Within Morgan

I’m calling it right now. Modern Warfare 2 is the game of the year. Hands down, it’s the most fun I’ve had since Resident Evil 5 which was released this previous spring. I understand I said I didn’t even want to bother with this game and that it was going to suck. I was of course basing this all off a video and a few screenshots I had seen of the game. The feeling that I got was that this game wasn’t going to be military based at all, and was going to be more like an “Army of Two/renegade/mercenary” type game. Nope, not at all. I think there’s one level where it sort of felt like that, but with the voicing in the level you remember that you’re there as a squad. The game plays pretty much how I was wishing they would have done it, except they did do it! I want to take back every bad thing I ever said about this game. The trailer I saw did not do this game enough justice, however, after seeing the multiplayer video they posted a month ago or so, I at least knew the multiplayer was going to be awesome. After getting my hands on the game and playing through the entire single player campaign I know a lot of people are really going to enjoy this game, single and multiplayer!

When you first get into the game, you’re run through a few tests, similar to when you first start Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I suppose this is for people who’ve never played the previous game, just get them acquainted with the controls and such. Right off the bat, I was qualified to play the game on Hardcore mode, er rather Hardened mode. I opted for Regular since I just wanted to jump right in, and actually I’m quite happy I did pick Regular mode since I had a few good trouble spots which took at least 10 tries to get right. Right after the training course, you’re dropped right into the action and they’ve got you pumping off rounds on your M203! After that you’re put in a Humvee with a mounted .50cal. Needless to say, it only get better!

Modern Warfare 2 has far exceeded my expectations, although maybe that’s what I get for having relatively low expectations in the first place. The controls are pretty much the same as the previous game, and since my life basically revolved around it, I had no issues with this game at all. There were a couple moments when they wanted you to do a few things with the triggers which I managed to mess up, but after a few tries I got it down. At one point, during the end of the game, I wasn’t sure what they were asking me to do with the ‘x’ button, but I guess whatever I was doing was right because I managed to knife someone in the face.

The level design in the game is fantastic. One of my favorite levels was the White House. It was actually a bit difficult to get into and take command of the first floor but with a couple flash bangs and grenades, it was mine! One of my least favorite levels was the one in Brazil where you basically had to find your way through a maze of crappy houses to make it to the top of the hill they were all on. I found myself getting my ass kicked by snipers and shooters on the roof tops or they would hide in these houses. Each level in the game was unique and something fresh and new each time, whether it be caves, a log cabin house in the mountains, a freezing cold air base or atop an oil rig, this game keeps it new and fun with each level. You can definitely tell a lot of time was put into each level with tons of interactive items, enemies in spots that make it a good challenge to overtake an area and graphics that definitely keep you wondering if this is real or not.

I thought the graphics in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare were amazing. Well they’ve just stepped up their game and they’re even better in Modern Warfare 2. I managed to find myself just staring at guns to see how detailed the were. They’ve got it down real good, even to the serial numbers on some guns. It’s ridiculous. Each and every item in the game is carefully given some amount of detail to make it look as real as possible. Shooting boxes of paper sends sheets flying all over the place, and in one scene, you can see the blood vessels in a foes eye just before you stab him in the neck. Infinity Ward definitely went all out on this game, and it shows. While there are a few points where you can tell more work could have been done, I really am impressed with the graphics.

The biggest thing that I enjoy about this game? The new variety of guns. Weapons from the previous game are included, but they’ve included tons of new weapons and “addons”. The Desert Eagle and .50cal make appearances throughout the game, but one of my favorites, the SCAR is now part of the lineup! The guns also come with a few new attachments, one, a thermal sensor which really helps with seeing enemies through smoke screens and another a heartbeat sensor which alerts you to people within the nearby vicinity via an LCD monitor attached to your weapon. I also noticed there’s a fully automatic pistol included which will definitely be considered in my load outs along with the Desert Eagle and M1911!

