Best Hunter The Reckoning: Wayward - PlayStation 2 Deals

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I've always been a fan of table top rpg's, and I must say that this is one franchise that was able to make the transformation from the table to a console with ease. The game is fun, and beautiful to look at, with a variety of characters to play. Though somewhat repetitive, it has more action than you could ever get in any other zombie game (COUGHresidentevilCOUGH) and plays more like a movie than any game I have ever come across. The monsters seem to keep coming, and the levels don't drag, nor are they too short. Wayward is a pseudo-sequel, but if you didn't play the first one, you will still understand and enjoy this one.

Don't get me wrong, the original game was great, but there are a few things I like better about this one, some of them seem to be disliked by others who have reviewed this game, and I will discuss those first:

1.)Limited ammo: No, there is no longer unlimited ammo for your default weapon, but you start with max at every level, and enemies drop lots of it, so stop crying.

2.)I love the fact that you have a home base in this one, where you go back to after every level, so instead of having random glyps of info in rediculous places, you have a computer that you can check for info about your enemies, or for clues on things you've picked up along the way. In your base, you have a map of the city where you pick the level you wanna do, an entertainment area where you can see easter eggs you've unlocked during levels (music and movie clips mainly), and a trophy room that allows you to enter codes after you beat the game depending on the trophies you've earned.

3.)The combos that your charater can pull off are more effective, smoother, and much longer than in the first game, making melee attacks better to use, and just plain cooler to look at (making up for the limited ammo no doubt).

4.)A lot of the objectives in the game are optional, and unlock different things like alternate costumes. Also, you can go back to the map and re-enter parts of the city (levels) you have already cleared, and each time it becomes more difficult, and secret objectives become available.

The petpieves that I have with this game (and they are very small) are with the people who make it. It annoys me that Wayward's predecessor is on every other system except PS2. Other than that, Wayward is only 2 player. A 4 player squad of Hunters would be much more enjoyable than just 2 because it would allow you to see all the characters at once, just like you would in a movie, or in real life (towns are attacked by undead hordes all the time in real life... right?)

All-in-All, its a great game, and now that its only 20 bucks you can afford to give it a chance. So if you like good graphics, zombies, or even hot asian chicks with guns o' plenty, kicking ass, while doing cart-wheels, go get it. If you don't... then somethings wrong with you.

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"Hunter the Reckoning: Wayward" is a full-on sequel to the Xbox hit "Hunter the Reckoning," though you do not see a number 2 anywhere in the title. The storyline that developed on the Xbox game continues on this Playstation 2 follow-up, and probably won't make much sense to the uninitiated. On the other hand, those who are familiar with its predecessor will almost certainly wish that "Wayward" had a few more new tricks up its sleeve. Even so, both of the aforementioned camps should find something to enjoy despite the game's failings particularly when it goes down in price.

"Wayward" reintroduces you to the original game's cast of hunters (the tank-like Avenger, the spiritual Judge, the sleek Martyr, and the well-rounded Defender), who are contacted by a Wayward hunter who requires their assistance in the town of Ashcroft. It seems that Ashcroft has once again become a hotbed for undead and demonic activity, and it's time for the hunters to finish what they started by cleansing the place once and for all. That means hacking, slashing, and shooting the living dead right out of every walking corpse and horrid specter in the vicinity. Half-way through the game, the Wayward becomes a fourth playable character, if you should opt to take on his mantle.

Though "Wayward" has its flaws, it is certainly a step forward in terms of design. The original game was difficult to the point of absurdity (it offered the player a limited number of continues in a very antiquated fashion), but while "Wayward" is certainly challenging, it is thankfully more merciful than its Xbox counterpart. If you are running low on continues, you can always revisit a previous location in the game and rescue more innocents (who respawn even if you've rescued them before). It's helpful as well that you can revisit levels to boost your experience, or find weapons and items you might have missed before. In other words, ammunition and health packs will be considerably easier to come by! This newfound freedom is a major improvement to the series, and probably makes "Wayward" a better game than its forebear. It definitely makes it less frustrating to play.

Unfortunately, "Wayward" lacks the storytelling chops of the original game (which provided a convoluted if somewhat compelling backdrop to all the action), and no longer presents the cinematics with the in-game engine an engine, I hasten to add, that is more than capable of rendering believable movie segments, even on the less graphically intensive PS2 console. It is annoying to me that all four hunters are depicted during the cut-scenes even if you're only playing through the game with one of them. It is doubly annoying because you can't even run through the game with three friends. Only 2 players are supported, which is a shame although it's better than nothing, since going solo is not half as much fun.

If you have never played a "Hunter" game before, you probably won't be too disappointed by the levels themselves. On the other hand, if you've been through the original game, prepare to be disappointed. Many of the exact levels have been recycled in "Wayward," albeit slightly altered (different enemies roam through them, maybe, or you move through the area in reverse fashion). You will also encounter many enemies that are all too familiar though the bosses are brand new, at least. Other than that, there are perhaps three new beasties to destroy, and you will quickly grow tired of dispatching them over and over again during the later levels. Still, to be fair, this complaint is only valid if you've played the original, and that was made for another console.

The action has retained its strangely addictive quality, and is very much in the "Gauntlet" tradition (minus all those power-ups). If you've played any of the "Gauntlet" games you know that it can be mindlessly compelling for one player, but becomes far more engaging when you're playing alongside a friend. Again, this is entirely true in "Wayward." If you have friends who enjoy games like this, I recommend this game considerably more heartily than if you're a solo player looking for a solo ride. Even so, I'm not saying there's nothing to enjoy while going it alone in "Wayward," but it loses some of its appeal.

I also regret the fact that "Wayward" forces you to repeat many of the same levels you've already played through. For instance, your objective in a level might be to rescue another hunter. When you have done that and completed the level, you may be required to return to that level and collect silver so that you can kill a werewolf. The level you are repeating offers up the same monsters and the same scenery, and a whole lot of repetition. Besides, "Wayward" sends you on one too many scavenger hunts. The search for missing data CDs in the Ashcroft cemetery is particularly grating. Fortunately, these kinds of missions are not as frequent as they could have been.

All in all, "Wayward" is a good game, but severely flawed. It takes the series a few steps in the right direction while simultaneously dragging it backwards as well. I do know the series will continue (a third sequel for the Xbox arrives in stores just weeks after the series' PS2 debut), and I do think that it has the potential to achieve greatness... but it has yet to reach the potential, and is instead content with an addictive, challenging, but ultimately shallow experience. If you like mindless action garbed in a veneer of horror, "Wayward" is right for you. If you like mindless action garbed in a veneer of horror and have a friend who likes the same, "Wayward" is even more right for you. Otherwise, I suggest letting the price go down a little, since "Wayward" comes off as a glorified expansion to its Xbox cousin, and provides only so much meat for your gaming dollar. Forget all the unlockable extras it's still a little emaciated. Here's hoping the next game in the series takes a larger leap forward.

Final Score: C+

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My husband and I rented this game over the weekend. Here's my thoughts, especially compared to the original.

To start off, the storyline. It's two years after you defeated the evil spirits at Ashcroft, and your foursome catches word that there's nastiness going on again at the old stomping grounds. Two hunters have been captured and Esteban, Samantha, Kassandra, and Deuce go to investigate. Of course, there's another conspiracy afoot that your rag-tag group needs to bust open, with lots of undead to kill in the process.

Some of the pros:

You get several other characters to play in this PS2 game. Halfway through you unlock one of the Hunters you go to save, Joshua. This guy is fun to play, he's almost as strong as Deuce but has more speed and a better default ranged weapon. His crowbar melee weapon is also fun for hack and slash. After you defeat the game once, you unlock Devan, the other captured hunter as a playable character. Beat the game in Nightmare Mode, and you get Carpenter (!) to play. Fans of the Xbox game should especially like this.

More edges. Some of them really improve the game (I loved running into the middle of an attacking group with Joshua and using Spiral), but some of them are pretty lame. Kassandra has an edge called Blast, which is supposed to shoot a concentrated ray of light at enemies, but it never seemed to hurt them.

In this game, you have a headquarters and a map of each game section. This allows you to go back to previous boards and gain more experience points or save more innocents (save 2 innocents and you get another continue in the game). Don't get all the secrets on the board, though, or it'll become unavailable to play again.

Voice acting is great. The voices fit the characters perfectly. Graphics are killer, especially in the cutscenes. Music is good and creepy without being obtrusive. All very similar to the Xbox version.

Lots of easter eggs and secrets for new music, alternate costumes, models, etc. Also, you unlock cheats (i.e. unlimited health/conviction, max edge power) as you go through the levels, and can use them once you beat the game.

Cons:

The big one, it's only two player max! I shouldn't complain, since it's hard enough to find two player cooperative mission games, but having 4 players tear it up at the same time in the original was too much fun. On the flip side of that, as the original was almost impossible to beat single-player, it would definitely be possible with this game.

The hunter's default ranged weapon no longer has unlimited ammo. As killing certain bad guys gives you health or conviction, you can also get ammo now. Still, this took some getting used to, as I liked to play Kassandra and, with her speed run around and shoot everyone while my husband used Deuce to slash away. However, Vivendi seemed to know this and there aren't the mass amounts of enemies to fight in this version. There's still plenty to keep your hands full, though.

You can only choose one special weapon at the start of the board. For instance, say in a board you picked up a shotgun, a machine gun, and a flamethrower. When you go to the next board, you can only pick one of those three to take with you! During each board, you can pick up other guns that are laying around and use them, but in the original, you kept all the weapons you picked up from board to board. The only time you couldn't use them was when you ran out of ammo! This is the only feature I found to be outright annoying.

There are fewer bosses than in the original. These bosses are cool, though, with a witch and another hunter gone bad really mixing it up. But nothing beats the possessed teddy bear from the first game.

The controls take a lot of getting used to for new players, but those who played the original will find everything to be the same. Also, you still can't control the camera position. It'd be nice if Vivendi would improve this feature.

In short, it's a fun game to rent and play, especially if there's a friend around to join in the pandemonium. It makes me anxious for the October release of Hunter: Redeemer.

Honest reviews on Hunter The Reckoning: Wayward - PlayStation 2

First off,I don't own an Xbox,so I haven't played the original to compare this title to.But in this game the four from the original return to rid the same city of undeads and mutants.I figured this would be something along the lines of "pick a character and slash through the levels until you beat the game."

But actually you can play as all four,taking turns and building up levels and magic.Very nice suprise.

