Recent reviews by MorphineBear

I liked Halo 4 more than 2, 3, ODST, and Reach. Guns have good feedback that makes you feel like your weapons are strong and do a lot of damage (even though some are not powerful). Although no flood, you face more enemies than just the Covenant; however, the new enemies are still Covenant-like. Unlike in Reach, you can both run and hold an ability. There is a lot more vehicle play including driving warthogs, scorpions, banshees, and pelicans.

Wasn't a fan of the multiplayer. A lot of people use controller, and that apparently enables aim assist. I got tired of playing against players who are able to lock on from across the map with a non-sniper gun. Half of the game modes are repetitive and not fun.

Obligatory Score: 8/10

I finished ODST after playing through Halo CE, 2, and 3. ODST was disappointing and nothing like the previous Halo games. No Master Chief or Flood in the story or gameplay.

* The atmosphere and lighting is annoyingly dark and set in a post-apocalyptic-like cityscape, laden with Covenant mobs. The mobs spawn in repetitive waves as you trek across the city - generally by walking down the streets or through empty buildings. Other maps include generic desert hills and long highways.
* There's a yellow filter, no idea why. Can't decide if the graphics look worse than Halo 3.
* The dialogue and writing is different than the other Halo games, with small quips and jokes. "Make sure she's got balls."
* The music has some ill-fitting sound that doesn't fit with the dark atmosphere or in the action sequences. It's "jazz-inspired" apparently.
* The HUD (and TAB menu) has a compass and map. The flashlight was removed and replaced with a night-vision-like visor that highlights enemies, allies, and objectives. This will be used all game, except in open spaces in direct sunlight. At the same time, it can hardly illuminate the insides of buildings. It's unnecessary because Bungie could have kept the flashlight in the game and still highlight items and objectives on the HUD w/o a toggle-able visor.
* Gun damage and effectiveness were changed again. ODST has mostly the same weapons as Halo 3, but with a light and weak SMG as the starter. Pistol and Plasma Pistol do less damage in each Halo game.

Could go on, but I won't.

Obligatory Score: 4/10

Halo CE is iconic but this port/remake is really hard to like.

The visuals look amazing and I love the ability to switch between old and new graphics. The story of Halo: CE strongly reminds me of the Star Wars Original Trilogy and features a variety of different maps and level designs.

I'm giving this a thumbs down though, due to a consistent FATAL ERROR game crash that appears to be widespread in Halo CE and possibly the rest of the MCC games. The crashes occurred occasionally throughout my playthrough and started to happen every single time I resumed my gameplay as I neared the end of the story. I'd be able to "play" about a minute before the program crashes; I was lucky (and persistent) enough to keep playing and hit a few checkpoints to progress my gameplay to actually finish the game.

Obligatory Score: 8/10, if I ignore the god ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ awful crashing.

Note: Didn't try multiplayer and Cortana is a badass.

Update: As of July 31, I've played through Halo 2 and roughly half of Halo 3 without problems. Not sure why Halo CE is so bug-ridden.

CoD WWII is a typical Call of Duty game, but it is also the first game I've ever played that made me genuinely impressed by rendered game graphics. The cutscenes look really good.

The campaign revolves around a platoon (led by 2-time Daytime Emmy Award nominee and 1997 Male Model of the Year Josh Duhamel, star of the Michael Bay blockbuster hit, Transformers) in WW2 that starts at the Normandy Beach landings and continues to the liberation of the concentration camps. By tradition, most levels are Michael Bay-esque FPS duck-and-cover maps with a few driving or flying levels sprinkled in for diversity. The player can pick up several iconic weapons used during this period and also request for assistance from teammates via health and ammo packs, air strikes, and enemy identification (all of which have cooldowns). There is a cover system that is simple: the player leans left/right if near an edge or above a barrier if not.

Obligatory Score: 8/10

Multiplayer is ok, hate nazi zombies.

Short puzzle game where you ask "demon girls" to join your posse. There are 9 puzzles that are simple, yet challenging and can be solved by pushing rocks and kicking skeletons. There's a limit on the number of moves you can make to solve each one. Near the end, you have to act quick to avoid moving chains that hurt you if you stand underneath.

Visual style is interesting. Music is pretty neat.

Divide By Sheep is a puzzle game that requires you to carefully move sheep across islands and into the safety raft. Each island has a capacity it can hold and if you move too many sheep to one, the extras will die. Further on, you see other obstacles like wolves that eat and take up space of sheep on the islands. There are 120 levels so you will have plenty to scratch your head at.

Emotional game about two scientists tasked with changing a man's memories.

Great game and very heavy on the story. Dialogue is funny and often parodies pop culture. Only gripes are the poor UI, controls (lack of controls), and locked resolution.

To the Moon and Finding Paradise are both very good games.