Something new about Modern Warfare 2 is the ability to control vehicles in a few levels. In one level you get to man a boat, rather more like a raft with a motor, but you get to drive it down a crazy winding river while trying to avoid other enemy boats and helicopters. In another level you need to make an escape on a snowmobile and at one point you jump over what must be at least a 200ft gap. I have honestly no idea how that was even possible, but it happens! One thing I did miss was taking control f one of those .150mm canons on the planes, however, you do get to take control of a Predator to bomb areas.

At this point in time I have not tried the multiplayer or SPEC OPs potion of Modern Warfare 2. I plan to play some SPEC OPs either tonight or tomorrow, I’ll create a new article for that. Multiplayer modes are going to have to wait for a couple days, but I am definitely psyched about getting some time in. I guess my days of playing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are over. I certainly had a good 2 years with the game, but now that the Modern Warfare 2 is out, it’s time to put that game to rest (at least for a couple months). I am unsure as to how many levels or prestige levels are included in this new game, but I certainly can’t wait to start killing some friends, completing challenges and learning some new multiplayer levels layouts. I am also excited to see how well the CTF mode plays.

All in all, I can give this game no less then a 11/10 rating — which I just realized is the release date of the game, so it’s certainly fitting! It went well above what I thought the game was going to be, and even after beating the single player campaign, I want more of it. I know I knocked the game and said how crappy it was going to be. I hope Infinity Ward can forgive me! I promise you, if you loved Modern Warfare 1, you will, without a doubt love this game too. In a few days, when the game is released to the masses, I will join you all in a game of CTF or some Team Deathmatch! Make sure you add me on Xbox LIVE (vtequine)!

Finally the Left 4 Dead 2 demo was made available to all (okay maybe just gold and pre-order people) Xbox LIVE gamers the other day. I hastily downloaded it and I have to say, I like it! I’d been hearing a lot of complaints on Twitter and Facebook, about how crappy it was (no reasons given), but after watching the intro video and playing the 2 stages I came away wanting some more! The game plays very similar to the first so I suppose that’s a good thing, however it can be bad, especially when you’re dropping $60 into something that could have been an addon. However if you really enjoyed the original game and really got a lot of re-play value out of it, I can certainly see you picking up the second one. The demo download clocks in around 1.7GBs which seems to be the going size of new demos these days. Heck, I downloaded a trailer to a video the other day and it was 350MBs! That said, grab your controller and get ready to blast away hordes of zombies!

The demo drops you in a small town with a couple new types of zombies. One of them requires you to shoot them in the back since they’re armored. However, I found it to be easy to take out your machete or knock them around with your gun/melee and then shoot them down. The Witch, normal zombies, Smokers, and Boomers all make re-appearances and will do anything to stop you. As for weapons, my all time favorite M16 assault rifle returns along with the AK47! There’s also 2 shotguns (combat and tactical), an automatic machine gun, pistols, pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails! There’s also a wide variety of melee weapons like frying pans which certainly makes for some fun killing.

The two levels included in the demos are pretty similar to what you’d find in the first game, and there’s really nothing new about the game play except for at one point you need to deactivate an alarm system (wooohoo?!). Basically the levels consist of making your way through them while terminating any zombies and foes that get in your way. This is certainly a lot of fun, however need it really cost $60? I personally think these could have been included as addons to the original game, or heck sell me the 5-6 stages for $30 and if I want multiplayer I could purchase that for an additional $30. I just don’t feel like this game is worth what they’re selling it for, it really doesn’t feel like an entirely new game, more like a few new stages. Don’t get me wrong, the new graphics and everything look awesome, but still…I also have one gripe, the control scheme for this game is not that great, it never has been. I guess after a couple stages you start to get used to it, but I keep finding myself pulling on the left trigger to get a “zoomed” in view with my gun…however this is not the case and I end up flailing around with melee moves.

