Ghost Recon: Wildlands Review

Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a squad based Tom Clancy game that plays by the numbers. It stays true to the series' Rainbow Six-inspired roots, emulating the cold and calculated nature of organized infiltration and coordinated stealth kills. Whether you're syncing shots with friends or an AI companion, there's gratification in taking down targets efficiently. Unfortunately, the adherence to this specific kind of gameplay gets lost and diluted in Wildlands’ vast expanse of Bolivia. By Tom Clancy standards, Wildlands' story--a revenge tale disguised as a narco-state destabilization operation--is low hanging fruit. Worse yet, the narrative perpetuates the notion that a cartel is only worth taking seriously when one of your own has been tortured to death, ignoring the thousands of locals who've suffered similar fates. It's easy to tell that Karen Bowman--your CIA field handler--has a personal vendetta against the Santa Blanca, the drug cartel that rules Bolivia. When you ultimately come face to face with El Sueno, the cartel's kingpin, you can spot the payoff a mile away. At the end, there's no poignant message or lesson regarding this latest Tom Clancy episode in American interventionism. El Sueno himself has the privilege of introducing his side of the story right when you launch Wildlands. His introductory monologue and his subsequent speeches justifying his twisted sense of morality sounds like the rationalizations of someone who grew up in a bedroom with posters of Michael Corleone and Walter White. The pursuit of a single lead that Karen provides conveniently results in a series of other clues and each one of those tip-offs blossoms into others. Enough successful missions eventually results in confrontations with underbosses and lieutenants who are less than six degrees away from El Sueno. Wildlands is as much about gathering information on your targets as it is about picking what leads to follow down their respective rabbit holes. With a keen eye (and enough luck), you can avoid having to complete every missions related to a given boss and eliminate them ahead of schedule. As you travel from lead to lead, you're exposed to the various factions that pepper Bolivia. On your side are the rebels, known as the Kataris 26. Enforcing El Sueno's rule are the Unidad, Bolivia's military police. These groups add character to your surroundings and how intrusive they are with your mission goals depends on you. You can curry favor with the rebels and gain their support by completing side missions and marking valuable resources for them. And as long as you're flooring it in a vehicle, any Unidad you drive by will sit tight, rather than follow in pursuit. Some of your intel will reveal locations of weapons to add to your collection, though amassing a stockpile of firearms is purely optional. Compared to the multitude of games where the acquisition of guns is a major selling point, Wildlands’ selection is serviceable. The problem is that you can easily complete the game with your initial load out. This is because you regularly earn skill upgrades by completing missions, and you gain access to the quintessential stealth weapon--the silenced sniper rifle--early on. There's little incentive to hunt for other weapons unless you're a gun nut or you enjoy the experience of mixing up different weapons. Along with the obvious discretionary benefits of the aforementioned silenced sniper rifle, the drone--even before you've upgraded its capabilities--is an exceedingly helpful tool. It's the catalyst to Wildlands' mark-and-execute mechanic, the same feature that's been the hallmark of last few Tom Clancy games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. For the fans who've been hooked on Ghost Recon for the advancing technologies--which has been integral with the series' brand--the lack of gadgetry in Wildlands will prove disappointing. The novel appeal of drones--particularly in Tom Clancy games--has long since expired. While you can upgrade it with a handful of offensive and diversionary capabilities, its default function as a target-marking device is all you need. While the drone marks your targets, it's your squad's responsibility to pull off the kills. The need for coordination underscores the team-based appeal of Wildlands, which can be experienced with AI-controlled teammates or, preferably, with other players. When playing with skilled friends, there’s comfort in knowing that you’ll most likely be on the same page. Playing with AI has it’s own benefits, like being better bullet sponges when they’re out in the open healing you. The one puzzling omission to multiplayer is the ability to form a mixed squad of friends and AI; if you're playing only with one buddy, you're stuck as a pair. Even so, it's wholly amusing that the whole squad's ongoing situational story-driven banter persists even when you're just a duo. Wildlands' most gratifying moments come from playing the ghost. It means having the patience to spend minutes surveying a stronghold from a distance and arming yourself with that visual information to confidently infiltrate the base. There's a rush in leaving the base quietly with the intel you're assigned to uncover or--even more challenging--the VIP you're sent to rescue. And it doesn't get any better than pulling off these stealthy missions on your first try. Equally thrilling are the moments where you have little time to adapt to changing circumstances. When the best laid plans go wrong, when you've been spotted and a base is on high alert, you're treated to one of the few instances where your squadmates' moment-to-moment updates are actually useful. When a high value target is fleeing, your team will let you know. Suddenly, a foot pursuit ensues and you're left ignoring all the chaos and gunfire around you. The resulting car chases prolongs the excitement, unless you're lucky enough to grab the target right before he finds a getaway vehicle. At the outset, its appears that Wildlands' strength is in its diverse mission types. For every assassination, there’s a capture or rescue assignment. Any given sortie might involve hacking, sabotaging, or even stealing a plane. You might even find yourself pulling off the ol' switcheroo with two similar looking trucks. It’s never a dull moment, at least for the first 20 or so hours. By the time you've experienced each of these kinds of objectives a handful of times, boredom starts to set in. This encroaching sense of monotony feels more apparent as the poorly written squad chatter starts to repeat itself. When your teammate complains about not being allowed to man the boat, it’s mildly amusing the first time, so you can imagine how annoying it would be hearing the same gripe the twentieth time. Even incorrect situational commentary, say when you’re alerted to a patrol chopper while you’re deep inside a mine stops being funny before long. Ubisoft's reimaging of Bolivia is tailor made for goal-driven excursions beyond the story. Often times, it's photo realism is eye-catching, like when the sunlight glistens off a watery tire tracks. Other times, seeing nothing but jungle or an endless ridgeline of beige rocks brings out the blandness of some regions. The mix of dense vegetation and barren mountains echo the environments of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, just less accommodating. Navigating your way down a rocky cliff on foot is as unpredictable as climbing one. Instead, you're left using vehicles as your most reliable means of traversal. Yet for a map that should be more off-road friendly, this interpretation of Bolivia often encourages you to keep to the beaten path, lest you wipeout after a sick cliff