Aw man, I went and did it again didn't I? Forgetting to post and shit*. It was only like three months this time though, cut me some slack. I'm just going to summarize what I've been playing since we last met.
I'll start with Mortal Kombat, and my god is it special. In terms of a simple, one-on-one fighting game judged solely on gameplay and balance and all that, Super Street Fighter IV is still it's superior, but MK is so much more than that. There's the wonderfully in-depth story mode that takes you through the opening chapters of the saga rewritten by an enlightened Raiden trying to change the future that once was, there's the challenge tower featuring 300 battles with varying parameters (some of which can bring a grown man to tears) and the excellent King of the Hill mode, an online winner-stays-on fight with audience participation for those not currently playing. I could write about it all day, but I won't for your sake.
I'll rope Killzone 3 and Bulletstorm into one paragraph, because the two are intrinsically linked for me, having been bought on the same day and played parallel to each other. Bulletstorm came as a bit of a surprise to me, I bought it on a whim, and it turned out to be absolutely sublime. The carnage you able to, and are indeed encouraged to achieve keeps the adrenaline pumping and as a result keeps the game running at a wild pace without it ever getting boring. And on top of that, the voice acting is fantastic, the script is hilarious and you actually care for the characters, despite them being stereotypical meat head space marines. And Killzone 3 is the exact opposite. Everything great about Killzone 2 is gone, and is replaced by a borderline homoerotic excuse for a storyline and awkward attempts at Uncharted-style humour. It's by no means a bad game, but even though the campaign clocks out after three and a half hours, I was ready for it to end.
LA Noire came and went, and despite the universally positive reviews it just failed to impress me. While cruising the mean streets of 1940's Los Angeles I even began to question myself, thinking that I was missing something, because surely all of those reviewers can't be wrong, but the game just doesn't work, and I can't praise a game for what it wants to be; Two Worlds wanted to be Oblivion, and it ended up being dung. No, LA Noire does not work at all. Take the crime scene investigations; on an early case I went to question a witness before I checked the evidence, and ended up asking him how he was linked to the missing person (that the case was built around) by name, despite not having discovered his ID and learning his name for myself yet. On a later case I found a popcorn carton with a vial of illegal morphine taped to the bottom of it, travelled to the vendor, found the cartons, the morphene and even the tape in his stall, yet was unable to bring this up while interrogating him.
The interrogations are littered with faults like this, you could have a signed photo of the killer performing the act and fail a section because it wasn't the specific piece of evidence the game was looking for right there. And when you do do something wrong, there's no explanation why. I was on the receiving end of a bollocking from my chief at one bit because I arrested the wrong guy, and it took place right outside the door of the interrogation room that I'd just made the arrest in! Firstly, if you knew it was the other guy, why didn't you make the fucking arrest, and secondly, they aren't even in cuffs yet, it isn't too late! Gah. And again, I wasn't told why it was the wrong guy. It's so frustrating. The driving, shooting and fisticuffs are alright, but they should be, they are just stolen from GTAIV, but even though you can only enter a fist fight at certain events, and the environment becomes closed off like a fighting game, you still have to lock on with the L2 button before you can throw a punch, it's unnecessary. And the controls are all wrong, R2 to accelerate and R1 for the handbrake? Nah.
Duke Nukem Forever, on the other hand, received a lot of negative reviews and was actually a joy to play. By no means was it an above average shooting game in terms of running and gunning, but the game excelled in nostalgia for those of us old enough to remember it's 15 year old prequel, and is jam packed with the crude humour, pop culture references and the obligatory half-naked digital ladies of the night we've all come to expect. Duke's antics had me literally laughing out loud at times.
It is painfully obvious that this is an old game you're playing though, the gameplay is virtually prehistoric (no cover system here, folks) and the graphics are at best horrendous, but the whole look and feel of the game takes me back to games like Prey and Doom 3, both absolute classics. The texture pop-in and awful, awful load times (which happen between every death and respawn, and that happens a lot on the later stages of the game) are inexcusable though, and do mar the experience. But overall the game was just what I was hoping for, and the collector's edition was excellent too.
Finally, I owe an apology to Platinum Games. While I stand by my opinion of Bayonetta, that it's vain, sexist, ridiculous and a shit version of Devil May Cry, a shit game in it's own right, I now feel an absolute arsehole for letting that put me off playing Vanquish, which is an absolute blast from start to finish, Sure, it's only four hours long, but it's four hours of action, adrenaline and testosterone. Simply brilliant. And none of that Solid Snake smoking-is-dangerous-please-put-your-cigarettes-in-an-ash-tray health crap either - Sam, Vanquish's protagonist, actually has a smoking button, and when you press it he takes a single drag and then discards the cigarette over his shoulder nonchalantly, only to light a new one the next time you press it. That's two fingers up to the environment, to the NHS and to the recession with one push of a button. If you press square he hosts a cock fight**.
Alright, finally finally, good luck to our Trev, who's left 24HG-UK to pursue his own blog, which I'll provide a link to when it's ready. And check out a couple of new blogs doing the rounds: the awesome 'Square Eyes. Arthritic Thumbs' and the rant-tastic Nerd Kitten that had me laughing my arse off. See you in another three months.
*I didn't actually forget to shit for 12 weeks, it's a figure of speech.
**Nah, they wouldn't get away with that. Only really hardcore M-rated games can do that. Like Pokemon.
Showing posts with label Grand Theft Auto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grand Theft Auto. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 June 2011
Wednesday, 2 February 2011
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.
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.
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Yeah, that's right baby! Ergonomic management keyboard... (or Why PCs Suck for Gaming)
Recently, while surfing the net on my laptop, one of the hinges holding the screen on just dropped off. Sensing this was an indication of said laptop's imminent mortality, I dusted off the old credit card and fired up the Curry's website. A couple of days later I was the proud owner of a refurbished Packard Bell EasyNote TJ71, with a 500gb HDD, 4gb of memory and some kind of AMD gubbins or whatever. I was reliably informed by Trev that it was a good machine, especially for the price, a cool breeze under £400.
So, after a couple of days of getting used to it, I signed up to Steam. Eager to see what the machine could potentially do, I quickly downloaded the Mass Effect 2 demo, and fired it up. To my joy, and honest surprise, it played the game, out of the box so-to-speak, perfectly at it's default settings. Which is, to say, as good as the 360 version.
So yesterday I had a look on Steam again, and they were offering Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas at 75% off, a meager £2.49, so I got my wallet. Now, the game ran perfectly, it has to be said. With the detail set to 'Very High', there wasn't a stutter. The problems came when I decided to try out my 360 joypad with it. The right analogue stick wasn't detected, the triggers didn't work, and the game couldn't differentiate between the left analogue stick and the D-pad. Tried out a PS2 controller through a USB adapter, the game didn't even acknowledge it.
A quick search on the Internet told me that GTA:SA was riddled with such controller issues, and downloading a program called SAAC would remedy it. So I did, but lo and behold, SAAC wouldn't work. Apparently it was made using Visual Basic 6, and when Microsoft brought out Windows 7, they decided that nobody in the whole universe would ever need to use that again, and thus got rid of it.
So I turned to a program called XPadder (which I had to download two versions of, thanks again to Microsoft making everything obsolete whenever they upgrade their OS), a program that allows you to map keyboard keys and such to another imput device, such as my XBox360 pad, which worked well enough. I fired up GTA once more, and entered the controller set up, and copied the PS2 control scheme to the best of my memory. Finally I was cruising around Los Santos without cramping my hands over the touch pad and forgetting the functions of endless keys.
But the fun came when it came to taking a corner, as XPadder didn't cater for analogue controls, and as such a simple tap on the left analogue stick equaled to full-lock on the steering wheel. Conversely, on foot I could do nothing but sprint at full pelt. The triggers, too, only functioned properly if I fully released them between shots, which sounds obvious, but I guarantee you never actually do.
So, call me over-precipitous, but PC Gaming sucks a lot of arse. A whole night wasted trying to get an ancient game to run in a half-decent way, when a decade-old games console can handle it without complaint. Sorry, but I'm a console gamer.
So, after a couple of days of getting used to it, I signed up to Steam. Eager to see what the machine could potentially do, I quickly downloaded the Mass Effect 2 demo, and fired it up. To my joy, and honest surprise, it played the game, out of the box so-to-speak, perfectly at it's default settings. Which is, to say, as good as the 360 version.
So yesterday I had a look on Steam again, and they were offering Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas at 75% off, a meager £2.49, so I got my wallet. Now, the game ran perfectly, it has to be said. With the detail set to 'Very High', there wasn't a stutter. The problems came when I decided to try out my 360 joypad with it. The right analogue stick wasn't detected, the triggers didn't work, and the game couldn't differentiate between the left analogue stick and the D-pad. Tried out a PS2 controller through a USB adapter, the game didn't even acknowledge it.
A quick search on the Internet told me that GTA:SA was riddled with such controller issues, and downloading a program called SAAC would remedy it. So I did, but lo and behold, SAAC wouldn't work. Apparently it was made using Visual Basic 6, and when Microsoft brought out Windows 7, they decided that nobody in the whole universe would ever need to use that again, and thus got rid of it.
So I turned to a program called XPadder (which I had to download two versions of, thanks again to Microsoft making everything obsolete whenever they upgrade their OS), a program that allows you to map keyboard keys and such to another imput device, such as my XBox360 pad, which worked well enough. I fired up GTA once more, and entered the controller set up, and copied the PS2 control scheme to the best of my memory. Finally I was cruising around Los Santos without cramping my hands over the touch pad and forgetting the functions of endless keys.
But the fun came when it came to taking a corner, as XPadder didn't cater for analogue controls, and as such a simple tap on the left analogue stick equaled to full-lock on the steering wheel. Conversely, on foot I could do nothing but sprint at full pelt. The triggers, too, only functioned properly if I fully released them between shots, which sounds obvious, but I guarantee you never actually do.
So, call me over-precipitous, but PC Gaming sucks a lot of arse. A whole night wasted trying to get an ancient game to run in a half-decent way, when a decade-old games console can handle it without complaint. Sorry, but I'm a console gamer.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
I wanna be a Cowboy, baby...
John Marston. Rough rider. No, you don't want nada. None of this six gun in this, brother running this. Buffalo soldier, look, it's like I told you. Any damsel that's in distress, she'll be out of that dress when she meets John Marston.
