The Game Cave has migrated!

Hello, and welcome to the Game Cave! Sorry there have not been any updates for a very long time, but I have migrated to a new site! I recently began working with GameZombie.tv, where I do reviews for digital download games and retro reviews! Here is the link to GameZombie.tv: http://www.gamezombie.tv/

So come on down and read some reviews, and happy gaming!

Note: This does not mean the Game Cave has been abandoned, there just will be less frequent updates, depending on how busy with GZ I am. And with that, I leave you with this:

Global Agenda

Greetings gamers, one and all. Time for another review from The Game Cave. Today, we're taking a look at Global Agenda, a sci-fi MMORPG powered by Steam. If you haven't heard of Steam yet, there are two possibilities: Either A) You're not a PC gamer, or B) You live under a friggin' rock. Either way, this review isn't about Steam, and I've digressed enough.

So, Global Agenda. The setting is in a desolate futuristic wasteland in which the only remaining bastions of humanity are what are called Dome Cities. The world outside these cities is a vast desert of little vegetation and no wildlife. The only other sentient beings you will encounter in this wasteland (other than other players) are raiders and rogue robots. Starting to sound a little like Fallout, isn't it? Your character becomes a mercenary/soldier for the Dome Cities to help combat a growing threat: a group of raiders led by a warboss, who's only mission is to destroy the Dome Cities. The PvE play (which is the desert) consists generally of fetch quests in which you must kill a certain number of a certain type of enemy or kill a certain type of enemy until you've obtained a certain amount of a certain type of item, leading up to (you guessed it) a final confrontation with the warboss. Tedious, no? Well, good thing that's not all this game has to offer.

Global Agenda actually began as a solely PvP game, as well as missions that teams of four could participate in. However, there was no open-world play. Back in 2010, the devs over at High Rez Studios pumped out a massive overhaul called Sandstorm, which was covered in the prior paragraph. The PvP is incredible. There's a myriad of game types to choose from including Mercenary, Payload, CTF, and many others. Teams consist usually of 8 players, so the game size is 16 people total. The PvP is a lot of fun, and a great way to earn EXP and cash. Which is great because you need a S**T TON for all the high-level equipment. I'm not even joking, you need some SERIOUS moolah. The level cap is 50, and level 50 equipment can be anywhere from 75,000 to 150,000 or more. So crack your knuckles, bunker down for an all-nighter, and play some PvP.

All-in-all, Global Agenda is a well-rounded sci-fi MMO. It's fairly cheap, it's F2P, and there are thousands of players. The Sandstorm expansion added a ton of new stuff to do, and the classic PvP never fails to entertain. So grab a computer, doll out a few bucks, and pick up a copy of Global Agenda. I highly recommend this game.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Shivering Isles, and Knights of the Nine

Greetings gamers, welcome back to The Game Cave. Today, I'll be reviewing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, as well as its expansion packs. Yes, it did in fact take me this long to get around to posting about this game because there's SO. MUCH. CRAP. TO DO. I'm not kidding you, I'm still not done with every quest the game has to offer. I may never be done. So, I'll run through the main story line and the expansions.

First off: Character creation. You have 10 default races to choose from: Imperial, Khajiit, Argonian, High Elf, Dark Elf, Wood Elf, Breton, Nord, Orc, and Redguard. Each one has their own features and attributes. Furthermore, the Khajiit are cat-people, and the Argonians are lizard-people. From here, you can pick gender facial features, facial shape, cheek size, nose size, eye positions, eye color, age... The list goes on and on and ON. This is some of the most extensive character creation systems you will EVER see. Period.

After you've created your character, you epically and triumphantly get dropped into... jail. WHAT. Jail?! Why am I even here?! Oh and by the way, that question never gets answered. I suppose they leave that up to the player. I like to imagine that I'm in jail for outdoing Ozzy in a bat-eating contest and he got angry at me because I won and claimed that Batman didn't count and he got me thrown in prison for murdering a pop-culture icon. Anyway, you're immediately berated by a Dark Elf in the cell across from yours. After a few moments of incessant insultation, you hear voices in the stairwell. A couple of guards and a guy who looks like he just came from a Renaissance faire come down the stairs. You quickly find out that you're in the wrong cell. The wrong cell? What kind of bullcrap is that? A cell is a cell! So, the Ren faire guy walks over to you and starts spewing this stuff about gods and destiny. Apparently, he's the king, your crime was of no significance, and you're destined to save Tamriel in some way. Yeah, entrust the fate of the entire continent to a convict, that seems safe. Anyway, the king gets killed, gives you a magic necklace called the Amulet of Kings and tells you to “close shut the jaws of Oblivion.” Your character then embarks on a quest to save the land from the hellhole that is Oblivion.

