The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer
Red Dead Redemption
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Sweet
Everybody's Golf 2 - PSP

I've been playing Everybody's Golf games since the very first one on PSone. The title is somewhat misleading though. Sure enough the games are very inclusive and easy enough to learn without really having to have much of a grip of real golf. But the combination of some killer courses later in the games, The steady increase in the amount of buttons you'll have to press to pull of the kind of shots required at the higher level and some very fine golf by your AI challengers means it can get very tough towards the end.

After struggling with the platinum run of events for quite some time ( A combination of my general rubbishness, The brutal courses and wind and somewhat incosistant ball physics IMO) the game took pity on me and introduced an 'EASY' level pretty soon after picking it up again for another bash... It turns out it's still fairly challenging (the events with special rules i.e. +2 for bunkers or +2 for rough could see my score for 9 holes come in at +20).

I eventually managed to win enough cards across a combination of events to challenge the final boss character and despite some riduclously good shots from him (combined with a fair amount of rubbish ones it has to be said in comparison to EG:World Tour where the last but one character nails every shot) I managed to beat him on the second time of asking and, for the first time ever, saw the credits roll on an Everybody's Golf game.

The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer
Red Dead Redemption
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle - Sweet

Regular readers will probably remember how much I enjoyed the first No More Heroes game. In fact it's probably my favourite game on Wii. So I was very excited at the prospect of playing the sequel.

Normally in the world of video games it's easy to sum up sequels as "Bigger, Better, More". This being a Suda 51 game of course nothing is as straight forward.

Of course he's not turned it into a Kart racer. It's still similar. But things have changed in Santa Destroy. Not least of which being the nature of your friend Bishop's head's relationship with his shoulders. Out goes the open world nature, Out goes paying entry fees, Out goes the 3D side quests and jobs, Out go drunk russians, Out goes the adorable telephone conversations via the wii-motes speaker and in it's place?

Well that's the thing. In this case less is.. well less. I finished the entire game, including playing with my cat and enough side jobs to buy all the beam Katanas in just under 8 hours. Not a bad length in this day and age and there's certainly a degree of replayibility.. but not as much time as I spent enjoying all the side quests and bits and bobs in the first game.

So what is new? Well bizarre cut scenes with some woman in a booth behind glass on a telephone (a bit like in American Prison Films) and some extra playable characters. Shinobu who Travis spared in the first game. I liked her bits. She's fun to control and because she has a jump control the levels have a vertical element which adds some variety.

Basically the crux of the sequel is that it's been streamlined down. I wrote in my Blog last time that "It's basically ten boss fights in a row". Well this is 'X' boss fights in row. That's it. You can do the 2D side missions but there's a reason we don't play 8 bit games anymore. These seem to have been designed with rubbishness in mind too. The only one I liked was the steak cooking one and that has one button which you press once.

Still the game remains incredibly stylish. The cut scenes and dialogue are both gripping and hilarious in places. The combat, which again is fairly repetative throughout, never gets boring. So there's substance too.

In fact if they convert it to PS3 it'd probably make me buy Move just to play it all again in HD.

The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer
Red Dead Redemption

To be honest I've had a bit of like/hate relationship with Red Dead Redemption which is why I've resisted writing about it until I finished it.

There's no doubt that Rockstar have created a stunning world complete with amazing eco system for you to play in. The first time you see a sunset or a herd of buffalo or stumble across a grizzly bear are some great moments..it's just everything else that let's it down.

Well not quite everything else. There's been some improvements since GTA IV. Mid-mission checkpoints for story missions ease frustration. The auto targetting mostly selects the right target and the 'Dead Eye' bullet time mode stacks the odds in your favour.

However lots of other things are starting to feel a bit dated. Compared to something like Assassin's Creed 2 or Uncharted 2 it all feels a bit clumsy. Running is still consigned to the (A) button. Meaning no matter how far I push my analogue stick I still walk at a snails pace. Moving from cover and trying to line up with ladders and doorways is still comically rubbish most of the times but frustrating when you're trying to complete missions.

Horses just aren't as fun as cars. Whilst the wild west is an impressive sight there's no getting away from the fact that there's only so many paths and trails you can travel down compared to say Liberty Cities warren of streets. This means that a lot of journeys boil down to galloping along the same stretch of country back and forth over and over. You can quick travel but of course being Rockstar first you have to find somewhere to set up a camp and then select the map and then quick travel.

My biggest gripe is that after four 3D GTA games I'm starting to get a bit bored of travelling from a to b to accept a mission and then from b to c to start. Most of the missions revolve around killing a load of bad guys and by half way through it had all started to turn into something of a grind. Rockstars writing just isn't as good or interesting as they think it is and I really couldn't of cared less about the plot. Come the last section I was skipping cut scenes and just desperate to get it all over with.