That's quite enough of that. Yes, as I said last week, I've caved and brought home a copy of Rockstar's latest insta-classic opus Red Dead Redemption. It was the Sunday before last, I'd finished Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands in probably about five hours, and, despite enjoying it greatly, was stinging a little because I'd opted to side with the underdog, and re-home that from the shelves of my local HMV instead of Red Dead. My reasoning was that The Prince had a better track record, with The Sands of Time being fantastic, and the 2008 PoP and PoP Classic both being enjoyable too, whereas Red Dead Revolver was a steaming (but apt) pile of horse shit. Besides, between Calamity Jane, Brokeback Mountain and the Village People, cowboys are about the gayest thing in the universe. But I knew deep down, that if I had bowed down to Rockstar's invariably foul-mouthed, violent and morally ambiguous genius, I'd probably have barely scratched the surface by then.
And to make matters worse, as I sat sulking with my wallet running on empty, my wife had offered to buy it for me, and her two brothers and the girlfriend of the eldest (who, might I add, is not a fan of videogames at all) were all siding with her. Now, I don't like charity, which often causes animosity in my marriage, but after a couple of hours the temptation was killing me. I gave in, and let a higher power make the decision for me.
The Magic 8-ball said "Looking good".
So, as tradition goes, I'll start from the beginning. John Marston is an ex-gang runner, who has renounced his ways and settled down with a wife and sired a son and daughter, the latter claimed from him before the events of the game. All is going well in his new life (well, dead daughter aside), until some government types turn up and abduct his family and force him into picking up his shootin' irons once more and hunting down the very men he used to ride with. And that's where you, the player, comes in.
Right from the outset the game's ties to Grand Theft Auto are obvious, with the HUD being virtually the same, and the look and feel being very similar too. So, in order to keep this post from becoming an essay, I'll avoid retreading old ground and focus on what's different from it's spiritual predecessor. First and most obvious is the fact that you're riding horses, not cars. The horses are controlled much in the same way as maneuvering your character, allowing you to gallop by tapping the X button (that's a PS3 X, A if you're on the 360) at the cost of stamina. I have seen a few rudimentary cars in cutscenes, but I'll confess I don't know if you get to drive any.
Commandeering a horse is far more complex than simply approaching them and pressing Triangle too, one must first lasso the beast, then approach it, mount it (with Triangle) and then use the analogue sticks to keep balance while the steed throws a tantrum for a minute or so. Then, once you hitch it to a post outside a property you own, it's yours, and will come to you whenever you whistle for it.
Next there's the setting. After GTA IV's sprawling city, RDR's wild west locale has more in common with Fallout 3, although there's a lot less to see. RDR's world is basically split into three categories: deserts, canyons and ramshackle shanty towns, so it does tend to get a little bit monotonous. So it's good that there are a lot more random encounters than in GTA IV to break up the tedium, from full-blown side missions with their own story arcs, to simple chase downs and protect missions. The first one I encountered was a guy in the desert who asked me for a lift. As I slowed down beside him, he lassoed me from my saddle and was off with my horse like lightning. My rifle put an end to that.
My one and only gripe is that the protagonist, John Marston, is a 'reformed character who's done a lot of bad things in his life and renounced his ways only to be forced back into them once more, even though he only wants to get along and not cause any trouble'. So that's Niko Bellic, Johnny Klebitz, Luis Lopez, Carl Johnson and Jimmy Hopkins, from the last few GTAs and Bully respectively, all over again. it's becoming a bit too noticeable now Rockstar.
In conclusion, the game is fucking brilliant. Redemption is a very apt title, as it improves no end over Revolver, and the atmosphere is great too, helped along by a soundtrack that's very reminiscent of that of Bully in places. Yet another contender for Game of the Year.
I've also had a bash on Lost Planet finally, and it's not bad. When I first played it years ago, I instantly hated the game for it's piss poor controls and aiming mechanic, but I've given it more of a chance now and am able to look past it. It feels very old-school, and indeed looks like it's been ported from a PS2 release, a bit like Phantasy Star Universe does. In fact, it has a very similar feeling to Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, only a fair bit better. Not bad at all.
And back to Oblivion (let it be known that at any given time somebody in my house will be playing Oblivion, at least until Bethesda get off their arses and give us a sequel). I've been struggling with the dreaded Vampire Cure quest this week, although the addition of The Wizard's Tower DLC made things a lot easier than the last time I did it. I still can't see any advantage to being a vampire in that game. And take heed: Shepherds Pie does not cure vampirism. Just in case you're ever struck down by it, in Oblivion or real life.
And finally, after wading through an epoch of updates and faulty matchmaking systems, blogger Raz7el, regular commenter Paul and I managed to get a co-op game going on Resistance 2 yesterday, only for it to end up being an unplayable mess. So we then endured the same updates on Uncharted 2 and tried out the co-op modes that Nate and co had to offer, and they were an absolute blast, if a bit short on content. The competitive side of things wasn't that great, but the three co-op scenarios provided us with a couple of hours of thrills so all is not lost. I really should give that another playthrough sometime. But for now, I'm off to play more Read Dead, in hope that I might meet this lady. Wicky wicky wild wild.
That's quite enough of that. Yes, as I said last week, I've caved and brought home a copy of Rockstar's latest insta-classic opus Red Dead Redemption. It was the Sunday before last, I'd finished Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands in probably about five hours, and, despite enjoying it greatly, was stinging a little because I'd opted to side with the underdog, and re-home that from the shelves of my local HMV instead of Red Dead. My reasoning was that The Prince had a better track record, with The Sands of Time being fantastic, and the 2008 PoP and PoP Classic both being enjoyable too, whereas Red Dead Revolver was a steaming (but apt) pile of horse shit. Besides, between Calamity Jane, Brokeback Mountain and the Village People, cowboys are about the gayest thing in the universe. But I knew deep down, that if I had bowed down to Rockstar's invariably foul-mouthed, violent and morally ambiguous genius, I'd probably have barely scratched the surface by then.
And to make matters worse, as I sat sulking with my wallet running on empty, my wife had offered to buy it for me, and her two brothers and the girlfriend of the eldest (who, might I add, is not a fan of videogames at all) were all siding with her. Now, I don't like charity, which often causes animosity in my marriage, but after a couple of hours the temptation was killing me. I gave in, and let a higher power make the decision for me.
The Magic 8-ball said "Looking good".
So, as tradition goes, I'll start from the beginning. John Marston is an ex-gang runner, who has renounced his ways and settled down with a wife and sired a son and daughter, the latter claimed from him before the events of the game. All is going well in his new life (well, dead daughter aside), until some government types turn up and abduct his family and force him into picking up his shootin' irons once more and hunting down the very men he used to ride with. And that's where you, the player, comes in.
The game can be very atmospheric at times, it makes you forget that you're being chased by bandits.
Commandeering a horse is far more complex than simply approaching them and pressing Triangle too, one must first lasso the beast, then approach it, mount it (with Triangle) and then use the analogue sticks to keep balance while the steed throws a tantrum for a minute or so. Then, once you hitch it to a post outside a property you own, it's yours, and will come to you whenever you whistle for it.
Next there's the setting. After GTA IV's sprawling city, RDR's wild west locale has more in common with Fallout 3, although there's a lot less to see. RDR's world is basically split into three categories: deserts, canyons and ramshackle shanty towns, so it does tend to get a little bit monotonous. So it's good that there are a lot more random encounters than in GTA IV to break up the tedium, from full-blown side missions with their own story arcs, to simple chase downs and protect missions. The first one I encountered was a guy in the desert who asked me for a lift. As I slowed down beside him, he lassoed me from my saddle and was off with my horse like lightning. My rifle put an end to that.
My one and only gripe is that the protagonist, John Marston, is a 'reformed character who's done a lot of bad things in his life and renounced his ways only to be forced back into them once more, even though he only wants to get along and not cause any trouble'. So that's Niko Bellic, Johnny Klebitz, Luis Lopez, Carl Johnson and Jimmy Hopkins, from the last few GTAs and Bully respectively, all over again. it's becoming a bit too noticeable now Rockstar.
In conclusion, the game is fucking brilliant. Redemption is a very apt title, as it improves no end over Revolver, and the atmosphere is great too, helped along by a soundtrack that's very reminiscent of that of Bully in places. Yet another contender for Game of the Year.
I've also had a bash on Lost Planet finally, and it's not bad. When I first played it years ago, I instantly hated the game for it's piss poor controls and aiming mechanic, but I've given it more of a chance now and am able to look past it. It feels very old-school, and indeed looks like it's been ported from a PS2 release, a bit like Phantasy Star Universe does. In fact, it has a very similar feeling to Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, only a fair bit better. Not bad at all.
Vampires. They might do a lot of things, but they don't fucking sparkle.
And back to Oblivion (let it be known that at any given time somebody in my house will be playing Oblivion, at least until Bethesda get off their arses and give us a sequel). I've been struggling with the dreaded Vampire Cure quest this week, although the addition of The Wizard's Tower DLC made things a lot easier than the last time I did it. I still can't see any advantage to being a vampire in that game. And take heed: Shepherds Pie does not cure vampirism. Just in case you're ever struck down by it, in Oblivion or real life.
And finally, after wading through an epoch of updates and faulty matchmaking systems, blogger Raz7el, regular commenter Paul and I managed to get a co-op game going on Resistance 2 yesterday, only for it to end up being an unplayable mess. So we then endured the same updates on Uncharted 2 and tried out the co-op modes that Nate and co had to offer, and they were an absolute blast, if a bit short on content. The competitive side of things wasn't that great, but the three co-op scenarios provided us with a couple of hours of thrills so all is not lost. I really should give that another playthrough sometime. But for now, I'm off to play more Read Dead, in hope that I might meet this lady. Wicky wicky wild wild.
Tibet is about the best co-op level, offering platforming as well as shooting.
Supplemental: I feel obligated to mention that I fired up Red Dead last night after posting and was immediately treated to lush forests and snowy mountain tops. I thought a week and a half was enough time to play this before writing, I was obviously wrong.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
The power you're supplying, it's electrifying!
Once again I step up to the mantle with very little to write about. Who's stupid idea was it to make this a weekly thing?
