Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Multiplayer (Part 1 of 2)

I will be breaking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 into two separate
reviews. The first part will be the multiplayer aspect of the game.
The second part will be the campaign and spec ops portion of the game.
The multiplayer portion of this review will just be on big review. The
second part will be my original review style where I break it down into
other parts (gameplay, graphics, audio). Lets get started!

MW3 Multiplayer Review (part 1 of 2)
Since multiplayer is the most important part of the game for all of
you gamers I decided to do this part first. So MW3 has improved on the
multiplayer once again. I will begin with the positives and then move
on to the problems and negatives.

First off the multiplayer is as good as ever. There are tons of things
to be unlocked. There is a huge roster of guns to be unlocked by
ranking up. There are new and additional titles, emblems and
camouflages. If you are an elite member or and elite founder you
unlock a winter camo and new titles and emblems for your playercard.
There are 16 maps that shipped with the game with map packs soon to be
added. If your an elite premium member you get monthly DLC for free.

So essentially the multiplayer is the same. You rank up and as you
rank up you unlock guns, perks and equipment. The max rank for MW3 is
80 which is pretty high up there and can take some time. As I am
typing this review I am currently first prestige rank 19. You have
your basic gun classes and they are the Assault Rifles, Sub machine
Guns, Light Machine Guns, Sniper Rifles, and shotguns. I would like to
note that shotguns are now used as primary weapons. MW2 had them as
secondary weapons. A cool feature that was added to the multiplayer
portion would be the ability to level up your guns. The more you use
the guns the more attachments and camos you unlock for them. The max
level for primary guns is level 31. At level 31 you will have unlocked
everything for that gun including the gold camouflage which looks much
better in Modern Warfare 3 than Modern Warfare 2. Another feature
added are strike packages. This is also a great addition. The strike
packages changes up your play style. For example if you want to play
the regular MW style of multiplayer you would pick the Assault strike
package. This is your standard killstreak rewards. You kill 3 in a row
you get UAV. You die you lose your kill streaks. The other package is
the support package. This package is really neat because you get
points towards your killstreaks by killing enemies as well as doing
objectives like capturing a flag in domination. When you die your
points towards your killstreaks do not reset. The support package
offers different types of streaks which will support your team. For
example you get an advanced UAV which you cannot get by using a
assault strike package. The last one is the specialist strike package.
This can make you a god in multiplayer if used right. Basically your
kills do not go towards killstreaks but they go to perks. So if you
get three kills you will get an additional perk to help you out so
instead of three you will have four. These perks are customizable. You
can choose any order you want your perks to appear.

Overall the maps are pretty good. There is a huge variety of maps for
multiplayer. The maps are much smaller then the maps from MW2. This
can be a problem for campers, there are a lot of campers in
multiplayer but it is due to the game just being released so people
are not as familiar with the maps yet. There is a lack of sniping maps
for all of you snipers out there. I am sure some will be added with
the map packs. Some maps are a lot darker and very hard to see some
areas and can be sucky because that's where people camp the most.
Another negative thing about the maps is there is way to much stuff.
The open areas don't really feel as open anymore because there is
always stuff in the area to hide behind and pick people off.

There are new modes added to the multiplayer. These new modes include
Team Defender and Kill Confirmed. These very fun game modes and highly
recommended. Kill confirmed forces people to come out of hiding. With
Kill Confirmed the objective of the game is to kill your enemies. When
you kill your enemies they drop dog tags which count for one point
towards your team. First team to collect 65 dog tags wins the round.
The cool thing about this is if one of your team mates dies they will
drop their dog tag. If you don't want the enemy to get that point you
can run over the dog tag and deny their kill. Team Defender is exactly
like Team Deathmatch with a little twist. So regular kills don't
reward your team as much for points. In Team Deathmatch you get 100
points per kill for your team. You get about half in Team Defender.
The main objective in the game mode is to hold on to the flag as long
as you can. If your team is holding on to the flag and you kill an
enemy you get a bonus towards your experience and towards the team
score. So if you hold on to the flag most of the match then you are
sure to win. Both modes are tons of fun, go try it out!

Now the negatives. The main issue I have with the multiplayer in MW3
are the re spawn points. The maps are small so in game modes like
Domination the re spawning is terrible. At points I re spawned right in
front of the enemy. Another time I re spawned in front of three
enemies. This is extremely irritating. Another problem is the cheap
weapons every tends to use. For example the Type 95 can kill someone
with one single burst fire. Another cheap weapon is the UMP45 which is
by far the most over used weapon in the game. This gun has insane
accuracy and really high damage. Another problem is the shotguns. The
shotguns were awesome weapons in MW2 and Black Ops. The shotguns in
MW3 need a major buff up. Using the model 1887 that gun was a one shot
kill in MW2. In MW3 you get 3 hit markers before the guy dies even up
close! One other annoyance is the Light Machine Guns. These are a huge
disappointment. These guns are so underpowered that literally nobody
uses them.

