Wes' Game Reviews

Annies Millions New Game Launched by PoBros

2009-02-19T15:47:00.001-05:00

http://www.pobros.com/games/pc/anniesmillions/index.html

Alex at PoBros just launched a new game called Annie's Millions

A hidden object game with a $1,000,000 shopping spree! Calling all super-shoppers! Annie has a million-dollar gold card and needs help spending her new-found riches, fast! When her Uncle Dave issues a challenge to Annie and her cousins, Annie is in a race to spend $1 million as quickly as possible. Quality counts, too, and the winner walks away as the sole heir to Uncle Dave's entire fortune! Help Annie find good buys in this million-dollar shopping spree that leads all the way from the city's flea markets to its swanky, high-class boutiques.

Assassins Creed XBOX 360 Review

2008-01-18T16:00:00.000-05:00

Just started this, so far so good, unique gameplay - Im about 5 hours into it, a little repatitive but great graphics and storyline.

Call of Duty 4: 6.5 out of 10 on XBOX 360

2008-01-18T15:51:00.000-05:00

Graphics: 10- great graphics - standard xbox360 stuff w.

Gameplay: 10 - best COD yet - nice mix of sniping, strategy, stealth and of course all out balistic barrages of bullets

collest feature: calling in air strikes (even though they arent always that effective, and you can blow yourself up )

StoryLine: 10 - the characters and plot seemed to have some potential,

Difficulty: 8 - I beat the game in like 10 hours on 2 level of difficulty, the next level veteran I couldnt hardly beat anything, it took me like 3 hours to beat the end of game mini-game in the airplane on veteran

Length: 1 - the single player campaign is WAY TOO SHORT! this is a great game, they should have made it 2-3 times longer

Overall 6.5 - although i think this game focuses mostly on multiplayer - which on the PC is free, but on xbox you have to pay for xbox live (which i dont, so i didnt get any multiplayer fun :( its the buzz at the office tho)

I would not by this game for xbox unless you have a live account because I thyink the strong point is the multi-player - the single player campaign was awesome, but just too damn short!

What Crysis?

2007-12-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

[16:01] Wesley: you have crysis?
[16:01] Hotep: yea
[16:01] Hotep: plays like shit on my computer
[16:02] Wesley: :(
[16:02] Wesley: what vid card you got?
[16:02] Hotep: nVidia 7800 GT
[16:02] Hotep: but i think my processor is the thing holding me back. it just barely meets the min requirements
[16:02] Wesley: ahh
[16:02] Hotep: but its a pretty fun game
[16:03] Wesley: my friend said his 7900 doesnt work that well on it
[16:03] Wesley: im downloading thte demo now
[16:03] Wesley: its a FPS?
[16:03] Hotep: yup
[16:03] Hotep: the only people who seem to have the game running smoothly are those running the expensive nvidia 8800 cards
[16:04] Hotep: and dual core processors
[16:04] Wesley: yeah $600
[16:04] Hotep: yup... but actually the 8800 GT is only about 240 and has a pretty good benchmark.. the other models are pretty damn expensive

I just downloaded the 1.7 gig demo, havent installed it yet - going to try it on my Nvidea 7900 GT

Update

2007-11-28T18:52:00.000-05:00

No reviews lately but I have been playing:

God of War on Playstation 2
BioShock on XBOX 360
Halo 3 on XBOX 360

2007-10-22T15:52:00.001-05:00

http://phishingscams.myofb.net/

Nintendo Wii Case Mod

2007-06-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

These guys here in Atlanta made an awesome Wii Legend of Zelda case mod (eg modification for you non-tech-nerd-speakers) and sold it on ebay for $1700! wah wah wee wah!

Ok heres the case mod:
Found this on Nintendo Wii Fanboy - pretty cool stuff.

The sword comes out so if your friend is beating you at tennis you can take one of their fingers...

also ran across this - i like it with no context so you can just be like wtf?

FEAR Multi Player: Rating A+

2007-05-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

We have installed a FEAR server at Vexcom and occassionally on Fridays when works over the office we get a game going. And occasionally on the weekends.

