The Three Rs N3twork is a primarily British viral entertainment network, with standings in many niche interests involved in a variety of different groups. Ranging from gaming to adulthood to video creation.
1/10 - "Just, No." 2/10 - "Avoid." 3/10 - "Gamebreakingly flawed" 4/10 - "Not so great" 5/10 - "Pretty Average." 6/10 - "A few nice touches, nothing amazing" 7/10 - "Not brilliant, fun anyway" 8/10 - "A decent enough game, Well worth a look." 9/10 - "A really good game. Highly Recommended." 10/10 - "An absolute must buy, a defining game for the genre."
Fable 2- the game (almost) everybody wants to shove in their disk drive at some point before the end of the year. A game with supposedly limitless (hi there, Molyneux) possibility. According to big Pete himself, it will take almost 100 million gold to purchase the entire land of Albion. That would be very fine and dandy, provided you actually earned money conventionally.
The problem here stems with the fairly bad design philosophy of separating quests and the story from gold. You don't get gold for going out, questing, helping people, and saving the world. Oh no. That doesn't count as a real job! Instead, you have to "work", while earning nothing for quests. Working (I'm guessing) will consist of either menial, tedious mini-quests for small amounts of gold, or tiny minigames to annoy the living crap out of us. The problem here is two-fold. Most people will skip over most of the sidequests that they deem stupid or worthless in the first place. Now that there is no money incentive, there is nothing drawing the player in to explore, expand and complete the game in its entirety. Of course, there are always people like me who will try to do every quest just to do them; but even die-hard adventurers are bound to get annoyed eventually.
The second problem is time and age. One of the most annoying things to me about Fable was the aging factor. You play for two hours, and you go from being a 20 year old to some random 30 year old. Just exploring/questing/crafting and doing all of the off-the-beaten-path work in the game for around 6 hours will make you some pathetic geezer by the time the story ends, and it just feels pretty awkward at that time. I would imagine (read: hope and pray) that the game is longer than the original, since it was fairly short for a good ARPG, to be honest. Who wants to work and work to be able to afford real estate only to be some old coot with magic powers? That isn't very rewarding at all.
Much better then, to play the horribly designed Pub Games or the other recently announced web apps that will allow you to unlock more cash and items. When you have such a sophisticated system, the probability of overlap and redundancy becomes much higher. That's a future that has become realized for Lionhead, as people continually farm millions of gold from their glitchy arcade offering. An offering they have yet to fix, and have threatened penalties for abusing (that's the subject for another post). So will the player spend some time playing these little things, racking up gold and transfering it over, instead of actually immersing themselves in the universe, getting jobs, etc. ? Undoubtedly. The benefits greatly outweigh the risks (even if the glitches are fixed). Even if the player risks alienating themselves from the game.
Earning gold in a game should never be a complete grind. There are always things to do that augment your gathering process, stealing, theiving, murder, *usually* questing; but the earning of gold in Fable II has been trivialized by needless overcomplications from Lionhead. The pub games were interesting, if worthless; but they should have stopped there. People aren't going to be playing the Fable 2 to get gold, they're going to have to get gold through other methods just to play the game itself. And that's the complete opposite of the mentality they should take.
There is also the problem of tying the morality system into the way the player interacts with the economy. Personally, I'll probably loot and kill every owner of every house in every town I see. That just tends to be what I do; but do I want my character to be evil? No. Do I *care* enough to actually make a "tough choice" regarding righteousness, as Peter Molyneux would have me do? Absolutely not. I don't care how compelling playing through as intended seems to be, I'm not going to let that get in the way of me enjoying the mechanics I'm buying the game for.
So as it stands from my perspective, the game is probably going to be a rather uncohesive mess, but an incredibly fun one. I will still pick it up and hopefully enjoy it; and hopefully this entire blog post is proven wrong. I just got bored and let speculation get the best of me. Thanks for bearing with me. A Too Human review should be coming soon.
The floodgates open, the oasis is filled. Drink gamers, drink!
