The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review (Xbox 360)

This review will include The Knights Of the Nine and Shivering Isles expansions.

Graphics:9


Story:10


Gameplay:9

Sound:9


Overall:9.25




Well to start off, before you even create your character and such, the video shown in the beginning is inspiring and makes you want to just jump in and start hackin' and slashin'.

Then comes the ‘create-a-character.’ While you choose from 10 different races, each with their own special set of skills, there is a race for everyone to play with. Whether you like to sneak and shoot, mage and rage, hack and slash, or like to mix it up a bit, there is a race and a class just for you. Well after you make your race, there is a short little part where you go through the tutorial and learn your skills.



Then, off to your own start of an adventure. The true beauty of this game is that you don't have to do the quest prescribed to you. You are free to explore, fight and play through a totally open world where you do what you want to do. Believe there are a lot of quests in this ever changing world. You can go loot a random castle, fight through a cave to claim its treasure, join a guild, slay a malevolent being, or go buy a house and relax, the possibilities are near endless.

Another great thing: the game levels up as you do. The equipment you find will increase in durability, value and strength as you do. It makes it all the worthwhile to level up your Destruction to get that spell that does 100pts of fire damage. And the end of the game? Trick question it never ends. So my overall view of the game? Great! A must buy in my book. So go try it out and start your own epic adventure worthy of song by the bards, or how about go be one? It’s up to you. The fate of Tamriel is in your hands brave adventurer.

Now with the Knights of the Nine, I won't reveal any secrets, buuuut, it adds a whole new twist to the gameplay. You get new access to a brand new set of armor, weapons and spells. Even a cool new place to call home complete with blacksmith and beds. Plus an intriguing story on the first ever warrior to slay a demon-god. Get to it young Paladin.

The Shivering Isles. Home of the Daedric Lord Sheogorath, King of Madness. His realm is split into two warring sides of madness that you will have to explore, unite and tame. Why do this array of quests? For the Ultimate goal: to become a Daedric Prince. But there is an epic battle and grand adventure to go through to claim this right, so be ready for anything.

RuneScape (PC) Review

I know some of you may be thinking "Why is he reviewing a free game?" Well the answer is that RuneScape is a free game, but you may also pay a fee each month to become a Member, which is sort of an expansion to the free RuneScape. Anyway, on to the review!

RuneScape is arguably a MMOAG, or Massive Multiplayer Online Adventure Game. Some people refer to it as a MMORPG, which is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Don't worry about the minor details though, no matter what the game is classified, it is all around great. You begin the game (after signing up) on what is known as 'Tutorial Island.' Here you are taught the basics of gameplay, including fishing, mining, cooking, smithing, fighting, and more. The game has over 20 different skills, so its a bit of a lengthy tutorial. For more advanced players restarting a new character, or for those who simply want to skip it, there is a way to leave the island before it is completed.

The game has no central storyline, you are your own story! There are many quests to do, some short, some very long. What you decide to do shapes your character. The good thing about RuneScape is that you are free to do what you wish. You can make a living mining and smithing armour and weapons, catching and cooking fish, chopping wood and making bows, crafting jewelry, building furniture, creating potions, crafting magic runes for wizards, and so much more. The map appears to be a vast landscape, and it is, but an experienced player can traverse the land quickly using teleportation spells.

Combat in RuneScape can get a tad bit frustrating later on in the game, especially if you fight monsters that are much too strong for you. Some creatures are meant to be attacked in groups, unfortunately if you are more of a lone-wolf type then this is nearly impossible to do. If you're lucky you may find someone recruiting a group to fight team-monsters, but this usually takes more time than it's worth. Combat is fairly straightforward, though. You simply click monsters you wish to attack, and then you begin fighting them. Depending on which kind of fighting you are doing (Melee, Range, Mage) your character may run up to the monster or simply attack from where you are. The 'Combat-Triangle' governs fighting. Mages beat Melee'ers, Melee beats Rangers, and Rangers beat Mages.That is to say, if a person who is level 60 in magic was to attack someone who was level 60 in range, the range person will usually win. Usually.

I won't get too in-depth with each skill, because to do so would require many days of writing, and also reading on your part. Here's a look at the major skills most commonly used in free world-

Mining - This skill is used to mine different ores, used in Smithing. Higher levels allow the mining of higher level and more valuable ores.

