Will your decisions have a Mass(ive) Effect?

It started off just like any other day in the year 2186.  The people of Earth carried out their daily routines.  That was when the Reapers attacked.

Mass Effect 3 is a third person shooter/ RPG developed by Bioware and published by EA.  It is the thrilling conclusion to the Mass Effect trilogy and was released March 6, 2012.

Your primary objective in Mass Effect 3 is to stop the Reapers at all costs.  For people who haven’t played any of the games in the Mass Effect series, I will provide some brief information that you should know.  The Reapers are a massive army of giant, sentient “space ships” that reveal themselves every ten thousand years to harvest all forms of intelligent life.  These life forms include the main races of the Milky Way Galaxy: humans, asari, salarians, turians, krogan, and quarians.

As Earth and many other planets are being slowly overwhelmed by the Reapers, you take control of the veteran Alliance officer, Commander Shepard.  As Shepard, you fly across the galaxy in your ship, the SSV Normandy, trying to unite all the races of the Milky Way and acquire war assets to aide in the fight against the Reapers.

The setting of the Mass Effect series spans across the entire Milky Way Galaxy.  Over the course of the game you will be doing a lot of long distance space travel.  This is made possible by mass relays, which are basically giant rail guns used for covering massive distances in miniscule amounts of time.  Some of the locations that you visit are the post apocalyptic, krogan home world of Tuchanka; the militarized, turian moon Palaven; and the “capital” of the galaxy known as the Citadel.

Many improvements have been made since Mass Effect 2.  First off, the RPG aspect of the game has been upgraded.  In the second game, you would get points for leveling up that could be placed in your abilities.  All it did was power them up until the last upgrade where you could choose one of two options.  Now, there are many more options for customizing you and your squad mates’ powers.  Another big improvement is the ability to modify your weapons.  You can purchase an all around performance upgrade and you can also add attachments.  These attachments can include enhanced scopes, larger ammunition clips, and so many other enhancements to improve your firepower.

There are not many down sides to this game.  The only thing that I can really see wrong with it is that it feels shorter than the last game.  In Mass Effect 2, you had to do missions to recruit most of your crew.  Later in the game, you had missions you could finish to gain your squad mates’ complete loyalty.  In Mass Effect 3 your squad kind of forms as you progress through the missions.  This time, you don’t need to win their loyalty.  I can see why this would help though.  Instead of focusing on individuals, you are supposed to be focused on the big picture: the safety of the galaxy.

Mass Effect is known for its deep, enthralling single player experience.  With Mass Effect 3, Bioware decided to take a chance by adding online multiplayer.  This proved to be a success even though it messed with the formula of the game a bit.  The multiplayer, known as “Galaxy at War”, consists of four player co-op matches in which players must work together to survive waves of enemies.  While this new mode provides hours of fun, it also affects the single player.  When you get through the waves of enemies successfully, your galactic readiness increases for single the player.  This, rather obviously, is how ready the galaxy is to fight the Reapers.

All in all, Mass Effect 3 is a truly awe inspiring game.  In my honest opinion, it has already secured its position as game of the year.  It has the perfect balance between narrative and game play.  If you consider yourself a gamer, you need to buy this game.  Before buying it though, I would highly recommend playing through the first two games so that you understand the plot and get the complete Mass Effect experience.

Twist and shout for Twisted Metal (2012)

Boys and girls, men and women of all ages, step right up to the carnival of chaos, the grind house of gore, the apex of destruction derby game play. Yes, this is Twisted Metal for the PS3, the latest installment in the Twisted Metal Franchise. The classic car combat game is reborn, sparing no vehicle from the destructive wrath of Calypso, leader of the Twisted Metal tournament.

The game focuses on basic car combat.  You pick a vehicle and are sent off to the battlefield loaded with a few basic weapons, but to do some serious damage, you must collect icons to gain new weapons. The outcome of each battle is influenced by what vehicle the player chooses.  Some are faster and have high attack power while others are lumbering behemoths with mountains of health under their belts. There is a whole buffet of weapons and cars from which to choose as well as your typical leveling up system in multiplayer and game modes ranging from an all out death match to Twisted Metal’s own original objective game type “Nuke”.

The single player differs from the multiplayer slightly. There are three characters to choose from, each with their own unique story modes, each to earn one free wish from a man named Calypso. The most prominent character is the franchise’s returning poster boy: Sweet Tooth the Clown. Sweet Tooth is a psychotic killer whose wish is to find the one girl who has gotten away from his rampages. The other two characters are Mr. Grimm, the son of a stuntman, and Dollface, a fantastic model with a dark secret. Who knows if they’ll make it to the end, or if their wishes are really what they expect them to be?

Overall the game is a great revival of the series and brings all sort of new fun to light. The only warning that should be given out would be for the pure graphic nature to the game. This is not for the faint of heart as you will see body parts flying all over the place. Other than the graphic nature, Twisted Metal is a fantastic addition to a great franchise; it’s certainly worth checking out.

