Mixed reviews come out for this game.  I thought that the idea was very original and had a good strong story line.  My issues lie in the actual game play.  As many reviews out there will tell you this game has a ton of ‘investigation’ missions.  This missions cause you to walk all the way across a town to listen into someone’s conversation then walk all the way back across town and report what you have heard.  This made a few of the missions kinda boring.  Also I feel that the world is just too huge.  This is definitely an issue when you play a lot one day and don’t play the game for 2 weeks and start back up it is hard to remember what direction you were going and what you were going to do next.

The fighting was a little difficult as well because you want to do the Mortal Kombat approach and just mash the controller and expect it to respond.  In Assassins Creed you have to slow down your reaction times by about 40% to get the combos correct.

On a positive note the graphics and basic story line of the game is very well developed.  I just felt like the game wasn’t progressing fast enough to keep my interests in the game high.  Also running across the entire map as fast as I can was a little mesmerizing and boring especially after playing Resistance Fall of Man all weekend and not being able to walk 10 feet without someone shooting at me.  In Assassin’s Creed all I have is someone yell at me as I run them over with my horse.

After finding out that this game is done by the same people who developed Ratchet and Clank (Insomniac) I bumped it up to the front of my queue.  There was a lot of Ratchet and Clank influence on the game but it was pretty well disguised because of the sepia tones used while Ratchet and Clank is very bright and colorful.

When I started this game I was a little worried, I was having a lot of issues trying to kill people and couldn’t find health and kept dying.  I couldn’t figure out how to use the weapons correctly and therefore my reactions were not quick enough.  After going online to GameFly and checking out the user manual and some FAQ’s for the game I quickly found all my answers and I was up and away beating the game in no time.

Total time to complete the game was about 3 days spread out over a few weeks thanks to school and the crazy social life I lead!  I liked the game a lot but one thing I would change is probably more videos versus still pictures with narration, I just think its easier to follow the story with video rather than pictures.  The storyline was well thought out and the game play was a lot of fun and challenging in different parts of the game.  The online multiplayer is a lot of fun but as usual unless you are insanely good it is pretty hard to play.  Also the combined player mode of first and second player is very nice except the fact my girlfriend isn’t very good at these types of games and didn’t want to play with me but at least you could play with people that are in the same room as you are.

Well what can you say about the game of the year for 2007?  Other than the fact I now understand why it made game of the year.  This one took me a little while to beat mainly because of time management with school and work and life and Uncharted but I got through it in about 4 days.  This one was fun to play and one that required you to stop and think about your actions before running out in the middle of the battle scene only to be mowed down by an RPG.  You also have to get used to moving at the pace of your teammates because if you leave them behind you can call the mission over.  The controls of the game are quick and easy to pick up as long as you can reload, duck, aim, change weapons all at the same time.  I didn’t have too much of an issue with this but my girlfriend…well she gave up after 10 minutes.

The battle scenes are intense and get you very involved in the game.  One thing I was a big fan of because the world is so large you can go in any direction, but if you go in the wrong direction you are killed almost immediately.  This saved a lot of time because if you kept dying then you were doing something wrong.  Also there was a compass with a heading on it that told you about your next objective this made the game very easy to keep moving and not get lost or stuck in a building or the forest.

I was a big fan of all the different roles you get to play and the briefing of the missions they setup.  One of my favorites is when you are in the plane and you get to shoot the big guns or small guns and protect your forces on the ground.  I was really impress with how you had moments where you were in shock without a weapon and all you could do is look around slowly and kinda get what’s going on.  Some of the scenes were very realistic and after reading this past weekend that a Marine had a flash back after playing this game and disappeared does surprise me as the realism is definitely there.

This game is great and not for the little kids as it requires a little bit of patients and finesse to get the job done.  This has game has created a new interest for me with the combat games that there seem to be a lot of these days.  I am waiting for Metal Gear Solid to probably be my next one of this genera.

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was awesome.  It took me a whole 2 days (about 8-9 hours) to beat the game.  It was very colorful and very well done especially for such an early release title for the PS3.  I love the theme of Mummy meets Lost meets Indiana Jones so I was interested right off the bat.  The game has a good sense of humor and is easy to play.  My only complaints about the game were it seemed to take a lot of shots to kill someone and when fighting hand to hand you have to slow down your reaction time by about 20 times in order to get the combos correct.  Short of those minor flaws this game was a lot of fun to play from start to finish.

A lot of the movement and puzzles in the game bore a striking resemblance to Prince of Persia type moves but I am not going to complain.  One thing I really liked over past versions of Prince of Persia is this game gives you clues when you are stuck in a room for too long.  This is nice so that you do not get annoyed running around in circles only to find out that there is a vine in the corner you need to climb up to get out of the room.

After beating the game you unlock the videos and other special features of the game that are very similar to bonus content on your regular DVDs.  It goes through the story boards and the drawings and the people that made the game.  I thought that this was a very nice touch to the game.  I also like how they have a library of all the movies that played during the game so I was able to show my girlfriend the entire game story line in about 15 minutes rather than having her watch me play the game for the full 9 hours.

I read that NaughtyDog was given a second contract to work on Uncharted 2 so I am very much looking forward to that release.  I would suggest this game to anyone who loves rich colorful worlds with lots of shooting and a great storyline!

