Last week I hit a milestone in my life. I turned a quarter of a century old. Officially, by mathematical terms, I'm pushing 30. So, I decided the best course of action was to have a midlife crisis and blow about £200 on videogames to drown my sorrows, and resurrecting my Shame Pile.
First things first though. For my birthday, which was actually last Thursday for anyone interested, my wife bestowed upon me God of War III and The Saboteur, both on PS3, and Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines, and the cat (allegedly) bought me Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars on the PSP. I dove straight into God of War III, naturally.
The game starts immediately where we left off, with Kratos leading the Titans in an assault on Mount Olympus. A few betrayals and a lot of blood later and Kratos finds himself back in Hades, and his quest for vengeance truly begins.
I can't really go into things any deeper, as the story hurtles along at an alarming pace and the spoilers flow thick and fast. The gameplay though, is the usual God of War affair, solid fighting, over the top gore and intermittent puzzles and platforming sections. Kratos has picked up a few new moves this time, like the ability to mount and ride larger enemies and lasso flying enemies to cross gaps. He also picks up a few new weapons along the way, most of which are variations of the sharp things on chains theme, but the most effective of all being two huge metal gauntlets, a lot like the ones he used in Chains of Olympus.
I recall a while ago reading a post on Twitter by Mortal Kombat's co-creator Ed Boon, saying he was motion capturing new finishing moves for Mortal Kombat 9, and that he was worried that he was 'going too far'. Seeing what God of War gets away with, I highly doubt it. I've mentioned before the head-ripping and disemboweling, but that's only the icing on the cake. Again, I don't want to spoil too much, but it's the first time I think I've seen eye-gouging in a videogame. And I even felt like looking away as Kratos dispatched with dear old brother Hercules...
The last thing I really want to talk about is the visuals. Graphically, GoWIII is a triumph, pretty much the most beautiful game I've ever seen. After playing Heavy Rain a month ago, and Uncharted 2 just before Christmas, that compliment is given far more weight too.
Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines was my back-up title this week, for when the wife was on Oblivion. The PSP-only game serves as a true sequel to the first Assassin's Creed, following what Altair did next, namely stalking the Templars to Cyprus. Not much really happens, apart from our hero repeatedly bumping into Maria Thorpe, the Templar that got away (and evidently from a flashback in ACII, future Mrs. Ibn-La'Ahad, if she can pronounce it).
It's strongest point is that, unlike the two AC games on the DS, Bloodlines looks and plays like a proper AC, more specifically the first one. Being set in the same time period, and in a similar locale, the architecture is more or less the same. The gameplay has been somewhat simplified, shaving a few of Altair's moves off to cram it all into a UMD, including, bafflingly, his diving assassination move, which is one of the most useful moves in the other game. The free climbing though, one of the series' major positive points for me, remains unchanged.
Another good aspect of the game is that the boss characters are unique, not just reskinned guards like in the other games. They fight with signiature weapons, like a ball-and-chain, or sharpened fingernails, and also trigger different counter moves.
I suppose the worst thing about Bloodlines is the fact that the city streets aren't as bustling as the ones in it's parent games, but that is fully understandable given that the game is running on a machine with a fraction of the power of a PS3 or an XBox 360. Overall, it's a very good game for the system, harshly received because it can't live up to it's expectations.
Okay, I'll keep it brief for the remainder. Next on the newly formed Pile of Shame was a game I missed out on but have always been interested in: Velvet Assassin. Oh good god, it's bad. The game is a 'True Story' about an MI6 spy behind enemy lines in World War II. She conveniently loses her equipment at the start of the game, and quips about how it won't hold her back, even though it does. It really fucking does. A quick look on Wikipedia shows that this World War II game about a British agent was actually developed by a German company, Replay Studios, which might explain why she's armed with a toothpick and a nasty look, and the Germans are all superhuman cyborgs or something. Either way, sporadic checkpoints and trial-and-error gameplay make this game completely not worth playing.
And I've spent a bit of time getting to grips with The King of Fighters XII on PS3 this week. A look at some YouTube videos shows just how impressive this game can look in the right hands, but I was brought up on the simpler Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat 2D games, so it was distinctly more boring while I was playing. Admittedly though, the hand drawn two dimensional graphics were absolutely beautiful, although a bit pixelated compared to Super Street Fighter II HD Remix. A highlight for my immature mind was being told to 'choose my member' at the character select screen. I can't give the game a bad write up due to my own inadequacy though, and I'm sure that in the capable paws of a seasoned fighting game fan it's fantastic. But it's not exactly going to get in between me and Super Street Fighter IV in a month's time.
Check back next week for Just Cause 2, GTA Chinatown Wars and The Saboteur!
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Back, Sack and Crack.
Woe betide the gaming blogger who runs out of games to play on his Shame Pile. There is so little to write about this week, I'd considered not even bothering.
Well, apart from my new found love and appreciation, not only for Sackboy (I already loved the little guy), but for Little Big Planet as a game that is. I've spent probably most of my non-Oblivion time on LBP this last week, and truth be told I haven't even tried the level editor yet. It looks simple and ordinary at a first glance, but when you look at it from a technical standpoint, it's absolutely breathtaking.
You see, for those like me who have foolishly looked past LBP all these years, everything in Little Big Planet is based around some absolutely astounding physics. Each level (even the ones in Story Mode are created using the game's robust edit mode) is basically a huge domino rally, with the charming little knitted character as the catalyst, and everything that happens is basically down to gravity, or a complex system of pulleys and gears, all in a virtual sense of course.