MW3 was just released so there is still lots of time for them to fix
some issues with the multiplayer. Almost every game at launch has
issues and usually they get fixed. What they recently said in one of
their interviews is that they added a new system to the multiplayer
where they can tweak things on the fly instead of waiting three months
to produce a patch. They already had a small patch where they
apparently increased the power off shotguns.

Overall the multiplayer is as fun as ever. I know a lot of people are
upset with the multiplayer due to the problems. This game just came
out, give it a chance before quitting and bashing it. They need time
to fix the problems. Be patient. I highly recommend people pick this
game up. The multiplayer is fantastic! Enjoy!

Ninety-Nine Nights 2

Console: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action/Role-Playing
Release Date: June 29, 2010
Reviewed: November 15, 2011

Gameplay:
N3 2 is a hack and slash game full of action. This game in a way is
like Dynasty Warriors....but worse. The first one I enjoyed but this
one I recommend be avoided. First off with N3 2 you are going through
story mode doing different missions. If you know what Dynasty Warriors
is then there really is no need of an explanation for this game, but
for those of you who don't know what it is I shall explain. N3 2 is
basically a run in and kill game. You face massive armies and to get
to the next zone to complete your mission you need to kill the entire
army. Now these armies and idiots. The enemies stand around while your
destroying them. The odd enemy will come in and attempt to swing at
you to hurt you. As you progress through the game you unlock new
spells for your character. Some of these spells are actually very cool
and can help out a lot. Some of these spells are completely useless
and shouldn't even be in the game.

A lot of the enemies are extremely easy while a lot of them are
extremely annoying. The fly enemies that shoot ice and fireballs at
you are by far the most annoying. Half the time you aren't even able
to complete the mission without dying from them several times.                                                   Every time they hit you with their attacks you get stunned for a few
seconds and knocked down, even if you are in a middle of a huge combo.
No, as soon as you get hit you drop to the ground and are stunned.
Another annoying enemy are the different types of berserkers. Now the
first ones are easy and can easily be avoided but when there are 3+
white ones and you have to kill them to progress.....it's impossible.
Every hit is about 1/4 of your health and it knocks you down and stuns
you. Extremely annoying.

The missions are all the same thing over and over and over again. You
run, kill hundreds of enemies, get mad because of the BS enemies,
reach end of mission, done. There is nothing added to the missions
like obstacles or nothing. Same thing every time.

Graphics:
The graphics are anything new or great. The graphics are a bit
outdated and some of the animations look cheesy and lame. One thing I
can say about this is that the animations for some of the spells look
awesome. Looks like they will do some damage to your enemies. Overall
nothing new, nothing great.

Audio:
The audio is also outdated. The music can be decent at some points.
The voice acting isn't all that great and the overall sound quality
isn't great as well.

Conclusion:
Overall this game isn't the great. If you want to try it then please
rent it. Other wise avoid it entirely. The first one was much better.
Short review but you can't really say to much for a game this bad.

Dragonball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi

Console: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Genre: Action/Fighting
Release Date: October 25, 2011
Reviewed: November 15, 2011

Gameplay:
Dragonball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi is a great addition to the DBZ video
game series especially for hardcore DBZ fans like myself. The fighting
style is completely new and revamped. Instead of health bars you now
have health numbers. You basically start at 50,000 health and it goes
down as your wailing on one another. The fight style is almost similar
to Burst Limit or Street Fighter if you will. The only difference is
you fly in the air. There are two fighting modes during the fights.
First one is "Blast Phase" which means you are in a phase where you
are able to perform ki blasts which are a lot more powerful than the
previous games. The second is "Combat Phase" which mean everything you
get close enough to your enemy a small cut scene will appear where you
both block each others kicks and begin the phase where you use melee
combat instead of your ki blasts. The combat overall if very well done
and is fun. They added a rock paper scissors element to it where say
if you perform a combo your opponent has a chance to counter that
attack based on which action you choose. If you counter then you punch
him out of the way and it cancels the combo. If you fail then prepare
to get your face bashed in.

