FORTRESSCRAFT



Fortresscraft released on xbox 360 2011 by an Indi and Triple A devolper Djarcas fortresscraft was inspired by minecraft and dwarfen kingdom and was released on Xbox live march this year.

Fortresscraft is a creation building block game you may say a totall copy to Minecraft however it is much different than you may expect why is because of the beautiful graphics it has to offer and the free build creation game for anyone to create world's for whatever they see fit fortresscraft.

Main Gameplay
Having spoke to the creator Djarcas and more the game is Updated regularly so it wont get boring any time soon with new updates coming rach time the game is great fun and releaxing if you wonna be alone or even if you like to build and have fun like me this is the game for you fortresscraft's main game is great and just gets better since DAY 1 so this is the game for you if you like building and creating in ACTION !

HD Graphics
HD graphics Fortresscrat was created with amazing HD graphics and fits well with the game and provids great looks to you're massive creations than just what to look at these graphics can also be reduced and set to old sorta Graphics and you can change them to however you like.

Weapons and More
the way you can build in this game will vairy because their is such a wide varity which helps in so many ways in game for instance building caves to suit you're needs can be done easy by the Lil digger or Building quickly with the Lil placer yes their are many more weapons such as the pickaxe and the new copy and paste feature that allows you to build somthing and making it easier than just building it again is copy and paste.

Crafting and Block usage
their are different types of ways to to create and build in game and crafting is the big bet at the end of the line with great types of blocks you can create from scratch with the crafting table the possibilitys are endless Deail is no longer needed this game brings that need to reaility not only that you can easy change it usage to , Beamitter,Factory,Wind,RandomiseFacing , Invisbile, Minecarts and more.

Online Features and Online play
fun free and great well if you have xbox live gold that is but the game has offering to if people can edit you're worlds or Just simply Join and if you wonna be alone Blocked. It also has a Ban hammer to when you want to kick people from your game and a feature to were people like your world you are able to unlock rewards and show off to your freinds.

Crafting Online Main play weapons HD graphics
fortresscraft is a great game and really fun to play however some parts of the game can lead to dissapointment such as many of you would mainly like Texture packs such as ones created on Minecraft Fortresscraft dosent work like that and wont be available to change in game joining games online such as boosters for games and lag difficulties , and game crashes you may have to get use to it because it happens mainly alot and according to its only an indi game I say its a fair deal. At times crafting may be difficult and tiring and can get very easily boring quite quickly depeding on you're patience. However these are only minor for such a wide variaty of what fortresscraft really is thank


And to give it a fair rating I would rate it
7.5-8/10

-T1GER404



Fortrescraft is available on Xbox Live Now for Just 240MSP equal to 3 $4 and keeps getting updated
each time or download the demo Now Free and takes about 5-25 seconds to download.

I may add a video speaking to Djarcas don't know just yet?

Batman Arkham City Review

Sometimes reviewers can't see the forest for the trees. When I finished Batman: Arkham City, I immediately cataloged what I thought it did wrong. It tossed in too many villains and didn't flesh them out, it clearly tried to replicate the Scarecrow stuff from the first game and didn't do it as well, and Batman still moves a bit stiffly when simply walking around. When I formed the list, I found myself disappointed with the game. But the days rolled on and I couldn't stop playing -- in fact, I only wanted to play more. The hundreds of things Batman: Arkham City nails outweighed my nitpicky problems. I realized Batman: Arkham City is a brilliant game.

Fans of the Batman: Arkham Asylum will immediately be at home in Arkham City as developer Rocksteady took the core gameplay, refined it, and polished it. You brawl with one button, counter with another and leap when you feel like it. Batman's got a slew of new counter attacks -- including the ability to take out several attacking enemies at once -- and the ability to use nearly every gadget in battle with a hot key system. Even though the system can seem simple (that's if you ignore the combos and multipliers) the diversity in the attacks and battles keeps it interesting. I wanted to engage bad guys instead of sneaking past them. Maybe it was the promise of more experience points and the upgrades they unlocked, but it probably had more to do with wanting to see Batman dislocate another elbow.

Rocksteady kept me on my toes by peppering in special enemies. Guys with stun rods, armored outfits and broken bottles all have to be dealt with in very specific ways. I needed to assess threats and engage situations like Batman would. I don't know if I can express how awesome that makes a comic nerd like me feel; after years of hypothesizing how Batman would beat Character X, I now have to do it to survive.

Feeling like Batman made Arkham Asylum a must-play, and Arkham City continues that tradition. I felt like I had the upper hand when I walked into a room where the enemies outnumbered me 20 to 1 because I could drop a smoke pellet, use freeze grenades to take enemies out of the game and basically kick ass. Five gunmen with hostages didn't scare me because I knew I could disappear into the shadows to string them up from gargoyles, punch through walls to take them down and glide kick them over railings.


