Gamenerd323

E3 is going on right now. There have been tons of new announcements, trailers and game play. This year in particular is showing games that look amazing. Some games that I didn’t think would ever come out already have game play footage at E3 (ex. Far Cry 3). I want to talk about some of the biggest things and some of my personal favorites of E3. Expect many more to come in throughout the rest of the week. These are only a couple of the amazing games that are being shown!

Far Cry 3 is actually coming out. I never thought it would actually come out. Far Cry 2 was an amazing game but it had it’s downfalls. Well, it had things that it lacked in. Nothing was really wrong with the game. Most of these lacks were in single player combat. Your character is slow-moving and weapons are hard to switch through. I notice that Far Cry 3 has brutal stealth attacks and the ability to collect items from dead enemies. The game play also showed that you collect money (cash). The system of collecting diamonds in Far Cry 2 was a general disappointment for me. I also noticed that the storyline will probably be easier too follow. Far Cry 2 had a bland plot line that made the game’s storyline missions challenging to enjoy. Far Cry 3 presents multiple characters who all have individual and diverse personalities. I think these elements will be very helpful for Far Cry 3 to have a great single player. I know one thing that made Far Cry 2 great was the graphics. Far Cry 2 had beautiful trees, lakes, rivers, mountains, jungles, caves, deserts, everything! Far Cry 3’s graphics are noticeably better. I hated the murky, brown water of  Far Cry 2. Far Cry 3 has nice, clear water effects. While there are countless more reasons to be excited for Far Cry 3, I think the best thing Far Cry 3 could have would be a map editor. The map editor in Far Cry 2 was a game on it’s own. I think that the map editor would be even cooler if you could add AI enemies and friends to the fight with or against. That would also lead too CO-OP game modes which could be a lot of fun. While the map editor is a hope, the game play footage shows that Far Cry 3 will have a better plot line and better game play mechanics all brought together with beautiful graphics!

Battlefield 3 will be taking shooters too the next level. It uses Frostbite 2. The latest version of the famous, sweetish-made Frostbite engine. Frostbite 2 has the latest in rendering, water effects, sound effects, lighting effects, physics and more. This engine will also allow buildings to be fully destroyed. All of this will be shown in Battlefield 3’s epic single player story and the world-famous Battlefield multiplayer.

Dead Island is a role-playing action game set on a beautiful island paradise, a tropical Las Vegas. You play as a vacationer who goes to the island and a zombie virus spreads around the island. The small number of survivors on this lost-paradise have to fight for their lives and have to use anything to fight the zombies. But Dead Island is more than a kill-fest. You can travel all around the island to group survivors and help rebuild human civilization while fighting the zombies. Dead Island introduces a lot of neat elements to make this even more fun than it sounds. The zombies have layers of skin, flesh and bone to make the gore more realistic, and it makes you sound smart when talking about it.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel is the third Call of Juarez game. Unlike the older Call of Juarez games, that were all old-west games set in the 1800s. You play in modern-day Los Angles and Mexico. America is on the brink of war with Mexico. A powerful drug Cartel is taking over Mexico but the Mexican government doesn’t want the U.S. to intervene, even after the Cartel’s lieutenants attack police in Los Angles, California. So instead of having an army’s worth of cops go to Mexico. They send three highly skilled but brutally violent police officers, each from different departments. “Instead of sending a lot of good cops, why not try a couple bad cops”. One of these bad cops is a hard-edged, “manly-man” war veteran and police officer from the LAPD (Los Angles Police Department). Another is a highly respected woman of the FBI, she is considered the mature one of the group although she is the young one too. And last is an immature but funny DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent, ironically, he has a gambling problem. All of these characters can be played as in CO-OP mode. Having equally important characters work with each other is nothing new for the Call of Juarez team. Which is good, the previous two Call of Juarez games had a lot of great elements. It had linear missions mixed with very open world free play. You could go to weapon shops and buy guys and ammo, you could fulfill different bounties. It was a lot of fun. I hope this new Call of Juarez game will have those same great features.

Crysis 2 review

Crysis 2 is the sequal to a popular PC title that came out in 2007 called Crysis. The original Crysis was a huge hit for PC gamers. It used Crytek, the most powerful game engine for PC titles. Crysis continues it’s legacy of being state of the art through Crysis 2.