Purchase Power

I was disappointed to read that the Publishers behind No More Heroes weren't going to invest in any more new IPs. Whilst you can see their point when traditional gamers fail to support innovative, adult (I use the word in the loosest sense to indicate child unfriendly) software on the Wii it's still something of a shame when those games have been receiving good reviews. From my point of view these sort of titles seem to head bargain binward very quickly.. presumably cos they're not selling well. It's a chicken and egg situation that I don't pretend to know the answer to.

Anyway I happened to spy a mint pre-owned copy in Game for £20 which (less my £2.50 reward points) seemed to good an opportunity to miss.

I also pre-ordered a new 360 Slim. The main reasons being that my 360's disc drive seems to be playing up and that I'm still using my original 20Gb HDD which is struggling to keep up. I only have 2Gb free and I'd like to be able to install games that I'm playing a lot. Also anything that makes for a bit more room under the TV and runs quietly has got to be good right? I'm going to donate the old one to charity too so it's win win.

The "Complete" List

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career
Blur - Career/Level 50 Multiplayer

This game has sucked up so much of my time that I've not really had time to play much else*. Initially it's a little underwhelming. The career is nothing more than a series of events and boss battles. The game is also quite unforgiving with a fairly steep learning code. No sooner are you trying to juggle racing, learning circuits and juggling the power ups than the game is throwing fan demands, fan runs and each boss has a series of demands before you can face off with them and, I can't type this without cringing, win their ride.

However a bit of practice and patience and it all starts to make sense. There is a lot going on but it's all the more exciting for it. The boss demands not only add variety to the way you race but teach you valuable techniques as well.

It's online however where it really shines. There's a reasonable selection of events to attempt and it adopts the Codemasters style of lobby system where everyone votes on a choice of two courses and then there's a 30 second countdown to pick cars and mods (more of which later) which keeps the action rolling along nicely without being at the mercy of a host keeping you waiting for ages before starting things off.

Where it really scores though is in it's adoption of a Modern Warfare style persistant online XP system. As you level up new cars and mods are unlocked but crucially it's well balanced. You have three mods from a selection of 24 in 3 catergories to help make life easier. These range from better shields to a lazer sight to earning extra fans. None feel over powered and while I settled into a regular set of favourites thert's plenty to choose from to suit you style.

While I found that the better mods helped me win more it's crucially still possible to be competitive right out of the box. It doesn't fall into the trap of the new player getting hammered continuually until they've grinded for hours.

The most vital bit though is that actually winning isn't everything. No race feels like a lost cause and slipping past the car in front with a cheeky power up to leave him in last is almost as exciting as getting on the podium.

I had faith that with Bizarre Creatings online pedigree they'd deliever but they've really stepped up with this. There maybe better driving games released this year (Hello GT5 I still want you) but I doubt there'll be a better sensation of racing.

The "Complete" List.

Left 4 Dead 2 - (All Campaigns)
Mass Effect
Lego Rock Band - Story Mode
Darksiders - Easy
BAYONETTA - Easy Automatic
Lego Batman
Call of Duty: Classic - Normal
Fracture - Casual
Dragon Quest: The Hand of the Heavenly Bride
Heavy Rain - Medium
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Normal
Yakuza 3 - Easy
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box
Mass Effect 2 - Normal
Peggle: Dual Shot - DS
Splinter Cell: Conviction - Realistic & Co-op - Realistic
Dead Space - Easy - 360
Alan Wake - Normal
Split/Second - Career

There's obviously a very fine line between success and failure in all good video games... Split Second turns it up to 11. For me it's possibly a touch to harsh. I like to win. Having said that it is punch the air exciting when you pull off the right moves.

It's a fictional futuristic ultra violent TV show yadda yadda... The presentation is slick but it doesn't really need to hang a narrative on it.. the action speaks for itself. There's just enough variety in the tracks and events to keep you going. More importantly the AI puts up a good fight.. Don't let the Disney label fool you, like it did me, that it's going to be a walk in the park.. from the second episode on every win feels hard fought..

There's a bit of a difficulty spike around the middle where I hadn't unlocked a good enough car to progress any further and then had to grind a touch but otherwise it's almost perfectly pitched.. Really enjoyed it. It's pure arcade racing action.. testing my drifting skills like they haven't been tested since Ridge Racer 4 and my reactions like.. well like they don't seem to bother these days since rewinding became en vogue.

Purchase Power

I somehow managed to forget that I'd pre-ordered this from Shopto.Net so I was somewhat surprised when my phone beeped yesterday with news of it's despatch. A pleasant surprise none the less as I'd already decided not to trade in Split/Second after all.

I was even more surprised when the Isle of Man Post Office actually worked out that signed for next day delivery should actually mean next day and not 'when they can be bothered' and for the first time in living memory I actually have a new game the day before official release.

That it should happen with one of the games I'm most excited about is the kind of serendipty that just doesn't happen to me very often.