DW Gaming

Fracture Demo: First impressions

2008-09-21T11:24:00.000-07:00

So, As promised here's a bit of a natter about Fracture. I'll start with the bold claim, that I was 10x more impressed with this then The Force Unleashed [Reviews due from team members who don't think it's a ridiculous waste of time] which was Lucasarts other recent offering. As a 3rd person shooter, its responsive, and the shooting is well done.

But, That's not why your here. Fractures big claim is that the ground is.. Fluid, if you will. Ground raises and lowers as you play, and the weapons all do a whole bundle of stuff. My personal favourite is the Torpedo, that throws itself into the ground, and burrows towards targets, awaiting your order to detonate. Dirt can be manipulated easily, Right button raises the ground, Left button lowers it, making it easy to alter cover, and it makes the firefights more interesting, to say the least.

The Penny Arcade comic up there, pretty much sums up everything I had a problem with in the game. Most of the games "challenges" involve jumping small walls, or lowering the ground to use a tunnel, which feels... Limited, considering the technology and concepts they had at their disposal. It's an amazing concept, and the Tech behind it is brilliant, but it feels like they haven't really taken it far enough. None the less, I'll rent the game when it comes out, at the very least.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

2008-09-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

Review time is finally here. After three days I've seen everything there is to see.

What did I see? Well, not much really. I completed the game on normal after about 5, 6 hours. And I hardly flew through it either. Various points were challenging and would keep me in the same place for 10 minutes. It was short! Really short! And with no real replay value, or online play that's no good for a game. I never sell my games, but if I did, this would no longer be in my collection.

Not because it's a particularly abysmal game. But because I've no further use for it.

So, to move away fro the time aspect, let's talk abot the good parts.

The game was fun! Essentially this is true. The ability to grab stormtroopers by the throat, fill them full of electricity and then throw them at other troopers to watch them explode is a great idea. The whole force system worked incredibly well, and, for once, there was a Star Wars game that wasn't obssessed with items. There is no way to complete this game without using the Force, using lightning, grab and push techniques in different ways. Having said this, it left a rather sore vacuum where the Lightsaber used to be. The Lightsaber is a favourite weapon and it seems to have been added at the end. The idea seems to be that a nightstick could do as much damage as this Lightsaber. Needless to say, the lightsaber was missed.

The system of levelling up was very effective in some ways. The idea that you get points for performing complicated combos was a good one, as was the idea of getting points by collecting holocrons in tricky to reach places (reminiscent of the Golden Feathers in Banjo Kazooie). Once levelled up you receive points to spend in three areas: Combos, Attributes and Force powers. The Attributes makes you regain health faster etc. and is an overall essential part to such a system. The Force Powers get stronger with every level up (out of three possible points each). The Combos, however, are absolutely bloody pointless. I didn't use half of the ones I bought. To be honest, didn't know how. And didn't need to either. As far as I can work out, combos just look cool, they don't do anymore damage. I'm sure some of them are good, but there are several thousand, and they're just a waste of time.

The storyline was... eh. It was poor. Despite some really good voice acting (surprisingly), as a Star Wars fan, I was disappointed with it, and disappointed that George Lucas had been partly responsible for it. I can't spoil the ending, but it's unbelievable beyond belief, and at least the very last resolution doesn't make the Apprentice some sort of Star Wars God. The Vader aspect of the story was nice though, and links in with his desire to kill the Emperor with Luke. Really happy to hear you'd play a bad guy for once, I was, again disappointed with the fact you very soon turn good. The romance aspect was rushed and surprising. It was just generally poor. And the idea that this Apprentice could drag a Star Destroyer out of the sky when Yoda struggled with an X-Wing is just laughable.

Then the graphics... An improvement on the demo for sure. But still... a lot of movable objects seemed pasted onto a basic background. The graphics on the whole were nice. Some of teh art design was really nice, but a lot of them, such as the force graphics were a little under done, and don't look as impressive as they should. A lot of the background graphics are good, and only occasionally succumb to overcomplicating. But the levels often have glitches in them, and end up with you falling to your death.

So as I mentioned, the Force powers have been slightly overplayed. Well, a lot. I can see why too, for dramatic effect. But if you're a Star Wars fanatic, you'll probably hate the idea that you are effectively walking around godmodding everything in sight. On a site I'm on, the Admin said the Force Unleashed would lead to huge amounts of godmodding noobs. They're probably right.

So.. yeah, a short review. But, my God, this game was short. Way tooooo short. Fun, but short. The Force based idea was a good one, and full of innovation. The gameplay was sometimes painfully glitchy, all too often. But despite all its flaws it was fun! I see this a stepping stone to a new type of Star Wars games, Force-centred, and not so clunky and RPG-ey. Were they to merge this system with a smooth Fable-type combat, and then add a decent and long storyline, this game would be a 9 or 10. As it is, we shall leave it at a 7.5. Which is still more hours than the game lasted.

2008-09-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

My Xbox is back. Brilliant service. I'll write about that another time.

What is important, is two MASSIVE demo's dropping today, Firstly, Fracture. The Lucas arts game where you can alter the terrain? downloading it right now.

Secondly.
LEFT 4 DEAD! the demo isn't up yet, but it shouldn't be so long. Expect articles on both of those if i get a minute :)

Spore

2008-09-14T03:06:00.000-07:00

Alright when I first saw the advert for Spore, I thought it looked like a little kids game of Black and White and didn't really want to play it (mainly cause I have a Vendetta against EA for not making Dungeon Keeper 3, if you look at my post a couple of months ago). Anyway the other night I have a few friends up for a bit of a laugh some films etc and one of them brought me a version of Spore they had downloaded and cracked, means I can't play online but what you gunna do eh?? Anyway after he installs and then after all the others go to sleep I give it a razz.

Spore, you start as a single cell amoeba floating around in the sea eating smaller amoeba, if any of you have played feeding frenzy you will like this bit, but you eventually evolve, kill and civilise yourself up to the space age, this is split into the Cell stage, Creature stage, Tribal Stage, Civilisation Stage and Space Stage and because I'm a looser with nothing else to do on a Sunday Morning I'm going to review all of them.

Before I start on all the ups and downs of this game, I would like to say, I was glued to the screen from the beginning of the Cell Stage until a little bit of the way through the Space Stage (mainly because I fell asleep on my keyboard and piloting a ship was by then far to much for my bloodshot eyes at 5 in the morning), so no matter what I say against it, it is still a really fun casual game to play.

Anyway now I said that:

THE CELL STAGE

At the beginning should you choose to do the "Cell Stage," (because you can start anywhere in the evolutionary chain (which if you ask me destroys the Challenge of the game if your Lazy, but meh), you are asked a variety of Questions to begin your life as a cell and I suddenly felt like I was 9 and playing Digimon world 1 again, these questions included, are you herbivore or Carnivore (Carnivore =P), what theme would you like (there is nothing to choose from . . . .), Difficulty level (Normal), Name of your planet (something you think is funny).

After finishing answering all of the questions the game feels it needs to ask you, you are treated to cinematic of a meteor, presumably containing you crash landing into some water, thus the Stories of G-Wizz on the planet of Folkestone began.

I think the UI is good, mainly cause it reminded me of my wow interface, this interface is maintained through the whole game, but does have things added on and taken away but I found it flowed nicely.

I found the cell stage annoying and I don't know whether I wasn't doing it properly or whether it is just bad, I found all the bigger cells were nasty to me, whether or not they ate meat, my cell would not move that quickly and turning was near impossible, about 1/4 of the way through the Cell stage you grow to an extent where you can call a mate and "evolve," so I did this and a love infused Cell bigger than me came up to me and I made naughty and farted out an egg which she then proceeded to . . . . well I don't know what she did.

This took me to the character edit screen, though I added different fins with the hope of at least turning faster, it was like armour in age of Conan, didn't look very good, did nothing and cost money.

What I really liked was the customisation, there is enough of it to keep you entertained, but not so much you got bored doing each eyelash, especially bad for me because if things aren't symmetrical I will freak, but it is clear EA were thinking of me and made it so everything is symmetrical, whether you like it or not. But you can make your character (especially in the creature stage) look as wacky or odd as you want, i know it's kind of childish but this is not the kind of game that is intended to be played at all seriously.

Eventually after much swearing and being eaten by bigger cells I was offered the option to grow legs and get out of the sea . . . .

THE CREATURE STAGE

After climbing out the beach onto ground you are given another chance to customise, then sent in search of other beings, so that you may befriend or behead them.

The way you do this is simple . . . .

All you have to do if you want to befriend them is click the green button, go up to them shout at them and copy the commands they do the commands are: Sing, Dance (it's hilarious), Pose and Charm, you aquire these by putting parts on your creature and the better the part the higher level the skill say for example, feet and dance and the higher the level the easier it is to impress the creature, i liked this though it was a pain getting rank 3 pose to impress some cow people. You have to win over about 3-5 of the same species and then you can heal at their nest and get members of them in your pack.

Fighting you press the red Button select a target then spam 1-4 on the keyboard until they are dead, skills for combat work the same as social skills, if you kill any 5 of a species they become extinct, but all the leftover ones start spinning around glowing and acend into the heavens, did they have some desperate mental link with the others meaning if they died then they to would also die.

Basically every time you befriend of Kill another creature you get bits on your experience bar, you can change your appearance as much as you want, you get new pieces you can fit to yourself by finding them on the floor or killing/ befriending enemy creatures. If i tell the truth this is my favourite part of the game, probs because it's the closed to an RPG this thing gets bar the space Stage.

I loved customisation and i have made a variety of wacky and odd creatures as there is a creature creator on the main menu and your creations will appear randomly on worlds along with all Maxis other things.

With the Creature stage I had a genius way of telling whether another species was going to live or die, this was if they are cute they live, ugly they die. It worked out quite well 6 species and myself lived another 20 were killed.

In order to unlock everything on the creature stage so as to fully customise you creature, you need to befriend/ kill everything and find all the bones lying around on the floor, this got a bit tedious being that I could have moved on to the next stage after doing about a quarter of this, but i persevered and eventually wound up getting everything and moved on.

THE TRIBAL STAGE

Ok now this is the point in the game where it went from being a basic almost RPG kind of gameplay into a very Basic RTS which to me I thought was a brave move, though not a very good one in my opinion, I said the creature stage was my favourite and then being forced to change my style of playing entirely . . . well I wasn't very happy, alright the objective was the same, either make friends with other tribes or kill them.

They kept the same interface, a very wise move as I was not about to learn the whole game again (though the game felt it still needed to give me a camera tutorial anyway) aside from you now had different Units, they are Spearmen (up close killing people), Spearmen (Ranged killing people), Shaman (Healy person) and farmer (domestic person). Don't get me wrong I did enjoy the tribal stage, it's just I felt doing basic breakdowns of gaming genres may be good for kids and casual gamers, but it's not so good for people who play intensivly, though it is still a great load of fun.

Rather than your usual RTS where you expand, you are centralised to one camp, from this camp you buy weapons or instruments (they kill or win over other tribes), you also create babies, though I was slightly alarmed when I did this and an egg came bouncing out the tent like it was a conveyor belt for some mass production army. Basically all the units start off the same and you must send them to the buildings you buy with food to equip them with spears, staffs or spears.

THE CIVILISED STAGE

Now it was at this point in the game I think Maxis went a little loopy, they keep the RTS gameplayish, but from here on out you don't really control your creation anymore, instead you design a town hall, Tanks, Planes and boats and start trying to control the world, i was a little freaked when my head dragon man told me i was going to either buy other cities or burn them down, also how did you jump from using primitive magic up to tanks in one go, anyway who am i to pick holes it's not like I get to criticise, oh wait yes i do ^^.

Alright you can now dress your creatures in nicer clothes, but they are now tiny dancing around with fireworks in your cities doing nothing but partying by the looks of it, which i did not tell them they could do, so there is really no point in dressing them up.

Design for all the buildings and tanks planes etc is nowhere near as fun as it was in the creature stage, tho i just spent most of my time being a nerd and making star destroyers =), which leads me on swiftly to the final stage . . .

THE SPACE STAGE

It was about 10 minutes into the space stage I got bored, mainly because i looked at the galaxy and thought , this is huge no way, but i kind of got the general gist, now you have nothing to do with your creatures, no more fighting, you spend the rest of the time exploring, abducting animals from other planets and taking them to people, then again i havn't got very far so i could be completely wrong.

All in all Spore is in no way a game to be played seriously, it is a fun casual game, there is not a huge amount of depth to it, but i really did enjoy playing it, i'm hoping that when i summon up the courage to have a go at the space age that i am wrong about it and ther is more to it than probing odd creatures.

Either way it is the most fun i have had in ages and i do reccommend it i give it a 7.5.

Anyway i'm really looking foreward to reviewing force unleashed on the Wii at the end of this week, random dave will be doing it on the 360, but until then i'm going to go and make some bizzare creatures.

My Elite:

2008-09-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

Has Red ringed. Son of a bitch.

Very Long Too Human Review of Ironic Naming Conventions

2008-09-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Too Human- the game that everybody and nobody wants to play. At once. Paradox? You'd think so, unless you saw the recent turd-flinging contest between developers, media, fans, and random people that was the Too Human release aftermath.

Too Human is indeed a strange beast, a game who's development I've followed for several years now. For those of you who don't have much background (how could you not?), Too Human is developed by Silicon Knights, the much-lauded developers of titles such as Eternal Darkness, MGS: Twin Snakes, and a Legacy of Kain title. It takes place far in the past, as a sci-fi re-imagining of Norse Mythology, offering a unique take on cyclic history and old Scandinavian tales. You play as the god Baldur, a member of the Aesir corporation, a Private Military Company specializing in cybernetic implants. You are charged with defending humanity's last vestiges from the impending robot invasion. Sound generic? Read on.

Let me start off with one of this title's hot subjects: the story. To put it in the simplest terms possible, Too Human's story is phenomenal. That being said, the storytelling and presentation is something you wouldn't expect from a game that was made after the year 2000. Silicon Knights, a development house notorious for its stiff and fairly emotionless animations, decided against Motion Capture use in Too Human. As a result, main characters often fail to convey their feelings adequately, despite generally admirable voice work. Ironically, it's two of the main characters, Baldur and the rambunctious Thor, who's voice talent needs to be changed before the next iteration of Too Human. Overall, cinematics fail to do justice to the writer's epic re-telling, often leaving you yearning for more, scratching at the surface to get at the beauty you can see just under its crust. The game starts to pick up and start getting things right just in the last level, with the last cutscene leaving you going “Why the hell wasn't the rest of this put in one game?”.

In terms of graphics, another catch-22 presents itself. The art style- is entirely magnificent. The large, open environments, gigantic backgrounds and detailed, interesting designs never cease to impress. The graphics themselves are (can you guess what's coming next?) a fairly large let-down. Average by all means, they don't do much other than show you how great things could have been. Polygon count is low, facial definition is spotty and oddly low on polish, although it's an area that you'd expect to see a story-driven game to excel in. Hair is the worst offender, looking flatter than Amy in Soul Calibur 4. Weapons and armor are designed beautifully, with detail and uniqueness enhanced by the color rune upgrades available on the cheap in the Weapon and Armor stores. Some skins can border on ridiculous, and there seems to be a mild case of “WoW Shoulders” going around town; but you can never say that you don't really feel bad-ass. The game does a great job of making you look like god from the beginning, and somehow manages to keep the feeling of awesomeness rising as you level up continually, all the while updating with more ridiculous names every time. Looking at screenshots of the game in '06 while it was still on the Unreal Engine 3 is an exercise in sadness, as you can clearly see much smoother models and what is apparently an actual head of hair for Freya; but I digress.

Gameplay is the real meat of Too Human, and that is where it tends to excel. Many harp the controls for their “unintuitiveness”, their tendency to be “too clunky” and “retarded man, like a button masher but WTF NO BUTTONZ NO WAI”. I have to chalk those complaints up to people who just can't get into something new, however. The controls work beautifully- allowing all the combat action of a button mashing game without the finger fatigue, allowing for long dungeon-crawl-style play sessions without having to get repeated Carpal Tunnel surgery. Targeting and locking on is all handled by the right thumbstick, movement with the left. Once close enough to an enemy, you may hit the attack button and perform a slide, speeding up and hitting the enemy with your godly... hoverskates? Who knows. It just looks cool. As you continue to build a combo count, your speed increases and you begin flying around the map with frightening speed. Shooting is done with the triggers- simply hold one or both down and point the stick in the direction of an enemy. Tap the right stick once (twice for pistols) to adjust targets and shoot multiple enemies. If you happen to have trouble with the guns targeting dead enemies repeatedly, take both fingers off the trigger and manually re-target your intended baddie. It works, but it takes skill. In addition to these main mechanics, you have special attacks. These consist of Ruiners, Spiders, Battle Cries, and Sentient Weapon Abilities. Ruiners are Area of Effect attacks, triggered with the right bumper. They use Combo Meter, the game's equivalent of Mana. You build Combo by battling, forcing a good mixture of combat and special moves that results in a well-rounded experience. Battle Cries are rather self explanatory, they are group skills that apply buffs for as long as they run, and they also require Combo. Spiders are another story. Press Y, and you have a little AI buddy come out and do something, whether it is deploying shields, attaching bombs, or being an amazingly bad-ass support turret. They have limited charge times, and have a long downtime. Sentient Weapons work by deploying a shadow version of Fenrir, your sword, which goes out and literally destroys anything in its path. It's amazingly fun to use.

Now that I've covered the 3 core components, let's discuss replay value. In a game like Too Human, a dungeon crawler with hybrid Action game combat, you'd expect to want to play the crap out of it. Not so. Although the level cap is 50, it is a tedious and rather boring journey to reach it. Completing the game gets you about halfway through, landing at level 26 or 27. The rest of the game is endgame exploring and looting, something that quickly becomes tiresome. The game has 4 large areas, of roughly 1-2 hours each. The second level is an anomaly, often taking more than 3 hours to complete. That would be all fine and dandy if it weren't for the annoying Token system. Collect tokens by playing through sections of the level, with the best boss loot only available if you've gotten every token in the level. Tokens are very annoying to gather, although you can do a section of a level, leave, and come back later still possessing that token, allowing you to break it into bits. The problem is environment variety. Only the Ice Forest is really distinctive, and even that is just another oddly bumpy floor with lights that takes you through the annoying door with more enemies. The only incentive is Epic loot, but even that fails to draw in your attention long enough to spend 100+ hours on the game (although people report having done exactly that already).

So overall, in conclusion? Too Human is a fun game. A good game. Not great, above mediocre, and certainly not bad (I'm looking at you, Jim Sterling). If you enjoyed the demo, this game is for you. If you thought it was ok at best, give it a rent. It's a good weekend-buster (averaging 12 hours of length) for the lull before the explosion that is the Fourth Quarter of Release Hell. The game certainly isn't without its design flaws, but several innovations shine through that leave me instilled with confidence in the second iteration in this trilogy. I would recommend a healthy background in Norse Mythology before you dive into this, if you'd like to get into the story. This game hits slightly between the 7 and 8 mark, so I'll leave you guys with a rousing 7/10. A solid addition to any library, it should be tried (in demo form) by anyone remotely interested.

Images courtesy of www.GiantBomb.com

Football manager 2009

2008-09-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

"Hey wait a minute", I'm sure most of you are saying as you glance at the title to this article, "Football Manager? Why don't you cover a good game?" Well. You can all sit down and shut up, Because I love the football manager series like my own firstborn child.

First, The facts. It releases on November 19Th, and will release on the PC, mac, and uhh.. psp. Managing director Miles Jacobson has stated there wont be any home console versions of 09, compared to 07 and 08 which were both released on the xbox.
Now, A shiny video for you to watch.

The guy focuses on Football manager handheld first, Talking about the ability to select more then a single league, Like the PC version, and a choice of... TWO SKINZ. OMG. The handheld version also has a 2d match engine. so yeah, it looks like the PSP edition has been brought up to speed with.. Football manager 2007 maybe?

Now, On to the PC version.

expect more feedback from the assistant manager, which is great, And an expansion of the medias involvement. There are press conferences, Allowing you to cultivate relationships with journo's and the public, and transfer rumours.

You can ask your players to learn special moves, theres a total rewrite of the transfer system,
and the match engine is now in 3d. Although, i'm sure that LMA manager 2003 had a 3d match engine. You know, Back on the playstation.

And the big news?? You can play as a female manager. the guy was really excited about this.

While researching for this blog, I came across a pretty decent site called The True Football Manager, Where a guy reports on his antics in the game. Check it out if your into footie management games.

Microsoft and the Japanese

2008-09-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Japan has long been the heartland for Nintendo support. Release a 360 in Japan and plaster 'Nintendo' all over the box and it'll sell like a new Elvis Presley album. Yet, Microsoft have been adamantly chasing that market despite the polite nudge-offs that the Japanese have been giving them over the past few years. In a bid, perhaps, to do what Manchester City are currently doing the football industry, and become the ultimate games console for all walks of life in all 'theatres of war'.

The latest attempt by Microsoft to buy their success in Japan has resulted in them slashing the prices of all their Xbox models. From September 11th, the Elite will be dropped from $441 to $368 dollars, the Pro will be available for $275. The Arcade, shockingly, will go from $257 to $183 (that's just over £90!!! Cheaper than a DS lite in the UK [£99.99]). To put these numbers in some kind of context for British readers: in the UK, the Elite retails (according to prices on GameStation) at £259 (just over $510), the Pro sells at £200 (just under $400), and the Arcade goes for 159 (~$310). So for the arcade, that's a price difference of £60 between the UK and Japan. In other words, if you're thinking of buying an Xbox IMPORT! The games are cheaper too!

