Story-
The Cool thing about Radiata Stories is every character lives it’s own life and it’s not the same thing over and over, every day they are doing something different.

At some point you can recruit most of them 175 to be exact. You start out as a Kid Named Jack And you are late for Knight try outs,
you are expected to be a great Knight since your father was a legend.

You must beat a Girl Named Ridley which the first time playing is nearly impossible after you beat it once you start out at the lvl you beat the game at so she’s easy, or should be.

After that you do various Missions while the story progresses. Into many Twists and Turns it kept me interested. I did both paths, about half way through the game you pick which side you want to be on each has it’s benefits I beat it on both and one is easier then the other. But both are fun.

Also I would like to point out that this is one of the funniest RPG I’ve played.

Game play-
The cool thing about this RPG is you can go up to any NPC even if they’re in your party and kick them until they snap and battle you.

Some will join your party if you succeed in beating them some will battle you right Away the next time you talk to them. but I could play for hours just going up to NPC’s and kicking them. Ohh the joy..

The battle system is like Star ocean: Till the end of Time. You walk around freely and have certain buttons you push to perform certain moves also Custom attacks, Group attacks(where your whole party does a Combo most are pretty amusing..) Chain attacks, (if you hit a combo after a party member does a combo you can do a Chain combo)

Also your Party can be customized to do what you want them to do. I usually went with a healer and a Rusher. Healer guy/Girl would sit back and heal me and the other guy. While the Rusher would be Rushing all the enemy’s and do big attacks while I decide whether I need to rush as well or be a secondary Healer or spell caster usually I ended up protecting the Healer.
Because the NPC are not Dumb they go after The healer quicker then Shit.

Graphics-
The graphics were pretty good but lacked CG Cut scenes most of them were Rendered in with the original Graphics.
Special effect were well made especially the Kick Effect. You could literally Kick ANYTHING!

I Kicked a House 5 times and an old guy came running out and kicked my ass, Had to go back to my save spot 3 hours before. Old Hag..~!

Music-
The music was good, most of the Boss battles had very Catchy and Fast paced Themes, which helped if you failed to kill the Boss the first time.

Story-
Its 1958, you are Delta, the first big daddy, and you are trying to keep up with your little sister, Eleanor, as she runs through a party. After some unfortunate events you awake from a coma like state ten years later.

The story is given to you pretty much the moment you wake up. Tenenbaum contacts you through a radio message and tells you to rescue Eleanor so you and she can escape together from the decaying utopia. However there is a certain bond between Delta and Eleanor which makes the search for her all more valuable.

So after the events of Bioshock and many people saying, “Would you kindly” people questioned how a story could be any better. While the story to Bioshock 2 is definitely not as good as the first the way the story and history are told is better.

The story is given to you when you wake up however additional details are dolled out through audiotapes. While this was the case with the first more of the audiotapes were for historical purposes instead of a focus on story, which was shown through ghosts or Atlas. But if you are not the search and find kind, then don’t fret, important audiotapes are places practically in front of your face, so you don’t have to search every nook and cranny.

History is another thing that is better than the first. The first one left many questions as to how Rapture was built, and who exactly were the previous inhabitants. The perfect example of the tale of Rapture would be the Ryan’s Amusements level. This was basically one of those boring amusement parks that were supposed to be educational; however this is quite interesting for the gamer as it shows how Ryan built his city, along with the propaganda he pushed upon the children of Rapture.

The story all together is pretty much stand alone and does not require you to have played the first Bioshock. However I must recommend playing the first as it will let you get the Easter eggs hidden throughout Rapture. I don’t want to give too many of the hidden surprises away, but in one part you may find sunken remains of the crashed airplane from the first one.

Game play-
Game play is pretty much identical to that of the first one with you being able to use plasmids and shoot guns. But the minor improvements to the game make the sequel a lot more of an enjoyable experience than the first.

I shall begin with the basics. Many weapons lay around Rapture, and there were some you couldn’t use it Bioshock. But with your new found strength in the form of you being a big daddy you can use these enormous weapons that no ordinary man could use. Rivet Guns, the weapons a Rosie would wield, are your main weapon of the game along with the drill, Mr. B’s weapon of choice. The weapons you get later in the game are basically the same weapons you got in the first game except with a different look. You’re a big daddy though so this gives you some extra ammo that Jack couldn’t use. These new bonus ammo range form rocket propelled spears, mini turrets, and trap rivets.

With these new weapons there certainly must be better upgrades right? Well of course. While the Power to the People stations are still operational, you are able to get a total of three upgrades per weapon. The first two upgrades are pretty standard; make your weapon more powerful, increased clip size, that good stuff. However it is the third upgrade that is always the best. In order to get the third upgrade you must get the previous two but it is worth it. These upgrades basically change your bullets. Heated rivets ignite enemies in flames, machine gun bullets ricochet; these are but a few of the upgrades that are available to you through out the game.

Along with deadly weapons there are weapons that are not meant for combat but used to increase your power against others. These weapons are the hack tool, which I will go over later, and the Research camera.

The research camera form the first one was a camera that took pictures, and while you had this camera you were pretty much vulnerable to attacks as alls you could do was just take pictures. That is changed as the research camera of Bioshock 2 is a video camera. Equip the camera and select a target and it will record them as you fight them.
Research points are gained based on how you fare against them and the variety of weapons and plasmids used to defeat them. This definitely made me happy as no longer did I have to stand their like a jack ass taking pictures but I could actually do something while I researched.

The weapons, while they are the same, do seem to be a bit more interesting with the changes that have been made to your arsenal. However that being said some of the weapons used in the game don’t seem as potent as they should be. The rivet gun and drill are the only ones that seem more powerful than the weapons you had from the first game, but it is the others that just don’t seem to pack the extra punch, at least not as much as one would think. But in the end they do their job and kill everyone in your path.

The enemies that you encounter are more or less the same as the last. Their deformities do seem to have worsened a bit more but I will delve into that later. Besides the regular group of splicers and big daddies there are new enemies that have come to Rapture, and they are definitely a harder challenge.