Now I rented this game yesterday,and although it does have some really cool aspects to it,I was a little bit annoyed because of

certain details that took away from the fun.The controls can be pretty awkward,here's an example:to side-attack you have to hold the right analog stick to fire in a certain direction,and use the left analog stick to strafe in a certain direction.This can get really complicated trying to figure out what stick you have to push where when a group of zombies pops out in a random direction.Why didn't the developers just add a semi-automatic lock-on feature?This would have made the game alot less

frustrating.

The players' attacks can also get out of control when using a melee attack.There are many times when the character keeps attacking in a single direction when you need them to stop.This leads to leaving yourself wide open for attacks from enemies in other directions.This was how I got hurt in the game about 90% of the time.

The last negative issue I have with this game is the camera. Although you are given the option to zoom in or zoom out;

really neither is that great of a choice.If you zoom out,you miss alot of detail/graphics as everything is so distant.On the other hand if you zoom in,you can't tell where the enemies are until they're right up on you.You also do NOT have the option to swivel the camera.Say you are running forward,the camera will sometimes face towards you,and not display what's coming ahead.

With the bad aside,I praise The Hunter:Wayward game for adding lots of nice "easter egg" bonuses for completing optional missions.The other good thing about this is that if you don't complete optional missons,you can keep going back until you do.

This translates into building up alot of skill and experience over and over with diffrent hunters.(Try the church level)

Voice acting was pretty good as was the music,and I thought all of the characters were cool esp. raver girl!I guess in the end,I

give this game a mixed bag of feelings with 3 and a half stars.

Rent first,then buy.

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Good games, lots of fun, more action than you can shake a stick at, and if you like zombies, and dark fantaxsy stuff like that, then this game will never get old.

Review of Pro Fishing Challenge

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Online tournaments, fantastic

I couldn't believe what a great game this is. A fisherman for over 30 years I didn't expect much but this game is truly is a fishing simulator. The best part about it is online options and lobby you can create any kind of fishing tournament restricting the line to 2 pound test, pan fish only, all the way to any combination you can think of . You can even restrict motors to four hp or any boat they own.

Nightly tournaments are held at 5:30 p.m. Pacific 8:30 p.m. Eastern to check the complete fishing tournament schedule and calendar go to XBLgames.com

This game is a must-have for anyone even remotely interested in fishing but it is an excellent videogame for those who don't fish. Being a simulator it will also help you learn how to fish.

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This is an excellent game. You have to find good fishing spots, and arrange your tackle. There is tons of equipment, boats, etc to choose from. This is the best fishing simulation I have ever played on a console. The game is easier if you already have a good amount of fishing knowledge, but the game will teach you if you're patient. This is a great game to play online with friends while chatting. It's fun just to drive your boat up to a competitor and watch them reel in the big one. I almost feel like I'm outside fishing when I play this game.

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This is the best fishing game you can buy for the xbox. It's a true simulation of fishing, and it does take some fishing knowledge, that the game will teach you. This is a vey fun game to play online and offline. I highly recommend it, even if you've never fished before

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I know this game is old and on regular xbox but you can play it on the 360. I am an avid fisherman and have played almost every fishing game out from Black Bass on old school nintendo to Rapala Fishing on xbox360 and this game destroys all of them. It is so realistic with using every type of lure and plastics you can think of, the choice of spinner or baitcasting reels, rod strengths, braided, mono, flourocarbon line, texas, carolina, and another rig I forgot, and so much more. You start out fishing tourneys building up your career from getting a simple jon boat to buying a beautiful bass boat and buying more and more tackle as you get more money. There are different types of casting and you can troll around too. The controls on this game are phenomenal which I rate this the best fishing game ever. I hope they make a newer version for the 360.

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This is the most realistic fishing title out there that I have found. The graphics are way cool and the fact that you can't see underwater makes it even more realistic. All you see is you, the boat, and your environment above the water. Nice. I had so much fun with this game that I had to stick with it until I beat it and collected all the boats, motors, and colors. The bass boats with the biggest motors are so much fun to drive! I highly recommend this game.

Discount Tomb Raider: Underworld

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Tomb Raider: Underworld is another decent -if not outstanding -installment of the Lara Croft series. The game picks up sometime after the events of Legend, and makes an attempt to tie-up the story. The developers have made an attempt to make this the first Tomb Raider game for the current generation of consoles, and for the most part, they have delivered.

As a Tomb Raider experience, this showing is similar to past games. All of Lara's classic moves are in the game, and the controls are relatively familiar. There are some new moves, such as the adrenaline headshot, which requires you to build-up adrenaline through combat before executing the move. It is effective against humans and animals, but not so much against other enemies you encounter later in the game. There is also a new "adrenaline moment" move, in which the on-screen action slows and you must decide how you want to handle the situation -there's no sequence of buttons to press, and no right or wrong way of doing things. However, I found that these moves were scattered widely throughout the game, and weren't as plentiful or as exciting as the developers had hyped them. The wall climb is another new move, which is well designed and makes you think a little more about how to get to higher ground -you don't necessarily need to look for ledges. In fact, Lara can now climb rock faces as well, so this game tends to mix-it-up for long-time fans. Additionally, in order to find treasures, Lara must break open clay jars -which is somewhat new but also counter-intuitive if Lara values artifacts. Lara's movements are a little more acrobatic, and sometimes her stance just doesn't seem right.

The camera remains the biggest problem in this game, as it had been in both Legend and Anniversary. You simply learn to cope with it, and fortunately it is never a game-breaker. There are "invisible walls", which are areas of a map that Lara can't pass. There are moments when Lara can get stuck in a corner, or simply stuck in the scenery -I encountered several issues where her feet were apparently caught on a rock or a plant. By contrast, although enemies are persistent in this game when you kill them (bodies don't disappear), Lara's feet pass right through them -as if they're vapor. Enemies have no physics at all once they are dead. From an A.I. perspective, the enemies are fairly non-responsive and very easy to defeat.

The game shines in level design. Each level is huge. There are no annoying loading screens or loading delays -everything is loaded in the background, so play is non-stop. The game offers a sonar map on Lara's PDA, which I found totally useless since it did not provide points of interest or way-points. There are many puzzles -sometimes you'll be faced with 2 or 3 puzzles within a level. Puzzles are well-designed but not incredibly difficult. There are no bosses in this game, which is odd and disappointing, considering the number of bosses that appeared in Legend. In a way, however, the puzzles have become bosses because of the skill associated with them (Southern Mexico, as an example).

In addition to the graphics, the sound is superb. The musical score is present at the right moments, but can get extremely repetitive sometimes if you're stuck in a sequence trying to figure something out. CGI animations are smooth, with excellent voice-acting.

The game is fun to play, and the story is tightly-woven and entertaining. If you've played Legend, you'll be satisfied with the one or two twists thrown your way to close that storyline. However, if you didn't play Legend or Anniversary, you might not understand this story at all. I don't think the developers did a good job at making this a stand-alone game. The ending seems very final -there's nothing left to anticipate. I also thought that the game was entirely too short -much shorter than Legend while also much easier to complete. The only replay value is in the "achievements", many of which will be unlocked in the first play-through. It's a good game and worthy of play by fans, but certainly does not trump the previous games.

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If it weren't for the (relatively few) flaws, this game would be a masterpiece. I've been a fan of the tomb raider series for a long long time, but for whatever reason haven't played the last two. I'm glad I gave this one a go.

The pros:

Gorgeous and expansive levels

Great acrobatics

Puzzles are the perfect difficulty

Lots of puzzles

The cons:

Controls take some getting used to, especially the grappling hook

Lara gets "stuck" in the environments sometimes, especially if it's right on top of a terrain change. Can usually escape pretty easily, but it's annoying nonetheless

Invisible walls and "special" walls. I prefer delimiting the boundaries of where you can travel by walls that are simply just too high to jump on. Invisible walls feel cheap. "special" walls are walls that you can jump on and climb (as opposed to unspecial walls that look absolutely identical, but for some reason Lara refuses to grab it). In this sense the environment isn't totally autonomous, I would like to be able to do everything that the laws of physics allow me to do. If there's a wall that isn't any higher than my hands when I raise them straight up, I should sure as heck be able to climb it.

Axis inversion doesn't work on vehicles. This is a little weird, and really feels like a bug in the game, but when playing 3rd person games I really like axis inversion. It's broken on vehicles.

Lack of keyboard mapping. On the Xbox 360 version anyway, there is no option to remap keys.

Autosave feature is a little weird. It uses 8 save slots, the same 8 save slots for if you do manual saves. So if you do a manual save, it will get overwritten later by an autosave.

There is also the obvious comparison to Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I would rate them about the same, each with its own cons, with Uncharted just having a different set of cons. There are obviously a lot of similarities between the two games, but if you liked Uncharted you won't necessarily like TR:U. For starters Uncharted is much more heavily focused on the combat. In Tomb Raider you might encounter a total of 10 enemies in a level which takes you 3 hours to beat. In Uncharted you would have encountered 100 enemies in that same level. Because of this, the combat system in TR is less refined. There's no "taking cover" for example.

All in all though TRU is a solid, if not the best, game in the Tomb Raider series to date. If you're a fan of Tomb Raider, you will love this game, no question about it.

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"Tomb Raider: Underworld" (TRU from now on) is easily Crystal Dynamics best effort since they took over the TR series from Core Design. It's obvious that the designers have been listening to the fans, and they addressed nearly all of the complaints that people had about their previous attempts.

Here's what they improved:

1. Level design.

Their first attempt, "Tomb Raider: Legend" had extremely linear levels, allowing for practically no exploration. This flew in the face of everything TR was supposed to be about. They improved on this with their second game, "TR: Anniversary," but that was a remake of the original TR game. TRU is the first time that Crystal Dynamics has created their own, original, open levels. They're not quite as open as, say, the levels in TR3, but even on those occasions when you are merely progressing along a predetermined path, the world just feels more open because of its clever design and the massive scale of it all (remember how big St. Francis' Folly in TR1 felt when you first played it back in the late 90s? Well, that's NOTHING compared to enormity of some areas you'll discover in TRU! There's a level towards the end of the game where you have to scale a rotating tower, and the massive scale of it is awe-inspiring. It really adds to the sense of vulnerability you'll feel.)

2. Combat

One of the common complaints about "Legend" was that you seemed to be in a firefight with a ton of mercs every few seconds. TRU scales back the combat drastically, returning the focus to exploring, platforming and puzzle solving, with just enough combat to keep you from ever getting too relaxed. And, if you find the combat too easy (or too difficult), you can adjust the amount of damaged Lara does to her enemies (and the amount of damage that enemies do to Lara.) There are separate sliders that you can move to tailor the gameplay to your preference.