jump on a motorcycle. One unsurprising benefit of the open environment are the myriad avenues for infiltration into any enemy stronghold. No matter how fortified a four-sided base is, there is always a backdoor, whether it's a broken fence and a convenient stack of boxes next to the outer wall. Finding and using these alternate entrances can be as satisfying as any frontal assault. Despite the country's vastness, it's a mixed blessing that you don't need to visit every region to take down El Sueno. Whether you take the most direct route to the boss or you systematically cross off every underboss and lieutenant first, you'll confront a rogues gallery of diverse personalities, whether that's a social media savvy Santa Blanca evangelist or an American military ex-pat who found purpose in El Sueno's cause. As only the second open world game in the Clancyverse, Ghost Recon: Wildlands is a middlingly safe tactical shooter and a slightly wasted opportunity given the ambitious scope of its seemingly boundless map. While its main strength is its mission diversity, it doesn’t take long to lose the motivation after reaching El Sueno's doorstep. Even with a foursome of highly trained friends, Wildlands eventually reveals its diminishing returns. The feeling of positive immediacy and dopamine hits begin to wane sooner than you expected from a game with such a large and diverse world.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/the-adventures-of-red.html

Hacknet - Labyrinths Review

Hacknet is a refreshingly grounded take on the hacker-sim genre. With a crude, Linux-inspired interface and dark, driving soundtrack, it follows the story of a recently deceased hacker named Bit, who reaches out to you from beyond the grave. What follows quickly becomes a hive of building tension and a satisfying deep-dive down the rabbit hole of online security and its moral effects on society. Initially released in August 2015, Hacknet is now seeing its first expansion: Labyrinths. This entirely new chapter takes place alongside the main story and opens up soon after you've cleared the tutorials of the main game. In addition to granting you new hacking tools and techniques, it provides even more challenging investigations that require some serious attention to detail. Missions in both Hacknet and Labyrinths range from straight-forward break, enter, and delete jobs to thorough investigations that involve finding vulnerabilities in order to crack into secure networks with numerous, heavily-encrypted servers. You’ll read files you shouldn’t be reading, steal confidential software, rummage through memory dumps for valuable information, and counter incoming hacker attacks amongst myriad other activities. Labyrinths is far tougher than the main campaign in this regard, though, since it doesn't waste any time throwing you into the deep end and relies on experience with previous puzzles. Hacknet’s reliance on typing to navigate means you’ll want to break out a real-life notepad or smartphone camera to keep track of the commands available to you. Almost all the puzzles involve breaking through network security to find a specific piece of information, which means first cracking that system’s ports by using various executables from the command-line to grant you administrator access. Once in, you are free to browse, move, rename, delete or copy files, as well as scan for other linked systems on the network. The challenge is that on top of taking up valuable time, these executables also take up a chunk of system memory while they’re running, so identifying the most economical order to run them is key to hacking efficiently. It doesn’t take long for hostile tracers to start pushing back on your progress, and they'll make your life difficult unless you learn how to get in and get out quickly. You may even find yourself in dire situations where your UI is deleted. While the act of hacking in Hacknet is wonderfully exciting in itself, frequently recurring variables in the core puzzles means that after several hours of nefarious online activity, much of the process becomes routine. At worst, it feels like a missed opportunity to subvert the somewhat processional nature of the moment-to-moment in the later hours of the main story. This is not a problem in the Labyrinths campaign though, which grants that extra bit of variety to each hack. In Hacknet’s main storyline, you get involved with a group named Entropy--affiliates of the recently deceased Bit--and work together to uncover the mystery surrounding his death. Labyrinths branches off this, pulling you away from the group to focus on a different, secret task with a different collective of hackers before returning to complete the original job. Labyrinths can be started at any point during the main campaign, though how much you enjoy it will largely depend on how deep your understanding of hacking in Hacknet is. Hacknet’s narrative explores and captures the dark side of the Internet while also knowing when to keep it light-hearted. You stumble upon random IRC logs that vary from typical troll-level banter to arguments about the depravity of society. You’ll dig incessantly at various corporate interests all while uncovering the mystery of your colleague’s death. As the stakes get higher and the stories start to intertwine, the feeling that you’re doing things you really shouldn't be starts to hit home, creating a wonderful sense of tension around your actions that remains a constant throughout. Where Hacknet relies on personal emails to move the story forward, Labyrinths tries to introduce the concept of team hacking with IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Replacing emails with a chat log that updates regularly with chatter from your fellow hackers during missions, the faster back-and-forth conversation effortlessly flows from mission critical information to jokes. That said, it’s disappointing that you can’t talk back to these characters, because you’ll want to feel more involved in the group and contribute firsthand to their discussions. Labyrinths also slightly falters towards its end, where the stakes suddenly take a huge and unexpected leap. Although twists and surprises are central to Hacknet's main campaign narrative--counter-hackers and tracing programs are everywhere--Labyrinths’ felt more jarring than most. The frenzied urgency that’s whipped up in the campaign’s climax is gone just as quickly as it starts, leaving you feeling largely unaffected by its outcome. The feeling of playing Hacknet in a dark room with headphones on and being absorbed by its engrossing puzzles and soundtrack--full of heavy beats and filthy synth sounds--feels as close as you can get to the Hollywood hacker experience. The puzzles are uniquely challenging without feeling inaccessible, and the Labyrinths expansion takes the formula further by integrating deeper investigations and adding more puzzle variety. Despite the stumbling climax and steady learning curve, Hacknet - Labyrinths is one hell of a ride that leads you down the rabbit hole and back again.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/inverted-y.html

Football Manager 2017 Review

