I completed Lego Indiana Jones’ story line andt hen went back and got 100% completion in game and all 1000 gamerscore points on it. This is the first game I got all 1000 points from in a while. It was fun to finish all the little parts of the game to get the achievements and 100% completion in the game.

I also made it into the Royal Court in Kings of Babylon last night. That means I’m in the top 20 players in my realm(Purple FTW). It is pretty fun because it unlock some more advanced areas of the game that are pretty useful.

When I’ve not been playing Rock Band and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 I’ve been having a lot of fun with Lego Indiana Jones. If you’ve played the Lego Star Wars games you’ll feel right at home playing as Indy. Sure, there are difference like you get a whip and no force powers, but the game feels really familiar. You’re still playing as a lego guy and trying to solve pretty simple puzzles to play through each movie’s main story line. I’m about 75% through the game currently, but I’m sure I’ll play back through it a few times trying to unlock ever little thing. Some of the best parts of playing these lego games is that they are pretty long, they hide lots of little easter eggs throughout the game, and there are lots of things to unlock and find.

There are a few downfalls to the game. First, the load times are pretty long for a game that has pretty simple graphics. The levels are pretty big, but the load times are still longer than I expect on an Xbox 360 title. Additionally, the game doesn’t always stick to the movies story line exactly. It is pretty close, but they take a few liberties. I personally did not mind this but I know a couple guys who are die hard Indy fans who did not like it. Finally, the biggest issue with the game in my opinion is that lack of co-op support over Xbox Live. The co-op on the same screen is pretty good although the camera could use some work at some points. I really don’t understand the decision to not support co-op over Live when even simple XBLA titles have that kind of support.

Still, I’d recommend Lego Indiana Jones to anyone looking to play a game to just have some fun or to play with their kids. It is a lot of fun to play as Indy and play through the first 3 movies.

I rented Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and have been playing for the last week when I get a chance. At first I found the speed of the game hard to get to use to but it is starting to grow on me. Since it a Quake game you move fast and as your character levels up you move even faster. The leveling is match specific so, unlike Call of Duty 4 where I came to the party late and was getting destroyed by people with guns I had not unlocked, each match starts off with a level playing field. While there is a single player campaign it is really the same as the multiplayer, but with everyone besides you being bots. The gameplay is all objective based, first person shooter, with 5 classes of characters to choose from. Each class has different strengths and special equipment. There is the standard soldier who shoots and blows stuff up. The medic who can go heal and revive people. The engineer that can put up automated turrets and mines. Field ops who can call in artillery and guided rockets. And finally, the covert ops that can disguise themselves as the enemy and sneak behind the enemy lines. Each class still has decent weapons to use for general attacking purposes but it is the unique equipment that sets them apart.

The game play style is similar to Frontlines: Fuel of War and Battlefield: Bad Company where your team tries to either defend or capture/destroy an objective. Once that objective is taken or destroyed then you move on to the next one. It leads to some great rock-paper-scissors battle strategies. For example, when attacking a point to destroy an objective I can take a tank in and try and blow the whole place to smithereens. The defending team then can use an engineer to counter this by setting up anti-vehicle turrets. In return the attacking team’s field ops players can use an artillery strike to take out the turret. Or an EMP grenade can be used to disable it for 30 seconds. Or a covert ops can just sneak past them and try to destroy it from behind. As you can see pretty much every attack has a counter. In larger 8v8 rooms it makes things really fun and interesting.

The problem I had was that there is no way to see all available rooms to join. Instead you search for what game type you want (or leave it set to any) and it throws you in one. I found this frustrating because it seldom put me in a mostly full room. There is an option to fill the spots in a room with bots, but the bots on medium are pretty easy to kill and on hard they get headshots on you a lot. When I did find a room of 12 or 14 people it was fun; as most of the time as we were all trying to learn the ins and outs of that maps objectives and the nuances of each class.

