We don't speak anymore of War...

As an avid Mortal Kombat fan and an avid God of War fan, I saw last weekend's new trailer for the upcoming Mortal Kombat game unveiling Kratos as a guest character, and promptly went mad. Heading over to the old Mortal Kombat forum that I used to frequent a while back, I found that, to no surprise whatsoever, the franchise's 'fanbase' were less than happy, as they have been for every new MK release since I joined the boards, back in the days of MK: Deadly Alliance.

Upon telling them all they were overreacting, as a response to one guy trolling the threads with Kratos spam-hate and another hypochondriac claiming that this single character addition, who might I add has no bearing on the storyline whatsoever and is simply there as an Easter Egg, had sent the 'good' (obviously ignoring the sales figures and the fans' own reactions to the series for the past decade or so) name of Mortal Kombat 'down the drain', I was informed that I have 'no respect for the series' that I have followed since the age of seven, and have bought and still own at least one copy of each game in the series in some form or another. So, I feel prompted to write in support of Kratos' appearance.

Financially, we'll begin with. Kratos himself is a household name. He's starred in six of his own games over four systems (look it up, there was a GoW for Mobile Phones), and made cameos in others such as LittleBigPlanet, Modnation Racers, Heavenly Sword (in a fashion) and SoulCalibur. Despite being a PlayStation-exclusive series, each God of War game has drastically outsold the Mortal Kombat that was released nearest to it's own date. So really, it's an honour that such a high-profile name should make it into a series which has fallen so far, and the GoW fans it will draw into MK, which no doubt greatly outnumber it's own fans (who all seem to hate the games anyway), will help ensure financial success and spur WB Games into funding the continuation of the series. But of course, if Mr. Ed Boon wants to make any money out of the game, then he's instantly a sellout.

Right then, my second point. Kratos fits in with the Mortal Kombat universe. I'm hard pressed to think of another videogame protagonist that is as brutal and visceral as the War God himself, and MK seems to be trying to push the boundaries of violence and brutality with the new release. Not only that, but Kratos is on a mission to destroy the Gods, and MK features no less than three Gods as playable characters throughout the series. In SoulCalibur he was potentially wasted, because of the lack of gore, and he didn't fit in with the uber-clean and shiny look of an eastern-made game. MK has both bases covered.

It's come to my attention that since the Kratos bombshell dropped, Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski and Mark Rein have showed interest in slapping a Gears of War character into the 360 version, which is sure to rub salt into the wounds of the pent-up masses. I'm hoping for the Cole Train, not only do I love him almost as much as Kratos, but his carefree, comic relief attitude is sure to ruffle the feathers of many a rectally clenched MK 'purist'. I can't wait.

So, as a little bit of fun, I set up a petition urging David Jaffe to include our beloved Kratos in every game he possibly can from now on. I would love to see him manually decapitating a Chimera in Resistance 3, applying sandal to Hig in Killzone 3, high fiving Lara Croft after helping her uncover some ancient Greek treasure or kicking back and relaxing after disemboweling the Grim Reaper for trying to interfere with his indoor barbeque in the next expansion pack for The Sims 3. You can view and sign the petition here, so go for it, just for a laugh. Get your pets to sign it too, and your gran, she loves a bit of dismemberment.

And to sign out, I thought I'd prepare a little something for you guys.

Not the biggest MK collection going, but not bad for someone who has no respect for the series. See you guys later.

Carry on camping! - 24 Hour Gamer hits the fields...

Yes, this last weekend has seen Me, Trev and our respective other 'alves Susie and Katie took to the North Yorkshire Moors with nothing but a few canvas sheets and grim determination on our side. As usual, gaming was involved, but the weekend wasn't limited to that alone. So without further ado, our weekend.

SATURDAY, 25/9/10: Here I am, Rock you like a Hurricane...

The ride over to Whitby went without fault, aside from the customary return to Sheffield 10 minutes into the journey to lock the front door, but that's a given. It wasn't until we were around three quarters of the way there that the sky turned a threatening shade of grey, and by the time we'd got there our moorland home for the weekend had seen a fair amount of rain and the wind was blowing at over 30 miles per hour, making tent-pitching a bit of a nightmare to say the least. We picked a spot behind a group with a large trailer-tent, hoping that it might provide a bit of shelter from the elements, and after three hours of wrestling with tents and a quick change out of our mud-soaked clothes, we headed into Scarborough, only to hit a fresh disaster when Katie's car dropped dead as we were looking for a parking spot.

Mechanic called and dinner eaten in a local pub (in which a guy at the bar was knee-deep in Just Cause 2 on his laptop), the four of us headed down to the sea front, where Trev and I quickly ducked into the amusements. Unable to coax Trev into a game on Guitar Hero Arcade, we ended up taking up arms against a bunch of not-extinct-enough dinosaurs in Primeval Hunt, a light gun shooter from experts in the field (if ever there were) Sega. The game is centered around hunting certain species of dinosaur in the way a big game hunter would hunt an animal nowadays, stalking them through the undergrowth and taking them down. Of course this comes with an element of danger, one example of which was when a boisterous Triceratops took offense to being shot up the arsehole and charged, and in the later hunts a few unwanted guests arrive in the form of the ever-present Spielbergian T Rexes and Velociraptors, the former of which arrived twice and were taken out with a rocket to the head from each of us.

The weapon in the players' hands in Primeval Hunt is a pump-action shotgun, which can also double up as a rifle and a crossbow in-game, and the guns feature speakers in the barrels to give realism. And to give the game a free-roaming quality, the arcade cab featured a touch-screen map near the shotgun holsters which we could use to pinpoint and travel to our prey. Overall it was an excellent shooter, really fun and the guns were as accurate as they come, especially for shotties. The game is screaming out for a Wii conversion, and the Shotgun layout is perfectly suited to the Wii Zapper, the front trigger of which could double up as the reload pump and the Nunchuck's Z button could be used to fire. Throw in DS connectivity for the touch-screen and they'd be on to a winner. I'd get it on release anyway.

After a quick stint on the 2p pusher machines bore fruit by dropping me a Mario plush and some creepy racist-looking Voodoo Doll, we headed off to get a taxi back too our blustery haven, where we were delighted to find that our tents were mostly still there, and after a brief bonding session with a lovely bloke in a camper van who pulled in next to us for the night (of who's luxury we were definitely not jealous), we spent a few hours drinking in Trev's tent before retiring to our beds, where Trev found that playing Half-Minute Hero in a monsoon isn't particularly possible, and Susie and I were kept awake all night by the drunk Geordie bastards in the trailer-tent.

SUNDAY, 26/9/10: Come with me if you want to live...

