Review of ArmA II

The previous reviewer sounds like a bit of a disgruntled BIS fanboy, which is a shame.I avoided the original ArmA because it just didn't quite "feel" right in terms of controls, but this one is a keeper.Certainly not for everybody - it is extremely unforgiving (one shot kills); there are certainly performance issues, though I have resolved all of them through patient tweaking; the radio system still sounds robotic and generally awful; the AI still has some annoying advantages, such as being able to see through cover like grass, while you cannot; and so forth.

Despite these problems, I keep coming back to ArmA II.There really is nothing quite like it, well, anywhere.Playing a co-op mission with your friends is totally engrossing.The sound effects are generally excellent, the ability to move your head independently of your body is incredibly immersive, the graphics are very nice, the sheer scope of the game is tremendous.

As long as you know what you are getting into - a very hardcore and unforgiving milsim with some rough edges - I recommend this game.If you are used to, and want more of, the Call of Duty series, you should probably stick with that type of game.



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Review of Memento Mori

Memento Mori is a third person adventure game where you find clues and use inventory items to overcome situations in the game. The plot is fairly strait forward but a bit odd. You play as two indenities, Max and Loria. I like Max though I found the acting bewtween the two to be well, very dry. The acting is weird, dumb humor but maybe that's just me.

Warning Spoilers below!!!!

You start the game and find out that Max has copied priceless paintings to sell. Not a bad idea except the Russian government catches him. If this would have occured during the Cold War he would most likely have been shipped to a East Siberian prison and never heard from again no questions asked. So you end up in St. Petersburg, now Russia attempting to correct your mistakes (a parden anyone?) when you notice a bald monk stealing paintings right off the wall. Then the story goes from not making since to downright weird. Maybe you have to be from Europe or Russia to get a true understanding out of all this but I was like huh? Don't get me wrong I love a suspenseful plot heck, I was one of the few who actually liked the plot in Next Life but this is well, kind of weird and really dry on the suspense in the story. I mean what excitment or danger is there in stealing paintings? The Nazis stole tons of paintings in the nations they occupied during WWII. This fact is even mentioned in the game when the Russian government hid their most priceless paintings underground in the sewers.

The graphics and effects can be breathtaking at times but mainly what you expect from a game made in 2009. To be honest I thought The Lost Crown and Secret Files have better charactor animations and background effects than this game. The sounds are decent if a bit scarse in places. I was a little surprised they used music rather than sound effects to create tension which worked for the most part do to the music quality. The voice acting however, is not very good in my opinion. You have the typical European accents that are to be expected but they are to dry and stiff. Again, Next Life had much better use of European accents with even some good slap stick humor.

Memento Mori is fairly long taking over ten hours to complete but in the end you just feel like your going through the motions and we all know that is what life is all about these days. That is why we play games to escape from this vicious cycle but only to have it staring you right back in the face in Memmento Mori. This kind of defeats the whole purpose?



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Review of Hinterland: Orc Lords

This is one of the better "Gauntlet clones" that I've played recently. It combines simple action rpg elements with simple town building. It's meant to be played in 30 minutes or to over 4 hours, depending on play style and options used. I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I really like the graphics and art. The graphics remind me of Darkstone, the art reminds me a little bit of The Temple of Elemental Evil and even Icewind Dale. The music is standard fantasy, you've heard it all before in other games, but I like that kind of music, and this music is great. I won't be putting it on mute anytime soon!

Character customization is lacking. I enjoy customizing my character, but all that I get to choose here is a name, portrait, and class. There isn't that many portraits to choose from, just a few for each race, but there is a good variety of classes. There is also a good variety of models. Some are fatter than others, some have short hair and some have long hair, there are white people and black people. You just can't pick when creating your character(ex. a courtesan will always be skinny, a brawler will always be bigger. Can't make a skinny brawler. However, skin color is based on portrait used).

The city building part of the game is a lot of fun. From deciding which guys you want in your town, which buildings to upgrade, and where to place your buildings. Having to manage food, search the map for resources for the town, and defending the town against attackers. Some buildings even have more than one upgrade option. Starting out by yourself and building a town from nothing is part of the fun.

Combat is just the basic old style of action rpg. You raise your attack and defense as you fight, gain levels and raise stats and gain new skills, find new armor, weapons and items, left click the mouse to attack till the monsters fall down. Even though it's just like it was years ago, it's still fun here. They even made it easier for you, with auto equipping and using as few left clicks as possible. Having people in town auto-equip and the auto-sorting makes things so much easier. If I have someone in my town guarding it against attackers, I don't have to worry about making sure they equip newly made weapons and armor, they do it themselves, freeing me up to continue my adventure for loot and resources.

Something else that I like, is the ability to take your townspeople and have them fight with you. Take the priest out of his church and have him fight with you, healing you in battle. Or take the farmer from their field and slap some armor on them. You can have up to 3 npc's fight with you. I enjoy the challenge of creating an all female town. Because men and women will come to your town looking to build, I always have to kick the men out, waiting for more women to show up.

The interface is just perfect. Everything is made easy. Looting monsters and from chests takes a split second, selling is as easy as pressing shift and left clicking, there's auto-sorts and auto-equips, the menus are all easily accessed and any important information is just a single left click away. It truly makes an rpg and town building easy.

I would love a game like this with more depth. There are no dungeons to enter, you can only explore above ground. Entering dungeons, having more detailed quests, and having a more robust economy side would have made this game lots better. As a casual action rpg with town building in it, I don't see how it could get any better on the casual side.


A note about the DRM used. There isn't any. There's no cd key. The game cd doesn't need to be in the drive to play.



5 stars overall: The game plays smooth on my medium range computer. The game only crashed once in 10 hours of play. When I opened up the game after the crash, the game was saved right when it crashed. I don't have to worry about losing gameplay in case it crashes. That's a big plus!

5 stars for fun: After 10 hours I'm still enjoying playing it. It's so simple, yet so addictive.



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