Let me begin this week's post by welcoming and thanking 30 Something, my first follower. I don't like to use the word 'follower', it sounds like I'm some sort of cult-leader or something. Anyway, thanks.
After my positive first impressions of Resi 5, I realised that about half way through it descends into a distinctly average game, not offering scares or anything mentally taxing at all. And it makes you wonder when a game stops being a Survival-Horror and just becomes a 3rd Person Shooter. So I put my pad down and, eager to remember what a truly good Resident Evil feels like, fired up my Wii for a bit of Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. And I'm currently fending off Regenerators with fuck-all ammo.
Also this week I've been toying with GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS, and I honestly don't like it. Everything is so tiny it's hard to even tell what's going on, and the top down view means you can't see more than a few feet in front of you, which isn't ideal for high speed chases. I know, it started off like this but the old ones seemed to do it so much better. I hope the PSP version ends up better. And while I was tinkering with my DS, I noticed Giana Sisters DS. How ironic, that a game that Nintendo got cancelled and discontinued is now available for a Nintendo console. Anyway, if you liked New Super Mario Bros., Snap it up. It's great and will appeal to your young daughters/sisters, which will give you an excuse when confronted by the geek at the counter. Fuck Mario. If I wanted to play with a moustached man in dungarees, I'd go to a Gay Bar. Too low brow?
Back on to my current Resi obsession, and my DS getting it's annual playing on, I've been messing around with Action Replay codes on Resident Evil Deadly Silence. I think I've come up with the ultimate way of playing it: As Barry Burton, with unlimited health and infinite ammo for the Magnum. I wonder if I can play through Resi 2 on the Gamecube as Robert Kendo? Next on the agenda.
I've become re-obsessed with Mega64, for those of you who don't know it's three guys who dress up and act like videogame characters in public, and videotape it. I've been constantly laughing at their videos for Elite Beat Agents, PaRappa the Rapper and Shadow of the Colossus for about a week now. Tried showing it to my girlfriend, she doesn't get it at all. Check them out, Mega64.com.
I think after Resi 4 is done, I'm gonna try out Dark Sector. It's been sitting on my shelf for a while now, and I've not gotten around to playing it. Or Maybe No More Heroes, or Viking: Battle for Asgard. How does one decide?
Friday 31 July 2009
Friday 24 July 2009
Shoot yourself. Save me a bullet.
Well, here we are again.
Started the week by finishing Mass Effect a second time, and a really cool thing happened. I actually convinced Saren to shoot himself! Sure, I still had to fight his Husk after, but it was awesome none the less.
After posting last friday I headed out and re-bought The Punisher, this time on the XBox, and finished it last night. What a game. Most multi-platform games that I've tried on both the XB and PS2 have been identical in appearance, but TP actually looks loads better, from the contours on his face to the bump mapping on walls. It was the first time ever that I looked at the 'Box lovingly and pushed my PS2 aside, knowing that beneath the cheap feeling plastic and spazzy joypad there is something wonderful in that big black box.
Some of the dialogue in The Punisher is great too; "Who would win in a fight between The Punisher and DareDevil?" "Don't be stupid, DareDevil is a comic book character!", and the violence is top notch. Forcing a grenade into a guy's mouth and letting him run towards his friends? I don't know of another game where that happens.
I also picked up Resident Evil 5 last Friday, finally, and on Wednesday me and my friend Paul spent the day playing co-op over PSN. It's very good, very tactical. But I can't ever see myself playing it on my own. I tried the XBox Live demo on my own and it was arse. Sheva kept getting in my way.
I also read online that Capcom are thinking about a Wii conversion, which I'll probably grab. The Wii RE4 was probably the best version.
Looks like my PSP will be getting a lot of love in the coming months, with games like MGS: Peace Walker, SoulCalibur, Dissidia, Resident Evil Portable and Cannon Fodder on the Horizon. I hope none of them are only on this PSP Go travesty though. I still don't properly trust digital downloads, and I don't think games companies should abandon those of us without the disposeable income to upgrade their current consoles. I'm still on my first generation PSP, and while it still lives have no reason to buy another one. Plus, the Go's analogue stick is in entirely the wrong place. No thanks.
I'll sign out on a positive note, I got the Special Monster Edition of Crash of the Titans from Morrisons the other day for £4. Not a game I'll ever play, but the special edition lover in me wanted it, and as of then I hadn't ever owned a game in a fluffy orange case before. I still say it was worth it.
