So a few choice bits from some recent gaming.
A few weeks back, Mrs Controller1 wanted to play Flower so we bought it off PSN and 2 hours later we played it. I don’t have the remotest idea what it is you do with this six-axis controlled relax-o-tron. You wave the controller around in the same way people move controllers in TV advertisements and things light up. It’s a game in a way that games normally aren’t. My wife, who never plays games, played this for three hours straight. Three hours.
Perfect Dark, back in the last days of the N64 as a viable system was a great game hamstrung by ambition on a system that couldn’t handle Rare’s last great game. 10 years later, it’s been ported to the 360 and the results are positive. It’s a relic of a bygone age but still fun to play despite the advances of the intervening years.
Boom Blox Bash Party is the sequel to a game no one played which was a pity since BB was quite a fun diversion. BBBP builds on the original and I, with two friends, spent a good few hours playing this recently. Alls I can say is, the puck levels suck, but the rest was a great way to pass time and grief people at the same time. You can smack talk in any game these days. I remember played Tetris once and getting called a n00b for using the long block. Tetraminos, bitch!
Of course, I am looooving Bad Company 2 despite it’s server issues. DICE have a game that offers the intensity of old Battlefield games, and trumps Call of Duty and is a hell of a lot of fun to boot. You can play as an infantryman and not have your game ruined by guys camping for choppers and tanks. Snipers are the bane at the moment. In a game where objectives are the order of the day, having snipers just sit back and pick off the enemy doesn’t mean victory. for the sniper’s team. EA have been slowly patching the game to improve it but by slowly, I mean 1000 times faster than Infinity Ward and Activision. There’s a single player mode in there at some point but, pffft.
I picked up some cheap games on Steam and Just Cause (the original was one of them). The sequel’s been getting some good pre-release buzz so I though the price was right. I guess my original dismissal of the 360 demo a few years back was correct. It is shash. Best avoided like a DoA Cosplay event at a Weight Watchers event.
Batman: Arkham Asylum was also purchased and installed and apart form the cool intro, I haven’t played it much. It looks so cool but I am seriously regretting not getting a console version. It’s just not the sort of game I like playing on a PC. This is one seriously well put together game. I just need to get around to playing it.
Next up; Bioshock 2 and maybe, just maybe, God of War III.
Currently, I’m playing BBC2 on PC (well, a Mac running Win 7 in its spare time) and despite the typical “EA can’t get their server shit together at launch” deal, it’s quite a blast.
I did play the original Bad Company online quite a bit back in 2008 (on PSN/PS3) and has a great time. I actually am a bit dirty having bought the PC version since I was aiming for a console version this time but several of my now former CoD4 colleagues were preordering with the intention of playing the PC versions on our machines at work during our lunch hour. Away I go to pre-order, ignoring the beta, but these two PC diehards hated the beta so much they went to the trouble of getting a refund from Steam.
So I’m playing the PC version, and it’s a great game. It runs well on my machine but I can’t help thinking some of the issues I’ve had with MW2 are just as prevalent here. We have dedicated servers again, something that MW2 proves is a must for PC games (Hell, they really make online console games light up). But the server browser is a tad ungainly with pings not currently showing up (for me at least) nor is there any way to filter by geographic location (if say, you were sick of being stuck with a US host on MW2, you could stick to servers in or near your country). So in the end I use the quick match option and see where I land. It’s literally Russian roulette since the lat few games were on servers in Europe and one was in Montreal. It was hard to tell because the people who did type messages, typed them in perfect English. No writing as if a text message, 1337speak or barely comprehensible babble. It was a bit hit or miss as far as lag goes (the game seems to cover it up quite well most of the time). You can either hit people or you can’t.
The game offers a very intense dynamic but there are a few balance issues (as there is any game of this sort) as is typical with Battlefield games, some people lead charmed lives. Snipers are the bane of the game right now though this is from DICE, who thought Battlefield Vietnam would benefit from a kit that combined a super accurate M60 heavy machine gun with a grenade launcher.
I’ve not had a chance to play much of the single player, but boy does it feel like a slightly above average Medal of Honor game (oe a slightly below average Call of Duty game). Let’s say it’s a dead heat with World at War and be done with it.