Spore The newest game from Will Wright (Sim City, the Sims etc.) puts players in the position of God, and in control of the evolutionary process of creatures on a planet. The Spore Creature Creator was released a couple of months ago as a teaser for this game, and gained acclaim. This game should be good: detailed, challenging and original. This is the pick of the month for PC. Platforms: PC, (separate title for DS: Spore Creatures) Release Date: 05/09/08
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Building on the success of Mercenaries, EA are releasing this multi-platform sequel, which, again, puts the player in the body of a hired gun, working for the highest bidder. This game looks to have built satisfactorily on its predecessor, and if it's managed this successfully it should be a great game. Platforms: PC, PS3, PS2, X360 Release Date: 05/09/08 Infinite Undiscovery A new franchise is always nice in the midst of so many sequels. This is an action RPG, but team-based (like Might and Magic), except with a potentially better combat system (it's not turn-based, but real-time, like Fable, which I prefer). Bit of a Japanese style RPG, so if you like that kind of thing check it out. Personally I'll wait a bit. Platforms: X360 Release Date: 05/09/08
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Clear Sky A prologue to the original Stalker game, this game is set a year prior, and features 8 of the original levels, along with 5 of its own. The only real difference to the gameplay as far as I can see is the possibility of fixing weapons. To be honest, although the original Stalker was a solid game, this looks like a bit of a cop-out, with only 10 hours of original storyline. Only get this if you're an avid Stalker fan. Platforms: PC Release Date: 05/09/08
Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise I wasn't under the impression this game had sold well enough first time round to warrant a second one. Personally I love Rare, but I didn't enjoy the first Viva Pinata, and probably wouldn't enjoy this. If you got addicted the original... then don't buy this either because you don't want to have to admit to having an addiction to this kind of game. Platforms: X360 (DS: Viva Pinata: Pocket Paradise) Release Date: 05/09/08
TNA Impact: Total Nonstop Action Wrestling Not a fan. But if you are, you'll probably love it. Platforms: PS2, PS3, X360 Release Date: 12/09/08 NHL 09 See above description. Platforms: PS3, X360 Release Date: 12/09/08
Supreme Commander These games can be great fun. You basically take a massive army to planets in order to defeat one of the other two factions, blowing up as much shit as possible. This game allows a player to both view the battleground from the standard RTS position, and also go right down to ground level and issue units with invididual orders. 360 edition comes with bonus units. Platforms: X360 Release Date: 12/09/08
Opoona Despite the unfortunate choice of name, this game looks like one of the few original games on the market. Described as both a battling and 'lifestyle' rpg, this Wii title is designed by the developers of the Dragon Quest series. Could be good? Wait for the reviews, because it could end up like so many Wii games before it: the Nintendo Hall of Shame. Platforms: Wii Release Date: 12/09/08
Subbuteo Grab a franchise, design a game, and voila you have a gold selling game. This Subbuteo title will probably be as boring as the 'watching paint dry' original. Mainly because it uses the 'official' Subbuteo rules, meaning no grabbing the player, running him into the ball and dragging them both down the pitch. Platforms: DS Release Date: 12/09/08 Crysis: Warhead PC gamer's 2007 game of the year was Crysis. This new installment looks like an expansion, sounds like an expansion, costs like an expansion. But is in fact a standalone. New weapons, new story, new vehicles, upgraded AI and graphics. No major changes to the gameplay which makes it look to me a bit like a marketing technique to take some money and keep interest in the Crysis series before they bring out their next big title. And if I were you, I'd save your money and wait for that. Platforms: X360 Release Date: 19/09/08 Star Wars: The Force Unleashed Despite DW's disparraging review of the Demo, this Star Wars franchised game is still the biggest game coming out this month. For those of you that have been living in a cave (like Ben Kenobi) (or just don't like Star Wars, but have nothing better to do than read this), TFU takes place between episodes III and IV, and you play as Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice, hunting down Jedi. The gameplay centres around the four force powers Force push, grip, repulse and lightning, which you combine in order to create devestating (and just damn cool) combos. Despite being firmly and Action title, this game does also have reminders of RPG ideas, such as levelling up. I have high hopes for this game (but not for the graphics is they stay the same as they were on the Demo). This is my pick of the month for the 360 (I know I'll be buying it). Platforms: X360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS Release Date: 19/09/08
PlayTV A couple of months ago, something similar to this almost slipped under my radar for the Wii. These applications need to be watched because they can turn into something incredibly useful. This one turns your PS3 into a Sky+ box (without the Sky channels of course). It enables you to record, pause and rewind live television, and also provides you with freeview channels. A fantastic application if you don't have something similar already, and dead cheap at 70 quid. My pick for the PS3. Platforms: PS3 Release Date: 19/09/08 Brothers In Arms 3: Hell's Highway The latest in the highly successful Brothers In Arms series, which take the biggest battles in WWII and put them in your control. In Hell's Highway, you take control of a member of the 101st airborne in order to successfully carry out Operation Market Garden, a capture of two bridges after D-Day which failed for the Allies. This game should be a fantastic FPS, and great online play too. Pick for the PS3 Platforms: X360, PS3, PC (Wii: Brothers in Arms: Double Time) Release Date: 26/09/08
Wario Land: Shake It! An old formula revitalised and made new. This game takes the old 2D Wario ramblings and infuses them with the Wii remote. I've had a look at this and I've made the mistake of underestimating Wii games like this too much, and I think this has the potential to be a lot of fun. Fun, a concept that the game industry seems to be fast forgetting. Picked for the Wii! Platforms: Wii Release Date: 26/09/08
Rise of the Argonauts Only on release for the PS3 this month, this is an epic scale RPG set in the ancient Greek era. Basically, if you liked the film 300, you should give this game a go. It's nothing particularly new, but it's attempting something on a scale that few RPGs dare to attempt. Platforms: PS3 (X360 and PC next month) Release Date: 26/09/08
SimCity Creator I do enjoy the SimCity games, and this looks to be the most detailed yet, enabling you to 'draw' roads with your Wii remote. It appears to be fun, mixing old style retro gameplay with new stle technologies. A must for SimCity fans with Wiis, otherwise, steer clear. Platforms: Wii, DS Release Date: 26/09/08
Hell's Kitchen Haha. Platforms: DS, PC (Wii in November) Release Date: 26/09/08
That's it for this month, but it's enough to be going on with, and then some. Whichever console you own, there's something for you on this list (unless you only own a Commodore). What does October hold? A football game, a music game, and a fabled game.
