Nothing is sexier than having maggots in your eye.

I’ll start by saying that i absolutely loved Red Dead Redemption, it was my favorite game of last year, and as far as i’m concerned, making undead nightmare was such a good idea. the guys at rockstar rarely make a misstep and this is no exception, this is a great addition to the Red Dead world.

The game starts with a bang as Uncle comes back to Beecher’s Hope to eat Johns family’s brains. Before John can stop him, both his wife and son have been infected. Once again, it’s up to you to save them. This is basically the whole story, John traverses the old west looking for insight into how the whole thing began, and trying to stop it. During this adventure you run into almost all the key players from the original game. Every one of these interactions is really great and i highly recommend finishing the first game before starting this one so you can catch all the references. once again the dialogue and the voice acting as a whole is really impressive.

The one thing about the story i didn’t like was the fact that it just kind of trails off at the end. The game clocks in at around 5 hours, maybe 6, which is great for DLC, but even still it seems like everything is moving smoothly until it just kind of ends with a silly expanation for the zombies and a lackluster final battle. I was expecting something more epic, especially considering how freaking great the ending of the original is. Also kind of ironic is the fact that the time period during which the story is told (almost the end of the first game) means that technically it could actually fit into the overall story of red dead, continuity wise. I’m gonna go ahead and pretend it doesn’t though.

The best part of the game was Rockstars decision to make it so you have to shoot the zombies in the head. This is what makes the game so fun. You are given many different weapons in this game that you didn’t have in Marston’s standard adventure, all of which are fun and useful. my favorite, holy water, engulfs foes in blue flames. The game does tend to get a little repetitive after a while, far more than the original, simply because all it is is zombies zombies zombies. but thats okay, cause zombies are really fun to kill. On an annoying note, I was very angry while clearing out the town of Las Hermanas due to the fact that after killing every single zombie in the whole town except for one, i realized that said zombie was trapped in a wall and i couldn’t kill it no matter what. SO i had to start the level over. lame.

My favorite part was breaking the four horses of the apocalypse. this was very fun and provided a nice break from the zombies. One of the horses is called Pestilence, and after you catch him the game tells you that he is almost impossible to kill. I caught him in the area of Tall Trees, and as is my luck, he immediatly (within ten seconds of breaking him) died by falling off a very small cliff. annoying.

Besides that though this game is literally fantastic. It’s so much fun and should be played by anyone who enjoyed the first adventure.

Undead Nightmare:

Final Score: 9/10

And just for the record i would give the original game:

Red Dead Redemption

9.5/10

Let me start by saying this game is awesome. There is no denying how much fun you will have playing through it. I was a little wary getting into it, as I was a little under-whelmed by Infinity Wards latest: Modern Warfare 2, the previous installment in the franchise. Now, before all the fan boys start crying out in disgust, I will explain. MW2 is also a great game for it has all the essentials, great graphics, great gameplay, and great multiplayer. That being said, that game took a total of five hours to complete! I usually applaud games that give you a fun, linear, short yet complete experience, but MW2 just felt lacking. The story was not very interesting, and the game play began to get repetitive, which, if your game is five hours long, that shouldn’t happen. The thing that bugged me the most about MW2 though, is the fact that the goddamn Brits save us again! Now, this was just silly, I feel like the writers over at Infinity Ward did this simply to be like, “ha-ha, America sucks.” The fact that the creators destroy the capital in this game as well only further cements this point. The destruction of D.C. never seemed purposeful, it just was upsetting. Maybe I’m looking into it too much though. I just am happy that Treyarch seems to understand that the Americans should be the heroes. Oh, also modern warfare 2 has that stupid level where you play as the terrorists and kill a CIA agent as well as many civilians. DUMB DUMB DUMB. This level is just sickening. I can’t believe they included this a game. I don’t mean to sound like a nervous mother or an uninformed politician, but this was crossing the line. There is a big difference between having a scene like this in a movie and having one in a game. At any rate, this is turning into a rant about Infinity Ward, but that’s just because I think they’ve let their success get to their heads.

a guy taking a dump.

Moving on to the actual game in discussion: Black Ops. I think I should start by saying that the story in this game is really great. It takes a while to get into as it starts off rather confusing, but the narrative in which most of it plays out (Flashbacks) are really well done. Definitely the best story of any COD game so far. The ending wasn’t all that surprising, I guessed it about halfway through, but the fact there was even a twist at all was really awesome. I loved the way in which it was revealed as well. The voice acting, which is done by actors Sam Worthington, Ed Harris and Gary Oldman, is awesome. The only voiceover that is bad is Kennedy’s, which sounds more like a caricature rather than an actual attempt to recreate it.

they don't see him cause he's behind that rock.

The gameplay is really solid throughout. Point, shoot, hide, heal, repeat. Not earth shattering in any way and towards the end it gets pretty repetitive, but there are several surprising set pieces throughout that change stuff up at least a little. My favorite of these was the one with the “nova gas” being released. If your character gets shot too many times his suit protecting him from the gas gets punctured. The graphics are also really great, and it’s easy to overlook them since things are moving so fast in this game. Some parts look better than others though, and several times it took a while for textures to load into scenes

This guy is super cool.

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The AI leaves something to be desired, many times teammates will stand in your way, which is really frustrating when you are getting shot repeatedly. Like I said earlier, I usually really like linear games (Uncharted, Dead Space, God of War) but this game guides you through the whole thing, at times taking control for extended cut-scenes which would have been far more interesting were you able to play through them. Even despite this, during some of the scenes in the trench warfare I still managed to get lost, but that might just be me.

There is also a semi-interesting zombie mode, simply a fun addition, and of course Multiplayer. I haven’t played a single match and don’t plan on starting, everyone is just too good at this game, so it’s not any fun at all.

This is my favorite game of this series, however the concept is really wearing thin quickly, I’m hoping the changes made at Activision this past year will cause some real shifts with the next installment.

8.5/10