Xbox 360 Review- Skyrim

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Or at least a few days after X-mas. I got an Xbox! Yay! More modern reviews, starting off with a behemoth of a game called The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim!

Skyrim is a huge fantasy land in the nation of Tamriel, and the whole idea of Skyrim is to see how would you live your life in this place, as a legendary adventurer, in the dragons tongue, known as Dovakiin (Dragonborn! FUS RO DAH!) LOL. You have options ranging from joining an assassin's guild, becoming a Werewolf, disguising as a guard, becoming a serial killer, to much more that serve as positive role-models (Lol, actually, you can do some good things too, like rescue people and beat-up bad guys). For parents reading this review, Skyrim is OKAY to give to a teenage youth if they can separate fantasy from reality. This game may not be suitable for ages under 12 due to occasional swearing, violence, and ideas of fantasy life. For kids who imitate everything they see on a T.V. , you may want to wait until they mature a bit. But getting on, Skyrim is the best single-player game for anyone willing to waste a little time.

Gameplay (9.8): Skyrim's gameplay is none other than addicting and fun. You will spend hours immersing yourself in make-believe places that feel real to you when your character has developed a personality. Skyrim is a FPRPG, which is short for, First Person Role Playing Game. You see out of your character's eyes like in Halo, or Call of Duty, but you wield swords, axes, bows, maces, magical spells and etc. in your hands instead of some kinda tricked out boom-stick. Combat is the meat of the gameplay, where you clash swords, snipe with bows, and stun with spells. It's actually incredibly deep gameplay with the combat, where choosing to wield a shield could make a difference between life and death. You have many options to attack, you could akimbo-wield daggers and go in for a cinematic killing spree, you could decimate everything in your path with a warhammer, or you could have a spell in one hand with a shield in the other. Each setup provides with different moves. You have a shield? Well bam! You have yourself some extra armor, ability to block well, and a shield bash! Dual swords? You have an amazing array of power attacks and killer cinematic animations, but oh no! YOU CAN'T BLOCK! Skyrim's gameplay with combat is very strategic to say the least, and that's not even all of the game play there is! There's lockpicking, alchemy, archery, smithing, and much more that I don't have time to talk about. The only flaw is that once you chose a style of playing, there's really no going back and it's hard to switch later in the game. It needs to feels less stiff.

Graphics (9.1): Skyrim's graphics are pretty nice. The landscapes are divine and the draw distance is pretty far. Shading is nice and armor is well detailed. I kind of have a problem with it though. A lot of the characters (especially kids) look stock. They all look like the same body type with different clothes and hair. They really need to upgrade the amount of customization to face details on their own NPCs. Dragonborn looks good, but Braith and Lars look practically the same LOL.

Music (9.5): The trailer's music for "Song of The Dragonborn" was phenomenal. The rest of the music in the game was just pretty good. Nothing more to say about it except that it's mostly ambient. Not during combat though, it sounds like the "Duel of Fates" song from Star Wars III when you are kicking Bandit butt.

Controls (9.2): The game controls just as well as regular FPS games but maybe even more, like when you're riding on a horse and shooting a bow. I thought there would be limitations on that! Drawbacks are few though, since in 3rd person, it's a little hard to do combat. Also, it's kind of weird to use Y as jump. Speaking of which, jumping is a little clunky.

Fun(10): THIS IS THE FIRST TEN A GAME HAS RECEIVED! YAY! Skyrim is the ultimate drug for anyone's want to be immersed in a fantasy RPG. Even when you're done questing, you can go mammoth hunting, annoy towns people, or throw cabbages at horses! IT'S AWESOME! There's nothing like that feeling of taking out a whole encampment of Stormcloak soldiers without being detected!

Result... 9.5/10 (A)

Skyrim gets a solid A. It's addictive, immersing, fun, and intense. Perfect for a casual gamer on the verge of being a hardcore one. But it's hard to be satisfied after you're done playing Skyrim for the day, there's always one more camp of bandits to take out with a... FUS RO DAH!

This is Jeff for 1-Up Games.com! CYA!

Top Ten Most Underrated Moves In Pokemon (10-6)

If there's fanboys in the gaming world, there's gonna be things that go unnoticed. There's a HUUUGE fanboy following for Pokemon. With this, there's going to be things overrated, leaving space for things to become underrated. In this case, moves. Hyper Beam would be a thing that's overrated. But let's look at the underrated part, the part that's actually good but is not as widely used as it should be.

Number 10: Confuse Ray

Wow. Confuse ray is not bad. It's got 100 accuracy, a good 10 PP and the defending Pokemon becomes confused. WAAAY better than swagger. I guess the reason we don't see much of confuse ray is because it's mostly a level up move. BUT WHATEVER YOU DO, DON'T GET RID OF CONFUSE RAY. It's very good. Very annoying to the foe as well. My Crobat's moveset is Sludge Bomb, Poison Fang, Fly, and Confuse Ray. It's the staple move of any troller in a team and should be used more often for how good it is.