3. Zip & Alistair

These two characters were a mixed blessing in Legend. They helped provide Lara with more personality by constantly chatting with her as she explored, but they also ruined the sense of isolation, and their comments often got a bit tedious (not to mention the fact that they sometimes told you how to solve puzzles when you'd rather figure it out on your own.) In TRU, they no longer to chat with Lara as she explores. They're still in the game, and they show up in cutscenes, but they don't intefere with the adventure. Instead, Lara now has a camcorder, and at key points in certain levels, she'll film certain things and comment on them. It's a good compromise-she still has a personality and we still get some background info on what we're exploring, but the sense of isolation that people enjoyed so much in the original games is back. Also, if you do find that you need a hint, you can ask Lara what to do. Her first response will be somewhat vague, but it might be enough. If you're still stuck, ask her again, and she'll be more specific. This is a very effective way to implement a hint system.

4. The Grapple

The grappling hook that Lara used in Legend and Anniversary is back, but it's implemented better this time around. Just like in Anniversary, Lara can use her grappling hook to run along walls, pull objects, etc. but the designers smartly avoided forcing you to use the grappling hook in situations where it's more frustrating than fun. In Anniversary, for example, there were certain wall runs that were only difficult because you were constantly battling with the controls to get Lara to do what you wanted. In TRU, the designers realized what works and doesn't work, and they seem to have kept this in mind (mostly) when designing levels. You'll still need to do wall runs, but because of the way they're set up, they're more often fun than frustrating.

5. Boss Battles (or the lack thereof...)

There are no boss battles in TRU. This could be seen as a con to some people, but I see it as an improvement. TR games, for me, are not fighting games, and always found boss battles to be more of a roadblock than entertainment. Also, unlike in Anniversary, you're never forced to pull off the tricky adrenaline headshots. If you want to do them, fine, have fun. But if you'd rather just shoot away until your enemy is dead, that's fine too.

6. Lara's moves

Lara finally feels like the character she was always meant to be because her move set has been expanded to give her more flexibility than ever. If you're hanging from a cliff, and a swarm of bats flies towards you, you know longer have to hitch yourself up to solid ground before you can start shooting at them. Just hang on with one hand and shoot with the other. There are plenty of other little new moves like this that really make the game flow better than ever, and all of the moves were motion-captured by an actual gymnast, so it feels more believable than it ever did in previous games.

7. Locales

After the first two TR games, the series started including more and more levels that took place in very non-TR-like locations, such as big cities, hi-tech towers, military bases, Paris streets, etc. TRU really brings the focus back to what TR was originally about-exploring ancient ruins. There are a couple of levels that take place on a ship, but other than that, it's all classic TR environments.

But, as I said in the title of this review, the game is "ALMOST" perfect, meaning not everything is as it should be.

The biggest problem is that in spite of how massive the levels are, it really won't take you very long to complete this game. Now, this is partly due to the fact that Lara simply moves faster than she did in the old games, so getting from point A to point B takes less time. It's also due to the fact that you're rarely left running around aimlessly in circles trying to figure out what to do next, as you often did in the old games. These are both good things, and if these were the only reasons the game took less time to complete, I couldn't fault it at all. But the truth is, there simply aren't enough levels. There are a small handful of massive levels, and a few mini levels in between. What's feels really cheap, though, is that some of the mini levels are actually repeated! (WARNING: If you want to be completely spoiler free, skip the rest of this paragraph) For example, there's a level that takes place on a ship near the start of the game (actually, it's just a small part of the enormous first level.) It's fun the first time around. But towards the end of the game, you have to replay it, and it's pretty much identical, with only the enemies being in different places. Similarly, there's a prologue level that takes place in Croft Manor. Later in the game, you replay the EXACT same sequence. This is a cheap way to pad an already fairly short game.

Another complaint-The game starts out a bit weak. The opening level (after the short prologue level) starts you off in a somewhat disorienting underwater sequence. It looks impressive, but it's not as much fun as it should be. And once you finally get inside, the level still doesn't make a great impression. Not to say it's bad, but it just seems a bit bland compared to the great stuff that comes later. All I can say is, stick with it and you'll be rewarded.

Some people have complained about the camera being uncooperative, so I feel I should mention it here. Honestly, I haven't had any major trouble with it. There are times when you won't be able to see something that you're supposed to jump to, but the game works around this by giving you visual clues. If you suspect that you might be able to jump safely in a certain direction, try pointing in that direction. Lara will prepare herself for the jump if it's do-able. If there isn't a safe way to jump in that direction, she'll either shake her head, or just do nothing. So although you can't always see everything, just pay attention to Lara's reactions, and you'll be fine. This is actually an improvement over previous games, where you often had to take blind leaps of faith with no indication from Lara about whether or not you'd be safe.

One other very minor complaint-The story. It's not that the story is bad at all, and it certainly has some great moments that'll stick with you, but the villains are too rarely seen, to the point where it's easy to forget about them. Legend, I feel, did a better job of keeping the main villain central in the plot. In TRU, you'll see the villains near the start of the game, and then they pretty much go away entirely until the end.

Still, all things considered, TRU is a great game, and now that it's cheaper, its short gameplay isn't really such a factor. If you value quality over quantity, you can't go wrong with this one.

Honest reviews on Tomb Raider: Underworld

The graphics for this game are better than the previous generation as expected, the game play is smoother and climbing much easier than before. I was pleasantly surprised by this game.

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Fun game. Controls and moves are easy to learn, nice graphics, good story, length is fine. Where the game really shines is in its puzzles, environments, and level design. It seems a lot of thought went into these, especially in the Jan Mayen Island and Arctic Sea levels and the Lara's Shadow add-on (all of which are fantastic). Criticisms that the levels are confusing are overstated IMO. You do have to explore the area to figure out what to do next but that's part of the appeal of adventure games. My only complaint is that the camera angles fly here and there (I would like to give the game a 4.5 out of 5 for this reason) but it's not bad enough to be frustrating (just mildly annoying).

I paid full price for the game when it was released last year and don't regret it. At $20, it's a bargain for fans of the series or anyone who is looking for an alternative to first person shooters.

Review of XCOM: Enemy Within

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $39.96
Today's Bonus: $0.03 Off

This game was fantastic! I was a huge fan of the first game, and admittedly I was skeptical if this game would be worth the money. XCOM enemy within, adds to what was great in last year's title, and improves it by adding new strategic elements (mechs and mutants). The mech and mutant additions, are modifiers to your existent squad. The mutants and mechs add significant strategic ability to your squad, but they must be weighed against the expense in developing these classes and the downside of mechs of not being able to use cover. I was concerned that this would make your squad too strong compared to the enemy, however this game adds excellent new enemy units to help balance both sides to the encounter.

These strategic elements, make the old levels play like new while also adding a new level of strategy to consider when assembling your squad. In addition, XCOM adds new game modes that help to prevent the mini-missions from becoming too repetitive. This includes game types: (1) escorting a civilian, (2) king of the hill and (3) capture the flag. In addition to these new game types, XCOM adds a new enemy, EXALT further adding to the new layers to this game.

One of my few criticisms of the first game was that every single level played the same, and after significant play became repetitive. XCOM Enemy Within fixes this flaw, and I stress that I cannot recommend this game higher. I encourage anyone on the fence to buy this title and enjoy hours of entertainment!

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XCOM: Enemy Within has finally arrived.

The "Commander Edition" (as it's called on Consoles) includes:

the full game XCOM: Enemy Unknown (previously released on Xbox360/PC/PS3)

all previously released DLC & updates (i.e. Operation Slingshot; Elite Soldier Pack)

the new Enemy Within over-haul (See Below)

And a few unmentioned changes to the game:

Enemy AI has been greatly improved and enemies are deadlier than ever

New appearance and language options for soldiers (Russians speaking Russian!)

Can award medals to soldiers that give unique bonus attributes (e.g. Never Panic, etc)

Select "Second Wave" game-play options unlocked from the start! (very fun)

The Enemey Within part is key as much of the game has been tweaked, vamped up, and generally been improved upon. Enemy Within is absolutely PACKED with new features and more than more than make up for the purchase price (imo). So far I have had only minor issues with game play; I have encountered one glitch that forced me to fail (or reload) on one of the early EXALT missions, an NPC became stuck on a mission and I could not progress. Be very careful on Ironman mode until this is patched. Otherwise, game-play had been phenomenal just what I've been waiting for!

Notes (correct me if I am wrong):

*Does not share save files with XCOM: Enemy Unknown

*Does not share Achievements with XCOM: Enemy Unknown

*Everything is on one disk and there are no codes or vouchers for dwnld

*May cause a sever lack of sleep

---

New Additions (taken from above):

* New Weapons and Equipment: Give your operatives an extra tactical edge with new projects from your engineering team and the Foundry

* New Enemy Threats: Adopt new tactics to counter the threats from two new alien types and a deadly new organization known as EXALT.

* New Strategic Resource: A valuable new alien resource, known as Meld, has been discovered. Secure it on the battlefield and use it carefully back at base to unlock new research and upgrades.

* New Tactical Challenges and Maps: Cloak-and-dagger and intelligence operations provide new tactical challenges on over 40 new battlefields.

* New Multiplayer maps, units, and abilities: Create your custom squad from a wider array of options and dominate your opponent in intense, one-on-one, turn-based matches.

* New Soldier Abilities: Research a new alien technology to advance the capabilities of your operatives:Gene Mods: Construct the Genetics Lab to physically enhance your operatives? abilities including augmentations to the chest, brain, eyes, skin, and legs. MECs: Build the Cybernetics Lab to enable the construction of the new Mechanized Exoskeletal Cybersuit, or MEC. The new MEC Trooper class has specialized abilities and each suit can be upgraded with new weapons including the flamethrower and grenade launcher.

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I'm a HUGE fan of the original 1994 XCOM UFO Defense. There is still no turn-based strategy game that can touch it (save-for the graphics of course). Yes, even though it's from 1994. I highly recommended that you go play it (on steam, etc.), before or after playing this game. These games look ~20 years better but have only 1/2 of the scope, customization, replayability as the 1994 XCOM UFO Defense game.

If you were excited about (and purchased) XCOM Enemy Unknown, and loved it, then this is still worth getting to see all the new content and maps. If you look at it as purchasing a bunch of DLC at once, then it takes the sting away from needing to buy the game again. (hoping for more DLC but not holding my breath)

If you thought XCOM:EU was frustrating and complex, avoid this game. It's more complex.

But, hopefully, you somehow missed XCOM:EU, are unaware/don't care that the developers fell a little short of the original 1994 game, and really want to find a challenging turn-based-strategy game with a revolutionary console UI, excellent graphics, jump-out-of-your-seat fun moments and hours-upon-hours of replay potential. Then you can just buy this game, by itself, and be happy as a clam.

Honest reviews on XCOM: Enemy Within

I Loved the original xcom and this expansion pack made the game even more enjoyable. I high recommend this to anyone who likes strategy games.