We awoke to find that the wind had died down quite a lot overnight, although it had had it's toll on our tents, both of which had suffered pole damage and ours was starting to come apart at the seams. Unfazed, we headed into Whitby early for breakfast, where we made a hasty retreat from the cafe we settled on after they undercharged us by about a fiver. The more astute among you will notice that on this day last year I was actually getting married in Whitby, so the wife and I had planned to have our dinner at the Magpie cafe, our favourite eatery in the town. But unfortunately, it's everyone else's favourite too, for good reason, and neither of us really felt like queueing to get in. So we carried on along the seafront, and Trev and myself once again found ourselves in the amusements as the girls had a walk down to the beach.

We found a dusty old Time Crisis 2 cab in the back of one arcade, and had a couple of goes on that, where Trev got his own back after my domination on Primeval Hunt by handling the game like a pro, after I waited ages at the start of the game for my 'turn', forgetting about the foot pedal that pops you out from behind cover, and then spent the rest of the game catching bullets and missiles with my face. We pondered the other machines, and looked for another Primeval Hunt machine unsuccessfully. When Susie and Katie returned, The ladies had a go on Ford Racing: Full Blown (which, once again, I've been instructed to mention that Susie won), while I once again donned my hunting cap for the more conventional Big Buck Hunter. The game has more or less the same premise as PH, just with more likely prey and a lack of touch screen. I chose to hunt the moose, and did pretty well, again sparking a stampede after shooting a buck up the arsehole. After passing all of the trials, I was treated to a bonus round shooting turkeys, of which only four out of the whole 25 escaped my pump-action retribution. The shotgun really is my weapon of choice.

Following that, my wife and I celebrated our first anniversary by taking up arms against the machine army in the excellent Terminator Salvation: The Arcade Game. The game is a standard lightgun shooter, but the weapon in your hand is where the game shines. A full-sized assault rifle with real recoil, it is weighty and effective, and during the game I picked up a chaingun, which actually altered the speed and intensity of the recoil. To reload, instead of shooting off-screen, you tap the bottom of the rifle's 'clip', as if you were actually slamming in another magazine. And under the barrel is a grenade button, where an attachable grenade launcher would be found. We didn't last long, but what we did see of the game was amazing fun, and the visuals were great, with so much happening on-screen at once. And the cabs were readily available all over Whitby and Scarborough, so if anyone chances across it, give it a go. Trev tried to gamble for a knock-off Wii-style console for a bit, but ended up settling for the minor prize he could have had from each go, and walked away with a Machop Pokemon toy.

A cream tea and a walk around later, and we headed up to the whalebone arch to have our photo taken, as we had done the year before following the wedding. The weather, cold, blustery and wet, was a stark contrast to the gorgeous sunshine of last year, so we quickly boarded a taxi back to the site. The wind was now manageable, so we built our kites and spent an absolutely amazing afternoon flying them on the field, before a storm I'd been watching in the valley below swept around and we had to dash inside. Once it had passed, we fired up a barbecue and before long we headed into our beds, where I finished off Def Jam: Fight for NY - The Takeover, then slept a little while before another storm beating against our tent put an end to my rest.

MONDAY, 27/9/10: Country road, take me home...

We awoke to good news, Katie's car was going to live and a new clutch could be affixed before the day was through. Both Tents had to be thrown away, the elements had been unkind once more and Trev and Katie's tent had let in a fair bit of rain. We packed our things and waved goodbye as Trev and Katie headed into Scarborough to get the car, and set off home ourselves through the thickest fog I have ever seen. Upon our return, we split the unspent holiday cash, which amounted to £100 each, and I spend my lot on Halo: Reach, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and a preorder was placed for Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which if the demo is anything to go by is both beautiful and brilliant, a perfect marriage of God of War and Uncharted, with the same kind of decayed beauty as Gears of War. So that gives us something to look forward to over the coming weeks. Hasta luego, fellas.

Hey little sister, who's your Superman?

We haven't forgotten you, oh no. I've been caught up with brushing up on my bass guitar skills (sic) and finally discovering this Facebook thing, and my cohort Trev has been busy playing Guild Wars with his siblings none stop, and there are simply not enough hours in the day (hence our still-present title). In the relatively small time I have spent gaming though, I've managed to polish off a few more noteworthy games.

Firstly, I've had another run through Ghostbusters and Batman: Arkham Asylum, two of last year's best games. I've been itching to replay Ghostbusters since I saw the credits roll the first time around, and as I had just finished watching the two films, it seemed like fate when I opened the shame box (the pile was getting a little untidy) and the digitized faces of Murray, Ramis, Aykroid and Hudson met my gaze.

For the absolutely criminal amount of people who ignored the game upon release, Ghostbusters is a continuation of the movie canon, set in 1991 and focusing on the impending threat of a Gozer cultist intent on bringing the asexual flat-topped deity back to the big apple. You play as an unnamed recruit (I say 'unnamed', you get called everything under the sun during the game), hired to test the team's experimental equipment, and retread some classic environments such as the New York City Public Library and the Sedgewick Hotel in a Gears-style 3rd person shooter.

It's a standard affair most of the time, shoot enemies until they drop, that kind of thing, but it really shines when you come up against 'proper' ghosts, who must be whittled down and trapped, just like in the films. There's a real feeling of weight when you're trying to reel in your quarry, and they are thrashing about and generally being unruly, and it's often quite tricky, and thus rewarding, to finally lock the little blighter away. And the whole thing is carried on the shoulders of the awesome comic stylings of the original cast. Plus, the graphics are still great, a rendered Ernie Hudson actually fooled a friend of the wife into believing it was filmed footage. With it's loyal fan service and easter eggs (dancing toaster anyone?), Ghostbusters is essential for any child of the eighties.

Arkham was more strategically placed in the shame box, as the teasers for Arkham City made me salivate with anticipation. Not going into too much as I've already covered B:AA in the blog, but it still looks amazing and I really immersed myself in the combat system this time around, reversing moves, beating up thugs with their own weapons and silently picking off terrified inmates left right and centre, whereas last time I was just hammering the square button until my thumbs bled. I don't think I've seen a combat system this fluid, except maybe in Assassin's Creed, but compared to Arkham the fights in AC seem lifeless and slow. Bring on Arkham City, and soon.

After tiring of Oblivion once more, after another 100+ hours trudging through Tamriel, I skipped a few games in the box until I got to the first 360 game in there, a lovely little game known as Prey. Prey is a 2006 FPS, focusing on a Cherokee alien abductee known as Domasi 'Tommy' Towadi as he gets up to all kinds of hi jinks on board an alien mother ship as they try to go about their business, the cheeky little scamp. Of course, the aliens' business is naturally the abduction and consumption of entire races, so Tommy's interfering is a noble act.

