The State of Play (pun intended)

Well, shit, here we are again! The old blog, haven’t touched this thing in over a year now; but brush away about six feet of dust and you might even find some scrappy, poorly written articles about gaming on here. On one hand, I chose to do this post here because, well, it’s a blog that I already have. Making a new one would be effort, right? But on the other hand, it’s actually a pretty relevant spot for what I want to say. This blog marks the beginning of my time doing stuff with purpose on this ol’ internet (which by now I’ve figured is probably gonna be sticking around for a while), albeit a list of articles that were never read, and rightly so. They’re garbage, and I won’t sell them as anything more, but when I look back at some of the earliest, I’m able to read in them nuances of the pretty big changes that were going on in my life – even if they’re not so apparent to the untrained eye.

But let’s lighten the mood first. I’ve been doing cartoon versions of some of my Tweeps lately, but I’ve never done a self-portrait, so here’s one. Enjoy.

… and now that I’ve deceptively lowered your expectations, let us continue the tale. Allow me to cast your minds back just two years in Simpsons fashion to the beginning of 2010 – Haiti is suffering one of the worst quakes in history, the Sun has given anther vain attempt at hiding behind the moon if only for ten minutes, and those crazy Arabs have just opened that massive pointless building in Dubai – but not much of this really seems to matter to one stupid, opinionated 16-year old boy in Berkhamsted Collegiate School. And that might seem like an incredibly unflattering presentation of myself, and I want it to be. I hate what I was then, and I’m proud to: it’s not depressing to me, in fact I can only love how different I feel to what I was. The year was, awesome games aside, the worst year of my life, as my downward spiral in education (which to this day I can’t explain, I just started to suck) was really hitting rock bottom and in brutally heavy subjects like Philosophy, History and (believe it or not) Photography I was truly out of my depth.

It’s true that pretty much everyone complains about their childhood, and I’ll admit here I’m no different. Hell, I wouldn’t blame you if you find it hard to believe someone in a privileged private school is ‘having it tough’, but the school I had attended since my infancy was an odd social environment. There are those who loved it, and I understand that, but it seemed that if you weren’t loving it, you were god damn hating it. I’ve managed to glean a small circle of my closest friends from the school, and for that I’m forever grateful, but honestly, those I’ve not talked to since I likely wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire.

It’s probably this environment that led to my twisted, illogical and constantly fluctuating political and social views that shaped the way in which I acted on a day to day basis. I’d flicker inconsistently from Conservative Christian to brutally left-wing to Greenpeace to blindly misogynistic almost on a weekly basis. I’d hear a rich person acting snobbishly, I’d be a Communist. I’d get annoyed at my mother and hate women. It could be said that without the experience in these mindlessly extreme views I wouldn’t have ever settled on the liberal views I hold now (both politically and to general people I meet) so to that I’m thankful, but I’m sorry to any and all who had the displeasure of hearing me talk about it at the time.

As I’m sure is obvious, the exams for that year didn’t go well, as expected, and being under the minimum grade boundary I was told to either fuck off or repeat the year. That was an easy choice, and a couple months later I was joining my lifelong partner in crime, Ryan, at Amersham college. My liberalisation which was just beginning to kick in pretty much was hammered in shut within a few months. Being exposed to people who didn’t get lifts to school in BMWs and get given PS3s for Easter was refreshing, as was the college not having the attitude of ‘you’d better be at least a lawyer or a doctor, or you’re nothing’ which I had been so used to. At last, the prospect of doing something I even gave a shit about was at least worth considering, and being someone who’d always had a bit of a knack for the written word, and in recent years had developed a passion for gaming, games journalism was the new goal. By this time, I’d already had this blog, and my reviews blog, but I certainly hadn’t thought anything of them. They were Blogspots, after all, not job applications. A way of churning out all the things I wanted to say about stuff, even if most of it was about games. But combined with me having just made a Twitter account under the advice of Vicky (@Vix_Russell), I had finally found a way where this wasn’t the case, where people might even read all those wordy words.

Oddly, my increasing use of Twitter was actually simultaneous with me becoming a more confident and social person. I won’t deny it, before going to college I had found it not easy at all to talk to girls (not because of any sexual matter, but simply because in my single-sex school I had barely seen nor heard of one) and I was, despite my closest friends, a pretty lonely person. Cliques didn’t cross-mingle with other cliques where I came from, so you hung out with who you hung out with, and that was that. Suddenly, I was faced with people who’d invite you out for a drink after knowing them for two weeks. It was humanity-faith-in-restoringly good, and despite the common view that internet life has a negative correlation with real social life, this helped me enormously when it came to randomly talking to new people on Twitter. For example, a few months later a certain @CapnRaccoon got retweeted by GAME, and I thought ‘shit, let’s have a chat to this fellow long-haired lovely looking wanker.’ I couldn’t tell you due to sheer terrible memory where people like @GetUpKidAK came from but the effect was the same. I’ve no doubt to them at the time this was just another someone-or-other floating around the Twitterverse, but to me this was massive.

I guess at this point it would only be fair to mention a very good friend I met at this time, who went by the name of Mary Jane. We met on a cold wintery night in my friend’s bedroom, and we’ve been the closest of friends since. And I know due to the ridiculous view our societies have built up around this kind old girl that this might seem dumb, or immature to some, and I won’t argue. I could, sure. I’m armed to the teeth when it comes to defending Mother Nature’s favourite plant, but that’s not what this post is about. I will, however dispel two myths that might come to mind. Firstly, was it the cause of my educational failings? No, if you’re smart you’ll realise this came after my grades failed, and they’ve actually gone up since. Secondly, has it made me lazy? Instead of bringing out all the scientific evidence that proves it doesn’t cause general laziness, I may as well just admit I am and always have been a tad on the lazy side. Nonetheless, I’ve actually found she has, like with a million musicians before me, only helped bring out my creative and appreciative side, and if she only had a functioning brain and ears I’d thank her a million times over. The times with my friends that she has accentuated into classic evenings of long discussions of religion and politics, ridiculous laughs and tasty food beyond belief are innumerable. Also, to my ents out there, especially our introducer G-Slice, my eternal love is with all of you. Summer of 2011 Forever <3

The final subject being, of course, writing itself. By early 2011, it was definitely the goal, but the means to its end were devious. I wrote with foolish dedication for a ‘growing’ site that went by the uncreative name of ps3xboxreviews.com for much longer than I should have, which took 1000+ word reviews in return for next to no views, and my Dead Space 2 review turned out to be my last. I was then tweeted at by a mysterious account which had been following me for some time, asking what ‘cool games’ had come out recently. It turned out said account was for a nice-looking new site called Flush the Fashion. I appreciated the Alice Cooper reference, so we talked for a spell (that was a Bastion reference) and before I knew it, I had done a review for them too. Being put on the front page of a site that seemed to actually be attracting an audience was a feeling I’ll never forget, and here I still am, writing for the site which is nearing 6,000 followers, scoring me review copies, getting me to press events, and getting me known with PRs. Pete, you too have my eternal gratitude. Go follow @tweetthefashion.

But if you know me, you know Flush the Fashion isn’t the only place I write for, and I think it was in the latter stages of 2011’s summer that I first heard of Pixels or Death. ‘I’ve just started writing for Pixels or Death’, I believe Chris’ words were. ‘INTERESTING’, I thought (I sometimes think in full caps). However, I didn’t think much of it until I, purely for research purposes, listened to the first PODcast which included Chris himself – is there no one else absolutely HAS to be able to put a voice to a face? – and even though at this point I didn’t know my Patrick from my Rush, I did know that these fine gentleman knew what they were talking about… even the Northerner.

Honestly, I can’t really remember the details of how I joined POD, but somehow in the early months of winter I moved up in the world from podcast question-asker to question-askee. And while I love everything that the site encourages, from terms of lengthy discussion of topics to supporting to supporting small-time developers, what I’ve come to love especially in the last month or so is the awesome community around the site. I’m surrounding by some of the most talented writers I’ve ever known of (I have a shrine to Adam and Ben’s work that I sacrifice goats to every night) but the people I have come to know on Twitter, most of whom are literally friends of friends of friends, are an absolute blast to chat to on a daily basis. If I’ve talked to you more than, say, twice on Twitter and it was an amicable exchange, I want you to know that my cyber-heart totally goes out to you. Also worthy of mention: Trin’s caps lock key. That thing is a character of its own.