Sports Interactive’s long-running Football Manager series is at its best when you’ve been with a team for a handful of seasons--once you’ve managed to stamp your mark on a club, imbued it with your own philosophies, and adopted an anomalous way of putting your opponents to the sword. Sure, you’ve dealt with your fair share of volatile personalities throughout the years--perhaps you were forced to sell a star player after a heated argument over his eagerness to join Barcelona--but you always had a plan. All of the franchise's disparate systems--transfer dealings, player scouting, tactical tinkering--coalesced into an endlessly engaging whole that creates some memorable tales. It’s no surprise that with each new addition to the series, we see plenty of improvements and new features in these areas. Yet it’s the on-pitch action--which usually takes a relative backseat in Football Manager--that really holds it all together. In that regard, Football Manager 2016 was a decidedly flawed game. Its 3D match engine was flushed with blemishes: god-like crosses comprised the vast majority of goals scored, right backs were overpowered, and defenders inexcusably forgot how to defend in the simplest of situations. These flaws may have seemed minor, but magnified over the long haul, they cheapened and frustrated the experience. My resounding success leading Burnley to a fourth-place finish in the Premier League hardly felt gratifying once I realized I’d unwittingly exploited the AI’s inability to deal with crosses. And losing a cup final on something that felt less like a player’s mistake and more like the fault of the match engine itself was particularly exasperating. As such, I only spent a mere 200 hours with Football Manager 16 (a far cry from the 800-ish hours I usually spend rooted in the series’ virtual dugout). I’m happy, then, to proclaim that Football Manager 2017's engine rights its predecessor’s wrongs, and it’s simply a much more enjoyable game to watch and manage. There are still a tad too many goals scored from crosses, but this is mitigated somewhat by the sheer variety of potential goals now, owing to the fact that players perform far more intelligently. Previously (and I’m talking a few years here), wingers would reach the byline and unforgivably shoot from the tightest of angles. Now when this happens, your sprightly winger will, more often than not, take stock and assess the situation. He might hit a high cross to the striker at the back post or cut it back to an onrushing midfielder on the edge of the box for a Lampard-esque finish. You’ll also see playmakers ping 40-yard passes to pacy forwards dashing behind the defense, see the odd deflected effort loop over a stranded goalkeeper, or jump up in excitement as a curler nestles in the top corner of the net. And it’s not just a goalfest, either. Defenders are now more adept at, well, defending--maintaining their shape and proving difficult to break down if they’re set up to do so. Opposition managers are more likely to make tactical adjustments mid-match, too. When I went up against “Big Sam” Allardyce and his Everton team during my career with Liverpool, he started the game in a very defensive 5-4-1, hoping to keep things tight and probably come away with a hard-fought draw. When I breached his wall of defenders after a few minutes, however, he switched things up, shifted some of his midfielders further up the pitch, and stuck another striker on to try to score an equaliser. Stuff like this makes match days more involved than ever. There’s just more ingenuity spread throughout the pitch, and that edges the simulation ever closer to reality. Legacy issues do still persist, however. The conversation system--whether it’s with individual players, the press, or in team talks--is relatively untouched, so you’ll still be choosing the same options you've had for the past few years. Tactics are also in need of a grand overhaul. The mixture of shouts and player roles the series has been using for a few iterations now is certainly serviceable, but at this point, it feels far too rigid and restrictive. Say you want to utilize a double pivot between your two central midfielders or deploy the type of structured pressing Jurgen Klopp and Roger Schmidt use so effectively--there’s no easy way to do either of these things. You can try various workarounds in an attempt to mimic something that regularly happens in real-world football, but even then, it’s never going to be perfectly accurate. The tactical side of Football Manager would benefit from giving you more control over how your team functions, especially during specific phases of play--perhaps letting you fluidly shift from one formation to another depending on whether your team has the ball or not. Against Real Madrid in this year’s Spanish Supercup, new Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli did exactly that. By deploying a 4-2-3-1 formation while in possession and altering to a 3-4-2-1 without it, Sevilla managed to effectively stifle the Galacticos attack for much of the game, while still maintaining a system his team was comfortable with when they had the ball. Stuff like this just isn’t possible in Football Manager, so it makes the tactical system feel outdated and behind the curve of the sport’s most innovative coaching minds. The tactical interface is also incredibly difficult to get into. Unless you want to scour the Internet for the real nitty-gritty stuff and actually read pages and pages of differing opinions to learn how everything works, it can feel like you’re shooting in the dark. This could be rectified somewhat if the game offered more feedback on your tactics--with staff members providing information on what instructions clash with one another or tips on how to prevent the types of goals you’ve been conceding--but you’re basically left to your own devices. It’s in need of reinvention. This might be tough to implement in an annualized series, but it’s about time. The perennial strengths of Football Manager are stronger than ever, yet it’s the furtive improvements to the match engine that really set Football Manager 2017 apart from its immediate predecessor. And that last part is pertinent, because on the whole, Football Manager 2017 is a lot better about presenting you with digestible information than its predecessors ever were. Now you consistently receive clear, concise reports from your backroom staff that significantly speeds up the process of actually playing the game. They’ll come to you with reports on training and scouting, as well as players they think you should praise or tutor. In the past, you’d have to sift through pages and pages of information to make these kinds of decisions, but now it’s only one or two clicks away. Tasks that you would have previously neglected because you just couldn’t be bothered, or because you simply overlooked them, are now easily performed. It makes your job as a manager much more streamlined. These aspects of the game might not be anything new, but these refinements are wholly appreciated. In terms of new features, there are only a few that stand out, and they’re mostly shallow and inconsequential. There is one outlier, however. Brexit--everyone’s favorite apocalyptic buzzword--stands apart as being a more meaningful addition than most because it alters the landscape of world football if it’s randomly enacted during your game. This is most keenly felt in the British leagues, of course, as work permits for foreign players become increasingly harder to come by, limits are imposed on squad selection, and the Premier League’s bundles of money are sapped out. It might prove frustrating, especially if you’re forced to disassemble a multinational squad, but to ignore a real-world event with such far-reaching consequences would be a disservice. The inclusion of social media is decidedly less profound, but it does at least allow you to keep an eye on notable events happening across the world of football. As it pertains to you and your club, however, the finite depository of fan reactions soon gets repetitive, with the same happy, angry, and indifferent responses repeated over and over again, no matter the situation. You’d think everyone would be overjoyed when an 18-year-old scores a hat trick in his debut, but I guess