This feeling of empowerment carries over to bosses, which is weird at first but makes sense. No boss in Arkham City really gave me a challenge. In fact, they're all a bit easy. Mr. Freeze had me stumped for a while as once you use an attack on him you can't use it again, but then the Bat-computer just sent me a cheat sheet. (Although, disabling hints would've eliminated this moment.) That specific instance was no fun, but overall, the joy of Batman bosses is the journey to them and not the fight themselves. The Penguin will never challenge the World's Greatest Detective.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has attracted near-universal critical acclaim. It is a slick, well-constructed and generously proportioned instalment in one of the most revered military shooter franchises in history. There is just one problem. Everyone on the internet hates it.

Soon after the game's release on Tuesday, savage user reviews began to appear on score aggregation site, Metacritic. A flood of 0/10s outnumbered ecstatic 10s and considered 7s and 8s by a dramatic margin. Currently, for the Xbox 360 version of the title, the average user score for one of the biggest entertainment releases of the year stands at a wretched 3.0. On PC it's 1.7.

So what is happening?

The first point, of course, is that it's dangerous to think of these outbursts as being in anyway representative of the majority opinion. "On day one or two, you are going to get a vocal minority who take to the forums on Metacritic and use them as a soap box to vent their rage about the series," says Daniel Krupa, a writer at games site, IGN.

"Most of the millions of people who bought the game are actually playing it and enjoying it. A similar thing happened with Portal 2 back in April. It's one of the most critically appreciated games of the year, but on the day of release, people were on Metacritic criticising it for lots of reasons. Since then, the rating has risen and there's now parity between the critical and the user scores. I imagine something similar will happen with MW3 over time."

But for a moment, let's consider the objections being raised. Reading through the usually short, often apoplectic review comments on Metacritic, one argument is repeatedly put forward: Modern Warfare 3 is basically Modern Warfare 2 again; it is a map pack, adding nothing new or innovative to the series. One reasonably representative review states:

Don't believe the marketing hype, this is the same product rebundled let it die and show investors we're not interested in being sold the same product year after year, the cash cow needs to starve.

This represents an interesting reversal of the usual critic/public relationship. Often, it is the professional reviewer who despairs at the lack of originality in mainstream entertainment, while paying customers accept the formulaic in their droves. Let's face it, Hangover 2 is basically a map pack for the first movie, yet it grossed almost $140m in its opening weekend and at 5.7 its Metacritic user review average is higher than the critical metascore.

As human beings we enjoy systems and repetition our brains actively seek them out; it is a survival instinct that has morphed into an unconscious entertainment preference. Hence, the vital role of the catchphrase in comedy; hence, the predictable conventions of our favourite horror flicks. The notion of the sequel is based on the usually accurate construct that we like to relive enjoyable experiences. Modern Warfare 3 gives us more of what we liked, because we generally like more of what we like.


But is this game just too similar to previous iterations? Certainly, there are a lot of familiar weapons, and a lot of perks and killstreak rewards that we've all seen before yet similar criticisms could be levelled at the inventories of, say, Mass Effect 2 or Gears of War 2, and elements like the new strike packages do add a significant tactical thrust to the action.

Elsewhere, there are complaints that the campaign is based around the same old linear action and explosive set-pieces as its predecessors. But then, what did everyone think was going to happen?

"Nobody should go in there expecting My Little Pony or Animal Crossing," says PC Gamer editor Tim Edwards. "If you turn up for a big James Bond-style action sequence that lasts for five hours and a multiplayer game with perks in it, that's what you're going to get. That's fine nobody can be disappointed that they bought the game and that's what's in it."

Jon Hicks, editor of the Official Xbox Magazine, makes the interesting point that we may be thinking about Call of Duty in the wrong way by comparing it to other action games such as Batman or Uncharted. As a vast annual franchise designed to appease millions of mainstream consumers, there are more relevant points of reference:

"I think ultimately Modern Warfare 3 should be ranked alongside Fifa and other sports games in as much as, it's better than last years, but it will deliver a very similar experience. People say they want innovation and change and difference, but in the same way that Fifa can't break out of the fact that it's a game of football, CoD is so successful now, it can't really break out of its model, it is constrained by its very form. If you consider it as a sports game it becomes more logical.

"You and I both know that if they did an Alien 3 with Modern Warfare if it became entirely different and passive, and suddenly you're fighting with sticks, the outcry would make the current one pale into insignificance. If you look through the annals of gaming history the titles that do change significantly year on year are the ones that get quite heavily punished. People like to demand change, but increasingly they then don't buy it."


Rivalry has also played a part in the tribalism of the user reviews. EA has pitched its Battlefield 3 title very much against Modern Warfare, both in its advertising and in some barbed pre-release interviews and this has fostered a factional atmosphere: gamers love a platform battle.