I felt in an MMO mood today, and as I did not have a valid WoW sub active, and LOTRO was unspeakably shitty, I thought i'd try out Dungeons and Dragons, another big name MMO from Codemasters.
It downloaded nice and quickly, and a trial key was easily obtained, And by about midday I was creating my character, DarkW ingstalker, Yes that space was deliberate. His last name really is Ingstalker.
As you can see, I stuck with the Generic human race with the fighter class. First impressions were pretty meh as both me and random dave looked upon it as just another mmo but when I got into the combat, I realised it was very enjoyable. For a start, You can block by hitting shift, and dodge around and positioning and movement affects damage. For example, your less accurate if you swing your sword while running headlong at someone while screaming like a banshee. This seems fair. Its all abit stat heavy, but lets not forget this is the RPG genre. Its easy to forget this though, as sometimes it feels like a dungeon crawling action game, this belief being strengthened by the primarily instanced quests. Its also nice to see an MMO that takes itself seriously, World of Warcraft started to really grate on me with its "comedy" elements, and the cartoony style rubbed me up the wrong way, None of these game breaking faults in a mostly social game, but still, Its nice to see a serious game with decent graphics. Helps the kobold slaying. And finally, Did I mention that there are Prestige classes, and that in true DnD fashion, you can Multi class? Its true.
There are however, A few downsides. The interface is needlessly cluttered, and isnt as smooth as World of Warcraft's, or indeed city of heros, so a simple trip to buy skills can be confusing, Let alone trying to read the map. This is further hurt by a Quest log that's like a Chinese encyclopedia, Full of information, but impossible to totally understand without an intricate knowledge of the game [or Chinese if you haven't dropped that metaphor yet.] I am aware the game has been out for a very long time, but my recommendation stands. An MMO is never at its best at launch, and so i IMPLORE you to download this game [nice and tiny at 3gig download] and use a 10 day free trial, just to see if you enjoy it. After all, Its free right?
Its time I told you about a guilty pleasure of mine. I first picked up Trackmania nations [the free one], about 3 months ago, when the paid version released, and was impressed with the simplicity, and the fact that, unlike most racing games i didnt have to go round the tracks very often, and races were often finished in under a minute.
After a successful week or two playing it, it had on my PC. Now, while i'm downloading the Dungeons and dragons online client, I got bored, and had an idea. Plugging my Wired 360 controller into the laptop, I was able to play trackmania without even changing any settings. A was accelerate, and turning was identical to if i was playing a Console game. A legend was born. I was racing far better and the game was alot more fun to play, call it the future of PC games if you will, I'm considering reinstalling Swat 4 and testing that out.
So, I put the question to you guys, Any of you used a Wired 360 controller to play a PC game? How'd it go?
Bank Holidays, I hate them. Luckily this is one blog post that doesn't revolve around the day within which boredom rules. Let's take a look at the past week.
After being floored technology-wise by Rock Band, Activision Blizzard have announced a new feature in the upcoming GH: World Tour, allowing players to create their own music tracks and sharing them online. It's certainly innovative, but they've only just started working on what appears to me (as both a musician and a gamer) an incredibly difficult feature to a game which is coming out this autumn. Quite ambitious. More details.
Game publishers Atari, Codemasters, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump and Techland are to send out letters to 25,000 homes over the UK demanding a £300 settlement, or threats of court action, to those involved in the illegal downloading and sharing of games. This seems to be in reaction to (or in conjunction with, at least) the release of Topware's Dream Pinball 3D, which, in the first fortnight, sold 800 copies... and downloaded illegally 12,000 times. Yeah... that ain't good business. More details.
Possibly prompted by news that Age of Conan gamers were returning to WoW, Funcom have stated that a big expansion pack will be released in 09. So far, the only information that's been released about this expansion is some concept art. This was released at the Leipzig convention, which ended on the 24th. More details.
Harmonix announced a while ago that DLC (downloaded songs) for Rock Band will be available for use with Rock Band 2. The process of this has now been outlined: an update for Rock Band will be released when Rock Band 2 is, allowing an 'Export' option to be accessed on the Rock Band menu, allowing all the songs to be exported to a compatible form with Rock Band 2. However, this process will cost a fixed fee: forcing gamers to pay to play these songs that they've already paid for. The fee will be a flat fee for any amount of songs, but still... Rock Band 2 still has no date for European release, despite a US release of September. More details.
Logitech have been contracted to make a force-feedback steering wheel for the Wii: improving on the system used in games such as Mario Kart, whereby a gamers holds the remote level and turns it to turn the vehicle. The steering wheel will retail for $99 when it's released in America this November, and is wireless. Technically a third party accessory, Logitech are designing the wheel to be optimised with the use of the new NFS game: Undercover, also due for a November release. More details.