Well, I had a bit more of a go with InFamous, and it still seems pretty shocking (pun intended). I noticed a very annoying game mechanic, where the main character, Cole, would automatically attach himself to the nearest ledge whenever I would jump. Yeah, this is standard in any vertical platforming game nowadays, but most usually just apply it to the ledges you're aiming at, not just any that happen to be near you. I was chasing some kind of visual memory of a target who'd been there previously, to find his current whereabouts, and when I jumped over a dumpster I ended up dangling from an adjacent bus stop and losing my quarry.
You'll survive that fall. Stub your toe and you're fucked.
Cole also has a bit of a Superfriends-era Superman thing going on, in that he seems to develop a convenient new power every time a scenario demands it. Upon finding a dead woman on the ground, Cole exclaims that he's going to try something completely off-the-wall, and touches her head. Hey fucking presto, he can read her memories, despite the fact that the brain is actually dead, holds no impulses and is effectively cat food now. Who would have known?
He also gets an ability where he is able to heal dying civilians by jolting them with his lightning powers. All well and good, if these victims are suffering from a massive cardiac arrest and need defibrillating, but they are mostly dying from a plague, and would probably actually not benefit at all from several thousand volts directly to the heart.
You know what, the more I write about it, the more I hate it. Fuck it, I'm shelving it. It's a ridiculous game, even for one of the Superhero genre. Cole, for all I care, can develop a hunch, and jump off a building, to see if he has a 'nosedive-into-concrete-and-survive' power. Oh wait, he did. AND IT WORKED. But about 3 bullets still kill him.
I also finally got around to trying my hand at the Borderlands expansion pack The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. Guess what? That's pretty dick too. I don't know if I've just tired of Borderlands or what, but the game that made it into my Top 10 of last year doesn't seem to hold the same charm any more. My main problem with Zombie Island is that it just seems like they've simply bogged you down with thousands of respawning enemies to add longevity to the game, as it seems to take hours to travel a few hundred yards.
This screenshot tells you all you need to know about Zombie Island
But the thing is, I can't remember exactly what I liked so much about Borders anyway. From what I remember it was simply just walking through boring, samey landscapes and shooting things, and that's exactly what's on show with Zombie Island too. Surely there must have been something more, but if there was, it's evaded me. Anyway, I think I'm done with Borders now, the rest of the DLC will probably go untouched.
Finally, I downloaded Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online on the PS3. It plays pretty much exactly the same as the PSP version, which is no bad thing as said version is just about the best Tekken in the series. Haven't tried it online yet, but I have had countless hours of multiplayer on the PSP version so I know to expect more of the same, just probably with more people who actually know what they're doing, and consequently more ass-kickings for me.
Speaking of PSP, I finally let go of my frankensteined PSP 1000 (Casing and inner components of a JP white console, screen and face buttons of a UK Black one) and upgraded to an absolutely gorgeous Radiant Red PSP 3000 (I'm boycotting the PSP Go, because it's shit). The console is taking some getting used to, with the tighter analogue nub and the smooth, handgrip-less back, and obviously it's a lot lighter and quieter than the Phat, but playing LittleBigPlanet on my TV was great last night, and the UMD movies are near DVD quality even on the 21" inch screen in my bedroom.
Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful...
So now, with the ability to play the games without squinting at a tiny screen and being able to hold the console in my lap like a controller, instead of enduring arm-fatigue from holding it in front of my face, some of my unfinished games like Resistance: Retribution, GTA CTW and Tales of Eternia might get some more play. And upcoming games like God of War: Ghost of Sparta and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will seem all the more special too. Bravo Sony.
Well, I had a bit more of a go with InFamous, and it still seems pretty shocking (pun intended). I noticed a very annoying game mechanic, where the main character, Cole, would automatically attach himself to the nearest ledge whenever I would jump. Yeah, this is standard in any vertical platforming game nowadays, but most usually just apply it to the ledges you're aiming at, not just any that happen to be near you. I was chasing some kind of visual memory of a target who'd been there previously, to find his current whereabouts, and when I jumped over a dumpster I ended up dangling from an adjacent bus stop and losing my quarry.
You'll survive that fall. Stub your toe and you're fucked.
Cole also has a bit of a Superfriends-era Superman thing going on, in that he seems to develop a convenient new power every time a scenario demands it. Upon finding a dead woman on the ground, Cole exclaims that he's going to try something completely off-the-wall, and touches her head. Hey fucking presto, he can read her memories, despite the fact that the brain is actually dead, holds no impulses and is effectively cat food now. Who would have known?
He also gets an ability where he is able to heal dying civilians by jolting them with his lightning powers. All well and good, if these victims are suffering from a massive cardiac arrest and need defibrillating, but they are mostly dying from a plague, and would probably actually not benefit at all from several thousand volts directly to the heart.
You know what, the more I write about it, the more I hate it. Fuck it, I'm shelving it. It's a ridiculous game, even for one of the Superhero genre. Cole, for all I care, can develop a hunch, and jump off a building, to see if he has a 'nosedive-into-concrete-and-survive' power. Oh wait, he did. AND IT WORKED. But about 3 bullets still kill him.
I also finally got around to trying my hand at the Borderlands expansion pack The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. Guess what? That's pretty dick too. I don't know if I've just tired of Borderlands or what, but the game that made it into my Top 10 of last year doesn't seem to hold the same charm any more. My main problem with Zombie Island is that it just seems like they've simply bogged you down with thousands of respawning enemies to add longevity to the game, as it seems to take hours to travel a few hundred yards.
This screenshot tells you all you need to know about Zombie Island
But the thing is, I can't remember exactly what I liked so much about Borders anyway. From what I remember it was simply just walking through boring, samey landscapes and shooting things, and that's exactly what's on show with Zombie Island too. Surely there must have been something more, but if there was, it's evaded me. Anyway, I think I'm done with Borders now, the rest of the DLC will probably go untouched.
Finally, I downloaded Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection Online on the PS3. It plays pretty much exactly the same as the PSP version, which is no bad thing as said version is just about the best Tekken in the series. Haven't tried it online yet, but I have had countless hours of multiplayer on the PSP version so I know to expect more of the same, just probably with more people who actually know what they're doing, and consequently more ass-kickings for me.
Speaking of PSP, I finally let go of my frankensteined PSP 1000 (Casing and inner components of a JP white console, screen and face buttons of a UK Black one) and upgraded to an absolutely gorgeous Radiant Red PSP 3000 (I'm boycotting the PSP Go, because it's shit). The console is taking some getting used to, with the tighter analogue nub and the smooth, handgrip-less back, and obviously it's a lot lighter and quieter than the Phat, but playing LittleBigPlanet on my TV was great last night, and the UMD movies are near DVD quality even on the 21" inch screen in my bedroom.
Isn't she lovely, isn't she wonderful...
So now, with the ability to play the games without squinting at a tiny screen and being able to hold the console in my lap like a controller, instead of enduring arm-fatigue from holding it in front of my face, some of my unfinished games like Resistance: Retribution, GTA CTW and Tales of Eternia might get some more play. And upcoming games like God of War: Ghost of Sparta and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker will seem all the more special too. Bravo Sony.
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
I'm Super, thanks for asking!
It's amazing, that in this day and age, if a linear game takes more than six hours to complete it outlives it's welcome. GTA IV, Fallout 3, that's fine. They've got plenty of things tucked away for the ADHD generation to stumble across, and it's easy to poddle off and play something else for a few weeks and drop back into it if needs be. Yep, £40 is perfectly acceptable for six hours of disposable entertainment.
Take Darksiders for example. One of the finest games so far this generation, capturing the feel of absolutely classic games like Soul Reaver and Primal, and throwing a gripping and engaging storyline and at times jaw-dropping visuals to boot, but after 16 hours of game time, spread over the course of two weeks, it had dragged on a little bit too long.
So when I finally dropped the last enemy last night (enemy is the only word I could use which is still accurate and doesn't give anything away) and laid my pad down, I breathed a sigh of relief. Don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic game, but I was aching for something new.
"I'm a fuckin' Demon!"
But I will at least remember it fondly, and shit, I'm going to recommend it to anyone that will listen (I started that last night by passing the word on to my Elder Scrolls freak sister). As I said, the graphics are stunning in places, with vibrancy in colours on a par with Uncharted and Just Cause 2. And the voice acting is absolutely fantastic, with Mark Hamill and Moon Bloodgood leading the D-list way and Liam O'brien (me neither) doing his best Simon Templeman impersonation as the lead character. The boss fights mostly play out like N64 Zelda bosses, but it does have a go at the 'Epic Boss' style of God of War, without quite pulling it off. I also noticed that, when dismembering an enemy, the wounds are just hollow and red, no meat or bones, which is a bit of a letdown, but doesn't mar the experience and is only really noticeable in some of the larger enemies. Speaking of larger enemies, the end boss is a Fuck Off Dragon. But it's considerably easier to kill than the one in Dragon Age.
The preceding game on my shame pile turned out to be InFamous. For those who don't know, InFamous is a PS3 exclusive free-roaming Superhero game. You play as Cole McGrath, one of those annoying Parkour messengers who was unknowingly delivering a bomb to somebody when it went off, levelling half the city. Being at the epicenter of the blast, Cole naturally develops super lightning powers instead of getting vaporized. But when a plague breaks out, the city is locked off, and gang crime becomes rife. So Cole decides to become the people's protector. Or a public menace. yeah, the game has a karma system.
If you take the evil route, you actually become a Sith Lord.
Well, I've only played for like half an hour so far. Honest first impressions? well, it's a bit... shit really. Surprisingly ugly for a PS3 exclusive, and the fiddly climbing and jumping and hand to hand combat without any kind of lock-on function make it seem no better than Spider-Man 3. The only moral choice I had to make was when I found a food drop, and I could either let the citizens share it amongst themselves or take it all for myself, and sit atop my tower feasting, laughing at the starving peasants below and zapping anybody that comes near. Very black and white. So far, it's not a patch on Prototype, which I can't help but compare it to.
Moving on, Super Street Fighter IV arrived last week, much to my joy. This update to SFIV boasts ten extra characters, a new ultra combo for each character, the return of the car/barrel smashing bonus rounds, redone intros and endings and a bunch of extra multiplayer modes including 8-player team battle and a winner-stays-on type of affair, again for up to 8 players. So the fact that it wasn't just DLC is kind of justified.