"EA deliberately picked a fight this year," agrees Edwards. "They've really gone after Call of Duty in their community. Battlefield 3 is a phenomenal game but I'm a little bit sad that the PR for it has been at the expense of another brilliant title. It's not great that we're back to the old Sega v Nintendo situation."

And here we unearth a more insidious undercurrent: Activision is being actively punished. Last year, the co-founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, were sacked for breaches of contract and "insubordination". The duo immediately sued the publisher, claiming that millions in royalties were being withheld from Infinity Ward staff.

Activision later counter-sued suggesting that West and Zampella were using the company's IP to broker a development deal with a rival company. Later, the dismissed twosome set up Respawn Entertainment and announced a publishing contract with EA, Activision's main rival.

Now, I've read through the papers submitted by both parties. They make complex claims and counter claims and it looks as though it is going to take many months for a US court to get to the bottom of what is an intricate corporate law case. The point is, as it stands, no one outside of the Infinity Ward or Activision knows what happened. No one, that is, except for the internet, which has sided with West and Zampella against the 'evil corporation'.

"[Modern Warfare 3 is] being published by Bobby Kotick, AKA 'the devil from Activision Blizzard who eats game developers for breakfast', so I subtracted points for that," wrote one Metacritic reviewer, who gave the game 0/10.

The idea of a couple of creative "Davids" taking on the Goliath of Activision is an attractive one, but it is also deeply flawed. "The fall out from the Infinity Ward debacle was horrendous," notes Edwards, "but the thing about that is, West and Zampella are multi-millionaires: this is two sets of incredibly rich people shouting at each other."

"Activision hasn't helped itself through the statements that its made," he continues. "Bobby Kotick famously said he wanted the industry to work more like supermarkets. Well, talking about an entertainment form with millions of passionate fans as a packaged goods industry isn't great and irony doesn't work well on the internet."


Even if something dark and unjust did happen at Infinity Ward, we enter troubling critical territory when the wrongs of the author, the studio or the distributor are visited upon the appraisal of their work. Movie history is littered with despicable characters who have made astonishing films; is Melancholia any less of a work because Lars von Trier claimed to be a Nazi during his Cannes press conference? And let's not get started on Roman Polanski, Elia Kazan or Walt Disney.

Tying in with the contempt for Activision is a distrust for the reviewers themselves. Several comments beneath my own review for Modern Warfare 3 had to be removed because they were essentially libellous.

"I think it's representative of a wider distrust of corporations," says Hicks. "There's a cultural suspicion of large companies and manipulation. And this has happened hand-in-hand with the rise of the internet and the democratisation of opinion.

"Whereas once people would have kept their opinions to themselves now you're actively encouraged to jump on the internet and shout about them. The louder you shout the more kudos you get and no matter what your opinion, someone else on the internet will agree with you and you get a boost from that. It encourages people to think, 'I am correct, it's self-evident that I'm right, therefore the reviewer must be subject to bribery.' I don't think gaming is unique in this."

It's something of a farcical accusation. As one reviewer tweeted last night, games publishers barely trust us to take our own screenshots any more let alone keep quiet a widescale attempt to fraudulently secure favourable review scores. Furthermore, Call of Duty is perhaps the one entertainment brand in the world that doesn't need critical acclaim to ensure success.

Clearly, though, the 0/10s are a protest against something because these comments do not function as criticism. "This game is average at best," writes one Metacritic user before awarding MW3 1/10. That's a quite staggering mathematical failure.


But like other reviewers, I suspect, I wrestled with how to score Modern Warfare 3. It isn't innovative, it isn't original, but it is ruthlessly compelling and packed with content. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Perhaps, however, we need to think about the critical criteria we use. "I do wonder whether we should be scoring games more on innovation than we do," says IGN reviews editor Keza MacDonald. "Usually when you get something particularly innovative you're tempted to give it an extra point, to reward it for what it's trying to do that hardly ever works in reverse."

Her colleague Daniel Krupa agrees. "This is a problem that the movie industry is facing. Once upon a time, blockbuster movies had critical merit too the likes of Jaws and Star Wars, for example. But now you get these behemoths like Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers and they are just explosion and spectacle. Most people will defend them by saying it doesn't matter, they're just about fun. Maybe we're falling into that trap with Call of Duty. Perhaps we should expect more from our games."

I am curiously heartened by this. I've contributed toward the problem, of course, by awarding Modern Warfare five stars a decision I stand by. But I am also a huge fan of indie and art games; I was transfixed by Robin Hunickie's explanation of thatgamecompany's beautifully strange Journey at GameCity just a week before I reviewed MW3.

I want new, innovative games too, and judging by the current flourishing of the indie games sector, there is a growing audience for offbeat, unorthodox experiences. It could be that gamers are undergoing a process of genre fatigue; it might be something to do with this console life cycle coming to an end. A sort of fin de sicle ennui.