My only gripe with the game is that Sackboy moves around like a wet turd on a polished floor, careering into his surroundings and straight off ledges, which makes some of the more precise jumps a nightmare to pull off. But believe me, as late to the party as I am, I fucking love the game, and plan on getting the PSP version very soon indeed.
For the last few days, there has been a copy of God of War III in my house. But, you see, I somewhat foolishly asked for it as a birthday present, and as a result have to wait until Thursday to play it. So. to sate my hunger, I fired up my newly acquired NTSC copy of God of War Collection on Sunday night, to see how well it had been 'remastered and optimised'. The particular copy has been somewhat communal among my group of friends, first the property of fellow (if a little sporadic) blogger Raz7el, then passed on to regular blog-commenter Paul in exchange for a copy of Dante's Inferno before finding itself in my clammy paws, so I almost feel obligated to pass it on once I've had my fill.
I've only had chance to try the original God of War so far, and I'm in no rush to play them before the chalky angry one makes his belated PS3 debut in my house on Thursday because I can pretty much recite the GoW storyline off by heart (Angry man becomes god's assassin, accidentally kills family, gets angrier, purposefully kills god (Nolan North, naturally), becomes god himself, is a little naughty, gets god licence revoked, gets even angrier, meets titans, sets off to kill gods, and dies and escapes hell about a hundred times in the process). As for the remastering? Well, the game is by default in 16:9 screen ratio now, which saves you about three and a half seconds in the options menu, and the games are displayed in 720p, which is really not that noticeable frankly. Last year, believing GoWIII to be nearer to release than it was, I played the first two on a PS2 using an RGB cable on the very same TV, and it was pretty much identical. But saying that, when you aren't forced to look at a Greek Soldier who was rendered out of about eleven polygons, the game still looks great, nearly on a par with some of this generation's equivalents (Hellboy: The Science of Evil springs to mind). Really though, if this was born out of love and appreciation for we, the fans, then Chains of Olympus should have been on there too.
Oh yeah, there's Trophies too, and the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because of a cheeky, not-quite-copyright-infringing dig at Metal Gear Solid: Rising, with a Trophy called 'Bolt Action' awarded when you receive the lightning bolt ability. It made me laugh anyway.
I implore everyone who owns a PS3 to buy this though, especially those who don't still have the games on the PS2. Sure, nothing's changed really, but saying that they are still both amazing games, and still better than any and all of their rival series. Plus, if the sales reach noticeable levels, they might give us the backwards compatibility we've all been fucking asking for for the past few years. At the very least, they might do collections for their other IPs, like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus or (I know it's not theirs technically but it's where it belongs) Metal Gear.
Anyway, all things going well, I should have something to write about next week, and one of those things should be the return of Kratos. See you then.
Well, apart from my new found love and appreciation, not only for Sackboy (I already loved the little guy), but for Little Big Planet as a game that is. I've spent probably most of my non-Oblivion time on LBP this last week, and truth be told I haven't even tried the level editor yet. It looks simple and ordinary at a first glance, but when you look at it from a technical standpoint, it's absolutely breathtaking.
You see, for those like me who have foolishly looked past LBP all these years, everything in Little Big Planet is based around some absolutely astounding physics. Each level (even the ones in Story Mode are created using the game's robust edit mode) is basically a huge domino rally, with the charming little knitted character as the catalyst, and everything that happens is basically down to gravity, or a complex system of pulleys and gears, all in a virtual sense of course.
My only gripe with the game is that Sackboy moves around like a wet turd on a polished floor, careering into his surroundings and straight off ledges, which makes some of the more precise jumps a nightmare to pull off. But believe me, as late to the party as I am, I fucking love the game, and plan on getting the PSP version very soon indeed.
For the last few days, there has been a copy of God of War III in my house. But, you see, I somewhat foolishly asked for it as a birthday present, and as a result have to wait until Thursday to play it. So. to sate my hunger, I fired up my newly acquired NTSC copy of God of War Collection on Sunday night, to see how well it had been 'remastered and optimised'. The particular copy has been somewhat communal among my group of friends, first the property of fellow (if a little sporadic) blogger Raz7el, then passed on to regular blog-commenter Paul in exchange for a copy of Dante's Inferno before finding itself in my clammy paws, so I almost feel obligated to pass it on once I've had my fill.
I've only had chance to try the original God of War so far, and I'm in no rush to play them before the chalky angry one makes his belated PS3 debut in my house on Thursday because I can pretty much recite the GoW storyline off by heart (Angry man becomes god's assassin, accidentally kills family, gets angrier, purposefully kills god (Nolan North, naturally), becomes god himself, is a little naughty, gets god licence revoked, gets even angrier, meets titans, sets off to kill gods, and dies and escapes hell about a hundred times in the process). As for the remastering? Well, the game is by default in 16:9 screen ratio now, which saves you about three and a half seconds in the options menu, and the games are displayed in 720p, which is really not that noticeable frankly. Last year, believing GoWIII to be nearer to release than it was, I played the first two on a PS2 using an RGB cable on the very same TV, and it was pretty much identical. But saying that, when you aren't forced to look at a Greek Soldier who was rendered out of about eleven polygons, the game still looks great, nearly on a par with some of this generation's equivalents (Hellboy: The Science of Evil springs to mind). Really though, if this was born out of love and appreciation for we, the fans, then Chains of Olympus should have been on there too.
Oh yeah, there's Trophies too, and the only reason I'm even mentioning this is because of a cheeky, not-quite-copyright-infringing dig at Metal Gear Solid: Rising, with a Trophy called 'Bolt Action' awarded when you receive the lightning bolt ability. It made me laugh anyway.
