Spiderman 3 Review

I had hoped so much that Spiderman 3 could match up to it's predecessor Spiderman 2. Unfortunately that was not to happen, it was in many ways an updated Spiderman 2 but that won't get it the same grade, there needs to be something new or at least make it enjoyable and Spiderman 3 fails at both. The graphics are worse then some PS2 games, like Kingdom Hearts 2 which because of a missing memory card I ended up playing more often then Spiderman 3 during the time I had the game rented.

Gameplay(37/100): Gameplay, what gameplay? This is the same stuff from Spiderman 2. Swing around, save people from random crimes, play random missions. Nothing changed accept for worse. Now you have to play button mashing segments trying to be similar to God of War's button sequences however these ones are just pure button mashing. Instead of pressing R2 and L2 to swing as you do in the game(well R2 is the main one but if you hold both you can get suspended on 2 webs) instead you're pressing jump(X), quick attack(Square), strong attack(Triangle). and web attack(O). The worst part is that after about 5 hours of pressing face buttons in button sequences suddenly an L1 popped up out of nowhere during one and threw me off completely. The button sequences are poorly timed, poorly coordinated, and just poorly executed in every single way.

Graphics(34/100): The graphics are so bad it's unbelievable at no point did I think I was playing on one the most powerful console on the planet. Hell I didn't even think the graphics would be worthy of contending with the best PS2 games like God of War 2 and Kingdom Hearts II. The window textures are clearly the same ones I saw in Spiderman 2. The models look the same except for decent shading on the bricks but the somewhat frequent missing pieces of the models was both hilarious and disheartening. Often the roof would be missing, which makes me wonder how the poor inhabitants of such building live with rain falling on them and the cold wind of NY blowing on them at night.

Story(46/100): The story is of course somewhat good because it is a movie game however they ruin it by adding scorpion(AGAIN?!), rhino(AGAIN?!), the lizard, and other villains who while being nice distraction didn't really have good plots behind their portions so it just worsened the story as a whole. Not to mention when New Goblin shows up and Peter is still acting relaxed? Doesn't make sense if you ask me if he has already faced some new bad guys. Overall it takes an already iffy movie storyline and makes it worse by adding villains that Spiderman had defeated in the previous games instead of tapping into the vast resource of spiderman villains, just seems like a lazy job by the development crew.

Sound(48/100): The nice fwish, fwish of the webbing is a nice distraction to the awkward voice acting, I mean the voice acting makes it seem like Tobey Macquire has never been in an ADR stage. Hitting each enemy sounds exactly the same and just ruins the immersion in the game if the poor graphics could immerse you in the first place. One of the most annoying things is the 'early James Bondish' fight between Harry and Peter, the random talking every once in a while but that is rare, most of the time there is just the silence while fighting on the board, just the jet running in the background, no music. Kinda bland.

Overall(41/100): Spiderman 3 unfortunately did not live up to my expectations. The poor gameplay, graphics, everything ruined it completely even the AI sucks. After being knocked to within one hit of dying on the board with Harry my friend pulled off an 83 hit combo which still didn't kill Harry but knocked his health down enough. That's another thing, bosses have ridiculously high health and you do almost no visible damage per hit yet they can take like 15% of your health bar away in one hit. The game is unbalanced and just in general a poor game, even if you're a spiderman fan I recommend you do not pick this up.

So I got a PS3...

...although I did not get a game with it. Not only because it isn't the cheapest thing on the market, but mainly because the game I want the most(right now) is coming out on September 4th and after waiting almost a year for the PS3 I feel I can wait another month for the game. In the meantime of course I have to have something to play so I rented Major League Baseball 2K7 and of course downloaded a shit-ton(10x a buttload) of demos. So I am gonna review them.