Graphics: Crysis 2 uses Crytek 3, the latest version of Crytek. Since Crysis 2 is on the xbox 360 and playstation 3, you do not need to buy the expensive Alienware software for your PC just to play and process Crysis. The console versions of Crysis 2 are ports of the original PC version. There are graphical glitches but they are few in number and benign in effect. Although many reviewers and critics will say that there are graphical glitches. But the graphics are still near perfection. Manhatten, New York city is beautiful and filled with detail. The water is very real-looking. The foam effects in Crysis 2 are some of the best I have seen, foam is very hard to generate and make realistic-looking in video games. The character modles are not very diverse but they are all very detailed. I think the highlight of what the Crytek engine can do is shown with a level where (!!!spoiler alert!!!) Central Park is lifted out of the ground. Water is flowing off it, cars are falling off it. A huge chunk of the enviroment is moving quickly and shown with tons of detail. It is amazing to see how much is going on and how much detail is in that.


Single Player: The single player puts you in the middle of a three-way war between alien invaders, a PMC (Private Military Contractor/Company) called C.E.L.L. and the USM (United States Military). You originally play as a Marine code-named Alcatraz. Your team is killed by aliens and you are rescued by a strange man. You later meet this man who reveals himself to be the main character of the first game. He is using a nano-suit. Nano technology is “the future of everything”. It allows for regeneration and formation of everything. You get to take the nano suit and use it for yourself after your rescue. You start by fighting C.E.L.L members and build up your powers. You can turn invisible by the press of a button. You can activate a thick suit of armor that can double your damage resistance. You can jump the hieght of a single-story house and survive considerably farther falls. You also have a large arsneal of weapons that include but are not limited too shotguns, sniper rifles and other prescision guns, hanguns, assualt rifles and equipment like grenades and knives. You will need all of these abilities to survive the epic storyline that is filled with twists and turns.


Multiplayer: There is an action-packed multiplayer that allows you to use almost all of the powers you have in the single player and all of the weapons. You can upgrade by getting XP from kills. You recieve more XP for headshots, stealth kills and melee combat. You have a diverse range of maps from the single player and ones that are exclusive to the multiplayer. You also have dog tags you buy with XP and special titles to go along with them. I very much enjoy the multiplayer. It is often said to be not as good as other games but I personally think it’s one of the much better multiplayer games.


Sound: The voice acting is not the most memerable but it isn’t bad. The sound effects are really what stand out in terms of voice acting. My favorite sound effect is when you fall a great distance with your armor on, your armor will break and regenerate. Gun sounds are also real-sounding. A common problem with the sound in games is that the sounds and motions on-screen are not always syncronized. This is never seen in Crysis 2. Also, backround characters saying the same lines over and over again is never seen in Crysis 2.

Controls: Crysis 2 has a very easy to learn control layout. Despite all of the abilities yuo have, everything can be activated easily without confusion. I never had one of those Dragon Age moments where you have to go through all of the menus to activate a health or mana potion. Not to bash Dragon Age, I am a big Dragon Age fan. Anyway, back on topic. Crysis 2 has a great control scheme.

Overall: Crysis is an amazing game. It has a fun single player with a great plotline filled with organic characters and twists and turns. A fun, addictive and satisfying multiplayer mode. All of this is wraped together with amazing graphics, textures and physics like a beutifull Christmas present.

The fairly well-known 2007 FPS returns with a sequal recently confirmed by 2K. This whole year has been filled with suprieses. Prototype 2 announced at the Spike Video Game awards, Battlefield 3 coming out this year using a new version of Frostbite, lots of suprieses. Information on The Darkness 2 is scarce, I enjoyed the first one but I never flet deticated to it enough to stick with the game and beat it.

I have played both demos for Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm. Both games are first-person shooters that are coming out in the next couple months. Crysis is a multiplayer and single player game that is set in a future with corrupted goverments, super soldiers and oh ya…….aliens! You play as a super soldier that is caught between everything after discovering the aliens in North Korea. It’s up to you to stop them and save humanity! Bulletstorm is a distant future where a band of space pirates are trapped on a post-apocalyptic planet with mutants, raiders and monsters.  They have to defend them selves by killing their enemies in the most brutal awesome ways! It’s called, kill with skill.