That said, I think the final product will provide me with a good 5-6 hours of entertainment. I’m not so much into the multiplayer modes (nor do I really have time for them — COD4/MW2 will end all free time as I know it), I just like going around the towns killing zombies and being done with it. As much as I love zombie killing I can only last that long. I am really interested to see how it’s going to sell, seeing as how it comes out a few days after Modern Warfare 2.

After hearing about all the goodies like Twitter, Facebook and Last.FM integration within the Xbox 360 dashboard, I was quite excited. Of course my friend said, I was already on Twitter and Facebook enough as it was so he didn’t quite like how now I could also access both of them when using my Xbox! When these features where announced, I had expected them to released quite shortly thereafter. Of course they weren’t…one Xbox LIVE Preview came and went with no Twitter/Facebook. I was pretty disappointed that they could announce that and not even put the features in one of their betas. They even mentioned that it wouldn’t make it into the dashboard until December or so.

Finally just the other week, Major Nelson announced a new Xbox LIVE Preview and that it would include Twitter/Facebook features. Quite surprised and happy, I quickly signed up and a few days later I received an email letting me know I had been accepted! Been a semi-relatively busy girl, I wasn’t able to log in to LIVE and download the update until a few days later.

Well worth the wait though! I must say, I did have a bit of course finding the actual applications once I had installed the dashboard update. I could be completely wrong on this, but it looks like there’s a new “My Community” section which includes the Twitter and Facebook applications. In fact, I am not sure what to call them, is applications okay, or simply extra panels?

Anyways…the Twitter application is pretty straight forward, login with your Twitter username and password. One thing I didn’t like about this is it brings up that ugly Microsoft entry screen. Although I guess this is necessary for people who don’t have the chatpad or a keyboard connected to their Xbox. Once logged in you’ll see a timeline of your tweets along with your friends’ tweets. You can search through tweets and even show the trending topics. You can also see your @replies as well as Direct Messages. These are pretty much the features I look for in a decent twitter client, so I am pretty happy with the progress so far. As long as I can see my friends, @replies and Direct Messages, I am happy!

The Facebook application is also pretty well built. When you login you have the options to display your Xbox LIVE information on your Facebook as well as have the application automatically login. The Home panel basically is your news feed showing you latest status updates, your status, recent photos and your friends lists. The Facebook application is broken down into essentially 4 areas, Home, Profile, Friends and Photos.

The Profile area lets you review your profile and update your status if you’d like. You can also see any photos you’ve uploaded. In the Friends section you can browse through all your friends and even the friends lists you’ve created. Xbox even added a list which shows you your friends from Facebook who are also on Xbox LIVE. You can click into friends and view their photos and their profile information. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like you can write on their wall, leave comments on wall postings or like any status updates from here. You can however comment and like status updates from the News Feed on the Home panel. I’ll assume they’ll be building these features in so you can do it when viewing someone profile in the final update.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with the Facebook application. It definitely feels a bit odd navigating through Facebook via the panes, but once you understand where each item is and what you can do in each panel, it’s not so bad. I think it’s needs a bit more polishing, then I have a feeling it’ll be much better.

There was one more application added, which was Last.FM. However to be honest I didn’t really play around with it much since I am not a subscribed member of their service. This results in ads being shown every time I switched stations and such. You can pretty much listen to stations you’ve created, recommended ones and popular stations from the website. The application also supports scrobbling so it’ll report back to the Last.fm website with anything you’ve listened too. Minus the subscription issue, it’s a decent application.

So…new applications, awesome, right?! Yeah, pretty much! Biggest gripe…they don’t run in the background…so each time you want to access one you need to quit whatever you’re doing to access them. I think it’d be awesome to set up hot keys for both Twitter and Facebook. How awesome would it be to update your status while sniping someone in Call of Duty 4 with that amazing Barrett .50cal?! Of course you better be quick about your status updates. That’s definitely something Chris would fear and likely hate me for…updating my statuses while playing CoD4 rounds! :P It’d also be nice to have a radio station from Last.fm playing in the background while you’re gaming. I guess one can dream right?! Microsoft is definitely off to a great start with these new Xbox LIVE applications. If you haven’t been able to get into the latest Preview which includes these, I’m afraid you may need to wait until December when they’re rolled out for everyone. Don’t worry though it’ll come soon enough!

