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.