The big draw to Bioshock 2 is the Big Sisters. Your first encounter with one of them is intense as you see her running around, teasing you into chasing her, and that’s when she shows you what she is made of. It is the same wakening call we got when we were first introduced to the big daddy. But in good time you will fight her.

There is more than one big sister in the game, and one comes every time you either save or harvest three little sisters. I would suggest that you prepare yourself thoroughly before you save or harvest the little sisters. While they wield the armor and force of a regular big daddy their acrobatic skills and use of plasmids definitely make for a tough fight. And while dieing was a sure fire way to get out of a daddy fight you couldn’t handle, don’t expect this to work on a big sister as they will chase you relentlessly until they are dead.

The other new attacker is the brute splicer. Think regular splicers except beefed up on steroids. They have a very simple set of attacks but each hurt quite a bit. One is the shoulder ram where he just charges at you and rams you up against a wall and just lands punch after punch into you. If the brute isn’t in the mood to punch he will retreat and grab something to throw at you which will knock you off balance and make you vulnerable for several seconds.

The new enemies offer a more difficult challenge but I loved it. Unlike the previous Bioshock you are forced to combine your weapon and plasmid use to defeat these creatures. Cycling through your plasmids in order to stun a brute in charge or use telekinesis to stop the objects he throws at you are some ways you will have to gain mastery over the interface of the game, and the challenge is welcome.

Vendors are everywhere in Rapture, and sometimes you just don’t feel like paying full price for health or ammo, and that pipe mini game you were forced to play in the first one would get so old and sometimes impossible that occasionally I didn’t bother with the hacking at all and paid full price. Luckily Bioshock 2 has had a massive update for the hacking tool that has made it more bearable and more useful.

The hacking in this game is now radar across the bottom of the screen with a needle that goes back and forth. On this white bar there are green, red and blue sections. If you hit it on green you move on to the next phase of the hack, red triggers the alarm, if you hit the white area it’s a miss and you are hurt, blue gives you a little something extra. If you’re hacking a vendor and hit the blue area you get a free item or if you hit blue while hacking a safe you get some more cash. Hacking can sometimes go up to around three phases, each time the green and blue areas getting harder to hit.

Since the hack tool is used as a weapon, it has weapon like qualities, of course. Your hack tool can only be used by as many hack darts you have, except if you get up close and hack. However that is not advised as hacking is now done in real time. Since you can hack from afar, if there is a turret with some unknowing splicers around it you can hack the turret and watch as it wastes the splicers around it.

While there are vendors that take normal money there are machines that use only Adam, The Gatherers Garden machines are used to buy gene tonic, improved health/eve and better plasmids. But there are now more ways to get the Adam than just rescue or save little sisters.

So while you main source of Adam comes from little sisters you can get a lot more Adam from them in the form of escorting them to dead bodies. Using your little sister, she will smell sources of Adam for you and you will follow this cloud like thing as it flows down the halls. Once found, press x and she will start to gather the Adam. The process takes quite sometime and during this time splicers will come to get her, so it is up to you to protect her.

Preparation seems to be a big part of the game, and I like it. Sometimes the little sister escorting does get old, but the Adam rewarded keeps me doing it. With splicers coming out of hallways and the ceiling, ammo can run scarce; luckily the new plasmids can always help.

The plasmids are the same as the last game, incinerate, shock, wind trap, however it is the upgrades that separate them from Bioshock. While in the first one upgrading them would just simply make them more powerful but in this one an upgrade to shock will allow you to chain splicers through one shock attack. It is more incentive to buying the upgrades and made me want to buy upgrades to plasmids I don’t normally use just to see what they do.

Besides the events of the main storyline, 2k decided to add multiplayer, and just the mention of it was enough to have some people on their knees and shouting at the heavens with a shaking angry fist. However I am here to say it is not terrible, but it also isn’t very good either. It finds a balance at mediocre.

The game developers added a reason to the multiplayer, basically after the events at the Kashmir restaurant; you are to test the new plasmids. You awake in an apartment, this is basically where you store you inventory. It is here where you can find games with your bathysphere, change your characters appearance, and customize your weapon/plasmid load out. While I liked the use of an apartment as your source of navigation, it would have been better if you could have made it look better by buying stuff for it, or having people in an xbox live party come to your apartment. This is just one minor knit pick I have with the game, but after playing assassins creed 2 I kind of have grown fond of the customization options.

The game play itself is the same as single player, use plasmids, shoot weapons, kill stuff. The multiplayer games can only have up to 10 people, which isn’t a whole lot considering a game of MW2 can hold up to 18. But while it can’t hold as many people as MW2, I did find it rather enjoyable for a good 30 minutes. It also added research to it, so when you find a dead body on the floor you can research them and gain a damage boost to that specific character, but not a whole lot to where they don’t have a fighting chance. The maps of the multiplayer are areas of the previous Bioshock, but with a less chaotic look to them. Maps are small enough to where players are always running and gunning.

In the end the multiplayer was just something tacked on to increase the dollar. It is alright, but since most of the people bought the game for the single player experience I would suggest to at least giving it a shot. Even though it is not a multiplayer game I did find one enjoyable experience about it, and that is the fact that there are no campers.

Graphics/Audio-
The audio and graphics of the game still have that 1950’s feel to it, which makes me feel like Danny wandering the halls of the Overlook Hotel, except with more of a sea theme.

Graphically the game does not look to much different then Bioshock 1, which is kind of disappointing. While the graphics looked really good back in 2007, they just don’t look that good as of today.

While the atmosphere over feels similar, players will also notice a more of the sea taking back Rapture. This is shown through coral growing on the walls, and the increased flooding in some areas. While some of the rooms look similar it is the growing sea life that looks truly awesome. While this may sound lame it does add some nice details to the ever aging Rapture.

Along with an aging city, the deformed citizens of rapture have grow themselves. Splicers now have a more eerie vibe to them, as it looks like their faces have a piece of cloth sown over it in some areas. The look of the new enemies is refreshing, but in combat situations, not much difference could be told between previous and the new splicers.