The server is uaually full, but the FEAR multiplayer comes with the FEAR game (which is an incredible single player game) or you can download it FREE from www.joinFEAR.com - be warned tho, its a 1.8 GIG download! It took like 4 hours on our T1 at work

anyway our sever name is vexcom so come join in the fun if you like - its a great game and its free.

Im also playing some Elder Scrolls OBlivion on xbox occasionaly, but been pretty busy with work so not much time to game or post to the blog.

Image from FEAR single player: (click to DL the demo but i would just get the multi player)

iTWire - PlayStation 3 compatibility list

2007-03-20T17:34:00.000-05:00

Sony has launched a web site listing the degree of compatibility with PS2 games. The list is necessary because the company chose to omit the Emotion Engine from the PAL hardware, instead implementing its functions in software.

iTWire - PlayStation 3 compatibility list

The list assigns three levels of compatibility: "No known issues to date," "Should play on PlayStation3 with some minor issues" or "Should play on PlayStation3 with noticeable issues". Games that don't work with the PS3 are omitted from the list.

While nearly 1800 games are listed, multiple minor variations are shown for some. The number of unique titles appears to be closer to 1200.

Im going to go broke buying all these new systems.

Dead Rising: Xbob360: Rating 3 - Lame

2007-03-20T15:49:00.000-05:00

I played for about 3 hours and that was enough. Most of the time was taken with the elaborate storylin and cutscenes which seemed to have about 10x as much energy and thought put into them as the gameplay.

This game is just completely and totally freaking boring. Once you have killed a few zombies with bats and soccer balls, then used a lawn mower to run a few down the thrill is gone and its just mostly tedious and boring.

You level up by earning AA points via snapping cool photos (you play a photo journalist covering a zombie mall infestation) and killing zonmies, and completing missions.

At one point you get a gun which is next to impossible to aim - when you click the aim button (which you have to do before you shoot) it ususally puts you at a 90 degree angle to where you were looking! this can be a big problem when your enemy has a machine gun pointed at you.

Im a big fan of zombie movies and had high hopes for this game, but its just not very fun.

Graphics: 9 - great graphics - standard xbox360 stuff with lots of elaborate cutscenes.
Gameplay: 1 - kill one zombie you've killed them all - but there are 5 million more coming so you get to do it over and over and over and over... you get the idea - aiming controls for camera and guns SUCK. Saving system is just plain stupid. (you can save one game or start over with your current level health -etc.)
StoryLine: 8 - the characters and plot seemed to have some potential, but im not trudging through this crap to see cutscenes.
Difficulty: -5 - This is bad difficulty due to weak controller interface - not due to challinging gameplay - so hence the negative numbers -
Length: ? - a few hours was enough for me - man am i glad i didnt spend $60 on this piece of crap.

Overall 3 Lame

Lost Planet: Xbox360 Rating: 8

2007-03-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

Overall the game was pretty sweet but some of it was a bit of a let down. I expected a real impressive game from the commercials - its no gears of war.

I liked the thermal energy angle where you have to keep your t-energy loaded. A lot of the weapons were cool. This is a definite rental one-time game. The instructions for the controllers were not that easy to remember, it would have been better if it had training missions to learnt he controls for new VRs (fighting machines you climb in and control) - instead they show a controller diagram 1 time then you cant go back to it. It would have been nice if you could go into your PDA screen and review the controls, but it doesnt pause and your tenergy runs out when changing options (seems like a bug to me).

Also the game speed on foot was really slow - it felt like i was running through molasses, but that might just be because im used to faster FPS games like quake? There were some irritating things like, when you jump you are forced to pause when you land for about a 1/2 second which can cause some major problems, same thing when you use your grapple. Always managed to get hit when I was stuck landing.

And another thing:

Some of the bosses like green-eye where really really really hard, you have to find the weak spots and go through these series of attacks to kill the bosses, but then like the 7th boss - some guy in a VS with some goofy pony tails in his face, was incredibly easy - I beat him on the first try - other bossses like the first and second took hours of retrys.

