PlayStationSpot

Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2: Don’t laugh. But this was one of the first games that made me even pay attention to the next gen systems when they launched. This alone was one of the only reasons I was even considering an xbox 360. I actually bought a 360 on a whim. Took it home and did a bunch of research, it was pre hdmi 360, any way after I did a bunch of reading and saw that 40% of them were red ring of death. I took it back to the store un-opened, I am to poor to play russian roulette with a 500 dollar console. The damn thing has to just work when you pay that much. Any how. I got my ps3 on accident, I was not sure what console to get. I knew the ps3 was built well, but back then, all the press was doubting the ps3 and ripping on it left and right. I bought the ps3 from a guy who gave up on it. Said it was a doomed console and he didn’t like the games. 2 controllers, component cable, resistance, and motor storm. all for 350, and yes that included the ps3, and this was before the price dropped. So I got my ps3 from some dummy for the price of a new 360 with all the extras. (LOL, now the ps3 has sold to 10.5 million faster than the 360 did, and the new games rock, and the ps3 games are consistently better, not as many stinkers, 360 has so many shit games its not even funny) Ok back to the game. This was the first game I bought for my ps3, and even by todays standards this is still a solid game. The graphics are good, the cover system rocks, the satellite stuff, the helicopter levels, all of it plays great. This has the stop and pop feel of gears of war, even before gears of war came out.

This game is a strategic over the shoulder shooter. You have to command your team. You will have to blow targets up. You will have to use your brain, you cannot act like rambo and storm into a place and win. You will have to split your team up some times, and hit stuff from many different angles in order to complete certain objectives. The drone is a over head spy satellite that is very helpful in determining your path forward. The comrade AI is pretty shitty, that doesn’t hurt the game that bad though. The only thing they do well is take your orders. So you have to pay attention to them a lot. You can tackle objectives a number of different ways, the choices are up to you. That is another thing that really sets this game apart from many others. This game is fun, and when it came out, it really was the best shooter on the market. Things have changed now. The multiplayer is lame. The stop and pop is taken out, you cannot lean against the walls. That is what makes this game great to begin with. So, once they took that out in multiplayer it really ruined the experience for me.

8.0 Presentation
The way the story is told is well done. The menus look nice. Setting up the options is no problem.

8.8 Visuals
This game came out a long time ago. It doesn’t even look dated at all. In fact it looks brilliant still. Some frame rate hiccups here and there, but it does not interfere with the controls so no big deal.

9.0 Audio
The music, and sound fx are amazing. This game gets really intense on some levels, and the sound backs it up 100%.

8.0 Game Mechanics
This game controls a little slow. If you love to snipe, it’s perfect. The zoom is great. This feels a lot more clunky and realistic. That is one of it’s charms. It is very realistic.

6.5 Replay
The single player is short, and only about 7 to 8 hours long. This is bad. Because the single player is great. You might play it through 2 times. I recommend renting this. The multiplayer is super weak because they took out the cover system in that mode.

7.8 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

I really hate the Tom Clancy stories. All this yankee yahoo bullshit. American hero BS. It really feels like lame propaganda. Sure this one takes place in mexico mostly, and is laughable, well, the story that is. I recommend this only to the hard core shooter fans out there. If you have just gotten a ps3, and have beat all the new games out on the market, and are waiting for haze and metal gear, check this out to tide you over until some of the new stuff hits the shelves. You should be able to find this used at a game store or go buy it new: Click here to buy GRAW2 for PS3, only 40 bucks.

Music Listened to while writing this review: Death In June - The World That Summer.

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Yeah, I had to get my modular fixed. It costed me more than I thought. So I need to sell off these Playstation 3 games.

heavenly sword
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Jericho
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Folklore
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Uncharted Drake’s Forture
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Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
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If your a vac fan, let me know and i’ll throw in an autographed poster… I will be selling lots of stuff in the future, running out of money..

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Usually, I hate racing games but ages ago, when I first saw burnout(the original) I was blown away by the crashes and fast pace arcade feel of the game. This is not a simulator like Grand Turismo. This is pure arcade style racing, and you do not need to be great at racing games to pick this up and enjoy it. Paradise City is a huge step up from it’s predecessors. Online play, and an open ended world make this a truly amazing experience. I love how you just drive around and each stoplight in almost any intersection on the map is an event, and to trigger the event you slow down and hit the brake and gas at the same time, then it loads a racing event, and off you go. There are only 120 events in the game, and you will be re racing many events over and over during the duration of the game(this didn’t put me off one bit, there is more than enough variety in the race types). You earn cars as you upgrade your drivers license. When you win certain events the game will tell you about a new car that will be driving around at random, and if you can take it out(make it crash) it will be added to your garage which is held at one of many junk yards around the city(where you can change the vehicles your driving). There are repair shops and paint shops you can drive through to fix your car or give you boost, and during races these are life savers. The graphics are amazing, and this game runs at 60 frames per second even with a full race going and tons of cars everywhere.

