steve kwan user experience designer

New games!

(April 14th, 2004)

In part of my continuing quest to replace women/dating with computer games, I've purchased five new games and thoroughly played them all. I'll post my thoughts on 'em here.

Call of Duty:
Wow...what an awesome game. Now THIS is a World War II shooter. I'm generally not a big fan of the whole WWII shooter thing, having avoided the Medal of Honor and Battlefield series, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding fault with Call of Duty. The graphics are amazing, the game seems to run fairly smoothly, the single-player is engrossing, and the multi-player is a load of fun. The only negative thing I can say about Call of Duty is that the multi-player portion seems like a watered-down version of Counter-Strike. But overall this is an excellent game, and it's no surprise that it won Game of the Year.

Unreal II: The Awakening:
I saw this game on sale for $9.99 at Electronics Boutique, and at that price, how could I turn it down? Now, I'm wary of games that come with a price tag of $9.99...after all, that's what I paid for Daikatana. But I was generally impressed with Unreal II. The graphics are astounding. I don't know if I can name another game with graphics like Unreal II. My only real complaint is that the game just doesn't seem to reach its potential. Most of the game is pretty bland and not horribly interesting. It gets far, far better near the end, but the middle of the game is pretty boring. Despite the awesome graphics and diversity of the levels (each takes place on a totally different planet), you more or less shoot at boring marines throughout a large part of the game. Considering the amount of effort put into developing the different worlds in this game, it's a shame that they spent such little effort on the enemies you encounter. But overall, it's a decent game, and for $9.99, why would I complain?

Unreal Tournament 2004:
While this game is not bad, there's nothing about it that really stands out about it either. It's basically the same as the old Unreal Tournament, except with sharper graphics, a more sophisticated single-player mode, and a few new features. The most noticeable additions I've seen are the Onslaught game mode and the vehicles.

Onslaught is kind of a neat mode of play where you have to conquer individual nodes to progress toward an enemy base, and then eventually conquer their headquarters. It seems to make your game seem less like a frantic gunfight and more like an epic war.

The other noticeable additions are vehicles. In Unreal Tournament 2004, you can ride around in various vehicles - an idea which seems to have been adopted from Halo. Personally, I don't find driving around in the vehicles all that interesting or fun, but then again, I don't drive in real life either, so I might not be the best person to ask.

Halo:
What an uninspired, overrated game. Halo has a few good points...little innovations like the recharging shield that allows you to recover from enemy fire, and the two-weapon system that only permits you to carry two guns at a time, making you think harder when picking up new weapons.

Unfortunately, the rest of the game is more or less crap. The story line, while slightly interesting, is pretty standard fare. While the game has great enemy AI, the gunfights and levels get extremely repetitive after a while. Also, people have ranted about how great the graphics in Halo are, but I just don't see what the fuss is all about. The graphics in this game are decent, but the colors used are just awful. In particular, the pink alien spaceship levels were the worst.

This game is a complete computer whore as well. I have a brand new computer with a 2.0GHz processor and a 128MB video card, and this game STILL ran choppy at 640 * 480 resolution. Another thing: this game reminds me of Daikatana for some reason. That's not good.

Enter the Matrix:
This game was another Electronics Boutique deal. I picked up Enter the Matrix for $14.99. One good thing I can say about this game: it has style, and lots of it. I also like the polished tie-ins with the movie; they add a neat depth to the game.

Unfortunately, the rest of this game is shit. The physics are laughable, the AI is retarded, the controls are awful...there are few good things I can say about it. Much like The Matrix Reloaded, this game is a waste of $14.