The music of the game still compliments the atmosphere as well as the previous Bioshock. This time there seems to be earlier 1900’s music, probably because of fallout? However, in times of traps or combat scenarios the music is traded out for more of a symphony type style of music. Plucks of violin strings and the notes of a piano being struck just build up on some anticipation.

Final Thoughts-
-It lives up to the hype.
-Manages to do some things better then the previous Bioshock.
-Graphics are so 2007
-Story is getting kinda old

They follow Pluto and at night meet up with a cloaked figure who speaks in riddles. They then follow his trail and wind up in the great castle oblivion. A castle where for each memory gained by making it to a new floor, another memory is lost. The game’s major downside and anyone who has ever played a KH game will tell you, is the fact that the game has so many Disney themes in it. but it’s not near as bad as you would think.

This game is in no way childish like you would expect from a game with so many Disney characters in it. Upon entering Castle oblivion the effect of the castle makes the characters forget all there spells. So Sora who fights alone because Donald and Goofy turn into battle cards, Learns the new card battle system. The basics are taught to him by the hooded fighter after the opening scene in the castle and then further more by Leon/ Squall lion heart from final fantasy VIII. During the field mode Sora can move in all directions, jump, climb spring up off of a spring and grab ledges to reach area.

The heartless appear on the field weather it be by coming out of the ground or flying in or various other means. They can be avoided or the player can initiate the battle by sticking them with the key blade. In doing so the Heartless start the battle off with less health. By winning the Battle Sora will collect Kingdom cards with numbers ranging from zero to nine on them. These are essentially map cards that open Kingdom doors to new areas of the different worlds.

During combat Sora is given free movement through out the battle field. The A button will activate which ever card is collected and the B button lets Sora jump. Even though Sora may be 14 He is very skilled with his Key Blade weapon that he wields. The L and R buttons let you scroll through the different cards so you can choose the one you want be it a Key Blade attack, spell or summon. By pressing the L and R buttons simultaneously you can load up the card to use as a sleight.

Combining Key/ attack cards Sora can pull off various attack techniques called “Sleights” which can be earned at level ups. Combining summons allows for more powerful variations of the summon. Variations of spell and attack cards can create different attacks as well. One of the most fun aspects of this game are the boss battles which can get very intense. No two bosses is the same, the way the battle is played is completely different.

For one Boss you may have to hop from platform to platform and hit it in the week spot. You may have to hit a different target or wait untill it drops its guard to move. Some boss’s are huge and require the movement of the arena to hit them right. Some may battle you one on one. Each boss is very unique and gives you a good fight. This is normal for most games but bringing those elements to the rpg world blends perfectly.

A side from the games great and very fun game play Famous Characters from the final fantasy series make guest appearances. Which I feel was a plot to get Final Fantasy fans to get past the Disney aspect which of course worked. Cloud, Squall, Yuffie and Aeris and Cid all make appearances and Cloud is even a Boss in the game. Tidus is in the game but he is a child. Note: Sephiroth is also in the first game along with these Characters.

Also note that most of the guest characters are from Final Fantasy VII and no Final Fantasy games older then PlayStation appear. After beating the game with Sora players will get to replay the game as Sora’s lost friend Riku to see his side of the story. Riku can jump higher then Sora and also has a Heartless form All in All Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories is one of those games you will hate at first because of the Disney aspect, but will quickly grow on you and you will get past the Disney to enjoy a great game.

Personal Opinion: Like I said once you get past the fact that its got those Disney characters in it. Its a pretty good game to play. The fighting’s cool and the storyline is one of those ones where all the puzzles and hints and clues and shit keep you guessing and wanting more.

Story-

Players of the first game might remember that there were two stories to follow. The story of Desmond and the story of Altair. While Desmond’s story was pretty intriguing, Altair’s story, the one you mainly followed through the game, was shallow and filled with “saw-it-coming” plot twists. The sequel begins moments after the first one ended. Lucy, Desmond’s sole friend in the first game, comes in and tells you that you need to get your ass in gear and leave – but first, take a seat on the Animus(the machine that allows you to relive your ancestor’s memories.) You witness the birth of your ancestor – Ezio Auditore de Firenze.

Ezio is a cocky teenager belonging to a noble family during the Italian Renaissance. He has his own gang, is charming with the ladies and values his family. You have to figure out what goes wrong for him to go from that to a life-ending extraordinaire. I won’t pussyfoot around it – I love the story in this game. It really gripped me and had me interested throughout the entire experience. It has a great combination of drama, humor and action. There’s quite a few twist and turns throughout the game that will keep you on your toes and just the overall narrative is awesome.

The characters in AC2 are extremely likable. Ezio is fun to play as and watching him mature and develop really connects you to him. He is also fits the perfect “badass” description. The game is also littered with historical figures and places, all of which are portrayed perfectly, or at least how I expected them to behave. Leonardo Da Vinci is nothing short of awesome. His enthusiastic behavior and brotherly love for Ezio really makes you feel like you have a strong ally on your journey. Other historical people of importance include Machiavelli, the Medici’s and Caterina Sforza.

A minor gripe I will mention about the story is the fact that as you progress through the it time passes. This is actually sort of confusing. You’ll approach a mission marker at dawn, and when the mission starts it’ll be night. Another confusing aspect of this is when Ezio will be talking to someone and mention “10 years ago I started my journey” or something along those lines, and it’s sort of a “Wait a second…what?” It’s a nice touch that Ezio himself grows older, but none of the supporting characters or settings change appearance.

Gameplay-

So the biggest complaint about the first Assassin’s Creed was that it was very repetitive. This game has done everything in its power to make sure that doesn’t happen again. They do a great job of switching it up. You could be doing a stealth section, then five minutes later beating up someone’s cheating husband, then five minutes later platforming in a tomb, etc. Another thing to mention is that all of the missions are laced so tightly with the story, that it almost doesn’t matter. Your father tells you to deliver things in the beginning, which are essentially “run here and back” missions, but because on each end there is someone to talk to, it’s nowhere near as bad. So as far as repetition is concerned, you will rarely be doing the same thing over and over, and if you do, the reason for doing it is different, and that goes a long way.