Number 9: Silver Wind

Silver wind does lose points in some categories, but is pretty much amazing all around. Not many people go on and on about how good silver wind is, but it really is pretty good. It has 100 accuracy, 60 power, decent for a bug type move, and 10% of the time, it raises all of your stats. Only downside is only having 5 PP. Silver wind pretty much goes well with any specialization you're looking for, it boosts and does some modest damage.

Number 8: Leech Seed

Leech seed is a move some grass Pokemon learn at a low level. Remember to keep this gem of a move if you want to make a Pokemon a healer/supporter. Leech seed is incredibly annoying for your opponent and incredibly helpful for you. It drains 1/8 of the seeded Pokemon's maximum health and returns it to you. Effectively limiting that Pokemon's life to 8 turns. Then, just put up a light screen and reflect and giga drain away. Leech seed is versatile too. You could use it with disable, mean look, and giga drain to stop you foe in any way to escape the deadly leech seed. Not many people have this move in their party though and just delete it to make room for giga drain. Giga drain is good, but it's not as versatile and you don't gain health every turn after you use it in battle. On a last note, Leech seed is boss. NUFF SED.

Number 7: Helping Hand

Yes... Yes, I like helping hand. The average player would say: THIS SUCKS! I CAN'T USE IT IN SINGLE BATTLES AND IT DOES NOTHING WHEN I USE IT!

You are very wrong if you said something like that! Helping hand boosts the power of an ally's move by 50% and stacks the effect in triple battles for double damage! V-Create with 1 helping hand equals a move with 270 power. PRACTICALLY A ONE HIT-KILL. I don't know about you, but I'm going to get a Plusle and a Minun just for this in triple battles to pump up my Heatran's lava plume to the strength more than a hyper beam to everyone on the field!

But yeah... the sad part is you can't use it in single battles.

Number 6: Facade

Facade is a pretty nice move that comes from the normal type. The whole deal is that its power doubles from 70 (which is decent already) to 140 if the user has a major status ailment. Not many people use this just because its seen as a regular physical attack move, with above average power. Not many look into the advantages of Facade. A Pokemon with guts and facade is a great combo. If that Pokemon is paralyzed and uses facade, it attacks with 140 power and the user's attack is boosted from guts. Facade is probably one of the most useful attacks you can have under your belt using status ailments to your advantage. Too bad not many use it.

iOS Review- Tactical Warrior

Hi everyone, quick update before I get to the meat of this post. Top 17 Pokemon Types has been scrapped, but I have began development on a new Pokemon countdown to satisfy, Top 10 underrated moves in Pokemon. Sorry about less frequent updates. I got a life, remember? I sort of have school too... Lol. Anyway, time to get into business...

I've hardly seen any good adventuring party games on the iPhone. Besides Battleheart, Heroes vs. Monsters, and few others. Tactical warrior is as good as it gets. It goes for normally $1.99 on the app store, but this game goes on sale for free a lot for some reason... Besides the price and being a creative fire emblem-esque RPG, it still stands alone on innovation. There's quite a few classes to train and an incredible amount of moves each character can learn to your pleasure; it's a very custom growth on each character. Classes you may control and level up range from badgers to bare-chested barbarians. I need to get to the analysis though to actually get past my editorializing.

Gameplay (8.7): Wow. Very reminding of Fire Emblem. The premise is you start out with a small party of warriors, trying to prove themselves in a world of war. On the way, warriors join you to increase your team's power and size. On the map, you fight battles to level up your warriors and to give you wealth of items. Although you cannot replay a battle after it is beaten, which bothers me, not allowing me to level up my dudes before a boss, leaving me to work with what I got. The combat is turn-based. Each warrior may move a certain number of spaces each turn, attack, and/or rest. It's a square grid battlefield so the amount of space each warrior takes up is the same. Very classic gameplay, engaging, and always leaving me wanting to make Beef the barbarian an overly leveled tank. If you like any strategy, war, or board game, you'll applaud this game. Only a few problems in this department, such as not being able to beat a boss and having no ability to get stronger before and not really many intuitive maps. There's no weather effects or any spaces comparable to lava. They could have added to this. Also, the two player doesn't allow you to use your campaign teams and there's no internet multiplayer. A let down that needs to be changed, and still is changeable. What is still being offered at the moment is no question good though.

Graphics (6): Errr... bad. It looks like something made in ms paint. Shading is  nice and the game has a unique art style, but the animations are stock and the sprites are static, giving a feeling of lifelessness. There needs to be changes in this section. But I do like the style, it's just done badly.