Just recently Major Nelson took to his blog and Twitter to warn Xbox 360 users that Microsoft is going to start banning un-authorized storage devices. Now, as many of you may know I along with a couple friends spent a weekend getting our own 120GB drives installed on our Xboxes, rather then paying the ridiculous fee for an “OFFICIAL” Microsoft drive…which is actually just a normal Western Digital drive. After trying to figure out if this is what Major Nelson was referring too, I couldn’t find a definitive answer. Most of the comments on his blog seemed to point to the Datel Memory cards which had me a little calmer.

After a few days of looking around on the web, it does appear the devices being blocked aren’t the home made 120GB drives, but rather those Datel cards. So what do I think about that? Well, to be honest, I don’t like it regardless of me not even having one of those cards. I do not see what logic, what reasoning, Microsoft has to ban these devices, beyond the fact that instead of allowing 3rd parties to develop and sell these may cut into their profits on similar devices. I believe right now Microsoft is selling their official AUTHORIZED memory cards for $30. That’s right, $30 for 512MBs of space. Ridiculous, of course. The Datel card sells for $39 and is 2GBs. Still a steep price, but you get a lot more bang for your buck! Plus you can use your own MiniSD card and get up to 16GBs of storage, sure blows that over-priced Microsoft card out of the water.

What I fail to see is WHY Microsoft is banning such devices. I guess if someone could provide sound reasoning I may not dislike Microsoft for doing this so much. An online petition has been formed and it currently has a whopping 71 signatures, so if you’re a Datel Memory card owner, I certainly recommend adding your signature to the bunch.

That said, I’m glad they’re not (or hopefully not) going to mess with the hard drives (home made and otherwise). My good friend Raf (WithinRafael.com) outright asked Major Nelson if our home made drives would be affect but to this date, I don’t think he’s received a response. If he does get one I shall update this post with that information.

So what do you guys think about this banning of un-authorized devices? Is it a smart move on Microsoft part, or just another instance of them being stupid?

When I leveled up to prestige 4 in Call of Duty 4 my friend and I sort of made a bet or rather he challenged me that I could not use the M4 Carbine (pretty much the full auto version of the M16) for the entire 55 levels. I took this challenge and completed it. Not only did I not equip the M4 as a class but even when dropped by enemies I didn’t bother picking them up to use. I think what allowed me to do this was the fact that I still had access to another one of my favorite guns, the MP5. Small and quick! Anyways, here’s a couple pics to prove my awesomeness!

I still need to go through 6 more prestige levels and within the next month, seeing as how Modern Warfare 2 comes out then!

I got this game when it came out but I just barely got to playing it this past week. To be honest, this is one of the first Wolfenstein games I’ve actually played all the way through. I do remember playing through Wolfenstein 3D but I’m not sure if I ever made it all the way through the game.

The game brings back BJ Blazkowicz in his fight against the Nazi army. I really like games that keep starring the same characters (and maybe a few new ones). It makes you feel like you’re really watching the character and their life story since you’ve gone through multiple games with him or her. In any event, the Nazi’s have found a force called the Black Sun which not only makes their weapons stronger but they’ve even used it to create super soldiers!

The game is pretty much full of non-stop action. You collect missions from various people around the fictional town of Isenstadt. Your main goal is to basically destroy Nazi access to the Black Sun powers and defeat multiple Nazi leaders. With 8 different weapons at your disposal you should have no trouble!