I implore everyone who owns a PS3 to buy this though, especially those who don't still have the games on the PS2. Sure, nothing's changed really, but saying that they are still both amazing games, and still better than any and all of their rival series. Plus, if the sales reach noticeable levels, they might give us the backwards compatibility we've all been fucking asking for for the past few years. At the very least, they might do collections for their other IPs, like Ico/Shadow of the Colossus or (I know it's not theirs technically but it's where it belongs) Metal Gear.
Anyway, all things going well, I should have something to write about next week, and one of those things should be the return of Kratos. See you then.
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Wow, what a mansion! (AKA the 24 Hour Gamer DLC edition)
Okay, doing something a bit different this week. With the recent trend of affordable DLC hitting the PSN store, I thought I'd grab a bit and give it a write-up, especially seeing as my Shame Pile has dried up. So here I go.
I started off with the two pieces of episodic DLC for Ubisoft's masterpiece (and clear winner of most improved sequel of the last decade) Assassin's Creed II, entitled The Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities. The two pieces fit nicely into the conveniently skipped chapters of the main game's storyline, so it's possible to play them both as part of a complete playthrough as well as going back to them after the game's conclusion. At £3.19 a piece, they don't exactly break the bank either.
The Battle of Forli takes place right after Ezio officially earns his Assassin's stripes, when the fight with Rodrigo Borgia, the would-be Pope, went a bit wrong. It involves a siege on the palatial home of briefly seen countess of Forli (and, lets face it, a bit of a slapper) Catarina Sforza, during which two of her seemingly countless children are kidnapped, along with the Apple of Eden, an artifact of limitless power.
The chapter starts with an escort mission, where you need to get Catarina and fellow Assassin Niccolo Machiavelli safely to the castle's keep, and is frustratingly annoying. Both of your charges would much rather dance around catching enemy axes with their faces than do anything useful, so it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to get through the very first bit. Once you get past that small annoyance though, it's back to the usual standard of the game though, fun, stylish combat and satisfying kills. The last kill, which took place atop a tower in the centre of a restricted area was extremely gratifying for me, as my assault on the monolith went flawlessly, with me stealing around the grounds surreptitiously picking off guards when their backs were turned, before leaping up the bastion, taking my target's mace out of his hands and deftly planting it, with the greatest of care, into his arsehole.
While The Battle of Forli wasn't to the standards of the main game, The Bonfire of the Vanities was a disgusting disappointment. It sees you, with freshly cultivated facial hair, tracking down the captor of the aforementioned Apple of Eden, exiled friar Girolamo Savonarola, who has taken over Florence. He has stationed 9 lieutenants around the city, who must each have their day ruined before the big man himself.
One of these future corpses is stationed on a boat, and for some reason if any of his guards see you the mission is over, despite the fact that he really isn't going anywhere quickly on a moored sail barge. The single assassination alone took me over an hour of swearing and pillow punching to (pun intended) execute, as it appears that 15th century guards can see through walls. I came so close once, after a flurry of smoke bombs and throwing knives, only for my prey to see me standing BEHIND him. And this, this single insignificant murder, made me go from loving Assassin's Creed II, to never wanting to play it again.
I was much happier with the two extra chapters for Resident Evil 5, a game I wasn't too thrilled with to begin with. Both are available now for a measly £3.99 each, and offer about an hour and a half of genuinely great gameplay.
The first, titled Lost in Nightmares tells the story of how series staple Jill Valentine met her apparent demise at the hands of superhuman baddie Albert Wesker during the assault on Ozwell Spencer's stately mansion, as told through a flashback in RE5's main story. The plot though, is a thin disguise for a basic summation of the first Resident Evil, and feels like a big 'thank you' to the fans from Capcom. It has all of the favourites, from the 'Jill Sandwich' spiked ceiling, to the secret door opened by playing 'Moonlight Sonata' on a Piano, to the different shaped cranks used to progress. There are even a few stray Zombies dotted around too. The only real let down of the piece is a slightly sketchy boss fight with Mr. Wesker, but that's only a small complaint and doesn't mar the experience one iota.
The second part, titled Desperate Escape, tells the events of RE5's climax from the point of view of Miss Valentine, and her new acquaintance Josh Stone (not Joss Stone), of the West-African branch of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, or BSAA. Where the first pack was mainly puzzle based, this is all about action and does not disappoint, throwing all kinds of enemies at you. There are plenty of Executioners, Chainsaw Majini and Gatling Gun Majini to keep the action flowing, with mannable grenade-launcher emplacements dotted around sporadically, and ammo everywhere to keep the carnage up. The chapter climaxes with what is basically the game's mercenaries mode, with you holding position while waiting seemingly hours for an evac, which gets genuinely tense. Both expansion packs breathe life into a game that frankly got stale before it's own ending.
Finally, I finished off with the first chapter of the episodic Heavy Rain Chronicles, ominously named The Taxidermist. Way back during Heavy Rain's early development, Quantic Dream showed a technical demo of the game's heroine Madison Paige being chased around a house by a crazed killer, and that eventually became what I was playing. Currently unavailable commercially, I downloaded it freely with the game's collector's edition.
It starts off with Ms. Paige investigating a potential Origami Killer, an ex Taxidermist (hence the title) who turns out to be away from home when she arrives. Naturally, she breaks into his home and starts to snoop around. Upstairs she makes a grizzly discovery in the bathroom; the body of a woman in a bath filled with more blood than water, then in a large open plan room at the end of the corridor, more dead women, this time stuffed and placed in provocative clothing and positions, including, sickeningly, a nude one in a double bed.
