The Metro is a very depressing and Soviet place. But also very beautiful and moving.

Got this game for free quite a while ago in a free offer and boy am I glad I did. I had heard it was a good game to be used as a benchmark for high end PCs but the game itself wasn't that great according to reviews so I was keen to see if both of these points were true.

The first part was definitely true. With all settings turned up to 11, the underground tunnels of the Metro and especially the nuclear wasteland of the surface look absolutely stunning. Absolutely. Stunning.

But much to my pleasure, the second part was not true at all. The gameplay, while appearing to be a fairly normal FPS, does have extra depth to it in that there are also a lot of stealth parts to it (which shockingly are not awful) and survival parts to it where you have to manage air filters on the surface to keep breathing. The story if based off a book of the same name by a Ukranian author, so it also has a good plot to it. It centres around a young dude called Artyom who lives in the Russian Metro system after a nuclear war has ravaged the country. He is searching for a way to stop the Dark Ones, a race of humanoids that have evolved on the radiation scorched surface of the earth from destroying his home Metro station and must travel through the Metro and across parts of the surface to achieve this goal. But of course, nothing is ever easy and he meets many people and things along the way determined to stop him.

Because everything in this world is very grey and Soviet, which is quite depressing even when intact, and all of those things have been ravaged by nuclear war, the setting is a very sombre one indeed. But thanks to the 4A engine which seems to rival even the Cryengine, all of this is rendered in amazing detail and looks truly beautiful somehow.

The gunplay is very well executed also. Being mostly ruined old-world guns, a lot of them have quite shaky stability. And there were some strange difficulty spikes like stabbing an unaware guy in the back would not kill him, but a few shots to your knees could kill you but these were small annoyances.

All in all a very engrossing adventure with an excellent story that makes you genuinely care about the people involved. It is also properly scary and exceedingly tense in many sections so if possible, play this during the day and not alone. Great stuff through and through. Looking forward to the sequel. Reviews were wrong. Yet again.

This all feels unusually familiar. Only a stupider.

And so we find ourselves back on LV-426 again.  Hunting Xenomorphs as the Colonial Marines.  This game has had a long and checkered development but it’s finally here.  So was it worth the wait?  Well, probably not.

In itself, it’s quite a standard FPS with probably more negatives than positives.  The only positives that come to mind are the attachment of the Aliens franchise, the 4 player co-op and getting to use things like the Pulse Rifle and Loader from the Aliens films and impressive distant vistas and backdrops.

Very large negatives include but not limited to:

• Fantastically stupid Alien AI: they will just spring at you and then put up their hands like they hadn't thought that far ahead.
• Sub-par voice acting: Michael Biehn said doing this game almost put him off voice acting meaning we almost didn’t get the amazing Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
• Nonsensical plot: something about rescuing marines? Main characters were generic and unforgettable. The only ones you care about are returning original characters. Fans of the series say that most of this game’s plot shatters the canon of the franchise.
• Awful visuals up close: Despite the backdrops and scenery looking very nice, the up close scenery and character models looked awful
• Odd and disruptive co-op warping system: if one co-op player got too far ahead of the others, those lagging behind would halt, fade to a black screen and fade back in near the person furthest ahead. This seemed to work when you didn't want it to (like in simple corridors) and not work when you wanted it to (like when players were trapped in rooms full of deadly gas)

I could go on and on about the bad points all day but even despite that, overall it was not as awful as I was expecting it to be.  And despite the never-ending string of awful reviews I thought it was serviceable and not as gut-wrenchingly awful as I was prepared for.  This is by no means to say it was a good game.  Hell no.  It was not.  But again, the reviews made it out to be worse than it really was in my opinion.  Of course, this opinion may have been aided by the fact that I played it in 3 player co-op with 2 good friends and we were having as much fun laughing at the awfulness of it as we were shooting things in the face.

But to be fair, with all the debacle that was revealed after it’s release about the horror story of it’s development and how many times it changed hands and was outsourced and such, it never really stood a chance.  Give it a go if you dare.  But bring some friends so you have someone to laugh through the tears with. 

Mercenaries get to switch sides a lot. For the money of course

Been waiting on this title for a while myself ever since it was announced. I got my Playstation Vita back in summer 2012 and since then have only got 7 games for it (including this one) and 2 were ports from other Sony systems so only 5 in reality. It is an excellent piece of hardware, but it is lacking quality titles so it has not got a lot of use. So I was looking forward to breaking it out again and getting to kill some Helghast on the go.