Aside from the main story, there are four different types of side-quests available to you. These can generally be described as: races, assassinations, beat-ups and courier missions. They are all different enough and fun. I don’t particularly like the racing because the platforming is not up to snuff for my likings, but it still provides some entertainment if you somehow manage to get bored with the other features. The best part about these side missions is that most of them at least tie into the story if not offer their own small story arc.

Combat remains largely unchanged from the first game, and some people will hate this. It’s true – the combat is simplistic, but I never really thought it was bad. As in the first game, you can pretty much make a living off of counter attacks. However, some wrenches are thrown in the gears. You now have three different enemy types. Agiles are your cannon fodder guards that will flee from you when a higher-up has been killed. They’re obviously built for speed and can catch up to you if you aren’t careful while running. Brutes are hulking soldiers in full plate armor that carry a “big” weapon, such as a two-handed sword or axe. They’re slow, but can string a combo together that will really knock you for a loop – you also cannot counter them right away. You’ll have to dwindle down his health a little bit by just dodging in and out of his swings and landing a hit. You could also defeat him by disarming him; a brand new technique for AC2 that allows Ezio to pull the weapon from his enemy’s hands and use it against him(Awesome).

The last guard type is known as the Seeker, and what this guy does is walk around the city poking hiding spots in case you’re hiding in them; he uses a spear or lance.

So the enemies are switched up, but what about Ezio? Well, you have a whole new bag of tricks to pull from. Say the Seeker is coming to the hiding spot that you are in. What you’d do is lunge out, stab him in the face, and drag his body back into the hiding spot with you. You can also do this if you’re hanging from a ledge on a building and there’s a pesky archer above. Ezio also now has two hidden blades, one on each wrist, which is extremely awesome. Not too mention that Leonardo hooks you up with all kinds of add ons for your blades.

It’s worth mentioning that in the first game, stealth was really kind of a waste. You could be as sneaky as you want and it would end up with you being in a brawl with thirty guards before you’d kill your target. I’m happy to say that in AC2 I managed to kill all of my targets in a sneaky or stealthy way, and this enhances the feel of the game for me a lot.

Ezio also has a few “get out of jail free cards” that I really loved during the game. You have the ability to throw sand into people’s face to blind them, throw a coin on the ground to distract them or just chuck a smoke bomb at your feet – by the time the smoke clears, you’ll be halfway across the city. This leads into another new aspect the game has – hiring groups. Throughout the game, you can hire three groups of people: Courtesans, thieves and soldiers. The soldiers are pretty self explanatory, they’ll just help you fight. The thieves will do much of the same, but they are agile and able to follow you along the rooftops. Courtesans will entice the guards to come talk or flirt with them while Ezio slips by the “Do Not Enter” sign.

Ezio is able to swim in this game, which is pretty handy since a lot of Venice is water. On one particular assassination, I managed to kill the target and then everyone freaked out. I dropped a smoke bomb, sprinted up onto a ledge and down into the water; while people were panicking back at the corpse of my target, I was pulling myself up out of the water across the river. Moments like that just make you feel awesome. The swimming mechanics don’t feel bad, and you can speed up your stroke by pressing A/X. You can also use boats to get across sections with water, but they handled pretty badly so I usually preferred to just swim.

The free running is exactly the same as in the first game, but I personally prefer it that way. Many people were turned off by that aspect in the first, so you will probably still dislike it here. You hold down the right trigger and the A/X button and move. That’s all there is too it. It’s simple but I found it very satisfying. He just looks cool doing stuff.

However, platforming really shows how inaccurate it can be when you enter an assassin tomb. These tombs contain the bodies of other members of your order, and also “seals” that you can collect to unlock Altair’s armor. These tombs usually consist of very little combat, stealth and a lot of Prince of Persia-esque platforming. There are a lot of “pull this lever then hurry up all these crazy ledges to get into the gate on time” things in the tombs.

Speaking of collecting seals from tombs – holy shit are there a lot of collectibles. Six seals, 100 feathers, 20 glyphs, 30 Codex pages, god knows how many treasure chests, and a ton of things for your villa. Your villa is kind of like your home base. When you get there, it is absolutely trashed, but as you progress through the game you can upgrade it. Upgrading works by talking to the architect who will rebuild something like the brothel or the thieves guild for money. You can also upgrade all of the shops, the bank and other similar things. The main building in the villa also houses an armory so every weapon you purchase will go on display there; the same can be said for armor and paintings that you can purchase from the different cities. Upgrading or adding to the villa increases its worth, and every 20 minutes you’ll get money from your villa – think of it just like the Fable 2 real estate feature. I am always a sucker for stuff like this in games where I get to either customize or rebuild something, so I love this part. It genuinely felt good when you’d walk in there and notice “Hey, all the ivy that was on the windows is gone now.”

This unfortunately unfolds into another minor gripe I have with the game. Money is way too easy to get. You could easily have the entire villa running before you get anywhere near the end of the game, and after that there’s almost no point to having money. Ezio can pickpocket citizens which is fun at the beginning, but becomes pointless near the end. The only vendor I even touch anymore is the doctor for health potions (unlike the last game, your health does not simply regenerate, you must use a health potion from the doctor.)

Subject 16, the subject before Desmond, managed to hide all of these glyphs in the animus. When you find one, you will be given a puzzle to solve (varying from fun to stupid) and once it is completed shown a very brief video clip of…something. I certainly won’t spoil it, but it makes the entire Assassin’s Creed backstory that much more interesting. The puzzles can be confusing, like they aren’t being specific enough about what they want you to do, but it is kind of cool to see how they work conspiracy theory aspect of Assassin’s Creed into all types of history.

The last thing I’d like to mention about the collectibles is that they all reward you for something. Sure, you get achievements or trophies, but you actually get something in game as well.

