This product is ridiculous. Your Kinect is not spying on you. I hate to tell you, but if you're worried about this, try not to look around when you step outside. Cameras are everywhere, this is probably the one you should worry the least about.
People should probably look into other... Read more
High Moon Studios decided to use an element of play that really bugged me about the control in Revenge of the Fallen. Namely, the need to hold down a trigger button to stay in one of your modes. Since they added a "stealth force" mode, that is now your default transformation from robot mode. To transform to a vehicle, you have to keep the left trigger held down. But wait, there's more. To steer, you use the RIGHT analog stick, WHILE holding down the left trigger. To boost, you hold down the right bumper, and to use your e-brake, you hold down the right trigger button. Don't worry too much, because you'll spend most of your time in stealth mode.
Forget spending a whole lot of time in robot mode, as you'll just die faster. Even on easy, this game is no picnic. To artificially lengthen play time, swarms of the exact same Bayish Decepticlones (to borrow a term from the Transformers Armada game) keep coming at you. Along the way, more Autobots will join your fight, but you'll hardly notice them having any impact. The most use you'll get out of any Autobot is Ratchet, who will heal you when your health meter is low. As per usual in a Transformers game, if you can find a safe hiding spot, your health will regenerate automatically.
Unlike previous games, there are not two separate campaigns. The game assigns you a character; you can't even pick from a roster. You'll start out as Bumblebee driving through generic earth environments.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is First-person Shooter rooted in a fictional, but ultra realistic near-future conflict of mostly American forces with those of the Russian Federation around the globe. The third installment in the Modern Warfare branch of the Call of Duty franchise, Modern Warfare 3 features a heavy focus on multiplayer gameplay which includes innovative new functionality that encourages multiple gameplay combat strategies, a new 2-player co-op option, new play modes, weapons and more. The game also includes a gripping single player campaign that picks up where Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 left off, and game integration with the Call of Duty: Elite online service.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is a direct sequel to the previous game in the series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. In the game's single player campaign Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov continues his manipulation of Russian Federation forces in their invasion of the United States and Europe. In their way stands characters like Task Force 141 Captain John "Soap" MacTavish, former SAS Captain John Price as well as new playable characters from Delta Force and the British SAS. Engage enemy forces in New York, Paris, Berlin and other attack sites across the globe. The world stands on the brink, and Makarov is intent on bringing civilization to its knees. In this darkest hour, are you willing to do what is necessary.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 delivers a multiplayer experience that continues to raise the bar by focusing on fast-paced, gun-on-gun combat, along with innovative features that support and enhance a large variety of play-styles. Now, you can truly define your approach with a toolkit more expansive than any previous title.
Continue the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in the third release in the series.
Killstreaks, benefits and abilities awarded for stringing together multiple kills, have been transformed into Pointstreaks, creating a system that rewards players both for landing kills and completing objectives. These rewards have been broken up into three different categories, known as Strike Packages:
Assault - Pointstreaks within this package chain together and deal direct damage. It includes classics like the Predator Missile and Attack Helicopter. Your streak resets on death.Support - Pointstreaks within this package do not chain, focusing instead on surveillance and disruption. Your streak does not reset on death meaning they will respawn with you. Specialist - Pointstreaks within this package are designed for advanced players. Rewards come in the form of additional perks for optimal performance. These perks last until death.Just like your player, weapons now rank up, unlocking additional attachments, reticules, camos and the new proficiency category. Weapon Proficiencies not only allow you to get better with weapons, they also allow you customize your weapons with helpful attributes such as "Kick" for reduced recoil, "Impact" for deeper penetration through hard surfaces and much more. Many proficiencies are specific to their weapons class. And all are geared towards enhancing a certain play style and can allow for efficient use of your favorite weapons in maps and game modes in which they might not otherwise be the best choice.
Along with the return of the fan favorites Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 introduces several new game modes. Collect dog tags from killed players, including those on your squad while you prevent the opposing squad from taking yours in Kill Confirmed mode. In Team Defender mode, grab the flag and protect the flag carrier for as long as you can to increase your team's score. In addition players will enjoy user generated match mode functionality which allows you to configure any mode how you want it and then share these over the Call of Duty: Elite online service.