For those unfamiliar with the Killzone series, it revolves around a rather generic clone of the USA army called the ISA (inventive, I know) for various reasons are locked in a war with their much more interesting and charasmatic enemies, the Helghan, who all talk with British accents and have to wear face/gas masks due to the harsh environments they grew up with on their homeworld, Helghan. Like I say, the enemies have much more character and interest to them, especially their commanders who are awesomely over-played like theatrical characters almost, than the very generic "good guys" so a lot of the time you feel kind of bad killing them.... This is the 5th Killzone title in the series with a 6th to come out soon so the fight has been going on for a while now. The 6th game Killzone: Shadow Fall will be a PS4 launch title that I would be very keen to get but can not justify launch day prices for a new console so I will probably wait and make do with Mercenary for now.

This was touted as the first real "full-fat shooter" that the Vita would have. There was a Resistance title that came out soon after the console was launched, but it was....not the best so we will ignore it for now. I think the full-fat classification is well justified because finally we have what feels like a proper FPS on a handheld (with dual sticks and everything!) that does not feel watered down due to control or hardware limitations. The Killzone series has always been noted for it's impressive visuals, with the possible exception of the first title which now looks quite aged even upsacled to HD, and this one is no exception delivering (almost) PS3 quality graphics right in the palm of your hand.

The gameplay itself is fairly standard FPS stuff but does have a few unique twists. One of them being the arms dealer (who becomes quite important later on) that allows you to buy new weapons and such as well as "Vanguard" systems which are extra weapons systems like aerial drones, escort drones, carapace shields, etc etc which can all come in very handy especially when you are badly surrounded. Another interesting novelty is the touch screen controls, which for once do not feel tacked on. These are mostly for melees where you drag across the screen in various directions to perform various nasty moves with your knife involving necks and faces.

But the most widely publicised feature is that you are not loyal to either side in the war and are just a gun for hire. This is indeed true and you do switch sides a few times through the campaign which can cause a little confusion as to exactly who you should be shooting or stabbing but it all clicks fairly quickly.

All in all this game was an enjoyable FPS shooter if a tad generic but has some interesting twists and very cool set pieces. I enjoyed it greatly because I'm a big fan of the series and the melees are amazingly fun to do. And it's good to finally see a proper FPS on a handheld. Oh yeah. More like this.

Living the American dream. While robbing establishments

Well it's finally here

The game we've all been waiting for since finishing GTA IV. And it's well worth the wait. And although I would have preferred to play it on PC as usual, sadly, I did not have the willpower to wait for Rockstar to get round to a PC version so I had to settle for PS3 version.

But it seems that most people didn't mind getting it on console as it has become the fastest selling thing in the world ever of all time making over $1 billion dollars in it's first 3 days after launch. Woah.

The gameplay itself remains very similar to classic GTA format but the big new twist is having 3 protagonists that you can (usually) switch between at will. Once you have met them all that is. Free roaming, side missions and activities can be done as any character but some missions can only be started by certain characters. However this character switching comes into its own when you are doing missions that involve multiple characters and allow you to switch between them in the heat of the action. For example, one early mission featuring all 3 of the characters where you start by flying it with one character, switch to another hanging from the helicopter by a rope to shoot enemies in a building and then switching to the last character far away with a rifle covering the other 2 from enemies they can't get a shot on. This is just one example, but the character switching is extremely well executed particularly in the larger and more action packed missions as everyone plays their part. Another smaller and less publicised (or noticed) addition to the game is that each character now has a special skill. Micheal has apparently copied Max Payne's bullet time ability for slow motion super accurate shooting. Franklin has a similar skill only with driving Allowing him to slow time and navigate any vehicle like it is on rails and at lighting speed. And trevor can go into a rage mode where he is unkillable and does massive damage to everything. These abilities all only last for a short time and need cool down time too, but these stats can also be improved by training them up.