The game is relentlessly old school, forgetting the two-gun system and regenerating health seen in just about every FPS since Halo, instead focusing on a more Doom-like approach. But before you go into flashbacks of having all of your health sapped by a Cyber Demon and running around screaming, frantically searching for a health pack, Be aware that Tommy, being a Cherokee, is very attuned to the spirit world, which regurgitates him back into the world every time he pops his clogs with a refilled health bar and a warm fuzzy feeling inside. But that's also Prey's downfall, after the first couple of levels death isn't even an inconvenience, and it makes the game far too easy even on it's hardest difficulty setting, on which I was able to polish the game off in 8 hours.

But where Prey is physically easy, mentally it's a very difficult game. The environment is often sickeningly gruesome, with the alien ship's seemingly biological parts glistening as if slimey, and mutilated people, some dead, some alive, litter the halls. Tommy's main objective is to rescue his girlfriend Jen, and when you finally find her, you will probably witness one of the most powerful and emotive set-pieces in videogame history. You can get hold of Prey now for about £3, and I thoroughly recommend it. It's nostalgic to a simpler time in FPSes, but pioneered some features that later games took all the credit for (Portal springs to mind, for one). You need Prey, and I need you to have it.

Last, but not least, after seeing the incredible teaser for Bioshock: Infinite, I decided that it was High Time I returned to Rapture and procured a copy of Bioshock 2, for the tender price of £7.99 from GAME. I enjoyed the first one, but felt it didn't need a sequel, and as such dismissed BS2 as a mere cash-in, but truth be told I'm enjoying it far more than I ever thought I would.

Where BS had you playing as a normal man caught up by chance in the ruined atlantian city of Rature, BS2 straps you into the oversized boots of one of the first Big Daddies, bio-mechanical monsters that stalk the streets with their ghoulish little girls extracting a substance known as ADAM from the lifeless bodies of the ill-fated. The extra strength a Big Daddy commands means that every weapon can be carried in one hand, leaving the other open, meaning that a Plasmid ability (a special power such as Telekinesis or Pyrokinesis gained from rewriting your DNA with chemicals) is always at the ready, eliminating the need to switch between them mid fight and making the battles a lot more streamlined. Aside from that, nothing else has really changed, but I'm still waist-deep in it so I could be surprised like I was with Red Dead, no doubt minutes after I post this. But why fix something that wasn't broken?

Okay wrapping it up. Finally gotten around to downloading Alan Wake's first bit of DLC, titled The Signal, but haven't had a go yet. Will do soon. And I've had a good go on the trial versions of Limbo and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, both of which are fantastic pieces of software. The thing is though, I only have the Microsoft Points for one of them, and I can't decide which I should get for the life of me. I'm tilting for the bleak, soul-crushing but ultimately beautiful Limbo though, as I think Maybe I could coax official 24HG commenter Paul into a bit of co-op once Lara hits the PS3 next month. Any views on this via the comments section, please and thank yous.

So yeah, we're still here. Trev's possibly going to crop up at some point with reviews of Nier and Castlevania HD (which is shit by the way, as far as the trial goes anyway), and I'll try and make my visits a bit less sporadic. Buhbye xx.

When two tribes go to war! - 10 Crossover fighting games to keep you occupied!

With the newly announced Street Fighter X Tekken, the strongly hinted Tekken X Street Fighter and the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on the horizon, and the relatively recent and hugely playable Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe still on the shelves, it would appear that the Crossover Fighting Game genre is making a bit of a comeback. So if, like me, you're just counting down the minutes until you can bray Thor as Chris Redfield, or shatter the jaw of Kazuya Mishima with Chun Li's unfeasibly huge thighs, here's ten games in no particular order that might help pass the time.

 This is simply the greatest screenshot. Ever.

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (2001 - Capcom - DC, PS2, GCN, XB)

If you were to ask a fighting game fan what the best 2D fighter was pre-2009, it's a 50/50 chance you'd be told without hesitation to seek out this absolute gem of a game. Featuring 49 characters from across the board of Capcom and industry rivals SNK's respective catalogues and an accessible Street Fighter style fighting system, it's virtually unbeaten even now, nearly a decade after it's release. And it provided me, at least, with a means to get to know SNK's cast with a familiar control method, instead of admiring them from afar in the past.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000 - Capcom - DC, PS2, XB, PS3, 360)

The other half of those fighting game fans would direct you to this stroke of genius from a year prior. MVC2 featured an even larger roster of 56 fighters including three original Capcom creations and 28 of Marvel Comics' expansive roster of heroes and villains, and an over-the-top fighting system featuring screen-filling special moves, strikers and tag fighting and a higher y-axis for super-fast midair combat. It's a little bit rare and pricey to find on disk now, but was re-released on XBox Live Arcade and PSN last year with a shiny HD filter, so it's readily available without even leaving the house. Nope, you have no excuse.

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008 - Midway - PS3, 360)

I was convinced my home was bugged for a while after this was announced, as Mortal Kombat and DC Comics are too of my favourite things. Almost a polar opposite to the last game, and 8 years too late really, this 3D fighter pits the furious, visceral Scorpion, Sub-Zero and co against the heroes and villains of DC comics, led by the iconic trinity of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The game was derided by players for the unlikely setting (because MVC2 was far more believable) and toned down gore, but was actually a very solid fighter, the best in the Mortal Kombat series in years in fact. It featured a cinematic story-driven single player mode, a solid multiplayer only flawed by a certain Superman move, and some fantastic universe-bending artwork in the endings. And most of the people who sneer haven't even played it, so give it a chance.

 And before that, this was the greatest screenshot ever.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars (2009 - Capcom - Wii)

The latest in Capcom's versus series features a smaller cast of 26, but is the first to make the transition into 3D visuals. At first it seemed there was little chance of seeing this game released in the west due to licensing issues, but when it finally arrived we got an updated game with extra characters and a more refined system. Capcom draw on characters from games new to the Capom vs. series, such as Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Viewtiful Joe, And the Tatsunoko side is filled with legendary characters from classic 70's anime like Hurricane Polymar and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (Battle of the Planets to us). The gameplay harks back to the MVC2 system, so if you're a Nintendo purist it's unmissable. But you really need a classic controller to get the most out of it, so things could prove pricey.


SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos (2003 - SNK - PS2, XB)

Much like Namco is threatening to do, SNK released this retaliation to CVS2 using their own system and mechanics. Although it featured a drop in the roster count and was less in-your-face presentation-wise, SNK showed a willingness that Capcom hadn't by redrawing all of the characters' sprites, and drawing from a more fantastical cast including Metal Slug's Mars People, Red Earth's Tessa and Darkstalkers' Dimitri. I'll admit, I still haven't gotten my head around the SNK system, and they don't seem to have gotten the Capcom characters' personalities right in the conversation scenes, but it's still enjoyable, especially if you appreciate the art style.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008 - Ad hoc - Wii)

Still one of the best Wii exclusives, SSBB pits characters from all of Nintendo's franchises against each other, from major players like Mario and Zelda, to lesser known games such as Mother and Fire Emblem, and even some from 3rd party games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Metal Gear. The game offers a unique fighting experience, focusing on ring-outs instead of KOs, the chance of which happening is displayed as a percentage instead of a health bar. Characters can also pick up and use powerups and weapons in the field, and the action is broken up by some absolutely beautiful FMV sequences. And it's another good reason to own that classic controller too.