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I'd love to give this a good review, but I can't for two reasons:

1) It's a bit unfair to release no content for an existing game as a new game instead of a DLC. I do like the new content, but it doesn't really change anything fundamental.

2) There's something buggy (perhaps it's just my disk). I've had 2 Ironman gamefiles that refuse to load due to file corruption. So frustrating and without the fun of trying to save a game for the jaws of defeat after a squad-wipe.

Cheap Nyko Intercooler STS for Xbox 360

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $19.99
Sale Price: $18.97
Today's Bonus: 5% Off

I didn't buy this off Amazon but it is so great I had to review it for others here. This fan is literally every last word it claims to be. It is fully automatic, and will even turn on and off by itself when the system is OFF if it's still too hot. It has a very powerful fan, and moves heat consistently and efficiently. I would recommend this to anyone.

I have had mine for almost 5 months and haven't had to touch it once since I installed it. It does the job, and it does it very, very well.

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To start I didn't think that this item would be worth it, that is until I received it and put into action. Placing the STS on the Xbox was a "Snap" and it cleans up real nice. Not to mention it is very quiet. You don't hear it running during gaming mode. It does just like it says it does, works when it registers the temp. going up and stays working even after the Xbox is shut down allowing the system to cool down. This Intercooler STS is well worth the price and Im sure with it keeping my Xbox at a normal temperature will add longevity to my gaming experience. I have recommended this Intercooler to all of my gamer enthusiasts. Thanks for everything.

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The product runs after the unit is powered off (good) and turns off automatically. It directs the air out and away from other components.

Honest reviews on Nyko Intercooler STS for Xbox 360

Ive owned quite a few consoles over the last decade and a half. Im telling you flat out that the best thing to do is buy one of these for your Xbox 360 slim. With a few other reasons of course.

The system generates enough heat that over time will cook itself. "If" you want to increase the lifespan of your Xbox 360 S console buy this fan for the following reasons.

It fits snug on the side of the console and neatly plugs into the back USB port, powered by the console itself.

The amount of heat it removes from the console is substantial enough that it dried my hands in 2 minutes after washing them. Thats an example of how much heat it pulls out of the console itself.

It runs quietly enough.

OTHER TIPS YOU NEED TO CONSIDER

DONT stand your xbox up on its end. Lay it on its side. Statistics show scratch rings occur when using your console when its standing. The game disc then becomes unreadable, and uninstallable. It also makes the game "untradeworthy" when you stand your console on its side because of these pictures like the one showing this product. People think youre supposed to stand the console upright and thats ok. Its not. Another reason is heat RISES. So to get the most heat out of your console, lay it down. In the picture the fan is at the lowest point, heat is at the highest. Despite any vent at the top the fan is more useful when the xbox is laying down.

Install your games onto your hard drive (or USB/Memory device). When going to the xbox dashboard, and pressing "X" from the controller you can select "play" on the dashboard which confirms the console starting the game for you... but running it from its storage device WITHOUT spinning the disc after confirming its authenticity. That way youre not playing from a spinning disc which constantly wears down the engine, this will generate LESS heat, AND increases load up times and decreases lag in your games by running the game from data not from the disc but from the installed data from the game itself.

The only reason i didnt give this 5 stars is because the exact same product which i owned before purchasing another one stopped working after 3 months. The fan engine died. Hopefully this one lasts longer.

Happy gaming.

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I have an RGH Xbox 360. For those of you that don't know what that means, it is basically a modified Xbox. The system tells me what temperatures I am at on my CPU, GPU, Memory, and Case. Just for sh!ts and giggles I checked to see what exact effect it had on my xbox before and after putting it on. After using the xbox for about 2 hours the CPU's temperature was at 177.3 F. Within 10 minutes of putting this fan back on it dropped to 153.4 F. Everything else dropped proportionately as well. I actually just purchased a second one, one for my modded xbox and one for my xbox live xbox.

Reviews of Xbox 360 Street Fighter IV FightPad - Chun-Li

Customer Ratings:

I have the controller with Chun Li on the front. First, let me say that I have read various complaints on web forums from people who say that the diagonals on these controllers don't work quite right. While I don't question the accuracy of these claims, a lot of people (like me) aren't experiencing this problem, so it is clearly something that's only affecting some of the controllers. Oh, and there are apparently some issues with pulling off special moves in Mortal Kombat vs DC. If you're interested in using the Fightpad with that game, I'd suggest you do a bit of research on it, as I'm not sure of the specifics. Now, onto my review ...

I have played with many, many d-pads over the years, and I can say hands down that the best one ever made was the one for the Sega Saturn, specifically the Japanese version. Playing Marvel vs Capcom with that controller is about as close as you can get to 2D fighting game nirvana :) This new Madcatz Fightpad is supposedly modeled off of the Saturn controller. Is it really that good? Well, not quite, but it's still very good. Special moves can be pulled off like butter, and some will say it's actually a little too sensative, because you end up pulling off dragon punches by accident. The d-pad itself is very 'floaty', but I really like it. Needless to say, it is a HUGE improvement over the standard 360 d-pad

At this point, I'm sure some of you are wondering if it's really worth paying $40 for this controller to play SFIV with. Well, let me tell you that this controller also works wonders with some of the more 'retro' style XBLA games, especially Pacman CE. I tried it with this controller and I have a much easier time controlling it than I do on the regular 360 pad. Also, this controller has a 2-speed turbo fire feature, which I tried with R-Type and Mega Man 9; it worked great in both games.

Oh, and it's PC compatable too, though I have not personally tried it.

Overall, I have to give this controller 4 stars instead of 5 because of the problems that some people are having, but I still highly recommend it. However, I would also advise you to buy locally if you can, just in case you get one of the bad ones. That way, it will be easier for you to exchange it if you need to. I would NOT buy it online. As of this writing, it is a bit hard to find. But if you have Gamestops in your area, keep checking there, as that is where I got mine.

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So I'm not a professional when it comes to SF4 and basically just loved it from my SNES childhood. So, I opted for a pad and not an arcade stick. The 360 controller just SUCKS for Street Fighter. It has the worst DPad ever and is too clunky for fighting game usage. I moved to a PS3 whose controller is better than a 360 but still not the best. When I finally was able to find an SF4 gamepad, I was overjoyed. There are definitely pros and cons which I will go over.

CONS: The controller has a diagonal that you REALLY need to get used to. Blocking low, for instance, sometimes doesn't happen at all. I'll be in the middle of a block string then get hit because I'm not pressing down and back. When throwing shoto fireballs, you can't just spam them and hit Down to Forward. You basically have to use the outer edge of the circular pad to make sure that the DownForward also gets inputted.

PROS: Pretty much the rest of the pad is a pro. The buttons are laid out very nicely so that you can easily do throws, focus attacks or combos. The d-pad is designed very well so that you can easily slide your thumb from one area to another. I had no problems with jumping forward issues at all (just fireballs). People complain about the shoulder buttons for being cheap but I love them because they respond perfectly just with a tap. I like wired controllers because I don't have to worry about batteries and this one has a nice, long 10 ft cable.

Best Deals for Xbox 360 Street Fighter IV FightPad - Chun-Li

I am surprised at the high rated reviews this product has gotten. I am a fighting game enthusiast and know a good Dpad when I try one. I loved the old-school Nintendo Dpad, and the Playstation 2 Dpad is also very good. They offered precise feel and control. When I got my Xbox 360, I was shocked at how poor the Dpad was on that controller. Everything else, including the analog sticks are so perfect, but the Dpad is clumsy and ineffective. I'd try to hold back to block and end up jumping or doing some other random direction.

So after reading some reviews on different products, I thought I'd give the Madcatz fightpad a try. When I received the package, I already had a gut-feeling that it was no good. This was confirmed moments later as I tried to play with it.

1) The diagonals were very difficult to locate and I couldn't hit them with any consistency. Very bad news in a fighting game. I found that I had to hit a precise 30 degree angle from the down position to get down-back, and that should be 45 degrees, not 30. But this could have been a defect in the particular controller I got, and might not be an issue in others.

2) However, I'm sure for all of these controllers, the feel of the pad would be the same. The floating Dpad is very loosey-goosey. While this makes it very easy to throw fireballs, any slight pressure will move you away from your intended position. So if you needed to hold back to block, you might accidentally jump or duck.

3) The construction/material of the controller feels very light and cheap. This wouldn't have bothered me too much if the controller worked great but it didn't, and this only added to my disappointment.

Honest reviews on Xbox 360 Street Fighter IV FightPad - Chun-Li

The D-Pad for this fightpad is horrible!

I really like the layout of this controller. The buttons and d-pad are perfect for me. The killer for this controller is the d-pad, it just doesn't work. I read about this controller having a lot of problems, I figured maybe these problems have been fixed by now, but apparently I was wrong.

The diagonals on this controller just don't work. I have this controller plugged into my computer, I can see the input of the directions I press as I press them, I am getting real-time feedback on it. When I press each diagonal on the d-pad, it doesn't always register a diagonal. What it registers is either right, left, up, or down. If I press down HARD on the diagonal, I may get a diagonal command, but ONLY if I press hard on the diagonal, and it will ALWAYS register another direction first BEFORE it registers the diagonal. There's an arrow located on the d-pad for each direction. Up, down, left, right, and the diagonals all have arrows. When I press a diagonal arrow, it goes in a different direction. Huh? If I press the DOWN-RIGHT arrow, it goes RIGHT, and not DOWN-RIGHT.

Some examples: If I press UP-RIGHT on the d-pad, it registers RIGHT. If I tap UP-RIGHT fast on the d-pad, it will iregister RIGHT and only sometimes will it register UP-RIGHT. If I press down hard on UP-RIGHT, it will register RIGHT and then it might register UP-RIGHT.

It never registers only the diagonals first, it will always register another direction first. UP-RIGHT will always execute RIGHT first, DOWN-RIGHT will always execute RIGHT first, UP-LEFT will always execute LEFT first, DOWN-LEFT will always execute LEFT first.

I can NEVER execute just a diagonal command. I tried this many times. I have other cheaper controllers that have no problems executing movements on their d-pads, why does this more expensive one find going in a diagonal so hard.

The buttons work fine. The feel of the controller is great. But what's the point of all that if the d-pad doesn't work.

Maybe people with working controllers got good ones and the rest of us got bad ones, or maybe they just have lower standards, all I know is that this controller sucks. It's not worth all this money for a controller that can't get the basic function of a d-pad right.

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There are two reasons to buy this for playing Street Fighter over using a traditional 360 controller: The D-Pad, and the buttons. That may not seem like much, but in the end they're both perfectly executed.