"People are looking for someone to revitalise the FPS genre," says MacDonald. "There was a hope that, because this was another Infinity Ward title, MW3 might go further, like the first game but it didn't. And although it's a pleasing game and critically it's great, it's solid, there's a feeling of disappointment that it's not more than we expected. Someone will be looking to step into this space it should have been Battlefield really, but someone is surely looking to please these people who are so fed up with Modern Warfare."

At the very least, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out on Friday. A vast, ambitious RPG that seeks to create an infinite number of quests, which will embrace every individual gamer. Is it sufficiently different from Elder Scrolls IV? Does that matter when ambition and scale are such a major part of the package? How do we approach that paradigm as reviewers?

One thing there mustn't be is an irreparable disconnect between game journalists and game buyers. We should be in this together if we're not communicating about games in the same way, something quietly terrible has happened.

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Never before have technology, playability, and narrative combined as well as in Final Fantasy VII. The culmination of Square Soft's monumental effort is a game that will enrich just as it will entertain. Yet, for all the boundless praise it so rightfully deserves, Final Fantasy VII is not without its shortcomings and occasional design problems. These are enough to make some gamers (who are unfamiliar with RPGs, to be sure) wonder just why anyone would bother playing through it in the first place.

This is the most dazzling visual experience to date on any console. Film-quality computer-generated cinematics blend seamlessly with pre-rendered background artwork to create the strikingly realistic world of Final Fantasy VII, both beautiful in its grandeur and terrifying in its detail. The overworld and battle sequences are presented in full polygonal splendor with just a touch of texture mapping for good measure. But you haven't seen anything until you witness some of the more powerful magic spells in the game. Massive dragons heed your bidding, dwarfing your gigantic enemies tenfold; an earth titan tears the ground up from beneath your enemies' feet, flinging them aside like toy blocks. Some of these summoning spells cut to over half a dozen different camera angles as the catastrophe unfolds. Meanwhile, a masterfully orchestrated soundtrack - courtesy of veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu - is a major force behind the intense emotion of Final Fantasy VII. The synthesized musical score hearkens Final Fantasy's golden age on the Super Nintendo, consciously staying true to its roots.

Yet for all its top-notch graphics and sound, truly the best aspect of Final Fantasy VII is the plot that these peerless aesthetics help weave. Join the enigmatic mercenary Cloud Strife in a journey that will take him to the very source of his being in an incredible quest where the fate of the world hangs by a precious thread, threatening at any instant to be torn by the charismatic, tormented villain of the story. Final Fantasy VII's moving plot is influenced by some of the greatest works of science fiction film and literature, including Frank Herbert's Dune, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and even Godzilla. If you were to strip away the story, scenery, and musical score, Final Fantasy VII would otherwise be very much like any other Japanese RPG you've ever played. You still must face countless random monster encounters while keeping a close eye on your hit points and magic points, and you will witness your characters grow stronger with every experience level they attain. Battles are fought in typical Japanese RPG fashion (albeit with fully polygonal graphics), with your team on one side and any number of opponents on the other. You exchange blows until you or the enemy is defeated. Fights are made interesting with the introduction of Limit Breaks (devastating desperation attacks) and Materia, the curious colored crystals that let your party use magic and other special abilities. Materia can be found or purchased and mixed and matched to create all sorts of interesting effects. Best of all, there are more than enough hidden Materia, weapons, and optional plot sequences in the game to merit playing it through at least twice.

Some have gone as far as to call Final Fantasy VII the hands-down best game ever made. And if you enjoy a good Japanese-style RPG, chances are you will agree. However, Final Fantasy VII, for all its astonishing features, is not a game with the sort of mass appeal that its massive marketing blitz may lead you to believe. For one thing, you can't finish it in a sitting, as Final Fantasy VII will be a solid 40 to 50-hour commitment for the average role-playing gamer. Otherwise, you might be taken aback by the extensive, text-heavy dialogue; there is no speech at all in Final Fantasy VII, in the interest of letting your imagination do a little work. Though you will make many small-scale decisions over the course of the game, on the whole, the story follows a very linear path. This linearity is a by-product of the plot's complexity, however - certainly a respectable sacrifice.

