Halo 3 - Still hooked on this bad boy. Have been playing it consistenly for about six months now and gets the most play on my 360.

Madden 09 – A bit here and there, mostly for review, have been playing this game with some friends.

Too Human – This game has been played about 13 hrs by me since wednesday which is crazy for me because no game has hooked me that much for a long while and certainly everyone has heard the good and bad about this game but I will speak about this more in my review later on.

World of Warcraft – Yes, I have been hooked on WoW. For the past year and a half it has been one of my most played games. I will take a couple months off but always for a month or two it will be constant WoW. I am working on my first real character, a  warlock who is lvl 37, and it has certainly picked up.

That’s about it for right now I will certainly update what i’ve been playing next week.

The first thing that certainly jumps out at you during gameplay is the graphics because in 09 it looks they redid a lot of the models for the players, stadiums, even the grass looks greener, but this time not on the other side. The jerseys look spot on, the sidelines look good, and the crowd is fine as well. The stadiums all look so detailed and can definitly tell that EA took their time with this area. There is another area where they have certainly taken their time and did correctly; the weather. The snow effects look so great when going quarter by quarter and build up on the grass as well as on the uniforms. Rain falls and starts making small puddles which can cause some fumbles here and there. They have really worked on this department for 09 and it is a big stepup.

The gameplay has stepped up it’s game ( no pun ) a bit as well. It certianly jumps the running game as well as the passing game too. The superstar abilities have also made another round and most have been tweaked a bit so some as to not be too overpowered. The passing game feels like it’s been fine tuned and no longer can you just go back 20 steps and throw and long bomb and actually get it connected. The QB has to now plant his feet for the pass to have a better chance of completing the pass. The running game doesn’t feel as well improved as the passing but there have been some tweaks here and there. Running backs no longer just pass thru your linemen they actually have better animations and jump over players on the floor or juke out incoming players with the rightstick. It doesn’t feel like a big improvement over 08 but it feels refined and certainly better than before.

The game is certainly something that people who enjoy football, madden games, or sports in general should go ahead and give it a rent or go out and buy the thing. The online play still feels the same as the previous versions but with the online leagues element which isn’t as good as the 2k Sports counterpart but it certainly something that should have been in in for a couple years now. Franchise mode is back and is for the most part, the same as 08. If you are one of those people who buy Madden every couple of years because the improvements aren’t as great, buy 09 as it has to be the best next-gen Madden game yet. It doesn’t have the big flash of hundreds of new features but it has the polish of a great football title and definitely worth a look.

Final Score – 9.0

The question some people have is why should I play this when COD4 or Halo is more than enough, well this the graphics of BC are a great place to start. Like I said before, you can just look at the game being played and it will make you excited to give it a go. The areas in the game look great especially after blowing up a wall or two. EA is basically marketing the new Frostbite engine and they surely make great use of it in Bad Company. Taking a grenade launcher and blowing up the side of a house and seeing the rocks and debris fall is a great site to see. You might think that a vast game such as this will have some drop in visuals in multiplayer but it looks just as good and doing that with up to 24 players online is really quite amazing. The vehicles all look good as well as the weapon models. The player models themselves in single player all are very detailed with each character having distinct looks, while on multiplayer they are very similar but that is ok when you have so much going on you tend not to notice all that much. The way the battlefield itself shows signs of battle such as houses torn apart leaving only support beams or the ground filled with craters of tank and grenades blasts really show how great this engine is.

If every game has a star quality then the sound in Bad Company is just that. To find out just how good the game is in this department all you have to do is stand in a house and start shooting and blowing out the walls and you will instantly see how great the game is. I have a surround sound system and it feels just like you’re in that room with shells falling on the ground and concrete being blasted all around you. Walk into a tank and you will hear the shots shooting right past you or at you if your unlucky. The sound has to be just about the best I have heard in any game because of that fact that so much in the game is happening at once and every single thing can be heard very well and it’s so precise. 

Being a long time Battlefield fan I was somewhat weary of this game for the fact that it was going to be on consoles firstly, even though Modern Combat was as well but to me that was not a good game. Battlefield was always a game that it felt just right with a mouse and keyboard and was a bit apprehensive to not have that but my concerns were thrown right out the window when I got a hold of the beta and seems to actually be much better in the final product. The game handles right, while there is a learning curve, it’s not something that will really make you “hate” the game because in a game that has so many things going on in the battlefield (no pun intended) you expect that. The bumpers control the cycling thru the weapons / items and you have the triggers for firing weapons and such. The control can be compared to most console shooters but with some tweaks here and there. 

The game is a smooth experience all the way around. From spawning online then jumping in a tank as well as arming a gold case with your explosive, it all works very smoothly. You can pick from different classes in the multiplayer such as assault, support, recon to name a few. The class system has been a big part of the Battlefield franchise and it shows in this as well as you have your basic solider then you got your snipers for long range battle and support providing the med packs and fixing those broken down vehicles you need so badly. It takes only a bit to get used to each class and everyone will be able to find one that they enjoy the most or are the best at. The only mode that you will be able to play at first is called Gold Rush and is basically, depending on which side you are on, has you either defending a base with two gold crates that the attackers are trying to destroy so that they can gain more reinforcements (lives) so that they can move on the next base to keep it going until there are no crates left. It can provide a very fun time especially with the different maps available in the game. A con for me is that it is the ONLY mode which might deter some from the game and might become stale after some time but EA has said they will be adding more game modes in upcoming patches such as the Battlefield favorite ‘Conquest’ so look out for that. 

Overall the game is a very fun summer blockbuster type game to get into in a somewhat shallow good online FPS shooter market. Sure COD4 and Halo are still very popular but with no real map packs coming out for some time in either game some gamers that might be clamoring for another online shooter should definitely look at Bad Company. The story mode will be a fun 7-10 hrs depending which difficulty you play on and then the online will have you playing for days and days. The number of maps in the game provide for the experience not to be stale to early on and with the promise of new modes and certainly more maps in the form of DLC, this game should be a great game to play during the hot summer and should have you keeping cool in the summer months indoors.

Final - 8.7

The review should be out sometime before Sunday not exactly sure when but it will be up this weekend. Go check it out on XBLM.

I really hope if you are indeed reading this that you will continue to visit every so often and check it out. Thanks for your time all.