The D-pad is an interesting design. Essentially, it is a very, very small joystick with a d-pad mounted on top. Thus you can move right by either pressing down on the right side, or pushing the pad towards the right. Because of this the movement is very fluid and dynamic, but there is a bit more travel than you would get with a traditional d-pad. I've found it to be very helpful with rotation-based moves (down, downforward, forward), but the distance is less helpful for charge moves (back for 1 second, forward). Directions are quite precise, and I never find that I'm accidentally pressing the wrong way. Overall, it beats any d-pad available on the 360 easily, including previous Mad Katz pads and Hori imports.

Further, the buttons are pure beauty to use. The layout is perfect, and the buttons are spaced far enough apart that I have yet to accidentally mispress. Button action is short and sharp, allowing for faster usage. This is the button layout that the game was made for. The shoulder buttons, unfortunately, are somewhat stiff and difficult to use, but they get the job done.

The pad also features rapid fire, which is pretty easy to use. Hold the rapid fire button, and tap the button you would like to set. A light on the controller blinks as it goes. Simple. As a bonus, the controller is curved almost perfectly so that any button can be held down with a simple rubber band, if you're the kind of cheater who does that sort of thing.

10 seconds after starting off with this controller, it felt perfectly natural in my hands. This is the way the game was meant to be played. Instead of fighting against the controls, I felt like I was playing the game. 40 dollars for a pad that you will probably use on one or two games may seem like a lot (and it is), but this controller is just a pleasure. Highly Recommended.

Discount TRITTON Pro+ 5.1 Surround Gaming Headset for Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $199.99
Sale Price: $169.99
Today's Bonus: 15% Off

As a previous owner of the original version 1 of the Ax Pro I am glad to be back with Tritton with this much improved Ax Pro+. I also previously had the Turtle Beach x41. It's been a while since I've had an on the ears gaming headset and I had been anxiously awaiting the Warheads for what seemed like forever, but when they announced the AX Pro+, I decided to go with the them instead mainly for the $100 price difference and the fidelity of having 4 speakers + sub in each earcub versus the virtual 7.1 of the Warheads. There is also the issue of whether or not the Warheads will be compatible with the next generation Xbox and obvious lack of support of chat for other platforms.

----------------------------

IMPORTANT ITEM NOT INCLUDED:

The USA version of the AX Pro+ DOES NOT include the PC Analog Adapter, item "J" cable for use with PC's that ONLY have analog audio out on the soundcard. You need to have a PC soundcard that has a digital Optical TOSlink output connection. It's worth nothing that the European release of the AX Pro+ includes this cable. The USA version is specifically NOT including this cable for who knows what reason.

UPDATE Sept 13, 2012: I have since been informed by Tritton/Madcatz that they DO NOT have item "J" available for purchase seperately, but that it may be available in the future. So, you are pretty much screwed if you ONLY have a soundcard with analog audio output.

You can try using the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro II USB Analog & Digital Audio Adapter, item B0036VO4X4 as a segway between your computer and the AX Pro+ Decoder Box. No idea if it'll work, but it ought to.

----------------------------

You power the control box via the included AC Adapter. Audio is sent to the decoder box via the Optical TOSlink input or via USB. They give you a Optical TOSlink adapter for those with NON-slim Xbox 360 consoles that DO NOT have an HDMI and thus Optical Audio output. You get 2 different chat cables, one with the Xbox 360 controller puck on the end and another which is simply a 2.5male male to 2.5mm male audio cable. The puck fits securely to my OEM controller.

As with the previous version, the control box has the ability to supply 2 seperate AX Pro+ Headsets. The connectors for the headset to the control box are a lot easier to connect than on the original AX Pro, almost looks like an HDMI connection. There is a volume control knob and power button on the decoder box as well as buttons for the various audio options and 5.1 analog audio output for passthrough to an AV Receiver. The volume rocker has the ability to individually adjust the front, center, rear and sub speakers or adjust them altogether. These controlls are backlighted so you can see at which level they are set to, red being the highest.

The SVM, Selective Voice Monitoring, feature is really nice as it allows you to hear your own voice and surrounding to make sure you aren't too loud or have any distracting noises going on (music, fan, other people, etc). It took me a few minutes to figure it out, but to turn SVM on/off you have to click down on the chat volume control rocker on the in-line volume controller for the headset. Turning off the audio to the headset can also be done by clicking down on the main volume control rocker. The back of the in-line control has a belt/shirt clip.

The earcups can swiviel 45 degrees outward to the side and about 1/3 of this in the opposite direction. The earcups can also swivel up and down slightly.The headband is adjustable with 7 different lengthes on either side. I usually keep it at about 6 or 7. The removeable microphone now comes out of the front of the Left earcub and has a built-in locking mechinism. The microphone itselt is very flexible and able to be positioned in any direction. The material used on the earcups is the same as on the previous model and are nice and compfy. The earcubs are also slanted slightly to take the shape of your head, I don't remember this on the previous model. There is some nice padding on the underside of the top of the headband to keep your head from rubbing againt the headbad itself.

After using the headset for the first day, I did get a bit of a headache and kink in my neck but that was gone by the next day and it most likely related to my NOT having been using a gaming headset like this in almost a year.

Overall, I'm very satisfied and feel that Tritton has improved upon the design of the Original v1 Ax Pro. It's nice NOT having 2 sepreate AC Adapters.

So far I've used this with my Xbox 360 to play some Arcade games as well as Battlefield 3 and Ghost Recon Future Soldier, in addition to my DVR and TV using my TV's Optical TOSlink output. Playing Battlefield 3 makes you feel like you are realing on the battlefield and it's VERY INTENSE. For Ghost Recon, it's more laid back but things like grenades and other explosive items are definitely more robust in sound compared to the built in speakers on my flat panel tv. If you like FPS shooters I think you are going to have a lot of fun using the AX Pro+.

In addition, since I have a TOSlink Optical digital audio output on my Desktop Computer's soundcard I was able to listen to some music as well as listen to a snippet of a Blu Ray movie as I have a BD drive on my computer as well. All sounded quite nice.

PROS:

1. $100 less than the Warheads

2. It's NOT wireless, so better audio quality compared to simulated 5.1-7.1.

3. 4 Speakers + Sub in each earcup for True 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound, NOT virtual or emulated.

4. Improved design over the original AX PRO

5. Large adjustable headband with plenty of cushioning.

6. Earcups can roate side to side as well as up and down.

7. No more having to use generic mp3 player headphones or PC headsets to listen to stuff without disturbing others in the house.

8.SVM Selective Voice Monitoring

9.Includes all the cables you need.

CONS:

1. $200 might be more than people are willing to spend on a gaming headset.

2. It's NOT Wireless.

3. USA / North American version DOES NOT include the Analog Audio breakout cable for use with a Computer. If you want to use this headset with a computer then your soundcard will have to has a Optical TOSlink digital audio connectin. This cable is NOT included and must be purchased seperately, if possible (not listed on the parts page as of this posting). It's NOT listed on the Parts page of Tritton's web site and supposively you can get it if you contact Tritton Support via their web site. The European version of the AX Pro+ includes this Analog PC Audio cable listed as item "J".

4. The headset didn't include any instructions other than a basic Quick Setup Guide. Had to visit Tritton's web site to download a full manual, there are 2 versions one for UK one for USA. The UK version is how I found out about the Analog Adapter cable for the PC.

5. Still no power button on the in line controls or on the headset itself. A bit annoying to have to get up and power off the headset from the decoder box. Especially late at nite.

6. No analog audio input (3.5mm) on the decoder box.

7. LEDS on the headset for the Tritton logo on the earcups cannot be turned off while the headset is powered on. I don't notice it while using the headset. However, it makes me have to get up and turn off the headset. Otherwise, I have this glowing headset while trying to go to sleep.

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Seriously this is the best headset. I brought the 720+ before and wasn't happy with them so took them back and got these. And the difference between the two is huge! These are much better. The directional sound is amazing on these can easily hear footsteps and where gun fire is coming from, I just didnt get that with the 720+. Most probably because these have real 5.1 as opposed to virtual 7.1 on 720+.

So if you can't decide between the two then I hope this review has helped.

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Pros:

SOUND AWESOME, I am not an "audiophile" but I know dang well when something sounds good, and when it sounds like crap. I was worried they would be gimmicky, over priced and sound like crap especially since I could not try them before I bought them. The lows are low and the highs are high, everything is crisp and nothing is blatty or sounds like it is being played out of a potato.

I thought the selective voice monitoring would be a gimmick, not useful and just an excuse to increase the price. I do not use this headset with SVM turned off. It has to be on I love hearing my own voice (not narcissisticly) when chatting with others it makes it feel like the people I am talking to are in the same room and it makes chatting more natural.

The look and feel of the whole system is very good. They feel sturdy, look quality, and just awesome overall.

Sound amazing while watching movies. I streamed Thor and Captain America through Amazon's Instant Video and the headset really made it an immersive experience both because the almost-real-surround sound and the quality of the highs and lows. Things that boomed, boomed, things that chimed chimed. I could hear when people were whispering, and when they were shouting very clearly.

Cons:

The headset can get uncomfortable after a while since it does clamp your head quite tightly. I wear glasses and this makes the problem somewhat worse. However, it forces me to take breaks from playing which is not a bad thing for my health or the quality of my gaming since standing up and taking a breather improves your blood oxygen level which improves your reflexes and ability to think strategically.

The inline remote already has two cracks in it. I do not know where or how they formed. I have only had the headset for 1 month and have been careful with it. They do not affect the function of the headset but nevertheless it is annoying.

The quality of the USB audio is terrible. So make sure that you only use it for voice chatting when hooked up to a PC. So if your PC doesn't have an optical out get an adapter or a sound card that does have it.

I have had the headset for some time now and so feel I have used it enough to write a decent review of it. The surround sound is kind of meh I have a hard time still pin pointing where an explosion in Black Ops 2 came from, but the quality of the sound overall makes playing a much more pleasurable experience. This has two audio chipsets, one digital and one usb, the usb is detected natively even by Windows XP. However, the quality of the audio through the usb is quite low. The quality of the audio through the optical/digital is very good so make sure when it is used on a PC that it is plugged in and configured correctly or you will not get the best experience.

--Edit: 3/18/13

I just bought a second one so that I no longer have to swap the headsets between my PS3 and PC. I also can now have a friend use the second headset with me (since the digital box has two display port ports for the use of two headsets) if we are playing co-op or watching a movie together. No more having to turn off my headset to use the crappy tv speakers!