The look of shock on Madison's face and how she reacts to everything she sees is fantastic, it really shows emotion that isn't usually conveyed in games outside of cutscenes. And it's mirrored in the player when the killer returns home, I've honestly never felt so tense as I tried, and ultimately failed to sneak out of his house, I could actually hear my own heartbeat. Long story short, things ended badly for poor Madison, but that was only one of a potential six conclusions, so it has replay value too. I'll definitely go back to it, and await future episodes eagerly.
Back to normal next week, and I'll try and dig up something to play and comment on before then. I might finally have time to give Little Big Planet a proper go. Until then.
I started off with the two pieces of episodic DLC for Ubisoft's masterpiece (and clear winner of most improved sequel of the last decade) Assassin's Creed II, entitled The Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities. The two pieces fit nicely into the conveniently skipped chapters of the main game's storyline, so it's possible to play them both as part of a complete playthrough as well as going back to them after the game's conclusion. At £3.19 a piece, they don't exactly break the bank either.
The Battle of Forli takes place right after Ezio officially earns his Assassin's stripes, when the fight with Rodrigo Borgia, the would-be Pope, went a bit wrong. It involves a siege on the palatial home of briefly seen countess of Forli (and, lets face it, a bit of a slapper) Catarina Sforza, during which two of her seemingly countless children are kidnapped, along with the Apple of Eden, an artifact of limitless power.
The chapter starts with an escort mission, where you need to get Catarina and fellow Assassin Niccolo Machiavelli safely to the castle's keep, and is frustratingly annoying. Both of your charges would much rather dance around catching enemy axes with their faces than do anything useful, so it takes a lot of patience and perseverance to get through the very first bit. Once you get past that small annoyance though, it's back to the usual standard of the game though, fun, stylish combat and satisfying kills. The last kill, which took place atop a tower in the centre of a restricted area was extremely gratifying for me, as my assault on the monolith went flawlessly, with me stealing around the grounds surreptitiously picking off guards when their backs were turned, before leaping up the bastion, taking my target's mace out of his hands and deftly planting it, with the greatest of care, into his arsehole.
While The Battle of Forli wasn't to the standards of the main game, The Bonfire of the Vanities was a disgusting disappointment. It sees you, with freshly cultivated facial hair, tracking down the captor of the aforementioned Apple of Eden, exiled friar Girolamo Savonarola, who has taken over Florence. He has stationed 9 lieutenants around the city, who must each have their day ruined before the big man himself.
One of these future corpses is stationed on a boat, and for some reason if any of his guards see you the mission is over, despite the fact that he really isn't going anywhere quickly on a moored sail barge. The single assassination alone took me over an hour of swearing and pillow punching to (pun intended) execute, as it appears that 15th century guards can see through walls. I came so close once, after a flurry of smoke bombs and throwing knives, only for my prey to see me standing BEHIND him. And this, this single insignificant murder, made me go from loving Assassin's Creed II, to never wanting to play it again.
I was much happier with the two extra chapters for Resident Evil 5, a game I wasn't too thrilled with to begin with. Both are available now for a measly £3.99 each, and offer about an hour and a half of genuinely great gameplay.
The first, titled Lost in Nightmares tells the story of how series staple Jill Valentine met her apparent demise at the hands of superhuman baddie Albert Wesker during the assault on Ozwell Spencer's stately mansion, as told through a flashback in RE5's main story. The plot though, is a thin disguise for a basic summation of the first Resident Evil, and feels like a big 'thank you' to the fans from Capcom. It has all of the favourites, from the 'Jill Sandwich' spiked ceiling, to the secret door opened by playing 'Moonlight Sonata' on a Piano, to the different shaped cranks used to progress. There are even a few stray Zombies dotted around too. The only real let down of the piece is a slightly sketchy boss fight with Mr. Wesker, but that's only a small complaint and doesn't mar the experience one iota.
The second part, titled Desperate Escape, tells the events of RE5's climax from the point of view of Miss Valentine, and her new acquaintance Josh Stone (not Joss Stone), of the West-African branch of the Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance, or BSAA. Where the first pack was mainly puzzle based, this is all about action and does not disappoint, throwing all kinds of enemies at you. There are plenty of Executioners, Chainsaw Majini and Gatling Gun Majini to keep the action flowing, with mannable grenade-launcher emplacements dotted around sporadically, and ammo everywhere to keep the carnage up. The chapter climaxes with what is basically the game's mercenaries mode, with you holding position while waiting seemingly hours for an evac, which gets genuinely tense. Both expansion packs breathe life into a game that frankly got stale before it's own ending.
Finally, I finished off with the first chapter of the episodic Heavy Rain Chronicles, ominously named The Taxidermist. Way back during Heavy Rain's early development, Quantic Dream showed a technical demo of the game's heroine Madison Paige being chased around a house by a crazed killer, and that eventually became what I was playing. Currently unavailable commercially, I downloaded it freely with the game's collector's edition.
It starts off with Ms. Paige investigating a potential Origami Killer, an ex Taxidermist (hence the title) who turns out to be away from home when she arrives. Naturally, she breaks into his home and starts to snoop around. Upstairs she makes a grizzly discovery in the bathroom; the body of a woman in a bath filled with more blood than water, then in a large open plan room at the end of the corridor, more dead women, this time stuffed and placed in provocative clothing and positions, including, sickeningly, a nude one in a double bed.
The look of shock on Madison's face and how she reacts to everything she sees is fantastic, it really shows emotion that isn't usually conveyed in games outside of cutscenes. And it's mirrored in the player when the killer returns home, I've honestly never felt so tense as I tried, and ultimately failed to sneak out of his house, I could actually hear my own heartbeat. Long story short, things ended badly for poor Madison, but that was only one of a potential six conclusions, so it has replay value too. I'll definitely go back to it, and await future episodes eagerly.
