[ALL] Swarley's Gaming Adventures

[Swarley]

After always reading Twiggles' gaming thread, and then going through a handful of Buzzman's reviews today in his thread, I've decided to throw up my own gaming thread. I'll post about what I'm playing, stuff going on in those games and even some reviews of what I've played. I'll start off with the games I've beaten this summer and then we'll continue from there as the fall gaming season draws upon us. This thread will go towards single player story modes only.

I'll update this thread tonight with my summer games, which include AC2, AC:B, AC:R, Alan Wake, SOCOM 4, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, The Walking Dead ep. 1 & 2, Batman: Arkham City: Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC, Syndicate, Rayman Origins and possibly some of the STRIKE Team story modes we've conquered (RE5, RE:ORC, etc.). I'll also post what my list of games is going forward.

[IamMedellin]

Looking forward to the witty repartee...

[JayDizzle]

Looking forward to this.

[Swarley]

Assassin's Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations

What a set of games to start off my summer gaming. I almost didn't put these games down until I beat all three of them. Is there anything better than running around on rooftops and jumping down to murder Templars (besides being Nathan Drake of course)? AC2 was my favorite of the group in terms of story. It just pulled me in straight from the beginning. The whole back and forth between Ezio and Leonardo Da Vinci was pretty interesting, and I was always wondering what ol' Leo would have for me next. The ending to AC2 was just awesome IMO. The whole crazy shit with the fat bastard actually becoming the Pope and you getting to whoop his ass, to finding out that the end of the world is coming by these weird alien humans.

With how much fun I had in AC2, I jumped straight into AC: Brotherhood. I actually preferred this one in terms of gameplay. All of the added stuff just made it a blast to play, even if the story wasn't quite as good as the previous one. Jumping all over Italy made this pretty interesting. Having your own Assassin sidekicks to call in when needed to was helpful when you go into those big brawls. Also finding out all those people that you've been interacting with were part of the Assassin's was pretty awesome. AC:B gave me another ending that just sucked me right in, and of course, I popped AC: Revelations in the very next day.

I was not a big fan of the change of scenery to Constantinople in AC:R. It just didn't feel right to me. With that said, I still enjoyed the game. The Ezio part of the story was quite boring tbh, but the whole thing with the keys and going back to Altair was pretty awesome to see. It was also nice to see Ezio have some sort of a love interest, even if it wasn't touched on too much, you know that lady and him had something going on. Despite the lack of story that was in AC:R, it was another awesome ending and I'm definitely going to miss playing as Ezio Auditore.

After playing these games, I'm pretty sure Assassin's Creed would go in my top 3 favorite series of this generation.

These games have made Assassin's Creed 3 my most anticipated game of the fall season. I'm very excited to see this new Assassin as well as seeing how Desmond's story comes to a close.

Assassin's Creed 2: 9.25/10
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood: 8.5/10
Assassin's Creed: Revelations: 7.5/10

[Buzzman]

Yea I jumped into Revelations today and the approach to the game feels different than the others. The biggest compliment I can give the series is despite basically playing them all back to back to back, it never became a repetitive bore.

[Swarley]

Yea I jumped into Revelations today and the approach to the game feels different than the others.

The whole setting just seemed a little off. I mean, Italy just felt so perfect, I wish they wouldn't have changed that with Ezio.

[Swarley]

Sleeping Dogs

Since I already had this one ready to go from the Sleeping Dogs thread, I'll go ahead and post it.

Sleeping Dogs is just awesome, plain and simple. It gives a surprisingly decent story for this type of open-world game. I was also surprised at how well they brought you in to the emotions of the main character for a game like this. By the end of the game you can feel the anger and pain of Wei Shen, which makes the last couple of missions that much better. The hand-to-hand combat makes this game a blast. I found it a lot more fun to whoop Triad ass with Kung fu rather than to just shoot them from behind cover like most games of this type. I also loved the fact that you got to do missions on both sides of the law with the Triads and the Hong Kong PD. I've only dabbled in the side missions, but there is a very good variety of stuff to do from Hong Kong PD stuff, favors for people that are under Son On Yee protection, the Hong Kong street racing scene, as well as taking Wei Shen's numerous bitches out on dates (one of which is voiced by Emma Stone).

If I had to describe this game, it would be a combination of GTA and LA Noire, throw in the hand-to-hand combat of the Batman Arkham games, and sprinkle in a tiny bit of the platforming from Uncharted.

Very good game. I've been saying all summer long that this game would be one of the more underrated games of the fall season, and it did not disappoint one bit. It's a very refreshing take on the games of this genre. I'm a little sad that only JMS and I have this game, but if anyone enjoys the GTA games, or any of these type of sandbox games, I would definitely recommend giving it a try.

Sleeping Dogs: 8.75/10.

[Swarley]

SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals

I picked this game up during Best Buy's first summer blowout sale for $10. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with the campaign in this game. With military shooters these days you either get some Michael Bay type story (Call of Duty [not saying I don't enjoy those campaigns]) or some half-assed, crappy 4 hour campaign (Battlefield 3). This game was definitely a throw back to the normal military shooter campaigns.