there’s no pleasing some people. Similarly forgettable is a more robust (and I use that word lightly) creation suite. There are more sliders and hair options, and you can import a picture of your face (or anybody else’s) to slap on the default character model. But for the rare occasions when you actually catch a glimpse of your manager, this is a feature hardly worth mentioning. I should, however, acknowledge a few of the new wrinkles that crop up during Football Manager 2017’s regular structure. Across multiple saves I’ve seen some abnormally high-scoring games: Tottenham beating Arsenal 8-2 (like that would ever happen) or Barcelona smashing Atletico Madrid 7-3, along with the usual 5-0s and 6-4s that seem to appear on a near-weekly basis. These aren’t game-breaking, but they do break the immersion nonetheless--as do the sheer number of managerial sackings. There were seven during my first season in the Premier League (most notably Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola), despite the fact that there were only six games left to go in the season. Apparently battling for fourth place wasn’t good enough. Football Manager 2017 is not a game of revolution, but one of refinement. Transfers are smarter and more involved, and the faster player development and the aforementioned streamlining of information are welcome. The perennial strengths of Football Manager are stronger than ever, yet it’s the furtive improvements to the match engine that really set Football Manager 2017 apart from its immediate predecessor. Sure, I still have gripes with the tactical interface, and there isn’t anything new there worth writing about. But if your rear end has ever been entrenched in the virtual dugout or you're just a fresh-faced hopeful looking to begin your journey, Football Manager 2017 is easy to recommend to the budding manager.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/kid-launcher.html

Overcooked Review

You've got to hand it to jugglers: they really know how to up the stakes. Need more tension? Add more objects! Still not enough? Light those objects on fire! And for the grand finale? Recruit a second juggler and start tossing flaming batons back and forth. Cooperative party game Overcooked cleverly borrows this template and applies it to a restaurant setting. Across an ever-changing series of kitchens, up to four chefs must prepare meals by performing simple tasks--chopping vegetables, cooking meat, washing dishes--in an effort to prepare and serve as many complete dishes as possible within a strict time limit. Each task is, in isolation, dead simple--actions rarely require more than a single button press and objectives are plainly displayed on screen at all times. But as part of a larger coordinated effort, each step potentially becomes that one load-bearing Jenga block that sends the entire tower tumbling when removed. If, for example, your onion soup is ready to serve but you don't have any clean bowls, the soup starts to burn, not only ruining the dish but eventually lighting the kitchen itself on fire as well (don't worry, there's always a fire extinguisher handy). The tiny red warning signal that flashes and the accelerating beep that accompanies it quickly become sources of immense panic. If this all sounds stressful, you're right, it is. Extremely stressful. And that's exactly why Overcooked is one of the most exhilarating couch co-op games of the year. All the stress and tension that mounts as the timer ticks away result in a massive wave of relief and triumph upon successfully finishing a level at the highest rating. It also sucks you into the experience better than any game in recent memory. The same way a truly great song turns even the most reluctant wallflower into a dancing machine, Overcooked's potent recipe for escalating chaos will have you and your friends screaming instructions to one another without a hint of self-consciousness. More than once, I noticed a teammate standing on the opposite side of a counter directly in front of the bin of food items and found myself breathlessly demanding a tomato. To illicit that kind of reckless abandon is a rare and laudable feat. And not only does the basic gameplay formula work wonderfully, the experience provides a huge variety of unexpected wrinkles across its reasonably meaty campaign. At the beginning, dishes involve only a single ingredient, but you'll quickly graduate from soups to salads, then to burgers, burritos, fried foods, and so on, each meal more complex than the last. Dishes aren't the only source of challenge and variety, though. Every mission occurs in a different kitchen, and every kitchen introduces its own unique twist. For want of a bowl, the kitchen was lost. In addition to coping with layout changes, you might also have to hop between trucks while grilling your way down a highway or dart across icebergs that intermittently connect the two halves of an icy kitchen. If you make it all the way to The Lost Morsel DLC, you'll even have to smack buttons to raise and lower barriers while dodging fireballs. Even smaller challenges--like limited flatware or adorable mice that steal your food--can derail your efforts. The roster of potential variables is both extensive and wildly inventive. This not only keeps the experience feeling fresh, it also results in a renewed sense of accomplishment with each rating star earned. Without that tension, however, Overcooked's formula starts to fall apart, which is why the game really doesn't work as a solo experience. If you play solo, you control two characters, swapping between them on the fly as they complete automated tasks you've set for them. The gameplay becomes a different sort of balancing act, but too much is lost in the process. The hilarity and infectious enthusiasm of playing with friends is replaced by tedious task management, so the energy fizzles. Plus, score requirements are set much lower, so you can totally bungle a few orders and still somehow achieve a perfect rating. Without question, Overcooked works best when played with friends, which makes the fact that you cannot play online an unforgivable oversight. There is, at least, a local competitive mode to compliment the cooperative campaign. Two teams of two cook across a series of symmetrical kitchens to see which pair can churn out the most dishes. It's a simple addition that makes no meaningful changes to the core gameplay but provides a welcome diversion from the campaign nonetheless. And recruiting people to play either mode should be relatively easy. Overcooked is not only extremely accessible--with intuitive, pick-up-and-play controls--it's also adorable. Who wouldn't want to chop onions as a racoon in a wheelchair? Overcooked contains all the necessary ingredients for a truly excellent co-op game. Stress is always balanced out by feelings of accomplishment and progression, and its gameplay requires a mix of smart planning, consistent communication, and some level of dexterity to execute plans effectively. And of course, the cuteness keeps it feeling light and fun, which helps you not hate your friends when they fail to take a pan off the burner in time. It's a shame there's no online option since most of the game's magic evaporates without other players to help you along. If you have folks to play with, however, Overcooked turns juggling simple tasks into a hilarious and occasionally catastrophic exercise in precise communication.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/zombie-army-madness.html

Hitman Review

