It has been too long, but here is my review of Dead Space 2

You can't put a price on company that had an idea, followed through on it and made probably one of the best, if not the best survival horror games of our generation. Dead Space still makes me wet myself a little. The 2nd installment of the series is no exception. With new horribly mutated creatures and crazy people galore, Dead Space 2 does nothing to keep you from keeping a pillow to hide behind during amazing sequences that you have to keep your eyes open, not just simply to enjoy the beauty of the graphics but to simply survive. Our mute hero Isaac Clark now longer has the debilitating fear of interaction with those that are left alive. Awoken by a would be savior, Isaac is straight-jacketed to a psyche ward bed. His savior in classic "Here let me hel....AAAAAAHHH!" fashion is impaled by a neocromorph and instantly changes from savior and possible friend, to face eating not-so-best-friend. Isaac luckily has the balls to just head butt and shove from being sliced. As he begins his desperate run towards whatever freedom he can find from the obvious chaos going on around him, with creatures bursting and screaming from everywhere. Isaac finally finds solace and freedom from his bonds at the hands of a doctor gone mad. 

As far as the story goes, you know the situation you are in while making your daring escape. I find myself feeling a little nostalgic for the Ishimura's claustrophobic atmosphere as your quest to solve the mystery of why and how all this happened, while being trapped on vessel orbiting a planet that you have to travel back and forth through. The Sprawl in DS2, though amazing in scale and design, doesn't give me that sense of entrapment that I had in the first installment. Though you are being trapped and herded by a couple of sinister folks, you don't have that sense of anxiety that keeps you on your toes. 

Both human and alien monstrosity's want something from you, apparently Isaac had something implanted in his head that is vital to building a new marker and making it work. But the problem is, NO ONE ACTUALLY TELLS YOU WHAT IT DOES!!! Ok, that is not really true. You know it is supposed to unite everything into one being, I think. The mystery is there and solving it once again your priority as you try to reach a giant marker somewhere on the Sprawl. 

Gameplay is just as crisp in DS2 as the first. Tweaks made here and there, such as, you can now actually fly through space instead of just long jumping. There are new weapons and upgrades as well as new slick looking suits. The enemies are even more sickening then before with new and old giant monstrosities that just love to chase people in engineering suits.

One other issue I have is with some of the boss fights. While they are gorgeous to look at and just as amazing to fight, the build up to them does not mirror that of the original. As one of the most memorable boss fights I have ever had was a great experience, the build up to it was non-existent. The first Dead Space had an excellent build up to boss fights that made them memorable and pant wetting. DS2 seems to have lost it's way at the subtle build up to boss battles. A little gem that needs to be found again in the 3rd installment I readily await for.

I have played and beaten the game repeatedly, always with the anxiety driven survival mindset had with the first game. I enjoy the game immensely and would easily recommend this one to those how love survival horror or would like to scream at a TV screen for the first time.  

Borderlands

Welcome to Hell, aka planet Pandora, population: pissed off. RPG shooting at its best is on display in this game. Variety is the name of the game in Borderlands as weapon design was placed on a high budget at Gearbox. It seriously seems as if no 2 weapons are alike. Character variety is also in high gear as you have the choice of 4 characters to rampage around town with as well as mingle with the semi-decent folk of the land. Your job is too find and unlock The Vault, a hidden treasure that contains invaluable riches and weapons for you to claim. While being spoon fed tidbits of information by a digital ghost woman who shows up on your view screen from time to time.

Playing single player campaign is fun, especially for a game centered around you playing with 1,2 or 3 other friends laying waste to the crazies by foot or rocket shooting car. The amount of missions and space to explore in Borderlands is vast especially for 4 people to explore. This is a good balance and allows for everyone to get their fair share of whatever comes out of raiding a psychos treehouse inside of a crystal cave. Yes, people are crazy on this planet too, there truly is no escape.

The level up system is true to your expertise at shooting with whatever weapons you choose to stick with, as it is not always easy to reach a certain level to use an awesome weapon. Enemies also have levels as well and may have a better weapon then you; there also may be a lot of them; one may be bigger then the rest of them; then one lobs a grenade. RESPAWN! Luckly respawning does not take too much time, but it does begin cost you after a few times, I once had to pay over $6000 dollars for a new me.

