No New Post

Hello gamers,
I will not be making a new post for Friday that has something to do with games. I have a conference that I will be attending and will be gone today and tomorrow. However, next week's post is going to be a review of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Well, that's all for now,
HANG TIGHT GAMERS!!

Transformers: The Game (Wii)

Hello gamers,
One of 2007’s biggest movies, Transformers, was made into a video game. The only question is, did it stand up to how awesome the movie or franchise is?

The story is basically the same as the movie’s story except has a little more detail with characters. However, the player can choose which side they want to be on. The designers gave the player the choice to be either the Decepticons or Autobots. Personally, I like the Autobots better because they can transform into cars and drive into the suburbs causing destruction if the player decides to do so. With the Decepticons, they can transform into helicopters among other aircraft. What side the player chooses affects the way the story continues. What I like most about the story is that you can experience new missions and new dialog which wasn’t even in the movie. What I wished they would have added was some sort of co-op play mode. That would allow a better single player experience. One thing I would like to add is that the game is needs some sort of aid with the AI. Not only do the enemies seem stupid, the humans don’t have a clue as to what is going on. In the suburbs, the player can turn into a robot and destroy buildings and the police won’t do anything. To me, it was really wasn’t thought out.

As for the controls, I was a pretty disappointed. It’s not that it’s not easy to attack or move, it’s that the way the player controls the angle is messed up. The game is played in third person, and the way the player moves the camera is by pointing the Wii remote in the direction they want the camera to be facing. The problem is it doesn’t respond very well. It takes a couple of seconds to see where the player is heading, but by that time, Optimus has been hit eight times. Even when if the player changes the sensitivity level, it still is very slow. Most of the time, game designers make the camera lock onto the player, which isn’t what they did for Transformers. The only time the camera works is when the gamer changes into a car. This is mostly because the player doesn't have to control the camera, it’s locked into place. I think the real reason the camera pointing doesn't work is because the gamer not only has to use the Wii remote to change the angle, but they also have to use it to attack, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. As I digress, the player has two main weapons in the game. One is the secondary weapon (which changes with characters) and the other is the main weapon (also changes). The gamer also has a melee attack, they can proform by swinging. The player can transform at anytime by pressing a button on the D-Pad they can also jump at any time. One cool thing is that the robots are able to clime walls, which I thought was useful.

The sound for the game is actually quite good. For one, they have the original voice of Optimus Prime from the original TV show (which is cool). The explosions sound great and so does the sound when the player transforms. I give a thumb up for the sound in the game.
The features in the game are a nice add. Here, the player can view videos and pictures from the movie by unlocking them during the game. This gives the game some replay value. They’ve also added some cheat codes, which some gamers may enjoy.

All in all, Transformers the game had some good things about it, but to me, it didn’t stand up to what it should have been. However, if you’re a big fan of the franchise, you may like it. I give Transformers 5.5 out of 10.

Ups: Great sound, some cool missions, okay replay value.
Downs: Horrible camera controls, a bit unrealistic.

Well, that’s all for now,

HANG TIGHT GAMERS!!

I'm sorry!

Hello gamers,
I would just like you guys to know that I'm sorry that I didn't do the Transformers interview today because I've been so busy.

However, I would like to ask a few question that I would like you guys to answer.

Just tell me if you're a gamer and when you started playing games. My other question is what are your top 10 games of all time and why you like them. My last question is what games for the Wii, 360 and PS3 you would like to see come out.

I will have the review of Transformers next week. Sorry again!

Well, that's all for now,
HANG TIGHT GAMERS!!

Online Play: Which Is Better?

Hello gamers,
I was thinking of doing a review of Transformer for the Wii, but I wanted to take a little more time with playing before I do. In that case, I will share what I think about the 360’s online game play VS the Wii’s online game play. After I’ve played both systems online games for a while now, I believe it’s time to give the good and bad for each.

Communication:
With the Wii, you don’t get a lot of options with how you talk to your friends. In fact, the only way you can really talk to them is by sending a pre-written response that isn’t always going to really work in the situation. For example, when playing Medal of Honor: Heroes 2 on the Wii, when you and a teammate are sneaking up on an enemy, you don’t really know what the other teammate is doing. You can say “Enemy spotted”, but that doesn’t help any if you can’t tell them where he is. Or if you die and the other player doesn’t know, what are you going to be able to do? Sure, you could send a message that says “retreat”, but a lot of gamers send random messages and the person probably won’t listen to it. All of that to say that Nintendo needs to add some sort of voice communication, or typing communication so that we can enjoy playing with friends online. As for the 360, I think they pretty much did a perfect job of being able to talk to your friends online. If I had one complaint, it would be that they needed to add group chat instead of just talking to one person in a chat. Overall, the 360 is the champ for communication.

Benefits:
As for benefits, I believe the Wii did a great job. What I mean by benefits is what the system offers for online play or downloads for your system. With the Wii, Nintendo added some great channels that allow you to send Mii’s, preview games, download games and even store photos. Not only that, it’s completely free! No outrageous fees for something that should be free or a very low price. As for the 360, it may have some great things download wise, but the price and the lack of things to download makes it very low with benefits compared to the Wii. First of all, everything worth downloading has a price. Weather it be a map for a game, or a gamer picture, you need to shell out some cash in order to fully enjoy the entire experience of the Xbox Live Gold Membership. Sure, sometimes the maps can become free after a couple of months, but by that time you could already be out of time on your Membership, which can add up quite quickly. That’s one other thing that bothers me about the 360. When you think Microsoft has enough money, they make you pay for online play when it could be free. I had the hardest time trying to get online play. For most people who own the 360, they just simply plug their Ethernet Cable into the router and play. For me, since I don’t have a router next to my 360, I had to buy a $100 wireless connection plug in order to play. Oh, and to top it all off, I had to pay another $25 for the three month Gold Membership. To me, it’s such a rip off. However, the Gamercard, which is what allows you to make your own profile with your own settings and pictures and bio, is a pretty nice little thing Microsoft let the gamers do. All in all though, I think the Wii has a much better time with benefits than the 360 does.

Setting it up:
Since I’m no tech savvy gamer, I have a hard time getting any computer thing to set up correctly. However, I found that the Wii was something really easy, set up wise, to understand (it let an idiot like me set it up). In fact, I don’t even remember having to set it up at all. The Wii kind of did it itself. Now, when it came to the 360, I had a harder time. It does let you have a little more control on how you want to set it up, but since Microsoft is a huge computer software company, they made it a little hard for me to understand. With a little time and patience, however, I got it up and running. I would say the Wii is a lot easier to set up than the 360.

Connection:
Here is a really important thing about online gaming. Not only do you have to be able to know how to set it up, you have to sometimes deal with lag (when the game has trouble connecting to a game). To be perfectly honest, the Wii handles lag a lot better than the 360. When I’m playing on the Wii, I’ve never had any really big lag problems. I’m not entirely sure if it’s because Microsoft has many more online games than Nintendo, all I know is that only Halo 3, I’ve had many problems with lag. I’m going to say that connection wise, Nintendo wins.

Overall, I think the Wii has some amazing things about online game play, and the 360 has some amazing things about its online play as well. If you’re a gamer who really cares a lot about making parties and having friends play with you all the time, I would say go with the 360. If you’re a gamer that just wants to have a little bit of time online and play some random online matches, then go with the Wii.

Well, that's all for now,

HANG TIGHT GAMERS!!