I have played both games now. They are both amazing. Crysis 2 has a Call of Duty style multiplayer that allows you to customize classes, choose a dog tag (emblem), upgrade weapons, etc. The Bulletstorm let’s you play a 4-10 minute level (depending on how fast you complete it). In this level, you get to kick, shoot, dismember, impale, electricute, blow-up, throw, drop and much more. This game is addicting, violent, gory and somehow very smart. I was excited but unsure about both games but now I know that these games wil be the highlights of 2011.

I did not make it to CES 11 but I have been following all of the great announcments and footage that the convention had to offer. This is for those of you who are interested in some of the awesome stuff shown at CES 11!

-New ipad comes out in febuary.

-Killzone 3 will offer a new gun-shaped controller for playstation move. Also, Killzone 3 will be in 3D and there was new gameplay shown.

-Killzone 3 released a trailer. This one explains the storyline, basicly, you continue playing as the character from the first game and try to stop the Helghast second invasion on Earth. There is also a political backstory within the Helgahn goverment. Exactly how much this will be a part of Killzone 3 is unknown.

-New Bulletstorm trailers were released to the public. I happened to see them and I am very excited for Bulletstorm. The trailers don’t show anything new, just more of what has been seen and what has been seen is jaw-dropping so I wouldn’t say the trailers are bad for not having new content shown.

-Motorstorm Apocalypse was shown and the game looks amazing. It continues the idea of linear racing. But this adds a lot to the already exciting Motorstorm franchise. The idea is that all of the races are held during the end-of-the-world. There are battles gun fights happening in the backround, people running for their lives in the middle of the road and of course buildings falling on top of you while you are trying to win a race.

-Beyond Good and Evil will be coming to the xbox live market place as an xbox original. I haven’t played Beyond Good and Evil on the xbox but I understand it is considered an underrated game and did not get enough attention becuase Ubisoft (publisher of Beyond Good and Evil) released several other popular games like a Splinter Cell sequal.

Valve, the developers of games like Half Life, Half Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, Counter Strike and many others. Also the developers of the highly acclaimed Source engine, and engine that has been used since Half Life 2 (2004) and is still used to this day. Valve is most well known for developing games with a variety of backstories and characters. The amazing backstory of Half Life with Gordon Freeman and his army of freedom fighters fighting a war aginst evil corporations, zombies and even aliens. The cartoonish characters from Team Fortress 2 mixed with the cartoon-gore and humor make Team Fortress 2 famous in the multiplayer world. Some games like Portal are happening within the Half Life universe, they just have different characters and different storylines. Valve found a way to take all of these great games, mixed with the source engine and released online for $5. That would be Gary’s mods. Gary’s mods is an editing program that will let you spawn characters (both main characters and backround characters), vehicles and weapons, enviromental items (furniture, etc.) and even things that are not from any Valve game. You can choose from Valve’s long list of games that you can use Gary’s mods with. The program is amazingly fun to use, it can be used on MAC and PC, you will need a very good processor to do this on a laptop but on a desktop (that comes standard with two or three processors) you shouldn’t have many problems. But anyway, Gary’s mods has been around for a couple years now but it’s popularity has been increasing recently. Just look up Gary’s mods on steam, you can also get there from the Gary’s mods website. Copy the Web adress from below if you want to see this for yourself! http://store.steampowered.com/app/4000/

In case you did not watch it, my Ultimate collection video had a part where a stack of around forty games fell over off my table. Suprisingly, I recieved better feedback than I would have recieved if that had not happend. But, I wanted that to be a proffesional video for people who have been wondering about the exact number of games I have considering that the number of updates I post have dwindled in the past months and I have never done a full count of games. I posted a funny video about a year ago that recieved a lot of bad feedback, but my friends at school liked it. I would have not posted the Ultimate Collecion video the way it was but it would have been very hard to do that, I had to move 108 games from my shelf to my desk. I plan on refilming it in an easier fashion becuase the video had more than 130 views in two days. If you look at my channel you will see that the Ultimate Collection video was taken down.

Thanks for understanding!

The best games of the decade. I have decided these games based on how enjoyable they are, originality, trend-starting, etc. But I mostly decided these based on the positive impact they have on the gaming community. Some of my choices will be obvious, others may surprise you.

