The personal site of Christoffer Radsby

April to June recap part 1

Friday, June 4, 2010

So I haven’t written in a while, I thought that I should get back to it, I’ve got a lot of things going on right now. Well I had a lot of things going on, I made some work for Evolution Studios that has kept me busy but I’ve also finished a lot of games the last two months. I’ll start off with the first one after Splinter Cell Conviction.

Skate 3

I started playing Skate 3 when the Demo came out, I really liked the demo even though the changes felt minimal as usual. I played the demo a lot until I decided to get the full game. I’m a bit unsure whether I like the game or not, Skate 3 has a lot of things that I like, more tricks, building your own skate-parks, darkslide (awesome) and a hardcore mode. Though I still miss the fact that money doesn’t matter, your board can’t break and overall the game feels less realistic than its’ predecessors. The hardcore makes up for it, by making ollies more controllable and making grinding the hardest part of the game, landing the grind you want can easily make you want to kill yourself.

I feel like Skate 3 is a good game however I still feel like it’s not really there, I feel like Black Box should have spent some more time on the game before release, right now it almost feels like a yearly release of the game even though I know that it’s not. I was really excited about the fact that the game would feature an entire new world to skate in however, when I skated throughout the world myself I felt like the game got more and more disconnected from reality. At one part you actually skate inside a rusty old ship, I mean really? Really?! The world does not feel realistic at all, sure it might be a skate paradise or whatever but skating inside an old ship makes the game feel like Tony Hawk.

To me Skate 3 still feels like a bad expansion, and since they do not introduce anything new the game gets old fast. I put Skate 3 on the shelf after a couple of days for more interesting games.

Monster Hunter Tri

MH3 has always put me in a dilemma, it’s a great game for us who doesn’t mind hardcore-type gameplay with lots of grinding with only decent graphics. Another thing that makes it hard for me it’s that I’m the kind of gamer that wants to play all the games out there, staying with one game for 100+ hours is hard unless it’s an awesome game like Fallout 3 or TES IV: Oblivion. However Monster Hunter Tri is an awesome game and I feel like it should be said.

Monster Hunter Tri is most enjoyable online I’ve spent quite some time with the offline mode but that game really shines when you play with other people, friends or strangers, it doesn’t matter since the guys online playing Wii are much nicer than the ones on Xbox Live. Oh yeah about the game, the game is an action rpg type game where you hunt Monsters. These monsters are mostly different kinds of dragon wyverns. The game follows a simple formula

Start in town -> Go out into the world -> Gather Resources/Hunt Monsters -> Get back into town -> Create items/Forge Armor/Forge Weapons to grow stronger -> Go hunt bigger Monsters -> And around it goes.

It is very simple but very rewarding, all major monsters got their own attack patterns forcing you to pay attention to survive. After spending 20 minutes hammering strategically on a monster to finally making it fall or to keep it damaged enough to catch it’s pretty darn satisfying and I bet most of the players feel the same. This type of game appeals to those interested in action RPGs but mostly those willing to actually take it slow and plan your next hunt. In the end it’s a great game and I would love to have more time to play it.

Lost Planet 2

I actually got this game for the co-op mode, many gamers out there keep ranting about the game being bad since it forces a co-operative mode just like Left 4 Dead or Army of Two. I say yeah it’s a co-op game and it’s way underrated. I finished this game together with my friend Jacob Rastad and I have to say that it’s a pretty good game. Since the game forces you to play in a squad of four characters AI took over for the two other characters in the squad and they did a decent job. However it probably would have been an even more enjoyable experience if we actually got to play as 4 human player characters. It’s definitely worth buying if you can find it cheap anywhere for the co-op experience.

The game plays just like it’s predecessor, it’s a bit slower than the typical third-person shooters but it has got personality and features some really nice boss battles. The game plays out in 5-6 episodes where you play as different factions against the Akrid, the jumps from different faction to another can be confusing at the start but you start to understand the story after a while. Basically you start off an episode, where you battle through several chapters to meet the episode boss. During the episodes you have something called a Battle Gauge and it’s basically a team spawn gauge, you complete objectives to fill the gauge up however when a player dies, the gauge takes a hit and when it reaches zero you have to start from the beginning of the episode.

Many people has complained about this , however when me and my friend Jacob played it didn’t annoy as much since we kept our cool and didn’t die as much. The battle gauge didn’t drop when the AI-controlled characters of the squad died so it might be harder and it might not be when you play as a complete squad. It all depends on the individual skills of the players.

The game is definitely punishing in that sense, and you certainly need a level of skill to complete the game without trouble. It’s still an enjoyable experience though with some really nice graphics and epic boss battles. The game features a lot of different interesting environments. If you can find the game for a cheaper price you should probably buy it if you have some friends to play with.

Part 2

With part 2 I’ll go through my thoughts of Red Dead Redemption, Alan Wake and Alpha Protocol. Until then guys & girls, take it easy and keep up with your gaming.

Tags: Own Thoughts