Wednesday, March 16, 2011

UP! UP! And Away!

So tonight is the start of the second bi-weekly blogging of games.

After some thoughts on what games to open and play, I decided to come back to an older game that I acquired awhile ago.

Game: Disney Pixar UP!

I decided to go with this game because it looks fun and if it relates anything to the story, it should be a good one!

Loading game....
No update! Yay, finally a game that doesn't require updates every week.

First impression: the music reminds me of the movie and makes me want to watch it again! The picture quality looks ok, not too great but fun nonetheless.

For the first mission, you are Doug (the dog) and your mission is to protect Russell and Carl from the enemy planes. From then on, the story places us, Russell and Carl in Paradise Fall, or at least according to Russell "we're in South America alright".

The game somewhat take over parts of the movie where you find Kevin and have to free him and stuff. They added some "boss" levels just for added adventure and spice things up a bit. Both Russell and Carl have special abilities such as using the bugle and fixing the earpiece, respectively.

At the time of the writing, I just finished the first boss level, Level 4. After 90 minutes of playing, I've finished until to chapter 5, unlocking 16 achievements and 325 Gamerscore points. OK, I went to the next level and knocked out the campfire and got another achievement so it's actually now 17 achievements unlocked and 345 Gs.

Overall, the game is very simple and the objectives is relatively easy. So far the achievements unlocked for playing the levels, smashing up bugs, using your special abilities certain times, and others are in gameplay.

Gameplay: 8/10 (Fun game to play and maybe to relax to, a good break from all the FPS games and such. You can also play with 2 players)

Plot/Presentation: 8/10 (I'm basing this score from the movie. So far, it's up to par with some side missions and boss levels to spice up the game)

Graphics: 6.5 (For a movie-themed game, I would say it's pretty decent to say the least. Try not to watch the characters in game when they're in "cinematic" mode<-- not a cutscene but close to it)

Sound/Music: 8.5 (I'm pretty sure they asked the voice artists from the movie to do the voices in the game so that's a plus! Also, the narrator from Muntz's movie [beginning of the movie], narrates the cutscenes between levels to make it interesting)

Replay Value: low (To say this vaguely, this game is a one-time deal. I would sell it after finishing up the game. Knowing me, I would just save it to add to my collection. Plus, it's one of my favorite movies so having the game is not too bad)

Estimated Achievement Difficulty: 1.5/10

Side note: I chose this game so that I could get my 40,000th Gamerscore point with an achievement from one of my favorite movies. I'm also planning on buying a new game after I hit the milestone so I could write up a more recent games rather than the games that's on my backlog right now. I do have top recent games from 2010 including Fable III, NBA 2K11*, Halo: Reach*, Red Dead Redemption* that I have to finish or still to be played.

* denotes games have been played

UPDATE:
I finished this game in approximately 6 hours *according to my raptr account . My 40,000th points was a 50pt achievement "Multiplayer Extras" from the game Disney-Pixar UP, achieved on March 24, 2011. It wasn't a true 40,000 milestone achievement but I did surpassed it with 40,015.

As for additional review for this game, I think it was a fair review for the amount of time I played the game.

Overall rating: 7.75 *according to the previous rating
Overall rating (finished game): 7.0/10 (I gave it a lower rating due to low replay value. I was a bit biased with the hype of the game in comparison to the movie therefore it received a higher overall rating).


Thanks for tuning in for another game blog,
The19MrHockey

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Games beware! (updated)

It's been awhile since I last wrote a blog and I think it's time to start up again.

Rather than explaining on why I stopped, I'm just gonna cut to the point.

As an avid gamer, I try to have the most recent games on my collection. I don't just buy any games, as if I don't have any interest on particular games, then I don't buy it.

Plans for the resurrection of my blog are for me to finally open and play the games I bought over the past year that I didn't have time yet. I'll try to open a new game every other week so I have time to play a game and review it at the same time.