So, if you managed to trawl through that short novel above, that’s roughly where I stand now. Writing, tweeting, toking and loving every minute of it. With the sense of renewed perspective it’s given me, I’d give my biggest thanks to the internet itself, were it not an inanimate and somewhat abstract being. Hell, where else could THIS happen?

Bulletstorm's Flop of an Ending (spoilers)

If you've read my review for Bulletstorm (it's published on this fine website which I write for these days) you'll know I had a lot of fun with the game. If you haven't, I'll fill you in: I had a lot of fun with the game. It taught a very, very old dog some new tricks and put some life into a genre which is standing on its very last legs of originality. In fact, there was so much focus on blasting fools to kingdom come that there was very little room for story - and that was okay. As it happens, I don't really want justification for shooting someone in the posterior and being rewarded for it, or anything to signify that they are a thinking, feeling human being for that matter.

A lot of people, ie. everyone who touched te game, had a problem with the ending, for various reasons. This was mostly because of the suitably ballsy approach it had to the sales of the game by leaving no closure whatsoever and leaving it all up to a sequel - a brave move indeed, though understandably frustrating. However, my issue was related to the matter mentioned above; as in the last half an hour or so, the game suddenly gets almost totally emasculated, as if it took a giant kick in the 'nads by the reality of the situation, the reality which I had very much enjoyed avoiding.

Imagine a game where you shoot rabbits on a farm. Rabbits are the death of farms, breeding like crazy, eating and ruining crops, and using the world as their toilet. I'd be pretty happy taking a double barrel to the darn critters, but imagine if right at the end you are suddenly shown all their cute little babies, and reminded about how you took away cute little Bugs here's mummy and daddy. This is pretty much what Bulletstorm mysteriously feels the need to do at its conclusion. I felt no reserve about wasting endless hordes of screaming maniacs, brains melted due to radiation poisoning or some other absurd narrative construction, but when you are at last facing real humans, it suddenly wasn't so satisfying being given extra points for aiming a sniper bullet right into his reproductive organs. They aren't even evil humans, in fact, they are in the exact same situation as Grayson Hunt, the protagonist, was just a few years before - misguided and manipulated by the tyrannical General Serrano. The kind general even spells it out for you, shouting over the speakers about the 'good men you just killed' as you blow them to oblivion, bringing in a moral dilemma that you have no choice in choosing the bad way out of.

It's not that I'm against being forced to feel guilty in games, but this just isn't the right title to do it in. In GTA IV, I grudgingly kill off oncoming police forces knowing in context of Niko's story of a downward spiral into a world of crime it makes sense for there to be bloodshed of the innocent. I know the man doesn't feel good about what he's doing, but he's reluctant and desperate. In Bulletstorm, Grayson is still happily shouting dick jokes at his victims as he tears them apart, knowing full well not a decade ago they would have been his teammates, because that's the sort of game it is, and it makes sense against the right enemies. Instead, it felt like I had come to see The Mechanic and ended up seeing Apocalypse Now. Don't try and make me feel, Bulletstorm. I'm not here for your poor lessons in humanity, I'm here for you to show me how I can kill a mindless freak using only my foot and a giant cactus or a hotdog stand.

Alright, I guess I'll write about Homefront.

I haven't blogged in a while, but this time I have no lame, grovelling excuse to make, like 'wah wah wah I work so hard at college' or 'sorry I was burning down Infinity Ward' (I think I have actually used that one once) as the reality is I haven't been playing a lot of new games. Dead Space 2 was far too unexceptional to really rant about, and the shutdown of Guitar Hero and DJ Hero hardly bothered me in the slightest. My Xbox had a breakdown not two weeks ago, as did I - though I insist there is no correlation between the two - but with that not being particularly noteworthy, there simply hasn't been reason to blog.

Homefront, it seems, is something to write about. Kaos studios have never made a game that has hit big, but suddenly games bloggers, newspapers and even my beloved Roger Ebert Journal have gone berserk over the game's storyline and context. To be honest, it puzzles me that this is such an alien concept, when not two years ago the overwhelmingly atrocious and intensely boring Modern Warfare 2 campaign showed the 'big bad Russians' having the gumption to not only invade the US following a preposterously powerful EMP strike, but act like it's the 1940s and send in the army via parachutes. But North Korea, the country with the second biggest army in the world invading America? Ridiculous. How absurd. Heil Uncle Sam.

My thoughts on how the game will actually be are varied. The storyline, no matter what people and/or degenerate patriots say, I am looking forward to. With the writer of Red Dawn and co-writer of Apocalypse Now behind the wheel, I have hopes of a grizzly and emotional yet scarily believable tale unfolding, and from what I have heard from Jeff Cannata of The Totally Rad Show - a trusted source in my eyes - said hopes are likely to come true.

What I do worry about is the gameplay. Kaos recently released through various sites some footage of standard mission gameplay... and it's not fantastic. If there are many truly spectacular moments, with large set pieces and original dynamics, it's all yet to be seen. So far, all we've been shown is Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor etc. as the player runs and guns through streets, showing little of the 'impact of the kill' the developers were so eagerly talking about in interviews. It also appears to have fairly rough visuals, poor animation and a sense of unnecessary heaviness, considering the protagonist is not a fully kitted-out soldier. Have a look at this clip and see what you think.

That's my lot for now, I'll be renting the game upon release and, if the multiplayer lives up to a healthy, replayable standard, I may give it a purchase.

PS: I am now occasionally (and I mean occasionally) writing for an alternative culture site called Flush the Fashion. My Dead Space 2 review is up there.

My Expensive Addiction

Looking through the posts from the last month or two on here, you may notice they're pretty few and far between. You see, folks, I've unfortunately been stricken with a new habit. It's taking over my life, it's like nothing I've tried before, and it's near-impossible to kick despite taking all my time and money. No, it's not heroin (yet), but something much, much more unhealthy: Castlevania HD. I'm sorry, that wasn't a surprise, it might even have been disappointing. What I have managed to post of late has almost all been related to the damned game, so it should be no shock 'n' horror to know it's really been my go-to game this winter.

But that's not interesting, right? Indeed. What is unusual, however, is that Konami appears to have strolled into my life, a company whose games I have hardly touched, and taken almost all my money. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who will say 'DLC? Well, I liked the game, so I'll take it, TAKE IT ALL!'. In fact, with the exceptions of games I really want to squeeze the replay value out of such as Gears 2, Halo 3 and Red Dead, I often won't buy DLC at all. It seems that a simple old-school sidescroller made up entirely of sprites used in 10-20 year old games has avoided this rule.

I'll get this straight - Konami won't lie to you, or try to bend the truth, or even try to hide the fact they want your money. The game itself is 1200 points, 50% more than Undead Nightmare despite having not nearly as much content, or Puzzle Quest 2, which is a whole new game for goodness' sake. They've since steadily released new levels and characters, but get the prices for these. The first extra chapter was 400 points - a third of the whole game price for an extra 1/6th of the content. The following two were 320 points, and the two to come are 240 each, and that's only because they're in easy-to-code 8-bit format. The characters? All 240 each, except for the two 8-bit characters going for 160 each. These prices are undeniably ludicrous, but I have lapped them up like a cat with milk. Milk filled with delicious rare loot, and... sweet... 5 star drops...

But I digress, as I begin to drool over 2d items on a screen again. Funny, I've gone from a guy who's never touched a Japanese game in his life, to being utterly obsessed with one that might as well have been made 15 years ago. I suppose my only advice to give to readers, as people would with any drug, is don't start. If you like RPG elements, grinding, and killing fantasy monsters, you will love this game. Too much. And it will be the death of your wallet.

FailboatSkipper's Top 5 Games of 2010

I won't lie or deny it; this is a little late. I had intended to write this before December came to a close, but with looming exams, college work and generally being stricken with a feeling of apathy, I found neither the time nor the willpower. This is really if you see little point in reading the mammoth 2,000 word monstrosity posted below, and just want to get the jist.

5. Castlevania: Harmony of Despair

At a glance, this game isn't a massive achievement, at least not in Konami's history. It's basically a recycled, old 2D side-scrolling adventure game, but now with 6-player co-op. However, beneath its simple gameplay lies a mass of rare items to spend hundreds of playthroughs desperately trying to find, in an attempt to reach an end-of-the-rainbow objective of having every character fully maxed and geared out. This is more enough to make it addictive enough for me to have continued playing it since September, and to make success in grinding and farming remarkably satisfying. Not bad for an Arcade game, eh?

