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The "complete" list

John Woo Presents Stranglehold
Portal
Test Drive: Unlimited ( ALL Gold in the SP challenges.)
Loco Roco*
The Darkness (Easy)
Lost: Via Domus
LEGO Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures (Story Mode)
Battlefield: Bad Company (Easy) & (Normal)
Ratchet & Clank : Quest for Booty
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Tiger Woods 2009
Haze
Saints Row 2
Gears of War 2 - (Normal)
Call of Duty : World at War - (Normal)
Fallout 3

So apparently I was nearer the end of the story than I thought. Either due to my RPG inexperience or lack of exploring.. I started to get offered less and less side quests as the game went along so I basically ended up rattling through the main story fairly quickly once I got to grips with the game. Although I fear I have missed out on loads. So I intend to replay it over christmas with the stratergy guide and make sure I get everything out of it. Annoyingly once the main story finished the game ends and you can't explore the world picking up anything you've missed. Which is a shame. Overall though a brilliant game.

First Look: Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Well it sure does look lovely.. From Lara to the places she's exploring it all takes the breath away. Her movement and animation (is mostly) smooth and nice to look at too. The very first section is a bit strange cos it doesn't really break you in very gently. Fortunately the new sonar feature works well and I soon collected the two wheels I needed.

What I'd really like to do however is sit Crystal Dynamics down in front of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and show them how an action hero/heroine should really control.. They're almost there bit sadly it's still a bit clunky compared to the Prince.

The combat is a bit poor too. The old jump and shoot combo still works ok-ish but it's messy. Lara tends to get knocked down a lot more than I seem to remember. It's a pity there isn't a Uncharted style cover system to bring her bang up to date.

Currently Playing: Fallout 3

Such an epic game it deserves a follow up post (Prior to hopefully completing it). I didn't play Oblivion so I have no problem with it not having moved on much (A fault that seemed to be the only real thing that EDGE didn't like about it). Certainly I wouldn't want a bigger game world when it's this well realised and packed with interesting places and sights.

I'm levelling up quite nicely and whilst not going totally evil my karma seems to be on the bad side.. Of course this might have something to do with the rampage at Tenpenny Tower where I killed all the guards and the residents just for the hell of it.

It's very slow to get going but the pay off is that once it does it's really sucked you in. I spent about four hours on one quest last night. It really feels like your exploring another world and the compulsion to uncover every nook and find everything you can is very strong.

I'm also liking the perks. There's far more interesting ones than you could possibly choose on one play through but some of them are great.. For example the last one I picked was 'Mysterious Stranger' which promised some help during VATS battles. I'd almost forgotten about it when during a particulary tense battle the stranger showed up and finished them off for me.. Brilliant.

If it keeps the quality and pace up to the end it'll be a strong contender for GOTY.

Currently Listening: Chinese Democracy

The biggest shock, given the protracted recording time, is that it's not a self indulgent mess. It's also not as bad as some of the reviews are making out. It's obvious that it's not a master piece but it is a good record (especially if your a fan) and whilst you can't here a whole 15 years of work you can hear that it's been painstakingly put together and obsessed over.

Guns N' Roses main asset was always Axl's trademark voice and it remains in fine fettle on all the songs on this album. There's plenty of variety too. There's hints of Industrial, Nu Metal, Flamenco guitars and on at least one of the piano based songs hints of Meat Loaf too. But it's never less than exciting.

At 14 songs and 70 minutes it's probably a touch over long. The first six tracks are despatched and each one is good.. At this point your thinking the wait, while not perhaps worth it (Could any album be worth a 15 year wait? I think not), has certainly produced the goods.. A couple of songs in the middle drag but the run to the finish line produces some quite epic numbers.

The lyrics are probably the weakest part.. there's some great couplets and lines but Rose apparently still thinks everyones 'Outta to get me' just like they where during Appetite for Destruction. The rest seems to concern his epic heartbreak and he doesn't hold back.

To summarise it's a good if not great record thats better than it has a right to be really. Let's hope the next one doesn't take another fifteen years.

15 years in the making...