Started the week by finishing Mass Effect a second time, and a really cool thing happened. I actually convinced Saren to shoot himself! Sure, I still had to fight his Husk after, but it was awesome none the less.
After posting last friday I headed out and re-bought The Punisher, this time on the XBox, and finished it last night. What a game. Most multi-platform games that I've tried on both the XB and PS2 have been identical in appearance, but TP actually looks loads better, from the contours on his face to the bump mapping on walls. It was the first time ever that I looked at the 'Box lovingly and pushed my PS2 aside, knowing that beneath the cheap feeling plastic and spazzy joypad there is something wonderful in that big black box.
Some of the dialogue in The Punisher is great too; "Who would win in a fight between The Punisher and DareDevil?" "Don't be stupid, DareDevil is a comic book character!", and the violence is top notch. Forcing a grenade into a guy's mouth and letting him run towards his friends? I don't know of another game where that happens.
I also picked up Resident Evil 5 last Friday, finally, and on Wednesday me and my friend Paul spent the day playing co-op over PSN. It's very good, very tactical. But I can't ever see myself playing it on my own. I tried the XBox Live demo on my own and it was arse. Sheva kept getting in my way.
I also read online that Capcom are thinking about a Wii conversion, which I'll probably grab. The Wii RE4 was probably the best version.
Looks like my PSP will be getting a lot of love in the coming months, with games like MGS: Peace Walker, SoulCalibur, Dissidia, Resident Evil Portable and Cannon Fodder on the Horizon. I hope none of them are only on this PSP Go travesty though. I still don't properly trust digital downloads, and I don't think games companies should abandon those of us without the disposeable income to upgrade their current consoles. I'm still on my first generation PSP, and while it still lives have no reason to buy another one. Plus, the Go's analogue stick is in entirely the wrong place. No thanks.
I'll sign out on a positive note, I got the Special Monster Edition of Crash of the Titans from Morrisons the other day for £4. Not a game I'll ever play, but the special edition lover in me wanted it, and as of then I hadn't ever owned a game in a fluffy orange case before. I still say it was worth it.
Friday 17 July 2009
By my balls, Girl, I thought you were dead!
I know I said I'd have a look at Golden Axe: Beast Rider, and I did. And it was OK at first, I really wanted to like it, just to voice the silent minority or something. Imagine playing God of War, and it's awesome. Somebody takes it away and gives you Conan, and it's still good but not as good. Same thing happens, you get Heavenly Sword, a bit poo really. Then there's Golden Axe.
The graphics are like a mid-range original XBox game, it has the same washed-out look as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and the blood effect is lifted straight from Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, for those who haven't played it it looks like whole tomatoes are falling out of your enemies. The music is great, proper epic, Conan-style score, but with absolutely unforgivable voice acting it doesn't really help the overall sound much. And the difficulty curve is so steep you need climbing gear - the game doesn't believe in checkpoints. Enemies do this thing where if their weopon glows orange, the blow in unblockable and you need to dodge buy hitting L1, and if it glows blue it's undodgeable and you need to block with R1. Or is it the other way round? You forget because the colours have no significance to the buttons at all. And when 15 enemies are attacking, half doing one, half doing the other, what do you do?
Sega have been destroying a lot of their beloved franchises lately, this and House of the Dead springing to mind. I loved Golden Axe when I was younger, and while I do get nostalgic when *that* music comes on and the gnomes appear, and I have to deck some potions out of them, it still upsets me that a childhood friend has lost it's way so much. It'd be like seeing Carrie Fisher do a low budget Porno.
Aside from that, and I'll keep things brief, I tried Little Big Planet, and I can't do it. Although someone has recreated the whole of Resident Evil 4 on there, which was awesome. I've been back on Mass Effect again, and that will always be great, especially as this time I've talked Wrex down on 'the' bit, which greatly upset me the first time around.
And, after finishing 24: The Game last week I started watching season 3, and there's a bit where Jack says that he moved Kim (his daughter) into CTU (his office) because he wants her to be safe. Now Kim was taken hostage in series 1, had a run-in with a Cougar and kidnapped by a crazy guy in the woods in series 2 and taken hostage again in the game. CTU on the other hand, was compromised twice in series 1, blown up in series 2, and invaded by terrorists in the game. Putting the most unsafe person in America in the most unsafe place in America, where she is now working hand in hand with Sylar from Heroes. Good Going, Jack.
