Over the next few days, I'm going to post a list of all the games I purchased in 2004 and also a short review of each. Feel free to chime in with your opinions - I'm going to edit this post and add more games as I go through my receipts from 2004.

Call of Duty PC
I absolutely loved Call of Duty. The graphics were great, it ran like a dream on my system, the maps were insanely awesome, and the game just created an environment that made me feel like I was in the middle of a war. The weapons were varied and seemed realistic (although I've never actually shot guns from that era except the 1911). I don't think I can fault the game for anything - I never had a crash, I enjoyed virtually every level, I didn't end up dying/respawning a thousand times to get past certain parts, and the game felt very polished. Some people had a problem with the length, but it seemed on par with other titles and the game was so good I actually ended up playing through twice.

Call of Duty - United Offensive PC
Worst expansion pack ever. It didn't have the feel of the first one. In fact, I didn't even get very far because I was so frustrated. They went a little too realistic in some parts - meaning, I would be crouching behind a tree or some cover and I would constantly be hit by mortars and such. The game was too hard and it felt like an amateur mod rather than a decent expansion. I kept dying - over and over and over, even on the easy difficulty level. Overall I was frustrated and I didn't have any fun.

The Legend of Zelda GameBoy Advance
Re-release of the 2nd game I ever purchased for NES. I loved it the first time and it's nice to be able to play it on the go. There's really not much to say about this game - if you haven't played it, you should definitely check it out. I didn't notice any differences between the original and this re-release. My only complaint is that playing it on the GBA makes my hands hurt, but that's a problem with the GBA not the game itself.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link GameBoy Advance
I only watched my brother play this game way back in the day. It looked interesting, but also difficult. When it got re-released on GBA, I thought I was up to the task. I was wrong. This game is hard. It's sort of a cross between Zelda and Castlevania II. You have to talk to tons of people in villages scattered across the map. I found their clues difficult to follow so I had to resort to walkthroughs from various web sites. Overall, it's a decent game but not noteworthy enough for me to recommend.

Unreal Tournament 2004 PC
This game is a lot of fun. The maps are absolutely stunning, probably the best I've seen in any PC FPS. The weapons are basically the same as UT2003. It would have been nice to see some new weapons but I guess they were concentrating on new maps and vehicles. I play this game exclusively on Linux, so big thanks to the developers for putting a Linux installer on the retail CDs.

Nitro Family PC
This game sucks. I picked it up because I loved Serious Sam and Serious Sam: The Next Encounter. This game is on the Serious Engine and it got good revies so I figured it would be a blast. Unfortunately, the maps are completely linear, the weapons are downright boring, and the enemies are even worse. I didn't make it all the way through this game because it was literally less fun than staring at a blank wall. Don't bother getting this game unless you already own every other game ever released. Even then your money would be better spent on a deck of playing cards.

Painkiller PC
This game is one of my favorites of the year. The graphics are spectacular. Most of the weapons are killer, especially the stake gun. The enemies range from fun and easy to stake to walls all the way up to very difficult (I mean: 10 rockets in the face difficult). The game had a great atmosphere: dark and creepy. The sounds were great and the maps were very impressive. The rag doll physics had me entertained for quite a while. Some of the levels towards the end got a little tedious, but overall it was a very good game. I would whole-heartedly recommend this to anyone that liked Serious Sam. However, if you didn't much like Serious Sam, you should download the Painkiller demo before you buy.

Star Wars Battlefront PC
This is a hard one to review. The game was intended to be played over the internet with other "live" players. Unfortunately, my connection is such that internet games are no fun, so I ended up playing this in single-player mode. The maps in this game overall were a lot of fun and true to the Star Wars atmosphere. For the most part, the weapons were good. Unfortunately some were completely pointless - I still can't figure out why some of the guys shoot these bolts of lighting looking goop that does absolutely no damage to anything I shoot. The main problem with the single-player portion of the game is its difficulty. I played the game through on the easy setting and after the first couple of maps, I was having a lot of problems. Each team gets a specified number of respawns (typically about 150), and each time someone dies and respawns, this counter is reduced by one. The problem is that to stay competitive, I had to literally slaughter at least 70% of the opposing team by myself. My computer-controlled teammates were utterly useless. So this game turned out to be pretty average, although I suspect if you liked playing over the internet, you would have a lot more fun.

Nice and informative post! It's always interesting to see your opinion about current games, seeing as in the past you've had some that sometimes diverge a bit from the norm (disliked Half-Life 1 and NOLF1, while you praised Daikatana)

Personally, I enjoyed the Call of Duty: UO singleplayer campaign more than the original. The Americans do have the most tedious and occasionally unbalanced missions though. If you ever get a good connection and are willing to give it a try, the expanded multiplayer is fun and balanced (even the almighty Soviet team Pepeshka swarm rush, can now be countered with the new LMGs set up on ledges, crates, and boxes).


How come games never get mid-magazine reloading right though? Amusingly, eventhough Call of Duty specifically has different animations for reloading an empty gun and one that's still loaded, if I switch to a fresh magazine with the 1911 having only expended a few rounds, I should have 7+1 rounds and it only has 7. Despite that, the mid-magazine reload animation is correct, since unlike most games, it doesn't show the hands charging the weapon by pulling back on the slide or bolt once.

Daeron the Nerfherder, I've never played CoD nore do I know much about guns. But it seems like when you reload half way through a clip in most games you get to keep the bullets that were in the half expended clip. Now, again, I don't know much about firearms but wouldn't that entail taking each bullet out of a clip and loading them into another half expended clip to get full magazine you usually have?

