Easter Giveaway Unique Code:
1710052014 Contents: Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army 2 Game Review The Walking Dead Season 4 - Part 2 Review
Elder Scrolls Online Game Review Unique Code for Easter Giveaway (Above)
Story Sniper Elite - Nazi Zombie Army 2 By Kim Gustafsson This game is based on the game Sniper Elite as the title suggests. In the original game you are a sniper who takes out his targets with long shots and cool slow motion effects as your bullets pass through organs and bone. Now imagine this but your killing zombies making the slow motion x-ray effects look really cool. I did not know anything about this game until I decided to try it and got the four pack as I wanted someone to play with. This was a great idea. Not only is the game easy to pick up (shoot zombies, it’s a no brainer! Pun intended.) it's funny too. Looking at the game it doesn’t look like much, but someone put down some time in the game. It may not be the best looking game, but as far as I see the game runs well and it actually looked better than I thought it would.
The story in the game is simple, you’re one of four men on a dangerous mission to retrieve a series of three artefacts that Hitler himself tried to use in order to reassure the survivability of Nazi Germany. However, as it usually goes with magic relic's and zombies it spirals out of control and now most of Germany is zombiefied and is an utterly horrible landscape of death and blood, literally. In order to find the pieces you have to travel through Germany in a series of different levels. That’s more or less it. The levels get more and more difficult as you and the level of zombies come in bigger waves. I wish I could tell you more about it but as far as I know that is the story in a nutshell. If you read the website then you’ll probably notice there is a pattern in the games that I did this month.
Gameplay It's here that the game makes up for it though. The slow motion x-ray scenes you see as the bullet passes through bone, organs and
brain, depending where you shoot is awesome. Not only is it very satisfying to see the bullet go through the skull from a nice headshot, but you can also see the bullet disfigure as they enter and leave the body. And if you're lucky, it passes through several zombies at once, although you will most likely
only get the x-ray for one of them and the rest will not be made in slow motion. You have however a pretty reasonable big variety of sniper rifles, the main weapon in the game. As well as a few other weapons such as shotguns and revolvers. You will however only get the cool x-mo (x-ray slow motion) as long as you use the sniper rifle. You also gain a few grenades, mines and trip wire to make traps as the zombies try to take you out. The game is fairly simple. On your way towards your goal you will fight the sporadic zombies as you go along. But at certain points in your progression you will have to fight sieges. Your only way of getting past your enemies is to kill every last man...err, I mean zombie. As several zombies try to run you down by sheer numbers you can be hard pressed to keep your enemies at bay while preserving ammunition. At lower levels you can get away with a few rounds missing a head or two. But on the higher levels you will need to be more accurate as the zombies will simply stand up and come for you again meanwhile you see your ammunition disappearing in the distance, or into a zombie’s skull if you're lucky. It gets more tricky with multiple players and there comes a
point when lots of mines are bad for you, as mines or explosives placed too close together have a tendency to cause a chain reaction and instead of blowing up one by one, they all go up at once leaving you defenceless for the rest of the siege. You will also have to face different types of undead, there are in all only seven different types if I remembered them right. That does not offer a lot of variety unfortunately and that’s something that this game would sorely need as it has a tendency to get repetitive very fast. And although the x-mo scenes can't be left out from the game, they too can become a bit boring as they are basically the same over and over. I have seen very few bugs in the game, but there are certain things that the developers should have done. For instance, after you clear every siege you reach a safe house, a checkpoint if you will where the game saves. So if you die you can get back here. But not in multiplayer. If you die there you are dead
until one or more of your mates get to the safe house, this is fine and adds a bit to the fun to the game, after all if someone blows you up and then die, just don’t revive them, right? You will have a series of these houses in each level, but in multiplayer you can't start at them, you have to restart the entire level from the beginning if you die, this is something they should have altered in my opinion as it’s a bit slow moving having to replay the same levels just to get to the last bit of the map. This is a minor issue but it's
still there and if it’s a save point why can't I load from it?
