Happy Easter everyone!
My game playing marathon has been slightly side tracked by a Two and a half Men marathon on Comedy Central.
Anyway enjoy the chocolate and the holiday season!
Sunday, 12 April 2009
Saturday, 11 April 2009
First Look: Just Cause
The credit crunching continues! Despite holding out for the whole of March without buying a game I decided that for April I'd try not to buy anything new. As I have most of the Easter weekend off I picked this up for £7.50 in Game.
First impressions aren't great. You can't move about the menu without using the d-pad. Every time you load or save you have to select the hard drive. The graphics aren't great either. The huge island looks great but the characters and vehicles are poor and there's far more pop up and texture pop in than you'd expect.
It's also just too big and the scale of the mini map too small making it hard to judge where things are and pretty much a trudge to travel anywhere.. Even in a helicopter. When you get your grapple gun it makes things a little easier but not by much. End falling down a valley into a lake and you can wait ages for a boat to appear. It's very sparse out side of the towns.
Basically you end up calling for 'extraction' most of the time which takes you straight to you safe house and straight to get a story mission. Meaning that despite the fact that the world is properly huge you'll hardly see any of it unless you're interested in doing the side missions and collecting packages.
The driving is rubbish too because most of the roads are too narrow meaning you keep having constant collisions. It's like some one described GTA to the developer and they've tried to make an over the top clone without actually playing it too see where the magic really is.
Despite that it's not devoid of fun and check points mid mission keep it from getting to frustrating. Unless you get a checkpoint mid explosion when you'll constantly respawn with very little health.
First impressions aren't great. You can't move about the menu without using the d-pad. Every time you load or save you have to select the hard drive. The graphics aren't great either. The huge island looks great but the characters and vehicles are poor and there's far more pop up and texture pop in than you'd expect.
It's also just too big and the scale of the mini map too small making it hard to judge where things are and pretty much a trudge to travel anywhere.. Even in a helicopter. When you get your grapple gun it makes things a little easier but not by much. End falling down a valley into a lake and you can wait ages for a boat to appear. It's very sparse out side of the towns.
Basically you end up calling for 'extraction' most of the time which takes you straight to you safe house and straight to get a story mission. Meaning that despite the fact that the world is properly huge you'll hardly see any of it unless you're interested in doing the side missions and collecting packages.
The driving is rubbish too because most of the roads are too narrow meaning you keep having constant collisions. It's like some one described GTA to the developer and they've tried to make an over the top clone without actually playing it too see where the magic really is.
Despite that it's not devoid of fun and check points mid mission keep it from getting to frustrating. Unless you get a checkpoint mid explosion when you'll constantly respawn with very little health.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
The "Complete" List
Resistance 2
Mirror's Edge
Quantum of Solace
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot - (Liquid Easy)
I'm rather ashamed it took me eleven months to get back to polishing this off. My main excuse would be that I must have missed the significance of the injection thingy. I had to check a 'Boss Battle' FAQ to see how to defeat 'Screaming Mantis'. Once I'd done that I was basically at the end of the game. At least gameplay wise. I guess there's no harm in spoilering this now because of the amount of time that's gone by but I'll still try and keep it too a minimum. Basically I think there was about two hours of further 'game' after defeating Mantis (A very funny tribute to the original PSone included) but most of it involved walking down a straight corridor and then pummeling the triangle button to make a very ill snake get to the 'main frame' thing. As you can probably tell once again I'm a bit hazy on all the plot details (Although I guess the eleven month break didn't help) but it was a genuinely effecting two hours despite the lack of interaction. I could feel my eyes prickling with emotion at certain points and I was pleased with how it tied up various elements (like the guy who kept soiling himself although the fried eggs are still a mystery I'll probably need Nish to solve for me).
So is it a masterpiece? Judged solely on it's own merits it probably is. Judged against the original PSone game? Not so much. It doesn't feel as much of a retread as Sons of Liberty did. I didn't mind the cut scenes either. Some of them where breath taking. But it's just not quite as good a game. So a flawed masterpiece. It's a pity we'll probably never see it's like again. Such self indulgence, such self reference, such genius... In an industry where shifting units now appears to be the be all end all it's a rare thing indeed.
