Well, it's not been a full week since I last posted so not much has gone on.
I finished Killzone, it was entertaining to the end and a surprisingly long game too. Suddenly realised while playing that the Helghast were actually an entire army of cloned Alan Partridges, which made the game infinitely more fun. Although now I have an unsettling urge to kill Steve Coogan.
Killzone 2 was the order of the day straight after that, and it's fucking fantastic. People complain about the clunky feel, but I like it. And the cover system is great too. Beats the shit out of Gears of War's.
One problem I had with the first Killzone is that the enemies didn't really feel evil. Seemed to me that they had been oppressed a bit, and very British. And they never swore either. Compared to the ISA, who were kill-crazy arseholes bickering amongst themselves, who gave the impression that they couldn't out-think a jam sandwich, they didn't seem that bad.
In Killzone 2, they're foul-mouthed violent bastards though, and tougher than a Boxing Day turd. Killing them doesn't seem so bad. The ISA are still D-Bags though.
I tweeted about a problem my girlfriend had with Oblivion earlier in the week, allow me to explain, with possible spoilers. In the quest "Lost Histories", you have to get a job in a prison to give you access to a prisoner, Amusei, as the guard won't let you see him. You can't pick the lock and sneak in undetected, as the guard is looking right at the door. After that you find him gone and have to follow a trail of blood through a secret doorway. Anyway, the guy who gives you the job decided to throw himself from a bridge and die, which stopped her in her tracks. At a loss, she handed me the Dual Shock 3 and went in the bath.
After a bit of pondering, inspiration struck. I spoke to the guard, gave him some (of her) cash until his disposition was maxed at 83, and then went and picked the lock with the Skeleton Key. Before he got me, I dropped all of my armour and weapons outside the cell, then picked the lock of the cell and ran inside, dropping the Skeleton Key on the floor. The guard followed me into the cell, and I yielded, which worked as he liked me so much. He then tried to arrest me again, and I chose to go to jail.
Now because the guard was in the cell with me, he just unlocked the door and walked out, leaving it open for me to collect all my gear and escape through the secret door! Hurrah! I got Amusei, killed the Pale Woman and made like Maiq the Liar and got the fuck out of there. When Amusei was safely outside of the prison, I turned myself back in to the guards and did my time, to avoid their wrath the next time I was in town. And it's the way that you can do things like that that makes Oblivion and Fallout 3 awesome.
Bethesda aren't all good though, I tried the demo for Wet the other day and it's fucking disgustingly awful. And I can't quite explain why, it's just ugly, boring and repetitive. Stranglehold or Max Payne please. Also tried the demo for Colin McRae DiRT 2, and it is actually dirt. It's more like a Tony Hawk game in presentation, and gameplay wise Motorstorm does it much better. It's definately not the homage to Colin McRae that was promised. In fact, if I was related to Colin, I'd be pretty pissed. Downloaded the Dissidia demo today, but not had time to try it yet. Will Tweet with the verdict.
In other news, seeing as my PS2 has been re-promoted to the house's main gaming set up (with all the current gen consoles and the, ahem, Megadrive), I decided that wired pads had to go. I bought a Mad Catz Wireless Micro-Con from Play.com. Or at least that was the plan, I opted to go for the slightly cheaper one from a Play Trade seller, and when it turned up today it turned out to be a full size Mad Catz controller, and instead of being black like in the picture it was transparent blue. Blue is my favourite colour, so it's not a major problem, but black would have matched the aesthetic better. At least it's wireless, that's the main thing. Haven't tried it yet due to no AAA batteries, but I had a wired Mad Catz controller on my XBox which I actually preferred to the official S pad, and it uses 2.4 ghz radio waves as opposed to the shitty infra red wireless pad I had before, so I know I'll be impressed anyway. Wow, this actually turned out to be a pretty long post.
Friday, 28 August 2009
Sunday, 23 August 2009
What the fuck is a Shakespeare?
OMG. late post, sorry.
First things first, I finished No More Heroes. The game got very tedious later on, even more so than when it started. There were a few shining moments when it ended though, like the reference to Duke Nukem Forever.
There's a section near the end where a cutscene is played in fast forward, to avoid it's rather adult nature, and as I went on YouTube to watch it slowed down I discovered the glorious violence that was featured in the NTSC release. So I re-watched the whole game's cutscenes. Taking away the violence from the game, as over the top as it was, actually took away the Tarantino-esque style of it, and I'm confident that the game would be more enjoyable for me had it been left in.
After that, I moved on Viking: Battle for Asgard, and after an hour and a half of running around in circles and not achieving anything, I gave up. It had the same problems for me as Morrowind and Two Worlds, not explaining my tasks enough and just dropping me in the dark. And when I did venture out into the harsh world, I was faced with literally armies of enemies, not standing a chance on my own. Sensing that I was looking at another Overlord, where I was dependant on my colleagues, I stopped right there.