If you’re sick of Modern Warfare 2′s quirks but want something similar, I’d recommend this.
For someone who’s not been much of a PC gamer at home, I’m finding the uber cheap (and ultimately devaluing) Steam sales to be a great way to A) Try out games I wouldn’t have taken a punt on and B) giving me something to do at lunch at work. Far Cry 2 a few weeks ago might have been a waste of $10 but undeterred, I picked up Batman Arkham Asylum and Just Cause today. I’ve been seeing a lot about JC2 that makes me curious so I figure the price is right. Batman AA is recognized as one of the last year’s best games so it can’t hurt if I give it a spin. Even if neither game doesn’t gel with me I can’t complain too much.
So Sony and Microsoft. This is directed to you. You both have the infrastructure on your respective online marketplace mechanisms to offer download versions of your games. Sony’s gone quiet here but MS’s Games on Demand is crying out for two things. Sanity in pricing- especially outside of the US, and sales. I’d buy Saint’s Row 2 as a 360 download in a heartbeat if it wasn’t double the price of the disc version. Both the games I just got on Steam would have been a no-brainer to buy on either HD console if the option had been there.
Back to some more BBC2 and hoping Bioshock 2 turns up soon.
It could be worse- it could be Morbidly-Obese Inclement Weather.
So, Heavy Rain, the PS3′s first big hitter of the year has the makings of a huge hit, particularly amongst non-gamers easily impressed by pores. Despite losing a day of “gameplay” due to the apocalyPS3 this week, I’ve put in a few hours into the game (stopping when it hard locked my PS3 last night) and have gotten a feel for what it’s about. But nearly three hours in- I have picked a fight with some random guy and that was the only action I’ve seen so far.
This means that so far, I’m not particularly impressed by Heavy Rain. The story, the defining element of this game, may not have spun into top gear for me yet- but if it hasn’t, why hasn’t it? And if it has- God help us all.
So far I like and not like bits of this “game.”
Liked:
- Graphics. Even though nothing is happening, what little that does happen is pretty and fluid. Of course, it comes across as one of the high end graphics demos you used to see running instores selling PC’s.
- Trying to do something new with quicktime events.
-sound is well done. Great musical score, even if it borders on the melodramatic. Melodramatic game sounds melodramatic.
Disliked:
story, gameplay, characters, voice acting, hype.
I believe the game will appeal to non-gamers in a way that the Wii does and that’s a good thing if gets people using PS3′s for things other than Blu Ray movies. In time they might move onto actual games like Uncharted 2. But to me, it’s one enormous cutscene that I CAN’T SKIP. Metal Gear games are often derided by people who don’t play them because of the ridiculous story portrayed in the codec screens and cutscenes, but you could always skip these if you just wanted to get to the action. Because HR is a game of cutscenes, that would defeat the purpose of the enterprise.
HR brings back mandatory six-axis motions to effect on screen actions. I won’t use the word control because that would be too generous. To say you control this game the way is offensive to my DS3′s left analog stick. Let’s just say you influence your character the same way the actions in Star Wars influence C3PO- ie reluctantly and like a gay golden droid. The first three hours ofter some mundane home life tasks, an optional fistfight and some SCIENCE FICTION detective stuff. Note to developers: Don’t talk about reality when you offer up The Matrix in Ray-Ban form.
Some the blur is from the game, some is from my camera
“How far would you go?” n my case it’s about 2 Kilometres to the nearest EB games. Trade it in before everyone else does by the end of the first month and clogs up EB/Gamestop’s trade-in exclusions list.
If you are a fan of French cinema or thrillers aimed at the over 40 crowd starring Jodie Foster or Sandra Bullock, you might think the story is riveting. In which case, you could rent a movie with them and use your Six axis as a remote for your PS3. It might be more fun. Maybe the thing that bugs me most is this a story in a genre I often avoid. Maybe I’m not ready for David Cage and company’s bold dream. Maybe it’s a shit game. Who knows?
Two things happen- MW2 had reached the end of it’s playlife in my household (at least for the time being), but I also need a PC game to play at work during lunch. So number two was Far Cry 2 was cheap on Steam last week.
