MEMBER PROFILE FOR wayzup
Average Overall Score Given: 8.33333 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 0
Reviews
Halo: Combat Evolved
Overall: No question the best game I've ever played and I'm not even really a "shooter game" fan for the most part. You get hooked right away and the storyline, while perhaps a little too vague the first time you go through it, really is done well once you go through it a second time. The graphics, gameplay, scenery, weapons and soundtrack are awesome.Gameplay: Maneuvering your character at first can be tricky but once you get the hang of it, it is as fluid and more second-nature than in any first-person game I've ever played. The monsters' AI is actually very very very good. At the easiest level, of course they're cake to kill and pretty stupid but at the Legendary level (hardest), they do an awesome job of diving away from your grenades and returing fire from cover and all that good stuff. It's an extremely scaleable game as far as difficulty so it never really gets old. And the multiple player format is seriously too much fun. You can more or less create a game you and your friends can go out and play for as long as you tailor it. Again, just awesome.
Graphics: Again, awesome. Skyscapes and detail in general are outstanding. The structures you wander around in are seemingly endless, original and non-repetitive, and foreboding. I found myself actually getting scared as I went through some of these places later in the game.
shaddup!
Audio: Great sound on the weapons and explosions and the soundtrack was exceptional, as well. The only complaint I have for the game AT ALL is the fact that Cortana (your computer "guide") sometimes can't be heard or her instructions are a little vague. For example, "Head over toward those rocks and search for a lifeboat" when you're in the middle of a huge field full of rocks. haha! Or if she brings your attention to something, it happens 5-10 seconds later but it's really no big deal. There's a good possibility that if she doesn't say these things, I'd never have even known to look at all and missed it!
Suggestions: Get the sequel out ahead of schedule and I challenge you to try to make it better than the original. I don't see how it can be done with the exception of adding weapons and enemies.
Overall Score: 10.0 / 10
Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind
Overall: This game above all I've played, is the hardest to rate on an "overall" scale. That's because while there are so many awesome things about this game, there are about that many things that annoy the crap outta me to the point that I almost dread putting it back in sometimes. For example, there are these annoying things called Cliff Racers that are dangerous at early levels and infuriatingly weak and annoying as mosquitos at later levels. The world is immense and very impressively so. Huge. But that does have drawbacks, as well. All the Ruins, Dungeons and Crypts are virtually the same except for the creatures dwelling within and even then, once you hit 20 or so of them (the dungeons and crypts are very small usually), you've seen them all. And knowing what's in every pot and every little chest makes it very frustrating sense of "I shouldn't even bother going in this one" but you almost have to in order to satisfy your curiosity. 99 times out of 100 you'll come out feeling like you just wasted your time.
Gameplay: The gameplay is solid. I like how the controls are set up and how you can improve in skills to allow your character to jump higher, swim faster, etc. etc. etc. that you don't find in most other RPG's. I never did spend much time creating potions and/or spells but it looks like it would be pretty cool. But I'd just prefer to raid one of the countless ruins/crypts/dungeons for some expensive armor and hit one of the two intentional money-makers they put in the game. One's a talking crab and one's a scamp in one of the first cities you come to. Both have huge amounts of money and will buy most anything you want to sell, including extra sets of armor that you can find almost everywhere. In fact, I accidentally (seriously, i didn't mean it!) killed a lady in her house right across the street from the scamp, paid a very small fine and from that point forward, I had a house of my own that I could just store all my stuff and sell it as I needed cash. Why spend time/money making spells and potions when you can simply buy them?
At a certain level, the difficulty of this game simply disappears. Fear of death disappears since it sometimes takes a whole army to take you down once you get your hands on the best weapons/armors and level up to a certain point. I give this game (for the average player) about 2 months and you'll be bored. But the better part of those 2 months will have your eyes wide open at the imagery and sheer vastness of the world.
However, I'd venture to say that Morrowind has opened a door in the RPG world that has up till now been closed. Some of the new concepts introduced and the expanse of the world will be the new standard in RPG's, I'm sure of it. And once they use these new standards and improve on the faults of this game, we're going to have a whole genre of nearly endless RPGs that ROCK. I thank Bethesda for that.
Graphics: Awesome. The water looks so real, I'd swear it's going to get my screen wet. Some of the landscapes and sunscapes are simply breathtaking. Best I've ever seen, in fact. In a word, awesome.
Audio: The sound rocks, too. It goes well with the visual dominance this game has since it works hand-in-hand to present the region you're wandering through. There are times when all you have is your ears to tell what's around a corner or further down the trail. There are some moments when I'd like to turn a certain sound off or down but I can't remember off the top of my head what those are...but there aren't many.
Suggestions: ONE, make it harder at later levels PLEASE! TWO, I know it's hard since there are so many but a little variety to the dungeons/crypts/ruins would be most welcome. THREE, get rid of the money machine crab and scamp and give more money to the vendors of the world and make the bartering/bargaining more of an integral part of the game. FOUR, make the various factions a little more easy to get to know and ALWAYS allow us to get out of one if we wish without penalty. Or at least explain in detail what it is we're agreeing to before locking us in for life. FIVE, create a set of uber monsters and cast them out around the world to instill fear in anyone that comes close and make them extremely difficult to kill. SIX, multiple player option would be sweet.
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
NCAA College Basketball 2K3
Overall: This game defintely rocks but there are those few loose ends, bugs and little things that make it fall short of awesome. I am one of the many, i think, that have jumped off the EA Sports bandwagon and started to see SegaSports as a great alternative in sports games gaming. Long overdue...seems to me EA just spends too much time trying to make the players and stadiums look as real as possible (and they have done a good job at that, i'll grant them) but have forgotten that GAMEPLAY is king in the end...and that goes for ANY genre, as far as I'm concerned.Gameplay: Gameplay is right up there with the best in the sports gaming arena. Still, there are the "sticking" issues where you can't seem to get around a defender no matter what you try. But that is something I've almost come to expect on basketball games.
My main complaints on gameplay is the total lack of AI at the end of games or halfs where the computer doesn't even try to shoot when down by 5 with a minute to go. They just hold on to the ball and pass it around forever till the clock runs out.
Complaint two is the passing. While you have the option to use the button-tag passing, it's too difficult to use on fast breaks or for quick-passing in half court offenses. The default analog passing (point to who you want to pass it to when hitting the pass button) too often passes it to the one guy you DIDN'T want to try to pass it to, resulting in a turnover.
Other than that and missing 2ft jumpers 50% of the time (this goes away once you master layup/dunk takeoff points), it's gameplay is right up there.
Graphics: The graphics are great...they didn't spend a whole lot of time on the crowd and press row and all that but as far as I'm concerned, that's OK since the players and those actually involved in the game are fine.
Audio: Sounds are near-perfect. Crowd chants and commentating is awesome. The play-by-play is the best I've ever seen as far as not being repetive and annoying. NFL Fever's commentating was a perfect example of repetive and annoying...i wanted to turn those commentators off! But this game has it down pretty well. You'll hear the same things from game to game, of course...but trust me, the sounds on this game are top notch.
Suggestions: Fix the bugs:
*1-15 teams ranked #1? C'mon...you can fix that before releasing.
*Why can't we see HS player stats when recruiting/scouting?
*Free throw shooting ability seems to have no bearing whatsoever to the ease of shooting free throws...it seems like if you're good, you're good...if you suck at free throws well then you just suck.
*Make the AI better at the end of close games and full court presses.
Overall Score: 8.0 / 10
