Grand Theft Auto 4

Overall Rating
Story Rating
You play as a man named Niko Bellic who comes to America to live with his cousin Roman. Roman tells Niko he is living the American dream with money and cars. Niko soon finds out that Roman was bluffing. Niko has to go through various missions as a hitman in order to get money. The story has a lot of memorable points and moments that leave you to say, "Oh, snap!", or in our case, "That was hamedelic!"
Game Play Rating
The gameplay works very well and is very enjoyable. A new addition to the GTA series is a brand new cover system. Simply press the right bumper and your character hides behind a wall or any other type of cover. It works great, especially when being attacked by a bunch of enemies. The driving in the game has gotten much more realistic along with new physics. While it is a bit more challenging, the driving in GTA 4 is very fun. You could spend hours just driving around Liberty City and enjoying the sites, and jumps.
Graphics Rating
The graphics look great. The buildings, vehicles, and environments are all very detailed. Only a few glitches noticed, such as skyscrapers that pop in that are from neighboring islands.
Multiplayer Rating
The multiplayer is amazing. There are many spectacular game modes including, death match, team death match, race, and free mode. My personal favorite is free mode where up to 16 players can explore Liberty City. There is also a feature in multiplayer that allows you to create your own character. To earn more gear for your character, you must rank up by playing matches. This feature is great until you get to rank 5. At this level, it takes much longer to rank up. There are 10 ranks total.

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Xbox Far Cry 2 Game Review

Overall Rating
Story Rating
There is a civil war raging in Africa. Two war groups have formed: APR and UfLL. An arms dealer named the Jackal is supplying arms to both sides, which is furthering the war. You are a hired mercenary sent in to terminate the Jackal. Story missions are well varied with a superb ending. Side missions, like weapons convoy missions are repetitive at times.
Game Play Rating
The gameplay is very intense with the first person view. There are lots of weapons, but you can't customize attachments. Realistic driving physics. The bad thing is that your enemies are wearing regular street clothes, but it takes a whole AK-47 magazine to kill then (unless its a head shot). It's as if the street clothes are made of kevlar. You die too easily on harder difficulties, with no regenerating health system. Somewhat of a pain, but makes it more realistic. There are glitches with the enemy AI. For example, they look like they are just standing around doing nothing, o looking in a completely different direction and are still somehow shooting at you.
Graphics Rating
The game maker created a completely new graphic engine for Far Cry 2 called the Dubia Engine. Character models look more realistic as do water and grass with detailed textures. There is a fire propagation system so fire can spread and it looks amazing. Game sounds are phenominal and voice acting is great. The characters do talk too fast at times and are hard to understand.
Multiplayer Rating
Fast paced and intense just like single player. There is a bit of a lag when shooting someone and it takes a few extra moments for your bullets to register a hit on someone. There are over 30 ranks that are used to upgrade to 6 classes. 4 game modes: team, death match, capture the diamond (basically capture the flag), and uprising (one leader on each team and the leader captures control points on the map). Map creation feature with over 100 items in the map editor. Maps can be published and shared.

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Game Review Ratings

In keeping with the Ham theme, games are rated in terms of ham slices in some of the more common categories. The scale ranges from an empty plate (worst) to 10 slices (best possible). An average of the categories (rounded to the closest quarter slice) is calculated for the overall rating. By the way, the slices shown in the graphics were served up for Christmas dinner.

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