Ibuki is a force to be reckoned with.
The characters are a mixed bunch. There's Adon from Street Fighter, and Cody and Guy from Final Fight (or all three of those from Street Fighter Alpha if you prefer), T. Hawk and Dee Jay from Super Street Fighter II, and Makoto, Dudley and the awesome Ibuki from Street Fighter III making a return, along with two all-new fighters. Firstly, Juri is an agent for the evil S.I.N. organization, using Taekwondo and drawing power from a 'Feng Shui device' in her prosthetic eye. Rather than give her the power to arrange furniture, it actually lets her kick fireballs at people, go figure. The second is Hakan, a Turkish oil wrestler who lubes himself up before each fight. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.
Played a few rounds against Raz7el online too, and aside from quite a bit of lag, the game remains pretty tight. I also don't like to brag, but I handed his ass to him on more than a few occasions. Dan Hibiki is awesome.
Well, that's about that. Expect more of an opinion on InFamous next week, and a look at Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. See ya!
Take Darksiders for example. One of the finest games so far this generation, capturing the feel of absolutely classic games like Soul Reaver and Primal, and throwing a gripping and engaging storyline and at times jaw-dropping visuals to boot, but after 16 hours of game time, spread over the course of two weeks, it had dragged on a little bit too long.
So when I finally dropped the last enemy last night (enemy is the only word I could use which is still accurate and doesn't give anything away) and laid my pad down, I breathed a sigh of relief. Don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic game, but I was aching for something new.
"I'm a fuckin' Demon!"
But I will at least remember it fondly, and shit, I'm going to recommend it to anyone that will listen (I started that last night by passing the word on to my Elder Scrolls freak sister). As I said, the graphics are stunning in places, with vibrancy in colours on a par with Uncharted and Just Cause 2. And the voice acting is absolutely fantastic, with Mark Hamill and Moon Bloodgood leading the D-list way and Liam O'brien (me neither) doing his best Simon Templeman impersonation as the lead character. The boss fights mostly play out like N64 Zelda bosses, but it does have a go at the 'Epic Boss' style of God of War, without quite pulling it off. I also noticed that, when dismembering an enemy, the wounds are just hollow and red, no meat or bones, which is a bit of a letdown, but doesn't mar the experience and is only really noticeable in some of the larger enemies. Speaking of larger enemies, the end boss is a Fuck Off Dragon. But it's considerably easier to kill than the one in Dragon Age.
The preceding game on my shame pile turned out to be InFamous. For those who don't know, InFamous is a PS3 exclusive free-roaming Superhero game. You play as Cole McGrath, one of those annoying Parkour messengers who was unknowingly delivering a bomb to somebody when it went off, levelling half the city. Being at the epicenter of the blast, Cole naturally develops super lightning powers instead of getting vaporized. But when a plague breaks out, the city is locked off, and gang crime becomes rife. So Cole decides to become the people's protector. Or a public menace. yeah, the game has a karma system.
If you take the evil route, you actually become a Sith Lord.
Well, I've only played for like half an hour so far. Honest first impressions? well, it's a bit... shit really. Surprisingly ugly for a PS3 exclusive, and the fiddly climbing and jumping and hand to hand combat without any kind of lock-on function make it seem no better than Spider-Man 3. The only moral choice I had to make was when I found a food drop, and I could either let the citizens share it amongst themselves or take it all for myself, and sit atop my tower feasting, laughing at the starving peasants below and zapping anybody that comes near. Very black and white. So far, it's not a patch on Prototype, which I can't help but compare it to.
Moving on, Super Street Fighter IV arrived last week, much to my joy. This update to SFIV boasts ten extra characters, a new ultra combo for each character, the return of the car/barrel smashing bonus rounds, redone intros and endings and a bunch of extra multiplayer modes including 8-player team battle and a winner-stays-on type of affair, again for up to 8 players. So the fact that it wasn't just DLC is kind of justified.
Ibuki is a force to be reckoned with.
The characters are a mixed bunch. There's Adon from Street Fighter, and Cody and Guy from Final Fight (or all three of those from Street Fighter Alpha if you prefer), T. Hawk and Dee Jay from Super Street Fighter II, and Makoto, Dudley and the awesome Ibuki from Street Fighter III making a return, along with two all-new fighters. Firstly, Juri is an agent for the evil S.I.N. organization, using Taekwondo and drawing power from a 'Feng Shui device' in her prosthetic eye. Rather than give her the power to arrange furniture, it actually lets her kick fireballs at people, go figure. The second is Hakan, a Turkish oil wrestler who lubes himself up before each fight. I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.
Played a few rounds against Raz7el online too, and aside from quite a bit of lag, the game remains pretty tight. I also don't like to brag, but I handed his ass to him on more than a few occasions. Dan Hibiki is awesome.
Well, that's about that. Expect more of an opinion on InFamous next week, and a look at Borderlands: The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned. See ya!
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Party for two
After last week's mediocre gaming, the last seven days have come as quite a relief to me, as things have definitely looked up a bit. I started the week with survival horror title Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, opting for the Wii version over the PS2 and PSP, for unknown reasons.
Shattered Memories is a loose remake of the original SH on the PS1, one of my favourite ever games, and definitely my most replayed game ever. At my heyday I had a save file on my memory card which had saves before every single boss and all five endings, which took literally weeks to accomplish. The game's storyline was one of my favourites, and I pretty much committed it all to memory, so when the film was released and shat all over it, I was furious. Naturally, when I heard of the remake I was a little cagey.
I had kept an eye on the game throughout it's development, and with every new tidbit of information I grew less and less interested. First they decided not to include combat, then they changed the Other World from a rusted, blood and puss soaked hell, to a pretty tame Ice World, then they gave protagonist Harry Mason a frigging Cell Phone with a camera and GPS and all that, even though the original game was set in 1986, and by this point my interest in the game (and, after the completely unplayable Silent Hill: Homecoming, the series) had waned. Then they announced that the game was non-canon, and wouldn't have an affect on the greater story at all, which cheered me up a bit.
But what's the point in playing a story-driven game if it's story doesn't actually count for shit? Well, because it's fucking fantastic, that's why. The game begins just as it's source material did, with Harry regaining consciousness after a car crash and finding his young daughter Cheryl missing, and that's pretty much where the similarities end. The game swaps between two mechanics, the first being set in the real world. Solving puzzles is the order of the day, and there are some absolutely devilish ones too, and interspersed with these are some very Heavy Rain style exploration sequences (a comparison first brought to my attention by the pressing A to shout Cheryl bit at the start), were you have to use different combinations of buttons and movements to perform tasks.
Is that Katie Price?
The second mechanic takes place in the 'Ice World' and involves reaching a target destination whilst running from and evading the Raw Shocks, featureless creatures that relentlessly pursue Harry and latch on to him, lowering his body temperature until he passes out. Why the hell do I keep buying games on the Wii? Like Cursed Mountain before it, Shattered Memories requires you to fight off your enemies by performing different motions with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, and like Cursed Mountain, most of the times these don't work properly. It makes for some very frustrating moments.
All in all, frustrations aside, SH:SM is a fantastic game, one of the best on the console. It's absolutely gorgeous too (although the same can't be said for Harry, one of the ugliest videogame characters I've ever seen), with the worlds merging in real time, and the level of detail in the environments is astounding for a Wii/last generation title. Also, between each section the game psychoanalyses you, by making you take tests in a shrink's office, and changes itself depending on your psyche, which once more is impressive on a lower powered console. A return to form for the series.
I've also been getting to grips with Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony this week. Last week I expressed a disliking for it's predecessor The Lost and Damned, and can honestly say all is forgiven. Gay Tony goes back to the more tongue in cheek, humorous style of the GTAIII series, with comical over-the-top characters like GTAIV favourite Brucie Kibbutz's outrageous brother Mori, and Arab property tycoon Yusuf Amir providing out loud laughs as well as missions. Also the dancing mini game from San Andreas makes a return, but apart from the ability to replay completed missions to improve scores, there's nothing new. That doesn't matter though, when you aren't being forced to endure the painful Bike physics all the time. It's well worth getting Episodes from Liberty City just for this, The Lost and Damned is just a flawed but playable bonus.
TBOGT returns to the series' outrageous roots.
And I've spent the latter part of the week knee-deep in Darksiders, Vigil Games' contender to the God of War throne, and it's so very nearly achieving that target. The game casts you as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, awoken when the end war between Heaven and Hell begins on earth. As you arrive to sort things out, you realise that you three brethren haven't turned up, and the Angels decide that you've brought about the war early for your own reasons. After a 'brief' jury, War is sent back to earth a century later to prove his innocence, despite the complete extinction/zombification of the human race.
The God of War comparison is only really valid in passing, a few hours of observing the game will show that it has just as much in common with games like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the former with the ruined environments and visual style, the latter with the Crossblade, a huge shuriken that acts very similarly to Link's boomerang, and the targeting system for which is virtually identical. And the way that the Crossblade can take on any elemental powers it comes into contact with is very Dark Sector.
Zelda's comparisons don't end there, War has bound to him a companion by the name of The Watcher, voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill (yeah, he's doing the Joker voice, but it's still great), who acts as the Navi to War's Link, popping out occasionally to offer advice and hints. Oh yeah, there's bomb plants too.
I have to note that the difficulty is quite unforgiving. After getting trounced on the demo, I stuck the game on the easy setting, and am still getting my arse passed to me on a regular basis. It's not quite Ninja Gaiden difficult, but it's approaching it. I'll persevere, but a rather epic boss battle with Bat-Queen Tiamat has me currently well against the ropes.
well, wrapping things up, I've had a crack at LittleBigPlanet PSP this week, which is just as good as the PS3 version, but not really better. The features are a bit more limited and Stephen Fry is at his most patronising, but the physics and graphics are top notch. Also had a bash at Final Fight: Double Impact on the 360, which is a great port. I might splash out on it, as both Final Fight and Magic Sword are both excellent retro games. Oh, and MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3! The teaser is great, especially with the appearance from Chris Redfield as he takes on the Hulk (let's face it, the only Marvel with bigger arms than Chris) at the end. It's Super Street Fighter IV next week, but it's hard to be excited now I've seen that. I'll link to it here, but don't be surprised if they take it down as I believe it was leaked early. Bye for now.
