Busy, Busy, Busy

I have to apologise for the lack of updates but a few months back I came into some money, not much but enough to catch up on some of the recent games I had missed, so here is my round-up of thoughts and opinions on some of this years bigger releases.


Dragon Age: Origins

All in all an excellent game, but like all role-playing games it suffers from perhaps being too large, especially considering the growing popularity of downloadable content as a way of expanding the life of games. I still have to finish Oblivion, the expansions for Fallout, Star Ocean, Final Fantasy XIII and all these games suffer from one thing, being a massive game which changes very little all the way through, instead relying on the story to drive the player to continue, but is that enough? Rating A-

Assassin’s Creed II

The first AC, while being a good-looking game, with some excellent gameplay mechanics and a good story suffered from being quite dull, I found my time with the game consisting of ‘kill someone – hide a lot – kill someone – hide a lot – kill a plot character – hide a lot’ and it’s the hiding that lets the game down, its fun running from trouble the first few times but soon becomes a pain in the butt. While ACII has lost none of the visual beauty, story or excellent gameplay of the original it still has that rather flawed ‘fight – hide – fight – hide’ problem. Somebody should send Ubisoft a copy of Hitman. Rating B+


Alpha Protocol

Alas, a game that looked like it might be a truly awesome Action RPG turned out to be a ‘maybe above average’ Action RPG with last-gen graphics and ‘why even bother’ character customisation. Not a bad game by any means but not one I’d advise anyone to rush out and buy. Rating C-


Alan Wake

This is a great game, graphics are superb, gameplay is superb and fluid, the story is excellent even the characters are mostly okay, if this was any other game I would give it A+. This isn’t any other game, this is Alan Wake, a game that has been in development almost as long as the 360 has been on shelves, if not longer, a game that has been hyped at almost all major gaming events. It’s a good game but considering the development time and the hype it is a total let-down because for all that it should be something far better, it should be something more and it isn’t. Rating B+


Red Dead Redemption

If you liked GTA you’ll love this, it’s GTA on horses. The game has been refined, tweaked and improved since GTA but at heart remains the same, and that is no bad thing. My only gripes with the game is that it lacks the depth that GTA had and all those fun side games i.e. poker, 5 finger fillet etc really should be playable in multiplayer. Oh yeah the ending sucks, but i won’t spoil that. Rating A+


Conclusion

If I had to rank these in the order I’d suggest you buy them it would be Red Dead, Dragon Age, Alan Wake, Assassin’s Creed II, Alpha Protocol

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Who is the god of evil deeds?

Are EA and Activision having a 'worlds biggest douchebag' competition and they just forgot to tell the rest of us?

You have Activision raping the Call of Duty and Hero franchises like they just found that strap-on from Se7en. The evidence is all there, you have the increased price for Modern Warfare 2, the increased price for the DLC, and the announced but not yet detailed Call of Duty 'action game' to extend the franchise. Then you have so many 'Guitar Hero' games I don't know which bands have a game and which don't. make Harmonica Hero and then I'm sold. Games, downloadable tracks, guitars, turntables, if I was a music game addict I'd probably have to spend a years salary just to have a complete collection.

Then you have then you have EA trying to put the pre-owned game business out of business by throwing $10 worth of shitty free content at us, a move they plan to extend into their sporting franchises. Let's be honest, the 'free' content for Bad Company 2 and Mass Effect 2, if it hadn't been free would you have bought it? If you didn't have it would you miss it? Sure you might miss the battlefield maps because the game didn't have enough maps to start with and still doesn't, and you might miss the free character and missions for Mass Effect because ... well it gives you something to do that doesn't involve the incredibly tedious mining, but was it even worth being free?

I must admit though I am looking forward too seeing what these two will do next and who will be first to drown a puppy.

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Halo Reach Beta - Early Impressions

Okay having played a little on the Reach Beta I think it's safe to say that Bungie have taken Halo's multiplayer, refined it, tweaked it, updated it and made it look better, while at the same time giving it a slightly retro kind of appearance. It's good, it's very good and it's making me quite eager for the full game. Try it out, If you like Halo you'll love it.

I do have one problem with it, it would appear that there is still no join-in-progress, having played a game in which 3 of the other team quit out it was rather annoying to find myself running round a map for 5 minutes trying to find the only enemy left to kill.

Please Bungie add join-in-progress.

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WOW!

Okay nobody saw this one coming, Activision signing Bungie is a big deal, Bungie created the FPS that created online shooters, and while if it hadn't been Halo another game would have done it, it was Halo and Bungie are behind it.