Unfortunately, it's not all good so here are some of the more annoying aspects of the game that seem new since the last entry:

• You seem to die a lot easier (even with body armour) meaning you spend most of your time hiding in shoot outs. Maybe physical training would improve this, but I didn't do much of that
• The cops seem to take forever and a day to lose now even on low wanted levels. And on the higher wanted levels, even when you are hiding out in the darkest of unexplored corners of the map to get away from them, they will still somehow relentlessly still pursue you and find you there....
• Graphically, it really does not seem much different from GTA IV at all and it makes me wonder if there will be a next-gen version upcoming or if the PC port will be upscaled.
• Aircraft always seem to handle like you are totally drunk. Again, perhaps more flight training would improve this, but it seems to require a lot.

BUT, the handling of ground based vehicles (cars mostly) has vastly improved and can now be handled at high speeds with great ease. Unlike the cars of GTA IV which handled like lumps of depleted uranium.

The soundtrack however, is once again excellent featuring fantastic hits both new and old. But the radio selector is a little fiddlier than it used to be being changed to a a radial selection rather than simple previous and next. But this is a small quibble as time slows to a crawl when selecting radio station ensuring minimal disruption to your travel.

The general mission structure has also been greatly improved with a lot more action packed missions. There are still some quite quiet and slow missions mostly revolving around Micheal's family members but these aren't great in number and are well spaced out unlike the very very slow start to GTA IV where the first dozen or so missions were just hanging out with Roman essentially. Most of the large key missions are the well advertised "Heists" which will usually have a few sub missions preceding them where you scope out options, decide on a plan of action, gather and set up resources and gear and then finally pull the trigger. I thought these were very well structured and provided a good sense of build up to the large jobs. And in typical GTA fashion, they rarely go according to plan so there is plenty more action when the shit hits the fan.

One more element I must say I thoroughly enjoyed was Trevor. He is totally and utterly bat-shit-insane and I love it. Whether he's crushing someone's skull after hugging them or sobbing over a married woman he had to give back to her wife or waking up on top of a mountain in a dress or a beach full of dead people in his underpants you just never know what the fuck he is going to do or say next and it is awesome.

I only did a run through of the basic story missions (of which there are still a lot) but yet again, there is so much to see and so much to do outside of that. There are side missions helping strangers on the street, side missions helping freaks you know, other random side missions, games and activities, training for body, mind and skills, collectibles. You can train Franklin's dog and customise your car with the companion app (still no Android version available though sadly). The list goes on and on. I'm sure I will come back to it again another day for a fuller run through or if they make DLC for it. But all in all, it is one crazy fucking mad cap roller coaster ride of epic proportions that no one should miss out on. It feels like it has tried to return to the larger scale of zaniness that San Andreas had with the much larger story focusing on 3 characters and their intertwining lives with each other as well as associates rather than the tightly focused personal story of Nico in GTA IV which some people did not care for. Also, now you can fly full size jets again and parachute out of them. Which is nice.

Hitting the greens again with Mario and friends. And enemies.

Yet another long forgotten entry to clean up. Not much to say about this really except that it's very similar to Mario Golf: Toadstool Tour that I played earlier in the year only it doesn't look as good. Controls and gameplay are pretty much identical bar one large annoyance: to unlock all the courses, you need to rack up huge numbers of points and the quickest way to do this is to just play the courses over and over again so it gets very repetitive. I much prefer the style of getting a gold cup to unlock the next one as is traditional with most golf games.

One other notable feature that makes this golf game different is the ability to use the little known Nintendo 64 Transfer Pak with it. If you were fortunate enough to own a Transfer Pak (which I did after hunting down a copy of Pokemon Stadium on eBay that included it in the box) and if you were also lucky enough to have had played the much more awesome RPG-like Game Boy version of Mario Golf, (which I did extensively after purchasing it one summer in France because....well, what else are you going to do in France?) you can transfer your buffed up character onto the N64 version and use them on there. But while this seems good in theory, your GB characters take a hit in the number of points they can earn so it isn't actually that much of a perk.

All in all, a sadly forgettable Mario Golf experience far outshadowed by it's younger portable counterpart. If you want Mario Golf, just play the Game Boy one instead. Seriously, it's got RPG stad building and special unlockable clubs and permanent choices you have to make about your swing statistics and everything. It's great. I hear the GBA one, Mario Golf: Advance Tour is also awesome and like a more advanced version of the GB game. Maybe I will have to try that one some day....

Being a Ninja is very hard work. Even when you are black.