Super Rub a Dub Demo Review - Super Rub a Dub is certainly an interesting and cute concept. By using the oddly transparent SIXAXIS(How come no one ever mentioned it's transparency?) you rotate the screen to collect rubber duckies and drop them down an exit point, which looks oddly like a drain. Aside from being a way to show off the SIXAXIS to your friends and a way to teach kids how to deal with their rubber duckies this game is not enough fun to be worth the money that Sony wants you to charge for it. Overall I give the demo a 36 out of 100, it would be lower but the demo didn't cost me anything.
Nucleus Demo Review - Nucleus is an interesting idea and is pretty straight forward, you move your cell around the screen with the left analog stick and fire at obstacles and enemies using the right analog stick. You can also use a burst attack using the L2 button and use a traction beam with the R2 one to drag obstacle cells into areas or into an area to protect you from the enemies(bacteria). Overall I give it a 56 out of 100, not worth the money to me as I desire more complete games, but a fun demo to play with none the less.
Blast Factor Demo Review - Blast Factor was definitely the most fun out of all three of the PSN demos I played. It plays very similar to Nucleus in fact the only difference is that their is no L2 or R2 actions. Despite this I think it was better then Nucleus, the graphics and colours look better on Blast Factor and the gameplay has more elements to it, like deflection which you can use to push two enemies together so you can get both with one attack, also there are power ups in Blast Factor unfortunately in the demo they didn't usually show up till the end of the demo. Overall I give Blast Factor a 62 out of 100, still low but if I have money left over I may decide to try the full version.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 Demo Review - Well that's a mouthful, of course being a demo of a full game this was a lot better then the PSN demos, still this turned into a pretty average shooter game, the AI didn't seem to be taking advantage of the CELL processor and the lack of instruction on how to use the team gameplay left me with no clue how to use my teammates in the latter part of the demo. Maybe it's the lack of instruction or the Poor AI but something keeps me from going back to this demo. Overall I give the demo 78 out of 100.
Motorstorm Demo Review - Motorstorm is an interesting game, the AI is of good intelligence and the crashes are fun to look at. It's a good take on rally racing and it's a demo that's fun to play a few times over. However maybe it's because the only racing game(aside from Mario Kart 64 and Beetle Adventure Racing) in my collection is Gran Turismo, just a rally game doesn't seem worth the $60 for me, of course 1 million people disagree with me but to each his own. The game is a good rally game and looks better than DiRT but personally, I am gonna wait till GT5. Overall I give the Motorstorm Demo a 81 out of 100.
Heavenly Sword Demo Review - This is the demo I was most excited about playing on my PS3, in a way it satisfied the need but in another way it was disappointing. There are three main reasons why it's disappointing: 1. The Demo is only 5 minutes long! 2. There's no jumping ability. 3. There is no indicator of when to use the circle button to perform special moves so it's basically just button mashing square, triangle, and circle and hoping you get a cool animation along the way. The good thing is the graphics and the cinematics are extremely empressive so that's one thing that keeps this game alive, hopefully they fix the gameplay by release. Overall I give the Heavenly Sword Demo a 85 out of 100.
The Darkness Demo Review - The Darkness plays like any other FPS, you use your weapons to kill other enemies, and that's how the first 1.5 levels of this demo play out, then the game changes completely and becomes a creative new game in the FPS genre, which is refreshing considering how many of the games are repeats of others. The Darkness is one of my favourite demos that I downloaded for the PS3 so far. The usage of the darkness powers is an engaging new way of playing a FPS and my favourite part is splitting off the right head of the darkness and using it as a stealth killing machine and killing a huge portion of the enemies before you even march into the area. The creatures you summon are unfortunately very hard to control which brings down the grade a bit. Overall I give the Darkness Demo a 90 out of 100.
Resistance: Fall of Man Demo Review - Resistance is by far the most fun I've had in all of the demos I have downloaded. It is easy to control and use the graphics are good looking the AI is intelligent and challenging at points to defeat. Not to mention that Resistance has two levels that are not short and are way longer then I expected for a demo. The best thing about this game is it feels nothing like a WWII shooter, you're not fighting Nazis you're fighting Aliens with kick ass weapons that you steal from them and use against them. Overall I give the Resistance demo a 93 out of 100.
Major League Baseball 2k7 Review - Major League Baseball 2k7 does what I expect it to. It gives you a fun MLB experience and that's about it. It doesn't do anything really new and exciting and the SIXAXIS controls are frustrating at best. The SIXAXIS controls frustrate because they don't make sense, instead of swinging the control like a bat you jab up or down to determine where the ball goes and what kind of hit it is. It's something that needs to be improved as well as adding SIXAXIS controls for pitching. Overall I give Major League Baseball 2k7 a 74 out of 100.
Gran Turismo HD Review - The shining crown of Sony's internal studio and the best racing game ever released makes it's way onto the PS3 as a free preview of what Polyphony can whip up on the PS3. The graphics were more impressive then any of the other games I played and the replay value is certainly higher and the best thing is it is not a demo it is in it's own sense a game, you have objectives, 8 cars, and 2 gameplay modes. And from what I've seen of GT5 so far this is but a taste of what Polyphony Digital can do. Overall I give GT HD a 98 out of 100.
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots Gameplay Demonstration Trailer Review - Now isn't that a long name, this trailer was on the Playstation Store and I am grateful for it as gametrailers seems to have trouble keeping the servers up long enough for the video to be downloaded. The demonstration goes through all the gameplay elements of MGS4 and talks about how the battlefield is incorporated into the series. The graphics are amazing and the way you effect the way the war and the battles turn out is exciting as well, instead of being a player in the background as with previous Metal Gear Solid games you now have an effect on the war as a whole and can change the course of it on a day to day basis, if you haven't seen this trailer yet I suggest you watch it by clicking the 'right now' link at the beginning of this post. Overall the trailer impresses way more than I expected it and gets a 100 out of 100 from me.

Stop the Japanese Dolphin Hunt

From October to April, Japanese fishermen will kill more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises as part of their annual hunt. Officials claim the slaughter is a form of “pest control” to offset the amount of fish the dolphins eat. But, the reality is, the butchered dolphins are sold off to supermarkets and grocery stores.