There's a huge weight of expectation in the Bob household about tomorrows release of the new Guns N' Roses album.. It's been a looooong wait since the simultaneous release of their last new material. The making of Chinese Democracy has been the stuff of rock myth, legend and rumour for so long that it hardly seems possible that I'll be able to buy it in my local record emporium tomorrow.

So will it be worth the wait? The general pre-release review consensus has it that no it couldn't possibly live up to 15 years expectation and the estimated £13 million pound it's cost to make. There's a hilarious review over at Guardian Unlimited if your interested.

Stay tuned, Same Bob time, Same Bob channel for my verdict

The "complete" List

John Woo Presents Stranglehold
Portal
Test Drive: Unlimited ( ALL Gold in the SP challenges.)
Loco Roco*
The Darkness (Easy)
Lost: Via Domus
LEGO Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures (Story Mode)
Battlefield: Bad Company (Easy) & (Normal)
Ratchet & Clank : Quest for Booty
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Tiger Woods 2009
Haze
Saints Row 2
Gears of War 2 - (Normal)
Call of Duty : World at War - (Normal)

Absolutely with out doubt the worst game I've played all year. Really an abomination of all that's wrong with this generation. Sure looks pretty but it's just as dumb as hell. Everything that EDGE says in it's review is true and yet there's worse. The checkpoint spacing can be terrible. One in particular forces you to walk down a passage.. LIsten to an unskippable speach and there's an invisible line that you can't cross until it's finished.. You then have to assault at least two of the four AA guns before you get another checkpoint.. Enemy grenades have a huge radius and often there's nowhere in the linear layout to actually go to avoid it. Soldiers will stand off against each other with there rifles inches from each other.. Near the end tides of enemies have to be defeated before you can progress.. but this isn't made clear. Instead it tells you to enter the building. Of course you can't. Doors can't be opened until one of your AI team mates comes and does it for you.. It hardly has a saving grace.. Well apart from that I can trade it in for Tomb Raider tomorrow.

Currently Playing: Motorstorm 2: Pacific Rift demo

Well on the plus side the vastly long load times seem to have been reduced (difficult to tell exaclty how much shorter they'll be on disc though) which is good.

The rest of the demo isn't so great. It looks better than the already good looking original as you'd expect although on the demo track there's no sign of the track deformation at all. Sadly, for me, the rest is all negative. Granted on a two lap demo of one track it's difficult to asses the whole game but from this taster nothing has been fixed... It's still punishingly unfair (despite multiple restarts I was unable to complete the two laps without incident so maybe I'm just rubbish). It's still possible go to from a high position to last in the blink of an eye. It's still possible to hit a ramp you've travelled over several times before only to explode for some reason. This course seemed to require even more memorising than the last one (At least two of the jumps leave you shooting off the circuit into thin air and a costly restart unless your lined up exactly).

Of the three vehicles offered the racing truck has a turning circle of an ocean liner, the motorbike is too vunerable to attack leaving you eating dirt all the time and I didn't even bother trying the monster truck.

It really feels like a missed opportunity. You could forgive a certain amount of the rough edges with a launch title but they really should of tightened up the balance and the fairness of the racing. I did have a lot of fun with the original despite the teeth grindingly punishing later levels so I'll probably still pick this up but I feel it's going to be one of the titles thats heavily discounted after chrimbo so I'll leave it until then.

Hell in a Handcart

I'm currently reading A Snow Ball in Hell by Christopher Brookmyre. Possibly the finest satirist writing novels today. There's a section in the novel that riffs on Simon Cowell and his X Factor culture. Now don't get me wrong. I love Simon Cowell for himself. But I wouldn't buy one of his artists records. Brookmyre hits that target with a bullseye.

I'm watching 2006s X Factor winner Leona Lewis sing Snow Patrols (a band themselves that seem content to revisit former glories in the hope of commercial success) Run. While there's no taking away from her vocal talent you have to wonder what's going on when every ounce of personality has been sucked out of her look and at the same time her army of stylists make her wear a dress that makes her legs look like Colonel Sanders should have applied his secret recipe to them.

I despair for popular culture.