Shattered Memories is a loose remake of the original SH on the PS1, one of my favourite ever games, and definitely my most replayed game ever. At my heyday I had a save file on my memory card which had saves before every single boss and all five endings, which took literally weeks to accomplish. The game's storyline was one of my favourites, and I pretty much committed it all to memory, so when the film was released and shat all over it, I was furious. Naturally, when I heard of the remake I was a little cagey.
I had kept an eye on the game throughout it's development, and with every new tidbit of information I grew less and less interested. First they decided not to include combat, then they changed the Other World from a rusted, blood and puss soaked hell, to a pretty tame Ice World, then they gave protagonist Harry Mason a frigging Cell Phone with a camera and GPS and all that, even though the original game was set in 1986, and by this point my interest in the game (and, after the completely unplayable Silent Hill: Homecoming, the series) had waned. Then they announced that the game was non-canon, and wouldn't have an affect on the greater story at all, which cheered me up a bit.
But what's the point in playing a story-driven game if it's story doesn't actually count for shit? Well, because it's fucking fantastic, that's why. The game begins just as it's source material did, with Harry regaining consciousness after a car crash and finding his young daughter Cheryl missing, and that's pretty much where the similarities end. The game swaps between two mechanics, the first being set in the real world. Solving puzzles is the order of the day, and there are some absolutely devilish ones too, and interspersed with these are some very Heavy Rain style exploration sequences (a comparison first brought to my attention by the pressing A to shout Cheryl bit at the start), were you have to use different combinations of buttons and movements to perform tasks.
Is that Katie Price?
The second mechanic takes place in the 'Ice World' and involves reaching a target destination whilst running from and evading the Raw Shocks, featureless creatures that relentlessly pursue Harry and latch on to him, lowering his body temperature until he passes out. Why the hell do I keep buying games on the Wii? Like Cursed Mountain before it, Shattered Memories requires you to fight off your enemies by performing different motions with the Wii Remote and Nunchuck, and like Cursed Mountain, most of the times these don't work properly. It makes for some very frustrating moments.
All in all, frustrations aside, SH:SM is a fantastic game, one of the best on the console. It's absolutely gorgeous too (although the same can't be said for Harry, one of the ugliest videogame characters I've ever seen), with the worlds merging in real time, and the level of detail in the environments is astounding for a Wii/last generation title. Also, between each section the game psychoanalyses you, by making you take tests in a shrink's office, and changes itself depending on your psyche, which once more is impressive on a lower powered console. A return to form for the series.
I've also been getting to grips with Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony this week. Last week I expressed a disliking for it's predecessor The Lost and Damned, and can honestly say all is forgiven. Gay Tony goes back to the more tongue in cheek, humorous style of the GTAIII series, with comical over-the-top characters like GTAIV favourite Brucie Kibbutz's outrageous brother Mori, and Arab property tycoon Yusuf Amir providing out loud laughs as well as missions. Also the dancing mini game from San Andreas makes a return, but apart from the ability to replay completed missions to improve scores, there's nothing new. That doesn't matter though, when you aren't being forced to endure the painful Bike physics all the time. It's well worth getting Episodes from Liberty City just for this, The Lost and Damned is just a flawed but playable bonus.
TBOGT returns to the series' outrageous roots.
And I've spent the latter part of the week knee-deep in Darksiders, Vigil Games' contender to the God of War throne, and it's so very nearly achieving that target. The game casts you as War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, awoken when the end war between Heaven and Hell begins on earth. As you arrive to sort things out, you realise that you three brethren haven't turned up, and the Angels decide that you've brought about the war early for your own reasons. After a 'brief' jury, War is sent back to earth a century later to prove his innocence, despite the complete extinction/zombification of the human race.
The God of War comparison is only really valid in passing, a few hours of observing the game will show that it has just as much in common with games like Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver and Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the former with the ruined environments and visual style, the latter with the Crossblade, a huge shuriken that acts very similarly to Link's boomerang, and the targeting system for which is virtually identical. And the way that the Crossblade can take on any elemental powers it comes into contact with is very Dark Sector.
Zelda's comparisons don't end there, War has bound to him a companion by the name of The Watcher, voiced by the legendary Mark Hamill (yeah, he's doing the Joker voice, but it's still great), who acts as the Navi to War's Link, popping out occasionally to offer advice and hints. Oh yeah, there's bomb plants too.
I have to note that the difficulty is quite unforgiving. After getting trounced on the demo, I stuck the game on the easy setting, and am still getting my arse passed to me on a regular basis. It's not quite Ninja Gaiden difficult, but it's approaching it. I'll persevere, but a rather epic boss battle with Bat-Queen Tiamat has me currently well against the ropes.
well, wrapping things up, I've had a crack at LittleBigPlanet PSP this week, which is just as good as the PS3 version, but not really better. The features are a bit more limited and Stephen Fry is at his most patronising, but the physics and graphics are top notch. Also had a bash at Final Fight: Double Impact on the 360, which is a great port. I might splash out on it, as both Final Fight and Magic Sword are both excellent retro games. Oh, and MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 3! The teaser is great, especially with the appearance from Chris Redfield as he takes on the Hulk (let's face it, the only Marvel with bigger arms than Chris) at the end. It's Super Street Fighter IV next week, but it's hard to be excited now I've seen that. I'll link to it here, but don't be surprised if they take it down as I believe it was leaked early. Bye for now.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Dear Wanker. Sorry about the bang, send the bill to me arse.
Ever since I'd decided to get The Saboteur, I'd been planning on using Beastie Boys lyrics as that week's blog title. "Oh my, it's a mirage. I'm tellin' y'all it's sabotage" it would say. Not too original probably, but it's so obvious that I couldn't not do it.
That was until I actually played the game, and heard the absolutely magical script. Delivered in his deadpan way, protagonist Sean Devlin spouts dialogue worthy of Shakespeare. Among my favourite lines were "You mean the guy smiling like a cat with a cream-flavoured arsehole?" or "In that case, fuck you arseways", but I decided to go with that one.
On to the game itself. You play as Sean Devlin, hard drinking, foul mouthed Irishman who hangs out in strip clubs and loves getting into fights with Germans, while staying in Paris. No, this isn't the 1998 World Cup, why it's World War II of course! But before you all groan at the prospect of yet another WWII videogame, give it chance. It's a bit different you see.
I don't think I've ever shot down a Zeppelin in a videogame before.
For a start, this isn't an FPS. It's not even a Real-Time Strategy game. And it isn't set on the front line, with you playing as Default Soldier #6 who manages to single handedly take down the Nazi regime all in a day's work. No, The Saboteur is a third person sandbox game, in very similar vein to Grand Theft Auto, and puts you in the role of an ex racing driver turned reluctant Resistance member when a prank on a German rival goes awry on the night that the Nazis invaded France, resulting in the death of his best friend. And so a tale of romance and revenge unfolds.
As well as aping Grand Theft Auto, The Saboteur also takes unlikely inspiration from Assassin's Creed, with nearly every building in Gay Paris being scalable. Although the climbing is more similar to that in Uncharted or the later Tomb Raider games, the sandbox environment brings AC to the front of your mind (helped along by the fact that there's a car called 'Altair'), and The Saboteur even has a go at viewpoints (although finding one serves no purpose other than ticking another box on your statistics counter), along with a Trophy/Achievement for Leap-of-Faith-ing from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
It also inherits Assassin's Creed's penchant for bending the truth historically. Every car in the Paris of 1939 comes as standard with Power Steering, a GPS device and not only a radio, but a radio that plays Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good' every ten minutes, despite the song being recorded 26 years after the events of the game. A TIME RADIO.
In summation, The Saboteur is a silly, above average but forgettable game. It does nothing new, but does what it does do well, and is well worth playing if you fancy something new from the WWII template, or just a laugh-out-loud, not too serious gaming experience. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into it straight after Just Cause 2, as I kept wanting to hijack Zeppelins and couldn't, but I enjoyed it anyway. Nolan North's french accent is hilarious.
Also this week, I finally got around to playing GTA IV: The Lost & Damned. I was waiting for the Episodes from Liberty City disk to be released on the PS3 (GTA always will be a PlayStation game for me), but now it's here the 360 version is selling for half the price, so for the sake of £15 I swallowed my pride and got it.
I'll get it over with shall I? TLAD has full frontal MALE nudity in it. An OLD MAN'S PENIS. I've seen it. It's even got veins on it. I wonder who got the job of rendering that one? It's really not that big a (stop laughing) deal, especially as every game I've played recently has been full of women who can't keep their clothes on, but I understand it was very controversial at the time. People, eh?
There, you've seen it. No reason to play it now.
That was until I actually played the game, and heard the absolutely magical script. Delivered in his deadpan way, protagonist Sean Devlin spouts dialogue worthy of Shakespeare. Among my favourite lines were "You mean the guy smiling like a cat with a cream-flavoured arsehole?" or "In that case, fuck you arseways", but I decided to go with that one.
On to the game itself. You play as Sean Devlin, hard drinking, foul mouthed Irishman who hangs out in strip clubs and loves getting into fights with Germans, while staying in Paris. No, this isn't the 1998 World Cup, why it's World War II of course! But before you all groan at the prospect of yet another WWII videogame, give it chance. It's a bit different you see.
I don't think I've ever shot down a Zeppelin in a videogame before.
For a start, this isn't an FPS. It's not even a Real-Time Strategy game. And it isn't set on the front line, with you playing as Default Soldier #6 who manages to single handedly take down the Nazi regime all in a day's work. No, The Saboteur is a third person sandbox game, in very similar vein to Grand Theft Auto, and puts you in the role of an ex racing driver turned reluctant Resistance member when a prank on a German rival goes awry on the night that the Nazis invaded France, resulting in the death of his best friend. And so a tale of romance and revenge unfolds.
As well as aping Grand Theft Auto, The Saboteur also takes unlikely inspiration from Assassin's Creed, with nearly every building in Gay Paris being scalable. Although the climbing is more similar to that in Uncharted or the later Tomb Raider games, the sandbox environment brings AC to the front of your mind (helped along by the fact that there's a car called 'Altair'), and The Saboteur even has a go at viewpoints (although finding one serves no purpose other than ticking another box on your statistics counter), along with a Trophy/Achievement for Leap-of-Faith-ing from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
It also inherits Assassin's Creed's penchant for bending the truth historically. Every car in the Paris of 1939 comes as standard with Power Steering, a GPS device and not only a radio, but a radio that plays Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good' every ten minutes, despite the song being recorded 26 years after the events of the game. A TIME RADIO.