The city is very well designed and thought out. The map is big, I mean big like grand theft auto big(not quite that big but close). Everything is seamless, there are shortcuts, ramps, and jumps all over the place. Lots of hidden things to discover. The sense of speed in this game is unreal. You really feel like you are flying down the road at 180 miles per hour. The one thing that has let me down is the CRASH MODE, now called SHOWTIME. In the old burnout games you could load different crash courses, and you had to try and get the most points per crash level. Now, crash mode can be activated at any time by hitting r1 and l1 at the same time. This takes some of the fun out of it. It is too easy to just flip down the road endlessly. In the old one, there were objects you could touch to make you explode extra, or multiply your score etc, all that is gone and each event was set up like a crash puzzle, gone. So a big Thumbs down on the crash mode. It’s still fun, but not like it used to be. I hope they add a better crash mode via a download update to the game. That would really make me happy. The other racing modes are still here in all their glory. Standard race(title says it all). Marked Man(you have to race to the end while other cars try to take you out, get taken down 3 times and you lose). Burning Rout(these are car class specific, and you have to beat the allotted time, if you do, the car you are racing will be upgraded). Road Rage(take down as many cars as you can in the allotted time). Stunt Run(rack up stunt points off ramps, crashes, barrel rolls, drifts, etc).

To win races, the game forces you to be aggressive and take down other cars. When you successfully take out another race driver in an event, your boost meter is filled up so you can speed up. This is crucial to winning races. There are many awards in the game, for crashing through all the billboards, super jumps etc. There are car types as well. Stunt Cars(will do barrel rolls easier), Race Cars(with a an annoying boost that has to be used all at once), Aggression Cars(can take a lot of punishment but don’t turn as well usually). There are about 75 cars, but include upgrades to that list(meaning when you win a burning route and your car is upgraded, even though it looks the same, the upgrade counts it as a new car) So that number is kind of cut in half.

Multiplayer is great, you just tap right on the d-pad to go into the online menu where you can select the type of play, invite friends to race events, or go into free roam mode online(there are a ton of multiplayer events). Also, if you have a usb cam or a playstation eye, the game will photo you for your drivers license and also take pictures of you losing and showing it to your competitors. This can be really funny. So what are the downsides to the game over all. DJ ATOMICA! MOST ANNOYING F$%! EVER IN A GAME(you cannot turn him off either). Since the world is open ended you run into that annoying grand theft auto thing. If you fail a race, you have to drive all the way back to the beginning. So you end up driving around a lot just to get to events or restart races and that gets a little old. But I find this is the type of game to just play in 1 or 2 hour spurts then put it down. If you play it for 10 hours straight, the driving around to restart and find new events really gets on your nerves. What makes up for this? The crashes. When you are going really fast, and your slam into a brick wall, it’s amazing, It goes into this camera view and into slow motion, then what you see and hear is super slow motion violence. The windows break, the car gets crunched up, and the sound fx of the glass breaking and metal bending is absolutely visceral. You have to see this. You can spend hours, I mean like 100+ hours playing this game unlocking all the cars, finding all the hidden stuff, short cuts, and ramps.

The sound track is mostly super annoying. There were a few good classic songs, I liked the junkie xl cover of siouxsie’s City’s In Dust. Adam ant’s Stand and Deliver is great fun. But man, rusty cage again? I am hearing some of the same songs I heard on road rash on the 3dO. WTF. Not to mention that most of that new rock shit just plain sucks major ass. If they got some good songs from ladytron, astral projection, the prodigy, new young pony club, blondie, that would of helped a lot. They did a bad job on the soundtrack in my opinion. A lot of the songs do not match the pace and feel of the game. They need to hire me to do this for them. Seriously. They have all that money, and this was the best they could come up with? At least the sound track did allowed me to discover the LCD Soundsystem, even though they picked the wrong track from that band, one of their worst tracks.. HIRE ME EA. I can make your sound tracks better! LOL.

9.0 Presentation
Everything is great with the exception of DJ ATOMICA! The way you go about the city and the online play is very well done.

9.3 Visuals
60 frames per second, killer looking city, cars. but no humans, how sad.

9.0 Audio
The soundtrack is ok, you have to turn off a lot of the super cheesy pop crap though. The sound fx and crashes are amazing. DJ ATOMICA SHOULD ROT IN HELL! No custom sound track, lame.

9.2 Game Mechanics
The controls are perfect for a arcade racing game. Each car is slightly different, and that makes for varied racing experience. Very well done.

9.5 Replay
So much stuff to find, and unlock. Awards. 100+ hours of game play easily.

9.1 Total Score.
(out of 10 / not an average)

I had to doc a few points off the over all score because of DJ ATOMICA, showtime being a let down compared to crash mode, oh and Avril’s “Girlfriend” track, who ever thought to include this in a racing game should be tied up and whipped, 50 lashes, HOW DARE YOU! It’s a good thing you can turn off songs. I had to turn off most of them! LAME! No custom sound track on the ps3 version. Xbox 360 users can use their own music, the only thing that the xbox version does better. PS3 version runs faster, looks better, and was the lead platform on development. This is great. Go buy it Click here to buy Burnout: Paradise City for the Playstation 3.

Music Listened to while writing this review: Death In June - Abandoned Tracks.

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