Medal of Honor - Ooh Rah!

Since it's release in October last year, Medal of Honor has received rather mixed views, with critics highly praising the game, but most gamers waiting for Black Ops to launch in the following month.  I'm fairly sure I've made by disapproval for Call of Duty clear by now and to me the new Medal of Honor games game the genre a slight breath of new life.

Firstly the campaign wasn't claiming to be something loud and epic, nor was the rest of the game really. The the campaign the player would take on the position of various Tier 1 Operators. The Tier 1 are an elite group high above most others who would end up stepping onto the battlefield, going undercover and deep into enemy territory to do the toughest missions and take out the highest priority targets.
For me, the story was something different and not so 'in-your-face' as what I would expect from such a game. Instead, to fit in with the Tier 1 concept it was a rather stealthy offering.

As for the online, it does bare resemblance to Call of Duty, as it has 'scorechains', which are basically a variation of 'killstreaks'. With that aside, Medal of Honor's online is incredibly similar to Battlefield: Bad Company's online as it uses the same Frostbite 1.5 engine that Dice use and was even developed by then, whereas the single-player portion of the game was created by Danger Close and used a heavily modded version of the Unread 3 Engine.

To me, the online is currently one of my favourite gaming pastimes. I love the different game modes and feel they all work well, each one working better depending on the person's playing style. I personally prefer 'Objective Raid', which is a cross between 'Search and Destroy' and 'Demolision'.
Another fun aspect is the game's leveling system, which is composed of three different classes, 'Rifleman', 'Special Ops' and 'Sniper'. Each class can be leveled up to a maximum of level 15, and the player will of course unlock various different weapons, scopes and other items to increase your advantage on the batte field.

Again, comparing the game to Call of Duty (which I must say is annoying, but I am unsure as to what other games to relate it to, apart from Battlefield), Medal of Honor appears to have dedicated servers, although I am unsure as to weither this is actually the case. Assuming it does, this would explain, in part why some tasks, like 'quick-sniping' is something you can't do (as well as the fact that the game physics are different). This boosts my confidence in the online, as coming across snipers on Call of Duty did eventually become both demoralising and outright annoying.

As always, this is another game I would recommend you try. For an added insentive, if you purchase either the Special Edition or Tier One Edition of the game, as well as recieve extra in game bonuses, you will be able to become part of the Battlefield 3 beta, which is due to be avalible within a year of Medal of Honor's launch, which was between the 12th and 15th of October 2010 in all of the various regions.

Once again, thank you for reading, I hope you'll revisit again soon, I've been randomthings and I'll post again soon.

LBP 2 Level Review - Zombie Mansion Survival!

Hello, again it's me, randomthings.

Today, I'll like to show a level, which must be one of LBP's most popular levels at the moment, and possibly of all time. It's made by a guy who goes by the ID of 'cekmeout', who's profile you can view here. And if you're a avid Youtuber you may understand what I mean when I say that 'cekmeout' is the LBP equivalent of Jay William Johnson.
He's otherwise known as the "the zombie guy", and for good reason, after his level, Zombie Mansion Survival! hit over 60,000 plays and nearly 10,000 hearts.

Zombie Mansion Survival! is in a way, a LittleBigPlanet version of Call of Duty's Zombie mode. And yes, I do know what I said previously about Zombies, but I feel this must be an exception.

The basic list of the level is that the player, along with pontentially up to four others must first their way around the map while fighting off endless hoards of zombies, while trying to accumulate enough points to unlock greater and more powerful weapons. Now here's the twist... Some of the guns included are a plasma gun and the strawberry gun. None of the weapons featured are based upon real life firearms. And to throw in an extra aspect to make the experience a bit more competitive, there is of course a time limit.

I can only sum it up as the single best level I've yet to have played on any LBP game, and I must say that the 'Avalonia' level set in the second game's story is bloody fun.

I've have to recommend this more-so than LBP PAC MAN, so just go and give it a try along with the rest of levels crafted by 'cekmeout'.

As with every LBP Lever Review, here's the link to the its lbp.me page.

I hope you all have a good time out there whatever you're playing. I've been randomthings, and I thanks for reading.

LBP 2 Level Review - LBP PAC MAN

I've decided that it's possible to have a few different ''series'' of blog posts running, so alongside 'Why I Get Annoyed By...' I am also going to begin the 'LBP 2 Level Review' series. I hope to later expand this to feature these levels on my Youtube account as and when it's set up, which at the moment won't be any time soon.


Anyway, on the the LittleBigPlantet review and today I'd like to dicuss LBP PAC MAN [JPN], created by 'gurichan'. I played this level yesterday, and I must say it grabbed my attention straight away. Partly because it's Pac-Man, which is my favourite retro game, and also becuase it's simply a great creation.

