First Look: Bayonetta

Where DMC 4 felt like a souless effort by a team ticking all the franchises boxes to keep the fans and company directors happy this feels like a labour of love by a team at the peak of its powers. The attention to detail is stunning.

The first half hour is probably a little cutscene heavy but once you've done the prologue and you're into the game proper it's a stunning mix of awesome graphics, smooth combat and some light puzzles, exploration and collection. I'm really enjoying it. Even the boss battles. I even decided to play on Easy and not Very Easy although I can see it getting multiple play throughs.

First Look: Episodes from Liberty City

It wasn't that long ago when I went back to Liberty City to finish off GTA IV but it still feels like a while since I've been waiting for the DLC to be released on a more 20Gb HDD friendly disc.

I started with The Ballad of Gay Tony because I'd heard it been trumpted as a return to San Andreas (my personal favourite GTA) levels of excess..

Now I've no idea whether it's being spoiled by the controls and silky smooth gameplay of Uncharted 2 and Batman:AA or whether GTA IV has aged in dog years but going back now it feels horribly clunky and verging on the broken. I honestly don't know how I had the patience to complete GTA IV.

Rockstar have at least put checkpoints in which eases some of the frustration but in typical Rockstar form they've done it their own way. Having stolen an attack helicopter early on in the game I'm then tasked with blowing the yaught it was stolen from up.. Of course the guns fire forward and the rockets have a life of their own and there's no sight or recticle to show you where they're going to land.. Suffice to say I crashed into the see several times trying to bring my guns to bear on the yaught because you end up flying straight towards the sea...

No problem there's a checkpoint.. but instead of just throwing you straight back into the action it has to put you outside the hospital where you get a text allowing you to access the checkpoint. Which would be fine if it wasn't for the player character immedeately trying to phone someone. You just want to get back into the action and have another go but you can't. The whole thing, to my eyes at least, is starting to groan under the weight of what Rockstar are trying to achieve.

First Look: Modern Warfare 2

As my regular reader will know I pre-ordered the Prestige Edition of Modern Warfare 2 and quite an impressive piece of kit it is. I haven't gotten around to getting the Night Vision Goggles or the Head out yet but the Hardened Edition case and the Art book where nice. It also comes with a code to allow you to download the original Call of Duty which I've never played.

But what of the game? Well I started on the Multiplayer. I got together a small bunch of Live friends and we had a go on some of the maps. First impressions is that there's a lot too them and plenty of scope for learning where to ambush people and perhaps a lot more to them then say Halo 3's maps. However as soon as you go public it's obvious that the larger number of online players per game soon renders that advantage worthless. At least at first.

The game moves at a much faster pace than Halo and a relative small amounts of hits are fairly deadly. Once in a public match it's pretty much mayhem from start to finish. The deaths, at least for me, came thick and fast. The Kill Cam is a nice touch allowing you to see what killed you but it'd be nicer not to die quite so often. XP seems to come thick and fast regardless of whether you're on the winning team and of how much actual contribution you made so it would seem a war of attrition could see even a rubbish player like me make progress..

The single player begins in a very similar manner to CoD 4 with a quick weapons tutorial and then a training area.. Although I personally thought this one wasn't as good as the last one.

The campaign get's off to a rather slow and annoying start as you take pot shots against the enemy from across a river and try to defend a bridge. Followed by an on rails section in an APC and a scripted explosion.. By this point I was starting to wonder what all the fuss was about and I'd had enough.

First Look: Silent Hill 3

First off! Why would you swap the function of the 'select' and the 'start' button between direct sequels? What paused the game and what brought up your inventory are now on opposite buttons! Confusing!

While I'm complaining... Why does the map now not default to the zoomed in view that is more helpful? Now the heroines head is attracted to just about everything not only does she now resemble Regan but it's less helpful.

First Look: No More Heroes

I wasn't expecting to like this as much as I do. From the moment you start the game for the first time it's incredibly cool. The highly stylized visuals and the way the story is introduced all drips with atmosphere and a brilliant sense of humour.

At first I was a little disappointed with the gameplay. I was expecting to be able too swing my wii-mote around like a whirlwind chopping up bad guys like so many Master Onions but instead your combos are mainly confined to the A and B Buttons. Swings of the wii-mote are used for finishing moves where you swing the wii-mote in the direction of a little onscreen icon. It's also used to charge the beam katana and pull of wrestling throws. Once you're in the thick of the action though it makes sense and you're soon working up quite a sweat (or at least I was anyway) and stylishly chopping your way through minions to get to the boss battle. I'm assuming the PAL version has been sanitised cos sadly the bad guys disolve a-la the slain vampires in Buffy.