The "Complete" List

John Woo Presents Stranglehold
Portal
Test Drive: Unlimited ( ALL Gold in the SP challenges.)
Loco Roco*
The Darkness (Easy)
Lost: Via Domus
LEGO Indiana Jones - The Original Adventures (Story Mode)
Battlefield: Bad Company (Easy) & (Normal)
Ratchet & Clank : Quest for Booty
God of War: Chains of Olympus
Tiger Woods 2009
Haze
Saints Row 2
Gears of War 2 - (Normal)

I switched my 360 on last night at just gone 6.30pm. Geoff invited me to play some co-op. We Started at the beginning. As 11.30pm rolled around callinga it a night was mooted but the brave decision to push on to the end was made. We finally saw the credits roll at just after 2.30pm. 8 hours, 1 session, 5 acts, 3 Cans of Coke and almost 20 Marlboro Lights. Co-op Locust shooting fun. Priceless. It just is so much more enjoyable with some one else playing along with you.

I don't want to give anything away for those who haven't played yet but it's a solid sequel if perhaps playing a litle safe.

First Look: Gears of War 2

I'll start this post with the summary. The more the merrier.

To be fair I can't really take the generic space marines and their generic tale of aliens wiping out the free world terribly seriously. Despite the high production values I've had to skip the gung ho cut scenes and where possible the radio chatter to.. to which Marcus often grunts "enough chatter" to which I say amen.

Apparently the single player campaign gets better and better as it goes along but from playing through roughly half of it I'd have to say it's more of the same. Fortunely it's action sequences are still rock solid and this time your AI buddies can recover you if there about and you can even crawl towards them to give them a helping hand. Add another player though and it's a whole lot more fun.

The actual multi player components themselves are also solid. The competitive stuff is still as hardcore as ever. I played with four of my fellow forumites (all of whom are solid gamers, I was by far the weakest link) and we lost five out of five. The best new addition is the Horde mode where me and my team (Or Team Bob if you will) take on wave after wave of Locust. This proves to be a very entertaining and action packed mode and by far the most fun.

If you where expecting reinvention of the gaming wheel look elsewhere. If you're looking for a solid update of the franchise and can look past the macho bullshit it's very entertaining.

A look ahead to Quarter 4 - Part 4

So having broken down the purchase choices into three well thought out list it's not actually working out to plan.

We started off so well.. Bought Saints Row 2 as advertised and completed it the same week (give or take a day). But that's when things started to fall apart. Little Big Planet was delayed... and while it's still on my list it's now moved down to the second, cheap in the new year list, because I'm just not going to have the time to dedicate it too at the moment. Then I got all excited about Fallout 3 and bought it despite it being on list two..

Now I've cancelled my pre-order for Banjo & Kazooie because Eurogamer only gave it 7 and so now I'll have to see what EDGE give it. As I said I'm not a rabid Rare fan and was only excited about it cos it seemed like it was going to be brilliant and it seems it just isn't. So I've rushed out today and bought Gears of War 2. Cos.. well everyones playing it and I don't want to miss out on all the possible multi-player, co-op fun. I know.. Very shallow.

So what have we learnt? Lists are for geeks..

Dara O'Briain - Villa Marina

Fans of Mock the Week will be familiar with Dara O'Brien who hosts the show. Last night was the 100th night on his current tour. Dara revealed fairly early on that he almost called the tour the "You Had to be There Tour" explaining that when an anecdote went down less well than expected (as often happens when trying to explain to friends and colleauges what was so funny about the show you saw last night) people mostly ended saying "You had to be there".

So I wont try and explain why he was so funny I'll just say that he was. The show was all new material (well apart the the athiest / still a catholic joke) from his previous Live DVD and was a similar mix of stories, jokes and audience participation in his quick witted style. The show was excellent. He talks pretty fast and packed loads into the two hours he was on stage. Loved it.

First Look: Fallout 3

So I know I was supposed to be waiting for this but Little Big Planet was delayed and it got really good reviews and I picked it up fairly cheap (£34 in Zavvi, although annoyingly if I'd waited until I got to Sainsburys I could of got it for £29 but I'd been to every shop in Manchester and hadn't found it cheaper than £38 before).