Mirror's Edge
Quantum of Solace
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot - (Liquid Easy)
I'm rather ashamed it took me eleven months to get back to polishing this off. My main excuse would be that I must have missed the significance of the injection thingy. I had to check a 'Boss Battle' FAQ to see how to defeat 'Screaming Mantis'. Once I'd done that I was basically at the end of the game. At least gameplay wise. I guess there's no harm in spoilering this now because of the amount of time that's gone by but I'll still try and keep it too a minimum. Basically I think there was about two hours of further 'game' after defeating Mantis (A very funny tribute to the original PSone included) but most of it involved walking down a straight corridor and then pummeling the triangle button to make a very ill snake get to the 'main frame' thing. As you can probably tell once again I'm a bit hazy on all the plot details (Although I guess the eleven month break didn't help) but it was a genuinely effecting two hours despite the lack of interaction. I could feel my eyes prickling with emotion at certain points and I was pleased with how it tied up various elements (like the guy who kept soiling himself although the fried eggs are still a mystery I'll probably need Nish to solve for me).
So is it a masterpiece? Judged solely on it's own merits it probably is. Judged against the original PSone game? Not so much. It doesn't feel as much of a retread as Sons of Liberty did. I didn't mind the cut scenes either. Some of them where breath taking. But it's just not quite as good a game. So a flawed masterpiece. It's a pity we'll probably never see it's like again. Such self indulgence, such self reference, such genius... In an industry where shifting units now appears to be the be all end all it's a rare thing indeed.
Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Pet Shop Boys - Yes
The signs all boded well for a great new album. With 'Love Etc.' they'd come back with possibly the best single since 'West End Girls', the album has an iconic white cover just like the early stuff, It's got a nice compact eleven tracks and they'd been working with the production team behind some of Girls Alouds biggest tracks, Xenomania.
I've been a Pets fan since forever (In fact Please was one of the first albums I ever bought in a three for the price of one deal from the Britannia Music Club fact fans!) and let's be honest. They've never made a bad album. Some however are obviously better than others. While their last album Fundemental was widely regarded as a return to form it had a few too many slow tracks for my liking.
Yes kicks off brilliantly with 'Love Etc.'. It's a huge single with a cracking melody and chorus. It sounds utterly unlike anything they've done before but is conversely sounds instantly Pet Shop Boys.
After that it romps along with high energy pop numbers, particular highlights including, 'Vunerable' and 'More than a Dream'. The 'Boys barely put a foot wrong. The slow ballad 'King of Rome' is a nice change of tempo and remembers to include a tune you could whistle.
For me it's one track too long as the track 'Building a Wall' has a great start but then goes nowhere. Unlike similar Pets 'songs with a message' (See also: 'Integeral' or 'The Theatre') the message is strangely unclear. It also contains a cringe worthy 'Who do you think you are, Captain Britain?' spoken line from Chris Lowe. I'm guessing it's supposed to somehow hint at Neil Tennants previous life as a Comic (sorry I don't know whether it was Marvel or DC) editor but it sounds awful. Nothing like the iconic contribution he makes to the track 'Paninaro' ('I dont like country & western. I dont like rock music. Ehm, I dont like, I dont like rockabilly, rocknroll in particular, I dont like much, really, do i? [laugh] But what I do like, I love passionately).
Other than that though it's a thoroughly satifsying album. It's their best since Very which it fittingly reminds me of because it sounds so very Pet Shop Boys. There can be no higher praise than that.
I've been a Pets fan since forever (In fact Please was one of the first albums I ever bought in a three for the price of one deal from the Britannia Music Club fact fans!) and let's be honest. They've never made a bad album. Some however are obviously better than others. While their last album Fundemental was widely regarded as a return to form it had a few too many slow tracks for my liking.
Yes kicks off brilliantly with 'Love Etc.'. It's a huge single with a cracking melody and chorus. It sounds utterly unlike anything they've done before but is conversely sounds instantly Pet Shop Boys.
After that it romps along with high energy pop numbers, particular highlights including, 'Vunerable' and 'More than a Dream'. The 'Boys barely put a foot wrong. The slow ballad 'King of Rome' is a nice change of tempo and remembers to include a tune you could whistle.
