Fight on Men, FIGHT!... hey why am I the only one who's killing them?

Hoo-boy. I haven't had time to do anything in the past month so far with work, which has been killing me. Suffice to say, I've had little time to play games, and even then, those games I've been playing were completed in no-time. I'll start off with what I picked up.







Frontlines: Fuel Of War

I originally bought the game primarily because I was intrigued by the plot. The world's oil supplies have all but dried up, and the nations of the world, after setting their allegiances now get ready to start World War III over the Caspian, but after speaking to a friend who had it as well, opted to return it for a refund. I ended up renting the game, and boy was I glad I got my money back. That's not to say it's a terrible game by any means, it just wasn't my cup of tea. The single-player campaign was a let down, especially since it was a single player version of "Battlefield". I guess they were trying to make the missions more open-ended, that there are multiple ways to complete an objective, but while great in theory, it never pans out in the finished product, and my AI teammates are of no help. They're pretty much there to be a part of the ambience, while you have to go commando and take out everyone. Even the driving sequences can be frustrating as the AI tank s on your side turn out to be non-existant as all the enemies have all their gunsight trained on you, and they don't even take advantage of that. They just roll around doing little or nothing in the way of completing the objective. The final mission was a huge letdown as well, as my squad suddenly disappeared and I ended up having to defend a particular square by myself while huge counterattack was underway. I assume this is a multiplayer game, I only say assume because I wasn't able to actually connect to any games for some reason when I did want to experience it. All in all, barely worth the 8 bucks I spent. I do have hopes that the sequel they make (which will probably happen considering the cliffhanger at the end) will be a big improvement over the original.



Army Of Two

Army of Two, now this was a game that I had been anticipating for a while. I had dreamed about 2 player co-op for a while now, and this game had me drooling at the prospect of playing with friends of mine in order to complete the game. Sadly, this was not to happen, as once again I had been struck down by Nofriendsboughtthegameitis. I ended up playing the game solo, and while it was fun, it was alot shorter than I expected, and looking back on it now, I should have saved the money for something better. That's not to say it's a terrible game, in fact, there were moments in the game where I found it to be fun, but I'm pretty sure this game was more focused on getting a friend to play with you split screen or through xbox live, as it just wasn't as fun playing with the AI. I ended up playing it in the spare moments I had, which as it turns out, was more than enough, finished it and traded it in towards store credit. I had even gotten the gamertag of one of the people at my local gamestop so I could play with him, but by then the game to end all games came out. Yeah you guessed it:








Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Yep, Nintendo's brawler came out last week, and just my luck, practically everyone I knew got it, and while I had a copy of the game I wasn't able to play it since my Wii was in Canada. Le sigh. This one is sitting comfortably in my closet. It wasn't a total loss though in terms of gaming though, as my one bright spot in this dreary month was in the form of:








God Of War: Chains of Olympus

Kratos on the PSP. Need I say more? This game was a bit short, as I clocked in just over 7 hours playtime, but it was a magical 7 hours. I had some doubts how a God of War game on the PSP would be, but I was (happily) mistaken. This game alone justified the purchase of the PSP I made all those years ago, and while the PSP does have quite a few gems, this is probably the best PSP game ever, if not best handheld game I've played in a long time. The only real issues I have with the game is that sometimes the AI enemies will not attack and just stand there, especially the ranged units. I'm not sure if that was a bug, or due to something else, but regardless, it didn't take anything away from the game. My only regret is that I didn't have anything better to listen to the soundtrack to the game. God of War has always had a great score to accompany their games and this one was no exception, unfortunately I had to use the PSP's internal speakers, which didn't convey the rich music that occurred during the game.





Lost Odyssey:

Only just started playing this, but considering this game is made from the creators of Final Fantasy, with major players in that franchise's success contributing to this game, not only was I excited at what they were going to offer, but also to have a chance at seeing them work their magic on this title. After playing an hour or two, I can say that I'm not disappointed by the game by any means. It's a great game, and it's easy to see the influence that Final Fantasy has played, and they've taken the good parts of that franchise and put it in this game, but at the same time this can also be something of a negative. Other than the story line, which is unique, the rest of the game seems to be very similar, if not the same as a FF title, even down to the main character who could pass off as a woman if he ever decided to dress up as one. Even the battles are very FF-esque, although there are some differences here and there. I guess having my character kick trash cans or rip off posters to reveal hidden items is different from FF, but there's alot in the game that's just in the mold of what the creators of Lost Odyssey did when they worked at Square-Enix. I just thought they (Mistwalker) would try to set themselves apart from FF saying "What we did with Final Fantasy was great, but we moved on from that, and we can do bigger and better things". Similarities of LO and FF aside, it's an enjoyable game so far. It's a massive game as well, coming on 4 dvds. I look forward to spending some free time going through the story, which I will add, is quite depressing so far. Finally we come to:








Tales Of The Abyss

I can't say much about this game, since I've yet to play it, and I have no PS2 for which I can play it on, but I've heard some good things about this title, and I did pick it up used for a fairly decent price at my local Gamestop.


Well, that's about it for this post. I'll catch you all later. Since no one reads this anyways I don't have to worry about another long delayed post. :)