In your bedroom at night with the lights off and your headphones on... everyone can hear you scream...

Like I said last week, I've grown tired of Fantasy RPGs of late, and felt that the well-above-average Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga deserved my attention at a time when I can bestow it fully upon the game. I even tried the simple, accessible Fable II (not a typo, I've just played Fable: The Lost Chapters and intended to play the three of them in sequence), but just couldn't muster the enthusiasm. The heroic adventures of Nobhead (descendant of Arseface) will have to wait.

All the while, the soundtrack to my RPG lethargy came in the form of The Smashing Pumpkins' whingey teen anthem 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings', a song (and band) I absolutely abhor, yet one that worms it's way into your subconscious like the T-Virus. The vessel for this song? The TV advert for Dead Space 2, a game that was so far off my radar it might as well have been Women's Murder Club or something. I've had the original Dead Space for so long, and it must be said I have never liked it, I just haven't ever gotten rid of it because of it's poor monetary value (I bought it for a tenner a couple of years ago, I'd be lucky to get £3 back on a trade-in). The reason for my disdain was the lack of positive reinforcement for your actions as a player, every little thing you did had a negative impact on the story, and every cutscene was just one of your companions telling you to go somewhere and do something, and the other, a bratty annoying bint of a woman, telling you it won't work. Then you do it, and it doesn't work.

But the TV spot for DS2 made me want the game so badly, for no reason other than that I couldn't get Billy Corgan and his group of misfitted pricks out of my head. And I felt like, as it is such a major player in the still fairly niche Survival Horror genre, I should really like it. So Divinity II took a temporary bow and my trusty 360 Elite became the subject of nightmares for a few days. And I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

Bulbasaur used Vine-Whip! It's not very effective...

Actually, that's a lie. There's this bit where you have to shoot asteroids out of the sky before they hit you, and that had me on the verge of snapping my controller in two through sheer rage. But apart from that, it was excellent. None too original (Think Half-Life's Gordon Freeman complete with Gravity Gun, fused with Silent Hill 2's James Sunderland, on board Red Dwarf, fighting Zombies, directed by Ridley Scott and you're pretty much there), but that hardly matters when you are so preoccupied with being terrified that you daren't take your finger off the aim button to press a switch. Later in the game, the developers seemed to have forgotten that the game was supposed to be scary, with the whole endgame taking place in broad daylight, but that's just cleverly there to lure you into a false sense of security before chucking the ending at you, which had everyone I've spoken to who's finished the game collectively shit their pants.

So I'm on board for DS2 now. I'll no doubt pick it up in a month or so, I was planning on getting the 360 version to continue my night terrors, but the prospect of a single disk, a free copy of Dead Space Extraction and some armour for Dragon Age II (which my wife is to purchase on the PS3), I'm being swayed to the PS3 version, but I'll see. Speaking of Dragon Age, the Archdemon finally fell last night. I've got Awakening, Witch Hunt and The Golems of Amgarrak to do before DAII, but for the minute I'm enjoying the light-hearted and simple Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Here at 24HG, if you ask us what the manliest game in the world is, chances are you'd be told Ghost Squad. Sega's Wii Shooter does have you high-five the President after rescuing him from the clutches of an evil homosexual terrorist after all. but this week it's been surpassed by... EA's girl-friendly casual gaming champion The Sims 2?

Now, Ghost Squad may be manly. But it will never be Pyramid Head, Kratos, Barry Burton and The Punisher in a Hot Tub talking about Baseball manly.

Finally, I was asked over Formspring what I have against Bayonetta. Good question. One that I will answer the next time I don't have anything better to do, like oh, go and buy Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which is what I'm going to do right now. Bye for now.

The Fate of Two Worlds...

No, I haven't got my grubby paws on an early copy of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, before you ask, you'll have to wait another two weeks for that. The title is in fact referring to the game, Two Worlds II, and it's fate, the reason it got pushed back again, as detailed here. This is the latest (although arguably unavoidable) setback in a long line, which keeps pushing the UK release further and further back, slowly earning the reportedly redeemed and quite well-received by critics sequel the same kind of laughing-stock reputation of the first. The release date of Two Worlds II (or Two Worlds Forever as some people have started calling it) now rests tentatively on the 25th of February, but if I was going to get any game that day it would be Killzone 3, or failing that The Conduit 2. Two Worlds II wouldn't get a look in. As it happens I'm going to hoover all three of them up (Plus LBP2 and maybe a couple of minor games) come April, when my real job grants me my end-of-financial-year bonus.

So, I took all of my TWII money (all £32.89 of it) and skipped merrily off to Blockbuster like a gay (happy) child on pocket money day, determined not to be left gameless on this dark day. Ten minutes later I left the shop with chief Two Worlds substitute Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga on 360 for £19.95, Bionic Commando on PS3 and Diabolik: The Original Sin on Wii for £4.95 each and Sega Superstars Tennis on 360 for the bargain price of £2.95, with 9p change and a feeling of relief for having something new to play.

The only game I've had a go on so far is Divinity II, which is very good but hard going. Happily in the middle between the expansive, open world Oblivion and the closed in areas of Fable, DII sees you in the boots of a Dragon Slayer hunting the last of the Dragon Knights, powerful beings with the ability to take the form of a Dragon. The Dragon Knight, in her dying breath, transforms you into one yourself, and teaches you of their apparently noble quest to save the world from the demonic 'Damian' (original name for a demon).

I'll admit, I'm still getting to grips with the game, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. The levelling up process is simple, gain XP from killing enemies and completing quests and pile them into different aspects (as a warrior I'm diverting it all into Strength and Health, but there's also things like Magic and Archery), then level up a particular skill, like dual-wielding or regenerating health. The only problem I'm having is with the difficulty spikes, one minute I'm wading through enemies taking barely a scratch as they crumble beneath me, the next I'm dead at the hands of a single Goblin, because he's two levels ahead of me. I think I'm a bit tuckered out by fantasy RPGs at the minute though, I'm still plodding through Dragon Age, so maybe Divinity will have to be moved a bit further down my pile to be rejoined at a later date.

So that's that then. I've been in talks with my cohort Trev, who will be returning to the site imminently, and both of us are working on some exciting new features for the site. We'll keep you posted. Once again, please 'like' us on our Facebook page, there's not only news about the blog there but news about our friend's sites and blog postings and general gaming news. See you later.

No trust, all I got is lies, boring, alright...

Once more, such is the peril of playing RPGs, I haven't had time to play anything new and interesting. In fact, I only finished Fable last night, and I'm still knee-deep in Dragon Age, my newly acquired Angry Birds addiction has further hampered my productivity.

To avoid abandoning my weekly schedule and slipping again, like I did last year, I began planning this week's post almost immediately after uploading the last one. I had thought of possibly doing a 'what if?' post, detailing games I would like to see, however unlikely (my favourite of which being Batman: Shattered Dimensions), But scrapped that as the list became dominated with crossover fighting games. Then I had the idea of a look into the upcoming games that excite me, which initially seemed like a great choice, until I realised that between Mortal Kombat, Uncharted 3, Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim, I could write and speculate for about a week without even considering the other impending releases.

I've been thinking about what I would consider Game of the Year for the years before I started this blog, so I decided to try my hand at Game of the Decade, taking the single best games from each year and ranking them against each other, only to abandon the idea when some of the games I wanted to include were far outshone by better but more obvious and boring games released in the same year, case in point: Animal Crossing and The Sims 2 were both released in 2004, unfortunately the same year as GTA: San Andreas. Piss. It was going to go to Oblivion anyway.

All is not lost though, I finally got around to downloading the Kane and Lynch and Legacy of Kain character packs for Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, which were simultaneously better and worse than I thought they'd be, if such a thing is possible.

