Palluxo.com has a (late) review of the Mac version of Stubbs the Zombie. Fair warning: it spoils the entire plot, if you happen to mind that, and doesn't really describe the gameplay.
You know Captain Spark. The guy who records all those audio snippets from Halo games? Yeah, that's him. He's weighed in now with a review of Halo 3's campaign. He starts by getting two beefs of his chest (the over-aggressive Arbiter and the so-called "Cortana Moments") before getting to what he likes. Well worth a read, go check it out.
The Escapist is usually a cut above other gaming sites when it comes to content, especially long content. They've done a short review of Wideload's Hail to the Chimp, and the long and short of it is, they didn't like it much.
Several websites have picked up a review of Hail to the Chimp by Billy O'Keefe of the McClatchy-Tribune news service, including the Star-Telegram of Dallas, the Miami Herald of Florida, and Macon.com in Georgia.
Don't bother hitting all the links as all the reviews are the same text:
The team at TeamXbox rated Wideload's sophomore effort, Hail to the Chimp, a 7.9 out of 10, scoring highest for audio and innovation. One of the game's greatest strengths might ironically become one of its weaknesses:
It's tough for a game to be funny. So it's no slight praise when GamesRadar says that Hail to the Chimp is funny-- if you're in your 20s:
Through it all, the comedy keeps flowing, often in the form of commercials or news reports. Just how funny these bits are is debatable here in the office, but we have the same arguments about Family Guy and Saturday Night Live. However, we can all agree that Hail to the Chimp is definitely a step above most games that bill themselves as "hilarious." And also that you have to be in your 20s to appreciate it.
The news isn't all bad for Crackers the chimp, though. 1Up's reviewer gave the game a B+, and the average of users and editors on the site is an A.
The site praised the game for the humorous news segments as well as the unabashedly strange gameplay elements.
More or less at random I happened upon The First Hour blog, which reviews only the first hour of a video game. Game #12, reviewed back in September 2007 (just in time for Halo 3 to come out) was the original Halo.
As an extension to that blog, Beyond The First Hour reviews games after they are finished, and that blog features a review of Halo 3. No love for Halo 2 apparently, but that's par for the course now, isn't it?
For a game company that made its name with a game about a zombie who used his body parts as weapons, it's ironic to say that only now, with the release of Hail to the Chimp, are things starting to get ugly. Problem is, the ugly thing is the reviews.
Citing game modes that are too similar to each other and AI that was often unclear on the concept of how to play the game, IGN gave HttC a 3.5 out of 10 and said it had "zero redeeming qualities". Ugly, indeed.
Another disappointing review for Hail to the Chimp: Variety says this political humor game isn't funny, and isn't really political. Ouch!
...but not so much for the gameplay. They rate it 3/5 overrall but say the game is more fun to watch than to play. Ouch.
haveblue3: can you see this?
Randall Glass has joined this chat.
narcogen@mac.com: yesyesyees
haveblue3: narc says he can't see some people
haveblue3: is it working?
narcogen@mac.com: yeah. I see claude (greyed out-- away?)
louiswuathbo: what... the chat?
narcogen@mac.com: you and randy
louiswuathbo: I'm here.
Hi everybody!,
I've Found all the Skulls, Easter Eggs and Secrets on Halo2,3, But im not Satisfied. I've Been digging around You-Tube and have found Vids like these:
[url=http://]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TmHKUlTXY[/url]
[url=http://]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQdOdmHEpuI[/url]
[url=http://]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny7O6l4Txk0[/url]
Now that I've recovered from my Super Bowl hangover, here's the promised conclusion to my three-part review of Halo 3's soundtrack.
Edge Closer starts out airy and atmospheric but soon turns into something like a technofied, up-tempo version of Covenant Dance as you fight your way back out from the map room for extraction, finishing with another drum-pounding Pelican pickup that is very similar to the one that ended the very first level.
Finish the Fight gets turned into a combat anthem for Three Gates, a rollicking piano heavy piece that starts during the introductory cutscene for The Covenant and continues to play as you fight your way from the beach to the first of three towers you must disable in order to follow Truth to the Ark's control room. In the interior sections we get an interesting mix of electronic and acoustic percussion.
As This Is Our Land starts, the strings pick up what sounds like an entirely new melody, one that rolls back and forth like waves on a heavy sea. It's hard to tell whether the music creates this effect all by itself or whether it's bolstered by the visuals-- in this area of the game, the large open space where the first Scarab appears, one of the most prominent objects is a huge grounded ship-- presumably it was on a large lake that has since drained during the uncovering of the Forerunner artifact beneath the sand.
Those who enjoyed the piece that accompanied the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer-- Finish The Fight, offered as a separate download prior to the game's release-- will recognize This Is The Hour as essentially the same piece, with a shorter introduction. After all, we're no longer watching the Chief emerge slowly from the desert.
While this re-imagining of some of Halo's major themes is just as huge and as stirring as it was in that trailer, I can't help thinking if this is another time where Bungie painted itself into a cutscene corner, space-pickle style, that it had a hard time getting out of. Originally the object on Earth was supposed to be the Ark. It's uncovering was sure to be a key event in the game, as its interior would be opened up for you to explore. In the game, though, it's a cross between a McGuffin and a red herring-- it's just a door that leads somewhere else.