01.01.08
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 11:55 am by earl
Assassin’s Creed is one of those games that comes along once every now and then and does something new. Something fun, exciting, and original that leaves you speechless. The first few levels I played showed a man in modern times, outside of the past setting. The people experimenting on him want to find out more about his past ancestor’s assassin-y, so they probe his memories. So the whole game is taking place…..in your mind! After a quite wordy explanation, you do a long tutorial, which then leads to the action. You play as Altair, a trained assassin who plays by his own rules. He’s disrespectful to the leader and is banned. You now must work your way back up to get your title back. But I paid no attention to the story. I was busy watching Chocolate Rain on Youtube during the cutscenes. Anyway, you get into the cityscape and I, using the unique and sometimes troublesome control scheme, went attacking. You can use the face buttons for mapped to each hand without any other buttons for “socially acceptable” acts, or hold R1 and do the same button presses for I guess non-acceptable acts, like killing innocents. I ran through throwing more people down and attacking more innocent people than Sylar at a quiz bowl. The game had an overall fun feel, and I look forward to possibly playing it more in the future.
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12.21.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 10:48 pm by earl
I got my hands on two adrenaline-packed titles of this year, and I had a pretty good time with them. Let’s Start with SKate. Oh yeah, I also played Guitar Hero 3 for nearly 45 minutes in Sam’s. Skate was the potential Tony Hawk killer this year, however, I haven’t found anyone claim a verdict. I will. Skate kinda feels better to me. I would control my skater with the left analog stick, and the board with the right. The controls take some getting use to, beut in the end they feel solid. I snapped the right analog stick back and to the side a couple of times, and found out a couple of times what the ground tasted like, but pretty soon I was pulling ollies and being hip. Word. The controls worked really well, and the graphics were gorgeous. It felt like a must-buy for skating fans.
DiRT was another title I got to tinker with. This is basically a title that felt like Burnout met Motorstorm. Anyway, the game won a prize in my book for the most camera angles I’d ever seen. It also won an award for awesome damage system. Absolutely the most realistic I’d ever come with it. YOu hit a wall on your bumper, the bumper dents in perfectly. The windows crack, everything was great. I loved it, although the steering felt a little loose at times. Just a little tweaking, and it would also have been as cool. Strangely, there was no dirt on my track. It was rather clean. They were both great experiences.
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12.09.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 9:41 pm by earl
Dropping by Gamestop on a Christmas shopping day, I naturally expected a great game demo. No, it didn’t stop there. I got an awesome full game version play of Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii. The game starts off pretty simple, it tells the story of Mushroom Kingdom’s star festival, andso on and so forth. I couldn’t haved payed more attention if it wasn’t for the kid next to me asking, “What are you doing now” over and over. But I shouldn’t talk about my sister like that. Anyway, you play as Mario, running through the town, with the controls pretty simple: You can collect little stars, which act as your ammo, and these can be fired by aiming with the Wiimote and firing with B. Shooting Toad was more fun than it should have been. Anyway, you jump with A, and move with the analog stick. I’m pretty sure Z was crouch. Anywho, I ran through town to Peach’s castle, but then who would have guessed it, Bowser shows up and wrecks the party. However, he has a new plan, why take the princess, when you can take her castle? He takes her castle, and a magic koopa blasts Mario off into space. You wake up on a small asteroid, with a star that morphs into a bunny. You run around the small planet, chasing the bunny. However, you may be wondering, does running around a planet work? And my answer is, “well.” Nintendo has perfected the art of running around planets. Unfortunately, I saw the guys I was with outside at this point, and decided to remeet with them. I definitely look forward to spend more time with this game.
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11.01.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 6:45 pm by earl
Yea, I got to play a couple of songs with one of my favorite rhythmn-based games, Guitar Hero 3. The game has a whole new look, a whole new list of great songs, and a brand new great-looking Gibson Les Paul Guitar. And this is my hands-on review. Well, I was first just amazed at the look and feel of the guitar, which was amazing. The fret buttons are now outlined in their color, which looks cool, and the black (white for Wii) base looks shiny. I started out with a pretty basic song, “Rock you like a Hurricane”, which I kicked butt at. You’re reading a post from the #1 High Scorer! I then went on to “Hit me with your best shot”, and rounded out with Tenacious D. Overall, a very sleek, shiny package that I look forward to playing in the future.
Note: I played the 360 version, not the Wii version, however I hear the Wii version has vibration on it. Awesome!
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10.31.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 12:03 pm by earl
Yes! It’s True! I have not one, but two games on Hands-On with Earl today. And heeerrrrreee we go. We’ll start with Metroid Prime 3:Corruption. After giving Gamespot my Drvier’s License, I was able to play the first few moments of Metroid Prime 3:Corruption on the Wii. It starts out with a pretty cool story, where you, Samus, are being called in to help out the Federation with the evil Dark Samus. You had control over your ships devices, and had to use them to land. You basically point, tap A on the device, and Samus will push it. You also had to type ina certain code and send messages using the motion sensing, which felt nice, although a little sensitive at times. You then on board the ship where you basically fire with A and aimed with the Wiimote. You could change visors by holding down - and tilting into the certain zone of that selected visor. Pretty simple. I would recommend it to any FPS fan that owns a Wii trhat’s looking for something unique.
I then dropped by Target and gave Heavenly Sword a spin. After a cutscene I skipped, I made Nariko jump onto a rope where it came into an interactive cutscene. The soldiers on the other side cut your rope, but once I got to the other side I taught them a lesson. The combat felt a little loose and repetitive, but once I tilted the controller to the side when finshing off a baddy, she went into a mini-cutscene where she pulled an awesome finsihing move. I did this several times and then went on to the end of the demo. Overall, a pretty strong game for the PS3.
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08.24.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 9:07 am by earl
I recently got to run by Gamespot and play the demo for Brain Age 2:More Brain Training in Minutes A Day, and here’s what I thought. The demo basically just allowed you to play though a “Brain Age” calculating game, in which you had to subtract 8 from a number over and over and over, until you reached zero. I started off prety well, but when I got to trickier numbers, things got a little messy. I found when I tryed to type certain numbers that it wouldn’t recognize right and it caused me to score my brain in the age of its 80s. Overall, despite some recognition errors, it seemed pretty solid.
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08.02.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 3:34 pm by earl
 
