My Top 10 Games of 2013!

Top 10 Personal Games of 2013!

10.

Bioshock Infinite

9.

DMC: Devil May Cry

8.

Metro: Last Light

7.

Diablo III

6.

Animal Crossing New Leaf

5.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

4.

Tomb Raider

3.

Pokemon X/Y

2.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

1.

Fire Emblem: Awakening

Pokemon Black and White 2 (DSi)

Console: Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS

Genre:  Adventure RPG

Release Date: October 7, 2012

Reviewed: November 1, 2012

Gameplay:

Pokemon Black and White 2 is basically the same as all previous pokemon games for the handheld systems. You collect your 8 badges, fight the elite four, the end. But with Black and White 2 they have added so much more to that concept.

Yes, the point of the game is still the same as it always has been but with BW2 they make it so much more dynamic. The game overall will take you over 30 hours to beat if you do not rush the game and explore the new and improved Unova region. The story in BW2 is very well done. It makes you feel so involved with what is going on in the game and has some really epic and memorable moments. 

So you start in Aspertia City which is a new city added to the game. There are a bunch of new locations added to the Unova region. For the first time in Pokemon history you start in a big city not a town. You still get the same starters from the original BW games but you don't get it from Professor Juniper in this game. BW2 takes place two years after the events of BW. As mentioned the Unova region changes significantly. New locations are accessible in the southwest and northwest of the region. There are a few locations that are not accessible anymore such as the challenger's cave. There are new gyms and new gym leaders. The Unova pokedex is expanded to include Pokemon foreign to the region. The player is able to choose to play as the boy Nate, or the girl Rosa, as they travel across the region against their rival, Hugh. There are several changes to the game which makes it feel like a new adventure, not just a sequel to BW. You start off with new characters, the HP and EXP bar for pokemon has been redesigned and looks much better. New location have been added to the game such as Aspertia City, Virbank City, Floccesy Town, Lentimas Town, and Humilau City. Some of the new characters include Hugh, Colress, Roxie, Marlon and Benga. Older characters like Cheren, Bianca, Elesa, Ghetsis and Iris all receive redesigns. All Unova gyms have redesigns. There have been several changes made to existing locations, such as Driftveil City and Nimbasa City. Every trainer has their own fully animated sprite. They are much smoother. Several attacks have received new battle animations. The C-Gear has been redesigned. The Unova Pokedex has been expanded tremendously to accommodate older Pokemon. All returning gym leaders and champions receive new sprites. Route 4 has changed and also differs between BW2. Victory Road has been changed as well. The Cold Storage is now gone and has been replaced with the Pokemon Tournament. These are just some of the new features and changes to the game.

Unova has been expanded!

One of my most favorite features with the new pokedex is the habitat list. What that does is if your on route 4 for example and you are wondering what pokemon you can get from that area, just simply turn on your habitat mode for route 4 and it will show you all of the pokemom on the route. I found this feature extremely handy. A lot of pokemon are now catchable in BW2. One example of this would be Eevee. You are now able to catch them in the wild grass, and as much as you want! BW2 seems like a very polished game compared to BW. They expanded the world tremendously, they made the story more interactive and interesting. The new gym leaders are all extremely fun and all of the gyms are redesigned with new puzzles to get to the gym leaders. Another great feature that was added to BW2 was Join Avenue. Basically it's a little place that you can recruit NPC's to open their own shops to buy rare items. Now when you first get an NPC to join with their shops they start out at rank 1 and sell not so useful stuff. When you recommend and NPC to one of the stores it will gain popularity and when it does your shops will be upgraded once you hit the popularity target. When that happens they will start to sell better and more rare items for you. Overall I was extremely impressed with BW2 and yes it is a direct sequel to the originals. I feel that they are completetly new games and a whole new experience. Worth every penny.

So much more to explore.

Graphics:

The graphics in BW2 have also been improved. One of the biggest improvement to it are the sprite animations for the pokemon, trainers, gym leaders and moves. All have received a graphical update as well as more frames so that the animations are much smoother looking. Each trainer now has their very own sprite animation as well as all of the pokemon in the game. The game runs a lot smoother than BW ever did. The battles are extremely smooth and run quickly. The movement in the environment is smoother as well. The environment received an upgrade as well. When you are battling a pokemon the grass around the pokemon also moves with the air during the battle. A lot of the pokemon moves have also received an overhaul. The pokemon moves has also received an update. The moves all look smoother and better. Overall I was extremely impressed with the overall quality of the game.

