Call of Duty Black Ops 2 Review (single player and Multiplayer)

    Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, the latest from Treyarch in the Call of Duty Series, offers a compelling single player story and a great multiplayer experience, featuring cooperative game play against zombies, and its versus game play with multiple customization options, challenges, and unlockables.

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   Story

  The single player story is one of the best Call of Duty campaigns I have ever played, featuring multiple endings and story arcs, where your choices at key points in the game will determine the future of the story and of course, it's ending. The characters presented offer a great narrative in back stories, leading from the Vietnam war era, up to the present day, where it all comes to a head. I did not have a hard time understanding the story, because the characters and cutscenes presented keeps you up to date with the events going on. The single player campaign offers multiple difficulties to choose from and is highly replayable, especially for those wanting to see and unlock all the endings. Also included is the Strike Force Mode, which is also canon with the single player story and is different from the rest of the campaign, see below for more information.

  Gameplay

 The gameplay in the singleplayer campaign is standard first person shooter fair, featuring a change of "loadouts" for each mission, and offers a great control scheme and can be changed in the options menu if the default isn't comfortable for you. You have access to grenades, non lethal grenades like smoke grenades, emp and other types. This game also offers multiple weapons to choose from, even high tech variants and attachments, altering the way the gun behaves, such as better reload speeds, fire rates, damage and so forth. You even have access to special weapons, such as crossbows, ballistic knives, rocket launchers, combat axes, and others that offer unique combat choices.

  Strike Force Mode

 Strike Force Mode is an operation mode within the single player campaign, which is a bit different from the rest of the game. In Strike Force Mode, you instead command a strike force similar to that of an real time strategy game, commanding infantry squads, and mechs to achieve certain objectives within a time limit and a limit on how many troops you have for that mission. Tactical view is where the Real time strategy mode comes into play, allowing you to move troops and mechs about and seeing where enemies and emplacements are about, as well as your mission directives. I found Strike Force Mode to be a fun and unique game play mode, especially for a game like Call of Duty.

Multiplayer (versus and Co-op)

  Multiplayer for Black Ops 2 offers you the cooperative mode, which is their zombies mode, and the famous versus mode. I found both to be entertaining, even with some of their faults.

Zombies Mode

 Zombies mode is the cooperative gameplay, which features a horde-like wave by wave scenario with a transit system to visit the 4 maps currently available. Survive wave by wave, using parts found to create special parts that will open locked doors and power on devices. Vending machines will give you access to power ups, which will give you a big boost, especially for when the zombies arrive in greater numbers and powerful variants. You can earn points by killing zombies, barricading windows/doorways, and helping others. These points will be used to purchase more weapons, powerups, and upgrades, to which there is a nice variety of these to choose from and find. Using the bus that arrives from time to time, offers you a chance to leave the current map and head towards to next, all the while defending yourself from zombies trying to get inside the moving bus. I found Zombies mode to be intense and satisfying, and a great choice for people wanting a cooperative experience.

Versus Mode

 Versus Mode is a mode featuring multiple game types to choose from, such as Team Deathmatch, Demolition, capture the flag, and other various modes. As you play and combat other players on the field, you will gain XP for kills, objective completions, assists, and support assists, such as UAVs for example. As you gain kills with weapons, you will unlock decals, and attachments. The decals make the weapon look different from it's original design, with different camos and other colors, while attachments will make the weapon behave better or differently, depending on your tastes. Leveling up you will unlock access to more weapons and items, as well as "Unlock Tokens". Unlock Tokens can be used to unlock anything you have access to your current level, as well as scorestreaks. Scorestreaks are special assists given to players who gain the amount needed to summon them, such as UAVs, Stealth Choppers, A-10 Warthogs, and other support. You can select up to 3 of them, and the more powerful scorestreaks require more points, but well worth the effect.

  You have access to your own emblems as well, which you can unlock decals by accomplishing the different challenges presented for each, which have lead to some interesting and well designed emblem designs by the Call of Duty community. Also alongside this is the calling cards, which are unlocked by completing various challenges as well, to which there is many to collect and unlock.

  The versus does have it issues with lag at times, which is dependant on whom the host selected is, which might be very good or very bad depending. The maps given at launch feature either narrow corridors or wide open areas, leading to different strategies and preferred setups for each, with more map packs being released soon. 

  Overall

Overall, I found the single player and Multiplayer modes to be very fun and engaging, each in their own way. Despite the lag issues and a few others presented in versus multiplayer, I found it to be overall a worthwhile engagement and fun to play, and the Strike Force mode offers a unique twist to the Call of Duty series with it's real time strategy elements. A must buy for First Person shooter fans and competitive multiplayer fans

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Far Cry 3 Review (Single and Multiplayer)

   Far Cry 3, the latest installment of the franchise from Ubisoft, offers an excellent story,single player experience, full of side missions, activities such as poker and races, and animal hunting to say the least!

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   Story

Far Cry 3's story is an emotional roller coaster of Jason Brody trying to rescue his friends and family from pirates trying to sell them into slavery. The game does a great job of telling the narrative through cutscenes and interactive quick-time events at times to be more immersing  I will not spoil anything with the story, but there is plenty of plot twists, advancement, and dealing with many shady individuals in order to find your friends. Characters such as Vaas, can really steal the show with his insanity and immoral methods. In some ways, he can really become a fan favorite for a great villian, and the other people you meet along the way are no slouch in their character.