They failed to live up to my expectations in regards to how they operate. You can't just use the character to your content, pairing up Lara with Raziel, or, amusingly, Kain and Lynch. Kain and Raziel have to be together, Kane and Lynch have to be together, Lara and Totec have to be together. I was also hoping the characters might play differently, like the Vampires having their respective Reaver swords and being able to use Telekinesis, but to be honest I expected reskins of Lara and Totec and wasn't too underwhelmed when that's all I got.

But the great thing about the character packs is that they aren't just reskins. They have their own stories, which is why they can't be paired off with other characters. Starting a new game plays the ending from the main campaign, cleverly spoiler-free, as Lara bids farewell to Totec after a job well done and comments that the ruins she's leaving behind will likely never be found again. Famous last words, as the fantasy realm of Nosgoth shares an identical temple, and a meddling duo of Vampires once again releases the villainous Xolotl, who drags them to Earth with him, meaning that they must work together to return to their homeland. Or, if you like, Death Row's favourite miscreants Kane and Lynch will stumble on the temple a meager two days after Lara's departure, once again unleashing the demon unto the world, and adopting the heroic role to save the day.

The characters are fully voiced, bringing back the iconic double-act of Simon Templeman and Micheal Bell as Kain and Raziel, and Brian Bloom and Jarion Monroe are back as Kane and Lynch. There's also an air of humour to the game too, as every sentence that spews from the mouth of Kane or Lynch is littered with bleeped-out expletives for comedy effect, and Kain and Raziel's introduction is instigated with the Star Wars style line: 'Meanwhile, in another world... And kind of in the past...'. Made me chuckle anyway.

I personally can't wait to play through the LoK story, it's the closest I'm going to get to a new Legacy of Kain game for a while anyway. I'm a bit disappointed that they just re-used the character models from Legacy of Kain: Defiance, I was hoping to see how a proper, current generation Kain might look. Oh well, when it comes to being a Legacy of Kain fanboy, you get what you're given.

Last off, a glance to the right will show you our new Facebook page. Be sure to 'like' us on there. See you guys soon.

See, I knocked up this hot woman friend of ours that I fuck on the side so as to not be all the way gay, but my tubby husband here is 100% queer. He LOVES the cock.

Firstly, sorry about the late post. Truth be told, I've not really had anything to write about, all I've played in the last couple of weeks is Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition on PS3 and Fable: The Lost Chapters on the XBox 360, with the magic of backwards compatibility.

Dragon Age, I've gushed about enough really. My only new discovery this time through was the incredible 'Arcane Warrior' class for Wynne, effectively turning her into a battlemage that can not only heal my companions and myself, but she can also now don armour and a blade instead of firing that piddly little staff from afar, limiting herself to elemental attacks and fearing the inevitable badass enemy harbouring an immunity to the chosen element. If anything it was a relief to get her creaky old bones out of those hideously inappropriate mages' robes that I think were possibly designed for Morrigan. It was like having Kim Cattrall in the party. Uncomfortable.

Speaking of uncomfortable, in my quest for Trophies I decided to explore every romantic option for my male Grey Warden, which inevitably led me to the open tent of the Hispanic bisexual man whore elf, Zevran. Where the heterosexual and indeed the sapphic sex scenes in Dragon Age were very tasteful and gracefully made, well, there's nothing graceful about two male elves licking eachothers' nipples and, erm, 'sneaking in through the fire exit'. My character didn't even look to be particularly enjoying it. And so, for the second time (my first being the achievement for kissing boys in Bully), my reluctant homosexuality is recognised in a videogame.

Enough about that. Fable. Fable still holds up really well, the graphics are still great just as long as you excuse the close ups on the faces and the story and system are still accessible yet fresh enough to not be boring. Also, the magic system is a lot more in-depth than that of it's sequels, although when it comes to games of that nature I'm a sword-and-armour guy through and through. Well, sword, axe, club, warhammer, lump of wood with a nail in it (Final Fantasy VII for those who thought I was exaggerating on the last one). And it's very notable that I'm still finding new things out about the game so long after it's release, last night I became the Mayor of Bowerstone for the first time ever, after finally being bothered to investigate the villainous Lady Grey. Not exactly in the same league as becoming king in Fable III, but I got a nice big house out of it.

In other news, I finally remembered to try out the demo for Divinity II: The Dragon Night Saga, and quite enjoyed it. It merges the visual style of Sacred 2 with the combat of Fable and some of the more forgivable parts of Two Worlds (Speaking of which, I've tentatively put a preorder down on Two Worlds II for release next week, wish me luck), only with far better voice acting than the former and latter. And as a bonus the game comes packaged with it's expansion pack too, so I can probably see myself picking it up in my March/April spree.

I also downloaded the demo for Faery: Legends of Avalon on the PS3, which immediately took me back to my teens, when the demo disks on the Official Playstation Magazines had full games that users had created on the using Net Yaroze, a simplified PS1 developers' kit that was released commercially. One title, Terra Incognita, was a Zelda inspired RPG, and, for it's poor translation and sometimes awkward controls, the charm of this quaint game reeled me in at the time. A few years back, while toying with homebrew on my PSP before Sony cracked down on piracy, I discovered somebody had ported the game across, much to my delight. But I digress.

Faery has that same appeal, scruffy, poorly translated and unpolished but my god is it trying so hard to worm it's way into my affections. The main twist on this RPG is that you are completely airborne, flying around as fairies do with your wings. The conversation is ripped straight from Mass Effect, with dialogue choices on a wheel and even blue and red choices for if you want to please or antagonise people. There's even an option for a romance within the game. It's not all Bioware fanboyism though, the fights are traditional turn-based affairs, like in the Final Fantasy and Breath of Fire games of old. I enjoyed it, but I don't know if I want to spend £11.99 on the full game (says a lot about digital downloads really, when I'm willing to pay £35 for Two Worlds II having already been stung by it's prequel). We'll see. Truth be told though, I'm not much of a fan of the fantasy genre, and with this, Divinity II, Two Worlds II, Dragon Age II, Skyrim and possibly Gothic IV: Arcania if it ever comes out, I don't want to overdo it and hamper my enjoyment of any of them.

And finally, Angry Birds. I've seen the game played on both my wife's iPhone and Raz7el's Android powered HTC, but until last night had never had the thing in my clammy paws, so I downloaded the PSP Mini version from the PSN Store. Just thought I'd try it out for a second before transferring it over to my PSP, and was still sat there like an hour later. It's absolute gaming Heroin, impossible to put down. Brings to mind a discussion that Raz7el and I had around the water cooler one day, that the Pigs, Angry Birds' prime antagonists are stealing the Birds' eggs, effectively moving in on their territory and raping them of their resources, and the Birds respond to this by, well, suicide bombing them and flying into their buildings. Hmm... So with that, I'm off. Managed to write a fair bit in the end, despite not having anything to write about...

My top 10 games of 2010!

Foregoing the 2010 roundup (I'm going to stop unveiling my plans in advance, because I never keep them) as I found that writing about 27 different games and keeping the post down to a 'light read' size was proving difficult, I'm moving on to the official 24HG top 10 games of 2010! The only games that I've been halfway bothered about playing that have eluded my grasp last year are BlazBlue and CoD: Black Ops, but I doubt that either would have dented the list in any way (I do love fighting games but have trouble adjusting to new systems, and CoD really isn't my thing).

2010 has been an absolutely amazing year for games. I've revised this list a number of times, because the consistently great videogame experiences throughout the year, coupled with my tendency to back the underdog, have made choosing incredibly difficult. I think I've got it down though. So as with any great ranking list, I'll start from the bottom.

10: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories - Climax Studios - Wii (PSP, PS2)

Shattered Memories was a game I played early in the year, close to it's release, and spent the rest of the year clinging on to the hope that there weren't that many games that beat it, because it deserves honouring too much. I know the number 10 spot suggests that I did take pity and slap it in regardless, but the game it beat to get this far was Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, and it is doubtless a much better game. Forgetting the Resident Evil inspired gameplay of the series so far, and adopting a Heavy Rain-esque approach to the series, this re-imagining of the original white-knuckle terror-fest succeeded in not only being the best Silent Hill games ever, but also one of the greatest Wii games to date. I just hope they can work the magic again with Silent Hill: Downpour this year, Homecoming was a travesty.

