Happy New Year Showdown!!!

Another year down and it was a good one for gaming! What better way to send off the old year than to pit all the games released in 2010 against each other in a savage showdown for Tengou's Best Game of the Year? Me and an esteemed panel of judges have selected what is in our opinion the best games of 2010. We have broken the contenders down into five categories each with its own winner. Those categories are Best Single Player in a game, Best Recreational Multiplayer, Best Competitive Multiplayer, Biggest Letdown, and Best Game of 2010. So without further adue lets begin:

BEST SINGLE PLAYER GAME OF 2010

Our pick for best single player game was an obvious choice. Mass Effect 2 by Bioware takes the cake for exceptional game play and story. I'm a huge sucker for stories. The open world game play of Mass Effect 2 and the myriad of choices the player can make that affect the outcome of the game (as well as the choices they made in the first Mass Effect though the character transfer) create a re-playability that other games just don't have. Throw in a stunning looking universe and a soundtrack that doesn't wear thin after a few minutes of game play and a winner is born. The runner up for Best Single Player Game is Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep by Square Enix. As with all Kingdom Hearts games the story and game play is awesome but what holds this title back is how short the awesome story lines are. This as well as low re-playability value keep Birth by Sleep from nabbing the top spot.

BEST RECREATIONAL GAME OF 2010

Now let's start by defining what we consider to be a recreational multiplayer game. In our eyes these should be A) playable by all ages B) Fun to play and

C) played in the same room as the other players. These are specific qualifiers that separate a few games from the crowd and in our opinion no one suits these needs more than Kinect Sports by Rare. This game is fun for every one, even those who are just watching, and it really caters to all age groups. Sure Wii Sports did it first but the Kinect brings a level of immersion the Wii doesn't have by controlling the avatar with your body. Also, Kinect Sports has a variety of games that are different to break up game play and keep it fresh so that you don't get tired of playing the same sports over and over again. The runner up for the Best Recreational Multiplayer Game is Harmonix' Rock Band 3. This game is the best out of the entire series with improved player customization and the ability to import your song tracks from Rock Band 1 and 2 for a huge play list. The only problem with rock band is that by now it gets old very fast to strum on a plastic guitar if you've played the other Rock Bands extensively. Kinect Sports' fresh take and innovative ideas is what pushed it to top spot.

BEST COMPETITIVE MULTIPLAYER GAME

Best Multiplayer Game has to go to a game that is competitive and keeps players interested even though there are other games releasing that could distract them. This year we consider Treyarch's Call of Duty: Black Ops to be a game that does just that. There is no denying how competitive this game is or how many players around the world have dedicated themselves to mastering the prestige levels and acquiring their preferred gear. Black Ops gives a adrenaline pumping multiplayer experience every game by having balanced maps that allow success for any type of player and a variety of customizable weapons that the series has never seen before. The game play is so good that what holds this game back for a Game of the Year spot is its ridiculous single player. It just tries to hard and anyone who says otherwise is in denial. Runner up for best multiplayer is Blur by Bizarre Creations. This 'grown up Mario Cart' is actually a lot of fun to play with other people. What holds it back is its game play that is in slight need of tweeking and the fact that it never really caught on like it should have.

BIGGEST LET DOWN

Coming in as the biggest let down of 2010 is Vigil Games' Darksiders. I was so pumped for this game but when I got into it, it really struggled to keep my interest. Instead I opted out to play Dante's Inferno. The game was nothing special and was over all mediocre for such an interesting concept. This game just flopped over and died in my eyes. Runner up for Biggest Letdown is Dead Rising 2 by Capcom. I thought that this game was going to be a vast improvement on the first game but it turned out to be basically the same thing. The A.I. is dumb, the escort missions drive me up the wall, and it gets tiresome fighting the same 20 odd looking zombies.

BEST GAME OF 2010

Here it is! The big deal! Best game of 2010! We have picked out a first, second, and third place game for your consideration. These games here are ones that stood out for us as extremely well rounded and had it made in every aspect we could think of, or mostly. So here is our third place winner: Halo: Reach! This game was fun to play, it has good multi player, and it has a good story line even if it is riddled with inconsistencies from already existing cannon. As expected Bungie did an amazing job and didn't disappoint their fans. Reach has a single player campaign that keeps us entertained so that we aren't tired of going back and playing it again several times. The multiplayer is also top notch and improves on the Halo 3 multiplayer which was already excellent. The game also has an improved Forge mode that let you create your own maps and game types to share with your friends and people around the world. Overall this game has an awesome play experience and truly deserves to be one of the best games of this year.

