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now playing on the backlog

Friday 31 May 2013

Good improvement over the previous titles. Nicer visuals, smarter enemies and more of a story being weaved. Quite curious as to where that is going now... And genuinely very creepy in a lot of places. One level in particular. You'll know it when you see it. Bring on #3 and the return of the point man.

Thursday 30 May 2013

Another fine example of how much mobile games are evolving. Despite being a total rip off of Gears of War, still plenty of fun. Visuals are stunning thanks to the Unity engine and lots of good sound effects too. Plot is fairly generic but still lots of cover based shotgun in the face action. Great stuff.

Tuesday 28 May 2013

Another expansion pack so again very similar. And again, this one is non-canon so felt like a slight waste. But apart from that more intense slow-motion shooting action and lots of weird freaky shit happening. This dude sees dead people... The mind tricks and seeing visions of dead friends and weird things happening just out of the corner of your eye are all very effective at building tension and apprehension. Liking this series. Hope they can keep it going with #2 and #3 (which will be co-op)

Saturday 25 May 2013

Fun little Android racing game. Like other Gameloft titles, this is a total rip-off of a big console franchise, in this case: Burnout. Also started this one on my old phone and it ran like ass. But ran smooth as silk on my new one (barring some crashes). Played it for a long time with a virtual wheel and found it quite hard and unresponsive, but then changed it to steer by tapping left and right sides of the screen and it was a world of difference and from there on, I blew through it with ease. Once I did this it was a lot more fun and enjoyable. Lots of awesome cars and the sound is pumping too getting the blood racing during a...race. All in all, well recommended for portable racing action. Another Gameloft Android win.

Thursday 23 May 2013

More of the same as the original only this one is considered non-canon in the grand story. basically the whole game is spent running to the extraction point (hence the clever name) with all the same fun slo-mo shooting action. A lot more large shoot-outs and heavy enemies in this one ramping up the difficulty a bit. The fear elements are a lot more effective in this one though. Gave a real feeling or apprehension that got under your skin and had you anxious about going into the next room for F.E.A.R of what was in there. All in all an expertly done expansion pack. Just a shame it was cast aside once the full sequel came along. And the next one to come, Perseus Mandate, suffered the same fate. Enjoying this series more than I expected.

Monday 20 May 2013

Started playing this on my nearly 3 year old HTC Desire HD and it did not handle it very well. Picked it up again later after getting my new Samsung Galaxy Note II which could handle it a lot better and it looked a lot better too. This difference is visible in the first couple of screenshots being on the former and the rest being on the latter.

Huge improvement over the previous 2 in the series. Visually, technically audibly, and editorially. Actually had some semblence of a plot this time round. And looked better than quite a few current gen consoles I've played. Movement, gun handling and enemy behaviour greatly improved too with none of the weird 180 spins I kept getting in the previous games. All in all, a great little portable game that just goes to show how quickly mobile games are developing. Bravo, Gameloft. Knocked this one out of the park.

Saturday 18 May 2013

Interesting little FPS. Lots of fun action (that ripped off Max Payne's bullet time) with lots of curious psychological terrors. Story felt it took a long time to build up to anything actually happening. Good thing there are expansion packs and sequels coming up next...

Sunday 12 May 2013

Got this due to liking the original wondering how it would work out as a remake. Turned out to be a brilliant and charming little adventure. Great re-imagining of the original for a modern console generation. Much easier to get into too due to knowing what the beans do and being given examples of how and when to use them. Boss fights were also a very interesting twist. Some serious blob based challenging puzzles too and loved the final ultimate blob form. A lesser known Wii game that is definitely worth a look

Saturday 11 May 2013

Classic 2D Wario action like days of old. Shake controls add something new to the mix. Graphical style is cool, but unusual level mechanics of get to the end then race back to the finish along with needing to find shedloads of money to unlock each new area did feel a bit odd. Quite easy overall right up until the cheap ass end boss that nearly had me chewing holes in my wiimote.

Friday 10 May 2013

Just a technical showcase for the Wii Motion Plus controller. Much Like Wii Play was for the original Wii controller. But still a lot of fun little mini games that make innovative use of it.

Classic F-Zero action. Only much faster than before. And much prettier

Tuesday 7 May 2013

An expansion pack, so more of the same really. I'm sure this kind of tactical planning stuff would be fun if you get into it, but I just wasn't feeling it.

Monday 6 May 2013

Even more tactical than Ghost Recon with planning out every step of the attack. And no way to save mid mission. A bit too heavy for me. But managed to push through it.

Sunday 5 May 2013

Didn't quite feel like Army of Two... Too serious. They did warn us about this. I had hoped it wasn't true. But all the brofisting is gone and it's very serious and dry. Also the new characters are very boring. Events picked up a bit towards the end, but definitely a step down from the previous 2 games in the series and fairly bland average through and through. Good to get some classic co-op shooting again though. Been a while.

Saturday 4 May 2013

Lots more tactical murdering. But this one seemed the hardest of the bunch yet. Way more goons and lots of tight enclosed spaces causing stand offs. Clever name again also, seeing as it was set in Cuba. Final mission was quite tricky being a capture the enemy alive deal. But my soldiers kept shooting him. So I had to shoot my own men to stop them doing that and then capture him myself. Did enjoy these games. Looking forward to the newer ones a bit more now. Although I'm not sure how well the continuous quick save/quick reload method of play that was required for this will hold up in a co-op game with 2 players...

They didn't call it a desert siege for nothing. More of the same tactical face shooting action.

Friday 3 May 2013

Serious tactical shooter action. Can be played both in first person direct control mode or in a strategic overseer commanding mode. I preferred the later. Tried to play Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter in co-op before and it didn't seem terribly well suited to it due to it's slow and serious pace. But it seemed to work better in single player where you can take your time to plan things out without boring a 2nd person. Has also held up surprisingly well for a game of it's age. Pleasantly surprising one, this. On to the expansion packs!

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Most enjoyable of the series yet. Probably had something to do with the better hardware of the Xbox. Looked a lot nicer, went much smoother and much faster with a serious sense of speed maybe due to a faster frame rate. And with that, ends the Colin McRae rallying spree. Back to something with story soon...