I've decided on a self-imposed gaming hiatus, in a bid to free up some time to get this site up to date, so I'll hopefully be posting quite a bit in the coming week or so. There's so much shit I want to write about, and it seems that every time I fire up a console something is added to the list, so there comes a time when one just has to sit back, catch a breath and put pen to paper, so to speak.
I'll start with Dead Space 2 I guess, it was the first game I played during the 2011 annual laptop disaster so it's only fair. I was extremely late to the party with the first Dead Space, not only picking it up late but developing an irrational hatred of it about a third of the way in (I think I was intimidated by the apparent difficulty of the game at first, it seemed like ammo was very short in supply and the enemies just keep on coming, but things loosened off a bit later on) and shelving it. I corrected myself a few months ago and discovered what an absolute joy the game was to play.
Dead Space 2 then, is more of the same in terms of gameplay. I opted for the PS3 version for the perks of Dragon Age II DLC, Free Dead Space Extraction and not having to swap the disks, and I kinda regret this choice. Firstly, the controls are far better suited to the 360 pad, the chunkiness seems to fit with the way Isaac moves on screen. Playing the game in daylight (I only have a 360 in the boudoir) subtracted from the horror of the experience, Extraction is virtually unplayable without a Move controller, and to top it all off the DAII DLC is non-console specific, linking to your EA account and not through the PSN store or XBL Marketplace.
I suppose the biggest difference to the prequel is that Isaac, the main series' alien-zombie stomping protagonist, now has a voice, and consequentially refuses to shut the hell up. And suddenly this silent sentinel, this extension of your own psyche stuck in a deep-space hell filled with terrifying (albeit overly brittle) perversions of nature, suddenly has his own personality. And boy oh boy, is he a cock. He's informal, macho and at times bratty, totally the opposite of the Gordon Freeman archetype silent scientist, and what that conjures in the imagination.
But it's still a great game though, these aspects only lightly tarnish the refined Resident Evil 4 style engine, and the incomplex but engaging narrative. Being set in a colonial space-station set out like a city, as opposed to the Space Hulk/Nostromo/Discovery One/Red Dwarf hybrid of the first, the Bioshock similarities of the first (the uninterrupted gameplay and Isaac's aesthetic reminded me of 2K's opus the first time around) seem all the more apparent: echoes of Rapture are everywhere. There's also a bit of Silent Hill thrown in with cliched trips through a hospital and school, the latter throwing some relatively unmutated child-like monsters that could have been ripped right from the foggy ghost town itself if I didn't know better.
So original Dead Space 2 isn't. Visceral aren't really known for their originality though, Dante's Inferno anyone? There are a few new enemies and a couple of new mechanics, such as hacking minigames and being able to blow out a window to suck enemies into space, before closing it again before the vacuum consumes you (A bit like on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed actually), but it's mostly just a refined version of the original, gameplay wise anyway. I read somewhere that the game reminds the writer of Resident Evil 2, in that it's just like the original but bigger and better in every way, and I think that just about sums it up. Although as far as I'm concerned, Dead Space is still superior to it's sequel. Same goes for Resident Evil actually.
Mortal Kombat then. I've absolutely caned the demo since it became available to the masses the other week and to say I'm excited is like saying Hitler was a bit of an arsehole. The thing that is immediately apparent, once you've taken in the unrivalled violence and brutality anyway, is just how unique the game is; since the 2D fighting game revival we've seen Street Fighter IV, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and BlazBlue as the most dominant in the genre, and as far as first impressions count, all three of those are very similar experiences. Mortal Kombat still retains the feel of the series since Deadly Alliance, matching speed and fluidity with character-specific combos and signiature moves. The new X-Ray moves are wince-inducing too (Johnny Cage's actually made me want to go and have a little cry), and although easy to pull off, they require some expert timing; performing such a move consumes (sorry, konsumes) a full special bar, and they are very easy to evade it seems.
Finally, we've got the fatalities. It's been 5 years since we've had a real, true Mortal Kombat game (Mortal Kombat: Armageddon), and even that didn't have true fatality moves. 2008's Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was toned down to achieve a teen rating at the request of Warner Interactive, so said moves were far less grotesque, and as a result we've been starved of the privilege of a satisfying way to murder our aggressors since Mortal Kombat: Deception in 2004, seven whole years ago. The sheer brutality of the finishers on offer here makes it worth the wait. If the whole game maintains this level of intense violence and joyous gameplay, then the Mortal Kombat series is back where it belongs, as the second-best fighting game franchise on the market. Flawless Victory.