Some things are never cheap enough. Far Cry 2 is one of those things.
When I went to E3 for the first time in 2003, Ubisoft showed the most games I wanted to play. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Rainbow Six 3 on the Xbox, XIII, Rayman 3, Beyond Good and Evil and of course the original Far Cry. Before the next E3 was upon us, I had bought all of those games. Far Cry (on PC) was the last one I bought and I originally wasn’t going to bother. It was cheap on Direct 2 Drive and so I picked it up in one of my early forays into digital distribution. It was ok but I only played for a few hours before getting a bit restless. It was decent but not all that compelling. A year or so later came Ubisoft Montreal taking over the reigns for a port top the Xbox. Far Cry: Instincts was so much more fun and I loved playing that apart from a glitch where the final boss caught himself of the collision mesh and got stuck after I had pumped 50, 000 rounds into him. So while I feel I beat the game, technically I didn’t.
Far Cry 2 came out in late 2008 as one of UbiMon’s big releases for that year (along with the ordinary Prince of Persia reboot). I avoided it for whatever reason and the Focus Test we recorded didn’t change my mind. I was tempted when the 360 version was a $10 buy from Play Asia last year but I didn’t bite. But the steam sale and the need for a cheap PC game came at the right time so I bit.
The game sucks.
So I’ve also been playing Mass Effect 2 on the comfy couch and it is glorious. My save game says I’ve been playing for about 15 hours and have spent much of that time scanning planets for minerals. Gee, I hope these things come in handy because I’m going all Rio Tinto BHP Biliton (or whatever the fuck they call themselves these days) on these planet’s asses. I’m waiting for a Greenpeace’s Space Shepherd (sic) to come and attack me.
Here’s my Shepard. He was the character from Mass Effect 1 imported into the new game and I think his rat-like look goes well with the almost 50′s sounding voice the male Shepard has. He’s got that look because he never got any in the first game. This time he’s starting with his Yeoman, then going after the chick with the tats and then after the girl from Chuck.
So who is your Shepard banging first in ME2?
My history with the Ratchet and Clank Franchise has been solid. Although I wasn’t mad keen on the 2002 original, which I thought was a bit overlong and difficult, it did come out in a year with a lot of really solid platformer games and acquitted itself well. A year later R&C2 came out and was much better and to this day is still my favourite of the series. Another year, another installment, perhaps not as great as R&C2 with its focus of multiplayer action over the single player campaign, but still good. I skipped the arena-based Gladiator game and the Clank only game but did give the PSP version of Size Matters a go and enjoyed the first PS3 effort, Tools of Destruction. But for some reason, I have found, despite the obvious quality and ingenuity you find in a Ratchet game (I won’t say Insomniac games because I found the Resistance games a let down), this one hasn’t grabbed me at all.
It’s very likely that it’s just a bad time for me to be playing a R&C game or that I’ve outgrown the series and genre (I also haven’t gotten much further in Super Mario Bros Wii, either). It’s also that the R&C games, whilst tinkering with the edges, are basically exactly the same as the 2002 original in terms of structure. Oh sure you upgrade your weapons slightly differently, but it really is the same game. Maybe the sub-Futurama setting has just gotten stale for me. The gameplay itself is still good but there’s something about the grind in this game that I’m not able to look forward to. Now I’d just finished Assassin’s Creed II (which I loved), am playing MW2- which I mostly love and moving on to Borderlands next, which I have no idea about and is a lot more grindey than a R&C game. But I just can’t do A Crack in Time at this time. The quality is there but spirit is just not willing in this case. Maybe when there’s a lull in new releases mid year I can come back and try again.