This, essentially, means that the Arcade model is $50 cheaper than a Wii, which retails out there for $231. A desperate gambit by Microsoft to steal the home advantage from Nintendo, which has often claimed to be the 'economical' choice for families. And, importantly, Nintendo, despite all their problems, have been able to afford it, by lowering the debt that producing the console itself has put them in. In other words, the smaller HDD and the, at times, 'last gen' software has in fact not mattered due to the market it's aimed at. Microsoft haven't really learned this lesson. It's market is, broadly speaking, people. Nintendo have aimed their products at a cross section of people that don't care for (and might not appreciate) the swarve graphics and astronomically complex game systems that Microsoft and Sony have put in their boxes. But Sony, as a side, know what they're doing, and have aimed their products for a market that appreciate the blu-ray and the processing speed.

Strictly speaking, Microsoft's hardcore has always been online gamers. With, arguably, the best online service around, the Xbox has always been able to rely on a community of gamers, rather than a chopping and changing casual gamer lot. This has made them take the middle ground, between Nintendo (who appeal to people who wouldn't usually game, and in a way, view the console as a toy), and Sony (who are geared towards making their equipment the best technologically [the PS2, you will remember was immensely ahead of its time in the field of graphics and game processes]).

However, I don't believe Microsoft are used to this position, and it's difficult for them. In the OS market, they have more or less total ownership over a great percentage of the market. Appealing to both big business and individual users. Mac and Linux are both highly specialised, though they are growing more popular. In an ideal world, I think Microsoft are aiming for a market strategy like that, achieved by making the 'catchment area' for the Wii and PS3 smaller; allowing a great percentage of the market to be appealed to by the Microsoft doctrine.

But this issue in Japan show exactly why they will fail in this. The situation is too far gone, and Microsoft came along too late in the game. The Xbox wasn't a Windows 3.1, it was just a successful third party candidate. Nintendo and Playstation are the original players in this game, and have their own loyalists. For Nintendo, this is Japan. Nintendo know exactly what Japan wants, and how to give it to them: and how to make a return on this. Microsoft can't do that, because it's stretched too far, every game has to be available for release in all the 'theatres of war' for it to make sufficient return on the games. Nintendo, on the other hand, can design games (and, more frequently than any other developer, does) that appeal just to Japan, and then release the bigger title games overseas too. And it can then export at greater profit, because of the Yen-Dollar exchange.

Then, finally, within this, and at the core of this, Nintendo have developed with the needs of the Japanese close to its heart. The Wii, with all its little niches and tidbits (like motion sensing), appeals to them, because it's been designed for them. Add a little bit of marketing alteration and this then appeals to families abroad, as the cheap, viable option. So Microsoft can undercut as much as they like, but the Japanese know what they want, and it's Nintendo that's offering it to them, like no other company can, and the price of it can go hang. Put it this way: if you lowered the price of Hell's Kitchen on the DS to £10, I'd still go for Battlefield for £40.

Amateur dramatics

2008-09-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Something different for you here.

The Amateur

The Amateur is a blog based on Hitman: Blood money. Detailing each of the Amateurs missions in a comedic style that I enjoy, Its slightly odd, And you'll likely only really appreciate it if your a big fan of Hitman:Blood money, But that's not a problem for me, Seeing as I'm pretty much in love with the Hitman games.

The Amateur often visits a local church on charity days so that he may both emulate his need for practically free soup, and his need to spark the odd religious incident, just like it says in the Professional’s handbook. He found himself beckoned into a room with the promise of special stuff but turns out it wasn’t soup, The Amateur’s convincing Professional disguise even works in public, speckled with croutons. They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said “Alright, where’s the broth”. Not so catchy. And here’s the target for The Amateur’s devilishly fiendish killing.

Give it a looksee.

Week Beginning 1st September

2008-09-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

The week in words.

Square Enix (Final Fantasy XII) have made a non-hostile (means they wouldn't be a controlling shareholder) $200 mill (£101 mill) offer for Temco (Ninja Gaiden), who have been in financial difficulties for a while. The bid would act as something of a leash of life, to allow the developer to continue making games. The reasons for this are clear because Temco's selling point isn't difficult as was proved with the immense success of Ninja Gaiden II, but they have been struck by various law suits and staff problems that have left them without much investment. More details.

Ratner, director of Rush Hour and X-Men 3, has announced his wish to direct a Guitar Hero movie. It would, he stated, be one of those 'dream come true' storylines. I hate those storylines so much. More details.

Another business related story. Nintendo have upped their profit projections by 26%, up to a net profit of $1.5 billion for the 6 months ending September 30th, and up to $3.8 billion for the full year, next March. Whilst this could be explained away by the fantastic profits made on products such as the Wii Fit, and also by the affordability of the products next to the Xbox 360 and the PS3. However, what is a big contributing factor is that, for a heavy export company like Nintendo, the weak Yen means great things, and a bigger profit on every unit exported. More details.

The new S.T.A.L.K.E.R game, due for a worldwide release of September 5th, is to be put back a bit due to production problems in North America. This delay will only affect North American purchases of the game, and the European release is still scheduled for September 5th. The American release has not got an exact date, but estimates put it at 15th September. More details.

That's about it for this week. So until next week, I believe there's a Too Human review in the works, and DW will get round to posting some more interesting little gaming ditties. But it's my birthday on Friday, so I doubt I'll get round to posting until next Tuesday (going out Monday night), but I will get to it, have no fear.

Frets on Fire

2008-09-01T05:49:00.000-07:00

Right, about . . . well must be 2 months ago now I sold my 360, all I have left now is 2 Guitar hero Guitars and a wired 360 control, but obviously nothing to play them on.

So I was browsing the internet as you do, when I came across Frets on Fire (I know most of you probably heard about it, but I live in a cave), a Freeware version of guitar hero, now just from looking at the icon it looked like it was taking off guitar hero and an iPod advert. Anyways I downloaded it and gave it a try.

Being that it's freeware, I thought it was going to be quite buggy, I was wrong, it runs smoothly and pretty much the same as guitar hero, with the exception that the orange button has been changed to purple, Presumably because the programmer was Hairist against Ginger people (thumbs up to him and an appology to any Ginger readers, but lets face it your weird). With the exception of me being a little confused about that I really really enjoyed playing it.

Here is a Video of it in action, some bloke doing Whisky in the Jar by Metallica.

The USB Xbox guitar can be installed and used rather than F1-F5 on your keyboard and pressing enter to strum (which is a lot harder than it looks), which is another up to it so you really could think your playing guitar hero =).

There is a song editor, which means now you can finally do your own songs on it, but I couldn't fathom how to use it so I have no idea what to say about it other than the fact it is there.

Now on to the negative and there is quite a few things.

While the Programme itself doesn't take up that much space after you have downloaded a load of songs you realise that it is all mounting up, though this is only a minor issue if you have a huge hard drive like myself, it may be more concerning for other people who are not as well off as me to afford a good computer.

Also I tried it on my dads computer, which though not terrible is quite dated now, i got some severe laggage on the notes making it dam near impossible to play, but on mine and indeed most of my other friends I have recommended it to they have had no lag problems.

Alright I love being able to play pretty much any song I want on Guitar hero, I been wanting to play some songs so badly since I first played Guitar hero 1, which I now can, But and this is a big but as it is freeware it means the songs are done by sad act people who do every single note individually, that's fine, but some of the notes are really out of time, in the wrong place, they look like hammer ons but they aren't and so on, this is not the case with all of them, some of them are spot on, I don't want to put you lot off downloading it from and downloading songs from . . . . wherever you can find them, so I applied the oldest of sayings, if at first the download sucks then try find another one instead.

While I'm on the subject of downloading songs, finding a good website to download them from is murder, unless you want to torrent every guitar hero song ever, which you can find so easily it's scary, but i suppose that is something you have to live with if you are cheap enough to skimp out of buying normal Guitar hero and download a free rip off.

Another rant is, the UI is not pretty it is very basic and my tiny brain was not able to settle into guitar hero playing mode for ages, I have read you can download Guitar hero 2 & 3 skins for it, but I will be buggered if I can find them.

One final rantage before I Wrap this thing up (now i really want a subway wrap =( dam you subway), I got so used to Guitar hero stomping on my face that millionth time I failed Cliffs of Dover in expert, but while playing frets on fire it wasn't until I realised quite how bad I was doing at "a gunshot to the head of Trepidation" by Trivium, that i suddenly realised there is no rock bar and that it is therefore impossible to fail a song, at first I thought, YEAH THIS IS GREAT, but on further reflection it kind of takes the fun out of playing the game, Guitar heroes constant spitting in your face when you failed was a reminder that you are only human, but with frets of fire you can suck as much as you want and still think your awesome.

Overall I was pleased with it baring in mind it is not done by a professional company, I would defiantly recommend it if for nothing else the fact it's free, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

On Fable 2 and Economic Design.

2008-08-31T11:17:00.000-07:00

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 Month: September 08

2008-08-31T08:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Dungeons And Dragons Stormreach

2008-08-29T09:07:00.000-07:00

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?

Controller

2008-08-29T02:07:00.000-07:00

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?

Week Beginning 25th August

2008-08-25T11:54:00.001-07:00

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.

The Farce Unleashed.

2008-08-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

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.

If Team Fortress 2 falls in a forest, does anyone buy content?

2008-08-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

Written by: Jayge

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.

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (rather late)

2008-08-18T15:42:00.000-07:00

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.

10/10

Week Beginning 11th August

2008-08-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

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.

Soul Calibur IV

2008-08-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

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.

"I Put on my Robe and Wizards hat"

2008-08-07T14:32:00.001-07:00

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.

Ultimate Alliance 2

2008-08-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Battlefield: Bad Company- Conquest mode!

2008-08-06T03:52:00.000-07:00

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.

Week Beginning 4th August

2008-08-04T09:10:00.000-07:00

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.

The Month: August 08

2008-08-01T03:48:00.000-07:00

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 £300 lying 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.

WOW: Wrath of the Lich king new talents

2008-07-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

Well i know i'm late in posting once again, but i only reactivated my WoW account yesterday evening then went on a huge PVP honor grind (S2 here i come), anywho i'm not really sure about these new Talents, obviously not being a melee DPS player i'm not going to look at any form of brick shithouse, of knifey in the back arsehole, but i did give the Spellcasters a good look (by that i mean balance Drood, Priest, Mage, Shammy) and ofc the Death knight, but i would like to ask Blizzard what is the point in posting Talents for a brand new class when we have no idea what the abilities do *claps* well done blizzard once again you have shown you are as competant as a 4 year old doing brain surgery.

http://wow-europe.com/en/info/basics/talents/wrath/deathknight/talents.html <----- thats the link for those of you that want it.

But as i really can't be arsed to do a huge in depth article i'm going to say that i have looked at them all, though i know nothing is final i have a few things to say.

1) Doing anything that specialises a character in a game is no easy task, neither is introducing new content, because you are never going to please everybody ( i did say this in my "Death Knight first look," but i think that blizzard do a good job in making balanced talents, so before you all go post on the WoW forums that they didn't give you a near instant kill talent think about that.

2) They should have taken my idea for a summonable phonix on the end of the Fire mage tree.

Yeah like i said i really can't be bothered right now because no matter what i write you guys arn't going to like it.

Tomorrow hopefully should be doing Age of Conan (yes i know i'm late on that one aswell).

Darkshadowfang out

Spore At E3

2008-07-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

A few weeks back I posted a video about FarCry II from a recent European press conference, pointing out the horrible, headache-inducing flaws in his presentation. At this year's E3, Will Wright has done the superb thing and demonstrated how to present games: With jokes, with connection with the audience, by simply knowing what he's talking about:

Bosses & Fun

2008-07-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Bosses.

Almost every game has them; from Sonic to Super Smash Brothers, Jet Force Gemini to Earthworm Jim. Ever since the dawn of gaming, it appears that these overpowered enemies have become a necessity in any sort of linear game. Of course, the inclusion of this essential element is usually dependent on the genre and the game in question. Still, usually, it is one of the unwritten codes of gaming that a title features one of these novelties. Some games have gained fame by placing such attributes on a glowing pedestal; Shadow of the Colossus springs directly to mind, as the designers openly admit they had a sole intention not to have any ‘normal’ enemies. Whereas others have been the source of critique for not incorporating these showdowns at all; even Portal has faced ridicule for those ignorant enough to see the mediocre nature of the game’s foes as not challenging enough, calling for a boss-like enemy to improve the variety of gameplay*. My stance is indifferent and even irrelevant to today’s article, although I do believe that – if done correctly – boss battles can add a huge, beneficial edge to the experience. The specifics of such, namely those in the climax of stories, can be found within the award-winning “Hahaha! Now I Shall Reveal My True Form!”. Anyway, enough self-plugging, time to get to the meat of today’s journey of gaming discovery.

First-person shooters notoriously have a key enemy every level or so which can easily be beaten by pouring in every ounce of your inventory into defeating them. Even so-called ‘revolutionary’ FPSes such as Half Life 2 or Bioshock have followed this awfully generic standard. From battles against Antlion Guards to maddened art museum curators, these two games – like many of their peers – feel there is a requirement to periodically test the skills of the player in a way which doesn’t involve throwing more of the same old boring mobs your way. Defeating these bosses can signal a way for story advancement, or just give the game an excuse to introduce a new item or weapon to aid you following the fight, or even during it. After all, there have been countless times where I’ve had to rip off a giant alien’s arm in order to use it against him. Unreal 2 and PREY use the demise of extraterrestrial beings that happen to be wielding the most original (and usually powerful) guns to give more muscle to the player character. Such methods have even been carried over to almost all massively multiplayer games; slaying the blatant bosses in each dungeon rewards the player with better items, slowly enforcing a cycle of positive reinforcement which is essential if the company wishes to keep players subscribed during the huge drain which is end-game content. This makes such games differ greatly from the original, single-player purpose of boss fights, as only a small minority of those who conquer said superiors play to extend their knowledge of the story, or lore. Instead, people choose to tussle with such beasts in order to improve their long-term standing. Whether this means acquiring new gear for further encounters, or player-vs.-player combat, or simply to level up; bosses are even an essential part of online gaming, even if they are optional.

Such themes have been commented on a million times before, from lovers and critics alike. I can easily imagine many people already writing out several responses to this article, stating how not all bosses have to fit the criteria above and how ignorant I am by thinking that all bosses have to have a purpose in the game. After all, some can be thrown in for fun, right?

I absolutely agree. This is the part of boss fights which no writer ever touches upon: The inclusion of these small game segments to simply add variety to gameplay; as I touched upon in the opening paragraph. In fact, it could be argued that such moments have had more effort put into creating them; as the developers do not feel as pressured to have them in order to push the player’s advancement directly forward and thus enjoy the free creative reign. When the only strain that the developer has to cope with is the need to sling in a few boss fights, the outcome can be unintentionally awesome.

Think about your favourite boss fight. If the first game you ever played through properly was Halo, then this exercise may be a little too stressing for you. Still, does your fondest memory include throwing everything you have at the final enemy (a la the previously-covered Bioshock) or perhaps an incredibly easy puzzle, despite it being against the title’s supposedly omniscient antagonist (again; Half Life 2, Portal)? No? Surely these games have defined a generation and as such their final foes should be the embodiment of power, sophistication and grace, right? Unless of course the obvious weaknesses in such enemies is intentional and is only there to highlight the irony and stupidity in these characters; that they really weren’t as dominant as the last ten hours of game time has made out, which only aids their development.

Or, y’know, the game designers could have just been lazy.

I admit that, when planning this article, I thought about doing a detailed analysis of how great of an impact the surroundings have on players memorising a boss battle. If this was the case, then Half Life 2 would have taken the biscuit. Recall, after all, the finale takes place high above City 17**, in front of a super-reactor at the top of a thousand-foot Citadel. Really, how much more awesome does an area get? Or maybe a huge chamber in the midst of another huge castle is more of your cup of tea, as shown by the Legend of Zelda games? Again, great effort comes from map designers into making such settings as important as possible.

Then, after all that, you get to experience the sacred end sequence! The G-Man apparently condemning you to live in stasis until you’re called upon again (although this is rectified in Episode One)! What a conclusion! This applies to other games, too! The half-hour FMVs at the end of the Final Fantasy series! The subtly relaxing and yet enlightening round-up at the culmination of every Legend of Zelda game! Surely completing each end boss battle for such benefits alone must be worth it, right?

So why is it, despite all of these above factors, people opt for the likes of Omega Weapon or Shadow Link in their respective games as their favourite boss battles, instead of the finishing antagonists? Surely we all should prefer the almost infinite gain from actually defeating the story’s main adversary to a simple door opening, or receiving weapons we don’t need? Why then are often lesser and optional boss fights chosen as the preference of many gamers?

Again, I personally feel that a number of different characteristics signal that certain sub-bosses can be more favoured than a game’s final battle and it varies from example to example. For instance, the likes of Shadow Link – the Ocarina of Time version especially – happens to be a huge hit. I don’t believe this is due to the difficulty of the fight (although that could contribute) but rather the placement of the sub-boss. Think about it: You’ve had to face the most Hellish series of puzzles since trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube that your little brother has been playing with for the past three weeks and then suddenly you’re cast out into an enormous room. Unlike the rest of the dungeon, this new place only has water as high as your ankles. Gingerly, you approach what appears to be the exit, notably next to a sole tree upon a tiny island. Then, appearing out of absolutely no-where, you find yourself facing er… well, yourself. Anyone who claims the battle itself is hard is somewhat retarded, as you could simply get out your hammer and pound the Shadow to death. Still, the surroundings and the quick change thereof, play a huge part in making this battle notable in the minds of millions. This quick change of pace (and environment) is often used in modern games to keep the player interested and remains a legacy of such situations as employed by the Dark Link encounter. Environmental gameplay also plays a factor in huge hits as Shadow of the Colossus and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – where you often find yourself engaging a boss whilst making use of what aid the settings presents, or even the quick change of art to make the scenery appear that bit more surreal and memorable such as the Andross battle in Lylat Wars or many in Psychonauts.

Others claim that because of the challenge certain optional bosses pose, that they make the mightiest of battles. These players are the sorts who play Iron Mode on Audiosurf so they get that they still have bragging rights when they’re dethroned by a hundred thousand point difference on ‘Macho Man’. The most popular of such examples are obviously in Final Fantasy. Instead of using their profound abilities to, oh, defeat the game’s final boss easily and finish off, these players choose to venture into the most dank and unappealing of places to throw themselves up against a foe. Why? Well, loot cannot be a valid option, as the items these infamous enemies offer up can often be inferior to the gear you need to take them down to begin with and is therefore totally useless for the rest of the game. The pure exhilaration from attempting to tackle such random, non-compulsory and downright insanely hard task appears to be enough for some individuals to class the encounter as the best they’ve ever experienced. I don’t deny that, either. No matter what the game or genre, we’ve all faced assignments that we only accomplish through a mixture of top form and luck. In the minds of many, the opportunity to face such bosses makes people favour the games in which they are.

In summary, perhaps developers should take more notice of the masses preferring sub-bosses and surreal encounters to the big-hitters’ finale. Novelty is key and rather than hyping up the game’s climax, only to have it follow the same old ‘Hulk smash’ standard that has been the industry’s boon since Doom, games should have some sort of memorable quality about their encounters; whether the boss be in a new environment, have a unique way of fighting (or to be killed) or simply just be outrageously hard (thanks, Ninja Gaiden!). As long as the designers enjoy creating the boss for a reason other than to give players equipment or story advancement, then the players will enjoy playing it.

*Oh come on, you can’t call throwing in a few balls of AI into a fire whilst trying not to laugh a boss battle! It wasn’t as if it didn’t make it any more epic, just that it wasn’t really that difficult.

**Although the sky box for that map is actually New York at night.

Commentary On Resi 5 Racism

2008-07-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Resident Evil 5's producer has confirmed that black people are participating in the game's development.

Jun Takeuchi talked to MTV's Stephen Totilo about the controversial racist undertones in Resident Evil 5. The adventure's action occurs in Africa, where many of the enemies are hostile villagers of black descent attacking a Caucasian protagonist.

Totilo's co-writer N'Gai Croal wrote on MTV's Multiplayer gaming blog that, after seeing RE5 for the first time, didn't "feel like anybody black worked on this game." Takeuchi was asked if the team had expected a reaction or had foreseen the racial issues.

He responded:

No, we certainly didn't anticipate the reaction. We were quite surprised by the reaction that came out. I think everyone understands that we never set out to with the intention to make anything that was racist - that was never our intention. We think it was a bit of a misunderstanding when we published the first images of the game back in the day. And we think that as we move along and allow people to see more of the game and more of what's going on and more of the story, people will get a better idea of the game. I think you can see that that reaction has started to die down a little bit. To answer the question that was posted on your blog, there are black members in the development team. We do have staff working on the game, who are aware of the historical background and we are constantly checking these kinds of things with them.

The lesson learned by Capcom was the cultural differences between countries and their views on race.

"Certainly the most important thing we have learned is that different countries do see the same things in different ways," explained Takeuchi. "I think it's very important as we go along and start other projects to learn from other countries and learn from other companies who are working in the video game and entertainment sectors, learn from their experiences, and not have the same problems again. You know, we have had the reverse problem with some games in Japan as well. But we're in the business of making entertainment. We're not out to make anything to deliberately shock anyone, so I think we can take a couple of lessons away from this experience."

Source: MTV Multiplayer

Abscence

2008-07-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

Apolagies for my recent near abscence from the blog, i've been working double shfits without reprieve, and should be back to speed some time in the next week. In the meantime, i'd like to thank my writers for covering my ass.