 
 
Recently I got to sit down and play The Elder Scrolls 4:Oblivion on B.K.’s PS3, and here’s what I think. First off, starting a new game, you get to choose from several different races, and customize your character on a level of that I’ve never seen! And once Earl the Wood Elf was born, we set out protecting the Emporer, whom I “accidentally” slashed at with my sword. The other guards tryed to take me down, but B.K. quickly retrieved the controller and settled the matter. Anyway, one thing I did notice about this game were the graphics. Although they weren’t anything special inside the dungeons and caves, the outside world was pretty good-looking, although it could have been shinier. I also enjoyed the weapon and srmor choices, allowing you to steal stuff from your “past opponents”. I pretty much looked like a cheap knockoff of Altair from Assassin’s Creed. Overall, this was actually a pretty good, solid game for the PS3, with fun combat, great customization, and more, if you’re into RPGs, this is the game for you.
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07.04.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 1:12 pm by earl
 
 
When in Target, on their Playstation 3 they have demos of several games, including Virtua Fighter 5, and I got to play the full thing. Here’s my Hands-On. Well, I noticed that the character models and the environments were both pretty, and I really liked how each character fought differently with different styles:Martial Arts, etc. Your enenmies also had varied attacks. You either pressed X or Square to attack for your basic attacks, making it easy to newbies to the fighting genre. Overall, this is a pretty solid game for the Ps3 that any PS3 owner should check out.
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05.29.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 8:54 am by earl
 