The level is pretty much a double of  the original game, apart from the extra 'LBP' part in the title and the trademark LBP tree featuring as a fruit type. I also came across a level which as a LittleBigPlanet take on Donkey Kong, which I didn't feel wasn't as enjoyable.

I'm not really so sure, what else I can actually say without belittling you and assuming that you haven't actually played Pac-Man. Apart from that I'd recommend you do try out this level. And if you haven't even't got a copy of LittleBigPlanet 2, then why not? And if you haven't got a Playstation 3, then get one for the sake of this game.

Like I said earlier in the post, this is just the first LBP 2 level I wish to show you all, so I'll eventually show how much variation there is in the in the level creation.

And before I forget you can also check out the level's info here, which is part of the game's lbp.me service, which is an online encyclopedia of all of the level which have been created. From there you can create a 'queue' or playlist of levels you wish to try.

So, that's LBP PAC MAN [JPN], I've been randomthings, and thanks for reading.

Why I Get Annoyed By - Resistance 2

In my opinion Resistance has to be one of the greatest series to appear on Playstation since Ratchet and Clank, or maybe Insomniac Games have a knack for creating something amazing.

I absolutely loved Resistance: Fall of Man and thought that it was  original in comparison to many other Sci-fi first person shooters. The story was imaginative and well thought out and the online was great. Partly because it was the first PS3 game I'd played online and also because as I later began to play more and more games online Fall of Man stood out as being a little different. For anyone out there who has played the game, might understand what I mean when I say that a 3 hour match of breach on the Nottingham 40 player map was incredibly fun.

So, eventually along comes Resistance 2, and again, the campaign was great and gripping. I could say that the online was still as fun, but there was a few flaws.

Firstly, the online components of the game were divided between competitive, which is the standard online stuff, such as team deathmatch and meltdown and then there was the other part, which was cooperative, where up to eight players could work as a team in a number of different co-op campaign missions.

The way the two online components had been created meant there was various different rank systems for each part. The competitive section had one leveling system, the co-op had three leveling systems, one for each character class and those would all be combined and added to make your main profile level. This meant if a play wanted to progress into the higher ranks and effectively 100% the game, they would have to play through each online game mode. This would become rather annoying if you only liked either co-op or competitive and not both.

Then the more annoying aspects for me came from within the cometivive parts. Firstly one of the games trophies, "Killing Machine" was and still is, put simply possibly the most annoying trophy ever. To unlock this beast of a gold trophy the player would have to total up 10,000 kills in ranked competitive matches. I've had the game since christmas 2008 and I've yet to get the trophy. And the fastest I've known anyone to get it in is 2 days and 22 hours of playtime. That's a rather lot of time on one game.
Having said about that though, I must respect Insomniac Games for now admitting that it was a rather over ambitious trophy to put into the game. 

Another annoying part is one particular weapon called the Hvap Wraith. The Wraith is basiclly a chain machine gun with a deployable shield as its secondary fire. It sounds great, but is bloody annoying then playing against a load of people using it whilst trying to get the "Killing Machine" trophy. When using a carbine, or pretty much any other weapon against the Wraith you'd have a fairly slime chance of taking the other player down.



Overall though as I stated earlier I don't dislike Resistance 2, or Insomniac Games in any way. This is just the first in a series of 'Why I Get Annoyed By...' posts.

The Best There Is - other places you really should check out

There was much more I wished to mention in my opening post that I didn't and I feel that it would make sense to state that now before I begin posting things of interest.

As well as what I already mentioned for some of my reasons for doing this I have wanted to do so after seeing other people doing great games reviewing and podcasting.

The first person I would like to mention is TotalBiscuit, the Cynical Brit. Having been part of one of the original World of Warcraft fansites, TotalBiscuit has since begun to review games as well as continuing to give regular coverage of all things WoW. He offers his own unique twist to showing games, including his WTF is... videos, in which he will show some of the laest indie games, often games that prove to be more original and diverse than mainstream titles.
If you want to find out more or listen to one of his many shows, it's all avalible at his site Cynical Brit or you can check out his Youtube channel, TotalHalibut.

The second that I'd like to mention are two people who can often be found playing through various adventure levels on Minecraft. Simon and Lewis of the Yogscast. Aswell as their usual Minecraft outings, they also cover a wider variety of games including a recent play of Saint Row 2, featuring a ride in the 'Yogsmobile'. If you want to find out more about the dynamic duo, look at their site for the Yogscast or their Youtube channel, BlueXephos.