4. Alan Wake

I'm as willing to admit as any that Alan Wake should be more than it is. A 5 year project ended up being nothing more than a linear, 8 hour experience, with no 'revolutionary' free roam or RPG elements. However, what it does deliver is a hugely compelling story (easily the most finely crafted of this year), an innovative dual-element combat system with incredible visuals and soundtrack to top it off. Sure, we're all sick of Alan's voice by the end, but for a video game to have a plot of the same depth and quality of a Stephen King novel, you've got to hand it to Remedy for creating another brilliantly original title.

3. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

Yes, another Castlevania game makes the cut, but this time its wholly different, as MercurySteam were given the job of rebooting the series and updating it for a modern audience. As much as Castlevania's hardcore audience will continue to moan about it 'betraying' the series, Lords of Shadow is aggressive yet beautiful, challenging yet accessible, and takes the player on a journey with a man who is willing to go further and turn darker than he could have possibly imagined to get back the one he loves. If you wanted a reason to believe hack 'n slash isn't just mindless blood and death, look no further.

2. Red Dead Redemption

Any gamer should have seen this one coming, and if you've played the game, you'll know why. Rockstar put back on their sandbox gaming boots, and trod on almost untouched ground with RDD, a game that puts GTAs style of play into a Western setting, with all satire and social commentary intact. If you're not wrapped up in the edgy storyline depicting the end of outlaws (but also the end of civil liberties?) the game offers just as much playtime in the dozens of extra activities, and a massive, well-sculpted map to explore. I've said it before and I will say it again: this is free-roam on a new level.

1. Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Perhaps at the end of the day, I'm just a shooter fanboy, but Bad Company 2 undoubtedly offered the most for me in 2010. Battlefield's style of multiplayer is, to me, without competition and DICE's latest game is intense, believable and highly strategetic - all the right ingredients for a multiplayer game that refuses to get old even after well over a hundred hours. This is of course helped by DICE still steadily releasing new map variations 9 months after release (for free no less) and following that, the Vietnam expansion which reinvented the experience all over again. The times I have had on this game I will never forget, and I have no regrets naming this my Game of 2010.

2010: A Review

And as the Christmas and New Year festivities end, so does a monumentous year for gaming, certainly the best in my life. With a huge number of AAA titles being released, all trying to barge their way to the top of the sales, each and every gamer had their own experiences of 2010, having more than enough games to choose from. I'll try to document my year without making an epic poem of it.

The beginning of the year was undoubtedly the worst of it. DICE were endlessly flaunting their trailers for Bad Company 2, and considering at the time I was still addicted to Bad Company 1, I was really counting down the minutes for the release of the 'COD killer' (which it unfortunately wasn't). There was also a distinct lack of games for me. I rented Army of Two: The 40th Day, an incredibly average game in mechanics which somehow had the best weapon customization I've ever seen, along with some of the most infuriating bugs and unrealistically massive arms. Unfortunately, it was at this time that the entire gaming community was enjoying the masterpiece Mass Effect 2, a game that to date I still haven't played. Why, you ask? Sadly, my OCD-ish tendencies got the better of me, demanding that I play the first Mass Effect before even touching the sequel. This turned out to be a challenge, as Mass Effect delivered some of the clumsiest and most boring gameplay I have encountered this generation, and getting anywhere near finishing proved to be an impossible task. When I returned my copy, there was an air of 'I'll be back', but I fear a second attempt will yield no better results.

Things seemed to start looking up in February, however, as I began to play a lot of games that were 'good, but not great'. Bioshock 2 (which I still say is better than the first), Dante's Inferno, Aliens VS Predator - all titles I'd happily play once, but my mind remained unblown. In the long run, I suppose these games only made me more hyped for Bad Company 2, which at this point was only a few weeks away. Naturally, I was spending more time on the multiplayer demo than I was on any full title, which despite being the same map over and over never once got boring, and led to Ryan and I meeting the great Will Holden, who is now our best pilot and teller of drunken tales. He's given the 'clan' the catchphrase 'razz 'em lads!', and thanks to him we've won countless more matches than we would have before, and it's been great gaming with the guy this year.

I'm sure by now you can guess what March was all about: the release proper of DICE's next big thing. Being a pre-order kind of guy, and Amazon being awesome, I got the game a day before release, and never has a game totally fulfilled my hopes and expectations so thoroughly. In the blink of an eye, March was totally gone, envoloped in a hundred hours worth of near-constant play. While I still feel slightly disappointed in the game losing the comedy and sense of madness from Bad Company 1, as a shooter and a multiplayer team-based game it couldn't be better.

Strangely, Bad Company 2 made me almost completely forget about a game that I had been anticipating for the last year - Just Cause 2. It wasn't until April, when I went to Center Parcs (and as such had no LIVE connection for BC2) to play it. Yes, I played games at Center Parcs. I hate myself too. It was a game that delivered... sort of. It had everything I wanted: stupid stunts, loads of vehicles, a massive map, and a parachute. But for all the game did right, it's still seems, for lack of a better word, dumb. I'm fine with the childish playfulness of the stunts and crashing planes into enemy bases, but with such horrendous voice acting, the gunplay being a joke, and car handling being ridiculous, it felt like a game that was actually trying too hard to not being taken seriously. I'm all for a humourous game; hell, I'd prefer that over a dead-serious title, but at the end of the day Just Cause 2 is an action game, and I want those adrenaline-fueled action scenes to look believable, rather than having cars that can swerve around hairpins effortlessly at 180mph, and fighter jets that have such sensitive movement it's nearly impossible to use them effectively.

April also saw the release of the Splinter Cell reboot, Conviction. But I was playing Bad Company 2 again.

In May, I played the Splinter Cell reboot, Conviction. It was a risky move for Ubi, as it took a brave step away from the Metal Gear-type play and went for a more macho style of stealth. However, it's a risk that for me paid off, and it's easily my favourite Splinter Cell. As well as implementing a fantastic into the game in real-time, it also has a playstyle that I have heard aptly compared to Predator, or Batman, in which the enemies will usually know of your presence, but not your exact location, and your task is to quickly and brutally take them out one by one. It made creeping in the shadows as tense as ever, and each kill much more satisfying, and I loved every minute of the campaign. Well, apart from the Iraq mission, which sucked. The co-op, while critically acclaimed, I didn't find much fun in. It's all well and good doing dual executions and such, but without such a good storyline pushing the action, and two incredibly boring playable characters, it seemed to me like a simple task of constantly clearing out rooms with little reward.

With that played, May then offered two of my favourite titles of the year, on the same day no less. Alan Wake made his way to Bright Falls to have the worst holiday of his life, and John Marston got off the train at Armadillo to begin Rockstar's latest masterpiece, Red Dead Redemption. These games need no introduction, both being masterful storytellers, and in Red Dead's case, boundary-pushers for sandbox games. Alan Wake may have struggled at times due to fairly constrictive play, a pretty brief plot and a few lip sync issues, but it was also visually stunning, had yet another brilliant storyline written by Sam Lake, and an original approach to combat. Red Dead, due to its longer single player and multiplayer that was in my opinion double as good as GTA IV's, spent a lot longer in my Xbox, and is one of my favourite open-world games ever, second only to Mercenaries.

June was a month of poor games: Sniper: Ghost Warrior not living up to the COD player's dream, Naughty Bear being a game to laugh at rather than with, and Alpha Protocol coming out of its 5-year development shell in the form of a hideously broken, shallow RPG that had the visuals of a PS2 game. Thankfully, I managed to avoid these, and amidst more Bad Company 2 I rented the game of Toy Story 3, a kids game which also managed to be equally enjoyable to someone whose game library consists entirely of 15s and 18s. It was funny, addictive, and certainly a breath of fresh air. If you're a little tired of relentless seriousness in your games, and see Toy Story 3: The Video Game going for £10, I'd recommend it. It's like therapy.

Once I sent back my Toy Story 3 rental in July, Limbo had been released, and if you've read the post below this one, you'll know I absolutely loved it. It was dark, mysterious and edgy, and though there was no dialogue, a thousand words could have been said, if you'll excuse the cliché. I still think 1200msp is quite a hefty price tag for a 4/6 hours story (depending on how long you spend solving puzzles) considering it should not be priced on quality but on content, but nonetheless it was certainly one of the most original games of the year, and probably the only one where you can yank off a giant spider's leg with your bare hands.