This game nearly perfectly mixed the amount of fire-fight missions and the stealth missions. It was glorious. I really enjoyed every minute of this game, and I wish more military shooters would make these types of single player campaigns again. They even throw you a curveball at the end with the story/characters, which was interesting.

When I played this one, I hadn't enjoyed a single player campaign from a military shooter that much since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Plus, for $10, it's hard not to be happy about this product. If you enjoy a good shooter campaign, it's definitely worth a play through.

SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals: 7.5/10

[JBregz]

SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals

I picked this game up during Best Buy's first summer blowout sale for $10. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with the campaign in this game. With military shooters these days you either get some Michael Bay type story (Call of Duty [not saying I don't enjoy those campaigns]) or some half-assed, crappy 4 hour campaign (Battlefield 3). This game was definitely a throw back to the normal military shooter campaigns.

This game nearly perfectly mixed the amount of fire-fight missions and the stealth missions. It was glorious. I really enjoyed every minute of this game, and I wish more military shooters would make these types of single player campaigns again. They even throw you a curveball at the end with the story/characters, which was interesting.

When I played this one, I hadn't enjoyed a single player campaign from a military shooter that much since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Plus, for $10, it's hard not to be happy about this product. If you enjoy a good shooter campaign, it's definitely worth a play through.

SOCOM 4: US Navy Seals: 7.5/10

Play online with me

[Swarley]

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

I picked this one up maybe a week after release, and just never got around to it except for a little bit of the multiplayer. Well after playing SOCOM 4, I hadn't quenched my thirst for military shooters just yet. So I decided to throw this bad boy into the console and give it a whirl.

One word: Awesome.

This game combined the fire fights and stealth even better than SOCOM did. There was a TON of stealth missions in this game, which I'm sure some of you wouldn't like as much as I do, b/c I'm a big stealth gameplay junkie. Again, it wasn't a ridiculous plot, and it was a good length game as well. Being able to create you weapon of choice before each mission with Gunsmith was just amazing. You can take a gun, and add pretty much anything you want to it, customizing it exactly for your type of gameplay. The only grip I had about that aspect, was that you couldn't add/remove your suppressor during gameplay like you could in Rainbow Six, which was annoying at times when you didn't need it.

With this game in the book, it's neck and neck for my favorite military shooter campaign on this generation of consoles. It was a lot of fun to play. If you like military shooter campaigns, I recommend you pick this up right now.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier: 8.5/10

[Swarley]

Guess I'll go ahead and update on what I'm playing now since I finished Sleeping Dogs this morning. I started up James Bond 007: Bloodstone this afternoon and am playing right now at this very moment. It's decent so far. I don't have much to compare it with in terms of Bond on the current generation b/c I've only finished Quantum of Solace so far (barely played any Goldeneye Reloaded). I don't want to go too far into talking about it until I finish it, but I'm enjoying it so far.

Here's my upcoming games list for when I beat Bloodstone:
1. Crysis 2
2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
3. God of War 1

I might be throwing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow onto that list soon, I'm pretty close to making that purchase. Also going to throw in some co-op with the Twiggly Wiggly as well. I picked up Army of Two, Army of Two: 40th Day and Kane & Lynch 2 to play with him.

Play online with me

I'm sure that could be arranged. I know Handleit and wingsfan have the game as well.

[Buzzman]

god be with you for Crysis 2. Generic POS

[Swarley]

Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC for Batman: Arkham City

There were some good things and some bad things about this DLC. The game itself was my GOTY for 2011, and I loved every second of it.

In the story DLC, you get to play as both Batman and Robin. When Batman gets kidnapped by Harley, that's when you take over as the boy wonder. Playing as Robin was fun as hell. You got to run around and beat the crap out of everyone with his bow staff (or whatever it is). Most of the DLC isn't very challenging, but capturing Harley at the end does prove to be pretty tough, which was nice.

Now, the story...

It was crap. The full game was awesome b/c you had something going on with a ton of different characters on top of the main story with the Joker. In this DLC, it's just Harley Quinn pissed off b/c of what happens at the end of Arkham City (I wont post spoilers since I know Twigg is currently playing the game). The story is just boring as hell, which kind of sucks b/c I was super pumped to finally get some story DLC for this game.

Overall, it's worth a play. Even though the story is pretty crappy, getting to play as Robin for an extended period of time is a lot of fun b/c it's quite a bit different than playing as Batman. If you loved the Arkham games, then I'd go ahead and give this DLC a try, but I would wait until it's either on sale or gets a price cut.

Harley Quinn's Revenge DLC: 6.5/10

[Maynard]

could you elaborate a bit more on the combat of sleeping dogs? my understanding from the initial videos was that the hand to hand stuff may be less than great...idk.. maybe cumbersome? or unresponsive? idk....maybe you can offer some thoughts...thanks

[jms493]

could you elaborate a bit more on the combat of sleeping dogs? my understanding from the initial videos was that the hand to hand stuff may be less than great...idk.. maybe cumbersome? or unresponsive? idk....maybe you can offer some thoughts...thanks

It is tough.....I think when you level up a bit it may be easier but when you are faced with 6 vs 1 it is hard. I usually try and take guise out using the enviorment first then try and isolate as much as possible. Sometimes the counters dont work so well....it is not as responsive as Batman but similar concept. I mean I am not Batman....I am a normal dude.