This past fall I bought a large amount of software (and Hardware) for my 360. Probably in the course of a couple of months I have bought or played roughly 13 games that I didn't before. I found that a lot of the games that were hyped didn't seem to be able to live up to the hype. However, since these games had branding and developer recognition, I went full in preordering many of them. So, lets go through a run down of these games and talk about what was good and what was not. Okay not all of them, so here are two of them I would like to talk about.
Call of Duty Black Ops by Treyarch, published by Activision
I listed this one because I go to metacritic a lot for game reviews. At metacritic, CoD-BO (ROFL) is listed as a Cumulative Critic score of 87. For Users it is rated 6.3. That's a pretty big gap... compare that to Battlefield Bad Company Vietnam 87 and 7.8, or Red Dead Redemption 95 or 8.9. Similarly Halo Reach had 91 but a User of 7.4. I personally know this is due to a good size of PS3 owners giving some hate for one of the 360s flagships. I just looked over the reviews from users (about 50 of them, there are something like 500) just to make sure BO didn't get a bad rating because of the West & Zampella incident. The issues seem to be most of the issues I have with this game.
What are my issues? The game really doesn't seem to be much of an update from MW2. It has different skins, some different options but graphics are basically the same (and don't compare to Reach, Red Dead, etc). The multiplayer sound is generic sounding. There are lag issues. They ruined Gun game... should have left it like Counterstrike. However the worst thing is not fixable. The maps are too small and/or clustered. I say this because there is a definite issue with spawning. I don't know how many times I have spawned right in front of an enemy. That should never happen. NEVER. For me it seems like Treyarch made BO... yep Body Odor. It smells... While I have to give them credit for dealing with the matchmaking for large parties, at the same point I can't help to think with the overall blandness of this game it's like they didn't try very hard. Actually I will make a side note, it might not be that they didn't try but that they were so consumed with dealing with the multiplayer issues of MW2 that they didn't take the time to craft a better game. This game is forgettable just like World at War.
Fallout New Vegas by Obsidian, Published by Bethesda
I was all sorts of pumped for this game. I loved Fallout 3. I also loved Elder Scrolls 3 and 4 which use the same game engine. However, those were developed by (sorry got distracted watching trailer for Skyrim) Bethesda. So... what are the issues that would make me say it is over hyped
It is glichy. I have my weapon move all over the screen. My AI companions (which I feel are better done this time) can't seem to keep up with me like they did in Fallout 3. I have stuff appear and disappear (as in items). I have one quest I can't complete because... well I don't really know what bugged it up but it won't let me get credit for doing it.
Also, like BO, it seems like more of the same. Just a new skin on the same model. I don't think the Survival mode is all that, it's just one more nuisance to add with the bugginess. I don't like the every other perk thing. I think the perks should be specialized more and every level up. I actually wish (this goes for Fallout 3 as well) that they would have used the leveling system employed by Elder Scrolls. I like skills progressing as I use them. It seems more natural. That helps it from being about just leveling. Finally issue, so far (as I am not into the DLC that far) Dead Money just doesn't seem all the great... not as good as the DLC was for Fallout 3. Give me more battles less weird people.
In short if you want a game worth $60 get Reach, Red Dead Redemption (which you may find for $40) or get the DLC for Battlefield Bad Company 2 and play Vietnam. Those experiences are better than the ones above.
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