Recent reviews by AltEnding

Poorly optimised for the PC, you need to mess about with the gamma lighting to get it to run properly. That aside the game is decent. You play as both the Master Chief and the Arbiter, a kind of Master Chief for the Covenant. Both are fighting the Flood and trying to stop the Prophets initiating HALO. You have to stop it all.

Graphics and cut scenes have been updated in the Anniversary edition, but it still looks quite dated. Level design is fairly linear with regular checkpoints to restart from, but there are different playstyles available with a large array of weapons. Some are more effective on certain types of enemy than others and you need to learn which. Also headshots or weapon strikes are more effective than just body shots and the draw distance is exceptional if you fancy finding a spot to strike from distance. Too remote for you? No problem, the power sword melee weapon is superb if you prefer to use stealth and slash.

In all there is much to commend the game, there are fewer hold the fort levels like the original HALO, but the story arc is rather plain and lacks any intrigue. There are also some levels that require motorised transport and they take a little getting used to. If you don't take it get ready for a long difficult walk and that difficulty can become almost unmanageable if you do not heed the advice to avoid fights in levels where the Flood are fighting the Covenant. Sometimes it's better to let the battle play out a bit before leaping in.

Mastering a combination of weapons are required to succeed at HALO 2 and grenades are just as important as your preferred holster weapon. On occasion though if you fail to clear a room then you can be caught in a pincer as you enter then next stage, knowing when to enter the fight and when not to are not always clear.

There are terminals hidden in each level that flesh out the story arc and 'skulls' that add character buffs, but neither are needed to complete the game and given they are hidden and some sections of the map simply spawn a new breed when you have killed all of those who first came at you, it makes searching around for them a death sentence of reducing ammo at times.

HALO 2 may well have garnered critical praise upon release in 2004 with Metacritic giving it a 95% rating, but it is only a decent shooter these day and with so many games and time often in short supply, you might be better off spending time elsewhere. You certainly should not be buying this for the regular $10 price tag, but it it a soilid recommendation at the regulare sale price of around $3.50, so wait for that and then dive in. All in all HALO 2 is a solid game with decent level design and enough variety in gameplay to keep you going to the end, which will probably be about 11 hours later, but that does not include the absurdly long level loading times on PC. It seems they've kept 2004 processing power for that.

L.A. Noire is a visually beautiful police procedure. You are assigned cases and sweep crime scenes for clues. You interview suspects, and connections and through the results of your interviews and clue finding you gradually unravel more locations, more suspects until you solve the case. The game follows your characters progression through the various case desks of the LAPD in the late 1940s. Along the way you take in the Black Dahlia case and in a dlc episode a connection to Howard Hughes and his 'Spruce Goose' mammoth airplane.

The game is almost completely linear. You can fail interviews entirely and imprison the wrong guy, but it doesn't make any difference to your progression. At first this can seem like a glorified method of delivering a graphic story and in some ways it is, but the character modelling is outstanding and the acting is top draw. The NPCs have real and very different characters and you end up liking and disliking much about them, ultimately developing a camaraderie with many.

The city of 1940s Los Angeles is beautifully rendered for you to drive around from interview to interview and case to case to, but if you don't want to or if this get tedious you can fast travel to destinations by asking your partner to drive. There are occasions when you will have to drive and either tail vehicles or chase them down.

There are a series of WW2 weapons to use, pistol, automatic rifle, flame thrower and so on to use. There are no upgrades but as you successfully complete cases it unlocks new outfits which come with player buffs to the aim of gun types and even resilience in a knuckle fight...and yes you do have to slug it out when running down some suspects. Draw distance and collision detection in all of these scenarios are good and you can nail shots from a good distance away, but depending on your weapon you won't make every shot from the longest distances. There's a variety of game play, from car and suspect chases, to shoot outs and hostage situations to voluntarily respond to as well as dozens of cars to tick off as having driven. You have to balance, climb, use discovered evidence to crush suspects in interviews and sometimes solve puzzles to progress. All in all there is enough to keep you interested here in a game that will take some 25 hours to complete with the dlc.

Your character is flawed and bothered by his past in the marines fighting the Japanese and all of this plays into his character and helps push the narrative on to its denouement which is well disguised and delivered. This game is like living a movie where you make the choices and it's a tremendous experience that is rarely replicated in games.