In summation, The Saboteur is a silly, above average but forgettable game. It does nothing new, but does what it does do well, and is well worth playing if you fancy something new from the WWII template, or just a laugh-out-loud, not too serious gaming experience. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone into it straight after Just Cause 2, as I kept wanting to hijack Zeppelins and couldn't, but I enjoyed it anyway. Nolan North's french accent is hilarious.
Also this week, I finally got around to playing GTA IV: The Lost & Damned. I was waiting for the Episodes from Liberty City disk to be released on the PS3 (GTA always will be a PlayStation game for me), but now it's here the 360 version is selling for half the price, so for the sake of £15 I swallowed my pride and got it.
I'll get it over with shall I? TLAD has full frontal MALE nudity in it. An OLD MAN'S PENIS. I've seen it. It's even got veins on it. I wonder who got the job of rendering that one? It's really not that big a (stop laughing) deal, especially as every game I've played recently has been full of women who can't keep their clothes on, but I understand it was very controversial at the time. People, eh?
There, you've seen it. No reason to play it now.
TLAD is actually a bit disappointing. The story is so far predictable and the characters uninteresting. I'm going to predict, nay, I pretty much KNOW that Billy, the leader of your Biker Gang, is going to end up being the main antagonist. And Johnny Klebitz, your hero, is just a Biker version of San Andreas' Carl Johnson, the voice of reason during cutscenes and a thoroughly nice guy, who then goes around committing atrocities with reckless abandon as soon as the missions kick in. Doesn't really make him a believable character.
The new gameplay mechanics aren't really welcome either. By riding in formation with your gang, you automatically fix your bike and heal yourself, even to the point of actually growing body armour out of your skin. Then there's things like arm wrestling mini games and stuff, along with the standard racing and vehicle collecting side quests. I'll be honest, I haven't tried any of these, and don't feel the urge to, ever.
All being said, It's still GTA though, and GTA will always be great. I think I'm ready for a new city though, and after The Saboteur I'm hoping for some countryside (albeit minus the exploding cows) on Rockstar's next car-jacking epic, like they did with San Andreas. Everyone I've spoken to says Gay Tony is a 100% improvement though, so lets wait and see.
And that brings me onto my final (not a pun) game of the week, PSP fighting game Dissidia: Final Fantasy. The prospect of a fighter featuring the main hero and villain from each of the first ten Final Fantasy games (plus, bafflingly, a random guy from FFXII and a little... 'thing' from FFXI) is enough to send many an RPG geek into a coma. The whole game is fan service, with the intro sequence littered with gratuitous 'what if' shots of Squall fighting Sephiroth and loads of other fights that would probably be monumental if I knew who the fuck half of the characters were.
I dove into the story mode, and, like 95% of all Square Enix games it was overly complicated and so, so boring it made me want to cry. It slammed me into the boots of one of the nameless assholes from Final Fantasy 1 and made me fight a 'false warrior' (that's a pallet-swap of yourself, in layman's terms), then repeated with other filler enemies before sticking me against the respective foe of my character. Then it was the same again with the FFII character. Sensing I was in for a long trawl before I got to see any characters I actually gave a shit about (especially since they didn't include Luneth from the DS remake of FFIII, in favour of an unnamed 'Onion Knight'), I headed into the Arcade Mode.
The new gameplay mechanics aren't really welcome either. By riding in formation with your gang, you automatically fix your bike and heal yourself, even to the point of actually growing body armour out of your skin. Then there's things like arm wrestling mini games and stuff, along with the standard racing and vehicle collecting side quests. I'll be honest, I haven't tried any of these, and don't feel the urge to, ever.
All being said, It's still GTA though, and GTA will always be great. I think I'm ready for a new city though, and after The Saboteur I'm hoping for some countryside (albeit minus the exploding cows) on Rockstar's next car-jacking epic, like they did with San Andreas. Everyone I've spoken to says Gay Tony is a 100% improvement though, so lets wait and see.
And that brings me onto my final (not a pun) game of the week, PSP fighting game Dissidia: Final Fantasy. The prospect of a fighter featuring the main hero and villain from each of the first ten Final Fantasy games (plus, bafflingly, a random guy from FFXII and a little... 'thing' from FFXI) is enough to send many an RPG geek into a coma. The whole game is fan service, with the intro sequence littered with gratuitous 'what if' shots of Squall fighting Sephiroth and loads of other fights that would probably be monumental if I knew who the fuck half of the characters were.
I dove into the story mode, and, like 95% of all Square Enix games it was overly complicated and so, so boring it made me want to cry. It slammed me into the boots of one of the nameless assholes from Final Fantasy 1 and made me fight a 'false warrior' (that's a pallet-swap of yourself, in layman's terms), then repeated with other filler enemies before sticking me against the respective foe of my character. Then it was the same again with the FFII character. Sensing I was in for a long trawl before I got to see any characters I actually gave a shit about (especially since they didn't include Luneth from the DS remake of FFIII, in favour of an unnamed 'Onion Knight'), I headed into the Arcade Mode.
Probably won't be though.
Arcade Mode was an improvement, simpler and more accessible. I naturally jumped straight into Cloud Strife's shoes, and I won't lie, performing an Omni Slash on Squall Leonheart was the most satisfying thing I've done in a game since slamming Sean Paul's head in a car door in Def Jam: Fight for NY. But it still failed to grab me. I suppose it's an okay substitute for Tekken or SoulCalibur, but I actually have Tekken and SoulCalibur, so it's pointless. But it is the closest thing we have to a sequel to Ehrgeiz, so I have to be somewhat grateful. Oh well, they tried. I'll just go back to hoping Ehrgeiz is released on the PSN, so I can play that on my PSP instead.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
It's Perfect Dark here, where the angels scream...
The more awake of you out there may (probably not) remember me briefly slamming the DS version of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars last July. I basically said that the top-down GTA template is long since deceased and the step backwards was an ill-informed one. Well, I couldn't be more wrong, it seems.
I picked up the PSP version a few weeks ago (or rather my wife did, as a birthday present for me from the cat, don't ask) during a brief blunder on Play.com where some bright spark deleted the '2' from the £24.99 price tag. It wasn't a game that I particularly wanted, but at the right side of a fiver I couldn't say no.
First thing I noticed while firing it up on the train is that the cell-shading that the DS used to disguise the awful graphics has completely gone, and the visuals have been tidied up a hell of a lot. Purely aesthetic I know, but I'd rather not have to stare at what looks like a very old Sega Saturn game if I can help it. I also blasted the DS screen, for being too small to tell what was happening in games like this (although in their credit, Nintendo have also realised that now with the DSiXL), and the PSP's larger screen really does benefit the game, allowing the camera to zoom out more and give you a better warning when you're about to wrap yourself around a lamp post. So there, the two major gripes with the earlier version are sorted.
The game accomplishes the feel of a true GTA game quite well actually (I hadn't had enough time with the DS version to notice, due to my instant dislike). Playing it had me wondering, how much actual effort would it be to take the storyline from CTW and recreate it as a 3rd person expansion pack for GTAIV? If we take away the side quests and mini games that is. Speaking of mini games, I wasn't all too comfortable with the drug dealing aspect of the game, and a quick scout around the Internet shows that I'm not alone in that feeling. Says a lot about people, that mowing down a line of Hare Krishnas is thoroughly acceptable, but selling crack to a deadbeat is pushing it a bit.
Moving on now. Perfect Dark, in my teenage years, was not so much a game than a religion to me and my friends. Late into the lives of the PS2, XBox and Gamecube, we would still fire up the N64 and crowd around the TV for a few hours of multiplayer action, trying desperately to achieve that fabled 'Perfect: 1' rank (I managed to get as high as 8, but I think one of my friends was at 3).
The game's prequel, Perfect Dark Zero was also a deciding factor in the XBox360 being my first seventh generation games console, and when I got my hands on it I was severely disappointed. It just wasn't the same, and it also made the crime of giving protagonist Joanna Dark an American accent when in the previous game she was English, which always bugs me (it was one of the reasons I didn't like Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but I do plan on trying that again fairly soon, for obvious reasons). I did however discover Oblivion a week later, which I'm still playing now, so my 360 purchase wasn't a complete loss. But needless to say I was delighted when Perfect Dark saw the light of day on the XBLA a couple of weeks ago.
The game remains wholly unchanged, save for the character models and on-screen weapons having an overhaul and the game being given an HD makeover. And that is most definitely a good thing. I must admit I did worry about the controls, as Perfect Dark and it's predecessor GoldenEye 007 were the definitive games for the N64's unconventional joypad, but it still retains the awesome feel of the original game. Clutching at straws, the only negative thing I can say is that all of the character heads have changed, and I can no longer use the character that looked a bit like Timothy Dalton in multiplayer. But Perfect Dark is still the only FPS where the multiplayer even slightly interests me, and the single player experience is probably only surpassed by Half-Life 2 in my eyes. A must have for any 360 owner.
And now, the main event. Just Cause was a game I picked up by chance for a few quid from CEX during a summer gaming drought a couple of years ago, and it ended up being a surprisingly enjoyable game, if a little shallow. After the main storyline's climax though, I quickly lost interest in the side missions, and the main character Rico Rodriguez's mullet and the way he ran like he'd shat himself became a little too noticeable and it ended up back on the shelf, quickly forgotten about.
Then the demo for JC2 resparked my interest a few weeks ago, and on the morning of the 26th of March I skipped off to GAME and picked up a copy of the Limited Edition, bizarrely the same price as the standard one.
Where games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row offer a free-roaming open world, Just Cause 2 throws an absolute playground of... well, for need of a better phrase, a playground of destruction (sorry EA) at you. Your grappling hook, which is one part Spider-Man's web shooter, one part Scorpion of Mortal Kombat's spear and one part the slime tether from Ghostbusters, is just licence to play around. Not only can you fly around the environment, jumping from vehicle to vehicle, pulling pilots from their helicopters' cockpits and causing general chaos, you can also attach things, or people, to each other. Hooking a luckless soldier to a gas canister and shooting the cap off to watch him shoot off into the distance and explode against a rock, or tearing a statue down by roping it to the back of your car, before dragging the head at full pelt towards a foe and pulling a handbrake turn, swinging the detached concrete skull at them like a huge mace and chain.