Agent 47 never takes this long. The 2016 version of Hitman plays like the longest assassination of the chrome-domed killer’s lengthy career, thanks to developer IO Interactive’s decision to issue the game via six chapters released roughly from spring to fall. But I’m certainly not complaining about the marketing, given that the final package showcases some of the most enthralling exploits of gaming’s most infamous murderer-for-hire. Sprawling levels, tremendous attention to detail with both graphics and sound design, and countless assassination options make this an engrossing experience that includes some of the best replay value ever seen in a game. Having come into this season of Hitman only after it was complete, I can’t render a judgment about how the game was released in an episodic format. I’m glad that I got to play through it as a complete experience, and I can’t imagine having to wait weeks to go on my next assignment. But at the same time, I see the appeal of tackling each of the game’s six separate assignments (plus the opening training missions that flash back to the beginning of Agent 47’s career) one by one, given just how much gameplay is jammed into each of them. The individual missions here send you jetting all over the globe like a bald James Bond with a barcode on the back of his head. Everything is linked via brief cutscenes that focus on a figure from Agent 47’s past. But the levels are so big and so packed with details that they take on lives of their own, much like separate movies in a franchise. The long-running international flavor of the Hitman series has been spiced up here with unique locations that take place in virtually every corner of the world. You prowl a Paris fashion show, sneak around a luxurious villa on the Italian coast, venture into mobs rioting in Moroccan souks, stalk a rock star at a five-star hotel in Thailand, assault the leaders of a militia on a compound in Colorado, and finally explore a private hospital atop a snowy mountain in Japan. Each level looks fantastic and is stuffed with all sorts of nooks and crannies to explore and hundreds of NPCs to interact with--many of whom come with dialogue and specific routines and behaviors that can be figured into your assassinations. The only drawback with the overall presentation is the quality of the NPC dialogue, which is nicely varied and well acted but virtually all spoken with a standard American accent that can kill your suspension of disbelief. Hearing Italian thugs and Cuban soldiers all speaking like average American Joes really takes you out of the moment, at least until you get accustomed to this oddity. The attention to detail is otherwise superb, though. I typically took a good hour or two wandering around each level, listening in to conversations, and just generally getting the lay of the land before deciding on a course of action. The game offers dozens of ways to kill every target--and even more routes to take to get to them before you shoot them, garrotte them, drown them in toilets, blow them up, poison them, blast them out of an ejector seat in a jet plane, and so on. Every assignment also comes with loads of different people in loads of different professions, which provides even more routes to your victims via the outfits you can remove from their corpses for use as disguises. Want to stay in a secret-agent tux? Or even a snazzy summer suit? Sure thing. But you can also ditch the formal outfits for the garb of a security guard, a male supermodel, a scientist in a hazmat suit, a plague doctor, a chef, and many, many more. Granted, all of the above makes Hitman more of a funhouse ride than a grim series of contract killings. While it’s fun to encounter switches that drop chandeliers, a hookah that can be poisoned, convenient wire-and-puddle combos that can be turned into electrocution traps, and murderous random accoutrements from bombs to scissors to swords to bricks to fire extinguishers to pretty much everything but the kitchen sink, everything goes well over the top. The game is more of a cartoon than any sort of authentic exploration of the world of contract assassinations--which is certainly a good thing, both for the way this lightens the mood (any game where you can blow up a guy who’s puking into a toilet isn’t one that takes itself too seriously, despite the body count) and also how it provides so much room for murderous creativity. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with so many options to reach its goals. The first time through a level is just the beginning. Replay value is spectacular, and maybe even unprecedented for a Hitman game, given the massive size and scope of the levels, the number of NPCs, the number of murderous gadgets and weapons littering every room and corridor, and also because of the added options that open up after an initial run-through. Completing mission challenges unlock frills like new weapons, disguises, and starting locations, which of course offer up new ways to get to and finish off your marks. And then there is Escalation Mode, a new feature that adds requirements to existing levels. It basically creates new missions that involve you offing multiple new targets in specific ways. Difficulty goes up with each successful assassination assignment. Escalations start with things like murdering a few people in specific ways, say by explosives, and then move on to more complex goals like killing while wearing a specific disguise, finishing off all of your targets in a tight time limit, dumping all the bodies in one location, and so forth. Elusive Targets is a timed mode that lets you go after special victims (who can’t be seen on the map) with just one chance at success before you lose the contract forever. IO releases these victims into the wild at set times and leaves them up for limited periods of time until they vanish, never to be heard from again. It’s a great added incentive to keep going back to the game, even long after the standard missions and their added challenges wear thin. And Contracts Mode (brought back from 2012’s Hitman: Absolution) allows you to mark random NPCs as targets and set kill requirements, creating missions that can be shared with other players. Finally, PS4 players have access to one more series of exclusive missions called the Sarajevo Six. These sideline assignments that follow along with your trips around the world to complete your main goals see Agent 47 tracking down a half-dozen war criminals who’ve been wanted ever since they participated in war crimes during the Siege of Sarajevo some 20 years ago. It’s a great story with a nice tie-in to the real war in the former Yugoslavia, but the assignments are pretty straightforward and don’t don't offer the variety of escalation/contracts. These bonus contracts still probably make the PS4 version of the game the best to buy, although you’re really not missing much by playing on PC or Xbox One. You can approach Hitman in two very different ways. You can use the default settings, which sees the game function more traditionally. This primarily means that you’re guided through the game via highlighted Opportunities that underline when conversations and circumstances can be used to set up assassinations. It’s kind of a tip system, pointing you in the direction that you might want to go and turning the game into a relatively linear experience. I found Opportunities invaluable for initial runs through missions, as the tremendous size of the levels make them very daunting to approach without any hand-holding--at least at first. Another enhancement is the Instinct feature, held over from Hitman: Absolution, but scaled back in some ways so that you can no longer use it to track NPC movements or to avoid detection while disguised. Still, even though the option is supposed to replicate Agent 47’s preternatural abilities as an assassin, it kind of turns him into a superhero with X-ray eyes and