The liner nature and the slightly superfluous nature of your actions are the only thing that undercut the experience and if it wasn't for the outstanding writing and voice acting, it wouldn't be half the game it is. That said it isn't a fast game and won't be for everyone, but if you can get past these flaws then you are in for an enjoyable and immersive story.

L.A.Noire was a tremendous success upon release, shipping 4 million units in the first month of release, a planned follow up game never materialised as the feeling was L.A. Noire had taken too long to develop, but who knows, maybe one day we'll see a follow up to the IP. Regularly available through the year for about $7 at sale times.

This was an effort to reboot the series by Electronic Arts and try to compete with Activision's CoD series. It worked and sold 3.5 million copies in a fortnight; the follow-up title Warfighter was a commercial zombie though, prompting an EA earnings call in mid 2013. And that is pretty much all we've seen of the series in 13 years, bar a lone VR release in 2020.

And it is a shame because this is a very good FPS. The Campaign all revolves around a single mission over two days that goes wrong and leaves a SEAL team in need of rescue. You play various roles in the story, from one of the SEALS to a sniper, a spotter, a helicopter gunship pilot and other roles. Largely it is cover and move with standard infantry weapons, pistol, assault rifle, sniper rifle all with a variety of scopes. There are no perks, levels or upgrades; the game plumbs more for somewhere between realism and action and the graphics still look decent in a Battlefield: Bad Company way. You have to forgive some of the interpretations though, as you can get hit multiple times with RPGs or gunships and you don't die. From a fun game play standpoint that's a good thing. Too much realism will kill you every time.

Enemy AI is varied, they are hopelessly prone to being flanked and the game usually funnels you to a semi-open area where you can do this to pass through enemy camps. If you do not take cover in these situations and attack head on, you can get picked off pretty quickly out in the open. And yet at other times someone can stand right behind you and shoot you repeatedly with little damage and there are occasionally some glitches with people getting stuck falling through as pole.

The game largely runs on rails and pushes you from one designated area to another for a cut scenes. It is engaging and the graphics are good enough to make you feel immersed, that story plays out in a fairly meaningless manner until near the end which it delivers well.

You will need to switch between night vision and regular at various points throughout the game, but usually your buddies will direct you with audio, if you pay attention. They also warn of the direction of threat, grenades and where to push up two. If you do pay attention then these NPC buddies works well with you and you do feel part of a well oiled combat team.

The trouble is that Medal of Honor felt their route back to success was to emulate Call of Duty and they take the likeness too far. It is almost indistinguishable from CoD and EA found themselves unable to maintain the quality and annual iterations of that series. The main campaign here is short at 4-5 hours and whilst it is clearly intended as an advert for multiplayer, that died in 2023. Leaving it simply too short to justify anything like a full price purchase. If you can get it for the regular sale price of $3 to $4 then you'll enjoy yourself.

Stalker: Call of Pripyat is the third and closing episode of the first STALKER iteration. Published in 2009, it is looking a bit dated now. The graphics are ill defined and blocky but there are still aspects of the game that are due credit. The weather effects are amazing. From the near constant rain to the lighting at night all work to enhance the sense that this is a real living world. It is still impressive to see that carry on around you. Bodies continue to lie on the ground where you shot them throughout the game. You will pass firefights close by you between various factions of man vs beast. It is immersive in that sense., but the graphics no longer hold up in the general sense.

Amongst the irritants of super accurate AI enemies,, the most irritating thing is that there is no fast travel to places you have been. Consequently you will be doing a lot of walking and there's an element of back and forth across the three areas if you want to do the side missions. All very tedious.

That aside, the story is a better one than Clear Sky and ties up the series nicely. Weapons and ammo are plentiful and there isn't really any need to pay for upgrades to comfortably complete the mission and in fact grenades are the most useful weapon against all enemies. There isn't much variety in enemy class and there isn't really one that is overly powerful.

It's a good length game, you should get about 15-25 hours out of it depending on the time you plunge into side quests. None of which seem particularly worthwhile to the main story. At this length it's decent and somewhat captivating, any longer and the dated nature and style of the game would have started to grate on me. Whilst better than Clear Sky, the series has lost it's zing on me by this third game and times have moved on.

Regularly on sale for under $5 it's worth a look, but stick to the main quest line. Beyond that there are now far better ways to spend your time and money.