Back to normal next week, and I'll try and dig up something to play and comment on before then. I might finally have time to give Little Big Planet a proper go. Until then.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Oh Mickey, you're so fine, you're so fine, you blow my mind.
Where to start? Well, if I said that the last week had been a good gaming week for me, I'd be lying through my teeth. It started off well, with my re-discovery of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which has eaten up about 12 hours of time that I should have spent sleeping this week. I have played Oblivion before, about three times from start to finish actually, so I thought I'd mix things up a little this time. Playing as a Khajiit, an anthropomorphic cat for those who haven't played the game yet (although you really should, it's a very likely candidate for the best game ever made), I've taken it upon myself to make it my goal to hunt and kill every Argonian (lizard people, and historical enemies of the Khajiit) in the game world, after they've served any purpose they might have that is.
Aside from that, this is the first time I've tried playing the game with Light Armour, and only the second time using swords, as I usually go for heavy armour and axes or (my favourite) warhammers. And it's my first time out of the dungeon that I wasn't in the shoes of an Elf too, so a lot of the game is fresh to me this time. But that's the high point of the week over right there.
After the surprisingly great ObsCure, I was eager to fire up ObsCure II on the Wii, and was appalled. None of the atmosphere had survived, the creepy post-Gothic feeling of the original's high school setting had been replaced by a college frat house full of asshole stereotype douchebags with absolutely disgusting voice actors that they must have scraped up off the street. I commented on how Sum 41's 'Still Waiting' failed to set the scene in the first one, but the opening music to ObsCure II (god knows what it was) was comically inappropriate, actually cheerful sounding.
Then you get thrown into the gameplay, and the erratic animation combined with the standard sketchy-at-best Wii controls that make any attempt at a serious game (bar Resident Evil 4) a chore make the game virtually unplayable. The writers seem to have forgotten that our heroes found a cure for their infection at the end of the first game, because now they are having to take medicines to stop it spreading. Also, none of the returning characters look, sound or behave as they did before (our hero Stan has even stopped talking like Vanilla Ice), showing yet more lack of attention by the developers. And after a bad nightmare sequence that shamelessly ripped off Silent Hill and a run-in with the game's very first enemies who can tear about a third of your health away with one hit, it wasn't long before I switched it off. If I ever find it for a decent price on the PS2, I might be tempted to have a go at it with a normal controller, but as it stands I'm just not interested enough to put myself through it.
So I moved on to this week's main event, the infamous Rogue Warrior on the PS3. Rogue Warrior is a supposed true story based on the autobiography of former Navy Seal commander (and tourette's sufferer, if the game is anything to go by) Dick Marcinko. I'm not going to skirt around things here, this game is BAD. But it's not insultingly bad, like Haze, it's laugh-out-loud, piss-hilarious bad. I suppose, if you'd spend £40 on it, then it would be a bit of a kick in the balls, but I only spent £14.99 (I can only imagine how bad the person who sold it to Cash Converters felt, he can't have gotten more than a tenner for it less than a month after it was released. I hope for his sake he stole it).
I'm going to start with the script. Dick, voiced by muscular pensioner Mickey Rourke, must have said about 4 or 5 words before his first 'fuck' broke through, and then never looked back. Apart from the D-grade military action movie jargon I think I heard one line of F-bomb free dialogue in the whole game, and that was a reference to cunnilingus. At one point, close to death, Dick descended into one long, uninterrupted swear word, which went something like "fucknshitbastardcommiemotherfuckinfuck". That's quality writing right there. From his voice, you get the feeling that Mickey's heart wasn't really in it. But you also get the feeling that half of the expletives weren't actually on the script too.
Right, gameplay time. Rogue Warrior is a standard FPS, one man versus the whole of North Korea and the Soviet Union type of affair. It's cover system is like a happy marriage between Killzone 2 and Gears of War, and it feels great until you reload. If you leave cover half way through reloading, the action is cancelled. It's okay though, there's no reason to leave cover, because the enemies will just stroll over and stand at the other side of whatever you're hiding behind, happily firing round after round into the bulletproof barrier, allowing you to use blindfire and just poke your gun over the top and kill him without even aiming.
The enemies take cover too though, and I actually saw one throw a grenade at the cover he was hiding behind, resulting in the explosive bouncing right back and landing in his lap. So it's no surprise that Kim Jong Il's finest pose very little threat to you throughout the game. The only problem comes with the Shotgun carriers, who defy the laws of the world by being able to shoot the hairs off a flea's back at 200 yards. Attention to detail, nothing is spared.
Like with The Punisher on the PS2, I tended to favour the melee kills, which are triggered by moving close to an enemy and pressing the X button. This sends the camera out to a third person view so you can admire you suitably brutal finisher, ranging from turning an enemy's gun on himself to slitting his throat, to the frankly worrying move involving sticking your knife up a poor communist's arsehole. The mind boggles.
It's hard to imagine, that with the publisher of Fallout 3 and the developer of Rogue Trooper and Aliens vs. Predator, that an FPS with such a rich upbringing could go so wrong. Whoever thought it would be a great idea to let people play as a demolitions expert (the game's main aim is to plant explosives on missiles) was sorely mistaken. And who decided that 2 and a half hours was an adequate lifespan of a game was frankly insane. But at least it made me laugh.