mind-reading skills. So, I avoided its use. Or you can shut all that stuff off and venture into a complete sandbox experience, where you have nothing to guide you to your targets save your own wits and observation skills. This offers the purest, most rewarding Hitman experience, but it’s also probably best reserved for experienced players in search of increased difficulty or a new way to approach levels you’ve already bested with the above features turned on. I found the levels too vast to explore without some assistance (and using Opportunities is also a big help when trying to pull off the most outrageous kills), but I can see the value of turning off these crutches for a second go-round. Going in without this help makes everything more realistic and emphasizes how much you have to watch and listen in order to plan out a path to your kills. My only lingering issues with Hitman involve a couple of relatively minor points. The first involves the internal logic of the game. At times, it seems to be somewhat random whether or not you an NPC or victim notices you. I don’t know if it’s the luck of the draw, but sometimes you’re seen as a suspicious character right off the bat, even if you’re wearing the right disguise and (seemingly) haven’t done a thing to draw attention to yourself. Even accidentally bumping up against somebody can raise the alarm, which is really annoying at times--the number of NPCs packed into most levels makes it impossible to get through crowds without letting fly an errant elbow. Enemy AI is a little slow on the draw when it does identify you, though. Lengthy pauses make it reasonably easy to run off or shoot a guard or three in the face, even well after they’ve figured out that the weird bald guy with the ominous head tattoo is actually up to no good. The second issue is the irritating need to be connected online to play the game. It’s totally unnecessary for a solo experience like this. It seems to slow the game down somewhat (load times are way too long), and the servers disconnect on occasion for short periods of time, leaving you unable to play. Delayed gratification from the episodic release schedule or not, this 2016 take on Hitman is a brilliant game. Expansive level design and nearly unlimited replay value courtesy of so many routes to your assassinations (and so many methods with which to carry them out) make the experience almost completely different each and every time you play. Yes, Agent 47 took his time getting here, but it was time well spent.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/sprint.html

Watch Dogs 2 Review

Anyone who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area will feel right at home in Watch Dogs 2. The important landmarks are there, even odd intersections that may only stand out to residents. But I don't think you need to be familiar with the real Bay Area to appreciate how Watch Dogs 2's mix of nature and urban sprawl makes for a picturesque, playful open world. Its people and places are colorful and over the top, kind of like the real thing. And whether or not you understand the references that drive Watch Dogs 2's twisted take on Silicon Valley shouldn't matter either: This outing errs on the side of irreverence and unapologetic fun, trading in the original Watch Dogs' rain-soaked trenchcoat and drab demeanor for a neon-colored assault rifles and a pair of skinny jeans. The new attitude and setting are a great combination that allow you to experience the dream--rather than the nightmare--of living in the digital age. That doesn't mean the world of Watch Dogs 2 is all peace and love. Its gleeful exterior masks a troubled society in the throes of gang violence, political corruption, and rampant hacking. Our antihero Marcus is, to an extent, part of the problem, but he's mostly on the side of good. With his hacking skills under your control, you spend a lot of time thwarting nefarious jerks by tapping into their networks to hit them where it hurts--whether that means dismantling their criminal enterprises or airing their dirty laundry in public. And when digital attacks fail, Marcus knows how to handle a gun. He's a walking contradiction that hates corruption yet murders without flinching, but his actions are so entertaining that you probably won't care for long, if at all. Your primary mission stems from Dedsec, a group of stereotypical, hyperactive hackers who target government and corporate entities that see private information as a commodity. With society networked and people rampantly sharing pieces of their lives with third parties, the critical mass of data has overflown into the pockets of evil in Watch Dogs 2, but you're the best digital Robin Hood around, which means almost nothing is out of reach. If you can't hack or shoot your way into a building, remote-controlled drones can get you into hard-to-reach places. With the help of a botnet derived from Dedsec's social media followers--which you're responsible for cultivating by completing story missions and side quests--you can manipulate digital locks, computers, and security cameras to steal data and spy on unknowing targets. Your handy smartphone is capable of hacking into bigger equipment, too, including massive cranes that can lift you atop tall buildings. If you have a penchant for creating domino effects in games, look forward to repositioning explosive objects with forklifts to set up semi-elaborate traps--if not because you have no other choice, then perhaps for the satisfaction you get from watching your prey wander into harm's way. Sneaking around guards requires critical thought and precise action, but the more you play, the more you discover ways to work around the heaviest hitters and enemy AI in general. To survey a scene for potential hackables, enable Nethack mode, and you can peer deeper into your surroundings and pinpoint the location of vulnerable devices and human threats; hackable objects and other points of interest are brightly colored. It's easy to lose yourself in Nethack vision because it gives you a palpable advantage while hacking into hard-to-reach locations, but this trick can feel a little like cheating and ultimately robs you of experiencing the sights and sounds around you firsthand. Even with Nethack mode enabled, sneaking around guards requires critical thought and precise action, but the more you play, the more you discover ways to work around the heaviest hitters and enemy AI in general. It starts early on when you learn how easy it is to distract a guard by sending a fake call to their cell phone, even when they’re searching for an intruder. Then there are quirks specific to unique events. In a later mission, you can use a quadcopter to unlock a prison cell; the two guards standing by won't bat an eye when a heavily locked door magically opens behind them, making your job far easier than it should be. However, enemies are great at hugging corners and swarming your hiding place when your cover is blown. In numbers, a group of guards is difficult to manage, and a few missions will surprise you with tricky layouts and hidden variables that force you to consider a Plan B. Marcus is remarkably fit, capable of scaling small buildings provided there's a nearby dumpster-sized object to give him a boost. He can also run forever without a pesky stamina meter and has a habit of doing a backflip when jumping from ledges. He's less graceful when facing guards, unfortunately, due to sticky cover mechanics that don't always react as expected. It's not unusual to find yourself on the wrong side of an object because the game couldn't tell if you wanted to round a corner or snap to a different object altogether. Resorting to guns to get into or out of buildings