For those who haven't played the original, Just Cause and it's sequel are easiest compared to the Mercenaries series. Unlike Mercenaries though, the sequel is a huge improvement. That's not to say it's without disappointment though. A few hours in I tried the PS3 exclusive video capture feature, and after it had reached it's capture limit, all of the sound apart from the music had muted, and the right analogue stick had no movement. Luckily, before I deleted my last save file as a last ditch attempt to remedy the problem, I tried deleting my settings file instead, which worked. But the other day, after a mammoth session, the game decided to not save my game (even though I observed the on screen 'saving' message and didn't switch off until it had gone), losing me about five hours of game time. The final straw having been crossed, I cast the game from my PS3 and onto the bottom of my shame pile. But I will say this, Just Cause 2 is the only game I've ever played that features hijackable crashable Boeing 747s and a set of identical adjacent skyscrapers. Ssh, the Daily Mail hasn't noticed yet...
I have started The Saboteur, but haven't had much time with it yet, so check back next week for that, Dissidia: Final Fantasy and possibly (but not definitely) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. And as a parting gift, check this out, 2100 Microsoft Points for £4, thanks to MarkySharky of VideoGameSpace. That should get you those Modern Warfare 2 maps for the price that they are actually worth. Or Perfect Dark, if you're more intelligent. Au revoir.
I picked up the PSP version a few weeks ago (or rather my wife did, as a birthday present for me from the cat, don't ask) during a brief blunder on Play.com where some bright spark deleted the '2' from the £24.99 price tag. It wasn't a game that I particularly wanted, but at the right side of a fiver I couldn't say no.
First thing I noticed while firing it up on the train is that the cell-shading that the DS used to disguise the awful graphics has completely gone, and the visuals have been tidied up a hell of a lot. Purely aesthetic I know, but I'd rather not have to stare at what looks like a very old Sega Saturn game if I can help it. I also blasted the DS screen, for being too small to tell what was happening in games like this (although in their credit, Nintendo have also realised that now with the DSiXL), and the PSP's larger screen really does benefit the game, allowing the camera to zoom out more and give you a better warning when you're about to wrap yourself around a lamp post. So there, the two major gripes with the earlier version are sorted.
The game accomplishes the feel of a true GTA game quite well actually (I hadn't had enough time with the DS version to notice, due to my instant dislike). Playing it had me wondering, how much actual effort would it be to take the storyline from CTW and recreate it as a 3rd person expansion pack for GTAIV? If we take away the side quests and mini games that is. Speaking of mini games, I wasn't all too comfortable with the drug dealing aspect of the game, and a quick scout around the Internet shows that I'm not alone in that feeling. Says a lot about people, that mowing down a line of Hare Krishnas is thoroughly acceptable, but selling crack to a deadbeat is pushing it a bit.
Moving on now. Perfect Dark, in my teenage years, was not so much a game than a religion to me and my friends. Late into the lives of the PS2, XBox and Gamecube, we would still fire up the N64 and crowd around the TV for a few hours of multiplayer action, trying desperately to achieve that fabled 'Perfect: 1' rank (I managed to get as high as 8, but I think one of my friends was at 3).
The game's prequel, Perfect Dark Zero was also a deciding factor in the XBox360 being my first seventh generation games console, and when I got my hands on it I was severely disappointed. It just wasn't the same, and it also made the crime of giving protagonist Joanna Dark an American accent when in the previous game she was English, which always bugs me (it was one of the reasons I didn't like Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, but I do plan on trying that again fairly soon, for obvious reasons). I did however discover Oblivion a week later, which I'm still playing now, so my 360 purchase wasn't a complete loss. But needless to say I was delighted when Perfect Dark saw the light of day on the XBLA a couple of weeks ago.
The game remains wholly unchanged, save for the character models and on-screen weapons having an overhaul and the game being given an HD makeover. And that is most definitely a good thing. I must admit I did worry about the controls, as Perfect Dark and it's predecessor GoldenEye 007 were the definitive games for the N64's unconventional joypad, but it still retains the awesome feel of the original game. Clutching at straws, the only negative thing I can say is that all of the character heads have changed, and I can no longer use the character that looked a bit like Timothy Dalton in multiplayer. But Perfect Dark is still the only FPS where the multiplayer even slightly interests me, and the single player experience is probably only surpassed by Half-Life 2 in my eyes. A must have for any 360 owner.
And now, the main event. Just Cause was a game I picked up by chance for a few quid from CEX during a summer gaming drought a couple of years ago, and it ended up being a surprisingly enjoyable game, if a little shallow. After the main storyline's climax though, I quickly lost interest in the side missions, and the main character Rico Rodriguez's mullet and the way he ran like he'd shat himself became a little too noticeable and it ended up back on the shelf, quickly forgotten about.
Then the demo for JC2 resparked my interest a few weeks ago, and on the morning of the 26th of March I skipped off to GAME and picked up a copy of the Limited Edition, bizarrely the same price as the standard one.
Where games like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row offer a free-roaming open world, Just Cause 2 throws an absolute playground of... well, for need of a better phrase, a playground of destruction (sorry EA) at you. Your grappling hook, which is one part Spider-Man's web shooter, one part Scorpion of Mortal Kombat's spear and one part the slime tether from Ghostbusters, is just licence to play around. Not only can you fly around the environment, jumping from vehicle to vehicle, pulling pilots from their helicopters' cockpits and causing general chaos, you can also attach things, or people, to each other. Hooking a luckless soldier to a gas canister and shooting the cap off to watch him shoot off into the distance and explode against a rock, or tearing a statue down by roping it to the back of your car, before dragging the head at full pelt towards a foe and pulling a handbrake turn, swinging the detached concrete skull at them like a huge mace and chain.
For those who haven't played the original, Just Cause and it's sequel are easiest compared to the Mercenaries series. Unlike Mercenaries though, the sequel is a huge improvement. That's not to say it's without disappointment though. A few hours in I tried the PS3 exclusive video capture feature, and after it had reached it's capture limit, all of the sound apart from the music had muted, and the right analogue stick had no movement. Luckily, before I deleted my last save file as a last ditch attempt to remedy the problem, I tried deleting my settings file instead, which worked. But the other day, after a mammoth session, the game decided to not save my game (even though I observed the on screen 'saving' message and didn't switch off until it had gone), losing me about five hours of game time. The final straw having been crossed, I cast the game from my PS3 and onto the bottom of my shame pile. But I will say this, Just Cause 2 is the only game I've ever played that features hijackable crashable Boeing 747s and a set of identical adjacent skyscrapers. Ssh, the Daily Mail hasn't noticed yet...
I have started The Saboteur, but haven't had much time with it yet, so check back next week for that, Dissidia: Final Fantasy and possibly (but not definitely) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. And as a parting gift, check this out, 2100 Microsoft Points for £4, thanks to MarkySharky of VideoGameSpace. That should get you those Modern Warfare 2 maps for the price that they are actually worth. Or Perfect Dark, if you're more intelligent. Au revoir.
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
This! Is! SPARTA!
Last week I hit a milestone in my life. I turned a quarter of a century old. Officially, by mathematical terms, I'm pushing 30. So, I decided the best course of action was to have a midlife crisis and blow about £200 on videogames to drown my sorrows, and resurrecting my Shame Pile.
First things first though. For my birthday, which was actually last Thursday for anyone interested, my wife bestowed upon me God of War III and The Saboteur, both on PS3, and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, and the cat (allegedly) bought me Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the PSP. I dove straight into God of War III, naturally.
The game starts immediately where we left off, with Kratos leading the Titans in an assault on Mount Olympus. A few betrayals and a lot of blood later and Kratos finds himself back in Hades, and his quest for vengeance truly begins.
I can't really go into things any deeper, as the story hurtles along at an alarming pace and the spoilers flow thick and fast. The gameplay though, is the usual God of War affair, solid fighting, over the top gore and intermittent puzzles and platforming sections. Kratos has picked up a few new moves this time, like the ability to mount and ride larger enemies and lasso flying enemies to cross gaps. He also picks up a few new weapons along the way, most of which are variations of the sharp things on chains theme, but the most effective of all being two huge metal gauntlets, a lot like the ones he used in Chains of Olympus.
I recall a while ago reading a post on Twitter by Mortal Kombat's co-creator Ed Boon, saying he was motion capturing new finishing moves for Mortal Kombat 9, and that he was worried that he was 'going too far'. Seeing what God of War gets away with, I highly doubt it. I've mentioned before the head-ripping and disemboweling, but that's only the icing on the cake. Again, I don't want to spoil too much, but it's the first time I think I've seen eye-gouging in a videogame. And I even felt like looking away as Kratos dispatched with dear old brother Hercules...
The last thing I really want to talk about is the visuals. Graphically, GoWIII is a triumph, pretty much the most beautiful game I've ever seen. After playing Heavy Rain a month ago, and Uncharted 2 just before Christmas, that compliment is given far more weight too.
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines was my back-up title this week, for when the wife was on Oblivion. The PSP-only game serves as a true sequel to the first Assassin's Creed, following what Altair did next, namely stalking the Templars to Cyprus. Not much really happens, apart from our hero repeatedly bumping into Maria Thorpe, the Templar that got away (and evidently from a flashback in ACII, future Mrs. Ibn-La'Ahad, if she can pronounce it).
It's strongest point is that, unlike the two AC games on the DS, Bloodlines looks and plays like a proper AC, more specifically the first one. Being set in the same time period, and in a similar locale, the architecture is more or less the same. The gameplay has been somewhat simplified, shaving a few of Altair's moves off to cram it all into a UMD, including, bafflingly, his diving assassination move, which is one of the most useful moves in the other game. The free climbing though, one of the series' major positive points for me, remains unchanged.
Another good aspect of the game is that the boss characters are unique, not just reskinned guards like in the other games. They fight with signiature weapons, like a ball-and-chain, or sharpened fingernails, and also trigger different counter moves.
