A Survivor is (Re)Born

Welcome to the Game Huntress’s Lair once again folks!! Tonight’s blog is about the recent Tomb Raider game, as if the picture above doesn’t give it away.

Before I start the review I would like to give out a shout out as promised to my friends over on twitter and newest podcast that I listen too, @webegeeks! They are starting a geek revolution and need your support! Stop over by their website and give them a listen and I promise you will enjoy their stuff!! Www.webegeekspc.com

Tomb Raider

This is easily my favorite game of the year!! I just completed the game two nights ago and boy do I have to say that Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics hit the nail on the head with this one. Before you read anything further just want to say that I will do my best not to throw in any spoilers to the plot.

Setting

The story takes place on a island in the Dragons Triangle called Yamatai off the coast of Japan.

Characters

Endurance Crew: Lara Croft, Dr. James Whitmore, Conrad Roth, Samantha (Sam) Nishimura, Joslyn Reyes, Jonah Maiava, Angus “Grim” Grimaldi, Alex.

The island is inhibited by the Solarii Brotherhood, a violent cult of Criminals,  who like the Endurance crew had been shipwrecked on the island for sometime due to unexplained severe weather storms.

In this reboot, a young Lara goes on a expedition looking for an adventure, but instead the adventure finds her. Throughout the game you see how she goes from a young feeble girl to a survivor who will do what she must to conquer her fears and doubts about herself to try and get everyone off the island safely.

Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics, convey real emotion throughout the title and in turn really makes you want to see Lara succeed. Also, The music they put to it really captures everything that Lara is going through in the moment and really entices you to keep on pushing forward onto whatever should happen.

Weapons

My favorite weapon to use in the game is the bow and arrow. Makes for an easy kill behind cover especially when their is a large group of Solarii Brotherhood around. To upgrade any of your weapons you must gather salvage throughout each level and then once you hit a campsite you can upgrade the weapon of your choosing.

Gameplay

Overall the gameplay and controls were up to the standards in which I look at in any game. Some action sequences felt a little pushed but nothing too bad that would steer me away from keeping on playing it or even playing the storyline through multiple times. Another slight problem I did have with the gameplay was the duck and cover at times felt a little too much and even forced at times.

Before I write this next section in the blog I will apologize in advance there is something that really grinds my gears and I will not rest until everyone has heard my opinion on this next piece 🙂

Multiplayer

Why in the heck did they decide to put multiplayer into this game, when its clearly not a title that needs it and honestly holds its own without it. I get it if its a shooter nowadays these people think that every game  should have some sort of multiplayer system put in place but this just doesn’t seem fitting to me.

I guess what it really comes down to is why did they have to make majority of achievements for multiplayer?? Blasphemy I say Blasphemy!! Rumors have it that there will be no Downloadable Content for Single-player campaign but ONLY for Multiplayer. So as a fan of video games I ask you, does this defer you from playing through the game again? or Can you overlook this oversight and continue to play Tomb Raider over and over again. I personally must find it deep down in my gut that I will overlook this because I enjoyed the storyline so much and I can see myself playing this title over and over again.

In fact I only completed the game with a 67 percentage so I need to go back through and complete majority of the tombs that I missed. Guess I was just in such a hurry to keep the storyline going that I overlooked the tombs but that’s usually how I play a game.  I go through the first time to beat it then the next go around if I have the chance I try and complete what I missed! And luckily for me I was able to buy this title so I have all the time I need to go play through several more times.

I LOVED TOMB RAIDER!

I played it on the XBOX360 but you can also find it for the PlayStation 3.

Tomb Raider gets a 5 out of 5 Controllers!! Go get this title you will NOT be disappointed!!

 This is The Game Huntress signing off and remember wherever there is experience points/achievements around I will be on the hunt!

Review Ratings

I have been thinking about how I want to rate my reviews but I don’t want to use your normal star rating so from now on you will see these ratings below:

Video Games played on XBOX360: Controllers.

Video Games played on the PlayStation 3: Trophies.

<Seems fitting enough since that’s what you achieve when you unlock certain things in a game>

Comic Book reviews: Panels

Movie Reviews: Thumbs Ups or Thumbs down if its terrible

There we have it look for these in all my review blogs!! Hopefully they work out I thought and thought for a long time on these ha let me know what you think. Thank you and hope you continue to keep on reading my blog. I have a lot of fun even if it is for a small amount of people!

Jack the Giant Slayer

A very disappointing movie to say the least but at least Ian McGregor was the best part of the movie! Not one of Bryan Singers better movies. I give it thumbs down, save your money don’t see it in theaters unless you like shoddy acting and bottom grade CGI Effects.

First Ever Comic/Graphic Novel Review

Welcome to The Game Huntress’s lair once more! Come one, come all gamers, nerds, comic lovers, and my fellow geeks, friends, & comrades!

Alright so now that we have the introduction out of the way we can now proceed to the first ever comic or graphic novel review from me! Now mind you I haven’t read a whole lot of comics so consider me a newbie to the whole thing, but the one that I am about to tell you about is an amazing one and I could get this in a hard copy form and read it over and over again. I was lucky enough to get a Proof Copy from the writer himself Via Twitter! I hope he reads and enjoys this blog as much as I did his writing!

Before I begin you may also find another awesome review by a Twitter friend at Sodapoptalk http://sodapoptalk.podbean.com go ahead and give it a read as well! Hope mine can stand up to Dan’s!! Here goes:

(SIDE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS) Read at your own risk!!

Reincar(Nate)

Written by: Michael Moreci

Cover and Illustrations by: Keith Burns

Everyone has their own beliefs about what happens after life and death, does one simply just stay in the ground and waste away/become one with nature so to speak or do we become someone/something else righting past wrongs and learning to improve the future.