A couple of other 'good but not great' games came out in August, namely Mafia II, a disappointingly linear sandbox game which talked the talk, but only occasionally walked the walk, and Kane and Lynch 2, which had the shortest single player for any full retail game I've played and its interesting multiplayer concept which simply wasn't all that fun. What took up most of my time, however, was vampire hunting, grinding, and more grinding on Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. For a simple sprite game its looting and leveling is incredibly addictive, and as an example, I spent 5 hours on it just yesterday. Konami have been sly and deviant to make this game have serious lasting power, be it with the slow but rewarding spell-grinding, the super-rare loot which has players replaying and replaying levels endlessly, or the very steady stream of DLC. Co-op is also an amazing addition to what is usually a solo-only experience, and I've thoroughly enjoyed my experience.

There wasn't a man alive who didn't notice the spectacular release of Halo: Reach in September. Unlike Black Ops, I was actually fairly excited for this. Halo 3 is one of my favourite multiplayer games, and I for one loved the campaign, and after not enjoying ODST, Reach seemed to be the new start the series needed. For a while, that seemed to be what the game offered. There was perhaps a few doubts in my mind after finishing the campaign, which seemed to manage to be anticlimactic with little buildup in the first place, but sadly the writing was on the wall after a few hours of multiplayer. The new ranking system sucks, there are fewer maps than ever (no, I don't count variations of Forge World as different maps, they all look the same) and frankly with the dull greys and browns the game feels like a drag to play in all its seriousness. I haven't touched the game since October.

Speaking of October, this was certainly one of the biggest months for releases. Medal of Honor, Super Meat Boy, Fable III (mine broke), Enslaved, The Force Unleashed II - all of these games got little to no play time from me. Missed opportunities? Definitely. As it happens, I was too busy playing my second most anticipated game of the year, Fallout: New Vegas. At first, all seemed good and dandy. I spent a good 70 or 80 hours on it by the end of the month, but it really was beginning to hit me through the second playthrough what the truth of the matter was. Everything that I liked about the game wasn't because it was New Vegas, it was qualities of Fallout 3 that I was enjoying. Everything that showed the mark of Obsidian sucked: the landscape with its stupid impassable mountains, the boring quests, the new weapons which didn't fit with the Fallout universe, horrible textures, the laughably designed Las Vegas, and most significantly, the bugs. I loved Fallout 3 for its grim yet entrancing atmosphere, and there is none of that in the Mojave. A place where the bombs didn't even fall? Why would I want to be there, in a post-apocalyptic world? I never finished that playthrough, and thank goodness for it.

I managed to get over this grievance on the rebound, by playing the spectacular surprise, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. If you know me, you know I hate hack and slash, but without repeating everything I said in my review of the game, I loved this title. It was visually and musically beautiful, the storyline twists were insane, and the combat was refined and smooth. It joined Mirror's Edge in being one of the few games I rented but then subsequently bought, and the £30 I spent has been worth its while. If you like fantasy and adventure games, I can't recommend it enough, it's truly one of 2010's best.

November, in terms of gaming, may as well be renamed Call of Duty Month, and this year's Black Ops took me by surprise. It didn't have a dumb story and lame gameplay like Modern Warfare 2, its multiplayer was nearly frustration-free and not ruined by modders, and its maps and use of tactical play has been amped greatly. It's not Game of the Year material, and I can't profess a lot of love for it, but it's an FPS worth playing a couple of times, and definitely something I come to if I'm just looking for some relaxing multiplayer fun. What I played more, however, was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. It irritated me in being a semi-sequel, a game that didn't really move the series forward but simply continued the second. It had a banal first half of simply following and assassinating, before finally giving way to a damn good second half, in which the storyline finally picked up speed. If you intend on following the AC series, this isn't something to be missed out on... just don't expect the multiplayer to blow your mind. It's not a lot of fun.

And as the days get shorter and December finally arrives, the game releases slow to a stop, as 2010 comes to an end. Its swan song for me was Bad Company 2 Vietnam, a top-up for my year-long addiction, and a hugely worthy purchase. I also finally got my hands on a copy of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, a game I had hoped would be more like Most Wanted than Burnout, but I'm happy with it nonetheless for pulling off the whole police chase theme in a balanced and enjoyable way. The autolog gives it a much longer life, but so far I haven't even finished the single player, due to both Castlevanias and Vietnam seeming much more appealing when I sit down at my Xbox.

So ends what did actually turn out to be something of an epic poem. Congratulations if you read this far, and if you enjoyed 2010 or a certain game in particular, feel free to either leave a comment below or tweet me at the usual @failboatskipper. Happy gaming folks.

Limbo's Silent Storytelling

Spoiler Alert: This article includes explicit references to the ending. This game has a fantastic conclusion and if you intend to play it I recommend you don't read on.

Last summer, Danish indie developers PlayDead Studios came out of nowhere to develop Limbo, their first game. It was a downloadable title that was hugely well-received and sold incredibly well, and quickly became one of the Xbox 360's proudest exclusives. However, I look back on my time with Limbo, and I don't see it simply as a 'good game the 360 had', like I would with Gears of War or Halo 3. Limbo was a step further, establishing a place in the 'art game' subgenre, and presented the same sort of minimalist experience people found in Shadow of the Colossus, or I found in Mirror's Edge. Wandering through the dark forest as this boy was no simple task and no ordinary journey, and the more I look back on it, the more I realise how hard it hits.

Looking at the opening titles of Limbo, I think of Lars' Von Trier's horror film 'Antichrist'. In black and white, the screen simply shows the word 'LIMBO', similar to the placards in the film that signal the beginning of the next chapter in the story. The game and the film also share a fondness for silence, and if not that, a lack of music. Where they differ however is in meaning, for while Antichrist tries (and in my opinion, fails) to offer a deeper meaning of morality and man's bloodlust and dominance over women, Limbo does not yearn to put across a message, but rather share an experience of a lost soul.

Let me put this bluntly: if you have not picked up on it already, the boy looking for his sister in the woods is a metaphor, and the word 'Limbo' is not used in vain. Many wonder what was the significance of the ending, and could not find the conclusion. In fairness, it is left fairly open to interpretation, but I will explain the way I saw it. The boy, after waking suddenly in a dark forest, has had to find his way through traps and escape creatures to find something or someone. Traps may best him, and indeed upon failure can lead to his gruesome end, but he keeps coming back until he overcomes such challenges (yes, I believe even the quick respawn after death is significant), and after one particularly large puzzle he smashes through an unseen pane as time slows down. What this pane is made of is not important, because it is not real. He once again opens his eyes, and finds his sister, standing next to an old ruined treehouse in the rain. She perks her head up without turning around, and the game ends. Because not a word is spoken in the entire game, nothing is openly explained, and as such many people do not realise: he is dead, and so is his sister. They both died falling from their treehouse some time ago, maybe minutes, maybe years. This journey has been through the titular limbo, on his way to the afterlife, and it has tested him. The things he has faced are things children see as hostile in a world that is much bigger than them - scary things like spiders and rats, violent kids (bullies), things we are taught to stay away from (dangerous machinery and electrical equipment), things we must learn to conquer as we grow (deep water) and, most importantly of all, loneliness. Not a single friendly life form has the boy encountered, but at the end he has ultimately overcome what he has faced, and he is reunited with his sister. The afterlife he has entered is irrelevant, heaven or hell, as nothing good nor bad is seen, but he finds his sister at the very spot they were separated, and to this end it is concluded.

Look around the internet and there are plenty of other interpretations, and this is fine. If there was a simple explanation, it would have been obvious, and PlayDead clearly wanted people to see the story's ending in their own ways. Some may say the girl has chosen to stay in limbo with him, some say he has entered a shadow world, where he can see his sister but not vice versa (which would explain why she does not turn around); but all involve him facing fear and solitude. What's amazing is that such debate is caused because of people having their own individual experiences with it, some considerably varied, but it is done without dialogue, without any music beyond ambient noise and without colour.

Limbo is an amazing title, one that has certainly broken the mould for Indie titles, and for storytelling. If you have read this and have not played the game, come to it with an empty mind, and take the game for what you will, because it is in giving you the chance to pick up the pieces that PlayDead have massively succeeded in offering a beautifully dark but touching tale.