Smithing - This is the skill used to combine ores and coal into useful items, such as weapons and armour. Higher levels allow smithing of better items and therefore better profits.

Fishing - You guessed it, the fishing skill is for fishing. Depending on your level, you can catch anything from shrimp and anchovies to salmon and cod to lobsters and swordfish.

Cooking - While this skill is used mainly for baking and creating things from scratch, it is also used for cooking the fish you catch and the meat dropped by animals when killed.

Magic - This skill, besides being used for combat, can be used for alchemizing items. That is, convertin items into gold. MANY people see this as a great way of making money, epsecially combined with the smithing skill.

Crafting - This skill can also be used with the mining skill. Gold, silver, and clay ores are used for jewelry and pottery. You can also craft leather from cows into archer armour. This skill is usually not very profitable until later on, in the mid 60's.

Woodcutting - Probably the easiest skill to train, woodcutting is used far and wide for its money making capacity. It doesn't yield much until later levels, but its very easy to get there.

Most other skills are kinda just there. Of course you have to train combat, but I would think that speaks for itself. Kill monsters, level up.

All in all, Runescape is a great game to play, recently, the powers that be saw fit to rework the game to shorten the length of Tutorial Island, and have made all non-essential skill tutorials optional. This lets you jump into the game faster. But if you've taken the time to read this whole review, you might as well give it a go! Signing up is free and easy, no confirmation emails, no credit card numbers. Pick a name, password, login and play!

Two Worlds Review (Xbox 360)

Graphics - 8/10

Gameplay - 7/10

Sound - 8/10

Multiplayer - 6/10

Story - 7/10

Overall - 7/10

Just to start out this review on the right track, please remember throughout reading this that this review is for the Xbox 360 version of the game. It is a considerable factor when making decisions about this game, so read on for a detailed explanation.

First, I would like to say great job to South Peak and Reality Pump because this is the first RPG they have attempted. This is a sort of downgrade to Oblivion, and considering that Oblivion is the fourth in a series (Elder Scrolls,) I think that Two Worlds is a decent start. There are a few things I personally haven't seen in an RPG before, such as combining identical weapons and armour to increase their stats. In comparing this game to Oblivion, it is better in the sense that it has: a larger world, dual-wielding weapons, combinable weapons and armour, and considerably less glitches in the main storyline.

The graphics for the game are detailed. Not overly-stunning, but very good nonetheless, especially when you think about how massive the game world is. The towns, villages, characters, and monsters, are all gorgeous. A real problem, though, is that it is extremely obvious that the entire game was designed for a computer monitor. Much of the text is hard or impossible to read, even on a large TV. This can slightly affect the storyline and quests in the game, as sometimes you can't read over your next objective. Even menus are optimized for mouse use, such as your inventory having to be scrolled through each and every time you open it. Just another reason that I say to only refer to this review for the Xbox 360 version of the game.

The game's storyline is nothing new. Your sister is missing, you are a mercenary who couldn't care less about the ongoing war between Orcs and Humans. If you're looking for advice on completing the game, do not attempt to beat it without doing a lot of side quests. The standard difficulty level is quite high enough, and even if you play it on easy you will still need a bit of help in the exp. department to get through the story. With that said, for those of you who are hardcore RPGers, you may find one of the endings overly easy to beat, while the other is a tad bit harder, regardless of difficulty level. The story is delivered well, and if you manage to read the text, you shouldn't have a problem following along. One of the sad things about this game though, is that you can ignore the story completely and still beat it in the same amount of time. Everything is staightforward. No going back and checking over things to look for solutions. This is another aspect different from Oblivion, where you must figure out many of the problems yourself.

Sound in the game is nice. The voice actors may have tried a bit too hard, but the overall effect works. You can play most any song along with this game from your Xbox and it will usually work. I've gone from country to techno to rap and everything in between. Now this of course, depends on your personal music choice and doesn't affect the sound score really, but I thought it was worthy to add in. Anyway, the sound effects are pretty cool, with a nice variety in clips. In game music goes along pretty well depending on which place you are in at the time. Not much else to say, unfortunately.

