This will mainly be a review of a game that I have NOT played yet, so I can’t say a lot, but I have seen people play it. Touhou!
This game formed in Japan, if I’m right. It’s a game that uses PC-98, so now a days, you would have to download an emulator to actually play the Touhou series on your computer.
Gameplay
This type of game is called “Bullet Hell,” or so I’ve been told. The term “Bullet Hell” really means a Hell of bullets! But I guess you can call it a Shoot ‘em Up too. Basically, you’re one of a selection of anime girls at the bottom of the screen, shooting bullets at the enemies flying down toward you. Some enemies may even shoot their own bullets (which is also the hard part.) As you kill enemies, power ups of some sort drop and you’re meant to catch them while you continue to kill more enemies and dodge incoming fire. It’s multitasking to the max! You’re trying to stay alive and while trying to improve your firepower.
Bosses
But what is true hell are the bosses. These bosses are each level times one hundred. It’s just one enemy with fifty times the health, fifty times the fire power, and fifty times the annoyance. Your chances of death are high if you have no hand-eye coordination “Bullet Hell” really comes to play when you’re facing a boss. After you finally beat the boss (after restarting over for the tenth time), you will feel the might of victory, only to charge straight into the next level of enemies where a new and stronger enemy awaits you at the end.
A boss battle defining the term of "Bullet Hell."
Music
The sounds are usually the same, but it’s the music that really makes the game more interesting and fun. While you’re fighting to live, you’ll be able to enjoy fast beats to increase the intensity of the battle. There are various pieces of music, but the best ones are when you play against bosses. An intense music equals an intense boss.
Rating (out of 5)
Overall: 3/5
I like the game and all, but I don’t think I got to play enough of the Touhou games. For instance, I only played one version and it’s one of the old ones as well. Maybe if I got to play more, I’d think more of the game.
————–
For more Touhou goodness, you can check out of my friend’s blog that’s all about the world of Touhou. Just click the link to the right. Landon Maxey
In this review, we dig deep into a lot of story of Half-Life 2.
From teamwork and comedic gaming to solo missions and a real story. As you can see, there is a “2″ in it. That means there was a prequel to the game. Somewhere around 1998 and 1999, Valve released the game that would be such a huge hit in the gaming society. That game was Half-Life. Now, I can’t really explain what happens in Half-Life because I never had the chance to play. Sure, I can buy it, but I don’t have the time. Maybe when I’m bored, I’ll buy it online. I’ll do my best. Also, this is a First Person Shooter.
In Half-Life 2, the game starts out with a mysterious man, called the Gman, lecturing you on confusing details about what has happened in the past and what you are destined to do. Once he disappears, you, an ex-scientist for company called Black Mesa, find yourself on a train to a place called City 17. Your name, Gordon Freeman, but you’ll definitely find that out once everyone in the entire game starts saying “Gordon Freeman? Gordon Freeman! It’s Gordon Freeman, follow him!” You’re quite popular in the Half-Life series. The story is quite well done and it continues into the games of Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. I won’t spoil any of that though.
Gordon Freeman
You’re a rebel and you are trying to reach the resistance to help the cause against the cruel government. Through miles of walking with your trusty crowbar, you upgrade to a pistol dropped by one of the Combine soldier (the government’s police). Then you upgrade to a Submachine gun. After that, you find a Magnum that packs a punch with a magnificent accuracy. Soon after, you find a useful Shotgun that will be helpful against the zombies you fight within the game. Upgrading the Submachine gun, you find a Pulse Rifle; similar to a submachine gun, but much more cooler looking and powerful. The sniper type weapon of the game is the crossbow, which fires hot bars at people for instant kills. Some other weapons that I don’t feel like explaining are the Rocket launcher, frag grenades, and pherapods. But the most important and most interesting weapon of the game… is the Gravity Gun. It’s able to pick inanimate objects and fling them at enemies to cause damage. It’s also very vital to the gameplay, which I will explain in the next paragraph.
The gameplay starts out simple.