The various weapons in Wolfenstein really keep everything fresh and fun. Whether you’re sniping people or vaporizing them, it’s all quite a lot of fun. Through the levels you can collect Intel items which enable you to add upgrades to your weapons. You’ll also be able to collect crystal shards, gold, and tomes (all of which I’ll explain in a minute). Weapon upgrades usually consist of making them faster, stronger, scopes and the ability to hold more ammo. Each upgrade costs a various amount of money and you are able to sell them back if you need some extra cash. Be aware that selling them back will only net half the original price of the upgrade! My favorite weapon was the M43! I also really like the Particle Cannon too. Of course…frying some baddies with the flamethrower was simply pleasurable too and the strongest weapon in the game, the Leichenfaust 44 sure was fun!

Besides being able to collect Intel and gold (which is used to purchase gun upgrades) throughout the levels you can also collect Black Sun crystals. These crystals add new powers to your already badass weapon lineup. Powers consist of Veil, Mire, Shield, and Empower. The Veil power allows you to see hidden doorways and provides little hints as to what to do. For example, when fighting a Particle Cannon soldier, enable the Veil power and you can see his weak spots. The Mire power slows down time and helps you kill quicker enemies. Empower gives your weapons extra strength and allows you to shoot through barriers. You definitely will want to take advantage of these powers throughout the game as they will aid you greatly! You can even purchase upgrades for them (so long as you collect the tomes).

The level design is wonderful and full of detail. One of my favorite levels in the entire game is the Hospital level. It’s really creepy and introduces a new enemy that has the ability to vanish into thin air! Of course, using your Veil ability you can easily spot him! Another thing that really made me enjoy this level is the voice acting/dialog from some of the people throughout the level. When you make it to this level, you’ll know what I’m talking about :)

Boss battles in this game are far and few between. I believe there are about 4 boss battles in the entire game. This is not something I’d complain about though. Each boss is unique and fun to destroy! *evil grin* I really enjoyed the fight between BJ and General Zetta, but the Queen Geist fight was definitely really cool too! Besides boss fights, there’s a great variety of monsters and enemies you’ll encounter throughout the game. Everything from normal Nazi solders to giant mutated scientists to demon Nazis who can throw barrier shields in-front of their fellow Nazi soldiers to protect them all whilst throwing balls of dangerous energy at you.

All in all I’m really impressed with Wolfenstein. There were a few times when I got frustrated with the controls and there were a couple points where I saw enemies get stuck on a door and be unable to go around it or come through it. While funny, the AI in that respect could have been improved a little bit. They sure have come a long way since I played Wolfenstein 3D and after playing hours upon hours of Call of Duty 4 it’s nice to be able to just aim, fire and vaporize someone :)

Along with yesterday release of the DiRT 2 demo, we also got our hands on the Lost Planet 2 demo! It was pretty much like Christmas in August. Quite a wonderful day for gamers!

This demo clocked in at around 350MBs, much smaller then DiRT 2. After playing through the demo, it’s quite apparent as to why though. The demo includes single and multiplayer modes and of course I opted for the multiplayer mode. Playing with friends is a lot better!

The multiplayer version drops you and up to 3 other friends (for a total of four players) into a single level where you battle what appears to be a boss. That’s all the demo consists of. Battling this massive creature until it falls. While I’d love to have seen a bit more then that, getting dropped right into action definitely is a lot of fun.

While gathering people for your party I thought it would be possible to change your character or your characters outfit, unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’s possible, at least not in the demo version of the game. You can also set slots to private so that random people cannot join your game and only people you invite will be allowed in.

The gameplay itself is very similar if not the exact same as Lost Planet 1. The weapons are the same as well. I won’t complain because they’re actually quite fun and range from a simple assault rifle to a minigun to being able to pilot a mech. During the entire fight I mainly used the rocket launcher as my primary weapon while my friend told control of a mech.

This battle was unique in that one could actually enter the huge beasts body and destroy it from the inside out! I thought that was really cool and it gives you a good idea as to how large this monster was. Also during the battle you can activate data points just as in the previous game, this allows the player to gain more thermal energy which seems to be the life force in this game.

