Don’t open The Box.

Game Info

Developer: Spark Unlimited
Publisher: Gamecock Media Group
Release Date: November 4, 2008
Genre: First-person shooter
Available Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Modes: Singleplayer, competitive online
Reviewer’s Experience: Played to the final level of the single-player game on PC. Multiplayer modes not tested due to lack of players and reliable servers.

Throughout the long and arduous process of building the latest iteration of my gaming PC, I discovered that I was building up quite a stock of free games. One of which was Far Cry 2, which is far too boring to even deserve any kind, taste, or flavor of review. The other was the (Arguably. -Ed.) legendary Legendary: The Box, henceforth referred to as Legendary.

Now, before I go on a never-ending rant, let me talk about some of the nice things about this game. The graphics are pretty good, I’d say a little bit below, oh, what’s a game that all of you peons who might actually read this would know? Let’s use BioShock, mostly because both games utilize Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3. Now, BioShock was released upon the world in mid-ish-2007, whereas The Box was opened back in late 2008, so I will do my best to take into account the numerous engine updates that can come within such a timeframe. Either way, it’s still fairly pretty, albeit with no antialiasing, something that has always hurt my view of Unreal Engine.

The one main thing I’d like to point out about the graphics in this game is the astounding use of nVIDIA’s PhysX technology. Cloths sway in the breeze, buildings crumble as griffons fly into buildings to grab the nearest meal. Possibly the most amazing thing I saw throughout my whole adventure with this game is whilst fighting a massive Kraken in London, it grabbed Big Ben with one of its tentacles and ripped the building down. I literally messed my pants when I saw that. Cleaning myself up, let’s move on to the story.

Ahem, so, story, uhh, well, there’s this guy, he’s a thief, his name’s Charles Deckard, and he has to steal Pandora’s Box and do…something with it. Basically, upon this happening, the proverbial shit hits the fan, except the shit is made of mythological creatures. From there it’s up to Deckard and his random blonde girlfriend whose name I can’t remember to set off and save the world. There’s not much else, something about warring ancient secret societies and you go to London and…yeah. Listen, I won’t bore you with the details, the story is by no means what you should play this game for, as it definitely surpasses the qualifications of what the common folk call “retarded”.

OK, gameplay time. It is a first person shooter. It has guns, some grenades, and, oh, molotovs. Refreshing.

Is it blatantly obvious that I’m rushing through this review? Well to be quite honest, I didn’t even finish the damn game. As I discovered on the very last level, the elevator that’s supposed to take you to the top of the Combine Citadel in beautiful City 17, er, I’m sorry, the Black Order Tower in the middle of a destroyed and gleefully boring New York City, well…let’s just say that it doesn’t exist, at least for me. Upon entering the elevator, I immediately fell out into the nice, red, bloody skybox to my imminent doom. Yeah, this happened a couple times, so I happily surrendered to the bad game gods and started writing this piece of shit.

Overall, I’d have to say my favorite part of this game was the nap I took a few hours ago whilst trying to beat it. It’s buggy, it’s boring, but it would make a good tech demo if they boosted the quality of the textures and added some anitaliasing to this otherwise meh game. It has the makings of a quality cult-following kind of game, but it’s definitely understandable as to why it couldn’t compete in the bigger markets. In the end, I give this game a “meh (with nod),” sparking that I’d say it’s definitely not the worst thing I’ve played for a while and I’d recommend it if you’re impatiently awaiting some big release (as I know I am) and you’ve got an extra 10 bucks lying around.

For me, 2006’s early 360 title Dead Rising was always about the sheer number of zombies that were pushed. Hundreds of the creatures could be onscreen at any given time–and it was a joyous initial exhibit of the 360’s power.

But now, these screens from Dead Rising’s Wii port (Zombie Sacrifice) have been released. I must say, I’m impressed with the detail of the character models–but at what price has this feature come? Take a look.

As you can see, the zombies (and Frank) are looking spiffy–but there’s only a few of them. Now, I understand the Wii can’t push polys like the 360 can–but, personally, I’d rather have zombies that looked 50% worse, but 100 of them onscreen instead of 20. I’d rather have a LoD system where distant zombies faded even into the 2D realm–but not this surely pop-in filled display.

On a gameplay note, I’m ecstatic to see that they’re implementing real mechanic and structure to the game–Dead Rising was a good title for the early 360, but its timed mechanic kept ol’ OCD-explorer me away.

What do you think? Fire off a comment.

Approximately two hours ago I took the trip to my local EB Games to pick up the hotly anticipated (by me and my Civ-playing friends, at least) Civilization: Revolution on the 360.

Holy crap. That was the worst decision of my Civ career.

I decided a long time ago that I was going to give Revolution (hereby known as CivRev) a chance. Workers are gone? Alright, that’s acceptable, maybe it’ll streamline gameplay. The game I’ve played for years with a keyboard and mouse has been squeezed onto a controller? Okay, fine sir, I’m sure the fine people at Firaxis can make it work.

