That Game

Ratchet: Deadlocked is another fantastic Ratchet and Clank game made by Sony Entertainment and Insomniac Games. It is also known as Ratchet: Gladiator in the continents Europe and Australia and sometimes even Ratchet and Clank 4. The game is the sequel to the Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal. It is a game for those of you who like the Ratchet and Clank series, but is made uniquely different because there are so many different maps to play in instead of just one or two big ones and also the really funny ‘commercial’ breaks in the middle.

The game starts with Ratchet and Clank on board their spaceship with their crazy scientific friend Al. They talk to the new mayor of Metropolis City, Shasha, who briefs them on sudden disappearances of heroes. She warns him to watch out when suddenly and very predictably, alien robots come and kidnap the whole crew. Ratchet then finds himself on board a space station called the DreadZone where kidnapped heroes fight as gladiators for their freedom. Ratchet then has to fight many ex-heroes that had gone corrupt with fame and eventually destroy the DreadZone station.

The idea of DreadZone is a very original idea of coliseum-like battles because they have very funny rules. First of all, you have to wear a ‘Deadlock’ collar because if they find you too boring they can blow it up and kill you. Second, you have someone that talks to you throughout the battles, which is Clank in this game, and he is allowed to hack into the battle networks and tell you what is going to happen. Normally this would be considered cheating but not in this ‘game’. The next thing is that you are allowed to have battle bots to help you fight, which is also very un-gladiator-like because you don’t have to fight by yourself like a real gladiator in Rome had to. Al is responsible for the battle bot department.

The similarities of DreadZone and Roman coliseum fighting are mainly the way you fight. You are put into many arenas, which are actually different planets that the pirates managing DreadZone captured, and are forced to fight for your life against robots manufactured in DreadZone and sometimes even the corrupt ex-heroes that I mentioned earlier. Also, all ‘contestants’ are forced to fight like many Gladiators were. Slave Gladiators were very common in Rome though some did fight for glory like the corrupt ex-heroes in the game.

Overall this game is very fun. Each level has a different mission and needs different accomplishments. It is not a very violent game because you are not killing any random people and you also are not actually killing anybody. When robots are common in the world then maybe it will be rated violent because some kids will try to blow them up and destroy them. Also, if we find any monstrous looking aliens it might be rated violent because kids will keep killing them, but the game and the company probably would not last that long. Earth might not even last that long…well not for the alien part.

Information gathered from Wikipedia.

This is probably the best game that I have ever played in my entire life. Age of Empires III (also known as AOE), made by Microsoft Gaming Studios, is a strategic history game that is based during the age of exploration in the New World. It can never get boring because you can keep playing skirmishes over and over again in many different maps, using different strategies and methods to win. There are many different difficulties and nations to play against, each having there own unique improvements, soldiers, and sometimes settlers too. If you get bored of the skirmishes, which I guarantee you never will, you can also play the amazing campaign. If you get bored of that as well, then you can buy the Age of Empires III: The Warchiefs or Age of Empires III: Asian Dynasties expansion packs.

One of the most amazing things that I find in AOE is the graphics. When you look at water you can actually see fish jump out, whales swim, and the tides move. You can see the sales of you ships move along with the wind and see the leaves of the trees sway and sometimes fall off and fly as the air passes by. When your settlers or military move, there legs walk one step and a time instead of those games where the whole person just seems to float as he/she moves.

Another fantastic thing that they put into the game was historic facts that you can play in. The campaigns are mostly based on real history and it is amazing that you can actually play it. It is like recreating history your own way. You get sucked into it and the game makes you feel like you are actually inside it. The AOE campaigns are based on the discovery of the New World, how people ran colonies back then, and also about the establishment of railroads. The Warchiefs campaigns get more historical with the American Revolution and the Gold Rush. The Asian Dynasties campaigns are the first historical AOE 3 campaigns that are about cultures outside the U.S. The Japanese Campaign is about the unification of Japan and the establishment of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The Indian Campaign is about the Sepoy Rebellion in the 19^th century against the British East India Trading Company. Finally, the not so factual Chinese Campaign is about the hypotheses of the Chinese setting foot on the New World before Christopher Columbus.

Those campaigns are really fun, but they are not as fun as the skirmish games. The most fun thing about a skirmish game is creating you civilization. You get to choose who you want to play as from the list of civilizations given which are: French, British, Ottoman, German, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese. The Warchiefs expansion gives you the additional civilizations: Aztec, Sioux, and Iroquois; while the Asian Dynasties Expansion gives you the Indian, Chinese, and Japanese civilizations. While you play a skirmish you can also ally with native villages, which gives you some special soldiers, settlers, and improvements. The bad thing about a AOE 3 is that unlike AOE 2 you can only chooses your allies in the beginning of the game but you can not change them.