That's it for this week. But I'll be back on the 31st to do September's issue of The Month, and then next Monday for your own personal weekly roundup of gaming news.
So, The Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo is here at last, Go on, go and set it downloading, I'll wait.
So, now we can continue. THIS is what Lucasarts have been working on all this time? come on, quit the joking, show us the real game.
The controls are pretty spot on, I must admit, and sure its pretty fun. But this game was supposed to be the second coming. George Lucas was involved, it was Star wars canon, and it was built on an amazing engine, Although yes, I too agree that George Lucas involving himself may not be a brilliant idea.
And the whole demo felt cheap. We got a 15 minute slice of the TFU pie, and I guess they forgot to put the topping on. The graphics look cheap, and the euphoria engine fails to do anything we haven't already seen done better in Grand theft auto 4. and its easy. I mean, its hard to feel bad ass when the storm troopers you kill feel like blithering idiots with a mental retardation. I almost felt bad as I picked one up, Chucked a light saber into him, and then swung him round like a rag doll killing all his friends.
Yeah, that does sound cool. but it doesn't feel like it when nothing seems to scratch you. And i was playing it on the hardest difficulty setting too. It just feels like a cheapened experience. Oh, and did i mentioned that Darth Vader knights you with a light saber? Its the most retarded thing I've ever seen. And i've seen vin diesel movies.
Oh yeah, And I wanted to be a good Jedi. Stupid game.
This relates specifically to this article. You should read it if you'd like this post to make sense.
I think it's great that we finally get to see the updates on the 360, and it's awesome to have them all at once. I was the first person I knew to get 100% of the achievements in the console version when The Orange Box came out. Granted, it looks like Microsoft is pulling the whole "The trains run on time, and the DLC costs money" Mussolini-esque totalitarian content scheme. It's a crap shoot and they know it- they've known it since Epic itself tried to go against that and release free packs, only to be stiff-armed by the big M$.
The question is, will I buy this? I got all of my achievements in the PC version through several achievement-specific servers, as the normal ones seem ridiculously challenging for the payoff. Nobody will have the liberty of dedicated custom-map servers on the 360. There'll be people who stand there for hours and hours grinding them, sure, but none of us have that kind of time in the fall season! I'm happy for the new maps and weapons, but they'd need to be drastically rebalanced for the consoles. I can say that I don't know if I've ever talked to anybody who got all of their weapons legitimately. I'd bet most of you could say the same.
So when the time comes, will I support this venture, or recommend it to you guys? I don't know. Sadly, probably not. I own the PC version and get this stuff for free, earlier, and it's better. Perhaps if the PS3 version wasn't a port, and it had an Unreal Tournament III style content sharing structure, I'd go for it; but I don't really like the PS3 controller for shooters, or even have a PS3 to play it on yet.
So I'll stick to my mouse and keyboard. Thanks for greedily screwing up good concepts again, Microsoft.
Right, first off apologies for how bloody long this has taken to do (computer problems last couple months, mainly my family! Feel free to stone me) but I have finally got the chance to do this review/general chit chat about MGS4: Guns of the Patriots, which by the way I felt was awesome. Even if I had never played an mgs game before this one I would still say the same as well, and before I go any further I definitely give this game a full 10/10. Probably predictable but still very truthful. By the way I am avoiding any spoilers for any crazy person who still hasn’t played this game, so don’t worry!
As I said in my first look of the game, this is a fucking amazing looking game, an now I’ve completed it (several times) I can follow this up with that I believe it’s the best looking game out on the market, and even mgs-haters cant deny that.
Playing as Old crusty Snake was slightly shocking, but still oh so very enjoyable, and seeing other characters from all the others games was a pretty damn nice touch, even (yes I’m going to say it) Rosemary. Otacon and Raiden were even more cool then before, especially Raiden, and Liquid Ocelot was pretty damn brilliant. New characters such as Drebin and Sunny also weren’t as annoying as they might appear……well not Drebin anyway. And the Beauty and Beast Unit were a set of disturbingly good bosses; my personal fave was Crying Wolf.
It was also a slight shock when playing the game and realising that some of the controls that have stayed fundamentally the same since MGS1 had changed, such as how to use the guns and now having to press X instead of O to confirm stuff, but I got over that, learnt to get used to it, an now they’re just second nature. Also it would’ve been rather difficult and frustrating using the same controls for guns from previous MGS’s in this, as they play a much heavier role.
Gameplay itself was just brilliant. Adding dives an a crouch walk an such now makes Snake move so much better, an makes playing it even more enjoyable, especially when u get that good feeling of dodging a load of shots with a well placed dive. Finding CQC had changed as well made it much more fun to use, and it felt easier to use than in MGS3 too. The button-bashing prompt bits when getting choked by Haven Troops for instance were very pleasing as well, and looked pretty damn stylish. Also customizable guns = thumbs up! Although half the time didn’t really feel it was necessary. In fact if I had any criticism of this game, it wouldn’t be too long cut scenes (which I loved, and besides you could pause them!), it wouldn’t be that I felt they traded stealth for combat (you could do what you wanted to, so it was in fact made more open for those crap at stealth), it wouldn’t even be how vamp was still an immortal bastard and how liquid ocelot still said ‘BROTHER!!!’ every time he clocked me……ok I’m going off a bit here.