And that's about it. I had a quick go on Madworld the other day, and it didn't really grab me. The visuals are headache inducing (reminding me of pictures I used to draw as a child, where I would only colour in the blood), and it seems to me that they had tried to come up with a valid storyline involving terrorists at the start of the game, but then abandoning it and leaving the cutscene in. One minute the president is addressing the nation over a terrorist attack and promising to send in a special agent, the next you're in a violent Running Man style game show. Then it's just hitting people until the game over screen. I'll have another go, but I don't predict I'll fall for it. Speaking of falling for things, I tried the Just Cause 2 demo last night, and I think I'll be bringing the full game home on the 26th. Even though I loved the original, for some reason I wasn't expecting much from the sequel, but was very pleasantly surprised. Gives me something to look forward to.
Check back next week for the DLC special!
Aside from that, this is the first time I've tried playing the game with Light Armour, and only the second time using swords, as I usually go for heavy armour and axes or (my favourite) warhammers. And it's my first time out of the dungeon that I wasn't in the shoes of an Elf too, so a lot of the game is fresh to me this time. But that's the high point of the week over right there.
After the surprisingly great ObsCure, I was eager to fire up ObsCure II on the Wii, and was appalled. None of the atmosphere had survived, the creepy post-Gothic feeling of the original's high school setting had been replaced by a college frat house full of asshole stereotype douchebags with absolutely disgusting voice actors that they must have scraped up off the street. I commented on how Sum 41's 'Still Waiting' failed to set the scene in the first one, but the opening music to ObsCure II (god knows what it was) was comically inappropriate, actually cheerful sounding.
Then you get thrown into the gameplay, and the erratic animation combined with the standard sketchy-at-best Wii controls that make any attempt at a serious game (bar Resident Evil 4) a chore make the game virtually unplayable. The writers seem to have forgotten that our heroes found a cure for their infection at the end of the first game, because now they are having to take medicines to stop it spreading. Also, none of the returning characters look, sound or behave as they did before (our hero Stan has even stopped talking like Vanilla Ice), showing yet more lack of attention by the developers. And after a bad nightmare sequence that shamelessly ripped off Silent Hill and a run-in with the game's very first enemies who can tear about a third of your health away with one hit, it wasn't long before I switched it off. If I ever find it for a decent price on the PS2, I might be tempted to have a go at it with a normal controller, but as it stands I'm just not interested enough to put myself through it.
So I moved on to this week's main event, the infamous Rogue Warrior on the PS3. Rogue Warrior is a supposed true story based on the autobiography of former Navy Seal commander (and tourette's sufferer, if the game is anything to go by) Dick Marcinko. I'm not going to skirt around things here, this game is BAD. But it's not insultingly bad, like Haze, it's laugh-out-loud, piss-hilarious bad. I suppose, if you'd spend £40 on it, then it would be a bit of a kick in the balls, but I only spent £14.99 (I can only imagine how bad the person who sold it to Cash Converters felt, he can't have gotten more than a tenner for it less than a month after it was released. I hope for his sake he stole it).
I'm going to start with the script. Dick, voiced by muscular pensioner Mickey Rourke, must have said about 4 or 5 words before his first 'fuck' broke through, and then never looked back. Apart from the D-grade military action movie jargon I think I heard one line of F-bomb free dialogue in the whole game, and that was a reference to cunnilingus. At one point, close to death, Dick descended into one long, uninterrupted swear word, which went something like "fucknshitbastardcommiemotherfuckinfuck". That's quality writing right there. From his voice, you get the feeling that Mickey's heart wasn't really in it. But you also get the feeling that half of the expletives weren't actually on the script too.
Right, gameplay time. Rogue Warrior is a standard FPS, one man versus the whole of North Korea and the Soviet Union type of affair. It's cover system is like a happy marriage between Killzone 2 and Gears of War, and it feels great until you reload. If you leave cover half way through reloading, the action is cancelled. It's okay though, there's no reason to leave cover, because the enemies will just stroll over and stand at the other side of whatever you're hiding behind, happily firing round after round into the bulletproof barrier, allowing you to use blindfire and just poke your gun over the top and kill him without even aiming.
The enemies take cover too though, and I actually saw one throw a grenade at the cover he was hiding behind, resulting in the explosive bouncing right back and landing in his lap. So it's no surprise that Kim Jong Il's finest pose very little threat to you throughout the game. The only problem comes with the Shotgun carriers, who defy the laws of the world by being able to shoot the hairs off a flea's back at 200 yards. Attention to detail, nothing is spared.
Like with The Punisher on the PS2, I tended to favour the melee kills, which are triggered by moving close to an enemy and pressing the X button. This sends the camera out to a third person view so you can admire you suitably brutal finisher, ranging from turning an enemy's gun on himself to slitting his throat, to the frankly worrying move involving sticking your knife up a poor communist's arsehole. The mind boggles.
It's hard to imagine, that with the publisher of Fallout 3 and the developer of Rogue Trooper and Aliens vs. Predator, that an FPS with such a rich upbringing could go so wrong. Whoever thought it would be a great idea to let people play as a demolitions expert (the game's main aim is to plant explosives on missiles) was sorely mistaken. And who decided that 2 and a half hours was an adequate lifespan of a game was frankly insane. But at least it made me laugh.
And that's about it. I had a quick go on Madworld the other day, and it didn't really grab me. The visuals are headache inducing (reminding me of pictures I used to draw as a child, where I would only colour in the blood), and it seems to me that they had tried to come up with a valid storyline involving terrorists at the start of the game, but then abandoning it and leaving the cutscene in. One minute the president is addressing the nation over a terrorist attack and promising to send in a special agent, the next you're in a violent Running Man style game show. Then it's just hitting people until the game over screen. I'll have another go, but I don't predict I'll fall for it. Speaking of falling for things, I tried the Just Cause 2 demo last night, and I think I'll be bringing the full game home on the 26th. Even though I loved the original, for some reason I wasn't expecting much from the sequel, but was very pleasantly surprised. Gives me something to look forward to.