You have no weapons and you just walk through the train station. It’s easy to know where you’re going. Something that fascinated me when I first played this game was that everything was so detailed. When I say detailed, I don’t mean the graphics. Almost every object you see around you, you can pick up! There’s even one case where a Combine soldier tells you to pick up an empty can and toss it into the trash can. It’s just so amazing what you can do. Actually, this is vital to the physics engine you’re supposed to use. The series of Half-Life uses many physics puzzles in which you have to play along with. Balance out a scale with heavier objects on one side so you can reach the next side to move on. Dead bodies are considered to be “ragdolls” and whatever you do them when they’re dead is just like real life. Later, you can use the Gravity Gun to pick them up. Right, the Gravity Gun… This is just a more powerful version of what you can do with just picked up stuff with your hands. It’s able to pick up a lot and send them flying over a distance.
Once you find weapons, it always gets a bit more challenging. You’re trying to stay alive and defend yourself. Later on, you’re able to drive an airboat, a buggy of some sort, and even a crane! That’s always used to advance through the game though.
Some negative thoughts.
This game can be fun, both for the story and gameplay, but it can also get repetitive. I’m sure all those who have played it will agree with me on that. In fact, here are a few of my buddies who have played it. Robby P, Tim O, Matt S, and Landon M. The physics puzzles never really change and you’re always doing the same thing with killing sometimes. You can’t upgrade your weapons like some other games can, and the good guns that you own will almost always run out of ammunition quickly. The vehicles you drive have the same controls and pretty much the same look. And you must know… It’s a long game. Episode 1 and 2 offer different settings on where you fight and run, but it’s all pretty much the same. Sure, they both offer new enemies, but you’re still doing the same thing (sometimes). It’s wise to take breaks after every 30 minutes or hour so your brain doesn’t fry. Here’s an example of what I mean. There is some information about the first game, but just pay attention to the Half-Life 2 part.
Episode 3.
Many Half-Life 2 fans have been waiting for the final installment of the series. Episode 3 offers the final add-on to the storyline and a variety of mysteries that Valve continues to hide from us. Just like Episode 1 and 2, it offers a new setting in which to fight and run in; snow! It’s been a few years since the release of Episode 2, and we continue to wait. Valve isn’t releasing any information at all and it’s beginning to annoy the Half-Life community. So far, all we know is that it may be released between 2010 and 2011. But that’s not even for certain.
Side installments and such.
Other than Episode 1 and Episode 2, there are side stories to Half-Life 2. One being Half-Life 2: Lost Coast. Still being Gordon Freeman, you find yourself on the shores of abandoned village at the bottom of a hill top. With all the weapons from the real game, minus the Gravity Gun and Pherapods, you make your way to the top of the hill and fight through enemies to complete a task requested by a fisherman. It’s short game, possibly taking up to 15-30 minutes or so. Actually, I think this is the only side story for Half-Life 2 that was done by Valve.
A multiplayer version of Half-Life 2 is Half-Life 2: Deathmatch. The game comes free if you own a Nvidia graphics card. In this multiplayer version, there are two teams. The Combine and the Rebels. You’re able to get all the weapons from the real game, minus the Pherapods, and use them against other players online. Sometimes you will play on a team and sometimes it will be free for all. But it’s usually always free for all. This multiplayer isn’t as popular as the other multiplayers, due to it being quite simple and again… repetitive.
You can find this game for a cheap price of $9.99 to $20.00. Episodes 1 and 2 are around $10.00. But if you want a really sweet deal, you should but The Orange Box. It offers Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. That’s what…? Five games right there. All for $30. Like I said before, it’s a bargain.
First and foremost, I would like to review my favorite First Person Shooter game for the PC, Team Fortress 2. It’s only logical that it has the first review because the game was what my last blog topic was about.
Now to begin, I first played Team Fortress 2 when I received “The Orange Box” which contains three games by the company, Valve, for my birthday. (Those games will be reviewed later.) Basically, Team Fortress 2 is First Person Shooter online multiplayer game originally designed for the PC. There are Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions to it, but they are not nearly as good as on the PC, update wise. What bugged me in the beginning was that there were no Solo missions to play, or even a training area to test out what I was up for. Then again, I had to remember that it was called TEAM Fortress 2. The game was designed to be played with others as a team. So it was only expected that you were only allowed to play online. You don’t need a super computer to run this game, but it would be wise to get a good one because the art style in this game is something different from most games. The game itself is supposed to give off a cartoon-y feeling and comical aspects are used almost everywhere, but mostly with nine classes you get to choose from. This is where I will move on to the gameplay.