Honest reviews on TRITTON Pro+ 5.1 Surround Gaming Headset for Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4

First off, I'd like to state that I'm a competitive Call of Duty player, and headset purchase is one of the most important purchases besides monitors. I had one headset personally before this which were Tritton AX 720s from 2011. They lasted for about 2 years without problem. Recently that headset now causes static through the output of my voice, so I had to buy a new one considering my team mates were getting very annoyed. I had tried the A40s for a couple weeks, which are a great headset. I didn't want to spend $250 on a headset, so instead I looked into these Tritton Pro+. I can tell you all honestly that this headset is better than the A40s in sound quality and sound control. One big thing is that I can customize the sound from each speaker channel, making my sub a little lower than the actual speakers due to the loud explosions. They also have a button (DRC) for heightening the sound of quieter things (ie. footsteps in CoD) and lowering the sound of loud things (ie. explosions in CoD.) The true 5.1 SS is out of this world.

Ratings(Worst 1 10 Best):

Sound Quality: 10 Best The sounds are so crisp, I have found sounds I have never heard before in Call of Duty.

Sound Control: 10 Best Easily mute in-game sounds with one button, mute voice is one switch. And volume control from each speaker is amazing, like I sid above.

Out Voice Quality: 8 High Only put an 8 because my friends say I can get very loud with this mic. This may be due to using the previous mic and no one ever hearing me due to the wires messing up.

In Voice Quality: 10 Best Never miss a word from any of my team mates.

Toughness: 9 Highest They aren't as malleable as the A40s, as those are able to be twisted and moved all over. These are a lot more sturdy though and won't break unless your a careless person. I take amazing care of my electronics, and this headset is no worry. Although I would like to see Tritton make a stand that comes with the headsets, since I'm making my own stands from items around the house.

Comfortability: 8 High The previous Trittons I had were a little more comfortable, but only because it was a bigger headset. They didn't grip to my head as much, causing them to slide. The new headset (Pro+) are a little more tight, though it is new and may form more to my head. They don't move on my head at all during movement. The leather on the ear pads is amazingly comfortable. I was worried being so used to cloth there. I sweated more with the cloth ones than the leather ones, so I really like these. In a 10 hour game session I just did yesterday, I never felt uncomfortable wearing them (I take them off every 3 games about, so about every 45 min to and hour, in order to grab a drink, smoke a cig, let the dogs out, or etc..) They are a tiny bit heavier than the A40s, and I have found those to be the most comfortable headset, I've worn.

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This headset is very good for FPS games, especially Call of Duty.

Playing MW3, you can hear the enemy footsteps accurately.

I recommend everyone playing FPS.

Buy Xcom Enemy Unknown: Elite Soldier Pack DLC

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $4.99
Sale Price: $2.49
Today's Bonus: 50% Off

X-COM Enemy Unknown Elite Soldier Pack is basically worthless:

1. The (official as opposed to Amazon's) description of what you get (quoted below) is deliberately misleading to fool you into thinking that you are getting more than you are really getting, which I find at least unethical. Amazon's description is a bit more 'honest' though not entirely. Here's what the official description says (my comments in brackets, and you can find the official description on the publisher's site as well as on Steam):

"Customize your squad with three new bonus items [OK, this part is kind of true].

Instantly unlock a new recruit in your barracks inspired by the original X-COM: UFO Defense [MISLEADING you are not getting any new recruits, what you are getting is a single additional haircut inspired by the original X-COM].

Outfit your soldiers with specialized armor upgrades including the new Hyperion and Reaper soldier armor kits [MISLEADING you are not getting any armor upgrades, there are no new research-able armor upgrades, there are only two additional armor SKINS see #2 below for details].

Customize your soldiers' appearances with a variety of colors and tints for all armor sets [This is the only thing that is true here].

2. Modifiable armor skins they call 'upgrades' are for low-end armors only (your basic body armor, Carapace and Skeleton armors can be made to look less flimsy). The midto high-end armors are not modifiable (except for the color). You also get one "retro" hairdo a la X-COM UFO Defense and three helmet skins (these are just skins with no intrinsic properties), but I find the ability to hide the soldiers' faces inside those helmets useless as using helmets makes all soldiers look the same and they lose their unique faces, hair styles and skin colors.

So if you buy this pack all you really get is the ability to apply something like 30 color tints to the existing armors. AND, to be thorough, most of the color tints are hideous neon-glow like. Do you want your assault troopers to look like Barby dolls or beer promo neon signs? The only colors that are actually usable and make your soldier armors look bad-ass are solid ones such as black, red, khaki, white, orange. So you are not even getting the 30 color tints they offer as you will never use 25 of them.

I suppose it could be useful and cool to make all your assault troopers orange, heavies green, support (medics) white and snipers red (that's how I have them colored anyway, you may want other tints) but I am not sure the ability to color-code your soldier classes is worth the price tag, unless you simply want to support the developer... BUT considering how they misinform you in the product description to swindle the five bucks out of you, I don't think you should support them.

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As people have said, the description of this item is a little misleading. 1. You do not get a new recruit, you only get a new hairstyle (which is rather silly, but is a throwback to old XCOM games), and 2. You do not get new armor to research that gives you new stats.

The description really should be rewritten, since it clearly was written incorrectly. That said, I'm going to review what you ARE getting, because in spite of the description being misleading, a LOT of these user reviews are misleading as well.

Not every game has a lot of customization options. I was already impressed to an extent with XCOM because you can change your soldiers' faces, hair, race, skin, voice, etc. Basically, this pack adds a lot more customization. True, you don't get new armor types (that add stats), but you are given the option to change most if not all armor types to look differently. Of all the armor types I have so far, each has one or two different versions, which either add more bulk to the armor or change it completely. People were saying that late game armor has no customization, and that is totally incorrect. I'm using the Titan armor (a heavy late game armor) and there is a customization for it that makes it look sort of like an EOD suit. Perhaps certain other late game armors do not have customization options (Ghost and Psi armor, maybe), but all the other armors do, and ALL armors are recolorable.

Beyond changing the structure of your armor, you're given 32 colors to change your armor. All of the scathing reviews of this pack call all of the colors except for a few "badly colored Power Ranger colors" when this is totally and completely false. For reference, here is a list of the 32 colors available (I'll capitalize the neon colors):

Pale Orange (Olive accents)

Pale/Steel Blue (Khaki accents)

Normal, non-Neon Green (Other shades of green accents)

Normal, non-Neon Orange

White/Silver (Black accents)

Crimson/Deep Red

Pale Chartreuse (Not neon, despite the color)

Light Blue (Brown accents)

Dark Olive Drab (Very pale green accents)

Black (White accents)

Dark Blue (White accents)

Dark Purple

NEON Purple

NEON Pink

Black (Yellow accents)

Yellow

Dark Pale Blue

NEON Red (Yellow accents)

NEON Blue (Yellow accents)

Pale Red (Pale blue accents)

Purple/Blue (Orange accents)

Dark Teal (Dark brown accents, one of my favorites)

Pale Yellow (Khaki accents)

NEON Purple (NEON green accents)

NEON Pink (NEON turquoise accents)

NEON Orange (NEON purple accents)

Green (Brown accents)

Silver Blue

Grey/Light Khaki (White accents)

Khaki (Lighter khaki accents)

Pale Green (Lighter green accents)

Black (Grey accents)

As you can see, out of 32 colors, only 7 are "neon Power Ranger" colors, which I think is completely reasonable. The neon colors are still fun sometimes, depending on the soldier (not every solider has to be drab and boring) and the general fantasy/sci-fi feel of the game (aliens, giant laser/plasma guns, etc). There are only a few colors besides those 7 that may be a little too colorful for everyone, but in general the colors are pretty muted and clean looking. People are just sore about paying more than they wanted to when they bash the color choices.

A final thing this DLC adds are hat and helmet options. There are two berets (one with sunglasses), a baseball cap with a headset, a beanie with a headset and goggles, and nine different full face helmets, some of them very cool. A very nice addition when you want to change your soldiers up. I've seen people complain that your armor customizations are lost when your solider is injured (or dies, duh), but that is an automatic game design feature that unequips your injured soldiers so that you can use their equipment for your non-injured soldiers. It only takes a few clicks to get your customizations back once your soldiers are back in action, so that's really a pointless complaint.

In conclusion, this is a great customization pack for the game. $5 really isn't much to pay, but if the content isn't worth that to you, wait for a sale. I picked this up for about $1.50 in a Steam sale.

Best Deals for Xcom Enemy Unknown: Elite Soldier Pack DLC

The description of the DLC makes it seem you are opening some new armor upgrades and a special recruit. You are not, this dlc is for customizing the armor you already have. That's about it.

Honest reviews on Xcom Enemy Unknown: Elite Soldier Pack DLC

The developer should spend more time adding content and less time coming up with slick marketing to sell sub par addons. I felt the description of the DLC was extremely deceptive

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This DLC should be half the price it is. It only allows the ability for you to customize the armor and helmets/retro haircut on the soldiers. Now I do think this is a nice added feature and most may find it so when viewing your soldiers on the map if you made them all a different color. Other than that nothing else is really added.

Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Review

Customer Ratings:

It seems these days we gamers get inundated with HD remakes and remasters all the time, most of which amount to nothing more than bare-boned ports slapped with some up-rez paint and stretched to widescreen and, most importantly, the price of a brand new game. Until now, those seemed like adequate, maybe even "good" efforts. Not anymore. Developers of the world, start taking notes; THIS is how you do a truly awesome, worthwhile remake. 343 Industries was not content to lazily shove a ten-year-old game into your face with no substantial updates and call it a remake, using manipulative, fancy terms like "HD" and "remastered." No, instead they opted for something much more grand, and much more glorious. There's a lot to cover here about Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, so I'll get right to the campaign. If you don't like long reviews, tough, don't read this one. Halo CE is too great to be confined to a short, anemic review, and this version deserves a lot of detail. I make no apologies for that. I'll tell you right now, this is an absolutely incredible deal at $40 (it would be a great deal at $60!). Halo fans rejoice, the developers have heard your cries and answered them in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary!

Full disclosure: I am a single-player campaign first, co-op second, competitive multiplayer third/last, kind of guy. Halo is about the only series I've ever actually cared playing competitive multiplayer for. I've sunk countless hours into all iterations of Halo multiplayer, including the original. That been said, I play video games almost exclusively for the immersion and story, and this game was a revelation for me ten years ago. Halo: CE's campaign is legendary, second to none in terms of sci-fi epics, and it is what I will give the most attention to in this review. However, for you multiplayer enthusiasts, I will try to be as detailed there for you too. Here we go...