Music (7.3): Loops are not bad and give a sense of heroic inspiration. Kind of short loops though. Sounds with hits and bashes are stock, but as expected from a one man development team. Not bad, but not good.

Control (9.5): Nice solid controls. Nothing amazing about them, but definitely minimal things bad. Such as the shops on the map, they're very tiny and it's kind of hard to select them with all of the locations bunched up together on the map.

Fun (9.2): Much fun is to be had here on this app. Very enjoyable, and just as it gets repetitive, a new mechanic or battle type is introduced.

Overall...8.1(B-)
I love this game and am very into it. It's pretty addictive and it is very fun to be introduced with new classes of warriors that can be customized 1,000 different ways than the last. It's not for everyone though. If you're particularly intro realistic graphics, multiplayer, and if you hate turn-based battle, don't get this app. Although, if you're looking for nostalgia, if you want a nice combat RPG, this app is for you. This is Jeff for 1-UP Games, catchya on teh flepsied. :D

PS2 Review: Tony Hawk's Underground

Auuugghh maaan... It's been a long time. Mostly because I'm busy with my life and I'm gaming so I have new material to write 'bout. Updates are Farticus is still being worked on, I'm starting yet another game project and a long awaited Pokemon Countdown is sadly still in the works. But I'd like to thank you all for reading my opinions. It really makes me feel good that other people enjoy reading my reviews and other forms of media. So thanks to the fans that keep coming to cheer me on in development of my stuff. Nuff of that though. Starting on something I should have played long ago...

Tony Hawk's Underground for the PS2 is a can't miss and is a minor reason for why you should buy the system alone. On that note, you probably think this is going to be a fanboy review. Trust me; I hated the game at points and couldn't get enough of it at others. But more on topic, Tony Hawk's Underground was an installment of the Tony Hawk skating game series that made Mr. Hawk incredibly rich and inspired many to go sever many a limb on skateboards. The game itself is actually not just a promo disc, the game is very entertaining and has a open-world feel to it. Unlike the previous games of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, this game is centered around you: a custom skater going from ghetto in Jersey, to a pro in Vancouver. I picked up this gem at the old Gamestop the other day for only 3 bucks. More than worth it my friend, I felt as if I was going to zero to hero as I progressed. But now it's breakdown time.

Gameplay (8.9): THUG keeps the gameplay of THPS but provides a freer feel and has an actual story this time. The levels are decently sized, but the negative is anytime you're on a huge combo and you accidently go out of bounds... Bye bye big score. I felt as if the levels were not large enough, but maybe I'm just being a little too critical. Where there's space in any of the 9+ levels, expect for there to be more just waiting to be uncovered in a gigantic combo. It also seems the locations were designed to be skated on... I mean, who has a ramp going up the side of skyscraper? I'll shut up for now on that though. The whole way you progress through the game is doing somewhat tedious tasks in certain areas. The only way the set in stone tasks feel fresh is making you do them in different locations. For example on the tasks, there's only about a few key tasks which code is ran over and over; collecting letters, collecting objects, big combos, big scores, preforming tricks asked and beating the clock. Even in the Create-a-park mode (which needs work but is cool) they let you create tasks and give you the basic formula for each of these. I could go on and on but I'm going to stop because this is pretty long. You get the idea though that this game has tones of gameplay and tones of ways to play.

Graphics (7): They don't really look too good. They look a teeny bit blocky and deformed, even sometimes blurry, but they're below standard for '03.

Music (9.5): EERRRR MAAAH GEEERRRD. Soooo goood muusssiccc... There's quite a small soundtrack list though so it does get repetitive to hear Fu Manchu's California Crossing 3 times in 1 hour, but that doesn't keep it from being an amazing song to get the skating blood flowing. The menu sounds for buttons and collisions are used over and over in different areas, but no one really doesn't care if they're rocking out to the Dropkick Murphy's Time to Go.

Controls (9): The dualshock 2 controller exhibits the different categories of tricks perfectly. You will know by the end of your first day playing the game that Flip=Square. Though one finger will have to find its way onto more than one button at a time at times.

Fun (9.2): Indeed, but the reoccuring goals get to me, like the devs were just lazy in the development. But having the ability to create your own tricks, parks, boards, and skaters makes this game extremely fun for you artists out there.

Result: Overall... 8.7 (B+)

Your character's phony lips moving are painful to watch, as so are a few of the cutscenes. (The one about the tape, with the elbow to the face.) But that doesn't make this game unplayable what so ever. Graphics need some dusting off and the soundtrack needs a few MOAR hits, but this game is probably the greatest skate sim for an old console you'll find out there. And for only 3 bones, the cost should be the magnitude of a stocking stuffer on christmas, but something you'll find to have tones of fun and frustrations with.