Check back next week for the DLC special!
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of graveyard, and it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall
Another month, another candidate for Game of 2010. After Mass Effect 2 a month ago, I recall expressing concern and doubt about playing a game that I would consider it's equal in the preceding eleven months. Yet here I am, four mere weeks later with a game in my clammy paws that I possibly like even more.
The game in question is Quantic Dream's PS3 exclusive epic Heavy Rain, spiritual successor to the fantastic (if a little flawed narratively) Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy stateside thanks to the combined efforts of Micheal Moore and Osama Bin Laden). When I first played Fahrenheit, it was completely new to me. The only games I could even begin to compare it to were Shenmue, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, but even then the comparisons were vague and incomplete.
Heavy Rain goes down the same path in terms of delivery, but throws away the fantasy elements of Dreamfall and (to a lesser extent) Broken Sword and, taking the spiritual guidance of Shenmue, throws you into a very serious, very mature murder mystery. The story begins with a ridiculously perfect family living a ridiculously perfect life together, until one family day outing spells disaster for the father, Ethan Mars, when his eldest son of two, Jason, wanders off. Ethan eventually finds him, but their reunion is cut dramatically short when they are both struck by an oncoming car, sending Ethan into a coma and Jason into an early grave.
Two years later we rejoin Ethan a bit worse for wear. His marriage has ended and he's just picking up his remaining son Shaun from his ex wife's house. Instead of moving to Malibu with Charlie Sheen as some people do in these situations, he's got himself a shitty little house in the most depressing part of town. Shaun is quite understandably a bit pissed off at Ethan, obviously he never knows when he's going to get led into traffic by his dear old dad, and to make it up to him Ethan takes Shaun to a playground. Right about now seems a good place to mention that Ethan's coma rendered him a bit of a Schizo with a penchant for blacking out, and after placing Shaun on a merry-go-round (don't all playgrounds have them?), he promptly does just that. He wakes up later on to find his son missing, and a small origami figure in his hand, the calling card of a mass child murderer known as (wait for it) 'The Origami Killer'. So Ethan goes on a quest to find his son, along with FBI agent Fox M... sorry, Norman Jayden, lovable private dick Scott Shelby, his prostitute sidekick Lauren Winter and Madison Paige, a journalist who's clothes keep falling off.
Heavy Rain places itself in a very unique position in that it's not only one of my favourite games (I will go that far, I absolutely loved it), but also one of my favourite films too. A lot of the time I almost forgot I was playing at all, robotically hammering the quick time events in without even really noticing them even appearing onscreen. Another fairly unique thing about the game is that when a character dies, the game carries on without them instead of ending and letting you continue. Ironically, I can only think of one other game that does this and that's ObsCure, a game I only played a couple of weeks earlier.
Heavy Rain, like most PS3 exclusives, really excels in the graphical department. To say it looks beautiful is a criminal understatement. Even the graphical might of Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 doesn't seem to hold up against Heavy Rain. The only thing I don't like about it really is the creepy facial expressions from Fahrenheit occasionally crop up, as if the motion capture artists didn't smile when they should have and one was thrown in at the last minute, a shining example of this is during the nightclub scene where Madison dances on the podium. I am just nitpicking for the sake of it though.
Before Heavy Rain I returned to the macho, closely shaven world of Richard B. Riddick once more, with The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Not so much a sequel to Butcher Bay, Dark Athena is more of an expansion pack. It plays exactly the same, which was quite disappointing to be honest. Even the main story seems completely plagiarised, with the prison planet that Riddick must escape from in Butcher Bay replaced with a mercenary ship filled with prisoners, that Riddick must escape from. It's considerably longer than Butcher Bay, but that's the only thing I can really say about it. If it wasn't for the first game being included on Dark Athena's disk, it really wouldn't be worth buying.
Thursday's PSN Store update saw the releases of demos for Darksiders and God of War III, both of which are bloody fantastic hack-and-slash kill-em-ups and like the earlier Dante's Inferno are both based on religious mythology, and have thus been locked in a friendly battle. There's no contest really, Kratos has made sure of that, but so far Darksiders seems to be superior to Dante's by a gnat's wing, mainly helped along by the bold imagery, great voice work (thanks Mark Hamill) and the fact that it's not shamelessly ripping off God of War in every way. But God of War III seems to be shaping up very nicely, losing none of what made it's three prequels brilliant. And it's just about the most violent game I've ever played: the demo sees you disemboweling a Centaur (raising questions about how their innards are arranged), yanking the eye from the head of a Cyclops (the stalk doesn't snap immediately like the previous games, it has to be pulled to it's elastic limit and then snapped off) and ripping the head from sun god Helios' shoulders with your bare hands, seeing the flesh tear bit by bit before it gives. Absolutely brutal, yet I would expect nothing less.
Finally, I finished my second play through of Mass Effect 2 this week. I didn't mention it so as not to give anything away, but the ending of my first attempt saw three of my crew in their graves: The Salarian scientist Mordin, Asari law enforcer Samara and Human/Llama hybrid Miranda. This time I was 100% successful, seeing all of my crew through the mission. I also went down the renegade route this time, essentially becoming a space Jack Bauer, and it made the game a lot more entertaining. Yes, there was a scene where I punched a woman news reporter completely without provocation, and I will admit I laughed out loud when it happened. It was her own fault, she was making disingenuous assertions, and Shepard had had enough of them. And for lack of anything to play on my 360 last night, I fired up Saint's Row. Big mistake. It hasn't stood the test of time well, with it's awful graphics and awkward humour. Don't think I'll play much more of that one. Anyway, I'm off to play Oblivion now, buh-bye.