Our second place pick for Best game is Bioshock 2 created by 2K. This game wins second for its incredible story and immersion. You know its a good game when you forget you are playing a game while playing. Bioshock does this so well with its underwater environments and driving story line. The game is a worthy sequel to the first Bioshock and should be praised for its ability to recreate the experience of the first Bioshock. The multiplayer in this game is also exceptional as it is also story driven. The player is a test subject for plasmids during the fall of rapture and the unique weapons and plasmids that the player can wield makes for a very fun game experience.All of Bioshock 2's aspects combined create a very good game and worthy of second place for Best Game of 2010.

Now for what yourve' all been reading for: our first place winner. This game obviously has to stand above all others, emerging from the pile of dust and broken bones as our battle tested hero. This game can be non other than Rockstar's Read Dead Redemption. Red Dead has it all from immersing single player, to a sand box free roaming multiplayer mode, to a awesome soundtrack to back both up. I've actually been waiting for a good western game for a while now and my dreams have finally come true in the form of Red Dead Redemption. What makes this game immediately noticeable is its beautiful scenery and the characters that are all unique. The game is great in that it allows you to pick up the main story line whenever you want and in between story missions you can do pretty much whatever your heart desires from gambling to ranching to hunting game. I enjoyed the multiplayer as much as the single player while roaming the same huge open map with people I know. Whats really fun is when your gang shoot it out with another gang in a town while all authorities are trying to catch you both. Another thing that Red Dead has going for it that a lot of games tend to fail at is perfect voice acting. We thoroughly enjoyed this game and it takes our number one spot for Best Game of 2010!

Happy New Years Everyone!

Most anticipated games of 2011: Pokemon: Black and White, Tomb Raider, Star Wars: The Old Republic

Tomb Raider Reboot!

Rumors about a new Tomb Raider game have been confirmed! The new game being pumped out by Crystal Dynamics, the company behind the last few Raider games, is a complete re-working of the usual Raider formula. The game is simply being titled Tomb Raider and sees Lara Croft as you've never seen her before; alone and vulnerable. This game goes back before any of the other instalments in the series and is meant to not only act as a prequel showing how Lara became the esteemed relic collector, but also to restart the entire franchise with a new image.

Lara Croft as you have always known her is gone: disappeared are the skimpy clothes and overbearing mammaries. Some iconic features such as her ponytail and the shape of her lips are consistent but otherwise she is a younger Lara (reported to be 21) with realistic proportions straight out of university and looking for adventure. Art director on the project Brian Horton claims that they will not be playing up Lara's sexy looks for the sake of selling points or fan-service saying "Lara Croft as a sex object isn't our goal." which is basically the strategy the last eight games took. Horton says that Lara's allure will not come from the usual clothing (or lack there of) but instead from the play on Lara's inexperienced character and the showing of both toughness and vulnerability. I think Lara's new look makes things more believable. I've always wondered how she fought of wolves and sharks in nothing but a skimpy top and short-shorts and walked out with any scratches on her.

The biggest, and in my opinion best, change about the game series is that Crystal Dynamics is throwing out the old style of linear game play. The setting takes place on an island near japan. Lara who is just out of university and joins the crew of one Conrad Roth, an ex-marine turned salvage hunter. Their vessel is marooned on said island and Lara appears to be the only survivor. The game is all about Lara's survival and each confrontation is one of life or death. The picture on the game's official site shows Lara with several wrecked ships from different time periods in the background which leads me to wonder if this island has some sort of 'Bermuda Triangle' mystery that Lara will have to solve. David Gallagher is the studio head of Crystal Dynamics and from what he says about the game implies that it will be open world/sand box style of game play saying that "You can literally go any direction that you see..." Lara will have several bases on the island where the player will presumably save their game and also create new items and weapons or upgrade existing ones there. This all reminds me of Far Cry 2's safe houses where the player could save their game and restock on weapons out of their weapon crates. I'm hoping that this game will be something like Far Cry meets Monster Hunter or something along those lines. Either way we will be waiting with baited breath for new scraps of information about the game over the next year as it is rumoured for a November 2011 release.

Last Played: Call of Duty: Black Ops

Halo Reach? More like Halo Reaching! Amirite?

So this is my first review and I wanted to kick it off with a triple 'A' title. Not exactly a new release I know but I can do what I want because this is my blog. I thought that this game was a sheer cash cow milking scheme by Bungie as this installment didn't add anything to the Halo universe other than explaning how Keyes, Cortana, et al. ended up looking at the first Halo ring. Not exactly a huge contribution. You could argue that the game followed the book's story line and how important it is to Sierra 117's story but I think any credibility that the game could have gained from that is lost on how many times it broke the canon that was set by the books first. I mean come on! Brutes? Really? They were not in conflict with the Covanent until the events of the second game so what are they doing here? And this isn't the only time that the time-line was broken by Bungie either. In fact the whole battle of the fall of Reach has been altered.