The graphics are like a mid-range original XBox game, it has the same washed-out look as Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, and the blood effect is lifted straight from Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, for those who haven't played it it looks like whole tomatoes are falling out of your enemies. The music is great, proper epic, Conan-style score, but with absolutely unforgivable voice acting it doesn't really help the overall sound much. And the difficulty curve is so steep you need climbing gear - the game doesn't believe in checkpoints. Enemies do this thing where if their weopon glows orange, the blow in unblockable and you need to dodge buy hitting L1, and if it glows blue it's undodgeable and you need to block with R1. Or is it the other way round? You forget because the colours have no significance to the buttons at all. And when 15 enemies are attacking, half doing one, half doing the other, what do you do?
Sega have been destroying a lot of their beloved franchises lately, this and House of the Dead springing to mind. I loved Golden Axe when I was younger, and while I do get nostalgic when *that* music comes on and the gnomes appear, and I have to deck some potions out of them, it still upsets me that a childhood friend has lost it's way so much. It'd be like seeing Carrie Fisher do a low budget Porno.
Aside from that, and I'll keep things brief, I tried Little Big Planet, and I can't do it. Although someone has recreated the whole of Resident Evil 4 on there, which was awesome. I've been back on Mass Effect again, and that will always be great, especially as this time I've talked Wrex down on 'the' bit, which greatly upset me the first time around.
And, after finishing 24: The Game last week I started watching season 3, and there's a bit where Jack says that he moved Kim (his daughter) into CTU (his office) because he wants her to be safe. Now Kim was taken hostage in series 1, had a run-in with a Cougar and kidnapped by a crazy guy in the woods in series 2 and taken hostage again in the game. CTU on the other hand, was compromised twice in series 1, blown up in series 2, and invaded by terrorists in the game. Putting the most unsafe person in America in the most unsafe place in America, where she is now working hand in hand with Sylar from Heroes. Good Going, Jack.
Friday 10 July 2009
Dammit Tony, they've got Kim!
I've just spent the last week playing 24: The Game on the PS2. Damn Good.
Not only did I get to be Jack Bauer, The game is so far ahead of it's time it's untrue, and I'm kicking myself for not playing it back in the day. It even has physics! It runs on the Havok engine! And not to mention the much coveted cover system, from a time when every game wasn't centered around hiding behind a wall.
Also I've been messing around with Assassin's Creed (forcing myself to replay it because I played it on release and hated it) and Punisher: No Mercy, both on PS3. I've actually really enjoyed Ass Creed this time, although why a slightly-tanned American would be running around in the middle east killing people is beyond me. Maybe they have oil.
No Mercy is, well, it's Unreal Tournament III really. Fair enough, I can play as The Punisher, which would have sold it to me if I couldn't already play as Solid Snake and Cole Train in UTIII. I could argue that it's only £6.29, but you can pick up UTIII for around that now anyway. It's good, don't get me wrong. I still say buy it, but but the PS2/XBox Punisher game first. That's Brilliant.
I actually bought a bunch of games this week too. Killzone 2 is a mere £19.99 at Morissons right now, and Little Big Planet was on Deal of the Week at Blockbuster for a Tenner, so I snapped them both up, and I raided the dreaded '4 for £20' bin and came away with Beowulf, Golden Axe Beast Rider, Dark Sector and a friend got Kane and Lynch. Expect a look at Beast Rider next week.
Not only did I get to be Jack Bauer, The game is so far ahead of it's time it's untrue, and I'm kicking myself for not playing it back in the day. It even has physics! It runs on the Havok engine! And not to mention the much coveted cover system, from a time when every game wasn't centered around hiding behind a wall.
Also I've been messing around with Assassin's Creed (forcing myself to replay it because I played it on release and hated it) and Punisher: No Mercy, both on PS3. I've actually really enjoyed Ass Creed this time, although why a slightly-tanned American would be running around in the middle east killing people is beyond me. Maybe they have oil.
No Mercy is, well, it's Unreal Tournament III really. Fair enough, I can play as The Punisher, which would have sold it to me if I couldn't already play as Solid Snake and Cole Train in UTIII. I could argue that it's only £6.29, but you can pick up UTIII for around that now anyway. It's good, don't get me wrong. I still say buy it, but but the PS2/XBox Punisher game first. That's Brilliant.
I actually bought a bunch of games this week too. Killzone 2 is a mere £19.99 at Morissons right now, and Little Big Planet was on Deal of the Week at Blockbuster for a Tenner, so I snapped them both up, and I raided the dreaded '4 for £20' bin and came away with Beowulf, Golden Axe Beast Rider, Dark Sector and a friend got Kane and Lynch. Expect a look at Beast Rider next week.
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