Special Ops cooperative action returns with a bevy of additions, including 16 new objective-based missions and the all-new Survival Mode. Team up online, locally, or play solo and face endless waves of attacking enemies throughout every multiplayer map. Purchase and customize your weapons, air support, equipment and abilities to stand up against increasingly difficult forces and land a spot on the leaderboards. Earn experience and rank up with the newly implemented progression system. The higher the rank, the more weapons, air support, and gear armories you will have available to customize so you can change your tactics on the fly. In addition to the action packed battle for freedom, the cooperative Survival Mode also serves as an effective training tool for competitive multiplayer action.
Call of Duty: Elite is an online multiplayer oriented service launched simultaneously with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. The service offers both free and subscription based levels of access and is dedicated to the game franchise, featuring lifetime statistics across multiple games, social-networking options, competitions, a mobile app, Facebook integration and more.
GAMEPLAY - 7/10
As I mentioned, climbing, combat and moving with the crowd is mostly the same as prior games, which isn't a bad thing necessarily. There are some new movement features, such as the grappling claw and (by proxy) the zipline. Nothing to write home about. Combat and crowd have the added factor of bombs, but as some have already pointed out, they are not exactly essential to Ezio's arsenal. 1-2 recipes are all that you'll need for most of the game. It can be interesting to use some of the other bomb types in various scenarios but again, in terms of combat experience, they aren't that fascinating.
The new gameplay additions come in the form of a tower-defense minigame as well as contracting recruited assassins and remotely controlling territory (I believe it's called the "Mediterranean Defense" minigame). These, honestly, I could do without. I liked the mission-style usage in the past game as a way to level up your recruits and score a bit of extra cash while you collected flags/chests and whatnot, but the new minigames just put too much pressure on you to keep up with what's going on. Tower defense is pretty lame; honestly I'd rather just go down on the ground and melee combat my way through attackers. Overall, I can appreciate UbiSoft wanting to expand their game but I would have done without the new minigames.
STORY - 8/10
I don't want to give anything away. You'll have needed to play Brotherhood to really understand what is going on. The actual pacing of the story depends on your playstyle, but I myself found it adequate and in the same overall tone and style of the previous 2 games.
SOUND - 9/10
Sound quality stays at the usual levels of excellence from the prior games. In my experience the voice actors do a good job all around, and the game's sound effects are solid too.
REPLAYABILITY (SP) - 5/10
A low score here shouldn't be unexpected. Replayability from the single player perspective is mostly the same as it was with the prior games. You're free to roam the city, cause chaos, do the minigames and side missions as you please once the campaign is finished. Is it as fun? In my opinion, not really. I'd rather move on to another game, but that's just me; to each his own.
MULTIPLAYER - 9/10
Here's where the game moves from a 3/5 star to a 4/5 star. The multiplayer is a great experience. Unless you've played Brotherhood, I guarantee you will not have tried something like this before. The multiplayer is completely unique and mostly involves trying to trick other players. Reflexes and coordination is almost secondary to how strategy and deception in this multiplayer; can you make other players think you are just an NPC (a computer controlled character), while figuring out which of the characters walking around on your screen is your player target? That's the gist of multiplayer and, while I can understand it's not for everyone, I find it to be a blast.
The good news here is the MP is MUCH more streamlined than it was in Brotherhood. There is an XP system much like most MP games these days (MW3, BF3) allowing you to level up and spend points unlocking and upgrading abilities to suit your playstyle. I'll admit there's a bit of a learning and leveling curve; high level players will have significant ability advantages over starting players, but the game can still be a lot of fun.
New MP game modes like Deathmatch, Assassination, and Corruption add even more depth to the multiplayer experience. I bought this game mostly for the multiplayer. If it sounds like it's something you're into, I'd heartily recommend giving it a shot.
OVERALL - 7.5/10 (4 stars)
As I mentioned I bought this game for $35. November and October had heavy hitters in the video game world, and this game not only warranted a buy in my mind but the multiplayer has it as the #2 or #3 game that I'm playing now (behind Battlefield 3 and Skyrim depending on my mood). The fact that it can pull some of my interest and playtime given the other games out there should say something about Revelations.
However, I realize that the appeal of this game to me, personally, may not be something shared by all gamers. Would I pay $60 for this game? No. I would, myself, be happy to have paid $45, maybe even $50. For someone unsure about this game, I would wait until a $40 price point. For fans of Brotherhood, particularly of the multiplayer, however, you are probably like me and would be content with a $45 price tag.