Another inconsistency is the whole Cortana story line. In Reach we see Cortana trusted to the rag-tag Noble team who eventually delivers her to the good captain Keyes at the cost of the teams death, oh ya *SPOILER* In the books however Cortana picks John over all the other spartans and he is the one to test the A.I. is he not? Not only that but in Reach we see the spartans using technology that is supposed to be less advanced than the other games as it happens first chronologically. However, while it does look less advanced, much of what we are able to do is far better than our capabilities the other games. I mean those armour abilities would have came in real handy during the previous Halo games. I realize that Bungie was trying to 1-up their game by making this instalment an exciting one, but from a hardcore nerd point of view I think that was a mistake. There are other ways they could have done that I think.

After the nerd rage subsides though this game is actually really good! The single player campaign was excellent. Just the image of a team of spartans running through a village or storming Sword Base is pure awesome incarnate. The fact that you aren't limited to John's pale green armour is one of the best features of the game. It's more immersive some how to have a spartan with armour you have come to identify yourself with in multiplayer going through the events of the story, and when you have your friends with their unique armour in the game with you it just gets better. When a team member dies this way you really feel it. I thought the Legendary difficulty may have been a touch too easy as there was only two spots that gave me any real trouble, both of which involved Hunters. In Halo 3 the Legendary was much harder and took me alot longer to get through solo. It was still enjoyable all in all though. A lot of people have been raging because of the way the game ends. Just in case someone han't completed it yet: *SPOILER* Everyone dies, including the player character. A lot of people wanted to see their character live and fight the good fight. I liked the ending though because, again, I'm a nerd and that's the way it's SUPPOSED to end. John is the last spartan alive. That has been set up since square one, and besides the last stand the player does is just badass. If you didn't see this coming it must have been heart breaking.

The multi-player in this game is vastly better and possibly the best in the series. The player customization is unbelievable and is going to keep players busy forever trying to perfect their armour collection, especially as Bungie is releasing more. I find that the game types are better organized than they were in Halo 3 with very specific catagories, including one for the infinitely annoying team snipers match. The new game types are a welcome relief to the usual kill other team or capture other flag type objectives. Also the forge game type is actually fun now. I'm not sure about everyone else but forge in Halo 3 was just to picky. It was hard to get a block exactly where you wanted it and 'floating' items was a hastle. Not any more! The fact that you can turn off collision detection with the items makes it so much easier to get what you want done. In fact I've created a whole racing tournament including a map where you drive underwater! I put the tracks on my file share if you want to grab them.

PROTIP:
- In the first mission on Legendary difficulty there is an invisible Elite running toward the first bridge. It's right in the beginning afer you touch down. If you are fast and kill him before he gets there you are rewarded with a data pad with extra backstory!
- There are other datapads with other backstory in the various houses scattered in the same level.
- I have also located a datapad on Exodus right after you get your jetpack and attack the Brutes (ugh) on the other side of the opening. After you clear the area look up and there should be a catwalk that is above the door you need to go through. Up there is the datapad.
- On the ONI: Sword Base mission after you have gone through the loop and activated the COM Array and the Anti-Airgun you will arrive back at the front gate to Sword Base. Here Hijack a Revenant and keep it safe. Make sure that both your Revenant and Gausshog are intact after the battle. This is easier with a friend with a good shot operating the gun. Then back the Revenant up so that its back end is touching the concrete barriers that block your Warthog's path. Normally you would have to proceed on foot but now you can use the Revenant as a ramp and jump over the barriers. This makes dealing with the Hunters that are in the base MUCH easier. Just don't try and take it in the elevator after. I did. It wasn't pretty.

Last Played: League of Legends

Tengou - Origins

A new challenger appears!!!! You can probably guess from that reference and the title of my blog what this is all about as I am going to be discussing the various aspects of the fine life-style of a gamer. BUT FIRST! My gamer tag is Tengou on Xbox Live and I have been gaming since I ninja'd my way out of the womb. (see select resume) I play across many genres and platforms with the exception however of the Playstation which was built by the evil Sony company. Here on this sacred blog I will guide you through tips, game reviews, updates about games as they come to me, and tons of other random stuff. If you have any questions about anything just drop me a line somewhere and I'll try to help you on your way. If you are wondering what the name means it originats from the Japanese word 'tengoku' but I spelt it wrong when I signed up for Live. -.-

Last played: Red Dead Redemption