This past weekend I was able to get a hold of the “Red Faction: Guerrila” multiplayer beta. Knowing that it is a beta, in similar condition as the CoD4 multiplayer beta when it was made available, I still have an itch needing to be scratched.

The multiplayer feels more like Team Fortress 2 meets Halo 3. The game tries its best to do so much however it lacks the basic fundamentals of navigation in its current stage, and the party lobby simply sucks. (cough cough halo’s party system sucks, don’t try copying it)

The party lobby has a feature many beta players didn’t even care to notice and that is your gamer picture next to your name. This I thought was very intuitive since visual recognition is much easy than trying to find out someone’s gamertag with today clan names built into them. The part lobby is a bit annoying because you are lucky to get into a game sometimes because of the launch counter is set to 40 seconds and restarts anytime someone comes and goes.

Now peeves set aside, time to speak about the actual gameplay. The multiplayer offers some unique game play and funny halo like moments that keep bringing me back. For example, there are backpacks you can pick up at various spots on the map that provide power ups. Packs include Rhino (acharge attack), Jetpack (Rocketeer away), Concussion (ground sonic boom) Fleetpack (the Flash has nothing on it), and Firepower (increases damage). The packs add some dynamics to the game however also create the bad effect of camping in specific areas of user preference.

Another cool thing about the game is almost everything is destructible. Everything but large rocks can be pulverized using your trusty sledgehammer and other big booming weapons. The sledge hammer will make you feel like Kratos stuck in a Halo environment as you start pulling a Gallagher in various people on Xbox Live. It is a great pwnage tool. Also note this game is in third person and is not an FPS. (Ie.. You see your guy running around like Gears of War).

So far I have experienced two game modes, Damage Control and Team Anarchy. Damage Control is much like Domination is Call of Duty 4 and Team Anarchy is equivalent basically Team Deathmatch in every other game. Damage control is an brilliant concept because you must destroy various structures on the map and rebuild them with a repair gun to claim them as your own. Claim and hold the most structures for the longest duration is the way to achieve victory in this mode.

Overall I feel this game has a lot of potential and once the kinks are worked out, I will certainly give it a go again. I don’t sense this game will stick like a GoW or CoD4 multiplayer however if you need a break from those this will certainly provide a good fix. As more information becomes available I will certainly provide updates. Now let the onslaught of Halo fanboys rip me a new one for my comments.

Good rental. ‘Nuff said. I’m still playing GTA and man, what a difference. Once you get ‘spoiled’ with lots of content and game depth on a game like GTA, and as well with a superior shooter like Rainbow six, games Frontline just doesn’t measure up. In fact, they look so shallow and meaningless, and this is even a half way decent shooter. After playing Call of Duty 4 and the new Rainbow Six, this game is worth the cost of rental only to me. In fact, you can play it through so quick, that the $7 rental at blockbuster is actually worth it.

I did play the online MP demo, and wasn’t really grabbed by it, however others might really enjoy the vehicles. For me, that was really what made the game enjoyable. Also, the automated vehicles are VERY cool. (remote control helis, turret guns, etc). Really takes the frustration out of trying to get those hard to reach enemies, feels awesome when you detonate a flying device hundreds of yards away on a few turret gunners behind armor. Ahhh… sweet gaming bliss.

The story is pale and boring (I skipped 90% of the cutscenes… same old drivel over and over again), taken out of the pages of a cheesy 80′s war movie (in fact, you are battling the ‘Red Star Army’, hmmm, wonder who that could be referring to). Overall I think they did a good job on the game, though it is certainly not AAA title, let’s give it a AA classification, shall we? (still beats payback soundly!).

There are numerous elements of cheesiness in the game (the first time they drop in the tanks, one of the soldiers says ‘I bet we could pick up some chicks in these!’ I hope that was put in as a joke, for the developers sake), some lame animations, and some of the AI is pretty retarded. The game is also dreadfully easy to beat, any experienced shooters I would really start out on the highest level. It is very forgiving when you die and you don’t have to re-kill the enemies when you ‘re-deploy’, as the game puts it. (At least on normal, I haven’t played realistic yet). This was a welcome respite from GTA, the total polar opposite of it in fact, hah. The weapons are a little bit crude compared to a more technical shooter like Rainbow six, but for the overall quality of the game, satisfactory to the gameplay. (I didn’t feel so great about the sniper rifle either).