Great moment.

Audio:

I have always enjoyed the audio in all of the pokemon games especially in BW2. Most of the Black and White music has been slightly remixed, in addition to the Gym Leader and Champion music from Kanto, Johto, Hoenn and Sinnoh. The remixes are very well done. My favorite music within BW2 is when you fight one of the three legendaries reaming around. All of the audio in BW2 has also received a slight upgrade in quality. Overall same great audio that we have all loved with some new ones!

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed BW2. IGN gave it a 9.6. A pokemon game hasn't hit that high in score for awhile now. You can tell Gamefreak put a lot more time and effort into the sequel and it's paid off. The new storyline will keep you interested and wanting to learn more about it. The expanded pokedex is great giving you the ability to find older pokemon as soon as you begin your adventures. The habitat list is a fantastic addition and hope to see it in future pokemon games as well. The animations have vastly improved as well as the moves. Unova is much bigger and has a lot to explore. The play time is over 30 hours if not rushed. When you beat the elite 4 for the first time there is so much more to do in the game. I recommend pokemon fans, and RPG fans to go pick up this game. You will not be dissapointed I promise.

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Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Console: Xbox 360, PS3, PC

Genre: Open World RPG

Release Date:  February 07, 2012

Reviewed: March 11, 2012

Gameplay:

Kingdoms of Amalur (KoA) is an open world RPG developed by Big Huge Games and published by EA Games. In KoA you start off by creating your character how you want it and you start off dead. Yes, in the game you are dead but luckily the "Well of Souls" revives you from the dead. The story is crafted by R.A Salvatore, Todd McFarlane, and Ken Rolsten. You may ask that one of these names sounds familiar? Well Todd McFarlane is the creator of Spawn and R.A Salvatore is New York Times best selling author. Ken Rolston created the story for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The story is so in depth and is huge. Reckoning is only the sliver of the story. The game starts off you waking up from on top of a pile of corpses because you were brought back to life from the Well of Souls that the dwarves created. You start the game by escaping from an unknown place and a long the way you meet up with some pretty important characters while escaping. KoA has a ton of customizable options within the game. You choose how you want to play, what type of fighter you want to be and whether you want to be evil or good. There are class combinations such as rogue/mage or mage/warrior, anything you want. The game has tons of weapons, armour, skills and professions to customize how you want to play. The main story itself has about 25+ hours of game play but if your the type of person who likes to do all the quests and complete everything the game has to offer then your looking at 100+ hours of game play.

The controls are really easy to learn from using spells or quickly using items. You can map items onto a quick selection option where say you want to assign a potion that increases your armour value then map it for quick use. Spells and skills are used by assigning them to four different spots. You activate these by holding down the "R" button and using X, A ,Y, B. You can also control the camera using the right analog stick or clicking it to make the camera center on your character. The game runs very smoothly and the things you can do are endless. One thing I liked about the characters you create is the option to carry and secondary weapon with you. For example if you were a pure sorcery character you might want to have a staff as your main weapons and chakrams as a secondary. So your attacking with your staff with the "X" button and you decide to switch and up to use your chakrams. You do this by pressing the "Y" button. 

Character Customize Screen....lots to choose from!

KoA has a professions where you can create potions, gems to socket your armour or weapons, blacksmithing and others. You go around the massive world and discover reagents which are used to create certain items. If your a fan of blacksmithing then you may want to put your skill points into it so you can make better armour and salvage from higher quality weapons and armour. When you salvage unwanted weapons and armour you receive materials for blacksmithing. Potions are a bit different. You go around the world and pick herbs which you use to create tons of different types of potions and elixirs. If your more of a rogue then you can also put points in stealth, lockpicking, and detect hidden. Everytime you can a level in KoA you get one skill point to put towards any skill such as blacksmithing, lockpicking, stealth, etc.... Once you choose where you want to put your point you then get 3 class points where you decide what type of character you want to be whether you want to play a rogue, warrior or mage. The last thing you do is decide your "destiny". These are determined by cards and you use these cards to decide what type of class you want to be. For example if you are a pure might character, the more points you put into might you can go up the tier for might fate cards. Tier one for might you will be known as a brawler and will get specials like increased damage and increased block. 

Choose your destiny!