Overall the game runs fine and it’s a fun zombie-in-a-barrel shooter but I don’t really play it for the "deep story" in it. It's just fun to kill zombies that’s all. There are collectibles in the game for those that are interested, and where some are pretty easy to find, others (like the bottles of blood) are a pain in the backside. And speaking of, the bottles are dark red bottles that you’re supposed to pick out against a creepy red/orange sky, whoever did that was laughing all the way to the zombie infested insanity he probably call's work. And speaking of insanity the sounds in the levels are a stroke of genius. The maps are scary and blood infested for sure, but without the right sounds it won't make a difference. And the sound makers in this game did go over and beyond their duty I think. Its scary noises coming from everywhere, the music is dark and broody, and screams echo through the levels. And to make it worse, your team mates will not always hear the same screams. Either a stroke of genius or a crack in the games armour that just so happens to work to its advantage. It gives a feeling of being all alone even playing it whit friends. And while we are speaking about sounds, I might as well take this up as well…
Acting
…even though I am a bit reluctant in doing so. You see there is not much of it, and the few cut scenes there are tell the story I feel I could have lived without them. The acting is minimal at best and it's not the best quality either, in fact you have only the narrator, and the few lines spoken in the intro of the game. Other than that, there’s not a word spoken at all. Not counting your own screams of fear and whelps of fright, there isn’t much acting at all in the game. And speaking of actors, your companions, if you play the single player mode, simply disappear at the beginning of every stage but make a point of getting back in at the end of each level. That could have been done better, but I understand why it is as it is.
That’s basically all there is to this game. It should have had a longer story mode I think, but it’s still fun to pick up from time to time and just kill a few zombies as you stroll along. Overall a fun little game and I recommend that you get two copies or more so you will have someone to play with. That’s all about this for now, but if you are unsure about the game then you can take a look at the Tazer Team as they will be playing the game and posting it on YouTube with yours truly. Happy gaming people.
The Walking Dead Season 4 (Part 2) By Nathan Scullard Some of you may remember I did a Walking Dead Season 4 'So Far' review in the December Issue of The Gamer Gazette, and I didn't quite have enough time to watch the mid-season finale before I wrote the review, and I may be again in a similar situation. This Issue is due out on the 1st April, and the season finale airs on the 30th March, but I am going to try my damndest to get that episode in here too as it will feel incomplete. So with that in mind I apologise if any of this feels a little disjointed as I will be doing the majority of the review before the last episode and then finishing it off on the 31st March to be out the next day. We do love deadlines! LOL! Ok so let's start with the mid-season finale, and wow! What a finale! I nearly went mad during the Christmas gap wondering what happened. We left it when the Governor had
joined a new group and after killing Martinez who was leading the group, he starts trying to persuade them to attack the prison as it could be a safe haven for all of them, and all they need to do is get its current occupants out.
Desperate and scared, the group reluctantly agrees and leave Lilly and Meghan at the camp, while they make their way towards the prison. On route they bump into Michonne and Hershel and take them hostage. They arrive in force with a tank at the gates of the prison and the Rick proposes a peaceful coexistence. The governor refuses and cuts Hershel's head off with Michonne's sword.
This sparks off the fighting between the two camps. Meanwhile back at the campsite, Meghan is attacked by walkers while playing by the river, not realising she is playing on a site synonymous with flash floods. The walker bites her, and a distraught Lilly carries her to the prison in her arms.
When she arrives, the fighting has already started and when the Governor see Lilly with Meghan he is upset and angry and impulsively shoots Meghan in the head to prevent her from turning. After a bloody conflict where the camp is completely destroyed and overrun by walkers, Rick and the Governor fight to the death, and Rick is nearly killed until Michonne saves him by running the Governor through with her Katana.