For me it's one track too long as the track 'Building a Wall' has a great start but then goes nowhere. Unlike similar Pets 'songs with a message' (See also: 'Integeral' or 'The Theatre') the message is strangely unclear. It also contains a cringe worthy 'Who do you think you are, Captain Britain?' spoken line from Chris Lowe. I'm guessing it's supposed to somehow hint at Neil Tennants previous life as a Comic (sorry I don't know whether it was Marvel or DC) editor but it sounds awful. Nothing like the iconic contribution he makes to the track 'Paninaro' ('I dont like country & western. I dont like rock music. Ehm, I dont like, I dont like rockabilly, rocknroll in particular, I dont like much, really, do i? [laugh] But what I do like, I love passionately).
Other than that though it's a thoroughly satifsying album. It's their best since Very which it fittingly reminds me of because it sounds so very Pet Shop Boys. There can be no higher praise than that.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The "Complete" List
Resistance 2
Mirror's Edge
Quantum of Solace
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
It's quite an effecting ending. No spoilers here for those that might want to play but the run up to the end is well down and quite powerfully portrayed. There was a nice bit where I realized that I didn't have to listen to the baddies final speech and could just blow him away and one of the NPCs commented that "at last he'd shut up".
Nicely it leaves the world open for you to polish up the side quests.. Maybe one day I'll return to Albion for another play through but totally evil.. We'll see. Seeing as I'm now free to buy a new game I may just do that.
Mirror's Edge
Quantum of Solace
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
It's quite an effecting ending. No spoilers here for those that might want to play but the run up to the end is well down and quite powerfully portrayed. There was a nice bit where I realized that I didn't have to listen to the baddies final speech and could just blow him away and one of the NPCs commented that "at last he'd shut up".
Nicely it leaves the world open for you to polish up the side quests.. Maybe one day I'll return to Albion for another play through but totally evil.. We'll see. Seeing as I'm now free to buy a new game I may just do that.
Monday, 6 April 2009
Currently Playing: Fable 2
I've put several hours into Fable 2 but I've been debating what to write on here about it for ages. The difficulty comes from the fact that I'm enjoying it but at the same time I'm not sure I'm really 'getting' it.
On the one hand it's a lovely looking world and it's fun to explore the towns and the shops looking for proprties to buy and trading goods to kit your hero out. On the other there's not a lot, in my opinion, to actually do.
The main quest involves trying to recruit some people to stop some evil dude (I haven't really been paying a lot of attention to the chatter as you can probably tell), But to do this you mainly walk along following the handy glowing trail. Which I like. The main thrust of the tasks though is always combat. Even in the dungeons it's one battle after another. There's no Zelda like puzzles or exploration really required. Having said that the combat is mostly fun. The inventory handily shows you which of your equipment is the best too.
There's plenty of side quests although most of these involve combat too. One side quest did have me revenge a ghost of a jilted lover by finding the man in question and having her fall in love with me. The interaction is achieved by picking various displays from a wheel of choices. For instance blowing kisses or giving the thumbs up. It's not a particularly elegant solution. Although I do like the little stat numbers that pop above all the NPCs to show how they've reacted. Pull at your gun or sword in town and it scares everyone. As in Fallout 3 you can behave either good or bad and you characters reputation is affected accordingly.
There's plenty of depth to the world of Albion too. It feels very organic. I bought a house and married a local woman (It's a fine lesbian wedding as I'm playing as a woman) then got annoyed when she followed me every where.. So I shot her. Which was fine. Until a local guard tried to arrest me and so I shot him too. Sadly they didn't turn a blind eye so I left town killing a number of guards along the way. On my return sometime later I was promptly arrested and forced to do community service (Although, surprise surprise, this inovled walking somewhere and then killing stuff).
The combat is solid and as you earn experience you can learn new moves, I've upgraded my range abilities cos I like to keep my hands clean as much as possible. Oh and I should mention the dog shouldn't I? I never found the dog in Fallout 3 but this dog (I've called him PS3) is your constant companion helpfully pointing out hidden treasures and barking happily.
I should also mention the lack of frustration. If you die you come straight back to life (You do lose some experience but a miniscule amount). You receive a permanent scar but other than that no problem.
By all accounts it outta be the perfect RPG for me.. But still I don't feel like I'm getting the most out of it.. Perhaps I should experiment some more. The lack of a decent map makes this difficult though. I can't even find a couple of the properties I've bought.