Sony's translation of the original Japanese dialogue is direct and first-rate, much to the relief of Final Fantasy purists everywhere. Nitpickers may identify a very occasional spelling or grammar error ("Off course!" agrees Cloud at the Golden Saucer battle arena), but otherwise this text-heavy game reads just right, flawlessly conveying each character's distinct personality. Even the foul-mouthed costars of the game retain their affronting attitudes, as Sony went as far as to translate certain four-letter words in the interest of staying true to the Japanese script. Final Fantasy VII boasts several features not found in the original Japanese release in February 1997. Some changes are designed to improve gameplay: For instance, now your party members can quickly and easily exchange their Materia, where swapping the invaluable crystals between characters was a real pain in the Japanese version. Also, at the touch of a button, all exit points on a particular screen become highlighted with conspicuous red arrows - these turn out to be a real boon in those areas where the exits aren't immediately obvious. Further, random monster encounters are thankfully much less frequent in many areas of the game, particularly on the overworld map. At the same time, Final Fantasy VII is considerably more challenging than its original release. You actually must plan ahead and devise some sort of strategy to beat some of the boss monsters that were likely pushovers before. Other changes include the addition of spectacular all-new cinematics and a handful of intriguing, new plot sequences at key points toward the end of the game. These moments help clarify several important issues in the story. Square Soft wasn't just resting on its laurels these past six months.

The question you must ask yourself is, are you prepared to dedicate a good portion of the next month to take part in a powerful story unlike anything you have ever witnessed before? If your answer is yes, and you can approach Final Fantasy VII content knowing that it bears its genre's inherently problematic traits, you will find it be among the most incredible games you have ever played - or ever will.

9/10 Played the game , pretty good, needs better graphics

Cold-HD wrote [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
Never before have technology, playability, and narrative combined as well as in Final Fantasy VII. The culmination of Square Soft's monumental effort is a game that will enrich just as it will entertain. Yet, for all the boundless praise it so rightfully deserves, Final Fantasy VII is not without its shortcomings and occasional design problems. These are enough to make some gamers (who are unfamiliar with RPGs, to be sure) wonder just why anyone would bother playing through it in the first place.

This is the most dazzling visual experience to date on any console. Film-quality computer-generated cinematics blend seamlessly with pre-rendered background artwork to create the strikingly realistic world of Final Fantasy VII, both beautiful in its grandeur and terrifying in its detail. The overworld and battle sequences are presented in full polygonal splendor with just a touch of texture mapping for good measure. But you haven't seen anything until you witness some of the more powerful magic spells in the game. Massive dragons heed your bidding, dwarfing your gigantic enemies tenfold; an earth titan tears the ground up from beneath your enemies' feet, flinging them aside like toy blocks. Some of these summoning spells cut to over half a dozen different camera angles as the catastrophe unfolds. Meanwhile, a masterfully orchestrated soundtrack - courtesy of veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu - is a major force behind the intense emotion of Final Fantasy VII. The synthesized musical score hearkens Final Fantasy's golden age on the Super Nintendo, consciously staying true to its roots.

Yet for all its top-notch graphics and sound, truly the best aspect of Final Fantasy VII is the plot that these peerless aesthetics help weave. Join the enigmatic mercenary Cloud Strife in a journey that will take him to the very source of his being in an incredible quest where the fate of the world hangs by a precious thread, threatening at any instant to be torn by the charismatic, tormented villain of the story. Final Fantasy VII's moving plot is influenced by some of the greatest works of science fiction film and literature, including Frank Herbert's Dune, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and even Godzilla. If you were to strip away the story, scenery, and musical score, Final Fantasy VII would otherwise be very much like any other Japanese RPG you've ever played. You still must face countless random monster encounters while keeping a close eye on your hit points and magic points, and you will witness your characters grow stronger with every experience level they attain. Battles are fought in typical Japanese RPG fashion (albeit with fully polygonal graphics), with your team on one side and any number of opponents on the other. You exchange blows until you or the enemy is defeated. Fights are made interesting with the introduction of Limit Breaks (devastating desperation attacks) and Materia, the curious colored crystals that let your party use magic and other special abilities. Materia can be found or purchased and mixed and matched to create all sorts of interesting effects. Best of all, there are more than enough hidden Materia, weapons, and optional plot sequences in the game to merit playing it through at least twice.

Some have gone as far as to call Final Fantasy VII the hands-down best game ever made. And if you enjoy a good Japanese-style RPG, chances are you will agree. However, Final Fantasy VII, for all its astonishing features, is not a game with the sort of mass appeal that its massive marketing blitz may lead you to believe. For one thing, you can't finish it in a sitting, as Final Fantasy VII will be a solid 40 to 50-hour commitment for the average role-playing gamer. Otherwise, you might be taken aback by the extensive, text-heavy dialogue; there is no speech at all in Final Fantasy VII, in the interest of letting your imagination do a little work. Though you will make many small-scale decisions over the course of the game, on the whole, the story follows a very linear path. This linearity is a by-product of the plot's complexity, however - certainly a respectable sacrifice.