Perfect Dark (2000)

Counter Strike (2000)

Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)

Stronghold (2001)

Battlefield 1942 (2002)

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002)

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003)

Call of Duty (2003)

Battlefield Vietnam (2004)

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (2004)

Halo 2 (2004)

Jak 3 (2004)

Counter Strike Source (2004)

Medal of Honor Pacific Assualt (2004)

Half Life 2 (2004)

Mercenaries Playground of Destruction (2005)

Age of Empires 3 (2005)

Call of Duty 2 (2005)

Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The official game of the movie (2005)

Prey (2006)

Dead Rising (2006)

Call of Duty 3 (2006)

Gears of War (2006)

Resistance Fall of Man (2006)

Motorstorm (2007)

Bioshock (2007)

Medal of Honor Airborne (2007)

Halo 3 (2007)

The Orange Box (2007)

Call of Duty 4 (2007)

Assassins Creed (2007)

Uncharted (2007)

Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)

Battlefield Bad Company (2008)

Dead Space (2008)

Saints Row 2 (2008)

Far Cry 2 (2008)

Fallout 3 (2008)

Resistance 2 (2008)

Gears of War 2 (2008)

Mirrors Edge (2008)

Left 4 Dead (2008)

Halo Wars (2009)

Killzone 2 (2009)

Red Faction Guerrilla (2009)

Prototype (2009)

Batman Arkham Asylum (2009)

Uncharted 2 (2009)

Borderlands (2009)

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (2009)

Dragon Age: Origins (2009)

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)

Assassins Creed 2 (2009)

Mass Effect 2 (2010)

Heavy Rain (2010)

God of War 3 (2010)

Splinter Cell Conviction (2010)

Red Dead Redemption (2010)

Halo Reach (2010)

Call of Duty Black OPS (2010)

Assassins Creed Brotherhood (2010)

December means Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and many other holidays. Many of these holidays have gifts involved. What are the best things this Holiday season? As far as video games and movies, the best options are the games from earlier this year that you may have missed out on. A lot of great games and some decent DVD’s will be available for just in time for your parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends or whoever you will be getting for and/or receiving from.

DVD/Blue Ray

Kick Ass

Hot Tub Time Machine

The Losers

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Toy Story 3

Predators

Karate Kid

Iron Man 2

Video Games

Mass Effect 2

Alien vs. Predators

Bioshock 2

God of War 3

Alan Wake

Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (PS3, PC)

Splinter Cell Conviction

Red Dead Redemption

Skate 3

Crackdown 2

Halo Reach

Dead Rising: Case Zero

Dead Rising 2

Fallout New Vegas

Medal of Honor

Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2

Call of Duty: Black OPS

Assassins Creed Brotherhood

Fable 3

This new game from Rockstar and Team Bondi had it’s first trailer released in the past couple days. For the most part, we don’t know much about it. Although I saw a good amount of info on the Team Bondi’s site and the trailer shows that you will probably be a hard-edged 50’s LAPD unit. LAPD is Los Angels Police Department, so the location will be a real location. The recent trailer claims that it was made from in-game footage. That meaning, it should have some pretty intense action and equally intense visuals.

The game will be set in a pre-WWII setting where your character is determined to solve a series of gruesome murders. It will be available on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. I don’t know if L.A. Noire will be a role-playing game or a linear action game or a sandbox game, it could be a variety of generes. Although Rockstar’s sandbox history will hopefully influence the game, I say HOPEFULLY because L.A. Noire would work really well in a sandbox setting.

I researched Team Bondi, I had never heard of the studio. Team Bondi is a smaller Animation company. I did not find other games they have worked on besides L.A. Noire. I read about a PS2 game they worked on but I don’t know exactly what that game was. The studio is located in Sydney, Austrailia. This could mean an earlier release in Australia and nearby countries and regions. L.A. Noire is set for a 2011 release. I am very excited.

The last of the big 2010 games are coming out, 2011 looks like a promising year with Gears of War 3, Killzone 3, Brink, Fear 3, Dead Space 2, Deus Ex Human Revolution, Bioshock Infinite, Rage, Max Payne 3 and many more. 2010 offered Crackdown 2, Call of Duty Black OPS, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Halo Reach, Fallout New Vegas, Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, Kane and Lynch 2, Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (PS3, Windows), Alien vs. Predator, Dante’s Inferno and many others.