Ok, my first issue with the game (not that there are many): The main quest is just too bloody short! I got it done in about two to three hours. That's barely long at all. I would've liked to have seen more battles, some sort of lengthier story, or at least (spoiler alert) a quest to run around shutting the remaining Oblivion gates. But no, you save the land, la de da, end of story. Bottom line: The main quest is too short.

Time for a positive: The absolutely ASTRONOMICAL amount of side quests available to accomplish. There are faction quests for four different factions (the Fighters Guild, the Mages Guild, the Dark Brotherhood, and the Thieve's Guild), there's a treasure trove of quests you can stumble upon from random people throughout the land, and (if you own the PC version) absolutely NO shortage of UGC (user-generated content). And there are two expansion packs to the game that add new quests: Knights of the Nine and The Shivering Isles.

Speaking of Knights of the Nine, let's take a look at that expansion. KotN adds an entirely new quest line in which your character sets out to rebuild an ancient group called (you guessed it) The Knights of the Nine. Your reason for rebuilding this ancient and forgotten guild? The world is now threatened by the re-emergence of the Knights' old foe, Umaril. He aims to destroy Tamriel, and only you (for whatever reason YOU'RE chosen, of all people) can stop him. You face ghosts of the past, monsters, and a time-wasting, buttocks-kicking, pain-in-the-a** pilgrimage, among many other obstacles. (Spoiler alert) Ultimately, when you complete this story line, you are granted the armor and weapons of the Crusader, equipment so God-awfully overpowered, that you would think you were bloody Chuck Norris in knight armor. I'm not joking, this armor renders the power attack worthless. Give somebody a paper cut, and their body takes to the skies in a cloud of fire and smoke. It's insanity. In addition to the Knights quest line, this expansion adds three new player homes and armor you can buy for your horses. The horse armor, however, serves absolutely NO purpose. Players are expected to pay gold out the a** to the vendor for this armor because it wooks pwetty. I don't really care, I own the PC version, and I downloaded a mod that lets me fly a bloody dragon across the lands of Tamriel. Beat that, you four-legged, landlocked mammals.

As for Shivering Isles, this expansion was a very curious add-on. It allows your character to embark on a quest to save a plane of Oblivion from destruction. This plane is the realm of Sheogorath, the Prince of Madness. “The Prince of Madness?” you say. Yes, the Prince of Madness. This guy is so pants-on-head insane, you'd think you were talking to a brick wall with down syndrome. Let me just put a little disclaimer up here: No I don't hate the mentally handicapped, you butt-wipes. One of my friends is mentally handicapped, so I don't want to receive any hate-mail about how I despise the mentally retarded. But in all seriousness, Sheogorath deserves a straight jacket, a padded room, and a bolted door locked with another straight jacket. He's THAT insane. And he's HILARIOUS. He is by FAR my favorite character in ALL of Oblivion. I mean seriously, he tells you to come again or he'll pluck out your eyeballs. How is that not awesome? Well anyway, his realm is in need of a champion because the Greymarch is coming. Apparently, the Greymarch is 20/12 for his realm. The entire realm is destroyed, everybody is killed, and he has to rebuild it all over again. The Realm of Sheogorath is perhaps the most entertaining place in all of Oblivion. In addition to the main quest of the expansions, it adds in some Shivering-Isles-unique side quests, and man are they hilarious. I mean, one guy asks you to find him a fork! It's like, “What. What is this, I don't even...” They're so funny.


So, this wraps up Oblivion and its expansions. Aside from a ridiculously short main quest, it's an excellent game that I have replayed again and again. And again. It rightfully deserves a 10/10. And make sure to keep an eye out for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, hitting shelves on 11/11/11. I'm psyched for it, and so should you. So do it! Get psyched! NOW!