So with the disappointment with this R&C game, and Mass Effect 2 another week away and a 4 day break off work (with a public holiday on Tuesday, why the fuck wouldn’t I use a leave day?), I needed something to play in the interim. I did have Borderlands ordered a few weeks back but that fucker looked like it was never going to ship so I canned the order despite the low price. But four days with only MP MW2 would drive me mad. The last two 2009 games I had any interest in playing were Borderlands and The Saboteur. Both original IP’s, both from sorta respected developers. Borderlands was an unexpected hit and Saboteur an unexpected failure that still hasn’t triggered much discounting. I was more keen on Saboteur, seeing as how I enjoyed most of the open world games I played in 2009 other than the first GTA expansion (Funny how the only GTA style game I didn’t like in 09 was GTA). But Borderlands was on special and Saboteur wasn’t. Borderlands was in the store last night and Saboteur wasn’t. Saboteur will just have to wait until the inevitable 2010 lull (everyone goes on about how Q1 2010 will be huge, but not all that much is scheduled for Q2 and Q3) and a nice discount.
I’m still somewhat iffy on Borderlands. It’s a coop game and I have no intention of playing it coop. It’s an RPG with grinding etc, and I normally hate those. But I have found RPG’s with more SF backdrops can appeal to me. I didn’t click with Oblivion but loved Fallout 3. I never played Neverwinter Nights but loved Knights of the Old Republic and the original Mass Effect. With ME2 out, I’m stoked for it. But all the time i was playing Fallout 3, I was thinking how dated this made a lot of what was in Mass Effect. Let’s see how Bioware has responded. Let you know in a week or two.
One last bit of website news. We’ve moved into a new studio for recording The Podcats. It’s less echoey that the room we’ve recorded in for the last six months (and yes it is a functioning, if poorly located audio studio). It is apparently a temp location so we might be moving again in 6 months or we may not. Management inertia is like that. It’s a better space for our purposes but it has a caveat, it’s not set up to focus test games (other than PC titles, or handhelds for obvious reasons) so expect fewer Focus Test-style shows and more chat.
The first game was a game engine and concept in search of game design. On the surface, the sequel appears to deliver on the original game’s potential. Of course, I’m only a bit over an hour in and still don’t have my hood so it still has time to go horribly pear-shaped.
Already it seems more interesting than the adventures of Altair from the first game, and look, Uncharted Guy is the voice of Desmond (so that’s this PoP, Uncharted 2, and Shadow complex where he’s played a lead this year- and he’s in ODST as well).
Free running seems smoother, though i’m yet to experience much compared since I’m still unarmed. The town is gorgeous, breathtaking to behold and with such attention to detail you almost forgive Ubisoft for releasing the first game. Almost.
So I don’t know if I’m going to want to play this game enough to complete it
The other game I’ve been playing a bit of is Call of Duty Classic. Woah. They say you can’t go back and in this case, at least, they’re right. It’s a pretty ordinary port with terrible multiplayer transporting you back to the world of “no sprinting.”
However, they still managed to include lean, something IW has never had in the console versions of their games (even going so far as to remove lean from PC as well).
However, there’s nothing here you could have more fun with by tracking down the PC version for chickenfeed.
A 2D Mario platformer on a console. It has been several Ice Ages (though 3 sucked) since the last one came off the shelf in the early 90′s. Since the DS version came out in 2005 and has sold more copies than even Nintendo expected, the Wii version, rather sensibly builds on the foundations of the handheld game. In fact it does little more than iterate on the DS version, which is a shame, but it doe it in a way that the Wii desperately needed- something old skool from Nintendo that’s fun for people who enjoy playing games rather than toys.
I’ll assume you’ve played the DS game (or even Super Mario World on the SNES). Here you hold a wiimote sideways with two hands like an NES controller that’s even less comfortable (D pad on the left, 1 and 2 buttons on the right) with 2 being the jump button, 1 being the do everything else button. Some actions do require motion control (mainly just waving the controller up and down). Nothing suss. There is a control scheme that uses the nunchuk but the classic controller is not supported- which is a shame.
It looks crisp enough on a HDTV, but it’s still got that Wii Blur (of course, it will really pop on an old fashioned CRT TV). Colours are vibrant and music is bouncy. How does it play, you ask? Like a 2D Mario where you hold a Wiimote on it’s side. You could in a pinch use the Mario Kart wheel if that’s your fancy- which is a shame. The first world does trick you into thinking it’s an easy game but world 2 is where it starts to get hard. Bloody hard. Since Mario games use a green 1up mushroom as currency, Nintendo still insists on Mario having lives. If you die eight times doing the same thing you get prompted if you want Luigi to play a level for you/ This is great if you have more than 8 lives on a tricky bit. Of course, if you have fewer than eight, and if you’re likely to need Luigi’s assistance, chances are you won’t have many lives up your sleeve.