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Star Wars. Show all posts
Monday, 4 April 2011
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Is that a cartoon pig?
First things first:
Yeah, I left the price on intentionally. The more awake of you will remember I reviewed MW2 on the arse end of 2009 with full intentions of hating it, but actually ended up quite enjoying the game, as far fetched and Bond-like it was (which causes me to diverge and note that while playing GoldenEye on the Wii the other week, my immediate reaction was that it was like 'a shit Call of Duty'. Back on track). I had all intention to pick the game up once it hit the fabled £10 mark, but for that price with a pair of actual Night Vision Goggles I couldn't really pass it up. It was from Morrisons if anyone's interested, but I doubt you'll find any now. Our store only had four copies sent.
The goggles themselves are great. They look and feel a bit plasticky, after all they are made of plastic, but once I got the buggers on I was incredibly impressed. They are able to switch between long and short range, have adjustable eyepieces and manual focus, and even let you apply a green filter to your vision, just like in the movies. Now it's just left for me to find a suitable use for them, instead of following my cat around in the dark. I can't wait until I next go camping.
I've had a better time with The Sims 3 now I've learnt to cheat (press start and hold all shoulder buttons for those interested). The port is actually pretty faithful (I say without actually playing the PC version of The Sims 3), and the fire hazard meter is a lot more forgiving than on previous generation consoles: I was able to move into the biggest house in town and fill it with junk and barely even scratch the surface. Sure, I'm not getting any Trophies for my troubles, but it's hardly having a negative impact on my enjoyment of the game, whereas having to cope with poverty and finding a job while still trying to keep myself entertained and happy, well, it's a bit too much like real life.
I finished Fable III with my evil princess, and with a bit of patience (and leaving my XBox on all day to earn as much as I can) I think the next time I should be able to play through it as a benevolent character. I intend to do the trilogy fairly soon, as Fable III really got me in the mood to redo the first and, through my rose-tinted spectacles (I actually own some once, found them on a wall in Derbyshire, true story), best in the series. Been playing Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions too, which is a nice little distraction. A standard God of War clone, the game sees you step into the shoes of four Spider-Men from varying Marvel Earths to battle evil and reclaim fragments of a broken stone tablet with the power to undo all realities, all the while quipping to yourself in a typically carefree way.
It's mostly a standard brawler affair, with the occasional Force Unleashed II style freefall section in the Spider-Man 2099 bits, but the action is broken up by the Spider-Man Noir levels. Set in the 1930s, Noir sees an incarnation of Spider-Man as a darkly-dressed vigilante stalking the night, clinging to the shadows and striking terror into the cowardly, superstitious criminal element. Totally not like Batman. In fact, the Noir sections are nothing but a homage to Arkham Asylum, in which you swing around rafters silently picking off your enemies and fleeing to the shadows when spotted. Even the Spider Sense mode is a bit like Batman's Detective mode.
Having reached the Nolan North powered Deadpool level last night, and hearing the man himself deliver probably his best role since last year's Uncharted 2, I am inclined to think that I've possibly reached the highest point in the game, for me anyway. But at no point have I been bored with it, I just haven't been blown away. It's a solid game, and a lot better than Spider-Man 3. Actually thinking of picking up Web of Shadows at some point now. I heard you can decapitate Wolverine in it. Sweet.
And finally, I've conquered my fears of Fuck Off Dragons and restarted Dragon Age: Origins, the time the Ultimate Edition on PS3, in anticipation of March's Dragon Age II. A Dalish Elf this time, I'm determined to play all of the DLC too. I completed Leliana's Song before starting the main game, and it was pretty good, if a little shallow and pointless. It just tells how Leliana, our Orlesian Rogue, was betrayed by her mentor Marjolaine, as she touches upon in conversation in the main game, mainly through combat, which wasn't DA:O's strong point. It only took a couple of hours to finish anyway, and it was fresh and new, so I can't complain.