Hydrophobia

Welcome back, fellow game enthusiasts, to The Game Cave. On today's agenda: A little-known XBL Arcade game known as Hydrophobia.

Hydrophobia is a game that depicts a floating city-ship on the ocean. You play as an engineer that helps make sure the whole thing doesn't go down faster than the Titanic. So you have your character, Kate Wilson, working with all the engineers to keep this ship, the Queen of the World, up and running. The Queen of the World was created to help solve the main problem the world faces in this game: Overpopulation. The company that developed the ship has been constantly striving to solve this issue. The game begins with Kate sitting in her room with the news on her TV. The news story on the TV is about the company, The Five Founding Fathers, has developed a new nano system that will help solve the overpopulation issue. I never really understood how that's supposed to work (it never really gets explained all that well). The system that runs all the tech in Kate's room mysteriously shuts down. Kate gets into contact with a friend engineer and starts to investigate the system shutdown. She quickly finds out that the rest of the ship is experiencing similar issues. As you investigate further, you find out that parts of the ship are breaking down and flooding and falling apart. Kate runs around the hull, directed from afar by her friend, until she comes across a room. A fellow engineer is sitting at the console. Kate, searching for an add-on program to her engineer tool, asks him if she can use the computer. No response. She turns the chair around and he falls out of the chair, dead. Kate looks around and sees a message on the monitors around her: "Save the world - Kill yourself." You later learn the ship is under attack by a group of terrorists calling themselves the Malthusians. The game becomes a survival story in which you fight against the terrorists for the fate of the ship. Then, just as the story starts to get good... To be continued. WHAT. What is this crap?! Finish the freaking game! I decided to do some research. The game is supposed to be part of a trilogy. I loved the game, but if it doesn't get good reviews, I won't get to find out what happens! Make a full game next time! Good lord...

Well, the story is great. I love it. Just need to FINISH IT. On to the gameplay. It revolves around water physics (the game is called freaking Hydrophobia. No duh it uses water physics). So, you can destroy parts of the ship to raise or lower the water level, water can rush through opened doors, sweep you around, throw you against the walls, and all sorts of stuff. Godly awesome water physics. The combat is good, but not great. The controls make it easy to miss your targets, but the game makes up for it with creative underwater combat. You can strafe, dodge, drown opponents, or sneak up on them from underwater. Fantastic underwater combat. Never seen anything like it.

So overall, Hydrophobia is a great game. It's letdown down by slightly finicky controls and a cliff-hanger ending, but it does leave you wanting more. I desperately want to see a sequel released. 9/10 in my book. Excellent game.

Halo: Reach

Good day, ladies and gents! It's that time: Time for the second review of The Game Cave! Today, we're taking a look at Halo: Reach.

Halo: Reach is the prequel to the award winning Halo saga. It depicts a squad of elite Spartan warriors on the human-colonized world of Reach. Why they named it Reach, I will never know. The name doesn't seem all that creative to me. Anyway, the planet is now under siege by a malicious alliance of aliens called the Covenant. I guess they ran out of better named planets to terrorize. Regardless, Reach is under attack, the humans appear screwed, so they go for broke and fight back while getting all the citizens off-planet. So, Noble Team sets out to participate in the biggest evacuation attempt in human history. Next to Katrina of course. Oh wait, Bush didn't do crap for those people. Well then yes, the biggest evacuation attempt in human history. Now, if you're one of the fanboys out there such as myself, you all know how Reach ends. I guess Noble Six's helmet lying discarded in the sand in the middle of a plasma-glassed wasteland isn't indication enough. What, you thought Noble Six heroically and climactically goes to the beach? Well, I won't spoil it, but I get the feeling I already did.

So, the story's pretty solid. Let's discuss gameplay and some of the issues I have with the game. If you've ever played Halo 3 or Halo 3: ODST, then you've played Reach. But here's the letdown. The engine is obviously Halo 3, the tech looks more advanced than Halo 3, everything seems improved upon as far as Reach goes. BUT, it's a PREQUEL to Halo: Combat Evolved! Why does everything look shinier and more technologically advanced when it happened BEFORE Halo One?! They even have the Mjolnir Mk VI helmet as an unlock when you reach a certain level. If the Mk VI existed before Halo: Combat Evolved, then why bother having Master Chief running around in the Mk V until Halo 2? It makes no sense! And the ODSTs didn't even exist until Halo 2, yet you see them running around in Reach, and even get to play a mission with them! Where's the logic here?! Answer: It's Halo. It doesn't need logic to justify itself.