I spent last night doing side quests, side assasinations and visiting the shops and the gym. While it's not actually a living breathing city in the style of a GTA there's enough going on to make it more than just a hub world. I particularly liked the gym. The stat improving mini games where a very nice touch making me do reps with the nunchuck and wii-mote.

My only slight reservation is whether there's enough variety in the main story. 11 Assassins to take down. I'm now number 9 and so far the formula has been fairly simular. If the humour and great dialogue continue then I guess I'll enjoy the ride.

First Look: Battlefield 1943

Friday night is now the official EDGE X-Box live night. Last night they decided they where all going to play Battlefield 1943. Inspired by the EDGE review which made it sound simple enough for me to pick up and play and the fact that I had a spare 200 points knocking about meaning that I could buy just a 1000 points I took the plunge.

It's a very steep learning curve if you jump right in. Although it is fun and fairly simple to see what you should be doing when you get going it's also very annoying. There's basically 5 flags on each level and the game ebbs and flows as they are captured and re-captured.

You can have an awesome spawn where you find an AA gun take out a couple of planes, jump on the back of a jeep, gun you way to a flag, capture it and then rocket an incoming enemy tank and you generally feel like Rambo.

You can also spawn miles from the action, walk all the way there because someone will jump in the jeep you heading for an literally drive off in front you despite the fact you're yelling "wait for me" at the top of your voice (Sometimes even when it's someone you're in party chat with) and just as you get to the action someone rifles you dead that you can't even see.

I ranked up a couple of times and I'm rubbish so it's fairly accessible at the moment.

Granted it was the first friday night since release and so you'd expect it to be popular but it was nigh on impossible to get a game after 10pm..

First Look: Prince of Persia

Minus £2.50 of Reward credit I got this for £10.50 second hand in GAME yesterday. Intial impressions are that it's an improvement on The Two Thrones and Emo Within but nowhere near as good as Sands of Time which, it sadly seems, we'll never see the like of again from Ubisoft.

These are the things I like:
It's pretty
It's very forgiving for Mr Easy writing this Blog
The Prince himself (much has been made of his annoying accent and personality.. Perhaps too much. He seemed quite funny to me)

Things I don't like:
The over simplified controls.. All the flair of covering the levels in Sands of Time has been lost. It's like they've taken a leaf out of Altairs book. No surprise what with it being the same engine I believe. But when I'm bemoaning the lack of challenge it's a bad thing.
The combat.
The Princess.
The annoying bits where you have too run between green nodes with no checkpoints..

Overall though I enjoyed my first session last night.

First Look; Ninja Blade

I really should hate this game. It's full of boss battles (I counted four during the second mission), It's chock full of QTE's and there's a huge range of swords and weapons to upgrade and things to collect oh and there's no mid level saving either.

Somehow though (and I should say so far.) I'm loving it. From Software have excelled themselves in the production values and graphics. The game is a lot of fun to play. Anyone whose played a modern action game of this sort will know what too expect. Yet it's not as annoying as it should be.

For a start there are loads of checkpoints so you're never left repeating huge sections if you fail. Each QTE is signified with a close up of your eye so you know it's coming. There's a large window for you to react and like Guitar Hero it scores how well you did. Nice for those who excel. Even better for sausaged fingered people with incredibly slow reactions like me. If you fail one you simply restart. None of this annoying "oh well you've missed a button lets give the boss another huge chunk of energy before you can have another go" marlarkey. Frustration is kept to a minimum.

Most importantly the combat makes sense to me (Again, so far) There's close attack on 'X' and ranged attack on 'Y'. There's your regular sword, There's two lighter swords for fast enemies and there's a heavy sword for amoured baddies.. None of this rubbish having your attacks blocked for ages.. Get out the big sword, smash his shield then smash him. The camera works great on the right stick and Right Trigger allows a quick dash. To either get back on with cracking skulls or to avoid an attack. It's simple but there's plenty of scope.