New game for this month/bi-weekly (3.2.2011) : Mafia II Collector's Edition.

Purchased Price: I forgot, $79.99 perhaps

Current Price: probably around $39.99-49.99

In the box: Steelbook packaging, Official Orchestral Score, 100-page hard cover art book, Downloadable Made Man Pack and Guide to Empire Bay printed on specialty tear-resistant paper. Since I bought mine from Best Buy, it came with a code for the Greaser pack for pre-order special. More pictures to be added soon

**Notification: I will be updating the blog until I finish the game, prior blog write-ups will be "italicized" Whereas new ones will be normal font setting

I have played for about 90 minutes and finished the first 2 chapters, dying 6 times in the process (since I didn't know what to do. ha.), unlocking 7 achievements and yielding 90 Gamerscore.
**Update: I finished the game with approximately 17 hours of gameplay on the hardest difficulty unlocking 45 out of 47 achievements with 950 gamerscore out of 1000. I do NOT count DLCs as finishing the game. I'm not intending to purchase the so-called DLCs just because they have some out.

Likes/Pros: *Similar to GTA IV's play but you can't shoot inside a car. You collect Playboy's magazine (no, I'm not a perv thank you), and other items. A lot of cars to break in to and steal, guns, etc (can't really talk much with only 90 minutes of gameplay). The melee combat in this game is easy (almost a joke, but then I only fought 2 guys so far).
Adding to the previously written pros/cons, I like the variety of cars in the game and collectibles: 36 cars to be ridden, 50 Playboys to be collected, and 159 wanted posters to grind out for 40 gamescore points. I don't know exactly how many guns are in the game but the variety of it is pretty cool: handguns, shotguns, machine guns, etc :-)
Also, the cutscenes in the game are not pre-made cutscene where you drove one car and it magically changes to a different car in the cutscene. If your car is damaged, or have a dent, broken glass, etc, it will show that same car in the cutscene.
Talking about cars, I love how you can modify your vehicles to your liking. Just go to one of the repair shops and you can fix your car, tune it, change your rims, repaint the car, and change your name plates!

Dislikes/Cons: *Can't shoot while inside a car and the enemies are shooting at you! SAVE/CHECK POINTS!!! This game have the worst checkpoints! Even worse than Call of Duty: Black Ops. When you thought you passed a certain parts in the chapter that SHOULD grant you a checkpoint, it doesn't! This could make or break the game for some people. I know it almost did for me during some parts of the game.

* denotes that pros/cons are not 100% accurate at the writing of this blog.

I would write more at this time but I can't do it justice by writing a review during the first few chapters.

Anyways, I will resume at a later time after I played some more Mafia II and getting further in the story line.

As of right now, sit tight and hope my next game is the one that you wanted me to get/open!


The plot of the story is almost like any other gang/mafia games. You're an immigrant from Europe, this particular one is Italy, and just like any immigrants in the 1940s jobs are scarce and not many likes the particular jobs that are open. If you know the right connection, trying to make it in a mafia family will be the best option; not the safest route for your life, but the best financial option. I'm not going to write in depth of the story for this review.

Gameplay: 8.5/10 (Interesting third person game, you can lockpick a car, going undercover to fulfill a mission/job)

Plot/Presentation: 8.25/10 (The story is interesting with a few twists and turns to create the feel of the game but other than that, it feels bland)

Graphics: 8/10 (This would not be your game to show your friends on your new 240 Hz 1080p HDTV to show off how cool your new TV is. The lip syncing is not the best, but Empire Bay does shows off its color)

Sound/Music: 9.5/10 (I thought this game had one of the better music selections on any of my games! The music reflect the season and year of the game: Christmas = Christmasy songs. Voice work is great)

Replay Value: Moderately High Collectibles in the games and "alternate" story lines.

Overall: 8.75/10

Also, Estimated Achievement Difficulty: 5.5/10 for those of you that likes to collect achievements. 47 achievements for 1000Gs

The19MrHockey