Infamous: Festival of Blood is an electrifying experience

Are you tired of sparkly, brooding vampires tarnishing the reputation of the living dead?  Well then, you should get back to the basics with Infamous: Festival of Blood.

Infamous: Festival of Blood is the downloadable follow up to Sucker Punch’s open world game Infamous 2.  Festival of Blood was released on October 25, just in time for Halloween and is a PS3 exclusive (just like the other Infamous titles).

At the beginning of the game, Cole Macgrath is rushing through the catacombs of a cathedral.  He heard screaming, so he decided to help whoever was in trouble.  Various people were injured after being trapped behind debris blocking their way out.  One of the women that Cole tries to help though turns out to be a vampire, who thusly knocks him out.  When he comes to, he is on top of the shriveled corpse of Bloody Mary, a female vampire.  He is then restrained by a few other vampires as one of them opens a vein on his neck.  This allows blood to drip into Bloody Mary’s mouth, causing her to come back to life.  Since he was bitten, Cole is now a vampire.  He must defeat Bloody Mary by the next day or else she will gain complete control over him and then the other citizens of New Marais.

Similar to Infamous 2, Festival of Blood takes place in the southern Louisiana city of New Marais.  This time around though, we have a date (kind of).  In New Marais it is Pyre Night, a festival where hordes of people, drunk or not, roam the streets dressed as monsters.  The city is decorated accordingly too, with straw “monsters” burning at the stake.  One of the major differences regarding the setting is the fact that you only get to run around the first area from Infamous 2.  This means that you only have about a third of the original map to explore.  It’s okay though, since Festival of Blood is much shorter than its predecessor. 

In Festival of Blood, the upgrade system for powers has been majorly downsized.  Instead of unlocking powers by performing a specific stunt multiple times and then having to buy them with experience points, you are just given the upgrades directly.  Upgrades are obtained when you kill a certain number of vampires.  Also, since the game isn’t as large as Infamous 2, there are not as many upgrades and you cannot switch between them.

Even though there are fewer upgrades for Cole’s electrical abilities, he still gains new powers in Festival of Blood.  Being a vampire actually has some perks.  One of the vampire powers that Cole gains is called Shadow Swarm.  This power allows you to transform into a group of bats to fly long distance across New Marais.  Shadow Swarm basically makes Cole’s parkour skills and Static Thruster power irrelevant.  The only downside to the vampire powers is that to use them, you have to drink the blood of civilians. 

One of my favorite improvements in Infamous 2 was the melee.  Festival of Blood keeps the improved melee virtually the same.  There are only minor aesthetic differences this time around.  Near the beginning of the game Cole loses the Amp, which was a weapon that harnessed his electric powers into a deadly, brute force.  He replaces it with a metal cross he finds right after losing the Amp.  The cross can effectively conduct electricity and it has a spiked, wooden tip so that Cole can kill vampires by staking them through the heart.

One of the features that makes the Infamous series unique is its karma system.  In Festival of Blood, the karma system is left out.  At first, this seems wrong, since the karma system was what set the Infamous series apart from other games.  When you think about it though, Cole needs to drink the blood of civilians, so he would always be getting bad karma.  Even though it makes sense that they would leave it out, it still feels like Festival of Blood is missing something.

Overall, the game is pretty good.  While Festival of Blood doesn’t have the same variety of upgrades that Infamous 2 had, it adds completely new vampire powers that sort of fill the upgrade gap.  The melee is still great, but it’s lame how using an ultra combo doesn’t kill vampires.  You just can’t get as immersed into the game like how you could in Infamous 2.

If you played Infamous 2, you should definitely download Festival of Blood.  If you are a newcomer to the Infamous series though, you should play the first two games before getting into Cole’s latest adventure.

New local arcade becomes largest in illinois

The Galloping Ghost Arcade is a new arcade business in Brookfield  that is the finest arcade around. This unique arcade opened up on August 13^th and is currently Illinois’ largest video arcade. It carries games such as Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Smash TV, and plenty of other classic games, as well as shooting games like Silent Scope and Time Crisis.

Unlike any other arcade place that have coin-operated machines and require plenty of trips to the coin machine for new tokens, Gallaping Ghost only requires a door fee when you walk in, and allows of an unlimited amount of plays on any machine. This also lets the customer to roam around the arcade floor to try out any game and play for as long as they please. The door fee also allows customers to play all day and to leave the arcade and come back later in the day to play more games, free of charge.

Doc Mack, the CEO of Galloping Ghost Productions (a video game production company) and owner of the arcade branch, liked the idea to give customers this privalege. “It allows people to not be stuck to only playing their favorite games. It gives them the option to try out new games that they have never played or even seem before.” Doc Mack said.

The arcade floor features over 170 games with new ones coming in everyday. “All of our new games are pretty much on request,” Doc Mack said. If there is ever a game missing, you can easily ask an employee for a request and Galloping Ghost will put in the effort to add that game to their vault.