- DW

New Bioware MMO

2008-07-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

EA CEO John Riccitiello confirmed today, [well, late last night] that well known studio bioware is creating an MMOG. This is newsworthy alone, but here we go: Bioware are creating an MMOG based in the Star Wars: KOTOR universe.

Thats pretty much all thats on the table so far, but i'm depressed that this pretty much signals "No KOTOR3".

I'll keep my eye on it.

Shock Treatment

2008-07-17T09:14:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Very few games nowadays do horror effectively. There are many typical routes that writers take to induce a scary experience. To name a few of the better examples, try looking at the two major roads that games tend to travel down in order to attempt to get your adrenaline pumping: The Project Zero trail and the Quake 4 method which ends up being more of a highway to repulsion. The former I've named after the PS2 classic which was called 'Fatal Frame' in the non-PAL territories, it boasted immense shocks through clever ways of placing enemies, along with a chilling score and difficult (but innovative!) action to match. The fright spawns from Silent Hill-esque moments of apparent safety, followed only by a terrifying appearence of an obake from behind Door Number Fook-Me-Shoulda-Seen-That-Coming. My main reasoning behind why I haven't named this technique after the aforementioned game, is due to the fact that Silent Hill tends to use gore a lot, which mixes it with the next modus operandi.

I've named this tactic after Quake 4. No doubt even the most ignorant of viewers will be able to recognise the clear elements it features. The writers of Quake 4, now classed as real pioneers when it comes to being truly bloody, really pushed the proverbial boat out when it came to their legacy in horror. Personally, I don't generally find grotesque semi-aliens attempting to fire at me by using some damn awkward AI to be at all scary. What I do find terrifying, is the most infamous scene in all of Quake history; the one where you turn into a Strogg. It certainly isn't a nice little case of waking up as one of these inhuman, part-mechanical monstrosities. Oh no, the game actually forces you, unable to act, watch the entire process of being 'Stroggified' as part of an efficient production line. To summarise this extremely scripted scene; there's a lot of blood and a lot of screaming. I'm sure if you're the sadist type you can dig a copy of the sequence up on YouTube. My rather long-winded point, is that a lot of games will try to scare their audience through pure, gruesomely sickly moments like the one in Quake. This is a major pitfall that the majority of FPSes fall pray to. Its easy to spray some blood around and hope the player reacts. So what they are so used to that sort of cop-out that they don't care at all!? Just throw in a frame or two of the player character's legs been sawn off and you have a thrill ride of a title, right? Still, many people find this sort of stuff seriously terrifying (just ask my mother when she watches Pulp Fiction!), so it gets the blood (if it hasn't been squirted everywhere first) pumping, definitely go for it, writers!

Most horror games either decide between either one or the other of the techniques above. Some incorporate a mixture of two. Some, on the other hand, simply are scary unintentionally. Let me give you the reason why you started reading this to begin with:

"Wouldn't it be a good enough idea if people stopped making the association that fear = Monster/supernatural being? How about natural fears? Phobias? I often feel scared with games that don't even have that intention. Take for instance FF7. Back in the days I was scared [shitless] when Emerald was inside the ocean and I had to go explore around in the submarine, something so tiny compared to a gigantic beast that could slowly materialize as he was heading towards you. OK, so it goes back to the monster point, but I'm afraid of large depths. Even when Emerald was gone, I felt uneasy during that part."

- Divienegon, The Escapist forum

This is what we need.

Divi's example of Final Fantasy 7 is reasonable; the whole psychological torture of being small in a very large place, underwater. When designing the game, the writers probably didn't think of the sort of reaction their audience would take to the situation. They probably just imagined we would treat that segment of the experience like we did every other of our 20-plus hours of playing. Instead, because of the juxtaposition of the tiny submarine and the mere possibility that, out of the terribly-drawn blue, a gigantic monster could come and swallow you up. Surely that's simply a survival instinct; that if we encounter something enormously bigger than us and we can't fight it, then we naturally get scared: Especially if we're forced into that sort of situation in a videogame, right? Well how come no one experiences that sort of fear when playing Devil May Cry; where we get to go against impossibly huge bosses - at least ten times the size of the main character? Perhaps because that is a more rational situation, and, after all, we've encountered such an enemy a thousand times before in games: A nice, safe, land-based, giant... thing. The greatest feeling we feel against these typical bosses is awe, not fright. But make that experience aquatic and the whole scenario changes.

Another example of the whole 'horror from the depths' thing which may be somewhat unorthodox would be Super Mario 64. Anyone remember the eel, or even Nessy in that underwater cavern? Both reasonably dangerous predators (alright, not so much the latter) who swim around in their respective moist areas, awaiting our beloved Mario, ready to strike. So, both of these creatures are hardly scary in retrospective due to the poor graphical quality which makes up their texture and the crap AI they both contained, but what about more recent examples of this subtle scare? How about the massive sea-snake in Shadow of the Colossus? Fighting that thing in a poorly-lit, huge lake was not a pleasant experience. Why is it, then, do players or humans overall dislike these huge, underwater sections more than a lot of horror games overall? A lot of these so-called monsters can have a greater chance of inducing paranoia, sweat and shock than a lot of the traditional scary moments. Certainly, this does not apply across the board, but enough of these 'rare' cases have been found for it to be certainly taken into consideration for any horror videogame writers. Marine monsters - or simply the mere possibility they are going to be present - are a force to be reckoned with in any player audience. After all, there's a reason why the world is fascinated with sea monsters in real life, and not just because of hopeful biological breakthroughs.

As Divi also suggests, our shared experience of irrigated environments and having appropriate creatures to occupy them, is only a single example of the possibilities when it comes to psychologically terrorising the player. I'm not just talking about picking on the more common phobias. I mean, we've all seen the 'OMFG LUK A GIANT SPIDER!' scene a thousand times before. From the Legend of Zelda to Battle for Middle Earth; arachnids really have a strong presence on the gaming scene. What about other fears, though? How about - as mentioned - claustrophobia? Small spaces is a very common issue for people worldwide, so why do they get so little attention in games? The infamous Flash 'Crab Battle' based off Snake Eater has gained tremendous popularity. Now, we can't prove that this directly correlates with peoples' fears of small spaces, but certainly crawling through the tunnels, being hit by the occasional crab or whatever ended up being quite a memorable scene. Strange, especially considering the other great moments the title offers up. Certainly, creating new and interesting moments which tap directly into the human psyche, either through extremism or unspoken fears, is a sure fine way to get your game remembered.

"Haha! Now I shall reveal my TRUE FORM!"

2008-07-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Word. Me again, with my own article!

I’m sick of it.

I’m tired of game writers, who not only have the cheek to put the player down a linear adventure full of irrelevant side-quests and escort missions full of adrenaline-junkie allies, but then, at the final hurdle, throw in an incomprehensibly powerful boss to throw all thoughts of realism out of the window with absolutely no thought to inventiveness or coherent narrative. Basically, I loathe writers who simply cannot write well. Allow me to elaborate:

I dislike it when, to put it simply, videogames with even a hint of even the most mediocre of stories across any genre, try to surprise the audience with a few cheap tricks. More specifically, when developers throw in the age-old mechanic of overcharging the last enemy (the vast majority of the time it is the main antagonist) as an excuse to test out the player’s ability.

Right, let's look at Mass Effect and Bioshock to begin with; these both use the predictable twists (Hah!) of a good guy turning bad (although it is earlier on in the game in Mass Effect) and then an 'epic' final battle with a boss who happens to suddenly be overpowered. Appropriately you can pound both last, suddenly superhuman bosses simply by pile-driving them to death with all your available weapons, but that is irrelevant. This plot device in games has been going on since the first Legend of Zeldas (where earlier bosses would return in harder forms later on, as the game ended) and even was applied to a lot of the common Nintendo 64 collection; ranging from Lylat Wars (“Braaaaaaains!”) to Super Mario (“More bombs, kthnx!”). It is somewhat sad that, almost a decade on, developers are still using the same mechanics to induce a 'shock' from the audience at the game's closing minutes; even though we all realise that there's always an blockbuster battle to conclude with (and, in all honesty, we would be disappointed if there wasn't). I picked Mass Effect and Bioshock out because these final encounters are explained with lore which seems like it was designed to be an excuse to bring back the character for the battle (EVE and the Reaper specifically). I am torn between liking the fact that the writers have incorporated the entire plot into the final incarnation of the antagonist, and hating the fact they were reduced to making use of such a lowly twist just to test the player’s skills built up over the course of the game. For comparison, look at my other two examples:

In Metal Gear Solid 2, the antagonist is established about half way through the game to be Solidius Snake, ‘brother’ of Solid Snake. The plot which has featured in over three games tells us how powerful Solidius is, so when we have to face him in the end without a huge, pointless morphing scene, it doesn't surprise us. In fact, the game's writers do a wonderful job of not only using Soldius's obvious power to further the plot ("Look! There's a Harrier II!") but also to build up a great amount of anticipation with the player until the moment comes where you actually do battle him. The game is a wonderful demonstration of how writers can include some really magnificent surprises (ranging from the death of E.E to the discovery of the S3) without the entire experience resting on an average (if not slightly more quick-witted than usual) character becoming extraordinarily powerful simply for the sake that the player is going to kill them six minutes later quite easily anyway (I personally found Solidius a lot harder boss than, say, Saren from Mass Effect).

My final game of choice is Final Fantasy X. FFX gets a lot of stick because of the 'weakness' of the main character; but as a journey and in relation to the issue at hand: It is beautiful. Much like Mass Effect and Bioshock, the game takes place in a fantasy universe and the final boss is based around a supernatural occurrence within the world's lore. However, similar to Metal Gear Solid 2, it is established fairly early on that the end battle will be tough as old boots. It doesn't have to suddenly surprise the player with a (somewhat anticlimactic) encounter at the finale; because it is already rest assured that the final boss will be larger-than-life. And it is. This satisfies the player, who has been baying for a piece of this gigantic beast for the entire time of playing. Along the way, big events happen due to the presence of this terrific monster (Operation Mi'Hen!) which furthers the plot still and through a line of negative conditioning, makes the player want to kill the end enemy. On top of all this, the game still includes some of the best, tear-jerking twists I've ever witnessed (Yuna's 'sacrifice', the nature of Tidus and Auron, Seymour's obsession) through any media.

Putting in a (ironically very predictable) event such as ‘zerging’ the antagonist, even in the natural context of the game's backstory, just to have him or her be killed by the player moment's later regardless, is needless and, more often than not, ruins the immersion of the game. Certainly, I am the last to criticise an experience because of a few twists here and there within the journeys which make up all of these games, but please, when it comes to the closing moments; don’t try to fool the player by the addition of a sudden transformation. Anyone who had picked up even a reasonably long videogame within the past two years or so will know what to expect, so why patronise us with cheap tricks that even a pantomime would be ashamed of?

Rock Band 2: Tracklist and new features!

2008-07-15T16:54:00.000-07:00

In addition to RB2 being able to play all of the Original Rock Band songs/DLC, this is the playlist for the newest installment of the series.

AC/DC: "Let There Be Rock"
AFI: "Girl's Gone Grey"
Alanis Morissette: "You Oughta Know"
Alice in Chains: "Man in the Box"
Allman Brothers: "Ramblin' Man"
Avenged Sevenfold: "Almost Easy"
Bad Company: "Shooting Star"
Beastie Boys: "So Whatcha Want"
Beck: "E-Pro"
Bikini Kill: "Rebel Girl"
Billy Idol: "White Wedding Pt. I"
Blondie: "One Way or Another"
Bob Dylan: "Tangled Up in Blue"
Bon Jovi: "Livin' on a Prayer"
Cheap Trick: "Hello There"
Devo: "Uncontrollable Urge"
Dinosaur Jr.: "Feel the Pain"
Disturbed: "Down with the Sickness"
Dream Theater: "Panic Attack"
Duran Duran: "Hungry Like the Wolf"
Elvis Costello: "Pump It Up"
Fleetwood Mac: "Go Your Own Way"
Foo Fighters: "Everlong"
Guns N' Roses: "Shackler's Revenge"
Interpol: "PDA"
Jane's Addiction: "Mountain Song"
Jethro Tull: "Aqualung"
Jimmy Eat World: "The Middle"
Joan Jett: "Bad Reputation"
Journey: "Anyway You Want It"
Judas Priest: "Painkiller"
Kansas: "Carry On Wayward Son"
L7: "Pretend We're Dead"
Lacuna Coil: "Our Truth"
Linkin Park: "One Step Closer"
Lit: "My Own Worst Enemy"
Lush: "De-Luxe"
Mastodon: "Colony of Birchmen"
Megadeth: "Peace Sells"
Metallica: "Battery"
Mighty Mighty Bosstones: "Where'd You Go"
Modest Mouse: "Float On"
Motorhead: "Ace of Spades"
Nirvana: "Drain You"
Norman Greenbaum: "Spirit in the Sky"
Panic at the Disco: "Nine in the Afternoon"
Paramore: "That's What You Get"
Pearl Jam: "Alive"
Presidents of the USA: "Lump"
Rage Against the Machine:"Testify"
Ratt: "Round & Round"
Red Hot Chili Peppers : "Give It Away"
Rise Against: "Give It All"
Rush: "The Trees"
Silversun Pickups: "Lazy Eye"
Smashing Pumpkins: "Today"
Social Distortion: "I Was Wrong"
Sonic Youth: "Teen Age Riot"
Soundgarden: "Spoonman"
Squeeze: "Cool for Cats"
Steely Dan: "Bodhitsattva"
Steve Miller Band: "Rock'n Me"
Survivor: "Eye of the Tiger"
System of a Down: "Chop Suey"
Talking Heads: "Psycho Killer"
Tenacious D: "Master Exploder"
Testament: "Souls of Black"
The Donnas: "New Kid in School"
The Go-Go's: "We Got the Beat"
The Grateful Dead: "Alabama Getaway"
The Guess Who: "American Woman"
The Muffs: "Kids in America"
The Offspring: "Come Out & Play (Keep 'em Separated)"
The Replacements: "Alex Chilton"
The Who: "Pinball Wizard"

Rock Band 2 bonus disc tracklist:

Abnormality: "Visions"
Anarchy Club: "Get Clean"
Bang Camaro: "Night Lies"
Breaking Wheel: "Shoulder to the Plow"
The Libyans: "Neighborhood"
The Main Drag: "A Jagged Gorgeous Winter"
Speck: "Conventional Lover"
The Sterns: "Supreme Girl"
That Handsome Devil: "Rob the Prez-O-Dent"

And, as a little extra bonus, This will be some added bonuses for big fans of the game. Including this little baby:

That is not only the Rock Band 2 Special Edition Drumset, that also doubles as an actual Electronic Drumset. The Special Edition Guitar is a hollowed out Fender Strat. And now, for some info that was pulled from a Gameinformer Article.

-Ability to "tune" your instruments
-Redesigned quickplay mode
-Brand new track choice screen
-Ability to create setlists
-Ability to auto-create setlists
-No-Fail mode
-Solo modes for every instrument
-World Tour Online
-Battle of the Bands mode
--Band vs Band
--Start out going against bands like yourself
--During each challenge, theres a meter that shows how close you are to passing the next band
--1 mode is: bands compete for the highest multiplier for the longest time
--Countdown to the deadline next to the instructions
-Drum Trainer
-More user-friendly lag calibrator
-Jukebox mode
--Listen to music, but don't have to play
-Old hardware still works
-New drum pads are velocity sensitive
-Less "squishy" strummer
-Ion drum kit
-Able to purchase custom real-world merch for characters
-In-game photo creator lets you set facial expressions and poses for your characters, add visual effects and then upload to RockBand.com
-You can order t-shirts and posters, bumper stickers and all sorts of stuff with your band logo.
-Guitar buttons don't click so loudly

This grates alittle with me, As Rock Band 1 has only just been released in the UK. Either way, A Drumkit that doubles up as a real electronic drumkit? Awesome.

Still trawling through the mountain of E3 information, I PROMISE there will be at least a digest by the end of the week, There's just so much I want to say.

Dungeon Keeper 3

2008-07-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Don't get your hopes up, they have not announced it and chances are they never will, but i was browsing youtube today and i saw so many people making muck up trailers for the 3rd game, they are dated to even a week ago.

Now as far as i understand it Bullfrog who also created games like Theme Hospital, Theme Park, Populus and ofc Dungeon Keeper, were bought out by EA games, renamed Lionhead Studios and were pulled off the Dungeon Keeper 3 project to make Black and White, how much of the black and white bit is true i don't know, either way there is still enough of a fanbase existing to create the 3rd game and make a good revenue on it, i mean come on Blizzard waited 10 years to announce Starcraft 2 and they have had alot of positive feedback from it.

I know that i can't make them do anything about it, but i do think it's not fair that they put the trailer for the 3rd game onto the DK2 disc then axed the game. But i leave you with another person who made a video about this problem

rant over

Darkshadowfang out

Too human Demo: First Impressions

2008-07-14T05:57:00.000-07:00

In addition to all the tasty, tasty, E3 goodness [Which i'll probably post up some of tommorow, Theres just so much to wade through] the Too Human demo dropped today. Word is, its a sci fi dungeon crawler, think.. Diablo in space, with norse gods.

Impressive eh? Well, the demo weighed in at a hefty 1.1 gig, The demo was typically "fantasy" and there was 5 classes on display, but only one to choose from, the champion. The opening intro looked very nice, with the norse gods seeming like the colonial marines from aliens,weirdly enough.

The game play? well, the controls were very nice and it looks awesome to roll in a dodge, pull dual handguns, and start shooting, and I hadn't even left the initial area yet, Let alone seen any monsters. Controlling your sword is done via the right analogue stick which is a concept i've loved since playing Blade 2 back on the PS2. When I finally reached enemys, I realised something. This game is fucking awesome, Like Diablo on steroids. When you level up there are 3 skill tree's to choose from. The setting is certainly unique, but it plays like the popular "Action RPG's" of the last generation of consoles.

Basically, what i'm trying to say is, I was blown away by this game, and i'm buying it. Try the demo, its free.

Also I managed to download the Vegas 2 gift pack today, Containing Dark versions of CQB training and murdertown, and Calypso casino from the original game. Its free on the 360 marketplace. Its a worthy reason to try the game, as there appear to be new A.C.E.S as you play, Gifted you 5k exp per level.

Good day everyone

2008-07-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

Now i know that most of you have probably forgotten who i am, seeing as how the last thing i posted was nearly a month ago, but there is a reason for this, i have been partying, i have had school and i had my soul removed by Super Smash Brothers Brawl, so now after finally removing myself from it, also finished partying and school being finished i have decided to write a very hungover review for the reason i havn't been out in the last month.

In my first post i said that i was addicted to Melee (the previous installment), since the age of 13 and with the release of Brawl things have only worsened, this may make me a little bias in this review but i'm the guy who writes on the blog not you so go stick it.

Brawl is quite simply, Melee . . . . . . but it's Melee with more characters (and the unfortunate death of Pikchu, Dr Mario, Mewtwo and Roy, no great loss =P) More items and i hesitate before i say this but better graphics.

I'm not one to really care about Graphics, but i felt in this case something must be said, while there has been some improovment, it is only so much as say Halo 2 to Halo 3, so it's slightly shinier, but they could have done a whole lot more, i know that the Wii is the weakest graphically of the 3 next gen Monsters, but Nintendo have been delaying this game for ages, the least they could do is give us a bit of fucking eye candy.

While i'm on a rant, the gameplay for single player "Subspace emmissary," is repetative (they make you go through all the levels twice) and has essentially no plot line to it, i hate things that have a "loose" plotline, this may have somthing to do with all the characters not being able to muster up any words aside from their catchphrase.

The rest of the game also gets repetative if you play it to much, but seeing as how i normally only play this game when i'm with my friends and we're drinking we are entertained by bits of string, so nintendos poor attempt to put all their franchises main characters into one arcade style game works as an adiquate time waster, for up at my house when we are all hungover in the morning we spend hours playing it.

To be honest if you want my advice you would probably do better to buy a gamecubefor say 5P then buy a copy of melee for about £2 and play that instead, your really not missing out on much because the two games are pretty much the same, the original characters though tweaked are essentially the same, the gameplay is the same.

If Nintendo don't dramatically change the gameplay, they are going to turn into the Dragonball Z Video games, that with each game they know that all their fanboys are going to go out and buy it so they just put in a few more characters and tweak the gameplay a little bit and market it as a completely different game.

Now i've got that out of the way, i would like to talk about a game that when i saw it was annouced nearly caused me to die from shock, Diablo 3, i'm not really sure what to say because there hasn't really been anything annouced, aside from the barbarian is back and there is some new class called the "witch doctor," but i'll tell them one thing if they don't put the necromancer in for this game i'm going to hunt down Blizzards design team and stab them with world of warcraft figurines.

Though from watching the gameplay video (see below) i have realised a few things, one how mind bogglingly simple Diablo gameplay is and always has been, also that blizzard are selling out to no end, correct me if i'm wrong but i seem to remember destroying certain evil demons soulstones in the last game to prevent them from ever stalking the mortal world again feeding on Villagers private parts, so please tell me how it is that they have brought him back, i have heard rumours of a 4th brother the "Lord of Armageddon," but to be honest i think thats all the fanboys looking way to much into things.

Anyway, here are 3 videos of the latest part of Blizzards attempt to keep one of the three franchises they have alive.

also hopefully in the next couple of weeks i will have my new computer and will be able to do a review on age of conan.

but for now peace out =)
Darkshadowfang

Max Payne Trailer

2008-07-13T05:32:00.000-07:00

Not exactly game related, but it is a videogame movie, and this is the last chance I'll get to mention it before the E3 bomb drops tomorrow.

Now, the max Payne trailer has hit the Internet, and after watching it a few times, I'm pretty psyched about this movie.