Graphics: 9 - great next-gen graphics, cool monsters, a little sluggish occassionally when the action got real heavy.
Gameplay: 7 - intuitive controls and no major issues.
StoryLine: 3 I know its translated from Japanese but the story felt pretty tedious and didnt add much too the game IMO
Difficulty: 10 - Some of the bosses werre next to impossible! I spent 2-3 hours retrying most of them.
Length: 7 - 10 unique missions and the final boss battle - was good for probably 50+ hours of game play on average hardness (one above easy)

Overall 8

Anyway I beat it last night, was a worthwhile rent even with the annoying things in it. I got Dead Rising so I will play that after I watch 12 Monkeys in HD - thats a great movie.

Game on.

Spoiler Alert Final Boss:
One major thing that bugged me, the final boss - you get a brand new VS machine and all the weapons you have used the entire game are gone - now you get these giant knife laser beam blades that you have never used and have had no proactice with - so plan on spending a LOT of time on the final boss. After 2 hours or so I googled a walkthrough and finally got the hint I needed to beat him, which is: hold the l and r triggers down and then let go when you have the boss in firing range. Otherwise there is a 1/2 - 1 full second delay for the laser knife to fire - irritating.

Dont Move your Xbox360!!!!

2007-03-17T15:12:00.000-05:00

They barely mention this - or at least not very blatently in the packaging. But I found out the hard way that you can NEVER move your xbox 360 when its on and has a game in it! They should put this on a big yellow sticker right on the box covering the disc tray!

My xbox was on, paused and I decided to change it from laying flat to standing up, these are the two ways you can keep your xbox. The disc is sstill spinning and when it was moved the disc got a huge scratch carved into it from the laser head! This ruined the game.

I did some research and it seems that the problem is that there are no pads on the top of the drive, so if the unit is moved, the disk can wobble , if the left side of the disc wobbles up, the right side tilts down and the laser mechenism carves a nice deep circle into the disc.

I have the blockbuster game pass and I have to check the games for the ring everytime because apparently a lot of people move their xbox and ruin the game. My local blockbuster had every copy of dead rising ruined in this manner so i still havent played that :(

Llama has an article on this here: (this is an image from there site that illustrates the scratc:)

- Im playing "Lost Planet" right now, will post that review soon.

Other upcomgin reviews of recent games:
Call of Duty 2 and 3
The Godfather
Elder Scolls IV: Oblivion
Prey

Games Im looking forward too:
Quakewars!

My friend Alex just released a game he developed! Mayawaka

Gears of War: Xbox 360: Rating: 8

2007-03-17T15:02:00.000-05:00

Great game but a little short.

The graphics were awesome and the game play is pretty sweet but there are a few things i didnt like. You use the same button to go to cover up against a wall as to jump away from cover and jump over barriers. A few times if i was in cover I would get stuck there when trying to melee a close oponent and i would be stuck and the enemy would just bash me to death.

I did enjoy it, but the cut scenes were a littel tedious and kinda hokey. I rented it and I would recommend renting as you can finish it quick and I dont see a lot of additional play. Its hard enough on hard mode, i had to switch to regular mode a couple times after repeating the same mission over and over unsuccessfully. I ususally start games on hard mode so the game play will last longer.

Graphics: 10 - incredible nextgen graphics, no bugs that I noticed.
Gameplay: 8 - somewhat intuitive controls but a few things that could be improved. Died a few times because I couldnt get the controller to respond the way I wanted.
Difficulty: 7 - Some of the difficulty was due to controller, the bezerkers are really hard.
Length: 5 - A little short - you could beat the game in less than a week.
Replayability: 3 - once will do it, didnt try the multiplayer though

GOW Walkthhrough

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1: Xbox360 Rating:9.5

2007-03-17T14:52:00.000-05:00

This was one of the first games I purchased with my xbox360

My favorite games are First Person Shooters (FPS) so this was a new genre for me. I was very impressed. It combines strategy and planning as well as FPS action. This is probably the best game I have played on my 360 so far.

Graphics: 10 - incredible nextgen graphics, no bugs that I noticed.
Gameplay: 9 - intuitive controls and no major issues.
Difficulty: 9 - It requires real strategy and planning to complete the missions.
Length: 8 - many of the xbox 360 titles are real short, they can be completed in 30-40 hours or less. This game delivered plenty of unique missions without feel repetitous.

Overall 9.5

You can find it used on amazon from $15 and if yu havent played it its a great title and a must have game for 360.