Review - MOH Warfighter

The MOH series has always been to me a WWII shooter on the Playstation back in the days, the graphics were blocky, and the game was very linear, but for what it offered at the time, it was an outstanding achievement, and i really enjoyed most of the releases. Also, the main theme was very memorable.. who could forget the fat kid with the falsetto voice who sang that tune? :p

 

Fast forward to 2012, and we have the 14th installment of the game; beginning with the 13th version, which was simply called MOH, the series jumped into the modern era ( i guess following the footsteps of the other FPS Call of Duty ). But before i start on Warfighter, i'd like to say i enjoyed MOH thoroughly; it was a refreshing change of pace from COD:MW, although some ideas were lifted here and there.
 

Warfighter follows the adventures of TF Mako, and a few other groups, and is a follow up from the previous installment. The game is now powered by the Frostbite 2 engine, which is also used for Battlefield 3. This is where the mileage will vary for some users; unless you have a good graphics card running the settings at ultra, don't expect to see quality similar to to what you saw in the trailers. The default graphics at high are still 'muddy' to me. I guess the developers of the game, Danger Close, still don't have a clean handle on mastering the frostbite 2 engine.

 

Ok, back to the storyline, single-player is truthfully a short affair about 10+ missions max, and some can get dragged out quite a bit.... then again, there's this Sniper mission which takes all of 5 mins... wth? Was this tagged on at the last minute to bring some credence to the "Inspired by Actual Event" tagline they're promoting?

 

There are some driving sequences which i feel are out of place too, and drag on for too long AND are sooooo obviously scripted... guess they want to have a 'action movie' feel for the game? Still, for a moment there i thought i was playing Need for Speed - Warfigher.

 

The game is also buggy in places ( there was a Day 1 patch, which usually doesn't bode well for the quality of the product ) and the AI is..... atrocious for both the Enemy and your team! There are times when the enemy can be right beside your teammate, and he's just... standing there... boooo! The AI doesn't suffer from Marksman syndrome, but still, they can shoot and hit you from the wierdest places without you even knowing, that's really annoying.

 

On my first playthrough of the first 5 levels, the autosave didn't work either! That really sucked ballz.

Spread out throughout the game are segments where you have to breach and clear a roomful of enemies, there are different methods of breaching which are unlocked when you do headshots upon clearing a room. The problem is, the breaching techniques are just visual differences in entering and clearing, there's no actual reward or difference once that animation is done. So after you've unlocked all the breaching techniques, you're just left.. kinda empty, and wondering what that was all about.

 

So, in spite of all that 'venom', the game was still rather playable. The characters are likeable and some sequences were quite fun. I suspect certain portions were rushed to cater to the Multiplayer portion (which i have not tried yet.).

 

I'd give this a 6/10, although i'll still stick to BF3 for now.

 

Next time Danger Close, more shooting! Less Driving. OR at least let us fly an apache again!

Robocop Reboot.

Robo can ride a bike now? Actually, he looks more like a cyborg now, not very intimidating. Still, remains to be seen whether this remake will be any good... otherwise, i won't watch this for a dollar! :D

Ready for... Revengeance?

Is there even such a word? :p  The next in the MGS series by the same guys who did Bayonetta and Vanquish.. which were pretty interesting games i guess, with a certain 'flair' to them. I feel MGS has always been grounded in current or in development weapons technology, no matter how outlandish the bosses may seem. MGR seems to be... a little bit harder to swallow. More like a sci-fi hack and slash now. :p

Well, should be interesting still! There's a premium edition, and a Japan exclusive PS3 SPECIAL EDITION premium edition which includes a white version of the upcoming Raiden fig from the Kai Arts Squenix series :

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance Game

Yoji Shinkawa Artbook

CD Soundtrack w/Steel book

Magnetic Dwarf Gekkos/Scarabs

DLC code for Cyborg Ninja Grey Fox skin

Iron Man 3

Coming soon! May 2013... looks to have a darker storyline... prob because the director is now Shane Black? Still think the new armor is too.... golden.

 

Armor even matches the furniture! ;p



 

LEGO 2013 - Awing Fighter

Another iteration of the A-wing for next year! It's prob gonna cost near the $50 mark cos of the number of minifigs included... plus the Star Wars license is expensive anyway. Still, looks like they did a better job of  replicating the curved surface of the A-Wing!

BF3 - Aftermath

2nd last expansion from BF3! Check out the trailer at

http://blogs.battlefield.com/2012/10/aftermath-first-look/

OTAKU Cobra's!