God of War II was next on my list, and I quickly polished it off. It was enjoyable from start to finish, but I'm going to have a hard time parting with 40 beans for GoWIII if it takes three days to finish like it's three prequels. Three three three.
And so it's on to Killzone. For those of you who missed it, it's about a war between the earth's forces: The ISA (one letter away from USA), who are made up by the biggest D-Bags that America has to offer, and the Helghast (quite similar to Helmand, a province in Afghanistan), who are English. And MONSTERS. They are also pretty much the Nazi Party.
The game is great, all annoyances aside. There are problems, like the one-dimensional characters and repetitive speech ("COOOOOOME OOOOOOON!"), but all things considered it's a good game. The characters, not unlike Gears of War, are taken straight from that paint-by-numbers buddy war game/film hand book. There's all round great guy, token woman who may have a thing with great guy, angry wise-cracking and foul mouthed black guy and member of the opposition working for you as a spy and who's trustworthiness is questionable. His name is Hakha, by the way, and he's also a hacker. And all of them are able to use a variety of weaponry expertly, yet can't jump or open doors. Standard. But I am enjoying the game immensely. Take comfort, Sony, in knowing that at least I prefer Killzone to Halo.
First things first, I finished No More Heroes. The game got very tedious later on, even more so than when it started. There were a few shining moments when it ended though, like the reference to Duke Nukem Forever.
There's a section near the end where a cutscene is played in fast forward, to avoid it's rather adult nature, and as I went on YouTube to watch it slowed down I discovered the glorious violence that was featured in the NTSC release. So I re-watched the whole game's cutscenes. Taking away the violence from the game, as over the top as it was, actually took away the Tarantino-esque style of it, and I'm confident that the game would be more enjoyable for me had it been left in.
After that, I moved on Viking: Battle for Asgard, and after an hour and a half of running around in circles and not achieving anything, I gave up. It had the same problems for me as Morrowind and Two Worlds, not explaining my tasks enough and just dropping me in the dark. And when I did venture out into the harsh world, I was faced with literally armies of enemies, not standing a chance on my own. Sensing that I was looking at another Overlord, where I was dependant on my colleagues, I stopped right there.
God of War II was next on my list, and I quickly polished it off. It was enjoyable from start to finish, but I'm going to have a hard time parting with 40 beans for GoWIII if it takes three days to finish like it's three prequels. Three three three.
And so it's on to Killzone. For those of you who missed it, it's about a war between the earth's forces: The ISA (one letter away from USA), who are made up by the biggest D-Bags that America has to offer, and the Helghast (quite similar to Helmand, a province in Afghanistan), who are English. And MONSTERS. They are also pretty much the Nazi Party.
The game is great, all annoyances aside. There are problems, like the one-dimensional characters and repetitive speech ("COOOOOOME OOOOOOON!"), but all things considered it's a good game. The characters, not unlike Gears of War, are taken straight from that paint-by-numbers buddy war game/film hand book. There's all round great guy, token woman who may have a thing with great guy, angry wise-cracking and foul mouthed black guy and member of the opposition working for you as a spy and who's trustworthiness is questionable. His name is Hakha, by the way, and he's also a hacker. And all of them are able to use a variety of weaponry expertly, yet can't jump or open doors. Standard. But I am enjoying the game immensely. Take comfort, Sony, in knowing that at least I prefer Killzone to Halo.
Friday, 14 August 2009
Gonna take you for a ride...
Since I last posted I had a bit of a sit down with Dark Sector. While my previous complaints stand, something within me just popped and I started to really enjoy it. Might have been helped by the fact that I switched to my wired pad, thus removing the aforementioned problems involved, might have been that my expectations had descended so much that even the slightest positive event seemed monumental in comparison, who knows? Either way, I played it to completion, surprising even myself.
Another thing to note is that I didn't install it to my XBox 360's HDD, and the game didn't crash once. I think it's the only 360 game I've ever played not to do so without install.
As cash flow is tight right now, I've erected a 'Pile of Shame', games that I've had and never completed or in some cases even played. Dark Sector was at the top, followed by No More Heroes, Viking: Battle for Asgard, God of War II, Killzone, Killzone 2, SoulCalibur Legends, Alone in the Dark, Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Wii and Beowulf: The Game. Some Grade-A shit there, I know.
So after Dark Sector's fairly anticlimactic conclusion (I won't ruin the ending, not that there's anything to ruin), I moved on to No More Heroes. The absolute level of bewilderment I experience while playing this game is unfathomable. I'm at the 8th rank, having defeated three other assassins, so about 25% through the story, and I still don't get it. The garbled mistranslated dialog really doesn't help matters either, and I'm still trying to work out why having a shit enables you to save your game. Madness.