During the fighting you can charge your ki like in the other DBZ
fighting games. But ki is used differently in Ultimate Tenkaichi. Your
ki is now used to acquire abilities to counter your opponents super
and normal attacks. While your charging your ki there are three icons
where your ki bar is. As the ki bar gets higher those icons light up.
They are, guard, evade, or counter. So if your opponent used
Kamehameha then you enter a small phase where you can choose how to
defend yourself against the attack depending on how much ki you have
charged up. So if you have it to the point where you have enough ki to
use the counter ability then you shoot another blast against the
Kamehameha and mash one of the buttons to over power your opponent. If
you succeed your blast will hit the enemy. If you fail then the
Kamehameha will hurt. The other ones are obvious where you can guard
to reduce the damage or evade to, well, evade the attack. If you max
out your ki bar you have an option to use that ki to get a boost in
attack. When it's full you use the up arrow on the D pad and you
unleash your ki. While your ki is unleashed your attack improves and
you are able to do additional combos. The only downside is when your
in this state your ki will slowly diminish.

Destruction in the game has been improved. So when you unleash a
special attack your will blow a hole in the ground....a big one. When
you shoot a Kamehameha you will see the path it followed in the ground
to hit your opponent. If you use multiple blasts say with Gohan you
will see the mini craters in the ground. If you use to spirit
bomb.....say good by to half the planet. Big crater! Now although the
destruction is cool. It can get lame, boring and repetitive really
fast. Every time you use a special attack there is always a mini
cut scene of the enemy looking shocked and hurt and a big hole of
nothing where they are flying. This happens every time! Gets annoying.
But overall a nice touch.

Another feature they added are the big boss battles. One for example
would be when you fight Vegeta in his ape form. These are actually
pretty fun because you have to actually pull of certain techniques to
beat these big bosses. You also need to damage certain parts of their
bodies in each phase. If you do enough damage you enter a sequence
mode to avoid the big hits and finish them off. Another nice touch to
the game.

One other feature worth mentioning is the hero mode. In hero mode you
go on a little adventure with your created character. Now at first
when you create your character there are not a lot of options at all.
You have to unlock other costumes and features for your character as
your playing hero mode. You unlock things like hair styles, costumes,
logos, and voices. The further you progress into hero mode the more
goodies you unlock to use. Hero mode is a nice addition as well. You
go train and level your character up to make hm stronger. You need to
train because some of the key battles in hero mode are tough. If you
have very little health you will die fast. During hero mode you will
unlock sparring partners. When you unlock them you can face them a
certain amount of times and you unlock additional items to make your
character stronger. It is also how you unlock capsules to increase the
stats of the other characters like "health +1". Overall it is a pretty
fun feature but can be grindy and boring at times.

There of coarse are some bad things about this DBZ game. Yes, fighting
can get really repeatitive due to using the same combo over...and
over....and over again. The rock paper scissors feature can get very
frustrating especially if you lose alot. If you lose you get bashed
into an endless combo which hurts. Hero mode can be grindy and slow
paced. Big boss battles can also be frustrating if you missing an
action or trying to dodge the big fist coming for your face. If you
get hit....it really hurts.

Graphics:
The graphics in DBZ: Ultimate Tenkaichi are gorgeous. A huge
improvement to the last DBZ fighting game. They made all of the
environments big, colorful and full of life. They made each charcter
look two times better and their animations very smooth and great to
look at. The graphics, effects, and animations on the super attacks
like the kamehameha look amazing. It actually looks like it will do
damage and create a giant crater in the ground. When you unleash your
special attack a mini cutscene will appear showing your character
launch it from their hands. When it happens your jaw drops for a
second staring at how big the blast is. The you realise....."this is
going to hurt".

As mentioned above the destruction has been improved and the details
are great. When you create a huge crater you can see the electricity
from the blast surrounding the gian hole in the ground. The more you
damage the fighting area the more hectic it looks. If you damage it
enough the sky turns red/dark and looks like an epic battle took place
there.

Overall the graphics are very nice. It was nice to see them improve it
so much from the last game. Didn't think it would happen or it was
possible but they did it. Kudos to them.

Audio:
So I personally love the audio in DBZ: Ultimate Tenkaichi. It has
great music and great sound. When your blasting or punching someone it
sounds great and goes with the animation. Now the voice acting overall
is really great. It almost had all of the original voice actors from
the show and previous games....except a few like Gohan. Some of these
new voices are terrible. Gohan sounds like a woman smoking to much
cigarettes. Terrible and apauling some of these voices are.

Overall it has a good variety of music and sounds. Voice acting is
great...except for the few like gohan.

Conclusion:
Dragonball Z: Ultimate Tenkaichi is a great addition to the over the
top fighting series. They took the risk in doing something new and a
bit different. It for the most part worked. There are some flaws with
it that can be annoying and frustrating. These can be easily ignored
or over looked. The graphics got a huge improvement and everything
looks great. The audio is great as well except for some of the voice
actors. If your an over the top fighting fan or a DBZ fan in general
you will enjoy this game. Rent it first before buying. I personally
loved this game. Overall it is a good game, not amazing but good.
Enjoy!