over in more detail in a minute. I will go over very briefly what happens in the first part of the second half...nothing. Now with that done we can get onto more interesting stuff... what? You want to know more??? Oh fine! Very basically, the group gets split into small pockets of survivors; Rick, Carl and Michonne, who seem to do nothing except eat chocolate pudding and bet on candy bars; Daryl and Beth, who visit a golf club, get really drunk and burn a house down, then Daryl loses Beth when she's abducted after escaping from an undertaker's house and then seems to forget about it instantly to join another group of outlaws; Glenn, who finds one of the surviving members of the Governor's group called Tara, and decide to search for Maggie and the others, but on the way meet new characters Sgt. Abraham Ford, Rosita Espinosa, and Dr. Eugene Porter who are on a mission to
Washington DC as Dr. Porter knows the cause of the outbreak. After a difference of opinion between Glenn and Abraham, and an incident when a clumsy Dr. Porter shoots the gas tanks on their truck, they decide to Terminus, a supposed sanctuary for all survivors who arrive. Spurred on by messages being left by Maggie in walker blood, telling them to go to Terminus, they eventually find her and are the first group to arrive at Terminus.
Rick's group wins but is left scattered and scared. Rick and Carl desperately search for any sign of Judith, but all they find is her car seat...covered in blood. And that is where the interesting bits stop. I love The Walking Dead and was really looking forward to the second part of the series, but I have to admit that it was pretty boring. Yes, you wanted to find out what happened and if they would all get to find each other again but honestly, it needed more action. There was one incredibly good episode which I will go
Then there is Maggie, Bob and Sasha, who I have just said meet up with Glenn and the new characters, but before that there isn't
really much that happens. They separate for a little bit as Maggie wants to find Glenn and Sasha wants to stop and start again. But it all works out and they end up back together and heading for Terminus, leaving messages for Glenn along the way. The last group and probably the most interesting is Carol, Tyreese, Lizzie, Mika and Judith...Yes Judith is alive! Thought I would leave this group till last so you were sure is Judith was alive or not...SUSPENSE! I also left this group till last because they are all in one of the best episodes for The Walking Dead that I think I have ever seen. Episode 14.
For those of you who remember, Carol is the one who killed Karen and David in the first half of season 4 and was told not to come back by Rick, so why is she with Tyreese and the others? Well she just kind of bumped into them when Tyreese was trying to help some other survivors and had to leave Lizzie and Mika alone to look after Judith, but her crying was attracting walkers, and Lizzie was covering Judith's face to try and make her stop, but just as she went too far and nearly killed Judith, Carol turned up and helped them out. So we have Carol the killer and Tyreese, the victim's friend/boyfriend travelling together and Tyreese is completely unaware...until Episode 14.
But that storyline is completely overshadowed by one that was a relative surprise. There were some hints at the beginning of the season, but not an awful lot. I am of course talking about Lizzie and her relationships with the walkers. Back at the prison she used to give them names and someone was feeding the walkers with rats, most assumed it may have been Lizzie and her friends. There was also an unexplained dissected rat found in one of the cell blocks. Well this episode focuses on that story and of course the one between Tyreese and Carol.
The group find an abandoned farm house with a regular supply of food and decide that maybe they should stay and make a life for themselves here. At first things are good, but very soon Lizzie is starting to show some unusual behaviour; getting upset when Carol and Tyreese kill walkers and playing chase with a walker in the garden. Carol becomes increasingly worried about her, but hopes to be able to break her love of walkers with guidance but when she and Tyreese are out, they come back to find Lizzie with Mika and Judith outside the house. Lizzie's hand is covered in blood and she's holding a knife. The pair run over to find that she's killed Mika, and is insisting that they wait for Mika to turn and they will see what she see. She says she was about to do Judith too, then they will really see. Unsure what to do Carol pleads with her that Judith is too small and that she can't even walk yet, and says that they will
wait till she is older before they let her turn. Lizzie agrees and gives up the knife as long as they can wait for Mika to turn. Carol says yes just to get her to give up the knife. Tyreese takes Lizzie away while Carol breaks down and has to deal with Mika. She makes sure she won't turn and then buries her with a bunch of flowers.
