Shellshock 2: Blood Trails Comments by Tom Bramwell

Friday 13th strikes for games being reviewed

another crap Eidos game, what a surprise.

not even heard anything about this,. Looking at the score doesn't surprise me really.

I was going to pick this up until SF4 next week, it can't be as bad as Hour of Victory

played the first two missions of this game, and i have to say this is the worst games of the year so far. i didn't think that a game developer in this day and age could make a game that is so crappy. i mean the graphics are so 5 years ago, the AI is stupid and did i mention the graphics. Eidos needs to be shut down they are so bad.

2/10 is the new 8/10

Tom Bramwell hates games.

Move on sir, this web site is for gamers.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platform...

Actually, to be fair to Tom, there is only one other review on Metacritic as I write this, and they hate it too.

Weren't all the Vietnam games on last generation hardware pants too?

How queer.

Oh dear oh dear. I stopped reading after the zombie bit.

"There are virtually no screenshots of the jungle gameplay, just dark grabs of the opening sections that don't give much away. "

As was pointed out by a couple of us on the Destroy All Humans comments thread, if the screenshots you are provided with are not representative of the game, why don't you take some of your own? It's not exactly rocket scienc.

And if the screenshots aren't representative of the game, what is the point of including them at all?

I guess this marks the end of Rebellion's reputation as 'a safe pair of hands' for cheap & cheerful branded action actions games.

Hurrah for shit games! They make excellent reviews.

NOT better than halo?

Oh fuck off with metacritic, it's rubbish.

Dang, zombies in Vietnam? what is this? a joke? Seriously, I can't imagine how they could tie those two factors together!!!

Also, It's hard to believe that these guys went down so much in these years, going from bad to worse.

The days when they pulled out Aliens vs. Predator on the Atari Jaguar, one of the best game on that platform along side Tempest 2000, are far and over!!!

Would still like to see a good Vietnam shooter come out on HD consoles one day. Maybe a game based on Apocalypse Now, cruising up the Mekong.

At least you get 950G achievement points just to complete one playthorugh in about 5 hours. Still i wouldnt touch this with iron gloves.

Gulp... the reviewer admits he didn't even finish the game!!!

How on earth does he know that the last few levels weren't so magnificent that they make up for the rest of the game? ;)

Parts of the first page sound like a dry run for the Resident Evil 5 review...you have to press a button to pick ammo up? Arrghhh! :P

@spitfire - game concept is probably based on a South Korean film called R-Point, it was also rubbish, product of the whole J-horror Ringu wave infecting much of south east Asian cinema.

And why don't EG provide their own screenshots for reviews anyway. Every other review site worth their salt does. I'd rather see non-PR screenshots, please!

So which one would you play if you had to under gunpoint, Turning Point or Shellshock 2?

yeah friday the 13th . bad bad for games

Tom is spot on.
I have the game (360) and I (user) reviewed the game on Play.com and Amazon a couple of days back.
It is shite and I can play and enjoy some really pants games.I'm on level 7, I do/did intend to complete but I don't know if I have the stomach.

@Darren Yeah not grabbing screens for their own review, probably as startling an admission as not completing it, grabbing screens to demonstrate aspects of the game touched upon in the text should be standard review procedure.

I'm sure it's standard practice not to bother completing a game if it's clear by a significant way through it that it will score under a certain level, 40% or whatever. Or at least, I read that somewhere, maybe, once. Who knows? Anyway, from the sounds of it I can sympathise with not finishing it!

I want vietcong with crysis engine

oh and a new comp

fear 2 it is today then..

The screenshots look allright, but I'll trust Tom on this. Hurry up SF4!

I just read a review of resi 5 in some film mag and I swear they only played the demo..revolting....

Haha! Failure!

EG probably can't be bothered capturing their own screenshots of games this sucky.
Don't miss 'm much though, couldn't care less what it looks like.

So, let's recap:

Aliens Colonial Marines - allegedly canned.

Aliens RPG - allegedly canned.

Aliens vs Predator - announced this week, developed by Rebellion.

Great use of the Aliens license, Sega. :(

"Dang, zombies in Vietnam? what is this? a joke? Seriously, I can't imagine how they could tie those two factors together!!! "
There's an 80's comic book featuring Constatine (nothing to do with the oh so crappy movie shit!), which did it briliantly.