Alright, so, my Top 10 of '10 has been ultimately drafted, and I just have one more game to play from last year, so expect next week's post to be a bit of a 2010 recap of the 25 or 26 games that didn't get into the highest echelon, followed by the Top 10 the week after. I'll probably recap last year's 10 too, as it was never posted on this site. Bye for now.
Yeah, I left the price on intentionally. The more awake of you will remember I reviewed MW2 on the arse end of 2009 with full intentions of hating it, but actually ended up quite enjoying the game, as far fetched and Bond-like it was (which causes me to diverge and note that while playing GoldenEye on the Wii the other week, my immediate reaction was that it was like 'a shit Call of Duty'. Back on track). I had all intention to pick the game up once it hit the fabled £10 mark, but for that price with a pair of actual Night Vision Goggles I couldn't really pass it up. It was from Morrisons if anyone's interested, but I doubt you'll find any now. Our store only had four copies sent.
The goggles themselves are great. They look and feel a bit plasticky, after all they are made of plastic, but once I got the buggers on I was incredibly impressed. They are able to switch between long and short range, have adjustable eyepieces and manual focus, and even let you apply a green filter to your vision, just like in the movies. Now it's just left for me to find a suitable use for them, instead of following my cat around in the dark. I can't wait until I next go camping.
I've had a better time with The Sims 3 now I've learnt to cheat (press start and hold all shoulder buttons for those interested). The port is actually pretty faithful (I say without actually playing the PC version of The Sims 3), and the fire hazard meter is a lot more forgiving than on previous generation consoles: I was able to move into the biggest house in town and fill it with junk and barely even scratch the surface. Sure, I'm not getting any Trophies for my troubles, but it's hardly having a negative impact on my enjoyment of the game, whereas having to cope with poverty and finding a job while still trying to keep myself entertained and happy, well, it's a bit too much like real life.
I finished Fable III with my evil princess, and with a bit of patience (and leaving my XBox on all day to earn as much as I can) I think the next time I should be able to play through it as a benevolent character. I intend to do the trilogy fairly soon, as Fable III really got me in the mood to redo the first and, through my rose-tinted spectacles (I actually own some once, found them on a wall in Derbyshire, true story), best in the series. Been playing Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions too, which is a nice little distraction. A standard God of War clone, the game sees you step into the shoes of four Spider-Men from varying Marvel Earths to battle evil and reclaim fragments of a broken stone tablet with the power to undo all realities, all the while quipping to yourself in a typically carefree way.
It's mostly a standard brawler affair, with the occasional Force Unleashed II style freefall section in the Spider-Man 2099 bits, but the action is broken up by the Spider-Man Noir levels. Set in the 1930s, Noir sees an incarnation of Spider-Man as a darkly-dressed vigilante stalking the night, clinging to the shadows and striking terror into the cowardly, superstitious criminal element. Totally not like Batman. In fact, the Noir sections are nothing but a homage to Arkham Asylum, in which you swing around rafters silently picking off your enemies and fleeing to the shadows when spotted. Even the Spider Sense mode is a bit like Batman's Detective mode.
Having reached the Nolan North powered Deadpool level last night, and hearing the man himself deliver probably his best role since last year's Uncharted 2, I am inclined to think that I've possibly reached the highest point in the game, for me anyway. But at no point have I been bored with it, I just haven't been blown away. It's a solid game, and a lot better than Spider-Man 3. Actually thinking of picking up Web of Shadows at some point now. I heard you can decapitate Wolverine in it. Sweet.
And finally, I've conquered my fears of Fuck Off Dragons and restarted Dragon Age: Origins, the time the Ultimate Edition on PS3, in anticipation of March's Dragon Age II. A Dalish Elf this time, I'm determined to play all of the DLC too. I completed Leliana's Song before starting the main game, and it was pretty good, if a little shallow and pointless. It just tells how Leliana, our Orlesian Rogue, was betrayed by her mentor Marjolaine, as she touches upon in conversation in the main game, mainly through combat, which wasn't DA:O's strong point. It only took a couple of hours to finish anyway, and it was fresh and new, so I can't complain.
Alright, so, my Top 10 of '10 has been ultimately drafted, and I just have one more game to play from last year, so expect next week's post to be a bit of a 2010 recap of the 25 or 26 games that didn't get into the highest echelon, followed by the Top 10 the week after. I'll probably recap last year's 10 too, as it was never posted on this site. Bye for now.