 But before that one, this was the best. Ever.

SoulCalibur II (2003 - Namco - PS2, XB, GCN)

Though not technically a crossover game, SCII has one exclusive character for each system, all from other franchises. The PS2 version has Tekken's Heihachi Mishima, the XBox homes Image Comics' Spawn and the Gamecube version naturally features Link from The Legend of Zelda. Most of you have played a SoulCalibur game, so you'll know all about it's weapon-based combat and genre-crossing story modes, but for those who haven't, think Tekken with swords and ring-outs. If you're looking for something more recent, check out SoulCalibur IV on the PS3 and 360, which features Darth Vader, Yoda and Galen Marek from Star Wars, and SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny on the PSP, which plays host to God of War's Kratos.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (2005 - EA - PS2, XB, GCN, PSP, DS)

Basically Marvel vs. EA, this game was largely forgettable on all versions except for the PSP, which dropped the scrolling fighter levels in favour of an experience similar to Power Stone and Ehrgeiz, and gave the Marvel Characters more of an iconic look. The EA side of things, the titular Imperfects, weren't classic EA characters, but rather a team of superhumans created by EA specifically for the game. Possibly not an essential purchase, but it is still the only fighting game that features Marvel characters such as The Thing, Elektra and (in the home console version at least) Daredevil, unless any of them make it into MVC3.

Jump Ultimate Stars (2006 - Ganbarion - DS)

A Japan-only release due to similar licencing hell to TVC, JUS would have fallen through the 24HG net had it not been for the absolutely monstrous character count; 305 (56 fully playable, the rest as strikers and support characters) of the protagonists and antagonists of the insanely popular (in the west also) Shonen Manga label, including Dragonball, Naruto, Bleach and One Piece, are crammed onto a single DS cart. The game plays similarly to Super Smash Bros., only with a completely baffling (especially so considering the Japanese text) card-based system. Even thinking about it makes my head hurt, but this is a grade-A fanboy wet dream.

MUGEN (1999 - Elecbyte - PC)

Apparently, to those pedantic competitive fighting game purists (read: wankers), MUGEN is an unbalanced abortion. But to the rest of us, it's a wonderful bit of freeware. Out of the box, so to speak, it's a basic 2D fighter with only one character, the generic Ryu-alike Kung Fu Man, but MUGEN offers those with a little bit of know-how to download and import a plethora of user created characters, some ripped from other games, some edited to become new characters, some created from scratch, and all with AI and a quality only limited by their creator's expertise. This is, however you look at it, the only place where you can see Sub-Zero decapitate Knuckles the Echidna, or Lobo stove in Thundercats' Lion-O's face. And that should be enough to sell it to anyone interested in the genre.

So, there are ten games to keep you occupied until Spring rolls around once more. There are more if you look for them too, like Capcom Fighting Jam (Capcom vs. Capcom), NeoGeo Battle Coliseum (SNK vs. SNK) and Spectral vs. Generation (Spectral Force vs. Generations of Chaos, me neither) all worth a play. So go forth, fight fans, and collide some worlds. Excelsior!

What's in a name?

So as the site increases in popularity (We had 300 hits in one day the other week, so it's either that or Michael J. Fox was stuck on the refresh button), It's come to my attention that, well, 24 Hour Gamer is a popular name. A quick search on Google returns 24-HRGaming.com, 24HRGamer.com, and, perhaps the worst of them all, 24hourgamer.com, which all spell disaster for our little bastion of constant gaming when it comes to the inevitable task of getting a proper domain name, and possible clashes over intellectual properties in the future.

So, the burning question is; should we here at 24HG towers give up the name we've been lovingly referring to ourselves for over a year, confuse our Twitter followers and annoy the NowGamer forum staff into changing my user name once more, for the sake of keeping the future bright? I think, as much as it pains me, the answer is pointing to yes, swiftly followed by registering a domain name and copyrighting the fuck out of it. But what do we call ourselves then?

That's where you guys come in. I'll be having talks with my counterpart Trev about it, but every suggestion sent to the usual channels is wholly appreciated. 24hourgamer.co.uk is still open, but I think a bit of individuality goes a long way. That's all for now.

STOP! Warhammer Time! - A Dawn Of War II Review.

Firstly let me just say, I used to be a big fan of Real-Time Strategy games; Command and Conquer was one of my favorite games, and Red Alert really improved on the series. One of the things I enjoyed most was creating a absolutely huge army and taking over the map. At the time, I did not think "Wait a minute, this isn't really strategy is it?" although "Create maaaaaaahoooosive army and take over the map" is a strategy in itself.... Anyway back to my point, things have changed in RTS world. This was first apparent to me when I played Company of Heroes, gone were the "build massive army and absorb map" gameplay types; you now had to constantly think - DEFEND - ATTACK - REGROUP, constantly on the move. Well I loved this for while, but I began to feel anxious in missions, thinking "Can I actually do this?" About a year later, enter Dawn of War II... Which may have roused me from my RTS slumber.

Gone are the days of base building and hording, say hello to smaller much more customisable teams. Want your force commander to take out cover and terrain like a bad mofo with a missile launcher? No problem! Want him to crush skulls with a thunder hammer? Go for it! For this game think "What if an RTS mixed with Diablo?" and you have a pretty good understanding; there be stats to increase and loot to grab, creating a stronger team as you make your way through the game.

If you like Warhammer, you will love the story in DoWII, also as usual the voice acting really shines through, and your armies feel "Alive" as they comment on situations at hand, and the evil that must be crushed. Another great aspect of the game is the cover system, terrain can give you various bonus to cover when you are positioned there, but don't think you're safe if your in heavy cover, sure you won't be taking much damage, but a well placed explosive and that cover is GONE (Although the same applies to any enemies that feel safe, until a demolition charge flies over the wall into their laps lol), you can blow up quite a bit of the world in DoWII - Walls, sandbags, trees, buildings, everything really, as these things also make cover, so if you can use it as cover, it can be destroyed.

