WipEout HD Review

WipEout HD is a fast and fun hovercar racer. In it you will need quick reflexes, good track knowledge, knowledge of all weapon and pickup types, and a good understanding of game mechanics just to keep up with the pack not winning a race. It is definetly a chalenging game and is not for the type that expects to pick up and whiz through quickly or the type that will easily give up because a game is too challenging.

The graphics are some of the best availible for any platform. The detail put into these ships and tracks is amazing and it all runs in 1080p 60 frames per second. The tracks look very futuristic and sometimes alien which is because the game takes place in the far far future where hovercars are readily availible. The music is mostly made up of electronic beats which are well selected and help imerse you in this fururistic setting.

The game consists of a main campaign, a racebox to customize a race, and online play. The main campaign is made up of these grids of hexagons and each hexagon is a different event. Most of these are locked until you complete an even ajacent to the hexagon. It starts off not to bad dificulty wise but the challenge increases extremly quickly which may lead to some frustration. Other then that though the campaign is very good and will likely last you a bit to complete.

The racebox lets you customize a race, from the track to the game mode, to the speed class. The different availble modes are the standard race, a race tournement, speed lap where you go for the fastest lap time possible, time trial, and zone which is a mode where your ship starts off slow and slowly picks up speed until it is uncontrolible and you crash your ship.

Online play is playing the game modes included in race box and letting you play with 7 other people over the internet. It is fun and even includes ranks that you progress through as you win races.

All in all WipEout HD is a difficult, chaotic, and fun racer that I recomend to anyone who likes racing games and is not afraid of a high difficulty.

Bejeweled Twist Review

I have recently bought the new Bejeweled game Twist, so I decided that for my second blog entry I would try to write a video game review. Try to keep in mind that this is my first writen game review.

I will start by explaining how I got into Bejeweled in the First place.

I got into Bejeweled when a free demo came on the Playstation Store for Bejewled 2 Deluxe. I liked it but I thought the lousy controls stopped me from really enjoing the game. At the time I didn't know that this game would end up eating away almost all of my free time.

Many months later I was on the ipod touch app store and saw an add saying that apple had almost reached a billion app downloads and that downloading apps will give you chances to win. So I went to the app store and looked at the most downloaded stuff. I had bought 2 games one was iDracula which a friend had recomended me buy, and the other was Bejeweled 2 because I had liked the gameplay of the PS3 demo but thought that touch controls were perfect for this type of game.

I launched up Bejeweled start up a game and play endless, the next thing I know 5 hours have passed. Later I ended up buying the deluxe version of Bejeweled 2 to get some extra gameplay modes and better graphics. A month or so later and I see a trailer of Bejeweled Twist.

I imediately think to my self, this new twist mechanic looks lame, it seems like popcap took the great gameplay that made 2 so fun and replaced it with a stupid overly complex gameplay idea. So yah I was pretty skeptical at the begining. So I downloaded the demo to try it out expecting to hate the game. At first I saw the game exactly as I thought to myself earlier, that it was not fun and overly complicated. Two hours after those first impressions I have become fast and efficiant with the twist mechanic. I am pulling off matches as quickly as I did on Bejeweled 2 and having a lot of fun doing it.

This Bejeweled has the standerard match 3 or more type gameplay but with some changes. Instead of switching 2 adjacent gems together you are twisting 4 in a clockwise direction, and you do not have to make a match each move you make. These changes seem lame at first but they quickly grow on you. The twisting mechanic makes you think more about your matches because you have to look for patterns of gems and figure out how to take advatage of them. It is hard to get used to but once you start it starts to feel more fun then the original game because of the extra thought required.

Being able to make moves without matches adds a level of stratagy to the game. You are still encouraged to make a match with each move by adding multipliers for for those who chain moves with matches An example of the stratagy this opens up is: you could make a match and continue your multiplier chain or you could set up the board for a massive cascade of gems.

The main game is split up into 4 modes the first of which is clasic mode. Which is the standard fill the bar by making matches except sometimes mines pop up. These mines have a timer which goes down everytime you make a move. When they reach 0 they explode and the game is over. But if you match them with some simularly coloured gems you defuse them harmlessly.

There is Zen mode which is basicly like Endless from Bejeweled 2 (so you make matches forever). I don't thimk much needs to be said here other then its realy addicting and can help calm you down after a long day. This is my favorite mode.

There is Blitz mode which challenges you to get the highest score possible in 5 mins, while trying to defuse mines and continue multiplyer chains. This is a fun and frantic mode that I have enjoyed a lot.

There is a challenge mode that gives you an objective to complete (such as make 75 matches in 5 mins or destroy 36 gems in one move) and the only way to win is to complete the objective without failing. This mode is fun but I don't think it is a worthy successor to the puzzle mode of two deluxe.

There is also the nifty new feature to watch instant replays of your crazy moves, saddly there is no way to save these replays but it is cool to rewatch that insane move that you couldnt figure out what happend to start this chain.

The graphics are better then the previous Bejeweled games. The textures look better. When switching between levels there is now a good looking cutscene plays that shows a space ship flying around these 3d enviroments to cube shape worlds where you go to, to continue making matches and ranking up points.

The ranking system is changed so that whenever you complete a level or challenge you are rewarded a certain number of stars depending on the difficulty of the level or challenge. When you get enough stars you rank up. I have noticed no real benifits to ranking up but it will keep the ranking obsesed glued to the game for hours.

In conclusion I enjoyed this version of Bejeweled a lot despite my early skeptisism. Popcap took a risk with this one messing with the classic formula. I think that risk payed off and now they have a game that for me at least is even more addicting then the classic. I think that this means the government should begin classifying popcap games as a legal drug dealer. The improved presentation enjoyable new gameplay and new modes make this new Bejeweled an intresting "twist" that should be played by addicts and new comers alike.

If you have any constructive critisism of this review I would like to hear it so I can improve for next time.