These day my machine definitely runs Crysis 2. Maximum graphics...it still is though, and the set pieces are huge as the battle against the Ceph moves to New York City. So good in fact, that the Australian Navy used the CryEngine 3 on which the game was developed for training their helicopter pilots.

A flimsy storyline seem the story pick up from the first game three years on where Prophet promptly dies and give you the suit and charge you with ending the invasion before the US government authorise a nuclear attack on Manhattan Island. Each of the 19 missions offers a variety of approaches to the ultimate target, but in the end you are funnelled to a boss point or goal point. You can stealth, snipe, run and gun or cover shoot your way through the levels and you are prompted to view and choose high ground or the cover of the low ground and these options are prompted for you early in the level stages. This means you can adopt a variety of playstyles and switch between them at any point in the level.

The enemy AI is pretty good, once you fire on them those in the sight line will ping your location and not just open fire, but will move towards you. This means you will have to move, plan and react to the battle and you will have lots of battles. Levels usually consist of some narrow manoeuvring before opening up into a larger field of play with these larger set pieces in.

There is a good range of weapons, but with limited ability to customise. Quite often is a very CoD way the weapon you need is conveniently laid out at the position you are supposed to use it from. So there's some hand holding that lessons the thrill of the win a little. The difficulty level is a little low overall, given these are the people who made the original Far Cry. The draw distance on sniping and bazookas is good and there is flash and destabilising recoil on some of the large weapons meaning you have to be careful with your aim. Generally these things are pretty good, but there is a lack of proper kick in the sound for some of these weapons and the ability to customise them with points earned through combat, seems to have little impact on the weapon operation.

The music score that accompanies the game is top notch which goes a long way to adding to the rising tension as you approach those set pieces in each level. The voice acting for the NPCs are poor on the whole, but do not spoil things because the story is utter balls and holds little interest. The side characters who try to help you are quickly cast aside two thirds through and were never really developed anyway. Who cares? Character and story are not the reason we buy an FPS. The gradual Ceph takeover and destruction of the city however is a great development to observe as the game chugs on to its conclusion. .

And development is something that seems tightly under control on Crysis 2. You can use points (earned from killing Ceph) to upgrade your suit, but you will likely only be able to choose one route of upgrade to max out over the course of the game. However this seems to have little overall impact on things as the enemies scale with you in a relative sense. The disappointment here is that there never come a point (as there usually is in FPS games) when you have clawed your way to enough XP to become overpowered and reach that awesome god-like status to be able to scythe through opponents. Some people consider this a flaw in FPS games and if that's you, then you will be pleased at the scaling of the games difficulty, but I think reaching this point is often one of the most enjoyable parts of an FPS. In Crysis 2 however, the pace and level of opposition feels pretty constant all the way through. It only just qualifies for a moderate dropout rate on 'How Long to Beat' with 6.1% quitting the game and the difficulty of the game overall seems a little low, with the emphasis placed on action rather than challenge.

I played the Maximum Edition, which was just a repackaging with additional multiplayer maps, skins and a couple of additional weapons. Overall this had enough of a grand scale, with great graphics backed up by an awesome soundtrack to make for a great game experience. It was not quite the thrill and novelty of the first one, but more than enough to keep you going to the end. In all Crysis 2 should take you about 15 hours to play, There are collectables strewn about levels and music and extras to unlock, but the bear no relation to the story and don't benefit your loadout, so I'm not sure why anyone would bother.

These days your machine runs Crysis and this second instalment is certainly worth a look if you enjoyed the first.

Believe the reviews this game is terrible.

The title relates to the three roles you play in various missions. There are sniper missions, stealth ones (ghost) and run and gun ones (warrior). The only type that is any good are the sniper missions.

The 'Warrior' missions are terrible for a variety of reasons; the clunky hit detection means you will sometimes get stuck trying to run away from fire as you turn the corner of stairs or a vehicle. It also means you can unload a full clip of 20 bullets 15 yards in front of an enemy and they don't drop, they just keep firing at you and soak up the bullets. The draw distance is terrible and you struggle to see where enemies are and with only iron sights available in the 'warrior' sections it's a pretty big deal. All in all these elements make the run and gun parts the worst part or the game and deeply frustrating at times as you are mown down by unseen enemies who simply refuse to die. There are multiple ways to approach enemies and places from which to shoot from and you will die a lot trying to find where this is. In some games this is part of the puzzle, in this game it's just an annoyance to have to replay terrible levels, under terrible conditions over and over.