What I was leading up to was that I felt that there might have been a tad too much equipment for one player to use. This was a problem I had with MGS2 as well, that you were given so much equipment to use of which I only really use about five or six things now, unlike MGS1 and MGS3 where I used almost everything given to me, because it was definitely needed. Not that it really matters though in the scheme of things, and I of course tested everything!
In the end this is the biggest and most impressive chapter of MGS, and such a way to finish of Solid Snake’s story. There are so many twists and turns (CLICHÉ!) and in every act there is always something different and fresh thrown in. And Act 4, well…..that’s all I’m going to say. This is one of the extremely few games that have touched me emotionally and made me believing the characters are real and wanting them to succeed, keeping me gripped till the very end. Oh and the ending? What an ending it is, just what an ending…..want to know more? THEN PLAY IT!!
One technical problem with me though is that i currently dont have online, so don't have a say on MG Online just yet, but when i do ill put a say on here.
Btw there was one good thing about taking so long to do this: I’ve now completed the game a fair bit and I’m currently on my FOXHOUND emblem play on Big Boss Hard, and I’ve got some stats to share!
Here is the stats for my first time of completing the game:
And here is the stats for my second time, in which I got the FOX emblem, which I was rather proud of.
Now I feel its time to get DW round to play it, as he has been wanting to and I’ve unfortunately kept him waiting.
Here's my weekly round up of news around the gaming world. It seems slightly insignificant this week seeing as it has nothing about Georgia (click if you have no clue what I'm talking about), but here it is all the same.
EA have confirmed that the next Godfather game (Godfather II) will be making its way onto 360, PS3 and PC in February. I'm a huge fan of the movies, cinematic greatness in my opinion, but the first Godfather was nothing to get riled up about, so I doubt this one will be either. You get to play as the Don of New York, managing family affairs. However, if you're a 'wiseguy' rather than a 'goodfella' you'll avoid this movie to game blasphemy like the mafia. More details.
Cryptic are taking Star Trek Online online. Details of the game, which has been in the pipeline for a while were announced at the annual Trek convention. I've gotta say, this is one MMO that does interest me if it's done well. If it isn't, it can go in the bin with WoW and the other game that this developer worked on (City of Heroes/Villians). The game will be set 30 years after the most recent installment in the Star Trek timeline (ST: Nemesis). More details can be found in Gamespot's interview with Cryptic's executive producer.
The date for the new 60 gig HDD version of the Xbox 360 has been set at this Friday (Aug 15th). This will replace the current standard 20 gig model with a 60 gig HDD. The price for the model remains at £199, (with the elite still at 259, and the arcade at 159). More details.
Finally a set release date has been put down to Fable II. I remember, around this time last year, it was set for March.. then May... then September... then November for some reason. But now we have a set date. October 21st. Fable is going to be released in both Standard and Limited editions. The LE will have 5 'fate cards', and a bonus material disc (worth the extra tenner?). In more Fable news, an arcade 'pub' game is being released a month before Fable, presumably in order to raise the profile of the game. Some stores will be offering this XBLA game free when you preorder Fable II. So if that suddenly makes you want to buy it, look out for that. More details.
Lastly, we're currently smack bang in the middle of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival (10th to the 12th August). You may not have heard of this, but it's part of the Edinburgh Festival (a huge month long culture and arts festival that lasts the entirity of August, and incidentally, where I'm headed on Saturday). As their site reads: 'Edinburgh Interactive Festival is the only event that brings together the games industry’s key decision makers from games publishing, hardware and development alongside Government, TV, film, press and other entertainment industries as well as students seeking to work within the creative industries.' So we can be sure that some major decisions will be made there on new game franchises and the like. More details.
That's about it for this week. I'm not sure whether I'll be able to do my Week Beginning segment next week (as I said, I'll be in Edinburgh), but I should have internet, so I'll give it a shot. If not, I'll definitely be back to do the next Week Beginning after that, and then September's issue of the Month on the 31st. Happy gaming people.
Sorry, this review has been a while after the game actually came out, but I've been busy. At any rate, here it is.
Firstly, I'd like to say this game, in a quick pleinary before we begin, is a lot of fun, and a good time to play. But that's all. It's not going to get nominated for game of the year (and if it does, it certainly shouldn't win it). It lacks imagination and innovation, though some of the techniques used aren't justified to change. The Soul Calibur formula is pretty untouchable.