9: Darksiders - Vigil Games - PS3 (360, PC)

Darksiders is cruelly lumped in the 'God of War Clone' category too often, when in reality it takes the best bits from so many games and mashes them together into one expansive, original and utterly gorgeous work of art. Taking cues from Zelda, Soul Reaver, Fable, Portal and more, and throwing in a Mark Hamill led voice cast, Darksiders was something of a surprise for me, and had me hooked to the very end, despite the difficulty. An absolute must play, if you haven't already. It can be scooped up for less than a tenner now, you've no excuse.

8: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - MercurySteam/Kojima Productions - PS3 (360)

Before I get into the gameplay, LoS is by far the best looking multi-platform game there is. Reportedly no texture in the game was reused, making each new scene look breathtaking and fresh, also accounting for the game spilling over onto a second DVD on the 360 version. But aside from being a visual masterpiece, the game is also an incredible experience, bolstered by the strong double-act of Patrick Stewart (who's Oblivion references are hilarious) and Robert Carlyle providing the major characters' voices. The only thing holding it back is that the developers don't seem to have mastered the GoW formula in the way that others have, as the story and rebooted mythos have me craving more and the ending was phenomenal in the eyes of a gamer still pining for more Legacy of Kain.

7: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West - Ninja Theory - PS3 (360)

Bland at first, this Uncharted meets (once again) God of War soon becomes a masterpiece in storytelling and the importance of companionship. A retelling of the classic Chinese fable 'Journey to the West' (or the TV show 'Monkey' if you're a Sun reader), Enslaved puts you into the shoes of a loner known as Monkey as he is forced to escort a young girl named Tripitaka through a post-apocalyptic New York, all the while evading marauding robots and slavers. Led by the fantastic Andy Serkis, it's the unfolding narrative that pushed the game strongly into my affections, and it draws upon the tried and tested (yet surprisingly underused) Boy-meets-girl, blossoming friendship mechanic, as seen in the likes of Ico, Prince of Persia and to a lesser extent Resident Evil 4, which really endears you to the characters.

6: God of War III - Santa Monica Studio - PS3

And so the game that the last three have been leading up to... There's little to say about this game other than it carries on the solid gameplay of the first two games in the series (why fix something that isn't broken), augmenting it with breathtaking visuals and the most epic cutscenes and boss battles ever witnessed. Kratos is at his brutal best (some of the executions are stomach-churning to say the least) and this 'conclusion' to the story never once disappoints. I'm almost willing to put money on him making a comeback soon though, away from prequels and cameos, especially after the ominous ending.

5: Fable III - Lionhead Studios - 360

What came at first a slight disappointment at the changes made from the previous games in the series became a magical adventure that reeled me in like the original did years ago. With a refined combat system and a star-studded British cast with the likes of Stephen Fry, Simon Pegg and Jonathan Ross, the charming world of Albion has finally reached the industrial age, and tyrannical rule from a renegade King necessitates a revolution - and that's where you come in. Plenty of quests (every character in the game has the potential to send you on at least one quest, however simple), with far more variety than the last game, will provide the would-be adventurer with many a sleepless night, and the choices you have to make are far more impacting than any game before it. A 100% improvement over Fable II.


4: Red Dead Redemption - RockStar San Diego/RockStar North - PS3 (360)

I'll admit, the whole 'Cowboys and Indians' thing kind of put me off at first, and on their joint release day I opted to go out and buy Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands instead, but a few weeks later I subsided and my wife, in all her pity, bought me a copy of Red Dead. If I only had to say one thing about this game, it's this: IT'S BETTER THAN GTAIV. More likable characters, a more interesting open world, an even more shocking and emotive ending and more of the familiar RockStar humour and self parody make the game one of the most immersive and expansive titles this year. Couple this with the crazy-enough-to-work Undead Nightmare DLC that came out later in the year and you are on to an absolute winner. GTA needs an Undead Nightmare too though.

3: Mass Effect 2 - BioWare - 360 (PC)


The sequel to one of the best games of this generation came and, while it oversimplified the system and took the story in a direction that I wasn't too comfortable with initially, it still completely blew me and the collective gaming community away. The fact that it was the very first game I bought last year and it still holds such a prestigious place in the list is a testament to it's quality, and the fact that BioWare managed to make every single decision made in the first game impact the events of the second was nothing short of ingenuity. Looking back, the only thing I can think of that hampers the game is that the cast of characters aren't as fresh and emotive as those in the last game, and of the two that do return, why pick Tali? She's boring as hell. Still, incredible game, but with a sequel out later this year, I just hope EA can resist making it a yearly franchise.


2: Heavy Rain - Quantic Dream - PS3

Love it or hate it, you can't ignore the fact that there isn't a game in the world quite like Heavy Rain. Amazing graphics, a thrilling and brutally mature storyline and an outcome that nobody saw coming all make for a completely unmatched gaming experience, as down on his luck dad Ethan Mars struggles to find his abducted son Shaun, with the help of an investigative journalist, an aging private detective and Fox Mulder. The only problem I had with the game was with Mulder's magic future glasses, which dragged the sombre and engrossing story kicking and screaming back out of the realm of realism every time he put them on.

1: Fallout: New Vegas - Obsidian - 360 (PS3, PC)

Yeah, so what? So it isn't as good as Fallout 3, well, neither are Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption or REAL LIFE. Granted, FNV is absolutely infested with bugs, but not a single one made the game unplayable in my experience (well, apart from the one that corrupted all of my saves, but I only lost out on a few hours play), and it isn't a Bethesda RPG if it hasn't got more than it's fare share of glitches. Truth be told, no other game this year has swallowed up quite so many of my gaming hours all year. A lot of people were expecting more from the game, but it delivered exactly what I wanted: more of Fallout 3. The new party system was easy to follow too, and with such great companions (I opted for the robot dog/schizophrenic old lady trapped in the body of a Super Mutant combination) the fun was endless. Sure, getting stuck in the ground every so often is a bit of a ball-ache, but as long as you save often there's no problem. And if I learnt anything from Oblivion and Fallout 3, it's SAVE OFTEN.

So there you have it, I can hear the cries of disgust at my choices already. Ah well, life goes on. Looking to the future I can already predict that next year is going to see Bethesda snaffle the top spot again with the delicious-looking Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the horizon, backed up by future classics such as Uncharted 3, Dragon Age II, Mass Effect 3 and dare I say Mortal Kombat? Who knows? I'm looking forward to finding out, that's for sure...


And for those wondering where their games were, here's the rest of the games I played in 2010, in ranking order:

11. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light - Crystal Dynamics - PS3 (360, PC, iOS)
12. The Sims 3 - Visceral Games - PS3 (360)
13. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - Ubisoft - PS3 (360)
14. Bioshock 2 - 2K Marin - 360 (PS3, PC)
15. God of War: Ghost of Sparta - Ready at Dawn Studios - PSP
16. Alpha Protocol - Obsidian - PS3 (360, PC)
17. ModNation Racers - United Front Games - PS3 (PSP)
18. Perfect Dark - RARE - 360
19. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - Ubisoft - PS3 (360)
20. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom - Capcom - Wii
21. Limbo - Playdead Studios - 360
22. Alan Wake - Remedy Entertainment - 360
23. Super Street Fighter IV - Capcom - PS3 (360)
24. Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Neversoft - 360 (PS3, Wii)
25. Dante's Inferno - Visceral Games - PS3 (360, PSP)
26. Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands - Ubisoft - Wii
27. Just Cause 2 - Eidos - PS3 (360, PC)
28. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions - Beenox - 360 (PS3, Wii, PC)
29. Halo: Reach - Bungee - 360
30. Dead to Rights: Retribution - Volatile Games - PS3 (360)
31. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II - LucasArts - 360 (PS3, PC, Wii)
32. Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker - Kojima Productions - PSP
33. Batman: The Brave and the Bold - Wayforward Technologies - Wii (DS)
34. GoldenEye - Eurocom - Wii
35. Metro 2033 - 4A Games - 360 (PC)
36. Bayonetta - Platinum Games - 360 (PS3)
37. The Whispered World - Daedalic Entertainment - PC

Is that a cartoon pig?