Japanese fishermen have admitted that they are worried the government will soon shut them down in light of international outrage over the hunt. Contact the Japanese Embassy today and tell Japan to stop the slaughter.

http://takeaction.oceana.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=5322

Home is where the heart is...

Ahh, Playstation Home what a beautiful service you are. Sure you're a bit like Second Life and maybe the Sims but unlike those games you are real. Your graphics aren't silly child stuff they are real and beautifully textured and modeled. Home will have thousands of spaces that look almost better than our own Homes. Such places as this Japanese-style home or perhaps an apartment from the top of a city skyline. But one of the best parts is the potential, Sony has already announced that there will be games like pool and bowling and various arcade games, not to mention various exclusive events like game previews and developer interviews. Although not much has been said on game previews my guess is they will take place in specialized Home Theatres where chat bubbles from the audience will probably be banned as to prevent blocking someones view or to keep the crowd to just emotes. These may be free or pay-for events and will hopefully keep game news constantly flowing instead of being limited to several key conferences. But more importantly that that these services make us the gamer feel like we're part of something because we get this news faster than our buddies who may not have the fortune of owning a PS3. Where I see the Home service going is in an exciting direction where we may have user groups that can have their own sports team and hopefully Sony will add Home Soccer, Baseball, Football, .etc so that we can have fun just in Home if we want and not just use it as a channel to the real games. Then maybe the trophies can become a symbol of Home achievements and not just our outside-Home achievements. That's really all I have to say about Home...at least until I get my hands on the Beta.

What does the future hold?

I graduate from high school tomorrow and so my question to myself is what does the future holds. Well after this summer break where I will hopefully be able to get a job just for the summer before I head off to UAT in Tempe, Arizona, where I will be for the next 3-4 years(or until I graduate). After that I hope to be out into the field of game design making best sellers in no time at all :). And hopefully sometime during the process I will find a girl who loves me to spend the rest of my life with *crosses fingers*.

Warhammer RvR Video

Go to this link: http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1026 and watch the Types of RvR video.

Done yet? Ok, to me that is the best system I've ever seen for an MMORPG. Instanced scenarios sound like they will be fun and possibly a platform for guild vs guild combat. I wasn't even aware that the PvE combat would be spilling over victory points to the overall campaign. This means even those that hate PvP and just want to PvE the entire time will still be helping the overall campaign and also means that the kind of massive raids that DAoC is somewhat known for will actually be helping those on the frontier. I was kinda upset that I didn't see any mention of seige combat though...

Album

Photobucket Album

Planet Earth

Yesterday was the third week of the mini-series Planet Earth by Discovery Channel and BBC. I simply cannot get enough of this show. Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love animals and this show captures the animals in such perfect resolution that it makes me feel like I'm there, and that's on an SDTV with mono audio. I can only imagine how amazing it would be if I had stereo audio and an HDTV. But regardless about how impressive the audio and video is I hope that the American Public recognizes through this program just why Al Gore and others continue to Lobby for the environment. Now I am not saying that everyone should get up this moment and join PETA, but I would just hope that for the sake of the environment that this show would get people to start to care about the world we live and hopefully end not just Global Warming but the constant poor treatment of animals by people everywhere. My one concern is that not enough parents are interested in this program, the kids are but the parents seems uninterested. I just hope it's not too late by the time the kids of today take a hold of the situation...

Did we see the future of the Red Sox today?

After watching the latter portion of today's Red Sox game I was quite impressed with the way Daisuke Matsuzaka manhandled the Royals. Granted he got a home run hit off of him but he also struck out 10 of the Royals hitters, an impressive feat for a first-time Major Leaguer. What impressed me the most was not how many strike-outs he got, or even how many outs in general that he got, it was the number of pitches that he has in his arsenal. The big hype around Matsuzaka is that he has the gyro ball, which on it's own is an amazing pitch but what a lot of sports writers fail to mention is just how many off-speed pitches Matsuzaka has, you can prepare for his gyro ball but then you may get his splitter, or his curve ball, or his slider, .etc. Essentially every time someone steps up to the plate against Matsuzaka they are in danger of getting burned by one of his many pitches. Matsuzaka is still a young pitcher and he has many years of service for the Red Sox left in him. Hopefully, many World Series. This is why I ask the question did we see the future of the Red Sox today. Not only because Matsuzaka may very well be the future face of the Red Sox but he represents the willingness that the owners now have to spend money on players. Overall because of this we should see the Red Sox develop into a much better team. Right now though Dice-K fits the Red Sox mold perfectly. That mold being made around the pitching staff in that if you provide them a good defense(Lowell, Crisp, .etc) and the occasional clutch hit(Ortiz) and have excellent pitchers(Matsuzaka, Papelbon, .etc) victory is assured.

Sony's stock, highest it's been in 4 years

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=ajbKoZXI2hOk&refer=japan