Friday, 13 November 2009
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days, through the fire and the flames we carry on!
My name is 24 Hour Gamer, and I am addicted to Dragon Age Origins.
It's always daunting for a non-RPGer to take his or her first tentative steps into a Role-Playing Game, they blind you with stats and classes and items with all kinds of different names (why can't a healing potion be called a healing potion in every game?) until before you know it you find yourself curled up in a foetal position fully clothed in the shower, sobbing, with the names of various plants and what kind of healing properties they have Sharpied all over the walls. Just me?
I've been playing light RPGs for the last couple of years, games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, Borderlands, Fable 2, Mass Effect and (cough) Two Worlds, all of which I can still play like an Action/Adventure or FPS if the mood takes me, and foolishly I thought I would be ready for Bioware's latest epic. "It can't have the combat system that made me cry like KOTOR, surely" I thought. "Bioware has learned with Mass Effect that real-time combat is the way to go, it'll be like Fable" I thought.
"Oh, fuck." I realised as I played it. But I'd spent £45 of my hard earned cash on this, I wasn't going to just give up like I did with Star Wars, so I persevered, and now, a week later I am beginning to obsess over Dragon Age, like I did with Oblivion before it.
I'd like to talk about the party members. I picked up my last one last night, a Dwarf called Oghren with the best moustache I've ever seen. They don't just chip in every now and then with conflicting emotions regarding choices to be made like in Mass Effect, everything you do influences what they think of you, whether they like you or not. It's like a violent version of The Sims. But I've not really noticed anything interesting about the characters, there isn't a single Garrus or Wrex among them, nobody I find interesting enough as a person to keep them with me. Shale, the stone Golem was okay, but he was that strong he was getting all of the kills and thus all of the experience points, so I had to drop him from the team. So I opted to just go with all the characters that wanted to nail me, because it made the dialogue between them interesting; Morrigan, the witch from the swamp, Leliana, the redhead assassin and Zevran, the male elf. Yes, there are gay sex scenes, nipple sucking intact. I'd love to see what the Daily Mail has to say about that one.
I've had another dip into my shame pile this week and dipped my toes into Alone in the Dark, expecting to retract them straight away as a wayward turd floats up to me. But as it happens, my expectations were so low that I was pleasantly surprised. The visuals especially are noteworthy, quite reminiscent of The Darkness, and the cinematic effect of being in a crumbling building almost rivals Uncharted 2. Almost. The main problem I had was with the controls and camera view, and apparently there's a driving section that reduces grown men to tears. But I've read that all of these issues were resolved in the PS3 version, subtitled Inferno, so I may just throw the 360 copy back on the shelf and try and find the PS3 one cheap.
And that about wraps it up. Had a quick go on Aliens vs. Predator 2 on the PC in the week, and it's hard to imagine ever being scared by the sub-PS2 graphics, but once upon a time it terrified me. But saying that, so did Silent Hill and Dino Crisis on the PS1 so what can I say? And had a quick go on Guitar Hero World Tour on drums with my Wife and my friend Paul over XBox Live, and half an hour of it nigh on killed me. I am so out of shape. Maybe I ought to try that Wii Fit that's collecting dust in the corner.
It's always daunting for a non-RPGer to take his or her first tentative steps into a Role-Playing Game, they blind you with stats and classes and items with all kinds of different names (why can't a healing potion be called a healing potion in every game?) until before you know it you find yourself curled up in a foetal position fully clothed in the shower, sobbing, with the names of various plants and what kind of healing properties they have Sharpied all over the walls. Just me?
I've been playing light RPGs for the last couple of years, games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, Borderlands, Fable 2, Mass Effect and (cough) Two Worlds, all of which I can still play like an Action/Adventure or FPS if the mood takes me, and foolishly I thought I would be ready for Bioware's latest epic. "It can't have the combat system that made me cry like KOTOR, surely" I thought. "Bioware has learned with Mass Effect that real-time combat is the way to go, it'll be like Fable" I thought.