balances out time spent sneaking and hacking by adding some exciting moments, but it's shallow in isolation. The shooting feels fine, but plenty of other open-world action games offer more substantial, varied options--Grand Theft Auto V and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain come to mind. There's more emphasis on sneaking and acting silently in Watch Dogs 2; quiet melee takedowns often get you farther than an itchy trigger finger might, especially against armored enemies. There's no shortage of wacky quests to break things up and offer light-hearted goals, such as rescuing a Tom Cruise-like celebrity from the clutches of a cult. It also doesn't take long for the police to show up when gunfire breaks out. You can try to hold your ground by hacking and firing back, but even with a heavy arsenal, you’ll eventually have to flee. Driving, in mechanical terms, is all over the place, with only a few rides that offer a pleasing balance of performance and control. The rest are too slow to be useful--or too wild to steer with confidence under pressure. Motorcycles feel great, on the other hand, offering both speed and easy handling. Exploring the map on a motorcycle--whether it’s searching for stunt ramps or to simply take in the sights--is a relaxing way to kill a few hours in Watch Dogs 2. Don't be surprised if you hop into the game just so you can ride a motorcycle down the Embarcadero at sunset or blow through the lush scenery of Golden Gate Park. Ubisoft does a great job of presenting the Bay Area in an attractive way that feeds intrepid tourists an impressive variety of sights. However, something’s definitely missing. You won't see a lot of pedestrians or cars on the street compared to similar games. This limits how much destruction you can create, but it also gives you space to drive fast in a city that's usually clogged with traffic. The latter is important not only for sightseeing, but also because it gives you a better chance of running into minigames. You can always check your map and fast travel to mission icons or curious events, but that deprives you of the rewarding sense of discovery Watch Dogs 2 affords. Eschewing fast travel also gives you the chance to get to know your fellow urbanites, either by working for an Uber-like car-sharing service to engage in chitchat and make extra cash, or by walking the streets and hacking into their phones to steal money and listen in on phone calls. When you get tired of that, you're never far from a motorcycle or go-kart race, or a handful of small side missions. There's no shortage of wacky quests to break things up and offer light-hearted goals, such as rescuing a Tom Cruise-like celebrity from the clutches of a cult or hijacking a talking car--similar to KITT from Knight Rider--from its movie-set storage. You may wonder how a team of determined activists find themselves so readily distracted from their primary targets, but somehow, every mission connects back to the bigger picture. And, really, Watch Dogs 2 doesn't take its own story too seriously, so it pays to sit back and enjoy the ride when things get weird. Even when playing solo, Watch Dogs 2 remains a fun, energetic game filled with possibilities. Though the feature wasn't present at launch, Watch Dogs 2 now supports seamless player-versus-player hacking online. You are free to turn this off if you wish, but knowing that you may have to stop what you're doing at the drop of a hat to find the nearby stranger tapping into your phone adds a small but appreciable layer to the experience. The game also offers opportunities to join police chases and take down troublemaking players--don't be surprised when the tables are turned and you see another player on your tail, barreling down steep streets beside a fleet of SFPD vehicles. When you'd rather hack with, rather than against someone, you can take on small co-op missions, but they’re so close to single-player missions in structure that factoring in coordination can seem more like a chore than a benefit. Even when playing solo, Watch Dogs 2 remains a fun, energetic game filled with possibilities. It's easy see-through enemy AI during missions that are supposed to be challenging, which holds back the game at large, but it's a chance to let loose, logic be damned. Watch Dogs 2's world is a step up from the first game's dreary rendition of Chicago, and even though Watch Dogs 2 can't go toe-to-toe with genre heavyweights, it's hard to walk away from its fun-loving attitude and exuberant cast.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/protobotic.html

Final Fantasy 15 Review

The best Final Fantasy games are often regarded for their layered characters and stories, but that will not be Final Fantasy XV's legacy. Save for a few minor arcs and some impressive cutscenes, the story of the deposed Prince Noctis and his three bodyguards ultimately leaves little room for its stars to evolve and earn your affection. But finishing Final Fantasy XV's story prepares you for difficult trials tucked away in Eos, the game's imposing and bountiful open world. Its best quests and treasures extend well beyond the needs of Noctis' fight, and it's these pursuits that make you appreciate your brothers in arms, and Final Fantasy XV in the long run. We first meet Noctis and his crew en route to the prince's wedding; a political marriage to his childhood friend designed to unite their families' opposing nations. Shortly afterwards, Noctis receives news that his fiance's father ordered an invasion of Noctis's home city, killing his father--King Regis--and claiming stewardship of a powerful crystal. In an effort to retake the throne and restore balance to the world, Noctis must locate ancestral weapons scattered in lost tombs across Eos, battle hundreds of monsters, and go toe-to-toe with powerful gods. Eos' best quests and treasures extend well beyond the needs of Noctis' fight, and it's these pursuits that make you appreciate your brothers-in-arms, and Final Fantasy XV in the long run. But this is a fantasy anchored by more mundane, real-world elements; Noctis and company sleep in motels, eat at roadside diners, and gossip with down-to-earth cooks between missions. Among the relatable working-class people that populate most of Eos, your party sticks out like a sore thumb. They ride in an ostentatious convertible, their hyper-fashionable clothes and hair flapping in the wind. Other stylish elites make an appearance during cutscenes, of course, but your meetings with commoners far outnumber your royal rendezvous--there are at least 80 side quests, and only 14 story chapters. For the vast majority of the game, there's a very real disconnect between your party and the outside world that's never thoroughly addressed. Unlike many of its predecessors, Final Fantasy XV embraces contemporary open-world game principles from the start: outside of story missions, you are free to explore sprawling environments and take on dozens of side quests at your leisure. Townsfolk, seemingly unaware of your princely status, will employ you in a number of tasks including infrastructure maintenance, scientific field work, gem hunting, and light farming. Dedicating your time to rewarding pursuits has a side effect: the more comfortable you become living in Eos doing honest work, the further away and less important Noctis' concerns feel. It doesn't help that most NPCs would rather talk about their magazine publishing business or recipes than important world affairs. And as far as your bodyguards are concerned: they're content cruising around Eos in their fancy car, cracking jokes and taking selfies. With Noctis' crew--Gladiolus the muscle, Ignis the brains, and Prompto the comic relief--what you see is