A nice touch is now you can store more or less as many power-ups as you like, these are accessible from the map screen (where you get booted to after every death). So if you keep dieing because of a particularly hard piranha plant, you can pop a flame ball in his ass to get you by. Other than that, It plays like the DS game in so many ways that if you close your eyes and pretend your 46-inch HDTV is a new DS, you might have the long awaited sequel. Just don’t put your fingers on the screen to activate a power-up.
It’s a now playing- but really it’s was playing. 50 Cent’s first foray into videogames a few years back was a bit of a hit, selling over a million G-units. The sequel was kinda of a no-brainer for publisher Vivendi. But after the merger with Activision, Blood on the Sand was cut loose (as was Ghostbusters and Brutal Legend). THQ picked it up and while it’s not GOTY it’s a harmless fun time gosh darn it.
Speaking of no-brainers- here’s the story: 50 Cent is stiffed by a promoter on a Middle Eastern tour and thinks he can be reimbursed by some maguffin skull. The pursuit of this blinged out skull is why you, a rapper, are shooting people in an unnamed Middle East warzone. Either way, It’s just a flimsy way to stick 50 cent and his posse in the middle of a war. 50 Cent and one of his sidekicks (nee bitches) run around busting heads, popping caps in bitches’ asses and generally swearing like motherfuckers. It’s also rather well made and put together with full knowledge that the story is dumber than network programmers at Infinity Ward.
Swordfish have done a good job on the gameplay, settling a third person action somewhere between Gears of War and The Club. The gunplay is well-executed and the presentation is pretty top notch- the game runs at a fairly consistent 60 fps (on 360 a, at least) and yet still manages to have a pretty high standard of artwork which almost no one else has managed to achieve this gen (Infinity Ward, which their idiot savant network programmers, at least have good tech and art). The sound is a big flimsy since it’s made up of gangsta rap from Mr Cent and friends thought there is at least the option to have a purely instrumental soundtrack if you prefer. 50 and co are a pretty verbose lot and so by the time you get to actual in-game sounds, there didn’t seem to be much will left to make the game sound any good (things like smashing a crate and having a pretty obvious wait until the right sound effect played)
Alll in all, as this was a cheapie, I enjoyed the two or three hours I played of this game in the lead up to MW2. It obviously is blown out of the water in terms of quality by Uncharted 2 and Modern Warfare 2, but the game is cheap and more importantly, a fuckton of fun. It also doesn’t have dedicated servers or lean.
So like everyone else on the planet with a 360, a PS3 or a reasonable PC, I’ve been playing Modern Warfare 2 on 360. It’s definitely a game where you could tell there was a legacy to live up to and even surpass. And that IW are using their immense power and goodwill to force some unpopular features on PC users.
I reckon I’m about 2/3 of the way through the single player and like MW2 it’s split between an SAS group and standard US army troops. Whereas CoD4: MW was in a more believable milieu that built to a climax that wasn’t totally far fetched, the sequel just goes nuts straight off the bat. Though the story is just an excuse to hang the set pieces on (as always) but instead of those real time cutscenes you would often get at the start and end of the level, we have the briefing screens where the story unfolds as a narration over computer screens. Unlike World at War, which used a similar device to explain the jumps in its barely there story, MW2 puts it all in these scenes and nine times out of ten, I’m just skipping these to get to the action. Note to IW: I WANT TO SHOOT THINGS. CUT THE BULLSHIT AND LET ME, LIKE, SHOOT STUFF DOOD!
SPOILER WARNING, SPOILER WARNING, SPOILER WARNING…
There is a level fairly on, called No Russian. This is the controversial level you may have heard of. It is so controversial that IW give you the option of skipping it altogether. If you don’t want the game spoiler, skip to the next paragraph. You are an undercover US soldier trying to get to the game’s antagonist by infiltrating his group of terrorists. It’s all there to make a story point, but it is one of the most powerful gaming sequences you will ever experience as you are part of a massacre. Now there are two parts and you can choose not to shoot the civilians, but once your group is attacked by the SWAT teams, you have no choice but to shoot them if you want the game to continue. Of course, how many people will also just shoot the civvies in the first half of the level also makes an interesting moral dilemma but I think many of the people who play this might not get the subtlety.