Well safe to say we are totally addicted to this game.  We have managed to get through the guitar part pretty easily but seem to struggle a little with the drums as that requires some major coordination.  Actually the 4 tops aren’t the issue it is mixing it in with the foot pedal that seems to kill both of us.  The game certainly has great entertainment value and is something that will frustrate the hell out of you but keep you smiling.  The great thing about this is that you can download additional songs to add to the game (for a small fee of $1.99/song) which makes the game more expandable.  The game also keeps challenging you and realizes when you are too good at easy and then it requires you to move to the medium game difficulty in order to progress in the game and it is amazing how much harder that can make the game.

I suggest that you run the calibration tool so that it calibrates the drums with the music we found that in the beginning the beats were off but after running the quick tool it brought things back together. 

Just make sure you have a USB hub somewhere around to plug in all the instruments as the new PS3’s only come with two ports! 

Today it was announced that stand alone instruments will be available to purchase by mid February.  So now you can actually have four people playing at once.

This one gets some mixed reviews as it didn’t really keep my interest strong enough to play it all the way through.  Which is pretty uncommon for me and these types of games.  I got pretty frustrated in some areas of the game and gave up on it completely.  Perhaps its because I just got my PS3 and have 18 games in my game queue that I want to play and this one lost my interest quickly.  I may have to rent this one again when I have gone through a bunch of other games so I don’t feel the need to trade up so quickly with Gamefly.

The graphics were decent nothing that really blew my socks off and the levels looked exactly how they are on the PC version that I played and beat about 2 years ago.  Portal and Team Fortress were not very interesting and would take Unreal Tournament over it any day.  The second episode of Half Life II played a lot like the first episode so I was kinda over it after I spent many days beating the first chapter 2 years ago.

The game did freeze on me a few times requiring me to do a cold reboot in the middle of the game which I wasn’t too happy about.  I have come across a few reviews that said Steam was going to release a patch soon but I decided to return the game a few days ago.

This game is amazing, I remember playing Unreal Tournament in college and blowing away my roommates as we played against each other.  As usual the online play is almost impossible and you typically don’t last very long but it makes for some interesting challenges.  I also like this one because they included some vehicles that you can drive and some other little fun gadgets to play with.  My only complaint is the lack of local multiplayer support, so you cannot play in 2 player mode you can only play in multiplayer mode online.

They decided to be able to let users plug in a mouse and keyboard to play this game which gives it the exact same feels and controls as the PC.  This makes it much easier and more fun to play.  I would suggest this game to anyone and I am seriously contemplating keeping this game from Gamefly.

This site has some great tips on how to get better at drumming on Rock Band.  Obviously the drums are the hardest to play because it is the most realistic instrument in the game.  It is hard to develop a independency of your arms and your foot but this has a few tips and as it suggests it is not something that will happen over night.  It is all good until you have to go up to the next level in the game!  I have new respect for drummers!

Ah yes the 4th game in the series of a great idea from Insomniac game developers.  This one was very similar to the others and a blast to play.  Looks like the game got a little longer with the move to PS3 from the PS2 platform probably due to the increased size of the medium.  After about a 30 second install to the HD I was up and running in no time.  The controls were flipped from the last version but you can flip them back.  Some of the puzzles that are presented in this game are done using six axis controller’s gyroscopes so you have to move the controller around in your hands tilting it left right forward and back.  This was a nice integration of a new technology and was pretty easy to get used to.  Although without the forced feedback it was sometimes hard to tell when I was being shot at, glad to see the dualshock remotes are coming back in the next month!

One thing that bothered me with the other games is it seems sometimes cumbersome and difficult to get all the required bolts to buy the next gun or armor.  With this version I found no problem and didn’t find myself constantly running deathmatches just to get some bolts.  This was nice as it didn’t seem like the game lagged anywhere.  Ratchet comes with his typical assortment of fun guns and this time they added devices that let you turn your enemies into Penguins, or you can throw up a disco ball and start a dance party to distract them while you can go around killing them.

Unfortunately most of the game was played in standard definition as I didn’t get the new HD TV until a few days after opening my new PS3.  With the HD it was fun to see details like Ratchets fur and other little details pop.  In addition the levels have great color and use of shape that are all greatly appreciated with an HD set.

All and all this was a great game and gets a great rating and I would suggest it for anyone.  It took me a whopping 3 days to beat the game and I was pleasantly surprised that at the end it asks if you want to start all over again with all your weapons and devices.  Its nice to see developers attempt to keep the game going after you beat it.

After getting the new PS3 one of the first things I did was sign up for a Gamefly account.  With my ability to usually beat games in a few days this is the best approach.  With the new games costing around $60/game it can add up to start a collection of games I will eventually beat and never play again.  So for $22/month for 2 games at a time, I signed up for Gamefly and added some new games to my list.  The first that were to make it to the list were Unreal Tournament III and Half Life 2 - Orange Box.  Both of these games were pretty much brand new and just released within the last month.  I got them last night with usual shipping issues due to Holiday’s.  Gamefly gets my vote so far as a great place to rent games.  I managed to get $120 worth of games for only $22 and if I want I can click a button to keep the games and they just charge my account $44/game which makes it very convenient.

I have decided that I would start rating the video games that I get on my blog so if all the subjects I talked about before weren’t enough now I am adding a new one of video game reviews!