Overall, good rental, but unless you get hooked into MP online or getting some of the achievements, you will be done with this game in a few days like I will be.

As most of my gameplay for this title has been in online multiplayer, I am going to focus on that for this review, but let me say a few words about the basics of the game first. Overall, I give this game a 9.5 out of ten for both singleplayer and online multiplayer, with just a wee bit taken off for the occasional online glitches. (but you can just blame that on microsoft, why not?)

Ghost recon advanced warfighter II (GRAW II) from ubisoft is an excellent revision of the award winning original launch, with the brand new crosscom version 2, simplified and more effective gameplay, realism, and much better scaling of ability levels. (I remember playing the original GRAW on easy and getting skoooled!). If you’ve played any of the other ghost recon titles, you’ll find that single player gameplay in GRAW II is entirely enjoyable and simple, but not too overly simplified or easy to lose your interest. For someone new to the game, it’s also perfect, as the easy option is forgiving enough to help you learn the ropes.

I haven’t yet played the game all the way through yet, but have enjoyed playing it, until Dave suckered me into an xbox live subscription with (what else ) a bribe! I started out with Gears of war and my rude introduction to Xbox live with this game almost turned me off to the whole experience (again). I had played once on live for all of about 3 minutes on the original xbox and kept getting sniped in rainbox six III. much profanity was uttered and i abandoned the live experience. Also keep in mind I the only other online play I had done was Quake II (baaack in the DAY), and i sucked at that equally as badly. The reason i go into all this illustrious history, is b/c I will forever owe GRAW II a debt of gratitude for being the game that really got me into online gameplay. But let’s finish up this thought with one last humiliating experience! My very first match on GRAW II? killed about 10 times in about 3 seconds… the host screemed out ‘NOOB!’ and kicked me off the server. (hey guys, comon… ya dont have to be rude about it, how about a little encouragement? heh). So i came close to saying forget it again… but once i started playing with cooler people (dave?), the experience immediately got much more rewarding. I think i got my first kill in the very next match. And once i had a taste, there was no going back!

Before I knew it a few weeks had gone by and I’d probably logged about 30 hours of online gameplay, and had reached the 500 kills achievement, among many others. (team veteran, team allstar, executioner, combat medic, etc). There are also quite a few really nice people who play GRAW II online in both ranked and unranked matches, so you’re sure to find plenty of different skill levels and personalities out there. It seems to be a fairly popular game (though perhaps not as much so as GEARS, or the very soon to arrive Halo III), and here’s why I enjoy this game much more than any other online / multiplayer i’ve tried. for reference, I have tried Halo II multiplayer, GEARS of war online mp, call of duty II online mp, far cry instincts online mp, the darkness online mp, and to date, counterstrike online mp on the pc. The only game that comes close to touching GRAW II online mp is counterstrike, but it’s in a completely different class. I vastly appreciate the simplicity, and sheer beauty of the graphics in GRAW II. I am also incredibly impressed by ubisofts ability to make a stellar game for the 360 that obviously uses alot of resources on the box, w/o as much freezing and crashing as many other games with such rich graphics and gameplay experience.

Granted, the game has had it’s flaws in the online environment, with dropped host sessions among them, but the last few patches that have come out seem to have alleviated most of that for me. Also the two additional map packs being free now definitely add more to the experience, and I look forward to them adding more!

If you like a military grade online mp shooter, this game is for you. I think (at least until call of duty 4 arrives) that this is the best online 360 game right now, even after Halo III comes out. The reason I say that is b/c halo III is a sci fi style shooter, this game is engineered to be much more military in style, and is much more realistic than an all eye-candy game like Gears of war.