Now onto the important life altering, universe understanding stuff. It is wonderful a company was able to make this type of game so well. But I am still falling into the idea that the mass exploration of maps, finding new weapons that do whatever and following a story that actually is not that good as something EVERYONE has done. PLEASE STOP THIS! THAT'S RIGHT I AM CALLING YOU OUT DESIGNERS, WRITERS AND ALL THOSE THAT CREATE MY ULTIMATE SOURCE OF ENTERTAINMENT! Do not get me wrong though, I like to have fun with my friends online, but that will get old soon too. But this game has captured something very important about how to keep me and a great many other interested, variety is the key.

He slimed me... I feel so funky.

WHOOOO!!! They finally brought them back and had us fight along side the wonderfully famous Ghostbusters! Alright well it's not the best thing since sliced bread substances, but it is pretty good for a movie based video game. If anyone tells me they never had at least one dream about busting or calling The Ghostbusters to save them from the thing that is hiding under the stairs or in the closest, just has not lived. These guys didn't just try to prove there are things that go bump in the night, they tried to fight the bumps off with lazers. Egon, Ray, Peter and Winston are back as the Fab Four that fight the good fight against the dead that just can't seem to keep off the mischief pills. The story begins after their fight with Gozer. The guys have to save a young woman, and the city of New york once again from the spirits of the underworld, other world, or whatever world that they happen to be from. Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd lend their voices as well as their comedic writing talents to give this game a nice boost of laughs and good plot to boot. A completely new story that still has Slimer and the lovable gelatin pillow known as the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I would just eat him up if he didn't always try to step on me first. Ernie Hudson and Bill Murray also lend their voices as their respective Ghostbuster characters.

As far as gameplay goes it is pretty fun to chase ghosts and capture them with one of four weapons built into your proton pack, then capture them in the ghost trap. All the quirky things about the process of ghost capturing actually don't get old, neither does the story which isn't very long. If the story had been dragged on any longer both the gameplay and the plot would have suffered. For two reasons: first, the cg graphics for the cut scenes aren't that great, they are out of place compared to other current next gen games. Second, I am sorry to say this but the comedy is a little dated. Yes the movies are funny and great and so forth, but the writing doesn't translate that well into the game. There are a few good classic moments that remind us why Ghostbusters is so good and a few original ones, but they aren't that memorable.

It is an ok game, there isn't anything amazing about it. There is online gameplay which allows four players to go through survival modes, ghost capture modes etc. It is more like a schizophrenic version of Left 4 Dead only with scary ghosts rather than flesh eating zombies. Hopefully Atari will make another Ghostbusters that steers clear of the movies more than this game did, then we can finally see what really happens when they cross the streams.

Peggle = Life - Outside World

Peggle is amazing. It is a fun, simple, colorful and cleverly designed. One play through in adventure mode and you'll have gotten the hang of how the game and its characters work. Characters? Yes, characters. As you progress through adventure mode you play with new characters that grant you special abilities all equally unique and well balanced. Peggle also has a fantastic multi-player that includes a 4-player vs. mode called a "peggle party". Oh man, that made me giggle. But seriously, this is the epitome of easy, cheap, good gaming. The guys at PopCap are geniuses, Xboxlive arcade geniuses and will hopefully continue to pop out more games like this one. Thus this being a short game, I will let all of you off the hook and cut short this review.