Now, I might be unfairly biased towards this film because I loved the two Max Payne games, and hope that if the film is successful, someone will start making Max Payne 3 again, Making me very happy. Secondly, I like films with lots of explosions and shooting. Thirdly, Mark Wahlberg is in it, and in the trailer, he looks the business as max.

My only mild concern is the flying creatures that feature in the trailer, and also that they will overuse the slow motion the game is so well known for.

Oh, and erm, Nelly furtado is in it. I find it hard to take that seriously.

Student gets arrested and expelled for.. A counterstrike map.

2008-07-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

Proving that it isn't all fun and games with jack Thompson's imminent trial, this brings further proof that people are demonising gaming.

Enter "Random Chinese student" enrolled at Clements high school in Texas. Random Chinese student, or RCS for short, decides he wants to make a counterstrike map based on his school. Now, I've wanted to do this myself a few times with locations I've been in, but luckily I lack the "skillz" for building a map, and frankly, I lack the interest for such a project. Perhaps this is lucky or I might of been arrested by now, Which is precisely what happened to RCS when his school found out the map existed.

Here's where it gets interesting. RCS has been expelled from his high school, and will not be allowed to graduate with the rest of his classmates even though no charges have been filed against him.
there goes "innocent until proven guilty" I guess. Yet another case of gamers being vilified by the common media, although I'm willing to accept some of the blame may fall on the Virginia tech massacre and the culprit.

While searching for screenshots of the map, I found other messages similar to mine on the maps flickr:
"I'll just boot this up while listening to Marilyn Manson and watching the Matrix. Then I too can be a bona fide killer. Proper parenting goes a long way. Videogames, music, and TV don't kill people. People kill people."

One user being the voice of reason there.

I see nothing wrong with wanting a map of your school. The kid spends a lot of time with his friends there. Why not incorporate one of his favorite games with a familiar surrounding and share that with his friends?

another user hitting the nail on the head.

It appears only the administrators of the school think arresting someone for making a counterstrike map is a good idea, and its yet another example of video games being demonised by a generation that misunderstands them.

'I Know Jack'

2008-07-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Jack Thompson looks set to get what some gamers would, undoubtedly, call justice. As DW covers in his earlier article, Jack Thompson has been tried for 27 counts of professional misconduct. Today the Judge Tunis released her ruling for the 7 counts that Jack Thompson was found guilty of. After the Florida Bar Association suggested a term of 10 years ban for Mr. Thompson's legal practice, Judge Tunis went on to say this was 'too lenient' and further extended this to a lifetime ban, and a 43,000 dollar bill for court costs. Ha fucking ha.

After giving shit for games such as GTA as being too violent, gamers have a right to be annoyed with such a person who is a threat to virtual freedoms. Personally, I wouldn't have minded. He was an activist against something he didn't believe in: I have no problem with that. What I have a problem with is that he abused his powers and his position to do this. To quote Judge Tunis: 'Further, he has repeatedly indicated, verbally and in writing, that his conduct is justified to promote and champion his personally engendered moral values and causes.' In short, he broke the law in order to create the law. I think the French did something similar in 1789.

However, there is hope. Jack Thompson has a defense which may lead him to be 'emancipated'... Because conveniently, according to him, Judge Tunis' loyalty oath (and therefore her right to be a Judge) is forged. That's his defense. Now... this to me seems equivalent to saying 'Yeah sure, I committed all of those crimes, but SHE...' Surely, if that's his defense, he's admitted his guilt?

This guy's supposed to be 'religious'.

But more importantly, Jack Thompson is, in his opinion, 'right'. That's the only thing that can drive a person to risk everything to change laws. To misrepresent. To mispractice. But the law says he's not 'right', because he's broken the law, and so is punished. Luckily for gamers. Gamers who love GTA, and DON'T drive around in a 60s sedan drive-bying hoodies. This makes the world believe that Jack Thompson's opinions about games are wrong too. This guy is a martyr to our own freedoms. Of course, not everyone is suddenly going to change their mind, but I have to give Jack a pat on the back for making the position of the gamer more credible. And restoring everyone's faith in lawyers...

Though, essentially, he still deserves everything that comes his way, simply, because he's such a hypocrite. If I were him, I wouldn't be so worried about the loss of my entire life, but, instead, the loss of my dignity. Don't, ever, undermine your own argument by undermining the system you're appealing to. How can anyone take him seriously? How can he take himself seriously? That's my opinion anyway.

But what it comes down to is this (as a gamespot user put it):

'owned'

STALKER

2008-07-10T07:20:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Personally I'm still playing GTAIV, so here's a STALKER review (Its a long 'un!):

Well, I said I was gonna do another review, so here it is! Again, I am typing this in a single-sitting without any actual drafting, so excuse me if it sucks, or seems all ranty, or you find something else distasteful about it (I suppose that's where I come in - Mel). This review will be on the last game I completed, GSC Game World's "STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl". Yes, I know this game has been out since March of 2007, but the prequel is due to come out within the next couple of months, and I just finished it. So if you're the kind of person who will bitch about me reviewing it for that reason, go drool over 3dRealms' table scraps or something instead of pointing it out like it's some kind of damn crime. It's not illegal in my jurisdiction, anyway.

According to the pseudo-intellectual clusterfuck known as Wikipedia, GSC Game World is based in Kiev, which, like Chernobyl, is in the Ukraine. I suppose their proximity to the site of Captain Planet's worst nightmare makes them a good choice to make a game set in that location. Again, according to Wikipedia (ally to those too lazy to do their own damn research) they have had most of their success with some sort of strategy series that I don't remember the name of, about people on horses stabbing each other in squabbles about arbitrary boundaries... or... human history, I guess would be an easier way to say it. I think this is their first adventure into the wonderful world of shooting people with Kalashnikovs in a first-person view.

In STALKER, you play an unattractive Slavic dude who is suffering from amnesia; an affliction about as common among action/adventure protagonists as the common cold. Rescued from a pile of dead Slavic dudes who were in the back of a crashed Soviet-era (old Soviet crap is very atmospheric, right?) truck that got hit by lightning or something... who drives a huge, rickety truck in a lightning storm... damn, this is kind of a run-on sentence now and... dammit. Ok, so another, less ugly Slavic dude rescues you and brings you to an even more ugly, fat Slavic dude with atrocious table manners, and you wake up, and your fancy PDA thingy displays a message in English telling you to kill some other Slavic dude.

There are lots of Slavic dudes, actually. Most are probably Ukrainian, but I'm not sure, some might be Russian, or Estonian. Who knows? They're here for a reason. See, the story goes that sometime in... 2008, I think the game said, but my mind is wandering... there was a second explosion at the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear powerplant, and afterwards, weird shit started going down that could not be attributed to this. Some of this weird shit resulted in the formation of bizarre 'artefacts' which have strange and wondrous effects on human life, and mutant critters that biologists think could lead to new discoveries... and new discoveries can mean big bucks... er... roubles.

You wake up in a camp of 'STALKERs', people who have come to brave the dangers of 'The Zone' in hope of finding stuff that they can sell, perhaps allowing them to at least buy toilet-paper and thus improve their standard of living. As payment for saving your irradiated ass, the fat dude asks you to do some jobs for him, which gradually leads into the game's main story, which I will summarize... at some point.

I should probably make note of the fact that in the cutscenes, which are not rendered with the in-game engine but are actual video (haven't seen that in a while), the lip-syncing seemed off, but since there isn't much of it to be off in the first place, and this is a Ukrainian-made game, and I was playing it on my new laptop which I haven't played many games on (and thus may be responsible for the issue itself upon further investigation), I was willing to forgive that little problem. The cutscenes themselves are quite nice, in my opinion, they have a very cinematic feel to them.

Anyway, one of the first things you will notice about this game is that speaking to NPCs brings up a dialogue thingy, which kind of reminds me of Fallout, but doesn't take up the whole screen. Some of them have a lot to say... but very few NPCs actually voice it... if that bothers you, take some more Ritalin so you can enjoy it, for the sake of gaming... uh oh, am I gonna rant again!? No... anyway, the dialogue is fairly simplistic, but this is an FPS, so that's fine... it gets the job done, letting you ask for busy-work, find out more about the setting, hear rumours, and so on.

NPCs are fairly well done. Except for the most important ones, they speak in Russian, which is very atmospheric, and explains why audio dialogue with the player is sparse. They go about their business, usually sticking in the same area, but not like damn statues... they will tell jokes around campfires, some have guitars they'll play little songs on... they all have names, and they do in fact remember your actions towards them. If you shoot some guy in the ass for... I dunno, maybe you have an ass-shooting fetish... he won't like you, and neither will the people he hangs out with. If someone else does it, and you patch him up, he'll like you. The only problem is that some dialogue is repeated over and over in a relatively short span of time, like this butt-buccaneer in the bar who keeps saying "My information may be of use to you, Stalker," every 15 seconds, and he even says it in English, so you can't even at least start to learn a new damn language! Asswipe. I'm not much good for Eastern European etiquette, but I feel fairly confident saying that's really fucking annoying in any culture.

There are NPC factions; Loners (this is actually the lack of a faction I guess), Duty, Freedom, Monolith, the military, mercs, and bandits. You start out as a loner, and (to my knowledge, though I never tried) can later join Duty or Freedom, but not both, because they don't play nice. Your interactions with various NPCs will change faction opinions of you, so if Duty really likes you, Freedom will hate your guts, and vice versa. If you're a huge arsehole and kill people for fun and profit, the mercs and bandits, I'm told, will not necessarily gun you down on sight, though Monolith and - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - the military will still decide you need some added ventilation. All in all, this is a very cool feature which I feel was under-utilized. Apparently GSC agrees, because they say it will play a major part in the upcoming prequel. Sounds like good times.

I seem to have been interrupted during that paragraph by the most annoying NPC ever. Sorry about that.

Now, it's about time I actually talked about the gameplay, particularly the shooting. This is really a shooter, after all, as much as I want to praise the more RPG-esque parts of it. The combat ranges from "Haha, this is awesome!" to "I think I'd rather get kicked in the shins by midgets". It's interesting to note the fact that although some enemies seem to take bullets to the stomach like they were getting hit with clumps of soggy Wonderbread, a single shot to the head (which can feel like it's the size of a mandarin orange if you take into account the inaccuracy of some weapons) will kill all but the toughest enemies... if it's a sniper round, that will kill anything. Then again, I'm playing through the game a second time and not noticing this on a higher difficulty, so I am now attributing it to a poor choice of weapons and a reluctance to use armour-piercing bullets the first time through. The lesson? Experiment with weapons in this game.

The shooting is nothing special, for the most part, but you do get an impressive array of cool guns, which all have different characteristics which may appeal to different people. The MP5, for example, fires faster than the AKM-74, but - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - is less accurate and does less damage. You can put a silencer on the MP5, but you can't give it a scope and a grenade launcher like the AK. Then again, that scope on the AK may be over-rated, because, as I said, accuracy is an issue; the bullets won't always go exactly where the scope says they will - better switch to semi-auto! Maybe you should hit your 'V' key and use that full-featured grenade launcher? I do like the grenades in this game, something I don't say very often... the launched ones have a small blast radius, but the thrown ones have a realistically large (HUGE compared to the puny grenades in most shooters) range that makes them easy to use unless you decide you want to play catch with flying shrapnel, and neglect to get behind cover. There's a lot of choice in how you kill the bad guys, here, given the setting. No gravity gun or anything, but you'll be surprised how different things will feel going from one assault rifle to another.

You also have a knife, which is VERY powerful if you can get close enough to use it without getting hollow-point brain surgery... much harder than it sounds. For a game called STALKER, it's really hard to sneak in this. Everything you do makes a bit of noise. Draw or reload a gun? Noise. Step through a bush? Noise. The enemies don't see you like some kind of psychic assassins, but with how well they can hear you, I'd expect them to have ears like fucking Dumbo. Did I mention that when they do hear you, they notify the Borg collective... er... each other... of it through telepathy (well, not really, but it sure FEELS that way) and thus ruin your attempts at stealth? Maybe that's a bit of exaggeration, it's ENTIRELY possible to do stealth kills, but for the effort it takes to do so without at least alerting nearby NPCs that something is up, you could be - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER".

...Nevermind. I hate that guy.

Anyway, you could spend a ton of time just fooling around with the various killing implements. The only problem is that they start to wear down with use... after a while, they start to jam (which forces you to reload... even in the middle of combat) and - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - eventually stop working altogether. This can be a pain in the arse if you've found a really nice weapon and are attached to it... where is this shit made, Hong Kong? I thought most former Soviet countries had a conscription-based military, do NONE of these people know how to fix a fucking gun?

My apologies for the - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - dammit he interrupted me again... see, annoying! Rude!

That leads us to... inventory, maps, and menus. Interestingly, using any of them does not pause the game, so you have to be careful where you do it. This can be irritating, like when you're getting your bearings while a pack of a half-dozen mutant dogs that even PETA would advocate euthanasia decide they want your kneecaps for dinner, with a side of inner thigh. It doesn't help that you can only carry 50 kilograms of stuff before your stamina (used for jumping and sprinting, as usual) starts taking a SEVERE hit, and 60 kg (unless you have strength-boosting armour) before you find your top speed suddenly decreased to approximately that of a tree stump. This means that you may be inclined to spend a - "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER".

...I really wish that guy would shut up.

As I was saying, you may spend a lot of time fidgeting with your inventory... you also need to use it if you want to change your pistol or SMG/Rifle... you can only equip one of each, plus... ah, those artefacts I mentioned earlier? They aren't just good for selling; if you choose to equip them (up to 5), they will affect you in various ways, increasing your resistance to bullets, or things that want to chew on your face, or maybe increasing your stamina. They usually have a negative effect too, though. For example, producing radiation, or making you more vulnerable to fire. It's also fun to experiment with these.

You'll also spend a lot of time using your maps (and using that sprint that begs you to keep your carry weight low), because this is a astoundingly large and open game world by shooter standards; perhaps the biggest I have ever seen in a shooter. It's very well done, with burnt-out villages, swamps, laboratories, factories, forests... you gain access to more of it as you play the main story, but you get so much at a time you won't mind. Really, it's astounding they put this much detail into it, and it never really gets old. It's exactly how you'd imagine the area around Chernobyl looking. You even get to go through the Red Forest and Pripyat (look them up, I'm lazy). Apparently the devs looked at photos and news footage of the area, but it feels more like they arranged to spend some time in the real world location (hey, they let people in there, you just have to make arrangements I guess). Not too far from Kiev, so they very well may have.

Anyway, you've got all of this area to explore, and dead bodies will sometimes alert you to the location of hid- "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" -den loot scattered... just ignore him, Lord knows I try... erm, scattered across them. The stashes are a bit buggy, though... if you get a note on the same one twice, it will erase the loot and leave the marker on your map. Kinda frustrating. But the stashes aren't the only reason to explore, there are other goodies you can find, and many side quests, which would be a pain in the ass if this weren't such a kick-arse environment to do them in. To make things even more interesting, there are 'anomalies', which will blast, throw, crush, burn, melt, shock, and irradiate you... they're all over the place, and often surround really good stuff or important areas... navigating them is quite nerve-racking at times (but in a good way). They're a new and interesting challenge.

Actually, it's quite overwhelming, especially with the mutants and bandits (who, judging from the rate at which they are able to repopulate their camps, apparently reproduce asexually and take 5 minutes to reach maturity and sprout an AK-74 from God knows where), and that's perhaps my biggest gripe ab- "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU STALKER" - Ok, I take it back... second biggest gripe about the game... sometimes it will feel like you're running a marathon to get back to the nearest trader, especially if you're carrying too much and keep running out of breath. A quick-travel would be welcome, and thankfully, GSC says the upcoming prequel will have one.

Maybe I should have done this earlier, but now I'll talk about the story. Remember, you're an amnesiac Russian guy? "MY INFORMATION MAY BE OF USE TO YOU, STALKER!"

SHUT YOUR BORSCHT-HOLE, YOU NEVER HAVE ANYTHING I HAVEN'T ALREADY LEARNED IN THE MAIN STORYLINE!

Ahem... you obviously need to find out who you are, so you need to head deeper into the zone chasing clues, though you can skip a lot of these clues (which I think is worthy of praise, options are good!). This will take you through creepy labs, decrepit forts full of underpaid Ukrainian Spetsnaz troops, mutant-infested swamps, brainwashed and heavily-armed cultists... you'll have to weave your way through the irradiated area around the Chernobyl plant itself as snipers and gunships hunt you down, while the plant threatens to blow a third time. There are parts that are creepy, confusing (usually in a good way... you know, teleporters and such), parts that will have you on the edge of your seat... it's really got everything you could hope for in a good shooter... and then, you will get one of seven different endings (though 5 of them are more or less the same, and result from the same choice at the endgame... you'll see).

So, in conclusion, you can probably tell I really enjoyed this game. I understand that the initial release was horrendously buggy, but I'm reviewing the version which we have NOW. I admit it has some significant faults, but in my view, the pros far outweigh the cons (many of which I can let slide, considering this is a Ukrainian game, and a new genre for its developers), and if you like open-ended, RPG-esque shooters, you owe it to yourself to play it. I don't know about you, but when STALKER: Clear Sky is released, I'll be all over it like no shooter I've anticipated in years. In the meantime, I'll be looking for a way to port that 'information' guy to Garry's Mod, and a mod to let me dismember and impale him. I guess that will have to do for now.

So, I have no clue what to review next. If someone will make a suggestion (no, my computer can't run Crysis at more than 2 frames per second), I promise to be less verbose next time! Honest!

ComradeJim270

There'll be even more rating around...

2008-07-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

What they're proposing now is the removal of the PEGI system for games given over a 12 rating. Instead, the games will just be given a BBFC rating, if they're over a 12. I don't understand the point in this. From a parent's point of view, the PEGI rating is generall harsher than the BBFC rating: for instance, last year, 30 games were downgraded from 18 under PEGI rules to 15 under BBFC rules. That's not helping the situation of defending the young, if anything, it'll just aggravate the situation.

But what's far worse, is that this will pile BBFC's workload far higher than it is now. They already have to deal with all the films coming into the UK, and now all of the games too? That can only mean one thing for us UK gamers. More waiting than at the Savoy Grill. I dunno what idiot (actually I do, Dr. Tanya Byron) came up with this plan. But I don't like it. It's not good from anyone's point of view. Not the parents that want to protect their children, nor the gamers that just want to play games.

Needless to say, this has been met by huge disapproval by the industry, Sony, Nintendo, Ubi Soft have all made their voices heard over this. And rightly so, it's dangerous to their business too. Why plug more bureaucracy into a system which is already dying from that? Children can only be shielded from adult games by teaching the parents who allow 10 year olds to play GTA and the such. Sigh.

The Sims 2

2008-07-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis (back to blue!)

Mel's note: After the epic review which was ComradeJim270's Oblivion, I decided to opt for a less deep (but no less informative) entry by Hey Joe for those newly-found fans of 3scapism which are not quite used to our longer material yet. Enjoy.

It feels weird to pick up The Sims 2 again after all this time. After spending time playing manly games like Halo 3, Gears of War and Barbie's Pony Adventure. I say manly, because the neurotic nerd in me feels as if playing The Sims 2 is like a glorified session of playing dollhouse with distinct Cartesian undertones.

Yet, like a man in some sort of weird virtual sado-masochistic relationship, I return to my master and surrender my will, my time and ultimately my sanity.

As I fire up the game, I'm greeted with some sort of weird blue, cubed loading screen and music that will make your ears bleed, but something about it draws me ever closer like the Sirens near the rocks of my self-respect. I cycle through the neighbourhoods that I have made, and am surprised to see a few games still going. Man, those little Sims must be really pissed off at me after all this time.

I point my cursor over a particular Sim I was quite fond of, Mr Queegle Zomarian, and yes, his place was quite space-aged. I couldn't really remember in what state I left my Sim, so I decided to check it out. As it happens, he was eating spaghetti. I should have had dinner an hour ago, but I'm way too drawn in now. I hit the play button. One eating animation and I was in love again.

He was a slob, and he was eating like one. Bits of virtual food flew through the air in a ballet of sloppiness. Heck, he reminds myself of me, I like this little guy. Once he was done licking his plate (who among us has never done this?), he just stood there. Oh God. He was waiting for me to tell him what to do. This is dangerous territory for me, as all my obsessive-compulsive tendencies take over, and pretty soon it'll be 4AM and I'll still be gunning for Queegle's promotion.

Tentatively, I look down at his vitals. It would seem that he was quite bored with life. So, I decide like the benevolent player that I am that it would be a good idea for him to play on his brand-spanking new computer. As he does, I can't help but to notice the irony inherent in this situation, and wonder if Queegle is playing some sort of people simulator too.

I'm shocked out of my musings when I notice that his bladder 'need' is dangerously low. How did I let it come to that!? I used to be good at this game, I feel shame and regret. I whisper "Sorry Queegle," to my computer screen and send him on his way to bladder relief. I start to reflect on my own bladder when I notice he's done. All of his vitals are green, and there's nothing he needs to do, so he just stands around.

Oh crap. He can't just sit there and do nothing. He's got a career to worry about! Once he gets up in the world he's got to meet a nice girl or possibly be abducted by aliens, he's got to start a family. He's a family oriented sim after all. I glance over to his skills page, and notice that he could stand to get a few more cooking skill points, so I plonk his virtual arse in front of the television and make him watch a virtual Martha Stewart make a deal with a virtual Beelzebub.

Once he gets a point of cooking I look at his career page. He needs three more friends to get a promotion. He needs three more friends!? What kind of sick world is this where how many friends you have determines how successful you are in life? Upon reflection, I bet Alan Greenspan didn't have too many friends either...