I suppose the worst thing about Bloodlines is the fact that the city streets aren't as bustling as the ones in it's parent games, but that is fully understandable given that the game is running on a machine with a fraction of the power of a PS3 or an XBox 360. Overall, it's a very good game for the system, harshly received because it can't live up to it's expectations.
Okay, I'll keep it brief for the remainder. Next on the newly formed Pile of Shame was a game I missed out on but have always been interested in: Velvet Assassin. Oh good god, it's bad. The game is a 'True Story' about an MI6 spy behind enemy lines in World War II. She conveniently loses her equipment at the start of the game, and quips about how it won't hold her back, even though it does. It really fucking does. A quick look on Wikipedia shows that this World War II game about a British agent was actually developed by a German company, Replay Studios, which might explain why she's armed with a toothpick and a nasty look, and the Germans are all superhuman cyborgs or something. Either way, sporadic checkpoints and trial-and-error gameplay make this game completely not worth playing.
And I've spent a bit of time getting to grips with The King of Fighters XII on PS3 this week. A look at some YouTube videos shows just how impressive this game can look in the right hands, but I was brought up on the simpler Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat 2D games, so it was distinctly more boring while I was playing. Admittedly though, the hand drawn two dimensional graphics were absolutely beautiful, although a bit pixelated compared to Super Street Fighter II HD Remix. A highlight for my immature mind was being told to 'choose my member' at the character select screen. I can't give the game a bad write up due to my own inadequacy though, and I'm sure that in the capable paws of a seasoned fighting game fan it's fantastic. But it's not exactly going to get in between me and Super Street Fighter IV in a month's time.
Check back next week for Just Cause 2, GTA Chinatown Wars and The Saboteur!
First things first though. For my birthday, which was actually last Thursday for anyone interested, my wife bestowed upon me God of War III and The Saboteur, both on PS3, and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, and the cat (allegedly) bought me Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the PSP. I dove straight into God of War III, naturally.
The game starts immediately where we left off, with Kratos leading the Titans in an assault on Mount Olympus. A few betrayals and a lot of blood later and Kratos finds himself back in Hades, and his quest for vengeance truly begins.
I can't really go into things any deeper, as the story hurtles along at an alarming pace and the spoilers flow thick and fast. The gameplay though, is the usual God of War affair, solid fighting, over the top gore and intermittent puzzles and platforming sections. Kratos has picked up a few new moves this time, like the ability to mount and ride larger enemies and lasso flying enemies to cross gaps. He also picks up a few new weapons along the way, most of which are variations of the sharp things on chains theme, but the most effective of all being two huge metal gauntlets, a lot like the ones he used in Chains of Olympus.
I recall a while ago reading a post on Twitter by Mortal Kombat's co-creator Ed Boon, saying he was motion capturing new finishing moves for Mortal Kombat 9, and that he was worried that he was 'going too far'. Seeing what God of War gets away with, I highly doubt it. I've mentioned before the head-ripping and disemboweling, but that's only the icing on the cake. Again, I don't want to spoil too much, but it's the first time I think I've seen eye-gouging in a videogame. And I even felt like looking away as Kratos dispatched with dear old brother Hercules...
The last thing I really want to talk about is the visuals. Graphically, GoWIII is a triumph, pretty much the most beautiful game I've ever seen. After playing Heavy Rain a month ago, and Uncharted 2 just before Christmas, that compliment is given far more weight too.
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines was my back-up title this week, for when the wife was on Oblivion. The PSP-only game serves as a true sequel to the first Assassin's Creed, following what Altair did next, namely stalking the Templars to Cyprus. Not much really happens, apart from our hero repeatedly bumping into Maria Thorpe, the Templar that got away (and evidently from a flashback in ACII, future Mrs. Ibn-La'Ahad, if she can pronounce it).
It's strongest point is that, unlike the two AC games on the DS, Bloodlines looks and plays like a proper AC, more specifically the first one. Being set in the same time period, and in a similar locale, the architecture is more or less the same. The gameplay has been somewhat simplified, shaving a few of Altair's moves off to cram it all into a UMD, including, bafflingly, his diving assassination move, which is one of the most useful moves in the other game. The free climbing though, one of the series' major positive points for me, remains unchanged.
Another good aspect of the game is that the boss characters are unique, not just reskinned guards like in the other games. They fight with signiature weapons, like a ball-and-chain, or sharpened fingernails, and also trigger different counter moves.
I suppose the worst thing about Bloodlines is the fact that the city streets aren't as bustling as the ones in it's parent games, but that is fully understandable given that the game is running on a machine with a fraction of the power of a PS3 or an XBox 360. Overall, it's a very good game for the system, harshly received because it can't live up to it's expectations.
Okay, I'll keep it brief for the remainder. Next on the newly formed Pile of Shame was a game I missed out on but have always been interested in: Velvet Assassin. Oh good god, it's bad. The game is a 'True Story' about an MI6 spy behind enemy lines in World War II. She conveniently loses her equipment at the start of the game, and quips about how it won't hold her back, even though it does. It really fucking does. A quick look on Wikipedia shows that this World War II game about a British agent was actually developed by a German company, Replay Studios, which might explain why she's armed with a toothpick and a nasty look, and the Germans are all superhuman cyborgs or something. Either way, sporadic checkpoints and trial-and-error gameplay make this game completely not worth playing.
And I've spent a bit of time getting to grips with The King of Fighters XII on PS3 this week. A look at some YouTube videos shows just how impressive this game can look in the right hands, but I was brought up on the simpler Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat 2D games, so it was distinctly more boring while I was playing. Admittedly though, the hand drawn two dimensional graphics were absolutely beautiful, although a bit pixelated compared to Super Street Fighter II HD Remix. A highlight for my immature mind was being told to 'choose my member' at the character select screen. I can't give the game a bad write up due to my own inadequacy though, and I'm sure that in the capable paws of a seasoned fighting game fan it's fantastic. But it's not exactly going to get in between me and Super Street Fighter IV in a month's time.
Check back next week for Just Cause 2, GTA Chinatown Wars and The Saboteur!
Friday, 18 September 2009
What's that saying? Fortune Favours the bold? Yeah, right. Lucky me.
Another week, another blog post.
I've actually got very little to write about this week. After finishing Arkham I went on to start Grand Theft Auto IV from scratch, in anticipation of Episodes from Liberty City, as I haven't actually gotten around to playing The Lost and The Damned yet due to me buying GTAIV on the PS3. Got as far as the second major island now, and have a choice between doing Brucie's infuriatingly hard street race mission, or Elizabeta's infuriatingly hard grabbing-coke-from-old-hospital mission.
And that's my major gaming for the week covered. Downloading a multiplayer beta of Uncharted 2 as we speak, at 89%, which I'm very interested in. Should it reach 100% before the blog is through, I'll break off and try it. Also saw the Uncharted 2 GamesCom 09 trailer that was put on the PSN store last night, and it looks very special. In fact, after this blog is over I'm gonna update my PS3 to 3.01 and play through Drake's Fortune for a third time. 94%.
And that's about it. I managed to acquire a copy of Metroid Prime 3 for nothing the other day from a friend who no longer owns a Wii, I should think about playing the first 2 really. And I saw an old lady who looked like Udnaut Wrex from Mass Effect the other day, which was hilarious. Oh, and I got the other two Dynamic Themes on the PS3. The MotorStorm one is just some douchebag walking around his buggy, but the Little Big Planet one is fantastic. And I've seen the Afrika one that is only available on the Japanese PSN store, and it's great too, if you like Zebras, which I do. They are like horses but with built in Magic Eye. Until someone invents a cow with an Etch-a-Sketch built in, that's the best were getting. Or a Game Boy Advance Pig. Ooh, my Uncharted 2 beta's finished. BRB.
Well, it was entertaining. We were playing a match which was limited to pistols and sniper rifles, so just sniper rifles really, I was on the losing side, achieving the second lowest kill count and I wasn't playing with anyone I know, but I still enjoyed it. Might persuade a few of my friends to preorder with Play.com and cancel their order once the code comes through.
And on that I'm out. No blog post next week as I'll be on holiday, looking at sharks and gracing the slot machines of our beloved coast. Think something else is happening too, can't quite remember ;). See you in two weeks.
I've actually got very little to write about this week. After finishing Arkham I went on to start Grand Theft Auto IV from scratch, in anticipation of Episodes from Liberty City, as I haven't actually gotten around to playing The Lost and The Damned yet due to me buying GTAIV on the PS3. Got as far as the second major island now, and have a choice between doing Brucie's infuriatingly hard street race mission, or Elizabeta's infuriatingly hard grabbing-coke-from-old-hospital mission.
And that's my major gaming for the week covered. Downloading a multiplayer beta of Uncharted 2 as we speak, at 89%, which I'm very interested in. Should it reach 100% before the blog is through, I'll break off and try it. Also saw the Uncharted 2 GamesCom 09 trailer that was put on the PSN store last night, and it looks very special. In fact, after this blog is over I'm gonna update my PS3 to 3.01 and play through Drake's Fortune for a third time. 94%.
And that's about it. I managed to acquire a copy of Metroid Prime 3 for nothing the other day from a friend who no longer owns a Wii, I should think about playing the first 2 really. And I saw an old lady who looked like Udnaut Wrex from Mass Effect the other day, which was hilarious. Oh, and I got the other two Dynamic Themes on the PS3. The MotorStorm one is just some douchebag walking around his buggy, but the Little Big Planet one is fantastic. And I've seen the Afrika one that is only available on the Japanese PSN store, and it's great too, if you like Zebras, which I do. They are like horses but with built in Magic Eye. Until someone invents a cow with an Etch-a-Sketch built in, that's the best were getting. Or a Game Boy Advance Pig. Ooh, my Uncharted 2 beta's finished. BRB.
Well, it was entertaining. We were playing a match which was limited to pistols and sniper rifles, so just sniper rifles really, I was on the losing side, achieving the second lowest kill count and I wasn't playing with anyone I know, but I still enjoyed it. Might persuade a few of my friends to preorder with Play.com and cancel their order once the code comes through.
And on that I'm out. No blog post next week as I'll be on holiday, looking at sharks and gracing the slot machines of our beloved coast. Think something else is happening too, can't quite remember ;). See you in two weeks.
Friday, 31 July 2009
You were almost a Jill sandwich!
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?
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?
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