Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath

GameFlak just got Stranger.

I happened to pick this game up really cheap a few months back, but I’ve finally got around to playing it. This game takes place in the world of Oddworld, like all the previous games in the franchise. The story is very well planned in so many ways that this game’s story, if you ask me, rivals Halo 1 and in some ways Halo 2, and it will drag you in very quickly almost like a good RPG. You take the role of a bounty hunter named Stranger [...], and you start the game off trying to get bounties on some criminals to pay for a mysterious surgery. I’m not going to tell you anything else about the story, because it is great and I don’t want to spoil it for everyone. The next great thing about this game is the gameplay, which is quite unique in a few ways. First of all, instead of using guns that shoot bullets; you have a arm-mounted bow that shoots live ammo [Or in other words, animals, lots and lots of animals.]. Every single beastly projectile has it’s own special attributes, from squealing Chippunks [Yes, Chippunks.] that annoy enemies to Stingbees that make your bow act like a machine gun whilst firing them. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of how excellent the live ammo concept is [Who doesn't want to fire explosive bats at enemies?]. And then you have the third-person mode, which although you may not be able to fire your bow; you’ll be able to run [Which is VERY nice.], pummel enemies with melee attacks, and also bring a nice Platforming element in. The one down-side of this game is your enemies. Other than the criminals you’re trying to get a bounty on, they’re usually one of five or six enemies over and over again [Good thing there's plenty of ways to take them out.]. But the bounties you do get to go after are nearly all different in ever way [Like Jo' Mama. No seriously that's one of the enemies.].

The graphics in this game are absolutely beautiful. Between the unbelievable cutscenes to the wild, sprawling land you explore, it’s absolutely beautiful in nearly ever way. The graphical downsides are the enemy and NPC designs, because most of them are identical.

Another great thing with a few bad part is the music and sounds. The music is absolutely wonderful throughout the game, so that’s not the bad part. The main bad part is that ALL of the enemies sound almost EXACT and so do all the NPCs. This plays a huge part when four enemies keep saying the same line over and over again AT ONCE.

Overall, this game is a must-have for the XBox; it few downsides here and there are more than made up for by the rest of the game. I give Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath a eight out of ten.

Halo: Combat Evolved

It’s about time I wrote a review on Halo.

Everyone who knows what a XBox is, knows what Halo is. The two are like a Reesee’s peanut butter cup. XBox is the chocolate and Halo is the umm… peanut butter. Too bad so many people are allergic to peanuts.

The story starts out with you coming out of what looks like a cryogenic freeze while still in your armor [How's that work exactly?]. And then you’re thrown into some Elite on Spartan action [Spartaaa!!!!!!]. The story definitely isn’t the strong point in this game I found it sort of flimsy here and there and lacking of thought in many other places.

The main thing that supposedly makes Halo sooooo good is the gameplay. I found the weapons, although very different from each other, lacking in numbers. To be exact there only seven weapons, which really mad me sad, since I was looking forward to a average size arsenal of at least ten weapons. Yeah, you have grenades, but grenades are grenades.  When it comes to weapons the one thing that really ticked me off was that you couldn’t use the plasma sword [If I want to get killed by something, then I also want to kill something with it.]. There’s several vehicles in there, but as long as you’re alive and inside of them, then they’re absolutely invincible [Wha...?]. You have the warthog [Your basic jeep with a gun.], a ghost [A hovering vehicle which doesn't allow you to boost like your enemies...], a scorpion tank [The mother of all tanks.], and the banshee [A flying vehicle which ALSO doens't allow you to boost like your enemies!]. Now the enemies are as repetitive as counting grains of sand on a beach. You have elites,  grunts, hunters, and jackals for the Covenant forces [Yes, that's all folks!] and several forms of Flood, which mostly act the same. Also, there’s no boss. I haven’t played a FPS yet that didn’t have some semblance of a final boss battle, whether it was a obscene amount of Nazis pouring in from nowhere or a giant laser-beam eyeball. Now the enviroment is absolutely annoying in so many ways. You have to play through nearly every map TWICE; you go to a point then backtrack form there. On top of that, half of the rooms in the world are exactly the same! The same design, the same texture, and almost the same enemies [I thought I was going in circles at first.]. The game also comes with four difficulties ranging from easy to a almost god mode for the AI. But gameplay-wise there’s not much else to talk about.

The music is really awesome at first, but every once in a while you’ll come across a song that will annoy to the point of having to pause the game and listle to Super Mario World. The sound is good and I have no major complaints about it, except sometimes you’ll glitch something and it’ll make the most annoying screeching noise ever.

The graphics are absolutely wonderful for when it came out. The bullet’s look like bullets, the aliens look like aliens, and the flood look like zombies. Too bad you have no feet though…

The multiplayer is also very good, and is the main reason for playing this game. Whether it’s the Co-Op story mode or a free-for-all deathmatch; you’ll have a lot of fun with the multiplayer.

Overall, this game is quite short in single player [I beat it in seven hours.], but the multi-player almost redeems the entire game if you have someone to play it with. I give Halo: Combat Evolved a six out of ten.