As for the gameplay, the combat sequences are really fun and energetic, but it's the bits in between that kind of ruin it. The game forces you into doing mini games and side quests to raise money to take part in assassinations, in a similar way to Saints Row's respect meter. That's right, you have to pay a fee to do your job. And when you complete the assassination, you get paid less than what you started with. I'd consider a career change. So between assassinations, the game is a bit of a chore. And the sandbox area is redundant too, the town is about as big as your average country village, with hardly any traffic or pedestrians wandering round. You can't hurt the pedestrians, steal cars or anything fun, so what's the point? Anyway, it's £6.99 new at Morrison's right now, and it's probably worth that. Maybe my opinions will change again.
After what seemed like an eternity, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is finally available on the PSN store. Seeing as my PS2 version crashes all the time and the Dreamcast's D-Pad is spastic, I stretched to the 12 quid price tag. Either I got shit at it, or it got harder, because even on the second fight I got my ass handed to me by Rogue, on easy at that. I found Street Fighter II HD Remix a lot harder than Hyper Street Fighter II though, so it might just be that they've made the downloadable games harder to keep the arcade feel.
And to finish off, a mate of mine picked up Tomb Raider: Underworld on the Wii, and informed me of a horrific game breaking glitch where a swinging pole actually disappears from the level, and thee only way to get it back is to restart the level, assuming you have a save from the previous level. He didn't, and thus had to restart the game entirely. Oh dear.
Another thing to note is that I didn't install it to my XBox 360's HDD, and the game didn't crash once. I think it's the only 360 game I've ever played not to do so without install.
As cash flow is tight right now, I've erected a 'Pile of Shame', games that I've had and never completed or in some cases even played. Dark Sector was at the top, followed by No More Heroes, Viking: Battle for Asgard, God of War II, Killzone, Killzone 2, SoulCalibur Legends, Alone in the Dark, Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Wii and Beowulf: The Game. Some Grade-A shit there, I know.
So after Dark Sector's fairly anticlimactic conclusion (I won't ruin the ending, not that there's anything to ruin), I moved on to No More Heroes. The absolute level of bewilderment I experience while playing this game is unfathomable. I'm at the 8th rank, having defeated three other assassins, so about 25% through the story, and I still don't get it. The garbled mistranslated dialog really doesn't help matters either, and I'm still trying to work out why having a shit enables you to save your game. Madness.
As for the gameplay, the combat sequences are really fun and energetic, but it's the bits in between that kind of ruin it. The game forces you into doing mini games and side quests to raise money to take part in assassinations, in a similar way to Saints Row's respect meter. That's right, you have to pay a fee to do your job. And when you complete the assassination, you get paid less than what you started with. I'd consider a career change. So between assassinations, the game is a bit of a chore. And the sandbox area is redundant too, the town is about as big as your average country village, with hardly any traffic or pedestrians wandering round. You can't hurt the pedestrians, steal cars or anything fun, so what's the point? Anyway, it's £6.99 new at Morrison's right now, and it's probably worth that. Maybe my opinions will change again.
After what seemed like an eternity, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is finally available on the PSN store. Seeing as my PS2 version crashes all the time and the Dreamcast's D-Pad is spastic, I stretched to the 12 quid price tag. Either I got shit at it, or it got harder, because even on the second fight I got my ass handed to me by Rogue, on easy at that. I found Street Fighter II HD Remix a lot harder than Hyper Street Fighter II though, so it might just be that they've made the downloadable games harder to keep the arcade feel.
And to finish off, a mate of mine picked up Tomb Raider: Underworld on the Wii, and informed me of a horrific game breaking glitch where a swinging pole actually disappears from the level, and thee only way to get it back is to restart the level, assuming you have a save from the previous level. He didn't, and thus had to restart the game entirely. Oh dear.
Friday, 7 August 2009
Where does he get those wonderful toys?
I didn't go on to play any of those games right away, instead opting to play Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. I know, I know, more Resi. Well believe me, this has put me off for now. When I play a Lightgun Shooter, I expect to be able to shoot as fast as I can pull the trigger. On Umbrella, you fire one bullet for every four or five pulls, it shoots at the same speed as a pistol would in one of the old Resi games. If I can pull a trigger that fast, then so can a trained member of a Special Forces team. And this is a game-killing problem, believe me.
The game also had me struggling with whether it's canon or not. The bits based on older games most definitely aren't. It was cool seeing what Wesker was up to though, and playing as him too. And the end of Umbrella Section was okay-ish, even if all of the monsters created exclusively for the game looked arse.