Well I just finished with the fifth installment to the series that capitalized on flesh eating zombie antics. Resident Evil 5 deals with Chris Redfield and his new partner in crime, uhhhhh.... give me a minute I have already forgotten her name. Unnecessary sexy female character alert! Her name is Sheva Alomar, apparently she is from somewhere in the world, maybe Africa. Before I get into my rant about this game, let me be clear about this whole racism thing that people have about this game: DEAL WITH IT!! Videos games for most if not all gamers are creating for the user to have fun with, if you have some sick twisted screwed up love for shooting African zombies, well that is just weird and I will ostracize you from my life by simply unfriending you on xboxlive. Done and done. Now I do hate when white people shoot white zombies in the rest of the Resident Evil series, but I do not have the need to constantly capitalize on the nonsense of racial inequality. I for one do not believe there are different races of humans there is only homosapien! Alright now I am done.
Chris and Sheva are part of the BSAA, a sort of Biological anti-terrorist task force, and they are in some part of Africa trying to figure out what has happened to the people in a local town. Well, true to most zombie games, all hell breaks loose. Said partners must avoid zombie hordes, navigate terrain while avoiding zombies on motorcycles and fight pretty awesome looking monsters while trying to find the head honcho behind this whole fiasco. This game looks great, design wise, monster design wise and general action wise. But it is unfortunately not as good as Resident Evil 4 for the Gamecube. RE5 is basically RE4 only add a partner and put those two in Africa. I must say that I am disappointed in this 5th installment in the series, the game opens with Chris' inner dialogue questioning whether it is worth it to save the world and then ends with him realizing that is worth, but no inner dialogue throughout the entire game! Basically the story is above a pile of dog poo. This story ties in with the first Resident Evil which people will be thrilled about. As Chris, besides trying to find a way to save the day, is also looking for his missing partner Jill Valentine, who might show herself (hint hint wink wink, say no more).
It really annoys the pants off of me when one of the main themes about a game is shoved into your face very poorly. It is even worse when the one theme is partnership, and all they do to re-evaluate it is by saying they are partners! Classic case of dog poo on paper writing.
Well I will say this though, the multi-player replay value of this game is quite excellent. Nothing makes you feel better then fully upgrading your favorite weapon, turning on unlimited ammo and just going to town with your best friend as the hot girl speaking to you in a really deep voice. Mercenaries is the same as the RE4 version, but it is much harder when not playing with a companion.
All in all this is a so-so game, the replay value is worth the buy, but the sucky story, that ends with emphasis on predictability, does not warrant Capcom the salvation they still need to find in this new generation of gaming. Yes the visuals are amazing and the action can be intense, but I miss the days of video's making me cry. Hopefully that day will come again.

My First Game Review - Dead Space

Welcome to the wonderful rebirth of the Survival, while kicking butt, horror genre. I have always been a fan of horror video games, it is one thing to see a movie and scream while Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th chops off the head of his umpteenth victim, but oh wait I didn't scream, I simply questioned why I would want to see another remake of a horror movie. Video game horror is way different and a whole lot of fun. Fans of the Resident Evil series will get a wonderful adrenaline boost from playing this zombies go alien, running and shooting frenzy of a game. Being a huge fan of Resident Evil 4 from the Gamecube, and experiencing for the first time the over the shoulder camera, I was easily able to dispatch human zombies. Dead Space has taken the over the shoulder camera and taken to someplace new: you can now run while shooting space zombies! You play Issac Clarke, a mute engineer gone survival specialist and weapons expert. Whether he is an actual hero is not really important as your important goal is to survive and escape. The moral factor of the game is flushed down the space toilet as you are stranded on a ginormous mining vessel, the Ishimura, that has been contaminated by an alien virus that turns human beings into grotesque monsters that I am happy to say are very original and well down. But getting back to morals that are now floating in space somewhere, Your job is to make your way through this ship while specifically targeting the limbs of the creatures you run into. Don't worry when you suffer from being turned into a horrible monster no one can hear you scream, especially not while in space. As you progress through the game the monsters get bigger and badder, but not incredibly harder. This I found to be fun though. Some would find it dull to fight the same badass monsters throughout the game, but after fighting a couple harder enemies in one room it's nice to fight the less intense monsters and yet still get the chill factor of hearing them come at you but not seeing them. The atmosphere in this game is wonderfully pant wetting. As lights turn on and off and sounds eminate through the long hallway that you wish would end, a monter bursts from the walls and runs at you with it's talons of mutilated bone and flesh. That is enough to make me stay up the rest of the night and watch the Sound of Music to some how silence to space screams I would still hear in my sleep. But it always brings me back to the fact that you can't hear music in space either.