"Oh, fuck." I realised as I played it. But I'd spent £45 of my hard earned cash on this, I wasn't going to just give up like I did with Star Wars, so I persevered, and now, a week later I am beginning to obsess over Dragon Age, like I did with Oblivion before it.
I'd like to talk about the party members. I picked up my last one last night, a Dwarf called Oghren with the best moustache I've ever seen. They don't just chip in every now and then with conflicting emotions regarding choices to be made like in Mass Effect, everything you do influences what they think of you, whether they like you or not. It's like a violent version of The Sims. But I've not really noticed anything interesting about the characters, there isn't a single Garrus or Wrex among them, nobody I find interesting enough as a person to keep them with me. Shale, the stone Golem was okay, but he was that strong he was getting all of the kills and thus all of the experience points, so I had to drop him from the team. So I opted to just go with all the characters that wanted to nail me, because it made the dialogue between them interesting; Morrigan, the witch from the swamp, Leliana, the redhead assassin and Zevran, the male elf. Yes, there are gay sex scenes, nipple sucking intact. I'd love to see what the Daily Mail has to say about that one.
I've had another dip into my shame pile this week and dipped my toes into Alone in the Dark, expecting to retract them straight away as a wayward turd floats up to me. But as it happens, my expectations were so low that I was pleasantly surprised. The visuals especially are noteworthy, quite reminiscent of The Darkness, and the cinematic effect of being in a crumbling building almost rivals Uncharted 2. Almost. The main problem I had was with the controls and camera view, and apparently there's a driving section that reduces grown men to tears. But I've read that all of these issues were resolved in the PS3 version, subtitled Inferno, so I may just throw the 360 copy back on the shelf and try and find the PS3 one cheap.
And that about wraps it up. Had a quick go on Aliens vs. Predator 2 on the PC in the week, and it's hard to imagine ever being scared by the sub-PS2 graphics, but once upon a time it terrified me. But saying that, so did Silent Hill and Dino Crisis on the PS1 so what can I say? And had a quick go on Guitar Hero World Tour on drums with my Wife and my friend Paul over XBox Live, and half an hour of it nigh on killed me. I am so out of shape. Maybe I ought to try that Wii Fit that's collecting dust in the corner.
Friday, 6 November 2009
I am Dungeon Master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons!
Three Hours. That's the time it took me to complete Halo 3: ODST.
Fair enough, it's not a real game, just a glorified expansion pack. But three hours? Going by the recommended retail price (according to Play.com) of £39.99, that's £13.33 an hour, nearly twice what I earn. I happened to get my copy free with my Elite, but that's not the point.
And it's not even a full game. Just when you find this bizarre squid-cow thing with the potential to end the war, just when the romance subplot seems to be going somewhere, the game abruptly stops. It's not so much making way for a sequel, it's just cutting half of the game off so they can sell us the second half in a year or so.
Aside from that though, ODST is in my eyes the best Halo so far. You get more of a feeling of war, not just racial extermination in a Motocross helmet like the main trilogy, and as with games like Gears of War or Killzone, you start to get to know your team-mates and genuinely give a shit about their back-stories. Just wish it was a bit longer. But there's the multiplayer disk, which includes all the Halo 3 DLC, which I suppose gives it a bit more longevity. I can't be arsed with multiplayer though.
I've not had a good time with game-endings this week, as Borderlands' ending was, in the words of fellow blogger Raz7el, "a sack of horse shit". All of Borderlands' storyline seems to take place in the last hour, as if Gearbox realised they were having too much fun and needed to wrap things up. But I digress, the game is great, I'm just in a complaining mood. I'd be inclined to carry on playing it and mop up the remaining side quests if it wasn't for the fact that today is the day that Dragon Age Origins was finally released.
I've had two hours with the game, and it seems to be shaping up quite well. It seems to me like a healthy marriage between Mass Effect and Guild Wars, taking the movement and conversational style from the former, and, well, everything else from the latter.
I opted to play as the Human Noble, the good all-rounder, and so far it has been a typical tale of betrayal and family deaths, and I've been scooped up by the Grey Wardens, to Dragon Age what Spectres are to Mass Effect, to save the world from evil things and claim revenge on my Judas.
