The Arcade Room -

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Ah yes, yet another instalment of the wonderful 'Call of Duty' franchise. This newest re-re-hashing of 'Call of Duty' is brought to us by the same company that did 'Call of Duty: World at War' (Treyarck). I am not sure if all find that Blackops and WAW ('World at War') are easier than those produced by Infinityward ('Modern Warfare' 1 and 2), but I know I certainly did. I found with Treyarck they took a very minimalist approach to the game. It’s far from the simulation movement and aiming found in 'Modern Warfare 2' and almost feels campy. The campaign story is very engaging, but I still find that since it doesn’t have a realistic feel to the shooting it takes away from the campaign and I quickly switch to multiplayer. Multiplayer is where this game steps it up that extra notch. There is no shortage of fun on multiplayer. You have “core” which has all your basic matches from team deathmatch to sabotage and of course your CTF and King of the hill matches. Then in wager matches you can ante up and go one in the chamber. That’s right, one bullet, one shot. Or maybe try your hand at gun game, every time you kill someone you get a gun from a higher tier and every time you get knifed you are humiliated so you get knocked down a tier. Those are just two of the four possible options in ante up. As for the graphics and sounds quality, there isn’t much of a difference between 'Black Ops' and 'MW2'. If anything though, I’d have to give it to 'MW2'. If you enjoyed 'WAW' then I’d say buy this and you will be very happy. That being said, if you didn’t care for 'WAW' and thought it was the death of the franchise as much as myself, then stay away from this. Blow off the dust on your 'MW2' case, and go at that because lots of people still play. It is playable but just doesn’t rival 'MW2'.
Final Rating: 3/5

Test Drive Unlimited 2

The simulation arcade racing game. That’s right I said simulation and arcade in the same sentence. Off the bat you find out that the driving in the game is very twitchy and the farthest thing from simulation. My friend never playing the game had difficulty in the first level of the game as the driving is very different from what you are going to expect. The two islands consist of roughly 5000km of drivable roads, which take real time to drive down. For example if I have to drive 25 miles to my destination and I can average 100mph I will reach my destination in 15mins. You also have to unlock the roads before you can quick jump to locations, some of these roads get unlocked as you race in championships. You enter the game on the new island called Ibiza. The tutorial level is a dream sequence and it just lays down the basics of the game. I am not new to the franchise as I started with test drive unlimited, so I brought in some friends who had never tried the game to test the tutorial levels and how informative they are. The story in the game is that you are a valet and you are joining The “Solar crown” as you make a deal that if you get her to the race in time she will give you a shot, but after you get her there you have to go get your “licences” possibly the only major flaw in this game. The licensing system in my opinion is useless, you only need them to race you can still purchase any level of car and drive it without the required licence. They don’t exactly make getting the licences easy either, in fact after getting the licences you will notice that the races are not nearly as hard as the actual licence you had to obtain to race in them. You will also notice right at the start of the game that the voice acting and scripting is very cheesy and at some times very annoying. The gps navigation system in the game is good but at sometimes confusing because there is a size issue, in that your arrow is so big it looks like your right on top of that turn you have to make, only to find out its another 20 yards down leaving you very frustrated till you get the hang of it. The detail and graphics in the game are up to the industry standard for this fiscal year, because let’s face it next year this will probably be out of date. That being said this game has a lot of re-playability with online clubs, multiplayer challenges and what me and my friends call “cruising” that go well beyond the 60 MMO style levelling career portion of the game. For those of you that get the collector’s edition of the game you’re offered a downloadable key for their “casino expansion” (Also available as a dlc for $10). The casino offers you a place to get away from the racing, you can play poker, roulette, and even slot machines as you play against other online members to win as much money as you can. This is a great game for the avid racer that wants to prove he is the best in the world as well as the guy that just wants to jump on, talk to some people and cruise around the island with them discovering the rest the island has to offer. So I have to say at the end of the day, this is a game that I will continue to play for at least 3 or 4 years which I am sure of, as I played the original for the 3 years while they developed this new one. In the end it all comes down to the rating and I give this game a 4/5. The only reason I won’t give this game the 5.5/5 it deserves, is the licensing system in the game that I spoke of, it’s difficult enough that the game doesn’t deserve a perfect score. If you have never played the first one rent it, if you enjoyed the first one skip the rent and just buy it you won’t be disappointed.
Final Rating: 4/5