First things first:

Yeah, I left the price on intentionally. The more awake of you will remember I reviewed MW2 on the arse end of 2009 with full intentions of hating it, but actually ended up quite enjoying the game, as far fetched and Bond-like it was (which causes me to diverge and note that while playing GoldenEye on the Wii the other week, my immediate reaction was that it was like 'a shit Call of Duty'. Back on track). I had all intention to pick the game up once it hit the fabled £10 mark, but for that price with a pair of actual Night Vision Goggles I couldn't really pass it up. It was from Morrisons if anyone's interested, but I doubt you'll find any now. Our store only had four copies sent.

The goggles themselves are great. They look and feel a bit plasticky, after all they are made of plastic, but once I got the buggers on I was incredibly impressed. They are able to switch between long and short range, have adjustable eyepieces and manual focus, and even let you apply a green filter to your vision, just like in the movies. Now it's just left for me to find a suitable use for them, instead of following my cat around in the dark. I can't wait until I next go camping.

I've had a better time with The Sims 3 now I've learnt to cheat (press start and hold all shoulder buttons for those interested). The port is actually pretty faithful (I say without actually playing the PC version of The Sims 3), and the fire hazard meter is a lot more forgiving than on previous generation consoles: I was able to move into the biggest house in town and fill it with junk and barely even scratch the surface. Sure, I'm not getting any Trophies for my troubles, but it's hardly having a negative impact on my enjoyment of the game, whereas having to cope with poverty and finding a job while still trying to keep myself entertained and happy, well, it's a bit too much like real life.

I finished Fable III with my evil princess, and with a bit of patience (and leaving my XBox on all day to earn as much as I can) I think the next time I should be able to play through it as a benevolent character. I intend to do the trilogy fairly soon, as Fable III really got me in the mood to redo the first and, through my rose-tinted spectacles (I actually own some once, found them on a wall in Derbyshire, true story), best in the series. Been playing Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions too, which is a nice little distraction. A standard God of War clone, the game sees you step into the shoes of four Spider-Men from varying Marvel Earths to battle evil and reclaim fragments of a broken stone tablet with the power to undo all realities, all the while quipping to yourself in a typically carefree way.

It's mostly a standard brawler affair, with the occasional Force Unleashed II style freefall section in the Spider-Man 2099 bits, but the action is broken up by the Spider-Man Noir levels. Set in the 1930s, Noir sees an incarnation of Spider-Man as a darkly-dressed vigilante stalking the night, clinging to the shadows and striking terror into the cowardly, superstitious criminal element. Totally not like Batman. In fact, the Noir sections are nothing but a homage to Arkham Asylum, in which you swing around rafters silently picking off your enemies and fleeing to the shadows when spotted. Even the Spider Sense mode is a bit like Batman's Detective mode.

Having reached the Nolan North powered Deadpool level last night, and hearing the man himself deliver probably his best role since last year's Uncharted 2, I am inclined to think that I've possibly reached the highest point in the game, for me anyway. But at no point have I been bored with it, I just haven't been blown away. It's a solid game, and a lot better than Spider-Man 3. Actually thinking of picking up Web of Shadows at some point now. I heard you can decapitate Wolverine in it. Sweet.

And finally, I've conquered my fears of Fuck Off Dragons and restarted Dragon Age: Origins, the time the Ultimate Edition on PS3, in anticipation of March's Dragon Age II. A Dalish Elf this time, I'm determined to play all of the DLC too. I completed Leliana's Song before starting the main game, and it was pretty good, if a little shallow and pointless. It just tells how Leliana, our Orlesian Rogue, was betrayed by her mentor Marjolaine, as she touches upon in conversation in the main game, mainly through combat, which wasn't DA:O's strong point. It only took a couple of hours to finish anyway, and it was fresh and new, so I can't complain.

Alright, so, my Top 10 of '10 has been ultimately drafted, and I just have one more game to play from last year, so expect next week's post to be a bit of a 2010 recap of the 25 or 26 games that didn't get into the highest echelon, followed by the Top 10 the week after. I'll probably recap last year's 10 too, as it was never posted on this site. Bye for now.

Here you go, create another Fable...

Firstly, hope you guys had an awesome Christmas and New Year. I personally spent the former with God of War: Ghost of Sparta and the latter with Fable III, but I'm sure you guys have a much more bustling social life than I. Secondly, I've made a new year's resolution to get back into regular posting here at 24HG, so hopefully most Tuesdays will see a post from me. I tried a more lenient approach to posting, but I rack disciprine.

I'll start with a short roundup of a few of the games I've been playing but don't have much to say about, initially with the aforementioned GoW: Ghost of Sparta. There really isn't much to say about a GoW game that I haven't gushed before, but one thing that jumps out at me about GoS is the visuals, and that it's clearly the most gorgeous game on the PSP yet, and actually visually surpasses the PS2 GoWs, which is no mean feat. A stand out moment was seeing the rain actually run down Kratos' body (totally not gay), something that is rarely seen on a full-on next-gen game.

On Christmas Day I had a go with the gift I bestowed on my Nephew: Batman: The Brave and the Bold on Wii. It was a pleasant surprise, and a nostalgia trip in two ways: The gameplay harks back to the SNES and Megadrive Batman games, particularly The Adventures of Batman and Robin, and the writing style and humour are reminiscent of the 1960's Batman TV series. But most importantly, it was providing the 4 year old budding geek beside me with a better introduction to the DC Universe than I ever had, teaching him of characters like Captain Marvel, Catman and Booster Gold, who I didn't know anything about until my late teens. And that's why it's the most important game in the world right now.

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock has also been on my radar, and has somewhat restored my faith in the series. It's probably the best GH since GHIII, and the strongest setlist since World Tour, but the best thing by far is that some effort has actually gone into the single player mode, and it's not just a hub for online play like GH5 and Band Hero were. It's genuinely exciting to see what each character's warrior form looks like, and the unique ability each character possesses adds a new dimension to the gameplay. I'm not sure about the character-specific setlists though. I'd expect pop-rock queen Judy Nails to play songs from bands such as Paramore, Evanescence and Avril Lavigne, not Queen and The Cure like she has, and for resident goth Pandora to have My Chemical Romance and Fallout Boy in her set is a bit criminal. There are differences between goth and emo, Neversoft. One cries and writes poetry, the other cries and self harms. Not sure which is which though.

Moving on to the big names, Fable III is something of a departure from the series so far. It still retains the same core gameplay, but with a few changes such as a refined combat and conversation. The former sees the melee, ranged and magical combat all assigned to a single button each, meaning that regular attacks, special attacks and blocking are all placed on the X button, but it actually really works well. And with the conversation, you actually have to snap to your recipient with the A button before engaging them, instead of just wandering into town and gurning at people until you draw a crowd like on Fable II. Also your hero speaks, a feature that really rubbed me up the wrong way at first as it drives a wedge between you and the character, not letting you fully see them as you because it doesn't leave you to put words in their mouth. I got over it though.

The most curious thing about Fable III is the apparent moral of the story is that being, well, moral will get you nowhere. A lot of the side quests have no positive outcome, and later on, without spoiling anything, every positive choice you make will cost you literally thousands of your precious gold, which you need to end the game in any way successfully. Historically I always have played through games like this once as a benevolent male, then on my second run through as a female who's a bit of a bastard (I'd love to hear what a psychiatrist has to say about that one), but the impending failure of my male hero drew me to up sticks and unleash the bitch onto the world early. Overall it's a great game, but it took me a while to get into it, and while it's better than Fable II, the first Fable still holds a very dear part of me. I'll say this about III though, no other game has ever seen me fight off a horde of Zombies side-by-side with Simon Pegg and Jason Manford.