The most obvious comparison to Guild Wars, in my eyes, is the combat. Clicking an enemy will start your character attacking, and he/she will carry on until the enemy is dead or you tell them otherwise. Potions can be used on-the-fly and will queue until your character has finished any current action and so on, and you can flick to any party member and issue them orders too, like Knights of the Old Republic in fact. Or you can command the whole party at once, although I haven't tried that. I must confess I was hoping for the combat to be a bit more Fable to be honest.
And that's as far as I've gotten with it. No doubt I'll have more to say next week, hopefully more positive than negative, and it's looking that way. Is it a good game? So far, yes. Is it better than Oblivion? No. But then again, I don't think anything short of The Elder Scrolls V will be.
And that's that. Before I go, check out 30-Something Gamer, a great blog, and he's been playing all sorts of things that I haven't at the Eurogamer Expo. Oh, and try out Trine on the PSN store, it's really good. More on that when/if I buy the full version.
UPDATE: You can probably tell by my hasty scrawlings that my Dragon Age time ate a little bit into my 'going to work' time, and I had to rush the blog a bit. In the rush, I forgot to mention a couple of things. Firstly, after finishing Borderlands and ODST with a couple of days to spare before Dragon Age came out, I decided to casually play a bit of The Secret of Monkey Island: SE on the XBox Live Arcade. Apart from possibly the original Silent Hill, I don't think I've ever completed a game as many times as Monkey Island, so this had me wanting to play it just to see the graphics rather than discover the story. The graphics, while good, suffered from the same troubles as Street Fighter II HD Remix, they've updated the sprites but not added any extra frames, it makes the jerkiness in animation very noticeable. It's an excellent winding down game at the end of the night though.
And finally, I tried the Left 4 Dead 2 demo the other night, and while it is good, I want someone to explain to me how it's in any way different to the first one? I didn't buy the first one (although someone gave me a copy for my PC, which can barely run it) because I didn't want to shell out £40 on a game made for multiplayer when I'm essentially a single player gamer, and just when the price starts to drop, the second one's out and nobody will be playing it anymore. Anyway, it was a very fun game, but unless it depreciates in value faster than the first, It's not for me. Right, NOW I'm done.
Fair enough, it's not a real game, just a glorified expansion pack. But three hours? Going by the recommended retail price (according to Play.com) of £39.99, that's £13.33 an hour, nearly twice what I earn. I happened to get my copy free with my Elite, but that's not the point.
And it's not even a full game. Just when you find this bizarre squid-cow thing with the potential to end the war, just when the romance subplot seems to be going somewhere, the game abruptly stops. It's not so much making way for a sequel, it's just cutting half of the game off so they can sell us the second half in a year or so.
Aside from that though, ODST is in my eyes the best Halo so far. You get more of a feeling of war, not just racial extermination in a Motocross helmet like the main trilogy, and as with games like Gears of War or Killzone, you start to get to know your team-mates and genuinely give a shit about their back-stories. Just wish it was a bit longer. But there's the multiplayer disk, which includes all the Halo 3 DLC, which I suppose gives it a bit more longevity. I can't be arsed with multiplayer though.
I've not had a good time with game-endings this week, as Borderlands' ending was, in the words of fellow blogger Raz7el, "a sack of horse shit". All of Borderlands' storyline seems to take place in the last hour, as if Gearbox realised they were having too much fun and needed to wrap things up. But I digress, the game is great, I'm just in a complaining mood. I'd be inclined to carry on playing it and mop up the remaining side quests if it wasn't for the fact that today is the day that Dragon Age Origins was finally released.
I've had two hours with the game, and it seems to be shaping up quite well. It seems to me like a healthy marriage between Mass Effect and Guild Wars, taking the movement and conversational style from the former, and, well, everything else from the latter.
I opted to play as the Human Noble, the good all-rounder, and so far it has been a typical tale of betrayal and family deaths, and I've been scooped up by the Grey Wardens, to Dragon Age what Spectres are to Mass Effect, to save the world from evil things and claim revenge on my Judas.
The most obvious comparison to Guild Wars, in my eyes, is the combat. Clicking an enemy will start your character attacking, and he/she will carry on until the enemy is dead or you tell them otherwise. Potions can be used on-the-fly and will queue until your character has finished any current action and so on, and you can flick to any party member and issue them orders too, like Knights of the Old Republic in fact. Or you can command the whole party at once, although I haven't tried that. I must confess I was hoping for the combat to be a bit more Fable to be honest.