The graphics in the game look just as beautiful if not better then the previous game. The controls are the same, and they’re easy to learn. Of course since I’ve been playing Call of Duty 4, for the past year, it’s a bit hard for me to learn any new control scheme :).

The demo lasts about 15-20 minutes depending on how hard you’re battling with the beast, but it’s definitely an action packed fun 15 minutes. Overall this is one demo you don’t want to miss out on and after playing it I can definitely say that I am looking forward to the final version of Lost Planet 2!

Today the DiRT 2 demo was released on Xbox so after re-upping my Xbox LIVE Gold account I hastily made my way to the demo section of the Marketplace. The download is about 950MBs so make sure you set aside some time, especially if you’re on a slower Internet connection.

The demo includes 2 maps which you can race and 1 vehicle to drive per map. One map allows you to drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse while the other allows you to use a truck. At first I wasn’t too keen on the map with the truck but it’s definitely grown on me. Both maps are very well done, the attention to detail in them is incredible. The cars are also beautiful and the models are extremely well designed. As in DiRT 1, your vehicle can take damage and the developers definitely went to all lengths to make sure it looks and affects you vehicle as realistically as possible. Take too much damage and your car will let you know!

DiRT 2 has added a couple new features that I think will really add value to the game. The first is the that in multiplayer mode you can earn points or XP which allows you to level up and gain new items for your vehicles. For example, I’ve unlocked some cute fuzzy dice to hang from the rearview mirror in my car :) I’m not totally sure if you’ll be able to unlock parts or upgrades for your car (performance-wise) but being able to earn items let’s me feel like I’m working towards something!

The second is cars seem to be a lot more customizable over the cars in DiRT 1. As mentioned above, you can unlock some nifty items which can be used to customize your car. One item which is available to hang from your rearview mirror is YOU! You can hang a little ornament of your Xbox LIVE avatar. I wish I could get a picture to show you all, it’s quite neat! You can even change the tone of your vehicles horn.

Included in the demo is the ability to connect with some friends and play over LIVE. I really liked that because not only did they toss in single player mode but they even went the extra step and added multiplayer mode. While the multiplayer mode only includes the same 2 maps it’s definitely a lot of fun to race around and even in the demo you can earn XP.

I am definitely excited to see DiRT 2 in it’s full and final form. This is one game I’ll surely be buying. I really can’t wait to see the Subaru STi and WRX :)

If anyone wants to race a couple rounds, let me know!!

Back at the end of March my Xbox 360 finally RROD’ed. This was the first time that that specific console had red ringed, but not the first time I’ve experienced it with an Xbox 360. After seeing relatively similar symptoms and finally getting the “magical” red rings, I logged onto Xbox.com and checked out their support section since I couldn’t quite remember their telephone number. After screaming into the phone that “YES”, I wanted to chat with an agent, and sitting around for about 15 minutes, I finally had an agent on the line. 3 more calls to Microsoft’s Xbox support line and about two weeks later I finally had an ARS label and my Xbox was on it’s way to the Microsoft Service Center in Texas. Skip ahead another 2 weeks and I finally had my Xbox back. Enthralled that I could finally play some Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare I logged in and started my usual owning of anything that dared move. About 3 rounds into my session, I received this lovely display on my television:

So, I guess Microsoft didn’t fix my Xbox. This time instead of calling them I simply logged onto the Xbox support website and submitted my console serial number and checked off the RROD box…They provided me with a printable UPS ARS label and I simply used the box they had shipped my “repaired” Xbox in for shipping back to their repair facility.

Fast forward to last week. I actually got my console a day earlier then UPS had projected which made me a bit happier. This happiness was almost immediately squashed when I pulled the console out of the box and noticed the USB port cover was ripped/broken off and not even existent in the box or bag the Xbox was wrapped in. Relatively agitated I phoned up the Xbox support line to give them a piece of my mind.