Graphics-

The scenery in Assassin’s Creed 2 is some of my favorite I’ve seen in any game. When you get to the top of a viewpoint (a high point in the city where you can survey the surrounding area) your jaw will probably drop off your head. It’s funny, because I did the same thing in the first one and didn’t think it would have the same impact in the sequel, but it really did for me. The Italian architecture is perfectly translated to the AC world.

At a specific point in the story, it is night and during a festival in Venice. The fireworks, costumes and decorations really created a small environment that I fell in love with. I spent a lot of time just hanging out in that area, and was genuinely bummed out when the story progressed past it.

The characters all look very cool and unique, specifically Ezio. They really went all out with the assassin costume this time, and it just looks very cool. The historical characters are very easy to pick out, and they look quite a bit like their real life counterparts.

The voice work is very authentic. A complaint I had with the first game was that it was just weird to hear Altair having an American accent in the Middle East. Ezio and everyone else speaks with an Italian accent and even use the language now and then (mostly while swearing, but it adds to the effect.) Nolan North as Desmond Miles is a little tainted for me, because as far as I know North is Nathan Drake. He does a good job, for what it’s worth, but it’s like trying to watch Jaleel White do a gritty war movie – you just see Urkel the whole time.

One of the coolest things visually this game does is that it really takes advantage of the whole phase in/phase out of the Animus loading. They have a really cool effect where everything will slow down and the environment will start to break apart and shrink or disappear in a very “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” kind of feel.

I did not experience any graphical hitches or game breaking bugs while playing through Assassin’s Creed 2, nor have I heard from anyone else that they have experienced them.

Final Thoughts-

-I think everyone owes it to themselves to try this game. Even if you hated the first.

-Replayability isn’t the strongest, but there are quite a few moments I’d play through again just to re-experience them. *cough* Glider *cough*

-Has an awesome Platnium trophy name.

Every now and then, a game comes along that brutally kicks your ass, assaults you relentlessly, and forgoes a lot of the modern devices of video games that some claim make them easier. Demon’s Souls IS that game.

Graphics-
The game is fairly good looking, albeit it’s not a pretty game. It’s dark, filed with lots of gray and brown, and does not generally feel very uplifting at all. The game runs off of the Havoc Engine, which provides solid physics (albeit, sometimes a little weird. Try walking into a corpse, they’ll flail all over the place). Levels feature lots of destructible items, although they usually feel slapped on, as they rarely offer tactical or logistical advantage.

The rest of the graphics are solid but unspectacular; frame rate is smooth, animations are solid, and there is nothing wrong with them, they just don’t necessarily wow you.

Audio-
The soundtrack is rather subtle in scale as well, often foregoing music entirely for simple sound effects. While music generally does a good job ramping up the excitement of boss fights, throughout much of each level you will find that there is no music to be heard. But that’s ok, because, in a way, it helps create this taut sense of loneliness, and the ghastly sounds of howling rabid dogs down the dark hallway you are making your way through or your feet clanking against a stone corridor are all well done and add to the atmosphere. Sadly, the voice acting in this game feels uninspired for the most part, although, luckily for us, there isn’t much of it to go around. Part of that is because there isn’t much story either; greedy king abuses soul power to awaken demons. That’s it. It’s typical fantasy fare.

Gameplay-
As labeled, Demon’s Souls is an action-RPG, and, surprisingly, has a decidedly “western” feel to it. Played from a third-person perspective in real time, Demon’s Souls is a dark, gritty, no-holds barred adventure of a game.

And when I say dark, I mean dark. Before you even begin gameplay, the game literally asks you to turn the brightness setting way down. I did this at first, but found that the game got too dark for me, and I was fumbling around a bit too much. Use discretion; it’s no fun to pass some lever you were supposed to pull or stumble off a cliff to your death because you couldn’t see (more on death later). I ended up setting the brightness back to it’s default setting, the game is plenty dark.

Enemies themselves range from generic to rather nightmarish in appearance. There are some pretty imaginative bosses to fight, some of them huge in scale (think Shadow of Colossus). They all add to the somewhat “gothic” feel of the game, and the dark atmosphere.

The brief tutorial does an okay job of introducing you to the most vital of controls, R1 is right hand use (like swing your weapon), R2 is heavy swing of said item, R3 is enemy lock-on, square is use item, circle is dash, or, with analog input, a roll, and triangle allows you to switch around how you wield your weapon between one or two hands. The two left triggers provide wielding your left handed item (L1), and parrying (L2). The right stick grants you power over the camera, allowing you to move it as you please, and the control pad toggles through items and weapons. While the main gist of combat feels very responsive and fluid, I have some issues. You can only scroll through items in one order, and you can have five equipped at a time. For instance, if “sticky white stuff” (lol, an actual item) is your fifth item, you must scroll using the control pad to it. If you accidentally pass it, you must go all the way through your items again. While this sounds rather small in scale, you’ll quickly learn that in this game, every second counts. Otherwise though, you’ll find the controls are simple to grasp. Sadly, the tutorial does skip over some of them, most notably the message system (more on this later).

There are ten classes in Demon’s Souls to play as, and they all play relatively differently. They’re generally the class archetypes we come to expect from this genre; knight, barbarian, thief, etc. Stats are relatively familiar too, featuring things like Strength (which can increase damage, for instance), and Luck (which can increase item drop rates), among others. Interestingly enough, any class can use any combination of weapons, as long as you have the right stats, and some of the weapons vary pretty wildly in terms of how they play. This makes gameplay a constantly evolving ordeal. You can go big and slow, quick and agile, whatever you want, which is good, because you may want to mix up your style if you find yourself stuck.

Your hit points are suitably represented by a HP bar. There is also a MP bar for magic and miracles, which are spells you can use during the game. Certain stats determine how many you can know at once. There is also a stamina bar, which depletes when running, blocking, rolling, or attacking. It’s important to keep some stamina in the tank at all times, if it gets empty, you can no longer successfully block or use heavy attacks. It does recharge quickly. Items you carry also add to your overall weight, the limit of which is determined by your Strength. The game, fortunately, includes a bank of sorts at the Nexus for items, and it has unlimited space.