Let's discuss that formula first off. The things that define the Soul Calibur series is beautiful graphics, topped with a good, simple fighting style and an imaginative inventory, varied, but easy to chop and change to suit your own style of play. To an extent SCIV has managed to maintain this: the fighting style is still simple, easy to understand and not chocked full of thousands of combos which you have to memorise. However, the simplicity of the fighting system can occasionally be marred by a slow catch up time. Often, whilst I was attempting an attack on the lower body of the opposition (performed with down and Y, B or X) it would, first time, do a mid attack, and not adjust until the next strike. Particularly frustrating when you're trying to get around the opponents block, and you just keep striking them with no damage.
The imaginative inventory I was discussing earlier has also been damaged. Back in SC2, I remember there was a great way of acquiring weapons which involved working your way through a map. There were hidden areas, and you defeating the inhabitants often meant you won some sort of weapon or item of clothing. This system was fantastic: in fact, it was one of the reasons I bought SCIV. However, SCIV has done away with this system. You acquire new sets of items when you get 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 achievments. And weapons are unlocked when you complete the story mode. However, you can also get items by unlocking them in the 'Tower of Lost Souls'. Though, there's little point to this, seeing as you can simply buy them, and they cost next to nothing. The items in the inventory have no explanation to them and seem just to have been created for the sake of them. One good part to this system, or so it seems, is the ability of a piece of armour to affect stat percentages and skill points. This way, both your overall attack and your special moves (which you can manually select with the amount of skill points you have) are decided by just the items you carry (levelling up has no bearing on it). This is a very clever system. A bit too clever: if you care enough, you will find yourself spending hours editing your character to get the right balance between different types of skill points, just so you can get the skills you want. The character graphics are just as beautiful as they should be: the physics are sometimes a bit off with the hair, but the character models are very good, as are the cutscenes. However, many of the backgrounds seem rushed, with water detail looking flakey at best (when the difference between the texture of water and the texture of lava is difficult to decipher, you know something's wrong).
Now there were two big marketing points for this game: things that it built on to SC3. Firstly, was the inclusion of Star Wars characters. For the 360: Yoda and for the PS3: Darth Vader. With Darth Vader's Apprentice appearing on both platforms. Now, it's true that this seems a bit stupid, and they may be right. Certainly these characters seem to have been stuck onto the game with airfix glue. But, personally, I don't see why it should be such a problem. You don't have to play as them, and they aren't fundamental to any plot aside from their own. Also, Yoda and the Apprentice (I haven't played as Darth Vader yet) have been very tastefully done. The voice acting for them is spot on, and they fit very well into the Soul Calibur role, despite DW's accusations that they are broken characters. His grounds for this are that Yoda is too short to be hit, and that the Apprentice's throw always performs a ring out. However, I contest that. The two characters have some bonus attributes because, due to their nature, they can't have their costume edited, and so they can't be given skill points. Their bonuses are just to account for this.
The other marketing pitch was the new Create-a-Character piece. To be honest, Creating a Character should be fun, and in this game, it just isn't. There aren't enough settings, and all the characters just end up looking like one of the pre-mades anyway. And even when you've done this, you've still got to go through all the palava of kitting him out with the skills you want him to have, and the armour he needs for that.
The story mode gives you a lot to unlock. A lot of characters that can be purchased, and a lot of items to buy too. But the story mode itself lacks any sort of imagination. The opening screen for each character tells you what the characters wants with the Soul Blade/Calibur, you do five stages (mostly in the same locations) and then there's a cut scene telling you that the character got what they were after in the opening screen. Far too short, far too expected, far too shit. It is tricky doing stories and cutscenes and bits and pieces for 32 different characters (33 including both Yoda and Darth Vader), but if that's the case then there should be fewer characters. The game would not harm from having only 10 characters, possibly less, as long as the stories were interesting, and their fighting styles were varied. Instead, I was forced to slog through these 32 different stories to get full completion of the story mode. Luckily, it only took me 10 hours. But is that a good thing? If 32 characters only leave a story trail that last 10 hours?
Far more promising is the Tower of Lost Souls. You get a choice to ascend or descend (descending is only an option once you've gotten to the 20th floor of ascension). The Ascending is basically a more challenging version of the story mode, involving 1 or more stages of 1-4 enemies. You have to get through all the given stages in a slot with just your starting amount of health (though you are allowed, usually two or three characters). This is a challenge sometimes, but fun. A much better time than trying to complete story mode. The Descending is just a survival mode: two characters versus the hordes of time.
There are other points: an arcade mode that leaves much to the imagination (each time through, with all characters is the same), and a well-composed, but largely irrelevant, soundtrack. But the last point that needs to be made is about the online. The online system is incredibly simple, and very easy to play. In ranked or player it's fun, especially if you just want a quick game. Most people use customised characters (and win with them I've found). However, the game falls prey to the only Live problem that such a game cannot fall prey too: lag. The lag on this game, all too frequent, just spoils and ruins play, making it more or less impossible to play. It's not always a problem, but when it is, you may as well leave the room and go find somewhere else (I don't mean on the Xbox, I mean, literally, get up and just leave the room, come back when the servers are less crowded).