The game in question is Quantic Dream's PS3 exclusive epic Heavy Rain, spiritual successor to the fantastic (if a little flawed narratively) Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy stateside thanks to the combined efforts of Micheal Moore and Osama Bin Laden). When I first played Fahrenheit, it was completely new to me. The only games I could even begin to compare it to were Shenmue, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, but even then the comparisons were vague and incomplete.
Heavy Rain goes down the same path in terms of delivery, but throws away the fantasy elements of Dreamfall and (to a lesser extent) Broken Sword and, taking the spiritual guidance of Shenmue, throws you into a very serious, very mature murder mystery. The story begins with a ridiculously perfect family living a ridiculously perfect life together, until one family day outing spells disaster for the father, Ethan Mars, when his eldest son of two, Jason, wanders off. Ethan eventually finds him, but their reunion is cut dramatically short when they are both struck by an oncoming car, sending Ethan into a coma and Jason into an early grave.
Two years later we rejoin Ethan a bit worse for wear. His marriage has ended and he's just picking up his remaining son Shaun from his ex wife's house. Instead of moving to Malibu with Charlie Sheen as some people do in these situations, he's got himself a shitty little house in the most depressing part of town. Shaun is quite understandably a bit pissed off at Ethan, obviously he never knows when he's going to get led into traffic by his dear old dad, and to make it up to him Ethan takes Shaun to a playground. Right about now seems a good place to mention that Ethan's coma rendered him a bit of a Schizo with a penchant for blacking out, and after placing Shaun on a merry-go-round (don't all playgrounds have them?), he promptly does just that. He wakes up later on to find his son missing, and a small origami figure in his hand, the calling card of a mass child murderer known as (wait for it) 'The Origami Killer'. So Ethan goes on a quest to find his son, along with FBI agent Fox M... sorry, Norman Jayden, lovable private dick Scott Shelby, his prostitute sidekick Lauren Winter and Madison Paige, a journalist who's clothes keep falling off.
Heavy Rain places itself in a very unique position in that it's not only one of my favourite games (I will go that far, I absolutely loved it), but also one of my favourite films too. A lot of the time I almost forgot I was playing at all, robotically hammering the quick time events in without even really noticing them even appearing onscreen. Another fairly unique thing about the game is that when a character dies, the game carries on without them instead of ending and letting you continue. Ironically, I can only think of one other game that does this and that's ObsCure, a game I only played a couple of weeks earlier.
Heavy Rain, like most PS3 exclusives, really excels in the graphical department. To say it looks beautiful is a criminal understatement. Even the graphical might of Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 doesn't seem to hold up against Heavy Rain. The only thing I don't like about it really is the creepy facial expressions from Fahrenheit occasionally crop up, as if the motion capture artists didn't smile when they should have and one was thrown in at the last minute, a shining example of this is during the nightclub scene where Madison dances on the podium. I am just nitpicking for the sake of it though.
Before Heavy Rain I returned to the macho, closely shaven world of Richard B. Riddick once more, with The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. Not so much a sequel to Butcher Bay, Dark Athena is more of an expansion pack. It plays exactly the same, which was quite disappointing to be honest. Even the main story seems completely plagiarised, with the prison planet that Riddick must escape from in Butcher Bay replaced with a mercenary ship filled with prisoners, that Riddick must escape from. It's considerably longer than Butcher Bay, but that's the only thing I can really say about it. If it wasn't for the first game being included on Dark Athena's disk, it really wouldn't be worth buying.
Thursday's PSN Store update saw the releases of demos for Darksiders and God of War III, both of which are bloody fantastic hack-and-slash kill-em-ups and like the earlier Dante's Inferno are both based on religious mythology, and have thus been locked in a friendly battle. There's no contest really, Kratos has made sure of that, but so far Darksiders seems to be superior to Dante's by a gnat's wing, mainly helped along by the bold imagery, great voice work (thanks Mark Hamill) and the fact that it's not shamelessly ripping off God of War in every way. But God of War III seems to be shaping up very nicely, losing none of what made it's three prequels brilliant. And it's just about the most violent game I've ever played: the demo sees you disemboweling a Centaur (raising questions about how their innards are arranged), yanking the eye from the head of a Cyclops (the stalk doesn't snap immediately like the previous games, it has to be pulled to it's elastic limit and then snapped off) and ripping the head from sun god Helios' shoulders with your bare hands, seeing the flesh tear bit by bit before it gives. Absolutely brutal, yet I would expect nothing less.
Finally, I finished my second play through of Mass Effect 2 this week. I didn't mention it so as not to give anything away, but the ending of my first attempt saw three of my crew in their graves: The Salarian scientist Mordin, Asari law enforcer Samara and Human/Llama hybrid Miranda. This time I was 100% successful, seeing all of my crew through the mission. I also went down the renegade route this time, essentially becoming a space Jack Bauer, and it made the game a lot more entertaining. Yes, there was a scene where I punched a woman news reporter completely without provocation, and I will admit I laughed out loud when it happened. It was her own fault, she was making disingenuous assertions, and Shepard had had enough of them. And for lack of anything to play on my 360 last night, I fired up Saint's Row. Big mistake. It hasn't stood the test of time well, with it's awful graphics and awkward humour. Don't think I'll play much more of that one. Anyway, I'm off to play Oblivion now, buh-bye.
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