Good golly Miss Molly that was a hard game. I knew it was going to be which is why I opted to go for the Black version with the easy mode in it because I knew I would eat all my controllers trying to do this on normal. I got this when it came out in 2006 but am only getting around to it now.  When I first saw it, I thought it was a sequel and not an enhanced version because the character on the box art looked to have much darker skin compared to the original.  So I thought it was a sequel in which you played a black ninja and coined the catchphrase "Ninja Gaiden: Black: This time, you're black":

 VS

Actually looking at them again now, there's not as much of a difference as I recall, but damn it, I'm sticking by the catchphrase.  The Ninja Gaiden series has always been well know for it's difficulty but this is the first one I've actually played so it was the first time I experienced it first hand.  Gameplay wise, it plays a lot like Devil May Cry. But this was harder for a number of reasons:

• Every enemy does massive damage
• Attacks and movement are slower
• You seem to need a lot of time and clearance to jump or dodge
• You can not pause when you are jumping, attacking or being attacked making it easy to die from being bum rushed before you can use a healing item
• There are no checkpoints so any death causes you to go back to last save
• Maximum item counts are quite low meaning you can't horde them

All these factors and more make for a very hard game but like Devil May Cry, it is also very satisfying once you get into the groove of kicking ass.  However I still think I prefer the gameplay of Devil May Cry mainly due to the higher agility of Dante and quick weapon switching that became a staple of the series allowing for some seriously ferocious combos.  I thought I was doing pretty well about half way through and then I made the mistake of watching the attract video and the moves performed in that were baffling compared to the simple ones I was doing.  With multiple playthroughs I maybe could have got to that level, but not on the first one.

This game was a lot longer than I was expecting it to be but that was probably due to the slow progress caused by the extreme difficulty.  There was also some serious diversity in level length.  Some were very very short and some of them were ridiculously long.  The "story" as it were was paper thin and really just an excuse for Ryu to go through several areas and kill lots of things.  For a 2004 game, the visuals and sound were quite impressive and the level structure was well thought out.  Instead of separate divisive levels, pretty much the whole game was large areas joined together so if you wanted, you could backtrack as much as you wanted.  Unfortunately, this also meant that backtracking was part of several levels and a few locations were visited multiple times.  But this wasn't always a bad thing because it would be mixed up with an altered layout and/or tougher enemies.

I was contemplating striking this one from the backlog because I wasn't too keen on playing it but I'm very glad I didn't now because this was very enjoyable (and hard but also satisfying).  Fantastic ninja in the face action through and though.  Maybe I'll do some of the other ones in this series once the backlog is cleared.  Suggestions are welcome.

This is also one more system closed off. The last XBox game. Meaning no more Microsoft systems left on the backlog at all.

Quite a yarn. An Epic yarn, if you will.

Kirby is a series I have never played a lot of bar the odd spin off title here and there.. I've always kind of wanted to play more of the series and it's not like I'm not presented with many many opportunities but I just never seemed to get into it. However, when this title was brought to my attention by my good friend Phil and fellow co-op game enthusiast as a new game for us to play through and already having seen videos of it's unique art style, I was quite intruiged so away we went.

Gameplay wise, it's quite similar to most traditional Kirby games in that it's easy-going family-friendly platforming action. Kirby's usual ability of eating enemies is replaced with capturing them in a yarn lasso and then throwing them at other enemies. The fact that you are made of yarn also affords you the ability to reshape easily into all kinds of cool things like cars, trains and ships for speed, umbrellas for floating, submarines and dolphins for swimming and many more contraptions. The fact that the entire world is made out of yarn also gives you the ability to manipulate it by stretching parts, peeling parts away , moving things and so on which adds more interesting touches to the environments. It was quite easy and short but I didn't mind that as it was quite soothing and peaceful to play which is a nice change of pace. The lullaby-like soundtrack also helped this quite a lot. The bosses were some of the best levels and although again, not terribly difficult each one was different and interesting and required tactical adjustment.

But by far and away the best and funniest parts were the narrated slide shows telling the story in between worlds where the narrator would rattle off what seemed like a trippy piss take of a childrens story.

Hilarious, ball-tripping and non-stressful fun platform action from start to finish. Maybe I should pick up some Kirby games after my backlog is finally cleared. They do seem fun.

Phantasy Star Online. Only offline. And with an odd card battle system.