Nice artwork on these Japanese military choppers! ;)

Another Sunday!

So goes another weekend! Whew, think i woke up late; feels good to sleep in without a need to wake up by a preset time. Unfortunately... there's work tomorrow urgh!

 

Anyways, just like, 9-10 weeks away to Christmas! Scary man.... :p AND No. 2 is coming in in another 4 more weeks...

 

Hooah! :D

Wedding Bells!

My little bro got married today! hard to believe how much time has passed and he is now starting his own family! i'm happy for him and here's wishing you a long and blissful marriage with his wife Yvonne.

Going off for the dinner shortly! ;)

MG Nu Gundam - 52nd Japan All Plamodel Hobby Show 2012

Pics out! Looks good, can't wait to get this.. so tempting to restart scale modelling again. :(

LEGO Stig!

Awesome cool! this figure is being offered to uk readers ok top gear.... expect to see it in eBay soon!

 

 

Cowabunga!

.... and the Turtles get the LEGO treatment! Tres cool! From the New York Comic Convention now on in the US!

MOH + Linkin Park

These guys are everywhere now? Their songs are ok but... after a while, they all sound the same.

Here's their latest promoting the Warfighter game.

Too many Toys!

As we inch ever closer to the end of the year, the releases for toys and games are slowly starting to ramp up! Not been having much time to play on the console ( prob get worse when no. 2 comes!), so haven't been picking up any releases for the PS3 recently.

 

The 360 is almost stagnant to me; aside from a few exclusive titles, i hardly touch it these days. I wonder when consoles can truely match the processing power of a PC one day? I bought the Crysis bundle off Steam for cheap, and it's pretty much amazing how the graphics have improved over time. Crysis still looks pretty good for it's age, but when you see Crysis 2 on DX11 with Ultra settings.... boy oh boy... day and night man. :p Another one to see is the BF3 SP level "Going Hunting"... amazing.

 

Toys are getting too expensive these days... most of the 'nicer' stuff have become exclusives or limited and are AT LEAST $200 minimum these days.. Sigh, how i miss the days when i could go to Toy's R US and pick up an Aerialbot off the peg for $5...

 

Still, darn Hasbro/Takara is tugging at our Nostalgia by releasing MORE classic figures to whittle away what's left of my emancipated wallet. Know what i'd really like? A re-release of the headmasters... they'd probably do that knowing them!

 

This weekend is the NYCC and also the Plamo show in Japan... AND my brother's getting married too!

 

Time flies. ;)

 

Zaku I Sniper

Another thing picked up from TFH, this time, the Zaku I Sniper piloted by Yonem Kirks from Bandai under the Signature Ka version (basically a redesigned version by Hajime Katoki.. and an excuse to jack up the price!)

This version was from the Unicorn Gundam OVA, it was basically hovering overhead in a "Fat Uncle" cruiser using the beam rifle to snipe at the base to support an ongoing assault... The set also comes with decals to spruce up the look of the Zaku if you feel inclined to!

The Zaku I can be seen in the video above at about the 1:55 mark. :)

Unicorn Gundam - Glowing Stage Set

Picked this up from Falcon's this evening after work, been quite a while but i hope the orders are slowly trickling in.... TFH was packed with quite a few people... and newly arrived stock too! The whole gang was there today which was kinda unusual. :)

No photoshop work here! ;) The 'glowing' red areas are actually the way the paint is sprayed along those areas; the whole set comes with a display base with black lights, and the flourescent paint on the figure stands out from the body itself. Pretty good effect, and one of the better quality releases from Bandai recently.

 

All the have to do now is release a Die cast version with built in LED's! :p

Encore Fortress Maximus

Ooo! Wonder how this slipped my radar; didn't know about it till TFH released the preorder for it! This is considered the 'Holy Grail' for TF collectors, largely due to it's size. As with all Encore releases, the 'feel' won't be the same as the original, as the plastic used is different, and the moulding of the figure may change in some places. Still, pretty cool to have as a door guardian or something!

1/35 Scale EX-S Gundam

Seriously awesome piece of work. A 1/35 scale EX-S Gundam from the Gundam Sentinel Series! The EX-S is about 28m tall in the series, so at 1/35 it'd be about 80cm? Pretty darn big i guess.

 

This was the combined effort of 3 Korean guys; think if it was built by one guy, it'd take 3 months at least! Not to mention the amount of paint required for this.

 

There's also been a 1/100 scale kit from Bandai for this. But one takes the cake with all the tiny details afforded by the scale involved!