And that's as far as I've gotten with it. No doubt I'll have more to say next week, hopefully more positive than negative, and it's looking that way. Is it a good game? So far, yes. Is it better than Oblivion? No. But then again, I don't think anything short of The Elder Scrolls V will be.
And that's that. Before I go, check out 30-Something Gamer, a great blog, and he's been playing all sorts of things that I haven't at the Eurogamer Expo. Oh, and try out Trine on the PSN store, it's really good. More on that when/if I buy the full version.
UPDATE: You can probably tell by my hasty scrawlings that my Dragon Age time ate a little bit into my 'going to work' time, and I had to rush the blog a bit. In the rush, I forgot to mention a couple of things. Firstly, after finishing Borderlands and ODST with a couple of days to spare before Dragon Age came out, I decided to casually play a bit of The Secret of Monkey Island: SE on the XBox Live Arcade. Apart from possibly the original Silent Hill, I don't think I've ever completed a game as many times as Monkey Island, so this had me wanting to play it just to see the graphics rather than discover the story. The graphics, while good, suffered from the same troubles as Street Fighter II HD Remix, they've updated the sprites but not added any extra frames, it makes the jerkiness in animation very noticeable. It's an excellent winding down game at the end of the night though.
And finally, I tried the Left 4 Dead 2 demo the other night, and while it is good, I want someone to explain to me how it's in any way different to the first one? I didn't buy the first one (although someone gave me a copy for my PC, which can barely run it) because I didn't want to shell out £40 on a game made for multiplayer when I'm essentially a single player gamer, and just when the price starts to drop, the second one's out and nobody will be playing it anymore. Anyway, it was a very fun game, but unless it depreciates in value faster than the first, It's not for me. Right, NOW I'm done.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Oh Crap!
If the title of this post didn't give it away, I have been lucky enough to have a few early hours with Uncharted 2: Among Thieves this week, as my preorder with GAME paid off and Mr. Drake plopped gently onto my doormat on Wednesday, a whole 2 days before release. Well, not that gently, it looks like the fucking postman tried to get it through the keyhole first; there's a dint in my shiny Collector's Edition tin. Either way, I got it early and that makes me feel like a proper journalist, even though I still had to pay for the fucking thing.
Now, I could go on all day gushing about it, believe me I could, and I've only had a few hours with Nate and co. The only thing I can think of that's bad about it is that the snow looks like marshmallow and the explosions aren't as pretty as those in Drake's Fortune. The graphics are phenomenal, and so is the animation and voice acting, but then again they were in the original so it goes without saying.
What some people would perceive as a negative point, but it really isn't, is that not much has changed since our hero set off to steal El Dorado from Nazi zombies. Nate's gained a few new moves in classic Lara Croft fashion, including monkey bars and the free-climbing thing ripped straight from Tomb Raider Underworld, and the cinematics have been turned up to eleven with the charismatic protagonist being forced to clamber through a train wreck hanging off a cliff with his intestines hanging out, or leaping through a window of a hotel block that's collapsing (A bit of a change of pace from causing the destruction last week).
Drake's picked up a couple of new friends and foes too, the most obvious of which being Chloe Frazer, Drakes new bit of fluff and all round 'can we trust her?' kind of girl. She's tanned, has dark hair in a ponytail and speaks with a very upper class Australian accent that's not too far removed from southern English. If you squint, it's Lara. Elena has made an appearance though, and it's very much hinted that there's still a spark. Do the right thing, Nate.
And the other main game I've been playing this week, with me virtually stalking Nolan North, is Shadow Complex. In a nutshell, the game is about a guy named Jason, who looks like Drake, moves and dresses like Drake, Can punch harder than bullets like Drake, has the same voice actor and if you say his name in a mock retard voice it sounds like Nathan. His last name is probably Nrake. It isn't actually, it's Flemming.
Anyway, Na... Jason is out potholing with his girlfriend who he's known for about 4 hours and they come across a secret military base full of people who all stole the guy from Dead Space's pyjamas and want to invade America with lots of ATST walkers and stuff. Now Jason's surname must be Bourne actually, because he happens to be an unstoppable killing machine and goes about destroying everything and wiping out about a third of the population.