Between Kratos and the Princess of Albion, I headed off to 15th Century Italy once more to spend time with my old mate Ezio in his latest outing: Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. ACB is set directly after ACII, in terms of Ezio's timeline and the background events in 2012, and sees Ezio take the fight to Rome after the Pope's son Cesare destroys his Villa, and Nolan North and the Scooby Gang looking for a new hideout after being compromised at the end of the last game.

For the first couple of hours, the game is a near carbon copy of ACII, and honestly failed to impress me, but it really gets good when it comes to recruiting and commanding your own guild of hoodies; a touch of the L2 button while an enemy is in range sees them quickly dispatched by one of your own. The coolest instance of this was when my prey was passing by a hay bale, and was just swept into it in a split second without any of his colleagues or passing civilians batting an eyelid. Your yobs can also be sent on missions all around the world, presumably to hang around in shopping malls and intimidate old ladies, all the while earning you money and levelling themselves up to greater aid you in time of need.

The game rides on a high for quite a while after that, but falls at the final hurdle when it finally allows you full use of the Apple of Eden, which turns out to be a boring and poorly executed game mechanic, turning combat into a tedious waiting game as you are reduced to watching your enemies fight each other, unable to just draw your sword and sort them out yourself. Coupled with the suitably retarded ending that I've come to expect from an AC game, Brotherhood virtually kills itself in the last couple of hours. But for a while, in the middle of the game, it was awesome.

Last thing I wanna talk about is The Sims 3 on the PS3. I was delighted when I learned of it's release, because I've been wanted a true, undiluted Sims game on a console, and thought that this generation would finally be the one to run it. Well, the gameplay is there, albeit heavily adapted obviously, but the furniture limit that haunted the PS2 Sims games is there, to stop the console running out of memory, thinly disguised as a 'fire hazard meter'. Derp.

I also realised that The Sims is nothing without cheats, forcing you to play through hours of awful, dreary poverty before the game gets fun. A quick scan on GameFAQs shows me that there are in fact cheats for the PS3 version, so before I trade it in for Batman: The Brave and the Bold I'll give it another chance, fully cheat enabled, and see if it grabs me.

So, lastly, before I head into Sim City once more, the 2010 Game of the Year post is coming, along with a 2010 roundup of the rest of the year's games, or at least the ones I've played. I just need to get to grips with a few more of 2010's games first. I'll try and post before January is through. So, with that, I'll see you next Tuesday. Probably.

Canis Lupus, the domestication of the dog - We all love dogs!

Holy crap! I just learned that the 23rd of June is in fact none other than 'Take your dog to work day'! So, to celebrate this, possibly my new favourite national holiday of all time, I've decided to compile a list of the greatest man's best friends to ever grace videogames! And you thought I never wrote anything useful here...

10: Sam - Sam and Max

We'll start with Sam then. He falls at tenth place because, although he is a Dog, he's just a bit too anthropomorphic. A freelance detective, with his psychotic rabbit buddy (and one-time president of the United States) Max, Sam has helped save the world more times than you can count, and has battled everything from hypnotic teddy bears to a sentient statue of Abraham Lincoln. And he never loses his temper too, making him a great choice of pet for young families...

9: Lupus - Jet Force Gemini

Making up the forth part of the eclectic Jet Force team, Lupus stormed onto the scene in one of the best (and in most need of a re-release) games on the N64. What he loses in his stumpy legs and bizarre elephant feet, he makes up for with high intelligence and a back-mounted machine gun and jetpack. Fiercely loyal and armed to the teeth, who would be better guarding your house while you sleep?

8: War Dog - Dragon Age: Origins

The Denerim equivalent of a Staffy, the War Dogs are bread specifically for battle, with their imposing muscular frame and razor-sharp teeth. Your War Dog has been with you for years, and while it still retains it's killer instinct, has become as soft as shit. He can even be coerced into licking the blood from your body after a skirmish. And you can name him anything you want without complaint, Raz7el called his Lady Gaga.

7: Shadow - Dead to Rights: Retribution

Shadow was perhaps the only thing that made Dead to Rights: Retribution worth even looking at, and that's for one reason. He bites your enemies' penises off. Next.

6: Link - Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess

Okay, so he's not really a dog, he's a wolf, and he's not really a wolf, he just gets turned into one for a bit, but it's my rules, you don't like it, then get out of my house. Yeah, the last Zelda game's gimmick (after the Ocarina, masks and boat) was the fact that whenever link entered the shadowy realm, he became a wolf, and was accompanied by that annoying cat thing on his back. In this form Link could talk to other animals and sniff out buried treasure, as well as fit into spaces he wouldn't be able to earlier. All in all, he was his own best friend.

5: The Dog - Fable II

How old is this fucking dog? It meets you when you are just a child, sits with you for ten years while you recover from your first run in with the game's antagonist, follows your for about ten years, then waits another decade while you're in prison. And after all that, it can still chase a ball, find treasure and charm villagers like a puppy in it's prime. The best thing about the Dog in Fable II though, is how realistic it's movements are, how it's ears flap about when it runs, and those whimpers when it gets injured can melt a heart of stone. There's going to be a dog in Fable 3 too, probably the same fucking one.

4: Dogmeat - Fallout 3

I only knew Dogmeat for about 20 minutes, as after rescuing him from Raiders I let him out of my sight for a few minutes and he was set upon by a pack of Mole Rats. I went all Anakin Skywalker on their asses when I found them, but the loss of a companion was deeply distressing. Until I got the Puppies perk, now I've got a never-ending army of mangy wasteland mutts. Glory be. So yeah, all Darth Vader needed was a 'Mummies' perk.

3: Spiffy - The Secret of Monkey Island

Ah, Spiffy. I remember seeing his happy face on the back of the Monkey Island box, and being frustrated that he never appeared in close-up in the game. All this was rectified with last year's Monkey Island Special Edition, and he was presented in all his glory. A key character in the game, it is Spiffy who first tells Guybrush about the impending arrival of the Ghost Pirate LeChuck, by barking out certain words like the Walls Sausages Dog. Woof-woof, arf. Wuf-LeChuck.

2: K.K. Slider - Animal Crossing

One of my all-time favourite videogame characters, Totakeke (or K.K. Slider, his stage name) visits your town every Saturday evening to play free concerts for anyone who'll listen. He even hands out recordings of his work, and never asks for a penny. And he even turns up in Super Smash Brothers Brawl too, if one plays the game on a Saturday night. And his name is a Judas Priest reference, which just adds to his awesome.

1: Mira - Silent Hill 2

Perhaps the most famous dog in gaming, Mira was a Shiba Inu that was secretly behind the events of Silent Hill 2. James, the protagonist, finds her in her control room, but when he confronts her, she just licks his face and sings him a song, and all is fine again. She made another appearance in Shattered Memories, apparently somehow in league with the series' secret alien observers, but that cheery barking melody is what sealed her a place in my heart. I now vow to have a pet dog called Mira at some point in my life. And another called Spiffy. 

Alice in Wonderland

Hype is a cruel mistress. She waltzes in to a game's life and promises to spread the word, gets prospective fans excited, sends the media into a frenzy, and the ultimately undoes the game by building up a pre-reputation that it can't possibly ever live up to. Haze fell prey to this, with all the 'Halo on PS3' comments, when in reality it couldn't even hold a candle to the first Red Faction, or the PS2 port of Half-Life (Coincidentally two of the first four games I got for the console). Another casualty of hype was Fable, with verbal-diarrhea sufferer Peter Molyneux making all sorts of wild claims about features of the game that the XBox hardware couldn't even handle, and the otherwise fantastic RPG was stricken with a stigma that outlived the game's own lifespan.