Sony's translation of the original Japanese dialogue is direct and first-rate, much to the relief of Final Fantasy purists everywhere. Nitpickers may identify a very occasional spelling or grammar error ("Off course!" agrees Cloud at the Golden Saucer battle arena), but otherwise this text-heavy game reads just right, flawlessly conveying each character's distinct personality. Even the foul-mouthed costars of the game retain their affronting attitudes, as Sony went as far as to translate certain four-letter words in the interest of staying true to the Japanese script. Final Fantasy VII boasts several features not found in the original Japanese release in February 1997. Some changes are designed to improve gameplay: For instance, now your party members can quickly and easily exchange their Materia, where swapping the invaluable crystals between characters was a real pain in the Japanese version. Also, at the touch of a button, all exit points on a particular screen become highlighted with conspicuous red arrows - these turn out to be a real boon in those areas where the exits aren't immediately obvious. Further, random monster encounters are thankfully much less frequent in many areas of the game, particularly on the overworld map. At the same time, Final Fantasy VII is considerably more challenging than its original release. You actually must plan ahead and devise some sort of strategy to beat some of the boss monsters that were likely pushovers before. Other changes include the addition of spectacular all-new cinematics and a handful of intriguing, new plot sequences at key points toward the end of the game. These moments help clarify several important issues in the story. Square Soft wasn't just resting on its laurels these past six months.

The question you must ask yourself is, are you prepared to dedicate a good portion of the next month to take part in a powerful story unlike anything you have ever witnessed before? If your answer is yes, and you can approach Final Fantasy VII content knowing that it bears its genre's inherently problematic traits, you will find it be among the most incredible games you have ever played - or ever will.

9/10 Played the game , pretty good, needs better graphics

Please don't copy and paste reviews that aren't yours. Waste of your time even trying and now you're ineligible for the badge.

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-Verizon- wrote

Batman Arkham City Review

Sometimes reviewers can't see the forest for the trees. When I finished Batman: Arkham City, I immediately cataloged what I thought it did wrong. It tossed in too many villains and didn't flesh them out, it clearly tried to replicate the Scarecrow stuff from the first game and didn't do it as well, and Batman still moves a bit stiffly when simply walking around. When I formed the list, I found myself disappointed with the game. But the days rolled on and I couldn't stop playing -- in fact, I only wanted to play more. The hundreds of things Batman: Arkham City nails outweighed my nitpicky problems. I realized Batman: Arkham City is a brilliant game.

Fans of the Batman: Arkham Asylum will immediately be at home in Arkham City as developer Rocksteady took the core gameplay, refined it, and polished it. You brawl with one button, counter with another and leap when you feel like it. Batman's got a slew of new counter attacks -- including the ability to take out several attacking enemies at once -- and the ability to use nearly every gadget in battle with a hot key system. Even though the system can seem simple (that's if you ignore the combos and multipliers) the diversity in the attacks and battles keeps it interesting. I wanted to engage bad guys instead of sneaking past them. Maybe it was the promise of more experience points and the upgrades they unlocked, but it probably had more to do with wanting to see Batman dislocate another elbow.

Rocksteady kept me on my toes by peppering in special enemies. Guys with stun rods, armored outfits and broken bottles all have to be dealt with in very specific ways. I needed to assess threats and engage situations like Batman would. I don't know if I can express how awesome that makes a comic nerd like me feel; after years of hypothesizing how Batman would beat Character X, I now have to do it to survive.

Feeling like Batman made Arkham Asylum a must-play, and Arkham City continues that tradition. I felt like I had the upper hand when I walked into a room where the enemies outnumbered me 20 to 1 because I could drop a smoke pellet, use freeze grenades to take enemies out of the game and basically kick ****. Five gunmen with hostages didn't scare me because I knew I could disappear into the shadows to string them up from gargoyles, punch through walls to take them down and glide kick them over railings.


This feeling of empowerment carries over to bosses, which is weird at first but makes sense. No boss in Arkham City really gave me a challenge. In fact, they're all a bit easy. Mr. Freeze had me stumped for a while as once you use an attack on him you can't use it again, but then the Bat-computer just sent me a cheat sheet. (Although, disabling hints would've eliminated this moment.) That specific instance was no fun, but overall, the joy of Batman bosses is the journey to them and not the fight themselves. The Penguin will never challenge the World's Greatest Detective.

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Not another one...

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Door wrote

MW3 GAME REVIEW

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has attracted near-universal critical acclaim. It is a slick, well-constructed and generously proportioned instalment in one of the most revered military shooter franchises in history. There is just one problem. Everyone on the internet hates it.

Soon after the game's release on Tuesday, savage user reviews began to appear on score aggregation site, Metacritic. A flood of 0/10s outnumbered ecstatic 10s and considered 7s and 8s by a dramatic margin. Currently, for the Xbox 360 version of the title, the average user score for one of the biggest entertainment releases of the year stands at a wretched 3.0. On PC it's 1.7.

So what is happening?