Obligatory Score: 9/10

Medal of Honor is a boring first person shooter that seems like a cheap knockoff of the first 2 Call of Duty Modern Warfare games. The story is uninteresting and the setting is mostly just sand or snow. You run from Point A to B while some guys yell at you to keep up and not give up. They tell you exactly what to do and you follow. You hide behind some wall, shoot, then hide some more.

There's hardly any variety of weapons and you'll hardly ever want to switch to a shotgun or pistol, 2 of the main alternatives since enemies will kill you within a few shots from far away. The most fun you'll get is playing the on-rails helicopter mission and the one where you're on an ATV (similar to the one in Modern Warfare 2).

Game is not fun and very repetitive. It's also like 4 hours long. You shoot and kill Taliban soldiers but you might as well be shooting at rocks because the game's so uninteresting.

Obligatory Score: 3/10

I've been meaning to play this for years as it sat in my Steam library. I just played through to some point in Episode 4 (of 6). It's a story driven game that revolves around writer Alan Wake and his wife taking a vacation when his wife suddenly disappears. You, as Alan Wake, realize that her disappearance has something to do with this book that you "forgot" you wrote. This book, that you don't remember writing, takes the form of the Taken, a bunch of ghostly people and wind that attacks you as you wander around and figure out what happened to your waifu.

The dialogue in this game is so bad, I can't tell if it's satire (it probably was, I wasn't paying full attention to the story). He narrates his thoughts and a lot of them are observations of what's going on in the story that we just went through. Why? I'm playing the game, he doesn't have to tell me what he sees... again. There was a scene where Alan Wake watches his friend run off to a barn; later when he sees a car leave said barn, he says something along the lines of: that farm is where he just left from, but I'm not sure if it is him and it's headed in my direction. The voice acting isn't great either so the way he says it sounds so dumb.

The gameplay is incredibly repetitive. Alan Wake uses a flashlight to damage the Taken before shooting them. I'd guesstimate that about 3 quarters of the game so far is running through a dark forest and having enemies spawn in front or behind you. The forest is open, allowing you to sometimes just run away from enemies to get to the next checkpoint. You'll hear this one ghost guy shouting literally random things all throughout the game.

I love the premise of it. Seems really unique. The execution is awful.

Obligatory Score: 4/10

Note: There's something funky going on with the mouse control. In one scene, Alan Wake could be doing 360s in his sleep, in other scenes it'll go back to its normal speed.

Full disclosure: I completed this game solo.

Zombie Army Trilogy is a horror game that is a spinoff of the Sniper Elite series, which I like. You play as a sniper who must defeat Hitler as he triggers his "Plan Z" near the end of WWII. His plan is to resurrect dead soldiers and take over the world.

There are many of zombies in this game but not many different types; the Sniper Elite Wikia shows 13 in total including Hitler, and 3 or so of said zombies are just harder variants of other types. The typical enemies you will face are slow, weak, and easy to defeat zombies or skeletons that are killed with a shot to the heart. Both of these, and the ghostly variant zombie, will die in one hit or kick. The "boss" zombies are usually only around once or twice per level (15 levels in the trilogy) and are formidable opponents if unprepared. They generally have a lot of HP, deal a decent amount of damage, and are bunched up with dozens of one-hittables. Some have the ability to spawn extra zombies, shoot from a distance, or chase after you with a chainsaw.

Now, I would consider myself a good FPS player with good aim and for that reason, I didn't find this game to be very fun. In most situations, a swarm of zombies would rise up from the ground and the player has to defend some area or building. A majority will be the low HP ones and fall very quickly. In a few seconds, a huge zombie army will turn into a tiny zombie army with only elites remaining. This isn't an interesting fight anymore. To defeat the elites, all I need to do is hide behind something and shoot heads.

Zombie Army 1 and 2 are full of these moments. Even while playing on Sniper Elite (hardest difficulty) solo, I rarely ran out of ammo (never ran out with the sniper). The ammo crates are plentiful and the developers allowed for players to choose any gun (except for the specialty shotgun and panzerfaust). This includes the zombie sniper's own gun, the Gewehr 43, arguably the best sniper in the game. It felt very repetitive in gameplay through both campaigns. Areas were small and slow-mo shots did not feel as rewarding as hitting a shot from very far away.

Zombie Army 3 was better. Levels were more creative and the setting changed slightly away from just running through a city or subway tunnel. It was also more difficult and took many tries to get to the end but gameplay was still very lacking.

In all, I wouldn't recommend playing solo. In a sense, I don't think this game really emphasizes the sniper at all. There weren't any situations where I had to time my shot right to make something explode and trigger a cutscene. I didn't have to predict where my enemies were moving. In many cases, I didn't even have to account for wind, like the game said. I shot, and if I missed, I adjusted based on where the bullet landed.

Obligatory Score: 5/10 when playing solo