I am going somewhere with all of this, I promise you. Alan Wake (a game that not even I had seen coming in this week's blog) has been in development for nine years, and was formally announced five years ago, and in that time, particularly in the last year or so, has fallen for lady hype hard.

I think the stupidest thing I'd heard was "It's like Heavy Rain on the 360", because the game is everything but that. If anything, it's more like Siren Blood Curse. Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I don't dislike Alan Wake, it's just decidedly average. A storyline that is genuinely gripping and involving (at least after a few hours anyway) is buried under a torrent of disgusting voice-acting, one-dimensional characters and graphics and animation that are just not up to the standard of the rest of this year's releases - Alan himself looks like he's having a stroke, and he seems to bare his teeth at people all the time, like a territorial dog. But hey, at least the 'Energizer' logo is clearly readable on the batteries you find lying around everywhere, and that's the important thing, right? In-game advertising? Anyway.

I see your schwartz is as big as mine...

The story goes: Alan Wake is a successful author, leather elbow pads and all, but has suffered epic writer's block since his last novel three years prior to the events of the game. His wife, Alice, attention seeking jerk and scared-of-the-dark woman-child, decides to lure him to some backwater hick town (which has somehow become a tourist trap despite looking like a bad northern council estate) under false pretense of having a quiet holiday, when really she was just trying to muse him into churning out another pay cheque.

The holiday is cut short however, when Alice is taken by dark forces and Wake looses two weeks of his life, only coming back to consciousness when he is involved in a car crash to find that he's written a book that's slowly coming true. And to top it all off, a dark entity is sweeping over the town and possessing the locals. Shit.

Alan Wake plays like a 'best of' from other franchises. Combat, for instance, is played out with a torch, that you must use to burn the 'dark energy' from your foes, before finishing them off with a couple of bullets, almost exactly like ObsCure. Then there's the bit where swarms of birds are attacking you, and you have to burn them by boosting your torch at them, like the driving section in Gears. Not enough? The enemies are all axe-wielding lumberjacks, who approach you slowly and throw their infinite reserves of hatchets at you, literally exactly like Resident Evil 4 (there are even Chainsaw bad guys that take more damage), even the animations could be ripped directly from Capcom's opus. The car crash scene is near frame-for-frame exactly like the first Silent Hill, and the use of flares as weapons is taken straight from the last. And the episodic formula is ripped from Alone in the Dark and Siren Blood Curse. I could go on all day.

But I won't. because Wake has a saving grace in it's story, which seemed pretty by the book until a plot twist turned everything upside down at the end of the third episode, which was where I last switched off, and I'm looking forward to going back to it tonight. Oh yeah, the collector's edition is fantastic too, and only the same price as the game itself at most places.

I've also gone back to the first of last generation's Prince of Persia games, The Sands of Time, in anticipation of the series' 'interquel', being released on friday. Regrettably, the game has aged horrifically, but it's interesting to see now how revolutionary it must have been at the time, and how that just passed me by when the game was released. You can really see how it helped shape games like Assassin's Creed, Uncharted and the last three Tomb Raiders, and other games of their ilk, and it makes you wonder where they would be if PoP never saw the light of day.

Realising you can rewind time: priceless.

As dated as it is I'm loving it, and can't believe that I've never finished it or even played the rest of the trilogy (sorry, quadrilogy now isn't it), because as a rule I love this type of game. Needless to say, I'm going to go out of my way to complete the story in the near future.

And after getting a lump in my throat over braining Sean Paul in Def Jam: Fight for NY the other week, I grabbed a copy of it's PSP port The Takeover last week. It's a little disappointing that the cutscenes are absent and the fighting is limited to one-on-one, but the core gameplay is still there. The great thing about Def Jam is that losing is just as fun as winning. You can always laugh when you realise you just got stoved in by Flava Flav, who happens to be sporting a rather nice tux.

Don't worry about the car, Xzibit was just gonna pimp it anyway.

However, the game employs one of my greatest pet peeves ever. What's the point in being able to customize your character if their skills and stats depend on what they're wearing? It's like 'yeah, you can look however you want, but if you actually want to win fights, you better wear what we tell you to'. It fucked me off in SoulCalibur IV, It's fucking me off now.

On that note I'll put a lid on it. Check back next week for Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and possibly, just possibly, Metro 2033. Ciao.

Woah, we're half way there, whoah-oh, livin' on a prayer!

Firstly, sorry about missing the post yesterday. I sat down to post and fell asleep, the day of food and drink and too much Wii caught up with me, such are the effects of a family Christmas.
Okay, onto the gaming. On the run up to Christmas I immersed myself in Tomb Raider: Underworld and Fable II mostly. Both games just happened to crop up on my shame pile, but coincidentally both were games I was playing this time last year (as it happens, it's a year ago to the day that I bought TRU), and coincidentally for Christmas both games feature quite a bit of snow.
I'll start with Tomb Raider. As I said with Tomb Raider: Anniversary, I have never actually played any of the recent Tomb Raiders in quick succession before, and thus never noticed the differences. And in comparison to Legend, both Anniversary and Underworld pale in comparison in terms of quality. In Underworld, for example, Lara moves like a frightened cat, skittish and unpredictable. On more than one occasion I plummeted to my death due to Lara not catching ledges or just simply spazzing out and throwing herself from a cliff. Part of the fun of playing the Tomb Raider games is how many times you find yourself in a crumpled heap 600 feet below where you should be standing though, and if anything it adds longevity to what is probably the shortest 'Raider so far.
But playing the 'trilogy' again actually provided me with a bit of closure. The ending to Underworld doesn't set the game up for a sequel, there are no loose ends to be resolved, and because of this I'm not quite so bothered about the strongly hinted Tomb Raider reboot lurking over the horizon (I say strongly hinted because I also heard it was to be a prequel). Now all that's bothering me is the fact that the concept art for said reboot looks a bit Siren Blood Curse. We'll see.
My quest for redemption for my Fable II lady (renamed from Blade to Lionheart to try and sound more people-friendly) was going well until I reached the Crucible (a multi-tiered arena in which you fight waves of enemies, which is necessary for story progression), and a pair of knobs jeered at me and my companion Hammer and called us lesbians. Now Hammer, well, she does give off that vibe, but I have a husband and son thank you very much! Long story short, they're dead and buried and for some reason I keep getting called a murderer.
Carrying on the snow theme, I had a quick go on below-the-radar Wii Survival-Horror title Cursed Mountain on Christmas Eve, as Lara and I had parted ways for a while. I say Survival-Horror, but the scares didn't really flow thick and fast. Well, they didn't really flow at all.
You play as a man named Eric something-or-other who's decided to look for his missing brother, Frank something-or-other in the outlying villages of a mountain covered in ghosts, as you do. Unfortunately, Eric brought neither a Proton Pack nor a magical camera or even a miniature vacuum cleaner, so has to make do with a pick-axe and a bunch of prayer rituals. And, not unlike Silent Hill's Harry Mason, Eric runs like he's shat himself. Although given his situation, not unlike Harry Mason, he probably has. I left him having being tricked into falling off a cliff by some batty old coot called Mojo Jojo or something.
Christmas Day came and brought with it my gaming for the next few weeks. My wife bestowed upon me Sacred 2: Fallen Angel on the PS3, ObsCure on the PS2, and ObsCure 2 and Sam & Max Season 1 on the Wii, while my mum provided me with Tekken 6 on the PS3 and my, ahem, cat got me Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and The Bourne Conspiracy on PS3 and 360 respectively. I gave Sacred 2 an hour or so last night and despite the awful voice-acting it seems pretty good really. Real-time combat is definitely a bonus. But like with Dragon Age, I'm always shy at first with a new RPG. Tekken 6 has had a few hours play today and is great, and offers me pretty much exactly what I want from a Tekken game, nothing more nothing less. Really glad it has the arcade mode from Tekken: Dark Resurrection though (now called Ghost Mode), I can play that for hours.
To wrap things up, I played the Demo for Dante's Inferno today. God of War plus lots of boobs and minus the shouting really. It's okay but boy did they pick a bad time to be making a GoW clone. Christmas Day saw family Wii time as my 3-year-old nephew got one for Christmas, so the day was filled with Wii Sports and Mario Kart Wii, which are always excellent multiplayer games. I was hoping to finally secure myself a go on the Motion Plus, but my dreams were dashed. I guess I'll just have to go out and buy one. Oh yeah, preordered the Mass Effect 2 collector's edition today too, five weeks yesterday until it's released. To say I'm looking forward to it is a vast, vast understatement. See you next week.