I’ll probably keep Enemy Territory: Quake Wars rented for a few more weeks and play some more matches to see if I can get a good feel for it but if there are not more people hosting large rooms in a week or two I’ll send it back to gamefly and try something else. Still, if anyone else is playing it and hosting a large party or room feel free to send me an invite.

*** Spoiler Alert ***

I rented Turok last week and played through the campaign. I was going to check out the multiplayer as well, but i was never able to find a room with more than 3 other people in it . After a couple rounds of 2v2 I gave up on the multiplayer. I’m glad that I rented Turok for a couple reasons. First, if I had bought it I would be mad about the waste of my $60. It is not that the game is really bad, but it is not good enough to be worth buying. The game goes between some indoor and outdoor settings. The outdoor settings are all graphically very nice and tend do be fun because there are dinosaurs to lure into attacking your enemies. Apparently, dinos are like monkeys and chaise shiny objects like flares. It did not seem very probably, but it did not stop me from firing flares at my enemies so the dinos would attack them. The indoor areas all seemed to be very poorly lit and generally consisted of walking through tunnels/hallways killing everything until you reach the end.

The other reason I’m glad I rented it is because they put some really fun weapons into the game. The story line is very linear and when it is not extremely frustrating it is a lot of fun. There are points that drove me crazy because I would be forced to try them over and over. Most of these were in the middle of the game before I got the really powerful weapons, but after the stronger opponents start appearing. The flamethrower and rocket launcher were both well done and fun to use. Also, the bow and arrows were pretty fun to use once I got the hang of them.

The one weapon I found really annoying was the knife. When you approach any enemy who is not a main boss, with the knife, a right trigger indicator will pop up when they are in range letting you know you can get them with a one hit kill. I killed pretty much every dinosaur with the knife because it was easier and faster than using a gun. Very Unrealistic. Also, the knife was annoying at the parts where the developers want you to sneak through levels and get silent kills with it, but there is no cover system so the only way to hide is to crouch in tall grass or behind cover. But when you do this you cannot see anything. Then, when you stand up to look around the enemies see you anyway. I don’t mind games that require you to use stealth, but when stealth is required there should be a way to achieve that action without getting spotted easily. Such as a solid cover system or active camouflage. My final annoyance with the knife occurs when you get attacked by a larger dino. If you get knocked down you then have to follow the on screen cues to use your knife to fight the dino off. Mostly this consists of hitting the tirggers repeatedly or wiggling the left thumb stick. These were always frustrating to me because it I am holding a gun when I get knocked down why don’t I just shoot it instead of pulling out my knife to do some a random button pressing.

This leads to my other big frustration with the game. The final boss fight. After chasing down this guy for the whole game who is suppose to be this really great soldier instead of getting to fight him the final battle is a choreographed cut scene where you have to hit the button that comes up on screen to keep the fight going. Other than when you get knocked down by dinos this was the only time in the game like this. I found it really poorly done. I don’t understand why you would end the game with a choreographed fight after letting every other fight occur naturally. It was lame.

Overall the game was alright. The graphics were good for the most part. The enemy and dino AI was fun to work with, and the sound was really well done. The voice acting was cheesy, but the sounds of where dinos/enemies were approaching from were really well done. My surround sound saved me from getting hit from behind multiple times. Most of the achievements are for multiplayer, but there are some decent ones in the campaign to get. So, if you were thinking of getting Turok I’d recommend renting it instead because it is not worth buying, but it is worth playing through once.