The first point, of course, is that it's dangerous to think of these outbursts as being in anyway representative of the majority opinion. "On day one or two, you are going to get a vocal minority who take to the forums on Metacritic and use them as a soap box to vent their rage about the series," says Daniel Krupa, a writer at games site, IGN.

"Most of the millions of people who bought the game are actually playing it and enjoying it. A similar thing happened with Portal 2 back in April. It's one of the most critically appreciated games of the year, but on the day of release, people were on Metacritic criticising it for lots of reasons. Since then, the rating has risen and there's now parity between the critical and the user scores. I imagine something similar will happen with MW3 over time."

But for a moment, let's consider the objections being raised. Reading through the usually short, often apoplectic review comments on Metacritic, one argument is repeatedly put forward: Modern Warfare 3 is basically Modern Warfare 2 again; it is a map pack, adding nothing new or innovative to the series. One reasonably representative review states:

Don't believe the marketing hype, this is the same product rebundled let it die and show investors we're not interested in being sold the same product year after year, the cash cow needs to starve.

This represents an interesting reversal of the usual critic/public relationship. Often, it is the professional reviewer who despairs at the lack of originality in mainstream entertainment, while paying customers accept the formulaic in their droves. Let's face it, Hangover 2 is basically a map pack for the first movie, yet it grossed almost $140m in its opening weekend and at 5.7 its Metacritic user review average is higher than the critical metascore.

As human beings we enjoy systems and repetition our brains actively seek them out; it is a survival instinct that has morphed into an unconscious entertainment preference. Hence, the vital role of the catchphrase in comedy; hence, the predictable conventions of our favourite horror flicks. The notion of the sequel is based on the usually accurate construct that we like to relive enjoyable experiences. Modern Warfare 3 gives us more of what we liked, because we generally like more of what we like.


But is this game just too similar to previous iterations? Certainly, there are a lot of familiar weapons, and a lot of perks and killstreak rewards that we've all seen before yet similar criticisms could be levelled at the inventories of, say, Mass Effect 2 or Gears of War 2, and elements like the new strike packages do add a significant tactical thrust to the action.

Elsewhere, there are complaints that the campaign is based around the same old linear action and explosive set-pieces as its predecessors. But then, what did everyone think was going to happen?

"Nobody should go in there expecting My Little Pony or Animal Crossing," says PC Gamer editor Tim Edwards. "If you turn up for a big James Bond-style action sequence that lasts for five hours and a multiplayer game with perks in it, that's what you're going to get. That's fine nobody can be disappointed that they bought the game and that's what's in it."

Jon Hicks, editor of the Official Xbox Magazine, makes the interesting point that we may be thinking about Call of Duty in the wrong way by comparing it to other action games such as Batman or Uncharted. As a vast annual franchise designed to appease millions of mainstream consumers, there are more relevant points of reference:

"I think ultimately Modern Warfare 3 should be ranked alongside Fifa and other sports games in as much as, it's better than last years, but it will deliver a very similar experience. People say they want innovation and change and difference, but in the same way that Fifa can't break out of the fact that it's a game of football, CoD is so successful now, it can't really break out of its model, it is constrained by its very form. If you consider it as a sports game it becomes more logical.

"You and I both know that if they did an Alien 3 with Modern Warfare if it became entirely different and passive, and suddenly you're fighting with sticks, the outcry would make the current one pale into insignificance. If you look through the annals of gaming history the titles that do change significantly year on year are the ones that get quite heavily punished. People like to demand change, but increasingly they then don't buy it."


Rivalry has also played a part in the tribalism of the user reviews. EA has pitched its Battlefield 3 title very much against Modern Warfare, both in its advertising and in some barbed pre-release interviews and this has fostered a factional atmosphere: gamers love a platform battle.

"EA deliberately picked a fight this year," agrees Edwards. "They've really gone after Call of Duty in their community. Battlefield 3 is a phenomenal game but I'm a little bit sad that the PR for it has been at the expense of another brilliant title. It's not great that we're back to the old Sega v Nintendo situation."

And here we unearth a more insidious undercurrent: Activision is being actively punished. Last year, the co-founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, were sacked for breaches of contract and "insubordination". The duo immediately sued the publisher, claiming that millions in royalties were being withheld from Infinity Ward staff.

Activision later counter-sued suggesting that West and Zampella were using the company's IP to broker a development deal with a rival company. Later, the dismissed twosome set up Respawn Entertainment and announced a publishing contract with EA, Activision's main rival.

Now, I've read through the papers submitted by both parties. They make complex claims and counter claims and it looks as though it is going to take many months for a US court to get to the bottom of what is an intricate corporate law case. The point is, as it stands, no one outside of the Infinity Ward or Activision knows what happened. No one, that is, except for the internet, which has sided with West and Zampella against the 'evil corporation'.

