Battle Block Theater review

Battle Block Theater is the third triple a title to come from The Behemoth games which is run by Tom Fulp the creator of newground.com the other game they produced is the very popular game castle crashers.

Battle Block is a 2.5 dimensional platformer with heavy emphasis on co-operative and competitive mixed game play. (players work together for the same goal but a winner is determined on who scored the most points) The art style during game play looks like a hand drawn animation while the cut scenes look like a stick puppet show. (but are still animated not a video) The maps are designed in a grid like pattern which in turn easily allows players to create their own map packs for others to enjoy. In terms of customization players can collect gems to buy new heads of four different shapes (circular, cubed, triangular or miscellaneous shapes like stars or other irregular ones) and balls of yarn for different weapons (some more useful for fighting while others can be used to help progress through the level)

The plot is as follows: Hatty Hattington was loved by all his friends and everyone had a great time sailing the seas on Hatty's boat the S.S. friendship when a sudden and violent storm shipwrecks all of them on a mysterious island with a theater on it. Upon awakening you (one of Hattys unnamed friends) makes your way into the theater to find out the whole island is run by intelligent cats that have taken everyone as prisoners and brainwashed Hatty (via a top hat) into forcing you and your friends to complete these dangerous stages for the enjoyment of the cats all the while you uncover more and more info about Hatty and the mysterious cats on this island.

The games narrator is William Stamper a semi-famous youtuber who in my opinion was really the perfect match for the games goofy feel as he has a very comedic voice that made me laugh as he would commentate my actions during the game stating that the way I died was stupid or congratulating me on beating a record or that I should try to be better next time.

The game received high ratings from all reviewers and is loved by many gamer's. (me being one of them)  I would certainly recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun game to sit down with some friends and have a good laugh or those obsessed with getting the perfect score or the best time as online leader-boards have recently been added

Postal 2

Postal 2 made by running with scissors studios is perhaps one of the most intentionally rude and controversial games on the market. Made in 2003 based off of the game and movie "Postal" you play as "the postal dude" an average everyday guy who if the player wants becomes a psychotic homicidal maniac.

Postal has a campaign that spans from monday to friday and only consists of doing seemingly menial tasks like buying milk or returning a library books and end up with you killing anti book protesters in a burning library or just urinating on everyone to put out fires. You will travel to a multitude of places like your crappy broken down trailer to a Taliban training facility.  While you start with no weapons you can easily find them strewn all over the place and they range from a shovel to a high explosive rocket launcher. The npc's interact with you hilariously and respond to your actions accordingly. Some of the most fun i had with the game is on the second day where you need to collect petitions which leads to some really funny but rude dialogue between you and the bystander.

Postal 2 was a great way to relieve stress believe it or not and I found it to be a therapeutic game for when you just can't take anymore crap

Dead Island Review

Dead Island is supposedly about a zombie outbreak on a tropical vacationing island but in reality dead island is one gigantic fetch quest. From the moment you start to the moment you finish dead island has you hauling your ass from one spot to another, to another, to another to another only to have you find out that the thing you needed from the quest was easily available from the same spot you started the quest.

The gameplay system would be good if it wasn't implemented into this fetch quest. The system works great for melee and the gunplay is average but with the right developer a small group of developers a devoted team could most likely crank out a very nice game. The game has a very unique crafting system that does allow you to create some pretty cool weapons which I have to give the game some props for (i.e. you could make a flaming blade that deals knife damage with additional fire damage which can spread to other zombies if you're lucky.

The plot is vague and confusing but from what I gathered some crazy guy in the military decided that releasing a zombie virus was a good idea. I'm sure that there's more to it but the game wants you to focus more on the Australian surfing guide that wants you to move 20 crates of useless items to a location 400 meters from your origin point but since you can only carry 1 box at a time you have to do it 20 times and by the end you wonder why the hell would you bother with this?

Dead island has a crap story and quests but delivers some interesting gameplay mechanics which unfortunatly aren't enough to help it pick itself up


 

Battlefield 4 full review

(This is my revisit to bf4 now that it has been fully released and I have recently purchased it)

The first thing that I noticed playing battlefield 4 is that it handles and plays much much better than beta which is to be expected obviously but the improvement is a very noticeably difference. 

Battlefields story was alright but was obviously put in just so they could say it had one. You play as a marine named Reckker who is the commander of tombstone squad is on a mission to extract 2 Chinese defectors. The mission works out but on the way back the Chinese set off an emp bomb wiping out communications to all of the U.S. warships and then they launch a massive attack wiping out most of the ships. I won't say anymore so the story isn't spoiled.