Your "Squads" also have special abilities, which can dramatically change how a fight is going. These can range from something simple like the "Rally" command to break suppression on your units while increasing their health regeneration to an almighty orbital strike raining fire from the sky scorching the land (And anything on the land) into dust. Also bringing back the RPG feel, we have end of level bosses, no really! These monstrosities can REALLY do some damage, and you can see how well you are doing by a bar on screen letting you know how much life this boss has. And believe me it helps as these guys have a LOT more health than regular enemies, and also have their own powerful abilities, but you always (More often than not anyway) have time to get out of the way of an ability due to onscreen hints or troops saying "GET OUT OF THE WAY, IT'S GONNA CHARGE", which makes it much more fun than just guessing when things will happen; which would also lead to dying many....MANY times.

Missions take place on various worlds, which also have strategic points you can capture during missions. Taking these points leads to bonus abilities, for instance taking Imperial Shrines gives you an ability that shields your squads for a few seconds from all damage whereas every Automated Foundry captured grants you the ability to call in gun emplacements, to help mow down the enemy. These bonus abilities are planet based, meaning you can use any of the abilities you have unlocked on a planet, for any missions on said planet which can really help out later on. Also these points have to be defended from time to time in a "Defence Mission" which are optional, but if you don't do them, you will lose the strategic point, and any bonuses that come with it. Defence works very well too, showing you where each wave of enemies will make an attack from, so you can try and counter it with a bit of good planning and tactics (Exploding a group of enemies with a well placed explosive charge is a VERY satisfying feeling).

All in all DoWII is an amazing game, with a very deep atmosphere; play it for a while and you will be sucked in, "Just one more mission" will be said again and again, until you look at the clock and realise it is 2AM and your due for work at 8AM... A good reason for this is because you want to try on that new armour, see what this new ability does in a battle or just to get that little bit of EXP to get that level up. DoWII is one of the greatest games I have ever played, it has given me the RTS itch again, something that has been lost for quite a while in me, thanks to this game I feel I can actually do RTS again, especially ones that do not have a pause button (I would have LOVED a pause button!!!).

If your a fan of Warhammer, RTS or even an RPG gamer, you should try this out, it's RTS at a very high level of immersion. Now forgive me as I have to go, Orks are raiding my Communications array, the BLEEDERS!

Uhh, so this is your big day, huh? (24 Hour Gamer is 1!)

It's hard to believe, but today marks a whole year since my first post as a fledgling blogger, a three-paragraph effort with very very brief looks at 24: The Game, Assassin's Creed and The Punisher: No Mercy, which, quite understandably, nobody read. With a combination of no paragraph spacing, a lack of the html skills to add pictures (before Blogger improved the user interface) and nothing particularly interesting to say, things didn't exactly look rosey for 24HG, but I didn't mind.

See that right there? That's paragraph spacing. The extent of what I've learned is astonishing. So anyway, with the blog slowly picking up momentum, and readers of course, over the last year, I'm going to go over the good and bad times, some of which will be new to you guys.

Firstly, the most mentioned game over the whole year. I checked a few months ago, and the clear winner was Epic's erm... epic, Gears of War, obviously down to every game that involves a gun chiefly taking place mostly behind a waist high wall. But it has since fallen behind games like The Elder Scrolls, Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect, the latter of which I had actually assumed would be the most mentioned, as I've actually played both ME and ME2 twice each over the last year. But the actual most blogged about game, deservedly so, is Uncharted, with the series' second iteration taking the game world by storm just before Christmas. If I'd have known how terrified I would become of Dragon Age back then, U2 would have most definitely been my Game of the Year.

 Uncharted: Officially the most popular game on 24HG.

E-mails. I've taken the e-mail button from the site now, since 24HG is no longer a one-man operation, but for a while it was there and I had a few pretty funny messages. Firstly, an offer was extended to me, following my use of lyrics from 'Borderline' in the title to my Borderlands-centric post, to join a Madonna fan club. I quickly declined, as the version of Borderline that I had in my head throughout the whole 35 hours of play that Borderlands offered was in fact a cover by pop-punk stalwarts Showoff. But the offer was nice. I had an overwhelming amount of e-mails (like, three of them!) asking me to review Final Fantasy XIII, and I still haven't. And let's just say my treatment of Modern Warfare 2 didn't go down well. And finally, I had a very politely worded e-mail asking me to give up the name '24 Hour Gamer' and my login details for my Twitter account. Needless to say, I didn't.

 I'll review it one day. Probably. Possibly.

Speaking of Twitter, I set up my account (@Pete_24HG, or follow Trev @TjStan if he ever tweets again) alongside the blog to whore my posts out to anyone who'd listen. It's seen me post about everything from Blockbuster pricing the first Fallout 3 Expansion disk at £40 to awesome fictional metal bands in Alan Wake, but perhaps most noteworthy was my 1000th tweet, which read like a Shakespearean sonnet: "@MarkySharky Kiss my ass :p".

So onwards and upwards then. Hopefully, with Trev on board, 24HG should continue to expand over the next year, potentially with Podcasts, video reviews and joint pieces, maybe even a forum or something, who knows? We're open to suggestions too, anything YOU'D like to see, just pop it in the comments box, tweet at us, or e-mail one of us at the24hourgamer@googlemail.com or thetrevstan@googlemail.com and let us know.

Finally, a big thanks to everyone who's helped out: To Trev 24HG for extending his hand in aid, like Elika catching the 2008 Prince of Persia as he plummets into a chasm for the 4000th time (one day I'll compare you to a male character). To Susie, my wife, who not only actively encourages me to game, but also soundly kicked my ass on Guitar Hero Arcade on our actual honeymoon. To MarkySharky and CtrlAltKill of Twitter, for drilling into me the need to space paragraphs and add images respectively. To Paul and Raz7el, for always offering good videogame chat. To 30-Something Gamer for being my first follower and providing a great blog for me to read. Imagine Publishing's Dan Howdle for inadvertently mentioning the site in his Podcast a few times. The guys at the NowGamer forums. Paul_LFC at VideoGame Space. And everyone who's read and/or commented here at 24HG. It's been a good year.

New Tech Level Available

In a bid to be able to actually review some of the newer games on PC (Or run them at some sort of decent speed), I have decided to buy it a new processor.

I SHALL not bore you with my specs, at the same not humiliating myself by giving them you... But I should, after this upgrade, be able to give you at least a real review of Dawn of War 2, which is supposed to be great, however when it runs at 8 fps when a lot is going on, it kinda sucks, and makes me think how bad it would be if I were Superman and the world went at 8 fps (I don't know the exact Superman fps of life... lol). Also a review of King Arthur, which runs fine at the moment, but I want it to run BETTER!

SO YES I will let you know how that goes, as my PC is the Highlander of all PCs, it destroys lesser ones to become more powerful.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Buster bowl me over with your bogus dance, shuffle me off my feet, even though I'll keep on runnin', I'll never get to Orange Street...