Two Worlds gameplay is also nothing spectacular. It works, but just know that if you are a fighter, every sword swing is the same. Every pike thrust is the same as the last, and each spear slice is nothing new. I know you are thinking "How many ways can you possibly swing a sword?" Well you can definitely add in different combos, style, or something of the sort. Combat amounts to about the same as washing your hair - Swing, backstep, repeat. There is no dodging, evading, rolling out of the way in a glorious lifesaving manuever. Nope. Not one. Just basic button mashing glory. The customization system is different, at least. Weapons and armours of the same type can be combined to increase their stats, or to combine abilities. Uniqueness is nice, as just about every piece of equipment in the game is different. For example, the copper armour you find in the beginning of the game will be different from the set you find later on. Both are the same, but the stats are slightly different. I guess you would say that there are different qualities of armour, although there's no actual declaration of it.

The big disappointment of this game, though, is the almost non-existent multiplayer. Things now may be slightly better, but at least for the first two months after the game was released, playing online would more likely convince you to go out and buy a book than play online ever again. There were also high amounts of hacking and glitching in the online game, as the PC version and Xbox versions were played on linked servers. This made it really hard to join in as well because anyone who hacked in could generate large amounts of health potions, or anything else for that matter, and would be rendered near invincible.

The overall concept of the game is cool. The graphics are pretty nice, and the gameplay will be loved by some, hated by others. The customization could have been more in-depth, and the lack of real classes is a downside. Sometimes it's hard to determine what skills you should train to be a certain type of fighter. Two Worlds is a solid 7/10 for the Xbox, but again, this rating would definitely be higher on a PC.

Fable 2 Review (Xbox 360)

Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 9/10
Gameplay - 10/10
Story - 10/10
Overall - 9.5/10

Fable 2 was definitely one of the most anticipated games this year. And with good reason. The original Fable was a great game, albeit with a few flaws. Fable 2 corrects many of these imperfections, making for a very good game.

As you can see, I didn't give the game a full 10/10. There are a few things there were taken out of the game, such as the lack of armour. The game IS set 500 years later, but it is still in an age where swords are the dominant weapon. Therefore, armour would still be required. The sound clips from the villagers tend to get repetitive quickly, just as in the original Fable. They also seem to play at awkward times as well. For instance, you can be sweet-talking your wife, trying to seduce her, and leading her up to the bedroom for some night-time activity. Out of the blue, she'll mention that she absolutely LOVES traveling to Brightwood.


But enough of the small things. The graphics in Fable 2 are much better than the original, although your character still has oversized hands, and the still slightly cartoon-ish design may be a damper for some people. But generally the attention to detail is nice, and the quality is certainly noteworthy. The Will animations are very nice, and I think that the character scars are more noticeable. Depending on your alignment, you either get a halo and blue body markings or horns and red markings. Both are equally visible, whereas in Fable 1 I sometimes had trouble seeing how my character actually reflected his alignment.

The gameplay is great, just as in the first. The only thing I don't like is the removal of armour and a lack of variety when it comes to clothing. The storyline is deep, although I can see several repetitions of the original. You must save a woman from a group of thieves, win an arena tournament, your family is killed by the villain, etc. While it isn't an entirely original plot, it's still fun to play. The Xbox 360 controls might be a bit confusing at first, especially if you're used to the PC version. You'll notice that your character runs a bit slower, and turning takes a wee bit longer. But the real estate portion of the game is much better. In the original game, you had to travel to each house/shop to collect rent. If you made the trip before rent was due, you would have to return again some other time. And if you wait too long, it would build up to the max and you couldn't collect anymore. This time around, rent is collected every 5 minutes, whether you're playing or not. There are MANY more shops and buildings available to be bought, all of them, in fact. You can even purchase the temple of light or temple of shadows. Upgrades to your shop or house will yield a noticeable increase in rent prices, which are adjustable.


The sound in the game is great, with many witty remarks from NPC's. The Will and Skill sounds are nice, and theres even a good blood-squirting clip for beheadings. As I mentioned earlier, the only drawback I can find is that some villagers will repeat the same thing several times in only a few moments of play. The women who fall in love with you are also a bit too convincing. Not to mention nagging. Every woman you pass with a heart over her head will profess her unyielding love for you, unless you don't buy her a ring. This is a topic that is overstated in towns where you are famous.

Overall, Fable 2 is great. While not quite perfect, it's definitely a must-have. I recommend this game to anyone that enjoys a good RPG/Adventure game. I've even persuaded a few people who have NEVER played an RPG to buy this game and they absolutely loved it. Pick this one up next time you pass a Gamestop, if you haven't already.