Suddenly their perfect little home doesn't seem like the happy place it had a few days ago. But they still have to decide what to do with Lizzie who is acting like she has done nothing wrong. Eventually, they make the hard decision that they cannot risk having her anywhere near Judith or indeed any humans and Carol takes her out into the garden to look at flowers and shoots her in the head. The power of this story took me aback, I'm used to the show pushing the boundaries and going where no other show care to tread, but this was that coupled with absolutely wonderful story telling and powerfully shot scenes. I take my hat off to you AMC, well done. I am also aware that I am not doing this episode justice, so please go and watch it and see for yourself. After all this Carol decides to tell Tyreese about her killing Karen and David, and let's him decide what to do, and although he is visibly angry with her, he forgives her. I think anyone who had just been through the same kind of look would have reacted the same. Together the two of them leave and continue to head for Terminus. And that is what the
whole of the second part of season 4 is about. The group gets split up and then they all head for Terminus. The last episode is due to air on the 30th and I am currently writing this on the 25th, so everything from after this point will have been written after I have seen that episode. I don't know much about it but from what I saw in episode 15, Maggie and Glenn turn up to an empty looking warehouse and are greeted by one woman who is cooking some large cuts of meat on a big BBQ...so naturally, I think she's a cannibal! Ok, so I’ve watched the last episode now and I have to say that it was a bit of an anti climax. For a season finale it was actually rather dull, a trend which the entire season seems to follow. Apart from a few good episodes that I have already mentioned such as the midseason finale and episode 14, it has been a bit of a letdown for me personally. I love the Walking Dead, but sometimes it can’t find the right balance between action packed and downright boring. Season 2 was similar, but had a good season finale, something this lacked. It tries very hard to redeem itself with a mysterious community and Rick and the other being captured after running past what appeared to be human remains before being cornered and locked in a train carriage. They even try at the very last minute to make you want to see the next season by getting Rick to say, “They’re screwing with the wrong people!” Before the episode ends, but it just felt like a cheap copout for an episode that promised so much. It’s one of those episodes that you just know is going to be awesome because so many boring episodes have led up to it and been boring because of the tension building needed, and then when you get to it and nothing much happens it really is a letdown.
I will of course be watching the next season, but I would really like to see more effort in terms of progressing the story to a new focus, I know that it is supposed to be a survival show and sometimes it is about lack of food and not having somewhere to sleep, but that stuff all the time is not entertaining. You want to have some kind of conclusion constantly hanging in the distance, even if you drag it out, there needs to be a definite main plot running through out and at this moment in time there just isn’t one. The whole series can be summed up in a few words. They got separated and are now trying to find each other. Sound riveting to you? No, me neither. So after all I have written about the Walking Dead, I am sorry to have to say that this season disappointed me quite a lot. Thanks for taking the time to read this review guys and I will be back in October with some more Walking Dead Reviews!
Elder Scrolls Online By Stefan Jonsson I was invited to play the last beta event of the upcoming big release on the MMO-stage, Elder Scrolls Online. When I first heard about this upcoming giant my heart was filled with joy. Finally I thought, finally, I get to share in the same kind of adventures that I had experienced during my years in Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, but with my friends this time. I knew already back then that it wouldn’t be an experience, à la Skyrim-style. I’ve been aware for quite some time now that you can’t expect an MMO to be as in depth as the single player experience of a franchise like Elder Scrolls...or can you? This game might be the one that changes what will be the norm for future MMORPG releases. I began my adventure by creating a Bosmer Sorcerer but since this was an Elder Scrolls game I decided to make a heavy armor,
minion-summoning tank-healer with a hint of darkness lurking over him. Because that is the kind of person I am, so naturally I wanted to play like one. Yes, you can actually go down that road in this game. And with a good character customization, I could look pretty much how I wanted. I had always valued a good character customization in RPG’s, but even more so in an MMORPG. Elder Scrolls Online has got that bit covered nicely and I expect it will be expanded upon in the future with hairstyles, beards etc. The beard selection wasn’t too great at the moment to be honest, but as I said, I expect that to improve once they have released the game on 2014-04-04. Soon enough I was inside what looked like a prison cell in the same old fashion. Which I kind of like. You also notice that the graphics are pretty good. Not great, but good if you compare them with other MMORPG’s. The art style is quite different to what Skyrim fans would expect. But I could get used to the new