Imagine a world where the slightest tap of the left analogue stick sends you legging it into a wall. Imagine a world where enemies are hit square in the head with a giant spinning shuriken, and just shrug it off. Imagine a world where you can still hear the rain falling after it's stopped. This is no ordinary world. This is Dark Sector's world.
What an absolute shambles. I only started playing last night, so I'm still in the 'benefit of the doubt' phase, although in the hour or so that I played it I got through three chapters, and if the Achievements are anything to go by there are only 9 or 10. My wireless 360 pad has a small fault, in that if the left stick is slightly to the left, it sticks. Normally this isn't a problem, because when it happens your character just slowly shifts across. But Dark Sector only has two speeds; walk fast and leg it. So if I'm behind a wall reloading or something, and accidentally knock the stick, the floppy haired prick just strolls out into a hail of bullets. And respawning enemies in this day and age?
Which brings me to another thing. The cover spots are so obviously placed for a reason, that after you've shot an enemy using one, a new one will appear and run over to the exact same spot. In a gunfight you might as well just line up your crosshairs, sellotape down the right trigger and go read a book or something.
The game is basically the outcome of Gears of War having a drunken one night stand with Resi 4, who then went on to do a lot of crack throughout the pregnancy. Whilst on holiday in Corby. But I'm reserving judgement.
I tried out the Trial version of TMNT Re-Shelled on XBox Live Arcade last night, and it's actually really good. The game still has a very old-school feel, and captures the essence of the old cartoons perfectly, Pizza obsessions and Cowabungas intact. during the trial I had run-ins with a super-size General Krang and Baxter Stockman, and the memories came flooding back. I will be purchasing at some point.
Also, I've just finished the Arkham Asylum demo on PS3, and it's good. Not excellent, but good. The camera view is a bit too close, and Bruce's pointy head always takes up about a quarter of the screen. And, while Mark Hamill is amazing as always as The Joker (ZOMG it's not Heath Ledger he was definitive!!!!!1), Kevin Conroy's heart doesn't seem to be in it fully. Also, the inmates make the Genome Soldiers from Metal Gear seem like they have perfect 20/20 vision, as I was able to sneak up on one virtually from right in front of him. Let's hope Eidos sort this things out before release, but I'm sure they won't this close to the day. Two weeks today boys and girls.
The game also had me struggling with whether it's canon or not. The bits based on older games most definitely aren't. It was cool seeing what Wesker was up to though, and playing as him too. And the end of Umbrella Section was okay-ish, even if all of the monsters created exclusively for the game looked arse.
Imagine a world where the slightest tap of the left analogue stick sends you legging it into a wall. Imagine a world where enemies are hit square in the head with a giant spinning shuriken, and just shrug it off. Imagine a world where you can still hear the rain falling after it's stopped. This is no ordinary world. This is Dark Sector's world.
What an absolute shambles. I only started playing last night, so I'm still in the 'benefit of the doubt' phase, although in the hour or so that I played it I got through three chapters, and if the Achievements are anything to go by there are only 9 or 10. My wireless 360 pad has a small fault, in that if the left stick is slightly to the left, it sticks. Normally this isn't a problem, because when it happens your character just slowly shifts across. But Dark Sector only has two speeds; walk fast and leg it. So if I'm behind a wall reloading or something, and accidentally knock the stick, the floppy haired prick just strolls out into a hail of bullets. And respawning enemies in this day and age?
Which brings me to another thing. The cover spots are so obviously placed for a reason, that after you've shot an enemy using one, a new one will appear and run over to the exact same spot. In a gunfight you might as well just line up your crosshairs, sellotape down the right trigger and go read a book or something.
The game is basically the outcome of Gears of War having a drunken one night stand with Resi 4, who then went on to do a lot of crack throughout the pregnancy. Whilst on holiday in Corby. But I'm reserving judgement.
I tried out the Trial version of TMNT Re-Shelled on XBox Live Arcade last night, and it's actually really good. The game still has a very old-school feel, and captures the essence of the old cartoons perfectly, Pizza obsessions and Cowabungas intact. during the trial I had run-ins with a super-size General Krang and Baxter Stockman, and the memories came flooding back. I will be purchasing at some point.
Also, I've just finished the Arkham Asylum demo on PS3, and it's good. Not excellent, but good. The camera view is a bit too close, and Bruce's pointy head always takes up about a quarter of the screen. And, while Mark Hamill is amazing as always as The Joker (ZOMG it's not Heath Ledger he was definitive!!!!!1), Kevin Conroy's heart doesn't seem to be in it fully. Also, the inmates make the Genome Soldiers from Metal Gear seem like they have perfect 20/20 vision, as I was able to sneak up on one virtually from right in front of him. Let's hope Eidos sort this things out before release, but I'm sure they won't this close to the day. Two weeks today boys and girls.
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