He needs to get on that telephone pronto! He's got to chat like he's never chatted before! I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown thinking about the possibility of him being passed over again because some whore of a Sim slept her way up the ladder. He chats with one person for a while and gets his friendship bar just over 50, first goal accomplished. But now his social bar is full, and he doesn't feel like chatting for more than 4 virtual minutes.

"You stupid, stupid Queegle!" I yell furiously at the screen. "You're useless without me... useless!". After this, my mind goes into a dark place where all Sims players go sometimes. The place of the dark room.

I want to lure him on a vacant place on the lot and wall him in. No windows, no light, no doors, only the suffering of a Sim who could not follow orders. So in my malevolent rage, I tell him to go sit on the grass. Then, I wall him in.

"Take that!" I scream. "You don't follow orders, you get 10 hours in the box!" The first hour he's okay, I don't think Queegle knows he's trapped. Then, it begins. He starts to panic when he can't control his bladder, his vitals go down to red, he looks about frantically, wondering if he's doomed to this box for the rest of time. Then, something happens that reminds me why I love this game so much.

I swear to Will Wright, the Sim looks straight at me. I pause the game. I study the face for a while, I zoom in on it. It's pleading with me to stop toying with its existence, it's burning right into my soul. I can't possibly continue this, it's to scarring. I let him out, and I get his vitals back and hope to Will Wright that Queegle will ever be able to forgive me. Then, the true genius of this game hits me.

It's not about what happens in the game world, but rather what happens in front of screen, in the player's mind. The Sims 2 provides not just a peepshow of virtual beings, but into the very fabric of our morality.

Once you place the omnipotent power of complete control into a player's hands, there is no going back. You will be sent on a journey of self-discovery through your actions toward these virtual beings, and that, is where the final irony lies.

I thought I was controlling my Sims, but they were controlling me. Any game that makes you question the very essence of your soul is one worth a mere portion of your cash.

Hey Joe

Xbox Reformatting

2008-07-08T06:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I arranged to sell my original Xbox, and purchase a second hand Xbox elite.

This is good, The elite works perfectly, and I cant wait to have a little more storage space.

But, well prepping my Xbox for removal, Deleting all my saves, and moving the important ones to my Memory unit i've noticed a few things.

All sorts of stuff is hidden on my Xbox. So far i've found: The Halo 3 beta, 2gigs of Forza 2 content, and 39 Xbox arcade games.

anyway, this is in place of any real update from me today, as i'm working stupid hours today.

Battlefield First Impressions

2008-07-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

Technically, I've played enough hours of battlefield Bad Company to write a full review, but I haven't played enough single player yet for me to consider it review worthy, so I'm going to give you my first impressions.

I'll start with the game engine. The ability to blow a hole in just about any object in the game world is more then just a fad like in the PS2's "Red Faction" titles, it honestly changes the way you think. In single player this is a useful mechanic letting you take out entrenched enemies by blowing their cover away, But in multi player this really shines. After a ten minute skirmish over a defence point, Houses are burning, tank wrecks are burning, smoke columns stretching up to the sky. Its a brilliant game engine, and I'm hoping it becomes a regular addition in First person shooting games.

The single player, which is an aspect I thought would be weak at best, is heaps of fun. You run around with 3 AI teammates, while they wisecrack and help you the best they can. This is a major difference to other squad shooters where you have to babysit your soldiers and order them around, In this they do they own thing while supporting you and thankfully, the AI is sharp enough for it not to be a problem. The fights are pretty entertaining, and it never feels too unfair even when half of Russia is attacking you.

The multi player is where I've been spending all my time, And in addition to it having the magic "battlefield" gameplay that everyone was interested in, Frostbite adds a whole new layer to it. Smoke from exploded tanks can obscure a snipers vision, and the squad system is a brilliant idea, letting small groups of people work together to complete their goals. This brings me to the first of Battlefields major flaws however. No team voice chat. Your put in a squad, and you can only talk to the 3-4 members of that squad. It makes you feel almost isolated from the team, and makes it impossible for the attackers to organise a real offensive. Secondly, The helicopters are ridiculously overpowered, Too fast for an RPG to hit, and to high up for a tank turret to aim at, and the third flaw is the hundreds of snipers populating every game. But that isn't really anything i can pin on DICE or EA.

Expect a review soon, In the meantime, go and buy the game, The multiplayer is a nice change from COD4.

Oblivion

2008-07-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

I have made it no secret that I have a serious problem with The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. More often than not, I will jump on any chance to make a negative comment on it, or those who developed it. But I have never gone into real detail about just how deep the rabbit hole goes, or where it leads. I have never explained the history behind and the nature of these feelings in full detail. Now that we have a forum specifically for user reviews, I see a new opportunity to do so.

Let me first explain that I didn't jump on the bandwagon with the Oblivion criticisms: I always at least try to finish a game before even discussing it, to avoid spoilers and the like, and to develop my own independent opinion. When I did finish Oblivion, and went online to discuss it, I instead found myself cursing the bandwagon for not being nearly big enough, as well as lacking some kind of horrific and murderous device on the front to aid in cutting a bloody swathe through the fanboys, whose lack of taste made my stomach churn.

This review is "Oblivion, As It Was" because I am stating the way I felt about it when it was still new... an easy task, as my feelings towards the game itself have not changed.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is, of course, the sequel to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, a game which I thoroughly enjoyed and praised, and for all its faults, was, in my self-righteous and freely-provided opinion, very good overall, especially with an active modding community to correct the aforementioned faults. True, the dialogue system was reminiscent of a visit to Wikipedia without using the 'search' function, and it wasn't the prettiest game around, but it's a bit silly to expect a steak will not have some gristle in it... and the non-gristly parts of this steak were juicy and delicious. With all the wondrous things Bethesda showed us and told us before Oblivion came out, I expected the next course in the Elder Scrolls meal would be just as yummy, if not more.

Starting up the game for the first time, I immediately found myself confronted by what I can now call a sort of cruel foreshadowing. The slow, moving, and epic theme of Morrowind was replaced by a perverted version of itself that made me imagine Jeremy Soule snorting crushed Ritalin while chugging triple espressos, the same thing it now seems everyone involved in making the game did. I suppose it was supposed to be more powerful, more urgent, more epic, but instead it sounds like the guy running the recording equipment had severe diarrhoea and could only let them have a few minutes at a time before running back to the crapper again. This is personal preference here, of course, but as I said... also foreshadowing, because this ADD-friendly characteristic does not end here.

Shrugging off this change to one of my favourite video game themes as lamentable but ultimately minor, I proceeded to make a new character. Since the unmodded faces in Morrowind looked like they had been worked on by a mildly retarded plastic surgeon with poor eyesight, I was pleased to see I could now customize my character's facial appearance. While my efforts to give my character a beard failed, due to the fact Bethesda apparently thinks making my character look like someone carefully cuffed him around the jaw with a baseball bat will work for that purpose, I was ultimately pleased with the result. I didn't start to subconsciously notice what would turn out to be further foreshadowing of Oblivion's craptasticness until I began looking around the jail cell I found myself in.

Everything around me appeared to have higher graphical quality than the face I had just spent... too damn long, I guess... working on. It all looked very nice, as I had expected from screenshots and video previews. Walls, objects, clothing - very good graphics, except my character's face, which appeared, in contrast, to be of the quality level which would have gotten the same reaction sometime in 2002 or so. I shrugged this off, and decided I had spent enough time indulging my autistic tendencies by fucking around with the face of a character I would mostly be playing as in first-person.

Next thing I noticed? Someone was speaking to me. This was cool, I thought, and preferable to Wikipedia at this point. But then I saw he was a Dark Elf. Why did he sound like C-3P0 with PMS, instead of the awesome "I just swallowed a handful of gravel and chased it down with a quart of gasoline" voice the male Dunmer had in Morrowind? Oh well, I've only seen one NPC so far, anyhow, I thought, and his silver-tongued insults were nicely atmospheric despite his voice being as it was. More characters arriving added to this delightful sense of atmosphere I hoped would continue for the whole game... the voice acting itself was well-done and believable, and made the NPCs feel more alive than the cardboard cutouts in Morrowind. They still looked like someone had assailed them with an ugly stick, but oh well. I don't play RPGs for flashy graphics, and they still looked way better than Morrowind characters.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the game couldn't even escape unscathed from that jail you start in. Though Patrick Stewart's voicing of the also ass-ugly Emperor was top-notch, I felt like I was talking to a senile old fart, not a respected leader of an entire continent. Yes, the Elder Scrolls lore says he was probably 80-something, but it's no fun when he acts like it by responding to my character in a manner that screams "We didn't bother to record him responding differently when you say different things", which left me worried the dialogue in the game would continue to be half-arsed and to rattle my suspension of disbelief. This was only in the back of my mind, though. I was still eager to play, mostly dismissive of my worries, and overall fairly impressed with what I had seen.

At the end of the dungeon, of course, an NPC recommended a class to me, at which point I followed in the grand Elder Scrolls tradition and told him to go fuck himself, because all the built-in classes were bogged down with useless skills and I wanted to make my own. This took me even longer than making my face, because now you could only pick 7 skills of equal importance, instead of 5 major and 5 minor ones like in Morrowind. I didn't mind too much, especially since they cut out some skills, and consolidated others into a single skill, I'm just indecisive.

After I finished with that guy, who would not let me take the Emperor's stuff in spite of the fact he had just entrusted me with a sacred imperial artefact and told me to haul my grubby, just-pardoned-from-prison ass off an a mission of utmost importance, I continued through the sewers, fighting suspiciously weak goblins with the game's improved but still underwhelming combat system (more on that later), I finally stepped outside, hoping to see the lush jungles of Cyrodiil described in previous Elder Scrolls lore, but instead getting generic fantasy shit. Oh well, I must have just not found the jungles and stuff yet, right? I didn't see them in the intro movie, and this is a developed area anyhow! Whatever... now to the Imperial City... oh boy, let's see this "Radiant AI" at work!

Oh, what disappointment. Remember when I said that the underwhelming faces were foreshadowing? They were foreshadowing the fact that Oblivion seems to expect you will spend more time looking at things than people... in a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. It's a game about playing the role of a character, interacting with other characters. But the NPCs aren't even half-arsed... more like... I dunno, quarter-arsed, at best. Despite all dialogue being voiced, they apparently fired a bunch of the voice actors at Bethesda, because there are FEWER voice actors now than in Morrowind, where they had a tiny fraction of the number of lines. All male elves sound like the first you see, with that fucked up, achingly stereotypical British accent (female elves lack a British accent, for some reason, just like male Imperials, and unlike female Imperials). Their social interactions are also unbelievably awkward and absurd, like they grew up in their abusive step-father's closet, so you basically hear the same few voices saying the same shit all the damn time. When YOU talk to them, it's still like Wikipedia, except now there are 90% fewer articles, voice instead of text, and each article is limited to one paragraph in length, probably so the 13 year olds apparently targeted by this game don't get bored.

The faces are ugly because you'll want to spend as little time as possible looking at them, and even if you didn't, they run out of things to say almost immediately... except to each other, because they love to make jarringly unnatural small talk. It's like listening to especially eloquent retards carrying on about stuff that doesn't even concern them.

Also, everyone walks like a woman in high heels, with their hips swaying wildly, but since my character did this too, I pushed it to the back of my mind, and reminded myself that in Morrowind, they walked like they were trying to goose-step but didn't quite know how, and ran like... I dunno, Flashdance. So it was still an improvement, and I'd play female characters in the future.

Understandably, I was quick to leave the city, perhaps to encounter something more socially adept, such as a starving, rabid wolf. Lucky for me, that's the first thing I ran into. I was frightened by this at first, recalling how simple wildlife in Morrowind would maul my starting character like he was made out of leftover meat by a deranged butcher whose favourite book was Frankenstein, but thankfully, combat in Oblivion is much better. If you swing a weapon at something, and you are close enough, it will hit. Rather than determining if you hit or miss, the corresponding skill determines how much damage is done. You also manually control blocking, and can do it with any weapon. A hit is assured, as is a block; so my craptacular weapons and blocking skill was sufficient to slay the wolf. I also tried some spells, which are actually very useful now that magicka (you use it to cast spells) actually regenerates, instead of waiting for you to take a nap when it runs out every 15 minutes, like you were 90 years old or something. Spells also work 100% of the time now, with the related skill determining how much it costs to cast them, and whether you are sufficiently skilled to use then in the first place. If you need to be level 50 in the skill to use a spell, it will work 0% of the time until you reach that level, and 100% of the time afterwards. Very cool, and it gives you a real sense of progress in these skills, at least.

Too bad that sense of progress doesn't extend far beyond this. The real reason I could kill wolves and such so easily is that the game makes itself easier for you. The first big battles I fought were disappointingly easy, because instead of nasty, apeshit, demonic invaders with swords as long as my leg, I fought bad guys who looked like the little fuckers in Gremlins... you know, that 1980's B-movie? The evil demon soldiers I faced were apparently interns or something, because I could have sneezed on them and killed them. All the NPCs were telling me "Oh shit, the evil demonic Daedra are invading, and you have to stop them with that rusty sword", instilling a sense of foreboding at a presumably difficult battle ahead, but after killing some gremlins and going TO A BIGASS FORTRESS IN HELL, ploughing through the bad guys (some gave me trouble, until I got used to the simplistic combat), and emerging victorious from a gigantic hell portal, all I could think was "That was it?".

I didn't know about the level scaling until a bit later, but I was righteously ticked off when I learned of it. Why can't I find better armour and weapons? Because nobody will drop them, and no loot container will have them until I reach an arbitrary level, then every bandit and his goldfish will head over to Honest Bob's Loot Emporium (We reserve the right to refuse service to player characters) for free shit (that costs YOU a fortune), then stuff it in chests, wear it, and wield it. Obviously, they will also use it against you, so the bad guys are always a match for you... no matter how hard you try, you will never be able to be powerful relative to the NPCs (the monsters level up too, weaker ones being replaced by more powerful ones), except by virtue of them having the intelligence and combat prowess of a slightly retarded Cocker Spaniel with severe cataracts. You will also never get really great loot before, say, level 20, because it won't exist. Even quest rewards are levelled, so you get the dollar store versions of them if you do the quest too soon... but I guess you could do the main quest in the meantime, right?

Wrong. Even stuff in the main quest is levelled. Some demonic invasion, their best troops are apparently AWOL until you hit level 20. Even their reservists patiently wait for you to enter their glowing orange gates of fiery doom and kill them, rather than overwhelming the cities of Cyrodiil. The NPCs cry about how, any day now, a bunch of evil motherfuckers will swarm over the city wall, and URGENTLY beg you, and only you, to do something, but you can take as long as you like. Goodbye, suspension of disbelief!

When you do go into the hell gates, of which there are MANY (nearly all are optional), you are teleported to one of a comparatively tiny number of "Planes of Oblivion" repeated over and over, which you will have to drag your ass through to get to a stone at the top of a huge tower to close them. You get to keep the stones, and make cool stuff with them, as they create powerful (again, for your level, so it's best just to kill monsters for 20 levels if you want the best stuff) enchantments you can't quite match, otherwise.

Speaking of enchantments, you have to join the Mages' Guild and advance to a certain rank to do them yourself. This is not a problem, because the factions in Oblivion apparently have very low standards, and don't require you to be in any way qualified. You can finish the Mages' Guild questline, and advance to the top rank, without casting a single spell. You can finish the Fighter's Guild questline without using a weapon. You can finish the Thieves' Guild questline with all the subtlety of a main battle tank driving through an art gallery displaying a blown glass collection. You can do all of this, and monopolize the fucking power structure of Oblivion. With one character. Especially since most of these quest lines are short, and you get a promotion after almost every mission, even though there are NPCs who are older than the fossilized dinosaur turd I used to have on my mantle, and have been trying to advance in rank for most of their lives.

Side quests, for the most part, are also a load of shit. Because Bethesda's writers apparently think diplomacy is for pussies, most quests, not counting the ones which you could more or less do in real life by getting a job with UPS, end in you killing someone or something. I suppose that's to be expected when most people in Cyrodiil are too stupid to actually speak... they have to stab each other instead.

That's another thing; there are NPCs you can't kill. Some of them are in escort missions (inexplicably, the hardest escort mission doesn't do this), but most of them are not. If you take their health down to 0, they faint, then shortly get back up. Just for kicks, I once shot about 30 arrows into an innkeeper (who went flying over tables and knocked stuff all over the place, showing off the Havok physics engine, one of the few good things in the game), until they were a walking pincushion, utterly unconcerned they had arrows sticking out of them from different angles all over their body. This is hardly immersing. What if I want to rob these arseholes? So what if they give a quest later on! Bethesda harps about the freedom given to players, but won't let them kill a damn innkeeper.

Back to the quests... to do them, you follow a magical arrow which appears on your mystical fucking Compass of Omniscience (well, they don't actually give you an item like this, it's just part of your HUD thingy), which always knows exactly where to go to proceed with whatever you are doing. No exploration or exciting searching for a landmark in a dangerous (Hah! Not in this game!) place is needed, it even alerts you to dungeons 500 yards away. I suppose this is because those exciting jungles I mentioned much earlier don't exist, and the game just has: generic fantasy mountains, generic fantasy grasslands, generic fantasy coniferous forests, with hills and water here and there so Bethesda can make a claim of some variety being present. Hard to tell one area from another when it's all like that. Or maybe the compass is there because the quests are also half-arsed, having about as much substance to them as a fart, from a role-playing perspective especially, but usually from a gameplay perspective, too.

You can't even decline quests, because your character is only marginally more verbal than most FPS protagonists. When offered a quest, you can only say (with minor variations here and there) "Yes" or "Maybe Later". When you eventually get bored with working for Ye Olde Fed-Ex, and say "Yes", your magical Journal of Telling You What to Do Because You Must Be Retarded will say exactly what's going on and what you're SUPPOSED to do in this game that is supposedly so big on player freedom. You want to turn in the Thieves' Guild? Too fucking bad. The journal says you should join them. Ignore it and do nothing, or obey it. The journal says missionary with the lights out, so you better listen, or you don't get anything. What a bitch!

Oh, you also get a horse. Your horse sucks. It can jump, but not very well, so you usually have to make several attempts to jump over anything, and you may as well try going around, instead. Enemies, no matter how fucking slow they are, will chase you and your horse for approximately the distance between New York and THE FUCKING MOON. If something gets in front of you, even if it's just a damn rat, your horse will run in place until it gets out of the way or you go around it, because apparently things that want to eat your toes have the right of way. Thankfully, there is a quick travel feature that lets you move in simulated real-time to places you have already been, or to cities and towns, though this is probably for the Ritalin-popping crowd, and not because Bethesda realized the horses suck. You can't do this if "enemies are nearby" (for instance, if a small crab is within 100 yards and aware of your presence, prompting a slow kamikaze charge because a huge Orc is invading it's turf, where non-crustaceans are pinched on sight), though, making the horse even more annoying. You could just skip the horse, because running doesn't even tire your Olympic athlete of a character, it only means that the fatigue of jumping and fighting wears off more slowly. Not sure if that's an improvement.

Now, it's not all bad. Like I said, most of the game looks good, and the combat is substantially better than in Morrowind. The few characters who have their own voice actors sound great. And on the rare occasions where I could manage suspension of disbelief, the main story was pretty good, with some really cool parts, and some which I'm sure would have been moving if not for the context (You can't fish a pie out of a cesspool and expect to enjoy it, no matter how nice a pie it would otherwise be). Some quests, particularly segments of the main quest, manage to shine through the dark river of Tdod Howard's excrement here and there, and are quite memorable. Skills and magic use have been tweaked or redone to be more fun and/or more useful, though the replacement of Speechcraft and Security skills being done by the game, to being mini-games, may annoy some, being too easy or too hard or simply unappealing. There's also a lot to do, though most of it is not terribly exciting or interesting, so you can at least get quantity in terms of gameplay, even if quality is generally lacking. You can also turn off the game, then go try to pick every berry off a blackberry bush, I suppose, but will getting jabbed by thorns until your hands are terribly swollen and infected with some horrible flesh-eating pathogen be worth the effort of getting said berries?

I would not say Oblivion is necessarily bad, at least not as a game. As an RPG specifically, it's a blight upon the whole genre, showing what I feel is precisely the wrong direction to go, but just as a game; it manages to have just enough going for it that it can be called decent, on the whole. There are many, many games you'd be better off playing, but it's not really an awful thing if you end up playing Oblivion instead. If you mod it, to at least try and fix the mistakes Bethesda still won't actually acknowledge. or to add some better quests and such, it may actually be quite good. I suppose part of my problem with it is just that I feel the whole thing is a big mistake that nobody will accept as such, but that's not the fault of the game itself.

In the end, I'm just one man with no say in the direction the gaming industry goes. I just hope that Oblivion is an evolutionary dead end... and that someday, I may be able to kick Bethesda in their collective balls and take all their wallets for tricking me into buying it with a mastery of bullshit that should impress even Peter Molyneux. Who knows? Maybe it will happen!

ComradeJim270

Bungie Day!

2008-07-04T15:36:00.000-07:00

If your a halo fan be sure to check out the marketplace this monday for bungie day!

As part of the celebrations [on 7/7] Bungie are giving the Xbox360 marketplace not 1, not 2, but 3 amazing gifts.

7 Exclusive new gamepics and a bungie day Skin [ONLY AVAILABLE ON 7/7 so act fast]
The legendary map pack will drop in price to a not so different 600 points
A new map: Cold Storage, based on Chill out from the original Halo will be available for free.

So, there you have it.

Major Nelson states that the halo community are trying to get 7 billion halo 3 kills by the "seventh day" so if your stuck for what to play this weekend, Fire it up and brush up on some skills. Personally, i'll be on Bad company.