Reincar(Nate) is about a private investigator named Nate who while one night working on a case is shot clean through his head and miraculously survives. While almost unscathed, he wakes up only to realize that he is not alone, he can see these two figures one, who is an old sheriff from back in the day named Jameson and the other, who was an accountant turned hitman named Alan, but nobody else knows that they are around Nate except for him.

These two figures help Nate solve his case and along the way he learns more about their pasts and also learns that they can help him not only mentally but physically by becoming one to over come certain obstacles.

I loved the character development I thought it was clean and natural flowing! I would love to find out more about Nate’s encounter with his reincarnate companions and see how he can solve cases. I have to say one of my favorite parts is where Nate and Jameson become one to get Nate out of a sticky situation. I could see it happening in real life as it happened on the screen of my computer. The illustrations and writing is just pure genius to me, kept me guessing what was going to happen next, not once did I become lethargic while reading this graphic novel. I never wanted it to end I remember I even screamed “NOOOOO WHY’D IT HAVE TO END?!? GIVE ME MORE!!”

I truly believe that everyone needs to go pick up this title! I myself am finding that I need to get my hands on the final copy since the one I read was only a proof! Keep up the great work Michael Moreci and team! Keep pushing out those comics/graphics novels eventually I will have them in my possession!

I hope that I have piqued your interest in some way, feel free to comment any suggestions you feel I could have added, if you have actually read the graphic novel. You can also @ me on Twitter @geekygamerchick and even direct message me your thoughts and feelings on this blog.

I give this Graphic Novel a 5 out of 5 stars!!!

Well there you have it I hope you enjoyed my first ever comic/ Graphic novel review!!

And with that, This is The Game Huntress signing off and remember wherever there is experience points/achievements around I will be on the hunt!

Game Review: Uncharted Drake’s Fortune

Welcome back my fellow comrades! You have now entered the Lair of the Game Huntress

Earlier this week I beat my very first PlayStation 3 game! As many know i am a bigger XBOX 360 fan but i recently got a PS3 for a few games that are only PlayStation Exclusives, with that being said lets get this review rolling!!

INFORMATION

Name: Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Platform: PlayStation 3 only

Developer: Naughty Dog

ESRB Rating: T for Teen

Genre: Third person shooter, Action-Adventure

CHARACTERS

Protagonist/Playable Character: Nathan Drake (Voiced by Nolan North)

Companions: VIctor “Sully” Sullivan, Mentor to Nathan. (Voiced by Richard McGonagle

                      Elena Fisher, Reporter who is working with Drake. ( Voiced by Emily Rose)

Villains: Gabriel Roman, competitive treasure hunter (Voiced by Simon Templemen)

              Atoq Novarro: Mercenary working with Roman (Voiced by Robin Atkins Downes)

               Eddy Raja: An enemy of Drake (Voiced by James Sie)

Disclaimer: This Review will contain no spoilers for those of you who have not played or yet completed the game!

In this game you play as the protagonist Nathan Drake who is a descendant of Francis Drake & a Treasure hunter! With the help of his two companions Sully and Elena they hope to uncover the secrets of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold that was supposedly found by Francis Drake himself. Along the way the three characters run into Indonesian Pirates led by Eddy Raja. Roman and his hired mercenary Novarro who are all on the same quest together looking to finding the secrets of a hidden city! The secrets of this city start to come together the farther you get into the game, Nathan and his companions must solve puzzles and sometimes even go to great heights to be the first to find the treasure and the secrets of El Dorado! In the end you find out what really happened to Francis Drake and the people he made the discovery with (think it was the spanish but I’m not 100%) which happens to be quite an intense part in the game for Nathan and everyone else involved.

There you have a short review on what the games story is like but moving onto my own personal opinions about Uncharted Drake’s Fortune. I am going to list some Pros and some Cons i found while playing this game, but one must remember that it is the year 2013 and this game was originally released in 2007, that my friends is quite a huge cap considering how far games have came over the years so here it goes.

Pros

• The story evolves very quickly and keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next.
• Characters are relatable and you want to see them succeed in the end.
• For the time period this game was made the graphics are as close to top notch that they can get.

Cons

• My main complaint would have to be the camera angles are sometimes dampening to the gameplay because you have to control Nathan and make him jump certain ways where the camera will not move too.
• Also another complaint i had was at times the controls were touchy, as an example at times i would try and find cover by pushing the square button on the PS3 controller and instead of going where i intended to go Drake would get into the line of fire or when trying to make him jump from one position to another he would drop down onto a ledge instead of going where i intended to but that is just a slight oversight.

My two complaints wouldn’t stop me from continuing on or playing it a second time. Here’s to hoping that Uncharted 2 has improvements on camera angles and control issues. But overall i just loved this game and found myself wanting more and more. I tip a hat in favor of Naughty Dog. I Look forward to playing as Nathan Drake and seeing his character develop throughout the games.

I hope you enjoyed my review and respect my opinions I would love to hear feedback about your thoughts on this title whether it be about how you agree on loving this game or hated the whole entire story. If i somehow peeked your interests please go pick up this game or even rent it. Its a great title to have in your collection of games.

(Side note: I am trying to put together my very own rating system for these reviews i intend to write on several games/movies/books/comics you name it, if you have any suggestions please message me, comment me or DM me on twitter! Twitter handle is @Geekygamerchick.  I would greatly appreciate it. Until i release my official Rating system for now i will use a generic 5 star rating system.)

The Game Huntress gives Uncharted Drake’s Fortune by Naughty Dog a 4 1/2 out of 5 stars! With the cons i discussed before kept it just shy of 5 stars!

And with that, This is The Game Huntress signing off and remember wherever there is experience points/achievements around I will be on the hunt!.