Mini-review: Wolfenstein RPG (iPhone)

The Black Friday sales got me; I bought the Wolfenstein RPG for 1.59€.

Not disappointed, not one bit, though. Game is very tongue-in-cheeck with it's chicken kicking minigame, poking fun at ol' Adolf, etc.

You'll get to shoot "axis" soldiers, female spies, different colored zombies (you think red is bad, try a *golden* zombie, LOL!), skeleton in fire or not, etc.

For weapons you have fists/brass knuckles, akimbo pistols, Thompson machine gun, sniper rifle, dynamite, and so forth.

For health and other boosts, you can mix and use syringes that range from heal over time and max health boosts to 25-100% damage boosts.

All in all, a fun game. And very, *very* easy to pickup and play because of the turn based gameplay and easy controls. To move you have a virtual D-pad, and to interact with or to shoot, you just tap on the screen. Menu offers you the map / save / inventory options and clicking on the weapon, health, etc icons brings up a shortcut to inventory or the weapon choice list.

Graphics are full 3D landscape, mixed with 2D sprites. Sprites could have more animation cells, but they do the job. The enviroment seamlessly scrolls when you move or a cut-scene cuts in.

I heartily recommend this one, especially at the reduced price.


Score 9/10

Review: Modern Warfare 2

This is a mixed bag: it's a PC game that is made with the console version's limitations in view.

There are no dedicated servers for multiplayer, the gameplay has been dumbed down somewhat.

But still - the game runs smoothly on even older hardware (no FPS complains with a AMD X2 4500+ and GeForce 8800GTS, only *heavy* smoke causes FPS to drop). It's easy to play and the combat has a realistic "WTF!? Duck! Shoot! Did I just kill someone" -feeling to it at best. It gives you the feeling of being a bona-fide US soldier in a warzone.

Even voice acting is top notch, with easily recognizable big-screen stars like Keith David (The Thing and the Riddick movies) and Bill Murray, among others, doing a great job...


Missions have an urgent feel - it feels like you're *there* and fighting for your *life*. Bullets whizz past, and through walls, satisfyingly. Enemies fall down, sometimes only wounded and shooting back at you after the initial shock. If I had to find a pet-peeve, I'd probably say that riot shields are too powerful (nothing short of a grenade can't affect then, unless you can flank the guy holding it - which can be a pain in the ass in tight corridors). Oh, and grenades are a little too whimpy (except flash-bangs, which work wonderfully).

Graphics range from top notch (90% of the time) to "so-so" (10% of the time), with night vision and lighting being very good, but infra scopes on some rifles being a little... well, "icky". ;)

Cheesy, but still epic, movie score accompanies everything and you truly feel like you're playing a movie, instead of a game.

Heck, even the ending is like it's ripped off straight from a Bruckenheimer movie.

I'll leave the multiplayer to younger people - I got my ticket's worth with the, admittedly short-ish, single player campaign and the special ops missions.

More like this, please.

Score 9/10

Dragon Age: Origins First Impressions

After I've played through two origins (city elf mage and dwarf noble warrior to level 8) on the PC and Xbox 360 I can say:

• The PC version looks and plays a lot better - there is just no replacement for free camera, mouse controls and action bar with 10+ buttons.
• The game starts off slowly, so slow that you actually think it's pretty crappy. Persevere! ;)
• Combat is hard - random encounters will wipe your party out for no apparent reason. Save and save OFTEN!
• Console versions don't have party damage on at the normal level of difficulty, this leads to lack of positional combat. But then again, it makes the game playable on the consoles. The interface is "nit-picky" enough without friendly fire.

All in all, after a couple of nights' play, I'd have to say it's an OK game. Not an Oblivion killer, and definitely not anything as good as Bioware's older classics like Baldur's Gate 2 or KOTOR.

8 /10...

Dragon Age: Origins

Checklist:

• Played through the Journeys -flash game - CHECK (just once, mind you)
• Made a character with the Character Creator - CHECK
• Preordered the game for the 5.11. euro release - CHECK
• Madly waiting the game / took time off to play it - UNCHECKED

Ok, it's coming. It's on pre-order. But I can't get exited yet (and it's not even because of the crappy IGN review of 8.4 - it's not the score, the review itself made little sense in it's nit-picking...).

Bah.

Maybe I'll get more exited when it's spinning in my Xbox 360's drive... ;)