Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel

Let me begin this review with a warning that I am biased as I have loved the Army of Two franchise since I first played the first game when my brother brought it home. Therefor I may seem to love this game a little too much so be warned.

We start with the bad as usual and that is a few things missing that I enjoyed from the previous games, these were but not limited to, human shields, the original aggro system and of course playing as Salem and Rios themselves. However the game quickly makes up for those small inconveniences. The good begins with weapons and operative customization which allows you not only to choose your mask but make your own (in the game and not on the stupid glitchy website) and choose the clothes your operative is wearing. Of course it keeps the feature that endeared me to Army of Two and that is thorough  weapon customization. One thing I am a sucker for is guns and customization, put them together and well I'm hooked. Army of Two being one of the few things EA has done right also helps. The story is decent although overall predictable and is long enough to keep me entertained for a few days which is a rarity in modern games especially shooters. Gameplay is still as good as the last two although as I said the original aggro system is missing and it makes it harder to outmaneuver your enemies in this one. Graphics are good although they could have done better on Salem and Rios as Rios had this IMMENSE underbite and just looked NOTHING like the previous games at all. And of Course he sounded really off as well but I can overlook that. In the end I'm giving it a

8/10

Risen

Here's the next one.



Risen was one of those games I played when they first came out then just forgot about it till much later. Recently however I got it for Christmas and just a month or so ago beat it. I'll start with the bad first which undoubtedly starts with combat. Now I have seen clunky fighting systems in my day and Risen is on that list, melee is somewhat painful to endure when fighting a humanoid enemy as they will constantly pull bullshit moves as your own mouse often does not receive input often leading to death when you were actually blocking. Other than Combat we have faces.. People in Risen look kind of ugly, and by kind of I mean the PC even breaks the main character being attractive trend games have. Now I have nothing against that but when your own character becomes an eyesore it becomes a problem. That's it for the bad now onto the good, first we have the island itself which is not as big as say The Elder Scrolls games or even GTA but every corner of the island is very detailed. Small things not relevant to anything but simply making the island a   living breathing place can often be found. The game lore is not too deep but just enough to weave you a captivating story about destruction and salvation. Graphics are pretty good (most of them as I said it was really a miss for NPCs and the PC) and the gameplay brought something most games now a days often forego for mindless adrenaline rushes and that is puzzle solving, sometimes just minor pauses in delving through a dungeon sometimes complex and mind boggling runarounds. Overall the story is satisfying and unique in it's way. The end boss fight was a little bit of a pain in the ass as a boss should be but mostly for annoying little things that the game itself suffered from (as I said the mouse controls often messed me up). But it was entertaining and I didn't beat it in a single day most games I come across now a days so I give it a

6/10