Reactions to VGAs, and the elusive arrival of Gears of War 3

This is rather late now. I have been meaning to post this considerably sooner, as I actually got up the day after Spike's VGA awards and immediately checked them out on their website, but I have been too carried away either with college work or completing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow to 110%. If you credit the game for nothing else, there aren't many others that allow you to complete it more than logically possible. 

First of all, the one had previously mentioned in my earlier post: the overall game of the year, or 'goatie'. I had dreaded this as much as I had looked forward to it, fearing that either Halo Reach or Black Ops would win it due to popular appeal - though I enjoyed both, they are effectively repackaged versions of their predecessors. However, it seems common sense pulled through and Rockstar's rootin' tootin' six-shooterin' Red Dead Redemption took the title, and as far as I see it, it's well deserved. Sure, I enjoyed Bad Company 2 more overall, but Red Dead was a near-perfect game in just about everything it delivered (the same can't be said for BC2's lackluster campaign), as well as being starkly original in comparison to its entire competition. Rockstar may have stumbled a little on GTA IV, but in exploring fairly untouched ground with Red Dead they have more than made up for it.

Other titles were pleasing to see, such as Mass Effect 2 for Best Xbox 360 title trumping the shamefully broken and uninteresting Fable III, Limbo deservedly taking Best Independant Game and God of War 3 having Best Graphics. There was a perhaps a little bit too much of 'Red dead fever', with it also taking Best Original Score AND Best Song in a Game, and Undead Nightmare winning Best DLC. However more irritating was Call of Duty once again snatching Best Shooter, Halo Reach having Best Multiplayer (worse than Halo 3s, yet beat Bad Company 2's huge and tactical multiplayer experience) and Best Action-Adventure Game's winner being Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. Call me a fanboy if you will, but personally I believe Lords of Shadow should have at least been a nominee for the latter, packing in 30-40 hours of an adventure/hack and slash-fused tale of fantasy and love lost, instead of Brotherhood which was in my opinion a worse version of AC2 with tacked-on multiplayer. 

Plenty of trailers took the stage, showcasing a new Portal 2 teaser and finally a trailer for a new Elder Scrolls. What didn't rear its head was Gears of War 3. It seems that after delay and delay Gears has stopped trying to breed hype, and for good reason. 

If you've ever talked to me about Gears of War, you'll probably have heard my usual speech about Gears 2 'going Hollywood' over Gears 1's depth and darkness. Sure, I enjoyed the game, enough to play the campaign several times and play over 60 hours of multiplayer, but I believe it was a step down for the series, leaving me to wonder whether it's willing to admit for its mistakes in the trilogy's conclusion. In the past, there have been good signs; I read in an interview with 'Cliffy B' in 360 Magazine that he himself admitted to being disappointed with the final product of Gears 2, being too open and lacking the intimacy of the first game. That said, other sources have not put across the same message, mainly in the form of game footage. At E3 2010 we saw Marcus and the gang fighting a Lambent Berserker - yes, looks like there'll be Lambent everything now. Macho and visually impressive though it was, it's not quite the same deal as the ominous first Berserker that Delta Squad meet, creeping through the city crypts. The atmosphere of that mission was unforgettable, but now we're exploring jungles under sunny skies. I've no doubt Epic will deliver in terms of a straight-up third person shooter, and maybe make the story a little clearer, but from the looks of things, we'll never have the grimy feel of the Gears' first outing again.

DICE, I have underestimated you again. Also, VGAs.

If any of you out there are sad enough to pay close attention to my Twitter, you'll know that this week I've been getting fairly irate with DICE refusing to give any dates for the new maps and the Vietnam expansion for Bad Company 2. Harvest Day and Oasis from one of my all-time favourite games, Bad Company 1 are making a return, and as such I became totally impatient with Community Manager Daniel Matros casually smiling and saying 'they'll come in good time'. As it turns out, I should have learnt my lesson from when I was waiting for the BC2 demo to come out for Xbox 360 - as last night Matros tweeted the new maps would come out... the following day. 

So it seems while every other developer around the world that isn't Valve is fumbling about acting as if games are all business and deadlines, there are some who are willing to have a little fun and throw in a surprise or two for their fans. And at the same time making me look like a moronic fanboy, which is fair enough.

They also announced Vietnam will be hitting the cyber-shelves of the XBL Marketplace in three weeks time (Dec 21), so to prepare I watched Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Verdict: FMJ is better, and Black Ops lifted various scenes straight out of Apocalypse Now, in one case word-for-word. There's tribute, and there's also plagiarism, Treyarch. 

In terms of other big game news, this year's VGAs are approaching. I made a post on it last year, but apart from that I usually wouldn't rate the awards too highly seeing as it's just a show on Spike and not anything too official. However, 2010 has been a hell of a year for gaming, the best I can remember (and probably the best for a long time...) so I'm quite excited to see who comes out on top. I heard on IGN UK's recent podcast that the nominees for overall GOTY, or 'goatie' as I like to call it, are:

- Halo: Reach
- COD: Black Ops
- Mass Effect 2
- Red Dead Redemption

I enjoyed Black Ops, but I wouldn't like it to win simply on principle. We get a new one every year and I don't think it's fair for Activision to swoop in for the millionth time to win it. Halo: Reach greatly disappointed me as a sequel for Halo 3, and I think it took too much of a step back to be a GOTY. That leaves Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead, both of which are fine by me to win. ME2 isn't really my thing, but I respect that decent, upstanding RPG players say it was an absolute masterpiece and I take their word for it. Red Dead I DID fall in love with, and I think it was a real boundary-pusher for an open-world market that's already getting pretty full, and I'd be more than happy to see a Goatie version of it come out next year with all the DLC packs included - no doubt Rockstar would make a sweet deal and make it super cheap.

Once I've played Assassin's Creed Brotherhood and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, I'll be sure to make a list of my top ten games of this year. There have been more than enough golden titles to have one hell of a countdown. That's all for now, folks, keep gaming.

Thoughts on Black Ops, and future reviews and rentals

It's that time of year again, as Activision release what is usually a disappointing equivalent of Christmas for casual gamers across the globe in the form of a new Call of Duty. After being disappointed to say the least at Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 I promised myself I wouldn't buy the next, but it being developed by Treyarch, makers of my former favourite CoD3 and the grizzly and atmospheric World at War, I decided to give it a rental. I'm happy to say that not only have Treyarch decided not to ride Infinity Ward's wave of success into multi-million dollar sales by rehashing either Modern Warfare title, but have given the series new life and a new edge in storytelling.

I won't go into a great amount of detail, as I'll save it for a review, but the campaign is for me the best yet in the series. It doesn't get off to the greatest of starts but the mission in which you escape from the Russian labour camp Vorkuta is where the action truly kicks off. The scale and the brutality of it is totally astounding, giving much-needed adrenaline to World at War's extreme bloodiness. Common appearances from Viktor Reznov (easily my favourite Call of Duty character) and great voice acting compliment a fantastically deceptive, unravelling plot, and the twist at the end was a great surprise.

The multiplayer is what people stay for when it comes to Call of Duty, and Treyarch deliver here too. The new COD points system for class customisation and the emblem creator, the Theater mode and the Wager matches are simple components that simply put Black Ops above any other Call of Duty in terms of content, and in gameplay hundreds of tweaks and fundamental changes have been made to balance the game. With the exception of the RC-XD killstreak and the long range of the knife, frustration in the game is at an all-time minimum, and that's really saying something in this series. Playing with friends is a total blast, and while it hasn't quite beaten the good times I've had in a party on Bad Company 2, it remains as a great multiplayer title of this year.

My review for the game should show up within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I'll be reviewing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which in my opinion is second only to Red Dead Redemption for a single player campaign in 2010. I also plan to rent Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, though I resent it for being a cash-in and a half-sequel, and I will buy Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Mixing the feel and freedom of NFS: Most Wanted with Burnout's aggression sounds like a good idea to me.

If you haven't already, check out my reviews for Fallout: New Vegas and Castlevania HD here and here. That's all for now, Failboat out.

Gaming's Great Decline

It doesn't take a genius to see that the gaming industry has begun to make huge changes this generation. For some it's only getting better; casual games such as Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and FIFA are being released once every year and are causing other companies to shape their products around these simple formulas. Gaming is becoming less of the hobby it once was, taken up by the dedicated and the enthusiasts, and instead is an easily accessible pastime. It's not just casual gamers that are being appealed to, either. Last month, the family-friendly Playstation Move accessory was released, and we now await the monolithic 500 million dollar release of Microsoft's Kinect, something that promises to make the humble Xbox 360 a home entertainment system that can be used by any and all. Regardless of the cynicism of many, I know there are a lot of families who will be happy to have a machine that needs nothing more than your voice and body to play games and movies, and in that respect I'm glad many minds will be opened to the prospect of gaming. However, it doesn't stop me looking at my old consoles and games and think, 'remember when companies made games for gamers?'