I hope my review was helpful. Feel free to ask me any followup questions in the comments section. Thanks for reading!
Pairing to the wireless controller communicator was done at the factory, so it really was a matter of: charge the headphones, plug in the receiver to the 360 (I used optical and replaced the X41 receiver), plug the headphone puck into the controller and power up the headphones. Powering up the headphones also turned on the wireless puck.
You can control the volume of game chat with buttons on the right headphone, mute is also on this headphone as is the Bluetooth pairing for cell phones. Being able to pair via Bluetooth is also how this headset also works with the PS3. PS3 chat isn't bad, but not as nice for me as the 360 chat, for which these headphones seem to have been designed. I paired this to my phone and made a few calls - everyone thought I sounded OK, just a little tinny.
Another nice feature is the mic gain control. This is what changes the mic sensitivity. With it turned all the way up, I hear a near constant hiss and those in my party commented that they could hear a lot of background noise, such as the heater running and family members talking in the background. I dialed this down, which eliminated most of the hiss, if not all, and my chat partners all commented that I was then quite clearly heard, however, I was still described as sounding "tinny."
One feature I really liked about the X41s was how no matter what volume I had the game volume set to, I could always clearly hear my party's conversations because they had some algorithm to figure out and volume match in game audio and raise chat volume when explosions and other loud audio is heard in game. The XP400 do as good a job as the X41s, which means it's quite a solid experience to hear conversation clearly as well as in game audio. The 7xBs had a similar feature, but it would actually audibly turn the volume down of game volume, which was kind of distracting, which was another reason I went back to the X41s.
The detachable microphone is nice, and seems to be about the same as the X41, though the XP400 is a bit thicker and beefier. The connection seems to be the same, though I haven't yet tried swapping mics between the two. I preferred the 7xB due to the retractable mic, but that feature alone wasn't a big enough reason for me to use them all the time.
In terms of sound quality, since the XP400s can use digital audio output from the 360 (and it can also take analog, that red and white connection), you get very clear audio and darn good surround sound as well. In terms of the X41 vs the XP400, I think the XP400 has a little bit of an edge in terms of sound quality. In game surround just sounds better with the XP400s to me. The XP400 also has the ability to change the surround configuration to 4 different presets, all changing how it mixes each "channel" of audio in headphone. I've tried all 4 presets and each does change surround configuration subtly. I find the original surround mode works best for my ears.
Another nice feature is the preset "equalizer" modes. You can enhance nothing (what comes from the 360 is what you hear), you can enhance just bass for bigger explosions, you can enhance just treble for some dialog enhancements and other higher pitched sounds and then you can enhance both. I find I prefer the "both" option as it makes the audio sound a bit richer. All of these settings sound better, to me, than the 7xBs.
There is one feature, however, that I am completely not happy with on the XP400s. The battery is rechargeable, which is good, however it is built into the headset. It is NOT user replaceable! This means that in 2 years or so, after many recharge cycles, I'll either be forced to buy another pair of headphones or send these to Turtle Beach to pay a fee to have the battery replaced. I absolutely hate this about modern day electronics. Absolutely detest it - built in obsolescence so that people have to spend more money with the company releasing the product. iPad, iPhone, many Android phones, other MP3 players, etc. It's a huge load of horse patoot in my opinion. I like the X41s because I can field replace the AAA batteries on my own. 7xBs, same thing, replaceable batteries. Not so with the XP400. Thankfully you can still use the headphones while they are charging, however this means they aren't always wireless. Nothing is more annoying than having the headphones die mid game and then have to plug in. Of course, this isn't a completely different experience over having to replace the batteries mid play either, just different. I understand the need for a more powerful battery given the added features - Bluetooth eats battery, being completely wireless eats battery and so on. Just because I understand the need for more power than a few AAAs, doesn't mean I like having to have planned obsolescence and not being able to purchase and replace the battery on my own.
One thing that is an improvement is the XP400 actually gives you beeps to tell you the headset needs to be recharged. There was nothing more annoying with the XP41s to have them just die mid game, especially during multiplayer fighting as you stop hearing game audio AND chat when this happens. At least now I have about a 10 minute warning before the battery completely dies.