But is this a good thing?

Activision have suffered lately, finding themselves the villains in the whole Infinity Ward fiasco, if they weren't already, they have now been relegated to the same 'demonic power' status that EA hold. Rumors appeared in the past that Bungie were unhappy with the control MS had, the same kind of rumors that surfaced when Bizarre split from MS, Bizarre who signed with ... Activision, see a pattern here? Will they find Activision to be any less controlling?

Perhaps the biggest question, how will this effect Bungies support of the Halo franchise? Halo is without a doubt one of the strongest and best support console gaming franchises, Bungie have shown time and again an excellent level of support, but with Halo Reach looking to be the evolution of the Halo gaming experience will it be dropped and forgotten about once Bungies first Activision game releases? You only have to look at Activisions most successful FPS franchise for historic evidence. Modern Warfare becomes a massive hit, the DLC map pack is a massive hit, but World at War releases and suddenly support and maps for Modern Warfare vanishes. Three map packs later, all of which sell well and Modern Warfare releases, support for World at War vanishes. Ignoring the whole Infinity Ward fiasco everybody knows that Modern Warfare would have got 2 map packs, maybe a third perhaps, and then when Black Ops, the name for the next Call of Duty game, releases support and maps would end. It's a simple pattern Activision stop support and DLC for games once they been 'replaced' so how will this affect Halo?

Am I alone in hoping that MS have some kind of plan in place to ensure Reach becomes and stays the biggest game on Xbox Live?

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Monkeys Talking Trash

This story has been popping up online today, basically Richard Morgan the writer for Crysis 2 and some kind of sci-fi novelist apparently doesn't like Halo. I'm pretty sure just the other day the same guy was spouting about how he didn't like the story in Modern Warfare 2.

I enjoyed both games so I have to say I disagree with him totally but on top of that perhaps it's time somebody pointed out a few home truths. Lets start with the fact he is writing the story for Crysis 2, it's not going to win him any awards or recognition, lets be realistic he is writing yet another generic sci-fi shooter story. Should we also add that certainly on 360 Modern Warfare 2 and Halo are two of the biggest franchises with millions of players, loyal players, people who are going to try Crysis 2, realise it's nothing special and soon go back go what they were playing before.

If Crysis 2 is in the top 5 Xbox live games 6 months after release I will buy a hat, and eat it, guaranteed.

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Why play the sequal?

Over the past few weeks I have expanded my games collection with several new titles. I've purchased Just Cause 2, Left 4 Dead 2, BlazBlue, Aliens vs Predator and finally Way of the Samurai 3. For some reason I haven't rushed to purchase Bioshock 2, despite playing and enjoying the first game.

I played the first Just Cause demo, it was okay but nothing special to me, and yet I have the 2nd one, and it's pretty good for someone seeking a GTA fix. I played Left 4 Dead, enjoyed it and am enjoying the 2nd one, but Bioshock 2 just doesn't call to me to pick it up.

I have always believed that in games, if the gameplay works, and the story and characters are actually interesting and engaging then they could release sequel after sequel and I would play it, and maybe that's why I haven't rushed out for Bioshock 2, sure the gameplay was OK, and the story was good, but the character was ... well lacking character and so I find myself without a draw or a hook to pick up the sequel.

I wonder what it is that draws you guys back into games?

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Where is my hidden package?

I love open world type games, GTA is one of my all time favourites so having played the demo of Just Cause 2 it was certainly on my 'to get' list. It's good very good and I can't fault it in almost all respects but two, and these are inherrent to the genre not to this game itself.

If there is one thing I will never understand, it's why games developers insist on taking an open world and sticking as many of these stupid hidden packages etc in the world as they can. I appreciate they have spent a long time crafting every inch of this virtual world so perhaps it is well within their right to force you to scour every inch of it, but seriously could you not just do that with story elements? Why this perpetual need to force me to do these mundane tasks. I guarantee you its a small minority that ever find the 100% of these packages, so what is the point of even having them?

And so we come to the first part of Just Cause 2 that I don't like, the upgrade system which forces you to find these packages in order to upgrade your weapons, on top of hidden skulls, endless hours of mind numbing tedium coming up.

The second thing I hate, races, I didn't buy a race game, I bought a run everywhere and kill things game, so why am I being forced to race in pointless races that serve little purpose.

So, in summary, packages bad, races bad, lose them or cut them down, please.

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