Medieval II: Total War

2008-07-04T03:02:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Moar 3scapismness.

The core question for the Total War series is, and always has been; Do you want to rule the world? The answer is also the answer to your question; should I buy this game?

[If_no;goto_"peggle"]

For those of us who have faithfully followed the series through it's three previous instalments - Shogun, Medieval and Rome - the core gameplay of M:TW2 will be immediately familiar. For the benefit of those who don't, the game offers you two meta-games in which you will prove your suitability to the throne of Emperor.

The strategic map, in which you start as one of five immediately available nations*, is where the big-picture game is played. It's not really complicated; the goal is your flag above their cities and castles. But, of course, that's their goal, too. And with the Pope about, telling everyone to just chill and be nice - and you'll quickly find a Crusade knocking on the door of your capital if you don't listen - you'll often find yourself treading a path on the subtle side of Hannibal in your quest.

To aid you in this, you are given four distinct ways of making this all easier; diplomacy, espionage, assassinations and, if all else fails, war. An enemy can often be talked into giving away a city if you offer him a suitable diplomatic incentive. However, if your neighbours remain stubbornly opposed to gentle assimilation, spying out their cities and having their leaders quietly toe-tagged will make your inevitable sieges and field battles dramatically easier.

And once that comes into play, we go into the second meta-game of M:TW2 (or is that M2:TW?)- the tactical map.

The tactical map, commonly known as the combat interface, is where the Total War series have traditionally split paths with other Risk-like games. This is where you start feeling like you decide the outcome of your bid for world control, your choices have consequences and it's your genius or idiocy that conquers the enemy. It distances you from the feeling that you're playing a numbers and odds game, like Civilization, and that's what makes the Total War series special.

(You are, of course, playing a numbers game, but it's one that doesn't wait around every corner to remind you by hitting you in the face with a baseball bat. And it's one that takes the luck and skill factor into account.)

So, as two armies clash on the strategic map, you'll be brought into a zoomed-in version of the map, placing you and your opponent into the context of the map. This is the above-mentioned and aptly-named tactical map, where you're given a bird's eye overview of your army's position and your enemy army's position. You manoeuvre to gain the advantage for your units and to counter your enemy's advantages. Broken down, it's a complicated game of chess with rock/paper/scissor-type units. However, the historically [largely] correct relative strengths of units as well as the impact of terrain and tactics serve to milden the edge of that design, and in some cases it even warps them. Remember; even a pike unit is defenceless against horse when they're charged into from behind.

Once you've grasped the inherent subtleties of the two meta-games, you'll also start getting an appreciation of the bonds between them. For instance, an unit of Sergeant Spearmen bloodied and experienced from a Papal crusade can bring back battle-bonuses like Damascan-steel armour and weapons, high discipline and strong morale. A unit like that will be absolutely brutal when deployed correctly in a battle in mainland Europe. It will also have strategic benefits, like an "honour" bonus to your law and order rating when used as part of a city or castle's garrison. And generals with the same background will become absolutely invaluable, strategically, and a fearsome thing to face on the battlefield.

Now, a lot of this might sound like tedium and details, adding to the already significant workload of micromanaging your cities, fleets and your campaign. And it is.

See, that's why I popped the question in the start of the review. Do you want to rule the world? If you don't - if you don't bring your own motivation - this very much open-ended, story-less game with close to zero explosions and naked chicks will quickly become boring. While you might find the battle sequences interesting and challenging, you'll quickly get bored of those, too, out of context.

And to top that, you can actually get beaten in this game. Trashed. Completely annihilated. Easily. Your kingdom will only be known in history books, as a footnote, misspelled and sadly so very, very alone. All alone. This game is mean.

But if you do bring that motivation - if you're actually genuinely interested in history, crave to try your hand at beating the world, or if you're a sadomachistic nutbag, this game will give you everything you can dream of. The contented sigh of watching opponent after opponent - empire after empire - crash down in a silent, unremarkable, unremembered thunderclap of flames. The visceral satisfaction of brutally tearing apart army after army by beating your opponent in a tactical game to the death - a game that might as well have been reality. The grin-inducing cheer of having conquered the world with Scotland.

And that's why I'll say that if you do, buy this game, if you don't, stay clear. It's pretty - the new graphics are neat and sometimes cinematically beautiful - and well-done, but if your spark just isn't there, find yourself another game.

*More are added to your list of choices once they're defeated in a campaign, or all of them if you manage to achieve world domination.

Pulsifer

Stop The Press!

2008-07-03T10:20:00.000-07:00

Seems I missed the biggest story of the year.

Blizzard are making another world. I mean, you woulda thought with Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, and the WoW expansion pack Wraith of the lich king, they would have their hands full.

Not so. During the blizzard invitational in paris a few days ago, Rob Pardo said: "There is still one unknown project,We have another development team."

combined with the blizzard add's people had spotted on the website asking for developers for a next gen MMO, This could mean another Blizzard MMO, Either way, with blizzards attention to detail, theres no worries that a new blizzard "world" would be a good thing. i'll keep you posted!

Alone In The Dark: Review

2008-07-03T03:09:00.000-07:00

While i've spent 4-5 days hooked on the Bad Company multiplayer, i figured it was time to review Alone in the Dark.

To start, I found the game really enjoyable. When I first played it, I found the combat really irritating and difficult to grasp, and this led to me being chucked around a fair bit by the enemys, but now i've settled down somewhat. The Graphics are good, and the physics engine is, in a word, amazing. The way fire works is possibly alone in the darks biggest plus point. Everything that should burn, does burn. I once used a flaming bullet to put the window through of a car, and then slowly released i'd set the car on fire, and had to jump out. Moments like this make the game fun, and again, its the engine that should be applauded.

As for the story, it's pretty decent adventure game fare. You play as Edward Carnby and after a brilliant first two "episodes" escaping from a collapsing tower block, you find yourself in Central Park to solve a mystery. Yeah, the whole of central park. Central park is a pretty large place though, so you will have to use one of the many vehicles littered around to get there. In the run up to release, developers Eden used the dreaded words "open world enviroment" but this is untrue. While you have alot of ground you can cover, you dont have the Items to really go on a killing spree of sorts, and so generally you head for the nearest car and go straight for your next checkpoint. That is, when you are actually in central park. Most of your time is spent roaming sewers and hallways nervously.

This isnt a big thing however, I for one like some linearity to my survival horror and the game has alot of charm. The combination system is slightly insane sometimes, as i found out when i taped a bottle of petrol to a box of bullets and then chucked a bandage in it as a wick. Yeah, quite an explosion there.

Thats not to say there arent bad things in the game. Gameplay really needs to pause while you are using items in your coat, and the difficulty curve shoots upwards at about 4 hours into the game, a part where I didn't get any healing items for about an hour, and was stuck on "one hit will kill you" after fighting a boss and still not getting any healing items. The controls are ever so slightly clunky, although you will get used to this with time, and some of the enemys are practically invincible, requiring you to shoot 3-4 different fissures with flaming bullets to put them down. The main flaw is that there just isnt enough of it. the game clocks in at alittle under 9 hours if you know what your doing, and I finished it in around 10. This is to me its main crime as a game. I just wanted to play more of it.

Overall i'd give it an 7/10 although, if it would of been a few hours longer it would of certainly been an 8 or 9, i just struggle to justify it as a full price purchase when its so short.

The game has been soured slightly by Atari's rampage regarding poor review scores, a fiasco that veteran companies like atari should be past by this point, slinging accusations of piracy left and right, and so it's hard to review this without that coming into my head subconciously

Mass Effect

2008-07-03T01:56:00.000-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

More 3scapism repostness!

You stand victorious over the hordes of beasts that have clawed at you, come close to killing you, and are menaces to the galaxy. Finally, it's down to you and the last of its species. It shows remorse, it knows why it had to be wiped out. It seems that it has learnt its lesson, it wants a chance to live, a chance to see its children thrive. You alone have the choice of life and death. Kill it, and the entire galaxy will be thankful. Kill it, and you'll effectively be guilty of genocide. Welcome to the world of Mass Effect.

Set 200 odd years in the future, after humanity has discovered new alien technology and hyperspace travel, the plot reads like almost every sci-fi game ever made. You know, there's some kind of threat to the universe and it's up to you as Captain America to end it by travelling about in a spaceship named after an American military victory etc. But a couple of twists on a tried and tested formula make this game compelling and compulsory playing.

First of all, humanity is rather late to the hyperspace game, and it finds itself in an uncomfortable position as an outsider. Humanity is distrusted amongst the other races of the galaxy (this comes up almost incessantly), and is only recently been given a morsel of power in galactic affairs. Every move you make is being watched by others, some wanting humanity to thrive, some wanting it to be subservient.

It all makes for some fascinating game play when faced with the choices that almost every quest brings up. You not only have to think of yourself and the character you're playing, but the consequences of your actions as a representative of the human race.

One of the most compelling aspects of this game are the moral choices that you are forced to make with almost every quest. How you handle any given situation will give you food for thought. Combined with the well drawn characters, this makes for compelling game play. For example, do you try to handle a hostage situation all guns blazing or do you try to resolve the situation peacefully using a bit of the ol' charm/intimidate? The ability to try and talk out a situation rather than go in all guns blazing is a refreshing change from the 'go here, shoot that' linear mentality of most games today.

For example, during the main quest, you not only have the lives of your squad in your hands but often you are forced to choose whether a party member survives or not. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book, but it's still effective in investing the player in the game morally and emotionally and also getting the player to think about the wider scope of their actions.

Much has been made by the tomes of dialogue that the game throws at you, and with good reason. Sometimes the sheer amount of it can seem a little overbearing, but instead, the dialogue system, instead of bogging you down in the mire seems organic and natural because of the conversation wheel. This sees the player giving a response to a particular bit of dialogue not once the particular line of dialogue has been finished, but a few seconds before. This feels more like a natural conversation, as in most conversations, people are busy thinking of a response rather than listening to what is being said. Of course, this leads to missing out on a bit of dialogue, but it's a feature that is remarkably well implemented. You actually feel as if you're having a conversation rather than choosing a response after having a good long while to think about the implications of your choice. Though by far the most impressive part of the dialogue is the superb voice acting.

Almost all of the dialogue is this game sounds pitch perfect for the situations you are confronted with, and this doesn't just cover the main characters. The amount of interesting characters you will meet are staggering, and this can be attributed to the fact that not one sounds like the other. They all have their nuances, and the voice acting reflects this perfectly.By far the most impressive voice acting comes from the male and female versions of the main character, Shepard (played by Mark Meer and Jennifer Hale respectively), with their dialogue spot on for the vast majority of situations, a quite lofty achievement given the reams of dialogue they spout. An honourable mention must go to Steven Barr for creating the enigmatic Urdnott Wrex, who although a murderous alien, is someone you you'd actually want to have a conversation with.

However, if there is one criticism of the voice acting in Mass Effect it has to be directed to Raphael Sbarge and the character of Kaidan Alenko. You see, Alenko's voice seems a little... familiar, and if you've played Bioware's other space Action/RPG Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR), you'd recognise the voice of Kaidan Alenko as the voice of Carth Onasi. I say recognise, but they are the same voice. Exactly. I'm all for voice actors working on more than one project, but there's just no difference between the performances! People who have played KOTOR will become frustrated by the character very quickly.

Another source of frustration for the player lies in the combat. Employing a third person shooter approach, the mechanics of the fighting are simple enough and will take only a short while to become accustomed to. However, what really grates is the way that squad members are used. In a party of three, commands of 'defend', 'attack that guy' and 'go there' can be issued at any given time which is all well and fine...if you could issue the orders individually. You see, when you give a command such as 'go there behind that hyper galactic space crate', both of your allies go. This can be an immense source of frustration if say, you want to issue an order of 'you go there, and you go to the other side. I'll stay here with my sniper rifle while you two flank and draw out the enemy'. I found myself reflecting on how this could be useful every time my character died from being flanked by the enemy.

Those familiar with KOTOR will feel right at home when it comes to weapon customisation and inventory management. A number of upgrades can be applied to items (such as guns and armour) to increase their effectiveness against certain types of enemy, and these upgrades for the most part really help you out.

Force powers, I mean, 'biotic powers' also make an appearance in the game. These cycle through your standard lift/throw with the power of your mind, kind of powers to more advanced powers such as stasis or singularity and how many you can use and their effectiveness depends on what type of character class you choose. For example, you can't run around throwing enemies about like rag dolls if you've chosen the soldier class. There only about seven powers in total and whereas these biotic powers are useful on occasion, one gets the yearning for there to have more powers to play with.

The graphics and sound in this game really do stand out from the pack though.

The former, while not hyper-realistic are something to behold. The light reflecting from the gentle glow of ship navigation systems, the sparkle of water and the dialogue scenes (which at times look pre-rendered they're that good) all combine well to suck the player into the world. However, for some reason the game comes with film grain turned on, which just looks like the dog's breakfast rather than cinematic. Thankfully, this can be turned off otherwise I would have to take vengeance upon the world (yes, it looks that bad).

The sound in Mass Effect and particularly the score are absolutely top notch. This is one of the few games today that you'd want to buy the soundtrack for with the score taking you back to the glorious days of the 80's sci-fi. It really sets you in that world when you hear an awesome synth piece playing in the background. It's pitch perfect every time for setting the mood whether travelling, going into a creepy room or coming up to a major plot point.

Special mention has to go to Canadian indie band Faunts and their song 'm4 pt II' which plays over the credits and captures the feel and tone of game perfectly. It's one of the very rare times that you'll actually want to watch the credits.

Overall, though frustrating at times, its flaws can be overlooked because of the journey the game provides for the player, one that you actually care about (which is a nice change). In a few areas such as character dimension and voice acting it sets the benchmark for all other action/RPGs to follow.

Depending on your disposition, you will either love every minute of Mass Effect, overlooking its flaws or be ultimately frustrated by the fact this could be a masterpiece if not for the couple of things dragging it down.

Hey Joe

The Month: July 08

2008-07-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

Here's my monthly rundown of the top games coming out.

Unreal Tournament III
This game has been out for a while on other platforms, but only now comes to X360. It's been critically acclaimed for the other platforms, and so Xbox 360 owners should be pleased to have some extra input. I don't think I need to tell you much about this game, only that, if you don't already have this game, it'll be well worth a look.
Platforms: X360
Release Date: 04/07/08

Devil May Cry 4
This game, again, has been out for a while on console, and this month is coming to the PC. There's already a review on here for the game, so this is just a recommendation for those PC gamers of you out there. This is a game worth your time.
Platforms: PC
Release Date: 11/07/08

Soul Calibur IV
In a bit of a dry spell for games, Soul Calibur is positively an oasis. This month this game gets my pick for both X360 and PS3. People who are familiar with the Soul Calibur series don't need me to tell them that this is the finest fantasy beat-em-up available, and SCIV looks good to build on the great games that have already come out of the franchise. This ought to be must have gaming.
Platforms: X360, PS3
Release Date: 01/08/08 (not strictly in this Month, but it'd get missed out otherwise).

That's really it this month. A bit poor as far as gaming standards go. Of course, if you're a Wii fanatic there are plenty of sports games flooding the market which you might like to give a shot. For the rest of us though, let's just look forward to Soul Calibur and hope August brings more fruitful gaming.

XMB 2.4

2008-07-01T14:54:00.000-07:00

The XMB is getting an update [yes PS3 users, i'm not forgetting about you ;)]

Watched the two of them?
Well hey, Hasnt Xbox live had 90% of those features since launch?

Yeah it does.

This Fanboy post was bought to you from "DW-gaming.net"

The Fable Series

2008-07-01T06:53:00.001-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

More 3scapism goodness!

You know the feeling (perhaps). You had a total stunner of a girlfriend, but it ended badly. She was hot, but underneath her dazzling looks, you realized there wasn't a whole lot there. You called the relationship off in a bid to save your sanity, and haven't spoken to her since. Then one day, three years or so later, you bump into her, and my goodness she's better looking than ever. What's more, she wants to try again with you. She's practically begging you to take her back. She's changed, she says. She's matured, she's gotten some depth. You want to believe her, you really do, but still some nagging part of you says 'No, you've been here before, it'll all end in tears...'

Well, seeing as Fable 2 is peeping its head round the metaphorical corner, I thought it was as good a time as any to look back at the heartless strumpet that was the original Fable. Bearing in mind that Yahtzee did a review of Fable a while back, this is meant to read more as a checklist for Mr Molyneux to go through before he releases his latest creation onto the public. Quite why he would be spending his precious time reading obscure forum threads I have no idea, but we all live in hope. Here then, is a list of the good that should be retained in the sequel, and the bad that should never have been dreamt up in the first place, let alone actually put in the game.

Note to any and all readers: this review contains all sorts of plot spoilers and summaries. Therefore, if you haven't actually played Fable and want to keep your virtuous innocence of its plot unspoiled, scroll down to the end of this article to read what little conclusion I can be arsed to pull out.

Firstly, the good:

- The humour. Whereas most RPGs take their end of the world plots all too seriously, Fable is remarkable light hearted, and dammit even funny on occasion. Being able to play football with chickens, the scripting, even the funny accents, though that's probably more to do with the fact that I will laugh at anyone who hails from the West country. Keep the humour intact, Mr Molyneux, and you'll be doing fine. A laugh a day keeps the doctor away, and all that.

- Combat. Or to be specific; melee combat. If Fable can claim to be superior to Oblivion or Morrowind in anyway, it's the sword combat. Combos are easy to pull off, satisfying to watch, and decapitating a bandit and kicking his head around never gets old. There's not a bad selection of weapons either (though by no means fantastic), and it's nice to see that hammers and maces feel slower and heavier compared to swords and katanas. Soul Calibur it ain't, but for an RPG it's not bad at all. Well done Mr Molyneux, you actually beat Bethesda at something. Have a coconut and a pat on the head.

Erm...

Well... Onto the bad then. [Pulls out the goggles and rubber gloves in preparation for some good old fashioned punishment]

- Combat. Specifically, magical combat. Yahtzee may have already pointed this out, but I think it bears repeating so that Mr Molyneux gets the idea. Magic is meant to be a viable alternative to swords and bows. Spells that start off piss-weak and end up mightier than Armageddon itself are NOT a viable option, they are a bloody frustration. If you are going to have magic in the next game, sort out the fecking balance issues so that we can dip into our fecking pools of magic without having to have a fecking war hammer on standby in case it all goes tits up. Ahem...

- The linearity. Fable, despite what Mr Molyneux may say, is actually a very, very, VERY linear game. The story itself doesn't change at all until the final few seconds of the game, where you have to choose between throwing the Sword of Aeons into the Ether, or keeping it and for some unexplained reason gutting your blind sister. The game doesn't care if you're good or evil, your actions will have no effect on any of the main characters or events whatsoever. The blurb said 'for every choice a reaction'. Bugger that, it's a case of the same bloody reaction regardless of your choice.

Example: At one point in the game you have to choose between killing a bandit lord or letting him live, having beaten him in combat. If you kill him, then later you are warned that his followers have hired a bunch of assassins to come after you as retribution for his death. If you let him live, then you are warned that he has hired a bunch of assassins to come after you as retribution for his humiliation. In both cases, the assassins appear in the same places, running headlong towards you screaming in a way Altair would never think of doing, even at his most conspicuous. The developers had a chance to actually branch the story a bit, and they purposely decided against it. This is one example of many within the game.

Mr Molyneux, if you are going to tout Fable 2 as being non-linear, then bloody well make sure it is non linear before you send it to the publishers.

- Good vs Evil. Right Mr Molyneu...ah, bollocks to all the niceties

Molyneux! If you're going to include a moral choice system in Fable 2 then for god sakes man, bloody well make sure it has at least some small vague trappings of depth to it! If you're going to have a bloody Guild that supposedly doesn't care whether its graduates follow the path of good or evil (a highly suspicious arrangement if you ask me), then bloody well stick to that, rather than having the Guildmaster suddenly telling me his surprise at Whats'isface's betrayal and ordering me to stop Jack of Blades 'because he's evil'. That's the point you twit!!! He may be evil, but he's also the most powerful hero you've ever produced and according to your rules you should be bloody proud of him! Continuity, Molyneux, continuity!!!

And that leads me to my next point. The story. My goodness, if I ever see a more generic bunch of characters assembled together I'll have to phone the creators of Fantastic Four to let them know some of their cast has escaped. Would it hurt to give the bad guy a little bit of depth? Motivation? Just a tad of humanity?? Note for next game, Molyneux; choose a bad guy who's middle name isn't 'Generic with a capital 'G''.

And finally, to end this rant and bring up my final point- hype. It killed your last game Molyneux, don't let it kill this one as well. All that talk of growing trees and whatnot. You had our little hearts in your hand like butterflies, and you crushed them mercilessly with your iron grip of Rushed Production. Keep a lid on it this time. Don't promise us the world on a stick, just give us a good time. All we want is a little bit of fun to brighten up our otherwise dull lives. Give us that. Who knows, maybe you'll exceed expectation this time round...

...But wait. You've already been talking to the press about the dog. Spouting off about how it will be the first ever virtual creation to win our unconditioned love. Lecturing us on how we can buy absolutely anything in the game. Oh dear God no, you've even used those cursed words, 'A living, breathing world that reacts to your every move'!