"[Modern Warfare 3 is] being published by Bobby Kotick, AKA 'the devil from Activision Blizzard who eats game developers for breakfast', so I subtracted points for that," wrote one Metacritic reviewer, who gave the game 0/10.

The idea of a couple of creative "Davids" taking on the Goliath of Activision is an attractive one, but it is also deeply flawed. "The fall out from the Infinity Ward debacle was horrendous," notes Edwards, "but the thing about that is, West and Zampella are multi-millionaires: this is two sets of incredibly rich people shouting at each other."

"Activision hasn't helped itself through the statements that its made," he continues. "Bobby Kotick famously said he wanted the industry to work more like supermarkets. Well, talking about an entertainment form with millions of passionate fans as a packaged goods industry isn't great and irony doesn't work well on the internet."


Even if something dark and unjust did happen at Infinity Ward, we enter troubling critical territory when the wrongs of the author, the studio or the distributor are visited upon the appraisal of their work. Movie history is littered with despicable characters who have made astonishing films; is Melancholia any less of a work because Lars von Trier claimed to be a Nazi during his Cannes press conference? And let's not get started on Roman Polanski, Elia Kazan or Walt Disney.

Tying in with the contempt for Activision is a distrust for the reviewers themselves. Several comments beneath my own review for Modern Warfare 3 had to be removed because they were essentially libellous.

"I think it's representative of a wider distrust of corporations," says Hicks. "There's a cultural suspicion of large companies and manipulation. And this has happened hand-in-hand with the rise of the internet and the democratisation of opinion.

"Whereas once people would have kept their opinions to themselves now you're actively encouraged to jump on the internet and shout about them. The louder you shout the more kudos you get and no matter what your opinion, someone else on the internet will agree with you and you get a boost from that. It encourages people to think, 'I am correct, it's self-evident that I'm right, therefore the reviewer must be subject to bribery.' I don't think gaming is unique in this."

It's something of a farcical accusation. As one reviewer tweeted last night, games publishers barely trust us to take our own screenshots any more let alone keep quiet a widescale attempt to fraudulently secure favourable review scores. Furthermore, Call of Duty is perhaps the one entertainment brand in the world that doesn't need critical acclaim to ensure success.

Clearly, though, the 0/10s are a protest against something because these comments do not function as criticism. "This game is average at best," writes one Metacritic user before awarding MW3 1/10. That's a quite staggering mathematical failure.


But like other reviewers, I suspect, I wrestled with how to score Modern Warfare 3. It isn't innovative, it isn't original, but it is ruthlessly compelling and packed with content. I am thoroughly enjoying it.

Perhaps, however, we need to think about the critical criteria we use. "I do wonder whether we should be scoring games more on innovation than we do," says IGN reviews editor Keza MacDonald. "Usually when you get something particularly innovative you're tempted to give it an extra point, to reward it for what it's trying to do that hardly ever works in reverse."

Her colleague Daniel Krupa agrees. "This is a problem that the movie industry is facing. Once upon a time, blockbuster movies had critical merit too the likes of Jaws and Star Wars, for example. But now you get these behemoths like Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers and they are just explosion and spectacle. Most people will defend them by saying it doesn't matter, they're just about fun. Maybe we're falling into that trap with Call of Duty. Perhaps we should expect more from our games."

I am curiously heartened by this. I've contributed toward the problem, of course, by awarding Modern Warfare five stars a decision I stand by. But I am also a huge fan of indie and art games; I was transfixed by Robin Hunickie's explanation of thatgamecompany's beautifully strange Journey at GameCity just a week before I reviewed MW3.

I want new, innovative games too, and judging by the current flourishing of the indie games sector, there is a growing audience for offbeat, unorthodox experiences. It could be that gamers are undergoing a process of genre fatigue; it might be something to do with this console life cycle coming to an end. A sort of fin de sicle ennui.

"People are looking for someone to revitalise the FPS genre," says MacDonald. "There was a hope that, because this was another Infinity Ward title, MW3 might go further, like the first game but it didn't. And although it's a pleasing game and critically it's great, it's solid, there's a feeling of disappointment that it's not more than we expected. Someone will be looking to step into this space it should have been Battlefield really, but someone is surely looking to please these people who are so fed up with Modern Warfare."

At the very least, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out on Friday. A vast, ambitious RPG that seeks to create an infinite number of quests, which will embrace every individual gamer. Is it sufficiently different from Elder Scrolls IV? Does that matter when ambition and scale are such a major part of the package? How do we approach that paradigm as reviewers?

One thing there mustn't be is an irreparable disconnect between game journalists and game buyers. We should be in this together if we're not communicating about games in the same way, something quietly terrible has happened.

C'mon guys; grow up and right a review on your own. Yes it may be time exhausting but it is worth it to put out quality information instead of making some copy pasta.

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Fable III

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