The game, ridiculous story aside, is an absolutely thrilling homage to Metroid games of old; a 2D side-scroller with 360 degree aiming thanks to the second analogue stick. As you progress through the game you find power ups in the form of new pieces of armour that give you the ability to run faster, jump higher, hit harder etc, and each new area you explore or each life you snuff out gives you EXP to level up, giving the game an RPG element too.
I can't think of much else to write about here, but the game is better than most retail games. The Unreal Engine 3 is showing it's age a bit now though, maybe it's time to think about a new one Epic. But yeah, who cares if the story was written by a homophobic jerk, the story is balls anyway. Get it for the gameplay.
In other news, I went and traded my copy of Street Fighter IV for the collector's edition this week. Raz7el from The Chronicles of Ridiculous convinced me to get it on the 360 so I could destroy him on it, so I did. We are both upsettingly bad at that game. And I downloaded the Demos of Brutal Legend and Star Wars: Republic Heroes, but Mr. Drake stopped me from playing them. He is more important. Now I think I'm gonna go play Prince of Persia, watch Hulk vs. Wolverine and hide in Nolan North's garden.
Now, I could go on all day gushing about it, believe me I could, and I've only had a few hours with Nate and co. The only thing I can think of that's bad about it is that the snow looks like marshmallow and the explosions aren't as pretty as those in Drake's Fortune. The graphics are phenomenal, and so is the animation and voice acting, but then again they were in the original so it goes without saying.
What some people would perceive as a negative point, but it really isn't, is that not much has changed since our hero set off to steal El Dorado from Nazi zombies. Nate's gained a few new moves in classic Lara Croft fashion, including monkey bars and the free-climbing thing ripped straight from Tomb Raider Underworld, and the cinematics have been turned up to eleven with the charismatic protagonist being forced to clamber through a train wreck hanging off a cliff with his intestines hanging out, or leaping through a window of a hotel block that's collapsing (A bit of a change of pace from causing the destruction last week).
Drake's picked up a couple of new friends and foes too, the most obvious of which being Chloe Frazer, Drakes new bit of fluff and all round 'can we trust her?' kind of girl. She's tanned, has dark hair in a ponytail and speaks with a very upper class Australian accent that's not too far removed from southern English. If you squint, it's Lara. Elena has made an appearance though, and it's very much hinted that there's still a spark. Do the right thing, Nate.
And the other main game I've been playing this week, with me virtually stalking Nolan North, is Shadow Complex. In a nutshell, the game is about a guy named Jason, who looks like Drake, moves and dresses like Drake, Can punch harder than bullets like Drake, has the same voice actor and if you say his name in a mock retard voice it sounds like Nathan. His last name is probably Nrake. It isn't actually, it's Flemming.
Anyway, Na... Jason is out potholing with his girlfriend who he's known for about 4 hours and they come across a secret military base full of people who all stole the guy from Dead Space's pyjamas and want to invade America with lots of ATST walkers and stuff. Now Jason's surname must be Bourne actually, because he happens to be an unstoppable killing machine and goes about destroying everything and wiping out about a third of the population.
The game, ridiculous story aside, is an absolutely thrilling homage to Metroid games of old; a 2D side-scroller with 360 degree aiming thanks to the second analogue stick. As you progress through the game you find power ups in the form of new pieces of armour that give you the ability to run faster, jump higher, hit harder etc, and each new area you explore or each life you snuff out gives you EXP to level up, giving the game an RPG element too.
I can't think of much else to write about here, but the game is better than most retail games. The Unreal Engine 3 is showing it's age a bit now though, maybe it's time to think about a new one Epic. But yeah, who cares if the story was written by a homophobic jerk, the story is balls anyway. Get it for the gameplay.
In other news, I went and traded my copy of Street Fighter IV for the collector's edition this week. Raz7el from The Chronicles of Ridiculous convinced me to get it on the 360 so I could destroy him on it, so I did. We are both upsettingly bad at that game. And I downloaded the Demos of Brutal Legend and Star Wars: Republic Heroes, but Mr. Drake stopped me from playing them. He is more important. Now I think I'm gonna go play Prince of Persia, watch Hulk vs. Wolverine and hide in Nolan North's garden.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)