  Gameplay

 The gameplay in Far Cry 3 is fun and offers you two huge islands to explore (the other later on in the story). There is multiple activities to do in this game, ranging from story missions, side missions, racing, knife throwing, poker, random elements such as aiding civilians, collecting relics and war letters, plus much more! Climbing on top of radio towers will allow you to open that particular part of the map and unlock free weapons for you to use later. Along the way you will encounter outposts, which you will need to liberate by killing the enemies residing there, bonus XP for doing it stealthy and without sounding alarms!

  As you do these activites, killing enemies, skinning, and so forth, you will gain XP and levels, and with each level you will have access to 3 trees of skill types, (Shark, Heron, Spider). Spider, for instance, is more about stealth and survival, Heron, is about long range take down and mobility, and the Shark is about assault takedowns and healing. Some skills are unlocked by completing more story missions, and doing certain requirements listed, like skinning certain creatures or other requirements.

 You will also encounter "Trials of the Rakyat", which are scoring mini-games with it's own theme that can be replayed over and over to get a better high score. There is also skinning, which is required to unlock better storage of ammo, wallet size, and other increases in weapon and equipment holding. You also have the War Letters and Relics, which are scattered across the islands, and be collecting enough, you will unlock  more syringes, weapons, and so forth.

 You will play multiple activities like Poker and such, and for me, the poker games were the most fun and immersive. If you ever play Red Dead Redemption's poker games, you will feel right at home, plus if you are good at it, you can make some good money! I tried the knife throwing, and it feel somewhat clunky, but the shooting challenges weren't bad for me. 

 Animals act more like real animals in this game and will proceed to stalk you, chase you, and proceed to maul you and pin you if you aren't careful. Tigers, bears, and sharks are especially deadly, but even the more docile animals can be just as deadly if they get close. You will see Tigers, for instance, hunkering down and ready to pounce on not just you, but their animal prey and other humans too, which adds to their realism. Aligators will grab you and death roll, Tigers will pounce on you and try to tear you apart, and bears will raise up on their hind legs, roar, and slash, and so much more!

Multiplayer (Co-op and Versus)

Before we head into each section, playing multiplayer you have selection to your own custom loadouts for both versus and Co-op. Loadouts are similiar in style to loadouts in the Call of Duty series, which you select your primary weapon and attachements, plus a secondary weapon and its attachments. After this you will select your skills and battle cry, and a battle cry is a shout which gives different buffs to any ally in ear shot. Upon completing either versus or co-op you will have access to Decoder items, which you will put into a decoder slot and decipher it in real time. These decoder items have XP and weapon mods inside of them, depending on item, plus sometimes you will recieve speed ups which you can gift to others in your friends list, and you can gift weapon mods to your friends as well if you don't want them.

 Cooperative Section

The Co-op for Far Cry 3 feels like left 4 dead in quite a few ways, and is its own story, happening roughly 6 months before the single player story starts. You have a rag-tag selection of characters, with their own personalities. You can use your load outs (created beforehand) and can play with up to 4 players in the co-op story, and you can choose different difficulties for each story chapter too. Each story chapter has parts of pure action and shoot em up, and at times you will have competing parts, which are minigames to where you and your friends compete to reach up points for more XP. Some sections of the chapters also have defending areas and grabbing bombs to set up to blow up a building, bridge, or whatever. Each Chapter can last for quite a while, like 30 minutes to an hour depending on how fast you run through it. If you love Co-op and have other far cry 3 friends this will be fun for you, and you gain XP and everything just like in Versus (see below)

 Versus

The versus in this game is similiar to the Call of Duty series, with game modes like team deathmatch, and a domination style match type. By killing enough enemies you can use support items to call in air strikes, a UAV style map system to discover enemy players, and can use the loadouts made earlier for versus too! At the end of a match, the best player gets to humiliate the best player on the losers team or give him mercy, depending on what has been voted on. You can do things like sharing a beer, kicking people in the nuts, beating them up, and much more, which I found funny and hilarious. The versus mode was giving me some bugs like dying spontaneously and falling through the map, but I hope they will address this soon. The Co-op is still a great choice if versus isn't your thing.

  Overall 

Overall I found Far Cry to be a great single player experience with a great story and has a decent multiplayer addition as well! If you are more into the single player you will have a great time with it, and despite the bugs in multiplayer, it is still a blast and fun to play, and I highly recommend it!

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Play flash games on the VGC now!

                            Play Flash games on our site!

 

We have added the first of hopefully many flash games on our site now. The first game to debut here is Flipline Studio's "Papa's Hot Doggeria", You can read our review for the game here, and you can now play the game here too by clicking here or going to the top sidebar on the right!

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New EDF 2025 Trailer!

This Trailer is Japanese voice and text only, but it doesn't matter when you saw all this awesome action going on! I cannot wait to play this game, and it looks amazing. From what I have seen in the trailer, looks like it might support 3 or 4 player co-op, if someone can confirm please put in the comments section below. Other than this, enjoy the trailer!

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Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest Merchandise!

  Dragon Warrior and Dragon Quest have been a long-time staple of classic style RPG gaming, and today's showcase is all about merchandise and games for this classic franchise! Some items have Amazon's Super Saver Shipping, which is free shipping on all eligible items over 25$! See Amazon's help page for more information while you are surfing today! Proceeds gained from sales on merchandise showcases go to helping out the Video Game Cove, expanding with more reviews and so forth!


Check out the nice collection of PS2 games, DS games, Japanese Imports, watches, wall scrolls, figures, decals, and much more! Check out more awesome merchandise showcases and action figures!

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