Take a look at who is, effectively, in charge of the gaming industry. One on hand is Nintendo; they tend to make games that are small, fun and suitable for everyone. This is fair enough, this has been their status quo for a good 15 years now. Mario, Yoshi, Kirby, Pokemon - these are kid-friendly franchises and people have become accustomed to them being Nintendo's staple. Sony and Microsoft, on the other hand, aren't the same. They've been the ones to release games (supposedly) on par with PC games; more mature, more advanced and cutting-edge. Despite this, they have a major difference to Nintendo in that they are not gaming-centred companies. Sony makes electronic hardware in countless different categories, and Microsoft have made themselves the most successful software company in the world. These giants aren't just in pursuit of you, the gamer, getting the best experience, they're a business out for profit and will go in whatever direction brings in the green. The only surprise about Kinect and Playstation Move is how long it took for them to catch on to the family gaming market, considering the incredible sales of the Wii.

Taking a look at the movers and shakers in the production of games is even more grim. Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision and aptly nicknamed 'the Hitler of the games industry' has openly admitted that he intends to endorse only franchises that are easily annualized and milked to the last penny. The results of this plan are evident and, most unfortunately, successful. Activision has published the Tony Hawk's skating games (14 releases), Call of Duty (11 releases, now annualized), Guitar Hero (12 releases, not including DS ports) and the Spyro games (13 releases). The quality of these games is no big issue, because the sad fact is that people will buy them regardless. For an example, one must look no further than Modern Warfare 2, Activision's diamond jewel. The focus here is cliched military FPS action, with emphasis on online multiplayer. This game did nothing new and has not advanced the genre in terms of mechanics one bit, but scored the biggest entertainment release in history and maintained the 'Most played game on Xbox Live' title all the way from it hitting the store shelves until Halo: Reach took the crown 10 months later. Why? Because it's a game people know, a safe option, one that doesn't require a great deal of thought or effort. Cheap, thrill-a-minute titles such as this are now everywhere, leaving plenty of thoughtful and original efforts in the dust.

Lastly is the issue of value for money, and this affects all gamers: casual, core and hardcore. We've become complacent with a £40 and $60 price tag per title, as this has been standard pricing for many a year now, and for the most part this has been reasonable considering the quality and playtime games usually offer. However, think about how much money this is relative to other entertainment mediums. Seeing a movie at a cinema is about £6, and about £10 to buy it on DVD. Even in Blu-Ray quality, prices won't usually exceed £20. A movie's average length is about 2 hours, and you'll probably watch it once or twice. So it strikes me as funny when I notice that the average length of a modern game is six to seven hours, and the rest of the content is online-only multiplayer which some players may not have access to. A particularly despicable act made by Activision was the pricing of the Modern Warfare 2's map packs, being priced at 1200msp and £10.79 for a meager 3 new maps and 2 remakes. Capitalising on the release price of the full game being £10 more than standard pricing, I can't help but think people are being given far less than they pay for. I could say the same for many other games, too, that are being released despite severely lacking where it counts. Alpha Protocol is a game fans waited 4 years for, only for it to turn out as a sub-standard, buggy RPG that looks and plays like it was made for the Playstation 2. Mafia II, a game that suffered delay after delay, ended up as a game that offered even less freedom than its predecessor, and was simply a 12 hour story that was hardly good enough to replay. Even the recently released Fallout: New Vegas, which I am currently enjoying, is so filled with bugs that I can hardly believe it has been playtested. 

The worst of it all is that no matter how much it pains me, and how much I write and complain and promise that I'll never fund such terrible fan service, at the end of the day it is the gamer population that makes the difference. The gamer population: a subculture that existed once, that cared about games. My £40 is a drop in the ocean, an ocean that is now hugely comprised of people who think 'multiplayer or no buy', who think Call of Duty is as good as games get, who think 'if I haven't heard of it, it's not good'. I fear that the direction of the industry is in the hands of those who are perfectly willing to ruin it. 

Radroaches aren't the only bugs in New Vegas

I've been waiting for New Vegas to come out for a hell of a long time. I racked up a ruinous 250 hours on Fallout 3 and was totally immersed in its post-apocalyptic world, and with all 5 expansions completed a sequel was, naturally, an attractive prospect. To some extent, New Vegas delivers. It's got a map even larger than Fallout 3, more guns, more enemies - this is a wasteland brimming with adventure, and I have no doubt it'll be a long time before I'm willing to leave. 

However, if you've read anything about the game, you'll have heard about the bugs. I cannot possibly overstate how poorly this game has been polished; for every amazing quest you have, the experience will no doubt be dampened by some stupid enemy stuck in the floor, an item disappearing from your inventory (I even had my armour disappearing off my own body), or a total game crash at that critical moment. It surprises me that a game that uses such a close template to Fallout 3 has suddenly become such a technical mess. Bethesda's title had its fair share of glitches, sure, but nowhere near to this degree. It's not just glitch issues that bother me either, but also things like that frame-rate can be truly horrible at times. The game often struggles horribly to process the number of enemies on-screen, even if there aren't that many - I remember being faced with five radscorpions, but the game became so choppy (with the frame rate dropping to what must have been about 5fps) that it was too painful on the eyes to even look at the screen. 

I won't go into a great amount of detail, as I am saving my ideas on it for my review on ps3xboxreviews, but while I'd definitely recommend the game to anyone who enjoyed Fallout 3, I'd also be prepared for the worst in terms of production quality.

Another soundtrack sharing, and Lords of Shadow references

Keeping with the current Castlevania vein, I've recently tracked down the full soundtrack to Harmony of Despair, organised it and shared it on Megaupload. Includes all the in-mission tracks, menu themes, victory themes... all that jazz. It might be 'temporarily unavailable' for a couple of days after this post, but after then it should be fine.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=O6ER6VFZ

Currently playing the new Castlevania, too, 'Lords of Shadow' and it has certainly exceeded my expectations. Of course, it's a departure from the previous games to fit in with modern games and appeal to a wider audience, and I think the best way to describe it is a cocktail of Dante's Inferno, Tomb Raider and Lord of the Rings. I won't go into much detail until I write a review of it.

What I have noticed, however, is a whole lot of references in the game. While some unfortunately seem to be fairly shameful rips out of other games (two puzzles I have noticed came straight out of Tomb Raider Underworld, meaning I solved them extremely quickly), the game also makes clear its inspiration from Tolkien's work. For example, the mysterious yet wise character Gandolfi is a play on the name of Gandalf, the bear/werewolves are named Wargs and bear strong resemblance to the film's portrayal of them, and many of the lines in the narration are written and pronounced very similarly to memorable lines from the books or films. These won't stand out unless you're a Tolkien nerd like me, but it was odd that a game with roots in vampires and gothic themes was associating itself with a work of classical fantasy. 

Also, bonus points for anyone who spots the Portal reference. It stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

Castlevania: Land of Dracula's Army of Japanese Gamers

The last month, between bouts of being disappointed with Mafia II and frustrated with Halo: Reach, I've been indulging in unhealthily huge doses of Konami's latest (and possibly last) throwback Castlevania game, Harmony of Despair. As 'throwback' suggests, it resembles in all but console the 2D Dracula-slaying platformers of old, only this time with a new co-operative multiplayer component. Instead of venturing into hell on earth alone as Alucard, Soma, Jonathan or any of the other protagonists, Harmony of Despair throws 6 classic characters all into one adventure, thus allowing for fun if not chaotic 6-player online co-op. 

Of course, regardless of the quality of the game, the people who play this online must clearly have a taste for games from the good ol' times when you weren't given any tutorials, you were expected to put in a lot of hours to get anywhere and what we now consider 'hard' difficulty was standard. So basically, the Japanese. 