It's fun, there's a lot to complete, but it can be monotonous at times. It's great if you're on school holidays or whatever, and you've got nothing to do on the long boring days when no one's out, because you can just keep playing it. But it's not anything special, not worth buying if you can wait till September when some better games are coming out. I give it a 7.
Already on the Rocks AoC [Funcom have suffered from financial difficulty now alot of their player base have moved back to World Of Warcraft have been hit by another massive embarrassment, an unnamed GM initiated cyber sex with a male player [with a male character] posing as a female.
Transcript follows: Not safe for work warning. [|GM|]: hmm you are bad. [|GM|]: what if I rip your panties off and **** you hard till I am satisfied? To []: That sounds perfect To []: Going to use clobber? :P [|GM|]: Want to feel you get really we so I can put just the head of my **ck inside you and use my hand to slowly move it around before plunging it fully into you and making you take it all. To []: You’re just as kinky as me To []: Infact you’re so kinky, you just cybered with a dude :P [] shouts: THIS IS SPARTA [|GM|]: then when you are really hot and needing more I can reposition and slide my wet tongue up your legs and do small circles again around your belly button and then let my tongue trail down your **nt. [|GM|]: oh that would really be not good lol To []: Love you =] To []: By the way, I’ve been fapping to this the whole time. [|GM|]: lol why did you want this then lol you gay? [|GM|]: are you serious? To []: Serious about what? [|GM|]: um what’s fapping (not up to par on the ling) lol To []: I was joking about the fapping, but I am indeed a dude. [|GM|]: lol ok. [|GM|]: Glad I put my clothes back on lol To []: Yeah probably a good idea. I have aids.
The full article can be found here. Its pretty entertaining, And another embarrasment for the Anarchy online and Age of Conan developers.
Watching the Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 trailer today, I wondered only one thing: “How does Luke cage get into all of these bloody games.” The main concept for the second game seems to involve fusing two superhero’s powers together, and there’s a nice shot of the hulk doing a “fastball special” with wolverine. it’s a small trailer, but I got all rabid and fan boyish over the original Ultimate Alliance, mainly due to its inclusion of Blade and dead pool. Confirmed characters for UA2 include: Captain America, The fantastic 4, Spider man, Hulk, Daredevil, Venom, Green Goblin, Thor, Iron man, Wolverine, Storm and Luke cage. Storyline wise Dan Tanguay from Vicarious Visions says the game will start from Nick Fury's secret invasion of Latveria, home of Marvel Villain Doctor doom. More information when it surfaces.
EA has finally come through on its promise to deliver a free conquest mode for bad company, and has named a date: August 7th. What is conquest mode? Made famous by Battlefield 1942™, Conquest mode pits players against each other in a fast paced battle to eliminate the opposing team’s tickets. Players deplete their opponent’s tickets by one point per kill and can cause their opponents tickets to spiral downwards by capturing control points. Four maps that are currently available for online play in Gold Rush mode will be available to conquer with Conquest mode.
This has caused much rejoicing amongst players of battlefield, including myself, as sometimes gold rush seemed slightly... unfair on certain maps. I'm unsure how it will be implemented, whether it'll randomly select between gold rush and conquest, or whether you can choose one or the other. More when I know.
Still no sign of DW, and I've got no reason to believe he'll be back anytime soon. Anyway, I'm only one person so I'll try and cover as much news as possible in the time he's away.
PS3 owners will enjoy a demo for the new Final Fantasy game, FFXIII, in March. The developers of the game, Square Enix, have stated that, although the game will eventually be ported to 360, the game is being developed squarely with the ideas of PS3 in mind. Square Enix also promised PS3 users that there would be no decrease in quality, despite the port to 360. Good for Playstation, bad for Xbox. However, because the game is going to have a simul release, the release of the Playstation version will be held back until the port is complete and the 360 version is polished off. Everybody wins! More details.
The Prince of Persia movie (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time), previously set for release in 2009, has been pushed back a year by Disney. The reason given for this was to allow more time for special effects to be placed on a film that will certainly need them. The delay puts it in the middle of May 2010, a week after the (in this writer's opinion) tired franchise of Shrek gets spread just one slice more thinly in Shrek Goes Fourth. More details.
The new Doom game has been 'officially' announced now... So what the hell was that announcement made before? More details.
Newly merged 'Activision Blizzard' have announced an 09 release of the next Call of Duty. No wait... The next next Call of Duty.... Call of Duty 6! Being built, I'm sure you'll all be happy to hear, from Infinity Ward. The studio that worked on CoD 2 and CoD 4, but not the abysmal CoD 3, or the upcoming World at War. Activision Blizzard also noted that only one new Guitar Hero title would be being released before the end of the year, namely, GH: World Tour. In other Acitivison Blizzard news, that Lich King thing all WoW fans seem to be worshipping and praying to is set for last quarter of this year. More details.
Rockstar North rocked the Develop 08 awards on July 31st in Brighton. Rockstar won awards for the Visual Arts, Audio Accomplishment, Best In-House Developer and 'Grand Prix' (the overall award for best dev). Rockstar won all of these awards with GTAIV, but GTA itself won 5 awards, also clinching the Technical Innovation award, under Natural Motion/Image Metrics. More details.