The Ghost sections can work quite well, but the exercise simply becomes a crouched walking game and you need only dispatch a couple of enemies at point blank range with a pistol as you walk round the back of buildings or hug the edge of the game map. If you stick to this several levels can be completed in 15 minutes. However, you don't have to do this at all if you don't want to...you can simply snipe people which is way more fun. Although there are several levels that have an alarm system and if you try to take out any more than a group of three it usually results in an alarm and you restart the level. There are checkpoints on some of these missions but they can be quite far apart and a raised alarm from a guy you shot in the back is deeply irritating when you then have to restart the level.

The Sniper section is by far the best and frankly the only reason to play the game. It works quite well with Max Payne style bullet style, allowing you to take out sometimes as many as five enemies at once if you are quick enough and accurate enough. There are missions when you are the spotter and some where you are the sniper. Lots of tower action and covering team members from distance and these work well. It is still a beautiful sight to see a perfect headshot bullet time visual as the camera soars across the valley following your bullet. Having a record shot distance would have been nice and encouraging to try more of these, but no, instead they actually managed to make you dislike bullet time as the game goes on because if you are trying to dispatch more than one enemy at a time the last thing you want is your second shot interrupted by watching the first one glide to its target. Inevitably when this happens you curse, the second guy gets away, the alarm is raised and you restart the level. Great! Don't aim for headshots is the lesson learned. Shame.

The story is absurd with a hopeless plot twist half way through that literally makes not difference and the motivation for you and all characters is as simple as a single line. The writers didn't came and neither do you. All in all the clunky graphics, simple sound and poor gameplay make this something to miss. There are much better sniper games out there, to I suggest you ghost this game and go be a warrior elsewhere, time is precious people, don't waste it here.

By far the best Bioshock. Like a modern day diesel car, this has is the height of engineering for the series. Wonderful levels, a story that engrosses, keeps you guessing and adds to the lore. A difficulty ramp that is perfectly pitched and a whole stack of plasmids and gene tonics to find and earn, all of which is wrapped up with a poignant ending in a 6 hour adventure. This is near FPS perfection.

Space Marine is a good solid third person shooter with an excellent melee system incorporated. It doesn't do anything special, but there is a nice blend of ranged weapons and melee combat that make for options and emphasis in play styles. Although set in the Warhammer 40K universe there is no prerequisite knowledge of this to enjoy the game and enjoy it you will. You set down upon an world invaded by Orcs, with a mission to save a special weapon and the facility to build it. This world is under siege and you are going to secure it until support arrives. The first half of the game revolves around repelling the Orc invasion and restoring the battle weary defenders and their capabilities. Then the Chaos forces arrive and the story takes a turn, with it so does the combat, leaning more into ranged weapons, good use of movement and the 'fury' mode and well placed melee executions to restore health. Manage all of this and you will navigate the game.

Progress through the game is linear and there are not open routes to completion of levels or task, but boss fights open out into arenas that offer some variety of tactics. Draw distance is good, despite things fuzzing and blurring at distance. There is some clunkiness with collision detection in the foreground as you move your character around and you can get stuck on the corner of a collision box that's not actually visible as you seek quick movement around cover in some fights. This is an age old frustration in shooters and is one of the slight drawbacks here, but it is minor because the game encourages you to move into combat and this is the most successful approach until the latter stages calls for a more reserved and combined set of tactics. It is not a terribly difficult game until the final boss fight. The drop out rate on 'How Long to Beat' is only a moderate 5% and I'll warrant this probably only occurs at the end of the game.

Visuals are outstanding in this game. You will stop and marvel at the architecture and sheer scale of the 40K universe as you transition from one battle area to another and the 3D camera allows you to move around and take some epic screenshots of your character in some moments. What is also excellent is the voice acting and a reasonable story to back it us, but it is the charisma of the central character you play - Captain Titus, that really makes your experience fly in this game. He is the perfect image of leader and hero and you really start to root for him. In all a good game that whets the appetite for Space Marine II and the return of Cpt Titus later this year.

Currently offered at the inflated price of $60 as interest in the sequel grows it appears on sale with a discounted price of 85% off and can be picked up for about $8 and at that price it is certainly worth it, so stick it on the wish list. That said, records show that twice as many people have this game on their backlog as have actually completed it. Either way it's time you picked up your chain sword for a bloody ride in the name of the Emperor.