what you get. Each character is treated to time in the spotlight during specific story missions, but these events, which seem major in the moment, have little long-term impact. Your friends make for upbeat travel companions, offering tons of colorful banter during your travels, but it's disappointing to see supporting characters--a group that typically has diverse backgrounds and curious personalities in Final Fantasy games--relegated to cliched, unbending roles. It's disappointing to see supporting characters--a group that typically has diverse backgrounds and curious personalities in Final Fantasy games--relegated to cliched, unbending roles. During the first half of the story, missions are designed to familiarize you with the ebb and flow of the open world; how to make money, where to spend it, and how to recover after a hard day's work. More importantly, you learn how to fight. There's a lot to manage in combat--despite only having direct control over Noctis as opposed to your entire party--which makes for a satisfying juggling act once you understand the game's demanding pace and the extent of your abilities. Though you can pause the action to re-equip characters and use items mid-battle, combat is otherwise a non-stop, fluid process and very different from previous Final Fantasy systems. Unlike Final Fantasy XII which allows you to dictate the behavior of your companions, you have to rely on AI to ensure your allies have your back in Final Fantasy XV. The only time you can issue direct commands is when they deal enough damage and fill up a meter, and you call upon the one ability you assigned to them. By holding down a button, Noctis will deliver a combo attack until he's interrupted by an enemy. If you're quick, you can press another button to phase through an incoming attack and continue your assault. Noctis can also warp-attack from great distances, swap between four weapons--mid-combo if need be--, cast magic, and on rare occasions, summon god-like Astrals onto the battlefield to mop up enemies. Astrals are powerful beings that align with Noctis throughout the story, to be summoned later in a time of need. They offer some of the most impressive moments in the game--typical of Final Fantasy "summons"--towering high above battles while unleashing incredible displays of power. But much like distant friends, you only see Astrals when it works for their schedule. Each of the four Astrals you acquire call for very specific battle conditions, but even if all criteria are met--being dangerously low on health in the vicinity of water, in one case--there's no guarantee an Astral will actually appear. Where you could always count on summons to save the day in previous Final Fantasy games, it's disheartening that they usually fail to appear during Final Fantasy XV's most difficult battles. There's a lot to manage in combat, which makes for a satisfying juggling act once you understand the game's demanding pace and the extent of your abilities. More often than not, you can at least rely on magic to hammer tough enemies when Astrals are out of reach. Spells can be crafted by bottling ice, fire, and lightning harvested from elemental springs in dungeons and the overworld, and you can also combine these elements with items for increased potency and extra status effects, the tradeoff being that you're sacrificing valuable commodities in the process--spells are consumables, not permanent abilities. It's important to pay attention to what you cast, but also where you cast it, as your party can suffer frostbite, burns, and shock if they are standing too close to the point of impact. While this sounds bad, it adds an appreciable layer of strategy to combat that makes you weigh the risks and benefits of taking the easy way out. As you earn experience and level up, your party accrues ability points that can be spent within the Ascension Grid menu to upgrade things like AI behaviors in battle, or bolster Noctis' suite of skills. You can also unlock passive abilities that help you earn money and experience points faster as you explore the open world. But all told, AP is in short supply and the Ascension Grid is fractured into many categories, making it difficult to decide where to focus your efforts. Ultimately, accessories do the heavy lifting when it comes to character customization. They typically increase characters' stats, but may also offer protection from status ailments and influence your companions' behaviors. On the other hand, most weapons you acquire are less exciting and varied, and you may be shocked and disappointed when you discover that each merchant only carries one or two for the entirety of the game. And don't be fooled by the "attire" menu; no one sells clothing in the game, meaning you're stuck with your initial set--two per character, or four, if you count optional jackets--until you unlock a third outfit at the end. It seems odd that there are so few clothing options, not only because there's an inventory screen dedicated to them, but because the few outfits you can wear come with small but noticeable effects on your party's attributes. They clearly serve a greater purpose, but are largely treated like an afterthought. You can more than double the amount of time it takes to finish the story and still have plenty of worthwhile adventures calling for your attention. By the time you tackle the second half of Final Fantasy XV's story missions, you'll be surprised how fast the remaining chapters go by. These are linear quests, some shorter than an hour. You can always explore the world at your leisure, but these tightly choreographed dungeon runs and action set-pieces move fast and draw you in with spectacular cutscenes. Presuming you let it pull you along, with minimal side tracking, it's possible to finish Final Fantasy XV's story in about 30 hours. This is short by Final Fantasy standards, but after the credits roll, the real fun is just getting started. Final Fantasy XV's endgame content is some of the best in the entire game. Unreasonably large monsters, legendary weapons, and mysterious high-level dungeons lie in wait if you choose to continue playing. You can more than double the amount of time it takes to finish the story and still have plenty of worthwhile adventures calling for your attention. Over 60 hours into my quest, I recently discovered strange locked doors unlike anything else I've seen up until this point, nested within the inner sanctums of high-level dungeons. I have no idea how to open them, but my party's amazement--as well as my own--is enough to make me want to pore over Eos and find a way. I'm also in the middle of a questline that promises to reward me with the most powerful weapons in the game, but only if I can take down powerful creatures that almost the Astrals' impressive scale. When Final Fantasy XV eventually runs its course, these are the moments I will remember most. One of the first things you see when you boot up the game is this claim "A Final Fantasy for fans and first-timers." It's a strange statement; fans can't agree on what makes a good Final Fantasy game, and who knows why newcomers shied away from the series in the past. It's been a long ten years since Final Fantasy XV was first revealed, and tastes have changed in the meantime. While it's safe to assume fans and outsiders will find some aspect of Final Fantasy XV disappointing--be it the shallow story or finnicky Astrals--it would be hard for anyone to deny that Final Fantasy XV is a fascinating game after giving it a chance. Where its characters fail to impress, Final Fantasy XV's beautiful world and exciting challenges save the day.
You can play and experience more game in here http://www.juegos2.co/disco-bowling.html