@Eighthours I think there was a story (or perhaps a thread post) updating the situation on those three games, suffice to say they are all in development, Colonial Marines has been pushed to next year I think, no surprise when it hasn't been unveiled recently that something has gone amiss, or the game is being rethought and redesigned at some level.

Rebellion are a pretty good team overall, the original Alien vs Predator, Rogue Trooper, maybe others in the know can offer more (I'd almost say Miami Vice for the PSP but it needed more time and polish) but sadly for whatever reasons put out less than stellar games, assigned work, lack of budget, time who knows.

@Katsumoto - the issue of review guidelines would probably make for a good Saturday type article on this site, or an industry wide one for gameindustry.biz but on the issue of not completing a game once an opinion is decided upon, I was slightly concerned that for what is called a short game in the review, maybe they didn't spend too long playing it overall, but also not seeing sections of a game that might be worth mentioning.

I'm sorry but I can't be sympathetic to not playing the whole game (and in RPGs it should include most side quests - I remember the kinda crippled Mass Effect review), prior to do a review.
Anyway, that's my opinion and perhaps that's not possible. But, at my work there are also some mundane taks I which I didn't have to do.

@vertical stand
"I was slightly concerned that for what is called a short game in the review, maybe they didn't spend too long playing it overall, but also not seeing sections of a game that might be worth mentioning".

Hi
I'm at around 80% completion and there really is nothing that stands out, I do not see that changing in the final 20%. The one area that is very tense is the Mansion, Tom mentions this.
Saying that if anyone wants the full pro mo I have it on my swaps post! Sorry for the plug, being as you (and others) have read the review I doubt anyone is going to be interested so no harm no foul.

i thought conflict vietnam was decent last gen...

Zombies and Veitnam...

Almost the House game I've been waiting for.
Come on guys, the film came out in 1986 I'm starting to think it's no longer in development.

"I want vietcong with crysis engine"

exactly my hopes...mod called dogtags vietnam was attempting this, yet it seems to have almost died with no progression.

I've had 10 minutes on this... seriously sh*t.

Fair enough duffman5, it doesn't sound all that promising, pure speculation but I wonder if its that the game is out they wanted a review up rather than spending a few more hours playing till the end (for all I know the review has been ready for a while). Reading about the mansion section makes me wonder why they didn't just focus on that as from the sounds of things they are trying to do too much with too little resources and the whole thing suffers as a result.

@Miiiguel I didn't mean to suggest they should do it as a chore but rather to give the game the best chance possible, but I agree with not wanting to play something just for the sake of completion having endured and then given up on the lazy Crisis Core sub missions. Regarding Mass Effect side missions that would be a problem if a reviewer was damning a game for lack of variety, replay value without giving parts of the game a fair chance.

Hehe if I backtrack anymore...

I wish Rebellion better luck with 2000 AD stuff. Rogue Trooper was bloody brilliant.

It should be renamed 'Shellshock 2/10'

What is it with this sudden trend of not including screenshots that show the gameplay? Strikes me as a bit pointless.

"I guess this marks the end of Rebellion's reputation as 'a safe pair of hands' for cheap & cheerful branded action actions games."

Erm, I'm not knocking one of the few independant British developers or anything, but have they really ever been considered 'a safe pair of hands'?! Their CV is extremely inconsistent, to say the least.

This does not bode well for Battlefront 3 & AVP3. I hope a bigger budget and more development time can ensure these products are better than Rebellion's recent efforts...

way to big up western development to your prospective new owners!!!!!

What happened Rebellion?
You used to be up there.

@scruffpuppy

Sorry, but you're talking nonsense. The 2000AD aquisition was in 2000, and the last game based on a character from the comic was Rogue Trooper in 2006, and it wasn't big budget AAA.

These aren't valid excuses for a game released in 2009 and apparently as poor as this.

No Deadly Creatures review today then? :-(

I can stand it no longer. I had to post. To those people saying Rebellion needed more time and this was a quick turnaround, this game has been in development for FOUR AND A HALF YEARS.

Core Design were doing it before Rebellion bought them and continued doing it afterwards.

"Tip - pretend you're doing your job properly"
Bless! Is this the first time you think a review has been written without completing the game?