I'm not saying there were no American or British players online, but even the most hardcore of these simply did not compare to the Japanese - or sometimes Korean - players in skill and speed. My man Ruairidh (LordDoUrden) and I struggled for hours of pure grinding just to beat Dracula by the skin of our teeth on Normal, but I will never forget joining a game with four Japanese players on Hard difficulty and seeing them beat him without Ruairidh or me in under a minute. I've always had a slight apprehension of the Japs due to their utterly baffling culture, but seeing four guys casually pummel through what seemed impossible in such a short time was something I had to admire, despite it being something I'd undoubtedly call 'a bit sad' if it was a bunch of Americans or Brits. It put me in my place as a Western gamer; we call ourselves 'hardcore' with our silly FPS games and our easy RPGs, but at the end of the day we'll always be beaten effortlessly by the people who invented the corn-flavoured KitKat.

I'm thanking my stars Konami dumbed down Lords of Shadow for people like me...

The Reach Report

I'm writing just over two weeks from my purchase of 'this year's most anticipated game', Halo Reach. The anticipation isn't exactly surprising, what with Halo 3 being easily the most successful and most played Xbox 360 game all the way up to Modern Warfare 2's release, but whether or not Bungie have truly delivered in their final Halo outing is another thing.

Most importantly, this isn't just Halo 3 with a few new things added. No, strangely for a sequel, the game takes us back to just before the beginning of the saga, literally days before the beginning of Halo: CE. As any Halo veteran will tell you, this was set just after the obliteration of the human colony Reach and, as you'd expect, the game takes this massacre pretty seriously. I can't really knock them for this - something would probably feel a little off if we were sauntering through a brightly coloured forest with grunts comically yelling 'I'LL KILL YOU, DEMON' in their 6-year-old voices - but it comes to question whether Halo can really function in this environment. A virtually invincible superhero's quest in the 3 original games can be taken with a pinch of salt, but surrounded by millions of innocent being glassed by the oncoming Convenant horde, I felt somewhat out of place. Just one title back in the series, I was having a laugh blasting through this with my friends, crashing into each other with warthogs, finding amusing little easters eggs and, despite having a great time, could never think of it as much more than a bit of sci-fi silliness. Now I almost feel guilty laughing.

My issue, I think, is this. I can have a lot of fun in Halo games, and put a lot of work into them multiplayer-wise, and I'm also aware of the huge hardcore audience, but at the end of the day Halo is really a casual game. The first game of its trilogy did a lot for the FPS genre, but it's also easy to pick up, play, and put down just as easily. Suddenly when I'm being shown brutes tearing civilians to ribbons, however, it's almost shocking. The soundtrack is also particularly unforgiving on the ears, replacing the trilogy's bouncy piano-based theme with a determined, military feel. Sure, it's well-composed as always by Mr O'Donnell, but what I want is mindless explosive fun, not Call of Duty in space.

The multiplayer, as always, is a different matter. Fear not, though; if you liked Halo 3 this will definitely suffice. Playlists have vastly improved, things like the daily challenges keep things fresh every single day and show Bungie's unrelenting service to the fans. As soon as I'd finished the story, I was hooked from the word 'go' for about three days... until I started noticing problems. Firstly, the ranking system has changed from Halo 3's combination of Highest Skill and EXP to just experience points, or 'credits' which can also be used to buy new armour parts. I can't deny that previously multiplayer was littered with boosters, to the point where there would be at least one literally every day, but nonetheless I still believe that Halo 3 had the best ranking system of all time. With just two types of stats, it defined what game types you played most, how competitive you were and, most importantly, how good you truly were. Now, Halo seems to have fallen in line behind every other multiplayer game by having an oh-so-simple experience system where you can only gain and never lose points, meaning in theory anyone can reach General with enough play. Maps are also a definite problem, and anyone who has played with me will have heard me groan 'Pinnacle... again', 'Reflection... again' or ' Countdown... again'. There are 9 maps for competitive multiplayer, even fewer than the previous 11. One of these is Forge World and, it being big enough to be a whole campaign mission, it has been split into 5 different smaller maps, but really they all strongly resemble each other and it's hard to count them as separate. All the maps are also cut-and-pasted directly from campaign missions so don't expect any new dazzling environments. The main problem is that they're all very heavily gametype-restricted, and with such a small number in the first place this limits variety hugely. 2 of the 9, for example, are only playable in Big Team or Invasion. Another 2 are remakes from Halo 2. We waited three years for this?

I can never bring myself to say any Halo game is badly made, because they're all very highly polished, and considering the package you get for standard price it's very impressive: campaign, matchmaking, firefight, forge and theater. However, I also think that it wasn't a very smart move for Bungie to go into a new direction for Halo in their last game, and until we get some map packs, matchmaking doesn't have a great deal of lasting factor either. If you like the previous games, go ahead and buy it because you will like it, but think twice before believing it will be the best in the series.

Acid Trip - The Game

No, I'm afraid despite the title, such a game has not yet been released. If it was, it would be developed by Oddworld Inhabitants and be the most horrifying game in existence. However, what I present to you is the next best thing: The Impossible Game.

I don't usually dip into the Indie Games section of the Xbox Live Marketplace a lot, usually because I resent buying Microsoft points so much that I only do it when absolutely necessary. However, with about 100 points to spare after buying both Limbo and Castlevania HD (both great buys, I strongly recommend to anyone who likes sidescrollers) I decided to buy The Impossible Game, it being on the Best Sellers list and because I had seen EnglishCarBomb playing it a while back. The title isn't quite untrue, but it comes very close. Nonetheless, if you want to file a lawsuit, go ahead. 

The object of The Impossible Game is very simple, and that's what makes the game quite so insanity-inducing. There is one button used, A, and you hit it to jump over approaching spikes and on top of black cubes. Easy, right? You couldn't be more wrong. Not only do they come much faster than you expect, but if you die, you start right from the beginning. Even the music starts again, and I actually found this to be one of my biggest troubles: after surviving for about a minute, the song changes from a light electro feel into blasting hardcore trance. It's so distractingly awesome to listen to that it often makes me lose concentration, but the temptation to get back to that one point where it drops is always enough for me to be willing to do it all again. Even regardless of the music, the game is incredibly addictive as it's so hard to believe that you can't do it due to its simplicity, and before you know it you will have racked up 200 attempts. 

Needless to say, as soon as you take your eyes off the screen, the room seems to shift around as you've been staring at fast moving objects for half an hour. A weird experience, something I don't even get from Kane and Lynch 2's cameraman with Parkinson's. 

The Impossible Game is a mere 80 Microsoft points, and if you want something cheap to be get addicted to for an hour a day, it's the perfect deal. 

The Complete Wall

Gentlemen, the wall is complete. The giant Assassin's Creed poster arrived from America, and is now dominating the wall and required me to move the Mirror's Edge poster down for everything to be visible above the monitor. Not long after, I got a Fallout 3 poster custom printed (also from 1clickprint.com) to fit in the last empty section. It does have 'FALLOUT 3' written in the classic font in the bottom left, but the monitor is in the way.

My Red Dead Redemption shirt also arrived, and I'm really happy with it. The delivery cost a bomb but it fits great and is very comfortable. My Fallout shirt however... well the eBay seller dispatched it TWO WEEKS after buying it. It still hasn't arrived. Safe to say, he will be getting negative feedback. I'll report back with a cheesy photo when it arrives.

In terms of the games currently in play, I have just finished playing through Hitman: Blood Money multiple times, and I was very impressed. The variety of ways to approach every situation is larger than most would expect, the tongue-in-cheek humour is always a good relief from seeing Agent 47's ugly, serious face all the time and it has one of the best game endings I've ever seen. Considering this is now available for under £10 anywhere, I would strongly recommend a purchase. 

Up next for rental is Kane and Lynch 2, and I will definitely have to turn off that horrible shaky camera...

Mirror's Edge: A Summary

I wouldn't usually describe myself as one of unusual taste when it comes to games. True, I'm one of those boring people who'd rather poke themselves in the eye with a stick than play Modern Warfare, but apart from that most of the games I really, really like are fairly popular. Fallout 3, Bad Company 2, Max Payne 1 and 2, Tomb Raider 2 - they didn't just go down a treat with me, they had great market success too. Mirror's Edge, it seems, is an exception. Just about everyone I know who has the game complains, usually about the brief story mode, but also about the small number of combat moves or the lack of lengthy free-running sessions. Believe it or not, I've spent longer on Mirror's Edge than I have Red Dead Redemption, GTA IV or Gears of War. 