Protip: Keep your shield up at all times. You never know what may be lurking around the corner

It’s hard to compare Demon’s Souls to any game out there, it has some similarities to Monster Hunter, without the over-exaggeration of combat, and at times also bares some ties to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. It’s combat oriented; don’t expect puzzles or exploration to take a role in this one. Combat is gory and largely satisfying, and is well paced throughout the levels.

The most important gameplay elements are souls, as one would expect from the title. Souls work as the in-game currency of sorts, and you get them for killing enemies in battle. Souls are used for everything in this game; buying, upgrading, and repairing equipment, purchasing items, and leveling up. You will want to kill all enemies you meet in this game because souls are so important.

Demon’s Souls is a very unforgiving game, mostly because of how death works. When you die, every single soul you have is gone. Potentially hours worth of souls are stripped away from you. This makes it important to spend your souls as you get them, buying equipment and items that you do not lose when you die. Sadly, the only area you can spend your souls at is the Nexus, your home base of sorts, and this can only be accessed from a few different places in each expansive area.

Luckily for us, you do get a second chance. When you die, you are taken back to the beginning of the level and placed into spirit form. Spirit form plays the same as your alive, or physical form, but with one exception; you have less HP. If you want to get all those souls back you lost, you must regain your physical form. There are a few ways to do this; one is to fight your way back to where you died and touch your bloodstain, from the beginning of the level, with every single enemy respawned. Another is to defeat a boss, and the final is to kill another player using PvP (more on this later). If you die in spirit form before getting back to physical form, you are out of luck. Those hard earned souls are gone forever, and once again, the cycle repeats itself. It’s at times frustrating, but it makes your successes that much more rewarding.

And trust me, you will be dying, and the game does not hide that. The first boss you face is in the tutorial, and he kills you in one hit, setting the tone for what is a difficult gameplay experience. Thankfully, the game never feels cheap or gimmicky in it’s difficulty, and you’ll find that overtime you do notice yourself getting better, and cruising through areas that were once difficult. (As a side note, if there was one disappointing boss in this game, it was the end boss, who was surprisingly easy.)

The game itself is divided into 5 large areas, each with several levels, all generally linear in nature, with some side paths sprinkled in for good measure. All the levels are connected in each area, so you could theoretically play through each area’s levels in one go. The levels are the game’s only checkpoints (these checkpoints are also areas you can access the Nexus from), and they often start and stop at bosses. At any time in the game you can access any level you’ve already played through. With a few exceptions, you can choose to play through the areas in whatever order you would like, although note that areas four and five, for example, are harder than one and two, with enemies acting more aggressively and utilizing rolling and other quick movements that they often forgo in the early game. Each area does do a good job of introducing new enemies to overcome, and each boss looks and feels different.

One problem with the soul system is that at times it makes grinding a bit necessary. When I get stuck on one particularly hard level and am at a point where I can’t really sustain any soul gaining, I often go to an earlier level and play through it a few times to get some extra souls for things like repairing equipment. This doesn’t work very quickly though, as earlier levels do not have nearly the soul rewards that later levels do, and you’ll find that the cost of equipment, leveling, etc., quickly ramps up. And did I mention that you can’t sell items? Luckily though, these instances of grinding were relatively short and few.

This all leads me to arguably the most innovative aspect of Demon’s Souls; the online play. As long as you are connected to the internet with your PS3, you will be playing online. Wispy ghostlike figures that represent other players dot in and out of your sight as you traverse the level, letting you know that you are not alone in your plight.

There are several crucial online implementations that help you progress through the game. The simplest and arguably most vital is the message system. With the simple press of the select button you can leave a message that other players can see. It’s a great way to leave hints. You’ll find your game littered with little hints saying things like “trap ahead,” “enemy on the right,” “treasure down this way,” or “blunt weapons work well on next enemy.” It’s a creative little way to have a small, in game guide of sorts. You can also rate the messages left behind by other players. Messages that get highly rated will result in health benefits for the player who wrote them, a nice little touch.

Much has been made about the bloodstain aspect of online play. Throughout a level you will encounter bloodstains of other players who died. By touching these bloodstains, you can see how they died. While cool in theory, in practice it is largely underwhelming. You can only see the player who died, not what enemies or trap might have killed them, leaving you just as clueless as before you checked the bloodstain out.

The other online gameplay elements are more grandiose in scale. Once you clear the first level, you gain the ability to summon spirit form players to help you, or be summoned as a spirit form to help another player who is in physical form. Help that player defeat a boss, and you get your physical body back.

The most intriguing and sinister online gameplay element is the PvP. After clearing through a little bit of the game, you gain the ability to force yourself into another players game as a spirit, or Black Phantom. Kill the host player and you gain your body back, die, and you will lose a level from your highest stat.

This all changes the world tendency either towards white or black. Killing other players as a Black Phantom, or dying in game changes the area you are in to black, causing enemies to become more difficult, but more rewarding. Defeating demon bosses or Black Phantoms in battle changes the world tendency to white, which has the opposite effect. These changes can also open up new areas, foes, and friends. Your own character also has a tendency, and it is gained much the same, with different tendencies affecting the bonuses you get from certain items.

As you can imagine, once you get far enough into the game where other players can assassinate you, the intensity ratchets up another level. Trust me when I say though, that it is much easier to play this game online. Playing it offline means you get no tips or co-op, and that really ups the difficulty. The tradeoff for online play is worth it.

As a side note, trophies are largely going to come overtime; defeating bosses is the major source of trophies, as well as maxing out weapons and finding all items. You will, however, have to play through the game more than once to get them all.

All-in-all this is a fun, challenging gameplay experience. With satisfying combat, expansive areas, and imaginative boss fights, this is a game worthy of purchase. It’s incredibly intense and at times frustrating, but right when you feel you have gotten to your breaking point, you succeed. There are some other flaws to note; one notable “fluke” of sorts is that, while it’s easy for you to fall to your death in this game, enemies do not sustain any damage from falling from large heights, at least from what I saw, which can make fighting high off the ground a bit frustrating.

