The "Complete" List

John Woo presents Stranglehold

Portal

So 2008 get's off to a slow but steady start with two games completed. Firstly I should say I've been really slack with updating the blog. Mostly due to the lack of 'net at work but expect this to change soon. 

At the moment I've several games on the cusp of completion which I have to find time for in between my current addiction to Burnout Paradise (expect a CP update soon).

Suffice to say that Portal is the icing on the Orange Boxes cake of gaming goodness. It's like Ico in that it's more than a game. It's an experience that will live on in the mind long after the game has been sold on eBay.

Purchase Power

I'm having a post christmas eBay clearout and I currently have plenty of last years purchases awaiting eager new owners.

However having had a fairly dull January games wise I decided to make my first new purchase of the year today. Burnout Paradise was £39.99 on 360 and yet somehow £44.99 on PS3. This swung the decision in the 360s favour. I got £25 for Uncharted as a trade in and £5 off from my loyalty card. 

Currently Playing: The Club (demo)

Haven't checked on PSN in ages due to the lacklustre nature of the PAL store however this morning I downloaded the demo of The Club, developed by Bizzare Creations (More famous for the PGR series) and published by Sega, as it's had 'interesting' reviews rather than outright critical acclaim.

I can't see it being for me. It's a hardcore arcade shooter at heart which will rely on playing the same levels over and over again to learn the patterns and generate high scores. If that's your bag then there maybe plenty of fun in it for you. It certainly looks nice enough. If a little generic. But for me, these days, the joy of playing is in the adventure and the accomplishment. Not playing something over and over to practice. I just don't have the time.

Great Expectations

I'm a little off gaming at the moment. I haven't been able to post as much as I'd of liked recently as has already been mentioned but you haven't missed a lot of gaming action. I have a few titles on the go but I've not really made the time to play much.

First title of 2008 that looks promising for me is Burnout Paradise, I enjoyed the original game although it's core game mechanic of finely judging your way through traffic and the track could be hair threateningly tight at times. The second one was the perfect sequel expanding on everything that made the original good whilst being more fun and varied.

Didn't really enjoy Takedown (the third game and first under EA). The typical EA presentation grated and EA's instance on using their own servers for Live made online play frustrating. 

Downloaded the demo for Paradise on my 360 and I have to say I like the idea of combining the arcade thrills of Burnout with the online experience and open world of TD:U. 

It's got great reviews in EDGE and OPM but the main question for me is PS3 or 360. The PS3 version apparently has the better graphics but with the online element appealing to me it's probably the friends list on live and the achievement points that are going to swing it for me.

What's on the Box(set)?

I didn't bother posting my thoughts on season three of 24. Not because I didn't enjoy it as such but rather that it a touch average. Obviously still better than Spooks but it felt a little stretched and once again a lot of previous characters where shoe horned in.

However season four starts faster than Lewis Hamilton driving through france and the pace barely let's up. Within the first hour Jack has already shot a suspected terrorist in the leg to get a confession. The action doesn't let up and whilst the uber terrorist slips the net perhaps one to many times it's a cracking adventure. Far and away the best season yet.

Purchase Power

I can only apologize for the lack of posting on my Big Blog. Sadly the internet connection at work went down and my Boss is too tight to pay for specialist IT support and so we've been waiting for one of his "mates" to come in and have a look at it. This combined with my lack of internet access at home since the VAIO went TU has meant a lack of posting. 

However with yesterdays purchase of a spanking new black Macbook this situation has been remedied in some style. I'm now entering the wonderful world of all things Mac. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Currently Playing: Super Mario Galaxy

Just a quick update on my progress...

Whoever invented Spring Mario (the bouncy one) needs their head crushing in a vice until their brains come out of their ears to prevent them every having an idea about game design again.

In a game that's been such a joy to play and with EDGE constantly bleating about what a joy Mario is to control this travesty of a, I hesitate to use the word, power up is almost a game breaker. Combined with some terrible checkpoints I nearly had to give up with the Toy themed level for it's sheer frustration factor for fear of breaking my Wii-mote.

Currently Playing: Sega Rally

Another game where I enjoyed the demo but not enough to warrant an immedeate full price purchase. Another new year bargain.

In most driving/racing games the cars are very much the stars. In Sega Rally it's very much the tracks that are the stars. There's a reasonable selection of Rally cars to choose from based in 3 catergories from current rally cars to the outlawed rally beasts of the early 80s (also includes the Celica and Intergrale from the original Arcade Classic) and though there's no damage they do get nice and dirty as a race progresses.

But it's the tracks that really shine. Groups of three tracks are themed in certain areas such as tropical, arctic and desert and each looks very distinctive as well as being very Sega. Not only have the tracks been designed to be deceptively simple there's a lot of depth when you've learnt them. More importantly there's a great track deformation system. Each vehicles tyres cut grooves into the snow and mud and this causes the track to deform as they react together and make each lap a slightly different experience. It looks much better than a similar system in Motorstorm and actually seems to effect the racing more too.

It is quite an arcadey experience. Theres a career campaign where enought points must be won through racing to unlock more events, single races, time trials and multiplayer (both split screen and Live) and that's basically your lot.

At first it's frustrating as the competition starts tough and just gets tougher. However after a bit of practice you start to get in the grove. Basically trying to react to a corner as you approach it in the normal manner (brake, steer, accelerate) isn't going to work. You need to have the car positioned and drifting correctly before the bend. Importantly you have to link the bends together too so as you exit the first bend in the right place to take the next one. When it clicks it's a lot of fun. The game runs at a great speed and there's plenty going on with cars and mud/gravel or snow flying everywhere.

On the downsides the AI cars are perhaps a little aggressive. Also in the campaign mode there's no way of restarting a race without quitting out and attempting all three races again. As you need to win all three events to get maximum points this can be annoying.

It works well on Live too. I tried hosting and joining ranked games and found a reasonable selection of levels and experience on offer. From hardcore players to people like me who'd picked it up in the sales. I won 5 out of 10 races which I felt wasn't a bad ratio. Especially compared to say RR6 where all I got where cans of whupass.

The "Complete" list 2008

Stranglehold.

Or John Woo presents: Stranglehold to give it's full title. Having played the demo it seemed like one to wait for to pick up as a bargain. Spotted it in HMV for £20 so picked it up for some post Chrimbo shooting excitement. The game is fairly short with some levels playing out like the demo being fairly long levels and the last couple being dull "shooting hundreds of identical looking bad guys in a room" levels. Sadly for me the game didn't really work. The bullet time aspects are similar to Max Payne 2 and although Stranglehold has much prettier graphics and destructable scenery the shooting isn't as much fun. The controls aren't great and really it needs replaying several times to get the best out of each level. Not my idea of fun. Later a sort of cover system is employed but it isn't flexible enough to be as good as it should be. Overall dissappointing.

360 Health Watch

Hopefully this wont be a regular feature of my blog but I shall be posting updates as when they occur. For those who don't know I recently bought my third 360. (The first one got the ring of death and was replaced under warranty. The replacement one lasted less time than the first one and I couldn't be bothered to send it back)

The first symptom I've experienced with the new one was when switching to the 'Dashboard' when playing Assassin's Creed. As the disc stopped spinning it came to a halt with a sharp grinding noise. It's only this one game. However I have experienced a slight increase in noise with other games when the disc starts or stops spinning.

Last night when I tried to play Sega Rally I got the amusing "To play this 360 game it must be placed in a 360 video games console". Presumably this message is meant to activate when a 360 disc is played in a DVD player but how a 360 can forget what it is is beyond me.. With the first machine it was the precusor to more trouble .