Secondly there's some great Prince of Persia style platforming with wall running and swiging on beams and that general feeling of covering large and complicated areas with the minimum of fuss and feeling like a ninja. Of course it's totally over blown and over the top. The end of one boss battle saw me riding a motorbike along the top of the cars and busses it was throwing at me and at the same time the QTEs keep you feeling involved in the cool stuff.

So far I'm really enjoying it. £15 well spent.

First Look: Race Pro

There's an episode of Top Gear in which Richard 'The Hamster' Hammond reviews the Porsche 911 GT3. The GT3 is a 911 stripped of weight and creature comforts. As Hammond explains "It comes with less so it can give you so much more". He then goes on to list all the things you might want from a car that the GT3 doesn't have.

This suitably motoring related anecdote brings us on to Race Pro from hardcore PC developer SimBin. Want a racing game with state of the art graphics? Buy another game. Want a pretty front end with exciting menus? Buy another game. Want a range of licensed street parts to modify your ride? Buy another game. Want amazing crashes with deformable cars? Buy another game.. SimBins game comes with less than the current norm in the genre so it can give you so much more.. Oh and how much more.

It's all about the driving. It's you and your chosen car against the track and the prize is your life. There is a selection of driver aids to ease you in should you so choose. In truth you don't need them (or at least you don't in the selection of cars I've driven so far). There's so much feel and feedback from the car and track that you can tell what the cars doing. Occasionally of course you can feel it a touch to late as your understeer off across a sand trap or you get a touch enthusiastic on the accelator of your Caterham and the back swaps ends with the front but it feels fantastic.

A couple of complaints though, When you restart a race or qualifying session it has to reload and then you have to press 'A' three times to get back to the action.. Which can be annoying when you bin it on the first corner. A practice option would be nice within a career mode tournament cos occasionally it throws in a track you haven't driven before.

First Look: Motor Storm - Pacific Rift

The first Motor Storm game was a lot of fun (until the teeth gnashing frustration kicked in) but it did kind of look like a tech demo of the land deformation with a game hastily built around it. It lacked depth, looked samey and there where one or technical issues (The loading times between levels and vehicle selection where teeth grindingly slow (I'm as surprised as you that I've any teeth left with which to tackle the sequel)).

So what can we expect from the sequel? As you'd expect from a team that's cut its teeth on PS3 development on games deleveoped soley for Sony's machine it's a rather more polished affair. There's one new vehicle class to add to the classes from the first game (although there's lots of new vehicles within those classes) and there's a new tropical island. There's still plenty of mud and rock as well. Crucially there's also Fire and Water in the mix.

Fire levels effect the boost and cause it to heat up faster. Water levels give you the oppurtunity to cool the boost faster at the risk of slowing your vehicle as it travels through the stuff. It's a simple addition but allows for just enough tactics in what remains a frantic racing game.

The new levels themselves are graphically stunning. My non-360/PS3 owning mate who came round for a blast was very impressed (he's never commented on anything I've showed him before so read in to that what you will). They're more organic this time and feel like the courses have been made out of areas of land rather than just ribbons of track. There's the same mix of routes through the levels too but they're a lot more varied this time. There's also more variety with races taking place in and around abandoned factorys, sunny beaches and dark volcanic rubble.

The other new addition in the career mode is the ability to earn bonus events by meeting certain criteria during races such as crashing less than a certain amount or beating a race record time. These unlock elimination or time trials. The Elimination races are standard last man standing affairs (although they do mix up the race and the AI is possibly a touch less brutal). The time trials are more interesting and take the form of GTA style check point races with flares going off to indicate your route as your pass through the last one. These events work particulary well as they show you some of the routes through each circuit that are off the beaten track.

For your reading pleasure I also had a blast on the online racing. I have to say it's a very polished affair and easily equal to most Live affairs. Match making was quick. I didn't suffer much in the way of lag and it works very well as a live game. There doesn't seem to be any elastic banding online so it's not quite as brutal as the SP and all the better for it. If you're good enough to work up a lead you can keep it if you're skillful enough. I won one event and got several seconds and ranked up quite nicely. I was also able to accept a friends invite. The only downside being that after each event with 'randoms' your dumped back into your lobby and you have to search again. It would've been nice to have the option to carry on racing with the same people. But considering it's a free service and my first taste of PS3 online I was very happy.

So far, for me at least, it's an essential PS3 purchase. (especially now it can be picked up for £20 making GTi Club on PSN look a bit dear at £10).

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.

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.

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.