I never thought I'd finding myself saying this, but Halo: Combat Evolved now has graphics and art design that at least matches, and in some areas surpasses, Halo's best past efforts. Well, sort of. You see, there are two engines ever present while you play. The new anniversary engine that 343i and their partner developers created adds a whole new layer of delicious, high fidelity visual goodness that, surprisingly, surpasses even Halo Reach's phenomenal graphics engine at times. The original Halo had ground breaking visuals at the time of its release, and really gave the epic story a feeling of grandeur and scope rarely seen before or since in a sci fi video game. Now, once again, I'm finding myself in absolute awe at the scope and sheer beauty in this game. This is true when looking at the broad picture down to the tiniest details. From the incredibly striking, sexy Mjolnir Mk. V armor that has a pristine green sheen, to the glowing projectiles (which are independent light sources and look really dynamic lighting up the world as they fly), to the way grenades dynamically shower the scene with glowing cinders, to the barrage of sparks when bullets ricochet, to the updated enemies (covenant and flood both look awesome!), to the updated marines, to the Halo ring itself in all its majesty (jaw-droppingly gorgeous sky-boxes and environmental vistas included), Halo Anniversary truly exceeds all possible expectations graphically. It does an awesome job staying true to the spirit and philosophy of the original's art design, while maintaining coherency with Halo's later sequels, while still making it all feel so new and fresh again. The art design in this game was always top-tier and spectacular and now, finally, it has the console power it needs to really shine through, and boy does it ever!

The new visuals here, from the graphical quality to the astounding art design, all add up to make that feeling of discovery and awe more strong than ever. I don't want to give away how they brought Halo's iconic levels into the year 2011, because you're in for a treat when you discover it all for yourself (again). In every conceivable way, each level in the campaign was recreated with a clear reverence for the source material, while greatly improving levels that generally weren't very beloved by the fanbase (I'm looking directly at you Library!). I played the original Halo more times than I care to count, but this feels like I'm playing it for the first time. It's like falling in love all over again. Hit "back" on your controller and "classic mode" activates, transporting you back in time to the original engine entirely, graphics and all, and it is very striking to see how far technology has come in a mere ten years. It's also amazing to see that pretty much the only thing "dated" about the original Halo: CE is its graphics. "Classic mode" is a great feature.

It is also worth noting that in "Anniversary mode," they redid the cutscenes to make the shots more effective, the animations more refined, and to enhance the overall story telling. Don't worry though, there's no changes to the story like stupid "Greedo shooting first" moments injected in. We all know Master Chief shoots first. >:D They DID add really cool motion comic terminals (ala Halo 3) that connect all of the existing (but mainly Combat Evolved) Halo games into the upcoming new Reclaimer trilogy, as well as really tell 343 Guilty Spark's own sad, poignant tale. These terminals are really well done, the way this new story is conveyed is awesome, and the story itself is, no surprise, extremely deep and well-written.

Some of the audio has also been redone for this release. The voice acting is the exact same as before, with the original recordings used and not even put through any processing or remixing, but everything else has been enhanced. Weapons retain the feel pretty much the same as they did way back when, but they also now sound a lot more powerful and have way more oomph to them. It's an amazing feat to retain the same spirit of a ten-year-old masterpiece, while actually improving on those old aspects and making them feel brand new again (a theme I have stressed throughout this review. It really is amazing how well they did this). My hats off to the audio director, who clearly poured his soul into this project. The musical score was also rerecorded with the Skywalker Symphony Orchestra, and it sounds spectacular. Again, it only enhances the original, but changes nothing. It's very respectful, and as a diehard Halo fan, I was most pleased playing this. If you don't like the new musical recording, there's a place in the main menu where you can activate the old soundtrack files. Yet another nice feature, no? The music and sound effects mesh beautifully well. The glee I feel listening to high fidelity 7.1 surround sound with my white Astro A40 Audio System with this game is unmatched. Amazing sound design for sure, but I expected no less from Halo. Even ten years ago, Martin O'Donnell's work in this particular aspect of the game was revolutionary and it still holds up masterfully, even today.

Well, those are the biggest changes to this version of Halo: CE's campaign. As I said earlier, the game has two engines. One is for visuals, and then there's the *always* present original engine dictating every sort of under-the-hood, coding related aspect of the game, with its entire gameplay glory still intact, warts and all. This can be both a great thing and a bad thing, depending on your perspective. The physics, the AI, the weapon values, the level design coding, and anything else related to gameplay is the exact same as you remember it, pixel for pixel. This includes glitches like freakishly deformed dead character models and jerky motions at times (I found these more humorous than detracting from quality). All the great/dumb tricks you could do in the original, you can do here. The ridiculous mini-mortar cannon pistol? It's here in all its glory. The levels are all exactly the same with the same layout you remember. The Assault Rifle has 60 rounds and is a beast; by far its most powerful iteration of all the Halo series. Grunts flee in terror when their leader is taken out.

I could go on and on, but the point I'm trying to make is that Halo CE pretty much defined how a FPS should play on a console, rivaling even a PC's place as the go-to location for FPS gameplay. 343i respects that, and so changed nothing about the gameplay; it is FPS perfection for console. The amazing thing is that when combined with the new visuals and audio, it feels like a brand-spankin-new game, and even today could be a game-of-the-year champion, EVEN among all the heavy hitters that this year boasts. New additions like never-before-seen skulls and co-op over Xbox live are just cherries on top of this awesomesauce-drenched sci-fi cobbler.

I personally do not have a Kinect or 3-D capable television, so I cannot speak as to the quality of those features in this review. However, if as much work was put into implementing those things as there was put into literally everything else in this game, well, I think you Kinect/3-D enthusiasts will more than likely have a lot to enjoy here.

The multiplayer also got a lot of love. There are six multiplayer maps remade beautifully from Halo CE, Halo PC, and even one classic from Halo 2. There's also one firefight map added from the campaign (along with a brand new chance to play firefight with friendly AI-controlled ODSTs). These are all played in Reach's engine, and you can download them onto your system to play from Reach directly, or you can just play these maps from the menu on the screen. The thing is, the developers really worked hard so that from the menu, you can select playlists that perfectly emulate the classic Halo CE multiplayer from the old days, played on the classic maps you remember. When playing in these classic playlists, I feel like a 13/14-year-old again, at the good ol' LAN parties, with big, clunky SD televisions, playing Halo CE multiplayer all night long with my friends and their friends. It's awesome! They also made one variant to each of these maps so that, if you want, you can play them utilizing Reach's style of multiplayer, armor abilities and all. So technically, there are TWELVE maps here and again, these maps are great whether playing in "classic" playlists or ordinary "Reach" playlists. With such drastic differences in gameplay possibilities between those two, this equality in greatness is no small feat. Great job 343! I honestly wish more developers cared about their fans so much.

I could really go on forever about this version of what is easily one of my favorite games of all time. I was very skeptical when I heard they were developing a remake of this game, but Anniversary does not disappoint one tiny bit. I really didn't think they could refine such a classic masterpiece, but by god, 343 Industries, as well as Saber Infinity and Certain Affinity, did what I honestly felt impossible and actually made this classic feel new again! Let me be clear here; the developers were clearly cogniscant of Halo's massive shoes, and so respectfully recreated the experience perfectly while refining all aspects that had aged, namely visuals and audio, while adding some supplementary story (terminals) and gameplay (skulls) elements. They did a fantastic job. Even if you don't like the changes, classic mode essentially wipes them all away and you can enjoy Halo in all its original glory, now in widescreen and HD resolution. My golden standard for faithful, enhanced remakes are The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Star Fox 64 3D, Final Fantasy IV (DS), Klonoa, and now Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary. I challenge any and all developers to top these games in terms of remake greatness, but I know most will fail. This is magic in electronic form. Buy this game! Better yet, buy it NEW and *reward/encourage* 343 Industries for actually improving on perfection! Buy it, devour it, and once again, LOVE IT!

My feelings on 343 Industries taking over Halo: "I think we're just getting started..."

Update 12/12/11, I would like to take this opportunity to present my own opinions on the pricing and multiplayer issue people seem to be having:

Historically, for the typical price of $10, you can have access to three-four new maps for Reach. Three multiplayer matchmaking maps, maybe one firefight map, and no new playlists. That's it.

Halo 3: ODST, was originally $60 for essentially a 4-6 hour expansion campaign, firefight, and three exclusive new multiplayer matchmaking maps for Halo 3, as well as the entirety of Halo 3's multiplayer suite (all of which most people had shelled out tons of money for already). Bungie themselves stated it was only worth the price of an expansion, the publishers thought differently. Sixty bucks...

Halo Anniversary's entire multiplayer can be bought by itself and played entirely through Reach for $15 off of the Xbox Live Marketplace... Let's see here, if you buy Halo Anniversary in its entirety for $40, that means you're essentially paying $15 of that for a new firefight map with exclusive new friendly AI capability (which is basically like having AI buddies in campaign who will use turrets effectively, and are great to have if you strategically play with them in mind). You also get *SIX* classic maps beautifully recreated for matchmaking. You could say TWELVE since each map was tweaked (new pathways, ramps, paths, etc) to compliment the type of gameplay Reach's multiplayer offers. They also offered certain gametypes and playlists that do very closely emulate the classic multiplayer gameplay of the original (if not perfectly). Some of the "classic gameplay" ones show up as vote options mixed with Reach gameplay. So really, is $15 for the multiplayer so outrageous?

That means, if my first-grade math serves me correctly, the campaign is $25. Yes, $25 for one of the most influential, highly praised video game campaigns of all time (and one that is easily 8 or 9 hours long if you rush, 10-12+ if you take your time. I've probably sunk at least 25-30 hours into this version alone because of its high replayability factor), with major visual and audio overhauls, as well as widescreen for the original, many new control options, much better cinematics, 3-D capabilities, pretty substantial additions with Kinect, achievements, co-op over Xbox Live (It works FINE, I've played many times over Live, sometimes as host, sometimes not, it never stuttered for me once), really cool side-story via stylish motion comic terminals (that gives hints for Halo 4, another plus), inventive and fun new skulls, classic mode itself, and a slew of other features... Is $25 so unfathomable for something that had so much work put into it?

And for that matter, is it so offensive and outrageous for this package to garner high-praise? I'm seeing *very* snobbish reviews and comments all over the place, by people that are offended that others would rate this package so highly... I mean, really?! C'mon people... do I really need to reiterate the fact that here, a 5-star is defined by the phrase "I love it?" The 5-star reviews here are by people who loved this game, why hate on them and put them down for that fact? I just don't understand people who want to dictate to others what they can and cannot like/love simply because the product didn't fulfill their every wish and whim. That in itself is absurd. Reviews are subjective to the reviewers' opinion, it's a very simple fact.

