The "Complete" List

Resistance 2
Mirror's Edge - 360
Quantum of Solace - 360
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot - (Liquid Easy)
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Saints Row
Race Pro - Career Mode
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Easy) - 360
Conan (Easy) - PS3
GTA IV - 360
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Manhunt 2
Prince of Persia
No More Heroes - Real Ending
GTA: Chinatown Wars
Silent Hill 2 - (4 star rating, Leave ending)

I seem to remember the original game being much more Resident Evil inspired with it's odd puzzles and general, town gone bad, story line. This sequel is a much more mature journey into guilt and relationships. It took me just over 12 hours to complete and I only came a croper on a couple of puzzles (Although I did have riddles set too easy cos that kind of thing frustrates my poor brain). I really enjoyed the prison section. I couldn't find a map and ended up producing my own which ended up much like the in game versions.

The scares are more subtle and mature too. There's none of the cheap shocks of Resi instead it's much more atmospheric and in some cases just plain weird. There's also great use of sound.. childish whimpering, breaking glass and weird moans can all be heard at certain points and yet never mature into a physical threat. There's a lot of creeping dread..

Suffice to say I've moved straight on to number three.

The " Complete" List

Resistance 2
Mirror's Edge - 360
Quantum of Solace - 360
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot - (Liquid Easy)
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Saints Row
Race Pro - Career Mode
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Easy) - 360
Conan (Easy) - PS3
GTA IV - 360
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Manhunt 2
Prince of Persia
No More Heroes - Real Ending
GTA: Chinatown Wars

I really hated GTA on PSP. It pushed the machine to breaking point to try and bring the PS2 experience to the handheld and ended up pretty much unplayable.

For this brand new DS based story Rockstar have designed it from the ground up for Nintendos handheld machine. Out go flashy graphics, Cutscenes and endless UMD access. In comes a cracking top down cell shaded look that has a hint of 3D and looks brilliant. Cutscenes are replaced with comic style panels and witty dialogue.

They've managed to capture the very essence of what makes GTA fun and lost none of the scale. Liberty City is huge. Almost everything you'd want to do from it's bigger brother is possible. The driving and shooting are hugely fun. Even long journeys are entertaining with all the vehicles feeling different. There's a wide range of chunky weapons and a great lock-on system that nearly always picks the right target (well it wouldn't be GTA if it didn't occasionally leave you high and dry). Everything is run from your PDA with missions and purchases regularly being messaged to you.

There's also great use of the touch screen to do also sorts of fun stuff and plenty of variety in the missions too.

Barring a couple of difficulty spikes and the usual annoying lack of checkpoints the game is pretty much perfect for on the go fun. A great welcome back to the DS. Essential.

P.s. That's 18 titles completed and that matches last years total!

Purchase Power

A couple of DS purchases to update you all on.

I got Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for £10 in Game second hand. Which seemed like a bargain. I know my history of Zelda games isn't great but I'm looking forward too it.

I also got Lego Star Wars for £15 in HMV brand new. Having had a lenghty gap between my original DS and this new DS lite there seems to be a fair bit of cheap software to catch up on.

Currently Playing: Silent Hill 2

In what's probably the biggest gap between a First Look and a Currently Playing I once again make a start on Silent Hill 2 (in fact such a long gap there wasn't even a 'First Look' feature on this blog back then).

I figured I might as well start from the beginning again. This time I switched to the 2d control scheme which is much more comfortable to the modern gamer making James walk in the direction your pushing the stick rather than that 3d moonwalking/tank like default controls.

The long walk into Silent Hill itself is still a bit on the dull side but at least the graphics are atmospheric. I don't know what I was thinking before. However after a bit of exploration I got to the first appartment block and the real meat of the game shows itself.. working my way around the spooky appartment block, radio crackling, torch still unfound is genuinely creepy. The map works well illuminating points of interest and I was soon digging out a note book. Although the in game one does a decent job!

My first sighting of pyramid head from within a cupboard while he did unspeakable things to two horrible flesh monsters had me desperately trying to turn my torch off even though it was a cutscene and beyond my control.

Whilst I can't say my visit has been nice I'm very glad I went back.