So you've decided what type of character you want to play. What do you do from here besides the main story? Well if you want to see what KoA offers go to the hundreds of side quests in the game. Go do faction quests to become a better thief or mage. The things you can do in KoA is endless. Go do some dungeons, go explore the massive world, go craft something. One thing I really enjoyed about this is the random loot system. Most people didn't enjoy it but I thought it was a great addition. When your looting a chest or a corpse you always get completely random loot. As in you fight a monster and lets say you die right after you looted him. Say he only dropped you 120 gold. Well the next time you kill him he may drop you some armor instead. It's always random. Only downfall to this system is when you unlock a really hard chest or dispell an advanced chest the loot can be as bad as 100 gold or you may get an epic item.

So from the hundreds and hundreds of quests to the huge exploration of the world all the way to professions and completely customizing your character there are a ton of things to do in KoA. 

Graphics:

Another great part of this game besides the gameplay are the wonderful graphics within the world of KoA. The entire world is colorful and vibrant. The wilderness and environment are always changing as your exploring the world and the different zones on the map are all different in terms of the environment. The animations are well done. The spell effects, enchant glows, etc... are all colorful and life like. The water effects are very well done and interact with it's surroundings and environment. As your walking you can't help but wander off in a different direction just to explore the area and see what it has to offer. The bosses are huge and all look outstanding. 

The environment.

Audio:

The music in KoA is very soothing while walking through the different zones and suit the environments extremely well. Then there is audio during boss fights, cinematics and combat that all suit them very well. When your engaging a huge boss the music really gets the adrenaline flowing. The voice acting in the game when interacting with other characters in KoA are all voice acted very well and adds to the feeling of great story telling. The sounds while walking around like the water or birds add to the game that much more. Overall it is very enjoying, relaxing and helps make KoA that much better of an experience.

Conclusion:

I highly recommend this game. This could easily be the years best RPG of 2012. If your a fan of RPGS, Skyrim, story telling, action you will highly enjoy this game hands down. Even if your not a fan of the genre there is bound to be something in the game to suit your needs. From the great combat system, the levelling system, customizing options, and the environments, this is a must buy game. If your still unsure be sure to rent it first. Go out and pick a copy of KoA up, you will not be dissapointed.

Four Swords Adventure Anniversary Edition

I would like to add one thing before going on with the review. Just wanted to let everyone know that this game is FREE. If you own a DSi or 3DS then you can download this game from the Nintendo Eshop for free. This game is offered free to the fans as an anniversary gift. As you all may know that this is Zelda's 25th anniversary, therefore, you receive a free game for being a loyal fan.

Gameplay:
This game is not the same game as the original Four Swords Adventure. This game was remade by Nintendo as an anniversary gift to all the Zelda fans. The gameplay is generally the same as in the original game. What I love most about this is the wireless capability. Remember with the original game you needed to play co-op with a bunch of link cables? Well now it's wireless; makes it a lot more fun. Lets start with the general gameplay then we will move onto the multiplayer portion.

Singleplayer:
If you play on singleplayer mode then you will control yourself as well as a secondary link. It plays as any typical Zelda game where you explore dungeons and defeat the boss at the end. With a secondary link you use him to help get through different puzzles that require two people to do it with. Instead of the secondary person you have a second link to control. You can throw him across obstacles and when you need him to hit a switch then you simply press the "L" or "R" buttons to control him. The point in this game is you need to save Princess Zelda once again from the evil Vaati, like in the original. You go through multiple dungeons to unlock keys to open the way to Vaati's castle to save the princess.

As your battling your way to get these keys you are exploring dungeons trying to grab as much rupees as you can. If you acquire a certain amount of rupees then you will unlock something (not going to tell you, will ruin the fun in it). Even when you beat the game you unlock something pretty cool! What I love about the campaign is once you beat Vaati you will unlock the "Forest of Memories". This is a fantastic edition to the game to celebrate the anniversary. The "Forest of Memories" has three levels to it just like all the previous dungeons you went through. What great about this one is you play through levels from the past games. The first one you play is the outside of Hyrule Castle from "A link to the Past" Zelda game. After you beat it you finish it off by going into the castle. The last level is the level from the very first Zelda game ever to come out. After you beat the forest, you unlock one final area.....all I'll say is that it's tough! Bring a friend, in fact bring three.

Multiplayer:
Multiplayer is the exact same thing as the single player. In multiplayer you and a friend, or friends (you can have up to four people play) go through the campaign and you all need to work together to solve a bunch of puzzles to get through the campaign. You and your friends go through and you all compete for rupees. If you end up getting the most rupees you win a medallion and if you get five medallions you unlock something for yourself. I find this game is much more fun with other people. You get angry and most of the time your laughing so hard.

Free gift for Zelda fans!