Damn you Molyneux! Damn you!!!

j-e-f-f-e-r-s

Syndicate And I

2008-06-29T05:56:00.001-07:00

Written by: Melaisis

Hey guys, Mel' here; owner of The Three Rs and (now extinct) 3scapism (amongst other projects). Due to the downfall of the latter thanks to circumstances beyond my (or the rest of The Escapist community's control) I thought it would be a good opportunity to give you guys more content by posting their reviews up here, so all our hard work doesn't go to waste. Hence, over the coming weeks, I'll be pasting (with minor edits) some of the 3scapism reviews from days gone by up here. Here's Syndicate:

Before the original Grand Theft Auto hit the headlines as a glorifier of violence and general bad influence on teens, games like the Ultima series were already allowing gamers the option of random acts of violence on innocent NPCs. Sure, it may have candy coated homicidal tendencies with a fantasy setting, but randomly deciding to walk into a pub and sword the cheerful civilians with not nearly enough consequences to discourage the act was no less malicious (or fun) as running over bystanders with a stolen car. In fact, it was entirely satisfying to engage in conversation with an utter jerk and show your disapproval with a well placed axe before taking the initiative to bequeath all their worldly possessions to yourself. If anything, the Ultima series catered to a far darker level of personal humour as it became my hobby to kill random isolated innocents and carry their body back with me to a small cabin in the woods, which I declared to be my "trophy room". The first trophy in the collection was the poor bastard to whom the cabin belonged.

But as fun as it can be to go on a killing spree armed with a crossbow, spellbook and an army's worth of medieval melee weaponry, sometimes, nothing can truly purge the frustrations of day-to-day life quite so well as open-firing upon a crowd of unsuspecting people, thus making their day decidedly more frustrating than yours.

For a 13 year old kid in the early 90's, this is where Syndicate entered the scene.

The game's layout can be most closely compared to the X-Com series, but everything is in real-time as opposed to turn-based, and cities are vastly populated with urban-levels of inhabitants that you can interact with by either leaving them alone or killing them in cold blood. And the comparison between X-Com and Syndicate becomes really thick once you move away from the action: you'll start with a certain amount of weapons and armour ready to purchase at the start, and new weapons and armour will become available to you either through researching them, or prying them out of your victims' cold, dead hands and THEN researching them. The speed at which you research them is determined by how much funding you apply to the project.

Money for funding and purchases can be raised through taxes in each of the regions that you control. Each region is a level that you must complete in order to take control of it, so the more that you conquer, the more money you make. However, if you tax them too high for too long, they will revolt, and you will have to play the level over again in order to reclaim it. You can also pick up weapons from fallen enemies and then sell them, but the money you make from these means are only helpful early on, and amount to chump change as the game progresses.

A big difference between Syndicate and X-Com emerges in the fact that Syndicate agents are sweepingly generic, the only variable being whether they are male or female, which itself has no impact on the action whatsoever. But instead of having character stats, Syndicate agents are defined entirely based on the armour and weaponry they are equipped with at the time, and each new armour upgrade enhances a respective ability. Improvements to chest armour increases their hit points and the range of their self-destruct radius. Upgrading legs allows the agents to run faster, the heart allows them to run longer, the arms allow them to carry more, and the eye improves their aim.

But the game's depth really kicks in once you start having to micro-manage the agents' abilities within the real-time (but pausable) action. Your agents don't just start aiming better, you have to crank their aiming bar. Your agents run as fast or as slow as you like, based on their speed bar, and their artificial intelligence (allowing them to act on their own initiative) in controlled by the AI bar, influenced by the level of the brain implants you've given them. But, as you set the bars higher, their abilities get tired, and as you set them lower, their abilities recover. In words it sounds complicated, but the execution is perfect.

The game places you in the role of a leader of a team of up to four special agents at a time that are mind-controlled into doing your bidding to accomplish your nefarious schemes in the ultimate goal of conquering the world. You will choose your team from a roster of agents at your disposal that will be sent down to a city with a mission objective, ranging from assassinating a particular target, to killing all enemy inhabitants, to using the Persuadertron to abduct VIPs and escort them safely to the exit point.

Syndicate also has a bit of a Hitman ingredient to it, in that so long as you get your objective accomplished, the game really can't care less how you go about achieving your goals. In fact, at least Hitman used a ranking system to encourage you to kill as few people as possible, whereas Syndicate doesn't shed a single tear if you kill every man, woman and their dog. Wait, that's not entirely true; there are no dogs in this game.

That said, certain actions may prove more beneficial than others. For instance, persuading enemy agents rather than killing them will recruit them to your team, which is quite essential if you're like me, and often enjoy carrying out assassinations in the least subtle manner possible by equipping your character with the best available chest armour, walking right up to your target, and then hitting the self-destruct button. Sure, the number of people who would enjoy that may have decreased since terrorism has become a far more prominent issue in the mainstream media over the better part of the last decade, but when I was 13, it was all good, clean fun.

Another of my favourite activities in the game is to use the Persuadertron during assault levels, gathering as many civilians as I can, and have them gravitate around me as a human shield to absorb enemy gunfire so that my agents don't have to. Then, once the threat is cleared, if I have any shield, I mean, civilians remaining, I hop into a car, run over as many as I can, then have the survivors pile into the vehicle and set my agent to self-destruct. Okay, I know this is quickly deviating from a proper review format, but if you haven't played this game by now, there's a good chance you never will, and I'm taking it as my duty to let you know what you've missed out on.

Now, especially for its time, the graphics were on the cutting-edge of Super-VGA, and as time has revealed, sprite-based graphics (which Syndicate employs) ages a lot less quickly than the innovators of polygons. The only criticisms to the game that I have is that driving in vehicles is cumbersome and very limited in their control (they basically drive along an imaginary rail, so if you miss your turn, you have to take the long way around), and it's humorously awkward to watch as an entire city's population of persuaded inhabitants can all cram into a single car.

However, the most annoying aspect of the entire game is a sound issue. Overall, the sound is good, at least for its time. The music is subtle but sets the tone, the sound effects give nothing to complain about, and in basically, in terms of quality alone, the sound holds its own as one of the game's strengths. The problem emerges with the fact that every time you click the mouse button on anything - ANYTHING - a voice saying "SELECTED!" is played. You select an agent to control? "SELECTED!" You select a weapon for them to equip? "SELECTED!" You choose which mission you want to play? "SELECTED!" It's a good thing that the game is a good source of venting, because the constant playing of the "SELECTED!" sound byte contributes towards your NEED to vent.

Overall, though, the game is amazing, and one of gaming's most overlooked innovators of violence. The levels get to be quite challenging at times, especially depending on how you choose to play them, the micro-management of your agents, and the management of your economic resources, and it all comes together in a solid gaming experience that can not only be fairly long, but with loads of replay value that will keep you coming back to play your favourite levels over and over.

I don't like giving numeric values to game reviews, so I'll just mention that I probably spent more time playing Syndicate and its expansion, American Revolt, than I have spent playing all the Grand Theft Autos, combined. Granted, I have yet to play through a GTA game's story mode, in favour of just amassing weapons and seeing how long it takes for the police to finally take me down.

end_boss

Diablo III announced

2008-06-29T02:29:00.001-07:00

((I just saw DWs post on Diablo 3 when I had finished writing this. But I don't care! It took me time and effort, so I'm going to post it anyway!))

With everyone else on the site playing various games, I decided I'd look into new ones coming out. And to my surprise, what did I find? (the vid's 20 minutes long, so make sure you've got time).

The new Blizzard-developed Diablo game looks set to be a riot. Just like the previous Diablos. On an interface level, the game has been simplified in many ways. For instance, the selecting will be done almost entirely by mouse, meaning less hunting on the keyboard. Another example of this is the new idea that, rather than being given 10,000 variants for your character, your choice will be limited to a class, and a gender. I don't think this sounds like such a bad idea.

However, beneath it all, Diablo seems set to be one of the most complex RPGs to date. The game is going to use various 'random' generators to make the gameplay different on every playthrough. This randomness streches to loot, scripted events and monsters. Meaning, on your first play through, you may encounter a series of monsters in a wooded clearing. In the same wooded clearing, but on a different play through, you may well encounter a caravan needing escorting.

Diablo III will also develop on the previous pitiful conversation system. The system used to consist of a series of complicated responses such as... 'Hey!' and 'No'. However, Diablo III, Blizzard have said, will have a much more immersive conversation system, where what you say will have some effect on what happens.

This announcement just came yesterday, so the liklihood is more details will be announced soon. Keep reading.

100th post!

2008-06-28T05:17:00.000-07:00

For our 100th post here at DW's, A couple of Big stories.

Firstly, The one everyone has been waiting for for absolute years, Blizzard reset the Diablo2 ladder. That was exciting enough and prompted many people to start playing, turns out that it was just a clever ruse.

A ruse you say, for what?

Oh, just a little game called diablo 3.

For a just announced game, the teaser sit e is suprisingly detailed, There are two character classes [Barbarian and Witch doctor], and a ton of screenshots, trailers and videos about the game, its pretty clear blizzard have been working on this for a while, but anyone could of told you that, as speculation was rife as to a diablo 3 last year.

Frankly, as a big diablo 2 fanboy a couple of years back, i'll have another game to obsess about before its release.

--

Secondly, 3scapism, our sister site has shut it doors. Big deal you might say, but what does it mean to you?

Well, all of the quality output that you would previously miss on the 3scapism is now posted here, think of it like a big machine, churning out twice the output of quality content, and well, your getting suitably close. this is the biggest thing thats happened to DW yet, and it certainly is exciting to announce on our 100th post!

Bad Company

2008-06-25T16:43:00.001-07:00

For our 99th post, I'm merely going to post the battlefield TV spots.

This is more of a normal trailer, it's notable for "Haven't they got guys trained for that?" "Well, yeah, but those guys are too expensive to waste."

They are frankly, amazing, I had a fair few sniggers as I realised what games they were spoofing in these following trailers.

Mocking Rainbow Six Vegas...

Mocking Metal Gear solid..

Mocking the Gears of War TV spot.

---

Pretty moving pictures aside, since playing the Beta of this game back in April, I've been well up for taking the full game for a spin, and it launches this Friday.

Since the beta, there's been a lot of talk about the "micro transactions" to buy certain guns in the game, and while i disagree with it solely on the idea that someone willing to pay shouldn't have an advantage over someone who won't, or can't, its an academic difference seeing as EA quickly removed it. However, the fuss has remained. This is a similar shit storm to the one conjured up by Oblivion's various small additions, like horse armour. And it got me thinking.

The games buisness is just that, A buisness, and however much we love to get free stuff, you have to face the fact that somewhere, somehow, someone has to get money out of this. In my opinion, Map Packs are okay, Camo packs, or character customisation packs, they are okay. But Weapons and armour? No. Too far.

Single player content is all fine. After all, they have the right to offer said items, and we have the right to turn down the items, but when those items threaten to divide the community, like Ghost Recon's map packs did, they shouldnt be allowed. Xbox live is one big community, and for developers to change fundemental aspects of this, by seperating us by money, there's a big flaw.

AITD O:

2008-06-24T17:14:00.000-07:00

So, playing through Alone in the Dark has been mostly enjoyable, except in the past 20 minutes the difficulty curve has politely bent me over and submitted me to a demoralising inspection of my gaming ability. :[

Still, at this rate the game should be finished in friday in time for me to get Battlefield: Bad Company on the Saturday.

LOTRO Impressions

2008-06-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

I sunk a few hours into Lord Of the Rings Online today, day one of the free trial, and got myself past the instanced tutorial.

So far, it's a nice change from WoW. If you have ever played WoW, it's pretty similar stuff. A lot of the earlier quests involve talking to people a LONG, LONG way away, which is slightly irritating, but there's a lot of nice touches. You can earn titles to display, such as "Watcher of the Roads" "Man of Rohan" you know, typical fantasy stuff. And the world, obviously is a lot more interesting and authentic then World of Warcraft. I found myself somewhat irritated with the lack of seriousness in World of Warcraft, and how everything was humorous, sometimes I just like MMO's to take themselves seriously, and LOTRO certainly had that, by the end of the tutorial instance maybe 10 minutes in, I'd been rescued from a jail by a ranger, rescued two hobbits, one with the surname of Baggins, and then watched the ranger get stabbed in the chest by a Nazgul.

I made a Female Human Champion from Rohan, on the Snowbourne server, called Darkwingstalker, just in case I take this up for the long term, which might happen.

To sum it up, it's an 8 gig download, then a couple of patches, but if you fancy a change from WoW, or you're a Lord of the rings fan, you should give it a go, you can get the free trial here

LOTR online

2008-06-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

Fancying something different, I've signed up for a 7 day free trial and I'm downloading the client now. It's got a rather impressive 8.2gig download, but according to a few friends "it's worth it". Looking across the classes and skills as it downloads, it looks like they've made the remarkably silly move of splitting tank and DPS into two classes, which worked against City of Heroes aswell.

Either way, I'll let you know how I get on when give it a crack. This is a time of great MMO turmoil for us, as DSF is also considering a trial on Age of Conan.

Alone In The Dark: First impressions

2008-06-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

So, I picked this game up today, and i've played through the first 2 of 8 chapters.

This took about an hour. So i'm unsure how long the game will last, but thats the sort of stuff I can cover in a review.

The opening sequence was pretty decent, and It was genuinely pulse pounding stuff trying to escape from the collasping building you start in, the driving wasn't terrible considering its a survival horror game, and it was nicely tense.

The highly promising combine/use combat system is all present and correct, but for some reason my coat is full of batterys and sticky tape and not much of use. This wouldnt be a problem, its just that my trusty pistol is about as damaging to these creatures as a large stuffed animal to the face, and so I felt just a little hopeless.

On the flipside, when I managed to kill one of the monsters in one hit because i had the forethought to set light to my fire-axe for one almighty blow, well. it was satisfying. but at this early stage of the game the most lethal attack I can do is wave my lighter at them and look stern.

I suppose this is good, I mean, it IS survival horror, and not "KILL EVERYTHING WITH FIRE" horror, but I dunno, maybe Resident evil 4 has spoilt me a little.

Spore Creature Creator

2008-06-20T04:18:00.000-07:00

If you've not heard of spore yet, then you've probably been living under a rock for a few years. What you might not have heard however, is that they have released a trial of the Creature Creator which you can get here. As this is the free version, you're a little limited to the amount you can use to create your "creature" of sorts, but even with the limited tools I had to work with, I churned out some impressive creations.

I've been told its great to put your kids on, but I wouldn't trust anything under the age of 16 on my laptop, so I'll have to just nod slowly at that possibility and tell you that, you OWE yourself to give it a go, it practically comprises a game in itself. It's a clever move from EA, in that I want to buy the game now, because the creatures in themselves are so entertaining, and dare I say it, endearing.

And a competition of sorts: Name these two creatures, and the funniest, most fitting names will get your names up in lights. Competition runs till the 26th of june, Email all suggestions to Darkwingstalker@googlemail.com

Sonic

2008-06-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

As promised, here is my article about Sonic the hedgehog, From January. everything from here on in is unedited.

--

So, Yesterday i had a bit of a blast from the past.

i went to a friends house, and as for gaming apparatus, she only had a gamecube. Now, I have had my Xbox360 system for almost a year now, and i was hungerering for some photorealistic graphics.

That was until she pulled out a copy of "sonic mega collection" from somewhere, and loaded it up, and i fell in love all over again, The blistering speed, the simple controls, The fact that 6 of us were crowded around a single gamecube controller, playing the classic "one life each" gameplay that i remember from my early years, It was brilliant, we fired through sonic two.

This got me thinking though.. Why are games not like this anymore?? with all the photoreal graphics, and the Realistic physics, what happened to a game simply being fun?? We had 3 girls present and they were playing sonic almost as much as the boys, in fact, they were positively clamouring for their turn to chuck sonic headlong through the levels,

later sonic games lost the feel, speaking from my days as an 8 year old with nothing but a megadrive and a copy of sonic two, i can safely say i appreciate the gameplay, I remember practically going into overdraft so i could get sonic 1 on the xbox live marketplace the day it was released, and to this day, i've played it more then practically every game i own.

Sonic adventure on the dreamcast made an effort to make sonic more involving, and succeeded, to be honest, in little more then to make a joke of the franchise, The great sonic games of the Megadrive era are nothing more then faded memories in the heads of people like me, and the thought scares me, hell, i'll go out on a limb and say that mario games are equally as unforgettable, but they have been long forgotten in their original forms, Hell, sonic was all about running through levels in under a minute, dodging spikes, springs and everything the dreaded eggman could throw at you, and everyone loved it, And from the looks of last nights playthrough of pretty much every game on that collection, they still do, So... The point i'm making in this editiorial, is, maybe sega, or whoever the hell owns the sonic brand now, should make a game just like that, Not another "sonic the hedgehog" travesty for the xbox360., with voice acting and a "seriously serious" storyline, but just a simple "get from point A to point B" game trying to recreate the feel of the original platformers, because, in an age where the launch line up looks like a who's who in Violent bloody warfare, or long winded japanese RPG's, a simple, addictive game that all your friends could enjoy would be a real eye opener.

Crash Bandicoot

2008-06-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

I haven't played much recently to blog about. I can't talk about Endwar, and Alone in the dark doesn't come out until tomorrow, and I'm unsure as to whether I'll be purchasing it. While it looks like an amazing system, I don't generally get on very well with Survival horror games, So I'll probably play it elsewhere before making my decision.

Today I was at a friends house, and I saw she had a copy of Crash Bandicoot. This is a game I haven't played in years, so me and Darkshadowfang set about hammering it.

One thing surprises me.I remember getting this game for Christmas 1996, and to be honest, for a game that's 12 years old, its aged brilliantly. Aside from the obvious lack of Analogue support, and the fact that psone controllers feel like little toys after using an Xbox 360 controller, it's still an amazingly addictive game.

I'm informed you can download this game via the PlayStation network, and play it on both the PSP and the PS3, and its well worth a visit. Crash bandicoot was one of the earliest 3d platforming titles, and although its not really "true 3d" in that you always head in one set direction, it really helped the genre. On top of that, it gave the PlayStation crash bandicoot, and he was a very able mascot until Sony turned him into a cash cow with the release of Crash Bash, and Crash Team Racing, which might have borrowed slightly from Nintendo's handling of Mario. maybe.

This was interesting to me because, I wrote an article on sonic not a great time ago [which I'll now post here when i dig it up], which praised the simple, one life each style gameplay of the original sonics, and I feel Crash 1 and 2 captured this perfectly. Not 3 though. 3 had an APPLE BAZOOKA. Way to scrape the barrel Naughty Dog. Need more convincing? Naughty Dog created the original 3 Crash Bandicoot titles, Crash Team Racing, which wasn't too bad, and then went on to create the critically acclaimed PS2 series Jak and Daxter. So hey. Give it a go if you get the chance. It's still brilliant.

For you (re)viewing pleasure

2008-06-18T13:03:00.000-07:00

After reading a particularly interesting article on the biases of reviews, it got me thinking about the best reviews to read. Personally, I usually trust the judgement of Gamespot. This doesn't mean I think they're unbiased: I think that would be impossible. But they do tend to put out good reviews. Detailed reviews with fair statements. I've tended to find that their views match up to those I find whilst playing through the game. For instance, their review of CoD 4 seemed fair and just. But, despite this, I often find myself disagreeing with reviews given on Gamespot: two examples that leap out include Halo 3 and Assassin's Creed.

So there, in one paragraph, I've listed one game I agree with Gamespot on, and two that I do not. So why, you may ask, do I keep going back to gamespot?

Laziness for one. I just simply cannot be fucked to go and find a place that reviews as well as gamespot does, and also feels the way I do about games. The liklihood is (with free will and all that crap) that I'd actually have to hunt for a review for each individual game in order to find a review that I agreed with. There is one pretty fundamental flaw in this plan: you read reviews to decide on whether you should buy a game; and you can only pass judgement on a game you've bought, so you can't disagree or agree with a review unless you've actually bought it... in which case the review is of little use anyway.

So we must, it makes sense, have a place to go and read reviews that is a good faithful area to return to. As I've already mentioned, Gamespot has detailed reviews which, in many cases (but not all Assassin's Creed) do not overemphasise the good, or gloss over the bad. Or, of course, vice versa.

And yet, even with this, we have a problem, because 'good' and 'bad' are things determined by me. Well... for you, it's determined by you, but you get my point. The only thing that I can see for sure in Gamespot is that it is detailed, because what is 'good' and what is 'bad' may be different for me than it is for them. In a game, I think there should be a solid storyline, while the reviewer may put more of an emphasis on multiplayer. Neither of us are wrong, but neither of us will agree. So in which case, how can I read the thoughts of another person and say 'This is a game I will enjoy'.

This comes back to the question 'how do I choose what sites to read reviews from?' And the key word here is 'sites'. The best way to decide what games to buy is to read reviews from many different sites so you can, essentially, get the 'whole picture' as it were, and decide whether this game is worth buying. One site will write with one bias, and another with a different bias. Read altogether, hopefully I can see through these biases and see the game for what it really is. Then, I can apply my own biases, and decide whether this a game I will enjoy.

But don't forget, there are certain reviews you can skip over. A review should be detailed and at least attempting to be neutral. And remember, if you ever want perfectly unbiased, factual, and completely correct and never wrong material, come back to DWs!

Game Info

2008-06-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

Due to my fellow contributors being otherwise occupied, I’ve taken time out from MGS4 to give a little news on a few games coming out in the near (and far) future.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
A couple of months back DW posted a few trailers on this game, and since then a little more info has come out on it. Apart from Batman (in the trailer) and Superman there haven’t been any other confirmed DC characters, but the co-creator of Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon, has said that if you think about the top five from the DC universe, you’d probably be right that they would appear in the game, as well as supervillains being included too. This is getting me thoroughly excited as well now, and I'm also gunna be keeping a close eye on this game too, as the idea of (possibly) playing as The Joker is a very intriguing one. The Mortal Kombat characters will be the most iconic stars, so this includes Scorpion as well as Sub Zero. The game is due out some time in autumn, so we’ve got a while to wait yet.