 
Well, getting to play Ultimate Spiderman was a pretty satisfying experience, and I’ll tell you why. PLaying as Venom was by-far the coolest spiderman videogame experience I’ve ever had, leaping off of tall buildings and draining power out of victims was a blast. I got to play a boss battle as well with Venom, but that wasn’t as fun as just plain free roam. I then got to play some levels as Spiderman, and those were also cool, but not quite as cool, I mean, you’re comparing that to Venom! The boss battles were pretty cool, with the comic-like gameplay interesting (in a good way). Overall, this is a great addition to the Spiderman series.
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05.23.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 5:02 pm by earl
 
 
(PS3 Version) Well this game is alright, it didn’t really meet up with my expectations. The combat is average, although the slo-mo was pretty cool. The enemies were pretty generic, and so were your weapons. You have your shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, etc. Nothing special. Even the scenes that were supposed to be scary just weirded me out a little, nothing extravagent. The swearing in this game is awful, every time you shoot a baddy they yell out the “s word”! The enviroments were also extremely bland, making it difficult to find your objective. Overall, you could do worse for a PS3 game, but you could also do a lot better.
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05.10.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 6:45 am by earl
Recently I was able to play a few rounds with Fight Night Round 3, and I must say it is one of the best games to play, look at, or play. Of course the gameplay is awesome, each button representing a certain hit, and the blocking system also works well, the knockout are especially revolting due to the spit, blood, etc. coming out of the mouth. This game has a lot to choose from, you have your featherweights, heavyweights, and even your Muhammad Ali. Overall, this is a great game for the PS3, but I could see where it could get old.
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04.18.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 2:48 pm by earl
 
This has been the only Wii game I’ve been able to play, and I think it really represents the Wii well. The controls are very fun, move the Wiimote forward for gas, back for air on jumps, and turn the bar for turning, although at sometimes it can seem loose. I’m sure if I had gotten to play more, I’m sure it would have became easier. The game is tons of fun, with insane jumps and ever-changing terrain. I’ve heard you can loadup your own music for it, and if I get a Wii and I get that game, I will look forward to jumping insane hills with “Who Are You?” by The Who playing in the background.
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04.16.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 3:51 pm by earl
 
I actually borrowed this one from my neighbor and played it. I hate to say it, but this is my least favorite Ratchet and Clank game, although it isn’t as bad as I make it sound. It tells the story of Ratchet in the world of an Annihalation Nation-like contest, in which the greatest heroes of the universe are being kidnapped and forced to play in this Gladiator-like tournament. It controls really well, as well as always, and the graphics and sound of course were fine, but what I had a problem with was the enviroments and some of the upgrades. The weapon system is a little more complicated than I’d like it to, but in Size Matters, it’s been fixed to my style. From what I played in this game, you’re playing a lot in really dark enviroments, like rainy cities or dark plains, but the arenas are a lot funner. (I know funner isn’t a word.) This game also seems more mature than the others, with the main villain having to be bleeped because of his lanquage, and it kind of felt like a different game in that area. Overall, I didn’t hate what I played of this game, I just think it could have been better.
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04.02.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 7:23 am by earl
I usually do video games in this category, but I got to try out Windows Vista the other day in Sam’s Club…..and it was awesome! To start off, as some of us probably know, the “start” button has been obliterated, now there is a little in-perpetual-motion Windows flag in its place. Also, I right clicked the background, and here’s what I saw:You can make the icons really (riiculous) big, or small. You can also cange the taskbar color thingy beyond the normal blue, silver, olive green into colors like:my favorite-onyx, CLEAR!, teal, red, green, etc. The windows also fade when you “X” out of them. I would say more, but I’m afraid I might faint!
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04.01.07
Posted in Hands-On with Earl at 8:29 am by earl
The fist time I played this game, I stunk. But this time I played, I found myself on my knees yelling “Thank you Cleveland!” strumming the guitar wildly. The funny thing is that you think I’m joking. This game is tons-tons-tons-tons-tons-tons-tons-tons-tons of fun, and it is probably the most fun I’ve had in Toys-R-Us in a long time. I was jammin’ out so much with songs like “Mother”, “Surrender”, and “You Really Got Me Goin”. I must have hit star power ten times! I rock!Â
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