Graphics:
The graphics in this game are the exact same as the original, but a little bit more updated. The art is well done as well as the environments within the game. Nothing to special about the graphics, just like the original 2D version. Still very nice and crisp animations and graphics.

Have fun with friends!

Audio:
The audio in the game is outstanding. The reason being is because of the fact that every single Zelda song is in the game. From the classical levels all the way to the newer ones. In some way they use all of the music from the previous games. It makes the experience that much more enjoyable for you and your friends, especially if your a fan of the franchise. The audio for everything is nice and crisp, from swinging your sword to throwing your friend around, which is a blast by the way!

Conclusion:
Four Swords Adventure is an outstanding and an addicting game. If your a fan of great cooperative experiences or are a fan of the franchise then I promise you will NOT be dissapointed playing this game. For a free game, it is  very well done. Thank you Nintendo for giving your fans a fantastic game. Why not get this game? It's free!

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Battlefield 3 Beta Multiplayer Review

I myself am not a big fan of Battlefield but I know it is a big game and very hyped up so I am going to do a small review on the multiplayer beta. Remember each section is ONLY regarding the multiplayer beta.

Gameplay:
I am actually impressed with what they allow you to do with the beta. Only one map and one mode is available for the beta but you are able to test and take advantage of all of the unlockable content from ranking up and completing challenges. I personally think they should allow a second map to test out the vehicles as well. They may add it at the end of the beta but I have heard nothing as of yet. So Battlefield 3 is running on a completely new engine as most of you have my noticed. The game is extremely realistic as your running, jumping and even killing enemies. We will talk more about that in the graphics department.
BF3 multiplayer plays the same way as most online FPS's do now. Which is ranking up, and unlocking new items, perks, attachments, etc... What I like about BF3 is that the more you use a specific class the better equipment you will unlock for it. For example, if you only use the assault class and nothing else, you will notice as you kill enemies or accomplish certain challenges with that class you will notice a small experience bar going up with that class. Everytime the experience bar makes it to the end you will unlock something for the class wether is be an ACOG scope or a bipod attachment.

While you are playing you will earn basic experience by killing enemies. You will get 100 per kill. Just like Call of Duty if you do a unique kill or save a team mate or anything along those lines you will be awarded with bonus experience. When you do something say like get 5 headshots in a row you will unlock a ribbon which can be worth 200, 500 or more depending on what challenge you do. Everytime you capture and objective, in the case, defend or destroy the targeted objectives you will also receive experience for that as well.

Anytime you get your experience bar all the way up you will increase your rank. Currently I am ranked 16. The higher your rank the cooler your unlockables will be. Whenever you rank up, the odd rank, you will receive a new gun or new piece of equipment for you to use and customize with your favorite class. Everytime you receive a rank up it will take a little bit more experience everytime you want to go for the next rank.

The mode you are able to play on is called rush. Basically what you do if you defend two objective from being blown up by the enemy team. Each time the two objectives get blown up you get to progress to another area of the map to defend more objectives. As the enemy team your goal is to blow up the objectives to win. With this type of game mode you need a lot of communication. It even helps if your playing with friends. One other thing I would like to mention gameplay wise is the two new features they added. The first one is squads. You can choose to make your own squad with friends or you can opt in to automatically be assigned to a squad. This works well via communication as well as an added option. Say if your entire squad dies except for you. If you can stay out of harms way for a certain amount of time you squad will actually respawn where you are standing. One other feature is the battle log feature. Just like Call of Duty Elite you can track your games, stats, and see recent matches and things your friends have done. Pretty neat.

One more thing about the gameplay is the cons. I understand that this is still in early beta and that is the point of betas is to test out the game and find any bugs or errors. This is my personal list of a few. So generally it is a decent game online, not a personal favorite but it isn't to bad. Some of the bugs I have found is a graphical bug where the screen will randomly flicker while you are turning around or running. Another one that really annoys me is the odd time when you are aiming down your sights, let go of the trigger and try to re aim again, you are unable to do so for a little bit and it sucks while you are in the middle of a fire fight.

Rating: 8/10

Graphics:
So as stated above the graphics to this game are beautiful. They look very realistic and the environments are very well done. What I love most about this is if you throw and grenade or use an explosive near a tree, the tree will actually fall over. Almost everything is destructable in the game so if someone is hiding behind something just blow it up and you will get them. The running and walking animations are top notch. It looks very realistic how an actual person runs and walks. The animations are very well done. The only main issue is that the beta has a few graphical errors which I am sure they will fix up for the release.

