed before the events of Halo 1. The story follows Nobel Team an elite group of super soldiers who attempt to fend off the vicious Covenant, a group of genocidal aliens. You play as Nobel Six the teams most recant edition. Most games have your character as the star and your teammates as the supporting characters. Reach is the opposite. Your character is quiet, never removes his/her helmet and is completely customizable. You never even get a name, your just referred to as "Six". Your character is more of an observer to the story as apposed to a character. Nobel Team is the real star and you will get to know your teammates as you go through various missions with them. The team is likable and you will find yourself growing attached to them. The game succeeds in presenting a very bleak story. As much as you do, no matter how hard you try, deep down you know Reach will fall.

Gameplay is what you expect from Halo. Weapons are varied, enemies are tough and smart, and your teammates are indestructible but fail to shift the tide of battle. The new editions come in armor abilities and space battles. Armor abilities are special abilities that you can pick up and reuse as much as you like so long as they remain charged. They are as simple as sprint or roll to as complex as cloaking or hologram. Having the right one in the right situation can literally be the difference between life and death. Space battles are the other new edition and work well even though they are a very small part of the game.

The multi-player is the real draw to Reach and you will not be disappointed. You're offered up a bevy of new maps including Powerhouse, Sword base and Boneyard as well as a re-imagined blood gulch. You're also given new game types such as Invasion, head hunter and various forms of racing. If there is one draw back to the multi-player it is that there is no longer any form of ramification for leaving matches early, making deserters very common, but this could easily be fixed with an update.

All in all this is the same Halo you've come to love, with a few improvements. If you weren't a fan before this probably won't change your mind, but if you're craving more Halo don't wait, suit up and prepare for Reaches final stand.

Sonic Unleashed (2008 Video Game)

bitter- sweet

[7/10 · 7 April 2010]

If you've been gaming for a while, than chances are you've heard of Sonic the Hedgehog. You know, blue guy with spiky hair, runs real fast, got his start on the sega genesis. If you've been gaming recently you'll know that he hasn't been on top of the world lately."Sonic Unleashed" aims to change that.

There are three parts to Unleashed: day levels, night levels, and towns. Day levels are what you'd expect from sonic, it's fast, there's loops all over the place, but mostly it's fun. Night levels are a big change of pace, gone are the loops, bummpers, and speed. What's here is a weird mix of "Crash Bandicoot" platforming, and "God of War" combat. Sonic uses his new stretchy arms to swing on polls and beat up bad guys. It's not horrible, but once again we have something less about Sonic and more about something else. Last up are the towns, similar to what we saw in "Sonic Adventure" and Sonic 06. You wander around asking towns people questions about where to go and how to get there. Towns range from Greece to Africa and from New York to Alaska. They look nice, but are an otherwise pointless edition.

The big thing that brought this game down are the sun and moon medals. You need a set amount before you enter a level. So you'll spend half the game replaying night levels to find these stupid things. You have to do night levels too, because day one only contain a couple. There's nothing worse than having to replay a level you don't like, in order to unlock a level you don't want.

In conclusion, "Sonic Unleashed " takes two steps forward with some of the best speed levels in recent memory, and one step back with tacked on combat and item hunting. Maybe one day we'll see a Sonic game that's all about speed, but for now you'll have to sit through the bad to get to the good.

Aliens vs. Predator (2010 Video Game)

An excellent experience

[9/10 · 5 March 2010]

I'm sure by now every one knows of the Alien vs Predator series. Either by the mediocre movies, the comic books, or the games that came out in the late 90's and early 2000's. And if you're like me you've been eagerly awaiting their return. Well I'm happy to say that the series is back.

Aliens vs Predator gives you 3 different campaigns and an excellent multiplayer experience. The 3 campaigns are: alien, predator, and marine, and each one is different and satisfying. The marine plays like your standard first person (but with a larger focus on melee combat) anyone from the Halo of Call of Duty series should feel at home here. The marine campaign focuses on action and scares.

The predator campaign's a little different. It focuses on stealth with humans and hand to hand combat with aliens. The flow is simple, you'll enter any area with marines, isolate one, preform a stealth kill, and repeat the process. The twist is the environmental factors, such as sentry guns that will lock onto you even if you're cloaked, water which will disable your cloak or even rival species.

The alien campaign is the most drastic change from the standard first person shooter. For starters all of the aliens attacks are melee based, meaning you'll need to get close to enemies to attack. So it's a good thing the controls are up to it. You have 3 attacks: light, heavy and block. Light is quick and can be used to form a combo, but can be blocked. Blocks can be broken by a heavy attack, but they take time to use, so it's possible to interrupt it with a light attack. As an added bonus if you succeed in your heavy attack, the enemy will be stunned long enough to preform a brutal finisher. The alien and predators share the same melee moves, but unlike the predator the alien has no long range attacks, making its gameplay even more stealth oriented. The aliens can crawl on any surface, so stealth parts involve hoping off from the ceiling to execute a marine, similar to the predators. The twist is that their are sentry guns that will gun you down, or that their are civilians that you'll want to harvest, however they usually have armed guards and will kill themselves if you're not quick enough.

The final component is the multiplayer which is very well done. There's something for everybody. There's a free for all, team death match, species team death match, territories, a version of Halos infection and juggernaut, and a Gears of War 2 style horde. The only thing that keeps this from a 10 star rating are the length of the campaigns and the kill trains in multiplayer. Happy hunting

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007)

2 levels of disappointment

[3/10 · 25 January 2010]

This movie disappointed me on 2 levels, 1 as a casual movie viewer, and 1 as a hard core aliens vs predator fan. As a casual movie viewer I was disappointed by the bad script, acting, story, and lighting. As a hard core fan I was disappointed in the fast face-hugger incubation times and the overall design of the predalien. My biggest problem with the whole film is that it's too dark, to the point that you can't even make out half the fights. This movie also had an extremely high gore level, and I'm sure a lot of people will say "well their clearly make-believe so the violence won't be that bad", you are wrong. This movie pulls no punches and anyone (and I do mean anyone) can die, and die a slow horrible death. In total only 3 out of the 6 fights are decent, and they are extremely short. The only time the movie felt right was when the predator was in it, both the predalien and human characters felt very poorly done.