Every since I got the Xbox 360 up and running, I’ve been playing the heck out of video games.  Mainly, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2.  Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the only game I’ve played that I felt like I needed to write a review.  I’m not fan of pure RPGs but Human Revolution isn’t a pure RPG in my opinion.

You play Adam Jensen head of security for Serif Industries.  Serif is a company that provides augmentations to individuals. There’s an explosion and your girlfriend and her research team are killed and you’re left for dead.  You awaken and because of the extensive damage you suffered Serif has decided to give you augmentations to fix the physical damage.  After you get back to work, your goal in the game is to find out who was behind the attack and who killed your girlfriend.

As a player you can decide what type of character Jensen will be.  It isn’t as simple as choosing a class in most RPGs, but there are basically 3 types of play.  You can be a Hacker, Stealth player, or you can blast your way through the game like an FPS.  The best thing about this is that it lends itself to tons of replay value, which is always good for games.  You don’t have to commit to anyone of these since I found myself doing a combination of Hacker and Stealth.  It’s important to at least think about it because you upgrade you augmentations using Praxis points.  I’ll just say that you should get the Icarus landing upgrade quickly because any fall from any height will apparently kill you.

I like the openess of the game.  The augmentation system is realatively easy to understand and not that complicated, especially if you decide early how you want to play the game.  The game rewards you for exploration.  You can avoid conflicts and get through an entire area without ever having to put someone down.  The graphics were good, and the voiceacting was passable…..except Letitia the Trash Lady.  Just watch for yourself.

The only major problem  deals with the boss fights.  The game gives you a lot of opportunities to avoid conflict either by stealth or talking someone down.  But then the developers put you in a locked room with a boss that you can’t reason with or conversate with.  I thought that this would have been a perfect opportunity to show off the games’ Social Enhancement augemtation.  It would have bneen cool to be able to at least have the chance to talk your way out of the fight.  Players who chose to go either the stealth path or hacker path of augmentations will find all the boss fights difficult since you will be outgunned.  One thing I did, which I don’t know if the developers thought of this, is that I would take hacked turretts with me whenever I could and put them in a room with enemies and let the turrent take them out.  I even took a turret into the next to last boss fight and being outgunned was no longer a problem.  That’s another great thing about the game; it rewards you for thinging outside of the box.

Except for the boss fights, Deus Ex Human Revolution is a great game with stunning visuals.  The gameplay is nice and the artwork is good.  If you have the chance to play this game you should.  I would even recommend it as a purchase.

 

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Source: Pop Culture Shock

Sony Online Entertainment announced that Gina Torres will be voice of Wonder Woman in the upcoming DC Universe Online MMO. She is currently starring in the new ABC Family series Huge, Torres’ most notable television credits are her performances as assassin Anna Espinosa on Alias and Zoe Washburn, the shotgun-toting mercenary on Joss Whedon’s Firefly (and the feature film Serenity), in addition to her roles in Xena: Warrior Princess and Cleopatra 2525, which earned her an ALMA award. Her film credits include The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Reloaded, I Think I Love My Wife and Hair Show. She has also voiced the characters of Vixen in the Justice League animated series and Superwoman in the DC Universe animated feature Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

This week Halo Legends was released on DVD and Blu-Ray.  I must admit that I don’t really play first person shooters.  And everyone tells me that Halo is the best of the best.  I have dabbled in the Medal of Honor and Call of Duty franchises and I even downloaded N.O.V.A. for the iPod Touch.  They are fantastic games, but I can’t play them more than 20 minutes at a time.  However, I do watch the cut scenes for many FPS on YouTube.  So, when I heard about this, I thought that it was just going to be a collection of new Halo cut scenes, until I heard it was going to be similar to how Animatrix was to The Matrix.  That got me interested.

The release is comprised of 7 animated short stories.  Each story delves into part of the Halo canon.  Fleshing out some things, and shedding light onto others.  Each episode was done in a different animation style.  Fans will appreciate that the material in the stories are canon.  Fans will like the episodes The Package and The Babysitter since they add to the mythos of the Spartans.  My favorite episode was The Duel.  I liked the animation and the story was a classic.  The Duel also gave you insight into the workings of the Covenant.  But I believe that most fans already know that the Covenant is not as monolithic as one would think.

Overall, I enjoyed watching it and I think anyone whose a fan of animation will appreciate this collection of stories.  I know most of the fans of the game will already have this, I would still recommend it for everyone else.

Looks like its going to be based on Civil War.  Give me a team with Storm, Luke Cage, and Black Panther, and that would give me the power, strength, and intelligence to take on all comers.

It’s in Japanese, but you get the picture.  I think as crazy as this sounds, it looks interesting.  I think it looks better than that stuff the people doing Dragonball has been putting out.