Thought I'd have a bit of a catch-up on what I've been playing recently, as with all of the changes and what have you I've barely had time to post about the awesome, average and absolutely arse games I've been playing. So, for old time's sake, here goes.

Firstly, for the sole benefit of Paul, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles. A sequel to last year's Umbrella Chronicles, TDC is an on-rails shooter that follows the events of Resident Evil 2, Code: Veronica, and the mission that was alluded to in RE4, the first meeting between Leon and Krauser. Firstly, it seems that Leon has a very selective memory, as the story is told through Leon's flashbacks, and everything seems to revolve around him. Even the bits of RE2 where he wasn't even canonically there, are retold with him as some sort of action hero. And he does it all in his husky Batman voice, not the pre-pubescent whinge that he actually had back then. And while I'm on it, he had nothing to do with Code: Veronica at all, yet still recalls it.

Surely there are better ways to pierce your naval, Claire.

Okay then, good news first. The game is a far, far better play than it's predecessor. It's a lot more intense, and the fact that you can actually see your allies around you makes it feel far more cinematic. As a nostalgia trip it's unequaled. The graphics are absolutely astounding for a Wii game, and the Havok engine powering the physics makes the environment come alive in a way that the console isn't used to. But the visuals do have their faults: Both Leon and C:V sidekick Steve Burnside look identical (a lot like the tranny from Hollyoaks now you come to mention it), and probably shouldn't have been in the same game. But I suppose that's more down to poor character design than anything else.

But every silver-lined cloud is pissing on somebody somewhere, and none more than I. While the graphics are great, they push the Wii a bit too far, and as a result the shadows look awful. The dialogue is terrible, with characters repeatedly stating the obvious, spouting lines like 'I hate this' (no shit) and 'They won't let us through!'. They're Zombies, Leon, not fucking bouncers. The 'shakey cam' makes aiming a nightmare at times too, and the awful treatment of Robert Kendo, one of my series favourites, sent me into a rage. Lastly, for an on-rails shooter, the game is too long, a far cry from the throwaway 10-minute fun fests like House of the Dead and Ghost Squad.

Errrrrr... ModNation Racers! The PS3's premier kart racer is average at it's core, but saved thanks to it's user-friendly creation tools and fantastically creative and talented fanbase. I find myself spending more time downloading characters and karts than actually playing it, exactly how I was with M.U.G.E.N. on the PC. The create mode is easy and accessible too, which is great, because I never got to grips with LittleBigPlanet's tools at all. MNR had me creating like a pro within minutes.

That's right, creator, you stick it to the man!

So the game tries to be a perfect marriage of LittleBigPlanet and Mario Kart, yet fails to encompass the charm of either. It's relentless attempts at being 'street' alienate those who don't buy into that crap, and Mario's game engine is far simpler and accessible to a younger audience, with MNR confusing matters with drifting, stacking powerups and an accumulative boost meter. So for these reasons it stalls at the finishing line. Good, but not great.

Alpha Protocol then. Basically a merging of two of my favourite things, the gameplay of Mass Effect and the theme of 24, it stands apart from other games of the RPG genre by being set in a contemporary real-world setting, packed with espionage and action. Strapping on the shoes of Mike Thorton, you are the newest recruit of the titular government agency thrust into a world of combat and subterfuge when you are forced to go rogue.

Keep your gun on him, he's definitely a terrorist!

Below average graphics and stereotypical characters and dialogue are the only tarnishes on an otherwise brilliant western RPG, with a twisting plot that genuinely does revolve around your every action. The developer, Obsidian, has constantly bragged about the game's ability to channel the 'Three JBs'; James Bond, Jason Bourne and Jack Bauer, but truth be told, mine was more like a very Torchwood-esque John Barrowman: morally ambiguous and shagging anything he can get his hands on.

I'll not go much further with this one, because my colleague Trev and I are planning a joint review, but I'll just say, I was greatly saddened when I read that Sega have ruled out a sequel thanks to poor sales. The Man wins again. Sigh.

Finally, I've been hopping, skipping and wall-running through the Wii version of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands. Far from a port, the Wii version is a completely different animal to it's HD cousins, with a whole new, unrelated storyline and different powers and a more strategic combat system more akin to that in The Sands of Time. And while it takes cues from the main TFS release and TSOT, it also has a few throwbacks to the 2008 PoP too, with the power plates helping you to traverse the environment, and a 'never die' mechanic replacing the time powers once more (although you can only be rescued a few times before being sent back to a checkpoint). It's great for fans of the genre like yours truly, but a lack of classic controller support harms it in a big way once your arm starts to ache.

And while I'm on the subject, I saw the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time movie to last week. It's enjoyable, but not particularly close to the source material in any way, save for three scenes which are nearly identical to key moments in the game. Jake Gyllenhaal is truly awful, with his sad puppy looks and dialect-hopping English accent, but fantastic turns from Alfred Molina, Ben Kingsley and a surprise appearance from Richard Coyle (voice of Keats, the protagonist from PS3 RPG Folklore, and the infamous Jeff Murdoc in BBC sitcom Coupling) who absolutely steals the show, all is forgiven. And if it does anything right, it's the boy/girl chemistry thing that I loved about the TSOT game and the 2008 PoP. Good, disposable fun.

He may look like a dejected Labrador, but he's still more attractive than Maggie.

Right, back to my cave then. This Saturday 24HG hits it's first anniversary, so I'll see you then. Ta!

Here comes a new challenger!

Hello everyone,
This is just a quick post to introduce myself, I'm Trev 24HG!
I'll be posting my thoughts and features up here on 24HG as they come to me; so I won't really have any structure.....

I would have introduced myself earlier but due to the freaking Steam sale on PC games, I have spent quite a bit on amazing PC games, even though I'm sure SOMEBODY won't agree to how epic the games are, as they are for the PC.....

I own many consoles and games, and old computers too. I will try and take you through some of the amazing times I have had with gaming past, present and future (Even though I can't really take you through the future....).
So I am hoping to write about retro and up to date news, and also maybe some features along the way!
I warn you now that I am no writer, but I will get better as I get used to this stuff.

I have varied opinions on a lot of games, and knowledge of quiiiiiiiite a few! If anyone wants me to look into a game and review one, for any console or computer, I will look into it. BUT nothing obscure (Atari Jaguar), nothing I would have to sell my soul or mother to own (3DO) or something that would eventually make me look like Judge Doom the Toon with prolonged use (Virtual Boy).

But anyway, glad to be here, and my posts will get better as I get used to this shiiiiiiiiiiiit!

Anyways I'm off to play an amazing game I got on the Steam sale, King Arthur, it's freaking AWESOME!

And remember, the princess is always in the last castle you check.....

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.

Two heads are better than one, it's double the pleasure, baby, triple the fun

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there were to be changes made around here. And, as I mentioned, I was looking to take on a young ward, to keep things interesting here and give a wider spectrum of gaming views.