The "Complete" List

Resistance 2
Mirror's Edge - 360
Quantum of Solace - 360
House of the Dead: Overkill - Story & Directors Cut
Fable 2 - Story Mode
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriot - (Liquid Easy)
Wario Ware: Smooth Moves
Saints Row
Race Pro - Career Mode
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (Easy) - 360
Conan (Easy) - PS3
GTA IV - 360
Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Manhunt 2
Prince of Persia
No More Heroes - Real Ending

Was there ever a game where the saying "You get what you give" was more true? The game is basically 12 boss battles in a row. As Nish hinted there's a couple of surprises along the way but there's an awful awful lot more busy work to be done.

So what makes it such a work of genius? The story is great, The cut scenes and the bosses themselves are all really interesting and humourus. There's lot of lovely little incidental touches as well. Answering the phone by listening to the little speaker in the Wii-mote was brilliant. Playing with the cat. Collecting T shirts. Treasure hunting with Beam Katana.. All great.

But what it really boils down to is getting into the vibe of the game. Visiting the gym between every mission and going for the burn, Earning enough cash to have the best Katana available and upgrading it, Searching for the balls so the drunk russian guy shows you special abilities, Buying the videos and trying to get Golds in all the part time jobs and Assassins missions.

The combat never gets boring despite being very repetitive. I loved the fourth Katana. When Travis unsheathed it just like a Samari I was laughing with joy. Nevermind when I found out I could beat my previous best score of 104 kills by another 16 with it on Assassin mission 17. Brilliant.

There was a lot of things I learnt on the fly. Suddenly finding the bike had a boost button helped me get gold on the bike jump part time job. Wiggling the nunchuck stick when being hit allows you to enter a kind of black mode that was cool.

There was a couple of things I didn't like. I could've done without having to skip through the same conversations everytime I applied for a new job or went in a shop.. and I would've liked the option to restart when I'd failed without having to ride back to the shop and re-apply.. but that's about it.

All the boss battles where memorable and fortunately I already had the Tsubaki III so I could go straight to the final boss battle and see the amazing end... Can't wait for the sequel now.

Great Expectations: Batman: Arkham Asylum

This has been on my Bat Radar for sometime.. Initially hopes obviously weren't high. Comic Book licences and Video games not normally making comfortable bed fellows. However as the (delayed) development has gone along it's started to look more and more promising. The previews have gone from cautious optimism to enthusiasm...

The World Exclusive review from OPM is in and it's scored a healthy 9 out of 10. The demo is out on Friday so we'll be able to have a little look-e-see for ourselves..

Suffice to say this could be my first new day one purchase for some time. I may even pre-order it. Fingers crossed that I'll feel as much like Batman as I did aged 7 when I came second in the local fancy dress contest! (apparently I would've won but the judges thought the costume was shop bought! (It wasn't, My mum was just awesome with a sewing machine.))

Currently Playing: FUEL

There's no First Look for this because I hated it when I first played it. It seems that the teams ambition has out stripped either their talent or the amount of time/funds they had to make the game.

There's precious little in the way of tutorial and the career mode is badly laid out. Each area of the world has it's own camp where races can be chosen. Win enough races and you can unlock new areas. However when you get to the second and third camps you haven't got enough FUEL (the games in game currency) to unlock the vehicles needed to complete the new events..

The loading times are incredibly long. Sometimes longer than it can take to complete the event. The AI is terrible as well. It sometimes has problems path finding and the elastic banding is terrible. It's an out an out arcade racer really so you start every race at the back and the pack zoom off and you've got to catch them. Mostly they stretch out enough that you'll pass the last car just before the chequered flag but miss a gate or have a crash and you'll find that you're in last place. Conversley race a good clean section and you can suddenly find they've all bunched together and you can pass all of them in a couple of corners.

However I do like a driving game and so I stuck at it. Eventually in one of the long loading screens a tip was displayed about not ignoring the challenges, several of which are available per camp but have to be 'spotted' first. It turns out not only are these a lot of fun providing plenty of variety from the racing but also a great way to earn FUEL. Soon I'd unlocked plenty of vehicles and some of the games potential has been unlocked.

When it's good it's a lot of fun. The handling is very arcadey with huge power slides being the norm and brakes are almost always for wimps. Some of the events have very few check points and allow you to ignore the GPS and pretty much set your own course. The trick here is to balance the risk/reward of a more direct off road route with the tracks and roads where the vehicles travel faster. Is it worth cutting across the forest and saving a huge portion of driving? It's decisions like this on the fly that make it fun. Dodging between burnout cars and trucks and finding the jumps gives an impression of being Mad Max too.

There's a lot here. There's also a lot to like. It's a pity then that it feels, at the moment at least, that a bit more polish and play testing could of made all the difference.