Quick Reviews

This is a new regular to my blog. I will review 5 games that I don't own. They will be games that I have played on at a friends house or got a demo of. The aim is so that I can:
a)Cover more games
b)Make my blog more accessible for people who don't have time to read my full reviews.

Todays games are:

Battle Front
Battle Front 2
Halo 2
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Age of Empires 3

Battle Front
Battle front is a 1^st/3rd person shooter. In the demo I have it has one map, the one where the republic have to destroy the shield bunker. The game has a simple backbone. Both army's have a certain amount of troop reinforcements. For every man you kill they lose one. Also, one team will have an objective, like destroy the bunker. The graphics are quite good considering its age but there are no cool special effects. Over all it is great fun but is hardly revolutionary.

Battle Front 2
Battles Front 2 is very similar the the original. Because I played it at a friends house I got to see much more of the game. A big feature is the ability to play in space which is confusing at first but fun once you get in to it. Their are 2 campaigns. One is simple missions that you complete in a chronological order, the other though features a TB section. My friend and I played this bit multi player. It was good but there wasn't, as to be expected, much micro-management and you just choose which units you could be in the battles and built fleets. I think I would enjoy it more if he wasn't so good at it. The graphics have advanced slightly, but still includes no special effects except for some of the vehicles blow up in cool ways.


Halo 2
I think I am the only Xbox owner who doesn't have Halo 2 but does have 16+ rated games. My friend has let me borrow many times so I have played both single and multiple player much. I think the multi player is really fun. There is a wide variety of maps, exciting vehicles and lots of grenades. On the flip side though, I don't think the single player is very good. I say this at the risk of getting a huge amount of back lash, but it is true. All the missions you just run around killing stuff that is so weak you can beat it up with a pistol twice before they kill you. The story line is meant to be really good but the only reason people say that is because Microsoft said it and their is a 'story' as such. Overall, good if you have friends.

Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Possibly the best Xbox game ever. The single player is intensive, thrilling, un-repetitive and challenging. The multi player co-op, instead of just being the same or a bit harder, is completely different. You get a different set of missions. Their are special moves like climbing on one and other and there are bits where you have to split up and come into a room at the same time. It also has versus but that requires 2 copies of the game so we couldn't try that out but we went on the tutorial and it looks immense. The graphics on this game are stunning two. My only fault is it is not very long.

Age of Empires 3
Age of Empires 3 is a real time strategy game. It is very similar to the other ones and many people complain they haven't done enough to it. They have added some new features and of course the new graphics engine. All the changes that have been made to the original game have been good ones but there aren't enough. If you would like to read more you can at http://thkgamereview.blogspot.com/2005/09/age-of-empires-3-preview-update.html
and http://thkgamereview.blogspot.com/2005/08/age-of-empires-3-revelation-or-some.html