Oh we can beat them forever and ever, then we can be heroes just for one day...

Well well well!
This week the Los Angeles LA Live Complex and the TV channel 'Fiver' played host to the Spike VideoGame Awards, which I eagerly set the V+ box to record and watched like a kid at Christmas the following day (as opposed to a big kid a week before Christmas, which is how I'm doing everything else at the moment). What a fucking travesty.
The very first award was for best voice acting, and over Uncharted 2's Nolan North and Claudia Black, and the legendary Arleen Sorkin and Mark Hamill for Batman: Arkham Asylum, the winner was Jack Black. Jack. Fucking. Black.
While I can acknowledge that Brutal Legend was a widely praised game (although from what I saw the demo did nothing to back that up), and my love of metal culture does will me to play it (There have been a couple of times I've been standing in Blockbuster looking at the £25 pricetag and wondering if the wife would leave me if I brought home yet another game), Black definitely had the least noteworthy performance on the list. I guess they thought they owed him something after he presented it last year.
Another highlight was that all of the nominations for the best team sports game were EA Sports published games. It couldn't have hurt to slide Pro Evo 10 in there could it?
The rest of the show was just a bunch of celebrities awkwardly trying to be funny (I actually felt bad for Tony Hawk, especially as Ride didn't even receive a single nomination), and poorly soundchecked musical performances by Snoop Dogg (who seemed as confused as I was when they asked him to present the award for best RPG) and The Bravery, who are now my least favourite band after I had to sit and watch that prick 'play' his guitar with a violin bow. It doesn't make the music sound better, it just makes you look like a douchebag.
And, one last thing about the VGAs, how can Uncharted 2 get Game of the Year, and Assassin's Creed II get best Action/Adventure? With Uncharted 2 BEING an Action/Adventure game, surely the former cancels the latter out?
Enough VGA anger and on to the gaming.
The Conduit was great. Fuck hard in places and with a shitty ending, but great no less. Of course, had it been a PS3 or XBox 360 release it would have been mediocre, but as a Wii release it looks and plays better than just about anything else on the console.
And I finally finished Tomb Raider Anniversary too. A number of times throughout the game TRA had me wondering if I actually liked it. For every awesome platforming section there was a huge underwater puzzle or something (I've hated them since Ocarina of Time's water temple), Just there to make sure I wasn't getting too much fun out of it. Underworld is next on my agenda, but I just don't know if I want to go back into it so soon.
So I busted out Fable 2, as it's becoming tradition for me to play a Fable game over Christmas, having done so the last two years now. I'm playing as a woman, and started off doing everything the evil way but had a flash of conscience when I returned to my home in Bowerstone to find that the whole village hated me. It actually hurt. So I've decided, in seasonal Scrooge fashion, to change my ways, which is taking a fair bit of work considering I've been doing things like raiding a bandit camp, killing the bandits, finding the key to unlock their prisoners, selling the key to a slaver, killing the slaver and reclaiming the key, freeing the prisoners and then killing them as they walked home.
During my stay in Albion this year, I've been focusing a lot more on the Virtual-Life aspect of Fable 2, buying and renting out properties and making my home, raising my family, that sort of thing. I seem to have spent hours at the Blacksmith's raising money to keep my husband (I resisted the urge to be a lesbian) happy, and only really began the game proper after about four hours play. I may knock it on the head and blast through the game though, I do want to get another Mass Effect playthrough done before the end of January, and this time next week I'll have Sacred 2 to keep me occupied too. I'll be all RPGed out by February at this rate, and might finally find time to get to grips with Assassin's Creed II.
Demo preview time! Bayonetta is pretty crappy. Picture Devil May Cry, replace the albino homosexual with a leather-clad woman who likes to get naked and exchange all of the music for generic Sega awfulness and you've got it. It's not a really bad game, I just wouldn't shell out £40 for it. But then again, I'm not a fan of Devil May Cry. If you want an example of a really bad game, try out Dragonball Raging Blast. Fairytale Fights seems pretty fun, the demo is just you and a bunch of enemies but if the action is as much fun in the real game I'll be picking it up a bit later in it's shelf-life. I would love to write about LittleBigPlanet PSP and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker too, but my battery is too low to update the firmware on my PSP, even though it's plugged in. Maybe next week.
But oh! Next week is Christmas Day! I will endeavour to post next week, but I might be too drunk/asleep/busy playing Tekken 6. Such is the rock'n'roll lifestyle of a sales assistant stroke freelance games journalist (so I tell the ladies, blogger to the rest of you). Have a great Christmas regardless.
And one last thing, check out my Top 10 Games of 2009 over at VideoGameSpace, and show this up and coming little site some love. Bye!

My name is Michael Ford. I'm probably the only one left who knows the truth. I know because I was there.

You know when you read a bit of information for an upcoming game, and you instantly know that it's garbage? When they say that, for example, Two Worlds is "Oblivion on Steroids", or when the guy on GAME Radio tells you how revolutionary Women's Murder Club is? Well, I've decided to christen that 'The Molyneux Factor', after the charismatic leader of Lionhead Studios' blunder with the original Fable.
There is a point to this, and that point is that I've been playing The Conduit this week, and I distinctly remember reading that the developers High Voltage Software, who aren't exactly renowned for the quality of their games let's face it, had claimed to have created an engine on the Wii that allowed graphics an visual effects that are "comparable" the those on PS3 and XBox 360 games. Well, they lied. It's about on a graphical par with Halo 2.
And the silly thing is, as with Fable before it, they didn't need to lie about the game because it honestly is fantastic.
For anyone who isn't in the know (and with the game's zero media presence, who'd blame them), The Conduit is a Sci-Fi FPS set in Washington DC shortly before and during an invasion by an insectoid race known as The Drudge. You play as a government agent named Michael Ford sent to recover a device known as the All-Seeing Eye (basically a spherical Sonic Screwdriver) and disrupt terrorist activity in an airport, until you are quickly double-crossed by your admittedly shady looking employer and end up working with said terrorists (who are actually pretty stand up guys) when aliens start popping up everywhere.
I initially had worries with this game, as the Wii isn't exactly well equipped for First Person Shooters with the lack of a second analogue stick. Turning is done by pointing the remote at the side of the screen, thus disrupting your aim which isn't exactly ideal. It is possible to use the Nunchuck stick to turn the player, but that gets rid of the strafe function and after virtually a decade of twin analogue FPSes it makes the game surprisingly difficult to play. It was this control method that ultimately made me stop playing Red Steel, but somehow it seems more manageable on The Conduit.
And another thing that struck me right away was how much the game felt like the original Perfect Dark, far more so than Perfect Dark Zero ever did. The visual style is so much more reminiscent of it, and the way the gun moves depending on where you're aiming is exactly the same. I even found an experimental handgun that looked just like the Mag-Sec 4. If they just changed the name of the aliens from Drudge to Skedar and upped the human technology a bit, it could definitely pass as part of that series.
And as I finished Tomb Raider Legend shortly after posting last week, I've moved on to Tomb Raider Anniversary. That game is fucking hard! Not in a keep dying kind of way, it's just that every room you enter is a huge puzzle, and most of the time the only way to solve the puzzle is by doing about three other smaller ones. It's so mentally taxing compared to Legend, which really is mainly jumping and shooting. I suppose I never noticed before because I hadn't played them side by side. It's obviously not out of my capacity to finish the game, as I have done before, but god, you just lose the will to live when you've spent ages solving a certain puzzle, you strut out of the room feeling great about yourself and you're immediately presented with another. More than a few times I've favoured sleep over carrying on because of this, and that hardly ever happens.
I finished Matt Hazard last Saturday too. After you 'complete' the game, the enemy then forces you into a deathmatch with his IRL henchmen, and all the enemies have stupid names above their heads and stuff. I laughed at that, but the funniest thing was when you finally see the person behind the sexy female avatar who's been helping you through the game and she turns out to be a geeky man! Anyone who's ever used PS3's Home should find that funny. If not, you're dead inside. If Matt Hazard: Bloodbath and Beyond is as much like Shadow Complex as I've heard, then I am very much looking forward to it.