I've never played a Fallout game before and I haven't played Oblivion either so I wasn't sure what to expect. The game breaks you in gently as your born and experince your first 16 or so years in Vault 101 in a series of Flash Forwards and does a reasonable job of fitting the choices you make into your intial skill set. Then there's a test (G.O.A.T. tests if you will.. a bit like Harry Potters O.W.L.S. presumably) but if you're not happy with the out come a quick chat with the teacher allows you to change 'em anyway.

As the plot starts to develop you leave Vault 101 and you're out in to the world devestated by nuclear war.. For an 80's kid like me that grew up surrounded by the fear of The Arms Race and When the Wind Blows it's particularly chilling to see. Even though it's an alternate future where development seemed to stop in the 50/60's (apart from the lazer pistols and robots obviously) it's nothing like the Art Deco stylings of Bioshock.

From here on in there's very little concession for newcomers. There's no indication of whether a particular mission is suitable for your (apart from it's distance from Megaton and even that's not that reliable) current level and it's quite possible to take a wrong turn just a few feet from where you're going and stumble on a group of monsters who rip you to shreds. Health and ammo are very scarce and item management is vital. You have a personal computer which is very handy for organising things but the default control scheme for it never feels natural (for instance on the map screen you move the cursor with the right stick and zoom in with up and down on the left stick.. however moving the left stick left or right changes to a different option on the computer and this happens a lot). Even something as simple as the currency threw me for a while. You dealing in caps. Which is fair enough. However I'd been searching dead bodies for loot and wondering why so many of them where carrying bottle caps when it dawned on me that was a 'cap' obvious when you think about it I suppose but nobody spells anything out for you.

Anyway now I've levelled up a bit and I'm getting the hang of the VATS combat and managine my items I'm really starting to enjoy it. Whether I'll finish it or not will depend on the variety of the missions and dungeons but so far so good.

Quantum of Solace

While Casino Royale may not have been a perfect film it certainly took the Bond franchise back in the right direction with a more modern gritty feel and much toned down on the over the top gadgets and villans. Certainly it leaves Quantum of Solace with a lot to live up to.

The film continues straight on from Casino Royale and assumes you have a decent working knowledge of its plot. There's some great action set pieces and Craig gets the brutal, cold part of Bond just right. The film lacks some of the humour that has been a Bond trade mark but given the films theme of revenge this is probably acceptable (although I'd like to see it make a come back for tne next film).

The films main problems stem from the direction and editing which is a bit on the busy side for my liking. Cutting and changing every few seconds may be acceptable in a pop video but here it makes it difficult to really see what's going on. One particular on foot scene is inter cut with a horse race and gets particularly annoying. It's tiring over the films run time. It also borrows a bit too heavily from the last Bourne film too. A couple of sequences seem to have almost been lifted completely. Oh, and the Villan is a bit dull too (Certainly his henchmans haircut makes him look a bit too 'special needs' to be convincing).

Having said all that it's still a good film. The pacing is better than Casino Royale and the relationship between M and Bond is very convincing. I thoroughly enjoyed it even if it'll take a repeat viewing to understand exactly what was going on (whether it was our local cinema or the sound mix but some bits of dialogue where lost in the action). A worthy follow up to Casino Royale but next time the producers will want to establish their own identity a bit more.

Ghost Town

I've been a fan of Ricky Gervais since his early days on The 11 O'Clock Show where he used to do a little stand up so when I had the chance to watch his first Hollywood lead movie I was rather excited.

Gervais obviously brings a lot of himself to each role but certainly the characters he writes for himself (David Brent from The Office and Andy Millman from Extras) are subtly different and so it proves with his character, Bertram Pincus, in this. A man whose most certainly not a people person.

So when he spends seven minutes 'dead' during a routine operation and has to deal with not only the living but the ghosts of the dead he's understandably even less happy.

Greg Kinnear provides excellent support as a ghost who offers to help with Pincus's ghost problem in return for splitting Kinnear's widow (played by a rather lovely Téa Leoni) from her new fiance. What follows could be viewed as a fairly formularic rom com if not for Gervais's brilliant performance.

It's a very touching and very funny film that I enjoyed an awful lot.