Now onto the part everyone really cares about, the multiplayer. It is fantastic, the team balancing is vastly improved over battlefield 3, the arsenal of guns and customization options mean you can really build your gun to play the way you want it to rather than just using the only 2 useful attachments in battlefield 3. The maps are a lot more fun than the base maps in bf3 and if you get digital deluxe you also get the china rising pack which adds 4 new maps all of which are not the greatest but are still pretty fun to play. There are 4 classes assault, support, engineer and recon, which use class specific weapons (assualt rifles for assault snipers for recon etc) and can all use carbine rifles, designated marksman rifles and shotguns. Unlocks are obtained through a mixture of leveling up each class and opening "battle packs" which contain experience boosts, camos, special sights and knives. 

battlefield 4 is a great game and its 50% off on origin right now but I think the deal is ending soon.

Media:

a video by levelcapgaming a great Battlefield 4 player

Goat Simulator

Goat simulator is by far one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. Produced by coffestain studios (creators of the fps tower defense series sanctum) this humble game started as a training project for new members on the team to learn how to use the unreal engine. A short while later they posted some videos of their goat crashing into props in a hilarious fashions, 2.3 million views later they thought about fan servicing a bit and working up the game to a full release. The absolute beauty of the game is its light laughable nature and the immense amount of hilarious bugs intentionally left in to make the game funnier. 

If you have ever played  a tony hawk skating game you pretty much know what to do with goat simulator except replace tricks with getting rammed by cars flying into things with a jetpack and discovering the numerous hidden secret references scattered throughout the map. Goat simulator is there to remind us that a game doesn't have to be a serious dark and gritty game it could be a boatload of ridiculousness and laughs by the minuet.

What i'm excited for is the steam workshop compatibility (user created content) means so many people can make new maps special modes and goat skins all of which will grow and grow as more people join the sensation that is flying away after being rammed by a speeding redneck riding through a corn field.

Trailer for the game 

Saints Row 3

Saints row 3 is about being the leader of a gang dumped into a brand new city where you need to build up a whole new empire while taking out rival gangs. Unlike the first two which had some serious moments and a good plot saints row 3 is more about mindless violence and toilet humor and is more fun to just ride around in a customized car trying to do crazy stunts rather than actually trying to stick to the mind numbing boring plot. The game is definitely better for the bored player looking for something that requires little thought process and not for someone who is looking for colorful characters great gameplay mechanics and challenging puzzle.

Don't get me wrong the game is fun but not smart, the gunplay is for the most part solid the physics are mostly realistic (gravity is a bit light for comical reasons) and the cars handle realistically and don't seem floatly like gta 4. One of the reasons I enjoy this game is the fact that you can take some crappy little station wagon and put in nitros, underlighting, a way to strong engine, and machine guns on the hood james bond style.

Would i recommend this game at its current price? Simple answer no the game feels empty in terms of content and i would only recommend it on a sale price (steams seasonal sales usually have it for around 75 percent off at which I would highly recommend it.

Sniper elite nazi zombie army 2

Sniper elite nazi zombie army was an incredibly popular twist on an otherwise realistic WWII sniping game where Hitler finds 1 of 3 artifacts that when combined can raise the fallen from the dead but impatiently he activated it with only the one artifact. This brought the nazi soldiers back from the dead but only partially thus the zombie army part.

The great thing about sniper elite is the very realistic sniping physics the game has and can have because of its main focus being on the sniping. This means. Depending in the rifle you choose the easier or harder it will be to control, in example a rifle with high muzzle velocity won't be as effected by wind or gravity but has a higher amount of recoil and is usually a bolt action rifle meaning a slower fire rate. Or a semi auto sniper usually has a much lower velocity meaning a bullet more effected by wind and gravity and less accurate but a lower recoil and higher fire rate means more bullets down range. Along with your sniper you carry one of a few sub machine guns or shotguns and a pistol. You also carry a number of explosive traps like trip wire bombs and land mines

The zombies are if it's possible to say are realistic they shamble on broken limbs and scream with voices of the damned and their heads splatter if you get a headshot on them (also scores you more points.) The games story line is comparable to a cheesy zombie movie and plays like an arcade shooter, you kill the zombies to score points the more points you score the higher you get on the leaderboards, the higher on the leaderboard you get the better you can feel about yourself and so on.

If you like shooting things and zombies sniper elite nazi zombie army 2 is a good choice