Dante's Inferno

 

By: Thegreenback

 

Dante's Inferno is a remake of the old poem of his love taken to hell as he goes to save her from the Devil. Some of the good points about the game are that it handles a lot like god of war and even has some of the same feel for a lot of places. With the same fast paced acting to getting though some situations as well as light and heavy attacks, dodge, magic, grabs, jumps and then a weapon called “The Cross.”

A good thing about it is the skill tree, depending on if you punish or absolve your enemies. Say if you stick to one side of the tree, you will get much better at doing that kind of attack. Like using The Cross to kill enemies from afar also when you kill them you get more mana so that you can do a lot more of your magical abilities. Then if you use the more of the “punish” side of your abilities you do a lot more damage with your death scythe. After killing them you get health orbs to make it so you can keep your carnage going. Some of the magic abilities are nice with some spells that kill just about everything in one shot. But others are not so good that don't really seem to help and just get annoying.

The game is very action paced, not really letting up. Going through the different levels of hell you feel how they change from creepy to sad then just odd. Getting to see the different areas are nice and you feel that it’s a version of hell. Seeing the people stuck in the wall screaming for you to help them as you climb over their bodies to find your love. As you fight varied monsters and demons some of them stay in a certain place, and you get different kinds of enemies on different levels going through the game. But near the end you feel a slight repeat of the enemies that you fight. There is also some puzzles that take a moment to figure out, others are just simple and can be figured out at a glance. As you play, looking around for souls that have become lost in the layers of hell, and you can determine if they should stay in hell or go to heaven for their miss deeds. Also choosing their fate, either punish or absolve, makes it go to your skill points. Doing the punish side you end it quickly then move on but absolve you do a little mini game to get the max points you can.

Some of the boss battles in the game are memorable. Like when you start off and in the first 5 minutes you battle the Grim Reaper. That put up a good battle showing you who is boss. One of the hardest bosses, it definitely takes a few tries. But it's great practice for the rest of the game once you get the hang of it. Other bosses were varied from hard to kind of easy. Most of the bosses didn't leave a lasting impact, as there were too many quick time effects and seemed over used.

What did suck is that the game is very short even the first play through I got done in about 6 hours. Then you’re asked if you want to do it again with the skills you have learned, making it wanting you to do a replay. But if you do it cuts out the Reaper fight and the first bit of the game putting you right in the Limbo stage. So as far as replay value goes it’s not really worth it in my opinion. Anther feature they put in is after you beat it you can go to the arena, to test what you know and fight though the 50 waves of enemies with a time limit. So you start out with about 3 minutes and if you kill them quickly you get more time added. So if you keep your cool and know how to take enemies down you will not have to much trouble to keep the waves going.

So the overall review I would give is that its fun for a bit but gets repetitive. Most of the bosses are not that hard, or make you want to battle a few of them again. As the story goes its very light just go save your girl from the devil that’s about it. The combat is swift fast paced but not that varied.

So a rating score out of 5.0 out of 10

~Thegreenback~

There's An App For That!

This weeks app is... Draw Something!

This is a social game that is between either your facebook friends or just random people from within the game. It is, simply put, Pictionary for the modern family!
It's is great fun. Super addicting. And just all around a good game for your iPod collection!

Fable 3

By Thegreenback

Fable 3 is the third game of the series, starting with the first on the original Xbox. Taking after the second fable where your father became the king of Albion and you’re his offspring. The story is much deeper then the previous Fables. Where it seems you keep doing stuff to help your way though the game story. The story is very compelling making you want to do the next mission just to see what will come up next. As the people you meet and get to know become more involved than ever before, making you want to know about the people of Albion and help them and have them work with you. As you may have to help them through the areas, taking their hand instead of making them follow you. It makes so you don’t have to wait for them to come to you or the character run off into the middle of a fight. But you get slowed down and have to let them go or get hit by enemies. It's a little annoying.

 There are a number of glitches in the game. Some of them being the trail to find stuff will disappear for a bit and you don’t know the way to get to the spot. Also the people get very quiet and sound distant unless you crank up the sound system or having trouble to get the hand of someone your trying to help lead. But they are few to be seen in the over all scale of the game. As most of it is smooth and looks good with either combat or the cut scenes. But others you can see the game load it as it plays leaving a "Whoa, what?" 