If by some inhuman chance you find the game easy on your first play through, don’t worry, it gets harder every time you beat it. But I honestly don’t think that too many people will come to that conclusion with this game. What you get out the game on it’s second play through depends on how much you enjoy it; there isn’t really anything new to do.

I don’t know what else to say about this game. It is a terribly difficult experience, and yet, when you finally defeat that boss that has killed you 10 times in a row, the sense of accomplishment is amazing. This game is an incredible source of both the sting of pain and the rush of triumph, all wrapped up in a fittingly dark, dreary world. A throwback to older games; what with it’s lack of cut scenes, checkpoints, and continues, Demon’s Souls is not for the faint of heart, but if you are up for the challenge, it is one of the most infuriating, engrossing, and masochistically enjoyable games of this generation. Thumbs up.

Pros:
- Fun combat
- Very atmospheric
- Innovative, enjoyable online elements

Cons:
- Minor gameplay faults (see; falling, soul grinding).
- Little to no story for an RPG. at least not original.
- Very unforgiving, difficult game

Story-
Shadow complex is a game that is supposed to serve as a medium between Orson Scott Card’s novel Empire and the sequel Hidden Empire. I have read the books and they’re good. If you haven’t read the Books, They did a good job presenting the game with not a lot of facts but enough to where you can understand who antagonists are.

The story starts you off as some random guy, who has gotten a prototype suit. All you know is that the Vice President of the United States of America is being attacked and there is a gun fight between the Secret Service and the Progressive Restoration, the bad guys. Using the prototype suit you stole from the PR you kill all the evil doers. However after the firefight an explosion occurs killing the Vice President and a voice comes over your suit and takes back control where you are knocked out, or you might have died, one of the two.

Meanwhile in a different area Jason and his girlfriend Claire, who after some dialogue implies that this is their first date, are hiking around the forest where they stumble upon a cave. Claire seeming adventurous decides to explore the cavern and goes on ahead of you. Jason heads down but when he hits the bottom all he can find is her backpack. After progressing and finding a fully automatic door in the cave, you hear Claire being dragged away and into the door above you. It is then that Jason heads through after her and stumbles upon a massive a military complex. Your objective is simple form here, rescue Claire.

The plot of the story is pretty good, with a secret organization that somehow has a surprising amount of weaponry to battle the United States.
No complaints, although the Dialogue had it’s corny moments.

Game play-
Shadow Complex mirrors the early Metroid games for the Nintendo and Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems. That is definitely not a bad thing as you get slight nostalgia from the game as it reminds you when Side scrolling games were all the rage. It is not the side scrolling aspect that makes it reminiscent to Metroid but the other aspects.

Over the course of your journey through the complex you will come across doors that you cannot open unless you have the right equipment. Your equipment to help you with these barriers and help kill your enemies is many from a type of foam that freezes your enemies to missiles and much more.

So how does one go about carrying Foam, grenades, and such? Well the game, once again being like metroid, provides you with a super suit, the one from the beginning. The pieces to the suit are missing so you acquire the pieces separately, each time giving you something new to play with, my personal favorite being the friction dampener allowing you to go at super fast speeds to break down walls.

The game places a huge aspect on exploration. Players will find themselves coming back to previously explored areas not just to get to the next objective but to explore and open areas that were previously unreachable. While the game does not force you to explore, exploring sure does help, and who wouldn’t want a ammo capacity for their missiles increased or more health? Normally I don’t go crazy for finding items, but with this game I just felt a strange urge to constantly go back to the very beginning and just search every nook and cranny for some sort of obstacle just so I can get an Armor upgrade. It did a really good job at rewarding the player for going off the beaten path.

So what happens when you are exploring and you forget where you need to go? This will not happen as the game shows the area where you need to go along with a blue line that shows you how to get there. The map also shows doors that can be opened with current equipment by giving it a certain color.

Although it is like a Metroid game, it does innovate in some areas given the current generation we are in. Take the flashlight for example. In games like Metroid you had to figure out what walls could be broken or lay down mines aimlessly, hoping something opens up. With the flashlight, not only does it luminate dark areas but highlights obstacles with a certain color that shows what you need to break it. For instance, some rocks shine red indicating you need missiles to break it or vents shine orange showing you just simply need to fire upon it.

Along with the flashlight the game adds a certain 3D twist to the game. While Jason can only move side to side enemies will be able to move not only side to side, but also come towards you or move farther. They will also be able to shoot at you from areas that aren’t exactly straight in front of you. But don’t worry you are not defenseless, the game allows you to shoot not just forward but into the background as well, and it makes it easier to aim on the background enemies with a decent auto locking system.

Despite the auto lock system, the aiming can still be difficult at times. Since it utilizes the right thumb stick as the aiming button, getting that headshot can sometimes be more trouble than its worth. Several times have I found myself taking so long to get my sight in the right area of the head that they enemies notice me causing me to not only lost my shot but some health.

Along with enemies moving into the background, the game shows more by switching it up when you get into a turret. When side scrolling the camera will immediately change to a third person view when you activate a turret. With both the enemies able to move from or into the background and a good turret affect, the game certainly separates itself from most 3D side scrollers.

Shadow Complex also adds a sort of stealth to it. When I say stealth I don’t mean like Metal Gear Solid, but it allows you to skip certain battles if you need to. Say there are a bunch of enemies, and my health is at 10, if there is ladders above me I can simply jump up to it and silently get by without having to fire a bullet. However don’t expect these to be in every room of the complex.

Shadow Complex also has a leveling system. Defeating enemies and leveling up are some ways Jason can gain experience. Every level awards Jason with something new such as an armor upgrade or boosting basic functions such as running faster. The level cap is 50, and you may not necessarily gain 50 levels through one play through. Do not fret, when you start a new game you will get to keep your current level and the attributes that have come with it, but you will lose the weapons and equipment you have found.

