A rather social weekend meant cleaning our house first. In turn gaming was low on the list but that didn’t stop me getting a few rounds of World at War during the double XP weekend. Also I managed an hour of GTA: Chinatown Wars on the plane ride home until the wind buffeting the plane became so intense that I couldn’t hold the stylus straight enough to tattoo my newly recruited Tong members.
Also another stab at GTA: The Lost and Damned. I take back my earlier comments, it does seem dated in comparison to the new sandbox games. Well, it feels slower (pressing A to move faster than a crippled turtle is kind of absurd) than games like Infamous, Crackdown, et al and just clunkier overall. The DS game is just more fun. The story of the bikers is interesting to watch as the sociopath leader Billy unleashes havoc, much to the dismay of Johnny- the playable character. Johnny just wants to keep things on a business level. All of this mayhem interferes with all of the drugs, loose women and grand larceny.
Red Faction Guerrilla- a game I wasn’t overly impressed by during our Focus Test of the demo- has turned out to be a fair bit of fun. Red Faction was the game I bought with my PS2 back in 2001 and was a game I have fond memories of, memories that the sequel was not super kind to. So open world Red Faction seemed to be a rather desperate move on the part of Volition, whose Saint’s Row games aren’t the most polished GTA rips there are. But despite implied uses of the same tech as SR, Red Faction looks pretty nice considering YOU CAN BLOW UP ALMOST ANYTHING!
As someone who has an affinity for audio in videogames, I was slightly shocked to find that the game booted up with all of the audio options set to 0. That’s right after the intro videos- there was no sound at all. There is even a switch to disable the sound in the menu options.
It’s as if RF:G is the game Mercenaries 2 wanted to be. After initially deciding to pass on the game several things happened- I finished inFamous and decided I didn’t want to play Prototype, I have nothing new to play after Ghostbusters (which is meant to be rather short), it was on special, I’d heard other site’s podcasts banging the drum about how much fun the game is and lastly and most importantly my wife bought it for me as a present while I was out of town.
So it sounds like Lost and Damned will get the boot while I concentrate on Red Faction and Ghostbusters. Expect ‘Now Playing’ articles for both over the coming weeks.
It’s a fairly quiet time for releases during the northern hemisphere summer (It’s fricking cold in the southern hemisphere, though). But The next three monoths have some nice looking games for us all to drool over, argue the relative merits of and play the motherfucking life out of.
Coming this week: BATTLEMOTHERUCKINGFIELD NINTEENMOTHERFUCKINGFORTYMOTHERFUCKINGTHREE (aka Battlefield 1943)
So, its only three maps, consoles first (gasp) and a WWII game and up against the free Battlefield Heroes (which hasn’t gotten a good rap from my CoD4 buddies). But I’m looking forward to this in more ways than red lines on Julius Caesar’s Sat Nav leading to Rome. And I don’t knoe why because although Battlefield games appeal to me, I’m invariably pretty ordinary at them and they only hold my interest for a very short time. But hey, its three maps- it doesn’t have to last me forever.
WOLFENSTEIN
OH GOD! Another World War II Game! Oh God, so over world war II. We need more games set in Tolkeinesque settings with orcs and dorks. So anyway, I’ve ignored the build-up just so I can play this for myself. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the first game I played on both PC and console (Xbox1) and found I enjoyed the console version more. I personally can’t wait.
WII SPORTS RESORT
Motion plus is here and so is the follow up to one of the biggest player bases out there. Wii sport, as a pack in for the phenomenally selling Wii, is in a lot of homes. But it has been played by almost anyone who has visited one of those homes. Wii Sports resort is either going to sell in big numbers or tank like a party celebrating Atari’s recent achievements.
CALL OF JUAREZ: Bound in Blood.
The western is the new WWII game because although there are only two western games on the market, they stand out on shelves and everyone goes “Gee there are lots of Western games, aren’t there?” I liked the first one (I picked it up as a cheapie that I enjoyed enough to play it right through). Whether I can hold off on it for a few months is another matter but after beng burnt yet again by getting a Ubisoft title at full price on release, I can wait.
ARMAII- Some of my COD4 buddies tried this game. They hated it. They hate it so I don’t have to. I think I’m right for the ‘quiet’ months.
Oh and there’s also something called BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, the Bigs 2 and a Harry Potter game we will all be eagerly anticipating.
So, how about you guys?
You may have noticed a LOT fewer updates over the last month (and fewer podcasts to boot). This is due to many reasons such as holidays, work commitments, moving, end of the financial year, post-E3 slump, business travel, illness, forgetting to press record and in one case, forgetting to show up. That’s quite a list and we still reserve the rights to fire, flood, giving blood, conscription and of course, the old standby, cbf. Most of that is behind us so perhaps we can get back to weekly podcats this coming week. Fingers crossed.
Hectic life sometimes fewer games and this week I’ve really only been playing the CoD WaW map packs on Live and having a blast plus a bit more of Chinatown Wars on the plane. It was a rough flight home yesterday with strong winds buffeting the plane like a bastard for the last half hour of the flight. I feel I can say what it’s like to be inside a Dyson. It was probably fortunate I wasn’t trying to play anything on the iPhone using the accelerometer.
That said, there will be some updates on Lost and the Damned, Ghostbusters and oddly enough, Red Faction Guerrilla. I was indifferent to this before Infamous, and toying with picking it up when my wife surprised me with a videogame present of RF:G waiting for me on my return. That’s how you tell you’ve got a good one.