I decided about thirty minutes ago that giving it a chance was a waste of $60.

First, I tried the multiplayer. I’ve invested many a night in Civ multiplayer with my friends, and I was trying, really trying, to give CivRev a chance. So I figured multiplayer would be the best way to start it off. I invited my friend in, set a few (probably useless) options, put us on a team against (supposedly) two AIs, and started away.

At first, it all went well. Things were going good. Until I discovered Gandhi. Now, you see, Gandhi was a peace loving man. Why, then, did the only option available to me, dialogue-wise, take me to war with him?! A bug, I say! Oh. What’s this? Montezuma has found me (even though neither my ally or I have seen him)? Oh? He’s declared war on me? A bug, I say!

Oh, hello Napoleon. No–wait. There’s only–what the hell?! There was supposed to only be four Civilizations in this game! Yes, it’s true. In my very first multiplayer game I had encountered what I’ll now call a “ghost.” A non-existant leader whom every message he sends gets sent to all players. Yes, Napoleon. I know you’re talking to Montezuma. Why, then, must I read your message, you damn specter?!

Ugh. Okay. After about 45 minutes, my friend and I decide that the multiplayer is a buggy mess. Maybe single-player will be better, we hope, but at this point I’ve already suggested going back to a good ol’ Civ IV: BTS game. He convinces me to give single-player a chance.

Alright, I’ll play this game how it looks like it was intended to be played. I quit out to the main menu and press “Play Now.” I choose ol’ Honest Abe, my personal favorite leader, and jump in. Since I’m trying to give this game a fresh chance, I turn on tutorials. Maybe I’ll get their perspective. I also turn off the god-foresaken “Advisor Simlish” that has for some reason infiltrated this game (it’s not even a damn EA game!).

Everything goes (relatively) well for a while, until rival civilizations start demanding things from me. This is a RARE occurence in the other Civ games, and it happens about every six turns in the early stages of this game. It’s stupid and only serves to fan the flames of war. I like war, but only in the later stages, when I’ve built up my army and researched so many technologies that I can take down anyone. In the beginning, I like a lot of diplomacy, and that just isn’t an option in this game. Maybe that’s more realistic? I don’t know, but it ain’t Civ.

I’m incredibly dissapointed with this bastardization of Civilization that Firaxis has provided us with. It’s mostly a buggy mess, and when it isn’t, it’s just not Civ. However, this is only one editor’s opinion. Look for a full review, by fellow longtime Civver Tyler Hoffman, in the coming days. Personally? I’m taking mine back and buying the Titan Quest expansion at a nice budget price.

(Update: Tyler’s review went up, and I have to say that I agree with it entirely–if you’re a Civver, stay away from this pile.)

Section 1: Introduction

Long since before the days of yore… many epics were created and passed down from generation to generation. These epics revolved around the lives of Gods, both good and evil, waging war against each other for dominion over the land. Many millennia have passed since the era of epics, and yet day after day “Gods” of all kinds continue to wage war against each other. Megadeth vs. Metallica… Republicans vs. Democrats… iPods vs. Every other Mp3 player… and, of course, Sony vs. Microsoft. In this article, Sony and Microsoft are going to be boiled down to PlayStation and Xbox, respectively.
As anyone of this generation of gamers should know, the two main “giants” of the day (when it comes to games) are the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. Fanboys of all shapes, sizes, and sexual preference engage in intense, visceral and verbal scuffles daily to try and decide which console is the “best” console.

Typical Discussion:

i_luv_snake13: “o hai, I just wanted to say that i playedthat halo game and it sucks and it’s not as good as the Ps3 cuz the graphics are better like mgs4.”
GearsGod007: “if you don’t like halo ur obviously a fag lol and the graphics aren’t better, that game sux, lol!”
gamer_z75: ^^lololol qft!
i_luv_snake13: shut up u guys u just wish that ur stupid grill culd run mgs4! lol! it’d prolly brake! plus it would need like 80 disk lmao. o wait, it’s probably already broken from the rrod! god luk wuth that lol.
GearsGod007: No ur dumb!

Ehem… obviously the public is really conducting some scintillating and productive debate over the matter, but, to me and many others, this simply isn’t enough. I need cold, hard, facts and an unbiased comparison of the consoles to sate my desire to know which console is truly the “best” this generation.

Section 2: Hardware

The three main aspects of a console these days are CPU, GPU, and Memory.

The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, basically controls the processing power of the console. With the introduction of the PS3’s “cell” processor, many Sony Fanboys rejoiced, and many Microsoft Fanboys were scared and intimidated by the alleged might of the device. The cell processor is divided into 7 equal parts, each capable of processing something separately from the other cores. For example, one core could handle particles, on could handle sound, and one could handle animations. And that’s just three of the seven cores! While this is an incredible feat, and seems like it would revolutionize gaming, the fact remains that the “cell” processor lacks something, and the Xbox 360 has what it lacks. The Xbox 360 has three general purpose cores, while the PS3 has one cell processor. This means that, even though the PS3 has one incredibly powerful performance core, it is still worse than the combined might of the Xbox 360’s three. If the Xbox 360 only had one core, then the PS3 would be able to process much more than it, but this is clearly not the case.

