i'm going to itt tech so i can start a career as a game programmer. for now i've been writing reviews on games i've played and writing down my ideas on how i would improve them. here are a couple of my ideas down below.


Tommy Green My ideas for Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy




I have a playstation2 at home and love to play video games. I recently completed the Psi-Ops game and enjoyed it thoroughly. However, there’s something I just don’t get about it: When you beat the game, there’s a message in capital letters right after the cut-scene that clearly say TO BE CONTINUED… So why haven’t they made a sequel?! It certainly has the potential for one, and I feel that if the developers put their heads together and really focused on it they could totally pull it off. If they do, here are some flaws that can be addressed and ideas to improve the game’s quality.

Let’s start with the good parts about the game. The graphics, lighting, and fire effects were beautiful (considering that this is a playstation2 game); and the explosions and gunplay were top-notch quality. The enemy AI (artificial intelligence) was also very impressive; some of the best I’ve seen. The enemies would actually dodge objects that were thrown at them and would even take advantage of your hesitation and shoot at you if you left them floating in the air without doing anything with your TK for long enough.
Also, there’s a good sense of urgency in all the levels that few games have matched in my experience. Probably craziest thing about this game is that some of the best features were unintentional, according to the behind-the-scenes movie they included.

This next part will discuss some flaws I noticed and also some things that could have been done to improve the game’s quality should they decide to make a sequel, starting with the weapons.

While I immensely enjoyed the third-person view there were times when I wished it was more like the Suffering, where players had the option to switch between third and first-person view. That would make it so much more appealing. One of the quick tips said something about shooting different body parts to take down the enemy faster, though it didn’t seem like it worked to me. Sci-fi shooters are all about combining guns with supernatural powers; and it’s easy to get bored when you only have a basic selection.
I would strongly advise expanding the arsenal of weapons available. They could also try to add in some vehicles.

Now I’ll address the psychic powers. I liked the Mind Drain ability but I feel like it made things just a little too easy. It was originally meant to be a move that requires stealth to use, but it turns out you don’t have to sneak up on enemies to drain their mental energy and refill your psi energy. You just have to use TK to toss an enemy towards you, wait until he gets up, stand behind him and use Mind Drain. Maybe they should make it more of a challenge.

An upgrade system would do wonders for this particular area of the game. The telekinesis, for example was fun to use but unfortunately you couldn’t lift anything bigger and heavier than a crate. For the sequel they could give the players an opportunity to gradually progress from that limitation to being able to throw around things slightly heavier like file cabinets and coke machines and at another level the opportunity to throw around even heavier things like vehicles. They could also spice it up by letting players do things like lift multiple objects at once and using TK to force open doors, and possibly to guide a bazooka missile to its target. While TK surfing (levitating something while standing on top of it) was cool, it would be much better enjoyed as a passive ability that could be used to get around faster. They could also use it to add in a couple of chase-scene levels, you know, chasing someone or being chased by someone while using a flat object as a hover-board?

Next I’ll adress the Mind Control power. I truly enjoyed this one, although because I had to manually make the hosts do what I wanted to and the lack of a radar system it often left me vulnerable. This issue could be easily solved by letting players send their hosts of on their own predetermined courses with a command system. This could also be worked into an upgrade system. At the first level you could use Mind Control to make your enemies do simple things like go to a certain room and flip a switch to open a door or something; and with each level add in even cooler features like convincing them with your powers that they are your allies. Or vise-versa make, them fight each other. They could also add in telepathy, having players read the characters’ minds to figure out what to do in a level.

Now I’m going to address the Pyre-kinesis, the ability to send waves of fire at people. Although this last power sounded promising and looked awesome, there weren’t many opportunities to effectively use it, and the energy cost was just too great for a power that only affected one enemy. In the behind-the-scenes movie the developers were talking about how they wanted to make this ability seem realistic without seeming magical to maintain the game’s one-of-a-kind quality. I’m not saying they’re wrong, but the way I understand it pyre-kinesis is the ability to manipulate fire rather than create it. And I think it really might be better that way. They could totally work it into an upgrade system by letting players do things like gradually take less damage from explosions at one level, turn some guy’s flamethrower against him at the next, and at another level increase the power and size of explosions caused by players.

The other abilities are perfect as far as I can see. And other than letting players use an upgrade system to make them last longer, I don’t have anything to suggest for them.




Hope you like my ideas. If you do, my email address is tgreenmagician@hotmail.com.

Tommy Green

My ideas for: MX VS. ATV: Untamed for playstation2
Developed by: Incinerator Studios and THQ


I have a playstation2 at home and I love to play video games. I currently have MX VS. ATV: Untamed for playstation2 and I’d like to report some flaws I noticed. Please note that some of these things are what I feel could be added in to improve the game’s overall quality if you plan on making another sequel.

Let’s start with the ATVs and dirt bikes. There’s not much to suggest here, except that the trick point system needs work, like giving players more or less points for certain tricks, depending on how hard the tricks are to pull off. And a tutorial for the players who are new to the series would be nice.

Next would be the matter of the clutch and its many advantages it can give players. In addition to giving players the opportunity to start off races and make hard turns with a burst of speed, I also noticed that holding in the clutch while you’re airborne and releasing it right after you hit the ground has that same effect. The same goes for holding in the clutch for maybe 2 seconds and then releasing it when you’re going downhill. You can also use it to help you turn around after a spinout. The problem is that the last three things listed above don’t show up with the other hints you see randomly while waiting levels to load. I would suggest putting the controller setup on the pause menu during races; that way if the players don’t like the default setting they’re given they can change it on the fly to something more preferable without having to exit the race and wait on loading screens.

The next thing I’m going to address is the additional vehicles. I played the first ATV vs. MX title before this one; and as soon as I started using these vehicles in Untamed I began to appreciate the impressive amount of work that went into them compared to them. Aside from suggesting having more than one championship for the additional vehicles and bringing back the waypoint championships for the players who enjoyed them the flaws here are minor.

The Sand Rail was enjoyable once I figured out I had to push the gas button when the green light went off instead of using the clutch to get and extra burst of speed. I also noticed your opponents always get tangled up shortly after the start of the race in the championship mode and I sometimes got hung up on the side ramps. The Trophy Trucks had this same problem, though they didn’t get tangled up as much. The Golf Carts and Monster Trucks were good, though I never saw any championships for them. I could be wrong; I did decide to unlock the additional vehicles with a cheat code halfway through the game.

The last thing I’m going to suggest is that you bring back the realism of ATV 3, which had you adjusting your gear ratio to the tracks and adjusting your tires to the terrain and weather; lots of people got a kick out of that.