A Solution to Boredom

Ever since my childhood when I first saw the game Resident Evil on the Sony PlayStation I have been intrigued with the series.  What started off as more of an interest in watching my younger brother play the game turned into me playing the game.  It took awhile, six games to be exact, before I really got into playing the games myself.

With the release of Resident Evil 4 I quickly became a fan of the new play style incorporated into the Nintento GameCube release.  Moving from an ammo conserving puzzle game it morphed into a less ammo conserving more quick reactions type of game.  In reality, it turned into more of a shooter which is one of my favorite game types.  While plenty of ammo is found in both 4 and 5 it still is possible to be tight on it if you do not have good aim or never use physical attacks.  Another huge change was the ability to change your view instead of being locked into one camera angle set for each area.

Continuing with that great new recipe Capcom has released Resident Evil 5.  In this game they have taken it a step further with the addition co-op play.  I played the first couple stages by myself and the game was still quite fun.  When playing solo you still have the second character there, they are just controlled by AI instead.  The best experience however is definitely playing co-op.  While playing together one player gets to control Chris Redfield, that’s right the guy from the original Resident Evil, and another controls the new character  Sheva Alomar.  My friend Pat and I have been playing online together and it has been a blast.  With the co-op play you can complete combos together.  To do this you must first shoot an enemy in any one of the various spots that causes them to be stunned and then get close and use a physical attack.  These physical attacks can then be chained by alternating attacks between each player.  This is a great way to deal large amounts of damage and conserve your ammunition.  Watch the video below from YouTube that shows how awesome these combos can be.

The in game graphics are also just about as good as the wonderful cut scenes.  Yet again, do not think that cut scenes are times to relax as they often will require some quick button pressing to ensure that you make it through the scene.  From watching a scene where “Majini”, the infected, attack on motorcycles to dodging giant tentacles during game play, you must always be ready to press a button as soon as it flashes on the screen.

I highly recommend that you play this game if you enjoy shooting games or have enjoyed previous Resident Evil titles.  As usual, please leave comments with your thoughts on the game whether you agree or disagree with my opinions of the game.

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As many of my friends know, my lovely wife pre-ordered the Halo Wars collector’s edition for me as a Valentine’s Day present.  Knowing that I have loved the 3 main Halo games she rightly assumed I would want Halo Wars even though the game play differs from the typical Halo FPS.  She had also heard me talking about the demo which I downloaded off of Xbox Live for free.

In all reality it was quite a gamble for her to get the game for me as I probably did not seem to have that many good things to say after playing the demo…  In case any readers have not played the demo, it contains the two in game tutorials (basic and advanced) as well as a the first couple missions of the game.

Now before I go into my opinions on the game play let me preface it with the fact that I have only played about 8 or so missions into the game and only played one online match.  At this point I still have not gotten 100% used to the controls nor do I have a firm grasp on the upgrade structure of units and buildings.

First of all I feel as though the developer, Ensemble Studios,  have done a good job at making many of the tasks performed by a typical RTS (real time strategy) player easy.  This is not necessarily an easy task as RTS game have usually been solely built for play on computers.  Reasons for this include the use of a keyboard which has many more buttons than a console controller and the use of a mouse which is much easier to maneuver.  One must wonder why it is that consoles have still not allowed the use of a keyboard and mouse in game play…  To make it easier to select units in a variety of ways the following methods were created which are similar to what has been used in computer gaming.  Left Bumper (LB) can be used to select all units under your control.  Right Bumper (RB) can be used to select all local units, or those which are currently on your screen.  Holding the A button will create a circle, call the “paintbrush” which can be used to highlight all units you wish to command.  Last but not least, placing the cursor over a unit and pressing the A button twice will select all units of that unit’s type.

Although the methods for unit selection are great, there are a couple things I cannot figure out.  How to select multiple units of different types from within a cluster of units is one such thing I just cannot figure out.  You can try to use the paintbrush method but it the cursor just gets to big for fine picking of units.  Another and possibly even bigger loss is the group selection that I miss from games like Warcraft and Starcraft.  If you are unfamiliar with what I speak of then let me explain.  In typical computer RTS games there is usually the ability to select units and then bind their group to a number key on the keyboard.  That way when you press a number it centers your screen on that group and highlights them all so that they are ready to be commanded.  In Halo Wars the only way to do this is to use down on the analog pad to cycle through your groups of units.  This is not nearly as efficient as pressing a single key, but I suppose is the best you can do on a console.

All said, I do enjoy the game.  If you like RTS games and/or the Halo plotline I definitely recommend that you either buy, rent, or better yet, borrow the game from someone you know.  With stunning cutscenes and pretty decent in game graphics it is quite a beauty to look at.  From what I have seen so far it adds a decent amount to the Halo universe.

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