GT5
As far as im aware there hasn’t been any coverage on this game on the blog, so this is a first! After GT5 Prologue’s just above average scores since its release, it has been confirmed that there is a new GT5 Prologue being released at the end of the year with more content on it, such as Damage being added, allowing you to smash your car to shit, and the online content getting more variety, as well as more cars and tracks. Unfortunately for people looking forward to the finished version, that isn’t planned to come out until towards the end of next year! So unlucky there really. But there is going to be a massive range of cars and a whole new range of tracks to choose from in the finished game, and as I've mentioned a second Prologue is coming out, so hang in there GT fans!

Prince of Persia
Now the new POP game looks very interesting. Graphics are cel-shaded, to give it a more comic feel, and lighten the tone from previous dark POP instalments (I’m looking at you Warrior Within), and there have been hints to a new combat system in this game, as well as massive increase in speed thanks to the Prince’s mysterious metal gauntlet. Also this isn’t the same Prince from previous games, but a different guy, although there is a good chance this is just another version of the Prince we know. The game also uses an updated version of Assassin’s Creed’s engine, so the areas you traverse are going to be MUCH bigger. Having played the first two games of the series and enjoying them a lot, this new one is looking rather swish, so expect some more news on this one at a later date.

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
For me it’s a shame that this game is coming out when it is (June 20th, so 3 days people!) because im obviously not going to spare it any attention for a while thanks to MGS4, but I really like the FF series, and FF7, so I felt it was worth a mention here. Also there is a lack of PSP related info on the blog too, but I'm not really that surprised.

Anyway this game is receiving generally positive reviews and looks pretty good, even on the small screen. The game is huge (main story plus over 100 side missions) and plays very much like FF12, with the combat being almost real time. Materia is also back again (yay!) but you can’t make changes during battles (boo!), and there is a new combat feature involved called the Digital Mind Wave, a fruit machine-like system that gives you special magic attacks or special moves etc as the reels spin. One thing I'm looking forward to is seeing old characters like Cloud, Zack, Sephiroth, Aerith (or Aeris) and the Turks coming back, as well as getting to know more about that red-haired git Genesis (those who played Dirge of Cerberus will know what I mean). I’ll be getting this later in the year for sure.

And a quick note for all you Brawl fans, in case you've somehow forgotten or been asleep for the past year, the game comes out on the 27th, so not long to wait now!

Endwar Beta: NDA Dodging, Day 1.

2008-06-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

The endwar beta started today.

so far, I'm not breaking the NDA, because i was unable to download the beta, because half of the codes given out were erroneous.

In a word: Clusterfuck.

Gonna try again with my key peroidically, hoping to play soon.

Edit: 3 hours later, same code worked. 9% complete. 2.63 gig download.

Metal Gear Solid 4: First Impressions

2008-06-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

In a word: awesome. That’s how I can only describe the behemoth that is Metal Gear Solid 4. The game that myself and so many fans included have been waiting for since the teary eyed salute at the end of MGS3 is here. And it was definitely worth the wait!

Of course my wait was a little more pro-longed, by a whole day, thanks to the postal service and my lovely job (in turn making this post a little later then planned) but that just increased my excitement for when it was finally in my hands.

Placing the game in the machine, I was treated to 8 minutes of update time while I watched Snake chain smoke in the background (looking as cool as ever I might add) with the game itself telling me about how to look after the disc and about health risks when playing the game and such. And then once Snake said the words, “Kept you waiting huh?” the game really began. Needless to say I was close to wetting myself, dignified of course.

Going on to the start menu, I decided to try out the virtual training before stepping into the game, and testing out how Snake handled. And he handles very well, with nothing really changing in controls except for using the R1 button to kill. I tried out the CQC techniques, aiming the guns, throwing the grenades and generally tearing the shit out of the non-responsive blank orange humans (cannon fodder) dotting the area.

Then I decided it was time to start the game in earnest. Selecting the Solid Normal mode I started a new game and it began in the Middle East, with Old Snake riding in a truck looking very Assassin’s Creed with a load of militia ‘buddies’. I won’t reveal anything about the story for those who don’t want spoilers, so don’t worry guys!

Then hell breaks loose, and the Praying Mantic PMC pops up and starts shooting at the militia, and I found myself in the middle of a fire-fight with only my knife handy, wondering what I should do. Few kick-ass cut scenes and some running and sneaking about later, things really hotted up when I heard distant mooing in the background, and anyone who’s watched the MGS4 trailers will know that that signals the coming of the Gecko’s.

After half an hour I was breathless with excitement at all the new innovations and techniques put in, for instance I was doing the worm past Praying Mantis bad boys, and also how much more aggressive the AI is when they actually find you. And of course there was the Octocamo, which is ingenious I might add! The threat ring implemented in place of rumble also works extremely well and is very handy. And what about how the game looks you might ask? It’s a complete visual treat and the best looking game out at the moment.

Hell I’d even say it’s the best game out at the moment, but I have to complete the game before making that assessment. So now I’m going to stop typing this and pick up my controller again, and next time you hear from me it will be on this game’s review written by a very satisfied gamer, because I believe this game is going to satisfy me immensely. And that’s not a word I use lightly either.

It's Battlefront, but not as we know it..

2008-06-13T14:38:00.000-07:00

Being a big fan of the Star Wars: Battlefront titles, [but who wasnt?] I was really excited when I found out they were making a new project, but nothing could of prepared me for this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you:

Yes, that's right. According to Pandemic Studios

"For fans, Lord of the Rings: Conquest gives you the most action packed experience set in the [LOTR] universe. You have a fully realised fantasy battlefront with the ability to engage in melee combat, ranged combat, ride creatures, control siege equipment, play as giants and make your own choices on the battlefield."

Looking at the hallmark of the battlefront games, it's hard not to get excited at the prospect of running around a battlefield cutting people to shreds. To add to the package, it's been announced you can control all the races. I figured, yadda yadda, elves, dwarfs, orcs. What I didnt expect, was Hobbits, and what I REALLY didn't expect, was a balrog. Yep, balrogs are playable.

Conquest is due to feature two campaigns, one good, one evil, and will feature 4 player co-op both on and offline, and a nice 16 player online mode.

I have a few reservations about how well melee combat will work online but eh, it's got a fucking balrog in it. Who cares?

More Xbox originals!

2008-06-12T13:29:00.000-07:00

Two new Xbox originals have been announced: Guilty Gear XX #Reload and The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning.

These games will be available on June the 16th for 1200 MS points on the Xbox 360 marketplace.

Guilty Gear XX #Reload is the refined version of Guilty Gear XX. Think of it in a similar vein to Ninja Gaiden Black's revision of Ninja Gaiden. It revises many moves, and is considered the defining version. Having not played it, I'm in no position to judge, but as 2d fighters go, it's suitably well respected.

As for Spyro? well. It's the less then critically acclaimed reboot for Spyro, taking the emphasis away from the platforming I personally loved in the original Spyro the Dragon. Regardless of this, it received a fair few awards back in 2004, although it was heavily criticised for being too linear.

And that's it. If any of those are your bag. June 16th.

Console Modding

2008-06-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Today, in gaming news, it was ruled that the owner of site MrModChips, should not be incarcerated for the selling of those technological marvels they call 'chips'. The site also sells pre-modded consoles. Basically, for those of you that don't know, 'modding' a console involves installing a small chip into your console in order to circumvent security measures, in order to perform certain activies (which are perfectly legal) such as to create back ups, or play imported games. However, the issue of modding comes from the fact that a modded console can be used to play games that are purchased, for instance, downloaded and burned onto a dvd. Of course, it's just a few bad eggs that do this. A couple of years ago in Australia, a similar case occured, and the defendant was found not guilty because the chips could quite easily be used for legal activties, and not copyright infringement.

But this raises an interesting point--and one that can be seen further in Peer2Peer downloading. The action itself is not illegal, but can lead to illegal actions, most notably copyright infringement. Because of this, it's incredibly difficult to enforce copyright laws where the actual means of infringing them is legal. People who mod consoles in order to play illegally copied games cannot be, because of the nature of the chip, and the way it works, easily differentiated from those who use the chip for backups. So how can copyright infringement be avoided? The big companies certainly want it to be.

One way, it strikes me, would be to get rid of the need for backups and imported games (or at least region coded games). If this happened, then mod chips could be completely illegalised, as the only activity they could be used in would be illegal activity. There are a couple of difficulties with this though. Of course, the removal of a distinction between PAL, NTSC and NTSC-J is one solution to the imports idea. They're not needed in today's world, but, of course, this would cost money, and if there's one thing that big companies hate more than losing money, is actually having to use it. However, discs will always be fragile, until they're redesigned, and so backups will be made. Of course, a more robust solution might be possible, but guess what that needs? Any ideas? It needs R&D. R&D requires researchers. And they require... yup, you guessed it: money. Again, big companies would much rather just convict everyone that moves, instead of spend money on the problem.

Now, there are those of you out there who are saying that 'copyright laws are just another impeachment on our freedom', and that we should just be able to copy games and play them as we please (and that's why we have Linux). But I'm very much a capitalist, I think that if you justify not paying for something because copyright laws are against your religion or whatever the hell you're saying, then you should listen to that four letter word of what is coming out of your mouth. Copyright is necessary to protect the profit motive of modern society, people put hours into designing top notch games because they get paid for it. If you don't pay for your games then those designers don't get paid, and then you extend it, to a point where no one gets paid. Sure, some of it goes to big fat cats, but essentially, no matter how much money the company makes, they're still going to take the same cut, so essentially, it's just the little guy that's losing out. I'm not having a go, I'm just saying, if you're going to do it, don't try and justify it to yourself, just accept what you're doing is wrong, and then, if you still must, get on with it.

Anyyyyway, for the moment, we have to accept that console modding is a good thing essentially, and that it can be used for very useful purposes. Like P2P, which can be used to share files that one person has created, with other people, modding is not a morally wrong activity, but it can lead to illegal actions. I may be a capitalist, but I'm also a moralist, I think that we have a choice to choose our own decisions, so whilst copyright infringement is wrong, I don't think that people can be discriminated against if they use something which leads to copyright infringement in some cases. That is why today's ruling for MrModChips was a good day for gaming, and a good day for civil liberty.

Ninja Gaiden 2 review

2008-06-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

This review was a long time coming, and I'm breaking one of my own rules by reviewing the game before I've completed it.

Either way, here we go.

Ninja gaiden is from the lovely fellas at Tecmo who produced the Dead or Alive series, you know, the one with the boobs bouncing everywhere. The first Ninja Gaiden was the hardest game on the Xbox, and also regarded as the best action game on the platform. So obviously, when it came to the sequel, there was quite a bit to live up to.

The game is heavily styled: think a blood soaked Ninja edition of Devil may cry 4, and you're halfway there, limbs fly off in all directions and walls get sprayed with arterial blood as you hack your way through the levels, and its all alot of fun. You feel really cool bouncing off walls, and cutting off arms and legs.

There's a wide selection of weapons for the job, and I am really enjoying the game, despite wanting to chuck my TV out of the window because of some of the bosses [YES I'M LOOKING AT YOU ELECTRO FISH], but by and large its a nice challenge, without being too frustrating. The characters looks very Japanese, with a CIA agent wearing barely anything but a smile and a pair of over sized handguns, and the level design is a little.. confusing. A few times I had to stop and retrace my steps because I'd gone the wrong way, but as Darkshadowfang tells me, "I have no sense of orientation". This is true.

Interestingly enough, this game practically vomits Gamerscore all over you if you play it, little 5g chunks for mastering the "Reverse wind" or "Swallow". Not a big deal for me, but still a nice incentive to keep playing, if one were needed.

Mainly, I was attracted to this game for the difficulty. The first one remains the only xbox game I couldnt beat [I really tried], and I fondly remembered the first level being ridiculously fun, before the first boss being ridiculously, insanely difficult. And of course, Ninjas. The second game lived up to this well. The game engine was fluid, and it is alot of fun. The difficulty seems to have been dialed back for the sequel - which I could argue was a good thing as I never surpassed the second level of the first gaiden.

All in all, I really enjoyed the game. My main complaint, was that the difficulty curve as you fought the bosses was abit much. Well, when I say abit much, it was like having a lovely stroll in the park, followed by you single handedly trying to climb out of the inside of a volcano while doused in petrol. Aside from this its proving to be a rather enjoyable venture, and although I doubt what future it has on the gameshelf after i've finished it the once, it's proven a blast so far.

8/10

Activision Blizzard

2008-06-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

You may have heard about the merging of the two big super-developers, Activision and Vivendi Games (Parent company of Blizzard). Today, it was announced that the two would hold a shareholders vote on July 8th to decide on whether the merger should go ahead. The outcome looks likely to be a 'yes'. So what will this mean for 'great' games like WoW (Blizzard) and Guitar Hero (Activision)?

Not a lot really. The venture of Activision Blizzard will have the company valued at $18.9 billion (that's a lot of dollar kids). The controlling interest will be that of Vivendi SA, but, supposedly in the ideas of fairness, the CEO will be Activison's current CEO, Bobby Kotick. However, the running of the two companies will be virtually the same as it remains now, simply with bigger political and financial power.

Activision is the company responsible for bringing you games like guitar hero and CoD, whilst Vivendi is a French owned company that is the parent of Sierra games and Blizzard and brought WoW into the world, along with Starcraft.

Anyway, that was some business news for you, and here's something I found very entertaining. Read on WoW lovers.

Tom Clancy's Endwar Beta

2008-06-10T03:34:00.000-07:00

well, i applied for the beta maybe a week ago, i figured it was a long shot that i'd get in.

Hello, Jake Tucker

We're pleased to inform you that you have been selected to participate in the Tom Clancy's EndWar Private Beta.
You now have access to the full EndWar Beta website at www.endwarbeta.com and can begin posting on the forums.

Unfortunatly, i just had to agree to a lengthy NDA before it would let me on the site, so all i'll be able to tell you is if its any good or not.

WOW Vid

2008-06-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

This made me laugh:

Maybe its a niche thing for WoW gamers, but I enjoyed it. Expect a real blog alittle later.

Army of Two DLC, For Realz! and Battlefield:Bad Company demo

2008-06-08T02:26:00.000-07:00

The Ao2 free content I talked about here is now available for free on the European marketplace. Still doesnt ring true for EA. I'm considering borrowing a copy of army of two so I can play the new end mission.

The Battlefield: Bad Company demo came out while I was away playing Ninja Gaiden 2, and so iImissed it. From what I'm reading its got major connection issues.

I managed to get into the original Beta well back in april, and I enjoyed it. Although, there was the occasional lagspike. I hope this gets ironed out before its release, Because if it launches with lag all over the place, it'll put alot of people off [me included.] otherwise, I'm still pretty eager to pick it up, I like class based FPS, what can I say.

Rambling..

2008-06-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

Firstly, it's my birthday today. I am now 19. Yay.

Point the second? I just wrote a big long blog on ET: Quake Wars and the computer erased it. So I'll have another crack tomorrow.

No real point to this post, just wanted to apologise for a total lack of posts today.

But, while I'm here:

This game looks absolutely amazing, the combat is really clever, and the system theoretically allows unlimited combinations.

My only hope is that it doesn't pull a Condemned "EVERYTHING IS USABLE" and then it turns out you can use the same bit of 2x4, just stapled to different walls. Also, the enemy look genuinely quite scary in this tech demo, and I'm eagerly awaiting a play of this game on June 20th. It'll have to be special to warrant purchase though, this is a summer of brilliant games after all.

Review: Dragonball Z Burst Limit

2008-06-06T06:26:00.001-07:00

Well I am quite into Dragonball Z Seeing DWs first look at the game and his ignorance of the DBZ universe made me want to kill him, but since then he has had the courtesy to watch the series so i don't want to kill him and is now currently most of the way through the Saiyan saga, anyway enough of me ranting at DWs lack of expertise in the DBZ universe (for want of a better phrase), on to the game.

Now I have played Budokai 2 and Tenkaich 2 and 3, so i do have a lot of Dragonball Z gaming experience, though I am now so used to flailing around like a retarded Seal with the Wii remote, now I'm going to have to concentrate for this review as DW is currently sitting next to me getting ever more irritated with a giant silver electrified ninja snake with cannons attached to its head on Ninja Gaiden 2.

When i first started playing burst limit i must say that i was and still am very happy with the way it keeps to the storyline, the problem with this though is though they do very very well on keeping to the storyline they miss out huge chunks of the story line, maybe because they don't have the 160 characters that Tenkaichi 3 had, this does work as a blessing and a curse, you don't have to do all the mindless filler episodes where they are "waiting for the saiyans," which would probably have made me fire it out of a cannon into mount doom because i would have died from boredom. But this does have it's down side, i mean i personally wanted to exterminate every member of the Ginyu force myself, but the only ones that are in the bloody game are the Captain and pants on head retarded Racoome, evidently this would not be the case.

The in game Cut scenes are really very very good, they look good, they also view almost exactly the same as original episodes, some of the voice actors appear to have been changed, but that's no biggy i don't really care as long as the dam thing looks good.

Dw and i both also have a criticism, we both loved the combat, well as much as you can love mindless button bashing combat, which aside from the tutorials is 90% of what I'm doing with the occasional thing I meant to do making me very happy, because sending Nappa flying across the map with a kamehameha wave you meant to do is very satisfying, but once again i have digressed the thing DW and i hated about the combat is that they have added these things called "drama pieces," now the tutorial said you choose them before the beginning of the fight, in single player you are given no such option, making me pull a very angry face. Then i became even more enraged, as did DW when we saw how badly they break the flow of combat, your happy helping yourself to a Freiza sandwich and then suddenly out of nowhere the game will go into cut scene mode, he will deflect one of your attacks or send you flying, at this point i thought to myself "how the hell did you do that when i just sent you flying across the whole bloody map."

The other thing i will say about it, is it has a difficulty curve so steep i had to get Spiderman wall crawling abilities to overcome it, especially when the CPU blocks every bloody move you do and you can't get a word in edge ways.

Overall though i am pleased with the game and after this am going to go and play it some more, but here is my advice, if you loved Budokai, buy this game you will really enjoy it, but if you preferred Tenkaichi you will probably still enjoy it if you are a DBZ fan as it adheres to the storyline so very closely, but it will never compare trust me.

Video Games: Hobby, Addiction or Cult?

2008-06-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

The experience of video games varies from individual to individual. Some gamers play a couple of hours a week, and others play a couple of hours every couple of hours. But I'm sure you already know that (unless you're the latter, then you might be unaware that the former even exist). So how can we possibly put any definition on a group of people ('gamers') that vary in their habit so much that they can't be put in the same time bracket, let alone under the same banner. Look at the example of nations: a person from a country will be a member of that country for their entire life, so we can, with reasonable accuracy, call them 'Swedish' or 'Mongolian' or 'Martian'. However, in these groups there are exceptions, and these exceptions have names of their own 'ex-patriates' etc.

This leads me to believe that there must be other categories next to 'gamer' that can be used. Xbox Live attempted to class this as 'Recreation', 'Underground', 'Family' and 'Professional'. But this did not work. And it didn't work because the majority put themselves as 'Recreational'. And yet, this number of 'Recreational' members varied so much in how often they were gamers at all. I classed myself as recreational, and I play for a couple of hours a day. My friend is also recreational, and plays a couple of hours a week. So Xbox Live missed the mark here.

You can't, as Microsoft attempted to do, define a group by the way they believe they play. A far better system would be to put a timer on the account and then you take an average of time spent on the account per week--this is then attached to the account so other people can see just what 'kind' of gamer this gamer really is (and mock/admire them suitably). GTA had the right idea. In the stats, its possible to view your 'Addiction Level'. Something which is, apparently, 'Spiralling Downward' for me. Naturally, this doesn't define my gamer characteristics, in the way 'addict', or 'healthy habit' would, but it gives the same idea.

It seems to me that all gamers come under three categories (categories they can't possibly put themselves in... because they'd lie): hobbyist, (the kind of hobby that stamp collecting would be considered) addiction (the people that say 'I can quit sure', but never could) and cult (they're aware they have a serious problem [more so than the addicts], but if you try and tell them they should do something about it, their eyes glow red and they pull out a level 43 scythe). People might be able to give up for a couple of months in the addiction stage, but they'll always return.

I'm not saying to be in the last two categories is a bad thing. It's not like heroine which actually has a truly detrimental effect, but I think everyone needs to understand (those outside the gaming circle more than any) that there's not just 'gamers'. A disgusting stereotype ranging from people with glasses and long greasy hair to people who own a mobile phone with Snake II on it.

Crash Time: First Impressions

2008-06-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

The opening screen to this demo is awesome, with its wailing guitars and speeding cars. I felt more manly just for seeing the screen.

I hadnt heard anything about this game before I saw the demo, and when I got to the main menu I selected "Cases" and a normal difficulty setting. Not really so used to having Cases on a racing game.

See that trailer? ITS LYING. its nowhere near that exciting. Plus every now and then as your driving, you go into a cutscene of you smashing into a car and it setting on fire. YOUR SUPPOSED TO BE THE POLICE! where in the police driving handbook does it tell you to aim for innocent fatalities? Jeez. anyway.

The graphics were pretty bad, and the car handling felt way too off for me. I know I complained about it being too twitchy on GRID, and here was the opposite extreme. it felt way too "light", Despite all the issues, I played it for a few goes, and had a bit of fun with it, in spite myself.

The engine was pretty bad, and the cases reminded me of Felony 11-79 a game which was dated when it showed up on the PSone. It's nice to see something different to the norm tried. But it seems to have fallen flat in the execution. Not a hope in hell i'm buying this one at launch.

oh yeah, and I have played the ninja gaiden demo, and it is good. I'll be picking up the game tommorow.