The game is played as a colony. You play as a colony of the civilization that you chose earlier and the object of the game is to defeat the other civilizations in the area so you can control all of the land. This game is very different from other games because you keep playing continuously, you do not have turns to play. This means that you have to always stay on you guard and always have a standing army. Every single move that you make has to be made quickly and you cannot afford to make too many mistakes. You can win the game using an infinite number of strategies. The three basic ones are: rushing, which is aging up as fast as you can so that you can train soldiers and attack the enemy early; booming, which is when you spend all you resources on economical improvements; and turtling, which is when you spend all of you resources for defense so that nobody can attack you too well.

The main idea of the game is a race to get to the highest age. In the game there are several ages. Age I is the Discovery Age that you usually start out with. Age II is the Colonial Age, when you can actual make a colony instead of a few buildings and settlers. In this age you can start training troops. Age III is the Fortress Age, where you can start getting really good improvements and fortify your colony better. At this age you can start training some artillery Age IV is the Industrial Age, the age where you can get even better improvements and get really powerful artillery pieces and troops. Age V is the Imperial Age. This is the last age and the most powerful one. In this age you can build a capitol and get very powerful economic and military improvements. You can blockade an opposing city’s shipments, which are certain improvements, resources, settlers, or troops that you can get from you home city; and you can also spy on the enemy city, which lets you see everything that the enemy can.

As you play through the skirmishes you get experience points for your home city. Experience points (XP) helps you level up you home city, which gives you cards. Cards are things that you have that let you choose new shipments. The more cards you have, the more shipments you can choose. Some shipments are restricted by level though, so you have to play more skirmishes to get them. If you play a single player skirmish, which is when you are against the computer, you can only get a limited amount of XP in a game. If you play in a multiplayer game, you can earn as much XP as you want. XP can be earned just by staying in a game for a long time and also by destroying buildings, training settlers or troops, and building buildings. While in a game, the more XP that you earn, the more shipments you can send from you home city. Some shipments can only be sent once though, so choose wisely.

The Multiplayer mode is very fun. If you get tired of playing against the same old computer for a long time, play against other players throughout the world via the internet. The down side of multiplayer mode is that you cannot play the campaign mode with the other players. The up side is that you can download different scenarios from the internet and play those with other players. There are not many single player scenarios but there are a lot of fun multiplayer ones. Some common ones are Coliseum and Mythodia. There are many different modifications of these scenarios which mean more fun for you.

Sites where some information was taken from are Gamespot and Wikipedia. If you want to download the Age of Empire III trial version for any one of the three games (AOE 3, The Warchiefs, and Asian Dynasties) click here.

Now this is a fun game that I would recommend to anyone that does not mind violence. It is like a typical Grand Theft Auto game, but with the best missions. Its storyline is only second to the GTA: Vice City one. It is also quite spectacular because of all the things that you can do if you do not want to do the story line. You can fly planes, drive boats, get girlfriends, customize cars, go to vehicle schools, and do a lot more. Unlike other Grand Theft Auto games, you get to customize most of you character. He looks the same over all, but you can buy him different clothes, get him different hairstyles, and also get him tattoos. In other Grand Theft Auto games, you are only able to choose certain outfits that you unlock, but in GTA: San Andreas you can buy different combinations of clothes. The Rockstar gaming company had really put a lot of hard work into making this game.

The game starts out with your character, Carl Johnson, more commonly known in the game as CJ. He has come over to Los Santos, San Andreas, from Liberty City to go to his mother’s funeral. San Andreas is a state in the GTA series that is taken after California. There are three main cities there, Los Santos, which is taken after Los Angeles, San Fierro, which is taken after San Francisco, and Las Venturas, which is taken after Las Vegas (even though Las Vegas is not in California). These three cities are made with amazing accuracy. I have visited all three of those cities in real life before, and it is crazy how precise Rockstar made this game. There is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fierro, the harbor side carnival in Los Angeles, and the huge TV screen ceiling in Las Venturas.

The character, CJ, himself is quite a character. Throughout the game he becomes a sort of guardian angel of San Andreas, though nobody knows that. He starts out as a gangster in the ‘Grove Street Families’ gang, helping his brother and childhood friends however he can. Ironically, he ends up cleaning the streets of Los Santos and the other cities of criminals. He battles drugs, the mafia, and corruption as you progress through the game. This game can be quite violent, though, because he deals with the villains gangsta’ style. It can also get pretty gory too, so I don’t recommend letting children under the age of 10 play it.