Still overall it's probably going to hold my attention long enough to push on to completion of the main quest at least.
On the one hand it's a lovely looking world and it's fun to explore the towns and the shops looking for proprties to buy and trading goods to kit your hero out. On the other there's not a lot, in my opinion, to actually do.
The main quest involves trying to recruit some people to stop some evil dude (I haven't really been paying a lot of attention to the chatter as you can probably tell), But to do this you mainly walk along following the handy glowing trail. Which I like. The main thrust of the tasks though is always combat. Even in the dungeons it's one battle after another. There's no Zelda like puzzles or exploration really required. Having said that the combat is mostly fun. The inventory handily shows you which of your equipment is the best too.
There's plenty of side quests although most of these involve combat too. One side quest did have me revenge a ghost of a jilted lover by finding the man in question and having her fall in love with me. The interaction is achieved by picking various displays from a wheel of choices. For instance blowing kisses or giving the thumbs up. It's not a particularly elegant solution. Although I do like the little stat numbers that pop above all the NPCs to show how they've reacted. Pull at your gun or sword in town and it scares everyone. As in Fallout 3 you can behave either good or bad and you characters reputation is affected accordingly.
There's plenty of depth to the world of Albion too. It feels very organic. I bought a house and married a local woman (It's a fine lesbian wedding as I'm playing as a woman) then got annoyed when she followed me every where.. So I shot her. Which was fine. Until a local guard tried to arrest me and so I shot him too. Sadly they didn't turn a blind eye so I left town killing a number of guards along the way. On my return sometime later I was promptly arrested and forced to do community service (Although, surprise surprise, this inovled walking somewhere and then killing stuff).
The combat is solid and as you earn experience you can learn new moves, I've upgraded my range abilities cos I like to keep my hands clean as much as possible. Oh and I should mention the dog shouldn't I? I never found the dog in Fallout 3 but this dog (I've called him PS3) is your constant companion helpfully pointing out hidden treasures and barking happily.
I should also mention the lack of frustration. If you die you come straight back to life (You do lose some experience but a miniscule amount). You receive a permanent scar but other than that no problem.
By all accounts it outta be the perfect RPG for me.. But still I don't feel like I'm getting the most out of it.. Perhaps I should experiment some more. The lack of a decent map makes this difficult though. I can't even find a couple of the properties I've bought.
Still overall it's probably going to hold my attention long enough to push on to completion of the main quest at least.
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Genius
I'm well aware that I could start to turn this blog into an advert for the BBC but please bear with me. It's all the fault of the wonderful iPlayer which makes it far too easy to find the jewels in the BBCs rather shitty crown. A bit like taking all the penny toffees out of a box of Quality Street.
I've been a huge fan of Dave Gorman ever since I enjoyed his very surreal show where he followed his star signs too the letter and his twin brother just did what he wanted and a team of 'experts' scored the results on a week by week basis to see what was the best way of doing things.
His new show, Genius, is, well, genius. People e.mail in there bonkers inventions and suggestions and the best ones get on the show to make their pitch. It's a bit like a comedy Dragons Den only less po-faced and without the piles of cash.
Episode one can be seen here and is hilarious. From the guy who invents the 100 meter high running shoe so you can basically win by falling over to the cabby who instead of pitching his idea trys flirting with Catherine Tate. Gorman is brilliant as the host as he's the perfect foil. Funny but never nasty to the contestants. Highly recommended.
I've been a huge fan of Dave Gorman ever since I enjoyed his very surreal show where he followed his star signs too the letter and his twin brother just did what he wanted and a team of 'experts' scored the results on a week by week basis to see what was the best way of doing things.
His new show, Genius, is, well, genius. People e.mail in there bonkers inventions and suggestions and the best ones get on the show to make their pitch. It's a bit like a comedy Dragons Den only less po-faced and without the piles of cash.
Episode one can be seen here and is hilarious. From the guy who invents the 100 meter high running shoe so you can basically win by falling over to the cabby who instead of pitching his idea trys flirting with Catherine Tate. Gorman is brilliant as the host as he's the perfect foil. Funny but never nasty to the contestants. Highly recommended.
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