Grand Theft Auto IV (360) - Review
Rockstar’s latest entry to the Grand Theft Auto series, GTA IV, has finally arrived after several months of delay, and is one of the most anticipated titles this year. The first game on the next-generation consoles, there has been a lot of promotion about the game, to the point where it could have been a failure easily. For the most part, however, the game is very good; the story and characters are very engaging, the new features, if not borrowing from other open-world games, are well done, and there’s a lot of content to keep one busy for quite a while. The major place where I found the game to be lacking was that despite several new toys to play with as part of missions, the bulk of the missions in game were essentially nothing new from previous games in the series, and that some new features in the game made the game a lot simpler than I remember it being. Certainly these are not enough to ruin the game, as it is still a instant buy for anyone that’s played the series before, but there are signs that unless the formula is mixed up a bit, there’s potential for GTA burnout before too long.
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kill.switch is Namco’s attempt in 2003 to create a new type of third-person shooter. Considering other games at the same time, the general game was rather poor, but there was one aspect of this game that made me interested in playing it, that being the cover system, which has been stated to be the predecessor to that used in Gears of War and other tactical third-person shooters. It is interesting to see how close to what we see in games today was already present in kill.switch, though the game suffers major faults from being too short and too linear throughout.
Army of Two is a third-person shooter from EA Montreal which introduces the concept of fighting as an army of two, whether in single player or co-op mode. The core concept of the game is the Aggro system, whereby you can direct the enemy’s attention on yourself or your partner, allowing the other to move forward undetected and letting them flank the enemy. The system is pretty nice, but I felt it wasn’t used to its fullest extent; furthermore, the game’s not very hard or very long, and suffers a bit from that.
Killer7 gained hype both through amazing stunning graphics, and word of mouth as being a piece of art rather than a game. While the end product is a strong, plot-driven game with graphics that still live up to the initial reports, the end result has some rough spots, with the game itself getting in the way of being able to appreciate Killer7 as art.
While Naughty Dog’s more recent Jak and Daxter series was generally met with good reviews, the last few games in Naughty Dog’s series have been rather lackluster. While certainly I’d love to see PS3 version of the franchise, it is understood that, just like Insomniac Games before them, Naughty Dog has attempted to bring new IP to the PS3 in the form of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Naughty Dog did not miss with this one: the game is a strong contender for being one of the top PS3 games, doing an excellent job of mixing strong gameplay elements among plot development to give one of the more entertaining titles I’ve played this year.
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, developed by IO-Interactive and distributed by Eidos, attempts to take those movies where the criminals are the protagonists such as Heat, Crank, and The Usual Suspects, and make a video game based off a highly cinematic experience. Unfortunately, the game falls flat in several areas: the story itself is too fast-paced and never stopped to help us gain insight into the characters, the gameplay itself is subpar save for a couple of interesting features, and while the game has an interesting multiplayer mode based on psychological experiments, there’s several implimentation problems that makes it much less exciting than it is on paper.
Assassin’s Creed, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, definitely has some of its roots in the previous Prince of Persia series also created by Ubisoft Montreal. But rather than continue to focus more on the challenges of using acrobats to move around obstacles, Assassin’s Creed uses those moves as part of routine needs to be an assassin at the latter end of the 12th century during the Crusades. Combining several interesting aspects of gameplay related to that, without turning this completely into a stealth-based title like Thief, makes the game extremely well done, despite the fact that the story itself has a significant blemish on the game.
Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is the first installment of the Ratchet and Clank series to be made for the PS3. Developed by Insomniac games, the game continues exactly what the previous titles did: a fun platforming-shooting game that incorporates a variety of odd and exotic weapons. On its own, the game it outstanding, but considering where the series has been before, there’s a few elements that suggest that the number of ideas for new weapons and gadgets may be winding down, and some decisions on the approach to the game design are a bit disappointing to experienced players, though certainly are far from detracting from the overall enjoyment of the game.