Rating: 9/10

Audio:
This is one of my favorite things in BF3. The sounds are so realistic and sound amazing. When you fire a gun it sounds like a gun! When you blow something up, oh yeah, it sounds like an explosive. The running and walking sounds are well done. Even when your running on grass, dirt, water or stone it all sounds realistic. Everything you do in the game as a realistic sound. Overall very impressive.

Rating: 9.5/10

Conclusion:
So as you all know I am not a big Battlefield fan but fair is fair. A lot of people are and this is a really big and hyped game. So I tested the beta and these are my thoughts on the game. Overall the multiplayer from what I have played is pretty impressive. They did a great job of adding in new features and a new engine to the game. Other than a few errors, bugs, and gameplay issues, it is really a great multiplayer experience. I do say this, it is a lot more fun with friends. So make a squad and go have some fun!

Overall Rating: 8.5/10

Star Fox 64 3D Review

Here is another remake of an amazing classic put onto the 3DS system.

Gameplay:
Star Fox 64 3D plays exactly the same as the original for the N64. What I love about this is it is like OoT for the 3DS. What I mean by that is they actually updated the graphics and added new features to the game to keep it refreshing. Now they story overall is very very short. I mean in roughly an hour you can beat the entire story. That is the only issue I really have with it but I will focus on the cons in a bit. Lets talk about the Pro's. Star Fox 64 3D is a great addition to the 3DS system and another great remake. Embark on your journey to destroy Andross, the evil mad scientist. In Story mode you navigate through the different planets or missions and progress through the story. What I like about this is when you beat a mission you don't have to go on a straight path onto the next planet. They added it so when you beat a mission you can go ahead and do an alternate mission instead and progress the other way. Another thing I have always enjoyed about this game is the alternate routed you can unlock in mission. The first mission (Corneria) is a prime example. If you save falco and then fly through the hoops in the water and if you go through all of them Falco will compliment you on your flying and then tell you to follow him. You follow and space ship and go through an alternate route through a waterfall. When you beat the boss in the alternate route you actually unlock the other missions and gives you the opportunity to fight Star Wolf again and go to Venom 2 where you fight a harder version of Andross. The story is the same, missions are the same.

They did add other modes to the games. They added a score attack mode where you pick a mission to go through and it's basically trying to see if you can beat your scores. By score I mean how much enemies you can kill. If you kill a certain amount of enemies you earn medal. Bronze, Silver and Gold.

Another mode is the Battle mode. This mode you can face CPU's or some friend in a battle. There are different modes within battle mode such and score attack, and survival. The only issue I have here is that you can only face friends via DS download play, no online play at all. So battle mode is only fun if you want a small challenge and kill some CPU's.

One thing I should mention in the campaign is that there are two modes to choose from. The modes are Nintendo 3DS mode or Nintendo 64 mode. The Nintendo 3DS mode is a mode that uses the Gyro feature in the 3DS. Which means when you tilt your 3DS you ship will turn that way. You use the gyro and the stick to control your ship. The Nintendo 64 mode is based off of the original gameplay. Standard stick and button gameplay like in the original.

Rating: 8.5/10

Graphics:
Yes, the graphics are and have been improved in Star Fox 64 3D. They updated all of the graphics for the 3DS and it is a very nice update. The environment, characters, effects, ships, etc... is all updated and looks a lot better than the original version and makes the gameplay a little bit more fun to play.

The 3D is also well done. The only issue is if you play on the Nintendo 64 mode and you try to view it in 3D you will be moving your head a lot to see the 3 D effect. If you play with the gyro controls then your head will already be moving with the ship so it keeps the 3D effect. 3D looks great overall and really works for the type of game.

Rating: 9/10

Audio:
Well not much to say about here because the audio is the same as in the original. The music is the same and all of the sound effects are the same as well. They did however update all of the audio to make it sound a lot more crisp and clear. With the graphical update also came with and audio update. The voice acting is terrible (like in the original) and the dialogue still sucks. Also Slippy is as annoying as ever.

Rating: 8.5/10

Conclusion:
Star Fox 64 3D is a wonderful remake for the Nintendo 3DS. I have so happy that you can experience this game again like you did in your childhood. Although a great remake, it also has some flaws. For example the gameplay is way to short, as in 45 minutes then you beat it. The extra modes really do not make up for the short gameplay because your constantly re doing all of the missions which can get pretty boring really fast. If your a Star Fox fan then you will enjoy this game.

Overall Rating: 8.5/10