I finally finished Universe at War: Earth Assault this weekend. The single player campaign was a lot longer than I anticipated, but it was a lot of fun. The game’s graphics, especially during cut-scenes, are not that great, but they are not terrible. Since this is a real time strategy game the graphics don’t have to be spectacular. They just need to make it easy to see which units are doing what, and that it does just fine. The sound gets a little irritating at times because you’re units respond whenever you highlight them and they pretty much say the same thing every other time. This would not be such a big deal except the AI is iffy and aggressive at times, and needs your attention to not wonder off and attack passing troops. So, every few minutes you need to call them back if you don’t want them half way across the amp chasing some enemy who moves faster than they do. These little things aside the game is a lot of fun. They really nailed the controls for playing an RTS with an Xbox 360 controller. Everything can be accessed quickly using the triggers and bumpers without highlighting specific units or buildings. This makes it nice because you can watch a fight and build more troops at the same time. Additionally, they let you move around the mini-map very quickly which makes it easy to jump between fights.

The campaign lets you play as each of the three races for quite a while to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. First, you play as Novus which is an all robotic race whose sole purpose is to protect planets from the Hierarchy. The move very quickly and while their individual attacks are not very strong, but when you get a lot of them together they are very effective. The Novus are the most traditional type of unit from the other RTS games I play where you build a base and then start training troops.

After Novus you get to play as the Hierarchy. Instead of the traditional base building the Hierarchy build giant walkers. They do have a few building they can make, but mostly you make walkers who generate troops. The walkers are essentially walking and attacking bases. There are different types of walkers who have different strengths, but all of them you can build weapons and upgrades onto. I found the Hierarchy to be a lot of fun to play as because they were so different. It was a blast to get a couple walkers built and leveled up and then walk them into an enemy base and just start leveling the place with their powerful weapons. Actually the most fun might have been the Science Walker because you can upgrade it to have mind control. Once you have that it will take over the enemy troops and make them attack each other.

The Masari are the final race. They are more traditional with building regular bases and then troops, but they can switch between light and dark modes. In each mode their units have different attacks and specials. While you can win with them by staying completely in light or dark mode it is by effectively switching between modes that they can be truly devastating. For example their planes can only fly in light mode, but in dark mode they become artillery units that have very powerful attacks. So, you can fly them quickly behind enemy lines in light mode and then switch to dark mode and pound on their base from behind in dark mode.

The achievements are mostly for multiplayer but there are a few for playing through the campaign. Plan on spending a lot of time playing multiplayer if you want to get all these achievements.

If you’re a fan of RTS games I’d recommend giving Universe at War: Earth Assault a try. The controls work well for a console the three distinctly different races make for a lot of great strategies to try out.

I finally got around to trying The Bourne Conspiracy demo last night. It was an utter disappointment. I’m a big fan of all three of the Bourne movies and I had high hopes for the game. I probably should have thought that through and I would have had more realistic expectations. The graphics for the game look pretty good and the sound is not bad, but the controls and the camera kill this one for me. There are three different types of levels: shooting, driving, and melee, and the demo has one of each. The driving level was actually pretty easy. It consisted of driving around until you can ditch the police following you and then drive through a tunnel to escape. However, if you drive down one of the smaller alleyways you pretty much loose all the police right away. As you approach the tunnel a button press sequence comes up that basically lets you control a cut scene as you finish the escape. This part is pretty easy as long as you’re ready for it. If you’re not paying attention then you can easily miss the first button causing you to have to replay from the last checkpoint.

The melee sections I found extremely frustrating because you can’t control the camera and attack at the same time. So, once you finish one guy off then you may have a guy behind you that you can’t see who will hit you in the back as you try to turn and find him. The fighting is pretty lame too. You have a quick hit, a heavy hit, and a block button. I don’t think I ever blocked. I just went back and forth between the quick and hard hits until my adrenaline meter filled up and then I used the “take down” button to finish the guy off without any skill involved. It was a real waste. I’m not looking for all the fighting options something like Soul Caliber has, but at least 3 or 4 different attack buttons would be more realistic to a guy who is suppose to be a walking weapon.