I've seen a few games where when you reload mid clip all those extra bullets you had are gone. Which I both like and hate. (BF42 some guns cannot be reloaded period mid clip, m1 garand I think...which may be realistic but drives me nuts)

I always just figured this was a sacrifice of realism for the sake of gameplay and simplicity. Obviously, no one wants to press the 'shuffle bullets around button' and wait 3 minutes while an animation plays of the guy sliding bullets out of one clip into another.

Ah, you misunderstand That's not what I was referring to.
If there's still a round chambered (i.e. the slide in a pistol isn't locked back), and I just switch magazines to a full one, that round shouldn't be going anywhere, especially since the animation shows the hands just taking out the half-expended one and slapping in a new one. Whereas seemingly in most FPS's, especially in Call of Duty where there are two distinct reload animations for the appropriate weapons, if I fire off a few rounds and slap in a new magazine, the one chambered bullet disappears completely, despite the animation just showing the magazine change.

I DoD, if you reload with a clip not being fully empty yet, you do lose those bullets permanently. DoD's ammo-counting system is per clip, not per bullet.

Actually there are some pistols set up that way. I've seen people chamber one round into the barrel and then slap a clip in and it has one more bullet than usual. Hope my explanation was correct to your situation.

i agree with everything but UO... i also bought nitro family out of my love of Serious Sam... no wonder it was on clearance for $5

I was looking at battlefront, and I wasn't sure if I should buy it. I don't have a PS2 network adapter, so I will only be playing single player and local (multi-tap). Is it worth it? Do they even have 2 player local or multi-tap function? Is there co-op mode? The last time I got a starwars game it was bounty hunter, and that was a worthless piece of plastic.

You don't have HL2 yet?! Argh! Just argh!

don't......understand.......:confused:

crap, no one talks to me anyways,:p Nevermind.

"Ahhh! Get it off my foot!" :p

Thanks, Daft, I feel better. I guess.;)

Yes, I think CoD and other FPS' have that feature where you get to keep the bullets in a half empty clip that you pop out simply for gameplay reasons. I think there is a game I have that doesn't do that, but I can't remember what is was. Maybe it was Star Wars Battleground....I can't remember.

I think Rainbow 6 had realistic magazine management. If you took one out before it was empty, sooner or later you would reload and you'd have a magazine with 4 rounds in it or something.

I didn't say you could borrow my name Mr. Stop pretending to be me, I am Brian!

The only one of Brian's reviews I feel any need to comment on is United Offensive. I thought it was really good, but the main problem was pacing. It constantly threw the player into different action scenarios, but gave very few "cooling off" sessions for you to reflect/calm down. It was really a game you had to play in short bursts. Far more impressive than any of the Medal of Honour expansion packs, for that much we should be grateful.

my only complaints on the single player in CoD and the expansion is the length... i took my time with CoD but could have finished UO the same day i started it if i would have played through the last mission that night instead of putting it off until the next day... at least every second of the short game time was 100% pure awesome

Forgive me, Brian, for ruining your thread. If I'd have known how obtuse my posts seem, I wouldn't have brought it up.

Hmh, :| I don't want to take the topic off on more of a tangent than it already is, but I don't think people still understand what I'm talking about. I'm not referring to recycling used magazines and magical insant ammo pools. So here's a quick Daeron's crapogram I whipped up, with pretty pictures so we can all undertand what I'm talking about.

Most FPS's seem to do the same as CoD, not taking the chambered round into account, but I don't undertand why CoD does this as they went the extra mile to do two distinct animations for all the magazine fed semi-auto/auto firearms * with the hands working the bolt or the slide locked back depending on if you reload from a fully expended magazine (thus no round chambered), or when you still have atleast one round left (and one round chambered in real life). The only effect it has on the gameplay is that you reload faster or slower depending on when you do so, so why not let me keep my extra round chambered for being conservative and not blasting away 'till I'm empty? Y'dig? :p

I don't own any firearms, I'm not too keen on real ones, nor have I fired any except for the compulsory dinky air-rifle at the shared family lake-place. I haven't done my obligatory military-service yet either. All my information comes from friends who have done their service and a couple who occasionally hunt. So feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

* (Thompson, Mp40, MP44, Ppsh, BAR, M1carbine, Sten, Bren, Gewehr43, SVT40, the Soviet drumfed LMG, all the pistols except for the Webley revolver.)

I'd say no. The fun is in the MP and playing with other people.



So does America's Army, but they don't account for chambered rounds if you replace a half spent clip with a fresh one. It's kind of nit picky, but it would be really cool if they threw it in games.

Well, I have a nice Kimber 1911 and I can tell you exactly how it works. If you pop off a couple of rounds, then drop the clip before it's empty, there is still one in the chamber. The hammer will be cocked back just waiting for you to shoot that one in the chamber. You can shoot it even w/out a clip in. If you do, the slide will stay back and wait for a clip. This is all too nit-picky anyway

God I want one of those games...

[reviews incoming, pleast read 'em so i feel a li'l gratified]

[edit] games? I meant guns [/edit]

Here's my biggest complaint about Battlefront:

The Dark Trooper. They completely FUBAR'd it. Instead of giving it the Assault Cannon, they gave it a lame *** shotgun thing that is almost completely useless! And, now it's not a droid, but a guy wearing DT armor. Guess Kyle was just wasting his time on the Arc Hammer.

I think the ARC trooper was a bit of a disappointment. They didn't give it commando style weapons.

Rainbow six has this, I'm sure someone else said that too...

The Dark Trooper was a guy in a suit, the Arc Hammer was the factory for its weapons and armour. The Terminator-style ones you fight earlier on are prototypes I think.

At least the Dark Troopers in Battlefront actually look like Dark Troopers, the ones in Galaxies just look like giant Stormtroopers.