After explaining my issue to a support agent, she transferred me to a customer support representative who almost instantly made me forget about the fury which raged in myself. She apologized and sympathized with me and even said in her Indian accent, “Wow, you must have been pretty pissed off when you noticed that!”. I couldn’t help but giggle. She quickly offered to ship me a new faceplate free of charge. While we waited for the order to go through, she happily asked what games I enjoyed playing, to which I responded, “Call of Duty 4!”. She said she hears that response a lot along with Halo 3. I was surprised she nor I mentioned Gears of War being one of the most mentioned games.

While we all know* that your Xbox is going to RROD, remember that dealing with Microsoft over the matter is relatively painless, especially when you do it through their website (trust me, it’s a lot better then dealing with them over the phone). My experience has been somewhat rough with them, but that one customer care agent did an amazing job, handling my situation, and if I could, I’d buy her an Xbox and send it to her in India so we could play together. She’s awesome and I give her mad props for being able to deal with the people who call in, because I know, people can be absolutely insane…including myself!

So I’ve finally got my Xbox back and working *crosses fingers*! Anyone for a game of Call of Duty 4?! :)

*Alright, maybe we don’t know, but seriously, isn’t the RROD rate some ridiculously high number?!

After watching multiple trailers for this game, I knew it was going to be quite interesting. The biggest thing about this game that stuck out to me was the fact that there’s no HUD. Instead, to know how much health or ammunition you’ve got you need to keep an eye on the indicators located on the back of your suit (health) or the number that is displayed on the guns (ammo). I thought this was really innovative, and now instead of having a ton of clutter on your screen, you can easily see these pieces of information just by looking at your character.

The game itself is rather well played out. You’re an engineer and when you attempt to help another ship in distress pretty much everything that can go wrong does. Your ship crashes into the one you’re supposed to be fixing and from there on out your mission is to survive and escape from this hell. The story is relatively guessable, but there are a couple twists tossed in which keeps it fresh.

Character design, especially enemy design is well done and well thought out. I definitely had a few “WTF” moments when I came across a grossly disfigured mutant. The bosses were also well thought out, although I was a bit disappointed in the final boss as it took under a couple minutes to complete the battle. There were definitely times that made up for that short battle though, and sometimes even more. Multiple times I got so swamped with necromorphs attacking me, that I died. The balance seemed to be almost perfect though. There were enough skirmishes between puzzles and tasks that it kept me on my toes but not so much that I had to worry about finding needle shooting mutant babies around each and every corner.

Throughout the game you can collect “schematics” which enable you to purchase new items in the stores located within the levels. Each store tends to be relatively close to the start of the level. Scattered throughout the levels and as items dropped from defeated foes are “credits” which is the currency in the game. With your “credits” you can visit the stores to purchase health kits, ammunition, new guns, and even upgraded suits. You can also use the store to store items you have no current use for or to even sell your items for credits. I did like the idea of the store because it enabled me to grab a couple extra health packs before boss fights instead of running through the levels looking for item crates hoping they held health kits.

The game also has a bit of an RPG element to it. Hidden throughout the levels, are items called power nodes. For some reason they remind me of the spheres you can collect in Final Fantasy X. You use these power nodes to upgrade and enhance the abilities of your weapons and your suit. For example, you can use the power nodes to increase the amount of damage your weapon does, or to increase the amount of rounds it can hold. Your suite is similarly the same, power nodes can be used to increase armor, health and the amount of air it can hold (for when you’re truly out in dead space). While I didn’t actually do any heavy upgrading until the last boss fight, the option to upgrade is available for pretty much all of the game (so long as you find a work-bench to use).

Final thoughts….the game is awesome. It contains tons of new and unique factors, that really kept me engaged. The story was fun, the weapons are cool, the enemies horrible and Issac, well he’s just crazy Issac. I have no idea how he survived this game. I’d be too scared! I highly recommend this to anyone who digs the survival-horror genre. It sure is a lot scarier then Resident Evil 5!