Turtle Beach claims 10 hours of battery life on a single charge for "normal" use and 15 for "optimal" use. What I've found is I can actually pull off about 12 - 13 hours if I turn off the Bluetooth function and just use it for game audio when I'm playing on my own. Adding BT and chat all the time and I'm down to around 11 hours.
Over all, the XP400s are a great improvement in every way to the XP41s in everything except for the battery being non-replaceable by the end user. Of course, the MSRP on the XP400 is about $20 higher than the X41s so there is that to remember.
Pros:
Great surround sound
True surround sound, not simulated when using optical audio
Chat and game audio equalization (chat isn't covered up by in game sounds)
Completely wireless
No interference
360/PS3 compatibility
Can be paired to your cell phone and used while gaming - no fumbling to put headphones down to answer a call
10+ hour play time
Can be used w/ third party controllers (see Con below)
A step above the X41s
Adjustable microphone gain - if you want to hear yourself louder in the headphones, turn this up. If others in your chat can't hear you clearly, turn this up
BT pairing to cell phone
Cons:
Tinny chat sound during party chat on 360 according to those in my parties
Battery isn't user replaceable
Third party (or 1st party wheels) require a cable for chat, which is NOT included (THOUGH THOSE w/ THE X41s, the cable that came with those headphones DOES work)
Pricey
Why 4 stars? That battery thing does really annoy me. IF you don't mind not having the ability to replace the battery and don't mind the price, these are a solid 5 stars.
The NICE thing is the cut scenes (cinematic events developed with the game engine) include your character in them. It includes what you look like, what you're wearing, and everything you have chosen as features when you develop your character in the "Character Creation" mode. The story line (without spoiling anything) is in my opinion gripping enough to keep you occupied and involved.
-The Bad: The game gives you the ability to play "some" of the story missions with friends. In order to achieve this the User Interface allows you to "group" with friends in the game and play that mission when launched together as a team by the "group leader". This function is constantly broken and constantly members of your group cannot see you, see eachother, and end up in an identical environment but in a separate world. This leads to people not being able to play mission together despite the menu having a "Join Phase" option that when selected will re-spawn your character hopefully in the same world as the player you cant see... more times than not just completely failing to function. This also fails to function in Episode Missions AND Side Missions.
--CHARACTER CREATOR---------
-You can pick from: Human Male, Human Female, Alien Male, Alien Female.
-Hair and hair color, Nose, Eyes, Facial structure, Mouth/Lips, Facial scars, Facial/Body tattoos... are all included in the character generator. The options available are enough to distinguish who you create, but are not vast enough to keep people from all picking the same "cool looking" hair style or "cool looking" tattoos. So keep in mind when creating your character that the one or two tattoos for the class your considering... alot of people may pick that too. There are four classes. Veteran, Survivalist, Machinist, and Outlaw. Picking one does not appear to have any "huge" impact on the storyline, nor does it appear to differentiate your in-game skills which develop later from a skill tree of WELL OVER 80 skills. The skills you pick can be leveled up more than once to increase their effectiveness. The skill tree does offer the ability to reset and rearrange it, although I have not done so yet.
-The Bad: A character class is relevant to nothing but the gun you start with in the game.
--WEAPONS-------
The Good:-Pistols and magnums, shotguns and sawed off shotguns, assault rifles and light machine guns, submachine guns and high magazine auto pistols, grenade launchers and rocket launchers and MORE... can all have up to 4 attachments IF you find the attachments for the weapons you like. Those attachments are: Scopes, Stocks, Magazines, and Barrels.
-Weapons also can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses".
-Attachments go on weapons into Slots. Attachments can be found or bought in the world WITH "synergy bonuses".
-Both weapons AND attachments can be found or bought with elemental damages which apply to weapons.
The Bad: -Slots can be placed on weapons when you reach the required level. That required level changes based on Trions currentlt running hotfix or patch version. So if you have a weapon with no slots you can place slots on that weapon by paying a form of in-game money (Ark Salvage). This has become a problem, because through various updated patches the expense of placing slots on weapons has gone from more than double what it use to cost, on top of the fact that as you level up in the game, the costs to place slots goes up as well. The base stats on all weapons remain static and don't change no matter your level. The more you level, the more salvage is required to modify a weapon, the more you modify it the more it requires to BE "modified", and after achieving the max modifications of a weapon the changes made are literally and mathematically so small that they would go unnoticed if compaired to another weapon never modified at all. So the bottom line is the weapon modification system is completely a waste of time.