You get to choose from nine classes, each with a unique weapon/specialty, along with a unique personality. The Heavy is considered to be the mascot of the game, a large and bald Russian who wields his Minigun, “Sasha,” while eating Sandviches to gain health. He is considered to be the slowest, but he sure packs a punch. The Scout is the fastest of the bunch, being born and raised in Boston as baseball fanatic, he’s able to double jump and be the most agile out of everyone while popping bullets with his Scattergun. The Engineer ascends from Texas and is the main defense as he builds supporting Sentry Guns with his trusty Wrench that stays in place and attacks incoming enemies. The Pyro is the mysterious Flamethrower-wielding maniac who talks in muffled tones because of his gas mask. The Medic, a bloodthirsty German doctor, is the main support of the team as he heals his teammates with his Medigun that shoots out a beam of magical healing. The Sniper, an Australian bloke that fires a Sniper Rifle from the back of the battlements. The Soldier was kicked out of the military, but joined in WWII separately, and still has the psychotic rage within him as he explodes enemies with his Rocket Launcher. The Demoman is “a black Scottish cyclopes” due to him being from Scotland, being black, and having only one eye as he sets explosives up with his Sticky Bomb Launcher, while being wasted most of the time. The Spy is the French double agent that you will expect to be your own teammate, until he suddenly disappears with his Cloaking Device and backstabs you with his Butterfly Knife.
From Top Left to Bottom Right: Heavy, Engineer, Demoman, Medic, Pyro, Spy, Scout, Sniper, Soldier
Now that the introductions are out of the way, we can REALLY move on to the gameplay. Being a fanboy of the game myself, I really can’t say anything bad about this game other than you will spend countless hours playing it. The game modes are unique and different so you can never really get bored. Having the satisfactory of winning a round is always sweet because you get to “humiliate” the losing team by being able to kill them while they can’t do a thing. Each class will cease to make you laugh or smile since their humorous quotes will never end. As the Heavy takes a bite out of his Sandvich, he says to it, “You are a loose cannon, Sandvich, but you are a damn good cop!” The way you use each class is vital to the gameplay because no one enjoys teammate as a Pyro, charging in at the enemy as he spreads fire like a mad man, only to get killed by a level 3 Sentry Gun by the side. Skill is usually necessary to stay alive. Just make sure you have good teammates, or else your team will fall apart. (Especially if you’re not good either.)
POV of a Medic healing a friendly Heavy, attacking RED's base.
If you’re into competitive gameplay, this game can offer that as long as you have a microphone set up to talk to your teammates. In this game, communication is key. Although it may get annoying to hear the occasional 12-year old talk on their mic, you’ll almost always get smart mature players to work with.
But overall, this game is meant to be fun. Whether you win or lose, there will be no doubt that you will enjoy it. Being released in 2007, the game has a reasonable price of only $20. For a better deal, buy “The Orange Box” because not only does it come with Team Fortress 2, but also Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal. That’s three games in one package. That’s a $50, but for you, it’s only $30! Go get it. You know you want to.
If you are taking notice to the new layout of my blog, you will also notice that my blog topic has changed. Before, I was discussing the gameplay and everything of the game, Team Fortress 2. I realized that wouldn’t get the attention of anyone whatsoever. So instead, I have decided it would be best to change my blog topic to Video Game reviews. I guess you could call me a video game critic now. This is something new for me, and I do believe it would be something fun and somewhat challenging to accomplish well.
For what I will be doing, I will be review video games that I have played. I will not be reviewing games like Halo or World of Warcraft. Reasons being: They suck. It’s true that I have not played either of the games, or only played them for about 15 minutes, but one doesn’t need to experience the game to understand if it’s bad or not. I’ve been around people who have played those games to know well enough that they are games not suited for people like me. You ask what I am? My answer is uncertain.
Keep an eye out for the first review. It should be out today or tomorrow. I look forward to criticizing the games you all love and hate.