So enter Trev 24HG, the Yorda to my Ico, only with a beard. Being as my gaming takes place mostly around the Wii and PS3, It's very convenient that Trev is more of a 360/PC man, so there will be more coverage where it was lacking before. He's also into a few pretty niche games that I wouldn't ordinarily play, stuff like Dynasty Warriors and Role-Playing Games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, so I believe he will make the 24HG experience all the more richer, as it shakes off the loner image and becomes a family. That's a family in a very literal sense, you see, I'm married to his sister after all.

So, as 24 Hour Gamer ventures into it's second year of existence, you (and I) can look forward to the same shit from me, and a fresh you outlook on things from my new partner in crime, Trev 24HG. Who knows, we might even surprise you with some new features here and there...

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

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

10: Sam - Sam and Max

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

9: Lupus - Jet Force Gemini

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

8: War Dog - Dragon Age: Origins

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

7: Shadow - Dead to Rights: Retribution

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

6: Link - Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess

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

5: The Dog - Fable II

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

4: Dogmeat - Fallout 3

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

3: Spiffy - The Secret of Monkey Island

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

2: K.K. Slider - Animal Crossing

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

1: Mira - Silent Hill 2

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

Turn and face the strain, ch-ch-changes... Just gonna have to be a different man...

As most of you probably don't know, 24 Hour Gamer is fast approaching it's first birthday, and as such, there's gonna be a few changes around here.

First and foremost, the weekly schedule is GONE. Trying to keep things fresh on a weekly basis is a huge strain, on both my bank account, tasked with giving me at least two new games to play every week, and my free time, on actually playing these games to completion in time to write about them. As a result of the latter, I'm passing on games too quickly and not getting the most out of them.

Also, there have been times when I've not been particularly inspired, and the week's post hasn't been a very interesting read as a result. More flexibility will give me the freedom to write as inspiration strikes, keeping things more interesting. So this, right here, is the last Tuesday blog. Well, not necessarily the last blog ever to fall on a Tuesday, but, you know what I mean.

Secondly, I'm ditching my other blog, Gaming Overtime. All of the content usually found on there, as sporadic as it was, will now be posted over here. With my time-limits being more relaxed from the first change, there'll likely be more of such content too.

Thirdly, and finally, the more astute among you will have noticed my user-name change from '24 Hour Gamer' to 'Pete 24HG'. Reason is, I'm thinking of taking on a second writer. This will keep things moving quicker, and inform about games that I wouldn't ordinarily play. I've got a couple of people in mind, but if anyone else would like to join me, then please, get in contact.

So that's that! I still hope to inform and entertain like I always have, but on a more casual, informal basis. When E3 is over, I'll likely post a roundup of highlights, and I'm knee-deep in the very noteworthy Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles on Wii at the moment, so expect a post about that soon. Just not in a week.

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.

The game can be very atmospheric at times, it makes you forget that you're being chased by bandits.

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.

 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.

All human life is here, from the feeble old dear, to the screaming child...

"I have to say, I was disappointed in this book. It was well written don't get me wrong, but it wasn't in the least bit funny."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a genuine quote from a review of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy on Amazon.co.uk. Christina Martin, the author of that quote, you are a special, special person. Of course it's followed by a comment pointing out the hand-clapping retardedness of the review, and sequentially a retort from Ms. Martin claiming to be a patron of sarcasm instead of a window licker, but when someone is that keen to cover their tracks after saying something like that, you have to worry.

Now where was I? Oh yeah. Dante's Inferno, a game developed for release earlier this year by Visceral and published by EA, is a... well, I'm sure there's an official term for the genre, but if any game deserves to be called a God of War clone, it's this one. It's a videogame adaptation of Inferno, the first part of The Divine Comedy, and chronicles the titular Dante, now re-imagined as a Knight Templar, on his quest to reclaim the soul of his lost love Beatrice from the clutches of a decidedly well-endowed Satan, after his own sins condemned her to hell.

I'm not even going to try and sugar coat the God of War references, the game is God of War, just not as good. That's not to say it's a bad game by any means, it just lacks the epicness and polish of even the last generation second of Sony's trilogy, and just seems bland and incomplete in comparison. Hell, for instance, is really well-imagined during the first couple of levels, but after the Lust section (think phallically-shaped towers, writhing scantily clad whores who attack with concealed penises and a 100ft tall woman with mouths for nipples that lick their lips and lactate unbaptised babies), and the fleshy bile-filled Gluttony, the other circles just become routine and virtually identical to each other, and each of them seems to be a short walk followed by a boss fight, rinsed and repeated. When you do come to a puzzle, often the screen is so dark that it's frustratingly difficult to work out what to do as well.

It's hard not to make a Connection between Dante's Inferno and Assassin's Creed too, with Dante being a Templar, and the sect being illustrated as evil in this media too. Not to mention the fact that the short chapters set on Earth are in Acre and Florencia, major settings in AC and ACII respectively. Assassin's Creed II also references Dante Alighieri too, along with Marco Polo, which struck me as clever marketing on Ubisoft's part by drawing association with Dante's Inferno and Uncharted 2, two other major franchises. Who knows?

Be thankful for what this image actually doesn't show.

So anyway, Dante is a very average game, but enjoyable. To those of us who are owners of the XBox 360 exclusively, and no doubt won't admit their burning envy of their God of War playing peers, the game is a godsend. For me, however, it was a decent warm-down session after GoWIII's sensory assault. If I was to give my reviews a score, Dante would be somewhere around the mid-seventies.

Back onto Metro 2033 then, eh? I've come to the conclusion that yes, I do in fact like the game. It's just very hard work. The gas mask filters that were once a very scarce commodity eventually become commonplace, and the weapons gradually get upgraded (my assault rifle, for instance, began as a 'Bastard Gun', a cobbled together atrocity of a weapon which sprays bullets everywhere apart from where you're aiming, and I now carry a scoped AK 47). I've decided that it feels like a piece of Fallout 3 DLC, which at £40 is a little bit steep. I definitely recommend it, but wait until it depreciates in value a smidgen first.

Metro 2033 paints a considerably bleaker post-apocalypse than Fallout 3.

Finally in this week's short-but-sweet report, I've had a go with Invizimals on the PSP. The latest contender to the Pokemon phenomenon's throne, Invizimals comes bundled with the PSP's digital camera, which once equipped allows the player to search for the obligatory tiny battling creatures in one's own home, the bus, the toilet, wherever you want. Once an 'Invizimal' is found, the player catches it, usually by performing an act of animal cruelty such as shooting or hitting them with the palm of your (real life) hand until they submit.

Once captured, the domesticated critter can be forced into cutesified cock-fights with other Poke... Invizimals, which operate more like a one on one fighting game than the turn-based battles in Nintendo's established franchise, and works to a degree, but it's more based on timing than statistics.