But 2011 has a huge number of cool games. Although the first games of 2010 were disspointing to most people. Games like AVP and Dante’s Inferno would be an example. Mass Effect 2 reminded us that 2010 would not be a fail for the gaming industry. 2010 continued to hold it’s place with games like Lost Planet 2 and Red Dead Redemption, the occasional bad or mediocre game like Kane and Lynch 2 would drag things down though. Although 2010 has been a great year, we have seen Rockstar, Bioware, Ubisoft and more. Mostly sequals this year like Splinter Cell Conviction (5th splinter cell game), Bioshock 2 (sequal to Bioshock 2007), Mass Effect 2 (sequal to Mass Effect 2007), Alien vs. Predetor (5th AVP game), Red Dead Redempion (spin-off sequel to Red Dead Revolver 2004), etc. 2011 has original titles like Homefront and Bulletstorm. 2011 also has many sequals, in some ways, more than 2010. Fear 3, Portal 2, Dragon Age 2, Dead Space 2, Batman Arkham City and many more.

Now that 2011 is almost here, 2012 will be the big deal. What games will come out then. Games are usually announced about a year ahead of their release date. I do have very early predictions.

Grand Theft Auto 5: I saw a product page for this game on the gamestop powerup rewards site. I have not seen anything related to this project on Rockstar. But I know things are leaked, I just learned about GTA5 yesterday so I don’t know much about it. The only thing I really noticed was the fact that this game is a direct sequal, usually after a 3rd or 4th game title, other sequals are spin-offs. Also, this title did not appear to be on Xbox 360 at this moment. It appears to be a PS3 exclusive, I imagine that GTA5 will be revealed on Xbox 360 and Windows as time progresses.

Mass Effect 3: This game was unofficially announced during loading screens in Mass Effect 2, a product page on the gamestop powerup rewards site did appear. 2010 to 2012/2013 sounds like 2007 to 2010. I also predict that Mass Effect 3 would be scheduled for a late 2012 release but delayed to an early 2013 release. Rumors and unoficial announcements have been floating since before Mass Effect 2 even came out. Other rumors include Mass Effect 3 being part of a three-part series of $20 DLC’s to Mass Effect 2 because of the game’s size. Mass Effect 2 was on two discs, Mass Effect 3 is supposed to be even larger.

Assassins Creed Cold War: A comic about the Assassins during the Russian-American Cold War has been announced, a leaked image with a metallic and futuristic Assassins insignia could be from the Cold War. This Assassins Creed game would probably be a spin-off and will most likely be released around 2012 or 2013. Although this game has really no information that I have to show. The game is probaly in post-production and I am excited to see if this will be a real game. The Assassins Creed universe is very expansive beyond games, but all of the other comics are based on the games in some way because Assassins Creed is a video game franchise.

Yes, I just activated my gamestop rewards card. While going through a game library of games that are sold or will be sold at gamestop. One of those was titled Grand Theft Auto 5. I had not heard of Grand Theft Auto 5 before. I looked at Rockstar.com and nothing about Grand Theft Auto 5 came up. This could be a leaked project, or an false rumor. Whatever it is, I wanted to have a post about it as soon as possible. One strange thing is that it will be only on PS3, I didn’t see it on Xbox 360. But it is Grand Theft Auto 5. Nearly a year has passed since Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City (most recent GTA title) and it will be fun to see more Grand Theft Auto. Rockstar has several upcoming game titles including L.A. Noire and Max Payne 3. These games are all coming out at different times, L.A. Noire comes out late in 2011 and Max Payne 3 comes out early 2011. Grand Theft Auto 5 would hopefully be officialy announced between Max Payne 3 and L.A. Noire. Those are my hopes and predictions. Keep an eye out!

I don’t have time to review New Vegas now, but I can say it is really cool! I have been playing it since the day it came out and it is one of the best games I have ever played. Just like Fallout 3. So far, it hasn’t beat Fallout 3, but I think it is equally fun. It is different than Fallout 3, it really feels like New Vegas and the Mojave Desert, not just Capital Wasteland with some desert animals and Vegas icons. This is a different and fun game. The biggest similarity is the sense of wonder you have for what is out in the world. I am already a level twenty in Fallout New Vegas. I am playing it on very easy so I wouldn’t get as much XP (you get more XP for the higher difficulty levels). I am still leveling up fast, I would be an even higher level if I didn’t have school. I have put in a little over thirty hours into the game. I highly reccomend it. Also look for a video review on my youtube channel, my interent has been down for about a week. I am posting this from school right now. But I will work on a video review when I get a new airport for my wi-fi motum. I have had it for years longer than it is supposed to last! But buy New Vegas!