The shooting level was even worse. When you’re shooting you move slower and it is harder to aim precisely. The weapons feel really weak and take a lot of shots to kill a guy even if you’re hitting them in the head. There is a cover system while you have a gun out, but it works really poorly. I pretty much never used it and would just stand behind the cover when I really needed it. Plus, they want you to take people out by blowing up barrels and card that they are hiding near. That is fun and all, but when every hiding place has an explosive barrel next to it I find it very unrealistic. For a game that is suppose to make you feel like you’re in a movie the shooting sections did the opposite. I don’t remember Bourne shooting barrels all over an airport to take people out. I’d think he would sneak around behind people and take the out quick and quiet.

I had been planning on playing The Bourne Conspiracy once it releases, but now I will most definitely not.

I know … I know I’ve been promising a review of Universe at War: Earth Assault, but I’m still trying to finish the campaign. It is a lot longer than I thought. I think I’ve got about 3 missions left. Each of which could take an hour or two. So, hopefully later this week if I don’t get sidetracked by RS:V2 or Rock band. Did anyone else try that Bourne demo? I’m going to give it another run and then I’ll post my thoughts on it.

GameFly sent me another coupon for my friends to get a free month of GameFly. Here are the details:

For a limited time, we’re giving you a special opportunity to send your friends and family an entire month of GameFly for FREE. That’s three times the length of our regular free trial, and a $22.95 value to your friends! Quantities are limited and this special offer expires May 20, so forward this e-mail to your friends and family today.

-The GameFly Team

Good for: 1 free month of
GameFly video game rentals

Expires: 5/20/2008

Link to Free Month of GameFly: http://www.gamefly.com/promo.asp?strpromocode=GFFFWR9MH6XJTRTR

I’ve been playing a new web based game. Unlike most of the online flash games I play this one actually is slow paced and rewards you for playing over time. Here is a brief synopsis of the game from their viewpoint “Kings of Babylon (“KoB”), is a team-based, empire building wargame where you will start as a peon with a single village and build your way up the ranks and to control multiple villages. All the while you’ll be coordinating with other realm members to protect each other and to conquer your enemies.” It reminds me a lot of Civilization but with hundreds of people playing. There are 12 Realms, or teams, in the game that work together to protect each other from the other Realms and to build their towns faster.

The game is very slow paced, but has a ton of depth and strategy that I’m really enjoying. The game keeps going while you’re not there so you can start a new farm or mill building and then leave and come back to check in on the game the next day. Also, the game requires a lot of teamwork once you start to move up in the ranks and I’ve found at least in the Purple Realm that everyone works together to coordinate attacks and protect each other.

When you start the game you have a few resources and a very small town to build up. The best way to start is by building a farm and a market so you can make food and money. From there you train some farmers and merchants. Once you are making money and food then you can start towards other resources (iron, stone, & wood). After you’re making decent bank and have some resources you can train one of the many types of soldiers. Then, take the soldiers and attack your neighbors. I’d recommend starting by attacking people in the ‘Banished’ Realm. These are people who no longer are actively playing so you can generally attack them and get a lot of resources without a fight. If your more aggressive you could also train a spy and use them to see what your active neighbors have. Then, if you have more troops than they do you can go and kills theirs and take their resources. Just be ready to defend yourself if their Realm decides to retaliate. Of course, your Realm will have your back as long as you’re not being careless.

The game is free to play. They do offer a premium subscription, but it doesn’t give you anything you can’t earn without paying. It does however make build management a little easier.

If you’re looking for a game where you can jump in and start fighting this is not the game for you, but if you want to slowly build a town and then an army KoB could be just what you’re looking for.

If you’re interested in playing Kings of Babylon join me in the Purple Realm and build your town in the South West section (it will ask when you join which you want to be in). That way I can help you get started. If you join send me a PM in game, my name is jigsawhc, and I’ll send you a little “getting started” care package and answer any questions you might have.

I’m out of town right now so I’ve not been able to finish Universe at War: Earth Assault. I have finished the first race in the campaign and started on the second. So far I’m enjoying the game but the graphics are nothing special. Once I get back I hope to finish it up pretty quickly and get that review I’ve been planning on doing.