Picked this game up not long after it came out in 2004 (9 years ago now) after the high of becoming seriously addicted to Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II. But because it was so vastly different to it's predecessor, I only briefly played it and then went back to that old favourite again. I finally returned to it this week to close it out for good and I can safely say I wasn't missing out on much.

I never got into card battle games much with a few exceptions and this one didn't really suck me in either. The basic premise of the game is rolling dice to see how many moves of 'equip' (equipping equipment cards) ,'move' (moving your character(s) around the game board) and 'action' (lamping people on the head or shooting them in the face) you can do. You collect cards of weapons, gear and creatures from the PSO universe and then use them to own people in battle starting off with crap and slowly working your way up to specialist rare equipment just like in regular Phantasy Star Online. But I couldn't help shake the feeling the whole way through that this was just a card game that had been designed separately and then had the Phantasy Star license slapped onto it to help it sell. The plot was also extremely nonsensical (even more so than usual) and I had very little idea of what was going on even at the end.

One major downside to playing this game was it did get me thinking about playing Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II again. And that is not something I should do because I will just get severely addicted again.

But one upside to finishing this is that it's another system closed off on the backlog. This is the final GameCube game crossed off it.

They're invisible animals. But it doesn't make them much more interesting.

A weird artificial reality rip off of Pokemon where you have to find invisible monsters (that are apparently hiding everywhere) using a carboard trap and camera. Pretty meh overall. I only got this for the novelty and because it came with the PSP camera for £10 total.

Most of the capturing of the Inzimals involves you doing wacky or zany stuff like whistling in time, playing whack a mole with your hand or dodging bolts from hitting your PSP. Fun for a very short while, but novelty wears off quick and then you find out it's not as deep or interesting as the game it's so desperately trying to imitate. Couldn't recommend this one at all. Just play Pokemon instead

But it's not all bad. It does close off another system. This is my last PSP game that I have in the backlog currently (until I find some more I want to play). And after the sudden influx of new games coming out, this takes the backlog total back under 50. Hurrah! And the game did have Brian Blessed in the cutscenes. Yes, he was rambling a script that he probably didn't understand but still.

Giant robots fighting giant crabs are cool. And so are ice planets.

Very mixed feelings coming into this one. Lost Planet 1 and 2 while both awesome, were both very different games. The 1st being very story based and serious, and the 2nd being very insane and action packed )especially in co-op). In all honesty, I preferred 2 (despite the bafflingly bad review scores it got) so I was a little worried that this one was going back towards the direction of the 1st game. Then I saw the footage of operating a giant robot and was excited again. Then I saw all the bad previews and got apprehensive again. Then I played it and loved it.

For the most part it plays very similar to Lost Planet 2 with your character, Jim, being quite agile and having the same move set. The biggest difference, figuratively and literally, is Gurtie. Your utility rig which is a gigantic suit of power armour used for transport, manipulating the world and awesome hand to hand combat with giant monsters. Most of your time is spent outside of the rig on foot. Giant monsters can still be encountered on foot and are a much more challenging fight this way so getting to take them on on even footing with Gurtie's giant drill arm is a rare treat.

The story is one of a normal guy trying to earn a living for his family that soon turns into a uncovering the hidden mysteries of Edn III and it unfolds in a very well paced and gradual manner introducing you to new people and places. Although what I found most appealing was getting parts that would allow me to upgrade Gertie to be harder, better, faster stronger. I was always glad to get to use Gertie to kick ass. And even though you were forcibly ejected from her in scripted ways quite often, it never felt tiresome and you would always fight eagerly to protect her so she could repair herself and continue the fight or hurry to complete your on foot objectives and get back to her.

The combat itself, while satisfying with normal enemies and bosses can get quite irritating with the faster and nimbler enemies. Fortunately, this only really happened at the start and you encounter more enjoyable enemies. Lots of icy shooting fun through and through and you really do want to find out what happens to Jim and help him win (and not just because he's called Jim) with a satisfying conclusion that leads well into Lost Planet 1 (this game was a prequel). Personally, I would have preferred another game in the vein of Lost Planet 2 where it was mad cap insanity on an enormous scale and at a blistering pace, but this was still a very worthy entry in the series and fine successor to the first game. And it has many gorgeous icy vistas which look even better in DirectX 11. Let's see more of what happens on Edn III, Capcom.

And yet another Unreal engine game. Seems almost every game I play lately uses it. It's getting very very common these days.