Ok, so I got the issues rant out of my system. Let's discuss the multiplayer. I will admit, I have been playing the multiplayer religiously for weeks now. However, Halo has jumped on the bandwagon of class-based multiplayer. Team Fortress 2 began this trend, and many games since have mimicked them and created classes for their multiplayer. Halo has however taken a different approach. Where most games feature classes with different weapon loadouts, Halo has opted for different equippables, such as the bubble shield or sprint. So, in that sense, it strayed slightly from the common version of class-based multiplayer.


All-in-all, Halo: Reach is another great game Bungie has pumped out. It's fun, it's exactly the same as what we know and love, and it expands upon the Halo universe and makes us more knowledgeable about a world we love to learn more about. With that said, if you're anything like me, you want Bungie to stop beating around the bush and continue the story of the freaking Master Chief! For God's sake, you last see him drifting through space in cryogenic stasis in half of a ship! I want to know what happens to him! So hop on it, Bungie.

Tron: Evolution

Welcome to the first review of The Game Cave! My name's Jeff, and I'll be reviewing the game Tron: Evolution.

I got the PS3 version of the game, so if anything in the review does not coincide with the Xbox 360 version, that is not my fault. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this game. The gameplay is fantastic, the story excellent (except the ending, which I will not spoil), and the multiplayer exquisite.

So, the story. It's a prequel to the hit Tron: Legacy movie, however you play a character that means absolutely nothing to the story whatsoever. You play as a new system monitor, who everybody calls "Monitor" (shocking, I know!). However, the emotionless, speechless, serious-as-a-rock Monitor actually has a name that NOBODY USES. His technical name is Anon, short for Anonymous (ooh, creative). He's a new program that was developed by Flynn to police the system and keep the Basics, default programs that were written when the Grid (the programmed world the denizens of Tron live in) was created, and the ISOs, a variant of the Basics that developed a sense of free will, in check. Generally, the Basics and ISOs get along. In the beginning of the game, the leader of the ISOs is about to be installed as the co-administrator of the Grid, a jump forward in tolerance toward the ISOs. There has been a lot of friction between the Basics and ISOs, and they get shunned from many Basic activities, such as the Game Grid and clubbing. As for the ISOs, all they long for is acceptance. So, you have the Basics and the ISOs. Well, then they introduce a THIRD protagonist, the Abraxis virus. This virus basically infects programs and turns them into digital zombies. Evidently, it is now law for every video game on the face of the planet to begin moving towards some sort of zombie-uniformity. Halo features a zombie game mode, Red Dead has a zombie expansion pack, Call of Duty made zombies even more evil by making them Nazis. There's even a Guitar Hero knockoff game that features zombies! And now, Tron has invented the zombie computer program. Congratulations, you've joined the ranks of every other sellout that features zombies since Left 4 Dead hit the shelves. So, we have the three protagonist races, and the main character. Now play the game to find out the rest.


Ok, so, gameplay. The gameplay revolves around parkour, and WOW does it do parkour the right way. The parkour elements flow into one another with mind-numbing, heart-stopping, trouser-tightening elegance. I haven't seen parkour elements this well done since Mirror's Edge. And the parkour even fits seamlessly into the combat. Yes, all you fanboys out there, the game does in fact feature amazing light disc combat. You have the traditional 3-button long-range combo, the 3-button short range melee combo, and the I'm-going-to-shove-this-disc-up-your-#@! combos. Yes, the game features combos that will in fact screw over any opponent you could come across. You can even kill, no joke, TANKS on FOOT. When your disc is that powerful, that's just not giving anybody a chance. You're like the Godking of the Grid, and anybody who objects to your reign will get their own disc shoved up their rectum. Even the big, tough, scary programs get their butts handed to them by the Monitor.


So overall, Tron: Evolution is a solid game that long-time fans of the movie will love. The game gets a 10/10 in my book, and I would most definitely recommend playing it whether you're a fan or not (I certainly wasn't). Play it, love it. Tron: Evolution.