END SPOILERS
The multiplayer is also great and once I started that, I had a hard time going back to the campaign but I wound up alternating between the two. It’s fun but i can’t help thinking they’ve turned this game even more into WoW with the infinite variations and complexity the game now requires in order to do well in an online match. The jump in and play ethos Activision and IW use to justify their decisions on the PC version don’t really gel with the game which really appeals to hardcore users. If I hadn’t played CoF4 for two years, I would find the options bewildering instead I merely see them as overkill since most people will work out what the best combos are, and what the most hated ones will be and stick to those.
Haven’t tried Spec Ops but that doesn’t sound all that appealing to me. Maybe when I have friends over. I also have the PC version on it’s way so I should be able to see if it’s at all redeemable.
So, the two hottest games of October are Brutal Legend by Psychonaut’s Double Fine and Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2. I’m not currently playing either of these high quality games.
The question is why?
Well taking Brutal Legend first. I played the demo and I read the reviews. So it looks and sounds amazing and I would kill to play that game just to experience the story. Thing is the gameplay on the demo didn’t excite me very much. I have gotten very bored with brawlers having worked on a couple in my day. The music and visuals are great but the hack and the slash gameplay in the demo didn’t give me any sort of warm gooey, pant-changing feeling. Then in the reviews it apparently becomes a strategy game with units and resource management. Even if it is simple, I think I will pass. Maybe later when it is cheaper and I can justify breezing through it on easy just for the experience, but for now… Next!
Which would mean Uncharted 2. I liked Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune when it came out in 2007. I felt it was the best PS3 title available at that point and until now I still think it, MGS4 and the new Uncharted are the three best reasons to own a PS3 if you like to play games. I have bought Uncharted 2, I still haven’t played it. Mainly because I haven’t had time to play it with work commitments recently, and the other sticking point is I started to replay the original game earlier in the week. Part of me is berating myself for getting Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, a game which disappoints in more ways than a Nintendo Press conference. If I hadn’t have bought that (despite the good word of mouth and the fun I had with the original), I would have finished it time to play the sequel. Part of me still hopes I can blast through the original before sticking part two in.
The trouble with that is, I’m still fairly on through the first game, when it was still a Tomb Raider Clone. I’m only just now reaching the point where the game becomes a Gears of War clone. Maybe I should just put it aside and play the new game. Maybe I will.
Of course, I’ve been playing CoD4 for the last few months on PC. This is a game I have put aside and come back to on many, many occasions. For some reason I get completely frustrated with it and quite for a while. Then I come back to it. There are several silly reasons why I am playing this over WaW on PC right now.
1- The only gaming PC I have available is my work’s PC, a HP quadcore machine with a decent video card (a 260 something something). I typically play for around 30-40 mins after work each night before I go home
2- I have finally managed to get a profile high enough to unlock weapons like the Barret 50.cal sniper rifle. I have had to restart at level 1 without ever restiging several times over the last 2 years (new PC, playing PC and 360, etc)
3- Only a few games are set up to work within my Work’s firewall. CoD 4, L4D, TF2 and WoW are set up since they are popular. WaW needs an online profile to work and there are enough people wanting to play it to bother
4-MW2 is out in a few weeks. I’d love to reach level 55 at least once.
So I’m playing against random kids on the net some days and at others with my colleagues. It’s clear the colleagues are very bored with CoD4. They love the gameplay but the lack of new maps has really added to the fatigue. That said, I expect each of them to have MW2 within a week and hopefully, it will be at least 3 hours before they start complaining about hax.
My plans for the next few month in terms of picking up games looks quite slim. Modern Warfare 2 on PC and 360, Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time. Maybe Borderlands and of course All New Super Mario Brothers on Wii. Fuck Assassin’s Creed 2, Forza 3, Need for Speed and the rest.