That's my roundup for this week. See you on the 11th. And hopefully sometime after then I should have a Soul Calibur review up. It's been out for a while I know, but it's usually DW who buys the games.
Here we are again, the beginning of the new gaming month. Well... the beginning of the new month, but the new gaming month too. Hopefully after last months disappointments we'll see a more formidable line up of summer games. In addition, this is to note that DW apologises for his continuing absence, but he's working on a new project currently. Hopefully once it's up and running we'll see some more of him. Thanks to Melasis for keeping some sort of material on the site.
Table Football Well... I know to people who don't have a Wii this must sound like a ridiculous idea for a game. But it looks like it might be fun. And I don't see why it shouldn't be. It's a typical Wii-style game: and they've been one style of game that hasn't seen disappointment after disappointment. Mainly because people didn't really expect much from them. Platforms: Wii Release Date: 08/08/08
Age of Empires III: Asian Dynasties This is a new expansion for AoE III. If you enjoy AoE III then go for it, it adds quite a bit of new content: maps, civilisations, campaigns etc.If you haven't played AoE III and you were thinking of buying this game and the original and giving it a go then I would suggest against it, even if you enjoyed the previous installments of AoE. It was a fair game but not really much worth spending good time and money. This expansion, unless it fixes the inherent 'business' of the first one probably isn't worth getting. Platforms: PC, Mac Release Date: 12/08/08
Madden NFL 09 If you don't know what this is, don't buy it. If you do, then you might like it, lots of new features etc. but still, essentially, Madden NFL 08, just updated slightly. Your choice this time. As a side note, the Wii has its own version Madden NFL 09 All-Play. Same game, but with support for your remote. Dunno whether that really makes a difference. *yawn* Platforms: Wii, PS3, X360, PSP, DS Release Date: 15/08/08
X-OOM Media Centre for Wii XE This looks interesting. I hadn't heard about it this before I started the research for this article, but it looks like a must have for Wii-only owners. It basically brings Wii owners up to speed with Xbox owners, working as an extension of their PC onto their Wii: effectively Media Centre Extender. However, as far as I can see, this program doesn't require XP Media Centre 05, or Vista. And it retails at £29.99! Not bad at all. So if you own a Wii and can't be bothered with the more complicated methods of getting your movies onto your big screen then this is the way to do it. So long as it works ok, this is my pick of the month for the Wii. Platforms: Wii Release Date: 15/08/08
Sony Playstation 3 with 80 gig HDD It's finally arriving here. The 60 gig's bigger brother. Retailing at 299, so snap one up if you have the odd £300lying around. Pick of the month for PS3, seeing as PS3 games seem so scarce this month. Platforms: n/a Release Date: 27/08/08
The Sims 2: Apartment Life Well... it's yet another expansion pack from EA Games for the Sims 2. God knows what extras this one contains, but I can tell you without looking at a detailed list that it will have new items, new places to go, and new clothes and stuff for your own personal avatar. If you Sims fans have any space left on your shelf for more expansions then I'm sure you don't need to tell you to buy this one. Platforms: PC Release Date: 29/08/08
Too Human Looks something interesting: an RPG set in the middle of the typical 'epic struggle' between some guys and the bad guys. You are a 'cybernetic god' in the middle of it all, preventing the good guys from getting wiped out. Dunno. Seems a little 'done' to me, but the developers are pretty reputable, Silicon Knights, it uses that Unreal Engine 3, which is pretty well reknowned. So, yeah, it might be worth giving a go. Platforms: X360 Release Date: 29/08/08
Soul Calibur: Legends For those people unlucky enough to not be able to own SCIV, you've been given this token game: Legends. Honestly... get a console that has SCIV on it if you want it. There is no way this could be good. Platforms: Wii Release Date: 29/08/08
Well, there seems to be plenty of choice, but no quality. Not a good month for gaming really. My two 'pick of the month' games weren't even games! If you own a 360 my suggestion is going to remain SCIV, same for the PS3, unless you want another PS3. I suppose my general suggestion to all gamers this month is for you to go out and get some much needed fresh air. Next month the gaming season starts again, you're going to need to store away as much oxygen as possible for the gaming-heavy winter months.
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It was also a slight shock when playing the game and realising that some of the controls that have stayed fundamentally the same since MGS1 had changed, such as how to use the guns and now having to press X instead of O to confirm stuff, but I got over that, learnt to get used to it, an now they’re just second nature. Also it would’ve been rather difficult and frustrating using the same controls for guns from previous MGS’s in this, as they play a much heavier role.
In fact if I had any criticism of this game, it wouldn’t be too long cut scenes (which I loved, and besides you could pause them!), it wouldn’t be that I felt they traded stealth for combat (you could do what you wanted to, so it was in fact made more open for those crap at stealth), it wouldn’t even be how vamp was still an immortal bastard and how liquid ocelot still said ‘BROTHER!!!’ every time he clocked me……ok I’m going off a bit here.