Honestly, I think the campaign is worth $40 by itself, but no, it's $25 (and as of June 6th, 2012, it's a mere $15!), along with a $15 multiplayer, which, by the way, is a steal of a deal at $15 if you compare its value to Halo's history of map pack content and prices. So please, stop with the complaining, and show a little reason. All of this about multiplayer was clearly explained beforehand. The outrage and snobbish cynicism is getting more than a little old.

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Usually I don't get excited for remakes. This one, in fact, I ordered simply so I could run the original Halo on a 360 without emulation. I honestly wasn't expecting a lot--but I sure got it!

The campaign is, simply put, awesome. It looks SO much better than the original, but at the same time it plays just the same. This isn't just some half-baked 'slap some new paint on it' project--it feels like a brand new game. In addition to the makeover, Halo CE now includes skulls, which I like--especially the infinite ammo skull for those times when you just want to shoot stuff without worrying about conserving ammunition.

Multiplayer was a little bit of a disappointment for me, mostly for two reasons: my favorite multiplayer maps didn't make the cut, and I was hoping for the original Halo multiplayer experience instead of just Reach multiplayer on remastered CE maps. But that's not enough to dampen the experience. As I said, the multiplayer is with the Reach engine (you can download the Anniversary maps to play them within Reach, as a matter of fact), so if you get this game, don't get it just for the multiplayer--stick with Reach. If you get this, get it for the campaign--although the new Firefight map is also really cool.

Best Deals for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

I've not written a game review before, but I felt I had to this time because I really think this game is not only being underrated because of the multiplayer uproar, but a major factor for it being released in the first place is being completely overlooked. More on that below. I am a software engineer who has been playing computer/video games for 40+ years now (Pong, anyone?), and yes, I am that old. Of the hundreds of games I have played, the Halo series, and Halo CE in particular, easily ranks in my Top 10, probably Top 5. The reason? Its campaign gameplay is virtually unmatched for depth of play, difficulty adjustment, engaging storyline, audio/visual presentation, and on and on. It's just plain fun! I've played Halo CE numerous times over the years, either the full campaign or individual levels. I like Halo multiplayer as well and have spent much time online, but that's not the reason I buy the Halo games. I don't want to repeat what other 5-star reviewers have said about this game (I found the reviews by Relytia and Pyanfar Chanur to be particularly good), but I would like to make some additional comments that will hopefully tie things together for potential buyers wanting to know what to expect from this game.

First, the Anniversary campaign uses the same gameplay software as the original game a huge money & time saver for developer 343 Industries. In consequence, the levels play exactly as before, with the same enemies in the same locations, and even the same checkpointing system. This latter may be a shock to those who have never played the original since you cannot save whenever you want, but I actually approve of it since it forces you to be a little less cavalier about dying. Since I consider Halo CE to be the best of the Halo games, I am very happy with the decision NOT to try to remake the game as some sort of Halo Reach clone. Note that this does not mean that 343i could not tweak the gameplay, because a lot of game mechanics are buried in easily accessible external data tables and hence are not updates to the software itself (this does not include the new skulls or terminals, which require some software support). I have played 3 levels at different difficulty settings and though it might be my imagination, I cannot shake the feeling that gameplay has been tightened up a bit for example, I get the impression that the assault rifle does more, and the needler less, damage than the original game. If so, kudos to 343i for taking the time to tune parameters that most players will never notice.

Second, the Anniversary campaign uses the Saber3D display engine, which not only renders game objects in 3D space (which all game rendering systems must do) but can also output them for use with a 3D display system. And this it does...Halo CE Anniversary in 3D is AWESOME! I play using a 60" plasma 3D TV, and playing in 3D ups the fun factor by orders of magnitude. I cannot adequately describe just how much more immersive the game feels in 3D. The 3D renditions of weapon, effect and character models merit particular applause. Now, for the first time, I can easily visually discern exactly when to use the assault rifle to melee a pesky Elite the 3D effect is that good and the animations can be distracting just watching them. Not to mention that the gore splatters are splattier and the explosions, uh, explodier. 3D has been largely overlooked or trivialized by most, if not all, reviewers here. Even the professional reviewers are guilty of this, and they do so at their peril. People resist change, but 3D is simply far too intuitive and far more natural to our stereoscopic-wired brains to be ignored.

Third, the 3D goodness extends to the sound domain as well. The remastered sound effects add considerably to the gameplay experience, for example the reverberating echo of the sniper rifle adds significantly to the illusion of a large-caliber, high-powered weapon. Best of all, in my opinion, is the increased localization in the surround sound stage of the voices. By and large the Covenant foes are a vocal lot, and the game makes especially good use of this in alerting you to the presence of enemies that are out of your line-of-sight, just before they open up on you. This 3D spatialization is so good, in fact, that it prompted me to replay the first couple of levels without referring to the motion tracker (consciously, at least), using only audio cues to react to the unseen. Not only was it surprisingly effective, it ratcheted up the tension level and gave game play a more realistic atmosphere. I can hardly wait to find the skull that disables the motion tracker completely! I highly recommend this experiment to all who play using surround sound systems.

So, put it all together and what do you get? 3D or no 3D, you get beautifully rendered characters and vehicles, light reflecting from overcharged plasma pistols and grenades, energy halos that expand out from Elites when their shields fail, sparkling richochets from missed assault rifle rounds, plasma grenades that audibly hiss through the air as they arc toward you, trees with bark and moss, rocks with granulated faces, waterfalls with spray/spume, snowflakes you think you can grab, dust clouds forming behind your racing Warthog, just to name a few. True, the passage of time has not been particularly kind to the unchanged AI, and there are other 10 year old idiosyncracies as noted in other reviews, but you are still (re)playing what I think is one of the best FPS campaigns ever committed to DVD.

And oh yes, IMO the 3D implementation contained herein is a major reason, if not the major reason, why this game was given the green light in the first place. Think about it, a major game title just begging for a facelift, practically free gameplay software, a 10 year anniversary marketing opportunity, and the next iteration of a huge franchise looming on the horizon. Talk about serendipity. I suspect this game is the proof-of-concept of next-gen graphics for Halo 4 and beyond, and a good indication why the Halo series will continue to be console-centric. Console developers are well aware that one of their biggest advantages over the PC is the immersion factor of their games, and a 3D game played on a big-screen TV with a home theater 5.1 surround system simply cannot be matched by a PC. Further, I predict that this game will prove to be the 3D benchmark by which other 3D-aspiring console games will be measured, in much the same way that the original Halo CE became the benchmark for console FPS games. I've played Crysis 2 and GoW3 in 3D and they are simply not in the same league. Ironically, one of the main reasons for this is the relative simplicity of the Halo CE game world as a consequence of using the original game's software, ie. scenes with relativly fewer and/or well-spaced objects tend to project a much better defined 3D depth that heavily cluttered scenes. Games such as Halo Reach, which is both much more cluttered and is heavy on textures, bump-mapping and the like, provide a much busier looking and more realistic-seeming environment, but one which is much more problematic for a 3D display engine. There are solutions, but they require more horsepower than the current generation consoles can provide. Does this mean we can look forward to a next-generation Xbox console timed to the release of Halo 4? Talk about deja vu! And if so, you heard it here first.

As I was saying, this 'cleaner' game world lends itself to 3D on current-gen hardware a big bonus to 343i no doubt, and the 3D imaging itself has other consequences. For one, some reviewers have commented (positively or negatively) on the brighter, more varied color palette and increased color saturation as compared to the original game, these are all requirements for good 3D presentation. Crysis 2 and GoW3 both suffer in this regard, and though GoW3 is noticeably brighter, it's not enough. For another, dynamic lighting (ie. reflections and shadows) is key to good 3D when there is motion involved, again, other reviewers have commented on how much improved the lighting and shadow effects are. An example of this concession to 3D is the outdoor portion of the Truth And Reconciliation level, which is far brighter than the original, to the point that the 'flashlight illumination' of the sniper rifle in no longer really necessary. Darkness absolutely kills 3D depth perception is still the single biggest problem with military night vision equipment so I predict the other 'dark' levels will also be brighter. In the 3D FPS gaming future, I expect that dark/night environments will be handled differently than daytime, perhaps using something akin to the Halo 3:ODST VISR mode.

Finally, to those reviewers who have dissed the release of Halo CE Anniversary for its multiplayer component, I feel your pain, but unlike the game software, the original multiplayer code would have to be essentially rewritten in order to take advantage of the current (Bungie) network architecture. The additional time and cost are significant, and from the 343i point of view there would be nothing to be gained, future-wise. As other reviewers have noted, 343i made no bones about the fact that a full re-imagining of the multiplayer component of Halo CE was not on the table, hence the next-best-thing-to-free port of the Halo Reach multiplayer component into Halo CE Anniversary. I know it's not much consolation now, but after all, you didn't have to shell out 60 bucks, and if I'm right about this game being a preview of what's to come, then the future of Halo is looking pretty bright, multiplayer included :)

Honest reviews on Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Allot of people spent many hours playing the multi player maps with each other and that I would say is a big reason people sprung the money for this release, to get the experience they had with the original (thats how it was sold to us) only its all in HD. Well its INCOMPLETE since its missing original multi-player maps and its a rip-off that the multi player experience is all REACH Hell I don't like Reach and expected when I paid my hard earned cash for this remastered original to play just like we remembered....anything other than that is deceiving and a let down. FAIL

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Please, PLEASE, do not base your decision or review on this game on the negative reviews that complain it doesn't have classic multi-player. These people do not know how to write a negative review on a product. They give it one star, because they did not take the time to read what was on the box, and what features it has (or doesn't, in there case) so when they got they game, expecting something that was NEVER, EVER, advertised to begin with. Did they review the campaign? No. Did they review the maps for Reach that were included? No. They pop it in, load multi-player, see that its maps for reach, and freak out. This is not CoD, where you pay $60 every year for the same game, and even same maps.

When you write a negative review, write what the flaws in the product were, and how it can be improved. Do not write a negative review about something the product never said it was going to do. That's like me writing a review about say, a shoe, and giving it one star because I didn't like the color of it when the construction and quality was fine. Common sense, kids.

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This is a great game. It was 10 years ago, it is now. You are paying $40 for the re-mastered campaign, and some Multi-player maps from the old days to play in Halo: Reach. You CAN play two player co-op on system link, split screen, and now XBL.

THERE IS NO CLASSIC, REMASTERED MULTI-PLAYER.

THERE NEVER WAS.

THEY NEVER SAID THERE WOULD BE.

CAMPAIGN ONLY.

The DLC on XBL is $15. So, the game Retails at $40 (MSRP). You are paying $25 for the Campaign (with some new content like Skulls and terminals) and $15 for the DLC for Reach. The game comes with a code for the new maps so that you can save them to your xbox and play them with the Reach disk in, so you can play all the maps you have. You can only play the new maps off the disk.