The combat has gotten a lot smoother. You can hit an enemy with a sword then shoot the guy right behind him with a gun, with just a simple push of a button. As your dog will attack your fallen enemies or smash their head with your hammer, or stab them in the chest for the final blow. While the magic system become cool but very limited. You can take one spell and weave it with another to make it a unique, but you only get up to 12 spells max, way less then all of the other spell then you could do in the predecessors. Making the spells you do become your own style of fighting but repeatable. The other, is that you can only have one spell on at that time, you cant switch unless you go to the menu and change it. Giving a drag to wanting to make different spells happen. Leveling up your character is different, too. No longer using, say a gun, then getting better at your ranged skills and leveling that area. Now all things from enemy kills to getting to know your people all goes into one lump sum called Guild Seals. So you can no longer get great at one class anymore, just making an all will user or ranged or melee based. Making all kind of characters just about all around the same type. Though if you find a weapon you can do a certain requirements that it tells you to get special powers on your weapon of choice. Turning your weapon into a killing machine as all your weapons and spells level up with you leaving you not needing to keep upgrading to better ones.

Now the bosses in the game are a little different. You know when you’re fighting one and even get an entrance to when it’s going to start. But after you defeated the boss they will show up later in the game. Just as a harder enemies but not making the value of the boss unique anymore. Losing of how you may have defeated it earlier in the game and now just losses its value. 

The interactions of your character and of other people you meet either in missions or on your way just roaming around. You can select the person you want to have an interaction with, then chose either to be good or evil and even now just funny or neutral. Giving the people of Albion a different outlook on your Hero. But you only do one on one, never doing the big crowds to see how many you can get to give you attention. Also there is no longer trying to get people to know who you are, everyone seems to know. They also changed up how you have a family or adoption or have your own like the old way in fable 2.

The enemies get smarter and some harder. Being the funny with how bandits attack you or how Hobbs want to kill you. Changing some of the old ones into new fighting styles, but also removing others from the other games making you wander if you will see them or not. As you figure out how to handle the combat styles and what fits you.

Then they also added a new feature that changes some of the game. You can play online with other people either joining their game or them to yours. Also you can just jump on a local game as a henchman. It can give you a different way to take on enemies, an example: a melee fighter hitting an enemy as the other hits them from a distance with magic. Leaving an over-the-top view so that you can see both characters, but you cant travel to far away so you can get stuck if you playing side to side players. You can also do the same interactions and even marry them and have a kid. The game even pushes you to play online so if you want to get all of the achievements, you have to. So for the people that play no online features you can play just as normal, but you can’t ever get 100% game completion.

So, the over all is that it’s a good game that is fun to play. With a good story that keeps you going and nice combat system though tends to feel lacking. As you feel some of the game wanting to stretch out in many different directions. Not quite choosing a role of what the game wants to be, making it a little confusing of how you want to be in the game. Being either good or bad or even in the middle for choices, for you to do a replay value to see what would happen if done another way.

So I give the game a 7.8 out of 10.

~Thegreenback~

There's An App For That!

 

This weeks app is.... Angry Birds!

It is the most widely bought video game EVER! Sold more games than COD, or Halo, or even Mario Bros. And now with tons of shirts, stuffed animals, board games and even shower curtains, It's time we honor these little pig killers.

Trials HD

By B-Rad G.

 

 

Remember when you were a kid and you had all your Hot Wheel cars? You would take your books and make little ramps out of them. Take empty soda cans and see how many you could jump over. Always leaving one at the end that you knew you couldn't make just to see the demolition and mayhem. Trails HD brings that child hood fun to your Xbox 360.

Trials HD is an XBLA title that is not only driving but a puzzle-styled game. And puzzling it is! It comes with close to 50 levels ranging from beginner to extreme. There is also DLC that is out for it now, adding to the massive amount of levels already in the game. Also, it has an array of terribly fun and addicting mini games. They range from height and long jump to staying inside or on top of a rolling metal sphere of death. Greatly entertaining for a few hours or drunken nights with friends.

For 800 points, this is a very well put together and just outright, a good, fun game. With hours of play-time (and DLC) this is a very good time waster or drunken challenge game.

This game does have it's downfalls though. With every level taking place in a huge warehouse, there is very little scenery. The create-a-track mode is very limited and difficult to make anything worth actually playing on. Trails is only a single player which does not make it a good choice for having friends over or a sibling. The only way to compare yourself to friends is a dot at the top of your screen showing how far ahead or behind them you are. There is a leaderboard for all tracks and mini games that shows times and scores. So you can also use that to rank yourself within your friends list.

Overall, I enjoyed this game. I still play it anytime I'm thinking I'm more awesome than last time and can finally make that seemingly impossible jump. It is defiantly worth the 800 points you'll invest into it.

I'm giving it a 7.5 out of 10

Atleast try the demo!

~B-Rad G From Malibu~