way they've chosen, which was a bit more MMO-cartoony if you compare with Skyrim’s more realistic style. But the landscapes and lighting effects were still really good. The animations where very cartoony and following in MMO-style of movement that is exaggerated, and is something I personally don’t like. Some people do like that more and I don’t hold this particular art choice as a con, but even so I didn’t like it since it’s the opposite of what Bethesda have been aiming for with their Elder Scrolls releases. If they had been allowed to be more involved in the process of making this game, I think they would have wanted this MMORPG to feel and look more like Skyrim then it currently does. Also it would be a much fresher take on a new AAA MMORPG and would have been a very good addition to the next-gen game archives if you ask me. But that might be because I am really tired of the same old flashy cartoony MMORPG’s that is dominating the MMORPG market. Kind of sad that developers aren’t given free hands in today’s mainstream game industry to create the new and the innovative games that we know they can create, if board members of companies like Zenimax would dare to take that risk and allow them to. The first person you talk to is The Prophet, which has amazing voice acting. Michael Gambon did a great job. My only problem with that character and most other characters was that the 3D models didn’t fit most voices. Zenimax went for what I believe to be a similar beginning as Oblivion. You meet this old wise man which will start you off on your quest by freeing him from a prison. But they fall short when it comes to storytelling. For me it felt like I was tricked by a blindhomeless-alcoholic asshole, to switch his place in this magical prison with a badass warrior female. And after that point it feels like he just makes shit up as we go in order to reinforce his first lies. Elder Scrolls Online
continues to be brought down by a very basic FPS feeling that you clearly feel wasn’t meant to be in the game from the beginning, but since fans weren’t happy about that, Zenimax Online decided to add it. Which was a good decision, I don’t argue there, but maybe they should have put down more effort in developing it even so. After playing a couple of hours I start to recall this same annoying feeling of having to grab and fetch pointless things and doing nothing worthwhile in this game. Exploring caves and dungeons wasn’t fun in the slightest since they all were filled with other adventurers. I think the instance versions of dungeons are much better. At least then you can fool yourself to believe you are the first to explore that place. At that point I just wanted to get to lvl 10 so I could check out the pvp aspect of the game, which is supposed to be a better version of Guild Wars 2 WorldvWorldvWorld. Unfortunately, I never manage to get there in time since I was a bit late to join the open beta. But according to others who made it there, it’s probably what people should be looking forward to the most in this game. It looks very dramatic and feels more like a siege then a Zerg rush that most times was the case with Guild Wars 2.ESO’s battleground map is huge. I would think it might even be bigger than GW2’s maps if you we’re to combine all four of them, where three of them are identical by the way. For me the game worked very well and I had few problems with frame rate and disconnects, almost none to be honest. Only one time did it crash, where I directly got a crash report that wanted me to fill in what I was doing etc. I love that. It’s very important for any game to have a good system where you can report your problems and feedback in order to help the developers make an even better game. There are some quite annoying
bugs like the constant dismount of your horse. But bugs like that are to be expected in new releases. Specially betas and even though it was frustrating, I will let it slide since it will be one bug they will try to fix ASAP. Other than that I was never able to finish even one full quest line. Might be intentional or bugs. Either way it doesn’t portray what the finished product will be. I will say that their stress test was a great success.
that I think it resembles would be a revamped version of Morrowind. No jokes. If you loved Morrowind and wished there was a version of it with better graphics, voice acting and where you could explore not only Morrowind, but entire Tamriel with your friends. Then this might very well be something you’ll have a great deal of fun with. But if you were hoping that this would be a true next-gen MMORPG, then I’m sorry to say that it isn’t.
To sum it all up, I think this is a very good MMORPG. BUT! Not at its current form. If they had gone for a free2play module straight away it would have been one of the best MMORPG release up to this date. But now it seems that Zenimax will overcharge fans beyond reason. First you buy the game full price, plus a monthly subscription. But what they also did was to sell off the entire story of the game for extra pre-order money by allowing anyone who ordered it before release to play any race in any alliance they want, which destroys the point of alliances right away. Another big problem with this game is that it just doesn’t feel like an Elder Scrolls game. The closest Elder Scrolls title
But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself and let us know what you thought about this game on www.TazerCG.com.