Unfinished / Sympathy?

Inspired by Nish and his interesting and entertaining lists of games he's finished each year regular readers will know that I've become somewhat obsessed with a tally of my own yearly finishings.. Last year was somewhat inspired with a lot of games finished and a lot of old games dragged off the shelf and polished off to add to the tally... However recently I feel my enthusiasm for finishing games may have began to wane again...

Let me explain. I've been a game for over 25 years ago since interactive experience required me to press the space key on my ZX81 to drop a single 'Bomb' per pass of the screen on a 'Building' in the hope that you'd flatten all the buildings before you crashed into one in a kind of.. taliban simulator. In all those years I've mainly played until I was bored or frustrated and then moved on. Of course that has meant some games (Hello F1 2000 and Gran Turismo 2) that I've spend countless hours on without fear of 'achievements' or 'completion' just for the fun of playing.

At the moment I'm very close to finishing Darksiders which has already over stayed it's welcome. I'm about 3/4 of the way through Dragons Quest V on my DS. I'm two missions from the end of inFamous
. I'm on the last mission of Just Cause and the last boss battle of Ninja Blade. I've made a good deal of progress on Bayonetta and if we include downloadable games I'm very near the end of CoD: Classic and I need to collect a few more jewels to unlock the last boss battle on Pixel Junk: Shooter.

So should I crack on and try and finish these games up? Or should I admit that there's not enough time in the day and there's other games to play? Is the list that important? You decide.

The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode

I really enjoyed this. You'd think the Lego franchise wouldn't really mesh with the Rock Band and all you'd be left with is the bitter after taste of a cheap cash in. True there's no online multiplayer.. But that did mean I completed the whole thing on my own.. All at Medium difficulty too. (I think I might plateau here .. the orange note is pretty tough for my ham fists.)

The first great thing about is the set list. Apart from one duff Blink 182 song (are there any other kind?) every track is either good, really good or an FM classic that you'd know but probably couldn't name the artist. Either way they're fun to play. The Lego idea works well to. You're custom band is able to customise they're crib with unlockable Lego items and music equipment, There's Lego vehicles and cool Rock Challenges (What's not to love about playing Ray Parker Jr's classic anthem to clear a haunted house of Ghosts?).

Purchase Power

My Sony headphones gave up the ghost on Friday. They're not that old but the iPod is in and out of my bag a lot and I wind them around the iPod to keep them neat. I was listening with one ear in when I changed to the other ear it had stopped working. Of course nothing these days is made to be fixed and I couldn't take the ear phone apart with out breaking it. One of the wires inside had dropped off the solder. Anyhow I decided to do a tiny bit of research on getting some decent replacement ones.

The What Hi-Fi website recommended Sennheiser CX 300 IIs as their 'budget buy'. Play.com listed them at £30 which, for in ear headphones, is pretty high end in my books! Still the post can take ages to get here so I decided to have a wander to HMV. There are many nice things about living on a small-ish island.. Retail choice isn't one of them. So imagine my surprise when HMV not only had them in a choice of colours (I got white cos it's kind of an "I've got an iPod" colour even though my iPod is a black and grey classic.) they also had £5 off matching Play.com's price. Sold!

I also wanted Hatful of Hollow by The Smiths having found out that a lot of the well known songs on there weren't the traditional single version but live BBC archive versions. They also had that! (Again a rarity in non-chart stuff) but it was in a 2 for £10 offer. Of course I would then be spending an extra £4 to save a £1 but I can rarely resist a 2 for £10 offer on CDs. Still, lunch time was nearly over.. I was in the S section and I spied a Steely Dan Best of Double CD which seemed like good value. The kind of thing that I probably wouldn't want to listen to in it's entirety but I hope will enrich my iPod shuffle experiences.

All in all one of my better local shopping experiences.

On the trail of the Origami Killer

It strikes me that David Cage's new game may be more at risk of plot spoilers and reveals than most video games... of course I guess we've all read the previews and hands on so far and thus are aware of the four main characters and the general style of gameplay.

I was about a page into the OPM review when, for the first time I can remember, I decided that I couldn't finish reading the five page, cover story, review of a must buy game. There where two reasons for this. Firstly I had the aforementioned feeling that anything I learnt about the plot or even the game mechanics (I wont pass on anything here but even thumbstick movements) could spoil things. Secondly I didn't like the almost Carry On way they where dealing with the sex scenes...

I'd decided an information black out was require until release. I don't need to read any other reviews since I've decided it's a launch purchase for me come what may. Having said that I couldn't help reading the EDGE preview (the fact that EDGE arrived with it's preview after OPM arrived with it's review you can read into what you want) because I knew they wouldn't let me down. They didn't.