We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days, through the fire and the flames we carry on!

My name is 24 Hour Gamer, and I am addicted to Dragon Age Origins.
It's always daunting for a non-RPGer to take his or her first tentative steps into a Role-Playing Game, they blind you with stats and classes and items with all kinds of different names (why can't a healing potion be called a healing potion in every game?) until before you know it you find yourself curled up in a foetal position fully clothed in the shower, sobbing, with the names of various plants and what kind of healing properties they have Sharpied all over the walls. Just me?
I've been playing light RPGs for the last couple of years, games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, Borderlands, Fable 2, Mass Effect and (cough) Two Worlds, all of which I can still play like an Action/Adventure or FPS if the mood takes me, and foolishly I thought I would be ready for Bioware's latest epic. "It can't have the combat system that made me cry like KOTOR, surely" I thought. "Bioware has learned with Mass Effect that real-time combat is the way to go, it'll be like Fable" I thought.
"Oh, fuck." I realised as I played it. But I'd spent £45 of my hard earned cash on this, I wasn't going to just give up like I did with Star Wars, so I persevered, and now, a week later I am beginning to obsess over Dragon Age, like I did with Oblivion before it.
I'd like to talk about the party members. I picked up my last one last night, a Dwarf called Oghren with the best moustache I've ever seen. They don't just chip in every now and then with conflicting emotions regarding choices to be made like in Mass Effect, everything you do influences what they think of you, whether they like you or not. It's like a violent version of The Sims. But I've not really noticed anything interesting about the characters, there isn't a single Garrus or Wrex among them, nobody I find interesting enough as a person to keep them with me. Shale, the stone Golem was okay, but he was that strong he was getting all of the kills and thus all of the experience points, so I had to drop him from the team. So I opted to just go with all the characters that wanted to nail me, because it made the dialogue between them interesting; Morrigan, the witch from the swamp, Leliana, the redhead assassin and Zevran, the male elf. Yes, there are gay sex scenes, nipple sucking intact. I'd love to see what the Daily Mail has to say about that one.
I've had another dip into my shame pile this week and dipped my toes into Alone in the Dark, expecting to retract them straight away as a wayward turd floats up to me. But as it happens, my expectations were so low that I was pleasantly surprised. The visuals especially are noteworthy, quite reminiscent of The Darkness, and the cinematic effect of being in a crumbling building almost rivals Uncharted 2. Almost. The main problem I had was with the controls and camera view, and apparently there's a driving section that reduces grown men to tears. But I've read that all of these issues were resolved in the PS3 version, subtitled Inferno, so I may just throw the 360 copy back on the shelf and try and find the PS3 one cheap.
And that about wraps it up. Had a quick go on Aliens vs. Predator 2 on the PC in the week, and it's hard to imagine ever being scared by the sub-PS2 graphics, but once upon a time it terrified me. But saying that, so did Silent Hill and Dino Crisis on the PS1 so what can I say? And had a quick go on Guitar Hero World Tour on drums with my Wife and my friend Paul over XBox Live, and half an hour of it nigh on killed me. I am so out of shape. Maybe I ought to try that Wii Fit that's collecting dust in the corner.

I am Dungeon Master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons!

Three Hours. That's the time it took me to complete Halo 3: ODST.
Fair enough, it's not a real game, just a glorified expansion pack. But three hours? Going by the recommended retail price (according to Play.com) of £39.99, that's £13.33 an hour, nearly twice what I earn. I happened to get my copy free with my Elite, but that's not the point.
And it's not even a full game. Just when you find this bizarre squid-cow thing with the potential to end the war, just when the romance subplot seems to be going somewhere, the game abruptly stops. It's not so much making way for a sequel, it's just cutting half of the game off so they can sell us the second half in a year or so.
Aside from that though, ODST is in my eyes the best Halo so far. You get more of a feeling of war, not just racial extermination in a Motocross helmet like the main trilogy, and as with games like Gears of War or Killzone, you start to get to know your team-mates and genuinely give a shit about their back-stories. Just wish it was a bit longer. But there's the multiplayer disk, which includes all the Halo 3 DLC, which I suppose gives it a bit more longevity. I can't be arsed with multiplayer though.
I've not had a good time with game-endings this week, as Borderlands' ending was, in the words of fellow blogger Raz7el, "a sack of horse shit". All of Borderlands' storyline seems to take place in the last hour, as if Gearbox realised they were having too much fun and needed to wrap things up. But I digress, the game is great, I'm just in a complaining mood. I'd be inclined to carry on playing it and mop up the remaining side quests if it wasn't for the fact that today is the day that Dragon Age Origins was finally released.
I've had two hours with the game, and it seems to be shaping up quite well. It seems to me like a healthy marriage between Mass Effect and Guild Wars, taking the movement and conversational style from the former, and, well, everything else from the latter.
I opted to play as the Human Noble, the good all-rounder, and so far it has been a typical tale of betrayal and family deaths, and I've been scooped up by the Grey Wardens, to Dragon Age what Spectres are to Mass Effect, to save the world from evil things and claim revenge on my Judas.
The most obvious comparison to Guild Wars, in my eyes, is the combat. Clicking an enemy will start your character attacking, and he/she will carry on until the enemy is dead or you tell them otherwise. Potions can be used on-the-fly and will queue until your character has finished any current action and so on, and you can flick to any party member and issue them orders too, like Knights of the Old Republic in fact. Or you can command the whole party at once, although I haven't tried that. I must confess I was hoping for the combat to be a bit more Fable to be honest.
And that's as far as I've gotten with it. No doubt I'll have more to say next week, hopefully more positive than negative, and it's looking that way. Is it a good game? So far, yes. Is it better than Oblivion? No. But then again, I don't think anything short of The Elder Scrolls V will be.
And that's that. Before I go, check out 30-Something Gamer, a great blog, and he's been playing all sorts of things that I haven't at the Eurogamer Expo. Oh, and try out Trine on the PSN store, it's really good. More on that when/if I buy the full version.
UPDATE: You can probably tell by my hasty scrawlings that my Dragon Age time ate a little bit into my 'going to work' time, and I had to rush the blog a bit. In the rush, I forgot to mention a couple of things. Firstly, after finishing Borderlands and ODST with a couple of days to spare before Dragon Age came out, I decided to casually play a bit of The Secret of Monkey Island: SE on the XBox Live Arcade. Apart from possibly the original Silent Hill, I don't think I've ever completed a game as many times as Monkey Island, so this had me wanting to play it just to see the graphics rather than discover the story. The graphics, while good, suffered from the same troubles as Street Fighter II HD Remix, they've updated the sprites but not added any extra frames, it makes the jerkiness in animation very noticeable. It's an excellent winding down game at the end of the night though.
And finally, I tried the Left 4 Dead 2 demo the other night, and while it is good, I want someone to explain to me how it's in any way different to the first one? I didn't buy the first one (although someone gave me a copy for my PC, which can barely run it) because I didn't want to shell out £40 on a game made for multiplayer when I'm essentially a single player gamer, and just when the price starts to drop, the second one's out and nobody will be playing it anymore. Anyway, it was a very fun game, but unless it depreciates in value faster than the first, It's not for me. Right, NOW I'm done.