Galloping Ghost Arcade also features an achievement list booklet and keep high scores on every game they have. The booklet’s achievements range from getting a high score for a game, to beating an employee working at the arcade at their favorite game. “It is a lot of fun for customers to keep coming back and gives them something more than just playing games here,” Doc Mack said. Above every arcade game holds a sheet of the high scores for that game, both locally and world records. High scores are only gained through one credit of a game.

Along with the arcade floor is the private gaming rooms. These 20’x20’ rooms come with four 42” LCD TVs with their own set of Xbox 360s of PS3s. The rooms are priced reasonably to rent for several hours or for a whole day with a group of friends. Each system is online compatible and are great for tournaments,  large groups, or parties.

One of Galloping Ghost Productions most promient work is their new game Dark Presence. This game which is G.G.’s own game they produced. The game takes up a whole room in the arcade which you can see how they are improving the game everyday.  Dark Presence allows people to set up their own character in the world and play as them. Once this game lands, there will be a launch at the arcade for the official opening of Dark Presence.

The Galloping Ghost Arcade is open Monday-Friday 1 P.M. – 2 A.M. and Sautrday-Sunday 11 A.M. – 2 A.M. Doc Mack is always bringing in new games like Killer Instinct I and II, Spy Hunter, and Time Soldiers. Tournaments will be in the future for games like Street Fighter that are held on weekends for those who want to come play. If you are interested in visiting the Galloping Ghost Arcade it is located at 9415 Ogden Avenue in Brookfield.

Borderlands – the unknown Game of the Year

With Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 2, and Left for Dead 2 scheduled for November release dates, many other first person shooters aren’t getting much press. Every year, a few staggeringly good games get overshadowed by more popular games that receive almost all of the press coverage. Borderlands, Gearbox’s new RPS (Role Playing Shooter) is an incredible game that has been overlooked by many players in lieu of many other highly anticipated shooters. Borderlands is available on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Borderlands is an incredibly unique experience that combines a first person shooter and a role playing game. Although many comparisons have been made to Fallout 3, Borderlands fully captures the essence of both genres.

The graphics were not engineered to look realistic, but have an almost cartoonish effect. The graphics make use of a technique called cell shading and fit with the presentation of the game. Although they definitely don’t look spectacular in screenshots, they are quite impressive on an actual TV.

Players follow one of four characters, all with different strengths, who are treasure hunters searching for alien loot in the desert wasteland of Pandora. As the story progresses, the characters delve deeper into the wasteland in search of “the vault,” a location said to house legendary alien treasure. Although there is a main story line, with quests that eventually lead to the conclusion of the story, the world of Pandora is entirely open and players can explore as they see fit.

The world of Pandora houses many creatures and enemies that are trying to keep you from progressing towards the treasure. As a shooter, the game incorporates a typical screen layout and the standard shooter controls. However what sets Borderlands apart from other shooters is the diversity in weaponry. There are over seventeen million different guns in the game. Yes, you read that right, 17,000,000. Granted, the guns are randomized from different parts, but the developers took special care into making every weapon model unique. It is incredibly unlikely that players will ever see the same gun twice.

The game incorporates a loot system similar to many RPG’s. Players of games like World of Warcraft and the Diablo series will be right at home with the loot system. Guns are indeed numerous, but Gearbox has made it incredibly easy to compare the guns and quickly select which ones are upgrades to what a player may currently be carrying.

Borderlands interface is set up around quests. Players may progress through the main story line or complete many of the side quests available for extra weapons, cash, or just plain fun. These quests are incredibly fun alone, but even more fun with friends.  Borderlands features two player split screen cooperative play, and four player cooperative online play. Both the split screen and online coop are of a “drop in, drop out,” style meaning that players can leave or join games at any time and the other player’s game is not affected. All loot gained while playing with friends can be taken back to the single player game.

The enemies are vast and are incredibly smart. Gearbox took a lot of time to carefully make every enemy behave in a different way then the rest. The enemies also become more frequent and difficult when more players are present. The difficulty of enemies scales as the player progresses and levels up. Borderlands definitely isn’t a cakewalk, but it isn’t so difficult to the point where it gets frustrating.

Although the story isn’t really anything to speak of, execution is where Borderlands really shines. The game is almost flawless and really feels like a full first person shooter and a full role playing game. I’ve heard that there are some framerate issues on large scale battles on the PS3 and 360, but I have encountered nothing to date. All the weapons feel right, and the controls are neither sluggish, nor too responsive. The unique graphical presentation really fits with the style of the game, and the humorous writing is a nice touch.

Borderlands is a gem of a game, and I would fully recommend this game to anyone that’s a fan of either shooters or RPG’s. It’s a shame such a good game has been mostly unnoticed. I’d give this game a 9.5/10, and although I haven’t finished it yet, I plan on putting many more hours into it. This game really immerses the player into the environment and is a blast to play. Although the game is much more fun with friends, it is a blast single player as well. All in all, Borderlands is really a complete package, and I think it will be able to compete with highly anticipated games such as Modern Warfare 2 for game of the year.