Bulletstorm is a an FPS on rails (there's only ever really one way to go) and uses cover shooter principles to regenerrate health. There are no med packs to collect or buy here and the only thing you can upgrade are your weapons. The main character looks like Slaine the Barbarian from 2000AD, but acts like Jack Black on amphetamines, with the cringy gags to go with it. You play this character - Grayson or Grey for short and the game essentially revolves around you leading a small group of ex-assassins against your former Boss and his army standing between you and him. The initial couple of scenes don't really matter and I'm not sure you can even die in them. There is little training to be undertaken, despite the rather cool laser whip you are given early on and it all speaks to the intuitive and basic nature of the controls game.

Bulletstorm has a secondary meta-objective despite the 'get your boss' storyline and that is to make and find as many different ways to kill your enemies as you can. The more of these you do the more 'skill points' you receive and this is the currency of the game than will buy you ammo and upgrades at 'Dropboxes' scattered at the start of each level and key regenerative points. And there are plenty of creative ways to kill opponents, only rarely in the set pieces might you run out of ammo, but if you do then you are using it wrong and need to rethink your game plan and weapons choice. Usually you are given hints at the weapon to use by drop cases just before you need them, they are full of the ammo you should use for the imminent boss encounter. That aside, you'll probably develop a knack with certain weapon combinations and prefer those and sufficiently upgraded they will work to the end of the game in combination with your laser rope.

The story is over the top and a bit naff to begin with, but you soon get into it and there are some character developments and nice plot twists. One gripe is the simplistic nature of it, being a PC port. The final combat scene against the end boss is just a combination of button pushes at prompted intervals to win the final battle. The weapons on offer are a standard variety, machine gun, shotgun, sniper rifle, grenade bomb thrower and so on. They are nothing special and there is little different in reload time on the heavier ones, but they do carry less ammo, so the standard measure of power vs shot number (rather than re-fire rate) is used to temper weapon selection. This works well because the levels are well designed with wide open areas having limited cover, crowded areas, multi-levelled areas where you or the enemy can significantly have the high ground and close, narrow short corridors. Obviously these various elements favour different weapons, the shot gun in the corridor, precise shooting to hit some enemies in specific places, etc and the levels will always require you to use a combination of levels to best get through it, meaning you can't rely on one gun and perfect its mechanics alone to succeed at this game.

Overall though, Bulletstorm has a solid mechanic - the use of the laser rope and the movable cruise missile of bullet time at it's core and runs smoothly with no crashes on a modern rig. It is accompanied by a loud and ripping metal backtrack throughout and the tension is nicely ramped up at various occasions to harness that 'just one more level' desire.

Great game, thoroughly recommended.

ALPHA PROTOCOL is a bit dated graphically and the AI enemies are sometimes terrible in their actions. They are all too aggressive, meaning you can make a noise from a good cover location and they will come to you, making things easy.

The RPG elements are fairly standard but putting points into health and primary weapons seems to be about all you need to do, unless you want to try and stealth the game. There are bonuses to gain from conversations as well as penalties for continued actions that annoy a character, but they make little difference. There are also some pretty standard upgrade elements to purchase with money found through scouring rooms during the game. Push all this into armour and you'll be fine. The RPG side of the game has only a small impact on things and you still have a fairly linear shooter with people helping you in missions who shouldn't. Character choices will influence who is on hand to help you in the final missions, but again, I doubt it really matters who the AI assistant is.

The shooter part of the game is a fairly basic cover shooter system and this too suffers from a lack of complexity and some glitches in enemy AI. If you equip yourself with a rifle of some sorts and a close quarters weapon then you will be fine, whatever happens. There are multiple ways to targets sometimes, but it isn't widespread. On the plus side the draw distance and long range shooting is excellent and the missions are engaging enough to be called enjoyable. Although the story is fairly hollow and I don't really care about the people in it or what kind of character I'm playing. There are different endings depending on actions and choices in the game, but it isn't that good a game that I'm bothered to discover what they are.

Overall this is a rather simple RPG and a rather simple Cover shooter FPS put together and the experience is decent enough. It has the overall feel of a sequel to Project Snowblind and on a discount is worth the 12-15 hours you'll put into it. I just about recommend it.

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