Don't mistake this article for an endless list of praises of the game. It is as a tall Scottish acquaintance of mine would say, 'a flawed gem', and there are plenty of things I still grind my teeth about whenever I play it. The amount of vent-crawling and elevator travel, the mind-numbingly dull cartoon cutscenes, Merc always being needlessly impatient; the list goes on. I can't blame anyone for being let down by a story that lasts four hours either. However Mirror's Edge manages to connect with me in ways that most games don't, in an different kind of beauty. 

Personally, I think Mirror's Edge has the best art style ever made for a game. I don't mean 'it has pretty colours' - sure, the colour scheme is great, but I think for once the use of colour and light actually fits with the plot of the game itself. It's a police-ruled fascist society, and while this kind of dystopia is usually complemented with a palette of dark, dingy greys and browns (see: V for Vendetta, Schindler's List, Half-Life 2) Mirror's Edge is instead glistening and radiant. The city is a shining white metropolis beneath a warm blue sky, and while it appears to be a happy place to live, it's finding the deceit of this that hits the player so hard. It even goes deeper than that, think of what white represents - purity, but also monotony and the absence of free expression. In contrast, the striking red of the rebellious Runners. Red has often been the colour of defiance, often by left-wing rebels in Central American countries. It hits hard against its white background, without having the dead feel of black. You can say I'm reading too much into this, but after playing through the game plenty of times it's clear to see that Dice thought long and hard about using colour as a tool for storytelling. 

My second point might be more of a personal one, but it's not a technique that hasn't been used before. Players will probably notice that by the end of the game, they still know little or nothing about the context of the game. That might seem like a flaw on the surface, but think about other examples of gaming's artistic triumphs, for example Shadow of the Colossus and Limbo. Read any review and you'll undoubtedly hear how encapsulating the total ambiguity of the stories are. In one you're an unnamed warrior in an unknown kingdom, tasked with fighting mysterious giants to save your wife from death, in another you're an unnamed boy in an unknown forest, tasked with finding your sister and escaping from a horrifying situation you don't remember getting yourself into. The game doesn't need to tell you the whole story, because quite simply, the possibilities flying around in your head take you so much deeper. 

Less on the artistic side is Mirror's Edge mastery of the first-person view. Let's face it; this generation has flogged the FPS' proverbial horse to death, and by the time the next console turns up there will probably be nothing we haven't seen twice before. Here, Mirror's Edge stands totally out from the crowd. It's in first person, but you're not carrying a gun (unless you pick up an enemy's, but only to be dropped again promptly), there's no ever-present HUD reminding you that you're not really looking through the eyes of a human, and perhaps most impressively, you can actually see your body. This has been done a couple of time before, in games such as FEAR, Halo 2 + 3 and various military sims, but never with so much detail and with such brilliantly smooth animation. Everything from the biceps down is visible, and looking down to see your legs treading air whilst leaping across a 20-foot rooftop gap in slow-motion is truly stunning. 

Love this game as I might, of course I admit games are all down to opinion, and despite everything that strikes a chord with me, it's still not going to be everyone's cup of tea. As I said, amidst its peaks, it's not without its frustrations and for some they will be the game's undoing. Regardless, for what it's worth, I think that Mirror's Edge should truly be respected for doing something different, even if it perhaps didn't go as far as it should have. I might have triple-starred every time trial and mastered every speed run, but I know I'll be coming back to Mirror's Edge time and again these coming years. 

Demo-Down!

Well, the title certainly makes it sound more exciting than it really is. I won't lie, the lack of decent post flow on this blog is not due to laziness this time, it really is due to a lack of things to report. Sure, I could tell you I've been playing through Dead Space, Metro 2033 etc but nothing particularly spectacular happened. So out of boredom I, and out of wanting to buy a new game soon, I've tried a selection of demos. Quick report on each:

Blacklight: Tango Down: This is a very basic FPS, and does attempt to be anything more. Futuristic society, police vs rival factions, you've seen it all before and it skips straight to the chase. This sounds like a good plan for just a small, casual game, and for the most part the game delivers. It's easy to pick up and play, and considering the 1200msp price having a co-op enabled campaign as well as competitive multiplayer it's not bad, though I would say due to the lack of depth in the gameplay it's not exactly something I could play for hours on end.

Condemned: This, in short, was great. In the 20 minutes the game gives of gameplay, I could see that the game is incredibly innovative and delivers in many areas most horror games don't. It replaced Silent Hill/FEAR's supernatural and mysterious enemies with the gritty, psychopathic edge of SAW (without the hordes of dreadful sequels). Expect merciless, bone-crushing death on every corner.

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days: They say that in the early stages of Mirror's Edge's development, playtesters got too motion-sick to play, hence the dot in the middle of the screen to keep the brain focused on one area. Unfortunately, this sort of good idea appears not to have occured to Io Entertainment, who have created the first game I have played to make me feel physically sick for the following hour. Apart from that nauseating shaky camera, I was also unconvinced by the seemingly invincible Lynch, and the overwhelming stupidity of the storyline ('RAAAGH IT'S MORRALY JUSTIFIED TO KILL ALL THESE POLICEMEN BECAUSE I HAVE A DAUGHTER'). The dirty feel of the city and the strained relationship of the two protagonists was impressive, though.

Limbo: Wow. This was a mindblower. Limbo is incredibly simple considering the vast bulk of modern games, but the atmosphere of the game, and the utter mystery surrounding your predicament raise it above the standard of hundreds of other titles. It's got the beautiful ambiguity of Shadow of the Colossus, the darkness of Fallout 1 and 2, and the genius of Portal in its platforming elements, even if it is in 2D. Will certainly buy when I have the funds.

Mafia II: Disappointment, in short. The shooting feels slick and the effects of bullets thudding into different materials was very nice, but I wasn't really wowed by the atmosphere, and the city didn't seem all that populated - we should be expecting a large-scaled achievement after all this time we've been waiting. If there's a big variety in missions and the city has much more exciting places than the ones I saw, then I'm probably sold. But as of now, I was definitely hoping for more.

Monday Night Combat: My man Azo is made the animations for this game (check his ninja skills out at www.youtube.com/azoazotube) and it certainly shows. There are plenty saying this is a copy of Team Fortress 2, and in a few ways it makes sense. The light-hearted feel of the combat, the cel-shaded graphics, the over-enthusiastic announcer and ridiculously proportioned characters make for a few similarities, as does the casualness of the game in general. However, it feels like a fun game to play a few matches of here and there, though probably nothing to get dedicated to.

That's all the demos I've been playing recently, as well as unhealthy quantities of Mirror's Edge (just tonight got that final, sweet 100g achievement to polish the game off) and, surprisingly, Call of Duty: World at War. My fondness of that game comes in phases, no doubt I'll go back to hating it soon.

As far as reviews go, I shall be writing Dead Space and Toy Story 3: The Video Fame (YEEAAHH) soon for ps3xboxreviews.com. Speaking of which, check the site within a few days from now and my Metro 2033 review should be up.

Thanks for reading folks.

Merch Purchasin'

Well I've decided that with a lack of games to buy (for now, until Halo: Reach that is) then I may as well buy some game-related cheap thrills. Risky business since I already owe money to EnglishCarBomb, three divisions of the Russian Mafia, and most dangerously my mum, but I'm kinda fed up of Ms McFarlane looking so alone on my wall. 

So I've decided that the wall above my monitor shall be filled with game posters. You may notice that there is a Mirror's Edge one there. This took a little effort as there haven't ever been official posters made for the game, except for the crappy 'Wanted' posters for Faith that were put up in American universities. So this one is actually a custom poster that I ordered off www.1clickprint.com and I'm actually really impressed with the quality of it. Just sent them that 1920x1080p image I found of Faith on Google and the rest is history. Would recommend seeing as it only cost me a tenner.

I've also ordered a huge Assassin's Creed poster off eBay. It's 36" by 24" and has a pretty nice, simplistic design. If you wanna see it it's here.

Aside from posters, I ordered a fairly cheap Fallout 3 t shirt from Hong Kong which has the old 'Prepare for the Future' flyer on it that you see around the game. I also attempted to buy the 'Outlaws to the End' t shirt that I saw the bassist of Atreyu wearing at Download, but shipping costs a bomb unless you use the shipping method only allowed for the US military, which I learnt you're not allowed to use the hard way... I'll get round to buying it when I have sufficient funds for the shipping.

Happy gaming gents, I have reviews for Red Dead and Bioshock 2 up on the reviews blog, and expect a Metro 2033 review on ps3xboxreviews.com soon.