And the whole thing is interrupted by filmed cutscenes featuring an annoying hyperactive Japanese 'PSP Scientist' and, who else, the mighty Brian Blessed, who's booming English tutorials give a similar feeling to the patronising tones of Stephen Fry in LittleBigPlanet. In short, Pokemon is awesome, the technology utilized is awesome, and Brian Blessed is awesome. Pokemon might be better, but this is a great alternative for PSP users.

If this picture doesn't make you want to go out and buy Invizimals you're dead inside.

So there you are, a theme! A poor man's God of War, Fallout 3 and Pokemon, right there for you. I know I said I'd play Lost Planet, but truth be told, I've spent too much time playing Red Dead Redemption for that. Yeah, thanks to the generosity of my wife, I have Rockstar's epic, but I'm neglecting to write about it just yet, as three days just isn't enough time for it to fully sink in. So I'm not going to bother closing by saying what to expect next week, because I never live up to it. Apart from Red Dead that is, you can expect that.

This is what it sounds like... when doves cry...

Ah, medieval Persia. A place of great beauty. A place of technological wonder. A place where villains are grandiose and theatrical, and heroes are gallant, chivalrous and Caucasian.

So Friday saw me perhaps foolishly overlook Red Dead Redemption in favour of Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, the 10th game in the PoP series and not a sequel to 2008's un-subtitled Prince of Persia, but an 'interquel' set in between The Sands of Time (which I played last week) and Warrior Within. And it is definitely NOT a movie tie-in.

I did have the game preordered at GAME, along with a limited edition pack of PoP playing cards, but after seeing the queue for Rockstar's Wild West opus, I ducked into HMV instead, whom I discovered were giving away the 1981 version of The Clash of the Titans on BluRay with every purchase of The Forgotten Sands on the PS3. Sold.

So anyway. The prince (unofficially named Dastan in the upcoming Disney film) has been sent by his father (who you had to slay in the first game, having become a sand monster, although that never happened due to the prince rewinding time to before the event, stay with me) to the kingdom of his elder brother, Malik, to learn how to be a successful ruler. Upon his arrival, he finds Malik's palace under siege from unknown invaders, and Malik himself fighting a losing battle. As a last resort Malik unleashes the fabled army of King Solomon, which happens to be an unlimited swarm of sand creatures led by a huge demon named Ratash. With the help of Razia, Ratash's benevolent female counterpart, and the powers she bestows upon him (conveniently including the ability to rewind time a few seconds) the prince has to find a way to defeat the demon and banish the army before the world is overrun and all is lost.

The ice power makes for some very tense moments.

Initially I felt like the game was holding my hand a little bit compared to the prequel, all of the moves and actions seem a lot easier to pull off, and everything moves a lot slower giving you more time to pull them off. The combat has also been noticeably simplified, sacrificing strategic thinking and positioning for waves and waves of easily killed but overwhelmingly numerous enemies for the player to wade through, which sounds like a negative point but in all actuality is extremely satisfying. The major new point is the prince's ability to flash-freeze water, allowing himself access to previously unreachable locations.

Aside from that, the game is pretty much what you'd expect from the series: puzzle-solving, acrobatics and a healthy dose of swordplay. The graphics are spot-on, highly detailed, and the only two visual qualms I had are with the prince himself: his face is distinctly simian looking and his arms have a plastic look about them, similar to Dead or Alive's Ryu Hayabusa. But the detail in his armour is spectacular in HD.

Well, it's an enjoyable game. I'll confess I've only played The Sands of Time and the 2008 PoP up until now, and this game lacks the boy/girl partnership that was done so well in the others. Razia pops up every so often, but it just isn't the same. But that's made up for in the game's cinematic and epic closure, set in the epicenter of a huge sandstorm. Verdict? Not going to win any awards, but fantastic fun and great for any fan of the genre.

So, Metro 2033 then? I haven't got this linking thing worked out. Metro 2033 is a post-apocalyptic First-Person Shooter based on a Russian novel of the same name. The game puts you in the shoes of Artyom, a man born in 2013, the final days of Moscow before the world was devastated by nuclear war and forced to live his first twenty years (2013 + 20 = 2033) in an underground settlement in the city's subway system (hence 'Metro') before leaving for the mutant-infested surface on a mission to save the world. As gamers, I'd forgive you if you think you've heard all this before.

But unlike Fallout 3, the game it shares it's back story with, Metro is a very linear experience, and Moscow is a lot darker and a much more depressing setting than the Capital Wasteland. The scenes set in the subterranean towns are very reminiscent of the flashback/forward scenes in The Terminator, with survivors living woefully in overcrowded squalor. Heading outside is also very different, with the game being set a lot sooner after the nuclear disaster than Fallout 3, making for a more hostile world. The air is still polluted, necessitating the use of a gas mask which requires frequent filter changes. Water is irradiated as you'd expect, and hurts you on contact as opposed to the accumulative nature of the radiation in F3.

Unable to find a Metro 2033 screenshot, I'll have to make do with this stock photo of Birmingham.

Okay, no more Fallout comparisons I promise. The game, as I've mentioned, is very dark and depressing, and mostly (so far, I've only played a couple of hours) spent skulking around in dark tunnels with hideously underpowered weaponry. Ammunition, as you can imagine, is a commodity, and is actually used as currency, with pre-war ammo worth more than the low quality bullets created after the bombs. Things begin to get a bit weird when ghosts start appearing in subway cars, and Artyom is plagued with visions of tall, lank creatures in the darkness, taking you up to just about right where I'm at.

Okay, I can't decide whether this game is really good but hard going, or really, really shit. But it definitely is one or the other. The graphics and atmosphere are both phenomenal, and the fact that the cutscenes play out in first person brings a feel of Half-Life 2 into the mix. Voice acting is hit and miss, with some of the frankly strangest accents I've ever heard flying around, and the characters are all grizzled Russian men, without fail, to the point of not being able to tell them apart. I'll reserve judgment for now, as I'm firmly on the fence with this one.

And that's about it. I finished Alan Wake, and the game seemed to lose it's way a bit. After the first half being genuinely scary, reminiscent of Jame's Herbert's fantastic novel 'The Dark', but not actually that good, the second half brings the gameplay up to scratch, with the story descending into a camp buddy comedy. The whole thing is capped off with a baffling ending that answers no questions and leaves no room for the planned sequels or DLC to follow on from. So the game, while decent, is not a patch on what it could have been.

James Herbert is about the only author this guy doesn't name-drop.

So that's that then. I'll try to be on time next week, with Dante's Inferno, hopefully a verdict on Metro 2033 and I just might possibly get my hands on the original Lost Planet. Time will tell.