I wonder why a game that features as much graphic, adult, content as GTA IV requires nipple tassles over the strippers breasts.. not that I want to see badly drawn 3D boobs (I've got access to the internet right?) but I wonder what message it sends out to our younger viewers that it's ok to go on rampages of violence and revenge, kill hookers and steal their cash but heaven forbid that one of them should get a naked boob out??

But is the industry and, let's face it, The Daily Mail ready for interactive sex and HD nudity? I'm really not sure. As a nearly 40 year old gamer that's been gaming since I was about 11 I feel I'm ready for whatever Cage has in store. I'm also willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until I get my hands on it (F'nar F'nar).. but I still have reservations.

Great Expectations - 2010 Special

Thanks to the Modern Warfare 2 effect the next few months are a 'bit packed' with big name titles so I thought I'd have a quick look ahead to what I'm excited about.

Mass Effect 2

A bit of unlikely first choice for me. Also the first game I've pre-ordered in absolutely ages. (Shopto.net by recorded delivery to work address). If, as they claim, they tightened up the shooting then more of the same in pretty much every other area will do me just fine. I'm excited at the prospect of being able to spend a lot more time in the universe this time.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Another game whose prequel I came to late in it's life and not expecting much from that I absolutely loved. I'm not sure what to make of the sequel dropping the open city. It wasn't great in the first game, being a bit quiet and dull, but I liked riding around on the massive bike. Having said that they seem to have turned up the bonkersness to 11 for the sequel and I'm looking forward to making Jeane lean almost as much as cutting a swathe through dozens of henchman with my beam katana on the way to another set of outstandingly crazy boss battles.

Heavy Rain

PS3 really does seem to have the strongest list of exclusives for the early part of the year. The game certainly looks amazing. I'm intrigued with David Cage's attempt to tell a weighty, emotional and mature story via the medium of video games. I've no idea how it'll actually play (Despite Cage's claims to the contrary the nay sayers claims of a Dragons Lair QTE fest do worry me) but I'll certainly throw my £40 at him in the name of innovation.

God of War 3

There's been a lot of plagarism and pretenders to Kratos's throne since he's been gone but I've every hope that this will raise the bar, on what's become it's own little genre, and show Dante's Inferno and the rest how it's really done.

Just Cause 2

The first game seemed to be begging for a sequel to realise it's full potential and everything I've read about this makes it sound like this is going to be an absolute riot to play.

Purchase Power

Wandering around town today I happened upon a small selection of discounted PS3 games in WHSmiths. Lego Batman caught my eye at £21.00 and marked as 'Half Marked Price' as did Street Fighter IV for the same princely sum. Not that I need any more games at the moment but at a tenner a pop you'd be silly to miss them. However just to check that that was indeed the correct price I started with Lego Batman which, to be fair, Is the one I'm more likely to play.

In a handy Lego themed update, and in an effort to get more use out of my Guitar Hero Axe I also purchased Lego Rock Band for £22.50 from Shopto.Net because of it's excellent track listing.

Currently Playing: Darksiders

Following some what in BAYONETTA's shadow we come to my second purchase of last friday. If you where asked to explain the difference between the two to a non-gamer you'd probably struggle. Both contain super natural main characters, both feature combo heavy combat against angels and demons (at least I think they're angels and demons in BAYONETTA)and both have shops for upgrades.

Dig deeper though and where BAYONETTA is like a fine souffle Darksiders is a bit more like a substantial gaming pie (if you'll excuse the laboured metaphor). Just as nice in it's own way but there's a lot more too it.

One of the fun things is spotting the homages (or down right stolen ideas) from other games. Obviously there's a huge dollop of God of War even down to breaking open chests that fill up you're health, magic and spending points. They've borrowed the dungeons from Zelda where huge levels full of puzzles and locked doors need to be completed with a new power/item before facing off against a boss and then unlocking new areas with said power/item. You even get an extra health bar.

Dig deeper and you've got the throwing star from darkSector, the claw glove for sliding down surfaces from the last Prince of Persia there's the opening section where you're fully powered before being stripped of everything that apes Castlevania and more besides..

However it pulls it altogther. The combat is meaty and fun. The exploration and level design keeps you wanting to see whats next and the dungeons are pitched (for me at least) just the right side of frustration where I keep getting genuine eureka moments when I finally work out the solution to a puzzle or how to take down a boss.

My only complaint is perhaps the UI is a little busy (the pause/stat screen has four seperate screens showing items and abilities and weapons) and the pad is crammed a little full. Every button apart from pushing down the left stick is used, and sometimes for multiple things. It regularly asks you to press up to three buttons and sticks at a time as well as swapping between multiple items of equipment.

Overall though it's a very good game.