Besides the campaign, players will also get Proving Grounds. Proving Grounds is set up like a sort of simulator with colorless walls and enemies and appears to be used to test the prototype suit. In proving Grounds the player can not use the equipment they have gained, they must use the equipment and abilities the simulator has provided them with in order to complete the challenge. The challenges on Proving Grounds are a set of obstacles that the player can do to get high scores. Don’t expect to find anything too difficult as the Proving Grounds are mainly meant for speed runs and to test how well the players can use the abilities that are provided.

Besides Proving Grounds the game also sets up a very subtle sort of competition. These are displays as the overall campaign score. Besides the campaign score, there also is the high scores for most people punched or most shots to the head. A better example of this is to tell you of my experience. While playing, I decided to use a melee move to knock the guy out, after I did, a small box appeared on the bottom left corner of my TV showing the scores. I had one melee kill under my belt while the person ahead of me, had 80 kills. Once you surpass the person ahead of you, the game will show you the next person ahead of you who has the most amount of melee kills, or headshot kills, or whatever you are aiming for.

Controls-
The controls for the game are very simple being an Xbox Live Arcade game. As mentioned above, the right stick aims, and the left stick move the character. You can select different equipment with the D-pad. And you shoot your rockets or grenades with the Right bumper. It is your average control scheme, nothing new.

Graphics and Sound-
Gore splattered walls and intense amounts of blood are what we have come to expect form Epic, but this time around they did things differently. Surprisingly, there is no blood. Whenever you shoot a guy they appear hurt and clutch their chest but no blood is spilled, so its kid friendly(Hooray?).

The graphics for this game look very much like Undertow and the bionic commando game for XBLA. The graphics are pretty crisp and the environments are well rendered, you get the sense that they even made the areas look good from behind, even though you can’t see it, this shows when you enter the turret, but I already talked about that.

Players will also notice that whenever you shoot a wall, part of the wall will pop out while you’re shooting. Or whenever you shoot at the water, it actually splashes. This surprised me for XBLA game. But for some reason, whenever you threw a grenade into the water, there was only a small plash that was only slightly bigger than a splash caused by a bullet, and the sound for the grenade splash wasn’t all that realistic.

The sound is alright. I got the feeling that the guns sounded the same, except just faster than the last. As I just mentioned the grenade sound wasn’t all that great when it explodes in the water, nor was the splash sounds. However, when under water and you fire your gun, the sound does sound somewhat realistic as there is no loud BLAM sound but more like a silent suppressed gun. So I can’t say the sound was a complete train wreck as they did get some parts right and others not so well.

The environments in this game do have a tendency to mimic the last room. In total I think there is about 5 sectors in the complex. Don’t get me wrong they look really well done, especially the forest area. But in the complex even though there are 5 sectors the rooms look the same as the last sector and not a whole lot of diversity was added to rooms for the most part. Some rooms look different however, so it’s not all the rooms looking the same.

As far as music goes there is none except for the end credits and the Menu. Each song sounds kind of like Bioshock music and then turns into some war tune. It’s alright, but the game could have had a low scale tune for the game instead of the silence.

Final Thoughts-
Really fun
Full of nostalgia for NES and SNES owners
Simple control scheme
Very cheap for what you get.
Short Game.

Story-
So from my limited Time playing the Game Basically there’s tons of heroes taking on tons of Mutants and villains with a Few Super Villains (Kinda like a Boss that you would fight in an instance on WoW) as well as the “Aliens” called Qularr are appearing everywhere, so there’s plenty of hero work that needs to be done.


Gameplay-
As for the Game play you start out spending, Really you could spend an hour easily just customizing your Hero.

After that you beat up some Villains/aliens There’s 3 different Control Settings The Default, The Fantasy Game type and the action Game type.

I went with Default and it’s pretty much like any other MMO you hit 1-0 and your Hero does an attack, some attacks you only need to press once These are called Energy Builders and you need Energy to do your more Powerful attacks, so for Example you would Press 1 being your energy Builder then when you have enough energy press 2 being your powerful attack,
if you press 2 it doesn’t interrupt your Energy Builder you’ll just continue attacking, which is very nice.

After you finish the First Mission/Tutorial. you goto either a Desert or Canada with snow and you can Power up get one more Power as well as a Travel Power Which are all very Cool, Unique and Fast.

Personally I only tried Teleportation, (which is awesome and my favorite)Super Speed, (good for ranged Powers) flight, (pretty cool there’s actually Villains and enemies to fight in the air so you can have mid air battles) Acrobatics which just looks cool and is good for Dodgeing attacks. A Friend Had Jet boots those looked pretty sweet.
But all the Travel Powers include the following-

1. Flight
2. Jet Boots
3. Super Speed
4. Teleport
5. Acrobatics
6. Swinging
7. Super Jump
8. Ice Slide
9. Tunneling
10. Rocket Jump
11. Fire Flight
12. Hover Disk
13. Earth Flight

Now to the Leveling and quests So Champions online is Quests, I mean if you don’t like quests you wont like Champions online, that’s the only way to Level Effectively it’s your Typical MMO now days

I tried PVP once and I have a Feeling it’s not Balanced at all I had no chance at all as a Martial artist I kept Getting shot by arrows and Ice and dieing before I could reach anyone (though it was cool seeing an arrow sticking out of my chest)



Graphics-
The Graphics are good, not Great but Good they went for a Comic look so it’s not very Demanding Either. one cool thing you can do in this game is Change the Colors of all your Powers/attacks, it can’t be White or black though or at least I couldn’t get it to be.


Sounds-
Sounds like you would expect it to, there could be more sounds such as your guy grunts while he’s punching but as it is all you hear is the sound of your attack.

Your Enemies do Grunt some but in my opinion this is where most MMO’s Fault, I wish they would have Taunts and laughs, just little Sounds that would make a big difference.

As for the music, it is very Epic but does get repetitive after awhile I just turned both the music and the atmosphere sounds off because if your in Canada especially you hear a constant sound of Wind blowing.


Final Thoughts-

1. I had Fun, it’s been awhile for an MMO
2. $200 life time Subscription is Tempting
3. it Could get old doing quests over and over
4. it needs more Events other then PVP arena