VANQUISH

What the game says it is: an epic third person sci-fi action shooter. Become the ultimate weapon with an unrivalled battle suit combining deadly firepower with superhuman speed and agility, storm into battle and experince high octane gaming at its most explosive and exciting.

What the game actually is: A third person shooter with some beat um up elements set in the far future. You play Sam Gidion, an agent of the DARPA ( defense advanced research projects) who is in charge of designing the ARS (Augmented reaction suit) and is ordered by the secretary of defense and president of the United States to accompany a millitary unit to the Province Space Colony that has come under attack by the order of the Russian Star, a militant group, that has recently taken over Russia and used the power of the array on San Fransico. They call for the unconditional surrender of the United States in ten hours or they will destroy New York.

Graphic and sound: The environment backgrounds and characters are highly detailed and the cinematics more so using CGI to make the character look fairly close to real people with facial stubble, wind effecting hair and beads of sweat. The sound is also good with everything sounding the way you think it should and the vocie acting is decent, not sounding forced. 

How game play was: The game controls are fairly easy to learn and the elements of the suits slide and slow down abilities are nice, enabling you to often flank the enemy attacking from behind as you and your allies who actually seem to make a slight difference attack from the front making it possible in a lot of battles to be a little strategic.

The good: The game play is fun and is easy to learn how to do everything including the special moves. The graphics are immersive and the cinematics are stunningly good adding a lot to the story.

The bad: The suits overheating can become annoying pretty quickly especially since its use is one of the fun factors in the game.

The ugly: Hordes of enemies can quickly overwhelm you and destroy the flow of the game and story.

Overall: It is a good game with easy to learn game play. I enjoyed the quick pace of the action and story and enjoyed the great graphics of the game. It is one that I will defiantly play through a few more times in the future. 

PTSD: 6

Why I rated it: The story has several elements that can remind one of terrorist activity and threat of more mass deaths in the game none of which are actually seen. Sounds of explosions and weapons fire are fairly realistic although none of the annoying whining nosises that those who have tinnitus, (ringing of the ears),  have come to be familiar with.

*spoiler alert* one of the characters commits suicide. 

SINGULARITY

What the game says it is: Learn the truth about a massive cover up of the catastrophic Singularity, an event tbat fractures time itself and threatens the world as we know it.

What the game actually is: A first person action shooter where you are an American solider investigating an island in the former Soviet union. Unknown to the USA, an event "The Singularity" has occurred on this island and due to this event there are changes to the very fabric of history.

Graphic and sound: The graphic and sound on this game are excellent.

How game play was: The game play is pretty straight forward until you get the time manipulation device (TMD), then it becomes more complicated with certain environmental puzzles requiring specific tricks to get past.

The good: The whole time travel story elements and the story in general is pretty well done. There are three different endings and are defiantly worth it as long as you keep your last save you can do all three without going through the game again but even if you did not keep the save they would be worth the time. Figuring out how to use the TMD wasn't bad and more often then not it was worth the effort.

The bad: Some of the battles can be frustrating with the bosses, each requires a specific way to defeat                        which isn't always immediately obvious.

The ugly: You often find yourself without ammo at the worst possible times and your knife melee weapon doesn't seem to do much at all to your mutated enemies.

Overall: This game is enjoyable, dripping with time travel goodness. The action combat isn't too bad while the hard parts aren't overly frustratingly so. The game play,  graphics and storyline work well together, making it a game that I will play over and over again every month or so. I wish there was a sequel although I am unsure of how one could have been successfully pulled off.

PTSD: 6

Why I rated it: There is a lot of shooting and explosions. You play a solider, early on you deal with a school of dead children although you do not see them die and no mutated children attack you, it can be disturbing due to seeing the dead bodies of kids. You have some semi-realistic weaponry and occasionally fight Soviet soldiers. Violance blood and gore throughout and some strange flash back imagery of past events your character didn't live through intruding upon the present.

DARK SECTOR

What the game says it is: Become the ultimate weapon The virus the scource of your pain your enemy...Your POWER. Unleash the deadly power of the glaive and become the hero. What the game actually is: You play Hayden a CIA clean-up man who while trying to intercept a rouge agent, Menzer. Your  arm becomes infected with a technocyte virus, it is set in a fictional eastern block country in the near future.  It is a third person shooter combined with a unique hack and slash weapon, the glaive, that grows in power as you progress through the game and is part of the virus that mutates your  arm. Graphic and sound: The graphics and visuals in this game are pretty cool and the sounds are good. How game play was: Fun and engaging. The action and storyline are quick paced which can become frustrating when you inevitably get stuck at a environmental puzzle that requires a special maneuver or a boss battle that you just can't seem to get past. The good: The combinations of weapons and variety of maneuver powers with your glaive are fun to execute. The bad: After you are infected any weapon you don't buy self-destructs after a few seconds which can be annoying. The ugly: Some of the maneuvers with the glaive and interaction with the puzzle environments could get quickly frustrating interrupting the flow of the game play and story. Overall: I enjoyed this game despite its ultra violent nature. Its boss fights were hard but they were also interesting. I enjoyed the quick pace of the game and the environment puzzles with some exceptions (see the ugly). PTSD rating: 6 Why I rated: I rated this due to violence, with lots of head decapitations and limb amputations. There is realistic sounds of gun fire and explosions and you play a CIA operative that works for the military that *spoiler alert* is betrayed by his own goverment.

HOMEFRONT

What the game says it is: A first person shooter set in America that has become a third world country and taken over by Korea. 

What the game actually is: A first person shooter with a bit of a story behind how the USA became the downtrodden battle field for a resistance moment against Korean troops that occupy the land.

Graphic and sound: The graphics and sound are pretty good with a gritty realistic look to things such as people and weapons.

How game play was: The game play was good with the controls being fairly straight forward the subject matter was also. It was hard for me to get through the games storyline due to the subject matter.

The good: The games controls were not hard to learn while the enemy was still hard to overcome.

The bad: The story focuses more on one of the computer controlled characters then on you.

The ugly: The helicopter part was more difficult and lengthy then it was enjoyable.

Overall: It is a good game although I was disappointed that by the time i got my hands on it the multiplayer was useless because there was no one online to play it. 

PTSD rating: 9

Why I rated: I would have to rate this game a 9 for the subject matter and the mass grave you hide in pretending you're dead to the semi-realistic weapons and the deaths of civilians along with blood and gore throughout the game. 

I ended up selling this game back to gamestop so that I could pick a different game that might not trigger my PTSD like this one did. When I purchased it I didn't think it would effect me like it did. It ended up bringing up too many bad images and memories from my time in Iraq.