Snap Judgment Reviews 3: With A Vengence

Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition.
I've never really played any of the tomb raider games, but they are so huge in the industry I felt the need to try. I rented Legend a while ago, and hated it – I couldn't make the jumps, and I got stuck within 10 minutes, in the tutorial. So I tried to give this one a shot. It took me a half hour to get bored. Run around look in rooms, no real direction on what you need to do, puzzles with no impetus. So this is a put back on the rental shelf and never touch them again. Thumbs down.

Dead Rising
I'm not a fan of zombie stuff, but I've heard this one was pretty fun. I played it for an hour or two. It was a blast; running around avoiding or killing zombies, rescuing people, running zombies over with a lawnmower. The “hard to read” wasn't as bad as I feared (I have no HD TV, and the text is fairly small on regular TVs). I've not been a huge player of 3rd person action games, but this, Lost Planet, Conan, God of War and Earth Defense Force 2017 is making me into a fan.

Stranglehold
This was the best of the bunch. A John Woo video game, starring Chow Yun Fat – a sequel to Hard Boiled. I wasn't expecting much out of it, and boy was I surprised. As I've stated before I'm not a fan of spending all my time behind cover in a shooter – I like to run out and shoot things – and if you have ever seen a John Woo movie, then you know that is his approach.
The mechanics reward that kind of game play – you get a healing meter that lets you heal damage. One of the ways to add to the meter is to make stylish kills – double gunned while leaping in slow motions, while sliding down a handrail on stairs, while jumping over counters, or rolling on a cart. So the more you dive in and kill the easier it is to get your health back. The game has slo-motion and 2 handed gun play, as you would expect from a Woo movie. You also get “standoffs” a particular style of combat where everything goes in slow-mo and you have to take out villains in a particular order while avoiding their shots, and you can unlock a mode where you focus on the bad guy, shoot him and there is a small cut scene of his death – and you can do this to any enemy.

This one truly is an action movie in game form. It is at the top of my “to buy” list.

Now back to games – Running through ancient lands of Hyboria cutting off people's arms

Games played since last post

Turok Dinosaur hunter – Demo (360).
Dead Rising (360)
Tomb Raider Anniversary Edition (360)
Stranglehold (360)
Radiant Silvergun (Saturn)
Panzer Dragoon (Saturn)
Clockwork Knight (Saturn)
Gauntlet Dark Legacy (PS2)
God of War (PS2)
Conan (360)