The WORSE: - the items in this game known as "Orange Items" which would be considered as the "Most rare" are primarily obtainable by paying REAL money into a roulette reward system. Whether you are on the official forums, youtube, wherever... Trion Worlds has designed the game to clearly benefit those willing to pay real money and reward them with items in game that have "Bonus Statistics". These purchases are made with "Bits". "Bits" are bought with "Microsoft Points", "Microsoft Points" are bought with real money. These bonus statistics are so small and minute that when compared to weapons in game without those bonuses you would never know they exist. Im talking differences that are 1 tenth of a whole number. A simple example would be a gun with a firerate of 10. If you pay Trion real money you may get a gun that has a fire rate of 11.2 at most. The longer the game has been out, the more expensive Trion has made in-game costs. The higher the costs, the less you can do, the less you can do, the more inventory you have to carry, and for that they sell space via BITS so you can carry more. Its disgusting.
--GAMEPLAY--(Was fun, until Trion clearly stopped caring and got greedy).
-During the game dynamic events called "Ark Falls" transpire. Ark Falls are when pieces of major objects orbiting the planet fall to the Earth carrying with them technology that upgrades your weapons. Trion has INCREASED everything it costs in the game to "play" the game, and DECREASED the ratio at which what you need to pay in the game is obtained via their patches.... unless you buy it using real money.
-During gameplay you will regularly get kicked from Trions servers with notifications stating "Your connection to our servers has timed out".
-During gameplay you will regularly lose your ability to see your friends IN the game. The option/s in place to resolve this issue has not resolved it since launch day.
-During gameplay the current patches have devised a system by which you are forcibly stuck with an extremely poor UI and an overwhelming amount of items that are designed to clearly take up your inventory space, only providing you with an option to pay real money to buy that space via microtransactions.
-There is no ability to play the game "IF" you cannot SUCCESSFULLY achieve updating your console with the most current patches from Trion Worlds Inc. Normally a patch takes 2-3 HOURS to download (regardless of your connection speed Trion has set pre-set speeds at which your download is achievable from them). These patches, taking 2-3 hours each, transpire at minimum every 2 weeks. That's not including random server down times from server crashes, server maintenance, server resets, and randomly scheduled hot fixes for their servers that despite saying "will not interfere with your gameplay" on their main web page, disconnects everyone from their servers for up to 12 hours at a time.
This game "WAS", and Im saying "WAS" playable within the first 30 days of its launch date. But as of now, this game is regularly dysfunctional at best. I severely recommend you NOT buy this game. It was a purchase worth making when it first came out, but due to the current IP laws and how this developer has changed the functionality of this product POST-launch it is NO LONGER a game worth recommending. It saddens me when Developers take advantage of IP laws and manipulate a consumers purchase post-sale in an attempt to trap them into paying more money in order to utilize their purchase. Not only do I not recommend the game, I don't recommend the developer for any game they will ever make.
When i first put the game in I found it used UT soundtrack, but i love that music, so it does not effect me. Still it has been a year since the last dbz game so a new soundtrack would have been nice. All in all this game is just like UT only you use your body. The animations are the same and so is the voice acting. A lot of stuff was recycled from UT, I can not stress that enough. The Story is the same from UT and the voices too.
One the positive side, Punching,kicking, and ki blasts work great. I have not had one problem with the kinect sensor or using super attacks. Its really fun to do a kamehamha or special beam cannon. WIth over 50 characters there is good amount of re play value.
The special movie is the story of bardock after he was killed by freeza, included as a special subbed movie, which was a mistake i made after i said it was dubbed. Its about 20 min long. The true fans of dbz have already seen the movie in japanese, Its a nice addition, but it can be seen on any website.
Overall I highly recommend this game , even its UT with your body as the controller. Fighting game fans might not like it, but bandia games made a great game for dbz fan and im glade they still care unlike toei animation. Weather you played UT or not, loved it or hate it, or like kinect games. Dbz for kinect is a great way to jump back into the dbz universe. JUST KNOW THAT THIS IS UT WITH YOU AS THE CONTROLLER, BUT THIS IS NOT A BAD THING, ITS AN IMPROVEMENT!
Edit, oct 15 : A good game still.