Moving on to the GPU, the Graphics Processing Unit, we can see that the Xbox 360 also has an advantage in this area, however slight. The 360 is able to render a bit faster than the PS3, and so the Xbox 360 has the edge when it comes to graphics. This, in conjunction with the fact that the Xbox 360’s memory system bandwidth far outweighs that of the PS3, means that if a game is made for Xbox 360 and PS3, the game will almost certainly look better on the Xbox 360.

Although I already mentioned Memory in the section above… I will use a couple of sentences to clarify why Memory is important. Most importantly, it allows the Xbox 360 to have a greater range of higher-resolution textures. The PS3 has generally lower resolution backgrounds due to the fact that it’s memory is smaller than the Xbox 360’s, and so PS3 games all seem to look a little muddier than Xbox 360 games.

Section 3: Pros and Cons of the Consoles themselves

Some of you reading this likely glazed over the technical mumbo jumbo in the previous section, and I don’t blame you. This next section deals with things that actually matter to most people, and so it could be considering more helpful than the last section. Without further ado, I present the list of the Pros and Cons of the consoles themselves.

System:
The General user interface (GUI) for both systems is fairly intuitive, and easy enough to figure out after a bit of use. The Xbox 360’s GUI is slightly bulkier than the PS3’s, but it isn’t terrible. It just seems that navigating through the items on the PS3 “desktop” is more organized than navigation of the Xbox 360 interface. Once you “figure out” the 360’s system interface, however, it really shines due to the convenience of most of the features. Devices are easily recognized, organized, and titled, and the contents are easy to view/listen to. In my experience with the PS3, when I connected my iPod to the console the contents were titled with random numbers and letters… making it impossible for me to discern one from the other, and making it a pain to shuffle through my music looking for the right song. Maybe I was the only one to have trouble with this. If not, then that certainly is a major flaw.

In-Game Features:
The PS3 cannot hold a candle to the in-game features of the Xbox 360. The 360 can (these are just a few features) play custom music while playing games, start voice/video chats with friends hassle-free at any time, and award achievements for accomplishments in-game. The PS3 cannot do any of this (Although the PS3 may begin to steal/implement an achievement system soon).

Online:
The PS3 offers free online to anyone with a connection, and also allows it’s users to surf the internet through a custom browser. The Xbox 360 offers two kinds of online services: Silver and Gold. Silver accounts are free, and Silver Members can do everything that Gold members can besides access multiplayer. For $0.13 a day, Xbox 360 users can access a Gold account, which allows them to experience Xbox Live in its entirety. Xbox Live is a service, which is why it costs money. It is a system that really makes the online experience on an Xbox 360 convenient, streamlined, and enjoyable. If Sony paid for dedicated servers like Microsoft did, then PS3’s online would cost money too.

Games:
Both consoles supply a large library of good games to be played, and so neither console really has a large advantage over the other in this regard.

Space:
Space is really where the PS3 shines… both in Hard Disk space and in the space available on a Blu-ray Disc. Blu-ray has 50 Gigabytes worth of space, versus the normal 14 Gigabytes worth of space. A game that would take four discs to play on an Xbox 360 would only need one on the PS3. Of course, due to Blu-ray’s sluggard read speed, mandatory installs are required for every PS3 game (which can take from 10-20 minutes). Sometimes multiple installs are required, which really begs the question of whether or not Blu-ray really has an advantage over 20 second disk changes every few hours.

Section 4: Graphics

The pictures provided should give examples of just what to expect from each console, in terms of graphics.

Both scenes are rendered in HD and upscaled (Xbox 360 to 1080p and PS3 to 720p), so they both look fairly nice at first glance. If one studies the pictures, though, they may notice subtle differences between the screens, which may not make one version “better” than the other, but certainly makes them look slightly different.
Both monkeys look pretty good, there’s no doubt about it, but the PS3 monkey’s model is much smoother and more detailed than the Xbox 360 monkey. Typically the PS3 is able to handle character models slightly better than the Xbox 360 can, and so the PS3 monkey reflects this fact. The Xbox 360 monkey has a higher resolution texture, though, and the normal mapping has more depth. Overall, the Xbox 360’s textures are a little higher res than than the PS3’s, which is most noticeable in the banner hanging from the rope.
One last thing you may notice is that the PS3 screenshot is a lot more jaggedy than the Xbox 360 screenshot, and this is because the PS3 usually has a harder time handling Anti-Aliasing than the Xbox 360. While this is not as noticeable in the character model, which you generally focus on the most in a game, it is very prevalent in the backgrounds, which may prove to be distracting at times.

Section 5: Conclusion

Hopefully this evaluation was able to guide you in your decision on which of this generation’s consoles is the “best”. You may come to the conclusion that both consoles are equally valuable, and that one is not better than the other. This is a valid conclusion because we are all, of course, entitled to our own opinion.